Pilgrimage to High Church

For years I have taught about the spiritual practice of pilgrimage. In my own personal faith story, the theological concept of being on pilgrimage had become a quotidian exercise with a sense of being sent daily on a journey by God with hope, possibility, promise, and joy. I thought of my life as a kind of lectio divina with biblical companions like Abraham, Sarah and Jesus and his male and female disciples. Pilgrimage was sweet with the gentlest pull beyond my comfort level. I was stretched, but not too much.

Until two weeks ago when I ended up in a kayak at two in the morning with my best friend, accompanied by my senior warden in the next kayak over,
being pulled along my street that was now a river,
by a high school student who had come out in the middle of the night to find folks who needed rescuing from the results of a torrential Houston rain.

Until one week ago, when much of the stuff of my life was either rotting in my front yard for all of the world to see,
or in storage,
or kindly taken by loving members of St. Mary’s to clean and tend and restore,
and my beloved home would be uninhabitable for many months.

Last night, as we began the third week after the Houston flood,
once again sleepless in the middle of the night,
in the daughter’s room of a dear friend,
surrounded by her stuffed animals and high school memorabilia, my temporary island home,
I came across a book I had read years before about pilgrimage.

As I reread the wise words, I realized that my romantic view of pilgrimage had hit the reality of the true cost of walking into the unknown with only Jesus beside me. Being on pilgrimage meant going to a place that I would never ever have chosen to go. Yet, that is where the path is leading.

I know that while God did not cause the flood, that God did not destroy my home and car, that God is indeed sending me on a pilgrimage that I do not want to be on. I know that there is hope. I know there is possibility and promise. But as I begin the third week of this unsought pilgrimage, the joy, if it is anywhere, is drowning in grief.

Christine Valters-Paintner writes, “[pilgrims] must leave behind everything that is familiar…..and carry forth only what is needed.”

I have been forced by Houston flood waters to leave behind much that is beloved. With God, I will find my home with a new awareness of what home means.

Today I leave my two week temporary home with my kind and generous friends. Tonight I will sleep in my next temporary home, a lovely house left vacant by other dear friends while they live for four years in Germany, they being on their own pilgrimage.

The name of the street that will be my address for the next several months is Halkirk. Halkirk means “high church,” with the sense of church (a place where people gather to be with God) being on a high hill, a place of safety and a ever-present visual reminder of God who is with us.

I will listen for God’s call and invitation.

Easter Tuesday in the air

It’s a gorgeous day in San Francisoco and I’m on the way to Oregon for some Grandboy time.

When I got on the plane, a flight attendant was in my seat eating a pizza. The plane that goes to Redmond is tiny–cramped and old, but it gets me where I want to go. I’ve traveled this route often enough that I’m beginning to recognize the crew on this little run, so the familiar flight attendant and I engaged in some delightful banter as she left my seat and went to help the other attendant.

Did I say the plane was small? The only seat with any legroom is the bulkhead, and if you opt for that better seat, there’s no place to store your small carry on items (like a purse) either under the seat or above the row because of medical and emergency items that have to be kept in the bin directly overhead.

A couple got on after me and were very irritated that there was no place to store their items nearby. The man’s seat was next to mine in the bulkhead, and his partner’s was across the aisle. They both appeared to be distressed already when they boarded, and the man became very angry when he saw that he couldn’t store his items conveniently.

The woman began to chew the flight attendants out, and then the man launched into an angry tirade, demanding that emergency items be moved so they could store their belongings. When the flight attendant kindly explained that they needed to remain there for safety reasons, the man began to yell at the flight attendant and demanded her badge number.

Clearly something was amiss. Clearly this was all out of proportion to the event at hand. I began to pray.

I gave the woman who was with the man my seat so they could sit together. The couple calmed down but they continued to look like something hard was going on in their lives.

I see too many people these days whose anger is out of proportion to the event at hand. I see too many people who are afraid, attacking others who have no responsibility in that fear. I see people running for elected office using anger and fear to garner support. It’s troubling to me. It’s makes me sad. I try to remember to pray.

In Scripture, Jesus only gets angry in response to people’s actions that are contrary to God’s will–like when people who consider themselves holy don’t act with mercy or kindness; like when people take unnecessary advantage of others’ needs for personal financial gain.

God knows I’ve gotten angry at some small event when that’s not what’s really bothering me. Maybe on this Easter Tuesday we can pray that peace and mercy and kindness can overcome misdirected anger. Maybe, as the Psalmist wrote, love and mercy and truth can meet, and peace and kindness can kiss each other, and make it all better, in Jesus, the Resurrected’s, name.

Upon the Annunciation and Passion Falling upon One Day. 2016

Serving in a parish called St. Mary’s, the Feast of the Annunciation is a particularly Holy Day. Except this year, rather than being celebrated on March 25 ( nine months to the day before Christmas), this year, because of Holy Week and Easter, Mary has to wait until April 4 to hear from the angel Gabriel.

It is a rare congruence of chronological time when Annunciation and Good Friday share the same calendar day. Only two times does it occur in the twenty-first century, and this week is the final occasion until the next century. The juxtaposition of the uncertain, unexpected possibility of divine incarnation held beside and with crucifixion and death is a place of pondering for me this Holy Week.

When this occurred in 1608, the Caroline Divine (priest and poet during the time of King Charles), John Donne, was inspired to write the following poem. It was introduced to me the last coinciding of these two dates in 2005 by a dear woman in my parish, Julia Rich. I return the gift and share it this Tuesday in Holy Week.

Upon the Annunciation and Passion Falling upon One Day. 1608

Tamely, frail body, abstain today; today

My soul eats twice, Christ hither and away.

She sees Him man, so like God made in this,

That of them both a circle emblem is,

Whose first and last concur; this doubtful day

Of feast or fast, Christ came and went away;

She sees Him nothing twice at once, who’s all;

She sees a Cedar plant itself and fall

Her Maker put to making, and the head

Of life at once not yet alive yet dead;

She sees at once the virgin mother stay

Reclused at home, public at Golgotha;

Sad and rejoiced she’s seen at once, and seen

At almost fifty and at scarce fifteen;

At once a Son is promised her, and gone;

Gabriel gives Christ to her, He her to John;

Not fully a mother, she’s in orbity,

At once receiver and the legacy;

All this, and all between, this day hath shown,

The abridgment of Christ’s story, which makes one

(As in plain maps, the furthest west is east)

Of the Angels’ Ave and Consummatum est.

How well the Church, God’s court of faculties,

Deals in some times and seldom joining these!

As by the self-fixed Pole we never do

Direct our course, but the next star thereto,

Which shows where the other is and which we say

(Because it strays not far) doth never stray,

So God by His Church, nearest to Him, we know

And stand firm, if we by her motion go;

His Spirit, as His fiery pillar doth

Lead, and His Church, as cloud, to one end both.

This Church, by letting these days join, hath shown

Death and conception in mankind is one:

Or ’twas in Him the same humility

That He would be a man and leave to be:

Or as creation He had made, as God,

With the last judgment but one period,

His imitating Spouse would join in one

Manhood’s extremes: He shall come, He is gone:

Or as though one blood drop, which thence did fall,

Accepted, would have served, He yet shed all;

So though the least of His pains, deeds, or words,

Would busy a life, she all this day affords;

This treasure then, in gross, my soul uplay,

And in my life retail it every day.

Back at work, almost

This work day starts in Atlanta where my friend and I drove from Savannah yesterday.

Stopping to walk a labyrinth in Macon.

Then on to Atlanta for a late lunch and movie. A Sabbath ended with good food and laughter.

Today is Saturday and I’m flying home to work. But first morning prayers walking the Labyrinth at the Cathedral.

Breakfast with a friend.

As I wait for the plane, I’ll check my email and make a list of things to do. The list of those I want to offer care began as I walked the labyrinth. I’ll also pray for each member of St. Mary’s, as is my traveling custom.

Refreshed, what has God in store?