Pieces of the Whole

A telephone call yesterday- from a wonderful person whose faith is embodied most obviously in her work with battered and immigrant women in her city. Our first contact however many years ago, was through an international anti-nuclear initiative. This friend’s sense of compassionate justice is awesome, and paired with an unfailing ability to cut to the essential, it makes her a real force to be reckoned with - believe me! Usually our contact is by e-mail, so when she called yesterday I knew it had to be something serious. Uncharacteristically for her it took a while.

‘.... about your e-mail this morning, I’m finding myself with .... a certain....struggle to make this young man the central focus of my prayers for the next week. With so much suffering, so much injustice, so much inequity in the World.’ She fell silent.

We both were, until I asked a question.


‘When you’re out there in the middle of the night, rescuing one of your women who’s waiting on a street corner with the little she’s managed to grab before fleeing what she thought of as her home, where’s your focus?’

‘On her of course,’ she told me after a moment, surprised.

I waited hoping she’d make the connection herself.

‘And what about all the other battered women in the world at that moment, when you’re scooping her up & bringing her to your shelter?’


It took a while.

‘... At that moment she’s the only one I can do anything about....’



A little background:

Earlier that morning I’d sent out an e-mail to an incredibly diverse group of generous, caring individuals, each with a faith practice which in one way or another amazes me or gives me very real hope. I call them my ‘Giants’ and believe me from what I know of each one of them they are remarkable beings and truly living blessings.

I’d written about one of those living blessings. A remarkable Episcopal priest, who has become incredibly dear to me over the months and years we’ve each been bumping around on the internet. A no-shit lady who, with two feet planted firmly in a faith formed by her great love of God and of the liturgy and office of our Church, she is one of the most.... muscled Christians I know. And yup, you guessed it, our first contacts were because this priest, living in the ‘South,’ in a diocese where women priests are still a very small minority had very publically taken the cause of the full inclusion of LGBT lives within our Church as her own.

This same ‘priest’ (and yes I’m proudly flouting that word at the moment) and her beloved spouse, clergy himself, in the last months took into their home a gentle, sweet young man whose only offense was fleeing the violence of his upbringing and being caught as an illegal in the U.S. of A. In the next seven days, that young man, Juan, has to undergo two judical hearings which could see him seized, and thrown into jail until officials have filled a planeload with ‘illegals to be returned to Mexico.



‘What’s really going on here?’ I asked my friend on the phone.

Long silence.

‘Overwhelming at times isn’t it,’ I eventually offered; only stating the obvious.

‘How about overwhelming most of the time’ she eventually admitted with just the faintest hint of what could have been an ironic chuckle.


‘Are you saying.... I’m... depressed’ she eventually asked, pain and perhaps fear choking her voice.

‘Nope’ I teased her.

‘Nope?’ just the faintest hint of.... anger/frustration.


‘First off, we’re how many miles apart- physically? Secondly I wasn’t there for the last week, the last month of your very busy life.... What I am suggesting is that my e-mail came at a rather inopportune time and because of everything else you might have confused the lense for the picture.’


‘I need... a break... It’s been more than two months since I’ve even had a week-end at the country place.’


‘Sounds to me like you know what you need.’

‘Yeah, but-‘

‘Hey, there’s a professional staff at the shelter-‘

‘Whose hours we’ve had to cut back- yet again’

Silence.

‘You’re right.... I’m just the president, I’ve got to let the whole organization-‘

I cut her off, eager to reassure her she’d done nothing wrong, as long as she’s got in touch with her own need, her own state of being before they became toxic for herself or her clients.


Long silence.


‘And what was that about a lense?’ she eventually asked.

‘When you’re leaving your bed in the middle of the night and racing off to that street corner to pick up that terrified, perhaps injured woman-‘

‘- I had a call just a couple of nights ago.’

‘At that moment she’s her own unique history and situation, but at that moment for you she’s also every victim of injustice or violence in the world- the only one you can do anything about, to use your words.... until your next meeting, fundraiser or protest, ‘I added.


‘And all you were asking was for prayers- for your friend, for that young man- what’s his name again?’

‘Juan’ his name sounding like a prayer.

‘Juan-’

‘And all you were feeling was the overwhelming injustice, violence; blindness and indifference Juan’s situation embodies.’


‘That priest friend of yours must be really something...’

‘She is, and so are you... All I’m asking, is when you can, carry Juan in your heart/mind- if only his name.’


‘But is it enough?’

‘Who knows... that’s where the Holy Spirit comes in... all we can do is open our hearts, as you do every day, offer them up that they might resonate with God’s love, sort of like those solar cookers our Church is distributing in Africa-‘

‘Solar cookers?’


‘Never mind- another story for another day. But about that ‘overwhelmed,’ sounds like you need to get yourself organized for a very long week-end with Clarke and the dogs- in the country.’

‘I don’t know, he’s kind of busy these days too- with work.’

‘Three days- four max,’ I persisted. ‘All you can do is ask.’


‘I’ll ask... oh, and about Juan- I won’t forget.’

‘That’s all I’m asking,’ I reminded her.


Oh, and this morning, shortly after 5:30 a.m. there was another call- from ‘P’. Overwhelmed, in another way, by the love and support he’s felt ever since his friend the Episcopal priest called him at work yesterday, to tell him to check out my latest post.

‘I sat there, tears streaming down my face, not even realizing my office door was still open- and I’ve never felt so loved, so supported. To think, there are good people out there, and they know about me- if only as ‘P’, and they care. I can feel it.’

‘P’ also had a very insightful gift for ‘E’ who shared his post- about ‘the people of God’ rather than the monolith of the institutional Church being where ‘God is really happening.’ I promised to pass it along.

And one last word from ‘P’ ‘-whoever they are, wherever they are, tell them thank-you. Tell them I love them, I feel so loved and blessed- because of them. ‘


Juan- carry him in your hearts, on your breath, through out your day please. The decisive date is Monday, December 7th- the Deportation hearing. Thank-you.

David@Montreal

Confidence & harm

Call me a naive Canadian, but in the last several days as so many of us have wept. grieved & prayed over the recent outrage at St. Nicholas Episcopal Church, Atwater CA, I’ve become quite concerned that we brothers and sisters of Christ’s fullest blessing not unwitingly harm ourselves, each other, or the Church of Christ Jesus.

Perhaps the most unfortunate instance of this was insistence of a couple of 'our' blogs on using a seriously unflattering photo of John-David Schofield in their reporting. Most of you will know which unfortunate picture I’m referring to.

I’m not disputing the picture was taken. I’m not disputing the man was there, holding that piece of paper. But unfortunately in the current context, this photograph objectifies a man, who, whatever else is still our brother in Christ, and who was created in the image and likeness of God. I might even suggest that use of this photo is personally invasive, as it hauls a brother’s personal issues into the public forum of faith in a context which has nothing to do with what’s currently going on.

I mean, I haven’t heard of anyone using this photo offering to meet with John-David to help and counsel on his personal pain.

Please don’t misunderstand me, I’ve wept and sat vigil with the people of St. Nicholas, Atwater, as so many of my radiant brothers and sisters have, and yes, for a moment, when reading a report I wailed ‘why the isn’t anyone doing something?

And on the next breath I regained my senses…
I might even suggest that what we have here is a perfect example of my sense of what’s truly going on in the Church right now– in the bigger picture of living process- that of Christ leading His Church out of centuries of frightened dualistic thinking.

No one needs to be objectified

No one needs to be called names

So long as we remember that what’s going on here is process, a dance of change & transformation, and we (humanity) are only one of the dancing partners- thank goodness & THANK GOD!

This is still the Church of Jesus Christ, Son of the True & Living God

And to momentarily resort to Holy Scriptures; it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God

so of course nothing’s going to be easy or run smoothly

we’re all being call forth out of fear,

we’re all being called into a larger, clearer, living experience of God’s passionate love and unconditional blessing… ‘a love beyond our wildest imagining’ to quote one blessed brother yet again.

we’ve all got healing and growth- and Christ’s necessary grace- to engage in here.

No more guys in black hats and white hats- this is not an old western movie. This is Christ Jesus, working through all of us to move us – the Church- beyond the fearful need to objectify, to damn, to conquer, to destroy- all verbs too commonly found in Christian history.

Working to move us into becoming the most radiant, unconditional embodiment of God’s love humanity has ever known.

An embodiment of Christ’s love ‘beyond our wildest imagining’ (and you all know where I got that from).


There is no way, the words or actions of John-David Schofield at St. Nicholas Episcopal Church, Atwater, CA can be justified, excused or explained as anything other than what is so obvious to us. But in the end, his true accountability for everything, like ours, is to the true & living God.

And in the meantime our responsibility has to be to not lose sight of our vocations as baptized Christians, as a people of hope, working with Christ Jesus for the renewal of His Church.

Yes, ache & get angry, but we can’t let that pain and anger stop us from being there for the people of St. Nicholas, and all the other parishes being manhandled in a similar manner.

Yes, ache & get angry, but we can’t let that pain and anger stop us from being there to listen to the hurt, confusion and disillusionment of our fellow Christians over the antics of certain ‘professional ‘ religious.

Yes, ache and get angry but we can't let otrage be our only witness or presence in our collective vocation of radiant embodiment.

Yes, ache and get angry, it can't stop there, or we’ll never see past the fear, to glimpse the active, working presence of Christ, who has promised to never abandon his flock.

And perhaps nothing has embodied that fearful thinking more than the rare anger or concern I’ve read about ++Katherine’s presence in all of this.

Where is she? What’s she doing? Essentially is what more than one voice has been asking,

It may just be my personal opinion, but as much as I honor and admire this particular sister-in-faith, a white cowboy hat might look slightly ridiculous on herright now, and riding into Atwater, both guns blazing would hardly do honor to the office of Presiding Bishop or the Church.

The bottom line is that ++Katherine, like the rest of us, is accountable to Canon Law, which has been prayerfully writ over time, in a conscious effort to know the will of the Holy Spirit, alive and at work in the Anglican Communion- exactly where we all find ourselves right now.

And that Canon Law provides our secessionist brothers a breathing spell of a specific duration in which they’re given a chance to reconsider and renounce their earlier actions.

And I would suggest that by respecting this requirement ++Katherine is showing herself to be a living embodiment of the best of Anglican tradition and practice.

Hurt, confused, angry, worried for the future of the Anglican Communion probably describes all of us in the fellowship of full inclusion right now. But it’s essential that none of us unwittingly play into the secessionist agenda by re-acting to whatever they do, or by adopting their frightened dualistic ideology and language.

One of the great blessings of my sitting practice is the understanding that to re-act is to always respond from a position of weakness or defeat to another’s action.

Bottom line: Jesus Christ is to be found in the thick of this work of transformation- this breaking open and transformation of all of our understandings and experience of the living Christ in our midst.

And my sense is equally that as far as Canon Law allows that’s also where +Katherine is aiming for. She did send her legal and clerical representatives to witness the events of Advent IV at St. Nicholas Episcopal Church. She has put the other secessionist bishops on notice, and never was our sister’s radiant grace more evident than when she side-stepped the antics of +Peter et al at the celebration of the Blessed Sacrament in Tanzania.

As scary, confusing and uncertain as it may feel at times, none of us is alone in this.
We are the Body of Christ, and as a living body, I would suggest that if we have faith, the only appropriate image for the current process is ‘growing pains.’

Growing pains and a glorious calling forth out of fear and fearful thought, speech and action.

Growing pains in a vocation of radiant transformation.

Growing pains which as any parent will tell us are a sign of health, a sign of life, and for me nothing stands proof of this more radiantly than all the wondrous brothers and sisters in faith who have stepped up to claim the promises of their baptismal vows, found their voices and bear witness to their radiant lives on faith- whether in the pew or here on the internet…. which includes each one of you m'dears.

Amen.

God’s Greatest Blessing, to God’s Greatest Glory- always & unconditionally