On the Necessity of Naps: A Pastoral Letter from +Maya Pavlova

Beloved two-leggers and four-leggers all, and three-leggers and wheel-riders too,

Grace, peace, and purrs to you in the name of the One who feeds us and keeps us safe and provides us companions with whom to play.

I have been meaning to write this pastoral letter since my return from London and Lambeth, but have been much preoccupied with {{{yaaaawwwwn}}} the very subject of this letter. Canine and feline time, as my brother bishops +Clumber, +Airedale, and +Rowan have noted, is a time unfettered by the meetings and schedules of humans.

Yesterday afternoon, on the blessed Day of Resurrection, my Canon to the Extraordinary, having returned from church, had a light repast and headed for her bed, declaring that she ought to make up a deficit of sleep from the previous night. After jumping onto the bed and sniffing about, I decided to depart curl up on my own, on the other bed in the house, in another room. I am +Maya Pavlova and I sleep wherever I want.

We slept for well over two hours, so the two-legger said. Myself, I do not count.

When we got up, she was of a peaceful spirit and I of a sprightly one.

This led me finally to compose this episcopal admonition to you, my beloved.

I have noticed that the Canon to the Extraordinary is occasionally cranky. "Occasionally" is a kind, moderate, and appropriately Anglican word. So is "cranky."

There seem to be two ways of applying a remedy to this most unpleasant state of hers: dipping her in hot water (what she refers to as "a bath" or "a nice soak in the tub") or seeking the blessed peace of sleep.

Only one of these remedies, the second of the two, functions in all seasons (hot water is no remedy in the muggy summers of our fair state), is appropriate for all species (we felines never engage in such wet pursuits as "baths") and requires minimal shifting or changing of the clothing which fur-less two-legs must wear. The short version of this happy remedy is the nap.

Where, you may ask, is this nap mandated in Holy Scripture? And if we are Anglicans, what of the other sources of our common life? Are we not departing from tradition? What of reason? Notice, my friends, the three legged stool: and what better place for a small cat like me to curl up in a ball and slumber?

But I have digressed, or perhaps not. That is my privilege as a cat.

Holy Writ, my friends, does mention Jesus going to a place apart in the midst of his ministry. Certainly he prayed. But think you not that he had another thought as he drew apart to commune with the Creator? Get me away from these people!

You will argue that there appears to be in Holy Scripture no explicit reference to naps. There is, friends, there is. I speak not only of the blessed sleep of Jacob and his visions, and of the exhausted slumber of the weakened friends of Jesus in the garden --surely a sign of nap deprivation over the long term-- but of even more certain and detailed nap references in a recently discovered non-canonical writing, the Feline Apocryphon of Maya Magdalena.

Maya Magdalena, an ancestor of mine, is said by this scriptural fragment to have been a four-legged companion of one of the friends of Jesus. Certain references even indicate that she was for a time a faithful companion of Jesus himself. The surviving fragment of the Feline Apocryphon of Maya Magdalena states that on several occasions, this four-legged feline wrapped herself around the ankles of Jesus and twice slept on his lap. Yes, Jesus had a lap. Was he not fully human and fully divine? Do humans not have laps?

Did Jesus not embrace small children and praise the insight of such little ones? Surely he saw also the beauty of dogs and cats. Anthropocentric editors of the Gospels and Epistles have suppressed the tales of animal companions. They have paid some attention to other animals: the wild beasts who with the angels fed Jesus in the desert, the ancient sacrifice of animals (+Maya does not want to hear of this), the beasts and birds and dragon in the Apocalypse of John. But what of the real and daily creatures, four-legged, winged, and slithering animal companions? Were they only the dogs in the story of the Syrophoenician woman, eating the crumbs under the table?

The Feline Apocryphon of Maya Magdalena shows us that creatures of all kinds, especially felines, were bearers of the Gospel. Indeed, it is in a scene depicting Jesus with the sleeping Maya Magdalena that we hear him say, softly and admiringly, "Be ye like this feline of peace, and nap often, for of such behavior is the kin-dom of Godde made."

Increase the number of naps in your life, beloved. Your level of doctrinal irritation will decrease immediately. You will neither sue nor be sued. All creatures will appear more beautiful to you when you wake, though before you gaze at them you will feel the need to stretch and sigh, and so you must do, extending your limbs and breathing and perhaps grooming yourself before rising to greet the world again.

If you have not known the bliss of the nap, seek out a napper who may witness to you calmly and joyfully.

Are naps with other creatures permitted? I have napped with my human companion, when I so please. The decision is mine. The two-legger Caminante, a friend of creatures of many nations and a Canon in fair green lands, has shown us, in her electronic epistles, her feline companions curled up against one another. Love and nap with each other in freedom, dear ones, as the Spirit and your own free will move you.

+Maya has spoken.

Yours in the grace of recurring snoozes, with pastoral love for all, without exception,

The Right Rev. and Right Hon. Maya Pavlova, F.B.E.


Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to curl up in the sun by the window of the study. Meet and right it is that the Canon to the Extraordinary set up a cat-sized perch parallel to the window and the desk so that I might enjoy my leisure. I wish for you the very same. And if no one makes you such a perch, make it yourself. I also recommend the top of a pile of clean, soft laundry. - +MP, FBE.

P.S. To behold me in detail, click on photos to enlarge.

Behind the scenes

What the conflict-hungry press are not seeing, don't want to see, and probably don't understand because it is not made of sound bites, speed, or statements:

... I must say that the mood here is not what I expected at all. There is a deep sense of contemplation and reflection and very little focus on the politics of schism. There is also a whole lot of joy - and it is not superficial. The program has been designed so well and my hope for some good to come from this conference continues to increase - even more now that the bishops have arrived. ...

You can read about it in this heartening report from a Lambeth steward from the Diocese of Newark, (the Rev.) Michael Sniffen, via (the Rev. Dr.) Elizabeth Kaeton's Telling Secrets.

P.S. An evening postscriptum: In the same vein, have a look at what Our Allie has to say. Thank you, dear stewards. Come, Holy Spirit.

Interfaith peace delegation to Iran - and a woman rabbi speaks in Tehran

My friend Ethan Vesely-Flad, who works for the Fellowship of Reconciliation and with whom I helped start the East Bay chapter of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship some years ago when we were both living in the San Francisco Bay Area (East Bay means Berkeley, Oakland, and environs), is in Iran with an interfaith peace delegation.

You read that right, Iran. One of the members of the delegation is Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb and she recently stood before an Orthodox Jewish congregation in Tehran, a historical first.

Ethan, who edits FOR's magazine, Fellowship, is reporting on the trip. You can read about it on the FOR blog here.

Make sure you click the "read more" words so you can read the full stories. The home page of the blog just shows the first paragraph of each blog entry. Read the one about Lynn under "Climbing mountains, making history." (Direct link to the story here.)

Blogging will be scarce in this space for a few days again while I take some more writing time to work on a Big Theological Tome (and also on the required year-end reports - more of the romantic life of academe), but Ethan's writing is much more worthy of your attention right now than my writing, so enjoy and ponder.

It's worth exploring the whole FOR homepage and links too. Scroll all the way down on that page, there is a wealth of information.

A few prayers for the interfaith delegation wouldn't hurt, either.

Mothers' Day

As you may have noticed a couple of posts below, we have a new feature at Acts of Hope, "blog flashback." I was inspired by my friendly colleague Jennifer, she of the fine food blog and priestly ministry. She calls her flashbacks "archive alerts."

Usually I will post these flashbacks at the bottom of posts and not devote a full post to them, but occasionally I will just post a flashback, as I am doing here. I had more wisdom to share a year ago than I do now!

This evening we bring you a couple of Mothers' Day flashbacks.

Blog flashback: Last year at this time:

Mothers' Day: Peace, Not Hallmark

A little late with your Mom's Day greetings?

Friday cat blogging: (temporary) favorite places

Maya Pavlova has favorite places, but they vary. For a week she will adopt a place to sleep --the laundry basket, the top of a box, anywhere either soft or small and somewhat enclosed-- and there she will return, every day and evening, but then she is on to a new one. The week before last and into the weekend it was a particular small cushion at the end of the living-room couch. She had never slept there before. She is not sleeping there any more. But for a week it was her Favorite Place.

This of course does not include the perch I cleared for her some months ago at the top of a low bookcase in my study by the window. That is where she watches Kitty TV every morning and sometimes every afternoon. But in between, there must be naps.


This week she is fond of the very top of the high narrow bookcase in the living room. She jumps up there in a flying leap and naps there in the evenings. I assume she likes it not only because it is just the size of a small curled-up cat but also because it is close to the standing lamp, which is on in the evenings, so she gets the warmth from it. If it's a warm spot, it will attract a cat. She can, of course, survey the premises from the top of the bookcase when she opens an eye or two.

April 9: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, pastor, scholar, community-builder, martyr

Shame on me. Were it not for Padre Mickey, I would have forgotten that it was the feast of one of my favorite theologians, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

And although it is now the 10th in the evening, I am posting this with a date of April 9, because I did visit Padre Mickey's Dance Party on day of the feast.

So thanks to Mickey for this.

And here is a link to my Bonhoeffer post from last year. It's long, so maybe it's good for two feasts.

We give thanks, O giver of life,
for Dietrich our brother,
disciple of Jesus,
proclaimer and doer of the Word,
witness to Cross and Resurrection.
In Christ's name, Amen.

And now, some beauty

Because we cannot let the sun set on our anger, I close the day* with a photo from November in Paris.

*which is already past midnight, but I am cheating and changing the post time so that it is still Wednesday in blogtopia.


This is a bit of the courtyard and entrance to the Cluny museum. This is Paris's museum of medieval art and, as you can see, it is in a fine late 15th century building. The English-language website for the museum is here. Click on "The Hôtel de Cluny" in the left-hand column to read about the building. The other links are fun, too.

I just realized I already posted this photo two months ago, but I didn't say what it was and you can't look at Paris courtyards too often.

Blogswarm against the war, 2

Among the friends and cyberfriends who blogged against the war today: These folks. And this one too. (Scroll down when you get to his blog, he's been prolific today -- and he has five blogswarm posts.)

Blogswarm against the war: hope in the rain

There were perhaps thirty of us, in the rain and wind, standing at a corner. Some held signs, others made peace signs with their fingers, others simply stood.

Several were from my congregation; its oldest members, in fact. A few were students. One was a little girl in a pink slicker, standing under the protective arm of her mother. She was the only child out on this night. Two photographers snapped pictures. At least four, maybe five of those in attendance were clergy; not young ones, but the young ones were tending to Holy Week duties and perhaps families; the retired ones were there in the rain, in clerical collars and raincoats and wrinkles.

After one of the MoveOn local coordinators spoke (one coordinator is a retired clergy friend, another his spouse), we cheered for the families of veterans in attendance. A mother spoke. She wore a clear plastic bag as a poncho and had a warm round face and curly hair. Her son, she said, had joined the Reserves against her warning. It was at least two years before 9/11, she remembered. Don't do it, she said to him. There's going to be a war. And it will be in the Middle East. "I just had a feeling," she said, "and I was paying attention." She read, she listened. She knew. Her son dismissed her prediction. A medical doctor, he shipped off the day the war began. She said goodbye to him at the airport, and four hours later she watched bombs begin to fall on Baghdad on the television. She was one of the fortunate ones, she said. Her son came back, six months later. But the war changed him, even though he was not in combat. Bullets whizzed by his head. He saw things, she said, that none of us should see. He is still in the Reserves. Thank you, she said, thank you for coming, in this rain, which is nothing next to what the soldiers endure, and which we endured tonight because we simply could not stay home.

We were a tiny group. Did we do any good? Did we make a difference?

Dorothee Soelle (1929-2003), one of my favorite theologians, writes in Against the Wind: Memoir of a Radical Christian:

.... for the first time I found myself attracted by a tiny group of people who were taking to the streets. I had a long conversation with my mother about the older peace movement. She was passionately opposed to war, and I have rarely seen her cry so terribly as in the summer of 1938 during the Czech crisis. .... Our conversation now in the fifties focused on re-armament [in Germany] and what could be done to stop it. I said, "I'm going down to have a look at those people," to which my mother replied, "Go ahead, but you must know that it won't achieve one little bit." In light of two different consideration, I thought long and hard about that remark --especially later, when we blockaded the nuclear rocket sites at Mutlangen and elsewhere. I had no doubt that Mother was right. At the same time, I knew that I belonged "there," and belonged with those "crazies." I sensed even then that the label "success" is not one of ultimate value, that as Martin Buber said, "Success is not one of God's names."

In her book of poems Revolutionary Patience, published in the U.S. in 1977 (the poems were first published in German in the late 1960s and early 1970s), Soelle writes:

*****He gave answers to questions they didn't ask

*****sometimes they didn't dare

*****open their mouths anymore

*****not because they hadn't understood

*****he was taking from them

*****everything sacred and safe

*****he offered no guarantees

*****Fire was not sacred to him or neon

*****not singing or silence

*****not fornication or chastity

*****in his speech foxes breaddough

*****and much mended nets became sacred

*****the down and out were his proof

*****and actually he has as much assurance

*****of victory as we in these parts do

*****
*****None.

CHRIST HAS DIED.

CHRIST IS RISEN.

CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN.

END THE WAR. END THE WAR. END THE WAR.

People in the military: an update

Thanks very much to PJ, without whom I would have forgotten that the "Winter Soldier" conference is going on right now in Washington, DC. I read about it a while back and in the last couple of weeks it went clear out of my mind.

The conference features testimony from U.S. veterans who served in the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, giving an accurate account of what is happening on the ground, with video and photographic evidence.

The conference also includes panels of scholars, veterans, journalists, and other specialists to give context to the testimony. These panels will cover everything from the history of the GI resistance movement to the fight for veterans' health benefits and support. Spread the word, please, and go to the conference Web page for information on conference. PJ also has a link to a video of conference testimony on her blog.

As for our men and women in the military, they also endure sexual harassment, especially the women. A new Pentagon survey reports that one-third of the women in the military suffer sexual harassment, as do six percent of the men.


P.S. (a few days later) FranIAm has had a fine post up during this time, "Long for Peace, Work for Peace, Live for Peace, Be Peace," which has touched the hearts and minds of many, as witness the many comments in response to it. Thank you, Fran. I was grateful for the reminder of the words of the Talmud:

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.

Do justly, now.

Love mercy, now.

Walk humbly, now.

You are not obligated to complete the work,

but neither are you free to abandon it.

Friday cat blogging: winter nap

Taken two months ago, but the pose and mood are almost the same as tonight, except that she's curled with her head to the right and is on the desk in front of me under the lamp, where she is warm and I can see her as I write. Click to enlarge.

Epiphany sermon (from five !!! years ago)

I can't believe it's been that long. I thought it was three years ago, four at most, that I'd preached this sermon.

Anyway, I wanted to share it. Here it is.

But first:

After the Gospel (Matthew 21-12) was read, I played (think of this as an Anthem, but not in the usual Episcopal style ;-)) a tape of the James Taylor song, "Home By Another Way." If you have a recording of it, have a quick listen again. For those of you who don't know the song, here are the words. Just skim them -- you'll find many of them again in the sermon.

**********************************************
"Home By Another Way"
by Timothy Mayer and James Taylor

[no copyright date available, think it's 1988]

Those magic men the Magi
Some people call them wise
Or Oriental, even kings
Well anyway, those guys
They visited with Jesus
They sure enjoyed their stay
Then warned in a dream of King Herod's scheme
They went home by another way

Yes they went home by another way
Home by another way
Maybe me and you can be wise guys too
And go home by another way
We can make it another way
Safe home as they used to say
Keep a weather eye to the chart on high
And go home another way

Steer clear of royal welcomes
Avoid a big to-do
A king who would slaughter the innocents
Will not cut a deal for you
He really, really wants those presents
He'll comb your camel's fur
Until his boys announce they've found trace amounts
Of your frankincense, gold and myrrh

Time to go home by another way
Home by another way
You have to figure the Gods saying play the odds
And go home by another way
We can make it another way
Safe home as they used to say
Keep a weather eye to the chart on high
And go home another way

Home is where they want you now
You can more or less assume that you'll be welcome in the end
Mustn't let King Herod haunt you so
Or fantasize his features when you're looking at a friend
Well it pleasures me to be here
And to sing this song tonight
They tell me that life is a miracle
And I figured that they're right
But Herod's always out there
He's got our cards on file
It's a lead pipe cinch, if we give an inch
Old Herod likes to take a mile

It's best to go home by another way
Home by another way
We got this far to a lucky star
But tomorrow is another day
We can make it another way
Safe home as they used to say
Keep a weather eye to the chart on high
And go home another way

****************************************************

During the sermon, I sang a capella all the lines of the James Taylor song that you will see below in italics.

Second Sunday after Christmas / Eve of Epiphany
January 5, 2003
Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, Berkeley

Jeremiah 317-14
Psalm 84
Ephesians 13-6,15-19a
Matthew 21-12

Christmas
is a season,
twelve days long
despite what the stores would have us think
they are probably prepping their displays for Valentine’s Day
even as we sit here.
And here
we are
on the eleventh day of Christmas,
hearing the Gospel for the twelfth day,
the Epiphany Gospel,
about the wise men and their gifts
and their long journey.

This really is a scary story.
We have the baby Jesus,
still with us, thanks be to God,
and the star,
and they don't move.
This doesn't mean they aren't actors,
***–one can be an actor
***and not move.
But the ones who move around today, the actors with the big parts
are the Magi and Herod;
and Herod
is about as creepy a Bad Guy as you can get.
This is Christmas?
Geez. Not very fun and fluffy.
Now Herod
is petrified.
Because that baby
is a threat to everything he stands for,
but he isn't sure how.
Which scares the daylights out of him even more
because Herod
looooves to control the action.
So
he goes into Major Herod Mode.

The Magi
don't figure this out at first,
when he is doing his first Herod maneuver,
which is
lying:
"Ooooh, go find that baby, I want to worship him toooo!"

Right.
And I’m Queen Victoria.

So the Magi
get a little assist (in their sleep)
after making their visit to Bethlehem,
and they take
a detour,
avoiding the return visit to Herod.

Then
in the scene after the Gospel we just heard
and which we know is coming
Herod
really goes ballistic,
and he moves into even more intense Herod mode,
and commits partial genocide,
like old Pharaoh in the days of baby Moses and his Mama,
remember that one?
and goes for all the baby boys.
"Kill ‘em. Kill ‘em all."
So Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus
(also after some help in a dream)
get to become
refugees.

Some Christmas.

So where does that leave us?

Let’s back up a bit and have a look at the story again
with the help of that bard of the Baby Boom generation,
James Taylor.

Those magic men the Magi
Some people call them wise
Or Oriental, even kings
Well anyway, those guys
They visited with Jesus
They sure enjoyed their stay
Then warned in a dream of King Herod's scheme
They went home by another way

Those magic men the Magi
Some people call them wise
Or Oriental, even kings
Well anyway, those guys–
A lot of our imagination has been captured by the Magi
the gold, the smells, the fabulous clothes...
The symbolism of the gifts
–the gold of monarchs, the incense of worship, the myrrh of burial–
The traveling, the search,
the adoration: representatives from the far corners of Earth
kneeling before a tiny child.

Though the text says nothing about this,
***nothing about three people, only about three gifts,
***nothing about kings, only about magoi, "Magi"
***which can mean several things including interpreters of dreams
***or magicians, or those who deals in particular kinds of knowledge,
legend and custom
have named the so-called "wise men from the East"
three kings.
***Le jour des rois, in France where I grew up,
***"the day of the kings,"
***you eat a special flat cake made of a kind of puff pastry,
***la galette des rois
***and you get a crown, making you king or queen for a day,
***if you find a little charm inside your slice;
***it used to be a bean in olden days,
***but somewhere in the modern era
***it became a little ceramic token
***on which you had to make sure not to break your tooth.
***El Dia de los Reyes in many Latin American, Caribbean, and
***U.S. Latino communities
***also means "the day of the kings"
***and on that day, there is feasting and gift-giving;
***in fact it, not the first day of Christmas,
***is the day you get presents;
***and often there are processions and parades,
***those mini-pilgrimages
***that bring out all the generations
***into the street.

Maybe me and you can be wise guys too –
We do tend to identify with the Magi,
although they are, as the story has it,
foreigners of the most foreign sort
Gentiles for sure and not Jews
***–signs to us and to the community of Matthew’s Gospel
***that Jesus’ presence
***had something to say to the wide world
***and not just to the folks at home–
Gentiles from the East,
maybe Persia, maybe the Arabian Peninsula,
at any rate somewhere around what we today call the Gulf.
Yes, that Gulf.
And the Magi were –what? Astrologers or scientists of some kind?
We love to speculate about that one.
It makes the whole story more exotic.
Or maybe not so exotic:
maybe we too, like those fantastic characters
gaze at the heavens
with some human mix of science, superstition, and poetic vision,
beneath and in which
there is some kind of mysterious pull
from the One Who Is
and Was
and Will Be.

We tend to identify with the Magi,
those wandering Gentiles
because of their wandering.
That’s probably what the processions are about.

We don’t tend to identify with the baby Jesus.
He’s Jesus and we’re not
though we were all babies at some point.
And so at Christmas
we shiver with recognition
when God comes
as one of us.

Maybe some of us identify with Mary and Joseph,
the parents gazing upon their child
with awe and responsibility
they’d never felt before,
beyond what they could have imagined
before that birth.

But we don’t identify with Herod.
God forbid!! He’s the bad guy.

Herod, though, is a compelling character in this story.
Perhaps it seems this way
because we live in a time
filled with Herods
and Herod-like ways of operating.

Though as this story makes clear
there have always
been Herods.
And this time
is nothing new.
We might do well
at least this year
to focus a little less
on those guys in the fabulous clothes,
and a little more
on Herod.

Steer clear of royal welcomes
Avoid a big to-do
A king who would slaughter the innocents
Will not cut a deal for you
He really, really wants those presents
He'll comb your camels’ fur
'til his boys announce they've found trace amounts
Of your frankincense, gold and myrrh

Herod, the puppet King,
ruling over the Jews but not one of them,
cuts a deal with the Magi.
Or so it seems.
They have been busy following the star
and are perhaps
dazed by the glitz at Herod’s court,
the trappings of power,
the counselors and ministers assembled around.
Wow, this is the big city.
Jerusalem.
Capital cities make one dizzy.

That’s Herod’s way.
Make ‘em dizzy
with power and glory
and courtiers
and secret plans
spun
in the night.

The Magi leave Jerusalem,
having had their interview with Herod
who has properly briefed them
just enough
hiding the fact that he doesn't really know entirely
what is happening
but that he knows, or thinks, or fears,
that this child is some kind of new leader
for the people he is governing by force;
and if that is indeed the case,
he doesn't like it.
And he’s not going to let this get out of hand.
But he doesn't say that.
He says "Tell me when you find the child.
I want to worship him,
this Messiah."

Lying in what he doesn't say.
Lying in what he does say.
That’s Herod’s way.
Lies
made to look like truth.

But in the next scene,
they visited with Jesus...
In the next scene,
at the warm and shining heart of the story,
the Magi
get to gaze at the child,
this blessed one,
in whom the whole world is somehow concentrated
in whom we see our life
and the world’s life
through a new lens.

And we,
seeing them,
hearken back
to Christmas night and Christmas day
when we with the shepherds and their sheep
contemplated
this cosmic, this eternal truth
in ordinary flesh
held in human arms
warmed by the breath
of earthly creatures.

But then
the Magi get word, somehow,
through God’s help,
in one of those moments of clarity
that can only come in the dark of night
that it is not a good idea
to go back to the court of Herod
this petty tyrant who wants to be a really big one.

So they
go home
by another way.

Exeunt
the Magi.

They visited with Jesus
They sure enjoyed their stay
Then warned in a dream of King Herod’s scheme
They went home by another way

Herod finds out.
He pitches a fit,
because of course his plan
to use them
***–that’s another Herod mode of operation
***he uses people to his own ends,
***for his own power and not for their good
***or the good of the world–
his plan to use them
has failed.

And that baby is still at large.

So Herod escalates
from lies and manipulation
into that other
characteristic of the Herod way:
Violence.

Being Herod, he doesn't do it halfway.
He uses a combination of targeted and random violence.

This is a very bad scene.
Herod kills babies.
All the boys in one region who are under two years old,
since he is not exactly sure of Jesus’ age and precise location.
So, kill ‘em all.

That’s Herod’s way.

That’s Herod’s way:
Doing violence to Christ.
Doing violence to those who look like Christ:
doing violence to humans,
the more vulnerable the better.
Doing violence to their communities
you can imagine what happens in a community
where children have died in large numbers,
what this does to parents,
to siblings, to families,
to the well-being of an entire region.

Home is where they want you now
You can more or less assume that you'll be welcome in the end
Mustn't let King Herod haunt you so
Or fantasize his features when you're looking at a friend...

The reign of falsehood and violence
also increases the temptation
of internalizing Herod’s deadly means.

The killings raise the question
of how to live in this situation of violence,
how not to have our lives distorted,
whether our violence is in Oakland or Hebron,
in Baghdad or Tel Aviv,
in New York or in Chiapas;
or in our home
if there is violence there
and in more homes than we care to admit
there is,
and home ceases to be home.
Home becomes
Herod’s domain.

Any place can become
his fearful and fearsome playground.

Home is where they want you now
You can more or less assume that you'll be welcome in the end
Mustn't let King Herod haunt you so
Or fantasize his features when you're looking at a friend

How do we watch out for Herod
who is real
and not have the trauma he wreaks upon the world
repeat itself?
How do we not live
in such a way that we see him everywhere
even in nights meant to be restful
even in the face
of those who wish us well?

What a task.

We have to discern the Herods
and their tactics
and speak the truth
in the face of their lies.

And we also have to try to keep our lives
free from Herod’s becoming
our primary obsession,
our own internal engine of destruction.

This is true for those of us
whose lives bear the scars
and the brunt of violence.

It is also true for those of us who inflict violence
or who condone it
or who stand by
and watch it happen.

The violence of wounding and killing.
The violence of manipulation and lies.

How are we distorted by it? How can we learn not to be?

What does it do to us
to live in a country
that sets out to kill people in our name?

What are the ways
in which preparing for war
brutalizes and distorts
all of us?

How do we keep
and cultivate
clarity,
courage,
compassion
and peace?

Keep a weather eye to the chart on high...
James Taylor has his limits as a Christian resource;
though he’s got it right with the first part of that line:
keep a weather eye...
Watch
with the eye of one who can see storms coming
and the sun about to rise.
Watch that child.
Watch that steady star of Christ.

That piece is missing in the song.
It’s not the chart on high we Christians watch.
It’s the life,
The warm heart at the core of this story
the Christ child
and the Christ child’s way.

Well it pleasures me to be here
And to sing this song tonight
They tell me that life is a miracle
And I figure that they're right
But Herod's always out there
He's got our card on file
It's a lead pipe cinch, if we give an inch
That Herod likes to take a mile

Herod’s always out there.
He was there back then
and he’s there now.
He just has more sophisticated technology.
And he’s not just
out there. He’s not just
the other.
Though he is there
out there
in all his forms.
But he is also
our own temptation.
We've got to face him outside ourselves
and
we've got to face him within.

Are we going to live with the tactics of Herod?
Or are we going to live like the child Jesus,
and his mother Mary, and his father Joseph?
Or perhaps, to begin with,
like those wandering Gentiles
who went home changed,
we are not sure how,
but who certainly were never the same.
***We returned to our places, these kingdoms,
***but no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation.
That is what T.S. Eliot wrote
in his meditation on the Magi.
They were
no longer at ease
after having glimpsed
the way of the Christ child.

Time to go home by another way

On September 11, 2001,
our presiding bishop, Frank Griswold,
wrote one of the first,
and for me one of the most thoughtful and true
statements to come from religious leaders
on that day.

It was titled
"We are called to another way."

What is that other way?
That way
which is not
the way of the Herods of the world
or of their allies.

Here is part of what our brother Frank wrote that day:
***Never has it been clearer to me than in this moment
***that people of faith,
***in virtue of the Gospel and the mission of the Church,
***are called to be about peace and the transformation of the human heart,
***beginning with our own.
***I am not immune to emotions of rage and revenge,
***but I know that acting on them
***only perpetuates the very violence
***I pray will be dissipated and overcome.

That other way:
We don’t know entirely
what it looks like,
just as the Magi didn't know exactly
what this Messiah baby would be like
or what he might expect of them.

We do know
that this other way
is the way of the child Jesus,
that child who both guides us
and needs our help.

We do know
that is it the way of which his mother Mary sang
as we heard just a few weeks ago:
***the mercy moving from generation to generation
***the hungry fed
***the lowly lifted up
***the powerful brought down from their thrones
***the mercy
***again

The Magi
were called to a way
that wasn't Herod’s way.
But guess what,
it wasn't their way either!
It was a new way to them.
They had to learn it.

Time to go home by another way...

It’s still Christmas
God makes God’s home
among us.
We find a home
in God.

All these travelers and seekers and wanderers and refugees
the Magi
Joseph, Mary, Jesus
and we too
find a true home not in the royal courts
but on the road,
with each other,
in the company of other travelers slightly crazed with the love of God
the God who loved us first.

We keep a weather eye for the guiding light of Christ
even when it is sometimes no brighter than a faraway blinking star.

So we move from the Christmas season to Epiphanytide,
numbering the coming Sundays from that twelfth day of Christmas,
rooting them in this day of the wise ones
when we go on the road
to live the Gospel.

Jesus’ birth:
it makes us uncomfortable
and it brings us home.

***A home we find not in a palace
***but on the way
***together
***lit by the star.
***...home by another way...

***********************Jane Carol Redmont

Chaldean Catholics in Iraq - Muslims and Christians

Outside Mar Eliya church, not much had changed since last Christmas: Concrete blocks still surround the building and guards check the IDs of those entering. But inside, hundreds of Iraqi worshipers - Christians and Muslims - were crammed into the overflowing Chaldean Catholic church Tuesday, celebrating the holiday and the fact that they felt safe enough to venture out of their homes to attend Christmas Mass.

"Last year was the year of misery, desperation and sadness," said Samar Jorge Gorges. "But this year is better. So many people attend the Mass and you can see that their praying was joyful."

Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, the patriarch of Iraq's ancient Chaldean Church said Mass, appealing for peace and unity across the war-scarred country.

"Iraq is like a garden and its beauty is the variety of its flowers and scent," Delly said during the service.

Among those attending were several Shiite Muslim sheiks, including Raad Tamimi, who said they had come "in solidarity with our Christian brothers . . . to plant the seed of love again in the new Iraq." Tamimi, a tribal leader, was excited to shake the cardinal's hand and asked that a photo be taken with his cellphone.

Many thanks to MadPriest for the story and the link.

Full story at the L.A. Times. They will make you sign up if you aren't already registered on the Los Angeles Times site, but it's free and they've never sent me spam. (I can't say the same for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.)

O God of all peace,
whose child Jesus healed the sick
and walked with the suffering,
we thank you for your Spirit,
present among your people in Iraq.
We beg you
who have kindled the flame of love
in their hearts
to keep them strong
in you,
through Christ Jesus, saviour. Amen.

Burma update -- lest we forget

Catching up on a bit of e-news from other parts of the world...

CANBERRA (Reuters) - The death toll from a democracy crackdown ordered by Myanmar's ruling junta was much greater than U.N. estimates and scores of people were still missing, activists just back from the reclusive country said on Friday.

A delegation of Buddhist witnesses who entered Myanmar posing as tourists to document the aftermath of September's monk-led uprising said secret talks with activists pointed to a death toll of at least 70, far above United Nations estimates of 31.

"The regime is at pains to paint the situation as being back to normal, and it is anything but, because there is so much pressure and security," Australian delegate Jill Jameson from the Buddhist Peace Fellowship told Reuters.

Full story from Reuters here.

Thanks to the Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF) and to Roy Birchard from the Bay Area Friends of FOR (the Fellowship of Reconciliation) for this information.

BPF Director Maia Duerr writes: Alan Senauke, of BPF National Office staff, and Jill Jameson, of the BPF Melbourne Australia chapter, helped to lead this small delegation that just returned from Burma. Because of the extremely sensitive nature of their trip, we are only just now able to share this news with you. We hope to share more of the story of their journey soon, via our website and in Turning Wheel.

New baby on planet earth

Thanks be to God.

Beatriz was born in Lisbon, Portugal yesterday, Wednesday, November 28. She is well and so is her mama, my elder nephew's wife. She is their second child and first girl -- my brother's first granddaughter and my parents' first great-granddaughter. It's a momentous event for her big brother, who is no longer the only child (he's almost five years old), but apparently he is delighted in these first days.

Great-Aunt Jane here is happy for everyone, and tickled that we have a new girl in the family: the last time was over half a century ago when Great-Aunt Jane was born. We were due! Welcome to the world, little Beatriz. We'll try to take care of it so that you have a safe place to grow.

Chrysostom, wealth, and poverty

In honor of yesterday's feast of St. John Chrysostom, here is a thoughtful piece from the Orthodox Peace Fellowship, "St. John Chrysostom and the Problem of Wealth".



To enlarge the icon to the right and see more of the color and detail, click on the picture.



The home page of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship website is here.

Speaking of Joan Chittister...

(which I did briefly in the previous post)

... She's on Krista Tippett's radio show Speaking of Faith (SOF) this week.

You can either listen to the show or read all about it on the SOF website or listen to the podcast.

A visit from Sudan

I have a Sudanese student in one of my classes. I had already known him for a couple of years before this semester through campus life. He is a fine human being with a smile full of sunshine. Today his mother came to visit, on her way to a conference on the West Coast.

They were in my office for a while, and while our conversation is not something I would talk about in detail on-blog, I do want to say how important the visit felt. First, because it is always a delight to meet our students' parents, and a special honor to meet parents who come from far away. Also, because of a church connection: the young man and his family are members of, and leaders in, the Episcopal Church of Sudan. His mother was on her way to an international Christian women's conference of a group I knew largely as being a conservative evangelical organization in the U.S. and whose international dimension I did not know. Through this group my student's mother is working to provide economic, psychological, and spiritual support to women in Sudan, especially those displaced and traumatized by war. The young man's father is bishop in a diocese that is the gateway to Southern Sudan. (Note to Chicago people: the Diocese of Renk, Sudan has a companion relationship with the Diocese of Chicago, as you probably know.)

In our congregation we pray for the people of Sudan every Sunday because one of our members is active with Save Darfur and keeps us aware of the situation there.

So, once we had had our mother/son/teacher conversation we spoke about all this. I told Deborah --that is her name-- about our prayers, she told me a little about her work with the women, and we promised to stay in touch.

Perhaps our congregation can build some ties, through these beginnings of friendship, with people in our Communion who are half a world away and with whom we share common humanity and faith.

The Current Unpleasantness seems and will seem very small in the face of both the life and death situation of so many and the power of faithful friendship.

Do you know about AFRECS? (The acronym stands for American Friends of the Episcopal Church of Sudan.)

My friend Mary Hunt is right: there is an intrinsic connection between friendship and work for justice.

Pray for the church. Pray for the people. Pray for this fragile earth, our island home.

May our prayers be yeast for action and our action be leavened with prayer.