Dead Wood Splinters

Signs that the anti-Episcopalians are fracturing over the issue of women's ordination: http://livingtext.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/amia-fracturing/. This confirms my belief that many of the anti-Episcopalians have nothing in common besides their varied "beefs" against The Episcopal Church.

It appears that dogmatic sects tend to splinter over ever-finer and more purist pseudo-dogma. Thank God for the broad tent that we have in the Episcopal Church!

Bladensburg "Episcopalians" Welcomed as Romans

My "Google alert" informed me of this service, in which the priest and some 70 members of the former St. Luke's Episcopal parish (Bladensburg, Maryland) were received as members of the Roman Catholic Church.

I was struck by the photograph that ran in the Catholic Sentinel. It shows Roman Cardinal Donald Wuerl confirming Mark Lewis, formerly the priest of that parish. But Lewis appears in a suit and tie -- not in an alb or any other vestige of priesthood. I suppose that Lewis was received as a layman.

It is sad to see such sights.

Stewardship Statement Today

I already explained the approach our Stewardship Committee takes in my parish. But there's one more thing. At each service through October, a Stewardship Team member has to make an announcement during the "notices," so that the Stewardship Campaign remains in the minds of our parishioners. Today was my day to make the announcement.

I know I have a Southerner's tendency to ramble, so I wrote my remarks, to be sure I wouldn't ramble on too long. Here's what I said to the parish today:

Good morning. I’m a member of our Year-Round Stewardship Committee. We’re now in that annual season when we’re called to ponder what commitment we’ll make to this parish in the coming year. We’re urged to consider how much of our time, talents, and money we’ll commit to the mission and ministry of this parish.

To any visitors here today, I welcome you, and I hope you are blessed by this community today.

But let me speak to the Grace parishioners. I know you love this parish! I expect that, like me, you’ve found this community of Grace to be a life-giving place … where we find “strength for the journey” and spiritual companions along the way. I expect you, too, have found here a place that inspires you to go into the world with the Gospel message … a place that empowers you to live out your baptismal covenant.

Now, my friends, it’s time to decide what we will contribute to the mission and ministry of God, which our parish exercises within the church family and in this community.

The Stewardship Committee encourages you to reflect and pray deeply about what you will do to live generously in this coming year and what time, talents, and money you will pledge to the work we have before us. Don’t just go home and fill out the pledge form. Dwell with it. Reflect and pray about it this month.

Now for the nuts and bolts, which you’re hearing every week during this Stewardship Campaign.

By now, every Grace household should have received one pledge form for everyone over the age of two. The form offers a wide variety of stewardship opportunities.

We hope each member of the parish will make a commitment for the coming year. We are seeking 100% participation – with pledges of service … or prayer … or money … or all of those.

Please bring your pledge forms to the in-gathering on October 30th. If you won’t be here that day, please mail your forms to the church office before then.

I don’t know about you, but I always feel that I receive much more from this community than I give to it. I know that God has blessed me more richly than I deserve. This is the time of year when we have the opportunity to reflect on the ways that we can give thanks to God … and be partners in God’s ministry in this place.

Let us all bend our ears toward the voice of the Holy Spirit and pledge to live and give grace-fully.

I was pleased with that text when I wrote it over the past few days. I had practiced and timed it. I made sure our priest and senior warden were ok with its length.

Here's what I did not expect: I did not expect my voice to crack in the penultimate paragraph. I did not expect it would take all I had to speak those words. I had timed and practiced the text over the weekend, and I had no problem with it. I never got emotional in those "run-throughs." But today, delivering it to the parish I love, looking at the faces of my fellow parishioners, I just lost it. It was all I could do to stumble through the concluding words. I am mortified that this happened.

Maybe that says something about my affection and commitment to this parish. But I sure didn't see it coming!

Church Stewardship Breakthrough

I am now a member of the Stewardship Team in my parish (Grace Episcopal Church in Jefferson City, Missouri). For a long time, there was a committee that conducted the "Every Member Canvas" to solicit annual financial pledges to the parish. But our parish vision changed, and we now work year-round to remind the parish that stewardship is a Gospel mandate that makes claims on us every day – not just once a year. Now, the Stewardship Team organizes an event or program every month of the year.

We are working to help the parish grow into an awareness that stewardship involves not just financial support of the parish, but also care of the environment, caring for those in need, and outreach in the community.

Now it is October, and that's the month of the annual "pledge drive" in most Episcopal parishes. We used to ask only that parishioners return their "pledge card – their commitment of the amount of money they would contribute to the budget. Not now.

Now our parish "pledge form" is a two-sided sheet that asks all parishioners above the age of two to check boxes to indicate the missions and ministries to which they will commit themselves, along with a small tear-off sheet on which they make their financial pledge. Among the "check-off" options are such things as pledging to engage in regular prayer, regular participation in worship, service at the altar (as acolytes, choir members, altar guild, etc.), various activities in Christian formation, maintenance of our physical facility, hospitality in parish or public events, and many outreach activities beyond the parish.

October is the month when we ask parishioners to make their pledges in all those areas. We ask pledges of money, but also of time and talent. I think that's all very good.

As part of the process, Stewardship Team members are asked to provide brief statements for publication in the Sunday service leaflet throughout October. Today was the day mine was to appear. I've known about this deadline for a while, and I knew it was going to spring from a statement I heard from Episcopalians in Sudan, when I went there as a diocesan missioner in 2006. [You can find my blog about that experience at LuiNotes. Scroll back to the 2006 entries.]

After much writer's anxiety, I woke around 5 a.m. one day this week, and my stewardship essay seemed to flow in a rush. I wanted to share it with you all. Here's the piece I wrote, which appeared in today's service leaflet at Grace.

"You don’t know that God is all you need, until God is all you have.”

My view of stewardship was changed utterly by my time in Lui. As many of you know, I was one of the diocesan missioners to the Diocese of Lui (Episcopal Church of Sudan) in 2006. A fragile peace agreement had been reached just two months earlier, ending decades of civil war.

During the war, the people of Lui lived mostly “in the bush” and often on the run. Homes were bombed or burned, crops destroyed. But the people still gathered in small groups to worship under the shade of mango trees. As I heard from more than one person: “You don’t know that God is all you need, until God is all you have.”

Their cathedral was bombed twice. And the Christians of Lui rebuilt it ... twice!

In a time of great scarcity, they shared food instead of hoarding it.

I found myself wondering: In similar circumstances, would I be as generous? Would I forego a full stomach so that others here at Grace could eat? Would I help make and lay bricks to rebuild our church when I didn’t even have a house?

The Christians of Lui lived out a theology of abundance rather than a theology of scarcity. They trusted God would provide – that there would be enough for all – if each shared his or her treasure and talents with the others.

That experience changed my view of the Grace pledge request. I now challenge myself to give as much as I can. I give in gratitude for all that God has given me, for the ministry and mission here at Grace, and for love of the community of Grace. As I increase my giving, I find that I still have all I need. Thanks be to God.

In 2006, and still now, I am humbled and in awe at how the Christians in Lui cared for one another during nearly five decades of civil war. I often ask myself how we in the "First World" should behave, having seen how the church in the developing world acts. Look behind all that "Anglican Covenant" stuff, and I find faithful Christians who have a lot to teach me. And I am humbled.

Communication Skills

Like many of you, I have been watching and worrying about my friends along the East Coast who were in the path of Hurricane Irene.

While I take it all seriously, I know that some moments of silliness are going to come out of the saddest situations. This is one of them.

A TV station invited people to share their photos and captions/explanations. This is one of them.

To all my English teachers and Language Arts teachers out there, I say: This is a great illustration of the need to write clearly!

Be sure to read the caption closely. [Click to embiggen.]



In case you can't read it, the caption reads: "We got almost 100 free sandbags from the town of Orange and filled them with our kids. We had flooding for the first time in 10 years during the Sunday storm two weeks ago. Trying to avoid it again."

I shared the photo and caption with my staff. Looking at the photo, I said: "They must have a lot of kids!" One of my colleagues retorted: "They must really love their car!"

Your response to the photo and caption?

Solitude

I just finished reading Scott Turow's Limitations.

In it, Judge Mason ponders one of his clerks: "John has slid into an increasingly reclusive and eccentric middle-aged bachelorhood.... It is routine to see him by himself in the courthouse cafeteria at lunch .... John never mentions any social engagements, and the common assumption seems to that he's gay. George ... still tends to doubt it. Aren't there genuine bachelors, unable to accommodate themselves to intimacy with anyone, who sink into the embrace of their own peculiarities?"

I often wonder if I have sunk into the embrace of my own peculiarities.

Hiatus

Every now and then, I seem to take a vacation from my blog. This has been one of those periods.

I read the blogs of many other friends who delve deep or who write frequently. I am in awe of them.

I'm going to try to write in my voice, without being daunted by the bloggers whom I admire. They are better bloggers than I. If I write briefly or quickly, so be it.

Mindfulness

I’m not theologically educated, but I have heard a lot about mindfulness. I've read we should be more mindful about the things we do moment by moment and day by day.

I have shared fun conversations with Maria Evans about how we both love to serve at the altar. She talks about loving to serve with the shiny, holy things, and I resonate with what she writes.

If you have been watching my blog, you know that I dearly love to serve as crucifer in my parish. You’ll know that it’s an “urban legend” that I have been known to lock our kids in the boiler room just so that I could serve as crucifer at high holy feasts like Easter and Christmas. Not true, in fact … though I am amused by that story.

I always want to serve as crucifer. But I don’t get to do so very often, because our kids get to be the acolytes.

So imagine my surprise Sunday, May 15, when I got to church, and the acolyte director grabbed me, asking if I could serve for our young crucifer, whose back was hurting. Well, DUH! Of course I would!

As always seems to happen, I was both completely absorbed in the liturgy and totally focused on our priest and what she might need.

Back in the sacristy after the liturgy, one of our Altar Guild members said how much she had appreciated my service. She didn't just say that. She said that watching me serve as crucifer helped her worship.

I said something like this to her, about how/why I love to serve as crucifer: “I don’t understand it. But somehow – when I’m serving as crucifer – I move into some sort of different consciousness. I’m more focused on every moment of the liturgy. It’s like I step out of myself. I lose myself, and all I see is liturgy.”

It’s true. When I serve as crucifer, I know that I am one of the highly visible people around the altar. But I feel that I’m invisible as I move into that role. I disappear. What a strange paradox.

I got to serve as crucifer again last Sunday, because our young crucifer couldn’t serve. I felt greatly blessed. That day, I felt doubly blessed because Marc Smith –who was raised up from our parish toward ordination – came back to serve one last time, as he will soon have his own parish. I had the experience of being crucifer and helping him set the altar. All the “holy time” I generally feel was multiplied in this experience with my friend – whose discernment committee I chaired. It was a jaw-dropping experience of The Holy.

In a way, I was profoundly aware of serving with him at the altar. In another way, I lost myself completely at the altar. I don't understand how this happens, but I know it happens ... in ways that are significant to me.

I am so very grateful for the experiences that I get to have as crucifer! I don't know that I have expressed it well here, but I bet some of you understand.

Churching and Biking, Part III

I started writing here after Sunday morning, May 8. I wrote on Facebook that weekend: “Heading to Grace Episcopal Church, then the bike trail ... expecting to find God in both places.” I promised to blog more about that. I found that ride much richer than I expected … and I’ve been blogging ever since.

I’ve already blogged about the first parts – the church parts. Now I can move beyond that.

Sunday’s bike ride was challenging. My thighs felt miserable. But I persevered. I rode as well as I could, and rested when I had to. UGH! But I have to get in shape for my 30-mile route on the Tour de Corn in late June. So I pushed myself.

During one of the rest periods, I had a brief, momentary pain in one ear. It passed quickly. It’s absolutely nothing! But it reminded me: How very lucky I am!

Do you ever have this experience I have? Sometimes when I have a miserable cold, or a horrible backache, I think: “Oh, I wish I had given thanks before this! .. when I could appreciate how good it felt to feel good!” In those times, I wished I had been more mindful when I was well.

I had that experience during that Sunday bike ride. During one of my rest breaks Sunday on the bike ride, I found myself thinking yet again about Kirstin’s situation. I was overwhelmed with gratitude for my decent health and grateful for my muscles (however much they were hurting).

I sang a quiet little song of thanksgiving as I sat alongside the bike trail. I have no right to be so healthy. But I am deeply grateful. And it is good to be mindful of that blessing.

Churching & Biking, Part II

As I wrote earlier, I am sharing a bit of my “spiritual autobiography” for some new Facebook friends – several of whom are deeply skeptical of “Christians,” since the “Christian” brand has now been hijacked by right-wing Christianist extremists. I am trying here to explain why I love the Episcopal Church and how and why I characterize myself as a Christian.

I'm sorry I've been out of the blogosphere for a while.For this to make sense, you need to read my previous blog-post.

A Bit of Background

Here’s a bit of “spiritual autobiography” for those who are just checking my blog.

I grew up in the Southern Baptist Church in a little town of 5,000 in the “buckle of the Bible Belt.” I was a good little Southern Baptist girl. I memorized all the Bible verses. I swallowed all the lines. It was a very fine church for someone who wanted all the answers neatly set out. And at that point, I wanted them neatly set out.

But then I went to college in 1973. It was a Roman Catholic college with rigorous intellectual standards. I began to question the little pat answers that the Southern Baptists had fed me.

By the time I got to Vanderbilt for graduate school in 1978, I was teetering. The Southern Baptists had pat answers for everything. The Roman Catholics opened my soul to mystery, but there were things I could not accept.

Around 1980, when I truly came to terms with my lesbianism, I left the Southern Baptist Church. It happened slowly, for I really loved the people in the church I was attending. I talked with my pastor, of whom I was very fond. He referred me to a “Christian counselor” to “deal with my disorder.” But the most wonderful thing happened! That “Christian counselor” didn’t think gay/lesbian people were “sick” or “disordered.” She was marvelously supportive and encouraging.

While I came to terms with being a lesbian, I could not figure out how to square that with the church I had called home for three decades.

So I left the church I had known. I became one of those “spiritual-but-not-religious” people who left the church … left any and all churches. I am struck by what many public opinion polls reveal: That people view the Christian churches as mostly mean-spirited. I undestand that feeling.I felt that way and quit it all in the early ‘80s.

Eventually, I made a very good friend in the mid-‘80s. She and her partner were Episcopalians. I loved to visit them (though they lived several states away). And we would have Great Debates. By that time, I had come to hate the Christian churches. I remember challenging them: “How can two smart women worship that Big Ol’ Hoary God?” But, inch by inch, I came to see that they weren’t worshipping any Big Ol’ White-Haired God (nor his blonde, European Son :) that my Southern Baptist teachers had proclaimed.

They were worshipping a God who was much more mysterious and ephemeral … a Divine Presence that was above and beyond any of my categories … a God I could not pin down! And they celebrated the mystery and the “un-pinnability” of that God.

Finally! This was something in which I could believe! The Episcopal Church became my refuge and my lens when I entered a discernment process in 1996. At the end, I was confirmed into the church in the spring of 1997.

Since then, I probably haven’t missed a Sunday unless I was seriously ill. For all the reasons noted here.