A Winnah!

We have a gold medal winner at St. Luke's these days. Robin Haskin's dog Cooper took the best of his breed at the Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday. What a thrilling thing for her and for us her at St. Luke's. Good Goin', Robin!


From Robyn:
I have not been able to answer everyone’s emails and phone calls, but I want to thank you all for congratulating both Cooper and I for his Win at Westminster Kennel Club on Tuesday. We had a blast and thousands of breeders go their entire lives without even getting an award of merit at the Garden and we have been lucky enough to get an Award of Merit on one of our chessies in the past and to now have a Westminster winner in the family, in my Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. It is equal to getting an Olympic Gold in the dog world. So thank you to all for your support and accolades. I am so happy for the next few weeks I will be flying High. I was so proud he showed so well as a young dog to represent his breed and our community.

Thank you,

Robyn Haskin and Cooper

Transfiguration: Sermon

Transfiguration Sunday
February 14, 2010

Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration. It is always the last Sunday of Epiphany and the Sunday before Lent begins. This Gospel story is found in all three of the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. And there is little variation among those three versions. It is the story of an encounter with God that is experienced by Jesus but also Peter, James and John in which Jesus is seen talking with Moses and Elijah. And in the Gospel of Luke, there is one phrase that is different from the other Gospels:

They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

Moses and Elijah are speaking with Jesus. The word for “departure” is the word exodus—it is a word that connotes that there is a religious meaning to his journey to Jerusalem. This is not mere travel to the great city of David; it means that there is something of God’s holy acts going to be accomplished in this journey. This is not a business trip to the nation’s capital; it is the accomplishment of the salvation of all creation. It is his journey to his death on a cross as well as his resurrection to new life and glory.

Why is this story so important to us today? What do we learn of God or Jesus and how does it help us live our lives embracing the fullness of Christ? What we see in this passage is the kind of encounter with our faith that we all long for. It is seeing Jesus while he prays being transformed into all that he is to be. In conversation with the heroes of the faith, Jesus is transformed—his face shines like Moses’ did when he came down from Mt. Sinai with the teachings of God. We see in this passage the possibility of the kind of encounter with God that changes us—that accomplishes the divine purpose that God has for US just as surely as God has for Jesus.

Peter, spokesman for the mere mortals, offers to make booths or tabernacles for the great ones so that they can remain on the mountain rather than down in the valleys where ordinary life continues. But in the cloud the voice of God descends upon Peter, James and John and identifies Jesus as the Son and to LISTEN to him. The transformation is to be accomplished by listening to Jesus. Transformation is not merely a mountain top experience. Transformation is the hard work of becoming what God has in mind for us. Jesus must embrace the journey to Jerusalem and all that entails for him to be all that he is.

Now, I am not speaking of predestination here. Jesus is not DESTINED to die on the cross. He CHOOSES to make the way of the cross because that is how he best can teach the world what self-emptying means, what real living really means.
All too often we find living to be somewhat bland. It seems rather relentless—we work, we play, we raise families, and then are somewhat disillusioned by the seeming lack of meaning it has to it. But life isn’t worth living unless we have found a way to give it away. The accumulation of things, success, even happiness pales if there isn’t a way to empty one’s self of SELF to embrace the fuller life of helping others, making the world a better place, fighting injustice. This isn’t mere humanism. It is at the root of faith. And it is interesting all the major religions of the world have this rootedness in this self-emptying. In Christianity, however, this emptying is found in the single act of Jesus’ embracing the Cross. His act of self-emptying brought about a change in the whole equilibrium of humanity. No longer were we destined to live out meaninglessness through sin and selfishness. He saved us from the kind of inanity that is the result of self-service and personal aggrandizement. His journey to the cross reminded the world that unity and wholeness is more important than the need for satisfaction.

The Transfiguration is our story too. It is not merely that Jesus could shine on the mountain top. The Transfiguration is the story that each and every one of us is invited to that opportunity to choose what our lives are to be. Do we choose to merely return to the mundane valleys from our experience of Christ? Or do we allow ourselves to empty ourselves of our selfishness, or self-centeredness?

This past week I saw on TV a story about Nelson Mandela. He was a man who spent more time in prison than he did free, but led his people out of slavery in Apartide in South Africa to embrace the bitterness so that it had no hold on him. The effort at forgiveness and reconciliation to which Mandela led his people was remarkable and unheard of in Africa. You hear of individuals forgiving. But you do not hear often of a concerted effort by a whole nation to enter into a process of forgiveness and reconciliation so that a nation can heal and move on. For a short while during my tenure in Washington, DC, I had a South African priest who was ethnically Chinese serving at my parish. He was on sabbatical learning of the approaches to minister in the HIV AIDS community—a serious issue in his country. He shared with me many of the ways that Mandela embraced the changes necessary for his country to keep from devolving into anarchy in the early 90’s. “We had been angry for so long” he said, “that we had to have a way to ritualize how we could be a peace with one another. It wasn’t a matter of getting the other to change—it was how we were going to change to keep our nation from becoming a blood bath. We finally realized that if we didn’t forgive, we would not survive.”

The Transfiguration is the story reminds us that we MUST change in order to survive. We must change as a congregation in order for any successive generations to find a home here. We must change individually no matter how righteous we are to choose to empty our selves of our selfishness, no matter how old or young we are so that we may find meaningful lives. We must change as a Church to find in other Christian the life that embraces others whose beliefs and practices are just a worthy proclamations of Christ so that Christ’s mission is not mocked. We must change as nations and cultures so that we can find in emptying ourselves of our nationalism and pride we can find a commonness of humanity in Christian love. We must be willing to embrace the journey to Jerusalem just as surely as did our Lord.

On Wednesday, we celebrate Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. We ritualize this time of turning our face toward Jerusalem. Together we will begin this self-emptying. We need to know what it means to be forgiven. But more, we need to know that we are about the kind of transformation that comes when we give up our selves for the sake of others, when we live out the kind of mercy that we want to receive, or when we provide the justice to others that we hope to receive. To be transfigured is not being zapped by God. It is the painful effort of self-denial. It is the hard work of self-emptying so that real meaning fills your life.

The last part of our Gospel reading this morning is a strange story. Jesus returns from the mountain only to find that there is a child that needs healing that his disciples, even though they have been given the power earlier in the chapter, are unable to heal alone.

We are unable to heal ourselves alone. My South African priest friend said that the without the faith in Christ, South Africa would not have been able to heal. Unless we are willing to put ourselves in the hands of God, we cannot know the healing that is necessary to have meaningful lives. The ability to change ourselves is just not ours. It is God’s grace that allows us to make the changes in our lives. Ask any one in recovery from alcoholism or drug addiction. It is only through the grace of a power greater than one’s self can that kind of change be accomplished. It is through the grace of God that we can embrace the kind of life that memorializes Jesus.
So I invite you to embrace the Transfiguration as your own. Allow yourself to imagine yourself as God would have you. Then I would invite you to set your face toward Jerusalem—to embrace the pain and selflessness that it will require to accomplish that. Then I would invite you to spend Lent in practicing the self-emptying necessary for God’s vision for you to be lived out. You will find that you will have a holy Lent. AMEN

RevGals February Friday Five

With Valentine's Day around the corner, it seems appropriate to write about February holidays. However, I'd never heard of "Waitangi Day" before: Feb. 6 is a holiday in New Zealand to commemorate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, the founding of New Zealand, in 1840. I'll avoid Fur Rondy, as it is connected with Sarah Palin's home state.

1. When February comes along, how do you feel about the coming month?
February is not my favorite month except that it is the shortest. Here in upstate NY it is cold, snowy and icy and dark. But there is usually a light beginning to shine at the end of the tunnel. This winter has been especially cold and long. And now Epiphany is almost over with its emphasis on hope for the Light. But though cold today (20), the sun is shining with the recent snow piled all over. It looks inviting but it is not fun going out. And although there are several things to celebrate in February, all my energies are put into “getting through February.”

2. What memories do you have about Valentine's Day? Are you doing anything to observe it this year?

I am not a big Valentine Day fan. It reminds me of days in grade school when we had to have valentines for the whole class and I hated it then too. I will probably make a decent supper for J, though.

3. It is interesting that Monday's "Presidents Day" is not officially called that in every state. It is a U.S. federal holiday entitled "Washington's Birthday." Which is your favorite president and why?

I am still a Kennedy fan. He was the president of my youth. He asked me to think of what I could do for my country at a time when that question needed to be asked. I am a fan of Jimmy Carter to this day. And I have a connection to Lincoln—my mother’s family travelled with the Lincoln family over the Appalachians in the early 1800’s to Springfield, MO. It is the reason why my family is Republican to this day, except for me. Too bad the Republicans didn’t remain the party of the people as it was in Lincoln’s day.

4. Will you be celebrating Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras? How?

I may go to some church’s Pancake Supper. My congregation doesn’t do one. When I lived in New Orleans, Mardi Gras was the culmination of weeks of “ball season” that was lively and fun. Mardi Gras for one day just doesn’t really compute. But I have always said that Mardi Gras was my “feast day.” I am usually preparing for Ash Wednesday.

5. Any other ways to celebrate in February?

I guess I should celebrate February. It might help the mullygrubs that I generally get during the month. The forecast is for more snow throughout next week. Bah humbug! Let Lent come!

Bonus: A Lenten book or website you recommend.

www.workingpreacher.org has worked well for me.

Staving off the gloom; Friday Five

Staving off the gloom; Friday Five



Sally, in the UK, is having a case of Seasonal Affective Disorder—she has the mid-winter blues! She has come up with a timely Friday Five:

Candlemass is past, and Christmas is well and truly over, here in the UK February looks set to be its usual grey and cold self. Signs of spring are yet to emerge; if like me you long for them perhaps you need ways to get through these long dark days. So lets share a few tips for a cold and rainy/ snowy day....

1. Exercise, what do you do if you can't face getting out into the cold and damp?
I have been cleaning house. I usually can’t get up the energy to do that when SAD comes upon me, but this year I have a young woman helping me. I actually found my hand weights. I just might do something with them….but then again…. Exercise is not really my métier.

2. Food; time to comfort eat, or time to prepare your body for the coming spring/summer?
This is the time when I like making stews, shepherd pie, chili. I have found a place where they serve chicken and dumplins so all is right with the world. But I have a tendency to gain weight during the winter and I am having a harder time this year than usual. But in the Northeast we can’t get really good produce and I want something fresh besides parsnips and broccoli.

3. Brainpower; do you like me need to stave off depression, if so how do you do it?
Oh, yeah! Too many days without sunshine and I get the mullygrubs. Being an extrovert, I find that if I get out with people it helps. Also, if I keep active—not exercising exactly but keeping busy keeps me from getting too far down in the dumps. Also if I can think of others, I am less likely to get too Eyorish.

4. How about a story that lifts your spirits, is there a book or film that you return to to stave off the gloom?
When I was going through a particularly nasty time in my life, I found Karen Armstrong’s biography, The Spiral Staircase especially helpful because we had so much in common, the depression being one of them. Her heroic piecing together a life for herself when her original plans were dashed was especially appealing to me.

5. Looking forward, do you have a favourite spring flower/ is there something that says spring is here more than anything else?
I look forward to pussywillow, snowdrops and that wonderful smell of earth that comes just before spring begins to show itself.

Sally, in the UK, is having a case of Seasonal Affective Disorder—she has the mid-winter blues! She has come up with a timely Friday Five:

Candlemass is past, and Christmas is well and truly over, here in the UK February looks set to be its usual grey and cold self. Signs of spring are yet to emerge; if like me you long for them perhaps you need ways to get through these long dark days. So lets share a few tips for a cold and rainy/ snowy day....

1. Exercise, what do you do if you can't face getting out into the cold and damp?
I have been cleaning house. I usually can’t get up the energy to do that when SAD comes upon me, but this year I have a young woman helping me. I actually found my hand weights. I just might do something with them….but then again…. Exercise is not really my métier.

2. Food; time to comfort eat, or time to prepare your body for the coming spring/summer?
This is the time when I like making stews, shepherd pie, chili. I have found a place where they serve chicken and dumplins so all is right with the world. But I have a tendency to gain weight during the winter and I am having a harder time this year than usual. But in the Northeast we can’t get really good produce and I want something fresh besides parsnips and broccoli.

3. Brainpower; do you like me need to stave off depression, if so how do you do it?
Oh, yeah! Too many days without sunshine and I get the mullygrubs. Being an extrovert, I find that if I get out with people it helps. Also, if I keep active—not exercising exactly but keeping busy keeps me from getting too far down in the dumps. Also if I can think of others, I am less likely to get too Eyorish.

4. How about a story that lifts your spirits, is there a book or film that you return to to stave off the gloom?
When I was going through a particularly nasty time in my life, I found Karen Armstrong’s biography, The Spiral Staircase especially helpful because we had so much in common, the depression being one of them. Her heroic piecing together a life for herself when her original plans were dashed was especially appealing to me.

5. Looking forward, do you have a favourite spring flower/ is there something that says spring is here more than anything else?
I look forward to pussywillow, snowdrops and that wonderful smell of earth that comes just before spring begins to show itself.

Friday Five: Social Media

I had the joy of spending time with Songbird last weekend, someone I would have never met had it not been for the blogosphere. Now we keep in touch using a large variety of methods: blog (hers a lot, mine not so much lately), facebook, twitter, text messaging, chat and email. So far there has been no skype.

It got me to thinking of the pros and cons of these relatively new means of communication and interconnecting and so I ask you the following:

1) What have been the benefits for you of social networking (blog, twitter, facebook, etc...)
I have a facebook account and I have two blogs. I am more or less bewildered by facebook. I don’t know how to use it to expand the ministry. I am not sure what ‘skype’ is, Katheryn. I don’t text so I don’t Twit. My thumbs are not that dexterous.

2) Which medium do you use the most? Or if you use them all, for what do you use each of them?
I have been blogging since I went to the MS coast after Katrina. Being an significant extrovert who has to get her ideas out in order for me to make decisions, work them through or even speak about them coherently, and being in a place where I have been cut off from a lot of collegiality, blogging has been a Goddesend.

3) If you could invent a networking site (with no limits on your imagination), what would it provide? What would it not provide?
Now, you have gone beyond my pay grade! I am not techie enough to think beyond the constraints of blogging. H___ I can’t even link! I am bringing my laptop to B3 hoping that SOMEONE will teach me to link!

4) Who have you met that you would not have met if it were not for the 'miracle' of social networking?
MaryBeth, FranIAm, Klady, Daniel, Brian Stoffregen, Bishop Walter Righter, Bishop Jack Spong, Bishop Pierre Whalon, Bonnie Anderson, the ELCA. It goes on and on. We had a meeting of the Episcobloggers last year and I finally got to meet some of my online friends. AWESOME!
I have had conversations with theologians that I would not have gotten to meet because they are on the left coast and carried on conversations about the Episcopal Church with people all over the world.

5) Who do you secretly pray does not one day try to 'friend/follow' you?
There are those who DO follow and sometimes leave ‘those kind of comments’ that I reject. “It’s my blog and I can post what I want to” she said musically! I do monitor my comments. On facebook I “hide” some comments, but I ignore some “friends”. The viagra seller are at the top of my list!

BONUS: What was the most random/weird/unsettling/wonderful connection you made that would not have happened if it were not for the ease of which we can find each other in the computer realm?

I joined a discussion on Ecunet some years ago (before Katrina) with a pastor who was really opposed to gayfolk. We ended up having a very long and very offline email correspondence. He was what I thought was a typical ‘southern conservative’. We ended up having many long telephone conversations. He shared his fears with regards to the LGBT issue and I shared some of my journey. He came 180 degrees to understand himself and his own prejudices were. He died suddenly a few years ago and I really miss his friendship. We were really candid with each other. I miss having a man with whom I can have that ‘intimate’ and that ‘safe’ with.

Crows

I spend a good bit of my time driving on the Interstate. Highway driving can get very boring and even soporific if I don’t have something to distract me. Sometimes I pray; sometimes I work on a sermon or something I am writing in my head as I am driving. It keeps me awake and present to my driving. But my constant companions are crows.

Winter or summer, crows are always my companions as I drive.
I seldom see a crow alone. They are usually three or more in the vicinity. When I hear them in town when I am sitting on my screened in porch they dominate the bird voices in the spring. But surprisingly, when they do come to the feeder, they do not fight with other birds. But I often see crows being chased by other birds on the road.

Crows are carrion eaters, but according to Cornell’s online info about birds, they don’t have the equipment to pierce the skin of a squirrel so they have to wait until something else opens a dead animal up for them to eat the flesh. I often see the big black beasts feeding on road kill. I am somehow heartened by Nature’s ability to keep us cleaned up.

As a child I listened to farmers at my grandmother’s curse the crows that were in their corn. I learned about scarecrows quite early and always found them rather silly. I guess I still equate them with Ray Milan, but for some reason I never got a bad feeling about crows. I guess I didn’t see the movie “Birds.”

One evening about a few weeks ago, J and I stopped for supper on a road trip. Overhead was a flock of crows that darkened the twilight. It was awesome. There must have been hundreds of thousands of crows in that flock. I am used to seeing only 3 or 4 at a time. I am accustomed to seeing starlings flock with their swooping flight patterns. These crows, however, did not have the grace of those starlings, but they could navigate together with an amazing precision. It was a quiet flyover. Instead of their usual cawing presence, the flock’s presence was marked with only chirps— crow-like grunts to mark their presence.

I am somewhat in awe of crows. They can live in families and in flocks. They can fly in formation or be singular in their attacks for food. They are ubiquitous and noisy as well as necessary in the balance of Nature’s shalom. But most of all I appreciate their presence as I drive.

Friday Five: Dreams

Sophia, a revgalblogpal, posted this Friday Five”

With the beginning of my college teaching semester I have been having some unusually intense and memorable dreams lately--especially related to my Women and Religion class. With the beginning of a new calendar year many of us are engaging with dreams of another kind: planning, brainstorming, setting intentions or resolutions, etc. And many churches will celebrate the baptism of Jesus this Sunday, reading the Gospel account of his vision of the Holy Spirit as a dove and the "beloved child" words of Godde that set him off on his mission sharing Godde's dream for the world. So let's take a few minutes on this (where I am at least) lovely snow-blanketed Friday morning and share about the many different dreams and visions in our lives.

1. Do you tend to daydream?

Of course I day dream! How can I be a preacher, a rev., a pastor without dreaming? No matter our faith, faith is about dreaming. The Prophets certainly dreamed. It is part of the hope mechanism of my life. Unlike Ezekiel, I don’t dream of a New Jerusalem, but I do dream of a time when things will be better. God will be in charge. There will be peace on earth. How could I preach otherwise?

2. Do you usually remember your night dreams? Do you find them symbolic and meaningful or just quirky?

I am not so good about night dreams. For years I had dreams, but would wake up in a sweat but could not recall anything. After a good bit of therapy, I remember some of my dreams. But on the whole I do not remember many of them. The may be intense when I wake up but they fade fairly soon after waking up. I figure that they are my subconscious working something out and I go on about my way.

3. Have you ever had a life changing dream which you'll never forget?

As a young person I had a dream that I would get out of the world of ignorance and racism that seemed to pervade my home. It wasn’t so much my family’s ignorance but the environment that seemed to permeate the society that I lived in and with which our neighbors, schools and community were content. I was determined to go to college even though I was not really a good student. I was not going to be stuck with the typical teacher-secretary-nurse options that were available to women in my day. That dream changed my life. I did get out. But now I am contemplating going back to that world as a missionary.

4. Share a long term dream for one or more aspects of your life and work.

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5. Share a dream for 2010....How can we support you in prayer on both the short and long term dreams?

I guess I have always dreamed of retirement since I started working in my teens. Now that it is facing me, I am not sure what my dream is. I love what I do. I love being pastor-priest. I love my congregation. I can’t see stopping that. I need to move. My landlord is being a jerk. I think he wants to sell the house. Prayers, please.