For God's sake, be quiet!

I am a restaurant voyeur. It’s one of those things I get from my mother. Although she died when I was in my 20s, I well remember our dining adventures. Whenever we ate out, we enjoyed creating our own little scenarios about the people we saw eating at nearby tables. I still find myself doing that.

When I was younger and saw couples having dinner together, I always thought I could tell if they were married or not just by observing their conversation or lack thereof. If they were chatting non-stop and laughing at one another’s jokes, I figured it must be early in the relationship, perhaps even a first date. But if they ate without exchanging more than a few words, I assumed they had been married a long time and had either: a) run out of things to say, b) grown bored with one another, or c) things had gotten so bad that they were no longer on speaking terms. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve grown to realize that there is another possible explanation for their lack of conversation. Perhaps they are so comfortable with one another that they don’t need to talk.

Being comfortable with silence in one another’s presence is a sign of depth in a relationship. That’s true, not only for our relationships with other people, but also for our relationship with ourselves, and it’s certainly true for our relationship with God.

I always wonder what’s going on with people who can’t tolerate silence. Like the ones who have the TV or music going 24/7 in their homes. Noise becomes an addiction that they can’t live without. I suspect it’s not so much because they crave noise as it is because they're so uncomfortable with silence.

Inside each of us a God-shaped hole that we try to fill with all kinds of stuff that will never satisfy us, like drugs, sex, food, work, exercise, shopping… noise. The more we have, the more we want, as we convince ourselves that this is how we’re going to fill the hole. But it never works. Because only God  can fill our God-shaped hole.

The fact is, inside that God-shaped hole, within the void, is where we actually meet God-- in times of silence.

Sometimes this happens during public worship, although I am painfully aware of how uncomfortable many people are with moments of silence in worship. They rustle and fidget and resist it so much that I would assume there is no God for them in that silence. (As a Lutheran, I envy the Quakers in those moments.)

We can all enter into times of silence intentionally, in our private or shared lives, by practicing contemplative prayer (also called centering prayer). It’s not like the prayers we say that are confined to words--prayers where we chatter away at God, perhaps telling God what we’d like God to do, all bound up in our brains, filling the God-shaped hole with our projections and assumptions about God so that the true God has no place to enter in.

Contemplative prayer is opening ourselves to God, letting go of our agendas and thoughts, so that we can remove the empty space-fillers from our God-shaped holes and allow God to enter in. It’s a time to synchronize our hearts with God’s. This is a practice that I am growing to appreciate more and more, as silence has become for me, not something to be avoided, but a welcome friend.

If you're longing for a deeper connection with God and this is a practice that you'd like to explore, please give yourself permission to try. It may mean working through your discomfort with silence. You probably won't get there in one sitting, but if you stick with it, it will change your life. (I know it may sound presumptuous of me to make such a claim, but I truly believe this.)

Here are some websites you might find helpful:

https://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/ (the app is great!)

https://cac.org/ (Sign up for the daily meditations which are delivered to your inbox.)

Do we have an immigration problem?

About a year ago, at Ascension we began exploring the possibility of offering our parsonage as housing for a refugee family. Not long after that, a Syrian family of eleven moved in. From my friendship with them, I have learned how culturally bound my expectations of others tend to be. I have made a lot of assumptions about what the Ismaels need only to learn that I'm usually wrong, and what I thought they need is not at all what they need. I have learned to listen, and pay attention to what I'm hearing, so that rather than expecting them to become like me, I can appreciate who they are as human beings just as surely created in the image of God as I am. Welcoming them into our midst has been a holy undertaking, to be sure. 

There is a lot of disagreement in our country about how welcoming we should be to immigrants and refugees these days. The inhospitable (and often downright hateful) attitude some Americans have toward immigrants puzzles me. Especially when so many of those same people claim to follow Jesus. I don't get it. 

With the exception of Native Americans, we all came here from someplace else, so how can we have such animosity toward immigrants? I'm told that the problem is with illegal immigrants. Okay. Maybe. But I’m not convinced.

I suspect that what bothers us, if we're honest, is the otherness of people who just aren’t like us. An us-and-them way of looking at the world is hard-wired into us. Way back in our cave-dweller days, it was a matter of survival to be wary of the other. So, maybe that explains why we always have to have someone who is the other, someone we perceive as a threat to our way of life. Whether it’s the Irish, the communists, the blacks, the Jews, the Muslims, the gays... Our need to protect ourselves from the other may be inevitable.

Years ago, I attended a meeting of the Homeowners’ Association in my neighborhood, and I was both amused and dismayed to hear the people around me blaming all of the negative occurrences in our neighborhood on the people who lived in the condominiums. A huge development, it was well integrated in almost every way. However, we still managed to identify someone to be the other. While the majority of us lived in houses, there was a section of the development that consisted of condos. And, apparently, those who lived in the condos were the ones who weren’t cleaning up their dog poop, went speeding down the streets, and threw wild parties that lasted all night. Really?

A big part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus is going against the attitudes and behaviors of the dominant culture. And while it may appear that the world of Jesus’ day and the world of our day are as different as clay tablets and iPads, our tendency to protect ourselves from the other is common to both cultures.

In Jesus' day, the good religious people worked hard to live holy lives by separating themselves from people who were impure. But Jesus flipped the whole idea of holiness upside down. For him, holiness was expressed through compassion for those considered impure and the inclusion of all people in God’s kingdom. Matthew Fox wrote about this in his book, Original Blessing, suggesting that the true meaning of holiness is hospitality, which is essentially, the offer of safety, comfort, and nourishment to both friend and stranger.

If holiness is hospitality, we are seeing some very unholy behavior in our country. Perhaps, if we could learn to follow the One who put the law of compassion above all other laws, we would see that those we fearfully label as the other are really not that different from us. They risk their lives to come to this country, not because of some evil they have conspired against us, but because they long for a better life for their families. Who among us wouldn’t do all we could to provide food and shelter for our young children or our aging parents? Those who risk so much to care for the ones they love certainly deserve our respect, if not our admiration.

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not denying that there is a problem. What I am saying is that it is not an immigrant problem. It's not even an us-and-them problem, or a good-guys and bad-guys problem. As much as anything, for those who claim to follow Jesus, it seems to be another one of those are-you-just-gonna-mouth-the-words-or-are-you-really-gonna-follow-him problems.

Those who vomit

I had been away for two weeks caring for my new grandbaby Justin during the days while his parents were at work, and it was time for me to head home. So, this morning I caught the E Train in Queens to make my way toward Penn Station and my train back to Baltimore. After hauling my suitcase onto a crowded subway, I struggled to keep my balance as I held onto a rail and tried not to fall into the woman beside me. I needed to find a seat.

Spying an unoccupied space at the other end of the car, I worked my way through the people until I finally plopped myself down, holding onto my suitcase like a cello between my legs. What a relief!

Now, if I had looked more carefully, I might have noticed that people were standing all around, but no one had taken this seat. What I did notice was the man sitting next to this space. He was all bundled up in a shabby hat and coat with just a bit of his scraggly, bearded face showing. He appeared to be sleeping. I had seen others like him riding the subways in winter, people who rested their bodies, protected from the cold, as they settled in for the day. He was homeless, but harmless, and I wasn’t above sharing a seat with him.

Then I it hit me. Right in the face. The man reeked of vomit. The kind that smells like rancid dairy products and is so pungent that it burns right through your lungs and pokes at your gut. It was all I could do to keep from gagging. No wonder the seat was empty. And here I was. Lord, have mercy. I quickly began breathing through my mouth.

As I sat there, I noticed how the people around me were reacting to the smell. A family of tourists with two teenagers got on the subway and stood directly in front of me. I could see them whispering to one another, looking at the man with disgust. Yes, he was disgusting. I agreed. I felt trapped and was, at that very moment, searching for alternative seating.

Then I started to think about how I had spent the past two weeks. My nostrils had become accustomed to the smell of vomit… not nearly as pungent as this, but like a diluted version of it, also with the distinct smell of spoiled milk. It was always on my clothes. Sometimes I was so soaked with it that I had to shower, but as soon as I got all cleaned up, *boom*, it happened again. At three months, Justin is like a lot of babies. He spits up pert near every time he eats. I started to get used to it; I’d just wipe the vomit off my clothes and go on.

I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m complaining here, because I’m not. I love that little guy to pieces, and that’s just what he does right now.

I wondered, if I could have compassion for Justin’s vomit, could I not also have compassion for this homeless man’s vomit? And then, I thought about how, at one time, this man was a baby just like my sweet Justin. He may have been held in the arms of his Nana who loved him unconditionally. She may have dreamed of all that he might one day become, never imagining this moment for him on the E Train, riding toward Manhattan, surrounded by people who found him disgusting.

I saw a seat open up a short distance away. It happened right about the time I realized that this man was created in the image of God just as certainly as my dear Justin was. And so I remained where I was.  

I don't think I would have done that three weeks ago, but spending two weeks getting vomited on by someone I love more than anything gave me a new appreciation for those who vomit. 

Whiners

Christmas made me sick this year. Beginning December 26, I was afflicted with the crud and it took me until February to feel human again. It was brutal. The worst part was that during this time I felt myself becoming something I detest: a whiner. Whiners drive me up a wall!

The last time I was with my three-year-old grandson, Nick, he started whining. I saw this as a teachable moment and introduced him to the Whiner family by pulling up a video of an old episode of Saturday Night Live on my phone. You may remember them. Every word they utter is spoken in a whiny tone that is as annoying as a preacher hacking and clearing the mucus out of her or his throat after every sentence. I never thought the Whiners were all that amusing. Mostly, I just wanted to turn the TV off. Nick watched with interest wondering what this had to do with whatever it was he was whining about.

“Are you a member of the Whiner family?” I asked him.

“I’m not a member of the Whiner family; I’m Nicholas Ferrara.” He spoke the words even whinier than before, just to let me know who was in charge.

Kids and cats are notorious whiners. As someone who lives with a cat, I seldom hear Guido whine these days, and when he does, he never gets what he wants. I won’t reward it. I like to believe that’s why he rarely whines. I think the same method works on kids. Neither my son nor my daughter are whiners. If they whined when they were wee little, it didn’t last long. They knew better. It never got them very far with me. As for other people’s kids, well, you need to know that I love other people’s kids. Really, I do. But when they whine, I’m gone.

As a pastor, from time-to-time, parishioners come to me and whine. I don’t have a problem with crying, which I believe is good for the soul, and I consider it an honor when someone shares their tears with me. But whining is something else. And when they whine, it takes all the restraint I can muster to listen sympathetically when everything within me wants to smack them and shout, “Suck it up!”

I’m grateful that God is a lot more patient than I am with whiners. It seems to be God’s nature to put up with them. There was Adam who whined that he wasn’t responsible for his actions; it was all Eve’s fault. And who can forget the children of Israel, who were saved from slavery and certain death through a miracle of God’s deliverance, and then proceeded to whine for forty years because things weren’t quite perfect on the way to the Promised Land. Jesus’ disciples were classic whiners, all worried about petty concerns, like who got to talk to Jesus, or who got to sit where in the Kingdom, as if any of that mattered a hill of beans. And then there’s Saint Paul, who was so pathetic, whining round and round in circles about how he wanted to do the right thing, but as hard as he tried, he always ended up doing what he knew he shouldn’t be doing. Oh, Whaa! Whaa! Whaa!

The Bible might be subtitled, The Book of Whining. It’s filled with self-centered people who don’t get what God’s up to and can only fret about what’s in it for them, or as often as not, what’s not in it for them. Of course, the Bible gives us a spot-on representation of humanity.

If I were God, I would have ended the whining a long time ago. I really don’t know how God tolerates it. But from what I know of God, she/he does more than tolerate it. God seems to have an affinity toward whiners. I don’t understand it one bit. But it’s true.

As much as I hate it hate it hate it hate it, there are times when I have to whine because I know that if I don't, I may implode, and I suspect that would be worse. So, all that being said, I really do appreciate the fact that God is a lot more gracious with whiners than I am. I count on it.  

What's so funny?

As I spent time with my grandsons this past week, I was reminded of what a gift humor is. And what a mystery. To my knowledge, there is no other creature with the ability to appreciate humor. Even among humans, it’s hard to understand how humor can manifest itself in such weird ways.

Baby Justin, who turned 8 weeks old, has just started to smile. I mean legitimately smile, not those gas-passing smirks that are really nothing more than expressions of relief. While I was with him, I got him to laugh a few times by making goofy faces. It was glorious. A baby belly laugh is the ultimate high.

Nick is three-and-a half now, and his humor has evolved to butt jokes. He told me about ten knock-knock jokes in a row and the punch line to every one of them was, butt. I suspect that with his friends in day care, all someone has to say is the word butt and everyone cracks up. It gets them every time. I recall seeing comedians like Lenny Bruce back when profanity was taboo, and every time he said fuck (which was quite often), he got a laugh. It always felt like a cheap laugh to me, and it wasn’t really all that funny after the 50^th time. The audience was laughing out of nervousness, knowing the comedian had just stepped outside the confines of what’s socially acceptable by using a naughty word. Hearing Nick laugh at words like butt and fart, I can see now that laughing at words considered naughty really is at the humor level of a three year old.

As an older, wiser woman than I was when I was interested in coupling with men, I would advise any person seeking a life partner not to overlook the importance of a sense of humor. While I suspect everyone does have some sense of humor, it’s important to notice exactly what they find humorous. I should have paid more attention to this with my ex-husband. We rarely laughed at the same things. I would be watching a comedy, laughing my head off and see him sitting on the couch looking like the Great Sphinx of Egypt. It’s not that he didn’t laugh. He did. But, as I recall, usually when he was laughing, it was at his own jokes.

For a while I dated a really good man I’ll call Poindexter. Once he took me to see Larry the Cable Guy, who ended up telling a lot of jokes about Mexicans that I found offensive. I couldn’t bring myself to laugh. In fact, if I had driven myself, I would have gotten up and walked out. Everyone in the arena, including Poindexter, was laughing hysterically. For a moment, I wondered, what's the matter with me that I can't laugh at these jokes along with everyone else? But then I came to my senses and wondered, what's the matter with all these people that they think this is funny? On another occasion, I took Poindexter with me to hear David Sedaris. This time the tables were turned. Everyone in the concert hall was enjoying David Sedaris. As I laughed, Poindexter had a blank look on his face. “I don’t get it,” he said. What!? How is that possible?! On the basis of those two events, I should have ended our relationship immediately. But of course, I had to hang in there for a couple more years trying to make something work that was obviously never going to work. Humor doesn’t lie, folks. 

It seems to me that you can tell a lot about a person by the kinds of things they laugh at. Is it a pie in the face? A punny phrase? An ironic twist that you didn’t see coming? I admit that I enjoy it all. But it’s the absurdities of life that really get me going, especially the absurdity of my own life. There have been times when something from my day struck me as so funny that I’d wake up in the middle of the night laughing about it.

The people I enjoy most in my life are gigglers. We get so tickled together that we’re holding our stomachs as tears stream down our cheeks. Whenever I meet someone I can giggle with like that, I feel like there is a bond between us that transcends time and space. It’s as sweet as any holy communion I know.

A former co-worker once told me that he never laughed as much working with anybody as he did with me. I considered that high praise. He was someone I could giggle with. Although it’s been twenty years since we worked together, I still remember moments with him and chuckle. I don’t laugh as much these days and I’m not sure why. Grief often overwhelms me.

After spending time with my grandsons, I realize how much I miss laughing, really laughing in the moment, without the shadows of sorrow tempering my joy. If you’re reading this and care to offer a prayer for me, please pray that I will find myself free to laugh more in the days to come.

Holding the mystery of the incarnation in my arms

For the second time in my life, I am blessed to hold a newborn baby in my arms during the days leading up to Christmas. My daughter Gretchen was born on December 5, 1978. 39 years and one day later, she gave birth to her second son. Nothing humbles me like holding a tiny baby during Advent as I ponder the mystery of God-with-us.

Just as I did with his mother, I rock Justin to sleep in the glow of Christmas tree lights singing, “Silent Night.” And I think about how Jesus began his life in much the same way. With teeny-tiny fingers and toes. A soft spot and fragile little neck that couldn’t support his head. Crying when he was hungry, or wet, or tired. Nourished by his mother’s milk. Cuddled into contentment as he “sleeps in heavenly peace.” I hold him and ponder, How could the Creator of the Universe become so vulnerable, so helpless… so small? 

When my daughter was born, my heart was so full that I couldn’t imagine how it could ever hold as much love for any other human being as it held for her. But along came my son Ben, and I realized that I had been wrong. Yes, I could love another human being just as much as I loved my daughter. Who knew my heart was so big?

Then, with the birth of my first grandson, it happened again. I felt my heart swell and I couldn’t imagine how I could ever love another person the way I loved Nicholas. And yet, by golly, it's happened once again as a six-pound bundle named Justin holds my heart in his miniature hands. It astounds me to experience how the love of each one of them fills my heart completely, while the love of the many doesn’t diminish the love of the one. 

What I appreciate most about being a parent and a grandparent is the transformation it stirs within me. God knows I’m far from the most loving person in the world, and yet my children have stretched me to love in a way that is far beyond me. It brings me as close to divine love as I have ever experienced. Even at that, I know that God’s love for us far surpasses anything I could ever grasp. It’s a parent’s (or a grandparent’s) immeasurable love for one newborn baby extended to every baby ever born. 

More than just a mushy feeling, it’s love that empties itself completely for the sake of the beloved. That’s the wonder of the incarnation. It’s the hope of all the world entrusted to the world. The God of Love trusting in the love of humans. 

The sheer humility of the Word made flesh humbles me. I can hardly get my mind around it. And yet, when I’m holding my newborn grandson, somehow in a way that transcends language or reason, I feel like I am holding the mystery of the incarnation in my arms.

Beyond the Manger

Christmas is all about the birth of Jesus, right? Yes, and no. It’s about the birth of Jesus, yes, but that’s not all it’s about. The birth of Jesus embodies something profound about God that we often lose in the swaddling clothes and the manger and the straw.

I’m talking about the incarnation here. The word incarnation means an embodiment of a god or a spirit in an earthly form. Christianity, as well as Hinduism and Buddhism all include the concept of incarnation in their belief system. Within Christianity, John’s gospel introduces an incarnational worldview as he begins with the proclamation that the “Word became flesh and lived among us.”

Father Richard Rohr talks about four possible world views that people can adopt.

The first is the materialistic world view. This perspective says the only stuff that’s real is the stuff you can measure, the stuff you can see and touch. It’s the perspective usually taken by a scientific thinker.

The second world view is spiritual. Those who adopt this view spiritualize everything. They don’t take the material world seriously. What you see out there is just an illusion. The real stuff is the inner stuff. It’s the perspective usually taken by a religious thinker.

And then, there’s a third world view that Father Rohr labels as the theological. People with this view spend their lives working really hard to put the material world and the spiritual world back together again.

Now, all three of these views are based on dualistic thought, an either/or way of looking at life. Something is either good or it’s bad. It’s either right or it’s wrong. It’s a rigid way of looking at things and lies at the heart of fundamentalism. And it’s not at all the Jesus Way of being in the world. The Jesus Way honors mystery and paradox.

And that brings us to the fourth world view that Father Rohr identifies. It’s a way of seeing the world that Jesus came to claim: an incarnational world view, which says that matter and spirit have never been separated. While the theological world view works so hard at cramming God back into the material world, the incarnational world view says that you don’t have to cram God back into the world because God never left the world. God has been here all along.

Ironically, the birth of Christ embodies the incarnational nature of God, and yet every year when we celebrate Christmas, we become preoccupied with how we’re going to split it in two. There is the sacred celebration of Christmas and there is the secular celebration of Christmas and we see them as two separate things. Heaven forbid we should mix the two. We don’t sing “Jingle Bells” at a Christmas Eve service because that has nothing to do with the real meaning of Christmas, we’ll say. And yet, we certainly don’t want to give up “Jingle Bells” and only celebrate Christmas as a sacred holiday. That’s no fun. The implication is, of course, that the sacred celebration is meaningful and the secular celebration is fun. It’s either one or the other, but it can’t be both. So, during the month of December we all adopt split personalities. I wonder if that adds to the stress of the season in a way we don’t even realize.

Well, here’s the thing. The whole point of the incarnation is that there is no line dividing the sacred from the secular. God is a part of it all. Singing a medley that includes both “O Come O Come Emmanuel” and “Here Comes Santa Claus” is completely appropriate from an incarnational perspective. In fact, the way that the celebration of Christmas first came into being is an acknowledgement of this. Originally, it was a blend of the pagan celebration of the winter solstice and the Christian celebration of the birth of Christ.

So it always amuses me when I hear Christians getting all hot under the collar because Christmas has become so secularized, as if that is some kind of an affront to God. The only thing that is an affront to God is a dualistic worldview.

The big thing about living in a split universe is that you are always having to decide where God is and where God isn’t. You get all caught up in judging, based on the false assumption that God is selectively present in the world around us. God is in America, but God is not in Iran. God is in Barack Obama but not Donald Trump. God is in Bach but not Lady Gaga. God is in Ascension Lutheran Church but not the Hindu Temple. If we spend all our time determining where God is and where God isn’t, it’s not much of a leap to say, “God is in me but not in you.”

When we live with an incarnational worldview, there’s no decision to be made about where God is and where God isn’t. Yes, we find God wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger. But we don’t stop there. We look at the world around us, seeing God in it all.