Apology

Some time ago I felt I had no choice but to put this blog on moderated comments. I didn't want to do it but circumstances made it necessary.

I had a comment that I chose not to put up, and at the same time I wanted to keep it, so I just left it without taking any action to post or reject. I thought it would just stay there forever. However, it's gone, which means an untouched comment has a shelf life and I didn't know that.

I don't know how long the shelf life is. I never went back to re-read the offending comment. I assumed that when the moderation page recorded only one comment, it was that comment. Now I know I may have been wrong.

If you have posted comments here and had them never appear, I apologize. I will be more careful in the future.

And now, on to other matters...

Countdown

Two more days until the tenth anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood in The Episcopal Church.

I mean, yeh, the inauguration of Barak Obama as President of the United States is pretty important, even cool. But it's on such a huge scale of importance that it probably won't make a difference in my everyday life, except I'll be able to listen to the voice of my president again, which I haven't been able to do for eight years now. (Apologies to my parishioners who support President George W. Bush.)

On the other hand, my ordination to the priesthood is something that happened to me, in the midst of the life I live, with people I know around me, not on some huge international scale.

So you'll forgive me, gentle readers, if I focus on me for a change. Ten years of ordained ministry, much of which has been very satisfying, and I still wonder sometimes if I'm really cut out for this.

You see, dear readers, I am about to confess to you that what I truly am, and want to be and do, as a priest, is mostly not at all what the people I have served want me to be and do. Never has been. Never is going to be. I've tried to tell them that when I'm interviewed, but then they call me and I come to work with them and I find the people don't remember what I told them about myself and are surprised when I don't do what they expect of me.

So, as a wise priest elsewhere in the nation asked me recently, do I have the energy to continue on the course I set years ago, even before my ordination, to follow a vision of the people of God that drew me into the priesthood in the first place? That is the question I've been asking myself for a few months now.

Perhaps I am unwise in writing this in a public forum. On the other hand, if the movie Doubt has taught us anything, it is that even the most self-assured religious have questions and doubts and it's important that people know we're no different from everyone else or we together will never be able to become the dream of God as Verna Dozier wrote of humankind in her book of the same name.

I would like to share the vision of which I speak above, but I've never been able to write or speak about it to my satisfaction. I've been working on that, and I hope to have something more for you tomorrow.

Meanwhile, light a candle of thanksgiving for me, and pray for me, a fellow sinner.

Dichotomies

The Mission Congregation spent some time reflecting on the dichotomies found in Listening Hearts, our culture, and in Scripture. We chose the story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:21-25) to explore further. At the end of our reflection we wrote the following collect:

O God, you are all encompassing and different for each of us; unfailingly gracious; constantly changing and learning; you wish abundant life and health for us; and you give us free will. We pray you will continue to grow in graciousness toward us because we can't live up to what we want to live up to; that we will be open to and willing to follow up on change; that you will be with us in the changing; and that we will live our lives to be more of a blessing to people in the circumstances we find ourselves--a light in the darkness; in order that change happens; that we come together and we come to understand your graciousness; and that we grow in grace ourselves and treat each other with grace. Amen.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

There are twelve days to Christmas, so it's never too late to wish everyone here a Merry Christmas!

If you want to get a taste of what the meditations for the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day serivces, you can find them at the link below.

Enjoy!


http://gracenorwalk.blogspot.com/2008/12/christmas-sermons.html

Thought for the Day

Friday in Advent 3, December 19 2008

By Jan L. Richardson, in Night Visions, United Church Press. (c) 1998 (out of print)

This restless hope
is what drives me
beyond the weariness
beyond the discomfort
beyond every thought
that what I carry within me
will never come to birth.

This restless hope
beyond all reason
flutters beneath my heart
and grows within my soul.

It is beyond me,
and it is of me,
and it is delivering me
home.

Upon moderating comments

Dear friends,

I am an old woman, a crone, in fact, and as such I am protective of those who are so kind as to read my aged ramblings. This blog recently attracted a commenter who saw fit to use the slightest excuse to post extensive comments regarding the sex life and death of gay and lesbian persons. The comments are cut-and-paste jobs from a discredited "textbook" on the subject.

In fact, I remember witnesses reading straight from the text while testifying against a bill that would include people merely perceived to be gay or lesbian among those protected by an existing civil rights bill, in Delaware. I testified in favor of that bill, wearing my clergy shirt and all, and received hate mail and anonymous threatening phone calls.

I can take it. But there is no reason you, gentle reader, should have to. So, I regret to say that I have switched to moderating comments before allowing them to be posted.

This will not last forever. I thank you for your patience, and I appreciate your visits to Ramblings with Lois. May you have a blessed what-is-left-of Advent, a Happy Christmas, and a joyous New Year.

Peace be with you all.

Magic

I've got vague thoughts of Christmas trees and decorations running around in my head. The magic but not the substance. The glitter but not the Light. This is the time of year I give in to my longing for magic. For St. Nicholas to be rea. For God to set all things right.

Another report of cancer in the blogosphere, and a second woman waiting for a diagnosis of a mass near her uterus. This stuff sucks. There's no excuse for it. It makes me crazy trying to make sense of it and a loving God at the same time.

I read a mass email recently that claims God is not a being, God is all things. If God is all things, is God the cancer, as well? A friend said not to think so much - it just gets a person all tangled up and depressed.

I don't think what I get is depressed. I think I get determined, resolute, still believing (crazy), still living faithfully (crazier still), asking questions, waiting for answers, expecting them, and forced to trust that in the all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

Magically. With a sleigh pulled by reindeer across the moon, and a saint who defies time and space, and deepest dreams made flesh.