Ashes to go

"I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word."

The season of Lent is oddly satisfying. I like hymns in minor keys. I am relieved to simplify, to examine unnecessary habits, and start the hard work of decluttering my soul from all that has hit at it hard this year. I love leading the quiet liturgy at noon, and have been surprised by the tremendous calm that comes over the congregation during the service.

Later in the day, I sat with someone. I had the great privilege of listening as he examined his life. We talked about how sobering this day is, but how hopeful it also feels. There was a richness in this conversation that was pure grace.

I've been intrigued by a recently popular practice of going out to public places to impose ashes. A few colleagues have done this, and I may be doing it next year, too. Standing at a train depot with ashes is counter-cultural, in that it wouldn't be terribly popular to remind folks of their mortality. And I wonder how it could come close to the power of the Spirit at work as fiercely it was in the private conversation I had today, made possible by quiet space and a dimly lit sanctuary. There's only one way to find out. So I hope that, next Ash Wednesday, my deacon friend and I will do just that.

Not the usual lunch conversation

One more reason to love Iowa City: as a parishioner (M.) and I were finishing good conversation and lunch at a coffee shop, another parishioner (J.) waved and approached our table. M said to J, "What are you up to today?"

The reply? "I just finished reading Augustine's Confessions for the fourth time." Yes, J does teach in the Department of Religion, but still, his reply to M's breezy question utterly delighted me. And this brief exchange reminded me that in the midst of an intense week with people, someone usually comes along to say the unexpected thing, or lighten the tone of the day. I love Iowa City.

Grace-bearing hand

The morning started out all wrong. My drive to church takes an hour, which I use as morning prayer and psalm-singing time. It's important to me as celebrant at the Eucharist to arrive as centered as possible, given the unpredictable nature of travel. This winter, I've taken to counting the cars I see on the highway as I make my way to church. Last week, there were 4. Yesterday, there were 7. The number unsettles me. A lone driver experiencing car trouble could wait there for a long time.

Once inside the church building, more unpredictability awaits. The scheduled reader cannot come in. His replacement is there; that's good, but he looks scared, because he's not done this before. We work it all out. But, without my knowing it, another robed person fixes this problem another way. (That's fine, except that there's no time to communicate the change.) And, I should know better, by now, how to stay nonreactive when I must chase down the chasuble and body mic from the previous celebrant with 2 minutes left till the service starts. But he was nowhere to be found, and my centeredness was fading.

So it was that I processed in without the extra hymnal needed. As I stood, humming along while others sang words, a small child walked right up front to face me, handing me the hymnal -- already turned to the right page. She is dear in many more ways than I would share in a public space such as this, but she has hands that do not look like everyone else's, and already has endured surgeries at her young age.

In that hand she bore the hymnal, offering to me not only words and music, but more than enough grace to sustain me through the long morning. I called to mind that outstretched hand later, before responding to two people at odds with one another. When the day began, I didn't know that a hand so small would bear such a generous helping of grace.

Ring in the thousand years of peace

In the hope of peace and good will in the New Year, here's a poem from one of the masters:

In Memoriam, [Ring out, wild bells]
by Lord Alfred Tennyson

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Diving grace

One of my colleagues from the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music Task Groups posted about a typo in a document to be released in a few months: instead of "divine grace," the words "diving grace" ended up on the page. She posed a question about how we have experienced "diving grace" in our lives.

As a child, I was drawn to water and to swimming, but was afraid of the high diving board at the local swimming pool. I remember being ten years old, terrified to take the first dive. I'd mastered the lower board, and now my swimming teacher, classmates, and my dad were pressuring me. I think that there was a bribe involved, some trivial material thing that I'd wanted. The bribe proved to me how utterly misunderstood I felt; this hesitation and fear were bigger than a fleeting reward.

I remember thinking that just diving would be so much easier than standing at the end of the board, watching the formation of clouds pass by, studying the wavy tree branches across the street, feeling colder and colder until even wrapping my arms around my body did not help one bit.

Just as it's quicker and easier to jump into a pool whose water is too cold than lower yourself an inch at a time till you're waist-deep and shivering, it would have been easier to extend my arms, tuck my head, and dive from that high board. But instead I backed up, started down the ladder, and was nearly at the bottom where I'd see all those disappointed faces when I looked straight up at the sky, back to the blue of the pool floor. Not comprehending why, I knew that I wanted to be right inside the blue colors and the lapping sounds of the others in that pool. I didn't care if I got water up my nose or whether I landed on my belly, because all of it was an invitation to something I couldn't miss.

Holding out our arms to God's grace is like taking that dive. We can go slowly, slipping one leg in at a time, or we can look right into that water and just go for it. The water will be there when we land. God's grace will be there when we extend our arms. We don't need to be good enough, deserving enough, skilled enough, or smart enough to complete the perfect dive, nor to receive grace. It's simply there. How we embrace it, how much we desire it, and how we finally take that joyful jump that scares us out of our wits is up to us.

Serving a hidden flame

"Saints, like revolutionaries, walk headlong into the cool, dry wind, are always serving a hidden flame, are terrifying because of what they do not need."
--from Stephen Dunn's poem, "Saints."

Terrifying because of what they do not need! Our culture not only suggests, but insists that we need so many things, many more than we ever knew. What did the saints know that we refuse to listen to?

Jane Austen meets Julian of Norwich

Last evening after dinner, J and I each took up the Jane Austen novels we're reading (Emma and Persuasion, respectively). It's more fun to read these novels if you're Anglican, I'd think, as Austen's writings mention Michaelmas often!

I found these lines, from Captain Wentworth: "'Here is a nut,' said he, catching one down from an upper bough. 'To exemplify, -- a beautiful glossy nut, which, blessed with original strength, has outlived all the storms of autumn. Not a puncture, not a weak spot any where. -- This nut,' he continued, with playful solemnity, -- 'while so many of its brethren have fallen and been trodden under foot, is still in possession of all the happiness that a hazel-nut can be supposed capable of.'" -- Austen, Persuasion

Meanwhile, I tried to recall these lines from Dame Julian: "And in this he showed me something small, no bigger than a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed to me, and it was as round as a ball. I looked at it with the eye of my understanding and thought: What can this be? I was amazed that it could last, for I thought that because of its littleness, it would suddenly have fallen into nothing. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and always will, because God loves it; and thus everything has being through the love of God." --Julian of Norwich, Showings

And all manner of things shall be well.