The Unclean



Mark 1:40-45 A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, "If you choose, you can make me clean."  Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, "I do choose. Be made clean!" Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him he sent him away at once,  saying to him, "See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."  But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

In one of my favorite contemporary hymns, The Calling, there is a verse which contains:  "Will you kiss the lepers clean?  And do such as this unseen?" 

We think ourselves above much of the thinking of ancient times, but are we really?   It is interesting how someone who is "different" from the norm, makes us uncomfortable.  We stare or we look away.  People with disabilities talk about how they feel invisible when they are in a wheelchair.  People rarely make eye contact and say a simple "hello,"  much less smile and engage in conversation.  I can't help but think of this woman who had a stroke and couldn't speak.  She would come to church, and people just didn't know what to say to her.  She would often get pushed aside, people standing in front of her, but not engaged with her.  Popular new age thinking tells people to keep people who are poor out of their lives, so they don't attract that kind of energy.  Another friend who has been very ill for many years with asthma, found himself constantly fending off a barage of judgement from well meaning friends who tried to explain his illness away with psychological reasoning. 

There is a long list of people that others often avoid, ignore, gossip about, exclude and just generally make life difficult for...
people who are overweight or large
people who have mental illnesses
people who have gotten pulled into the sex industry
people who are transgender
people who are lesbian or gay
people who are bisexual
(it isn't politically correct to exclude glbtq people, and yet there is much prejudice).
people who have cancer
people who are dying
people who are poor

Many years ago at a conference called Witness Our Welcome, (a Christian LGBTQ event), I had wandered off on my own and sat down to eat my lunch.  A transgender woman came to sit next to me.  We had a long conversation.  And in the beginning I felt myself squirming to leave.  I didn't mind smiling and saying hello, but the transgender issue was one with which I was incredibly uncomfortable.  I didn't get it.  I didn't understand someone feeling that they were born into the wrong body.  I listened to this woman's story and some of my discomfort began to melt away.  She talked about her membership at a Lutheran Missouri Synod Church where the pastor would try to cast out her demons from time to time.  She was deeply depressed and suicidal.  And although I can usually get a smile out of people, she never smiled the entire time we sat together and talked.  And slowly I began to allow the depth of her pain to reach my heart, where my own pain from rejection and misunderstanding lived.  People who are the object of our prejudices, are our true teachers.

When we are feeling deeply uncomfortable or afraid, try to look it in the face...we will find a brother or a sister there.  Will we struggle through our discomfort to reach the commonalities we share as human beings, instead of our differences?  Will we find the courage to make room in the circle for those we don't always understand?  Will we kiss the lepers clean?  Will we be as Christ, reaching out to touch those the world has cast aside?  Perhaps even the outcast within ourselves?

Women at the Crucifixion 
Taken at St. James Episcopal Church, Oneonta, NY
copyright 2011, C. Schroeder, All rights reserved.

The people on the periphery in the gospels were so often unnamed.  The women especially.  Simon's "mother-in-law" was healed of a fever in the gospel lesson for Sunday.  We don't know her daughter's name.  It is a deliberate literary device in the story telling.  It is the people on the edges,
the people who don't belong, who are least, that seem to understand Jesus' message the best, embracing it fully, receiving the gifts he brought. 

The message of the gospel is at such odds with the ones who believe themselves to be center stage.  Service and quietly accepting this Jesus is the identifying data for those who follow the Christ.  Unnamed, often unseen, their work may seem unremarkable.  But their work was their prayer, and the prayers of the righteous one, have an effect.  We don't know where our prayers wind up, but as long as we do pray, in our work, in our play, in our cooking and cleaning, in our fixing cars or planting a crop...these are the way we pray.  Like Simon's mother-in-law, whose life was touched and healed and so began her life of service...her prayer. 

Many years ago I used to visit a convent and go on retreat.  The Reverend Mother was a gentle soul, and watching her pray was a real joy.  Yes, she was always there at all six services of the day, singing the psalms in plainsong, reading the scriptures, listening, praying for the people out in the world.  But you would often find her kneeling, cleaning up a mess in the dining room, or carrying a blanket to Sister Rita who was ill, or stopping to chat with a retreatant, like myself.  And all of it was her life of service and prayer. 

May we learn from these people in our lives.  And may our own lives, our work, our play, be the prayers which change the course of the world.

A Reckoning...

Public Domain Photo take by Petr Kratochvil

Malachai 3:2-3
But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the LORD in righteousness.

Arrogance, greed, impatience, wagging tongues, meaness, small mindedness, judgement, hate, cruelty, fear, impurities of every kind, wilt in the presence of the one who IS pure, without blemish, without fault or weakness. 

Suffering is in the world.  And if you have experienced it, then you are human.  And if you accept that suffering is part of the package, you are someone of courage and strength.  Suffering is not all there is to this life.  There is so much for which we feel enormous gratitude.  There is so much in which we can take great pleasure, without a bit of guilt.  There is JOY and God's extravagant, overflowing abundance which falls on the just and unjust alike.  And, if we are human, we hurt. 

Years ago I read Victor Frankl's, Man's Search for Meaning.  It is a great book, and I should revisit it in the near future.  When one has been through a holocaust, or lived in a war zone, or lived in a house where domestic violence is an everyday occurence, something happens to one's spirit.  And one is not necessarily cheerful and happy in the midst of healing from those events.  And that is acceptable. 

People choose to do cruel and unspeakable things.  Our world is fraught with violence and the after effects.  And we sometimes cling to our anger and our hatred, which fuels the fires of violence.  May we choose to relinquish all of that to God's refining fire.  All of the anger, all of the terrible things that have happened, which have left us scarred and scared.  All of the things that would leave us less than whole in this world.  May we surrender these to the one whose love transforms the very worst that humanity can inflict.  May we surrender to this God whose love is beyond comprehension...this God whose love includes even the ones who have done such harm.  Is it possible to open our hearts to love that is beyond our limitations?  Is it possible to surrender the deep bitterness that often takes root in an atmosphere of violence?  It IS possible, though not probable.  And frankly, it takes a miracle, along with a great deal of work. 

When the refiner's fire comes, it does not come with intended violence.  You will wind up on your knees, and there will be pain.  But God's justice is always tempered with mercy.  And that pain will be transformed into a beauty that only those who have endured that fire can see and know and deeply embrace.

One of my pastors, way back, used to say to me:  "Trust the process my dear, trust the process." 

Indeed.     

Paraphrase based upon Psalm 147:1-11, 20c

"Sing, with All of Your Heart..." 
copyright 2011, C. Schroeder
All rights reserved.

It is good to pull out the guitar, or sit down at the piano, or simply sing in the shower, giving praise to God, whose grace extends to all.  It is appropriate to sing with all of our hearts. 

The Eternal One builds up the Holy City, and gathers home all of the outcasts, the misfits, the broken hearted and wounded.  And though broken hearts open us to more of love, God knows we are human and fragile, and sees to our pain, with compassion and tenderness.

God decides just how many stars are swirling in all of those galaxies in our universe and far beyond.  Every star that sings in the night sky, is known and named and seen by our God. 

Wonderfully, marvelously, immeasurably awesome and grand is our God.  Wall street tycoons and the wealthiest of the 1% have nothing in comparison to the abundant power of this One who sees and knows and loves us all.

Those of us who have been door mats in our lives, stepped on, spit upon, and treated with hatred, will be lifted up with honor and love.  And those of us who have acted wickedly, cruelly to our fellow human beings, will fall on our faces at God's feet, weeping with remorse.

And so we sing, with deep gratitude in our hearts, we lift up our music to God, in many ways, on instruments, on typewriters, in soft lullabies to a child, with hammers that build housing for the poor, with hands that knead the bread in a soup kitchen, or touch the untouched, the elders who have been forgotten, and the people dying of AIDS.  We sing as we care for those with Down Syndrome, those the world calls "developmentally disabled", but who know so much more than we do about acceptance and loving, reaching us and teaching us to open our hearts to love in bigger ways.  We sing, calling out orders in a diner, filled with hungry people, waiting to be served.  The music rises on wings, reaching the ears and the heart of our Beloved.

Look at the sky and its clouds, look at the beauty of the rain we in the desert so deperately need, and those in the rainforest take for granted.  Look at the grasses and the wildflowers, the color of all creation.  God gives food to the ravens and the robins, to the whale and the dolphins and the minnows, to the dove and the eagle, to the wolf and the rabbits, to the sheep and the mountain lions.  God's delight isn't in what we consider perfection:  the strength of the horse, or the great speed of a runner.  God's great pleasure is in those of us who love and respect the ways of fairness, of mercy, of love...The Holy One's great pleasure and Glory is in those of us who Love God. 

Praise to the One whose infinite wisdom and grace is far beyond our finite understanding.

"One of the deserted places I used to go to pray..."  copyright 2011, C. Schroeder, All rights reserved.

1:35 In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.

Here I am, living in Santa Fe, so near many deserted places, and yet it is very difficult to get to them with a putt putt scooter or a very hard on gas motorhome.  Lately I am feeling captive without a car.  And so I think about selling the motorhome, but I would need to do some work on it first, or I wouldn't get anywhere near what it's worth.  I even think about selling the putt putt, but that little thing has been a dream for a long time.  And it's an excuse really.  I don't have the quiet and the space that I'm used to having.   And all that to say, that it is sometimes hard to pray when there are demands on you.  But when I don't take the time, I get impatient and out of sorts with those closest to me. 

Jesus must have been exhausted after healing so many and casting out demons and being present to so many.  But Jesus does the thing that will give him the strength and equanimity to continue to open his heart to so many in need.  He goes off to where he can be alone to pray.  he draws his strength from that space, that quiet time, that time that belongs to his relationship with the Eternal. 

There are many things I have left behind from my fundamentalist/conservative days.  Things that weighed me down, things that kept me from loving others well, judgement of others, trying to live up to something I could never live up to, fear that I would never be good enough for God.  But the thing that I have never given up, the thing that has remained constant (though I've tried to abandon it at times), is this deep longing to be alone with my God, to pray and to be in that wonderful, loving presence where eagle's wings are possible, and weariness is washed away.  And Jesus comes to me there too, for a quiet conversation, to remind me of what is most important, and sometimes to light a fire under me.  And Spirit comes on the breeze with her surprises, tugging on my bellybutton, asking me to move in some new direction.

Tomorrow I work at the acupuncture clinic and Tuesday I have some appointments, but maybe Wednesday I'll go off to a deserted place, yes, even a desert place to pray.  I am missing it deeply. 

Ordinary? You?

"Just some ordinary black eyed Susans."  copyright 2011, C. Schroeder, All rights reserved.

Isaiah 40:29-31   He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.  Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

There was this quote in amongst my emails yesterday from gratefulness.org that was quite irksome to me.  I've read it before.  And it's essence is okay I suppose.  But the image of marigolds...well I'm getting ahead of myself.  Here it is:  All respectability, all honor is meaningless if it drives you against your nature.  What can you do if you are not a lotus flower, but just a marigold? Enjoy being a marigold.      Chandan

One of my seminary professors used to say "People who plant flowers in rows confuse me."  I was in complete agreement, and still am.  Marigolds are one of those flowers that people love to plant in neat little rows.  Oh God...if I'm to be ordinary, make me a Black Eyed Susan growing wild in the field, or one of the myriad of little wild iris that grow on the Oregon Coast, or a blackberry blossom that grow with such proliferation in many places, wildly, irrepressably.  Spare me from being stuck in someone's neat little row. 

I doubt that Chandan had my perspective in mind when writing the above, but I really seem to take the whole thing very personally. 

The trouble as I see it, is that everyone is gifted, right from the get go.  But environment and circumstances and finances all play out in the fulfillment of sharing those gifts.  And it is dreadfully unfair to have any number of creative gifts, but then not have the feet to stand upon in order to use them.  So Chandan, tell me WHAT you think about this passage from Isaiah?  There is no ordinary with God.  The sacred infuses every poor little marigold with light.  There is no one who is seen as less than royalty in God's eyes.  Oh they may not look like a lotus flower, but each of us who wait for God will do more than just walk on wobbly legs.  Each of us who wait for God, even if our youth was stolen away, even if our health was taken from us, even if we were exhausted before we began...well God sees it, and one day we will rise up on wings of an eagle...one day, even those of us in wheelchairs or bodies with severe limitations will run and not get tired. 

Well, I guess I'm one of those progressive Christians who is into magical thinking.  Don't ask me to give up the magic...the amazing syncronicities, the wonder-filled moments where Spirit comes laughing on the wind and whooshes right through the non-magical thinkers, leaving them stunned at the mystery, speechless at the magic,  and then maybe like some people say:  I'll be LMAO. 

For God's sake, let's get rid of this "just a marigold" stuff!  You are here in this body, in this world.  You are amazing and beautiful and simply shimmering with GLORY!  God's glory.  So you shimmer away...even when you're doing all those ordinary tasks that fill your day:  getting the kids up and dressed; making lunches; scrubbing toilets; organizing closets; typing correspondence; teaching music or drama or "plain old?" English, hammering nails or running a backhoe....Shimmer honey.   Even if they say your nose is too big, or you are too skinny or fat or plain, even if you look in the mirror and feel like sighing.   Even if you don't think you could ever shimmer, one day you'll see it.  Even if you're so depressed you don't want to be here, and life hurts more than you could ever begin to explain to someone else.  Let someone put their arms around you and all your pain and love you, right where you are. 

Even if you don't know it now, someday you will know that you are no less than a child, a friend, a sister, a brother, an aunt or an uncle to God!    You just wait, and the moment will arrive when you rise up to fly on Spirit's breath, and all those naysayers, those judgey people with limited imaginations will be weeping and thrilled to see the glory that God has chosen to shine through you...and every place you have fallen down, every loss, every time your heart was broken or shattered, someday, somehow hope will come back around...and love will rise up in you with an eagle's wing. 

You just trust that you shimmer...and let go of your non-magical thinking.  (I do hope you'll keep some humility in the mix, arrogance isn't an attractive attribute.)   God is at work in you and there is no doubt that you will rise up to walk, to run, to fly in ways you have yet to imagine.  I for one, want to be there, cheering you on!

Spirit has Her ways.  Really!  You gotta love Her!

"Peace to the Chaos" comments

The stories of demon possession make us in the western hemisphere quite uncomfortable.  It's interesting however that in 3rd world cultures people who are demon possessed (which we westerner's would call mentally ill), recover from their illness/possession at a much higher rate than those hospitalized with mental illness in our countries.  The article I've read about this in the not so recent past, is alas, put in storage along with many of my other resources.

As you read this, I encourage you to find yourself in the story...who or where are you?  Take a Jungian perspective on it.  That each player or piece of the story is a part of ourselves. 

For me, I especially like the last part, the friend/brother embracing the freed from the unclean spirit guy.  Can we embrace that part of ourselves which has been declared unacceptable?  Can we find freedom in this story of a messiah who casts out the unclean spirit?