Ash Wednesday

I arrived home today after the first two services to find that my dogs had decided to get into the spirit of things. At church, we are observing Ash Wednesday, gently brushing ashes onto the upturned foreheads of men, women, and children, friend and stranger, old and young together. With each new face, we press our thumbs into the ashes of last year’s palm crosses, stroke each face like a caress, and murmur, “Remember that you are but dust.”

At home, the observance was not Ash Wednesday, but Dirt Wednesday, for which the rite is apparently to remove several cups of dirt from one of the potted plants and strew it on the rug, the furniture, the sofa, and the book your owner was trying to read. Even as I stared in horror and ran for the vacuum cleaner, even as I tried to scold the dogs, one thought kept running through my mind: “This must have been a whole lot of fun at the time.”

Some time from now, I hope many, many years from now, my dogs will be only memories. And when I think back on them, it is things like this I will treasure: the funny, unpredictable things, the times they made a complete mess, the times they made me laugh even in my frustration, the times of unexpected joy. Seen in the light of today, a filthy sofa and destroyed plant are damage uncalled for. But after a day of remembering our mortality, these dogs will get off easy, for I see not the broken rules, but the love I will not have forever.

Perhaps that is how our sins look, seen in the eyes of God. Oh, not the major ones — not murder, not hatred, not unfeeling arrogance. But all the little flaws that make up our days: careless moments, words of love unspoken, kindness not shown. Perhaps when God looks at us, what God sees is that God loves us, and that we will not be here forever. Perhaps what God wants above all is to spend time together while we can.

Perhaps this is wellspring of mercy, God’s mercy and ours. On Ash Wednesday, we remember that we will not have forever. Not here. Not with these people.

We could try to live as if we believed it.

If we do that, we will have forever. Not here, but by the grace of God. And all of it will turn out to be gift. All of it.

In Communion

My wish for everyone is that there would be one moment in your life when you knew, without any doubt, that God existed.  One such moment in my life was hearing Gregorio Allegri’s setting of Psalm 51, Miserere Mei, Deus for the first time.  As it happens, this experience was at Winchester Cathedral during a performance at the Southern Cathedrals Festival, which is, granted, a setting likely to encourage a musical encounter with God.

Psalm 51 is part of the liturgy for Ash Wednesday (tomorrow, February 22), and members of the Alban Singers will sing Allegri’s piece during the 6:00 pm service that day.  A recording by the Tallis Scholars is linked below and I hope you can take a few minutes from your day to hear a work of such beauty  that surely God cannot be doubted.  While we have neither the acoustics of a cathedral, nor the sound of the Tallis Scholars here at St. Alban’s, I suggest that hearing a live performance in the context of the Ash Wednesday service, is a moving experience unto itself.

This is the kind of music around which legends are created.   Allegri (1582-1652), a singer in the Chapel of Pope Urban VIII, probably composed his most famous work in the 1630’s.  It is believed that it was sung exclusively in the Sistine Chapel, with threat of excommunication for anyone who transcribed the piece and performed it elsewhere.  A very young Mozart is said to have written the piece down after hearing it once in 1770 while visiting Rome, adding luster to his already obvious genius, and he has been credited with making the music available to the rest of the world.   I don’t believe, however, that Mozart was actually excommunicated.  In fact, I think hearing this piece is a sure way to be in communion with God.

The Sermon on I-95

This week, while on a long ride home from a speaking engagement, a friend asked me: How so you know that there is a God, and how do you know that he loves you? I took a moment to let his question sink in and to gather my thoughts.  Just exactly how do I know that there is a God?  How do I know that I am loved?  The headlights from the oncoming cars flashed by as I tried to put into words something that I truly only know in my bones.

“I don’t make the earth revolve around the sun, I didn’t make the many beautiful places on this planet, and I sure as hell didn’t make people choose to be kind when there’s nothing in it for them. So there is something out there far bigger than me, far better than me. I choose to call that something God.  And there have been so many times in my life when things were awful and painful, or when I was feeling very small and mean, and something or someone came along and demonstrated some kindness, some decency.  I see those as blessings, as Grace, as the love of God. I don’t know if this is any help to you, I just feel like an ant or perhaps a microscopic organism trying to describe an elephant.”

The words I came up with are neither great nor beautiful.  They don’t convey anything near the depth or breadth of my knowing, but they were honest, ernest, and what came to me. My friend smiled and thanked me. He said it helped.

I felt blessed.

Annemarie

God is in the details

Before leaving Cincinnati, Ohio to come to seminary at Virginia Theological Seminary I worked for a man named Charley.  Charley is a devout Christian.  He is a member of a Pentecostal church and as our Baptist brothers and sisters like to say, he “walks with the Word.”  Charley is also rather obsessed by details.  Details of contracts, of conversations, details of agreements made–nothing was too granular for Charley.  His favorite saying was, “The devil is in the details.”  Of course for him that meant that the devil was in all of the little things that we might overlook or that would be skimmed over.

I would argue that it is God who is in the details, not the devil.  God is in the details of our lives–in those small, simple moments of our lives that seem so inconsequential but that say a lot about our character and even our beliefs.

In April of my senior year of seminary there was one particularly rainy afternoon where I saw an example of God being in the details of a person’s life.  I noticed a staff member of the seminary walking along in the rain.  She was clearly in a hurry, her arms loaded with several file folders.  But, every so often as she walked along she would stop, bend over, pick something up and look like she was tossing an invisible something off to one side or the other.  As I got closer to her I realized what she was doing:  she was throwing earthworms, washed onto the sidewalk and stranded, back into the grass.  I stopped and watched.  She must have tossed over a dozen worms back to safety.  ”I just felt sorry for the little guys,” she said.  She was the patron saint of earthworms.

Another small action that demonstrates, perhaps more publicly, this little bit of God in the details of our lives happens in another unlikely place:  the highway.  How many times have you let someone into the backed up lane in which you are traveling only to have no acknowledgment from the other driver?  No simple wave to say, “thank you.”  It takes less than a second, but it is a little detail that recognizes a kindness another has paid.  God is in the details of our actions and of our lives, my friends.

That small act of kindness and charity is an example of God being in the details of one’s life.  Seeing God in the details of one’s life or in a situation can be transformative.  It is relatively easy to pay attention to God’s presence in the big moments of our lives.  As Christians we need to also pay attention to God’s presence in the small, little moments of our day.  When we are on the lookout for those small moments we become more attuned to the simple fact that God is everywhere in our lives.  And that recognition can be life changing.

As we enter into the season of Lent, where the tradition holds that we give up something that we love, I might suggest taking on a small detail as a Lenten discipline.  Perhaps it is simply seeking out those minute God-moments that we might have otherwise overlooked.  Maybe it is taking on a discipline of giving a small “God-is-in-the-details” moment for another every day.  From small details grow big habits.  And big habits have the potential to inspire and change lives.

In Christ’s name,

Boast Madly in God

This Sunday marks the end of the Epiphany season and a chance to relish the word “alleluia”, before it disappears from our prayers and hymns until Easter. As it happens alleluia is one of the most perfect words for singing.  The vowels float on your breath, the only consonant is one of the easiest and most comfortable to sing, and it’s almost impossible to sing the word incorrectly – unless you’re from a part of the country that renders it into “alleluyer”!

Hallelujah is the same word, though with more consonants which imply more bite to the sound (Handel’s Alleluia Chorus?). This word in various forms exists in all three of the Abrahamic traditions, which is a lovely thing to think about at a time when we so often put more effort into finding differences between faith traditions.  The word hallel in Hebrew means joyous praise, to boast in God, or to act madly or foolishly, though Hallelujah is usually simply translated as “Praise Yahweh”.  How unfortunate. Had I been asked, I would have translated it as “Boast Madly in God”.  Was that why I wasn’t consulted?

American composer Randall Thompson may well have known the Hebrew roots of the word Alleluia when he was asked to write a choral fanfare for the opening of the Berkshire Music Center in Massachusetts by the conductor Serge Koussevitzky.  But it was July of 1940 and possibly Thompson felt the country was not in the mood for a fanfare of joyous praise.  Instead he wrote a somewhat somber piece that exhibits a steady strength. The music soars, but not madly or foolishly.   This now very famous and often sung Alleluia might serve as a reminder that joy has many aspects, and that introspection isn’t just for Lent.  Perhaps this music might lead you to an appreciation of those quiet places within you where joy is found and where praise is sung.

A cheerful heart

 

All the days of the poor are hard, but a cheerful heart has a continual feast. (Prov 15:15)

Last night, at dinner, my host praised a person we both know, saying, “She is the most cheerful and willing person on earth.” A few minutes later, he added another to the list: “he’s also very cheerful.”

Cheer has been much in my mind these last weeks, as I have been spending time in the mornings with one of Wesley’s great hymns: “Dark and cheerless is the morn, unaccompanied by Thee. Joyless is the day’s return till thy mercy’s beams I see.” Over and over, Scripture commends cheer as a source of strength in adversity, courage in trial, mutual comfort and happiness.

And yet, we don’t talk much about cheer in our culture. When we praise a person, we are much more likely to focus on her accomplishments — a job well done, a degree earned, a marathon completed — or his style — an elegant suit, a graceful entrance, a gift for oratory. We are so focused on what we have achieved and how we present ourselves that our essential disposition rarely comes under conscious scrutiny.

Perhaps this omission happens because we tend to assume that our disposition is beyond our control, that we are born sanguine or morose, jocund or fretful, and there is little we can do about it. In addition, biological factors play a key role. We assume that teenagers will be thorny or that women of a certain age will endure mood swings. It seems somehow unfair to judge people on something they simply cannot alter.

And yet, for much of human history, the formation of a person’s character was a primary focus of eduction, and Scripture shares this view. We cannot control the circumstances of our lives, at least not beyond a certain point, but we can cultivate our selves in order to alter what we bring into those circumstances.  And this work is powerful: Proverbs points out, “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a downcast spirit dries up the bones.” (17:22)

It takes attention: attention not only to what we have done in a day, but to who we have been. Have we encouraged others? Have we been gentle with those in adversity? With those who aggravate us? When we have felt fear, have we allowed it to master us, or have we paused to take a deep breath, to remember our God and the goodness of our lives, and found a way to react from courage and from hope?

St. Paul writes of this work in one of my favorite passages,  Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Phil 4:4-8)

Today, this day, think on these things. Amen.

Be careful when you touch bread,… Christ often blessed it.

I love to cook and am fascinated by the life of bread. The same simple ingredients – water, yeast, flour, a little sugar, a little salt – can make so many different kinds of bread. E.g. French Bread, Whole Wheat, Cinnamon-Raisin bread, Focaccia, Pizza crust, Pita bread and more. Bread can be formed into many different shapes and sizes, colors and flavors. It likes to be kneaded, allowed to rest and then rise slowly. It is best when served immediately. Can you see where I am going with this? St. Paul was brilliant when he gave the first Christians the analogy of a Christian community as the Body of Christ, a loaf of bread. “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” (1 Cor. 10:16-17) Each Sunday, when we pray for the Eucharistic Visitor who receives a small kit with some of the consecrated bread and wine from our Communion service, we include St. Paul’s message in the prayer, “We who are many are one body because we all share one bread, one cup.” This is one reason why it makes more sense to serve bread, rather than wafers at Holy Communion. The individual wafers are easier to store and distribute, but it does not allow us to experience the unity of sharing the same loaf of bread.It removes one step in the four-fold action of Jesus, “When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.” (Luke 24:30)

As a child, I was struck by the mystery of the disappearance of the unleavened loaf of bread at Communion and then learning that the congregation was now a loaf of bread, the Body of Christ; we had been united by bread. Christians are like a loaf of bread. We are made of simple ingredients found all over the world, and we come in many different sizes, shapes and colors. We also like to be needed, allowed to rest, and then rise to serve others. One day we will rise again to newness of life.

Remember this brief anonymous poem when you make or serve bread.

“Be careful when you touch bread.                                                                         Let it not lie uncared for, unwanted.
So often bread is taken for granted.
There is so much beauty in bread;
Beauty of sun and soil, beauty of patient toil.
Winds and rain have caressed it, Christ often blessed it.
Be gentle when you serve bread.”

Peace, Carol