River of Life: EYE 14 (Post 2)

Our opening Eucharist was blessed by the preaching of Stephanie Spellers, and it was a sermon graced by the spiritual hymn 'I've Got a River of Life'.    I have a river of life, with it the lame can walk and the blind can see.  She told us of how for her when she was young the church wasn't something she percieved as focused on mission or healing.  However the church that we are practicing at EYE14 is focused on nothing else.  The mission of proclomation, justice and healing is the river that flows through out of our life together.
Philadelphia is a city that is defined by a river.   It goes without saying that Philadelphia is along way from eastern Washington and Northern Idaho, yet our diocese is also strongly defined by its rivers.  The rivers that flow out of our home fill breadbaskets and fruit baskets far and wide.
One of the most obvious differences is that in the Episcopal diocese of Spokane, 125 years is super old.  Here that isn't very old at all.  Buildings of old stone evoke awe and wonder.  The weather is also quite different, if also good for this place in July.  I have been told that I am the only one of our team who thinks the weather is lovely (my hands look less like raisins!).    Some of our crew are finding the humidity difficult, declaring that their skin is sticking to itself and hovering inside while a malfunctioning security alarm sounds.   I have refrained from suggesting that this is nothing compared to DC or Mississippi.

On Wednesday we made our way from the Germantown neighborhood over to EYE and Villanova with a few minor glitches.  To begin our day we woke up a bit late, but certainly not on a Pacific schedule.  This was more of a challenge given our late late night arrival.  For our first night we rested in triple Decker brand new bunks at the Episcopal Mission Center which is housed at St. Luke's in Germantown.  I cannot offer enough praise for the fine welcome and amazing work they do at the Episcopal Mission Center.  Based on the recommendations of a friend we headed out for the Little Jimmies that appeared on our smart phone.  We walked quite a ways in the morning ing he s t before we found it.  Part of the reason for the morning ing breakfast trek was to help acclimate our crew to the local weather.  It was a long walk and we filled Little Jimmies with our fourteen bodies.  We pushed the capacity so far th as t the shopkeeper called for reinforcements.  Who then told us that there was a s another larger location much closer to our digs.  Oops.

Refreshed by our meal we walked back with more energy, and headed out toward the train.  The region had experienced huge storms the day we arrived (hence part of our delay).  Widespread damage and power outages were confusing systems.  And a power line had fallen over a train track.  Leading to no trains.  Which we learned after climbing the stairs with our luggage.  Eventually we were able to arrange for three cabs to come and get us and take us to the EYE14 site.  Now if only they had all known how to get to Villanova!

We did make it to our destination and we were right on time for the start of check in.  Since then we have been going almost non stop (except for sleep).  We are in a dorm with folks from the dioceses of Hawaii, Maryland, San Diego, California and Rio Grande to name a few.  Participants are spending lots of time exchanging trinkets and playing frisbee between our sessions.  Last night includes big games on a field and a Frozen song along in the on campus theatre.  Then was evening worship and snacks.  Today we celebrated a fantastic Eucharist, took a group photo and have now begin our workshops.  There in an excellent article on The Episcopal Digital Network with more about what we are doing.

One of my favorite things about facebook is the river of life, the river of my life, that flows along on my 'wall'.  The lives of school friends and 'grown kids' mix with colleagues and family.  I find it to be a beautiful babbling brook of who I am and where I have been.  However, this is much better than my fb wall.  EYE so far has been a river of living life, of hugs and high fives in person with the folks who usually only pass by.  To hug my goddaughter, to be lifted high by an old friend, to hear my name shouted..OMG Jane!  It is a blessing of its own.  This is a river of life...where shall we take it from here?

Philadelphia freedom via Vegas....EYE14

Southwest airlines can be occasionally silly and generally high energy,  all of which can make it seem like the youth group of the airlines.   This observation is particularly evident with the icebreaker style boarding process.  If you have not been on a Southwest flight recently this might need an explanation.  Every passenger is given a boarding group letter, and a number.  Each letter group has to line up in numerical order, which demands that passengers TALK to one another.  It requires a civility, attentiveness and connectivity not unlike our life together in Christ.
Once on board you then get to choose from any open seat, also like church life, and a real benefit to flying with a fourteen person group of young people and chaperones to the Episcopal Youth Event.   The plane was nearly full as we soared through the first leg toward Vegas on our way to Philadelphia.  One of our eleven teens had never flown before.  After gleeful loud expressions during takeoff she declared that she "loves flying"!  Some slept, some read and most caught up or made new friends.  Our youth crew includes folks from Cleelum, Walla Walla, Richland, Coeur d Alene and Spokane.  One young woman, Berkeley, was with the last EYE group in 2011, and most of our crew have been active at Camp Cross and our diocesan youth programs like New Beginnings and TEC.  Our adult chaperones are from Richland, Spokane and Walla Walla.  Patrick attended a previous EYE as a teen, Jane has served with the Official Youth Presence at General Convention, while Theresa is new to church wide youth events.  We are flying east the day before EYE begins because as many of us know it takes all day to get from here to there.  We are spending our first night at the Episcopal Mission Center in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia.  Or at least that is the plan, flight delays may put gum in our plans.  Then on Wednesday morning we will use mass transit to journey out to Villanova University, where EYE 14 is being held.
More for y'all when we have new adventures to share.
#eye14
#Episcopal
#spokanediocese
#superexcited

Fanatics, Fragility and the Future: Easter 7a Homily

Bryce is a homeless runaway, a child who just barely gets by with the coins that are offered for his sidewalk performances.  His performing partner is Edward.  Edward is a fine china rabbit doll, who can think and feel; but cannot move himself or even close his eyes.  ‘The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane’ is a story that follows this china rabbit as his journey sinks him to the bottom of the ocean, and props up as a scarecrow.  Edward who was once a fine work of art, becomes an unbelievably dirty work of art.  In Bryce’s embrace he is offered as a puppet, he is still fragile, yet he is now a joyful thing with strings on his arms, offering himself so that his young friend Bryce can make him dance.  

One day a bully takes Edward from Bryce, and swings him wildly around, and then horribly, Edward hits a hard counter and his fine china head, it is cracked.  Young Bryce takes his precious but broken china rabbit to a doll maker, however this desperate child has no money to pay for any repairs.  The doll maker agrees to repair Edmund the china rabbit doll, in exchange for the rabbit.  Loving someone enough to let them go is necessary, is wise, it is an act of extraordinary love.  And it is also one of the many very hard things that we who live on earth will have to do over and over again.

Have you ever been a new ‘fan’ of something?  Brimming with the joy of the new experience that you just keep talking about it?  The book of Acts has that ‘fanatic’ rush of enthusiasm, and the new fan’s sense of deep disappointments.  Acts rises from the experiences of a mission that challenges us to reach out, to let go and explore new horizons.  It begins before it begins in Luke, and even before and beyond that.  You might recall that Elijah rode of on a fiery chariot at the end of his life.  You might know that the Hebrew tradition taught that Moses ascended to God at the end of his duties.   Furthermore, when a Roman emperor died it was known that his soul would be seen leaving his body and rising up into the skies.  

The artisan author of Luke and Acts has been lovingly tying our experience of Jesus into the heart of orthodox ancient Judaism while at the same time expanding it and sending it out into a wider world full of a hope greater than anything worldly power can pretend.  He shows us that Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, our Lord, is like Moses, but even greater than Moses, and that his love and sacrifice is much much more power than any empire.  The focus in the text is on the experience, not on the physics.  It redirects our line of sight,  this ascension pulls up our chins,  raises our vision to the horizon, focuses us on where we are going as we draw strength from those who have gone before us.  What if the ‘up’ in this story is a metaphor, what if the ‘up’ is about showing us the way forward?

Today we celebrate the transition of some of our young friends into what some scholars call ‘emerging adulthood’.  Changes are on the horizon.  Some of these changes will happen quite suddenly, others may take years.  So friends, have patience with each other in the days and months ahead.  Sending you out is our task, it is our calling to help you go out into the world, but it is hard to convey how astonishingly fast the time goes by and how scary it is to love you enough to send you out, and how much we would like for you to be safely asleep in the cradle once again.  

And one more thing.  A little bit of advice. Embrace community through the church, wherever you may be.  We are one company with lots of locations, like Starbucks.  You are always welcome home, here, wherever here may be.  Always.  Furthermore don’t buy into the popular notion that these ‘emerging adult’ years are supposed to be a vacation from religious traditions.  It is a false idea, sometimes packaged as ‘sabbatical’ that sometimes suggests this is a good thing. 

There are a million of reasons to continue in the way of Christ, some are practical, some spiritual, some the following of a great unknown.  However if you like data behind your choices, we have that too.  Those positive life outcomes you and I dream of for you, the safe, healthy and balanced lives we imagine for you as we consider your future, these things are well nurtured in faithful community.  The researchers controlled for every other factor and nothing matched the steadfast blessing of congregational practice.  It isn’t a fail safe, but positive life outcomes are consistently well correlated with an intergenerational community of prayer, fellowship and service.  Around here we call it church.  It is an eternal mystery how this life together brings blessing, yet we trust that it does.  Life together in Christ isn’t something you should just leave behind.

We are all fragile creatures like Edward, at times feeling amazing and at times feeling powerless.  We are all broken and learning to love as Christ loves us.  If young Bryce had held on to the broken Edward, they both could have been lost and stuck in an endless loop of narrow despair.  Edward would have no healing, no future.  Christ loved us enough to let his disciple’s graduate, he leads us out into the world filled with his love.  Ascension isn’t physics, it is holy mystery.  It is an expression of deep the foundational love that loves us enough to prepare us to go forward.  For all of us, for whatever type of journey we are on right now, I offer this from the Celtic poet John O’Donohue.

May you travel in an awakened way,

Gathered wisely into your inner ground;

That you may not waste the invitations

Which wait along the way to transform you.

May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,

And live your time away to its fullest;

Return home more enriched,

and free to balance the gift of days which call you.

Amen.

Poetry Excerpt From To Bless the Space Between Us.

'Edward Tulane' is a fine 'children's' story by Kate Di Camillo.

7th Sunday of Easter, RCL, Year A

St. Paul's Episcopal Church

Walla Walla, Washington

Extreme Speed Lawn Scrabble

Extreme: You have to run to get the tiles.

Speed: Speed Scrabble rules, with some accessories.

Lawn: 8.5x8.5 Tiles played outside on the lawn.

What You Need:

• Large Scrabble Tiles.  Several Pinterest sites have plans for wooden planks.  I used cardstock with paperclips.  Thanks be to God for a low wind evening.   I am guessing if you wanted to invest a bit of money (but not spend time with a saw bench) you could make the squares out of that foam paper stuff.
• Lawn
• Maybe Bibles, Prayerbooks...
• Maybe smart phones.

How many tiles do you need and how are the points assigned? You can find lists of how many of each letter you need here.

How Do You Play?

• Divide into no more than four teams of people.  
• Tiles are spread out face down in one area at a far end of a lawn.  If this is far enough away it could be a mad dash with some hilarity.
• Standard scrabble formation rules apply.  However, I added a rule that they could use the names of biblical books even if they were proper names.  So, Ruth yes, Mary, no. 
• Words could be found using smart phones and justified using smartphones and standard dictionary sites. 
• Speed Scrabble involves no playing board and making a formation of words with the letters you have.  When your team has used all of their letters then someone says GO! and then all teams have to go get another letter(s).  Each time a team has placed all their letters in a formation this repeats until all the tiles have been claimed.  With two teams I had them claim two letters each time a team yelled Go!  
• If all teams are stuck with extra letters during the course of the game they can agree to 'dead' and everyone goes to get another tile.  
• Once all tiles have been claimed the first team to complete a formation of words 'wins' and gets 10 extra points.  All teams then add up their scrabble points and discover the final winner.

Other complicating additions to try: 

• You could place the titles face up so there is more competition for certain letters.
• You could insist that there must be one religious word (God, Church, Mission).
• You could make rules for trading of letters instead of new letters when in the 'dead zone'.   

Merry ole...week one done

Catching up...

After several lovely days in Cambridge it was time to go north.  The author of the Wicked books most certainly borrowed from the sights and names of the Lake Country.  Ulswater and the Cumbric witch and so on. 
If you like dogs, I recommend Keswick (do not say the w).  If you are allergic, I might suggest an alternate plan.  If you like walking and hiking, even in a downpour, then please take your trip.  The funny thing is how few folks smile while making these adventures.  Hundreds of pounds of rain gear and hiking poles and lovely scenes and no grins.  Hmm.  Plus matching jackets for couples seems to be a statement with the older crowd of tourists. 
There is a gap in the hills with the most rain in England, over 11 feet a year.  And it poured for that five minute spot.  Otherwise the weather was a mix of rain, light, and clouds.  There is no shortage of outdoor gear shops in Keswick, almost as many as wine tasting rooms in Walla Walla.  I found two terrific cafes with real cask ale.  One called the Square Orange was tight and  bright with assortment of bites and sandwiches. 
The second cafe is called Magnolia, with menus made to look like an lp.  Even was pulled out of an old lp jacket.  It was one of this places that is playing so much of your music, your hip music that you are convinced no one else listens to, well, you wonder if they scanned your phone.  I was not alone with this observation, the Dutch man near me had a similar experience.
The hostel in Keswick is quite nice and clean and helpful.  It is in old mill by the river, so you get to hear it babbling by at night.  Except for the loud drunk Englishman declaring how he would be climbing like a god the next day, it was ideal.
I am still struck by the volume of coffee shops.  Every which way you look.  I was expecting fancy tea shops, Starbucks style.  Best i can tell such things are more popular in Portland, Oregon.
I have eaten rarebit and pies and now leuntil crisps and now animal shaped fruit jels that are quite good.  One tastes a bit like cherry cola.  Not the flavor I was expecting for a cow face shape.

Merry ole..day two plus one

Holy moly.  This isn't high tourist season?  It is quite busy and teeming with folks around every corner.  When did I become less than keen on crowds??
On Saturday we ventured down to the Eye.  The large ferris wheelt hat was construced for the Olympics, yet has becomea part of the skyline.  Anyways, some of you may know that I enjoy heights and ferris wheels.  England is compelling-ly gracious regarding those in wheelchairs, so we were wisked to the front of the 'Que'.  The wheel only stops  when operating for the ramp into the little egg cells.  It might not have been as big of a hit before digital photography.It is made for that adventure. 
You might notice the amazing sunny and clear photos.  This is a consistent pattern for me lately.  I am thinking about letting myself out for blessings towards sunny weather..so far this year I have found sunny and temperate in San Francisco, Seattle and now London.  I actually managed to achieve a spot of sunburn on Saturday. 
We had planned to go to St. Paul's however it was closed for a service commemorating the anniversary of the CoE ordination of women to the priesthood.  Hmm.  Another time.
We headed up to the Camden Market, which as quite the crowd of vendors and folks out for the sunny day. We might of gotten a bit lost for a moment on the way back, but made it back to the station.  Which was good because at the very same moment an owl flew by with my letter for admittance to Hogwarts.  A few years late, but I shall not complain.  Truth be told the half-cart is not near platform 9 at all, it might be adjacent to the toilets instead.  It is free for you to take your own photo, they have an assortment of house scarves (most choose Gryfndor) and a fella whose job it is to hold and wave the scarf.  Actually quite worth the wait in line (frequently much longer than my wait).
Sunday morning began with a lovely church service in a thousand year old congregation (St. Bene't's, which is short for Benedict), which makes the 150 of Walla Walla seem like a drop in the bucket.  It greatly resembles the Cathedral nave in Albuquerque.  The service was both full and friendly. 
Then I spent parts of the day wandering through the shopping district. In some ways the grocer was the most intriguing part, I could have studied the packages and choices for much longer than I did.
The evening was completed by Evensong at Pembroke College and then dinner.  At long tables in a great hall, with a head table.  And dress robes on students and staff.  And talking portraits (just kidding).  A lovely dinner with nice students and a fine setting.
Somewhere in the imagination of my heart I was expecting more of an 'otherness'.  It is of course unlike anything in my experience, yet it is still not as intensely different as I expected.  A daily journey of discovery.  Discovery of places and ways, but also of an alternate use of language to share information.  I see the words,  I can read them, but it may take a ssecond to realize what the instruction intends.  I also find myself using many localisms, it must be in the water.  Crisps and loo and blokes.  Or perhaps it is all that Masterpiece and novel reading that has such phrases falling out of my lips.

Merry Ole..Day One

It is a little bit funny:

To be able to read the signs, but find yourself unsure of what they intend.
To see a familliar landscape yet never have I been here before.  The suburban similarities are almost sad.
To meet up with an old friend and find life very much the same.
To feel my brain using muscles it has not in a while (thanks Preston for inviting me to read big words).
To speak the language and understand the language but still wish for subtitles.  BBC tv has subtitles...why don't yall?
To not be willing to pay for the outrageous international data rates and therefore be a bit more lost than usual.
To get kissed by a chatty english bloke in a pub on my first day.  On the cheek. 
To get to know, ever briefly, a nice family whose son was singing with the boy's choir for the last day because he dared to mature (and his voice cracked).

I love that the power òutlets have on and off switches.  So smart. 
I love all the transit options.  And I do love the nine million nutsy bicyclists, even the ones that try to run me over.
I love all the walking paths. 
I don't like the fine lawns with protocols that only elite so-n-so's may walk on.  Really?  Makes me want to roll around in it.  Must be some crazy 'merican.

Ps..I know I owe myself and others a post on whole hearted formation...but the first one is love.  Big love.  Why must i start with such a big one?? I told  myself I would work on it while traveling.  However for a day of travel I planned 3 days worth of books, papers and audiobooks.  Then I also slept on the plane.  :0