A Question of Authority (Or Sheep! Baaaa!)

 

“To him the gatekeeper opens; the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice” (Jn 10:3-4).

 Ah, Good Shepherd Sunday, the day of the year when preachers everywhere take it upon themselves as a liturgical duty to debunk pastoral elegy forever. Shepherds are the scum of the earth, people who just won’t get a real job, who definitely wouldn’t wander off to save one sheep. Also, sheep are smelly and stupid and annoying and you can eat them medium-rare.

Just kidding: no one can kill pastoral elegy. Also, in case you’re wondering, I do not belong to a church that only observed Good Shepherd Sunday today, I am just running incredibly behind. Please don’t tell anyone.

Anyway, a really eensy part of the sermon was about how we, the parishioners, aren’t actually sheep. We’re not supposed to blindly expect the clergy (and / or Church) to tell us what to think and believe, to fix our lives for us; we’re not to docilely follow instructions without taking the time to think about it. Something about how that’s not what Jesus would have wanted, and also is not a reflection of the universal priesthood of all believers into which we are baptized.

Speak for yourself! Baaaaa!

In all seriousness, the question of authority and obedience is one I find difficult. Last year, maybe even a few months ago, I would have said there was no problem at all: my defiance of church authority was something that almost defined me. Maybe that was also a problem, but not the same one J.

It was obvious that I did not expect the church to lead me in a sense that I would blindly follow. I ultimately left Roman Catholicism because I couldn’t bring myself to consent with doctrines I found false or restrictive, like Papal Infallibility or Transubstantiation. People might agree that I was a bad Roman Catholic: I went off to theology school with some of my community believing I would become a great defender of the Catholic faith, like Newman or something, and I left the church instead. Sorry. In their defence, that is kind of like Newman, only in reverse. Anyway, it was easy to believe I’d somehow managed to dodge the tendency to loyally follow clerical authority that the church tries to instill. 

It was pretty easy to believe I was free of it in the local Anglican church I attended for the last few years as well. I disagreed with their bad liturgy, with the flawed and phobic ideas that were sometimes preached, with the way power was distributed (or wasn’t). It was easy, while my personal faith was still largely shaped by a sense of rebellion against my own community, to believe that I was living out my faith in a non-sheeplike way.

But now, in the church community I find myself, I am experiencing something like a space of calm where I’ve found a place to worship that feels right, that feels like I don’t have to think about or analyze or struggle against. That maybe one day I will really participate in and belong to. And I’m starting to realize how much growing up in a faith of obedience has shaped and continues to define me, in ways I’m not comfortable with but don’t really know how to change.

Growing up, I tried to change myself to fit into the way my church told me I should be. I wrestled with vocation from a young age, (which is pretty much old-news to my few readers, I apologize), and somewhere around puberty and through early adulthood I attempted a painful compromise which is probably all-too-familiar to girls like me. The church told me, and so many others like me, that the path for our passion and dedication to the service of Christ was probably in religious life. I prayed for a vocation to religious life. Other people prayed for it for me. I felt wrong, but I wanted so badly to be able to fulfill my desire in some real and radical way. Most of the discussion of religious life is based on pre-Vatican II conceptualizations that isn’t even adequate to the realities of the modern church. And so you learn that the old self has to be burned away to make room for the vocation of religious life, that you must be modest and self-effacing in all things. You learn to look at the ground, to look away, to follow quietly behind people. You learn to suppress your reaction to worship. You learn not to look around you at the churches, to see without seeing.

Mostly, I was really bad at it. And ultimately I couldn’t follow that path, although there’s a lot that attracts me about religious life. But there was also the wrenching pain of trying to fit into something that never felt right. I’ve noticed recently it hasn’t left me completely unscathed. I have a tendency to physically retreat in church, to try and seem invisible. To follow behind people, to look at the ground. And I can’t tell you what the stained glass above the altar depicts even though presumably I’ve been looking at it for months.

In the past, I found myself seeking out my parish priest as a source of counsel, a guide through my uncertainty. I did it uncritically and without reflection, and ultimately it was not the best decision. I had certain beliefs about church and clergy that I held without ever thinking about it.

I still have those thoughts from my youth: that I am inadequate before God; that I should in some way become smaller, silent, less in order to receive Him and that I am failing; that I have recklessly lost and discarded the one virtue I had to give Him.

But now I’ve gotten over my blind trust of clergy in favour of fear and distrust. Win?

I guess what I’m trying to decide is am I sheep or am I not sheep? Who is my Shepherd and how do I recognize Him? How much has what I grew up believing impacted my ability to hopefully grow into a more mature Christian? I don’t know. I’m just beginning to unravel it.

Oh look, grass!

“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10).

Truth and Reconciliation: It Matters to Me

As a white Anglican Canadian, I went to the four days of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Montreal expecting to feel uncomfortable. Uncomfortable because I do not understand First Nations languages and rituals, as I have grown up in a culture that does not privilege or value such knowledge. Uncomfortable because of the political nature of what ‘we’ are doing, the delicate balance between receiving testimony as witnesses and the colonial impulse to assimilate what we’re given into a narrative that claims to understand, explain, and weave devastating personal testimony into a coherent whole. Uncomfortable because I belong to a country and church that has committed genocide, and that continues to thrive under systems that perpetuate the denigration of First Nations peoples. Uncomfortable, perhaps most obviously, because of the stories we are called to hear.

I came here believing that I knew about residential schools because I had studied this history as part of my education. But I didn’t know, and will probably never really know. The films, displays, stories, and even apologies that made up my experience here showed me that I did not understand. The anger with which people spoke about reconciliation at the town hall was a crushing reminder of my, and our, incomprehension. How can we ever grasp what we have done? The whole truth, while it must be told and listened to, is too large and painful to ever be really understood by people who have not lived it.

I came here believing that I knew what it would be like to listen to the stories of trauma, because I have sat and listened to stories from other kinds of survivors. But it wasn’t true: I did not fathom what it would be like. I have never listened to someone’s story before while sitting in the shoes of the perpetrator. It’s amazing the difference this made. This strange reversal made me feel more closed-off, more isolated from their stories, less automatically sympathetic. I think, as human beings, we have this impulse toward protecting ourselves from blame and from guilt by becoming detached and indifferent because we don’t want to feel those feelings, the shame and burden of our responsibility. I also believe that I and others like me have a responsibility to push past that and into the painful empathy that you will never fully leave behind. It is easy enough to feel the suffering of a victim, and infinitely harder to bear witness to your own horrific actions.

Although I was there for four days, and have committed to listening to statements given at the Commissioners panel while I was not present, I found that there wasn’t enough time to listen to the stories. If I live a hundred years, there would not be enough time.

There were moments when I wondered if I hadn’t made some kind of horrible mistake, if I was in the wrong place altogether, if I had any right to be part of these stories and expressions. After the screening of the film We Were Children I attended on Friday morning, almost all the white people left the room immediately, even though the animators said there was going to be a time for reflection afterward and had asked people to remain. We did not have a discussion, and no one talked: instead, there was a violent and heartbreaking outpouring of emotions from some of the participants. The animators called in traditional healers to try and dispel the energy in the room, and those few outsiders who had inexplicably stayed behind found ourselves holding hands with strangers in the midst of their grief. I felt like an intruder witnessing something intimate which was not meant for me. It was intensely emotionally disturbing, more so than the evidence the full room had witnessed. But ultimately, if I am unwilling to stand with people cracking apart from the burden of their memories then I haven’t really received the stories.  

The pain and sadness, the hurt and anger and fear, the stories: we are called to listen and receive because as Church and country we have a moral responsibility to know and face up to the truth of our history and the realities it creates today. The Commission is about truth in its collecting of testimonies and evidence, in its mandate to spread this knowledge to the people who are responsible yet largely unaware of the realities lived by First Nations peoples in this country. This Commission is about healing in the sense that telling one’s story and being heard is an important part of the journey toward wholeness. It is a step on the very long path of reconciliation, a journey that will never begin without these first steps. But as many participants have brought up, it is not about reconciliation because reconciliation will not happen because of truth, listening, or apologies, though they are all part of it. Reconciliation demands that we take action to address the issues and inequities facing First Nations as a result of the devastation that we have wreaked on them. It is not only for us that we need to do it but, above all, for the people who are coming after.

What the Commission has manifestly failed to do is bring ordinary white people and First Nations people together. As a random, unimportant white attendee, how many Native Americans did you have a conversation with? We were all in the same crowded venue but almost no one spoke with people they didn’t already know. We still aren’t actually having relationships, and to be honest I have no idea how to fix it. Maybe it just has to come later.

The TRC was also uplifting. It brought forward the courage and strength of First Nations peoples in the face of wrongs that can never be righted. A wealth of vibrant, living cultures were on display. Our hosts were humble and gracious and generous. At the end of the last day there was a Birthday celebration for everyone who hadn’t celebrated their Birthday because they were in residential school, some of whom had not even known when it was. We sang Happy Birthday in many languages, in a way reinforcing for us just how deeply Canadian culture has infiltrated Native American cultures. Everyone got a glowstick. Everyone got a cupcake. Everyone got a Birthday card made by a child. Everyone was included. Our hosts generously welcomed all of us to celebrate with them, including those of us who could never have earned the right to attend. It was humbling and beautiful. It is with this spirit of humility that we are honoured to receive all we have been given by the survivors, their families, and their communities.

What the Truth and Reconciliation Commission asks us to do is never forget the stories, the courage of the people who have shared their gifts with us, by calling us to carry forward what we have witnessed in our deeds and to cherish the discomforting guilt. During the Montreal portion of the Commission, 154 statements were gathered; there were over 12,000 visitors; over 5,000 views through livestream from 30 different countries; over 500 children came on education day. It’s a beginning. To add to the official wording, we are doing it

 

“For the child taken,

For the parent left behind.”

For the child today,

And for the children who are coming.

Re-Potting Plants

I had this glorious plant: its leaves were green with this kind of purple fuzz growing on them. It was so pretty, every time I looked at it, it made me happy. I had bought it at Wallmart, taken it home, and eventually replanted it in a pot that worked well. I gave it a place of pride on a windowsill where it could get lots of sun, and it flourished. It grew so very tall, its leaves extending to the sun, soaking up the warmth and light, their purple gleam settling upon my heart. I luxuriated it its growth, in its beauty, in the pleasure it gave me to look at it.

But, alas, my plant outgrew its pot somewhat. The top of the root structure started to protrude. And even though its leaves were tall and luxurious, they also had a definite lean and angle. Thus, my mother decided to re-pot my beloved plant and trim its stalks.

I was so sad when I saw it. My plant, its leaves reduced to pathetic stubs. Look how it doesn’t reach toward to sun any longer! Look how desolate and frail it appears! All its glory lost. I admit it, I was a little devastated.

I think it affected me so much because I feel kind of similar to my unfortunate little plant. I was let go from my job. I’ve been feeling pretty useless. I’m not entirely sure of my place in the world. I’ve been living with a resurgence of Posttraumatic symptoms and the depression that can come with that. I’ve been having doubts about my relationship with and place in the Church. Why am I going here at all? What am I bringing to this community, anyway? Is ‘church’ the right place for me to be if I’m trying to heal – among other things – from church? If you don’t feel trust or community or fulfilment deep inside yourself, if you’ve lost your connection and your way with God inside a relationship of fear and distrust, is it okay to admit that? I’ve been feeling displaced, un-rooted, like I cannot even begin to long for and lean toward the sun.

It’s never an easy place to be, the place you find yourself when circumstances uproot you. It’s uncomfortable, messy, less-than-ideal. But, like the plant, it might be that you need that displacement if, in the future, you want to thrive. It might be that, for a while, you’ll have to make do with less: less beauty, less utility, less leaves to long for the warmth and the light. Close to the dirt, you have time to regroup, to solidify, to recover before once more venturing out, finding yourself strong enough to seek the sun. It’s okay to just be surviving, for a time.

So here I am, not reaching for anything. It’s not beautiful. It’s not glorious. My plant is on the windowsill, short and squat and ignoble. But maybe, just maybe, we’ll be able to sink our feet deep into this new and unfamiliar ground.

Show Me The Money! Tithing at Church

A few years ago, I found myself in a discussion with an Evangelical friend of mine who told me that she and her husband hadn’t been attending their church recently. When I asked her why, she replied that they felt guilty about not having any money to put in the collection plate, so they’d decided not to go.

I told her that she shouldn’t worry about it, that God asks us to give according to our means. It was quite a wealthy congregation, so it wasn’t in imminent danger of collapse or anything due to lack of funds. You can give in many ways, and actually forking over cash you don’t have is only one of them (and probably not a great plan, really). Though I kind of understood where they were coming from, I still didn’t really see how it was an issue. No church worth its salt demands an admission fee or implies that you have to pay for membership. People with more money can afford to give more and people with little money can give to the community in other ways. Frankly, everyone should be encouraged to give to the community in other, non-monetary ways, but that’s a different discussion. If you do end up feeling like all your church wants from you is your checkbook, maybe you should look into another congregation.

However, I admit to feeling kind of ashamed, especially recently, about the fact that I’m always dumping my spare change into the collection plate. Objectively I know it’s not supposed to be an issue. I’m pretty sure it’s less to do about church and more to do about my general money anxiety (I’ve been unsuccessfully looking for a job for months now, and after years of shoving money into education I think I have about 3 to 6 more months of unemployment left before I’m completely screwed). But knowing those things doesn’t make me feel a whole lot better. It’s kind of ironic, but apart from being able to feed myself and house myself and pay my bills and have a general sense of my life being meaningful, the main reason I want a job is to be able to give real money to the church I attend.

It’s kind of funny that since I’m attending church downtown instead of in my suburb I’m spending more on travelling to and from there – not to mention that I might have to purchase lunch – than I tend to give as donation. On the one hand, I feel like I suddenly have even less money to give the church, which makes me kind of panicky. On the other hand, technically I’m spending even more on worship and God should be pleased! It’s a weird situation. If the church really wants my money, I suppose I could just stay home and mail it to them. But somehow I don’t think that’s the point.

The Bible – and Christian history in general – is full of examples about how important it is to give your money and support to your church. While we Anglicans do not rigidly ascribe to the idea of tithing, or handing over 10% of your earnings to the church, certainly donating money on a weekly basis is normative. We also have all sorts of other creative ways to convince you to give your money to the church: bake sales, bazaars, fundraisers and, my personal favourite, charging somewhat exorbitant rates for flower arrangements that decorate the nave. Then again, I used to be Catholic, and once paid 20$ to have a Mass said in a deceased person’s name, which literally involves no resources at all.

Ultimately, I think that giving is meant to be joyful rather than some sort of burden, and the New Testament certainly doesn’t assign any sort of ‘amount’ to it (see 2 Cor 9:5-7). I, like my aforementioned Evangelical friend, shouldn’t feel one way or another about what I manage to give the church on a given week. What I put in the collection plate is less important than the fact that I do it freely and with joy in my heart, rather than with sadness at parting with my toonies or the oppression of obligation.

I’ll be working on grasping that one for a while.


In the meantime, here are Kat’s helpful tips* on how to save or acquire money while your long-term solvency is in doubt, so that you have more to give the church:

-when you visit friends, raid their couch cushions for forgotten change: you will also be doing them a favour by cleaning their furniture, so feel free to count this as payment for your valuable services.

-only use conditioner every second time you wash your hair, and you will spend less on hair products and have more money for the church: plus, using less disposable stuff is a valuable environmental service.

-visit every take-a-penny-leave-a-penny tray at depanneurs and other businesses and never leave a penny: by donating these out-of-mint coins to charity you will be helping the government remove them from circulation, which is a valuable social service.

-panhandle on streets in front of churches you do not attend right before they have services: giving money to the poor is a mitzvah and you will be providing a valuable religious service.

-if your purse breaks, fix it with duct tape instead of replacing it, and give the money you save to the church: redefining fashion as ‘vintage’ rather than ‘garbage’ is a valuable environmental service (here at Walking Along the Way, we care about the environment).

-declare Sunday a lunch-free zone so that you’ll be happy if you eat lunch but not devastated if you don’t: give the money you would have spent to the church, and consider that you’re engaging in valuable health services (and may end up looking fashionably thin!).

-as a last-ditch measure, become a prostitute and give some of the money to the church. You can then preach a sermon entitled “The Things I Was Forced to Do to Pay My Tithe to Jesus.” Also, in times past, reforming prostitutes was considered one of the goals of priestly ministry, so you’ll be doing a valuable Christian service by giving your pastor the opportunity to revive that practice.


*if you can find 1 person who actually found these tips helpful, you owe me a quarter. For the church.

High Wire of Faith

Friday night I, like so many others, watched Nik Wallenda cross directly over Niagara Falls on a tightrope. It was an awe-inspiring sight: suspended directly over the falls, buffeted by the winds and mist, he took one unswerving step at a time. I have to say, even though he was (reluctantly) wearing a safety-harness, it was a very tense viewing experience that ended with a wave of exhilaration.

I didn’t know very much about Nik Wallenda when I decided to tune in to this event. I knew that he came from a family of daredevils and that he was an accomplished tightrope walker, but that was about it. I didn’t know that he was a fervent Christian, or that he would be praising the Lord all the way across the rope.

I certainly didn’t know I’d wake up the next day, and in the days following, thinking of his high wire walk as a metaphor for faith.

Authentic faith really is like this. You step out on a flimsy-looking platform and cross over perilous waters. There are always forces trying to knock you off. You strive to remain fully present in the moment. You trust in the Lord to carry you through.

It is a striving after dreams, a longing to reach the other side and, sometimes, the fulfillment of things you’ve hoped for over many long years. It’s possible you’ll fall. It’s possible you won’t succeed. But in the end, if you try and strive and believe, and you trust in God, you will make it across. Like Nik Wallenda, you are also not alone: God is not jealous or angry or resentful if you have a safety-line of people other than Him upholding you in your journey. We should not be ashamed because there are those alongside us willing to catch us if we fall.

Before making the crossing, Nik Wallenda was asked what gave him the confidence to attempt such a feat. He replied simply, “The righteousness of God in Christ.” So, too, we can have confidence on our faith journeys – and in all aspects of our lives – in the One Who loves and saves us.

To Put Asunder

I’ve been feeling the kind of dull panic in my belly that comes with making a big decision – the doubt, the fear, the unknowing. All very normal, I know. But that doesn’t make it any easier. Leaving my church parish: whoa.

It’s been harder because this wasn’t a decision I was expecting to have to make. Well, at least not any time soon. In some ways, I feel like I’d just gotten there, was still a new arrival (I think I actually showed up in 2009). This is all very sudden, and for those of you who know me you understand that I’m not really prone to making quick decisions. I’m more the kind of person who mulls things over obsessively until I’ve given myself indigestion and the deadline is pretty much upon me. But there is no slow and easy way to do this, so I just pulled off the Band-Aid.

I’m not going to lie: I feel sorrowful that I have to give up the things I’ve been doing. No more reading from the Bible, no more leading prayers; goodbye fellowship, so long occasional opportunities to preach. I’ll probably never have a chance to do some of those things again. Not to mention not seeing the friends I’ve made.

To be honest, I would rather have had the time to discern this carefully, preferably with some guidance. Alas, such things were not meant to be.

I struggle with doubt, with uncertainty. I can’t help but feeling that this is a knee-jerk reaction. That I’m overreacting, or choosing this for the wrong reasons – for selfish reasons, for flimsy reasons, for the kind of reasons that a normal person would just brush aside. I can’t claim with any certainty that I’m acting rationally. I go over and over it in my head.

I am afraid I might be making a mistake. Even so, I would rather make a mistake than do nothing. Mistakes can be good things, and we shouldn’t be afraid to make them. After all, “though [I] fall, [I] shall not be cast headlong, for the LORD is the stay of [my] hand” (Psalm 37: 24).

Still, it’s difficult. I feel a peculiar wrenching. I am afraid that I am doing something wrong, deeply hurtful, simply to make things easier for myself. I can’t shake the feeling that there’s a better way to handle this, and that someone wiser than me might see it.

In the end, I doubt they’ll miss me: I haven’t been doing anything that important. I’m sure individual people will be sad to see me go, and some of them undoubtedly put out that I didn’t say goodbye, but ultimately I will miss my place in this community more than it will miss me – and maybe that’s the part that stings the most.

I still don’t quite know how to respond when people ask why I will not be fulfilling the tasks I signed up for, as one person already has. I don’t have an easy answer, or at any rate an answer I want to give publicly to the church. My answer is personal and petty, and I don’t think it would build up the community. I have no interest in divisiveness or vindictiveness. Is it acceptable to reply simply that I have decided to leave the community, and leave the rest in silence?

Sanctuary

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the idea of church as sanctuary. The obvious way that church is sanctuary is the traditional way: church is sanctuary because it is holy. It is sanctified by what happens there, by the mysteries of Word and Sacrament, by our prayers and worship, and sometimes by relics or by building on hallowed ground. As places where we gather to worship, churches become sanctified – are made sanctuaries – by being carved out as sacred spaces in the midst of what we (by default) consider the profane world.

This is also part of the reason why serious infighting, or profound political and theological differences, can affect some peoples’ views of how ‘holy’ their congregations are: it’s a difficult reminder that our holy spaces are filled at times with ‘worldly’ things like strife and bickering and pettiness. We must struggle to see that holiness resides in these places at a deeper level than what we could call simple agreement or surface unity. A church does not become less sanctified because the people in it don’t happen to agree, or are having an outright feud.

Though the word “sanctuary” was originally defined wholly by this kind of religious significance, church-as-sanctuary has a more immediate, and less ‘spiritual,’ meaning for many of the people who come through the doors and into a congregation. Many people come to a church seeking the kind of sanctuary understood as safety, refuge, calm in the midst of the storm, freedom from harm. In my own quest for church, I was one of those people searching for a space where I felt safe to explore my relationship with God in a secure and supportive environment.

Many of us come to church carrying profound sorrow and brokenness with us. Seeking the courage to heal demands that we place our trust in a group of other broken people. Yearning to grow in faith depends on our openness to those who can sometimes be wrong. None of this is easy, and we rely on the idea that church is sanctuary to help us get through our own fear. We demand certain things of our clergy and our church leadership when we put our trust in them – things like confidentiality and boundaries and compassion and willingness to grow – that help create sanctuaries where we can be broken, where we can seek peace and rest and God (Who can sometimes be anything but peaceful or restful!). I believe that broken people have the right to be in church while they are still broken, that they have a right to safety, that as church it is our responsibility to provide haven while they seek healing and forgiveness within our walls. Church is sanctuary because it supports us in our seeking and in our pain as well as in our joys.

Church can also become a source of friendship and community which is another sort of sanctuary. We all have a desire to put down roots, to make friends, to help others and to accept their help in return. Some of us have other desires within these communities as well: we desire to lead, to teach, to take on responsibility, to do outreach, to be involved in something greater than ourselves. Church can allow us to accomplish things, to grow as people, to give back to community. These are precious gifts that church offers us: love and fellowship, friendship, trust and responsibility. Sanctuary is not merely a building in which we can be safe from harm but a community that allows us a place in it.

There is not, and will never be, the kind of false-utopian church that is free from disagreement. Sometimes, people will find themselves in congregations where others from their churches – perhaps the laity, perhaps the leadership – have vastly different views than their own. In the church I have attended for the last several years, I have listened to sermons that I find offensive. I have worshiped with liturgy that sometimes wildly departs from the forms accepted by the larger Church. I once had a Bible slapped down on the table in front of me to basically point out that I was an abomination – in public (that was a relatively awkward moment at a church lunch).

I do believe that disagreement within a church does not make it less of a sanctuary. Sanctuary, while safe and upholding at its core, is not always comfortable. We have a responsibility to hold our ground when we find ourselves in the midst of disagreement, of controversy, and sometimes of anger. If we begin to link sanctuary to the idea of a community where everyone agrees with us about everything, our congregations will ultimately become ossified and isolated. A church that agrees about everything is a church on its way to stagnation and death.

Having said that, there are times when church can, for some, cease being a sanctuary. Sometimes this is hard to recognize. Sometimes, especially when we have put down roots in a community, we don’t want to recognize it. There is a certain amount of comfort to be drawn from being in familiar surroundings even when that community is profoundly uncomfortable. It may be that we do not want to give up the privileges that we have gained, the positions that we have attained. It may be that we do not want to abandon the effort we have put into becoming a member of the community. The idea of leaving our friends behind can be difficult. When I left the Roman Catholic Church, it was a very painful decision which took me a long time to make. But I also knew that it was more important to follow Jesus, to seek where I felt I was being called, to be able to grow in my spiritual life, than it was to hold on to the things I had known and the certainties I had proclaimed and even the people whom I love.

It isn’t fair, in a way, that people should ever have to leave their churches, their congregations. It isn’t fair that they should have to put aside the things they have accomplished, the friendships they have made, and the responsibilities they have attained. But sometimes, people are called to do so. Regardless of what can be considered ‘fair’ or ‘right,’ if we – if I – am serious about following Jesus and discerning his plan for my life, I need the courage to recognize if a church is no longer a place of sanctuary where I am upheld in my seeking, in my journey, in my brokenness.

Jesus Has Come

I posted all these nifty things abut Advent, one for each week, fully intending to write something just like it for Christmas. You know, the post about what it means that Jesus is here, that He came into the world, that I have Jesus in my life. Like the other posts, I could surround it with nifty quotes from the Bible and call it done.

It hasn't quite worked out that way.

I thought about it. I read all the readings. I went to three services at two different churches. You would think I'd be so crammed full of words and ideas that this blog post would write itself -- or at least be splattered with a jumble of words that exploded out of me.

But no: nothing. At the end of the day, I have no fully formed idea of what it means that Jesus came into the world. I have no idea what that means for and in my life. Oh sure, I have a lot of theological ideas in my head about salvation and light and theosis. But that doesn't really tell me what it means.

I know what Jesus' birth means for me in little ways, in the small ways it affects my life and my decisions. But I don't really have a handle on the big picture. It's just too much: too large, too bright, too encompassing. I can't see it. I can't get a firm grasp on it. It's like trying to see the blinding light of the sun. It's blurry and uncertain and cannot be fixed in my sight. I see what the sunlight does to the world, but I just can't look into it and see it for itself.

So I admit it: I have no idea. There's nothing I could come up with other than this not-knowing, this not-understanding. Sorry, but I guess Christmas is just like that for me. I'm not quite sure how to face it head-on. It's easy to explain away uncertainty in the half-darkness of Advent. But when it comes to Christmas itself, I guess I'll just have to settle for living with blindness, and all the feelings that come with being unable to understand the biggest and most important thing in my life.

Love

"The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end"" (Luke 1:30-33).

I was reminded this past Sunday that love can be incredibly inconvenient. Our Nativity pageant was told from the perspective of the innkeeper and his wife: imagine their ire when all these people kept showing up at their inn! They'd had a hard day's work, but here they all came, insistent, untimely, demanding. No wonder the innkeeper was perturbed! 

Love can be inconvenient. It comes -- and is demanded of us -- at times we weren't expecting. It is messy. It is entangled. It can be brutally heartbreaking. Love makes great demands on us. Nowhere are we reminded of this more than in the reality of God becoming flesh.

God chooses a confused virgin as the dwelling place for the Son as He grows within her. It's more than a little inconvenient.

Our God is born in a stable to a mother accompanied by no midwife to help her give birth. It's more than a little messy.

Jesus has a human mother, married to a husband who raises the child as his own, and a Father in heaven, which prompts him to disappear for a few days in the Jerusalem temple, leaving everyone else terrified. It's more than a little entangled.

Jesus' dedication in the temple is accompanied by Simeon's prophesy to Mary that "a sword will pierce your own soul also" (Lk 2:35). Her son, whom she loves, will leave his family to travel around preaching the good news. He will be both wildly popular and popularly reviled. He will die, horribly, on the Cross. It's more than a little heartbreaking.

Yet Mary "treasured all these things in her heart" (Lk 2:51).

For love of their son, Mary and Joseph became a refugee family as they fled to Egypt to save his life. Mary meets her son carrying his own cross, and watches him fall. She receives his body, and sees it lying in the tomb.

Sorrow and love and mystery, all bound up together. Most of us won't have to face the staggering loss that came with Mary's love. But we all know, from our own lives, that saying yes to love is bound up with messiness, with pain, and with inconvenience alongside the joy. Love fulfills our deepest human needs, but no one ever said it was easy.

Our longing for God is bound up with inconvenience. We are called upon to say yes to God in ways that aren't always easy. God comes into our lives in unexpected ways, sometimes in ways we don't enjoy. We are asked to step out of our comfort zone, to do things we don't want to do. This is what loving God entails.

God's love for us comes in the glorious manifestation of His promise, the Incarnation and final coming of Christ. Christ the King, Christ the infant. They are the same. Love in all its messiness is tied to love in its glory. We are preparing to celebrate God's coming into the world. Through it all, the thing that matters most is our own willingness to love and be loved, to embrace love in all its fullness and complexity. 

"And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing [...] And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:2-3, 13).

 

Joy

"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good" (1 Thessalonians 16-21).

Gaudate Sunday is all about joy. But this time of year, with the holiday approaching, isn't necessarily a joyful time for everyone. People are worried about money, about family, about all the things in their lives that haven't turned out the way they'd like. Hopelessness, darkness, and despair plague many. And we, as Christians, have the audacity to talk to them about joy.

It can be a bitter pill to swallow, this thing about joy. Why am I not feeling it? Is there something wrong with me? Am I missing the point in all my anxiety? People can be shocked, and even angry, when they realize they aren't feeling the happiness everyone around them is preaching. Why can't my holiday be like the one on the television?

Many people have said this before, but it bears repeating: happiness and joy aren't the same thing. Happiness is a feeling, an emotion, a sensation that comes about often due to an experience. Of course it can also be a person's disposition, true enough, but happiness fluctuates easily depending on how much sleep we've had or what we overheard our coworker saying behind our back. Happiness is like a bubble that expands, contracts, and can even be popped.

Joy isn't like that.

Joy is a thing that we can't always feel the way we feel an emotion. Joy is planted inside us by God and it's there all the time, but we don't necessarily feel it. Joy is something deeper, something more lasting, quietly guiding our lives.

Imagine the joy in Mary's heart when she saw the angel, when she said 'yes' to God and carried Jesus within her. Sure she felt happiness: she was carrying a child for whom she was full of love. But I bet she was also full of anxiety, of fear, maybe even panic. She didn't fully know what she was getting herself into. But she knew it could be bad. There would definitely be some kind of consequence. After all, you can't hide a pregnancy forever, not even a supernatural one.

Joy is like that: it hides underneath other emotions. It gives us strength. Other people can see it in us even when we can't see it ourselves. It brings us happiness, but it also leads us through pain and doubt.

We all have a calling in this life -- to follow Jesus, to discern the ways in which he leads us, to follow Him with all of our strength. That is joy: joy planted in us, joy growing stronger, joy leading us onward into the light. Joy is the thing that helps us transform our pain through prayer so that it becomes something else. Joy is the thing that finds strength in our weakness and brings light into dark places. Joy is saying 'yes' to God.

In joy, our pain and sorrow becomes something deeper, something more meaningful; hidden in joy -- or with joy hidden within it -- we discover that God does not leave us alone, that our lives have a bigger meaning than ourselves, and that nothing bad can go on forever because it is never the end. Only a step on our larger path.

That doesn't mean that joy obliterates sorrow and sadness. It shouldn't, and it can't. But in it we find our darkest moments are being transformed. In it, we find the place inside us where God dwells, filling us with His love.

"My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name" (Luke 1:46-49).

Peace

"A voice cries out: 'In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all the people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken'" (Isaiah 40:3-5).

Advent is a time of peace -- a time to find it, or make it, inside ourselves as well as in the world. It seems somehow less daunting to try and impose peace on the spaces around us: streamlining our possessions, reducing the clutter of our things, turning down the noise. Outer conditions of calm, quiet and austerity do help foster inner peace, as any Christian religious order in history could tell you. The kind of exterior life we live has an effect on the inner life of the soul. So the monastery is free from clutter and full of silence. It is structured by obedience and simplicity, allowing the mind to be freed for the discipline of inner silence.

One does not have to go to a monastery to find these conditions. But it's always necessary to carve that space out for ourselves somehow, or our souls will forever be turbulent and disquieted, caught up in the things and excesses of this world. Self-discipline is an important part of Advent as we foster a sense of quiet waiting in our lives. We are called to patience, to endure the wait with an anticipation that does not make itself busy standing still or trying to rush through it all.

But this type of outer silence is not the most challenging facet of finding peace. Music can easily be turned off, and solitude can almost always be found. It isn't enough just to manipulate the word around us by refusing to buy anything or put up the Christmas tree. Peace is fundamentally nurtured from within.

Peace comes from opening up the mind to let God in. Like a ray of light, God cannot inflame our minds if they're tangled up with all sorts of branches: the light gets stuck and lost in the dense forest, never reaching out to warm our skin.

Maybe God can't come in because we're so preoccupied with worry. Maybe God can't come in because we don't have time to listen. Whatever the reason we give for why the light doesn't shine, in the end God cannot come in where the soul does not want to receive Him.

We find many reasons within ourselves for our unworthiness, and to cover it up with excuses. We're afraid of what it would mean to truly encounter God. We're afraid it will burn. We're afraid of the truth of our own sin and the reality of Who God is, and what that could mean for us. The encounter with God is not an easy one, though He is Goodness. Even though Advent is not a penitential season, we do have to make room in our hearts by repenting of our sins and letting go the burdens they place upon us. The heaviness of it, the fear of God because of it, keeps us from experiencing the peace this season is all about -- the peace that only God can give.

We are called by the same voice as Isaiah to make our paths straight, and in the wilderness of our souls to prepare the way of the Lord. Then we shall see the glory of God and find peace as He remakes our lives, changing everything.

"Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts" (Psalm 85:8).

All The Single Ladies

How many of you have gone to a church service or event by yourself? How many of you have felt awkward about it?

Be honest now...

Having switched denominations out of religious conviction, rather than because of marriage or some kind of family feud with another congregation, I've gone to a lot of churches by myself, not to mention a good number of events at my own parish. I can't remember whether or not I've written about this before; if I have, I apologize for the broken-record phenomenon. That's the kind of thing that happens when you don't bother to update your lame blog for a few months.

Sometimes going to church services on your own isn't so bad -- or maybe even expected. When I was still Roman Catholic, I used to go to the weekday noon services at a downtown cathedral. Going alone wasn't bad: practically everyone else was there by themselves, too. And now, of course, I've gotten used to going to church alone because I do it every Sunday. I have a group of people that I sit with instead of hanging out in the pews all by myself, so that helps. I even have friends now who help me out by driving me home.

But let me tell you, going to a new congregation was really, really hard at first. The fact that it was in my hometown helped a little, and so did actually knowing one or two people who worshipped there. But it wasn't easy, sitting by myself, going home right away because there was no one to talk to at coffee hour, being new and not having any role in the new congregation.

I don't think I'm an expert at how to be 'the new guy' in a church. But I do know that it's harder to be new if you also happen to show up alone.  If you have kids, they'll make friends in Sunday school and you have an automatic 'in' with the parents of their new little friends. If you have a spouse or partner, then you have at least one person to talk to. But show up by yourself and, wow, there's no easy group for you to break into. Unless of course you go to one of those hip city churches that have large groups of young people who came by themselves. And to be honest with you, I'm not sure those places really exist. I may have made them up in my imagination.

At any rate, it's not so hard to blend in to a new congregation if you show up every week. People get used to you pretty quick, and eventually someone might ask you to sit with them. Say yes. Stay for coffee hour and try to get to know a few people: if you're lucky (which I was), most will be overly welcoming of the new person because they want you to keep coming back. Someone will usually talk to you so you don't end up standing around by yourself feeling like a loser. After the newness factor wears off, it may temporarily get harder to find people to talk with at coffee hour, but if you stick it out you'll probably end up with a few solid groups that will permanently welcome you into their conversation.

I've discovered the most difficult church events to go to alone are the ones that are themselves temporary, and made up of temporary new groups. Like ecumenical worship events where no one else from your congregation bothers to show up (has never personally happened to me), or events that bring together a scattered group of people for a specific purpose. I've been to a few of this type of event, one just this past week. These are the hardest events to go to because they aren't sparsely populated enough for everyone to gravitate together but also don't tend to reach a critical mass of attendance where people can legitimately get lost in the crowd. When everyone comes with a ready-made group, or knows a lot of other people, it can really suck to come on your own, especially if they're all relatively used to hanging out with each other and you aren't.

I thought it wouldn't be so bad because I did know some people pretty well. Unfortunately they were running the event, which effectively means that for mingling purposes I showed up alone and barely knew anyone.

The worst is when you know some people but haven't seen them in a really long time, so they say hello, and you have a little conversation, but then it's time to move on and you don't have another social group to go to but they do. Yeppers, awkward.

No wait: the worst is when you know one person talking with a small group and you try to join their conversation but they won't let you. Double-awkward for everyone.

No, no wait: the worst is when you say hello to someone you know and haven't seen in a really long time, and they're obviously and manifestly not interested in talking to you. Yep, they don't care. And then, of course, you're standing there and no one says anything, and you're thinking 'coming over here was a tactical error, how the hell can I get away.' And then you just walk away because the fact that they're not talking to you, and don't want to, is really really embarrassing. Triple awkward!!

Of course, quadruple-awkward is the moment when you realize you've exhausted all possible mini-conversations and have to either leave or stand alone at the cheeseplate feeling sorry for yourself because you couldn't convince anyone to come with you to this thing in the first place.

It's also awkward when people ask what you've been doing and you have to answer, "writing a food blog and pretending to work on my thesis that will never be finished because, frankly, I just don't have it in me." That's awkward, but not for church-related reasons.

Having experienced this, from now on I will seek out the random alone people at church events and talk to them, maybe try to suck them into my own conversational groups. I know what it's like to be that person. I think it's hard to notice them if you haven't been through it a few times yourself. If Jesus can touch the unclean and eat with sinners and save the child of the Samaritan woman, I guess I can suck it up and hang out with the loners if it ever turns out I'm in the popular group.

One really sweet woman invited me to come to another event the night after at a community I used worship with. But really, I couldn't do this to myself two days in a row: girl, alone, surrounded by people she doesn't really know but who know each other, without having drafted some poor sucker to come with her. For us single ladies, sometimes church can really suck.

Having said all that, here's my list of tips on how to deal with showing up to a medium-size mixed-group church event by yourself:

-find a nice corner chair and surround it with all the other nicest chairs in the room. When people's feet get tired and they want to sit down, they'll end up sitting around you and will have to include you in their conversation.

-own a smartphone or a phone with a full numeric keypad. If worst comes to worst you can text people, or pretend you're texting people, every time you end up standing all by yourself.

-convince a friend to call you at a certain time so that you have an out for leaving early (I'm sorry I have to go, my best friend's goldfish just asphyxiated and she needs me to come over. But I had a really lovely time, thanks for inviting me).

-bring a sock-puppet or treasured stuffed animal. That way, you'll always have someone to talk to.

-keep going back to the cheeseplatter. If you don't manage to strike up a conversation, at least you'll get to eat lots of cheese.

-fall on the floor filled with the Holy Spirit and start speaking in tongues. I guarantee they'll pay attention to you after that.

Hope

"But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory [...] Therefore, keep awake -- for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake." (Mark 13:24-26, 35-37)

Advent is profoundly mysterious: the time that is coming, that we are waiting for, will come like a thief in the night, at a time we know not when. Who can know for sure what that day will hold? The angels will gather the elect, but will we be among them? After the Son of Man has come on the clouds and gathered the elect unto Himself, what will our existence in glory be?

Mystery, mystery: all the things we anticipate but do not understand. All the certainties we are uncertain of.

We know that Jesus has come. We know that He is coming again. But about that day and hour no one knows. It's unsettling, this time that pulls together the past and the future into an uncertain present, looking backward and forward into a veil beyond which we cannot see.

We are called to prepare a path for the Lord -- like Elijah, to make a straight path in the desert. Wait, and be watchful, always making ready, for we do not know when our Saviour will come. Advent calls us to prepare ourselves for God's coming, to make ready for the final day by immersing ourselves in a period of watching and waiting.

We do not watch by looking resolutely forward, by focusing ourselves on that which we cannot see. That is not really hope: that's an obsession with trying to predict or catch the very moment we cannot grasp upon the instant of its awakening. Nor do we watch by turning backward to what has already past, what we know and understand, because hope cannot live looking behind itself. We watch by preparing within ourselves a silent space, a place within which we immerse ourselves in the present moment, the time in-between.

What we know to have been is part of our hope: the Incarnation we prepare to celebrate fills us with certainty about who God is. We know that Jesus has come. What we know is coming is also part of our hope: our longing for the future fills us with direction and a yearning to be with God. But hope is primarily about the present, because it can only be experienced now.

Our hope and longing for God's coming is like watching a sunrise. We know that the sun has risen a thousand times before. And we know that if we wait long enough the sun will come up above the horizon. But it is by immersing ourselves in the blackness, by watching each moment pass without hurriedly imagining a future where the sun is risen, that we open up a space inside our hearts to see the light seep in.  

Dawn is gradual and sudden, a crack opening up to the light in myriad ways. It illuminates us with longing and sweetness for each moment as we experience it. The past and future never really fall away. But only by really being in the moment can we experience the awe and mystery of what is taking place. We prepare ourselves by being fully immersed.

So, too, the mystery of Advent springs upon us suddenly and is quickly gone. Through patient hope -- a hope that longs by a willingness to see each moment as one in which God is coming -- we abide in the coming of the Lord. 

The Lord has come and the Lord will come. In hope, we live in the conviction that the Lord is coming always, and everywhere.  

"for in every way you have been enriched in him [...] He will also strengthen you to the  end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." (1 Corinthians 1: 5, 8-9)

Honored

Have you ever felt overwhelmed and honored by an opportunity that's presented to you? This Sunday, I felt that to an amazing degree: my parish priest asked if I would be interested in preaching for our upcoming Lessons and Carols service. The service by itself would be a big deal, coming as it does at such an important time in the liturgical year. But this service is extra-special because it's ecumenical -- members of all the local churches have been invited to attend. We're raising money for the charity Agape, and last year there was a really great turnout. By which I mean the church was full.

And now it looks like I'll get to preach at it.

It isn't like I'm not humbled and overwhelmed every time I get asked to preach. I am. I'm grateful and excited for every opportunity. And it isn't that I've never preached at a 'big' event before: I've done a baptism, Back to Church Sunday, and the service for the ACW of the deanery. But this is totally, completely a big deal, and certainly the most important event I've been asked to speak at.

First thought that went through my head? Terror.

Second thought? Yep, I'm terrified. And the priest is insisting I don't have to do it and he doesn't want to pressure me. But there's no freaking way I'm giving up this opportunity just because of a little fear.

I wonder if maybe that wasn't something like what Mary felt when the angel appeared to her and asked her to bear God's child?

I know, I'm being awfully presumptuous by comparing myself to the Virgin Mother. Obviously the situations are nothing alike. But still, I think that our everyday experiences give us insight into the miracle of God's work in the world, let us see intimately into the mystery of the Incarnation and the love God has for us.

She must have felt terror when he told her. She must have felt fear, and overwhelming awe, and humility that she was even being asked, even as he told her it was okay to say no. But in the midst of her fear, her uncertainty, her feeling that she couldn't possibly ever be enough, she reached out and grabbed that opportunity. She said yes: "Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word" (Lk 1:38).

When the Church talks about Mary, it is most often about her humility, her acceptance of the will of God. The way she is a good and faithful woman. But we don't talk nearly enough about her courage. Mary was a very brave woman. She said yes even in the face of fear and uncertainty. She didn't give in to God, the way someone gives in to a powerful demand because they cannot resist it. She grabbed hold, with both hands -- she said yes 'come what may.'

Mary the brave one, Mary of the strong heart. Mary who asks her son to perform his first miracle at the wedding feast in Cana, Mary who follows her son to the Cross, Mary who wraps and perfumes his body and lays it in the tomb. Mary who waits with the Apostles for the Spirit to come.

Mary who says yes to an angel and carries her beloved son inside her, her past and future wrapped up in these precarious moments, as precious, fragile, and uncertain as a newborn wrapped in swaddling clothes.

We can all learn a lot from Mary. She teaches us that fear is not something that needs to hold us back, that we can and must push through it if we want to realize God's purpose in our lives. We must not let fear stop us from grasping and cherishing the moments of our lives. As we keep these things treasured in our hearts, to ponder and wonder at them, we must nevertheless go through the uncertainty, through the doubt, and through the fear with humility and courage.

Humility and courage. Doubt and fear and overwhelming uncertainty are normal parts of our lives, and we are not meant to be ashamed of them. What we are meant to do is take hold of the moment in spite of them, and let God do the rest.

Lesson from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Now I realize that it's been a while since I've posted anything. And by a while, I mean many eternities, if you were measuring time based on the lifespan of a goldfish. So obviously I expect few people will read this, given that the world has undoubtedly moved on to reading blogs that are updated with something resembling regularity.

I also realize that Buffy isn't a canonical book of the Bible. But really, who's going to call me on it?

A few months ago, I bought the complete Buffy the Vampire Slayer series on DVD and started watching it. This wasn't some kind of nostalgia for the halcyon days of my youth or anything -- when the show first aired, I never watched it. But I caught a few reruns when my cooking show got cancelled, and I was hooked! Lo and behold, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was not the over hyped show that I thought it was! The actors are skilled, the plots are good, and the scripts are amazing. It's truly, truly worth watching (in case you've never seen it).

But I digress.

Yesterday, I watched the episode titled "The Body." In case you haven't seen Buffy, and don't want me to spoil it for you forever, please stop reading now.

This is the show where Joyce Summers -- Buffy's mom -- dies suddenly. It's pretty heart wrenching, especially since she'd recovered so well from her earlier illness. Watching this show, you keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. When is the monster going to attack? Is this all some kind of evil demon plot of false memories? Will it turn out that Glory, the evil goddess of the demon realm, killed Joyce to get at Buffy? Will vampires take advantage of the situation and try to kill Buffy?

Barring one undead incident in the morgue, nothing like this ever takes place. Nothing terrifying jumps out of a closet, or turns out to be hiding in the house. There is no demonic element to Joyce's death. There's just the relatively common-place aneurysm.

But you keep waiting for that moment, for that other shoe to drop. In the end, you realize that the most horrifying thing of all is not monsters or demons or unexpected plot twists, but the sheer reality of death itself. Even while Buffy battles with a vampire in the morgue, her sister Dawn stares at her dead mother, riveted and frozen, uncaring of everything else that's going on.

Death is the horrifying thing.

For all the killing that goes on in the show -- dead vampires, demons, various unholy creatures, unfortunate bystanders -- you don't ever really think about death. It doesn't so much touch you as it is something that happens. Death never really has consequences.

It made me think about how we don't really understand it, and how we as a culture go out of our way to avoid really thinking about it. Many times, we circle around the question of death: we use euphemisms, we discuss the aftermath in platitudes. Other people's pain is uncomfortable and incomprehensible because we don't want to face those issues ourselves. We say things like, 'he's at peace now,' or 'she's gone to a better place.' For some people, death is even something glamorous, something to be almost courted or dared. But do we really know what happens after death, or what occurs during those final moments?

As Christians, it's tempting to say we know what death is, what it means. God has told us in the Bible. We've heard stories of Saints. There are various interpretations of what happens to you after death, which of course vary depending on what kind of a life you lived, but in Western Christianity they all involve some sort of uninterrupted continued life that goes on forever.

We go to heaven or hell or purgatory-then-heaven, and we used to go to limbo which as it turns out has been officially debunked. From heaven we can look down on the world and see it's goings-on, we can worship God and, some people believe, pass along requests for intercession if we're close enough.

But there isn't a concept of life stopping. There's no concept that there might be nothing, even for a little while. Or that, when we 'wake up' in the afterlife God might have made us significantly different that we used to be simply by removing all our faults. We believe in a continuity that outlives the body. Even Buffy tells her sister, face to face with the body, that it 'isn't here: she's not here anymore.' We envision some sort of departure, and those of us who share the Christian faith tend to believe that the thing that departs you lives on.

We celebrate elaborate funeral rituals that express our beliefs about death. But, in the end, isn't death the final mystery? How could we ever know what lies behind it, what God has in store for us? Our faith isn't about knowing. It's about trusting.

But it's really really hard not to know. So, of course, it's only natural that within the framework of faith we try to explain it to ourselves. I think part of the reason so many of us find death scary -- even when we see it on a fictional show -- is because part of us knows that we don't really understand, no matter how strong our beliefs are. I know I feel that way. And maybe we're not supposed to understand. It is a great mystery, after all.

On the show, Anya (who is a thousand-year-old ex vengeance-demon) says it best: "But I don't understand! I don't understand how this all happens. How we go through this. I mean, I knew her, and then she's, there's just a body, and I don't understand why she can't just get back in it and not be dead anymore! It's stupid! It's mortal and stupid! And, and Xander's crying and not talking, and, and I was having fruit punch, and I thought, well Joyce will never have any more fruit punch, ever, and she'll never have eggs, or yawn or brush her hair, not ever, and no one will explain to me why."

I think maybe at this time of year, when we're thinking of eternity and the end times and the world to come, and we're waiting for Jesus to come, and about to start pondering the miracle that is new life and the Incarnation, that this is a time to think about death and what it means to us. For all that we can't comprehend it, as both an end and a beginning, it is the fundamental human experience that we share with every living person.

And, through the miracle of Christmas, a mystery that we share even with God.

Rainbow Fish -- Get Out Of That Net!

This Sunday at church we had a double-Baptism: two very cute little children being welcomed into the community, accompanied and supported by parents, godparents and family. A great opportunity to show them what we're all about -- as the priest said at one point in his homily, to do our duty by leading people to Jesus.

Some great readings, too. In the Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples to leave behind their nets and become fishers of men. Exactly what we're called in Baptism to do -- to bring people to Jesus by using all our gifts to catch them up in a love-affair with the Gospel.

The homily began by asking if we have, in this day and age, the courage to follow the Faith of our Fathers. A Biblical Faith.

The homily was mostly about gays.

The words 'gay' and 'homosexual' were never actually used. But it was obvious what he was talking about. He said things like that the idea that we need to engage in 'moral expansions' is bad. That the idea it's okay to live this way or that way, any way we want, is wrong. That God is eternal and unchanging, and what He always hated He still hates.

The words 'repugnant' and 'abomination' were used.

It was terrifying. As bad as when that guest speaker from Jews for Jesus (or whoever) came to our church and told us to pray for the conversion of the Jews because all his Jewish friends and family who didn't believe in Jesus were going straight to hell.

I found myself thinking about those poor people who were there for the Baptism -- what must they be thinking and feeling? Were they thinking: your homophobic sermon is ruining my special day? Were they thinking: who are you people? Were they thinking: that's it, Christianity is definitely not for me? Or were they thinking: right on, brother!

Mostly I was thinking about me, and how I wanted to run away in terror. I worry about speaking up. This is odd for me, since at one point I went head-to-head in a radio interview with one of Canada's experts on why gay marriage is wrong. But now, I worry that if people in my church know how strongly I disagree with the things he said, I wouldn't be allowed to preach anymore. I'm supposed to preach next week.

If you want to call what I do a ministry, which I guess you could if you were desperate, it's a very fragile one. I read from the lectionary, set up a Morning Prayer for the church once a week, am on parish council. Sometimes I get to preach. I have no certification or licence from the diocese, so it all depends on the forbearance of my priest and the community. I have not forgotten, and cannot forget, what it means to live with secret convictions, to fear that what precious little I have could be taken away. And I fear that without honesty everything I say is meaningless anyway.

I had to remind myself that taking Eucharist is not a political act. Receiving Jesus' gift of Himself in no way implies that I agree with the message. Sacrament and sermon are not indelibly connected. But I still felt a little like a traitor.

The message I got from the sermon is that Jesus sends his disciples out to become fishers of men. And if you happen to catch a gay or lesbian fish, by God you have to throw it back in the water because God doesn't want to eat that kind of fish. That's our Baptismal mission.

But that isn't the faith I believe in. That isn't the kind of Christian I believe we're called to be. And that isn't the kind of God I could love.

The Price Of A Sparrow

Sometimes I really love McDonald's! - and yes, yes I know it's bad for me and I'll have a coronary by the age of thirty, but let's leave that aside, shall we?

Anyway, it was a dark and rainy and cold evening and my brain was hurting from looking at microfiche all afternoon. When I got to the train station, I had nine minutes to catch my train. In that time, I went all the way to the other end of the station, went through the Golden Arches, got dinner, and went back to the train with four minutes to spare. Awesome! Now I'll get home an hour earlier and have more time to waste on addictive Facebook games (you know who you are).

I sometimes wonder, though, if McDonald's and its various spin-offs are hurting my soul. I mean, doesn't it seem like, more and more, we're cut off from the process and only see the final product? I'm not advocating that we rise up and overthrow our capitalist overlords, comrades, but isn't it a bit sad to be cut off from the holistic experience of the entirety of a thing only to know a part of it? I mean, in a way it's backwards from what Marx was on about, because we do see the end, but it's just as fragmentary, just as divorced and segmented.

I sometimes wonder if maybe we want things a little too quickly, and that we take for granted all the things that have to go on in the background. Take my cheeseburger, for example. Somewhere out there, a cow died. And someone had to invent the process for making processed cheese. Not to mention the pickle. Also cooking the think and putting on the ketchup. Someday, they tell us, one too many cows will fart in one two many fields, and the resulting greenhouse gases will tip the global warming process past the point of no return, and all our ecosystems will collapse. While I think we all have the right to eat delicious, nutritious cows, I think maybe we shouldn't take it for granted, that there's something behind a burger that takes five minutes to make and even less to eat.

We want things a little too quickly, a little too glibly. You get mad when the line is too long, when things don't happen instantly, when things just don't seem to be getting done the way they should be (you know: when people just aren't reading your mind, goddamit!). Maybe all this emphasis on fastness is hurting us - or me - in ways I can't even begin to imagine. Maybe we aren't taking the time that we should.

Or maybe I'm just pissy because I haven't written in this blog for so long and because it rained.

So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. (Mt 10:26-31 NIV)

I suppose what this means is that to proclaim the Gospel means loving and praising God with your whole life, and not forgetting that creation is His even though you get to use it. So maybe don't rush things so much, or feel like it all revolves around you, or forget all that goes into it and that it all has a purpose. [and now I win the award for Most Sloppy Biblical Exegesis EVER!!]

But everyone's got to eat. And sometimes I really love McDonald's.

God Being My Helper

Two Sundays ago (I was meaning to write sooner, sorry), I was received into the Anglican communion at SJE as they celebrated the beginning of their Jubilee year. As usual, their liturgy was perfect, full of the things I love (and you can tell they're taking it seriously when there's a rehearsal). I am not indifferent to beautiful ritual.

Everything seemed to come together nicely for me: two years less a day after making my decision to leave the Roman Catholic Church, I was received at a parish whose rich liturgy I love, attended by some people from my home church, and was sponsored by someone I know from school and whom I greatly admire. In short, all the disparate elements of my faith journey coming together.

Many people have asked me why I chose to be received at all, since it makes no tangible difference. After all, they pointed out, I was already receiving Eucharist. I was a reader, on the Parish Council, helped at morning prayer, led a talk on Anglican liturgy, went to Bible study and had been allowed to preach several times. "As far as we're concerned," they said, "you're already Anglican."

I suppose there's no single answer. I wanted to be received because I came from a tradition that values it. Because I believe in the grace that accompanies sacramentals. Because I wanted to make a public declaration of my faith. Because I wanted to feel like I really belong to the Church instead of just being there. Because I love the Anglican Church and wanted to be a part of it in every possible way.

The ceremony itself was fairly simple. The candidates were introduced, then we knelt in front of the bishop. He took our hands and said this: "we recognize you as a member of the one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church and we receive you into the fellowship of this Communion. God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, bless, preserve, and keep you. Amen." We had all renewed our baptismal vows. That we had to promise we believed the Creed before we were received really drives home the point about what the Anglican Church believes it is: a part of the one Church of Jesus Christ. It seems to me that, while we have a distinctive worship and some unique beliefs, what really defines us is our deeper unity with the whole of the Christian Church. It is only in and through oneness that we bind ourselves to this Communion; it is only as Christians catholic and apostolic that the Anglican Church as a way of living our faith embraces us as members.

I felt both happy and relieved. Happy because I'd been waiting for this a very long time. Relieved because I felt like I wasn't in a no-man's land of churchlessness anymore. The time between excommunication and reception was uncomfortable, to say the least!

I'm proud and happy to say I'm Anglican. To be a full member of this Church, to live the baptised life within this Communion.

"Will you endeavor to keep God's holy will and commandments and to walk in the same all the days of your life?"

--I will, God being my helper.

We Will Dance

Went to my church's Worship and Share this evening about spiritual warfare and we sang this great hymn! I've been singing it ever since I got home, so I thought I'd post the lyrics even though everyone (except me) has probably heard it a million times before.

Sing a song of celebration, lift up a shout of praise
for the Bridegroom will come, the Glorious One
and oh, we will look on His Face
we'll go to a much better place

Dance with all your might
lift up your hands and clap for joy
for the time's drawing near, when He will appear
and oh, we will stand by His side
a strong, pure, spotless bride

We will dance on the streets that are golden
the glorious bride and the great Son of man
from every tongue and tribe and nation
will join in the song of the Lamb

--this hymn was written by David Ruis. Enjoy!

Judging Sorrow (Job 9:1-15, 32-35)

[a brief comment from the Daily Office]

The book of Job is interesting because Job questions the understanding of justice found in the rest of the Deuteronomic canon: the idea that if a person is suffering, it’s because of his sins. The idea that the conditions of a person’s life reflect whether God is rewarding or punishing her for things she has done.

Job says, “No, I have done nothing to earn me this pain and hardship.” Job rebels against the biblical interpretation of suffering that other people around him believe.

But that doesn’t mean he thinks he’s perfect, either. He asks, “how can a man be just before God?” (9:2). On the one hand, he means that no one can sue God, as it were, for wrongful suffering and expect to come out of the lawsuit justified as the winner. There’s no one to oversee the trial because no one can judge God. God is not a human being, and everything He does is just. Being angry at God because he’s suffering is not the answer Job is looking for – he has no illusions that God will take responsibility for causing unjust sorrow.

On the other hand, it also isn’t possible for anyone to be just before God, to stand before Him and call oneself sinless. Just because Job has tried to live a good life and hasn’t done anything horribly wrong doesn’t mean he’s sinless. Everyone is a sinner, and God alone is just.

Then why, Job asks, do some people suffer while others don’t? More than anything else, Job wants people to know that bad things haven’t happened to him because he is a bad person who did bad things. They’ve simply happened through no fault of his own.

We all have something to learn from Job because we all reflexively judge people based on what we see of their life. Psychological studies have been done on things like the ‘halo effect,’ for example: we have a cognitive bias that makes us think beautiful people are also good people. The bias also works in reverse. We often assume that a person is very poor or homeless because of his own bad decisions. As a society, we’ve made some progress against the belief that sick people are to be shunned because there’s something wrong about them – we aren’t ashamed about most cancers anymore, because we don’t think a person somehow did something to deserve it. But we do have problems when dealing with mental illness. We do still think people just aren’t trying hard enough to get better when they’re depressed, and we still back away from the psychotic. We also sometimes blame victims of crime for putting themselves in a dangerous position or not being careful enough.

These knee-jerk responses are natural: we’re cognitive misers (our brains are wired to think as little as possible) and evolution has set us up to make certain connections. But Job reminds us that those connections aren’t necessarily true. His suffering, which found a place in the Bible, tells us that we have to work harder at being compassionate toward those in distress, and that we shouldn’t blame them or abandon them. No one is perfect, but no one deserves to suffer, either.

Prayer of the day: Lord, we pray for all people who feel abandoned under the weight of sorrow, illness and despair. We ask that each of them finds in their friends, family and community a place of comfort and respite, and a source of strength. We ask also that we be given the grace to better support the people who depend on us for help, and that we receive the wisdom to see beyond suffering to the human being who suffers.