Remember who you are!

William H. Willimon, the Bishop of The United Methodist Church (who will be offering a public lecture tonight at St Mary’s Anglican church in Kerrisdale, Vancouver, BC) tells the story of how when he was a teenager his mother would say to him, every time he left the house, “Remember who you are!” It was not that his mother was afraid he would forget his name or address. It was her ‘maternal benediction’. It was her way of reminding him that he was the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Remember who you are!

(Singing with the choir)

May the Lord bless you and keep you

May s/he shine a light upon your face

May you feel the heat of God’s glory in your bones

May you know God’s kindness and grace

May God’s love define your ways of living

May you see God’s face among your friends

May you live your story empowered by God love

May you be comfortable walking in your skin

May you find your worth from your maker

And live in freedom all of your days

May you grow in the sense of who you really are

May God’s light show you the way

May you know that you have the power

To add salt and light into this world

May you discover all your gifts 

                   and give them generously

May you listen for God’s every word    

~ Maeve

From my farewell sermon at Trinity United Church in Kitsilano, (Vancouver) BC, 
on Sunday June 5, 2011

Believe Out Loud

Words and Music by David Lohman
© 2010 Welcome Song Music

REFRAIN
It’s time to believe out loud –
no more staying silent!
It’s time to proclaim aloud
the faith that we hold dear.
It’s time to reach out to the rejected.
It’s time to stand up and say, “No more!”
It’s time to create a church in this day
where everyone’s welcomed in the door.
It’s time to believe out loud,
It’s time to be strong and proud,
It’s time to believe, believe out loud.

VERSE 1
Our God remains unchanging,
yet in so many ways
the Holy One’s still speaking,
for this we offer praise.
Yet God’s all-loving guidance
too often goes unheard.
But there is yet more wisdom
to break forth from God’s Word!

VERSE 2
If thoughts like love and justice
are more than hollow words,
we’ll listen for the Spirit
and let our hearts be stirred.
We’ll learn to think in new ways,
the doors we’ll open wide.
The table’s set and ready,
bring everyone inside!

VERSE 3
The love of God is boundless,
we're never turned away.
So we try to be faithful,
to shepherd in the day
when everyone is welcomed,
this is our sacred goal;
when we can say together,
“The Body must be whole!”

VERSE 4
It’s not enough to keep this
locked tight inside my heart
while hiding in the shadows,
afraid to do my part.
I’ve got to stand with millions
who’ve heard the Gospel’s call,
and shout it from the mountains:
“God’s love is meant for all!”

The Emmaus Road - another walk in progress

I recently found the book, Now We Are Six by A.A. Milne, the author of Winnie the Pooh. Of course, I had to buy a copy for Gloria’s and my two 6 year old grandchildren. The other day when I was reading it to one of them  we came across this poem. In the reading of it I somehow found another Emmaus Road… another walk in progress.

Explained      By A. A. Milne

Elizabeth Ann
Said to her Nan:
"Please will you tell me how God began?
Somebody must have made Him. So
Who could it be, 'cos I want to know?"
And Nurse said, "Well!"
And Ann said, "Well?
I know you know, and I wish you'd tell."
And Nurse took pins from her mouth, and said,
"Now then, darling, it's time for bed."

Elizabeth Ann
Had a wonderful plan:
She would run round the world till she found a man
Who knew exactly how God began.

She got up early, she dressed, and ran
Trying to find an Important Man.
She ran to London and knocked at the door
Of the Lord High Doodleum's coach-and-four.
"Please, sir (if there's anyone in),
However-and-ever did God begin?"

But out of the window, large and red,
Came the Lord High Coachman's face instead.
And the Lord High Coachman laughed and said:
"Well, what put that in your quaint little head?"

Elizabeth Ann went home again
And took from the ottoman Jennifer Jane.
"Jenniferjane," said Elizabeth Ann,
"Tell me at once how God began."
And Jane, who didn't much care for speaking,
Replied in her usual way by squeaking.

What did it mean? Well, to be quite candid,
I don't know, but Elizabeth Ann did.
Elizabeth Ann said softly, "Oh!
Thank you Jennifer. Now I know."

The Longing of Mary, the Mother

Beneath this withered tree – 

             branches cross the sky

My heart breaks open for even

God cannot protect the Son

from the crimes of humanity.

Beneath this withered tree – branches cross

as my heart breaks open watching

the soul of my son fly

into the sky.

Beneath this withered tree –  

hope crosses my broken - open heart

as I feel the shelter of a God  that does not control

but bears with us the sorrows of our humanity.

                    

So Much is in the Bud

A reading by John Leax has captured my Lenten imagination. John lives on a small farm in New York State and teaches writing at Houghton College. There is never enough time to do all the work on the farm, and the old orchard, planted long ago by someone on a hillside, is neglected and overgrown. One day John was driving through the large, carefully groomed orchards of central Ontario, and found himself vaguely depressed by the endless rows of well-ordered trees. He reflected on his feeling, and on the sense of being at home in his own little, poorly tended orchard. “Why was that?” he wondered. It had to do, he finally concluded, with the way a small orchard fits into the scheme of creation, with many people caring for their tiny plots of ground. The huge orchards of the conglomerates, on the other hand, were sad reminders of the commercialization of the land.

"Perhaps this is why," he wrote "though I feel my failure to bring the old orchard to fruitfulness, I feel no real guilt, why in fact I feel a sort of pleasure in watching it turn wild and useless. When I walk in it, it tells me that one's caring comes to an end. It tells me that life is lived within the boundaries of extremes, of wildness and domestication. It tells me that my order is not the only order. And in its message I feel comfort."

"We have only begun to imagine the fullness of life.

                  How could we tire of hope? So much is in the bud." 

~ Denise Levertov

 

Crocus-Minded by Jo Sorley

It takes courage to be crocus-minded.
God, I’d rather wait until June,
Like wise roses,
When the hazards of winter are safely behind,
and I’m expected, and everything’s ready for roses.
But crocuses?

Highly irregular.
Knifing through hard-frozen ground and snow,
and sticking their necks out,
because they believe in spring
and have something personal
and emphatic to say about it.

God, I am by nature rose-minded.
Even when I have studied the situation here
and know there are wrongs that need righting,
affirmations that need stating,
and know also that my speaking out may offend . . .

for it rocks the boat . . .
Well, I’d rather wait until June.
Maybe later things will work themselves out,
and we won’t have to make an issue of it.
God, forgive,  Wrongs don’t work themselves out.
Injustices and inequities and hurts don’t just dissolve.
Somebody has to stick her neck out,
Somebody who cares enough to think through
and work through hard ground,
because she believes and has something personal
and emphatic to say about it.
Me God?  Crocus-minded?
Could it be that there are things that need to be said,
and you want me to say them?         I pray for courage.

 I want to thank my colleague Rev. Karen Millard from Squamish United Church for posting this poem

An Irish Blessing (anon)

May God give you...
For every storm, a rainbow,
For every tear, a smile,
...For every care, a promise,
And a blessing in each trial.
For every problem life sends,
A faithful friend to share,
For every sigh, a sweet song,
And an answer for each prayer.

A LENTEN PSALM OF LONGING

In the midst of ambiguity, O God,

in the midst of the messiness 

         of our lives,

Choices that are not clear

lines that are not

solid, sharp, predictable,

In the daily challenge,

in the plunging into the chaos,

uncertainty, doubt,

In all this, O God,

we find you,

God of incarnation, of life

which is neither neat nor clear-cut.

Through our daring

to live into the questions

we encounter you,

God of the questions themselves.

Through our living in chaos,

we encounter you, God of chaos,

God in chaos,

God moving, stirring, bringing to birth

    a new creation.              (anonymous )

 

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent. Its roots lie in the ancient Jewish festival of Yom Kippur, the day of Atonement. Atonement means "at-one-ment" If we are to be one with God, with creation, with each other, and one with ourselves, we must face honestly who we are and open ourselves to the supportive power of God and our faith community in the Lenten struggle for new life. So Ash Wednesday marks a turning away from all that takes away joy so that we might create space for the new life that is to come.

 

Let's give up negativity this Lent!! 

    Our longings 

               invite us to make room 

                             for what is to come!!!

 

Trusting in the melody of God

“It is not the nature of the task but the consecration that is the vital thing.”

 ~ Martin Buber

In a book from the 1940’s, The Reed of God, the author, Caryll Houselander, tells how painful it is to become a reed that carries the melody of God. The flute has to be carved and cut out, it has to have many openings for the breath to come through and for the music to be heard. So too in our lives. Our work will not always be pleasant and easy. There will be times of confusion  and frustration. We will not always want to do the things we are called to do. The pain and stress can be a means of hollowing out, of becoming more open to the music of God. These hollowing out experiences call for faith. Sometimes we simply have to trust in God’s melody and believe, in spite of few results and self doubt that we are each capable of being instruments of God’s dream. 

 

Sometimes that is the wonder of it all. That we can carry the melody of God even  when we feel we cannot carry a tune. Thanks be to the spirit that continually creates harmony out of our lives.

Untangled

If you read a recent front page story of the San Francisco Chronicle, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth. 

A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farallon Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her. They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her. 

When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed them gently around as she was thanking them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth said her eyes were following him the whole time, and he will never be the same. 
  


May our spiritual nourishment of self and others help us get untangled from all that binds us from letting our light shine.

blessings for the new year,

Sally

Blessed is the season...

“Blessed is the season that engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.”                

 The American essayist Hamilton Wright Mabie (1846–1916) wrote.

We have waited for this week of love to arrive and we are invited once again to find our place at the stable where love is born again.

The following story has been passed across cyberspace this season…  

A Nativity Scene was created in a church yard. During the night the folks came across this scene.



An abandoned dog was looking for a comfortable, protected place to sleep. He chose the manger as his comfort.  No one had the heart to send  him away so he was there all  night. 
  

This ‘shepherd’ dog found a way to rest awhile in the love. May it be so for us all.

Blessed is the season...

WAITING… IN JOY "Even though the celebration of Christmas is exploited for business profit and used for selfish purposes; even though the meaning of Christmas is often corrupted; in spite of all this, we all feel the impulse at this time to think of others, to be there for others.

This itself shows what this joy of anticipation is. It is the feeling of human solidarity, the exulting joy in one another... the brightness and fragrance of the Christmas tree under which Christmas gifts are laid - here is light and warmth, symbolizing life and love."

- Emmy Arnold, from "Christmas Joy"

This morning I sat at my desk trying to finish the Sunday bulletin for Advent 3, the Sunday of "Joy". Our church has been using clip-art pictures for our bulletins and I got stuck trying to decide which picture to use. I had narrowed the choices down to a lighted tree set against the snow, or an angel ornament hanging on a tree. I sat there, undecided, trying to decide which picture would best invoke people's sense of joy - until I realized that there was no way I could know. Our experience of joy is completely subjective. What I do know is that joy seems to be both something that can surprise us, but is also a choice we can make. Each of us has the capacity to choose to be open to joy - at least to "actively wait" on joy, trusting in God's promise that joy shall come into the midst of our experiences, even to the parched and dry areas, when we are open to grace and the possibility of transformation. How do we experience joy in Advent? I believe there is a profound joy to be encountered in waiting and anticipation. I think of the joy my six-year old daughter takes these days in helping to decorate the house and make cookies together. Yes, it's fun but her joy I think also reflects her anticipation of Christmas getting closer. We purchased her Advent calendar at the beginning of November and you would not believe the joy she exuded on the first day she was able to start the calendar. Now we are waiting for Grandma to arrive (only 6 more sleeps!) and as her anticipation mounts, so does her joy. Last weekend she was so excited that grandma's visit was close that she decided to make grandma a "homemade gift basket".

So she took a basket and began filling it with "treasures" she found around the house - mini chocolate bars from her leftover Halloween candy, some candles and small stuffed animals, a few pretty ribbons. She has just started learning how to knit, so the remainder of the week was spent knitting what was first going to be a purse, but which eventually ended up as a "potholder" for grandma. When it was finished, she carefully and proudly placed it in the middle of the basket to complete her "homemade gift" for grandma. What struck me was the absolute joy shining in her eyes as we wrapped the basket up in cellophane and tied it with ribbon; joy in anticipation of the joy her gift would bring grandma when she received it. It is said, "and a little child shall lead them..." * * * What do I do while I am waiting? How do I find joy in the waiting? My hope is that I will follow the example of my child, and find joy in the simple things - in sacred moments spent with family and friends, in a quiet cup of tea in the midst of frantic scurrying, in getting covered in flour and sticky fruit, in finding ways to bring joy to others. And in tending the flame of love and light that God kindles in me, as I trust in the promise of new life being born within me and into the life of the world, over and over again.

Advent II Waiting in Peace....




In May of this year my husband and I travelled to Israel for a three-week tour arranged through the Canadian Mennonite University. Throughout the stay, concepts of peace continually became challenged. If there were a place or a people on the planet that might be able to inform us on the concept of “waiting in peace” – it would be here and them. On the third day I looked forward to visiting Hebron – the home of our ancestors Abraham and Sarah. At least four or five times a year, I speak the Godly Play words to a circle of children, “ When Abraham was old and full of years, he was buried next to Sarah, in a cave, near the oaks.” The burial site of Abraham and Sarah is now the location of the Ibrahim Mosque and the Jewish worship site called Tomb of the Patriarchs. These places of worship were open to each other for years – Moslems and Jews intermingling in sacred space. In 1994 a Jewish settler, Dr. Baruch Goldstein, entered the mosque. He killed 29 and injured 125 worshippers who had gathered for Morning Prayer during the holy time of Ramadan.

To enter this holy site now is to walk through an armed enclave- walls erected between the mosque and the Jewish worship site, body searches by young soldiers, weapons at the ready, armed guards on rooftops. Where once a thriving economy blossomed for Palestinian shopkeepers, a few desperate men attempt to scrounge a living for their families.

In the midst of this desperation and threat of violence, our group encountered a woman from a Christian Peacemakers Team. She introduced us to the shopkeepers – inquired of their families and their businesses; she led children through the checkpoints, teasing the soldiers about their harassment; she took time with Israeli soldiers learning their names and engaging in “getting to know you conversation.” At one point a soldier on a rooftop pointed his weapon threateningly at a small group of us. She looked up at him and with a hint of laughter in her voice said, “Put that thing down!” She added as an aside to us – “I just treat them like my sons.”

In a place where peace feels a long way off, where violence, the threat of violence and hatred dominate, a diminutive woman is waiting for peace by offering challenge, support, time and courage. Primarily she is testifying to another way of being. She witnesses to the way of Jesus.

This way of offering a counter story to the dominant story of violence, destruction, consumption and greed may well be part of what it means to wait in the way of advent. How can we begin to live this counter story? How do we claim, through our lives, the story of the one who comes to reconcile and make new? How do we stand against abusive power without feeding the flames of hate?

This was the moment when nothing Happened...


Ursula Askham Fanthorpe, (1929 - 2009) was the first woman nominated as Professor of Poetry at Oxford University.

She wrote this Advent poem:

BC: AD

This was the moment when Before
Turned into After, and the future's
Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.

This was the moment when nothing
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.

This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces.

And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect
Walked haphazard by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven.

We are entering Advent in the Christian calendar. A season of waiting. Our culture hypes up this season of waiting so that it has become a time when everything seems to happen… there are shopping lists and parties and … so much to do…. and yet for some of us in the church it truly is a moment when nothing is happening and so we wait…
We wait with the few farm workers and the obscure Persian sect
and the expectant family walking haphazardly into …
What do you do while you wait… are you counting days, making listings, creating strategies, reading the trends…
What do you do while you wait with hope for the unexpected?