December 17, 2003

Justice

Institutions can’t love. Love is interpersonal and familial. For institutions, justice is the thing.

Trouble is, the church cannot help being an institution, that’s the way things get done. It’s an institution whose members are under the mandate to love. Maybe that’s where the church gets so hung up on itself like nowadays with all the silliness about who loves whom and the way we do it and that we somehow have to legislate it, institutionalize it. We naturally come to think we’re some kind of an authority on love because God is love and we’ve got the corner on it and all that, therefore, we can not only tell people to love, but how to love, as well. That’s the wrong kind of being fools for Christ.

Why aren’t we just pleased that there’s any love at all and just take it and rejoice in it wherever we find it? We’re usually more judging than loving, anyway, even though God told us not be. Love is really none of our business, and even if it were, we’re not very good at it, so why do we keep stumbling around trying?

On the other hand, justice, hanging out there on all the law and the prophets plain to see, *is* our business. So how about more energy in that direction for a while? Get out of the way and let justice roll down the mountains like waters or whatever it was old Martin said.

We could begin by remembering that God, at least, is just and that you can know we are Christians by the way we make with justice. Starting with us, for God’s sake, and then maybe some of it will rub off, not only on that skeptical neighbor out there, but on, say, the Department of Justice, for openers.

I can see God smiling now, even though it’s Advent.

December 16, 2003

Advent grumbling

I suspect I’d never heard of Advent until I was confirmed up in Kansas, back during the Middle War (aka WWII) when I was flying bombers for the navy. And that was on Palm Sunday.

Ever since, I’ve been uneasy about the way Christmas intrudes on Advent. Well, it did it again just when I was enjoying my grouse about the vacant and anonymous neighbors next door. Everything was ruined when we met them Sunday night at a neighborhood Christmas party and found out how absolutely charming they are, and that they’re waiting for some remodeling to be finished in March. (They didn’t ask the contractor whether that meant 2004 or 2005. Bah. Humbug.)

Okay. so I was impulsive again.

But listen… yesterday we discovered an invasion of moths in the living room oriental rug (”priceless,” of course). There’s an Orkin Man of TV fame on the way today to drench the whole place with the stuff that requires the asthmatic shift of everything on the closet floors to be piled on the beds and me to get out of here. Chemistry makes for better living. (”Who is that masked man?”)

But wait… we’re hosting a Christmas party (in Advent!) Saturday night for the choir and spouses, there’re sermons to write for Sunday and Christmas Eve, flu in the air everywhere but here (maybe orkinizing will win out over that, too), and this is what I get for grumbling and what you get for the OoN. God love you.

December 15, 2003

Emptiness and expectation

Until last September, the house next door was for thirty-four years a home but to one family. When they sold it and moved away, it became again a house. Trouble is — for us, if for nobody else — the new owners have shown but once in these three months and that only to rake leaves — after dark.

It’s different being neighbors to an empty house that belongs to people we’ve never met, people we keep expecting, people who don’t move in. Even the birds show withdrawal symptoms. I suppose we could feed them, but, I confess, we rarely ever do that even in our own yard. The former neighbors took their feeders with them, anyway. The squirrels probably couldn’t be more pleased. Our former neighbor often used them for target practice.

A woman down the street was a close friend of the folks who moved away. She usually spent Thanksgiving with them. We invited her to our home this year. She’s a birder who also bands birds. She is in demand all over the country, especially for the unimaginable task of identifying and banding hummingbirds. Even so, she seems lonelier. Actually, we are a bit, too.

As it gets closer to Christmas in a neighborhood that sometimes bustles with the season more than not and the other neighbors being orthodox Jews, all this emptiness and expectation, I suppose, makes for a better Advent, but not the way I ever had it planned.

December 12, 2003

Stirring up

“Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children of Abraham.” (Lk 3.8)

“Stir up thy power, O Lord, and with great might come among us… ” (BCP, Advent 3, p 160)

Saturday Night Live, that durable and pointedly satirical NBC show, brought me up short one night with its portrayal of one of the heavies in our national drama. They called him “James ‘The Episcopalian’ Baker.”

That startled me for a moment, but it refreshed me, as well. I like to think that we’re one denomination that has the uncanny good sense not to take ourselves so seriously, one that understands forgiveness as easier to get than permission, one that, if we have not actually cornered the market on grace, at least knows how to recognize it and be amazed by it without going all saccharin about it.

Because these things are probably true, we really need John Baptist. Not just because he gives an Advent voice to the Christmas birth of peace and justice and good will. And not just because he speaks the gospel truth about the way things are and also about the way we are. But perhaps more importantly, because he is simply not “our type,” and the James Bakers of the world are.

Thus could John say that if there is to be any flag-waving about who we are let it be a sign of our contrition and reconciliation and not of our pride and our laurels. And thus could he say for us in our time that being an Episcopalian won’t get you any more points than being a Holy Roller all the while calling us a “snake pit.”

John was furious with the religious establishment of his day for claiming descent from Abraham and otherwise living in blithe disregard of God. Bloodline isn’t faith. Heritage isn’t faith. Tribal identity isn’t faith. Orthodoxy isn’t faith. It isn’t that easy. For faith has to do with choice, behavior, and will. Faith bears fruit because of what it does. But so do sin and disbelief bear fruit. Injustice bears fruit. Cruelty bears fruit.

The perceptive poet Maya Angelou tells of a woman in her audience taking offense with her and claiming, “But madam, I am a Christian!” only to hear Angelou answer, “Already?”

Christian identity is an evolving process. We build our faith as we go. We can always give thanks for whoever started shaping us. But if we don’t take up the mantle ourselves and make our own fresh approach to the throne of grace in the ways we make daily decisions, we have nothing.

There it is, and there we are, the very mark of our sin is in turning down the love and forgiveness as fast as they come because we either don’t believe them or don’t want them or think we have a better idea or just plain couldn’t care less. But the Gospel persists and answers that extraordinary things happen just as all through the Bible and our tradition extraordinary things happen. Remember David got his mistress’s husband killed so he could have her all to himself, but was still the “apple of God’s eye.” And remember Zaccheus who climbed up a sycamore tree a crook and climbed down a saint. And remember Paul who set out a hatchet man for the Pharisees and returned a fool for Christ. And remember Peter who denied Jesus three times and walked away with the keys to the kingdom.

Perhaps whenever we’re tempted to take ourselves too seriously, we can remember the audacity of an old Franciscan benediction that speaks of discomfort and anger and tears over the seemingly insurmountable state of things as blessings. And then asks God for enough foolishness to believe that we, in whatever state — poor or rich, smart or not so smart, old or young, sick or well, can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done.

Advent is “stir up time” and for more than eggnog.

December 11, 2003

Deodar redux

Our deodar tree’s possible brush with ecumenicity this Christmas (OoN, 10xii03) moved a few reflections here and there.

Nina writes from Utah, “I have been taken by your recent Oon pieces, starting with the (I assume) sermon re John the Baptist and Dorotheus of Gaza and ‘letting go;’ and then ‘elliptical prayer.’ Now the Deodar. I encourage you to remember the Hindu festival *Diwali* (festival of lights). They actually float little candles in the river, but why not stick them on an Indian tree reflecting on the Ganges. This religious tradition is one venerating multiple deities, even an elephant or a monkey. I believe the Deodar is likely to be accepting of ecumenism, as you surmise.”

Bob writes from Tennessee, “I sent your OoN about deodar to my Indian dean at my college. His father was a bishop, a Cambridge grad, a student of C S Lewis, a friend of Gandhi. He might well have observed that 10% of the deodar’s DNA would be Muslim and 3% Christian.”

Gaynor writes from New Zealand, “As we travelled to and from a concert tonight, we noticed a
number of properties with lots of lights in varying formats outside the houses… some on trees, some on boards erected variously on posts on the lawn or on rooves. There were decorated houses, Santa’s with sleighs, nativity scenes, etc., but the one I will remember most was a simple lighted tree high atop the tallest building of the Hospital.”

Jay writes from Tennessee, “Over the last ten years or so, Knoxville has established a tradition of “lighting the rooftops” in the downtown. Some buildings have one “tree” (a framework with strings or spirals of light) while others have veritable forests. The hospital where I work has a friendly rivalry with the TVA across the river, and this year we have ten trees on our rooftop. Also, the part of the river front known as Volunteer Landing is decorated with the same sort of trees, and the lights on the Henley Street bridge railing are red and green. Not all buildings are decorated, yet some of the smaller ones have rooftop trees, too. For the patients whose rooms are on the river side of the hospital, the lights go a ways toward making their stay a little less unpleasant.”

Lucy writes from Big Sandy, Texas, “The deodar should breathe a sigh of relief (check the flow of vascular juices, solidity of the bark, etc. to determine the volume of the sigh) that Martha Stewart is offering a substitute for the real thing. Her bite may protect its bark (and that of a lot of other trembling trees).

December 10, 2003

Christmas tree

CP and I planted a deodar tree last September to replace a sweet olive that had entered the arms of its Maker, we thought, prematurely. *Deodar* is from the Sanskrit for “timber of the gods” and is common to India. The sweet olive’s alter ego is “devilwood.” So far as we know, it is just common.

The deodar, a member of the cedar family, is planted prominently in our yard at ten feet tall plus and growing. It seems well-suited to be lit up for Christmas. Nothing ostentatious, only those small, crystal-clear, twinkly strings. But considering its origin and that it just may have some Hindu DNA osmosing around (that “timber of the gods” thing), we wondered how it might take to the season. As well, and that aside, like any self-respecting tree, it probably feels it needs little adorning.

The other morning, the daily got thrown at deodar’s “feet.” Paper of any kind, of course, is an insult to trees and probably provokes puzzled, if hurt curiosity, but there was a short article in this one that deodar could not overlook.

Martha Stewart has introduced a new line of eleven artificial Christmas trees. They range from the three-foot “Little Bell Mountain” with 289 branches, a fluted pot, and 100 lights all for $30, to the seven-foot “Grand Teton” with more than 1500 branches, 800 lights, and a revolving stand at $199.

We’ve never counted deodar’s branches, but we trust that, repulsed by Martha’s plans, it’ll be more than willing to bow to some ecumenical enlightenment for this season, at least.

December 9, 2003

Ellipses

Centering prayer is the vogue these days. And I can see why.

For example, almost anybody can make a noise on a cornet. Just listen to the junior high band practicing sometime. But to make it sound like it’s supposed to sound, the airflow must be centered. You’ll know that not only when you hear it, but also when you do it. The horn itself will resonate and vibrate in all its members. It’s a good feeling.

I suppose that’s true, as well, for centering prayer. Maybe that’s what the “oohmmm” is all about, a kind of resonance. It figures. But unlike cornet playing, prayer for me is hardly ever centered, it is rather more elliptical.

The useful thing about an ellipse is that it has not just one center, but two. This allows for your mind to wander, but not too far. It also allows for more variety. Ellipsing prayer, I call it, and I may start some sort of movement. People are usually generous, they’ll follow lots of things, especially spiritual gurus who are slightly off center, but in an orderly manner.

I should think such a movement would especially attract those of us who already think and speak in ellipses, those kinds of sentences that, like life, are always open ended, never quite resolved, and wander off into those three handy little dots when just one is so, shall we say, terminal.

There’s also a reaffirming kind of ambiguity about ellipsing prayer, using ellipses to put it together and ellipses, might we say, to leave it for another time, unfinished.

Now, to make a long story short…

December 8, 2003

Jazz band

The band was scheduled for a new venue Sunday afternoon. We’ve played the same shopping mall Monday nights for over ten years, mostly five of us, sometimes six, the current band, together for maybe the last three. The mall, might I say, is not economically well these days, so we’re looking for a new place to play.

Our guitar player is an old pro, played professionally all over the world most of his life. We are fortunate to have someone with his musicianship, but also his experience. His counsel is invaluable. The drummer is a tenured college professor of psychology, not accustomed to someone else’s leadership and equipped with an instrument that can easily override the rest of us and often does. Our pianist is also tenured, but retired, an internationally known philosophical theologian with several difficult books to his credit, an excellent musician, as well.

Our bass player is the youngest member of the band and, as any jazz player knows, the most important. Tempo, chord progressions, nuances, a good bassist employs like wall-to-wall carpet, essential to a cornet player like me when improvising.

When we arrived at the new venue an hour ahead of schedule as usual, another band was already playing and taping for a live broadcast and not planning to stop anytime soon. It was not an easy disappointment. We are a better band. It’s certainly not the only time this ever happened. But each of us had told friends and hoped they might come and listen.

Scott Peck wrote in “The Road Less Traveled” that two of the best analogies for community as he understands it are a basketball team and a jazz band. The members accept each other’s skills and limits with respect and understanding, he said. He didn’t say, but I suspect that he meant that this was true perhaps only while they were playing and maybe not to be counted on otherwise.

December 5, 2003

Wanting

What do you want for Christmas?

It’s a common question these days. It’s not the way John Baptist would ask it, but it’s sort of what he meant. But that old curmudgeon to the contrary and whether anybody pays him any mind or not, we already know exactly how the whole thing comes out and what we get for Christmas.

But myself to the contrary and whether I repent or not, I haven’t the foggiest notion what’ll happen in my own life in the next ten minutes. Oh, I give it thought, all right. I even worry about it from time to time. I read the obituaries and never fail to find those who’ve not made it as long as I, nor as well. They are there and whether they repented or not, I’ll never know.

Neither do I know why I came across a note from Dorotheus of 6th century Gaza who was an ascetic who thought about things like this and who probably had a closer walk with John Baptist than a lot of us. “Be free from wanting certain things to happen,” he said, “trust so in God that what is happening will be the thing you want and you will be at peace with all.”

Maybe that’s what I could pray about. Christmas is no time for micromanagement, but the fullness of time for letting go and letting God. John Baptist put it another way with his civil engineering metaphors about highways and otherwise messing up the environment, but he probably meant something like the same thing.

December 4, 2003

Star Trek

Unobtainium is a material that is unobtainable mostly because it doesn’t seem to exist.

A word maven column that I read says the name incorporates the suffix common to chemical elements in order to suggest some desirable substance either that isn’t at all or else is so rare that even folding money can’t get you any. It’s also a potent excuse, of course, for non-delivery. If only you had some, you can lament, there’d be no problem.

One must be careful, I was warned, to distinguish between unobtainium and handwavium. Handwavium refers to a way of ignoring the laws of physics, among others, as if one might banish an insuperable impediment by simply waving a hand at it.

The Star Trek series, as you may already have guessed, makes great use of handwavium. The familiar replicator, the transporter, and the phaser (which neatly disintegrates a person without even a puff of steam) come to mind. Faster-than-light space drives which, of course, can’t exist at all, take handwavium for granted and speed on their way.

Naturally, things like this eventually work their way into the church. At this very moment, the Breakawayers, having got where they are with unobtainium and, as well, being overburdened by it, are making great use of handwavium by simply phasering canon law into oblivium. Like I already said, for some, it’s no problem at all.