Gather Up The Fragments

I spent the weekend on retreat at the Monastery of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

It was a pleasant weekend filled with plenty of rest, relaxation, and silence. The monks are kind enough to offer Episcopal Service Corps members the opportunity to take retreat at no cost, a wonderful ministry of hospitality, indeed. 

During my time at the monastery, I had conversations of a spiritual nature with two monks, both of whom are seasoned preachers and retreat leaders. In one of these conversations, I expressed frustration over certain aspects of my year at Saint Hilda's House, the details of which will likely be published here in the next few days. 

"When they were satisfied," the monk quoted quoted from the sixth chapter of John's Gospel, "[Jesus] told his disciples, 'Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost'" (John 6:12). This comes from the end of the popular Feeding of the 5,000. After the feeding was finished, Jesus asked his friends to gather everything up so that nothing would fall to waste. 

The monk asked me to do the same, to gather up the fragmented pieces of my time at Saint Hilda's House, both the wonderful and the abysmal. I spoke about the frustrations and blessings of living in New Haven, of working with children, in building close relationships with some of my community, in growing irreparably distant from others in my community, of the gumption to invite and host the Presiding Bishop, in calling out a housemate for abusive and manipulative behavior, of living in a sacramental community, of being immersed in Anglo-Catholicism, and many other things. I found myself immensely grateful for certain parts of my year and woefully regretful of other pieces. 

In the end, however, lessons were learned, both good and bad.

After gathering the fragments of Saint Hilda's House--the experiences left over after my time of study, service, and prayer--I find myself changed. While this change does not make the unfortunate elements of the year permissible--I will always oppose emotional manipulation, for example--it allows for a wider range of experiences from which to draw upon in the future. I will likely never live in a similar environment, but I will always have to deal with people (and myself) and the propensities for goodness and selfishness therein. 

Thoughts on Ascension Day

"Ascension" by Jesus Mafa

The Ascension of our Lord is political. 

It is much more than a pious belief or a line in an archaic statement of faith. It is about the reconciliation of heaven and earth, the reunion of God and God's creation. It is the symbol of God's own words at creation, "It is good." 

Jesus' earliest followers viewed heaven and earth in profoundly different ways than most of us do today. For the early Christians, heaven was not a physical place so much as it was a spiritual reality. Earth was viewed as the realm of mortals, the stewards of God's creation. Heaven, on the other hand, was the realm of God, the space of the supernatural, of angels and spirits and saints, the very kingdom of grace, justice, and truth. 

Thy kingdom come, is the prayer of the Church each time it gathers to remember the story of salvation. God's kingdom--the reign of God--is not a fortress in the sky or a castle in the clouds. It is the dwelling place of the One who brooded over the chaotic waters of creation, the One who set the Pleiades and Orion in place, the One who breathed life in the world. Our prayer is not for a physical heaven to take over a physical earth. Instead, we pray for God's justice and God's peace to conquer our own contrary impulses, our desire for greed, power, and self promotion. 

Jesus' ascension to heaven continues the reconciliation begun in the Triduum. Jesus, as a human, rises to heaven and, in doing so, dares to reconcile humanity and divinity. The Church, following its Risen Lord, does just that. It rises above the squabbles and sins of humanity and restores itself once more to the perfection of divinity. In Christ--and with Christ--we are reunited with the God who once walked with us in the garden, whose heart was broken by sin, and who--in spite of  a broken heart-- never stopped loving us. 

The stuff of earth--Jesus Christ-- rises today and bids humanity and divinity be reconciled. Likewise in a few days, the stuff of heaven--the Holy Spirit, the Comforter-- will descend and confirm in tongues of fire the desire of God and of human to be reconciled. On that day of Pentecost, the Church is given the tools of reconciliation and is commissioned by God's own self to move into the world, to baptize, to preach, to heal, to be agents of God's love. 

Come, Lord Jesus! 

Amen.

Rest in peace, dear Mother.

At the risk of sounding cliche, I feel as if I've lost a great friend today.

Dr. Maya Angelou--Mother Maya, as I often called her in Facebook posts--was fully human. I say that only because I tend to idolize writers, particularly black women writers. Lucille Clifton and Audre Lorde are just below the Virgin Mary in my cosmology of influence. Their work is lofty--filled with theory and psychology, religion and philosophy. Maya, on the other hand, has always seemed approachable to me, sort of like a grandmother. Maya's writing is no less powerful or profound than the writing of Lucille Clifton or Audre Lorde, but it is so much more accessible.

As with most celebrities with a social media presence, I wonder whether or not it was actually Maya posting quite often on Facebook. Actual Maya or not, I looked forward to her status updates. She did not post about her lunch or share photos of cats. She wrote what she might very well speak to somebody in person. And not just to anybody. She did not write to students or devotees, although all who "liked" her page were surely both students and devotees of the Uncaged Bird. No, dear Mother Maya wrote to friends, to beloveds, to her own flesh-and-blood. For that, I'm sure, is how she viewed the world--an extended family with quibbles here and there, but with the extreme capacity to love.

Rest in peace, dear Mother, and rise in glory.