The Holy Spirit in our questions: A special workshop at St. Paul's

We are embarking as a parish into a season of listening for how the Holy Spirit is calling us into a new commitment to mission. How are we called to grow? What ministries are vital? What needs to fall away?

We are providing many avenues for participation in this listening process, and I want to invite you to one of them: a workshop that I will be leading on Saturday Jan. 21 from 9 am to noon.

The method we will use was developed by the “Emergent Church” movement and is based on the idea that sometimes we can hear God in our questions rather than in the certainty of our own answers.

We will spend our morning in prayer, conversation and questions about our future. Come ready for the possibility of surprise.

The method has been successful used by the Diocese of Virginia for small groups and planning retreats. I won't spoil it by saying more about the method, but I've been a participant twice in the method and found it fruitful on many levels.

You can also find out about other kinds of listening groups by going to our website HERE.

And please let me invite you to the read the report about our parish and the context where we live. This report was prepared over the last year; it is quite readable and rich with information. You can read it by clicking HERE.

The dogs who have shared our lives

Our friend Karen in Tennessee has given us many gifts of poetry over the years. Her beloved dog Blue died the other day. Blue was 15 years old. Sometimes I believe our dogs are angels sent from Heaven to make us laugh and dry our tears. Here is a poem for Karen today:

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The Dogs Who Have Shared Our Lives
By Linda Barnes

The dogs who’ve shared our lives.
In subtle ways they let us know
their spirit still survives.
Old habits still make us think
we hear a barking at the door.
Or step back when we drop
a tasty morsel on the floor.
Our feet still go around the place
the food dish used to be,
And, sometime, coming home at night,
we miss them terribly.
And although time may bring new friends
and a new food dish to fill,
That one place in our hearts
belongs to them…
and always will.

The Monday Funnies

It took a little prodding, but Patrick Hill and the overpaid and bloated Jokester Department here at Fiat Lux Productions has finally got back to work and produced a few new jokes.

Some are barely printable, and some in poor taste, but you get what you pay for. Enjoy your Monday . . .

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A young man came to a rabbi and said, "Rabbi, I know I'm a fool but I don't know what to do about it."

The rabbi retorted, "Son, if you know you're a fool then certainly you are no fool."

"Then why does everyone say I am a fool?", asked the young man.

"If", said the rabbi, "you yourself don't know why you're a fool but listen to others who say you are, then you surely are a fool!"

* * *

A bishop visited a church in his diocese. Only three people turned up to hear him preach.

He asked the pastor, "Did you give notice of my visit?"

"No," replied the pastor, "but word seems to have gotten round anyway."

* * *

The minister conducting the funeral was speaking of his last moments with the recently deceased. "I was standing by his bedside," he said, "and he was obviously in some distress."

"I spoke some words of comfort, and he wrote a short note and handed it to me, and then he died. In fact, I have the note here, in my pocket."  

He took out the note. "I forgot about it until now. It says, 'Please take your foot off my oxygen hose.' "

Being bold: Anglican Journal poses seven questions every church should ask

We will soon embark upon a season of intentional listening to what the Holy Spirit is calling us to do at St. Paul's.

The Vestry spent much of 2011 laying the ground work for this process, and you will hear more about it today from Lloyd Snook, our junior warden.

In the weeks ahead, there will be many opportunities for people in our parish to get together to talk, listen and pray together, and to dream about what we strengthen and renew in our ministry. Two years ago, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori came to St. Paul's to help us celebrate our centennial, and she challenged us to "be bold." Her words resonated with our Vestry and parish leaders and laid the groundwork for what we hope to do now in this listening process. I will have much more to say about this process in this space and in the pulpit.

We are not alone in this discernment process -- other churches are engaged in very similar listening projects. I came across this item the Saturday in the Anglican Journal: an article by the Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi entitled "Seven questions every church should ask." These are great questions, and to read the full article, click HERE. The seven questions are:

1: What would be lost, and how would the world be worse off, if our church ceased to exist? 

2: How does our church add value to people’s lives that they cannot live without–whether they know it or not? 

3: What challenges in the fulfillment of mission does our church face and what can we do to bring about that new thing God wants our church to be? 

4: What are the barriers to seeing reality that our church needs to move beyond? 

5: What issues does our church need to face within the next year so that five years from now, we won’t have to say, “We wish we had…” 

6: If money were not an issue, where would you like your church to be five years from now? 

7: In what ways can we affirm “Jesus is Lord” without appearing to be bigots?

The work of Christmas continues: To make music in the heart

We got Christmas "put away" yesterday -- the tree down, the ornaments packed, and everything lifted back into the attic above the garage. I always have a great sense of accomplishment when Christmas is stored away for the season, and when the task is done it truly feels like the New Year has begun.

That we got Christmas packed up on the Feast of the Epiphany was appropriate, but for us, purely a coincidence. We've had a few years when the last of the Santas didn't get boxed until Valentines Day.

So dear readers, it is true that Christmas is done for another year. But it is also true the work of Christmas continues. A parishioner sent this yesterday as a reminder:

The Work of Christmas
Howard Thurman

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart. 

Source: The Mood of Christmas

One day you finally knew what you had to do

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany when we mark the journey of the wise men -- the Magi -- who come from the East, and follow a star to Bethlehem to find the Christ child and his family. The story of the Magi appears only in Matthew 2:1-12, and nowhere else.

The story leaves more questions than answers. We know almost nothing about these wise men. The gospel does not tell us how many wise men there were, though legend puts it at three. Were they the only ones who saw the star? No one else seems to see it. What did they see that no one else saw? And did they get home again?

The Magi innocently tip off King Herod, who proceeds to murder all the boy infants of Bethlehem to get at Jesus. The Magi leave by another route, warned of what was to happen. Were they chastened by what they had unwittingly unleashed? Were they truly wise in following the star? We get precious few answers from this story.

What are we left with then? It may be some comfort that this legend is probably only that -- a legend that made its way into the Bible to make a larger point. Herod did not massacre the children of Bethlehem, though he certainly killed many innocents. Matthew uses the story to propel Jesus into Egypt so that he can emerge as the "new Moses," and that is the greater message that the gospel writer wants us to hear.

Yet the story is entrancing. The Magi just had to follow that star. The wise thing for the wise men to do would have been to stay home. But they set aside that "wisdom" and followed the star across the continent to a foreign land. The lives they saved were there own, and indirectly ours, too, because of their example. There are times we need take a risk, follow the star, put aside everyone else's wisdom, and go where the star might lead. Poet Mary Oliver captures the idea as only a poet can:

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The Journey
By Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

The Raising of Lazarus and the emptiness of Hell

Today comes the story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead, found in John 11:17-44, the only place in the New Testament where the story is found. Jesus goes to the tomb where his friend, Lazarus, has been dead for three days. He hears the anguish of Mary and Martha, and so Jesus orders the dead man to come out, and then tells the startled onlookers "Unbind him and let him go."

For many it is a dark, broody disturbing story. Jesus weeps, Jesus is "disturbed in spirit." The dead man has a stench, we are told, and his new life will not last long. The authorities, hearing of this, immediately begin to plot the death of both Jesus and Lazarus.

The incident can also be heard as a foretelling of the Holy Saturday story of Easter, when Jesus himself goes into the tomb, and to Hell itself to unbind everyone and let them go. The unbinding of people in Hell is at the heart of message of the Gospel, and makes Jesus more than a mere rabbi or wisdom teacher. It is why we describe Jesus as "Savior" and divine.

You will note there is no "Jesus died for your sins" in these stories, and maybe that is another reason the story is hard to take for some. This unbinding comes as a pure act of love with no strings attached, no conditions. Lazarus has not asked to be saved, but salvation comes to him.  It makes all this the harder to comprehend. Humans don't act this way. Only the divine is capable of that.

The placement of the story of Lazarus on the last day of Christmas and the Eve of the Epiphany is meant, I think, to show us the true meaning of the light of Christ coming into our lives. It's not really about magi bearing gifts to Christ, but Christ bearing gifts to us. This light comes in the hardest moments and at the gates of death itself. It is a reminder that Christmas is inextricably connected to Easter and the Resurrection and the empty tomb.

Many theologians have tried to explain this, and many a preacher, including me, has tried as well. The poets sometimes explain this better with fewer words, so I leave you with a quote from one of my favorite contemporary theologians and with a short poem:

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“With this we can say… that Hell exists, as the Church has always maintained; nevertheless it is perfectly possible that there is nobody at all there.”

James Alison, Raising Abel, 1996

HELL

But if they were condemned to suffer
this unending torment, sooner or later
wouldn’t they become the holy?

Franz Wright, God’s Silence, 2006

Art: "Mary, Martha and Lazarus," by He Qi

Seeing with two eyes

Salisbury Cathedral

ROSLYN -- I’ve been away from the parish these last few days on a personal retreat, and naps have definitely been a part of the agenda. I’ve also read a book by John Phillip Newell, a gift of a parishioner.

Newell is best known for his work in Celtic spirituality. This recent book, A New Harmony: The Spirit, The Earth and The Human Soul, is really an essay about his expansive journey through many spiritualities including into India in the 1990s and how he has found a harmony within all of them.

Newell notes, as many have noted, that western Christianity over the centuries had put God “out there” or “up there,” keeping God at a distance while we ourselves go about our daily business. Church architecture, though beautiful, underlines that concept, with spires pointing skyward.

Newell re-discovered the harmony and the balance in God’s presence in creation by traveling to India. God is up there, but God is down here, and God dwells within. To see God is to see God in both places, to see God with two eyes, and not just one. He traveled far to find the balance that was always looking him in the face.

For me, that is not a new concept, but I am one who left the church to seek God before returning to church. I also needed to travel far, though not as far as India, to see what was already in front of me. My moment of harmony, as Newell might put it, came years ago while walking on a road late at night in Mojave Desert. The stars and galaxies, the desert floor and sage brush, and my own body seemed that night to be as one.

I could sense that night how G-d, the One who has no human name, courses through all of existence and time. We are made not merely by G-d, but we are made of G-d because G-d dwells in all things, and all things are knit together with G-d. You might say I have spent the rest of my life, in one way or another, trying to understand that one night in the middle of the desert.

And while we over-educated western Euro-centric folks may find all of this new and foreign, it really isn’t. The ancient Hebrew writers of the Bible lived with that idea daily, and the balance of God’s transcendence and immanence exudes from their writing.

Psalm 85, appointed for today, is a beautiful example:

Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Truth shall spring up from the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven.

Even our church architecture can be made new if we see it new. We can look at the ceiling and the spires with one eye, and look at each other with another eye. When we do, we will be very close to seeing that which knits all together as one. We really don't have to travel far to see with two eyes.

Blessed be God in holy places!

ROSLYN, Virginia -- For the next couple of days I am on a personal retreat at the Roslyn retreat center near Richmond, a gift of the diocese to the clergy.

There is no program, no seminars, no small groups, no easel boards and pens. The only plan is go to chapel when I feel like it, pray, sleep, go on walks, meet with a spiritual director, and enjoy the hearty Southern food they serve here. There aren't many of us here, and that is fine with me.

Today's morning prayer began with the complicated (and overly triumphant) Psalm 68. I like the last line because it fits where I am:

How wonderful is God in holy places! the God of Israel giving strength and power to his people! Blessed be God!

The Monday Funnies

The Jokester Department at Fiat Lux Productions, headed by Patrick Hill, seems to have gone lazy on us for the holidays. All he sent me were some very dumb ski jokes that just won't cut the mustard here folks. Skiing is next to Godliness in this household. So we are going deep into the files for a joke he sent last summer, and a cartoon by Dave Walker. It is still Christmas. Enjoy your summer, er, Monday...

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It was a blistering hot day and Adam and his two sons, Cain and Abel, were trudging across an expanse of burning, arid desert with their meager supply of water slung in goatskins over their backs.

All at once, they came upon a lush, verdant oasis: a veritable Paradise filled with fruit trees and gorgeous flowers of every description. Wearily, they sat down to rest and to admire the lovely setting.

"Boys," sighed Adam to his two sons, "this is where your mother ate us out of house and home!"

A New Year, new possibilities: A few tips for your spiritual life

I hope you have had a wonderful New Year’s celebration, or maybe like us you stayed home and shared a good meal and a movie.

I’ve seen a number of items lately on New Year’s Resolutions for the spiritual life and some are quite good. Truthfully, people have been writing advice for how to live a holy life for millennia. You can find advice ranging from the Torah of Hebrew Scriptures to the Rule of Saint Benedict, from Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living to the terrific contemporary books of Henri Nouwen and Joan Chittister. You can take a lifetime to drink deeply of all it.

So consider my advice below as a primer, or merely a reminder of what you already know. Feel free to add a few more tips in the comment section of this post.

Here are a few ideas for renewing your life with the Divine this new year.

Gratitude – Begin each day with gratitude. The simplest and most profound prayer begins with gratitude for a new day, new possibilities. No day will ever be like this one again, with its challenges and opportunities. Today is a gift to you. Open your eyes, look at the sky, and be grateful. Begin each day by saying thanks. Say Grace, silently or aloud, at every meal and give thanks before retiring for the night.

Pray – Set aside a time for regular prayer each day. Get up a little earlier, and find a place where you can sit in the silence for a time. Hear your breath and be grateful. Use a prayer book, or find prayers that work for you. Listen to the spontaneous prayer from your heart, but don’t neglect to listen to the old prayers written by the masters for they contain new meanings and ancient wisdom whenever you read them.

Worship – Go to your faith community, and go regularly, and not just when it is convenient. Give thanks to your creator in community. Sing, pray, and eat of the bread and drink of the cup. Why would you want to do any of this alone? Life is too hard and complicated to do it alone. Listen to the wisdom of others around you, and know that when your prayers run dry others are praying for you. And others need you there.

Give, give, give – Everyone can give something because God has given each one of us something to give. What abundance do you have that you can share with others? Your treasure, your time, your talents are yours to give. Give with abandon, give with compassion, give with gratitude. Giving will set you free. Your giving will change the world like nothing else can.

Expand your horizons – Try something new every day. Look, learn, listen, expand your soul. God’s creation is infinite and all of it is here for you to explore. Read a book, study your Bible, take a hike, see a movie, learn to cook, take a trip to a far away place or just around the block. Open your eyes and ears to God’s presence wherever you go.

Laugh – Life has its challenges, but also joys large and small. Enjoy as much as you can whenever you can. Show your love for all you meet, be kind, soften your rough edges, ask forgiveness when you fall short, and don’t forget to laugh.

Blessings for the New Year: Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience

May this new year bring you many blessings, strength to meet the challenges before you, courage to see the opportunities, and adventures in fascinating places (and a warm beach or two). And may the wisdom of those who have gone ahead surround us with their wisdom and light our path:

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Saint Paul's Letter to the Colossians 3:12-17


As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 

Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

How do we know there is such a thing as time?

Lately I've been thinking a lot about Christmases past, friends near and friends far away, and dear friends departed this life. Sometimes it seems as though only yesterday I was going on my first date, taking my first college exam, looking for my first job, filing my first newspaper story, quitting my first job, getting married, moving from this place to that place.

We've been in Virginia almost four years, but it seems like yesterday we arrived (and, yes, there are still a lot of boxes yet to be unpacked). Another New Years Eve arrives in a few days, another year marked gone on the calendar. I behold each day with thanks, for each day is truly an irreplaceable gift. May you have many blessings, abundant health, and beautiful memories in the coming year.

Barbara Crafton penned this the other day about time and Christmas, and I leave it with you today:

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HE'S GOT THE WHOLE WORLD IN HIS HANDS
By Barbara Crafton

How do we know there is no such thing as time, you ask?

Ah -- I can document it for you: cast your mind back to the Christmases of your childhood. Remember the afternoon of the great day -- the wreckage of toys and wrapping paper, the ruin of the Christmas feast still littering the table, the exhausted adults surveying it all listlessly. Remember your lust for the toys you received, remember the carefully-selected gifts you brushed aside, so entranced were you with whatever gift it was that seemed to you to be the star. And remember, then, the despair that clung to the edges of your orgy: it would be a whole year until next Christmas. A YEAR! A YEAR, do you tell me? How on earth would you make it through? A year was as good as a century in those days. A year was an eternity.

Now think of last Christmas. How long ago does it seem? About a month? Me, too.

Time is not constant. It is relative. It speeds up -- and not just the human experience of it, either. Time itself is intimately paired with location. It's why there are time zones -- it's already tomorrow in India. And yet I can pick up the phone and speak with someone there: he will answer right away: real time intersects with elapsed time when I do that. If that's the case in India, on the other side of the modestly-sized earth from where I sit and write this, imagine what time it is on Alpha Centauri.

Did I mention that this train of thought can be confusing?

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Just when we think we might have overdosed on Nativity scenes, the gospel reading in church this Sunday will feature this austere reminder: that which is, always has been. It IS. Jesus of Nazareth was born in a time and a place, but Jesus the Christ is not contained in a moment. The moments of Christ are all now.

Don't worry if this isn't coming together for you yet. Sit with it for a few decades and it will. When it does, its implications will, too: if there is no such thing as time, nothing is lost. What was still IS. The sad parade of loss we know as history is only a parade on this narrow stage of earthly life. It stretches out only here. The God's-eye view of our life is not linear. It is all now.

He's got the whole world in His hands. Bet you never thought of it as a Christmas song.

The Holy Innocents: Million of children die in warfare and we can do something about it

Memorials to the dead in Libya including children
Photo by CIVIC

“Blessed are all 
who take refuge in him.”

Psalm 2:11b

The Christian calendar today holds grimmest of markers for the year: The Feast of the Holy Innocents.

It is the day we remember that King Herod murdered all of the first born boys in Bethlehem in an attempt to kill Jesus, the one who the Magi had told him would grow up to be a king. Jesus and his family escaped, but the carnage and anguish in Bethlehem was great.

It does not sound like much of an occasion for feasting.

There is perhaps some consolation in the fact that it didn’t happen, at least not this way. The Gospel writer of Matthew came up with this story as a literary device to render Jesus into the “new Moses” by having the Holy Family flee to Egypt so that Jesus could emerge like Moses in a “new Passover.”

No other gospel writer – no other historian – says that Herod slaughtered all of the babies in Bethlehem to kill Jesus. Indeed, the gospel writer of Luke – the only other account of Jesus’ birth – has the Holy family returning in short order from Bethlehem to Nazareth, where Jesus grows up in relative safety and calm. In Luke, there are no innocent babies killed and no terrifying trips back and forth from Egypt.

What then to make of the Holy Innocents? Should we ignore it?

No.

What comes to mind is that the world is full of Holy Innocents – children who are killed or maimed in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Libya, Somalia – and children are still murdered in the Holy Land. The children die as pawns of the powerful. Children die in Gaza and the West Bank and Bethlehem all too frequently because the adults are at war. We don’t need a King Herod to feel shame for the deaths of millions of innocent children in our world.

But we can do something.

For several years I have been supporting the work of CIVIC – The Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, an organization that documents the plight and advocates for refugees and victims caught in the cross-fire of the world’s conflicts. Its purpose:

“Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict works on behalf of war victims by advocating that warring parties recognize and help the civilians they harm. CIVIC supports the principle that it is never acceptable for a warring party to ignore civilian suffering.”

Marla, right, with a family in Iraq
shortly before she was killed

CIVIC was founded by a very brave young woman, Marla Ruzicka, from Lakeport, California, who in the months after 9/11 went to the frontlines herself to document what she saw, and then bring that information to the doorstep of decision-makers in Washington.

Marla was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2005. She was only 24.

It was my privilege to say prayers for her in the California Senate after she died, and I can tell you some very hardened politicians shed tears that day.

CIVIC has not only continued her work, but expanded it, going to Libya, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan, Lebanon and Israel. CIVIC works on a shoestring budget but it has had a huge impact by getting Congress to allocate funds to compensate war victims in Iraq and Afghanistan, and bringing the stories of real people caught in warfare to the media.

CIVIC has gone everywhere it can go, working with officials from the United Nations, and with governments in Israel and Lebanon, Russia and Georgia, and everywhere there is warfare. To read a summary of CIVIC’s accomplishments, click HERE.

I know that all of us are inundated this time of year with appeals for funds. But what better way to remember the Holy Innocents than by giving to CIVIC? I will be giving today as my devotion to this Holy day. Please join me. You can make a donation to CIVIC by clicking HERE.

The Twelve Days of Christmas wastes no time

Merry Christmas. Now, back to work.

The Christian calendar wastes no time in reminding us that the “Way” of Christ came with a cost to his earliest followers and to innocent bystanders.

On Monday we celebrated the feast of St. Stephen, the first deacon and an early martyr who forgives his tormenters even as they stone him.

Today we have the feast of St. John – “the one whom Jesus loved” – and who would grieve deeply at the death of Jesus.

Tomorrow, comes perhaps the hardest of all: the remembrance of the “Holy Innocents,” the children murdered by Herod the King.

The Twelve Days of Christmas toss out the wrappings right quick. The baby in the manger does not stay a baby long in the Christmas season.

If you aren’t quite there yet, neither am I.

As for me, I am still in recovery mode. We had a tremendous Christmas, with more than 600 people coming through our doors Christmas Eve. We marched around the church with dozens of children at 5 pm singing “The Friendly Beasts” as we accompanied Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem.

At 8 pm we sang carols and listened to the beautiful harp playing of Margaret Lee. Then at 11 pm we pulled out the stops, lit the incense and sang until we were hoarse.

Christmas morning was clear and lovely. We kept to our regular Sunday service schedule – Christmas came on a Sunday, after all. Attendance was solid, and I was charmed most of all by the five sweet people who came to our 5:30 pm service. With Pastor Heather Warren and myself, that made seven. We sang a few more carols and gathered around the Holy Table for our Christmas Eucharist as the sun faded outside.

And now this week, we get walloped with martyrs, apostles and innocents. What to make of all that?

It is a reminder, if we need it, that Christmas is the opening act of Easter. The crescendo is still to come. The baby in the manger grows up, finds his calling, teaches and heals, and ends up on the Cross. It is a reminder that the Christmas story continues to be written after his birth and death by the people who continue to meet him along their path. Those we saints remember this week remind us that we are still a part of this vast and great Christmas story that began before time and has no end.

The readings for today drive home the point. From Proverbs 8:22-30: “The LORD created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts long ago… I was his daily delight, rejoicing before him always.”

And from the Gospel of John 13:20-35 we are told of the Last Supper on the night before Jesus died. As Judas goes out to betray him, Jesus tells his followers how to continue writing this great story every day of their life:

“I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

The Monday Funnies: Christmas Edition

We made it through Christmas -- six services in two days at St. Paul's, and a good time was had by all, we pray. My voice is hoarse, but nothing a little eggnog won't soothe.

I hope you have had a festive and blessed Christmas. Here is a cartoon for the season by Dave Walker. Just remember, we have eleven -- count 'em -- eleven days to go in Christmas.

"The People who walked in darkness have seen a great light"

May you all have a blessed Christmas. My sermon from the 10:30 pm Christmas Eve service is below. The lessons are Isaiah 9:2-7 , Titus 2:11-14  and Luke 2:1-14(15-20).

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The prophet foretold, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined.”

Something happened long ago, in the shadows of an obscure desert town in a far corner of the Roman Empire. It seemed ordinary at first: 

The birth of a baby. 

At first, only his parents knew how extraordinary this was. All parents think their babies are extraordinary, of course. 

At first, no wise men came, no shepherds, no disciples, no adoring masses. No one was there but his parents. 

The gospel writer Luke tells us this baby was born in a stable; born not into wealth, not into power, not into social status or aristocratic inheritance. 

This baby, like so many tens of millions of babies then and now, entered life in relative poverty and without much of a chance. 

The survival of this baby, like tens of millions of other babies then and now, was not so certain at first. 

This baby was born out of wedlock, to Jewish parents from the hill country of Galilee, a land occupied by a foreign power, the Roman Empire. 

The mother was barely a teenager; her name was Miriam, or Mary. She was to have an arranged marriage with a man named Joseph, but she became pregnant – and not by him – before the wedding. 

That fact put her in grave danger because her pregnancy was a violation of the law.
Joseph was a carpenter, and in those days carpenters made simple implements like wooden bowls and mallets. 

Carpenters like Joseph led a meager hand-to-mouth existence. 

Joseph stuck by Mary when he didn’t have to. He could have had her stoned to death for dishonoring him, but instead the two fled their hometown of Nazareth. 

The gospel writer gives this a polite patina by saying they were going to Bethlehem to register for a census. Except that historians tell us there was no census. Mary and Joseph were probably fleeing the judgmental eyes of their relatives. 

Getting to Bethlehem was not easy and they were lucky to survive the journey. The road goes over hills and robbers hide along the way. 

They had nowhere to go in Bethlehem; either there were no relatives in Bethlehem or none would take them in. 

And so they had their baby in a stable – a barn. Other legends say they birthed this baby in a dark cave, and Bethlehem is riddled with caves. 

Caves also are where people are buried. To be born in a cave was not a sign of regal distinction. To be born in a cave was a sign of someone living in constant fear. 

There was absolutely nothing outwardly extraordinary about this birth.
Not at first. 

Then, the gospel writer tells us, the angels started showing up. 

The angels came to shepherds in a field, at night. The angels didn’t come to kings, aristocrats and high priests. The angels came to the shepherds. 

Shepherds were an even lower class than carpenters. They lived outdoors, slept in caves, and lived with sheep, and they smelled.

And these particular shepherds had the night watch. These shepherds to whom the angels came this night were the lowest of the low. 

The angels told them something extraordinary was happening: 

The birth of a baby in a stable, and this baby would be the messiah, the One who would bring them salvation and freedom, the anointed One of God they had longed for. 

How could that be?, these shepherds wondered. This baby? Here? 

The shepherds were terrified. We are but lowly shepherds, they said, and this baby is in a barn. 

This is not what we expect. This is very different than anything we have been told by every teacher we’ve ever heard. 

The shepherds went to see for themselves. They found the baby lying in a hay trough.
And then the lowliest of the low understood what this was about. 

It was about them. 

They expected a king on a throne tossing off judgments like thunderbolts, but found a healer who would lead a life of simplicity, prayer and truth. 

They expected a God of war. They got the Prince of Peace. 

Later people would try to explain this with complicated theologies, flavored by ancient Greek philosophy, medieval mysticism, modern scientific inquiry, post-modern skepticism. 

People would cover this baby in many layers of words down through the ages. He would wear a lot of swaddling clothes. 

But tonight we have a baby in a manger, only this baby. We are at the beginning of the story of a very frightened poor family long ago, and a naked baby in a stable. 

This messiah whose birth we mark tonight is different than anyone, or anything the world expects. 

He comes to set people free in their lowest places, in their lowest moments, and to bring unconditional love and unlimited healing that lasts beyond this world. He comes with no conditions, no strings attached. 

What better way for God to tell us this than with a helpless baby, born in the lowest caste, in the most obscure place on earth?

The world of power and politics is turned upside down by this one birth. Human expectations, human economies, human politics is upended. 

The story of Jesus – his birth, his life, and his death on the Cross, begins this night. 

The story of Easter begins on this night, too – the story of how Jesus rose from the grave to appear to his followers and give them strength and courage against all human odds. 

Christmas is this great bookend with Easter, and truly the two must be seen together for they are inseparable. 

Those who first saw the Risen Christ of Easter continued to write this story in the way they lived afterwards. The first Christians called this new religion simply “The Way.” 

Their story is also our story. We continue to write this story of Christmas and Easter each day of our life. 

This way of life, this way of faith, is not just about the afterlife. It is about this life. It is about how we live right now, here, today and tomorrow. 

This Christmas night, I would invite you to find ways to deepen your faith, to set aside a regular time each day for prayer. 

I would invite you to renew your faith by being in this faith community once again.
If you don’t have a regular community of faith, and you live here in Charlottesville, think about joining us here at St. Paul’s. 

If you have been away from this church for a while, make this your first day back.
And ask yourself this: 

How is God tugging at your heart tonight? What acts of kindness and generosity are calling you in the new year? 

What do you want to strengthen in your life, and what is dragging on you that you need to shed? 

Bring it to prayer. Have courage. Act. 

And then let’s get to work together in the new year: We have people feed, the sick to comfort, children to raise, and a hurting world needing every single one of us. 

This way of life will change everything in this world if we let it. 

This way of life begins once again tonight with the birth of a baby long ago. 

And the prophet foretold, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined.” 

May you have many blessings this Christmas Night and always. AMEN.

The greatest Christmas story ever told: "Get the kid his peaches"

Here again, my friends, is the greatest Christmas story ever told by a great story teller, Al Martinez, formerly of the Oakland Tribune and Los Angeles Times. 

I run this story every year in Fiat Lux, and it brings a tear to my eye every time.

As you may know, I spent 20+ years as a newspaper reporter in California, and spent many tedious hours on the night desk on holidays.  So, continuing the Christmas tradition of Fiat Lux, here again is Al's great Christmas story. Merry Christmas . . .

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A Christmas Story
By Al Martinez

IT happened one Christmas Eve a long time ago in a place called Oakland on a newspaper called the Tribune with a city editor named Alfred P. Reck.

I was working swing shift on general assignment, writing the story of a boy who was dying of leukemia and whose greatest wish was for fresh peaches.

It was a story which, in the tradition of 1950s journalism, would be milked for every sob we could squeeze from it, because everyone loved a good cry on Christmas.

We knew how to play a tear-jerker in those days, and I was full of the kinds of passions that could make a sailor weep.

I remember it was about 11 o'clock at night and pouring rain outside when I began putting the piece together for the next day's editions.

Deadline was an hour away, but an hour is a lifetime when you're young and fast and never get tired.

Then the telephone rang.

It was Al Reck calling, as he always did at night, and he'd had a few under his belt.

Reck was a drinking man. With diabetes and epilepsy, hard liquor was about the last thing he ought to be messing with, but you didn't tell Al what he ought to or ought not to do.

He was essentially a gentle man who rarely raised his voice, but you knew he was the city editor, and in those days the city editor was the law and the word in the newsroom.

But there was more than fear and tradition at work for Al.

We respected him immensely, not only for his abilities as a newsman, but for his humanity. Al was sensitive both to our needs and the needs of those whose names and faces appeared in the pages of the Oakland Tribune.

"What's up?" he asked me that Christmas Eve in a voice as soft and slurred as a summer breeze.

He already knew what was up because, during 25 years on the city desk, Reck somehow always knew what was up, but he wanted to hear it from the man handling the story.

I told him about the kid dying of leukemia and about the peaches and about how there simply were no fresh peaches, but it still made a good piece. We had art and a hole waiting on page one.

Al listened for a moment and then said, "How long's he got?"

"Not long," I said. "His doctor says maybe a day or two."

There was a long silence and then Al said, "Get the kid his peaches."

"I've called all over," I said. "None of the produce places in the Bay Area have fresh peaches. They're just plain out of season. It's winter."

"Not everywhere. Call Australia."

"Al," I began to argue, "it's after 11 and I have no idea . . .”

"Call Australia," he said, and then hung up.

If Al said call Australia, I would call Australia.

I don't quite remember whom I telephoned, newspapers maybe and agricultural associations, but I ended up finding fresh peaches and an airline that would fly them to the Bay Area before the end of Christmas Day.

There was only one problem. Customs wouldn't clear them. They were an agricultural product and would be hung up at San Francisco International at least for a day, and possibly forever.

Reck called again. He listened to the problem and told me to telephone the secretary of agriculture and have him clear the peaches when they arrived.

"It's close to midnight," I argued. "His office is closed."

"Take this number down," Reck said. "It's his home. Tell him I told you to call."

It was axiomatic among the admirers of Al Reck that he knew everyone and everyone knew him, from cops on the street to government leaders in their Georgetown estates. No one knew how Al knew them or why, but he did.

I made the call. The secretary said he'd have the peaches cleared when they arrived and give Al Reck his best.

"All right," Reck said on his third and final call to me, "now arrange for one of our photographers to meet the plane and take the peaches over to the boy's house."

He had been drinking steadily throughout the evening and the slurring had become almost impossible to understand.

By then it was a few minutes past midnight, and just a heartbeat and a half to the final deadline.

"Al," I said, "if I don't start writing this now I'll never get the story in the paper."

I won't forget this moment.

"I didn't say get the story," Reck replied gently. "I said get the kid his peaches."

If there is a flash point in our lives to which we can refer later, moments that shape our attitudes and affect our futures, that was mine.

Alfred Pierce Reck had defined for me the importance of what we do, lifting it beyond newsprint and deadline to a level of humanity that transcends job. He understood not only what we did but what we were supposed to do.

I didn't say get the story. I said get the kid his peaches.

The boy got his peaches and the story made the home edition, and I received a lesson in journalism more important than any I've learned since.

I wanted you to know that this Christmas season.

Al Martinez is a former reporter and columnist for The Oakland Tribune, from 1955 to 1971, The Richmond (Calif.) Independent and Los Angeles Times to now. Born in Oakland, he also has written several novels, for television and the movies. This article first appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Dec. 25, 1986.

Christmas message from the Presiding Bishop

A Christmas Message from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori

“See, your salvation comes” (Isaiah 62:11). 

The great prophets before Jesus proclaimed a vision of a nation and a people redeemed. We continue to share that yearning – as the Christmas hymn puts it, “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” We’ve seen abundant hopes spring up in the past year across the Arab world and Eastern Europe, and in the global Occupy movement. Those voices seek a world of greater justice, communities in which decisions and the gifts of creation are more available to all. Our understanding of salvation is most profoundly about justice in community, and as Christians we believe that help and healing for all are grounded in the incarnate presence of God – among us and within us.

We look for salvation to the one who came among us in the most humble way, a helpless child born in a scandalous way to a poor peasant couple. The Incarnation, God with us, changed the world in ways that we insist are leading to the ultimate healing of all creation. “See, your salvation comes,” says the prophet in every age, yet it is not yet fully come upon us. We live in hope for its fullness. May hope be nourished within us, in each and every human being and community, for the journey toward God’s healed and holy future.

That proclamation of coming salvation is a part of Isaiah (Isa 62:6-12) that will be read in some congregations at Christmas, but if you don’t hear it, go and read the whole of it. Its centerpiece speaks of what that salvation looks like:

The Lord has sworn ... I will not again give your grain to be food for your enemies,
and foreigners shall not drink the wine for which you have labored;
but those who garner it shall eat it and praise the Lord, and those who gather it shall drink it in my holy courts.
(Isaiah 62:8-9)

That is not a vision of pristine isolation, but a vision of comfort and healing to a people frequently at war, occupied, or exploited by superior forces. The fear of powerful others taking and using for themselves the produce of the poor is healed and transformed into a society in which the gifts God provides will be shared by all. For when salvation comes, that society will be called,

‘the Holy People, The Redeemed of the Lord’; and you shall be called, ‘Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken’

(Isaiah 62:12)

Jesus comes among us to remind us of a world living together in peace, to reclaim and make real that vision of creation for all humanity and all God’s creatures. That world is put right as relationships between God and humanity are set right. The relationship between God and human being cannot be set right without equal healing of relationships between us mortals. See, your salvation comes! Will we welcome that healing?

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori 
Presiding Bishop and Primate The Episcopal Church

Above relief: “Romano d’Ezzelino” by Roberto Frison

The Longest Night

Tonight at 7 pm at St. Paul's Memorial Church in Charlottesville, we are holding a worship service in a way that we have not done before. We are calling it "The Liturgy of the Longest Night," mindful that today is the Winter Solstice, and mindful that this is a time of year that is difficult for many (including yours truly).

Not everyone finds the Christmas jollies so jolly.

But we are also mindful that the nights now turn shorter and the days turn longer. Some churches call this service "A Blue Christmas," but as we talked about it at St. Paul's, that just seemed, well, too blue. Tonight is still Advent, still the time of waiting before the dawn. The light comes even in the darkest night, and even a glimmer of hope can shine into our hearts.

For many, this is a hard season because of a loss of a loved one, or the loss of a job, or a health issue that is gnawing on body and mind. This is also a time of anxious waiting for many -- a son or daughter away  at school or in a job in a far off city, or in uniform on a battlefield, or aboard a ship-of-war at sea. Or maybe you are like me, living here in Charlottesville with family far away.

Santa down the chimney doesn't seem to ring quite right for some.

So whatever it is that you wait, come join us tonight. We will pray, listen, sit in silence, light candles, hear music, and provide healing prayers for those who seek them. Come join us at St. Paul's tonight, the longest night, but marking the night when the darkness begins to recede and the days begin to brighten.

"Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee"

Winter will soon officially be here. We've had several mornings up on our Virginia hill with frost on the chicken coop. Today it is warmer and drizzly. We are on the cusp of the seasons.

Here is a photo Lori took a few days ago of the sky and tree line as seen from our hill, and a poem to mark the change of seasons, sent as a gift by our friend Karen in Tennessee. May you have blessings aplenty in this Advent of expectation.

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From “Frost at Midnight”
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge


Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sunthaw; whether the eve-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

The season of Mary, with prayers for peace and goodwill to all

This is the season of the one we call Mary: the Jewish maiden Miriam, mother of Yeshua, or Joshua, the one who we call Jesus.

On Sunday, and again today in the Daily Office readings, we hear Luke's account (Luke 1: 26-38) of how the angel told Mary she would be with child, and this child would be "called the Son of the Most High."

Mary declares she is a virgin, and the angel says she will be pregnant from "The Holy Spirit."

And so the Christmas story begins.

Through the ages, Mary has become larger than life, the "Theotokos," the "mother of God." For some she has remained a perpetual virgin, although the biblical accounts clearly state she had other children besides Jesus (and why wouldn't she?).

We almost lose sight of this perplexed, probably frightened, teenage peasant girl in a land long ago. Much would happen to her -- she would outlive her son, Jesus, and would be carried into her old age by the early Christian community.

We are still carrying her. We are still connected to her through this same Holy Spirit who came to her and comes to all of us, and gives us strength and hope and healing, often when we least expect it. Many encounter "Holy Spirit" as female, and why not?

Sometimes in my daily prayers I imagine myself sitting beside a river, and all of human experience is in that river. Mary herself is somewhere downstream, but I am still connected to her in that river, the same river where John the Baptist stands, the same river that brings water and life to people everywhere. We are all connected in this river just as the Holy Spirit connects us through her breath.

When you pray, your prayers will touch me, as mine will touch yours. We are connected to the poor, and the rich, to the Tea Party and the Occupy protesters. We are connected even to those who cause us the most pain. We are connected even to our enemies.

Lately, Steven Charleston, the retired bishop of Alaska, has been writing brief prayers from the heart and posting them daily on his Facebook page. Here is his prayer for today:

"Peace on Earth. Goodwill to women who work two jobs, to men who come home weary. Goodwill to those who carry our conscience into the streets, goodwill to the soldier missing home, to the student climbing the wall of tuition. Goodwill to the poor standing in line, to the elder sitting alone. Goodwill to the foreclosed family, to the pink slipped worker, to the new parents of an uncertain future. Goodwill to those in chronic pain, to those in chronic hope. Goodwill to the hungry of body, mind or heart. Goodwill to those who have given up and to those who have just begun. Peace, I pray, peace, and goodwill to us all."

Amen.

The Monday Funnies

Warning: Today's Monday Funnies is in very poor taste, and parental discretion is advised. The overpaid bloated staff in the Jokester Department here at Fiat Lux Productions has scoured the land far and wide for the worst, most hideous, tasteless Nativity sets ever created. We had more than two-dozen entries, but here are the worst of the worst. . .

Yes, made out of bacon and pork products

Made with pats of butter

Precious!

Christmas has gone to the dogs

Dungeons and Dragons Nativity set

Quackers

Marshmellow Nativity set - Yumm!

Rubber Ducky, Your the One!

Ticking Nativity

Happy Feet Christmas

Miss Piggy does Christmas

Schmores Nativity - More Yummm!

This one freaks me out:
Jesus in a snowglobe

Vegetales has gotten only stranger.

And how we cry at all these Nativities

"How is it they live for eons in such harmony?" (but we don't)

I am not preaching today -- but if you are in the area, please come hear Pastor Nik in the pulpit. Today is sometimes known as "Mary Sunday," as the lessons will make clear: 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16, Canticle 15, Romans 16: 25-27 and Luke 1: 26-38.

Our friend Karen in Tennessee sent this other day. Enjoy your Sunday . . .

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“We are fields before each other.”

~ St. Thomas Aquinas ~

How is it they live for eons in such harmony -

the billions of stars -

when most men can barely go a minute

without declaring war in their mind against someone they know.

There are wars where no one marches with a flag,

though that does not keep casualties

from mounting.

Our hearts irrigate this earth.

We are fields before

each other.

How can we live in harmony?

First we need to

know

we are all madly in love

with the same

God.

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And one more item today: Steven Charleston, the retired Bishop of Alaska, and who I admire greatly (and who I would love to have come preach at St. Paul's), wrote this on his Facebook this morning, and I pass it along to you:

"The incarnate story begins in humility. That is the first step in our own spiritual narrative. But how to take it? Not once, but over and over, as our life shifts through age and place. It is not feigned innocence or submission. It is what my ancestors believed was the gyroscope of the holy, the sense of inner balance that held a tension between pride and resignation, between limitation and possibility. What gave life to the sacred was a vulnerable power. That same divine energy resides incarnate in each of us, a hope that knows it can change the world, if only it is willing to seek shelter in the poorest home it finds."

Art by Flor Larios

Extraordinary photos from the National Cathedral

Facade of the National Cathedral

Last Monday we accompanied a group from St. Paul's on a day-long pilgrimage to the Washington National Cathedral, and I wrote about that a few days ago in this space.

Since then, Dudley Rochester has sent these remarkable photographs that he took on our trip. Dudley is an extraordinary photographer!

Let me share three of them with you...

Inside the nave

Space window; notice the moon rock
embedded in the upper center;
the rock was brought back by
Apollo 11