For a few years, now, the quarterly Forward Day by Day has been part of my morning routine, along with giving Mia her dog chow, restocking the birds' feeder and bath, emptying the dishwasher, and making coffee. Since I've memorized the personal daily devotion service "In the Morning" (Book of Common Prayer, 117), I've been able to carry this ritual with me through the day. During the months covered by this issue, as some changes in curriculum and some anomalies in our schedule threw me off - balance, I've needed often to stop during my day to re-capture the calm of the morning ritual.
[Photo: The morning breakfast table, laid out with Bible, Forward, and Prayer Book, along with coffee in an Education for Ministry mug, on a coaster crocheted by one of our EfM fellows for Christmas. Thank you, Erica!]
The August - September - October 2018 issue was written by Episcopalians; respectively, they are Charles D. Thomas, a psychotherapist; Grace Aheron, who lives in "an intentional community" (a contemporary version of a monastery, I gather); and Pamela A. Lewis, former teacher and a lay minister at St. Thomas Church, NYC.
Theological Insights
"Images form our theology," writes Thomas, remembering his childhood image of God as a looming invisible parent, not so different from what we imagine when Job asks the Lord, "Will you not look away from me a while, while I swallow my spittle?" (Job 7.19). Thomas asks what images we have of God - mother? father? smiling? scowling? (Forward Day by Day, 8/29/2018).
"Can anything good come out of Nazareth" (John 1.46)? Thomas remembers how the late artist Prince, so provocative in his stage persona, seemed to be an unlikely vessel for blessings from God, but Prince was deeply devoted to Jesus and, I happen to know, a generous philanthropist in his hometown. Thomas writes, "to bless the world with unlikely people" is "all God ever does." (8/9)
Gratitude is a way to the Lord when everything else seems to fail. Thomas is inspired by Psalm 105.1 "Give thanks to the Lord and call upon his Name," and he quotes C. S. Lewis on blessings as a way to God when our prayers seem flat: "The warmth of a ray of sunlight can lead us back to the source of that warmth." (8/16)
Several meditations speak to our doctrine of Incarnation. That's God with skin on -- as Jesus 2000 years ago, and in our lives today. "Jesus' ministry is so tactile!" observes Aheron, as "God chooses to come into the world through a body and into a body," then "touching and eating and walking with people every day" (9/25).
It is fitting that our weekly celebration of his life is one in which we remember his body by doing something physical with our own -- kneeling to pray, standing to sing, passing the peace with embraces, eating and drinking the bread and wine with one another.
That God "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness" (Phil. 2.5 ff) causes Aheron to reflect on the revolutionary ideal of "downward mobility" in the gospels, and to what seems to her an anomaly, that "God chose to be born into the body of a man." But then she thinks "God is demonstrating to us an extremely clear example of how someone born into relative societal power -- not to mention cosmic power -- can choose downward mobility to the point of being executed as an enemy of the state" (9/14).
(Time out: C. S. Lewis, among many others, would say that being born a male wasn't God's choice, but an essential quality of God; as a 7th grade boy once declared after a poet referred to God as She, "Everyone knows that God is a boy!" I asked what I thought was a rhetorical question, "What qualities of 'male' does God have? Does God have a low voice? Does he shave?" But the boy was emphatic, and so is Lewis. The third book in his science fiction trilogy focuses attention on God's masculine identity. That idea is alien to me, and hurtful to women I know: After millennia of patriarchy, are women still to be set apart, patronized as "separate but equal" participants in creation?)
Aheron uses the idea of "privilege" in a different way, taking off from a passage when Jesus is run out of his hometown when his erstwhile neighbors take up stones to throw at him (John 10.31). The Crucifixion was no surprise to Jesus because he chooses throughout his ministry "to stand against the powers and principalities of this broken and dying world." Aheron's friend, called "courageous," responded, "I don't do these things because of bravery. I do them because I have the privilege to do so." The Old Testament reading that day tells us that Job used his privilege for good, being a judge who went out of his way to investigate cases, a "father to the poor," and a stayer of executions (Job 29.1-20).
Pamela A. Lewis draws attention to a line in Paul's audience before the Roman governor (Acts 24.14-15), "there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous." Showing that Jesus and Paul both claimed to be "fulfilling" or "furthering" law and tradition, not discarding them, Lewis writes, "the idea of a resurrection for both the righteous and sinners is as radical a proposition as any of the rest of Jesus' teachings, staking the bold claim that all are equal before God and worthy of salvation." Lewis draws the conclusion that "old and new beliefs can coexist," and the Roman governor's lenience shows that "it's better to bend than to be absolutely rigid."
Finally, there's Thomas's rueful admission that he, who had just chosen to ignore the urge to greet and make up with a former friend, now has to write a meditation on Job 6.14, "Those who withhold kindness from a friend forsake the fear of the Almighty." He cites G. K. Chesterton's idea that coincidences are spiritual puns: "I hope God is laughing at my ego."
But Aheron, feeling the same way, pushed beyond that feeling in her meditation on Psalm 82.2, "How long will you judge unjustly and show favor to the wicked?" She observes that laments like this nearly always turn to faith, trust, and "a call for spiritual persistence." These feel like "platitudes," she writes. But she remembers that they were written to be sung aloud. "What an incredible gift this act of communal singing must have been to those facing impossible questions together." She expands this to our liturgical tradition.
Psalm 69.22, Reproach has broken my heart and it cannot be healed, inspires psychotherapist Thomas to meditate on everlasting damage of harsh words. Patients recount words spoken "years and years ago" and weep. I can identify. Thomas asks us, "How will you help yourself to keep your words meaningful without being hurtful or hard?"
Psalm 116.8 I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living helps Aheron support the point that God's reign is for "this life" (italics hers). It's for now, not some future time.
Psalm 106.3 Happy are those who act with justice gives Lewis reason to write, "Vengeance may seem right and justified, but no one ever ends up happy in that scenario."
Psalm 130.4 I wait for the Lord; my soul waits for him; in his word is my hope reminds Lewis to point out, "God also waits for us -- waiting for our desire to be stirred up.... God is patient because we too are worth waiting for." (cf. Hosea).
(Time out: C. S. Lewis, among many others, would say that being born a male wasn't God's choice, but an essential quality of God; as a 7th grade boy once declared after a poet referred to God as She, "Everyone knows that God is a boy!" I asked what I thought was a rhetorical question, "What qualities of 'male' does God have? Does God have a low voice? Does he shave?" But the boy was emphatic, and so is Lewis. The third book in his science fiction trilogy focuses attention on God's masculine identity. That idea is alien to me, and hurtful to women I know: After millennia of patriarchy, are women still to be set apart, patronized as "separate but equal" participants in creation?)
Aheron uses the idea of "privilege" in a different way, taking off from a passage when Jesus is run out of his hometown when his erstwhile neighbors take up stones to throw at him (John 10.31). The Crucifixion was no surprise to Jesus because he chooses throughout his ministry "to stand against the powers and principalities of this broken and dying world." Aheron's friend, called "courageous," responded, "I don't do these things because of bravery. I do them because I have the privilege to do so." The Old Testament reading that day tells us that Job used his privilege for good, being a judge who went out of his way to investigate cases, a "father to the poor," and a stayer of executions (Job 29.1-20).
Pamela A. Lewis draws attention to a line in Paul's audience before the Roman governor (Acts 24.14-15), "there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous." Showing that Jesus and Paul both claimed to be "fulfilling" or "furthering" law and tradition, not discarding them, Lewis writes, "the idea of a resurrection for both the righteous and sinners is as radical a proposition as any of the rest of Jesus' teachings, staking the bold claim that all are equal before God and worthy of salvation." Lewis draws the conclusion that "old and new beliefs can coexist," and the Roman governor's lenience shows that "it's better to bend than to be absolutely rigid."
Finally, there's Thomas's rueful admission that he, who had just chosen to ignore the urge to greet and make up with a former friend, now has to write a meditation on Job 6.14, "Those who withhold kindness from a friend forsake the fear of the Almighty." He cites G. K. Chesterton's idea that coincidences are spiritual puns: "I hope God is laughing at my ego."
Psalms: Platitudes and Attitudes
Any Episcopalian who reads every psalm appointed for each day will read the whole book of Psalms three times in a year, or so I've heard. Add to that the fact that many of the psalms recycle the same ideas and images, and it gets pretty old for me. This year, I've made a list of A+ psalms that stand out, and C- ones that are same - old, same - old. But Aheron, feeling the same way, pushed beyond that feeling in her meditation on Psalm 82.2, "How long will you judge unjustly and show favor to the wicked?" She observes that laments like this nearly always turn to faith, trust, and "a call for spiritual persistence." These feel like "platitudes," she writes. But she remembers that they were written to be sung aloud. "What an incredible gift this act of communal singing must have been to those facing impossible questions together." She expands this to our liturgical tradition.
We are singing and praying together as a church body but also across time and space with those we love but see no longer. When I view the collective lament in this light, I see its deep authenticity and connection to those who have gone before us and will come after us.
Psalm 69.22, Reproach has broken my heart and it cannot be healed, inspires psychotherapist Thomas to meditate on everlasting damage of harsh words. Patients recount words spoken "years and years ago" and weep. I can identify. Thomas asks us, "How will you help yourself to keep your words meaningful without being hurtful or hard?"
Psalm 116.8 I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living helps Aheron support the point that God's reign is for "this life" (italics hers). It's for now, not some future time.
Psalm 106.3 Happy are those who act with justice gives Lewis reason to write, "Vengeance may seem right and justified, but no one ever ends up happy in that scenario."
Psalm 130.4 I wait for the Lord; my soul waits for him; in his word is my hope reminds Lewis to point out, "God also waits for us -- waiting for our desire to be stirred up.... God is patient because we too are worth waiting for." (cf. Hosea).
Action Items
In EfM, we often look for action items to conclude our theological reflections. Here are some that struck me most from this issue of Forward Day By Day:- Check your relationship with money: How is it now?
- Reflect on the image we now have of God.
- Remember when we were blessed by someone least likely to be a blessing.
I was touched by Job 3.20, Why is light given to one in misery, and life to the bitter in soul? I wonder this when I see some twisted faces and bodies among the patients in memory care. Some mornings, when I pray, "We praise you for Your saints who have entered into joy; may we also come to share in Your heavenly kingdom," I long for retirement -- not just from my job, but from everything. The writer Thomas challenges us with a question that day: "What is the one thing you most want from or for your life? How can you offer that to God? Do you think you will feel relief?"
Prayer
from the last page of the August-October issue,
reprinted from Prayers New and Old:
Teach me, O God, how to take the gift of a day and give it back to you, radiant in faith, spontaneous in joy, and rich in service. Amen.
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