Month: November 2021

More than any previous year I have noticed this time around a rush to the holidays. Get your turkey early, they say. Shop now while there are still gifts, they say. Supply chain crisis, they say. Christmas music in November. Is your tree up yet? It isn’t even Thanksgiving.

The truth behind this lies in our collective exhaustion with pandemic life. We are tired of fear, we are tired of being angry with one another, we are tired of loss and grief, we are tired of being so completely and utterly tired. 

And so, we distract ourselves with a sense of giddy celebration, the possibility of miracles and joyful celebration. And we get angry with anything or anyone that gets in our way.

Reality, though, is your friend.

Let us pray prayers that ground us in reality, in what actually is possible, in what is good and holy. Prayers of action. 

Let’s pray that we count our blessings, every day, honestly acknowledging the true immensity of the gifts we have received, as well as the hardships and grief.

Let’s pray that we are generous. We know there is a world of struggle and need. Let’s give of our substance and not of our extras. Let’s see people as neighbors and not as needs or problems.

Let us pray for compassion. We cannot know the reason behind the decisions people make, how they have become who they are, why we can’t understand their choices. So let’s offer everyone an equal gift of compassion, regardless of who they are, their perceived bad choices, or whether we think they are likable. Everyone deserves our compassion. Everyone.

Let’s pray for a sense of abundance. We have a choice in how we see the world, our lives, our needs and wants. Let’s choose to see abundance.

Let us pray for peace, in our hearts, in our lives, in our worshiping communities, in our neighborhoods and in our world. The implication of this is that we are working toward the peace we long for. 

Let us pray to cultivate joy. To make this a daily spiritual practice. Not to be unrealistic, not to be happy, but to find the joy we are offered in our daily lives.

Let us pray for those whose lives are so hard that any of this seems impossible. 

Let’s pray for the courage and constancy to work for these things every minute of every day to the honor and glory of our Creator. 

Amen

As Episcopalians, we don’t focus too much on Jesus coming again. We profess our belief that it will happen, and set aside a few weeks a year to contemplate it. But in general I think we avoid it. I didn’t realize this until I started to listen to Christian music, which often proclaims a yearning for Jesus to come and make the world better, or imply a rapture that will include all the good people taken up into heaven. I would sing the words, eventually contemplating the meaning, and wondering if I actually meant it.

I think Jesus’ return is great. I hope that it straightens out a lot of things that are such a mess here on earth. But selfishly, do I want it to happen tomorrow? I don’t really know.

Because I realize that in God’s fulfilled Kingdom my life will be drastically different. I will have to give up things, like stubbornness and selfishness and binge watching past seasons of Top Chef. I have created a comfortable life for myself, with just enough dysfunction and just enough self-improvement. What would be expected of me in this new situation, and am I able to do it?

In my rational and prayerful moments, I completely trust God to love me through it. And recognize it is my own selfish fears that prevent me from full embrace of this future. Change is hard, and I only like the changes I want. I realize how far I/we are from living the life we are called to live.

Of course the trick is not trying to control it, another one of my favorite sins. To let go and let God. To believe that the Sovereign Christ will establish love that will be compelling, joyful and everlasting. Something like an eternal trust fall. 

Clearly I have to pray more about this. I hope you will join me. 

Today we celebrate All Saint’s Day, remembering the great saints of the church as well as our faithful departed. When we think of saints we often call to mind miracles, faithfulness, constancy. We think of people who are especially holy, especially close to God. We might think, I could never be like that. 

So much of a life that is holy is one good decision at a time. One act of courage at a time. One act of love at a time. We are all saints by virtue of our baptism. Called to bring the light of Christ into the world. It isn’t that we could never be that, we are that. So we have to imagine and pray and be ready for what God might be calling us to do.

Not all of our good deeds and mighty acts of sacrifice happen in church. The kindness we show to others,  letting someone go first in line, complimenting someone for their goodness, all of that adds up. It’s pretty easy to be good in church. The real world is much more challenging.

I have been pondering lately the ways we offer ourselves to serve. And I have deeply appreciated the people from our parish who ran for local elections this year. Some of them won, some did not. All were ready to spend time in the community doing the hard work of leadership. 

Serving as a council person or school board member isn’t what it used to be. The anger of people in the midst of a pandemic, the level of violence, has been well documented and frankly horrifying. Where people learn to behave like this is another blog, but they are and it is scary.

So to run for office these days is to know that you have to be the adult in the room, that you will certainly deal with someone who disagrees with you passionately, and that it won’t always be easy to live your convictions. In other words, it takes courage. And a willingness to serve courageously is something to be admired and to follow.

Say thank you to the people in your community who ran for office, especially if they didn’t win, especially if you disagree with them. Our democracy needs public servants, and our faith needs courageous leaders. May God bless all who ran and continue to inspire them to work in our community.

This past week I took a fun trip to New York City. I needed a little break, and I am impressed with their high standards for COVID. We had to have proof of vaccination for almost everything. We were careful, my travel companion and I. We drove, stayed with friends, and wore our masks.

I go to NYC for three things: food, theater and museums. The food was spectacular. We found a little Italian restaurant that specialized in the food of the  La Marche region of Italy. Oh my. I ate African jollof rice, which I have wanted to try. And always the iconic things like bagels. It was all such a treat and delicious!!  I also went to the museum of folk art, which I had never been to, as well as a pilgrimage to the Met. Always good for my soul. 

We saw two shows. To Kill A Mockingbird with Jeff Daniels was superb. Just so well done. The other show was new, Girl from the North Country. It’s about a boarding house during the depression set in Duluth. The music was all Bob Dylan. The music was fabulous, as I suspected it would be. The story, not so much.

To start with, the preacher was a villain, and that always turns me off. I take it kind of personally. But suffice it to say almost every character ended in disaster. Now, you might be thinking that for a play set in the depression, that is to be expected. But it was hard to take. And I would argue that real life isn’t like that, it isn’t all bad or mostly bad. Real life certainly has tragedy and pain, but also joy and goodness.

The characters always picked the most tragic, horrible choice. That also isn’t real. While we all make bad choices, it is never all bad. We don’t wake up in the morning and say, how can I mess up my life today. We all do our best. We make mistakes and we do good things. Life isn’t a Bob Dylan song. 

I think it is too easy in these pandemic times to see everything as bleak, every choice as tragic, every outcome as a disaster. It is much harder, but healthier, to find the good, to look for the miracles, to treat people the way you want to be treated. Life is usually some balance of joy and sorrow, good and bad. Some of it we have no control over, but some of it we do.

Don’t give up on the good. Fight for it. Desire it. Practice it. Good is everywhere if you just pay attention and notice it.