Commitment

This Saturday, the Episcopal churches of the Bridgeport deanery had their confirmation service with our new bishop, Ian Douglas. There were dozens of people there, making a conscious and intentional and public affirmation of their faith. Some were being confirmed, and some who had already been confirmed in a different tradition were being formally received into the Episcopal tradition. Our friend Chris from Grace Church was one of the people who was received. Chris started coming to Grace Church last fall, and something just clicked for him. I believe God called him here. This just seems like the right place and the right time for him to take part in the life of a church community, and we are so grateful to have him among us.

Chris felt called to make it all official, and here he is, with his Mom, the bishop, me, and Nikki, one of the priests from St. Paul's where the service was held. His sisters were there, as were a number of Grace Church people. We were all there to witness Chris' new commitment to his faith and to the church. Afterward, we all went back to Grace Church where we had a beautiful pot luck lunch to celebrate.

We all know Chris cares about the church and is going to be among us for the foreseeable future. So we really didn't have to give up a Saturday to go to a two hour long service with the bishop, and Chris didn't have to get all dressed up and drive his family all the way down here, and we didn't have to make all the fuss of putting on a luncheon and Chris' sister didn't really have to make the most beautiful cake any of us had ever seen, either. But you know what? It was really, really important to do these things. Because it's important not just to notice someone's commitment, but to publicly recognize and celebrate it. Chris' commitment is something the entire church (Grace Church and the whole Episcopal church) needed to respond back to and acknowledge and formally notice.

I talk a lot about how the current model of church in our country is unsustainable and about how it needs to change. I talk a lot about how we need to discern what God is calling us to do together and how we need to find new ways to enter into God's mission in the world. I talk a lot about how people of faith have to walk the walk of discipleship and not be complacent and content with 'social club' churches. I talk a lot about how people need to step up and respond to God's call to us. But talk is cheap. Without commitment, none of this will ever happen, and our church will just be one of many that will die away over the next few decades.

So I am moved by Chris' commitment to our little church community, and I was thrilled to have him take part in the whole fancy ceremony of being received as an Episcopalian by a bishop dressed in full regalia. And I was also thrilled that our church showed up to witness Chris' commitment and that we came together on a beautiful Saturday afternoon to have a party, when certainly, there were other things we could have been doing. Because we were walking the walk that day. We showed up to put our feet where our thoughts and mouths are. We were being the church together.

Wisdom from the Woods 4

There are paths on both sides of the river. On one side is the groomed rail trail used by joggers, bicyclists and leashed dog walkers, on the other is the rustic trail, used by nature lovers, mountain bikers and unleashed dog walkers. The rustic side sticks closer to the edge of the river, and when I'm walking on this side, sometimes I get a glimpse of something on the other side that I wish I could get a closer look at. But unless I want to take off my shoes and socks, roll my pants way up and risk slipping and getting wet, there is no good way to get across the river and remain dry anywhere except for this one bridge.

Bridges are important. Sure, you can always be an adventurer and try to find your own way across the river. One of my boys was saying, as he jumped from rock to rock trying to navigate his way across without the bridge one day, that "bridges are for woosies." This statement was made right before he fell in and got soaked on a 45 degree day. All I know is that taking the time to go out of my way and walk down to the bridge is always a sure path to the other side.

I can think of a lot of bridges in life that have helped me to get from the side I'm on to the side I need to get to. The church has been one, so have the 12 steps. Whenever I've had a good friend hold my hand through a rough time or a teacher who's shown me the way - their help has been like a bridge for me, too. Even though I've spent plenty of time in my life jumping fruitlessly from rock to rock, trying to forge my own way and often getting pretty wet in the process, I've had to accept that sometimes a bridge is the only good way to get across a divide in my life. A bridge is not just for woosies. It is for anyone who's serious about getting over to new territory. And we all need help in life, especially when we're headed into the unknown.

So I am grateful for all the bridges that have helped me across in life and for the ones before me that I have yet to cross.

Wisdom from the Woods 3

When the river is squeezed into a narrower and narrower channel and when the riverbed gets rocky and unpredictable, the water doesn't hold back in fear of what's around the next corner. It doesn't dig in its heels and resist either changes or pressure. It just picks up speed, moves together closer, and keeps going forward with the flow. I want to feel as loose as water when my life gets rocky and unpredictable and I'm feeling squeezed.

Wisdom from the Woods 2

This picture does not do this tree justice. It shows how tall and strong it is, but it doesn't show its most remarkable feature - the root system. The tree's roots are a number of feet away from the edge of a cliff, and its trunk travels horizontally across the cliff to the very edge. What you see here is the tree seen from below the cliff, where it has eased out over the edge a bit before turning to grow upward toward the sun. Despite its height and strength, this tree is actually in a pretty precarious position. Its roots are shallow and not centered directly under the tree itself.

And somehow, the tree knows the iffy situation it's in, because the little leaves you see at the base of the picture are many little tree sprouts growing right out of the tree's bark at its base. I stopped and looked at this sight for a few minutes. It seemed to me that the tree was developing a "plan B" for itself. If a storm comes and breaks that tree off at its most vulnerable spot, the tree has 'thought ahead' for itself to make provision to carry on in a new life.

I've visited many people on their death beds who at the last minute realize that unfortunately they've waited too long to say something they really wanted to say or to do something they really wanted to do, and now it's too late. They'd either avoided the important stuff or life had just swept them up and they never got around to it. I think sometimes in life you've got to be like this tree and intentionally sprout some new beginnings, even when things seem to be going well enough right now. Sometimes you need to intentionally take action toward a new tomorrow even when you don't think you have time or you'd rather just avoid doing it for some reason.

Tiny little sprouts of action are how whole new trees can take root in your life - even if your roots don't have the advantage of deep, rich soil. So thanks, tree, for reminding me to take some active steps toward my highest hopes today.

Wisdom from the Woods 1

I love to spend time near water. I'm very fortunate that right behind my house there is a beautiful trail by a river. I love to spend time there, walking by the edge of the river or sitting on a rock watching the water flow by. It immediately calms me down and opens me up to the Spirit. Yesterday was Thursday, my sermon writing day, and enticed by the beautiful weather, I decided to take a pad of paper with me into the woods to write my sermon by the river. Here's a picture of my pad with my foot next to it, sporting the hot pink sneakers I got to run the Bishop's 5K - which is tomorrow! OMG - why did I ever think I could run a race?! If I ever needed the river to calm me down, this would be the week.

Anyway, I found myself doing a lot more contemplating than writing. Writing a sermon by hand is a romantic notion I often think I aspire to (after all, my first and most respected mentor wrote all his sermons by hand, claiming that it gave him the neccesary time and room to really think about what he was saying), but the truth is that I really prefer writing on the computer. I learned to write papers with pen and paper, a stack of index cards and a typewriter, but I've been utterly and completely converted to computer writing. I like the creativity of being able to edit things on the screen, move sentences and paragraphs all around and change things as I go.

But taking my pad of paper out into the woods served my deeper purpose well. It slowed me down. In fact, it slowed me down so much that it was at least three hours before I came out of the woods again. I discovered that I had my camera in my pocket and enjoyed taking lots of pictures of my favorite spots, which I think I'll share here over the next few days. My time in the woods centered me as it always does, and made me wonder, as I always do, why I don't spend time there more often. Oh, and I did come up with at least a basic outline for the sermon...

It is a really healing and rejuvinating thing to put something beautiful into your day, as is finding some time for a little solitude. Whenever I take the time to go down this lovely trail, I am blessed with both at once. Isaiah wrote, "In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength." I couldn't agree more.

Taking the First Step

I've been a regular attender of Al Anon for 6 months now and have also been working the steps with a big book meeting right here at my church once a week. This whole thing has been a gift to me that I never would have seen coming, but it has been a very good thing in my life at a very good time in my life. I'm not sure what shows on the outside from all the good work I've been doing in Al Anon, but I've experienced many wonderful changes on the inside. I've been able to let go of some things that had been bothering me as well as a number of things I hadn't even realized were bothering me. Today, I am more honest, trusting, humble and at home in myself than I was just six months ago.

Living the 12 steps has required me to let go of doing some things the way I've always done them and to intentionally find a new and healthier way to live day by day. It has required me to examine my perceptions and let go of some assumptions about myself and others that I've held for a long time and that weren't helping me in life. Rationally, that seems like a very simple thing - to let go of what isn't helping you. But the tricky part is that sometimes I don't recognize an unhelpful pattern I'm holding on to. I'm just so darn familiar with the way I've always done things that my lifelong habits have become kind of comfortable. And I've carried many of my old perceptions around with me since I was very, very young, so the things I do that aren't working for me often just seem normal to me. Because my old habits are such a deep part of me, nothing will change until I take that first step of somehow seeing my life from outside the box of my own thinking and my own perceptions. I was pondering this in the car one day when I saw this billboard down in Bridgeport:



Here's a bad habit in all it's familiarity. "Hi there buddy - you know me - I'm the cigarette you smoke when you're caught in traffic. You light me up and I calm you down - we're partners you and me. We always travel together, right? We always help each other through the tough times." Whoever started this anti smoking campaign really understands that old habits can become like friends that you reach out to for comfort when things are stressful. And from the inside, that old habit really does seem like a good and reliable friend. From the outside anyone can see that your "friend" is giving you cancer or emphysema. But that's not how it feels from the inside.

The billboard then suggests that you need to 're-learn' frustration in a new way - without using that old habit to get yourself through it. And I thought - that pretty much sums it up. Living the 12 steps means re-learning how to react to life without relying on old habits and old assumptions, or just mindlessly repeating predictable knee-jerk reactions. It means opening yourself up to a new way of experiencing the world that may be quite different than the way you've always experienced it. The Zen Buddhists describe this as having beginner's mind. Jesus said it's like receiving the Kingdom as a little child.

In the old fable, it was a little child that cried out that the Emperor had no clothes. I feel like my life in the 12 steps is helping me to be more like that little child - more able to see and name what I really see instead of seeing only what I think I'm supposed to see. I believe it was Pablo Picasso who said, "It takes a long time to grow young."

It's hard for someone like me to admit that I don't have it all together all the time. But I've discovered that by taking that first step and allowing myself to recognize when something isn't working, I leave room for something or someone outside of my own busy head to give me true and helpful guidance toward deep peace.