A Poem, Before Our Journey Begins

Blessed sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated
And let my cry come unto Thee.
                                       (T. S. Eliot, “Ash Wednesday”)

If you don't know T. S. Eliot's poem, "Ash Wednesday" then I commend it to you as we prepare ourselves for tomorrow, and the beginning of the Lenten journey. I love the line, "suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood." It is amazing how blind we can sometimes be to faults others can so easily see in us, even when they are gracious enough to overlook them most of the time. Yet as Jesus reminded us, even when we see the splinter in another person's eye, Lent is a season for working on the beams in our own eyes! Lent is not a time to confess other people's sins, but of asking God to keep us from "mocking ourselves with falsehood."

But the line that speaks to me most is the one that comes next: "teach us to care and not to care." I first read this poem as an undergraduate English major thirty years ago. The line hit me then and still offers a pretty good summary of what I aspire to each Lent, and one of the ways I hope to turn again.

It has a kind of Zen feel to it, I think. But it is also a deeply Christian idea, and in truth probably just a healthy human goal. We can care too much. We can become focused (and over focused) on everything (and on the wrong things) and in so doing we can become paralyzed and immobilized. We can "flit" from cause to cause. Conversely, we can stop caring. We can become overwhelmed and grow numb to the pain of this world. So what does it mean to care, and not to care? What does life look like when we are learning that wisdom?

I don't have an easy answer to that, and the answer I might give a few weeks before my forty-ninth birthday is not the same one I would have given as a nineteen year old undergraduate.

But for me, Lent is an invitation to "sit still among the rocks" - to sit still and listen, and wait, and ponder, and imagine. It is a time to take the long view, but then to act where my action might make a difference. For me this notion of "caring and not caring"  is not exactly the same as the The Serenity Prayer but I think it may be a pretty close cousin. It calls me to live in the present, and to do what I can do, and to let go of what I cannot control. And of course it demands the wisdom to grasp the difference.

(Rich Simpson)

Two postscripts. First, this from Sue B., as a follow up to yesterday's post: check out this site as an easy way into praying the The Daily Office. And second, this from Julie M. (who didn't know that I was going to be posting a poem today!) but serendipitously sent me this link, which I pass along to  all of you: Poems and Poetry for Lent and Easter.

Praying the Daily Office

A reminder to those who may not be accustomed to praying "The Daily Office" as we begin another Lenten Season together with these on-line meditations.

The Daily Office, or the "Liturgy of the Hours," comes to us from the monasteries. In The Book of Common Prayer there are four liturgies for daily prayer: Morning Prayer (BCP 75-102), An Order of Service for Noonday (BCP 103-107), Evening Prayer (BCP 115-126) and Compline (BCP 127-135) Briefer, abridged versions of these four liturgies can be found on BCP 137-140 for use by individuals and families.

The Daily Office Lectionary is simply a two-year plan for reading the Bible as one prays the Daily Office. It can be found in the Book of Common Prayer starting on page 934. Since we are in Year 2 in 2012, the readings can be found on page 951. So looking ahead to tomorrow, Tuesday, Psalms 26 and 28 would normally be read in the morning while 36 and 39 would be read at night. Usually two readings would be read at Morning Prayer, e.g. Proverbs30:1-4, 24-33 and John18:28-38, while the epistle reading (Philippians 3:1-11) might be saved for Evening Prayer. Obviously people flex to fit their own availability but what this discipline does is, over the course of two years, give us an opportunity to listen to the many diverse voices found in Holy Scripture.

The meditations that will follow for the next forty days are based on this ancient Christian practice. Those who are writing devotions have been asked to reflect on either a thread that may run through all of the readings, or perhaps just one reading - or maybe even one verse from one reading, And then to connect that theme or thread or idea to their own life in Christ.

While I have said it before, it bears repeating: I am profoundly grateful to be pastoring a congregation where so many voices are willing to share their wisdom in this format. Blessings to all who read these meditations in this Holy Season through the wilderness, to the empty tomb.

Rich Simpson
Rector

Transfiguration

Manifest in mountain height, shining in resplendent light,
where disciples filled with awe, thy transfigured glory saw.
When from there thou leddest them steadfast to Jerusalem
cross and Easter day attest, God in man made manifest.

(The Hymnal 1982, #135, F. Bland Tucker)


Shrove Tuesday Supper at St. Francis: February 21 from 5:30 p.m - 7 p.m.
Ash Wednesday Liturgies at St. Francis: February 22 at 7 a.m. 4:30 p.m, and 7 p.m.

Redeeming the Time Being

There is a line in W. H. Auden’s (1907-1973) Christmas Oratorio that I want to leave you with on this Christmas Day, as this Season of Advent meditations come to an end. 

In the meantime / There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair / Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem.

You and I live “in the meantime.” There are bills to pay and there is work to be done and there are always new things to learn. In the midst of all that, there is the work God has given us to do: “to redeem the Time Being.”  This work is not separate from all of those other things, but discovered in the midst of them and permeating all of them. Nor are we given that work and then left alone. We are given one another, as companions along the way. And we are promised God-with-us, Emmanuel, until the end of the ages. Very good news of a great joy, indeed! 

I want to thank all who wrote meditations this Advent Season, and especially those who wrote for the first time this year. We have heard from many different voices - young and old, male and female -  all of whom make St. Francis a very special place.Today as we celebrate the Incarnation we are reminded that the practice of daily prayer, of reading and marking and learning and digesting Holy Scripture (even those difficult apocalyptic texts!) and then connecting these old texts to our own lives (as, for example, we tell stories to our children, or walk the halls of Wachusett High School looking for a friendly face, or try to make our way in the darkness) engages us in this process of "redeeming the Time Being." In the process we discover God's Story as it intersects with our stories, transforming them into sacred stories. And when that happens, Christ is born anew in us. 

Merry Christmas!

(Rich Simpson)

p.s.  This year Ash Wednesday falls on February 22 and Lent will begin! Is it crazy for me to believe that we can get forty different writers to do this in Lent? It would mean all who wrote this time around continuing and finding still another dozen new writers. I will need your help... So after the dust of the New Year settles, I'll begin taking names for Lent. If you've written this time around I hope you will consider doing so again; just let me know. And if you've been a faithful reader of this blog during this past Advent Season and want to take a crack at writing in Lent, then please let me know that as well! God's peace and blessings in the New Year and thanks again to all of our writers.

Christmas Eve 2011

Christmas Eve changes for us as we grow older.  As children we stay up waiting impatiently for Santa.  We run downstairs at the break of dawn and eagerly await our riches.  As parents, Christmas Eve takes on a different tone; we stay up late wrapping and organizing presents from Santa.  We look forward to the light in our children’s eyes--all the while dreading the early morning wake up call.   

As a priest Christmas Eve is about speaking to those who only venture into the church building twice a year.  It’s about telling a story that millions have heard over and over again in a new way.  It’s about helping people rediscover their childhood.  Not a belief in the great St. Nick who will bless them with presents, but the belief in the miracle of Christ.  A restoration of belief in the God who cares for them no matter how far they have they have strayed from that embrace.  Belief in the God who can work miracles, and love unconditionally and a God who working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.   

It is the job of a preacher I think to make us all like children again, who are willing to believe not only in the miracles of Christmas, but more importantly, in the miracle of Christ.  That’s my goal this Christmas: to get to know Christ again through the eyes of child willing to believe in the bigness of our God.

Rev. Jill

Friday, December 23, 2011

Luke 1:67-80

At first glance, this reading left me scratching my head. His father…whose father? Why does this text really appear to be from the Old Testament? Who is the author talking about? Mighty Savior implies Jesus. Child in the wilderness seems to be John the Baptist. Answers! Zechariah is the father of John the Baptist to whom Elizabeth has just given birth. Zechariah’s response to his son’s birth is this prophecy (verses 67-80). The prophecy is really a uniting the Old Testament: the legacy of Abraham and David and the New Testament. With the birth of Jesus, the “coming of a mighty Savior” is about to be fulfilled.

Well, this introduction is given as background. “A bonus”, to quote Father Rich. Now to my meditation.

As a variation of the African Bible Study process, I looked for a word/phrase that caught my attention. The phrase came to me in flashing, day glow Neon: By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

I did sit in darkness, the many times I experienced episodes of deep depression. In my darkest days, it was only the light of God, shining ever so dimly to me, that gave me the tiniest hope of my next breath.

The word darkness also brought to mind, the book Darkness Visible, William Styron’s memoir of depression. The title comes from John Milton’s description of hell: No light; but rather darkness visible, Served only to discover sights of woe, Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell.

What’s the take away? For those who sit in darkness, the dawn from on high will break upon us. Lightness will be very visible- for unto us a child is given, unto us a Savior is born.

Additional Advent bonus! I would invite anyone who might like to share   thoughts or concerns about depression to contact me. I offer this as a chance to bring your wellness journey in to the light of shared confidentiality.

(Gail Bourque)

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Luke 1:57-66, Psalm 80, Psalm 146

Today’s Gospel reading describes the circumcision of John the Baptist.  Luke’s description of the circumcision mirrors modern Jewish practices of the ritual.  The male infant is circumcised “on the eighth day in a ceremony attended by the relatives."  At this ceremony, the father of the child names the infant.  Circumcision was, and has remained, an incredibly important ritual in Judaism.  Circumcision is one of two laws given to Israelites in the Old Testament that is called berit, or “covenant” (the other is the law of keeping Sabbath).  Centuries later, Rabbinic Jews in the first and second centuries would write in the Mishnah: “Great is circumcision, since but for it, the Holy One, Blessed Be He, would not have created the universe, as it is written, but for my covenant by day and night, I would not have appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth (Jeremiah 33:25).”

I bring this up simply to remind us that many of the characters of the New Testament were devout Jews.  As soon as the angels and shepherds leave the manger scene, Luke will mention the circumcision of Jesus.  Even if Jesus sometimes challenged the Pharisees on their interpretation of work on the Sabbath or impurity laws (another thought for another day), John the Baptist and Jesus surely kept the Sabbath, followed the dietary laws, and studied the Hebrew Scriptures.

We too continue to read and contemplate these same scriptures whenever we read from the Old Testament.  Advent seems to be to be a particularly fitting time to reflect on the Old Testament.  When I saw the Christmas section of Messiah two weeks ago at Wachusett Regional High School, I heard as many verses from Isaiah and Malachi as I did from the Gospels.  We take these verses, originally written in the eighth century BC, as prophecies of the coming of Christ, making them perfect for us as we await Christmas.  Similarly, today’s reading in 2 Samuel describes the beginning of the God’s covenant with King David which will help us appreciate the references to the House of David that we will hear on Christmas Eve.

We should not gloss over the readings of Old Testament during the other seasons of the year.  I think we sometimes have a conception that the God of the New Testament is one of compassion and love whereas the God of the Old Testament is one of vengeance and anger.  However, the Bible presents a far more complicated idea of God.  The Daily Office brought us readings from Amos for the first week and a half of Advent.  There, mixed in with the prophecies of judgment and destruction, I found a radical message of social justice.  

It is true that the Old Testament does include readings such as Psalm 80 which can be hard to understand:

O LORD God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers?  You have fed them with the bread of tears, and given them tears to drink in full measure.  You make us the scorn of our neighbors; our enemies laugh among themselves. (Psalm 80: 4-6)

This may be how we feel about God on many days, but we should also hear many messages of hope and compassion when we read the Old Testament:

Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD their God…who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry.  The LORD sets the prisoners free; the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.  The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down; the LORD loves the righteous.  The LORD watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. (Psalm 146: 5, 7-9)

Advent calls us to seek the God of justice and love in our daily lives.  As Advent comes to a close, we should remember that this message of compassion can be found in those ancient Hebrew Scriptures that John the Baptist and Jesus knew so well.

(Graham Simpson)