February 22, 2008

Pure in Heart

When I was growing up, today was Washington's birthday. With President's Day, this has all changed. Of course, George Washington wasn't born on February 22 anyway. He was born on February 11. He was born before the Gregorian calendar was introduced and everything got moved 11 days later. This accounts for some of the confusion surrounding the October revolution in Russia in the early part of the 20th century. They were still on the Julian calendar which loses time badly.
This has nothing to do with my spiritual journal for Lent. It does tell you a little about how my mind works. I get to thinking about this and find myself looking up dates and conversion factors and such and it is lunchtime before I finish. People say I'm knowledgeable about things. Yes, I am, but it comes at a cost.

I've been thinking also how compartmentalized I am. I separate God out from the rest of my life. Jesus has his sphere, but connecting him to the rest of my life is extremely difficult.
For example: I went for my last treatment on Wednesday. The muscle is better than it was when I started the first of the year, but it is, according to the nurse, a work in progress. I can come back in six months to be re-evaluated. Keep doing the exercises. Since I won't be monitored, I won't know if the muscle is in spasm and if I should cut back or increase my exercise. Of course, I won't be able to truly ascertain the benefit of doing all this until I can take long walks.
All of this is in the medical realm of doctors and nurses, computer printouts and probes. There doesn't seem much room for God here.

I know that God is everywhere. That's not my point. Jesus becomes a given in my universe, not personal in any way.

I distinctly remember a professor of mine raving against feeling God's presence. It wasn't what we could feel that mattered. It is what Christ does for us that matters.
Over time, I have come to disagree with this professor. I think it is important for knowledge to exist, to count on such knowledge in times of despair, melancholy and stress. However, such knowledge is not relationship-based and I have come to think that I am called into a personal relationship with Jesus. I'm not particularly good at relationships. So I can go about doing what I'm doing and leave Jesus out of it.

Yet I sat at the healing service Thursday morning and the phrase "Create in me a clean heart," came into my mind and with it, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." This has become my favorite of all the Beatitudes. I still hunger and thirst for righteousness, but I long to be pure in heart in order to see God. 'm still wondering what needs to be scrubbed clean in my heart in order for it to be pure.

February 18, 2008

Psalms 50 an51

When in doubt in Lent, go back to Psalm 51. However, I'm starting my reading at Psalm 50. Part of my conversation last Thursday on healing brought me to a discussion of how Psalm 50 ends: "... and to the blameless God will show salvation." or words to this effect. I have been wondering  about these words: blameless and salvation. And then, in a burst of inspiration, it occurred to me that perhaps the answers to my question lay in Psalm 51.

After all, these two psalms did not start out being called 50 and 51. I get so used to the idea that psalms appear in the Psalter because, well, that's the place they occupy. Psalm 23 is Psalm 23. It couldn't be Psalm 23 if it was first or last or somewhere else in the book, right? But once upon a time it wasn't Psalm 23. In fact, we have Bibles in which it isn't Psalm 23. It has to do with how Psalms 9 and 10 are treated. If they're combined, as in some earlier renderings, Psalm 23 becomes Psalm 22. So there's that and further, once upon a time, these psalms weren't in this anthology.

I imagine some scribes -- not the nasty people we meet in the gospels but hard-working folks who knew how to read and write--being assigned the task of putting the Psalter together. It seems some psalms were already in little collections like the Songs of Ascents or perhaps even the Psalms of David, of Korah and Asaph,.. Did the scribe just go through the archive and whatever psalm fell to hand went next? Or is there an organizing principle here? Was it organized one way and then someone upset the stack of tablets or scrolls and the office flunky stacked them back up as best he could and that's the order we have?

What I'm getting at here is this: Are the psalms somewhat random in the Book of Psalms or not? And if not, what does that mean for Psalms 50 and 51?

Because, you see, I'm wondering if Psalm 51 helps answer my question about "... and to the blameless   God will show salvation." If I am blame-filled, I won't be shown, given, see, God's salvation so I need to get my act together and that is what Psalm 51 is about.

I also started thinking that these psalms weren't versified and they were written in a scroll. Our psalms look pretty discrete. Our worship practices really enforce that kind of thinking. Turn to page --- and we'll read verses x through y responsively. Ancient readers had the text. They didn't even have white space between the words much less have books where each individual psalm had its own title at the top of a page. Scrolls are unrolled like a cassette tape. A reader could easily come to the end of Psalm 50 and start Psalm 51.

Next I asked myself what it meant to have a clean heart and to renew and have a right spirit within me. I'm not yet finished thinking about this so these are  only preliminary and provisional thoughts.

I don't have direct access to the Hebrew at this point, but I did dig out Strong's numbers.

Create: the same word used back in Genesis in the beginning when everything was "so good".

clean: this suggests real cleansing with strong chemicals and the like. This is serious work. It can also mean pure. "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God," Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount.

renew: not like a library book. This is about repairing and rebuilding Again, serious work, real work, here.

right: the root has to do with being erect or set perpendicular which is why some translations use upright to describe the spirit. If I stick with "repair" for "renew," I'm back to my Lenten theme of realignment. I'm thinking about "On Christ the solid rock I stand/all other ground is sinking sand" and "Christ is made the sure foundation." This is definite restoration work which, although spiritual in nature, uses definite and strong images of physical construction to get across its meaning. This is going to be one heck of a facelift when all the scaffolding is taken down and the refurbished structure can be seen in its entirety.

Nothing less will do..  The building was a danger to anyone inside or outside of it. It could have collapsed at any time. The condemnation process was underway.

What I am thinking about now is the sheer courage and audacity it takes to present oneself to God and say these words.

Entry 5: On Self

February 12, 2008

Well, here we are at Day 7 of Lent and it is already difficult to remember I'm in Lent. I think it is the word "self" that creates the problem for me. Lent is about "self" examination, "self" discipline, "self" denial. It's even about "self induced action: prayer, reading, study, involvement. Oh, sure, there are group activities--extra worship services, programs, soup, but they require "self" motivation to get involved.

It's not like Christmas at all. There aren't Lent shopping days. Inane music does not blast out of speakers on my street. There are no Lenten decorations to get out and the grocery store doesn't stock special Lent items. I can't go to a Lent aisle at CVS. The closest I can come to is recalling a Lenten candle holder that worked like an Advent wreath though it was in the shape of a cross, hot cross buns--I can't eat them anymore--and, yes, matzo, if Passover and Easter coincide.

Oh, and if you're wondering, there was a church debate about that way back when. It's crazy that Easter, named for a fertility goddess, is tied to the astronomical calendar. However, the reason it got detached from Passover is twofold:

1. It meant Christians had to consort with Jews to know when Passover would occur. Christians had a habit of converting back to or just to Judaism if they kept in touch. So much for their convictions.

2. Passover doesn't fall on the same day of the week. Christians wanted to remember the crucifixion on a Friday and celebrate the resurrection on a Sunday. They weren't happy with Good Friday coming on Monday.

And Good Friday--it's a corruption of God's Friday. All the drivel you've read about why Friday is good may be true in and of itself, but it has nothing to do with how we refer to the day in English. Other languages use other words, like Holy Friday.

Anyway ... So much for my excursuses. Sometimes I just have to get this stuff out to write something more germane.

I spent yesterday doing church podcasts. I have more to go, including entries 4 and 5 of my journal. It meant hearing sermons. I heard two new ones. Going to church on Saturday night means I either get an early draft of Sunday's sermon or something entirely different. I sometimes even get a different preacher. That was true for Ash Wednesday.

As a result, my Bible study has fallen off. I'm wondering if it is the concentration of listening that I only have a finite amount of or whether my daydream quotient is high. If I use up my concentration on the forums--there are two to review on a subject I would personally skip over-- Does that mean I have nothing left to devote to Bible study? That doesn't sound right. I wonder, as I write this, if it means I choose something different. Maybe I will just listen to Psalm 51.

I checked, by the way. The use of Psalm 103 must be a prayer book thing. The Revised Common Lectionary has Psalm 51 with no alternatives. As I said in an earlier entry, I am glad of Psalm 103, but it does mean I'm not totally crazy.

I'm wondering if today's entry is like artist pages. Julia Cameron has this idea that artists by which she means creative people, would benefit by writing two or three pages a day to get the clutter out of their brains so they can create. As for me, I just want another cup of coffee.

Entry 4: On Being A Fruitful Tree

February 10, 2008

Yikes! It's Sunday and I wrote my last journal entry on Wednesday. I plan to have a quiet day which is a good thing. The last couple of days have been crazy busy. The snow is making my apartment very quiet and peaceful. I love snowy days--one of the reasons I live here. Disclaimer: I neither shovel nor drive in snow. I like the way falling snowflakes feel against my face and the way snow underfoot muffles the sounds of everything. I even like the honest cold and the sunshine that always comes after a snowstorm. Ice, on the other hand, is another matter entirely.

I went to the healing service Thursday to give thanks for the progress I have made--I don't know how else to phrase it--with the healing process and to pray that the muscle continues to strengthen. The group actually cheered to hear the muscle is relaxing. I must confess, my attention to exercise has been greatly compromised. The passive voice is intentional here. I just haven't had it together. I suppose my only excuse is a crazy busy schedule of late and the change of routine from four times a day to three to two and now back to three. Anything I have to do several times a day is a challenge. After managing to take the dog out, and eat, things fall apart for me. In Colossians, the writer says Jesus holds all things together. An I think Yeats uses the line somehow in his poem The Second Coming. It's one of my favorites. An African writer wrote a book entitled "All Things Fall Apart". Well, I need Jesus to hold all this together for me.

We said Psalm 1. Psalm 1 comes up often. I particularly like the prayer book's rendering: "The way of the wicked is doomed." I can almost say this psalm by heart. There are the trees planted by the stream that produce their fruit in due season. We are told the righteous are like this, but the wicked are like chaff that is useless and is blown away. Is chaff like dust?

The Hebrew Scriptures insist righteousness is attainable, Reformation theology notwithstanding. Paul says both things. I've never found a Pauline scholar to explain this to me--how Paul can be both blameless under the Law and say "all have sinned and fall short of the Law." Maybe it's just one of those things--we can be both at the same time. Or, maybe, this is one of those times when Scripture can say two mutually exclusive things and they can both be true. There are different points of view in  the Bible and there is a lively debate going on there which mirrors the theological debates we have today when each side has its texts to prove its point. Everyone has the Word on their side and each insists theirs is the Word of God. Well, there's a rabbinic story that says each point of view is the Word of God. Hmmm.

Back to being a fruitful tree ... The women's Bible study is reading Isaiah. We're in a pretty obscure part. It doesn't show up in the lectionary and none of us are ever drawn to just start reading Isaiah at these chapters. In verse 2 the prophet looks forward to a day when individuals are shelters from the wind and shade in a weary land. Sounds a whole lot like being a fruitful tree.

Isaiah 32:2  A man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest, as streams of water in a dry place, as the shade of a great rock in a weary land.

I probably would have read right past this verse if I hadn't heard Psalm 1 an hour or so before which is how Scripture works in my life, why I try to read Scripture often and listen when it is read to me. One reading interprets, clarifies, prompts questions, argues with, gives a supporting or different interpretation of some other passage. It makes the experience rich.

You see, I've always listened to Psalm 1 as all about me. I've done those exercises where you describe the tree you see yourself to be. Everyone in a group picks a marvelous tree--strong as an oak, majestic as a pine, beautiful as a maple in the fall. The Isaiah verse suggests that our fruitfulness, our being ourselves and being blessed provides something for someone else. My fruitfulness isn't just for my own sake, my own enjoyment, my personal, exclusive relationship with God. It benefits others. I am to benefit others.

I led the Stations in Jesus' Life Windows service Friday. Fortunately a friend and her daughter came or I would have been alone. No St. Luke members showed up. We could have used the help and their company. I don't know how to do the lights.

But then again, we shared the service in the dying light of day. I read everything since I had no idea where the service books were. I did remember the order of the windows  and which wall they were located on. I wondered again that there is no crucifixion window. I suppose I could draw many conclusions from this. My friend pointed out that the water at the Jordan only goes up to Jesus' ankles. Have you noticed that? I find it fascinating what people comment on in art.

I sensed a conversation with Mary, both at the Christmas window and with Jesus as a young boy in the temple. There was so much hardship in her life. If there was a cross window, she would be there. What sort of a mother is that who can attend her son's execution?

February 6, 2008

God Remembers

Miraculously, I got up early enough to attend the 7 a.m. Ash Wednesday service. The words, "You are dust and to dust you shall return," came with me into the chapel.

There was that stirring reading from Joel, strong verbs of command to gather the people, proclaim the fast. Phrases that, even in translation, are poetic and reach across the millennia. And then, a surprise.

The psalm appointed for the day is not Psalm 51. I really love the part that goes:

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with your free Spirit." (LBW)

It has often been what I meditate on in Lent, but not today.

Psalm 51  does appear in the service, but not here.

Instead, From Psalm 103 I heard: "... [God] knows how we are formed/he remembers that we are dust." The reading ended there.

In reviewing the psalm later, I see that it is a psalm of praise, acknowledging God knows and forgives our sin because it is God's nature to be loving and to desire to reinstate us in God's good graces. But this pairing of knowing and remembering.-- God does not forget my mortality, my finiteness. This  makes the imposition of ashes more about a reality check than a death sentence.

It always astounds me: God chooses what God remembers and what God forgets. In Isaiah and Jeremiah and elsewhere, I think, God announces God will no longer remember sins or days of old. "I will not remember or call them to mind," God says. The Jeremiah passage is quoted in hebrews 10 which may be read on Good Friday. I am so used to computers. You can save information so it will never be lost, never be forgotten, yet God elects to forget and presumably, there is no backup disc somewhere. When God forgets, it is truly gone forever.
 
This service is softer than some I have experienced over the years. There is hope here, hope and promise. God desires for sinners to repent, God would rather forgive than punish. God models for me how God wants me to live and to be.

I left the service with a much more positive attitude, uplifted and ready to deal with the day.

My appointment at the doctor's office had good and bad news. The good news--the muscle is relaxing. The regimen I've been on has accomplished that. Bad news: to achieve this end, I have not strengthened my muscle more; in fact, I've lost ground. So I am to exercise a bit more and see what happens. I am anxious that the time of the treatment is just about up and I don't know where I go from here.

I'm having trouble bringing God into this arena. Of course, God is always present and knows what is going on. However, I'm not making the connection among God, the medical situation and me. I don't have a holistic approach or attitude. I am very compartmentalized about the whole thing.

I do attend the Thursday healing service so I have another opportunity right away to try to pull it together, to ask for prayer not only for the healing of the muscle but the expansion of my awareness of how the interplay between God and the "real world" takes place.

The word "invocation" comes to mind. I need to let God know I am expecting God to play an active role here. I am reminded of this because when I went to find the psalm on my player, it started reading Isaiah 64, a wonderful chapter where the prophet says, "Come down and do something!" Stir things up. Get something started here, God. That's what I want to be comfortable doing.

To relate this to the father of the boy possessed by a spirit, I just don't trust that God will listen to me so I don't call out to Jesus. If I were Bartimaeus, I'd still be sitting on the side of the road. God Remembers podcast.

February 5, 2008

You Are Dust

OK, I'm starting this journal early, but after I came home from church Saturday night, I've felt on the brink of Ash Wednesday. I probably won't finish this entry until tomorrow and by the time I record it and publish it ... Well, Lent will have officially started.

It feels like Ash Wednesday today. It's gray and rainy. I remember one Lent it rained every Wednesday and basically no other time during the season. If it's raining, it must be Wednesday, it must be time to go to church.

I'm quite anxious, about this journal and about my health.

I'm anxious about this journal because it's public and I am always anxious about public failure. Someone asked me yesterday how I could fail with a journal? It is what it is. It isn't the journal itself that scares me--just keeping up with it and with the podcasting. It's what the journal will contain. I may not be successful. I may not get healed. I may not have wonderful things to report. I may not feel God's presence or believe God even cares about what is going on with me. What if, with the emphasis on passionately spirituality at ST. Luke's, I can't report: I tried this and it was great?

I am also anxious about my health. I think I've said that before. It's not life-threatening. It's just, well, inconvenient. It affects my life style. I go to the doctor on Ash Wednesday and see someone new. The good news: a new perspective. The bad news: someone with whom I do not have a relationship, a total stranger.

I've been doing these exercises. I've prayed some, like God, do something. Anything I have to do several times a day is a shaky business just on the face of it. When I'm struggling, when I am not accomplishing the task, either doing the exercises themselves or reaping their benefit, I am quickly discouraged. Having done the exercises, I want results, and I am not getting them.

This leads me to consider the possibility that this course of treatment will be unsuccessful and something else might be necessary. I think this is the first time I've had to consider that the problem may not be fixed. Surgery might be necessary. NO fix might be the outcome.

This brings me back to contemplating Ash Wednesday. "You are dust and to dust you shall return," is one of those Ash Wednesday things. It's just a part of the service. But it's true. I've always known it was true. I will not live forever. That is the human condition. That is what happened when Adam and Eve were thrown out of the garden, the origin of the words, "You are dust and to dust you shall return." Now I don't believe in a literal garden and the literal existence of Adam and Eve, but I do subscribe to the point of the story. We are finite. We come to an end. I am finite. I will come to an end.

And how will that happen? By one thing after another breaking down without a fix? Is this the beginning of a inevitable decline? Is this how it starts?

I basically have longevity on my side. I don't expect to succumb any time soon. But "You are dust and to dust you shall return," sounds far more real this Lent than it ever has before.

February 3, 2008

JOURNEY TO WHOLENESS AND HEALING

Inttroduction

In Luke 9:51 we read, "As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem." Literally, he turns his face toward Jerusalem, setting it like flint. That is, Jesus is determined to go to Jerusalem despite the cost to himself. He cannot be dissuaded from this course of action. Some ten chapters later in Luke's gospel, Jesus enters the city amid shouts of hosannas. These acclamations quickly turn to jeers when Jesus hangs on a cross five days later.

Luke's travelogue, the things Jesus said and did, becomes a model for us. The forty days of Lent have often been characterized as our journey to the cross on Good Friday.

In keeping with the Lenten theme at St. Luke's Church of "Journey to wholeness and Healing" I have decided to keep a public journal of my own spiritual journey during Lent. I have just learned that the words "journey" and "journal" are related as are "diary" and "daily". A journey was the distance a person could cover in one day; hence a journal is the record of a day's activities.

Past experience teaches me that a daily podcast is a great deal of work. Past experience also teaches me I don't write or record a journal daily. However, the days of Lent are a finite time period and I hope to be faithful in keeping up this podcast diary while this journey continues with a summary some time after Easter Day to draw it to a conclusion. I don't intend to post daily. Every couple of days or weekly is closer to my intention.

I am doing this journey for four reasons:

1. I have a specific item I want to work on during Lent.

2. I thought it might be helpful to you for me to share my thoughts and experiences with you.

3. I want to encourage you to be intentional this Lent and share your experiences of your journey--both good and bad--with others.

4. I thought it might help me to share my experiences with you.

One of the difficulties of keeping a Holy Lent is keeping it day after day. Like New Year's resolutions, I become discouraged. Other things get in my way. I hope the commitment to you to share my experience with you will encourage me and by posting these podcasts, I will encourage you to keep a holy Lent this year.

I encourage you now to listen to the podcast conversation Father Eric and I had on January 30 on Keeping A Holy Lent. You may find it at  

-- http://thewingedox.blogspot.com/

-- http://ourmedia.org/user/114235/

-- http://channels.ourmedia.org/revmerrills-journal/

To begin a journey to wholeness and healing, I must identify my starting point.

  -- What is broken?

  -- What is incomplete?

  -- What has gone awry?

  -- What needs to be fixed?

  -- How can I fill up the emptiness inside me?

These are five ways to think of what the opposite of wholeness and healing might be.

In Philippians 2:7 we read that Jesus "emptied himself" or "became nothing" in order to come to us. Through the cross, we are united to Jesus. That is his work of saving us. In order to fully realize my union with Jesus, to live out this relationship fully, the Holy Spirit encourages me to undertake this Lenten journey toward wholeness and healing.

I'm trying to describe a mirror image here: Jesus was complete in his relationship with God. Then he emptied himself, became human, suffered and died as one of us, experienced the incompleteness of a human relationship with God--"O God, O God, why have you forsaken me?"--then God raised him from the dead and re-established him at God's side.

I am empty. I have been drawn to God through Jesus and now I desire the fullness of life Jesus promises. The work of salvation is complete. It's the living out of that salvation which is the work I have to do to complete my transformation. This is what I think Paul means when he says in Philippians 2:12-13 "continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose."

I'm threading a theological sticky wicket here. I do not save myself. Jesus saves me. However, it is clear by even a casual reading of Scripture or reflection on our own lives that we are imperfect and incomplete. "If you want to be perfect," Jesus tells the rich young man in Matthew 19:16-22 and in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells us "Be perfect, ... as your heavenly Father is perfect."  Matthew 5:48, This suggests to me that there is more for me to do.

So what is it that I lack? In a word: trust. Trust, faith and belief are the same in the Bible. "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" is the father's cry in Mark 9:24. Faith, belief and trust in Jesus is what brings about healing for the father's son, for the ruler's daughter, for the hemorrhaging woman, for the Syro-Phoenician woman's daughter. The list goes on and on. If we have faith, if we trust, if we believe, we can move mountains and our prayers will be answered. It makes faith, trust, a highly prized commodity.

Yet, I doubt. I lack trust in Jesus. I am in good company. Peter doubted and almost drowned while walking on the water. A number of the disciples who gathered on the mountain to see Jesus in Galilee after his resurrection doubted even then. Thomas is famous for his doubt.

In keeping with the focus this year at St. Luke's on passionate spirituality characterized by prayer and healing, trust, faith and belief for me this Lent will focus on prayer and trust for a specific need for healing in my own body. The specifics are not important, at least not at this point. Suffice it to say that I need healing for something no one can make happen in my  body. It just has to happen on its own. So it has seemed good and right that I pray for healing and trust that the healing will be accomplished. But I doubt. I am fearful. I am aware of my own distrust that anything positive will happen. And, again from Scripture, Jesus doesn't heal where there is opposition and doubt. Consider his time at Nazareth.

So now you know the plan. I am covetous of your prayers for this podcast journal and for healing and wholeness as well as for words of encouragement.