Landed!

Last night I watched the sun set in the United States near, and yet so far, from my daughter in New York City. 


This morning I was awakened around 4 AM by the sun rising somewhere near Greenland. 

Tonight I’ll go to bed well before the sun sets some time after 10 PM in Reykjavik. 
Good evening, God; good morning, God;  and good evening, yet again, God.  It is your night. It is your day.  It is your everything. 
You are showing me your way. 
And it is beautiful. 

And it is delicious. 

And it is enough. 

Being a person of great privilege

I am a person of great privilege. Amidst the chaos in my life post–flood, I have been surrounded by great care, love, and generosity. I have choices and options. 
As I prepare to begin my long trek to Iceland, I am acutely aware of how easy my life is. This long-planned trip to Iceland comes at the moment I most need rest, peace, and beauty. This vacation was largely gifted to me by long-time friends. 
As the flood waters rose in my home a few weeks ago, my traveling friend and I worked on our Iceland plans. In fact, in the minutes before we kayaked out, my friend looked down on my flooded living room from our safe place on the upstairs landing, and said, “Oh. There are the Iceland books.”  They weren’t saved. 
Now, thanks to the generosity of friends, I sit in my first class seat, first class!!!, enjoying my first cup of coffee of the day, served to me as others boarded. I have a book to read gifted by another friend. I have a phone that does all kinds of magic including providing a means for me to listen to music as I travel. I am content. I have enough. I feel the peace that has been so generously prayed for me these past weeks. 
As a person of great privilege, how will I serve others with the generosity I have received?  How can I offer first class service to those who feel like they are in the middle seat of the back row with the person in front of them reclining her seat as far as it will go?
 
From today’s  Daily Office reading from 1 John:
Little children, let us love not in word or speech, but in truth and action. 

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.