Easter 7A / Ascension  (June 5, 2011)

I'm a little 'after the fact' this week, but had been mulling it over in my mind for several days and feel it's still worth posting. In considering the texts from Acts 1 and 1 Peter I am in debt to Fr. Rick Morley's a garden path blog. I was already 'seeing' the cloud in my mind and considering various perspectives that it was a fulcrum (of sorts) for.

And a whole lot of song lyrics were floating about in that consideration. 



flying to Boise, ID 2009 



Sunset at 35,000 feet



Music lyrics by Lady Gaga (Edge of Glory) started off Rick's blog; I had been thinking in terms of Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now. (Is my generation showing?) For some reason the old Ray Coniff Singers cover of I'll Be Seeing You (I was VERY young when my parents were playing that LP!) came to mind as a nostalgic view of Jesus' ascension which spun off to a more realistic imagining the disciples paraphrasing The Clash: Will you stay or will you go?



Western PA


But the cloud isn't the main thing; the main thing is the presence and glory of God in Jesus and promised in the gift of Spirit.






at 45,000 feet over the Atlantic

Where is it that you most easily 'see' God's glory?

Bethany Beach, DE

What does the experience feel like?

Bethany Beach, DE

How do we share that glory and presence with others?

Easter 6 (May 29, 2011)

 ¹⁸For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, ¹⁹in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, ²⁰who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.

²¹And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ...   1 Peter 3:18-21 (NRSV)

Obedience has certainly gotten a bad rap these days; it is probably running neck and neck with discipline for the bottom of the barrel in terms of desirable qualities. Status is more likely to be bestowed on those who cheat the establishment (and get away with it) or ones who flagrantly defy authority (even if they get  caught). 

The Greek word translated 'obey' (and the Hebrew Old Testament also rendered 'obey') do not carry the meaning to adhere to orders or commands; in both cases the  root meaning is to listen closely. 

How do you listen to God?

Lindisfarne, England

In what ways do you hear God?

George Wishart Memorial, St. Andrews, Scotland

Bethany Beach, Delaware

Are we listening deeply as a people?

Lindisfarne, England

Pasture beside Kilmartin Church, Kilmartin Glen, Scotland

How can we better practice a radical (foundational, deeply rooted) obedience?

With thanks to the Rev. Donna MacArt Havrisko for permission to include 

photos with her image from the Redstone Presbytery 2006 Celtic Spirituality Pilgrimage.

 

Easter 5A (May 22, 2011)

I'm looking this week at the First and Second lessons -- stones we throw and living stones we are called by God to become. I was really struck by David von Schlichten's comment on the 1 Peter text: 

  'What does a living stone look and act like? ... like Christ, 

   being a part of the building called the Church, and, 

   of course, being strong, solid. 

   Being a LIVING stone means not being passive 

   but being organic, active, growing.
   We are to be strong but also growing and active. 

   Stone-strong but not petrified. '

Stone-strong but not petrified. That's all.

It's just that there's an awfully fine line between the two.

Glendalough, Ireland

Even for stones, if they are living, then my inner image requires movement, like living water

Staffa, Scotland

Or, at the very least, unexpected plantlife growing from between the carefully placed stones

 

 

The Nunnery, Iona, Scotland

What signs of life are there in your stone?

In the stones that are your congregation?

Easter Sunday,(April 24, 2011)

The epistle passage  from Colossians 3 says 

    "you have been raised with Christ ... for you have died,

     and your life is hidden with Christ in God."

TTh

This is baptism talk and baptism promises lived out. It is in the act of baptism that we die with Christ, go to the tomb with him, and are raised up with him. And we live that new and renewed life through faith, according to Russell Rathbun (Hiding with God and from Myself: The Hardest Question), because in being dead and hidden with Christ .... we are hidden from ourselves. We only glimpse what we have already become in the love and mercy of God.

 

Oh, yes, and his hardest question? If I am clothed with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator, how do I make sense of the self I see in the mirror?

the restroom at Hell's Kitchen, Minneapolis, MN

May we all be blessed with a new glimpse of the self we already have become in the covenant promises of baptism this Easter Sunday and throughout the whole of Eastertide.

Waterfall garden at New Hope Presbyterian Church

 

4th Sunday in Lent (April 3, 2011)

The man born blind  (John 9:1-41) has greater insight into who Jesus is than do the Pharisees. Thanks to John Shearman's Lectionary, Russell Rathbun's The Hardest Question and Laurel Dykstra in Sojourner's Living the Word I think I have some new 'in-sights' about this passage. 

Jesus uses this healing as another of so many teachable moments. In the blind man's affliction  being healed Jesus' true identity is more clearly revealed, yet the Pharisees fail to see it.  They are not only fearfully blind to God's power and glory in Jesus, their inability to fathom how God continues to do 'new things,' to create newness in the world, is fully exposed. They stand bare naked, not only before God, but before those who have eyes to see.

Sunset over Dover, PA

Do we have eyes to see the beauty of God's new creating in bareness? Are we able to stand fully exposed before God and humanity? Are we ready for God's continued work of new creation in and around us?

Woods near I-70 (Taylorstown)

 

Cattails along New Salem Road

Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Chapel

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Jan. 23, 2011)
In both the first and gospel readings we return to 'the land of Naphtali and Zebulun' which seems to be of great importance to Matthew. These were sons 2 and 6 of Jacob, 2 of the 12 tribes of Israel. Russell Rathbun in his blog, the hardest question, states the significance this way: they were the Thaddeus and Bartholomew of the disciples. Just as with his birth, it is not in the limelight but in obscurity that the Kingdom of God will be announced and, some 7 centuries later, will come to fruition.

Out of obscurity Jesus calls four of the best-known disciples: Andrew, Simon Peter, James and John. For all the excitement of personal transformation and entering into the adventure of a hundred lifetimes, what strikes me is the one who remains in obscurity: James and John's father, Zebedee.

I have this image in my mind ... a father in his boat, still holding one end of the net full of the day's catch, watching his strong sons, the apples of his eye, walk off into the sunrise of a new day, leaving him behind. (Yes, sunrise -- they fished at night on the Kinneret as has been the custom throughout the Mediterranean world.) When has a beloved child or friend's 'call' led them on a path away from you? Or a call laid upon you led you away from them? 

Sunset at Indian River Outlet, Delaware    July, 2007

 father and son checking their crab  pots

a dragonfly along the pathn

 

Baptism of the Lord (January 9, 2011)
Laurel Dykstra wrote for Sojourners in 2008 that what connects this week's texts is voice.  As I consider Jesus' baptism in the Jordan, and as I consider what signifies 'voice' for me in creation, what embodies the gentle suffering servant of Isaiah and our Lord, I think of that lush area of rocks and trees where one of the three headwaters of the Jordan bubbles up to the surface at Dan in the Galilee. One felt totally cloaked in by the trees, watching the river rock carefully not to turn an ankle. And the water --- the trickling water calling us to: COME! be washed and claimed and be part of the fulfilling of all righteousness.  

Not far from home is a wonderful state park, Ohiopyle, with lovely falls in the Youghiogheny River as a major focal point. My black Labrador retriever loves to walk along the river down to the thundering falls that sound more like God's voice to the psalmist, and then swim after sticks we find. But less popular, and not very hospitable to doggie paws, is the small Cucumber Falls. Having run my battery out on my 'real' camera, I clicked a few photos with my old Razor cell phone. It reminds me a lot of that walk up to the Dan headwaters. And the voice is still calling.

The falls at Ohiopyle, PA on the Youghiogheny River

Keira launching after a stick above the falls

Cucumber Falls at Ohiopyle, PA