A New Year

I've been at the Church of St. Benedict for a year and a month.
I've been married for four months and a day.
I've been living in this apartment for almost five months.
I've been living in Bolingbrook for almost 14 months.

2008 was a year of many changes for me. Most of my energy this year has gone into just weathering all those changes. It's been wonderful and exhausting. I'm ready for a year of doing things for the second time (although not the getting married part!), and putting down some roots. We'll probably buy a house and get a dog. And I like the advice of the Dalai Lama on living well: eat less, sleep more.

But perhaps I should pay more attention to the intangible things I want to do this year. I'm going to pray on that a little. I think prayer actually is something I need to deepen in my life. Maybe bible study, too. It would be a solid foundation for my ministry work each day, but I also find spiritual routines difficult because I have a terrible weakness for distractions! My aunt sometimes says she things everyone in our family had mild ADD. Sometimes I think most Americans have mild ADD these days. Perhaps with the exception of the Amish?

I've thought for many years about becoming an oblate -- an associate of a Benedictine monastery. Yesterday, I got a letter from a monastery I've been connected to for years, Holy Wisdom in Madison, WI, inviting me to consider their oblate program again. It's a big commitment, but I wonder if it would be a good discipline for me. Not a decision to take lightly.

And if we get a house in 2009, I will have a garden. This is both a concrete and a deeply spiritual joy for me. To have a relationship with a piece of dirt, to grow some of our own food, to plant flowers, to see worms and bugs... wow. That will be what I remember when I get flustered with house showings and layouts and numbers of bathrooms. In some way, having that sunny backyard will overshadow anything about the inside of the house. Stay tuned....

My bagger at Jewel saw all the vegetables I was buying and told me he's never eaten celery. Wow.

"I mean, I've heard about the whole peanut butter thing, but I just never tried it."

I think I don't realize how sheltered I am from the world out there.

Christmas reflux

When I was little, in the week after Christmas, my dad and I would exclaim over the Christmas trees that had already been abandoned in our alleyway, waiting for the garbage trucks. Now, my parents weren't like the couple in the beautiful brownstone two houses down who left their (gorgeous) tree up in their big bay window until early February, but the Haverkamp tree was up into the second week of January, usually.

Adam and I put our tree up in early December. I loved it. I put little rainbow lights on it, a few gold balls, and the half dozen ornaments we have so far. But today it's December 27, and I'm sick of the tree. The needles on the floor. That it blocks the window. That there are still wrapped presents under it for folks we haven't see yet. But Adam has convinced me to leave the tree up until we get back from Iowa on Tuesday.

I have become the people my dad and I scorned.

Maybe it's because this is my second Christmas as a parish priest? Christmas is a little more intense when you're responsible for producing a liturgical experience to mark its significance. But even if I never went to church, the secular world produces an intense Christmas cloud of color, music, and stuff stuff stuff.

I'm also tired of the colors red and green. So, I really appreciate the liturgical colors for Christmas: white and gold is clean and simple, but rich without giving me aesthetic indigestion.

I'm ready for some emptiness. White. Clean surfaces. Foods without copious amounts of butter.

After church tomorrow we're driving to Iowa to have a few days of Christmas with Adam's family. There will probably be red-and-green, decorations, a tree, ham and/or turkey, foods containing butter, and wrapped gifts in the neighborhood. It will be a great time, but my hunger for emptiness may need to wait a little longer.

Well, I may as well go eat another raspberry Frango.

God makes us and remakes us...

We did not make ourselves,
it was the Lord who made us,
and it is the Lord, too,
who has remade us

From a letter by St. Paulinus of Nola, found at Episcopal Cafe, daily reading for Dec. 17.

One of my parishioners, a long-time student and teacher of the 12-step movement, is slowly recovering from her cancer treatments. Healing is not easy, as she is teaching me; being remade can be painful. But she told me, quoting a 12-step phrase she used in her social worker days: "Every day is a new beginning."

I am often struck with how powerless I feel as a priest. Ironically, this happens most often on my day off. On Fridays, when I take my sabbath day, I suddenly have time to breathe and sometimes all that time gets me brooding: about what I could do better, or ways I have come up short.

The best way to bring myself back is through prayer -- filling the stillness of my sabbath day with a sense of the presence of God, instead of the busy buzz of my own fretting. Especially in the holiday season, where so much is going on and so much needs to be done, we do well to let go of own own agency in it all and remember to let God move through us. This doesn't mean doing nothing. (Although sometimes praying, to me, feels like doing nothing, which I know is wrong.)

We do have power. How will we use it? How will I keep worry or fretting from driving my ministry, rather than what the Spirit is calling me to?

God has made us and remade us. Jesus is coming into the world to be born. Every day is a new beginning. Thanks be to God.

from the Christmas pageant files

This was posted on the Christian Century website, Theolog. It's from Christian Coon, the pastor of a church in Deerfield. Here's his blog: GenXRev

"Who Wants to Be Mary?"

Our music director asked a group of seven-, eight- and nine-year-old girls this question a couple weeks ago, as children from the church gathered for their first Christmas pageant rehearsal. A handful of would-be Marys eagerly raised their hands, each wanting the chance to stand up front with a (probably uncomfortable) young Joseph and hold the baby-doll Jesus

After a bit of deliberation, the director chose a second-grader named Sophie. Sophie's eyes opened wide behind her glasses, and she whispered in joyful disbelief, "Me?"

Sophie's a bright young girl, the child who always has just the right thing to say during the children's sermon. I delighted in hearing about this scene. But some of the girls were disappointed. Elizabeth, also a second-grader, was told that she could be a lamb. She was silent for a moment as her brow furrowed; then she looked at one of the pageant coordinators. "Well," she asked suspiciously, "what does the lamb do?"

Just the question I would ask. "Lamb 1" is hardly a consolation prize for being Mary.

I was Gabriel three times as a child. No joke.

I finally got to be Mary in a living tableau when I worked at Gould Farm. The Farm stages a nativity in one of the barns every year, or used to. A group of staff and guests (or patients) would dress up and stand in the cold cold barn for a couple hours on Christmas Eve night, and people would drive out to come look, and listen to one of the board members play the recorder, hidden in the hayloft. Bucolic, huh?

It really was, actually.

The year I was Mary, I was also supposed to drive the 15-passenger van full of shepherds, wise men, and Joseph down the hill to the barn. And I was in a hurry -- getting a group of people dressed in costumes takes more time than you think. I hopped into the driver seat, dressed in my long, blue robes. I waited for everyone to hurry up and get their seat belts on, and then I threw that van into reverse and backed RIGHT into the minivan of the recorder-playing board member. WHAM! And rather than ponder these things in my heart, I'm afraid Mary swore, even with the baby Jesus doll lying right next to my seat. It was a story told about me for many months after. My friend Monica still likes to remind me of it, 10 years later.

Luckily, both the Farm and the board member had insurance.

My mother leads prayer

My mother teaches middle school kids at a private Catholic school in the city. She leads her homeroom in prayer every morning. My mother in many ways is a very patient woman. However, she has little patience for some of the "special intentions" her students make during prayer time, many of which, I'm afraid, cause her to roll her eyes at the sheltered lives her students lead.

For instance, once a girl asked to pray "that my grandmother have a nice birthday at the Bulls' game tonight!"

My mother said: "Well, is there any chance that she WON'T have a good time at the Bulls' game tonight?"

The girl thought about this and said, "Well, no."

And my mom replied, "Well then, I'm not sure we should pray for that, then."

Over the years, my mom has also heard many prayers for animals and pets. She created a separate category called "Prayers to St. Francis," to keep prayers for animals in a different category from prayers for people, or say, an end to war, famine, and pestilence, for example. (Not that her kids every pray for those latter things.)

Mostly, my mom keeps her cool about these things and lets them go by. But not always, as you can see from the story above. And this week, she told me, a girl prayed "that my kitty will stop climbing the Christmas tree."

My mother lost it: "I'm afraid in this case, [Sally], St. Francis can do nothing to help you."

[Sally]: "Oh, ok. My mother gets mad."

Mom: "Just tell her to relax."

On the Alternative Anglican Province for North America

You may want to read this first:
Episcopal Split as Conservatives Form New Group

On the Proposed Formation of an Alternative Anglican Province in North America

The Very Rev. Matt Gunter, Dean in the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago

As members of the Episcopal Church and of the World Wide Anglican Communion, we are saddened by the creation of a supposed alternative Anglican Province in North America. We regret that some members of the Episcopal Church have decided they are unable to worship God with us or to bear witness with us to the Good News of Jesus Christ. We are diminished by their absence from our midst. We suspect they are diminished as well. We need the encouragement and challenge of one another in our diversity in order to more fully live into our call to be the body of Christ in these times.

Contrary to what some claim, the Prayer Book and the doctrine of the Episcopal Church remain solidly in line with traditional creeds of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. It remains the official Anglican presence in the United States. The Episcopal Church does much good in reaching out in service to a hurting world in the name of Christ’s kingdom. It is a church where the scriptures are read and the sacraments celebrated. While there is considerable disagreement on a range of contentious contemporary issues, we remain a comprehensive church which includes members of Evangelical, Catholic and more Liberal convictions. There are bishops, priests and laity who, while sharing some of the concerns of those who are leaving, are unconvinced that splitting the church solves more problems than it creates.

We are saddened by the cycle of provocation and reaction in the church which all too often mirrors the polarized rhetoric of our society. As sharers in Christ’s ministry of reconciliation, we all need to find better ways to engage one another over serious disagreements that reflect forbearance and charity toward one another if our witness to a broken and divided world is to have any credibility.

In the Episcopal Church:

All are welcome (and welcome back)

All will be encouraged.

All will be challenged.

All will be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Or, then there is this Response:

Top Ten Reasons to Start Your Own Non-Geographical 'Anglican' Province

10. Frequent travel to warmer, more exotic climes: The Southern Cone, Africa, etc.

9. Evangelicals get to triumph the 39 Articles and Anglo-Catholics get to ignore most of the 39 Articles and everyone else doesn’t really care as long as there are no LGBT people around or women leading worship (neither of which is mentioned in the 39 Articles).

8. You get to pray with your own prayer book – or not – and in your own way: standing up with your arms raised; or head bowed and on your knees; or with prayer beads in hand; or, while listening to traditional hymns played on an organ or contemporary songs accompanied by a praise band.

7. Never any confusion or need to consider the ‘real meaning’ of scripture – a male, orthodox priest, bishop or primate will tell you what it means.

6. You know the ‘Way, Truth and life of Jesus’ and no one else does, and you don’t have to share it with anyone unless they agree to sign the Jerusalem Statement.

5. You have sole ownership of the ‘faith first delivered to the saints’.

4. No yucky female bishops or primates thinking they can tell you what to do – female priests in the former Diocese of Pittsburgh, however, are in impaired communion with the former Bishop of Fort Worth (but the male priests, apparently, are not).

3. No LGBT people in the pews or in vestments, unless they are healed and celibate and tithing – and even then . . . . .

2. You can really believe that Jesus loves you best, even if the Archbishop of Canterbury doesn’t.

And, the number one reason to start your own non-geographical Anglican province:
1. The folks over at TEC will always leave the porch light on so you can find your way back home.

by Elizabeth Kaeton

Our Christmas Tree

Adam grew up with artificial trees, only. I grew up with real trees, only. He was gracious enough to let me have a real tree for this first Christmas together! We bought it today, from some Michigan guys who camp out in a church parking lot every December, sleeping and eating in a cold trailer.

It's a bit mis-shapen. Maybe you wouldn't notice that kind of thing. But my dad was very particular about our tree every year: it's shape, fullness, and symmetry... He still wanted the CHEAPEST tree possible, but each tree (in for example, the Home Depot parking lot) was carefully examined for quality.

I saw this tree, and I liked it right away. It's sort of a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, though. This isn't its best angle -- it actually looks a little less skinny-on-top and fat-on-the-bottom in person. For some reason, I like that it's uneven and has holes in it. It's seems like a very honest tree.

We haven't decorated it. In this way, I am still like my dad. You let the tree "rest" for a day or two first, so the branches can "settle."

Here we are, in our apartment parking lot, bringing the tree inside.

Adam couldn't get over how weird it was to him to bring a real tree into our house. Or even to carry it. "It feels like I'm holding a bazooka!" he said. And so, he aimed it accordingly...

Sedan Chairs

Not that I'm getting any ideas, but a friend and I were talking about these things, and how unsteady they must have been. Watch Pope John the 23rd wobble about.

This is what church dorks talk about.

And earlier today, someone DID say to me: "Everything is on YouTube." This video makes me think that must be true... commentary in Italian and all.