Blog

By another way . . .

Posted on by livinggodsmission
Photo by Lee Young on Unsplash – Three Kings (Magi)

by Demi Prentiss

On Jan. 6, The Feast of the Epiphany, we enter the green season of ordinary time, formerly known as the season of Epiphany.  I’ve always liked having a whole season of revelation, or recognition, right there between Christmastide and Lent.  It’s a time when the church focuses on how the life of Jesus cast new light on how God is active in the world.  It’s a time when I try to pay better attention to what God might be doing right in my neighborhood.  I’m drawn to seeking to discover where God is working and, as Jewish scholars have said, seeking to be “covered in the dust of my rabbi” – following Jesus so closely that I’m wearing the dust kicked up by his passing.

Br. Lucas Hall, SSJE, describes this as participating in divine life. He writes, “God is active, because life is active. Life moves. Life responds. God gave life, not as a static dispenser of some good gift, but rather by living, and inviting his whole Creation – including us – to participate in that divine life.”  Often, participation with God takes us down unexpected paths. I think of the magi, after their encounter with the Christ Child, being warned in a dream to avoid returning to Herod.  Matthew’s Gospel tells us they “left for their own country by another road.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkZ1JJlJa14

Inspired by the kings’ journey home, singer-songwriter Christopher Grundy offers a spine-stiffening song of resistance  in “Take us Home by Another Way”:

Spirit, take us home, take us home by another way, 
take us long way ’round the tyrants and their schemes, 
Give us strength to walk Show us dreams of a better day 
and we’ll pave the way with justice going home by another way.

Grundy’s song echoes the Black church’s conviction that God “makes a way out of no way,” bringing creativity, agency, and resilience to combat oppression and discrimination.

Steve Garnaas-Holmes offers inspiration for daily life, as we confront the need to go home by another way:

 By another road
         
         They left for their own country by another road.
                  —Matthew 2.12

Life is one different road
      after another. 

Even now, on the twelfth day of Christmas,
       it's not too late to be changed. 

God is seldom on the road we planned
      but one we were forced into.

Jesus' miracles and parables are other roads;
      grace is always a detour.

Holy One, give me faith to let go, to turn, 
      to see grace where there was none.

Give me faith to be nudged, and to trust.
      Give me the courage of new roads.

“Grace is always a detour.” May the words of the poem become our prayer as we walk through the weeks following Epiphany:

“Holy One, give me faith to let go, to turn, to see grace where there was none.
Give me faith to be nudged, and to trust. Give me the courage of new roads.”

With thanks to Diana Butler Bass for introducing me to the songs of Christopher Grundy.

Rise and shine

Posted on by livinggodsmission
The Adoration of the Magi by Edward Burne-Jones (1904)

by Brandon Beck

Isaiah 68:1-6
Arise, shine; for your light has come,
	and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.
For darkness shall cover the earth,
	and thick darkness the people;
but the LORD will arise upon you,
	and his glory will appear over you.

Do you remember the camp song, “Rise and shine and give God your glory, glory”? The Feast of the Epiphany, January 6, is a day, certainly, to “rise and shine and give God your glory and glory.” It marks Jesus’ manifestation to the world, the remembrance of the magi receiving Jesus on behalf of the world. On the celebration of the Epiphany, we are called to think about what is revealed in our own lives as Jesus is revealed to the world; where have we seen the light?

The magi, understanding the darkness of the world into which Jesus was born, “returned to their country by another route” so as not to deal with Herod and his dark ways again. (Matthew 2 NIV) Even the ones on whom the Light rose directly still faced the darkness of the world and had to contend with it. Sometimes, the light is not easy to see; the darkness is all around. But, like the magi, we can find those other routes in order to see what is being revealed, to remember that revelation, and to share that revelation with others.

Sometimes, we just have to change the way we look at things in order to see the light. Take the classic “Rubin’s vase.” Can you focus on the light to see the vase? Changing the way we look at things takes practice; it is an exercise. I have to focus and re-focus to see the vase; the dark faces want to pull my attention away from the light in “Rubin’s vase.” Some people even call the image “Rubin’s faces” instead because of the powerful pull of the dark part of the image.

Sometimes, we have to be able to discern the truth in messaging to be able to see the light. Leaders, news media, other people give messaging and opinions about who is important and even who is worthy. Just as Herod gave messaging to the magi. And as they discerned through the revelation of Jesus to them that Herod’s messaging was false, we must be open to the revelation of the truth in messaging we hear. For those of you who have seen Wicked and Wicked: For Good, think about how Fiyero was able to discern the true character of Elphaba despite the propaganda against her. For those of you who haven’t seen the musical or the movies (or haven’t read the book), I encourage you to do so with your eyes open for the metaphors, allusions, and calls to social justice.

Sometimes, the epiphany is in seeing Christ in and being Christ to others as led and empowered by grace. Even if those others are people we’ve been taught to fear or even hate. Even if those others are people we just don’t like or just disagree with. The great darkness covering the world right now is full of injustice and division among people. But the light shining in the darkness reminds us that God’s love knows no boundaries and will rise and shine. We, the people of God, by striving for justice and peace, can make Jesus manifest every day. We are the light shining in the darkness.

That camp song is actually about Noah and the flood, a time of great darkness for the world. Yet the song is upbeat, joyous, and full of life. The chorus shouts a resounding, “Rise and shine and give God the glory, glory.”  It is another route to remembering that Jesus is manifest in the world. We don’t have to wait; the light is already shining in the darkness. How will you amplify the light today?

Honoring the heart of a stranger

Posted on by livinggodsmission
Photo courtesy of Pam Tinsley

by Pam Tinsley

I was struck by an essay, The Greater Good, which the Irish Jesuits posted last month on their Sacred Space website:

In an individualist culture, perhaps more than ever, we need to learn from the lesson placed before us by Christ the King. We are our brothers’ and our sisters’ keepers. ‘We live in each other’s shadow,’ as one Irish saying puts it. While independence is all fine and well, inter-dependence is the greater good – a kind heart and open hand. The plight of war refugees has been well documented, but there were and are disquieting voices raising opposition.

The Irish Rune on hospitality says:
     We saw a stranger yesterday.
     We put food in the eating place,
     Drink in the drinking place,
     Music in the listening place.
     And with the sacred name of the triune God
     We were blessed, and our house,
     Our cattle and our dear ones.
     As the lark says in her song:
     Often, often, often goes the Christ
     In the stranger’s guise.

It is not uniquely Irish, of course, for many cultures instinctively know that we need to honour the heart of the stranger; we need to recognise how much like us the person is; we need to remember the humanity of each and every person. Welcoming the stranger blesses us as well as it aids the recipient of our hospitality.

In God’s family, there are no strangers, only kin or clan, as we might say. Kinship is God’s dream come true. It’s about imagining a circle of compassion and then imagining no one standing outside that circle. For whatever you do with love has eternal value.

Today Christ the King says to us, ‘What you do for others, you do for me.’ – Tom Cox, The Sacred Heart Messenger, November 2023

During this past month, I’ve found myself being the recipient of love and care rather than being the giver – to which I’m much more accustomed. As I’ve begun preparation for a bone marrow transplant, the importance of community speaks deeply to me. Although I’m certainly embraced by family, friends, and parish communities, I’m now being embraced by an ever-expanding network of caregivers, i.e., a new community. Outpatient clinic and hospital providers come together to form a team, of which I’m also an integral part. It’s clear that we are all walking this journey together, step by step. We were strangers yet now we are a community, dependent upon and honoring the particular gifts each one offers to complete the whole and pointing toward something greater than any one of us. And I am blessed not only by their professionalism, but also the warmth and hope that each person radiates.

Blessed are the ready

Posted on by livinggodsmission
Photo by Benoît Deschasaux For Unsplash+
Photo by Ka Ho Ng on Unsplash
Photo by Brad Barmore on Unsplash

by Demi Prentiss

Jesus’s Beatitudes – known by some as the “be”-attitudes – help us recognize that, surprisingly, the marginalized, the despised, and the supposedly powerless hold a special relationship with God: the power of incarnating God’s relational power to transform a position of vulnerability to one of transcendence.  Authenticity, single-heartedness, and humility are the hallmarks of the blessedness that Jesus celebrates as signaling “the kingdom of God.”

Christians mark Advent as the season of hopeful expectation of the in-breaking of God’s reign, anticipating the counter-intuitive blessedness of those who suffer – the poor in spirit, mournful, meek, seeking, merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, persecuted.  Advent reminds us that being equipped to proclaim the coming of the kingdom obliges us to cultivate another blessedness – being ready.  Ready to perceive God at work. Ready to stand with those who suffer. Ready to be brave. Ready to be open.

Poet Steve Garnaas-Holmes joins Matthew in reminding us to be ready:

                       Be ready

       You must be ready, for the Human One is coming 
       at an hour you do not expect.
                               —Matthew 24.44

Grace flits in, a butterfly in winter.
Forgiveness dismantles gallows.
A child, frightened, stands anyway.

The minds of the dulled 
are on other things.
Heaven passes unnoticed.

The naive keep waiting
for the white horse, the sword.
Foggy opera glasses.

Cynics, fearing the mystery, 
can always prove otherwise.
The lock snaps shut.

The faithful are not sure
but open,
watching for the luminous.

A spirit, wholly given,
emerges 
like a song among many.

Blessed are the ready, watching,
over and over, 
for the world made new.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve
__________________ 
Steve Garnaas-Holmes 
Unfolding Light 
www.unfoldinglight.net

Running with Jesus

Posted on by livinggodsmission
Photo by John Tinsley

by Pam Tinsley

Last fall we were thrilled to watch our six-year-old granddaughter Sienna run cross country. (Yes, we are that kind of grandparents, the ones who beam with pride at pretty much anything she does.) When you run cross country, you encounter many obstacles: the terrain, the weather – especially in the wet Pacific Northwest, and your body itself. And running cross country was a huge milestone for Sienna because she suffers from severe asthma.

Despite her asthma, Sienna ran faithfully throughout the season. Not only did she work out with her teammates, but she also ran with her dad. And, whenever she ran, she had one goal. It wasn’t winning. It wasn’t how she placed.

Her sole goal was to do her best, to persevere and to run her race. And her favorite part of one race venue was running up the hill – at the end!

I’ve thought a lot about how healthy Sienna’s approach is. It’s also counter-cultural in today’s world which seems to value only winners, where the goal seems to be to find some way to “win” without doing the hard work that our values and our dreams demand.

We can apply this to our own spiritual lives when we seek to live our faith to our best – with love. Following Jesus isn’t easy. Following Jesus means to keep going, to persevere. It means putting one foot in front of the other, as we encounter obstacle after obstacle in the challenges and disappointments of everyday life. Just like Sienna’s obstacles to running her best in cross country are unique to her, our obstacles in living our faith to our best are also unique. And Jesus is with us always: during the easier stretches, through the unexpected obstacles, when we trip or fall, and as we persevere up the hill at the end of that long run after we’re already tired. In the end, it doesn’t matter to God whether we come in first or if we come in last. Instead, it simply pleases God when we live our faith to the best of our ability, every day.

The Lord is near

Posted on by livinggodsmission
Photo by Alfons Taekema on Unsplash

by Demi Prentiss

The holy days we’ve just celebrated – All Hallows’ Eve (Hallowe’en), All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day (Día de los Muertos) – form an autumnal triduum that, for me, is a hinge point in the Christian year, much like the Easter Triduum of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. These autumnal days are marked with rites and readings that point our imaginations toward end times and our mortality, alongside the Northern Hemisphere’s season of first frosts, fall color, leaf-raking, putting the garden to bed, and hibernation.  The ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (say “SAH-win”) recognizes the season as a time when the veil between the living and the dead is thin.  Many seasonal customs – pumpkin carving, bonfires, wearing masks and costumes, and even trick-or-treating – have grown out of Samhain traditions. The observance of Veterans’ Day early in November echoes the theme as we honor the lives of service members, living and dead and acknowledge their sacrifices.

The “autumnal triduum” offers us a chance to recognize that death is a part of life.  Just as the trees celebrate the harvest by going dormant, the shortening days call us to reduce activity and value what stillness and silence can teach us. We can begin to grapple with the mystery that dying can free us, disencumber us, so we can resonate with the “new thing” that God is beginning to set in motion. Fields that lie fallow for a season are primed for bearing fruit when the time is right. The cycles of nature remind us that this is an eternal, God-formed pattern.

This year’s lectionary readings between All Saints and Advent 1 continue to explore the immanence of the reign of God:

  • “For I know that my Redeemer lives…and at the last…I shall see God.” Job 19:26-27
  • “But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.” Malachi 4:2
  • “Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.” Luke 20:38
  • “Surely, it is God who saves me; I will trust in him and not be afraid.  For the Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense, and he will be my Savior.”  Isaiah 12:5-6
  • “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; he has come to his people and set them free.” Luke 1:68
  • “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Psalm 46:1
  • “Be still, then, and know that I am God….“ Psalm 46:11
  • “He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Colossians 1:14
  • “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” [Jesus] replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Luke 23:43

As we claim our baptismal identity as beloved and called children of God, the autumn triduum reminds us to reflect on the paradox that shapes our calling:  truly, “we are but dust” AND “we are the image and likeness of God.”

Awake we may watch with Christ

Posted on by livinggodsmission

by Brandon Beck

This is Cyrus Cassells. He is a poet, an actor, a cultural critic, and a professor. He earned the Jackson Poetry Prize and the Lambda Literary Award; a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Pushcart Prize; the William Carlos Williams Award, a Lannan Literary Award, a nomination for a Pulitzer Prize, and was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award. He has ten books of poetry published, two books of original translations of Catalan poetry published, and a plethora of articles of cultural criticism especially in the genre of film studies. His upcoming publications include two novels, one about a fictional Harlem Renaissance poet and another an historical fiction based on the life of St. Damien and the colony for victims of Hansen’s disease he served in Hawaii.

Cyrus Cassells strives for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of all human beings through his poetry. One of his earliest poems, “Soul Make a Path Through Shouting,” tells the story of Elizabeth Eckford, the young girl who bravely, symbolically integrated public schools in Arkansas in 1957. His translations of the poems of Francesc Parcerisas strive to preserve and amplify the Catalan language. Poems from his collection Beautiful Signor explore the beauty of gay love. His experimental collection The Crossed-Out Swastika is research-based poetry telling the stories of young people facing the terror of World War II, and The World that the Shooter Left Us provides powerful commentary on violence in contemporary America.

When I pray Compline (Book of Common Prayer, p. 127) and repeat the Antiphon —

     Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping;
     that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace.—

God brings many associations to me, especially ways that God is creating justice for me and for people like me in God’s world. Tonight, as I repeated this Antiphon, Cyrus Cassells came to mind. Cyrus Cassells’ poetry guides me waking and guards me sleeping as I watch with Christ for justice and peace in this world.

In 2019, Cyrus published a short collection of poetry he wrote while staying at Christ in the Desert Monastery for a writing residency. He took the title of his collection from Psalm 130:5-6:

I wait for the Lord; my soul waits,
    and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
    more than those who watch for the morning,
    more than those who watch for the morning.

In the poem with the same title as the collection, “More than Watchmen at Daybreak,” Cyrus says,

     I’m thirsty, fallible,
     Incensed and restive in this desert monastery,
     But not yet resigned,
     Full of questions and parrying
     From wolf’s hour to blue hour
     To burgeoning dawn —

He is the “watchman” from Psalm 130 in today’s political and social climate. The watchman of Psalm 130 is not unlike the oracle the prophet Habakkuk saw, who, in Chapter 1, as read on Proper 26, Year C, Track 1, Sunday November 2, 2025, cries out:

     O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
     and you will not listen?
     Or cry to you “Violence!”
     and you will not save?

That Psalm 130 watchman, that Habakkuk oracle, Cyrus in the desert today, me praying Compline now — we are all “not yet resigned.” We are all willing to strive for justice and peace among all people because, as Cyrus says in his poem,

     the soul says,
     Yes, I was there.

I was there, just as the watchman was, when she looked out of the monastery to cry to the monks, “The sun is up; it is time to pray.” I was there, just as the watchman was, when she looked out of the military fortification and shouted to those she protected, “They attack! To arms!” I was there, just as the watchman was, when he awoke from accidentally falling asleep, and cried, “Jesus! You are betrayed!” I was there, just as the watchman was, when we all knelt together and prayed:

     O God our Father, whose Son forgave his enemies while he
     was suffering shame and death: Strengthen those who suffer
     for the sake of conscience; when they are accused, save them
     from speaking in hate; when they are rejected, save them
     from bitterness; when they are imprisoned, save them from
     despair; and to us your servants, give grace to respect their
     witness and to discern the truth, that our society may be
     cleansed and strengthened. This we ask for the sake of Jesus
     Christ, our merciful and righteous Judge. Amen. (BCP, 823)

and

     Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so
     move every human heart [and especially the hearts of the
     people of this land], 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, 823)

God loves you, and you, and you!

Posted on by livinggodsmission
Photo by Pam Tinsely

by Pam Tinsley

“God created you and he never creates things he doesn’t want” is the message on the reader board outside a church I often drive by. What an important message for us today and every day, especially when we hear so many messages to the contrary!

God loves us, even when we try to hide our flaws. God loves us even when we pretend to be worthy. God loves us, even if we feel we’re unworthy. God loves us, especially when others tell us we are worthless. God knows us intimately – our sitting down, our rising up, and every word on our lips, as the Psalmist observes (Ps 139) – and still God loves us simply because God’s essence is love.

Today, the world stokes our fear and insists that we must choose sides. Choosing a worldly viewpoint serves only to intensify our feelings of separation from one another and from God. Again and again, Jesus and angels assure us not to be afraid. Playing on our fears sends the message – and especially to the weak, the lost, and the vulnerable – that God doesn’t love us; that God doesn’t care; that God has turned God’s back on us.

But God’s way is love, and love is God’s way of saying that none of this is true.

When we claim the truth that we are loved, we free ourselves from the shackles of fear and can open our hearts to receive God’s abundant love. We’re then called to respond to God’s love by walking in love, not fear, hate, or indifference. We’re called to put our love into action by reaching out to others, regardless of whether we believe that they are worthy. We’re called to pass on the never-ending love we receive because there is no end to God’s fountain of love.

And why should we choose love instead of fear? Because God created us and will never stop loving us. Because God created our neighbors and loves each and every one of them. And because God never creates anything that God doesn’t love.

The work beneath the work

Posted on by livinggodsmission
Photo by Raffaele Parente on Unsplash

by Demi Prentiss

There is holiness in our work—paid and volunteer, work we’re called to and work we resist, work that’s rewarding and work that drains us.  We come closer to making our life a prayer when we can discover that holiness. When we can perceive God present in the work itself.

My work colleague, Josh Anderson, composed this prayer and recently graced a staff meeting with his work.  For me, it opens a door into a new vision of holiness in the everyday.

A Prayer for the Work Beneath the Work

Before we begin,
let us remember that beneath every agenda there is a heart,
and beneath every report,
the quiet pulse of shared purpose.

We come together carrying many things—
tasks to complete, questions unresolved,
worries we haven’t yet named aloud.
The world beyond these walls feels unsteady,
and the ground beneath us sometimes shifts faster than we can find our footing.

Still, here we are.
Gathered.
Pausing before the work.
Listening for what is deeper than the noise.

Let us remember that even in seasons of change,
the Spirit does not abandon us.
It moves quietly among us,
in small mercies and steady hands,
in the grace of a kind word,
in the courage to keep showing up.
Stillness is not a waste of time—
it is the way the soul catches up to the body.
It is how we remember who we are
and why we do this work.

So may what is heavy find a place to rest.
May what is uncertain find patience.
May what feels fragmented find its wholeness again.
May what is hidden in shadow find light.

And may we—in this brief hour together—
remember that even in the work of planning and doing,
there is holiness.
That God is here,
in the silence before we begin,
in the words we will speak,
and in the quiet that follows when our work is done.
                                 — Josh Anderson

Church of the Hundred Acre Wood

Posted on by livinggodsmission

by Brandon Beck

In 1924, British author AA Milne published a collection of poetry – When We Were Very Young – animal tales for his son Christopher Robin. His friend EH Shepard illustrated them. Number 38, “Teddy Bear,” was about a stuffed animal Milne had bought at Harrod’s as a gift for Christopher Robin after he and his son had visited the London Zoo and been enamored of their bear, Winnie. By 1927, Milne and Shepard had published four volumes of stories about Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends in the 100 Acre Wood. A century later, we have multiple stage plays and musicals, audio recordings and radio shows, comic strips, a Disney franchise and television series, and even a horror film based on Milne’s beloved Pooh Bear.

Psychologists and sociologists have correlated the characters of Winnie-the-Pooh to “personality types” as we are wont to do with our favorite characters in children’s stories. We believe that stories teach us about ourselves. Winnie-the-Pooh, for example, is a bear who is easy-going and tends to get along with everyone. He has been categorized as an Enneagram 9 – The Peacemaker. His pal Piglet, on the other hand, is quite anxious and cautious but is Pooh’s very best friend. He has been categorized as an Enneagram 6 – The Loyalist/Skeptic. We can go through all the characters thusly. We can even look into their Temperaments and MBTI.

Interestingly, some have even suggested that Christopher Robin might represent a mental health condition such as schizophrenia in which each of the animals is a personality within Christopher Robin himself. I disagree, however. I believe that children are infinite creatures of wonder, created in God’s image. The Winnie-the-Pooh stories provide an excellent insight into Christian Formation and Religious Education.

Remember Psalm 139:14 – “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” What if each of us is like one of the Pooh characters, and Milne’s stories teach us how to be God’s family and also teach us how to be leaders in the church by seeing the gifts and strengths in those we are sent to form?

Our classrooms are full of Tiggers and Pooh and Eeyores and Roos; they are each fearfully and wonderfully made. Our job is not to make them “normal”; it is to understand and respect them – to fashion them for their vocation.

Let’s get rid of the word “normal.” Historically, we have been taught to set a “standard” and “expectation” – we have “excluded” those who didn’t “fit” – and taught to the “norm” in the one way that worked for the “normal” learner. When we teach thinking of any student, behavior, or lesson as “normal,” we set ourselves up for classroom “problems.”

“Normal” is an obfuscated word, though. From Latin normā – a carpentry term relating to “carpenter’s rule” and “square,” first used in English to mean “perpendicular.” It wasn’t until the 1800s that statisticians transferred the word to mean “most usual” in groups of measurements and soon sociologists adopted it as a construct for “most healthy.” So let’s delete “normal.”

Comedian-educator Hank Green offers this help in deleting “normal” in his video blog vlogbrothers: “What’s really important is that we trust ourselves, and we understand ourselves, and we love and respect ourselves–and we grant that same understanding and respect to the people around us.”

I don’t think Green meant to describe our Baptismal Covenant, but he does: “strive for justice and peace among all people…respect[ing] the dignity of all human beings.”

He goes on: “The world is one of infinite continuums [NOT] of two shiny boxes. When those two shiny boxes break apart into seven billion shiny boxes, it’s actually pretty beautiful.”

As religious educators committed to justice and dignity, we are called to see every learner as a shiny box full of potential – fearfully and wonderfully made – Pooh or Tigger or Eeyore or Roo – their own unique, gifted part of our 100 Acre Wood of Church.