It's gonna take a miracle

Pentecost 12, Year A

Matthew 14:13–21

13Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves." 16Jesus said to them, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat." 17They replied, "We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish." 18And he said, "Bring them here to me." 19Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Three years ago a new question was added to the
annual report for campus ministry
in the section which specifically deals with pastoral care. The question was, “How many of the following pastoral acts
related to campus ministry did you perform in the past year?”
there then followed three categories:
a) Marriages
b) Funerals/Memorial Services
c) Miracles
“Hmm,” I remember thinking,
“I didn’t realize we were supposed to keep track,
I must have missed that section in the parish register”
I wrote in “365”
hoping that an average of one a day was neither too few
or too many to be believable.

A campus ministry setting is a likely place of analysis
when it comes to assessing miracles.
I remember my own frustrations as an aquatic biology major
at the University of Montana, where it seemed like all we did
was try to prove previous discoveries were incorrect.
How many of you spend your days researching
the cause, effect, and results of things which
had they been even imagined in Christ’s time
would have been considered miraculous indeed.


Every day we all witness miracles.
We see miracles of nature, benefit from miracles of modern medicine,
hear miracles of musical composition, experience miracles of human interaction,
and yes, we see miracles of divine intervention,
things which can only be satisfactorily resolved
by admitting our own humanness
in the face of someone greater than ourselves.

People seem to be really divided on the issue of miracles,
some people will only consider an event a miracle
if it exceeds human ability and comprehension.
“It’s not appropriate to analyze a miracle,
it’s simply a matter of faith.”
was they way one person felt at Tuesday night’s Bible Study
Some of us are not satisfied, however,
until we can uncover a more rational explanation
for whatever miracle is part of a story .
Take today’s gospel for example.

Jesus is deeply affected by the news of his cousin, John the Baptist’s death,
probably all the more so because of the circumstances surrounding John’s death
coming at the hands of people serving idols of fear, jealousy, and cowardice.
Jesus tries to make time to process what has happened.
Remember, there are Hebrew rituals for grief and mourning
requiring those who have lost a loved one
to remove themselves from their day-to-day lives
and take time to find spiritual and emotional healing.
Instead, a crowd follows. Many of them were John’s disciples
looking to Jesus for consolation and leadership.
I’d like to believe that others may have been looking to console Christ,
as much as to be consoled.
Jesus is moved by their need.
He works through and despite his own grief
by becoming available for others.

The crowd is huge,
there are 5,000 men, and, some estimate another 30,000 women and children
for most men in Jesus time traveled with their wives, mothers, and children.
Jesus healed their sick.
We’ve all probably seen faith healers on TV,
where the afflicted come forward at the appointed time,
hands are laid on, prayers are prayed, and sometimes we see
the unexpected and the unexplainable occur.
Crutches and wheelchairs are abandoned with joy
God is praised and new life is celebrated-

I wonder if that afternoon with Jesus was like that,
or, did Jesus walk through the crowds, with people coming to him
sharing their burdens of pain and suffering,
Jesus listening, nodding in agreement and understanding,
reaching out and touching, embracing the rejected and the shunned,
restoring them to health, acceptance, and to community,
because you know,
the blind, the lame, the people with skin conditions,
those afflicted with mental illness, missing extremities,
or most anything which made them physically or emotionally different
were kept on the fringes of society.

The day wears on with Jesus talking to more and more people,
meanwhile, the disciples wonder when this will all be over,
they want Jesus to be with them,
they want their chance to minister to him.
I find it curious that Matthew does not tell us
Jesus and his disciples had pity on the crowd
and together they cured their sick.
No, it doesn’t say that at all,
could they have forgotten their commission,
when Jesus gave them “authority over unclean spirits,
to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness” (Matthew 10:1)

Now, here’s why I think there was some kind of “disconnect” that day
between the disciples and the crowd:
Not only do they want to send the crowd away to fend for themselves
but they fail to see the crowd for all it’s diversity and possibility,
they view the people Jesus has ministered to as one great lump of need,
they fail to see the gifts the crowd brings to the table.

Three short weeks ago, Tricia Neale and I were planning the closing eucharist
for the synod’s LYO servant trip in Florida.
It was going to be held on the White Street Pier in Key West,
which juts out 300 yards into the Atlantic Ocean.
The plan was to pass out lit candles at the entrance to the pier
and then to process out to the end singing “Come All You People”
where we would gather around bread and wine,
hear stories about God’s love for us
and God’s presence in our day to day lives
we would share a meal feasting on God’s abundance
and we would be sent back to our families and our homes
as new people, people transformed by our experience as servants
and those whose lives we touched.

During the service, I was distracted by the things which didn’t go as planned,
we didn’t account for youthful enthusiasm,
instead of a stately candlelight procession reminiscent of Maundy Thursdays at UniLu
we had 60 kids vying to be first at the end of the pier, complete with blazing torches,
as the Dixie cup shields for the candles went up in flames.
Then there was the Chihuahua who was determined to steal the communion bread
so many times that we wound up having to hold the bread for the entire service.
There were enough mini-dramas going on
that I failed to see what was happening overall:
People who had begun the evening grieving the conclusion of their time together
were being fed through God’s bounty of Word and Sacrament,
and feeling Christ’s presence among them in each other
that they were being healed of their sadness and being filled with the Holy Spirit
and I was too stuck on what I expected the evening to be
that I couldn’t see what was happening,
the miracle occurring before my very eyes.
Just like the disciples in this gospel story.

Jesus builds a relationship with the crowd
he learns their needs, their hopes, their dreams
I speculated earlier that they may even try to care for him
the way he cares for them. “You must be thirsty. Here, Jesus, have a drink of water.
How about a piece of bread?”

Where the disciples see only 5 loaves of bread and a couple of fish
Jesus sees God’s abundance in the faith of the crowd,
he sees the hidden resources of the ones who go uncounted
whose stories are so seldom heard in these pages.

The disciples say only what they are willing to contribute,
Matthew tells us how many men were there besides the women and children.

Can you imagine what 20 to 35 thousand people must have sounded like?
Think of Franklin Field at homecoming and divide by 2,
or Feast Incarnate just before we start announcements, multiplied by 3,000.
Jesus brings order to what must have been chaos
by ordering the crowds to sit down on the grass.
Their anticipation must have been electric.
He takes what has been offered, five loaves and two fish,
he blesses and breaks them and gives them to the disciples
to distribute to the crowds,
and not only is there enough for everyone to take
what they need to overcome their hunger,
but there is more left over than before they started,
and the crowd, along with the disciples have become a new community.

How often do we concentrate on the obvious
and ignore the potential?
Instead of seeing more mouths to feed
we need to see the abundance God has given us.
We need to see the rightn-ess of food production in the hands of all who need it,
not just in the hands of corporate farming and government-subsidized monopolies.
We need to advocate for equal access to adequate health care, for effective education,
and for limitless opportunity for all of God’s children, not just our own.

We must do this because none of us are uncounted in God’s eye,
All of us are brought to the table, all of us are fed, and all of us will be filled.
There will be more left over than when we started,
more than enough for the uncounted ones
if we just open our eyes to the abundance of God’s love, grace, and mercy
and live our lives transformed by that abundance.
We are transformed by God’s abundant love each time we come to the Lord’s table
through the gifts of bread and wine we are given
we are transformed into the Body Of Christ made present in the world.

That worship service in Key West-
fortunately several people took photos that evening,
so that several days later I was able to look at the expressions of joy and amazement
on so many faces, as people shared the stories of how God entered into their lives
over those 11 days.
Then there were the stories they wrote on their Facebook pages,
telling their friends how the trip transformed their relationship with God
and with others, how they were less afraid of people they didn’t already know
and more secure in who they were as God’s children.
It made me realize how distracted I had been
from the miracle happening right in front of my eyes,
as God prepared a feast in the wilderness.
Amen

Reigning in the Wilderness with God

This was the sermon I preached at the opening worship service in Miami for the SEPA LYO Servant Trip. Our theme for the trip was "Reigning in the Wilderness with God"

Exodus 13:17-18 “When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was nearer; for God thought. “If the people face war, they may change their minds and return to Egypt.” So God led the people by the round-about way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea.

Mark 1:12 “And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness”

The two readings seem to present very different reasons for entering the wilderness.

God leads the Israelites, going in front of them,

they have a choice, follow, or…

Jesus, on the other hand, is driven into the wilderness…

God has just said “You are my Son, the beloved,

with you I am well pleased”

and immediately God’s Spirit drives Jesus out into the wilderness,

is that any way to treat your beloved Son?

Being led seems an easier, gentler method

while being driven requires some amount of force-

use of enough force to overcome the driven one’s reluctance,

enough to move them in a direction they probably don’t want to go.

Some scholars interpret the original language as hurled, or thrown.

I picture people being driven out of their homes by the rising waters of the Mississippi

or the indigenous peoples of North America driven onto reservations by colonialism

or children driven to begging, stealing, and prostitution

after loosing their parents to AIDS, or Malaria,

or war in Africa, South America, and yes, even in the United Sates-

just ask the kids who are driven out of the house by their parents after they came out as gay or lesbian what they are driven to do to survive.

Have you ever thought about what drives you?

Is it success, popularity, an unquenchable thirst for knowledge,

a love of music, art, sports or something else?

What drove you to come on this trip?

What convinced you to give up two weeks of your summer vacation

for this?

Maybe you’ve never been on a servant trip,

and you wanted to know what it was like

Maybe you really like hot humid weather,

hotter than back home,

maybe your friends were coming

and you wanted to spend part of your summer with them.

I hope part of your answer includes “Jesus”

and that your love for him drove you on this trip.

I pray that part of your answer includes wanting to experience something new,

because I believe that God is going to show you something new

each day that we are here.

God is going to show you things inside yourself you didn’t know were there

and God will show you things outside yourself which will amaze you

and sometimes horrify you.

I hope that part of your answer includes

wanting to make a difference in this world

and I pray God will help you do that

with great joy, love and enthusiasm on this trip,

especially when you are feeling tired, hungry, and overheated-

know that you are out there showing the face of Jesus to all whom you encounter.

Speaking of Jesus, let’s think about the reading again

We know almost nothing about Jesus’ life, between when he was born,

and when he was baptized by John ,

except for what St. Luke tells us about Jesus when he was twelve

and he forgot to leave Jerusalem with the rest of his family

when the festival of Passover ended. Luke also tells us Jesus is about thirty years old when he began his ministry, so some 18 years are up in the air,

the years we would say are some of the most important in anyone’s life,

the years of becoming the person you will be for the rest of your life…

the years that most of you are in now.

Jesus is baptized by John, and immediately has his comfort zone destroyed

his support systems, his friends, his family,

are all abandoned …for the wilderness

imagine how that must have felt,

especially knowing that his journey through the wilderness

would not come to it’s completion until his death on the cross,

how else can you explain it, than “the Holy Spirit made him do it?”

Jesus will spend the next 40 days in this wilderness he has been driven into

40 days of conflict, tempted by Satan, wrestling with giving up his own needs

so that he can remain faithful to God.

A wilderness can be many things,

but there’s always an element of “wild-ness’ or chaos,

there’s a risk to those who enter it

from things that are yet unknown.

You will spend the next ten days often facing the unknown,

you’ll find yourself in strange places with people you don’t know that well…

perhaps doing things you’re not sure you want to do…

remind yourself that God is with you,

that you are serving God’s creation,

that you are helping to undo the work of the evil one,

remember that even in the wild-ness,

God provides sustenance and salvation.

God led the Israelite through the wilderness

rather than have them face war,

What has God driven you away from to be here?

What is God driving you toward?

How does it feel to be driven?

How does it feel to know God is in control?

What sustains your faithfulness to God?

We pray that you will receive countless blessing by being part of this trip.

We pray that your journey will draw you closer to God,

fill you with the Holy Spirit,

and bring you face to face with the risen Christ,

who is present in our joy and in our suffering.

Amen

Cross-over people

Say to him, “The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you to say “Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the wilderness.” But until now you have not listened.

Exodus 7:16

Two men, one, a leader, whom God had called to speak,

and one, a ruler, called to listen, and to govern.

Let’s not forget the people of Israel,

who God calls to become freed slaves,

the Hebrew word, Avrim, slaves who become free

also means “cross-over people”

or “rootless cosmopolitites” –

people who live on the fringe.

Moses was the ultimate “cross-over- person”

born an Israelite, raised an Egyptian,

now pleading for the freedom of his people

to the man who was raised beside him, as his brother

Crossing-over is an interesting term.

We often think of crossing a line like a border, a street, or a bridge, something finite.

The Israelites are soon going to be crossing over the wilderness

and we all know how long that’s going to take.

We also cross over more intangible lines,

lines of social construct,

established by popularity, braininess, athletic ability,

skin color, religious affiliation, sexual orientation,

wealth, education, physical appearance…

just to name a few.

Crossing-over involves a journey,

no matter how short.

It’s always about moving away from one position

and arriving at another.

You finish the journey as a different person,

maybe as, “the girl I used to sit next to in trig” or,

the guy who was such a nerd, but after last summer, now he’s really hot;

Our verse today inspires us to another kind of crossing-over.

By not listening to the Israelites,

Pharaoh is refusing to cross-over,

he is either unable, or unwilling to put himself in the shoes

of the people who slave for him,

God gives pharaoh this unbelievable chance

to hear first hand, from the man who was raised as his brother

how horrible it is to feel the sting of the whip,

the parching heat of laboring in the sun,

and the pain of knowing your children’s fate

is the same as yours,

unless the Messiah comes to lead them

from slavery to freedom.

Pharaoh will refuse to become a cross-over person ten more times

despite some not-so-subtle persuasions before he finally allows the Israelites to go free, and even then, he never truly understands their lives,

and winds up losing his in his effort to bring them back to servitude.

There’s another interesting definition of that word, “Avrim”

I mentioned earlier.

It sometimes means, “People who live on the fringes”

Fringes are extremely important in Hebrew tradition.

Remember from the Gospel reading this morning

the woman who had suffered from hemorrhages for 12 years

she believes so strongly in Jesus’ power,

that she touches the fringe of his garment

the least bit of Jesus she might touch,

and because of her faith, she is healed.

The fringe!

The part of the garment that stops being the garment

and becomes something else.

Think about it.

Why do you think fringe exists?

Is it purely decorative?

Or does it blur the line between where something is

and isn’t.

In Biblical times, cities had walls.

It was easy to know where the boundaries started and stopped.

Today, if it wasn’t for the signs,

who would know where Philadelphia stops

and the tri-counties begin?

There is a vast fringe which surrounds our cities

neither urban or countryside,

but something in-between,

something fringy…

God is calling us

to make this journey, this pilgrimage,

to become cross-over people.

God calls us to listen to the stories of others,

Others like Baltasar Martin Garrote, from Cuba

who hopes his 86 year-old mother suffering from cancer,

can survive two more years until 2010,

the next time that U.S. policy will allow him back to Cuba

to visit his family.

Or the brave women and men serving in the US Coast Guard

who repeatedly rescue barely alive Haitians

from overcrowded boats

only to return them the next day

to the country they so desperately want to escape.

Perhaps you’ll have the opportunity to hear from Pearl Feinberg,

who with her husband Sol, retired to Florida

to avoid the cold winters,

only to find now their pensions no longer cover their basics needs

of food, health care, and shelter.

In Key West, you may listen to stories

from the members of Metropolitan Community Church,

people whose sexual orientation got them rejected

if they were truthful about themselves

in any other church.

When you are hearing those stories,

remember this verse from today,

about the ruler who would not listen

and his brother who was compelled to speak out,

remember the people who cross-over,

consider your call to be one of them.

Think about being the fringe

and being part of the place where those who have,

and those who need

come together to share and to listen,

not just hearing one another,

but yearning to understand one another,

and feeling compelled to speak out on behalf of those who are chronically left behind.

Consider God’s ultimate act of crossing over,

of taking on our nature,

of experiencing our pain and suffering,

of conquering our fear of death

and our bondage to sin.

My prayer for all of us about to make this pilgrimage

is that we return from this trip, transformed

into people who have listened

transformed into people who cross-over,

transformed by the Holy Spirit into people who will speak out

against injustice,

and who will act to bring God’s kingdom

into the lives of all those we encounter here on earth.

Amen

Perfect Days

Since Lent began it seems I've been blessed with a number of perfect days.The day after Ash Wednesday we went to the Philadelphia Orchestra with a couple of friends from church. We shared a nice meal before hand at Ted's Montana Grille (I know it's a chain, but one of our friends has become a buffalo addict. The orchestra program was all modern composers, which normally doesn't excite me, but I was pleasantly suprised.

The guest conductor for the evening was Alan Gilbert, recently appointed music director of the New York Philharmonic. The first piece was Exquisite Corpse by Hillborg. While it wasn't something you'd walk away humming, it was extremely complex in the way different sounds were carried continuously by diffrent instruments, so that a note might start out thin and reedy on the flute, and then swell to a rich, full sound in the cellos, and then die out from the tympani.

The second piece that night was Bartok's Concerto for Two Pianos, Percussion, and Orchestra. Emmanuel Ax and Yoko Nozaki were the pianists, and Christopher Deviney and Don S. Liuzzi were the precussionists. The stage set-up was quite impressive just to get two concert Steinways and two drum set-ups in front of the rest of the orchestra. The music was engrossing as if you were overhearing an interesting conversation which was not antiphonal, in a sort of repetitious way, as much as responsive to the preceding passage and developing the idea further. It had really "big" orchestral passages, and incredibly soft piano responses.

The final work of the evening was a composer I was not familiar with, Carl Nielsen, his Symphony No. 2, Op. 16 ("The Four Temperments") It wound up being the highlight of the evening. The audience was most responsive in their applause.

As a postlude, Emmanuel Ax and David Kim, concertmaster for the orchestra, after inviting the remaining audience to come sit closer, performed (a Beethoven sonatta.)

A few nights later on Monday evening, after dinner at the Westbury Bar, we were back at the Kimmel Center for the Curtis Symphony. This much younger group of performers were also being conducted by Alan Gilbert, who is a Curtis graduate. What a difference in the dynamic between the players and conductor. Here, they really led/performed as one organic whole. The difference was amazing. We have subscribed to both orchestras for a number of years- the Curtis that night was one of the best performances I can remember hearing. The program was Barber's Overture to The School for Scandal, Op.5; Beethoven's String Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Op.95 ("Quartetto serioso"); and another Nielsen work, his Symphony No. 3 in D minor, Op. 27 (Sinfonia espansiva)

All of the music was exquisite!

On Wednesday we had tickets to the new opera, Cyrano, by the Opera Company of Philadelphia. We had planned on dinner at the Rendevous bar across the street from the Academy of Music, as it was a pretty raw night and we didn't feel like walking far. We noticed that the resturant next to the Academy, which had been vacant at least a year since one of our favorite places, "The Smoked Joint," had closed.This was a new Japanese place called Kaizan, which had an interesting menu, so we deecided to take a chance.(it was a little pricier than the places we usually go to)

What a great decision we made! The new interior is very tasteful,all black and white with shocks of small, red, narrow hanging light fixtures. The harsh bare concrete surfaces of the old construction have been softened by hangings of Japanese silks. The mood was very relaxing. the service was perfect. We shared some tuna Maki. I ordered a couple of "small" plates, one a scallop tartare, was lots of bay scallops with kiwi in a light marinade, while the other was called "Volcanic Mountain" and was a mixture of lobster, shrimp, and rice wrapped into a cone in a wanton wrapper, and then crisped in the fryer. It was incredibly good, though difficult to discect until I asked for a fork. I refused to actually pu the fork in my mouth, I just used it to break the food into manageablepieces. I must practice more with chopsticks before returning.

Gary oredered a Spicy Chirashi, which was a mound of rice with raw tuna and scallops. Not as elaborate as my Volcano, but just as tasty. We each had a Lobster Dobinmushi, the most delicious soup you could imagine on a cold night such as it was. The soup was a wonderful clear broth, which was made with some type of smoked meat (imagine bacon broth, with no fat) and lobster meat with daicon mushroom. It was served in individual pots, with a small cup. We drank the broth from the cups, two swallows at a time, until it was gone, and then, removing the lids, used our chopsticks to eat the lobster and mushrooms remaining inside (I was very adept by then with my utensils-lobster is a great motivator)

After this wonderful dinner, we walked next door to the Academy of Music. As we entered the lobby for the elevator to the Ampitheater (or "Heaven" as it's called by the old-timers, because it's so far up) a woman asked to see our tickets. When she saw that we were subscribers, she offered some other seats whose subscribers were unable to attend, although, she said, not everyone would enjoy them, as they were in the front row.

So we were able to see this new opera from up close and personal, everything from the beautiful sets and even more beautiful costumes, and hear the voices and feel the music of the orchestra in a way we ususally don't get to experience at the Academy of Music. To make the evening even better, our seat mates were neighbors so we got to catch up during intermission with all the things happening in their lives (new jobs, new grandchildren, etc).

It's hard to believe we experinced all of these incredible blessings of friends, music, and food, in the course of little under a week. So many people have nothing in the way of these experinces compared to use. I know that many people wouldn't even begin to enjoy much of the music, or food, which we do. I guess that our ability to enjoy them is another blessing.

The next day (after the opera) was Valentines Day. I claimed dinner and the opera as my gift to him. Gary made a new stained glass window as agift for me. (He just threw it together over a few days) It remainders of glass from a variety of other projects, but in the center is an etched medallion, with our initials "F &G" There are probably not too many guys whose boyfriend makes them a stained glass window as a valentines gift. Chalk that up as another blessing.

Comfort Zones

Lent is really early this year. One of the things I've added to my Lenten discipline in years past was to use the time while coffee brewed in the morning to do some excercise. Earlier this week, overnight temperatures were low,and the early morning skies were overcast. Each morning I would lie in bed under the covers telling myself I'd start the coffee and then go work out. Then I would think about how comfortable it was under the covers, and how it couldn't be that late, yet, because it was still dark. The urge to stay comfortable would win out, and I'd drift back to sleep for a while longer.

How often do we choose to stay where we're comfortable? How much easier are things when we don't allow ourselves to be challenged? Why should we even consider something which might make ourselves uncomfortable?

In my case, getting out of bed and excersising is for my own good. It would improve my over-all health and outlook. The shock of the colder morning air would help me to wake up faster. I'd add time to my morning which could be well spent writing, reading, or at the park with the dogs.

Last spring we had a guest preacher when the Gospel text was the story of the Prodigal Son. As she was reading the Gospel, I was struck by the phrase describing the moment when the son finally comes to terms with his situation: "But when he came to himself, he said..." (Luke 15:17) Somehow, whenever I've heard that phrase before, I've always run a visual clip in my mind of someone shaking off whatever it was which was weighing on them, sort of like our dogs after a walk in the rain. A couple of vigourous shakes and the original fluffy self is re-revealed, perhaps somewhat damper, but hopefully feeling cleaner and refreshed.

But as those words were released from her lips, I envisioned a person having an out-of-body experience, walking along a path and then suddenly confronted with themselves, from the perspective of another. After observing themself and their struggle with their burden, I saw them come to terms with what they needed to do, reconciling their self, and then suddenly merge back into one person.

I don't think that we can always have this out of body revelation on our own. I think that sometimes God sees our need to be uncomfortable in order to change. It's then up to us to notice these gifts and choose to receive them or reject them.

A woman in our congregation has cerebal palsy so bad that she can no longer move from one position to another without the assitance of an aide. When she was born, her doctor told her parents she would not survive more than 50 days. Now, over 50 years later, she has retired from her job as an advocate for the disabled. After completing college, she found her own apartment and has lived on her own. She tells great stories of going to rallies in the 70's to protest the lack of accomodations for the physically challenged. She was arrested at least once, confounding the police who could not figure out how to jail her in her wheelchair. Thanks to her and many others like her, America now has the Americans with Disabilities Act. They were able to envision a life which would be better for many, which needed them to move out of their comfort zones to make a better future. This woman who I admire so greatly, treats each new challenge in her life as a gift from God, and turns them into gifts to others.

That's what we were invited to do as a congregation that afternoon. We explored our joys and fears, our self-image, and our reputation among others. Feelings were laid bare over a 4 hour journey, which finally brought us to ourselves.

And so as part of my journey this Lent, I'm going to try to get out of bed earlier, and be more honest with myself about what I need to do each day. It may be that I need to remind myself that I need to be kinder, or firmer, or less critical and more open to being uncomfortable. I pray God will help me.

Ash Wednesday

During Lent, many Christians decide to give up some thing which gives them pleasure (In the old days, it was always sex, for one). The idea is, that when you find yourself yearning for that Twixt Bar, of Diet Pepsi, or glass of Chardonnay, that you might focus instead on your relationship with God. I started this blog last year, inspired by Meghan Rohrer, who each Lent gives up her security of home, job, and security to live among the homeless of San Francisco.

I am not so brave.

One thing I've learned though, from reading Meghan's blog, is that rather than giving something up, she adds something to her life through this experience. She adds a knowledge and understanding of people who are not herself to her experience.

I've been having a difficult time praying lately. It’s been difficult to remain focused. I find myself beginning a conversation with God, and too quickly other concerns overtake the conversation, and my original path of prayer seems to spiral away into a black hole. I've tried using some centering exercises, and really only had success if I'm at work in the sanctuary alone, where the rest of the world fades away, even though urban reality is just on the other side of the stained glass wall.

Sunday morning, before getting out of bed, I had an epiphany. I know that by nature I am conflict adverse. I'll do anything to avoid engaging in a confrontation (yeah, I know, all my friends are thinking how that doesn't keep me from being highly opinionated.) What I realized that morning was that I had some issues with God, and while I wasn't avoiding them entirely (I was praying that God would heal people in my life who are suffering, especially my brother, who is being treated for a brain tumor) I know I wasn't being honest with God about how I felt about these things.

I've been really frustrated by several things, which affect my relationships with other people. While I believe that God knows my frustration, we haven't really had any conversations about it.

That morning I realized how angry I was with God, and pinned my prayer problems on that anger. Reflecting on the situation a little further, I realized that the real problem was my own fault for not being honest about my feelings, that, just like any relationship, disagreement is healthy when it leads to new understandings.

So, what this rambling leads to, is that the thing I want to add to my Lenten journey, is to live with God in an honest relationship: to share my feelings and not just my needs, and more importantly to be open to listening for God's answers, in all the forms they take, through the gifts and the challenges which God places in my life, and to search for understanding of my own existence as well as my relationship with God, and the rest of God's creation.

Funny, I don't feel older.

Why haven't I posted here in so long? I could make countless excuses, but that's all they'd be. Certainly there's been lots going on in my life, most of it extraordinarily good and wonderful and to me a sign of God's love in my life. Gary and I have enjoyed so many concerts and movies and dinner with friends and celebrations with colleagues, I truly feel blessed to have such an abundance of joy in my life.

But it hasn't been a time free from stress or strife. Our closest friend Joan became very ill last April. Two days after we brought home a new puppy, Papagana http://www.dogster.com/dogs/638311 Joan broke her leg and was hospitalized for several weeks. We took care of her pets and home while she was gone, She returned home for almost a week before going into septic shock and having to return to the hospital via the emergency room. The next day, Sunday, we visited her after church. She looked bad, but the staff didn't indicate how serious her condition was. We left after an hour, only to be called by the hospital a short while later to be told she might not survive the next few hours. It was a time of feeling completely helpless.

We scrambled our plans to get back to the hospital, by which time she had rallied somewhat, and the prognosis had improved to where if she survived the next 72 hours, she had a good chance for recovery. Next, they told us if she lasted out the next week, she might be transferred out of intensive care to a step-down unit. And so we learned to live our lives in measured units, always praying with gratitude for the small signs of improvement, and that the time frames might be less, rather than more. After finally being discharged to a physical rehabilitation center in June, she finally made enough progress by late August to return home. Her youngest dog, a little over a year old, had lived without her for almost a third of her life, and didn't respond to her mistress at all the first few weeks.

We have been challenged to meet all of the needs of a friend in this situation. Gary has more time working from home, and so has been the primary care giver. We live two plus blocks away, so we are not able to be with her all the time, and she has resisted the home care givers mightily. We would finally get aides and therapists on board to begin helping her, and she would refuse their services we would get angry because we spent so much time getting the house cleaned up while she was hospitalized, and once home, she just didn't care about letting it be kept clean and safe (to our minds)

It's been tempting to walk away from our friend at times. It's been difficult to understand why she doesn't want to do things the way we think she should (after all, don't we know what's best for her) . While we have talked about ways to get "order" restored in her life, we haven't talked about what "order" means to her. We've danced around discussing our perception of her need to maintain control over her life, without establishing what that means to her, and the accomplishability of that happening. After all,she wasn't working with the physical therapists. She wasn't letting the home health aides take care of essential things like emptying the commode.

Now, I should have mentioned earlier, Joan is a very accomplished woman. She has a phd in history and has taught at a local univerisity long enough to have retired several years ago. I don't know why we started treating her less than her stature simply because she was so sick, but I know we did. I know we started to feel our evaluative skills were better than hers. But while we were worrying about the things that she wasn't, someting amazing was happening which we were unaware of: Joan was pushing herself to get better.

Suddenly, we have discovered that she can walk without devices like walkers or wheelchairs. She has been managing her medications as prescribed, despite our fears. She's resumed paying her bills and ordering her groceries and caring for her pets. She has returned to what makes her happy, even if she doesn't have the full use of her home yet, I beleieve she will in the near future, becasue she has faith in herself.

I guess where this was all going for me, is we spent so much time reacting to the demands the situation put on us, we didn't allow much time to ask what this all did to our friend. By forgetting about that, we made ourselves into gods whose "standing" was above our friend. I pray that God will forgive us, and that Joan and each of us will be able to return to our previous mutually dependent relationship.

FWIW, I began this before the end of my 57th Birthday, and would like to commit to much more regular postings to this place.