What can you tell me about September?

Autumn has arrived and with it brisk air and a lot of rain. We've turned on our heating for the first time since last winter. October is only a few days old, but already September is a distant memory. Yet memories have a purpose, as our friend Karen from Tennessee reminds us with this poem by Burley Carley she sent along the other day:

September Meditation
By Burton D. Carley


I do not know if the seasons remember their history or if the days and
nights by which we count time remember their own passing. 

I do not know if the oak tree remembers its planting or if the pine
remembers its slow climb toward sun and stars. 

I do not know if the squirrel remembers last fall's gathering or if the
bluejay remembers the meaning of snow. 

I do not know if the air remembers September or if the night remembers
the moon. 

I do not know if the earth remembers the flowers from last spring or if
the evergreen remembers that it shall stay so. 

Perhaps that is the reason for our births -- to be the memory for
creation. 

Perhaps salvation is something very different than anyone ever expected.
Perhaps this will be the only question we will have to answer: 

"What can you tell me about September?"

God's faith in us

On Sunday I mentioned in my sermon that faith is acting without knowing the outcome or the final destination (as in the "Wise Men" on their journey to find the baby Jesus).

What if that applies to God as well?

In this morning's Daily Office readings, it struck me once again that God has faith in us even though God doesn't know how we are going to respond.

God's faith in us is a gift from God freely given to us without God knowing what we will do with it. Our response will show in how we act, our "works." To see what I'm getting at, read this nugget from Ephesians 2:1-10:

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is a gift of God -- not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life."

There is a lot packed into those few words. Let me reflect a little on what I hear in these words. Faith comes through Grace, or God's power, and Grace is God's alone. That means faith itself is a gift, starting with God's faith in us. God choses us not because of our "works" or anything we do to deserve it, but because God has faith in us even though God doesn't know what we are going to do with that gift. A gift is not a gift if it has strings attached, and neither is this gift of faith by grace.

God is not sure what we will do with this gift, but God has faith that we will somehow respond with our own. The works that we do are signs of our response by living by faith -- "our way of life" -- even though we don't know the final outcome of our works.

Living in faith means acting in the knowledge of our salvation that is ours that came before we knew it was ours. Rather than seeing salvation as a reward for our works, it is the other way around: We show our response to God for our salvation by our works.

What if everyone in the whole world is saved but they just don't know it yet? What would the world look like if they did? How would they act?

Artwork above: The Hand of God the Father from the Church of Saint Clement in Taüll, Artist Unknown (ca. 1123); National Museum of Catalan Art, Barcelona

What is salvation? Ask a poet

We soon enter into Holy Week, with the events of betrayal, crucifixion, and entering into Hell itself. At the end comes the startling celebration and declaration of Resurrection, new life, Easter. And as Dan Edwards, the bishop of Nevada, suggests on his terrific blog, these events raise the question: What is salvation?

The apostle Paul attempts to answer that question in his many letters, but even Paul admits we "see in a mirror dimly" (1 Corinthians 13:12). Many a theologian has since tried to define salvation and/or the mechanisms of grace. Complicated scholarly constructions and volumes of paper are created in the task. Thomas Aquinas finally admitted that his efforts amounted to little more than a "stack of straw" and he never wrote another word.

I rather think that the poets may have a better grasp of this, or at least a better grasp at expressing the meaning of salvation (regular readers just knew I'd end up at a poem, didn't you?). And so it is that our friend Karen in Tennessee sent a poem yesterday that took my breath away. Here it is:

Salvation

by Lynn Ungar

By what are you saved? And how?
Saved like a bit of string,
tucked away in a drawer?
Saved like a child rushed from
a burning building, already
singed and coughing smoke?
Or are you salvaged
like a car part -- the one good door
when the rest is wrecked?

Do you believe me when I say
you are neither salvaged nor saved,
but salved, anointed by gentle hands
where you are most tender?
Haven't you seen
the way snow curls down
like a fresh sheet, how it
covers everything,
makes everything
beautiful, without exception?