Sacrament and Godly Play

Recently I had a long conversation with a friend about the meaning of the word “sacrament” and how this word gets "fleshed out" in the 21^st century. It was a little intimidating to be asked this question, as I am still new to the liturgical church and its’ sacramental emphases and also because my friend is quite educated and philosophically astute! I had to ask myself, “How is it that I experience the sacraments?” I found out that I am not very theological about the subject. I am rather like the kid whose parents take him to OMSI hoping to excite a thirst for all things scientific, but their child would rather sit in the simulated rocket and just push the buttons and dream of space travel! Yes, my Myers-Briggs is INFP - more experiential than theological!

That’s why I like it when Rev. Jennifer conducts the Eucharist at Family Service. The kids are invited right up to the sacred table and taught about family hospitality - they are not bowled over with a sermon on transubstantiation or consubstantiation. To a child what the Host is or if it’s transformed when consumed is just not on their radar. You just eat the bread! And see what happens! Like Psalm 34 exclaims: “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good!” It’s natural.

And I guess it is true for me, that the sacraments are best when experienced naturally. It’s a way we learn about God by the “doing of the thing.” It’s caught…. not taught. It captures our imagination. It is mystery and metaphor.

Emily Dickenson had a bit of a falling out with the church, (not God). She felt excluded. Her writing shows how she came closest to experiencing God when she was connected to the natural world. Her experiences of grace were discovered in nature:

Oh Sacrament of summer days,

Oh Last Communion in the Haze --

Permit a child to join.

Thy sacred emblems to partake --

Thy consecrated bread to take

And thine immortal wine!

In her little tome, The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's Work," Kathleen Norris finds her sacraments in the mundane: dishes, laundry and ironing. Those daily, mindless and sanctifying repetitions of duty became her rosary beads of beatitude, her bells to mark the hours.

Make no mistake, I find the sacraments serious and holy, not trivial or shallow. But at my spiritual best I am a child. As a parent, I learned that “child’s play” is actually the work of learning. It’s serious business to the child! So too are my attempts to enter this sacramental life. When my loving Father sees my desire to “play house with God’s dishes,” He smiles. Because this is how I learn! It’s the place where our creative imaginations and His mystery come together. One day after baking Eucharist bread, I wrote a nursery rhyme:

Bread for body and blood for wine

are served on little plates of thine.

All partake. All are fed.

All are nourished with wonder bread!

Perhaps it really is that simple. When I read the gospels, The Last Supper is not a complicated scene. It’s a natural place, a dinner table. We are all at that table. In sacramental living, mystery and metaphor get to trump the playground bullies of logic and scepticism. And faith finds her voice and sings from the altar. And sacrament may be, after all, just the adult version of “Godly Play!” It’s great to be His children, His family, circling His table. So when Rev. Jennifer extends the bread to the children and says: “this is Jesus,” - they just eat it and believe! Me too.

Salmon Jesus

My husband and I call it Salmon-Jesus! It was the first thing I saw that morning, over 4 years ago, when I walked in the door as a visitor to St. Luke’s. I was immediately attracted to this unusual ceramic crucifix in the chancel of the church. But wait! It was not a crucifix at all, but a risen Christ. I discovered this sculpture was called the “Christus Rex” – Christ the King – and that it was made of high-fired clay by the potter, (and my neighbor), the late Bennett Welsh. This created in me an immediate connection and affection for my new house of worship. I had long been an admirer of Mr. Welsh’s work and also dabbled in art and pottery myself. So to find a church that had a value for art and such a non-traditional Jesus, was a soul-warming experience. After all, Jesus was pretty non-traditional and counter-cultural in real life.

I was told that this sculpture of the risen Christ symbolized the endangered church. There is Jesus, arms outstretched, against a backdrop of old growth firs. There are brilliant red, spawning, dying, wild, sacrificial salmon, leaping right through his glorified body. A small spotted owl hovers against the Savior’s breast. All seem a familiar part of our local culture and they are perfect reflections of the struggle for survival going on in our NW backyards - and indeed - the whole world. I can certainly understand these natural symbols of endangered species, but the endangered church? Hmmm. What correlations for the church do I gather as I behold this Christ each week at worship?

Lately, I am making meager attempts to learn sustainable practices in my gardening and eating, shopping and recycling. I want these values in the bloodstream of my spiritual life as well. How is the ecology of my church life? Does my own heart include wild places and wonder? Mystery, silence and reverence for the earth? If so, does that spill over into my community?

Do I possess a theology that supports sustainability? I looked up “sustain” in the thesaurus. The list of words poured out like honey! Listen to this: to bear up, support, to carry, encourage, to shore up, assist, comfort, to succor, give strength, to buoy up, to keep alive, to preserve, to perpetuate, to conserve, to maintain, to nourish, feed, to nurture! Shall I go on? Wow! Who wouldn’t like to go to a church that practiced sustainability!

After a bit of thought, one word seemed to epitomize all these amazing descriptions: HOSPITALITY. That one word probably drives the environmentalism at all levels of my life. Christian hospitality as I understand it, is the creation of sanctuary — an atmosphere in which all who enter feel loved, accepted and safe. It is why I love the ministry of the labyrinth and the garden around it. The bench and the birdbath beckon the stranger and welcome the weary. The labyrinth invites a slowing down for quiet and contemplation. It’s a haven of sustainability! A place for inner and outer sanctuary. Where heaven and nature sing.

And so also, “Salmon Jesus” whispers and winks this radical hospitality to us every Sunday during worship.

"But now ask the beasts, and let them teach you;

And the birds of the heavens, and let them tell you.

Or speak to the earth, and let it teach you;

And let the fish of the sea declare to you.

Who among all these does not know

That the hand of the LORD has done this." Job 12

Our Native Tongue

This week at the gym, I watched a young man walk through the door and enthusiastically high-five his friend at one of the weight machines, (or instruments of torture)! These two talked animatedly, laughing and gesturing wildly. I couldn’t tell what they were saying, but I believe they were speaking Romanian. I found myself smiling, deeply moved at the sense of freedom and relief they must have felt to be speaking their native tongue. No searching for words, or tripping over tenses. This was their heart language, the language of emotions, metaphors, familiar slang and cultural context. I’ve done enough traveling in foreign countries to have experienced this phenomenon myself. Long train rides, full of banter and humor and news, but you can’t understand one word of it! And then, suddenly, you hear a voice speaking English and you are shocked and heartened to hear and comprehend! Oh how we all long to understand and be understood! The heart has its’ own language. God speaks our native tongue.

It is Pentecost Sunday! We celebrate the coming of God’s Holy Spirit. This event was evidenced by speaking to the nations in the language of their understanding. The language they learned and trusted as a child - the deep language of the heart. What does this say about God? He is high and lifted up. He is often described as OUT THERE. But really, this gesture suggests that He wants to be IN HERE. Not exclusively, but inclusively. Not just in MY heart, but in all hearts. Present with us….intimate. Whispering in our ear words in our mother tongue.

Language is at the core of God’s love affair with humanity. In a world prone to be separated and torn apart by words and misunderstanding, God is joining us together by the same means. Genesis says he spoke the world into existence: “and God said.” The Gospel of John opens with: “In the beginning was the WORD.” Language is a symbol for intimacy and understanding; conversation and expression. St. John identifies Jesus as the incarnation of the Logos, this WORD of God, through which all things come into being. So, Jesus comes to us expressing God’s heart language to us. (Ah, the divine translator!) And the language He speaks is love.

So how do I want to walk through this Season of Pentecost? How will the Spirit flame up in me? What is translated out of the Acts of the Apostles to become the Acts of Judy? How can I communicate the love of God when – unlike God – I don’t usually know the true heart language of those around me? I’ve studied Spanish, French and Italian at different times in my life and I am not fluent or even conversant in any of them! I couldn’t even master pig-latin in grade school! How then, can I communicate and become more inclusive, making room for others? Especially those foreign to my way of being, speaking and thinking! Perhaps can learn from St. Paul who gave a beautiful language lesson to some very inarticulate Corinthians:

“What if I could speak all languages of humans and of angels? If I did not love others, I would be nothing more than a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” I Cor. 13

Lord, in this Season of Pentecost, enroll me in this language class! I want to learn YOUR native tongue! To practice the language that has the power to transcend all cultures and contexts. That logos that can bring all things into being. Grace me with fluency!

Start from the Center

The other day, after a meeting at church, I started to get into my car when I noticed the weeds in the labyrinth garden. I felt like a neglectful mother! It was nine o’clock in the morning, the sun was out and the next thing I knew I was squatting in the garden, hands in the dirt, in my good shoes, pulling weeds. As I looked out at the desolation of an acre of overgrowth, a wave of discouragement swept over me. It looked like a war-zone, as overwhelming as the nightly news, the economy, poverty and injustice combined. I wanted to run. But instead, I just hunkered down in a 6-foot square of earth and chose gratitude for my attitude. Soon, I felt the sun warming my back, became awake to the sound of birdsong overhead and the noise of children at play. “This is the day the Lord hath made, let me rejoice and be glad in it.” Here was good work I could do, praise I could offer and strength I could receive. In a short time, a satisfying square of weed-free earth emerged. I looked over it and declared, like my Father once did in His garden, “it is good!” That morning the weedy wasteland became my blessing–place.

As I finished up, I glanced over at the labyrinth and decided to walk it before I left. I brushed my gritty hands over my pants, and clear as a bell, I heard God’s silent voice in my head….”start at the center.” What! Skip the walk in? “You ‘weeded in’ today…..all you need to do is walk out.” I had never done this before - skipped this ritual step - and it felt a bit illegal! Where were the labyrinth police? Shamelessly, I crossed over all the lines and went directly to the center, smiling as if God and I shared a guilty secret! Then, I slowly walked out - rejoicing all the way. Gardening with God was a lesson in both my limits and His liberation. An adventure in grace!

A few weeks earlier, a similar incident had happened to me. I had gone to the Cathedral downtown to hear Lauren Artress, a leading educator on the labyrinth. She was delightful and generous with instructive and humorous stories. During the morning, we were challenged to ask a question as we arrived at the center of the labyrinth: “Lord, what is at MY center?” As we adjourned to walk the Cathedral’s beautiful indoor labyrinth, I held that question in my heart. Arriving at the center, I sat silently for a long time. Finally, I reverently, nervously asked God…”Lord, what is at MY center?” There followed a long pregnant pause, then, no kidding, an ironic tone of voice inside me whispered: “I AM!” I wept. Then I laughed! - the sheepish laugh of the absent-minded! I was a little relieved. I thought God would reveal to me some stinky compost rotting at my center, but instead, there He was, the Eternal Gardener, at home in my heart, hunkered down, tending my soul! So, lately I am trying to remember….start from the center.

Tending the Spaces

“Stir up in me the flame of love, O all consuming fire……
Stir up in me the flame of love, O all consuming fire…..”

For over a year, I have been praying these lines as I use my Anglican rosary.
That I’ve come to use and love a rosary at all, is such mystery to me. But here I am….letting my fingers do the walking! I wasn’t raised in a tradition that used rosaries. In fact they were a source of silent scorn: a superstitious incantation, a counting device for quantity not quality, a crutch for those who didn’t know how to pray. I’ve learned a lot since then, mostly about myself. I’ve swallowed a lot of deep-dish humble pie. And I now find these same beads a source of comfort and mobility. Especially when I am “prayer-alyzed” – you know, experiencing the occasional spiritual inertia. The rosary also quiets and tames my inner world when my outer world is yelling and distracting me, which is fairly often.

It all started when I found a small sack on a table at church. It contained a rosary made of humble knotted black string and a folded prayer to use. It was from Africa, and it was free! With such low risk, it was a perfect way to experience my first Anglican rosary. I loved it. My husband loved it. We eventually took our worn “string-beads” to a bead shop in Sellwood and conscripted the owner to make us two Anglican rosaries. She was fascinated! We carefully selected each bead. Later, foraging at Goodwill turned up two cool wooden boxes to store them in. Oh, how we love paraphernalia! But I am way off-subject. I wanted to talk about the prayer, not about the vehicle of prayer...though it is a fine vehicle!

That little folded up verse that came with my African beads, has remained my favorite. It’s called: A Transfiguration Prayer. “Stir up in me the flame of love, O all consuming fire…” over every smooth sphere between the cruciform beads, I pray that prayer. Over each of the 28 days of the weeks beads….my inner voice, mumbling like river water over stones, is carried in silent pilgrimage, more a passenger than a pray-er.

“Stir up in me the flame of love, O all consuming fire” – here is the inexhaustible fuel to discover God as the source of all creative energy. The dunamis – power. He is heat and light. How eagerly I take refuge in the warmth of His comfort. But I also must endure the dangerous and exciting process of His refining fire: watching my own impurities surface, as he turns up the heat in my life. I confess, I sometimes become a “fire-fighter,” both praying for AND resisting this summons to be made purer, more integrated, more grateful, less acquisitive. What a mystery is fire….an inextinguishable, mesmerizing, burning bush mystery!
On a cold, snowy day last January, I attended a day retreat. The retreatants were all asked to meditate on a poem by Judy Sorum Brown, called Fire. Its’ opening lines opened my eyes:

What makes a fire burn
Is space between the logs,
A breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
Too many logs
Packed in too tight
Can douse the flames
Almost as surely
As a pail of water would.

So building fires
Requires attention
to the spaces in between,
As much as to the wood…..

Creating space - breathing places! This revealed to me my integral part in the refining process. I need to find and tend the spaces. To move aside things in my life which are packed too tight. To simply make room for silence, for rest, for meditation and the breathing rhythms of my rosary prayer. I cannot sanctify myself, but if I tend my spaces….the flame of God’s love will do the rest.…“stir up in me the flame of love, O all consuming fire…” Amen.

Lenten Canticle

A few Sundays ago, in those hushed and expectant moments right before the service begins, I found myself weighed down, fighting a numbing sadness that has accompanied a recent transition in my life. As I sat there, rather vacantly, I became aware that a gentle wave of consolation was sweeping over me - an intimate sense of commiseration. It took a minute, but I finally realized that the source of my solace was coming from music. Bill, our organist was playing an organ prelude.

I felt a bit like the mentally disturbed Saul being ministered to by David’s harp. How was it that these sounds could find their way deep into my sad cells? It wasn’t exactly peace that I felt, rather some deep intimate companionship. Some sense of being known and understood.

Listening, I realized the hymn was full of notes both minor and major, of tension and resolve, dissonance and resolution, joy and pain, light and shadow….just like real life. Like MY life right now, I thought. And yet, these musical intervals were understood, yes, even designed by God….invisible sound waves, vibrating with His spirit right to my spirit! With no effort on my part, I was able to receive God’s commiseration at that moment. I could hear St. Paul’s words: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” Hebrews 4:15 This is a verse I will carry into the Lenten season.

Later, I asked Bill to tell me about the piece he had played. It turned out to hold a significant place in his life too. It was written by Fr. Christopher Uehlein, a monk at Blue Cloud Abbey in Marvin, South Dakota. Bill had the honor of meeting with him at the abbey 6 years ago, and, in a private concert, heard this piece for the first time.
The piece is called Cantabile, which is an adjective describing the music as smooth, flowing, melodious,….SINGING!

Of course! It all made sense. God, the Father, was simply singing over His daughter at church! Comforting, quieting her with His love. O, what wondrous love is this!

In the numbness of your need, the weariness of your weakness, may you hear Him singing over you - through the barren-beauty of your Lenten Journey.

The LORD your God is with you,
He is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
He will quiet you with his love,
He will rejoice over you with singing.

Zephaniah 3:17

Waking up to a New Year

2009 dawned just like the surprising NEW snow that greeted us on January 2nd. There it lay, spreading out in blazing white, covering over every imperfection and bit of mud and weed, a face-lift to the usual dismal, unkempt January landscape. A visual picture of a new start, a clean slate!

I always get a spark of hope this time of year. Resolutions abound, unreasonable expectations crowd through rational thought and I am giddy with the prospect of the new manageable, disciplined life before me. But like that new snow, muddy footprints, and brown slush will soon replace my pristine predictions. But still – I’m infatuated with January. I make new to-do lists, strict financial budgets, and unrealistic plans for exercise and diet. Plans to excavate the papers in my office (for the umpteenth year in a row) fill me with heady resolve! AND I am in my 2nd week on a schedule to read the Bible through in a year. Like a young lover, I am giddy, dizzy with hope and full of amnesia about my past failures! Will I never learn?
Emily Dickinson writes:
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all….

Even in the face of failure, I can’t let go of HOPE. And neither can God. Last week, as I read my selected Bible passage, I watched what God did with HIS big disappointment. There’s the Garden of Eden. It’s perfect! Not a weed, not a stinging bug, no apple maggot or peach curl! And Adam and Eve are unblemished, naked, happy as clams at low tide, enjoying Paradise like a couple of kids. And then things start to unravel…like that blanket of snow that melts to reveal the brown muddy earth beneath.

But God redeems us when we fail. In the first chapter of Isaiah, the Lord says, "Now, let's settle the matter. You are stained red with sin, but I will wash you as clean as snow.”

What relief is in those words, “I WILL.” He chooses to love and help us! And God knows our limitations! So maybe my only resolution this year will be simply to look and listen each new day to the voice that whispers: I WILL! I will help you. I will lead you. I will comfort you. I will strengthen you. I will forgive you.” Like that picture of new snow: “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lam. 3:22