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Dear Folks,

The oldest use of the word “peregrini” describes a person without a country, an alien or an exile, specifically non-citizens of Rome. In the empire’s orderly frame, they were “a little too free,” more likely to navigate by their own conscience than by Caesar’s decree. The singular form in Spanish and Portuguese, “peregrino” becomes our word for pilgrim, one who travels toward the holy, and freedom defines their path, as well. There is a restlessness in their wandering that unsettles the status quo, and maybe that’s the point: the spiritual traveler makes her path as she goes, adapting her steps as the road rises to meet her.

Some of the Celtic pilgrims built little round boats and set off on their watery paths to find “a place of resurrection,” and it turns out that wherever they landed would do. Their coracles were almost impossible to steer, bobbing hither and yon, subject to wind and playful currents, so they developed a sense of home that was portable. “Wherever I am is holy,” even if it is a lonely rock in the middle of the sea.

They also developed a sense of humor, probably to help them find meaning in a world that was often cold and dark and violent. One joke began circulating over 1000 years ago:

“Three penitents resolved to quit the world for the ascetic life, and so sought the wilderness. After exactly a year’s silence, the first one said: ‘’tis a good life we lead.’ At the next year’s end, the second answered: ‘it is so.’ Another year being run out, the third exclaimed: ‘if I cannot have peace and quiet here, I’ll go back to the world.’”

Of course, pilgrimages began long before the Irish built their boats. “Journeys of varying purpose have been made for thousands of years on that northerly bearing, along the sea road leading up from the Butt of Lewis to Sula Sgeir and North Rona. On first sighting the islands from the south, it feels as if you have sailed into a parable. There they are, forty or more miles out in the Atlantic and eleven miles apart. It’s implausible enough that land should exist there, in the empty water between Scotland and Iceland, and then surprising that the contrast between them should be so strong: green fertile Rona, (dark) hostile Sula Sgeir. At a distance they seem more allegorical than real, the Pasture and the Rock, a choice offered to the seafarer.” (The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, Robert McFarlane)

The way I see it, each of us is a pilgrim, people without a country, because the meaning we seek is not grounded in empire or possessions or “power over.” The good news is that the place of resurrection that we long for is not defined by physical borders or what king sits on the throne. You see, the Holy One defines true authority as “power with,” a radical unsettling of the status quo, a vision of healing that sees every person’s essential worth. No wonder Jesus says, “My kingdom is not of this world.”

When I see the holy in the face of each of one us, then God’s kingdom has come.

Love,
David

cairn [kairn] n. a mound of stones piled up as a memorial or to mark a boundary or path

If you’ve hiked up a trail on a mountain, or in a park or preserve, you’ve probably seen them: stones or rocks stacked on top of one another in a small pile, to keep you on the right path and help you find your way. Cairns are especially important when the trail is difficult to discern as distinct from its surroundings, like when it is on a mesa or takes you across giant slabs of rock; when the trail is no longer in clear sight, and you find yourself a bit lost or wandering. This past weekend, I was gifted with three messages that feel like “cairns,” helpful at least to this pilgrim as I travel life’s way.

The first two came by way of Bishop Carrie Schofield-Broadbent last Saturday, as clergy and lay leaders of our Episcopal Diocese of Maryland were gathered for our annual convention. Many of us are familiar with Jesus’ teaching, “You are the light of the world,” and his related admonition, to any who would follow him, not to hide our lamps under a basket or our bed. Traditionally, this teaching has been interpreted to mean, “If you’ve got a light or lamp, then use it! It’s silly to hide it and not use it!” But Bishop Carrie took us one step further: “If you really think about it, to place a lantern under a basket or bed is not only silly and wasteful: it’s actually dangerous. In fact, doing so could set your whole house on fire.” Whatever light you have, whether it’s an itty bitty flame, maybe even barely flickering, or a great huge lantern or candle: use it, shine it, don’t hide it! Not to do so actually endangers the whole house. (Have you heard of “positivity resonance”? Click here to learn more.

Her second “cairn” began with a tongue-in-cheek statement followed by an attention-grabbing question: “We Episcopalians are not known for our evangelism. Did you know that the average Episcopalian typically invites someone to church once every ten years? It turns out we actually evangelize about lots of other things in our lives! ‘I found a great hairdresser!’ or ‘I just finished reading a great book …’ or ‘Have you heard about this great new restaurant?’ But when it comes to church? Zilch. Isn’t ‘evangelism’ simply one hungry person telling another hungry person where s/he can find bread?” Does our weekly Bible Study nourish you? How about singing in choir? Breathing, praying and stretching together on Wednesday mornings in the chapel or at monthly yoga church? Serving as an LEM, usher or reader? Reading to students at Johnston Square Elementary School? Going on neighborhood walks as a part of our work with BUILD? Why not share where you have found bread with someone who is hungry for it? And if you yourself are famished, why not come and be fed?

A third “cairn” was gifted to me on a morning walk around my neighborhood several days ago, as autumn sunlight mingled with golden-yellow and orange-reddish-brown leaves. I found myself in deep communion with my mother, conversing with her in an easy way, as she responded with a leaf falling here, and then, there; and with the faintest of breezes causing branches above my head to shiver and shimmer with light …

Stay the Course

She said to me

(in a constant steady whisper like the distant murmur of a life-giving stream)

Stay the Course

but how?
i asked
i do not know the way

then another voice
ancient and true
answered from deep
within

I am

the Way

the Truth

the Life

Stay the Course

May these cairns help you stay on track and find your way, as we make our way, together. Wherever you are on your journey of faith, you are welcome.

Love,
Cristina

Dear Folks,

On election day in Reservoir Hill, the polling place was full of familiar people, some who are friends and some who are strangers. Three older women sat at the exit table, giving out “I voted” stickers and offering thanks. One whispered to the other, “That’s the pastor who lives around the corner,” and then more loudly, “Hey neighbor.”  At the check-in table was a fellow I’ve had beers with a few times. Coming out was the president of our neighborhood association who works from home, happy to be away from her computer for a few minutes and taking part in the democratic process. We were old and young, single and partnered, mostly Black and some White. The air felt heavy and unsettled to me, perhaps because of Tuesday’s unseasonable warmth, or maybe it was something else: exhaustion, anxiety, wonder?

Wednesday was eerily quiet, unusual in an area pierced by North Avenue. But a glorious sunrise brought out old friends, and a few meaningful conversations shaped my walk with our dog. Kenneth was back at his spot at the top of our pocket park, in his wheelchair with a cigar and a friend, slow jams pulsing his boombox. We’re still here, his circle proclaimed: sober, ready, resolved. A retired doctor said, “There’s no way around being worried, but I am trusting that age-old principles can sustain us.” And Angelo, the crossing guard, who hugs me and my wife every morning said, “Nothing to do but keep on keeping on.” Amen.

How are you feeling? What are you doing to ground your feet on solid ground? I am repeating the prayer I offered last Sunday: Love and vote and listen, and then love and listen some more. Healing is more important than winning.

We help to create a country where voting is a right for every adult by voting our conscience and ensuring that others can do the same. But winning is not the point, healing is. Reconciliation is our highest value as human beings and people of faith, and so we work and organize for justice. That work never ends, and it will always be beyond political party or expediency. Followers of the One from Nazareth will always dedicate and re-dedicate themselves to the common good, for the last and the lost and the least likely, and so we commit ourselves again to their well-being and our own.

Breathe. The Spirit of the One who sustains us, by loving us into loving each other, is as close as your next breath. Here are some poems that might help:

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow. (“Dreams,” Langston Hughes)

…When this ends
may we find
that we have become
more like the people
we wanted to be
we were called to be
we hoped to be
and may we stay
that way — better
for each other
because of the worst. (Laura Kelly Fanucci)

Heal us: the overly content, the malcontent,
the skilled and sere of heart, the secret weepers,
the self-defeated, the defaulters, the proud of place
drinking the empty wind of honor.

Help the workhorses slow; speed the laggards, give back to routine and rote their lost soul.
Institution, constitution, order, law—O kiss the dead awake!
Your Holy Spirit, come! (Daniel Berrigan)

Last night as I lay sleeping,
I had a dream so fair . . .
I dreamed of the Holy City, well ordered and just.
I dreamed of a garden of paradise,
well-being all around and a good water supply.
I dreamed of disarmament and forgiveness,
and caring embrace for all those in need.
I dreamed of a coming time when death is no more.

Last night as I lay sleeping . . .
I had a nightmare of sins unforgiven.
I had a nightmare of land mines still exploding
and maimed children.
I had a nightmare of the poor left unloved,
of the homeless left unnoticed,
of the dead left ungrieved.
I had a nightmare of quarrels and rages
and wars great and small.

When I awoke, I found you still to be God,
presiding over the day and night
with serene sovereignty,
for dark and light are both alike to you.

At the break of day we submit to you
our best dreams
and our worst nightmares,
asking that your healing mercy should override threats,
that your goodness will make our
nightmares less toxic
and our dreams more real.

Thank you for visiting us with newness
that overrides what is old and deathly among us.
Come among us this day; dream us toward
health and peace,
we pray in the real name of Jesus
who exposes our fantasies. (“Dreams and Nightmares,” Walter Brueggemann)

God loves us into loving each other.

Love,
David

 

 

 

We have to decide now, before we are sorted into winners and losers, that there is something more important than winning: healing. (Noah Van Niel, Virginia Pilot)

Please join us throughout Election Day, Tuesday November 5, as we pray for the world, our nation, and its leaders. We will celebrate Holy Eucharist at 8:00 am, 1:00 pm, and 6:00 pm in the church. Otherwise, the church will be open throughout the day, to offer you space and time and grounding.

Here are some of my favorite prayers, from Padraig O’Tuama and Mary Oliver:

“The Christian story of incarnation in the body of a boy- a boy whose ancestors were both famous and infamous – is one that can spur us towards living with the courage that is indigenous to us. To be human is to be in the image of something good, and image comes from imagination. To be human is to be in the imagination of God, and the imagination is the source of integrity as well as cracks. To be born is to be born into a story of possibility, a story of failure, a story of imagination and the failure of imagination. To be born is to be born with the possibility of courage. Hello to courage.” (O’Tuama)

“Courage comes from the heart and we are always welcomed by God, the Heart of all being. We bear witness to our faith knowing we are called to live lives of courage, love and reconciliation in the ordinary and extraordinary moments of each day. We bear witness, too, to our failures and our complicity in the fractures of our world. May we be courageous today. May we learn today. May we love today.” (O’Tuama)

“May we find our foundation in the work of Love; demanding, tiring, true and human and holy.” (O’Tuama)

Praying
It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak. (Oliver)

In Blackwater Woods
Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars of light,
are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment,
the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over the blue shoulders of the ponds,
and every pond, no matter what its name is, is nameless now.

Every year everything I have ever learned in my lifetime leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss whose other side is salvation,
whose meaning none of us will ever know.
To live in this world you must be able to do three things:

to love what is mortal;
to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go. (Oliver)

Breathe. Exhale. And remember, we are not alone.

Love,
David & Cristina

P.S. Are you volunteering as a poll worker or judge on Election Day? Email Patty McLean to let her know so we can be sure to pray for you by name at our prayer services on Tuesday.

Dear Folks,

Have you read the story of Noah and the ark lately? Children consistently rank it in their top three Bible stories, right after the Creation and before David and Goliath. But the groups studying Genesis with me this fall have consistently remarked, “There is so much more to this narrative than what I remember from Sunday School!” Written in exile, the poet gives voice to his people’s considerable pain—they are strangers in a strange land, refugees of a war in Israel, survivors in Babylon who have lost their country, their religion’s Temple, and perhaps even God.

To make meaning in this wilderness, the author(s) of Genesis conjures our ancestor’s identity—”this is who we are, this is our purpose, these are our values. And maybe we didn’t leave God behind. Maybe God came with us!”—weaving together ancient oral tales with some new ones borrowed from Mesopotamia.

This “land between the rivers” Tigris and Euphrates has a history and mythology of floods, a strange tale to our desert forebears, but one which presents to them a compelling metaphor: washing the land and its inhabitants of violence. While fire and wind are more likely symbols of purification for the Israelites, the author appropriates an image from his exile that still resonates today.

The reader can sense the author’s motivation: “The power of water is a force beyond us, which nourishes and cleanses and sometimes overwhelms, not unlike God, so if you need to tell a story of wiping the slates clean, why not use a 40-day rainstorm to convey it?”

Our ancestors’ fears in Babylon sound like a current newsfeed: “What did we do to get where we are? Are our leaders responsible for the chaos that surrounds us? Am I? Will human violence overwhelm civilization? Has God given up on us?” No wonder the poet of Genesis writes as he does: the Bible’s Flood is a morality tale about the human potential for self-destruction. But it is also a story of hope.

Noah is an ordinary human, not a hero or a visionary. We are told that he “walks with God,” but that is an action that any of us can strive for: to be ethical and compassionate, to bring peace and not a sword, to be an agent of lasting change. And look, if we do not take steps to contain the swelling tides of human violence, we will surely drown in it. So Noah’s story is about possibility. Any of us can be healers or reconcilers, with courage, hard work, and a little luck.

We are all in the same boat. What can you do to help yourself and the human family heal?

Love,
David

One of the images that remains with me from the Saturday in June 2010 when I was ordained as a deacon at The Cathedral of the Incarnation (which happens prior to being ordained as a priest) is a photograph with Barb Hart and me. Even though we were not yet officially colleagues (my start date was later that year, in August), Barb, along with a handful of folks from Redeemer, came to the Cathedral to show her support. She didn’t have to be there but she came anyway.

When I think of Barb and reflect on the past 14 years we have served together on staff, one of the things I think about and am grateful for are the things that Barb didn’t have to do but chose to do, anyway.

She didn’t have to make personalized birthday cards to help celebrate each staff member’s birthday over the years, but she made them (and made sure we signed them!), anyway.

She didn’t have to spend time listening to and sharing in parishioners’ joys and heartaches, milestones and memories, hopes and disappointments, but she listened and shared, anyway.

She didn’t have to make sure flowers sent for memorial services were taken care of just right, placing them in the church or in the entryway with care, but she took care of them, anyway.

She didn’t have to wash the coffee mugs or forks left in the sink of our staff area, but she washed them, anyway.

She didn’t have to make friends with our postal workers who deliver our mail, but she became friends with them, anyway.

She didn’t have to bring birdseed and feed the birds by our staff parking lot every morning, but she fed them, anyway.

She didn’t have to remember details of people’s lives and inquire about family members, pets, trips, anniversaries and important events, but she remembered and asked, anyway.

She didn’t have to play with my son Ben, when he was still little, or spend time with Darcy (David and Sarah’s dog), when they came to the office, but she played and took the time, anyway.

Barb didn’t really have to care and to do so many things that she did, big and small — for 29 years here at Redeemer!!! — but she cared and she did them anyway.

I’ve always thought that Barb’s last name fits her perfectly, because in the end, I (as I imagine so many of you) will always remember her for her huge, tender and caring heart.

Thank you dear Barb for your almost 30 years of faithful, caring service here with us at The Church of the Redeemer. We love and will miss you, and we wish you and Tony all the best in your retirement!

Take care of your precious heart.

Love,
Cristina