Our Lives are not Our Own

As Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea--for they were fishermen. And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people." Immediately they left their nets and followed him. Matthew 4:18-20

Yesterday was the Feast Day of St. Andrew. Andrew was one of the first disciples to be called by Jesus. He is mentioned several times in the Gospels and, in three separate incidents, Andrew brings other people to Christ (John 1:41ff; 6:5ff, 12:20ff) In parts of the Anglican communion, St. Andrewstide is often observed as a special time of intercession for the mission of the Church.
Today, December 1, is World AIDS Day and therefore an apporpriate day of prayer in St Andrewstide!

The combination of Advent, St. Andrew's Day and World AIDS Day leads me to ponder what it means to follow Jesus. At our Tuesday morning Peace and Justice Eucharist this week, I was struck by the phrase in the paragraph we read about Andrew from the Anglican Church in Canada. The phrase that has been working on me is this: When Andrew left his net to follow Jesus, his life was no longer his own. No longer his own? This is decidely so deeply counter-cultural for an American individualist to consider. What does it mean to follow Jesus and accept that our life is no longer our own?

Preparing for Emily Cox's funeral tomorrow has underscored for me what it means to live a life not our own. A good funeral preparation will always do this for in preparing to celebrate the life of one of God's good and faithful servants shows what it means to follow Jesus. Emily's ninety years on this earth are testament to what that phrase means. Emily served her country during World War II and was stationed in Paris and other parts of France during her time overseas. Although she lost her husband of five years in the 1950s and never had children of her own, she considered her neice and godson as her children. She gave her life to then, her country, to the city of Baltimore and to her family and friends. She spent a good deal of time at the Waxter Senior Center playing Scrabble. She hosted large Thanksgiving and holiday dinners. And she loved her church. The fountain in our renovated garden is in memory of her husband and it was such a lovely surprise when she made the contribution that enabled that fountain to become a reality. Now, when anyone walks by our garden--a MICA student, a neighbor walking a dog, a child on the way to the pool in the summer-- and sees and hears the fountain, they are blessed with a moment of peace and hope. That was Emily. Here every Sunday and altar guild at most all Memorial Apartment Eucharists. Faithful and true. She knew that her life was not her own--but belonged to the community to show the glory of God.

In reflecting on Emily's life, it is a good and freeing thing to know that one's life is not one's own. That our lives are an intregal part of building the Kingdom of God. That we matter beyond ourselves. That we matter to God.

Join us for a Celebration of Emily Cox's life at 11 am at Memorial Church tomorrow, Friday, December 2. We also gather Friday evening for dinner together in community at 6 pm with a meal cooked with love by Earl Huch and Lois Eldred in Upper Farnham Hall followed by Advent Lessons and Carols by candlelight in the church at 7 pm.

Thanksgiving Rejoicing

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for that is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Paul's Letter to the Thessalonians 5

The wind is blowing today in Western Maryland. Most Thanksgiving days that I remember were just a bit chilly with a breeze in the air. As a little girl, I would be settled into the back seat of the station wagon as my parents and I drove from Virginia to Maryland--up the George Washington Parkway and over the Cabin John Bridge to Garrett Park, Maryland. Garrett Park was the small town where my grandmother as well as aunt and uncle lived. When I entered the house, the smell of turkey mixed with sauerkraut (a mid-Atlantic Thanksgiving tradition) bowled me over and I was swept into the Spirit of the Macgill-Rucker family atmosphere. It was an atmosphere of rejoicing, of being together. As an only child, I often hid behind my parents for a moment or two when I first walked in the door but soon joined in with my cousins playing Barbies upstairs or hide and seek in the yard.
Now, I make my way out to Western Maryland and we have a family Thanksgiving here. This year there is special excitement since in addition to the traditional feast, we also will have a feast of football with Anna's boyfriend Michael rooting on the Detroit Lions and all of us rooting on the Ravens in the Haubaugh Bowl. As I make my way inside and out preparing for the feast (including welcoming the cable guy for NFL Network), I catch a burst of the wind. I feel like kicking up my heels and rejoicing. We are healthy and happy and together. There will be much eating, much napping, a fierce game or two of Scrabble, a trip to the bowling alley for more competition and more. Such blessings are always to be given abundant thanks....since we have all had Thanksgivings when someone we love is missing for the first time or one of us is struggling with health or other issues and we have trouble rejoicing much at all. It is good to know that there will be a season of joy again.
Moreover, in my life in Christ, I find that the Thanksgiving wind also ushers in the season of Advent. The season of holy anticipation. That pause between what was and what will be. I look forward to anticipating and pausing with you as I blog and write most days.
So, take a pause this Thanksgiving. Rejoice and give thanks. Pray without ceasing. And watch for that wind of the Spirit, blowing around you, reminding you that new things are afoot!

Hakuta Matata--Do Not Worry

Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, what you will drink, or about your body, what will you wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them….And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? Matthew 6:25-27

On Sunday, our preacher Sanford Groff let loose with a sermon on our wants. Using the context of the Ten Commandments, he talked about coveting. Wanting something someone else had…and, as they say, wanting it real bad. Sanford talked about his long car trip up the interstate where billboard after billboard advertised the lottery---in particular the megamillion lottery. He saw so many signs mile after mile that he began to believe that he, too, wanted to win the lottery. He figured out his odds. He figured out his income for the year after a big payday. I seem to remember that his annual income would be about 4.5 million if he won the megamillion jackpot. One thing he focused on buying was a new flat-screen television.

For those of us who grew up with depression-era parents or grandparents, we know that in humans there exists the condition called “never having enough.” Some of us become hoarders (hence the reality tv show of the same name) due to the worry, the fear, of not having enough for our needs.

At my continuing education conference last week, we began each day as a House in Prayer. We prayed the daily lectionary (in the back of the Book of Common Prayer) in chapel and after breakfast, before our speaker, we had an hour’s worth of small group bible study on the daily lectionary passage. Last Monday’s lectionary was this selection from the Gospel of Matthew. It’s always a good one for meditation, prayer and study anytime, because it speaks to the most common of human conditions that leads to addiction, sin, distance from faith and trust and relationship with God---worry about tomorrow. Worry that there will never be enough to care for our needs.

As I started out my Monday this week with worries aplenty, I tried hard to focus on creation. Maybe the birds of the air would bring me to a place of trust and peace. I didn’t really see any birds on Monday---it was raining again. So, I came into the office and went through my usual routines. I saw my spiritual director. I had lunch with a colleague. And, in the midst of my day, I realized that worry can take on a life of its own. You don’t even know what you are doing as you go through your daily routine—except worrying or complaining inwardly about the shortcomings of your life. One conversation helped me to snap out of the never-ending treadmill of worry. A friend reminded me of my time in South Africa. And I remembered how I went through my days there with a sense of faith in God and creation. The culture around me had so little in some ways and so much in others. Yet it was not a culture that worried. And that faith in the goodness of God and creation just surrounded me as I walked down to church or drove through the back roads of Walkersville. Of course, that very same God and very same creation surround me here. In I remember to listen carefully, I can hear my South African friends whispering in my ear as they were prone to do to me, the worrisome American: “Do not worry. God is good.” Just remembering that life can be other than worry—and remembering being in a culture that celebrated that value, changed my day.

Today the blue sky and sun are back. Worries seem to have left me for today. They will come to me again, I’m sure. But what can worry do but make you forget about the beauty and blessing everywhere in your life? Hakuta Matata---no worries!

The Grace of Coming Home

A Meditation for Homecoming Sunday:
The Sacrament of Home


When I think of coming home, I think of our dining room table. Whatever age I was growing up, I came home to supper around the family dining room table. This has been true throughout my life---when I came home from grade school, high school or college or when I married or became a mother. When I think of family, I think of the dining room table.

My dining room table is made of cherry wood. It is a large, round table—probably 6 feet in diameter. Since my mother bought the table, I know it is an antique—a Queen Anne dining room table---but beyond that I know little of its past history.

But it’s recent history—say for the past 53 years, I know well.

Eight people can sit around the table. During most of my life, there have been four people. When I was a little girl, there was my mother, my father, my grandmother and me. The table came to my home as an adult and soon there were four around the table once again---my husband, my son, my daughter and me. During certain periods of my life, we have used the table as a sideboard, its leaves down. That’s where it is now---since there are only two people at our table. Empty nesters both.

But back when the table was opened in all its glory, it was a central feature of our home life. As a family, we generally only ate supper at the table---or perhaps a special meal such as Thanksgiving, a birthday celebration or an Easter lunch. Growing up, breakfast and lunch took place at the kitchen table. As a child, I spent a good deal of time under the dining room table—communing with our dog and reading books. But the very best part of the dining table was this—it was the place where we would catch up with each other. At dinner---when I was a child and as an adult---we would review our days around the table. We would recount the good and not so good, our challenges and victories, what made us sad and what made us happy.

So, for me, when I think of homecoming, I imagine a darkened evening, walking up to the house, seeing a warm light in the window. I come in the door, smelling something good from the kitchen (unless it was sauerkraut and liver night). I see the dinner table set---with a place set just for me. A place of inclusion, sustenance and love.

But it is more than just a place set for me on a certain day. That symbol of Homecoming—my dining room table—has multiple layers of meaning. It is the place that I have been fed and nourished since I was a baby. It is also a place that my soul felt nourished by family support night after night for years. It is the place that I remember family members that I see no longer…and as my own children sit around the table in the place of my parents and grandmother, I realize from a place deep inside that at that table, my whole family, living and past, is gathered in some mysterious way. That even though I no longer can call up my father and say, “Guess what happened today?” or ask my mother “What I should wear?” to a special event, when my day is recounted around the table to my present family, they know too. Somehow they know. All my dearly beloved know my children and in time, perhaps, my grandchildren. Every time I sit down at that table, everyone is there.

We all have symbols that instantly bring us home. The church has a name for these symbols. The church calls them sacraments: outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace. And the church’s table brings us home week and week. When we celebrate the Eucharist, we come home to Christ at that holy table, the altar. And, likewise, in that symbol of the Eucharistic table, earthly time falls away and eternity shines. Like our dining table at home, at the Eucharistic table, everyone is there.

Days of Loss and Gratitude

Mother Martha’s Meditation for the week of September 4, 2011

We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away….Yet, O Lord, you are our Father, we are the clay, and you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Isaiah 64: 6b, 8.

As we approach the tenth anniversary of September 11th, those of us on the East Coast have had some weeks to ponder our insignificance once again. To realize that we can only control so much in our lives. In the space of a week in Baltimore, we had a significant lightening storm followed by an earthquake followed by Hurricane Irene. The aftermath of Hurricane Irene left many of us without power for a few hours, days or even up to a week. In the silence and darkness of a powerless home, many of us were unsettled---as we were in the days after September 11th when flights were grounded and the heavens around us eerily quiet.

It’s often said that “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” That is true on so many levels of life. The security of airports, flights, and national transportation in general. When the earthquake happened in Baltimore (and New York city), many office workers first thought was another terrorist event, not an event from the nature. We’ve lost some of our confidence in our national security to protect us from all disaster. But if we live long enough, we realize that there is only so much humanity (much less a government) can control.

If we live long enough, all of us will lose someone we love to death. Relationships that we value come to an end. Our bodies betray us. So much of our advertising leads us to believe that we can outwit or out-think illness and death. Most of us know that this is the great denial strategy of our time. The day of the earthquake, our 13-year old German Shepherd died. The vet had told us that, at this stage of her life, every day was a gift. But it was easy to think she would defy all odds. In the last few months, she was just a bit slower. A lingering worry began to appear on the edge of my consciousness. That day, as we relaxed on the dock, she stood up and had a stroke. And in a few hours, she was gone, faded away like the wind. A great companion for our family now absent from us. The grief we all felt was intense. Home is awfully quiet now. Someone is missing and life is not the same.

In fact, each day of life is never the same. There are small losses and small gains each day. Some days hold more loss than others. As we approach the anniversary of September 11th, a day of national tragedy will bring forth feelings of shock, dismay, anger and sadness. Such is also true for Americans of a certain age when we come to late November and remember the day of John Kennedy’s assassination or early December and Pearl Harbor. But there is another feeling as we approach the anniversary of a great loss in our lives or in the life of our nation. There is the feeling of gratitude. Gratitude for the resilence to get up another day. Gratitude for family, friends and communities that support us in getting up that next day. Gratitude that somehow, some way, we have made it past the loss.

For many of us, our faith community is the foundational place where we give thanks for the blessing to rise another day and to rise another day enfolded in the love of God. This coming Sunday is Homecoming Sunday at Memorial Church---the Sunday we reconvene to celebrate the beginning of another program year in Christ. As we remember the grief and loss of September 11, 2011, we also remember that on that horrible day, Memorial Church gathered that very night as community---to pray for peace and be sustained by the sacrament of the Eucharist. As we have done Sunday after Sunday for ten years since…..and hopefully for many more. And all through these days and years, we are beig molded through each loss and gain. We are all the work of God’s hands—and each molding, however painful or blessed, transforms us.

Join us in gratitude at 10:30 am on Sunday, September 11 for a Festive Eucharist of word and song, including bagpipe, brass, choir and organ. As we join together, let us give thanks for another day, another day in the Lord together.

Spring abounds and unbinds!

Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!: The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let hinm go." John 11:42-44 This weekend at Orkney Springs, the sun finally emerged on Sunday out of the rain, mist and fog of Friday and Saturday. On Sunday morning, I was at Shrine Mont Retreat Center at the end of the Women's Retreat. We gathered at the outdoor stone shrine for Eucharist. The altar area of the shrine is a stone archway that ressembles a stone tomb. As I stood in the "opening" of the tomb and heard this gospel read, I started to feel as though spring had come and, in my soul, some new freedom was awaiting to be born at Easter. The weekend was about telling stories of our mothers, grandmothers and other important women in our lives. My daughter Anna was a presenter and talked about Barbara Swain. She particularly recounted Barbara's image of being Xena, Warrior Princess as she fought her illness of the last year. On the altar that Sunday, there was a picture of Xena, Warrior Princess that someone had cut out of a magazine. Sometimes we all--men and women--need to channel that warrior within to come out of the tomb of our own suffering. But we need not just our inner warrior but also the help of our communities of support to unbind our bands of cloths. It's time to let our wounds heal in the light and air of day. That's what it felt like on Sunday---coming out of the dank, dark tomb and into the fresh air. Ready to be unbound and ready to live again. Holy Week is the time to unbind our wounds through the story of Jesus' passion. To experience through his suffering and death, our own woundedness and vulnerable places in our lives. Time for those parts of ourselves to see the light of day. To be unbound. To come to Easter Day squinting just a bit from the bright light of God's healing love, but ready and willing to be healed. To move on to new life. Thanks be to God for spring. Spring abounds and unbinds!

Fear of Sacrifice

For I solemnly warned your ancestors when I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, warning them persistently, even to this day, saying, Obey my voice. Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but everyone walked in the stubbornness of an evil will. Jeremiah 11 In the Daily Lectionary, we are solidly in the early chapters of the prophet Jeremiah. As those who were at Evening Prayer on Tuesday know, Jeremiah is prophesying directly and forcefully to the wayward people of Israel. This Friday and Saturday, I am facilitating a Vestry retreat for another parish in the Diocese of Maryland. We will be talking about goals moving forward. In order to do that work, we need to talk about what we are willing to change in order to allow forward movement to happen. Often the fear of change leads to sin. We fear sacrificing well-known and comfortable ways of living. Our comfortable ways become our weaknesses. And when we rely on our comfortable weaknesses, we often sin against self and others. In his book Keep Going: The Art of Perserverance, Joseph Marshall tells another story from his grandfather Old Hawk. This time on new ways and change: Old Hawk gestured up at the tall, old cottonwood tree towering above them. Its girth was so large that a grown man could not put his arms around it. Old Hawk's father had planted it as a sapling in 1896, the same year he had received an allotment of land from the government. "This tree," he said, "has stood guard over our family all its life. Strength is what I feel each time I look at it. Yet, there have been moments when its great strength was also its weakness." "That is hard to believe," said his grandson. "It's the biggest tree for miles around." Old Hawk pointed at a thicket of chokecherry shrubs in a dry creek not far away. "Look there," he said, "those chokecherry trees are small and weak in comparison to this cottonwood. But when you were a child, they survived a tornado without losing a branch. This old cottonwood, on the other hand, lost several branches. Do you know why?" "No," said his grandson. "Because, in that instance, the cottonwood's great strength became its greatest weakness. It stood up, but it could not bend with the wind the way the chokeberry trees could." "Sometimes we give into our weaknesses." Lent is about recognizing our weakness and choosing to bend with the winds of change that usher in our future life. I know we all have lost some branches in life's storms from refusing to bend just a bit.