The Waiting Room

They didn’t know exactly what they were waiting for, but they knew they needed to be together. That’s what first strikes me about Pentecost – a.k.a. what we’re about to celebrate on Sunday. We’re told that the people who were closest to Jesus “were all together in one place” (Acts 2:1). It wasn’t just the apostles. His mother and brothers were there too. They didn’t all claim to understand him in his fullness; how could they? But they all loved him and missed him, and as long as he wasn’t there as he was before, it felt better to be with other people who loved and missed him too.

It had been over a week since they last saw Jesus. For a while after Easter, they kept seeing him – in locked rooms, along the road, on the lakeshore.

This last time, though, was different. They were back on the Mount of Olives, where he’d been arrested not too long before. Jesus told them that they’d receive power when the Holy Spirit came – but he didn’t tell them when it would happen or what exactly it would be like. Only that this Spirit – or Advocate, as it’s sometimes translated – would be with them forever. And then “a cloud took him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9). He was gone.

And in Luke’s account anyway, the Spirit hadn’t come yet – at least not in full force. So they stayed together and prayed and waited. We’ll hear more on Sunday about what happened next, but it’s this in-between time that interests me now.

I’m in one of those in-between times myself. By the time this is posted, I’ll be getting ready for my Grandma’s funeral. My family and I will be together, as we were in the days keeping vigil before she died. We don’t all claim to have understood her – at least as she was in her fullness. We all know pieces, and by being together we have more of the whole. But we all love and miss her, and as long as she’s not with us as she was before, it feels better to be together.

The good news, of course, is that the Spirit that sustained her all her life is still with us and will be forever. We might not feel it as the rush of a violent wind at this point; at least I don’t. The Spirit’s presence with me is quiet right now, as quiet and sustaining as the breath that’s keeping me alive.

I love that the Hebrew word for “spirit” (ruach) can be translated as both breath and wind. It speaks to the different ways that God’s Spirit is present with us. Sometimes it’s undeniably strong; it feels powerful. And sometimes it just doesn’t. But it’s no less present or real – or powerful, for that matter.

Someday I’ll feel the Spirit like a gale force wind again. It will give me the ability to speak with force and conviction about God’s deeds of power in whichever corner of the world I find myself, as it did Jesus’ first followers. But until then, I take comfort that the Spirit is no less with us when it’s all we can do to keep breathing. It’s with us in each and every breath, whether we notice it or not. It will even be with us when we stop breathing. Thanks be to God – when Jesus promised that the Spirit would be with us forever, he really meant forever.

Peace,

Emily+

“The Daily Cup” is moving

Part of our plan in developing our new website, which debuted last year, was for “The Daily Cup” to be part of it. As you may have noticed, there is a “Blog” tab on the homepage of the web site, and if you have clicked on it, you have seen that our recent “Daily Cup” posts are there. I have been posting them there for the past several months in anticipation of this next step, which we are now ready to take.

Beginning next Monday, May 16, we will no longer make blog posts to WordPress.com and will only post them on our web site. At 8:00 a.m. each weekday, MailChimp, our email client for This Week at St. Alban’s, will send out the latest “Daily Cup” post to you. It will look something like this:

As before, your comments are welcome. To leave a comment, click

which you will find at the bottom of the post, and you will be taken to the post on our web site. Scroll to the bottom of the post, and you will see this:

In spite of what it says, there is no need for you to login or register to make a comment. Simply type your name and comment and press “Submit Comment.”

Those are the basics. Now, I need to share a few more pieces of information with you.

1. We have done our best to include all of you on the new email list. If Monday and Tuesday come and go next week, and you have not received “The Daily Cup,” email or call me, so that I can make sure that you are included.
2. Those of you who read email in Microsoft Outlook may notice that images do not fully display. This is due to the unique way in which Outlook reads code. If you experience this, you can click on the “Read in browser” hyperlink near the bottom of the post, and it should display correctly there.
3. Since we are hosting the blog now, you can visit “St. Alban’s Daily Cup” page anytime and browse the history to reread any post anytime.
4. We are retaining our WordPress.com account, so our archive of “Daily Cup” posts will not be lost.
5. Finally, if you have any other unforeseen issues, please don’t hesitate to contact me and let me know.

Peace,

Charles

What do you hope for?

Last weekend, our parish set up an enormous graffiti-board at a festival called Flowermart  that we knew was going to draw a couple thousand people. (Jim Quigley blogged about the idea here: http://stalbansdc.org/the-daily-cup/from-bones-to-hope/.) What happened was pretty magical:

People of all ages came to join in: little children, old people, even people who needed us to write for them. People who wrote in English, French, Spanish, Bulgarian, Korean, Arabic, Latin, and Greek.  The little ones hoped for puppies, Legos, and “cadny.” Several kids hoped for an end to poverty, or that the homeless would find homes. The grown-ups wrote “peace,” “gun control,” “healing, “release,” “new life,” “a cure for breast cancer and for all cancer.” “Equal opportunity” appeared, as did “to get a job.” “$15/hour and a union” was near “love and dachshunds.” A man from a 12-step group hoped for “serenity and sobriety.” People posed for pictures next to their post, then came back, hours later, to read what others had written. Passers-by took pictures. A couple people offered to make donations; they were visibly confused when we explained that this was a gift. “Why are you doing this?” they asked, over and over. And yet, they chose to join in.

And then there were the conversations. Cathy, who had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Sarah’s mom, who hoped for a healthy, full-term granddaughter (after her daughter had suffered two miscarriages). (Pray for them both.) The cheeky guy in a wheelchair who looked at me pointedly and said,”I hope for help to get to Flowermart.” I abandoned my post and pushed him up the hill.

The most moving thing was that when we asked people what was in their hearts, we revealed the beauty in one another.

And then there’s this: last week, I wrote about Glennon Doyle Melton using her blog to raise money for Syrian refugees. The day I wrote about, The Compassion Collective raised $380,000. In donations that were capped at $25/person. If everyone gave the maximum amount, that’s more than a million people reaching out to help strangers in need. Probably, not everyone did give the maximum amount, so that’s even more.

We have been hearing a lot these days about “those people,” by which speakers indicate anyone who is not like themselves: different race, different gender, different values, lives in a different part of the country. Well, more than a million of Those People reached out from their living rooms to lift up the lives of strangers. They gave their money and the prayers of their heart. And when you ask Those People what they hope for, they write: peace, kindness, compassion, a world without violence, pizza, new life, for someone to love me.

Personally, I am proud to be one of Those People. Maybe we can even start a movement: “I’m one of Those People.” Will you join us?

Family hymns

Do you have favorite hymns? Jonnie Sue and I do. One that we share is “The Church’s one foundation,” number 525 in “The Hymnal, 1982.” I’m always moved when I have an opportunity to sing it, as was the case this past Sunday when it was the recessional hymn. The imagry in its five exquisitely phrased verses rather perfectly and suscinctly expresses the origin, meaning, mission, and aspiration of the church. Each phrase of each verse could serve as a basis for a meditation.

The reason that it is particularly moving to me is that it has become our family funeral hymn, sung at the funerals of all four of our parents and my brother. It is the last verse that makes my eyes damp when I get to “mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is won” and the concluding prayer that we too may have grace to dwell on high with them.

Thank you, Samuel Stone, for composing these words and thank you too, Samuel Wesley,for setting them to such memorable music. Truly it is a big part of the music of my life.

Ron Hicks, Parish Verger, St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Washignton DC, 10-May-2016.

FBQ

 

I’m Irish.  I love saying that.  We Irish love stories and every time we tell stories the details change but the truth remains… (one might think here of the Gospels?)!

So here’s my gospel for the day, a little late.

I can remember sitting around a table with some of my siblings when my older brothers and sisters were talking about what they would accomplish in life.  At one point I said that I’d like to become something that didn’t register with my older sibs.  Amidst some disdain my mom said, “If Jimmy wants to be a mechanic that’s just fine… the only thing that matters is what makes us happy.”

Oh Mom…  thank you!

And thank you Moms!

To every mother, Happy Mother’s Day, belated!

 

 

 

 

The Ascension

 

Thursday was the day in the liturgical calendar that we remember the Ascension of Jesus into heaven. It is celebrated forty days after the Resurrection. In addition to marking the day of the Ascension, the author of the Gospel of Luke and the book of the Acts of the Apostles has contributed much to the structure of the liturgical year from Advent through each season including the season of Easter. In many countries around the world, the day of the Ascension is a nationally revered holy day.

The forty-day period between Easter and the Ascension was a time of preparation for the disciples of Jesus. Jesus was still with them and appeared to them. Jesus helped them to believe not only in his resurrection, but also in living for him, the risen Christ, during his physical absence from their world.   Jesus prepared them for their mission as witnesses for a Christian faith.   Jesus did not abandon them. As we conclude this season of Easter move to the next, we remember on Pentecost the presence in our lives, as in the lives of the Apostles, of the Holy Spirit.  Through the Holy Spirit and through us, Jesus’ disciples from all the ages, the presence of Jesus Christ continues in our world. In Acts 16:7, the Holy Spirit is referred to as the Spirit of Jesus.

A Reformed tradition, Christian theologian, Karl Barth, describes the Ascension as a change in the perspective from which Jesus shapes the world—no longer from the earth but from a more universal, timeless vantage point. This approach in my opinion overcomes the need to explain scientifically what actually happened in the Ascension event. The nature of Jesus as human and divine continues. The acceptance of mystery is a part of my faith. As unfashionable as it may be, I believe in miracles. And this miracle is a really big one.

So important is it that the author of Luke and Acts ends his Gospel with the Ascension and begins Acts with more about the Ascension. It is the bridge between the life and ministry of Jesus and the beginning of the Christian church. The image with which I chose to begin this reflection depicts the literal Ascension, a glazed terra cotta by Luca Della Robbia, a 15^th century Italian sculptor. But I close with an image of a painting from the twenty-first century painter, Lee Davis. I perceive in this second image a shimmering energy and light spanning heaven and earth that represents for me the beauty of the Ascension—a unity that is eternal and beyond the confines of the dimensions of the this world.

Enemy of the People

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. “ Or so Anne Lamott writes in her book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. I remember discovering this line in seminary and wondering where this wisdom had been all my life.

Up until then, I’d never really understood the need to overachieve as a foreign invasion. I thought it was my own voice telling me to get the A, no matter what. Where does that message come from, that we can be reduced to how we perform? And how do we manage to internalize it so early?

The women who raised me, my mom and grandma, didn’t teach me that. They taught me that I was a beloved child of God and that Jesus loved me no matter what. In the church of my childhood, however, the message wasn’t quite so clear. We were taught to take the Sermon on the Mount quite literally. When we heard “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48), we didn’t laugh this off as impossible. We didn’t let ourselves off the hook. Grace was no justification for spiritual laziness. We could be better people if we tried harder, and there was no excuse not to try. Failure to meet the mark was no excuse for not trying to reach it.

It was only much later, when I had the tools to explore the Bible on a deeper level, that I realized that this verse doesn’t mean what I always thought it meant. Some things can get lost in translation, it turns out. For example, the verb here in Greek is in the future tense: “you will be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” It’s less a command than a vision of something we can’t see yet.

Likewise, the Greek word for “perfect” here means something like “whole, complete, or mature.” In that light, a newer translation called the Common English Bible (in the context of a passage about loving our enemies) translates this verse as “just as your heavenly Father is complete in showing love to everyone, so also you must be complete.”

The closest we get to this notion of perfection in our liturgy as Episcopalians is the Collect for Purity at the beginning of the Eucharist, “that we might perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy name.” It’s still a high bar, no doubt. But loving the One who loves us unconditionally doesn’t seem quite as challenging as living without failures or mistakes. It might even help us love ourselves a little more easily. If the One who knows all still sees fit to love us, who are we to question that judgment?

Personally, I now prefer Luke’s version in his parallel passage in the Sermon on the Plain. He writes: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36). Maybe that’s more what spiritual “perfection” – or maturity – looks like. Not the ability to live without error, but the capacity to show mercy to ourselves and each other. If we’re going to put in all the energy it takes to lead a faithful life, we might as well aim for the right mark.

Peace,

Emily+

Hope Is Here!

COME HOPE WITH US!

Vote your life

Last night was a tough evening for me. One of our major political parties pretty much handed the nomination to a racist bigot, many of whose ideas would involve significant injury to groups of people that the Bible commands us to protect. We’ve been seeing this coming for a while now, but I still felt a difference between knowing it was likely, and knowing it would happen.

For me, as for many, this whole campaign season has raised unsettling questions: Are these really the priorities of our neighbors? Have we collectively failed one another, left large portions of our population in the dust, to the extent that this man appears to be a messenger of hope? What has happened to our country?

And so, last night, I voted. No, I don’t mean that I went to a ballot box or even mailed an absentee ballot. I mean that I voted for hope. I went to the website of a woman named Glennon Doyle Melton, a blogger who has become an improbable force for change, and sent some money to one of her projects.

Let me tell you about it. Glennon Doyle Melton spent twenty years addicted to alcohol and drugs and binge-eating, but then she found she was pregnant. (Not married, just pregnant.) And she vowed to herself that this child would be her life and that she would quit drugs and alcohol for that baby, even though she had not been able to do it for herself. She married a man she barely knew and they set to work to make a family together. Today, she is widely-followed blogger, an author, pursues an active career in public speaking, and has created two networks for change:  Together Rising, which harnesses the energy of the people who read her blog to funds project that empower women like the woman Glennon used to be, and The Compassion Collective, which does the same for a broader range of causes.

Recently, Compassion Collective has been focusing on Syrian refugees. Their last round of fundraising produced $713,000 for aid agencies working in Syrian camps in Greece, money that went for food, medical care, shelter, and solar-powered lights to comfort refugee children who are afraid of the dark. They held another fund-raising day yesterday; still waiting to hear the totals.

Why am I telling you this? Because I needed to be reminded, on a dark day, of all the ordinary, struggling, good people in our country who are still working to make a difference. Not through politics, but through the sheer force of their own compassion and the creativity with which they deploy it. I could have written about the men and women who guide visitors into their local hospital, or about the firefighters who risk their lives on a regular basis to help people they may never even meet, or about the nurses who manage to be patient with querulous people in pain, or even about the people in my parish community, who are tireless in finding ways to show compassion in this world.

I guess what I’m saying is this: it’s not up to our leaders to shape this world. It’s up to us. Each of us has a ballot, but each of us also has a life: the days and minutes and hours that God has given us. The ballot is a powerful tool and great gift of freedom, and every one of us should use it to support whomever we think can best lead our nation, our city, or our state. But of the two, the second is more powerful: what you do with your life.

I’m going to leave us with words from Verna Dozier, who wrote a revolutionary book called The Dream of God. She says,

“It is the task of the church, the people of God, to minister within the structures of society….Ministry is serving the world God loves. The people of God are sent to the world — the people of the world, not the kingdoms of the world, not the way of life that exalts one person over another, greed over giving, power over vulnerability, the kingdoms of this world over against the kingdom of God.”

How can you be a force for compassion today? How can you make a gesture (even a small one) that will bring the world one step closer to the dream of God, who made and loves us all? How can you vote with your life today?

____

Three notes:

1. If you want to learn more about Melton, you can find her work at momastery.com. That’s also where the image with the calligraphy came from.
2. If you want another way to help Syrian refugees (and if you live near DC), mark your lunch calendar for July 31st, when our parish will be hosting a falafel fundraiser to help several families in the DC area.
3. It has been my faithful practice to remain rigorously neutral during election seasons. That’s not because I have no political convictions, but because the church has to be a welcoming place for people who disagree with one another about which policies and laws would best help all of God’s people in this country and in the world. It is only in such free (and sometimes heated) exchange of ideas that the best can emerge, strengthened by the very testing it has endured. But while I cannot endorse a candidate, I will not be silent about racism, cruelty, and xenophobia. There are times when faithful people are called to come off the fence. This is one of them.

 

Teaching

I came close to pursuing a career in academia, but chose government service instead. Nonetheless, I’ve enjoyed playing a teaching role in just about every position I’ve held. When the Customs Service sent me to Hofstra University for five months of training in system analysis, many of my fellow students were struggling with statistics and principles of computer operation. I enjoyed tutoring review sessions in the evening in the empty bar of the Lido Beach Hotel, which was closed for the season, and where we were billeted.

At the Senate, when PC’s were first introduced, my closest contacts were the Senators’ office managers. I could see from working with them on accounting systems I was installing that many were baffled at the basics of working a computer. I offered to have sessions on the basics, like how a keyboard is similar to and different from a typewriter. I scheduled these sessions at 6:00 p.m. on Fridays, because it wasn’t part of my official duties, and I felt I had to do them “after hours.” Attendance and interest exceeded my wildest expectations. For about twenty years now I’ve enjoyed offering workshops in the Diocese of Washington, Maryland, and Virginia on the Daily Office. I realized many years ago that the teaching I enjoy is of adults who want to learn. My hat is off to those who teach children and teenagers and who struggle daily with trying to reach the uninterested; I could never do that.

At St. Alban’s, my teaching outlets have been few; mainly the acolytes. But I have savored it, and I’ll l miss it. But there will be others in the future, I’m sure. An ancient saying goes “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”

I’m happy that it runs in the family. My son is a university professor; my youngest daughter is a ballet teacher with her own school; and my oldest daughter has tutored French since high school and has taught etiquette courses off and on for years. Jonnie Sue, as many of you know, had a flower shop for 20 years. She taught flower arranging in her shop and has done workshops here and in Maine.

Teaching is an occupation, for sure, but it is more; it is a calling, an avocation that can find expression in a fascinating variety of ways. So look around you. Someone might benefit from learning something you know.

Adapted from A Prayer for Educational Institutions
Eternal God
Bless all teachers
that they may encourage
sound learning, new discovery, 
and the pursuit of wisdom;
and grant that those who teach 
and those who learn
may find you to be
the source of all truth;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

Ron Hicks, Parish Verger, St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Washington DC, 3-May-2016.