Things are the Way They Are

In daily prayer I hold up everyone in my family. I try to cover them with God's protection and give thanks for each one. This is a memory feat because I have a big family. Plus we have to cover the friends, the enemies, the pictures in newspaper. You pray for that beautiful young family fleeing Kyrzykstan (sp?) Remember that Flannery O'Connor story where a woman goes to the woods and falls down upon the newspaper praying? That's one kind of coverage, because it all gets a bit much and could go on forever. As a child I solved where-do-you-stop dilemma by "...and God bless everyone in the whole world."

As an adult I learned there is a Buddhist meditation called metta, where you issue blessings intentionally and unconditionally. The practice takes away my need to judge, to parcel out love in proportion to someone's goodness. Simply put, praying makes me feel better. There were times in life I got away from God and if you read my diaries from those days (which I sincerely hope you never will), you find the same sturms and drangs as now, only lacking the consolations of prayer. Prayer also alleviates that sense of powerlessness. When you see a picture of a blue heron trying to shake off BP's oil, when an old friend of youth dies unexpectedly, or when you can't do anything about someone you love who is depressed-- even if you can't do anything else you can still pray; then you feel less ineffectual. Even if you can't write, if you're lacking topic sentences and conclusions, you can pray.

Some say prayer doesn't change anything external but only the person praying. Well that is so not true. I look around and give thanks to see so many answers to my prayers. An African song, which is on a CD in this cluttered study somewhere, goes "Things are the way they are because our grandmothers prayed."

I assume that means things would be worse if g'mas didn't. Go, grandmas, you have a lot to do.

All in My Power to Support This Young Person

I have the honor to be invited to be a mentor for a confirmand, a young woman I have not met before, and this means so much to me. At baptism, we who sponsored and witnessed promised to do all in our power to support this person in her life in Christ, and Confirmation mentoring is a way of doing that.

Confirmation began when early Christian communities grew too big for the Bishop to baptize each new member. The presbyter baptized and then when the Bishop came around he (always he, of course, until the 20th century) laid hands on the new Christian and "confirmed" the baptism. In the early church, baptism was something you came to after three years of instruction.

Confirmation is thus bound up with baptism; but over time the rites grew apart. By the time I came along some 1600 or 1700 years later, you got baptized as an infant but did not receive the communion or certain instruction until getting confirmed as an adolescent or adult.

As an aside, I remember one beautiful woman, a parishioner at St. John's in Arlington, Mass., who reached the stage of needing pastoral visits and eucharist in her home. One day when I was there she told me of her Confirmation day sometime in the 1920s.

"I wore a white dress," she told me, "and when the Bishop laid hands on me such a Spirit came down that I was overcome with bliss and unable to speak to anyone for the rest of the day. Everyone was having a big party for me but I felt apart; I was going around in this blessed state."

Around the time Elizabeth was getting confirmed in the old tradition of white dress and veil (which she still had in her closet--the veil, that is--and showed me), the Episcopal Church was going through liturgical renewal and debate about Confirmation, a debate was still continuing in the 1980s when I was serving at St. John's:

"If Baptism is your entry into the Body of Christ, why is communion withheld until Confirmation?" one side asked.
"Because," the other side responded, "the young baby doesn't understand the sacrament."
"And at home," the renewers asked, "do you withhold food until the child understands nutrition? And besides," they continued, "who can claim to fully understand this mystery?" The outcome of this debate: all baptized Christians are welcome to receive the sacrament.

Confirmation now becomes not your entry into communion, but your own affirmation of the vows that were made for you by others at your Baptism. The church's Christian education is now begun in children's Sunday School continues in special instruction and mentoring to confirmands. Baptized Christians participate in parish ministry from childhood on up and regard religious study as our lifelong endeavor.

I give thanks to God for the invitation to this ministry to a confirmand and pray for the power to carry it out.

This is the Prayer Book's Collect for Young People:

"God our Father, you see your children growing up in an unsteady and confusing world: Show them that your ways give more life than the ways of the world, and that following you is better than chasing after selfish goals. Help them to take failure, not as a measure of their worth, but as a chance for a new start. Give them strength to hold their faith in you, and to keep alive their joy in your creation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

Ephrem of Edessa

Edessa (now Urfa), a city in modern Turkey about 100 kilometers from Antioch (now Antakya), was a an early center for the spread of Christian teaching in the East. It is said that in 325 Ephrem accompanied his bishop, Jacob of Nisibis, to the Council of Nicea, where the question of Christ's nature and personhood was settled by the adoption of the Nicene Creed. That is, Jesus Christ is "begotten, not made, of one being with the Father." Although fully human, Christ is not a creature among creatures of God's creation; He has been with the Father from the beginning. He is fully divine.

Ephrem's writings are an eloquent defense of the Nicene faith in the Deity of Jesus Christ. He countered a Gnostic practice of spreading their message through popular songs by composing Christian songs and hymns of his own, with great effect. He is known to the Syrian church as "the harp of the Holy Spirit."

From God Christ's deity came forth
his manhood from humanity
his priesthood from Melchizedek
his royalty from David's tree:
praised be his Oneness.
He joined with guests at wedding feast
yet in the wilderness did fast
he taught within the temple's gates
his people saw him die at last:
praised be his teaching.
The dissolute he did not scorn
nor turn from those who were in sin
he for the righteous did rejoice
but bade the fallen to come in:
praised be his mercy.
He did not disregard the sick
to simple ones his word was given
and he descended to the earth
and his work done went up to heaven:
praised be his coming....
by Ephrem of Edessa, translated by John Howard Rhys, adapted and altered by F Bland Tucker, (Episcopal) Hymnbook 1982.
Parts of the above come from http://www.missionstclare.com/english/people/jun10.html.

Note how this fine hymn interweaves theology, teaching about Jesus' prophesied Messiahship, his ministry and might acts.

Ephrem retired to a cave outside Edessa, where he lived in great simplicity and devoted himself to writing. A picture of him shows a serene white-beard sitting beneath a tree holding manuscript papers. The Holy Spirit in the form of a dove beams down on him, and he has an angel on either side.

Would that this be so here in my messy office today.

My Secret Life

There is a wonderful site called Mission of St. Clare; you can click on and read Morning Prayer. Morning Prayer is a habit I try to keep to even though it lapses from time to time. Today, sitting here singing hymns and reading Scripture at the computer, learning the rugged holiness of St. Columba, I thought this is something I would not be doing if not a Christian. There is something about doing something that a non-Christian would consider a complete waste of time that made it especially nice. It's like a secret of some kind.

The open secret wisdom of Ecclesiastes (9:11-18) notes that one poor wise man saved a city but afterwards no one remembered him. The Teacher notes wisdom is better than war, but that one bungler can undo a lot of wisdom (my paraphrase). The Teacher knows his own work will fall into the hands of fools and bunglers, and it has; but his wisdom still endures. These wordsbring hope to the terminal uniqueness of our own centuries.

After reflecting on Eccl that you can accomplish a lot of good if you don't care who gets the credit, I then prayed Psalm 72 for the president, that his reign may prosper and his mercy to the poor come down like rain on the mown field. Then also I prayed for all the terrorists and bad guys. Jesus said to do this, and some things you just have to take on faith.

In Galatians, Paul cries, "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast...!' (Gal 5:1: Tei eleutheria oun hei Christos heimas eileutherowsen, steikete!) "Stick to it." The verb steiko means both stand in the attitude of prayer (Mk 11:25) and stand firm, persevere. Of course, Paul was speaking of Galatians, set free from observing the Mosaic law, backsliding into trying justify themselves by observances.

Rather than freedom from sin, we're looking at freedom from our former ways of trying to overcome sin on our own (and I'm not saying observance of Torah is a way of trying to make oneself righteous; only for the Galatians Paul thinks this is their way of doing so). We have been set free, if I may take Paul's idea one step further, to understand our powerlessness and the grace of having an Advocate with the Father. In fact, Paul whole warning to the Galatians is to stop listening to bad teachers.

I wonder what Paul would write to me if I need to be chid. Probably, if he had read my latest "Musings" blog, Paul would tell me that obsessing about failure is to fall back in thrall to the "bitch-goddess Success" (William James?) Paul would say, Persevere in Prayer and pursue Love. Um, actually he did say that. I'm sure Paul would write me a lot of other things too; like think how you're leavening your lump (Gal 5:9 and Mt 16:11-12). To whom should I be listening?

For one, the Mission of St. Clare. http://www.missionstclare.com/ Good teaching there.