If you make friends with crows…the rope and bucket that haul you up…Tiny violets reassure the hillside…a kid you don’t know smiles at you anyway…Inspired by “Wonder is saving enough,” by Steve Garnaas-Holmes
by Demi Prentiss
In the 1979 Book of Common Prayer’s Rite of Baptism, nestled between the water and the oil of chrism, is a beautiful prayer that helps us remember how we’re called to live. After thanking God for the gift of new life, and asking to be sustained by the Holy Spirit, we ask for four things:
An inquiring an discerning heart
The courage to will and to persevere
A spirit to know and to love [God]
The gift of joy and wonder in all [God’s] works
We’re inclined to forget that “wonder” part. Not many hymns about wonder. (#400, #412, and #580 in The Hymnal 1982 are notable.) Scripture mentions “awe of the Lord” pretty often. But for me, wondering is a much more incarnational practice. I’m encouraged to use all my senses as well as my mind to study the subject of my wonderment – to absorb the full gift of what I’m observing. And I’m often reminded that God is God, and I am not.
When I asked EpiscoBOT about the word “wonder” in liturgy and scripture, here’s the reflection that came up:
The Episcopal tradition cherishes wonder as a doorway to faith. In scripture, wonder often follows an encounter with God’s power or love. In our worship, prayers and hymns continually invite us to stand in awe before God’s works—reminding us that faith is not just about understanding, but about being open to mystery.
If you’d like more specific references or ideas for including “wonder” in your prayers or teaching, please let me know. And remember: it is a holy thing to pause in wonder before the living God.
I love thinking of faith as opening ourselves to mystery, and wonder as a doorway to faith. Wonder leads us to discovery and innovation.
This past week I encountered a poem that blessed me with a broader perspective of wonder as a saving gift of grace, “the rope and bucket that haul you up out of your dank well”:
Wonder is saving enough
Have you noticed the pheromones
the world is sending out to you?
Not wanting you to save it,
just to fall in love with it.
Tiny violets reassure the hillside
which every winter has been tormented by ice.
When the dam is removed after a century, salmon
already know their way to their ancestors' birthplace.
The jazz of the meadowlark.
Laughter, even at funerals.
Such things are the rope and bucket
that haul you up out of your dank well.
The smell of lilacs is meant for bees
but it comes to you.
If you make friends with crows
they give you gifts.
Downtown a kid you don't know
smiles at you anyway.
It's the world's way of letting you know
it wants to stay married to you.
― by Steve Garnaas-Holmes
May we live into that baptismal prayer that claims for us “the gift of joy and wonder” in all God’s works. May we walk through our lives with enough courage and curiosity to notice the glory of God all about us. May we find ourselves fully alive to God’s presence, “lost in wonder, love, and praise.”
As I listen to the news these days, I’m distraught by the direction that our country seems to be heading. Our economy is impacted by our over-consumption; and our reliance on cheap – even child – labor deprives people of the dignity of a living wage. We’re destroying our planet with our over-reliance on fossil fuels, our wasteful attitude toward water, and the destruction of our forests and wetlands. We support systems of domination, as the rich get richer on the backs of those less fortunate. We’re mortgaging our children and grandchildren’s future.
And the budget reconciliation bill passed by Congress on July 3 only exacerbates matters. When I read about its provisions to strip people of their health insurance, cut food assistance for the poor, and curtail clean-energy development, I ask myself: How do we, as people of faith, respond to the injustices around us?
In the midst of my personal anguish, words of the late Rev. Canon Fletcher Lowe – one of the founders and convener of Partners for Baptismal Living (Episcopalians on Baptismal Mission) – come to mind. Fletcher often reminded us that the intersection of Church Street and State Street is where we bring our faith to bear on public policy, striving to promote the common good and to protect those pushed to the margins and those unfairly treated.
Fletcher’s words are a call to action, because, whether we want to be or not, we’re embedded in relationships with one another. And today’s political environment fails to recognize how deeply interconnected we are.
Earlier this month, Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe echoed that sentiment when he wrote in Religion News, “God calls us to place the most vulnerable and marginalized at the center of our common life, and we must follow that command regardless of the dictates of any political party or earthly power. We are now being faced with a series of choices between the demands of the federal government and the teachings of Jesus, and that is no choice at all.”
At baptism we promise to follow Jesus and Jesus alone – with God’s help. We are called to serve as instruments of God’s healing, and that begins by striving to seek and serve Christ in all persons and by respecting the dignity of every human being. Today.
Over the past several weeks I’ve been reflecting on the post-resurrection conversation between Jesus and Peter at the end of John’s gospel. Peter and some of the disciples had left the upper room in Jerusalem where Jesus had breathed the Spirit upon them, empowering and sending them to continue his ministry. But they don’t seem to have done so. Instead, they’ve returned to their former occupations as fishermen.
So, Jesus appears on the beach, makes them breakfast, and reminds Peter that it’s time for him – and the others – to do what he has sent them to do: to feed and tend his sheep.
Feeding and tending Jesus’ sheep – God’s sheep – are what all of us as Jesus’ disciples are called to do. But what does this mean today?
We’re to feed and tend the sheep Jesus puts in our path: the marginalized; the hungry; the fearful; the unloved; and refugees, to name only a few.
Certainly, we’re called to feed them in the literal sense of the word. Especially today, as food insecurity is aggravated by severe cuts to programs that provide food benefits. Food banks and school lunch programs are already experiencing severe shortages.
Yet, we’re called to feed others spiritually as well. We do this whenever we root ourselves in Christ – treating others with the respect and dignity that Jesus teaches. We feed others when we, ourselves, are fed spiritually at the eucharistic table so that we can seek and serve Christ in the world. We feed others when we invite them to join us in spiritual community.
Tending God’s sheep calls us to do more, to put ourselves between our sheep and the wolves, to stand up for the weak and vulnerable, the voiceless – or those whose voices have been silenced. We tend God’s sheep when we stand up to unjust power structures – those power structures that divide, separate, and dehumanize God’s children. We tend God’s sheep when we openly claim and proclaim the goodness that God infuses into all of creation, into all of God’s creatures and creation itself.
How will you feed and tend the sheep Jesus places in your path today?
Fred McDarrah, Untitled (Youths at Stonewall Uprising), New York, June 28, 1969
by Brandon Beck
Picture it. June 28, 1969. Greenwich Village, New York City. The Stonewall Inn. You’re drinking and dancing with your friends, your neighbors, your “chosen family.” You feel safe and seen. Everyone is here. Really everyone: the homeless kids from the park, the old men from the café, the butch in the biker vest, tall black men in big wigs and dresses, skinny white boys, Cuban dock workers, NYU professors, high femme socialites – everyone from everywhere. Even though the police come in most every night, you always know they’re coming; you always know you’ll be ok.
The owners of the bar protect you as long as you drink while you’re there, as long as you’re always bringing more people with you. And you do both of those things. There’s no place you feel so much your true self as here. The owners pay the police; the police tell the owners a raid is going to happen. The owners tell you and your friends the raid is about to happen. You and your friends line up on the wall when the police show up. Those of you who have IDs show them. The owners hide some of the liquor and turn over most of it. Those without ID go in the wagon and sit in jail for a couple hours, until the sun comes up. For some of them, it’s the first warm bed and hot meal they’ve had in a while. Every night, it’s the same. You still are in heaven when you’re at The Stonewall Inn.
It’s June 28, 1969. Barely. It was midnight just an hour ago. You only got here maybe half an hour before that. You’re not even drunk yet. You just met this super cute boy. (Is this his first time coming here?) You and Marsha P. Johnson had a drink together. The Daughters of Bilitis are hanging out in their corner of the room, and you see two of the elder members of The Mattachine Society dancing in the middle of the floor. A group of young teens have just come in the front door. The youngest, you guess, is maybe 14, and he is beautiful in his long wig, tight bell bottoms, and sequin tube top. You and your new friend are talking to the old queens while taking a break from dancing when the floodlights come on. (No warning this time?) Dozens of police rush in. You see one of your favorite Daughters of Bilitis members shoved against the wall and handcuffed roughly. You notice Marsha duck out the front door before anyone can check her ID. The homeless kids are loaded into a wagon before you have a chance to even understand what’s going on. The front windows shatter suddenly. You scream.
This raid in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, led to a riotous response from the LGBTQiA+ community in Greenwich Village that lasted from June 28 until July 3, 1969. Even though protesting, picketing, and rioting for LGBTQiA+ rights began before The Stonewall Inn riot, this particular riot changed the course of LGBTQiA+ history significantly, and we celebrate its significance now with Pride parades, services, prayers, and celebrations worldwide.
The Stonewall Inn started out in 1930 as a speakeasy down on Seventh Avenue. As early as the 1930s, Greenwich Village was an LGBTQiA+ neighborhood, and by the 1960s the concentration of LGBTQiA+ residents had moved westward, centering on Christopher Street. Since 1934, The Stonewall Inn had been operating as a restaurant in its “new” location on Christopher Street. In 1966, four members of The Genovese Family (a famous mafia family founded by Lucky Luciano) bought The Stonewall Inn. In 1967, those four – “Fat Tony” Luria, Zookie Zarfas, Tony the Sniff, and Joey – reopened The Stonewall Inn as a private club for gay men in order to capitalize on the people in the neighborhood. As mafiosos, “Fat Tony” and friends knew that they could extract extra profit from the clientele of this new iteration of The Stonewall Inn by offering them protection, as New York state law prohibited bars from having a liquor license if they were distributing alcohol to gay men – being gay in public was “indecent”; being gay and drunk in public was “disorderly.” The mafia bribed police while running private gay clubs to capitalize on this inhumanity.
The Episcopal Church “strives for justice and peace among all people, and respects the dignity of every human being.” (BCP 305) Now, that doesn’t mean we’re first or best at justice, peace, and dignity, but it does mean that we have made headway and continue to make progress.
Whether people knew it at the time or not, we were at The Stonewall Inn in late June and early July, 1969. The Rev. John Moody, a priest at Trinity Church Wall Street, remembers being Episcopal, clergy, and gay at Stonewall in 1969 in his video of remembrance.
In 2019, for the 50th anniversary of The Stonewall Riots, Episcopal News Service interviewed Rev. John and two other Episcopalians who witnessed the riots first-hand.
Just yesterday, in rural Texas, my wife and I encountered something unexpected even for rural Texas. Seeing it is what led me to begin reflecting on how good it is to think on the little progresses and to remember that we are all striving for more.
In a convenience store, we found a little substation of the local Sheriff’s office – a booth operated by one man. It was adjacent to the women’s restroom. Affixed to the door of the little office was a sign. My wife dragged me out pretty quickly, but the sign said something to the effect of “We’re watching you. Only women in this restroom. Trans not allowed.” Should I have thrown a brick through the window? Should I call the Transgender Law Center? Should I pray for justice? Should I let it go? How many times did these same thoughts go through the minds of the people at The Stonewall Inn until enough was enough?
I do know that the next best thing I can do (and I encourage you to join me) is to join the webinar on Friday, May 23, at 1pm ET titled “The Episcopal Church in Conversation With: the Rev. Cameron Partridge of TransEpiscopal.” This is part of a webinar series in which “we must remember what is at the root of our engagement with our faith, each other, and creation … .with Episcopalians across our small but mighty church…a casual but substantive interview style program with the faithful in our midst.” The Rev. Cameron Partridge (he/him) is an openly trans and genderqueer Episcopal priest, theologian, spouse, and dad of two middle and high school aged children. Register Here!
Then, I’ll be tuning in on June 1 at 6pm ET for Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe’s livestream service from the Episcopal Church Center chapel during which he will bless all upcoming Episcopal Pride events and participants. Join on Facebook or YouTube, with a recording available afterward.
Here at Church of Reconciliation in San Antonio, TX, we’ll host a Pride Eve service and join the San Antonio Pride Parade June 27 and 28, and we are so grateful we’ll be going into this Pride season with Presiding Bishop Rowe’s blessing.
And in the words of Henri-Frederic Amiel: “Life is short. We don’t have much time to gladden the hearts of those who walk this way with us. So, be swift to love and make haste to be kind.”
Everyone is here at The Stonewall Inn.
Amen.
For further resources – LGBTQ+ in the Church: LGBTQ+ – The Episcopal Church (Aaron Scott, Staff Office for Gender Justice)
How Full is Your Bucket Is the title of a book I read years ago for professional development.Authors Tom Rath and Donald Clifton’s premise is that each of us has an invisible “bucket,” and each interaction with another person can help fill our “bucket” by making us feel more valued, more positive. Conversely, when we say or do negative things, we diminish other people and ourselves. Those interactions affect our physical health; our mental health; our productivity; and even our longevity.
Each of us also has an invisible “dipper.” When we use that dipper to fill other people’s buckets – by saying or doing things to increase their positive emotions and energy[1] – not only do we fill their buckets, but we also fill our own bucket.
I was reminded of this book on the first Sunday in Lent when we read in Luke’s Gospel that Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit as he is led in the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. It’s no surprise that Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit. After all, he’s just been baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist and anointed by the Holy Spirit. He’s also been affirmed as God’s beloved Son, with whom God is well-pleased. As Jesus fasts for 40 days in the wilderness, the devil keeps trying to empty Jesus’ bucket by tempting him.
At baptism, we, too, are anointed and affirmed. We’re sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own – forever. Our buckets are full. They’re full of the Holy Spirit. They’re full of love – because God created us in love and for love.
Every day, throughout the course of our lives, each of us has multiple opportunities to fill someone else’s bucket – or to dip from it. Each such encounter is a choice. We can fill someone’s bucket, or we can dip from it. We do this by choosing to be loving and kind – especially in the face of adversity and even cruelty. By choosing to be kind we can profoundly shape our relationships, our health, and our spiritual well-being. This Lent, I’m choosing a daily practice of kindness. And I invite you to join me in this practice, as together we spread Christ’s love in a way that just might offer hope and healing to our hurting world.
[1] Tom Rath and Donald Clifton, PhD. How Full is Your Bucket (New York: Gallup Press, 2004), 15.
There is a new energy, a new feeling coming into our life. We cannot base our expectations about how we will feel tomorrow, or even a few hours from now, on how we feel at this moment.
A younger me wondered what a “cross-eyed bear” meant to singer/song-writer Alannis Morissette. I didn’t have the allegorical/Biblical knowledge to hear and perceive the words Alannis actually wrote/sang. Sometimes, when we don’t have prior knowledge/experience, we misperceive the world around us; it becomes more difficult to see ourselves and others – to love ourselves and others – to choose to follow Jesus in words and deeds. In the chorus of her 1995 song, “You Oughta Know,” Alannis actually writes/sings “It’s not fair, to deny me/ Of the cross I bear,” and I am drawn more deeply into the whole story she presents now that I see the cross and co-carry it because I hear and respond to the call to do so.
Early first-century teacher-philosopher, martyr, and mystic Jesus of Nazareth is quoted throughout both canonized and interpretive theological literature as having said, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” (Matt 10:38, 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23) How often do we hear those words in church? In popular culture? In our hearts and minds?
The RCL Year C Collect for the Last Sunday After the Epiphany says, “O God, who before the passion of your onlybegotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” We ask to be “changed” by carrying our cross – to become like Jesus, whom we follow because we have responded to a call to do so. We ask for the strength to do that lifting. Does the placement of this collect mean we do this only once every three years? Or is this an every moment of every day “pray continually” (1 Thess 5:17) ask?
Contemporary Christian Rock Band Big Tent Revival, in 1999, released a song called “Choose Life.” The chorus says, “Choose life/ that you might live/ The life that He gives/ He gives you forever/ Choose life/ the way that is true/ From the One who chose you/ your Father in heaven/ Choose life.” Perhaps it’s more than an ask; perhaps it is a choice. A life choice. A forever choice. Maybe it’s not just one and done, either. Maybe it’s a choice we have to make over and over again in order to live like Jesus – that choice to bear our cross.
Famed twentieth-century psychotherapist, Dr. Albert Ellis, founder of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy, is quoted throughout both professional and pop culture psychology literature as having said, “The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.” (my emphasis) Is controlling my own destiny compatible with my theology and interpretation of Scripture? Is it possible to decide my problems are my own and to bear my cross and follow Jesus at the same time? What would it mean for me to choose life, not blame others for my problems (not even God or the president), and to carry my cross – to see Jesus in and be Jesus to others? Maybe, just maybe, if I decide to carry my own cross, I might have a “new energy, a new feeling” or hope and possibility that Jesus followers, bearing crosses, are all around, making a difference for peace and justice in our world.
During this past two weeks, we have collectively remembered two individuals who dedicated their lives to seeking and serving Christ in each person they met. One was a pastor – Martin Luther King, Jr. – who dedicated his short life to civil rights and racial justice. The other was a statesman – President Jimmy Carter – who dedicated his long life to improving innumerable lives through his geopolitical and humanitarian work, in addition to his faithful support of Habitat for Humanity.
As I was reflecting on these two individuals and the many challenges facing our nation and the Church today, the following reflection from Forward Day by Day landed in my inbox:
Ephesians 4:6 One God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
The Message adds another sentence to this verse that helps me see the implication of Paul’s words: “Everything you are and think and do is permeated with Oneness.” Imagine what our lives, and what the world, would be like if we truly believed this, knew this to be true, and lived this truth out every day.
If those of us who say we know and love God acted as though God was Father of all, above, through, and in all – all people, every living thing on earth, the very earth itself – and that we are permeated with Oneness, how would things change? I think we can begin living this out by offering everyone kindness and compassion. This, then, grows into dignity and respect, which eventually evolves into harmony and peace and ultimately becomes simply Love. This is a world I want to inhabit. It begins with me, now and in each moment. May I live into the Oneness I know exists with God, my neighbor, and all things, and may you, too.
MOVING FORWARD: What step can you take today to living into this Oneness?
I’m reminded that – even in the most challenging of times – each of us is an instrument of God, called to reveal God’s love for all despite the many obstacles. We have voice, and we have agency because we serve the God of love, justice, and peace – and love will cast out fear.
Although our family custom is to wait until Christmas Eve to decorate our tree, by the second Sunday of Advent I have begun to adorn the house for Christmas. I have a collection of small wooden figurines that I’ve mostly inherited from parents or my mother-in-law. Several have been gifts from my husband, son, or brother. The newest is a small crèche that I purchased in 2022 in Bethlehem while on pilgrimage. I cherish the memories that each figurine evokes as I contemplate the mystery that is about to unfold again, Christ’s birth in a manger in Bethlehem.
Most of these figurines are placed on the mantel or on top of a tallish cupboard. The home for the family crèche, however, is atop a cupboard that is out of harm’s way from a boisterous basset hound and an inquisitive toddler. Of course, in good Episcopalian style the Magi are far from the stable; the angels and shepherds are in distant fields; and the baby Jesus is discreetly hidden.
After seeing my arrangement of the crèche, on the 3rd Sunday of Advent, our 5½ year-old granddaughter Sienna had a different idea! After dinner she spent close to 30 minutes re-arranging the figures. She carefully placed Jesus in the manger and all the other figurines inside the stable. The little lambs are pressed right up against the manger. The shepherds, the Magi, and the angels are as close to the baby Jesus as his parents are.
I love the image that Sienna’s rearrangement of the crèche depicts: the baby Jesus already radiates the love that draws the world to him – from the angel and exalted heavenly choirs to the majestic Magi from the East to the lowly shepherds, and even the lambs.
Then, as we were all admiring her handiwork, Sienna motioned me to take a closer look, and she pointed at one of the lambs next to the manger. She whispered softly, yet intently, “That’s me.” Just the day before, she’d played a lamb in her ballet’s production of “The Nativity,” and she’d recreated the ballet’s closing scene with our crèche. For Sienna, it was more than that, though. For her, it was longing to be close to Jesus.
Each year, we are invited into the wonder and awe of Christmas. Like Sienna’s heart, our hearts long to be close to Jesus. And like Sienna – and the shepherds – after beholding God in a manger, we long to share the Good News of the Incarnation with others.
Followers of Christ are rightly concerned with the ways elections are held, and the ways in which their results shape the well-being of societies and their citizens. Advancing the cause of justice is always the proper work of the governments we create; affirming the equal dignity and equal worth of every person in society is the expectation placed on us by our baptismal covenant, one that we, in turn, work to realize in the public square.
So elections are never a matter of indifference to Christians. But at the same time, we are never either defined by nor reduced to a given political party or outcome. Until the Kingdom of God prevails on Earth, we will always be in the position of loving critic of, and active participants in, secular governments….
And we know, too, that when institutions fall, when the rule of law is degraded by corruption, and power is concentrated in the hands of an unaccountable few, the first to suffer are the most vulnerable in society — the poor, the outcast, the refugees, the despised and the dispossessed. And that, too, is a matter of fundamental Christian concern.
But we have been here before. We should not from this moment draw the lesson of resignation, or abdicate the duties of disciples. …
We must remember:
No election can take away from us our call in baptism to join God’s mission, wherever we live and whatever our circumstance.
No election will ever render a government that fully satisfies God’s hope for all people, because governments are human creations, and humans are fallible.
The privilege — and the responsibility — of our calling as Christians is to show, at all times and in all ways, that “loving my neighbor as myself” is the guideline by which we make our choices as citizens and as servants of Christ.
Our task as Christians in the public square is to support with all our strength the building and functioning of institutions that do the work of justice, of mercy, of guarding the dignity and rights of all equally and without favor.
That work continues every day, even — especially — in the days after any election. May God guide us in the doing of that work in whatever our place or nation, and strengthen us to be courageous in mercy, consistent in love for others, and defiant in the face of injustice and hatred.
Advent weaves together multiple strands of our faith experience, sharpening our vision of God’s already/not yet/still-in-progress redemption of the world. I was struck by Pastor Steve Garnaas-Holmes’s poem, which encourages my hopeful waiting in this season:
Prepare the way of the Holy One, make straight the paths of God. —Luke 3.4
Mary, waiting for her child, is powerless, patient, dependent on a greater movement— not uncertain, but also not in control. Like waiting for the sunrise. Waiting for God to appear in a new way.
Yet waiting like Mary is not passive, but preparing, being transformed.
The “way” of God is not elsewhere, some road God needs to enter the world. God enters by the unlikeliest path, through the least accessible means. The Mystery will enter as Mystery wills. So maybe to “prepare” is not so much waiting for God to appear as changing how we see, becoming ready to see God in new ways.
And God enters the world through us. So waiting with Mary, we are waiting as God transforms within us.
We are the way God is preparing.
How are you preparing yourself to be the way God enters the world?
Deep Blessings, Pastor Steve __________________ Steve Garnaas-Holmes, Unfolding Light, http://www.unfoldinglight.net
Pastor Steve’s call to preparation reminds me of the duality we all are called to live with, expressed so beautifully in the Hasidic tale known as “Two Pockets.” It is said that Rabbi Simcha Bunem of Pershyscha always carried two slips of paper, one in each pocket. On one he wrote: Bishvili nivra ha-olam — “For my sake the world was created.” On the other he wrote: V’anokhi afar v’efer” — “I am but dust and ashes.” He would take out each slip of paper as necessary, as a reminder to himself. A bit like Walt Kelly’s cartoon character Pogo, who offered the warning, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
In the same spirit, Pastor Steve reminds us, “We are the way God is preparing.” In the reflective posture of Pogo and the teacher Simcha Bunem, “How are you preparing yourself to be the way God enters the world?”
Living God's Mission 