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

Whole Hearted Formation...we have Covenants and Mission Statements, do we need a Wholehearted Rule of Life?

I have been truly blessed this past Lent to have stumbled onto Brene Brown and her fabulous work on shame, vulnerability, courage and authenticity.  I cannot even recall which 'pin-a-day' led me to her TED Talk, and then led me to the audiobook and now to dozens of new pins on various Pinterest pages. (By the way, I want to offer that Audiobooks/lectures are wretched for highlighting and copying and pasting.  And the CC transcript is an endearingly frustrating moment by moment chart of sentence fragments.)  

As I read Dr. Brown's books I certainly find compelling meaning for my own journey.  I also find myself thinking about church and camp. Her work has me thinking about the systems of church that stifle vulnerability in search of liturgical precision and act out from places of shame.  I am thinking about the church we are  and the one we are searching to become.  Brene Brown's fabulous work and writings also have me considering the unwritten rules of life that we offer in our local settings, such as congregations and camps. We may need to make them more written and less implicit.  Words matter.  Saying who we are and who we desire to be can help us to become those people.  There may be formation folks and church leaders who want nothing to do with whole hearted practices.  I hope we can love them into daring greatly to be Christ's people in the world.

The leap from the Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto to congregational and camp life isn't very far or very deep, however my guess is it could fill a dissertation with insights.  While not pretending to seek such volume, my Easter and Pentecost goal will be to spend time writing about each one of these phrases and how they manifest in our life together as formation leaders.   Hmm.  Adventure vacation approaching fast...maybe this will be my before camp starts goal.  

To begin, I am going to simply 'remix' the 'Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto' into a 'Wholehearted Formation Ministries Rule of Life'. Most of the remix is moving from the singular to the ecclesiastical local corporate.  The author Brene Brown admits to being Episcopalian (and I guessed it without her confession (what is it that makes us so easily 'identifiable'?)) so I am going to hope that she will see this remix as a holy prayer of thanksgiving.  Rumor is she will be joining the FORMA event in Houston next winter, so I can ask for forgiveness then.  The remix/additions are in italics.

The Wholehearted Formation Rule of Life (Draft 1)

Above all else, we want you to know that you are loved and lovable.

You will learn this from our words and actions–the lessons on love are in how we treat you and how we each treat ourselves.  

We want you to engage with the world from a place of worthiness. You will learn that you are worthy of love, belonging, and joy every time you see each of us practice self-compassion and embrace our own imperfections.

We will practice courage in our ministry by showing up, letting ourselves be seen, and honoring vulnerability. We will share our stories of struggle and strength. There will always be room in our gatherings for both.

We will teach you compassion by practicing compassion with ourselves first; then with each other. We will set and respect boundaries; we will honor hard work, hope, and perseverance. Rest and play will be ministry values, as well as ministry practices.

You will learn accountability and respect by watching us make mistakes and make amends, and by watching how we ask for what each of us need and talk about how each of us  feel.

We want you to know joy, so together we will practice gratitude.

We want you to feel joy, so together we will learn how to be vulnerable.

When uncertainty and scarcity visit, we will be able to draw from the spirit that is a part of our everyday life.

Together we will cry and face fear and grief. We will want to take away your pain, but instead we will sit with you and be open to your experience of feeling it.

We will laugh and sing and dance and create. 

We will always have permission to be ourselves with each other. 

No matter what, you will always belong here.

The greatest gift that I can give to you is to live and love with my whole heart and to dare greatly.

We will not teach or love or show you anything perfectly, but we will let you see each of us, and we will always hold sacred the gift of seeing you. 

Truly, deeply, seeing you.

Falling Down: Good Friday and the Lenten Pin A Day Wagon

I must confess that while I managed to keep the discipline of at least a pin a day for each word on the list, it was not quite every day.  Furthermore, lately, even more of a falling down on the devotion.  As Lent continued on my mind turned to the work of Easter, to the work of camp and the preparation for the upcoming vacation.

Furthermore, I gave myself a break from Lent as part of my common baseball mini-break.  I let myself fall off of the holy wagon and it has been oh so hard to get back on it.  Part of my reason for letting myself fall (which is more like leaping off the wagon) is that I am trying  to embrace imperfections (ala Brene Brown)  and what not.   An imperfect Lenten devotion seemed like a good idea.  Plus I was working on a Holy Week sermon, so the few days off were not devoid of Lenten meaning, but the pins fell to the side and so did the 'no espresso'.  I was in Seattle after all!

However, it has been that much harder to bet back on the devotional wagon.  Even though the break was short, I have to keep reminding myself that I have a Lenten devotional 'wagon' to be on.   The craving for the soothing beauty of a cortado came upon me as I whirled my way from task to task of Triduum prep.  Just like the first week of Lent, I almost forgot that my abstaining was part of my Lenten commitment.  The pins continue, but the constant reflections have diminished with my energy level.  Which sank as I tried to meet the demands of life and work while my health issue diminished both my calories and their benefits.

It seems like this should all bring me into a deeper Holy Week, yet,  I don't even know. Maybe that whole idea is more self shaming perfectionism.   It feels like it is not deep as other times, but maybe this is like when you suddenly discover you are in deeper water than you expected.  As a few of you may know, wrestling with a sense of shallowness has been my story this Lent.  Feeling drained and duller, which seems like thin still water.  Yet still sometimes the harder we look for profundity, the thinner the experience.  And vise versa.

This new space raises for me the ways in which I am still living there and here.  I love the creative liturgical opportunity I have here, yet I find myself surprised st every turn. Oh right, I say.  After so many years in a more regimented and elaborate setting I have forgotten there are a multitude of ways to offer the motions of Holy Week.  My dull brain falls into auto pilot and then trips on the silliness little surprises.

Today's pin of the day is wait.  Perhaps it is in itself its own little surprise trip.  All this tired angst about not feeling as deep or as smart as I used to and I get the reminder to wait.  The reminder to be still.  We cannot rush these things.  They many never be as we expect.  Be still, and wait upon the Lord.