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!)

Words on Christmas

Do you remember chemistry labs?  The labs where you would mix things together and watch what would happen?  One of my favorite authors, Madeline L’Engle, goes from chemistry class to Bethlehem in the following poem entitled: “The Bethlehem Explosion.” (A Cry Like a Bell: Crosswicks, 1987.)

The chemistry lab at school
was in an old greenhouse
surrounded by ancient live oaks
garnished with Spanish moss.

The experiment I remember best
was pouring a quart of clear fluid
into a glass jar, and dropping into it,
grain by grain, salt-sized crystals,
until they layered 
like white sand on the floor of the jar.

One more grain—and suddenly—
water and crystal burst
into a living, moving pattern,
a silent, quietly violent explosion.
The teacher told us that only when
we supersaturated the solution, 
would come the precipitation.

The little town
was like the glass jar in our lab.
One by one they came, grain by grain,
all those of the house of David,
like grains of sand to be counted.

The inn was full.  When Joseph knocked,
his wife was already in labour; there was no room
even for compassion.  Until the barn was offered.
That was the precipitating force.  A child was born,
and the pattern changed forever, the cosmos 
shaken with that silent explosion.

Yes, the world once did not have a room for the God-in-the-flesh child.  But the world often has no room for lots of things:

No room for the patience it takes to do the long, messy grieving over the death of one who is precious to us.

No room for the respect needed to lay down its war of words or weapons against those who don’t think the same, or believe the same.

No room for the sharing needed for those in grinding poverty, who can’t manage to dig themselves out or feed themselves on nothing.

No room, except for the pointing of fingers, for those who have been unemployed for a long time.

No permanent room for thousands of war refugees living in tents on the borders of nowhere.

No room for immigrants who bring different ways.

No room for priorities to insure that all girls across the globe have access to education.

No room to set aside judgment in order to accommodate forgiveness.

No room for the powerless to have a clear enough voice to be heard.

What would you add to this list? There is no room for so much and for so many in this world.  Yet, in spite of the world’s scarcity of room, God made room for the world with the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.  As the poet said, a silent explosion that one night has changed the pattern forever.  This is good news, the great joy we keep singing about today.  God squeezed into a manger and there is now room!

For forgiveness as deep as the ocean to rest upon the guilty and shamed-burdened.

For life as wide as eternity to hold the dying.

For welcome as spacious as the air we breathe to embrace the rejected and overlooked.

For freedom more powerful than cell walls to give hope to those imprisoned.

For healing stretching as high as the mountains to strengthen those who are broken.

For love reaching into the darkness left by absence to lift the lonely.

There is room  in God’s heart for all of us.  If God can squeeze into a manger, then God’s heart holds more than enough compassion for you and for me.  We may doubt whether we have any room in our lives for God, but there is no doubt that God has room for us:

No matter how far away we are.

No matter how far gone the situation troubling us is.

No matter how scornful the world has been.

No matter how many doors have been closed in our faces.

No matter how costly it will be to make a space for us, (the cost has been taken care of).

The silent explosion of Bethlehem has reversed things forever for us when Jesus, God-made-flesh, was born, lived, loved, died, was raised again and is yet present with us.  Yes, there is indeed room in God’s heart for us.  So much room that, in fact, the silent explosion once started in Bethlehem continues whenever God’s people in the name of the Christ Child make room for others in their hearts.

In the last month I've watched my brothers and sisters with whom I worship provide winter shelter (several months rent) for a single mother and her two small children until there is an opening in a program that will get the mother the permanent skills she needs to be independent. In the last weeks I have seen these same people make room for young children to get a head start in their education, put Christmas dinners on tables of families whose pantries are bare, knit mittens for cold hands, and take soup to the sick.  The Bethlehem explosion continues through God's people, signs that the cosmos is still shaking from that silent explosion.

Where can you see it happening?

It's a mystery!

I have been mentored by a lot of contemplatives over the past ten years.

And just who is a contemplative? you may ask.

My granddaughter is, for one.  For the past five months, my one year-old granddaughter has lived only a half mile from my house.  This is a gift I do not take lightly.  After a hard day at work I sometimes call her parents up and say I have an hour in the afternoon or evening to play.   She has become my youngest contemplative mentor.

The two of us, grandmother and granddaughter, sometimes find ourselves sitting quietly on the porch swing.  A car goes by and she proudly says the word "car" acknowledging its presence.   She hears a bird, looks at me with her eyes wide and makes the sign for bird with her hand.  We walk to the railroad tracks and listen perhaps ten minutes for the sound of the train whistle in the distance, and then there is a long wait of ten minutes more before the gates start flashing and the locomotive goes rumbling by with a thrill.  On the other hand, she often notices and stops at sounds that I overlook.  We do a lot of careful listening together.

Most often contemplatives are known for practicing prayer, not so much by talking to God, but as listening to God. Often their times of prayer consist of sitting silently together, perhaps after hearing a word of scripture, waiting and alert to the presence of God.  The contemplative at prayer has learned to value spacious silence which, as Thomas Moore has said, is "not the absence of sound, but rather a shifting of attention toward the sounds that speak to the soul."

Contemplative prayer pays attention to the present moment, the here and now---which, of course, is the only place where we can encounter God.  We can't jump ahead in the future to hear what God will say or do a year from now.   Nor can we go back to the past either to fix it or bring it back.  God's Spirit acts in us today.  God's word reaches and speaks to us now.  Contemplative prayer brings us into God's present presence.

My granddaughter is the best mentor for that.  She doesn't care about what happened in the morning or worry about what will happen tomorrow afternoon.  She is totally and enthusiastically absorbed in the now with her grandmother.  She draws me in so that I too, when with her, cannot worry about the difficult meeting in the evening or dwell on that painful conversation of the morning.  I am totally in the present in her presence, simply enjoying her...like contemplative prayer is with God.

Another important aspect of contemplative prayer for me is that it can be playful.  There is a freedom to be creative, imaginative, move around, be spontaneous, draw, write a song, walk in God's creation with the openness and wonder of a child.  No, contemplatives don't just sit quietly all the time.  There is a freedom to be oneself as beloved child of God.

And my granddaughter and I do that playing thing together.  She and I have our own holy hilarity.  We build towers and crash them on the floor and roll in laughter.  We "wow" over the lights on the Christmas tree.  We are fascinated with colored leaves, tiny flowers, bees on the sidewalk and fish swimming in the lake.   We stick our feet in the cold river.  We chase bubbles before they burst on the grass. We slurp spaghetti noodles into our mouths and laugh. (Don't tell her parents.)  With few words or with no words, our times together are full of play and delight in being together and we are content to be children of God.

There is indeed a variety of ways to pray, just as there is variety in communicating with anyone we love. I suppose many people often hear me pray as a pastor at their hospital bedside or see me pray formally in a written or sung prayer in worship or offer a table blessing at a fellowship meal.  But it is the contemplative side of prayer that nurtures and grounds me for the more public prayerful leadership that takes place.  The listening, the attention to the present, the playfulness and creativity springing from delight in God's presence feeds my soul for the work I am called to do.

After all, Jesus did say, "Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it."  (Luke 18:17)

For an old pastor to be nurtured in her prayer life by the youngest of God's beloved children has got be one of the great mysteries of faith.

Unexpected chuckles on an Advent Sunday

Our second service this morning was "alternative worship"----whatever that means.  Perhaps it means  that we used a screen (heads-up) instead of bulletins (heads-down).  Today, however, in the first Sunday of Advent, it mostly meant that two of our college students, who were home for the Thanksgiving holiday, led some of our music: guitar, piano and random percussion worked together.  One piece that a young woman sang was particularly beautiful: "Let Your Light Shine Down on Me."  

That theme about which she sang came from Isaiah and Romans: Walking in the light of the Lord.  One of our quieter, young adults helped to lead worship, prayers, a teaching about the advent wreath and, yes, even parts of the "message".  Another read the scriptures...and what does 'debauchery' and 'licentiousness' mean anyway?  Someone else had cut out footprints for each of us, and on them we wrote down simple, ordinary things that are characteristics of walking in the light of the Lord, maybe things that God is inviting us to do this advent.  People spent time talking to each other about ways they had seen God's light in their lives recently.   Now you must understand, talking with one another about faith stuff is an unfamiliar step for reserved Lutherans who usually sit spread out in the pews apart from one another.  Yet today people moved closer together and before long the congregation was buzzing with conversation.  Singing the African song, "We are [walking] in the light of the Lord," we walked and rolled (one of us is in a wheelchair) around the sanctuary, placing our footprints on the floor leading up to the communion table.  We looked at what other people had written on their footprints.   We walked up to place our offerings in a basket that had been brought back from Nigeria by two Peace Corp workers, relatives of one of our congregation.  

There were tea lights (battery operated) lining the path up to the communion table and which my alb managed to brush out of place here and there. It didn't matter.  We hadn't figured out how to get the wheel chair up the steps to the communion table, but by the end of the worship one of our people had already addressed that challenge for the future in order to make our rolling brother better included in the circle.   As we were singing "This Little Light of Mine" throughout communion, a second-time visitor and African American, lifted up her voice above the others and sang it the way we up-tight European-descended Lutherans can't manage yet. For a brief  moment I had to pause in handing out the bread of Christ just so I could listen to her unexpectedly leading our song.  

In Advent we are reminded to wait, to wake up, to notice, to be ready for the unexpected coming of Christ. "Come, Lord Jesus."  I can't wait until Jesus comes again.  But meanwhile I am determined to write this down tonight because the quiet, intermediate arrivals of Christ in our midst are so easy for us to miss.  I know in my gut that Jesus was hanging around this morning, a foretaste of what is to come, and if I don't write it down it will be one more of God's gifts that may go unnoticed.  In this morning's second service, we weren't particularly organized and our worship wasn't polished.  Some of us were definitely out of our comfort zones, and our ushers were graciously asking with puzzled looks: and what is it you are asking us to do?  

But here was Christ's unexpected presence today: several  voices (not one pastor's) led worship; many voices shared the message with one another---different ages, different backgrounds, different abilities were welcomed in tangible ways. In fact, the whole body of Christ was more actively working and participating in worship today. It was a community-body-of -Christ experience.  If no one of us was quite comfortable or totally sure about what was happening next, well, judging from the gospel today, that isn't one of Jesus' priorities. Jesus just tells us to be ready and then surprises us.  And, yes, my hunch is that he has a sense of humor about it all.

This morning was not quite what any of us expected.  All I'm saying is that Jesus, chuckling a bit, showed up in worship today.  (Thanks be to God.)  

Rebuilding Humility on the Jersey Shore

In the last few blog posts I have been thinking about humility, the lack of it in our culture and in ourselves, the importance of it when we find it.  Granted, humility is not the most popular topic to write about, but here's one more thing to say about it.

Last week, I went on a working mission trip to help with the long rebuilding of the New Jersey shore from hurricane Sandy which devastated the area over a year ago.  We stayed in a Presbyterian Church in Point Pleasant and were absolutely amazed by their hospitality and the great lengths this congregation has gone to feed and house volunteer groups week after week. Thank you, people of Point Pleasant Presbyterian Church.

This was my first experience with a mission trip of this nature.  I am a musician, a thinker, a reader, a preacher, a writer, a listener---but rebuilding a house is not one of my strong suits. Yet, here I was, ready to serve, convinced by fellow members in my congregation that there would be something I could do.

And there was!  Primarily as a learner.  This is where the humility part comes in.  For four of the five days I was down there I was on the painting crew.  Now, I have painted in my own home and done a passable job.  But here in Point Pleasant I was working with a volunteer who is a professional painter!  He is also retired from being a high school principal, so he knows how to teach and administrate.  Out on the work site he was teaching me the craft of painting.

You may wonder how much one needs to know in order to paint. You would be surprised. Thoughout the week he would walk by, observe what I was doing (or not doing) and ask in his quiet way, "May I offer a suggestion?"  Of course, I would answer with a yes.  And then he would tell me more about how to hold a brush, the best way to roll the paint on the wall, in what order to paint a paneled door, how to edge the trim and much more.  Sometimes when I heard "May I offer a suggestion?" I would be momentarily disappointed; it meant that I was still not doing something right!  That's where some humility needed to come in; it takes humility to be a learner.  As the week progressed, I  began to value each new painting tip I learned.  I was doing better work for the people we were serving and someday I would be doing better work in my own home.

But I also learned to value the question itself.  My painting coach didn't come to me and tell me how to do something.  Instead, he very simply asked if he could suggest something, which I think implies a respectful way to teach, more of an invitation.  For the learning to continue, I would need to agree to my own learning.  By answering "yes" I accept the invitation and become a participant in the process, not just an object to be corrected.  It appears to be a more humble way to teach.  What would he have done if I said, no?  I didn't test that.  My guess is he would simply have shrugged his shoulders and said calmly, "Okay, let me know when I can help."

It seems to me that Jesus' preferred way of teaching was also by invitation: he invited people into ways of being participants in the kingdom of God. He did this by telling stories like the one about the Samaritan who crossed the road to help an injured stranger or by suggesting metaphors like being "salt" and "light" in the world to describe how our living can make a difference to others.  Hopefully we answer "yes" on most days. Teaching, learning, rebuilding on the Jersey shore and being a  follower of Jesus happen best when accompanied by a sprinkling of humility.

Humility in the face of all saints

Tomorrow we celebrate All Saints Day, although technically the festival of All Saints was November 1.  We Lutherans are not very good at going to mid-week services, so we postpone the celebration until Sunday. This year the list of our congregation's saints who have died and entered the "church triumphant" is especially long.  In fact, it is heart-rending.  We will read their names in our prayers of the church and a bell will toll after each name is read.  The bell tolls deep.  We miss their faithful presence.

In my last two posts here and  here, I have written, reflected and wrestled with humility...or the lack thereof. I told you I would let you know if I found it.  I have.

On October 30, a congregation member died suddenly.  Over the past few days I have been preparing for the All Saints Day message in which I have reflected on the gifts of the ten brothers and sisters who have died in the Lord this past year.  But I have also begun preparing for the funeral of this faithful and beloved sister in Christ who has most recently departed and whose name will be read last tomorrow.  It is fair to say that I have been humbled.

There is a tendency for many to say only good things about the one who has died as if we have to prove that they are worthy of God's notice.   As if we will jinx their future or dishonor their memory if we admit some of the ways that they may have failed us.  What short shrift we give God's graciousness and forgiveness!

Nevertheless, I am humbled when I hear of the gracious things my departed brothers and sisters have done that I have known nothing about.  When I discover that they, quietly and behind the scenes, have been serving their neighbor (and therefore the Lord) in ways that few people know about, I can only describe my response as humility. How much they had to teach me and I didn't know.  Perhaps I didn't  know about it because I wasn't listening carefully with enough of my own humility. I also suspect, though, that they didn't care about the "left hand knowing what the right hand was doing."  There is something about many in the passing generation that doesn't need to be praised, that knows we do what is right and loving because we can (by God's grace), not because anyone is looking.

And so I now name humility as a frequent part of the generation that preceded me. If that is true, then I only have a few more years to learn from them.  Or perhaps humility is  the final stage of development for any generation that is entering their last years.  Maybe I too will do things with humility by the time I am 85. Nevertheless, I know this: I still have a lot to learn about walking humbly with one's God.  And every time I preside at a funeral, the more I realize time is running out for what I have yet to learn.

On meeting a black snake

Yes, I have been out day hiking on the AT again.  Three times, actually, because I've had the luxury of a full week of vacation.  

I have stood on a rock precipice and peered over the valley to ridges beyond.  I have walked under yellowing trees tossing their flames one by one into the chill wind.  I have sat beside a stream of the clearest water that becomes the glass coffin for leaves of red maple and brown oak.  I have walked softly on scented needles of pine through the gloomy maze of their dark trunks.  In the warmth of a noon sun, I have traced the path through a thicket playground full of noisy sparrows.  Hunched by a campfire, I have watched the moon, part shadowed, part light, rise while my legs, facing the fire, burned with heat and my back, facing the damp grass, shivered.  It has been a full week.

Oh, yes, and I met a black snake on the trail not too far, as I recall, from the thicket with all the small birds---a virtual grocery store for a snake.  I will not, however, let that fact cloud my respect for this creature.  Soon it will be hibernating in a rocky den in mountains that I love, perhaps one of the rock jumbles I had just finished climbing over.  At the moment I saw it, however, the snake was absolutely still.  Whether it was soaking in the sun, or waiting for a chipmunk to run by, or watching for me to leave it alone, I do not know. I circled it, took a few cell phone photos, and estimated its length to be five and a half feet.  It remained motionless all the while.  Without analyzing, without words, its snake thing to do was simply to hold one's head up, be still, watch and wait.

The Psalms are well known for moving from the subject of creation and its Creator to the dilemmas of humanity.  I am going to make the same shift.  In my last post here I began reflecting on what it means to practice humility in our lives.  I'm not good at the humility thing, and in fact that was one of the things I was thinking about on this day of walking.  Then I saw the snake and eventually realized that an important quality of walking humbly is to be able to be still, hold one's head up, watch and wait.

What might that look like practically speaking?  Instead of jumping to my own conclusions, listen to what another is trying to say.  Instead of charging ahead with my own plans to fix problems, waiting in prayerful stillness to see what God might be suggesting.  Instead of first following my own interests, also looking to the interests of others (a paraphrase of the apostle Paul).  Instead of becoming defensive in the rightness of my own view, listen for the truth in what others are saying.

Why, in the face of a towering two legged creature, did the snake know to choose stillness over slithering away under the dry, fallen leaves?  Perhaps a herpetologist could answer that question.  But let me guess that true humility can remain still, wait and watch because it is curious to know and respect the other; it values the other as much as itself.   In some cases humility is the strength that gives itself for the sake of the other.  Isn't that at the heart of the good news of what Jesus did?  And if so, then why as followers of Jesus, aren't we better at listening and waiting?