A Meditation on Our Community of Faith:

Our Treasures and Our Hearts

Several weeks ago when the stewardship committee asked me, actually, it was Howard Thody for them, to speak today, I was surprised. I had that “you must be kidding” reaction. He quite diplomatically explained that the committee thought of me because they knew I would have something to say since I had been very active in the church, then quite inactive in part of the 1990’s, then active again. He also knew I had given a decent pledge to the church the whole time. He mentioned that some of my story and the meaning behind it might be interesting if I could tie it to the stewardship kick-off. I asked him, then, to let me think it over for a few days.  Well, you know what I finally decided.

            Then came - “what to say?” I am going to tell the story Howie referred to, and reflect on our community of faith using some poetry of my own and some of other poets that express things I am trying to say.  I am a closet poet and have loved poetry my whole life.  It is something I can bring to this meditation that is unique, a gift of my grandmother.

For many years, First Church was my church home – our family of five came here after my husband left the Methodist ministry.  We found a vibrant church home here in the worship, choirs, musicals, initiation and pre-initiation groups, second hours,  fairs, outreach – well, you know – the life  of the church.  We also went through a horrendous auto accident that was nearly fatal for my oldest daughter; job loss; unemployment and confusion for my husband; and a long-coming and painful divorce.  First Church was where that life returned to God, week after week, where I focused on the way God could fill the deep void of broken hearts.  I wrote a poem during this time – really a rebirth poem.  It was after the gypsy moth caterpillars devastated the woods.  Here it is.

Surprise Rebirth

Ordinary orange lilies beckoned me into the woods

Nodding, almost calling, in summer’s sticky breeze

Reaching forth to the sun’s path

Velvet pollen playing just past petals,

Nectar’s gathering secures next years flower

Before today’s is gone.

Simple. Ageless. Complete

Beyond the lilies the woods lie dryer and hotter than before,

Sunless depths grown over with wooded weeds, tall grass and unexpected flowers

Long dormant in once shaded space

Whose tall cover is no more,

Treasures not seen before.

Filled with the gnawing memory of each new leaf

No more its perfect spring design

Riddled by their ceaseless teeth

First to shape a crooked puzzle piece

Then stripped bare

Unnatural and bleak,

I walked alone because the moment then was mine.

I looked above where only twig and leaf

Caught my glance before

And saw the sky

Gray branch and trunk alone in empty stark relief

Against that pure blue gift

I know the endless blue.

I do not see it now nor where it goes

But power swells my chest,

Fills my veins to the grip

And holds me.

Walk here now and know the leaves return,

Re grown with nourishment from clouded skies and rain,

Clear sun and time

Walk here now and know the strength of pain,

The power of rebirth

Ready to rekindle autumn blaze

And winter rest.

-VDH

We are imperfect beings and we come to this community with all of that imperfection to be accepted by God and one another…to be known as we are and find a way to bear that imperfection.  Hear how the poet Mary Oliver says it in The Ponds.

The Ponds

-Mary Oliver

Every year

the lilies

are so perfect

I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding

the black,

mid-summer ponds.

Nobody could count all of them-

the muskrats swimming

among the pads and the grasses

can reach out

their muscular arms and touch

only so many, they are that

rife and wild.

But what in this world

is perfect?

I bend closer and see

how this one is clearly lopsided-

and that one wears an orange blight-

and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away-

and that one is a slumped purse

full of its own

unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life

is to be willing

to be dazzled-

to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even

to float a little

above this difficult world.

I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.

I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing-

that the light is everything---that it is more than the sum

of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

            For several years after the divorce I lived with someone who was adamantly opposed to participation in any faith community whatsoever – a good, kind, smart, compassionate man.  This presented a huge dilemma for me.  His reasons were, for him, completely appropriate. He had been abused as a child in a church community – repeatedly and brutally – and was never helped to recover from those wounds.  For several years I chose to participate very little in this community though I missed it terribly.  In my heart I knew my decision was not right for me.  Eventually, I returned.  I have come to accept my own imperfections, to look for forgiveness for myself and others, and to try to find my way without shame and guilt.  However, those mostly absent years felt very much like some of my deepest longings were unmet because only God, in a community of faith like this, can “fill the deep voids of the heart”.  Let me share with you how I wrote about my absence and my return.  If you have ever lived in the Arizona Sonoran desert when the summer storms finally come you will recognize this.  It is called

Rain in the Desert

Rain in the desert

Never comes when you simply need it

But only when without it you are dying.

Finally it falls

After weeks of clouds go by

Leaving teasing, cheating memories

But no rain,

Taunting out of you

The expectation, the hope of relief.

Craggy, pebbled riverbeds lie dusty dead

Until the sky lets go above the valley

Gradually reaching down with thunder sobs

Enlivening that  dormant flow of life.

It is only then that we are back in touch with the longing

And feel soaked clear through

By wind-blown, rainbowed, dark

cloud-delivered tears of nourishment

-VDH

So, what I want to do now is to celebrate this community and call on all of us to support it by our participation, our prayers and our pledges.  We have an amazing faith community in First Church.  You remember the saying “the devil is in the details…”? Well, I’d prefer to say “God is in the details,” or better yet, “the resurrection is in the details” – Yes, the Resurrection – done for us by God in Jesus, and lived out by us in our faith community and in each of our lives.  We long for it. It fills the deepest void in our hearts.  The resurrection is in the details.  We are not perfect – and yet, we have treasures here. A place for each to find a way to fit in – hear Mary Oliver again: a poem called

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things

                        -Mary Oliver

We are blessed with so many programs that infuse new life and learning into our community at First Church and our wider community; youth programs, Bible  Study, outreach, music and choirs, Jacob Group, Red Tent, Pastoral counseling, visitation, adult study groups, church school, second hour, twelve step recovery meetings, Covenant to Care to name only a few.  There is a spirit of inquiry where questions and doubts are welcome and the joy of learning is encouraged.  That is one thing I really love about being here – I really learn things.  One of my favorite poets, David Ignatow, speaks to this:

The Life Dance

I see bubbling out of the ground:

water, fresh, a pure smell.  My mind

too begins to spring. I take

small hops. I enjoy myself

partly because I have the nerve.

Is anybody watching?

I care and don’t care,

as I hop, and soon

because nobody is looking I’m leaping

and twisting into awkward shapes,

letting my hands make signs

of a meaning I do not understand.

I am absorbed in getting at what

till now

I had not been aware of.

There is a feeling in the world

I sometimes think I’m grasping.

I find myself holding a hand or

as I take a deep breath

I think it is there.

            First Church is also a gifted teacher for young people giving them “time apart” for gentle “non hectic” learning. I was talking with Sheila Graham-Smith ten days ago at Ellie’s salon getting our haircuts about how hard it is to get kids to church school. They have so many other “competing” activities – sports, music, daycare, homework, TV, scouts, lessons.  It is a real dilemma. Not long after that I was reading something that suggested Sunday School teachers see all the latest TV and movies for kids so they can refer to them during Bible Study.  It advised that they change activities every seven minutes because that’s what kids are used to on TV and finally give kids a sugary snack reward because they would be excited about the material. You can imagine – I was horrified! I like low-tech…the relationships with the kids that helps them see God as a gentle loving being in a genuinely thought–provoking way. We are so blessed to have that.  Again David Ignatow says it well – a gentle wind in our pockets:

A Loose Gown

David Ignatow

I wear my life loosely around me,

feeling it at elbows and knees.

Sometimes I’m forced to hurry

and it races along with me,

taking the wind in its hollows.

I get out of breath

and would fall down exhausted

but the wind in these pockets

of my life keep me from falling.

First Church – our time apart – our resurrection community of faith – that reaches out with our treasure within and beyond our walls…the wind in our pockets….

            There are so many ways we take care of each other! I think of just a few – driving folks to church who wouldn’t otherwise be here, the folks who gave countless rides to Julie when Chuck has been hospitalized, calls and visits to David Messenger, meals at Saint Vincent de Paul; the Amazing Grace Food gathering – especially Joe and Suzanne’s wedding gift to the pantry; I think of the day Bob Dutcher’s mom came to church for the first time after the devastating losses of health and moving when five or six people worried about her sitting alone.  I think of supporting the walkers  - the 9/11 survivors pushing the rock against terrorism; supporting justice and reconciliation ministries; going to Columbia to support the Ibague Church; naming the unnamed at CVH cemetery; folks who support Haiti’s need for sustainable economy and medical care; sponsoring resolutions for the larger church on same sex marriage. This list could go on and on and on and on.  And we celebrate new life when young ones are born and/or adopted into our midst – “I was there to hear your borning cry…”. We support the sick and the injured.

            When my mother suffered an auto accident in 1994 at the hands of a drunk driver that left her in a coma and she died eighteen weeks later in Arizona, I wrote this poem on an early November morning. It was ten degrees outside and I came upon an unlikely flock of birds:

At Ten Degrees

Bluebirds don’t belong here now

I wish we had their wings for this one,

To fly unfettered in such cold,

Feathers to hold the warmth they need,

Instinct for steady branch and seed

Sustaining life where they are –

Food,

And flight,

Their reward.

             - VDH                                                     

And what sustains us? The spiritual food we find in a place like this, the human comfort, the presence of God in our hearts, the love we know in this community week after week. Hear the poet May Sarton’s words in her poem entitled:

Love

-May Sarton

Fragile as a spider’s web

Hanging in space

Between all grasses,

It is torn again and again.

A passing dog

Or simply the wind can do it.

Several times a day

I gather myself together

And spin it again.

Spiders are patient weavers.

They never give up.

And who knows

What keeps them at it?

Hunger no doubt,

And Hope.

We receive God’s love - God’s grace- and find the strength here to continue to spin our human and reconciling love for one another.

            I am also reminded of how many times we walk the journey of the end of life with folks we love.  I have just done that with both my parents and as you know, a close friend,  - as have many of you recently – I think of many of you walking with Chuck and Elaine, and so many others.  It is never easy, it is always important, we are always deeply changed.  Poet David Ignatow’s words – a question in his very short poem informs our ministry on these journeys. In Leaves Falling he says:

I wish I understood the beauty

in leaves falling. To whom

are we beautiful

as we go?

                        -David Ignatow

In closing – we need to give of our earthly treasure, our money, generously to keep this community of faith, this resurrection community, this time apart, this miracle, alive. The resurrection is in the details. I commend to you, as we say in our prayer during holy communion, gracious, open, and generous hearts. Let us see beyond the near horizon and feel more deeply the miracle that surrounds us. May God’s kingdom break into our lives through Jesus Christ.

Amen.