Yr. C, Wk. 15: Life in Christ, part II

Christine led worship, an order for early evening, including a portion of Psalm 119. Noting the start of the new year on the Liturgical calendar, Christine asked us what new beginnings we foresee? We shared our answers during a brown bag meal. Mariel summed up a lot of our responses as "looking forward with hope, backwards with regret."

Yr. C theme: Living as Spiritually Mature Christians Class: Matt, Pete, first year; Christine, second year; Mariel, Gene, third year; Erica, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent: Gene.

We responded to the last three chapters of Gatta's book Living in Christ.

Chapter Three, "The Liturgical Round"[Photo: A representation of the liturgical calendar on display in the Sunday school wing of St. James]

• It's comforting to realize that reading and interpreting Scripture is a communal activity, with communal meaning.
• Comforting, too, is what Gatta wrote about Psalm 119 and other scriptures that bother us with bloodthirstiness or tribalism. We don't have to start with the premise that God approves of the human behaviors and expressions in Scripture; rather, God asks us to reflect on the question, "Where am I in this scripture?"
• We found appeal in the idea that we join others around our community and world when we pray.

Chapter Four, "Prayer in Solitude"
• It's a primer on prayer techniques.
• Apophatic prayer presented Pete and the rest of us with a challenge that we liked, to approach God by emptying our minds of matters, images, and preconceptions that are not God. In Gatta's words, such prayer "washes everything away."
• Lectio divina was another appealing approach.
• We were struck by Gatta's observation (illustrated by Flannery O'Connor) that prayer doesn't always take away pain, but can intensify suffering.
• Mariel was interested how Gatta dealt with the efficacy of prayer for others. "I know that prayer changes the pray-er," Mariel said, "but does it do anything for the person we pray for?" Gatta says yes; Mariel reserves judgement.
• Erica shared how she has recently re-discovered the value of the kind of improvised colloquy prayer that many of us grew up with in evangelical traditions. She loves liturgical prayer, but allows that it can grow monotonous; the other style has been a refreshing change.
• Scott was especially interested in the "examen prayer," and Erica volunteered to lead an "examen" for worship in our first meeting of the new year.

Chapter Five
• Another primer on practices for deepening faith alone, by living under "a rule," or going to a retreat.
• Erica shared her experience with six days of silent retreat. We discovered that some of us harbor monastic fantasies!
• Scott shared Fr. Daron's recommendation of Into Great Silence (2005), a nearly three-hour documentary of life in a silent monastery in the French Alps.
• Pete, Erica, and Matt shared experiences with confession, and we did a little research on praying the Rosary.
• When Matt shared an app for saying the Daily Office, several of us shared how we were already doing some form of liturgical prayer each day, or how we wanted to start.

Theological Reflection

In his absence, Gene left us copies of the image reproduced here:



Susan knew what it was, but let the rest of us puzzle it out. That was more than half the fun, as we wondered about odd details -- the disembodied hand in the upper-left, what accounted for the evident change in characters on the left when we see them again on the right, the identity of the figure in repose at the bottom, the nature of that odd "noodle" object that sprouts from that figure and frames the other scenes.

The world of this creation was "intricate," and we found joy in its mysteries. If only we had the "key," it might speak more clearly to us as it evidently did to its original audience. Finally, Susan teased out of us the realization that this represents the "branch of Jesse's tree," Emmanuel. We Googled it, identifying it as a miniature dating ca. 1200 from the Lambeth Psaltery. 

Collecting our thoughts from the whole reflection, the theme emerged of the "great cloud of witnesses" and continuity over time. Our draft of a collect was missing something that Christine had offered, the joy that we found in the artistry of the design. Susan worked on pulling all these threads together.

CollectCreator God who walked with us and shared our human experiences, who continues to inspire and nourish us: As You made Jesse the root of your incarnation in history, help us to root our selves in your Holy Word so that we may mirror your glory and love in all we make and do. Amen.

Next Meeting will be January 7: We're doubling up with readings from both week 16 and 17. Brown bag dinner. Erica will lead the "examen" prayer. Pete will be bringing us a source for a TR.

Yr. C, Wk. 14: Life in Christ, part I

 With half the class ailing and away, we prayed the Daily Office for Early Evening, ate Scott's "goulash" dinner, and discussed the first half of Gatta's Life in Christ: Practicing Christian Spirituality.[Image: Icon of the Anastasis, "Harrowing of Hades," referenced in Gatta.]

Yr. C theme: Living as Spiritually Mature Christians Class: Matt, Pete, first year; Christine, second year; Mariel, Gene, third year; Erica, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent: Christine, Mariel, Matt, Erica.

Discussion of Gatta's book, highlights:
• We were struck by Gatta's insistence that spirituality is communal: We pray "our Father" and "we confess that we have sinned."

  We might...let attendance slip because we harbor some complaints [about clergy, parishioners]. We might tell ourselves that we can meet God during a walk in the woods or sitting quietly on our back porch, and of course we can. (p.62)

  But after some initial "church-shopping," the Catechism calls it our duty to commit to attendance. Like stones in a bag, she writes, we rub each other smooth (63).
• Gene brought up Gatta's insistence that coming to church is not to "recharge our batteries." Rather, we are mandated to come "because we're part of the family: we need them, and they need us" (64).
• We all responded to the way that Gatta draws her examples from the Cultural Source as well as the Tradition Source.
• Knowing that Gatta was on the faculty when Fr. Roger was in seminary, we found many resonances between Gatta's text and messages that Fr. Roger drives home in his sermons and in his approach to liturgy.
• Gatta's emphasis on suffering struck some as negative. The illustration from Narnia of a dragon's painful shredding of skin to be restored to human form (13) was helpful. In connection to suffering, Scott read aloud Gatta's striking words, "Suffering and death are everywhere, from roadkill to mass shootings to tsunamis: We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now, and not only the creation, but we ourselves... (Rom. 8.22-23)" (30).
• Pete was struck by the idea that we are united with Christ and with each other in the "silence of God." Gatta quoted extensively from Silence by the Japanese novelist Shusako Endo (34). Gatta quotes the book to drive home the idea that baptism, in "marking us as Christ's own forever," gives us both an obligation to serve the world, but also a vision, that "Suffering serves as a kind of connective tissue for the whole human race," as even Jesus still carried his wounds in resurrection (36).
• Susan was struck by Gatta's use of time, the idea of anamnesis, translated as "remembrance" (51). It means that the past and future are "present" in the here and now. Gatta applied that to the sacraments of baptism, of passover / feast of unleavened bread (50), and eucharist. Even the corporate reading of scripture is a way to make the past present (67).
• Scott imagined giving a sermon to his students, based on the chapter "Reliving Christ's Death and Resurrection." He would say, "Do some Christians see belief in Jesus as a way to ward off suffering? Baptism, communion, and trinity teach us the belief in Jesus is a way to dignify the suffering that connects all of us." (Scott was later reminded of a similar idea expressed by Christian Wiman, poet and essayist who suffers excruciating bone-breaking cancer. See Scott's blogpost Beyond Belief in My Bright Abyss.)

Next Week: Brown bag dinner; Christine leads worship. We will be presenting Gene's TR in his absence. We are all reading Gatta, p. 86-end.

Yr. C, Wk. 13: Hidden God in a Messy World

For worship in this penitent season of Advent, Erica led us through the Great Litany. As we consumed our brown bag meals, she asked us to share what had made us grateful that day. We were variously grateful to leave work for EfM; to be home after a week of long-distance driving; to find the right response just in time for a neighbor's dog in need, for a parent, for the kids.

Yr. C theme: Living as Spiritually Mature Christians Class: Matt, Pete, first year; Christine, second year; Mariel, Gene, third year; Erica, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent: Pete, Mariel.

Everyone offered what amazed / bothered / confused / delighted them in their readings for the week. (Mariel, absent, participated by email.)

When we'd covered the board with specifics, we discerned a few overarching themes:
• Between Judges and Saints, we saw "superheroes" of faith.
• We saw an evolution in the way we perceived God -- or, in the way God reached us -- throughout the development of a kingdom called Israel, through the developments of the early church in Acts, on into the reshuffling and institutionalization of the church in its first 1000 years.
• We all responded strongly to an excerpt from Erica's reading that delighted her, that recast the sense of God's "absence" as "God's divine hiddenness." The idea that God is hidden while we are free to find our own ways related to all the failures and false starts we'd seen in our respective chronicles.

Theological Reflection
Scott turned to the RRG's instructions for theological reflection that begins with a "provocative" word (279), but, not wishing to provoke anyone, he offered what he called an "evocative" word, clean.

The word did evoke a wide variety of responses. Many of our associations with the word involved anxiety, even resentment over demands from childhood on, to be clean, to be neat, to clean up. Christine opened another angle on the word, associating the word with beauty and freshness. We all added names to a list of old-school commercial cleaning products. We saw moral judgement in the word, as in "clean living," a phrase that formerly connoted abstinence from immorality, that now connotes abstinence from unhealthy substances. We noted that a certain kind of grunginess is now looked upon as "authenticity." We cited religious / ritual cleanliness in our own Church and in traditions of other religions.


Energy seemed to rise most when we noted how the concept of being "clean" has been used for millennia to distinguish any dominant "us" from "them" -- people of another gender, class, nation, race, or faith, said to be unclean or, more recently, to carry diseases. We noticed an inconsistency all along, that those who have been disdained as unclean often are the ones who do the cleaning. Mark "them" as unclean, and they go from being different to being abhorrent - no sympathy or common civility required.

 References from our tradition included white robes "washed in the blood"; ritual cleansing by altar guild and priests; the stories of the much-abhorred lepers whom Jesus touched and St. Francis kissed; and Peter's dream in Acts that ended with the voice commanding him to eat, because "what God has declared clean, let no man declare unclean." At this point, Erica reminded us of a TR from last year that found spirituality in the messiness of conception, birth, and aging. "Thou didst not abhor the virgin's womb," we say in the Te Deum: God got down into our dirt when he was delivered through his mother's labor and laid in a manger.

We shared some insights: Once we've ensured health, safety, and efficiency, any further pursuit of "cleanliness" is idolatry. Someone came up with a succinct summary, "Cleanliness is not a destination."

Collect Suggested by "Clean" Loving Creator, for our sake you came down from heaven to experience the messiness and pain of this world, touching and healing lepers and the woman of the unclean spirit: open our eyes to see the dignity of all your creatures, that we may not shrink from what you have made clean. In Jesus' name. Amen.

I couldn't come up with the right search terms to find Erica's TR from last year, but I did run across another time that we dealt with some of these same themes:

For a TR, Gene brought us a poem that Jimmy Carter made from his mother's letter home from her stint with the Peace Corps in India: "Miss Lillian Sees Leprosy for the First Time." We focused on one line, "I faced her treatment every week with dread / and loathing -- for the chore, not the child."

Discussing times in our lives when we "steeled" ourselves to do a loathsome duty, we settled easily on the metaphor of putting on armor. (see post in 11/2018)

Next Week: Scott brings dinner; Christine leads worship; Gene offers a source for a TR. We are all reading Gatta, from the introduction through p. 86.

Yr. C, Wk. 12: Perspectives and Practice

Matt brought us the Celtic Evening Prayer from the Northumbria New Monastic Community. We took turns reading seven different "Expression of Faith" in the Celtic Liturgy. When we finished the liturgy, Matt asked us to "come on board" by explaining which of the expressions of faith spoke to us most directly this week.

Yr. C theme: Living as Spiritually Mature Christians Class: Matt, Pete, first year; Christine, second year; Mariel, Gene, third year; Erica, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent: Gene, Christine.

Responding to Matt's question, Erica chose two verses that related to a conversation she'd had in the park that day:

Lord, You have always given bread for the coming day; and though I am poor, today I believe.
Lord, You have always lightened this darkness of mine; and though the night is here, today I believe.

Mariel and Matt both chose this verse:

Lord, you have always given peace for the coming day; and though of anxious heart, today I believe.

Scott responded to

Lord, You have always kept me safe in trials; and now, tried as I am, today I believe.

Susan chose

Lord, You have always marked the road for the coming day; and though it may be hidden, today I believe.

Sharing of reactions to the week's readings began with Yee's book, first chapter, reexamining Torah from the perspective of women and others who are kept mostly off-stage in the narrative. Pete was taken aback. "I thought stories were just stories," he said, but he appreciated how stories provide a common identity, and how a story retold can help to manage change within a community. We thought of ways that the USA has reimagined its own history, HAMILTON being a prime example: the facts of Hamilton's life haven't changed in the telling, but the emphasis and presentation reflects changes in our national identity. Matt told how the author of the essay on Torah, Carolyn J. Sharp, opened his eyes to aspects of the Garden of Eden story. Pete read to us three principles guiding the approach of the writers in Yee's book: to honor all subjects, to interrogate relationships of power, and to imagine reform.

Mariel's reading in MacCulloch also touched on gender in a chapter that traced the rise of monasticism in Christianity's first half-millennium. She wished MacCulloch had brought in other voices to challenge the assumption arising at that time that celibacy was a "higher calling" than marriage. "Be fruitful and multiply" and how Jesus skewered the Sadducees' story of one bride for seven brothers both stand in opposition to Paul's admonition against marrying, Mariel said. Much discussion followed of gender and an indifference of boys to stories and movies with females in positions of power (e.g., Matt's talk with teen boys outraged by the recent Captain Marvel film).

Erica distilled her week's reading to the difference between knowing God and knowing about God. Reading about a person isn't the same as knowing them in relationship; reading about God isn't the same as the practice or habits of worship, communion, and daily prayer. This idea of "practice" informed our Theological Reflection.


Theological Reflection
Mariel brought us a portion of Hail Caesar, the Cohn brothers' film about a Hollywood studio in the 1950s. In the scene, a studio executive invites clergymen of different traditions -- Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish -- to review the script of the studio's upcoming Biblical epic for assurance that the film "will not offend any reasonable American, regardless of faith or creed." The executive assumes that "reasonable" people can set aside very different views of the world to reach consensus. Hilarity ensues, because the executive's assumption is so wrong. The only thing they all agree on is that the lead actor is a big star.

We found this same situation throughout Scripture and the history of the church, right up to current conversations within the Episcopal Church about revisions to the prayer book. We listed the Council of Nicea, Jesus and his fractious apostles (Peter, John, James), Pilate and Jesus, Jesus and the Sadducees, and the Samaritan woman at the well.  The best example may have been Paul and the Thessalonians, to whom he said yes, you're right about being free to eat meat sacrificed to idols, but, no, don't do it if it'll upset the people who believe otherwise.

When we asked what can bring redemption or reconciliation where people disagree over reason and faith, "practice" was the way -- completing the three-legged stool that Episcopalians talk about when they explain their church's reliance on Reason, Scripture, and Tradition. We made notes for a collect, here filled out by Scott:

Collect Loving and all-knowing Father in Heaven, you see your children at odds over what's reasonable and precious: we invoke the Holy Spirit to strengthen us in practice of worship, communion, and prayer, through which alone we may find peace and comity in relationship with you. Amen.

Next Week: We skip the week of Thanksgiving, and return Dec. 2. Brown bag. Erica leads worship, and Scott brings something for a TR.

Yr. C, Wk. 11: Layers and Facades

Christine emailed us the liturgy for evening prayer when she couldn't attend, and Erica officiated. Matt's wife Hayden prepared for us chili with apples, a novel combination that we enjoyed with cornbread, and, for break, fall cookies. We came on board with reflections on the week past, including an anecdote about giving generously to someone asking for money at a gas station. This story of a stranger in need came up later, during our TR.

Yr. C theme: Living as Spiritually Mature Christians Class: Matt, Pete, first year; Christine, second year; Mariel, Gene, third year; Erica, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent: Pete, Christine.

To get started on the readings, Scott read aloud Christine's reflection on "layers" of meaning and sentiment in John that allowed anyone, at any level of understanding, to get inside the story. Others stepped in:

• In Year 3, "layers" of history as the rising Islamic caliphate vied with Christians and Jews for hearts, minds, and territory in their world. They influenced each other. For example, the eastern church, blocked by Islam to the west, spread east.
• Erica loved a portion of Year 4's book that spoke of a "superabundance" of meaning that accrues to ancient texts through the centuries, until they mean more than they did at the start.
• For Matt, Deuteronomy "breathed," also gaining meaning with successive generations.

Mariel shared with us a photo from MacDermott's book of a cathedral of the Coptic Christians carved in one piece of "living stone," i.e., stone remaining where it was formed. 

[Photo: St. George Cathedral in Ethiopia, carved in "living stone"]

Theological Reflection
Erica brought us "Not Waving but Drowning" by English poet Stevie Smith. We explored the image of a swimmer far from shore, drowning in plain view but assumed to be just playing around when he waved for help. We decided to look at it, not from the point of view of onlookers, but from the drowning man's perspective. The image brought forth some powerful memories in our lives. We had trouble finding any way to redeem the situation as presented in the poem, until we agreed that the poem itself was a redemption of the incident. Our collect arose straight from notes under our columns for redemption, tradition, culture, and insights.

Collect for Those in Need Lord and Savior: when Peter, losing heart, sank beneath the waves, you reached out to pull him up: give us our eyes to see past others' brave facades when they need a hand, and let us not project facades to hide our own neediness. Amen.

Next Week: Brown bag. Matt leads worship, and Mariel brings something for a TR.

Yr. C, Wk. 10: Law, Community, and Salvation

Before our brown bag dinner, Pete dimmed the lights and lit a candle for a worship service that played off of the disruption of Daylight Savings Time, one aspect of the change of seasons. The question for us was, "What do you do during times of change? Do you tend to 'stay the course', or do you try to make a 'bold move?'" Some of us tend to love change, while others do stick to routine. Some of us are reluctant to make bold decisions in private, but willing to do so in work; some go the other way.

Yr. C theme: Living as Spiritually Mature Christians Class: Matt, Pete, first year; Christine, second year; Mariel, Gene, third year; Erica, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent: None.

First year set a theme for discussion with Pete's admission that Leviticus and Numbers seemed dry and repetitious. He wondered how any of these ancient laws are still relevant. We discussed how these books were assembled from case law over time, speaking to the many ways we manage to conflict with each other.

Susan suggested we look beyond the specifics to the values that the laws enforced. One important value behind many laws is identity. We shared examples of laws, such as dietary restrictions or dress codes, that help a group to define their identity. Mariel jumped in with thoughts from the third year book, as the history of the church in a time of councils was about church entities defining their identities.

[Scott's note: By coincidence, Saturday's selection in Forward Day by Day deals with Ezra, a book about maintaining Jewish identity through strict adherence to laws and practices. The same idea comes up in Gatta's pages about what we renounce in our Baptismal covenenant. I reflected on both sources in my own blogpost Episcopal Exiles at Home]

Erica's fourth year reading made her think just what she means by "salvation." She found provocative Ford's statement that salvation always has a communal dimension, and we discussed that. She found Ford's emphasis on "health" uninspiring, though the connection of our word "health" to "wholeness" made more sense. Christine related the talk of salvation to "liberation" in Luke, who, she said, "softened" some of the aspects of Jesus that are a bit edgy or harsh in other gospels.


Theological Reflection
Gene had us read Daniel 3.1-18, the story of the three young men who stand up to king Nebuchadnezzar. Verse 18 stops where they say they expect God to save them, but, even if He doesn't, they will gladly die rather than bow down to the idol. Our exploration of the story came to focus on the surprising extent to which the king seems to respect these three young men, and the effect that their faith has on him. Themes from earlier in the evening came up again, as we saw that this king ruled by whim, not by law; and the three men, expecting no reward or afterlife, put their lives on the line for the salvation of their Jewish community. Erica led us in composing the collect.

Collect O Just and Gracious Lord, who inspired Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to stand firm for their community and faith: Help us to look to the law you have written on our hearts so that we too can stand for justice and against oppression. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

After we concluded the collect, Gene shared a portion from King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail distinguishing just laws from unjust laws.

By email the following day, Erica shared with the group how Psalm 72, appointed for the day, fit so well with our TR, being a prayer for guidance and support for the King: "May he judge your people with righteousness."

Next Week: Matt brings dinner, Christine leads worship, and Erica brings something for a TR.

Yr. C, Wk. 9: A Jealous God

In the dimly lit centering prayer room, Scott led a service for All Hallow's Eve from the Prayer Book's supplement for Occasional Worship.  We took roles in a dramatic reading of the story of the witch of Endor.

Where the service calls for a homily,  we revisited a  TR on  "Halloween" (see November 1, 2017) which focused on  community and stranger. The question for dinner tonight was, "What experience have you had with a stranger in the past few weeks?" Answers involved a kind homeless man, an unfamiliar colleague's mistake, and helping strangers with directions and group photos.

Yr. C theme: Living as Spiritually Mature Christians Class: Matt, Pete, first year; Christine, second year; Mariel, Gene, third year; Erica, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent: Gene, Christine.

Pete had cooked up a tasty Low Country Boil We ate helping after helping before we settled down to the reading.


Pete began our discussion, struck by the phrase from Exodus, "a jealous God." We found in it God's fierce protectiveness, and also God's steadfastness when, so often, the Hebrews kicked back, as Mariel said, "like children who want to do things themselves." This theme returned during our theological reflection.

From there, we saw a "tug of war" in scripture and in the church's early development between the impulse to build up places of worship and hierarchies of authority, and the conviction that true faith relies on God alone.

Theological Reflection
Exploring Susan's anecdote about an apparent theft, we developed the metaphor of a person finding their home's front door open. Feelings of insecurity and disruption brought to mind the Hebrews in the wilderness, and also the gospel story of the apostle Thomas. Naturally, we found analogs as well in Star Trek, Star Wars, The Hobbit, and the classic John Wayne film The Searchers.

Collect in Time of Disruption Lord God, you jealously guarded your chosen people in the wilderness even as they craved the comforts of Egypt and the security of gods they could handle: stay with us when, numbed by routine, we balk at the risks of your call to be a light to the people around us. Amen.

Next Week: Brown bag dinner. Pete leads worship. Gene brings something for a TR.