Valley Rise Up: Setting the Table

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Setting the Table

Lovely moment at the kitchen counter last night...setting the table for supper with 14-year-old daughter Fiona.

I flipped on my iPod and some music I'd just downloaded...the first song was one Fiona and I had caught at the tail-end of a tv show Wednesday night. "Be Still." Kind of a meditation on stress and hope and friendship in crazy times. It had caught our attention, hers and mine--so I found it on iTunes the next day. A sweet song.

So we were setting the table, plating the tortellini, and I asked Fiona if she recognized the tune.

She scrunched up her face a bit, recognizing something about it, but needing more time.

Then, yes, she got it. The song from the show. Yes! "Dad," she said, an uncensored moment of appreciation, "you're awe--"

But, you're 14: your dad's so old, so outdated, so...goofy. He can't possibly be... he can't really be...could he be awe--? On her face, I saw this very quick calculation. My dad? Awe--? Oh my!

She didn't finish the word, caught herself before she said something unimaginably sweet. But I think I know what she meant. Kind of swee--!

Today, like all days, is sacred and strange. This very moment, like all moments, is gift and opportunity. I hope you're finding ways to receive and cherish the gift: even and especially now, even and especially as a unprecedented pandemic is changing almost everything about our lives. And if this blog can help with that, if something here serves to encourage or inspire you, so much the better.

As a parish pastor, I've wandered through the past three years like many of you: dizzied by change and fear, awakened to hope by young and tireless activists, aching for touch and human contact. It's been almost three full years! And who knows, really, what comes next? So, if you're battling some anxieties, if you're wondering what comes next...I'm with you. Believe me: I'm with you.

And still, at the heart of my faith, passed on from generation to generation, is this experience: that somehow, through some amazing grace, perfect love casts out fear. In the shadow of a thousand empires, our friends have boldly proclaimed it. Perfect love casts out fear. Speaking truth to power, protesting slavery, deconstructing nuclear weapons, our friends have boldly proclaimed it. Perfect love casts out fear. Welcoming weary refugees, organizing with the poorest among us, our friends have boldly proclaimed it. Perfect love casts out fear. Making amends for sexism, making amends for homophobia, making amends for anti-Semitism and colonialism, our friends have boldly proclaimed it. Perfect love casts out fear.

This is my calling now, and the vocation of the beloved community, the church of the Christ who fears no virus, who fears no empire, who fears no cruelty. Let's love one another generously, wildly and bravely. Let's rejoice in every sunrise and enjoy every moment with our children, friends and allies. And let's build communities of faith, communities of resistance, communities of tenderness--in every way we know how. And a few we're just beginning to learn.

WELCOME to VALLEY RISE UP: a blog exploring faith and wonder, ethics and passion. If you find something helpful here, anything helpful here, I hope you'll take it along and make it work for you. More than anything else, I see myself as a spiritual guide and mentor for seekers and believers. In a beautiful and befuddling world, faith offers courage, resilience and tenderness. At least it does for me. On the side, I love to read and write poetry, and I've written a number of hymns and songs as well. In VALLEY RISE UP, I try to keep the conversation alive, exploring grace, peacemaking, human yearning and hope.

"If the inner life is great," said Meister Eckhart 800 years ago, "the outer life will never be puny." Eckhart and others talk about two dimensions in prayer: the horizontal (connecting us in lovingkindness to others) and the vertical (uniting us in love with the Source of all that is and will be). The two intersect in stillness, in reflection, in meditation, in prayer. And this kind of practice is cultivated, tended like a garden, through daily experience and circles of support. There are so many ways into a practice of prayer. For some of us, silence is the key; for others, it's movement, yoga, tai chi, qi gong. The key seems to be discipline, and steady practice. It's a wild and noisy world out there, so find a place and time to step aside and pray. And do it often.

THOMAS MERTON'S PRAYER

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.