April 8, 2008

Sects

Back during the Precambrian when I was in seminary, we were advised to be wary of couples wanting to marry and who were from different sects. In those days, a same sects couple was always to be preferred.

The rubrics in the Marriage Office were cognizant of this and of some help. If when maybe not just different sects, but whole different religions showed up, you could actually bless the couple in the name of God instead of in the name of the Trinity. This worked very well when a Unitarian was involved. Others never seemed even to notice. But actually and at times like that, I often felt that God was a lot closer, if maybe not all that understanding.

Now that I am out of seminary for some considerable years, it’s a lot different. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Same sects marriages are out altogether, and different sects marriages are in. In fact, they’re usually the only kind the canons will allow.

My problem is how to find out from the couple. It takes some considerable political correctness and tact just to ask those sorts of questions, let alone to discuss their implications. People just want to get married. They frequently ask, What has sects got to do with it? When I try to explain, they realize that I, who am supposed to know about such things, haven’t got much to say at all. It’s really embarrassing when I say I’ll have to ask the bishop, for I’d rather they’d think I’m in charge and not merely confirming for them another dippy clergy stereotype.

At one stage along the way and finally having more of these situations than I cared for, I thought it would be pastorally thoughtful to institute a new youth program. It would be one that would maybe help young people be better prepared when or if they decided to be married or even if they didn’t. We called the program a Seminar in Safe Sects. Unfortunately, it was not at all successful. For when the vestry heard about it, it never even got started.

April 7, 2008

Chain

Waking the other morning and remembering to be thankful, it surprised me out of the haze to be grateful for my privileged position in the food chain. Then I thought about God, the one who arranged it. And then Darwin, the one who more or less described it. And then I wondered even more about whether I might become a vegetarian. Or is it vegan? And do they even have a place in some sort of food chain.

But what really sidetracked me as such things often do was the use of “who” or “whom.” First, I remembered a professor who, when asked about these two bothers, would just say, Youm, thass whom, and leave it there and no further. Further not farther (two more!) because it’s an addition, not a distance.

And is all this under the heading of English or Grammar? That is, is it common to more than one language, or is it merely a problem in the English language, or both? My reference book crutches say forget it and get a life. Okay.

A few years ago, I was out on the British hustings riding shotgun with a Church of England circuit rider-reader friend working his Sunday afternoon parishes. At one stop, a wandering presbyter/celebrant was present, invited me to read the Epistle, and I did. Afterward, a member of the congregation told me he was from Canada, had lived right there in that neighborhood in England for twenty years, and how refreshing it was to hear someone read a lection who was from his part of the world.

None of my fellow Texans that I remember ever considered Texas and Canada all that related. Nevertheless, I suppose even language-murdering East Texas twang loses its audiophobic cringe when that far from whome. And thanks be to God whose freedom-giving created accents along with food chains and maybe wished she hadn’t.

April 5, 2008

Wrenning

There’s a wreath about 18″ in diameter hanging on a brick wall just outside of, to the side of, and in view of our front entrance. It’s made of dried grass and twigs. Birds find it altogether attractive as a veritable Nest Depot and are frequently seen to be helping themselves.

It took a Carolina wren not only to use it as a resource, but as well to build a nest right on its top, as if a gemstone on an avian ring. So as not to disturb, we coöperated, put a note on the front door directing human traffic to the side entrance, and followed our own advice. Then, we waited.

A birder friend told us not to be impatient. She said that male wrens build any number of nests here and there hoping one may be so engaging that a female cannot resist it, and then they can take up wrenning together. I should understand that.

For now, however, not to be. Those ubiquitous twosomes, a pair of doves, have moved in. Not to mention that what a wren builds for two is hardly room enough for what a dove might build for one. We thought a cozy move-over may possibly be underway.
••••••••••••••
All that was a couple of weeks ago. The doves have come and went. The nest is empty, if a bit frazzled. But at least one thing has changed, we are now in the habit of using the side entrance where there is no wreath or nest, but only a Green Man inspired by the parish house at Ely Cathedral, UK, and overlooking the patio.

In all this time, the forsythia, the redbuds, the tulip poplars, the daffodils, the Lenten roses, and the Christmas cactus are now in bloom. Why do we make calendars, anyway?

April 3, 2008

Pulse

Easter 3A Lk 24.13-35

Luke uses an interesting literary device in recounting the walk down the road to Emmaus. He writes a story within a story. [Shakespeare did it in “Hamlet” and maybe got the idea from Luke.]

History already knows about Good Friday and Easter for more than 2000 times. Luke’s early readers knew. We know. But these two men walking along the nine miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus did not know. There they were, right on the front line of the news that we call the Good News, and they didn’t know. Maybe better it is to say, they didn’t know that they knew. And then begins the story within the story.

Jesus, as he has a way of doing, suddenly shows up from nowhere. Finding an audience for their fear, their anxiety, the men excitedly and sadly tell him about how the crucifixion had crushed their hopes. But then, they say, yet startled beyond belief, that some women claimed they’d been there and done that and seen the empty tomb and had a vision of angels who told them Jesus was alive. The men didn’t believe them, so they went to look for themselves, and all they found was an empty tomb. I like to think that’s all they saw because of the way they looked, they saw only what they expected to see.

“O foolish men,” says Jesus, “and slow of heart to believe… ” (And there’s the tip off — slow of heart, slow of perception, slow of faith.) Then Jesus offers for them his own private accounting — Moses, the prophets, all with the whole sweep of scripture up to and including himself. They still do not know who he is, but they’re obviously intrigued, invite him for dinner, and in the breaking of bread together, their capacity is opened finally to know that they knew.

Life is a story within stories. It is a collection of stories, my story, your story, our family’s stories, the world’s story as the geologists tell it from the Big Bang to the fractal changes our own saga makes on the cosmos. We are a part of the pulse of a kind of cosmic, interstellar cardiovascular system. Here we are pumping along and, it seems until we learn otherwise, giving it heart and voice and mind. Our own histories are made as we tell of them, as they unfold, as we walk them and come ever so often to our own forks in the road, and, like Yogi Berra said, take them.

The ever-present Jesus is always on the road with us, but, as Luke’s story tells it, our eyes are kept from recognizing him. As I’ve read this story so many times before, I’ve always presumed it was Jesus who kept his identity to himself. But no, I suddenly realize that whatever, it is I who keep his identity from myself. I keep my eyes from recognizing him, from seeking and serving Christ in all persons, from loving my neighbor as myself.

For he is there in every act of kindness, in every gift of freedom and justice, in every act of compassion, in every risk of faithfulness, in every warmth and inclusion and reception, in every act of love and commitment and justice. And, of course, he is there confronting when just the opposite of these things takes place. Faith opens our eyes to see him wherever he joins us on our road and especially as we come to Table with him in the breaking of bread. He is the Story within the story, the story within our story, the story within the church’s story.

April 2, 2008

Thought

The thinkers are thinking about thinking again. Faced with having to use their own thinkers to do this sort of thing, they’re having trouble. They’ve discovered that the brain is not a logical organ at all and that even to talk about it requires metaphors (NYTimes).”The brain confabulates,” says neuroscientist Gerald Edelman. Or, as he explains, it associates diverse sensations, defies contradictions, creates coherence, and even seeks explanations for its own unfathomable behavior. (Seem familiar?) I wonder, did the brain think up logic just to confuse us, so it could then go on its merry way writing poetry? Whether it did or not, it does. So leave it to the scientists to discover myth as a way of knowing all the while the religionists are rediscovering literalism as a way of avoiding it.

April 1, 2008

Fool

Today is April Fool’s Day, and it was once, according to Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, New Year’s Day in some old calendar. When January First took over that responsibility, the word didn’t get around so fast, and some kept celebrating New Year’s Day on April First. They were called April Fools.

I am one. I like to think that on rare occasions, I can be, after St Paul or somebody, a Fool for Christ, and this can also be Fool for Christ Day and become a rare occasion of its own. And in this exalted capacity, may I suggest that we churchers foolishly consider adopting this day into our own Calendars of Lets Pretend. We can start the day by everybody taking the Baptismal Covenant foolishly rather than seriously in the hope that it might be realized right before our surprised eyes. Maybe reading it again might be one way.

Like it says, to continue in the apostles’ teaching and all that. And to resist evil just for today, remember you can repent afterwards and return to the Lord if he’ll still have you which, of course, we foolishly presume he will. And then when the rubber hits the road — go tell it on the mountain and if you’re not in to climbing, on the plain will do. Then if you still recognize Christ when you see him (you know, somebody feeding the poor and being kind and unpretentious and not torturing anybody and maybe just listening to you) look for him in your neighbor all the while you’re striving for justice and peace and respecting the dignity of everybody whether they act like they have any or not.

And have a blessed time just fooling around. After all, it’s only for a day, and you deserve it for a change. If you’ve not enough foolishness to pull it off, ask God for some more. She’s used to it.