Open Hands

Fall is traditionally pledge drive time in churches, and we are having our Commitment Sunday today. As I write parishioners are travelling all over town visiting each other, talking about the church, sharing why it's important to them, and making their 2012 financial pledge by filling out their pledge cards. Later today, we will gather for a special service at 4:00, at which we'll gather all the pledge cards and dedicate our commiment to God and share in the bounty of God's abundant feast around the communion table. Then we'll enjoy a great supper together downstairs.

Pledge time can be an uncomfortable time for people in the church, because whenever you start talking about money, anxieties show up. Gertrude Stein said, "Money is funny," and I couldnt' agree with her more! But this year I have come to understand in a newly deep way how important it is for us to talk about money and to be generous in giving. I will be sharing at our service later today a quote from Bishop Mark Andrus of California, who wrote these words on his blog while attending the recent Bishop's Conference in Quito, Equador:

I was part of a group that stayed in Quito but journeyed a long distance in culture and economics, to Sector Comité del Pueblo, a community of poor and working class people who squatted some thirty years ago on a large swath of a valley that absentee landowners had left fallow. They finally received recognized land rights, and they have created a vibrant community, which has a wonderful Episcopal mission in it, Mission Cristo Libertador, Christ the Liberator. ... It was there I attended a worship service, and the opening song had this refrain: “May we always have hearts without doors; may we always have open hands.”

Immediately I remembered what I learned this past spring about the Guarani people - they call themselves the people with open hands. What that means is that as they receive something –money, material possessions, emotional investment, ideas – they are thinking about how they can enhance the gift, and pass it on.

The Guarani, through several centuries of experience with colonizing Western culture have learned to call us the people of the closed hands; people who immediately invest energy in how to hold onto possessions of all kinds.

I felt a sting of recognition when I was referred to here as a person of closed hands. And I have since been imagining how my life would be transformed by becoming a person with open hands. And I believe that is what Jesus calls me to be - even with my material possessions - even with my money -even though a voice inside me tells me I don't have enough and I'd better hold onto it just to be safe. I've been imagining how our church would be transformed by becoming a people of open hands - and how our community, our economy and our world could be transformed. This is a dream of no less than the kingdom of God - a vision of the gospel in action - this becoming and living as a people with open hands.

So I am grateful this year for our pledge drive, which reminds me in a kick-in-the-stomach kind of way that everything in this life is a gift, not a possession - and that as a disciple of Jesus I am called not to store up possessions, but to steward them, enhance them, and then give them away for the sake of God's love - in response to God's abundant love for me and for the whole world.

So I am praying this morning for Grace Church and for all our parishioners, out there talking to each other right now about the sometimes uncomfortable topic of money. And I'm praying that we may truly develop hearts without doors and become a people with open hands.

Open Engagement

Today I was sitting in my local Starbucks, and I looked out the window to see a little red haired boy, maybe about 3 years old, outside the entrance door.  His mother was standing and talking with a friend, and while they talked, this little boy was eagerly engaging with the simple metal handrail along the ramp leading up to the door.  First, you've got to realize that the rail was just a very simple metal bar - nothing fancy.  But at one end, it curved around to make a good foothold.  The little boy was climbing up and then down, up again, down again.  Then he ran the length of the bar looking for more ways to get up on the bar.  He tried a few options, found it was hard to climb up without the toehold, so returned to the end excitedly and went up and down again, folding himself over the top bar, standing up straight on it, hugging the bar, lying along it, getting down again, swinging from it.  I don't know if I can convey the intensity and enthusiasm with which this little boy engaged with climbing and exploring this simple bar.  I sat transfixed by his undivided and unwavering commitment to his quest while for the whole 5 minutes his mother was talking, he continued to climb and explore with unrelenting curiousity, focus and dedication.

And I thought: when was the last time I took such interest in exploring an everyday object like that?  I would never give that tired old railing a second look, let alone see it as a delightful way to engage with my world, although perhaps at one point, when I was three, I might have.   This led me to wonder if I ever, in my own current context, approach any everyday situation with the same kind of complete openness and eagerness to all possibilities that the little boy was demonstrating?   Do I ever still run enthusiastically toward my own handrails in life with self abandon – and with an active desire to squeeze every ounce of possibility out of an everyday opportunity? 

This Sunday I will be preaching about what it might look like to live our lives with wide open hands and wide open hearts.  This little boy gave me a great image to ponder as I consider what I will say. 

Promises

Today I'm going to preside at the first wedding I've done in a long time.  Since first being ordained in 1996, I've done hundreds of funerals, but only maybe a dozen or two weddings.  In my days as a Unitarian Universalist minister I did some unusual ones. I remember one wedding I did in the Tufts Chapel for a Greek Orthodox woman who wanted all the Orthodox rituals in her wedding with her groom, a culturally Jewish man who'd never once been to temple in his life.  He had no knowledge of her (or his) religion, but just kept saying he didn't want the wedding to be "too Christian."  Boy, I had to work very hard with that couple to come up with something that worked for them both!  I did weddings for people who wanted me to sing Sufi chants I'd never heard of or to include very, very long poems or to base their ceremony on their favorite movie.  I've got to say, such weddings were exhausting!  It was like reinventing marriage every time.  Now, as an Episcopal priest, I stick with the Marriage rite from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer.  It's traditional, but beautiful, and it is founded in the understanding that it is God that brings people together into a life of commitment together. 

Marriage is about making promises - both the bride and groom's promises to each other and God's promise to be there with them in their love for each other.  Sometimes we avoid making promises for fear that we will not be able to keep them.  But today two of our parishioners will make lifelong promises to each other - and despite the risks involved, they are excited and happy.  For they know they will not need to carry out their promises alone.  Their extended families and our church community stand ready to support them in their marriage.  And they also know that God is at the center of their lives together and will provide what they need to live more deeply into God's love together.

When we are convinced that God is active in our lives and when we can entrust our lives to God, we are able to make promises to ourselves and others despite our fears.  For we know that with God, nothing is impossible.  I am grateful for John and Kim today - for their faith, and for their willingness to make promises.

Break Fast Time

Well, just to report the results of my wonderful juice fast, I fasted for a full 10 days, including the last two days in a hurricane.  I juiced a whole bunch of vegetables and fruits before the storm in case I lost power.  I had a pitcher of red juice (beets, carrots, celery, hot peppers and apples), a pitcher of yellow juice (peach, mango, pear and celery) and a giant pitcher of bright green juice (chard, kale, parsley, celery, lemon, ginger, peaches and cucumbers)  These juices lasted for the whole last two days of the fast.  Those days were very relaxing because I didn't have to do any juicing, and all I could do was rest, since Hurricane Irene raging outside.  It turns out that being still, quiet and restful at the end of a fast only brings a deeper awareness of your body and the changes that fasting is bringing.  The fast really sunk in during the hurricane - I recognized both my hunger and my fullness, the changes in my body, the new energy I felt and my gratitude very strongly as the fast came to an end. 

The reason I haven't written this post before is that I was waiting for my internet to be restored after the storm.  I broke the fast last Tuesday at lunch with some beautiful fresh salads at lunch and dinner, and then the next day, I had a soup with beans and pesto in it.  My awareness and appreciation of what I'm eating is still very high almost a week later.  I have not fallen into sloppy eating habits again - at least not yet.  I feel my relationship with food has changed and it is my prayer that I can actively maintain this new relationship rather than fall into my old, mindless (and pretty un-grateful) habits.

My clothes now fit comfortably again and I lost 12 pounds over the course of my fast.  I feel well and strong, in control of my food choices and free of illogical cravings. 

Most of all, I feel very grateful for having so much good, healthy food and clean water available to me.  I hope the experience of fasting will keep me in that place of gratefulness so that I remember not to take these amazing gifts for granted.

And I think I will do it again!  I hope you will give it a try sometime, too.  Advent or Lent are natural times to do some fasting, but anytime is a good time to get in touch with the gift of food and your relationship to it.  Let me know if I can be of help.

Day 7 - Appreciation

Here I am with my dinner last night - before I juiced it.  Look at the size of that bowl of vegetables!.  No wonder sometimes people call this a juice feast instead of a juice fast. 

Today, on day 7 of 10, I can finally say that I felt hungry at times.  Maybe a better way to say it is that today I became aware of the emptiness of my stomach.  This is not a feeling I usually allow my body to have.  So it wasn't like I was craving any particular foods - as in, "Oh a pizza would taste so good right now!"  This was different.  I just recognized hunger in my body.  When I felt it and thought about what I was hungry for, my next fresh juice actually seemed like a very appealling option.  Or maybe some vegetable soup with beans.  This was not just a craving.  That's what my "hunger" usually is.  Usually I crave things that taste good (and greasy and sweet or salty) and name that craving hunger.    Like I said, this was different.   This was my body simply asking me to give it nutrition.  To give it what it needs - not just craving what my mind wants.  Because my body and I experienced a lack of food it seemed like my fast really began today. 

But that lack of certain things has created a deeper appreciation within me of certain other things.  Like the smell of my fruits and vegetables. I juice each type of vegetable one at a time, so I can breathe in the the fresh cucumber smell, then the fresh lemon smell, then the fresh tomato smell. They don't just smell good to me. They smell absolutely delicious to me. Generally I eat so fast I don't take the time to smell my food at all, let alone notice the exquisite and abundant smell and taste of one simple unsalted, unseasoned ingredient.   Then there's certainly the keen awareness of and appreciation for the overabundance of food I usually have available to me.  A fast is a time of hunger with an endpoint for me.  There are hungry people all over the world who aren't fasting on purpose, and don't have plenty of food waiting for them on Tuesday like I do.

These are important things for me to remember.  I hope that the fullness of appreciation that the lack of food has given me will not be overtaken by overeating as soon my fast is over.