Monday, October 31, 2011

Addiction and Grace

Monday, October 31, 2011 -- Week of Proper 26, Year One
Paul Shinji Sasaki, Bishop of Mid-Japan, and of Tokyo, 1946
Philip Lindel Tsen, Bishop of Honan, China, 1954


Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 990)
Psalms 56, 56, [58] (morning)       //       64, 65 (evening)
Nehemiah 6:1-19
Revelation 10:1-11
Matthew 13:36-43

So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll; and he said to me, "Take it, and eat; it will be bitter to your stomach, but sweet as honey in your mouth."  So I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it; it was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter.  Revelation 10:9-10

The little scroll that John the Divine consumes contains another prophecy that John is to deliver.  He will soon be speaking of coming conflicts and woes.

But as I read the description of the scroll, I was reminded of the characteristics of my temptations and addictions.  So many things that bring us troubles appear attractive and may be "sweet as honey in [the] mouth," but they produce a deeper bitterness in the pit of our being.  Our addictive behaviors and patterns then become the venue for much of the conflict and woe in our lives.

In his seminal little book Addiction and Grace, the late Gerald May offers a theological and neurological map of addiction:  
I am not being flippant when I say that all of us suffer from addiction.  Nor am I reducing the meaning of addiction. I mean in all truth that the psychological, neurological, and spiritual dynamics of full-fledged addiction are actively at work within every human being.  The same processes that are responsible for addiction to alcohol and narcotics are also responsible for addiction to ideas, work, relationships, power, moods, fantasies, and an endless variety of other things.  We are all addicts in every sense of the word.  Moreover, our addictions are our own worst enemies.  They enslave us with chains that are of our own making and yet that, paradoxically, are virtually beyond our control. Addiction also makes idolators of us all, because it forces us to worship these objects of attachment, thereby preventing us from truly, freely loving God and one another.    (Gerald May, Addiction and Grace, HarperOne, 1991, p. 3-4)

May dissects the way we all become attached to our addictions, which always begin as apparently good things, as attractions -- sweet as honey in the mouth.  But we become habituated to the sweetness, and our tolerance grows, so that we need more and more in order to continue to match our stimulation.  Below our intention and will, our neurological system is creating super-highways of stimulation and desire for more of what does not ultimately satisfy -- our stomach becomes truly bitter. 

While reading May's book many years ago, I took a little card and began listing some of my own addictions -- some of the things that I believe I need profoundly, yet they seem to limit my equanimity and freedom.  I ran out of room on the little card when I had listed well over twenty addictions.  That tasted bitter indeed in my stomach.

Gerald May goes on to explain that the power of our addictions lies at such a primitive place in our neurological system, that they are literally below our will, outside of the range of our intentional control.  Addictions never sleep. 

Our hope is grounded in grace.  God's freely outpouring love liberates and frees us to receive the goodness that is sweeter than the desire of our addictions.  We can open ourselves to grace, which seems to me much more a movement of surrender than of grasping.  God's grace like God's being is a mystery, blowing where it will.  Usually we find our experience of grace enhanced in community.  The love and support of community can help us to let go of attachment and become open to grace.  It is unqualified, absolute, divine love that truly satisfies our deepest desires and longings.

I find that my movement away from addiction and toward grace is less of a struggle, and more like a gentle, inward turning.  There is the effort of discipline, to turn, but it is more accomplished in letting go, relaxing, surrendering into the love that is more dependable and fulfilling than my hungers and needs.  From a place of deep, divine acceptance, love flows, creating hope that translates into freedom.  Gently.  Moment by moment.  

Lowell

Friday, October 28, 2011

Weeds and Wheat and Walls

Friday, October 28, 2011 -- Week of Proper 25, Year One
Saint Simon and Saint Jude, Apostles

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer)

EITHER
the readings for Friday of Proper 25, p. 990
Psalms 40, 54 (morning)      //       51 (evening)
Nehemiah 2:1-20
Revelation 6:12 – 7:4
Matthew 13:24-30

OR the readings for SS. Simon & Jude, p. 1000
Morning Prayer:  Psalm 66; Isaiah 28:9-16; Ephesians 4:1-16
Evening Prayer:  Psalms 116, 117; Isaiah 4:2-6; John 14:15-31

I used the readings for Friday of Proper 25

All of the readings today include some expression of judgment between "God's people" and the "others."  The readings address these issues in very different ways, however.

Nehemiah tells of his commission from the Persian King Ataxerxes to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.  He is sent in 445 BCE, about thirteen years after Ezra's mission.  The wider context concerns the contemporary conflict between Persia and Egypt.  A fortified Jerusalem could provide a military base for Persia.  Ataxerxes sends soldiers with Nehemiah to underline his strategic intent. 

There is a second aspect of Persian policy that is important.  The Persian Empire controlled its occupied regions by controlling access to the land.  The Empire exercised absolute control of land, thereby exercising their control of agriculture and decreasing ethnic conflicts.  Persian strategy mandated a strict tribal autonomy over traditional land.  Persia maintained that authority by creating strong boundaries between neighboring tribes.  Intermarriage was forbidden because it tended to blur property rights.  Persia encouraged each occupied region to maintain their traditional worship and to include prayers for the Persian King and Empire in their liturgies.  The ties of worship also helped maintain tribal unity and purity, strengthening the attachments between people and land.  It is Nehemiah's charge to carry out this Persian policy in Jerusalem.  He seeks to completely separate the Jews from their regional neighbors.

Nehemiah will face opposition.  Neighboring tribes will be jealous of the refortification because this imperial preference will bring new money and prestige to Jerusalem, supposedly at the neighbors' expense.  Also, many of the Jews who had lived in Judah during the exile, and some who had returned, were married to members of the neighboring tribes.  They had deep family relationships with their neighbors, some covering several generations.  Nehemiah's plan for ethnic cleansing will rip those families apart.  The building of the wall is a symbol and instrument of this plan of cultural separation.  It will be controversial.  It will create an enduring enmity between Jews and Samaritans. 

The book of Ruth was written as protest literature against this separatist tradition.  The hero Ruth is a faithful Moabite, married to a Hebrew.  She becomes an ancestor of David.  In later years, Jesus will reach past the resentments of centuries of history to offer living water to a Samaritan woman and to make a Samaritan man his eternal image of the meaning of being a neighbor.

In the book of Revelation, the opening of the sixth seal imagines the consequences of human destructiveness and the justice of God.  Although no act of judgment is actually portrayed, we see the anxiety of the judged.  Their fear is contrasted with the sealing of the foreheads of God's people.  The forehead is a symbol of human will and worship.  The symbolic number 144,000 is built on the number 12 (God's people) and the number 10 (all).  All of God's people are gathered from the four corners of the earth.  The vision culminates in tomorrow's reading when an innumerable multitude from "every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages" will appear before the Lamb, joyfully joining the song of heaven.  It is a remarkably inclusive image.

In Matthew's gospel the church is told to leave judgment to God.  In our world and in the church, good and evil exist together, the good seed and the weeds grow together.  If we were to try to uproot the weeds, we would inevitably damage or even uproot some of the good plants.  "Let both of them grow together until the harvest," Jesus says.  Some have cited this passage to oppose warfare, for in every war the number of civilian casualties is greater than military causalities. 

These readings have echoes today.  Modern Israel has built a wall that not only separates Jewish territory from Palestinian, but also breaks off access between Palestine territories.  The Wall is deeply offensive to Palestinians, and it impedes them from their relatives and confines them from the world in ways that damage their economy, their relationships and their dignity, not unlike the Soviet Iron Curtain.  In the U.S., some Americans have called for a wall between our country and Mexico.  American anti-immigration sentiment has a flavor of ethic cleansing to it.

So many international conflicts are energized by tribal and ethnic resentments.

The New Testament readings offer realistic images about the damage that human division, oppression and violence brings.  The readings also offer a more non-violent, non-divisive solution, and an image of healing -- tolerance and inclusion, grounded in a vision of union.

Let the wheat and weeds grow together.  Let God sort out the good and evil.  We are not wise enough to separate justly.  Let our imaginations be filled by the image of God's final resolution in the scene tomorrow from Revelation.  There we see people from every human family in a remarkably inclusive vision of universal reconciliation. 

Lowell

Audio podcast:  Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week.  Click the following link:
--
Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
"Morning Reflections" is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at missionstclare.com -- Click for online Daily Office
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html --  Click for Divine Hours

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

See our Web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life: 
We aspire to...
    worship weekly
    pray daily
    learn constantly
    serve joyfully 
    live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Asking the Government for Help

Thursday, October 27, 2011 -- Week of Proper 25, Year One

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 990)
Psalms 50 (morning)      //     will [59, 60] or 103 (evening)
Nehemiah 1:1-11
Revelation 5:11 – 6:11
Matthew 13:18-23

There is an old story that a reporter once asked the notorious bank robber Willie Sutton why he robbed banks, and he answered, "because that's where the money is."

From exile in Persia, Nehemiah mourns the condition of his homeland in Jerusalem. His people suffer there from poverty and want.  The nation's infrastructure has crumbled.  The people are vulnerable, and portions of the urban landscape are in ruins. 

Nehemiah raises his voice in prayer to God. He asks God's blessing upon a plan that he is formulating. "Give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the side of this man!"  The man is King Artaxerxes.  Nehemiah is the cupbearer of the king, a position of some authority as a royal advisor. Nehemiah will use his influence to urge the king to use the considerable resources of the royal treasury for the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the restoration of its people.

I can hear the voice of the 5th century BCE version of the Tea Party objecting to Nehemiah's proposal.  Why spend tax money to help those people?  Their plight is their own fault. It should be their problem to solve, not the government's. We need less government spending not more. Don't listen to Nehemiah!

The scripture narrative praises the decision of the king to underwrite and support the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the restoration of its people's prosperity.  Nehemiah is one of the great heroes of the Hebrew Scriptures.

When people are suffering and vulnerable, and when the protective structures of society have crumbled, it is right that we, like Nehemiah, expect the government to respond. It is right to spend taxpayer money and the resources of the treasury to relieve misery and to restore opportunity.

We have to ask the government to help us solve big problems, because that's where the money is.

Our church has several food ministries, including a lunch program we share with the Methodist church across the street, to feed lunch to around 130 people four days a week.  But all of the food from charities across the country amounts to only 6% of the food administered by federal food programs, mainly food stamps and school lunches. 

If the cuts recently proposed by the House of Representatives were to become law, poor people would lose three times as much food aid as they receive from all food charities combined in the U. S.

In August 2010, Congress paid for a bill providing financial aid to states by cutting $12 billion from future food stamps benfits.  In one small action, Congress took away more food from the needy than what can be mobilized by all U.S. charities in two years.

Nehemiah offers a model of Biblical leadership and practical effectiveness.  When we need to address big problems, we should pray to God, and then we should make a plan to address the need by going to the place where there are resources to solve it.  That's how we can solve our generation's big problems -- through adequate, just and progressive taxation that underwrites investment in well-run public programs administered openly with effective oversight.

That's the story of Ezra-Nehemiah.

Lowell


Audio podcast:  Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week.  Click the following link:
--
Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
"Morning Reflections" is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at missionstclare.com -- Click for online Daily Office
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html --  Click for Divine Hours

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

See our Web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life: 
We aspire to...
    worship weekly
    pray daily
    learn constantly
    serve joyfully 
    live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Blind Spots

Wednesday, October 26, 2011 -- Week of Proper 25, Year One
Alfred the Great, King of the West Saxons, 899
Today's Readings for the Daily Office
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 990)
Psalms 119:49-72 (morning)      //     49, [53] (evening)
Ezra 6:1–22
Revelation 5:1-10
Matthew 13:10-17

We all have blind spots.  But if you can't see, how do you know what you are missing?  How do you know what your own blind spots may be?  We need friends who see differently from us to help us fill in what we are missing.  We need to read things that are written by people who have a different perspective, or a conflicting perspective from ours.  Whenever we can see through another's eyes, we expand our field of vision.

Sometimes understanding another perspective is a corrective.  I learn something, and I change.  Sometimes it is only a tweak or a refinement of understanding.  Sometimes it is repentance.  I turn and go the other direction.

Sometimes understanding another perspective is confirming.  I can see their underlying values and motivation; I can follow the logic of their thought; I can feel the satisfaction that their position gives to them.  And I still disagree. 

Because I write a lot and let that writing goes out into some fairly public venues, I am fortunate to be on the receiving end of some good "eye doctors."  There are those who see my blind spots and offer an expanded vision.  What a gift. 

Every once in a while, someone writes who is certain that I'm mostly blind.  Sometimes those emails are just too toxic to invite dialogue.  But sometimes they are an invitation as well as a challenge.  I can reply in order to seek more clarity even as I offer to be more clear. 

There is an insight from F. D. Maurice (d. 1872) that is helpful during conversations between two of us who are half-blind:  "A man is most often right in what he affirms and wrong in what he denies."  If we can get past whatever it is we are denying about each other's views and move into the the territory where we each state our values, I often find that we move much closer to one another.  Sometimes I find that I have very similar values as one who seemed to be an opponent, we just come up with different strategies for accomplishing similar ends.  That realization can calm some of the rhetoric.

Occasionally I will run across someone whose values and world-view simply seems contrary to that which I hold dear.  We could talk or email until we turn blue, and we will still be at cross purposes.  If we have a relationship, I find it is not to difficult to arrive at a place where we can agree to disagree.  Actually, that can be a lot of fun.  Now I know where to go when I'm perplexed.  When I run across something that makes no sense to me, I can ask a friend who experiences life from a different paradigm, and that friend usually has seen something that I was blind to.  I still may think that it makes no sense, but at least I can understand where they are coming from.

And every once in a while I engage in communication with someone, usually by email, when I become convinced that we are in a win/lose situation.  If that person is right, and their opinion prevails, I am convinced that the world will be damaged.  We've talked, and there is no prospect for compromise or reconciliation.  Our values and our vision are fundamentally in conflict.  I thought about those situations when I read in today's gospel Isaiah's prophecy that we hear in Jesus' voice through Matthew:  "You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive.  For this people's heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn -- and I would heal them," says the prophet.  Sometimes I have to go a step beyond agreeing to disagree.  I have to say that they are wrong, and I must oppose them actively.  Insofar as I can, I have to exercise whatever influence I may have to put boundaries around the damage that they might inflict.  Even so, friendship, if it is present, can be sustained.

There are times when it is important to win and for another alternative to be defeated. I think it is important to recognize that territory.   Yet, whenever I find myself there, I also have to accept that I continue to be near-sighted and occasionally downright blind.  I have to be willing to be corrected.  And, as Maurice reminds us, I'm most constructive when I am framing my vision in terms of values and affirmations rather than what I'm against.

Lowell

Audio podcast:  Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week.  Click the following link:
--
Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
"Morning Reflections" is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at missionstclare.com -- Click for online Daily Office
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html --  Click for Divine Hours

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

See our Web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life: 
We aspire to...
    worship weekly
    pray daily
    learn constantly
    serve joyfully 
    live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Construction Day

Tuesday, October 25, 2011 -- Week of Proper 25, Year One

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 990)
Psalms 45 (morning)      //     47, 48 (evening)
Ezra 5:1-17
Revelation 4:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9

[Oops.  I looked at the wrong line yesterday, and copied today's second and third readings.  Yesterday I commented on the gospel reading for today -- the Parable of the Sower (without Matthew's allegorical interpretation).  So this morning, in addition to Ezra 5:1-17, I'll read Revelation 1:4-20 and Matthew 12:43-50, the readings from yesterday that I overlooked.]

The rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple that Ezra records is also the rebuilding of the community and its renewal after exile.  The Temple restoration becomes a focus and a metaphor for the whole process of the community's restoration.

I had a friend whose wheels fell off from alcoholism.  He lost his job, his status in the community, and his financial security -- everything but his loyal wife.  After detox and a rehab program, he changed jobs, moved to another town, and the family bought an old, rundown house.  It was a rambling Victorian style place.  The paint had peeled and the building was in severe disrepair.  They set about rebuilding and restoring the house and their lives.  It took patience, persistence and hard work.  Progress appeared painfully slow.  For years you might drive by and wonder who lived in that dump.  But it did change, one day at a time. 

Interestingly, they didn't repaint the outside first.  The restoration was done from the inside out.  I think they worked a room at a time, starting with the most functional ones -- bathroom and kitchen.  Their lives were also rebuilding from the inside out.  A dozen years later, they lived in a shining, lovely dwelling, and the whole family was restored and delightfully reestablished.

Recently I tried to trace some of the story of the building of our church.  It is referred to as the "New Church" in our records.  The "Old Church" from 1854 had been hit by lightning and burned during the Civil War.  The church then met in homes and in a Masonic Lodge for over a decade. 

A new priest, the Rev. Thomas May Thorpe arrived in 1872, "full of religious fervor and energy," our records say.  But "he found us too poor to possess anything but a name and a little impoverished ground."  These were the bleak days in the South following the War Between the States.  "With his fine ability he gathered up the broken threads of despair, breathed new life into our souls and began the task of building a new house of worship." 

We have newspaper accounts of the laying of the cornerstone, October 30, 1872, 139 years ago this Sunday.  We also have the Rev. Mr. Thorpe's handwritten notes about that day, and a record of the items placed inside the cornerstone.

But the project stalled.  Mr. Thorpe left.  When his successor the Rev. J. J. Vaulx arrived in 1876, the walls were constructed but the ceiling had not been built.  There were only about a dozen benches inside the walls and a small box stove for heat.  The vesting area was a curtained-off space in the northwest corner of the church. 

It is only a guess, but I presume that the roof was constructed by June 19, 1877, when the first marriage in our current church was solemnized between Miss Clementine Watson and Mr. Thomas D. Boles.  In the late 1800's, she gave the window that graces our east wall over the altar.  It shows Jesus with three children around him and a reference to Jesus' welcome of the children.  In the old cemetery up the hill you can find Mrs. Boles family plot, with three small tombstones of her children who died as infants.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul speaks of ministry as a process of building.  He laid a foundation, which is Jesus Christ.  Now each member builds on that foundation, and the quality of the work will be revealed in the Day of the Lord. 

Each day is a construction day.  We have all received a foundation.  Our fundamental foundation is our creation in the image and likeness of God and our acceptance revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  We have been given an abundant inheritance.  We have also inherited an ambiguous heritage from our families and communities of origin.   Today -- every day -- is another construction day.

There is something to be said for building from the inside out -- starting the day revisiting our fundamentals.  There is something to be said for using quality materials in order to build that which will last.  And we always start where we are, taking what we have, even if the vesting area is only a curtain in a corner.  Life is difficult.  We will suffer.  But even that can be turned into offering, as today's worshipers can attest as we gaze at the beautiful stained glass image of Jesus and the children. 

We are building our lives and the foundation for the future.  What will our work be today?

Lowell

Audio podcast:  Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week.  Click the following link:
--
Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
"Morning Reflections" is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at missionstclare.com -- Click for online Daily Office
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html --  Click for Divine Hours

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

See our Web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life: 
We aspire to...
    worship weekly
    pray daily
    learn constantly
    serve joyfully 
    live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas