The Lord is near

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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.”

Claiming our identity

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Photo by hadi hosseini on Unsplash

by Demi Prentiss

Nearly 50 years ago, a Roman Catholic archbishop told his flock,

“How beautiful will be the day when all the baptized understand that their work, their job, is a priestly work, that just as I celebrate Mass at this altar, so each carpenter celebrates Mass at his workbench, and each metalworker, each professional, each doctor with the scalpel, the market woman at her stand, is performing a priestly office! How many cabdrivers, I know, listen to this message there in their cabs: you are a priest at the wheel, my friend, if your work with honesty, consecrating that taxi of yours to God, bearing a message of peace and love to the passengers who ride in your cab.”  – Oscar Romero, Nov. 20, 1977

Fletcher Lowe, a colleague and a co-founder of Partners for Baptismal Living, frequently quoted Martin Luther: “When you wash your face, remember your baptism.” He longed for each Christian to be reminded every day that their baptism inspires and equips them to live their baptismal promises:

  • continue in the apostles’ teaching and the prayers;
  • persevere in resisting evil;
  • proclaim God’s Good News by word and example;
  • seek and serve Christ in all persons; and
  • strive for justice and peace, loving your neighbor as yourself.

A few years ago, Adam Hamilton, pastor of a large Methodist Church in Leawood, KS, asked each member to hang a laminated tag in their shower. As they showered, they were to pray the words on it:

            Lord, as I enter the water to bathe,
            I remember my baptism.
            Wash me again by your grace,
            Fill me with your Spirit,
            Renew my soul.
            I pray that I might live as your child today
            And honor you in all that I do. Amen.

Eastertide offers us 50 days to practice. What reminder might you use to claim your baptismal promises? How might you remember each day to claim your identity: “Child of God, beloved and called”? How might we grow every day in recognizing the calling God has placed on our lives?

I want to walk as a child of the light*

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by Demi Prentiss

For me, darkness can feel big, oppressive.  Standing outside on a moonless night, or alone in a closed, utterly dark room, there are times that the darkness seems to grow, like a slowly expanding comforter that threatens to smother me. It can feel almost invincible.

Yet when the tiny beam of my penlight cuts through that darkness, it shrinks. It practically evaporates wherever the light touches it. And a path appears, guiding my vision ahead and allowing my footsteps to follow.

As individuals, we often underestimate what we have to give. When the darkness presses in upon us, we can hardly imagine that we might wield power against it. Br. Curtis Almquist, SSJE, warns against yielding to such fear: “If you were to say, ‘there doesn’t seem to be much light in me right now…’ you might be surprised. In a dark place, even a little bit of light will have a brilliant effect.” Almquist writes:

“Your own life is a … gift from God to the world. As followers of Jesus Christ, we are to bear the beams of God’s love and light and life, especially to those who wouldn’t otherwise know it. If you were to say, ‘there doesn’t seem to be much light in me right now…’ you might be surprised. In a dark place, even a little bit of light will have a brilliant effect.”

The little bit that each of us brings is enough.  And as more of us choose to let our little light shine, we increasingly become what God has created us to be, acting as a community of faith.  As John 1:3-5 reminds us, “What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

May we grow daily in our vocation of being light bearers, overcomers of darkness.

* The [Episcopal] Hymnal 1982, Hymn 490

Loving yourself

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by Brandon Beck

There is within us something so powerful and so denied that lest we evade it, avoid it, we are brought again and again to its face.  Be here, stand with it, risk being devoured by it.  For only in dying are we born into eternal life.  – Dr. Catherine Crews, clinical psychologist, Episcopalian, and monk living in Russellville, AR

My six-year-old step-son made this at school. He gave himself the “prad to be aliv” award (proud to be alive) after choosing to take the MMR vaccine at the beginning of the recent measles outbreak here in Texas. He demonstrated an amazing act of radical self love and love of others.

When we live into the promises of our baptism, when we carry out in word and deed the beliefs we affirm in our baptismal covenant, when we say “we will” in support of the growth and formation of each newly baptized person, we are also promising to practice The Great Commandment.

Sometimes I forget how difficult it is to be “Great Commandment” people. I can be a Jesus Follower in my heart and mind and teach those ideals to others only to wake up to the realization that I have not been living a “Great Commandment” life. And it’s less likely to be in the love of God or love of neighbor part where I’ve fallen short. I am a person who struggles to love myself.

I wonder about you. Do you also wake up to the realization that you have forgotten to love yourself as God loves you?

Dr. Crews teaches this very basic Jesus concept of love for self in a postmodern, psychology way – “There is within us something so powerful and so denied that lest we evade it, avoid it, we are brought again and again to its face.” Jesus summarized God’s command to Moses: “Love God, Love your neighbor, and while you’re at it Love yourself” (Bishop Michael Curry’s translation). That thing within us that we tend to deny is our own self-doubt and even self-hatred.

If we are in the world “respect[ing] the dignity of all people” but not loving ourselves, then we are not being “Great Commandment” people. We are not living our baptismal promises.

Dr. Crews calls us to “Be here, stand with it, risk being devoured by it.” “It” is that very self-doubt and self-hatred that we face in our ministry work, in times when we most love God and neighbor but lose sight of the value of our work because we struggle to see the fruit. But Dr. Crews reminds us, “only in dying are we born into eternal life.” And it is in those very promises we’ve made to God, others, and ourselves to love more, respect more, listen more, that we have to honor the dignity of ourselves just as we do the dignity of God and others.

Am I ever ‘enough’?

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by Demi Prentiss

It’s easy to forget that Jesus calls each of us to be a world-changer, even if it’s only within the three-foot radius around us. Claiming our own every-day mission means living into our ability to offer – with God’s help – God’s compassion to those who come inside that three-foot zone – and maybe, sometimes, even beyond it.

Last week, via the daily email from the Society of St. John the Evangelist, Brother Curtis Almquist offered this reminder:

Don’t ever apologize for what little you have and what little you are. Don’t ever apologize for that. God is well apprised of who we are and what we bring to the table of life. That is our offering….

There’s something about your own brokenness that informs what you have to give.  I’d even go so far as to say that the more you are broken, the more you have to give.… The bread is broken, and in the breaking is multiplied.  That is somehow your own story.

“God is well apprised of who we are and what we bring….” Just like the boy whose loaves and fishes fed a multitude (John 6:1-13), we are called to offer who we are and what we have. That’s enough, once we hand it over to the Power that created all we see and know. And sometimes, God gives us eyes to see the miracle that unfolds, once we’ve had the courage to believe that it’s God, not us, in charge of multiplication.

You are God’s viceroy, God’s representative.

You are God’s stand-in, a God Carrier.

You are precious; God depends on you.

God believes in you and has no one but you

To do the things that only you can do for God.

Become what you are.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Are you doing drudgery or serving?

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by Fletcher Lowe

One of the best known of Christ’s parables concerns two brothers and a father.   The message we get clearly is that God’s love is unconditional and outreaching.  But we rarely look at it in terms of work.

Initially both brothers disliked their work.  The younger was so fed up he wanted out – and so he asked for his inheritance and left.  The older, we learn later, saw his work as duty to the father ever though he loathed it.  “For all these years, I have been working like a slave for you….” The irony is that the younger, having fallen into desperate times, “came to himself” and was willing to return and work as one of his father’s “hired hands.”

It is all about our attitude toward what we do.  The elder brother never lost his sense of begrudging what work he was doing.  It all was about duty – no sense of using his God-given abilities to make a difference.  The younger son underwent a conversion.  He came to that point as he “bottomed out” in the “distant country,” where he was working, as a Jew, feeding pigs.  He saw working for his father no longer as drudgery but as serving.

In Episcopal worship the concluding Dismissal – the real heart of the Liturgy – calls us to such a sense of work – to use our God-given talents and abilities as serving.  Just before the congregation goes out the door into the world: “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”  “And now Father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do, to love and serve you…”  “Send us now into the world in peace…to love and serve you…”  (Book of Common Prayer, pp. 365-6)

13 e-quipping epigrams for missional living

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Compiled and edited by Peyton G. Craighill

One-liners for those who want to live out Christ’s mission in their daily lives:

Many folks want to serve God –

But only as advisers.

When you get to your wit’s end –

You’ll find God lives there.

We’re called to be witnesses –

Not lawyers or judges.

Some minds are like concrete –

Thoroughly mixed up and permanently set.

Peace starts with –

A smile.

Don’t put a question mark –

Where God puts a period.

Forbidden fruits –

Create many jams.

Christ doesn’t call the qualified –

Christ qualifies that he called.

God promises a safe landing –

Not a calm passage.

They who anger you –

Control you.

If God is your Co-pilot –

Swap seats!

Don’t give God instructions –

Just report for duty!

The task ahead of us is never greater than –

The Power behind us.

Communicating God’s Love in the Workplace

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by Pam Tinsley

I walked into the gym the other day and struck up a conversation with a friend I hadn’t chatted with in quite a while. Eventually, our conversation led to her work as a labor and delivery nurse and her consideration of retirement. She shared with me that, as much as she loves nursing, after 40 years the physical demands of the profession are telling her it’s time to slow down.

My friend’s voice revealed how conflicted she was about this major transition in her life. Nursing was what God put her on earth to do, she told me.  Even as a small child she and her family recognized her vocation because of the care she showed toward others.

She went on to describe nursing as her spiritual calling. She expressed it as life-giving – not only because of the new lives she helps moms deliver, but because of the people she comes in contact with, from colleagues to patients and their families. The relationships she forges with others, even for a short time in the hospital, are life-giving and life-changing.

“Ah,” I responded, “you’re living out your baptism. Nursing is your baptismal ministry.” No further explanation was needed. Instead, she told me about helping a woman in labor who spoke no English. With the aid of an interpreter, she communicated maintaining eye contact with the woman throughout the conversation – thus respecting her dignity. She then posed a last question through the interpreter: Do you have any questions for me? To which the woman responded, again through the interpreter, “I just wanted to tell you that I see God’s love in your eyes.”

My friend found the common language of God’s love to communicate with her patient. Sharing Christ’s love with another in need, even if only through her eyes, is one of the many ways she lives into her baptism through her spiritual calling as a labor and delivery nurse.

Have you had an experience in your daily life – at work, in the community, in the local supermarket – where your actions were shaped by your belief in a loving God and a commitment to your baptismal promises? How might another person’s life have been touched by that experience? How was your life changed?

Core of priest’s calling: listening to laity

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by Fletcher Lowe

fr-bausch-by-Catherine-Love

Tom Roberts in the January 22, 2016 edition of the National Catholic Reporter shares the story of the Rev. William Bausch, a New Jersey Roman catholic priest.

As a young priest in the 1960s, while serving at St. Joseph Church in Keyport, NJ, Fr. Bausch was assigned to be the chaplain to a Christian Family Action group (known as Christian Family Movement in most dioceses). One of the rules of the lay movement required him to be silent until the meeting ended.

“I remember that they made me sit on my hands because if I can’t use my hands, I can’t talk. I was never so humiliated and humbled in my life,” he said …. “Not because I had to sit on my hands but because, forced to be silent for two years, I had to listen, really listen, to their stories of how, day after day, they struggled to be good Christians. Month after month, I listened to them struggling inwardly with shady practices at the company at which they worked, the politics of the workplace, the compromises they were forced to make, the fear of losing their jobs, difficulties with children — school, rebellion, drugs — trying to make ends meet, hardly ever getting a vacation, trying not to lose faith in hard times, struggles with prayer, not feeling God’s presence, doubts.”

Through his tenure as chaplain, said Bausch, “I knew I had found my priesthood’s core: that they, the laity, would teach me, not only the other way around.”

This “profound sense of reverence and respect” for the lives and gifts of laypeople deeply affected his approach to being a pastor. “I made it clear to the people from day one that I was there to promote and call forth the gifts and charisms they already had, to teach them who they were as a people of God, to support and learn from them….”

Blogger’s questions:

  • To the clergy: how might you facilitate listening to lay folks share their daily life stories?
  • To lay folks: how might you facilitate your clergy to hear your daily life stories?

Work as Worship

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by Fletcher Lowe

As a change of pace, my blog for this week is a video that I discovered on a New Zealand Faith@Work site.  It visually tells the radical sending message.  Enjoy and be inspired!!