Breaking the Spell

I ate lunch outside recently, during an unusual cool spell in the midst of August. The back porch of the restaurant overlooked a huge green field. I watched two children run back and forth across the green, laughing and running. And I wanted to run, too. I mentioned this during the conversation with my lunch company, who either didn't hear it or didn't care to respond. But the words of the spell seeped in, and I told myself that running barefooted across grass at a restaurant was silly, so I sat and ate, but the sandwich didn't taste as good and I felt less-than.

Because part of me kept looking at the grass, part of me wanted to run wild. But the spell of that company and that moment wouldn't let me run wild.

We've heard the words of the spell, the one that says we ourselves aren't enough, that the space within us that aches and yearns must be filled by something outside of us, by someone who is other, by something somewhere that isn't dwelling within our very own souls. The words that tell us what brings us joy isn't proper or good, that the voice within us is wrong. So we begin the search, and we hear the incantation grow louder until we find that thing, that person, that other that looks magical and wonderful and we grasp it to ourselves, thinking, "Yes, now this will make me whole." We begin to listen to others who we think know better than us, and we edit and alter and contain.

This job will make my fears go away. This guy will validate me. She will be the one. Even this house or this car or this particular degree will end the quest, the search. If only I had (fill in the blank), then I'll be happy. If I act just this way, then I'll be complete. Then I'll be enough.

That's the spell, after all. The spell that we hear from our culture, from the wounds of our childhood and our adulthood, even the spell that we hear from our very own faith traditions - that somehow, we are not enough. The spell that says we must attach to this identity or this persona, because that is who we are. Or the spell that says we are always defined by our successes or even our deep wounds, because that is who we are. This is the spell against God, actually, that keeps pulling us back into our small selves, our selves crammed into lines that are fine on a resume, but quite limiting when they are written on our souls.

Because who we are, truly, is our identity with God.

Who is that? you may ask. Well, that is the identity that is in our deep consciousness, that identity that is often buried under the dozens, even hundreds, of small selves we have accumulated through our lives. That God-consciousness that existed when we were knit together before the voices of the world got into our heads and hearts and told us otherwise. Richard Rohr says our holy identity is the one we must crawl our way back to, meaning getting back there and breaking the spell isn't something done with arrogance or haughtiness or with head held high. Breaking the spell is a process of recovering our laughter and our tears, renewing the part of our soul that remembers standing barefooted in mud and connecting, and sitting with our naked souls and slowly realizing we like the company. It is the moment where when someone asks you who you are, you know the only response is your name and your very presence, because who you are is enough.

A few days later, I was the speaker at a gathering of women at a small church in the Louisiana country-side. After the gathering, after the goodbyes and thank yous, and after the usual mid-day rain, after everyone but me and the sexton were gone, I looked at the wide expanse of the church grounds. A century ago, the rectory and its gardens stood there. But after a fire, the grass had grown over the scars and a beautiful green field lay in front of me.

And God said, "Run!"

Just like that, I dropped all I held, kicked off my shoes, and ran barefooted across the grass.

And only heard God cheering.

Consider the lilies of the field...

“Consider the lilies of the field…” They really are quite beautiful. I can just imagine them blowing in the breeze, waving back and forth, like the petals are reaching toward something just out of reach. I think about the colors, the shape of the flowers. Each flower is unique but in a sea of flowers. I visualize a field of flowers, moving like waves together. It makes me pause and inhale.

“Consider the lilies of the field…” Jesus tells us not to worry about clothing, food, work or worldly comforts. Instead, he gives us this image to contemplate, something serene and slow in a world that encourages rapid response and worry. How are we to stop worrying when we have really important things to worry about?

Doesn’t Jesus know that I have bills due? Doesn’t Jesus think about what horrible event that might befall me or my family or my friends? Doesn’t Jesus worry about the disaster right around the corner? I need to worry about these things because if I don’t, who will? I need to worry about the frightening possibilities because somehow I think that I can prepare myself for them. I need to worry because if I worry maybe through magical thinking those horrible events will not happen.

Ah-ha! There it is! I worry because I (think that I) want to be in control. I worry because I think that somehow worrying might change the situation with the power of my thoughts. Uh, yeah right. It might sound ridiculous, but I believe if we really explored why we worry we might find that indeed we do believe that our worrying will change things.

So what are we supposed to do about worrying? We are to “consider the lilies of the field.” What does that mean? I think it means that we remember wonder. I think that it means that we give thanks here and now. I think it means that we remember who created the universe and it was not us.

When you consider the lilies, watch the rain drops on the window, look at the squirrels playing in the grass in the backyard, you must stop. You cannot make the lilies less colorful. You cannot shut off the rain. You certainly cannot stop squirrels from raiding the bird feeder in the backyard (though I have heard about some products that say that they can). When you see these things, you passively experience them. You can try to shut them out, but they are still there as evidence of your inadequacy at controlling the world.

We conjure up this image of the lilies in our minds. We stop our attempts at control, and suddenly that imagination comes alive within us. Questions well up in our souls: how is this possible? Where do these colors come from? Why is it so beautiful? These are questions with no satisfactory answer except to draw our attention to God.

And yet, there is so much to worry about. The dreaded “what ifs” enter your mind. Heck, they are not just “what ifs” sometimes they are “what is.” What is my response to a child’s illness? What is my response to horrible injustice? What is my response to natural disasters? God may be in control, but gee whiz, why do these horrible things happen?

God knows why. This can be the other side of “considering the lilies” when they are thrown into the fire for fuel the next day. We wrestle for answers, and the obvious platitudes do not suffice. Perhaps again the questions draw us to God, draw us to love.

We can only respond with love. We can only answer the horrors and fears and worries with love. No promises of ease, no magical thinking, just love.

Gathering the Crumbs

We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in the manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table.
-from the Prayer of Humble Access

We might pray this prayer; we might love to say, "Oh yes, I'm not worthy to even gather the crumbs from the Table." We might reflect with great piousness on how we mere humans are beggars as we discuss Jesus' love for the least of these, those whose life really was about gathering up the crumbs from others' lives.

We might intellectualize about it, but truthfully, we don't care much for beggars. We don't care much for realizing that we all have needs that we ourselves cannot meet. And we certainly don't care to admit that, at times, in all of our lives, we beg for the crumbs from someone's table because that's just where our souls are.

We like our pride. We like to claim self-sufficiency and a well-developed self-esteem and say we are filled with health and vigor spiritually and emotionally. Oh yes, doesn't that sound lovely, that we would never gather crumbs cast off by someone else.

But we do. We humans do gather crumbs, for many reasons. We might wake up one day and notice that the prideful part of our soul isn't the only voice speaking anymore. That voice that knows our deep needs, our woundedness (something else we humans aren't particularly happy at admitting we are, either), and we will find a way to salve that wound. So we sit on the floor, waiting for the crumbs someone more powerful than us in that moment casts towards us. And we scramble for them. They are often the crumbs of validation, of acceptance, even of love. We gather up every morsel and let someone else's leftovers fill our mouths and our souls as best as crumbs can. And we wait for more.

Lest we get too pitiful about ourselves, we should remember that for every crumb we gather, most of us are also sitting at the banquet table, casting our leftovers to someone else. It's one of those strange truths about life. We are beggars in some areas of our souls and wealthy in others.

But we don't like begging, do we? We don't like realizing sometimes whatever we need we can only get off the floor from under the table. God is with us under the table, sitting there as we devour the crumbs. And reminding us that when our wounds heal enough, we will stand up and look at those who have tossed us crumbs and perhaps join them at the table. Or perhaps find another banquet room. If someone does nothing more than throw you crumbs, when you are ready, you don't have to dine with them.

You just allow God to show you a place of your very own at the Table.

Marching with the Martyrs

August in lower Alabama is hotter than twelve hells. Maybe even twenty hells. Miserable, sweaty, wring-out-the-air hot and humid, so one can easily see the practicality of gathering hundreds of faithful together at high noon in August in Hayneville, Alabama, to march through the town, such as it is. Hayneville isn’t much of a town. There’s a grassy town square with a few trees, a courthouse, and a few nondescript stores. I’m sure there’s a Baptist church. It’s the South. Every town in the South has at least one Baptist church. And a liquor store and a jail.

I’ve been in the jail. Remarkably, not for anything criminal I did. On this particular day in August, I’ve gathered with other Christians, Jews, and Muslims, even some who claim no faith other than recognizing the witness of love. We all stood in the cells that day. Small and dark, with limited plumbing and even more limited views of justice. We stood in the cells because one very important person lived in a jail cell here.

Jonathan Myrick Daniels.

Jonathan and a group of over twenty protesters had been picketing whites-only stores in nearby Fort Deposit, Alabama. It, too, has a church, but it didn’t have a jail, so when the whites-only sheriff’s department arrested this merry band of Christians demanding justice for all of God’s children, they were deposited in the jail cells in Hayneville. The juvenile protesters were released quickly, but the rest of the faithful, about twenty, languished in these cells. The plumbing backed up. The food they were given was rotted or infested with vermin. Never mind that the cells themselves were for two adults, not twice and three times that amount.

None of this probably makes the tourist brochures.

Five days later, the group was released with no transport back to Fort Deposit. Jonathan left the safety of a jail cell, with no air conditioning, no light, and no working plumbing, to walk with his friends to a cash store that stocked cold drinks and perhaps food without vermin. A young African-American girl, Ruby Sales, stood on the front porch of the store, probably watching Jonathan and his friends walk down the street. At the entrance of the store, Jonathan ran into Tom Coleman holding a shotgun, aimed at Ruby. Jonathan stepped in front of the gun. Ruby Sales walked away. Jonathan didn’t.

So every August, we slather on deodorant and don shorts and clergy shirts and other shirts and hats, and march through the town. I’ve never thought we were particularly welcomed. After all, we gather annually to remind the town of injustice and murder during the Civil Rights era. Forty years ago, white townspeople called Jonathan and his friends outside agitators, and I’m not sure much has changed.

We start the march with prayers for the martyrs of Alabama. The church has a nifty way of redeeming murder victims with the title of martyr. Martyr sounds better, but death, usually painful and unplanned, is still required. The sign-up line is conspicuously short. Martyrs used to be gored by cows and torn to shreds by lions in the Roman Coliseum, even fried in olive oil on a big slab of metal. Most of the modern martyrs were shot or knifed to death. At least humanity seems to have lost the public spectacle aspect of martyrdom.

After our opening prayers for justice and peace, for nonviolence and love, we march. Hundreds of us walking with poster-sized pictures of those killed during the Civil Rights struggle in Alabama that reiterate the firm knowledge that today and always, they walk with us. African-Americans walk with whites. Palestinians and Israelis from an exchange program walk. Saints and sinners. Women and men, gays, lesbians, priests, bishops, laity, even people’s pets walk. And because it’s so damned hot, we don’t smell good. Sweat runs down the rivers of our backbones and pools in dark spots underneath waistbands. We fan and wear hats to mitigate the heat, with little or no relief. It’s not a pretty picture, but then, the people of God have never been particularly attractive.

We march to the jail and pray. Some ladies have put wreaths of flowers on the razor wire fence. The jail is stark, as jails usually are. But delicate yellow and white flowers decorate the door where Jonathan walked through to his cell. We read the lesson from Galatians, the one that includes the oft-overlooked part of Paul’s writings: There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. Inclusion at its finest and clearest. We stand in the profound silence of these words, then pray some more.

We are, after all, mostly Episcopalians, so we pray lots. We like to write our prayers or simply use the ones written hundreds and even thousands of years ago. We say amen, then look around for the cross, which leads us from one station to another. When in doubt, follow the cross. Good literal and spiritual advice I learned in seminary but still struggle to practice.
Jeremy, a priest friend, spots the gold standard and motions to the cross heading down a curved asphalt road blocked by police cars, so we march again, singing this time. We shall overcome. We shall overcome. We shall overcome the heat and the insanity of racism. We shall even overcome our inability to sing together. We shall overcome our own egos and attitudes.

We come to the cash store, which is now an insurance office. It’s brick and square, like the jail. Frank Lloyd Wright missed this town, I tell Jeremy. The screen door is still there, probably the same one from some fifty years ago. A concrete slab serves as the porch, as well as the other holy space in Hayneville. We read the gospel lesson from Luke here, and we pray more, then we stand in silence. On August 14, 1965, at about this hour, Jonathan was martyred. His blood seeped into the concrete. His friends wept and ran. One of them took a bullet in his back. The man who murdered him laughed. Ruby lived. All on this coagulated mass of sand and water. So we also pray in silence, the kind of prayers we can only pray deep in our hearts, when words won’t get the job done.

Then, one by one, two by two, and even four by four, we walk to the porch. Some simply touch the holy space. In the church, any place where a martyr died is automatically holy ground. It can bless by its sheer power of love. Some of us kneel. Being prone to drama, I kneel and kiss the concrete. We end with a Eucharist in the courthouse. Here’s where we gather to share the celebration of Jesus’s life and ministry, to take his body and blood into our souls and selves. For all the love and song of the march, we end in the courthouse where Jonathan’s murderer was found not guilty by reason of race. A jury of white men, like so many across the south, found men not guilty of heinous crimes during the Civil Rights movement. People who went to church on Sundays, who prayed to Jesus, and who sang hymns to God, mocked the least of these who wanted equality. Southerners dressed up in white robes, looking quite foolish and silly, except for the guns they carried, to violate God’s commandment to love one another. Doors to churches were closed to those wanting equality. Their march to the Promised Land of justice was bombed, fought, and stifled, but not stopped. They marched and walked, as we still do.

Every step we take on the march, every word we pray, and every part of the broken body of Christ we ingest, we do in the town where the family of the acquitted man still lives. We live in a state where a few of the leading racists of the day still hold political office, still spend money, and still go to church. These people often sit beside fellow politicians who demanded justice and equality during the Civil Rights movement. They sit together.

Isn’t holy irony lovely?

I’m sitting next to the judge’s bench today. It’s serving as the altar of God. I’ve got a great view of the congregation. The marchers spill out of the jury box. No exclusive club sits there today. The people of God cram into the gallery, stand in the aisles, crowd outward onto the courthouse porch, even celebrate with us only by the words they hear through the windows. A quick glance of the crowd reflects images similar to those taken forty years ago, at the trials of the murderers of Emmitt Till, Medgar Evers, and Jonathan. But only a bit. The crowd is here, but races mostly sit side by side. No one is on trial today. In fact, we gather to remember that God is our judge and the verdict is love.

Whew.

We read the names of the martyrs, those who died in love and service and in Christ’s name. I pray in thanks for their witness and courage and wonder if I’d ever be able to step up for God the way they so selflessly did. We even remember the names of those who killed them. I pray to God to help me pray for them, too. We shall overcome hate in all its faces, even when hate seems justified. Then I receive communion. The body of Christ, the bread of heaven; the blood of Christ, the cup of salvation. We all do, the children of God, who’ve not behaved particularly well in this part of the household at times, but today, we’re holding love together fairly well.

We pray again, the final verbal prayer of the day. The thank you prayer at the end of the Lord’s Supper. Thanks for feeding us. Thanks for loving us. Thanks for trusting us with the task of going into the world to love and serve.

Then we sit together to eat fried chicken.

The Pilgrimage this year is Saturday, August 14th. For more information, click here

Sexy Ministry versus Dirty Ministry

Sexy Ministry is any pseudo good deed you do for show. Dirty Ministry is what you do everyday that might happen to be a good deed. Dirty Ministry is habitual, difficult, but the common work of service to the Lord.

Sexy Ministry says catch phrases and important sounding words that often confuse the listener so as not to disappoint the listener. Dirty Ministry speaks the truth even when the truth is not safe, even when you will be punished for the truth.

Sexy Ministry draws firm lines between what a minister should and should not do. It determines which tasks are possibly below her, and always seeks to shove herself above that line. Dirty Ministry is pushing a broom, setting out the chairs, putting together the film projector because all these tasks are to the greater glory of God. Because menial tasks are not for menial people (there are no menial people). Because when we perform these tasks together, we get to know each other in service to the Lord.

Sexy Ministry is all about boundaries and limits, whining about how hard you work, wrapped up in clergy wellness. Dirty Ministry is about knowing when you need to stop, realizing that you are limited and asking for help.

Sexy Ministry protects all its good ideas and does not believe in sharing because someone else might get the credit. Dirty Ministry releases control of ideas and is not threatened when someone can do something better than you. Dirty Ministry wonders how you can help that gifted person execute that great idea. Dirty Ministry knows that success is not measured in who gets the glory, but in a job well done.