Today Light is born in the world. Today darkness flees and all weariness slinks away to hide and await another discouraged day.
Today heaven and earth are two words only according to punctuation. Today there is no need to seek in the heavens or in the depths of the past or in the intricacies of thought to find Divinity and transcendence and transformation. Today, as Richard Rohr eloquently said, God is perfectly hidden and perfectly revealed, and wholly lovable, in the Child born among us and for us.
The whole world had a Baby by sheer gift and grace.
Last night Saints Peter and Paul, or many of us at least, gathered to stand vigil at that Birth. The new life born was eloquently shown to us by the new life among us, infant Lydia, born to longtime members so that the parish had a baby! What an exquisite even on which to baptize a child, to be reminded without words of the Life given to us poor and vulnerable and a sheer gift in our arms!
Easiest sermon I've ever preached--I only had to hold the child.
And members of the Hispanic community brought food and brought costumes and enacted a brief version of Las Posadas, the rich customary remembrance of the Holy Family asking for shelter and welcome when they were refugees. The homeless and vulnerable among us, in our world, that which is vulnerable and homeless within us, and the incarnate Word born to his people who "received him not"--all were present and asking for "posada", shelter, and the cry of final welcome spoke the Hope that there is by grace a welcome for us and a welcome that will be invoked from our hurting transformed hearts.
And so we welcomed him, with song and silence and word and music and all our glorious, broken, loved humanity, in two languages, on a chilly evening in a church on a gritty urban strip. And so we loved the children and broke pinatas and enjoyed our life with one another. And so we live...as the often-wayward friends of the Friend who mercifully is born daily in our hearts and in our world.
archived musings and preachments
Friday, December 25, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
O Oriens
Today's "'O' Antiphon" can be rendered, "O Dayspring, Brightness of the Light Eternal, and Sun of Righteousness: Come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death."
I kinda like to render the Latin "Oriens" as "Eastern Dawn." You recognize it as the word from which we get "Oriental" as well as "oriented." Someone who is oriented literally knows which way to face, and the way to face is East. East, to drink in the rising sun; east, to greet the new light. East, to greet the One who is the true Dawn and the true Light.
No one who lives in the Northwest despises light. We'll take all we can get, thank you! But I have come to appreciate the region's gloom--helps remind me of my own need for that true Light and to long for it. And the Light comes as a gift.
Today also the feast of a favorite Saint--Thomas, who got a bad rap as "doubting Thomas", some sort of object lesson in thinking the right things. Thomas teaches us of the hunger and longing of authentic faith--he wishes to touch, he wishes to meet. An early Church Father said, "The disbelief of Thomas has done more for our faith than the faith of the other disciples." May Thomas' asking of the hard questions and longing for an authentic encounter with the Word made flesh be our own longing.
And may that Word light your way, on the longest night of the year, in whatever long night in which we find ourselves awaiting the dawn.
I kinda like to render the Latin "Oriens" as "Eastern Dawn." You recognize it as the word from which we get "Oriental" as well as "oriented." Someone who is oriented literally knows which way to face, and the way to face is East. East, to drink in the rising sun; east, to greet the new light. East, to greet the One who is the true Dawn and the true Light.
No one who lives in the Northwest despises light. We'll take all we can get, thank you! But I have come to appreciate the region's gloom--helps remind me of my own need for that true Light and to long for it. And the Light comes as a gift.
Today also the feast of a favorite Saint--Thomas, who got a bad rap as "doubting Thomas", some sort of object lesson in thinking the right things. Thomas teaches us of the hunger and longing of authentic faith--he wishes to touch, he wishes to meet. An early Church Father said, "The disbelief of Thomas has done more for our faith than the faith of the other disciples." May Thomas' asking of the hard questions and longing for an authentic encounter with the Word made flesh be our own longing.
And may that Word light your way, on the longest night of the year, in whatever long night in which we find ourselves awaiting the dawn.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
O Key of David
"O Key of David, and Scepter of the house of Israel, you open and no one can shut, you shut and no one can open: Come and bring the captives out of the prison house, those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death."
Today's "'O' Antiphon" (try Googling that) speaks with confidence of release from whatever binds us.
Any living thing instinctively hates being imprisoned. The worse thing that can be done for a living thing is to accustom it to prison walls. With time we do adapt to wall and bars--many convicts are "recidivous", returning again and again to jail. We shake our heads at this, but perhaps we all tend to be "recidivous", co-operating with the forces and voices that would imprison us in a life, any life, that is not fully who and what we are called to be.
What we are called to be, to paraphrase one early church pastor, is fully alive. And that is the glory of God.
Awake, watch, says Advent. Awake especially to whatever binds us, whatever walls have grown around us. We are not the summation of our fears, our dreads, we are not what a consumer culture or an atmosphere of rage and fear and resentment tell us we are. We are freed by the One who is Free, who cries out within us, within our most true selves, and who cries in word and Sacrament to hear, to awake, to stand, to walk, and finally to run. See the Key who comes to the darkest place in which we have been shackled or, perhaps, where we have placed ourselves.
Today's "'O' Antiphon" (try Googling that) speaks with confidence of release from whatever binds us.
Any living thing instinctively hates being imprisoned. The worse thing that can be done for a living thing is to accustom it to prison walls. With time we do adapt to wall and bars--many convicts are "recidivous", returning again and again to jail. We shake our heads at this, but perhaps we all tend to be "recidivous", co-operating with the forces and voices that would imprison us in a life, any life, that is not fully who and what we are called to be.
What we are called to be, to paraphrase one early church pastor, is fully alive. And that is the glory of God.
Awake, watch, says Advent. Awake especially to whatever binds us, whatever walls have grown around us. We are not the summation of our fears, our dreads, we are not what a consumer culture or an atmosphere of rage and fear and resentment tell us we are. We are freed by the One who is Free, who cries out within us, within our most true selves, and who cries in word and Sacrament to hear, to awake, to stand, to walk, and finally to run. See the Key who comes to the darkest place in which we have been shackled or, perhaps, where we have placed ourselves.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Frost and cold, glorify the Lord
Today is Our Lady of Guadalupe for our Hispanic brothers and sisters. As I chose to postpone today's Brigid's Breakfast, I drove to the church to post signs and change the voicemail message. On the way I saw the fleet of cars parked all around Ascension RC Church, where the customary dawn Mass and Mananitas for OL of G was celebrated. I am glad she looked after her children and her Misa, at least today and here.
The Canticle "suggested" for Morning Prayer in the BCP is the so-called "Song of the Three Young Men" (BCP 88) One man I respect called this the "song of the actual", as all creation is named and called upon to join in the general chorus, "glorify the Lord." Seems particularly apt today, as Advent waiting and openness, expectancy and quiet is forced upon us when the news channels hum excitedly with a "weather event" and unnecessary travel and restlessness ceases. Church-folk are part of the general agitation--there are things to do always, usually good things, but lots of things nonetheless. It can be a good thing to be compelled, as far as our professions permit, to pause and hear even briefly the song of creation in ourselves and in the world around us.
So we pause, breathe a prayer for those who must travel as well as for those who are without shelter, and welcome just a moment of quiet into our souls. Quiet, in which, without any effort or agitation on our part, the silent Word comes to birth in darkness and in secret, be we man or woman, old or young. Quiet, in which we need do nothing, move nothing, achieve nothing, save make room for the silent One who was born and who is constantly re-born in receptive hearts and in the forgotten places of our world.
Creation can be trusted to keep watch and to sing praise--"glorify the Lord." Pause and we too can hear.
If we continue to be icy, re-check this 'blog for updates. Stay safe.
The Canticle "suggested" for Morning Prayer in the BCP is the so-called "Song of the Three Young Men" (BCP 88) One man I respect called this the "song of the actual", as all creation is named and called upon to join in the general chorus, "glorify the Lord." Seems particularly apt today, as Advent waiting and openness, expectancy and quiet is forced upon us when the news channels hum excitedly with a "weather event" and unnecessary travel and restlessness ceases. Church-folk are part of the general agitation--there are things to do always, usually good things, but lots of things nonetheless. It can be a good thing to be compelled, as far as our professions permit, to pause and hear even briefly the song of creation in ourselves and in the world around us.
So we pause, breathe a prayer for those who must travel as well as for those who are without shelter, and welcome just a moment of quiet into our souls. Quiet, in which, without any effort or agitation on our part, the silent Word comes to birth in darkness and in secret, be we man or woman, old or young. Quiet, in which we need do nothing, move nothing, achieve nothing, save make room for the silent One who was born and who is constantly re-born in receptive hearts and in the forgotten places of our world.
Creation can be trusted to keep watch and to sing praise--"glorify the Lord." Pause and we too can hear.
If we continue to be icy, re-check this 'blog for updates. Stay safe.
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