Tag: mystery

Meeting in the Mess and the Mystery

There is something about this time of year. As Fr. Bill Ortt points out, the word “Lent” comes from an Old English word that means “lengthen”—for the days getting longer. It’s not the spring is here yet, but we are moving in that direction. The magnolia tree in our front yard attests to that (as do the neighbors saying, “there he is in the yard staring at and taking pictures of the tree again…”).

This week we end a long study of Paul’s Letter to the Romans. And we start both Zoom and in-person studies of Debie Thomas’s “Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories.”

Talking about Romans, Rev. Jay Sidebotham in his book, “Conversations with Scripture: Romans” writes:

“Paul offers specific examples of what a community transformed by grace looks like. It is a community of righteousness, a matter of being in right relationship with each other. That community will be marked by a willingness to forgo one’s own agenda for the better of another, most definitely a countercultural thing to do… The Christian community is to be marked by a spirit that honors the other.”

For Paul, it was the impossible task of unifying the Jewish believers in Christ with the Gentiles–something that had never been done. It’s telling that we have had more than 2,000 years to work at this, but we seem to have taken steps backwards at welcoming and honoring the outsider, the other. That is something to think about and pray on during Lent (and beyond).

In society today, we’ve decided that faith is a personal/individual thing, it’s between us and God. But I wonder what happens if we poke our individual faith with a stick.

In the first essay in “Into the Mess,” Thomas looks at Luke’s Gospel, (1:26-38) where the angel Gabriel tells Mary what’s going on with her and how God is calling her. Thomas talks about what a shocking and impossible reality was being opened up for Mary. And after the angel leaves:

“(Mary) has to consent to evolve. To wonder. To stretch. She has to learn that faith and doubt are not opposites–that beyond all easy platitudes and pieties of religion, we serve a God who dwells in mystery. If we agree to embark on a journey with this God, we will face periods of bewilderment… (leading to) it’s when our inherited beliefs collide with the messy circumstances of our lives that we go from a two-dimensional faith to one that is vibrant and textured.”

For both Mary and Paul, when they said yes to their callings/journeys with God, their lives got more difficult, harder to bear, not easier. For some of us, that kind of poking may be uncomfortable. It’s meant to be.

Thomas goes on to talk about the cost of loving, “to love anyone in this broken world takes tenacity and grit, long-suffering and great strength.” She goes from talking about Mary, to talking about us:

“The particularities of our own stories might differ from Mary’s, but the weight and cost of ‘bearing’ remain the same–and so does the grace. When we consent to bear the unbearable, we learn a new kind of hope. A hope set free from expectation and frenzy. A resurrected hope that doesn’t need or want easy answers. A hope that accepts the grayness of things and leaves room for mystery.”

Bearing the love for another in the world has its cost and its grace. Bearing the love of Christ in the world–being those who love God, welcome and love the outsider/other, those who feed the poor, heal the sick, or simply those who try to understand and love those who are difficult for us to understand or love–has its cost and its grace.

Faith isn’t an individual matter of being rescued from the mess, it is a choice to meet God in the mess, where He is, and we are, needed.

At Christ Church Easton, Fr. Bill has declared this Lent to be a season of healing, a time of sharing our stories and listening to others; of helping to find and spark hope for each other.

Tell us your story about where God entered your life and did something unexpected and remarkable. Share your story of healing.

The days are getting longer. We have a season where creation around us is going green and things are starting to blossom. We can use this season to draw closer to God and to encourage each other. We can bear the love of Christ into the world and in the process expand our faith into something vibrant and textured that embraces the messiness and mystery of life.

It is Strange to Be Here

John O’Donohue’s book, “Anam Cara,” begins: “It is strange to be here. The mystery never leaves you.”

And that’s maybe as true a statement as we will ever encounter. Take our consciousness, the fact that we are thinking, feeling beings inhabiting bodies, add science, add faith, add civilization, observations–when you sit and think about it, it is strange to be here. There is no way around it.

At Christ Church Easton, we’ve just begun a six-week study of “Anam Cara.” Rev. Susie Leight and I and 20+ curious and daring friends embarked this week on the first section of the book, “The Mystery of Friendship,” and a power-packed prologue to help set the tone.

O’Donohue was a poet, theologian, philosopher, and former Catholic Priest. When I read about him and his life, I am jealous, thinking–that’s it, that’s how I want to live my life. His way of bringing together Celtic spirituality and Christianity infuses life and sacredness into everything we encounter–God, each other, Creation and the landscape we are a part of–in ways that mainstream western Christianity could do well to remember and to look more closely at. Which is part of what we are doing.

“Anam Cara” is a Gaelic expression translatable as “soul friend.” And O’Donohue lets us know that what he hopes to do with his book is to explore friendship in a “lyrical-speculative” form. His writing is a meandering, meditative way through beauty, friendship, the senses, that can leave me stunned and spinning at times.

It is strange to be here. And given that, friendship, reaching out to an other, another person, is maybe the only sensible thing to do, to find other people to walk through life with.

O’Donohue says that:

“Human presence is a creative and turbulent sacrament, a visible sign of invisible grace. Nowhere is there such intimate and frightening access to the mysterium. Friendship is the sweet grace that liberates us to approach, recognize, and inhabit this adventure.”

Thinking of friendship as a grace, as sacramental, puts us in an open frame of mind. In this strange, lonely world putting ourselves out there, finding friendships with other people, is a courageous and necessary act.

As he wanders through the first section of the book, O’Donohue focuses on light.

“Light is the secret presence of the divine. It keeps life awake. Light is a nurturing presence, which calls forth warmth and color in nature. The soul awakens and lives in light. It helps us to glimpse the sacred depths within us. Once human beings began to search for a meaning to life, light became one of the most powerful metaphors to express the eternity and depth of life.”

This week, reflecting on some of our “Anam Cara” reading, Susie used some of O’Donohue’s thoughts on light and darkness in her own musings. She writes:

“Inspired by JOD’s words, I decided to wake up just before dawn a few mornings a week, to watch “how the darkness breaks” and observe how “light can coax the dark” while pondering & praying the question, “I wonder what this will be?”

Many changes are on the horizon (all very good & exciting, but there is anxiety too) & so rather than placing all sorts of expectations around what is next (which is my tendency) I have decided to sit, watch and listen, trying to separate the artificial from the real, what is of God and the Spirit, of the world or my own. the question seems large enough to hold what is and what may be… ‘just as darkness brings rest and release, so the dawn brings awakening and renewal. In our mediocrity and distraction, we forget each day that we are privileged to live in a wondrous universe. Each day, the dawn unveils the mystery of this universe…’

sometimes my camera does stuff without me trying, thought this was a cool shot. more to come.”

That is wonderful. When we read something challenging, we should let it challenge us, inspire us, help us think. If it doesn’t seep into our everyday lives, our hopes, our dreams, our friendships, then why are we studying it together and discussing it?

In “Anam Cara” we are talking about friendship, we are talking about light, and we are talking about love. Anytime we are talking about God, we should be talking about love. God is love, and love is what unites us in friendship. O’Donohue writes:

“Love is the nature of the soul. When we love and allow ourselves to be loved, we begin more and more to inhabit the kingdom of the eternal. Fear changes into courage, emptiness becomes plenitude, and distance becomes intimate.”

Love is what brings us together, what unites us. And coming together as friends to discuss, to be opened up by, a book about the nature of and need for friendship stands out as significant, in and of itself.

O’Donohue closes the section on “The Mystery of Friendship” with a friendship blessing, which is beautiful, profound, and inspiring. I read it out loud to close our first class. I would encourage you to read it out loud as you read it, and I hope that its words and sentiments bless you today and every day. The photo after it is one of Rev. Susie at her ordination to the deaconate earlier this year, along with our dear friend, the deacon Rev. Barbara Coleman. Soul friends in action.

“A Friendship Blessing”
By John O’Donohue

May you be blessed with good friends.
May you learn to be a good friend to yourself.
May you be able to journey to that place in your soul where there is great love, warmth, feeling, and forgiveness.
May this change you.
May it transfigure that which is negative, distant, or cold in you.
May you be brought in to the real passion, kinship, and affinity of belonging.
May you treasure your friends.
May you be good to them and may you be there for them;
may they bring you all the blessings, challenges, truth, and light that you need for your journey.
May you never be isolated.
May you always be in the gentle nest of belonging with your anam cara.

Saturday Tangents

On any given day, my mind travels far more places than my body does. On the best days, both get to roam free and find beautiful places and experiences.

Yesterday was Saturday, a day that started in downpour and ended in sunshine. It was a typical day on the outside–I didn’t have a single in-person conversation with anyone, which isn’t unusual on weekends I don’t have the girls.

Saturdays start with coffee, reading, prayer, daydreams. When the rain let up, rescue dog Harper and I wandered around the yard a bit.

TANGENT 1 – BACKYARD PURPLE. If I don’t notice flowers, birds, and butterflies in my own backyard, how will I spot them anywhere else? I can’t count how many times I have walked out to the writing shed since our COVID-19 quarantine began. Each time I try to take in and appreciate something different. As we’ve discussed with Alice Walker, God gives us purple in our lives, it is up to us to notice it.

Thanks to adventurer Beau Miles, who has re-thought what to do with 24 hours, even if you don’t leave your own block, I am trying to be more conscious of what I do with my time, giving myself permission to chase down tangents, which is how my mind works anyway. So here are some more tangents from the day.

Three men who shaped the Black Panther. From left: Christopher Priest, whose epic and iconic run writing the Black Panther comic book made the character cool again; Chadwick Boseman, whose incredible on-screen performances brought T’Challa to life for all new audiences; and Ta-Nehisi Coates, the powerhouse writer and thinker who currently writes Black Panther and who has elevated him even higher in cultural relevance.

TANGENT 2 – CHADWICK BOSEMAN/BLACK PANTHER. Friday night brought the sad news of Black Panther actor Chadwick Boseman’s death from colon cancer at age 43. When actors, musicians, or athletes that we’ve never met die, maybe it shouldn’t feel like a big deal, but the ones who have touched our lives have real presence with us.

The three biggest common interests my daughters and I share are: Marvel movies, Washington Nationals baseball, and the show “The Office.” We’ve watched pretty well every Marvel movie together, multiple times, many in the theaters on their debuts. It’s a way I share my lifelong love of comic books and stories with them. More than any other Marvel movie to date, Black Panther was a cultural event. If you want to get a sense for why, check out this clip from The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, where they had Boseman surprise movie-goers who thought they were filming a video thanks to the actor. Boseman’s graciousness, humility, humor, and humanity off-screen, in his personal life made him every bit the king he portrayed on screen. Do yourself a favor and Google his name and watch clips and read articles.

Yesterday I spent time watching Marvel movies with Black Panther in them, as well as reading more of Christopher Priest’s character-resurrecting run, and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s mythological and epic first arc.

TANGENT 3 – RUNNING IN THE RAIN. There are times when I have to let my body catch up to my brain. Early afternoon the rain had stopped for a bit, so I added a run to the day. As I started up Rails to Trails, about a mile in, the rain started again, first as a slow drizzle, building to an ever-present curtain, then to a downpour by the last half-mile of my 4.5 miles. There is a feeling that warm rain on a run on a hot day brings, that makes the run worth it just for that.

TANGENT 4 – MIND FOOD. I’m a believer in the notion that what we take in is what we put back out, and formative in who we become. If I read Scripture, imaginative, thought-provoking stories, poetry, cosmic graphic novels, world-building fiction; watch movies and documentaries that open my mind and heart and help me see and dream, maybe that is part of my path?

Krista Tippett, in her book “Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living,” reminds us that, “what we practice, we become. What’s true of playing the piano or throwing a ball also holds for our capacity to move through the world mindlessly and destructively or generously and gracefully.”

After running, it’s orange slices and water, it’s chopping peppers from the garden into tuna salad, and making time to read, to imagine, and to be still.

Tippett continues:

“I believe that mystery is a common human experience, like being born and falling in love and dying. A new openness to the language of mystery–and the kindred virtue of wondering–across boundaries of belief and non-belief, science and faith, is helping us inhabit our own truths and gifts exuberantly while honoring the reality of the other.”

I want to believe that. And I can see evidence in pockets, or more like veins running through rock, but there is a lot of rock too. Tippett published the book in 2016 and wasn’t looking at the nastiness and yelling and how divided people are right now. But maybe it’s times like now that we need to focus on the veins of hope and not the rock itself. Maybe now hope and love and mystery and wonder are everything, in part because of their scarcity on the national stage.

The apostle Paul wrote letters of encouragement and hope and thanksgiving from prison and gave shape and direction to a young church. He was looking forward. Poet Ross Gay, in his book “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude,” and poem of the same name, in giving thanks to different aspects of his life, looks back:

...thank you
the ancestor who loved you
before she knew you
by smuggling seeds into her braid for the long
journey, who loved you
before he knew you by putting
a walnut tree in the ground, who loved you
before she knew you by not slaughtering
the land; thank you
who did not bulldoze that ancient grove
of dates and olives,
who sailed his keys into the ocean
and walked softly home; who did not fire, who did not
plunge the head into the toilet, who said stop,
don’t do that; who lifted some broken
someone up; who volunteered
the way a plant birthed of the reseeding plant
is called a volunteer…

And there it is. There are our options laid out before us. This is our time (and I have “The Goonies” in my head typing that); we are here as volunteers the way plants are–we aren’t here by our choosing, but this is where we have sprung up.

What will we do? What will I do?

Will we choose to bulldoze, fire, and plunge heads with our words and actions? Will I incite violence, confusion, and add to the hate?

Or will I bring seeds, plant trees for shade and sustenance? Will I throw the keys to hate’s bulldozer that everyone is so quick to put in our hands–will I sail those keys into the ocean; will I say STOP, and instead try to lift some broken someone up?

Saturday was a day of running down tangents and seeing what was down each. When I take the time to follow tangents, to follow those paths my mind and heart open up, I find things I might not find otherwise. Down each of them, I find gratitude, mystery, wonder, and hope.

Those are the things I choose to share and hope to pass on.