Making the 23rd Psalm our own

Here's my version of my "go-to" psalm: 23

God, you guide me through this life
Leading me to good and safe places -- renewing me when I'm out of energy

Even in those dark times -- those disasters and doubts -- you God continue to guide me.

What's more: you set the stage for blessings and abundance that fill my life with joy and good things.

Continue to guide me to the places you dwell.
I will call you home. 

Confirming not Conforming

Last weekend I had the opportunity to lead 13 young people, assisted by two other adult leaders, on a confirmation retreat on a beautiful lake campsite in New Hampshire. The intent was to ensure that they were "duly prepared" to reaffirm their baptismal vows as adults in front of the bishop on May 17 and be confirmed. 

We talked a lot about God, sacred space, finding holy space, and the impact of ritual.  The youth became more familiar with the Book of Common Prayer, the great treasure of the Episcopal Church. It was two days of quiet in the pretty hectic lives for these young people. 

There is much ink spilled on predicting the demise of the church based on young people falling away and not committing to an experience as their parents and grandparents once did.  That may be true, yet that was not our concern last weekend. What I hope we conveyed was that the church is a place -- when we are at out best --  where their questions and doubts and hopes and dreams are welcomed. If they wander and lose their way -- and most do -- that God can be found in community. If they ever get lost, may they be led back. Home.  

Barbara Harris Camp in Greenfield, NH 

Richard Rohr on strength and weakness

Quite simply, both Francis and Thérèse recognized that you come to God not by being strong, but by being weak; not by being right, but through your mistakes; not by self-admiration but by self-forgetfulness. Surprise of surprises! But it shouldn't have been a surprise at all, because both Jesus and Paul taught it rather clearly. Yet it was just too obvious, simple, and counter-intuitive to be true. This teaching utterly levels the playing field of holiness, so all losers can win--which is everybody--if we are honest. This is pure Gospel, in my opinion, and worthy of being called "good news for all the people" (Luke 2:10)

Waiting for Hope in Havana

As I continue to process our recent mission trip to Cuba, I am filled with the normal battles of reentry from any trip. Yet leaving Cuba is different. This island nation is cut off from the world like few others. Boarding a plane and flying away is not possible for millions of everyday Cubans, so departing each time is a complex mix of emotions. 

What folks here in the U.S. most want to know is whether or not we saw any sight of change or hope due to the recent thaw in relationships between our two countries. There was clearly an optimism that closer contact could make life easier, but I was surprised how tempered and realistic the hope was expressed. Cubans have waited and waited a long time. Parents my age have effectively given up on seeing or knowing anything different in their lifetime: they are living and hoping now for their children and potential grandchildren. And that is tragic. 

We traveled inland to install one of the four water systems we brought on this trip and we encountered an entire small town that looked as if a bomb had been dropped. It was a town I knew from my days living in Cuba in the 1980's. Since then, by the looks of it, few buildings have been maintained and many have collapsed. It was if people were living in ruins. Yet the people in the church were filled with light. 

So life continues to be hard on the average Cuba -- hours spent each day in lines for public transportation. Food is rather abundant, yet very expensive for the elderly and those not receiving money from relatives in the U.S.

Our church friends were as gracious and generous as ever and we continue to forge closer contacts.  The desire and commitment to return in 2016 is real and vital: I believe we are an important connection with the outside world for them. They clearly impact our lives. 

The hope that I did see and feel is that kind of hope we speak of -- the hope that comes from the peace that passes all understanding. Pray for our Cuban brothers and sisters this Holy Week and Easter. 

Touring the Plaza of the Revolution in Havana

Our group waiting to hear from a local priest at a church in Matanzas province 

Cuba bound

A top the church in Cardenas, Cuba where we will be staying 5 nights

Saturday 18 Episcopalians from New Hampshire, 13 of us from Christ Church, arrive in Cuba for a one-week mission trip. Our purpose is to transport in our luggage medicine, other donations along with four water filtration systems. The trip has been in the works since our return last January from our first trip.

This is an important moment in the life of Cuba when there is uncertainty about whether the new openings from the U.S. will bring about real change in the lives of the people. I will be interested to see if there will be any noticeable difference in the hopes of the people we will meet.

I will be preaching in Spanish on Sunday at St. Francis church, where my son Will spent his Y.A.S.C. year. After five days in Cardenas we travel to Havana for the final two days. 

We invite your prayers for our safety and the success of this mission to be present with a people long isolated and living under difficult circumstances.  

Quoted Richard Rohr in Sermon of March 8, 2015

Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation The Path of Descent Stumbling and Falling Tuesday, April 1, 2014 Sooner or later, if you are on any classic “spiritual schedule,” some event, person, death, idea, or relationship will enter your life that you simply cannot deal with, using your present skill set, your acquired knowledge, or your strong willpower. Spiritually speaking, you will be, you must be, led to the edge of your own private resources. At that point, you will stumble over a necessary stumbling stone, as Isaiah calls it (Isaiah 8:14). You will and you must “lose” at something. This is the only way that Life-Fate-God-Grace-Mystery can get you to change, let go of your egocentric preoccupations, and go on the further and larger journey. We must stumble and fall, I am sorry to say. We must be out of the driver’s seat for a while, or we will never learn how to give up control to the Real Guide. It is the necessary pattern. Until we are led to the limits of our present game plan, and find it to be insufficient, we will not search out or find the real source, the deep well, or the constantly flowing stream. Alcoholics Anonymous calls it the Higher Power. Jesus calls this Ultimate Source the “living water” at the bottom of the well (John 4:10-14). The Gospel was able to accept that life is tragic, but then graciously added that we can survive and will even grow from this tragedy. This is the great turnaround! It all depends on whether we are willing to see down as up; or as Jung put it, that “where you stumble and fall, there you find pure gold.” Lady Julian of Norwich said it even more poetically: “First there is the fall, and then we recover from the fall. Both are the mercy of God!”

This Disjointed Never-Ending Winter

The new conversation starter in New England: "so this winter..." 

Storm after storm and freezing temps have made January and February 2015 one for the record books. It has taken a heavy toll, much heavier than the snow piling up on our region's roofs.  A recent op-ed in the New York Times described the tragedy in Boston as the "Winter from Hell."  It is especially hard for hourly workers who do not get paid when they cannot get to work. 

Here at Christ Church, our sections of flat roofs have caused melted snow water to pour into our sacristy, causing significant damage and leading us to remove cabinets from the walls before they collapse.  

The human side of this hard winter is harder to know. What I sense is that many of us are just trying to make it through to spring. Many are hibernating indoors. Worship attendance is down, not having been helped by the cycles of Saturday evening storms. 

All of this reminds me of why we need community. Christian, church-based community. When we go weeks without seeing one another we miss things. We may not have heard who is grieving the loss of a loved one, who is celebrating the birth of a grandchild (Pete and Chris Baldwin) and who is thankful for a clean prognosis.   We probably have not seen the donated items for Cuba pile up for our upcoming mission trip in two weeks.  

This is all to say: this Lent will take some extra strength to endure and learn from. It is as if many of us were in the wilderness of weather before we started this annual 40 day liturgical wilderness. 

Hang on. Hang on to your faith. Hold dear the relationships that sustain us through difficult seasons. Phone or reach out to those far off.  

Jesus is with us in our wildernesses and exiles. The hope of new life and Resurrections pulls us through the night into new days.

Hang in there people!