Good Friday...
only in retrospect is that an accurate name for the day Jesus was murdered.
"From noon to three, the whole earth was dark. Around midafternoon Jesus groaned out of the depths, crying loudly, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" which means "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" (Matthew 27) It could have all ended there. They take him down, put him in the tomb, roll the stone in front of the door, dust off their hands and...that's it. Over. Finished. End of story. When I read the gospel account, I cannot imagine what the Son of God must have been thinking or feeling to acknowledge that God had abandoned him. But I notice there's more to the story. I notice the power that was unleashed in the moments that followed what seemed to be an ending...
"Jesus, again crying out loudly, breathed his last. At that moment, the Temple curtain was ripped in two, top to bottom. There was an earthquake, and rocks were split in pieces. What's more, tombs were opened up, and many bodies of believers asleep in their graves were raised. The captain of the guard and those with him, when they saw the earthquake and everything else that was happening, were scared to death. They said, "This has to be the Son of God!" (again, Matthew 27)
Fast forward two thousand years to a small group of Jesus' followers learning about seeing Jesus in each other and in the stranger. Struggling to acknowledge that the ways of the culture around them leaves them numb at times. Learning to die to themselves, to sacrifice. Calling on God, seeking to listen faithfully for how He would call them to live His life and love in their world. They are beginning to taste the Life of God in their midst. They are beginning to seek ways to give the Life away. Then their pastor is diagnosed with cancer and goes on medical leave.
It could have all ended there. End of story, close the book. A fledgling church with little history, little precedent to follow, few tracks to run on when the engine must return to the roundhouse and the rest of the train is left stranded. This little group could have easily echoed Jesus words, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?"
But that isn't how the story unfolded. Instead a power was unleashed. At first it took hold in a few hearts, but a momentum began to sweep the community. Helping hands worked together to meet needs large and small. The community continued to meet, living into the rhythms that held them together. Often tears filled their eyes as they looked around and felt each other's pain and wondered where was this story going? Where was God taking them? But they moved as God called them - together. They committed themselves to walking through the hard places, to being honest about their fears, to firmly holding onto each others' hands.
From the journal of one member in the early days of that season of Winter: "For the first month I found myself focused on attending to all of the details that ensured we would have a church to go to if we showed up on Sunday night. I likened it to holding an egg. My job was to protect it and care for it, ensuring no harm would befall it, no cracks appear in its surface. But the initial shock is now wearing off. And I am waking up to this: I've been protecting the shell, but not attending to the LIFE inside that shell.
Initially, I think that is a normal reaction. As we focused on what to do and how to do it, it was a way to survival. A way TO it, but not a place to dwell. No, to stay there would be death, not LIFE. Abbey Way has never been about what we do or how we do it. Yes, we have rhythms and practices that we follow. But, they are the shell that holds the LIFE. Indeed, they help us create space for the LIFE that we can encounter as we attend to our relationships with each other and God."
The power of God working among them wasn't as dramatic as torn Temple curtains or earthquakes, but it was deep, working itself out in each individual. God was forming something solid and enduring within the heart of each one who had opened him or herself to the work of God in their lives. God's strength made perfect in weakness - indeed. They attended to the Life...and they were changed.
Seven months passed. The church was still together. Not only still meeting, but beginning to pray in earnest, "Lord, what is our charism? What is the gift you have given us to give to your world? What is the ministry you have been preparing us for?" The pastor returned from leave and it was Spring. Signs of new Life began to appear. More visitors began to come. It was as if God had cloistered them for the season of Winter and now those in the monastery were being asked to re-engage with the community around them. Wake up, those who love God! Your neighbors need you! They looked around and behold, the needs were apparent and they were equipped with open hearts and willing hands.
The story wasn't...isn't over. This little community has walked this season of Lent not as a journey to the cross, they have lived in the dark places of Lent for a very long time. The places of struggle and suffering and dying. This Lent has been a journey to Easter. A journey toward a place of rising again!
Today is Good Friday. In retrospect this little group of followers can look back and praise God that the story didn't end where the world would close the book. The power of God made manifest through His body, The Church, continues to work out the Life of God among them...and through them. That they might turn and give it away. Isn't this so like God? In yet another Great Reverse, God proves His kingdom is not like the kingdoms of this world...that in dying (where the world thinks the story is over) there is actually more Life to be found - and to be lived! "This has to be the Son of God!"
As St. Benedict said, "And so we begin again..."
"But lo! Here you are; you rescue us from our wretched meanderings and establish us on your way; you console us and bid us, 'Run: I will carry you, I will lead you and I will bring you home.' " -St Augustine
This year, the faith community of Abbey Way knows the joy of rising again in a deeper way...Praising God with full hearts this Easter and waiting to see what God will do next!
Friday, April 10, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Thoughts on Community: An Interview with J. Vanier and S. Hauerwas by J.W. Hartgrove
Jean Vanier, a Catholic lay leader, is the founder of L'Arche, an international network of Christian communities where people with and without disabilities share life together in a sprit of mutual dependence. Stanley Hauerwas, an Epicopalian named "America's Best Theologian" by Time magazine, is a professor of theological ethics at Duke University. In partnership with Duke's Center for Reconciliation, Vanier and Hauerwas recently published Living Gently in a Violent World: The Prophetic Witness of Weakness (IVP, 2008). In November 2008, they sat down in Durahm, North Carolina, to talk about community, justice, and the "politics of gentleness" with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. Wilson-Hartgrove, lives at Rutba House, a new monastic community in Durham, and also teaches at Duke. The following is an excerpt of that conversation.
Wilson-Hartgrove: You write in Living Gently in a Violent World about the gap between the so-called "normal" world and the world of peole who have been unjustly pushed to the margins. How can responding to that gap draw people into community?
Vanier: It's easier to say why the gap exists. The gap is created by fear. The gap is what pushes us to create bigger gaps. You feel lost in front of the one who is different because you don't know his language, you don't know how to respond, you don't know if you'll be accepted.
But what breaks down the fear? That is the big question: What creates transformation? We meet someone. St. Francis said he always held lepers in repulsion. The one day the Lord led him to the lepers. He said, "When I left them I had a new gentleness in my body and in my spirit. From then on, I wanted to follow the Lord." When you meet the leper and you listen to him, you realize that he's just a human being. From very deep inside of one, there arises a compassion for life.
Wilson-Hartgrove: You say, "All we're doing is making a place to meet." But Stanley comes along and says, "This is politics. This has something to say to the church." Let me ask you, Stanley, what does L'Arche have to say to the church?
Hauwerwas: It is the church. It's very hard to know in our time what Christianity might look like. We're in a transition time. As Christianity loses it's power, it's hard for us to imagine what it might entail. L'Arche helps us get a glimpse of what theh future of Christiantiy might look like.
Wilson-Hartgrove: Stanley, you write that L'Arche is not a solution but a sign. When so mnay people want solutions, why do we need signs?
Hauerwas: Because we're Christians. Christianity is fundamentally a sign that enables you to live when you know no solution. Solutions will always kill people. So we need signs that are witnesses to help us know we're not abandoned. That's a politics. It challenges the politics of power which says, "I need to do a violent act now in order to achieve peace in the future" There is no peace in the future through violence.
Wilson-Hartgrove: Jean, after having lived in Christian community for much of your life now, how would you describe an ecclesial vision for community?
Vanier: It's essentially communion. People with serious handicaps who've been rejected can only grow to greater fulfillment if they know they're loved. There's a difference betweeen doing things for people out of generosity and being with people. The whole reality of L'Arche is to enter into relationship and become vulnerable. There's not an end or a goal that we're seeking. It's about the creation of a place where we can rejoice in our humanity because we've been bonded together.
We're not just having a good time. Our life has a meaning. That's why we really need people like Stanley. When he says, "It is the church," we need to help our L'Arche assistants see what he means. Theologian David Ford said to us some years ago, "If you don't have a good theology, your spirituality will peter out."
(reprinted here from Soujourners magazine April 2009 edition)
Wilson-Hartgrove: You write in Living Gently in a Violent World about the gap between the so-called "normal" world and the world of peole who have been unjustly pushed to the margins. How can responding to that gap draw people into community?
Vanier: It's easier to say why the gap exists. The gap is created by fear. The gap is what pushes us to create bigger gaps. You feel lost in front of the one who is different because you don't know his language, you don't know how to respond, you don't know if you'll be accepted.
But what breaks down the fear? That is the big question: What creates transformation? We meet someone. St. Francis said he always held lepers in repulsion. The one day the Lord led him to the lepers. He said, "When I left them I had a new gentleness in my body and in my spirit. From then on, I wanted to follow the Lord." When you meet the leper and you listen to him, you realize that he's just a human being. From very deep inside of one, there arises a compassion for life.
Wilson-Hartgrove: You say, "All we're doing is making a place to meet." But Stanley comes along and says, "This is politics. This has something to say to the church." Let me ask you, Stanley, what does L'Arche have to say to the church?
Hauwerwas: It is the church. It's very hard to know in our time what Christianity might look like. We're in a transition time. As Christianity loses it's power, it's hard for us to imagine what it might entail. L'Arche helps us get a glimpse of what theh future of Christiantiy might look like.
Wilson-Hartgrove: Stanley, you write that L'Arche is not a solution but a sign. When so mnay people want solutions, why do we need signs?
Hauerwas: Because we're Christians. Christianity is fundamentally a sign that enables you to live when you know no solution. Solutions will always kill people. So we need signs that are witnesses to help us know we're not abandoned. That's a politics. It challenges the politics of power which says, "I need to do a violent act now in order to achieve peace in the future" There is no peace in the future through violence.
Wilson-Hartgrove: Jean, after having lived in Christian community for much of your life now, how would you describe an ecclesial vision for community?
Vanier: It's essentially communion. People with serious handicaps who've been rejected can only grow to greater fulfillment if they know they're loved. There's a difference betweeen doing things for people out of generosity and being with people. The whole reality of L'Arche is to enter into relationship and become vulnerable. There's not an end or a goal that we're seeking. It's about the creation of a place where we can rejoice in our humanity because we've been bonded together.
We're not just having a good time. Our life has a meaning. That's why we really need people like Stanley. When he says, "It is the church," we need to help our L'Arche assistants see what he means. Theologian David Ford said to us some years ago, "If you don't have a good theology, your spirituality will peter out."
(reprinted here from Soujourners magazine April 2009 edition)
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Echos
"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."
Sounds like it could have been said today, doesn't it?
It was Abraham Lincoln in 1865 at the end of the Civil War, our country's worst political crisis.
Sounds like it could have been said today, doesn't it?
It was Abraham Lincoln in 1865 at the end of the Civil War, our country's worst political crisis.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
The Big 4-0 in the Big Apple
Celebrating my 40th birthday this year meant doing something special. So, Hannah and I took a trip to NYC. We stayed with a friend in the Bronx, visited Central Park, FAO Schwartz, American Girl Place, Times Square, saw a play on Broadway, had the most AMAZING chocolate in SoHo and the moment of truth: I turned 40 while high atop the Empire State Building. It was a good birthday, sweet time with my girl and a much needed break.
Friday, October 17, 2008
My Prayer Today
God grant us the wisdom to discover the right,
the will to do it,
and the strength to make it endure. Amen.
- from First Knight, 1995
the will to do it,
and the strength to make it endure. Amen.
- from First Knight, 1995
Sunday, October 12, 2008
A Gentle Wisdom ~ The Power of a Vowed Life
"In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I,________, promise perpetually, stability in this community, obedience and fidelity to the monastic way of life (conversion of life) according to the Rule of Saint Benedict and the Constitution and Statutes of this community; this before God and his Saints, and in the presence of the Right Reverend _______, abbot of this monastery, and of its monks."
Stability
Obedience
Conversion of Life or Transformation
A person who joins a Benedictine monastic order makes three vows. Only three. But like the proverbial three-legged stool, these three together make a whole. Two without the third would be something else entirely, for these three vows work together to shape an individual profoundly, continuously drawing out the life of Christ within.
In my experience and understanding of these three vows, stability seems to be the soil in which the other two committments can grow and flourish. Stability in life can be seen in many forms. Outwardly manifested it may be stability of place. A committment to remain in a geographic area, or within a particular community, among and connected to a certain group of people.
Stability of place becomes a deep grounding for an individual. If someone is committed for "the long haul" there is no turning away when things get difficult. A committment to stay means a willingness to engage with others and work out the challenges that rise to the surface in relationships. A fully professed monastic cannot walk away from the monastery because of a rift in the community. The individual stays, and for the good of their own soul, as well as the good of the larger whole, they work for peace and harmony in the place God has called them to.
This staying, is of course a way of walking out the vow of obedience as well. Of course a monastic could walk out the door of their community. No one will lock the door and force them to stay. But when they made their vows they professed obedience, or placed themselves under the direction of their abbott or abbess. They were submitting their will to a higher authority. This kind of submission is a rarity in our modern world. Why would someone make a vow of obedience? Because of a belief that the submission of their individual will would allow space for things that need to happen for the good of the greater whole, the good of the community. Because what is good for the community is also good for the individual. It is the antithesis of the modern t-shirt or bumper sticker that declares "It's all about me."
Ultimately, this submission is not just the relinquishing of an individual will in order to follow the will of a higher earthly authority. There is an understanding within monastic communities that the one in authority is also submitting their will to the will of God. The earthly authority is bound by their own vow of obedience to listen well and discern with an open heart what is best and right for the community. Which is intimately connected with where God is calling the community to live out his kingdom values engaged with the world. Within a community, both the one in authority as well as the individuals experience obedience to something higher than themselves as a place of profound character transformation.
Indeed, when stability and obedience work together transformation occurs that shapes the individual into one becoming more like Christ. (Incidentally, Christ committed himself to stability of place - he became earth-bound for our sakes. He also committed himself to obedience - to the will of the Father.) Life with Christ has always been about transformation. It is putting off the old self and putting on Christ. The vow of transformation is necessary because it is the putting off of the old that is so difficult. One must continuously set aside thoughts, actions and deeds that are in conflict with the Life of Christ within. So even though stability and obedience can together foster transformation, so too can transformation foster obedience, or obedience foster stability, or...you see, the three work in harmony. A vow to live out all three creates a unique opportunity to live with full awareness all the ways that God is continually calling "further up, and further in." (CS Lewis)
The power of the vowed life is a most gentle wisdom that draws the life of Christ from within the individual. For what purpose? To what end? That each one will fully realize the Life that Christ died to bring, and to enlarge the capacity to give away that Life for the sake of a weary world.
I,________, promise perpetually, stability in this community, obedience and fidelity to the monastic way of life (conversion of life) according to the Rule of Saint Benedict and the Constitution and Statutes of this community; this before God and his Saints, and in the presence of the Right Reverend _______, abbot of this monastery, and of its monks."
Stability
Obedience
Conversion of Life or Transformation
A person who joins a Benedictine monastic order makes three vows. Only three. But like the proverbial three-legged stool, these three together make a whole. Two without the third would be something else entirely, for these three vows work together to shape an individual profoundly, continuously drawing out the life of Christ within.
In my experience and understanding of these three vows, stability seems to be the soil in which the other two committments can grow and flourish. Stability in life can be seen in many forms. Outwardly manifested it may be stability of place. A committment to remain in a geographic area, or within a particular community, among and connected to a certain group of people.
Stability of place becomes a deep grounding for an individual. If someone is committed for "the long haul" there is no turning away when things get difficult. A committment to stay means a willingness to engage with others and work out the challenges that rise to the surface in relationships. A fully professed monastic cannot walk away from the monastery because of a rift in the community. The individual stays, and for the good of their own soul, as well as the good of the larger whole, they work for peace and harmony in the place God has called them to.
This staying, is of course a way of walking out the vow of obedience as well. Of course a monastic could walk out the door of their community. No one will lock the door and force them to stay. But when they made their vows they professed obedience, or placed themselves under the direction of their abbott or abbess. They were submitting their will to a higher authority. This kind of submission is a rarity in our modern world. Why would someone make a vow of obedience? Because of a belief that the submission of their individual will would allow space for things that need to happen for the good of the greater whole, the good of the community. Because what is good for the community is also good for the individual. It is the antithesis of the modern t-shirt or bumper sticker that declares "It's all about me."
Ultimately, this submission is not just the relinquishing of an individual will in order to follow the will of a higher earthly authority. There is an understanding within monastic communities that the one in authority is also submitting their will to the will of God. The earthly authority is bound by their own vow of obedience to listen well and discern with an open heart what is best and right for the community. Which is intimately connected with where God is calling the community to live out his kingdom values engaged with the world. Within a community, both the one in authority as well as the individuals experience obedience to something higher than themselves as a place of profound character transformation.
Indeed, when stability and obedience work together transformation occurs that shapes the individual into one becoming more like Christ. (Incidentally, Christ committed himself to stability of place - he became earth-bound for our sakes. He also committed himself to obedience - to the will of the Father.) Life with Christ has always been about transformation. It is putting off the old self and putting on Christ. The vow of transformation is necessary because it is the putting off of the old that is so difficult. One must continuously set aside thoughts, actions and deeds that are in conflict with the Life of Christ within. So even though stability and obedience can together foster transformation, so too can transformation foster obedience, or obedience foster stability, or...you see, the three work in harmony. A vow to live out all three creates a unique opportunity to live with full awareness all the ways that God is continually calling "further up, and further in." (CS Lewis)
The power of the vowed life is a most gentle wisdom that draws the life of Christ from within the individual. For what purpose? To what end? That each one will fully realize the Life that Christ died to bring, and to enlarge the capacity to give away that Life for the sake of a weary world.
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