St. Andrew’s by the Lake
Grains of Sand – June 2009
VICAR’S THOUGHTS
The advertisements for Memorial Day Weekend said it was the ‘first official weekend of summer’. Of course, we still have over 21 days of spring left before the ‘really official’ beginning of summer. Summer brings changes to our schedules – different routines. That is good, I think. I have already taken my first trip away – driving out West to see my brothers. I really enjoy that drive – about 4000 miles out and back. Some of the areas I go through are what I call my ‘spiritual geography’ – the red rock mountains and hills of Wyoming, the winding rivers in the Utah mountains, the vast expanses of Nevada. To be able to look far into the distance tugs at my soul – and I feel like I am home, somehow. Do you ever have that feeling when you are someplace special? continue reading » »
Have you ever wondered to yourself, ‘Where is God hiding?” I have. The Gospel of John talks about God being Spirit — and it’s hard to ’see’ Spirit. It is probably one of our biggest challenges to faith — trusting something/someone we can’t see and touch. But is that so?
Whenever the material and the spiritual coincide, we have Christ. Jesus accepted that identity and walked it through in history. In much iconic art whenever the Christ was pictured, he was always portrayed as holding up two fingers. It’s saying, “I am both, I am two. I am fully a human being and I am fully divine at the same time. I hold both of them together, and that’s why I am the Christ. And the two do not cancel one another out in me. I am human and divine.” (Adapted from The Cosmic Christ by Richard Rohr).
The utterly unique revelation of Christianity is the Mystery of the Incarnation in Jesus the Christ. Most Christians are happy theists (believing in God) - but are not necessarily ‘Incarnationalists”. The Incarnation is saying that the material and the spiritual coexist - that the human and the divine coexist; that the physical and the the transcendant are one and the same for those who have eyes to see. So if you get the Mystery of the Incarnation — you really get it! Christmas is already Easter. Chew on that one for awhile!!
So God isn’t really hiding. We see God in the Christ — all around us — everywhere — at all times — if we open our hearts, minds and souls to really ’seeing’.
Here is a question for the day (or week to come): How does your image of the resurrection influence your access to Christ? If you had been present at the moment of the resurrection of Jesus, what would you have seen? If there had been a video camera outside the tomb, what would it have recorded? I have always imaged that there would have been a huge flash of light spreading out everywhere.
“The historical Jesus of Nazareth moved beyond any confinement in space and time and became Light Itself - which we now know from astrophysics, is everywhere (omnipresent) in the universe — and its speed is the ultimate measure of all things. That’s why you and I have total access to the Christ. Jesus transformed from the confined Jesus to the Cosmic Christ - which includes all of creation - and even you and me.
We are a part of that one shared light (Ephesians 5:8), that ‘enlightens all people’ (John 1: 9), and has come from ‘the God of all Light” (James 1:17). In John’s Gospel, Jesus used the metaphor of light: “I am the Light of the world:” (8:12) One could even say that in Christ, God and Light have become the same. And nobody on this earth can control the light. It goes where it goes — instantaneously. Christ fills everything everywhere with Christ-presence.” (Adapted from The Cosmic Christ by Richard Rohr)
It’s amazing how people so long ago were trying to express such powerful spiritual things in the language of light and relations and presence — which we often hear expressed today by scientists when they talk of astrophysics and quantum physics.
So where do you see and experience Resurrection Light?
There are two important questions for Christians to live into during this season of Easter:
–What difference does my baptism make?
–How will we know the risen Christ is in our lives today?
The Great Fifty Days of Easter (known as Eastertide) became the honeymoon season for all Christians. For fifty glorious days we sing and dance, party and celebrate a dream come true, a vision made reality, eternal life in the present. In the early Christian Church, it was a time for those recently baptized to explore the ‘mysteries” of their faith. The early church called this period of the process mystagogia. Today the whole church enters into this period of uncovering anew the mysteries of faith expressed in sacrament, word, and life lived for others. Remember what we say in Eucharistic Prayer A: “We proclaim the mystery of faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”
How will we know the risen Christ in our lives today? Again, let’s let Richard Rohr (OFM) speak to us of his perception of the Cosmic Christ:
“Let me put it this way: Jesus is the microcosm; Christ is the macrocosm. There is a movement from Jesus to the Christ that you and I have to imitate and walk. A lot of us have so fallen in love with the historical Jesus that we worship him as such and stop there. We never really followed the same journey which he made — which is the death and resurrection journey. That is the journey we need to make to become the ‘Body of Christ’. Unless we make the same movement that Jesus did - from his one single life to his risen and transformed state - we probably won’t really understand what we mean by the Christ. That is why he said, ‘follow me.’ The Jesus that you and I participate in, are graced by, and redeemed by, is the RISEN Jesus who has become the Christ — which is an inclusive statement about creation. If you stay with this in the days to come, you will see how it is central enough to change the way you see everything!”
(Adapted from The Cosmic Christ)
Delve into the mysteries of the Christ-life. Keep asking yourself how your baptism makes a difference in your life and others. Keep looking for the risen Christ in your life today - and tomorrow - and on……
Christ fills everything everywhere with Christ presence.
Where:St. Andrews by the Lake, Episcopal Church, Park Point, 2802 Minnesota Ave, Duluth
Who:The St Andrews by the Lake, Episcopal Church will host
What:Appalachian Treasures, a free multi-media presentation about a critical social & environmental justice issue — mountaintop removal coal mining (MTR) in the mountains of Central Appalachia.Meet the people who are fighting to protect their homes, their families, and the mountains themselves from the irreversible destruction caused by MTR.
At the heart of this special event is the stunning Appalachian Treasures slideshow, featuring photos of Appalachia and mining sites, voice recordings from coalfield residents, and traditional Appalachian music.
An Appalachian coalfield resident will speak about daily life in the shadow of MTR mines, where residents are forced to contend with appalling conditions, including destruction of water supplies, continual dynamite blasting that damages homes & wells & creates choking dust, and the fear of fatal, catastrophic floods with every rainfall.
Come and learn about mountaintop removal coal mining and how you can help stop the destruction of our nation’s oldest mountains and the people and culture of Appalachia.
Admission is free.Please contact Dave Johnson, 218-348-1338 for more information.
As the Easter season continues on (there are seven weeks in the season of Easter) toward our celebration of Pentecost, I’d like to offer you some short reflections on “Christ Presence”. As I mentioned last week, sometimes people think “Christ’ is Jesus’ last name. Really, the phrase should say, ‘Jesus the Christ’. It’s just that ‘the’ is often dropped out. What is ‘the Christ’? Hopefully, these short meditations can help expand your understanding of Jesus the Christ - and how Christ fill everything and everywhere with ‘presence’. Richard Rohr, in his book, The Cosmic Christ, writes:
“The three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) are largely about the historical Jesus who worked miracles, who taught, who promised us a new way of seeing, a new form of life. In great part, although it is seldom pointed out, St. Paul is not talking about Jesus; Paul is taking about Christ. Paul hardly ever quotes the historical Jesus and never knew him in the flesh. Really rather shocking when you realize that his letters (and those attributed to him) are one third of the New Testament.
We take Paul as a touchstone of orthodoxy (right belief), the central, foundational teacher of Christianity — yet he hardly quotes Jesus! Something else is going on here, which has largely been off the Christian radar. Paul has largely fallen in love with ‘the Christ’, and it was Jesus who pointed him there. Most Christians still need to make the same movement, and to believe in both Jesus AND Christ.”
At this point in your own faith journey, who is Jesus for you? What is ‘the Christ’ for you? Where do you catch glimpses of the risen Christ? How does Christ live in you? That’s enough for this week!
Can you believe it? Easter is here! The tomb is empty! Christ is risen! Easter begins its flowering. That Morning Star that will never set sparkles joyfully through the early light of dawn. The Sun of our Eternal Day quietly emerges over the horizon. Jesus is risen and with us! Death and sin no longer have dominion. Jesus is not in the tomb; risen, he has ascended into a new dimension of life as the cosmic Christ - the Lover of our souls. Christ is pouring out his Spirit into our body — so that where Christ is we may follow.
We are Christ’s body; Christ’s Spirit breathes in our spirits. On our journey through life and death, we travel with confidence and joyful love because Christ our Light, our Life, or Love, is drawing us with him into that new and everlasting dimension of life. Christ is our Eternal Day.
How is belief in Jesus different than belief in Christ?
Richard Rohr, a Franciscan monk and priest, says that ‘Christ is a much more inclusive title, which we so consistently tack onto the name Jesus that we think Jesus Christ is his full name! There is a wonderful and correct phraseology in Peter’s first sermon after the Pentecost event; he says, “Everyone in Israel should then know for certain that God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ…” (Acts 2:36) That would probably be the correct way of starting to understand what we mean by the Cosmic Christ. Most of us have believed in Jesus, but we have not necessarily believed in Christ.
When we believe in Jesus CHRIST, we are believing in something much bigger than just the historical Jesus. The entire sweep of the meaning of the anointed one includes us and includes all of creation. Many people have a personal relationship with Jesus, which is good. But at the same time, they may have almost no relationship with what Jesus had relationship with — which is the full Christ Mystery! Maybe this is the major reason that so much Christianity is so individualistic and sometimes even petty. We know and love Jesus but not Christ. “
Here is something to ponder in your heart today: Christ fills everything, everywhere with God’s presence.
Blessings in this Eastertide. Cindy
Richard Rohr’s quote is from his book: The Cosmic Christ
A Description of Holy Week…
Holy Week is the last week of Lent and the week before Easter. During this week we recall the events of the last week of Jesus’ earthly ministry.
The week begins with The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday. There are two parts to this day: the first, the Liturgy of the Palms, is the re-enactment of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem with the Scripture and the blessing and bearing of palms with shouts of “Hosanna” to the Messiah/King. The hosannas soon change to “crucify him, crucify him” as the Passion narrative is proclaimed by the congregation.
On Maundy Thursday we honor the final Passover Jesus celebrated with his disciples. The name Maundy is a shortened form of the Latin words ‘mandatum novum’ – meaning ‘new commandment’. Two commands are given this day: first, “Love one another as I have loved you” commemorating Jesus’ washing of the feet of his disciples; second, “Do this in remembrance of me”, commonly referred to as the institution of the Lord’s Supper. This will be our last celebration of the Eucharist before Easter. As the Maundy Thursday liturgy draws to a close, the altar is stripped and lights are dimmed, creating the sense continue reading » »
About a dozen of us are preparing to attend a retreat at the House of Prayer. The focus of the weekend will be learning about the Psalms. We’ve titled it: “Psalms: The Songs of our Lives”. Many of the psalms were written — intended to be sung. Another good title would have been: ‘Psalms: Windows into our Soul’
Some people have difficulty reading some of the psalms because the language in them can sound pretty violent at times. Those are often termed ‘lament’ psalms — or psalms of ‘disorientation’. An important thing to remember is that they were just that — words meant to express feelings the psalmist had. They were not words that described something the psalmist was ‘doing’. If we’re honest, we too have feelings and thoughts that can be pretty strong. Do we stuff them - or express them in an appropriate way — like the Psalm writers do? What some of these psalms express way deep down — is that God does not cringe and turn God’s back on us when we have strong feelings.
It is a windy March day, today. Windy days make me think of kite flying. Kite flying is something enjoyed by people all over the world. If you read the book, Kite Runner (by Khaled Hosseini), you recall the story begins with kite flying in Afghanistan. During the summer days of Duluth, you’ll sometimes see large gorups of people at the end of the Point flying kites. For some, kite flying is serious business. For others, it is totally playful.
There is a Greek word, ’spoudogeloios’ (wrap your tongue around that one!!). It means something like ‘grave-merry’ or ’serious playful’. If one is ’spoudogeloios’, you don’t take yourself too seriously, yet you can also appreciate the deep dimensions of the human situation that surrounds us in life. To be ’spoudogelois’ is really a balancing act — of keeping playful and serious in balance.
If you think about it, there is a light side to Christianity. The word ‘gospel’ means ‘good news’. St. Paul says, “If God is for us, who can be against us”. Jesus said, “I am with you always; yes, to the end of time”. One church Father (Iranaeus) said the spiritual life is ‘a divine children’s game’.
At the same time, the life of faith has a ‘heavy’ side as well. You can find a number of very serious passages in scripture: “Keep sober and alert, because your enemy the devil is on the prowl’ or, ”Go away from me, with your curse upon you to the eternal fire…for I was hungry and you never gave me food…”.
On our life’s spiritual journey, it is important to learn to balance the heavy and the light — like a kite that feels both the string tugging it to earth and the wind lifting it off toward the heavens (north, south, east and west).
I have been reading a book during Lent called, “Pilgrim Journey” by Albert Holtz. In one of the meditations, he wonders whether “some Christians become so grim about their relationship with God that religion becomes a deadly serious, white-knuckled, and humorless project, centered on sin and eternal damnation.” When one has a relationship with God like this, the kite is almost too heavy to fly.
Others may be too casual about their life in the Spirit. They want a God who is like a ‘kindly, generous old uncle who makes no real demands on them. They avoid any talk of sin, self-discipline, or the need to deal with the potentially destructive forces at work in the inner selves.’ Those taking the journey in this manner will have a kite that will careen around all over the place - and not be anchored in the truth of the gospel.
Balancing is a skill that comes with a life-time journey of practice. It takes a life-time to arrive at wisdom - or become ’spoudogeloios’. Wherever our kite flies, we can be thankful that we have a God who loves us - whose love never knows a limit, but whose love lasts forever - no matter where we are on the journey.
St. Andrew’s by the 
holding up two fingers. It’s saying, “I am both, I am two. I am fully a human being and I am fully divine at the same time. I hold both of them together, and that’s why I am the Christ. And the two do not cancel one another out in me. I am human and divine.” (Adapted from The Cosmic Christ by Richard Rohr).
EASTER MUSINGS #3
Grains Of Sand
