From Tears to Triumph

On Friday mornings, at CPE, I have a Bible study with the residents of one of the memory support areas of a retirement community. Today was the best ever. I had such a sense of God's presence with us. People that normally are not engaged in the singing were singing their hearts out. There was even joy in their eyes.



The lesson was from Psalm 30 in The Message translation.

Psalm 30

¹ I give you all the credit, God— you got me out of that mess,

you didn't let my foes gloat.



^2-3 God, my God, I yelled for help

and you put me together.

God, you pulled me out of the grave,

gave me another chance at life

when I was down-and-out.



^4-5 All you saints! Sing your hearts out to God!

Thank him to his face!

He gets angry once in a while, but across

a lifetime there is only love.

The nights of crying your eyes out

give way to days of laughter.



^6-7 When things were going great

I crowed, "I've got it made.

I'm God's favorite.

He made me king of the mountain."

Then you looked the other way

and I fell to pieces.



^8-10 I called out to you, God;

I laid my case before you:

"Can you sell me for a profit when I'm dead?

auction me off at a cemetery yard sale?

When I'm 'dust to dust' my songs

and stories of you won't sell.

So listen! and be kind!

Help me out of this!"



^11-12 You did it: you changed wild lament

into whirling dance;

You ripped off my black mourning band

and decked me with wildflowers.

I'm about to burst with song;

I can't keep quiet about you.

God, my God,

I can't thank you enough.

Here are a few observations I shared both on Wed. for devotions and today in Bible study:

The Psalmist passionately expresses his experiences of crisis, prayer, and deliverance.

· Maybe the crisis was sickness and he felt near death?

o Have any of us ever been in such a crisis?

o Perhaps that’s our situation now.

· The psalmist prayed for God’s help

o Do we cry out for God’s help... or do we think our crisis isn’t important enough to bother God?

· God delivered the psalmist from his problems.

o Do we believe God will hear and answer our prayers?

In the last verses, the psalmist renews the promise of thanksgiving

· He has a new perspective of gratitude

o What is our perspective?

o Are we as anxious as the psalmist to tell of God’s mighty deeds?

o Or is our faith just a private matter?

· Listen once more to the vibrant imagery of these last verses.

o ^11-12 You did it: you changed wild lament

into whirling dance;

You ripped off my black mourning band

and decked me with wildflowers.

I'm about to burst with song;

I can't keep quiet about you.

God, my God,

I can't thank you enough.

Let us pray:

O God, our Guardian and Guide, we trust in You daily for life and strength to serve You with faith, hope, and love. We will praise You in the morning and throughout the day. We will praise You in the evening, and trust in You day and night. We depend on Your Word and precious promises as we pray in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, “Our Father. . .”

Prayer from http://psalmsandprayers.com/psalm30.htm

To illustrate the lesson from Psalm 30, I made up a little Power Point of pictures and showed it to each resident individually. This was very effective. It is that slide show that is below.



Tears to Triumph

God's Garden

This is the message I preached at Bethany Village yesterday. I preached it 4 times in slightly different ways. This was the last one I preached at evening vespers.

7:00 Vespers Sermon

How do you imagine God to be? What do you see when you pray? We all have different images of God we see in prayer, which are especially meaningful to us. I used to live in the Holy Land. From my window, I could watch a young shepherd with his sheep and goats. He loved and cared for them. He even played soccer with one of the goats. For me, the image of the Lord as my shepherd in Psalm 23 or Jesus’ declaration in John 10, “I am the good shepherd,” are very rich and meaningful.

Perhaps when you’re lonely or fearful, it is God almighty, the creator God who is your comfort, your protector. Our hymns and songs are full of pictures of God. God walks and talks with us IN THE GARDEN or maybe you see Jesus as the Lover of your soul. Someone living by the sea will have different images that are meaningful to them than someone living in a city or someone on a farm.

Is it maybe the all seeing, all knowing God you most closely identify with? In preparation for this service tonight, I heard for the very first time the words of “Hymn of Promise” which we will be singing later. Do you have an appreciation for the paradoxes this hymn speaks of? There are some things that only God can know; only God can do.

The scriptures portray God in many ways, one of which is a gardener. Did you know that God likes to garden too? Through the prophet Ezekiel God speaks:

Thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of a cedar; I will set it out. I will break off a tender one from the topmost of its young twigs; I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain. ²³ On the mountain height of Israel I will plant it, in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit, and become a noble cedar. Under it every kind of bird will live; in the shade of its branches will nest winged creatures of every kind. ²⁴ All the trees of the field shall know that I am the LORD. I bring low the high tree, I make high the low tree; I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. I the LORD have spoken; I will accomplish it.

To do justice to our text, we need to learn a bit about its biblical and historical context. Ezekiel was written while the people of Israel were living in exile in the far off land of Babylon because of their sins against God. Running throughout the book like threads, are the messages of judgment balanced by the messages of hope. The primary theme of the book is knowing God. The phrase, “They/you shall know that I am the Sovereign Lord” is used around 70 times in this book.

Did you hear all the pronouns in this passage? I is used 5 times. Twice it’s coupled with the word myself for emphasis. So what is God, the I doing? Listen to the verbs: breaks off, plants, brings low, makes high, dries up, makes. God is not distant, but involved and busy in God’s garden. God is getting down and dirty in it. Why does God go to all this effort? It’s so the trees will produce boughs, fruit, and shade. The ultimate aim however, is so all the trees will know God is the Lord.

So what does all this talk of planting, gardening, and trees mean? This was a symbolic message of hope and restoration for the people of Israel after they had been living in exile for so long. Trees flourishing in a desert area is inspiring, miraculous. What is happening is something the tree itself did not initiate, create, or sustain by itself. The growth is something only God could accomplish.

We are not trees, however. The trees are symbolic of nations, of people. It’s like a parable. When a tree is planted, does it argue with the gardener saying it doesn’t want to go there, but here? When it is fertilized, does it complain that the fertilizer is smelly? How about when it’s pruned? Does a tree whine saying, “Be careful! That hurts!?” God’s gardening in us may be hard and painful at times so we can be more like Jesus, so our lives produce and bear the fruit of the Spirit to serve God and our neighbor.

But it seems so impossible, so unattainable. That’s the good news. We are incapable of doing this. We are nowhere near perfect, so much so that Martin Luther said we are at the same time saints and sinners. So how can God expect of us something we are incapable of doing? Is God just setting us up to fail? Hear again God’s promise, “I the LORD have spoken; I will accomplish it.” The trees don’t have to DO anything to grow!!! They just have to be trees. We just have to let the master gardener work in our lives to produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Trees grow and produce when they are cultivated. We just need to allow God to do so in us. Let God do the gardening. God is not finished with any of us.

flickr picture

HOW FIREARMS SAVED LIVES AT THE NATIONAL HOLOCAUST MUSEUM

EVERYONE IS DOUBTLESS AWARE of the attack on the National Holocaust Museum on 14th Street NW in Washington D.C.; in which a Museum security officer was shot dead by a "white supremacist" nutbar wielding what we are given to understand was a .22 rimfire rifle. The atttacker was immediately shot and rendered unthreatening by two other security men.

WE AT THE ALEXANDRIA DAILY POOP were aware the second we learned of this that the anti-gun movement would jump right on this, dipping their lace hankies in the dead officer's blood and waving it to advance their fraudulent and corrupt agenda. But we were surprised at the reaction of the Washington Post, who have not said anything about "gun control" in their reporting or editorializing, perhaps to avoid being seen as vultures (Although cartoonist Tom Toles did do a cartoon depicting a Rush Limbaugh looking character as a "cooking show" host offering a recipe for murder that only needed two ingredients: "hate" and a firearm, both of which were available to the bigot depicted as watching the show). Rather, the Post has adopted the tactic of publishing letters to the Editor and "comments", all of which strangely (or not) have the same theme: "We will never be rid of bigots but we can get rid of guns".

BALDERDASH.

This was an attack by a suicidal nutbar. And it is fortunate that he used a rifle. None have considered that a very effective bomb can be constructed of explosives that can be made out of maaterials that are very commonly available and utterly impossible to control. The formula for black powder for instance is very well known. Also well known is that the ingredients for black powder are found in nature. They are saltpeter, charcoal and sulfur. And black powder can make a nasty bomb indeed; and the killer needen't detonate himself, improvised 3-second fuses activated by friction aare also easily made. Imagine if the killer VonBrunn had gotten into the lobby and instead of a rifle pulled out an armed bomb and tossed it over the metal detectors into the crowd? The dead and injured would have been in the dozens. Several strapped to his person would have made him a walking Claymore mine. So it is fortunate he had only a rifle.

It is equally fortunate that there was an armed citizen - a "trained security officer" yes but a citizen nonetheless - to stop VonBrunn before he could shoot another person.

It is doubtful that VonBrunn knew that the Holocaust Museum security people were armed. Killers who use firearms rely on "sensible gun control" to ensure a soft target full of unarmed victims and plenty of time to kill away until the police arrive. They are fully aware of the maxim "when seconds count, the police are only minutes away". And they continue to kill until somebody shows up with a firearm to put an end to the killing. And eliminating firearms will not slow down the killing, in fact it may well speed the killing up. The ingredients for ten pounds of black powder are probalbly within a two-block radius of where you are reading this right now. Oh yes, and Black Powder's other name is....GUNPOWDER!

Favorite Hymns

Lyngine posted a question to our church email list, asking people to list their favorite five hymns. Here is my response:

1. Christ Is Made the Sure Foundation (sung ONLY to Westminster Abbey)
2. The Church's One Foundation
3. Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
4. At the Lamb's High Feast We Sing
5. Christ the Fair Glory, of the Holy Angels

You didn't ask, but here goes:
6. Alleluia, Sing to Jesus (sung to Hyfrdol)
7. Wake, Awake for Night Is Flying
8. The Glory of These Forty Days
9. Ah, Holy Jesus
10. O Come, All Ye Faithful

When I was a child (age 4 or thereabouts), my favorite hymn was At Calvary.

And you didn't ask, but my favorite service music in English, for the Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei is the Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena by Healey Willan, for the Gloria is the Old Scottish Chant (which we sang at Carol Bolstad's ordination), and for the Credo, the Calvin Hampton setting in the 1982 Hymnal. I also love the Sanctus and Agnus Dei setting by Schubert in the 1982 Hymnal.

I love all of the Gregorian chant settings of the Mass (and everything else), but my favorite polyphonic setting of the Latin is a tie between Byrd's Mass for 3 Voices and Palestrina's Missa de Papae Marcelli for those that can be sung at a Mass and Bach's Mass in B Minor for those than can't. (Although I do love Vivaldi's Gloria as well.) I'm also quite fond of Bach's Magnificat.

My favorite setting for Evensong is probably Robert Parson's First Service.

New Items on ICCC Website

There are two new items on the Independent Catholic Christian Church website, www.inclusivecatholics.com. First, under "Seasonal Reflections" (see the lefthand menu), I have posted the remarks I was privileged to offer at the celebratory Mass on Saturday, May 30, in honor of the fifth anniversary of St. Mary of Grace parish in Philadelphia. Fr. Joseph Menna, AIHM, the pastor of St. Mary of Grace and Prior General of the Augustinians of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, who care for the parish, has also cross-posted the remarks at his blog, A Restless Heart, where one can also find helpful meditations on Augustinian spirituality.

The second new item is the Vocations page. We have revised and expanded it. Before, the page focused only on ordained ministry -- it has now been expanded to cover the vocations of lay Christians, ordained clergy, and religious -- both solitaries and those in communities. ALL baptized Christians have a vocation, not just those called to the priesthood.

Check them out!

Embertide Reflections

In the traditional western liturgical calendar, there are four sets of three days of prayer, fasting, and abstinence known as “Ember Days”. These were observed by the church at Rome from at least the third century. The sacrament of Reconciliation was especially recommended at these times. Ordinations have traditionally been conferred on Ember Saturdays – the Mass for Ember Saturday in the traditional Western rite contains four extra lessons (five in December), with ordinations for the different orders happening after each reading. Yesterday was Ember Wednesday and tomorrow and the day after are Ember Friday and Ember Saturday.

At some point, in the Episcopal Church (I am not sure if this practice originated in the Church of England or not – if any readers know and would enlighten me, I’d appreciate it), the canons began to require postulants and candidates for ordination to write a letter each Embertide to their bishop, telling them of their progress in their formation. I just discovered a rather funny form on the website of Virginia Theological Seminary to automatically generate fake Embertide letters: http://old.vts.edu/2000/ember.htm.

In our jurisdiction, we have adopted the practice and extended it to all of the clergy (including the bishop). Rather than sending it only to the bishop, each seminarian and clergymember sends it to our jurisdictional yahoogroup. There are four parts to the Embertide reflection – reading that the person has done, a reflection on one’s ministry, a reflection on one’s prayer and spiritual life, and a reflection on one’s personal human condition and how it has affected one’s ministry. The last two, while required topics for reflection, do not have to be shared with the yahoogroup as do the first two, since they deal with the “internal forum” – however, it is strongly recommended that people share these with a spiritual director or friend if not sharing with the group. Although only clergy and seminarians are required to do these reflections, laity are invited and encouraged to do so if they find it helpful, and several do regularly share their reflections (sometimes more enthusiastically than the clergy!). The 1979 Book of Common Prayer has as one of the sets of propers recommended for Ember days a set “for all Christians in their vocation”, and it is most appropriate that laity as well as clergy reflect on their ministry and spiritual lives.

There are three aspects of this practice that I find especially helpful. First, it is good to have a regular (roughly quarterly) time set aside to reflect on my ministry and my spiritual life. It is so important to step back and evaluate how one is doing in these areas, and this practice builds the opportunity and obligation to do so into my schedule. Second, tying it to a liturgical observance places the process in a context of prayer and meditation. This is not a status report – “I said 87 masses, heard 13 confessions, missed Morning Prayer 3 times, etc.” – it is meant to be a spiritual practice – actually prayerfully considering one’s ministry and spiritual life while consciously in the presence of God. Finally, the practice of sharing it with others in one’s jurisdiction or with a spiritual director builds in accountability and the opportunity for mutual support.

I invite others to consider this spiritual practice of Embertide reflections as a way of deepening their spiritual lives.