A couple of weeks ago, I broke down and purchased a lovely polynesian-style fish hook, hand made by a local Hawaiian artist. It's wonderful swirls match my tattoo, and the koa wood that is mixed with cow bone to make a stunning, creative design is endemic (I think) to Hawai`i, and has a beautiful grain. I bought it to wear on liturgical occasions... occasionally.... part of the emphasis on discipleship I learned as a Methodist, and the imperative of our closing ritual at one of the summer youth mission trips I went on several years - "Mt. T.O.P." - fishers of men.
Today I woke before dawn to join my uncle, Otha on a fishing expedition to a highly top secret pond in the area of Kemper County. It's the best fishing in the new world, and quite possibly all the continents and oceans. It was fun.
We told stories, and I got a chance to ask him his favorite memories of his father and mother.
I have to admit I was surprised at myself for discover that I was surprised at the feeling of killing. I've fished before, although years ago. I certainly have no compunction about eating meat, though I attempt to buy "happy meat" when possible (free-range, etc.). Yet, when unpacking the fish from the ice chest an hour after our trip, I noticed some of the fish were still twitching - 'looking at me!' I couldn't help but feel a connection to these lives. I thanked them, because they gave up their life for my sport and table.
How often to stop to ponder the death that happens around us, deaths which sustain us, and provide life for us? I told the fish 'thank you,' and hoped that my sense of obligation to life around me will increase as I ponder the delight of this journey with my uncle.
Fortunately my calling is to be fishers of people, not.... fish.
photo copyright (C) Michael Barham, 2009.
Looking closely at the lovely orange-yellow growing on branches, I noticed this lichen webbing among the outstretched arms of the trees. I had only noticed this on the very top of Koko Crater, and then again last Friday when I reached rain-forrest height on the Kuli`ou`ou Ridge Trail.
The green is quite prolific at that height on the Ridge Trail, but the other colors are more hidden - tiny petals of pink, violet or purple, the orange of this lichen, the rust color of the lave-soil. The vibrancy of the greens makes the tiny hidden petals that much more beautiful to behold.
A close of this pin-thin lichen seemed perfect for adorning my profile pic the next couple of days.
I have always loved the quote from Shug to Miss. Celie in "The Color Purple." She says that she thinks it "really pisses God" when folks walk through a field of the color purple and don't even notice.
Perhaps it does. In today's scripture reading, we see that folks believed that if they touched even the hem of Christ's garment they would be healed. What if, even just the thin fiber of thread that frayed of Jesus' well worn traveling tunic were enough to emit the Divine's love and power? Could a tiny bit of lichen - like a tangled thread caught on a limb - couldn't an orange thread of lichen be enough to witness to the marvelous touch of the creator, when draped in the setting of cavern carved between two ridges stair-stepping to the angels' mezzanine?
Sounds like the title of a child's book? The Canoe and the Church? Some of the photos on my Facebook page have been of canoes and me canoeing.
These pictures were posted to show my pleasure in participating in a canoe team - in spite of the moments while practicing that I think to myself "Argh.... why am I doing this!!!!".
Of course, my time in and around canoes - limited though it has been - is not without reflection on the beauty of the metaphor of the Church as a ship or boat, and of Jesus' time on or near the water and our life on board.
There is something beautiful, I think I've already called it Benedictine, about the spirituality of paddling on a team. But now that The Episcopal Church is having it's grand synod in Anneheim, the General Convention is making me wonder if the metaphor of six people rowing in complete unison is perfect or flawed.
Yes, in a sense our unity, our oneness, our being one voice is beauty, and symbolizes the prayer of Christ, 'that we all may be one'.
However, what of the times when we paddle out of sync? Then we fail to be 'productive' - something over valued in my estimation. Maybe the church, like canoe teams, needs times when we can all jump out of the boat and forget about making it move faster and farther - just taking time to play around and cool off in the peaceful ocean's undulations. That reminds me of Catherine of Siena, who talks about the pacific abyss, the peaceful depths of God's love. Is it that we are on a linear trajectory as a church, a boat moving to a particular distant harbor? Or is it really that the boat is always where it needs to be when it is in the middle of God's sea, whether paddling or swimming?
Musings that come with denominational angst.
I've added a new photo as a my profile picture, a no-flash late night photo of a night blooming cereus - that wonderfully fabulous succulent-cactus that blooms only at night, on a cycle that someone told me is lunar-based. It's flower, fit for crowning Carmen Miranda, and large enough, is like a firework explosion.
Every day I pass by Punahou school - which takes on a bit more than a full block, failing to notice regularly the green cacti lining its wall. Yesterday, I saw a couple taking a photo during the day, but was on the way home from dinner and a movie with a friend when he pointed out the cereus, and its beautiful blooms - a block long spray of flowers fit for a royal parade.
Of course, everything creation sings God's praise, but this reminds me a little of the story of creation - the waiting, the ignoring, the ignorance of the fomentation occurring - until suddenly one finds the most extravagant message of love blooming our of the middle of the night, having been there all along, though we never allowed ourselves to imagine the outpouring of
such a gift, nor that it would be from a prickly cactus, or happen in the darker hours - but isn't that when the brightness of the light of Christ is most piercing, when it emerges in contrast to what we perceive as our darkest night?
Maybe we need to become like Nicodemus, and when our heart is troubling us at night, go and seek out the One who brings our heart to bloom.
Saturday, my friend BR took this photo of me just after we had finished the novice B race in the McFarlane - an annual 4th of July race down at Waikiki, a time of year when the surf is up, which makes operating a canoe a little more interesting.
Even as I was exuberant with my first race, coach reminded us that we really weren't acting like a team out on the water. Distractions, focusing on our own paddling, rather than getting in sync with the team.
Paddling very much reminds me of the Benedicting ways of praying the Psalms, and what a teacher once told me about brothers trying to pray the psalm in a way that was not only rhythmically connected with others praying, but was also in a way that allowed them to hear the voice of the person on either side of them, so that they were neither to little, nor too loud. This reminds me of the singing rules by John Wesley, in which he talks about neither lagging behind nor running ahead of other singers.
While we are individuals who do not lose our distinctiveness, the gifts unique to our personal creation, we are also called to live into more authentic communion with others; paddling reminds me of the importance of trying to become part of a group motion or a group way of life's fullness, over than an individual self - we cannot live alone. The boat only moves when we are reality paying attention to one another, timing to one another.
The empty hull of the canoe fills with six individuals, who either quickly learn to become one, or, who fight against one another and the waves for a muggy, thick trail of sweat lagging behind the tails of faster, more unified teams.
I was recently at a canoe blessing, and felt a calm and beauty there - it was a wonderful day because I began and ended my social outings by standing in a circle of blessing. In the AM, at a canoe blessing, and in the PM, at the end of our Confirmation celebration banquet.
I took a short video of my coach and some other guys from the Hui rigging one of the Koa Canoes, named Enay for one of the Hui's "saints", a former coach. Rigging is the process of tying the yaka (yoke) to the ama (outrigger/floater) and to the hull of the canoe. In all, the yoke is tied in four places. It takes a couple of folks, at least, to do this, and up to four can be helpful (two on each side). You have to hold the line in place while it is being stretched taught, and then while it is being threaded through the wholes in ama or in the canoe made for the line to thread through.
Think of the details in the process, the symetry, the beauty and elegance of the threading the cord to yoke the ama to the canoe with the yaka ("yoke"). There is much spiritual in canoes, and many metaphors that I am sure will make sermon analogies. Today, I'm thinking about the beauty of the cords, and remember the hymn I sang so often as a child, youth and young adult - "Blest be the tie that binds/our hearts in Christian love..." The fellowship is like that to that above.
In these days of divisions, and persnickityness, I'm pleased to meditate on the strength of that which unites us, and tethers us one to another.
It's been some time since I forced myself to blog, so I figure now it is about time. I've had the idea of writing a brief explanation of photos I take and place on my facebook page as my "profile picture." I'll start with the current, and update you as I change. When possible, I'll try to go back through some of the photos I have taken.
They are, in many ways, a record of being "on pilgrimage", and a practice of "holy lingering" - moments of peeking in an empty tomb.
Well, I did not take this photo - someone took it at our regional Confirmation services at St. Peter's in Honolulu. I can't recall his name, but will try to add it here soon, because he took some wonderful photos.
This was an intimate moment - each moment between me and another person, when we are sharing Eucharist, is a moment of holy intimacy; a moment of tenderness. No borders, no distinctions or differences that animate a difference. Only a holy connection between two hands touching the same chalice, drinking from the same cup. "It has become for us the cup of salvation."
For centuries, nay, millennia, we human beings keep saying that the death penalty deters crime. Funny, crime's still here after millennia of having the death penalty.
And humanity is no more humane. Perhaps we're starting to realize that, and starting to get a little bit sick of it? You go, New Mexico and New Hampshire. Set the trend.
Today, the Hawai`i senate may pick up the bill that died in committee almost a month ago, the bill that would allow for same sex unions. Praise God. Maybe we can get the to change the death penalty, to. Hope....
Something I wrote y'day:
Today in the Episcopal Church, we celebrate the lives of Charles and John Wesley:
Lord God, you inspired your servants John and Charles Wesley with burning zeal for the sanctification of souls, and endowed them with eloquence in speech and song: Kindle in your Church, we entreat you, such fervor, that those whose faith has cooled may be warmed, and those who have not known Christ may turn to him and be saved; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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A few ramblings:
The Old Testament lesson appointed for the feast of John and Charles Wesley is Isaiah 49:5-6. I was struck in reflecting on these two ministers by the last phrase, "I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth." How appropriate for those who felt that the world was their parish, and took to fields and pubs to proclaim the Good News of Christ. All who continue in the tradition of these two Gospel-proclaimers contribute to that light of Christ that continues to edge across the darkest corners of the globe. The songs continue to gladden hearts in their journey home to God. And the angst with which they (and John especially) seemed to wrestle in their soul is an example with hopefulness for those who see their spiritual lives much like Jacob in the desert, wrestling with God. Who other than Charles could have put to words better that moment of the spiritual longing-ecstasy of faith clenching sight, and dare to tell God:
In vain Thou strugglest to get free,
I never will unloose my hold;
art thou the Man that died for me?
The secret of Thy love unfold;
wrestling I will not let Thee go
till I Thy name, Thy nature know....
'Tis Love! 'tis Love! Thou diedst for me;
I hear Thy whisper in my heart:
the morning breaks, the shadows flee:
Pure UNIVERSAL LOVE Though art;
To me, to all, Thy bowels move;
Thy nature and They name is Love."
Who could meet the Wesleys and still not believe there is a God, and that God's name is Love!
If all Christians prayed like this, sang like this, proclaimed the gospel like this -- the world would be a different place; and I suspect the world is getting by as it does because there are at least a few people who are (and I'm blessed because I know some of them).
It make sense that the gospel appointed for these two ministers is from Luke (9:2-6), "They departed and went through the villages, bringing the good news and curing diseases everywhere." The charge to keep, we now have!
May their souls, and the souls of all the departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
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