Some Advent Thoughts

 Peace to you, and God's blessings.

Howdy, y'all. 

It has been some time since my last entry, and before that, far longer.  It is difficult to believe that I have had this blog since 2011.  Interestingly enough, it was during the Advent season that I started writing.  Perhaps there is something about this season that compels me to turn to this medium to reflect upon the different experiences that I have.  In this instance, I have been inspired to write because I recently read a post from a friend's blog.  In her message, she wrote about the discipline of keeping a blog and expressed her experience of being a "child of God together."  I found it quite interesting to read her thoughts and I was reminded of my own call to be a "together" person in my ministry and in my life.  As an introvert, I have often found that being together is somewhat precarious.  As an 8 on the Enneagram, being "together" is a scary thing because the Enneagram 8 is a Lone Ranger type of person, the champion, always on the forefront of the task at hand.  The thought of togetherness is scary, not because we have to join with others, but because it risks the danger of having to be vulnerable with others.  For an Enneagram 8, this is truly a frightening thing!  Eek!

All that aside, the thought of being children of God together makes absolute sense and serves as an invitation to risk the possibility of encountering God's love through others.  As I have found it, whether it is a brief encounter or a life-long one, being children of God together is a gift that can leave one in awe and even speechless as we come to realize the great gift that it is to encounter the love of God as it is shared in community.  

This is something else that I have come to consider recently, salvation isn't something that is a one-time thing like some pixie dust sprinkled upon us to change us, no, salvation is something we live into.  It is something that is revealed little by little through the experiences we share with one another.  These encounters tend to change us, something that we may not consider at the time, but without a doubt, something that does indeed happen and has the ability to bring us to a place where we are made more into who God has always known us to be.  Like a stone being polished in a tumbler, we are changed sometimes subtly and over time, but changed nonetheless.  In some ways, I believe that this is also a brief glimpse of the redeeming love of Christ who has brought forth and new heaven and a new earth.  In our togetherness, this gift of love brings us to a place where the possibility of swords being turned into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks isn't a dream, but a hopeful reality that is experienced as we come to see in each other the presence of the All Holy.  This togetherness as children of God creates a place where the lion is able to rest with the lamb and the adder with a baby and in a more practical sense, perhaps this togetherness also allows each of us to look at each other and see beyond the preconceived notions that we may have about each other and see the dignity that is inherently ours as children of God.  Togetherness as children of God is not an easy task, if it were the world would be a very different place.  No, it isn't easy, but perhaps it isn't impossible and maybe that is the greatest gift that our being children of God together will offer us, a look in love beyond the fears that can so easily choke us.  

I have sometimes been accused of being "good hearted," not because I have a good heart, but because in their own way, those who have said this to me were too polite to call me pollyannish, and perhaps this true, but what if we all risked loving one another and celebrating our oneness as children of God, maybe then we can see the world changed, one heart at at time, in Christ, truly a new heaven and a new earth.  I hope.  Amen.

As always, remember that you are beautiful, and you are loved.  God bless you.

A mercy unimagined.

The Gospel is here.

Some years ago, after a long time of prayer and discernment, I had the opportunity to have a conversation about ministry in the Episcopal Church.  By this time, I had already been an Episcopalian for a few years and had started an earnest discussion about what ministry would look like for me. 

Perhaps afraid of his judgment, just as I had received from the RC bishop and other leadership, I decided to wear my gray robes for my meeting with my bishop.  Let’s be honest, it’s a little weird when I wear my habit, let alone as an Episcopalian, but I digress.  I had also decided to be as honest and forthcoming with him as possible, I needed to make sure that he knew who I was right then and there.  In truth, I was a wounded heart, ready to defend myself from anybody who could cause me further hurt.  For context, I think it is important to mention that in 2015, after 15 of serving in the RC Church, the leadership of my order had decided that there was “something wrong” with me, even going so far as to threaten sanctioning me for not divulging the problem they perceived.  Being the stubborn mule that I am, I refused to admit to any so called problems unless those leaders told me what it was that they were seeing.  The never specified and I never came out.  Shortly thereafter, however, I was no longer welcome to serve publicly as a priest.  The problems they saw in me were so serious in the mind of one person, the same person who “saw” these problems in me, that I was eventually sanctioned and formally excommunicated from the RC Church. 

I mention this because, after having lived through that, I once again found myself in front of a Bishop, discussing the ministry, but unwilling to be hurt again.  Our meeting took place on a Sunday after the Bishop’s visitation in Midland.  When the time finally for us to meet, I was ready for the worst.  Much to my surprise, the bishop didn’t bat an eye.  Instead, he started by asking me one question; “What order do you belong to?” 

I was floored, unsure of how to proceed and yet, quite sure at the moment that I had found my home. 

The woman in today’s Gospel reminded me of that time in my life, so raw, so vulnerable, and so scared and alone.  At the mercy of the powers at be and hoping for even the slightest gift of mercy and grace. 

I can’t know what she must have felt at the moment when her battered body and heart received that breath of a life.  We simply can’t know, but I  imagine it as having been a moment of unexpected and maybe unimagined grace, a breath, much like the breath at creation which restored the promise of life and good.  Like the first breath after coming up out of the waters of abandonment after being resigned to a life of abandonement.  Here, in this instant, she was transformed into a person with a new hope and a very different life. 

We see her changed, no longer under the weight of the community’s condemnation and marginalization, no, now she is made new and she is welcomed back into the community, her life is fully resotred.  No longer the outcast, she is once again a part of the body, we are one once again! 

You and I too, are brought into the Body of Christ, into the community, into a place of love where nothing is expected of us but to life.  This is the gift that Christ offers us, a gift that doesn’t demand the impossible from us except to recieve the impossible love that is so graciously outpoured upon us.  We too are changed and made into a new creation, no longer victims to the expectations of others, or even our own, instead, we become a people living in the light of Christ, made new in every breath and with every moment of knowing God.  The truth is that in Christ, we find something far greater than we could ever imagine, we find ourselves, we find our dignity, we find our worth and we discover that all along, God’s love walked with us through the good and the bad and through the happy and sad moments.  And we learn that all these things are not dependent on societal norms or on the approval of authority, they are rooted instead in the very heart of God who sees us, knows us, recognizes our every quirk and can’t help but smile. 

The problem is that we sometimes can’t see these things for ourselves and we don’t see God’s smile.  And yet, even at those times, Christ continues reaching out and loving us.  He continues being a presence of love in our lives, and often, through those we least expect. 

The story in our Gospel today is the story of Jesus, our mother hen, who so readily and willingly finds us, protects us and offers us life, even when we are unsure of what that will look like or how it will turn out. 

The story of our Gospel today is of our God who loves us so much that even when we arrive, in all our stubbornness and ready to fight, God is there, loving us and calling us into life. 

Amen.