Some notes from today…

It is usually not a compliment when someone is described as “squirrely.”

 “Squirreliness” isn’t a description of an industrious little rodent. No, it is a commentary on the creature’s favorite food. If you are “squirrelly,” you are a little bit NUTS.

 Thanksgiving may be a good time to rehabilitate the squirrel, appreciating “squirreliness” for all it strengths and insights. It is time for a “squirrel theology.”

 “Squirrel theology” is in contrast to “dog” or “cat” theology. You can buy T-shirts that ponder both of those. Or go to the website www.DogAndCatTheology.com

 “Dog Theology” goes like this: “You feed me. You pet me. You shelter me. You love me. You must be God!”

 “Cat Theology” goes like this: “You feed me. You pet me. You shelter me. You love me. I must be God.”

 A Far Side cartoon once depicted a scientist announcing a breakthrough in understanding cat language: “They say only two things: ‘Where’s my dinner?” and “Everything here is mine.’”

 So what do squirrels do with their lives that puts them on a different theological plane than dogs or cats?

 First, consider that squirrels are so good at what they do they have generated a whole anti-squirrel industry — the manufacture of “squirrel-proof” bird feeders. If you have ever attempted to feed just birds and not squirrels from your backyard feeder, you know that no one has yet succeeded in creating a truly “squirrel-proof” feeder. Baffles don’t baffle them for long. Weighted feeding slots don’t get them discouraged.

 Squirrels aren’t rocket scientists. But they use all their squirrely attributes to get to the prize. They dig in with their toes. They balance on precarious perches. They use their tails like anchors. They use their front paws like a surgeon’s skilled hands. The squirrel’s tactics aren’t necessarily perfect, but they are always persistent.

 All squirrels antics are centered on a single-minded purpose. NUTS! And because of that single-minded purpose, they find joy in every moment as though it is the only one that matters. By the way, I think the 4-letter words NUTS is an acronym for Never Underestimate The Spirit. This Thanksgiving I want to drive you NUTS . . . so you will live a NUTS Life . . . a life that Never Underestimates The Spirit.

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 Tomorrow Will Be Anxious for Itself

An ancient Chinese parable tells of Old Tan Chang who had a small farm overshadowed by a towering mountain. One day he got the notion to get rid of the mountain. With the help of his wife and sons, he began to hack at the rock around its base. A neighbor walked by and scoffed, “You will never finish the job, old man! There are not enough days in the year for you to do this.”

But Tan replied confidently, “I am not as foolish as you think, my friend. I may be old and feeble, but after I am gone, my sons will continue to peck away at the mountain. Then their sons and their sons” sons will do the same. Since the mountain cannot grow, someday it will be level with the ground, and the sun will shine upon our land.”

Many of the problems we cannot eliminate instantly can be moved one piece at a time, one day at a time. Did not Jesus share in Matthew 6: 25-34 read a few moments ago, “So do not be anxious about tomorrow, tomorrow will be anxious for itself.”

USA TODAY EPISCOPAL CHURCH AD

This spot ad appeared in the USA Today this week.

It’s so bad around here…

Well a friend sent me the perfect image for a home like our’s where everyone has been struggling with this H1N1 stuff. I thought I would share it as I can imagine it will not be long before Katherine turns her stuffed animals into something that looks like this. Hope you have a good laugh….and keep your hands washed.

No so fast….

Just when I thought I was well, I put in a long day at the office which ended near 11pm only to discover that the virus has not completely left my body. So yesterday afternoon I spent three hours seeing a doctor and getting medicine for my present situation….with direct orders to take it easy. Slowing down is so hard…..but sometimes we have to slow down to live! It is a good lesson for me.

Being sick is NO fun!!!

I think I have finally recovered from the worst bout of sickness of think I have ever endured in my life. This H1N1 virus is one nasty thing and once it gets you it does not let go. Many times I found myself wanting to do things, to write things, to go places, and yet each time I found myself unable to move….or I would simply move from my chair to my bed to a different chair to the shower and back to bed. I told my wife “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired!”

I guess viruses have to run their course. Like so many things in life, there are just some things we have to endure to the end. And if we make it….if the things don’t kill us, well then I assume it is safe to say we have become immune to at least some of the nastiness.

So when your life feels like Swine Flu, then keep looking to the horizon of your life…and keep moving forward….with Jesus on the horizon.

As Brother Thomas said to me years ago, “You can’t plow a straight row looking over your shoulder”. And then there is Hebrews 12.1 “Run to finish the race set before us fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith”.

Some medicine froma not so sick guy!

Caroline’s wonderful sermon from this past Sunday delivered at St. James’ AND St. Margaret’s

 november 15th 2009

In this age of fast food most of us could probably be accused, at some time or other, of gobbling down our meals and not paying attention to what we are doing beyond the utilitarian provision of nourishment for our bodies. But then there are the times, those times when we have taken time, or go somewhere nicer or it is a special time of the year, when we take our time to sample the sights and smells of food, to look carefully before we eat and to chew slowly enjoying the flavors and the experience of feeding ourselves.

This slower pace of eating is reflected in the collect today – it reminds us of a fine meal – but our food in this case is the Bible. It often seems that the value we give to the food we are eating is reflected in the pace at which we eat it – the better the meal the slower the speed. Perhaps, if we sat down to rare and expensive food we would gulp down our plate – but I doubt it – most of us would savor the experience. The collect asks us to do a similar thing with the Word of God – read, mark, learn and inwardly digest – these are not hasty actions. These are actions which will get the living word of God which we find in the Bible into the heart of our being, into our everyday language – right down into our deepest thoughts and influencing our every experience.

However, it is odd that this collect seems to get paired up often with the apparently most unpalatable pieces of scripture. The Old Testament reading is hopeful enough – Hannah’s conception of Samuel – and, of course at this time of year as we approach Advent, it reminds us of the experience of Mary, of her faith and gratitude. But then we come to the Gospel – it seems as though someone somewhere wants us to get indigestion. Wars and rumors of wars and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem hardly seems to be something which we want to spend time inwardly digesting – we barely want to read it.

But some of this reaction is due to precisely the problem of not allowing the scriptures to seep through us, of not studying and paying attention to the character of Jesus and what this might mean. After all, the Jesus of the Gospels is overall a compassionate figure, seeking relationship with people who are lost, people who are wandering – not one of some sort of spiteful vengeance. Our emotional reaction to passages like this seems to come from two places – first of all they scare us – after all if this was about the end of the world who wants to think about that, and secondly we have probably heard from somewhere at some point that God is to be feared, that God is keeping a tally and that God really is just keeping score so that we have to spend our lives “behaving or else”.

So lets take a step back and look at things differently. One theme which seems to unite our readings today is patience. Hannah waits for a child, in Hebrews both the ancient covenant relationship and a call to remain faithful are cited and both call us to patience. Patience is a key characteristicto be demanded both of the Disciples and of us.

So what is Jesus saying? Jesus tells them that the Temple will go – this is a historical fact as in 70AD Jerusalem was razed to the ground. It would have seemed incomprehensible to the disciples that this huge building – perhaps the most magnificent structure in the world – which was actually still under construction – would be destroyed. Of course, from our perspective, we can contrast this incredulity with our own gut-wrenching disbelief that the Son of God would be put to death on a cross – that should be truly shocking to us.

More than the Temple being destroyed, there will be pain and suffering for Jesus’ followers. Lots of things will happen, Jesus says, lots of things will go wrong – but do not jump on every single piece of bad news as if it was a definitive answer – look beyond the troubles and turmoils of the current age for your ultimate answers – these things are not signs – all these terrible things are simply early labor pains – they do not mean that a birth – that the Kingdom – is necessarily imminent.

Jesus purpose here is not some definition of his second coming and the end of the world – he is not proclaiming the last days – in fact he is saying beware of such proclamation, beware of those who say, ‘I tell you it is now and I have the answer.” They must have patience and this message of patience and of not being led astray is as pertinent to us today as it was to the disciples. Turn on the television any day of the week and you will find someone telling you that they have figured out the signs of the kingdom and that you had better get on their bandwagon or you will be swept away in some deep gloom of destruction and find yourself eternally separated from God.

Jesus is categorical in His call to the disciples – do not get caught up in rumor and man-made answers – the things that you assume would be signs of an end are simply a beginning. Anyone who has witnessed a labor knows that often things come and go at the beginning, contractions start and stop, there is confusion and often frustration – when a baby is really coming it is very clear what is going on – there is no turning back – there is a characteristic to the time of birth which is different and deliberate – it is not the waiting and wondering which have gone before.

But the waiting and wondering about things over which we have no control is in itself very destructive. We cannot, in the word of our collect, inwardly digest something which will eat us from the inside out – that worry that we will somehow not make the mark – that we might not be inside God’s fold, that we are not good enough or have to run ourselves ragged and have a specific answer to all of life’s questions.

This sort of taking hold of things, of demanding control not only of our lives but of God’s will for us is precisely the sort of thing which Jesus is saying no to. Taking time and allowing the scriptures to get inside us requires enormous patience – requires a lifetime – and if we allow ourselves to be distracted by things which we cannot do anything about then we simply cannot ever hope to live fully as the people we are called to be.

The problem is all of this takes confidence – Jesus know the sort of strength and determination which His disciples would need to withstand the wiles and crashing waves of the world which they would inhabit. In His prayer for them in John’s Gospel the extraordinary language of being caught up and knit in demonstrates the sheer inability of words to express the depths and complexity of Gods love for us, because paradoxically the words themselves make things far too complicated.

Allowing this mixture of simplicity a sheer depth is one which does not come from a simple drive-thru experience.

So we are asked to read, pay attention to, learn and digest God’s word.

There is the old story of the man who wanted guidance and so he opened the Bible randomly and read ” He went out and hanged himself” – he decided to try again and this time got – “Go and do thou likewise”.

When we pick and choose from the Bible and take it away from its historical and literary context we will find ourselves getting some very strange messages – often messages of vengeance and hatred. We find ourselves with spiritual indigestion and the spiritual health problems of a bad Biblical diet. But patience is God’s character, the God who inhabits Holy Scripture. Patience and love, is what we are offered and all we are asked for in all we do – as we read, mark, learn and inwardly digest more and more of God’s Word, may we be made daily stronger and more into God’s likeness by this careful diet of scripture and prayer.

Caroline Kramer November 2009

In case you need to get in the mood!

76 Trombones!

I was so proud of my little girl tonight as Music Man opened here in Alexandria. My daughter managed to get lots of laughs and her amazing high note got applause. I am so proud.

It was an interesting show about a man who apparently knows nothing about music and everything about making money. In the end the money does not seem to matter so much and there is music filling the air. It was a great evening….so great I just had to post something to my blog.

Also, as a post script, thank you to all of you who have sent kind thoughts and prayers as I have struggled with the swine flu this week. I think I am on the other side but it has been a long long week. Wash your hands and take precautions….you do not want to get that stuff!!!

WWJD!

I starting thinking today, as I recover from a pretty bad bout of the flu, what would Jesus have thought about golf. Perhaps it is a silly question but it does point us to more serious questions.

What would Jesus say about the frenzy of feeding happening at the moment related to every piece of personal information that can be found and lifted, related to the man who is hospitalized and faces capital murder charges? Would he see the sinner rather than the sin? I like to think he would. He would share the heartbreak with those injured and killed…and with their families…

What would Jesus have said in the death chamber in Virginia this week if he could speak to a man named John or the people gathered there watching him die? I cannot help but think he would have joined many others there in shedding tears.

There are so many other things like this that we could ask….

and by the way, I think Jesus would have enjoyed a round of golf on a beautiful Fall afternoon, and I imagine he would have no fear of water hazards and sand traps…

Sounds a bit simple but WHAT WOULD JESUS DO STILL APPLIES!

Why can’t we just get along….?

Why is it that we treat “OTHER” religious groups with such disdain these days. When an opposing view is expressed there is a shiver that often runs up our spine. We run away quickly from the possibility of co-mingling our ideals with those of someone who sees the world a bit differently from us. Why is that? What has happened to our confidence?

I have absolute respect for any religious or non-religious person. I like to think that my Oxford professor was right when he said, “I  will teach you what I think is the truth…and if you disagree, then buy me a pint and I will listen to your position on the matter”.

I would love to see our world move back in the direction of an open and confident posture where the thing which unites all of us in the profound “LOVE OF NEIGHBOR”. On that, we are in complete agreement. Issues of theology seldom are the source of pain and division in our relgious bodies….no, instead we argue over expenditures, contracts, roofs, trees, and subjective declarations about what constitutes best liturgical practice.

Perhaps today will be the day when we focus on the good…on that which we share….on that which unites….rather than spending one more minute pointing our fingers at anyone else. Well, at least that is my prayer today.