Yr. A, Wk. 12: "The Triumph of Faith," a Tapestry

Worship and Check-in Christine led worship with an evening service from the BCP. Inspired by Y4 readings, she asked us where we might visit if we could travel in time. We imagined visiting relatives early in the last century... going back to teach a lesson to our younger selves... seeing the original cast of Stephen Sondheim's musical FOLLIES. Then there was this: "Now is good."

Discussion of the Readings In a breakout room, Yr 2 discussed the readings in Luke and Powell. Luke's emphasis on our responsibility for the poor stood out, with the idea that salvation is not just about life after death, but here and now. The style of Luke is so "smooth-flowing, like a script," and artful: Powell points out that it begins and ends at the temple, it opens with a kind of "overture" and rounds out every big action with a song. There are a lot of commands to listen and hear, which we can take to heart. Finally, Nuno observed that Luke's narrative has nothing negative to say about doctors, but he's hard on lawyers.

Christine discussed Y4 with Susan and Scott. Ford's chapter 9 is about how we know what we know, and how we know what we believe. Like Luke, Ford also tells us listen with the understanding that, just as our experiences have shaped the way we think, others' points-of-view shape how they think. Susan said that Ford, in general, is "poking holes in the idea of one objective view." Christine was inspired by Ford's idea that acquiring knowledge takes trust as well as time. We realized that Christine's occupation is "framing" things, and we discussed parallels to what theologians do.

Scott reported from the Y1 readings that he understands Yee's approach better this time. The essays are looking for positive "ways in" to Biblical texts to see what God offers there to people who are ignored or scorned by those texts. The latest essay highlighted the "radical" care for the poor in Deuteronomy, and, in Numbers, the words of the rebel Karah to Moses and Aaron, which sound very modern, Protestant, and little-d democratic: "All the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. So why do you exalt yourselves?"

Living Faithfully in Your World:
1st yr: Scott 2nd yr: Marilyn, Pete, Nuno; 3rd yr, Susan; 4th yr, Christine. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: None.

Theological Reflection [Nuno emailed us this note with attachments] So last month my family and I traveled to Asheville, NC. I had never been. We visited an American castle, the Biltmore Estate. It was impressive. They had a designated room outside the library called the tapestry room. There they displayed three huge tapestries that are from a series of seven called The Triumph of the Seven Virtues. These were seen in opposition to the seven deadly sins. These were created in Brussels in the 1520s. Few have survived. They are massive so it is hard to find a high quality image. The center panel is The Triumph of Faith. I would like this to be our focus. The full image is cropped and hard to see so I've included some detail shots also. You will recognize some of the elements. Not pictured is the banner at the top of the tapestry that in Latin says, "The holy Faith trusts in the divine Word and honors God with all the respect due Him". Somebody let me know if you can't see the images. Thank you.

We were all struck by the tapestry's grand scale, animals representing the Gospels, and the collage-like effect of melding of past and present, far and near. We noticed that there was a lot of aggression and violence around the periphery of the tapestry before our discussion focused on the still center where Faith is personified. We derived a sense that she offers wholeness, saw the huge wooden cross with its visible nail holes as a sign of what sin has wrought, and saw redemption in the way she seems to be offering us, the viewers, the church, the sacraments, and sacrifice, too. "She embraces all of it," we said. Some of us felt like we were "in" the picture only insofar as the figure is addressing us on the outside who are looking in.

As we explored the image more, we found connections to us, to our culture, and to our positions. We saw this inviting, calm figure in dialogue with some ways that "faith" appears in our culture as a kind of cocky self-confidence or a list of intellectual beliefs. Nuno helpfully pointed out that St. Helena is often depicted carrying the wood of the cross, too, and that she was the mother of Constantine, so there might be implied a theme of "the woman behind the man."

We expressed these overall insights / reactions / positions:

• in the Trinity, eucharist, and church itself, we are all "enveloped" by faith
• community is central to faith
• faith grounds you, gives you security
• faith is about trust more than assent to intellectual propositions
• it's a unifying allegory of faith and scripture for a pre-literate society

When we thought about how the memory of this image might be applied to our lives, suggestions surrounded the communal element of faith -- Trinity, Church. At the conclusion of typing up these notes, Scott made this attempt to collect all the strands in one prayer:

Collect for FaithTriune God, you embrace us through church, cross, and sacraments: may a sense of community in space and time sustain our faith at the still center of all the interweaving threads of our lives so that we may draw others in to the ever-changing tapestry that is your church. Through Father, Son, and Holy Spirit we pray. Amen.

For the Tuesday following Thanksgiving: While we pray for each other, we'll especially remember Christine's sister in chemotherapy and Nuno's father-in-law in the hospital. Marilyn will lead worship for week 13, and Susan will bring a source for theological reflection.

Liturgy for Worship Adapted from Poetry by Mary Oliver

Every week, our Education for Ministry seminar begins class with a worship service. We are encouraged to be creative, so long as our liturgy hits the same marks as ones authorized in our prayer book.

I'd been reading about Mary Oliver's collection Devotions and made the jump to creating a liturgy that would be a sort of collage of pieces from her work. I read her collection Thirst when it was new during the weekend of my first vestry retreat, and blogged about it. That post A Doorway into Thanks is a perrennial hit, read now by thousands.

A Short Worship Service Adapted from Poet Mary Oliver's Thirst (2006)

The ellipsis [...] marks my omissions from Oliver's text; two asterisks ** mark space breaks inserted for the purpose of group reading. Other spaces are Mary Oliver's own.

Opening from "Six Recognitions of the Lord" p. 26
I know a lot of fancy words.
I tear them from my heart and my tongue.
Then I pray.

Confession ibid
Lord God, mercy is in your hands, pour
me a little. And tenderness too. My
need is great. Beauty walks so freely
and with such gentleness. Impatience puts
a halter on my face and I run away over
the green fields wanting your voice, your
tenderness, but having to do with only
the sweet grasses of the fields against
my body. When I first found you I was
filled with light, now the darkness grows
and it is filled with crooked things, bitter
and weak, each one bearing my name.

A Song of Praise from "Messenger" p.1 (adapted for responsive reading - response after each asterisk)
My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird -- equal seekers of sweetness,*
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums. Here the clam deep in the speckled mud.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect?*
Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished,[...]*
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart and these body-clothes,

a mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,*
telling them all, over and over, how it is that we live forever.

Homily "The Summer Day" from The House of Light (1992)
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.**

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.**

Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Prayers from "Praying" p. 37
It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

Silence may follow. Worshipers are encouraged to speak their own petitions.

We sum up all our petitions in the words that our Lord Jesus Christ taught us, saying...
The Lord's Prayer

Collect to be selected from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer

Closing "Thirst" p. 69
Another morning and I wake with thirst
for the goodness I do not have. I walk
out to the pond and all the way God has
given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord,
I was never a quick scholar but sulked
and hunched over my books past the
hour and the bell; grant me, in your
mercy, a little more time. Love for the
earth and love for you are having such a
long conversation in my heart. Who
knows what will finally happen or
where I will be sent, yet already I have
given a great many things away, expect-
ing to be told to pack nothing, except the
prayers which, with this thirst, I am
slowly learning.

Yr. A, Wk. 11: Eyes Open

Worship and Check-in For worship, Scott adapted poetry by Mary Oliver, mostly from her collection Thirst. At Susan's suggestion, the whole piece is published here on our class blog. For Oliver, prayer is a "doorway into thanks." A major theme in her poems is how opening our eyes to God's natural creation can be a way of loving God.

Three weeks late (sorry, Pete!), we shared stories of our spiritual heroes. We used the words "hospitality" and "welcoming" in a lot of our descriptions of people who impacted us, and at least a couple of us stressed how our spiritual heroes had their spiritual influence without talking directly about religion. Susan expressed gratitude for the many who composed our prayer book and songs in our hymnal, stretching back centuries. Pete mentioned the priest who impressed him early on with a sense of purpose to life. In Nuno's early life, clergy were white men of a higher socio-economic status than their congregations, so he was impacted by his encounter with a dynamic young black preacher who didn't have those advantages.

Living Faithfully in Your World:
1st yr: Scott 2nd yr: Marilyn, Pete, Nuno; 3rd yr, Susan; 4th yr, Christine. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: None.

Discussion of the Readings We went into two breakout rooms, one for Year 2 and the other for discussion of Year 4. We came back to share what emerged from those discussions. Year 2 appreciated how Mark "humanizes" the disciples in their progression from clueless to the church pioneers they would become. God didn't choose them on their merits. The open-ended conclusion of the Gospel is striking, leaving us to be part of what happens next. Marilyn found personal resonance in Mark's passages about divorce.

Speaking about her reading in Ford, Christine loved the idea of "the company words keep" in a sentence, a chapter, a book, their time and their culture. Pete asked if it's all about practical applications of what you read; Christine answered that it had to do with layers of translation that should make a reader humble about thinking they have the only valid read on a text.

Theological Reflection

Christine shared this image by John August Swanson (1/11/38-9/23/21) for our theological reflection.

Our discussion narrowed down to our reactions to the eyes in the painting. We each identified with a different character in the image, with strong feelings for what their eyes and gestures said about them. After we had considered the world of the picture and related it to several pieces of Scripture and our own experiences, we listed these insights and applications:

• We lose our vision if the light isn’t coming into the eyes
• Eyes, insight, perspective
• Where you are changes what you see
• Pinhole camera – so much can come through that tiny opening, but only if you stand very still
• Eyes of Jesus fixed beyond the room, beyond the people, above their heads, (on eternity?)
• The way you see can change everything – not just what you see!
• Sight can be recovered.
• “My perspective can totally change my day – I need to balance my perspective – temper things” Distorted vision – like words and culture –
• Keep looking, look to God
• Seeing is not a power that we have, we depend on outside light for vision
• Internal light – my conscience; External light is public

Scott finished the collect with substantial help from St. Paul (2 Cor 4.6):

Collect for Open EyesCreator of the stars at night, your light entering our eyes can guide our paths, even in darkness, if we stand still and wait: enlarge our imaginations to see others' perspectives, and cause your light to shine within us to give the light of revelation -- the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Amen.

For Next Week We remember each other in our prayers, and let's give thanks for the great improvement in Nuno's father-in-law. Christine will bring us worship. Nuno will provide a source for our TR. We plan to take off the week of Thanksgiving.

Yr. A, Wk. 10: Barefoot on Holy Ground

Worship and Check-in For worship, Scott adapted prayers for All Soul's Day from the church in New Zealand. For a check in, Scott once again forgot to follow-up with Pete's question about spiritual heroes. We'll try again in Wk.11!

Discussion of the Readings We worked with the challenge from the RRG to reflect our readings through a single word or theme. Susan chose "family feud" as it describes the intense rivalry among Jews, Christians, and Moslems who all trace their faiths back to Abraham. Christine chose Ford's words "intensification" and "journey," as his chapter surveys the different ways that the Church has journeyed through the centuries using a range of metaphors to "intensify" our understanding of salvation. Pete chose Powell's word "invitation" because it reminds Pete that, whatever questions the Gospel of Matthew may raise about sources and historical accuracy, the book invites the reader to believe and follow. "I'm in deeper than before," Pete said, "understanding Jesus as a person." After reading the gospel all the way through, Nuno appreciated the "structure" in a new way, seeing levels of instruction that Jesus brought his disciples through.

Nuno put in a special plug for Powell's graph of features distinctive to Matthew.

Living Faithfully in Your World:
1st yr: Scott 2nd yr: Marilyn, Pete, Nuno; 3rd yr, Susan; 4th yr, Christine. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: Marilyn came late; Susan disappeared when a system update hijacked her laptop.

Theological Reflection Our TR came from the RRG, the encounter with the burning bush that draws Moses into his life's work. We focused on the moment when Moses removed his sandals to stand on holy ground. We imagined some of the sensation of warm sand between the toes. We recalled moments of intimacy in the Gospel when the woman anointed Jesus's feet and when Jesus washed his disciples' feet. We came to see the removal of shoes as a sign of receptivity. We composed this collect, polished later by Scott: Collect for Encountering the Holy Holy and omnipresent God, our Lord said to stand aside in a private place to pray, and Moses took his sandals off to stand before the burning bush: remind us as we walk our daily rounds to set our shoes aside and make ourselves present to you so that your spirit can enter and make us burn with the light of the father’s love, through the grace of your son our savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

For Next Week Christine will bring a source for the TR. Scott will do worship AND Pete's check-in question about our spiritual heroes.

We are praying for each other, remembering especially Christine's sister, Nuno's father-in-law and daughter.