"full of sap and flourishing"

And the end of a rather pretty but not terribly accomplishing kind of a Sunday draws near -- 10:15 p.m. and the sun just setting, lots of light still in the sky, and almost a week left to run before the solstice.

Trying to put some order into my days and nights here, to not very much avail; but it's becoming clearer that certain things like medications and daily tasks will have to be assigned to specific regular times every day.

And one of those tasks will be CALENDAR DRILL.  Twice in the past week I've simply gone oblivious of events I really quite wanted to, and intended to, be present at, and enjoy.  They were written on the calendar -- but I was somehow mesmerized by the thought of a FREE DAY with NOTHING ON THE SCHEDULE, so I forgot what WAS on the schedule, and there you are.

However I did manage today to lay out the daytimer, the weekly white-board calendar, the four-month white-board calendar, and make them all talk to each other.  And then I found time and energy to extirpate a certain number of dead or dying houseplants.

And I did also manage to do a kind of cursory inventory of the pantry, and a survey of the grocery flyers, and then went out to one Wholesaler, one greengrocer, two supermarkets, and the (sh!) liquor store, so we are all well stocked for the moment.  "We" being self and cat, you understand.

Tomorrow I have to pick rhubarb some more, and deliver it to the processors. Then I have: one seminar, two meetings at different sites, and supper with #1 Grandbaby and her parents...all grand and good!

And part of the attempt to improve the shining hour is a return to Morning Prayer.  The title of this post was in this morning's Psalm, Old Style,as a Blessed and Graced Condition of the elderly.  It might have needed the Oxford comma,but as it is I like the ambiguity, being,most days, "full of flourishing," if not "sap."  (Query: is "sap" perhaps the Hebrew equivalent of the better known P and V???) (or maybe "beans and gravy," if that's your locution?)

So for today, "that's all,folks....."

Pentecost 20C -- got faith?

The point -- if there was a point of this sermon (notes below) was that the miracle done by faith is NOT the miracle of the spontaneously supernaturally uprooted mulberry tree.  The miracle is not moving the mulberry tree but moving the disciple[s].  The folks seemed to be happy with that -- and then we had a great potluck lunch.  There were little kids and even a three week old baby to cuddle...

Pentecost 20, preached at  St Swithin’s in the Swamp, October 6, 2013.

I speak with you this morning in the presence of God.  AMEN.

All summer and into the fall we have been reading in the gospel of Luke; and if we were going to put a title on what we’ve been reading, it might well be, “Things we wish Jesus hadn’t said.”  More formally, we might call them “The Hard Sayings…” – not necessarily hard in the sense tht we don’t understand what he means – sometimes hard in the sense that we are afraid we DO understand what he means, and we’re not sure we like it.  At the very least, Jesus upsets the disciples’ expectations, and our expectations as well. //a signal to pay attention//

This morning’s reading from the gospel is one of these passages.  Look with me for a few minutes at what happens.  The disciples ask to be given more faith.  What a natural, innocent, harmless, blameless request – the kind of thing one might well say in hard or challenging circumstances//lamentations//. 

But how does Jesus respond – does he say, “Why, sure, I thought you’d never ask” and comply with this Perfectly Reasonable Request?  Not a bit of it.  He is quite rude about their request, in fact.  He tells them they don’t have any faith at all (you can almost hear the “Huh”) and then he says something quite wild about a mulberry tree, and wraps up with a gratuitous scolding about something else entirely.

What on earth is going on here?  Something seems to have been wrong with the request!  1. What did they really want? 2. And why didn’t Jesus give it to them?

1.    He’s just told them about the obligation to forgive – and it’s a hard one.  So before they start in forgiving, they say, “if you give us enough faith, we’ll do it” – or, more likely, “if you don’t give us more faith, we’re not even going to try.”  “Increase our faith” turns out to mean, “give us more strength, more power ~~ make this task easier ~~ and then we’ll do it.”  “FAITH” is a kind of magic, a kind of superpower, that will keep the life of a disciple from costing us anything, including failure.

2.   And Jesus doesn’t give it to them; in fact he mocks their desire to do what they – and we – must do by supernatural means.  God does not do for us what we can do for ourselves.  That mulberry tree is there to demonstrate this.  If we want that mulberry tree flung into the sea, we can manage it without divine intervention, without extraordinary spiritual power… //lady evangelist story about new Christians wanting spiritual power – wouldn’t exercise what they already had//

3.   The word “exercise” takes us deeper into Jesus’ program here.  The disciples do need more faith (and often, so do we); and faith is a gift from God; but it is a gift like the other gifts we are given, such as a talent for music, or a capacity for athletic accomplishment.  None of these gifts comes as a wrapped-up, ribbon-tied accomplishment – every such gift is a gift of “potential” – not the finished expertise, or virtue, but something like “a kit” – some assembly is required; some exercise is required; some practice is required )Carnegie Hall story). Such gifts  never mere luxuries or mere ornaments, always given in response to need – courage, patience, only present where they are needed (in great fear, in great frustration)…  They don’t “make things easy” – they make us willing to confront what is hard.

4.   When we want to have the spiritual gift, such as faith, in its perfect form before we undertake the tasks that are set before us, we get the process backwards.  We have been given enough faith to start to be obedient in some small things – and by our obedience we find a) the limits of our faith[fulness] and b) the faithfulness of God toward us c)the increase in faith that we have desired – not in our own spiritual “easiness,” but in our capacity to be a blessing to other people, to our community, and to our world…

 

...mit Frolocken...

It's snowing here this afternoon -- fat fluffy flakes; earlier in the day, they were smaller, and there was just enough of a breeze to toss them about in Brownian motion between our house and the house next door.  But now they're just enough heavier that they're falling almost straight down.  I'll have to shovel out tonight before I go to bed.  But it's all right -- it's not what the friends-who-are-nurses call "cardiac snow."

Shortly, however, I'm on my way to spend the evening with Delightful Grandbaby.  She is 10 months old today (less the five weeks she missed in utero).  She can sit herself up; she can crawl, she makes wonderful games out of clapping and waving and uttering funny noises.  Last Monday  we had a game with hiccups.  I patted her back; she hicc'ed.  When she hicc'ed -- I hicc'ed, just to demonstrate solidarity.  She looked at me dubiously -- she seemed to detect a certain lack of depth and authenticity about my performance.  But after half a dozen or so, she solemnly reached up and patted me on the chest.  "You pat me, Grandma, I'll pat you, we'll get the upper hand of these darn hiccups somehow."

Spent yesterday afternoon in a special kind of study on Romans 8, guided by the old Fifth Evangelist, there, at the head of the post...in the motet "Jesu meine Freude".  Singers comprising friends of my children and children of my friends -- or both.  Conductor: the Poppa of Delightful Grandbaby.   We are a very BACH family.

Does anybody else listen to Bach for the WORDS?  My gain yesterday was Frolocken.  I know that in standard orthography it's Frohlocken.  But without the "h" somehow -- it's more FROLICSOME.  And I love it.  Frolocken forever.  And more of the style of devotion, of thinking and feeling, that invites that rejoicing.

Bach does me good.  Thanks be to God and thanks be to the old Kapellmeister -- and to the young one, and to all his Musikant friends, too.

creeping back toward the light...

It’s 6:30.  The furnace thinks I’m now out of bed, and is kicking the temperature up to 68 F accordingly (from 64 overnight, not bad).

I’ve been up for some time – about an hour and a half.  I’ve read a National Geographic article on the Lakota people and life on the rez in South Dakota.  I’ve read quite a lot of Zadie Smith, review essays in a collection called Changing My Mind.  It’s due at the public library tomorrow.  Maybe I can figure out how to renew it on line?

I’ve taken my meds, and drunk a glass of water, and eaten two pieces of toast (home-made bread: one with peanut butter, one with honey) and made a POT of coffee from fresh-ground, and drunk most of a mug of it.

Finished the big crossword from the weekend paper.  Bundled the weekend paper into the recycle bin.  Unloaded the dishwasher from yesterday, and put odds and ends of dirty things in it.  Disassembled and cleaned my espresso pot.  Added skim milk to my shopping list. 

Considered for a bit just what I want to think of as DONE by bedtime tonight: organize my Christmas cards and list…put clean clothes away…write the better part of 50 personal notes to enclose with a seasonal charity appeal…box up some journals for transfer to a library elsewhere…clean the cat’s box…clean the email inbox!!!  Write a half dozen overdue letters…vacuum and mop the kitchen floor…clear the kitchen table, the dining-room table, and the laundry-room table.  Make a start on the pantry.  Concoct vegetable stock for soup base.  Think a bit about a meal plan for this week.

Straightened up the sofa cushions (where I slept the first part of the night last night).  Made the 187^th reaffirmation of resolution not to do that again…

8:30.  Bathed, dressed, ready for the day (using the term loosely).  The usual swathe of Hummers and Escalades bearing junior-elementary types to the school over the way has come and gone again.  It’s looking like a cloudless day on the way (sun just barely-barely UP).  Had a glass of juice and read today’s paper and did the easy Monday puzzles (“Japanese sash” in three letters, first letter “o” and last letter “i”), read the obits and the comics and glanced at the editorials.  Disregarded the sports section.  The National Classic next week involves only the Hated Calgaries and the Hated Torontoes, I am cheering for both of them to lose.

I think I can take this day in 20-minute lumps, if I pace myself.  So the next 20-minute lump will be Mattins.  

Midnight.  The first reading for Mattins was from I Maccabees.  It included just about my favourite Scripture verse EVER: "et cecidit elephans super ipsum, et mortuus est illic."  And the elephant fell on him.  And he died.  Well, you WOULD, wouldn’t you?

Spent a happy evening babysitting the wonder-grandbaby.  She was undeceived by her parents’ surreptitious departure to choir practice, and disposed briefly to fist-fight her grandma over the Bedtime Question, but settled down and went to sleep quite promptly anyway.

Roads were good, but fog settling in as I drove home.  Tomorrow is also a day—and I can’t find my keys.

something attempted, something done

Well, it's been kind of a fun day in the Interim Ministry department.  A lovely long confab with Marvelous Deacon filled the late morning hour...then Lunch and Lectionary with M Deacon and Fab Traveling Companion over Solomon, and the Temple, and the power of incense to knock clergy on their backs, and the status of "furriners'" prayers, and the whole armour of God, and the ever-lovin' bread of life YET AGAIN, and "Who you gonna call?" and all like that, all interspersed with munching on our own Desperately Healthy lunches.

Oh and during lunch -- phone calls.  St. Curious Too has more dang-nab phones -- land lines -- on the premises than any church I've ever entered.  So far I haven't found any phones in the washrooms, but EVERYWHERE else.  In consequence I had a fine conversation with a Victim Services lady in Herring-Choker Province, where they are fixing to incarcerate a young man found in possession of items stolen from the premises of St. Curious Too, back when (before my time).  Would we like to fill out a VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT prior to his sentencing?  So that has come, by email.  And then a call from a young man in search of a baptismal certificate.

Fortunately, I was able to tell him that it was on my desk and will be in the mail within 24 hours.  He and I had had previous conversations about the Catch-22 situation he was facing, and we with him: "We can't issue you a certificate because we do not have the baptismal register under our eye.  Nor can you be re-baptized, because we know you were baptized.  But we do not know that in a form or to a degree which permits us to issue a certificate.  But you can't be re-baptized, because" and a-la-main left, and around we go again.  

About the fourth circuit of the problem I bethought me of the old Book of Common Prayer, with its wise and pragmatic and pastoral provision for when the circumstances of a prior baptism are not clear enough to satisfy the priest.  Not its only liturgical recognition that STUFF HAPPENS, and the stuff that HAS happened, is quite likely to happen again, so let us have a nifty little ceremony, here, just to cover that eventuality.

The Book of Alternative Services sounds pretty raw by comparison -- coming out of an era when I guess we were still somewhat convinced that "nothing could go wrong go wrong go wrong go wrong go wrong"  because we were all so clever and right-minded...

As it turned out, the Archives of Prairie Province had the register in question, and produced us a splendid document attesting to what is in the record, so our young man should be able to stand up and godfather his Roman Catholic friend's baby, and all's well all around.

And then, finally, a home communion visit with healing prayer for the couple who are filling my life with vegetables, after the manner of retired Prairie farmers of Slavic heritage.

Tomorrow -- day off -- will be a perfect ORGY of sugar, salt, vinegar, and Mason jars.  About six kinds of pickles, and chili sauce.

whew

trying to put together the reading (I Corinthians 15, natch) for tomorrow's funeral with the reflection upon it -- I can do this, and have done it, with a small (very small!) group of hearers, but this is likely to be a big (monster big) funeral. And I'm feeling a bit...spooked by the prospect. Prayers would be welcome!

language, and text, and liturgy, and like that there.

I am trying to establish a habit of blogging at the end of the day, but there is a little pause right here, and "the kids" or some of them are coming for supper in about three-quarters of an hour, so before I get the chicken going, I think I'll just make this post and let it stand. I really, really, really, wanted to get this up -- it's from a recent review in the Times Literary Supplement, of Harold Bloom's latest book on the Bible, and Cummings' work on the Book of Common Prayer. It -- and other insights in the review -- dovetail so well with Mary Beard's essay on the "future" of the classics, in the most recent New York Review of Books all about how reading and studying these texts is a matter of entering into dialogue with those who wrote them and with everyone who has ever read them since. Here we go:

"Liturgy is like a vast cognitive tapestry, in which text reaches within and around to meet other texts; in which one human experience is grafted onto another. The words of Morning Prayer or of Baptism in the seventeenth century, or for that matter in the twenty-first, contain the words of all previous centuries back to the time of the Roman Empire, and in some cases hundreds of years earlier, back to the rituals of Jewish communities at the beginning of recorded meaning."
--Brian Cummings, editor, The Book of Common Prayer: the texts of 1549, 1559, and 1662.

Mary Brown at work again...

A quiet day at home with some useful tidying and re-organizing, and some overdue writing projects out of the way, a book review, and a letter.

Slept a bit later than usual, which felt good; said Morning Prayer, read for recreation for a bit, then got up to a porridge breakfast and some kitchen work. Listened to the Gabrieli Consort, singing the Praetorius Christmettein the background.

So, not everything accomplished that I hoped for, but eliminated some clutter and consolidated some resources, and passed the time pleasantly.

Interested in the PBS series on Martin Luther, some new perspectives on that history.

Picked up a link to a NY Timescolumn by Sam Anderson: "What I really Want is Someone Rolling Around in the Text." Anderson is chiefly concerned with the technological possibility that e-readers of various sorts will soon allow us to make marginal notes, underline, and scribble, and comment on "the text" in a way comparable to our practise with the printed word on paper in bound codices. More, that we shall be able to share our "marginalia" instantaneously...

But what intrigues me is the overlap, kind of a Venn diagram arrangement, between what Anderson says over his shoulder about reading as a dialogue both with other readers and with the text, and with what Mary Beard wrote very recently in the same publication about the "future of the Classics" -- she goes so far as to suggest that classical study has always been, essentially, the conversation among those who read the texts -- including those who WROTE the texts.

And that makes me think again about my "personal hermeneutic". I am most at east with a kind of reader-response approach to the text: "what is happening in and to us as we read and hear these words in this order?" but my recent reading suggests more ramifications to this process.

and that redounds to preaching as well, of course. No end to it.

Productive Tuesday!

and the evening and the morning were the SECOND day.

Arranged to meet a good friend for breakfast this morning and after pursuing breakfast around Prairie Metropolis for an hour we gave up and came back to Tether's End and made do with what was on hand here...and conversed for the rest of the morning, which was delightful.

Lots of chores yet to do this evening, the couch ate me this afternoon while my attention was diverted. It's in cahoots with the cat. She got up and sat on me, most unfairly, and gave off sleep-waves all afternoon.

I have embarked on a Daring New Project -- I am reading the Bible. According to the tiny-print tables and charts in the front of the Canadian Book of Common Prayer, 1959 edition. Fortunately, I have a couple of those nice little bookmark magnifiers as supplied by the Canadian Bible Society. Timing the Evening Prayer stint is trickier than timing Morning Prayer (of course). So I have at hand my white leatherette zippered-up KJV that my aunt and uncle gave me for my 15th birthday (about the time of my confirmation -- first time around!), and the white leather BCP with hymn book that my soon-to-be in-laws gave me for my confirmation (SECOND time around!) when I was 21... and I think I am going to enjoy this. Just reading it for nourishment, not for study, not for sermonizing, just reading, laying one piece alongside another and watching for sparks to fly.

Because I am thinking it is about time for my personal theology to undergo spring cleaning and/or extensive renovations. Along with my abode and my own somewhat road-weary personal chassis!

This evening: laundry; and correspondence; kitchen-tidying; journal-time; and perhaps one other small, discrete, do-able tidying project somewhere in the house. Supper's over; time to get at it.

just for now...

On Having Misidentified A Wild Flower
By Richard Wilbur

A thrush, because I'd been wrong,
Burst rightly into song
In a world not vague, not lonely,
Not governed by me only.

back later, I hope.

and here I am, after another good day. I made a pastoral call this morning -- getting mileage out of my new white blazer, and very happy with the effect of the white jacket over black clerical shirt and slacks...

Mrs. B and I had a mutually satisfactory time talking about the poetry we remember and how different it sounds to us in our "old age"...and how grateful we are to have been made to learn so much by heart when we were younger.

This led on to reflections on the pastoral and homiletic utility of English poetry in ministry to seniors...how much they recognize, how much they remember -- I'm talking about things like Tennyson (In Memoriam and "Crossing the Bar") and Kipling and Browning and Leigh Hunt ("Abou ben Adhem").

It has been a very pastoral-visit kind of week -- this was the third -- and I have been writing thank-you notes, and I have a phone-call to make tomorrow -- then wallop the lections into submission for Sunday's sermon, and do the shopping and pre-prep for our students' supper on Sunday evening.

The sermon "series" is going well. I am working in part from Chrysostom's principles e.g. that Jesus ALWAYS knows EXACTLY what he is doing -- and that he is manoeuvring his auditory (sometimes a doubled one, disciples and crowd, or disciples and Syro-Phoenician woman) into seeing for themselves what they would resist if it were simply offered to them didactically. If there is a theme, it would be "Jesus is the Lord of Improv." (I have theatre-folks of great age and eminence in the congregation, and they leap about gleefully, within their limits, whenever I talk about the theatricality of the gospel stories. It is FUN!)

At the end of the day I had a good supper at home: a nice modest-sized piece of steak, a baked potato with a sliver of blue cheese, and a great wad of fresh spinach cooked helpless and anointed with balsamic vinegar. Introduced by a large bowl of salad -- as Peg Bracken said, it fills the stomach and tires the jaws, and that's all good.

Oh yes! a beautiful lunch with The Lady Father today, by way of celebrating BIRTHDAY!

updates

far, far too long since I've blogged...

I'd feel worse i.e. guiltier if I weren't aware of a general slackening in blog-energy among many posting folks.

At the moment -- Monday again -- second load of laundry on the go, one more in the queue, big basket of clean things, some of them requiring ironing, to get through before bedtime.

I am awaiting a phone-back from a housing agency...I'm researching potential beneficiaries of next year's homelessness campaign by the Council of Churches here in Prairie Metropolis. As the committee meets in about 4 hours...well, my info will be FRESH at least.

I have taken all my pills for the day ("And behold, there was a rattling")...I have unloaded the dishwasher from last night and begun the re-load process.

I have given my sourdough starter a shot of sugar, may get something baked a little later...

I have put together a big bowlful of yogurt-ingredients and set them in a warm oven to get acquainted with each other; will check on them about dinner time to see if they've "yogued" as desired.

Meantime took the remainder of my store-boughten yogurt and made a Tupperware container of Wiggly Pink Dessert.

Emptied the carton of Oldest Eggs and hard-cooked them for further developments.

In preparation for the yogurt-making, went downstairs to the pantry and was ruthless with the top two foodshelves--in the process found canned milk and thereby avoided an unnecessary jaunt to the supermarket. Brought upstairs, also, cans of cut green and wax beans, kidney beans, chick peas, toward an eventual four-bean salad after the manner of Peg Bracken, UWBP.

Read the Daily Howl...gnashing teeth in an encouraged sort of way over picture-story of clerical colleague and his 45 lb. weight loss ("We hates him, my precious, we hates him").

Eliminated about 50 emails from the inbox, and twiddled about on Facebook to no great effect. Greeted a couple of REAL friends, electronically, on their birthdays.

Yesterday was full...preached and presided at St. Curious in the morning, both services, the Rector being on R & R in the Pointier Bits of the province; home by way of grocery store, made substantial lunch for self and #1 Son with open faced hamburger sandwiches and vegetable accompaniments.

Napped...awakened by loud and prolonged ringing of doorbell...Near Neighbour on the doorstep begging permission to sleep overnight in his family's (old, somewhat rusty) van, parked for convenience' sake in the backyard here at Tether's End. Near Neighbour's indulgences in recreational chemicals have broken off all relations with every member of his family including wife and grown daughters across the street. Befuddled with sleep and surprise, gave permission. Regretting it.

Away in the early evening in considerable perturbation of spirit, see above, for ordination of Promising Young Person whom I took on pre-ord retreat Wednesday-Friday...a pleasant, restful, candid, conversational time. Nice service, REAL hymns (as opposed to Vapid Mooings), a sufficient turnout (in some respects -- certain constituencies need a collective head-slapping, but what else is new?)...excellent sermon by the Brand-New Dean, to everyone's enjoyment...and pleasant conversations following, until the Cathedral Verger turned the lights out on us in a marked manner at 10 p.m. As he was amply entitled to do.

Enjoyed watching --and hearing-- Daughter Unit and Wonder SIL and their accomplices augmenting the cathedral choir during the service, and relished the opportunity to admire DU's New Frock afterward -- said garment registering about 73.5 Hepburns on the Classic Fashion Scale. (Audrey, i.e.)

Slept fitfully ... woke early and piled up pillows and completed the crossword of the day in my NY Times Crossword Calendar (Mondays are easiest)...and then, feeling encouraged, finished off the TLS Shakespeare Acrostic. I had forgotten how much fun they are to do.

Time to go bash upon the laundry some more, turn on the shredder, generally fill-in the phone-call-expecting time as productively as possible!

another day.

Nothing accelerates housecleaning like the imminent prospect of house-guests, I think.

Brother Unit arrives tomorrow evening, and all, but ALL, tomorrow morning is taken up with a para-academic meeting--a bit difficult at this point to believe it will be worth the time it will take, but there it is.

So it's going to be an intense weekend...as I'm preaching and presiding at St. Curious on Sunday, with a parish lunch group scheduled for the noon time -- and have already arranged with Offspring to blitz the remaining belongings still back at MH & U on Sunday afternoon, with their help and temporary use of a suitable TRUCK. I hope that a couple of hours will allow us to vanish permanently into the middle distance, leaving not a wrack behind or at least, if we do leave a wrack behind, it will be a wrack belonging to MH & U, not belonging to me. I also have -- hurray -- a nice little cache of gift cards for Adjacent Steakhouse so am prepared to feed the office movers sumptuously Saturday evening...

Today is cleaning day and sermon day. Last load of laundry is in the washer. Have moved nearly all the bags and boxes of books off the entrance landing and stairs.

Part of the housework project at this point is dealing with the semi-perpetual Miserable Nuisances that have never been just quite nuisance enough to be dealt with yet. So this morning I found a tube of appropriately Savage Glue, and re-attached the magnet latch to the medicine cabinet door, clamped it with a clothespin until the glue dried, and voila, the medicine cabinet door now actually CLOSES. Civilization! wonderful!

Still on the list, serious application of vacuum cleaner to the premises and some mopping of hard floors. Bathroom and kitchen need intense cleaning too... and there should be a trip to the recycle depot.

I have added three elderly bowlfuls of pot-pourri to the compost bin, and am washing the bowls. (Pause to lie down and have the vapours...) It's been a considerable time since there was any "sniff" in any of them. (Note that the Rambler is now open to receive new consignments of roses for the concoction of new pot-pourri, sigh).

Got the bills paid and the car washed earlier in the week...led the third section of the evening course I'm doing on the Passion Gospels. Buoyed by a re-reading of Isaiah 55 from Sunday's lectionary, the group seemed a little more persuaded by the analogy between lectio divina and the eating of rich things like chocolate.

And for my bedtime reading I am midway through Finding Beauty in a Broken World, by Terry Tempest Williams...the making of mosaics, prairie dogs in Bryce Canyon, and now, ossuaries in Rwanda...

Back to finding a little beauty in my excessively messy world!

oh the difference...

Yesterday was intense.

Fifteen hours from arrival at MH & U in the morning to pulling out of the parking lot en route home in the evening...

Saturday was spent MOSTLY at the church as well, on the periphery of madly energetic cleaning-up going on indoors and outdoors. Most of it pretty good work, but some of it pretty mindless. "Let's clean up the chancel, and let's start by unplugging everything and leaving it that way." "Let's clean up the narthex, and let's start by gathering up all the little church-front portable easel signs, and HIDING THEM SOMEWHERE." Somewhere remote from the front door, which of course is where they're deployed.

I didn't sleep very well Saturday night, and arriving at church to find these...anomalies...produced something close to a clerical meltdown, I am embarrassed to say. Running about of churchwardens, "It's OK, Rambler. It'll be all right. We'll just ask the congregation at announcement time, where the signs went. Just be calm. You're OK."

The assistant preached in exemplary fashion... it is such a blessing to have the stimulus of another preacher on the premises...especially when his work evokes the "yes-indeed-but-on-the-other-hand" Anglican response. Leading me to reflect on the difference between statements of fact and statements of truth. (not wanting to think about statements of cornmeal mush, which constitute most of the preaching one hears.)

Got through the second service. (Signs were duly produced at announcement time, expressions of injured innocence all 'round.)

Lined up to get invitation/ticket from Ticket Maven. Accosted in line-up by Exemplary Laywoman reminding me that the "youth" were awaiting me for their confirmation class. Came "this close" to biting said laywoman right in the goozle for asking me to be in two places at once...she retreated, prudently.

Got ticket, had confirmation class, worked through prayer of consecration with little children while big children looked on. We have NINE, count'em, NINE confirmands for the service in October, and at least a couple of baptizands, it's all delightful.

Co-ordinated perceptions with Ticket Maven Lady and sent her off to phone Chronic Stayers-Away lest they show up the Sunday AFTER the royal hoo-hah, and then the screaming begins, again.

Worked on paperwork all afternoon barring quick dash out for a lunch/supper pizza.

Back to computer at 6:35 and wrote sermon for Evensong (Choral) which happened at 7 pm, attended by members of Prairie Metropolis and Hinterland Council of Churches, and a few parishioners, and, God bless and reward them, a solid phalanx of choir.

There was chanting, Anglican chanting, big time.

Preached on Jeremiah 31:1-13, Ephesians 5, and ecumenism with reflections from John 17 (from the morning services).

Sang lovely Anglican evening hymns too..."O Gracious Light, Lord Jesus Christ" (Tallis), "Light of the World, in Grace and Beauty" (Rendez a Dieu), and "Day is Done, But Love Unfailing" (Ar Hyd Y Nos). MOST satisfying to one and all.

Then convened and chaired AGM of Council of Churches, which went well despite no-shows and no-replies (and no minutes -- my fault)...and wrapped up evening with "whining and cheesiness" supplied by the Very Forgiving Laywoman who had narrowly escaped being Rambler-bitten earlier in the day.

And so, as they say, to bed.

All in all, a good day.

And, I'm happy to say, a good night's sleep, which made all the difference today!

a breathless hush...

...before we go gurgling into the vortex of the Triduum.

It is a lovely sunny late afternoon...I ventured out for some lunch and then went to the Stupor-Store for last-minute groceries: hot cross buns and grape juice for the children tomorrow (WHITE grape juice, in consideration of the carpet) -- bought matzoth earlier in the week... also several pounds of small foil-wrapped solid chocolate Easter eggs. At the door, after the Vigil and after the two services Easter Sunday morning, I slip Easter eggs to folks as I shake hands with them. It is amusing to see how far some folks walk before it registers that they are now holding a small, solid object. (Children 'get it' instantly, of course.)

Also bought a package of knee-high stockings, our new Hon. Assistant having expressed his intention to wash the Rambler's feet tonight... there are too many funny stories in circulation already about church-ladies forgetting NOT to wear panty-hose or tights, and divesting themselves at the last minute, undercover of albs, cassocks, prayer-desks -- and, for all I know, dossal curtains too.

Our Holy Week eucharists have been well attended, within the parameters of that term...never fewer than a half-dozen since Monday...this is unusual and heartening.

There are masses of flowers ready for the decoration of the chancel on Saturday.

Two of my most reliable elderly gents in the parish decided they couldn't stand my office windows any longer (spring fever takes odd forms), and set themselves to clean them on the outside one afternoon this week (fortunately with long-handled squeegees rather than ladders etc.) -- they launched into this task complete with audible commentary on each other's performance, capacity, parentage, etc., while I was attempting to engross the attention of a drop-in couple looking for a July wedding venue.

The slip-slopping of the squeegees and the commentary were rather more than the young folks' attentiveness could cope with. Too funny.

One of these gentlemen is the artificer of our new aumbry (and much else both beautiful and useful); the other is the donor-elect of the Sanctuary Lamp. The latter helps out at the early Sunday service as acolyte and intercessor. He panicked over the prayer list on Palm Sunday and requested our prayers on behalf of "Verona-kwee"... in spite of coaching beforehand ("Vay-roe-NEEK, Vay-roe-NEEK")...ah well.

This week, by the way, we've used the Introit and Tract Psalm sections laid out in the old Book of Common Prayer rubrics for Holy Week. It was a fascinating experience; there's a real trajectory of feeling and insight and response if you lay them out all end to end, from "help help, they're going to hurt me" to "Let all the people praise thee..."

Pentecost Ten

PENTECOST TEN – preached at Most Holy and Undivided, July 20th, 2008.
We begin this morning with the famous dream vision of Bethel. And the key sentence, the one that jumps out, is “Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it!” Why is this crucial? because Jacob is above all a “knower” – he is making his way by being smarter-than-everybody … his brother, his father, his uncle Laban… and this admission that he has NOT known is one moment of -“metanoia” – the moment of turning around. The other one comes later – they are like book-ends at either end of his experience of exile in a foreign land – the other one happens when he is on his way home again. But this is a starting place…the acknowledgement of NOT KNOWING something very, very important. It colours what comes later, too. Stay tuned. This story gets more and more interesting as it goes along. Jacob is an entire rascal, and he's had to remove himself from his family because of it, and yet he is the chosen instrument of God’s purpose for Israel…a great conundrum.
The Psalm is a kind of response to it…the tension between knowing and being known…and the conclusion might be no more than a shrug – “God knows [so I don’t have to]”… but beyond the commonplace that God knows all about us, and there’s just NO getting away from him, comes the plea that God’s knowledge of us will be applied to our good. We don’t know God, and we don’t know ourselves: “Search me out, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my restless thoughts. Look well… and lead me.” If we were to translate this…”I have no idea whether I’m doing the right thing or not. You know. Please take a good look, and tidy up and re-direct as necessary.”
What an amazingly liberated and liberating way to pray, to think about one’s conscience…”God, I’m depending upon you to put me to rights…because it’s your responsibility.” And at the same time the ultimate expression of obedience…literally we say, “I cannot call my soul my own – HURRAY!”
And then, in this context, we hear St. Paul… what does this mean, this set of Hebrew experiences and insights and expressions? It finds its meaning in Jesus Christ, and its meaning for US is that we stand before God in exactly the same place as Jesus Christ…that God looks at us with the same love, the same cherishing, the same delight, that he takes in his #1 Son. All of us. It’s important to know that the term “children of God” was fairly loosely bandied about in the ancient world. That’s why Paul goes on at the length he does…and the spirit is within us – remember that that is the spirit of GOD, the Holy Spirit, as we glimpsed last week…it is not only our Advocate, and our Comforter, but our Coach and Prompter in prayer – if you can imagine the Holy Spirit saying in our ear, “Psst, try saying THIS to God…” and making little encouraging noises .
Now what does this have to do with the state of the world around us? It gives us a place to stand in order to UNDERSTAND, the parable of the weeds of the field… and the general messed-up-ness of everything, sometimes including ourselves. [anecdote of church sign. Again, we have a sentence expressing the central insight: “an enemy has done this.” OK, fine. But what do WE do now? We see through the trap… set for us by “that which is NOT OF GOD.” – the existence of evil/harm/suffering/sin/wickedness in the world which IS God’s. it is a kind of Catch 22 trap… [“weeds” is kind of an inadequate word, here, as I understand it; this was actually a plant that appeared to mimic the wheat quite closely but was very toxic… discussion the other night about various kinds of apparently wholesome foodstuffs that can make us miserably ill if we don’t recognize their presence in what we’re eating!] We can see ourselves as harmed/trapped by the action of “the enemy” in two ways… either the weeds grow up and spoil the crop, choke out the good wheat or poison the reapers; or in our indignation we ourselves spoil the good wheat by tramping about in it trying to root out all the weeds by our own efforts.
But that perceived trap is only real if we forget our other experiences, the moments that our other readings have brought together for us this morning. The experience that is Jacob’s moment…of suddenly realizing that we have been in the presence of God all along—AND WE STILL ARE. And of knowing that God perceives what is good and what is bad in a way, and with a completeness, that we will never be able to attain in this life—AND HE’S STILL DOING IT. And of recognizing that this mixture of what is wholesome and what is harmful is not just the reality of the world; this is the reality of our own selves, where only God can pick apart weeds and wheat—AND WILL KNOW WHEN AN IF IT’S RIGHT TO DO SO--.Thanks be to God because our own desire to rip, tear, and uproot is so unsupported by knowledge, understanding, vision. Particularly troublesome in the church – we can make it perfect by just rooting out all the people whose opinions, manners, customs, style, thinking, don’t match our precious own. Especially troublesome at the moment – when patience, forbearance are particularly difficult and challenging...a time of groaning for many people on every side of every issue.
QUOTE from Bishop Mwamba: "Let us then straight, gay, liberal, conservative, moderate, Anglo-Catholic, Evangelical, traditionalist, Africans and Americans, Asians, Europeans get into each other's worlds and be enriched in the discovery of our oneness in Christ and together enlarge God's kingdom of love where everybody has a seat at the table."

"Let's beware of excommunicating each other here on earth. For we shall find in heaven we are still bound together at the table of Christ's love. Archbishop Akinola sitting next to Bishop Gene Robinson for such is the kingdom of God."

God is in the place, and we do not know it; seeing what we do not see, knowing what we do not know, doing what we cannot do, loving what -- and whom -- we cannot love...in order that all his beloved may shine like the sun, and his whole creation come to its fullness in the light of his glory. Thanks be to God.

egads, a leitmotif

It's always interesting, sometimes a bit of a shock as well, to LISTEN to the lections read aloud by other people after however long I've spent wrangling with them during the week ... the "lines" that jump out of the undergrowth are amazing.

And the great line this morning -- I didn't preach on it, but it would make a terrific office-wall decal -- was Rebekah's complaint: "If it is to be this way, why do I live?"


It just applies to SO MANY situations...

I'd like an anthology of utterances in which the people of God blow raspberries at the whole shebang: e.g. Jonah, "Yea, I do well to be angry..." and so forth.

Trinity Sunday, and other excitements...

I haven't posted a sermon in a while so HERE is what I'm saying in the morning, God willing. It is going to be a marathon of a service -- two little people to baptize and an elaborate dedication of new altar frontal, superfrontal, and candlesticks. They won't let me have any smoke to do this properly, so I have concocted the verbal equivalent of smoke in the dedication service...

Among so many things to be thankful for, this morning, I am conscious of two very personal reasons to give thanks.
First – that none of you is now running or is likely to run for President of the United States.
Second – that I have not had to make a living – so far, anyhow – as a car thief. Not too long ago there was a movie about stealing cars as a business – I think it was called Gone in 60 Seconds… and there was great drama in just how fast a thief can complete the task of stealing a car. The thief was long gone in much less time than it usually takes me to find my (perfectly legitimate) key, get into my car, get it started, and get out of the driveway. Not a career I’m suited for, I can tell.

Something of the speed and agility and sheer chutzpah of a car-thief, though, would be welcome this morning in the preaching task. Look for a moment at what is before us: we have to do justice to the whole of Creation (in the first reading and the Psalm), to the Great Commission (in the Gospel), and isn’t it merciful that all Paul says this morning is “GOODBYE”? And then we have to say something graceful and inspiring about Holy Baptism, which we’re about to celebrate; and then we have to come up with a clear, unambiguous, theologically sound exposition of the crucial doctrine of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity – and try to do it all in 12 minutes or less. Not quite the deadline imposed on successful car-theft…but still, no more than a moment in the span of our lives, much less of Christian history.

Therefore, let us begin. We are here together, in a fellowship; we are here with people we have known for some time, and with people we have never met. We are not just a random crowd, like passengers on an LRT platform; we have been brought here, whether we’re aware or not, brought together by God. We are here because God wants us here. He wants us here to accomplish a purpose of his; and his purpose is our good, whether that is obvious to us or not. So one dimension of our fellowship this morning is that it is ETERNAL; it is TRANSCENDENT; it takes part in a reality we affirm by faith but cannot necessarily prove by evidence. Our very fellowship, then, partakes of the eternal and transcendent nature of God; and so we are put in mind of the first person of the Trinity, God the Father.

But as I said, we have been brought together FOR OUR GOOD – not just for our collective good but for our good as human persons, unique and precious and irreplaceable human creatures made in the image and likeness of God; and we are about to admit two very new human persons, unique and precious and irreplaceable persons, into the community of those who know and give thanks that they are made in God’s image. And so another dimension of our fellowship this morning is that it is INCARNATE, it celebrates the homely, personal human nature that was not disdained by the second person of the Trinity, God the Son. And so we are put in mind of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And finally we acknowledge that we are gathered into this fellowship so that we may be TRANSFORMED according to God’s purpose, transformed by the presence of God in the creating and blessing Word of the Father – that his creation is all, very, good; transformed by the presence of God in the human intimacy and humility of the Word made flesh, Jesus his Son; transformed finally by the presence of God in the third person of the Trinity, who has had US in mind all along.

Accordingly we find ourselves and our fellowship embraced by the freedom and playfulness and subtle, irresistible power of the Holy Spirit, who empowers us to put all things in order, to be reconciled one to another, to live in peace and to be ONE, and to make disciples of all nations, as, this morning, by God’s grace and in celebration of his unfathomable love for us all, we will begin to make disciples of N--- and M------, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Let us be about our task! Amen! Alleluia!

cabbages and kings...

A quick post before I head for home.

The Rummage is over for another six months. Very lucrative this year. Promising new volunteers, taking all sorts of initiative toward a more rational disposal of STUFF.

And all concerned went home today as full as Tige...we gave them an in-house-catered lunch at 1:30, short pasta (rotini) with a choice of home-made Bolognese sauce or home-augmented store-bought Alfredo with about six cheeses; spring-mix salad greens with balsamic vinaigrette; various bread; vanilla ice-cream and slightly intoxicated mixed berries to top.

We fed 40 people for under a hundred bucks, guys! I have to make notes about quantities to streamline the process next year, or next sale. As Jane Austen said: "They could not all talk [or work, or think, etc. etc.]; but they could all eat." One of her snarlier remarks, I love it.

Also was able to send home some little blue-lidded portions with various folks, to improve their diet for the next day or so.

I bought some Rummage (don't tell my kids). Quite a lot of mystery novels -- Michael Gilbert mostly, whom I never find secondhand because MG fans don't let go of their copies... a nice throw-blanket... some extra fondue forks... and, hurray!!! a 3-D jigsaw puzzle of St. Peter's in Rome.

Alas, tomorrow's sermon is still hanging fire. But what I want to say is something like: "Pay attention! Because the core of who we are and what we believe and what we are all about and what we have to say and what we have to do in this present world is right here this morning in these readings. This is the central stuff, you lot, and we need to take hold of it with both hands, and Not Let Go."

Wow, what terrific lections.

A story from my assistant, about last Sunday's children's talk. He asked them if they knew the word "YEARN" and what it meant. He said most of them looked quite blank, but one boy (about ten) looked very uncomfortable and said, "Well, it has two meanings." And then he explained, "One meaning is to want something very very much. And the other meaning is .... {in a whisper).... PEE."

Don't you love them.

Job 28:1-11

THIS is the passage I was trying to find earlier today...


"Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place for gold to be refined.

Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is smelted from ore.

Miners put an end to darkness,
and search out to the farthest bound
the ore in gloom and deep darkness.

They open shafts in a valley away from human habitation;
they are forgotten by travelers,
they sway suspended, remote from people.

As for the earth, out of it comes bread;
but underneath it is turned up as by fire.

Its stones are the place of sapphires,
and its dust contains gold.

That path no bird of prey knows,
and the falcon's eye has not seen it.

The proud wild animals have not trodden it;
the lion has not passed over it.

They put their hand to the flinty rock
and overturn mountains by the roots.

They cut out channels in the rocks,
and their eyes see every precious thing.

The sources of the rivers they probe;
hidden things they bring to light."

Saturday night...

Well this sermon won't say anything except "arf arf," I fear...so I have printed it off and will take it home and work on it a bit more with a pencil, and see if that stimulates thought. I almost typed "simulates thought" -- that would be an acceptable outcome too at this point!

It's going to be about John 9 as one comic episode in the Divine Comedy of salvation...and about "why it's so funny." I will thereby prove -- if nothing else -- that there is nothing so terminally boring as trying to explain why a joke is funny.

But I want to say something about the paradoxes of human senses and human knowing based on the senses, the communal nature of perception, even sense perception, the essential role of commitment, love, handing-oneself-over in real perception, and the way it brings us back over and over to realize that in the midst of our peering and peeking and staring and squinting we are first last and always SEEN ALREADY by the one who made us, redeemed us, sustains us, loves us...

That's about it!

"A quiet night and a perfect end..."