The Chronicles of Garnabus

2011-02-18T11:10:00.000-08:00

The Invasion...

Marie came to me this morning at about 7:45 and said, "Papa, there are a LOT of ants in the kitchen!"

So... how much is a lot to a four year old?

Well...

The Common black garden ant (Lasius Niger) is 3mm in length according to David A. Cushman in his research on the impact of Lasius Niger on Bee colonies. 3mm is approximately 1/10 of an inch.

Thus, since the line of ants in my house this morning was no fewer than four ants across (it was a THICK line), that gives us approximately 40 ants per linear inch, or 480 ants per linear foot.
Given that I had three different lies from two different sources, this is going to add up pretty quickly:

From the garden window corner, the ants traversed a 12 foot wall, making a 90 degree turn, traversing another 8 foot wall to the kitchen, and finally another three feet to the garbage bag, which was the only food in the house that they found (making it 23 feet of failed expedition before they finally found any payload – persistent little buggers!), giving us 23 linear feet off the first line of ants, or 11,040 ants.

From the top of the garden corner window, the second entry point, the ants traversed an 8 foot long window before making a 90 degree turn to head down the wall, 8 more feet, to the floor. Half of the line broke off at this point, making a 90 degree vertical turn into the carpet, whence they traversed the same 12 foot line to the kitchen as their compatriots who entered from the garden window floor, but only at 2 ants wide, giving us only 240 ants per linear foot. This line similarly entered the kitchen, but traversed the full six feet of the kitchen to the back wall where they found some cereal on the floor, left by my children. Thus giving us 34 linear feet at 240 ants per foot, for a much smaller payload (I’m guessing as the line passed by the garbage bag where the other ants were partying it up, only to arrive at four meager Gorilla Munch cereal balls, they fired – or perhaps killed and ate - their scouts). Thus, this line would contain 8,160 ants.

Picking up at the split, the rest of this line made a 90 degree turn at the floor, but stayed on the floorboards. Thse proceeded the rest of the 10 feet of that wall, behind furniture, making a 90 degree turn at the back corner of the living room, and proceeding to traverse the 8 feet of wall behind our entertainment center, splitting off at the entertainment center itself to send a line around the front of the entertainment center for God only knows what purpose since these two lines found NOTHING. This being a thicker majority of the line from the garden window, theirs was about three ants thick, giving us 360 ants per linear foot for a total of about 22 linear feet of ants (from the split), or 7,920 ants.

So at the point when my daughter, Marie, came to me and said, “papa, there are a LOT of ants in the kitchen,” there were approximately 27,120 ants in my apartment. I agree with my four year old. That is a LOT of ants!

Heading off their entry points with a heavy dose of cinnamon (ants - at least Lasius Niger - will not willingly cross a line of cinnamon – true story ;o), I went to work moving sofas, plush chairs, children’s chairs, entertainment centers, Ginger’s crate, the coffee table, and various and sundry toys and baby related apparatus. Armed with my Dyson “Animal” Ball Vacuum, I spent two and a half hours from 7:45-10:15 vacuuming up 27,120 + ants (they didn’t all stop coming in, and were spreading further afield in the kitchen, so I’m guessing their numbers must have increased).

To my great satisfaction, when I cinnamoned the upper line at the top of the window, a large, long ant (about 6 or 7 mm) came out of the wall to escape the cinnamon. I assumed it may have been the queen and eargerly, and with great relish (I may have some unresolved aggression issues), vacuumed ‘her’ up. Having now done some research on the subject, ARKive lists the Queen as being 8-9mm long, and a typical mature queen is pictured above, so it may have been an adolescent queen that hadn’t reached maturity yet, but regardless, it made me feel better.

At least Jane had the presence of mind to let me know I was making the ants scary to the children, so I brought them out to look at the lines and talked about how they set down a scent trail and move in lines, and highlighted all the great things they do to promote water absorption in the soil and break down foods that other animals can’t or won’t eat. A good teaching moment in the midst of the chaos is always a fun way to diffuse some of the aggravation of having to deal with the frustration of an invasion. :)

I must say, with the fire, smoke cleaning, van repairs, rains, hail, and now ants, the daily adventures at our house are getting just a bit tiring.

2009-11-10T19:12:00.001-08:00

Top Ten Worst Songs to have Stuck in your Head (ok, MY head)

10. The Monchichi commercial jingle from the 80's

9. I'm Henry the VIIIth I am

8. The Mozarabic Chant to Eucharistic Prayer D (yes, it happens EVERY Lent)

7. My Little Pony commercial jingle from the 80s - (was I watching Girl cartoons or something?)

6. D'd'd'd'd'Dora (the Explora')

5. Blues Clues

4. What's New Pussycat (or anything else by Tom Jones for that matter ;o)

3. 8-bit Zelda theme song

2. Hey Mickey

...

And the number one worst song to have stuck in your (my) head...

going on THREE CONSECUTIVE DAYS now (and thanks, Fuego, for reminding me tonight so it could have another encore)...

1. Windy (by The Association)

So ya, some of the others are worse in the grand scheme of things, but by **literally** the seven thousandth time in three days, I can think of no worse fate than to have this song stuck in my 'craw' for all eternity. (At this point I'm considering inventing a time machine just so I can go back in time and slap The Association for recording it.)

2009-10-19T21:37:00.000-07:00

I made soup

Reentering the stream of blog life after a year and a month, I figured either I needed to have grown a third arm, won the nobel peace prize, or I would just have to bite the bullet and dive in with nothing more exciting and earth shattering than soup...

I also realized that having a private blog means that no one is reading it - thus no incentive to write anything new.

So... TCG is public again!

Oh -- I also have a new blog for Gluten Free recipes - "Boca del Fuego." Actually interested in hearing more about the earth shattering soup? You can check it out there.

I'll reserve this space for real life stories - and of course the more unorthodox creations involving peanut butter paired with foods and spices God never intended.

2008-08-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

A Tail of Woe

So our newest addition to the family, feline sibling Pele, has recently been urinating on the bathroom floor. No, this isn't a silent protest about some grave injustice being perpetrated by his canine sister, Ginger, his human sister, Emjay, or his other feline brother, Fred. At first I was sure it was, but Pele, assured me (through our vet) that, in fact, he has crystals that are forming in his urinary tract (ouch).

This can be a very dangerous condition for a cat, resulting in blockages and death if the problem is not addressed.

So our vet, Dr. McDonalds, recommended a diet combination of wet and dry food, prescribing a medically available food that is about twice the price of the rocket fuel we already feed our pets.

Now, those who know Fuego and I know that we tend toward the hippie end of the treehugging spectrum. We have spent long hours researching what we feed our pets to try our best to minimize our carbon footprint, as well as maximize the nutritive balance of the foods they eat. We settle for nothing less than human quality foods with no fillers or byproducts, and have enjoyed the benefits of soft, shiny coats, high energy, and digestive bliss. While we were in seminary it is easy to say that the pets ate better than we did.

Since going gluten free, we changed their food, but not the quality (another two weeks of research), moving them away from grains, but maintaining the high level of quality ingredients we had come to demand from our previous supplier.

I say all of this in preparation for the explanation of Dr. McDonalds name.

Not only did she recommend Purina to us - telling us that "Purina's high end foods are really quite good," and that "if we can't afford the medically prescribed food, Purina's urinary health formula would be a good alternative" - but the prescription-only food she medically prescribed for Pele is filled (and by filled, I mean nearly ALL the ingredients) with animal byproducts, grains, and vitimins and minerals sourced from things a cat would NEVER eat in nature.

It's like raising a child on organic foods for the first twelve years of their life only to watch in dismay as they chose to live exclusively off of McDonalds and Hot Pockets in their teens.

So in researching the ingredients in our nutritionally sound rocket fuel vs. the medically prescribed junk food, I discovered only trace differences in the minerals that contribute to crystals, and that the ash (one of the contributing problems) is still LOWER in our food than in the McKibble. I also discovered, in researching cat's urinary health, that grains can contribute to the problem as they can make a cat's urine more base than acidic, allowing for the development of crystals, while a diet mainly composed of meat keeps a low pH (acidic), and prevents the formation of crystals.

End result? We're not giving Pele anymore McKibble - he didn't eat it anyway (good kitty!). We're fasting him on organic free range (yes, locally produced) chicken broth for 24 hours to get him out of the danger zone, and then we're upping his dose of wet food to help him get more water into his system (insufficient water intake is one of the main contributors to crystal formation, and is likely why he is getting them since his food is already better than the prescription formula).

I'll be returning the McKibble (which, by the way runs at $15/4lbs for McKibble vs. $30/20 lbs for Rocket Fuel) with a copy of my comparative nutrition analysis.

I know they mean well, but I think I may have to find a hippier vet ;o)

2008-08-27T22:39:00.000-07:00

Return of Zach's!!

Anyone who has lived in Berkeley, or who has visited someone who has lived in Berkeley for that matter, has been to Zachary's Pizza. Mind you, they haven't been just once, but since their first visit, have never considered any other pizza to be of Zachary's caliber - secretly comparing every other bready, cheesy, meaty pie to the Zachary's goodness. It is unparalleled.

If you don't like Zachary's Pizza, you're wrong. I'm sorry to have to put it so bluntly, but you are. You should try it again when you're in the right state of mind, because something must have been blocking the goodness from reaching the taste, texture, and addictive succulence receptors in your brain.

So, now the problem. I can't tolerate gluten anymore. Not only does that mean I can't have pizza, but it means I can't have Zachary's pizza. Not only can I not have Zachary's Pizza, but I can't have Zachary's Pizza and an ice cold beer. This is a problem.

Moving away from Berkeley has meant that in the past two years I have only had Zachary's twice, and since I went gluten free back in October of 07, it means I have almost certainly been Zachary's free for over a year.

Tonight I have the distinct pleasure, ney privilege, ney HONOR to report that I have successfully recreated Zachary's pizza in gluten free form!

In all its deep dish, stuffed crust, chunky tomato, basily, garlicky, hidden cheesy, spiced to perfection goodness, I removed from my oven the near twin to my long lost Berkeley taste bud idol.

Even better than simply getting to have Zachary's... We found a gluten free beer while visiting Jbewan in New York that we have been able to find at Bevmo!

So for the first time in over a year, Fuego and I were able to sit down to a proper dinner of Pizza and Beer -- and OH MY GOD was it GOOD!

Thankfully I made two, because the first one didn't last long =o)

One parting shot of the beautifully towering crust, deep pocket of heirloom tomato, organic zucchini from our garden, garlic, cheese (drunken goat and goat mozzarella), fresh organic basil, and special blend of fantastically delicious spices -- mmmmmm.

Happy eating =o)

2008-03-05T20:07:00.000-08:00

A Father's Confession

I put my daughter to bed for the first time tonight.

While Emjay has been with us for nearly a year now, and while I have put her to bed countless times over this past year, tonight was different. I didn't know it would be different -- after all she's been our "daughter" all along, right? But apparently something beyond expectation (and beyond explanation) happened today when the courts legally pronounced Fuego and I Emjay's parents and made us a "forever" family.

Tonight, at home, our house seemed more permanent. There was a peace in the air that, I think, all of us could feel. Emjay can never again be claimed by someone else and taken away from us -- we are her parents and she is our daughter. For better or worse, we are a real, permanent family -- forever.

So although Fuego and I have said all along that Emjay is our daughter, the horrible unspoken reality that she was a ward of the court, placed into our care "temporarily," has been a truth that has kept me guarded for almost a year. Every time I have comforted her, fed her, changed her, spent time with her, and risked loving her in the hope that someday she would truly be my daughter, a part of me held back. I don't think I really knew or understood that until tonight.

Tonight, with a simple piece of paper in our possession that says unequivocally that I am Emjay's father and Fuego is her mother, I truly felt it in my heart for the first time that Emjay is my real and true daughter.

Thus, through new eyes, I put my daughter to bed for the first time tonight. No longer guarded, no longer holding anything back. A real father putting his real daughter to bed -- just like every other real family gets to do.

Ya... I could get used to this =o)

2008-02-13T22:10:00.000-08:00

Emjay

Having confessed my angst over my deteriorating relationship with my computer, I would be remiss in failing to blog about today's Emjay news!! So... while this cursed thing is up and running, with the program already open that I need, I am going to enjoy a brief opportunity to revel in functionality and blog TWICE in a single day -- thereby increasing my recent blogging productivity by infinity plus 2 (it's a product of zero kind of thing...sorry).

Today we signed papers with our two social workers that effectively ended Emjay's foster days -- she is officially no longer in foster care! (She is not, however, officially adopted, this will happen sometime between the last week in February and the first week in March.)

Today Fuego and I met with Emjay's county social worker and our adoption social worker to sign papers declaring our intention to adopt Emjay. While, of course, we intended all along to adopt her, the special significance of today's signing is that the State of California now recognizes Emjay as legally adoptable, and by our signing of today's papers, she has officially transitioned from being in foster care to being placed in her adoptive home.

Of all the years our social workers have collectively been working in adoptions, this was the first time they experienced a couple taking pictures of the signing. Yes, Fuego and I are officially the sappiest adoptive parents they have EVER met. They were, however, great sports about it, and the pictures will go wonderfully in Emjay's life book =o).

With today's signing, and tomorrow's adoptions paperwork from the county (that our adoptions social worker will be bringing for her LAST home visit), we will know by Friday what date has been set for us to meet with a judge to legalize Emjay's adoption and end this first stage of our lifelong journey together. Fuego and I are both ecstatic!

After obtaining the legal stamp of approval, Emjay will be issued a new birth certificate with her permanent name and with Fuego and I as her parents. While this will take about nine months to finally arrive at our home, it has already been VERY exciting to see all the new paperwork bearing Emjay's permanent name -- there's something profound and powerful about getting to name your child and have it actually recognized in legal documents after so many months.

And thus, having ultimately, and with profound finality, shed her "foster-stank," Emjay is preparing, in her newly designated residence of "Adoptive Placement" to be united permanently with her mama Fuego and papa Garnabus!

It has been a journey well worth repeating... which we plan to do in the near future ;o) Stay tuned!

2008-02-13T21:14:00.000-08:00

Missing in Action

I have a bone to pick with my computer. When we first started courting, it was responsive, attentive, quick to please, and almost never disappointed me. It did what I asked without reserve and seemed only too happy to perform at optimal level, anytime, day or night -- it was almost as though I could do no wrong by my electronic companion.

Well, as time goes on, things change. Perhaps it feels that I took it's ready screen and responsive processor for granted over the long years of seminary when I took endless pages of notes for countless classes, wrote thousands of pages of papers (no really, thousands), and added programs and updated capabilities so that I could take teleconference classes over the internet from far distant countries. Perhaps it was offended when I insisted on using protection, installing and updating anti-virus software. Perhaps it felt I was cheating on it when I got that first job out of Seminary and came home smelling of another keyboard.

Whatever the reason, my computer is now no longer the computer I brought home. It is inattentive (it takes as long for it to come out of "suspend" as it used to take for it to start up from being completely off), slow to respond (opening any particular program can take as long as two minutes), haughty and condescending (suggests downloading and upgrading programs I've already downloaded and upgraded, and which have been running properly for months), self absorbed and self serving (it doesn't bother asking anymore whether or not I want it to download and install Windows and Norton updates, and sacrifices performance by running these unwanted and untimely updates invisibly in the background).

Out of jealousy, I have begun to spy on my computer -- monitoring those processes in the Task Manager that run in the background and use up the majority of my processor and memory resources.

I have tried reasoning with my computer. I have offered retreats and day spas in the form of registry optimizations, and defragmentations. I have trimmed the fat and improved its diet by removal of extraneous data and unused and unwanted programs. I have offered peace overtures and even suggested counseling by agreeing to the manufacturer's upgrade to internal service monitoring. But, ultimately, I have started to distance myself from my computer. More and more, I find myself simply using my iPhone to email, search the web, get directions, check the weather, and listen to music. My computer probably considers this a slap in the face, the iPhone being younger and sleeker, but I have needs, and the iPhone is quite frankly faster and has a LOT less baggage.

I fear that my computer and I may be approaching the end of our relationship. I'm pretty much just modeming it in at this point. As many of you who have checked my blog with any frequency over the past couple of months can attest, I'm just not online very much anymore, and to be honest, it is simply because I have experienced ever increasing lack of patience with my long-time companion. It just doesn't seem to have any fight left anymore, and for my own part, I don't have the patience anymore to wait for fifteen minutes for it to finally start up and have the program up and running that I need in order to blog (that fifteen minutes is about my whole window of patience for screen time when nothing is working at a reasonable speed).

To compound matters, many of you remember my desperate post about my work computer's attitude of indifference and apathy. I just don't have the strength to fight all day to get anything done, just to have the same problem at home.

Thus, I have resigned myself to ending it with my computer and I am saving up for a MacBook Pro.

The separation may take some time, we've been together pretty long, but I think we'll all be happier in the long run -- and then I can really get back to blogging regularly! It's time to move on with my life (keep telling yourself that, Garnabus, it will get easier with time...)

*sniff*

2007-11-30T00:03:00.000-08:00

The Five Stages of Gluten-Loss

As most of you already know, Fuego has Celiac's disease... basically this means that her body treats gluten (found in wheat, barley, rye, and oats) like a threat and attacks it (and her intestines along with it), so she can't eat it, drink it, put it in her mouth, freebase it, or really even look at it funny. Thus our home has become a safe-haven for her gluten-free needs and my cooking skills have been put to a new test as I seek new ways to make all of our favorite things and learn what our new favorite things will be (such as polenta medallions with homemade cilantro pesto, fresh grated mozzarella, and sliced tomato -- mmm).

What this has meant for me is that, since Fuego and I generally eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner together everyday (yes, this is uncommon in today's world unless you're independently wealthy or retired... but a family-friendly employer - aka "God" - makes a HUGE difference ;o), I have been almost entirely gluten-free except for those blessed Sunday morning donuts with my church-school class and the blessed Sunday evening pizza with youth group. What I have discovered has shocked me to my very core.

...

Since about a year into seminary (now about four years ago) I noticed that my usual easygoing nature and mellow disposition were turning into an inner struggle for peace while my stress levels and blood pressure increased steadily. I blamed it on the work load and having to stop my normal exercise routine -- which doubtless contributed significantly.

I found temporary relief in Lenten disciplines of evaluating stressors and letting them go before they got to me, but these practices -- try though I might -- didn't solve the long-term problem that I was becoming someone I didn't want to be.

By the time Emjay came home to us, Fuego and I had pretty much just accepted that the stresses of constant over-scheduling and heavy workload were something that I could no longer simply absorb without feeling the common effects of stress and tension that most normal people feel under those circumstances, and that I needed to slow down (a bitter pill to swallow, mind you). Still we found that I was frequently grumpy without necessarily any explanation.

About two weeks ago we suddenly realized, when a bout of grumpiness set in, that I hadn't been grumpy in about two months. Although I had been under inordinate amounts of stress at work with St. ECWIW's haunted house, annual run to Disneyland, clergy retreat, and diocesan convention all occupying the space of a single month during which I still had my normal work to do, sermons to write, etc. -- I think this was around the time of my last post about having more to do than time to do it -- I still had been pleasant, relatively unstressed, noticeably NOT grumpy, and had been feeling more like myself than I had in years!

What had changed about two weeks ago? Well... it was our vestry meeting at church that day -- which meant that I had donuts for breakfast, a healthy vegetarian wrap for lunch, and pizza for dinner. Fuego was quick to point out: "Three meals of wheat."

I quickly dismissed the possibility that my elevated base stress levels, irritability, and impatience could possibly be caused by my favorite food in the world (no, not JUST donuts and pizza... but ALL bread, pastry, and bread-related foods!!). But the sinister seed of doubt had been sown, so I took note over the next week.

Here's the shocking part.

On the days when I ate products containing gluten I generally felt tired, bloated, and gassy. I felt irritable, I felt easily stressed out, I was less able to tolerate the normal neediness of my daughter, I felt more controlling and anal, and I quickly felt winded on my morning jog with Fuego.

So I decided to put this notion to rest. I ate whatever I wanted for the whole of Thanksgiving week. I had a bear claw and a chocolate croissant with my morning coffee on Monday, drank beer, ate stuffing, had pizza and donuts, and made an appointment on Wednesday to have a blood test done to see if there was anything to this field-research.

By Friday, I felt tired, my joints ached, I felt irritable, stressed out, grumpy, controlling, anal, gassy, I had diarrhea, I felt nauseous, my head felt cloudy, I felt drunk at the end of a meal without any alcohol, and I skipped my morning jog with Fuego. I basically felt like I had taken up smoking by consuming a pack of cigarettes and three cigars at one sitting -- about what I figure malaria must feel like, really ;o)

My doctor told me that gluten intolerances are fairly uncommon and that unless I was of Northern European ancestry, there was little chance that I would have either an intolerance or even less likely Celiacs disease, but that he would order the tests for me anyway.

As I come from a long line of Vikings, his words were not particularly comforting! Any further "Northern European" and I'd have to be offspring of a polar bear.

So... Here I sit. My doctor says that my test results were negative for Celiac's disease but that I do, in fact, have a gluten intolerance, which can eventually lead to Celiacs, (at least if I slip up I won't be physically damaging my intestines and increasing my risk of GI related cancers like Fuego). But regardless I don't get to eat my favorite foods anymore. I don't get to drink normal beer anymore. I don't get to eat movie-theater popcorn anymore... because someone thought it might be a fun idea to put gluten in the hydrogenated oil packet they use to pop it. And, unlike Fuego, I'm not aglow with the light of a million fairies knowing that I've discovered the missing link to my relatively few symptoms. Plus I don't even get the satisfaction of having a disease named after my condition, so no one is going to take me seriously when I tell them that I'm "gluten intolerant" (and here I always considered myself to be a tolerant person!). What do they care if I feel like shit for a few days; so long as there's no lasting damage, they're off the hook!

Thus we reach the five stages of GRIEF in my process...

1. Denial... Fuego is really the only one who has to give up gluten, I can still have my pizza and donuts every week at church and a beer with friends. After all, I don't have Celiacs!

2. Anger... Hmm... why do I feel so much better when I'm not eating gluten?? Why do I have to take bicarb just to fall asleep after having ONE LOUSY beer?? Damn you, cruel fate, why do you mock me!?

3. Bargaining... I bet it's not really true, I can get by eating just a few things that only have a little gluten in them -- like my favorite tortilla chips at our taqueria that were just fried in the same oil as the wheat tostada bowls... oop... nope, where's the potty?!

4. Depression (my current stage, mind you), where I discover and lament all the things that suck about this. I think the worst is the fact that drinking a single beer makes my head feel cloudy and drunk and then I have indigestion that keeps me up for the rest of the night. (Apparently when you cut out an allergen you become more sensitive to it... *awesome*)

5. Acceptance (I'm getting here, but it's a bit slow). Here is where Jane already is, accompanied by the elation of feeling 500% better than she has in over 25 years.

Don't get me wrong, I really am grateful to feel like myself again. It has literally been years since I have felt so mellow and unstressed, and I know this is going to do wonders for my blood pressure. Plus the joy I feel at being a parent is finally what I always thought it would be (unless I've been "glutened," in which case I begin to understand what used to make my dad rant and rave and shout -- I wonder if he has a gluten intolerance/Celiacs too??). The positives do by FAR outweigh the negatives.

One of the plusses is getting to experience what REAL brewing is like! I will be going to the local feed store to select a combination of grains (rice, millet, buckwheat, and sorghum), which I will soak for a few days until they germinate, at which point I will dry them and then roast them (roasting while the grains are still a bit damp produces a nutty flavor that I'm looking forward to experimenting with), at which point I can finally boil them to make my "mash," from which I will brew the beer (the process will add about two weeks to the normal two-week brewing process). The enzymes present in barley grains that help to convert the starch into usable sugars during the boiling process are less in the non-gluten containing grains, so I'll be using about twice as much ingredient (roughly 10-15 lbs of grains for a single batch). What this boils down to (sorry), is that I'm going to need a bigger pot, a roasting pan, a book on "all grain" brewing, another book on gluten-free brewing, and a bit more patience than previously needed. The end result will likely take a bit of time to perfect, but I'm really looking forward to taking the next step in my brewing mastery!

Some major life changes are present at the Garnabus and Fuego household this Christmas season. What I can say with complete honesty is that we're both feeling better, healthier, more energetic, and more like ourselves than we have in years -- and it has done wonders for our little family in more ways than I have time or decency to mention in a public forum ;o)

2007-11-12T20:37:00.000-08:00

Chocolate Rain

Ever come together over a song that is just so lame and ridiculous that you have to listen to it time and again?

Some-of-the-time-girlfriend was over last week and we discovered Chocolate Rain. Just one of those YouTube treasures waiting to be unearthed, this song will make you laugh, cry, and tear out your hair as it gets stuck in your head and plays over and over and over again -- but just the chorus since the verses are far too numerous and diverse to leave a lasting impression.

The song is about five minutes long. The first time through you'll want to turn it off after about a minute and a half. The second time through (oh yes, you'll listen to it again just to see if it really was as pitifully lame as you thought it was) you'll probably make it all the way through, but you won't know why and you'll want those five minutes back. The third time through (because now "Chocolate Rain" is stuck in your head and you can't get rid of it until you hear it again) you might actually start to make sense of the verses and the song will begin to grow on you. The fourth time through (yes, sadly you'll go back again because now you've been corrupted by the Chocolate Rain at a subconscious level) you'll just download the mp3 and call it a day. Then you'll text message the person with whom you first listened to it... the message will read "Chocolate Rain." They will call you and laugh.

Okay, so maybe this won't be YOUR experience, but it worked for me.

Anyway, enjoy a little "Chocolate Rain"

2007-11-05T20:24:00.000-08:00

Gluten-Free Goodness

Just because Fuego can't have gluten anymore doesn't mean that I can't have fun with new recipe inventions!

So for today I have two new ones...

The first is a simple modification of Pamela's Gluten Free Pancake Mix, which is hands down the BEST gluten-free baking mix I've found so far (the pancakes are actually better than gluten-rich ones!). Following the regular recipe, you would add 3/4 c water, 1 egg, and 1 T oil to 1 c of mix. Instead, add the egg and 1T of oil (I use olive), then add 1t of vanilla extract, 2T sugar (I use raw cane sugar), and 3/4 c milk (I use soy). The result is a fluffy and delicious treat with a built-in semi-sweetness that makes them as good plain as with syrup! This morning I added chocolate chips (yum!) and the other day I actually used them to make chili dogs and it turned out awesome! (no, I didn't use the chocolate chip ones for the chili dogs... I somehow don't think that would be very good ;o).

The second is a bit more strange... so if the pancake chili dogs were too much for you, you may want to stop here.

...

In a hurry for a bite the other day, I decided to throw a couple of eggs in a pan, but as I wanted something more bread-like that I could wrap around a hunk of cheese, I made some slight modifications. While breaking the yolks and stirring the egg around, I quickly dashed in a bit of milk, salt, pepper, hot sauce, and then threw in about 2T of corn-flake bread crumbs. The result was a semi-bready textured egg wrap that could be folded around whatever -- in this case a big hunk of cheddar. I loved it... so, for once, did Fuego.

As a variation on that theme, tonight I decided to make egg wraps for some tofu-dogs for our dinner. In my typical fashion, I wanted mine to be a bit spicier, so decided to make it pho-Tai by adding in 1T of peanut butter, a generous sprinkling of extra hot cayenne pepper, and some extra hot curry. I beat the ingredients together with some diced Gouda tonight rather than mixing them on the stovetop, and the result was a fluffy, almost pancake in texture, wrap that was browned on both sides and had pockets of melted cheese inside. Jane's was sans PB and spices, but did have several dashes of Tabasco and the requisite cheese chunks.

Contrary to what you might expect, we did both enjoy them ;o)

2007-11-04T20:46:00.000-08:00

Sermon of All Saints, Sunday the 4th of November, 2007

Here is this past Sunday's sermon. I've been bad about posting them, but I really enjoyed this one. I'll try to get the rest of the recent ones up soon.

Readings: Daniel 7:1-3,15-18, Psalm 149, Ephesians 1:11-23, Luke 6:20-31

The turn from Halloween on October 31st, to All Saints Day on November 1st is a dramatic contrast. Over two thousand years ago, the parochial superstitions about the roaming spirits of the departed gave rise to Celtic traditions such as the Jack of the Lantern where a turnip or large Beet would be carved out and a candle placed inside so as to scare off the wandering spirits of imps and other wily spirits sent to antagonize and otherwise torture the living. In addition, the spirits of departed loved ones trying to find their way back to the lit lantern on the threshold of the family homestead on the night before the Celtic New Year, when the boundary between the physical world and the spirit world was at its thinnest, could be appeased by placing food outside the door (as well as kept outside by that scary Jack o’ Lantern). One never knew whether the spirit at the door on Halloween night would be a trick or a treat. Most people were too afraid to go outside on this particular night, but those who dared would dress up as ghosts and ghouls so as to trick wandering spirits into thinking that he or she was just another of the walking dead.

The transition from Samhain, the eve of the Celtic New Year, to All Saints Day is a prime example of Imperial Christianity in the Roman Empire co-opting local traditions and attaching Christian meaning to them as a means of easing local customs and beliefs into Christianity. These and other non-Christian Celtic superstitions and practices surrounding the first new-moon after the harvest moon were normalized in the calendar year by the early church in the 9th century under the umbrella of All Saints Day, when we celebrate our communion with and continuing connection to the followers of Christ who have gone before us. All Hallows Eve, as the night before All Saints Day, replaced the Celtic Samhain celebration of the dead with a new custom of feeding the poor, who would go door to door seeking food in the form of what were called “soul cakes.”

While the ancient customs of ghoulish costumes, jack o’ lanterns, and leaving food out for the spirits is alive and well in today’s secular Halloween traditions, the deeper religious significance of remembering our connection to Christians both past and present in what the Apostle’s Creed calls the “Communion of Saints” draws our attention back to Christ on this Holy Day. Yet there is a close connection between the behavior of the wily ancient spirits that give rise to our modern Halloween and Christ as the embodiment of the trickster in today’s gospel reading.

The Trickster is a character from Native American (and other) traditions, who intentionally transgressed boundaries and social traditions as a means of turning people’s deep held beliefs on their heads and challenging the structures and powers that formed and governed civilized society. The Loki character of European traditions mirrors the trickster in spirit form as does the character of the fairy king and the devil (not to be confused with modern references to Satan) in Celtic folklore.

This character not only provided super-human comic relief to stories of morality and stories about why things are they way they are, but also provided important counterpoint to the expectations and social conventions that so frequently needed (and still need) to be challenged in the ordering of society. It is the child that insists that the emperor is, in fact, naked. It is the Native American spirit guide, coyote, who, like the Holy Spirit, has a habit of unexpectedly calling us to a complete change of our lives. And it is Christ in today’s gospel, speaking in truths that challenged the way people thought (and still think), and counseling his followers to turn their thinking completely upside down as a means of challenging the status quo.

It was as much up to Christ’s listeners two-thousand years ago to figure out wherein lay the truths of his statements as it is up to us today. And I very much believe that Christ intended to challenge his listeners with his statements.

Christ lists as blessed those who are poor, hungry, distressed, excluded, reviled, and defamed, but lists as cursed (or subject to woe) those who are rich, sated, laughing, and revered.
In true trickster fashion, there is truth in his statements, though we have to dig for a meaning that may be different for each of us. For my own part, Christ’s words today force me to really look at the times in my own life when I have experienced each of these states of being.

As a starving student in seminary I was often forced to rely on God’s providence. Fuego and I were very newly married. We had rent to pay, undergraduate loans to pay, food to buy so that we could eat, seminary tuition to pay, and books to buy, but financial aid only for one. Fuego was herself just recently graduated from college and had relocated from Arcata, new to the professional world, new to being a wife, new to seminary, and was dealing with the terribly new loss of her father just two months after our wedding (about a month into seminary). For the three years we were in seminary, we lived on an average income of about seven thousand dollars per year over and above my financial aid. At the lowest, our first year, we only made five thousand dollars that wasn’t financial aid, prompting one member of the seminary grant committee in the Diocese of MyOldDiocese to clarify whether that might be our monthly rather than our annual income. There were whole months at the end of semesters where we weren’t sure how we were going to feed ourselves. Yet these years were some of the most blessed we have spent. We experienced community the likes of which we will likely never experience again. We, without fail, experienced God’s providence in the form of gifts from various unexpected sources that came just when we thought we had nowhere else to turn. Though we sometimes scraped by on Top Ramen and Peanut Butter, we never actually went hungry, and we truly felt that blessing of God that Christ, today, pronounces for the poor.

By contrast, the fourteen months I spent working at Intel in Santa Clara, CA before going to work for the Diocese of MyOldDiocese were some of the most vocationally unfulfilling months I’ve spent in my life. While I took the job purely motivated by paying off my undergraduate loans before starting seminary, and while I was incredibly blessed to have been able to do so, the rewards were purely in the pay check. Working long hours at spiritually meaningless tasks certainly brought the woe that Christ describes today.

I look at similar experiences in the roller coaster of life and realize that those times when I have been at the lowest ebbs: hungry, excluded, reviled, defamed, or desperately distressed to my emotional core, the experience of relief from any and all of these has been an experience of blessing, an experience of elation, an experience of the profound truth in Christ’s statement from today’s gospel of the joy and lifting up of my spirit in God. Conversely, when we are at the top, we truly do have the furthest to fall, and great is that fall when it happens.

I’ve never been so sated as after participating in a thirty-hour famine, nor so hungry as after a hearty breakfast followed by nothing for lunch or dinner.

For any of us who has lived to experience both the highs and the lows, Christ’s words, in all their truth, are cyclic, yet I believe the point of them, beyond their profound truth, is simply to challenge our perceptions, to teach us to look at life in a way that turns social convention on its head. If we can do this, if we can find the truth in these statements, Christ invites us, as those described as “those who listen,” to further challenge our perceptions and the conventions that have shaped us and predisposed us to think in a specific way.

“Love your enemies,” our trickster Christ tells us. “Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” In essence, Christ is teaching us to spin the power balance in a world where wickedness and self centeredness have become the rule. ‘Act in defiance to the powers seeking to draw you away from God,’ he seems to be saying. Those who act out of hatred, and enmity, or seek to raise themselves up by cursing or abusing others live a life empty of God. They are described elsewhere as the “children of this corrupt generation” as opposed to the Children of Light. Instead of allowing ourselves to be dragged away from God by the wiles of the corrupt, Christ encourages us to pity them and to act out of mercy and compassion.

A simple and somewhat silly example is the difference I feel when I’m suck in traffic between joining in the chaos of trying to get ahead at the cost of all those around me versus taking the opportunity to show mercy to those who so desperately seem to be seeking to cut me off, run me off the road, or otherwise force me into a collision with them or others around me.

There are days when I simply can’t distance myself from the stresses of getting from point A to point B as quickly as possible. These are typically those days when I have over-scheduled myself and not taken into account the little unexpected delays, like poopie diapers, that keep me from getting on the road when I had planned too little time for myself in the first place.

Perhaps none of you has ever experienced this, but I’m guessing I’m not alone. You get in the car, promptly get back out to go back in the house for the first of about five things that you’ll forget and have to go back for before you can finally back out of the driveway. By this point, you’re leaving at least ten (or perhaps as many as thirty) minutes later than you had intended. Since you’re running late, you don’t have time to get that precious morning cup of coffee that can make or break the tone for the rest of the day. You’re out of gas because you had some good reason, that now eludes you, to rush past the gas station on the way home the previous evening – and the price per gallon has jumped five cents since last night, adding insult to injury. So you finally get on the freeway now fifteen (or thirty-five) minutes late, only to find that some other late person five miles up the road has given into the intense pressure to run into the guy ahead of him. And so you sit, frustrated, perhaps on the verge of tears depending on how important is was for you to be on time this particular day, and you’re surrounded by other frustrated, rushed, late, drivers who don’t seem willing to accept that you deserve to be allowed to pass through this sea of would-be road blocks more than they do. Suddenly the next lane seems to be moving faster and every car behind you jumps into it, leaving you stuck even though you were ahead of them in the first place and clearly deserved to get over before them. With grim pleasure, you note that theirs is the lane that is closed ahead, but instead of getting to gloat over your new found advantage, they simply cut you off without so much as signaling.
It is in this moment that we are given the clarity to choose between weeping bitterly as we instruct the driver ahead of us with a strategic choice of sign language involving an extended finger, or to simply throw up our hands and accept that the only path to sanity lies in refusing to play by the same rules as everyone else on the road anymore. So in the midst of the insanity, we stop trying to “win,” and simply allow these poor souls to get back over. The trickster Christ, in us at this moment, is given over to mercy when everything around us demands retribution.

Understanding this twist in the gospel, we are finally ready for the truly subversive instructions of Christ that went to the heart of an occupied and powerless people.

Each of Christ’s final instructions was a form of peaceful protest against Rome… turning the other cheek meant that a Roman who used a demeaning backhand as punishment would have to use a palm slap in order to complete his punishment, thereby recognizing his subordinate as an equal… To demand an outer garment of a subordinate was the right of any roman soldier, but to leave the subordinate naked was a social embarrassment and was forbidden, so to not withhold the tunic when the jacket was demanded was to put the soldier at risk for reprimand. Matthew’s gospel also includes walking the extra mile, which strikes at a Soldier’s right to demand that a subordinate carry their pack for up to, but no more than, a mile. By carrying a soldier’s pack an extra mile, the soldier is again subject to reprimand.

By contrast, Christ’s final words in today’s gospel, some of the most famous from the Bible, known as the “Golden Rule” of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” seems somewhat out of place in the midst of these strangely twisted truths, but in essence, they are the new rule for life after we have broken free of the constructs that bind us to the unreasonable social conventions that keep us from honoring one another as children of God. For many of us, this is the “rule” that we most try to live by in our daily lives, yet are constantly at odds with as we eek out an existence in a society and world that thinks more about how to get what we want for ourselves than about how to treat others around us.

So on this day of All Saints, we are reminded by Christ of those who have come before us, who have lived their lives as a holy example of what it means to seek and serve Christ in all others, to love our neighbors as ourselves, to strive for justice and peace, and to respect the dignity of every living thing. We are called into that communion of Saints that, led by our trickster Christ, defies the rules and structures in this world that tear down and alienate us from God’s kingdom and the Good News in Christ that we are each precious and loved by a God who will never stop seeking for us, and who will never stop reaching out to us as God’s own precious children – even if it means approaching us in the garb of the fool to get through to us.

Maybe it’s time for us to try on the wisdom of the fool, the trickster Christ is waiting to be our guide.

Amen.

2007-10-24T22:08:00.000-07:00

Just on Sundays...

"What do you mean you're 'a full-time' priest? Don't you guys only work on Sundays?"

"A Priest, huh? Is that an easy job or what? I mean you work like one day per week, right?!"

"You're a priest? So... what do you do the rest of the week?"

Most of these are typically followed by the patented Peter Griffin "nya-a-a-a" (from Family Guy) to demonstrate that the freakishly original and utterly hilarious comment was intended (though only partially) as a joke.

The truth of the matter is that few people really have any sense that the job of a priest is rated as one of the top three most stressful jobs, typically involving a 50-70 hour work week that spans six if not all seven days of the week and includes every major holiday as a major work day... no, my jocular passing acquaintances, this is not a job for the slight of spirit or the weak of nerve.

The good news is that I have an amazing colleague and mentor at St. ECWIW's who not only encourages a balance between ministry and personal life, but also insists on putting family first. I have it in my contract to only work five days per week in the office with at least one full 24 hour period off for my own Sabbath (if not two), and most weeks I actually take advantage of this strangely foreign time off to relax and spend quality time with my family -- for those of you who have not heard these terms before, I've linked them to a quick reference for you so you can find out what they might mean.

However, over the past few weeks I've been feeling increasingly stressed as I attempt to get my work done and still make time for family. Oddly moved to figure out why (curiously, not everyone is simply accustomed to feeling stressed out every moment of every day), I set about the task of figuring out how much work I'm supposed to be getting done in a typical week.

Since this little exercise had some surprising results, I thought I'd share them with you.

On an average Sunday I work from about 6:45am until about 8pm. While I realize that this is a typical work day for many people, it isn't healthy and you should stop it. For my own part, I enjoy Sundays and for most weeks -- and this is the REALLY important part for those of you who work 13-14 hours EVERY DAY -- I take that time back out of my hours on Monday by working a half day. I do, sadly, have to say "most weeks" because recently I've found that I quite simply have too much to get done to complete all of my work in a healthy work week.

The problem is that, as I discovered over the past few days, I have over 75 roles that I play ranging from the sacred to the mundane and even from the arcane to the profane. Within those 75+ roles, I have over 130 tasks -- both major and minor -- that I am currently attempting to accomplish in a single week.

Now it might seem that the 18 minutes and 28 seconds that a 40 hour week would provide for each of these tasks (I'm rounding to 130 tasks for simplicity sake) would be plenty of time, but when we consider that three of these tasks account for 13-14 hours of my week, it reduces the time for each remaining 127 tasks to 12 minutes, 17 seconds. Now additionally considering that at least two of the remaining tasks take up about 1.5-2 hours each, I find that I'm left with only 10 minutes and 33 seconds for each of the remaining 125 tasks, five of which I cannot complete in less than an hour (meetings of set duration, etc). Thus for the remaining 120 tasks, I have 8.5 minutes each to complete. Sadly, another ten of these tasks take at least a half hour to complete due to the limitations of technology that don't let me network the computer directly to my brain. Thus by early on Wednesday I find that I have just 12 hours left to complete the other 110 tasks that I have for the week. Now if I'm preaching Sunday, Thursday is out, so I have four hours to complete the same 110 tasks (since sermons aren't every week, I rounded them out of the 130 tasks).

So... on any given week, I have 6 and a half minutes each for 110 tasks that generally take at least 15 minutes each, except on weeks when I'm preaching on Sunday, at which point I have 2 minutes and 11 seconds for each task.

With a fairly new computer running a 2.66 GHz Celeron processor with about 512 MB of RAM (why? because I didn't pick the computer, that's why), it takes approximately 12 seconds to change from one task to the next (closing one file and opening another), adding an additional 8 seconds to save, and about 15-45 seconds for Norton to figure out that what I have created in the native environment is still as virus free as it was when I created the "new" file. It takes an additional 20-25 seconds for each new program to open and/or close, and about 45 minutes for the new version of iTunes and Quicktime to load (since this is now a daily occurrence, I can factor it in), which decreases processor efficiency by about 25% unless Norton is running an automatic update simultaneously, which takes up an additional 30-40% of the processor resources, decreasing overall efficiency by about 65%. Now this only happens when the computer has reset itself over the course of the previous night for an automatic update, which happens about once or twice per week, so I will only average this in for one day of the week. My own productivity and efficiency rating , however, is inversely proportional to the number of emails that have bounced because no one has alerted the church to their change of email address, and how much coffee the office administrator has had (resulting in longer conversations between tasks). Thus factoring technology and human productivity and efficiency ratings into the mix, I now have about 2 to 45 seconds left per task for the remaining 110 tasks. Considering that I complete an average of 125 of those 130 tasks per week, I'm not doing too badly (of course one of the dropped balls is one of the 2 hour tasks, so it really throws the average off ;o)

So this is a really long way of saying that I have come to realize this week that I'm doing too much... and that perhaps I need a faster computer.

Oh... ya... and that being a priest is not just a one day per week job (almost forgot the moral of the story).

...

...

And for those who know me, there is no job in the world I'd rather be doing, nor a better place I could be doing it! But I could use a few more volunteers ... and that faster computer ;o)

2007-10-11T23:26:00.000-07:00

Guest Room Do-si-do

So Emjay is teething. Gone are the days of sleep filled nights and complacent meatloaf child who magically naps and just hangs out content to do whatever we're doing. We now ensure that the guest room is available for Emjay's parents, who in the middle of the night, tired from days without a decent night's sleep already, find themselves unable to sleep through the myriad screeches, whines, whinnies (yes, I'm pretty sure I've heard them), and random shouts that come from our sleeping sound-machine. Not to mention the bouts of keeping me up for an hour or so around 4am and repeatedly waking Fuego up to replace her pacifier (or whatever other various and sundry things might quiet her).

Of course we recognize that most parents have experienced sleepless nights from day one and that we are incredibly lucky. But while in the midst of picking up my pillow, attempting to silently relocate the pets, and deciding who get's the prized 'inside' position in the guest room bed (the spot by the wall, which ensures less frequent quieting responsibilities when Emjay starts hollering), the fact that this is only a month and a half old doesn't really comfort me.

Thankfully Emjay's pediatrician predicted that within two weeks her teeth will surface! Okay, so that was about four and a half weeks ago, but since we can feel them just under the surface of her gums, we're pretty sure they really will come soon.

It's good to have a full mouth of teeth, but getting there apparently su-u-u-ucks!

2007-09-13T23:43:00.000-07:00

Teabagging the Cat

Okay, so actually it was an accident. I innocently leaned over on the couch to kiss Fuego tonight, not realizing that Fred was sitting on her lap. Suddenly we both heard loud protesting "Meow's" from Fred who apparently didn't care for the close-up of my boxers in his face. Fuego and I couldn't help but laugh at the looks on Fred's face as he splutterd and shook his head, no doubt trying to get the image out of his poor little mind.

Poor kitty... but at the same time, it serves him right for the times I've woken up to kitty-butt in my face -- ah the joys of owning pets ;o)

2007-09-13T22:55:00.000-07:00

Quite a Summer!

Playing catch up on my life again... it's somewhat ironic that when we're busy living life and have tons to talk about, we don't have time to blog about it, and then when we're not doing much and have nothing to talk about, we have plenty of time to blog. Oh well, at least catching up makes it seem as though I have something to talk about while I'm busy doing nothing so interesting as to be blogworthy ;o)

Time since coming home from doing a week of summer camp has just flown by.

In the week following camp, Fuego, Emjay, and I took a day trip to New Hogan Lake where Some-of-the-time-girlfriend was camping for the week with his family. Other than enjoying SOTTG's wonderful family, we also got to go water skiing and tubing behind SOTTG Sr.'s speedboat (flat bottom, bright yellow, V-8, environmentally unfriendly, loud... basically it's AWESOME =o).

SOTTG and I had tube wars (no, that's not a euphemism) behind the boat with SOTTG Sr. taking tight turns at high speeds to propel us over wakes and into the air in occasionally successful attempt to throw us off our inner tubes (actually somewhat of a misnomer since the tubes were some of those designed to be towed behind a boat and don't go inside of anything). Fuego got some great pictures and we stayed for dinner with SOTTG's family before heading home for the night, sore and tired, but stoked on a great day's outing! Thanks Some-of-the-time-girlfriend!!

The following Monday an amazing group of kids bicycling from Rhode Island came to stay the night at St. ECWIW's. The group came last year as well, as part of a coast to coast ride to raise money and awareness for low-income housing. On their way from RI to SF they stopped at eight different locations for a full day of helping to build some of the houses their annual trips help to fund. There are six annual trips, coinciding during the months of June through August and we were thrilled to have them come through Dtown the past two years. Planning, setting up, hosting, and cleaning up basically crammed about twenty-two hours into two days of work, but it was well worth it.

A scant few days later, Emjay, Fuego and I left for vacation in Ohio, where, as you may have read in a previous blog, I live on in infamy from Uncle Rockin's radio show. I can certainly say that one of the highlights of the trip for me was getting to teach our nephew, Doodle-bug Squarepants, to ride a bike. DB is now eight years old and I couldn't help but think that every eight year old deserves to have a bike and know how to ride it! Of course he had a bike when he was younger, but he had outgrown it almost two years ago and hadn't yet graduated to a two-wheeler without training wheels (a tough step!). Fuego and I bought him a bright red BMX style Schwinn at Target and I spent the next week and a half having daily lessons with DB about safety, riding theory, and test runs. It was one of the most gratifying moments of my life when I was able to let go and watch him really ride on his own -- plus he never crashed (a step up from when my brother taught me how to ride a bike without telling me how to turn or stop ;o). Within another few days, DB was able to start all by himself with no help from me to get him going or to get his balance. It's practically like magic to see someone ride a bike for the first time without any help, I could have cried! We did a few "advanced lessons" after DB's successful completion of the basics, including "Path Riding" and "Hill Riding." I got to make a bike license for him, which he and Lulie printed out, cut out, and laminated for him to carry with him. That is one amazing kid, we love him so much! It's hard to live so far away =o(

Fuego's family was amazing with Emjay and we got to have a wonderful visit. Fuego's Uncle Rockin' runs a summer-long music festival on the Cuyahoga River on weekends ("Rockin on the River"), so we got to listen to some great music, have a few beers, and spend some time with Fuego's cousins -- it was the first time we have both been away from Emjay and even though she was sleeping (we went after putting her down for the night), we were still nervous and held the cell phone in one hand all night just in case.

We got to stay with Uncle Rockin' at his family's amazing home for a night as well, and Uncle Rockin' basically taught Emjay how to babble and mimic in the same night (previous to him, she would only mimic Ginger!). Between he and Mam'maw Emjay came home saying "yayayayaya," and "dadadadadada." Since then she has added in b's, g's, t's, m's, s's and several other vowel combinations -- family rocks!

So we're home again, the program year has been kicked off -- with a bang, I might add (bouncy houses, water balloon fights, 2X4 races, and BBQs), we're simply amazed at our daughter (seven month olds literally learn something new EVERY day!), and things are slowing down enough for me to stay up late blogging for the first time in weeks.

All in all it's been a pretty great summer =o)

2007-08-29T18:39:00.000-07:00

Infamous in Ohio

So... I called in to a radio show today in Ohio. I know I should have known better, but sometimes you just can't keep your peace when people are being that hateful, ignorant, and stupid (yes, in fact, it was a combination of all three).

"Why would you call a radio station in OH?" you might ask.

Well, Emjay, Fuego and I are on vactaion visiting family, and Uncle Rockin' was filling in on a local radio show, so we were listening. The subject of Islam came up in one of the calls where some ignorant local made a terribly hateful and prejudiced statement about the nature of Islam as a religion.

Having taken two very enlightening courses in Islam last semester while completing my Masters in Ethics and Social Theory, I have since taken it upon myself to challenge the ethos of fear surrounding Islam whenever it presents itself... so I called.

Apparently drawing parallels between the kind of religious extremism that incites people to violence in the middle east and the bombing of abortion clinics by Christian extremists in the 80s was too much of a stretch for Rockin's audience, one of whom called in to not only insult me, but the entire Episcopal Church (which this individual recommended everyone leave because "they're the ones that accept the gays"). People can only call once per day, so I didn't get to call back (probably a good thing since I was pretty fired up at the time... which for those who know me is really saying something).

Subsequently, five people emailed Rockin' to voice their opinion that I shouldn't be allowed to be a priest ;o)

I was kind of hoping for more than six responses, but apparently, none of the disagreeing locals listening were capable of entering into intelligent debate with my dissident opinions... oh well, at least I'm infamous somewhere =o)

On a positive note, I did have a lively conversation with Uncle Rockin' on the subject -- I don't think we necessarily agree on some of the finer points, but I'm grateful that we can at least agree on the broader nature of Islam outside of extremist activity.

To be honest I don't know what came over me, but I have to admit that it was kind of fun being a rabble rouser outside of the context of preaching.

2007-08-04T21:27:00.000-07:00

Who'da Thunk it?!

Of all the places in the world that I thought I would ever say, "What a cool town!," Reno would not have been one of them.

I must, however, admit to the world that Reno -- outside of the casino and neon scene -- is delightful, progressive, quaint, fun, and beautiful! (I think that hurt a little).

Fuego and I (and Emjay and Ginger) visited some seminary friends in Reno two weekends in a row (bookending our trip to camp). On the first visit, we were surprised to find that Reno was so much larger than just the cityscape of neon signs, casinos, and cheap (and dirty) hotels. The residential part of town where our friends live was quiet, scenic, and reminded me of some parts of Laramie Wyoming (a quaint little town where my great-aunt used to live). We had some amazing food, found one of the coolest pet-food stores I've ever found (I will be looking for the grass tile when I redo the kitchen in our future house-to-be), and, on a tip from DogFriendly.com, went to Wild Oats Market, which turned out to be one of the best natural foods stores I've found in years (at least as cool as Whole Paycheck but without the visible dent left in your wallet). Our friend's home was quite beautiful, with an awesome terraced backyard full of native flora and a serene feeling that comes with a well kept and intentionally calm oasis.

On the way home, we stopped again, this time to have lunch with another seminary friend at a different but equally as tasty restaurant. Then we took Ginger to an amazing dog-park that used to be a ranch. She had a blast and was exhausted enough to sleep for the whole ride home. We'll be going back at some point to check out another dog park that has it's own lake (zoiks!), and to spend some more time checking out the river in the historic downtown area.

I'm as surprised as anyone to be saying that Reno is a beautiful town... I guess you just have to know where to look!

2007-08-04T21:01:00.000-07:00

Anniversary Quatro!

Fuego and I celebrated our fourth anniversary this past Thursday =o)

In the midst of summer camp, we were able to take a whole afternoon off to spend some wonderful time together as a family.

We took Ginger to a dog-friendly beach where she got to play in the lake and exercise her lab side (only after overcoming her boxer side, of course) by swimming to fetch sticks. This is always an epic struggle between the two sides of her lineage. The boxer side staunchly demands that she only wade into the water up to the point of feeling buoyant, while the lab side (from which she got her webbed paws) can hardly contain its excitement to bound out into the depths and swim for all she's worth. And so she charges out into the water, confidently pursuing her stick, only to screech to a halt when she finds herself start to feel light and floaty. She stretches her neck, trying desperately to reach the stick from the safety of the wading depths of the shoreline. She paces back and forth, not wanting to lose the prize, but unwilling to allow herself to take the plunge and swim for it. Finally, the stick washes in far enough for her to grab it and she proudly prances back to dry land only to repeat the process another two or three times until her lab side works up enough impatience to propel her into the water and finally swim for it. "Victory!" her lab-brain cries. Then, the barrier broken through, she swims happily for the rest of the time we're at the beach.

Next we drove back toward town and stopped for a hike at a near-by state-park. Ginger had ample opportunity to dry off while we traipsed through the trees, and Emjay and I found an awesome swing set and a giant slide to go down. Emjay quite simply LOVED the swing. I had her in her Ergo Carrier and as we swung back and forth on the big-kid swing, she opened her mouth wide with excited grins and wide eyes. The slide was pretty amazing as well, though I think papa enjoyed that one more than Emjay ;o)

After hiking our fill in a beautiful little mountain park, Fuego and I dropped Ginger off back at camp and headed into town for an amazing dinner at a little restaurant in town. As it turned out, this little restaurant was a five-star gem overlooking the lake with outstanding food and awesome service. It has been featured in culinary magazines as far away as in New York, and people come from all over the country to this little resort town to enjoy an exquisite meal.

Not ones to shy away from a little eavesdropping now and then, Fuego and I both noted that while the atmosphere was delightful and homey, many of the guests were rather pretentious and full of themselves.

We ordered off of the (amazing) appetizer menu and were quite satisfied without having to break the bank with $30+ entrees (yikes!). Maybe we'll go back for our tenth and splurge when we're a bit more established ;o)

Emjay accompanied us to dinner and graced us with a nap that lasted from bread to Creme Brulée -- thanks chica!! =o)

It is hard to believe that we've been married for four years already. It all still feels so new and exciting, yet at the same time, I feel like we know each other better than anyone else in the world. It's truly amazing to feel so in love with someone and get to spend every day of your life with your best friend.

Happy Anniversary, EJ!!! =o)

2007-08-04T20:34:00.000-07:00

Home again home again, jiggity jog...

Fuego, Emjay, Ginger, and I have just gotten home from a week of Summer Camp!

I was invited to be chaplain for a week at a summer camp in my new diocese (since this was my first full summer here, I'm still calling it new), and happily accepted (also known as blissfully unaware of how different this camp would be from my usual camp experience at BREAD).

Although Fuego was dedicated enough (also known as a lot of time to spare while Emjay ate, napped, or played and couldn't be left unattended) to fight with the sparse Internet connection and blogged whilst we were away, I had neither the time nor the patience to make seven to ten attempts at posting every blog and just decided it was a lost cause until I got back to civilization.

Camp was a strange experience compared to Camp at El Rancho, and while it took some getting used to, it was clear that the kids couldn't have conceived of a more awesome way to spend a week... so we gave it a try.

As it turned out, my one hour "session" with the kids each day comprised all of the program they would get for that day. This came as a surprise to me since I was neither informed of this fact ahead of time, nor could I have comprehended the fact if it had been mentioned.

This proposed a unique challenge as at the first staff meeting -- after being introduced and having the schedule in front of me and explained -- I was asked "So, what do you have planned for session this week?"

Feeling a bit like the Grinch when Cindy Loo Whoo asked him why he was stealing her Christmas Tree, I "thought up a lie... and I thought it up quick."

As it turned out, fifteen years of youth ministry paid off and I was able to come up with a cohesive program for the week that was both fun and spiritual -- but not without some timely help from Fuego on the planning end and Captain Technology on the resource end (Thanks Captain! -- I already thanked Fuego ;o).

Camp by the seat of your pants is quite an adventure, but, as you may guess, it is NOT the relaxing experience that I had anticipated! I spent every afternoon's fun activity planning the next day's program, and every night after campfire finishing up the details until 11 or 12. Then scrambled the next morning to print resources for the kids and fill in the staff on what was happening. All things considered, I'm pretty proud of myself and the program we provided for the kids... and NEXT year, I will be ready!

And so I arrive home, exhausted, but satisfied.

2007-07-25T09:42:00.000-07:00

Best One Yet!

If you read my last post, you probably realize that I haven't blogged in a few days because ALL of my spare time has been devoted to the last book in the Harry Potter series -- Deathly Hallows.

I picked up the book on Saturday afternoon and finally got to crack it open on Sunday after church. Being a new papa, I didn't have much spare time in which to read, so I stayed up late the past few nights -- okay, so by late, I mean 1am on Monday, 2 am on Tuesday, and 3:20 am on Wednesday by which time I simply couldn't put the book down until I read the last page.

Admittedly, I have enjoyed all of the Potter books, but this final chapter in the saga was by far the most amazing of the seven.

I won't do any spoilers here, since I hate that, but anyone interested in sharing their reactions is welcome to comment or email.

For now, I think I need to seriously catch up on some sleep -- Emjay doesn't let us sleep in past 6:30 or 7 these days without a struggle!

2007-07-22T19:38:00.000-07:00

Sermon of 22 July 2007

++++++++++++++++++++

Readings: Genesis 18:1-10a, Psalm 15, Colossians 1:15-28, Luke 10:38-42

There was once a young man named Agamemnon. Born the first of two children in a small but growing Midwestern town, Agamemnon had a fairly normal childhood in the post World War II era of the late forties and early fifties. His father said of him that Agamemnon was a very serious and responsible child – that he kept to himself a lot and was always interested more in entrepreneurialism than in childish games.

These skills lent themselves well to the family’s survival when at thirteen, Agamemnon put himself to work to help keep his mother and his younger brother afloat after his father left. Plying all his young skill, Agamemnon helped to make a living for the family as well as finishing high school. His early high school love remembers him as his father does – as a very serious and hard working young man.

His quick mind and determination earned him a place aboard a naval ship during Vietnam, where he again proved his skill by keeping temperamental radar equipment functioning. While overseas, he wrote letters back and forth to his young bride until he finally came home in 1969.

Agamemnon scraped by on practically nothing as a child and vowed to make a better life for his family. When his tour of duty ended, he took a job with the Railroad, working his way up to engineer and eventually being asked to represent the railroad workers with the union. During this time, his first and second sons were born.

Dedicating as much time and energy as he could to his work, Agamemnon worked his way up through the ranks over the years to finally run for vice president of the whole union before he retired. He had a beautiful house, two cars and a pickup in the driveway, money invested in stocks and bonds, and an ever growing retirement pension – all preparing for the day when he could finally retire and enjoy the fruits of his labor.

Unlike his own father, Agamemnon had provided security, stability, and a future for his family. Until the day he came home to find his family gone.

Amidst the terrible stresses of his sixty-plus-hour per week job, amidst the struggling to save and scrape whatever he could to provide for his family and their future, amidst the forty eight weeks per year of office work, weekend business trips, late nights, and week-long conventions, Agamemnon lost touch with his family.

His growing irritability from the rigors of his professional life, combined with his expertly honed arguments from years of union negotiations made him a formidable and intimidating opponent both professionally, and unfortunately at home.

Agamemnon was and is a good man. He is honest, hard working, loving, faithful, and fiercely protective of those he holds dear. But how do you tell someone who has worked their entire life to eek out a solid living for their family that all you really ever wanted was a father?

The kind of hospitality demonstrated in our scriptures today paints a picture for us of the way God intends for us to be in relationship with one another.

Abraham too was a hard-working man – struggling in the desert to find enough resources to keep his herds and his family alive as he followed God’s call to him to leave his home and set out on what often seemed like a fool’s errand. More than once, he thought he was going to die childless and forsaken by God, yet we see in today’s lesson from Genesis that even in the midst of whatever hardships he was enduring at the time, Abraham dropped everything to reach out to the three strangers who appeared at his door. He took of the fruits of his own labor to provide what could only be described as a feast. He sat with them in conversation, heedless of the work that was left undone. He held up a model of hospitality that welcomed the stranger out of a hostile and deadly environment, providing them with an oasis of God’s abundance and safety. Given the option between valuing work and physical prosperity over the needs of these strangers, Abraham stopped what he was doing to engage in relationship – and again and again, we are told, it was accounted unto him as righteousness.

Again, in our Gospel reading for today, we see the familiar story of Mary and Martha welcoming Jesus into their home, providing an amazing model of the kind of relationships God wishes for us.

Martha, the pragmatic, responsible host, busies her self with the work of the house while Mary, the inveterate feminist of the story places herself at Jesus’ feet as a disciple, turning the normal system of her time on its head. The story begs us to make our own judgment as to which sister is in the right, and it seems as though it must be Martha until Jesus comes to Mary’s defense.

The key piece of the story for me today came from Christ’s explanation that “there is need for only one thing.” While Martha worried and distracted herself with the many tasks of making her home, she neglected the one thing that her guest needed – her presence. As unfair as it seemed that Mary chose to sit at Jesus’ feet rather than helping Martha with the busywork of tidying the house, Mary was the one that demonstrated the value she placed on the relationship with her guest. In the moment of choice between leaving her guest to sit while she helped to scurry around the house, giving him only passing attention, and letting go of the business to focus on Christ, Mary chose the relationship. And as was the case with Abraham, it was accorded unto her as righteousness – “Mary has chosen the better part,” Christ explains, “which will not be taken away from her.”

What kept Martha from similarly sitting at Jesus’ feet was only her sense of duty and responsibility to provide for her guest. She was certainly not a bad host, nor was she in the wrong for trying to provide for those dear to her, but amidst the stresses of completing her daily chores as well as providing additional resources for her guest, amidst her commitment and dedication to the traditions of her time, amidst her valiant attempts to complete her work so that she could then get to the business of concentrating on relationships, Martha risked losing touch with her guest.

We will doubtless each find at some point in our lives that we are concentrating our energies so much on a single task that we begin to lose sight of the bigger picture.

Whether it be school, work, taking care of the kids, creating the “perfect” life, or even caring for a loved one during a time of illness or reaching for a life-long dream, we will one day be forced into the realization that we are out of balance. It comes in the form of high blood pressure, heart attack, and other stress induced diseases of the cardio-pulmonary system; it comes in the form of alienation from friends and family, it comes in the form of one day finding oneself surrounded with every material thing ever hoped for and suddenly finding them empty without deep and lasting relationships that feed the heart and the soul, and it comes in the form of crises of the soul.

I phoned Fuego on Friday night from the car. I was on my way home from shopping for a retreat, picking up pacifiers for Emjay, stopping by the office to check my email, picking up change for a youth group parent from our trip to the water park earlier in the week, picking up tickets to the new Harry Potter movie, and was on the way home to scramble through the house and get back over to the theater for the 7:00 showing – where I was due in a half hour. This kind of thrilling scavenger hunt through town pretty much described my daily life as a young adult. Scurrying from place to place, always rushing to make it to the next destination in my overbooked schedule between working 50-70 hours per week at Intel, leading youth group, Sunday school, the acolyte team, the healing team, and acting as clerk for the vestry at church, attending five to seven martial arts classes per week, and squeezing in one or two meals and up to six hours of sleep per day. I lived for the chase and went about two years without a vacation. Then I met Fuego. Suddenly all the terribly important details of my franticly paced life seemed trivial. And as I began to slow down and enter more deeply into relationships, not only with Jane but with friends I hadn’t spent any truly quality time with since high school, I found myself feeling more alive than I had felt in years. So as I drove home on Friday, feeling stressed out and tired from just a few hours of what used to be my whole life, I called Fuego to tell her affectionately, “honey, you’ve ruined me.”

For all the emphasis I put on becoming instruments of God’s kingdom, the true heart of Christ’s ministry, and the core of bringing God’s kingdom to each other is found in relationships with one another and with God.

“Mary chose the better part” by seeking the balance of working toward the end of furthering the relationships that feed our very existence in ways that ‘a job well done’ simply cannot.

With Martha, we are called today to examine the emphases in our lives. We are called to take a close look at where our energies are concentrated and strive to make the changes necessary to find a balance between the work that sustains us in the world, and the relationships that feed us and feed God’s own community amongst us.

And as for Agamemnon? Well, I still think he works more than he should for the balance he needs in his life, but I sincerely believe that he has come to recognize that Mary’s part is at least a close second to Martha’s. And when it comes to his grandchildren, Christ himself would be proud to see Agamemnon sitting at his feet.

It is up to us too to choose the better part. It is never too late to seek the balance in life that draws us to sit at God’s feet.

Amen.

2007-07-22T19:14:00.000-07:00

Potter Mania

The latest installments of Harry Potter are afoot! Having just seen the film this past Friday (probably the last person in all of D-town who was seeing it for the first time), and just picked up the new book on Saturday afternoon, I feel as though I am well under way toward meeting my, until now, pitifully underachieved fantasy quota for the summer.

As with the previous four films, I was impressed with the film, not for its strict adherence to details, nor for its completness (both of which could only stand to disappoint), but for its ability to capture and forward the plot while dazzling moviegoers with special effects that bring imagination to life. Nothing in the films is ever quite as I have pictured it, but it's similar enough to be a whole lot of fun!

A bonus of going to see Order of the Phoenix was a piquing of my interest in this, my least favorite, installment in the saga. A few casual details caught my attention enough that I will be excited to reread book five on my next read-through of the whole series (after I finish book seven), to see if they might be as intreguing as they seemed in the film -- of course, by then, I'll know how the series ends, so I'll also know if my hunches are true or not already ;o).

I won't make any comments on what I think may or may not happen in book seven, I'd rather just enjoy it as I make my way through without expectation.

Of course, I may have to preface a not-to-distant future post with "PLOT-SPOILER!" to spark a bit of discussion between those who've also finished the last book!

Enough! I have 708 pages left to read and they're not going to read themselves (it's fun to be so excited about a book =o)

2007-07-18T21:22:00.000-07:00

Tuesday!

Instead of working in the office all day on a beautiful Tuesday, why not consider taking a few teens to the water slides?!

This was my Tuesday...

I picked up the three kids and one other adult who were free (a sad testament to how busy kids are these days!) at about 9:30, drove to the coffee shop and ordered a Decaf Soy Latte and a hot breakfast sandwich (I generally discourage frequenting Starbucks, but they do have a drive through window and now offer breakfast sandwiches... I caved, what can I say). We got gas (for the car, not from the breakfast sandwich), and hit the road at about 10. A short 38 minute drive later we arrived to find that the park opened at 11 during the week (excellent timing).

We got our tickets, changed, and applied sun block liberally -- just in time for the park to open!

Never have I been to a water park this cool. I'm pretty sure I was at least as excited as the kids to get to play in the sun for a whole day!

Most of the slides used inner-tubes (single, double, triple, and even quad tubes), which turned out to be pretty awesome. Mind you, I haven't been to a water park since Marine World was in Redwood Shores and they had the "Tiger Mountain Rapids" water slides, so I've never really been to a water park that used inner-tubes -- or that had fully enclosed water-slide tubes, jets of water that propelled you uphill, vortices that attempted to separate your plasma from red cells, parabolic slides with a fifty-foot drop, and pitch-dark slides that ejected you into a funnel and eventually dumped you into an 8-foot deep pool.

Mighty-8-bit, Punky-spice, and I went on every slide at least once and made it to our favorites twice (they had about ten different slides), but what ended up being one of the 'funnest' attractions was the circular "river" that you could just float down on old fashioned truck inner-tubes. There were several points at which there were waterfalls and we would try to force each other under these to get soaked -- but primarily it was a great way to chat, so we killed about an hour and a half just floating around in circles chatting.

All in all... not a bad day's work!

2007-07-16T23:06:00.000-07:00

Grasshopper's Jesus Year

Yesterday Fuego and I went down to visit Grasshopper, Red Hot, Ladybug, and Mini-me to celebrate Grasshopper's 33rd Birthday! Muddy and Designgirl were there, as was Red Hot's step-dad. We sat in the garage and drank great homebrew, sat outside and drank good single-malt while we ate, drank other stuff while playing one-handed catch with four foot balls, and then got downt to the serious matter of acting the sum total of our individual ages (roughly between six and seven).

What began as an innocent game of catch soon became a four way game of 'chuck-balls-and-whatever-else-we-can-find-at-each-other.' It was a good rousing game as Red Hot and I (and sometimes Ladybug) faced off against Muddy and Grasshopper (and Design girl for a while too). We progressed from small foot balls to larger ones, to soccer balls, large inflated rubber balls, and eventually peaches from Grasshopper and Red Hot's peach tree. All in all it was a pretty great game -- no children were injured and adults were only slightly sticky.

Sadly it's all fun and games until someone loses a testicle... or at least until someone bends it like Beckham around the side of the house, lands it (it being a large bouncy ball -- not a testicle) in the middle of the lunch table, and obliterates a fairly expensive wine glass, propelling red wine incredible distances that reach inside the open glass door to the house, onto and under the kitchen table, and hitting at least one chair.

(Okay, ya, it was me.)

Game over man.

Anyway, it was a pretty awesome day and we had a great time celebrating Grasshopper's 33rd!

2007-07-14T21:36:00.000-07:00

A Hard Year on Dads

Fuego and I attended Mr. Cagiva's dad's memorial today. That's the third friend my age or younger who has lost their father this year, but as I practically grew up in EAG's house from 7th grade through high school this one was hard on a personal level as well as hard to watch my friends go through.

Mr. Cagiva and I met in 7th grade -- actually we cut the last day of 7th grade together, I remember riding on his handlebars as he peddled us down the levy for a day of mischief that ended with our fathers out looking for us.

My dad found us around dusk outside of one of the local markets -- we were in pretty big trouble and were both grounded from each other for about two weeks (our parents independantly decided that we were a bad influence on each other ;o).

Although EAG was taller and considerably more physically imposing than my own dad, I soon found out that he was really a pretty amazing person. He welcomed me into his family, took me on trips with Mr. Cagiva to go ATV'ing, to go to his lake cabin and go tubing behind his speedboat, to Great America, and many other places, and was always ready to listen or offer advice. I remember many a conversation in their living room that lasted late into the night -- especially if there was something mechanical that he was working on that Mr. Cagiva and I could help clean or otherwise reassemble. I learned a lot from him over the years and it's hard to know that he'll never get to meet Fuego or Emjay.

Mr. Cagiva and I have basically been brothers for over 20 years and although EAG and the rest of his family moved, Mr. Cagiva has kept me up to date on both his dad and his younger half-siblings. It was hard to be there today, but everyone was wonderful and although the circumstances were tragic it was great to see everyone again.

2007-07-13T21:35:00.000-07:00

iEnvy

Fuego and I attended our good friends' wedding last weekend. It was a wonderful celebration with friends coming from far and wide. We got to stay in the same hotel as Mama-doo and Fireboy (and found out later that BananaSlug and The Professor were there too!), so we had a blast hanging out and enjoying time together. We even got to have an afterparty in our room after the reception was over (Fuego was ecstatic!).

At the wedding, and again at brunch the day after the wedding, Captain Technology introduced me to his iPhone...

PDA, Phone, Internet, iPod (both audio and video), Camera... everything that clutters my pockets on a daily basis (and more) all come packaged in a single, sleek, intuitive, responsive, and beautiful device with a pricetag that rivals the Palm Treo at its release but is infinately cooler.

CT told me (okay, "us" as there were several of us listening) the story of his wait in line and the triumphant moment of obtaining the coveted device, and as I sat in rapt silence I knew that I too would some day have an iPhone.

Until then I remain in iEnvy and iAnticipation.

Thanks for keeping me up to date on my gagety aspirations, Captain, I salute you!

2007-07-13T21:12:00.000-07:00

Missed Milestones

So... ya... I never mentioned that:

I DID finish my thesis (The Ethics and Theology of Homosexuality in the Anglican Communion)...

I did graduate with my second Masters (Ethics and Social Theory)...

BroHead graduated with his BA from CSU Hayward (he had the courage in his late thirties to go back to college and graduated with honors this past June -- GO BROHEAD!)

Emjay rolled over without assistance for the first time this past Tuesday (Those who know won't miss the significance of the day... those who don't will be asking me in my comments ;o)

Fred, who at first merely deigned to allow Emjay to coexist in the same house with him, began sleeping on her blankets and anything else that smelled like her and just this past week he allowed her to touch him when I laid her down in her cosleeper for a nap (where he had been napping before her arrival). I actually had to physically remove him as he seemed perfectly content to have her head laying on his side as she slept (go Freddo!).

Fuego's 30th Birthday weekend was AWESOME! Camping got rained out, so it seemed like it might be a bust, but our friend ScienceBoy offered his house as an alternate party destination and I booked a room at the Hawthorne Suites in Walkway so we could stay near by and party with Some-of-the-time-girlfriend and Loopy before (and SOTTG and Weeds after) the party at Scienceboy's house. I had brewed a special keg of homebrew for the occasion (which was fun to bring through the hotel lobby), and Grasshopper ended up bringing a keg of home brewed root beer too (it was awesome). The party was an all day event with BBQ, Beverages, and pretty close to all of Fuego's closest friends. The homebrew was actually better than the store-bought bottled beer that we had to turn to when the keg gave out at about 11pm (had to throw that in there ;o) The party was everything Fuego hoped it would be, and it was even better that we got to continue the party back at the hotel with Some-of-the-time-girlfriend and Weeds afterward. We all met up for breakfast the following morning and Fuego and I and Weeds went over to the beach for a while before we all had to part ways and go home. (Whew!)

Six is a good start... I'll post more when I think of some that I've left out.

2007-07-11T21:57:00.000-07:00

Lost Sermons Index

Realizing that I've been remiss in posting the sermons that I promised to post on a regular basis, I am composing a list of "lost sermons" that can be found in my Blog Archive under the dates listed below (I won't pretend that I actually posted them on these dates, but since you can change the date of your posts, it at least keeps them in a format that suggests the time of year in which they were written).

24 June 07
12 June 07
27 May 07 (Pentecost)
22 May 07
15 May 07
29 April 07
17 April 07
1 April 07 (Palm Sunday)
27 March 07
13 March 07
25 February 07
18 February 07
13 February 07
9 January 07

2007-07-11T21:14:00.000-07:00

Economics of Treehugging

I love Fuzzi Bunz! For those who haven't heard of these little miracles, they are "cloth" diapers consisting of a water-proof outer shell, a fleece liner, and a cotton-pad insert. They have two snaps per side, making them as simple to use as disposables with velcro and allowing control of how tight the gathering is in their thighs. The fleece does an amazing job of wicking away moisture (as the hikers and backpackers out there can certainly attest!), and it is amazingly gentle on Emjay's skin. The cotton pads themeslves are amazingly soft, even though they never come into direct contact with her skin. They're simple to clean, easy to use, environmentally friendly (especially since Fuego and I use a front-loading, low impact washer and envronmentally friendly laundry soap), and Emjay loves them!

So... now the economics:

To outfit Emjay with enough Fuzzi Bunz in the correct sizes to keep her out of disposables up to 35 lbs (roughly around age 3+), it will be an overall investment of about $720.

Doing a little math... she goes through about eight diapers per day, so it would only take her about a week to ten days to go through a $20 package of diapers. Thus in one year if she made it ten days on a single package of diapers (which is unrealistic since they diminish in number per package for the same price as she increases in size), we would have to buy 36.5 packages to make it through a single year, costing $730 (or $10 more than the 3+ years worth of Fuzzi Bunz). Plus the fact that when Emjay came to us she had diaper rash from her disposables and hasn't had it since with her Fuzzi Bunz!

Now the best part: We know friends who have used the same three sets of Fuzzi Bunz (S, M, L) on three consecutive children without having to replace ANY. So for a year's cost of disposables, the investment in Fuzzi Bunz has the demonstrable potential save us about $720 per year for the next eight years worth of kids (beyond three, we'll have to see how many kids can use the same set before they wear out... we do want to adopt about five!).

It's good to be a tree-hugger =o)

2007-07-11T16:18:00.000-07:00

Posts Posts Posts!!

Since I haven't even mentioned Emjay on my Blog yet, it is time to admit that I've been terribly negligent in my electronic duties and get to the business of making amends.

So... the drive-by version.

I had mentioned in a previous post (many long moons ago when the world was young...er) that Fuego and I were anticipating a call "any day now" to let us know we had been matched with a baby to adopt.

The call came almost exactly three weeks after our home study was completed. Our social worker, Stork v1.0, woke us up Thursday morning (12 April) to let us know she thought she had a match for us in a beautiful little girl who at the time was two-months old. She sounded perfect, and it was a low risk case, so Fuego and I felt confident saying "we don't need to 'think about it,' we want her!"

Six days later we drove up to Feliz-ville and met Emjay for our first visit. She was everything we could have imagined and she seemed to be very comfortable with both Fuego and I. Since she was from a different county, we couldn't be "placed" with her until a court hearing was held to determine that she could be placed "out of county," but she did get to come home for the whole weekend on another "visit." Although it was very difficult to take her back to her foster home, we got to pick her up again the following Friday for another weekend visit and were told that our "visit" could last until the court hearing on 2 May (so our weekend was from Friday to Wednesday).

That Wednesday we got a call asking if Emjay was here... it was the court social worker. She said "good... she's home, you can keep her!" We signed the foster parent agreement the following day and Emjay was officially "placed" with us (i.e. we're her Foster Parents until all the pending court hearings and due process happen to make Emjay legallyl elligible to be adopted by us).

Suddenly I found myself in the position of being a Papa *dramatic "dun dun duhhh"*!

For those of you who know Fuego, it's no surprise that she was (and continues to be) ecstatic and quite natural at being the world's best Mom, but I really didn't know what to expect from myself, having had no real previous experience with infants. Fuego actually had me "practice" changing diapers on a cabbage patch kid before Emjay arrived so that I might at least be able to pretent I knew what I was doing - it was still a couple of days before I was ready to go solo on the diaper changing... but there were no catastrophic failures ;o)

Emjay has been home now for about two and a half months! She is now five and a half months old, she has gained five pounds, and has grown out of all of her 0-3 and 3-6 month stuff. As for me, I am officially a pro at diaper changing (both disposable and "Fuzzi Bunz"), I get up most mornings to dress Emjay and play with her before I go to work and then play with her again when I get home until bath time when Fuego and I share in giving her a bath. We take turns with her bedtime feedings and I get up in the night if she wakes and needs a bottle (happens very seldomly -- we're pretty stoked about that!). I made her laugh for the first time, filmed her rolling over for the first time, and got to wear her in her sling for the first time. All in all, I'd say I'm doing okay so far... and I love being a Papa!

More later!

2007-06-24T20:54:00.000-07:00

Sermon of 24 June 2007, Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 7)****************************************************************
Readings: 1 Kings 19:1-15a, Psalm 42, Galatians 3:23-29, Luke 8:26-39

There is something very different about today’s gospel reading – In fact, Jesus does several things in today’s gospel reading that he does not do a single other time throughout the rest of Luke’s telling of the Gospel, and yet it is subtle enough that we frequently read right over it without recognizing the significance of what has just happened.

A few verses before today’s reading, we hear the beginning of today’s adventure… One day, Jesus got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, ‘let’s go across to the other side of the Lake.’

This is the one and only visit that Jesus makes to Gentile territory in Luke’s gospel, and it is the setting of a very unique encounter.

As Jesus and the disciples step out of the boat onto foreign Gerasene land, they are approached by a local man who is possessed with a Legion of demons. Some time ago, Jesus had healed another gentile – the daughter of a centurion – while in Capernaum, but this was a different time and a different place. In these strange surroundings with only the disciples as his companions, Jesus allowed the demons to speak, to recognize him, and to plead with him. Agreeing to let them go into a heard of swine, this foreign holy man in a strange land ends up drowning a whole heard of the local’s pigs. The swinherds bolt for the city and bring back a crowd of Gerasenes and other locals who are no doubt stunned at the tale the swineherds told them. Gripped with fear at seeing their local madman sitting at Jesus’ feet, clothed and conversant, they ask Jesus to leave – his apparent power is too much for them. As has happened in so many other gospel stories about non-Jews being healed, the Gerasene demoniac pursues Jesus to thank him.

In this exchange there are two additional differences from any other encounter we read in the gospels. The man who begged to follow Jesus was not given a condition which he must meet in order to follow, but was simply told to go home. He is also not told to keep silent about what has happened that day, but, on the contrary, he is told to declare how much God had done for him, which he is only too happy to do.

The Gerasenes had no warning, no prophecies, no preparation for the awesome and healing power that Jesus commanded and they were understandably terrified. Who was this powerful foreigner? Were all of his people like him? Had he come to destroy them? The unknown prospects were endless and too frightening to be anything other than grim. So they plead with Jesus to leave them and he departs… BUT he leaves a proselyte behind to proclaim the wonders of God’s grace to the local population – one of their own, who had been so miraculously touched by Christ’s healing power that his change could not possibly go unnoticed.

How different this experience is from the other side of the shore where throngs of people from cities and village across Galilee and Judea flock to Christ’s presence to be healed and to hear his teachings – and yet these are demonstrably without the same thanks that Jesus receives from the select few gentiles that receive healing at his hand.

For those under the law who have long awaited the coming of messiah, there are myriad responsibilities that must be fulfilled upon being healed – reporting to the temple priests in order to be declared clean and be reintegrated into normal society, sacrifices of thanksgiving, purification rituals, prayers and incense, not to mention the awesome bragging rights of being touched and healed by messiah! There is no such obligation on the part of the Gentiles, who, free from the binding weight of thousands of years of tradition, are free to fully experience the deep and profound thankfulness that convicts them of God’s awesome power in their lives.

Jesus uses just such a converted heart in today’s Gospel to prepare the way amongst the Gerasenes for the abundance of God’s kingdom to be brought near, the benefits of which Paul and other missionaries to the Gentiles reap within a generation of Jesus’ healing of this one man – finding the soil tilled and ready to sow the fruits of God’s kingdom amongst them.

Paul relates to the church at Galatia today by describing the law as both guardian and warden until the time would come that he describes as the faith in Christ that frees us. But it isn’t in any way that Christ threw out the Law or the years of beloved tradition of the Jewish people, Jesus was very specific about that. What Christ does is something far more radical. In what Paul describes as clothing ourselves with Christ, Christ frees each of us from ourselves – from our own self-imposed blindness and limitations, from our own history of tradition that keeps us bound to our past and locked into our familiar patterns of living, frees us from our paralyzing fear of a God that is so close, so personal, and so powerfully working in us that we each literally have the power to change the world... starting with our own.

Today Christ uses the Gerasene demoniac to do just that – to change the hopes and expectations of a foreign population to prepare them to come face to face with God.

If then, through Christ, we are no longer bound to the categories that we’ve spent millennia developing to compartmentalize and divide ourselves from one another, slave and free, male and female, Jew and Greek, black and white, American and Iraqi, Gay and straight, Us and them... what does it mean for us today?

In many ways I feel that our society and our church are in a less healthy stasis than that which Paul describes as waiting under the Law for faith to come. Somewhere between the shores of Galilee and the land of the Gerasenes, we are neither ready to let go of the Law nor ready to embrace the divisionless freedoms of the opposite shore.

Just before today’s gospel reading where Jesus arrives on the Gerasene shore, we read that while still on the sea Jesus fell asleep and a storm rose up. The boat was filling up with water and the disciples were terrified. They woke Jesus, shouting ‘Master, Master, we are perishing!’ And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm...

From our own place in the boat, we frequently find that we are still in the midst of the storm of confusion and chaos that precedes the calm place of silence and understanding... that precedes arriving on foreign shores where the freedom of new understanding gives us a frightening glimpse of the true power that we possess as children of God.

Elijah’s story today gives us another remarkable example of the place of chaos that can so easily overrun our hearts and minds amidst the demands of our lives.

Running from Jezebel, who has sworn an oath to kill him, Elijah takes to the hills in retreat. His own chaos is mirrored in the mountain-splitting wind, the foundation rocking earthquake, and the all consuming fire that precede God. Again it is only after the ravages of the storm pass that the sound of sheer silence, the calm after the storm, the inner peace after ceasing to struggle, bring Elijah into God’s presence.

What are we – right here, right now, today – running from, and who are we running to? Of course, the answer for each of us is different at different times and places in our own lives and journey, but the journey itself is one that is all too familiar for most, if not all of us.

Today’s readings are particularly poignant for me as I discovered in preparing for my sermon this morning that I too have been running. I have been in the boat on the sea in the midst of the storm. I have been struggling between law and freedom as I have struggled to hold an extended family together amidst hardships of addiction, infidelity, denial, and codependence – such that lately it has become a burden even to speak with some members of my family. The trouble is that in the midst of the storm I have been in such a state of chaos and struggle, as I have striven to give emotional support and spiritual counseling to each of my troubled loved ones, that I haven’t had the presence to recognize the strain it has been putting on me and the relationships at the root of these problems. I find that I can no longer seek to put a band aid over the cancer that is eating away at some of the most precious relationships in my life.

In the sheer silences of today’s readings, I find a keen understanding of the moments of clarity that follow the chaos of a heart in turmoil. I find that I am finally ready to let go of the long history of tradition that has tied me to the Galilee shore and embrace the frightening freedom of God’s healing in a strange new land.

The master is awake... the sea has been calmed… the choice before me now is whether to return to the familiar shores of my own tradition of ignoring and waiting out the storm in hopes that it will resolve itself, or to head to the opposite shore where the terrifying unknown path of faith lies with the promise of freedom.

With Jesus and Elijah, we are each called today to examine the histories we have built for ourselves, to examine the new shores of change, and to listen for God’s voice in the stillness of our hearts to guide us out of chaos into freedom, faith, and new life.

With Paul we are called to clothe ourselves with Christ, to break down the artificial divisions that we’ve been taught to put between ourselves and others, that we perpetuate and multiply through our own willfulness to hide from the radical freedom to which Christ calls us, and to experience, first hand, the powerful healing work of Christ in calming the storm around us and giving us a new vision of peace and hope.

With our Psalmist, we thirst for God as with heavy souls we trust and strive for the promise of God’s peace.

As I set sail for the Gerasene shore away from my own family tradition of silence and acceptance, I realize and accept that I may be met with fearful natives that wish me to go back to the old way of doing things, but through Christ, I also know that I must follow the frightening path of the unknown to reach out in faith and hope for a future of freedom that knows no boundaries or divisions and fears no consequence for the furthering of God’s kingdom.

Let us join with Christ in striving for the far shore.

Amen.

2007-06-15T12:43:00.000-07:00

D'ah! TeamTagged by Fuego and Sadu Crobinhobin -

The rules:

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

OK, so here we go with eight things:

1. I make up bizarre recipes and then eat them... I almost always enjoy them. This morning I found a frozen cinnamon-raisin bagel in the freezer. I also found some ricotta cheese in the refrigerator. Then I spotted some pesto... voila! A taste sensation from the scraps of unspoilt food at chez moi. I cut the bagel in half, smeared it with pesto and topped it with a generous helping of ricotta, then popped it in the toaster oven for 5 minutes. If I'd been more awake I would have added some extra-spicy powdered Indian Cayenne pepper to it to zing it up a bit... oh well, there's always next time!

(*I would note that many of my creations involve peanut butter, curry, hot peppers/pepper sauce, and some form of cheese and bread. Since this morning's didn't include peanut butter, I hope I haven't disappointed any of my recipe followers =o)

2. You know how people in musicals just bust out with a random song for apparently any (or no) reason at all? I do that. But only when I think no one is listening ;o)

3. I still test 9-volt batteries using my tongue.

4. I successfully faked an appendicitis when I was in eighth grade... now I have a hernia on my appendectomy scar (figures).

5. I still have an Atari 2600 (it's awesome!) Okay, so I still have all of my old game systems from 8-bit Nintendo on up to the Wii.

6. I also faked needing glasses when I was in high school. The glasses actually helped when I was tired and my eyes started going fuzzy on me... nowadays I just sleep instead ;o)

7. My step dad, MusicMan, told my mom I didn't need my appendix out, that I didn't need glasses, and that I didn't need crutches (okay, so I faked some injuries to get out of PE too ;o) ... to this day I have no idea how he knew.

8. I dreamed about Fuego on and off for about six years before we were reunited at camp!

Okay... so I tag: Jbewan, Designgirl, Redhot, Captain Technology, Mighty 8-bit, Hetero-S, Some-of-the-time-girlfriend, and Mel-the-Great. Since half of them don't have blogs, they can post in my comments =o)

2007-06-12T20:59:00.000-07:00

Sermon of Tuesday, 12 June 2007, John Johnson Enmegahbowh
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Readings: Isaiah 52:7-10, Psalm 129, Luke 6:17-23

Background from Lesser Feasts and Fasts:

John Johnson Enmegahbowh, an Odawa (Ottawa) Indian from Canada, was raised in the Midewiwin traditional healing way of his grandfather and the Christian religion of his mother. He came into the United States as a Methodist missionary in 1832. At one point Enmegahbowh attempted to abandon missionary work and return to Canada, but the boat was turned back by storms on Lake Superior, providing him a vision: “Here Mr. Jonah came before me and said, ‘Ah, my friend Enmegahbowh, I know you. You are a fugitive. You have sinned and disobeyed God. Instead of going to the city of Nineveh, where God sent you to spread his word to the people, you started to go, and then turned aside. You are now on your way to the city of Tarshish….’”

Enmegahbowh invited James Lloyd Breck to Gull Lake, where together they founded St. Columba’s Mission in 1852. The mission was later moved to White Earth, where Enmegahbowh served until his death in 1902. Unwelcome for a time among some Ojibway groups because he warned the community at Fort Ripley about the 1862 uprising, Enmegahbowh was consistent as a man of peace, inspiring the Waubanaquot (Chief White Cloud) mission, which obtained a lasting peace between the Ojibway and the Dakota peoples.

Enmegahbowh (“The One who Stands Before his People”) is the first recognized Native American priest in the Episcopal Church. He was ordained deacon by Bishop Kemper in 1859 and priest by Bishop Whipple in the cathedral at Faribault in 1867. Enmegahbowh helped train many others to serve as deacons throughout northern Minnesota. The powerful tradition of Ojibway hymn singing is a living testimony to their ministry. His understanding of Native tradition enabled him to enculturate Christianity in the language and traditions of the Ojibway. He tirelessly traveled throughout Minnesota and beyond, actively participating in the development of mission strategy and policy for the Episcopal Church.

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There is an uncharacteristic bitterness in our readings today that had me searching the lectionary for other readings on which to preach. From the Psalmist’s biting statements against the enemies of Zion to Christ’s bleak blessings for us when people hate us, exclude us, revile us and defame us for being Christians, there isn’t a lot of hope sewn into Enmegahbowh’s readings. But lest I be guilty of the same turning away from Nineveh that Enmegahbowh saw in his vision of Jonah, I decided to seek deeper into our readings for the glimmer of hope that ties us back to the Good News of Christ throughout scripture.

What I found as I pored over and struggled through the themes in our readings was a reminder that scripture teaches us through our own stories, through our own lives, and through the lives of others. Taken out of their contexts and pieced together today, I find that these readings each piece together around the story of Enmegahbowh’s life story from Lesser Feasts and Fasts.

There is an obvious counterbalance to the heaviness of our Psalm and Gospel reading in our Old Testament reading from the Prophet Isaiah… How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’

This opening scripture for today proclaims the joy and anticipation associated with the messenger of peace, who brings good news of God’s salvation to those most desperately needing it. It is Enmegahbowh as he not only brings the Good News of Christ to the natives of the Great Lake’s regions, but brings it through their own native language and traditions

The bitterness voiced in the cry of the oppressed in the Psalm against their enemies who they pray will be cut off and shamed such that even those who pass them on the street will not stop to greet them in the customary blessing is the bitterness between the Ojibway and the people of Fort Ripley, between the Ojibway and the Dakota peoples, and for a time even between the Ojibway and Enmegahbowh himself.

In Luke’s gospel Jesus today challenges our notions of blessing. We may be able to see how the poor might be blessed since all of Christ’s followers are called to bring the kingdom to those such as the poor who so desperately need to experience the abundance of God’s kingdom. We may even be able to see how the hungry and the sorrowful might be blessed since it is only through hunger and sorrow that we can experience the true blessings of being filled and finding deep and lasting joy.

But where is the blessing in being hated, excluded, reviled, and defamed? In Enmegahbowh’s case, it was cause enough for him to resign of his missionary efforts, seeking to return to Canada only to be turned back by the storm and told in a vision to continue in his efforts.

Perhaps Enmegahbowh’s vision provides a link for us through Jonah. It was Jonah’s fear of being hated, excluded, reviled, and defamed that kept him from going to Nineveh. Out of fear and apprehension at being called to go to a place where his reception might at best have been bitter mockery and at worst might have brought his death, Jonah set sail for Tarshish at the far end of the Mediterranean in modern day Spain – as far as he could conceive of going from where God called him to be. When he accepted his calling and went to Nineveh, facing his fears of ill treatment as a messenger of God, his mission and ministry was blessed beyond his imagination.

In Enmegahbowh’s case, his own ministry was eventually also blessed by his perseverance in the face of his unwelcoming audience.

It seems to me that the great reward for us in heaven is that same reward that is for all who come to have faith and an ever deepening relationship with God. The same gift of eternal life with God that Jesus promised to his disciples and followers throughout his ministry in different ways.

It is through Enmegahbowh’s life, that we have a marvelous example of what all of this means for us in our lives.

We too are messengers of God, bringing the Good News of peace, salvation, and the reign of God to those around us. As Christ’s hands and heart in the world, WE are the modern day apostles, saints, and followers that are in charge of bringing God’s kingdom to those around us. We are those with the beautiful feet of the messenger, giving voice to the song of praise Isaiah foretells for all who are brought to peace, redemption, comfort, and salvation.

Yet as Christ warns his disciples, so we are warned that when we challenge the order of this world and of our societies, when we challenge the way people live, when we challenge ignorance, hatred, greed, oppression, and the hoarding of the abundance of God’s kingdom, we will not be thanked for it by the world at large.

When we think of modern day prophets such as Bishop Romero and Martin Luther King Jr., we catch a glimpse of the extremes of Christ’s warning to us that proclaiming the Good News from every mountaintop, hill, and valley will be a perilous journey. Yet we also see examples of lives that have been captured by the Spirit, lifted up and enveloped in God’s grace and the blessings of peace, compassion, love, and mercy that are a foretaste of the great reward of heaven.

We are called this day, as Enmegahbowh was called two centuries ago, to bring the Good News of God boldly to those around us through our lives, through our actions, through our example of reaching out to those around us and living as ambassadors of God’s kingdom – not as enforcers or as gatekeepers of God’s grace, proclaiming damnation for those who don’t believe as we believe, but as servants seeking to know those around us well enough to bring them God’s Good News through their own language and traditions.

God give us the courage to open our hearts to this world, seeking to love and serve those around us without the fear of consequence.

Amen.

2007-05-27T21:01:00.000-07:00

Sermon of Pentecost, 27 May 2007
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Readings: Acts 2:1-21, Psalm 104:25-35, 37, Romans 8:14-17, John 14:8-17, (25-27)

The story of Pentecost is one of our best known stories from throughout the church year. The tongues of fire dancing over each of the disciples’ heads is one of the images I remember most clearly from my childhood along with baby Jesus in the manger, Jesus walking on water, the crown of thorns, and the empty tomb.

As the most straightforward example we have in Scripture of the Holy Spirit’s presence with human kind, this story needs little in the way of explanation; but as one of the most profound examples in scripture of God doing a new thing, Pentecost is one of the most important opportunities we have in the church year to really take a deep look at our own present day chapter in salvation history – beginning with the coming of the Holy Spirit that Christ promised to us all.

Most of you by now have heard me say at some point that the disciples just didn’t get what Christ was about, what he was doing in the world, and what he was calling them to do as his followers. They were hard-headed and hard-hearted about who and what Jesus was supposed to be and do; they sought to arrange themselves into a political hierarchy that would define their positions of power once Jesus took David’s throne in Jerusalem; they sought to stay on mountaintops and when the deep valley of death finally came, they turned tail and ran away. After Christ’s death and even after his resurrection, they disbanded and headed back to their former ways of life. Finally realizing that Christ was indeed risen, and being told specifically by Christ to go back to Jerusalem to await the coming of the Holy Spirit, the disciples watched him ascend out of their sight into the heavens.

Today it is my profound joy to finally get to say that the disciples GET IT.

Gathered together in a single house, the disciples all sat together, likely chatting about old times or about the addition of Matthias to take Judas’ place as the new twelfth disciple. Suddenly there is such a loud rush of wind that people all over Jerusalem rush to find the source of the cacophonous sound to find out what has happened. Meanwhile, the disciples are at the epicenter of chaos. Wind howls through the house, filling their sitting room with a breathtaking force. From the midst of the gale fire erupts, dividing into tongues which come to rest atop each of the assembled disciples’ heads. And then… silence. Filled with awesome wonder, each of the disciples begins to speak, only to find that they each speak as if with a new tongue.

The gathering throngs, eager to find what has happened arrive to find the disciples speaking about the wonders of God’s awesome deeds of power and about God’s kingdom. What is most astonishing, however, is that each hears the disciples as if speaking in their own native tongue.

Peter, with his head as hard as stone throughout Christ’s ministry on earth, finally becomes the Rock that Christ named him for and speaks to the gathered crowd with insight, understanding, eloquence, and power – claiming his place as the leader of the early Church.

This is the Holy Spirit.

So often throughout the history of the Church we have found ourselves clinging to simpler, more containable descriptions of the Holy Spirit. The form of the dove is one that has the time honored stamp of tradition in paintings, sculpture, education, and story – a beautiful and yet tamed image for the third person of the trinity. The Holy Spirit of today’s readings, however, is anything but tame: the rush of a violent wind, filling the house and dancing in tongues of fire over its recipients who find themselves profoundly changed forever. The disciples could no longer sit on the sidelines, hiding behind Christ or hiding behind closed doors after his departure. In that moment, they became more than they had ever been, and more than they could ever have hoped to be.

In many ways, the power of the Holy Spirit can be frightening. The idea that God might just blow into our living room someday and upheave everything we know and find comfortable – leaving us changed forever – is not a comforting thought for many of us. And so we reach for the one image of the Holy Spirit that we can handle – the dove. The sign of peace, the sign of the end of the great flood, the sign that God sent to descend on Christ at his baptism. How quickly we forget that it was the same spirit that drove him into the wilderness for forty days immediately thereafter.

So what is the Holy Spirit if it can’t simply be defined as a Sweet Heavenly Dove, or even simply as wind or fire? Defined, as I believe the trinity must be, in terms of relationships, I think of the Holy Spirit as that which provides volition to God’s will and that which provides breath to drive God’s word. In Greek, a feminine word couplet “hagia pneumati” translated into English as the “Holy Spirit” literally translates to Holy or Sacred Breath. The Holy Spirit was God’s breath or wind that moved over the waters of chaos at the time of Creation. The breath of life breathed into Adam and Eve and into the Dry Bones of Ezekiel’s vision, the same breath that returned to Jesus’ body on Easter morning. She is the Spirit of prophecy that came to God’s chosen prophets in the Old Testament and, except for during Jesus’ lifetime on earth, She is God’s means of interacting with, through, and in human kind, suffusing creation with the awesome, life-changing power of God. While the Holy Spirit could be defined in countless other ways, "tame," "safe," and "docile" would not likely make the list.

As Christ promised before his death, again after his resurrection, and again at his ascension, the Holy Spirit is also, for us, the continuation of God’s salvation history amongst us in the present day.

Each of us blessed with faith has been touched by some manifestation of God in our lives, bringing us personally into this ancient and yet continually renewed history of God working very personally in and through the lives of individual people.

I was first invited to examine my faith by The Rev. Guitarman, a man who has become a dear friend and an incredible mentor to me. During my early phase of coming into the Episcopal Church as a teen, Guitarman encouraged me to become involved in the parish life at MyOldChurch in Thetownwhereitis where as many of you remember, I was tricked into attending youth group by my best friend, Grasshopper. After getting hooked on Youth Group, I started attending services and soon began looking for ways in which I could serve in the parish community. Sensing a divine opportunity to draw me further into the Church, Guitarman trained me as an acolyte, which quickly turned into me training others as acolytes, and then when I graduated high school he invited me to begin helping to lead youth group…

To make a long story short, I ended up helping to teach a confirmation class, for which Guitarman asked me to write a talk on Faith to present to the youth for our Confirmation class retreat.

It was the first opportunity I had at that point in my life to really sit and reflect on my faith and where it had come from. In retrospect, I could see that at each of the myriad crossroads I’ve encountered in my life, God was there to provide just the right person at just the right moment – almost as a signpost – to guide me in the right direction.

I have felt claimed in a very personal way by God since the time I was a very young child. At two-and-a-half, I had my first near death experience when a strep bacterium infected my right cheek. I had tripped over my cousin’s foot at my grandmother’s house and had hit my face on the corner of her oak framed television. The opening in my cheek was microscopic and after a few tears, the moment was forgotten. Within a few days, however, my cheek had turned black and blue, and had swelled so much that it swelled my eye shut. I was rushed to the hospital, where I was refused care by a medical staff that believed I was the victim of child abuse. At some point in the next few days, still awaiting care and with a life-threatening fever, I woke up in my mother’s arms, looked into her eyes and said, “Garnabus is going away now,” and promptly slipped into unconsciousness. Under what I can only imagine involved threats of malpractice, I promptly received medical attention and was scheduled for surgery for after my condition stabilized. However, when released for a night at home before the surgery a few days later, my family stopped off at a park to get me some fresh air and a stranger’s dog jumped up and scratched my face from about the corner of my eye to the middle of my infected cheek. Our own family dog, next stepped on my face in the back seat of the car, continuing the same scratch to the middle of the infected area. My cheek spontaneously drained itself and I never required the surgery that would have left a sizable scar on my face. What I have in its place is a dimple on my right cheek. – It’s been a family story ever since that God used these two dogs to perform a fairly miraculous surgery on my face.

Whatever the cause, it was a short two and a half years later, at age five, that I first articulated my desire to my parents to become a priest when I grew up.

Other signposts have come in the form of my best friend Grasshopper, who brought me to the Episcopal Church, The Rev. Guitarman asking me to write that Faith Talk in which I learned so much about where my faith had come from, and also found profound healing in my relationship with my Dad, the Happening youth retreat in which I truly experienced the movement of the Holy Spirit in a very close and personal way that profoundly changed my life and convicted me of my childhood call to the priesthood.

Again, a dear friend in 1993 convinced me that it was time to admit that “paying off my bills” could no longer be an excuse for not re-enrolling in college. She also encouraged me to become more involved in the leadership of diocesan youth ministry where at a youth minister’s retreat the following year, I spoke with an energetic young priest about my calling and, with his help, started a calling support group that has resulted in the ordination of four of our original members and the enrolling of a fifth in seminary starting last year. Of course, this also led to my staffing the Happening at which I met Fuego, introduced me to diocesan leadership that hired me in 2001 and ultimately led to my being reunited with Fuego at summer camp where we fell in love – which involved another major crossroad in my life leading to our marriage, seminary, and my eventually coming home here to St. ECWIW’s.

Looking back, it is easy to see where the Holy Spirit has profoundly touched my life in so many ways and in so many places, such that, like the disciples, I found that I could no longer sit on the sidelines, hiding behind a faceless God or hiding behind my own limitations. Each of us has our own story, our own personal salvation history in our developing and ongoing relationship with God. For Peter it involved denying Christ only to be confronted with the powerful and painful affirmations that strengthened his resolve to the point that, with the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, he could take his place as the leader of the early church. For Paul it involved a blinding encounter on the road to Damascus that shattered his previous life and set him a completely opposite course.

On this day of Pentecost, we are reminded that God has been and continues to be an active part of our personal and individual lives, and we are called to look back on that history with a profound new understanding that, through the Holy Spirit, God has been calling us to our own works of power in the world. Calling us to become more than we have ever been, and more than we could ever hope to be.

This is the Holy Spirit that the disciples encountered on Pentecost – a whirlwind of God’s breath and holy fire that baptized them with the strength, the wisdom, and the power to carry on Christ’s ministry in the world.

And this is the legacy left to us, who through Christ are baptized into the continuing family of God’s children who invite God into our lives and invite God’s Spirit to change us forever.

Paul describes the ongoing work of the Spirit as the Gifts or Fruits of the Spirit, some of which – particularly healing, pastoral care, teaching, faith, leading, and showing mercy, we celebrate right here at St. ECWIW’s today in the commissioning of our new Stephen Ministers. As a powerful example of Christ’s love and the indwelling of the Spirit, StephenMinister1, StephenMinister2, StephenMinister3, and StephenMinister4 have undergone over fifty hours of training in preparation for this ministry, which represents just one of the many Spirit filled ministries offered, led, created, and gifted by the members of our parish. In honoring their commitment this day, we honor four more lives that have been changed forever by their willingness to open their hearts to the Spirit of God that suffuses us and all of creation.

Where do you hear God's life altering winds of change blowing in your life?

2007-05-22T21:02:00.000-07:00

Sermon of 22 May 07, Tuesday of Easter 7
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Readings: Acts 20:28-38, Psalm 103:1-2, 19-22, John 17:11b-19

We find ourselves this week in one of the several liminal spaces in our church year. This past Sunday we celebrated Christ’s Ascension into Heaven which marked this past Thursday the fortieth day of Easter and the end of Christ’s presence with human kind on Earth in human form. This coming Sunday we celebrate Pentecost, the fiftieth day of Easter and the day on which the Disciples, filled with the Holy Spirit, spoke to the assembled masses, who each heard them as though spoken to in their native tongue.

This week, however, we are in a between time, beyond an ending and yet just at the threshold of a new beginning. Somewhere between the closing words of Luke’s gospel in which the Disciples watched Jesus ascend into heaven and and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and the coming of the Holy Spirit at the beginning of Luke’s Act’s of the Apostles.

During this time, the disciples are said to have blessed God ceaselessly in the temple, that they chose a new twelfth disciple to replace Judas, and that they spent a lot of time in the upper room in which they were staying.

Our readings today reflect this liminal space – an almost but not yet. Paul bids a tearful farewell to the elders at Ephesus, lamenting that he will never see them again and commissioning them in the name of the Holy Spirit to carry on as shepherds of the Ephesian church and commending his own model to them of working to support the weak. Jesus prays for God to watch over and protect his disciples in his own extended farewell address in John’s telling of the Last Supper. Jesus claims the disciples as his own, drawing them apart from the world in which he will leave them in just a few short hours seeking their sanctification and protection through God’s truth which will come fifty two days later in the coming of the Holy Spirit.

The importance of the liminal space is one that we tend to lose sight of in our modern, Western, civilized world where we seek to do everything possible to circumvent these priceless spaces of reflection and personal growth. It is the journey that is increasingly shortened as we enhance technology to get us to and from with increasing speed. It is the process that we continue to abbreviate through computer shortcuts and “virtual” experiences. It is the courtship that we continue to devalue until we arrive today at one in every three marriages failing. It is the infancy that we label as manipulative and gluttonous such that we conform it to scheduled feedings and self-soothing. It is the childhoods that we schedule and arrange to our adult schedules until there is no space for spontaneity and fun. And it is our spirituality that we increasingly diminish until it survives as a one-hour per week phenomenon that has no place in the rest of our buy lives.

There is a concept of liminal space in Celtic myth and legend that is referred to as the thin places. These are the times and places where the boundary between the physical world and the spiritual or fairy world are at their thinnest. The hour at dusk and dawn just before the sun rises and just after it sets, when colors appear almost alive with an eerie brilliance and the air itself seems to tingle with a living energy. Hidden forest glades and dells, mountain glens and hidden pools, dense fogs and mountain tops. Particularly these places during the times of dawn and dusk are where these two worlds collide and the music of fairy folk can be heard eerily piercing the silence of our physical world. And whether it be imagination or simply a profound understanding of the powerful importance of these liminal spaces and their capacity to change us in our own lives, there is something in this tradition that calls to me. It calls me out to the woods, to the ocean, to the mountains. It calls me back into those liminal spaces where my own boundaries are thin enough and my own guard lowered enough for the divine to truly touch my life.

This is the space that we are in this week. It is a similar space to that which we experienced between Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. A time of introspection, a time of preparation, a time to allow ourselves and to prepare ourselves to be changed.

Paul is in such a space as he prepares to leave Ephesus, knowing that others will come and try to lead his small vulnerable church astray. Christ is in such a space as he prepares for his own death – leaving his small vulnerable disciples behind to face the world and continue on in his stead. We experience much the same feelings as we watch those we care for venturing out on their own. Our children become more and more independent until one day they leave for college and we are left in the space of worrying and praying for their protection just as Christ and Paul did for their precious followers.

I am reminded, as a parent, just how important these liminal spaces are. Infancy itself it seems is one extended liminal space. I am honored and blessed to be brought closer to God through my daughter, Emjay, as she teaches me so much about the patience to experience and enjoy this time of boundary crossing, this time of journey, this time well spent in the thin place of her first few months on earth.

It is this awesome space that we are reminded of so poignantly in today’s scriptures. We are encouraged by Paul and by Christ’s examples to take seriously those places in our own lives, to celebrate them, to cherish them, and as the Psalmist exhorts us, to Bless the Lord for these opportunities to think about, pray about, and live in the thin places God gives us as a means to be changed forever.

God of Love, bless us this day with the presence of mind and spirit to cherish the moments of liminal space that you build into our lives and hearts. Bless us with the wisdom to seek your presence in these times and to open ourselves to your Holy Spirit that we may be profoundly touched and changed by you.

Amen.

2007-05-15T21:02:00.000-07:00

Sermon of 15 May 2007, Tuesday of Easter 6
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Readings: Acts 16:16-34, Psalm 138, John 15:26-16:4

There is an interesting interplay of point and counterpoint in today’s readings. In the story of Paul and Silas’ imprisonment we see a story of the kind of persecution Jesus predicts in John’s gospel, as well as well as the truth that they do it because they have not come to know God in Christ. When the jailor encounters God, he not only releases Paul and Silas, but asks them to his home to baptize his whole household and to share a meal with them. The same joyous proclamation is made in Psalm 138, “All the kings of the earth will praise you, O Lord, when they have heard the words of your mouth.” It is as though the Psalmist, like Christ, is telling us that when the people of this world – even the great rulers – come to experience God, they cannot help but to celebrate the encounter in joyful praise. Again we are drawn back to the Gospel where Christ tells his disciples “You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning,” drawing them, and us, into the ministry of proclaiming the Good News of God’s amazing and inexhaustible abundance and love for us.

Christ’s message and the underlying theme in today’s readings seem so simple: If those who have not known God are the source of persecution, make God known to them! Yet the most important piece of this theme and the interlinking foundation between today’s readings is something profoundly important, necessary, and mysterious.

The Advocate, the God’s Spirit of Truth – the Holy Spirit is what transforms the dense, unrefined, frequently crass and almost always misguided disciples, especially as evidenced in Peter, into the leaders of the early church and it is the same missing transformative piece that is necessary to fully grasp the importance of today’s readings.

It is not enough to simply talk about Christ or talk about God’s abundance and unfathomable love for us, but it is through God’s Spirit that we are emboldened and empowered to LIVE God’s abundance and God’s love through reaching out to those around us.

One of the amazing things that I have witnessed countless times in my life is the life-changing impact of personally encountering the Living God. It is usually the case that sometime within the first year of truly coming into a relationship with God, people want to shout the Good News from the mountaintops, to tell everyone they meet about the awesome power of God’s Spirit and how it changed their lives. What I also find is that we all too often want others to have OUR experience of God rather than simply living our lives as our “testimony” to God’s grace.

There is so much surprise in the early church when non-Jews are found to be filled with God’s spirit. There is even consternation and collective outrage when Peter first baptizes Cornelius and his family – a family of Roman gentiles, yet these stories, as the story today of the captor turned saint demonstrate so much to us still about how we understand and limit God and God’s Spirit to what WE experience as Truth.

I think one of the most eye opening experiences of my seminary career came in the winter break of my first year. Steven Charleston, bishop of Alaska and president and dean of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge Massachusetts was the keynote speaker for Epiphany West, a three day conference of workshops and lectures held at CDSP that draws clergy and lay people from all over the US.

Steven, as a Native American, spoke to us about conversion and how he could be both Christian and yet still take pride in his Native heritage and honor the religion of his ancestors. He stated that God has a first covenant with all people of this world. If one looks at the Hebrew testament with God as a guidebook to understanding how Christ's teachings offer a corrective to how Israel had strayed from their original covenant with God, one will find that Christ offers a similar corrective to one's own people's original covenant with God. He explained that one does not honor God's original covenant with one's ancestors by adopting another people's covenant with God, and so he did not become an Israelite in order to become a Christian -- rather he continues to seek to follow Christ's teachings as they apply to his ancestor's covenant with God.

I hear in Steven’s explanation an amazing truth about God and how important it is for me to bring my enthusiasm and overflowing joy in how God’s Spirit has changed me into conversation with how others experience God. In the climate of debate and mutual mistrust that we currently find our Anglican Communion, it seems to be an awesome reminder that God’s Spirit touches each of us in profoundly personal and life altering ways, but as Ernie said a couple of weeks ago, that if we insist that another experience God as we experience God, we rob them of having their own experience.

It seems to me that part of living in the awesome abundance and love of God’s kingdom is finding the kind of point and counterpoint that can only come through the intersection of our different perspectives on God.

Much in today’s scriptures demonstrate a deep and interconnected conversation about what it means to live in a world where those who have not yet come to know God will inevitably misunderstand and persecute those who have experienced the profound and life changing Spirit of God. Indeed even those who do come to know God tend to misunderstand and persecute one another! And so we are called in our lives today into that same, timeless interchange between God’s Spirit and humankind, where there are no neat and tidy ways to uniformly live out our faith, but rather we are called to engage with and act through God’s Spirit in all the myriad ways God touches our individual and collective lives. We are assured that there will be no small cause for celebration and praise for the effort!

God, give us the wisdom and grace to offer our gifts freely to one another, enhancing and deepening our faith through the multiplicity of perspectives that can only be gained through the challenges of seeing you through countless eyes of the other. May it be your will for us to know you ever more deeply through your Spirit working in us and those around us.

Amen.

2007-04-29T21:03:00.000-07:00

Sermon of 29 April 2007
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Readings: Acts 9:1-6, (7-20), Psalm 30, Revelation 5:11-14, John 21:1-19

Our readings today are two of my favorite readings from our Easter season cycles. While Saul’s is a more obvious story of calling and conversion, both stories demonstrate a profound example of God’s call, and specifically Christ’s call to us to carry on his work in the world.

A lot could be said of Saul. He was a Pharisee, a highly pious Jew, practically a zealot. He was a persecutor of Christ’s followers, approving of the stoning of Stephen and carrying off Christian men and women to prison during their mourning of Stephen’s death. His reason for being on the road to Damascus on the day of his conversion was to arrest and imprison all of the followers of Christ therein.

In his own words from his letter to the church at Philippi, Paul describes himself saying “If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”

Here was a man who knew that he was right. He had power, prestige, and an impeccable reputation spiritually as well as for getting the job done. The religious authorities in Jerusalem were only too glad to give him papers for the arrest of Christ’s followers in Damascus.

Then the unthinkable happens. Saul’s clear vision of what was right and who he was met up with God’s clear vision of what was right and who Saul must become. On the road to Damascus, Paul’s vision was taken away from him in a very literal way with the bright flash of light. From the ground where he lay stunned, Saul cries out to the unknown voice of God in Christ, seeking to know how he could have been persecuting the same God that he so blamelessly served.

Spiritually blinded by the devastation of his false vision, and physically blinded as a bodily manifestation of God’s work in leading him out of darkness into the light of Christ, Saul is led by his companions into the very city he had come to persecute. Such was his emotional, physical, and spiritual distress that Saul could neither eat nor drink for three days.

We see in this story Saul’s own metaphorical Easter passion. With the flash of light and Holy condemnation of all that he had worked his whole life to become, we see the death of Saul, who, through Christ is resurrected as Paul after three days in the dark stasis of blindness and confusion during which he neither ate nor drank – another metaphor for bodily death.

Ananias, risking his own life as the women had risked theirs in coming to the tomb on Easter morning, goes to Saul to pray over him. However, it was Saul who suddenly found clear sight of the risen messiah in this encounter. At Ananias’ prayer, scales fell from Saul’s eyes and his resurrection and conversion were completed with his Baptism and taking of food.

The taking of food is yet another symbol of resurrection. In the stories in the gospels in which Jesus resurrects Lazarus and Jairus’ daughter, he exhorts the family and bystanders of those they resurrected to give them something to eat. Jesus’ own resurrection appearances to the disciples similarly surrounded food where Christ was made known in the breaking of the bread in Emmaus, where he prepared breakfast for his disciples on the beach in Galilee, and where the disciples gave him broiled fish to eat in Jerusalem.

In Saul’s resurrection, as he later tells the Corinthians, he has become a new creation. Taking a new name for himself as Paul, he accepts Jesus’ call and sets out on a journey that lasts him the rest of his life as he proclaims the Good News of Christ.

John’s Gospel tells us a similar story today in Christ’s resurrection appearance to the disciples on the beach.

The disciples, disillusioned and defeated after Christ’s death, had already begun to split up and return to their previous lives. Of those with Peter in today’s reading, there totaled seven of the eleven remaining disciples after Judas’ betrayal. They had already made their way back to Galilee, their home from even before they set out to follow Jesus. Peter, having denied Christ three times in the High Priest’s courtyard has reconnected with his scattered friends and, disappointed that their hopes and dreams in Jesus were too good to be true, decides it is time to get back to the business of living life. He announces to his friends that he is going fishing. They join him, reclaiming the remains of their lives by going back to the one thing they had always known. The trouble was it didn’t work. They spent all night out on the sea, catching nothing but their own troubled thoughts in the aftermath of Christ’s death.

From the beach, around the time of dawn, a man calls out to them, guessing that they had caught nothing. They confirm his guess and he tells them to cast one more time on the other side of the boat. Sensing the déjà vu of the moment, and sunk in their own thoughts they thoughtlessly obey, perhaps thinking back on the good old days when Jesus would tell them to do something similarly pointless only to achieve miraculous results.

When the miraculous occurs, John guesses immediately that it is Christ, announcing it to Peter, who dives into the water, swimming toward his Lord and Savior for all he’s worth.

The familiar theme of food is present in the charcoal fire where fish and bread are warming in the cool hours of dawn.

What draws my attention more than any other part of this story, however, is what happens after breakfast.

“Simon son of John, do you love me more than these,” Christ asks. “Then feed my lambs.”
Again, Christ asks him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” … “Then tend my sheep”
A third time, Christ asks him, “Simon son of John, do you love me? ... “Then feed my sheep.”

By the third time, Peter is hurt by Christ’s questioning of him, but I very much believe that Jesus is doing something very intentional through this interaction. Just a few weeks earlier, Peter had denied knowing Jesus three times while Jesus was in the custody of the Jewish religious leaders at the High Priest’s house. Peter’s world had come crashing down on him when he realized what he had done, and had fled into the waning hours of the night.

Now reunited with his friends in the company of Jesus, Peter is asked to affirm his love and commitment to Jesus, once for each denial.

Perhaps it is just because Peter is a bit thick that Jesus does this, but whatever the reason, Jesus reaffirms his faith in Peter, asking him to carry on his work in the world. No more is he to try to return to life before Christ. He was no longer a fisher of fish, but had already become the fisher of people that Christ had originally told him he would make of him. What he lacked was the confidence to carry on as a leader in continuing Christ’s ministry. Jesus had always been their teacher, their leader, their guide. In this encounter, Jesus commissions Peter to the work that he had been preparing all the disciples for over the past three years of ministry together.

We know from the Acts of the Apostles that Peter, strengthened beyond imagination by his denial of Christ and subsequent forgiveness and commissioning on that beach, carried on boldly, faithfully, and was finally able to be that rock that Christ told him he was founding his church on.

Something profound happened in that moment. At what must have been the low point of his life, Peter finally understood what Christ had been trying to teach him for three years. It wasn’t about Peter or any of the other disciples, it never had been. It was about being an instrument of God’s incredible abundance and, through prayer and willingness to serve God’s purpose in the world, to bring the reign of God near to all those with whom he came into contact.

For the rest of his life, Peter carried on Christ’s mission with the rest of the re-gathered eleven remaining original disciples, adding Stephen to make them twelve again. He performed signs and wonders through prayer, demonstrating God’s reign just as Christ had done in his life and ministry, but never again confusing his service and glorification of God with glorifying himself.

In a very real sense, Peter was converted just as Paul was converted – from a false vision of Truth to a new and invigorating vision of God’s Truth that propelled them both into lifelong service to the Good News of God.

In these two profound examples of God calling Peter and Paul to newness of life and to become new creations through Christ, we are encouraged to look with new eyes on our own vision of God’s truth, and to examine where God calls us to newness of life and recreates us every day to be Christ’s hands and heart in the world.

Each of us has the capacity to bring God’s reign near to those around us. Each of us has the capacity to demonstrate God’s abundance through reaching out to lift up and draw those around us into Christ’s community of love.

...

At the end of today’s reading, Christ speaks of the aging process – reminding Peter of the freedoms of carefree youth compared to the responsibilities that come with aging. As some of you may have noticed tonight, I have just entered a new phase in my own aging process as my wife, Fuego, and I have just brought home a beautiful baby girl that we’re in the process of adopting. What Jesus speaks of in this passage becomes abundantly clear to me as I have the belt of fatherhood placed around my waste and no longer have the flexibility to go wherever I want to go whenever I want to go there. I now have an amazing new life that I am responsible for. I wake when she wakes to care for her needs rather than my own. I feed her and seek her comfort before my own. I have a new schedule that revolves around feedings, naps, bath-time, and bedtime. Of course, there are amazing rewards to taking on this new yoke in my life, ones I wouldn’t trade for all the freedoms of my youth!

So it is for Peter today as Christ bids him to take up the yoke of responsibility for all of Christ’s flock.

By accepting Christ’s challenge to affirm him and this new calling of leadership three times, Peter not only undoes the damage done to his own self esteem and self confidence from Good Friday’s denials, but he accepts Christ’s yoke just as freely and with gladness in his heart as I have accepted Emjay as my daughter. No longer does he have the freedom to wander back to his old life and hide from his troubles out on the sea, fishing. Where he had previously only considered himself a follower of Christ, he finally understands that in order to be a follower of Christ, he must be willing to carry on in Christ’s name and to take up the kind of servant leadership that Jesus demonstrated throughout his life and ministry. And as frightening as that might have been before meeting Jesus on that beach, in the moment of affirming his love for Christ and his commitment to carrying on Christ’s teachings, Peter is changed forever. He will never look back wishing for the past again, no matter how tight the new belt becomes, it is worth it.

May the wisdom, love, peace, and inspiration of your continued calling be a light and joyful burden as you seek to bear the light of Christ to all those around you.

Amen.

2007-04-17T21:04:00.001-07:00

Sermon of Tuesday, 17 April 2007, Alphege of Canterbury
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Readings: Revelation 7:13-17, Psalm 31 p. 622, Luke 12:4-12

Yesterday morning, a 23-year-old Virginia Tech student, killed thirty-three people – two in a dorm, then 30 more 2 hours later in a classroom building where he chained the door closed to prevent escape. His own suicide brought the death toll to 33, making the shooting rampage the most deadly in U.S. history. Fifteen others were wounded – either by gun fire or by jumping out of windows to escape.

It was very intentionally that I chose the readings for Alphege today. As a Christian martyr who served as bishop during the second wave of Scandinavian invasions and settlement in England, Alphege was captured by the Danes in 1011. When he refused to allow a personal ransom to be collected from his already over-burdened people, he was brutally murdered. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates that the Danes took the Bishop, and led him to their hustings, on the eve of the Saturday after Easter . . . and then they shamefully killed him.

In commemorating those who have been shamefully, needlessly, and tragically killed, we frequently think back on those who have suffered in the past as a means to find some measure of reassurance or comfort or hope that life as we know it will someday return.

The recent history of school killings has been alarming and tragic. With the addition yesterday of the tragic killing of thirty-three people at Virginia Tech, we are reminded again of the terrible tragedy of tortured and troubled people in our own close communities taking out their pain on others around them.

It is likely, especially in a community such as D-Town, that we are all feeling the heavy weight of this tragedy. The question at times like these frequently becomes, “where is God to be found in all of this?” As in cases such as Columbine, and the forty-five other schools in the US, Canada, and Europe that have experienced tragic shootings over the past eleven years, I believe God weeps with us. We know from Jesus’ experience with Lazarus’ death and Christ’s own death on the cross that the depth of human suffering is certainly not alien to God. Just as Jesus wept to see the suffering of Lazarus’ friends and family, so too, God weeps with us in each of our life’s tragedies.

As we are reminded in Revelation and Luke today, this precious time that we have on Earth is not our final destination. God never intends our suffering – suffering that so frequently comes at the hand of the free choice of others to do harm. But we are reminded, and we take comfort in knowing that God is always with us – in tragedy and sorrow as well as in joy and exultation. God’s love for us knows no bounds and I believe very deeply that God was with each of those frightened and suffering people yesterday just as God is with their families and friends and the rest of us as we mourn their loss.

I want to keep my own words short today to allow the opportunity for some silent prayer and candle lighting in memory of the three professors and thirty students who were killed yesterday. Please feel free to come forward at this time to light a candle.

2007-04-01T21:05:00.000-07:00

Sermon of 1 April 2007, Palm Sunday
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Readings: (Liturgy of the Palms: Luke 19:28-40), Isaiah 50:4-9a, Psalm 31:9-16, Philippians 2:5-11, Luke 22:14-23:56

There is a great converging series of stories that come together in today’s readings. As Jesus moves from Jericho into Jerusalem, shares his last meal with his disciples, pleads with God in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives, is arrested, tried, brought before Pilot and Herod, condemned, crucified, and laid in the tomb, the focus of the story switches to incorporate all of the various key influences from the three years of Jesus’ ministry from the time of his Baptism to his fateful meeting with Pontius Pilot.

From Bethany to Jerusalem the story is primarily about the disciples and other followers of Christ, intent on setting him on the Davidic throne and overthrowing Roman occupation of Israel. From the entry into Jerusalem to Jesus arrest the story’s focus splits between Jesus last supper with the disciples, Judas’ betrayal of Christ and the disintegration of Jesus’ support from his closest disciples (especially Peter), Christ’s very human struggle with what he was about to face, and the ongoing conflict between the religious authorities and Jesus which comes to a head with Jesus’ so called “trial” before the Sanhedrin. From the dawn following Jesus’ arrest through his crucifixion, the story becomes the Roman trial and execution of a Jewish political despot. At the last, this is a story of faith. The late-found faith of the centurion contrasting with the painful absence of Jesus’ followers at the foot of the cross (who stood watching from a distance), and of a compassionate member of the Sanhedrin who requests Jesus’ body from Pilate for a proper burial as Jesus’ female disciples follow at a distance to see where he is laid so that they can prepare spices and ointments for his embalming after the Sabbath day.

What is particularly amazing to me is how different the story looks from each of these perspectives. When Jesus approached Jerusalem to the shouts of praise and blessing of his adoring followers, he had no false pretense of what was going to happen. He had tried to tell his disciples on at least three different occasions before arriving here that he would be handed over to suffering and death when they came to Jerusalem. This was not a “triumphal” entry of the messianic King of Israel who would take the throne of David and usher in a time of peace and prosperity. This was a funeral march in the making, and Jesus alone knew what it all truly meant. His last meal with the disciples was as the experience of a modern death-row inmate being given his last meal. Making a final attempt to explain what was going to happen, he tells them one more time that he’s going to suffer, and what they must prepare to do in his absence. Foretelling his own betrayal, he heads out to the garden to pray.

Here we must draw on some of the other gospels to fill in just how dire this last hour of freedom is for Jesus. Matthew and Mark tell us that Jesus was “deeply grieved, even unto death,” that he was grieved to his very core. In deep despair he throws himself to the ground and prays out of this grief and despair – pleading three times for some other way to complete God’s will but ultimately submitting to God’s will over his own human fear and apprehension. The expanded version of Luke’s gospel states that an “angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength” and that “In his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.” Jesus, the perfect hybrid of God and Human, breaks down in a final moment of human weakness in the face of bitter suffering and sacrificial death. Then, accepting his fate, he meets Judas’ betrayal with nothing more than an admonition for betraying him with the same kiss of peace that we share with one another every Sunday. The customary greeting of trust and mutual good-will between friends.

Stoic throughout his trial, Jesus simply recognizes the words of his accusers – “you say so,” or “so you have said,” or “as you say.” He takes pause twice – once to meet Peter’s eye at the cock’s crow and again to speak to the “daughters of Jerusalem.” Deserted by his followers at this point, Christ’s words seem raw and harsh as he recognizes that unless his disciples and followers turn again to his teachings after he is gone, everything he taught would be lost.

Christ’s last three statements remind us of his amazing capacity to forgive and show compassion, as well as his amazing and abiding faith that remains unto the very end. At his crucifixion, abandoned, beaten, and nailed to his cross, he prays on behalf of his executioners, his absent friends, his followers who became some of the very people who demanded his death when he refused to be what they expected: “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” To the thief who shows repentance and faith, he promises the same kingdom that he has spent his whole ministry proclaiming. And with his final breath, he commends his spirit to God.

The same story from the disciples’ standpoint is the penultimate moment of their three-year campaign to gain momentum in the movement to put messiah on the throne in Jerusalem. This is the moment they and all of Christ’s followers have awaited. With shouts of exultation and praise, they welcome Christ the King to the gates of the city, eagerly anticipating the expulsion of their roman occupiers and the promised reign of God’s chosen messiah. In their quest, they fulfill prophecy by bringing Jesus the colt that it was foretold messiah would ride into the city. At their celebration dinner with Jesus, they share the bread and cup with their teacher, master, and Christ. Amidst some disturbing talk about betrayal and Judas storming out, they talk about which of them is the greatest and who will sit beside the great throne of David when the battle is done and Jesus is crowned. Jesus continues to confuse them with words of impending doom. Peter assured him that he would be there fighting by his side to the very end, even if they must endure a loss and face death, he would be ever be his champion. Others were similarly quick to reassure their doubting savior that they would support him to the very end and produced swords to demonstrate their readiness for the coming struggle.

Jesus had been gloomy before. The disciples remembered the other times when he spoke of impending doom. He seemed almost inconsolable at those times, even likening Peter to Satan when he tried to reassure Jesus that God would bring them victory. They struggled to support their distressed friend, grieving for his doubts and accompanying him to the garden to pray. In their own grief they fell asleep, weary from worrying about Jesus and the coming battle. Suddenly their was a crowd coming, led by Judas, one of their own – the one Jesus said would betray him. They brandished their swords, seeking to protect Jesus while the rest of his followers were absent. Peter cut off the ear of the High Priest’s slave with a quick slash of the sword and prepared himself for the onslaught. The few disciples present were shocked when Jesus told them to put down their swords and healed the High Priest’s Slave. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be! This wasn’t what was to become of Messiah! The other disciples fled as Jesus was bound and led away, but Peter followed at a distance, speechless, hurt, and confused. He had to figure out what was going on.

When the crowd who had abducted Jesus lit a fire in the courtyard of the High Priest’s house, Peter crept near and warmed himself, trying to gain some information on what was going on. Fearful of being chased away or apprehended himself, and not being able to come to Jesus rescue, he denied a servant girl who remarked that she thought she had seen him with Jesus. Again later, another passerby suggested the same. Peter denied again, trying to remain inconspicuous and anonymous. Finally he was confronted by another who recognized him as a Galilean. He loudly denounced his knowledge of Jesus, desperately trying to return to his thoughts and plans. It was at that moment that the rooster crowed. Peter looked up into the eyes of Jesus and the reality of what had happened came crashing down on him. He, like the other disciples, abandoned Jesus, ran off into the remains of the night, weeping bitterly.

The next day, the tattered remains of Jesus once proud followers received the news that Jesus would be killed by crucifixion. Shocked to their very core at this news, their last hopes of Jesus’ messianic reign were crushed. Anonymous and unnoticed by their patriarchal society, some of the women amongst his closest followers met him along the road from Pilot’s courtyard to the place of the skull. They wept bitterly, wailing for him until he turned and addressed them. In their despairing grief, they could not understand all that he said, but it was something about not crying for him, but for themselves and the state of the world that would crucify God’s own messiah. Away in the distance, they caught sight of the rest of the disciples and some other followers of Jesus. They went and joined them, watching silently and bitterly from a safe distance away. They were shamed, crushed, confused, hopeless. How could their faith have come to this? Dejected and afraid, only the women remained still watching when a member of the Sanhedrin came and took Jesus body away for burial. They followed him at a distance, planning to come back after the Sabbath to anoint him for his proper final rest. Seeing where he was laid, they too finally returned home to observe Sabbath and ponder in their hearts all that had happened this dark and bleak day.

As for the Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and Priests, this was the last straw. Jesus had been causing a raucous now for what must have been the past three years. Their position with the Roman authorities was already one of privileged disregard, and Jesus’ teachings and gathering of multitudes of Jews and even some non-Jews had certainly drawn attention to them. If Jesus previously hadn’t strained the deference afforded to Jews under Roman occupation, certainly this mob scene at the very gates of Jerusalem would! Who was this man anyway? He challenged their authority openly amongst the people and in the synagogues, he mocked them, called them hypocrites, disobeyed Jewish laws of ritual and purity, spoke with authority about scripture, and claimed to have authority over sin, sickness, and even death! He had frequently endangered their already tenuous autonomy under Rome, and this was the last straw. “Tell your disciples to be quiet!” they pleaded with him to no avail. (He made some snide comment about rocks crying out if the people were silenced.) At last they received a break when one of Jesus own disciples came to his senses and offered them inside information on where and when to find him vulnerable.

Everyone knew that Judas was a conflicted man. Some called him a thief, others thought he had a demon tempting and torturing him. Some just thought that he was afraid Jesus really might try to start a revolution against Rome, which he didn’t believe they could win. Whatever the cause, Jesus knew his heart and called him on it at dinner that night. Staggering under the accusation that hit so close to home, he had left enraged and gone straight to the temple authorities. Later he realized that he was almost solely responsible for Jesus being tortured and crucified. He tried to repent of his decision, which at the time had seemed like the only thing to do. If he didn’t have demons before, they certainly plagued him for the rest of his short life. He was found dead a short time after Christ’s death. Some speculated he had bought the field he died in with the money he’d been given for betraying Jesus, others that he had hanged himself out of grief and remorse.

None of that mattered to the temple authorities. They gladly accepted Judas’ help and followed him straight to that little garden on the Mount of Olives. True to his word, Judas walked up to Jesus and kissed him, signaling the authorities to arrest Jesus, which they gladly did. Unable to find reasonable cause for his arrest, they finally accused Jesus of blasphemy and demanded that he be executed. This would certainly appease Rome as well as ridding them of this menace to their authority and way of life. Nicodemus and an Arimathean named Joseph protested and voted against their decision, but the wisdom of the council ultimately prevailed and Jesus was taken to the Roman authorities to carry out the sentence of death.

For some reason the Roman authorities seemed reluctant to carry out the sentence. The governor, Pilate, shuffled him off to Herod, who happened to be in town, but Herod sent him back, agreeing that he was certainly no threat to them, nor guilty of anything worthy of the punishment for insurrectionists and the other lowest criminal dregs. Pilot, himself reluctant because of a warning from his wife of a dream she’d had, recognized the crowd’s need for blood and had Jesus flogged. Trying then to release Jesus, the temple authorities incited the crowd to demand for his crucifixion, which finally Pilate agreed to carry out for them, having first washed his hands of Jesus’ blood. They all mocked and derided Jesus, and the temple authorities were all that much more sure of their actions because of Jesus’ apparent inability to save himself. Surely if he were the messiah, God would not have allowed this to happen to him.

Throughout the proceedings, the long walk to Golgotha, the placing of the cross on some hapless schmuck in town from Cyrene, the meeting of the women at the gate of the city, and the crucifixion, a Centurian silently and vigilantly held his post. A man of few words, he was yet somehow moved by this particular execution. Who was this man who prayed to his God for his executioners’ forgiveness? Whom even the most base and wretched criminal crucified on his right stood up for with his dying breath? Who gave his own last breath in praise of the same God who allowed him to come to this end? And why was the crowd so somber as they departed, with far off bystanders weeping to see this man die? He certainly does not die as others do. Even humiliated, broken, and hung up to die, he somehow commands respect and dignity. And with that thunder and the ground quaking at the very moment he died… could it be? Oh my God, what have we done.

Each of the strands of this story has something to teach us about faith, each has something to contribute to our understanding of God, each holds some key to God’s purpose. But perhaps the most important lesson we can take away from our readings this Sunday is simply the willingness to let the story unfold within us. We are each the disciples, striving to understand and yet missing the point. We are each the council elders trying to do what is best and blindly reaching out in faith that what we have done can be used to further God’s will, we are each Pilot confronted with impossible choices that no matter what we choose cannot appease the situation, we are each Nicodemus, struggling in the dark to try to find our way to Christ, we are each Joseph of Arimathea, standing up for what is right and just, and eking out what little justice we can control, we are each the centurion, mysteriously finding God in the most unlikely places, and we are each even Judas – struggling against our own personal dilemmas of faith.

As we enter into Holy Week and move toward the great triumph of Christ’s resurrection, it is with hope that we take on the story of Christ’s passion so that we can also take on the story of his resurrection. Let us watch and pray as the story continues to unfold within us and Christ’s triumph becomes our triumph.

Amen.

2007-03-27T21:06:00.000-07:00

Sermon of 27 March 2007, Tuesday of Lent 5
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Readings: II Kings 4:18-21, 32-37, Psalm 17:1-8, John 11:1-7, 18-44

The Strong themes of resurrection in today’s readings send us the clear message that the time of Lent is drawing to a close.

In this final week of preparation before we arrive at Palm Sunday and Holy Week, we are given two amazing stories of resurrection that foreshadow Christ’s death and resurrection in the coming two weeks. It is a profound and timely opportunity to reflect on God’s healing power reaching even beyond the grave to restore us to life and a right place with God, and it is a remarkable opportunity to continue this past Sunday’s themes of God doing something new as we reflect on the agency of prophet and messiah in the resurrection of the Shunammite woman’s child and of Lazarus in comparison with God’s own direct agency in Christ’s resurrection on Easter morning.

I have always loved the story from second Kings. One of two resurrection stories in the Hebrew Bible, it is a powerful example of God’s presence with Elijah and Elisha. I have also been fascinated by the description of Elisha’s actions in this story as it so closely resembles our modern practices of mouth to mouth resuscitation and chest compressions associated with CPR.

The story of Lazarus is similarly amazing, particularly the raw physicality of Martha’s warning of the stench associated with a body’s decay after four days in the tomb. This is also one of the few times in the Gospels that we really see Jesus’ humanity portrayed through his own emotional response to events around him. That Jesus is said to be greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved, to the point of weeping, gives us a very real sense of the love he feels for Lazarus, Martha and Mary, as well as giving us that rare glimpse of the human person of the Christ.

The physicality of these stories is, for me, part of their importance as we move into Holy Week next week. The foreshadowing of Christ’s very human response to Lazarus’ death will be mirrored in his despair in the garden of Gethsemane when he pleads with God to remove the cup from his lips just as his powerful faith in resurrecting Lazarus will carry him in the garden to conclude “yet not my will, but yours be done.”

God’s will is a tricky thing to discern, especially where our healing is concerned. We believe very deeply that God wants us to be happy and healthy, but to what extent is that a spiritual reality and to what extent a physical one? We’ve all known people who have an extraordinary faith and a profound and inexplicable happiness and spiritual health while in the midst of a most debilitating and sometimes terminal illness. We’ve also known, many of us first hand, of the awesome healing power of God on our physical bodies as well, and we believe in the power of prayer to aid our bodies in the healing process. But where is that line?

I think Christ points us pretty directly to that place with his resignation to following God’s will. Our two stories both remind us that we are always to bring our cares and concerns to God, especially our prayers for healing and wellbeing. The Psalmist today demonstrates the spirituality of our faith in prayer, asking God to “give heed to my cry; listen to my prayer, which does not come from lying lips.” The Shunammite woman pleads for her son’s life with God and with Elisha, Martha and Mary both plead with Jesus, knowing that Lazarus would have survived if he had been there, and venturing to believe beyond hope that Christ could yet comfort them. Christ surprises them with his willingness to bear the physical stench of deteriorating flesh and demonstrates God’s amazing providence through a miracle that went even beyond what their faith taught them to expect. As Jesus will so beautifully demonstrate next week in the Garden of Gethsemane, we are to bring our prayers of hope and even hopelessness before God, knowing that God’s will prevails in all things and seeking God’s comfort and healing wherever God wills. Where it sometimes may not be God’s will for us to find physical healing, we clearly see through Christ that it is always God’s will to sustain us and give us spiritual health.

I have two stories of my own today to help illustrate what I think I mean =o)

When Fuego was about five years old, she drowned. She had a particular love for ducks, and while out playing with her sister by their Aunt’s lake, she was feeding the ducks some bread. Seeing that one duckling in particular wasn’t getting any bread, Fuego leaned out further and further over the bank to try to get the bread out to the little one, until she lost her footing and fell into the water. She remembers struggling to the surface twice before she lost consciousness. Her sister froze in shock and could only stand watching in horror as her little sister drowned. Thankfully, Fuego's dad checked in on the girls at just the right time and came running to pull Fuego out of the water. By God’s grace, he was able to expel the water from her lungs and resuscitate her. Much as Elisha was able to raise the Shunammite woman’s son back to life, Fuego was given another chance through her dad.

Another friend of mine, Designgirl, was stricken with a rare disease that few survive. While she miraculously survived the illness, her kidneys were destroyed in the process and she was placed on the transplant list. For three years she did an abdominal fluid exchange two to three times per day. She was constantly at risk of infection and was limited in what she could eat and drink and do. During that time, she remained one of the most positive and uplifting people you could hope to meet. She spoke openly about her condition and her hopes and dreams for the future, and went on living her life to the fullest she was able. While this particular story also has a happy ending, many similar examples of the amazing ability people have within physical illness to achieve a profound spiritual vitality and peace end more abruptly. As for Designgirl, after three years of waiting, she received a kidney from her own mother, which her body accepted. She lives a fairly normal life now and hers was the first wedding I performed after being ordained a priest last June.

As we approach Holy Week and Easter, let us take some time this last week to examine our own miracles of both flesh and spirit. I know God has given me more second chances than I could possibly deserve in my life, and while I am profoundly grateful, I am constantly mindful of those around me who, though they may not have been given the same physical second chances, have yet been profound examples to me and to others around them of spiritual health and vitality. Given the option of questioning why or just praising God for giving me the opportunity to continue serving God’s will in this world, I will take the road of Praise.

Christ demonstrates to us today in Lazarus’ resurrection that God’s healing power has no limits. At the same time, we’re given the unique opportunity to witness God’s own grief through Christ at the suffering we experience at the loss of a loved one. Whether in sickness, health, or even in the grave, we are given the opportunity in today’s readings to truly see and believe that God is with us. As the Psalmist pleads with God today, so too we can be assured that God hears our pleas and cries.

May we too be kept as the apple of God’s eye, hidden under the shadow of God’s healing, loving, and compassionate mothering wings. And as we close our Lenten season this week, may we take those final moments of reflection to truly praise God for hearing our prayers and for being with us always as we continue to strive to discern and do God’s will in the world.

Amen.

2007-03-25T23:25:00.000-07:00

I'm sad that it's been since January since I've blogged! I'm blogging for two of my classes this semester, which is taking up pretty much all of my blogging time... but it's spring break, so I'm taking a few minutes to catch up!

I finished writing my thesis a couple of weeks ago and will be defending it on Tuesday of Holy Week (3 April). I'm really excited, but also pretty nervous. With so much happening in the Anglican Communion since I submitted it, I'm going to have a lot to answer for that's not in there, so I'm trying to keep up on all the latest news. I guess that's one of the downfalls of being topical ;o)

The two big events on the horizon are Fuego's 30th birthday coming up the week after Easter (I can't wait to take a little holiday of my own and hang out with some good friends), and the "Phone Call" that could come ANY DAY NOW to let us know we have a baby!

We've been preparing now since last October, and pretty much everything is in order now. We've been officially approved by the agency -- everything is signed and filed -- so now we're just keeping a sharp ear out for the phone to ring.

When we signed our home study last Monday, our social worker told us that we could expect to wait about two or three weeks before the phone could start ringing, but it could be shorter than that as well. The initial wait is the agency getting our file out to the agencies around CA, after which they'll give us a ring anytime they have a potential match! When they call they'll give us a synopsis of the information they have on the child -- age, gender, any known disabilities, family situation, etc., and then if we think it might be a match, we set up a meeting where they give us the "full disclosure" on the child. If we still think it's a match, we get to meet them and the next stage is bringing them home (wow).

This has been quite a process for us and we're entirely stoked about it.

Ginger and Fred have been exercising every skill they have to prepare us during these past few weeks... it seems they can sense that we're close to having a major change in our family dynamic, and they are NEEEEEEDY right now. They give us constant attention, whine, yowl, lick, nip at our ankles, snuggle up to us on the couch and the bed, beg to be picked up and played with -- pretty much anything they can do to focus every bit of our attention that they can get on themselves. Since most of you know us pretty well, you've probably guessed that we love it.

I think fuego even posted some pictures of me "slinging" Fred whilst finishing my thesis. (That's a terribly under used word, "whilst," I rather like it =o). When I'm enmeshed in homework up to my ears, the last thing I need is a kitty biting my ankles, jumping repeatedly on my lap, patting his paws at my face and laying down on my keyboard. Unable to explain to my feline first born that "daddy is busy," I can't just shun his love when it isn't "convenient," so I tried out the baby's sling on him and he loves it. He goes to sleep for a couple of hours, I get to finish my homework for the night in peace, and everyone is happy. I realize that it is good that I'm finishing school in a month and a half since I don't think Fred would really understand why there would be a new pink primate in HIS sling rather than him when I'm doing my homework ;o)

2007-03-13T21:07:00.000-07:00

Sermon of 13 March 2007, Tuesday of Lent III
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Readings: Song of the Three Young Men 2-4 and 11-20 (also known as the Prayer of Azariah, Song of the Three Jews, Apocryphal Daniel, insertion between Daniel 3:23 and 3:24, or as addition after Daniel 12:13), Psalm 25:3-10, Matthew 18:21-35

Forgiveness is a strong theme in today’s readings. Coming in the third week of Lent, this serves as a powerful reminder of the themes of repentance and forgiveness that characterize much of this season.

The song of the three young men comes from Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego as they walk unharmed through the fires of King Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace after refusing to bow down and worship the golden statue he has erected. Azariah is the Hebrew name of Abednego before his Babylonian exile where the king renames him and his companions. This prayer is particularly powerful as Azariah, in the midst of a profound miracle of God’s protection and favor, takes the opportunity to pray for all of Israel, that God might forgive them and restore them from captivity to their former glory. He repents for all of Israel, offering in place of burnt offerings and sacrifices, contrite hearts and humble spirits, and offering himself and his rescued companions as a symbolic sacrifice, having been cast into the furnace for their faith and loyalty to God. As the story continues, they are called out of the furnace by Nebuchadnezzar, who repents of his own act and honors God, offering protection to Shadrach Meshach and Abednego and promoting them to positions of honor in Babylon.

Our Psalm today give us another splendid example of a prayer of repentance. Modeling the humble and contrite heart that Azariah offers in repentance in the Song of the Three Young Men, the Psalm concludes with the simple and honest prayer: For your Name’s sake, O Lord, * forgive my sin, for it is great.

Taking the theme one step further, Jesus tells the parable of the wicked servant in today’s gospel. The parable sets up an absurd contrast to demonstrate God’s forgiveness for us and our relatively pitiful failure of compassion and forgiveness for one another. The first servant owed his master ten thousand talents, which was forgiven him. Yet he refused to forgive the hundred denarii his fellow servant owed him. To put this in perspective, it’s important to note that a denarius is the day’s wage of a laborer in the field. So to be fair, the second slave did owe the first about three and a half month’s wages. A talent, on the other hand is worth a year’s wages. So what was forgiven the first slave by his master would have been ten-thousand years worth of a day laborer’s wages. It is absurd in the first place that any master would loan his servant more money than he could repay in a hundred lifetimes, and it is even more absurd that after having experienced the awesome forgiveness of so crippling a debt that this servant would jail a fellow servant for owing him an infinitesimally insignificant debt by comparison.

The message of course, is that we are to forgive one another as God forgives us. The warning, however, that comes with this parable seems to me to be more than simply that God will withhold forgiveness if we fail to forgive our brothers and sisters. I don’t believe that God works that way.

God’s love for us is unconditional, and as such there is nothing that can separate us from God’s love and forgiveness. We, however can separate ourselves from God, and when we hold resentment, anger, fear, and hate for another in our heart, we distance ourselves from God until we have become estranged from God’s presence and alienate ourselves from God’s love and forgiveness. It is in this light that we must come to understand repentance.

I very much believe that Repentance is for us. God does not need it in order to forgive us – indeed God has already forgiven us and continues loving us no matter what. We, however, who have alienated ourselves from God through our own self-centeredness and through our unwillingness to forgive, need repentance in order to turn around and see that God has not moved away from us, but that we have turned our backs on and moved away from God.

Jesus' exhortation at the end of this parable is a message speaking to the necessity of the human heart to forgive in order to heal and to fully accept God’s love and forgiveness for us.

Just as the first servant could not fully appreciate and experience the forgiveness shown to him because of his own callous heart, we cannot fully appreciate and experience God’s love and forgiveness for us when we hold onto resentment of others.

I had an abuser when I was a child. It was a family member who will go unnamed, but it was frequent and it was crushing. I was terrified of this person and yet I had to live with them practically every day. The rest of my family and I finally escaped this person when I was about ten years old, and I resented both that person and the time we were still forced to spend together. Although the abuse stopped, I continued being a victim both through my own resentment and through the trauma I had experienced in the daily verbal abuse and frequent physical punishment that would be considered physical abuse by any modern standard. I was twenty years old when I finally found forgiveness for this person. There was no repentance, nor any seeking of forgiveness by this individual, but through God’s grace, I experienced forgiveness for this person in my heart and it has made a world of difference in who I was and who I am today. For me the forgiveness and love came within a couple of years of experiencing the profound love and forgiveness of God for the first time at the Happening retreat I speak of frequently. Having been forgiven the debt of a hundred lifetimes by God, I found the forgiveness necessary to begin building a healthy and reconciled relationship with my relative.

Until I gave up the resentment and anger I held in my heart, I continued to be the victim in that relationship and I continued to separate myself from God’s forgiveness of my own shameful actions and thoughts. In this way, what Christ teaches us in today’s parable is profoundly and deeply true for any of us who have experienced the awesome power of forgiveness in our own hearts. It isn’t because of any lack of forgiveness on God’s part, but it is entirely because of our ability to forgive that we can become open to receive forgiveness.

Thus it is through true repentance and through our own willingness to forgive that we come to accept God’s forgiveness and reopen ourselves to God’s love.

God give us the strength this Lent to forgive those who have hurt or angered us, give us the wisdom to seek your forgiveness when we have separated ourselves from you, and give us the grace to recognize in our hearts when we have turned our backs on you. We thank you for your gift of love.

Amen.

2007-02-25T21:08:00.000-08:00

Sermon of 25 February 2007, First Sunday of Lent
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Readings: Deuteronomy 26:1-11, Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16, Romans 10:8b-13, Luke 4:1-13

The temptation of Christ immediately following his Baptism is one of the earliest stories I remember from the Bible. I’m not sure when I first heard it as a child, but for some reason it stuck with me as a pretty amazing and extended interaction between Jesus as a wise but very vulnerable and human person and Satan as the great tempter and tester of each of us in our own weakness. I remember understanding, even as a child, how important it was that even though Jesus could have done the things Satan tempted him to do, that he didn’t do it. To this day when I hear the often quoted phrase “man cannot live by bread alone,” it reminds me of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.

There are three key pieces to our readings this morning, each tying into the spirit of contemplation, penitence, and self reflection we’re drawn into as we enter this season of Lent.

We are reminded in our reading from Deuteronomy to reflect on our spiritual journeys – on our own personal history as people of God. Within this same reminder is the reminder to offer up to God the first fruits of our labors, in which God has blessed us. Lent, as an introspective time of personal examination and growth, draws us into that conversation with God that takes a look at where we’ve been, where we’ve come, and asks the big questions of “how has God been active in my life and in the process of becoming that has brought me to this day?,” and “how have I been active in bringing God’s kingdom to those around me through offering up some of the fruits of the abundance God has lavished on me?”

The second Lenten call comes to us from Paul’s letter to the Romans, in which we are reminded this Lent to focus on the salvation offered to us through faith in Christ. Coming out of our own salvation history with God, we are called by Paul to examine what our faith means to us as members of Christ’s body in the world. By having and acting out of our faith, we continue to cultivate and nurture our relationship with God through our response to God’s many calls in our lives to be Christ to those around us in the world. By our prayer life, we interact with God in a very personal and meaningful way, and it is especially appropriate during this time of Lent to give special attention to our faith, our prayer life, and our spiritual grounding and well being. Paul encourages us, especially today, to contemplate the deeper significance of what faith in Christ truly means to us not only as Christ’s body in the world, but as an individual who is deeply and profoundly loved by God.

The third call to us comes through Christ as we are called to a remembrance not only of Christ’s divinity as proclaimed at his baptism, but of his humanity, which is tested under the most dire of circumstances as he, alone in the wilderness, hungry and thirsty, is tempted by all of Satan’s cleverness to claim the divine power at his command rather than suffer in human flesh. Christ’s response is faithfulness to God, courage, and strength. In this encounter, we are reminded that Christ has experienced the dire roots of human temptation. Though he succeeded in mastering his wants and desires in the face of temptation, it wouldn’t be called “temptation” if he hadn’t struggled with each decision. From Christ, in this encounter, we are reminded that God will give us the strength to face every temptation, every need, every suffering moment of our sometimes tortured existence. All we have to do is allow God’s love and compassion for us to lift us up and carry us when our own burden gets to be too much… Sometimes this comes through the help of friends, other times through prayer, other times simply through the plea for help that cries out from deep within our own hearts. In whatever form it does come, we are encouraged to have faith that it WILL come and that we will not be left alone in the wilderness of our most desperate moments. And so we are called, finally, this Lent to be mindful of God’s sustaining presence in our lives – to contemplate on those moments when we have felt particularly sustained or protected by God’s presence.

Earlier this weekend, youth from St. Martin’s, from Lutheran Church of the Incarnation, from Davis Lutheran Church, and from Davis Community Church gathered at Davis Community Church to voluntarily experience hunger together. This is an event called the Thirty-Hour Famine, and is an annual event that is designed to help raise awareness for hunger, disease, and poverty around the world. The teens sign-up for the event as much as two-months before hand, and begin raising funds, all of which are donated to World Vision, the agency that designed and provides resources for the event. They provide services in some ways similar to those provided by Episcopal Relief and Development, helping to provide food, education, sanitation, and safety to some of the most poverty stricken areas of the world.

Basically how the weekend works is that the kids who attend agree to stop eating after lunch on Friday at 12:30. They finish their school day without snacking, they go home from school without an after school snack, they do their homework without the promise of dinner, and then they come together at the sponsoring parish (Davis Community Church this year) to talk together, engage in hunger simulations about allocation of resources in different countries, and just to be in solidarity through their fast. The agreement is that they won’t eat a single thing for thirty hours. During that time they drink water and have the option of drinking juice – though some refused anything other than water.

Yesterday morning, after going without food for about eleven hours, our teens made upwards from forty sandwiches for the homeless and poor of Davis, which they distributed for about two hours during the Farmers’ Market, and the remainder of which they donated to the cold-weather shelter last evening. Our later afternoon activity was a door to door food drive. Designed as a scavenger hunt, three separate groups went out into the downtown neighborhoods of Davis with a specific list of supplies to gather. Proteins, vegetables, fruits, starches, grains, even some desserts and jam. We were surprised and delighted by the generosity of our neighbors around Davis, each group returning within an hour having filled their list of twelve to fifteen items.

We broke our fast at 6:30 pm, having gone without food for a full thirty-hours. We had a simple meal of soup, bread, and salad, garnished with a few sandwiches that were left over, and a bit of kettle corn (thanks to the forethought and generosity of Dori from DCC, who picked up a bag during the Farmers’ Market and saved for dinner).

The experience of the retreat was, for many, the first time they had experienced true hunger. Yet it was amazing how little these hungry teens complained about their rumbling stomachs, and it was both rewarding and very promising to be with them as they, out of their own hunger, fed the poor together with real compassion for how they must feel on a daily basis. God’s presence was a constant companion this weekend, as evidenced by some of the teens’ own comments and prayers, in their compassion for one another and for those who live every day of their lives in the same desperate need that many of them began to feel as the hours mounted without relief of their hunger. While they could see the end of their own hunger, many of them voiced and felt a solidarity for the first time with those in our community and our wider world who have no end in sight for their own famines.

This has been an amazing start to my Lent this year, and it is a striking experience to have juxtaposed against today’s readings where Jesus goes straight from his Baptism into the wilderness of deprivation and personal testing. I can’t think of a better way to have prepared for this first Sunday of Lent, and for this particular reading than the experience of this fast, and it leaves me with the hope that I have come to associate with the heart of Lent. That though we may be preparing for Christ’s passion and death, it is in the hope of the resurrection. That though we may be contemplating the depths of our own spiritual life and questioning our responses to God in our lives, it is in the hope of a refreshed and reinvigorated relationship with God. And that though we may be taking on new spiritual disciplines or giving up something to keep us mindful of the deeply spiritual nature of Lent, it is the hope of coming into greater awareness of the Spirit’s work in our lives and hearts.

As part of our work this Lent, Bishop Beisner has challenged us to be intentional about our Lenten practice of contemplation and personal and collective inquiry. In light of today’s readings, we are asked to remember and tell the story of a time of trouble in our lives when God was indeed our refuge. And so in closing today I invite you into a few moments of quiet reflection. Take a few moments to think of a time in your life in which you experienced God in a uniquely profound way. As refuge, as protector, as comforter, as provider.

What was happening?
Who else was involved?
How did you perceive God’s presence either in that moment or looking back on that moment?
How did it effect your understanding of God’s presence in your life?
What have you done with that experience to keep your relationship with God growing and fresh?

As you continue to contemplate this experience or these experiences this week, I invite you into a Lent filled with the hope and anticipation of exploring God in ways that will deepen your relationship and your understanding of the profound mystery of God’s love for each of you as individuals.

Amen.

2007-02-18T21:10:00.000-08:00

Sermon of 18 February 2007, Transfiguration Sunday
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Readings: Exodus 34:29-35, Psalm 99, 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2, Luke 9:28-36

What veils us from God?

We hear this morning in our readings two amazing mountaintop experiences, and two very human reactions to the divine. Moses, himself both fascinated and yet afraid at his first encounter of the divine in the burning bush, is now more comfortable with his ongoing encounters with God, but we see in the Israelites the same human experience of apprehension and fear that the disciples experienced on the mountaintop with Jesus in today’s gospel reading. While Moses’ encounters had already trained him to take his mountaintop experiences back to the valleys of normal human community where they can best serve God’s purpose, his followers experienced the brilliance of an encounter with God through Moses’ own shining face.

Similarly, Peter, James, and John experienced, first hand, the brilliance of Jesus as he, in the presence of God, spoke with Moses and Elijah in what could only be described as the ultimate mountaintop experience described in the gospels. Peter, always the first to speak up with his honest, human, and frequently inappropriate response, speaks our own hearts’ desire to stay in the moment, to remain on the mountaintop and set up shop.

As much as we might prefer the exhilaration and spiritual ecstasy of our close personal encounters with God, the truth is that the rest of the world goes on as though nothing had happened. It is our responsibility to bring those experiences back to the valley of our every day life and thereby allow it to shape and change us in profound ways that can be experienced by more than just ourselves.

The example in Exodus, however, gives us a very telling example of the response of the masses in the valley. Having not realized that his face was shining brilliantly from his encounter with God, Moses brings the good news back from his mountaintop to find the people terrified of his very presence – unable to comprehend the experience he’s just had and afraid to even approach him.

His choice to veil his face as a means to ease the anxieties and fears of the people is an important lesson to us. Having not been in the presence of the holy themselves, they only had Moses’ descriptions of his encounter to inform them, but similarly, they were not able to withstand the full results of that encounter, having no frame of personal reference. Moses gives them God’s commandments and tells them of the encounter, but veils his face, which could only show the awesome and profound effects of the human coming into direct experience of the divine. If a picture is worth a thousand words all at once, the thousand words offered by the image of Moses’ face were each too deep, too fundamental, too mysterious to be comprehended.

Luke’s telling of the Transfiguration of Christ is similar in many ways to Moses’ experience on Mt. Sinai, except that this encounter was witnessed first hand by Jesus’ three closest disciples.

Yet even in the presence, themselves, of the holy, the disciples are still at a lack for words to respond to their experience. All they know is that it was profound beyond words, that it was indescribably awesome, and that their deepest heartfelt desire was to stay there in that divine, ecstatic moment. The disciples themselves were then taken inside the veil when the cloud enshrouded them. Terrified, they received their own personal divine encounter, hearing God’s words in affirmation of Christ.

Coming back out of the veil, they told no one of their experience “in those days.”

The physical veil of Moses, and the veil of silence by the disciples draw us into the mystery of an experience that apparently cannot be aptly described in words, but it also seems to point to an almost unwillingness within each of us as humans to fully embrace and explore the depths of a soul shaking encounter with the divine.

For me in my life, I look back on two specific encounters that I would certainly describe as mountaintop experiences. One was purely on a spiritual level, the other was holistically experiential.

I’m sure many of you can guess that the first of these experiences was my late teenage spiritual retreat experience at Happening in the diocese of California. As the defining mountaintop experience of my life up to that point, this was an event that quite simply changed me forever. I came home from that weekend with a deep and abiding sense of God’s love for me, Garnabus, an eighteen year-old teenager who struggled with self-worth and self-confidence, and sought desperately for approval from all the wrong places… I no longer needed to prove my worth, to question and second guess myself and my abilities, to win the approval of everyone around me. I was free to be myself, secure in knowing that I was all I would ever need to be – that I was all that I could ever be. Whatever I would become beyond what I already was would be for me and for God.

Of course I couldn’t have put that into words at the time. I wandered in a half ecstatic haze for about two weeks, veiling my full experience as too deep and too personal to share fully with anyone other than my friends from the retreat who had been there and experienced the same thing I had. But as I mentioned a couple of months ago, I felt as though my face must have been shining from the reactions I got from people I encountered in the weeks following. The difficulty was that the rest of the world didn’t even pause to appreciate the soul-shaking experience I’d had. The rest of the world down below that mountaintop didn’t care that I would never be the same again, or that I had no words to describe the primal depths of the encounter. But for me, the world had stopped – for that weekend and for the next couple of weeks as I adjusted to being back in the valley of normal life, I set up my dwelling on that mountaintop and didn’t want to come down.

The other experience I want to share with you came out of a personal crisis stemming from doing what I knew in my heart to be the right thing to do even though it would mean embracing another profoundly life-changing reality, and would hurt someone close to me.

My best friend for many years was a woman named Equis. We had known each other for about twelve years, had attempted to date each other – rather disastrously – for two and a half of those years, had been college roommates, and had continued to be roommates for the last two years we knew each other after college. When I told her about meeting and falling in love with Fuego, she surprised me with reactions of anger and resentment rather than the congratulations and joy I had expected from my best friend, and told me that she could not be my friend anymore if I decided to date Fuego (which I quickly came to realize meant anyone when she confessed that she had secretly hoped we would get married some day). This came at the end of the weekend between two summer camps I was working, so the next morning I drove back up to camp, thinking about what she had said and praying for an easier way out than choosing between my then best friend and someone I really thought I might have a future with. I knew what was right in my heart, but up to that point in my life it was the most difficult decision I had ever had to make. A wise and good friend of mine, The Rev. Mommy Chaplain, was the chaplain for camp. When I told her of my dilemma, she used the example of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane – praying for an easier way out than breaking the hearts of his twelve best friends by doing what he knew was right to do. I phoned Equis to let her know that I had to do what was right in my heart, and that as much as her decision not to be my friend anymore saddened me, I had to do what I knew was right. She had moved out and headed back to San Diego before I got home from camp that week. Where this becomes a mountaintop experience is through Fuego. This was the first time in my life I had to face an unappeasable situation, and having done what was right instead of what was easy, I suddenly found myself more alive in the coming weeks than I had been in about seven years. I was in love with the woman of my dreams (I literally realized that she had been the recurring mysterious woman in my dreams for the previous several years), I had friends again, one of my best friends from high school (who had been instrumental in getting me to Happening) moved in as my new roommate, I felt spiritually and emotionally energized and free. This time, I brought the mountaintop experience with me instead of staying on the mountain top. My world didn’t stand still as the rest of the world continued spinning around me, rather I felt like I was living life in fast-forward for the next several months. Looking back on my life previous to that summer, it looked like an endless holding pattern of emotional and spiritual stagnancy. It’s amazing what strength and courage comes with taking off the veil.

What both of these experiences have in common is the profound change that they made in my life. In the capacity of these encounters to permanently change something deep and fundamental about myself, my relationship with others, and my experience and understanding of God, there is something at once captivating and yet terrifying. Some aspects have taken years to fully understand and describe, much as I’m sure the disciples’ encounter at the Transfiguration took them some time to fully embrace and understand.

This perhaps is one of the single biggest reasons for the veil we put up between ourselves and God. It is simply a terrifying thought that we could be fundamentally and permanently changed by removing it. We hear countless examples in the Bible of people whose lives were completely uprooted, swirled around, and replanted as something other than what they were before. The blind made to see, the deaf made to hear, the lame made to walk, the leper made clean. And today – a teacher going up a mountain and bursting into brilliant white light as he converses with long-dead prophets and has his divinity confirmed by God’s own voice…

It’s no small wonder that we want to remain in those moments when we finally drop the veil and experience something so awesome and powerful that we can’t imagine our lives any other way than that which they’ve become through the experience. But until we’re willing to drop the veil and start climbing, the mountaintop will always be just a beautiful mystery on the horizon.

Lord, grant us the courage to start climbing, the grace to experience your unfathomable and life changing love for us, and the wisdom to come back down the mountain.

Amen.

2007-02-13T21:09:00.000-08:00

Sermon from Tuesday 13 February 2007, Absalom Jones (LFF)
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Readings: Isaiah 61:1-4, Psalm 126, John 15:12-15

For those of you who haven’t heard the story of the first African American Priest in the Episcopal Church, it is an amazing story of courage, perseverance, and faith.

His story comes from Lesser Feasts and Fasts:

Absalom Jones was born a house slave in 1746 in Delaware. He taught himself to read out of the New Testament, among other books. When sixteen, he was sold to a store owner in Philadelphia. There he attended a night school for Blacks, operated by Quakers. At twenty, he married another slave, and purchased her freedom with his earnings.

Eighteen years later, Jones bought his own freedom in 1784. At St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church, he served as lay minister for its Black membership. The active evangelism of Jones and that of his friend, Richard Allen, greatly increased Black membership at St. George’s. The alarmed vestry decided to segregate Blacks into an upstairs gallery, without notifying them. During a Sunday service when ushers attempted to remove them, the Blacks indignantly walked out as a body.

Three years later, Black Christians organized the Free African Society, the first organized Afro-American society, and Absalom Jones and Richard Allen were elected overseers. Members of the Society paid monthly dues for the benefit of those in need. The Society established communication with similar Black groups in other cities. In 1792, the Society began to build a church, which was dedicated on July 17, 1794.

The African Church applied for membership in the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania on the conditions that they be received as an organized body; that they have control over their local affairs; and that Absalom Jones be licensed as layreader, and, if qualified, be ordained as their minister. Four months later, it was admitted as St. Thomas African Episcopal Church. Bishop White ordained Jones as deacon in 1795 and as priest on September 21, 1802.

Jones was an earnest preacher. He denounced slavery, and warned the oppressors to “clean their hands of slaves.” To him, God was the Father, who always acted on “behalf of the oppressed and distressed.” But it was his constant visiting and mild manner that made him beloved by his own flock and by the community. St. Thomas Church grew to over 500 members during its first year. Known as “the Black Bishop of the Episcopal Church,” Jones was an example of persistent faith in God and in the Church as God’s instrument.

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It is with good reason that today’s readings were chosen for Absalom Jones.

Isaiah’s testament to the Spirit being upon him in his being sent out to bring the kingdom of God near to those in need, so very reminiscent of Jones’ own life, is also a call to each of us to similarly be filled with God’s Spirit in our own lives.

I realize I preach a lot about the kingdom of God, but to me it’s the most important message of hope and the strongest call to continue Jesus’ ministry that we have. It’s the whole root and purpose of Christ’s ministry in the world, and it’s something that Christians as a broad religion just simply can’t seem to remember. It’s in the “Saints” like Absalom Jones that we see ordinary people living out a life empowered by God and driven by the Spirit acting within them. Through these examples, we see the continuing ministry of Christ brought to the world by people who are just like us. We seem to have tacked a super-human label on the saints in the modern church that never existed in the early Church. The Saints are all those who are baptized into the Christian family both past and present. We remember particular saints for the example they give us of a holy or particularly spectacular life, but we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that as members of the Body of Christ, WE are saints.

Jesus takes this idea of the kingdom a step further in the reading from John’s gospel today. With the disciples, we who continue to do Christ’s will in the world are called his Friends. With the disciples, we are called to love one another as Christ loved us – a selfless and compassionate love that expects nothing in return but the chance to reveal God’s amazing love for every part of creation.

Many of us take pause at the appended statement that follows this commandment to love one another, but the laying down of one’s life for one’s friends is simply the willingness to put another’s needs before our own. This is Absalom Jones buying the freedom of the woman he loved before slowly rebuilding his savings to buy his own freedom eighteen years later. This is Jones setting aside his former life to become a lay leader in the Church. It is Jones helping to found a revolutionary organization of African Americans, taking charge of their own faith and founding their own parish. It is Jones setting aside everything he previously knew and stepping out in faith to help bring God’s kingdom near to the slaves and former slaves of Pennsylvania. It is Jones, an African American, former slave, being ordained as a priest over half a century before the Civil War.

Laying down our lives out of love for another is simply acting out of the profound love of God to better the life of another instead of simply walking past them on the street. It is as simple as buying an extra hamburger at McDonalds for the homeless and hungry woman outside, or pausing for two minutes to recognize the humanity of the Vietnam Vet, panhandling on the corner, by talking to him, or even just visiting our friends and community members who are ill, hospitalized, or unable to make it to the church for services. It is not a complicated or even a life-long or life-ending practice for most of us, but it does hold the life-changing potential for God’s spirit to take hold of us and anoint us as it did Isaiah, Absalom Jones, and Christ himself into a lifetime of loving service of others.

May each of us, as the Saints of today, learn to love more fully, strive to be Christ’s hands and heart in the world, and pray to become the kind of saints that will be remembered in centuries to come for our willingness to lay down our lives in service of God’s kingdom.

Amen.

2007-01-22T21:45:00.000-08:00

Fuego (of Life as a Fuego) tapped me for a "six weird food quirks" blog. So here goes.

1. I have hated tomatoes my whole life. I have successfully hated them for over thirty-three years. The taste and texture were always repellent in and of themselves, but then there was the fact that they conflicted terribly with the appearance. Basically all aspects of the tomato were in conflict with one another, creating a overall experience of yuck. Don't get me wrong, I have tried them over the years, just in case I might some day like them, but to no avail. I have wanted to like them -- it's not easy to hate tomatoes, they're put on just about everything, but no matter what the medium (except in tomato sauce and ketchup) they have pretty much immediately activated my gag-reflex. A little over a month ago, Fuego offered me a bite of her Bagel with cream-cheese, tomatoes, and capers. Not a fan of either tomatoes or capers, I agreed to take a bite just to humor her... I liked it. Since then I have inexplicably enjoyed tomatoes. I've had them on sandwiches (on purpose), on bagels, on pizza. I can't explain it, but it's happened... I like tomatoes. (Is there some group I need to go to now?)

2. I make s#!+ up. I'm pretty sure other people would like these things if they would be willing to try them, but (sadly) people are put off by the ingredients. Frequently these creations involve peanut butter, cheese, curry, ground cayenne, and some form of bread (tortilla, bagel, toast). You might recognize some of these ingredients from my last post =o) I will admit that the peanut butter burrito-dog wasn't really worth it, but the burrito-dog itself was great and worth repeating. Of course I make other stuff up that doesn't have weird ingredients too, but that isn't so much a weird food quirk as just good cooking skills ;o)

3. I like SPICY food. I'm not just talking about the occasional Cajun, Mexican, Thai, or Indian food spicy that you find in restaurants, but of habaneras, tiny red chilies (the kind that make people cry when they accidentally eat them), extra spicy curry from India, ground tiny red chilies (also from India), jalapenos, and pretty much any other pepper that can be chopped, powdered, sliced, or eaten whole. Many of these go into my recipe for "Death by Chili" -- a vegetarian chili that I created to see if I could eat it... and then to see if any of my friends would be willing to try it ;o). So far only DJ Purgatory has been willing to eat a whole bowl with me more than once -- but he and I are part of how it got taken this far since we kind of egg each other on (okay, and Some-of-the-time-girlfriend eats it on chili dogs). If it doesn't make your eye brows sweat, it just isn't spicy enough. When your eyes start to water, you're getting there ;o) Anyone want to come for chili night?

4. Packaged artichoke hearts... seriously, what's with the rigid little, impervious to teeth leaves? You can't chew them, they're spiny feeling in your mouth, they pretty much ruin any bite of food containing them. Sadly the artichoke heart is one of the finest of the less-common food toppings other than these yucky little barnacle. I do love a good steamed artichoke, especially the hearts! But apparently machines just aren't equipped to tell the difference between the gross part and the good part.

5. I have two strange but somewhat beneficial food allergies -- MSG and Artificial Sweeteners (especially Aspartame/NutraSweet). The beneficial part is that it makes me read food ingredients, so I know what I'm eating, and it also keeps me from eating a lot of unhealthy foods. Of course, the other side of it is that MSG is in most flavored chips and highly flavorful inexpensive foods. The "itos" food group is right out (Cheetos, Doritos, Fritos [flavored], and Tostitos [also the flavored ones]). Aspartame and other artificial sweeteners are easier to avoid, but I've found them in some odd places over the years -- Alka-Seltzer Cold and Flu medicine and Airborne immunity booster are two of them. MSG gives me headaches, an itchy face, and seriously impacts my moods. Aspartame gives me tachycardia and arrhythmia (racing heart rate and an irregular heart beat) -- I figured out the Alka-Seltzer Cold and Flu one when I had a resting heart rate of 120 for over three hours (yikes!). Since aspartame has a negative cumulative effect on short-term memory and can mimic symptoms of Alzheimer's, I can't be too sad about that one ;o)

6. I'm a vegepescetarian who eats organic poultry. I stopped eating red meat and pork for environmental and humane reasons back in 1992 in response to a college biology class. In January of 2003, I learned why all of the chicken wings at Kentucky Fried Chicken are broken. I had never heard of factory farming before that winter, and not only was I not able to eat the rest of my dinner, but I wasn't able to eat chicken of any kind for the next six months. I literally felt sick to my stomach -- I just couldn't fathom the level of cruelty and environmental blight that factory farming represents. So I was a vegepescetarian for six months. When I discovered free-range organic chicken I went back to being able to eat poultry again, but although there is such a thing as organic beef and pork, I can't eat red meat anymore, and I really don't like pork all that much after having been away from it for fifteen years. Yes, I do realize that we're over-fishing the oceans and that in another fifty years 2/3 to 3/4 of the fish population will be depleted and extinct, so I don't eat fish very often anymore either, but at least there's still peanut butter ;o)

2007-01-17T22:11:00.000-08:00

For Crobinhobin and Jbewan

Hmm... hungry... What's in the fridge? Nothing.

It's ten at night, not like I'm going to the store. Don't want to order out...

Grumble, grunt, snort...

Okay, time for an invention.

What do we have on hand:

One frozen blueberry bagel (Noah's of course)... good start

1/4 C Shredded Mozerella... hmm... pizza bagel?

Grunt... no sauce.

Hmm... there's peanut butter =o) Okay... Tai pizza bagel!

Rummage, rummage... good! Spicy Curry powder, ground Indian hot chili pepper ready.

What's good on a Tai pizza bagel? Hmm... we've got frozen hot dogs and eggs. Tough choice... Okay, both.

So we have a Noah's Blueberry Bagel topped with organic peanut butter, spicy curry powder, ground Indian hot chili pepper, organic chicken dog sliced into the thin little circles, mozerrella cheese, and topped with a fried egg. Sounds like we've hit every major food group... oop... almost forgot the beer group, okay now we're ready!

Hmm... Fuego's not hungry... poor Fuego, she'll miss out on this culinary delight!

...

wow. I'd make this again.

2007-01-15T22:00:00.000-08:00

Sermon from last Sunday (2nd Sunday of Epiphany, 14 Jan 2007):

Readings: Isaiah 62:1-5, Psalm 36:5-10, 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, John 2:1-11

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John's Gospel is simultaneously the most earthy and physical of the gospels as well as the most symbolic. Taking today's reading as an example, Jesus' first miracle takes place at a very familiar, human, and celebratory occasion, the wedding feast.

The bride and bridegroom have just pronounced their lifelong devotion to one another in front of those people who mean the most to them in their lives - Jesus and Mary included - and they enter into the festive feast known today as the wedding reception. It is a time to display all the abundance of the lifetime of promise and hope lying before the newly married couple. A time to provide more food and wine than your guests can possibly consume as a demonstration of the abundance of life, love, and happiness inherent in this solemn and glorious occasion.

For the wedding I celebrated on the 10th of December, I helped the groom, one of my best friends, brew twenty-five gallons of beer [*I contributed one out of the five batches*]. To this was added about twelve cases of wine, two cases of Champagne just for the toast alone, and a seemingly endless supply of sodas and other non-alcoholic alternatives. By the end of the wedding, I was sent home with a full case of wine, two bottles of champagne, and two full cases of homebrew - this abundance was similarly shared with the best-man, the father of the bride, and the new couple also kept some for themselves. The food was in similar abundance - such that there was no possible way that the guests could have consumed it all.

It was not so for the couple in today's gospel reading. Somewhere over the course of the feast the supply of wine simply ran out. The new couple had not been able to provide enough. The guests would be at best embarrassed and disappointed, and at worst insulted - either way the new couple would be humiliated in front of all of their guests. Mary, having had some connection to the family that would make her privy to this information before it became common knowledge, tells her son - perhaps out of chagrin, perhaps out of hope - who basically says "what do you want me to do about it?"

While his response seems a bit terse to us today, it apparently gave Mary enough hope to simply believe that Jesus would do something and leave it up to him what was to be done. His response is to create such abundance of the finest quality wine - about 120-180 gallons worth - that it would take the guests months to drink it all.

On the surface, this is clearly a miracle of abundance. Christ demonstrating the abundance of the coming of God's kingdom becomes the hallmark of his ministry and teaching over the course of the next three years.

As I said earlier, John, while familiar, human, and earthy, is also the most symbolic of the gospels, so I'd like to spend a little time on some of the layers not as prominent in the symbolism of today's gospel. From the beginning of this particular story, we see undertones of messianic symbology. The opening of the story is "On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee." While it has been three days since Jesus was baptized, the greater importance of the statement is it's intention to draw listeners into an Easter mentality. Here the wine becomes the wine of the Eucharist, Jesus becomes the bridegroom - providing the wine - and the guests become the church in a wedding feast celebrating Christ's triumph over death and the reclaiming of humanity from the grasp of sin and death. Peeling back another layer, this is the promised feast of the coming of the messiah. Scarcity is turned into inexhaustible abundance, as the waters of purification are turned into messianic wine of the promised kingdom. It's no accident that the stone water jars, which are filled with water, are those used for Jewish rites of purification - John uses this as a symbol of the fulfilling of Jewish hope, promise, prophecy, faith, and law in the coming of Jesus. In essence, this wedding banquet is his own coming out party where the significance of the symbols changes the meaning of the feast to that promised messianic feast of the scriptures. As such, Jesus himself is the good wine that God has saved for last. The angelic visitations, the prophets, the law, these have all found their completion and satisfaction in Christ - the last which was first.

John closes this miraculous encounter by restating that this was the first of Jesus' signs - the first of seven that John will tell - which revealed Christ's Glory as God's manifested presence in the world.

But what does this mean for us today? While this glory is certainly good news in and of itself, what does it mean to me, in my everyday life in the world? For that answer, I turn to our reading from Corinthians.

Through Paul's words concerning spiritual gifts, I find a connection between the Gospel and us. Just as Christ was glorified by God's presence manifested in him, God glorifies us through the gifts of the Holy Spirit manifested in us. And just as Christ glorified God by revealing God to the world, so we continue to glorify God when we utilize the gifts we've been given.

While in John's reading, God's presence is revealed by Christ, we learn from Paul that we reveal God's presence in us through the gifts of the Holy Spirit that we share with the world around us.

As I look around the church this morning, I see that St. ECWIW's is filled with the gifts of the Spirit. I see teachers, doctors, counselors, artisans, lawyers, theologians, philosophers, homemakers, students, those gifted with eloquence, those gifted with deep listening and understanding. We are a community united in the gifts of the Spirit, mutually nurtured and strengthened by each others' myriad gifts, and we are also a community united in our intention to spread these gifts beyond the walls of St. ECWIW's through outreach, and even more so through our own lives lived in the world.

This is the good news of today! As we gather together each week to unite our gifts to the Glory of God, we strengthen each other in the bonds of community to go back out into the world revitalized, reinvigorated, renewed, refreshed, and reminded that it is through the gifts that God gives to us that we reveal God's glory in the world.

Jesus' miracles are not, in and of themselves, the good news of the Gospel, but rather are examples of the gospel in miniature. Put simply, the Good News is not just THAT the kingdom has come near, but that we have the power to bring it with every breath we breathe. In every moment in which we are faced with need, we have the power to bring the kingdom near. In every moment in which we are faced with suffering, pain, anger, fear, oppression - we have the opportunity to bring our own gifts - no matter how small we think they might be - to bear on this world, and thereby reveal God's glory and God's abundance to those around us.

Many of you have heard me talk about the friend who tricked me into going to his youth group during my senior year in high school... his name is Grasshopper.

Grasshopper and I have never lost contact. Through going to different schools, being half way across the world from each other, through difficult relationships when we couldn't be in touch [*okay 1, and it was mine*], through each of us getting married, and through the birth of his two children, we have phoned, emailed, and visited in person as often as we could. I invited Grasshopper to be one of my presenters for ordination last month and he recently shared with me his journal entry from that day. I may not quite put it the way he did, but he mentioned how many times over the years he's heard that story of his persistence in asking me to his youth group, and how small of a gesture he thought it was at the time. He just thought it would be cool if one of his new best friends could meet his other best friends and we could all hang out together at youth group. He couldn't imagine how that small gesture could some day result in his friend being ordained as a priest, and it made him pause to think of how many other small gestures every day of his life may have profound effects on those around him. He commented that it could be that his whole purpose in life may just have been to invite me to youth group... that he was pretty sure there was more to it than that, but what might have been different if he hadn't?

I love that Grasshopper reflected on this - especially in response to ordination! And I think it's a profoundly important lesson for each of us as we listen for the good news in today's lessons.

Our actions may seem small and even insignificant to us, but through God, they become the means through which lives are changed forever.

Let us join in the feast - bringing our gifts joyfully and carelessly to those around us, that God's glory might be revealed and the abundance of God's reign might be brought to everyone around us.

Amen.

2007-01-10T01:50:00.000-08:00

Okay... all caught up.

Going to bed now.

g'night =o)

2007-01-09T21:36:00.000-08:00

Okay... for those who check my blog regularly, you may want to read a few posts down as I've been totally swamped and am journaling retroactively so as to not post a seven page blog all at once. Or don't -- I'm doing it for me as much as for you =o)

I'll be interspersing sermons as you go backward... I think the earliest will be from the tenth of December (where you'll also find a blog about the first wedding I celebrated for Muddy and DesignGirl!). From 3 December you'll also find a post about ordination, which I never got to blog about because of the wedding, finals, Christmas, New Year's, and other various and sundry reasons. There will be a post about the five services in 24 hours, between Advent 4 and Christmas Eve (the same day this year), and Christmas Day. There will be a post about New Year's, lighting a whole lot of candles (just how many is a lot? you'll have to read to find out), our party, and of course there will be adoption updates!

Since I've only had one post between 13 November and today, it shouldn't be too hard to find them -- they'll be all of the ones in between that I missed. There will probably even be one from my 33rd birthday back on the 27th of November!

Okay... on with the fun.

2007-01-09T21:30:00.000-08:00

Fuego and I had our second "module" class tonight for adopting our first child!!

We have another seven classes to go before we're elligible as adoptive parents, and what a weird, awesome, and scary thought that is!

We've waited for so long for a baby to come that it's almost unreal that in a very new and exciting way, we're already five-months pregnant (though someone else is carrying our future child).

We've been working on paper work, writing autobiographies, getting finger-printed, submitting DMV reports, getting assigned a social worker, and last week we started the required nine weeks of classes that will end in our being put on the waiting list for a child.

Our home study comes up in about five weeks, and by the middle of March we'll begin the final waiting stage as elligible parents. (Whew! Biological Parents should have such a rigorous qualification process!)

Since our only restrictions were that the baby be under six-months old and have no severe disabilities, we'll most likely get to adopt an african-american baby boy, and we've been told that the wait is surprisingly short for parents like us who aren't specific about gender or race. Regardless of gender or race, we know that whatever child God intends for us is the one that will come home with us.

We couldn't be more excited =o)

2007-01-09T21:11:00.000-08:00

Sermon from 9 January 2007

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Readings: Hebrews 2:14-18, Psalm 105:1-15, Mark 1:29-39

The beginning of Mark's Gospel is filled with stories of healing, stories of Jesus' teaching in the synagogues, and stories of people being astounded. By today's story, in the middle of the first chapter of Mark's Gospel, Jesus has already called four of his twelve disciples, who simply walk out on their previous lives as fishermen to follow him, earlier in the day of today's story he had just taught and astounded listeners in the synagogue, and been recognized as the Holy One of God by a demon whom he cast out, as soon as they left the synagogue, they went to Simon's house where he healed Simon's Mother-in-law, then that evening the whole town came out with their sick and suffering and brought them to Jesus for healing. Jesus was instantly famous, and his disciples were thrilled.

While his earliest and closest disciples reveled in Jesus' fame and success, Jesus got up before dawn to seek out a deserted place where he could pray. Upon hunting for him and finally finding him, Simon and the other three confronted him saying "everyone is searching for you" - as if to say, what are you doing here praying? Don't you know you're famous! Come celebrate with us!

Jesus answer is redirective, and foreshadows his struggle to teach his disciples his true purpose over the whole course of the next three years - "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do."

For the rest of Jesus' ministry, he seems to constantly be seeking those dark deserted places where he can steal away for a few precious moments of personal prayer. As his fame spreads, however, it seems that he can go nowhere without being followed, anticipated, or headed off by the needy throngs of people hungry for his healing and his teachings. At this earliest sign of the years to come, we see already a gap between Jesus' understanding of his purpose and ministry and the disciple's understanding. Here the path that Jesus and the disciples will walk together is established, but there is a crack in the middle of this path that will eventually open into an ever widening chasm with the disciples on one side and Jesus on the other. What will separate them, and what has and continues to separate us from God is prayer.

The highpoint of the disciples' walk with Jesus comes not too long after today's story, when they are sent out and given the authority to cast out demons and to heal in Jesus' name. The low point comes not too long again after the high point when the disciples find themselves unable to cast out a demon, which Jesus later tells them could only be cast out through prayer. Where had they lost sight of their reliance on God for the authority granted them? When had they fallen into that all too human trap of believing that somehow they as humans had what was necessary to heal and cast out demons?

The rocky start to the disciples' ministry with Jesus, described in the tension of today's Gospel between prayerful and humble acceptance of God's grace working through us, and our own human desire for power, glory, and the self- sufficiency to claim authority over the challenges that face us are a good place to start.

I take my own life as an example. There are days when I just simply feel stressed out. I've been working tirelessly to manage family, home, job, future planning, social life, finances, and still have enough time left to eat, sleep, and spend some good quality time with Fuego and the pets. "What's happened to me," I wonder to myself as I feel the soreness in my neck and feel my shoulders pressing against my ears, "this isn't who I am, this isn't who I want to be... where did the easygoing and mellow person that I usually am go?" And so I wonder to myself, "okay, what is it that's stressing me out?" Well, there's the two-hundred pages of homework that I really didn't want to read last night at the end of a long day... but I really don't think that's it." Unable to find an answer on my own, I finally turn to God and realize that even though I work every day in ministry, just as the disciples did with Jesus, it has been nearly a month since I've had the time to just sit in contemplative prayer. And so I sit. In the midst of preparing for my sermon, running out of time to get it all written down, I simply stop. I sit in silence, and I pray.

The beauty of the disciples is that they are us. They are the human reaction and living misunderstanding of God's purpose amongst is in Christ. Jesus, as he redirects and strives throughout his ministry to teach them, similarly strives throughout our lives to remind and to teach us that we aren't meant to take on life from our own authority. There is quite simply too much for us to do and see and get accomplished in this life for us to try to do it without God's help. We were created to be in relationship with God, and it is sometimes only through the constant reminder of our stress and failure to accomplish everything we need to accomplish with any sense of peace that we come to be reminded that even when we are working to God's will in the world, it can never be enough if we forget from where our strength, our authority, and our peace comes.

The author of Hebrews reminds us today that Christ shared with us the same things that we go through in our existence of flesh and blood. He is our help, he is our example, he is our reminder that a life lived for God can only be done cooperatively with God through prayer.

In the words of the Psalmist, Give thanks to the Lord and call upon his name! We were never meant to face this world without God... So let us pray.

Amen.

2007-01-09T13:33:00.000-08:00

Sermon from 9 January 2007

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Readings: Hebrews 2:14-18, Psalm 105:1-15, Mark 1:29-39

The beginning of Mark's Gospel is filled with stories of healing, stories of Jesus' teaching in the synagogues, and stories of people being astounded. By today's story, in the middle of the first chapter of Mark's Gospel, Jesus has already called four of his twelve disciples, who simply walk out on their previous lives as fishermen to follow him, earlier in the day of today's story he had just taught and astounded listeners in the synagogue, and been recognized as the Holy One of God by a demon whom he cast out, as soon as they left the synagogue, they went to Simon's house where he healed Simon's Mother-in-law, then that evening the whole town came out with their sick and suffering and brought them to Jesus for healing. Jesus was instantly famous, and his disciples were thrilled.

While his earliest and closest disciples reveled in Jesus' fame and success, Jesus got up before dawn to seek out a deserted place where he could pray. Upon hunting for him and finally finding him, Simon and the other three confronted him saying "everyone is searching for you" – as if to say, what are you doing here praying? Don't you know you're famous! Come celebrate with us!

Jesus answer is redirective, and foreshadows his struggle to teach his disciples his true purpose over the whole course of the next three years – "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do."

For the rest of Jesus' ministry, he seems to constantly be seeking those dark deserted places where he can steal away for a few precious moments of personal prayer. As his fame spreads, however, it seems that he can go nowhere without being followed, anticipated, or headed off by the needy throngs of people hungry for his healing and his teachings. At this earliest sign of the years to come, we see already a gap between Jesus' understanding of his purpose and ministry and the disciple's understanding. Here the path that Jesus and the disciples will walk together is established, but there is a crack in the middle of this path that will eventually open into an ever widening chasm with the disciples on one side and Jesus on the other. What will separate them, and what has and continues to separate us from God is prayer.

The highpoint of the disciples' walk with Jesus comes not too long after today's story, when they are sent out and given the authority to cast out demons and to heal in Jesus' name. The low point comes not too long again after the high point when the disciples find themselves unable to cast out a demon, which Jesus later tells them could only be cast out through prayer. Where had they lost sight of their reliance on God for the authority granted them? When had they fallen into that all too human trap of believing that somehow they as humans had what was necessary to heal and cast out demons?

The rocky start to the disciples' ministry with Jesus, described in the tension of today's Gospel between prayerful and humble acceptance of God's grace working through us, and our own human desire for power, glory, and the self- sufficiency to claim authority over the challenges that face us are a good place to start.

I take my own life as an example. There are days when I just simply feel stressed out. I've been working tirelessly to manage family, home, job, future planning, social life, finances, and still have enough time left to eat, sleep, and spend some good quality time with Fuego and the pets. "What's happened to me," I wonder to myself as I feel the soreness in my neck and feel my shoulders pressing against my ears, "this isn't who I am, this isn't who I want to be... where did the easygoing and mellow person that I usually am go?" And so I wonder to myself, "okay, what is it that's stressing me out?" Well, there's the two-hundred pages of homework that I really didn't want to read last night at the end of a long day… but I really don't think that's it." Unable to find an answer on my own, I finally turn to God and realize that even though I work every day in ministry, just as the disciples did with Jesus, it has been nearly a month since I've had the time to just sit in contemplative prayer. And so I sit. In the midst of preparing for my sermon, running out of time to get it all written down, I simply stop. I sit in silence, and I pray.

The beauty of the disciples is that they are us. They are the human reaction and living misunderstanding of God's purpose amongst is in Christ. Jesus, as he redirects and strives throughout his ministry to teach them, similarly strives throughout our lives to remind and to teach us that we aren't meant to take on life from our own authority. There is quite simply too much for us to do and see and get accomplished in this life for us to try to do it without God's help. We were created to be in relationship with God, and it is sometimes only through the constant reminder of our stress and failure to accomplish everything we need to accomplish with any sense of peace that we come to be reminded that even when we are working to God's will in the world, it can never be enough if we forget from where our strength, our authority, and our peace comes.

The author of Hebrews reminds us today that Christ shared with us the same things that we go through in our existence of flesh and blood. He is our help, he is our example, he is our reminder that a life lived for God can only be done cooperatively with God through prayer.

In the words of the Psalmist, Give thanks to the Lord and call upon his name! We were never meant to face this world without God... So let us pray.

Amen.

2007-01-01T01:31:00.000-08:00

Short post... tired.

We lit 10,000 luminaria in central park tonight. If you've never seen the magnitude of ten thousand candles all lit in an area smaller than a football field, it is breath-taking, moving, and unforgettable.

Having preached this morning, helped set up the bags, filled with composting dirt and a candle, all afternoon, spoken at the event earlier tonight, and then hosted a NYE party for about a dozen friends, I would have to say that this has been a long, exciting, and very successful day.

Happy New Year! (and good night!).

2006-12-31T12:30:00.000-08:00

Sermon from Christmas II, 31 December 2006

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Readings: Isaiah 61:10-62:3, Psalm 147:13-21, Galatians 3:23-25;4:4-7, John 1:1-18

Those of you who were here for Christmas morning's service will be familiar with the first part of today's Gospel reading from John. You may also remember that at the end of my sermon that morning I asked for you to each give one last Christmas gift this year of yourselves to those around you, sharing the gift's that God has given each of us as individuals in order to help bring about the most amazing aspect of the abundance of God's kingdom - us in community sharing our gifts with the world.

The continuation of John's gospel this morning picks up the same theme of action from the first fourteen verses in which Christ represents to us God's volition in the act of creation as well as God's new creation amongst us of light, life, and the promise, through Christ born in human flesh, that we can become children of God.

Isaiah, the Psalmist, and Paul pick up on this same theme of action in our other readings, as well as further developing the cosmically profound change that has taken place in God's interaction with creation.

I don't think it's any coincidence that the stress on action also accompanies a new way of perceiving and interacting with God. As children we are brought up with parents who must act primarily as rule-givers as they seek to teach us how to live and survive as humans in this world. They have the difficult job of disciplining us in positive ways in order to teach us the values and "rules" that will keep us safe as well as which will carry us into our own ability to reason and make good decisions for ourselves. While they want only what is best for us and do their best to make our childhood fun, it is also a difficult necessary for them to discipline us when we willfully insist on our own destructive and potentially dangerous way.

As a lighthearted example, my Mom loves to tell the story about when I was four or five years old and she took me to the grocery store when my aunt was visiting. She had established a routine with me by saying when we entered the store that if I was good she would get me a treat on the way out of the store. This particular day, upon entering the store, I stood up in the cart with my hands on my hips and proclaimed that I would not be good unless she got me a treat. While my mom and my aunt both stifled their laughter, I can guarantee that I neither got the treat nor got away without learning an important lesson about who was in charge.

It is only after we have mastered the fundamental rules of how to appropriately live in and survive in the world that we can step out in our own independence and begin to act for ourselves. So too in our developing spiritual stage we must learn God's rules. It is only after understanding God's fundamental requirements for our righteousness that we can begin to spiritually reach out to others in faith. At both of these profound and life-changing junctures in our lives, our fundamental relationships change. Our parents become no longer figures of authority over us who have the task of disciplining us when they would rather gather us up into their arms and have a good belly laugh at our incorrigibility, but become, instead, a form of inspiration as we reflect on what we have learned and gain our own sense of right and wrong.

So it is with Christ. As Paul states in his letter to the Galatians, we were guarded under the law until faith would be revealed... God gave us the law and the prophets as our guides and guardians until we were ready in faith to step out in action to become God's hands and heart in the world. Christ's coming into the world marked that profound change in our relationship with God that accompanies our readiness to act on our faith and to claim our inheritance as children of God. As with any parent-child relationship, the transition is never smooth or easy, but God's willingness to take the first step in guiding us into a deeper relationship with God's own self in human form draws us ever closer to the kingdom of God as we move along our spiritual path in a state of perpetually becoming that frequently mirrors our perpetual development as human beings in the world.

This state of becoming is reflected in Isaiah's teachings today where his whole being exults in God for causing righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations. It is through God's interaction with us that we come to recognize and seek a deeper relationship with God. Through learning God's discipline we hone our spiritual gifts so that we can share them with others in joy and exultation.

Similarly, our Psalmist exults in God's awesome power and calls Israel to worship, praising God for revealing God's Word to Israel - which is made available to all the world through Christ, the Word made flesh. Through this same word, God has taught us through countless generations to know God's will and the rules necessary for caring for one another and sharing God's abundance as we strive for enough spiritual maturity to do God's will naturally.

Paul carries us deeper into our understanding of the transition that takes place when we are ready for a new, deeper, and profoundly different relationship with God. Christ exemplifies this type of relationship - one in which we are no longer disciplined as children who do not yet understand, but rather one in which we are invited as friends, as brothers and sisters, as cooperative instruments in bringing God's reign into fruition, to see the fulfillment of God's will and laws through that perfect and abundant love that Christ taught us and teaches us to share with one another.

John expands on this idea, calling our attention to Christ's awesome presence among us as God's gift of grace upon grace. In Christ, we come to know God not as disciplinarian but as inspiration - as teacher in a new and cooperative way that draws us into God's kingdom as God's very instruments. John summarizes all of our readings today in teaching us that through a perpetual state of becoming, by the grace of God, through Christ, we have been given the power to become children of God.

Where I have found some difficulty with today's readings is in Paul and John's contrast between Mosaic law and grace in Christ. Both seem to pit Judaism and Christianity against each other, frequently seeming pretty anti-Semitic in the process. While in their own time the dynamics of the inter-religious family struggle that resulted in Christianity and Judaism ultimately becoming separate religions, it can leave us in a difficult position in today's world.

For my own part, I've found some help in reaching out to others whose different experience of God has deepened and broadened my own understanding of God's relationship to all of us. In my chaplain internship at Akron General Medical center in the summer of 2004, Rabbileuca, a friend and Rabbi, discussed with me the similarity between the modern Jewish understanding of the Word of God and the Christian understanding of Christ as the Word made flesh. I was surprised and delighted to learn that our understanding of Christ's message of love, service, and becoming instruments of God's abundance in the world is just as present in the Jewish understanding of God's word spoken through the laws and the prophets. The same Word, speaking the same message throughout time, just heard differently depending on where we are in our particular journey as Children of God.

As we find our own understanding of God radically changed through Christ, and our own relationship with God to be ever evolving as we continue on our path of becoming children of God and seeking to bring the abundance of God's kingdom to the world around us, perhaps it is fitting that the challenges that keep us mindful of the path and faith of others keep us also mindful of God's grace working through others in ways that demonstrate to us that we are still Children.

Just as we never outgrow the fundamental lessons we learned from our parents, but continue to learn and grow throughout our lives, so too we can never exhaust the awesome abundance of God's ever-changing and ever deepening presence in our own lives and world.

This week, as we continue our celebration of Christ's coming into the world, we are reminded in our readings not only of God's perpetual creative act of becoming in Christ, but of God's ceaseless action in the world to bring us into relationship with God and each other. As Children of God, as heirs with Christ of God's kingdom, we are reminded yet again that it is a kingdom of becoming. Just as Christ was and is heir of a kingdom that is perpetually becoming, so too are we heirs of this same kingdom - one that only becomes through our cooperative action in bringing it to the world around us.

This new year, let us join with all of God's children around the world to breath new life into Christ's ministry of love and abundance, so that, as Isaiah said, we might become to all those around us crowns of beauty in the hand of the Lord.

Amen.

2006-12-25T23:01:00.000-08:00

Okay... since you got all the good spiritual stuff and got to hear about Fuego's and my excitement about ERD gifts in my sermon for the day, here's the lowdown on the mass-marketed side!

Christmas was a blast!

I got Fuego the complete series of Sex and the City, sewing lessons, the first season of the Brady Bunch (what can I say, she wanted it ;o), and a Peets Coffee card. She got me new Chacos (orange and fabulous!!), Spiderman 2, Kingdom Hearts II, Groundhog Day, and Accepted, a thermal fleece from REI, and Pirates of the Caribbean II.

I also got the complete series of Firefly from Captain Technology; Fearless and Click from Bro-head, Coctail Monkey, and Miraclechild; Indiana Jones trilogy, Xmen III, Zelda for GameCube, a new pair of jeans, and an espresso serving set from Guinneviere, a new hand-made wooden puzzle from Woodelf, a corded drill from Dad, an awesome bottle of singlemalt (Bowmore 12 yaer) and a framed photo from the wedding from Muddy and Designgirl, and a similarly awesome bottle of GreyGoose from Grasshopper, Redhot, and the kids. DJ Purgatory brought us a 3 pound box of Sees candies, Mel-the-Great gave us an awesome bottle of wine, Sadu Crobinhobin and J-bewan gave me an awesome green fleece vest, Some-of-the-time-girlfriend hooked me up with an awesome and decorative double-pointed dagger, and Fuego's grandparents sent us a check for $100! We also got a hive of bees and some mosquito-bed netting donated in our names through ERD (sweet!).

I realize that it's always dangerous to start listing gifts since you're bound to leave something awesome out that you were entirely stoked and touched to receive... but I thought I'd give it a try nonetheless.

Since I ask that people don't cut down trees in order to give me thank you cards, I thought I'd at least recognize and give my profound thanks to all my wonderful friends and family who made it out to D-town (or who were just here in spirit). You made this, our first Christmas in a new town, awesome.

Many blessings!

2006-12-25T11:04:00.000-08:00

My sermon from Christmas Morning, 2006

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Readings: Isaiah 52:7-10, Psalm 98:1-6, Hebrews 1:1-12, John 1:1-14

It's Christmas morning! All the wonder and anticipation of Advent has come to this awesome and amazing day. Beyond the Christmas tree and the ravaging of gifts last night and this morning, we can find ourselves in a time of peace and wonder - the Word, God incarnate, Emmanuel has been born into the world.

John's introduction to his gospel this morning shouts to the world and to the heavens declaring that since the moment creation began there hasn't been a single more cosmically significant event than this birth. I love John's excitement in today's gospel. Here in microcosm is the entirety of salvation history including the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ in the world.
Starting with the beginning, John declares Christ as the Word, present with God before creation began - one and the same with God as God's spoken word. As we state every week in our creed, John states that through him all things were made. We talk about this a little bit on Trinity Sunday, but we rarely get the chance to really look at what it means that Christ is the Word of God made flesh. God the all powerful, all knowing, indescribable creator of the universe is known to us only through ways in which we can perceive God's presence. The Word is one such way. In this relationship we might think of God the Creator voicing God's will through the spoken Word, which becomes the power that creates - the Living Word of God as God's action in the decision to create. In this model, the breath of God that drives the spoken word can be seen as the Holy Spirit. This Living Word, God's volition in the creative act is the same Word that is made flesh in Christ - the living manifestation of God's own pure will put into action amongst us in the world.
John continues with a twist on the creative act of the Word, switching to the new creation that came along with Christ into the world - new life that John says is the light of all people: A light that shines in the darkness, a light that is present still, while the darkness that tried to overcome it is in the past - the darkness did not overcome it. Here John touches on all of salvation history. God's Word sent through the prophets, the visitation by angels bringing God's Word to God's chosen leaders, from Melchizedek in the time of Abraham to the burning bush, down through history to Mary, until finally the Word is simply born into the world to bring light and life personally through God's direct action in the world.
John the Baptist, Jesus' cousin by virtue of Elizabeth's family relation to Mary, came to proclaim that light, which other than Mary, a few magi from the East, and a couple of temple prophets, was unknown in the world which was created through him. Even after coming to know of him, John explains, his own people in the world he created ultimately rejected him.
But, and there's always an awesome and cosmic "but" in the Gospel message, the Good News is that to those who come to believe in him, Christ gives the power to become children of God - to continue Christ's work of light, love, and redemption in the world.
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.

I think one of my favorite things about John's gospel is how marvelously he conveys his excitement about the story and the news he's telling. It's an excitement that I've experienced both personally and vicariously through friends and family as they have come to experience God in profoundly personal and close ways for the first time in their lives. And this is the same excitement that John brings to his gospel - that of a new, invigorated, life-changing encounter with God that simply cannot be contained.

I remember making a phone call to my brother when I got back to my home parish after Happening. Most of you have heard me speak of Happening before, it's a spiritual retreat for teenagers, planned and led by other teens who have experienced the weekend before. It is similar to Cursillo, which is the adult version of the retreat, and is designed to help teens to experience Christ in a personal and meaningful way. For most it is a profound experience of God's love that many have never experienced before. Such was my own experience. Having come into the presence of the Holy in a way I had never experienced before, I felt that profound excitement that John conveys in his gospel - an excitement that I couldn't contain. As soon as I was within reach of a phone after the retreat, I called my family to share my experiences with them. I told them everything about the weekend and about my experience of God, so profound that I would never be the same. I remember my brother saying that he had never experienced God in that way and that he hoped he would some day. I felt as though my face must have been shining from the reactions I got from people I passed on the street and interacted with for the next several weeks.

This is the excitement of the shepherds as they came in from the fields and then went back into the world rejoicing, this is the excitement that brought magi from great distances from the East to bring gifts and took them home by another route so as to protect the holy family from Herod, this is the excitement of a new mother who has just birthed God into the world. And this is the excitement that I hope each of you can feel anew this Christmas morning. The excitement of knowing you've been in the presence of the holy and have been blessed by the encounter in ways that will change you forever.

This Christmas morning I hope you'll each make one final gift of your own selves to the world around you. We've each been given gifts to lighten the world around us, to proclaim the light that came into the world through sharing of ourselves with all those around us. This is the ultimate abundance of God's kingdom - an abundance of life, light, love, and support through us, who have been made children of God through Christ.

Merry Christmas.

Amen.

2006-12-24T11:00:00.000-08:00

My sermon from 4 Advent - Christmas Eve morning, 24 December 2006 (they overlapped this year, so we did Advent 4 in the morning and Christmas Eve in the afternoon and evening... see my post for more info =o)

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Readings: Micah 5:2-5a, Canticle 3 or 15, Hebrews 10:5-10, Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)

It's difficult to preach this morning. Having the Fourth Sunday of Advent fall on Christmas Eve must be about the pinnacle of anticipation as with a grand flourish the long anticipation is about to yield fruit in our glorious celebration of the birth of Christ into the world - a celebration that is heralded both in our spiritual lives as Christians and in our nation's marketing and media campaigns.

Here we stand, yet again, in the middle of two worlds that converge and diverge around some of our most sacred and significant moments in the church year, racing simultaneously to the finish of our preparations for family and friends along side our own attempts to make time for deeper spiritual contemplation on the nature of God born into the world through the helpless crying flesh of a human baby.

I am struck, particularly this morning, by the polarity between those two worlds, and perhaps it is fitting that as the rest of that world of marketing and worship of the almighty dollar has already plunged headlong into Christmas Eve as it prepares for the END of Christmas tomorrow, we take this last moment out of our frantic schedules to appreciate the profound nature of this celebration, which for us is just beginning tomorrow on the First day of Christmas.

As we heard this morning in our candle lighting, the Fourth Sunday of Advent is the Sunday of Love. It is this Sunday when we hear of God's promise through Micah; of Mary's song of praise for being chosen as God's "handmaiden;" and of Elizabeth's proclamation of a joy so profound that even the growing child within her womb leaps for joy. This is certainly a Sunday of profound joy, profound faith, and of profound love. And it seems to me that nothing short of something this profound could call us away from the palpable anticipation of Christmas Eve, just a few short hours away - and could call us back to that inner quiet as we take these last few hours to contemplate the awesome miracle of Christ's promised arrival.

Looking more closely at Micah, we see a prophecy about Christ the King, the messiah who would come and rescue Israel from the persecutions it had been enduring from practically every side. Messiah would call all the inhabitants and sons of Israel back from the foreign lands to which they had been scattered, and would stand victorious over Israel's enemies to take the throne of David - providing security and prosperity for all time. This strikes me as some pretty intense marketing on Micah's part - no doubt every family in Israel would have been sold on this kind of Messiah. Unfortunately, the release date kept getting postponed while the product was refined and revised until it finally meet with God's idea perfection...

Mary and Elizabeth, several hundred years later, are still children of this same marketing promise, only to Elizabeth has come the promise that her own child - the child of her late years after long years of barrenness and waiting - was going to prepare the way for this promised messiah to come! Mary, not to be outdone, has also had a visitation from the Angel Gabriel proclaiming not only that the messiah was finally going to come, but that she was going to bring him into the world (about six months after Elizabeth's son John the Baptist was to be born)! When they meet in today's Gospel reading from Luke, they are both so elated that they practically burst into songs of praise and thanksgiving.

I suppose by this Christmas's marketing standard, it's a bit like having a friend who says her son can take you to a place where they still have the Nintendo Wii in stock so you can get it for your family, and then finding out that your own eldest son makes the Nintendo Wii and will bring one for you in time for Christmas... or perhaps not. Somewhere the marketing breaks down. The promises don't appear to live up to what they claimed, and we arrive at a different destination than the one promised in the hype of pre-messiah marketing.

Hebrews gives us the Messiah 2.0, "Jesus edition," press release, explaining that Jesus abolishes sacrifices and offerings (representative of the law) in order to establish the will of God for all time. This doesn't quite sound ... well ... anything like the promises that were made before. Where's the king that releases all of Israel from captivity and sits on the throne of David for all time bringing peace and prosperity? Again, the marketing breaks down.

There is a profound difference, however, between the prophecies of Christ and the prophecies of our modern cultural icons in mass-marketed Christmas goods. What humans create, it is of our own greed and marketing tricks that we come to misrepresent a product. When God came to us in Jesus, it was of our human blindness that we couldn't comprehend the awesome gift of a humble messiah who would teach us God's Love.

This Love Sunday, the last Sunday in Advent, let us look with new eyes at the promises of Christ's coming. Where we expected earthly power and a ruler by the sword, let us reexamine our ideas of power and glory through the person of Jesus... In Christ we learn that true power and glory come from the healing touch that reaches out to the outsider and draws them in and heals them. True power and glory come from the abundant compassion that demands we share what little resources we might have in order to feed the hungry multitudes. True power and glory come from the willingness to put others needs before our own - to the point of laying down our lives for those we care about and love. True power and glory come from the confidence and strength to stand up for what we believe in, even in the face of persecution from others. True power and glory come from faith. While we may have missed the point of Christ's purpose as messiah, just as his own disciples frequently missed the point, we have the opportunity still to rejoice in this new coming of Christ - a cyclic new beginning that allows us, each year, to reflect anew on the awesome importance of Christ's birth, life, ministry, teachings, death, and resurrection.

At the heart of all of our readings today is the rejoicing that comes from reveling in the anticipation of something awesome - something that will change our lives forever. This last Sunday of Advent - indeed in these last HOURS of Advent - this is the joy that I hope for you to experience as we enter into the new cycle of Christ's ministry to the world. It is up to each of us how we will find the song in our hearts that resonates with the rejoicing of today's awesome anticipation, and it is up to each of us how we will bring that joy with us out of the marketing Christmas season and into the world.

As many of you know, Fuego and I made the decision a few months ago that we were going to adopt a baby. We began taking the necessary steps in the adoption process, and will begin our required parenting classes in January. By the time we finally become eligible as adoptive parents the waiting will begin in earnest as we're put on the list with other hopeful parents... I am learning anew what it means to anticipate something awesome that will change my life forever, and as such, this has been a particularly profound Advent. However, amidst the excitement in our own lives, as well as in the lives of friends and family also experiencing major life changes, Fuego and I both found this Advent that we were having trouble getting into the mindful anticipation of Christ's coming that usually comes so easily with the Advent season.

We decided to enjoy some of the media-mass marketing aspects of Christmas such as listening to Christmas carols (yes, during advent), while also entering into a more purposeful exploration of Advent themes in our own lives that relate and connect into the Advent of Christ's birth. We discovered that through some aspects of the market driven Christmas season, we have actually been able to experience a more meaningful Advent and are both shocked at how quickly Christmas is already upon us. Fuego put it wonderfully when she said that when Christmas finally comes, we'll get to celebrate it for another eleven whole days beyond the marketing hoopla.

As much as we as Christians in today's world find ourselves in two different worlds, it is important for us to explore those ways in which our worlds converge. It is in these convergences, such as Mary experienced in a more profound way than any of us could ever know, that we too might find ourselves rejoicing in the presence of God that transcends the artificial boundaries we place between the different "worlds" of our own lives. In the meantime, let us anticipate just a bit longer as we prepare our hearts and minds for Christ's coming.

Amen.

2006-12-17T21:04:00.000-08:00

Must relay a funny (I use the term loosely) story...

So I was working on my finals, really just two since they were both research papers that I didn't have time to write amongst everything else going on in the busy life of Garnabus. Anyway, I looked at the syllabi, noting that one was an 8-10 page paper and the other was a minimum of 15 pages. I carefully planned out the 15 page essay, realizing that it would make a great chapter in my thesis next semester as it involved research that is highly important for my topic (it was the parallel history of homosexuality and Christianity in Africa). This was a difficult topic to research and after searching for a couple of weeks, I settled on three books that provided the meat for three of the five sections (the other two being an introduction to the current state of tension in the Anglican Communion, and the application of my research to the current attempts for reconciliation). I read the six-hundred pages worth of books over a three-day period and then settled down to write the essay, which turned out to be twenty pages long and a very satisfying piece of research after about a day and a half of writing.

Here's the part in the plot where our hero discovers something dramatic that causes a somewhat comedic but really more tragic turn of events.

I sat down later on the second day to start my second essay, which was supposed to be a cinch since the long one was already done. I should note at this point that this is the day that both essays are due, but since that's when I finally had the time to write them, I just sucked it up and went for it. I got out my syllabus to double check the requirements of the paper -- the faint of heart may want to stop reading at this point -- to find that the paper was to be "15 pages."

"What could this mean," I wondered to myself, quickly shuffling through my notebook to reread the requirements for the first paper, which I found (to my horror) was to be "8-10 pages."

So... since I wasn't going to butcher a fine piece of research needlessly, I took a few minutes to write my professor an email letting him know what had happened and proposed that my final reflection paper's page count be added to my Final Paper, which would mean that I was only over by as many as five pages. I explained that if he wanted me to cut down my paper to ten pages I would need to file for an incomplete and request an extension, but added the concession that if he would accept the 20-page paper but still wanted the last reflection in addition, I could probably get that done this week (in time for grading which is supposed to be turned in next Monday). As I haven't heard back yet, I'll have to leave you hanging on that part of the story.

Wrapping up the other piece of the story, I received an email from my other professor asking me if I needed an extension on the final since he knew what had been going on in my life (very generous and thoughtful of him, I thought!). I wrote back letting him know that I would be able to get my final in later that evening, and proceeded to reread and take notes on the relevant sections of the Buddhist sutras involved. As it turned out, it took me exactly 15 pages to say what I had to say about the subject I had proposed as my final project (a philosophic/meditative exploration of the different descriptions of the Pure Land between the "Smaller Sutra" and the "Larger Sutra" in the Pure Land tradition of Mahayana Buddhism -- okay, yes, this is kind of esoteric, but it's also awesome). I sent the paper off at 2:00 am on Friday night/Saturday morning with a note asking if it would reflect poorly on my grade if I failed to turn in my last two one-page reflections. Happily, my professor received my paper and let me know that if I would be able to submit at least on of these reflections, it would mean that my grade would not be effected.

The end...Sort of... now I finally get to prepare for Christmas and keep my fingers crossed that my other professor will be as generous ;o)

That's me for now... I'll update you when I know more.

2006-12-10T23:52:00.000-08:00

Celebrating my first blessing of a marriage was one of the most profound and ... well ... frightening experiences of my life!

I was so nearvous that I stuttered over Muddy's last name (I've only known him for the past fourteen years). I did my best to make light of it and the rest of the ceremony went great.

It was a truly amazing experience.

Between Muddy, Grasshopper, and I, we brewed 25 gallons of homebrew for the occassion (okay, so my part was only 5 gallons, but I did bring a keg =o).

The party was awesome, and we sent the newly married couple off in style, thanks to Mamaduck's hiring of a bagpiper to play them out the door to their convertible roadster to make their final escape from the festivities.

As a gift for doing the service, they gave me a beautiful liturgical stole, which I wore for the ceremony.

This has been an insane couple of weeks... I wish I could crash for a few days, but at least Christmas is coming (we get the whole week between Christmas and New Year off!). It's hard to believe it's already Advent!

2006-12-10T23:29:00.000-08:00

This is the sermon I gave for two dear friends, Muddy and Designgirl, whose wedding was my first blessing and celebration of a non Eucharistic sacrament as a new priest. I hope they won't mind my posting it here ;o)

10 December 2006 (a week and a day after my ordination!).

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Readings: John 15:9-12, (also a Celtic blessing and a poem by Czeslaw Milosz - included below)

Celtic Blessing:

If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character. If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home. If there is harmony in the home, there will be order in the nation. If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world. So let it be

The Two of you... by Czeslaw Milosz:

Don't run any more. Quiet. How softly it rains On the
roofs of the city. How perfect all things are. Now, for the two of you Waking up in a royal bed by a garret window. For a man and a woman. For one plant divided Into masculine and feminine which longed for each other. Yes, this is my gift to you. Above ashes On a bitter, bitter earth. Above the subterranean echo of clamorings and vows. So that now at dawn You must be attentive: the tilt of a head, A hand with a comb, two faces in a mirror Are only forever once, even if unremembered, So that you watch what is, though it fades away, And are grateful every moment for your being. Let that little park with greenish marble busts In the pearl- gray light. under a summer drizzle, Remain as it was when you opened the gate. And the street of tall peeling porticoes Which this love of yours suddenly transformed.

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Most of us would agree that the heart of every good marriage ought to be love.

Well... it is clear to me that on this glorious day, we have all gathered in the presence of Love, to celebrate and together to consecrate the Love that Muddy and Designgirl share for one another.

Our three readings today all point to the heart of a deep and abiding care that heals, transcends, lifts up, and glorifies. Bridemom’s reading from the Celtic tradition draws the conclusion that through the shared love and harmony of the home, order and peace can be created in the nation, and the world. Groommom’s reading from Czeslaw Milosz speaks of love as transformative of both life and heart. John's Gospel similarly speaks of love, as Christ's one great commandment to his followers.

While each of these speaks of love in ways that draw up our hearts in the warm embrace of comfort and peace, they also come with a catch.

As Muddy and Designgirl, and any of us who have been in a committed relationship know, love isn't always easy. Our Celtic Blessing speaks of harmony in the home leading to order in the nation and peace in the world, but there is a critical step that is required for one to lead to another. Milosz touches on the same theme in speaking of the many different transformations that love has the power to bring about both within us and because of us. Yet Love is powerless until acted upon. It is this same aspect that draws my attention to the last bit of Jesus' commandment in John's gospel today - "love one another - as I have loved you."

Jesus' love was a love of action. He walked thousands of miles over the course of his life, looking with compassion and love on those who were oppressed, marginalized, ostracized, and outcast. Yet without reaching out his hand to make a difference in his world, all his love and compassion would have made no difference.

Christ's love, which we are commanded to have for one another, is a love that transcends fear and convention. It is a love that boldly spoke truth, heedless of consequences. It is a love that teaches us that in order to be great, we must become the servant of all those around us - heedless of reward or repayment. It is a love that teaches us that the greatest gift we can give one another is to lay down our lives for one another.

Muddy and Designgirl embody this love today. As they lay down their individual lives to commit themselves to becoming one, they mirror Christ's commandment to all of us. In taking courage in the transforming and transformative power of love, they have been moved to act on that courage and have just begun to unlock the amazing power that love holds in store for them in their lives together.

From our friendship over the past fourteen years, as well as from our conversations over the past couple of months in premarital counseling I am confident in the knowledge that this action will not stop at their joining together before God and us today.

I first met both Muddy and Designgirl in 1992 through youth programs in the Episcopal Church. Muddy at Youth Group, and Designgirl a few months later at a powerful weekend youth retreat called Happening. Both of them were profound examples to me to God's love during a hard time in my life, and despite the difficulties that each has endured over the years, neither of them has ceased reaching out and caring for others around them.

And though neither of them has frequented a physical church on a regular basis for some time now (something I hope I can convince them to think about), they continue to model Christ's love in their daily lives. When both played active parts in my wedding three years ago, it was my secret hope that they might finally recognize that they were perfect for each other.

Designgirl, each and every day of the long years you waited for a new kidney, you took the opportunity to be thankful for the small things that kept you positive, motivated, and looking forward. Your gift of courage and your ability to recognize the silver lining in every cloud touched so many of our lives. It is a gift that will serve you well in the years to come as you and Muddy continue to face each new day together.

Muddy, you've been a brother to me for almost half my life. Your ability to find and share humor and joy in life, to reach out to those near you in love and generosity, and your faithfulness to your friends and family are some of the most dear and treasured traits a person can have. They have already served both you and Designgirl well as you struggled together through the last stage of her wait for a kidney, and they will be invaluable in your relationship as husband and wife.

You are a treasured and loved couple, and my hope for you both is that you will continue to cultivate your many gifts together, and continue to share that amazing love that you share in common with those around you who so need a glimpse of the holy Love that your relationship embodies.

We are each called, with Muddy and Designgirl, to reach out beyond our own circles of comfort today and every day. To act on the kind of Love that Christ speaks of, transforming lives around us, serving those who most need to experience the abundance of God's love in this world, and by the power of love, to make the small differences in each others lives and the lives of those around us that, when added up over a lifetime, have the power to change the world.

Amen.

2006-12-10T21:53:00.000-08:00

Too much to say and too little time to say it right now... a brief calendar of events and I'll fill in the details after the 15th! (I'll also post my sermon from last Tuesday below... and a special one from today after I get it from the friend on whose computer I wrote it).

Okay...

3-5 Nov: Disneyland trip with 48 teenagers

9-11 Nov: Diocesan Convention (where I got to do a pretty major presentation!)

16 Nov: Gave my first ever lecture (for a 3-hour long class). Well received and a lot of fun!

23 Nov: Thanksgiving -- made dinner for nine people (turkey and all the trimmings! Okay so MFA made delicious pies!!)

(it stands for Master of Fine Arts... I realize there are other words that match the acronym -- it's not those words ;o)

27 Nov: My Birthday

27-28 Nov: My Ordination retreat

2 Dec: My Ordination to the priesthood (yay!! The fulfillment of a lifelong dream!)

3-5 Dec: Presided at four services.

10 Dec: Officiated at my first wedding (Yay Muddy and DesignGirl!! Congrats!!!)

This week: Write two 15 page research papers and one reflection paper that I didn't have time to turn in because of all the other stuff that's been going on!!

Mind you, there has continued to be 40 hours of work per week and at least another 20 hours per week of studying and paper writing.

By the 15th, I will be ready for a pretty serious break! (Just in time for Christmas... when I'll be preaching on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year's Eve -- sweet!).

Hope everyone's Advent is going great! (No, there are in fact NOT 40 days of Christmas starting on Black Friday and ending on the 26th of December. There are four Sunday's worth of weeks of Advent and THEN Christmas begins on the 25th and lasts 12 days... sheesh ;o)

2006-12-05T13:42:00.000-08:00

Sermon from 5 December 2006 (Tuesday of Advent I)

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Readings: Isaiah 25:6-9, Psalm 23, Matthew 15:29-39

Advent has become one of the most overlooked church seasons of the year in contemporary culture. Our mass media and marketing society has no time to anticipate, to contemplate the great mysteries of spiritual life, to wait with bated breath for a glorious arrival. About the closest we come in today's society is the release of the PlayStation 3 or the Nintendo Wii - the two most coveted Christmas gifts of what has become the gift buying season between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Christmas displays started popping up the day after Halloween - still two church seasons removed from Christmas. And by the Monday after Thanksgiving, anyone who was anyone had made it out to put up their Christmas lights and their inflatable Santas and Frostys.

Christmas songs, proclaiming that Christmas has already come, sing gaily in stores and malls of packages in red and green, bright shining Christmas trees, and all the toys and goodies that are owed to us because of the gifting season.

Lest this begin to sound of bah' humbug, let me just say that I LOVE Christmas. But I also Love the season of Advent, in which I find myself invited back into the anticipation of the awesome mystery of Christ's coming.

As we move through the beginning of Advent, we find our selves, in our readings, enmeshed in the advent of the Kingdom of God. Indeed, we find in today's readings some great examples both of the spirit of advent in anticipation, expectation, faith, and hope, and also two perfect examples of the signs that the kingdom has come near.

Isaiah's words today reflect the hope of the world. A great feast to which all the peoples of the world are invited to have their fill of decadent foods and fine wines. A feast at which the stain of sin has been removed, the burial shroud of death has been destroyed, sadness and despair have been wiped away. This will be the coming of the kingdom of God and the long anticipated arrival of God among us.

The Psalmist's words of faith resonate with Isaiah in the spiritual bond between us and our Lord, who provides for our every spiritual need, sustaining us, giving us peace and comfort, and anointing us as children of God such that nothing can ever separate us from the Love of God.

In our Gospel today, we have the fulfilling of these hopes, both spiritual and physical. The two sure signs of the coming of God's kingdom are abundance of God's grace in physical and spiritual wellbeing, and physical nourishment beyond our capacity to want.

Jesus heals all manor of physical and spiritual illness, and then when the crowd's spiritual needs have been cared for and their bodies have been made whole, he provides them a feast in their tranquility, providing them with such abundance that seven baskets full were collected from their leftovers.

This is the coming of the kingdom. But it is a kingdom that is always at hand, always coming, always near, always anticipated, yet is also always yet to come.

As Christ's hands and heart in the world, it is up to us to continue Christ's work to bring about the kingdom of God... to continue that hope and faith of the world for the time when we can all sit down to the banquet and feast together - with none being left out.

Fuego and I are struggling this year as we decide to limit our gift buying to TWO gifts per person on our list. What we have decided is that one gift will be the traditional fun and exciting gift that we have come to associate with Christmas. The other will be a gift out of the Episcopal Relief and Development catalogue, giving mosquito netting, livestock, sustainable crop resources, funding for medical treatment and providing of a clean water source and sanitation education to needy families and villages in the two-thirds world.

The Millennium Development Goals have brought to our attention the fact that we can make a very palpable difference in the world. As part of our prayerful anticipation of the coming of God's kingdom through the birth of Christ, we have come to a place where we can no longer ignore our responsibility to bring the abundance of God's kingdom to those who have never experienced a day of abundance in their lives.

While the rest of the world still waits with bated breath for the promised feast, we, as Americans, already have so much abundance that within a week of both Thanksgiving and Christmas, we as a nation will throw away enough food that we could have fed ALL of the world's hungry along with us for those two festal meals.

There is a sense in which all the hullabaloo of Christmas marketing serves to highlight the anticipation - mirroring Advent in a secular looking forward to another massively consumptive consumer holiday - but the atmosphere of careless spending and frivolity is also easy to get caught up in and can take us away from contemplating the most important gift ever given to the world, our Lord Jesus Christ.

This Advent, let us prepare the way for the coming of God's kingdom by doing our own small part in making this the Advent of the whole world.

Amen.

2006-12-05T13:36:00.000-08:00

Wow... this has been a weekend to remember!

Saturday was my Ordination to the priesthood -- I don't think that will really sink in for a while yet, but it was an entierly overwhelming experience (in a profoundly good way ;o)

It's hard to explain, but the most amazing moment for me was the moment just after the bishop and pretty much EVERY priest in the diocese finished laying hands on me and saying the prayer of consecration over me. It was a feeling of lightness, joy, and profound connection to the centuries of Anglican tradition before me. It was quite simply awesome.

After the ordination a group of about twenty or thirty people gathered with me to celebrate at Gordon Biersch in downtown San Francisco. My mom drove Fuego and I down from D-town, so I actually got to have a couple of beers in celebration -- thanks ma'! =o)

Sunday was my first Sunday as a priest at St. ECWIW's, and I got to preside at all three Eucharists! About the only way I can explain it is that it just fealt right... and it was amazing.

I got to celebrate again at today's Eucharist, as well as preaching (I'll post my sermon today too).

As an introvert, you might guess that I'm exhausted after all the excitement and fun... you would be correct. I'm hoping to have a pretty low key week. Especially since next Sunday is Muddy and Designgirl's wedding (yikes -- my first wedding)!!

What a weekend!

2006-11-28T00:31:00.000-08:00

Ordination retreat is wonderful!

I let everyone know it was my birthday today (okay, yesterday now)... they sang to me at dinner :*).

We reviewed everything that will go on at ordination this Saturday, spent some time talking with the bishop, spent some time in worship, and had some free time to just contemplate and be. (I love El Rancho!)

To bed...

2006-11-25T23:43:00.000-08:00

Go me... it's my birthday... go me... it's my birthday... Ahem, sorry. Anyway it's not until day after tomorrow, but by then I'll be on my Ordination retreat!!

I had an awesome day today! Sadu Crobinhobin came up to hang out with Fuego and I to drink beer and have a quiet evening in.

Okay... maybe not so quiet. Crobinhobin's two dogs came along to have a good romp with Ginger -- so awesome! They ran inside the house, ran outside the house, wrestled, chased Fred (we had to set up puppy gates to finally give him some safe space in the house).

I must say that it was pretty wonderful just to get to spend the day with two great friends (Fuego being one of them ;o). Of course, over the course being Thanksgiving weekend, I got to have an extended Birthday celebration including a movie and family fun on Friday with my mom, my brother, Fuego, DJ Purgatory, and got to see Grasshopper, RedHot, and hang out with them and their wonderful kids (Ladybug and Mini-me) last weekend.

Birthdays are pretty sweet.

2006-11-23T23:59:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

Fuego and I hosted nine people tonight... I cooked... we ate... it was good.

This being my fifth year in a row hosting Thanksgiving, I've gotten pretty used to the preparations -- plus, this year CB and Mighty8bit offered to bring salad and pies (wow they were good!), so I didn't have to start cooking until this morning at about 7. DJ Purgatory brought cranberry sauce (a special family recipie), Senior Drakes brought wine, Mom and Woodelf brought pickles olives, and soft drinks, and Some-of-the-time-girlfriend brought his sparkling personality and strikingly good looks ;o)

I made Turkey, stuffing, yams, mashed potatoes, dinner rolls, and scalloped corn, and Fuego made brussel sprouts.

It was a really odd combination of social circles and personalities, but somehow it all worked great.

DJ Purgatory brought his family tradition of going around the table and each sharing something we're thankful for, and then after dinner we all played Apples to Apples.

All in all, it was a really awesome Thanksgiving... though this year Brohead and Cocktail Monkey couldn't make it -- they were at a friend's house -- but maybe next year.

Cheers!

2006-11-13T22:08:00.000-08:00

It's been one of those nights...

I went out to exchange some envelopes that we got for ordination invitations since the ones we got were size 9 instead of size 10 (upon very close inspection, they did say size 9 in about 4 point translucent letters). So out I went into the wind and rain.

I arrived at Fed Ex/Kinko's to exchange the envelopes -- still in the bag in which I purchased them, mind you -- and the man at the counter says he can certainly take them back if I have a receipt. There is no receipt in the bag. He asks the manager, who says, "nope... no way we can take them without a receipt."

I explain that all I want is to exchange them for the correct size.

Dubiously he examines the envelopes and concludes "we don't even sell these."

I explain that in fact they do sell them, and that the display containing them is directly across from him.

Incredulously he inspects the display. Finding that I have spoken the truth, he says "where does it say these are size 9?" (now it may surprise you that he is also unable to locate where these envelopes state they are size 9, but remember that he also couldn't locate the entire display where the envelopes are sold... so I'm not so sure that's a point in my favor).

I point out to him where it says it.

Squinting carefully, he acknowledges the infinitesimally small translucent letters, concludes that this brand does not come in size 10 and says, "I can't exchange these. The size 10s are a different price and I can't refund you on the size 9s without a receipt."

Jaw agape, speechless, stunned silence.

"Sorry."

So I call Fuego... she thinks the receipt might be in the back seat of the car... EUREKA!

I go back in and triumphantly parade my receipt up to the counter. Now there's a line.

Have you ever been in a line at Kinko's? How is it possible that with four people working, they can't seem to help more than one person at a time, and even between the four of them can't seem to manage the competence of ONE normal person?

So ten minutes later, the person in front of me (this WAS the line) is done and it's my turn...

I now find out why it takes ten minutes to help a single person.

She scans my receipt... two minutes later she asks for my phone number... another two minutes later she asks for my name... another two minutes later she asks for my address. Since only six minutes have gone by, I figure I'm doing pretty well. She scans in my new purchase -- refusing the exchange of the package of envelopes which she can't seem to understand why I opened since they were the wrong size (thanks for the GREAT view of my hindsight, ma'am) -- and has me scan my credit card. She has forgotten to push a button... this process having only taken her two minutes, she apparently isn't allowed by corporate to notice her mistake for another two minutes. I finally get to scan my card again and sign my receipt.

Awesome. I've paid an extra $7.50 for the correct sized envelopes and I now have 25 useless sized envelopes for souvenirs.

Off to the bank. Which doesn't add any further injury to the encounter (thank God).

Finally I get to the burrito place where I'm to buy dinner for Fuego and I. It's 9:25pm.

The sign outside says "Closed"

What? But the door says they're open until 9:30! Well... it's unlocked and their clock inside confirms my watch's assessment of the time. I open the door and poke my head in...

"Sorry, we're closed."

"Really?"

"Yup... Sorry."

Never mind the fact that there are two guys who I WATCHED go in while I was getting out of the car and they let them order and buy food... no, they're closed. Awesome.

I call Fuego, drop off the package in the mailbox (an unwanted copy of Lady and the Tramp 2 that the Disney movie club sent even though I jumped through their little internet loop and "declined." They also charged my credit card $28 for it -- how many needless and really bad sequels does Disney need to put out directly to DVD? Are kids today that entertainment starved that their parents have to buy them crap like that to watch?), go to the store to buy beer and milk and something else... must be buns.

Finally I drive home (through the wind and rain).

...

I forgot the stamps.

2006-11-05T21:55:00.000-08:00

Wow, Disneyland's fireworks are some of the best I have EVER seen!

The trip was amazing, a 36 hour extravaganza covering almost 1000 miles and spending 16 hours in the park.

The kids were totally wiped out when we got in this morning, but everyone had a blast and there were no major incidents (no one was even late to check in!).

Fuego and I had a great time hanging out together in the park. Neither of us particularly likes the atmosphere of consumption and I was disappointed to find that they had additionally added the element of commercialism in that different corporations now sponsor different areas of the park (I guess $17 for a cheeseburger isn't enough, so they have to have corporate sponsorship to underwrite the costs ;o) That said, spending sixteen hours together walking around and noticing the little things I've never noticed before at Disneyland (for example, did you ever notice the amazing trees in and around the park?), and going on our favorite rides (Space mountain remains my all time favorite, especially since the renovation -- NICE!).

I think I'm going to have to let Fuego drive next time on Mr. Toad's... I took a wrong turn and ran us head-on into a train and we ended up driving around in hell for a bit before we found our way back out (whew!).

Some of the upgrades are kind of hokey -- the additions to Pirates wasn't too bad, but the Haunted Mansion a la Jack Skelington is pretty lame. It's cute if you've never seen it, but once was enough... (and nothing was scary). They also changed the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse into the Tarzan treehouse (I didn't go in, so I can't say whether it was a real upgrade or just a bastardization of the original with a new name to attract younger audiences who don't know what Swiss Family Robinson is -- I blame the parents ;o)

Back to the fireworks... now that was a show worth waiting for! They were timed to a history of Disneyland through the addition of each new ride/attraction, done to music, and had a live tinkerbell zipping back and forth over the castle (DURING the fireworks!) on a zip line running from the top of the Matterhorn to somewhere else in the park that I couldn't see from hometown square. They combined fireworks with lasers, with flame-throwers, created three-dimensional effects by setting off fireworks all the way around home-town square, and used the park sound system to narrate the whole thing -- it really was awesome!

So... having left at 11pm on Friday, driving all night (with maybe 3 hours sleep), plaing from 8am - 12am (sixteen hours), boarding the bus at 1am, driving all night (with closer to 4 hours sleep this time!), and getting back to the church at about 7:45am, it's kind of surreal to be sitting at home on my couch now writing my blog for the day...

Enough for now... I've been up for a very long time and am going to bed.

2006-11-04T10:23:00.000-08:00

Um... I'm in Disneyland today... here's something to keep you occupied until tomorrow =o)

2006-11-03T00:58:00.000-08:00

Today is the day!!

I've been planning this trip to Disneyland for quite some time -- a 36 hour mad rush to the mouse and back again. There are a lot of churches that have done this trip, but St. ECWIW's hasn't done it before, so it should be pretty awesome... not to mention that we have a total of five different churches joining us (I know of at least one other church doing the same trip with churches in their local area as well, so we'll have to compare notes when it's all done with). We're leaving tonight at about 11pm, riding all night to get to DL when they open, playing ALL DAY, and then riding all the way back home after the park closes at midnight. We should get back home just in time for church on Sunday morning... yike. With over forty kids on board, I'm just glad I'm not the one driving!

I'll let you know how it goes. =o)

2006-11-02T23:47:00.000-08:00

No really... he fawns all over warm, sweaty, stinkey shoes as if they were the hottest date he's ever had. Once he's rubbed all over them, laid on his side and held onto them with his front paws while kicking them with his back paws, he then does whatever he can to physically get inside... usually all he can fit is his entire head, but really, I think that's enough. Get a room already!

So having expanded on that little issue... on to the next!

Fuego and I went to see ok go tonight at the Great American Music Hall, it was pretty awesome!

If you've never heard of ok go, then you've certainly not been following Fuego's blog (they're her new favorite obsession). Here is a sample:

Anyway, the concert was a blast... except that the "warm up" band, called "Quit your day job" (something they should NOT have done) just plain sucked. They sucked like I have never heard a band suck before... and when they were done sucking, they sucked some more. I think the teenage girl next to us put it very well when she said -- "well, that was pointless."

At least ok go made up for it with a great performance.

More tomorrow (we're going to Disneyland! ... no really, we are.)

2006-11-01T21:44:00.000-08:00

I've come to the conclusion that my cat has a shoe fettish.

Okay bye.

2006-10-26T22:49:00.000-07:00

Ginger loves to play tag =o)

I've been going up to her and tapping her on the side and saying "you're it," then I run through the kitchen to the other side. She romps to the other side wagging her tail and I run back to the other side again. She romps back to the other side wagging her tail even more. I usually double back on her a couple times and come out on on the same side I started on. She loves it!

I did discover that she eventually gets a little frustrated when she can't predict what side I'll come out on -- she gives a cute little grunt of exasperation (then I know I've tricked her too many times and I let her win).

Yay pup!

2006-10-25T21:51:00.000-07:00

Fuego and I got back from OH a couple of weeks ago now... wow how time flies when you're preparing for insane trips to distant amusement parks with your youth group!

OH was a good trip overall... but not without it's difficulties.

Fuego's mom's surgery was only supposed to take about two hours and ended up taking about five and a half instead. She lost over half of her blood volume and had to receive a transfusion as well as a donation from the bone bank before they got her put back together. She was pretty much non-responsive for two days with dangerously low blood pressure -- when they could get her to respond she thought it was 1879 and didn't know who she or Fuego was. Her hemoglobin count was at 5.9 (12 is "low"), and they didn't know whether or not she would have any permanent damage.

Thankfully after a total of eight units of blood (three in surgery and another five after) she perked up and was more alert than she's been in quite a while (there doesn't seem to be any side effects or lasting damage -- whew!).

I arrived a day later, to a frazzled and stressed Fuego.

It seems that by staying up all night getting work done so I could go to OH and then forgetting to call Fuego when I got to Berkeley after driving 60 miles on ninety minutes sleep, that she got the idea I might not be okay...

Since she then called the seminary and they couldn't find me and I didn't call for another four hours, and then wasn't emotionally available because I had just enough sleep to stumble through my day and onto the airplane that night, I can honestly say that I think I contributed a lot more to her stress than helping.

Then again, I don't think I was a great deal more help when I got there since I got sick the second day I was there and am still recovering now that I've been home for two weeks (colds and I do not mix).

Those setbacks aside, it was wonderful getting to spend time with family. I got to have some great conversations about theology with Uncle Rock'n -- he's been church shopping, so we got to go to a couple of Episcopal churches in the area together and even go to have breakfast together! We also got to spend a lot of time with Boy-wonder, went to Octoberfest, out to sushi, to a movie, and played put-put golf with Cinnamon, spent a lot of time with Mom in the hospital and in physical therapy/rehab (she did great!), and got to spend some good quality time with M&P. I even got to have a good talk and pray with P the last night we were there, it really meant a lot to me to get to spend some time together, he's such a wonderful man.

We did manage to get Mom home to M&P's the day before we left and she has been back home at her own place now for a week. The Physical Therapists said that she accomplished in a week and a half what takes some people two months to do -- way to go, Mom!

2006-10-24T22:50:00.000-07:00

Here's my Sermon from the 22nd of October (I'll post the one from the 24th next week).

Isaiah 53:4-12, Psalm 91:9-16, Hebrews 5:1-10, Mark 10:35-45

There is an elaborate interplay between this morning's scriptures, all of which point to different aspects of today's gospel reading. We start with Isaiah's hard and stinging words that seem so familiar to us as we reflect on the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. In his words, we get a picture of what Jesus must have understood his role as messiah to be – ultimately to be punished, stricken, beaten, and killed in order to save God's children. Juxtaposed against Isaiah's words we have the Psalm, giving more accurately a picture of what the disciples expected from Jesus – that he would be protected by angles, blessed in all that he undertook, not so much as stubbing his toe on a rock! He would trample the forces of evil, including the forces of Rome and be brought to the place of honor on the throne in Jerusalem. Hebrews draws the two disparate pictures into a clearer focus for us, describing Jesus' life on earth as a time of prayers and supplications, loud cries and tears. He called out to the one who could save him from death and was heard because of his reverent submission. But being heard does not necessarily mean getting what we want. Where the two pictures from Isaiah and Psalm 91 meet is in a spiritual understanding of Messiah that the disciples had not yet grasped, but which Jesus understood and tried to explain to their deafened ears. This is where we enter in today's gospel. Jesus, in the two verses preceding today's reading, has just told the disciples for the third and last time before coming to Jerusalem that he would be condemned, and killed, and that he would rise again after three days.

At each of the previous two tellings of this same prediction, the disciples have immediately changed the subject, not understanding and not wanting to hear what Jesus' idea of messiah is. They know better. The first time, Peter rebuked Jesus for saying that he would be killed. He had just confessed that Jesus was the messiah, which seemed like a moment of clarity in Peter's usual haphazard way of reactive thought and action. But in the next instant he rebukes Jesus for betraying what he believed messiah to be. Although he believed Jesus to be the messiah, he insisted that Jesus be the messiah he was expecting. At the next telling, the disciples did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask – instead, they argue the rest of the way home about who is the greatest.

Now at this third and final telling, Jesus has just said that when they get to Jerusalem, the "Son of man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again." No sooner had he finished saying this than James and John stroll up next to him and ask him let them sit at his right and left hand when he comes into power.

They blithely suggest that they can drink the cup Christ drinks and be baptized with the baptism with which Christ is baptized, but they have closed their eyes and ears and heart to what Jesus has been trying to tell them. They are asking to be seated in the places of honor next to Jesus when he takes the throne in Jerusalem after their military victory over Rome. They wish to be set up as leaders directly under Jesus when he becomes king. Jesus relents, telling them they will drink the cup he drinks and that they will indeed be baptized with the baptism he endures... had they been listening, they might have understood that this meant persecution and agonizing death. He then tells them that these places of honor – which ironically we recognize in the Calvary image of the thieves on either side of Jesus as he is crucified – is for God to decide and then calls all of the disciples together to tell them again (as after the discussion on the road about who was greatest) that to be great, they must become the servants of all... that the reign of God is not like the reign of earthly monarchs where power and riches separate the leaders from those they lord it over, but rather that they should take Jesus as an example. He came to serve, not to be served, to lift up others, not to be lifted up, to forgive and draw into community, not to pass judgment and ostracize. And to heal and love, not to overthrow with the sword.

So often in today's world, we become like Jesus disciples, wanting to make Jesus into OUR image of what Christ should be. For nearly two millennia we have taken Jesus' words and other words of scripture out of context to validate our own human ambitions. We fight wars in Jesus name, we shun and marginalize people in Jesus name – whether it be lepers, heretics, and Jews in the middle ages (and in frighteningly more recently history), or people living with HIV/AIDS, the GLTB community, and Muslims today. We have and we continue to condemn others who don't believe the same things we believe in the same way we believe them because we insist that we know what is required for salvation. Even between and within different sects of Christianity we can't seem to find a way to open our ears and eyes and hearts to what Jesus has been trying to tell us since the time of his own personal followers. The world at large still seems not to be ready for the kind of Messiah that Jesus was and is.

I certainly won't claim to have the answers. I have spent much of my life struggling to better understand what Jesus was all about in his life, ministry, death, and resurrection. Are their scientific explanations for his miracles? Does he really expect us give everything we own to the poor? Did he have to die for his purpose to be fulfilled? Was his resurrection simply spiritual or did he really bodily rise from the tomb? Would any of the easy answers to these questions change who Jesus was and is? As far as these questions, it has come down to a far more fundamental question for me... Do I believe God is capable of these miracles – even to the point of saving us when we do everything we can to ignore the divine? The answer to that question is yes. There is one certainty in the life and ministry of Christ, and that is that everything he taught, everything he did, everything he stood for turned the system of domination and oppression on its head. Not the least of this system was the belief about what messiah would be.

The Jews had waited for centuries for the coming of the messiah. He was to be a great king, conquering the oppressive forces that dominated Israel, and sitting on the throne of David in Jerusalem as a victorious and resplendent king. In his glory there would be peace and prosperity on earth and all the nations would come to Jerusalem and worship him. The image of the suffering servant from Isaiah was never conceived to be a part of the messianic vision. The certainty of that promise permeated the hopes and dreams for the future of the children of Israel. Jesus disciples may not have been Pharisees, but as Jews they still knew the stories from their childhood. All of Jesus closest disciples had now voiced similar visions of the coming greatness of Christ. Peter just before the transfiguration, all of the twelve on the way back home after the transfiguration, and now James and John along the road to Jerusalem – too caught up in the anticipation to hear Jesus' most detailed description of his immanent fate.

Father Rector touched on our own messianic delusions last Sunday as he discussed the rich man's dilemma. Does God want us to be rich? Why do so many Christians believe that God intends for them to experience material riches, comfort, power, and glory in this lifetime? Mark the gospeller is masterful in his writing of the disciples journey over the course of their friendship with Jesus. From great beginnings, they become Jesus inner circle, privy to his explanation of parables, to his calming of the sea, walking on water, healings, feedings, they themselves were sent out and were able to cast out demons in Jesus name. But as they became more and more sure of who Jesus was, they became more and more blind to who he really was. From the moment Peter proclaims Jesus to be the messiah the disciples have endured a downward spiral in their walk with Christ. They (through Peter) rebuke Jesus for saying he would be arrested, condemned, and killed, they begin to argue amongst themselves about who will be the greatest in the coming kingdom, they stop a man casting out evil spirits in Jesus name, they themselves find that they are unable to cast out a demon that previously they had power over, they turn away children from Jesus touch, and today they ask for positions of power when Jesus comes to glory. Today Jesus for the second time struggles to bring them back onto the correct path... through them, Mark struggles to bring his community, and us with them today, back to Jesus true teachings. "Look at who I am" says Jesus... "I am a servant to the lowest ranks of people in this already oppressed and dominated community." Have you learned nothing from our three years together? I'm about to be handed over to be crucified and you lot will have to carry on this ministry. I will be resurrected for your sake, but I won't be with you forever. You have to get this right! If you want to be great in the reign of God, you must become a slave to all. You must be willing to devote your life to the service of God's children. You must never think yourself better than anyone else or think yourselves above any act of service.

One of the most amazing things about Mark's gospel is the structure that keeps drawing us back from Jerusalem. The original ending of Mark's gospel gives us no further resurrection appearances than that to the women at the tomb. They leave and tell no one for they are terrified. The last message we receive is that Jesus will meet his disciples in Galilee – which is back at the beginning of the story. It's as if Mark is telling his community and us, "now that you finally understand that the messiah is not about Jerusalem and an earthly reign of God, start over and appreciate the true importance of the journey."

I've had my ideas, about what and who Jesus was, challenged more times than I can count over the course of my life. In my childhood and adolescence, my brother, Bro-head, and I struggled with the inconsistencies between what was preached at church and how supposed Christians lived their lives, in my later teens I struggled with what and who God was and meant in my own life and what faith meant to me, most recently and most consistently over the past several years, this has happened at seminary. Liberation theology challenged me to look more closely at the systems of domination and oppression that Jesus railed against. Queer theology challenged me to look more closely at the people with whom Jesus associated and the root of his message in love, compassion, raising up, drawing in, incorporating the marginalized, healing, and acceptance, and never giving into the systems that strive to exclude and dominate, especially when they claim to do so in the name of God. Ethics taught me that the systems and powers of domination and oppression are still in charge of the world despite the fact that Christians are now in charge of many of them. And my wife, Jane continues to challenge me to open my ears, eyes, and heart to different nuances of Christ's message that keeps my faith fresh, ever questioning, and ever striving. Where I find myself currently on the journey is with a radical Christ whose kingdom lies within each of us just waiting for us to pick up where he left off in order to bring the reign of God to those who most need some sign of hope and compassion in this life.

Each of us stands to learn something very important from James and John today. Part of the Good News of Mark's gospel is that the disciples are us. They are human, they lose sight of what is important while they make their grand plans, often forgetting themselves and their purpose along the way. Yet through all of their misunderstandings, through all of their foibles, through getting lost in their own pride and selfishness, they remain Jesus closest companions along the way. He does everything possible to prepare them for their ministry after he is no longer with them, yet all he can hope is that after his resurrection they will finally reflect on their time together and get that the kingdom of God is within them – all they have to do to claim it is offer it to those around them.

As Christians in today's world, we have access to the rest of the story. We have the opportunity to learn from the disciples wayward and head-strong ways. Even as the disciples found themselves frequently missing the point along the way, we too find ourselves frequently struggling for understanding and clarity. Jesus teaches us today through James and John, that in those bleak moments when we finally realize that we've been so busy seeking our own destination that we've missed the point of the journey, the quickest way to find ourselves is through reaching out to those around us and offering whatever we have in service to them.

In the end, the author of Hebrews draws out the Good News for us in that when we do forget ourselves and seek to be put at the right and left hand of Christ in the glory of his kingdom, we won't be cast out of God's divine presence for our human pride, rather we'll simply be told no and then be reminded that the reign of God is already within… it is our responsibility to bring it to fruition through sharing it with others in love and service.

Lord open our hearts to the understanding of what following you as Christians really means, give us the strength and courage to reach out to others in need, and bring us back to your way when we, certain of the destination, take the lead and stray from your path. Amen.

George Bush singing "Sunday Bloody Sunday"

2006-10-20T17:40:00.000-07:00


Wow... More later, but for now... just wow.

Real Live Preacher Communion Taste Test

2006-10-19T21:32:00.000-07:00

I know, it's been forever... let's just say that between Mom's hip revision, getting sick the second day of my "vacation" (which, although I had a great time visiting with family, wasn't a break), trying desperately to catch up with homework and stay abreast (no that's not a euphamism) of my work at St. ECWIW's, and still try to have time left to sleep and finish getting over being sick (yep, still hacking and coughing half the night away) I haven't had much time for little sanity keeping devices like blogging.

In the absence of my sanity, however, I did enjoy this clip, which I hope you'll enjoy too!

This is Real Live Preacher in Communion Taste Test...

2006-09-28T13:16:00.000-07:00

This might be a bit of a long one... it's been a while (and no, that's not a euphemism ;o)

Have you ever noticed how when you are about to go on vacation those carefully protected and established time boundaries about work -- the ones you set for yourself so you can keep balance in your life -- go right out the window as you try to get everything done that remains on your to do list?

Although I did it to myself, I still haven't had a break since last Tuesday. By not having a break, I refer to the fact that between homework, preparing curriculum, going to class, grading papers, and spending thirteen hours at Church on Sunday, my average night's sleep from Wednesday through Monday was about 4 hours per night. This week was no better as I had three less days this week to get the curriculum done for while I'm gone. I managed to finish everything by eight o'clock this morning, and then I took a two hour nap and went to class late.

Since there are a lot of clergy for whom this is a typical week, I am reminded of how lucky I am to not have the expectation of this kind of schedule at St. ECWIW's -- not to mention how important it is to set up healthy boundaries early in my ministry as Clergy! I put this down also as a reminder to myself that taking a full course load and TA'ing a class while trying to work full time isn't a good idea. Yes, I'm sure we could have all told me that before I did it, but I'm pretty sure I still wouldn't have listened ;o)

Fuego left for her Mom's on Sunday night, so I've been on my own this week... this might be a clue that left to my own devices, I'd probably just work (yay Fuego!).

Oh ya... forgot to mention that I renewed my certification in Infant, Child, and Adult CPR, First Aid, and AED on Saturday from 9-6, which is why I didn't get finished with curriculum until 3:30am (I get up at 6:30 for church).

Okay... so here's part of where it becomes purely my fault that I didn't get any sleep...

Bro-head came to visit Sunday night, so after dropping Fuego off in LocalAirport at 10:55 pm, I went home and did some homework, then went to the store and bought some good beer (mmm... beer). Bro-head got to D-town at about 12am and we proceeded to drink beer and good rum (Pyrat... pronounced Pirate -- y'arr), chatted, watched a movie ("The One," with Jet Li), and didn't get to bed until 4am. Since I had only gotten three hours the previous night, and had been up since 6:30, I was pretty exhausted when we finally went to bed... but what a fun time!

The Dyson "Animal" worked its magic on the carpets and Bro-head was fairly allergy free (he only had to take antihistamines twice while he was there. I got up at 10 on Monday and made us blueberry pancakes (I had worked too many hours over the weekend, so I went in late to work). I went in at about noon for a lunch meeting, answered email, had staff meeting, wrote down a to do list so I could let go of my anxiety about forgetting stuff, and headed out to watch a late matinee showing of Fearless at 4pm (also with Jet Li... had to get in my "guy" movies while Fuego was gone) -- this was a really awesome movie! The tone was similar to that of Crouching Tiger (with excellent plot mixed in with great martial arts scenes), except that Fearless is based on a true story... they really did an amazing job of it, I highly recommend it!!

We had a great time talking again that evening and then watched "Brokeback Mountain" later that night. We paused the film a lot to discussion some of the challenging scenes, and ended up getting to bed at about 3am. I got up at 9, had some Captain Crunch, and headed in for a long day's work of getting my to do list done! Bro-head locked up when he left and took out Ginger for me since I didn't have time before I left. We really had a great visit!!

Whew... okay, we're up to Tuesday afternoon...

I brought my lunch so I could work straight through the day... did more email, set up volunteers for Church school and youth group while I was gone, finished some details for the upcoming DL Run, got most of my To Do list finished, and bailed at 5:30 to go home and get as much homework done as possible before Guinevere came to visit that night.

You might think that as an introvert, I would have just enjoyed some iTime with Fuego gone, but I rather consider time with Fuego as at least as good as iTime, if not better, so really I just missed her and rather welcomed the distraction of guests.

I managed to get two classes worth of homework done, then had dinner with Guinevere and hit they hay at about 1:30. Guinevere bailed at 6 so she could get to work -- she knocked on my door to say good bye, but otherwise let me sleep (yay... thanks!). I got up at 9, took Ginger out and ran to work for a 9:30 meeting with a new youth volunteer who is awesome (yay!!).

I left at 11:30 for a lunch meeting and to get the curriculum done for Sunday, having completed my to do list and trying to ensure nothing would fall through the cracks while I'm gone (how quickly we forget that things still got done before we came to our current position ;o).

When I got home from my meeting at about 4pm I brewed a pot of "decaf" (which wasn't) and got straight to work on the curriculum, which generally takes at least eight hours of work even with Fuego's expertise in song selection and her help in gathering images... which would have put me at midnight...

So when I hit about 4am, I resigned myself to only getting a few hours of sleep before I had to leave for class this morning. When I finished the resource pieces and started setting the timing of the meditation at 5, I resigned myself to not trying to do my other homework before I went to bed. When I finished the questions, burned the CDs and DVD, and went to print the resources out at 6, I resigned myself to only getting an hour and a half of sleep. When I finished grading papers to return to students today (in the class I'm TAing) it was 8am... I resigned myself to just burning the curriculum onto a CD and dropping it off at St. ECWIW's with instructions for how to do it. Ginger hadn't gone out yet, so I woke her up and took her outside (she didn't seem particularly bothered), I went to bed at 8:30 intending on an hour and a half of sleep, and resigned myself to being late for class if there was traffic.

Fuego called. We chatted. I had gotten a half hour of sleep. I went back to sleep for another half hour before the alarm went off. I got up, turned the alarm off, peed, and got back in bed.

...

Perhaps the warning sirens have just gone off for you.

...

I woke up at 11. Class had just started without me.

So I got up, fed Ginger, took the curriculum to work, and resigned myself to missing the first half of class -- thankfully it's a three hour long class :o)

I did manage to get here at break, turned in my homework, and sought forgiveness for my tardiness.

Oh... I did stop at Noah's for a bagel and got a REAL double Americano -- which might explain why I'm feeling punchy, wide awake, and kind of buzzed as I sit blogging in my Ethics class (the one I'm TA'ing) instead of paying closer attention to my favorite professor's lecture.

I will be rushing home to meet Some-of-the-time-girlfriend for dinner tonight after class (he's house-sitting for us while we're gone!), and then he's taking me to the airport tonight (Thanks SOTTiG!).

Since I generally can't sleep on airplanes, I don't anticipate getting much sleep again tonight, but at least I have a couple hundred pages to read and a paper to write that's due by Friday night to keep me busy...

Yay, vacation. ;o)

2006-09-22T16:44:00.000-07:00

This is my sermon from Tuesday the 19th of September...

Readings: Proverbs 3:1-6, Psalm 119:33-40, 2 Timothy 3:14-17, Matthew 9:9-13

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I almost wish we could have read today's gospel first, so that we could have heard the rest of the readings through Jesus' words to the Pharisees – For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.

I must admit that the Calling of Matthew is one of my favorite calling stories in the Gospels. Here we have a man who is despised by his own people for being in league with the oppression of Rome, and against all social conventions of the time, Jesus speaks with him as with any other beloved child of God. In so doing, Jesus shocks and mortifies the pious Jews around him – probably even including some of his own disciples – and what is worse, he obviously accepts an invitation to dine with Matthew shortly thereafter, heaping consternation on his head from the Pharisees.

But Jesus message is made very clear – "Those who are well have not need of a physician." On the surface, Jesus is saying that the righteous aren't the ones who need a messiah, but there are always deeper meanings in Jesus' words…

The Pharisees were a group of very pious, not to mention rich, Jewish laypeople. They knew the law backwards and forwards, they knew exactly what and who Messiah would be, and they expected to know what and whom he would teach. Subsequently, they were judgmental of Jesus and his ministry, suspicious of his intentions, and frequently shocked and mortified at his behavior – especially as more and more sinners and un- pious commoners came to believe in him as the Messiah. They come off, in the Gospels, as being pretentious, malicious, and sinister, but in truth, as Father Rector commented a few weeks ago, these were the model citizens and the elders in their worshipping communities – they would be our vestry members, our most respected and honored parishioners, admired for their commitment, and appreciated for their generosity. The only problem they had was this Jesus, who seemed to have these superhuman abilities to heal and understand God's word and message, and yet had a sub-human taste in companions and a carelessness about the law that undermined everything they stood for.

Although the sinners and outcasts need Jesus in very obvious ways, on a much deeper level, it is the Pharisees that most need Jesus, as it is they who have missed the point of God's love and redemption of Israel through the law. They have condemned those less pious, ostracized them, and likely have demanded the sacrifices from them required by the law in order for them to be a part of the worshipping community. To these hard hearted and closed minded elites, the letter of the law is what is required for salvation, and it keeps them from opening their hearts, minds, and eyes to Jesus' way of understanding God's redemptive love.

"Go and seek what this means," he tells them, "'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners."

This passage that Jesus quotes from the prophet Hosea continues, saying "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings." In it, Jesus is making a very clear statement to the Pharisees that what is important is seeking out a relationship with God – all the sacrifices and burnt offerings in the world won't bring us into God's presence if we only concentrate on what we "must" do by the letter of the law. Through their own preference for the law and all of its intricate measures, Jesus warns the Pharisees against missing the spirit of the law, which is a means for humans to be right with God so that they can seek out and develop knowledge of God through relationship.

Jesus calling of Matthew teaches us a valuable lesson about righteousness as seeking to be right with God rather than seeking to be right with the law.

The mistake that these good and righteous people make in condemning Jesus' associations and actions is brought out in the words of Proverbs, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." Seeking to gain God's favor through a zealotry to the law is missing the point. Seeking to understand God through memorizing centuries of human judicial dialogue on the law is missing the point. Seeking to cut others off from God because they transgress what we think is the letter of the law… is missing the point. Those sinners and tax collectors, like Matthew, who trust in their hearts that Jesus has something to teach them about seeking a relationship with God, and are called back into relationship with God simply through their trust and faith, these are the ones who really get it.

The Psalmist reiterates and rewords Jesus' message to the Pharisees and to the sinners around him: "Give me understanding, and I shall keep your law." The law was made for people, not for God. Jesus' teachings lead to understanding – to a deep and abiding love that fulfills the law on a new and deeper level than simply striving against social convention.

Jesus' final words in today's gospel again have a double edge to them – "Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners." Continuing the metaphor of the physician, Jesus reiterates that it is the sinners who need him, but again, on a deeper level, he says that in fact it is the sinner who is the one that comes before God in humility, seeking mercy and forgiveness, and as such, is the one that has an open heart and can truly seek a relationship with God. It is a final rebuff to the Pharisees, who because of their righteousness according to the law, seek only to know and be redeemed by the law, rather than seeking to know and be redeemed by God.

Jesus teaches us today that coming before God in humility and seeking to know and be in relationship with God is the heart of righteous faith. Being right with God is an essential condition for our seeking that relationship, but it isn't God that requires it, rather it is our own hearts that cannot approach God while we feel the guilt of our sins or, in the case of the Pharisees, while we are so puffed up with self-righteous pride that we don't need God.

The Good News for us today is that we are called, as Matthew was called, to be in deeper relationship with God, to sit as if at dinner together, and really get to know each other. We are called into the amazing love and forgiveness of a god who wants to know us intimately as friends and eternal companions, and all we have to do is reach out in faith and love to accept that invitation to healing, forgiveness, and deeper knowledge and understanding of God.

Lord, let us walk the path of your apostle Matthew this day, and like him let us, through our penitent and opened hearts, be absolved of our sins and healed of our guilt so that we might again come into your presence in thanksgiving and seek to know and follow you, Amen.

2006-09-19T22:55:00.000-07:00

So I watched "The Boys from Baraca" tonight with Fuego. It was a pretty awesome film until about mid-way through... it did an awesome job of demonstrating the crap that the kids in the film had to live with and deal with, and the atrocious condition of their lives, schools, neighborhoods, and families. It did an amazing job of following these truly amazing kids to Kenya where they learned a new way of being with one another and were, for the first time, given the personal attention that most of us take for granted from our grade-school educations.

Where the film let me down was by demonstrating, mid-way through, that the Baraka school ended up completely letting all twenty of these boys down... just like every other institution in their lives.

They come home for two months in the summer and then, toward the end of their "vacation," an emergency meeting is called to let the parents and the kids know that the school has been closed due to civil war near Baraka. This was termed by the meeting coordinator as "a little bit of bad news." Bravo.

That's it. They don't get to go back for their promised second year, they don't get the redemption of having been taught a new way of being, going home and experiencing hell through new eyes, and getting to return to the healthy world they've been shown exists. The next scene is nine months later, when all the boys except four have been abandoned by the documentary (that's 16 boys whom we have gotten to know and who have just disappeared from the documentary's radar). Of the four boys they show, it seems by the end of the documentary that 1 (ONE) had ended up benefiting from the program.

For those who have seen this documentary and were hoping that two of the boys had hope... Montrey ended up dropping out of the good high school he got into after less than one year (you can find some updated information online)... sorry.

So we're left with no better odds than we're given at the beginning of the film -- with less than one quarter of the kids graduating from high school (we get about 20% if we include Richard, the boy with the learning disability, who is reported as taking the GED).

Yay.

Not an uplifting film, but important nonetheless.

2006-09-19T22:41:00.000-07:00

Yay sermon... here is my sermon from Sunday the 10th.

Readings: Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23, Psalm 146, James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17, Mark 7:24-37

There has been a lot in the news over the past several weeks that has really given me pause as I struggle with the tensions between what I believe freedom to be versus what I see, hear and experience in the world today. A Hasidic Jew is bodily removed from an airplane for praying before take-off - because his piety too closely resembles Islamic practices (that clearly are also not allowed); a twelve year old girl is left stranded in Las Vegas when her connecting airline refuses to board her off of her flight from London; racial profiling at airports and security stations across the country, which were thinly veiled before, have once again been given license to be openly prejudiced as we seek out the "most likely" candidates to detain and harass; we're being reconditioned to define freedom in narrower and narrower terms as we grow closer and closer to an Orwellian vision of the future in the here and now. And as we are fed more and more fear in our daily media diets, we grow more and more willing to give up the decades of progress we've made in human rights, all in the name of national security.

Tomorrow will be the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and today James brings us a challenge as we continue to move forward through our collective wounds toward a new wholeness that we will have to create for ourselves. Will it be a wholeness that continues to be suspicious of hard-working Americans, and categorizes them as second-class citizens when it comes to travel and civil rights? Will it be a wholeness that continues to elevate the rich and powerful above the laws established for the common citizens, while further dishonoring the poor with lessened freedoms and ever widening inequalities?

James warns us today to show equity in our dealings and treatment of all those around us, to remember Christ's commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to put our faith into practice, lest it be nothing more than nice words and comforting sentiment.

Thankfully we also have a purely unique story from Mark's gospel to accompany James' message of conviction. It seems from our Gospel story today that even Jesus himself needed at least one reminder that his teachings and faith applied to ALL of his neighbors, and not just those with whom he most closely identified.

In a fairly uncharacteristic encounter, Jesus seems to be ready to deny healing to a desperate parent who has come to him seeking healing for her daughter. She was of Syrophoenician origin, a foreigner, a gentile. She looked differently, dressed differently, prayed differently, and yet she believed that Jesus could heal her daughter. Courageously she approached a holy man from another race and religion, seeking desperately for help. Jesus, perhaps having a bit of an off day after his encounter with the Pharisees when his disciples were caught eating with unclean hands, responds irritably. He had left his disciples behind in Galilee and gone to Tyre to find somewhere to be alone for a day. No one seemed to understand what he was trying to teach them, even his closest friends. He hadn't wanted anyone to know he was even there, and yet this foreign woman somehow sought him out and had the nerve to beg a favor of him. "Let the children be fed first," he said. Then, a bit careless for her feelings, he added "for it is not fair to take the Children's food and throw it to the dogs."

Undaunted by his uncharacteristic harshness, this desperate mother plucks up the remains of her dignity and courage and throws Jesus words back in his face. Dispensing with the respectful title of teacher, she addresses him saying, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs."

I've been there before. I've said things that I wished I could have reached out and snatched back after they escaped my lips. I can only imagine that Jesus must have felt the same way. He responds to her in his more typically compassionate manner, sending her on her way assured that her daughter has been healed.

I don't think it's going too far to say that Jesus learned something about his mission and ministry that day. It may just be that we have this woman to thank for the disciples later ministry to the gentiles - to my recollection, we don't hear of Jesus refusing any other believers in the rest of his ministry. In his own place of frustration and unrest, Jesus encountered the "other." She became for him the key to unlocking the abundance of God's reign beyond the borders of Israel, and he is refreshed and renewed as he heads back toward the Sea of Galilee.

While the people may not have understood the deeper significance of his teachings, it was clear that they were astounded by the abundance that Christ brought to every aspect of his ministry. Deaf ears opened, mute tongues singing praises to God, sight restored to the blind, food for the hungry - and not just enough to have their fill, but so much that they couldn't possibly eat it all. The abundance of the reign of God that Jesus demonstrates and represents to his followers seemed to have no limits, and indeed after opening the floodgates of grace and healing to those outside the house of Israel, the abundance seems only to have grown that much more.

This is what James is talking about when he writes to his followers about the "works" of faith. It isn't enough simply to proclaim the abundance of God's reign. It isn't enough simply to believe that we ought to love our neighbors as our selves. These are nice sentiments that might make us feel warm and fuzzy inside, but unless we carry on in Jesus ministry of action, we fail to do our part to bring about that reign of God where God's inexhaustible abundance is brought to those who most need it. We must actually put our faith into action, learning to love our neighbors, physically reaching out our healing and helping hands to those in need - only then can our faith truly come alive... and only then can we experience the wisdom of the Proverb saying "those who are generous are blessed, for they share their bread with the poor."

I continue to struggle with what I perceive to be backtracking in human rights and falling into the trap of allowing fear to guide our decision making processes and domestic policies at the national level. But at the same time I have taken heart in the ecumenical dialogues and endeavors that have begun to take place at the local level as different areas begin to seek understanding and cooperation with their neighbors. St. ECWIW's itself has been involved in such dialogues, and just last month, an ecumenical meeting of the youth ministers of D-town met here to discuss monthly ecumenical youth events to promote understanding, friendship, and commonality between our various groups of teens. In working together in service projects, getting to know each other in recreation, and learning more about each other through a weekly Lenten worship exchange, we are attempting as a group to come to an understanding and acceptance of each other that I can currently only dream will someday happen on a global scale.

As we celebrate our program-year kick-off today, let us be ever mindful of the awesome responsibility we've been given as Christ's body in the world, and as we remember the tragedies of September 11th tomorrow, let us not only pray for healing and wholeness, but let us remember that healing and wholeness can only come if it is for everyone. The abundance of God's reign is neither limited nor boundaried. It is not the possession of the rich, nor the right of any single people. It is not even limited to one faith, but, as Christ himself learned, is the gift to all who seek healing and wholeness through a faithful relationship with God.

In the words attributed to St. Francis, Lord, make us instruments of your peace, Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy; Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

2006-09-18T21:12:00.000-07:00

Quick post tonight... have to read 187 pages before I go to bed (...why did I decide it would be fun to take 3 classes and work full time simultaneously?)

Anyway, I don't write poetry very often, but every once in a while it gives some insight into my subconscious (I never know what I'm going to write until it comes out on the paper or keyboard)... I wrote this when I was trying to find a poem on the internet with messianic undertones that wasn't a trite sickly sweet "Jesus is my favorite savior" poem... as you might guess, I couldn't find any. What I ended up writing wasn't something I could use for my teens, but it was an interesting commentary on my state of mind at the time...

Love's indwelling

Anger, fear, resentment, pride
Without a second thought we cultivate
Within our souls and minds the anti-peace.

We're love, sweetness, sugar, nice
With bile in our hearts as we twist the
Dagger in turned backs of supposed friends.

How we cultivate the wickednesses taught
While dismissing kindness as so much
Cliche sentiment, wasted on the heart.

Lost behind the stare of inner eyes
That seeking for some greater good
Became a hook of malice to innocence.

Shunning light until breaking us, it
Shatters though the thousand masks
We've strewn between soul and self

We find ourselves empty to respond
To the darkness drawn from deep within
Our hidden hearts of light.

Then waking from the deadly dream of
Life passed on by collective social sin
Of unacceptance, bitterness, and spite

We look our own immortality in reflected
Eyes of love's lost indwelling
And know peace for the first time.

Gazing beyond masses of still-lost corpses
Strewing love's true path with madness
We find the one whose only gift of death

Brings life renewed to quenched fires,
Rekindling the joy in bringing peace
to another soul Entrenched in darknesses embrace.

The newly kindled light of love, held
High for bringing points of hope
And reconnecting this life to Love's own.