In Transition

This blog is under total demolition/reconstruction. Meanwhile I recommend Shabby French Cottage as a fun website.

Easter in Greece

Having celebrated Easter, I now find myself still in the Orthodox Lenten season in Greece. Yesterday, we went to Meteora where there have been monasteries on high nearly inaccessible mountaintops for almost a thousand years. The monks established them there to be between heaven and earth. On top of the 60 million year old rocks are beatiful churches painted with icons many centuries old. The accumulated prayers of the faithful surround you, the faint smell of beeswax candles and incense fill the air, and the beauty of the art made for God touches your heart. Next week is Holy Week so many make a pilgrimage to these monasteries in preparation. We climbed up there, also and were blessed with a once in a lifetime view of the world.

The Season of Easter, April 1, 2008

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! We are celebrating the season of resurrection and new life. I have preached about the appearance of Jesus to Thomas and this Sunday will preach about the appearance of Jesus to the disciples on the road to Emmaus. I remember being a chaplain at a large regional hospital. I was on twenty-four hour on-call and all one night I was dealing with death - one death right after another. When I walked out in the morning, the sun was shining and the birds were singing. It is my clearest sense of resurrection. The effect of encountering life when you have been totally engrossed in death, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, is absolutely stunning. I was able to visit my friend Evelyn on Palm Sunday. Evelyn was dying of cancer, but she was fully living her remaining days on earth. She celebrated her birthdayGood Friday, had the official party on Holy Saturday, Easter on Sunday, her wedding anniversary on Monday, and quietly went to be with her Lord on Thursday. Her funeral was yesterday. When I saw her, she literally got out of bed and danced around the room. She appreciated every moment of this life and yet was joyfully anticipating the life to come. May we all dance because the kingdom is now and our Lord is risen from the dead. May we all continue dancing until we reach the kingdom on the other side, and resurrection is unto the ages of ages.

Fifth Sunday in Lent

I am spending this week at the beach with my grown children. I spent the previous week with my girlfriend Diane from California, showing her some of the best of the Southeast from the mountains of Asheville to the coast of Charleston. I am tired from traveling and not being at home. Yet I see in these last two weeks one of the small calls that God places in lives. Not a call to vocation, but a call to serve nonetheless. I have sacrificed personal creative time to give my time in the service of those near and dear to me. I have been about the business of creating respites for others apart from the demands of their daily lives. As you listen to your life speak, don't forget to listen to the small calls, the little temporary calls of daily living.

Fourth Sunday in Lent

We are midway through Lent and the reading of "Let Your Life Speak." Parker Palmer says "Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you." What is your life saying about what it intends to do with you for the rest of the Lenten journey? What is your life telling you about your spiritual journey thus far? Look at the questions at the bottom of the blog under Spiritual Living Book Club and spend some time in prayer and reflection this week.

Third Sunday in Lent

I have been pondering the discussions from our reading of chapters one and two in Let Your Life Speak. In sharing the impact of things our parents told us we could never do, there were financial constraints on education or the need for immediate emloyment, limited ideas of vocation related to prevailing worldviews as well as gender, and the more rare 'you can do anything.' I was struck that although the effect of parental injunctions was often lifelong, the desires never left and people often waited until midlife or even after retirement to fulfill their early callings. Sometimes we place our own constraints by not believing in our abilities and our giftedness or plunging into vocation without a clear understanding of whether our original God-given gifting is a fit. Parker Palmer himself had several false starts and wrong turns, yet they were all part of the spiritual journey in which we are guided and companioned by God. Who and what has been most significant in setting the course of your vocational journey? How has the horizon you painted for yourself altered when you were lead by divine grace? Let's try for some postings this week so we can share in other viewpoints on the questions at the bottom of the blog. And how are you doing with your Lenten practices?

Second Sunday in Lent

I spent the first week of Lent painting an icon of the crucifixion of Jesus. The workshop was at Kanuga, an Episcopal conference center in Hendersonville, NC. The beautiful buffets they serve have endless varieties of delicious foods. It was a difficult place to maintain a fast. I was reminded of the story in Mark 2:18-19 and Luke 5:33-34. The Pharisees and scribes ask Jesus why their disciples and the disciples of John fast often, but Jesus' disciples eat and drink. Jesus replied, "Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?" In some ways, that week spent in prayer as we painted and contemplated Jesus was an occasion of being with the bridegroom. Yet, I felt that I had failed in my planned discipline. I think that it is difficult to maintain a discipline of fasting in a world focused on feasting - an all-you-can-eat, supersize-it world of plenty. And that is the point. We are called to observe a holy Lent, turning away from the ways of the world and back to God. To practice prayer, and fasting, and self-denial. God will forgive my momentary lapse, but God does desire that I turn away from my self-indulgent appetites and ways. As my paintbrush gently gave form to the body of Christ held on the cross by his great love for us, I vowed to renew my disciplines during the second week of Lent.