Bird Visits Church

There was a bird in the nave of the church today. It remains unknown how it got in, but it had been there since Saturday morning. Windows and doors were opened to give it a chance to fly out, but it never flew low enough to figure out that escape was available. Instinct tells a bird to fly high and thats what it did, from stained glass window to light fixture to organ pipe, back and forth seeking a way out. It really was quite frantic, but no more frantic than I myself. I have a phobia of birds and this no doubt terrified black bird terrifed me.

I knew the winged creature was there yesterday as I was at church in the morning to prepare for the service as part of the Altar Guild. It was bad enough yesterday when my secret fear was blantantly revealed to the woman who I worked with, and the rector, but today the entire choir and a few others as well found out about this oddity of mine. I was quite embarrased, but I was more afraid, and ducked any time the bird came anywhere near the choir loft. I’m sure if that if it had not been my Altar Guild weekend and if there had been more sopranos present today, that I simply would have given up and left upon learning that the bird was still in residence…but my sense of responsibility won out over my desire to hide from the bird and hide my fear from the people around me. What must they think, I wonder? What a weirdo. Ah yes, that’s me!

Just before we were to sing the anthem, the bird flew into a particular place in the organ piping that has slats that can be closed and opened to adjust the volume of the music. The organist closed the slats and the bird was confined at last, to my great relief. I’ve always really liked our organist/choir director but she had suddenly become my hero!  Thinking that more than just I would be relieved to some extent, the organist announced before we sang that the bird was now confined; no details were given. Not everyone felt relief at this turn of events though. One couple walked out of the service, irate that no action was taken when the woman loudly called out for the bird to be released at once.

I am humbled that my secret fear is no longer a secret. Anyone who said anything was supportive of course. The women beside me promised to protect me and another woman prayed for me. I was quite touched. I don’t know what the guys sitting behind me thought, but what does it matter? I shouldn’t care, but I do, at least a little. For all I know, God sent the bird because I needed a dose of humility, and I am more precious to Him and/or Her than even the bird. Ohh, now there’s a really humbling thought.

Prayer——-God, thank you for the bird, and have mercy on it should it still be breathing. Calm, I pray, anyone who was upset by it’s confinement. Grant wisdom to our dear rector as he deals with any repercussions of the incident. Help me to further embrace humility, and God, bless us all. AMEN.

There’s No Place Like Home

This morning I went to visit a Methodist minister friend at her church. It was a small rural congregation and the people seemed enthusiastic about being there. If there’s one hymn I’d associate with the Methodist’s it’s “Victory in Jesus”, and wouldn’t you know, we sang it this morning. The service was nice, the sermon was very good, and I felt love in that place, yet somehow I feel like my Sunday is incomplete. I really, really missed being at St. Peter’s this morning. I missed partaking in the Eucharist. I missed the liturgy, the pipe organ, and even kneeling.

I am somewhat surprised to find that in a short time, less than two years, the Episcopal manner of worship has become so deeply rooted in my heart that to go anyplace else just doesn’t quite seem like “church”. I believe that God enjoys, appreciates, and blesses all true worship. I also think that the form the worship takes, means far less to God that the heart attitude of the worshippers. I have met many people over the years who think that the manner of worship in which they choose to participate is superior, or more holy, or more effective, or something, than the worship of others who may do it much differently. I admit, I even thought that at one point. I thank God that he corrected me, and then led me to a place where worship is very different from anything I had previously experienced. Not better, just different, and a better “fit” for me.

I look forward to Sunday next with great anticipation. When I walk through the red doors of St. Peter’s I know that I will feel the Lord’s embrace, and with a sigh of joyful relief I will sit down in a pew and thank God that I am home.

Home Again

As I opened the red door of St. Peter’s today I was a bit nervous about being around so many people and, potentially, dreaded illness causing germs. Realistically I should be careful, but I can’t isolate myself forever! Anyway, peace came to me and I sensed the Lord saying to me, “You are safe here in this building.” Thank you merciful God, for once again calming my (probably irrational) fears.I settled into a pew just before the bells rang. I love to hear the bells ring! The service began and I felt like I’d finally come home again. My singing voice is a bit croaky but I rejoiced in the fact that I was there to sing those hymns, even the ones I wasn’t familiar with. When I sunk to my knees before the alter rail awaiting the Eucharist I was filled with such gratitude. It was with a sense of awe and relief that I received the blessed bread and wine, thus once again experiencing the great mystery of Christ’s presence.

My Prayer
Thank you beloved Lord for bringing me to this day I have eagerly awaited. Thank you for returning health and for the vision to become healthier than I was even before all this illness hit me. Thank you for my family and my church family. Help me always to be as grateful as I am today; as I was this morning when I said to myself, “It is not enough that my lips praise God…let every cell of my body praise His Holy Name.” Yes, let me be forever yours God, and forever grateful.

Thanks and It’s Sunday

My heart is warmed and encouraged by the 4 comments left on the previous post. Thanks Aaron, Allan, Alice, and One Foot….you made my day!

Actually it’s been a good and interesting day. Hubby and I were to meet my parents for an early lunch so I planned to arise early to get to the 8 am. service. Good plan, but over-slept. So when I was up and ready to go I went instead to my “tree house” for a private worship service. (The tree house is a play house atop a shed that was there when we bought this house. I’ve painted the room and dedicated the space to “getting away with God”.) I lit a candle and invited the Spirit’s presence then read the liturgy in my BCP. I couldn’t remember if we are in year A or B in the lectionary so I just picked scripture readings at random. All of a sudden I found myself imagining (or was I?) Jesus standing behind my chair with his hands placed on my throat in a gesture of healing. Interesting. My throat has been less sore today.I missed the Eucharist, and the community, but when I was finished I felt that I had been in “church” nonetheless. Praise be to God.

Hubby and I are having some very interesting discussions. He is still searching for a church and knows he needs to visit St. Peter’s with me, but also knows he’s not quite ready. He has plenty of preconceived notions about liturgical churches and those notions are not good. I had recently watched a couple of tapes of Marcus Borg speaking at a conference. Hubby saw a few minutes of it and decided that he’d like to watch it as well. (I was surprised.) He’s also started reading Borg’s book “Reading the Bible Again for the First Time”, that I have been reading. This has led to some very interesting discussions, and he’s asking me questions for which I have no answers. You have to understand that Borg’s ideas on the Bible are almost completely different from what we had been taught for 20 some years. A lot of it makes sense to me, but some of it I either don’t understand or don’t know what to make of. It’s all a real stretch for hubby, but he has surprised me that he’d even read and listen to any of this. I expected him to get about 20 minutes into the tapes and turn it off, calling Borg a heretic or worse. Very interesting.

Through these discussions I have had the opportunity to “come clean” about some of the changes in my beliefs. It was good for me to do this; solidifies things somehow. I’ve shared many things with hubby along the way, but have been very careful. I figured that upsetting him would be neither loving nor profitable. I made it clear that I can never go back.

Questions, questions, so many questions. And the amazing and glorious thing about all those questions is that I’m really ok with not having the answers. I used to think that faith was having all the answers. Nope; faith is trusting while knowing I may never have the answers.

I’ll close with a quote from the profile of Natalia’s blog at http://ad-majorem-dei-gloriam.blogspot.com/ that sums up the questioning thing very well: she says, “I walk in questions and I am glad not to have any answers… ” Yeah, I can relate to that!

Does Being "Episcopalian in Your Heart" Count?

“I found out that I can become a member of my local church without actually becoming a member of the Episcopal denomination”, I explained to my husband in a recent conversation. “Why would you want to do that? Are they going to give you a membership card or something?” was his reply. Why indeed. We both, nearly 28 years ago I might add, had renounced anything anything even faintly hinting of denominationalisim (is that a word?). Churches we “belonged to” had no formal membership. If you showed up for a month or so you were considered a member; if you stopped showing up, then you weren’t any more. If you expressed agreement with whatever theology was being promoted by the leadership you were a member in good standing; if you dared to voice disagreement you were suspect. Any sense of connectedness or belonging I ever felt was short lived at best.

I explained that in becoming a member I would be saying to the people there, “I’m choosing you as my family. This is where I want to be. This is where I belong.” Hubby seemed to understand that. Then he started talking about an article he read in the newspaper about the Episcopal Church and the fighting that’s going on. Either he misunderstood what was being said in the article or the information presented was somewhat inaccurate, because what he told me was said was not quite what I’ve been hearing. So I began to tell him my take on what is going on. I began, “There is a group that is against women priests and”…”Priests!”, he nearly shouted. “They call the ministers priests,” I explained. “When I talk to you I always say ‘minister’ or ‘pastor’ because that’s the terminology you’re familiar with.” The conversation didn’t get much further than that. He indicated that he felt it was WRONG to refer to anyone as a priest. “It’s just a word”, I replied. I was thinking, “Why does that terminology bother you so much?”, but didn’t feel it was the time to ask. I briefly mentioned the issue of inclusiveness (not using that term though), which he had read about. It certainly wasn’t the time to pursue that issue either, so I let it go at that.

Finally, I flat out asked him how he would feel about it should I desire to become a member of the church. That seems to be ok with him, but he indicated that he would definitely not be ok with me wanting to become a member of the denomination.

I very much want to become a member of both my local parish (no point in using that term with hubby either right now). With each passing month the desire to become a member of the church as a whole (yes the denomination) grows. When I first began going to my church I felt that I was to wait a year before taking any action toward actual membership, and that’s not until January. So I will wait. But I want the world to know that in my heart I’m an Episcopalian. I will pray for the courage to break the news to hubby.

Sunday Morning Observation

Sunday…..it’s always such a relief to have Sunday roll around again. I suppose I could live without a lot of things if I had to, but I’m not at all sure I could live without the Eucharist for long.Today a man was in church who had never been there before. This handsome Latino boldly walked to the third row from the front and took a seat. As I observed him I remembered in contrast how I made sure I sat in the back for the first few months so I had plenty of people to watch to see how to do things, and so fewer would notice when I goofed. (I still goof on occasion, but I don’t care much anymore.)

Once one has received the elements of the Eucharist, in my church anyway, one arises from the alter rail after a brief pause and returns to one’s seat. The new guy must not have realized that because he just stayed there, appearing to be praying intently. When it was my turn to approach the alter I knelt next to him and briefly wondered if I should tell him he could go back to his seat. But my next thought was that maybe he needed to stay there and that was more important than protocol. He was doing the very thing that I have wished many times that I could do myself; just stay there in the presence of the Holy One. When the priest brought the bread around she spoke quietly to him in Spanish, and he got up and returned to his seat and all was back to normal.

I glad that this man came today and hope he comes back. And if he does feel the need to remain at the alter rail in prayer I hope he will just go ahead and do it; in fact, if any of us feel such a need I hope we will get to the point when we can just do it. We all need to have the courage, or the ingnorance of protocol, to do whatever we need to do to meet God where we are.

You’ve Got to See this Picture

Being new to the Episcopal Church, I’m still trying to get used to some of the terminology. For the life of me, I can’t hear or read about “Anglican Primates” without having a mental image of monkeys in Bishop’s garb. As I forayed through blogland today, I came across the PERFECT PICTURE posted by ‘Unsaintly Pat’ on No Claim to Sainthood. It seems I’m not the only one with monkeys on the mind.
I have no idea how to copy the picture, so please stop by the site mentioned and have a look!

God Is the ONE in Charge

I’ve done a lot of thinking since writing the story of my spiritual journey. I can surely see that God has been my guide all along and that he has provided for me in some extraordinary ways. I am somewhat embarrassed that I ‘bought into’ some of the things I did, and the very ungracious attitude and actions I had about other people and ideas that resulted. Oh God, forgive me! So many times I walked in judgment rather than love. I don’t know what to make of some things that I experienced and participated in in the past. I am surprised that the uncertainty bothers me so much. I feel the need to figure things out, yet know that God will help me figure out what I need to understand, and for the rest I’ll just have to trust Him with it. After I got all this written down, I was relieved that felt that those things I’m not so sure about anymore, especially those things in the realm of the Spirit, I could put on a shelf and leave there. I thought that these things could stay on the shelf forever if that’s what I chose. But then by a very unusual circumstance, God showed me that I am not the one in control here!

I’m in a small group that has been exploring completative prayer, among other things. We decided to sit quietly in prayer and see where the Spirit would lead, and some prayed aloud or offered some form of praise or worship to God. The presence of God was very sweet. Then, to my shock and dismay, one woman began speaking a message in tongues with interpretation! In my “safe little Episcopal church”! I was the one in the group that was familiar with this sort of thing, yet I was far more upset about this startling occurrence than anyone else in. I didn’t think I’d have to deal with this issue ever again. Hummmm.

Much could be said about this event, but I’ll stick to what it did for me. This happened the day after I wrote ‘The Road to Here”. God clearly was showing me that he wants me to deal with my issues and that my present and future cannot be separated from my past, nor should they be. When the charismatics left denominational churches to start their own ’spirit filled churches’, typically anything that hinted at tradition was cast away as unnecessary, out of date, harmful even, and in some cases even demonic. I think that this accounts for much of the imbalance in the churches I was in. Yet, is what I wanted to do really so different? To cast away any belief, action, or practice that was a part of my past simply because it was a part of my past would be equally short sighted and presumptuous. God will not be put into a box or be confined in any way. He is sovereign and I need to remember that.

My King and Lord I give it all to you. The past and present and future, the known and unknown, and assumed to be known. Shed you Light on it all so that Your truth may be revealed in my heart and life. You are in control and you are my certainty.

Lord, in your mercy, hear my prayer.