Thoughts on Advent -- among other things

I admit it. I'm an Advent nut.  I long for Advent in the middle of summer so I set my iPod to play the tracks of Lessons & Processions for Advent Sunday by the King's College Choir. I find myself thinking of "Lo, He Comes With Clouds Descending" and "On Jordan's Banks" at odd times of year. I think of the promising passages of Isaiah around Easter. I open the closet and look up at the box that holds the figurine Advent wreath I bought on sale at our parish because I had long coveted it (confession time again). I still can't find candles to fit it in the proper colors but I can be patient and enjoy the circle that tells the Christmas story.

Going into stores this time of year is trying. Most of the places I usually go are crowded with people, shopping carts and stray children running about. Carts are now more filled with toys and clothes rather than just groceries with an occasional non-grocery-store item. Inserts in the paper have increased exponentially around Black Friday and, even though they slow down somewhat, there are still proportionately a larger number than we've seen at our place in months. Not complaining --- just observing.

The word of the time seems to be "Sale" -- Pre-Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, Doorbusters, CyberMonday (or CyberWeek), Pre-Christmas, Buy-one-get-one-half-price (or free), Buy More Spend Less, yadda yadda yadda.  The very word seems to tempt people to come out and see what wares are being offered, quite often something they probably wouldn't have bought but which are too good a deal to pass up. Of course, it is lovely to find something I would have bought at a much lower price. It gives me the illusion that I'm really richer than I thought I was.  Sales also remind me that I need to get a "little something" for this person at the office or that person next door simply because it's the season for giving presents. The word "Sale" is a double-edged sword but I guarantee what you'll probably never see is a sign or an insert for an "Advent Sale".  Advent just isn't that merchandise-able, I guess. Or should I say, thank God.

I'm one who applauds those who encourage us to spend less, give creatively rather than flashily, and love more. We have become rather mercenary about Christmas and the mid-point of Advent 1 seems to be a kick-off time for that push to Christmas Eve and a tree with so many presents under it the presents extend far past the circumference of the lowest branches. Stores have had Christmas trees up since about Halloween (when they only used to appear tastefully the day after Thanksgiving!) and Christmassy tunes appear more and more frequently as the run-up to Christmas starts. I will never hear "Lo, He Comes With Clouds Descending" in Kohl's or Costco or Wal-Mart, though.  That's an Advent song and Advent doesn't sell. Most Christian denominations don't recognize the season of Advent so most folks don't even know we're in that season now and will be for a few weeks.  Come the day after Christmas all Christmas music will be turned off because it will be over and the stores will be stocking shelves with Valentine candy and frou-frouish nighties and perfume on by 6pm on Christmas night. For those celebrating Christmas from December 24th (ok --- very late December 24th) and January 6, we're on our own.

While I applaud the arrival of Advent I can't really say I totally reject all outward and visible signs of Christmas.  While Arizona may not have a "bleak midwinter", it's still chilly with short days and long nights.  Another year will be reaching its end and things don't seem much brighter than they were last January.  Still, the twinkle of the bright little colored lights is somehow cheering even on the coldest, darkest days.  The bright colors of Christmas (yes, purple and rose do show up now and again) somehow make it easier to get through what could have been just another day. Planning what to give a special person, even if it isn't big and expensive, makes things a little more bearable. Hearing familiar, cheerful or even reflective music instead of the usual barrage of noise and suggestive lyrics refreshes the soul. It may be just the overture to Christmas Day but it's a lovely overture and I wouldn't miss a day of it.

May it be a blessed Advent of preparation, expectation and optimism. It will pass by all to quickly so enjoy it, celebrate it, experience it while it is here.  And take some Advent with you through the next year.  Everybody could stand to live with some hope, beauty and joy. 

Thoughts on Sabbath

A couple of weeks ago the discussion in our EfM class was "Sabbath Time," one of the Common Lessons for this year and one designed to call attention to the role of sabbath time in the life and ministry of the student.

Firstly, according to the BCP, all baptized persons are ministers, most called to some form of lay ministry but some called to the ordained ministry. Ministry consists of not just talking about God to other people but even doing one's ordinary work -- teaching, counseling, practicing medicine, helping people find what they need in stores, libraries, or anywhere else, helping people solve problems, even those as simple as starting or stopping a newspaper, and the like. Ministry is the process of helping and serving but if I stop at just considering what I do to and for others, I'm missing a bit of the boat. All have to minister also to themselves in order to be able to fully and adequately minister to others.

Which brings me to Sabbath time and what it means. Normally in church Sabbath refers to a day of rest although with 24/7 stores, kids' soccer games scheduled on Sunday, house- and yard work that always needs doing and the like, the normal Sunday becomes another day just like Saturday or even Tuesday.  Society seems to encourage us to keep busy, to keep doing stuff and to buy this or that to organize our time and maximize what we get done and more, not to mention buying this car or minivan with certain features that give us some comfort while keeping us on the move between home, work, church, soccer practice, gymnastics, the hardware store and the hundreds of other places we need to be. Tradition, however, says that Sabbath time should be for rest, not just for us but for the whole of our household.

Jesus withdrew periodically to "be" with God so that he had the strength and energy to "do" the many things people wanted and expected of him. He was following the commandment to "Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. It was a practice that not only included one day a week but also a sort of super-Sabbath every 50 years. Think of it, a day with no runnning around (except to synagogue or church), no sudden trips to the hardware store for a fitting or bracket or running to the grocery store for the forgotten ingredient necessary for preparation of some fantastic Sunday dinner -- provided the family has time for a Sunday dinner together.

I remember that as a child Sunday mornings were for church and Sunday afternoons were for visiting relatives. For me it was pretty boring, listening to adults sit around and talk about life, other relatives, plans and the latest news, and there usually weren't any other kids to play with. Still, I wandered around yards and fields, watching cows, horses, chickens and dogs, and occasionally got to read a catalog or magazine. Perhaps boring for a child but it took me away from the stuff that went on the rest of the week -- school, piano lessons, homework, etc. I got to look at nature instead of TV or homework. I wish now I had more of that kind of time in my present life. I think I'd appreciate it a lot more than I did then.

These days I find myself observing Sabbath time more often on Saturday than Sunday. At the end of a week I'm ready for playtime, for staying home in my pajamas all day if I want to, doing only what I feel like doing and not doing something I don't. Then, by Sunday, I'm ready to begin again.

Today being Thanksgiving Day is a day off from work so therefore candidate for some Sabbath time. I think about my work days, usually a constant string of things to be done from the time I arrive until I leave. Often I almost have to make an appointment to get time to go the rest room and don't stop for lunch either. I keep my iPod handy and my preferred music (a mixture of Renaissance and Baroque church music, staid old-fashioned hymns, Taizé chant --- and Tahitian drums) often serves to give me mini-sabbaths that may only last a moment or two but which are places to stop, catch a breath and relax for a moment. Many of the pieces are familiar, either from having sung them in various choirs or from frequent listening, so even as I am entering data, sending emails about received inserts or coloring maps for drivers I feel I have some connection going on with God. Maybe the saints of old wouldn't have approved of multitask work/worship but it's what I can do with what I have.  I think God would prefer that to being ignored. I know I need it; it keeps me sane and more relaxed than if I didn't have the music going and, like Buddhist prayer wheels, sending prayers upward even after those who pass by and cause them to turn have gone on to their own work.

I need the sabbath time, whenever and wherever I can get it, just to "be" rater than just "do". God knew that we needed breaks for rest and battery recharging so when Moses got the set of rules we call the 10 Commandments (maybe there were 15 but Moses dropped one? Or 613 but were too heavy for him to carry in one trip?) "remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy" was one of the top ones. It wasn't just about worshipping God, but about renewing ourselves and reconnecting with God who often gets left out of the day otherwise.

In order to do ministry to others I have to do ministry to myself. Keeping sabbath time in my daily life as well as my spiritual life is something I need to remember to do. I think the time to start is right now.

The Forest Road

I was the year after college graduation. I was living away from home, more or less on my own, and with a new car which I could drive just about anywhere I wanted to go.  I, a child who grew up along the coast, was living in a more mountainous area. The common thread was lots of forest all around.  Driving around one day I came across a one-lane dirt road. The road led down into the forest so I turned the car and began the drive. The sun peeked through the leaves of the trees over the road, dappling the road and bringing out shades of green that were just incredible.  Deeper and deeper I went into the woods, the road seeming to turn at odd places, the dips got deeper the rises higher and the track narrower.  After a while I was noticing sharper turns and increasingly steep rises.

Then I reached a very steep climb. I put the car into the proper gear and went up but just as I reached the top I stopped, terrified. I couldn't see the road ahead.  The car's long hood seemed to be pointing at distant tree tops but what was just ahead for my tires was a total mystery. The trees didn't give much clue nor did looking out the side windows.  I must have sat there for 20 minutes or more, unable to go back and too afraid to forward. Even getting out and looking wasn't an option as the brush grew up against the sides of the track that stretched out behind me.  Was there really a road ahead or the edge of a sheer dropoff? If it was a road, did it go straight or curve to the left or right? If it was a dropoff, how big and how much damage could I expect? There wasn't any room to make a mistake, I thought. There aren't any "do-overs." I had to move one way or another.

I don't know why I dreamed about that incident last night. It happened so many years ago and I don't think I've thought of it more than a few times in all the intervening years. Mostly when it would come to mind it would be the beauty of the trees, the colors, the dappling of the sunlight, the sounds of birds and the rustle of the leaves in the unseen breeze. this time, though, it was the feeling at the top of the rise that came through.

I wonder --- is there a message here?  Something to ponder today.

Blockages

Not long ago I had a plumbing problem. Something was blocking the line to the skeptic tank (as Dad used to call it) and so some rather unpleasant matter spread across the ground.  Luckily it wasn't my problem to get fixed (other than being disinclined to flush or run water, then calling the park office to inform them of the difficulty)  and it got resolved. Anyway, things have been running as normal, something for which I gave thanks this morning. Don't ask me why I was giving thanks for properly operating plumbing but perhaps it wasn't such a bad thing when I remember people living in places where the offending matter isn't (decently, I think) concealed in below-ground pipes and tanks but rather runs down the street and into waterways that provide water for drinking, cooking and bathing. Yes, perhaps thanksgiving for properly running plumbing isn't such a bad thing after all.

I tried reading last week's EfM lesson again today and gave up. Compare Hegel's view of reality and truth with that of Kierkegaard.  It was enough to make my hair hurt and my brain feel like blocked-up plumbing. Nothin' seems to be goin' through that pipe.  I started reading the questions for this week's lesson only to find it recommends  that I "Compare and contrast Newman's position on 'faith' with that of Hegel and Kierkegaard."  The blockage just got thicker. 

I've wanted to write something for a while now.  Don't ask me what I wanted to write; I don't know. I just needed to write something but couldn't find anything to write about that would mean anything or say anything to anybody of any value much less give me any release.  I just know that there's an internal blockage that is close to a physical pain. Even writing this isn't easing it.

It seems so hard to slog through philosophical ideas and try to untangle concepts that must be important or EfM wouldn't include it in their course work for Year 4.  Still, it's like chasing smoke -- or trying to get through blocked pipes.

Perhaps what is important is what MY position on faith is and how I determine it.  I have faith in God, I believe in the life and ministry of Jesus and the work of the Spirit in the world today. Why do I have these feelings and beliefs?  Honestly, I don't know; I just know I have them and know also that it is impossible for me to be without them. I've tried.

There may be a lot of blockages of various kinds in my life but faith isn't one of them, at least faith that comes in. Faith going out --- the physical, mental, and spiritual effects of faith -- may be another story.  Still, it's what I have to work with, Hegel, Kierkegaard and Newman notwithstanding.  I guess I can handle most of the rest of the blockages as long as that one pipe is clear and free-flowing.  Thank God for the pipe of grace that doesn't block up.

This morning.

Kneeling for my before-church prayers I found myself saying this today. I don't know where it came from but I think I know where it goes...

Lord, bless those whom I love and those who love me.
Bless those whom I like and those who like me.
Bless those whom I dislike and those who dislike me.
Bless those whom I hate and those who hate me.
Bless those whom I know and those who know me.
Bless those who share with me my joys and sorrows and those whose joys and sorrows I share.
Bless those from whom I learn and those who perhaps I can teach a little.
Bless those who have gone before me and those who will come after me.
Bless those with whom I share this earth and this time.
The rest of creation, Lord, is in your hands.

Not very profound, or even particularly pious, but it's stuck with me today for some reason.

About Life as a Candle

An EfM classmate of mine commented that when her new priest arrived, she, the classmate, would be the tallest one at the altar on the Sundays when she was an acolyte.  Jokingly I replied that she could think of herself as another Eucharistic candle.  Her response was that she thought of herself more as a Roman candle.  It was a fun exchange but one that got me thinking about where I stood on the candle scale.

I never had much experience with fireworks. As a child I was limited to sparklers and the occasional foray with the neighbor's bottle rockets, nothing bigger. I liked fireworks for the color but the bang was intimidating. See myself as some kind of firework?  That would be a fizzler --- there's a disconnect between the lit fuse and the expected bang and flash.

I love candles. I used to enjoy making them - pouring the hot wax into the prepared mold and waiting more or less patiently to see what came out after it cooled. One year I made four fairly large pillars in purple and pink for the church advent wreath. I even scented them very lightly with a frankincense oil so they would not just look pretty but leave a very faint fragrance behind them.  They were candles I made but they weren't me.

I liked making ice candles --- pillars put inside milk cartons, then filling the carton with ice before pouring in hot wax. The ice melted but not before cooling the wax into fantastic bubbles and holes that let the candle show through.  The contrast of heat and ice was more like me but it still wasn't me.

I had a beautiful round candle holder made of bits of brightly-colored glass with leading between the pieces. Inside the holder I would place a votive candle and the light shining through the glass was like having my own private cathedral window. I loved it. It was beautiful as it was but only came alive when the candle was lit to let its real colors shine forth.  I loved the candle too, but it wasn't me.

I have a crystal candle holder, only big enough for a tea light, that has something of the same feel as the colored glass one. The candle holder is beautiful, even sitting on a bookshelf or window sill where the light can strike it. It becomes even more beautiful whee the tea light is lit, the flame dancing inside and the light flickering through the pattern of the glass. I love it, but it isn't me.

A birthday candle is a tiny thing. It is often brightly colored but once lit only lasts a minute or two before being consumed by the flame. In itself it briefly shares the spotlight with its fellow candles until being either burned out or blown out by an excited child or even a game elder.  It brings a moment of joy despite its short life. 

I can't think that I bring joy, no matter how briefly. Maybe I can bring a little comfort, a little light, a little warmth before flickering out or being put away for another time. Still, if I had to describe myself as a candle, I'd probably see myself as one of this size and use more than any other.

If I could choose my life as a candle, one I would dearly love to be is a Eucharistic one -- a tall pristine pillar, standing in a polished brass holder, representing one of the two parts of Holy Writ and shedding light on the sacred mystery taking place just next to me.  I would shed light but not be part of the mystery. I would be part of the celebration but not the celebrant or the celebrated. Still, it would be enough.

I hear the old song running through my head, "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine..." Eucharistic candle, advent candle, ice candle, votive, tea light or birthday candle, my job isn't to draw attention to me but to shed light and warmth on what is around me. That's how I see my life as a candle. 

I give thanks for Roman candles (even Episcopalian ones!) which bring brightness and joy. I celebrate their gift to the world and rejoice in their colors and patterns.  I'm glad there's room in the spectrum for both the Roman candle and the birthday one.  God loves us all for what we are, not what we should be (or want to be.)

The Meaning of the Crucifixion

Episcopal Café has a post that contain ns the question "What does the Crucifixion mean, anyway?" Ann Fontaine challenged a member of our class to come up with her own answer. I decided it was time to look at my own ideas in a way other than just turning it over in my mind and then forgetting about it.


Crucifixion was an ancient form of capital punishment; you were hung up with ropes or nails until you died and if you didn't die in a reasonable amount of time (but not too quickly), they broke your legs to help you along. It was not hidden away behind penitentiary walls with only invited guests to view the event as it is today; it was set right out in front of God and everybody as a form of warning about what happened to those convicted criminals who committed certain crimes and to serve as a form of humiliation for both criminal and family, a very bad thing in those days. It was slow, painful, public and very ugly.

I've been to some churches where the crucifixion of Jesus is the primary event, symbolized by not just a cross but the suffering, dying or dead Christ still hanging there. This represents their view of salvation, the blood sacrifice demanded by God for the redemption of the world. It represented the lamb sacrificed in the temple for the cleansing of the people, an innocent victim made to pay the ultimate price for the sins of all. They celebrate Easter is a festival of resurrection, but the emphasis is on the crucifixion, the death.

I've also been to other churches who see the crucifixion as an event for sorrow and mourning, but they look beyond Good Friday to the glory of Easter. The crucifixion was not the end of the story, just the completion of one chapter and the beginning of another.

I tend to be one of the resurrectionists. Without the crucifixion, whether it was for political reasons, substitutionary atonement required by God or both, there would have been no opportunity for a resurrection, no need for one. I mourn on Good Friday, mourn the humiliating and painful death of the man Jesus who taught love, who healed the outcasts, who exemplified what a life devoted to God and God's service looked like. Yet unlike his mother and the women at the bottom of the cross and the apostles cowering in fear and huddled in a hidden place, I know that Jesus' death was not the end. It was one subway stop short of a full run, one act short of a full play, and one period short of a full paragraph. There was more beyond what they could see and know, thanks be to God.

I look at the cross and see more than a piece of jewelry to be worn around the neck or hanging from the rear-view mirror of the car. The cross represents my belief that salvation is fully realized – salvation from sin as typified by a symbol, the cross, and salvation from death by its emptiness.  I see hope, the hope that the Gospel promises for my redemption from sin and my own rising again in glory. I see the hope that Jesus' teachings will be our guides for creating not just a promise of heaven after death but of making a new heaven here and now.

What does the crucifixion mean, really? It means hope, and in this day and age, hope means the world – really.

On Doing and Be-ing

One good thing about living alone (well, almost alone, counting my four housemates) is that if I really want to take a day off and do nothing, I can do it without anybody bugging me about it (except for the sacred hour of cat-feeding twice a day).  I can have breakfast at 6am or not until noon, dinner at 1pm or not until 6. I can skip a meal or cook up something particularly luscious, I can mow the floors today or let it wait until tomorrow, unless the dust kittens are too obvious in their plumping themselves in the middle of the floor as if to say "Neener neener neener, come and get me!"

I love my little refuge. Other than bills that demand my attention periodically and the fur-kids who likewise demand my attention periodically (and usually a lot more often), when and how I respond to the things needing to be done are up to me. After working during the week, which usually includes having lots of people tell me what to do, when to do it, and how to do it, it's lovely to come home, shut the door and allow myself to be rather than to do.

Jesus took time to just be rather than do.  After his baptism he went into the desert for a retreat. Yes, he had to face the temptations that can arise for any of us on similar retreat (only we won't be asked usually to do things as tough as the ones he was presented with), but I am sure that much of his time and attention was focused on being -- being away from pressure to do this or that, away to get the batteries recharged, away to be with God.  Periodically he would withdraw from the crowds to get that recharge, to be rather than to do the things a public ministry like his required:away from making decisions as to where to go, who to heal or see or talk with, how to appeal to those he wanted to reach. In order to truly know himself and his ministry, he had to know himself and the way to do that was to take time to be rather than to always be doing.

I've been reading a book on ministry and the laity. It's an anthology collected and added to by Verna Dozier, whom I admire greatly.  Reading the essays, articles and interviews in the book, a comment by William Diehl jumped out at me: "To suggest that one's occupation validates or denies one's Christian status is to define Christianity on the basis of what we do rather than who we are."*
"...[D]efine Christianity on the basis of what we do rather than who we are."  Now there's something to consider. 

Is the job I do a defining characteristic that makes me Christian or not, or is it how I do that job?  Are the beliefs I profess the things that make me Christian or is it how I live out those beliefs?  Is how I worship a definer or is it that I involve my whole self in whatever worshipful activity that connects me to God in the closest, most intimate way? 

What does my life and how I live it demonstrate my be-ing and not just my do-ing? Have I taken the time to really find out for myself what that be-ing really means?  Have I used my time in my hermitage to do what I fancy or to get in touch with what is inside me?  Do I just sit and wait for God or do I have to be actively thinking or enunciating words to fill the void?  Can I just sit and be without doing something?

Can I be considered a Christian if I just do?  God made me a being --- and it's up to me to cultivate that be-ing. 



* Dozier, Verna, The Calling of the Laity: Verna Dozier's Anthology. (1988) New York: The Alban Institute, Inc. (68).

Truth

TRUTH: the quality or state of being true;  that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality; a fact or belief that is accepted as true (Oxford Dictionary Online)

To tell you the truth, I've been thinking about this topic in correlation with our EfM lessons about the world of the ancient peoples of the Bible and even further back to the origin of the world itself. It's probably one of the most divisive stories in  Bible history, when it comes to faith, belief and the perception of truth. Funny thing, to be so divisive when it comes to a story that is traditional and common to all sides.

The basic facts of the Genesis stories of creation are the same -- God created the world and everything in it, including human beings. The stories differ in the order of creation, the method and that's about it. I think that's probably agreed-upon by people of the Judeo-Christian faith. Most of the time the stories are somewhat conflated so that parts of the two are told as if they were all one story. It's not an uncommon Biblical thing; Noah's ark, even the birth of Jesus have two tellings that have the same basic facts but are somewhat different.

Truth is about fact and reality. The sun shining is a fact; it's observable. We even believe that the sun will come up tomorrow (sounds like a Broadway show tune, doesn't it?) even though we don't have definite proof that it will. It always has so we assume it always will, prophets and doomsayers to the contrary, but who believes prophets these days?  Science tells us that one day it won't happen, but that's at some remote point in time and so we can cheerfully ignore it for the present. Doesn't make it less true, just less applicable to our everyday life. And it keeps the doomsayers in business.

Truth is also about belief. I believe God exists, even though I can't empirically prove it. I keep reading the weather forecasts and planning activities around them even though I understand the potential for their being wrong a good part of the time (as in prognosticating the possibility and percentage of chance of rain in my specific area of Arizona in on Tuesday, September 21st, in the evening -- 70% predicted, amount actually hitting the ground as rain, 0). 

When it comes to the stories of creation, I believe the stories are true but I don't necessarily believe they are factual.  That puts me at odds with a lot of people, my own relatives included. The stories are, for me, inexplicably true despite their apparent lack of provable fact. I can't explain how the creation was accomplished or by what means. I can't accept a six-day creation as described in the Bible or in any other stories of creation other cultures and religions have as their tradition.  I can accept as true that the creation happened; I can see the world around me and know that a some point in time it had to begin somehow, somewhere, somewhen. I can listen to the science that puts the age of the universe in billions and billions of years and I can hear the Bible's six-day creation. I find truth in each of them - truth in what science tells me, the fossil record, the evolution of writing and art and even science itself, and in what the Bible describes as a progression of events culminating in a populated world that functions by natural laws and sometimes inexplicable events.  I hold the two beliefs in tension because of their truth.

Truth is about more than just demonstrable facts or what people accept as facts regardless of whether or not they are literally true. Yeats said, "'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' - that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."  Beauty is subjective -- everybody has an idea of what's beautiful and what isn't and people don't always agree on what is or isn't beautiful. Same with truth; my truth isn't necessarily yours. In a way it's a kind of diversity. I accept that your truth is true for you and I would hope you would accept that mine is for me. Oh, we might talk about it, discuss it, even heatedly, and perhaps one or both of us will try to convince the other that we are, in fact, right and you are, in fact, wrong. It would be lovely if we could stand up, shake hands, and leave the table as friends who can't agree on something but respecting the truth the other so firmly believes in.

For me, ambiguity is truth because it gives me the opportunity to hold two divergent beliefs in tension and not pin all my hopes -- and faith-- on either one. Did creation happen in a week or billions of years?  Did Noah actually save his family and some animals in a universal flood? were there two of each or two of some and seven pairs of another? Did shepherds and wise men show up in a stable in Bethlehem, or did one group come at one time and in one place while the other group come at a different time and place?  Did the resurrection entail a spiritual reawakening or a physical reanimation --- or both? those are all questions I don't have factual answers for. All I have is belief that regardless of the facts, the truth lies deeper down and is much more precious than just facts.

The truth that lies beneath it is the truth on which my faith is based. Something happened, I don't know how, when, where or by what agency, but I know something happened. That something is the experience that draws me in, encloses me and tells me that I don't need to try to understand the paradoxes. Something happened, I experience something that informs and encourages my faith because of it and that's enough.

And that's the truth.

Spiritual Autobiography Using Items

One of the possible presentations for our spiritual autobiography is to pick two items , one of which represents what brings me closer to God and the other that which separates me from God. It's probably one of the more painless ways of doing a short SA but one that requires just as much thought as a stepping stone, a time line or any other form, at least, in my very humble opinion.

I chose my iPod as an item that brings me closer to God. I have a pretty sizeable collection of music on it. I generally listen to it at work (hence the earphones) to help me block out noise like the press boys' loud radio next door, but a lot of times I listen to it just because it helps calm me when things get frantic and I feel like I'm drowning. While there is orchestral music on it ("Lark Ascending" and "Terpsichorean Dances" are favorites), most of it is religious music of some kind: hymns, chants, Taizé and oratorio but my favorites are generally masses and liturgical music by Palestrina, Gabrielli, Byrd, Tallis, Bach – and Rutter.

There's a Tibetan Buddhist tradition of having prayer wheels that are kept turning, whether small hand-held ones that are kept in motion by flicks of the wrist or gigantic ones that are kept in motion by passers-by pushing on a rod, or sometimes a having a water wheel to keep the wheel in motion. The prayer is written on the outside of the wheel and also the inside and is a traditional Buddhist mantra, "Om mani padme hom." Buddhists believe that turning the prayer wheels are as effective as physically reciting the mantra again and again, a practice similar to our use of repeated prayers such as the Jesus Prayer or the Hail, Mary.

My iPod and the music it contains is, in a sense, my prayer wheel. It keeps my soul in touch with God through the offered music and prayer even as I am busy working at the computer, sorting things or even sometimes unloading a truck with a forklift. It keeps my connection open. At times my soul sings along with the music, much of which is familiar now through frequent playing or even from memory of use in many church services while at other times I am quiet as the prayer/song/aria/mass goes on around me. Whether I am actively singing or passively hearing, the prayer goes on around me and keeping me calm, focused and open..

On the negative side, several things separate me from God.

The television is a major distraction, often catching my attention on a program or snippet that can educate me (which is a good thing) but which often, as in the picture, either just entertainment or, quite often, just noise. So much I see on TV now is recitations of disasters, historical and anticipated, that fill me with discomfort and anxiety. I have had to stop watching many things like news programs because they too fill me with anxiety and fear for what is happening around me. I figure I have enough anxiety just dealing with daily life but the television is like an auto accident on the freeway: everybody has to slow down as they drive past to see what damage has been done.

The computer is both a distraction and a blessing. It is a blessing in that it is how I connect to EfM, friends and blogsites that encourage my fascination with and search for knowledge and connection with those who have similar interests and who often give me great insights and trails to follow productively. On the other hand, the computer is a distraction in that it is very easy to spend hours playing games or shopping for things which I sometimes can't afford. I also get news through the computer and many times I have had to stop reading blogs and comments because of how they made me feel --- anxious, angry, disgusted, sick and disheartened. It is very easy to forget God in the wonder of how people can be so cruel and so negative, even when it comes to religion. I try to avoid that kind of thing, but like the wreck on the freeway, I keep looking, hoping perhaps to see something different.

The cat (Sama) is a distraction but is also something God gave me, knowing how much I would need him, his brothers and his cousin eventually. They look to me for food, companionship and a clean litterbox and I look to them as companions, reasons to get out of bed in the morning and also to keep working so that I can keep them in their necessities of life.

Clutter around my desk is also a separation. I try to keep it tidy but it always seems to get ahead of me, one piece of paper, one book at a time. It represents my life as I live it, never quite measuring up to what I want to be or do, holding on to things because those things make me feel alive and connected.

So there is my spiritual autobiography in short, using things that separate me from and connect me to God.