Coming Soon!

Thanksgiving is over, the leftovers have either been consumed, frozen for later, or transformed into some other edible form. Most of the company has gone home, and if anyone’s lucky, there is still at least one piece of pie left in the refrigerator for whoever snags it first. For one day, we seem to thrive on gluttony, with big meals, and lots of friends and family around to trade traditional stories and laugh together, even if some of the laughs are just a bit frayed on the edges. Still, we’ve given thanks for families, friends, those who’ve we’ve lost, those who are new to us, for help or for strength to go through tough times, and just about every reason we can think of to be grateful. Now the march is on to Christmas.

But hold it. Wait just a moment, please. Tomorrow is Christ the King Sunday, a day that celebrates Jesus in his role as ruler and King of the Universe. It was first marked by Pope Pius XII in 1925 and is mostly celebrated in Roman churches, although Anglicans may observe it as well.  It puts a period on time we call the Pentecost season, and the Romans call Ordinary Time. We aren’t ready for Christmas just yet; we still have another season to go.

I have to admit I love Christmas. I bought a new tree this year, and I have just put it up and turned the lights on so that I can see where lights need to be replaced or a branch shifted to cover up a bald spot before I even start decorating. But then I stop and think okay, just because my family tradition is to put the Christmas trees up on Thanksgiving weekend, it doesn’t mean I need to jump ahead straight to Christmas. I’ll have a week to work my way into Advent, four weeks of reflection, contemplation, and meditation on what this whole Christianity thing is about. Yes, it celebrates the time between the Annunciation of the Angel to Mary about the forthcoming child and runs up through the eve of that child’s birth. There’s a lot that goes on in the meantime, but there isn’t much in Scripture that describes that, so we left to think about things in detail, like why was Mary chosen? What characteristics made her the one God shows to be the mother of Jesus? What happened after Mary went to her cousin Elizabeth’s, and what happened after she left Elizabeth’s to return home? There’s so much to think about that I’m glad I have a week to prepare for it.

I know it’s early to be talking about Advent, but we’ve been seeing Christmas trees and decorations in some of the stores since Labor Day. This week they’ve added the songs like Jingle Bells and Deck the Halls that are not really Christmas carols but seasonal songs that we’re accustomed to hearing this time of year. Starting about December 1, the local classical station will begin playing more Christmas music every few days. It will start with one every three or four hours, then work its way to Christmas Eve day, so that it is all Christmas music for 48 hours. Come the Feast of St. Stephen (or Boxing Day), you never hear another thing about Christmas. It’s cut off for those of us in churches that observe the whole season of Christmas, and it’s a bit of a bummer. We don’t sing Christmas carols during Advent; we wait until Christmas to start celebrating, and we do so until Epiphany on January 6. So by the time we’re ready to celebrate, others have already gone past that and are into Valentine’s Day.  We rush things and we don’t take time to anticipate the reality.

I remember as a child, the church I went to didn’t celebrate Advent. I never heard about it until my first year or so in the Episcopal Church. I learned that it did balance to the year in a way,  like Lent, only a little less penitential. Advent is a season of looking ahead but not so far that my feet aren’t grounded in today.

 I think I will enjoy this advent season, just as I have almost every year since I first came across Advent. I don’t have an Advent wreath, mainly because the cats would either try to eat it, singe their fur on the candles or try to knock it off the table. But there’s an Advent calendar inside me with a proper number of candles lit for each week and my reading will help me keep on that path to not rush into what is coming.

I’ll still enjoy my Christmas tree, and as I sit in my rocking chair and watch the fake flames in my little fireplace,  I feel contentment. I can put away the anxieties. I can practice being contemplative and calm, practice patience and enjoy what I have. I’m thankful for Thanksgiving, which reminds me to be grateful for so many things.  I’m grateful to celebrate Christ the King Sunday, but I’m grateful to have the season of Advent to look forward to. I hope you do too.

God bless.


Originally published at Speaking to the Soul on Episcopal Café Saturday, November 24, 2018.

Sabbath Killing and Healing

Luke 14:1-6

Jesus was going to the house of a very high-status Pharisee to have a Sabbath meal. The Sabbath was a required tradition, with lots of things that you could and could not do on the Sabbath. There was no work allowed, human or animal, although the animal must be fed before you yourself ate.  If a person wanted to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath, either after sundown on Sabbath eve or on the Sabbath itself on Saturday, they must walk. Meals were prepared before sundown, and to have someone invited to share your Sabbath dinner meant considerable work must take place before dark.

Jesus knew that the Pharisees were keeping a very sharp eye on him, but yet, in front of him, appeared a man with dropsy. Dropsy was the word for people with edema, swelling of tissues caused by water retention. It was painful and could be life-threatening. Knowing that he would be severely questioned and possibly worse for breaking the Sabbath prohibition on work,  Jesus turned the tables and asked the Pharisees and the lawyers if it was legal or lawful to cure people on the Sabbath. People often asked the Pharisees questions since they were the ones who clarified the law, yet this man, a Nazarene, was asking them something them they weren’t sure how to answer. Jesus healed the man and sent him on his way. Then he turned to the group and said words to the effect that if they had a child or an ox that fell in a well on the Sabbath, wouldn’t they immediately go and pull them out even if it meant work on the Sabbath?  The gospel notes that the Pharisees and lawyers said nothing.

Just a week or so ago, an angry man went into a synagogue on a Saturday morning and began shooting people peacefully carrying out their Sabbath duty to gather, pray, and learn. The angry man’s motive was hatred of the people in the synagogue, simply because they were Jewish.  Eleven people died within a very few minutes, three police officers were shot, and the gunman also received multiple wounds from police fire. It was a terrible, gut-wrenching tragedy.  Yet, while we try to comprehend it all, we remember the story of the Jewish nurse, himself concerned about the safety of his parents at the synagogue, who treated the gunman who had taken so many lives with kindness and respect, despite the man’s antisemitic statements and the knowledge of how far that hatred had gone.  Still, we remember the example of the nurse who cared with compassion and love a man who hated him and his people. 

We have Pharisees among us, people who watch us to see where we have faults and where we don’t follow the law according to their interpretations of it. We also have a model that we are urged to emulate, the man Jesus, who preached love and compassion rather than legalism and often shallow piety.

Now we have another shooting, this time in Thousand Oaks, California, where the targets seemed to be young college students out having an enjoyable evening with their friends.  In between the two events are other shootings, random and targeted killings, and suggestions for us to carry more guns to prevent more murders by gunfire.  It’s hard to think of a church or synagogue, a place of peace and worship, as being needful of armed guards inside to protect it. Just as at the shooting at the AME church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015,  my question is whether a place dedicated to the Prince of Peace be somewhere where a militia or guards should be placed to protect that peace?  What would Jesus do?

But we have forgotten the man with dropsy. Maybe he didn’t realize the place into which he was putting himself – between two people or groups of people who saw things differently and not in an amicable way.  The man just went to Jesus to ask for healing, whether it was on the Sabbath or not.  Pain and danger don’t seem to keep to the calendar marked with sacred days.  Today a person would go to a doctor or clinic, no matter what day it was, and expect to be healed, or, at least, be given a prescription that would make them better in a short period. They would expect to be treated with respect, kindness, and compassion, no matter how cranky or crabby they were, and despite how overworked, tired, sad, or frustrated the nursing staff and doctors were at the time. How frustrated might the Jewish nurse and doctor have been on that Sabbath morning of the shooting?  Yet they did their best and treated the patient they had on the table in front of them.

I think it’s a lesson that I can certainly learn from.  Had these medical workers been Christian, we would be declaring them prime examples of how Jesus taught us to be and do. We forget that Christians and Jews share a good many things and teachings since Christianity grew out of Judaism – with an itinerant Jewish preacher, teacher, and healer.

May we all have a peaceful and blessed Sabbath, a Shabbat shalom. 

G-d bless.


Originally published on Speaking to the Soul at Episcopal Café on Saturday, November 10, 2018.

The Wool Jacket

Luke 12:32-34

It’s beginning to get chilly here in this part of Arizona, close to Phoenix. Of course, people will laugh when I say it’s chilly at anything between 60 and 80°F, especially when snow was falling in some places around the country. Okay, people can laugh, but I don’t laugh when the temperature is 115 or so in the summer and others are at about 80, so I guess it all equals out. Today felt a little nippy for me, so I was looking in the closet for a light sweater or jacket, and I happen to come across a favorite wool coat that had belonged to my late husband. I always loved that jacket, and even though I’d don’t wear it, I like to see it in the hanging there. I did take it out and look at it, only to notice that it seems to have attracted some moths, judging by the little holes in various parts of it. That’s funny. I haven’t seen any moths in years, but here was proof that there were some in the house somewhere. I’m still not going to get rid of that jacket.

I was reading about Elizabeth of Hungary, who is commemorated today. I looked at her Scripture and lo and behold, what do I read but “Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. ”  (v.33). Now if that wasn’t timely!

Elizabeth certainly did not waste her time and energy. She was a princess by marriage but was concerned about those who were poor and sick. She used her dowry to help the less fortunate and even sold her jewels to found a hospital where she assisted in nursing the sick herself. When her people were hungry, she opened the granaries of her country to feed them during a famine. Her husband died in 1227, and his family was not pleased with what they considered her wasting of the family wealth and expelled her from the family and home. She became a Tertiary Franciscan, a lay vocation, where she sewed clothing for the poor and went fishing to feed them.  She also resumed nursing as well as other charitable works. She didn’t sit and wait for the moths to take over or the thieves either. She did what needed to be done.

Even though Elizabeth died in 1231, some hospitals around the world have been named St. Elizabeth hospitals, many of them in honor of Elizabeth of Hungary. She seems to have taken the verses from Luke very seriously and taken to heart stories like the one of the rich young ruler who, when approaching Jesus, was told to sell his possessions and give them to the poor. He couldn’t do that, so he walked away. Another young man sought to follow Jesus and was told to leave everything behind and come. The man said that he needed to bury his father. He went away as well. Each of the two men had their own priorities. These priorities did not fit Jesus’s, because it focused the men on earthly things rather than heavenly ones.

It’s something we see quite often these days, where instead of laying out treasure in heaven, many seem more interested in laying out treasure in banks, on Wall Street, or in investments that they hope will pay off hugely. They seek to increase their own wealth by taking from the poor and legislating in favor of the rich. This is not what Jesus preached, not what St. Elizabeth of Hungary did, and not what we have come to understand of the Gospels as it’s true mandate of loving one’s neighbor. I can’t love my neighbor if I have my hand in his pocket and take his money because I feel I am entitled to have it.

In these times, where the stock market fluctuates up and down regularly, where the price of things continually rises, and where people in the lower end of the 98% are squeezed ever tighter, I have to wonder what Jesus it is that they profess to follow. It seems unreal to me that, like moths on a wool jacket, they keep nibbling away at the fabric of our lives and all to feed themselves more richly. I wonder what St. Elizabeth would think of this. I’m pretty sure I know what Jesus would say.

I really like the prayer for Elizabeth that accompanies today’s readings:

Almighty God, by your grace your servant Elizabeth of Hungary recognized and honored Jesus in the poor of this world: Grant that we, following her example, may with love and gladness serve those in any need or trouble. In the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

It sounds like a good prayer for me to contemplate today and to seek out where I can do more, even if it’s in a tiny way, to help others who are not as fortunate as I. I think it’s Jesus’s invitation, not just to me, but to others as well. I am encouraged to try to lay out my treasure in heaven because, in heaven, I won’t have to worry about moths in a treasured wool jacket.

God bless.



Originally published at Speaking to the Soul at Episcopal Café Friday, November 16, 2018.

Of Saints and Souls

Dear Abba,

It’s Halloween, the eve of All Saints’ Day and with All Souls’ Day the day after. It’s always a tricky time of year for me, with the leaves dying on the trees, the shortening days, and the anniversary of Mama’s death.  My mind was already full of thoughts about separations and goodbyes, and this just focused those thoughts.  I have learned about saints in the liturgical calendar, have known a lot of souls and some I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend for sainthood, and some just ordinary folks.

Throughout my life, there have been a large number of goodbyes.  Some have not been too hard; those are the folks who have briefly passed through my life and then we have both moved on to other things and other relationships: my school friends, people I knew in the various places I have lived and worked, and even some internet friends.  Some, like the friends from school, I rather expected to keep in touch with, but it did not happen as I expected.  I never really expected to see some again, like college, military friends, and most people I worked with.  Honestly, most of those I did not want to see again anyway. 

There were some that I expected to see again but who died before that happened.  Those were more traumatic losses because even though I knew, in most cases, that they were ill or aged or even both, and that there was a chance that I might never see them again. There was always the hope that I would because they were people dear to me, and it did not seem to matter whether I was a child or an adult.  I still grieved their loss and missed them very much, even when we did not have a contact that often.  There were some that I never really had a chance to say, “I’m sorry” or a formal goodbye, and those I regret.  Some losses have left gaping holes in my life that still feel raw and some that have taken a long time to heal.  There’s a feeling of separation there, sometimes enough to make me feel the need to be very much apart from people, fearing more loss and more hurt. Many of these are my personal saints, people who have touched my life, often for decades, and who I can only pray for or talk to in my mind. Luckily, I have some who are still with me, and some very supportive souls to help keep me focused and supported.

I sometimes wonder about Jesus.  He was a part of life, interacting with people, being intimately involved in the sense of sharing daily life with them, but did he ever feel connected with them?  Did he feel an apartness there?  I know that his connection with you was total, but even though he preached, taught, ministered, healed, and traveled with people, did he feel a part of the whole or was he too conscious of his separateness, his role as your son and representative, to feel bonded with the mere humans with whom he interacted?  Of course he felt compassion for the marginalized ones, the disabled, the ill, but did he sit and joke with his companions?  Did he share just plain conversations about any and everything like friends do? 

I understand that he was fully human, or that is what I have been taught, but in his humanity did he not have that sense of the divine that made him a person separated from others, even those who loved him and followed him?  Did he welcome human companionship or did he act humanly without taking it to an emotionally intimate level?  I wonder how Jesus was, beyond the preacher/teacher/healer that we read about in the Gospels.  Did he need defense mechanisms to preserve his personal and emotional safety?  Was he truly fully human?  Or did his divine nature give him that detachment from many of the everyday things that those of us who have no claim to divinity deal with on a daily basis?

I know that Jesus accepted separation from his followers when he experienced his betrayal and trial.  I know that the crucifixion was the final act of separation from them and from the life they had all lived before.  He rose again, but it seems he never again indeed returned to the relationships he had had previously, at least, not in the same way.  How could he?  He had done what no one had ever done before.  How could he go back to the pre-Easter style of life in a post-Easter situation?

Abba, I know that I can separate myself from other people by choice just as death or choice can separate me from people about whom I care. I can also choose to separate myself from you.  I can stand outside the group of people with whom I interact, and I realize I can also do that with you.  You give me the free will to do it, even if it would cause you pain if I followed that path.  Of all the relationships I have had or ever will have, the one I have with you is the one that I really cannot afford to sever and from which I cannot walk away.  I may not enjoy being separated and isolated from other people, but to separate myself from you would be death to me. 

Selfishly, I am not ready to die yet – not physically, not emotionally.  I can be a part of this world yet separate from it, but I cannot exist separately from you.  I can have relationships with other people from time to time, but the one ongoing relationship that I must have is with you so that I can live and not be just a shadow.  I can trust you even if I cannot do so with other human beings.  I can cling to you and not overwhelm you.  I can love you and have it be quite appropriate.  I can be myself with you because you already know all my flaws and weaknesses.  And with you, I never have to say goodbye.

Please help me to keep that connection with you firmly in my mind and heart.  Without it, I am totally lost. 

Originally published at Speaking to the Soul on Episcopal Café Saturday, November 3, 2018, under the title, "Small Epiphanies."