Unseasonable

Posted on February 7, 2016 by Rosalind C Hughes

On a bridge, blue hat;

on a log, red glove; breaking 

winter, discarded 

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Postscript

Posted on February 4, 2016 by Rosalind C Hughes

… I mentioned in last night’s homily that the fate and faith of the Dorchester chaplains brought to my mind the musicians of the Titanic, and their own cords of friendship.

Grave

A hair’s breadth from panic,

taut, trembling disguised as vibrato,

bravado; the young men drawn

together as with one accord, buoyed

by the rising air, and the falling:

morendo.

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The Dorchester chaplains: friends of God

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Rosalind C Hughes

Homily for Evensong at Trinity Cathedral, Cleveland

A website dedicated to the memory of the Dorchester chaplains describes a fine detail:

Petty Officer John J. Mahoney, tried to reenter his cabin but Rabbi Goode stopped him. Mahoney, concerned about the cold Arctic air, explained he had forgotten his gloves.

“Never mind,” Goode responded. “I have two pairs.” The rabbi then gave the petty officer his own gloves. In retrospect, Mahoney realized that Rabbi Goode was not conveniently carrying two pairs of gloves, and that the rabbi had decided not to leave the Dorchester.”

In Holy Women, Holy Men, we read of the heroic actions of the four chaplains of the Dorchester, a converted cruise ship redeployed to carry US troops from New York to Greenland in the midst of the Second World War.

A day from shore, the ship was torpedoed by a German U-Boat. In the confusion and panic that ensued, only two of the fourteen lifeboats were launched.

The four chaplains moved among the men, assisting, calming, and passing out life jackets … to those forced to jump into the freezing ocean. Having given up their own life vests to save the lives of the soldiers, the chaplains remained on the aft deck, arms linked in prayer until the ship sank, claiming their lives. Two hundred thirty men were rescued from the icy waters by other ships in the convoy. Many survived because of the selflessness and heroism of the four chaplains.

George Fox, a Methodist minister. Alexander Goode, the Rabbi. Clark Poling, Dutch Reformed. John Washington, Catholic priest. It would be foolish to attempt to find words that would outmatch the example of their actions.

But then the same could be said of the gospel. “Greater love has no one than this, that a person lay down their life for their friends,” said Jesus, and the words barely skimmed the surface of the Incarnation, the work of the Messiah, the crucifixion and its consequences; that life given over completely for the sake of God’s friends, the creatures whom God loves.

 

When I read the stories of the four men on the Dorchester, the image that stayed with me was of them standing arm in arm, praying as the ship went down, holding on to one another. They were heroes not only to the men that they saved that night, but they were the most essential creatures to one another: friends. They helped one another, they held one another.

And my mind kept sliding towards another image, of the band playing on the deck of the Titanic as it, too, slipped beneath the icy north Atlantic. Such love that bound those eight young men together; their shared love of that mystery by which simple changes to the vibrations of the air around the ear can bring comfort and catharsis, music. Would one have stayed, have played, if not for the others?

Teresa of Avila wrote of her friends, her companions in what she titled The Way of Perfection:

When one of you is striving after perfection, she will at once be told that she has no need to know such people – that it is enough for her to have God. But to get to know God’s friends is a very good way of ‘having’ Him; as I have discovered by experience, it is most helpful. For, under the Lord, I owe it to such persons that I am not in hell …

Friends can make a man braver than he would otherwise be. They break open our hearts. In their incarnation, we see glimpses of God.

Even Jesus needed, named and claimed as his friends his companions on the way.

 

Last week, I was in London for a short while, staying at a Christian guest house, a very friendly place, where they served us breakfast. Guests were assigned to communal tables by room number. Now, it may seem a small thing to surrender one’s breakfast time to the common life, but for a raging introvert, being sent to sit with a table of random strangers is a high-wire of terror. But I survived.

And half an hour later, breathless and bruised amongst the hulking mass of humanity working to heave itself into the sausage-skin carriages of London Underground at rush hour, there was one face in the crowd, my new friend from the breakfast table, able to communicate courage across the crush:

“You’ll be ‘right.”

It is never wasted to share our humanity with one another.

 

Most of us, God willing, will not be called to the heights of heroism; yet each of us can do immeasurable good by reaching out the hand of friendship, by standing arm in arm with one who is afraid, or perishing, or persecuted; by praying with those in the shadow of death; by affirming the joy of the fortunate.

There were nine hundred and two men aboard the Dorchester that February night. Two hundred and thirty were rescued. Six hundred and seventy-two died in the north Atlantic ice water. War is hell, and that night, hell had frozen.

The chaplains knew that it was not their task to save everybody; but to love. To love God, to love God’s children aboard this sinking boat; to love one another.

Whether or not they knew the teachings of Teresa – and why a twentieth-century Rabbi would have studied a medieval Carmelite nun is a fine question; whether or not they knew the teachings of Teresa, that they should ignore the virtuous voices that say that God is enough, no need for other friends, still by good human and godly instinct they clung together, to warm one another’s hearts and courage. As Teresa said, “I owe it to such [friends] that I am not in hell.”

Whether or not they had the words of Jesus in their minds – that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends – they all knew those other commandments of God: be not afraid. Love one another.

Amen.

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Year C Epiphany 4: bread and stones

Posted on January 31, 2016 by Rosalind C Hughes

It is a curious thing that so many of the people whom Jesus meets want very quickly to kill him.

He has only just begun his ministry, after the baptism in the River Jordan; after the forty days of desert fasting and devilish temptation; delirium. Within sixteen verses, he has returned from the wilderness full of the power of the Spirit of God. He has taught in the synagogues, being glorified – glorified – by all. He has proclaimed the good news of the day of the Lord, and all spoke well of him, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth, and halfway through the sixteen verses they said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” And by the end of the paragraph, Jesus, by his own words and teaching, has led them to attempt a lynching (Luke 4:21-30)

This is something of an aside, but last weekend, some of us participated, one way or another, in the program from Trinity, Wall Street: Listen for a Change. We heard Presiding Bishop Curry preach. We listened to Michelle Norris from NPR and the race card project. We sang songs of freedom and of praise and of sorrow. We heard from Nicholas Kristoff and Kelly Brown Douglas and an impressive gathering of saints. They were not always easy to listen to. We were challenged to listen, for a change, to something we might not have chosen to hear. We were challenged to listen for a change; and we will be determining ways of listening further as the weeks go by.

I was struck enough by Kelly Brown Douglas’ challenge to download her latest book, Stand your ground; black bodies and the justice of God. She has many wise words, but this, I think, gives some clue as to what was going on with Jesus on that hilltop.

Jesus’ identification with the lynched/crucified class is not accidental. It is intentional. It did not begin with his death on the cross. In fact, that Jesus was crucified signals his prior bond with the “crucified class” of his day.

All spoke well of him, and they claimed his as their own: “Is this not [our] Joseph’s son?” And he taught in their synagogues being glorified – glorified – by all.

The thing is that Jesus has just come from the desert and from the devil. When he was in the wilderness, he was tempted sorely: “physician, heal thyself.” Assauge thy hunger. Turn these stones into bread. And he was tempted with promises of power and glory, and he answered, “You shall worship the Lord your God.”

As Jesus read from the scroll in the synagogue, presenting the proclamation of God’s mercy and loving kindness, he heard their adulation, their adoration. It would be so easy to turn stones into bread, to accept an exalted status as the local boy elevated to stardom; a celebrity preacher. To be glorified. But he had heard those whispers before, in the wilderness; and he knew his answer.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed.

As Elijah was sent to the widow and her sickly son, and Elisha commissioned to heal the foreigner, the leper, so Jesus knew his call to the lost and the lonely, the despised and the dispossessed. He heard the call of the crucified class. He could not reach them from the pedestal upon which his people wanted to set him in stone. Indeed, the more deeply we need him, the more depth he has plumbed to reach us.

What does this mean, for a parish like Epiphany, for people like us?

We heard a sobering story at our recent Annual Meeting. We have tightened our belts, and still we feel the chill wind at our backs, the demands of money, of dollars and cents, of a balance sheet teetering, unbalanced.

And then I read this: William Stringfellow quoted in an article by Chris Hedges about the seduction of the church by the temptation to make bread out of stones (he doesn’t put it that way, but it’s what he is talking about: the first temptation).

Stringfellow wrote,

The premise of most urban church work, it seems, is that in order for the Church to minister among the poor, the church has to be rich, that is, to have specially trained personnel, huge funds and many facilities, rummage to distribute, and a whole battery of social services. Just the opposite is the case. The Church must be free to be poor in order to minister among the poor. The Church must trust the Gospel enough to come among the poor with nothing to offer the poor except the Gospel, except the power to apprehend and the courage to reveal the Word of God as it is already mediated in the life of the poor. When the Church has the freedom itself to be poor among the poor, it will know how to use what riches it has. When the Church has that freedom, it will be a missionary people again in all the world.

This is not a call to romantic naivety or monastic poverty, but it is a call to remember our roots, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, who threw off the temptation to make bread out of stones, to stand on a pedestal and preach to the adoring crowds; who slipped away to heal the widow, the leper, to bless the child, and embrace the untouchable. Who did it all not for his own sake, but for ours.

When the Church has the freedom itself to be poor among the poor, it will know how to use what riches it has. When the Church has that freedom, it will be a missionary people again in all the world.

The more freedom we find to identify ourselves with the crucified class, the more closely we find ourselves following in the footsteps of Jesus. And God is with us.

In the story that we hear of Jeremiah’s call, the prophet argues with God,

“Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.”

But God has already given the answer:

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you. … Be not afraid, for I am with you to deliver you.” (Jeremiah 1:4-10)

We may not plead weakness, or ignorance; we may not stand on our dignity, nor protect nor presume upon our fine reputation and family history; certainly, we may not plead poverty to avoid the call of God to proclaim God’s good news to the poor, to the captive, to the oppressed; that God loves us all, no exceptions.

In his same book, out of Harlem, Stringfellow writes,

If the mere Gospel is not a whole salvation for the most afflicted men, it is no comfort to other men in less affliction.

In other words, how dare we whisper that the Gospel is not enough? We are called not to make bread out of stones, but to feast on every good word that comes forth from the mouth of God, and to share our bounty. That is our work. That is our mission. That is our call. And God says to us,

“Before I formed you in the Shore Center I knew you, and before you were built I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to Euclid and to the nations. … To all to whom I send you you shall go, and whatever I command you you shall speak. Be not afraid then, for I am yet with you, to deliver you.”

Amen.

______

Kelly Brown Douglas, Stand Your Ground; Black Bodies and the Justice of God (2015)

William Stringfellow, My People Is The Enemy (1964)

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Birth Mother

Posted on January 30, 2016 by Rosalind C Hughes

God, whose womb broke
the waters of chaos,
gave birth to creation;
whose breath stirred the earth,
air for our words, spoken
first in wonder, and want,
our lungs newborn
crying out of
bewildered love.

Prayer Writing Workshop – Diocese of Ohio, Convocation 2016

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Disappointment and other stories

Posted on January 29, 2016 by Rosalind C Hughes

I am on a plane flying up the east coast of Britain. Soon, we will make a left turn over Scotland into the Atlantic (more precisely, I hope, over the Atlantic) to New Jersey. By way of the frozen north,  will make my transfer home to Cleveland.

When I told people I was going to surprise my father for his 80th birthday, many of them translated my destination back to me as “home”; but I have not lived in the house that my father owns, and my homing instinct is held by my husband, and my children, and my cats.

And that is part of it, part of why, faced with last week’s east coast storms, and the disruption and dislocation of travel that they occasioned, I would not give up my journey to Wales, nor trade it for another, less significant moment in time. I told my father that it was because of my stubborn streak that I held on the phone and returned to the airport, more than once, that I would not give in, go home. The trip was a surprise; he need never know if I didn’t make it; he need not be disappointed.

Disappointed: there’s a word that sets the spirals of parents and children in aspic, in resin, preserved for future scientists to examine under the microscope of therapy and inappropriate curiosity.

We do not communicate as well as we might. It is not the fault of either, as such, but of distance and time zones and work and want; we are both found wanting. There has never been a break between us, but a gentle cracking, crackling in the reception of our messages, the thoughts of our hearts, so that somehow they are never clearly broadcast, or received.

And so the ridiculous gesture, made larger than life by the onslaught of storms, the slings and arrows of outrageous weather; the action that speaks more loudly than the words in a birthday card; the pathetic offering of myself on a damp doorstep, rendered almost heroic by the trials to make it happen, by my stubbornness.

It is only love that is so stubborn, in the end. Ambition, duty, fear will fade in the face of a more persistent power, whether it is the weather, or the intransigence of an airline agent; it is the kernel of restless love, lodged under a heart, that will out; that will not give up and go home; that will not be disappointed.

FullSizeRender

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Aging gracelessly

Posted on January 25, 2016 by Rosalind C Hughes

Young men walk like ducks any more
(she thinks), sprawling from side to side,
feet splayed wide, taking space that should,
by rights, be mine; she hears herself,
shrill in her own mind’s ear.

A softer woman would see (she thinks)
in the automatic motion of his jaw
a baby, dreaming of his mother’s breast;
it is her own reflection, slapped against glass,
that catches her heart into a sneer.

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Consequences

Posted on January 17, 2016 by Rosalind C Hughes

If you are looking for a reasoned response to the week’s news out of the Anglican Primates’ “gathering,” I would point you towards my colleagues at the Episcopal Cafe, our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, and my own Diocesan Bishop, Mark Hollingsworth, Jr.

Analysis is less my forte than, well, this. “Consequence” may be a two-edged word, I think; that is my reason for optimism: that gospel = good news. For everyone.

A sequence is
a string of things:
numbers, letters, events;
a chain reaction.

Con-sequences are
things that go along
for the ride.

So a hand touches a hot pot:
sequence of cool to hot, flesh to flame:
consequence = pain;

So 2 x 3 = 6;
3 x 6 = 18:
consequence = learning
the times tables;

So love is expanded to
the marriage of minds to which
we dare not admit impediment
(so Shakespeare);

and the consequence?

Love will out, you know;
It is
a simple matter of cause and effect
in the end.

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Driven to distraction

Posted on January 14, 2016 by Rosalind C Hughes

Riding shotgun in my mother’s car. It is early morning, rush hour. No one knows which way to go; our hold on the road is tenuous, seeking gaps between predatory traffic.

Medications everywhere; bottles, sachets, paper patient info leaflets sprawl across my mother’s lap, under the pedals; she reaches down. I flinch as another driver shows the whites of his eyes, dismissing our right of way. She ploughs right on, stuffing all the poisonous pieces back into their flimsy pharmacy paper lunch bag. I snap,

“That can wait! Pay attention to the here and now!”

Only after I have woken up, walked downstairs, fed the cats, boiled the kettle do I pause to consider that, for someone who’s been dead ten years, she is not doing so badly, after all.

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Year C Epiphany 1: Come, Holy Spirit

Posted on January 10, 2016 by Rosalind C Hughes

The Gospels take a lot of short cuts through the life of Jesus. Whether they begin at his baptism, as does Mark, when he is already fully grown and ready to set out into the wilderness of temptation, and the rewards of ministry; whether they begin with a birth narrative, stables and shepherds, wise men and the temple; or whether they begin before time itself, like the Prologue to John, they all skip through his childhood and adolescent years (except for that one incident in the temple with the getting lost and giving his parents sass), straight to this moment. It is as though all is washed out, blinded by the luminosity of this moment of baptism, this moment when the heavens open and the glory of God, the Holy Spirit bursts forth in a flood of light. Like that moment of sun-blindness, all that has gone before is obliterated.

No wonder that Jesus immediately turned around and went into the desert by himself, bewildered by the blinding light, the voice of God ringing in his ears, the fullness of the Holy Spirit overwhelming him, as though he were still shaking off the river water as he retreated further from its current to the stillness of the wilderness, and its wild beasts, and its temptations, and its silent appeal to God. The descent of the Holy Spirit can be fearful; its weight astonishing; its lightness unnerving.

We know, we have been told at every baptism we have attended since the beginning of our memory, that this Spirit descends upon every unsuspecting child, every bashful adult who submits to the waters, who walks through the wilderness to find the river of life.

The Acts of the Apostles tell a slightly different story. Peter and John visit a community of believers who have been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, but who have not yet received the Holy Spirit. There are some complications to this way of telling the story. We can overcome some objections by pointing out that while Acts says these people had “only” been baptized in the name of Jesus, we baptize one another in the name of the Holy Trinity, Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer; Father, Son, Spirit. Additionally, we argue, all of our clergy are in apostolic succession, that is, the apostles laid hands on those who laid hands on those who laid hands on us at our ordination. So there is no fear that our baptism is incomplete.

But these legal responses leave a lot to be desired. They leave out the independent actions of God, which is a lot to be desired. How did these people come to believe, if not by the Holy Spirit whispering to them? And what of our insistence that, in an emergency, any baptized Christian can offer baptism to another. A friend who was a paediatric nurse quietly confesses to having baptized many a newborn in the neonatal ICU. It is not to be conceived of that the Holy Spirit was not present in those incubators, the breath of God in the ventilating machines, taking care of the most vulnerable children of God.

So it becomes as simple as this: there is more than one way to receive baptism. There is no set age, nor quality of water. A river, a lake, a baptistery or a font, each is as good as another at washing away worn out life and watering a new life into existence. There is more than one way to encounter the Holy Spirit: as a dove from above; confusing or delightful; belatedly recognized or discovered to have been within us all along.

There is one constant, and that is that no one baptizes themselves. There is always a community involved, to help a person in and out of the water, to pray for them, to believe with them. No one is left in the water alone. One of the gifts of needing the laying on of the hands of the apostles for the Samarians is that this way they actually get to meet the men who accompanied Jesus on his earthly journey; and for the apostles, it is a chance to keep in touch with the growing church; not to be left behind. We need one another, the old and the new, the green and the jaded, the weary and the spry.

Next week we will gather for our Annual Meeting and it is important for this community to come together, to reflect on our call to ministry in this community, and to plan for today and for tomorrow. In fact, I am going to put you all to work a little at next week’s meeting; we have some decisions to make together, and some discernment to be done.

The one consistent feature of our faith stories is that they never happen in isolation; we are created for relationship with God and with one another.

There is one character that we do not hear of in this little snippet of the Acts, but who was baptized with the others before Peter and John arrive, and who disgraces himself in the following verses. His name is Simon, and he is jealous of the power that he sees to deliver the Holy Spirit to his people. He wants to buy that power for himself. Even though he has been baptized, and has been blessed, he has yet to understand that we do not control the sacraments; they are God’s alone to grant. We do not apportion the Spirit; she goes where she chooses, and no mistake. We do not parcel out salvation. Jesus Christ has taken care to encompass the world already with that work.

Which is just one more reason why there is more than one way to be baptized, and more than one understanding of an encounter with the Holy Spirit: we do not define these things; God does.

But Simon’s story interests me because he does recognize the Holy Spirit arriving in this Samaritan village. He sees the signs and symptoms of the Spirit in the people with whom he has lived all of his life. Which makes me wonder: what has changed among them?

Paul lists the gifts of the Spirit as wisdom, knowledge, healing, faith, miraculous powers, prophecy, discernment of spirits, speaking in tongues, and their interpretation (1 Corinthians 12:7-10). Elsewhere, the Spirit is named as the one who intercedes for us, when we do not have the words to pray for ourselves; intercedes with sighs too deep for words (Romans 8:26). The fruits of the Spirit, we are told, are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). Jesus tells his disciples that the Spirit will give them the words to explain and defend their faith, against all opposition (Luke 12:12).

That covers quite a lot of ground. And yet Simon knew the signs and the symptoms, he saw the change in his neighbours. Do our neighbours say the same of us? And do our lives lead them to desire that independent action of God to which we bear witness? Do they want what they see that we have received, and recognized, and reflected inwardly and outwardly to our community?

There are many ways to receive and to recognize the Holy Spirit; but she is recognizable by the works that she wreaks in those who pay attention to her promptings, who pray for her guidance and her inspiration.

And so I invite us, then, to pray today for the coming of that Spirit like a dove, or in a flood, or however God’s Spirit deigns to descend. I invite us to face without fear the prospect of sun-blindness, bewilderment, or even quiet confusion, even the silence of the long dark night of the soul, which is another of the Spirit’s mysterious gifts. Ahead of our meeting next week; ahead of what ever we are called to face today, or tomorrow; in the face of God’s daily visitation, and in the faithfulness of God’s grace, I invite us to pray together today, Come, Holy Spirit. Veni Sancte Spiritus.

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