Christmas 2005
Of Watersheds and Moments --
I was thinking of watersheds even before President Bush declared the Iraqi elections a "watershed!" It was the term that kept coming to my mind to describe where I see us as a community, but I was not sure what it actually meant -- so:
Watershed (noun) from German wasserscheide or "water divide" is, in my paraphrase, a body of land as defined by the water that both surrounds and runs through it. Beyond that the character and complexity of an ecosystem is defined by the interaction between the land and the water for life, for health, nutrition, recreation, beauty and an endless list of other functions.
Watershed is also defined as "an important period, time, event, or factor that marks a change or division." This definition seems to take into consideration the interaction of all of the factors that mark a change or division, as the geographical watershed is defined by the interaction among all of the water/land factors that comprise it. This is, indeed, where we are as a community. The many factors that make us who we are, the traditions, the generations of faithful members and leaders (groundwater!), the new emerging leadership, the new directions in which we are being led are all contributing to a newly forming terrain at St. John's-Grace.
In my search of "watershed" I came across an article by Gail Taylor, co-founder of an organizational strategy group called Tomorrow Makers, Inc. She speaks directly to these "watershed moments" like the ones we are presently experiencing. "Watershed Moments," she suggests, "are when the story changes. New forces collide and send us in new directions." She continues, "These moments -- whether wanted or not -- are opportunities to step up to better choices; to create a healthier, happier, wealthier individual expression, enterprise, community and world." One more important concept from her: "Watershed Moments break habits. They provide opportunities to change the game, to create opportunities where none existed before. They offer the gift of sudden change where procrastination and comfort have no space, no room to survive." How wonderful an articulation of the opportunities and challenges at our doorstep in 2006!
2005 has been a year of opportunity after opportunity taken, encouraged, rejoiced in, embraced by the vestry, the leadership and many members of this community. Let me just enumerate:
-- STAR after-school program meets weekdays in our facility.
-- Massachusetts Avenue Project's Food Ventures entrepreneurs and administrators are in our kitchen and the space they use for office space on a regular basis.
-- LaSalle Pupil Services, a longtime part of our community, continues to share our facilities.
-- a church made up mostly of African refugees, the Messianic Missionary Church, led by Pastor Aristote Bashizi Bwenge, is worshipping in our parish hall on Sunday afternoons.
-- we are the host venue for the International Cooking Club, seeking to revitalize Buffalo's West Side.
-- we have been invited to participate in A Taste of Diversity in April, another endeavor to strengthen the Grant Street area.
-- one of our neighbors, Dr. Charles Pierson, will be offering several series of Mindful Meditation opportunities in our facilities in the spring and fall this year
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-- nationally-ranked fencer Joel Jelliff is offering fencing lessons and classes, and is also going to aid us in looking at a possible restoration of our parish hall to its original beauty and elegance.
All of this in addition to our many, many opportunities for worship, study and service.
These are the tributaries, creeks and rivers that are beginning to run through our landscape, interacting with us and with each other, adding new nutrients to our already rich soil, bringing, in the Chinese word for "crisis," both danger and opportunity. We are ready to realize the Reign of God in this neighborhood that surrounds us, and we are poised to provide, through our many tributaries and rivers and the interaction among them, the ecosystem in which our neighborhood can experience God's Dominion of justice and righteousness for all of God's Creation!
Advent 2005
As you receive this we will already be well into what will seem like a very short Advent season. Since Christmas falls on Sunday this year, Advent begins (began!) on November 27, the day we normally bring the old church year to a close. I wish for you wonderful, noisy festivities with family and friends and coworkers -- as well as time for solitude and reflection on the greatest gift, God's gift of Godself in human form. Finally, after generations of revelation by God of what life should be like we get a real example. "Look," says God in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, "this is what I'm talking about. Now I want you to walk in love as Christ loved you and gave himself for you."
The past year has brought many changes in our life together. Our community has greatly expanded with the coming of CEM's STAR after-school program and Food Ventures from the Massachusetts Avenue Project, and the near future promises more such expansion. Our family dinner table just continues to get bigger and more crowded! Such expansion is not always easy. We have to make room and make everyone welcome -- sometimes a challenge. Just know that the payoff is abundant! We are called to "walk in love," and are being given immense opportunities to learn how to do that.
Our 2006 budget is, in many ways, a dream come true for those of us who work at administering and guiding the church into the future. Please take the time to get acquainted with it. It is a reflection of your incarnation -- your "walking in love" through the mission and ministry of St. John's-Grace. It is a visible part of how God is working in this neighborhood through this lovely English Gothic building on Colonial Circle -- and, more importantly, the vital community of believers that call it home. As we look forward to the coming of Jesus into the world let us be mindful that we are Christ's hands and feet. As reflected in my sermon on November 27 we, in a very real way as we hold that pledge card in our hands, repeat the words of our savior, "This is my body" given for the world.
November 2005
Much of my thinking these days in preparation for preaching and teaching has to do with keeping our eyes on the Big Picture. Many of the parables that are in our current lectionary are dealing with people who are so wrapped up in everyday routine, common controversies that seem important, and their own ingrained attitudes that they can't see past their own experience to realize what is larger -- the Big Picture. You probably know by now that my attitude is that the Big Picture manifests itself in our living lives of gratitude. In the parable of the wedding guests that we addressed on October 10, the judgment of the Master was a result of his invited guests' refusal to enter into the party with enthusiasm and gratitude!
November, with its opportunity later on to officially give thanks, reminds us of the abundance of God's provision. As the year comes to an end and winter is in sight, the earth really burgeons with produce. It is as if Creation, after lying dormant all winter, spends nine months or so working toward a harvest that explodes with abundance! This is the apex of the year -- the culmination of the year's productivity. It is appropriate to rejoice in the blessings of the year and to celebrate and revel in them. And one way to celebrate the blessings of the year is to be mindful, empathetic, sharing with those whom the Great Harvest seems to have passed by: victims of natural disasters, wars, hunger and poverty caused both by natural drought and political manipulation, the lonely and the ill. A great way to celebrate Thanksgiving is to give part of our lives to others in imaginative and creative and generous ways.
Why not spend the next three weeks before Thanksgiving praying and considering, either as an individual or in groups, how to celebrate the Great Harvest by making a difference in someone else's life? This is true evangelism -- the sharing of the Good News, the bringing in of God's Kingdom in our own world -- our own neighborhood!
One more note: this year Advent begins the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Normally we celebrate Christ the King on that Sunday, but this year we start early since Christmas is itself on Sunday. We use the color purple during Advent, and some use it as a penitential season like Lent. I rather prefer to view Advent as the anticipation of God's coming into the world in human form. Rather than a season of repentance I see it as a great looking forward to the dawn of God in our midst. Some churches that view Advent in this way use the color blue to anticipate the coming of the dawn of God's redemption, and I look forward to doing that at some point at St. John's Grace. As we move into the changes that the extreme seasons in our area afford us, may the peace of the Lord be always with you!
October 2005
Often the season following Pentecost, or Ordinary Time, gets tedious about now. We have been "green" for several months, the dramatic moments that we experience in Advent and Lent, particularly, are not to be found in Ordinary Time. As I mentioned three years ago during this time we are simply walking the dusty road with Jesus, learning how to live in the everyday, tedious, mundane world.
This year's lessons during this season have been very powerful for me, however, and have kept the season fresh as I have been forced to look at the lectionary texts -- hopefully with new eyes. This time as we are on the road we have been faced with how to deal with loss and disappointment. Perhaps this is a result of the personal and corporate losses we have suffered since three years ago on the road. Matthew Fox's admonition to learn what to "let go of" has taken on new significance in these weeks of confronting radical forgiveness, radical discipleship (giving up our lives to find them!), and even accepting the nature of God's unlimited generosity and goodness -- not particularly for ourselves -- but, rather, allowing others to experience it when it does not seem fair that they should.
We have again been reminded of our place in God's Creation, as stewards as well as beneficiaries. Along with that comes a responsibility to see all of Creation through the eyes of the Creator. Jonah's anger at God for sparing Nineveh seems childish and petty in the larger view of God's care for all people, and the landowner seems unfair for paying all workers the same regardless of how much they worked. Somehow, though, the message is found in the landowner's answer to the "wronged" workers: "Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Are you envious because I am generous?"
The two parables that we encounter in October's lectionary move us further into the mind of God: they are parables of judgment -- a concept that we would probably rather avoid. (If you want to read ahead, they are found in Matt. 21:33-43 and Matt. 22:1-14). But the point of them is this: what happens when things do not turn out as the Creator anticipated or expected? What happens when something goes wrong? Globally we already are getting a hint of what happens through global warming, starving poverty, stripping the earth of its valuable and limited resources, oppressive regimes -- even the oppression of those determined to rid the world of oppressive regimes. I suspect that these parables will reveal that we as individuals and as a community can have things go radically wrong as well.
Well, what a happy note to end on!
September 2005
When I went to Junior High Camp for a day in August I was pleased that the kids were being taught one of my favorite hymns, Draw Us in the Spirit's Tether. I am surprised that it is not in any of the hymnals that we use. Its tune, by Harold W. Friedell, is named for my alma mater, "Union Seminary." The author of the text, Percy Dearmer, has used some rich imagery for this hymn that is generally linked with Communion:
Draw us in the Spirit's tether; for when humbly, in thy name,
Two or three are met together, Thou art in the midst of them:
Alleluia! Alleluia! Touch we now thy garment's hem.
I am overwhelmed sometimes by the sense of despair that I hear from people - "we don't have enough people in this church, we don't have enough money, there's no way we could make that happen" - until I experience what the Church actually IS: the community of healing that exists in many small pockets throughout this community.
This was brought home to me again on the evening of August 23 as the Prayer Group met, as they always do on the fourth Tuesday of the month, to eat together, to share food that they bring from home, and to update a lengthy list of people for whom they pray daily. The Prayer Group is only one example of the many tightly-knit ministries of this church that find that "when humbly in Christ's name, two or three are met together, He is in the midst of them."
When Morning Prayer services began upon my arrival I was the only person there for several months, reading aloud the daily office in the large, beautiful worship space. Before long several people joined me. Sometime last year, around the time of Adrian's death, I asked them for a short leave of absence, and the group - without me! - has sustained its daily worship, and consistently is attended by 4 or 5 - sometimes as many as 7. They are a group that has internalized Christ's presence in the prayers and in their daily life together.
The list goes on: Bible 101, Salt Shakers, Movie Night, fund-raisers, Sunday morning studies and discussions, Adult Discussions on Sunday night, Wednesday morning healing service ... I'm forgetting some, I know!
Our challenge, as I see it at this place in our journey together, is to retain that sense of "two or three in Christ's name" while enabling a sense of outreach to our neighborhood, drawing, attracting, (seducing?) others to this way of life that celebrates the presence of God in our experience. The last stanza of the hymn is particularly poignant, I think:
All our meals and all our living make as sacraments of thee,
That by caring, helping, giving, we may true disciples be.
Alleluia! Alleluia! We will serve thee faithfully.
We are, as Episcopalians, a sacramental People. I invite you, if you do not already have a place in the healing ministry of this church - both inside the community and in its outreach to the neighborhood - to find one!
August 2005
There is a sort of progression in how our lives receive and manifest the healing and grace that God has for us. There is some disagreement as to how that happens: some think that you first practice acts of mercy and justice and that, in doing so, our own lives are transformed to greater acts of God's Kingdom. When I came to St. John's Grace I semi-consciously made the decision to work the other way around: to see if, by teaching and preaching the abundance of God's love to us, we would overflow with works of mercy and justice. You will not be surprised to hear me say that the progression is less of a straight line and more of a spiral. Transformed lives lead to service, which leads to further and deeper transformation, which leads . . . So, how are we doing?
We have said for some time that when the healing prayers we invoke on behalf of ourselves and those we love actually work that they will begin to penetrate to the outsides of the walls of the church in works of ministry to our own neighborhood and to the other worlds that we inhabit. I really see this happening! Your lives are visibly transformed, creating an authentic community that is seeking ways to "turn the world right-side-up." This summer has seen many opportunities present themselves to us -- and we are beginning to meet the challenges. While the steps seem small, the progress slow on some of these projects, the deliberate pace will more greatly ensure that they will take root deeply in the fabric of our community.
Even now there continue to be steps toward new neighborhood ministries: CEM has been holding tutoring sessions in our building throughout July and into August and they will be here full time in the fall, a task force is meeting regularly to try to define what a Healing Center would look like as applied to our faith community, the generous gift of a small business presents unpredicted possibilities for outreach, and there is still interest in restoring our parish hall to its former elegance in order to make it marketable for formal dinners and other events. Possibilities in the catering and business areas of our life together offer possibilities for our providing training and temporary employment to many of our neighbors.
There are many opportunities coming in the near future for you to input into and become part of the new ministries in our neighborhood and our larger community. I hope that you will take advantage of these forums and get involved in the coming of God's Reign among us. So, if my observations serve, if our lives are truly being made whole, if we are a transformed People of God, I trust that the new program year that begins in September will be a new time of joy and enthusiasm in our life together at St. John's-Grace.
July 2005
I was so struck by the Romans text that we used at Ann Deacon's memorial service on June 4: "The Creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God." This is such a profound statement to St. John's-Grace at this point in our history because I feel that the whole Creation is waiting, as I mentioned before, "on the edge of its seat," to see what is going to emerge through us in the next few months. There is great excitement in conversations that I have with church leadership and with those of you who are anxiously waiting the coming of the CEM program, the possibility of a Healing Center, and much more.
We seem to be taking seriously the idea that the healing that is taking place inside the walls of this church is to be taken outside the walls to heal the world that surrounds us. I am beginning to ask questions like: What will our neighborhood need to experience the healing of God ? the Kingdom of God ? in this time? Is it in need of employment opportunities, better attention to the housing situations in our neighborhood, more and better youth services? Of course the logical follow up to these questions is: What do we do to address these needs? We don't seem to have enough money or enough people to make a huge difference. However, if we claim the blessing spoken to the Ephesians, "Glory to God whose power, WORKING IN US, can do more than we can ask or imagine," then we have no excuse for not pursuing the answers to those questions.
I will be asking the vestry in the next few months to begin to come up with ideas of how we can better "turn the world right-side-up" in our little corner of it. Does it involve leveraging a part of our endowment to invest in the people and the businesses of our neighborhood? Can we help to empower someone to start their own business or to employ more people in businesses that we already have? Do we enable people to purchase housing and fix it up so that the whole neighborhood is enriched? What will we do? and what partners do we need ? to change this part of our world? to turn it right-side-up? We already have a wonderful relationship started with CEM and with several other individuals in this area. I invite you to jump in with your own passion for God's Reign, your enthusiasm, and your individual gifts to be a part of the very exciting days ahead for St. John's-Grace.
June 2005
I am a great lover of spirals; does that sound like a weird way to begin a column? I mentioned this in my column last December and our newsletter editor, John Schimminger, superimposed a wonderful spiral underneath the column. In the Episcopal Church we are aware, to a great degree, of the cycles of life. We celebrate the church year that begins in Advent and moves through the life and ministry of Jesus until, just after Thanksgiving, we crown Christ the King. Even the structure of our Book of Common Prayer is one that observes and celebrates the cycles of our lives -- first in the Daily Offices, Morning Prayer, Noonday, Evening Prayer and Compline -- and then in the cycles of our lives -- Baptism, Holy Eucharist, Marriage, Thanksgiving for Children, Reconciliation, Ministry to the Sick and Burial of the Dead. Life seems to run in cycles for us -- "the more things change, the more they stay the same."
Here we are, back in Ordinary Time, and in it we will take vacations, start school again, enjoy the beautiful Western New York weather, spend more time with friends and family, focused less on the church year cycle than we are in the winter and spring. However, we must, as always, be aware that we are called to deeper experiences of God in this Ordinary Time than last year or the year before. We have walked dusty roads with Jesus and learned agricultural lessons of God in Ordinary Times past. This Eastertide we heard our names called by God to change the world, and Pentecost has shown us that it is possible! My prayer for this church is that the coming weeks and months of Ordinary Time will bear fruit from previous sojourns with Christ as we take the information and submit ourselves to the inspiration of God's Power to proclaim the coming of the Reign of God in our neighborhood and our city in places where justice and peace are seen and acknowledged.
Matthew Fox, in Original Blessing, cites Elie Wiesel who says, "One thing is sure: man today must be obsessed; if he is, there is still hope. If he is passionate, meaning com-passionate, ... there is hope." As you know, the word "inspiration" literally means "breathed in." If the "breathing in" of God's Spirit can be a reality, then I believe we can change the world. The world can be transformed by the "obsession," the "compassion" of God's Resurrection People.
May 2005
On Tuesday night of Holy Week this year I paraphrased a section of the reading from Isaiah that I think speaks to the St. John's-Grace community in a very powerful way in today's language. The section, Isaiah 49:6, is a promise to restore God's People to a place of influence and power following a time of wandering. In my paraphrase, the text says, "It will not be enough to restore you to the way you used to be or to build you up with people just like yourselves; I am bringing the world to your door!" If ever a prophetic word were to be directed to a People, this one is directed to us. As Concerned Ecumenical Ministries (CEM) prepares to open the after-school tutoring program in our building later this spring, as reported in April's newsletter, there is a convergence of opportunities for us to change the course of the world! Don't believe it?
School 45, which will be the major beneficiary of this program, is reported to have approximately 40% of its population from refugee families. Some have said that there are as many as 70 different languages spoken in the homes of these children. Even if the numbers are not that high, think of what a fraction of those numbers represents in terms of the human family around the world. Even those kids who are born and raised here on the Upper West Side need the kinds of services that will be provided. Who knows what young woman or man who finds help, friendship, mentoring, safety, encouragement, skills, inspiration, Jesus, community, hope, will grow to become the political or religious leader of his or her country, an ambassador to the UN, a writer or musician who challenges the world with a whole new perspective? We have the chance to partner with one of our needy public schools, to reinforce the work of our tenants who have been here for years, the LaSalle Pupil Services Center, and to work with other churches in this neighborhood who comprise the Concerned Ecumenical Ministry here on the Upper West Side. There are other connections: our parishioner Michelle Schultz is a teacher at School 45. My guess is that we will find many more ways to connect.
Do you have some weapon in your arsenal to use as we begin our assault on the world? These 70-100 adolescents per day will be eager to learn to play chess, to cook, to knit, to write, to dream, to imagine new futures for themselves, their families -- why not their home communities and nations? It is possible that we can simply see this as a new revenue stream for ourselves. We have done that before. I really challenge us to dream a new world and act to make it happen. God could not make it any plainer in my opinion. The world is standing on our doorstep.
Easter 2005
For some time I have been suggesting that we will know that our Healing Ministry is working when the healing moves outside the walls of the church and begins to make a difference in the world(s) we inhabit. In Lent we spent our Wednesday nights talking about what we believe in the context of an Affirmation of Faith that speaks less about what we "think" or "intellectually assent to" and more about how our faith is lived: in "doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God." To really be Easter People -- people of the Resurrection -- is to find ways to realize the Reign of God in our own experiences and in the lives that we live. Paul's "if anyone is in Christ there is a new Creation - All things have become new" means that if we are indeed "risen with Christ" - Easter People - then our whole perspectives change.
On March 5 I had the privilege of attending the twenty-fifth anniversary of The Rev. Geoffrey Curtiss as rector of All Saints Parish, Hoboken, NJ. Geoff and All Saints were my sponsoring priest and parish as I made my way through the ordination process. The service was a wonderful reminder to me of the way that we as Easter People are called to speak to the culture in which we live, to remind the world that God rules, and that God's dominion is one of justice and peace. As part of the celebration the church sang a hymn that had been commissioned for this great event. I am including it here, and I invite you to read through it carefully. It speaks of the real gospel of Jesus Christ, not some politically motivated pseudo-gospel of prosperity or political or military power. It really speaks to the life of a resurrected people in whom you "move ... in deeds that spell your name as Love and Light, for faithful actions far excel beliefs that we recite."
Too Often, God, Your Name Is Used
By Thomas Troeger
Too often, God, your name is used
To sanction hate and fear
So love and justice are refused
To people you hold dear.
O never let us use your name
To harm or hurt or kill
Or consecrate a vicious aim
As your almighty will.
But move through us is deeds that spell
Your name as Love and Light,
For faithful actions far excel
Beliefs that we recite.
Let naming you through how we live become our public creed:
The clearest witness we can give
Is meeting human need.
And keep us ready to receive
The good that others do,
That helps expand what we believe
And why we trust in you.
For where deep love and justice meet
We see anew your face
And for a moment glimpse complete
The world transformed by grace.
That vision opens wide the church
To look beyond its walls,
To honor all who ask and search
For where your Spirit calls.
Their questions and their wondering
Help us more fully claim
Our mission as an offering
That glorifies your name.
Copyright 2004 Oxford University Press
The challenges of our region, our church and our own lives are great. When God asked Ezekiel, "Can these bones live?" Ezekiel responded with skepticism, "Only you know." However, taking the risk and speaking to those dusty old bones resulted in resurrection! May we begin to respond to God's call to speak to our world; who knows - perhaps we will see a resurrection!
Holy Week 2005
We are entering the holiest time of the year -- Holy Week begins with Palm/Passion Sunday on March 20. As I have expressed before, I don't see Lent and Holy Week as a time of self-denial as much as a time of self-discovery in our relationship with God and with one another. We are invited to not "give up" but, rather, to "let go" of the things in our lives that stand in the way of our becoming, in the truest sense, God's Image.
During Holy Week we gather every day to hear again the events of the last week -- the anointing of Jesus' feet in the home of his Bethany friends, the cleansing of the temple. Wednesday night we begin to turn out the lights in a service of shadows, Tenebrae, in which we read the Psalms of lamentation. Thursday night is the most intimate of all -- the gathering of Jesus' community of followers to hear his parting words, "A new commandment I am giving you, that you love one another." We will share a meal together and end the evening with the stripping of the altar. Friday we gather as mourners to reflect on Jesus' sayings as he was hanging on the cross. These are all opportunities for us to look into our selves and our relationships as we continue on the road to "put the pieces together."
Saturday night everything changes. At 9:00 p.m., as we enter the dark, empty tomb, there is a sense that something is different. We listen to the stories of God's redemption of the world. Three years ago when I arrived at St. John's Grace it was my honor to begin my ministry with you with the most important words ever spoken: "Alleluia! Christ is risen!" to which you responded resoundingly, "The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!" Once again we reenact the drama of that truth. Again we enter Spring, the season of new life, having experienced the power of Christ's resurrection!
Don't miss these opportunities to encounter the risen Christ for yourself!
Lent 2005
Last year we began our "Holy Lent" with ashes mixed with the Chrism of Baptism and the juxtaposition of the two thoughts: "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return," and "You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ's own forever." To hold those two statements in balance and in tension is what it is to experience being Human! We are often all too aware of being "dust," and we know our own limitations better than we care to. To be "sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ's own forever" takes a bit more of what we call Faith, or Trust, that we can somehow transcend those limitations - even in this life - through our relationship with our Creator.
I hope that you will take advantage of this season of reflection and self-examination. St. John's-Grace offers many opportunities in the forty days (plus five Sundays) to structure that kind of examination and growth for yourself or with the community. Here are some of those opportunities:
- The symbolic "last hurrah" is our Shrove Tuesday Pancake Dinner with games for kids of all ages, Tuesday night, February 8.
- Ash Wednesday services at 8:15 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. with imposition of ashes and reflections on life's limitations.
- Sunday worship services at 8:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. reflect on the life of Jesus, but offer a respite - a feast day - in the midst of our reflections. Prayers for healing are always offered.
- Wednesday Holy Eucharist, 10:00 a.m., is specifically a healing service with communion, a less formal time together with prayers and the Holy Eucharist.
- Wednesday evening Soup Dinners at 6:30 p.m. will provide opportunities for conversations on what we really believe and how it affects our lives. Discussions will center on an alternative "Affirmation of Faith" being developed by a work group here at St. John's-Grace.
- A Mid-Winter retreat, "All Who Hunger, Sing Together" on February 25 and 26 at Christ the King Seminary is sponsored by the Diocesan Music Commission and gives opportunity for musical reflection through singing. It closes with Holy Eucharist at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday.
- A Lenten Healing Retreat sponsored by the St. John's-Grace Healing Team will convene at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, February 26. It will, as before, offer sessions for meditation, labyrinth walking, etc.
- In Bible 101 we will be reading the Gospel of Mark during Lent.
- Plans are in progress for reflections on the Stations of the Cross on three Fridays: February 11 and 25, and March 11. We will begin the evening with a quiet simple meal of soup and bread at 6:30 p.m., with Stations beginning at 7:00 p.m. Each of the three services will use a different liturgy.
- Don't forget Holy Week! While it is not until March it is the goal to which we are moving in this season of reflection and examination.
I hope that you will take advantage of the opportunities that will be valuable to you. This Lenten season is just about as early as it can be - Easter is on March 27! Let's make the most of this mid-winter season!
Winter 2005
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
This is not really the theme song of Western New York, though we sometimes feel like it should be. I've never really heard anyone say, "I live in Buffalo because I love the harsh winters. They really invigorate me and give me a reason for living." We sort of joke about the winters, we are defensive when the rest of the country notes us only on lake effect days. Some even leave town to avoid Buffalo winters. I don't really blame them; we all look for comfort in the ways that we can find it. It has occurred to me, though, that what we need is a theology of winter that we can embrace and share with our winter-deprived neighbors to the south.
It seems as though winter is God's little joke on humanity; we enjoy spring so much, summer is a time of being outdoors, and even autumn has its special charms. But winter means travel challenges, heating outages, car problems, short days and long nights. Is it any wonder that people early on found ways to lighten the burden of winter by contriving community celebrations that include lots of images of Light? Many of us survive winter by finding ways to create artificial spring/summer: I recently saw a feature on a special light that is used by people who suffer from "seasonal depression." It creates an internal "spring" that allows one to cope with the "bleak midwinter."
While I would not suggest that we all do deep woods camping with minimum provisions - I certainly will not be there! - God's design for the earth during winter might also give a spiritual opportunity for humans to embrace. In Nature winter gives seeds and animals the opportunity to hibernate, to strengthen resources underneath the "iron-hard earth," to solidify their identity for the work that happens in the growing seasons. Perhaps we should take the opportunity to sleep longer hours, spend more time in reflection, reading good books, looking out at the frozen landscape, making plans for the seasons of growth that are to come. Winter comes not only in physical form to our lives, but in many other ways; we all find our hearts at times to be cold and hard, "water like a stone." Again, while I would not suggest that we camp out in the winters of our lives, I do think that it is necessary, rather than avoid the winter of our hearts or deny its effect on us, to use it to redefine who we are, to let the winter do its worst to us in the hope that we will emerge in the spring stronger, more energetic to growth, more compassionate, more open to God and to others.