Just Life
Noverim Te Noverim Me
“I would know you, I would know myself!” This is the second week of my gift to myself to read a book a week. I’m going again with a shorter book while I reawaken my reading skills, but shorter does not mean lesser or lighter! This week I read a classic from the late Trappist Monk Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer.
So many quotes I want to share, so many insights and amazing turns of phrase. It’s a book written primarily for those in the monastic vocation, but still accessible by all people. It is a book on prayer, really a collection of short essays on the practice and necessity of prayer: “…all Christians ought, theoretically at least, to have enough interest in prayer to be able to read and make use of what is here said for monks, adapting it to the circumstances of their own vocation. Certainly, in the pressures of modern urban life, many will face the need for a certain interior silence and discipline simply to keep themselves together, to maintain their human and Christian identity and their spiritual freedom.”
Merton reminds us that contemplative prayer will always be at its base simple. I don’t know about you, but that gives me a large measure of hope. I won’t bore you with a synopsis of all points throughout the book, I’m not the best reader or writer to do that. I would like to share however one particular desire kindled in me by the book: to learn some Latin! I so resonate with a simple prayer of the earliest monks: “Deus in adjutorium meum intende!” The opening line of Psalm 70, “Make haste, O God, to deliver me!” And the simplicity of this prayer snippet from St. Augustine of Hippo: “Noverim te noverim me” I would know you, I would know myself. Along with my weekly book reading stack I now have a fresh copy of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Learning Latin. I’m already into the second chapter. *^_^*
It’s a blessing to have a book in this second week of my book-a-week gift to myself to remind me so pointedly that we are all pilgrims on a journey, no competition to arrive, just a need to keep moving. “We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else but beginners, all of our life!”
AMDG, Todd
Almost There
With a new year just around the corner many of us are thinking about the intentions we would carry forward, the regrets we’d leave behind and the treasures we would maintain. Of course the date doesn’t matter that much, but it’s always a welcome gift to be in a liminal moment, a place of change and even renewal, when our hearts and minds are bent naturally to reflect and to dream.
One year closes and another opens. What will my new year bring? What will I bring to the new year? As people of faith we believe that God goes with us, and that God knows what awaits us… but we also know all too well that our faith is not in what we see but in what we hope. As much as God might know, we do not. This is the essence of hope. This is why we take such tight hold on these times to reflect and to dream. Hope is this intersection of what is not known and what is known. We recognize that the coming year has so much we cannot yet see, but also that God walks beside us, going before us, and coming after. Days of lightness and days of darkness are the same, rain and shine both speak of God’s presence, for in Christ all matter has been sung the song of love.
Still, to stand and look across the divide from one year to the next is exciting. I look back and see that I have too often neglected prayer. I have too often neglected to study. I have too often neglected to love. I see also that God has both ministered to me through the many and various people in my life, and God has ministered to them through me. God’s will is done regardless of my prayer, but I would have eyes wide open and be awake to see as much as I can. So I look out at the coming year and I pray: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Perhaps the deepest blessing of a past year in which I did not see myself doing all that I should have done is seeing all that was done in spite of me, and in spite of any of my failing, and just beyond it to see God’s smile. To be reminded that almost there is sometimes exactly the place where I was going to be regardless of my effort or my intention. Almost there was the place I needed to be. Almost there was there all along. This is the root of hope for a new year, and all the intentions I may place within it. I do not hope for a better year, but for the year that is needed, for me, for those I love, for all in this hurting world of conflict and hatred.
I intend so much for this new year. No doubt in twelve months I will look back with some regrets. No worries. As long as God is there, the rain and shine, the darkness and light, the ups and downs of my year will be just fine. Deus in adjutorium meum intende.
AMDG, Todd
A Gift to Myself in 2017
I was inspired recently by a friend who was finishing up a year of reading a book a week in 2016, and I honestly wondered if I could do the same. After some reflection, I’ve decided to take on this challenge in 2017, and I’m starting now in 2016’s Advent Season.
I can’t begin fully describe the deep blessing it has been to choose and read The Wounded Healer by the late Father Henri J.M. Nouwen this week. I’ve read many of his books, and I’ve owned this one for a long time, but I hadn’t applied the effort to read it. It is God’s steadfast grace that Father Nouwen is spending this time with me this week. This is most definitely not just going to be a new year’s resolution, but a gift to myself in 2017.
Father Nouwen has written a guidebook that though several decades old still has these amazing bits of wisdom to instruct and inspire. He focuses on several core values like compassion, presence and hope in ministry. He leads us from an expression of frantic faith based in worry and shame to a living faith in the shadow of our human suffering and joy that affirms our human connection to each other and says to the hurting and confused, “I am here.” He writes, “For a compassionate person nothing human is alien: no joy and no sorrow, no way of living and no way of dying.” Amen.
This is not a book like others of his that I have read in the past; this is a wholly different experience of Father Nouwen’s wisdom and gift. I recall reading his book In The Name of Jesus over and over when Teresa and I were in seminary, but The Wounded Healer strikes a different chord, a more human chord that grounds us firmly in the life of humanity, with all its struggles, failings and beauty. It challenges us to lay aside the formulae of conversion and salvation, the easy words and ritual and habit, and to be fully present, without judgement and recognizing God’s pervading love. “It is not the task of Christian leaders to go around nervously trying to redeem people, to save them at the last minute, to put them on the right track. For we are redeemed once and for all. Christian leaders are called to help others affirm this great news, and to make visible in daily events the fact that behind the dirty curtain of our painful symptoms there is something great to be seen: the face of God in whose image we are shaped.”
I’ve made new year’s resolutions before, and failed. I’ve made new year’s resolutions and succeeded. I make this one with hope and with the joy of God’s blessing on this week’s reading. What will you give to yourself in the coming year? Choose something good, ok?
AMDG, Todd
Life After the Vote
We are finally here… it’s crunch time. Today we’ll be wrapping up our General Election for the President of the United States. Millions have voted early, and we’ll be joined by millions more. Please take a deep breath and stand back for a moment; no matter who wins we will all be here on Wednesday, and the day after that, and the day after that.
Scripture has so much less to say about who we cast a vote for (as in none, no scripture at all) than about who we are going to be regardless of who is our President. Of course it matters who is the next President of our country, but I only control my one vote, not the election. There are many things in scripture to shape my personal values which should affect my vote, but we must admit that scripture primarily directly speaks to my submission to civil authority. Who I am, what I say and how I impact the world, is up to me. That’s the constant in my life, not the person holding our highest elected office. My own life, words and actions, are the responsibility I personally carry as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
I can only guess how either candidate will make it easier or more difficult for me to actively express my faith in God and my discipleship to Jesus Christ. Wait. Let me rephrase that… neither candidate will have any impact on my ability or responsibility to actively express my faith in God and my discipleship to Jesus Christ. And certainly as a Christian, I will be working as hard and as loud as I can to be sure that no one else faces any threat to their religious freedoms be they Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh or atheist, etc. For even though a person’s convictions and faith belong solely to the individual, we must safeguard everyone’s right and to openly and safely be themselves. No matter who is in that highest office we will be our brothers’ keepers, and our sisters’ keepers. We will continue to stand with sexual miniorities who may be denied their civil rights and we will work to help and welcome the globe’s most vulnerable populations in their own countries and when they are forced abroad seeking refuge. None of this changes, regardless of the election’s outcome. Stop thinking of the election as an end or a solution… it is simply one step, forward or backward, in the sojourn of a little slice of our species.
Do yourself a favor and after today’s election, take a deep breath and stop the uncivil and angry dialogue. Drop the anger and the fear. Stop believing every unfounded accusation and spin job. Neither candidate will enter office unscathed by this past year, and neither needs to enter office amid this continuing storm of uncivil mud slinging and promised reprisals. Hold them accountable fairly and unceasingly. We will each be part of the process of helping whomever is elected, and our whole country, move forward. And in four more years we’ll do it all again, a little worse or better for the journey. And in the meantime we’ll all keep working hard for the values and goals we most cherish.
We’ll pray and we will be our neighbor’s servant. This is our calling. Not power. Not domination. Not nation building. Serving, and not being served. And peace will be our legacy and our inheritance.
“O Lord our Governor, bless the leaders of our land,
that we may be a people at peace among ourselves
and a blessing to other nations of the earth.”
Book of Common Prayer, Page 821
And amen.
AMDG, Todd
I Appreciate Your Prayers
I’m going to be going off-line for a bit starting this evening as I begin a discernment retreat with the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. I would appreciate your prayers over the next 24 hours or so, prayers for God’s Spirit to open all our hearts and minds.
It really is an exercise of discernment, not a job interview. I’m not asking for you to pray for any outcome other than God’s will and a gracious gift of the Spirit’s presence. We are going to be praying and visioning about an important question: “Am I called to serve the Episcopal Diocese of Washington as an ordained priest of God?”
I’ve been in a discernment process with the diocese officially since the beginning of this year, but have been praying and dreaming with friends and a few people in the diocese for a couple of years. If the answer we discern from our time together is yes, then I will have some work to do to get ready for this new chapter of ministry. I’m excited about the prospect and I desire to serve this diocese as a priest, but I am resigned to the answer we discern together.
Older prayer books talk about resignation, and I am familiar with it from years of studying, reflection and prayer with my Jesuit spiritual friend, and lately departed, Fr Leo Murray. Fr Murray taught me the Ignatian way of resignation: I will commit myself to God, I will fully give myself to the vision of ministry to which I believe that God has called me, and I will be faithful and true in all things within my control… but, for those things not in my control and not for me to choose, I will resign myself to God’s grace. That’s my paraphrase. Newer prayer books seem awfully preoccupied with achieving some specific end from prayer. Practicing this idea of resignation has allowed me so much joy in this journey, and it will carry me through any twist and turn that is coming, for God is good.
I’ll close now with a prayer used by Jesuits at the beginning of meetings and events…
“O Spirit of God, we ask you to help orient
all our actions by your inspirations,
carry them on by your gracious assistance,
that every prayer and work of ours
may always begin from you
and through you be happily ended.”
And amen.
Thanks for praying along with us!
AMDG, Todd
We Don’t Need More Violence
A four-year-old blog post of mine on preachers inciting violence has been coming to mind lately in light of the recent events in Orlando, and the hate-filled preaching of some pastors. Violence is a sickness, especially violence shrouded in religious piety. More than ever, our world needs those who will love in the face of hate and work to heal the sickness of these preachers. I’m sharing a recent nasty example from a pastor’s Facebook postings, and then linking in my blog from four years ago on preachers who incite violence. Lord, have mercy.
Recent nastiness in the name of Christ…
My post of four years ago: On Preachers Who Incite Violence
We must loudly and strongly, with civil tongues and constant hearts, repudiate these voices and their messages. We must stand against these messages of hate and violence. Silence is not an option, no more than violence. Answer them with sure, true and sincere messages of love. May our voices never cease to sing and weave the story of God’s unending love.
AMDG, Todd
Indelible Grace
I was blessed to be asked to preach again at St. John’s Episcopal Church this past weekend. Heres’ the transcript, with a warning that it’s a bit longer than my usual posts. =)
Sermon of June 12, 2016, St. John’s Episcopal Church
Any prepared sermon is going to be undeniably challenged by a tragedy the likes of which we have witnessed in the past 24 hours. So as we begin, we also stop. We’ll take a moment to pray for those who have died and been hurt in Orlando, Florida, and their grieving friends and families.
“God of the Dance, God of Love and God of Life,
Our hearts break at these tragic deaths
and this horrible glimpse into the darkness.
Welcome the souls of all those who have died needlessly
in Orlando this past night, by an act of humanity’s deep
and dreadful love of violence, hatred and division.
For their souls we ask a place at your feast table,
at your home of light and life and love, forever.
For survivors, their families and friends we pray peace and comfort,
that your Spirit and your people will surround them,
hold them, and heal them in their rending grief,
and that they may know joy and healing in the coming days.”
“Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so
move every human heart in this our broken and needful society,
that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear,
and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed,
we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.” BCP pg. 823
Tonight’s Gospel Reading from Luke 7:36-50…
36 One of the Pharisees asked Jesus[j] to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. 37 And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. 38 She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. 39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.” 40 Jesus spoke up and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher,” he replied, “speak.” 41 “A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii,[k] and the other fifty.42 When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” And Jesus[l] said to him, “You have judged rightly.”44 Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. 45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47 Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” 48 Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” 49 But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” 50 And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
Maybe you’re not like me and don’t have stories from your childhood which embarrass you. Maybe you matured faster than I did and you avoided the worst of decisions and moments we often experience as forming people, but I had some real doosies.
Tonight I’m thinking of 7th Grade Todd, and a time when I was at my worst. I was in the Art Club, and our much anticipated field trip to the Zoo in Dallas had arrived. We were going on a sketching trip! I was fired up, until we started assigning seats with parents to drive to the Zoo. My closest friends were all in one car, and I was assigned to ride with someone else and his mom. Now, this other guy… he was not a friend. In fact, he was a bully at whose hands I had occasionally suffered some hurt and harassment. He wasn’t smart, either. This is back in the day when they divided our seventh grade class into groups from the most smart to the least smart; our groups were labeled 7:1, being the smartest, all the way down to 7:6, being the least smartest. And this guy was a bit behind me and my friends. I’m also pretty sure his family didn’t go to church anywhere, and we know those things in a small town. I loudly proclaimed my horror at riding with him and his mom, “I don’t want to ride with him! Why is he in Art Club anyway?” I was told to quiet down and get in his mom’s truck, and I’d get to ride home with someone else. It was a tense, joyless ride to the Zoo.
And on days when I read stories like the one from Luke 7, I’m reminded of the lesson so painfully illustrated by 7th Grade Todd. Like Simon, I was the one who would invite Jesus over to supper, not the other person. I was the one who would be most likely to have Jesus over for supper (at least in my way of thinking), not them. I was the one, not them… I’m “the one most” (fill in any other descriptors you want): deserving, good enough, forgiven, allowed, expected, invited. But in a Gospel view of the world they are the one who is welcomed, grateful, forgiven, closest to Jesus.
Oh, Simon. I get it. I really do. Imagine working so hard to be ready for Jesus to come to dinner, making sure the right people are present, the food is perfect and you look your best. And then this sinner crashes the party. That word sinner says it all, huh? This sinner takes center stage. This sinner becomes the focus of discussion and begins to take Jesus’ attention and energy from your dinner party. Why is she here anyway? Wouldn’t a prophet know she doesn’t belong?
It’s easy enough to say that Jesus loves everyone. What takes a little more energy is really digging into Jesus and getting a hand on his way of seeing people, God’s way of seeing people. It differs so dramatically from the way I have so often viewed people. Did you notice in the words of Jesus that this sinner seems to be both responding to forgiveness and also still waiting to receive it? He says that her act of love flows from having much forgiven, and then afterward says to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
She seems to be responding to a forgiveness that has yet to be articulated, maybe even yet to be sought after, but that has totally consumed her. She teaches us something of how God sees people: forgiven before even asking. in the story she is returning a love that Jesus has yet to express directly to her. She’s an inspiration. Of course, Simon’s not all that inspired, because he only sees her as needing to be forgiven, while Jesus seems to have forgiven her before the first tear, before the anointing.
There’s a really good old theological term for this: prevenient grace. This is an term that states, in various ways in differing Christian traditions, that God’s grace and forgiveness pre-exists our seeking it and in fact enables us to seek it and understand it. This concept doesn’t in way lessen our turning to God and experiencing grace in repentance, but it does help us with taking what scripture teaches about forgiveness and form a daily Way of living with that understanding. So scripture teaches that Christ died while we were still sinners, that God predestined us, elected us, chose us before… these statements are familiar to biblical students, and they point us to way God sees us, viewing us in our intended beauty, in our intended state of grateful love, in our very best and deepest place of love and dignity. I especially like this as a counterpoint to the idea of Original Sin, that instead we are born into a state of Original Forgiveness. Perhaps, we are born into a state of Indelible Grace.
Wouldn’t that bring us to the feet of Christ, too? Do you think that maybe just hearing Jesus teach in the marketplaces and streets, maybe preaching on a mountainside, this woman got it, she understood, and that grace brought her to her tears? The story reminded me of times when scriptures instructs against partiality, judgement…
Sirach says:
“1 My child, do not cheat the poor of their living, and do not keep needy eyes waiting. 2 Do not grieve the hungry, or anger one in need. 3 Do not add to the troubles of the desperate, or delay giving to the needy. 4 Do not reject a suppliant in distress, or turn your face away from the poor. 5 Do not avert your eye from the needy, and give no one reason to curse you; 6 for if in bitterness of soul some should curse you, their Creator will hear their prayer… 22 Do not show partiality, to your own harm, or deference, to your downfall.” (Sirach 1:6 & 22)
James says:
“2 My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? 2 For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, 3 and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” 4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? 7 Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you? 8 You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 9 But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors… 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. 13 For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.” (James 2:1-9, 12-13)
And Jesus in Matthew 7:1-2
“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.”
I don’t think these passages are only good teachings in times of economic disparity, but must be applied to a broader sense of partiality which threatens to divide us, blind us and to honestly make fools of us. Simon seems to have had some justification for knowing that the woman was sinful. But Simon is intimately shown that he doesn’t understand forgiveness and his own love-debt to God’s grace. This sinner does. Simon is ultimately shown a new definition for “sinner,” which he may think means “undesirable” or unforgiven, but in actuality means deeply beloved and sought after.
After our trip to the Zoo I was relieved to be informed that I would get to ride home with my two closest friends. I crammed happily into the back seat with them, and then began one the of longest hour and half rides of my life. My friend’s mom figured that I didn’t go to the right kind of church, wasn’t good enough. So for the next hour and a half she illumined me on my impending damnation and sinfulness. To top it off, after I was dropped off at the school, she later called our home to accuse me of stealing a class ring from their car, a ring later found to have slipped between cushions and into the trunk of the car. Oh, Simon. You and me, brother. Some of us must learn the hardest lessons of life in the hardest ways to sink them through our hardest of skulls and into our hardest of hearts.
I will probably continue to fail at this, but I hope that every time I am confronted with someone I imagine to be the least forgiven, the least lovable, the least worthy, Christ might help me see them in their prevenient beauty and grace. I pray that the next time I feel so unworthy and believe the worst of myself, I will hear that call of grace, and my tears will be a thank offering for all the love and forgiveness God has already intended to lavish on me. 7th Grade Todd was not prepared to understand Martin Luther’s poignant exclamation, “Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly.” 7th Grade Todd wasn’t ready to get it, and I can only hope I am before I’m 70.
Once more little gem from the Book of Common Prayer, one more cry to heaven…
“O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us
through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole
human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which
infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us;
unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle
and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth;
that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you
in harmony around your heavenly throne;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” BCP pg. 815
AMDG, Todd
Exercise Devotion
devotion
Pronunciation: /dəˈvōSH(ə)n/
NOUN Love, loyalty, or enthusiasm for a person, activity, or cause
from OxfordDictionaries.com
This morning I became acutely aware that I needed to begin my day with some devotion. In the stress and hustle of daily life it is all too easy to forget that I am a spiritual being, I am capable and needful of such expression. My voice, though not well trained or particularly pleasant, is made to actively be raised in love and enthusiastic loyalty. It is made to sing. It is made to call out. My heart, though sometimes bruised and left thumping in fear and anxiety, is whole and held. My days, though sometimes long, sometimes dull, sometimes bright, sometimes warm, sometimes short and sometimes frantic, are gifts given to me, each one.
So I got in my car to drive to work, you know, my job at the Mall. I searched my phone for the tunes that would support and inform this stirring I felt in my heart and mind. I settled on a few songs by Acappella including To Him Who Sits On The Throne. I rolled up windows, bumped the AC, and I screeched along in the protected (for the safety of others) privacy of my little vehicular world. I found it later on YouTube, of course…
When you feel that little stir, a hollowness that feels kinda like hunger with twinge of giddiness, that need to sing, that absence of devotion, let something loose. Dance. Sing. Shout. Don’t forget that you are made to praise, you are a human being capable of deep and amazing beauty and grace. God has so gifted you.
1 I will lift my praise above everything to You, my God and King!
I will continually bless Your name forever and always.
2 My praise will never cease—
I will praise You every day;
I will lift up Your name forever.
3 The Eternal is great and deserves endless praise;
His greatness knows no limit, recognizes no boundary.
No one can measure or comprehend His magnificence.
4 One generation after another will celebrate Your great works;
they will pass on the story of Your powerful acts to their children.
5 Your majesty and glorious splendor have captivated me;
I will meditate on Your wonders, sing songs of Your worth.
6 We confess—there is nothing greater than You, God,
nothing mightier than Your awesome works.
I will tell of Your greatness as long as I have breath.
7 The news of Your rich goodness is no secret—
Your people love to recall it
and sing songs of joy to celebrate Your righteousness.
8 The Eternal is gracious. He shows mercy to His people.
For Him anger does not come easily, but faithful love does—
and it is rich and abundant.
9 But the Eternal’s goodness is not exclusive—it is offered freely to all.
His mercy extends to all His creation.
Psalm 145:1-9 from The Voice translation
“If the only prayer you ever say
in your entire life is thank you,
it will be enough.”
Meister Eckhart
AMDG, Todd
Little Big Things
I am so grateful for the three young men that Teresa and I have raised, because past all my own failings, each of them teach and encourage me on a daily basis. Recently, Isaac caught me off guard with a reminder to be thinking of others before myself.
I have said for years, and when I was a pastor I preached it, that we should not fight to get the front spots in a parking lot when we go shopping. “Think of someone who might be arriving just after you who needs that closer spot,” I would say. “We’re all healthy and we can easily walk an extra fifty feet. We should be thinking of others in practical ways that help them have a better day.” I often made the bold claim that this was an important spiritual practice to help make a kinder, better world.
A few weeks ago the family came and joined me at the Mall for dinner when I got off work. Since Teresa drove up with the boys we had to decide who was driving home with whom, and Issac ended up with me. As we exited the Mall, and he saw my car right up front by the door and he says, “Wow, dad.” “What’s up?” I asked. “You parked really close to the door.”
Ouch. Like every good person caught not quite walking like they’re talking, I started to rationalize for my son. I immediately began with something like “Well, you see, when I arrive for work really early in the morning there aren’t many people here and the older folks walking for exercise at the Mall have already arrived and found parking.” Blah blah. And my son says, “Hmmm.”
As I thought more about it I realized that getting caught like that was a better occasion to humbly thank my son than to undermine one of the central things I’d been trying to teach him all his life. Later, I did thank him for the reminder and promised to park further back from then on. And I did start parking further back the next day.
I’ve been praying my daily prayer for several years now, “Let me love, let me learn, let me serve.” I’m glad for the little reminders along the way to stay on top of my game. I’m glad for the humbling that comes from raising our kids. I’m glad that God sometimes answers daily prayers not always with more things to do, but with needed reminders of who to be.
AMDG, Todd
A Shepherd Without Sheep
I’m taking some time this week to reflect and pray about the move I took a few months ago, following the decision Teresa and I made together almost a year ago, to leave my position as Pastor of Church in Bethesda, our spiritual friends and family for eight and a half years. (And so you know, this post will be longer than 500 words, my latest exercise to practice brevity and be more concise.)
It wasn’t an easy decision to leave Church in Bethesda and I’ve written some things about my entrance into the Episcopal Church, one the strongest factors that led to my resignation. And for the first time in a long time, I’m back in the role of being a member of a congregation without any leadership or teaching responsibilities.
Yes, I’m pursuing ministry options within the Episcopal Church, and I hope to serve our new Church family. I’ll even go ahead and say that I hope and pray that I am able to serve the Episcopal Church and our world as an Episcopal Priest, but it’s all up in the air for a while longer. For now I find myself outside of a role that I have served in for a long time, one I am realizing that I have internalized and made who I am as much as what I do: Shepherd.
As a Pastor, a Shepherd, my role was to come along side other members of our community and dig into scripture, experience life’s best and worst, and to faithfully make sense of it all together. I prayed for and with others. I served others and with others. I weekly spoke and wrote about scripture, God and faith. I creatively pursued ways within community to faithfully hear and follow God’s Spirit and footprints across our dusty globe. I painted. I played my djembe. I solemnized weddings and I officiated funerals.
Talking of shepherds and sheep might sound a bit off-putting to you, as if we’re talking about being a leader with a bunch of followers. The reality is that a good shepherd is as often following the sheep as leading them. (I often saw this when we lived in East Africa.) A good shepherd is serving the sheep and working to meet their needs more often than the sheep might be serving the the needs of the shepherd. Of course, we’ve all known an egotistical church shepherd who wields a wicked stick, but that is not an image of a scriptural pastor nor the example of the Good Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ.
These most recent reflections are not necessarily about the people we left behind at Church in Bethesda, good people we miss and love dearly. I’m not really writing about them, but about life after them. I’ve become a shepherd without any sheep. I don’t have a group of people for whom I have committed to follow, lead and serve as pastor and shepherd. We do have a congregation, and it’s filled with wonderful folks. I’ve been able to preach a few times on Sunday nights, and Teresa and I have been asked to teach a teen class on Sunday mornings in the Fall. But these are more in the doing part of me as shepherd than the being part.
That being part is what I’m missing. It’s the prayerfully dreaming and the vision casting of ways to enact our faith, within our community and in the world. It’s the circle of deep care around a group of people in which I share and breathe. It’s making art for them and making art together, and the prayerful preparation before the making of that art. One thing that is really getting to me is having messages well up inside of me, and no venue to share. It’s having dreams and images in my heart and no canvas on which to begin making them reality. It’s the realization that it’s much more difficult to be patient in this liminal space than I expected.
My reflections are multifaceted, but I wanted to capture a few ideas while they are still crystallizing in my mind.
1) I’m still feeling very blessed and happy in the Episcopal Church. Our experience at St. John’s Episcopal Church has been wonderful and we’re happy to be there. And my recent joy at Missional Voices is still fresh. We have a beautiful, diverse faith family in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, and I’m happy it’s our home.
2) I need to take my impatience and feelings of loss and channel them into prayer and devotion. The thing about liminal spaces is that with growing anxiety and impatience, depression and hopelessness are too often the natural course. It’s all too easy to lose touch with faith and forms, practices that instill hope and reinforce conviction. Choices must often be made and remade as life’s journey moves into new territory.
3) I need a community in which I am a sheep and a shepherd, wherein I lead and follow and grow and share with some other souls. This is probably going to be alongside our membership and participation at St. John’s, but never instead of St. John’s. I shouldn’t be just waiting for what is coming next in my religious life and vocation; it’s a good time to start dreaming and realizing what comes next.
As promised, I doubled the usual length of a blog post… sorry about that, guys. But if one of these three reflections sounds like something you’d like to explore with me, then let’s get coffee and talk. Let’s get together and talk about faith without judgment, diversity without anger, peace without war and love for our enemies… lots of good Jesus stuff. God is good. God is good all the time.
AMDG, Todd
toddthomas.net 