Study Leave II

I woke last night, in dark unrelieved by stray lights from street or passing cars. The sea’s low rumble, constant and then rhythmic lay under me. I roamed, poking in the dark, peaking out a curtained window and saw the moon rise. Less than half, it still cast a silver road down across the dark moving deep. I remembered my childhood, standing on the dunes with my sisters, wondering if I was careful enough could I travel it? And where would it take me? I felt my way back to bed and let the sea’s rhythm lead me out the silver road.



I woke hours later. It was less dark. Day was coming, rushing around the planet’s shoulder, but now only a glow. I bundled against the wind’s bite. ‘Cover your ears.’ It was always the cry when I went out into winter. And so with covered ears, I went out into the dim invitation of day.



The wreckage of the coast spoke silently of the storm’s fury. Bulwarks and jetties broken and moved, chunks of land bitten and chewed, some swallowed. I noticed stones standing out, obviously from some other beach or garden or foundation or road. But now they were here, cast like runes. I tried to read their message, but all it spoke of was my smallness. Perhaps that is enough.



A sea gull lay, cast down next to a bent bush, its wings still graceful in death. They are such miracles. No wonder De Vinci studied them. Beyond it was a pond, bordered in stones worn to smoothness, each a testament to the power of wind and water, transforming even stones. The ice was clear, undisturbed by wind. To be that clear perhaps it is necessary to be sheltered, perhaps.



Further, a tree, old, leaning, pushed by forces more powerful than its deep roots. It was still planted firmly, heaving the ground on one side, but holding on. One of its massive branches, formerly lifted toward the gull’s sky was now a pillar, helping the roots to hold the load of wind and weather. What had been a living prayer, reaching up and out had become a support. I stood there, my hand on the trunk considering the prayer life of a tree. And mingled mine with it. Adoration, receiving gratefully, reaching, surviving, holding on, carrying life’s loads with dignity, appreciating.



The sun came then, red into a clear sky.



It was time to find the kitchen. Sister Francis would be making oatmeal and perhaps scones. You don’t need to butter them, there’s more than enough already there.

Study Leave

Each year I come to this convent by the sea, a few miles from my home, to be alone with my books, the sea, and God. I don’t mean to sound grandiose, or puffed up as the King James would put it. In a real sense, that’s why I’m here. Four days with nothing on my agenda except what I put there. If truth be told, it’s a bit daunting, sitting alone, studying, reading, gazing out at the mother of all rolling in to the rocks. No phone, no ‘Pastor, I know you’re busy, but…..,’ no responsibilities except that of studying.



I make an agenda. Despite the definition of ‘Study Leave’ demanding that I put the work of the church behind, that’s mostly what I do. I plan whole seasons of sermons and classes and retreats. I can’t get that stuff done at the office or at my house. Life’s too much with me late and soon. But I do get a good amount of thinking done. I take walks. I forage for stones for my bonsai, and feathers and drift wood to adorn my wizard’s tower. (That’s sort of like a man cave without a TV). I tend to take naps, and smoke a cigar or two as I investigate the wreckage the winter sea makes and leaves as it interacts with the flimsy land.



I can’t visualize having such a retreat without the winter sea. The land is busy and productive and demanding. The summer sea is sensually inviting. It draws me into its embrace and onto its sandy skirts. No, it’s here and now I must retreat like some beast, valued for its ability to perform. Now I don’t need rest, sleep and inactivity, though if truth be told, I need that too. No, I come here to the winter sea, brutal and unforgiving, beautiful and steady to find my balance.



Back there, in the office, the study, the class room, around the committee table, producing the stuff that makes the whole thing roll with the minimum hassle and difficulty, rolling in the most efficient, least costly, in people’s feelings and their money, and all the time keep it leaning, sometimes ever so slightly toward the eternal, there is no time to pay attention to the source. To do so is inefficient and too often rude to the one in the door way ignoring my focus on book or paper or key board. Ministry is done in the hall way and in the cross roads. I’ve told my staff and leaders that we run a bus station. Security and safety and dependable parameters are not only too much to expect, but are probably counter to our ultimate purposes.



Beside the sea, the winter pounding frigid sea I remember the source of it all. Perhaps that’s why I’ve learned to go out there before the dawn to watch the miracle each day. The light comes softly, reminding all of us that walk in darkness that though our resources are limited there are other sources of illumination. And then it comes proudly, all subtly is laid aside. The world comes clear. And I remember why I came here.

Hard Work

Psalm 19

Preaching for me is a frightening endeavor.  Part of it is research of what was, part of it is consideration of what is happening in the world, part of it is remembering what issues are working in the community of faith.  But that makes up less than half of what happens in this holy moment.

I remember my father working on sermons.  He’d close the French doors that sealed off his study like some wizard in his tower.  If I stood at the right angle, I could watch him working, hunched over the desk, covered with volumes of commentaries.  After hours, these would be replaced with a Hebrew or Greek text and an English text.  Then there would be times of elbow supported head holding.  I never saw him all the way through this process, I had other things to do, trees to climb, things to imagine.  But many times when I came back from my excursions, he was still there. 

Years later I’d been taught to use those magical tomes.  I was now the wizard, I had my own tower.  And I came to realize that all the incantations within the tomes, all the ingredients I could gather from the wide and local world meant nothing.  They were dry weeds and empty words.  And I remembered him, elbows planted, holding his head.  I came to realize that he’d been praying, praying for the lightening, praying for the spirit that altered these bits of news and scholarship, transformed them with the breath of the eternal into a living and breathing moment of God’s touch.

He did that.  He opened the pipes for people to be touched with a sense of more.  Everything else he did for and with and in the churches that he ran and administered and pastored may have been important to the world and to the people, but it was all secondary to those moments of touch.  Because then and there, God was present. 

I also came to realize over time, that all the preparation in the universe couldn’t open any pipes, because the Lord of all time tends to work in the present tense.  That time of preaching is consecrated, set aside.  It is a place of glory and of storm.  It is full of hope and fear.  It is full of darkness and of light.  And I remembered the prayer he said each Sunday, ‘May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, our rock and our redeemer.’

Then I realized, and have ever since that this whole thing is not about producing some sort of presentation or even achieving a result to be measured by categories of success or failure.  It is an act of prayer.  It is about placing everything one can gather, every bit of wisdom and perspective before the living Lord as a sacrifice, to be used by that Lord as He wills.  It needs to be acceptable in no one’s sight except His.  And that net is thrown over the entire congregation.  We’re all confronted by the measure of the God of all that is, was, and will be.  So, why aren’t we simply terrified?  Because, as we pray, we also claim this Lord as our ‘rock and our redeemer.’  We preachers open ourselves in humility and confidence, we claim this Lord as our own.  

Christmas Wind

As the wind howls around the corners of the house, Sam comes to me, looking out toward the beast he cannot see, fear shaking though him. The weather folk dismiss it with explanations of low and high pressure systems through the area. But some call tigers cute. The grumble of a tiger’s purr does nothing to deny the beast’s power and ruthlessness.

It came to us at full roar, pushing the sea, claws and teeth tearing our homes and lives to splinters. It left us cold and shaking, clinging to each other, reminded of our weakness.

And now on the eve of Christmas it howls again. No name, no coverage in the media. But Sam’s trembling next to my leg and the power flickered again, thousands with lightless Christmas trees and wreathes. The memory of the beast breathes on our necks.

This season should be full of heavenly peace, touched by affection. But this should rings hollow when we consider our proximity to the eternal, multi-dimensional reality blowing through the world. It is what we celebrate, angels, messengers of the maker presenting an agenda that invaded and overturned lives, leaving them clinging to each other.

And so, we find the two things the tiger, the storm, and Christmas have in common. The wonder that they bring, leaving us in awe, reminded of glory that transcends our small agendas. And the truth that if we are to find peace in this life it is at the knee of our loved ones. Sam understands. He knows what to do when the beast howls. We can learn from simpler friends.

Listening to the Bunch

Every year around this time, I bring a lot of plants indoors. They’ve been in the back yard since the end of April, basking in the dappled glory of lazy summer afternoons. But now as the temperatures drop, the rubber plants, the philodendrons, the palms, and all their cousins aren’t equipped to handle icy winds. So, I lug these old friends into my sun porch.




They’ve made the trip before. But I swear I can hear them grumbling. ‘Yo, dude, we don’t like it in here. No sun, dry air, what do you think we are, desert plants? Come on…’ I could go on, but you get the idea. I feel sorry for them, but the alternative is death. So I put up with the abuse and keep wedging them into the available space.



Now they’re adjusting, figuring out how they can make the best of the new digs. I know how they feel. Summer is hard to loose and winter’s extremes aren’t easy on anything. But I’m glad we have the space and I’m grateful my family is willing to put up with the winter population. Hey, they clean the air and add moisture to the environment. Now, if I can shut them up, maybe we can have some peace.

To Everything There Is a Season

It’s almost October. Here come the playoffs, baseball that is. It can be confusing. It’s football season. I bleed blue, big blue. If I had another child to name, I’d seriously consider Eli. So, how do I do justice to my Yankees? Baseball and Football, two very different sports, played in very different seasons.




One has to do with finesse, fine motor skills, with a rhythm that matches the heat and humidity of summer. Baseball breaths with a rhythm that watches the shadows move across the field for hours. It inhales as the pitcher waits for the catcher’s signal, winds up and slings the ball toward the plate. The batter swings, lifting it high into the blue, as the left fielder shifts slowly, gazing upward, waiting, waiting, accepting it, a gift from the sky.



The other shoves armored monsters into each other, trying to knock each other down. They rush, tackle, claiming territory until they can make a strike that dominates the opponent. Its rhythms are brutal, radical, moving up and down quickly like the temperatures of the season, temperatures that break and kill.



How can I enjoy both? Either I’m schizophrenic, or the rhythms of the seasons do something to my sensibilities. Perhaps to everything there is a season.



But I still wonder, what do I do about October?

Equinox

Planets are too large to put into any category that makes sense in our daily normality. The words immense, huge, gigantic are descriptive only in poetic terms. They do little to give meaning to these immense, huge, gigantic chunks of stuff that sail through the silence at speeds that are just as meaningless as immense, huge, and gigantic, held close to the light by reins of force that transcend our understanding. Some who study and compute have descriptive concepts attended by numbers and squiggles that do little to allow us to make sense of it all. Oh, now we understand, we say. No, we don’t. All we have is a description in another language. But the chunks of stuff, including the one we live on, sail on beyond our understanding. Twice a year the planet where we live comes to a place of equal shadow and light. Our ancestors that didn’t have our sophistication (in other words no numbers and squiggles) took these moments to be full of potential and possibility, as anything that’s balanced does. They understood with their awe the size and power of the chunk of stuff that made this happen. They knew that they were small and vulnerable. They also knew that important things happened on this day. My favorite is the possibility of balancing eggs on end. (If you never saw it, try it. Then try it again). The older I get the more I find myself advancing away from the silly arrogance of scientific descriptions. I don’t disbelieve them. But they are so inadequate with their squiggles and numbers. Even if all of that really made sense to me, those computations can’t touch the size and shape of these chunks of rock, their speed, or the powers that move them. I find myself looking into the night sky, feeling the living power of the beast on which I ride. My hand rests in the grass, its fur, and I know again humility.