Putting out the fire
Yesterday's SpaceX launch, in the middle of a day of raging turmoil over the ongoing pandemic and an eruption of nationwide protests over police brutality and racism, generated several jokes and memes. "I'm jealous of the astronauts that get to leave this planet," was the gist of them. I get it. America feels like one big dumpster fire right now, and I sometimes find myself wishing I could leap out of this fire and find some safer place to live in peace.
For someone who has wanted to spend most of her life like a turtle, retreating into her own shell when the world gets scary, it's amazing that God would call me to the path that leads to priesthood in the middle of this. I had a literal moment of call in 2017, during a summer that felt like the world was crashing down around me. I came down with mono, plus I was having an anxiety attack over Trump and North Korea, and I prayed to God to help me and help the world find a way out. Like other mystics in the Christian tradition, such as Hildegard of Bingen and Julian of Norwich, I experienced God speaking to me in the midst of illness and despair. "Would you be willing to be a priest?" was the question that I heard in my heart.
Like Mary, I said yes, but later had a lot of moments of pondering it deeply in my heart. Today, as the world around me seems to be utter chaos, I definitely feel the tug of temptation to escape. I mean, wouldn't it be so much easier to be "spiritual but not religious" right now, rather than to be a committed Christian? It's easy to want to escape onto another plane; being a Christian, if you do it right, is one of the hardest things there is.
Being a Christian right now means that I have to care about what's going on in the world around me. Jesus is there in the midst of those who are suffering the most. Jesus is the one who understands the gasps of those who cannot breathe right now in this world that seems to be suffocating in evil. He knows what it's like; his last moments on the cross parallel the last moments of the COVID-19 patient on the ventilator, or the black person being murdered by law enforcement for no good reason. I wish I could escape from the pain of this world, but being a Christian doesn't allow me to do that. I have to care. I have to pay attention to the pain. I have to pray and work towards the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven on earth, to dispel the ugly black smoke of sin that is choking us all.
I think often of the famous quote by C.S. Lewis: "I didn't go to Christianity to make me happy, I always knew a bottle of port would do that. If you want religion to make you happy, I don't recommend Christianity." I find with every passing year how true that is. Now, I absolutely do find happiness in Christianity, with the community that I've come to love and with the peace that I find in prayer. But I've also been lead to confront many of my worst fears, and to places of intense discomfort. Most recently, it's been with regards to race and privilege. I've had to confront the discomfort that comes with recognizing my white privilege, and the idea that I should apologize on behalf of other white people for something that I personally may not have done, yet at the same time have benefitted from. Yesterday the words of our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry resonated deep within me:
"That work of racial reconciliation and justice... must go on when racist violence and police brutality are no longer front-page news. It must go on when the work is not fashionable, and the way seems hard, and we feel utterly alone. It is the difficult labor of picking up the cross of Jesus like Simon of Cyrene, and carrying it until no one - no matter their color, no matter their class, no matter their caste - until no child of God is degraded and disrespected by anybody."
(https://episcopalchurch.org/posts/publicaffairs/presiding-bishop-currys-word-church-when-cameras-are-gone-we-will-still-be-0?fbclid=IwAR02ew8MDwBRiuz43bYzZm5ue5hp0QZNo2UVpw9Pc1svC3BtRJ5SexqeWkE)
Until no child of God is degraded and disrespected by anybody. That's the dream that I have that my priesthood one day, God willing, will contribute towards. It's the dream that we all need to work towards. That work is going to lead me through some tough places; in fact it already has. I'd like to hop out of the "dumpster fire", but instead I'm being called to stay and help put it out. I'm reminded of the year I turned 18 and could vote for the first time. My friends and I were all upset with the results of the 2004 election, especially with the Ohio bill that led to a constitutional amendment defining marriage as "between one man and one woman". A couple of my friends talked about wanting to move out of Ohio as soon as they could. However, another friend said something I've never forgotten: "I'm not leaving. If everyone leaves, this place will never change."
I've never been especially patriotic. I don't love what my country has become. But I'm called to dream of what it could be and help make that a reality. The people who founded the United States founded it on such a dream. True, we have never fully lived up to it. But does that mean we should stop trying? Does that mean that those of us who care about justice and equality and peace should just leave, because it's never going to get any better? I think that's the message that the power of evil wants us to believe, but it's not true.
Today is the Feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on the first followers of Jesus like fire. The fire of the Spirit lit their hearts, so that they could spread God's kingdom. But that kingdom doesn't get spread through destruction. Fire destroys, but it also warms and transforms. May it transform us into the agents that will spread the way of peace. May the spirit come into us as the breath of God, bringing us peace and reviving our suffocating souls. That same breath of God can snuff out the powers of evil, like blowing out a candle. We are the carriers of that breath of God. May we be open to receiving it.
For someone who has wanted to spend most of her life like a turtle, retreating into her own shell when the world gets scary, it's amazing that God would call me to the path that leads to priesthood in the middle of this. I had a literal moment of call in 2017, during a summer that felt like the world was crashing down around me. I came down with mono, plus I was having an anxiety attack over Trump and North Korea, and I prayed to God to help me and help the world find a way out. Like other mystics in the Christian tradition, such as Hildegard of Bingen and Julian of Norwich, I experienced God speaking to me in the midst of illness and despair. "Would you be willing to be a priest?" was the question that I heard in my heart.
Like Mary, I said yes, but later had a lot of moments of pondering it deeply in my heart. Today, as the world around me seems to be utter chaos, I definitely feel the tug of temptation to escape. I mean, wouldn't it be so much easier to be "spiritual but not religious" right now, rather than to be a committed Christian? It's easy to want to escape onto another plane; being a Christian, if you do it right, is one of the hardest things there is.
Being a Christian right now means that I have to care about what's going on in the world around me. Jesus is there in the midst of those who are suffering the most. Jesus is the one who understands the gasps of those who cannot breathe right now in this world that seems to be suffocating in evil. He knows what it's like; his last moments on the cross parallel the last moments of the COVID-19 patient on the ventilator, or the black person being murdered by law enforcement for no good reason. I wish I could escape from the pain of this world, but being a Christian doesn't allow me to do that. I have to care. I have to pay attention to the pain. I have to pray and work towards the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven on earth, to dispel the ugly black smoke of sin that is choking us all.
(Photo credit: AP photographer Julio Cortez)
I think often of the famous quote by C.S. Lewis: "I didn't go to Christianity to make me happy, I always knew a bottle of port would do that. If you want religion to make you happy, I don't recommend Christianity." I find with every passing year how true that is. Now, I absolutely do find happiness in Christianity, with the community that I've come to love and with the peace that I find in prayer. But I've also been lead to confront many of my worst fears, and to places of intense discomfort. Most recently, it's been with regards to race and privilege. I've had to confront the discomfort that comes with recognizing my white privilege, and the idea that I should apologize on behalf of other white people for something that I personally may not have done, yet at the same time have benefitted from. Yesterday the words of our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry resonated deep within me:
"That work of racial reconciliation and justice... must go on when racist violence and police brutality are no longer front-page news. It must go on when the work is not fashionable, and the way seems hard, and we feel utterly alone. It is the difficult labor of picking up the cross of Jesus like Simon of Cyrene, and carrying it until no one - no matter their color, no matter their class, no matter their caste - until no child of God is degraded and disrespected by anybody."
(https://episcopalchurch.org/posts/publicaffairs/presiding-bishop-currys-word-church-when-cameras-are-gone-we-will-still-be-0?fbclid=IwAR02ew8MDwBRiuz43bYzZm5ue5hp0QZNo2UVpw9Pc1svC3BtRJ5SexqeWkE)
Until no child of God is degraded and disrespected by anybody. That's the dream that I have that my priesthood one day, God willing, will contribute towards. It's the dream that we all need to work towards. That work is going to lead me through some tough places; in fact it already has. I'd like to hop out of the "dumpster fire", but instead I'm being called to stay and help put it out. I'm reminded of the year I turned 18 and could vote for the first time. My friends and I were all upset with the results of the 2004 election, especially with the Ohio bill that led to a constitutional amendment defining marriage as "between one man and one woman". A couple of my friends talked about wanting to move out of Ohio as soon as they could. However, another friend said something I've never forgotten: "I'm not leaving. If everyone leaves, this place will never change."
I've never been especially patriotic. I don't love what my country has become. But I'm called to dream of what it could be and help make that a reality. The people who founded the United States founded it on such a dream. True, we have never fully lived up to it. But does that mean we should stop trying? Does that mean that those of us who care about justice and equality and peace should just leave, because it's never going to get any better? I think that's the message that the power of evil wants us to believe, but it's not true.
Today is the Feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on the first followers of Jesus like fire. The fire of the Spirit lit their hearts, so that they could spread God's kingdom. But that kingdom doesn't get spread through destruction. Fire destroys, but it also warms and transforms. May it transform us into the agents that will spread the way of peace. May the spirit come into us as the breath of God, bringing us peace and reviving our suffocating souls. That same breath of God can snuff out the powers of evil, like blowing out a candle. We are the carriers of that breath of God. May we be open to receiving it.
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