Non-Anxious Place
The clergy of the diocese gathered this past Tuesday. 28 clergy had RSVP’d; 40 showed up. It was basically all of us together in one room. The Bishop called us together to talk about what the Church in the 21st Century in San Diego should look like and how should it act. It was the beginning of an on-going conversation. It’s also the beginning of a new time where the Bishop (any bishop) doesn’t direct what the Church should do; rather we sit and pray together and mutually discern the call of the Holy Spirit. If you are wondering what the clergy decided, that remains to be seen. There was some healing and we decided to meet at least three times a year to continue our prayerful journey. It was a very good start. Yet, something very large happened at our clergy gathering and I hope it continues to infect us. I’ll sum it up in two words: God’s peace. I had a palpable sense of God’s peace with us. It was noted from many different priests that we are living in anxious times. These times seemingly will only get more anxious. This coincides with a story on NPR that said Americans seem to be growing more “red” and more “blue.” How does the Church, and specifically the Episcopal Church in San Diego, respond to anxious times? Perhaps by becoming a non-anxious place. The word anxious doesn’t seem to have a good antonym; carefree and unconcerned are the most popular. A non-anxious church isn’t necessarily carefree or unconcerned. A non-anxious church is one that decides to be walking intentionally into God’s peace. It doesn’t mean we let things slide or are unconcerned with the problems and anxieties of our church, community, nation or world. Rather, we should do what the psalmist tells us in Psalm 46 – be still and know that I am God. In the midst of our anxious world, the non-anxious church will be intentionally “still” and “know” that God is in our hearts, our families and in our house of worship. Many tell me that when they walk into Saint John’s, they feel the presence of God in the warmth and hospitality of our members. They have a sixth sense of knowing that God is present. I enjoy seeing people sitting in the pews before or after the service, being still and knowing they are in God’s presence. I want to share with you one of my new favorite prayers about peace. You can use it in church at home. Quiet me, O Lord. Calm my mind. Still my hands. Remove any worries from my heart. I want to give you my full attention. Slow me down so that I can hear your voice and see you at work in my life today. Amen. -Fr. Marshall Saint John’s is a center for healing. Many parishioners experience accelerated recovery through prayer at Saint John’s and I have been told stories of healings that I believe are modern day miracles. And healing is not only for our parishioners. Every month I hear stories of people we pray for who receive healing and release. For whatever reason, God hears and reacts to the prayers that Saint John’s lifts up. I wish this was common place in the Episcopal Church and the catholic (which means universal) church. But unfortunately, it is not. Like people, churches have different spiritual gifts. One of ours happens to be healing and restoration through the power of the Holy Spirit.
To lead us in the deployment of our spiritual gift, we have prayer and healing teams. Daughters of the King and the Order of St. Luke pray every day. Dedicated church members pray our prayer list (page 17 of your bulletin). And, members of the Order of St. Luke pray with those who are interested after communion. One such member, Gwyn, experienced her first opportunity in this special ministry on Pentecost Sunday. We talked after the service. Although she felt called to pray with people during communion, she didn’t feel ready. I told her that feeling “called and not ready” is a common icon of ministry. It was explained to me this way – if you supply the availability, God will supply the ability. In the movie The Matrix, characters went into the Matrix (a computer generated world) to liberate those who were trapped. Because they were entering a computer program, they could learn things by means of a program downloaded into their brains. For instance, one character needed to fly a helicopter. The flight program was downloaded in ten seconds and suddenly she could fly. This is how seminary worked for me. Time and again I would learn something, like a Bible passage, and then use that passage the same day. At a VA Hospital, I was in an hour-long session on PTSD at 1 pm. The instructor told us PTSD patients often feel stuck in a particular traumatic event. He then gave us tools designed to unstick someone. At 2 pm I had a shift in the Hospice ward. I did not feel ready and felt woefully inadequate. A retired soldier told me a story about a firefight in Iraq during the Gulf War. His unit was pinned down. It was the third time he shared this story. I said, “It sounds like you were stuck.” Suddenly, a light went on inside of him and he agreed with tears and deep cleansing sobs. After he composed himself, I asked how he got out and he told me of a rather miraculous event that saved his unit. I then asked if he felt stuck in the Hospice ward. He nodded in agreement and shared that he’s now ready to take Jesus’ hand into everlasting life. The next day, at my 2 pm shift, I walked into his clean and empty room. The nurse said he had passed peacefully during the night. I smiled and said to myself, he’s free, thanks be to God. He is no longer stuck in that cancer ridden body. Through my availability, God freed him. I believe that God cares very little about our perceived ability and cares even less about how “prepared” we feel. If God did care about preparation, the human race would have died off long ago from infertility. But, God does care about availability. Are you available to serve God and be a builder of the Kingdom? If so, God will provide the ability. -Fr. Marshall Art moves me. Good art takes me out of my own here-and-now and transports me to a new place. Our facilities manager, Jon Fry, is a wood worker. When I hold one of his wood bowls I am taken out my head and focus more on what I hold in my hands. I touch the smooth surface and follow the grain lines with my eyes. For a moment, I forget about the pressures of the day and simply enjoy a work of art. The artist Monet took my breath away. I had the pleasure to gaze at one of his Water Lilies paintings from just five inches away. I saw each individual stroke of his brush and marveled at his pure artistic mastery of paint.
Art moves us. But sometimes we get moved to places we don’t want to go. At some point during Mozart’s Requiem, I am moved to an uncomfortable place. A live performance of the play A Raisin in the Sun made me squirm because of the way it shows race, culture, and the pursuit of wealth. It’s art – it is supposed to move us. Art, after all, is not all roses, water lilies and show-stopping Broadway hits. A story on National Public Radio caught my attention this week. It might seem strange to hear a story about a painting on the radio but it captured my attention. It’s about an artist who is being sued. Her name is Illma Gore. She made a painting that I find offensive, rude and in quite bad taste. Nevertheless, it moved me – in the way that I was offended and preferred that I had not seen it. The painting is of one of the candidates running for president, naked. The supporters of the candidate have threatened her life and have physically assaulted her on the street. Despite how art might make us feel, expressions are protected by our Constitution and Bill of Rights. I don’t like what she painted but that doesn’t mean her work should be stopped or that she should threatened and attacked. Distasteful art is still art. A couple of years ago, there was a protest against police brutality. Using their freedom of expression, angry citizens were marching down a crowded downtown street, all the while being protected by the police. A news reporter asked a police officer how he felt about protecting the marchers. He said they have a right to express their anger; and although he may not see eye to eye with them, his job was protecting their rights. Art and liturgy go hand in hand. (Liturgy is a fancy word for saying what we do during a church service – the hymns, prayers, readings, sermon and colors for the season) The Oxford Movement in the Church of England in the early to mid-1800’s, among other things, sought to restore beauty and holiness to the liturgy. Even in the 21st century, we are left with colorful decorations, revised liturgies, ancient hymns, processions, and lit candles on the altar as a result of the turning to art in liturgy. Some priests who supported the movement were imprisoned; others were censured or removed from their positions. There were rent-a-mob crowds who destroyed art, broke apart marble altars and interrupted liturgies. After hearing about what happened to the artist Illma Gore, I wonder if the same could happen to our churches. We don’t all have to like art the same way. Beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder. Nevertheless, I think we should all support art and even tolerate that with which we disagree or find distasteful. At our combined service this Pentecost, we are mixing language and liturgy. Although some may prefer a more modern communion prayer, or that others may prefer a more traditional form of the Prayers of the People, I know we will be one in the Spirit. And what a beautiful expression of love of God and neighbor that will be. -Fr. Marshall On my 17th birthday, a disaster unfolded in Ukraine. Reactor 4 failed which caused an explosion that killed two operators, some firefighters, and eventually many people in the town. Thirty years later, there seems to be irreversible ecological damage. I wondered then and now, where is God in all this?
Besides happening on my birthday, my life has intersected with the Chernobyl disaster. Christi and I met two children who were orphaned as a result. Their mom was from the little village in Russia where the orphanage is located. She traveled to Ukraine for work and fell in love with a firefighter. They were soon married. He was one of the brave firefighters who rushed into the reactor building to save lives. He died years later from multiple forms of aggressive cancer. She and her two young boys moved back to her home town where she eventually took her own life. This tragedy is a microcosm of that nuclear and ecological catastrophe. Like a pebble thrown into a pond, the waves from the disaster spiral outward, long after the initial event took place. Our second time traveling together in Russia, Christi and I stayed in a Russian city named Шуя (Shu-ya), built along the banks of the beautiful and slow moving Teza River. As we crossed the river and headed into the central part of the city, I couldn’t help but notice the giant nuclear reactor cooling tower off to my right. I said, “Oh, look, a nuclear plant,” to which our attaché quickly replied, “That is not nuclear, it’s a steam plant.” After a short discussion, I found out that many Russian cities have centralized “steam plants” that provide hot water for the entire town. In my home state, we had nuclear reactors but they were intentionally located far away from major population centers. … for obvious reasons. Or, perhaps, not so obvious until after Chernobyl. This past week, we watched a National Geographic show about Chernobyl thirty years later. It showed the “red forest” which is an area where most of the nuclear fallout landed. The trees turned red after the explosion. What I found surprising and scary is that the dead trees had not decomposed. There was a fallen tree which fell a year or two before the blast. It was as hard as a rock. No decomposing had occurred because the fallout had killed every single insect, organism and bacteria responsible for breaking down trees. The leaves were the same color as when they fell – three decades ago. No composting has occurred. The most surprising thing to me, however, has to do with the cooling ponds. Originally, these were typical Ukrainian ponds with typical animal life. The nuclear facility used the water for cooling. Nevertheless, today there is an abundance of fish in the ponds. Somehow, the fish have developed enzymes and other processes that have reversed genetic mutation due to radiation (aka cancer). Likewise, several bird species are also adapting quickly to living in a toxic waste dump. The hope here is that if scientists can figure out how fish and birds are able to co-exist with their nuclear mutations, they might be able to unlock that capability in humans to cure cancer. Wouldn’t it be surprising if one of the worst nuclear accidents of our time could end up yielding cures to cancer. If you’ve ever wanted to see the fingerprints of God at work around us, oddly enough Chernobyl seems like a good place to start. -Fr. Marshall |