Trinity Sunday

interesting bits for a Trinity Sunday...

Trinity: They took poetry and made it into a rule.

Karl Barth: The Word became flesh, and theologians made it words again.

God Is Not A Problem
by Killian McDonnell in Swift Lord, You are Not.

God is not a problem
I need to solve, not an
algebraic polynomial equation
I find complete before me,

with positive and negative numbers
I can add, subtract, multiply.
God is not a fortress
I can lay siege to and reduce.

God is not a confusion
I can place in order by my logic.
God's boundaries cannot be set,
like marking trees to fell.

God is the presence in which
I live, where the time between
what is in me and what
before me is real, but only God

can draw it. God is the mystery
I meet on the street, but cannot
lay hold of from the outside,
for God is my situation,

the condition I cannot stand
beyond, cannot view from a distance,
the presence I cannot make an object,
only enter on my knees.

Batter My Heart
by John Donne

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to'another due,
Labor to'admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly'I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me,'untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you'enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Father, part of his double interest
Unto thy kingdom, thy Son gives to me,
His jointure in the knotty Trinity
He keeps, and gives to me his death's conquest.
This Lamb, whose death with life the world hath blest,
Was from the world's beginning slain, and he
Hath made two Wills which with the Legacy
Of his and thy kingdom do thy Sons invest.
Yet such are thy laws that men argue yet
Whether a man those statutes can fulfil;
None doth; but all-healing grace and spirit
Revive again what law and letter kill.
Thy law's abridgement, and thy last command
Is all but love; Oh let this last Will stand!

And notes from last Trinity Sunday here

Pentecost v. 3

The Archbishop of Canterbury on Pentecost

You should live in a small town...

Guess it is a good thing I live in a small town!! HT to Eileen.

You Should Live in a Small Town

You prefer a close knit community to the bustle of the city. You like locally owned businesses, local flavor, and friendly neighbors. There's nothing boring about a small town!

Where Should You Live?

Pentecost v.2

Readings are here.

Textweek features the art and writing of Jan Richardson who explores the links between breath and fire and the stories of the people of God from the burning bush to today. On the Day of Pentecost the disciples receive the Holy Spirit and it manifests as tongues of fire. As God spoke from the burning bush to urge Moses to lead his people to liberation so the fire of the Holy Spirit is for the liberation of all people. We gather around fires as communities to tell the story of our faith. A friend of mine says church is just a formalized way of gathering the people, lighting the fire and telling the story. It is what we do in one way or another.
This Sunday is also Mother's Day - a day that has become the high holy day of the Hallmark calendar. It began with a very different intent than a sentimental day of idealized motherhood. According to wikepedia:

The United States celebrates Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May. In the United States, Mother's Day was loosely inspired by the British day and was imported by social activist Julia Ward Howe after the American Civil War. However, it was intended as a call to unite women against war. In 1870, she wrote the Mother's Day Proclamation as a call for peace and disarmament. Howe failed in her attempt to get formal recognition of a Mother's Day for Peace. Her idea was influenced by Ann Jarvis, a young Appalachian homemaker who, starting in 1858, had attempted to improve sanitation through what she called Mothers' Work Days. She organized women throughout the Civil War to work for better sanitary conditions for both sides, and in 1868 she began work to reconcile Union and Confederate neighbors.
When Jarvis died in 1907, her daughter, named Anna Jarvis, started the crusade to found a memorial day for women. The first such Mother's Day was celebrated in Grafton, West Virginia, on 10 May 1908, in the church where the elder Ann Jarvis had taught Sunday School. Originally the Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church, this building is now the International Mother's Day Shrine (a National Historic Landmark). From there, the custom caught on — spreading eventually to 45 states. The holiday was declared officially by some states beginning in 1912. In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother's Day, as a day for American citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war.
Nine years after the first official Mother's Day, commercialization of the U.S. holiday became so rampant that Anna Jarvis herself became a major opponent of what the holiday had become. Mother's Day continues to this day to be one of the most commercially successful U.S. occasions. According to the National Restaurant Association, Mother's Day is now the most popular day of the year to dine out at a restaurant in the United States.

Julia Ward Howe and Anna Jarvis meant it as a day to free the world of war. They hoped that the world would become inspired.

Inspired comes from the word for "breath" --- which is what the Holy Spirit does to make a new creation. The Spirit breathed upon the creation in the beginning, breathed life into humankind, spoke from the burning bush, led the people of Israel through the desert with a cloud by day and fire by night and today we celebrate the Spirit - inspiring the church to become the people of God.

Painting by Alexander Sadoyan

Pentecost

A video for Pentecost. How are we cracked by life? How can the Spirit get in?

VII Easter

Readings for Sunday are here.


This is the painting of the Ascension by Salvador Dali. It is endlessly fascinating to me. Where are the wounds of Jesus? Are his hands showing ecstasy or agony? Who is the woman at the top of the painting? The dove? The sunflower? What is the landscape below?

To me it appears as though Jesus is doing a back dive into the universe. In the lesson from Acts says:

When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, "People of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?

I have that same stunned feeling of the followers of Jesus when I look at this painting. What else is one to do after the Ascension but stare in wonder? The followers shake themselves out of their stupor and return to wait for the promised power from on high. They have been with Jesus these 3 years, they saw him executed as a criminal by the Roman state. They saw his willing powerlessness in the face of death, his invitation to the thief on the cross to join him in paradise, and they saw him for these past days in his resurrected state. He has taught them everything possible and promised that there is more to come. It is in their hands and they don't know what it all means.

So they gather and pray and worship and tell the story. It is a time of waiting for something that is unknown. Waiting is not a comfortable place for most of us. We like to be doing, people of action. Sitting is difficult - whether we are waiting for something terrible or something wonderful - it is difficult to watch the time slowly slide by - often feeling like it will never pass. If we are dreading something - we feel like it would almost be better to have it happen than to sit with our anxiety. If it is something wonderful - we have that same sense of wanting it to happen and not wanting it to happen because then it will be over.

In the case of the disciples - the women and men who follow Christ - they don't even know if it will be terrible or wonderful - and it turns out, as we know, to be both.

Hymn 661 in The Hymnal 1972 captures this feeling:

The peace of God it is no peace
but strife closed in the sod.
Yet let us pray for but one thing--
the marvelous peace of God.

Denise Levertov writes:

Stretching Himself as if again,
through downpress of dust
upward, soil giving way
to the thread of white, that reaches
for daylight, to open as green
leaf that it is…
Can Ascension
not have been
arduous, almost,
as the return
from Sheol, and
back through the tomb
into breath?
Matter reanimate
now must relinquish
itself, its
human cells,
molecules, five
senses, linear
vision endured
as Man –
the sole
all-encompassing gaze.
Eye of Eternity.
relinquished, earth’s
broken Eden.
Expulsion,
liberation,
last
self-enjoined task
of Incarnation.
He again
Fathering Himself.
Seed-case
splitting.
He again
Mothering His birth:
torture and bliss.

From The Stream and the Sapphire: Selected poems on religious themes.

Book tag

Helen tagged me for a "what are you reading" meme. Luckily I am reading an actual book - print on paper - for a change. Usually I do books on CD as I have a 2 hour drive to church on Sundays and 2 hours home. On the way over it is perfect timing for NPR and Leane Hansen - always good for last minute bits for a sermon!

The last book I "read" on the drive was Three Cups of Tea - about Greg Mortenson and his school building projects in Asia. Now I have a a Sharon McCrumb that I bought on sale (probably because it is on tape and most cars don't have tape players anymore).

Back to my holding a book in my hands reading -- it is the latest Nevada Barr - Winter Study - set on Isle Royale or as the park service calls it ISRO. It is her usual mystery interspersed with death defying moments for Anna Pigeon - ranger. Now married to an Episcopal priest who is also a sheriff in Natchez MS - in addition to wrestling with bad guys - she wrestles with whether or not she believes in God. Nevada Barr's book Seeking Enlightment Hat by Hat is her real autobiographical spiritual search that takes her into the Episcopal Church.

Most of my reading is online these days. There is such a wealth of resources. Prepping for sermons or reading for Education for Ministry as I mentor 2 online groups and train mentors for the program takes up other reading time.

And for the rest of the meme - here are sentences 6-8 of p. 123
"Without fear to burn away the dross and transform it from baser metal, bravery was merely stupidity or poor impulse control. 'They should hold,' he said and held up the three chains attached to each other by the steel-jawed traps. It would work, Anna told herself."

Tagging Kristin, Grandmere Mimi, Eileen, and Lindy if they feel like playing -- or you can play and tell me.

Strange Way

Found this on RevGalBlogPals today --

Fifth Sunday of Easter

Readings are here.

Thomas asks in the gospel of John, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" Now days with GPS systems is more difficult to get lost and not know where we are going. But we can still be lost spiritually even though we know where we are physically. Thomas seems like a concrete thinker - in Chapter 11 he wants to know why Jesus wants to go back to the place where their lives were being threatened just because Lazurus is sick. After Jesus' death he wants to see the wounds for himself instead of taking the word of the others. So while he is thinking about an actual place - Jesus is talking about a way to journey with God.
We have lots of stones in these readings. The stones that were thrown at Stephen lodge in the mind and heart of the young man Saul who we later know at Paul the great evangelist of the church. The cornerstone that is rejected is Jesus upon whom our faith is built. Peter, the one called by Jesus as "rock" - asks us to become living stones, a holy priesthood, a piece of the spiritual house that God is building.
When one builds a wall or building of stones - the stones are of different sizes and shapes. They have to be fitted into one another, sometimes they have to have a few corners knocked off. So it is with us - the living stones - God is building us into a spiritual house not for some future time in another place but for here and now.
Today I am giving you a small stone as a reminder of your status as living stone, to ground you in a spiritual place when you feel lost and as the cornerstone to hold onto when you feel the slings and arrows of life battering you.

IV Easter

Readings for today are here

Not preaching but just thinking about the lessons this Sunday.

"Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture."

This is the phrase that catches my attention today--- salvation (i.e., health, wholeness, right relationship with God - as I think about it) comes when we know we know we are free to come and go and are fed by the Holy One. Speaks to me of free will, relationships of mutuality.

Jesus proclaims that he is the gate of the sheepfold. In his day shepherds built pens out of briers and brush to keep the sheep safe at night. They would sleep across the entryway so they would know if sheep were trying to get out or predators were trying to get in.

In the image he gives us in John - he tells of God who wants us to be safe but who allows freedom to come and go. It speaks of a true relationship - caring but giving each of us space to grow into the fullness of our creation.

Last week the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco was in the news. The Golden Gate is a very symbolic bridge - speaking of the expansive invitation of the Wild West and the promise of riches in the wilderness. The riches are not found, however, in material goods - like gold, but in the wildness and in the relationships. This past week protesters used the bridge as a backdrop to send a message about Tibet and the hope of freedom in that country.



Bridges and gates -- what do they say to you?

Seven scintillating things about me?

Lindy tagged me for this meme. Hmmm... thanks I think...

1. I do news on Tuesdays for Episcopal Cafe
2. and write a monthly essay for ECafe, too.
3. I co-mentor 2 EFM online groups - a new way to take EFM without a nearby group.
4. My husband and I have 5 grandchildren - whoa!
5. I drive 2 hours to do church and then 2 hours back home stopping in Eden to do another service.
6. My psychic home is the Oregon coast - some of my being lives there no matter where I am.
7. Our daughter and I are going to the UK this summer to visit my maternal grandmother's hometown.

Not sure how scintillating these are - but at least there are 7 things.

Walking to Emmaus

Sunday's gospel is another of my favorites. You might wonder if there are any stories in the Bible that are not my favorites - there are but that is another day's post. Sunday's readings are here.

I love this picture accompanying this blog for its bright colors and the depiction of the characters. The man - downcast and absorbed in his grief in his silence, the woman - dressed in red - eagerly engaging the stranger in conversation - processing her grief by talking about it. Jesus moving ahead of them - they can't really see the nail wounds in his hands and feet. The path ending with them stepping out into the white space - a new world that they have yet to recognize. This is the moment just before the offering hospitality in their home and the revealing of the resurrected Christ in the breaking of bread.

There are so many moments in this short story. It raises questions about how we might encounter the Risen Christ: on the road, in the midst of grief, meeting a stranger, sharing stories, opening our hearts to the unexpected, sharing a meal.

What do you think?


See more of this artist: Gisele Bauche.