August 28, 2024

Wednesday Word:  Fire

His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. – Matt. 3:12

We have seen enough of fire over this past week.  As of Monday, the fire report was as follows:

Flat Rock Fire at 52,500 acres with 35% containment; Remington Fire at just over 196,000 acres with 0% containment; Constitution Fire at roughly 25,000 acres with 28% containment; and the House Draw Fire at about 175,000 acres with 88% containment.  That’s just under 450,000 acres that have been burned in NE Wyoming.  Not to downplay the scope of the disaster, but the good news is that no lives or homes were lost, although people did lose grassland and cattle, and wildlife was also lost.

The Bible has something like 630 references to fire – some good, some bad, and some just as a matter of fact.  Fire can help or it can harm.  It can comfort or it can terrorize.  It can help create and it can destroy.  We know this all too well.

In the above passage, John the Baptist is preparing the crowds for the coming of the Messiah.  It sounds like a hell-and-damnation sermon:  “Get right with God or be prepared to burn.”

But chaff is the name given to the outer husk of things.  It’s the protective coating around the seed.  In this passage, what is being burned isn’t the good wheat but the outer husk.  I think of this as the wheat being all the good things that we give to God and all the good fruit we produce.  The husk, that which is burned, is all the other stuff we use to shield ourselves or the images we project to protect ourselves. 

We tend to be fiercely independent people, surrounding ourselves with a protective outer husk, which is just so much chaff.  But in the aftermath of these fires, what I have seen is a lot of chaff that has been burned.  What is left is the wheat – the wheat of a community coming together to help those in need; the wheat of people offering spaces for people to set up camp as needed; the wheat of one landowner opening up their land for others to send cattle; the wheat of companies pooling resources for the common good.

Fire can be devastating, but it can also burn away the chaff so that the good wheat can be gathered up.  May we continue to be the good wheat.

Blessings,

August 21, 2024

Wednesday Word:  Balance

I recently finished re-reading The Benedictine Handbook.  This is a manual written by St. Benedict of Nursia in the 6^th Century that lays out how monks and nuns are to live.  It’s not terribly long – roughly 88 pages broken down into 73 chapters, and it covers topics from hospitality to diet to prayer to work to discipline and everything in-between.

It’s thought that Benedict wrote The Rule in about 540, and almost 1500 years later it is still being used in monasteries and other contexts around the world.

One of the things that gives The Rule its staying power is its simplicity.  Benedictine monks and nuns take a vow of “stability, amendment of life, and obedience.”  Within that vow, and within the life of the monastery, is a simple balance of life that revolves around the body (dormitory, refectory, and grounds), mind (library), and soul (chapel).  In seeking that balance, he divided the day up into neat sections of work, prayer, study, nourishment, and sleep.

In this Rule, everything matters, and God is at the center of everything – God is present in our work, in our play, in our hospitality, in our study, in our worship, and in everything we do.

We can get so busy with certain aspects of our lives that we get “out of balance.”  This is not new to the 21^st Century – it was something of which Benedict was aware close to 1500 years ago.  It would behoove us to pay attention to The Rule, if not to join a monastery at least to pay attention to our lives.  Do we have a good work/life balance?  Are we getting enough sleep?  Do we eat sensibly and regularly?  Are we spending the same time in prayer as we are watching TV?

The list and examples of how we could obtain balance are as varied as the number of people reading this, but you are the only one who can decide what’s appropriate.  I would urge you, however, to examine your life and find that balance where God gets as much attention as your phone.

Blessings,

August 14, 2024

Wednesday Word:  Jonathan Myrick Daniels

Today, August 14, is the Feast of Jonathan Myrick Daniels.  If you’ve never heard of him, don’t worry, I hadn’t heard of him either until I attended seminary.

Jonathan was a seminarian attending the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, MA, in the early ‘60’s.  In 1965 he answered Martin Luther King, Jr.’s plea to come to Selma and help secure voting rights for all citizens.  He was arrested and jailed on August 14 for joining a picket line, and then was unexpectedly released.  As he and his companions approached a store, a white man with a shotgun accosted 16-year-old Ruby Sales.  Jonathan moved between the two to protect her from the attack, whereby he was shot and killed.

Almost 60 years later, this country is still racked by acts of racism, both overt and covert, and with the ghosts and sins of slavery and a war fought over the right to own other human beings.  People of color face more societal obstacles than do white people.  Women have their own unique challenges.  Certain groups of people are working to disallow other groups of people from voting.  Attacks on people “not like us,” both in word and deed, seem to be on the rise.

Jonathan Daniels understood that following God meant opposing certain acts and policies of man.  He said he knew he had to go to Selma when the words of the Magnificat filled his soul:  “He has put down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly.  He has filled the hungry with good things.”

In one paper he wrote before his death, he says, “I began to know in my bones . . . that all life . . . [is] indelibly one.”

When we are faced with hatreds of all kinds wrapped up as patriotism or as Christian values, may we remember the courage of Jonathan Myrick Daniels who sacrificed himself for the protection of another human being.  And let us also work to renounce evil powers bent on destroying the creatures of God while also striving for justice and peace among all people.

Todd+

August 7, 2024

Wednesday Word – Transfiguration

Yesterday, August 6, was the Feast of the Transfiguration.  This is the day the Church commemorates that mountaintop event when Jesus spoke with Moses and Elijah and his face became dazzling white.  This is also when a cloud overshadows everyone and the disciples hear a voice saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

This is a major event in Christian history because it reveals Jesus as part of the Godhead, and it also shows Jesus as the fulfillment of the Law (Moses) and the Prophets (Elijah).  This is a big day on the Church calendar because not only was Jesus transfigured, but the disciples were also changed forever.

Yesterday, August 6, was the 79^th anniversary of the first nuclear attack in human history.  On that day a B-29 bomber named Enola Gay flew a mission to drop the atomic bomb Little Boy over Hiroshima.  It’s estimated that 66,000 people were killed instantly, while another 90,000 to 160,000 died of radiation poisoning over the next 2 to 4 months, and more throughout the year. 

This, combined with the bombing of Nagasaki three days later, was a major event in world history.  It not only ended WWII, but the world was also changed forever.

There is a dual transfiguration here.  The one, the light of God becomes blindingly brilliant in the face of Jesus and people learn that he is of God.  That light leads to life.  The other one, the light of man’s scientific advancement, becomes blindingly brilliant in the bomb-blast over Hiroshima, and people learn of how destructive we can be.  That light leads to death.

Two stories of transfiguration.  Two stories of blinding light.  In which light do we put our hope; and which light do we want to transfigure us?

Blessings,