The issue concluding today covered a momentous three months. An election, presidential tantrums while dozens of courts slapped down baseless accusations of fraud, a make-or-break run-off for two Senate seats in my state of Georgia, a mob attack on the Capitol with intent to stop certification of the election and calls to execute the Vice President and Congressional leaders. In these two weeks, the pandemic's post-holiday surge forced our school to go remote. Add to all this that my brother-in-law died the day following the election, and you can see why I've needed some reassurance.
I found comfort and some amusement in the pages by Mariclair Porter Carlsen, rector of a church in Pennsylvania.
Carlsen likes food.
- Rev. 19.9 reminded her of Fr. Robert Farrar Capon's spiritual memoir - cum - cookbook The Supper of the Lamb. As the "alchemy" of cooking transforms ingredients into something "magical," writes Carlsen, "the rough parts" of our lives combine in "a whole that transcends its constituent parts, all through Christ's love and the heat of struggles and mistakes."
- From gardening, she knows that "first fruits" (James 1.18) are the prettiest of the season, but the smaller, lumpier fruits at the end of the season are just as nutritious and frequently sweeter -- and she's sure God loves those of us who may feel more like that latter than the former.
- Among all the Advent readings about dire end times, she pulls out another kitchen reference from Zechariah 14.21: When Messiah comes, even the ordinary cooking pots will be sacred as the vessels on the altar.
Carlsen responds to readings from Luke 16. When Jesus says "Whoever is faithful in little is faithful in much" (16.10), Carlsen says that, just as little lies can escalate in a dangerous way, a "small instance of love can snowball into a life lived with tenderness, compassion, and grace." Noting that all the dialogue in the parable of Lazarus occurs between the rich man and Abraham, she wonders what Lazarus would have to say. She asks us to consider who we are in that story.
About James, Carlsen guesses that he probably "wasn't much fun to know," but she thanks God for people like him, "speedbumps for the rest of us who lack their discipline...with one toe in the fountain of life."
The ominous promise to separate sheep from the goats (Mt. 25.32) prompts Carlsen to observe that all of us are goats some of the time, sheep some of the time. Drawing on several other parables of Jesus, she opines that Jesus searches for the sheep in us, "searching for us like lost coins, lighting lamps, sweeping out the farthest corners, refusing to count us as lost." She adds, "We are compelled to do this same searching" in strangers we meet.
I'm eager to get the latest issue, which seems to have been delayed in the mail.
[My articles about many previous issues of FDxD, along with my articles on many other aspects of the Episcopal experience can be found in a curated list at my page Those Crazy Episcopalians]
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