Warm-Up for Lent

This morning I was able to worship at my home church. I'm so glad I got myself over there; last night's snowfall made the prospect of staying home an extremely tempting one.

Some of the highlights:

Sitting between and talking with two friends with whom I've worked many times, one a middle school band teacher and the other a big-firm attorney, both of them men  passionately committed to the mission of the church;

A lively and moving rendition of the spiritual Ride the Chariot by the men of the choir, with a spectacular solo by a high school senior;

A dynamite sermon by our senior pastor on Acts 19: 23-28,* urging us to remember the both-and-ness of our call:  to live on the margins and to draw others to the center, and to be disturbed indeed about issues of justice and inclusion;

A terrific offering anthem described in the bulletin as a dithyramb, a  wild passionate Indian hymn using just one syllable to express uninhibited festivity on this last Sunday before Lent;

More conversations after church with friends whom I seldom see these days.

Look at those adjectives I used:  lively, moving, spectacular, dynamite, terrific. It was wonderful to worship without leadership responsibility in a service that was so filled with energy and variety and community.  

*We are off-lectionary these days, as the adult education classes are studying the Book of Acts, in part because it was just a good idea and in part because a group is leaving for Turkey in a few weeks.  Our pastors committed themselves to a preaching schedule that both accompanies the study and gives us all a taste of the texts that relate to the pilgrimage, which will trace some of Paul's steps.

Image: The Great Theatre at Ephesus, here, where the great riot against Paul took place 

and where I am not going anytime soon.

Easing Into Lent - A Lifetime Journey

My friend Karen mentioned that she worships in a tradition in which Lent is not observed.  Her remark got me thinking about when and how I've encountered Lent.

In my childhood, almost devoid of religious content?  I suppose not.

In the Catholic boarding school I attended in grades 7-9?  It was most likely a big deal, wasn't it? But to me, it would have meant more layers of tedious Latin ritual, more possibilities for required chapel attendance, more opportunities for creatively disappearing from sight without jeopardizing  attendance records.  Truthfully, I don't remember a thing about it.

I don't think it was a feature in my Protestant boarding school life either.

When my husband and I began attending a Methodist church in our late 20s, Lent became a part of the year for us.  It meant community in the form of weekly dinners and programs; it meant thematic seven-week sermon series; it meant the introduction of new music.

In my Presbyterian life, the liturgical year has gained radically in significance to me.  Our preachers, for the most part, follow the lectionary; the paraments and stoles change colors with the seasons; and during Lent the Ash Wednesday and Tenebrae services are solemn and ethereal and, in the original sense of the word, awesome.

My life since my son died has been held together in part by the repetitious sequence of the church year (I think I'll write more about that later), marked by the disjunctions splattered about by grief.  But still.  Even though I no longer comprehend the words "ordinary time," I've been grateful for the anchor of the seasons.

Image: Lenten Textiles by Mary Ann Breisch, here

Savoring Lent (Friday Five)

Kathrynzj at RevGals offers the following Friday Five:

"My calendar taunts me with the [Lenten] schedule I'm supposedly going to keep. There are extra Bible studies, evening gatherings and worship services all crammed into a six week period of reflection and contemplation (ha!). But there are some things I truly love about the season of Lent even if I don't get in as much reflection and contemplation as I would like.

What about you? What are some things you appreciate about the season of Lent? Perhaps you would share 5 of them with us. And for your bonus question feel free to share one thing you could do without."

1.  When our children were little, I enjoyed the dinners and programs that we attended every Wednesday evening during Lent at what was then our church.

2. I am grateful that the reading from Joel (2:12-13 in particular) rolls around every Ash Wednesday, although it has been rather a  challenge for me the past few years.

3.  I love the beauty of the Ash Wednesday and Tenebrae services.

4.  I appreciate the opportunities for interfaith gatherings that emerge during this season.

5. Most of all, I appreciate the church's recognition that we need lengthy seasons in which to savor preparation in order to digest the feasts of celebration in the fullest possible way ~ and that in Lent that preparation incorporates contemplation and confession and lament, pathways of practice that lead us toward resurrection.

Image here.

Lent, Almost (2) : Life's Patchwork

Yesterday's link, with its reflection on how we are formed into people on a spirit-led journey, has had me thinking about the mysterious ways in which God works. 

My early life and experiences were quite different from those of Elizabeth Nordquist.  No one on my family of origin has ever indicated much of an interest in matters of faith.  And yet, here I am.  

Many, if not most, of my closest family members and friends today, are not much impressed by the claims of faith, despite having, all of them, grown up in churches and participated in Sunday Schools and holiday programs and choirs.

I am confident that God is at work at all times and in all places and among all people.

But God's methodology  is baffling.  Intriguing, too.

Image: Janet Wickell Design, here

Lent, Almost

My favorite season of the liturgical year, almost here.

For the past two years it was my favorite because it felt as heavy as my own heart did.

This year, I think ~ think, imagine, wonder, hope ~ that I might be able to engage it, some of the time, anyway, or perhaps, as it's meant to be engaged, as a time of preparation for the most impossibly wonderful day of all.  

I have some new books.  I'm going to dig out some of my old ones.  I have a stack of links. 

I think I'm going to be writing a series of short posts, some of them little more than quotes with maybe a couple of observations, for the next eight weeks.

Do you like quilts?  Elizabeth Nordquist writes, "In a few days the season of Lent will begin, a process of preparing for the holy week leading to Easter. It is a process of reflecting on one’s own life, particularly looking at the things that one needs to let go of or get rid of or unload, to clear the way for the new resurrection life that the the Risen Christ brings."  You can read the rest here.

Image here.

Circus Riding and Church Call

Perhaps that high school student's misappropriation of the term "circuit rider" is not so far off the mark.

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As I talked with Someone in the Know about my situation last week, I mentioned having preached several times for a church whose membership is falling off and whose most faithful members tend to have white hair.  What I had seen in them was a need for a pastor who will accompany them, through her preaching and teaching and pastoral care, through the challenges that we face late in life: serious illness and death, loneliness and isolation, retirement and dislocation, the joys and problems of children and grandchildren.

"But what they see," she said, "is a church losing membership and a need for an influx from younger generations.  That's why so many churches want younger pastors with growing families," she continued  ~ "they think that's what they need to appeal to the generation they've lost."

I've been thinking about what she said, thinking about how critically important my grandparents were in my life, thinking about how everything that strengthened them strengthened us as well, and about how much of our lives consisted of an invitation to join in theirs.

I'm not discounting the need for churches to reach out to people of all ages and walks of life.  But why do we think that the young want (or need?!) the spotlight beamed on them?  Might it not be also life-giving (and church building) to support the older generations in who they are and in what they have to offer?

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There is a young pastor in my John of the Cross class; she has been with her first call church for three years now. She talked recently about her church having been excited about her because of her youth, and their hopes that she would be the miracle worker to revitalize them. 

She is also not the first pastor to have talked with me in the past few weeks about longing to bring a more contemplative spirituality to a church congregation that equates church with programming, and spirituality with activity. 

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Karen mentioned that within a 24-hour span I posted both my poem/prayer a la John of the Cross and the circuit rider/circus rider humor.    That's part of what I mean about the approach I am taking these days to the word integration.  All part of life.  A little more extreme than the other Karen's beautiful post yesterday about her cats, in which she writes calmly of the role they've played in their family's life, including in her daughter's death and illness, but the same topic.  All part of life.  

I think that's what the church is about as well.  Integrating all of it.  That integration is part of what I love about my home church, and what I hope to carry with me into another.

But not,  I think,as the solo, dazzling, balancing and sparkling circus rider.

More, I think, as the person who waters and feeds and brushes.  Along with everyone else.

Why I Don't Have a Call

I used to teach English and Social Studies in an Orthodox Jewish day school.  A few days ago I ran into my former department chair at Borders.  
 

I just received an email from her, telling me that:

"In reading my religion portfolios for AP this morning, it occurred to me that you might not have learned in seminary that the Second Great Awakening brought religious beliefs to the frontier areas through 'evangelism, revival preaching, and circus riding.' " 

Oh!  I skipped that circus riding course!

 

 Charles Marion Russell Drawing