Falling Down and Getting Up in Lent

A young seeker approached an elderly monk asking: "What do you do in the monastery?" The old monk replied: "Oh, well, we fall down and we get up. We fall back down again and we get back up. And then we fall down and get up again."

Lent is going as well as Lent does.   I've given up Facebook, which involved asking Laura to change my password, and then deactivate my account.  I could  reactivate and re-access my account through a three or four-step process, but those steps also given me the room to think about what I'm doing, and choose not to do it.  So far I haven't.  And the deactivation has kept me from receiving any email notifications which would send me back to Facebook.  That being said, I'm finding that I occasionally hit the Facebook icon and am confronted with Laura's profile or the log-in page...and there is a moment of recognition that I clicked the icon out of sheer habit.  It may not be too much of an exaggeration to say that I am detoxing from an internet addiction or unseating an idol.

It is important to me that I do not log into Facebook as a matter of keeping my Lenten discipline, but it is also the case that out of habit I click the button which will take me to the website.  I've just set up measures that confront me with my habit without rewarding me for logging-on.  It's a gentle reminder of my promise.

Now, I could feel guilty about the habitual aspect of my clicking the Facebook icon.  But, the habit is fading away as time goes on.  Still, what would happen if I felt guilt over just clicking the link?  And the intention behind giving up Facebook has not been compromised, I've made more time to write and think and pray.

How many people take up a Lenten discipline, fail at it in one moment or day, and then drop the discipline?  I think this sometimes happens.  We sometimes treat Lent as "New Year's Resolution, Take 2."  The problem with this approach is that, while we understand God to be forgiving of our weakness every other day of the year, Lent comes with a traditional seriousness and somberness that may overshadow our memory of God's commitment to us.  A broken promise to God or the Church or to others feels more serious in Lent than other seasons.  Logging onto Facebook, having the second cup of coffee, eating meat, and so on, may demoralize a person more than it should.

"I failed this Lent.  I will try again next year."

But I'm not sure failure is the appropriate frame of reference for Lent or life, in which God works to the Good and redeems us.

There is a lesson to learn from the elderly monk--a lesson that applies not just to Lent, but the rest of the Christian life.  We should recognize our falls as such (being honest with oneself about oneself without either exaggeration or excuse), but we should also 'get up' with the recognition that God is still present to us, and is ready to help and forgive us.

A monk once told me that there are two ways to write a rule of life, and it applies to Lenten disciplines as well.  You can write a rule that can tell you where you fail, or you could write one that tells you where you succeed.  The difference is subtle, but here is how the frame of the rule impacts how I see my own Lenten discipline.

Rule which measures failure:  No Facebook, logging in is bad and equals failure.

Rule which measures success:  I like to write and I feel the need to do it, because I want to re-evaluate my spiritual autobiography and relationship to God.  But I'm busy.  So, giving up Facebook will give me that time [about an hour every day].

A rule which measures success begins with imagining the Good and suggests how to get there.  I'll still know when I could do more, but I'm hallowing something I already do as opposed to setting a demand, benchmark, or measurement couched simply in terms of self-deprivation.

What did you decide to do to mark Lent?
Did you set yourself up to know when you fail or when you succeed?

Trains, Ash, Dust, Prayer.

For me, for seven other seminarians from Berkeley Divinity School, and for three priests (Episcopalian and Lutheran), Ash Wednesday began with a liturgy before dawn.  We were in a cold open-air parking garage, praying the liturgy for Ash Wednesday, and relying on the scant orange fluorescent lights overhead to see our prayer books.  A security officer stood a few feet away from our circle, seeming to try and make sense of us—a group of people in black cassocks. 

Two of the priests went to talk with the officer, and from the circle we heard him say, “I don’t want to kick ya out…let me go check with my supervisor.  I’ll come get you if they say ‘no.’” We were not asked to leave. 

We had come to the train station in Stamford, CT to offer ashes to commuters on the line to New York City.  For at least three weeks we had gone through much thought, prayer, and conversation about how to take the Ash Wednesday liturgy to the public.  We had discussed maintaining the theological integrity of offering ashes and an invitation to the season of Lent, public perception, our own nervousness, and mundane logistics (“Who can get some A-frames for signs?  Who is driving from New Haven to Stamford?”).  We role-played possible interactions.  We fretted over wording.  The result?  “Ashes on the Go” instead of “Ashes 2 Go.”  We would “offer” ashes instead of “impose” ashes.

Logistics.  We decided to go with teams of two; if possible, each team would have a man and a woman.  With stand-up signs, the seminarians would post themselves on three train platforms, and the clergy would be in the main terminal.  We would make eye contact with passers-by, maintain a positive presence, and greet people, but we would let people opt-in to receiving ashes instead of asking everyone who passed if they would take them.  One person on the team would impose the ashes (and we decided NOT to use the word ‘impose’ before the trip).  The other team member would offer the person the opportunity to participate in personal prayer about something in their life, and a card with a prayer written to encourage meditation on Lenten themes.

The day started slow as we took our places before sunrise, about 6:10am.  Even as the volume of trains slowly started to increase, the track I was on was not very busy.  My teammate—a Lutheran pastor—and I introduced ourselves and talked about life, as we occasionally jumped up and down to stay warm while waiting for the sun to rise.  We eventually moved off of our platform to a plaza in front of the train station, where there was more foot traffic thanks to a pick-up/drop-off lane.  Standing next to a statue, we witnessed some wonderful and moving scenes of couples and families parting ways for the day.  Fathers jumping out of their passenger seats and leaning into backseat windows to kiss their children good-bye… women giving their dogs a final pet before hopping out to make their train in the nick of time… children receiving instructions before being sent off on their travels.  Then there was also the occasional near-wreck.  Connecticut drivers.

It was in the plaza where we began to make an impression.  People pretended not to see me in my cassock, but would slow down to read the sign—stop—and then come up to us.  And we begin.

“What is your name?”

“[Name], remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

“Is there anything you would like me to pray for, with you here?”

Again and again.

Most would take the offer to prayer, and it would be jarring experience.  The anonymity of commuter culture was shattered by touch and ash, the act of being asked one’s name and being addressed by it, by being asked what concerns one had and then having them addressed aloud to God by a stranger. 

The prayers were serious:  Family and friends in the hospital or sick, children traveling, peace in the person's life and in the world.

The reactions to the whole enterprise were varied.

“Does this count?” The middle-aged man in blue jeans asked after eying us for a few minutes from fifty yards away.

“God is here with us, and you and I are the Church,” the Lutheran pastor replied. 

The middle-aged man accepted the ashes and prayer.

“Oh man!  Is this real!?  May I...?” A young woman asked as she stepped forward, visibly excited.

“I am so glad to see you here!  I wasn’t going to be able to get to a church today because of work!”  A Judicial Marshall said to me as she jogged up to us; she had leapt out of her van parked about 100 yards away.

“I heard about this; I wondered if I’d really see someone doing this,” a young man said as he stepped forward.

A man walked up to me about five minutes after receiving the ashes and joining me in prayer. “Here’s a few dollars for your work.”

I replied, “Thank you, but no.  Give it to a parish or keep it until you find a cause that does God’s work in the world and give it to them.”

[Alms-giving is an integral part of Lent.]

After moving to the plaza, we were offering ashes for about an hour and a half.  A few of us seminarians had classes today.  About 30-40 people received ashes from me.  Many people walked by.  Many people smiled as they passed.  A few explained that they would be going to Church later in the day.  A few appreciated the reminder that it was indeed Ash Wednesday.  A few declined because we were not Catholic.  On the other hand, a few Catholics said Episcopal ashes counted.  In truth, they aren’t Episcopal ashes.  The ashes are blessed by God.

I am an introvert.  I had never imagined doing something so public and open before.  I was somewhat worried whether or not I would be able to follow through.  What was I thinking putting myself out in a crowd in such a way.  Yet feeling God’s presence, having another person by my side, and knowing that others were also around to remind people to slow down, consider their spiritual lives, and remember God, gave me the courage to take the risk.  In those moments with people, while smudging them with ashes and in leading them in prayer—in the intimate moment between two or three people and God—noises from the nearby interstate and the trains fell away and time slowed.  Many walked away more calmly and slowly than they had arrived.

Amy Frykholm wrote in her blog at The Christian Century that “Bishop Jeff Lee, of the diocese of Chicago, recalls a woman, who, upon receiving ashes from him said that she never imagined that "the church would come out here to us."  But that is precisely where the church should be.  And most of the people who received ashes today from me had the same reaction as the woman speaking to the bishop, and said so with gratitude in their voices. 

Frykholm also nailed it when she wrote that, “the idea is to bring the church, with its rites and symbols, to the people--not to force anything on them, but because forgiveness, repentance, introspection, a moment of connection and quiet are needed everywhere.”  Lent is a season of penitence and self-examination.  It is also like every other time of the year:  a time to remind people that God loves them, and that other human beings—even complete strangers—care for them enough to ask their name, talk to them, and pray for/with them.  The Church can bear that out into the world.  We do not need a ceiling to do it, either.

Ash Wednesday

I'm off to the Stamford Train Station to offer ashes to commuters.

The plan for Lent

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I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the
observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance;
by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and
meditating on God's holy Word. (Book of Common Prayer, p. 265)

Typically I try to take on a spiritual practice during Lent instead of simply giving something up. But my life is significantly busier than it has been before. So I will be deactivating my Facebook account for Lent in order to make time for what may be more writing as a further practice in maintaining a thought for longer than a status update.  I figure avoiding Facebook and other online content will free up at least an hour a day for further contemplative prayer.

In consideration of the call above to to go through a regimen of self-examination, I plan to be writing about some things that have come to the fore over the past two months.  Some topics will include mediation on Bible passages, exploration of expressions of Celtic Spirituality, practical mysticism, the intersection of art, music, and spirituality,  and other things as well.

I have not taken time in a long while to think about my spiritual autobiography in a sustained way, and how I have been formed as a person and a Christian. Lent will be an exercise in naming what has formed the well-worn grooves in my soul; what I have lived yet left unsaid.  Some of this writing may end up on my blog.  I hope to post something at least every other day, even it is a quote from someone else.

I invite you through comments or e-mail to hold a conversation with me, especially since it may push me deeper into my self-examination.

Most people come to my blog through Facebook, so, if you'd like to keep up with what goes on around here, Subscribe to this blog by putting your email address in the box found up there ^ ^ ^.

Mountaintop Mysticism

Sermon--in the style of "Just One Thought"-- for Transfiguration Sunday, 2/19/12

Preached at St. Paul's-on-the-Green, Norwalk, CT, 7:45am Holy Eucharist.

The Readings and Collect

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!" Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.  As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. --Mark 9:2-9

The Gospel reading today takes us up a mountain; into a whirlwind of light and cloud, thundering voices and Heavenly visitors.  It qualifies as a mystical experience for the disciples.  But unlike a mysticism in which one simply goes around with her or his head in the clouds, the transfiguration event--this mountaintop event--shows us a 'practical' mysticism.  The momentary encounter with the glory of God ends with the disciples following Jesus back down the mountain...Back to the real world...and back to the work to which they were called.

Let us imagine for a few moments what it may have been like to be Peter on the mountain that day.

Peter, Jesus, James, and John break off from the other disciples to go up the mountain.  Peter, on the way up, may have been thinking about a conversation he had with Jesus earlier in the week.  Jesus had predicted his own death for the first time and Jesus made this prediction right after Peter had proclaimed his belief that Jesus was the Messiah.

Peter had questions.  He would have been wondering why Jesus said the ‘Son of Man’ must die.  What does Jesus mean when he says that he’ll rise again?  And what did Jesus mean when he said we must take up our cross?

But Peter’s thoughts are interrupted by a flash of bright light.  Jesus was transfigured, changed, before his disciples...made luminous..his robes an unearthly dazzling bright white.  And two heavenly beings appear to talk to Jesus. The disciples recognize them as Moses, the Law-giver, and Elijah, the Prophet taken to Heaven in a similar whirlwind of fire, light, and cloud.

Peter and the other disciples are terrified, but Peter is at least able to ask for permission to build something permanent for Jesus and his guests.  A dwelling for each of them.

When I think of what was going through Peter’s mind, I can’t help but think that he thought he was witnessing the end of the world as he knew it.  Here was his Rabbi, his Messiah, Talking(!) to the heroes of his faith.  God’s decisive act in the world was upon them.  The work of the Messiah would begin.  The world would be upturned in dazzling light and fire!  And Peter could help make it permanent!  Next, the climax. A voice from the cloud.

"This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!"

But then.

Everything goes back to normal around them.  It is just the four of them on the mountain.  Jesus starts walking back down the mountain.  Along with James and John, Peter must have been confused.  He may have hung back, and tried to linger at the spot where God spoke to them.  But it was time to go back down the mountain.

Peter is again left with his thoughts.  He might have been asking what was next.  He might have been asking how the messiah was supposed to announce God to the world.  What would become clearer to Peter over time was that the work of the son of God was not going to be on a mountain, but among his people.

In Jerusalem.

On a Cross.

On the mountaintop, something important yet mysterious happened.  The disciples are left with questions.  Peter had wanted to make something of the experience permanent by making dwellings, which would have become monuments to Heaven on Earth.

Yet they could not stay where God appeared.  They had to follow God’s beloved son on his own mission, which they scarcely understood.  Instead, they trusted the experience.

I think we have mountaintop moments in our own lives.  We have experiences of God in a variety of ways. The experience could be a dramatic work of God in our lives-- the transformation of the ordinary

into something special or sacred.  It could be the hand of God that pulls us out of the depths to a height we didn’t expect.  Or perhaps the still, small, voice persistently calls us into greater light and clarity.

But, like the disciples, we can’t stay on the mountaintop.  This is a practical mysticism. Those moments of communion with God are preparation for the work God has given us to do.  They are moments of strength and solace so that we may experience the real love of God.  

And they are moments which set us on our path so that we may bear a light to the world that struggles to see what is of true value:  the value of a world where the love of God which passes all understanding is available to all.  A love that serves as an antidote to apathy, to hatred,  and to all manner of oppression.

The disciples left the mountain with questions.

Perhaps we should leave here with some questions, too.

Have you ever had a mountaintop experience?

Where have you felt the presence of God in your life?

How do you bear the light of God to the world?

Religious Idolatry

Idolatry, simply stated, is putting something in the place in which God should occupy.  It’s making something more important than it really is.  It is confusing something of this created world with its creator.

So far, so good.  It is pretty easy to identify things in this world which can become idols.  Money, sex, power, and people/celebrities are often in the running for what people abstractly point to that can become idols.  More difficult is defining one’s own idols, and then to dethrone them. 

But what about things in the church or things that somehow have to do with God?  When do we confuse the things that are supposed to point us to God with God? 

I have a test to determine when I’m in danger of making a religious concept or object an idol.  I call it the “Get your hands off my God!” Test.  The Test came from the Roy Moore/Ten Commandments Monument fiasco in Montgomery, Alabama, which occurred from 2001-2004.  Then-chief Justice Roy Moore installed a massive granite statue of the Ten Commandments in the state judicial building.  He was then required by court order to remove it, and he was removed from office when he refused to do so.  The monument was eventually removed from the judicial building in July 2004, which was no easy task because “of the monument's weight, worries that the monument could break through the floor if it was taken outside intact, and a desire to avoid confrontation with protesters massed outside.”  Unfortunately I cannot find video of this, but apparently as the monument was being removed, a protestor yelled out “Get your hands off my God!”

Now, I think that the decision to remove the monument was congruent with law, and it should have been removed.  People who read this post may disagree with that interpretation of law or the idea of separation of church and state.  But my concern in this post is religion, not law, so I’m not going to spend my time on the question of church/state separation (I can do that later).

My concern is idolatry, and that the protester who shouted “Get your hands off my God!” was displaying a sentiment of the crowd:  that the monument of stone came to stand in the place of a God who writes the law on our hearts (Hebrews 10:16).  It became more than a symbol, and God was reduced to a block of granite.  And Christians were then ready to fight over a block of granite. 

Now, I’m a liturgical Christian who uses or appreciates icons, rosaries, labyrinths, books, good music (and the instruments needed to makes this music), excellent architecture, incense, statuary, and other religious objects.  This appreciation gets a reputation in less liturgical denominations as being precarious precisely because of the penchant for idolatry.  But this is precisely why I developed The Test.  The Test is that I ask myself this question:  Could I have a relationship with God without this object?  The answers have been yes.  There are times when I’ve not had one or all of these things, and the relationship with God has remained. 

The trick is to then remember that the religious objects are tools that serve to help me in my particularity and quirkiness commune with a living God. Rosaries help me, by touch and counting and repetition, to a place of contemplation where I can more easily hear the still, small voice of God.  The objects are not for devotion in of themselves.  There is some sentimental meaning attached, particularly if the object was a gift; but ultimately I could lose or destroy the object, and my relationship to God would not suffer in the least.

For a religious person who uses religious objects, an iconoclastic streak is necessary.  For a religious person who claims to not have such objects, beware of self-delusion. 

Now, at this point, the test gets tricky.  Humans can rationalize many things and claim that their idols are actually not idols, but they should keep the objects around anyway.  Remember this scene from Lord of the Rings:  Fellowship of the Ring?

With all things, the test of whether an object is an idol comes when the object of devotion is threatened. 

It is my opinion that cases of school prayer and religious objects in public spaces bring the idolatry to light.

It is my opinion that idolatry is exactly what is happening in Rhode Island, and some Christians are failing the "Get your hands off my God!" Test.  From NPR:

An atheist, Jessica Ahlquist sued the city of Cranston, R.I., over a banner hanging in the auditorium of her high school, Cranston High School West. Printed on the banner, a longtime feature at the school, is a prayer to "Our Heavenly Father." [And it ends with 'amen.']

Jessica Ahlquist has received threats since suing the school district over the banner.

In January, a federal judge ordered the banner removed. The school board is expected to decide Thursday whether to appeal.

This sixteen year old girl is receiving death threats and was called “an evil little thing…poor thing," by her state representative on the radio.  Presumably, these threats and insults are coming from Christians. 

So, is this object so hallowed that the Christians of the city cannot stand for it to be removed from a public school?  If the answer is ‘yes,’ I suggest that they are worshipping the wrong thing:  a paper banner, and not the God to whom the prayer points.  The display is important, and many cannot see the school without it.  And then, the idolatry is enough to make Christians forget that they are to love, and so they threaten a teenager, and bully her on Facebook.  One commenter wrote:

'This girl must be so unloved to want to get negative attention from everyone. Yeah, everyone talks about you 'cause you're psycho.'"

…Do unto others…?  Anyone?

Another disturbing thing is the rationalizations—like Bilbo Baggins—that are going on among the opponents.  Again from NPR:

"It's freedom of speech. I really don't feel as if there's a concern with it. It's not religious in any way at all," Palumbo says. "I mean, the banner has been up there since my mother went there."

Think about this.  How can one say that a prayer to “Our heavenly Father”—an address to the first person of the Trinity—petitioning for (albeit worthy) things, and ending with ‘amen,” is NOT religious?  Is it NOT a request made in faith, plastered to the wall?

At what point did the prayer lose its religious meaning?  At what point did an address to God not become an act of faith, but something you just keep around like a historical artifact?  This would be a silly argument for a Christian to make. It is akin to saying that "a religious object is actually not religious and has little meaning, so it should stay in a public place."  It is saying that all of us should be happy with a trivial meaningless object.  This is a rationalization and nothing more.

May it be that some Christians in Rhode Island would have the wherewithal and strength to tear down their idols.

May it be that we all have that strength.