Pool Party; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

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Notre Dame Baptismal FontOver the winter, Grey Wilkes learned to swim.

Having recently moved to a house with a pool, her parents wanted to make sure she could navigate the waters as soon as possible, safety fence notwithstanding. Instead of floundering in the waters, Grey has learned, should she fall in, to float on her back and then to kick her way to the edge. I wonder if our encountering the mystery of the Trinity might be a little bit like Grey learning a new response to being dropped into water; rather than reacting with fear and seeking to control the water around her, to become master of it, she now calmly floats, allowing the water to be what it is, finding her place in it, and then using her newly acquired habit to relate to those waters.

I have a tendency to come to things like the doctrine of the Trinity and to splash about, all throat-clearing and weight-shifting and brow-furrowing. “Well you see, there’re three. And there are, I mean, there is, one. God. Three. God. One.” Generally, my mind and mouth become a tangled mess, and my spirit just leaves the building completely, shaking her head and rolling her eyes as I splish and splash and in not too much time, end up drowning in words and phrases and analogies and nonsense. So I wonder if maybe we’re meant to learn a new response to mystery. Continue reading →

The Fallacy of Freedom

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Come, Holy Spirit, Come!

Come as the Fire and burn

Come as the Light and reveal

Come as the Wind and cleanse

Convict us, Convert us,Consecrate us, until we are wholly thine. Amen.

Often, when I notice a hole in my schedule, I rejoice. Of course, they’re much rarer these days with Charles in-arms, but once in awhile, there’s a night with no dinner to prepare, no meetings to lead or to attend, and I relish the freedom I have to plan my own evening.

I settle myself on the couch, remote nearby, staring at the screen for the next several hours, bowl of ice cream or glass of wine in hand, telling myself it will soothe me, I’ll feel more energized after I relax this way.

Inevitably, I grant myself that extra scoop of ice cream or one more glass of wine, and I stay up too late, eyes glued to the TV, and then I sleep fitfully, frustrated with myself for the late hour, stomach churning from too much indulgence, mind ablaze from the scenes I’ve imbibed. And so my freedom feels like a prison in retrospect; my liberty becomes a chain. I allow myself to be pulled into what I think is a treat for myself, but in actuality makes me more captive to waste and excess than I was before. Continue reading →

What do we mean when we say, “He descended to the dead”?

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In a bit of a jab at my bishop and my diocesan communications director, who assigned an impossibly obtuse phrase of our Apostles Creed, I have composed on the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas blog a post which uses The Princess Bride and Monty Python and the Holy Grail as its primary texts to explicate this affirmation.  find it HERE

(image via)

Sermon, Last Sunday of Lent

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IMG_1081Today’s sermon preached at St. A’s, the raising of Lazarus and Grandpa Chuck’s death.

Sermon Audio

It is because of my grandfather’s death that I stand before you this morning.

During a particularly difficult moment in my ministry, my grandpa Chuck, after whom Charles is named, fell ill and breathed his last. We were living in South Carolina at the time, far from snowy Minnesota, but I still visited him a few times in his last weeks and was even there to give him last rites the day he died.

Back home, I was struggling with my call, feeling stonewalled at every turn, denied at every door, frustrated with pouring so much effort into what seemed like a bottomless chasm. It was more than exhaustion, or a period of thankless plowing through; I was suffocating, like a flame submitted to a snuffer, gasping for enough air to keep breathing. In some ways my depression felt very much like death. Continue reading →

the tidiness of yoga

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We moved almost two months ago, and while the cardboard boxes were more-or-less emptied and banished from the house within the first week (not a coincidence that we had 8 days before starting our jobs!), on both the packing end and the emptying end, I did a lot of dumping into boxes, and then shoving into drawers or closets or bins.

I realized I didn’t have to process everything at exactly the moment it was presented to me. There is simply too much to organize and make decisions about and let go of to approach the process linearly — plowing through each item intentionally on the front end, or on the back end. Marie Kondo and I differ on this point.

Instead, I processed the things that really, really needed to be dealt with immediately — the boxes of dishes and pantry staples — and surrendered a few extra drawers and some closet space (okay, an entire closet) to “stuff to be dealt with later.” If you’re a born-and-bred pack rat, this method might not work, but I’ve learned from yoga that you can deal with things as you’re ready. A moment or chance will come when the urge to organize strikes, or when you’ve got a bit of energy and are seeking some order, or when an anniversary reminds you of something more emotional or spiritual that you’re now ready to sort through.

And those chances don’t just come around once. If you’re attentive, they keep coming around. Yoga taught me that it’s okay to shove things into drawers, both physically and emotionally; it’s okay to choose not to deal with it right now and to trust that at another point, you may be ready to face what’s been put in the dark for a little while.

For whatever mystical reason, that day was today for me. Interspersed with naps (32 weeks pregnant & 100-degree heat makes for low-energy conditions), I finished my dresser drawers and organized my plans for the closet. In the intervening 8 weeks, I’ve learned more about how I use the space in this new home, so I’ve been better able to decide where to put these objects without a permanent resting place.

Maybe it’s the same in our lives, too — when we give ourselves time to process events, emotions, and relationships, we gain perspective and wisdom while we wait.

image via mgstanton