What Will That Ringing Bell Proclaim?

We're going to get a bell!

Our congregation bought a little church building with a cupola but no bell and no apparent way to install one or ring it. It's been a matter of ongoing discussion. A member who lives nearby wants to hear a church bell. There are none in town. Another is appalled at the notion of an electronic solution. A third repeats the architectural difficulties.

And then - the way these things happen - an out of town member who can attend the Advent study group because it's on Zoom said I've got a bell.

And a spouse with a history of not being particularly supportive was waiting in the truck outside the building, looking the place over, and said, This church needs a bell. But... Oh I know how to get that bell to ring.

So, what will this bell ring?

It will ring faith - The faithfulness of a people who, when our voices get old and our way uncertain, still persist in the faith that God has a purpose for us. The faithfulness of a God who makes us ever new and keeps sending us forth.

It will ring hope - The endurance born of hardship, the experience that builds character - We do not fade. We know that God is waiting for us in the darkest night.

It will ring love - When the virus closed the doors of the building, it opened new ways for us to love our neighbors. And love is contagious, too, just as contagious as the virus. Others have joined us in new ministries. 

Our mission statement is born of love: We, being in love with Christ, are ministers of God's love. We are called to share that love by caring for one another and reaching out to all. Our bell will ring love.

And it will ring joy.

Joy to the world, my friends! Joy to all.

What is the Worst Christmas You Ever Had?

True confession: I have stopped "making Christmas." All those years as a priest and single mom, making Christmas for a congregation while trying to make up to my son his lack of the Hallmark Christmas family home, I figure I've done my time.

Besides, I have noticed, whether I do anything about it or not, Christmas comes.

Christmas came the year it came sandwiched between the funerals of my father-in-law and my stepfather. We almost didn't buy a tree that year, since the time between the flights to California and to Utah was so short. But we reconsidered. On the 23rd we bought the last one in the lot, a pile of needles by the time it was decorated, no lights that year for fear of fire.

Christmas came the year I spent it alone after dropping my preschooler off at his father's.

Christmas came the year we ended up in the ditch on the way to church eighty-five icy miles away, and the whole congregation was glad that services were cancelled because they didn't feel safe crossing town.

Christmas came the morning after thieves broke into our house. They stole a laptop and my wife's heirloom jewelry. A handprint on a wall revealed that they had peered into where we lay sleeping with an open bedroom door. While we stood in line at the police station, waiting to file our report, we heard the lady in front of us say, They told me to come here to claim the body.

I think that one was my worst.

That afternoon I said mass for a motley gathering of ex-patriots in my sister's bar in Costa Rica. Somebody was nursing a beer in the back.

And Christmas came.

And they all were holy. Honestly, I think these Christmases revealed more about the miracle of the Incarnation than those occasional ones when the tree was decorated on time and we sat around in our jammies with hot cocoa and cookies for breakfast.

Because our worst Christmases are the world into which God decided to be born, vulnerable to all the worst the world could and would throw at this precious child, poverty, homelessness, exile, foreign occupation, torture, and death.

This child makes it all holy.

We grieve this year with the families of 1,725,000 people worldwide who have died of COVID. We grieve with the families of 323,000 who have died in the United States. We grieve for over 1700 health care workers in the US who died of COVID while people claimed they were faking the seriousness of the virus to make more money.

We grieve for prisoners, for the homeless, for refugees, for the unemployed. We grieve for parents who worry about their children and for children who miss their grandparents.

These are the ones for whom he came. This is the world that he makes holy.

Where Is the One Who Is Wise? Not in the Stimulus Package

The big guy knows the ways of the world. He cuts to the bottom line. It all comes down to the bottom line.

My question is, if it's the bottom line, how did so many real people come to lie beneath it?

I wrote about Mary and the mystery of the incarnation yesterday. Let's go back to her for wisdom today.

Who goes to a pregnant teenager for wisdom? Well, um, God.

And boy, does she deliver.

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; *
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed: *
the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him *
in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm, *
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *
and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things, *
and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel, *
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,

The promise he made to our fathers, *
to Abraham and his children for ever.

Cast down the mighty, lifted up the lowly. In other words, God takes that bottom line and flips what is above and what is below.

Filled the hungry with good things. What is the means test here? Hunger. If you're hungry, you get to eat. Period.

The rich he has sent away empty. Whoa - this is a different universe.

People who say they struggle to live on $174,000 just passed a stimulus package and said that working families would find $600 to be generous. Too generous, in fact, to give to dependent adults - did you know that dependent adults, people who are disabled, get bupkis in this deal?

What does the stimulus package have to do with wisdom? Well, it depends on your timeframe. If you're playing the long game, then it is a negative example. It is the wisdom of a world that the Incarnation flips.

Has God not made foolish the wisdom of the world? (1 Corinthians 1:20)

So what's with the sketch of the onion? 

First, to remind me that the bottom line, the wisdom of the world, runs skin deep. For the wisdom of God, you have to peel some layers.

Second, to warn me that as I peel, I will weep.

Why Is Jesus Not Enough? Why Do We Want Mary?

Here is an observation. The forms of Christianity that have all the answers do not do devotion to Mary. The forms of Christianity that dive deep or even just play around the edges of Mary embrace mystery.

Have I got that right?

I like detective mysteries. But they are not really mysteries, are they? They are puzzles. Maybe out of the chaos of my childhood comes this deep satisfaction when I can solve a puzzle, when something makes sense.

But when somebody explains a theological question, solves a God puzzle, I immediately think they have missed something. As far as God goes, I really don't know much about it. Oh, I understand the God-talk. I can recognize a heresy when I see it and can follow the logic to its behavioral consequences. But answers kind of bore me.

There is another way of expressing two different kinds of Christianity.

The first views redemption as a transaction that took place on the cross. Lots of words go into explaining this view. When so many of them are spent defending God's own character, I grow suspicious.

The second identifies redemption with the Incarnation. That's something that happened inside a girl's belly. Ponder that! Not much to say - we just have to sing it.

Okay, now my brain is swinging over to a current theme on mental health Twitter. Mental health students and professionals with lived experience (meaning that they themselves have a mental illness) are viewed with suspicion by professionals whose experience is lacking. Is this the same thing that's going on in religion? That women, who have lived experience of the Marion mystery of incarnation (bearing another life in our own bellies,) are viewed with suspicion by men, who do not?

Headline: Christmas is Not Cancelled for Christians

The first Christmas came to a young teenager who gave birth to her first-born in a shelter. Her mama wasn't with her. Her aunties weren't there with the clean blankets and newly embroidered layette. She was far from home because the government required it.

Not her government. Not a government trying to protect her life and that of those around her. No, this was a foreign government who cared not a whit for her life, just wanted to make sure they could keep track of her husband.

Rejoice.

When the British headline declared Christmas is Cancelled on account of the lockdown called in the face of a new even more contagious strain of COVID, it replaced Dewey Wins as the most inaccurate headline of all time. Can you just see a grinning Joseph holding that newspaper over the heads of his wife and the sleeping babe?

Rejoice.

Rejoice in the Lord, always. Again I say rejoice. Paul was in prison when he wrote those words. Christmas will come this year as it always does.

Christmas will come to prison and to shelters. Christmas will come to families on Zoom who say I love you, I wish you were here. Christmas will come to essential workers in convenience stores, selling cigarettes and candy canes. Christmas will come to CNAs wiping dirty bums. Christmas will come to ICUs and cops on the beat. Christmas will come to church buildings that stand empty. Christmas will come to those at whom I am angry because they won't wear a mask. Christmas will come to maternity wards where they do.

Christmas will come. Because it means more than what is cancelled.

Rejoice! 

How to Fix My Wonky Internal Compass

Everybody has an internal clock that regulates the daily variations of temperature, blood pressure, hormones, hunger, sleep patterns, all manner of internal activities. One of the main features of bipolar, a feature that most people outside the field don't even know about, is that people with bipolar have wonky internal clocks. We're hot when others are cold. Our cortisol levels are slow to rise in the morning and once risen, don't know when to go down. Our sleep patterns are all over the place.

Social Rhythms Therapy treats bipolar by regulating the timing of key external events, effectively resetting our wonky clocks several times a day. Up at 5:30, conversation postponed until 7:00, breakfast at 7:30, work at 9:00... I have been stable (more or less) ever since I began to live by the hours. I approach cross-time zone travel with fear and trembling.

The first step in the Way of Love is turn. Turn to Jesus. Set your intention to follow him. Why is this part of a weekly practice? Didn't I make that choice on a windy hilltop above Reed College in Portland, Oregon fifty years ago? 

In addition to a wonky internal clock, do I also have wonky internal compass?

There are so many things that knock me off course every day. People who watch crime shows overestimate the true crime level and develop a higher distrust of their neighbors, particularly their neighbors of a different race. Facebook posts of misinformation, bot-generated from Russia, some designed to reinforce the prejudices of the left, some the prejudices of the right, have nearly destroyed civil discourse. Conversations with friends so easily turn into a ain't it awful spiral.

So, yes, every morning I reset my internal compass. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus today. I won't be surprised if I am knocked off course by noon. I should pay attention to what knocks me off course and better prepare for it.

In any case, I will decide to follow Jesus again tomorrow morning. At 6:15.

How Does a Red Box Become a Blessing

Just in time for the first lockdown, we got our Blessing Box installed. Three feet by three feet, two shelves filled with food stuffs behind a glass door in a red box. The red door of our little church cannot be open, but the Blessing Box is available 24/7, when all other sources of food aid are closed. We put it on a post, so that people using it would not have to bend over. It's right next to our Little Library.

Immediately, it began to bless the neighborhood, bless our congregation, and bless our town. A sign invites people to give and to receive. And many do both.

The thing quickly filled up with dry beans. The cans were more beans, a salt-free variety. The secretary kept taking the beans to St. Vincent de Paul. Our lay leader who keeps an eye on the box kept telling us, No more beans! But they kept coming.

I think what is happening is that people get food packages that include dry beans from Vincent de Paul. Either because they are homeless, or don't have adequate facilities, or don't have time to cook beans between work and home-schooling children, or are sick to death of beans, these beans are just not useful to them. So they bring them to us. They have something to give, beans.

My wife and I started including tuna in easy-open pouches, stew in flip-top cans, and protein bars in our grocery order. Then we'd trade. We really need to eat more vegetable-based protein and have no idea where to find those salt-free beans. So we are blessed to receive - beans.

Somebody out walking found our blessing box and told everybody about it on a local Facebook page. Food was soon flying in and out of the thing. But nobody ever sweeps it clean. I once put two $5 cash cards for a local grocery store in the box. The next day, one of them was gone. The other remained.

A woman, not a member of our church, regularly drives by on her way to the store to check out the contents and add what might be needed to her grocery list. No beans!

Our church is in an area visited by homeless people. So we focus on what they can use. Nowadays that includes hand warmers and space blankets. It's Christmas. Our next grocery order should include some candy, don't you think?

Ours is a Mutual Ministry congregation. So it seems no surprise that when we do a blessing box, it's only partly about what we do for others. Mostly it's about offering an opportunity for all to engage in ministry. The nation is in a sorry state. The healing begins by reweaving the web of care within our communities, our neighborhoods. That little box with its glass door and red walls signals sanctuary, a safe place for us all to find each other again. It is a blessing.

Oh, and one person decided we needed to install a bench between the books and the food. It has since been used for a nap.

How Does the Mind Learn? The Neuroscience of the Way of Love

In the Way of Love, Learn refers to learning about the faith, reading the Bible, studying the teachings of the Church. It's not that academic knowledge makes you a better person. But learning itself might. Stick with me here.

I have been learning about learning in a larger sense for a number of years, trying to figure out what happened to my brain and how to fix it. The Way of Love is a formation process for the mind. It changes the way the mind works, forming it after the mind of Christ.

One thing I have come to understand is how the brain and the mind are connected. The mind is the brain transcending itself, but not separate from it. The brain is the mind incarnate.

It's not that either precedes or dictates to the other. What happens in one happens in the other, on its own terms.

How does the mind learn? It makes connections among previous knowledge, bits of new information, experience, and emotions. At the same time, the brain is physically doing the same thing, making connections.

See that drawing of a brain cell at the top of this post? (It always reminds me of a reggae dancer.) Two cells connect when a strand of "hair," or dendrite, on one dancer approaches a "foot," or nerve ending on another. An electrical charge passes between them. What fires together wires together, as they say in neuroscience. You repeat a connection, the electrical charge, often enough, it becomes a habit of the brain. When a charge is looking for a direction to follow, it goes in the direction it already knows.

You repeat a connection often enough, it also becomes a habit of the mind. Say An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth often enough and you become a certain kind of person. Say But Jesus said, Turn the other cheek or Forgive us our sins as we forgive each other often enough and you become a different kind of person. The brain and the mind learn together.

Choose what kind of person you want to be. Then practice it. Repeat the things that will form your brain and your mind into that kind of person.

Christianity is not about a one-time declaration of faith. It is a way, the Way of Love.

How Does a Priest, Who Cannot Pray, Pray?

Once when I was severely depressed, I had a psychiatrist who did not return calls. She had an answering machine, which led me to believe that she would answer my more and more desperate calls about the more and more dangerous side effects of the meds she prescribed. But she did not. She later acknowledged that she did not listen to her answering machine.

She didn't answer the frantic requests for a call back that I left with her secretary either. Several requests. She expressed surprise that I did not trust her. She explained that she did not do relationships.

I would soon leave what I had thought was a relationship with her. I am talking about a doctor/patient relationship. Meanwhile, I changed my behavior accordingly. As I got even sicker, I did not go to my psychiatrist for help.

I drew a sketch of a telephone receiver. I drew words going into the mouthpiece. I drew scissors cutting the cord. I drew words falling onto the floor from the cut end of the cord. I realize that this sketch dates me.

During that time, I wasn't doing so well with my relationship with God, either. I stopped going to God for help. It may seem natural to draw a connection between the two, but I wouldn't say that one caused the other, nor that they had the same cause. They simply shared the occasion.

I have come to trust other caregivers since, though I generally have laryngitis in any first session. As far as God goes, let's call it a truce. When I anthropomorphize God, I imagine that God laughs at that word truce. I have simply stopped arguing. Maybe I still have laryngitis. I have concluded that I just don't know as much about God as I used to.

Waiting and Watching refers to an old acronym, ACTS. It stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. The traditional teaching is that a healthy prayer life includes each of these in turn.

I know some master pray-ers. I have a friend I call on when the need for supplication is dire. When my wife had cancer, Nell hounded heaven. She had camino pilgrims praying as they walked. She went to a holy well and bid the old women say the ancient prayers in Gaelic. She knows the words, she said, but doesn't have the spiritual authority to say them. She wore out her beads. Who could be surprised that after surgery, the doctors said, We got it all?

But me, I just smile and nod when people ask me to pray for them.

How does a priest, who cannot pray, pray? Well, not in the ways we are traditionally taught to pray. 

I do pray, in a sense. I guess it's like being present.

• Adoration - It's a political act for me -- against all that is wrong in the world, the injustice, the degradation of creation, the corruption of power and idolatrous claims of politicians to God's favor, I am present to both the vastness of creation and to what lies beyond it, what makes human beings puny. God is God, and everything and everybody else is - not.

• Confession - I am present, I sit, to the extent that I am able, with my failings, my limitation, my regret. I am mindful that I simply am not as wonderful as I like to think I am.

• Thanksgiving - What on earth does thanksgiving mean? That I give credit to God for giving me stuff that other people don't have? Thanksgiving is theologically treacherous. Nevertheless, even people who don't bring the God-thing into it feel gratitude. Again, I am simply present to what I have, aware of it, mindful that I have everything that I need.

• Supplication - I remember those who have asked for my prayers. I hold them, I sit with them in my heart. I do lift them to God and I leave it to God.

Are my ways helpful to others who also don't know as much about God as others seem to? Are they helpful to you?

Do you find it ironic that a person who has a gift with words cannot seem to turn those words into a gift of prayer? Well, it is what it is.

Bottom line, I guess, is that the telephone line is not cut. When I pray, at least I am at the other end of it. I am present.

If Worship Is Not About Me, Why Do I Do It?

Here's a hot take: Worship is not about how I experience the holy. Worship is what I do to demonstrate that my holy experience is not the goal, that there is something more important than my personal experience, and that I submit to that greater power.

Sure, I have worshiped in all kinds of places. My little church with the lovely wood paneling and the stained glass windows. In a conference center with thousands of people. The crypt at Canterbury Cathedral. Around a campfire. At the edge of the Crooked River at Smith Rock. Next to a hospital bedside. Over the phone. On Zoom. In a bar.

Sometimes I am caught up in the moment. The Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in St. Peter's Cathedral fairly shimmers with spiritual energy. Sometimes the choir is magnificent, and sometimes the baby is throwing up in the pew. Sometimes my mind wanders. Yes, I have written my grocery list during a sermon. Yes, I have perseverated on a past injustice during the Prayer of Consecration. While I was saying it.

All of these are worship.

But honestly I think the most worshipful thing I have done is pull myself away from the Sunday paper, get out of my pajamas and into "Sunday clothes," drive somewhere I'd rather not be, and present my mind and body, such as they are, to whatever is going to happen that day at church. Precisely because I don't want to do it.

Worship is about how there is God and not God, and I am not God. I am not the center around which all things are judged. Whatever the experience is like, worship trains my mind into that perspective. And yes, I do get something out of it.

What I get is sanity.

Fed Up, Overworked, Unappreciated? Take a Nap

Elijah had had it. He had preached faithfully to Israel and made a lot of enemies in the process. In fact, the Queen Jezebel put a contract out on his life. Fed up, he prayed, Just take me now. He was ready to lay down and die [1 Kings 19].

Been there, Elijah, been there. Well, not with a contract on my back. But fed up, feeling overworked and unappreciated, ready to die.

If you're angry, take a nap. That is basic mental health advice and exactly what Elijah did. He fell asleep under the broom tree. He woke up to a snack prepared by an angel. He slept again. When he woke again, the angel fed him again. He got up and got back to work.

The fourth commandment is to keep holy the Lord's day. How do you keep it holy? The biblical instructions are to refrain from work and to refrain from requiring others to work. I have heard that when asked which commandments they break, people pick that one most often. Ironically, breaking the fourth commandment is treated as virtue in the United States. Even, alas, among some clergy colleagues who complain/brag about how long it's been since they took a day off.

Even God rested. God put in a hard six days labor creating the world. And then God took the day off. Good thing, or we'd all be in trouble, don't you think?

Can Twitter Be a Spiritual Discipline? Yes, Really

Twitter is my spiritual discipline. Yes, really.

The Advent Words this week are taken from the Way of Love, a collection of ancient spiritual practices collated for today's followers of Jesus: Turn, Learn, Pray, Worship, Bless, Go, Rest. Today's word is Go.

And that is what I do every morning. After first I turn, setting my intention toward Jesus, and then I worship with the psalms, learn with the day's Scripture lessons from the Daily Office, and pray for the world, mostly for our political leaders, finally I go to Twitter, looking for somebody to bless.

There are those who think Twitter is all about politics and celebrities. It's easy to disdain what you don't know.

In fact, it's easy to disdain a lot of people and places that Jesus meant when he said, Go. Easier to disdain than to face our discomfort with something unfamiliar. I have learned a lot and been confronted by a lot that I did not have to face before I went on Twitter. But once out beyond my comfort zone, I find there are indeed ways to bless.

I am not on Twitter to be the pastor or the holy person or the answer person. I am there to be a decent human being. I go to #suicide, find someone recovering from an attempt, and send a gif of a cake to celebrate their survival. I make a comment that adds to something somebody else has said. I retweet something I think is worth promoting. I answer a question or ask one of my own, tell a joke, give support.

People like it when their tweets get attention by receiving likes and comments and retweets. That is what I do. I pay attention.

If this makes you curious enough to explore Twitter a bit, here is a link for an article that assumes you know nothing. You gotta love an article that says Step 1 is to go to Twitter.com. I'd add a bit more about hashtags. Hashtags are how you find tweets about your interests. Here is an article about that.

My "handle" is @WillaGoodfellow. My intention is to follow Jesus. I don't do this perfectly. That's why I turn every morning. But more about that on Saturday, when turn will be the word for the day.

When You Fight for the Right, Can You Taste the Honey?

There is nothing sweeter than the struggle for the right. If you have ever been part of a justice movement, you have tasted that sweetness.

Psalm 81 says:

Oh, that my people would listen to me!*

     that Israel would walk in my ways...

Israel would I feed with the finest wheat*

             and satisfy him with honey from the rock.

The psalmist writes about a community that walks in God's ways, a community that rejects the false gods, the self interest that draws us from the right. [I'll do me, you do you.] Justice is a community endeavor. It's hard to do it alone.

Is that why John the Baptist ate honey, an interim meal, a foretaste, to help him keep his eye on the prize? Is that why he rejoiced to baptize Jesus, to know that at last he had company in the fight?

Sweet Honey in the Rock is an a cappella group that has given voice to many movements, because We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes. When we taste a victory, it is time to find the next struggle.

So, what's next?

And God Said... And It Was Good

My very first religion class, first grade, St. John the Evangelist School, Loveland, Colorado -- I knew nothing, little nonCatholic out of place at school, and lost without my grandma out of place in the world, me -- the first thing I learned about in this foreign place was creation. Every day for seven days, Sister Marilyn took us through the first chapter of Genesis.

There was nothing. And then God spoke. And there was something. There was light.

The next day God spoke again. And there was something else. There was sky.

We made a drawing for each day. Each day, a new word. Each day a new drawing. Each day a new creation.

And each day God pronounced that it was good.

Good, six days in a row, every day, every thing. It's all good.

Two things have never left me.

First, the power of the word -- when God speaks, something happens. Words create. When we speak, something happens. And I have the power to create with my words, too.

Second, that it is good -- God said it. And God would know. Every day, God pronounced what God had made as good. Including the day that God made me.

Including the day that God made you.

The River Jordan, Leonardo da Vinci, and Black Lives Matter

This is the marble baptismal font in a humble little church in an obscure Tuscan village in Italy by the name of Vinci. This the font where Leonardo da Vinci was baptized.

When Jesus came to the River Jordan, something leapt inside John the Baptizer, as something had leapt inside Elizabeth, John's mother, when Mary the mother of Jesus came to visit her.

Something leapt inside me when I found the place where Leonardo was baptized and I remembered my own baptism. I think that something is called Holy Spirit.

Richelle Thompson puts it this way in Waiting and Watching:

The grit of the sand, the sweat on the brow, the crispness of the water all flow from the Jordan banks through space and time to the luster of a marble font and the lace on an heirloom baptismal gown. A cosmic pull-thread connects the baptism of Jesus, the beginning of his public ministry, with ours, as we make the outward sign of full initiation into the Body of Christ, the Church.

Did you know that it was illegal to baptize slaves? Can you wonder? That pull-thread that runs from the baptism of Jesus through the millenia, through Leonardo, through each of us, would have exposed the foolishness of the notion that one baptized Christian could own and abuse the body of a sister or brother, as today it exposes the rejection of the Spirit that leads one person to murder another for the crime of selling cigarettes, or allegedly passing a bad check, or sleeping in her own bed.

Every time somebody is baptized in our church, each of us takes hold of that thread again that binds us to the life and the ministry of Jesus. The way we put it in the Episcopal Church is this:

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every individual?

We answer, I will with God's help.

With that promise, the pull-thread is woven into a web. It's a big promise, and it means a lot of things. Surely it means that Black Lives Matter.

And those words cause something inside me to leap again.

What do you think? When Jesus stands in front of you, will you be holding that cosmic thread that runs from Jesus' baptism to our own? Will I be holding that thread? Will we be woven into the Jesus web in which black lives matter?

Mercy and Truth Have Met Together

Mercy and truth have met together; *
righteousness and peace have kissed each other.

I committed an offense. It wasn't intentional. I shot my mouth off, actually intending to be supportive. But my words were not thoughtfully chosen and they had the opposite effect. The relationship is ruptured.

And my heart is heavy.

My heart is heavy for my carelessness. And, truth be told, I am feeling a bit aggrieved myself, for having been quickly judged and not given an opportunity to make my apology. I could nurture that sense of being aggrieved, turn myself into the victim here. But that way lies neither righteousness nor peace.

Mercy, what a gift that would be! If I could be shown mercy by the person I offended. If I could show mercy for the state of the person who was quick to take offence. If I could show mercy to myself, and having made what amends I could, move on.

The ancient Egyptians believed that at death, a person's heart was weighed against a feather. Light hearts entered heaven. Heavy hearts were eaten by Ammat, the consumer of souls.

Mercy yields a lighter heart.

What Is Patience Like From God's Side?

The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.

The word patient calls to mind the times that I have been patient, or not. But today's Advent word was chosen from a verse about God's patience, not mine. What is patience like from God's side?

I had been sick for a long time. I would be for even longer. I didn't know it yet, but I was misdiagnosed and taking meds that were making me sicker.

During that sad sorry time, I wrote an essay titled I don't believe in God anymore.

I never believed that prayer works like some drive-thru window, where you hand over an affirmation of the creed and are handed back a healing in a brown paper bag. But sheesh, I'm a priest! Don't I deserve better than this? And yes, even as I wrote that complaint, I knew how silly it was.

The affirmations of the creed seemed pointless, and I stopped saying them. But my loss of faith was more fundamental. I lost that foundational trust that there was Anybody out there who had my back.

For most people depression is a feeling, a sadness. It's like, in your soul weariness you have to lean against a wall for support. In big D Depression, when Depression gets deep enough, you lean against the wall -- and it collapses.

That's where I was. I tried to lean against God, and the wall between me and the void collapsed.

So, I don't believe in God anymore.

Then something happened. I was hurt, betrayed, angry, resentful, my back turned, my heart empty. And it was okay. Whatever God is about, I knew that God isn't needy. God doesn't need me to perform, like the scientist waiting for the rat to master the maze before handing over the piece of kibble.

I don't know. I still don't know. This God stuff only makes sense to me as metaphor. The metaphor is a little more helpful to me now. So here is one:

I leaned into the patience of God. And that held.

God Never Forgets. God's People Will Find Comfort

The Advent word for the day is comfort. It's a hard one for me. As I anticipated, as I dreaded, the meditation in the devotional book, Waiting and Watching, told a touching mother/child story.

Mother/child comfort stories poke at a hole in my heart. My own mother wasn't into that style of mothering. Oh, she had her moments, but her Advent words would be encourage, strengthen, and You heard the doctor, it's psychological, so get back to school.

I had to search for a comfort story this morning. This is what I found:

A number of years ago I served a congregation eighty miles from my home. I made the drive twice a week. I was on my way to Bible study one Wednesday winter morning after a big snow. The two-lane highway was plowed, and things were melting. But at a low point on the road and on a slight curve, I hit a piece of black ice. The car veered. I continued in the same direction, only now in the wrong lane, and with no control whatsoever, no brakes, no steering, no escaping the lane with an eighteen-wheeler barreling down the hill at me.

Now I grew up near the mountains and learned to drive in winter. I knew how to regain control of a car on ice. In particular, I knew the cardinal rule: DO NOT SLAM THE BRAKES. But all the tricks to regain control were not working. And that eighteen-wheeler had nowhere to go but where it was heading, straight toward me, speeding toward it. 

I didn't care where the car would go. The only place I didn't want it to go was where it was already going. I SLAMMED THE BRAKES.

The car spun around. The rear of the car slammed into a three foot bank of snow in a ditch on my side of the road. Safe. There wasn't even any torque. My seat back absorbed the full impact of my body.

A passing highway patrol car watched the whole thing, stopped immediately, and within twenty minutes, the tow truck had pulled my undamaged car out of the ditch. The patrolman said the roads were better further south, and I'd probably be fine driving on to my destination.

But I wasn't fine. I sat in the car, paralyzed by indecision. I called the church. Marilyn answered the phone. I said,

"I don't know what to do. If I were ten years younger, I'd simply drive on to Bible study. If I were ten years older, I'd turn around, go home, make a cup of hot chocolate, and pull up the covers."

Marilyn was ten years older. She said, 

"Turn around, go home, make a cup of hot chocolate, and pull up the covers."

Which is what I did.

Not all of us have those mother/child comfort stories. For some of us, Mother/God images disturbing, different from how Father/God images are disturbing, but maybe at an even deeper level.

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God is the passage for today. But Isaiah knows. Later he says, Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.

Here's the thing. There is more than one way. God has this system in place with multiple levels of failsafe. A highway patrolman, a tow truck driver, a cup of cocoa, a voice on the other end of the telephone. God never forgets. God will comfort.

Speak! Hearing the Voice From the Edge

Who knew that naming a book could be such a painful process? I always had the first part, Prozac Monologues. The book began when I wrote what I thought was a stand-up comedy routine. It grew from there.

But when my publisher wanted a subtitle, a struggle ensued between what kind of book she thought it was about and what I did. Without replaying that struggle, somehow the word Voice bubbled to the surface. And I knew it was right.

There have been times when I struggled to find my voice. Unheard calls for help in childhood, the near universal women's experience of being talked over. After a traumatic stint in therapy, I lost my voice. Literally. Ten years later, I still get laryngitis whenever I see a new provider.

So I listen carefully for those in Scripture whose voices are dismissed. The Prophet Amos wasn't supposed to speak - he was a foreigner. Hannah wasn't supposed to pray in the temple - the old lady was thought to be drunk. Those who were ill, the parents of children, the Syro-Phoenician woman (my favorite) whom the disciples shooed away - they were bothering Jesus.

Ironically, it was the priest in the temple, Zechariah, who lost his voice, until after his wife spoke, usurping the father's prerogative to name their son, John.

The voices from the edge carry the Word, including the Maid Mary herself.

Also ironically, the original monologues, spoken with such authority, are filled with words from a confused mind. In the book, they alternate with chapters identified as The Voice From the Edge. It's the latter chapters that carry the healing truth.

My wife was in Ireland during this struggle with my publisher. She brought home a present, a bottle of Irish whiskey called Writer's Tears. It seemed apt.

Today my tears are for joy.

I want to hear you, too, speak.

Can You See the Glory?

When I think of Glory, I see light. The burning bush. The angel in front of the Maid Mary. Sunrise at Arches National Monument.

I wonder how often we miss Glory. We confine it to those rare events that somebody has to name for us later, the particular bush, the rare angel, the only manger.

My wife takes me for a drive. Central Oregon where I live is magnificent -- the twisted juniper, the lambs in the field, the surrounding volcanic mountains. But she has to tell me, Look up! Glory!

One of the "tells" of my depression is that the light dims. I remember an ad for an antidepressant that started out in tones of sepia and grey. That's what it's like really, dull, lifeless, constrained. Depression is a prison with bolted doors, so self-absorbing that I don't even notice the light has gone out.

Until it comes back. One day the depression releases me, I walk out the door, and I see in color again. Glory!

It's true of the other senses, as well, taste, smell, touch, hearing. All of these come alive in the midst of glory. Or rather, when we awaken to them, we awaken to Glory!

The earth already is filled with the Glory of God, as the waters cover the sea..

Rockin' the Fellowship in the Time of COVID

That first week when we locked down (was that really seven months ago?) a parishioner offered his conference call account. We worshiped that Sunday on telephone, about twenty of us, gathered around our cell phones and landlines, as we prayed Morning Prayer. The sound quality was terrible, feedback, static... It felt like we were back in the blitz, huddled around the wireless, craning to hear Winston Churchill. At the end of the service, church leaders asked for feedback. We were universally ecstatic. We heard each other's voices! We can do this!

Each week got a little better. We learned the value of the mute button. We migrated to Zoom. We added music on Youtube. Yes, there are glitches. A couple who are not muted start bickering. A reader forgets to unmute. A song that the tech person thought had been cued up begins with an ad. We're still learning. We're fine.

We are also still astounded and delighted to see and hear each other every week. In fact, we are growing. People join us from around the country. Our shut-ins are back in our midst. A local person, someone who wants to worship safely, who wants a congregation where every member counts, has found us. 

Every member does count. We count first in our concern that everybody's life is preserved through this pandemic. But that is simply the latest expression of the fellowship in which everybody has always counted.

As for me, while I am more or less okay lately, before the pandemic I couldn't always manage the energy it takes me to deal with a church full of people. People with mental illness do disappear from church. The Passing of the Peace is hard for some of us. But from the security of my home, I have missed just one Sunday since March. 

We open the mic for holy chaos at the peace, and a child starts chanting the word, sixty beats to a minute. The worship leader and tech person don't miss a beat. We roll with it. Even more indicative of the kind of fellowship we are, her mom rolls with it. Every member is a minister at St. Andrew's. We all lean into the blessing that we receive from a four-year-old.

Worship ends by sending out the ministers of God's love to share that love, with announcements and discussion of what we can be doing next. We have a blessing box outside our building, a little food pantry. We get the updates, "Cans with flip-top cans are best -- our homeless don't have can openers. Feel free to take away the dry beans..." We hear about neighbors who have joined our fellowship of the blessing box, a lady who drives by to check it out and see what is needed, what she needs to add to her list on her way to the grocery store.

We were ready for the pandemic. We already had it in us. Oh, there are details and we are still learning. But throwing us out of the building has unleashed even more creative energy than a mutual ministry congregation already has.

Love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers (Romans 12:10-13).

Oh, and if you'd like to join us on Sunday, 10 AM PST, drop a private comment at my other website (click here), and I'll send you our link.

After the Tornado, A Life Rebuilt

I used to wake up every morning thrilled to go to work--I had the job of my dreams. Then mental illness hit. I was misdiagnosed with depression, took the wrong medications, and disaster struck. A tornado blew through my brain and took that dream job, my whole career away.

My first year on disability is a blur. I think I spent most of it in bed. My doc and I agreed that hospitalization wouldn't quite meet my needs, so back before Zoom, my wife arranged to work from home to keep an eye on me. She didn't think I was safe around the stove. Frankly, I knew I wasn't safe around knives.

In the winter of 2010-2011, Helen drove me sixty miles each way every week through rain, snow, and deepest Iowa winter dark, so I could attend NAMI's Peer to Peer meetings. For twelve weeks, I met with other people with mental illness. Together we rebuilt our lives. We learned how to recover.

Peer to Peer describes a three stage process of recovery: crisis, rebuilding, and transformation. The group itself was the beginning of my rebuilding, learning how to be in a room with other people again, learning about my illness, learning all the habits of self care: how to be here now, how to evaluate my state, how to make wise choices based on current realities, and how to imagine that something else might yet be possible.

My life is different now. I never went back to that dream job. Recovery doesn't mean returning to what was. It means salvaging what can be salvaged, discovering capacities that weren't used before, dreaming a new dream, and building something new. Today I am an author.

My therapist used to say Chaos precedes creation. Rebuilding is not about return, like resurrection is not about an idealized past. It is about something new.

Who knew?

My True North and God's Solid Earth

In his hands are the caverns of the earth,
and the heights of the hills are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands have molded the dry land.

I grew up on the eastern edge of the Rockies. I could always find north--when I faced it, the mountains were on my left. 

Moving away was tough. In Salt Lake City, I never felt north like the pull of that needle in a compass. The Wasatch were in the wrong place. Eventually I learned that my compass pointed south. Painfully, I had to think through north each time.

Then came years in Iowa. Iowa is not flat, but there are no mountains on the horizon. The rivers that criss-cross it on a diagonal always made me nervous. Things didn't stand still, and I was always having to drive around them in river towns.

Did the geography, with my loss of that distant horizon, my loss of north, contribute to my inner loss of equilibrium? I don't know.

But after my brain blew up, we moved to Central Oregon, the eastern edge of mountains again, the Wasatch this time. I see these mountains out my back door every morning. Not quite like my drawing of them, inspired by local artist's Kathy Deggendorfer's imagination. My mountains, these Three Sisters as they are known, peak over the top of a truck yard on the other side of our fence. We love the truck yard. As long as it is there, our view is protected from another new apartment complex in our rapidly growing little cowboy/tourist town.

Every morning I pray the Venite, Psalm 95. I feel the solidity of God's creation, the mountains that endure even as the nation has lost its equilibrium. I open the blinds and gaze at this view.

I have regained my own equilibrium.

Strengthen My Brain, One Step at a Time

 

It was at a NAMI meeting. The speaker was a doctor, formerly specializing in emergency medicine. He served in Iraq, where an IED, informal explosive device, exploded while he was caring for another soldier. It gave him a traumatic brain injury and ended his medical career. He described his cognitive difficulties and his slow recovery.

The lightbulb went on. I turned to my friend and said, "That's just what my brain feels like!"

I didn't run afoul with an IED. In my case it was depression and anxiety, a pile of kindling on which was poured the kerosene of six different antidepressants, igniting my unrecognized bipolar disorder. My brain blew up.

Deliver Them, O Lord, Who Are Mentally Ill. Deliver Them from Jail

When Jesus healed lepers, it was not their sins, but the sins of the community from which they were delivered. Lepers were thrown on the garbage heap. Literally, they lived in the dump. The people were afraid of them and wanted them simply to go away.

People who are severely mentally ill are today's lepers. I am not talking about the subjects of anti-stigma campaigns, the respectably depressed middle class. I mean the poor, the homeless, the uninsured who are actually no more violent than anybody else. But people are afraid of psychosis, voices, strange behavior. The community wants them simply to go away.

For people who are homeless and uninsured, the only place they can receive treatment for their psychosis, the only way to get the meds that relieve them of their voices is by committing a crime. We don't have hospitals anymore. We have jails.

Jail is a terrible place to receive mental health services. Mostly, people sit in cells, often in isolation, and just get worse.

But that is the choice that our society has made. It's complicated, sure, it's complicated. The complications give us cover for not making another choice. Like, housing.

Sometimes deliverance, the kind of deliverance that Jesus offers, is literal, is the opening of jail doors.