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 couch 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.
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.
+ + +
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.
The issue of civil unions is considered before the Hawai`i senate this week. I am reminded of the image Jesus gave to us: new and old wine, and new and old wine skins.
Something is happening in society - a new consciousness (these moments of awakening are painful for some, exiting for others, and always potentially transformative if we do not recess into our past).
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans people are not new to the world, even if growing awareness of their presence among hetero-society is. And we must, absolutely must, call upon our government to create the new civil wine skins that can contain the fermentation of news ways in which the legal and financial arrangements of heterosexual marriage can be extended to relationships that have, do and will continue to exist. We need the structures in which these relationships can ground themselves in finding a healthy moral framework, receive the same protections and support, and have the sam accountability as hetero relationships. This can help make a healthier society, and help support stronger families.
Marriage is like wine. In each generation, there are subtle (and sometimes dramatic) differences. Marriage is not today what it was twenty years ago, two hundred years ago. Even today, across cultures, there are minute and extreme differences. But hopefully, we are getting better. If we let LGBT relationships mature, and teach our society, we will find that the next movement will be forward towards a better society, a stronger society, a more just society.
Subtle, and at times dramatic, changes have been made in both civil and religious language to acknowledge those new understandings. The wineskins are built around existing and changing institutions to allow for their newness, without abolishing the good that comes from the old. Civil union is a new wine skin that can allow LGBT people to have relationships held within a framework that sets boundaries in legal, economic and civil terms, while also creating space for the tumult of fermentation. Of course, we need churches to provide the moral foundation and theological vigor, but that's another blog post.
Like wine interacting and effected by the tannins in the wood of oak casks (new or treated casks are required for each harvest!), these relationships need both the support and boundaries afforded by civil unions in order to become stronger, and tastier. We need statesmen/women who are willing to acknowledge that they represent not only barking voices, but the "best interests" of all the people they are elected to serve - to strive for a more perfect union, and more just society.
Creating a new civil wine skin, far from undermining society, will actually serve to strengthen it, while bridging the good of the old to the new that will come for the generations ahead. LGBT unions will continue to become not only more palatable, but overtly healthful for society, as they are provided opportunities for making their own unique contributions to the strengthening of society. And of course, this is happening, and will continue to happen, in-spite of the dying wind of the unjust. And like the old institutions of marriage, civil unions too will change, and adapt, and become part of the great wine-making history, love-making history of society as we advance in our understanding of our humanity held within the just, loving hands of the Creator.
The God I serve is a God who asks us to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly in the Divine Presence. The Jesus I love saw that things change - our understandings, our perceptions, our knowledge of God's love revealed to us. I'm thankful that my married LGBT friends can reveal this to me. I hope one day, when I'm in a relationship with the man I most love, that I too can "bear witness to the love of God in this world, so that all those to whom love is a stranger will find in [us] generous friends" (marriage rite, the United Methodist Church).
*The above video can be found on youtube, and at the following website:http://www.couragecampaign.org/Divorce
My cousin Rachel loves psalm 104, and I do too. The idea that God has created us (all of us, including our non-human sisters and brothers), for God's own delight. "Yonder is the great and wide sea, with its living things too many
I couldn't catch any pictures of the beautiful arch of the whales's tails, their emerging like submarines and submerging, or the fountains spurting out to warn us of their pending emergence, but it was fun to be out on the water whale watching. A must.
A "green cathedral" of bamboo behind the Byod-In shrines in the valley of the temples. Sometimes architecture invites us to pray and meditate. Often, nature does - reminding us that before our own architecture was God's creation. Through the canopy and arches of bamboo knocking and tick-tocking in the wind, light shines in and time seems to stand still, affording us a call to ponder, like Mary did in her heart, mysteries of God's love.
Today, my friend Lowell (visiting from MS) and I went on a hike to Manoa Falls - a hike very close to my home.
At the the lookout near the falls there was a young dad with some kids. When one of them, clearly ready to head on back down after a couple of minutes.
To help with the ordeal of waiting, he gave one of the children a task: keeping watching the fall until you can find a drop of water come over the top, and are able to watch it all the way through the cascade down. An impossible task. The words 'it might take a lifetime' were overheard.
A few seconds later, the child said, 'I did it... we can go now....'.
What an impressive man. What a zen moment. A small part of me wishes I could spend the rest of my life sitting at the base of that fall in Manoa, and watch until I can find a drop come over the ledge and cascade down until it reaches the bottom.
To be at such one with the drop; to participate in it's becoming one with the body of falling water, even with the rocks, the moss, the fullness of creation....
So, God willing, President Obama will shut down Gitmo.
That will create a tomb - an empty old shell of our nation's darker side.
Perhaps a way to participate in a little resurrection work is to transform Gitmo from a giant human rights violation to a jointly run Cuban-US Center for the Study of Non-violence and Reconciliation.
I'm such a hippy.
Recent Comments
-
Madonna said:
Last night, I caught Rick Warren lying on Larry King Live. So much for his "integrity". tsk tsk. read more
on Rick Warren's prayer -
on.pilgrimage said:
We can let Cuba, perhaps, take the lead - restoring to them their use of the land over which they... read more
on Proposal for Gitmo -
-
on.pilgrimage said:
Below is the text from Warren's prayer. I particularly appreciate that he offered a rather inclusive prayer, while maintaining his... read more
on Rick Warren's prayer
Love reading your facebook status updates, but nice to have you back at the blog!! read more
on hello, it's been awhile....