The Heart is the Fulcrum (Sermon preached 25 October 2020)

My earliest memory of the summary of the law, which is the formal name for Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees in this morning’s Gospel, is embedded in a particular place: St. Augustine-by-the Sea in Santa Monica. Not the cream-colored sixties-style contemporary edifice that now faces out onto Fourth Street, just below Wilshire; but the original church, that burned in 1966. The red brick and wooden frame building, with its rich, dark wainscoting and pews, deep jewel-toned stained-glass windows and red carpet.

 

St. Augustine’s, where I, along with maybe 100 other children, in blue-and white-checked uniforms, would walk, our hands clasped behind our backs, to chapel during the week; where I stood in a choir stall on Sundays: where I first fell in love with what the psalmist calls “the beauty of holiness.” (read more)

Camera Angles

While on vacation recently, I had the opportunity to learn about the brilliant, versatile camera that lives inside my cellphone. We started out inside, socially distanced, of course, being introduced to its many built-in functions (and a few hidden tricks). Then our instructor took us outside so we could practice what we had been shown. 

I discovered that knowing what all those buttons actually do makes a huge difference. And who knew that my phone was capable of such artistry? Exposure, contrast, saturation, tint, all of which can be applied and/or adjusted after the photo is taken – if, that is, I opt out of the “auto edit” function and decide to play with those tools myself. Otherwise my talented camera can determine the optimal combination of those features on its own.

 

But before taking the picture, there is composition. According to the rule of thirds, it is best to imagine the lens as a 3X3 grid, and locate the main subject(s) at either an intersection of the dividing lines or along one of the lines itself. Except, when you have a single brightly colored object or an all-over pattern, it is okay to center it in the photo.

 

And zooming in before snapping a photo is a bad idea. Why? Because when it enlarges the objects on the screen, it also spreads out the pixels, reducing the quality of the image. Better to shoot now, maybe use the “burst” feature so as to capture the optimal moment. And then later, when there is time and space, select, and crop as needed.

 

Not long ago, a wise mentor said to me, “we really can control what we think”. It’s not the first time I had heard this, but honestly, I’d never really bought it. It had always seemed to me that thoughts and feelings simply arrive, and I react to them, selecting from a whole range of responses from amazement to joy to satisfaction to disappointment to rage to grief.

 

But I am learning that just as I can decide to focus my attention on how to best capture a beautiful scene or a memorable moment, I can choose how to frame the reality I experience. I can select what is to be the primary subject(s); I can then decide from which angle I will consider it/them; I can lighten or darken the tone of the image; I can even take multiple shots and spend time later, evaluating which one is best. Which is truest.

 

What’s more, from the outset I can determine selection criteria for the images I want to add to my collection, as it were. Will I search a challenging situation and find the beauty? Will I scan the distant horizon and focus in on the hope? Will I, in the midst of chaos and suffering, refuse to look away, and instead keep watching for hints of divine grace?

 

And once the subject(s) of my seeking rest inside my frame – the individuals, situations, crises, and opportunities that I encounter along the way, I can then focus on those with whom I interact with generosity, and respect. I can frame the scene with open heartedness. I can intensify the contrast between what gives life and what does not; what is about love and what is not.

 

And isn’t that the whole point of capturing and preserving the moments of grace we are given? Isn’t it the reason we take pictures?

Desert Textures

It's About the Vineyard (Sermon preached 4 October 2020)

Last Tuesday morning, as I was scrolling through the news on my phone, I saw this headline from the Sacramento Bee: “It’s like God has no sympathy”: Wine Country Shaken by RelentlessWildfires.Of course, any headline with the word “God” in it is going to catch my eye! Especially during a week when I’m working on a sermon.

 

But this one was particularly striking for a couple of reasons. First, because someone quoted on the Apple News feed was saying out loud what I imagine some have been secretly thinking – it’s like God has no sympathy, and not just about wildfires – over the last several months. Months during which people all over the world have continued to fall ill and die from COVID-19; months during which our economy has been shut down to slow it’s spread, and during which later attempts to reopen have, in some places, led to new surges in infection. Months that have shown that though COVID’s impacts are more keenly felt by the poor and the vulnerable, still this disease knows no favorites, and has no respect for wealth or office. And that’s just the pandemic part... (read more)

 

Vineyard Along the Spanish Camino

Gathering Daily (Sermon preached 20 September 2020)

These days, time has taken on a very strange quality. On the one hand, as we long for this season of pandemic to come to an end, it seems to crawl. And on the other hand, suddenly summer has disappeared completely in the rearview mirror and September is more than half gone.

 

How can we have been living in this weird world for seven whole months? This world that looks the same, and yet it is not. Where the people in our lives are still there, but our means of interacting with them are so different. Where we have gotten used to wearing masks and giving one another wide berths on sidewalks and in parking lots. Where so much that we have always taken for granted is now out beyond our reach. Non-anxious air travel. Working together in an office. Hugging friends when we meet them in a restaurant. Attending big family weddings, birthday parties, graduations. Singing in the choir. (read more)

 

Saying Hello

Ever so occasionally I will share the work of others on this blog. This is from Irish poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama as read in an interview with Krista Tippett:

 

“Neither I nor the poets I love found the keys to the kingdom of prayer and we cannot force God to stumble over us where we sit. But I know that it’s a good idea to sit anyway. So every morning I sit, I kneel, waiting, making friends with the habit of listening, hoping that I’m being listened to. There, I greet God in my own disorder.

 

I say hello to my chaos, my unmade decisions, my unmade bed, my desire and my trouble. I say hello to distraction and privilege, I greet the day and I greet my beloved and bewildering Jesus.

 

I recognize and greet my burdens, my luck, my controlled and uncontrollable story. I greet my untold stories, my unfolding story, my unloved body, my own love, my own body.

 

I greet the things I think will happen and I say hello to everything I do not know about the day.

I greet my own small world and I hope that I can meet the bigger world that day.

 

I greet my story and hope that I can forget my story during the day, and hope that I can hear some stories, and greet some surprising stories during the long day ahead.

 

I greet God, and I greet the God who is more God than the God I greet. Hello to you all, I say, as the sun rises above the chimneys of North Belfast. Hello."

Toward Thin Places (Sermon preached 30 August 2020)

Just two weeks ago today, I think it was probably around 5:30 in the afternoon, I pulled up to the entrance to the Bright Angel Lodge, which sits just west of the famous El Tovar Hotel on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. I checked in, then followed the map I was given to the small parking area below a group of cabins. Got out of the car, identified the proper door, pushed my keycard into the slot, and stepped inside.

 

The room was rustic, and charming, and really hot, even with the overhead fan on high. I crossed to the second door on the far side and pushed it open, hoping that would draw in some cooler air. And right there was the Canyon. Just a few steps more, down a path, and I was standing on the trail that runs some 13 miles along the rim; from the South Kaibab Trailhead near Yaki Point west to Hermit's Rest. The view (and that word is just so inadequate) was breathtaking.

This wasn’t my first visit to the Canyon. My parents brought my brothers and me when we were young; there is a photo of the four of us (aged 9, 7, 6 and 4) sitting on the ground at one of the overlooks. I still remember how anxious Mom was about all of us being so close to the edge of that great abyss while Dad took the picture. (read more)

 

From the Rim Trail 

Shade

On a sunny Saturday not long ago, I went hiking with some friends up to San Vicente Mountain. We chose the trail that follows the ridgeline, affording spectacular views in all directions along with really steep dections guaranteed to up all of our heart rates.

Accompanying us was their sweet chocolate Labrador retriever, who raced forward, then back, zigging and zagging her way up the trail. Her owners were carrying water for her, and as the miles ticked by we would periodically stop so that she could lap some and have more poured across her back to cool her down.

By the time we all started back down it was early afternoon; the sun was full strength and she was feeling it. What had been occasional forays into bushes along the way became repeated dives into anything promising darkness and relief from the heat. She would lie there hidden, and panting, until we caught up. And then leap back out to catch up with whoever was in the lead.

Seeking out the shade was so instinctive for her. Gracie does the same thing; when she gets too hot, she drags me over to the nearest patch of dappled grass, flops down and stretches her legs away from her body to luxuriate in the coolness. 

There is nothing like that bit of shade when we need a break. Yet shade is getting a bit of a bad rap these days. At least it is in the Urban Dictionary, which defines “throwing shade” on someone as subtly insulting them.[i] The implication being that out in the sun is where we are admired and affirmed. In the bright light is where it is best to be, where we should want to be, all the time. Anything that gets in the way of it is to our detriment. It reduces us. 

Or maybe not. It occurs to me that the assumption that it is normal to be out in the sunshine all the time, where everyone is watching and where I must be at my best, is actually dangerous. Because it is such a short step from there to thinking that I am doing enough only when I am there. I am okay only when I am there.  So much so that I resist seeking out the shade I need from time to time to protect me from the blazing sun and the searing heat. The shade that invites me to stop. And rest. 

Seen from that perspective, someone who “throws shade” in my direction may, ironically, be doing me a favor. Whether the act is malicious or merely thoughtless, they have done for me what I may not be able to do for myself. For in that moment, I may be delivered from the pressure of striving for more – more affirmation, more kudos, more power, more whatever it is that I have become convinced is necessary for my well-being. The place of thrown shade is where I find respite from the glare of my unrelenting expectations for myself, and the exhausting heat of my imagined grandiosity. It is where I am brought face to face with my limitation and contingency. It is where I realize that true wellness lies not only in shining in the sunlight; it lies also in acceptance of my need for shade. Of knowing the blessed relief, chosen or not, of its sweet darkness, safety and protection. Of finding that even there, especially there, I am met by the One who is ever inviting, ever welcoming me into Presence.

The LORD is your keeper;

    the LORD is your shade at your right hand.

The sun shall not strike you by day,

    nor the moon by night.

The LORD will keep you from all evil;

    he will keep your life.

The LORD will keep

    your going out and your coming in

    from this time on and for evermore. Ps. 121:5-8

 

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[i] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Throw%20shade