That Which We Have Heard & Known

Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

Category: Spirituality (Page 11 of 116)

Lenten Journal 2019 (16 March)

March 16, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 10

Is it possible to understand evil?

49 people were killed yesterday in New Zealand. Muslims gathered for Friday Jummah prayers. 49 people peacefully worshiping God were murdered. I’m still trying to wrap my head around that.

The news channels and the newspapers since have been filled with commentary trying to make sense of the event. The rhetoric of politicians and public figures of all sorts has been blamed as “contributing” the killer’s action; I read that Chelsea Clinton was confronted by students claiming her comments in opposition to anti-Semitism had done so! The killer claimed to be inspired by the words of the Current Occupant of the White House. On the other hand, counter-commentary (from Fox News, of course) is denying any relationship between obviously inflammatory rhetoric and the shooter’s action.

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Lenten Journal 2019 (15 March)

March 15, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 9

I woke up this morning thinking of cleaning toilets. Not in the future sense, the “I have to clean the toilets today” sort of thinking. I did that yesterday. At least I cleaned one toilet yesterday, the one in our master bathroom. Put a gold star on the calendar and mark the day!

It’s probably because I did that yesterday that I woke up this morning thinking about toilets and whether the job I did yesterday would have passed Doris’s standards. Doris was my boss when I was 19 years old and working as a janitor at a small acute care hospital in Southern California. Doris was the hospital’s Executive Housekeeper. She was, I think, the first Muslim with whom I ever had any daily interaction.

Doris was in her 50s when I worked for her, so I’m pretty certain she’s dead now. Actually, this is sad to say, I hope she’s dead. I would rather think of her in Paradise than imagine her facing today’s world of bigotry and the news of Muslims murdered for their faith. Because today I also woke up to the news that 49 Muslims had been shot to death while worshiping in their mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

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Lenten Journal 2019 (14 March)

March 14, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 8

Today, I shaved.

Now, most of the time, that’s not big deal. Men shave every day so one’s reaction to a 67-year-old man saying “I shaved” probably should be “So what?” However, the past several weeks trimming my beard and shaving have not been a regular part of my life.

As I have recovered from total knee arthroplasty, which is to say the replacement of parts of my left knee with bits and pieces of titanium and plastic, standing at the bathroom sink either long enough or steadily enough to use a sharp and pointy pair of scissors to trim my beard and a razor to shave my neck has simply not been possible. But after two months of recovery including several coached sessions of physical therapy and daily workouts on my own, today was the day to take the time to do both of those things … and not just that, but also to drive to my neighborhood barber and have my head shaved with a straight razor! I’ve not been this “cleaned up” since Christmas!

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Lenten Journal 2019 (13 March)

March 13, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 7

There are leaves
Littering my yard
The moldering detritus of fall
Disturbed dancing in an insistent zephyr
Crumbling into dust
Blowing away
In the Wind moving across the surface
The oranges and golds in which
They once were dressed long gone
The beiges of their nude undergarments bared
Their dusty echoes fading
They have lain thus
Blanketed by snow
Overwintering unseen
Under untrustworthy white
As my sorrows and sins
Have slumbered ‘neath
The eagerness of Advent
The joy of Nativity
The surprise of Epiphany
But spring has come
Lent warmed by burnt palms
Melting prior seasons’ deceits
Baring the moldering detritus of life’s mistakes
Blowing it away crumbling
A streak of ash dancing
“You are dust…” it sings
“You are dust…”
“You are dust…”
Its dusty echo fades
“You are dust…”
“You are…”
“You…”
And a Voice answers
“You are my friends!”

– Lenten Leaves, C. Eric Funston, 13 March 2019

Lenten Journal 2019 (12 March)

March 12, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 6

“… rendering unto thee most hearty thanks for the innumerable benefits procured unto us by the same.”[1]

A few days ago, a fellow priest complained about the difficulty of saying these words from the “traditional language” service of Holy Communion in the Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer, especially early in the morning (which is about the only time they are said in most parishes anymore, if they are said at all). I responded with the snarky remark that if my colleague had grown up with them, rather than being a “convert” from another Christian tradition (as he is), they would not be difficult at all.

I did not grow up with them myself, but I did hear them at least three times each week during the academic terms of my high school years. A non-Episcopalian, I was enrolled in an Episcopal Church affiliated boarding school more than a thousand miles from home. Like all the students of that school, I was required to attend chapel which most days followed the liturgy of one of the Daily Offices but twice each week was a celebration of the Eucharist. Then on Sundays, unless one was attending church off campus, there was another mandatory service of Holy Communion.

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Lenten Journal 2019 (11 March)

March 11, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 5

“Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gained me this wealth.’”[1] This is a verse from today’s Daily Office Old Testament reading; it’s supposed to be Moses’ words spoken to the Hebrews about to enter the Promised Land as recorded in the Book of Deuteronomy, a reminder of the debt of gratitude everyone owes to God, but today it reminds me of a political episode of a few years ago.

President Barack Obama, in a 2012 campaign speech, said, “If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that.” The “that” in that sentence was meant to refer to “roads and bridges” he had just referenced in the previous sentence, to the infrastructure which he had just described as the “unbelievable American system” that allows businesses to thrive.[2] That was clear to anyone who heard the speech.

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Lenten Journal 2019 (10 March)

March 10, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 4 (First Sunday in Lent)

I fell in love with science when I was in junior high school. I did well in chemistry and biology  and in math classes in high school. I went to a particular university because it was well-known as a training ground for scientists. I wasn’t sure which of the sciences I wanted to go into – marine biology and medicine were both especially attractive, but so too was physics – but I was definitely headed into the sciences. And then I met integral calculus … and ended up getting a degree in literature, then another in business, another in law, and two more in religion.

I am still in love with science; it’s just that I seem incapable of wrapping my head around abstract mathematics. In another universe, I might have been able to do that and might have followed a different path. Perhaps that is why quantum mechanics, superstring theory, and the multiverse fascinate me. I may not quite grasp the math, but the ideas make all sorts of sense to me, especially the notion of multiple universes and alternate realities.

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Lenten Journal 2019 (9 March)

March 9, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lenten Journal, Day 3

I have a morning ritual; I suppose everyone does. I get up in the darkness of 5 a.m. and carefully, quietly walk down the stairs from our bedroom to the den and kitchen (a combined “great room” as our house is laid out). I turn on the coffee maker which has been set up the night before, then I sit down in my recliner to await its task completion. My dog, Archbishop Dudley, a black cocker spaniel, rouses himself (he sleeps in the den) and comes to me; I lift him onto my lap and the two of us fall asleep.

When the coffee maker wakes me with its signal that the brew is ready, I put the dog to floor, slip a coat onto me and a leash onto him, and go for a short walk around our cul-de-sac. The dog does what he must and we return home; he gets his breakfast and I get my first cup of coffee along with a handful of pills. While I drink it, I read scan my online subscriptions of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and (occasionally) the Los Angeles Times, and read a few news reports and op-ed pieces. Then I check out Facebook.

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Lenten Journal 2019 (8 March)

March 8, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Lent Journal, Day 2

Yesterday afternoon the dog and I went for a walk in the snow. I should clarify: we went for a walk while the snow was falling and we walked on the sidewalk. The snow was that sort of big, fluffy-flake variety that my wife calls “snow globe snow.” As it coated the sidewalk, the path had the appearance of the first layer of blown-in insulation in an attic, a cottony, almost-fibrous, semi-transparent white coating laid over the concrete.

I was wearing a pair of slip-on canvas shoes with a textured sole, the sort that leaves very distinct patterned footprints in such snow or on the damp sand of undisturbed beaches. We’ve had several such snow falls this year and I’ve noticed that when the snow continues to fall and covers up those footprints, they harden. Later, when my neighbor or I get out our snow blowers and snow shovels and clear the sidewalk, those footprints left in the first snow fall remain, like the white-on-white pattern of an expensive dress shirt, evidence that someone has walked this way before.

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Lenten Journal 2019 (7 March)

March 7, 2019 / / 1 Comment

Where to begin?

I’ve decided to spend at least one hour each morning on the task of writing. That’s the advice given all aspiring writers, “Just do it. Set aside time and discipline yourself to do it. Write whatever comes to mind.” So here I am, coffee cup at my side, fingers on the keyboard of my laptop, sitting at the kitchen table. I would prefer to use a paper and pen, but the arthritis in my hands simply does not allow me to actually write much anymore. I can “type” so much faster and more accurately than I can scrawl now (and auto-correct, as much as I hate it on my phone, is a great aide in my word processing application).

The furnace is on. It’s snowing outside and the Weather.com app on my phone said it was 21ºF when last I looked. There was a weather notice of a burst of snowfall moving through the area limiting visibility and making roads dangerously slick.

Anyway, the furnace is on and I can hear the rush of air through the registers. Normally, I never pay attention to this; I don’t even notice it. It is simply background white noise. This morning, however, it seems to be abnormally loud, very noticeable. If I were still in the preaching business, I might make myself a note about the furnace background noise, a reminder that it could be used a sermon illustration. I don’t know what biblical text or theological idea it might illustrate, but that’s the nature of sermon illustrations, isn’t it? You don’t know how you will use them until you do. File this one under “background noise” for now and move on.

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