e-piphanies

Forgot the Password?

Have you ever forgotten the password to an online account you've set up?  Your own, personal, unique, secret password that allows you to have access to important information, services, or products?

It's very annoying and usually inconvenient.  Never happens when we have plenty of time to remember, does it?

But what's more important are those passwords that allow us access in relationships with others, with our inner being, with God.  When we enter times in which we can't remember those passwords, we experience lonliness, anxiety, and loss.  Those times are worse than annoying and beyond inconvenient.  If only we could remember and be allowed in again!

I'm reminded this week that Jesus had such a time.  In the Garden and on the Cross.  What happened to the password to his relationship with his disciples, who drifted off to sleep, deserted, and betrayed him?  How about the password to his inner purpose that caused him to ask that it be removed from him?  Why did God forsake him in his darkest and lonliest hour? 

What profound lonliness, fearfulness, lostness. 

"Let this cup pass from me. 
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 
Is there any sorrow like my sorrow?
Is it nothing to you?"

If only the password could be reset!

Is that what Easter is about?  Jesus, help me to remember my passwords so I can get back in.

Advent Balance

The following message was first published on November 29, 2007.

     It’s Advent.  Advent is hard to observe in our culture, isn’t it?

     The Church tells us it is a period of preparation for the Feast of the Incarnation, Christmas.  Our faith tradition encourages us to make it a reflective time during which we identify with those who waited long centuries for the appearing of God’s anointed one.  The liturgy for the Sundays and weekdays in Advent direct our attention to the wonderful gift that has come to us in Emmanuel and the promise that he will come again at the end to establish his victorious reign over all things.

     Yet, here we are again with all those sights and sounds and smells that tell us it is time to be the world’s most accomplished consumers.  Our culture encourages us to believe that the things we need and the things our loved ones need to make their lives complete can be bought for a price, and quite possibly must be acquired if life is to be worth living.  The liturgy of advertising and shopping mall directs our attention to the near frenzy involved in getting there while supplies last.

    I’m not really suggesting that we should not buy gifts or support our local merchants who work so hard and rely so heavily on sales at this season.  I enjoy going to the mall and listening to the music in the stores.  I like to shop for presents and believe it is a good thing to be thoughtful and generous with others as God in Christ has been thoughtful and generous with us in offering us his very life.

     What I am suggesting is that the spiritual dimension of the season can easily be overshadowed.  We need to find a balance and the Church can help.  Go to the mall, after you’ve gone to church.  Buy gifts, after you’ve left your gift at the Altar.  Spend time shopping for the perfect gift, after you’ve spent time in communion with the most perfect gift, Christ the Savior.  Have a wonderful, peaceful, and blessed Christmas!

How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven.
No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in.

"O Little Town of Bethlehem"

The Rt. Rev. Philips Brooks (1835-1839)

Martin Luther King's Last Sunday Sermon

Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution

In case you find yourself drifting into a sentimental state of contentment by hearing another reading of Dr. King's great "I Have a Dream" speech, try reading or listening to his last Sunday sermon, delivered in an Episcopal Cathedral four days before his assassination.

Click the following link to read and/or hear the sermon, "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution," delivered by The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Washington Cathedral on March 31, 1968.

Dr. King's Last Sunday Sermon

It expresses the depth and breadth of Dr. King's message, including but moving beyond racism, and prophetically calling America and the world to accountability.  Let us take this sermon to heart, examine our conscience, and ask ourselves, "where do we go from here?"

Stone carving of Dr. King in the Pulpit of Washington National Cathedral

Upward Bound

Last week I participated in a continuing education event in Santa Fe, New Mexico sponsored by the Episcopal Church Building Fund entitled “Upward Bound” and led by The Reverend Charles N. Fulton III, Ms. Mary May, and Ms. Sally D. O’Brian.  Our instructors were fantastic.  It was a watershed week for me and an outstanding group of colleagues from around the country as we explored skills for congregational leadership.

On Wednesday afternoon, we had some free time. Several of us ventured out to Bandelier National Monument, a forty-five minute drive from Santa Fe. There we explored the ruins of native American cliff dwellers and reflected on what their life must have been like.  The Anasazi people, ancestors of modern Pueblo people, built thriving communities there about 600 years ago. Several thousand Ancestral Pueblo dwellings are found among the pink mesas and sheer-walled canyons. The sites in Frijoles Canyon near the Visitor Center were inhabited from the 1100s into the mid-1500s.

This community, like those that existed in places such as Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde, had an orderly life, storage facilities for the fruits of their agriculture, trade with others as far away as Mexico and Central America, and places for corporate worship.  We are not certain how their civilization ended or why.  But it did.  The conditions that were necessary for its continuation changed and the people were not able to remain in this location.

It made my colleagues and me wonder about the future of our own communities, cultures, and civilization.  As we seek to provide strategic leadership for the future, we seek wisdom and understanding from the past.

Just because things change does not mean everything has to disappear into the mists of history.  Our Creator has equipped us with memory, reason, and skill so that we can make strategic and timely adjustments as things change.  It is a part of God’s unfolding plan for creation and we get to play a major role in that plan.  Creation continues and human beings have the opportunity to be co-creators with God in the process that ultimately leads to the fulfillment of all things.  What a remarkable and awesome privilege!

The Anasazi cliff dwellers mysteriously disappeared.  Yet, today we continue to appreciate the life they lived and the contribution they made to human history.  There are elements of their life that are timeless aspects of every successful human community, such as their ability to cooperate in pursuit of a common objective, systems of communication and commerce, planning for the future, sharing and mutual support in both good and difficult times, and worship of a supreme being.  Each generation leaves its own unique mark.  As we work together in the building of our community, let us hope that someday others will look back upon our era and our values with a similar appreciation.

Colleagues from Upward Bound

Anglican Prayer Beads

This summer, when we were in central Colorado, I learned of a jasper mine that had been in the area and had not been worked in several decades.  I was reminded of a set of Anglican prayer beads I had made from jasper, turquoise, and silver beads.  Minerals like these come from mountains like these.  Human beings have the gifts that are necessary to transform raw material into many things that serve humanity, including my prayer beads. 

We are stewards of these treasures from the earth as well as the creative gifts that we have been given by our Creator God.  What we do with all the gifts is important to God and to the universe we are privileged to inhabit!

Lessons from Geese

“Open our eyes to see you hand at work in the world about us.” We can find epiphanies in every corner of the universe. For example, consider the epiphanies that come from GEESE.

Download lesson_geese_.pps

Be sure to turn on your speakers and click on the pictures to see the next slides.

e-piphanies from a hot spring in Colorado

The Ute Indians were mystified by hot water flowing out of the earth adjacent to the frigid waters of the Colorado River. Because they couldn’t explain it, they considered the springs sacred. Today, we know that these waters are heated by lava 30,000 feet beneath the earth’s surface. However, that doesn’t make them any less sacred. For people of faith, that knowledge is another sign of the Creator’s hand at work, prompting us to accept the gift of this water and offer thanks to the Giver.

While making the video, I had to keep my voice low out of respect for the others who were bathing in this spring. That, coupled with the sound of the water, makes it a little difficult to hear. If you will turn up your volume it will help. RDP+

St. Elmo, Colorado

In this video from St. Elmo, high in the Colorado Rockies, I consider what a ghost town has to say about the transitory nature of life.

Forest Life Cycle e-piphanies

While observing the different trees in an aspen forest in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, I had this epiphany about how the diversity of the forest ensures its long life.

Cinnamon Pass

I recently visited Cinnamon Pass in Southern Colorado and bring you this message from 12,600 feet.