Morning Rumination's

I’m a believer in the practicing of Morning Prayer.  While some will practice “bedtime” prayers, I take a timeout to pray once I’m fully awake, but before diving into the thick of the day.  In that quiet space before morning prayers, I was considering the sixth day (Friday). It was on that first Sixth Day, when God created man, and created him in his own image. The sin of willful disobedience irreparably disfigured that image, and succeeding generations of humanity walked in enmity with the Divine. On a succeeding Friday, far from Eden, God once again engaged in the act of re-creation. In crying out “tetelestai”, He declared that the debt incurred by that defacing offense was once and forever satisfied. On that first sixth day, humanity saw their birth. On that second sixth day, humanity realized their redemption and restoral.

Forty Day Reflections -- Lent 2020

Lent 2020 has passed under the light of a waning Gibbous Moon.  And in the words of a mime spinner, "This was the Lentiest Lent he'd ever Lented".  No doubt, this was quipped with the Wuhan pandemic in view.  And, but by Divine miracle, we'll wake tomorrow in the grip of this virus as Easter breaks across Suburbia Majora.  With all of this, I want to share how the previous lenten season touched and stretched me.

Lent began in the Dark.  Literally, for me Lent began at 4:45 AM on Ash Wednesday as I rose to prepare for the 6:30 & 8:00 AM Observances at All-Saint's. On that day too, I would encounter another type of darkness after arriving at work and discovering that in a Post-Christian world, far too many have absolutely no knowledge of Ash Wednesday. I was met with curious stares until one woman asked "what's that on on your face?  Did you forget to wash this morning?'  Trying to keep it light, I smiled and said I bumped up against my own mortality.  "Ohh, did it hurt?" she replied in a tone of concern.  From here I knew she had now context for the ashes on my forehead and it opened a door to share the season of Lent with her, explaining how may followers Christ observe this season as a time to fast, pray, and reflect in these weeks leading to the Easter season.

Lent in Lockdown.  At Lent's onset, the COVID-19 was on another Continent and effecting "other people".  Little did we know, that in two short weeks our Republic would seize up and grind to a halt.  Many were now watching their retirement portfolios evaporate as Stock Markets around the world cratered.  People were compelled to self distance and stay apart.  Churches ceased to gather for corporate worship.  March 15th saw our final public gathering and inwardly, I grieved for the saints who were being placed under interdict by reactionary public officials and denied the comfort of the Sacraments and the benedictions of their priests. A bright light in this darkness was being part of a technology-gifted parish that was able to employ existing technical resources in order to either prerecord or livestream the Holy Week from All-Saints.  In fact, tonight I'll be watching myself in the Easter Vigil.

You can't pursue a Holy Lent in your Own Strength.  Of all the takeaways from Lent 2020, for me this was the greatest.  All my attempts at this in years past we abysmal failures.  Like Charlie Brown, I'd run headlong towards the football only to have it yanked away.  Simply put, you'll find yourself incapable of ever doing this in your own strength.  Experientially, I was reminded in this season, the deeper one leans on the Spirit, the easier this pursuit becomes.

The road, and where it takes us. -- Reflections

"St. Augustine-in-the-Fields", from another time

BLOGGER's NOTE:  This one is published out of season as I've been allowing it to percolate for a month or three...

The appreciation of well-crafted poetry is largely lost in our graceless age.  Much of our society has grown too crass and too coarse to enjoy the spoken lyric, as it takes us away from the instant gratification and sensory overload, to a place where we actually must pause and think.  Of all the American poets, I have a deep appreciation for Robert Frost (1874-1963).  A man of a breadth of verse and one acquainted with sorrows, one of his most familiar poems is perhaps 'The Road not Taken" (The Road Less Traveled).

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; 

Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, 

And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. 

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Rod Stewart reminded us in 1971 that every picture tells us a story, and this photo offers no exception.  At first glance, this picture captures a weathered sign along a rural road, likely taken in late winter. It's weatherbeaten and fading, yet its clear that the sign was once beautiful. Even in its sad state, it conveys what was once a hopeful new vision to its community.  For me, this sign is emblematic of Mr. Frost's poem and of the final stanza particularly. Quoting the poet, "And that has made all the difference." 

Much like the vista offered by this photo, in muted late winter, I was looking up a hill on an unknown road, in a spiritually bleak season of life in early 2005. I hadn't found myself in a crisis of faith, but rather a crisis of Theology where my I'd been questioning much of what I'd taught for years as a Pentecostal pastor and teacher. At this time I was two years removed from the Church of God (Cleveland, TN), having sojourned with the Southern Baptists and more recently with a Calvary Chapel Congregation.  Each, though heresy-free, failed to satisfy an unanswered longing within my spirit. My heart yearned for a connection that transcended the transactional faith of American Evangelicalism.  

While in this place, I would routinely travel Shelton Shop Road, and pass a road sign advertising a new church which billed itself as both "Episcopal and Evangelical.  While part of me was drawn to the later, I was equally repulsed by the former.  In my mind, the Episcopal Church was essentially a toothless old dog that was bereft of the Spirit and power of the Almighty.  It was a body that once upon a time, embodied "America at prayer" but now was one the lashed itself to any and all Liberal cause.  I'd written her off as what Saint Paul spoke of as "having a form of Godliness, but denying the power thereof".  Yet for all of this internal revulsion, I was drawn and warmed by the message of this sign.  But an additional event would have to occur to knock me out a complacent space and onto the unknown road represented in this photo.

In March 2005, two prominent individuals were dying;  Pope Saint John Paul II, and Terri Schaivo.  If you remember, Ms. Schaivo was the woman who was starved to death by a "husband" who wanted to get on with his life, but his current wife was an impediment to his plans.  So, starvation was his easy fix to take Terri out of the picture.  When the Calvary Chapel pastor and his wife made it clear that they had no real issue with Michael Schaivo's intent to for his stricken wife, while rebuking me for referring to the death by starvation as demonic.  I knew that we were at an irreproachable place our time there was at an end.  So what then?

In the waning days of the 2005 Lenten season, I called the number on billboard to enquire about this new church that billed itself as such a hybrid.  I was traveling on business but would be back to visit the church on Easter Sunday.  As I now consider my life in the faith, Easter 2005 remains a significant mountaintop moments.  Had I turned onto the path "more traveled", I don't know that I'd be sitting here this evening, MacBook Pro in lap, sharing tonight.

Nearly a fifteen years have passed since that fateful Sunday.  I've been blessed to serve two Bishops, three Rectors, and two Parishes.  The bulk of my ministry has been lived out with the parish of All-Saint's Anglican, a loving, growing, serving, and going community that is truly a house of prayer to the Nations.  

Sadly, all that remains of Saint Augustine-in-the-fields (and her subsequent rebranding) is this sign.  She failed to thrive, yet for a season served the will and purposes of the Almighty.  She was the path less traveled, and the one that made all the difference.



    

Wednesday Reverie

Over the years, I've found most of Pink Floyd's music to be dark and despairing.  Yet, "Wish you were here" is a tune that resonates deep in my psyche for some reason.  It speaks to the ache of friends lost to both death and estrangement, and the void their absence has left in our lives.  My faith blunts this loss in the fact that I'm confident that the separation will not be permanent and I will see them again.

The Genius that is Jeff Lynne

There are two musical Titans in my musical life story, the second of which is Jeff Lynne of The Move, and later, the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO).  As far as the North American charts go, their Out of the Blue project probably represented an apex in popular exposure.  This two LP set contained "A Concerto for a Rainy Day" on side three, where "Mr. Blue Sky" was the last movement of the Concerto.  Jeff shares some insights on that particular piece.  

Indeed, Mister Blue, you did it right...

Sunday Reverie

A reminder, we're on a timeline and what we know will someday be transformed in an instant when He will return, to judge the quick and the dead; the point where the Kingdom will have no end.

Answer, if you hear a call today.

To be an Anglican Hooligan

(c) 2008 Anglican Hooligan Shoppe

(Author's Note:  The following essay has been percolating in my brain now for nearly a decade.  It was the recent experience of the Rector of New Creation Anglican Church in Hagerstown, MD which finally inspired me to place the fingers to the keyboard and type away.  Hat's off Father Justin, and hat's off Father Gerry for the entire idea of the Anglican Hooligan.)

 Time has a way of zipping by in a blur, yet there are some things that stick out in one's memory.  It was back in 2007/2008 during my then nascent rebirth into the Anglican Faith, and I was searching out some "witness wear" to tell the world that this one-time Pentecostal Preacher had traded the sawdust, for the Canterbury Trail.  In searching the internet for T-shirts, I found one that jumped off the screen and said click on me please!  It was a white, sleeveless T-shirt emblazoned with a Celtic Cross, flanked by two figures who I perceived to be Augustine, overlaid onto a pair of open wings.  Perfect for showcasing ones guns in the gym while speaking to ones spiritual zeitgeist.  In retrospect, my guns were larger in my mind than in reality. A Decade later and though I'm beyond wearing that T anywhere away from the pool or hot tub, I'm still drawn to its simplistic but powerful message.

The expression, "Anglican Hooligan" easily creates a dichotomy.  The words themselves at first take seem absolutely antithetical to one another.  The word Hooligan conjures up pictures of a rough, rowdy and unrefined sort who lowers the property value of whichever neighborhood they move into.  "Anglican" on the other hand paints a more refined image.  Polite to a fault, ensconced in Tweed and faintly smelling of pipe smoke; one might typically envision the Anglican as a gentle, unoffending sort who'll go to great lengths to preserve order and tranquility; one who goes along to get along. Many Americans too, have a misunderstanding of Anglicanism in general that can be born out of either ignorance or prejudice, depending on how its manifested.  On numerous occasions, I've had people say, upon learning of my Faith expression,say something along the lines of "Aren't you people just like 'Catholics'?" or with a whiff of derision, "you people are pretty much 'Catholic-lite"anyway, right?".  And of course today, now that the executive leadership of the American Episcopal Church is finding itself to the Theological and Social Left of the Unitarian Universalists, many of these same people will dismiss Anglicanism altogether as a sub-christian sect.   But even for those who have a grounded understanding of Anglicanism, the term can be incongruent.  The couplet can almost seem to create the image of Andy Capp meeting the Vicar.  For a moment or two, take this invitation to reimagine the moniker in light of some historic truths.

Christianity was spread through the world by men whom polite society would have easily considered Hooligans; crude hayseeds and fishermen who came into towns and cities, upsetting the settled order with strange doctrines.  These men and women were bold, unapologetic, and unafraid.  They engaged and rocked their worlds without fear of reprisal, often to their own demise.  This same spirit was evidenced in the Sixteenth Century with the birth of Anglicanism.  When Mary Tudor attempted to extinguish the flame of Anglicanism through her own backfires, kindled with the bodies of the faithful, "protestant hooligans" chose death over the shame or recantation.  In our own time, we're surrounded by Anglican leaders who stood the red line over the issue of historic orthodox Christianity when many of their peers were  either willfully surrendering, or simply acquiescing to the social and cultural mores of our day.  I consider these facts in the light of the Eleventh & Twelfth Chapters of the Letter to the Hebrews and see a cloud of witness that continues to grow larger by the day.

So, how are we to make application of this as we live out or lives as Third Millennium Anglicans?  Whether we live on the Left Coast, in Hagerstown, Suburbia Majora, or in your town, the guiding principals remain the same.  To be a fruitful, reproducing Christian is to live out one's life in a scrum.  We are called to move the Kingdom down field to the goal, which will be actualized when our Messiah and Lord makes his ultimate return; that day when, as stated in the historic creeds, "He will come again to judge the quick and the dead, and that His kingdom will have no end."  Yet the fact that we exist in this scrum implies that there is an opposing side to the scrum that is working at cross purposes to staunch the forward momentum of our line.  This triad of the World's system, our own fleshly nature, and our Adversary the Accuser is working tirelessly to blunt, slow and stop our forward momentum for the Kingdom of God.  Clearly, this is not a place for the timid who've no stomach for the struggle.  The Casper Milquetoast follower won't survive for very long in this scrum and will be shoved to the sideline, and rendered ineffective. 

So, to be an Anglican Hooligan is to move forward without fear, possessing only the fear of the Lord (to do so otherwise is mere arrogance, not fearlessness).  Understand, Though I've written this from the perspective of an Anglican, these principles are universal to any orthodox expression of Christianity.  Regardless of your worshipping community, you've been called to move forward in faith, with full confidence in the one who called and redeemed you, and continues to empower you through His Holy Spirit.

Game on Hooligan!  keep plowing down field until you hear the final whistle.  Maranatha! 

Morning in Suburbia Majora

From the Book of Common Prayer:

Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought us in safety to this new day: Preserve us with your mighty power, that we may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by adversity; and in all we do, direct us to the fulfilling of your purpose; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Lent 2013

From the Book of Common Prayer:

"I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word. And, to make a right beginning of repentance, and as a mark of our mortal nature, let us now kneel before the Lord, our maker and redeemer."

As the Nativity Cycle ends, the Paschal Cycle begins; welcome to Lent 2013, 40 days of active denial and proactive searching.

Friday Reverie

Genesis, the book of beginnings, speaks of the moments where Adam examined and named the animals in God's new order. I'm certain that this process took place over a protracted period of time. I wonder where the porpoise fell into the line up?

Could Adam, in this state of innocence, converse with the porpoise? Or being the only being created in the Imago Dei, did thougthful, willful communication solely belong to the Godhead and the "living soouls" of Adam and later, Eve?

Friday Reverie - A long distance request

Ms. Loreena McKennit has what I can only describe as some powerful gift that causes my Celtic DNA to stir anytime she opens her mouth to sing.

Friday Reverie

U2... I loved them, repudiated them, then learned to love them all over again. Funny, no one could rock a mullet like Bono Vox. These bleeding-edge new wavers from Erie have been together for more than a generation and don't seem to show any signs of bagging off anytime in the near future.

Pour yer' self a mug of tea and enjoy "Gloria".

Friday Reverie

A wee bit o' reverie before the long weeekend.

My young love said to me, my mother won´t mind
And my father won´t slight you for your lack of kine,
And she stepped away from me and this she did say,
It will not be long love ´til our wedding day.

She stepped away from me and she moved through the fair,
And fondly I watched her move here and move there,
Then she went her way homeward with one star awake,
As the swan in the evening moves over the lake.

The people were saying no two were e´er wed,
But one has a sorrow that never was said,
And I smiled as she passed with her goods and her gear,
And that was the last that I saw of my dear.

I dreamt it last night that my young love came in,
So softly she entered her feet made no din,
She came close beside me and this she did say,
It will not be long love ´til our wedding day.

Think about it...

Here's a question to ponder while slurping down the lunchtime noodles:

Who's the more irrational of the following two men; the man who believes in a God he doesn't see, or the man who is offended by the God he doesn't believe in?

Careful now, I don't want to see anyone blow out any brain cells. And enjoy yer' Lo-mein.

Friday Reverie

NOTE: If you're reading this post on Facebook, ya need ta' click here for the video.

The title of this haunting melody is "Na Laetha Geal Moige", or (In English for the rest of us...) "The Bright Days of My Youth". I believe that this song seems to capture the essential soul of Enya. It is funny though, that I pronounce her name as "Ahn-ya".

Why Friday Reverie? The truth be known, I spend the better part of my working week wading through swamps of federal regulatory paperwork, putting out brushfires, and dodging assorted scat storms. By Friday afternoon, I'm ready to take that long exhale, offload the week, and breathe in peace for the next 64 hours. This stuff'll all be here on Monday morning so, there's no good reason to carry it out the door.

And oh, enjoy your 64 hours of weekend too!

Friday Reverie

Thank you Miss Loreena...

Though we share this humble path, alone
How fragile is the heart
Oh give these clay feet wings to fly
To touch the face of the stars

Breathe life into this feeble heart
Lift this mortal veil of fear
Take these crumbled hopes, etched with tears
We'll rise above these earthly cares

Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me
Please remember me