An excellent reflection from Ronnie!
In 1948, a small Jewish synagogue in New Jersey took as its rabbi a young man who was still a student. Across religions this is not uncommon, and in the right situation a patient and mature congregation can help such a student find his or her ministerial legs. This synagogue provided exactly that, and the young rabbinical pupil they took in – Rabbi Albert Lewis – provided so much more…
— Read on ronniemcbrayer.org/2020/03/23/sleeping-in-the-storm/
“Mary has also been known as Our Lady of Sorrows, the one who can bear the tremendous weight of our grief. She is the one who knows aching loss and does not run away in the face of its fierceness. There are stories of the seven sorrows she had to bear . . . . There is a parallel tradition of Mary’s seven joys. She is the container for our struggles and joys. She is the source of compassion. She is the birth mother and the death mother.”
— Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, Illuminating the Way: Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics
Have you ever turned to Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, in your own times of deepest need? Where did her sorrows and your sorrows overlap? Did your sense of her presence help?
Today has been a long yet fulfilling day for me and for Denise. We had virtual Fellowship with our congregation this morning at 11am and Evening Worship for the Fourth Sunday of Lent at 6pm. Even though we are both exhausted we are also very happy to be able to offer virtual worship and fellowship for our congregation while we are isolated due to the COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus.
Next week we will host Midday Prayer using the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Book of Common Worship as our source. These offerings will be Monday – Thursday (not on Friday or Saturday since we are trying to take some Sabbath rest for ourselves). On Wednesdays we will have our Midweek Service and we will continue our Social Hour on Thursdays, and our Church Fellowship on Sunday mornings. Yes, this is a full plate for us, but with our church being closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus, our congregation and community needs this sort of virtual worship and fellowship as they seek to avoid the downside of social isolation.
During the rising pandemic in this nation we have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of humankind. While there is plenty of bad and ugly (which the media tends to focus on), I am seeing a lot of the good and kind and faithful behavior in our community, state, nation, and world.
I believe the only way that humankind can pull through this distressing time is for us to come together and truly be alive together. Thomas Merton wrote the following in his book, Thoughts in Solitude: If a man or a woman is to live, he/she must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit. Everything must be elevated and transformed by the action of God, in love and truth. (p. 15)
This is my hope and this is my prayer for all of humankind as we navigate this new reality together. Dear Reader, from our lips, to God’s ear, let us pray…
The sun has set and the Vesper Lights flicker and glow
Thank you Lord, for this day
For work that was done preparing for worship tomorrow
For an opportunity to be outside in the fresh air
For the opportunity to see friends and parishioners and visit from a safe distance
For the evening spent reading and reflecting
Now as my eyelids grow heavy
I lift this humble prayer to you
Dona Nobis Pacem
Grant Us Peace
A wee prayer from the heart of your Padre…
Today Denise and I were able to take a walk that was quite wonderful. It was a bit of a challenge since some people out walking took over the entire sidewalk making Social Distancing difficult, if not impossible. Yet despite that we had an enjoyable walk in the fresh air.
Returning home I spent some time in reading and reflection while Denise was working on the worship service for tomorrow evening and Midday Prayer which begins on Monday. There are a lot of offerings between Zoom and Facebook Live. These are different times and we want to offer as much fellowship and worship opportunities through different media for folks.
Part of the reason we are doing this is to offer moments of peace and fellowship during these unusual times. So Peace was on my mind when I began to read some of my Virtual Mentor Howard Thurman.
He wrote the following in the forward to his book The Inward Journey:
“Lord, make me an instrument of Thy Peace.” Teach me how to order my days that with sure touch I may say the right word at the right time and in the right way—lest I betray the spirit of peace. Let me not be deceived by my own insecurity and weakness which would make me hurt another as I try desperately to help myself. Keep watch with me, O my Father, over the days of my life, that with abiding enthusiasm I may be in such possession of myself that each day I may offer to Thee the full, unhampered use of me in all my parts as “an instrument of Thy Peace.” Amen.
It would have been fascinating if Thurman and Merton would have had a chance to sit on the front porch of Merton’s Hermitage and talk about life, spirituality, and peacemaking.
In Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, Merton said the following about peace which for me resonates with Thurman’s thoughts.
Peace is something you have or do not have. If you are yourself at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world. Then share your peace with everyone, and everyone will be at peace.
Right now as I prepare for sleep and a busy Lord’s Day tomorrow my focus is centering on that peace as I seek to follow the Prince of Peace.
The first time we went hiking on the Upper Ute Trail in the Rocky Mountain National Park, there was still some snow on the ground and the wind was cold with strong gusts. When you are hiking above the timberline, it is amazing what can still grow in such harsh conditions. These wildflowers were a reminder to us that even in harsh conditions new life blooms every Spring.
The last time we had seen such windswept, rough, and rugged country with plants blooming in the most unusual places was when we were on our honeymoon and encountered the Burren in County Clare, Ireland. There too we were amazed at how life can hang on in such harsh conditions.
Even in such harsh conditions, the life of wee flowering plants reminds me that there is always hope blooming in the wilderness, you just have to look for it.
In these days when people are sheltering in place, practicing safe distance from each other, and churches are figuring out how to do virtual worship and/or meetings and fellowship it can feel like a wilderness. When there isn’t a choir or an organ or music leaders it can sometimes seem unsettling. Yet in the midst of this wilderness journey, many are coming to the realization that the church is not the building or the music or the pews. The church has always been about the people who seek to follow Christ. The earliest places of worship after the followers of the Way (followers of Jesus) were kicked out in places like Rome, they worshiped in the catacombs… yes, they worshiped in underground burial “cities” which were quite large.
In Oxford, England I remember visiting one of the Oxford University Colleges and seeing the crypt beneath the College Churches where worship was held in a clandestine manner when their particular faith community (Roman Catholic or Church of England) was forced into hiding because of persecutions.
On a less dramatic scale, when I was deployed with the Air Force I held worship in Dining Tents, Storage Tents, and Plywood Buildings. The situation was different, yet the community of faith, the body of Christ was still very much present. Some of my best memories of worship in the Air Force were in those makeshift chapels.
The psalmist in the 23rd Psalm writes about God leading the flock through the valley of the shadows, alongside still waters, and in green pastures. Even in the darkest valleys of the shadow of death, God was with the flock. That is how I find hope in the wilderness. That is how I see new life breaking forth just as the Spring flowers break through the snow and burst forth in wonderful colors.
Dear reader, we are indeed in a different sort of wilderness thanks to COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus. Worship is different, gathering in community is different, social isolation is a reality. Yet even in the midst of this wilderness, there is a promise of new life. Just as Jesus offered hope and a promise to the man born blind… a hope offered despite the cruel musings of the crowd… so Jesus, like the Good Shepherd in the 23rd Psalm offers us light and hope in the wilderness.
I see evidence of this hope and new life everywhere I look. Neighbors helping neighbors, friends helping friends, people helping complete strangers. Sadly this is not the sort of news that the Media outlets share. There is hope in the Wilderness and we have a Savior who will guide us through the times of darkness and teach us that Church is about relationships with God and with one another.
Wise and good words from my friend Jake ❣️
Last Friday, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards suspended gatherings of more than 300 people. By Sunday, the CDC had warned us to keep crowds smaller than 50. Barely 24 hours later the President urged us to reduce groups to no more than ten people.
I found myself wondering, “What next?”
— Read on jakeowensby.com/2020/03/20/what-next/
While it is a longer article, the message is so important for us today… Thank you, Paul Pynkoski for sharing the article!
The stark choice for a nonviolent future is here.
The COVID-19 pandemic has ground the world to a halt. While Hubei province in China has begun to recover, it has done so by locking down sixty-million people and severely disrupting the patterns of life and work there. The rest of the world is generally behind the curve in its response, with the number of cases skyrocketing and a few countries courageously taking the same drastic measures that the Chinese did toward containment and mitigation. The United States has declared a national emergency, but the pivotal strategy of testing is severely lagging. Quite likely, the next weeks will see a dramatic increase in cases and deaths…
https://paceebene.org/blog/2020/3/14/love-in-the-time-of-coronavirus
During these challenging times in our community, nation, and world I have seen some disturbing trends. When one individual hoards Clorox wipes or toilet paper or food products, they are stealing from a brother or sister in the community. They are especially stealing from those who live from paycheck to paycheck or who are food and/or shelter insecure. I have been especially appalled by those who were elected to serve the people of this nation who essentially and immorally used insider knowledge to sell off stocks to enrich their larder while the people whom they were elected to serve have felt the full brunt of the economic downturn.
What is this that I am seeing? This is the immoral and outrageous individualism which says the heck with other people, I am in this for myself. Greed, Materialism, Narcissism, and the like are running roughshod over the rest of the community and world. At Tim’s like this I look to the monastic community of Our Lady of Gethsemane where Thomas Merton was a Monk and Priest from 1941 until his tragic death in 1968. Merton (or Father M Louis which was the name he took upon taking his solemn vows in 1948) wrote the following about the heresy of individualism in his book, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander: This article was written by Merton Scholar, Gregory Hillis, an associate professor of theology at Belarmine University in Louisville, KY. In his 1965 book Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, the American Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote against what he saw as ‘the heresy of individualism,’ which he described as ‘thinking oneself a completely self-sufficient unit and asserting this imaginary ‘unity’ against all others.’ Too often we act as if we are isolated monads concerned mainly with our own well-being. We identify ourselves primarily by that which distinguishes and separates us from our fellow humans.” (America: The Jesuit Magazine, March 19; 2020)
As Professor Hillis proposes in this article, …the coronavirus illustrates one of the most important takeaways of a good Trinitarian theology: the unity of humankind.
I believe that we are being called today to cast down the oppressive yoke of individualism and take up the call to interdependence, grace, and love. May we do this now before it is too late!
“God is as close to us as our very breath. God is the sustainer of our breathing.”
— Christine Valters Paintner, PhD,Water, Wind, Earth, & Fire: The Practice of Praying with the Elements
How do you experience the “breath of God?”
