Salvation...and Safety

"That's all I have to say about that."

-- Forrest Gump

The Man Born Blind…Born This Way

Wow! Father John gave a stunningly amazing sermon today on the gospel about the man who was blind from birth. We hear this reading so frequently, it’s easy to miss or ignore important messages. I’m always glad when I have a big aha moment like I did today: God’s radical transforming power is a process. I know, I know. We hear this a million times, but sometimes you hear it in a way that gives it new meaning.

So Jesus comes across a man who is blind, picks up some dirt, spits into his hands and then rubs the mud on the man’s eyes. He then says to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which means Sent).” Editorial note: it’s one thing to wash mud out of your eyes; it’s another thing entirely to find your way to Siloam if you’re blind. If you’re used to hanging out all day in one place begging for money, you probably don’t have any idea where Siloam is or how to get there. You probably need to ask people to help you… Hmm, another manifestation of God’s transforming power!

So the blind man went and washed and came back able to see. Along the way, he tells a bunch of people what happened to him and helps lead others to the Lord. Once again, the moment of epiphany: God’s radical transforming power is a process. It doesn’t happen in an instant. It takes time and it engages us in the work of transformation. I love when I’m reminded of that.

Then, Father John gave us this unusual end of homily plot twist: he mentioned that he and his family saw Lady Gaga in concert at the Verizon Center. In the midst of her performance, Lady Gaga says, “Jesus loves everybody!” (Not just some people.) She also performs “Born This Way,” which provides another rich perspective on the man born blind. In the gospel, the authority figures want to know WHOSE SIN resulted in this person’s blindness. Was it his sin? Was it his parents’ sin? Someone must be responsible for this deformity! Nope. Try the lyrics from “Born This Way” instead…

There's nothin' wrong with lovin' who you are
She said, 'cause He made you perfect, babe
So hold your head up, girl and you you'll go far
Listen to me when I say

I'm beautiful in my way
'Cause God makes no mistakes
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born this way

Goofy and Earnest

“Goofy and earnest – that could be our motto!” Those were the words of vestry member Tom Brooke after hearing this story:
Several years ago a young family settled in Northern Virginia. Shopping for a church to attend, they encountered a seminarian who took a keen interest in them. The seminarian listened to their hopes and concerns and said to them, “I’ve attended most of the Episcopal churches around here. I’ve participated in Eucharist and watched the way each community responds to everyone from infants to the aged. Knowing you as I do, I think you would feel very much at home at the Church of Saint Clement.”

Soon, the family started coming to our church. One of the family members might be considered high spirited and “a little goofy.” Another family member expressed the wonder and sincerity of one who is “very earnest.” The other family members have other gifts. On hearing this story, Tom Brooke immediately uttered to a group of us, “Goofy and earnest – that could be our motto.”

Well, I guess you could say we ARE goofy and earnest. And open, welcoming, and caring.

Welcome to the Church of Saint Clement: the goofy and earnest parish on Quaker Lane!

Made for Goodness

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has a new book out called Made for Goodness. In a recent radio interview, Renee Montagne of National Public Radio asked Archbishop Tutu about the book and his life. Here is an excerpt that especially moved me.

MONTAGNE: Have you found that your relationship to God has changed as you've grown older?

Archbishop TUTU: Yes. I am learning to shut up more in the presence of God.

(Sound bite of laughter)

Archbishop TUTU: You know … you have a kind of shopping list that you bring to God. But more and more, I think you are trying to grow in just being there. Like when you sit in front of a fire in winter, you are just there in front of the fire, and you don't have to be smart or anything. The fire warms you.

Filling the Emptiness

Several weeks back, our seminarian Evan Clendenin gave the sermon at the 10:00 a.m. Eucharist. It was November 8, the Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost. The readings are important, of course, but what resonated with me then was his powerful evocation of the nature and manufacture of glass. “I like glass,” he said. “Those who know me and engage me in conversation know that I almost always find a way to talk about glass.”

Evan described one glass making process that involves a wax mold surrounded by sand. When you pour the hot, molten glass into the wax, the wax disappears and what remains is the glass object you’re working to create. “Something better takes the place of the wax…as God fills the emptiness in our lives.”

Evan went on to note that our worship spaces are mostly empty -- large, cavernous building interiors. Then he drew us back to the Old Testament reading from the book of Ruth in which we learn about how Ruth became the wife of Boaz and about the relationship of Ruth to her mother-in-law Naomi. “God is strangely invisible in the Book of Ruth,” Evan tells us. But “it is in the words that people speak out of their miraculous abundance that God’s presence is apparent.”

Pray for Peace

These are headlines from today’s (only today’s) New York Times:

U.S. Woman and Italian Man Convicted in Italy of Briton’s Murder

36 Killed At Mosque For Officers in Pakistan

After Assassination Attempt, Guinea’s Junta Leader Leaves Country for Treatment

NATO Pledges 7,000 Troops for Afghanistan, but Details are Few and Questions Are Many

Iran Limits Data to Atomic Agency

Revised Report on Virginia Tech Shooting Faults University Anew

The Book of Common Prayer contains a useful appeal for a day like this:

3. For the Human Family
O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us
through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole
human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which
infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us;
unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and
confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in
your good time, all nations and races may serve you in
harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Amen.

The Perversity of Things

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to do something, you just can’t make it work. I’ve been trying to get a certain computer program to work for me, and it is failing. I’ve used this program 1,000 times before. It has worked in the past and now…NOTHING. It’s frustrating to me, but also a lesson that I’m not in control and I can’t always have my way. It’s also a lesson that I need to ask for help from others who know these things better than I do. It could also be a lesson that it’s very late at night, I’m tired, and perhaps I’m forgetting some essential step. Perhaps I could easily accomplish the job with a fully rested mind and body. Who knows? In any case, the feeling of powerlessness – over computers, the weather, world history, the result of an election, or even how the toast turns out when it emerges from the toaster – is a sign. It’s a sacrament, I suppose. A visible manifestation of the presence of God in the world.

Trees

We have beautiful Christmas trees on sale at St. Clement. More than 150 freshly cut trees arrived yesterday. Thanks to Father John for helping the truck driver unload the trees.

Selling Christmas trees is one of the most important fundraisers in our community each year. We hope you will come out and support this effort...and tell all your friends.

Here is a photograph of my office holiday party with one of the beautiful St. Clement trees. Thanks to Rudy Garcia and Dru Hortum for helping me pick it out. My colleagues and I decorated it during our office holiday party on Friday. It's the first live Christmas tree we've had in our office and it really makes a big difference.

Celebrate the Advent-Christmas season with a beautiful tree from St. Clement and support the church community we all love.

Peace,

Pat

Received in the Episcopal Church

Today I was formally received into the Episcopal Church. I can’t tell you the theological or doctrinal significance of this. But I can tell you how it makes me feel. Today I was received into a church that embraces radical hospitality manifested by an unbridled sense of inclusion. I like that!

Before the Eucharist this morning, the bishop who presided at the service had a short chat with me and the other four newly received. He said something that blew my mind and made me KNOW that I had made the right decision for me. I’m paraphrasing, but the bishop said essentially this: “Being received into the Episcopal Church has nothing to do with conversion. Everything that led you to this point in your life is worthy and good. If you were baptized and confirmed in the Presbyterian Church or the Baptist Church or the Roman Catholic Church, that’s a part of who you are. That’s a part of what led you to be where you are today. We celebrate everything about you, including the religious traditions you have embraced up to this point. When I made my confirmation as a Presbyterian at age 12, I meant it. There was nothing wrong or in error about the commitment I made at age 12 even though I went on to become a bishop in the Episcopal Church. The same is true for you. You’re not packing up and leaving your house. You’re simply moving to a different room in the same house. And I believe someday God will break down all those walls that separate the rooms in this house. When all is said and done, I don’t think God cares one wit about denominations.”

So there you have it. Thanks to my good friend, Leslie Hortum, for being my sponsor; to John Hortum for preparing me; to Bishop David Jones for blowing my mind and making me feel so welcome today; and everyone at St. Clement in Alexandria. Thanks to you for all the support and encouragement you have given me over more than 51 years of my life. Today I made a choice that’s right for me and celebrates all of the faithfulness of my life. I want to celebrate that in all of you and everyone I meet. One day when my son or daughter comes to me and says, “Dad, I’m a gay Buddhist werewolf,” I pray that I will have the grace (and the good sense God gave gravel) to say, “Amen, child. I love you and embrace you and the journey you’re on. I will help you and support you in every way I can.” That’s what I pray I will do. I think I can. Hallelujah!

Peace,

Pat

Blog Action Day

I thought you would be interested in this upcoming event. Here is a short description of the event from the Blog Action Day Website:

First and last, the purpose of Blog Action Day is to create a discussion. We ask bloggers to take a single day out of their schedule and focus it on an important issue. By doing so on the same day, the blogging community effectively changes the conversation on the web and focuses audiences around the globe on that issue. Out of this discussion naturally flow ideas, advice, plans, and action. In 2007 on the theme of the Environment, we saw bloggers running environmental experiments, detailing innovative ideas on creating sustainable practices, and focusing their audience's attention on organizations and companies promoting green agendas. In 2008 we covered the theme of Poverty, and similarly focused the blogging community's energies around discussing the wide breadth of the issue from many perspectives and identifying innovative and unexpected solutions. This year we aim to do the same for Climate Change, an issue that threatens us all.

-- Pat Jones

Mile Long Yard Sale

The "West End" of Alexandria has the traditional Mile Long Yard sale along Taney Avenue and adjacent streets during one of the final Saturdays of September. Today was the day. This year we were lucky the rains held off and neighbors and friends were able to enjoy a good bargain in cool and dry -- if not sunny -- weather. Everyone seemed to have a good time. From food and furniture, to lawn implements and old videotapes, electronic devices that were cutting-edge at one time, well loved toys, musical instruments, shoes, and jackets, the yard sale this year was the bargain hunters heaven.

Returning home, I started thinking about the wonderful community building aspects of our own St. Clement yard sale when, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we invite the extended family over to our place to purchase one of 600 or so beautiful Christmas trees. Ah, you can smell the aroma of Douglass firs wafting out from the branches, sticky, pungent sap on your hands, and needles in your socks and hair. The air is cooler then -- the hot coffee or cocoa between your hands serves a useful purpose -- and I have an even warmer feeling when I see old acquaintances, friends who perhaps I see only once a year...in pursuit of the perfect tree.

The Mile Long Yard Sale is like that. It happens a couple of months earlier. And it's a wonderful harbinger of the colder months and the warm thoughts to come.

-- Pat Jones

ALIVE...Marching Captains!

Three volunteers from ALIVE (Alexandrians Involved Ecumenically) came to our house today and took away the bunk beds that had occupied the girls' room for a number of years. Now another Alexandria family will be able to enjoy the bunk beds, thanks to the great volunteers at ALIVE. Katie is enjoying her freshman year at Christopher Newport University (CMU), so Maria has a new bed and room to herself. Maria (left) and Katie posed for this picture during our recent "Family Weekend" at CNU. Katie, an active member of the music program, is festooned in the silver and blue of the CNU Marching Captains. Go Katie!

-- Pat Jones

Back to school..."a closer walk."

I began the day in my car running some errands at the height of the post-Labor Day back to school and back to work pandemonium, slowly passing many buses, crossing guards, carpools, parents, and children. Sam and Maria went back to school today, too. After the errands, I went for a long walk in the rain, confronting much of the bustle I encountered before, just in a different place. I walked past an elementary school, a middle school, Alexandria hospital, and Foxchase Shopping Center. Then, in Holmes Run Park, the scene above magically appeared before me. O peace and serenity. O manna from heaven. O quiet desolation in a day filled with words and noise. It's nice to find an oasis in a desert of distraction.

-- Pat Jones

Morning Prayer, Brokenness, and Wholeness

Well, Rev. Cynthia Park did it again. She led the 10:00 a.m. congregation in a stunningly beautiful morning prayer service last Sunday, with only two day’s notice that the rent-a-priest who was to have presided over Sunday Eucharist would not be able to do it after all.

The first reading was about David and Bathsheba. You know the story: lust, betrayal, adultery, directed killings, etc. Old Testament stuff. Somehow, in spite of David’s many character flaws, meanness, sins, and what my children would call “epic fail,” God chose David to lead his people. In Cynthia’s exegesis, God chose David not because of the universally horrible attributes we see David display in this particular reading. Instead, God chose David because of the God inspired ability – I guess we call it grace – which David exhibits at the end of his life when he acknowledges his moral bankruptcy before God and asks for mercy. Wow, that’s heavy!

Somehow, Cynthia connected this story to the 900-mile journey on which she was about to embark to spend a week in the woods leading her young grandchildren in an artsy “Granny Camp” at the request of her own children. Cynthia emphasized that “Granny Camp” was not high on her list of favorite things to do, but that her children expected her to love doing it because their grandmother (Cynthia’s mother) seemed to love doing it when they were youngsters. Long story short: I think there’s probably some kind of grace that enables Cynthia to immerse herself in a hellish chore with her grandchildren (sorry kids!). And in truth, Cynthia’s mom probably hated doing it too, but did it anyway with grace – both the human-elegance kind and the godly-theological kind.

I don’t really know what else to say about this except that I wish I had written about it five days ago when it was still fresh in my mind. I hope that God’s grace will overcome my memory lapse and feeble attempt to tell the story of one wonderful hour in the St. Clement worship space. Peace be with you.

-- Pat Jones

Let’s get over the excessive umbrage

We've all done it. Everyone on the planet has done it. We overreact. We say something or do something we wish we hadn’t done. We assume the worst about another person’s actions and lash out in a less than civil way. It happens to everyone. And we regret it.

The clear message of President Obama’s Thursday night sit down in the Rose Garden with Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Cambridge, Massachusetts police sergeant James Crowley is this: “Let’s get over the excessive umbrage, sit down, and get to know each other.” Michael Kinsley wrote eloquently about this sentiment in a July 31 Washington Post op-ed article.

It’s hard to hate another person when you walk side by side with that person and his family on a presidentially guided tour of the White House, then join that person, the president, and vice president for a cold beer in the Rose Garden. As for President Obama’s own hastily chosen words about someone acting “stupidly,” he’s human too, just like his companions in the garden.

-- Pat Jones

8:00 a.m.

The quiet. The thing that struck me most about attending the 8:00 a.m. Sunday Eucharist for the first time was the quiet. It was enveloping. Inviting. Nourishing. It made me want to begin a silent retreat right then. To be alone with the Lord. Silent, attentive and observant. Apart.

Then the service began. A short walk from the sacristy to the foot of the altar. The lectionary held aloft. A few words of greeting. All of the gestures and movements were smaller, more subdued than those of the 10:00 a.m. service. There were 18 souls present at 8:00 a.m. The typical 10:00 a.m. congregation numbers 50. So the volume was dialed back. The movements were sparer. An economy of sound and movement appropriate to the situation.

The Lord finds us where we are. In the quiet and stillness of the 8 or the music and movement of the 10.

-- Pat Jones

Paul Hawken's Commencement Address

Every once in a while, you hear or read a speech that makes your skin tingle and your heart leap for joy. Paul Hawken’s commencement address to the class of 2009 at the University of Portland on May 3rd is one such speech.

In his opening remarks, Hawken says that he was asked if he could give a simple short talk that was "direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful." I think he succeeded. Here are just a few excerpts from this mind blowing speech.

Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power.

Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. Our innate nature is to create the conditions that are conducive to life. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.

Please go now and read Paul Hawken’s commencement address. And be inspired to change the world for the better.

-- Pat Jones

Never Forget

My travels for work have taken me to Krakow, Poland (my first time) for an international conference. I took the opportunity of this trip to visit the nearby concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau which became the killing center where the largest numbers of European Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

Perhaps nothing can prepare you to confront the visual and psychological reality of the systematic human extermination that happened here. We had an extraordinary guide, Berta, who is a native of the small village of Oswiecim from which the camp draws its name. A history teacher, Berta was amazingly knowledgeable about all aspects of the camp. Allowing her facts and observations to unfold before us with patience and sensitivity, Berta invited us to face a reality that is impossible to ignore. I found a very interesting blog post about another group’s recent visit to the camp and our guide Berta here.

As a continual reminder of our own responsibility to prevent such atrocities from happening, visitors to the camp see this quote from George Santayana at the museum’s entrance: "Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it."

-- Pat Jones

Cho Too

“When I first arrived here in the Church of Saint Clement, I could feel your love and welcome embrace. The way you surrounded me with your love made me feel as if I had come home.”

Those were the words of Cho Too, the seminarian from Myanmar (Burma) who preached at the 10:00 a.m. Eucharist this past Sunday. With her parents listening from one of the front pews, Cho Too broke open the words of the gospel by reflecting on her own experience of God’s love as expressed in and through the members of our church community.

After two years with us, Cho Too returns to Myanmar this month to begin teaching seminarians who are preparing to become Episcopal priests. As a farewell gift to our community, Cho Too presented Father John a framed image of the cross and lights at the center of our worship space – an image composed of tiny multi-colored precious stones.

The Sunday School children prepared a special song which they sang for Cho Too and the community following her homily. She will carry the light and love of our church community to a part of the world in which our Christian faith struggles under the heavy burden of official opposition. We will pray for Cho Too and the faith she helps to sow.

-- Pat Jones

Final Performance of "Fiddler" TONIGHT! Love, romance, revolution!

The final performance of T.C. Williams High School’s production of “Fiddler on the Roof” is tonight at 7:30 at T.C. Williams High School! Themes include love, romance, religious persecution, revolution, and the challenge of trying (and failing) to control one’s spouse, children, community, country, and God. Read a student’s review of the performance in the Washington Post.

TC has put forth a fine crop of actors, musicians, stage hands and technical crew to produce this family classic. Of special note (to me, anyway) are Freshman Sam Jones as Perchik, the student radical from Kiev who courts daughter #2 Hodel; and Senior Katie Jones, lyrical flutist in the pit orchestra. Sophomore and neighbor friend Zachary Frank delivers a robust perfomance as Tevye...and he can't wait to shave off his scraggly beard. Both Sam and Katie are my children and members of St. Clement, though they often hide at the edges of the worship space…or cannot be seen at all. Well, they can both be seen and heard loudly and clearly TONIGHT at T.C. Williams High School beginning at 7:30 p.m. Arrive early to purchase your tickets: $8 for adults; $6 for students and senior citizens. They’re expecting a sellout crowd. Don’t miss it!

-- Pat Jones