Daily Musings

  Parishioners, staff, and other guest authors write periodically in this space.

To receive Daily Musings by email, enter your email address in the box provided below on the right.

__________________________________________________________________

It's simple: just give up something

On a spring-like mid-winter eve not long ago, I stood transfixed by the power of nature. Winds howled and surf foamed with a "time-ridiculing roar," as Mary Oliver once described "the gray sea." A northeaster was making landfall near the inlet at the north end of Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. Lightning flashed across the roiling gray sky, its thunder lost within the continuous sound of an enraged surf. I had hiked there for solace but soon met the tempest foursquarely, as the sea carried a message.

In the nearly horizontal wind mixed with foam and sand, I felt God's power...and my own tenuousness. I recall that feeling, as I move through Lent.

When I was a child, I reduced things to very simple rules. My girlfriend up the street was a Roman Catholic and always knew a lot about things like Lent. "Simple," she said. "You just give up something." We were about 12.

I remembered that with a smile, for here I stood facing 180 degrees of fearsome awesomeness. It struck me that simplicity was perhaps relative to one's age and life experience. At first there was nothing simple about that northeaster. But then there was ... when I considered the words used during the imposition of ashes at the beginning of Lent: "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

There is a time to remember, and reflect, but never forget. And there is a time to be renewed by the promise of what comes next...

- Doug Blue

Re-published from St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Richmond, VA - Lent at St. Stephen's

Let us all give thanks

Two of the people who made significant impressions on me many years ago passed from the scene during recent months.

Richard I (Dick) Levin was a long time professor at the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School in Chapel Hill, as well as an entrepreneur, management consultant, investor and author.

I first met Dick Levin as the instructor for Integrative Management, an all-case course for first year MBA students. Each class required a one-page brief (no more, no less) analyzing the case assigned for the class. Once in class, be prepared for a challenging discussion – never vicious, sometimes witty, but always stimulating. One of Dick’s favorite sayings: “Don’t look back; you can’t go back.”

During my second year in the MBA program, I served as Dr. Levin’s teaching assistant grading the briefs of that year’s first year students, a task not taken lightly since my marks were appealable to Professor Levin. Above all, Dr. Levin was fair with those appeals, usually agreeing with my marks, occasionally raising them and even once reducing my “D” to an “F”. (He said I had been too generous!)

My proudest moment came when Dr. Levin used a case study I had written as part of the following year’s class. I thought I had arrived!

The Reverend Roland M. Jones was our rector and priest at St. Francis, Greensboro when we arrived there in the late ‘70s as a young professional couple who had recently moved to Greensboro. A large multi-service, family oriented parish with several priests, Roland was the kindly father figure overseeing it all.

Over time, I was drawn into the annual Stewardship Campaign or Every Member Canvas, as it was then known, culminating as the Campaign Vice-chair our last year at St. Francis. The Campaign was a serious affair with teams and team captains and dozens of volunteers organized to call on the hundreds of families in the parish.

I vividly remember sitting with Roland and the campaign chair as we planned our approach to various members of the parish in a thoughtful and inclusive manner. Roland was a good shepherd and he clearly knew his flock.

As we approach this year’s Thanksgiving Day, let us all give thanks for those who have touched our lives in meaningful and positive ways.

- Wayne Wilson

Blessed are you when people hate you

"Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets." (Luke 6:22, from the Gospel for All Saints' Day)

Who wants to sign up for THIS job? Hated and defamed and reviled? This passage always made me uncomfortable. I want to be loved and respected. Is Jesus teaching us that the only way to "salvation" is to be an outcast? Maybe--but perhaps the real point is not simply to accept the status quo, to prevent ourselves from falling in lockstep with the culture around us.

Put another way, I've learned that I can live a life that other people don't understand. Even though it's unnerving at times, when I sense that I am living with a heart that lines up with what God values rather than what people value, then I do want to "leap for joy."

- KENDALLE STOCK

Re-published from "the Spirit," St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Richmond, VA

Work as a Holy Calling

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost | Proper 18B | September 6, 2015

Gracious God your wisdom invests our labor with dignity: may the work our hearts, minds and hands help us faithfully to find fulfillment and offer you praise. Amen.

For people of many generations, what religion had to say to them about work often was indistinguishable from what they heard in society: work hard, be faithful to your employer, get a good education and maybe you would have a better job, more income and a better life than your parents. There was also some indication that God would be well pleased by all this striving.

When I read the gospels and what Jesus has to say about our lives I often think how terribly skewed our ideas about work really are. We spend lifetimes defining ourselves by what we do and how much we make. Too often it is a set of definitions that does not help each of us do what God asks, create relationships with one another that are built on loving God and serving the needs of others.

In light of the great commandments, our occupations are mostly beside the point. God asks of us to look at work as a holy calling in which we are shareholders first and foremost in God's economy.

On this Labor Day I invite us as people who value our relationships with God to begin to be explicit about the sacredness of work as part of our character and life, as part of God's call to each one of us to be holy, undertaken because it has value, meaning and profit for others as well as ourselves.

For the last several years I have been attempting to practice a covenant about my life and labor that includes the following: that all my work is for the glory of God and the good of all; that all work I ask others to do, or that I do, should be valuable and interesting enough that people become inspired to pursue excellence and satisfaction; that I give others the same time and space to slow down, reflect and think which I need; that I appreciate every task, however ordinary, because every task deserves pride in accomplishment; that cultivating trust in those with whom you work is the primary virtue; that all of us are called to work and are to be given the means to be effective stewards of that calling.

We are called to be co-workers with God in a creation that is new every day, disclosing God and the divine image in each of us. Now that is work worth presenting with our offerings and oblations to the Lord.

- MARY SULERUD

Re-published from "spirit", St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Richmond, VA

A meditation on creativity

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost | Proper 16B | August 23, 2015

All human beings are blessed with a unique quality no other creatures have: creativity. I have often had others tell me, apologetically, "I can't draw. How lucky you are to be an artist!"

Creativity, though, is not limited to visual or performing arts. There were times in my life that I was not creating visual art, but I was living creatively. As a busy young stay-at-home mother, I stole time to make draperies and my children's clothes, and designed needlepoint chair covers. I developed recipes, refinished thrift store furniture, created crafts for church bazaars, planted a flower garden, and wrote letters.

I spent my childhood soaking up the beauty of the river country, beaches, gardens, woods, fields, and the mountains. Looking back, now I realize I was developing an artist's eye, learning to appreciate the beauty of the aearth. Eventually, I had no choice but to share what I'd seen with others, through my painting and other kinds of art. I had to allow my light to shine.

Even today, while I express creativity in art, I seem always to return to the garden. Here is where life began and begins anew whenever we plant a seed with the potential to sprout and grow into something of great beauty. Creativity is like that. It is a trail, a scent we can follow, allowing it to take us to some wondrous place-maybe even a hitherto non-existent one.

In teaching others to explore their own creative gifts, I begin with an 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not put thyself down, nor thy creations, for you are a child of God and a co-creator with God. Retrain your silent critic and refrain from comparisons to others.

Allow your creativity to blossom no matter what its expression: forming a new company, finding a new approach to something, landscaping a vacant lot, building a playhouse, or learning something new. There is no right or wrong way to go about this...it's perfect when it pleases you, when you let your light shine. And it is good.

- EMMA LOU MARTIN

Re-published from "spirit", St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Richmond, VA

Feathered angels

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost | Proper 15B | August 16, 2015

For some time now a community of bluebirds has been visiting the bird feeder outside our den window. I have watched each bird grow and fatten.

One morning a beautiful couple, the male bright blue with a dark apricot breast and the female more gray with a softer breast, sat on the feeder motionless for 10 minutes as if in silent and supportive communion with my morning meditation.

I have become aware of a connection, beginning years ago, with bluebirds, whose plumage reminds me of the blue and golden peach of some quite transcendent sunrises and sunsets.

Mary Oliver's poem, "Then Bluebird Sang," begins, "Bluebird slipped a little tremble out of the triangle of his mouth...Dear morning you come with so many angels of mercy so wondrously disguised in feathers, in leaves, in the tongues of stones, in the restless waters..."

These bluebirds have become my angels, reminding me of Creation's constant loving presence in a mysterious and beautiful cosmos of both visible and invisible worlds. I try to do as an Indian sage advised, "Go to some peaceful place and stay alone for a while listening to the soft sounds of nature and of God within."

- ELLEN KYMPTON

Re-published from "spirit", St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Richmond, VA

A little bit can be more than enough

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost | Proper 11B | July 19, 2015

So often, I am reminded by Scripture that my perception and God's reality are not aligned. I am frequently anxious and overwhelmed, though I've been promised peace and told not to worry. With full knowledge of Christ's sufficiency, I can still feel like I don't have enough or that I am not enough.

When I read about the disciples and their interactions with Jesus, I feel less alone in my failures to remember and trust. They walked with Jesus in the flesh and struggled to live into the promises of God; it was hard even for them to fully grasp his presence and his provision.

Growing up in church, I always loved the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. I loved the coloring sheet depiction of the small boy handing over his five loaves and two tiny fish.

I loved the miracle of that small gift offered to God being multiplied to meet the needs of many. I still love this story now, but perhaps for different reasons. I see myself in the story in ways I never did as a child.

The disciples come to Jesus and state the obvious: there are lots of hungry people and nowhere nearby to get food. Next the disciples show us their narrow vision. Because they know they have no food with which to feed the people, they can't imagine a way to handle the need and they ask Jesus to send the crowd away.

But Jesus doesn't feed into their "lack" mentality, just as he doesn't feed into mine or yours. He throws the need back at the disciples and says. "You give them something to eat."

Then he takes the meager offering the disciples are able to gather and turns it into MORE than enough. After all ate and were filled, there were leftovers. A lot of them. The people didn't get a bite or two, they were filled.

As we see the many needs around us, Christ invites us to come as we are, to give what we have, and join him in his work. He is a God of plenty. Our seeming lack offered to him mysteriously becomes enough. And he delights to meet us in our neediness with his abundance.

- BECKY LEHMAN

Re-published from "spirit", St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Richmond, VA

The seeds will grow

The Fourth Sunday in Lent | March 15, 2015

I am a novice gardener at best, but by late winter I find myself thinking about gardening with the regularity and obsession of an experienced green thumb. In late January I am making a mental list of seeds I'd like to order, in February I am hoping for a spell of warm weather that will last long enough to turn over the soil in my garden plot, and by March my dining room is covered with seedlings, basking under artificial light. Frustratingly, no amount of preparation and anticipation can speed up the plodding succession of winter days.

Nonetheless, the knowledge that those seeds will, in just a few months' time, become a fragrant tangle of stalks, leaves, flowers and fruit, is enough to make me incredibly enthusiastic about receiving those seed orders in the mail. Thinking about the potential that those tiny seeds contain within is enough to add a sense of warmth and regeneration to an otherwise cold, gray day.

Understanding the promise and potential of those seeds, and trusting in their future splendor, is in many ways akin to how I view my faith. When things seem cold and dreary, faith instills a tiny but powerful reminder of the splendor of God's love. Even at their smallest, these tiny seeds of faith are enough to provide a glowing warmth and promise of a resplendent spring.

- LANE PEARSON

Re-published from"spirit", St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Richmond, VA

The True Spirit of Christmas

The Second Sunday after the Epiphany | January 18, 2015

As an undergraduate at Longwood College (now Longwood University), I was invited to a Christmas party given by the English honor society. A faculty member read two selections. The first was "The Journey of the Magi" by T. S. Eliot. I was so moved that I didn't want to listen to the second.

Sometimes we get so caught up in Christmas trees, tinsel, and the like that we forget that the Nativity was a real birth among real people caught up in their own problems. Eliot's poem comes like a breath of cold, fresh air in an overheated room.

It is a refreshing and, in the end, comforting reminder that Jesus was born amid the discomforts, the squalor, and the preoccupations of everyday existence.

Just as the Magi, in Eliot's imagining, broke through the profanity, the gambling, the drunkenness, and the licentiousness of their time to find the Babe, we are reminded that Christ can penetrate the pains and sordid aspects of our lives to assure us of his compassion and mercy.

- HARRY LANCASTER

Re-published from "spirit", St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Richmond, VA

The Quiet of the Sabbath

The Second Sunday of Advent | December 7, 2014
A weekly meditation

I sometimes have the problem of being too much with the world -- too much with the stress of bills and things left undone, too much with the social whirl of a jam-packed weekend, too much with material desires that never seem satisfied.

And so I am grateful for Sabbath: the sweetness of communion wine and the firmness of a church pew. Flickering tapers. A bow pulled across a violin. Fleeting moments of peace. Quiet.

Friends, regardless of what you believe or where you find the space to draw inward, to be a little less with the world, I hope you make time to still your worried heads. Give yourself a Sabbath.

- JAMES MORTON

Re-published from "spirit", St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Richmond, VA