…and a prayer from Christina Rossetti:
O Lord, whose way is perfect: Help us, we pray thee, always to trust in thy goodness; that walking with thee in faith, and following thee in all simplicity, we may possess quiet and contented minds, and cast all our care on thee, because thou carest for us; for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Gospel lesson on Sunday was Luke 10:38-42.
As Jesus and his disciples went on their way, Jesus entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
The message here is, of course, when Jesus is in your living room, pay attention! Beyond that, it is a wonderful vignette, captured in only a few words, of something we see all the time at church, in our families, in the world. We see bitterness and resentment, distracting Martha from what is really important. We see multi-tasking gone awry.
I mean really–Martha is the one who invited Jesus in the first place! But she’s too busy to pay attention. On top of that, she’s annoyed with her sister for not doing what she thinks she should be doing.
Marthas still abound at churches everywhere. Churches are full of people who give lots of time and talent to organizing fundraisers and social events, serving coffee and working in the kitchen, keeping up the buildings and grounds. All very well and good. However, these same pillars of the church often give little more than lip service to the real reason they are allegedly active there, i.e. being disciples of Christ. They get very uncomfortable at the idea of Bible Study.
Well, as I get older, I get worse and worse at multi-tasking. I embrace that. I never liked it much in the first place. One thing at a time, I now say.
As focusing becomes more of an issue in this modern sound-bite world, I try harder to focus.
I do not need to be an anchoress (a woman who chooses to withdraw from the world to live a solitary life of prayer and mortification, although the idea is somewhat attractive to me) in order to focus. I just need to take time every day to spend with Jesus. To be a Mary, to choose the better part.
*”Christ in the House of Martha and Mary” by Johannes Vermeer
When I got to church on Sunday I saw that two huge oak trees had been blown down in last Wednesday’s big storm. The branches had been moved out of the driveway, but the huge trunk with its root ball still remained.
During the announcements our rector told us that the pastor of the St. Louis Family Church, a very large evangelical church in west county, had called him the next day and said he would send people out to move the downed trees asap. This is part of their emergency storm relief mission. Our rector said, “Thank you!” The motto of this church is “Honor God. Help people.” I was surprised, impressed and the news made me feel very happy. This must be a very busy week for those volunteers.
I did quite a lot of work in our own yard on Saturday–cleaning up from the storm. I filled five bags with detritus.
The boy came over with some loppers and he and the OM cut up the big branches and filled a bag too. What a storm! I was actually driving home when it hit and it was very scary indeed. I was afraid a tree would fall on my little car and I would be squished. Zut alors! was I glad to get home.
In other news, we celebrated the OM’s birthday with the boy and daughter #3 at a restaurant down in Lafayette Square in the city–We are so adventurous!
I couldn’t be in this picture, because I didn’t get the memo about wearing blue!
Also, the boy got his first penalty in a hockey game and also made his first shot on goal. Onward and upward.
We watched a terrible movie: Hail, Caesar! (2016), the Coen brothers send-up of Hollywood in the 1950’s. Even Channing Tatum couldn’t salvage this mess. Totally not funny.
I finished The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine, the 17th installment of the #1 Ladies Detective Agency books by Alexander McCall Smith. Although I find these books mildly irritating, I am a loyal reader and always ultimately enjoy them. Precious Romotswe is a great character after all.
[Clovis Anderson] wrote: Do not allow the profession of which you are a member to induce you to take a bleak view of humanity. You will encounter all sorts of bad behavior but do not judge everybody by the standards of the lowest. If you did that, he pointed out, you would misjudge humanity in general and that would be fatal to discerning judgement. If everybody is a villain, then nobody is a villain, he wrote. That simple expression had intrigued her, even if it was some time before its full meaning–and the wisdom that lay behind it–became apparent.
Wise words to ponder this week. Discuss among yourselves.
*1 Chronicles 16:33
Did you know that National Simplicity Day was observed yesterday (July 12th) in Thoreau’s honor? I did not know this.
However, there are so many of these “unofficial” holidays, one can hardly be expected to keep track of them all.
Poor Thoreau. I have no doubt that he would be totally non-plussed by his latter day popularity. I mean what would he think of everyone contemplating simplicity on a special day, and texting each other Thoreau memes on their iPhones? Oy.
I have to say, though, that I have given a lot of thought lately to this idea: “It is desirable that a man live in all respects so simply and preparedly that if an enemy take the town… he can walk out the gate empty-handed and without anxiety.” (Walden)
If an enemy took the town, I could do that. I have a lot of stuff, but it is just stuff. I would take great-great-great-grandmother Hannah Patten’s sampler (out of the frame and rolled up) with me.
For now, I’m dealing with a typical flyover summer…
…and trying to keep cool.
The other evening I attended the memorial service of a dear friend who died a few weeks ago, aged eighty. Barb was the exact opposite of me–extremely extroverted and effervescent, always on the go, always pitching in. She was like Auntie Mame–you know, “Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!” She was not starving.
Barb was the person who got me to venture across the street to Ivy-Selkirk’s Auction House and started me on the road to estate sale-ing. She never understood timidity. She was a Just Do It person. We disagreed about many things, but unlike a lot of people these days, we respected each other’s opinions. We agreed, after all, on the important things.
After years of Catholic school and child-rearing and being told what she could and couldn’t do, Barb finally threw up her hands and turned her back on the RC Church. She became an Episcopalian at age 55 and she never looked back. She became a pillar of her new church and it was packed for her funeral.
The church she attended in the city is a self-styled “progressive” one and so there were liberties taken with the service–four speakers in the middle–but it was still very nice and even (surprisingly) Rite I. The readers, all adult grandchildren, were pretty terrible, but the scriptures were well chosen. The speakers–two friends and two children–were wonderful. They made everyone laugh, remembering Barb. The minister, young and wet behind the ears, was straight out of central casting–the guy to call when you need a nerdly, balding, beanpole cleric. I would not hold his looks against him, but his voice was high and thin and he raced through communion. He made me appreciate our rector and long for Arthur Shields.
It was a long service, but it was a celebration of Barb’s life, so why shouldn’t it be? Her friends and family will truly miss her. And we will remember her.
“Remember the wonderful works that he has done,” goes David’s song–remember what he has done in the lives of each of us; and beyond that remember what he has done in the life of the world; remember above all what he has done in Christ-remember those moments in our own lives when with only the dullest understanding but with the sharpest longing we have glimpsed that Christ’s kind of life is the only life that matters and that all other kinds of life are riddled with death; remember those moments in our lives when Christ came to us in countless disguises through people who one way or another strengthened us, comforted us, healed us, judged us, by the power of Christ alive within them. All that is the past. All that is what there is to remember. And because that is the past, because we remember, we have this high and holy hope: that what he has done, he will continue to do, that what he has begun in us and our world, he will in unimaginable ways bring to fullness and fruition.
Into paradise may the angels lead thee, Barb, and at thy coming may the martyrs receive thee, and bring thee into the holy city Jerusalem.
(The quote, of course, is Frederick Buechner.)
The shape of my life today starts with a family. I have a husband, five children and a home just beyond the suburbs of New York. I have also a craft, writing, and therefore work I want to pursue. The shape of my life is, of course, determined by many other things; my background and childhood, my mind and its education, my conscience and its pressures, my heart and its desires. I want to give and take from my children and husband, to share with friends and community, to carry out my obligations to man and to the world, as a woman, as an artist, as a citizen.
But I want first of all — in fact, as an end to these other desires — to be at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact — to borrow from the languages of the saints — to live “in grace” as much of the time as possible. I am not using this term in a strictly theological sense. By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony. I am seeking perhaps what Socrates asked for in the prayer from Phaedrus when he said, “May the outward and the inward man be at one.” I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eye of God.
–Anne Morrow Lindbergh, A Gift From the Sea
Today is the birthday of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, a very wise woman. She was also an American author, aviator, the wife of aviator Charles Lindbergh, and a graduate of Smith College.
She was in fact celebrating her 50th reunion the year I graduated. She gave a speech that year at Smith, “The Journey Not the Arrival,” which I don’t remember hearing–but I can’t believe I didn’t–which was later published. It is long out of print, but I am going to keep my eye peeled for that one!
Here is an interesting article with pictures by Jill Krementz taken around the time of her 50th reunion in 1978.
*The painting is by Dorothea Sharp
The “Serenity Prayer” is commonly attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr (June 21, 1892–June 1, 1971) the Protestant theologian. Alcoholics Anonymous adopted the Serenity Prayer and began including it in AA materials in 1942.
Here’s the second part of the prayer:
Living one day at a time;
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
forever in the next.
Amen.
Pretty great. Discuss among yourselves.
Today in the Episcopal Church it is the feast day of Evelyn Underhill (6 December 1875 – 15 June 1941). She was a poet and novelist, you will recall, as well as a pacifist and a mystic. She was prominent in the Anglican Church as a lay leader of spiritual retreats, a spiritual director for hundreds of individuals, guest speaker, radio lecturer, and proponent of contemplative prayer.
“Therefore it is to a practical mysticism that the practical man is here invited: to a training of his latent faculties, a bracing and brightening of his languid consciousness, an emancipation from the fetters of appearance, a turning of his attention to new levels of the world. Thus he may become aware of the universe which the spiritual artist is always trying to disclose to the race. This amount of mystical perception—this “ordinary contemplation,” as the specialists call it—is possible to all men: without it, they are not wholly conscious, nor wholly alive. It is a natural human activity, no more involving the great powers and sublime experiences of the mystical saints and philosophers than the ordinary enjoyment of music involves the special creative powers of the great musician.”
―Evelyn Underhill, Practical Mysticism
Underhill taught that the life of contemplative prayer is not just for a saintly few, monks and nuns and such, but can be the life of any Christian who is willing to undertake it.
Good to remember when life gets complicated and busy. “But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.” (Matt. 6:6)
Here’s to Evelyn Underhill!
O God, Origin, Sustainer, and End of all creatures: Grant that thy Church, taught by thy servant Evelyn Underhill, guarded evermore by thy power, and guided by thy Spirit into the light of truth, may continually offer to thee all glory and thanksgiving, and attain with thy saints to the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast promised us by our Savior Jesus Christ; who with thee and the same Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
–Collect for the day
And, yes, I do think that Underhill icon is awkward.
ALL are capable of prayer, and it is a dreadful misfortune that almost all the world have conceived the idea that they are not called to prayer. We are all called to prayer, as we are all called to salvation.
PRAYER is nothing but the application of the heart to God, and the internal exercise of love. St. Paul has enjoined us to “pray without ceasing;” (1 Thess. v.17) and our Lord bids us watch and pray, (Mark xiii. 33,37): all therefore may, and all ought to practice prayer. I grant that meditation is attainable but by few, for few are capable of it; and therefore, my beloved brethren who are athirst for salvation, meditative prayer is not the prayer which God requires of you, nor which we would recommend.
…Let all pray: you should live by prayer, as you should live by love. “I counsel you to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that ye may be rich.” (Rev. iii. 18.) This is very easily obtained, much more easily than you can conceive.
Come all ye that are athirst to the living waters, nor lose your precious moments in hewing out cisterns that will hold no water. (John vii. 37; Jer. ii. 13.) Come ye famishing souls, who find nought to satisfy you; come, and ye shall be filled! Come, ye poor afflicted ones, bending beneath your load of wretchedness and pain, and ye shall be consoled! Come, ye sick, to your physician, and be not fearful of approaching him because ye are filled with diseases; show them, and they shall be healed!
Children, draw near to your Father, and he will embrace you in the arms of love! Come ye poor, stray, wandering sheep, return to your Shepherd! Come, sinners, to your Saviour! Come ye dull, ignorant, and illiterate, ye who think yourselves the most incapable of prayer! ye are more peculiarly called and adapted thereto. Let all without exception come, for Jesus Christ hath called ALL.
Yet let not those come who are without a heart; they are excused; for there must be a heart before there can be love. But who is without a heart? O come, then, give this heart to God; and here learn how to make the donation.
—A Short and Very Easy Method of Prayer, Madame Guyon (1648–1717)
Today is the 299th anniversary of the death of Madame Guyon.
But there is no feast day on the calendar of the Catholic Church for her. No, since during her lifetime it disapproved of her ideas and actually threw her in jail for eight years after she published the book quoted above. She seems pretty harmless today, but this French mystic promoted a heresy known as Quietism back in the day. Her published works, the Moyen Court and the Règles des associées à l’Enfance de Jésus, were both placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1688. To the church she was no better than a Puritan or a Quaker. Seems like a good reason to read them.
Surprisingly, the Episcopal Church doesn’t have a day for her either. Kind of an oversight if you ask me.
The painting is “The Light of the World” by William Holman Hunt
My Monday felt like the above…not that I actually got into a fight or anything. But it was a hectic one, complete with a funeral at 11:00 a.m. (the worst time possible) and a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by the Shakespeare Festival St. Louis back at work in the afternoon. Throw in the usual A/V issues and that was my day.
Phew. But spring is here.
Life is good, as they say.
“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”
–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I did that.
*Romans 8: 18
dual personalities 