For the Love of St. Francis ~

by Kathy Douglass

I took my 3-year-old terrier-who-knows-what-else-mix mutt to the park last Sunday for the Blessing of the Animals. Maggie’s been mine for about eight months now, and because she’s been such a gift, such a blast, such a comfort and source of laughter to me, I figured, hey, sure, we’ll do the Blessing.

The Episcopal tradition offers me an invitation to remembrances and celebrations that are new to me, and this is one of my favorites - a chance to thank God for the life of St. Francis of Assisi, and while doing so, to thank God for His creation, for the life of His creatures.

Um, yea, “creature” about sums it up. As the good Reverend approached, my gentle, fun-loving, scratch-my-belly-would-you-please puppy dog stiffened, growled, snarled and bared her teeth at the hand that would bless her.

I was mortified. I wanted to yank at her leash and make a quick getaway. I sifted through the excuses that quickly flooded my thoughts, all beginning with “she’s never done that before, I can’t imagine what…” I wondered what happens to dogs who bite the clergy. Sigh.

It didn’t go at all like I had planned. I’d spent 45 minutes the evening before, brushing her coat so it would be soft and shiny. I got her to the park in time to run off some spunk, chase a few squirrels and sniff about the grass to find her spot.

I’d told her what we were doing, and while I understand she doesn’t know the meaning of my words, (I dorealize she’s a dog), I do believe she understands my tone and she knew that this tone meant we were off to do something fun together. She had to know.

Yea, not so much.

When my eyes are open and I can see beyond what I am “seeing”, I find that there a story pictures, snapshots, collages everywhere. Any given moment can present itself like the next page in a pop-up book, springing off the flattened surface with nuance and color and dimension, revealing a bit of truth we may not have otherwise noticed.

I can be a little cranky sometimes, out of sorts, anxious. I would like to receive a blessing, a prayer, a kindness, a bit of light in the dark, a pathway out of a dead-end, but I can’t see beyond the present circumstance to understand that what I long for is actually happening. I can be like Maggie, not trusting that the hand that’s reaching toward me is good and kind, and bearing what I hope to receive.

The gospel of Luke records that Jesus, aching for the people He loved, spoke these words: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem…how often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you would not.” (Luke 13:34)
　
Maggie would not. All the Reverend wanted to do was touch her gently on the head and offer a word of blessing. But Mags would not have it. She would not.

Sometimes we won’t either.

We stiffen, we growl, we snarl and bare our teeth at the One who would simply come near to lay a hand of gentleness on us, but… we… will… not.

She wasn‘t as animated as she usually is about the car ride home, she lay quietly on the passenger seat, and later that afternoon she rested her head on my lap, all “you still love me, don’t you?”, emanating from her big, brown eyes. I rubbed her ears and remembered the blessing the Reverend had offered Maggie, albeit from a safe distance, earlier in the day: “May the God of all creation bless and keep you, and fill those who love and care for you with joy and thanksgiving.” Amen. Yes Mags, I still love you.

We’ll try it again next year. The Reverend is willing, so am I. Hopefully Maggie will be too.

Receiving can be hard. “I will not” comes so easy. We all need another chance to give “I will” a try.

God bless St. Francis, who loved the Creator
God bless the kind Reverend, who loved my cranky dog
God bless Maggie, who got her blessing despite her behavior
God bless all of us, when we are growly, snarly, reluctant receivers of His goodness

by Judy Bevilacqua

“Free will:” it’s one of the most attractive and liberating doctrines of the Christian faith - but it’s also one of the most maddening and frustrating. It’s can feel like a divine marketing ploy: “free sample,” “free test ride,” “free estimate,” “free carpet cleaning.” How many of us have gone for the free vacation stay, only to have to listen to a 3-hour, high-pressure sales pitch for a time-share condo. We vow: “never again!” We learned that free isn’t “free.”

Decisions have never come easy for me. I was a child who was not allowed many choices. They were made for me, and I learned to be passive (resistant!) and complain and criticize under my breath, rather than risk and take responsibility. It was quite late in life that I came to learn to be “the adult” and choose for myself and bear the required results. I still agonize over the outcome of every bad decision and feel shame and guilt over not getting it “right.” So free-will is a double-edged sword for me. It’s designed to produce grown-ups, but I still find myself with these pesky pockets of adolescence.

The scriptures are abundantly clear about the necessity of making choices:

“Choose this day whom you will serve…” Joshua 24:15

“I would that you were either hot or cold…” Rev. 3:16

“Let your yes be yes, and your no be no...” Matthew 5:23

“Be you doers of the word and not hearers only…” James 1:23

“Put your money where your mouth is…” (oops, I guess that one’s not in there!)

God’s desire is that we choose….He leaves so much up to us. But there’s an overarching grace that accompanies this learning curve of decision-making. I think being parented by God allows me a large space in a less condemning environment. Our proof-text is to see the line-up of bad choices represented in the stories in the Bible. And yes, there’s hell to pay, sometimes! But primarily it’s a classroom atmosphere of “let’s try that again.” King David and Peter made some rather poor and consequential gaffes. Moses and Paul made some stellar blunders! In this journey of faith, it seems we are surrounded by a “great cloud of witless-ness.” Ahhh, what a comfort! It takes some of the pressure off. It turns the heat down and the shelves the shame. I’ve always loved that proverb: “A righteous man falls seven times and rises again.” Proverbs 24:16. It’s that do-over principle. This “free will” thing would be completely scary without the knowledge of God as a loving, forgiving, nurturing and completely realistic father-mother. We get to make this very human choice…and yet, in that finite moment, we brush against the infinity of the One who is with us and in us….and over time we learn we are still “on the way home.” We find our will is slowly getting conformed to His. Whatever unique and hidden road we may be taking, it’s still a pilgrimage of faith ….He is on the road with us!

Recently I read again a favorite poem. This time, I came away with a fresh view - like a glance in the rear-view mirror - perceiving that “way has lead onto way,” in that mysterious and transformative path of free-will…and “that (God) has made all the difference.”

The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I Had a Father ~

by Kathy Douglass

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. For what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him? (Matthew 7)

I had a father who lived at my house

He was my hero, he was my friend

Turned on the lights when the dark left me scared

Laughed at my stories, cuddled and cared

And every good gift that a father could give

Was mine for the taking as long as he lived

I had a father who lived at my house

As I grew older, wiser, I knew

This body I’m in is the same that he wore

He suffered, he struggled, he failed and he tore

My father needed a father too

We found the Father we needed in You

When I need my father

You are the one who won’t be gone

When I need a shoulder

Your love is the shoulder that I rest my life upon

If I ask You for bread,

You don’t go throwing stones

You’ve given me a home

And I am not alone

You are my Father, You are my Savior, my Lord

You are the One who loves me so much more

I’ve lived most of my life without my father. He left us when I was a little girl, and died a few years after that. I saw him just a handful of times in-between.

All that means is that I belong to a community too numerous to count, a community of names and faces and stories, a community of children who’ve lost their fathers. Death, abandonment, neglect, abuse, chasms of emotional distance that seem impossible to bridge, never-knowing-his-name… there are so many ways we “lose” our dads in a world hell-bent on loss.

“When I was a child, I talked liked a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became grown, I put childish ways behind me.” (I Corinthians 13:11) What we see, what we perceive, what we interpret as children can’t help but grow into something more as we grow into who we are. From childlike naiveté to weathered understanding, the view of my dad as “my hero, my friend” has taken on layers of meaning and perspective in the years since he went away. As I’ve had to confront and contend with my own brokenness, I’ve had to confront and contend with his.

Brennan Manning writes “blessed are those who know they are broken”. In knowing this truth about ourselves, about one another, a pathway toward wholeness opens up. I don’t think that God’s promise to bind our wounds (Hosea 6) means that healing isn’t going to hurt. Wounds ache, it can hurt to apply balm, to change a dressing, the journey toward rehabilitation is painful and long.

I don’t think God wanted to be my earthly father. I believe it was His heart, His hope, that my dad would do that. And yet, in that failure, in that loss, God has been intimately present, just like He was at the beginning, when I was fearfully and wonderfully made.

I miss my dad, I do. I’ve allowed myself at times to wonder about the impact of his decisions on my life, to consider what might have been had he stayed with us, to feel the starkness of the empty space where he was supposed to be. And yet, with time and God’s grace, I’ve been able to experience the things that a father can provide: a sense of being cherished, an awareness of protection and shepherding. These good things have not been withheld from me in my fatherlessness. I’ve not been left alone.

It’s not okay that I don’t have a dad, and yet… it is… okay.

When I need my father

You are the one who won’t be gone

When I need a shoulder

Your love is the shoulder that I rest my life upon

If I ask You for bread,

You don’t go throwing stones

You’ve given me a home

And I am not alone

You are my Father, You are my Savior, my Lord

You are the One who loves me so much more

Singing to God

by Ian Doescher

Today, the Grant High School Royal Blues Alumni Choir had our second concert ever. Reverend Jennifer sings in the choir (though she doesn't say much about it in church), and we were happy to be singing several sacred pieces. These included...

- A setting of "O Vos Omnes" (Lamentations 1:12, Jeremiah lamenting for Jerusalem)

- Morten Lauridsen's enchanting and ethereal "O Nata Lux" (O birth of light)

- An Italian madrigal filled with joy, called Exsultate Deo.

We can't bring the concert to the blog, but we can at least share one piece with you. Click here to listen to Exsultate Deo online. Here's to singing praise to God with our bodies, hearts and voices.

Pondering the Promise of Pentecost

by Judy Bevilacqua

I love spending time with my grandkids. We have great conversations about life, food, gross insects, dinosaur minutiae, bird identification, career possibilities and - even relationships. It’s fascinating to watch them slowly develop -- like little polaroids! But though they are unaware of this process, I am tracking their development into the future, like an archeologist in reverse!

Sometimes, there are things I would love to share with them. But they are not asking the questions. They are not ready. And frankly….neither am I. There are a lot of things I’m sure God might want to tell me, but He must also wait until I’m ready. My future is now a pretty short span, (I hardly need binoculars!) It’s not the vast frontier of my youth. But still that future is all fog and smoke, only a dim path. In my nearsightedness, I must wait for wise guides to lead me there. Last night before dropping to sleep, I read this quote from an “mid-life” woman, who suddenly became aware of all the elderly women around her in Paris: "It’s as if I’ve only now developed the rods and cones in my retina that allow me to see them” [Traveling with Pomegranates, Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor]. I know this feeling. Maybe it takes old age to see old age, or ill health to see ill health. (You could fill in the blanks to this formula….ad infinitum!) The truth is: there is a reality that has been there all along, but you can’t “see” it until a certain moment in your life…..until you’re ready.

There is something strangely comforting about this whole phenomenon. We can’t just know and understand at will. We can’t just read the best books, get the degree, text our friends for advice or check Wikipedia in our search for “answers.” We just can’t produce wisdom. Wisdom just doesn’t happen in isolation, or “out of context,” or without the road-time, shoe leather and deep investment. We have to need it, to be ready for it.

In nutritional science, research shows that extracting and isolating a vitamin or mineral from the whole food usually prevents it from being well utilized by the body. Often another enzyme or protein is needed to allow that intricate “process of absorption.” If this is true for my physical body, can I grasp that there are a complex of elements that must be present for real learning to take place in the rest of me? This is Wisdom: that “assimilation” is essential for wisdom. Not just for my grandkids! This patient osmosis is vital for my own spiritual growth as well. It gives new meaning to the quote: “when the pupil is ready, the teacher will come.”

Last week, our lectionary reading from John 16:12-15, came as….“a slow wind to work these words of love” around me! Jesus was talking to his disciples, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you."

“…but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” When we are ready…. when we need it and are asking and when our experience can support it. (God used the Montessori method long before we did!) Pentecost reminds us that the wise guide of the Spirit will give us the truth - as we are able to absorb and assimilate it.

Like my grandkids, I can’t receive all the information. I can’t bear all the truth. I’m not developmentally ready! But the Spirit knows how to guide me along and help prepare me for all that my future holds…..whether short or long. The Spirit, like that enzyme, is the catalyst that turns on the light…..

I close with a line from a song that’s been in my head this season of Pentecost:

“God only knows, when God makes His plan; the information’s not available to the mortal man” [“Slip sliding’ away.“ Paul Simon]. Ah, but it is available through the Spirit! This is the promise of Pentecost!

Conscientious Cooperators

by Ian Doescher

Because this is Memorial Day weekend, here's a story about peace. My friend Ken, the pastor of Tualatin Presbyterian Church, passed this story on to me, the story of a man named Desmond Doss. Have you heard of Desmond Doss? He was a Seventh-Day Adventist and an avowed pacifist who, after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, joined up with the army because he felt he should serve his country. However, he refused to carry a gun. He was mocked, ridiculed and even threatened by his fellow soldiers, and was brought up on formal charges by an officer. But it was determined that just because he wouldn’t carry a gun didn’t make Desmond unfit for service. Desmond became a medic, a medic who did not carry a gun. And though he himself was peaceful, he saw more than his share of violent action. In a battle in Okinawa, in which American soldiers were trying to take a certain ridge that overlooked the island, the Americans were routed and beat into retreat, but not Desmond. You see, 75 men were already wounded up there, so Desmond stayed and served them. One of the men he treated was the same officer who had brought him up on formal charges.

Desmond’s story is the story of a man who knows in the core of his being what the peace of the Holy Spirit means, a man who lived that peace courageously and boldly, helping people understand what it means to be both a patriot and a pacifist. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the first and only conscientious objector to have received that commendation. Desmond says he doesn’t like that term “conscientious objector,” though. He refers to himself as a “conscientious cooperator” -- a term that has been adopted by his denomination, the Seventh-Day Adventists. What a great way for us to envision our lives as Christians, surrounded by the Spirit whom Jesus promised to send to us: you, me, all of us, conscientious cooperators.

Value Every Moment

by Julia Graves

Close your eyes. Now think of someone you care about. What were there wearing? Can you remember the sound of their voice or what they smelled like? What did you talk about? Was your interaction pleasant or stressed filled with condescending remarks? Did you hug them when you parted and say “I Love You”? Did you value their existence?

We live our lives as if they will continue forever. We take relationships for granted. It only takes a moment to change our lives forever. In a moment a car accident, stroke, heart attack, or unexpected death can occur changing or taking the life of a loved one.

Our words and actions can cause an emotional death to an individual. We demean and minimize others in person and behind their backs. At times we behave more like people of darkness rather than of the light.

Life is a gift and every moment is precious. In a moment, it can all change… forever.

What do you value?

Ascension

And if I go,

while you're still here...

Know that I live on,

vibrating to a different measure

--behind a thin veil you cannot see through.

You will not see me,

so you must have faith.

I wait for the time when we can soar together again,

--both aware of each other.

Until then, live your life to its fullest.

And when you need me,

Just whisper my name in your heart,

...I will be there.

"Ascension"

Copyright ©1987, Colleen Corah Hitchcock

All Dressed Up ~

by Kathy Douglass

I walk through a park every morning on my way to work. It gives me a few moments to breathe in some fresh air, smell the lilac blossoms or kick at the leaves, and watch the squirrels skitter up the tree trunks before I hang my coat on my cubicle wall. The park is just across the street from the courthouse, so people-watching is also available, no extra charge, all day long.

A few mornings ago, a scene in the park caught my attention: a young woman, dressed in a white wedding gown, with the veil pulled back over her head, sat alone on a wooden park bench, her eyes pooling with tears as she held a bouquet of red roses limply across her lap.

It’s not unusual to see a bride in the park; weddings take place at the courthouse every day, simple ceremonies, as well as more elaborate rites. It just seemed out of place to see a bride, alone and sad, at 8 o’clock in the morning. Her body language, her expression told me that there was a story unfolding. Her face was downcast, her shoulders were bowed. As I approached and then walked past her, she looked up and off into the distance once or twice as her fingers absently traced the rose petals in her lap.

I walked as far as the crossing signal, then turned and looked back. A few women, braver than I, approached her as she slumped on the bench. I wasn’t close enough to hear their exchange, but as they bent toward her, as they leaned in with expressions of kindness and concern on their faces, I imagined them asking, “are you alright dear?” “Do you need some help?” “Are you waiting for someone?” “Shall we wait with you?”

The young bride slowly shook her head in response, one of the strangers touched her gently on the shoulder, and they walked away.

I’ve wondered since that morning about that scene in the park. That young woman seemed to share her park bench with the pain of disappointment, the fear of humiliation, the ache of wondering and waiting, the anxiousness of uncertainty.

I wonder how often we feel just like her… all dressed up and nowhere to go. Ready to be the bride, but no bridegroom in sight. Weary of waiting. Bracing for disappointment. Turning the page in our own story to find a twist of character or plot or setting that we didn’t want or anticipate.

It can be difficult in those moments to do anything but look off into the distance and absently trace what feels like a limp hold on our hopes.

When we come to these moments, we have to face a truth that is never far off: the way things unfold sometimes is simply not what we had in mind, not how we thought it would look, not what we had hoped for.

Joel 2:21-27

The word of the Lord that came to Joel:

O children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the LORD your God;

For he has given the early rain for your vindication,

He has poured down for you abundant rain,

The early and the later rain, as before.

The threshing floors shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.

I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten,

The hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent against you.

You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God,

Who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame. You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I, the LORD, am your God and there is no other. And my people shall never again be put to shame.

When I read the prophets, so much of what I read is beyond my understanding. I believe that context matters, and while I am interested in the interpretations of people who are wiser than I am, I just have to keep searching the Scriptures for the same thing I’ve always searched for: a glimpse of God's heart. Just as sheep begin to recognize the voice of their Shepherd, I believe that the Beloved begin to recognize the heart of their Lover.

When I read this passage from Joel, the glimpse I get of God’s heart is that it understands that we have, at times, felt jilted, disappointed, ashamed. I glimpse a heart that feels the losses we have felt, cares about the moments, the days, the years that seem, on the surface, to have been wasted. I glimpse a heart that knows the pangs we have endured, the hunger, the thirst, the want.

And I glimpse a heart that is set to make things right one day, a heart that will bring plenty where there was want, overflow where there was scarcity, and gladness where there was despair.

I don't know why that young bride was in tears on that park bench. I only know that there was something about the scene that resonated with familiarity. We wait and we wonder. We hope and we hang on. We brace ourselves for a twist in our own story.

God is greater than the reasons we sit alone with tears pooling in our eyes. “He is the Lord our God, who deals wondrously with us”, as He spoke to Joel. He will make us glad, He will. He will come to us now, He will come for us then, just as He promised He would.

We’ll be dressed in white, as a Bride adorned for her Bridegroom, and we will have somewhere to go.

When He cometh, when He cometh to make up His jewels,

All His jewels, precious jewels, His loved and His own.

Like the stars of the morning, His brightness adorning,

They shall shine in their beauty, bright gems for His crown

He will gather, He will gather the gems for His kingdom,

All the pure ones, all the bright ones, His loved and His own.

Like the stars of the morning, His brightness adorning,

They shall shine in their beauty, bright gems for His crown. (William O. Cushing)