soulwerker

“We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for the loving care which surrounds us on every side.” — A General Thanksgiving, Book of Common Prayer, page 836

I am a few days late with this post. For whatever reason, last week simply got away from me. This is not an unusual occurrence for me, but such occurrences have, unfortunately, happened far too often of late. I’d like to chalk it up to a busy schedule, but my guess is, it has more to do with my own challenges around meeting self-imposed deadlines — but that is a post for another day!

As I prayed the General Thanksgiving throughout the second week full week of November (10th – 16th), I devoted a fair amount of my attention to the second section (quoted above). I am well aware that, for many people, the word “family” calls up all sorts of negative associations. In my work as a priest and pastor, I’ve listened to stories from all kinds of people who are still working toward healing as they deal with the pain and trauma inflicted upon them by those who ostensibly should have been their biggest support system. I understand families are often dysfunctional, frequently hurtful, and sometimes dangerous. And so I can certainly see how this particular sentence in the General Thanksgiving can seem overly sentimental to those whose experience of “family” is at odds with the fantasy of family promulgated in a wide swath of mainstream culture.

My own family had its ups and downs. Because of my dad’s work, our family of four was separated from all of our relatives. We only saw grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins once a year when my dad got his annual vacation. So for me, “family” simply meant my mom, my dad, my sister and me. My parents worked factory jobs. We lived in a small, ranch style house in a blue collar neighborhood. My dad often worked sixty hour weeks, and sometimes, because of his work schedule and our sleep schedules, my sister and me would only see him on the weekends duringthe school year. Some years I suspect we were probably pretty close to the edge financially. Of course, my sister and I weren’t necessarily aware of the economics at the time, and I don’t remember feeling in any way “deprived.” I understand now, though, this in itself was a blessing not everyone who lived around us enjoyed.

By the time my sister and me were in late elementary school, my mom instituted an annual tradition — she called it “Shopping For Fun” Day. It usually happened on the Friday before Christmas. She would give both my sister and me a ten dollar bill, and then she would take us shopping — usually to a couple of popular variety stores (back in the day we called them “Five and Dimes”).  The goal of the shopping trip was for each of us to buy something for ourselves to enjoy in the days before Christmas Day, and hopefully beyond. While a ten dollar bill went farther then than it does now, we still had to be judicious and creative about how we invested the cash. My sister would often wind up with a new paper doll book or arts and craft supplies. I’d usually get a model plane or car to build. Sometimes we’d find just the right, crazy, cheap toy to buy, or other times we’d pool the money to buy something to share. And then, after the shopping trip, there would be lunch with my mom at the snackcounter in the store.

Given what I know now, that $35.00 outing with us probably represented a few weeks worth of my mom saving a couple of bucks here and there to make sure the day didn’t impinge upon the family budget. And as I look back on those Shopping For Fun Days, I can honestly say, I believe those were some of the few days I remember seeing my mom genuinely relaxed. Each of those outings probably lasted a total of four hours. And the memory of those days are some of the happiest memories of my childhood. And for whatever reason, every time I prayed the General Thanksgiving last week, I thought of these little trips.

Sometimes, loving care doesn’t look very dramatic. Sometimes it’s doing the laundry and dishes. Sometimes it’s repairing a faucet or hanging a picture. Sometimes it’s paying the electric bill or mowing the lawn. Sometimes it’s patching a coat or helping with chores. Love gets incarnated in the ways we speak to each other, the tasks we do for one another, and the care we extend beyond ourselves — even when such care is inconvenient. And sometimes, loving care looks like a ten dollar bill and a dime store hamburger. Thanks be to God.

“We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love…”

I first started praying the General Thanksgiving found on page 836 in the Book of Common Prayer with regularity when I was in seminary (1999-2002). While I had been an Episcopalian for years by that point, somehow, this particular prayer had escaped my attention. The prayer, however, was a frequent part of daily worship at the Virginia Theological Seminary — probably because its author, the Reverend Dr. Charles Price, had been a longtime VTS faculty member. I can still recall vividly the day this prayer began to make its journey from words in my head to feelings in my heart.

I had probably been at seminary for a couple of months. Tabitha, Matthew (who was 2 years old at the time) and I were settling in to our new routine. We were navigating Northern Virginia traffic, getting used to life in a large raucous apartment complex, being a “one car family,” and awkwardly juggling the ways in which seminary (not unlike the Church) can simply overtake every corner of one’s life. We had been so busy with all the details, we’d hardly taken a breath. On this particular morning, I arrived at Chapel full of anxiety about unread reading, unwritten papers, a late night visit to urgent care because Matthew was sick with an ear infection, and that nagging sense that I was already failing at whatever it meant to “be a seminarian.”

We knelt at the conclusion of Morning Prayer, and the officiant invited us to join in the praying of this prayer of Thanksgiving. I never made it past the first paragraph. Suddenly, through the blur of tears one thing became exceedingly clear: my vision of my world had narrowed to the extent that all I could see were the challenges, the obstacles, the difficulties, and my failures. I had been so busy keeping my head down, I had forgotten to look around and notice the splendor, beauty, and mystery which was everywhere. I left the Chapel that day breathing a bit freer. The sky somehow looked bluer, and the trees seemed ablaze with their fall foliage. I took note of the scores of squirrels frolicking across the campus green, and delighted in the smell of freshly mown grass. For the first time in weeks, I felt my feet connected to the ground, and for the next few hours, I managed to “stay out of my head.” The racing thoughts slowed to an amble. Peace may have not flowed like a river, but I did feel settled for the first time in weeks.

In the past seven days, much has happened in our world and in our country. Even with the midterm elections (mostly) concluded, the anxiety and vitriol attendant to our country’s political life shows little sign of abating, even temporarily. We have not yet finished mourning the violence and loss of life at the Tree of Life Congregation in Pennsylvania, and another mass shooting at the Borderline Bar & Grill in California has assaulted us with the awareness that the threat of unpredictable, deadly violence looms over each and everyone of us day in and day out. The latest deadly wildfire in California reminds us of the inherent fragility of life, and the tenuousness of things we often assume are secure.

If we’re not careful, though, “staying informed” about all these things can result in a loss of the capacity for even a moment of joy. We become impatient or agitated with people (including ourselves) who aren’t taking these dire situations seriously enough. How can we possibly be thankful when so much is out of whack? What good is gratitude when so many people are hurting and mourning? When so few people in power seem to care about anything or anyone but themselves, isn’t a practice of gratitude inherently selfish?

This week, in the middle of the unrelenting news cycle, I’ve taken the first few lines of the General Thanksgiving as a personal challenge. I have intentionally said, “Thank you God!” for every sip of water I’ve taken from my water bottle since last Friday. I started following a couple of nature photographers on Twitter whose work reminds me of the beauty of God’s creation, and I’ve rediscovered the antics of otters, foxes, birds, hippos, and raccoons add levity to the newsfeed which can feel unbearably heavy. I made it a point to get outside and breathe deeply a few times a day, and if there was any sort of wind, I intentionally faced into it, and reflected on how the Wind of the Spirit blows wherever it wills. I prayed for the Holy Spirit’s creative wind to refresh and renew my heart.

I enjoyed times of laughter with friends. I reconnected with my body by renewing my commitment to daily exercise. I marveled at the talent of musicians, while clapping my hands, tapping my toes, and singing along with an audience at a bluegrass music concert. Along the way, I’ve been as angry, as sad, as frustrated, as tired, and as unmotivated as the next person, but the accumulation of these tiny, intentional actions of thanksgiving have established a little beachhead of gratitude in my world-weary soul. And so after a week of my “Gratitude Project,” I can report the following:

This world is beautiful.
The gift of life is wonderful.
And love is a mystery.
Thank you, God!

“For salvation isn’t, in the end, being rescued from a fiery furnace and delivered up to an ethereal cloud. Salvation is being redirected from a spiral of fantasy and oblivion to a gracious, ordered, liberating, and often sequential process of reconciliation and healing.” — Sam Wells in Incarnational Ministry: Being with the Church

For the past several months, a clergy colleague and I have been reading Incarnational Ministry together. Because we live some distance apart, we conduct our periodic discussions of the book via Skype. We do our best to stick to the chapters we’ve agreed to read, but as is the case with such things, we cannot set our specific contexts aside. So, we often respond to what Sam has written through the lens of “what’s happening in us/our congregations.”

We are in very different locales. We are in different places in our lives and vocations. We are contending with different challenges in our respective parishes. And…we share in a desire to live our vocation as priests as faithfully as we can. These chats have been life-giving for me in ways I had not anticipated.

As I prepared for our chat tomorrow, I reread some of the passages I’ve underlined in the book, and once again, I was called up short by the above quote. Full stop.

Now, I don’t think Wells is arguing for the non-existence of the afterlife. I think, instead, he’s arguing FOR fully embracing this life — with all of its messiness, incompleteness, conflict, hurt, anxiety, sickness, pain, and loss. He is inviting us to consider that salvation, God’s call towards wholeness, is not simply a theological concept, but is also a lived experience. One aspect of this lived experience is acknowledging all the parts of our lives we’d rather avoid, deny, ignore, or hide from others.

To face into those broken bits, and to offer them to God in the company of our fellow Christians is a risk we too often fail to take. An intellectual and theoretical salvation is crisp, clean, and without risk. We can keep it to ourselves without any need share anything with another soul. And yet, if the Church is the Body of Christ, the wounds it bears aren’t merely metaphorical.

I can certainly understand our reticence to engage in this sort of risk-taking. We’ve all been schooled from an early age about the importance of not showing any weakness, and of keeping up the appearance that we have “everything together.” And we’re so busy living our lie of spiritual competence we don’t even consider the fact everyone around us is living their lie as well. To trust one another with our brokenness goes against everything we’ve been taught. Yet to engage in such appearance-keeping is, I think, to actively participate in what Wells calls a “spiral of fantasy and oblivion.”

To be the Church — the people of God — is to first and foremost, simply be people. Learning to trust other Christians to listen to me, to care for me, to pray for me, and to walk with me in the journey towards wholeness is the beginning, I think, of learning to trust God. It’s in undertaking this kind of journey that reconciliation and healing can be known and understood — not as theological concepts but as a lived reality. And that sorta sounds like heaven to me.

Every month, like clockwork, one of my tasks as the parish priest is to write an article for the parish newsletter. Over the course of fourteen-plus years, I’ve dutifully cranked out an article, in spite of my suspicion that they mostly go unread. Some months, I feel inspired, and enjoy the process. Other months, I grumble, complain, and kvetch as the blank screen stares back at me, taunting me to think of something somewhat religious to say to my religious (non)readership. Occasionally, I am granted a reprieve from the task because there is an article with information so important to the life of the parish it deserves the front page of the newsletter. November’s issue granted me no such reprieve.

And so, I began my ritual of grumbling, complaining and kvetching. Eventually I stopped talking to the computer screen and began typing. The is a portion of what I wrote:

…I don’t know about you, but I need all the help I can get with regards to remembering to be thankful. Over the past few days, we have been painfully reminded, yet again, of the deadly power of hatred and violence. We are also (thanks to the 24/7 news cycle) constantly bombarded, day and night, by the voices of anger, fear, rage, and condemnation emanating from individuals who are our elected leaders. If we’re not careful, we take those emotions into our souls, and then become reflections of the culture instead of witnesses to the Good News.

This year, in particular, I feel as if November, with its theme of Thanksgiving, has arrived right on time. I know many people who undertake a “discipline of gratitude” every November, and attempt to take the time every day to jot down one to three things for which they are specifically thankful. The practice is a way of re-focusing attention from all that is wrong in the world, to all sorts of blessings we receive every day — things like seeing sunshine, petting a dog or cat, having food to eat, the ability to read, a good cup of tea (or in my case, coffee!), family members, and close friends, just to name a few.

And if all the bad news has dragged you down to the place where you feel disingenuous for giving thanks about anything, then may I suggest another practice? Try praying the General Thanksgiving from page 836 in the Book of Common Prayer every day this month. And by praying, I’m asking you to read it slowly and out loud. I believe this prayer has the capacity to reorient our perspective, and calm our troubled hearts…

If you are reading this blog post, and you do not have access to a Book of Common Prayer, you will find the words to the prayer I mention below. I have no grand illusions about how many folks will join me in this little 30 day (now 29 day!) experiment, but I thought I’d extend the offer here as well. I’m planning to pray the prayer morning and evening for this entire month, and I’ll share what I’m learning from this journey every Friday on this site. Please join me if you feel so inspired…and let me know in the comments. 

A General Thanksgiving (BCP, p. 836)

Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have
done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole
creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life,
and for the mystery of love.

We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for
the loving care which surrounds us on every side.

We thank you for setting us at tasks which demand our best
efforts, and for leading us to accomplishments which satisfy
and delight us.

We thank you also for those disappointments and failures
that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.

Above all, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ; for the
truth of his Word and the example of his life; for his steadfast
obedience, by which he overcame temptation; for his dying,
through which he overcame death; and for his rising to life
again, in which we are raised to the life of your kingdom.

Grant us the gift of your Spirit, that we may know him and
make him known; and through him, at all times and in all
places, may give thanks to you in all things. Amen.