Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

Her response was plaintive and clear: I think the bishop would be mad at you if the kids weren’t there, if the whole family didn’t come to dinner.

I had asked my 14-year-old if she wanted to stay home (or go out with friends) on Saturday night, while her dad and I entertained the bishop and his wife. On the next day, she would be among a fantastic group of fifteen teens to be confirmed into The Episcopal Church. I had (wrongfully) assumed she would rather hang out with friends, binge-watch Grey’s Anatomy, or Snapchat.

But she made dinner with the bishop and his wife a priority because over the past decade, they had told her time and again, through word and example, that she mattered. True, I worked with this bishop on diocesan staff, and my husband was a priest in the diocese for many years. But the bishop and his wife were intentional about valuing our whole family—children too. When they traveled to Russia on a mission trip, they bought small dolls to give to the children for Christmas. When they made their way to the Dominican Republic, they found a perfect keepsake for the children of diocesan staff members.

When they saw Madeline and our son, Griffin, they talked with them, asked them questions, and remembered things about their lives. How is your horse? What are you painting? Do you still like ice skating?

They treated our children as important members of the Body of Christ, and so when it came to dinner with these longtime friends, the children wanted to be there too.

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As the end of the year approaches I’ve been thinking about resolutions. What do I want my year to look like? Where do I want to be at the end of 2015?
I like the practice of coming up with New Years’ resolutions. Setting goals and evaluating where I am and what I can do better is a helpful exercise. These resolutions also give me the illusion of control, that I can take my life into my own hands and remake myself. It's just a matter of willpower. 
Or is it? I recently came across this quote by Wendell Berry: “Let tomorrow come tomorrow. Not by your will is the house carried through the night.” Jesus, likewise, reminds us no to “worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.” 
These are not simply exhortations, “not to worry.” They are also reminders of how little control I have over the future. Illness, economy, weather, community—all these things move us in one direction or another and are beyond our control.

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“How are you, young man?” he said to me as we were both headed into the gym locker room. We’d said hello from time to time before, and it sure is nice to be called ‘young’ these days. Technically, I am younger than he is; he’s probably in his early 80s, I guessed.

It was the middle of the day, after I had a long stretch of morning get together’s and before two evening meetings. I was taking a mental health break, so to speak; the very best kind. He was in there as he normally is at that hour, or at least he’s there whenever I’m there mid-day.

“I’m fine,” I responded, pleasantry to pleasantry. “How are you?”

“Oh, I’ll be much better an hour from now!” he said, grinning.

It is kind of funny, I thought. He’s certainly retired, certainly done with needing to keep up appearances, certainly able to sit back and coast for a long, long time. He can do whatever he wants to do, can’t he? In fact, he doesn’t need to do anything, let alone push his body and get his heart rate up for nearly sixty minutes.

But he does. He may not like it – “…I’ll be better an hour from now,” he said – but he’s doing it, still, and keeping it up. Good for him. Honestly, I’d like to be like him when I find a few more gray hairs on my already salty salt-and-pepper head, although I fear that I’ll still find plenty of excuses not to go to the gym, not to push myself, not to keep it up.

There’s something to be said for my friend at the gym, the kind of character like that tortoise in that well-known fable: he keeps going, no matter what. He may not like it all the time, he may wish he were doing other things, and no one is forcing him to be physically healthy and well. And, yet, he keeps going, keeps working, keeps doing it.

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"A funeral can be a profound expression of what we believe and what we hope. It can form or reinforce that hope where it may have grown thin. Not only does the Sunday morning context strengthen the experience of the funeral, then, but the funeral can strengthen the experience of Sunday morning as well."

Last Sunday morning, the congregation of The Advocate gathered to say goodbye to one of our own. We commended him to God’s loving hands, and committed his ashes to the ground in the churchyard. It was our primary liturgy of the day.

While baptisms take place in the context of principal liturgies more often than not, and weddings occasionally do, Sunday morning funerals are rare. There are good reasons. A funeral is usually a gathering of those who knew the deceased, who want to express condolences to the family, or to show their respect for the one who died. If the funeral is on a Sunday morning, not everyone gathered will have that intent; the liturgy may feel unwelcoming. Newcomers and visitors could feel left out of the congregation’s corporate grief. Parents might be challenged to know what to say to their children. In short, hospitality can be compromised.

A Sunday funeral could establish an unwanted precedent. Others may want their own funeral, or that of their beloved, on a Sunday morning as well. That could get out of hand fast. There could soon be more Sundays with funerals than Sundays without. We might then have to designate funeral Sundays, the way we designate certain Sundays as more appropriate for baptism. With cremation gaining traction in the society around us, it could certainly be possible. But it would be weird.

The main reason, perhaps, to avoid Sunday morning funerals, is that funerals can be a downer. For the most part, people don’t go to church on Sunday morning to see a box containing the remains of someone we knew or did not know perched before the altar. It is one thing to be reminded of Jesus’ death, quite another to have to think about our own.

All of these are reasonable objections to a Sunday morning funeral. But there are times when it is just the right thing to do.

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This past week I was in a bad mood for what seemed like a long time. Maybe it was stress. Maybe there was a relationship I needed to fix. Maybe my life was a bit overbooked and I needed to slow down. I couldn’t quite figure out what it was, so I just tried to go about my days.

Pretending like nothing was wrong didn’t help (and my wife saw right through that). It didn’t go away until I paid attention to my bad mood and explored it a bit and realized I just needed a little time alone (I’m very introverted and get grouchy when I’m around people for too long without a break) and a little more sleep. It was a minor lesson, for sure, and looking back on it, pretty obvious, but I could not learn it until I paid attention to my bad mood.

Recently I read Barbara Brown Taylor’s new book, Learning to Walk in the Dark. It’s a lovely book, exploring metaphorical and literal darkness. It rejects the “full solar spirituality” that doesn’t allow for shadow, and instead embraces a lunar faith, that waxes and wanes, that doesn’t pretend everything is always sunny.

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This is the week that Christ dies for us, which can obscure the reality that Jesus lives for us. This life is made holy by Jesus' presence. Through Christ, God has sung songs, danced at weddings, wept at a friend's grave, been put on trial, and prayed for deliverance. Through Christ, God knows the cool wetness of rivers like the Jordan and the warmth of his mother's loving embrace.

This Holy Week, through Christ, God knows what it is to be betrayed, abandoned, arrested, imprisoned, beaten, and what it is to suffer and be murdered. Christ is there with us, sharing our joys and sorrows along with us and nothing is too great for Christ's shoulders to bear, because these shoulders have already borne the Sin of the world. Christ is with us in our highs, lows, and every place in between.

I don't know where the bottom is for you. Maybe early in your life, when your father died unexpectedly. Maybe yet to come, losing a battle to cancer. Maybe a terrible divorce, a failure of nerve, or betrayal of a friend. Maybe a life of extended hardships and brokenness, never being able to make things better. I don't know where the bottom is for you, but I know this: Christ is there. In pain, in sorrow, in loss, in betrayal, and even in death: Christ is there. Even at the bottom, Christ is there redeeming the seemingly irredeemable and reconciling the seemingly irreconcilable.

In these posts, I usually tell stories about Southside Abbey. Today I share someone else's story. Time, geography, and Dean Trotter's great-niece have given me permission to share it.

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This post is also available in English.
¿Cómo ser parte de la realización del sueño de volver a las escuelas, institutos o universidades de nuestras comunidades de adultos latinos inmigrantes de ambos sexos para por fin completar o iniciar las carreras que dejaron de lado, así como adquirir conocimientos que siempre desearon explorar? ¿Cómo ayudar a encaminarles para que esta nueva aventura de aprender sea una experiencia pausada, transformadora y llena de momentos felices?
La historia de cómo María Eugenia Carranza logró graduarse de la universidad con una especialización en educación primaria es un ejemplo que nuestras comunidades con deseos de volver a las aulas de universidades comunitarias o de universidades deberían tener en cuenta. 
A la edad de 55 años, María Eugenia, como muchas otras personas de su generación, llegan a los salones de clase con experiencias de aprendizaje que van del horror de todavía sentir la vara que les lastimaba las manos o las piernas o de sentir los nudillos huesudos del/la maestro(a) en el cráneo, hasta pasar un día entero llevando en la cabeza orejas de burro y expuestos/as a las burlas de compañeros/as o, todavía peor, pasar horas en soledad repitiendo por escrito cien y más veces la palabra o la frase mal escritas y finalmente decirse “soy un fracaso, mi cabeza no sirve para el estudio”. Por no mencionar el ataque a la identidad y el dolor causado a niños y a niñas a quienes se les prohibía hablar o escribir en su lengua materna. María Eugenia cuenta que todavía siente el dolor de la vara en las piernas y que al tratar de expresarse en español, su lengua materna, temía ser castigada y que, aunque parezca extraño, por alguna razón, según ella, estaba convencida de que no sabía expresarse bien en inglés, su segundo idioma. 

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Nunca olvido ni olvidaré la invitación casi alegre a pesar del dolor y la preocupación, ese “sí, entre no más” proveniente de hombres y mujeres, de jóvenes y de personas de avanzada edad a quienes he visitado como visitante pastoral voluntaria en los pisos donde se recuperan pacientes latinos(as) con dolencias y complicaciones del corazón, y que en algunos casos, esperan con ansias la llegada y la posibilidad de un trasplante de ese órgano que ellos y ellas esperan les salve la vida. 
Mi entrada a esos cuartos siempre va acompañada de las miradas de los/las pacientes y a menudo de las de sus familiares o amigos/as. Miradas a veces tristes, a veces alegres, a veces esperanzadas, o las más preocupantes, las miradas de haber ya como abdicado a la lucha por la vida. En cualquier situación en la que se encuentren estos/as pacientes, es evidente que el poder comunicar en su lengua materna los/las lleva casi de inmediato a un espacio personal, muy suyo propio, donde sus espíritus siempre agradecidos(as) pueden compartir sin esfuerzo su fe en Dios y en el poder sanador divino que ha guiado las manos de doctores(as) y enfermeras(os) para devolverles a la vida. 

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Pastoral care is a basic expectation of clergy and probably high on the list of any given parishioner’s understanding of what they get in return for their participation. I know that church isn’t a give-and-take but our current base of support is pretty steeped in this understanding. So what happens, then, when we try to organize under a different model? Does becoming a missional church mean that we won’t have time to act as the quaint, local vicar, the one who’s at everyone’s beck and call?

If we were in a seminary classroom or, for instance, reading a blog we’d of course say that ‘missional’ and ‘pastoral’ are not exclusive concepts. This is true … in theory. In practice, they can very quickly become competing goods. Be honest: where’s the time to dream and envision when you’re running around the parish responding to crises and acting like the 21st century country parson?

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The latest theory about the chronic (and nearly universal) decline in Average Sunday Attendance is that not only are we not attracting very many new people to our churches, the people we’ve already got are coming less often. I don’t study church attendance, but the

 theory matches my experience as a parish priest.

Many of my colleagues have responded with impassioned, well-reasoned and theologically sound defenses of the importance of weekly (or at least very regular) church attendance. “Church needs you!” we are told. And it does.

But I wonder if we’re missing the diagnosis. I’m not sure that people don’t get the importance of being in church. I’m not sure that they don’t see the benefits of worship and fellowship. I suspect we are suffering from a massive, collective case of sabbath insecurity.

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I had a grieving parishioner who started coming to church regularly during a terrible year of tragedy and loss. This person would arrive, sit down in the pew, and promptly fall asleep, waking only to take communion, and then only if jostled.

Scolded by an embarrassed family member, my parishioner sighed -- guilty as charged -- and said, “I can’t sleep at night. I can’t sleep in the daytime. My mind is full of terrible things. But when I sit down in church, I fall into the most peaceful sleep. Sometimes it is the best hour of the whole week.”

Sunday is our sabbath. But do we rest when we come to church? Do we experience that peace which passes all understanding, and let our weary souls lean back on the everlasting arms? Is coming to church a time of replenishment, or just one more place where we are called to be engaged and at the ready?

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Los que hemos recibido malas noticias sobre nuestra salud sabemos lo sorprendentes, devastadores, atemorizadores y llenos de ansiedad que son esos momentos. Muchos médicos y médicas de cabecera nos piden que vayamos acompañados de seres queridos a esa cita casi fatídica que sentimos como una sentencia de muerte. Por un lado nos embarga el estupor, la pena, el temor. Interiormente nos decimos, “Dios Mío, por qué a mí, por qué en este momento si no hay nadie en mi familia que haya padecido este cáncer, si yo me cuido, hago ejercicio, vivo una vida sana”. Por el otro, el instinto de supervivencia entra en pleno vigor, y con una fuerza nueva que proviene de muy adentro de nuestro ser, comenzamos a enfocamos en el cuándo y dónde de las diferentes intervenciones para tratar de lleno la enfermedad, para curarnos y hacer realidad la esperanza de seguir viviendo. 
Si somos personas de fe, nos aferramos a esa fe en un Dios presente, que nos acompaña, que nos va a dar la fortaleza necesaria para afrontar la enfermedad y fortalecer a los seres queridos que en ese momento también pasan por lo mismo. Si podemos sobreponernos al peso emocional de todo lo que se nos informa sobre lo que implica, por ejemplo, el tratamiento de un cáncer, algunos empezamos a buscar información y pensamos en obtener segundas y terceras opiniones. Otros nos limitamos seguir las instrucciones y depositamos nuestra confianza en las intervenciones médicas. 

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Denise, my fiancé (we got engaged a little over a week ago) is out of town for a few days at a retreat. Left to my own devices, I am prone to eating too much cereal and watching too much television. Fortunately, she left me some groceries and recipes, and thanks in part to her encouragement, I’ve gotten into the habit of going to the gym.

This kind of accountability grows not out of guilt but out of love. I know that someone loves me, and if I don’t take care of myself, if I’m unhappy and unhealthy, it will hurt her. Importantly, these and other changes in my behavior are changes I wanted as well, I just needed a little help getting there.

Denise and I met in church, at St. Lydia’s, and while most relationships formed in church don’t end up in marriage, I think that the church can and often does foster strong relationships that help us to grow and change for the better. This happens, I think, by creating an atmosphere of honesty, openness, and forgiveness.

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Some weeks it’s tough to keep up spiritually and emotionally with all that swirls around us. In the last couple of days we’ve seen images of devastation coming out of Oklahoma. We continue to be pummeled with disheartening world news and violence in our communities, even as many of us are still trying to process the Boston Marathon bombings, the explosion at a fertilizer factory in West, Texas, and the collapse of a clothing factory in Bangladesh.

As people of faith, our first response is prayer. Upon hearing about the latest tragedy or disaster we get down on our knees and pray. Or at least close our eyes for a moment at the next stoplight or post a prayer on Facebook. Sometimes we pray because we know it’s what we’re “supposed” to do; sometimes we pray because we can’t thing of anything else to do; sometimes we pray because it’s part of our ongoing and life-long conversation with God; and sometimes we pray because we know it matters.

Yet it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed to the point of “prayer fatigue.” We’re bombarded on all sides by tragic news, horrific images, and interviews with the bereaved, all of which contribute to an overall feeling of helplessness. As many of us are discovering, there’s only so much capacity the human brain has to respond to grief, sadness, and traumatic events. We could become hermits and spend all our days in prayer and, still, it wouldn’t be enough. We’d just be scratching the surface of the world’s needs. As we seemingly face crisis after crisis it’s easy to feel that prayer doesn’t matter or that it doesn’t change anything.

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I make shareable photo prayer cards for my Episcopal Prayers for Sharing project on Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. This a popular prayer card from the compline service in The Book of Common Prayer:

Here’s how to make a prayer card:

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My day was not off to a good start.

I had taken my car in for a routine oil change and tune-up. Something unrelated had gone wrong in the process and now it refused to let the mechanic make it happy. It was entirely possible that I would be shopping for a new car before the week was out.

I needed to clear my head and do something positive, so I jumped in my loaner car and headed for the gym. I checked in, headed for the locker room, started to change…there were no socks in my bag. Seriously? No socks.

I’ll walk the dog instead. That will be good for both of us.

By the time I got home it had started to rain.

Now I’m really feeling sorry for myself.

And guilty.

I’m feeling guilty about every stupid little thing that’s going wrong because this particular bad day happens to be Tuesday, the morning after the Boston Marathon.

In the midst of it a wise friend said, “The relatively small problems of our lives don’t pause when there are these big tragedies going on.”

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Nunca olvido ni olvidaré la invitación casi alegre a pesar del dolor y la preocupación, ese “sí, entre no más” proveniente de hombres y mujeres, de jóvenes y de personas de edad avanzada a los que visité como visitante pastoral voluntaria en los pisos donde se recuperan pacientes latinos(as) con enfermedades y complicaciones del corazón, y que en algunos casos esperan ansiosamente la llegada y la posibilidad de un trasplante de ese órgano que podrá salvarles la vida. 
Mi entrada a esas habitaciones de hospital siempre va acompañada de las miradas de los/las pacientes y a menudo de las de sus familiares o amigos/as. Miradas a veces tristes, a veces alegres, a veces esperanzadas o, las más preocupantes, las miradas de haber ya como haberse dados por vencidos en la lucha por la vida. En todas las situaciones en las que se encuentran estos/as pacientes, es evidente que el poder comunicarse en su lengua materna los/las lleva casi de inmediato a un espacio personal, muy suyo, donde sus espíritus siempre agradecidos pueden compartir sin esfuerzo su fe en Dios y en el poder sanador divino que guió las manos de sus médicos(as) y enfermeros(as) para devolverles a la vida. 

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... in pastoral visits to single elderly Latino women (Spanish) 

There are a great number of elderly Hispanic women living alone in the United States. Many are forced to fend for themselves. In traditional Latino familial environments we tend to grow up and live in close proximity to our grandparents and other elderly family members, often living in extended households, so the reality of growing old alone is foreign to us.

In our Latino culture, as well as in many other cultures, taking care of an elderly person in the family home continues to be a common part of life. Typically a son or daughter volunteers to take care of his or her elderly parents. In part, they do it knowing that the greatest beneficiaries will be their own children. For Latinos, grandparents are ideally seen as treasure troves of knowledge and kindness.

When I enter the homes of the single elderly ladies that I visit to offer pastoral support, I regard their spaces as sacred repositories for their memories, lovingly gathered and faithfully kept. Every single corner is adorned with something that delivers visual pleasure; something that manages to keeps each woman company in her daily life.

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...En visitas pastorales a ancianas latinas que viven solas.   (English)

Sorprende mucho enterarse que en este país haya tantas ancianas latinas viviendo solas, y más aún, que valerse por sí mismas a una edad avanzada, sea su deseo y determinación propia. No entendemos claramente esa realidad en la vida de muchos ancianos y ancianas en este país porque la mayoría de nosotros crecimos junto a los abuelos o junto a familiares que vienen a envejecer a nuestros hogares. En nuestra cultura latina y en otras varias culturas, cuidar del anciano o la anciana en el hogar familiar ha sido y todavía es una de las reglas de la vida. Uno de los hijos o de las hijas se ofrece y se encarga de albergar a sus padres entrados en edad. Y, en parte, lo hacen sabiendo que los que más se benefician son los nietos, las nietas, los sobrinos o las sobrinas. Para nosotros los abuelos y las abuelas son un tesoro lleno de sabiduría y dulzura. 
Al entrar en los hogares de las ancianas que visito con el fin de ofrecerles apoyo pastoral me encuentro ante verdaderos museos del recuerdo, colectados amorosa y fielmente por la reina y señora soberana de su espacio sagrado. No hay rincón que no se muestre adornado con algo que prodigue placer visual, algo que acompañe de alguna forma el diario vivir de su dueña. 

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From Luke’s Gospel:

Jesus said: “The fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.” Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” For they no longer dared to ask him another question.

(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Luke 20:37-40 (NRSV) – December 6, 2012.)

“When those blue snowflakes start falling, that’s when those blue memories start calling,” runs a line from Elvis Presley’s Blue Christmas. While most of us are getting ready for happy family reunions during the holidays, and clergy and liturgical ministers of all sorts are preparing for one of the year’s biggest crowds, we may forget that Christmas can be a time of great sadness for many. Mental health professionals note that the Christmas season may be one when many people avoid church. Millions of Americans suffer from the “holiday blues.” I know this all too well because December 21st is the anniversary of my mother’s death.

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