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The new blog has everything from Walking the Waterway (the original) and Walking the Waterway 2. Stay tuned for new episodes of this intrepid adventurer.

Circles on a pond

Oh my!  It's been about six weeks since I have posted anything, and that's not supposed to happen for a consistent blog.  Part of my hiatus was caused by the Holy-Week-Easter effort. Then came the pastor's post-Easter exhaustion and inertia.  Then Rick and I became preoccupied with moving our camping trailer to a permanent seasonal site next to a hiking area and state park that we enjoy. Then....well, I could give many more reasons, but the honest-to-goodness truth is this:  I haven't taken the prayerful silent listening time I need to center and be still before God.  Instead, when I sit down for my morning prayer meditation, my body is fidgity, my thoughts are restless, my mind chatters, the internet beckons, my feet want to walk, and, before I know it, it's time to shower, pack a lunch and go to the office.  After many years I know there are shallow seasons like this. But when a soul is shallow, there is not much to write to about.

So, since I am posting, what happened?

Yesterday, I spent time with my spiritual guide and decided to admit to my restlessness.  Every pastor needs such a person to keep one humble and honest. It helps to be held accountable. Then this morning, when I was supposed to be silent, I read the blog of a colleague in New Zealand.  See how far the mind can wander?  But what a coincidence (?) that Bishop Kelvin Wright's post is about getting back to his own spiritual practice of centering prayer after a month of traveling/walking around his diocese!  His writing reminds me of why I make an effort to be still and silent, even when my schedule and my chattering mind try to convince me it is a waste of time.  He writes:

The main benefits of meditation don't come when you are actually doing it. Sure, there is often a sense of restful stillness and there are the physical rewards that accrue from having at least a short time in the day with no stress and all the systems of my body able to go about their jobs unhindered by my usual ceaseless mental preoccupations. But it's later that the real advantages appear: when my mind seems clearer and my reactions seem less fractured. My Holy Spirit time is 3 in the morning: the time when I lie awake and my best ideas pop out of the ether into consciousness. When I am meditating regularly those lovely sessions at the darkest point of the night are clearer, deeper, stronger, and give me far more practicable ideas.  

Meditation requires effort. At the moment, when I am pleased to be once again reaping the benefits of Centering Prayer, it is easy to start each day in the dark and stillness, but I know that sooner or later the day will come when sitting in my study early in the morning will seem a chore; or that one day soon, after ten minutes on my knees a cup of coffee will seem like a more urgent priority than another half hour of keeping still. It's on those days that my practice will seem to be pure hard work, but paradoxically, it is on those days that it will be effecting the greatest change in me.

Unlike my colleague, my Holy Spirit time is not 3 in the morning, although that is sometimes a good reading hour for me if I can't get back to sleep.  However, if I am practicing daily quiet listening prayer (centering prayer), I do find that seemingly random conversations or something I might read or situations that I may experience throughout the day can more frequently and clearly seem full of God's activity and insight.  It is on a still pond that the movements of the Holy Spirit can be seen most clearly.  And, yes, that is when there is likely to be greater change occurring in me.  Maybe blog writing will become a bit easier as well, although all these good results are not why one practices prayerful listening to God.

Then why practice centering prayer?  Basically, for the love of God.   The human heart being what it is, rather fickle and wayward when it comes to matters of the soul and love of God, then any benefit of a prayer practice must rely more on the grace of God than on our efforts.

So with God's grace, I will have something to write about again before six more weeks go by...much sooner, I hope.

  

The blaming game

Jesus does not play the blame game, but I do.

I blame the icy cold winter for my lack of exercise since, well, since December.  Never mind that it is my own responsibility how I use my body. Never mind that winter is only doing what an orbiting, tilting planet requires of itself.  I blame winter, this one in particular, for my lack of walking.

Of course, since the beginning of human history, people have been good at blaming.  The wisdom of the creation story in Genesis shares that insight.  The man blames the woman for giving him the fruit of the tree God said not to eat. The woman blames the serpent.  Blaming abounds, we all do it, but Jesus refuses to play the blame game.

Imagine that you are sitting on the hard ground—dirt, dust, pebbles, straggly grass.   You’ve been sitting there for a couple of hours and the sun is heating the air up, although you are trying to stay in the limited shade of an olive tree.  You can’t see a thing, because you are blind.  In fact, you were born blind and you can’t even imagine what it would be like to see with eyes.

Instead you see with your feet and hands.  You see by the direction and timbre of voices, by smell and counting steps.  You have a jar of water beside you,  and even now your fingers can reach for it with a clarity of direction all their own.

You swallow the warm water and begin to hear distant voices---a yell, some laughter, a whistle;  in a few minutes, the sounds of sandals scraping dirt, kicked stones rolling downhill as people descend the road.  You can make out words now; someone is saying something about Adonai, the Lord, and about Abraham and his children.  From experience, you guess it is yet another rabbi and his disciples.  They are usually good for a few coins in your begging bowl, but that’s about it.

As they approach you hear one ask: "Rabbi, who sinned to cause that man over there to be blind."

You sigh, “Here we go again.”  You are used to it---people talking about you and your problem as if you were deaf as well as blind, as if you had no feelings, as if you weren’t a person alive with dreams.  You feel like telling them to shut up and go away, except then you might miss out on the few coins you need to eat. So instead you steel yourself for the inevitable rambling about all the possible ways you or your parents or even your grandparents could have sinned against God or neglected some little code of the law.  Perhaps some grandparent in younger days had too proudly admired her  reflection in the nearby pool.  Or perhaps three generations ago your great-grandfather had refused to give alms to another blind beggar.  Or perhaps your mother, pregnant with you, forgot to thank God for the beautiful sunrise on the mountains.

You’ve heard all this religious speculation before.  The speakers always assume to know much, but really---they don’t know a thing about you and your story, maybe not much about God.  The trouble is, you’ve started half-believing them—that you’re to blame somehow.

Suddenly your body is alert.  You realize that the rabbi is quiet, not responding to the judgmental questions.   You don’t need working eyes to feel him looking at you, so to avoid scowling defiantly back in the silence, you simply drop your head.  No need to antagonize the rabbi and go without tonight’s meal.

The rabbi begins to speak slowly, with measured emphasis, something about how neither you nor your parents had sinned.  And you are stunned.  You are so used to the diatribe that you had yourself convinced that you must be inheriting God’s punishment.  That blindness is what you deserve.  You sense the person who spoke lowering his body to the ground, the warmth of his face  level with your own.  You smell his sweat and you hear him spit several times onto the ground.  This can’t be good, you think.  You hear fingers scraping dirt, fingers working the clay.

And then, he smears the spit-mud on your quickly shutting eyes, while he speaks to his disciples standing behind him.  "Through this man’s blindness," he says. "you’re going to see God do a wonderful work."

What?  For all your life you have just been a blind repository for some sin, a scab of God’s punishment. What does this rabbi mean that God is working in you?  The paste is gritty as it begins to dry, tightening the skin of your eyelids. God. is. working. in. you?  You know this rabbi is looking straight at you; you can feel it as he says to you: I am the light of the world.  Get up and go wash in the pool of Siloam.

And here is your dilemma: should you believe the goodness of that voice, believe that God might be doing a work in you...or believe the blame you have received for years?  Should you assume it is all a cruel joke or a public object lesson, that when you wash you face in the pool your still blind eyes will show the world how permanent God’s judgment is?

Still, even a vague hope is too good to leave sitting in the dirt.  So you get up, follow the well-known path your feet can already find to the pool outside Jerusalem.  You wash the dirt off your face, off your eyes. Nothing could have prepared you for what pours into your eyes: white glare and shapes moving.  Is this what people call sight? Is this what hands look like? You sit quietly for awhile, stunned, trying to take it all in, realizing God has just done something amazing in you...just like that rabbi said.

There is more, much more to the story (Gospel of John, chapter 9), so much more, but we pause here for the time being.  It is, as I wrote, the nature of humans to assign blame.  Often (but not always) the more powerful are blaming the more vulnerable, holding them responsible for something they can’t control, talking about that other group, lumping everyone together, making assumptions.

Even Christians do it to one another; they judge and blame.  I witnessed it happening over the internet this week.  A Christian NGO made a policy change for employees and there was a firestorm of reaction and blaming of one group by another...a bit of bullying too, while the whole world watched and hungry children lost their sponsors.  Because of blaming.

But you were just sitting in the blind man’s place; maybe you are able to sense some of the shame and judgment, the blame.  It wears you down.  You know.

Here’s the thing: at best blame is only a half-truth.  Blame seeks to pin responsibility on the other so that one doesn’t have to get involved or even help. (Why would someone help what God has condemned?) Sometimes passing blame onto another makes us look good, because the problem, of course is the other person's.  Blamers don't have to face the real truth about themselves.  Blaming blinds us to the whole truth.

But while you were sitting blind in the dirt a few moments ago, Jesus does not allow the blaming to continue.
He doesn’t listen to others talking about you, trying to pin the blame on you or your parents.  Jesus does not talk about you as if you weren’t there; instead Jesus speaks directly to you.  Jesus is not interested in whose fault it is...although, let’s face it, you and he both know there are plenty of sins to choose from...even if, of course, they are not the cause of your blindness.
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Instead of blaming you, Jesus chooses a different path. He’s interested, instead,  in your being set free and moving on.  He is interested, instead, in  bringing healing into your life and restoring community in relationships.  In fact, speaking of blame,  Jesus lets the blame fall upon himself in order to restore healing and community for all others.  That’s what the cross is about.  He takes the blame of the religious leaders, the blame of the people, the blame of the Roman government, in order to bring us freedom and life and restoration to community with God.  In the cross---in a mystery---God takes the blame of the world and says enough!  It’s over.  It’s finished.  Open your eyes and see the new life I am giving you.

That’s the good news we Christians have to tell.  That’s the gospel.  Not a bunch of moral codes to live up to.

So may you know that God does not shower blame on you.  May you be done with blaming others because in the cross of Jesus, God is long since done blaming all of us.  It is no more.  And in that new space emptied of blame, may you see God working in you to bring life and restoration with others.  Little seedlings of life springing out of the spit-moistened dust.

Not much? Or everything?

I haven't posted for awhile because it has felt like there has not been not much to say.

I have been dog paddling through administrative details: emails, connections, phone calls, written communications, calendar checking, ordering, planning, forms, surveys, hosting arrangements, thank yous. What is interesting to say about all that?  It has taken most of my energy to stay calm and focused, and I have woefully failed in that department.

Like when I thought last Sunday that I had left my sermon manuscript at home.  I couldn't find it in my office a few minutes before worship .  I searched in my briefcase, on my desk, on the copier, next to the watering can by the office plants, in the bathroom.  Nowhere.  I uttered a very loud, "Oh.... Nooooo," and sat down to figure out what to do.  Just then, an usher came to office door and says, "Pastor, I think your mike is on."   Do you know how close I was to saying something other than "Oh no!" that would have been broadcasted throughout the whole church sanctuary?

Suddenly I saw the missing sermon on a stack where I had forgotten I put it ten minutes before. Why? Why all this fluster and bluster? Because administrative details and management are not my "spiritual gifts." Because when one has been dog paddling for a month through something that feels like a heavy weight, one is not at one's best.  (An understatement if there ever was one!)

And so I have thought that there is not much to say to you on a blog.

But I'm wrong.  There's everything to say.  I have been gifted with the gifts of others in the congregation.  Why have I expected that it was my job to dog paddle through the administrative slough when for some in the congregation the organizing is like an exhilarating race?  If I don't have that particular gift, others do.  And how can they race with their gifts if I am dog paddling in their way?  Come to think of it, as I sit here with not much to say, there have been four, no, five, no six, seven, yes, a dozen and more surprising offers to step up and take some responsibility here and there. All in these last few weeks while I am obliviously dog paddling. What looks like mire to me is for them open, beckoning water.

And today?  Today was my day off.  Technically I worked some, only it wasn't work.  It was fun.  It was something I am gifted at doing that I haven't been doing much of.  I was planning evening prayer for a retreat in two weeks.  Then I went to visit an injured colleague: talking about our individual processes in sermon preparation and about where we had seen God working in the last month. But it wasn't work.  This is what I am gifted at doing and this for me is the race God has given me to run.  So why do I insist on perfecting the dog paddle?

I do have something to say after all.  Everything, as a matter of fact. Thank you, God, that ministry happens in a community where I never need to worry about what I can't do well, because you've called others to do it better.  Thank you, brothers and sisters, who have been skillfully racing past me this month with gifts God has given you.  Thank you, self, for letting yourself joyfully do today what you have been gifted to do.

May you, my friends, let yourselves do the same.

Perspectives on an arctic vortex and rock pigeon

Just two weeks ago and still chilling our memories, a cold front moved into the northern states.  In Pennsylvania as temperatures reached 15 below (Fahrenheit) and wind chills dipped further to 25-40 below, a new term entered the media vocabulary: “arctic vortex.”  Of course, we have had temperatures dip below zero before and wind chills that are brutal.  That is nothing new.  But this time simply having it called by another name, arctic vortex, changed my perspective.

Arctic vortex sent my imagination reeling.  Of course, I'm a hopeless romantic.  I could hear and feel the swirling cyclone that had spun off from a far off place that I will never visit.  Nose going numb, I noticed that I was breathing the very wind that had rocked an ice berg, that had brushed the fur of a polar bear.  My face was stung by air that had first been sniffed at by an arctic fox and had then been sliced  by the wings of a snowy owl.  You see, just naming it “arctic vortex” changed the dread of going out into deep chill into an adventurous expedition of sorts.  

My perspective was also changed that same week by a book I was reading, Consider the Birds: A Provocative Guide to Birds of the Bible by Debbie Blue.  Don’t be deceived by the rather ordinary title; because of this book, I will never hear the story of Jesus’ baptism in the same way again.

Visualize the story: Jesus walks into the Jordan river and is baptized by John.  As Jesus stands up, dripping with water, all the gospel writers tell us that the Spirit of God, "like a dove," descended onto Jesus.  And what do we imagine that dove to look like?  Well, a small, white, beautiful bird, right? We have one in the stained glass window of our church building.  I have one on my red stole for Pentecost.

But the author notes that the Greek word for dove could have just as legitimately been translated pigeon.  In fact today, dove or pigeon is used interchangeably by ornithologists when speaking of this family of birds.  So, ponders Debbie Blue, how about a pigeon as a symbol of the Spirit of God?  Yes, one of those gray pigeon/doves with iridescent green and violet necks, common in Palestine, Europe and brought to the Americas...known here as rock pigeons.

The author also notes that while lots of birds want to avoid us, the great thing about pigeons is they want to be close to us.  They are on our sidewalks and nearby vacant lots, roosting in dilapidated attics and walking around our beautiful state capitol building in Harrisburg.  Pigeons, doves, whatever you call them won’t leave us alone.

Yet there’s hardly a bird, the author suggests, that people are more likely to want to shoot.  I certainly did, want to shoot one, that is, the day one flew over and pooped a white, runny blotch onto my hair.

So what if, the author asks, the Spirit of God descended like a rock pigeon---"the spirit that’s always underfoot, the spirit that’s routinely ignored, the spirit that’s often  despised?” I have to admit that it is true that sometimes the invitations of God's Spirit can be downright inconvenient and I don't want to be bothered by it.  So what if that’s the kind of Spirit we see descending on Jesus?

So the next time I am in the city, I will probably notice where the rock pigeons are and wonder about the the Spirit of God hovering under the bridges with people who are homeless, in the vacant attics of crack houses, and around the door of Christ Lutheran where people are waiting in the cold for the free medical clinic to open.  If God's spirit hangs out with the ordinary and doesn't leave us alone, if God's spirit goes where rock pigeons go, maybe we should too.  That, my friend, changes one's perspective on what our baptism is all about.

Thank you, Debbie Blue.

(Read the book!)