Anglican Studies

I’m on the road toward ordination, and I’m going back to school!

This is the class of students I met for the first time at the Bloy House orientation on August13. Does the scenery look familiar? Yes it's the campus of Claremont School of Theology, with Butler Building and Kresge Chapel.

Many questions have been asked about just what exactly is entailed before I will be ready for ordination. I hope this will help everyone understand what I will need to do before reaching the place of being available to search for a call to any parish or mission in the Episcopal Church.

Much of the usual seminary education is already complete but there are specific classes which are required before I will be eligible to take the General Ordination Exam (GOE). Bishop Bruno calls this being “retread” as an Anglican. I prefer to think of it as “Finishing School”. Either way, the purpose is to provide the specific knowledge base required to effectively serve as a priest in the Episcopal Church. The course work is called Anglican Studies.

There are five classes for certain which I will need to take. Two courses called Anglicanism I and Anglicanism II provide a foundation of the History, Theology, Polity and Spirituality of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Liturgics provides training in worship specific to the Episcopal Church. Church Leadership provides training in leading and administration for parish ministry. Latino Spiritualities is a requirement for all LA Diocese postulants for priesthood. Additional courses may be required by Bishop Bruno. I won’t know for certain until after I have attended the Retreat for Nominees and met with the Commission on Ministry on November 3, 4.

Classes meet on Friday evening and Saturday at the campus of Claremont School of Theology. I will spend the night at a local retreat center, Myra House, to reduce the mental and physical wear of commuting. The expense of gas and wear on our vehicles would be about equal to what I will spend per night for the housing, a $30 contribution to Myra House for each night. Seminary students form community through shared meals, fellowship, and worship as well as our time in class. I’m looking forward to the bonds that I will make with postulants, nominees and lay members from Los Angeles and San Diego Diocese.

Since Bishop Bruno granted permission for me to begin studies before meeting with the Commission on Ministry there is a bit of a catch 22 economically. I am entirely responsible for all costs, but allowed to beg upon the charity of all who might be willing to offer financial support. Tuition and books for seminary education is comparable to the costs for any Master’s level course work, $450 per unit plus the expense of all books. This semester I am enrolled in a fulltime course load, 9 units at a cost of $4050. Required texts would be over $400. There are no student loans available for students enrolled in Bloy House and scholarship funds are very limited for non-postulant students. Postulants of the LA Diocese do receive scholarships covering 40% of the tuition. The catch is that if I were to wait to start in the winter, I would further delay being eligible to take the GOE which is only administered once each year. So it’s a scary decision, a matter of faith and trust in the Lord that Tim and I will be provided for to meet our living expenses. Please cover us in prayer for our financial needs. The economy hasn’t been very cooperative for us at present. Okay... well shameless begging goes here... If you can see fit to send financial support you will be blessed and I will be eternally grateful.

Some questions have been raised about how individuals might be able to help me with expenses. Our interim priest at St. Timothy's is Father Paul Price. Please speak with Father Paul about your interest. He has explained to me that he will be able to help me using his discretionary fund and will be able to instruct you on how you can receive a tax deduction. Thankfully, our Deacons Nicholas and Liz, have many of the required texts and are loaning them to me for the semester. Fr. Paul is providing me guidance on which texts I really should make a priority to add to my own library, for purpose of ministry and to prepare for GOE.

Timing is one of the big questions I get frequently. “How soon before you are ordained?” Short answer, I am working with a goal to eligible to take the GOE in January of 2013. Ordination as a deacon is first. Then after a minimum of six months service as a deacon I would be eligible for ordination as a priest.
From time to time I will be writing and posting to the blog as a way of sharing my journey.

Note to readers: I was asked to write something for the church newsletter. This is a slightly revised edition of what will appear in the September edition of St. Timothy's Times

Pinch My Nose

I walk from my car, parked in a lot a short planned community block away.
I turn the corner and half way up the next block I see the screen to the front door open.
Judith steps out on the small porch and greets me with her usual smile as I approach.

Today I met with my spiritual director. I look forward to these meetings. We have developed a deep spiritual connection over the course of our two years together. Each meeting encourages me to look within and toward the Holy that binds us together. I marvel at her quiet attention to the holy. I observe that she is always so still, peaceful, kind and loving. I wonder to myself, does she ever burn with a fury at injustice? Shout at the top of her lungs “Stop the madness!”? If she does, I never see that carry into our meetings. She seems the perfect peace pilgrim, always calming, the result of years following the habits of the Society of Friends, the Quaker tradition.

Stepping into the cool of her living room we hug momentarily and exchange greetings, a familiarity that has grown over time. This embrace was not always a part of our relationship, evolving only after trust had been well established between us.

Spiritual direction is a unique relationship, established between two people with the expectation that there will be deep regard and concern for the directee, but not a friendship in the sense of sharing large quantities of time in activities outside the sessions of spiritual direction. Physical affection is not what drew me into this relationship, nor what Spiritual Direction is primarily about. Maintaining healthy physical boundaries is tremendously important in ministry. I am, in fact, by nature quite stand offish regarding hugging in the congregation. Serving as a pastor for four years I learned that in spite of my own preference, a cautious behavior toward hugging, there are certain times and also certain people that do have a deep need for hugs. Hugs seem to serve as assurance of the other persons’ regard for them. This is a place of regular internal examination for my ministry.

After an hour drive to reach her home/office she offers simple hospitality. Judith offers a glass of water, and allows me time to stop into the restroom before we start our session.

When I reenter the living room she is already seated in her usual place and I take my place. After two years there is no longer need for words about where to sit. It is a comfortable routine, much like finding one’s pew in the sanctuary of the family church.

As I settle into my seat I observe the candle, in a simple holder, a small statue and flowers in a vase. I comment that the colors seem to predict fall. The table cloth and the flowers are deep rich colors; orange daylily with a spike of blue Agapantha; a deep rich green and black weave on the table anticipate the arrival of Fall to which she acknowledges she is prematurely pushing the last edge of summer toward autumn, her favorite season of the year.

As we begin to shift attention to the “work” of our time, she asks my preference for how to move forward. Never is a meeting scripted in advance. That is one of the joys of being in spiritual direction. Each meeting presents itself as an open invitation to the Holy in relationship with joined hearts, minds and spirit. It is Holy conversation and prayerful connection. Prayerful listening is the hallmark of her practice.

For today we started with a time of quiet. For myself, it was an attempt at centering prayer.

I close my eyes and rest comfortably in the oversized chair with my feet on the ottoman. With my eyes closed I listen and barely hear a sound. For a few minutes I am distracted by my body. I have an itch at nose, and a twitching in my thoughts. I remind myself of the intention of centering prayer, to be in the presence of God, but not to talk. This is a time for listening, and being. I shift my attention to this being, recalling my sacred word. Shalom.

All around it seems perfectly quiet, and then I realize the quiet is my own inner ears being closed over. Like my grandson diving into a pool holding his nose, I reach up to my nose and pinch it.

I pinch my nose, gently blow and now, all at once I can hear. The pressure that built up in my ears as I traversed down the mountain pass has been released and I am now aware of the gentle movement on the other side of the front door.

Not a person, who would interrupt the quietude, but the movement of the wind around the wind chimes that hang in her front yard. In this movement surrounding us I sense the Holy Spirit’s presence. Again I must remind myself that I am trying to rest in the presence of God, not think about things good or bad, or to converse with God. Centering prayer is an emptying of self to allow the presence of God to speak.

I am still for a time and then begin to see a purple glowing on the inside of my eyelid. Is this God? I know not, but feel at peace in this time. I continue to observe this pulsating purple light for a few more seconds and then realize it has subsided. Where are you God? Was that you on the inside of my eyelids? Where are you now?

I settle more deeply into being. I never am sure about how much time has passed since I bring no wrist watch to the session and tuck my cell phone out of reach. I trust Judith’s sense of timing will be sufficient for our time together.

Eventually I begin to open my eyes and observe. Judith is still as a statue. I wonder, briefly, for no real good reason, “is she okay?” This passes. I wait silently for her to rejoin me. I think to myself, in awe, what great ability to be perfectly still, at peace, and receptive to the Holy. I ask of myself and God, why am I not able to do that.

When she returns her outward attention to me she asks me to name words for what describes where I am at the present time. Transition, gratitude and peace are my words. I share about transitions, as returning to school, this time at Bloy House, to begin my Anglican Studies program on Fridays and Saturdays. I share about the blessings of having a supportive community, assisting me in obtaining my books for the semester and also about the housing through Myra House; it’s asthetic appeal and more frugal price for each weekend.

There are many reasons someone engages in Spiritual Direction. All clergy are encouraged to have a spiritual director. Read histories of the ancients and monastic communities and you will encounter references to one’s spiritual director with regularity.

For me it spiritual direction serves multiple purposes. Nominees for Holy Orders in the Episcopal Church are expected to establish a relationship with a spiritual director as they engage in the discernment process. Spiritual directors have their own spiritual director as a form of supervision. Judith is my spiritual director with the intention that she is also my supervisor for any spiritual direction I provide to directees.

My relationship with Judith was established upon my return to California from Idaho. I was aware of a need for a neutral place to engage in conversation in discerning God’s direction for my life. At that time I was exploring vocational options to parish ministry. I was curious about spiritual direction as a vocation, exploring the possibility of Chaplaincy and considering the idea of returning to the Episcopal Church. I was suddenly and quite unexpectedly unemployed and looking for answers to where God was leading me to be engaged in the work of the church in the world. I learned of Judith through the Still Point Center for Christian Spirituality as I investigated various training programs for career transition.

In our time together through the past two years I have retained an interest in the becoming a spiritual director and yet, in all reflections the essential part of my call to ministry has been the call to parish as a priest. I’ve navigated the waters of changing denominations with Judith serving as my spiritual director and find satisfaction in learning through the experience how to guide others in their experience of the holy and discernment. This has been a great blessing.

Meeting with Judith regularly provides me an opportunity to reflect on what has been happening in my life during each intervening period. She raises questions which provoke self-examination. There may be a specific connection to what I say and some words of wisdom which she feels led by the Holy Spirit to impart to me for my own spiritual growth. She may offer a suggestion of a spiritual practice, or suggest a place to be in reflection. When I leave at the end of the session I know that I will not simply be a name filed away until our next meeting. I am not a “case”. I am someone for whom she has accepted a special responsibility. I will remain in her daily prayer concerns, because that is the nature of spiritual direction.

As is true for most clergy relationships, our time together is held as a confidential relationship; all usual caveats remaining. Judith retains the right, the moral duty to break confidence if a directee indicates a potential desire to cause harm to self or others.

As we conclude our time together she suggests a revision in our schedule, a time for our next meeting which will correspond to my schedule for classes in Claremont.

I leave her cottage and head to my car for the return ride home, savoring the reality of God’s presence, the gift of quiet peace and hopeful about the transition back to seminary work and new ministry endeavors in the parish.

Peace filled Pruning

I love my garden.

When we first moved into this house, I spent almost the entire first year just studying the way the sun and rain played on the property.

After the first couple of winter rainfalls, I tried to walk in the back yard and quickly learned the foolishness of trying to walk in wet desert soils. I ruined a couple pairs of shoes sinking into the slimy mud that caliche soil makes.

I have a whole shelf in the bookcase dedicated to gardening books complete with a gardening encyclopedia but my favorite book was always the Sunset Gardening for Western States. I looked up every favorite plant I had to see if it would survive in the harsh high desert climate. I was disappointed to learn that Jacaranda Trees and Bougainvillaea were no match for the extremes. Instead I learned to love the native plants and drought tolerant plants. I was delighted to learn that roses love the dry heat and do pretty well with proper nourishment.

Over several years I worked to create a large drought tolerant band along the perimeter of the back. Lots of bulbs were planted in the first years and they produced very reliably year after year, until we moved to Idaho and let the plants fend for themselves when the automatic watering system failed during our absence.
The roses managed to survive despite the prolonged neglect.

Roses require work. Pruning is something of an art. Make a cut in the wrong direction and your bush grows all wrong. Leave a bush unpruned and it becomes over grown and the blossoms shrink for competition of nutrients. Prune it at just the right time and you reap the benefits of an additional blooming cycle.

Today I spent half a day pruning the roses and trees. It was a perfect day for it. The wind was strong but not blistering hot. Deceptively cool with the brilliant desert sun baking my un-protected neck and shoulders. A folly to forget sunscreen before talking my morning walk leaves me with a crisp red reminder of the intense burning power of the sun at these high altitudes.

One of the delights of any day in the garden is to stop and admire the beauty of all Gods creatures that come into the garden. Today's delight was to see brilliant yellow butterfly feasting on the silk mimosa. I tried to capture the moment on video with my cell phone but it didn't do justice to the real thing. Some moments really are kodak moments. This time my kodak was out of reach so my memory will have to do.

August pruning before school starts feels like the perfect way to get my house in order before classes start. Soon I will have to steal time away from the books to keep up with any gardening. But gardening is a creative process for me. Funny thing is when I was recently asked to name things I do to relieve stress, I completely forgot about my love for gardening.

This fall I plan on starting a small kitchen garden using the planter boxes around the patio. Nothing large. Something easy to maintain and accessible from the patio; no worries about sinking down to my knees in slimmy mud.

Training

Training for life
One step, one step
Left foot, right foot
step step step
life flows step after step

Memorials
Steps taken with love
Intention to mention
To Remember the departed
Climbing 110 floors

Walk in love
This is the call
One hand, one arm
Reaching out now
Embracing others as Christ

Training for life
One step, one step
Left foot, right foot
step step step
life flows step after step

August & Origami Cranes

August is Origami Month and I’m folding cranes.

It’s a challenge to the members of St. Timothy’s to join me in a fundraising effort for Episcopal Relief and Development’s work to rebuild Earthquake ravaged Haiti and to contribute to a memorial project initiated by the Riverside Museum of Art. 1000 cranes and 1000 dollars.

Origami cranes have long been associated with the month of August. They are a symbol of concern and hope for the future of the planet among peace and justice ministry workers of America. All this connection seems to have arisen about twenty years after the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima near the end of World War II.

The link to Peace and Justice Ministries begins with one child. Sadako Sasaki was dying of leukemia which developed as a result of the exposure to radiation. She had one goal; to fold one thousand paper cranes before she died. An unusual goal to Americans but it made perfect sense within the Japanese traditions. Sadako was inspired by the gift of one paper crane folded for her school friend while visiting her in the hospital. In Japan the tradition held that anyone who folded one thousand paper cranes would receive their wish from a crane. While Sadako did achieve her goal of one thousand cranes, she died at the very young age of 12, in October of 1955. According to the exhibit at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, school friends helped her achieve her goal before her death.

Paper cranes have been folded as a symbol of the prayers for peace on earth, and the elimination of nuclear weapons around the globe. They have also become a symbol in the Japanese American community used to commemorate the lives of the 120,313 Japanese Americans interned in America during World War II, following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Several different paper crane collections have been initiated over the years. One currently in process is called the California Paper Crane Peace Project which was launched by the Riverside Metropolitan Museum. This project has a goal of collecting 93,785 cranes; one for every person from California who was sent to a Japanese American Internment camp during World War II.

This spring, following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the paper crane gained a new place of meaning among youth around the United States. Shortly after the earthquake and tsunami a campaign to raise funds for relief to Japan was launched where donations of folded cranes where matched by financial donors with a $2.00 donation. Youth groups around the nation participated in that effort and collectively raised 1.4 million dollars within a matter of weeks. I, like many paper crane folders, was glad to send off a flock of 20 cranes to a youth group in Idaho Falls, Idaho to help them reach their goal of 1000 cranes to contribute toward the redevelopment of Sendai, Japan.

Paper folding is a calming activity. In my own life, I have developed an attitude toward folding paper cranes which incorporates prayer. When I worried about our son while he was deployed in Iraq, I would stop the negative effects of worry by folding a crane and lifting up a specific intention to God with each fold. Over one period of time I found myself folding daily, and placing them on my bookshelves as a reminder that I had placed him in God’s care. The visual reminder stemmed my worry. I folded many, and still have a portion of that collection of cranes, but have since tucked them away in a box. Our son is now on American soil.

In the Episcopal Church we are aware that the work of response to disasters that occur in any area is a multi-stage process. Episcopal Relief and Development provides not only immediate relief, but also looks at each situation to provide long term reconstruction and development. The work of rebuilding Haiti is in year one of a long term project, probably ten years of work to fully develop and restore hope to our Caribbean island neighbor. The prayers we offer for peace and hopes of restoration will not be enough. Money and human power will also be needed.

So, I proposed a modest goal for the St. Timothy’s Parish; one thousand cranes and one thousand dollars to be collected, and raised within our congregation.

A table is set up in the Fellowship Hall each week with instructions and paper supplies. You are invited to make an offering for the paper and learn the art of paper crane folding.

Join me in prayer and action for the healing of the world and for the recovery of Haiti.

Our 1000 cranes, once completed will be contributed to the Riverside Museum’s California Paper Crane Peace Project, and the money collected will be sent to Episcopal Relief and Development, designated for redevelopment projects in Haiti.

Shalom,

Barbara
post script... one way you can painlessly contribute to Episcopal Relief and Development is by signing up to use the Charitable Online Shopping mall Igive.com found HERE and then do your online shopping and see the donations add up.

Vacation Bible School

It's all said and done.

In the can.

A wrap.

Wonderful work.

Fun and games.

Sweet treats under the shade of the big tree

Crafts and games, making new friends and fellowship as each station team worked to complete their daily assignments.

THANK YOU GOD! PandaMania 2011 was a great success. 38 children attended, 9 youth and 25 adult volunteers throughout the week worked to make it a wonderful experience as everyone learned about God's great love. Together, we delighted in the knowledge that God is wild about us!

MUSIC CLIP HERE
postscript....photos selected from over 400 images

Saturday

A Saturday Flashback

For the first time in two years I found myself standing at the copier on Saturday morning getting ready for Sunday morning worship. There I was printing off a last minute insert for the Sunday Morning Bulletin, and it just struck me as déjà vue. In four years as solo pastor, I must have spent at least a third of the total number of Saturdays doing the last minute preparation of the worship bulletin because the week just had too many little emergencies and more pressing relational work to do.

Now I’m back in the role as a lay member, in a congregation with an outstanding Administrative Assistant to keep us all organized. So, I’m wondering to myself, how did I end up doing this on this Saturday?

Well, it’s countdown time for Vacation Bible School. I took on the role as Vacation Bible School Director this year. We are down to the tasks of collecting all the props and supplies. As hard as I tried to get my act together to get a final list together, I just couldn’t get it done within her timeline.

So, the opportunity today, to remember how grateful I am for the years I spent as pastor to a wonderful congregation, people who understood that the church is not a building, the church is the people.

I am grateful for the years of serving, after so many years of waiting and then preparing to step into the office of pastor. I am grateful for the sacred moments that I experienced, at death, with the grieving, at marriages, consecrating Eucharist, on pilgrimage, engaging with youth. I miss the fond friendships formed during our time of service. Most of all, I am grateful for memories of Vacation Bible School (always affectionately called VBS) each year.

VBS is like no other ministry experience. Part drama, part school, part circus, all FUN!

Well, of course VBS is also all about sharing God’s love, praising God, learning new songs, meeting new people and building relationships. But what I love most about VBS is that we tackle the great commission “Go and make disciples, teaching them to do all things that I commanded” and show that being the church is not all about saying “Shhhsh”, somber sounds and high sounding words.

All in all, that makes standing at a copier a few minutes and stuffing about one hundred bulletins with inserts on a Saturday morning well worth the time spent.

23 days and counting down to PandaMania!

Black, Crosses and Confessions; Reflecting on Good Friday

I am reflecting on Good Friday while waiting for tonight’s Easter Vigil.

Good Friday is about confessions, the cross and obedience unto death.

It is said that confession is good for the soul. I tell others that practicing what you teach builds authenticity and integrity in community.

I confess that I feel I deprived my children of some of the most poignant opportunities for learning about the core of our faith as Christians. I don’t take all the blame for this failure of parenting in the religious traditions. The decision to find a community of faith that would provide for the weekly religious instruction of the boys while we attended worship felt like the appropriate thing at the time. In almost all their years growing up, we attended worship weekly. We were not just Christmas and Easter Christians. We taught them through our shared experience, that participation in Christian community was a core family value. Nevertheless, I feel that in an important way our children missed out on some important religious experiences, and I doubt that can be corrected on my part. They knew that grandparents on both sides attended “kneeling Church.” But rarely did they actually experience worship on their own knees. Now, they will have to discover for themselves some of the lesser practiced traditions of the Catholic Church; things like veneration of the cross, and Easter Vigils, if they are ever to know what it is to follow the traditions of the highly liturgical Catholic streams in the Body of Christ.

For years I had seen the telecasts of the Vatican commemoration of Good Friday, observing the Pope’s journey with the cross. I watched masses of people engage in the veneration of the cross and find myself thinking how strange that seemed. Initially I questioned this practice thinking it suspect and verging on idolatry, as most who are instilled with the attitudes of the protestant reformation will assert.

After our children came of age and moved out of the home, Tim and I began to reclaim some of the practices of his childhood. When our United Methodist congregation did not offer a Good Friday Service, we would check the schedules and attend the service at the Roman Catholic Church. But in attending those services, we came almost as guests to the community, visitors and therefore more as observers than full members of the church, despite all that is said about us belonging to the one body of Chris universal.

When time came in the service for the veneration of the cross, we sat with reverence, not engaging in the display of affection and veneration.

Speaking for myself, I felt rather frozen to my place in the sanctuary. It was one thing to reflect on the significance of Jesus’ death on the cross; his obedience to our Heavenly Father, and my culpability and vicarious participation in his crucifixion. It was an entirely different thing to move from my place in the sanctuary and step toward the altar to participate in such a public demonstration. Now I can say, “What a pity for me, a missed opportunity.”

Even as a pastor for a small congregation, while I began to push and challenge my members, adding a Good Friday service to the Holy Week schedule in the first two years, still, the idea of including veneration of the cross to our worship was inconceivable. Attendance at our service was so feeble in year one and two that subsequently I encouraged members to join with our Lutheran Brothers and Sisters in Christ in marking the Holy Day. This was one of those places were I realized that perhaps I was more Catholic than Methodist.

It is good to reflect back on these places of learning. The Missouri Synod Lutheran congregation held a somber enough service, reflecting on the passion of Jesus Christ. It avoided those “popish” practices of veneration of the cross. It filled much of my need to mark the life and death in final preparation for the much anticipated celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. I don’t know that I would have felt at ease to participate in any act of veneration of the cross among the beautiful people of Ashton. I think I would have probably observed and refrained from approaching a cross that lay at the front of the sanctuary if it had been included in the service. This because I believe I was still largely trapped and frozen within an intellectualized faith, lacking full body participation in terms of worship, yet being pulled by the Holy Spirit to recover what the early church fathers had passed on from generation to generation.

This year, with the change of Priest at St. Timothy’s, I have been blessed to experience liturgical design and leadership in a new way. Fr. Paul has filled our week with the ancient practices for the modern day. Timeless and timely ritual for the body, mind, and spirit, including an opportunity to venerate the cross within our Good Friday worship service. For the first time, I was able to see and feel this practice as a member of the community gathered. In this way, I was able to come with my whole self in devotion to God, in reverence to Jesus Christ, and with openness to the work of the Holy Spirit; without inhibition or embarrassment.

As I remained in silent meditation following my time at the cross and altar, I also reflected on those who followed. Many very senior members of the congregation, with painful and unsteady joints, approached and kneeled, displaying humility and devotion in their approach. But the most moving of all that I observed, were those that came together as a unit, parent and sons, grandmother and grandson. These are the ones whose devotion and faithfulness to their baptismal vows the Holy Spirit used to prick my conscience and expose the deprivation of my own past.

Lamb of God, that takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on me, a sinner.

When one enters seminary to prepare for ordained ministry, one goes thinking they are sure about their place in the household of God. One merely goes with trust that God will mold and form us in the image of Christ, to bring others to faith, and to tend to the souls of those placed in our care. When I said yes to the call of Christ to follow that path, I never expected that the Holy Spirit would be leading me back toward the church of my youth. I only knew that I must follow the command, to pick up the cross and expect to be built up by the Holy Spirit for the work which lay before me. How I thank my Lord for leading me to this time, place and community, to continue to grow in grace and love for the work to which he is ever and always preparing ahead of me.

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:18

Vigil of a peculiar people

“Could you not stay awake for just one hour?”

Holy week is the most passionate time in the life of the Catholic Church. Within the span of eight days the church reenacts the significant events in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Having spent many years in churches of the Protestant Reformation, away from the Anglican Episcopal tradition of my youth, and the Roman Catholic tradition of my husband’s youth, I marvel at how much I missed of being able to experience with my whole self the teachings and ultimate sacrifice of Jesus.

On Palm Sunday and again from Thursday evening through Friday night, we retell the passion story and act out the dedication and love that Jesus demonstrated to his disciples. In so doing, through several acts and actions, we write the words of Scripture upon our bodies.

Liturgy comes from a Greek word. It means “the work of the people.” During Holy week, more than almost any other time, the services truly are the work of the people. A Maundy Thursday service with a foot washing service as well as celebration of the Eucharist act out the story told through the voice of John the Evangelist. This service is humbling and tender. It allows much time for sitting in silence with the Holy while others are served. In this service one really must dispense with any interest in monitoring time. For this service is one of kairos, God’s time, not chronos, time of human understanding and measurement.

Last night, at the conclusion of our service, the stage was set to reenact the night in the Garden of Gethsemane as a vigil attending the consecrated Bread and Wine was held.

As I was driving home between the service my scheduled time at Midnight I had an amusing thought. I was thinking about Jesus’ words of tender rebuke to the ones who fell asleep during prayer. I was thinking about how I could prepare to stay awake. Should I have a cup of coffee? Stop at Starbucks on the way home?

What if Peter had said to Jesus, “ Lord, why didn’t you tell us you planned on staying out all night in the Garden? We could have drunk less wine, had a cup of coffee instead.”

Peter couldn’t tell Jesus, “Hey, Messiah, let’s stop at Starbucks on our way to the Garden.”

Peter said a lot of things that Jesus shook his head at, but suggesting stopping for coffee wasn’t one of them.

So I figured that took Starbucks out of the equation for me last night. I didn’t even make special preparation during the day, by taking a nap. So I came home, spent a few minutes preparing what clothes needed for Friday and then, sat down to read, but skipping my usual pot of Chamomile tea, hoping to stay alert enough through the night.

But just like the disciples in the Garden, I couldn’t remain alert.

My body insisted on a short nap. Without that nap I would have been a greater danger to others on the road as I returned to take my watch at the Lady’s Altar in the rear of the sanctuary.

Last night will hold a special memory for me. During those hours I reflected on the earnestness of the disciples, and their frail ability to be fully present in the company of Jesus during his last hours of earthbound life in human form. In their story I saw my own inability to remain attentive to God’s presence. Yet, never once did I feel that Christ felt any bitterness or distaste for me, only a tender and compassionate love.

“Forbid it Lord that I should boast,
save in the death of Christ, my God;
all the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to his blood.”
Isaac Watts

Forty two cents

Sometime in January I began to recognize some frustration. There were questions hanging, waiting for answers. Employment opportunities have been less than abundant given my education and training.

I needed to refocus on gratitude.

There was this mite box from the St. Nicholas Center, kicking around after all the paraphernalia of Christmas had been stored.

And then it came to me. I remembered the idea that a person was wealthy if one could end the week with change in their pocket. The idea of course is based on the understanding that wealth is relative. The comparison was being made to the circumstances of people in countries around the globe.

I also remembered that the studies prove that charity triggers the positive chemical firing in our brains.

I thought “Six cents a day. I bet I have at least 42 cents of loose change in my purse at the end of the week. That would be just six cents a day. Why not use the box and put in forty two cents each week, just six cents a day to use for an outreach or mission project in the coming year.”

There is nothing particularly dramatic in this action. It’s certainly not real sacrifice. No spectacular amounts, but it’s something more than lint and dust. It’s tangible and allows me to demonstrate to myself gratitude, compassion, and charity regularly. It fills a need that I believe we all have, a need to be able to respond to the needs of those less fortunate than ourselves. What project the money will fund is immaterial at the present. The significance is finding a way to concretize my awareness of having my needs provided for and still having some surplus.