THE TENT OF THIS KINGDOM

Sermon September 23

2007-10-10T08:13:00.000-05:00

Is God deaf? Is God unwilling to pay attention to us? Unable to hear us? The psalmist asks that very question on several occasions in the Psalter, especially in the presence of thriving evil and violent oppression. Often the psalmist will wonder where God has run off to. We behave outwardly as if God can hear and can respond. In just a few moments, after I finish preaching and we say the Nicene Creed together, we will be led in prayer. Does this verbal ritual match what we believe inside? Do we believe what we ask for is even possible? Whenever our community gathers for the Eucharist, we pray for things specified for us to include in the Prayers of the People in our Book of Common Prayer: the Church, the world, the local community, the sick and suffering, the dead. It doesn’t work - or at least doesn’t seem to - at least not totally. The old wars continue and new ones flare up. Church factions argue and divide. Politicians lie and cheat. People continue to be sick and in pain. A skeptic would observe our persistent praying for peace in our church and world, for justice among nations and peoples, for healing and wholeness for those we love, and ask a simple question: If God is so loving and merciful, if God is not deaf but listening and desires that we live rightly with God in the world and with each other, where’s the evidence that our praying makes any difference? How would we answer such a skeptic? In searching for a certain quote on Google I came across this review on Amazon.com for Thomas Merton’s book New Seeds of Contemplation:

This is supposed to be a great spiritual book. I found the author to be hopelessly lost in a bunch of words which mean nothing. This is one of those "spiritual" books that are really the result of the author bewitching himself with the trappings of language. I think that Merton actually believes that he is saying something when all he is doing is using vaguely defined words and terms which can mean anything-or absolutely nothing (the more likely possibility). If you think that sitting in complete silence and solitude for hours on end is the way to learn something, get this book. If you think that that is the way to delude yourself and possibly go mad as a hatter, skip this one. Read one "mystical" treatise, and you have read them all. If "contemplation" is such a great way to gain knowledge, why is it that all of these books say the same insipid things?

Are we not guilty of “bewitching ourselves with the trappings of language” at times? Is not so much of the valid criticism of the church that we say and proclaim great ideals and hopes when we’re in the spotlight, when it fits into the expectations of the group, but either dismiss them or forget them when we’re off the stage, alone in our own worlds of real fear and doubt? We assent to God as mystery, but what we really want is a predictable interventionist God who follows our plan.
The rationalist points out the absurdity of a God who could possibly reach down to cooperate and participate in our needs and longings when we ask. The critic has a point. The holy absurdity we call prayer pushes us to the edge of the cliff of rational and reasonable expectations and asks us to jump into the bottomless nothingness of faith. Prayer dares command that we move from the head to the heart, from the rational to the mystical, from words to silence, from what we can control and measure and evaluate, to the mystery of a God who exists beyond space and time. Prayer is most fully about relinquishing our own wills, shedding the selfish skins of our egos, and emptying ourselves of our agendas of what God must do. In our materialistic culture, such a practice seems absurd. And it is.
I’ve never met anyone who said “After carefully considering all the historical evidence and weighing the intellectual merits of various truth claims in the world’s religions, I have come to the conclusion that Christianity is the most verifiably accurate, therefore I will give my heart and my life to Jesus and follow him forever.” At some point we let go of figuring it out and just trust and leap.
The Epistle lesson from 1 Timothy is as fascinating and important for what it doesn’t say as for what it does. The Message Bible puts the first few verses this way:
1-3The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live.

It’s an injunction to prayer, but is not concerned with the how to’s or the results so much as about life itself. Prayer is the road to get to the simplicity and humility that God desires for us. “Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know.” Period. Leave the rest to God.
In our culture of addiction to efficiency, effectiveness, and success, praying for certain things to happen and then watching as it appears at least that nothing happens can be a frustrating experience. Rather than expect God to comply with our definitions of efficiency and effectiveness, we do well to listen to God’s better, although harder and more mysterious way of dealing with humankind. Prayer includes our intercessions but goes beyond asking. It’s about relationship, an encounter with our maker and redeemer that transcends request and answer. God wants us, not just our prayers. God listens to our whole lives, not just the words we say. If we limit God’s response to our prayer by what is visible and knowable, then we have missed the invitation not just to make requests, but to allow the very act of asking to come into God’s loving transformation. At a moment of epiphany in the movie “Shadowlands” C.S. Lewis, played by Anthony Hopkins, replies to an assurance of prayer from a friend that “I pray because I can’t help it. I pray because I don’t know what else to do. Prayer doesn’t change God, it changes me.” It could be that we overlook the power of our praying to sharpen our consciousness and remind us that we are called to co-operate with God in working for the change we seek. The Epistle also reminds us that in a real way it is not me praying but Christ praying me. I am simply being open to what the Epistle calls the mediation of Christ in me and through me. Christ taking my wobbly attempt at reaching out and making it stand on two strong legs. The beauty and the wisdom of the monastic tradition, especially the Benedictine tradition, is its emphasis on an integrated, whole life. I catch myself from time to time imagining that I am stopping my work so that I can go and pray, when in fact Benedict would say that my work is my prayer and my prayer is my work. The focus is on God who is present, available, and all ears.
Prayer as described in the letter to Timothy is the free, spontaneous, and sincere opening of myself to God’s presence in the humble acceptance of reality, acknowledging the mystery of God’s response and purpose beyond my own understanding, in the hopeful expectation that God guides me toward becoming who I was made to be. In the realm of the spirit, the categories of efficiency and effectiveness have no meaning. To the skeptic whom I may not be able to convince with intellectual argument but to whom I can listen with gentleness and respect and invite him into a journey of the soul, leaving the rest to God.
Is God deaf? God is deaf to our hopelessness in the face is seemingly unchangeable problems. God is deaf to our pious faces which mask the doubt and anxiety which we think we can hide. God is deaf to our smug arrogance and dogmatic righteousness that judges the hearts of others and builds walls of suspicion. What does God hear? God hears the real self. God hears our burst of gratitude, our cry for mercy and help. God hears the sacrifice we make of our lives to serve our neighbor. God hears my “thanks” for all that has been and my “yes” to all that will be. Amen.

Fall at the Monastery

2007-10-10T07:06:00.000-05:00

A Summer Ramble

2007-08-03T12:14:00.001-05:00

(photo taken by me at the monastery, August 3, 2007)

The quiet August noon has come;
A slumbrous silence fills the sky,
The fields are still, the woods are dumb,
In glassy sleep the water lies.

Away! I will not be, today,
The only slave of toil and care;
Away from the desk and dust! away!
I'll be as idle as the air.

Beneath the open sky abroad,
Among the plants and breathing things,
The sinless, peaceful works of God,
I'll share the calm the season brings.

Come, thou, in whose soft eyes I see
The gentle meaning of thy heart,
One day amid the woods with me,
From men and all their cares apart.

- William Cullen Bryant

There is nothing sadder...

2007-08-01T09:40:00.000-05:00

There is nothing sadder than a Christian fellowship where every song must be of victory, every prayer full of faith, every member always smiling and joyful. It is an exhausting pretence to keep up for long, and it condemns those who cannot hide from their fears to further pain of failure and inadequacy. It is actually dishonest. It means that we can never offer our tears as well as our smiles, our questions as well as our certainties, our wounds as well as our victories. It means that we are always keeping Christ out of the very places in our lives where we need him most - the place of our darkness, uncertainties, and fears. It also means in practice that we will keep talking and chattering to avoid silence. As we have already seen, silence has a way of insisting upon truth.

- David Runcorn, A Center of Quiet; Hearing God When Life Is Noisy

Radiant floor heat in our chapel

2007-08-01T09:35:00.001-05:00

"Drawing near to the love of God..."

2007-07-28T14:18:00.000-05:00

"You are here" is the best possible advice for anyone starting to learn to pray. Praying is not a question of "succeeding" and "getting it right". It is not even about achieving anything. It is about drawing near to the love of God. And the love that prompts and draws us to pray is the same love that meets and embraces us when we do.
We are full of "shoulds" and "oughts" when it comes to the Christian life, and the awareness of what ought to be can become a millstone of condemnation around our necks. "Pray as you can and do not pray as you can't", says one spiritual guide, "Take yourself as you find yourself and start from there".
The great gift of God's love is that he allows us to start from exactly where we are, just as we are. And on the complicated map called Life, beside "YOU ARE HERE" and my big red arrow, is another message and another arrow, pointing right beside me, "I AM HERE TOO!"

- David Runcorn, A Center of Quiet; Hearing God When Life Is Noisy

Retreat Reading

2007-07-25T18:39:00.000-05:00

Just started this one. Seems like real-life, down-to-earth theological reflection that stretches beyond the tired language of narrow evangelicalism. Longer review after I've read more deeply.
It does seem to me that the emerging church movement is discovering what monastics, especially Benedictines, have been saying and doing for over 1500 years!

June 25 - St. James the Apostle

2007-07-25T18:25:00.001-05:00

James the son of Zebedee and his brother John were among the twelve disciples of Our Lord. They, together with Peter, were privileged to behold the Transfiguration (M 17:1 = P 9:2 = L 9:28), to witness the healing of Peter's mother-in-law (P 1:29) and the raising of the daughter of Jairus (P 5:37 = L 8:51), and to be called aside to watch and pray with Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane on the night before His death (M 26:37 = P 14:33).
James and John were apparently from a higher social level than the average fisherman. Their father could afford hired servants (P 1:20), and John (assuming him to be identical with the "beloved disciple") had connections with the high priest (J 18:15). Jesus nicknamed the two brothers "sons of thunder" (P 3:17), perhaps meaning that they were headstrong, hot-tempered, and impulsive; and so they seem to be in two incidents reported in the Gospels. On one occasion (L 9:54ff), Jesus and the disciples were refused the hospitality of a Samaritan village, and James and John proposed to call down fire from heaven on the offenders. On another occasion (M 20:20-23 = P 10:35-41), they asked Jesus for a special place of honor in the Kingdom, and were told that the place of honor is the place of suffering.
Finally, about AD 42, shortly before Passover (Acts 12), James was beheaded by order of King Herod Agrippa I, grandson of Herod the Great (who tried to kill the infant Jesus--Matthew 2), nephew of Herod Antipas (who killed John the Baptist--Mark 6--and examined Jesus on Good Friday--Luke 23), and father of Herod Agrippa II (who heard the defence of Paul before Festus--Acts 25). James was the first of the Twelve to suffer martyrdom, and the only one of the Twelve whose death is recorded in the New Testament.
James is often called James Major (= greater or elder) to distinguish him from other New Testament persons called James. Tradition has it that he made a missionary journey to Spain, and that after his death his body was taken to Spain and buried there. at Compostela (a town the name of which is commonly thought to be derived from the word "apostle", although a Spanish-speaking listmember reports having heard it derived from "field of stars", which in Latin would be Campus Stellarum). His supposed burial place there was a major site of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages, and the Spaniards fighting to drive their Moorish conquerors out of Spain took "Santiago de Compostela!" as one of their chief war-cries. (The Spanish form of "James" is "Diego" or "Iago". In most languages, "James" and "Jacob" are identical. Where an English Bible has "James," a Greek Bible has Iakwbos.)

- James Kiefer

Collect

O gracious God, we remember before you today your servant and Apostle James, first among the Twelve to suffer martyrdom for the Name of Jesus Christ; and we pray that you will pour out upon the leaders of your Church that spirit of self-denying service by which alone they may have true authority among your people; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Summer scenes at the river

2007-07-25T18:18:00.001-05:00

Painting...

2007-07-25T18:14:00.001-05:00

Pictures from the Monastery

2007-07-14T05:19:00.000-05:00

Monastery pictures with the new camera

2007-07-11T07:07:00.001-05:00

July 11 Our Holy Father Benedict, Abbot and Founder

2007-07-11T07:03:00.000-05:00

Benedict was born at Nursia (Norcia) in Umbria, Italy, around 480 Ad. He was sent to Rome for his studies, but was repelled by the dissolute life of most of the populace, and withdrew to a solitary life at Subiaco. A group of monks asked him to be their abbot, but some of them found his rule too strict, and he returned alone to Subiaco. Again, other monks called him to be their abbot, and he agreed, founding twelve communities over an interval of some years. His chief founding was Monte Cassino, an abbey which stands to this day as the mother house of the world-wide Benedictine order.
Benedict drew up a rule of life for monastics, a rule which he calls "a school of the Lord's service, in which we hope to order nothing harsh or rigorous." The Rule gives instructions for how the monastic community is to be organized, and how the monks are to spend their time. An average day includes about four hours to be spent in liturgical prayer (called the Divinum Officium -- the Divine Office), five hours in spiritual reading and study, six hours of labor, one hour for eating, and about eight hours for sleep. The Book of Psalms is to be recited in its entirety every week as a part of the Office.
A Benedictine monk takes vows of "obedience, stability, and conversion of life." That is, he vows to live in accordance with the Benedictine Rule, not to leave his community without grave cause, and to seek to follow the teaching and example of Christ in all things.

- James E. Kiefer

Almighty and everlasting God, whose precepts are the wisdom of A loving Father: Give us grace, following the teaching and example of your servant Benedict, to walk with loving and willing hearts in the school of the Lord's service; let your ears be open to our prayers; and prosper with your blessing the work of our hands; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

My sermon of July 8, 2007. Text: Luke 10:1-10

2007-07-10T06:08:00.000-05:00

I am a self-confessed heavy packer; going on a trip is an opportunity to channel my inner Boy Scout and be prepared for all contingencies. If in any scenario I could possibly use something, odds are I’ll toss it in the suitcase. During years of youth retreats, camping trips, mission trips, and pilgrimages, I honed the fine art of packing. Preparing to go to Africa last January threw me into an existential crisis: two bags for five months! What should I take? What would I need? What was important? What had to be left?
What is this compulsion about? At one level, if for some reason I need 8 batteries or 50 Kleenex tissues or 5 pens, I’m ready. At a deeper level, it is about the desire to be safe and self-sufficient, in control and attached to a part of my material world to assure me in the illusion that I can be protected from the inevitable and unavoidable hazards and crises of life. It is stuff as the weapon in the battle against discomfort and dependence. For the Lord to say to his idealistic and eager missionaries “carry no purse, no bag, no sandals…” strikes me as highly impractical. Just what do you think you’re going to do if you get hungry or thirsty or if the sandals you’re wearing get a hole in them or the camera’s batteries start to die? Jesus would make a lousy Boy Scout!
This Gospel is about packing, however; packing for the journey of life in community, in the kingdom, as sent out ones. These seventy are getting ready for a mission into the unknown and unknowable - into acceptance and rejection, hope and danger, community and enmity, fields ripe and not so ripe. Opposition, struggle, and hardship live alongside healing, joy, peace, and the overpowering of evil with good. Our Lord calls his charges laborers and sheep; an invitation to become the lowest of the low in the social structure. Whether they felt adequate or not, prepared or not, confident or not, they put themselves out there in the raw and sometimes blind trust of faith, remembering they were not alone. How did they pack for a journey like that? They didn’t. They were to leave the stuff at home; the purse, the bag, the sandals - all of it.
In the first century part of how you communicated who you were, part of how you revealed and reinforced your place in the strict hierarchy of the culture was by what you wore and what you carried; purses, bags, and sandals were signs and symbols of status, position, and power. They are singled out here because to leave them was more than not having supplies, it was to refuse to participate in a game of labeling who’s important and who’s insignificant and to divest oneself of the message the stuff conveyed. Jesus does not ask them to travel in the safety and self-sufficiency of their material resources. He asks them to take each step in the promise and assurance of the kingdom and its new life. Luggage couldn’t be less important. In fact, not packing is the preparation. They were not to command attention and respect, not to show off their status or power - mainly because they didn’t have any by the culture’s standards. These missionaries had to learn that no position, no tool, no skill of their own by itself was bringing the kingdom. It was only God working through them and providing their needs, and only as they became open to it, that God’s rule would become real.
This is a different kind of evangelism. Instead of a system, a list, a method, a technique, a program, these seventy are to offer their vulnerable and dependent selves to whoever will receive them. Jesus in effect says to them: your empty hands are your witness. Your growling stomach and parched lips and dusty feet and sleepless eyes are your message. Their need, humility, healing, community and willingness to accept the care given to them by the other as they care in return is the proclamation. This is real evangelism - presence, hospitality, peace, and an openness to listen and respond to the new and unexpected.
What about us? How would this commission speak to us here this morning? In preparing for our journey, our work is to make hard decisions about what we have, what we take, what we leave behind, and what we bring back home. We are called to let go and become empty, open, and defenseless. In responding we must face the inner, hidden baggage that each of us carries in our hearts. God works through our innate poverty, continuously filling the emptiness we give as the offering of ourselves. Poverty of spirit breaks through our masks of pretense and gets to transparency and reality. Brennan Manning has said “I am convinced that without a gut-level experience of our profound spiritual emptiness, it is not possible to encounter the living God.” We’ve understood formation backwards. We’ve made it about what we do rather than about what God does in and through us. It is what feels the least spiritual - our longing, our hunger, our darkness, our inadequacy, our desperation that God wants and uses. Whatever inhibits or blocks us from connecting with each other, whatever that bag or purse is in our lives, has to be left behind in order to experience our emptiness and in that emptiness to offer ourselves to each other. We’re conditioned to believe that we are what we do and we are what we have. And that if we want to be someone else we simply do different things and buy different stuff. So to leave our bags - the masks we hide behind and the fantasies we live in to protect us is the radical and difficult journey of a lifetime.
Once we’ve begun to be prepared, we can see the harvest. It’s hard to gather crops if our bags are already full. If we are grasping our security and loaded down with bags of our own egos and agendas, we will not have room for gathering the new growth into the kingdom. And gather is what we are commissioned to do. Gathering is often the last thing we want to do. We have meetings about the harvest, committees designed to study and examine the harvest, retreats about how to harvest, we’ve written books and preached sermons about the importance of laboring in the fields, we can argue about whose method of gathering is better and how we can improve efficiency and effectiveness, but are we willing to get dirty in the fields doing the work of gathering connection, trust, peace, and compassion? Do we not at least sometimes believe that we’re excused, that getting in the dirt is somehow beneath us, that we could be more effective as harvest analyzers rather than laborers in the hot sun? What is in your bag? The invitation is to march empty-handed into the fields of a needy and ready world - offering no agenda but to be present and serve, no prejudice but that God’s peace is offered to all, no security but what is granted in the power of promise.
It is fortuitous that this Gospel comes as associates of the monastery have gathered this weekend to explore ways they can shape and renew their commitments to us and us to them. This Gospel reminds us of the urgency of the harvest and the importance of our willingness to look at new possibilities beyond what has been, beyond the routine, beyond the status quo. We must not keep quiet. We cannot stand still. We must not keep clinging to what does not give us real life. The world is ready, even desperate for our good news - that there is an alternative to being merely what we do and what we own, that it is possible in our media-saturated individualistic culture to hold up the power of community, of silence, of listening to God and each other, of being still long enough to hear the voice of welcome and healing and joy. We must challenge ourselves and then the church to live out our covenant with each other. We can reap a harvest beyond our imagining if we pray, drop our bags, roll up our sleeves, and get to work. The road ahead is clearly seen as we gather at the Lord’s Table and by receiving his Body and Blood publicly say that we throw in our lot with freedom, with being for others, with a hope and a future. It’s time to pack. What do you have, what will you take, what will you leave behind, what will you bring back home?

Some "paint" doodles

2007-07-03T07:11:00.001-05:00

June 29 - Saints Peter and Paul

2007-06-29T05:08:00.001-05:00

Almighty God, whose blessed apostles Peter and Paul glorified you by their martyrdom: Grant that your Church, instructed by their teaching and example, and knit together in unity by your Spirit, may ever stand firm upon the one foundation, which is Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

MST3K Best of Vol. 1

2007-06-23T08:23:00.001-05:00

2007-06-17T09:54:00.001-05:00

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is:
Bishop Lord James the Careless of Bumswick by the Hole
Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

A Must See!

2007-06-14T13:37:00.000-05:00

New Book: "A Monastic Vision for the 21st Century"

2007-06-14T13:18:00.000-05:00

Monasticism is in an exciting and challenging period of change. Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican communities and orders are wrestling with the purpose, nature, and direction of our lives. Are we relevant? Does it matter? How can we maintain a prophetic witness to the Gospel and also offer comfort and encouragement? This book of twelve essays by monks, nuns, and "seculars" offers some themes and possible directions for the future of religious life in the West.
This book can be interesting to those whose exposure to monasticism is only through a retreat because the themes raised speak to the nature of the Church as a whole as well as to the unique and peculiar part of the church known as monastic.

Official Into Great Silence US Trailer

2007-06-14T12:53:00.001-05:00

June 14 - St. Basil the Great. Bishop, Theologian

2007-06-14T06:52:00.000-05:00

Basil was born in Caesarea of Cappadocia, a province in what is now central Turkey (more or less directly north of the easternmost part of the Mediterranean, but with no seacoast). He was born in 329, after the persecution of Christians had ceased, but with parents who could remember the persecutions and had lived through them. He originally planned to become a lawyer and orator, and studied at Athens (351-356), where two of his classmates were Gregory of Nazianzus (9 May) (who became a close friend) and the future Emperor Julian the Apostate. When he returned home, the influence and example of his sister Macrina (19 July) led him to seek the monastic life instead, and after making a tour of the monasteries of Egypt in 357, he founded a monastic settlement near his home. He remained there only five years, but the influence of his community was enormous. Whereas in the West there are numerous monastic orders (Benedictines, Carthusians, etc.), in the East all monks are Basilian monks. His Longer Rules and Shorter Rules for the monastic life remain the standard. Basil expresses a definite preference for the communal life of the monastery over the solitary life of the hermit, arguing that the Christian life of mutual love and service is communal by its nature. In 367-8, when Cappadocia suffered a severe and widespread famine, Basil sold his family's very extensive land holdings in order to buy food for the starving, persuading many others to follow his example, and putting on an apron to work in the soup kitchen himself. In this crisis, he absolutely refused to allow any distinction to be made between Jew and Christian, saying that the digestive systems of the two are indistinguishable. He also built a hospital for the care of the sick, housing for the poor, and a hospice for travelers.

- James Kiefer

Almighty God, who has revealed to your Church your eternal Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in Trinity of Persons: Give us grace that, like your bishop Basil of Caesarea, we may continue steadfast in the confession of this faith, and constant in our worship of you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; who live and reign for ever and ever.

- Lesser Feasts and Fasts

June 9 - St. Columba. Abbot of Iona and Missionary

2007-06-09T13:44:00.000-05:00

O God, who by the preaching of your blessed servant Columba Caused the light of the Gospel to shine in Scotland: Grant, we pray, that, having his life and labors in remembrance, we may show our thankfulness to you by following the example of his zeal and patience; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

June 1 - St. Justin the Martyr

2007-06-01T00:14:00.000-05:00

Justin was born around 100 (both his birth and death dates are approximate) at Flavia Neapolis (ancient Shechem, modern Nablus) in Samaria (the middle portion of Israel, between Galilee and Judea) of pagan Greek parents. He was brought up with a good education in rhetoric, poetry, and history. He studied various schools of philosophy in Alexandria and Ephesus , joining himself first to Stoicism, then Pythagoreanism, then Platonism, looking for answers to his questions. While at Ephesus, he was impressed by the steadfastness of the Christian martyrs, and by the personality of an aged Christian man whom he met by chance while walking on the seashore. This man spoke to him about Jesus as the fulfilment of the promises made through the Jewish prophets. Justin was overwhelmed. "Straightway a flame was kindled in my soul," he writes, "and a love of the prophets and those who are friends of Christ possessed me." Justin became a Christian, but he continued to wear the cloak that was the characteristic uniform of the professional teacher of philosophy. His position was that pagan philosophy, especially Platonism, is not simply wrong, but is a partial grasp of the truth, and serves as "a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ." He engaged in debates and disputations with non-Christians of all varieties, pagans, Jews, and heretics. He opened a school of Christian philosophy and accepted students, first at Ephesus and then later at Rome. There he engaged the Cynic philosopher Crescens in debate, and soon after was arrested on the charge of practicing an anauthorized religion. (It is suggested that Crescens lost the debate and denounced Justin to the authorities out of spite.) He was tried before the Roman prefect Rusticus, refused to renounce Christianity, and was put to death by beheading along with six of his students, one of them a woman. A record of the trial, probably authentic, is preserved, known as The Acts of Justin the Martyr.

- James Kiefer

Almighty and everlasting God, who found your martyr Justin wandering from teacher to teacher, seeking the true God, and revealed to him the sublime wisdom of your eternal Word: Grant that all who seek you, or a deeper knowledge of you, may find and be found by you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

May 31 - The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

2007-05-31T00:08:00.000-05:00

After the angel Gabriel had announced to Mary that she was to become the mother of Our Lord, Mary went from Galilee to Judea to visit her kinswoman Elizabeth, soon to be the mother of John the Baptist. This visit is recorded in Luke 1:39-56. Elizabeth greeted Mary with the words, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb." Mary burst forth with the song of praise which we call the Magnificat, beginning, "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord." We are told that even John the Baptist, still unborn, leaped for joy in his mother's womb. Thus we are shown, side by side, the two women, one seemingly too old to have a child, but destined to bear the last prophet of the Old Covenant, of the age that was passing away; and the other woman, seemingly not ready to have a child, but destined to bear the One Who was Himself the beginning of the New Covenant, the age that would not pass away.
by James Kiefer

First Book of Common Prayer 1549

2007-05-28T01:54:00.000-05:00

Almighty and everliving God, whose servant Thomas Cranmer, with others, restored the language of the people in the prayers of your Church: Make us always thankful for this heritage; and help us so to pray in the Spirit and with the understanding, that we may worthily magnify your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Lesser Feasts and Fasts 2006

we are very small

2007-05-26T06:13:00.001-05:00

"Pentecost" by Giotto, c. 1305 Scrovegni Chapel, Padua

2007-05-26T03:38:00.000-05:00

May 27 - Pentecost Sunday

2007-05-26T03:31:00.000-05:00

"Pentecost" by Emil Nolde, 1909, Nationalgalerie SPMK, Berlin
O God, who on this day taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Book of Common Prayer, 1979

May 26 - Augustine of Canterbury, 605 A.D.

2007-05-25T23:49:00.000-05:00

O Lord our God, who by your Son Jesus Christ called your Apostles and sent them forth to preach the Gospel to the nations: We bless your holy name for your servant Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, whose labors in propagating your Church among the English people we commemorate today; and we pray that all whom you call and send may do your will, and bide your time, and see your glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 2006

May 25 - Bede the Venerable, 735 A.D.

2007-05-24T13:28:00.000-05:00

Bede was a monk at the English monastery of Wearmouth and Jarrow, in Northumbria. From the age of seven, he spent all his life at that monastery except for a few brief visits to nearby sites. He says of himself: "I have devoted my energies to a study of the Scriptures, observing monastic discipline, and singing the daily services in church; study, teaching, and writing have always been my delight."
He was the first person to write scholarly works in the English language, although unfortunately only fragments of his English writings have survived. He translated the Gospel of John into Old English, completing the work on the very day of his death. He also wrote extensively in Latin. He wrote commentaries on the Pentateuch and other portions of Holy Scripture. His best-known work is his History of the English Church and People, a classic which has frequently been translated and is available in Penguin Paperbacks. It gives a history of Britain up to 729, speaking of the Celtic peoples who were converted to Christianity during the first three centuries of the Christian era, and the invasion of the Anglo-Saxon pagans in the fifth and sixth centuries, and their subsequent conversion by Celtic missionaries from the north and west, and Roman missionaries from the south and east. His work is our chief source for the history of the British Isles during this period. Fortunately, Bede was careful to sort fact from hearsay, and to tell us the sources of his information. He also wrote hymns and other verse, the first martyrology with historical notes, letters and homilies, works on grammar, on chronology and astronomy -- he was aware that the earth is a sphere, and he is the first historian to date events Anno Domini, and the earliest known writer to state that the solar year is not exactly 365 and a quarter days long, so that the Julian calendar (one leap year every four years) requires some adjusting if the months are not to get out of step with the seasons.
- James Kiefer

Heavenly Father, who called your servant Bede, while still a child, to devote his life to your service in the disciplines of religion and scholarship: Grant that as he labored in the Spirit to bring the riches of your truth to his generation, so we, in our various vocations, may strive to make you known in all the world; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 2006

A Rare Snow Shower in Africa!

2007-05-23T00:04:00.000-05:00

Mariya uMama weThemba Monastery, Grahamstown, South Africa, May 21, 2007

On the Development of Christian Doctrine - Vincent of Lerins

2007-05-22T23:59:00.000-05:00

From the Book of Instructions by St. Vincent of Lerins

Is no religious development possible in the Church of Christ? There is indeed, and it is very extensive. Who could be so jealous of their companions and so hateful to the Lord as to try to prevent such development? But it must be genuinely a development of the faith, not a changing of it. Development implies that a thing becomes more fully itself; change implies the transformation of one reality into another.
There must be extensive growth, then, for individuals and for the whole Body, in understanding, knowledge, and wisdom; but it must be growth in kind, that is, the truth and its meaning must remain the same. Religion in this respect follows the pattern set by the body: the body grows in weight and size and develops its members, yet it remains ever the same body. The flower of youth and the ripeness of old age are quite different things, yet the old person is the same person who was once young. One and the same person’s stature and outward guise changes yet the nature and person are the same.
The following, then is undoubtedly a legitimate and correct rule for the occurrence of true development and of growth in the proper sense of the word: the years reveal in the grown-up those parts and shapes with which the Creator wisely endowed the child.
If the human form were changed into something of another species or if some vital members were added or take away in the course of time, the whole body would either perish or become a monstrosity or, at the very least, be seriously weakened. The truth of the Christian religion follows these same laws of development: time and age can only consolidate it, broaden it, and make it more sublime.
Our fathers in early times sowed the seeds of faith in the field of the Church; it would be very wrong indeed if we their descendants reaped the weeds of error. Beginning and end may be discrepant, then; wheat was planted, wheat must be reaped.

"Off into the Unknown" - Thomas Merton

2007-05-21T00:59:00.000-05:00

The peculiar monastic dimension of this struggle lies in the fact that society itself, institutional life, organization, the “approved way”, may in fact be encouraging us in falsity and illusion. The deep root of monastic “dread” is the inner conflict which makes us guess that in order to be true to God and to ourselves we must break with the familiar, established and secure norms and go off into the unknown. “Unless a man hate father and mother…” These words of Christ give some indication of the deep conflict which underlies all Christian conversion - the turning to a freedom based no longer on social approval and relative alienation, but on direct dependence on an invisible and inscrutable God, in pure faith.

- Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer

Cloudy Morning

2007-05-20T16:04:00.000-05:00

Taken by Br. Randy Greve at Mariya uMama weThemba Monastery, Grahamstown, South Africa, May 18, 2007

"In a Tent in this World" - Henry David Thoreau

2007-05-20T00:23:00.000-05:00

The very simplicity and nakedness of man’s life in the primitive ages imply this advantage, at least, that they left him still but a sojourner in nature. When he was refreshed with food and sleep he contemplated his journey again. He dwelt, as it were, in a tent in this world, and was either threading the valleys, or crossing the plains, or climbing the mountaintops. But lo! Men have become tools of their tools. The man who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is become a farmer, and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper. We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven. We have adopted Christianity merely as an improved method of agriculture. We have built for this world a family mansion, and for the next a family tomb.

- Henry David Thoreau, Walden

"The Art of Minimums" - Wendell Berry

2007-05-20T00:04:00.000-05:00

As Thoreau so well knew, and so painstakingly tried to show us, what a man most needs is not a knowledge of how to get more, but a knowledge of the most he can do without, and of how to get along without it. The essential cultural discrimination is not between having and not having or have and have-nots, but between the superfluous and the indispensable. Wisdom, it seems to me, is always poised upon the knowledge of minimums; it might be thought to be the art of minimums. Granting the frailty, and no doubt the impermanence, of modern technology as a human contrivance, the man who can keep a fire in a stove or on a hearth is not only more durable, but wiser, closer to the meaning of fire, than the man who can only work a thermostat.

- Wendell Berry, The Hidden Wound

Aloe blooming at the monastery

2007-05-19T07:29:00.000-05:00

Taken by Br. Randy Greve at Mariya uMama weThemba Monastery, Grahamstown, South Africa, May 19, 2007

Bono at National Prayer Breakfast 2006

2007-05-19T00:07:00.001-05:00

May 19 - St. Dunstan of Canterbury, 988 A.D.

2007-05-18T22:26:00.000-05:00

O God of truth and beauty, you richly endowed your bishop Dunstan with skill in music and the working of metals, and with gifts of administration and reforming zeal: Teach us, we pray, to see in you the source of all our talents, and move us to offer them for the adornment of worship and the advancement of true religion; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen
Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 2006

May 17 - Ascension Day

2007-05-16T12:41:00.000-05:00

Almighty God, whose blessed Son our Savior Jesus Christ ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things: Mercifully give us faith to perceive that, according to his promise, he abides with his Church on earth, even to the end of the ages; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen
Book of Common Prayer 1979

"A Mysterious Alchemy" - M. Scott Peck

2007-05-16T06:37:00.000-05:00

I cannot be any more specific about the methodology of love than to quote these words of an old priest who spent many years in the battle: “There are dozens of ways to deal with evil and several ways to conquer it. All of them are facets of the truth that the only ultimate way to conquer evil is to let it be smothered within a willing, living human being. When it is absorbed there like blood in a sponge or a spear into one’s heart, it loses its power and goes no further.”
The healing of evil - scientifically or otherwise - can be accomplished only by the love of individuals. A willing sacrifice is required. The individual healer must allow his or her own soul to become the battleground. He or she must sacrificially absorb the evil.
Then what prevents the destruction of the soul? If one takes the evil itself into one’s heart, like a spear, how can one’s goodness still survive? Even if the evil is vanquished thereby, will not the good be also? What will have been achieved beyond some meaningless trade-off? I cannot answer this in language other than mystical. I can only say that there is a mysterious alchemy whereby the victim becomes the victor. As C.S. Lewis wrote: “When a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.”
I do not know how this occurs. But I know that it does… Whenever this happens there is a slight shift in the balance of power in the world.”

- M. Scott Peck, People of the Lie

"Kingdom Monitors" - Mike Yaconelli

2007-05-15T12:59:00.000-05:00

Painting: "The Incredulity of Thomas" by Caravaggio
When Jesus and his followers show up, it isn’t long before people start pointing fingers and calling names. Jesus was called all kinds of names: wine-bibber (what is a wine-bibber, anyway?), Sabbath breaker, blasphemer. Over the centuries, religious people have refined name calling to an art… According to his critics, Jesus “did God” all wrong. He went to the wrong places, said the wrong things, and worst of all, let just anyone into the kingdom. Jesus scandalized an intimidating, elitist, country-club religion by opening membership in the spiritual life to those who had been denied it. What made people furious was Jesus’ “irresponsible” habit of throwing open the doors of his love to the whosoevers, the just-any-ones, and the not-a-chancers like you and me.
Nothing makes people in the church more angry than grace. It’s ironic: we stumble into a party we weren’t invited to and find the uninvited standing at the door making sure no other uninviteds get it. Then a strange phenomenon occurs: as soon as we are included in the party because of Jesus’ irresponsible love, we decide to make grace “more responsible” by becoming self-appointed Kingdom Monitors, guarding the kingdom of God, keeping the riffraff out (which, as I understand it, are who the kingdom of God is supposed to include).

- Mike Yaconelli, Messy Spirituality

From "A Timbered Choir", by Wendell Berry

2007-05-14T00:07:00.000-05:00

Photo: Silver Tree by Br. Randy Greve
Mariya uMama weThemba Monastery, Grahamstown, South Africa

I go among the trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives for a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.

- Wendell Berry, A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997

"Liberation" - Segundo Galilea

2007-05-13T23:48:00.000-05:00

Struggle and gratuitousness, liberation and communion, are demands not only of the Christian way, but also (and for the same reasons) of the human condition. They are experiences of the Christian people: a people who work, a people who celebrate communion because they know that the total reality of human beings, both in their relationship to God and to others, is much more than a matter of struggles; because they likewise know that the capacity to celebrate God’s life and covenant with us is already an experience of liberation. This people can live in the night of suffering and injustice while maintaining the light of their faith and hope in God.

- Segundo Galilea, The Future of our Past, p. 39

"Keep Wrestling" - Carlo Carretto

2007-05-13T23:35:00.000-05:00

Painting: Jacob Wrestles with the Angel by Gustave Dore, late 19th Century
Union is not yet mature, desire still lacks clarity.
A great struggle is still necessary, and the night is night just for this.
Then daybreak will come, and everything will change.
But as long as we are on this earth we shall keep wrestling, like Jacob on the bridge, with the visible and the invisible, the earthly city and the heavenly city, the natural and the supernatural, the health of the body and the eternal salvation of the soul, the desire to live here below and the hope of going up above, the hunger for bread and the insatiable desire for heaven, the dream of enjoying the seasons of life and the knowledge of entering the one eternal season of the Kingdom.
But the battle is long and demanding.
And we may become limp, as did Jacob, if for no other reason than to remind us that the conquest of God is not in the race, but in the patience of death.
Only afterwards will it be possible to enter completely into the Kingdom, and we shall be mature enough to embrace God chastely and with Him to embrace all creation.

- Carlo Carretto, The God Who Comes, p. 51

Simon of Cyrene

2007-05-12T02:24:00.000-05:00

Photo Credit: from "Stations of the Cross" by Chris Woods
Heavenly Father, whose most dear Son, as He walked the way of the Cross, accepted the service of Simon of Cyrene to carry his physical burden for him: grant us each the grace gladly to bear one another's burdens, for the love of him who said, "As you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did it to me," your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

"You Are There!" My Sermon for Fifth Sunday of Easter

2007-05-10T13:18:00.000-05:00

You Are There!

Mariya uMama weThemba Monastery
May 6, 2007
Revelation 21:1-6 (The Message)

Revelation 21
Everything New
1 I saw Heaven and earth new-created. Gone the first Heaven, gone the first earth, and gone the sea. 2 I saw Holy Jerusalem, new-created, descending resplendent out of Heaven, as ready for God as a bride for her husband. 3-5 I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: "Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They're his people, he's their God. He'll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone." The Enthroned continued, "Look! I'm making everything new. Write it all down—each word dependable and accurate."
6 Then he said, "It's happened. I'm A to Z. I'm the Beginning, I'm the Conclusion. From Water-of-Life Well I give freely to the thirsty. Conquerors inherit all this. I'll be God to them; they'll be sons and daughters to me.

When I make friends, when I’ve forged a deep bond with someone, I don’t like saying goodbye - especially if I’ll not see my friend for a long time. Most especially if it’s a forever goodbye. It’s an awkward moment, sometimes tearful, and reminds me of the many good friends to whom I’ve said goodbye, likely never to see again in this life. I always miss them because a friend is one with whom I have shared a gift of life - its joys and pains - of human connectedness that makes me more alive and grateful. It is perhaps appropriate that gifts of such value are not let go of easily.

Often advertising will tempt us with the idea that we can avoid goodbyes - or at least the emotional pain involved - that if we long for emotional connectedness we can simply buy it. The reproduction is as good as the real thing. Listen to what’s written on the back of a bottle of air freshener we have down at the monastery:

How often have you wished that you could capture a moment, a memory, a smell associated with something good! Airoma’s Imagine range of sense-soothing home enhancers is ambience in a bottle freeing your mind, body, and soul! Imagine standing beneath the invigorating shower of crisp mountain falls as it cascades down and surrounds you with all that’s natural. With Airoma’s Mountain Falls you no longer have to imagine - you are there!
I’d love to be free in body, mind, and soul but I don’t think a bottle will quite do it! It’s just chemicals!

Goodbyes are all around us and woven into the physics of the world. Our individual goodbyes are tiny reflections of the end of so much that was intended to last and made to endure. The great structures of ancient Greece and Rome seemed immovable and eternal 2,000 years ago but today are the crumbling ruins of their former glory - battered by war and vandals, wind and rain. Over time, like them, this church will decay. Will monks still be praying here in one hundred years? Two hundred? A thousand? Will anyone remember or know that a monastery was ever here in centuries to come? One day this valley, which was once millions of years ago probably a great river and before that, in ages past, perhaps barren and uninhabitable rock or the scene of volcanic upheaval as the continent was being molded and formed, will say its goodbye. South Africa, the Atlantic and Indian oceans, the whole continent, the whole world, which evolved through eons of fire and rain and struggle to become what we love and care for today is all temporary - only one chapter of the story - is waiting for goodbye. Stuff doesn’t last forever. I am going to die someday. What is flesh and bone, thoughts and feelings, memories and relationships today will one day cease to exist and turn to dust. Your body will cease to exist one day, too.

In the Revelation John is witnessing the ultimate goodbye of all he knows of earthly life - the very earth and sky and sea itself. It is here that the biblical story comes to a close. Having described the ultimate and eternal defeat of the devil and his demons, John gropes for language for what he sees next: the passing away of the old, the coming of the new - new earth, new sky. The story of creation, which began in Genesis, ends right here. There was a time in the past when the earth did not exist. There is coming a time in the future when it will cease to exist. In these last, moving words of scripture, as the arch of time and space as we know it dips down, as all we know of earthly life is consumed and erased, we encounter dramatically and fully the love and mercy of God. God with us and us with God. Our lives completed and fulfilled - free from pain, tears, suffering, death, evil and loss.

While we celebrate with joy the good news of new life, of the Resurrection of Our Lord from the dead on Easter Day, we know as well that the processes of decay and death, pain and suffering, are all too real and very much present. We are in a strange in-between state, a period many theologians have called “already, but not yet”. The reign of Christ on earth is the promise of the kingdom, yet we live in a mixture of its reality and mystery, its presence and absence. It’s here, I’ve seen it, it’s true, but I also have those moments when it all seems like a science fiction novel of a far away place and a distant future that’s far removed from my ordinary life. I trust finally in the promise that I am not now, we are not now, what we will be. That the story is not over, the play has not yet reached a final act. While an existence with God and in community absent from pain, suffering, tears, death - absent all goodbyes forever - seems too good to be true, that is exactly what we are promised. And God always keeps His promises.

When the kingdom fully and completely comes, when hope becomes reality, we will be delivered from all that keeps us separated and we will be fully liberated to live in Christ and He in us, to spend eternity being known and loved and knowing and loving in return. While in this age Christ gives us the sign and seal of presence in his body and blood, in the kingdom it will be his real, living, bodily presence that feeds us.

That’s great for the future, you may be thinking, but today people are suffering, crying, in pain and grief and dying. What about them? We care for the suffering and work to alleviate pain today as signs of Christ’s love and promise and in the knowledge that a future full of joy and free from all pain is coming for those who choose it. John’s vision adds life and urgency to today because as we work to ease each other’s burdens and lighten each other’s loads, we’re moving somewhere - we point to that day when all burdens and loads will be not just eased and lightened but put away and forgotten. Our life in the kingdom, which is what John is describing, is the great reunion and restoration of all we’ve known - all the joys preserved and the pains healed. This hope brings us into the present because our future is decided, a place is prepared for us. Christians never really say goodbye to one another, we say “to be continued”, because whether we see each other in this life again or not, we are members of a larger family, a grander history than time or space can contain - that outlives the very heaven and earth itself. And our home, our destiny, our hope, is to be together in one, big, joyful community for all time in an eternal “hello”.

The Valley Song - Jars of Clay

2007-05-10T04:06:00.003-05:00

Afternoon Sun in the Valley

2007-05-10T03:25:00.000-05:00

By Br. Randy Greve n/OHC
Mariya uMama weThemba Monastery, Grahamstown, South Africa, May 2007

The driveway on the right leads down to the new monastery building visible in the distance. A wonderful porch overlooks the valley and its eastward facing view provides a panorama for sunrises.

The Tent of this Kingdom

2007-05-09T13:22:00.000-05:00

Welcome to my new blog. In the centuries before the printing press, when books were hand written, it was often the monks, striving away in scriptoriums, who kept copies of the Holy Scripture available. They were the pioneers of mass communication in their day. The blogging monks of the 21st Century are keeping this pioneering spirit alive through the instant accessibility of the Internet, the likes of which monks of the Middle Ages could never have imagined. But here we are!

Guests at the monastery are often curious about the lives of monks. Stereotypical and romanticized ideals about monks and monastic life are "archetypes" to use the Jungian term - wired into our brains from the beginning as a kind of holy other, the ones outside, the mystics and seers, contemplatives and actualized persons we may believe are out there somewhere but somehow not real. Guests come with their archetype and then encounter the reality. Much of the curiosity is around the question "Is my image real or not?"

Hopefully this blog can be one way guests and others who are curious can encounter both our differtness and our ordinariness. I've quite carefully chosen the title from the Rule of St. Benedict because it holds so much biblical and symbolic meaning: tent and kingdom. The tent, Tent of Meeting, Tabernacle, (from the Latin tabernaculo) is rich in Old Testament theological meaning. Kingdom, of course, is the word Our Lord uses to describe the inbreaking reign of God on earth through the hearts of disciplies out into the world expressed in love, mercy, justice, truth, and righteousness. St. Benedict, as he often does in the Rule, conflates the images and mixes them into what is for him the earthly striving toward the heavenly. Our transitory life in time and space is the gift with which we pursue our eternal glory in the presence of the risen and ascended Lord of glory. The Prologue to the Rule is one of the greatest pieces of inspirational theology in the monastic tradition. This verse, coming near the end, is Benedict's rousing final call to holiness; a real holiness that can be run toward today, now. As his urgency and passion pour out in a flood of words, we hear his deep desire for his communities of monks to keep that prize before them and be willing and eager to sacrifice their egos, their wills, their greed, and their status for the eternal prize.

This blog will be our journey together to exploring what it means to live in the tent of this kingdom. Through my own writing and photos as well as the words and images of others, we will face both the struggle and the celebration of the Christian life.

A Valley Scene

2007-05-09T09:27:00.000-05:00

Mariya uMama weThemba Monastery, Grahamstown, South Africa, May 8, 2007.