making room for one another, making room for love

But who's counting? Seven weeks since Passover, fifty days if you count from Easter to Pentecost. A long time to wait. What have we been doing while we wait? And what are we waiting for? Easter Day and Evening the disciples, beginning with Mary at the tomb, began to see Jesus, as he appeared to them after his crucifixion and entombment. And they learned from him; what he had taught them before began to make new sense, new and deeper meanings arose as they experienced the risen Christ. And then they waited, as they experienced his final leaving, the taking from them into heaven that is the Ascension - with its promise of Another, a Counselor, an Advocate, a Comforter, a Spirit: the very Breath of God. And so they began to learn, to be taught, what life means now, now that death has been conquered, for all. They began to wonder, and to proclaim: this is what life means now, this is what it has always meant. That in Christ - in his persecution and death at human hands, the hands of the lawful authorities - all are reconciled, to God and therefore to each other. We are to live that. We are to live that, now. It is no easier today than it was two thousand years ago. We are still on the Way. God help us. God be with us, now as we face - as Michael Curry has reminded us in his sermon this morning, that we face two pandemics now, in this country: the virus, and the utter selfishness and complete self-centeredness, the putting oneself at the center of the universe and all else at the margin, that informs and creates and fuels hate and racism and war, the act of one human brother against another, of one tribe or race or nation against another, and of one individual against another person.

Again as Michael Curry reminds us, we can find another way, the way of love. We can proclaim that love. For what it means is that in making room for one another we are exercising the power of love. And that fits: for God to make the world God made room for Creation.

(An old teaching which I learned from Donald Nicholl in a class at UCSC.)

By making room God allowed us the possibility of failure, of free will, of - to use a word Dr Curry avoided - sin, that is the egregious separating of our self from God, and from common humanity.

We do not have to live that way - in sin, as it were: we can follow the way of love. Today, any day. And every day it becomes more manifestly vital that we do.



https://episcopalchurch.org/posts/publicaffairs/presiding-bishop-michael-currys-pentecost-sermon-live-streamed-service

https://episcopalchurch.org/responding-to-racist-violence

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/31/black-man-i-understand-anger-our-streets-we-must-still-choose-love/


31 May 2020
Day of Pentecost
Whitsunday

• Acts 2:1-21
• or Numbers 11:24-30
• 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
• or Acts 2:1-21
• John 20:19-23
• or John 7:37-39
• Psalm 104:25-35, 37

Daily Office Lessons for Today:

The Day of Pentecost	118      v      145
	Deut. 16:9-12      Acts 4:18-21, 23-33      John 4:19-26

landsmanship

https://www.usna.edu/PAO/faq_pages/JPJones.php

John Paul Jones, to be sure, was a famous captain, know for his indomitable bravery and pluck, his courage in battle and his far-seeing strategy for winning wars and for up-building the Navy. He called for a naval academy and indeed is entombed in the chapel crypt at Annapolis. Ashore he was intent on two things: his own promotion and - what amounted to the same thing - getting back to sea in command, preferably of a fleet, if possible, if not, at least the most capable warship available... which he would then make more capable. 

One strong impression on this reading was how much time was spent, necessarily and also unnecessarily, on fitting-out and financing a voyage or expedition. Getting ready, getting the people together, getting a ship at all in the first place, getting orders to go, .. and then afterwards getting paid! (The Bonhomme Richard crew's prize money? Their heirs got the last of it in 1862.)

His "colossal egotism" (as Morison has it) and his incessant push to get things going and get them right won him few friends but many victories and the respect he was doubtless due from at least most of his subordinates - and few of his rivals. 

Jack ashore and Jack at sea... 

Ashore he worked toward his professional goals; he also famously dallied with a number of ladies in the fin-de-siècle capital of pre-Revolutionary France, and made himself amiable in the society of Philadelphia, Portsmouth, N.H., and then Paris.

sailsmanship

https://www.usna.edu/PAO/faq_pages/JPJones.php

 

When I was eight years old my brother’s friend Tom McCall gave me three books: a biography of Ulysses Grant, John Paul Jones: Fighting Sailor by Armstrong Sperry, in the Landmark Books edition from Grosset & Dunlap, Garden City, L.I., N.Y., and a biography of Lou Gehrig.

Recently after finishing Napoleon by Emil Ludwig (1924), I read part of Grant by Ron Chernow (2017). I’m now reading Samuel Eliot Morison, John Paul Jones: A Sailor’s Biography (1959). Can “Pride of the Yankees” (1942) be far behind?

Two years earlier, when I was about six, my great aunt Carol gave me King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, as told by Roger Lancelyn Green, in the Penguin edition. That was a bit over my head at first, but I liked the illustrations, and eventually read it - and kept it.*

Earlier this spring I wrote about King Arthur, and the High Feast of Pentecost on which the knights would gather around the table and relate their adventures of the past year. What I wondered would this year’s feast look like? Would we be gathered again round our common table?

Now I wonder, as I read the praises of famous men, how we are measuring up? How are we individually doing? John Paul Jones was the first American naval hero, deservedly, as we’re told, for his captaincy, his admiralcy (if we allow him that word), his strategy, and his farsighted visions for the future and the good of the navy. 

He was a pill, otherwise: always complaining, always looking out for his own best interests; that is, moderated by an overwhelming patriotism, his chief fault, along with bad luck ashore. Jack ashore, Jack at sea: two differing creatures, in habit and pursuit. And yet we honor him. In the room beneath the chapel at the U.S. Naval Academy, reminiscent of the tomb of Napoleon at Les Invalides, is the tomb of John Paul Jones.

Houdon carved his likeness; the bust is there. He looks like Putin.

Who probably wishes he was Napoleon.

Guess he’s never read War and Peace.

What Jones was admired for was not just cannonading the enemy but how he sailed his ship and how he trained his men, so they would be ready for the encounter and the emergency of battle. That famous victory over Serapis owed as much to sailing and to sharpshooters in the tops as it ever did to big guns (the British had bigger). He prevailed, also, because he persisted.

Even when any other captain would have struck his colors and surrendered, and the pragmatical Capt. Pearson of the Serapis did just that, Jones “had only just begun to fight”.

Perhaps Grant in his way could be said to do the same, to persist; even when his army career was in ruins, something in him stayed strong, his heart stayed strong, and his self-belief, so that when the time came he climbed steadily and surely through the ranks to the summit of power. 


* Later she gave me a deluxe edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. I’ve read and kept that too. When I was eight she gave me The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, celebrated author of The Adventures  of Tom Sawyer. ("There were things that he stretched, but mostly he told the truth.")

Calvin Hampton

Calvin Hampton, if he had lived, would be an old man today, perhaps streaming a concert from his home in the Berkeley hills, playing new variations on his now-old melody, which we have sung today as Hymn 456.  But he died 36 years ago. 

What we have of him is his music, memories, and perhaps even a memory of how he asked us to play his music. Like this: he would say to the choir. What we have is a lingering memory and an always-refreshed appreciation and wonder. 

What lingers in the air is the sound he made, though the musician is no longer in the room. We may make fresh variations on the theme, but sometimes we need a reminder, how does that go again? How did he say to shade that note, and not this other? How fast should we go with the thing, today? 

What if Jesus had lived? He could not have sent the Spirit, the advocate and guide that teaches us even if he is not here.

And the themes he sounded, the notes he introduced, and the shadings in how to play the tunes, are in our memory but also need refreshing. How was it he said this? Are there notes for us, written down someplace, or pointers shared orally among the choir and passed down to us?

(I think of this partly because of the tune Merton, written by a member of the St. Mark's, Berkeley, choir, and for me as a member later joined, part of the joy was learning from those who'd heard her lead it, how it was to be sung, the shavings and augmentations that just don't fit in a written score.)

So we have the theme - and endless variations. But what if he had lived? What if he does live, in the Spirit, now, teaching us though he has left the room? How shall we sing his song in this strange land? 

At a time of isolation, of compulsory quarantine, 'confined to quarters', it is easy to ask, how are we to continue to believe and to practice, as he would have us do it? And how, if we are not in the room together, are we to sense community? It is as if he had gone... and we had some living Spirit to guide us.


2020 May 17
Sixth Sunday of Easter
Acts 17:22-31
1 Peter 3:13-22
John 14:15-21
Psalm 66:7-18

https://hymnary.org/hymn/EH1982/456

coming to our senses

John Bee and John Leech sharing communion in Edmonds City Park
(photo: Christine Sine)

Re: "Smells and bells", Letters, May 16th 2020, The Economist, p 14. Re: "Our Father, who art in cyberspace", April 11th 2020.


The Episcopal Church basically went online Tuesday March 17th ... and it looks like that is the order of the day for many dioceses (regional judicatories) at least through late May or the end of May ... So the people of the church have been telephoning, emailing, video conferencing, to pray together, worship together, and visit with each other. After an extended period of Eucharistic-centered devotions (which in some senses will never end) we have rediscovered and deepened our appreciation of daily devotions at home or with others via zoom, web chat, facebook, facetime, youtube, email, phone... and felt gratitude when we can get outdoors and enjoy Spring.


Just this past week, pastors of dioceses in Western states, such as Bishop Rickel in Seattle and Bishop Reddall in Phoenix, have begun to discuss with their clergy and people when and how "re-opening" will occur. We are in Phase I of 4 phases: that is a long way from the sensual church - the engagement of all five senses in worship - that Nawshir Mirza of Mumbai recalls so fondly in his letter.

For the now, those who can take Eucharist must take it not only for themselves, but for all those, present, past, and future, who may not.

And in the meantime, we turn necessity toward invention. What we have gained, as we have lost some contact through our five senses, are ways not common to many - but to some - before this time, of making connection without touch, sight, smell, taste, or feel being easy communication.

Occasionally in Seattle the Rev. Phil Jackson invited me to lead TV Eucharist - two or more of us would gather, on a local television stage, and share communion; five thousand would watch. To see another take communion is not the same, but it is not nothing.

Indeed we do something even more insubstantial regularly without a qualm. We pray for each other.

There is no greater communion than that.




Napoleon and Grant

Ulysses S. Grant at Cold Harbor, June 1864

Napoleon, by Emil Ludwig (1924) Garden City, N.Y. 1926.

My dad's copy, given to him on his 19th birthday, by his grandparents.

There were several dusty volumes on my parents' bookshelves, some of them by Thomas Mann. Among them was this volume. A few weeks ago I came across one of those lists of 'the books that have influenced you the most' by some celebrity author. And I was surprised to see this old book among them. It was written in the early 1920s, almost a hundred years ago. So it is not the latest. But for a character study of its subject, what the author himself calls an 'inner history', it may still be the one to read. What it has is immediacy: it is mostly written in the present tense, so we follow the impulses, feelings, and plans of its, well, hero, as they evolve and unfold. It is a dynamic history.

Looking back at the end of the life it expresses, the book gives some assessments, and these may be in the past tense. Until that point, it is as excited and immediate as the prose it quotes, in many pages, of the letters and speeches and dispatches - and eventually memoirs - of Napoleon Bonaparte.

And then I turned the last page. And thought, what will I read now. The newspaper. The Economist. The New Yorker. And then what? I looked at the shelves, exhausted. And turned to Morning Prayer.

Later I looked again, and thought: do I want to read about FDR again? Certainly not World War Two. Do I want to read Hamilton? No. Not yet. And I do not want to read about another mythical figure. So no Cromwell, the Lord Protector. I want to read about a good man, arguably a great man. Grant.

Civil War again? The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses Grant are hard to beat; especially in concert with Sherman's. This new (2017) biography gives us things Grant himself could not; and a modern perspective on his troubles, of which he was less than frank, perhaps. So it was good to read a fuller treatment of his northwestern sojourns, at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River, and Ft. Humboldt.

The latter particularly, a place where the state historic park gives you a sense of what the place was like before the Civil War, and what it might have been like for an ambitious (let's face it), bored young officer, with nothing to do but read books, ride, or drink. And drink he did. They all did.

Not so good for a binge alcoholic, which is the diagnosis of the author, and of the hero's friends, notably Rawlins, his aide-de-camp and would-be nanny (what they both needed was a Sponsor).

But then there are flashes of brilliance. When the man is not idle he is great. What Napoleon had was a scheme to be always up and doing, never rested. There was always something going on, something to stir up, until there wasn't any more. With Grant, he waited, for the paths of glory to open. There were idle years, for a soldier, between the Mexican-American War and the War of 1861-1865. And Grant spent those years in frustration: he was no businessman, no farmer, no seller of leather goods.

When the trumpet called the not-so-old warhorse came alive. And that began a transformation, one that I am familiar with ... through the war years. As far as the Memoirs takes me. For the remainder of Grant's career I have historians, and the interpretive ranger at Grants' Tomb ("Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?"). So the, um, rehabilitation, and reinterpretation, of a stained presidential career, will be new.

Ron Chernow was the author of Washington - and of Hamilton. So I expect great things. No musical.


https://www.nps.gov/people/ulysses-s-grant.htm

Frances Perkins

Frances Perkins

If I were going to nominate someone to be on US currency it would be Frances Perkins, US secretary of labor under Franklin Roosevelt, the first woman to serve in the Cabinet, and a staunch Episcopalian; moreover, a staunch friend of the working man and woman and a friend of the poor. She began her public career much earlier than the New Deal era, of course: she had provided succour to the homeless and the unemployed in a number of guises before serving in Governor Roosevelt’s administration of New York State, the proving ground of so much of early New Deal initiatives. Initiatives, not just legislation; the government got to work.

Today’s daily office lectionary has us finishing a reading from Leviticus with the summary of the law ending with a bang; love your neighbor as your self. And the gospel begins, do not lay up for your selves treasure on earth.

Put together, a good creed for Frances Perkins day.

https://francesperkinscenter.org/life-new/

Frances Perkins continues to inspire her alma mater, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Mass.

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/fp

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/media/frances-perkins-documentary-mount-holyoke-college

AM Psalm 72; PM Psalm 119:73-96
Lev. 19:1-18; 1 Thess. 5:12-28; Matt. 6:19-24

Frances Perkins

Loving God, we bless your Name for Frances Perkins who in faithfulness to her baptism sought to build a society in which all may live in health and decency: Help us, following her example and in union with her prayers, to contend tirelessly for justice and for the protection of all, that we may be faithful followers of Jesus Christ; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

This commemoration appears in Lesser Feasts & Fasts 2018 for trial use with revised lessons.

A prayer in the spirit of Francis … and of Frances:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is

hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where

there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where

there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where

there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to

be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is

in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we

are born to eternal life. Amen.

(Book of Common Prayer, p. 833)

AEaster5 Philip and Stephen

Imagine you were Philip and you were standing watching from close by your brother Stephen as he is held down by a pile of rocks thrown by strangers imagine saying to him reminding him what our teacher told us what our teacher said to me as you Stephen stood next to me on that moment earlier remember this Stephen remember what he said I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the father but by me Stephen he was 

Stephen he was talking to you and he was talking to me I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the father but by me you’re going first Stephen before me but you won’t be the last all you did was tell the truth tell it in life to a hard hard hearted audience but the truth is that he is with you he is the path you were on he is the one who is holding you close even now he is the one who went before us the one who is with us as we go to the one who greets us when we arrive and the one who will be with us always

He will be with us always I go to prepare a place for you there he is in the city that will have been awaiting our arrival for years the city that he made that he owns that he is master of where we will join him and we will be with him forever and Philip we built it now we are building it now those stones are foundation stones in the church the city built with the blood of the martyrs in the mortar is the city that has the stones even of our persecution even of his gift of 

The stones even of his gift to sacrifice are the living stones you and I Philip the living stones out of which his home and ours is built God bless you Phillip God bless you Phillip we will see you again in him in Christ who is the way the truth and the life and through whom we all go to the father as we all have walked with him and he with us amen amen

May 10th 2020

Fifth Sunday of Easter

Acts 7:55-60

1 Peter 2:2-10

John 14:1-14

Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16

JRL+

William Temple

By way of comment on Bishop Rickel's blog post 'A "Pissing" Section in the Pool' 5/1/20 http://www.bishoprickel.com/blog/a-pissing-section-in-the-pool:

The church is the only institution that exists primarily for the benefit of those that are not its members (William Temple). We are more the church when we not about just ourselves than when we are just "Him" and me... Just now I was reading some letters William Temple wrote in response to his 'current situation' - the second World War - in response to suggestions he pray for Victory and after the war to focus on rebuilding the church at home and not worry about those people over there on the continent... to the second that he did support the aid to rebuilding churches as "I am quite sure that it is a case like that of the missionary claim and we shall tend to gain more for the Church at home by shewing that we care for the Church in Europe and throughout the world than if we concentrate on home needs only" and to the first that (despite his strong support for the war effort) "it seems to me that the primary concern in prayer - and I mean 'primary' quite seriously - must be the approach to the Father of all men, with recognition that all His other children have the same right of approach, and that if we pray as our Lord taught us, we are never praying against each other, because we are always praying not that what we want shall be done, but that what God wants shall be done, and that we may be used for doing it" -- F. A. Iremonger, William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, His Life and Letters. Oxford, 1948. (555-556, 561)

Julian

Julian of Tarsus

In the 1970s when I first heard Donald Nicholl* speaking about "Julian of Norridge" (that's how I heard it) I wrote it down to rhyme with porridge.

The anchoress who lived next door to the church of St Julian of Norwich was a wonderful counselor, apparently, holding her office hours a la Lucy Van Pelt at a walk-up window (like a Brooklyn pizza bakery).

St Julian of Antioch aka Julian of Tarsus was a martyr of the 4th Century.

https://episcopalchurch.org/lectionary/julian-norwich-mystic-and-theologian-c-1417

*author of HOLINESS (Seabury)

the place where we are going

NOBODY COMES TO THE FATHER EXCEPT THROUGH ME.

My mother's advice: there should always be an alternative route.

Do we really have to go this Way? Through the Cross and the shame of it, as if we were extras in an old Michael Been song ("I still believe") ... enduring the Passion before the hope of Resurrection?

And then the pain of resurrection itself. Do you think that Jesus felt nothing? Like open heart surgery and a flood of air into flattened lungs, after three days - three days - in the tomb in the garden beyond Golgotha?

It must hurt...

And this is the way to Paradise? "Today you will be with me in Paradise" Jesus assures The Good Thief, as they are both expiring on their crosses, the ultimate public execution engines of SPQR.

(We are more sophisticated now.)

Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Even when we know what we are getting into. Amen, Alleluia.

• Acts 7:55-60
• 1 Peter 2:2-10
• John 14:1-14
• Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16

as his glory passes by

This morning (Wednesday in the 4th week of Easter) as I read the passage from Exodus, I little remarked the assurance from God to Moses that he would put his hand on him and hide him in a cleft of the rock ... until I saw verse 3  in the responsorial psalm for this coming Sunday's Eucharist:

Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe,
for you are my crag and my stronghold; *
for the sake of your Name, lead me and guide me.

Even as he is being martyred, Stephen the deacon can feel this comfort. It is beyond me. But he does.

Look at what he prays - following Jesus: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

Forgive them, Lord, for they do not know what they are doing.

Somehow in the depths of what would be despair, the first martyr of the church has hope - hope beyond hope, beyond life. And what is more, and more explicit and important, he has obedience: total trust in God. I'm not sure his thoughts were on himself at all, simply on the witness he made to Jesus.

And this is discipleship - following Christ - too: for Christ died for the truth, which he would not betray.

He - Christ - has become that Truth.

When nothing can save you, save you from the fires or the stones of persecution, that Truth will.

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ (John 14:1-4)

Or, in the Scholars Version of the Jesus Seminar, in heavy black:

Don't give in to your distress. You believe in God, then believe in me too. There are plenty of places to stay in my Father's house. If it weren't true, I would have told you; I'm on my way to make a place ready for you. And if I go to make a place ready for you, I'll return and embrace you. So where I am you can be too. You know where I'm going and you know the way.

(Robert W. Funk et al., The Five Gospels, Polebridge Press/Macmillan, 1993. p. 450)

Which really gets the point across. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid! as the angels said to Mary. The messengers of God are pretty consistent. You only have to be afraid of ... God.

Look at all that stuff about the burning bush and leading the people out of Egypt and the horse and his rider drowned in the sea and all the temptations entertained by the people who wander and all the times God takes them back, like the wife of Hosea who was never faithful but always forgiven.

Trust God. There is no need to be afraid of anything else.

He is like a cleft in the rock, a safe place, in which his hand will cover you, even as he passes by.

‘See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.’ (Exodus 33:21-23)

Even as they throw the stones.

Even as the plague lurks, seeking whom it will devour.

Stay safe, people. Stay the course.

And we will bow to each other, and greet each other across a safe distance, or through a window at the hospital, or by means provided by Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, and Steve Wozniak and all the rest.

Keep the faith. Keep it as we pass through kingdoms of anxiety into strange cities that have awaited us for years. Remember we are not alone, in this time or in all time. Stephen is still praying for us.

Even as we do wrong and turn our backs on the Messiah, only to pick up stones to throw, we are safe, in the cleft of the rock we are hidden, as his glory passes by. 

• • Acts 7:55-60
  • 1 Peter 2:2-10
  • John 14:1-14
  • Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16

https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Easter/AEaster5_RCL.html
http://edgeofenclosure.org/easter5a.html
https://episcopalchurch.org/lectionary-calendar

O Lord, from whom all good things do come: Grant to us thy humble servants, that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be good, and by thy merciful guiding may perform the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/book-common-prayer/collects-epistles-and-gospels-39 [Readings are St. James 1.22-end and St. John 16.23-end]

Fifth Sunday of Easter
Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant
us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way,
the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his
steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ
your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity
of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

https://bcponline.org/

Keeping the Faith: Elected Solitude

The Rev. Dr. John Leech, Oblate OSB Cam.

Keeping the Faith: Elected Solitude

I'm an Episcopal priest, affiliated with St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Armory Park, Tucson, Arizona, and a Camaldolese Benedictine Oblate (that is, an associate of a contemplative monastic order headquartered in Camaldoli, Italy), as well as a friend of the Iona Community. [My spiritual director forwarded me an essay by a nun from New Jersey on her long-learned practices of "social distancing", which got me thinking. Here are some of my own thoughts.]

As the coronavirus approached I began to think more about the resources monastic practices have to offer us, and as an associate member of a contemplative monastic order myself, some of them, blended with my work as an Episcopal priest, came to the fore. My thought is that we can - with help - turn from forced isolation to chosen solitude. At least to some extent. As we do in Lent - or Ramadan, or other fasting periods. This happened to me this year: my doctor had me begin a no-carbohydrate Mediterranean style diet last summer, which I got serious about once I heard of a family member's cancer treatments. But this was not elected solitude.

Camaldolese Benedictine Hermits have over a thousand years of practice with 'social distancing' - and more important with balance. The Camaldolese Threefold Good of community, solitude, and witness, will play out differently for people outside monastic enclosures. We connect with friends and neighbors at a distance, sometimes through electronic means, telephone, or letter, and sometimes en paseo, that is, as we pass each other on our evening walks. Witness takes so many forms. Care for each other, however expressed, is one of them. And of course Camaldolese Benedictines are much more concerned with solitude than isolation.

Perhaps we can learn, through newly adopted very old practices, such as sacred reading, contemplation, and prayer, how to turn simple isolation into something more profound.
What I am doing now, in this time of pandemic isolation, are the intentional practices of solitude of many intentional religious communities: daily prayer, weekly Eucharist and annual retreat. God willing I'll be able to go to New Camaldoli this summer for the retreat...

As for weekly Eucharist, I can commend "Spiritual Communion" and the prayer of St Alphonse of Liguori:

O Lord, in union with the faithful at every altar of your Church where your blessed Body and Blood are being offered to the Father, I desire to offer you praise and thanksgiving. I believe that you are truly present in the Holy Sacrament. And since I cannot now receive you sacramentally, I pray you to come spiritually into my heart. I unite myself to you, and embrace you with all the affections of my soul. Let me never be separated from you. Let me live and die in your love. Amen.


For the Arizona Daily Star, "Keeping the Faith" section in Home and Life. Published May 3, 2020.

https://tucson.com/lifestyles/faith-and-values/keeping-the-faith/article_148ecede-751c-5182-9aec- 7050e3cfb27b.html 

— The Rev. Dr. John Leech, Oblate OSB Cam. Leech is an Episcopal priest, affiliated with St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Armory Park, Tucson, Arizona, and a Camaldolese Benedictine Oblate (that is, an associate of a contemplative monastic order headquartered in Camaldoli, Italy), as well as a friend of the Iona Community. 

Pilgrimage to Tombstone

This morning as I listed to "Travel with Rick Steves" on NPR, recorded at his Edmonds WA office, I began to reflect on why we go to Tombstone. That is because the interviewees I heard were

• New York Times columnist Tim Egan, author of "A Pilgrimage to Eternity" (Viking)
• Lori Erickson, author of “Holy Rover” (Fortress Press) and "Near the Exit" (Westminster John Knox Press)

https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/audio/radio

Both Tim and Lori talked about their experiences as pilgrims - Tim on a journey from Canterbury to Rome, reproducing a medieval journey; Lori her various holy wanderings and sites she's seen, from Macchu Picchu to Taize. Rick himself mentioned Jerusalem, and also how we can be on pilgrimage when we are "only" out for a walk... as I was this morning while listening to him.

(My friend and mentor Noel King went on a lot of pilgrimages, not least near his home, but that seems to have been everywhere people of faith or doubt were. His attitude was to bring a pilgrim's heart to all his journeys, and all his encounters. See the preface to his two slim books for Harper and Row, San Francisco...)

What I thought about this morning was, first, after hearing how glorious the mountain tops of the Alps (Rick) and the Andes (Lori) were, what if you cannot see? What if you cannot hear? How do you go on pilgrimage then, and what do you experience?

This reminded me of touring the Carter White House with a group of elderly blind people (Eternal Light, led by Evelyn Saile with my mother's help - and my brother driving the bus more often than not, was a social service based at the Jewish Council on Aging in Montgomery County Md., that got people out on day excursions, including lunch and then a tour.) The Carter White House, despite Mrs. Carter's own care for people who are blind, had not yet adjusted their tour package to include them. So I did it myself: I guided the hand of the man next to me to touch the furniture and the walls as we went by.

I bet this helps explain the well-worn walls inside the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem...

And I thought of the hand labyrinths, as well as the mown-grass labyrinth not far uphill from Rick's office in Edmonds. And I thought of the sounds of pilgrim places, not least the birds and the wind.

But what I also took in was the idea of pilgrimage where ever you are. Rick started me on this trail. You can go on pilgrimage without going to the great holy sites.

(There are substitutes. My older brother and I once took a stack of old photos back to the place they were taken, the Franciscan Monastery in Washington, D.C., which features a church undercroft that has the journey from Calvary to the Tomb - and the Resurrection - stepped out for the full distance.)

And then I thought of the little church in Tombstone, completed in 1882, St Paul's.

St Paul's Tombstone (photo: Jon Donahue)

People go to Tombstone quite often as tourists. It's second on the bucket list to the Grand Canyon.

They want to see where Wyatt Earp, Doc, Morgan and Virgil, gunned down the Clanton gang. But fifty yards from the back gate of the OK Corral, across the intersection of 3rd and Fremont where Billy Claiborne fell mortally wounded on that notorious fall day in 1881, is the front door of the little church that was built within a few months of that dreadful celebrated happening.

And there is a pilgrimage site, if you see or hear or touch it with pilgrim hands. A church. A small church. A few pews, enough to squeeze in 150 Victorians (as on dedication day 1882) or accommodate a slightly smaller group of 21st century worshipers. For it is an active church.

An earlier bishop of Arizona got the congregation to look at it as a potential added stop on the tourist route. Indeed an earlier vicar got the "crib" behind it on that map - adapted from an old tool shed and redecorated to look like one of the little buildings more likely to be found across Allen Street near the mines. But the church itself and the people - they are worthy of more than a tour stop. Be a pilgrim.

See where the Eucharist is celebrated and the Gospel preached and the psalms and hymns and spiritual songs are sung.

Then go on your way, to the OK Cafe for lunch, or the courthouse for an authentic thrill, of bygone cattle ranching and justice days, or just wander the streets. And see what is there now, and who.

Your fellow pilgrims, in life, as well as your fellow tourists. It just requires a pilgrim's eyes to see, a pilgrim's ears to hear, a pilgrim's hand to touch, a pilgrim's heart to feel and take in, that God is here.

On the Machair

Those who had been baptized devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. (Acts 2:42)

All the devotions my bishop requested of me while I was under his care before ordination was to say the daily office, morning prayer and either evening prayer or compline. It's not just the law (in England); it's a good idea (everywhere). Years later when I came under the guidance (once again) of the prior of the Hermitage, he and I discussed the basics of associate membership (amici, y'all, is the preferred style in Italia). Daily prayer, weekly Eucharist, annual retreat. You are already doing it.

And of course you pray for me and I'll pray for you. As we say to each other when we say farewell.

Yes, I will, Robert, and I know you do; you always have.

Which brings us to the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples, when they asked. It was simple. Not long or elaborate or particularly showy, just the basics. 

Praise, putting ourselves in right place in the universe: you are hallowed, and may you be hallowed - here as in the eternity; that is in practice as well as in the immovable verity of God's existence. 

May we bring with you the reality of that kingdom into practical realization, and act in accordance with thy will, in all our being, our doing, our lives, public and private. 

Sustain us today; it's up to you: we rely on your providence. And we ask for it. We do not demand it as right nor forget that we are the children of thy favor. As are all beings. (We are all on that hazelnut together, in the palm of your hand.) 

We have done wrong, been wrong, gone wrong; you can redeem it, as we can redeem our own unworthy attitudes and extend the grace you have shown us to our dealings with others. Save us from the time of trial and temptation, of giving up and doing ill, and pull us out of the pit we dug ourselves. 

It is all yours; that we said in the beginning we say again: and what was in the beginning is in the last what lasts. Omega and alpha: the God who gathers us to himself is the God who has sustained us is the God who is redeeming us and making us well, all to be well, as he is the God who made us in the first place.

So we turn to him, him who is without gender, beginning or end: we unworthy worthily redeemed, created, sustained. Platitudes and all.

And beyond, that fearsome truth: he lives.

Psalm 23    Dominus regit me

The LORD is my shepherd; *

    therefore can I lack nothing.

He shall feed me in a green pasture, *

    and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort.

He shall convert my soul, *

    and bring me forth in the paths of righteousness for his

                                Name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil; *

    for thou art with me;

    thy rod and thy staff comfort me.

Thou shalt prepare a table before me in the presence of them

                                that trouble me; *

    thou hast anointed my head with oil,

    and my cup shall be full.

Surely thy loving-kindness and mercy shall follow me all the

                                days of my life; *

    and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. (Isaiah 53:9, KJV)

He himself who was the shepherd - who is the shepherd - bore the pain of sacrificial self-giving, for us.

On the Machair, the open grassy seaside sloping ground on the west side of the isle of Iona, sheep safely graze. Most of the time. They have to watch out for airplanes, using their pasture as an airstrip, and they have to look out for flying golf balls. But they do have the fold, the (in this case) concrete - or stone - enclosure where they can gather and be gathered, safely. Other than that they graze.

O Good Shepherd ...

https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g186581-d191342-i103952809-Machair-Isle_of_Iona_The_Hebrides_Scotland.html ("Take a swing at your ball, but try not to hit the grazing sheep...")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOWX2-l788A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6cJR9copFw

Acts 2:42-47

1 Peter 2:19-25

John 10:1-10

Psalm 23

http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Easter/AEaster4_RCL.html

the end and the beginning

At the end of that rather odd film Jesus Christ Superstar there is an image of a shepherd in the sunrise leading his sheep across a hill. I thought that was a good image of the resurrection - as far as it goes.

At the beginning of a film about Jesus that I'd make, either under Paul Verhoeven's tutelage or on my own, I'd have a similar image... though not first. The film would be The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, based on the novel by Philip K. Dick, a go-to author for Paul Verhoeven. And the very first image would be from the life and death of James Pike:

As I understand it, he went into the Judean desert, alone, in a rental car, looking for some answers about the premature death of his son. And his body was found there....

So the first image as the dawn enlightens would be dark, then sound: the radio in a car. Then the light comes up and we see the car at the bottom of a shallow desert wash, the right door open in the gray dawn. The radio is playing.

And over the car, above, on the crest of the bank above the wash, is the shepherd. That is how I would start.

The end, and the beginning. Rest in peace, Jim.

hope

The Lord waits to be gracious to you;

therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you.

For the Lord is a God of justice;

blessed are all those who wait for him.

(Isaiah 30:18)

Pastors strive to give their congregations a message of hope. Troubled times. Isaiah calls on us to continue to be faithful. Jesus through the three Temptations he encountered in the desert remained faithful. Abide in the Lord. Depend on God. Worship him only.

And we want to hold on to these words of Isaiah. For God is faithful: he will see us through this.

Although we wait. 

http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC/HolyDays/PhilJames.html

• Isaiah 30:18-21
• 2 Corinthians 4:1-6
• John 14:6-14
• Psalm 119:33-40

http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/Philip&James.htm

Daily Office:

AM Psalm 119:137-160

Job 23:1-12

John 1:43-51

PM Psalm 139

Proverbs 4:7-18

John 12:20-26

Jeremiah 29:11

 
For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. (Jeremiah 29:11, KJV)

As we look ahead, as we can, this year, we see perhaps not very far into the future. We picture an 'after' time, after the virus pandemic.

We do not picture a return to the past but a hopeful future. A future built in the hope of God and the knowledge of God's care for us, and with us, as we work together, build together, with God, a new age.

Not one we wanted, not one we selected for ourselves. Nobody in such a time of crisis, of extended disaster, of shared adversity, even only psychic, or as close as our breath, would select such a time.

We hold on to hope, not foolishly, but in the knowledge that we are with God and God is with us.

Suddenly every day in the daily office, the morning and evening and night prayers of the Episcopal Church, in the lectionary selections of readings from Scripture, Hebrew Bible, psalms, epistles, Gospels, and writings, there is something that pops out in a new way.

To remind us that we are not alone. We are not alone in suffering. We are not alone in rebuilding. We were never alone. But now perhaps we notice, in a new way. We are co-creators, resilient in hope, because we know that God is with us.

May be not in our minds or our emotions but deep in our innermost being, below despair, hope.