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Good vs. Bad

2/7/2017

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I took part in my first local Christian Sunday liturgy for the first time in two years this past Sunday. I walked in late to the early liturgy at the little church on my way to downtown Phoenix, the homily already underway.

​The preacher was in the middle of speaking about the difference between good liturgy and bad liturgy. Bad liturgy, he said, was the sort of liturgy we do--actions and intentions all woven together--for our own ends, so that we may personally benefit from it in the ways we see fit. Good liturgy, on the other hand, is the sort of liturgy we do for God's sake, for God's ends. I saw where he was going, especially from a political standpoint, because it seems that in this country, at this moment in history, far too much is being done for self-aggrandizing, self-benefiting ends, while the ends that matter from a certain Christian perspective--clothing the naked and feeding the hungry--go unnoticed, even though these are, from this perspective, God's ends.

What I noticed as this preacher went on was the absolute divide he made between God and human beings, God's ends and human ends.  That divide is, perhaps, why Jesus, who is said to be both human and divine, is such a miracle. For me as a Thean, however, I cannot thealogically claim such a definitive divide between God and what she has made.

​As I encounter her, Thea is an author. As I encounter myself and others, we are and are becoming are her evolving masterwork. Thea is not done with her masterwork, it seems to me, and even if she were, her work would be no less part of her. She may be distinct in some sense from her work, but her work is of her, and she of it.

I say this because of my own experience just today as I picked up my first novel, Memory Stands Still, and marveled as I read it. My novel, my words, my stories, are of me. Writing this and other stories has changed and revealed me. One could claim on some level a divide between me and my art, but I would argue--and so would many around me--that my art, like my dreams, reveal the deepest parts of myself. One may talk of Thea, God, apart from her masterwork, but what would one say of her?

​One might answer that one would say nothing, and that that would be the best way to honor Thea, who is ineffable. And that would also be correct.

​The grace and beauty of Thea is that there are many ways to behold her, to perceive her, to encounter her. As a Thean, I encounter God incarnate in every person, every creature, I meet--every one, without exception. For me, Thea is revealed not as absolute other, but as author of and the very stuff of creation. Thea's masterwork is Thea herself. The radical thing about Theanism is that there is no encounter one can have that is not encounter with Thea. My ability to perceive her in the one who wounds me and wounds others may be limited, but she is present and enfleshed in the meanest and kindest of all of us, in the messy complexity of every one of us, including myself. That is what makes the radical divide between good and bad too facile; it implies that God can be here and not there, and the truth, at least of my experience, is that God is in and of all of it. We the universe are Thea figuring herself out, and singing beauty--in all its difficulty and breathtaking loveliness, into life. We who are Thea are both good and bad, and Thea's intentions, Thea's ends, are very much our own, and ours hers. What this means is that Thea doesn't always get it right--we, you and I, don't always get it right. But we, her creation, her Sacred Body, her hands and feet, are moving, one must hope, in the direction of greater understanding, beauty, and love, for that is her, our, end.

​In other words, I don't believe human ends are so very different from Thea's, despite the evils, hatred, and selfishness that run rampant in our world. What I do believe is that it's easy for every one of us to lose sight of what is most important and life-giving in our daily lives for the sake of accomplishing the goals we've chosen to set for ourselves. There is not one person in the world who has not done harm to another while attempting to do what they believe is good, right, or worthwhile. There is not one person in the world who has not engaged in what is selfish while wanting to help others or make a positive difference. Good and bad are woven together, and there is no unweaving them.

​But this is not reason for hopelessness. It is reason for relief, I believe--relief in the ability to be honest, to assess ourselves and one another frankly and with tremendous compassion, to choose to hold together rather than attempting to tear apart what cannot be divided neatly into compartments. From my Thean perspective, there is no way to achieve "pure goodness," because there is no such thing. There is, rather, a journey for each of us, a journey with many possible directions, setbacks, and ecstasies. We each have steps of our own in the cosmic dance. We each have our harmony, our solo, our part in the symphony Thea composes and performs in this very moment.

​What I would like to suggest is that perhaps, instead of pointing fingers at what or who is good or bad, that it is time to set aside our assumptions and judgments aside for a while and focus instead on what we live for: loving and drawing out the best in one another, starting with the one we see in the mirror. For we are worth our great efforts to love. We are Thea, and love is the masterwork we are, have been, and are becoming.

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Music

8/8/2015

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When I listen to Katy Perry's "E.T." (which, for the record, is a lousy and even offensive song lyrically speaking), I'm transported back to 2012. I had just had my first book crowdfunded, and I was getting started on my book manuscript. I was writing every day, and what's more, I was writing about writing with writer friends--while listening to not-very-deep but catchy music.

One of my writer friends from back then commented on a post I made today. I noted that I'd reached 55,000 words in my novel manuscript, and he wrote, "Look at you go. Keep kickin' butt lady."

And you know what? That little bit of encouragement snapped me out of a mental loop. I've had my eyes habitually fixed on the past when my eyes could have been focused on the future. Now my eyes are on the future. It's bright, promising, and rich. And I'm creating it, one word at a time.

When I hear Katy Perry, I hear myself dancing into the future with wild, fertile hopes and dreams. I like what I hear.

The future sounds better and better all the time.
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95

4/5/2015

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Thea,
life tramples death
and hope beholds herself in an infinite mirror.
Her alleluias echo up and down stairwells,
and a chorus swells around and above and below her in harmony:
All shall be well,
and all shall be well,
and all shall be very well.
*
Amen.


*quote from Julian of Norwich, Showings.
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50

2/19/2015

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Thea,
mistress of the earth,
your love rains
in monsoon waves.
Soak every brittle fear
until hope burgeons again.
Amen.
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28

1/28/2015

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Thea,
when the path of dreams seems lost,
light hope's brave flame
that I might find my way again.
Amen.
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20

1/20/2015

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Thea,
when I am unable to imagine joy,
give me hope;
when I am unable to feel anything but pain,
soften my sorrow;
when your presence is out of my reach,
reach out to me.
Amen.
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Spirit Whispers: Dark Night

10/20/2014

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This morning my spiritual director sent me Richard Rohr's daily meditation e-mail. He wrote of John of the Cross' dark night of the soul:
You can’t go forward by “knowing” in the usual way, but only by experiencing. At some time in your life, I hope you are so ambushed by God, that God catches you by surprise. If you try to go by what you already know—John of the Cross makes it clear—you will pull God back into your pre-existent categories, and you won’t get very far. That is why most people stay with their childish faith.

When God leads you into a dark night, it is to deepen and mature your faith—which, by its very definition, “is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) The gift of darkness draws you to know God’s presence beyond what thought, imagination, or sensory feeling can comprehend. During the dark night the tried-and-true rituals and creeds of religion no longer satisfy or bring assurances of God’s love. (So you might get bored with church services for very good reasons too, but that is not the same as mere spiritual laziness or a lack of faith.)

God is calling you into deeper and closer intimacy, beyond anything you could achieve with your most sincere attempts, closer than you could even dream.  But you must learn to proceed without any guarantees from your feelings or your intellect. That’s the only real way to grow in faith and divine love.
I wonder if that dark night isn't where my soul has made its nest over the last three months. For a long time--years and years--I have sought my life's value outside of myself. And I wonder if it hasn't been within me all along, in that deep place within which God's fiery life flickers. 

I wonder now if I would find comfort in this dark night by writing not to or for or about others, but simply to God, my life's source. In intimate communication with God, could there be any doubt of my value? What would I discover?

Perhaps I, the expert in liturgical prayer, have been praying in the wrong way, with the wrong words. Perhaps my own words were the ones God beckoned from me. It is one thing to pray the psalms, and another to pray the psalms of one's heart. Is one thing to read God's word, and another to enflesh it.

Maybe what God is bringing to birth in me is not what I can do for others, but the birth of God's name for me: "Beloved."
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Spirit Whispers: The power of story

8/17/2014

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The following is the text of a homily I preached this morning at St. Augustine's Episcopal Parish in Tempe, Arizona.
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I’d like you to pause for a moment and think about your favorite book. Think about the title, the story, and the characters. Think about the actual copy or copies of the book that you’ve read, and where you were when you last read it. By a show of hands, how many of you have read your favorite book half a dozen times or more?

I reread one of my favorite books this week. My copy of Lawrence Thornton’s Imagining Argentina has yellowing paper, a splitting spine, and some of the most compelling characters I’ve ever met in words. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read and recommended Imagining Argentina to others. It’s a hard book to read, but the vision of hope it presents is powerful precisely because the heart of the book is so difficult. I find that lots of books and stories are great to sink my teeth into, but then there are those precious books whose stories sink into me, and my life is different—more thoughtful, more considered, more virtuous—for it.

When Fr. Gil announced several months ago that I would be preaching on August 17, I looked up the lessons of the day and practically jumped for joy. The stories of the Bible we hear today from the Old Testament and the gospel are two of my favorite stories from scripture.

Fast forward to earlier this week, when I read an e-mail containing a message from our Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori. She wrote to ask the entire Episcopal Church to make today, August 17, a day of prayer for those in Iraq.

It would be pretty hard not to pay attention to all the stories of what’s going on internationally these days. The Gaza Strip has been a focal point of terror between Palestine and Israel. Iraq is in the news for its highly visible genocide of Christians, among others. Thousands of militants who believe war is the only way to end war are ending the lives of innocent people, while they simultaneously inspire the uprising of new war-mongerers on every side. The desire to maintain the purity of one’s own land is the driving force behind much of this violence and prejudice. Even in our country, young unarmed men and women are being shot and killed by those who only seem to see that these young people are on the wrong side of the American color divide. Children are being detained like prisoners on our borders, in limbo between a land they cannot thrive in and a land that treats them as chaff among amber waves of grain.

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t slept well for weeks. These stories echo painfully in my heart. They force me to acknowledge that that simmering hatred becomes a blazing rage in manifold ways each day among people both far away and here at home, people who claim to be driven by the call of the law, or the call of God—people like me.

On this day of prayer for those innocents who are dying in Iraq, I see in today’s lessons stories that are less interesting than urgent, more deep than obvious.

The story of Joseph is an epic--we first meet him as a boy, Jacob's son. His many older brothers, in a fit of collective jealousy, throw him into a well, leaving him for dead. Then they change their minds, pull him out of the well, and sell him into slavery instead, figuring they ought to get something out of him. Joseph ends up in Egypt and endures prison and other grave hardships, with no hope but God's promise to help him. Eventually he becomes Pharaoh's most trusted advisor. When we encounter him in today's lesson, his brothers have just arrived, desperate for mercy from Pharaoh’s advisor in the midst of famine. They don’t know that the powerful man before them is their brother. As Joseph prepares to reveal his identity to his brothers, he sends everyone else away. In the end, all of Egypt, even the Pharaoh's household, hears his cries when he is alone with his brothers for the first time in years.

Next, in the gospel story, we hear about a Canaanite woman, a foreign woman, who comes to Jesus begging healing for her daughter who is possessed by a demon. At first Jesus ignores her, as if she weren’t even there. Then his disciples get antsy and ask him to send her away. To appease his friends, he gives her an excuse. She persists. He gives another excuse; she persists again, but this time she refers to him as master of the story that they’re creating through their dialogue, and it’s at that point where the story turns.

The difficulty with these stories for me comes when I try to put myself in them. I'm not powerful Pharaoh. I’m not wise, faithful Joseph. I’m not the woman begging on her knees for her daughter's life, and I’m certainly not Jesus.

When I put myself in these stories, the characters that resemble me most are the jealous, grudging brothers and the possessive, anxious disciples. I live a comfortable, privileged life. I don't easily relinquish my comfort, particularly for someone I don't like or whom I have no direct connection to. With all the horrors I read about in the news, whether in Gaza or in Iraq or in the United States, I perceive the selfishness of my fellow humans keenly, because it is that same selfishness on a grand scale that I practice on a micro-scale. I see in middle-eastern war-mongerers, as well as white-skinned insiders screaming at and threatening brown-skinned outsiders, unholy icons of the many ways in which my heart is hard and impenetrable. I cry over what I read in the news and in these scriptures, because I know how hard my heart is to break open, and I know it can't be any easier to break open any of theirs.

But here's the thing: Joseph's brothers, who sent Joseph to his doom, watched as God's grace broke through their evil deeds. God’s grace revealed not only their brother who had saved all of Egypt and surrounding lands from famine, but revealed their brother who loved them more than ever.

And then there’s the foreign woman from the gospel. By calling Jesus “Master,” she forces him to pay attention to her. Not only does he pay attention to her, but his understanding of what it means to be Lord is subverted by her. Through this woman’s unflagging persistence in the face of blatant rejection and humiliation, Jesus—God’s own chosen one-- perceives that his power as Lord is not just for the sake of “his people,” but for all who call on him for saving help. Through this foreign woman, God's grace breaks through the walls Jesus and his people had built against this woman, this outsider.

If God can accomplish mighty, gracious deeds through possessive, jealous, rebellious hearts like those of Joseph’s brothers, and if God's grace can break through the walls that Jesus' disciples and even Jesus put up to guard their selfish interests--then perhaps God's grace can break through right here in our midst.

What if the stories of war-mongerers and privileged insiders were subverted by stories more persistent and enduring than theirs? What if they were to see that they are indeed called by God--not called to hate and shut out strangers, but rather to love and to welcome and uplift them? I wonder, if we each take a moment to remember again our favorite books and stories, what we might discover about ourselves from them. What do we find most compelling? Do we embrace the bravery and outrageous kindness and selflessness that we encounter in our most beloved, imperfect characters?

What if we were to embrace Joseph’s love of those who had utterly betrayed him? What if you and I embraced Jesus’ humility in accepting that we, as citizens of the most powerful nation on earth, are accountable to more than just the people we call our own? What if we listened not to our own wisdom, but the wisdom that inspires us to become who we are called to be? Maybe the Word of God, Holy Sophia, would become incarnate in us as it did in Mary when she made her bold, unwavering, all-embracing “Yes.”

Perhaps, if each of us said yes to the wisdom in the stories that are most precious and compelling to us, we, like Mary, would become God-bearers in the world.  Perhaps then, beginning with you and me, God’s peace would spread to all lands and peoples, and then perhaps the peoples of the world, both here and elsewhere, would come at last to dwell in the everlasting peace of God.

Amen.

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Spirit Whispers: Quiet

7/27/2014

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As I read the news of terror and anger in the world, I perceive the brokenness of my own heart.

As the murder of innocents continues, I'm more and more aware of the evil that hungers inside me.

It's so easy to feed it when I'm tired, weary, or feeling thin
.

It's so hard to empty myself, to starve my control, to make room for quiet, for stillness, for peace.

But I look at the alternative. It's all over the news media.

How can I glut on fury, doubt, and ego when I can taste the promise of the God-who-loves?


Could the morsel of my heart's hope be multiplied into a love-feast for the whole world
?

God, you know, we could really use a miracle.


Create in me a clean heart, o God.

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Spirit Whispers: Speak up

6/17/2014

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If you've never had the experience of participating in a spiritual discernment committee, I invite you to consider it.

After my fifth (and final) meeting with my discernment committee for priesthood yesterday evening, my committee confirmed that they heard my call to priesthood. And that's not even the extraordinary part.

The extraordinary part is that, as I prayed yesterday before my meeting, I prayed for total surrender to God's will, and for the faithfulness not to run if that will was something my ego didn't like. My total surrender granted me total, deep, quieting peace.

The extraordinary part is that, having let go of my attachment to the outcome of my discernment process, I happened to read (during evening prayer) the story in Matthew about the disciples who wanted to know why they couldn't heal the sick on their own when Jesus so easily could. Jesus told them it was because they lacked faith, and that if they had faith even the size of a mustard seed, mountains would move for them. And I realized at that moment that my mustard seed faith was what had moved the mountain of my ego in order to make a straight path for Spirit to enter and dwell deep within my heart.

The extraordinary part is that, despite having a clear sense of call when I walked into the process, my sense of call widened and deepened and became more rooted as the dialogue went on.

The extraordinary part is that, especially in the final two meetings, as I listened to the challenging questions of my committee members, I perceived Spirit doing the asking. And as I offered my vulnerable, open-hearted answers, I perceived Spirit speaking through me. (It's fair to say that I've never experienced God's voice speaking to me so powerfully as I have in my discernment committee meetings, and for a Benedictine who hears God speaking to her through liturgy and scripture and encounters with others all the time, that's saying a lot.)

The extraordinary part is that, despite my Enneagram-three-personality-type's desire to manage a situation in such a way that the outcome is "positive," I was required to relinquish my ability to do that in order to speak plainly and truthfully. I was painfully aware that my deep honesty could at any moment result in the humiliation of my ego, and I spoke anyway. In that total risk of my ego, I realized it was not my ego that spoke, but Spirit.

When I walked out of my meeting last night, I had no idea what my committee members had heard. I didn't know what they would say. My three-ish ability to anticipate the outcome of the process failed me spectacularly. And I perceived in my failure the possibility of God's success--success in finding a way to make use of the quirky instrument that I am.

My committee is passing me on to the next steps of the discernment process, steps that will be challenging in their own ways. What my committee heard may not be confirmed by the next folks I encounter in the discernment process. But what happens next is not my concern.

The most important piece to emerge for me from this discernment process is the profound recognition that my heart--my whole heart--belongs to the one I call God. Whatever comes, I know that I will be faithful to the path God has prepared for me. I won't turn away. This is God's gig, and I am God's beautiful, imperfect instrument.

What song(s) will God choose to play through me for the uplifting, healing, and reconciling of her creation?

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Easter: Day 41

5/30/2014

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I took three vows when I became a Benedictine Canon novice in February: obedience, conversion (conversatio), and stability. I've spent a good deal of time reflecting on each of these recently, and I'd like to spend time with them over the next few days. The strength and power of the vows becomes evident when one considers one's own weaknesses, so I will discuss the vows in light of my own weakness. I want to give  consideration to stability today.

Let's suppose that the journey through the novitiate became really difficult and I felt like I wanted to give up.


One of the things that has been true of me in the past is that, confronted with great difficulty, I sink into my shadow's aching, heavy desire to withdraw. I have burned a number of bridges that way, including some that I wished I could restore later and couldn't.

Stability implies that my shadow doesn't get to burn bridges when things become difficult. My vow is to be stable, to stay--to deal with whatever comes my way while maintaining my presence.

When I'm healthy, when my heart's soil is well-tilled, I can do this, often utilizing supports that are already in place.
St. Benedict knew that in community oriented away from self-interest and toward God and neighbor, much support would be available to the members of the community. My community is exceptionally supportive, even though it's small and we are not cloistered.

Still, when things are hard and I'm not well, remaining faithful in the exercise of stability means having the humility to acknowledge that I need help even if I'm not sure I'll get what I need, whether from my community or anyone else. It's one thing to pray, "My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth," when one has lots of tangible help around oneself. It's another to pray it when God's help is perceived to be the only available source of help.

At one's darkest moments, the vow of stability implies utter reliance on an uncapturable, untameable God.
It's an invitation to fall, trusting that I will be caught, even though I have no safety net of my own devising in place.

By taking the vow of stability, I've promised not to withdraw or give up, period. I've promised to see this journey through, no matter where the path takes me--even if it meanders out of the out of the comforts of community and into places of desolation.

And if my foot slips from its foothold on the wall of a stark, vertical cliff?

Then my vow demands that I must fall back into Spirit's enveloping breath.

Will I shed the burden of fear when I fall? Will I fly on the lightness of hope?


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Easter: Day 20

5/9/2014

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The psalms appointed for morning prayer in The Book of Common Prayer today included Psalm 44, and I couldn't help but think of the girls kidnapped in Nigeria with these words on their lips:

We have heard with our ears, O God,
   our ancestors have told us,
what deeds you performed in their days,
   in the days of old:
you with your own hand drove out the nations,
   but them you planted;
you afflicted the peoples,
   but them you set free;
for not by their own sword did they win the land,
   nor did their own arm give them victory;
but your right hand, and your arm,
   and the light of your countenance,
   for you delighted in them.

You are my King and my God;
   you command victories for Jacob.
Through you we push down our foes;
   through your name we tread down our assailants.
For not in my bow do I trust,
   nor can my sword save me.
But you have saved us from our foes,
   and have put to confusion those who hate us.
In God we have boasted continually,
   and we will give thanks to your name for ever.

Yet you have rejected us and abased us,
   and have not gone out with our armies.
You made us turn back from the foe,
   and our enemies have taken spoil for themselves.
You have made us like sheep for slaughter,
   and have scattered us among the nations.
You have sold your people for a trifle,
   demanding no high price for them.

You have made us the taunt of our neighbors,
   the derision and scorn of those around us.
You have made us a byword among the nations,
   a laughing-stock among the peoples.
All day long my disgrace is before me,
   and shame has covered my face
at the words of the taunters and revilers,
   at the sight of the enemy and the avenger.

All this has come upon us,
   yet we have not forgotten you,
   or been false to your covenant.
Our heart has not turned back,
   nor have our steps departed from your way,
yet you have broken us in the haunt of jackals,
   and covered us with deep darkness.

If we had forgotten the name of our God,
   or spread out our hands to a strange god,
would not God discover this?
   For he knows the secrets of the heart.
Because of you we are being killed all day long,
   and accounted as sheep for the slaughter.


And as the final words of this psalm come around, I can't help but think that the hands and feet and deeds they seek from God are the ones given by God to me--and you.


Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord?
   Awake, do not cast us off for ever!
Why do you hide your face?
   Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?
For we sink down to the dust;
   our bodies cling to the ground.
Rise up, come to our help.
   Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.


How will I use my God-given hands and feet--how will I use my freedom to act--for the liberation of those who are, at this very moment, horrifically oppressed?

Here's a statement about the Nigerian girls from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori given on behalf of the Episcopal Church, and here's a link to the call for submissions for the anthology that will be published in honor of the girls (whose proceeds will go to notforsalecampaign.org)


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Living Lent: Holy Saturday

4/19/2014

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Jesus--crucified--dead.
The whole world fills the new tomb.
In stillness hope stirs.


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Living Lent: Tenebrae

4/17/2014

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Long psalms draw me into shadow.

A clatter rattles me.
Death!

But a lone flame alights,
scattering harbored dark
and my dry face is watered with hope.

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Living Lent: Homily, Lent III

3/24/2014

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Many weeks ago I was invited by the vicar of St. Augustine's Church to give a homily at both Sunday liturgies for the third Sunday of Lent. Yesterday was the third Sunday of Lent, and these are the words that I shared with my fellow parishioners.

Lent III Lessons: Genesis 44:1-17, Psalm 95, Romans 8:1-10, John 5:25-29

"From the wilderness the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as God commanded. And they camped, but there was no water for the people to drink." This is what we hear from the book of Exodus. God's people had been journeying for a long time. They were hopeful and excited about their newfound freedom from slavery in Egypt. But in the midst of their journey, tired and weary from walking, they found themselves in a place that had no water to quench their thirst. When they got upset about it, Moses got upset at them for being upset. And then God finally relented and gave the people a spring of water. The scripture writer notes throughout the story that God's people persisted in doubt.

There's something strange about this. Why would God bring God's beloved people out of slavery and then leave them out to dry, literally? They're in the wilderness, a place unknown to them, and they're thirsting. Thirst is no insignificant thing. Thirst, if left unquenched long enough, could lead to death. Thirst is such a fearful experience that there are psalms dedicated to it: in Psalm 42 we pray, "As the deer that pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for God," and in Psalm 63 we pray "My soul is thirsting for you, O God, like a dry, weary land without water."

For the people of Israel, a dry land was an unfruitful land. A dry people was a dying people.

And here we are, on the third Sunday of Lent, not quite halfway through our journey in the Lenten wilderness, and we find ourselves parched. My guess is that you, like I, have given up something for Lent (in my case, being the overachiever that I am, I gave up four things). If you're like me, your Lenten fasting leaves you yearning, sometimes bitterly, sometimes desperately, for the familiar comforts you gave up on Ash Wednesday.

This Sunday's lessons are all about water and thirst, and they may be the most important ones we hear during Lent. We think of Lent as a time to honor Jesus' ultimate sacrifice on the cross by making sacrifices of our own, and Lent is that, but Lent also has something far more difficult to teach us.

The harder lesson of Lent is difficult to perceive when our fasting is overshadowed by our certainty that relief is coming. Unlike our voluntary Lenten fasting, for the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, there was no timeline or guarantee of reaching an oasis. Their journey out of slavery in Egypt meant leaving behind all their known sources of refreshment, period. It meant taking the extraordinary risk that they might involuntarily and without warning have to abstain from water--an abstinence that, if prolonged, even for a few days, would have the power to claim their lives.

By leaving Egypt, they weren't just taking their lives out of the hands of Pharaoh; by seeking freedom, they were submitting their lives to the mercy of their God, their sole protector from the dangers of the wilderness. As they found themselves stopping to camp in a place with no water, they were terrified. They were so sick with parched mouths and deep thirst that they were no longer sure that the God in whom they had put all their trust would be willing or able to save them from death. They had already journeyed too far from Egypt to go back. Their lives hung by a thread, and they could no longer save themselves. Only God could. And that scared them.

Centuries later, when Jesus offered living water to the Samaritan woman, he was offering her God's new covenant: the promise that as long as she sought this new living water, rather than seeking water from the source she had always turned to, she would never have to fear dying from thirst the way the Israelites had feared dying from thirst in the wilderness.

The lesson from John's gospel isn't merely a story about the Samaritan woman. It's a story about us. We have been offered this same living water by God in our baptism, and yet what do we do?  We build up storehouses of comfort around ourselves in order to make sure that we never have to rely on anyone but ourselves. Our lives get so cluttered by the comforts we take for granted that when we tear away some of those comforts during Lent, we feel a deep, uncomfortable emptiness. We taste a morsel of the same bitter fear that haunted God's people in the wilderness, and we can't wait to get back to the way things were. In the end, we would rather drink from the well that we've always known than trust in some guy who doesn't even know to bring his own bucket. We might give up what we cling to for a few weeks, but who among us is willing to let our comforts go indefinitely? If I let my sources of comfort die, I risk dying, too.

I'd like to suggest that we ask ourselves what we left behind in order to enter this Lenten wilderness, and whether we're willing to leave behind all the rest. Do we dare to empty ourselves of everything we cling to until all we have left is our aching thirst for God and the trust that God won't let us die? Perhaps, as we enter the second half of Lent, we can risk losing it all--every thing we think we need to be happy, all our enslaving attachments, every shackle of our obsessions--and move forward to the unknown, unguaranteed future. And maybe then, as we go forward bearing nothing but our thirst and radical trust in the face of terrifying dryness, God will lift up for us a spring of living water, and we'll be able to rise from our knees to unfettered, quenching, resurrected freedom.

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Living Lent: 1st Sunday of Lent

3/9/2014

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The first reading of the first Sunday of Lent (Year II) as prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer is Daniel 9:3-10:

Then I turned to the Lord God, to seek an answer by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying,

‘Ah, Lord, great and awesome God, keeping covenant and steadfast love with those who love you and keep your commandments, we have sinned and done wrong, acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and ordinances. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our ancestors, and to all the people of the land.

 ‘Righteousness is on your side, O Lord, but open shame, as at this day, falls on us, the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you. Open shame, O Lord, falls on us, our kings, our officials, and our ancestors, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him, and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by following his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets.


At St. Augustine's, our weekly Eucharistic prayer tells of humankind rebelling against God. God's response, over and over, is to offer a hand of healing from our self-made brokenness. The continual pattern of human rebellion and divine redemption strikes me. I'm taken back to my very first Sunday at Historic St. Peter Church (now the Community of St. Peter) in which the pastor, Rev. Bob Marrone, preached on hope. That was the day I first dared to believe that God chose mercy over judgment, even when judgment was the only thing deserved. I learned in my years in that community that because this is true of God, we are called to make it true of ourselves: to render mercy rather than judgment, even when judgment is deserved.


On whom will I deliver judgment this Lent? To whom will I have the courage and humility to offer mercy instead?


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Greetings and Farewells

2/15/2014

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This is my last day as a Roman Catholic.

Tomorrow I will be received into the Episcopal Church by Bishop Kirk Smith of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona, thus continuing my baptismal journey, continuing my journey as a novice of the Community of St. Mary of the Annunciation Benedictine Canons, and beginning my journey in a new-to-me Christian tradition.

I am continually surprised at the deep connections I find between my adult faith and the faith of my childhood. I am about to enter the Episcopal Church, a church that liturgically isn't very different from the Roman Catholic tradition. My devotion to a relational, triune God was established before I knew it on Trinity Sunday, the day of my baptism.  And my formation in the Community of St. Mary of the Annunciation Benedictine Canons, whose devotion is to God's preeminent open-hearted listener, the Theotokos, began not during my years of graduate study at St. John's School of Theology in Collegeville, Minnesota, but at my baptismal church, St. Mary of the Annunciation Church in Greenville, Ohio.

My Prior suggests that synchronicities such as these are worth attending to.  I have always been a fan of synchronicity--I have just never experienced so much of it in one place as I have in the Sonoran Desert these last five months.
  All the threads of my life of faith--the threads of liturgical practice, structured prayer, understanding of God as relational/transcendent/imminent, singing, feminism, openness, commitment to the seeking of truth in all places and people, and humility in the presence of God's wondrous deeds--all of these and more are woven into the pattern of my faith life at St. Augustine's and as a Benedictine Canon Novice of St. Mary of the Annunciation. And the pattern they weave takes my breath away.

I say farewell to the Roman Catholic Church in kindness and love, and I greet the Episcopal Church with fondness and hope. I
trust that my almost thirty-two years as a Roman Catholic Christian have not been in vain, but instead have created a strong foundation on which I can build a stronger faith.

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Retreat and return

2/11/2014

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My dreams this week concern me.

I've dreamed about killing someone I didn't know; I wasn't convicted in court for lack of evidence, even though I knew I was at fault.  I've dreamed about others I did know dying of natural causes, leaving me to pick up the pieces.  Last night I dreamed about an elderly friend of mine asking me to help pack up two houses: the one in which he used to live and the one in which he currently lived.  He was preparing to move elsewhere, though I didn't know where.  Everything I touched in his current house was laden with memory, whereas everything in the other house was strange, rich, and unlike him as far as I knew him.

I'm no expert on Jung or Freud, but I do know that dreams can point dreamers to insights about themselves and their lives.

What is with all the death, hiding, and transition? 

I woke in the middle of the night last night to get my baby daughter a bottle.  When I returned, I flashed back to a conversation from my last Benedictine Canon chapter meeting.  Br. Philip talked about preparing for his final profession as a Canon next month, in particular about the placing of the pall over his prostrated body.  Like Br. Chad and Br. Rawleigh, Br. Philip will lay down his body at the service of God, the community, and the world.  He'll be covered with a pall, the pale garment of baptism and death.

I realized in the chill of the night that if I make my full profession as a Benedictine Canon, I will be committing myself to die.

I crawled back into bed and closed my eyes, but words rose up, and I ended up texting myself with the words of a haiku so they wouldn't be swallowed by sleep.

A funeral pall
veils the diff'rence
between old
and new. Ego die.


My dreams point me to an unexpected revelation: my old self is dying.  I am being put to the test.  My identity as a religious person has long been plagued with fear, self-absorption, doubt, and horded treasures, all carefully saved so I would have something to cling to in case God ever failed me.  Now, step by step, I am moving forward into the intensely uncomfortable unknown: a place of overflowing trust. 

Father, I put my life in your hands.
 

I'm dying--and it's okay.  I'm letting the precious treasure of my life go.  And what a relief.


Mother, I put my life in your hands.

My life will be whatever it is meant to be.  The particular outcome of my life is no longer my concern
.  Living from moment to moment at the service of God and God's magnificent, multi-faceted creation is enough.  Being able to turn again and again from my selfish fears toward God, the holy Fire who burns within me, is enough.

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Introducing Sister Kate

2/3/2014

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PictureMy community's prayer books
Yesterday, during the Candlemas liturgy at St. Augustine's Episcopal Church in Tempe, Arizona, I made simple vows to become a Benedictine Canon Novice. 

This is what I promised:

To dedicate my life to Holy God through the vows

(Because vows imply radical commitment, and to become a member of a religious community is akin to entering a marriage--dissimilar in the way one relates to other members of the community, but similar in one's level of commitment to those members.)

of Stability in this community of canons,


(A vow to stick with this novitiate in this community, no matter what.  I will not blithely abandon this community.  These vows are to last at least twelve months, and I will see them through, no matter what insights or doubts or failures may come.)


Conversion through the monastic way of life,

(A vow to allow my life as a Christian to be formed by the wisdom and requirements of this Benedictine community's life.)


and Obedience according to the Rule of our Holy Father Benedict.

(A vow I have long dreaded, ever since I began to take seriously the possibility of religious life.  Obedience could always mean that I would not be taken seriously, that my voice would ultimately be ignored, that I would be bullied by my superiors.  To obey, however, is to listen--ob audire--and I was able to make this vow because the capacity to listen in a self-emptying way is so clearly manifested in the superior of this community.)

By taking simple vows, I have been given the title of Sister.  I am choosing to embrace that title in a broad way, and I invite anyone who encounters me to address me as Sister (abbreviated "Sr.")
Kate if they feel comfortable doing so. 

I used to joke with my Roman Catholic friends that they'd be calling me Sister Kate someday.  I spent many years investigating seriously the possibility that I might be called to a religious vocation as a sister in the Roman Catholic Church.  I assumed when I got engaged that that door would be closed to me forever.  But lo! in the Episcopal Church, I have found that not to be true.  One can be called "Sister" or "Brother" as a Benedictine Canon and be married with children as well--or not married, not a parent! 

I find that embracing the title of "Sister" is a way of making a statement about my role as wife and mother as much as it is about being part of this Benedictine Canon community.  Claiming this title is the same as saying that my roles of spouse and parent are indeed deeply holy, just as the role of the celibate religious person is.  It isn't celibacy that forms the foundation of our holiness, according to this manner of Benedictine life.  That is true of Episcopal clergy as well, of course--one can be single or in a committed relationship or married, and none of those things determines whether you are considered called to ordained ministry. 

I asked the Prior of the community if I could make my simple vows on Candlemas because dates matter to me, and Candlemas in particular stands out as a date of significance.  In 2006 (or perhaps it was 2007?) I participated in a Candlemas procession coordinated by my classmate, Cody Unterseher (of blessed memory).  Cody had been Roman Catholic growing up, and he became an Episcopalian later on, partly (or perhaps mainly) because of his identity as a gay man.  He found in the Episcopal Church a place to call a very dear and hospitable home, which I didn't relate much to at the time.  I remember all the candles being carried by many warm hands down the long hallway into the chapel, where they were placed together around the Paschal Candle and blessed with water and holy words.  I considered how much light the candles would give over the coming year as they burned down, down, down, the same way the baptized bear light in the world as they move toward the final extinguishing of their baptismal wick.  I remember the smell wafting from the swinging thuribles of incense.  I remember listening to the profound stories of Simeon and Anna, Mary and Joseph, and of a small child born to be light.  I remember wondering why I had never celebrated Candlemas before.

That procession was with me yesterday.  In this place, where fresh air flows freely, my baptismal flame burns brighter than ever.
  I find open doors and fresh air where I used to find  locked doors carefully guarding musty, airless rooms. 

I get it now.  I get why Cody felt at home.  Because now I, like he, am able to be wholly who I am called to be--no hiding or sneaking or wondering if I'll get caught for saying things too radical to people with power to diminish my light.
  I get it because I am now a religious novice in addition to being a wife and parent.   I am invited to speak with my expertise and to utilize my gifts where before I was looked on with suspicion and, sometimes, pity.  I am no longer being asked to choose one part of my call at the expense of another.

I am a novice of the Benedictine Canons, vowed to live out the Rule of Benedict in a way that honors my whole calling--as a woman, as a parent, and as a member of the baptized.  I welcome this time of testing.  I no longer fear that vow of obedience because I trust that I will never be asked to deny the many facets of my God-given vocation.  I trust that I will be asked to chip away at the crust of my superficialities so that who I am called by God to be may glow brightly for all to see.

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An Open Letter to Pope Francis from a Roman Catholic

1/17/2014

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PictureM. Kate Allen
To Pope Francis:

In my almost thirty-two years as a Roman Catholic, I have never been prouder of any pope. Granted, I've only encountered three in my lifetime, but I am also a student of Christian history. You stand out among your predecessors.

You have rocked the entire world with your embodied proclamations of the good news. You kiss the wounds of the sick. You share tables with those who have neither tables of their own nor food to put on them. You warn your clergy again and again against the glamour of clericalism. Your love is abundant, like Christ's was and is, and I have seen it have a multiplying effect, even (perhaps especially) among non-Roman Catholics.

I am tremendously grateful to God for your faithful, living witness to the teachings of Jesus. Your heart is wide open, and I feel quite certain that if I happened to walk into your midst, you would smile and greet me with the warmth of an old friend, and I would greet you likewise.

I need to confess something to you. On February 16, 2014, God willing, I will leave my cloak of Roman Catholic identity behind in order to be received as a member of the Episcopal Church.

Despite having spent my entire life as a devoted (albeit flawed) Roman Catholic, I cannot remain Roman Catholic any longer. Because despite the gospel of Jesus you now proclaim miraculously through your very body, and despite the many ways in which I encounter Christ's presence through your holy example, I'm afraid there is at least one way in which you, like most if not all of your predecessors, have failed to hear the voice of God and heed it: in the calling of thousands upon thousands of women around the world to ordained ministry.

I was able to name my own God-given call to ordained ministry thirteen years ago. I was still a teenager then. I am close with several Roman Catholic women who share the same call. Yet you, like your papal predecessors, have dismissed even the possibility that women might be called to ordained ministry.

I don't understand this hardness of heart. Not from you.

What I do understand is how hard it can be to hear God's earnest whispers when so much of one's culture screams against it. My favorite psalm is Psalm 51, because it is a perpetual invitation to be changed, transformed, turned around:

Create in me a clean heart, o God.
...
Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways
and sinners shall be converted unto Thee.

I suspect this psalm is as dear to you as it is to me. Please, then, let God's whispers reach your ear through my meager words: God calls some women to serve as ordained ministers. That the Roman Catholic hierarchy refuses to acknowledge this (or even to discuss it) is gravely sinful. It is presumptuous to deny God's calling to those whom God has chosen.

Please, for God's sake, don't allow whatever is lacking in me cause you to be deaf to what God is speaking to you through me in this moment. If anyone with the authority to effect gospel change in the Roman Catholic Church can hear this prophetic word, I believe you can.

Please, open your heart and listen for the sake of my daughters, who will grow up in the midst of your legacy even if they never set foot in a Roman Catholic church.

Please, listen. Listen because you know better than almost anyone that God speaks prophetically through those who are marginalized, women included.

Please, I beg you from the bottom of my heart, listen--allow yourself to be importuned by me, just like the judge was importuned by the widow, or like Jesus was importuned by the woman begging for scraps. You and I both know what happened in those latter two instances. If Jesus' mind could be changed, surely yours can.

I believe that the world-wide turning of hearts to God, if you listened in this one way and acted accordingly, would be a miracle of biblical proportion.

With blessings and love in the One who creates, redeems, and sanctifies all the world,

M. Kate Allen




This letter originally appeared at parentwin.com, where I am a regular contributor on topics of religion.  The letter went viral among my Facebook friends and received more discussion and shares there than anything else I've every written, anywhere.  A friend of mine encouraged me to mail it to Pope Francis.  I did.  If he responds, I will share his response here.  (Unless he asks me not to.)

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    Rev. M. Kate Allen

    Thean. House church priest. Published author. Mother and wife. Vocal feminist. Faith-filled dissenter in the face of the status quo.

    I address G-d as Thea more often than not.


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