My Advent Journey

The liturgical year is a great thing. As someone who grew up in a church that did not observe the church seasons, I was used to moving directly from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Throughout all of December, we sang Christmas carols and focused on the joy of the birth of a baby, God’s own child.

As an adult, I have embraced the liturgical seasons, with their shifting colors, moods, and songs. The joy and celebration of Christmas is, for me, enhanced by the time of preparation and reflection during these four weeks of Advent.

One of my habits during Advent is to set up an Advent wreath. Many evenings, after Gail has gone to bed, I sit in the quiet and darkened house, light the candles, and rest in solitude, watching the flames, and allowing my thoughts to wonder. I turn over the words in my head: hope, peace, joy, love. I think about how I experience these things – not just as emotions or fleeting moments, but how my own living is sustained and nurtured by these Advent longings:
What are my hopes and dreams?
Am I at peace with myself and with others?
How and where I find joy?
How the love that I have for others and the love that I receive strengthen me, complete me, and make me a better person?

We are near the end of the first week of Advent. I hope you will join me on this wonderful journey.

An Advent Prayer

November 30 is the first Sunday of Advent. In the liturgical year, or the church year, Advent is a time of watching and waiting, a time of hope, of expectation and preparation. It is getting ready for the coming of the Christ, the miracle of God’s presence with us, among us, within us.

For me, one of the deeply satisfying aspects of observing the liturgical calendar is the rhythm that it creates and the cycle that it follows. It helps to keep me from moving too quickly through life. It marks off time, creates boundaries, and says to me, “In this time, think about these things.”

It would be easy to rush into Christmas. The mood is joyful, the songs are beautiful, and it is a wonderful celebration. But the ancients who developed this liturgical season understood that we must take time to prepare in order to fully appreciate and respond to God’s great gift to us. And in this day and age, with the partying, shopping and eating rush that besets us all between Thanksgiving and December 24, so much more than ever, we need this season of quiet watchfulness.

Advent is a gift of time – a great opportunity for us to slow down, to focus, and to make ready our hearts and our lives for the fullness of God’s presence. I offer this prayer for Advent:

Holy One, we experience your presence in many ways: the majesty of a star-filled sky, the coolness of the night breeze, the gentleness in a mother’s touch, the fragile tenderness of a newborn child. May we open our hearts, open our imaginations to all the ways that that your love and your grace touch our lives.

In this Advent time of watching and waiting, may we be newly aware of all of the possibilities that exist for us in this life: the ability to love and to be loved, the opportunities for forgiveness and for reconciliation, the potential that we each have to reach out to one another and to care for one another.

God, may we find the courage to cast off the shackles of the past, the worries, the fears, and the disappointments that hold us back and keep us from acting courageously and that stop us from taking chances. May our faith be strengthened: our faith in you, in one another and in ourselves that we might live more boldly, acting with compassion and working toward your realm of justice. May we both envision and strive for a future where all of your children will live in peace.

God, we want to be people who live in hope, not in fear, people who look forward with expectation, not backward or who live only in the past. May we be people whose open hearts and open minds make it possible for your spirit to be born in us every day. Amen.

What We Need is Here

On Sunday mornings at our church, our adult education class is currently engaged in conversations that are growing out of our reading of the book Longing For Enough in a Culture of More. This end-of-year time, with the seasons of Thanksgiving, Advent and Christmas upon us, seemed a perfect time to consider all that is good in our lives. The reading and our conversations are helping us - or at least helping me - to differentiate between wants and needs.

The downturn in the economy and the ways in which it is impacting us lurks just below the surface of our conversations. So much of our lives, so much of our activity, flurries around what we've acquired. The acquisition of stuff is just part of being American (weren't we told by our president to support our country by going shopping?). The idea of being content with what we've already got is not a message that we often hear.

And here we are, a week before Thanksgiving, an entirely American holiday, worried about jobs, balancing budgets and making ends meet. Getting centered in our souls will not pay the bills, but it may help us to take stock of what we do have and help us to find contentment, not in more, but in enough.

The book we are reading makes reference to a poem by Wendell Berry entitled "The Wild Geese." I hope you enjoy it. And Happy Thanksgiving.

Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. In time's maze
over fall fields, we name names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.

The Loving Kindness Meditation

The Loving Kindness prayer is a meditation that is practiced in Buddhism. It invites peace and well being for ourselves, for those whom we love, for strangers and even for those with whom we are in conflict. It is a practice which can bring peace and harmony to ourselves and also enlarge our hearts toward one another.

I find that when I begin my day with centering for a few moments and saying the loving kindness prayer, I create space within my heart and spirit for a bit more generosity, a bit more gentleness, a bit more acceptance of the other. I find I have a little more patience, a little more humor, and the world and its worries seems to weigh less heavily on me.

The meditation is simply the repetition of a few words, directed first toward oneself, then toward others, and eventually, to all beings in creation. You’ll find, if you look it up, that there are many variations in the words, but the intent is always the same.

Ready to try it?

Because we need to be kind, gentle and forgiving of ourselves before we can be those things with others, the loving kindness prayer begins with ourselves. And so I invite you to say these words in your mind, directing the intent toward yourself:

May I be filled with loving kindness.
May I be well.
May I be peaceful and at ease.
May I be happy.

Call to mind somebody that you care about--a good friend, or someone who's helped you in your life, someone who inspires you. Visualize that person, and then direct the phrases of loving kindness to that person.

May you be filled with loving kindness.
May you be well.
May you be peaceful and at ease.
May you be happy.

Think of someone you know who's having a difficult time right now. They've experienced a loss, painful feeling, a difficult situation. Visualize this person, and offer the phrases of loving kindness to them.

May you be filled with loving kindness.
May you be well.
May you be peaceful and at ease.
May you be happy.

Think of someone with whom you have been in conflict, or someone with whom you have had severe disagreements, maybe someone that you don’t like very well, or is difficult to be around. Visualize that person, and direct the phrases of loving kindness to them.

May you be filled with loving kindness.
May you be well.
May you be peaceful and at ease.
May you be happy.

Finally, direct the words of loving kindness to all of creation – to all people, all animals, all sentient beings everywhere.

May all beings be filled with loving kindness.
May all beings be well.
May all beings be peaceful and at ease.
May all beings be happy.



Feel free to change and adapt the words, to be more or less specific with how and where you direct the words of loving kindness. But always begin with yourself, so that your heart and spirit are opened enough to send the words of loving kindness with grace and with clear intent. Blessings will follow.

The Last Tomatoes of the Summer

This last weekend I pulled dead leaves from the two tomato plants that are in our backyard. All summer long, these two plants supplied our household with sweet and juicy fruit. We enjoyed salads and fresh pasta dishes, and shared vine ripened tomatoes with our neighbors. But the plants are dying; only a couple of tomatoes remain, and once I’ve picked them, the plants will have given me the last of their gifts. Although it isn’t always easy to discern the change of seasons in Southern California, the tomato plants tell me that autumn has arrived.

I enjoy the change – cooler mornings and evenings, shorter days, leaves turning to gold, then brown, and then falling from their trees. Before long, we’ll be pulling jackets out of the closet, with full knowledge that a few short months from now, we’ll be putting them away again, as the days once again will grow longer.

The rhythm of the year comforts me. It helps me to mark time, to remember important events; it enables me to anticipate what comes next. It also reminds me that our lives are full of sweet and juicy gifts – in the form of tomatoes as well as in the form of friends and family, church and work, play and home and children. Let us cherish each and every day for what it is – a gift – and take advantage of every opportunity to express our gratitude. To whom, and in what ways, can you say “thank you” today?

Play Nice

As I walked our dog around the neighborhood this morning, I saw a license plate holder on a car which read, “My rat terrier is smarter than your honor student.” I’m guessing that the owner of that car is a bit tired of (jealous of?) bumper stickers that boast that the driver has a smart kid in some local school. But come on, isn’t this just a little mean-spirited?

I don’t know why or when it became okay to be mean. I admit that I grew up in the 50’s and I was frequently admonished “If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all.” I’m not sure that is the best advice to give a child, but there is something compelling about just being nice to people.

No one needs to work at this more than I do. My ability to be nice plummets when I am tired or hungry or in a grocery line. But when I try, I find that not only do my social interactions go much more smoothly, but it actually changes me. Something inside that may have felt hard or cold or tight becomes softer, warmer, looser. The opposite is also true. When my crabbier nature wins out, I can feel myself becoming smaller, cramped and well, crabbier still.

[I noticed on some of the reviews following the presidential debate last night - independent voters who were ranking their positive and negative reactions to the candidates as they spoke nearly always turned their dials down (meaning they were responding negatively) whenever a candidate blasted the other. We don’t need more meanness.]

The Dalai Lama is credited with the phrase, My religion is kindness. That resonates with me. In fact, I wear a bracelet with those words engraved on it, to remind myself of what is important. I was challenged once by a friend who said that kindness isn’t enough. Just being kind isn’t going to change public policy or make a material difference in anyone’s life. Perhaps. But it is a starting place. And just like all politics is local, and micro-loans can change the world, I do believe that our acts of kindness toward one another have ramifications that we cannot imagine.

God's Faith in Us

The Rabbi Stephen Julius Stein was the preacher at First Congregational Church on September 21, 2008. He was one of many guest preachers this year, all from diverse religious and spiritual backgrounds, who shared with us about his spiritual journey. A gifted musician, Rabbi Stein left a promising career as a orchestra conductor to enter rabbinical school, and is now on the staff of the Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles.

In his sermon, Rabbi Stein talked about “God’s faith in us.” It was an interesting phrase. We often speak of our faith in God, but God’s faith in us? Intriguing, no? I registered the words, turned them over in my mind, and then went back to listening to the sermon. I might have lost them after that, had not one of our church members sent an email commenting on the phrase. So I thought about it more.

I know that when someone has faith in me, when someone trusts me to do the right thing, to make the right choices, to be present in real and meaningful ways, my knowledge of that faith and trust empowers me to do my best. Maybe that’s a part of how it is that we go about doing the work of the church. We talk a lot about doing God’s work, about being God’s body – the hands, feet, arms and mouth of God, doing the work of justice and caring and compassion to which we believe we have been called. I think that perhaps that we are able to do this, in part, because of God’s faith in us. That sense of call that we feel – that urge in our hearts to do justice, love kindness, and live with humility – might be how we experience God’s faith in us.

What do you think?

Same Sex Marriage - What is Missing from the Conversation

Since the California Supreme Court’s ruling on May 15 that legalized same-gender marriage in the state of California, the media and political machines have gone into high gear, as we all prepare for the anticipated stream of gay and lesbian couples lining up at county courthouses to become legally wed beginning on June 17. Other states are looking westward in anticipation of how wedding tourism to California might translate into litigation elsewhere. The Limit on Marriage initiative that will be on the November ballot is sure to get financial and volunteer support from around the country – just as surely as will the efforts to defeat it.
Coverage on this issue, as I have read it, often mentions religious groups and religious leaders who do not support same-sex marriage and who will be working to ban it by supporting the Limit on Marriage initiative. What I have not seen in the media is information about the strong support in favor of equal marriage rights that exists amongst religious groups and leaders.
If one were to read through the 172-page court opinion, one would find that 148 religious organizations within the state of California, including congregations, seminaries, ecumenical and interfaith organization and clergy alliances from Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Unitarian Universalist and Native American traditions and more than 300 individual clergy and religious leaders are on file as “Friends of the Court” in support of equal marriage rights. To leave this religious voice out of the public dialogue misrepresents reality.
As an ordained clergyperson in the United Church of Christ, I stand in favor of full marriage equality. I am proud of my denomination, which has always taken a boldly prophetic stance on issues of social justice. The UCC was the first mainline Protestant denomination to ordain a woman, an African-American and an openly gay man. In 1985, we declared ourselves to be Open and Affirming of gay, lesbian and bisexual persons, welcoming folks of diverse sexual orientations into all areas of church life and leadership. In 2005, our General Synod adopted a resolution affirming equal marriage rights for all.
First Congregational Church in Long Beach, the congregation which I serve, has been performing marriages for both opposite- and same-sex couples for years. We are thrilled that we can now sign a marriage license for every couple whose wedding is performed in our sanctuary. We know that many gay and lesbian folks who want to be married will not able to have their ceremonies in their own churches; they will be welcomed by us.
Being congregational in nature, not all members, clergy or churches within the United Church of Christ feel the same way that I do about marriage equality. But as a covenant church, we agree to talk about it, even argue about, and remain connected. I hope that we as Californians can do the same thing. We may differ in our opinions, but my theological beliefs need not curtail your civil rights. Nor visa versa.