Christmas Every Wednesday

I am a small farmer's daughter - and have gardened most of my life. I live in Albany now and don't have a yard or land of my own. But I've discovered Community Supported Agriculture! I can support other local small farmers and stay connected to growing food when I can't do it myself. Signing up with Full Belly Farms was one of the best things I've done in awhile! It's really the very next best thing to growing my own family's food. Every Wednesday, I go to a Presbyterian church courtyard to pick up my box of just picked fruits and vegetables. This week, the Full Belly farmers delivered melons, heirloom tomatoes, red onions, cucumbers, long beans, garlic, corn and peaches! It's like Christmas every Wednesday!

Eating local is not only the best thing we can do for the environment, but it really is the best thing to do for our palates and pleasure! Try it!

Do This and You Shall Live

Proper 10, Year C.
Good Samaritan Sunday
The Rev. Linda Campbell

Wisdom from the ancient rabbinic tradition tells us that the world stands on three things:
Torah, Worship and Acts of Kindness.

"The world stands on three things." I take it to mean that these are the three most basic aspects of being human that serve the whole community of creation. These three things are at the root of what we humans have to offer in the way of safeguarding creation and ongoing life on this earth.

Jesus summed up the Torah this way: Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself. If you do not know how to love God, that is ok, because all you have to do is turn to your neighbor and take at least as much interest in them as you take in yourself. What does this do for the world? It breaks open the prison of our own egos, of the illusions of our own separateness. It opens the way towards less judgment of others and greater ability to see clearly what is right in front of you. To truly love our neighbor as much as we do ourselves is humanly impossible, really – without intervention by the Holy Spirit. But making the attempt to love in this way – to love as Jesus did – grounds us in humility, in the reality of our own selfishness, and breaks our heart open for God’s love and compassion to come pouring in. We find out that to truly love others necessitates our complete dependence and acceptance of God’s love for us. Our vision shifts – we are no longer so utterly taken up with our own survival that we are able to let God’s love flow like water into us and on through to our neighbor. The world stands on those who love in this way, and upon those who make the attempt to love in this way. Torah – love God. Love neighbor. Love self.

The second pillar is worship. Jesus summed up Worship this way: “This is my body which is broken for you – whenever you eat, remember me.” What do you remember about Jesus? I remember his own hunger. His hunger to include all kinds of people – people at the center of power, and people who had been completely discarded and left out and abandoned as useless. His hunger to make life better for those who came to him for help. His hunger for the playfulness and kindness and openness and trust of children. His hunger for those who could pray with him and trust that God was good and would act on their behalf – just as fortunate children trust their dads and moms. What does worship that remembers Jesus do for the world? When you and I take all that our lives are – the good, the bad and the ugly, offer it all to God and ask God’s blessing on all of it serves to unburden us from the past and free us from the future. When we are brought into the present with all that we are and have been and might be, and when we offer all that to God, God uses you and me for new purposes – for purposes of good and not bad, for purposes of life and not death, for purposes of reconciliation and not further tearing apart of the fabric of life. You and I can be renewed and made new – this morning – in this worship – in this bread – in these prayers – in this silence. God can and will send you out with direction and purpose and meaning for goodness and health.

The third pillar is Acts of Kindness. Jesus summed up Acts of Kindness this way: “I was hungry and you gave me food. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me”. Mark says that “Jesus went about doing good.” “We know that Jesus cared deeply and constantly for the most vulnerable and he demanded that his followers do the same. He reached out to and healed the sick, comforted the mourning, had compassion on the crowds who were like sheep without a shepherd, forgave the shameful sinner, loved the unlovable, and brought the lowest person out of their isolation into the center, to the head of the table. Jesus turned to his disciples and said, “Go and do likewise.” He linked worship of God with practical acts of charity, saying that if we didn’t feed the hungry, visit the sick and clothe the naked, we were refusing to serve him, since he dwells in these people.” But most of all, he urged us to have compassion, to open our hearts and feel for those who are hurting and lost, and then be moved to do something for them.

But he also knew that he and his disciples couldn’t make everything all better. He didn’t heal everyone in every village. After he left, people still got sick and hungry. He reminded his disciples that “you will always have the poor with you.” So that could have perspective on their good works. And in the midst of doing good, Jesus didn’t neglect himself – he withdrew to recharge. He loved parties. He enjoyed life. He lived in such a way as to demand of us that we respond with great compassion and practical comfort AND that we learn to do what we can and let go of the rest, entrusting the rest to God’s care and other good-hearted people.

Acts of kindness. Practical compassion. Doing what we can with what we have. This is the third pillar upon which the world rests. It is a precarious pillar isn’t it – because we can only do so much – and there is always more to do. There is and always will be far more suffering than any one of us can possibly attend to. So this pillar relies on the whole people of God doing what they can and then unburdening themselves, “knowing that ultimately this is God’s beautiful and broken world and God will continue to care for it, using the hearts and hands of others long after we are gone.”

You’ve already heard some of the stories those of us who were in New Orleans brought back from our work in the 9^th Ward, and you’ll hear many more! This morning, I want to tell you about Lilli. One morning, a family that was traveling across the country on vacation came to the Children’s Camp. It was the middle of the morning. The children were already hot and wound up. This family – Episcopalians by the way! - had brought presents for the children from the 9^th Ward. A little background: This family lived in Phoenix – and one day as the mom was driving her kids, the oldest girl, who was severn years old, saw a homeless man, and immediately wanted to do something for him. Her mom explained that there was nothing they could do. But Bethie was determined. It’s hot and dry in Phoenix, Arizona, and Bethie persuaded her mom to buy a case of water bottles to keep in the car. Whenever they saw a homeless person after that, Bethie had water ready to offer. But she didn’t stop there. She began to use her birthday money, and eventually persuaded many people to send her donations. With that money, she purchases small things – like children’s books, little toys, candy, crayons – and puts them in paper lunch bags, draws a heart on the bag, and personally gives them to children in homeless shelters – along with her smile. When she found out that her family would be traveling through New Orleans on their vacation, she went shopping for supplies for 30 bags – each one labeled for older boys, younger boys, older girls, younger girls. So, there we were, at the children’s camp on St. Claude and Tupelo, hot and wound up, and Bethie and her family showed up. Bethie and Ellen, her younger sister, were amazingly shy that morning and clung by their mom’s side. Lilli, our shy little Lilli, walked up to Bethie and Ellen, and said, “Hi, my name is Lilli, would you like to come and sit with me.” Lilli held out her hand and led the two sisters to a table in which our children from California, and the children from New Orleans had already made friends. They all scooted over and made room for the new girls from Phoenix, who brought the bags – but who, even more, along with Lilli and the other children, brought the deep wisdom of vulnerability and friendship.

Torah: Love God and your neighbor. Worship: Take bread, bless it, break it, and offer it. Acts of Kindness: Share what you have with those who do not have. These are the three pillars of Christian wisdom – rooted in the more ancient Rabbinic tradition.

“Do this,” Jesus said, “and you shall live”. And Moses said, “What I am telling you is not up in the heavens, nor deep in the oceans, nor far across the sea – it is as near to you as your own mouth, as your own heart.”

* Brian Taylor, Becoming Human, Core Teachings of Jesus

Love in Action

4th Sunday of Easter, 2007
Acts 9:36-43; Revelation 7:9 – 17; John 10: 22-33, Psalm 23

The 23^rd Psalm is not long. But it is entirely memorable and beloved because it goes so directly and beautifully to the heart of our most intimate longings. It gives voice to our deep desire to be protected and cared for by someone who truly knows us, and who is entirely trustworthy. It speaks to our desire to have a Guide who knows our worries and our fears. The 23^rd Psalm speaks the truth about our lives – that there are dark and frightening valleys in which it is easy to get lost. As much as we don’t like to talk about it, death and disease are always lurking about. They cannot be outwitted or outrun or, in the end, guarded against. They, like our shadows, are wed to us. They give meaning to the word mortal.

These past weeks have been awash in mortality. As we enter into the 5^th year of war in Iraq, the numbers of dead and wounded are staggering. The shootings at Virginia Tech open up again the nightmares of Columbine, and random murder by troubled people in a nation in which it is devastatingly easy to purchase handguns and ammunition. I was one of probably thousands of parents of college students who have been relieved that their children are graduating in a couple of weeks – and the truth is, that in my heart of hearts, I have prayed for her safety – just let her make it through. This isn’t rational – but murder in safe settings isn’t rational. And that is, in fact, the essence of any kind of terror. It strikes at the heart of our desire and need for order and predictability. Incidents of these kinds have the potential to open the floodgates of our compassion for those mothers and fathers in war torn countries for whom it is dangerous simply to have their young adults leave the house at all.

Suffering has the capacity to link us to one another in ways that nothing else does. I don’t mean that suffering is good. It isn’t – and we are charged by our Lord to work towards relieving suffering and it’s causes. But suffering is real – and it’s one redemptive quality is it’s potential to increase com-passion – our feeling for some one other than ourselves or our own families and neighbors. When we are compassionate – when we feel with and for someone else – especially someone else to whom we are not related - we incarnate God’s love.

hat is what Dorcas did. When she died, the whole community grieved, and sent immediately for Peter to come and do whatever he could to make things better. Dorcas wasn’t an apostle. She wasn’t a preacher or theologian. She didn’t make her mark on the church by being a major donor or financing mission projects. There were no brave deeds recorded to her name. So how did she merit this entire story in the New Testament – at a time when already, women were being shoved to the background of recorded church life? Dorcas won converts and touched lives and probably influenced more people in Joppa than any one else. How?

"She took care of people. She made tunics and knitted afghans, baked cookies, held hands and visited people. She listened to the heartbreaks and joys of the people in the church in Joppa." *

If she’d been in the church near Virginia Tech, she wouldn’t have gone to campus with eloquent words and a large presence. She would have simply found out who needed what and made sure they got it. She would have done so quietly and simply, but effectively.

She certainly did this in Joppa, not only by herself, but by organizing her friends to help out too. Kind of like Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker, or Mother Teresa and the nuns. Dorcas put a human face to the love and compassion of Jesus. She was a good shepherd, seeking out the lost, the widowed, the lonely, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick - and the people, the poor especially, were devastated when she died. They stood by her deathbed, telling stories about her by passing around all the things she had made for them, telling all the good deeds she had done to make their lives easier.

Do you know anyone like that? I certainly do. And I’m not going to name names, because I don’t want to embarrass anyone with praise they weren’t expecting – but this church has the Dorcas spirit living within it. And praise God! Because, as Jon Walton, a pastor in New York City, puts it – “a church without men and women who are willing to follow the example of Dorcas is an impoverished church. The creeds may be recited perfectly, the arias perfectly performed on Easter morning, the prayers eloquently prayed week after week, the sermons well preached – but these are not enough unless the church also has a few gazelles taking care of others as Dorcas did: driving elderly members to church, sending cards to shut-ins on their birthdays, baking communion bread for Sunday morning and knitting blankets for orphaned infants in Iraq.” *

How did Dorcas become the hands and feet of Christ – the embodiment of a resurrected life and the symbol of self-giving love for the early church? My guess is that she knew for herself the grief of loneliness and loss and being marginalized. Remember that in her time, widows were at the bottom of the pile – the ones with no one to look after them, and very very little in the way of support. Dorcas found new life at the entrance to the tomb.

The truth is that the beginning of the intensely spiritual life is often at the entrance to the tomb. It is at those dead places in our lives, those places out of which we thought nothing good could come, that hope is found. You know those places. We all have them. The loss of a marriage. The loss of a child. The loss of a job. A severe illness. Intense loneliness. Places where our faith was inadequate, and our resources too few. Places where there was a lot of dark and not much light. Places we prefer not to visit or acknowledge. But these are the very places where we encounter the Risen Christ.

Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is familiar with the darkest valleys of life because he’s been there, and he does not leave any place we invite him into untouched or unhealed. Perhaps you are like me, and have found that when you do finally let go of insisting on having your own way, of trying to be good so you will be loved, of trying to create yourself in your own image, you find Jesus with hands outstretched to welcome you. Or more accurately, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, finds you. And then over time, with great care and patience and skill, He gives you your own life back, resurrected, transformed and full of meaning and joy.

Ultimately, this resurrected life is the kind of life where love is enacted – not only in words, but also in action. According to the writer of 1 John, it is love in action that pleases God. Love in action follows the example of the Good Shepherd. Love in action lays down our own lives, our own prejudices and preferences, for the good of the community, and for the good of each other. Love in action wants what is good for the whole more than what might make us personally most comfortable. This is the kind of life that has meaning and joy. This is sacramental life. It is the kind of life that springs from the baptismal font. Love in action is life that has entered into the tomb and been resurrected.

“No wonder death could no more lay claim on her than it could on Jesus!*”

* Jon Walton, Lutheran pastor, New York City

Heavenly Peace

2nd Sunday of Easter.

There is treasure in our pews! The real treasure of course is you. But the other treasure I’m referring to the prayer book. It’s true that for those of us who did not grow up in the Episcopal church, using this book in worship can be awkward and cumbersome. For those of you cradle Episcopalians, using this book in worship is second nature. But you have also lived through the battles that have been fought over this book – what prayers to include, what the shape of the liturgies will be, what theological orientation will shine through the brightest.

But beyond the consternation of change, and beyond the awkwardness of trying to balance the prayer book, the hymnal, and the bulletin, this book provides language for prayer that is as poetic as it is precise. This morning’s collect for the Second Sunday of Easter is a wonderful example:

We began with an address to the “Almighty and Everlasting God.” And so, in those few words, we proclaimed that the God to whom Jesus gave his whole self without any reservation is the Eternal One over whom the forces of death and destruction and despair cannot prevail. When Jesus carried the wounds of the entire world and all the fury evil could muster – and God raised him up to life again, it left an indelible mark upon this world: Love is the ultimate Reality. Love Reigns.

And so we began “Almighty and Everlasting God”, our own shorthand affirmation that as we give our lives, our time, our property, our resources into God’s keeping, when we follow the demands of Love, we are fully supported in the arms of real and lasting Power.

And we have plenty of Christian heroes and heroines who have proven this. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mother Teresa are two well-known people who stepped off the tried and true paths of security into God’s security and brought healing and courage into situations of danger and despair. But there are many Christians who have done so quietly, and their courage and conviction remain unknown. A Japanese woman whom my husband met many years ago, told him the story of going with her mother every Sunday morning to the perimeter of the camp where they were interred during WWII. She vividly remembers standing with her mother at the barbed wire fence, with guns bearing down on them. Every Sunday, her mother sang with joy: “This is my Father’s World, O let me ne’er forget. That though the wrong seems of’t so strong, God is the Ruler yet.” So, we too, on this 2^nd Sunday of Easter, affirm that the God of Jesus Christ is Almighty and Everlasting. (Do I hear an Amen?)

The morning collect continues: “who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation.”

The Paschal mystery is actually a scandal – it is the scandal that God allied God’s Almighty and Everlasting self with the poorest of the poor and died a criminal’s death, a defeated nobody in an occupied land – and continued to offer forgiveness and peace. Truth be told, this is as scandalous now as it was then. We inure ourselves to the reality of Jesus’ defeat and death and defeat through many repetitions of churchy phrases. We pretty it up with jeweled crosses. Regardless of what you thought about Mel Gibson’s film, the Passion of the Christ brought into modern consciousness again, the brutality of Rome’s occupation and executions, the nature of sacrifice, and the gratuitous violence which Jesus suffered. The Son of God suffered gratuitous violence similar to what the world’s poor suffer daily – torture, hunger, thirst, drawn guns and swords, loneliness and loss. So this is the Paschal mystery …. Christ emptied out on the cross in identification with wounded humanity. But that is not the whole of the mystery. The whole of the mystery is Easter: Christ raised up to glorious life, Christ drawing us in as full partners in this resurrection life.

Jesus drew the first disciples into resurrection life – into this new covenant of reconciliation. Three days after his crucifixion, Jesus’ disciples were scared out of their minds. Just having witnessed the bloody execution of their leader, they were crouched behind locked doors, quietly trying to fade into the woodwork. They were deeply shamed by the depth of their fear, deeply shamed that they had abandoned Jesus when he needed them most. They were still mired in jealousy and rivalry. There had always been rivalry between them: who was closest to Jesus, who would sit at his right hand, who would follow him to death. It is easy to imagine that the rivalry had turned to who was grieving the most. Who felt the worst. Who would be the leader now….

But after the resurrection, Jesus immediately headed back to this same sorry cowering group that had betrayed him, run away, given in, maybe come to blows with one another. He didn’t go find another group that might be easier to work with. A little more “spiritual”. A little less cantankerous. He didn’t even head back to this group to let them have it. To call them on the carpet with a lecture. He never said: “Don’t you get it yet. All this time with me. All my teaching. All my attention. And what is this with the locked doors, and especially what is it with not believing Mary Magdalene – who’s seen me, who’s talked with me, who’s told you the good news!”. I can easily imagine him getting fairly worked up in frustration with them. Can’t you?

Instead, he greeted them saying “Peace be with you.” He wasn’t ashamed to call them his friends. He hadn’t given up on them. From the other side of their betrayal and cowardice, he offered them peace.

And it wasn’t a mushy kind of peace. It wasn’t the cocktail party “hi, how are you,” kind of peace. This was the Peace that passes all understanding. This was the Peace that in St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians, “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Cor. 13: 7)

This Peace made reconciliation among the disciples and Jesus and us possible - because it rested on the work of the cross and the resurrection. It did not rest on the disciple’s attempts to deny or forget or retaliate for those places and peoples and times where they had been wounded, or where they had inflicted harm. Reconciliation still rests on the work of the cross and the resurrection. It does not depend on our attempts to forget or retaliate for times where we have been wounded or deny where we have inflicted harm.

“Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This is the Peace that God offers to you and to me and to the world. It is the Peace that the Resurrection makes possible. The Peace of God’s forgiveness. God’s friendship. God’s faithfulness to us. God’s renewal of all things.

As we are renewed and reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may we be granted the grace to “show forth in our lives, what we profess by our faith."” (2^nd Sunday Easter Collect) By the outstretched wounded hands of Jesus, we are offered the peace that passes all understanding. And we are commissioned to go out and offer this same peace to others.

The Peace of the Lord be always with you.

And the people say: And also with you.

Amen.

The Good News is.... !

Easter Sunday
The Rev. Linda Campbell


For about eight years in a row, at Easter, I led a group of youth and adults on a mission trip to build hope in Mexico and in our lives. Every year, about twenty youth and twelve adults left for Mexico on Holy Saturday morning, drove in a five car caravan down Hwy. 5 to the Los Angeles area. Every year we were hosted overnight by Emanuel Episcopal Church in Fullerton. We camped out on the floor of their parish hall, and in the morning, invaded their early Easter service. Then, in the caravan, we made our way to San Diego and the Otay Mesa Border Crossing.

In four days, this team would build two homes for very, very poor families in the poorest suburbs of Tijuana. They weren’t fancy homes, but they were the nicest homes in the neighborhood when they were finished. And how well the project turned out was decided on the first day. Because Monday was the day that the foundations were poured.

The first task was to prepare the site, and in this regard it was wise to heed the counsel of Isaiah! “Every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain and hill be made low, the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.” This was all accomplished with picks, shovels, rakes, and a simple carpenter’s level. When the ground was level, the frames were built and carefully leveled, and then the grueling work of making concrete began. No cement truck here! Just thirty people mixing rock, sand, cement and water in wheelbarrows and dumping the mixture into the foundations.

It took all day…but if the foundation was good, then the walls would be straight, the roof would go up easily, the windows would be square, and the work would be done easily in four days.

It always seemed appropriate to me that the foundations for these houses was laid on Easter Monday, the day after we celebrated the creation of the foundation of the church in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because everything that we believe is built on this simple truth: love is more powerful than death.

You might think this strange – but one of the services I find especially hopeful and refreshing is our service for the burial of the dead. For this service, the Easter paschal candle is lit and processed forward, leading the casket. The casket is sprinkled with the waters of baptism, remembering the promise of passing over from death into life – a Passover that began in our first plunge through the baptismal waters, a baptism into the mission of being Christ’s own forever.

I want to talk a bit about heaven and about life and love that is stronger than death – in the hopes of making our foundation as level as possible.

Most of us Christians think in terms of heaven as a separate place where one goes after death. It’s common to think something like: 'This earthly life is but a desert dreary, heaven is my home.' But a first-century Jew, like Jesus and the apostles, would never have had a hope like this that would so radically devalue God’s Creation.* (Paul Nuechterlein and friends)

The faith of Jesus and the early apostles was a faith in God as Creator who lovingly created the heavens and the earth. God would not scrap the earth in favor of a heaven as a holding tank for migrating souls. This might have been Plato's hope, but the Jewish/Christian hope is for resurrection of the body and the fulfillment of Creation.* (same as above)

This is reflected at almost every gathering of Christians when we pray "Thy Kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as in heaven." In other words, we pray heaven comes to us on earth, not that we go to heaven. We pray for God’s will, which is heaven, to merge with earth and bring creation to it’s whole fulfillment. If we devalue the earth in favor of a heavenly home what an excuse to treat the earth as one more sacrifice!

The truth is, however much we have fallen in with Plato rather than Jesus and thought about heaven as our true home and this earth as simply a stop over, it has led to disastrous consequences in terms of how we treat this beautiful fragile island home. The consequences of devaluing creation is in the front page news now by the reality of global warming and desertification and drought. The consequences of devaluing creation is evident in our rush to war, in our rush to develop, in our myopic focus on profit measured quarterly - basically in our scorn of generations to follow.

In spite of the Lord’s Prayer, we have too much thought about Easter as really about “life after death”. And we do believe that there is life after death – life everlasting with God – and what a glorious hope that is! It is one of the central proclamations Christians make and have from the earliest days.

But the truth is that neither Matthew, Mark, Luke or John say anything about “going to heaven when you die” at all in their accounts of the resurrection. In Matthew, the two Mary’s are invited to come and see – and then go and tell. In Luke, the women remember all that Jesus had said to them, and go and tell their brothers. In John, our gospel this morning, Jesus tells Mary, don’t cling to me – in other words, don't stop and make an idol out of me - go and tell my brothers. In Mark, the angel’s message through the women to the disciples implies that they are going to be given things to do as well. In other words, - Jesus is risen - you have work to do!

And the work was and is – Go and tell the good news! Share what God has done and is doing. Don’t be afraid of death or disaster or discomfort or being discounted. Just experience the fullness of God’s life in you – and tell others your story and God’s story. That’s the work of Easter! That’s the risen life!

And while the core of the Good News is changeless: Love is more powerful than death – each generation needs to hear this news shaped and formed to present day realities. Our present day reality is that God’s glorious creation is in dire straits. For a lot of Sundays now, we've been talking about the Millenium Development Goals to eradicate extreme poverty. The lynch pin to all the other goals is the goal of environmental sustainability. The Episcopal church is launching a web site called globalgood to add the church's voice to the global call to care for creation. This coming Saturday, we're gathering here at the church to step it up with an energy audit and to take another look at our use of resources.

The Good News is that God does not abandon creation in favor of some far off place called Heaven.

The Good News is that God loves this world. This world of flesh and bone and trees and sun and air and soil. That God has placed us here to tend and care for creation – this creation that God’s own Self entered into in the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus who was killed by the powers of death and was raised again to fullness of life by the power of Love.

The Good News is that we can have fullness of life without fear of the powers of death – and that we are sent to proclaim far and wide – that Love is more powerful than any other force.

Love. Creation. Life. Jesus is risen – We have work to do! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Needing Jesus

Maundy Thursday, Year C
The Rev. Linda Campbell
1 Corinthians 11: 23 – 32; John 13: 1- 15
Needing Jesus

Baby Nelson is a joy to all of us here. He is passed around from grandmother’s to teen’s to uncles and aunts. We have watched him begin to eat solid food …. Reaching out with delight for more Lenten soup every Wednesday evening.

But what happens years from now… when he’s a big strapping teen age boy and beginning to make his own decisions … when it is possible that the trailing clouds of glory that are so easy to see now, may not be quite so easy to see. I trust that in this congregation, he will be just as loved and precious to us as he is now. But that is not always the case. It can happen that the trials and tribulations of life scar us in ways that make affirming our preciousness much more difficult – if not impossible.

Several year’s ago, I read Corelli’s Mandolin - a novel about World War II, set in the Greek islands. The story revolves around the engagement of a young Greek girl to a local boy. He is an innocent, beautiful young fisherman who cavorts with dolphins and swings on olive trees. And then he goes off to war. He returns unrecognizable.

“His muscle was gone, and the skin hung about his bones in flaccid sheets. His stomach bulged, either from starvation or parasites, and his ribs protruded as sharply as the bones of his spine. The shoulders and back seemed to have bent and crumpled, and the thighs and calves had shrunk so disproportionately that the knees seemed hugely swollen. The worst of it was what they beheld when they peeled off the encrusted bandages upon the feet; they were a necrotic, multi-hued pulp. A shell of pus and scab lay upon the inner windings of the abandoned bandages, and yellow maggots writhed and squirmed in flesh that was all but dead. The stench was inconceivably stupefying, and at last Pelagia felt herself flood with the sacred compassion whose absence has previously so appalled her. “Wash him all over,’ she said to the boy’s mother, ‘and I’ll do the feet.’ She looked up at her lover with tears brimming in her eyes and said, “Agapeton, I’m going to have to hurt you. I’m sorry.’” After picking away the maggots, “she fetched a bowl of clean water, salted it heavily, and as gently as she could she washed the terrible mess. Mandras flinched as he stung, but said nothing. Pelagia found that the most gruesome patches fell away as she washed them, and that there was living flesh beneath.” (Pg. 135 – 137 Corelli’s Mandolin, by Louis De Bernieres)

All the gospels include Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples. But in John’s gospel, foot washing takes the place that the other gospels give to the institution of the Eucharist. In all the other gospels, Jesus takes the bread and the wine and imbues them with the new symbolism of his body and blood. But in John’s gospel, Jesus wraps himself with a servant’s towel, and kneels in the dirt lavishing each of the disciples’ feet with his attention, one by one, as though there was no one else in the world.

And as Jesus gathers up the disciples crusty, calloused feet into his large strong hands, and gently bathes them clean – he insists that unless he washes them, they can have no part in his community.

That is as hard for us as it was for Peter. We want to be the social directors - jump up and get Jesus a chair, assure him that we’re with him all the way. We do not want him to kneel at our feet, like a slave. But Jesus insists that we need to receive his ministrations before we can take our place at his table. And to be able to receive his ministry, we have to admit in some corner of our heart that we are broken and needy and fragile. When we are obviously well-fed, well-clothed, well taken care of compared to the rest of the world – it is even more difficult to discern our brokenness and lack. But it is true. We are not completely human until we can receive as well as give. The catch is that admitting that we are in a fix, that we need help, that we need divine cleansing, takes humility, and we are so attached to self-sufficiency.

Thankfully, the church remembers and still proclaims the language of old fashioned religion - We have sinned and erred and are lost. That’s the truth.

Indeed, we are not all that different from the church in Corinth to whom Paul wrote. The church in Corinth had been coming together for the Eucharist, but not sharing their food with each other. Paul chastised them for showing contempt for the church of God and humiliating those who had nothing. He reminded them that he had received from the Lord what he had handed on to them – that on the night in which he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took a loaf of bread and broke it, saying “This is my body which is broken for you.” Paul warned the Corinthians not to eat the body of Christ without discerning Jesus’ brothers and sisters, lest they eat judgement upon themselves.

It does not take much leap of the imagination to understand that, like the Corinthians, we are very broken. We do indeed, eat and drink judgement upon ourselves. We are Cain’s descendants, visiting violence upon our brothers and sisters daily….through gossip, through war, through hoarding resources that are needed to feed and clothe and house the poor, through the coffee we drink, the clothes we wear, the cars we drive. We are complicit in deceiving ourselves about the fundamental truths of poverty and environmental realities on this planet. We are both burdened with too much knowledge and not enough. And we are desperately weary with the ambivalence and uneasiness that comes from being the fortunate ones in a rich country. In short, we are sinners.

And the truth is that we cannot heal ourselves from the unholy plague of violence and envy and rivalry that sickens us. We are helpless to save ourselves, just as the young soldier returned from war could not save himself. But just as the young woman did for him, the sacred compassion of Jesus does for us. Jesus is able, through God’s overflowing love, to take our wounded souls, and bathe them in the salty water of divine tears. And as the gruesome patches of our falsehood and enviousness and betrayals fall away, we find the living flesh that is our true heart, the heart God gave us at our birth, the heart that can enter into Holy Communion with all of creation.

The simple truth is, we need Jesus. And Jesus comes to us. In the paradoxical vulnerability of our wealth and power and fortune, Jesus kneels before us taking our dung caked feet into his hands. Let me wash you clean, he says. Let me love you. Let me show you the way to life, the way to lasting peace, the way that leads through the cross and on into resurrection.

Amen.

Crowd Communion or Holy Communion

Palm Sunday, 2007

“Crowd Communion and Holy Communion”

I got to college just in time to still take part in a few anti-war demonstrations towards the end of the Vietnam war. I was a country girl, raised on the Bible, and contrary to the people who raised me, I had come to the conclusion that Jesus was the Peace of God for all. In my part of the country, that perspective was at best, idealistic, and at worst suspect of being communist. So with the gospels in tow, I got to UCSD campus, and found out that I didn’t quite fit with the Jesus groups, nor did I really fit with the political groups. But I was passionately against war, and so I headed off for my first anti-war rally in downtown San Diego. Now some of you might remember those days. Big marches. Lots of signs. Crowds of people marching for miles and miles. Crowds. It was exciting. It seemed a little dangerous. You could see what we thought were marksmen up on the tops of the buildings with their rifles trained on the crowds below. Uncertain as to what the crowd might do … and with good reason, because crowds are uncertain. Like tinderboxes – open to contagion. I remember a message sweeping through the crowd that day. A portion of the group was going to split off and do something. What that something was I never really found out – except it was mayhem of one kind or another. Mostly I remember a couple of things – the feeling of comraderie, of being a part of something much larger than myself, and of how good that felt. And secondly, the shift in perspective. What had felt impossible – stopping the war – felt entirely possible in the midst of the crowd. There was a kind of giving over of independent thinking to the sway and movement of this mass body of people.

Crowds surrounded Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem as a king of the people. Hosanna! Hosanna! Save us! Save us! This wasn’t the cry of praise so much as the cry of a people who were trampled upon by systematic oppression. At least a three way oppression:

Economic – shaped like an inverted triangle, the goods were held by a very small few at the top with masses of people at the bottom living in abject poverty.

Political –At the same time that Jesus was entering the city as a king of the people, regiments of Roman soldiers were also entering the city, with all the trappings of Roman power. Rome controlled this territory and ruthlessly crushed any opposition.

And Religious – the religious authorities legitimated the economics and the politics that kept the vast majority of the people in poverty and despair.

These were the crowds who laid down palm branches and garments and shouted Save us! Save us! as Jesus rode into the capital city of Jerusalem. Jesus had healed their children. Fed them. Taught them about God’s love for them. He was their friend. Their king. Their savior.

Jesus knew that crowds were unpredictable, unstable, and untrustworthy. The gospels repeatedly tell of the crowds that surrounded Jesus for most of his active ministry. But Jesus almost always picked out individuals from among the crowd to speak to, to heal, to forgive. When he taught the people, he sat down. He got the crowd to sit down. He broke through the crowd mentality and connected with large groups of people as people, not as a crowd organism. As he rode into Jerusalem however, he did not do so. “If the crowds were silent, even the stones would break out in praise and pleading.” Jesus arrived at the city in which he would be arrested, convicted and executed. It was the time for the will of the crowds to be done.

But which crowd?

The crowd who called for his crucifixion was not the same crowd that shouted Hosanna along the roads of Jerusalem. The crowd that yelled for Jesus’ blood in the courtyard of Pilate’s palace were the elite who had standing invitations to the palace. This palace crowd, who called for Barabbas to be released and for Jesus to be crucified, were the temple rulers, the economic powerhouses, the ones who stood the most to lose if the rabble rousing street crowds had their way.

Christians have a sordid history in fixing blame for Jesus’ death. For far far too long, that blame was fixed on Jews – crowds of ordinary Jews who must have been the ones to yell Crucify him, crucify him. My guess is that you are familiar with some of the utter ugliness that has been spawned over the centuries from the desire to crucify others on behalf of the crucified Jesus. Recently Christians have become much more sensitive to blaming Jews – so the focus is now more on blaming the Romans. I have been guilty of that. Even my analysis of the difference in the “crowds” could lead to finding someone to blame. “Ok it wasn’t the ordinary people who turned so quickly from Hosanna to Crucify. It was the elite – the people at the top. The people with all the money and the power. They’re the ones to blame.”

But Jesus came that we might stop pointing fingers altogether. At ourselves. At each other. At God. The truth is that blaming anyone -- Jews, Romans, the Jewish Sanhedrin, Pilate -- that blaming anyone is completely beside the point of this whole story. In fact, when we try to blame anyone, we are exactly missing the point. For the Christian Gospel isn't about this group or that group needing forgiveness. It's not about this person or that person needing forgiveness. It's about all of us needing forgiveness -- not just the persons there that fateful Good Friday, but about every crowd of persons through the ages who have needed scapegoats to come together.*
Scapegoats are the glue that holds crowds together. In the Vietnam marches, it was Nixon – or whoever was the President then. For the crowds that carried signs like “My country. Love it or leave it” the scapegoat was anyone with long hair or a peace sign. In Luke's Gospel, Pilate sends Jesus to the Jewish king Herod, and Herod sends him back, to which Luke observes, "That same day Herod and Pilate became friends with each other; before this they had been enemies (Luke 23:12)." Jesus’ passion begins with his becoming the scapegoat that unites former enemies. He becomes the enemy.

We have witnessed this kind of thing happening in our own country. After the presidential elections, our country was estranged from one another – bitterly so – and yet for awhile, after 9/11, all Americans became united against a common enemy. Having someone to blame unites a crowd, at least for awhile, and it has been that way for virtually all of human history. Scapegoats is what ritual blood sacrifice was about for thousands of years of human community. That’s what war is still about today.

And truth be told, this doesn’t just happen in nations and crowds. It happens personally as well. If you’re like me, it’s easy to think you’ll feel better if you can just find someone to blame when things aren’t going well. And the worse things are, the more you want to find where to put the blame.

But Jesus’ passion shows us another way. Jesus’ passion gives us an alternative to communion with each other that doesn’t rely on blaming anyone. Jesus, the Lamb of God gave himself up to our sacrificial slaughters. The Lamb of God took away the Sin of the world, that song we sing after the bread is broken - because our Risen Lord is our means of Holy Communion. In other words, our way of communion, our way of having peace since the beginning of human societies, doesn't have to be our way of communion any longer. In the Lamb of God and his forgiveness we have a new source of peace for a Holy Communion, a new way of coming together as human beings which doesn't have to be over against anyone else.” *

Yesterday, the church doors were open from 9 in the morning to 9 at night for an interfaith peace prayer vigil. Sometimes there were as few as three people here. Sometimes there were as many as twelve here. Neighbors came. One young man stayed for four hours, and whispered do you think there will ever be peace in the world? Some cried as they came to the microphone to speak poignantly of their longing for peace. Many lit a candle. No crowds. No bullhorns. No blame. Just the longings of parishioners, of neighbors, of friends, of people we didn’t know, for God’s peace to blossom in hearts and homes and nations around the world.

This is the peace that Jesus brought. The peace of a Holy Communion that reaches out in love and forgiveness without blame or revenge. You and I have been baptized into that Holy Communion – and we are fed and nourished in this new way of peace. But not simply for our own comfort. We are fed and nourished so that we can serve the Lamb of God as witnesses to this new way of peace in the world. This Holy Communion. This holy way of coming together as God's children, as all of God's children.*

Resources:

The Last Week, by John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, published by Harper San Francisco, 2006

*paraphrases and quotes from Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary, Palms/Passion C, by Paul Nuechterlein & Friends http://girardianlectionary.net/year_c/passion_c.htm

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Lent IIIC

“Actions Speak Louder than Words…”

The blazing burning bush drew Moses’ attention. Going over to look more closely, he dramatically encountered God. “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt…and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians….” And Moses, you are going to lead this liberation movement. Moses wasn’t so sure about this. He argued and came up with all kinds of reasons why this was not a good idea. But God consistently countered with consistent offers of companionship. As our weekly Lenten study* asks - the big question for Moses was: Would he do it? Would he act? Would he change his life, his focus, his direction, and act at God’s request?

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul commented on what happened. Moses said yes to God. He led the Hebrew people out of slavery and into the freedom of the promised land, through the travails of a forty year sojourn in the desert. Moses acted – and because of his faith, the people passed through the Red Sea. They drank water from the rock in the wilderness. They ate manna from heaven. They were protected by the cloud and led by the fire – all symbols of God’s abiding presence – and yet, they, like the Corinthians, and like us – were masters at self-deception. Thinking that they owed nothing to God, forgetting who they were, and what God had done for them, they turned aside from their own freedom, and were struck down.

Surely, as St. Paul says, this is written for our edification. The Corinthians (and we) are no better than the Hebrews. Just because we are baptized and partakers of the Eucharistic feast and regular church goers, does not mean that we are better than others. Just because we take communion, does not guarantee us a pass when it comes to bearing fruit worthy of repentance. We should not succumb to a false sense of security.

The parable of the fig tree is rather chilling in that regard, isn’t it. Fig trees are not difficult to grow. According to a gardener’s web site, fig trees are pretty much suited to any climate. They don’t take a great deal of care. They don’t require a tremendous amount of fertilizer. So, fig trees that don’t produce are worthless, and rather easily replaced. No wonder the property owner is ready to clear it out to make room for another vine or tree that will produce. Any farmer would see the sense in that.

But the gardener, perhaps thinking of the time it takes for a new plant to grow, asks for one more year – to see what he can do with some extra attention and care. One year – it isn’t an extension of “however long it takes” that is granted – it is a time limited extension. Chopping it down is still very much an option if it isn’t bearing fruit at the same time next year.

I don’t think Jesus’ intention is to scare us as much as to say wake up. This is real life. Your actions have consequences. Your inaction has consequences.

Many biblical scholars believe that the fig tree parable was directed at the national leaders – the barren tree being the leadership of Israel at that time. Jesus certainly called individuals to repentance, but, as with all Hebrew prophets, he also called the entire nation to repentance.

The truth is, people don’t die because God gets angry and punishes them. Pilate slaughtered the Galileans in the temple to make a statement. Shortly after this Pilate crucified Jesus – for much the same reason that he slaughtered these Galileans. He suspected them all of fomenting rebellion. He worshiped at the idol of political power and dominance and ruthlessly repressed anyone who got in his way.

People don’t die because God is paying them back for their sins. But people do die because of faulty construction and cheap building materials. Who knows why the tower of Siloam fell crushing the people, but it was not because God willed it. My daughter spent a year working as a young adult missioner with Hondurans. Honduras suffered a huge earthquake many years ago, and there is still tremendous suffering resulting from that quake. Many people, poor people, lived in buildings that had no chance to withstand the earth tremors, and so, many died as the poorly built building collapsed on top of them. They died because much of the world worships at the idol of accumulating wealth, leaving many to suffer as resources flow towards the lucky few.

Our action and our inaction have consequences – and while we are rightly happy with our OSHA standards and building codes, and our electoral democracy – the truth is that much of our way of life is built directly upon the misery of the poor around the world. That is a hard truth. And one that is made even harder because it isn’t at all easy to see what to do about it.

This past Thursday, several parishioners and I were at Church Divinity School of the Pacific, the Episcopal seminary just up the road from us, to hear Nora Gallagher talk about her new book, Changing Light. This work of fiction is about the making of nuclear weapons at Los Alamos, New Mexico, during World War II. After the bombs were unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Mahatma Gandhi said the bombs had crushed the soul of Japan, and it remained to be seen, what would happen to the soul of the nation that had used these weapons of mass destruction. This question is very much on Nora’s trained Episcopalian mind – what has happened to the soul of our nation, after the dropping of the atomic weapons on Japan in 1945. Is there a connection between that and Abu Graib?

What does it mean to repent? Literally it means to change your mind – to change your direction. If you are walking towards a cliff, repentance means to look up, see where you’re going and change direction. If you are worshipping an idol – which can be anything that takes the place of God as the center point of your life – change your mind. Change your focus.

Look up. See the sign of the times. Change direction.

A couple years ago, eminent scientists visited the White House carrying their concerns that the realities of the earth sciences were being ignored in favor of political agendas. The earth has her own ways of bringing her children to repentance. And, as the owner of the barren fig tree warned, judgment may be delayed, but it will come.

So, this is a morning of rather grim news. Other than the one year delay for the fig tree, where is the good news?

The truth is the grim news of the need for changing direction, and the good news of God’s love is one and the same, because, in the very act of sorrow and change, we discover God’s abundant mercy and unfailing love.

We are in the midst of Lent and for these forty days we are focused on changing direction, releasing our anxieties and our insecurities and our desire to take shortcuts on the way to wealth and wellbeing and replacing them with trust and faith and confidence in God who is our Creator and Redeemer. Who is the source of true power and security.

So, I’ve been talking about really big issues – issues that are overwhelming in so many ways. Instead of being overwhelmed, I invite you to see if you can do one thing this week – take one action that flows directly out of your faith and confidence in God. Maybe it will be an act of compassion. Maybe you will tell someone else a story of the difference God’s love makes in your life, or maybe you will do some service for someone else.

You might write a letter to some leader about one of the Millenium Development Goals that we have been reading about each week in our bulletins. You might find out more about how you can help with the Gulf Coast mission trip that the youth will take in June. You might sign up for a half hour of the Interfaith Peace Prayer Vigil that will happen here in late March. You might pledge towards the Access fund, to help open the facilities of this church to those who are handicapped. You might decide to find out more about sandwich making for the Souper Center.

See what God lays on your heart and follow up with some action. Bear some small piece of fruit this week on behalf of God's kingdom of peace, justice and mercy.

The Rev. Linda Campbell

*Groundwork: Digging Deep for Growth and Change, Lent IIIC

Isaiah invites us:

Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;

And you that have no money, come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,

And your labor for that which does not satisfy?

Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.

Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.

Peace Pole

My son says that I need to blog more often if I expect anyone to visit! OK.

Just returned from a long walk around Hawk Hill and the lower Lake loop at Bishop's Ranch. On the way I visited the Peace Pole. The recent group that was at the Ranch tied many prayers to the Peace Pole so I took strips of fabric along to re-stock the prayer box. The old prayer ribbons are faded, the new ones bright. The Pole does not seem weighed down by all those prayers. The hawks and the lizards read the breeze as easily as do the ribbons and as lightly.

I visited the Trailside Sanctuary on my walk also. Built in memory of Leanora and Jack Miller Dowling, there is an altar in the center in which people have placed feathers, acorns, small pieces of tile, handmade paper torn from journals. It is all about love - love in action. mothers in love and fathers in love and children and friends, those we know and those we have yet to know.

As I walked I took enormous comfort in an impersonal god who's nature is to gush forth life in all forms, to bathe us all in light and love and to seek out the valleys and depressions and tightnesses wherever they are and heal them. Before I die I want to hear the wind as a child hears the wind.

peace,
Linda

precious lord take my hand

Sunday - the beginning of the week in which I move to Bishop's Ranch, outside Healdsburg. In this countryside diocesan headquarters, my home will be a studio overlooking the oaks and quail and golden hills of Sonoma County. That's out the back. The front overlooks the courtyard fountain and beyond that the chapel. A gorgeous place for healing, for writing, for contemplation, for prayer, for play, for coming to terms with life at 51 - a far different life than I ever imagined.

Coming back from the City this evening, after dinner with a friend - across from the Giants ball park, after they lost their last game of the season, to the Dodgers, 4 - 3 .... I listened to an NPR show on Gospel music. It moves me so deeply. So profoundly. It doesn't surprise me to hear the singers say that yes, they feel Jesus every time they sing. Every time, they are filled with the Spirit when they sing. They sing to help them through hard times, to lift up their hearts, and those who hear them. We begin the Eucharistic prayer, Lift up your hearts / We lift them to the Lord. Gospel does this - for real. Lifts up my heart. And like the Eucharist - the structure of Gospel is to sing out your troubles, but always in the presence of the community - and the community echoes back - we hear you, we're with you, we carry your burdens with you.... this is Christian community at it's best. It is what I have found with so many friends, Christian and non, and it has kept me going. Kept me uplifted. yes jesus!

New Eyes

This week, 180 clergy from Diocese of California gathered at Bishop's Ranch for our first clergy conference with Bishop Marc. In preparation we read Bill Countryman's book, Living on the Border of the Holy, reflecting on our own experiences of being in the border country - where we are brought close to the Holy. Sometimes these experiences fit within the church's language of God, but often not. For instance, childbirth, skiing down a snowy slope in the late afternoon, hanging laundry, watching a slug traverse a garden path....many of us have experiences of the Divine that aren't easily placed within traditional religious themes....but that, nevertheless, are the generative, creative force behind much of our ministry, and behind many people's sense of God

Clergy conferences always feel like a real stretch to my introverted soul. Anytime clergy gather there seems to be an underlying strain of competitiveness. I went this time, desiring to brush past that and to see with new eyes.

And that certainly happened!

I lost my glasses and couldn't find them anywhere. So, instead of hanging out with my small group for discussions, I put on my prescription sunglasses and drove in to town to Kaiser, and then, with my new prescription in hand, drove to LensCrafters. Four hours later, I had brand new glasses, progressive lenses and all. They do look good. The salesman said they are "youthening" and they make me look "sassy but approachable". Certainly, when you're nearly blind, as I am, a good lens grinder is an experience of the Holy brought close to hand!

Illusions

Went with two friends last night to see The Illusionist, filmed by a Czech Republic company. Beautiful old world tone, a love story of the interchange between illusions and reality. What is real, what isn't? What is good and what is bad? Do they change places? And can we ever be sure which is which?

There's an old Chinese story about an elderly man whose horse bolts and the villagers console him saying how bad it is. He says, maybe, but maybe not. The horse returns with a herd of wild horses. The villagers congratulate the man. He says, maybe this is good, maybe it isn't. His son falls and breaks his leg while taming the wild horses. Again the old man is consoled by the villagers. You know his answer. Not long after this, the government comes through the village and conscripts all able bodied young men to go to war. The elderly man's son, who has the broken leg, is left behind to live out his life peacefully.

The assignment of good and bad to events is mostly done with vision that can prove to be more illusion than reality. I cling to this story as I proceed down the painful path of my husband's decision to pursue a life separate from our long ongoing conversation that is marriage. Who's to say whether that decision may yet prove to be our salvation - individually and as a couple - or not? As I mature, I know only that I know less and less.

new technology!!!!

Due to the wonderful work of my son, Kai, I now have a new domain name: PoetPriest.com with a new email address: linda AT PoetPriest DOT com. A web site will follow! Kai Harris also has a website - visit him!

He's also helped me discover google mail - which has many cool features that have eluded me thus far.

it's a great day today, and we've got an apple pie cooling and almost ready to eat.

Electing a Bishop

7 AM in the Park and Ride lot off Sir Francis Drake Blvd with coffee in hand, I joined fellow delegates from St. John's, plus two deacons, one a writer and the other an FBI Chaplain. Our plan was to leave sufficiently early to get a parking place close to Grace Cathedral,where we were going to help elect a new Bishop of California. The morning flew by, beginning with a multi-lingual Liturgy of the Word, followed by ballotting and caucusing and more coffee. I don't know that I've ever been at a church gathering with as much energy and sense of good business about to be conducted.

My overall experience was the grandeur of the silence that threaded through the day. Over and under and around the multitude of words, I was keenly aware of a grand silence, not just the silence of the beauty and largesse of the cathedral, nor the silence of the prayers of so many, but the profound silence of the Love which drew us all into this moment and would sustain us and impel us into the work ahead of us - work, along with our new bishop, to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives and recovery of sight to those blinded by greed or need or alienation.

The day ended earlier than we'd imagined, with the election of Mark Andrus, after only three ballots and a remarkable showing of trust and respect by the laity of the clergy. After communion, I leaned over to another clergy friend and said I was ready for a nap - at only 1:30 PM!

Instead my 24 year old daughter picked me up from the steps of the Cathedral and we drove down into the Haight to go second hand clothes shopping. Stepping into a tattoo parlor with her so she could purchase a new nose ring, I sat down on a low red velvet couch to wait for her, underneath dramatic posters of arabic words and full color zodiac signs available for tattooing. A young couple noodled sweetly on the next couch....

It was a full circle kind of day - the church in dialogue and service within the cathedral and the church in dialogue and learning and leaning and gleaning within the world. And threaded all through was Love in glorious glorious forms and disguises and manifestations.

Welcome Bishop Elect Andrus.

and Yay for the Suns win tonight!