The Twenty Four Project

This is one of those days when I can walk through the hours and know exactly where I was twenty four years ago today.

It was an unseasonably cold day in Houston, and I was surrounded by many of the people I loved. I was preparing to be ordained priest in Christ’s one holy catholic apostolic Church.

I have received so much more than I could begin to give since I’ve been ordained. As I went to sleep last night, like an opening montage at the Academy Awards, images of the richness of my experiences these past twenty four years and the people who have invited me to walk with them on their spiritual journies danced through my prayers.

To celebrate those twenty four years of blessings I’m going to create the Twenty Four Project. I’ve set aside $2400 from my discretionary fund to use as needed to give to twenty four organizations and ministries as the Spirit leads.

To begin my day, I made a commitment to knit prayer shawls for Native American elders.   Joy Moody, at Lupine Fiber Arts in Maine,  started this project after learning that Native elders were literally freezing to death during the winter on our American reservations because of insufficient heat, indoor plumbing, or adequate shelter.

One of the practices my very best traveling friend and I have is to support local outreach ministries in the places we visit. From The Isle of Iona to Tybee Island, Georgia, we’ve found great joy, and yes, fun, thinking of creative ways to share our abundance.

I can think of no better way to dance and sing my Epiphany in New Mexico.

Epiphany in New Mexico

My annual Advent rest in New Mexico has become an Epiphany journey to New Mexico this year.  One thing and another has made this the season to come for my annual trip.   It is part of discovering new rhythms on my life pilgrimage.

I’m finding myself deeply pondering and needing more time for contemplation than usual as I search to find words for where my heart is.  As I move towards the twenty-fifth anniversary of my ordination and two decades serving as Rector of St. Mary’s, I am full of thought.

Last night, my very best traveling friend and I went to see Hidden Figures, an outstanding film about courageous women of color who made a significant difference by addressing issues of racism, education, and human rights through their everyday jobs.

I was particularly mindful as I watched of  those cultural practices portrayed in Hidden Figures  that are now unacceptable yet were all too common in the 1960’s. People bravely stood up and said, one by one, in small and not so small ways, that issues of basic justice were at stake.

What issues of justice and peace am I called to say, enough?  On my heart are the many ways that we do not respect the dignity of every living person particularly through the words we choose to use and through the availability of health care, education, and food.  How do I share the abundance I have received?

In Hidden Figures, the women were nourished by their faith communities (and lots of “thank you Jesus-es”), shared meals, laughter, music, and dancing. I’m reminded of a Zimbabwe saying:

If you can walk, you can dance. If you can talk, you can sing. 

As I rest and sing and dance in snowy Taos, I expect I’ll return home with clearer discernment.

The Sixth Day of the O Antiphons: O Come, Desire of Nations, Come

O come, Desire of nations, come
Bind in one the hearts of all mankind,
Bid thou our sad divisions cease,
And be thyself our King of Peace.

Rejoice!  Rejoice!
Emmaneul shall come to thee, O Israel!

Syria.  Sudan.  Christmas Market in Berlin, Germany.  Bombing during worship at St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo, Egypt.
Each day of this final week of Advent, a tragedy has lit up the news.  It seems particularly fitting that today we pray as we sing:

Please, please God:  Come as King of Peace,
Please, please God:  End our sad divisions, 
Please, please God:  Bind us into one heart.

If we believe that all of this is God’s will, and I do, why doesn’t God say yes?  The truth is perhaps that it’s not that God isn’t saying yes, but that we say no. 

I’ve been thinking and praying about how to respond in a meaningful way to each of the many ways that we say no to God’s perfect will.  The past two days I’ve heard the same answer through conversations with women whom I respect greatly, and so today I share it with you.
If we do indeed believe that God is ultimately Love–fully, completely, perfectly, then it seems that every time we share God’s love with others that we become part of God’s yes.  If my small, though not truly small, act of love, incarnates God’s love, and then that love incarnates another act of love in someone else, and then another, and then another………would the impossible become possible, one act of love at a time?
Could my sharing of love through some act with a person in Spring, Texas, actually travel eventually to acts of love in Aleppo and Cairo and Berlin and Moscow and Tehran?  When I recall that the love I share found it’s way to me by a 2000 year journey from Bethlehem in Palestine, I know that the impossible is possible with God.
How will God come to you today?  
Will it be by sharing God’s love with someone who may not even know that he or she needs it?

The Fifth Day of the O Antphons: O Come, Thou Dayspring from on High

O Come, thou Dayspring from on high,

And cheer us by the drawing nigh;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadow put to flight.
Rejoice!  Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, 
O Israel.

Today is the shortest day of the year.  Tonight is the longest night of the year.  It is especially holy that today we sing about Christ,  the Dayspring, and the promise of bringing light to the darkest places of our lives.
In Houston, our shortest days are not that short nor our longest days all that long.  However, when I was in Iceland in May, the only challenge for me was that even though there was a supposed sunset in the middle of the time we call night, it never really got dark; it was always light.  Hotel rooms in Iceland were rated by travelers by how well the curtains would darken the room at night for sleep.  

Today in Reykjavik,  the sun rises at 11.30 in the morning and the sun sets at 3.30 in the afternoon;  however, those four hours in the sun are actually full of darkness.  The shortest day of the year in some places in our world may never have any apparent sun light.

On this winter solstice, we sing of the Light of the Son that goes into the darkest places of our lives and hearts.   For some of us this Advent,  our darkest place is the fear and grief of the separation of death.  In our hymn, we pray as we sing that Emmanuel, God is with us, even there, especially there.

Once again, we sing that in Christ there is no darkness at all, the night and the day, life and death, are both alike in him.

How will Christ’s light come to you today?

Today we are invited as we sing to look for Christ in our very darkest moment.