Tag Archives: grace

Sermon – Mark 12.28-34, Deuteronomy 6.1-9, P26, YB, October 31, 2021

17 Wednesday Nov 2021

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In preparation for a mission trip to Honduras, we did a lot of study on the history, politics, and economic development of the country.  Part of that preparation included reading Don’t Be Afraid, Gringo, the story of Honduran woman Eliva Alvarado.  Her story is the story of all campesinos – the poor and oppressed in her country.  Her story is the kind of story that stirs up righteous indignation and makes you want to hop on a plane to go fight for justice.  But in the conclusion of her story, she says to the reader that her ultimate desire is for us to stay where we are.  She does not want her story to inspire us to come there and “fix” things.  Instead, she implores us to fix ourselves – explore our own country’s policies and practices that abet the oppression by the privileged in her country. 

I remember when we got to her conclusion, the team sat in silence for a long time.  You could see the wheels churning in each of our minds – surely, we know what is best, surely we can fix things if we can just get there, surely there is a way around the way this woman has made us feel impotent.  And yet, there was profound truth in her words, and an understanding that to not listen to her final request would be worse than to have not read her words at all.  And so, we sat in pained silence, letting her charge sit uncomfortably with us.

Jesus creates a similar silence at the end of our gospel lesson today.  Jesus has been poked and prodded by one group after another at this point in Mark’s gospel.  In chapter 11, the chief priests, scribes, and elders question Jesus’ authority.  Early in chapter 12, the Pharisees and some Herodians try to trap Jesus with a question.  Finally, some Sadducees question Jesus about a theological issue.  Then today, a scribe asks a “palpably disarming” question – not one to test Jesus, but as one scholar says, an “invitation to the table of theological discourse.”[i]  The conversation today is about the greatest of the commandments. 

Jesus’ response is not new.  In fact, Jesus quotes the shema, the classic text we heard just this morning from Deuteronomy, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”  This is a text the Israelites have emblazoned in the minds of their children, and repeated for generations, “Shema Yisrael, Adonai eloheinu, Adonai echad.”  “Hear, O Israel, The Lord is our God, the Lord alone (or the Lord is one).”  Jesus tweaks the answer only slightly from the original shema, adding that we should love the Lord our God with all our mind in addition to all our heart, soul, and strength.  And he adds that we should love our neighbor as ourselves.  But that notion is true to the original commandments as well.  When the scribe agrees with Jesus, saying loving God and neighbor as self is more important than any other ritual of the faith, the crowd falls silent, and we are told “no one dared to ask him any question.”  In other words, “Jesus’ critics were silenced and the effect was momentarily deafening.”[ii] 

So why is the crowd suddenly and dramatically silenced?  What’s the big deal about loving God and neighbor as self?  We talk about these commands all the time.  I mean, Bishop Curry has preached these words more times than I can count.  So why do Jesus’ words shock the room into silence?  One scholar suggests that the silence is so deafening because those gathered understood something about the reality of love that we modern Americans sometimes neglect.  As one scholar explains, “…sometimes — especially in western Christianity — we focus so hard on the emotive and affective aspects of love that we forget its rigor, its robustness, its discomfort.  We assume that loving God and our neighbors means expressing friendly sentiments to God in Sunday worship, and exchanging warm pleasantries with the people who live near us during the week.  We forget that in the scriptures, the call to love is a call to vulnerability, sacrifice, and suffering.  It’s a call to bear a cross and lay down our lives.  Biblical love is not an emotion we feel, it’s a path we travel.  As the children of God, we are called to walk in love. Think aerobic activity, not Hallmark sentiment.”[iii]  An invitation into that kind of radical love – the love of neighbors we would rather not love, the love that is as powerful as the natural, preserving love of self[iv], the love that is a response to the overwhelming love of God for us – that kind of invitation is sobering. 

I remember having read Elvia’s disinvitation to come to Honduras and “fix” things felt like a disempowering, painful rebuffing of love.  But I think I felt that way because we do not get to dictate what love of neighbor looks like.  True love of neighbor is not self-designed but is responsive – responsive to our love of God, and respectfully responsive to the self-articulation of needs by others.  Elvia’s self-articulation was deafeningly silencing the way Jesus’ invitation is too.  As scholar Debie Thomas explains, “Silence is the appropriate first response to the radical love we’re called to.  We dare not speak of [love] glibly.  We dare not cheapen [love] with shallow sentiment or piety.  Rather, [we] ask for the grace to receive [love] as the wise scribe received [love].  In awed and grateful silence.”[v]  Only when we have sat in the uncomfortable silence that recognizes the true love of God and neighbor as self are we ready to take up every perfect gift God has given us and travel the path of love.  Amen.

[i] Cynthia A. Jarvis, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 262.

[ii] Jarvis, 364.

[iii] Debie Thomas, “Walk in Love,” October 24, 2021, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=2944 on October 29, 2021.

[iv] Victor McCracken, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 262.

[v] Thomas.

On Redefining Sacraments…

28 Thursday Oct 2021

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Photo credit: https://jacklondonoakland.org/new-events/virtual-coffee-hour-september-2020

This past Sunday was a day of celebration at Hickory Neck.  The bishop confirmed, received, and reaffirmed 16 parishioners, gave out blessings at our Drive-Thru Coffee Hour, and even celebrated Eucharist in our Historic Chapel.  It was a day of delight and joy and brought so many people together – both online and in person. 

But one of the things we tried for the first time since the pandemic was a “mini Coffee Hour”  We could not get past the idea of a celebration like this without a cake, so we safely served up cake and put coffee in safe, disposable containers, and we ate outside in a way that we have not done in ages.  It was a small thing in a lot of ways – something we have done thousands of times before the pandemic.  But it was anything but small.  As the organizer teared up talking about having Coffee Hour that day, I knew there was something much deeper happening.

Some people have joked that Coffee Hour is the eighth sacrament of the Episcopal Church.  I always scoffed at that idea, thinking it was much too disrespectful of the sacraments.  But in having Coffee Hour taken away during the pandemic and experiencing it again for the first time in 19 months, I now realize the truth hidden in those forced laughs about Coffee Hour’s sacramental status.  We are told in the Catechism that a sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as a sure and certain means by which we receive that grace.  Now I am not arguing that Jesus gives us coffee, but the cup of coffee one receives at Coffee Hour may in fact be that outward and visible sign of the grace of Coffee Hour – where sacred hospitality is offered, intimate Christ-like friendships are nurtured, and forgiveness, pastoral care, and sharing in mutual joy happens. 

I would not wish this pandemic on anyone.  But I am grateful for the fasting that it created which enabled me to see the fullness of holiness that happens in church:  in the pews, at the altar rail, and yes, at the coffee pot.  My hope is that we as a church figure out ways to offer those unauthorized sacraments in new and fresh ways as we continue to recover from this pandemic and live into community in restricted ways.  I wonder what ways we will be overwhelmed by God’s grace in these in-between times.

On Tiny Perfect Things…

26 Wednesday May 2021

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Photo credit: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/269441990176015475/

I just finished up a movie called The Map of Tiny Perfect Things.  The premise is much like Groundhog Day, where Bill Murray relives the same day over and over again.  But in this film, the two protagonists use their day of repetition to find tiny perfect things – an eagle grabbing a fish out of a lake, an elderly woman dancing about a game victory, a perfectly timed funny moment, a custodian sneaking on a piano, demonstrating his incredible hidden talent. 

These last weeks, I have been noticing a lot of tiny perfect things as we slowly make our way out of this pandemic:  a hug between vaccinated friends who haven’t seen, let alone touched, each other in over a year; watching kids play with bubbles, mastering not just blowing them, but popping them too; an outdoor wedding after a year of wondering if it would be possible with a long pandemic and the threat of unpredictable weather; being able to hold and bounce a baby after over a year of isolating newborns from all of us. 

We are approaching some of those tiny perfect things at our church as well.  Because we are loosening restrictions incrementally, we are not getting some magical “perfect” experience where everything “goes back to normal.”  But we are approaching a time where we can sit in pews that were off limits, where we can sing those songs and texts that have been spoken or been instrumental, where we can sit beside a friend whose physical presence we have missed, where we can receive the body and blood of Christ.  We still have to mask, and communion is being served in sealed plastic chalices – but there are tiny perfect things nonetheless. 

This week, I invite you to find your own tiny perfect things – tiny moments of grace.  Take a moment to watch children play in your neighborhood, see what wonders nature is up to, enjoy a bit of hearty laughter, or observe the way an older couple holds hands after what must be decades of marriage.  There is a lot of work to be done as Christ commissions us to go out in the world.  But what will sustain us in that work are the tiny perfect things that remind us of God’s blessing and grace that are there for us every day.  I cannot wait to hear what you find!

Sermon – Acts 1.15-17, 21-26, E7, YB, May 16, 2021

26 Wednesday May 2021

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I have sometimes daydreamed about the experience of liturgical freedom:  picking and choosing the scripture for a given Sunday (particularly when I need to address a specific issue), praying an extemporaneous prayer on a Sunday to address a certain topic in the church, or drafting our own liturgical experience to address a particular need.  However, as crazy as the idea may sound, I more often find freedom within our Episcopal constraints than within the endless possibilities of what could be. 

This past week was a classic example.  Last Sunday, totally unaware of the announcement I would be making on Tuesday, Bob preached about the invitation of the Resurrection being an invitation into discernment – discernment about what each of us needs to do to bring about the kingdom here on earth.  On Tuesday night, our regularly scheduled Discover Class topic, which was scheduled months ago, was focused on the structure and leadership model of the Episcopal Church, including who bishops are and how they are elected.  Then today, we get this lesson from the Acts of the Apostles in which Peter and the other apostles are attempting to replace the twelfth spot Judas left open through his death.  All that daydreaming about constructing our spiritual experiences went out the window this week when I remembered the Holy Spirit does a much better job at constructing those experiences than I ever could!

To say that this portion of the Acts of the Apostles is a divine gift is not necessarily because we happen to be talking about a bishop’s election this week just as the apostles are talking about an election of sorts.  In fact, what the apostles are doing is the opposite of an election.  No one asks Matthias or Justus to go through an interview process or offer their vision of leadership for the next decade.  Instead, their criteria are pretty simple.  First, the replacement should be someone who knows Jesus personally.  Second, they want to honor their ancestral roots in the twelve tribes of Israel – eleven apostles will not suffice.[i]  Third, their decision is rooted in prayer.  And finally, their decision is based on trust in the will of God.  Nowadays, we might think the casting of lots is a little too random and could lead to a poor appointment of leadership – I mean when was the last time we selected a Rector, Warden, or Committee Chair by flipping a coin?  But according to New Testament scholar Kathy Grieb, the casting of lots is “an ancient biblical practice for determining God’s will…”[ii]

Hearing about all the coincidences in our last week, from talking about discernment, to the structure of the Episcopal Church, to the selection of the last apostle, may be intriguing or even amusing, but may also leave you asking, “So, what?  What does all of this have to do with me or my experience of Hickory Neck, or even more broadly, with Jesus?”  As I have reflected on these coincidences – or as Carl Jung referred to them as instances of “synchronicity” or “meaningful coincidence”[iii] – I see an invitation for all of us from Peter.  First is an invitation to recall our identity.  We are a community whose historic identity has been about weathering change – whether it was the identity crisis created by the Revolutionary War, the replacement of a faith community by schools and hospitals for over a century, to reclaiming and expanding our land to become a church again, to surviving a global pandemic.  The possibility of a change in clergy – a very small possibility at that – does not alter the fact that we are a community rooted in Jesus’ love, shining our light on this Holy Hill for almost three centuries.  Second is an invitation into prayer:  prayer for the Hickory Neck Community, prayer for your Rector, and prayer for the Diocese of Iowa and the other candidates.  Our hurt, our frustration, our fear, and our joy can be left at the feet of Christ in prayer.  When given the space, prayer can do much more than we can imagine.  And finally, our invitation this week is to trust in God.  We may not always like what God does – I am pretty sure the apostles would much rather have not been trying to figure out a leadership model in Jesus’ absence.  But we do know that God is faithful, and, in time, God leads us to goodness and grace.  I do not know where the next couple of months will lead us.  But I do know if we can stay rooted in our identity, in prayer, and in our faith in God, we will come out stronger disciples for Jesus, strengthened to take on whatever “meaningful coincidences” the Holy Spirit throws our way.  Amen.

[i] Noel Leo Erskine, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 528.

[ii] A. Katherine Grieb, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 531.

[iii] Carl G. Jung, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle (Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 2012), 44, as cited at https://artsofthought.com/2020/05/30/carl-jung-synchronicity/ on May 14, 2021.

On Barriers and Saying Yes…

05 Wednesday May 2021

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Photo credit: https://aleteia.org/2020/03/30/how-laypeople-can-baptize-in-an-emergency/

On Sunday, we heard the story of the Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch.[i]  At one point in the story, the eunuch says, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?”  The question is simultaneously wonderful – how amazing to hear someone so inspired by the witness of Jesus that they want to baptized right away – and anxiety-making.  Episcopalians are very clear about our identity and our liturgical ways of doing things.  So certain is our identity, that I could imagine an Episcopalian responding to the eunuch, “Well, we need to sign you up for baptism class, and then find out when the next best baptismal feast day is on the liturgical calendar.  Once we get everything lined up, we’d be thrilled to schedule your baptism!”  Somehow, that response from Philip would not have made for such an enticing story about the power of evangelism and discipleship.

The eunuch’s words were ringing in my ears when I received a similar request recently.  One of our young parishioners lost her godfather to an unexpected death during COVID.  We were all devastated and grieved together.  But a few weeks ago, the family contacted me with a request.  They had already talked as a family about how her godfather would always be her godfather, even from heaven.  But they also wanted to appoint a new earthly godfather who could help their daughter grow in the life of faith.  And so, their question was, “Is there a way you can do that liturgically by Zoom?”

One answer could have been no; we do not have such a liturgy in our Prayer Book.  But the request was so pure and Spirit-led that I knew even a Prayer Book would not want to limit such grace and abundance.  And so, in consultation with some fellow clergy and liturgical resources, including the Book of Common Prayer, we cobbled together a beautiful liturgy.  We prayed for the godfather who had passed and the ways in which he would always be with us.  The godchild formally asked the godfather if he would be willing to be her earthly godfather.  We asked the normal questions we ask in a baptismal liturgy of the godfather, and then we all reaffirmed our Baptismal Covenant and prayed over the new “family” we had created – all via Zoom.  And although we were not in our beloved chapel, we created a profound, intimately sacred space together, where the Holy Spirit blessed us as a community.

When I think about those questions, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” and “Can we designate a new godparent?” these are questions of curiosity and longing.  These are questions inspired by those seeking Christ and wanting a deeper connection to God.  If this pandemic has taught us anything, we have learned the ways in which the Holy Spirit is unbounded and can act – whether in a building, alongside a road, or online.  This week, I invite you to ponder what limits you have placed around your own connection to God – what barriers or rules have hindered your connection to the sacred.  How might you begin lessening your grip to allow room for encounters with the sacred?

[i] Acts 8.26-40

Sermon – John 3.14-21, Numbers 21.4-9, L4, YB, March 14, 2021

17 Wednesday Mar 2021

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Our scripture lessons today offer two contrasts:  a story from the Hebrew Scriptures which might be unfamiliar to you or at least may seem wildly strange, and a story from John’s gospel that is so familiar, you can probably quote a portion of the text if I simply tell you the citation, “John 3.16.”  What is strange about this combination is the unknown, uncomfortable story is a window into the overly familiar, commonplace story.  If we have any hope of understanding either of them, we need to dive into both.

At the point where we join the story from Numbers, God has been infinitely patient with God’s people.  Some might argue too patient.  God has saved God’s people time and again, wresting them from brutal slavery, miraculously helping them flee through the Sea of Reeds, helping sweeten bitter drinking water when they murmured, granting them manna when they complained of being hungry, giving them water out of a rock when they grumbled about being thirsty, offering them birds to eat when they whined of manna-fatigue.  Grace and patience abound with God.  Until this day.  The Israelites throw yet another fit, and God snaps.  This time, God sends poisonous serpents among the people, and many of them die.  When the people beg for help to Moses, God instructs Moses to put a bronze serpent on a pole; if people gaze upon the serpent, they will live.  For a God who asks the people have no idols or gods before God, a serpent on a pole is, quite frankly, just weird.

Meanwhile, we have a super familiar text from John.  “For God so love the world that he gave his only Son.”  We love this verse because the verse reminds of our abundant, loving, graceful God.  Of course, we sometimes gloss over the rest of the troublesome parts of this text.  The rest talks about how Jesus saves the world – as long as the world believes.  Here is where the questions start to pile up for us.  Do we really believe that some people are condemned?  Is God’s love conditional?  What happens if we doubt?  Does that count as not believing?  Can eternal life be given and taken away based on the seesaw of my behavior?  The trouble is if we focus on God’s grace, we can make salvation seem arbitrary, with no essential place for human response.  But if we focus on human faith, we may be in danger of making salvation a human accomplishment, restricting God’s initiative universally.[i]  The only thing that seems to be clear is that God gives us a choice.  When we commit evil deeds, when we deny God through our behavior, when we linger in the darkness, we are making a choice.  And the text tells us today that the consequence of that choice is condemnation.

The answer to so much in these texts seems to lie in verse fourteen of John.  Jesus says, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”  As scholar Debie Thomas writes, “In the Old Testament story, God requires the Israelites to look up.  To gaze without flinching at the monstrous thing their sin has conjured.  It’s the thing they have wrought, the thing they fear most, the thing that will surely kill them if God in God’s mercy doesn’t intervene and transform the instrument of pain and death into an instrument of healing and life.  In order to be saved, the people have to confront the serpent — they have to look hard at what harms, poisons, breaks, and kills them.”[ii]  The same seems to happen with Jesus on a cross.  Thomas goes on to say, “In the cross, we are forced to see what our refusal to love, our indifference to suffering, our craving for violence, our resistance to change, our hatred of difference, our addiction to judgment, and our fear of the Other must wreak.  When the Son of Man is lifted up, we see with chilling and desperate clarity our need for a God who will take our most horrific instruments of death, and transform them, at great cost, for the purposes of resurrection.”[iii]

The truth is, I am not sure either of these texts answer some of our basic questions, especially around those of belief.  But tying them together today, we do find an invitation – to change our gaze away from the judgment of others, the wondering about who is in and out, the questions about God’s retribution, and gaze on the cross – the body that reminds us of the goodness of God in spite of our sinfulness, that reminds us of God’s grace in spite of our lack of deserving, that reminds us of God’s unconditional love despite our inability to keep failing.  Our invitation is to take seriously the words of that old hymn, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face, And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, In the light of His glory and grace.”  As we continue on the path of Lent toward the cross, today’s texts remind us of where we are going and why.  Our invitation is to look up at the horrible, wonderful truth of what Jesus does in the cross, and stand in the light of his glory and grace.  Amen.

[i] Joseph D. Small, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 118.

[ii] Debie Thomas, “Looking Up,” March 7, 2021, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2944-looking-up, on March 12, 2021. 

[iii] Thomas.

On Finding Blessings among the Curses…

10 Wednesday Mar 2021

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Photo credit: Troy Mendez

Last week, a seminary classmate sent an email to a group of six of us who had travelled to Myanmar on a mission trip while in seminary.  The trip was a powerful, multiple week trip – for us as individuals, for us as a team (one of our members passed away a couple of years after seminary), and, when we returned, for our relationships with the Burmese students at the seminary.  The experience of that trip forever changed the dynamics between us – there are inside jokes that lead to ribbing; we know each other in ways that only fellow travelers can, leading to belly-laughs and understanding sighs too deep for words; and our connection to the Anglican Church in Myanmar and our spiritual experiences there created a brotherhood and sisterhood that is difficult to articulate. 

So, when the toughly-won democracy crumbled a few weeks ago in Myanmar, we all watched in horror.  The call to gather from my classmate was certainly an opportunity for us to catch up, but more importantly for us to pray – to pray for our Burmese classmates, the brothers and sisters in Christ we met there, and the countless people who simply want to live their lives free of the brutality of a military junta.  Over the course of this year, I have complained more times than I can count about the amount of time I spent on Zoom.  But as the six of us gathered virtually from around the country to tell stories, to laugh, to mourn, and to pray, I confess to you, I have never been more grateful for a technological tool.  Even in that virtual space, we were able to find the rhythm of a group established fourteen years ago, and slow down enough to put the needs of Myanmar above our own.

As we work to vaccinate our country and as churches begin to regather again, I find myself once again grateful for the ways God has made a way in the wilderness.  And although I will be thrilled to see people in person again, I am glad we will still have technological advances available to us – to facilitate community, care, and compassion.  Not once in the years since we left seminary has our mission team managed to get together in person.  But with technology, we were able to create a virtual space of real connection between us, and, perhaps more importantly, a place where God could move among us and beyond us.  I would never wish this pandemic on any of us, but I remain astounded at the way God has used the gifts God has given us to facilitate the spreading of the Good News. 

One year into this pandemic, I give thanks for the ways in which technology has facilitated fellowship, formation, worship, and pastoral care.  I wonder what graces this pandemic has gifted you over this last year.  What ways has necessity inspired blessedness?  As you reflect this week, I invite you to join me in offering gratitude for God’s grace in the midst of a very dark year. 

Please continue to keep Myanmar in your prayers as they struggle for the restoration of democracy, for the safety of innocent people being brutalized and disappeared, and for the encouragement and protection to keep fighting for justice.

On Hope, Sobriety, and Better Angels…

20 Wednesday Jan 2021

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Photo credit: https://www.juneauempire.com/life/living-growing-the-better-angels-of-our-nature/

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.  ~Abraham Lincoln, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861

This morning, as we await the inauguration of our next President, I find myself equally sober and hopeful.  I am sober today because I am still reeling from the attempted insurrection in our Capitol Building just weeks ago.  That event signaled to me how much damage has been done to the fabric of our nation – how divided we have become, how hateful we have become, and how far we have strayed from our baptismal promise to respect the dignity of every human being.  I am sober because I know simply changing Presidents will not magically solve the division that took many years of cultivation.  We have much truth telling and healing to do. 

But my sobriety is balanced with hope.  Again, I have this hope not because I think our President Elect is the Messiah – we already have one of those!  But I am hopeful because being hopeful is the nature of being made in the image of God.  I am hopeful we will find our way back to our baptismal identity, of seeking and serving Christ in all persons, and striving for justice and peace among all people.  I know we have a long way to go.  Our black brothers and sisters have shown us this year how far we have to go in the movement toward respecting the dignity of every human being.  But somehow, seemingly impossibly, I am hopeful.

I was reminded today of the quote above from Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address, given on the brink of Civil War.  He had no idea what the future held and how our nation almost fell apart – and the very long road it would take (and is still taking) to recover.  But even then, on the cusp of some of our darkest times as a nation, Lincoln was convinced that we had better angels of our nature.  Perhaps that is where my hope comes from today too.  I am convinced that we have better angels still, and that, with God’s grace, we will be touched again by the better angels of our nature.  That is my prayer for all of us today!

On Shifting Sands and Drishtis…

19 Thursday Nov 2020

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Photo credit: https://www.yogajournal.com/yoga-101/pillars-of-power-yoga-using-drishti-on-and-off-the-mat

When you are doing balancing postures during yoga, one of the skills you learn early on is developing a drishti, or a focal point.  The idea is the more you focus your gaze on one fixed object, the more your body steadies itself.  I am not entirely sure why or how finding a drishti works, but I know from experience that a very wobbly body in a balancing posture is quickly steadied once focused on a drishti.  It is a strange sensation, but when the drishti is engaged, the gaze of the eyes has complete power over the entire body, creating a sense of self-possession, control, and power.

I was talking to a fellow parent this past week and when we talked about parenting during a pandemic, I told her I felt like I was standing on shifting sand.  Just when I would start to figure out a rhythm or start to feel like I had some modicum of control over family life, things would change – whether the formal arrangement with hybrid learning, the changing of teachers mid-quarter, or even my own child’s changing ability to adapt and thrive.  Just when I feel like our family is finding our balance, something makes us wobbly all over again.  That kind of uncontrolled imbalance, of attempting to stand on shifting sand leaves the body weary and fatigued.

But as I have been thinking about pandemic parenting and my learning in yoga, I’ve begun to wonder if what this wobbly parent might need is a pandemic drishti.  For some parents that might mean focusing on the blessing of your children – so that no matter what tempter tantrum they are throwing today, what argument you are having as a family, or what door they have slammed, you focus not on the anger and frustration of the scene immediately in front of you, but on the love you have for your child (even if it’s only the love you see when they are fast asleep).  For me, my drishti is the love of God surrounding us on every side:  the one who loves me when I fail as a parent, the one who loves my child as they receive another setback in expectations, the one who loves each of us when all we can see is the heat of anger and frustration in one another.  Once I focus on God’s love of us, slowly my demeanor starts to shift, my balance starts to return, and my steadiness strengthens.

This week, I encourage you to claim your pandemic drishti.  Whether you focus on God’s lovingkindness, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, or the ever-present blessing of the Holy Spirit, take whatever time you need to shift your gaze on God.  My guess is the more you practice steading your gaze on the goodness of God, the more your wobbling, weary body will feel grounded in goodness too.  We cannot control the shifting sand of these times.  But we can control our steady gaze in the face of a storm.

On Rituals, Church, and Candy…

05 Thursday Nov 2020

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Photo Credit: https://www.hauntedwisconsin.com/things-to-do/kids-family/trick-or-treat/

Last weekend, I took my younger daughter trick-or-treating.  We spent a long time as parents debating whether we should take our children.  We read scientific articles, talked to other parents, and spent time in long conversations.  Ultimately, we decided to go ahead, making sure we donned our masks, only traveled as a family, and sanitized our hands frequently between houses.  We also talked to our child about how although she may want to greet friends with warm hugs, that night was a night for verbal greetings instead of physical.  Our child did not argue with the restrictions and was simply happy to be going at all.

We embarked at the designated time not knowing what to expect – whether other families with children would be out safely, whether homeowners would respect social distancing and mask wearing, or whether the entire evening would need to be abandoned.  Much to my surprise, the evening went better than I could have hoped.  The number of trick-or-treaters was cut in half, and people mostly respected safe distancing.  Homes distributing candy were also at about fifty percent, and many of those who distributed exhibited tons of creativity:  from baskets of candy lowered from outdoor balconies, to candy “kabobs” planted in yards, to zipline delivery mechanisms, to clotheslines of candy. Many homeowners bagged candy to reduce touching and many seemed to have read the best practices about how to hand out candy.  I was blown away by our neighbors’ thoughtfulness, creativity, and grace.

But what struck me the most was a truth emerging from the whole evening.  If you had asked me or any of my neighbors before Halloween why we were participating in the ritual of trick-or-treating, we probably all would have said we were doing it for the kids:  to give them some sort of normalcy in this crazy, abnormal time.  But as I tucked my child in that night, and thought about all our experiences, I realized a deeper truth.  I think all of us adults participated in the ritual not just because the children needed it; we participated because we needed it.  We needed just one thing to be semi-normal in this super stressful, topsy-turvy world.  And we took our precautions and stretched our creativity, but we participated in a ritual that reminded us of joy, innocence, and community.

In many ways, that is what we are trying to do every week in churches too.  The very essence of Church is incarnational – from how we gather (in large groups), how we worship (using our all our senses, including touch), how we participate in ritual (often kneeling shoulder to shoulder, receiving communion from common dishes, and laying on of hands), to how we interact (from children’s programming and play to Coffee Hours).  With this pandemic, our incarnational essence just is not possible in the same way.  And so, we are worshiping online, we are offering socially distant worship services, and we are gathering on Zoom for pretty much everything – from formation, to fellowship, to learning, and even play.  I know Church right now is not the same, but if Halloween offers any lessons, perhaps it is that participating in the ritual – even an amended and altered ritual – is important for our spiritual, emotional, and physical health.  If you have taken a break from the ritual of Church because it just is not the same (and you are right, it is not), please know that Hickory Neck is here to help you reclaim some of that ritual.  It may be awkward or push your technological abilities.  But I promise, even those unusual connections might just offer the ritual you need to stay healthy and whole!