Dirty Bird

I love Halloween. I mean really love everything about it. I have always loved dressing up in costumes. I love decorating the house with fake cobwebs and spiders. I love carving pumpkins and roasting the seeds. And we love the tradition of booing our neighbors. For those of you who are uninitiated, when you boo someone you fill a bag or pumpkin with treats, candy, spider rings, anything small, then leave it on the doorstep while you ring the doorbell and run away. The family who has been booed puts a sign on their door and then boos someone else. It is a fun way to pass along the sugary holiday cheer. This year Halloween fell on our Wednesday chapel, and I felt that fact should not go unnoticed and with that thought into the box went a large black bird.

The Bible is the best storybook ever, and I have always loved what I call, the creepy Bible stories. Elijah was a prophet. He was one called by God to tell the people the truth, and since people don't often like to hear the truth, prophets were typically disliked. After the death of Solomon, God's chosen people had become so wicked Elijah foretold there would be a terrible drought, lasting many years. God then sent Elijah to live in the wilderness near a spring in secret. Elijah survived only because every morning and evening ravens appeared with bread and meat in their beaks for him.

I find this story disturbing and can't imagine eating meat that came from the beak of a bird. I don't even eat sushi. To the people of the Old Testament this would have been disturbing as well. Biblical law said that ravens were unclean and could not be sacrificed. In spite of this, God used ravens to feed Elijah. The most humble of creatures was used to further God's will. And while I'm sure poor Elijah thought the wilderness meals were as disgusting as I do, Elijah obeyed God and God provided for him.

Following the will of God is not always easy. No one likes the person who states the truth. Life in the wilderness is hard. The service is bad and the food is worse. But if we listen for and follow the call our Lord will provide for us.

Bad Days

I am always struck by what the editors choose to include in Bibles designed for children. While it does make sense to focus on the more dramatic stories, and skip the generational lists in between, it can make some Bibles read more like a series of short stories than a seamless history. And it is telling what stories are omitted. I have several different children's Bibles on my shelf and not one of them mentions Job. Adam and Eve, check. Burning bush, got it. Man having a very bad day, loses everything and not so much as a mention. I think that is why I brought a broken bracelet in my box today. 

This bracelet is special to me. I like it. I received it when I was in Cuba. I am not sure if it can be fixed and I doubt it can be replaced. And one moment in a frenzy of animated conversation I smashed it against a door frame. That was a bad day. 

We all have bad days and we all have bad things happen to us. And while most of us would not blame God for a broken piece of jewelry, we are tempted to question the meaning behind other bad events in our lives like a lost job, a sudden illness, or the death of a loved one. And then we have Job. Job lost almost everything, his livelihood, his home, his children and his health. And yet he did not blame God. Even his wife said to him "Are you still continuing to be faithful to the Lord? Speak evil things against him and die!" (Job 2:9) Job's friends assume he has done something wrong to bring all this disaster on his head. They encourage him to repent and seek forgiveness from God. In the face of all this, Job remains steadfast. 

Job is difficult. It is not an easy story for adults, and I understand why some might think it doesn't quite fit with the exciting and uplifting Bible stories usually told to children. However Job reminds us that bad things happen to good people. We will experience illness, and grief and loss. I think it is important that children be taught that we may not always find meaning in the tragedies of life. That the bad days in life do not happen because we are bad. They simply happen. And in the midst of our worst day, when we are sitting with nothing left, the one thing we will always have, is God.

Visionary

Last week a dear friend of mine and of many, Betty Adams, passed away. Her funeral was on Monday and it was as beautiful as she was. In giving the homily the Reverend Neely Towe reminded us all of Betty's great gift, the gift of vision. And so in honor of Betty I put a pair of glasses in my box today.

One of the experiences that almost anyone who has ever worn glasses has had is the memory of getting that first pair and realizing that we weren't really seeing the world clearly. In an instant shapes become letters and words, green blurs separate into leaves on a tree and the details of life jump into focus. I am not sure that vision is appreciated as much by those who have never had it impaired, but being able to see God's creation is a wonderful thing.

Contemporaries of Jesus must have thought his disciples a ragtag group. They probably thought he was blind to choose the type of companions he did. Instead of  teachers Jesus chose those without education, instead of temple leaders Jesus chose fishermen and instead of those who seemed to live a righteous life Jesus chose tax collector and prostitutes. He saw these men and women not for what they were on the outside, but for what they could be, and over time they became the vision he had of them. Jesus said "Blessed are you. Simon, son of Jonah!...You are Peter. On this rock I will build my church." (Matthew 16:17) and Simon Peter did become the rock and foundation of the church.

We all have been given gifts and talents. Betty was a true visionary. She saw the world and everything in it not as we really were, but as what God called us to be. She was able to look into our hearts and see the best in us and we worked to become exactly what she saw.

Take some time to develop the gift of vision. Christ lives in the hearts of our children, in the hearts of those with whom we work and with whom we worship and in the hearts of strangers we meet during our day. Put your glasses on. Be a visionary. Seek to see the world Christ wants it to be.

Taking Pictures

I have missed our past two chapels together as my husband and I have been celebrating our anniversary in Italy. It was a wonderful trip, which we faithfully documented with several cameras of all shapes and sizes. One of my friends used to joke that with her husband if he didn't take a picture of something to him "it was as if it never happened". I was thinking of that this morning as I put my camera into my box.

The first part of our trip was in Rome. It is a fascinating city and we loved getting to walk around the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. It was awe inspiring to think about how many people had once lived in that spot, and see the ruins of structures I had learned about in school. Paul lived in Rome for two years, preaching the gospel of Christ, spreading the message of God's love to the Gentiles. We took lots of pictures.We then visited St. Peter's Basilica, where there has been a church since the 4th century as St. Peter's tomb is supposed to be deep below the altar and when we were allowed, we took pictures.

We are so obsessed with snapping pictures of everything these days, our activities, children, pets, even our food, that it seems strange that we have no pictures of Jesus. No instagrams of he and the disciples healing the sick. No portraits of Jesus with Mary and Martha for them to proudly display on the mantle. No travel album from Paul to accompany his many letters. We have no way to see anyone who existed at the same time as Christ. I reminded the children today that faith is believing in what we can't see, or as Jesus said to Thomas, "Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen me but have still believed". (John 20:29)

When we were down in the crypt at St. Peter's our guide told us a story. She said like many things in Rome, the current crypt was built over the foundation of an older church and that church was built over the location of several ancient graves and had been guarded by Christians for centuries as the place where the apostle Peter was buried. And while church after church was built on this site, there was no way to really prove that the story was true. That is until modern times when further excavation and dating were done on several of the bodies found there and one was identified as very likely belonging to St. Peter. It is a wonderful story. And if I had been allowed to explore that ancient area below the crypt and take pictures I am sure I would have. However my faith depends not on the proof of the existence of the bones of an ancient apostle, but on the belief in the life of a living Christ.

Blessing of the Backpacks

This past Sunday was had the Blessing of the Backpacks as part of our 10am service. Children of all ages brought their backpacks to church and up to the altar at the story stick time, in order to have them blessed for the beginning of the school year. It is always fun to see the wide variety of sizes, colors, and designs that come forward. After being blessed we walk to the chapel and there the real fun began, for the backpacks were stuffed full of paper, notebooks, markers, crayons and other school supplies. We emptied them into a basket at the front of the alter, and then piled the supplies as neatly as we could. They filled the basket I brought, and kept coming. Soon the floor in front of the alter was littered with glue bottles and sissors, pencils and pads. These school supplies will be delivered to children who need them so that they to can have a blessed year.

I love how excited our children get about the start of school! And even more I love how excited they are about donating school supplies to others. For the past several years we have given our children a tag to attach to their packpack with a Bible verse on it. This year the verse was one we loved from Vacation Bible School. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, don't rely on your own intelligence." Proverbs 3:5. My back to school wish for all of us it to trust in the Lord, to receive God's blessings with unfettered excitement and to share our blessings with others with overflowing joy.

Sneaking in the Back Door

A few weeks ago I arrived home, daughter in tow, and walked through the back door of the house to find a large garter snake apparently enjoying the warmth of our laundry room. Sarah Frances had not yet seen it and so without really thinking I quickly grabbed it with the plan of taking it back outside. A few steps into the garage the poor snake did what garter snakes do best, it wrapped its dangling self around my arm. And it was at this point, I'm a little embarrassed to admit, that I screamed, and dropped it. We both looked at each other for a bit, and I did snap a picture, but before I could get up the nerve to grab it again our visitor slithered into some wood stacked in the corner of the garage and I decided he, or she could just stay there. This story was shared excitedly to everyone by my daughter and ever since one of her friends has been begging me to put a snake in my box. So today I did.

Sometimes, despite our best intentions, something we would rather not have in our house comes slithering in the back door. God knew that being human, we would always have sin sneaking into our lives one way or another. The snake first appeared in the garden and has been with us every since. Once it is in the house, whether from sneaking in the back door or coming boldly in through the front, it can be difficult to get it out again. It takes courage to examine our heart and admit what shouldn't be there. And the hardest sins to be rid of often wrap around us trying to stay put. But take them outside we must. For we have be given the gift of Christ to help us clean even the most vile pests from our homes and hearts. All we have to do is ask.

Dark Glasses

A few years ago I embarrassed myself in the airport. I spent the weekend visiting friends in Nashville. Sunday afternoon I arrived at the airport tired and ready to be home, my mind whirring with schedules and activities for the coming week. When I got to the gate after a cursory glance around I quickly opened a book to avoid making eye contact. I boarded early and watched others file past without really looking at who was on the plane. After we landed as I was walking quickly through the lobby I was grabbed by a close friend. Apparently I had not only not seen him standing near me, I didn't notice that his daughter had been on the plane with me, sitting just a few rows back. I was so wrapped up in my world, I had failed to notice the world around me. It was almost as if I had been wearing dark glasses. 

I think that most of us have had the experience of not recognizing someone. Sometimes it is someone we haven't seen in a long time. It might me the result of a change in hair color, or length. And sometimes we miss seeing someone because he or she is somewhere we don't expect him or her to be. I'm not sure what the reason was for Cleopas and an unnamed disciple walking along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. They walked and they talked and yet only that evening when the stranger they invited to dinner took the bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them did they recognize the risen Lord. "With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him but he vanished from their sight". (Luke 24: 30-31)

So what happened? What allowed the disciples to see Christ standing before them? I think it is because the resurrected Lord, unlike the human Jesus, requires eyes of faith to be seen. And by taking off the dark glasses that obscure our view of the world, and instead using eyes of faith we too can see the resurrected Jesus in all types of people, and in all manner of places. We simply have to look. 

Stones in the Path

My children have always liked to collect rocks. The rocks don't have to be special, or beautiful, they simply have to be available. We have collected stones from creeks as well as gravel from driveways. Once one of my children once found a huge rock that he had to have. Unfortunately he found it as we were climbing up a mountain in North Carolina. Stubbornly he carried that rock up to the top and back down again, and for years it lived in an aquarium in our house. Typically my car and my purse have rocks in them, along with countless shoeboxes in our house and a small basket in my office. I chose a few of these rocks to put in my box today.

After Jesus was crucified he was taken down from the cross, placed in the tomb and a huge stone was rolled in front of it.When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. As they walked in sadness a very practical thought came to them. It was the stone. The stone was clearly too large for them to move on their own. And without being able to move the stone they would have no way to get to their Lord. Even the smallest children in chapel seemed to know the next part of the story. When the women reached their destination they found that the stone had been rolled away, leaving a clear way for them to enter. No obstacles blocked their discovery that Christ had risen.

As we walk though life we may find many stones in our path. Some will be small, and some will seem to big for us to move, but the path to the risen Lord will always be cleared for us.

Build a Bear

Today was a very special day in chapel because we had a guest chapel leader, second grader Brian Sheridan. Brian not only helped lead chapel, he also helped to select our songs for the day and picked our what would be in my box. Brian spent a lot of time thinking about this over the past few weeks. Yesterday his father showed up in my office with a much loved stuffed dog, Timmy. Timmy appears to be a border collie, is dressed in a military uniform, and carries in his mouth a puppy, Little Timmy. Brian was very proud to tell me he paid for Timmy with his own money and picked out everything about him at Build a Bear.

I loved having Timmy in my box. My own children have loved going to Build a Bear where they were able to be creative and design a stuffed animal all their own. The idea of carefully selecting a specific bear, or dog, or cat, or dinosaur, filling it up on the inside, adding a heart, and caring for it afterwards is a wonderful way to view God's love for us. In Jeremiah 1:5 the Lord says "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you". Our God calls the stars by name, (Psalm 147:4), we can rest easy in the assurance that before we were born he knew the color of our eyes, the curliness of our hair, and the number of freckles on our  nose. And yet, more than all there is to us on the outside, we are formed in God's image, which means we are created with a heart that can be filled with God's love which we are called to share with others.

Timmy's final example to us of God's care for us, is that he can carry little Timmy in his mouth. The Lord loves us just as much after we are born as he did before we were created. No matter what we do, what choices we make, through good times and in bad, God is always there to carry us through.

Thank you, Brian.

Children and Tragedy

I have a had several conversations about the tragedy at Episcopal School of Jacksonville and how we should handle this as parents, especially those of us that are parents of young children. I have a few thoughts that are mine, but I also urge you to speak to any of the priests here at St. Mark's if you need more guidance.


First, I think we have to talk about tragedies like this as a family. I think we sometimes assume younger children are oblivious to the world around them, but children with older siblings will hear things, as will any child who is exposed, as most are, to any news broadcast. The extent of the conversation will depend on the age of your children, but I tend to think answering questions honestly with simple facts is better than trying to pretend nothing happened. Encourage your children to ask questions. When I was a young child, a close friend of my parents with a daughter my age was held hostage and then killed by someone he had fired. I remember being incredibly curious about things like where he was shot, not because of some morbid curiosity, but because at that age I didn't understand death or what caused it. By allowing me to ask questions and talk about what happened my parents helped me process the event at my own speed in my own way.

We need to pray at all times, but especially at times like these. Our children need to see us calling upon the Holy Spirit to be with us and all those involved. It is alright to express our frustrations in prayer, look at many of the Psalms. Our Lord can handle it. It is important to take the time to pray together and to explain that God doesn't cause bad things to happen, but in all the brokenness of this world, in the violence, natural disasters, disease, that God is with us and mourns with us. Tragedy offers us a way to share our faith with the world.

Recognize that there is both evil and forgiveness in this world. Part of the baptismal covenant we make on behalf of our children is that we renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, the evil powers of this world that corrupt and destroy the creatures of God, and the sinful desires which draw us from the love of God. Our children know that there is good and there is bad. Remind them that God calls us to be a light in this world and to renounce what is bad, and yet whenever we fall into sin he will be waiting with open arms for us to repent and ask forgiveness. As Christians we are called upon to pray for those who have been harmed by evil, and for those who have caused the harm. We are called to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. AS the old hymn says, "they will know we are Christians by our love".

I am going to close with one of the prayers we used last night at our prayer service at St. Mark's. The whole service may be found on our website and I encourage you to check it out.

Gracious Lord, the hardest part about being your children is that we don’t get to see the big picture.  You see everything.  You know how it all turns out in the end.  You see the completed puzzle while we sit here with one small piece in our hands and cry.  Give us the faith to believe that you have it all under control.  Give us the strength to get up and move in the morning.  Give us the love to support each other.  We want to run into your arms and have you hold us like children.  Tell us it’s going to be okay.  Hold us, God.  It’s lonely down here right now. Amen.

Time Out

Last week was Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Every year I am asked how I explain Lent to younger children. Traditionally Lent was a penitential time for Christians and included prayer, fasting and repentance. Many of the children in chapel can tell me happily what they are "giving up" for Lent, but few can tell me why. So today, in order to try and explain what these 40 days are for, I put a small chair in my box.

As a parent I struggle with discipline as much as anyone. I first try asking offending child to change his our her ways. I then move on to counting, as in, "I'm going to count to three, and then you are going to stop doing whatever you are doing". The big gun is always the time out chair. It typically is reserved when someone can't control his or her actions, and needs a time to calm down and think about the situation. And for my children, being given the opportunity to pause, and breathe, and think about what they have done eventually leads to apology and reconcilliation, as well as at least a brief change in behavior. Today I described Lent to the children, as an opportunity to sit in time out.

We all make bad choices. We all sin. It is simply part of being human. We sin by things we do, and we sin by things we don't do. And our lives are full of meetings, and lunches, and work, and carpool and a million errands that pull us in as many directions. What a gift to be able to have a season where we strip down to the essentials, give up what we don't really need, and take some time out to think about our behavior, apologize, and seek reconcilliation with our loving Father. Lent is a time to breathe, and pray, and prepare our hearts for God.

During the next few weeks, try scheduling a time with no activities. Spend time in Bible reading or prayer with your children. Think about how much God has given you, and how you can spread his love to others. At the beginning of each day and before you go to sleep remind yourself to embrace this time out.

10,000 Hours

Today was Father's Chapel at St. Mark's, so all the dads were invited to join us for chapel. I really thought about what my lesson would be today. What does the Bible say about being a father? And finally, I put a calendar in my box. For this talk I could have put a stopwatch, or an alarm clock, but I thought a puppy dog calendar would most illustrate my point.

I love to read, on a wide variety of subjects, and when I thought and prayed about what to say today I started thinking about the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Outliers is about what makes some people so successful in sports or business or other aspects of life, and Gladwell's argument is that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to really master a subject. That's 10,000 hours where you are working to get better at something, whether it's golf or piano, mathematics or law. When you think about all the demands on our day that is an incredible amount of time. What Gladwell does well is tell story after story of the lives of those who are successful and show how they spent those hours. Sometimes those hours came by chance, in that certain individuals were in the right place at the right time to have an opportunity for that much practice. Others worked to make the time. But each success story started with 10,000 hours of practice.

At this point I am sure you are thoroughly confused as to where I am going. How does this have anything to do with fatherhood, or the Bible? As a parent, we have the opportunity for lots of practice at loving our children. There are 8765 hours in a year. Even taking out say, 8 hours a day for sleep, (wishful thinking), that's still 16 hours a day to love our children so in 625 days or just 1.7 years we have reached the 10,000 hour mark. And I'm not even including the 960 hours of pregnancy that came before that. So just think... in just two puppy dog calendars, before the second year or your child's life you were an expert in loving him or her.

For our Father, 10,000 hours is but the blink of an eye. God loved us before we were born and will love us after we are gone and the Bible is full of compelling stories that illustrate just how great God's love for us truly is. We are called to model our lives after God's only son. Which is an awesome task. We are called to become experts in love.

Healing Touch

Over the weekend we had a wonderful St. Mark's Women's Retreat. Our speaker was the Reverend Becca Stevens from Nashville, TN. Becca has done many things, including founding a program called Magdalene, which provides women trapped in lives of drug abuse and prostitution a way to escape and regain their lives. The women have created Thistle Farms, a cottage industry which creates bath and body works and provides jobs for Magdalene graduates. One of the many products I bought was a tub of lavender body butter. It is thick and as it melts into your skin it makes the whole room smell like lavender. As I showed it to the children and rubbed some into my hands I spoke about the power of Christ's healing touch.

When Christ called his disciples and began his public ministry, healing was a central part of his work. In Mark 1: 40-42 Jesus touches and cures a man of leprosy, in Mark 7:32-35 he lays hands on and cures a man who is deaf and mute, and in Mark 8: 22-25 he restores sight to one who was blind. Jesus travels the countryside healing those who are sick, and preaching God's kingdom. He takes the hand of a girl who has died, calling to her to get up, and she does. (Mark 5:41-42). While Jesus can heal without the gift of touch, as he healed the woman who simply touched his cloak, Mark 5:25-29, it is clear he was generous with his physicality, allowing a broken and sick world to feel the embrace of the God they had seen only previously as a plume of smoke or a pillar of fire.

And so in chapel today we reached out and touched our friends on our left and on our right. We then touched our friends who sat in front of us and behind us. Teresa of Avila told us, " Christ has no body now but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours". Our world is still broken. Many of our friends need healing. They need a hand, a hug, a reminder that their faith can make them well.

Caught

Today I told the children I brought something that was full of holes. It wasn't a barbie, or a fire truck, instead I brought a casting net. I didn't grow up in Florida and I think that the children who grow up along the coast have such an advantage when visualizing the many scenes and parables that involve fishing. When I was a child I had never seen anyone throw a casting net. I'm not sure what type of fishing I imaging the future disciples were doing, but I am sure as a Tennessee girl it involved bait, a hook and a pole.

The gospel of Luke shares a great fishing story. Jesus is already being followed by crowds, so he asks Simon (Peter) to row him a little way off shore so that he could teach the crowd. After he finishes he asks Simon to row to the deep water and lower his net for a catch. Simon objects, saying that he and his partners, James and John have fished all night and caught nothing. But he agrees, and lowers the nets, which become so full of fish they are close to breaking.

Although I loved this story as a child, I appreciate it so much more, and in so many different ways now. Fishing with a pole is often a solitary experience. A lone fisherman or woman, heading out to his or her favorite spot, reeling the fish in one by one. If an unwanted fish is caught it can be carefully removed and released. In contrast, Simon Peter and James and John were partners. They typically rowed out with two boats, casting the nets between them and hauling up everything they managed to swim into the net. Everything in the net, the good fish, the bad fish, all are brought back on board. They will be sorted later, but at first everything is kept.

At different times I'm in different places in this story. Sometimes I'm Peter, complaining that I've worked hard and yet going out again one more time. Sometimes I'm the friends, called to help with the abundance that can only be found through Christ. Most often I'm the fish, caught with so many others in a net that is cast wide.

Second Chances

This week we continued our talk about calling. God's call is often unexpected in our life. It may involve paths we didn't even realize were there. And as a close friend once told me, "if the call of God is easy, if it is to something you have always wanted, or involves money or status, you might want to listen harder". So to talk about this week's story of calling I brought a life jacket.

The Book of Jonah is only 4 chapters. You can hardly call it a book. It is more like a parable, or fable, because like those such large truths live within such a small story. Jonah was a man who was called by God to go to Nineveh and preach that the city would be destroyed if they did not repent their evil ways. And instead of accepting his call as prophet, Jonah runs away. He flees. He tries to escape God, first on a ship, and then by jumping into the ocean in a sacrifice we must assume he thinks will end his life. Jonah chooses death over God. Luckily for Jonah, God chose him. God gave him a second chance. God threw him a life jacket. A smelly, stinky life jacket in the form of a belly of a great fish, but it saved him nonetheless. Jonah was stubborn. He lived in that belly for three days and nights, before finally he surrenders and turns to God. And the fish spits him out on the land.

So the word of God comes to Jonah a second time, calling him to go to Nineveh. And this time he answers the call. He preaches of the city's destruction. He calls upon them to repent. And then...surprise, surprise...they do. From the king down the people surrender to God's will and change their ways, and ask for forgiveness. God sees their response and gives them a second chance. And at this Jonah is incensed. He throws a temper tantrum, sulking outside the city walls. He is embarrassed that what he preached did not come true. He is angry that God threw them a life jacket. He doesn't like being their whale.

The four short chapters of Jonah make us think about calling and mercy, about surrender and pride, and they don't end with an answer, but with a question. What is the nature of God?