Terrapin Station

Stations of the Cross in Lent

Yesterday I was worship leader for Stations of the Cross at St. Martin's. This is offered on Friday nights in Lent. 

I got there early to open the building, vest, and choose a liturgy (we have several). While I did those things, I chatted with members of Narcotics Anonymous, whose meeting in the building started at the same time as the service. 

I've written about Stations  many times. Briefly, I never encountered it in the Diocese of Texas where I grew up. It feels foreign to me, and I just don't resonate with it. Heck, it's not in The Book of Common Prayer! Ever since I've been active in higher church dioceses, I have tried attending Stations during Lent, feeling that there must be something there for me. Frankly, though, it's very much penal substitutionary atonement, which is not how I understand the point of the Gospel of Christ. I keep trying. 

It's a very small service, and sometimes no one shows up but the worship leader and the acolyte. Last night, I didn't even have an acolyte. But I did have three people attend. 

We entered and left in silence. We circled the church, looking at the beautiful wood carvings that represent the fourteen events on the Via Dolorosa, from Christs's condemnation to his body being placed in the tomb of Joseph  of Arimathea. We read responsively from the booklet containing scripture and the ancient Trisagion. 

I was mindful, during our procession, of the group meeting in the chapel just behind us. They were a lively bunch, laughing and talking as they got started. After the service, as I hung up my vestments and prepared to leave the church, I could hear their sharing become quiet and earnest. 

It occurred to me: they were sharing their stories as if their lives depended on it. Because their lives DO depend on it. As someone who's spent a good bit of time in 12 step rooms, I have great respect for the Program. 

I locked the church, extinguished the lights, and left them there. I realized that the four of us in the nave had, also, been sharing a different "story of our lives" and both types of story surely had the grit of ashes to them. 

I don't like Stations. But I am pretty sure that's not the point. I'm going to keep listening. 

 

 

 

PASSWORD

This video made my hair stand on end.  I think I have heard it before, but today it was the lesson I needed. Take the 20 minutes.  It's a gift I think you will appreciate, passed on via my friend Terri and the Words Matter Project. 

WOW. 

And that brings me to the password story. 

You know those affirmations you are supposed to say to yourself in the mirror every day?  Have you ever actually done that on a regular basis?  Not me.  I've tried it.  It feels ridiculous. 

But something from a blog I read regularly^* spurred me to use a version of one of those phrases when my computer password needed to be changed several months ago.   And it's had a profound effect on me.  Daily, sometimes more often, I have to remember and type in that combination of letters and numbers and symbols that essentially says something to which I automatically respond, "Oh, come on!"

(For example, it might be:  "I@m@wesome222".)

It's something I'd tell you I believe...and yet, I'd be embarrassed to reveal it to anyone as my password (not that I would ever tell anyone my password anyway...)   Because it sounds conceited? Because I don't really believe it about me?  

But here's the deal:  Each day that I use it, I become willing to consider believing it just a little bit more.  I become more willing to "believe that I'm worthy of love and belonging" as Brené Brown says in the video. 

And that's no small thing. 

***

^* Single Dad Laughing, where every Sunday there's a feature called "This is Beautiful You." 

A good year lies ahead...

Today, a very good day. 

Began with writing and Morning Prayer.  Then to 8:30 church, and Sunday School, a great session on today's Gospel and how we take it into the world. 

Everywhere I turn in the last few days, I hear these things:

acceptance 

detachment 

humility

Don't put your hope in things of the world

Empty yourself, that you may be filled, that others may be filled

Leave your pride behind

Trust

Following the 11:00 service, the Parish Meeting.  Loooking back on a very tough year, with much uncertainty, and grateful to be coming out of it...bloodied, but unbowed, as they say.  We have a bright year ahead and much hope for learning the best ways to go forward together as a community of faith. 

I was elected delegate to Diocesan Convention, a position I have not held before.  We have a Special Convention coming up this year, in the Spring, in addition to the regular Fall one.  I am grateful to have this opportunity to represent my parish there. 

St. Cat's Tree

 
Hat Tip to Ciona for this.  It's from a message written by Richard Rohr:

"St. Catherine of Siena in her Dialogues pictures the spiritual life as a large tree:
The trunk of the tree is love.
She says the core of the tree, that middle part that must be alive for the rest of the tree to be alive, is patience.
The roots of the tree are self-knowledge.
The many branches, reaching out into the air, are discernment.
(Note she recognizes much more subtlety is needed than mere black-and-white answers.)
In other words, says Catherine, love does not happen without patience, self-knowledge and discernment.
Today we have little encouragement toward honest self-knowledge or training in spiritual discernment from our churches. By nature, most of us are not very patient. All of which means, love is not going to be very common. We need St. Catherine's tree again."

Where I seem to be going...

The 8 Points of Progressive Christianity By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who: Have found an approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus; Recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way to God’s realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are true for us; Understand the sharing of bread and wine in Jesus’ name to be a representation of an ancient vision of God’s feast for all peoples; Invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable (including but not limited to): believers and agnostics, conventional Christians and questioning skeptics, women and men, those of all sexual orientations and gender identities, those of all races and cultures, those of all classes and abilities, those who hope for a better world and those who have lost hope; Know that the way we behave toward one another and toward other people is the fullest expression of what we believe; Find more grace in the search for understanding than we do in dogmatic certainty - more value in questioning than in absolutes; Form ourselves into communities dedicated to equipping one another for the work we feel called to do: striving for peace and justice among all people, protecting and restoring the integrity of all God's creation, and bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his sisters and brothers; and Recognize that being followers of Jesus is costly, and entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil, and renunciation of privilege. "The 8 Points" (version 2003) The Center for Progressive Christianity - www.tcpc.org

By "going," I mean intellectually, spiritually.  Not physically. 

Being Born

I was reading a novel the other night, and the narrator was going through labor and in the transition phase...I have no personal experience of this and must admit that I am not sorry, given the particularly graphic description. 

On a site called Birthing Naturally, I find these sentences used to describe the feelings of a laboring woman in transition:   

The major emotional marker for this stage is giving up....Another physical sign is the inability to relax or be comfortable.  At this point, it is the job of (the mother's) coach or labor partner to assist her into various positions in an attempt to find the one that will keep her most comfortable.

Transition is the time when the mother is the most emotionally needy as well. The "giving up" or feeling out of control may be recognized by comments the mother makes. It is not uncommon for a mother to say, "I can't do this," or "I need something." Recognize that this is not the mother asking for medication,* but for help.   She can no longer handle the labor the way she has been, and she needs to do something different.

This resounds for me.  I am being born into something different in my life, and I am not sure what it is...or what I will be when it's over.  I wasn't expecting it when it came.  I don't know why it happened when it did.  And I have not enjoyed it. 

There have been friends, coaches if you will, who have listened to me explode and weep and rage, who have suggested reading and helped me to get into different positions, from which I can progress until this stage is over.  They are walking the road with me.  They are not letting me give up.  Thank God, thank Goddess.

So what is it?  Without going into a lot of detail, I'll say that some things I had never before questioned about my faith, I am questioning.  Why I had to get to be 43 years old to do this, I have no idea. 

I find that I am not willing to accept some things any longer.  And some things that used to trouble me, do not.  It's as if I'm shedding a skin. 

I am offloading tremendous amounts of anger, most of which is likely not related to this topic at all.  But I am a classic anger represser from way back and this seems to be a deep fissure through which some of this is finally able to escape. 

It reminds me, in fact, of the two deathbeds I have been at, those of my Bigdaddy and my Aunt Etta Jane.  In both cases, I felt privileged to be there and was powerfully impressed by what hard work it was for them to die.  It was, in fact, like labor, like being born into something else.  Like shedding a skin. 

Preparation for Lent actually brought this up...and it is being the most profound Lent of my life so far, though entirely different from any I have ever spent.  I have not done the things I normally do.  I have not kept a Lenten discipline of specific devotion or reading or sacrifice, gone to Lenten services, etc. 

I wonder what comes next. 

______________________________

* Of course, this site is advocating natural childbirth.  I do believe that many women are, in fact, asking for medication at this stage, and I am all in favor of giving it to them...!

Bird Church

Shh...don't tell...I ditched Church yesterday.

Well, I guess I am telling it here, so we don't have to be all quiet about it.  But it interests me that I feel this guilt about it.

I had the aforementioned too-busy week, and 2 weeks of VPOD behind me.  Somehow I developed a head cold Saturday, and Sunday woke up late, and feeling entirely flattened.  I knew I could make it to church and that I would feel better for going.  But I also would have to do things like bathe, and put on clothes, that seemed insurmountable at that time. 

So I took the dogs to Bird-Listening Park and we roamed around awhile; we watched the disc golf players and the other dogs.  We tried to stay out of the poison ivy.  Then we returned to the car in the shade, with sunroof and windows open, and drank some water, and rested. 

I read them the Daily Office.  Boudreaux sat on my shoulders, stretched out and relaxed like a heavy furry collar.  Josie sat on my lap.  Often she got up to look at the players or listen to a sound.  Then we just sat.  Soon I became aware that a mockingbird (the Texas state bird) had appeared in the thicket in front of the car and was eating red berries. 

 

We watched her for a long time.  I'd have liked to have taken a photo of my own, but my camera was in the trunk.  We read Psalms, and then we just listened.   After a while I decided it was time to go, and as I started to ready the car for leaving, I heard a hawk call.  I've never heard that before (except on Northern Exposure...).  It was  a red-tailed hawk:

just above me; I could watch it through the sunroof.  It called twice more and flew elsewhere.  I felt sure then that Bird Church was over. 

Amen.

Sunday

Great sermon on Sunday by our intern, Mary, on the Gospel.  She really called us out on the times we SAY yes to Jesus, but do not do what we have said we would do.  Like the second son in the parable. 

We sang an anthem that I was NOT ready for, and our soprano section was minimal in rehearsal.  Yikes.  Fortunately the amazing Duchess showed up and we pulled it off.  Somehow. 

I worked on the sock heel flap, then went to afternoon Jazzercise.  Afterward, Ken and I drove to Dallas for a motorcycle ride, but the group was going faster than he was comfortable with on Central Expressway, so we dropped out early on and took our own ride.  (He is a very good and prudent motorcyclist.)

We drove by the Chevron station where we had our first "date" - I watched him paint it when it was the only (new) thing on Hwy 121 for miles.  Now it's one of many, many commercial locations.  No more farm fields out there. 

Stopped at Red Neck Heaven for some beers and had dinner at Red Lobster.  Now I have a headache, but it was worth it! 

Transformative

My Teacher introduced me to another Teacher named Byron Katie.  I am just scratching the surface of the paradigm shift she proposes, and it is starting to make more and more sense to me. 

  Loving What Is

    A Thousand Names for Joy

 I Need Your Love - Is that True? 

Basically, it's:  Don't let things you can't change, upset you: here's how.  Boy, have you been working on that your whole life?  I sure have. 

It's an extraordinary feeling to start letting go of some of these old thought patterns...I will share more as time goes on.  I am so hopeful!

Love to you all!

Edited:  If you click on the blue book titles next to the pictures of the book covers, it'll take you to the Amazon listings and you can, indeed, search inside and read other reviews. 

Blogging for the Millenium Development Goals

Today is World MDG Blogging Day -  A day of Prayer, Fasting, and blogging in support of the MDG's. I commend to you the Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation site with good information on "What One Can Do."