Heavenly Father,
We ask you to be with the Godsquad missioners as they go to make a difference in the lives of folks in Texas who are in need. Keep them safe and give them comfort in the challenges they will face. Let them feel your loving care for them and for those who they serve. We ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Steadfast
Dear God - I thank you for my best friend, Freckles, whose steadfast presence in my life for 12 1/2 years has been a gift of joy. I am steadfast for her, too, especially now that she is blind. (But no less full of life!) Bless our life together as doggie and human being, as a sign of your steadfastness, too, for us in joy. Amen
"Since patience or tolerance comes from a certain ability to remain firm and steadfast, to not be overwhelmed by the adverse situations or conditions that one faces, one should not see tolerance or patience as a sign of weakness, but rather as a sign of strength coming from a deep ability to remain steadfast and firm."
—The Dalai Lama
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Time to hit the dusty trail...
God says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
In February of 2001 when I had received my call to ordained ministry by the power of the Holy Spirit I met with my rector, Thomas, several times. In one of those meetings he asked me what I would like to do for discernment. Now being quite new to the language of Episcopalian clergy, having been brought up Lutheran, I didn’t really know what Thomas meant by “discernment”, so I asked him what he meant. And he answered that discernment was a time of seeking to find out where God was calling me; a time to test my call to find some deeper meaning and direction. He asked me again what I wanted to do for discernment and I answered without hesitation without thinking, “hospice”. I had worked with some hospice patients at the nursing home where I was Nutritional Services Manager and I always wished I could do more than provide food in the way of comfort and compassion. Thomas introduced me to the Chaplain at a local hospital and I was fortunate to enter his training program for associate hospice chaplains. After some weeks I received the name of my first hospice patient, her address, and general information about her name, age, diagnosis and so forth. Now in this present time of privacy it is not allowed to disclose names and information about a patient to anyone except family members. However, this particular patient asked me to keep her name alive and tell her story and so what I tell you about her, I have her permission to tell, especially after her death. Her name was Pati, and she was 55 years old. I stood at her door one Friday afternoon after work, and was terrified. I wondered what the heck I had gotten myself into, how I was going to be of any use to her at all, whether she would even be glad to see me, although she had requested a chaplain’s visit. I said “Come, Holy Spirit” and I knocked on the door. She let me in herself. Pati was a thin brunette with a lot of energy despite the spreading breast cancer in her body.
Right away she told me that she didn’t want to talk about God. God had let her down badly and she didn’t think God cared about her at all. To say she was mad at God was an understatement. She considered herself a spiritual person but we could not talk about God. No praying, no communion, no psalm-reading; I was at a loss, especially in light of my extreme inexperience in all of this. Come, Holy Spirit. I told her we could just talk and that I was interested in her story and spending some time with her on a weekly basis and she seemed ok with that. So every Friday after work I went to visit her and we got to be pretty good friends – enough so that I could risk talking about my own journey and how I got to be at her door that first day. I told her the story I told you about losing my job and feeling a strong call to ordained ministry at that time and about how I was in discernment for ordination, and that without the call of the Spirit and the direction of the Spirit through Chaplain Schwing I would never have ended up at her house. And THAT was enough evidence for me at least that God had not forgotten her. God had put us together at this time and place to be healing and comfort for each other. My presence had to be enough evidence that God cared about her still. I don’t think she really totally believed me, but she was polite enough not to argue. After that we didn’t talk about God anymore. At this point that I realized her beef was really with the church and a particular philandering preacher rather than with God exactly, but for her it was all the same. The church and pastor she loved let her down and God let her down and that was it. She had closed the door but cracked it open a little to let me in and I tried hard to bring some light in with me. The Holy Spirit put words in my mouth that I didn’t know I had during that time and taught me to be patient and forgiving and loving. I fell in love with this soul called Pati. I visited her for nine months. I never missed a visit and she never called me off. At one point she asked me how many patients I saw each week – she thought she was just one of many. When I told her she was the only one I saw something in her change. As time went on she became more and more sick and vulnerable, of course. By this time I was vulnerable, too, as I had grown to love her great sense of humor and somewhat cynical view of life. One day we were going over the whole issue of God forgetting about her again when she stopped and was quiet. She said she had been waiting for a miracle – to literally hear God’s voice and feel God’s presence. She wanted a big and showy gesture from God– to make up for her disappointment and anger about her church experiences and especially to make up for the years she was losing with her kids to cancer. What she got was me for a chaplain, not much in your way of showy gestures. But she stopped talking and said, “I get it. Now I get it. God called you to come and be with me now.” I said, “yes.” “God sent you to be with me.” “Yes, that’s right.” And I started crying, not her. She comforted me, not the other way. God’s power was made perfect in my weakness because she got it that God had not forgotten her and loved her still. For me, her awareness was everything I had hoped and prayed for. It was a miracle for us both.
Today, July 5th, is the 7th anniversary of Pati’s death, so it is right and proper that I would tell you about her on this day. I am grateful to share her story with you. I was privileged to lead her memorial service and that afternoon I met a group of ladies in turbans covering bald heads from chemotherapy. They introduced themselves as the “boat people” from Pati’s cancer support group, that was what Pati called them. Why boat people? Because we were all in the same boat, they said. That was Pati, witty and bright to the end.
In our Gospel for today, Jesus sends the disciples out two by two to spread the gospel by comforting and healing – or in Mark’s words, “They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.” It seems like a dauntingly immediate task – take no shoes, bag, cloak; travel lightly, move urgently, repudiate violence, shake the dust off your shoes if someone is unfriendly to your mission. Jesus has work of love, comfort, compassion, healing and miracles for us to do. We are weak, says St. Paul, but God’s power is made perfect in our own weakness. Paul says, “So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” For me this is the essence of faith – knowing my own weakness and having confidence against all odds that God will give me the courage and words to do God’s work in the world. Marcus Borg, a contemporary theologian makes this comment about faith: “The Hebrew word for faith in the Old Testament is emoonah. What makes that word interesting is that it's the sound that a baby donkey makes when it is calling for its mother. There's something kind of wonderful about that. There is an element…I don't know if you want to say of desperation in it or not, but there certainly is an element of confidence also that the cry will be heard.”
We have confidence that our faithful cry will be heard – that God hasn’t forgotten us here in Antioch, though the budget is a challenge and the numbers are fewer than in the past, and now we are setting out on a new journey that has yet to be charted; but our weakness and our awareness of our weakness, is God’s strength and God’s power will be made perfect in our weakness. Now God sends us out into the field to preach and teach the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ by word and deed. Even if we don’t know how to start. Don’t pack anything, don’t take a lunch – the mission is urgent! And God will give us the grace to do the work God has called us to do in 2009 in Antioch, California. Amen.
- 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 and Mark 6:1-13
In February of 2001 when I had received my call to ordained ministry by the power of the Holy Spirit I met with my rector, Thomas, several times. In one of those meetings he asked me what I would like to do for discernment. Now being quite new to the language of Episcopalian clergy, having been brought up Lutheran, I didn’t really know what Thomas meant by “discernment”, so I asked him what he meant. And he answered that discernment was a time of seeking to find out where God was calling me; a time to test my call to find some deeper meaning and direction. He asked me again what I wanted to do for discernment and I answered without hesitation without thinking, “hospice”. I had worked with some hospice patients at the nursing home where I was Nutritional Services Manager and I always wished I could do more than provide food in the way of comfort and compassion. Thomas introduced me to the Chaplain at a local hospital and I was fortunate to enter his training program for associate hospice chaplains. After some weeks I received the name of my first hospice patient, her address, and general information about her name, age, diagnosis and so forth. Now in this present time of privacy it is not allowed to disclose names and information about a patient to anyone except family members. However, this particular patient asked me to keep her name alive and tell her story and so what I tell you about her, I have her permission to tell, especially after her death. Her name was Pati, and she was 55 years old. I stood at her door one Friday afternoon after work, and was terrified. I wondered what the heck I had gotten myself into, how I was going to be of any use to her at all, whether she would even be glad to see me, although she had requested a chaplain’s visit. I said “Come, Holy Spirit” and I knocked on the door. She let me in herself. Pati was a thin brunette with a lot of energy despite the spreading breast cancer in her body.
Right away she told me that she didn’t want to talk about God. God had let her down badly and she didn’t think God cared about her at all. To say she was mad at God was an understatement. She considered herself a spiritual person but we could not talk about God. No praying, no communion, no psalm-reading; I was at a loss, especially in light of my extreme inexperience in all of this. Come, Holy Spirit. I told her we could just talk and that I was interested in her story and spending some time with her on a weekly basis and she seemed ok with that. So every Friday after work I went to visit her and we got to be pretty good friends – enough so that I could risk talking about my own journey and how I got to be at her door that first day. I told her the story I told you about losing my job and feeling a strong call to ordained ministry at that time and about how I was in discernment for ordination, and that without the call of the Spirit and the direction of the Spirit through Chaplain Schwing I would never have ended up at her house. And THAT was enough evidence for me at least that God had not forgotten her. God had put us together at this time and place to be healing and comfort for each other. My presence had to be enough evidence that God cared about her still. I don’t think she really totally believed me, but she was polite enough not to argue. After that we didn’t talk about God anymore. At this point that I realized her beef was really with the church and a particular philandering preacher rather than with God exactly, but for her it was all the same. The church and pastor she loved let her down and God let her down and that was it. She had closed the door but cracked it open a little to let me in and I tried hard to bring some light in with me. The Holy Spirit put words in my mouth that I didn’t know I had during that time and taught me to be patient and forgiving and loving. I fell in love with this soul called Pati. I visited her for nine months. I never missed a visit and she never called me off. At one point she asked me how many patients I saw each week – she thought she was just one of many. When I told her she was the only one I saw something in her change. As time went on she became more and more sick and vulnerable, of course. By this time I was vulnerable, too, as I had grown to love her great sense of humor and somewhat cynical view of life. One day we were going over the whole issue of God forgetting about her again when she stopped and was quiet. She said she had been waiting for a miracle – to literally hear God’s voice and feel God’s presence. She wanted a big and showy gesture from God– to make up for her disappointment and anger about her church experiences and especially to make up for the years she was losing with her kids to cancer. What she got was me for a chaplain, not much in your way of showy gestures. But she stopped talking and said, “I get it. Now I get it. God called you to come and be with me now.” I said, “yes.” “God sent you to be with me.” “Yes, that’s right.” And I started crying, not her. She comforted me, not the other way. God’s power was made perfect in my weakness because she got it that God had not forgotten her and loved her still. For me, her awareness was everything I had hoped and prayed for. It was a miracle for us both.
Today, July 5th, is the 7th anniversary of Pati’s death, so it is right and proper that I would tell you about her on this day. I am grateful to share her story with you. I was privileged to lead her memorial service and that afternoon I met a group of ladies in turbans covering bald heads from chemotherapy. They introduced themselves as the “boat people” from Pati’s cancer support group, that was what Pati called them. Why boat people? Because we were all in the same boat, they said. That was Pati, witty and bright to the end.
In our Gospel for today, Jesus sends the disciples out two by two to spread the gospel by comforting and healing – or in Mark’s words, “They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.” It seems like a dauntingly immediate task – take no shoes, bag, cloak; travel lightly, move urgently, repudiate violence, shake the dust off your shoes if someone is unfriendly to your mission. Jesus has work of love, comfort, compassion, healing and miracles for us to do. We are weak, says St. Paul, but God’s power is made perfect in our own weakness. Paul says, “So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” For me this is the essence of faith – knowing my own weakness and having confidence against all odds that God will give me the courage and words to do God’s work in the world. Marcus Borg, a contemporary theologian makes this comment about faith: “The Hebrew word for faith in the Old Testament is emoonah. What makes that word interesting is that it's the sound that a baby donkey makes when it is calling for its mother. There's something kind of wonderful about that. There is an element…I don't know if you want to say of desperation in it or not, but there certainly is an element of confidence also that the cry will be heard.”
We have confidence that our faithful cry will be heard – that God hasn’t forgotten us here in Antioch, though the budget is a challenge and the numbers are fewer than in the past, and now we are setting out on a new journey that has yet to be charted; but our weakness and our awareness of our weakness, is God’s strength and God’s power will be made perfect in our weakness. Now God sends us out into the field to preach and teach the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ by word and deed. Even if we don’t know how to start. Don’t pack anything, don’t take a lunch – the mission is urgent! And God will give us the grace to do the work God has called us to do in 2009 in Antioch, California. Amen.
- 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 and Mark 6:1-13
Lord we pray for those who have died in the past weeks and for their families and all those who love them. We especially pray for Ray who we loved and knew and hoped for and will miss. Bless his daughter and grandchildren that the best of him may live on in them and that they may be strengthened in his love and Yours. Amen.
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