The Space Between

Between ...

     leaving and arriving...

          being away and being home...

Between take-off and landing...

     good-bye and hello...

           the wave that knocks me down and the next foaming crest of water...

                 in my tradition, between burial and resurrection...



Sometimes we don't think of this space, or avoid noticing it.  I often cover it by reading, working on a crossword or Sudoku, or sleeping through it.

If I find it easy to ignore, either I am still wrapped up in thoughts of where I have been, or what will be next.

This is liminal time, where the ground falls away, . .  or rises to meet us... where life and death touch...

 

About a week ago I plunged into a space between -- and at moments thought I would be endlessly stuck in it. I was going home from "Beyond Walls," an amazing week of learning, writing, reading, praying, listening, talking, pondering and more held at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio.

Actually, I slid into the space, gradually saying good-bye. I rode to the airport in a Kenyon van with 3 other BeyondWallsians and our Kenyon driver, endured the amazingly long lines for checking in with one of my BW compatriots, discovered another near my gate... then she boarded her flight and and my time at Beyond Walls 2015 ended. I sat waiting for the overdue plane, between our Kenyon experience and my home (which ended up being a much longer time then planned -- of course).


I decided that if "Beyond Walls" had to end,

                   I could at least enjoy the cloud views from the plane on the way home.

Between.

Accessibility Issues -- part 2

I'm working to get "alt tags" on the photos here, but sometimes it's hard to tell if they are working. At the moment, I'm using http://webaim.org/ to help me see where I need to edit my text or pictures to be usable by folks with vision issues. WebAIM provides a free "checker" at http://wave.webaim.org/ which scans a site for possible road blocks and provides information about them. Going forward, I'll use it to scan my new blogs and repair them. As time allows, I will also check my earlier posts for obstructive errors.

First prayer learned “by heart”?

What was the first prayer you learned “by heart”?

For me, as far as I can remember now, it was “Jesus, Tender Shepherd,” a bedtime prayer. My mother taught it to me,  telling me it was the prayer she said when she was growing up.

A flock of sheep in Wales

“Jesus, tender shepherd, hear me,

bless thy little lamb tonight

through the darkness be Thou near me.

keep me safe ‘til morning light.”

    -- written by Mary Lundie Duncan, the year before she died (1814-1840)

from http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/j/t/e/jtenders.htm

Michael the Archangelic, curled up to rest next to toy panda.

I assumed that this prayer my mother learned so long ago, which had been written even longer ago, would have pretty much disappeared by now, but I Googled it anyway. To my surprise, it still seems to be in use both as a song and as a bedtime prayer. For instance, it is played and sung simply in this YouTube video featuring pictures of sheep of different breeds, ages, and states of shearing.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxWCmozYrAQ

And in this “Jesus Tender Shepherd Hear Me” YouTube video, “Emily Button Russell shares a story of her son's favorite prayer.” About 88 when this was taped, Emily tells the story about her son learning the prayer and her response to his wanting to change one of the words, then sings it herself. I ended up checking out some other videos of her stories, just because I thought she was a fun, spunky woman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brypwtDT5Bs

Do you remember the first prayers you learned or who taught you? How you felt about the prayer or the way you were taught?

One thing that I find interesting, as I remember learning "Tender Shepherd," is that even though we always knelt to pray in church, my mother taught me to say it lying in my bed. Perhaps she thought bedtime would be easier if she got me into bed before the prayer than persuading me I really did have to go to bed after I said it. I did say this prayer, in bed, nightly, at least until some time in high school.

A prayer as you turn homeward from GC 78

A prayer as you turn homeward from GC 78

God of salty lakes and seas, mountain streams and broad rivers,

God even of waters we have polluted;

God of volcanoes spewing lava and steam,

of downy new chicks pecking free from their shells,

of LGBTQ and S humans in all shades of skin,  

all types of hair, of nose, eye and shape,

with all sorts of histories;

God of every diocese and diocese-to-be in this church:

tend your children as they leave this convention,

sustain them in exhaustion and sorrow,

their relief and their joy.

God of our Baptism,

as they leave this moment of your space and time,

may your people be unencumbered, may they travel as lightly

as those Jesus sent out without baggage, without supplies,

simply intent on giving flesh to your love

in the joyous, unsettling power of your Spirit.

Prayer for the last few days of GC 2015

O Gracious Creator of things we cannot see, have not yet imagined,

so small we forget to consider them,

so large we may not think to look behind or beyond them,

and of us humans, amazingly beloved by you,

but who sometimes think we are at the center of the universe:

may we ask You, honestly,

do You still “need” the Episcopal Church to do your work,

or do You simply “need” people who walk in Jesus’ Way?

Will You show us what about us Episcopalians delights you, gives flesh to Your will?

And will You show us “the back of our heads:” our blind spots, what we haven’t noticed You calling us to live into, what we need to let go of in our journey?

God of our future, God of our history:

some of us remember our Anglican identity as including the gift of “both … and …,” a way of thought sometimes confusing to others, but reminding us that no single point-of-viewing could adequately comprehend your mystery, your holiness, your being;

and we remember being able to laugh at ourselves and enjoy our differences, at “low and lazy, high and crazy, broad and hazy,” laughing at our own “niches” and managing to seek You together;

help us to discern if there is still value in being a “bridge” church which holds together apparently conflicting views, in being a church of “Scripture, tradition, and reason,” and in what new ways you call us to be your people.

God of immeasurable power, who seeks out the lost, the wounded, the forgotten:

be with any of us who feel squeezed out by others in this family because we are different in some way;

be with any of us who are anxious about the odd, rambunctious mix we are;

and help us to discern your presence in each other and in the world in which you call us to bear your love.

God of chronos and kairos: in these last days of this Convention, 
help us to keep going from meeting to meeting, location to location, decision to decision;

to be patient, stay cool enough and warm enough;

and grant us enough focus, enough discernment, and enough of your wisdom to grasp your will as we shape this limb of your church.

Technical Note

I've realized that I need to put alt tags (so visitors with vision problems can hear a description of pictures) into the html by hand, so I'm trying to get the hang of doing it again. I'll wait to use any more pictures until I can code them as I go.

What happens when little icicles grow up

They turn into great big icicles -- think cool if you're in the heat wave area!

Remember when it was cold out?

Today and yesterday I've been busy taking in news and tweets and more from General Convention and the rest of the country. Not much time for writing, so I thought I'd just post a few pictures which might help folks at Convention and other hot spots at least think cool.

"Red & White" -- snow mounded next to and on top of a shed

Skinny little icicles

A cold sunny morning, the trees are wearing coats of ice & snow.

  

   The snow has heaped pillows & blanket on the glider and on the pump cover near the fence posts.

Barred owl sits on one of those fence posts in slight snow flurry.

   Remember the fence posts? 

                                              Those two dots in the field are all that are still above snow.

Front door before shoveling (there are steps up to it).

                    

Looking out the front door after the snow slid off the roof.

The lamp post looks like the one at the entrance of Narnia.
All of it that is above the snow where it stands
is the bit of black post you can see in the picture.

And finally, from my DH: one night when it was 27 degrees

 below zero (Fahrenheit).

Towards a Prayer for GC 2015 (Part 2 -- Thanksgiving)

   Thanksgiving

You who nourish us with gifts of living, of growing, and of serving:

    may we also grow the gifts you give us of appreciation and gratitude.

We thank you for mysterious beauty -- the shimmer of Northern Lights, the austere beauty of desert sands, the haunting songs of ocean waves.

We thank you for memories of cooler weather and for all who were part of the invention and creation of air conditioning and of its delivery to us here.

Rear wheel on Subaru Outback

We thank you for your gifts of life: the colors of butterfly wings, the dance of dragonflies mating, a cow delivering a calf, a devoted couple celebrating their 50th anniversary, organ donors who give a part of their body, the years given to the work of justice for others.

We thank you for people we have met at  past General Conventions, those we have remembered with delight and those we have not, and for those we listen to, we meet, we debate with, and we share your presence with this week.

We thank you for the common faith we share here, even when we understand it or express it in very different ways; for our common ground in your presence as we share prayers and worship, our stories and songs.

We thank you for the differences which enrich us, for how we are like pieces of a great jigsaw puzzle which you put together to surprise us with our need for each other and how you delight in us.

We thank you for all the volunteers who have done, are doing, and will do the tasks needed for us to be here seeking your will for our church and how we can carry it out.

We thank you for those things which challenge us, which seem too hard, which threaten to make us angry and bitter, knowing that when we are empowered by your wild and wondrous Spirit, following Jesus, they can become the rocks we climb to new vision and understanding, the tunnels we squirm through in discovering new life and leaving the old things behind, the ground on which we encounter each other in your healing presence.

And we thank you for bringing us all together, for this messy, often confusing, sometimes exhausting, awe-filled work of continuing to become your Body.

Especially we thank you for love known to us in Jesus, who teaches us and frees us to embody Love.

Jerusalem Cross?

We are awestruck at the gifts you give us:

help us, your children, to live our lives in delight and thanks.

Towards a Prayer for GC 2015 (Part 1)

I committed to a discipline of praying daily for our diocesan contingent at the Episcopal Church's General Convention 2015 in Salt Lake City, and for a number of other folks I know who are attending. I'd like to have one prayer / series of prayers to help me focus as I pray, help me to remember some of what I want to be offering to God throughout the day. I may have put it into words (and pictures) by the time GC is over! Meanwhile, here is a start:

Adoration

Our Source, our Beloved, our Strength:

    may we rest in your presence, be simply with you, bathed in your Being.

( Silence)

You have created us:

Our hearts leap for joy in Your presence…

Praise

Sovereign of the universe,

  Creator of hawk and hadron, helium and hummingbird, hemoglobin and human beings,

       You are more majestic than the Rocky Mountains or the Andes,

            Wiser by far than all the greatest human leaders together,

                  More wonderful than words can tell.

You are justice, you are mercy, you are wisdom, you are joy,

   You are the love, we are its instruments, created to play your love for the world.

We long to be known

Wherever we are hidden, you call us each by name --

    we appear like the stars at night singing praise and thanksgiving!

  (to be continued)