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In the wilderness, Jesus fasted.
In the wilderness, Jesus hungered
For forty days.
Like his ancestors before him
who were in the wilderness
for forty years
hungry and thirsty
ornery and contrary
Jesus hungered.
The trees are starting to bud, and my irrational fear of a permanent winter is slowly starting to dissipate! If you missed the devotion where I describe this weird tic, you can read it here, but it’s mostly unnecessary. Amid winter, I was busy getting ready for this very moment. There is an odd piece of land between our house and my in-law’s house that was overrun with briars and other unpleasant things. When we first moved in, I made a path through the briars, and I slowly started to imagine what that land could become, and we eventually decided to plant fruit trees. Soon there will be a total of eight, but now there are just two trees in the ground, and I am beyond excited. I cannot wait to see kids climbing the trees to pick fruit, and we can make pies and the whole bit. I’ve done some research, and growing fruit trees is a bit more complicated than planting them and waiting.
Things are happening, and I am excited and nervous all at the same time! Almost exactly two years ago a distant rumor and murmur became an all-consuming reality when COVID-19 hit our community. Everything closed down, we did helpful things, like putting on masks, and sometimes we did unnecessary things, like sanitizing our groceries. We slowly got into a holding pattern, and we have been through multiple waves and variants. Now that we seem to be in a more stable and safe space, we are trying to discern when we can safely take off our masks, and how to do so without leaving our brothers and sisters behind.
We are officially in Lent and I feel this surprising sense of ease despite some glitches to the beginning of our sacred season of penitence. First of all, my voice is shot. The poor people who attended the 7:00 pm Ash Wednesday service were met with a barely audible gravelly voice. This morning we began the rhythm of praying at 9:00, noon and 5:00. I was relieved that I got to lead just in case if anything went wrong. For the first time in a while, I forgot to turn on my mic, so no one could hear me from home for about the first two minutes of the broadcast. After the service began it became clear that big parts of the service were missing from the bulletin. Where did they go? We still don’t know, but they were gone. At the end of the service, with all of its blunders, I got to show off my strongest skill. I am mediocre in most field, but when it comes to doing things poorly with confidence, I am second to none. Now that we are in the thick on Lent, the mistakes have been made and the world did not end, I can now breathe a sigh of relief and be grateful and we have arrived in the special time.
Last year we replaced the prayer books in the Church. Our Book of Common Prayer has many different services and resources within its pages, and you can tell that these had been well used on Sunday mornings. Each book had a little worn slice with discolored and missing pages around Holy Eucharist Rite II, which is what we use on Sunday mornings. They needed to be replaced for Sunday worship, but we didn’t want to throw them out. I have them hidden in nooks and crannies, so I can give them out to people who are preparing for weddings, funerals, baptisms or just need a good spiritual resource.
Last week when I was leaving the office for the weekend, I left a half-finished task on my desk expecting to get it done in the first half-hour of the workday on Monday, and now that I am once again getting ready to leave for the weekend, I am disheartened to see the task still undone. The task is neither pressing or unimportant; it simply needs to get done. Somehow throughout the week, this task kept on getting put on the back burner, because more important things popped up, or other tasks (like writing this devotion) overshadowed that lump of paper to the left of my elbow. That stack of paper is an outward and visible sign of what I have not done this week, and it is starting to drive me mad.
We’ve been having some lively conversations about the style of our metaphorical diocesan house – whether it might be a grand house, or a modest neighborhood house, or it might be the simplest cabin. Whatever its size and status, an old Virginia house probably has a front porch – whether an elaborate wraparound or a modest roof overhang. A front porch is the space between the house and the world, a place to get some fresh air, a place to string beans, a place to relax. And in most places, it was, and maybe still is, a place to connect with the neighbors. A low-key, don’t-have-to-dust-the-house, meeting place. Front porches evoke another time; a slower, more connected time.
Dear St. Luke’s,
Every Tuesday and Wednesday morning, I have chapel with the Day School students, and in chapel we put two different types of prayers on the altar. In one prayer we ask God to help one person, and we hold that person in prayer. In the other prayer we think of one thing that we are thankful for, and put that prayer on the altar to give to God. When I think of prayer I usually focus on the petitions, and ask God for help with all of the broken things in the world. This is a good and holy thing, but we should not forget that being thankful to God is prayer within itself. Guilt, confession, redemption, and petition all have their place, but thankfulness needs a prominent place in our souls as well.
Dear St. Luke’s,
I feel like I am a person with very few psychological tics. I love all types of food. I am generally adaptable to different situations. I don’t fixate on certain cleanliness routines, but I am far from a slob. However, I do have two odd things that get under my skin. The first is wooden popsicle sticks. I hate them, and the thought of biting down on one causes my teeth to hurt. Weird, right? What’s even weirder is that my mom has the same thing, so somehow, she passed it down to me. My other weird tic is that I have a fear that the leaves won’t grow back on the trees. I know that fear is irrational, but I cannot stop that thought from popping up in my mind when I look out the window every January and wish for spring.
The bishop is coming! The bishop is coming! On May 15th, Bishop Porter-Taylor will come to St. Luke’s to worship with us and to confirm anyone who feels called to make a mature and public declaration of faith and reaffirm their responsibilities in baptism. In the Diocese of Virginia, a Bishop comes every year and a half, so this is a fairly big deal, and it has the potential to be a very big deal to those who feel called to have the bishop lay hands on them.
Dear St. Luke’s,
We sprinted through the stress and joy of Christmas, got smacked in the face with the wonder of Epiphany, and I have suddenly found myself feeling humbled as we approach Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Growing up and learning about Dr. King in school, I remember thinking how wonderful it is that we were past the unambiguous hate of the past. We had somehow arrived at a point where we have “arrived”, and our task was to learn from the past and not necessarily question the present.
One year ago, was a monumental day for my family. I helped Leandra fill her car with toddler supplies and crammed our son into his car seat and we took one last picture before they left our home of four years to begin anew in Alexandria. I stayed behind and worked with the movers, and as each box was taken out over the next two days, I could feel all of the memories and stories we created in that space leave as well.
Friends,
We once again find ourselves in a situation where Churches are closing for in-person worship, and everyone is trying to find the best path forward for Church, family gatherings, and how to celebrate the New Year.
St. Luke's will remain open for this coming Sunday, and our ability to remain open largely depends on our ability to adapt to this especially virulent iteration of the COVID virus. We are making some changes to worship at St. Luke's to help us remain safe, and we are going to be strictly enforcing the policies that were already in place.
We would like to remind you to stay home if you even feel a little sick. It doesn't matter if you are scheduled to read, sing or serve at the altar, please stay home
Last week, a group of dedicated parishioners helped clean every single table that will repopulate the parish hall. To prepare for this significant project, I brought my power washer and borrowed one from the McPeeks. We scrubbed, sprayed, hauled, and dried dozens of tables and chairs for about three hours and got them to fit neatly into the closet in our newly renovated space.
While we were cleaning up, I did something stupid. I had never noticed it before, but our sidewalk was dirty, and when the power washer hit it, you could see the mark, so I wrote a couple of silly messages like, “Nick <3 Church” and…
Let’s be honest. It’s hard to get into the customary pre-Christmas frenzy. When I read that 795,000 people have died from Covid in this country alone, it’s hard to get excited about what’s under the tree. Then there are the worldwide deaths and the mess in Washington.
I will admit my playlist is retro because I have never gotten over the sixties. However, some years ago I found a singer named Ted Small. One of his songs has this line: “When gravity is getting you down, look up.” While walking around the neighborhood this week, I listened to this song, and I thought of the words in our Eucharist, “Lift up your hearts. We lift them up to the Lord.” I realized I need a reorientation.
It is Day School Sunday this week! Hopefully, we’ll get a few families to join us on Sunday morning from the Day School to celebrate our shared community together. I have loved my time at St. Luke’s since I arrived last January, and the Day School has been an exceptionally bright spot, so I thought I would walk you through a typical Wednesday morning.
Advent is here! Many Churches treat Advent like a mini-Lent where the emphasis is on penitence as we try to make our paths straight for the coming of the Lord. Don’t get me wrong, I love penitence, but I think this misses the mark a little bit for this season. Advent is about excitement and expectation of the unknown as we prepare for the incarnation of God in the world. As we read the beginning of the Gospel story, we are invited to suspend our knowledge of how the story ends. We do not yet know about the miracles, the passion, the cross, or the resurrection. This coming Sunday, we only have the voice calling out from the wilderness urging us to repent of our sins and prepare the way of the Lord. The Lord is coming, and we do not know what will happen when the Lord arrives, so we have to be prepared.
There’s a reason we call the second half of the Eucharist “The Great Thanksgiving.” We come to receive the sacraments from a position of thanks because we recognize that all of life is a gift. “All things come from Thee O Lord and of Thine own have we given Thee.” All things. The Great Thanksgiving isn’t merely a section of the liturgy; it’s a stance or a perspective we are invited to take in order to focus ourselves on God and not ourselves nor those we may wish to blame for the current condition. Joanna Macy, the co-author of Active Hope, writes, “Gratitude pulls us out of this rat race. It shifts our attention from what’s missing to what’s there.”
Leandra and I have become surprisingly competent adults since our child was born. We were ok before, but now we are cleaning, organizing, hanging pictures, and bill-paying machines! Video games and bingeing television have been limited to about an hour and a half of freedom a night, for which we feel tremendously grateful. On Monday, we will get the opportunity to return to my parent’s house, a living monument to when I was terrible at being responsible, and I cannot wait.
Kate and I had a good conversation about singing in Church last week. We were considering including the words and not printing music in the bulletin. That may or may not happen, but the conversation around it has been bouncing around my head all week.
Everyone was much better at singing at one time because if you wanted to hear music, you had to sing or play an instrument. It meant that most Church-goers, even if they were not in the choir, had some idea how to read music, and there was significantly more participation. An unexpected consequence of recorded music is that people suddenly could hear flawless music whenever they turned on the radio and became shy about making mistakes. It may explain a common sight you’ve seen in Episcopal Churches, the choir belts it, while most of the congregation is shy to lift their voice and sing to God.