Loving Generously

Today’s word from 40acts, our parish-wide Lenten invitation, is love.

On other days, there are three levels of possible responses to the daily challenge of living with generosity–each requiring more of a commitment of time and personal action. Today there is but one:

Show love to someone today. Consider two things before you do that, though: (1) In what ways does that person experience love the most? Do they prefer acts of service, gifts, quality time? (2) What kind of love do you most struggle to express? Have a think about the ways you might challenge yourself to step outside your comfort zone and love someone the way they need to be loved today.

As God would have it, today is my mother’s 90th birthday. To celebrate, my brothers and I are going to spend the day with her. One brother and I, both of us living some distance away, drove up yesterday. My other brother, who lives nearby, will be here this morning.

On this day that we are invited to love as Jesus loved us, Jesus who meets us wherever we are, Jesus who gives us whatever we need most, I am struck by the ways that others are sharing love with my mother. Truly, in response to God’s love for us, but also in response to how that love has been expressed through my mother’s ninety years of living very well.

A favorite niece and her family came last week with lunch and the gift of a good and joyful visit.

A parishioner, knowing that a cookie recipe was one of my my mom’s favorites, brought me a batch of “Grandma cookies” Saturday, baked especially for Mother. Mother ate one as soon as I arrived in Chambersville, enjoying it with a big smile.

Another parishioner, who has never met my mother, gave me a card to bring to her. Turns out this parishioner had been the recipient of one of my mother’s prayer blankets at a challenging time in her life.

My daughter has already sent a homemade card and her own famous biscuits (also a favorite of my mother’s), baked in her NYC kitchen and delivered by US mail. My mother has been a huge inspiration for my daughter’s James Beard award winning blog and her two very well-received cookbooks.

From her greatgrandsons who live far, far away (who wished her happy birthday last night via FaceTime), I’ve baked one of their favorite treats, sunflower butter bran muffins, for breakfast. My brother will be bringing his own cranberry pecan bran muffin recipe. The love keeps growing.

And my mother hasn’t even gotten up yet!

Thank you, Mother, for teaching so many, many people about God’s love by your quiet, faithful acts of generosity. We love you. You make it easy to accept today’s 40acts challenge of sharing love with generosity.

Syncing with God in Lent

How is your Lent going? I always look forward to Lent. It feels like a spiritual do-over. The timing is well enough away from both the liturgical and calendar new years to be right in sync with a need for a spiritual refresher.

During the last days of Epiphany, I enjoy thinking about fine tuning my spiritual practices. I have fun searching out books or devotionals and/or retreats that will make the Lenten final cut. Last year, I bought a new purple mug and bowl from my favorite potter for use during Lent. This year, I took some of my Christmas money and bought some new purple earrings for Lent. Like I said, I have fun getting ready for Lent.

And then the reality of Lent set in.

An exhausting week of Lenten preparations at church were capped with attendance at our yearly Diocesan Council. The earrings I bought with my Christmas money look pretty, but don’t help me be any closer to God. The new planner that I went through a great deal of twists and turns, not to say expense to secure, at least so far, hasn’t left me feeling any closer to God.

Then my new iPhone crashed. Over and over and over. It was only two weeks old, so I went to the Apple Store for service. Thankfully, everything was backed up on both my computer and in the cloud.

Turns out, the way to fix the phone was to completely erase it and set it up as a brand new phone. That meant that even though my contacts, photos, music, and documents were saved in the cloud, because my back up most probably was corrupted, I had to start anew.

It wasn’t like when I bought my new phone and everything transferred over with relative ease. I only had my most essential data, and everything, everything, had to be downloaded and rearranged and set up.

I spent the evening picking and choosing. What wallpaper would I use? Which apps did I really need? What were my preferences for sounds and notifications? Passwords had to be entered. Years of choices and selections had to be reexamined and evaluated to see if they were all that essential.

Many of us say our phone is our life. This Lent, my phone has become a way to reflect on my life in a way that feels very inconvenient.

My phone has become an unexpected spiritual practice and place for theological reflection.

What is essential? What was simply accumulation that I didn’t need after all? What new ways of navigating will I discover? How will I be forced to pay attention during irritations and frustrations, and when trying to figure out how to get things good enough?

I am certain that I’ll have many little bumps as I continue to set up my phone in a way that syncs with my life. Hopefully, the phone will no longer crash. Of the only true importance, how will this twist in the Lenten journey assist me in getting better in sync with God?

Ash Wednesday: Beginning again

And so it begins. The holy season of Lent.

On Ash Wednesday, all day long, I will place ashes in the sign of the cross on people’s foreheads, and say the words: Remember that you are dust. To dust you shall return.

This may be the most spiritually and emotionally exhausting day of my year. All day long, with people whom I love dearly, together we will remember that we will all die.

It feels as if I am doing 200 or so little burial services today.

Today I recall the foreheads, those I have smudged with ashes on past Ash Wednesdays, of people I love who are now resurrected from the dust.

Dick. Jamie. Pat. Andy. Bill. Mark. George+. Lin. Marilyn. So many more.

I will walk these forty days of Lent with the words of St. Benedict in my heart:

Keep death ever before me.

And

Always. We begin again.

With generosity. Reflecting on and tweaking my spiritual practices in order that I will be able to live more fully the days that God has given me.

Where will God lead these forty days?

Happy Anniversary to me

I have a friend, who on her birthday, answers each phone call with a joy-filled, “Happy birthday to me!” It makes me smile.

Twenty three years ago today I was ordained priest at St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church. Happy anniversary to me!

That January day, freeze warnings were out, and folks dear to me traveled over treacherous roads to be there to support me and Christ’s Church.

The morning was spent with my family folding worship booklets. Early afternoon, some women of the parish gave me a manicure. The children of the parish sang the prelude. The preacher, who had been my spiritual director while I was in seminary, told me to be:

Ready. Willing. Unable.

Today, this anniversary of being as ready as possible. As willing as I can. Unable to do anything, without God’s help, I started the day at the hospital praying with a parishioner before surgery. Afterwards, I had quiet time in my prayer room at home, incense lit, preparing to officiate at the burial of a parishioner’s father. I’ll have lunch at my favorite Mexican restaurant with the woman who was the chair of the Search Committee that has led me to eighteen years serving as rector of St. Mary’s.

Praying another year to be ready. To be wiling. To be unable.