A Poem for November

This is one of my favorite poems from John Keble's survey of the Liturgical Year. I find the way it links nature, scripture, our personal journey in life, and our faith to be both very touching and very thought-provoking. It is precisely this sort of integrated life I entered when I first became an Anglican Christian, and it is this practice of the faith that continues to nourish and inspire me years later. While the style of this poem may be quite dated, its content and message is eternal. Enjoy!



Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things onto Himself. Philippians iii. 21.

Red o'er the forest peers the setting sun,
   The line of yellow light dies fast away
That crowned the eastern copse: and chill and dun
   Falls on the moor the brief November day.

Now the tired hunter winds a parting note,
   And Echo hide good-night from every glade;
Yet wait awhile, and see the calm leaves float
   Each to his rest beneath their parent shade.

How like decaying life they seem to glide!
   And yet no second spring have they in store,
But where they fall, forgotten to abide
   Is all their portion, and they ask no more.

Soon o'er their heads blithe April airs shall sing,
   A thousand wild-flowers round them shall unfold,
The green buds glisten in the dews of Spring,
   And all be vernal rapture as of old.

Unconscious they in waste oblivion lie,
   In all the world of busy life around
No thought of them; in all the bounteous sky,
   No drop, for them, of kindly influence found.

Man's portion is to die and rise again -
   Yet he complains, while these unmurmuring part
With their sweet lives, as pure from sin and stain,
   As his when Eden held his virgin heart.

And haply half unblamed his murmuring voice
   Might sound in Heaven, were all his second life
Only the first renewed—the heathen's choice,
   A round of listless joy and weary strife.

For dreary were this earth, if earth were all,
   Tho' brightened oft by dear Affection's kiss; -
Who for the spangles wears the funeral pall?
   But catch a gleam beyond it, and 'tis bliss.

Heavy and dull this frame of limbs and heart,
   Whether slow creeping on cold earth, or borne
On lofty steed, or loftier prow, we dart
   O'er wave or field: yet breezes laugh to scorn

Our puny speed, and birds, and clouds in heaven,
   And fish, living shafts that pierce the main,
And stars that shoot through freezing air at even -
   Who but would follow, might he break his chain?

And thou shalt break it soon; the grovelling worm
   Shall find his wings, and soar as fast and free
As his transfigured Lord with lightning form
   And snowy vest—such grace He won for thee,

When from the grave He sprang at dawn of morn,
   And led through boundless air thy conquering road,
Leaving a glorious track, where saints, new-born,
   Might fearless follow to their blest abode.

But first, by many a stern and fiery blast
   The world's rude furnace must thy blood refine,
And many a gale of keenest woe be passed,
   Till every pulse beat true to airs divine,

Till every limb obey the mounting soul,
   The mounting soul, the call by Jesus given.
He who the stormy heart can so control,
   The laggard body soon will waft to Heaven.

-- "For the Twenty-Third Sunday after Trinity," from The Christian Year, by John Keble

Dialogue, charity, and harmony in a season of unison singing...

Dialogue, long before it manifests itself through words, is a union of hearts through a profound harmonization of wills in one accord, which is not necessarily a unison, a uniformity, but a harmony on one identical melody with all the richness of its variations. Dialogue is first of all the silence of someone who knows how to enrich himself by listening and reflecting, and then, the statement of his personal thoughts, respecting those of the other. This dialogue, it is true, takes time. The too hasty forming of one’s opinion, where patience is demanded, is contrary to the spirit of dialogue, because it lacks respect for different opinions often born of experience and wisdom. Charity alone successfully presides in a dialogue. So the common life, which teaches charity also teaches dialogue.

            From the chapter “Community Life,” from Serving God First: Insights on the Rule of St. Benedict, by Dom Sighard Kleiner

Some years ago, I heard from a friend about a parish where all singing in harmony was officially discouraged. The liturgical leadership told the people that singing in harmony destroyed the sense of unity in the worshipping community: unison singing was much preferable in their expert opinion. I found this strangely appropriate to our era, when we so easily confuse unison with unity, diatribe with dialogue, chicanery with charity.

The above passage from Kleiner’s almost 40-year old commentary on the Rule reflects the great difficulty involved in forming and maintaining authentic, Gospel based communities. It turns out that demanding everyone sing in unison is a great deal easier—and more gratifying—than allowing a community to sing in harmony with the melody given to it by God.

The way to respond authentically to the "melody of salvation" rests in a deep appropriation of the charity Kleiner speaks of. There simply is no way to balance the diversity of gifts and experiences in a parish, a monastic community, a diocese, or a national/worldwide body with the “Faith once delivered” outside of profound immersion in (and practice of) the Love of Christ for the Father and for fallen humanity.

And this is where the “institutional” structures of the Church—deeply imbued with secular self-understandings of “rights,” “goals,” and zero-sum decision making—are weakest. Instead of witnessing to the humility of Christ based in the Love of the Holy Trinity, we exhibit strategies of institutional self-preservation and self-justification. Once fear takes over, charity is irrelevant. “Party spirit” and loyalty to “the system” is confused with an honest (if not always easy) harmony. Unity is replaced with unison, and the institution looks for any sign of discontent with the man-made melody of conformity.

The graciousness of God is beyond measure. It transcends both narrow fanaticism and antinomian complacency. In Christ God has brought forth the melody of salvation; this melody alone sings of our freedom to become saints of God, restored to our true identity. Yet, it is not an imposed, fearful song, suppressing our individual reality or character. Rather, it calls forth from us by the action of the Holy Spirit the fullness of who we were created to be. Christ, the melody of God’s Love for Creation, summons from us the perfected harmony of hearts and minds tuned to that Love. No police state is needed. Only those communities of faith which are rooted in that One Great Melody will take the time to listen and discern how to respond lovingly, patiently, and with wisdom. 

Like the moment after the bread is broken at the Eucharist, the dialogue needed for such discernment will be marked first by a silence born of awe and reverence. This is the starting point. From there the faithful community's discernment will be marked both by depth and generosity, because its participants hear the sheer beauty of the great melody, and will want to participate in it, to sing in complete harmony to it, with all their hearts.

When the question itself is wrong...

Is the community at the service of each of its members, or is each member at the service of the community?.... The question is…badly put, and a mistake is made at the very start. Godless men necessarily question themselves on the problem of their reason for being and see it from the angle of personal profit, or, if they have risen a bit from that selfish position, from the angle of society or humanity. Humanity is the god of the godless.

Our reason for being is God and our happiness is in him. The community itself has no other end than to help us live for God, in God, and according to the will of God. We are no more at its service than it is at ours.

Dom Sighard Kleiner, in Serving God First

The Annual Survey

In the Gospel according to John we find Jesus making this striking statement to his disciples on the eve of his arrest: “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.” (John 15:15) In these words, Jesus makes clear that his Body, the Church, will work according to different standards and patterns than normal human “institutions,” built on hierarchies of power, mistrust, and secrecy. We are called to be radically equal in our self-understanding, open to mutual critique and insight, taking our cue from a Lord who is willing to call us “friends” rather than insist on our being merely subservient.

The Church has, sadly, often failed to live up to this challenging self-understanding and calling. Too often we have substituted mystification for mission, privilege for purpose. There can be no effective mission if we do not emphasize accountability to that mission in our common life. Because of a fearfulness—often grounded in insecurity—clergy and lay leaders in the Episcopal Church have shied away from inviting the insights and opinions of parishioners. Not so St. Timothy’s.

St. Timothy’s produces an annual survey of the congregation regarding its general ministry, progress on various goals, the ministry of its rector, and thoughts about the parish’s future. This is the first time I have served in a parish with such an open tool for discussion of these topics, and I am very happy we have it.

So often, Episcopal parishes function in a way that makes them largely opaque to both “outsiders” and most “insiders.” The result is a community unable to discuss either its gifts or its struggles, vulnerable to dissention and often impervious to improvement.

Because many lay people work in environments where there is an annual employee review, it can seem only natural to use the same terminology and thinking in having some sort of review in the parish. Most clergy (and a fair number of lay leaders) bridle at this. The rector of a parish is not technically the employee of the parish. Clergy, in the Episcopal tradition, are not “employees” as much as they are pastors and colleagues in ministry. What is needed is not a review of employees, but a review of ministry, both in terms of quality and character. To do this, many different systems and techniques have been developed. St. Timothy’s employs one of its own devising, revised each year.

The Annual Survey is formulated by a special committee appointed by the Vestry and answerable to it. That committee sends out the survey in the late summer or early fall. The results are then tabulated and sent to the committee members and the rector for initial discussion. The committee then meets to formulate recommendations to the Vestry, which are then formally brought to a Vestry meeting.

Once the survey results and recommendations are received by the Vestry, that body decides how to proceed. Last year, the recommendations were brought the parish at the Annual Meeting and used as the basis for some small group work. Those small groups then developed plans for how to move forward on the recommendations during 2010; various commissions have been working on these issues over the year. A summary of the Survey also appears in the Tidings (our monthly newsletter)

As soon as the results and recommendations are in hand, I will schedule a private meeting with bishop Hanley so that I can take this material to my immediate superior, and lay it before him for his review. All parishioners should know that I do feel accountable to the Annual Survey as a part of my over-all accountability to Christ and His Church. Having our bishop in place will finally make this part of the Annual Review possible. I believe we are the only parish in the diocese that will approach a ministry review with this degree of thoroughness, transparency, and follow-through.

The Annual Survey gets all sorts of responses. Some people love it; other do not like it at all. No one has to take it, but the response rate has been improving over the last three years, so we know many people find it useful—especially if they see it translate into action!

Sometimes, very interesting ideas are expressed in the comments sections. Some people tell of their joys and frustrations at church. Others bring up suggestions for improvement or ask questions which we then try to answer. This is the place we are encouraged to “let it all hang out,” and many folks do so.

While it isn’t always easy to hear what people have to say, I am personally very grateful for the Annual Survey. I like the honesty it encourages, the opportunity for genuine sharing of thoughts and concerns, the way it emphasizes accountability…something our church is woefully short of in some ways.  As a priest, I value heading off problems before they grow into crises, and I like hearing from others about what needs fixing and what needs praising. Would that every dimension of diocesan life had this amount of open and effective conversation!

The Annual Survey committee puts in a lot of time on this, and it is well worth it. Together with the Vestry, the Commissions, the Endowment Fund Board, and other key parts of parish leadership, the Annual Survey is helping us discern God’s call to us a parish. Thanks, Survey Committee—and thanks to all in the parish who took the time to respond this and each year!

When we learn to see each other as friends in Christ, even with differing opinions, we are then free to respond in faith rather than react in fear. Basing our parish’s internal operations on Jesus’ call to openness and mutuality, we hope to be found faithful stewards of the Gospel in our own day.

A Prayer Before the Liturgy

Let all mortal flesh keep silence, and stand with fear and trembling, and lift itself above all earthly thought.

For the King of kings, the Lord of lords, Christ our God, cometh forth to be our oblation and to be given for food to the faithful.

Before him come the choirs of angels, with every principality and power, the Cherubim, with many eyes, and six-winged Seraphim, who veil their faces as they shout exultingly the hymn,

Alleluia!

Alleluia!

Alleluia!

A Season of Silence; A Season of Listening

There are times in life when it is best to be silent. Indeed, the Desert Fathers seem to indicate it would be best if we lived most of our lives in silence. People who know me well also know that I am far, far from achieving that condition. However, the last weeks have been a time, as least as far as this web log is concerned, for what a mentor of mine used to call “a season of silence.”

Writing one’s thoughts down for public consumption, even if it is only a few people who might see it, is a rather grave matter. Extracts of my writings in newsletters and other parochial publications have ended up in the local paper and all manner of other places. It is sobering to see one’s words return to one’s own eyes and ears like this. It reminds me of hearing my children say things I know I have said to them in the distant past—sometimes bringing joy, sometimes regret.

So, the last weeks have been a time to be much more about active ministry: listening, serving, and working alongside the other members of the parish. It has been uncommonly busy, but also uncommonly rich. While I have been using a lot of words, they have been the words of the Good Shepherd speaking (by God’s grace) through me and my own limitations, rather than words of reflection and analysis in a web log or a parish newsletter.

However, we are now at the end of the Autumn Embertide. This quarterly grouping of three days for prayer, fasting, and focused reflection on the ministry of the Church provide for a stopping point, an opportunity for deep consideration. During the Ember Days it has long been my custom to offer the Litany of Remembrance (often referred to as the Southwell Litany). It was composed by Bishop George Ridding of the newly-created Diocese of Southwell, England in the nineteenth century. Bishop Ridding wrote this litany for his diocesan clergy to say with him at the Embertides and other retreats when they gathered for prayer in perhaps one of the most beautiful rooms on earth: the cathedral’s Chapter House, with its extraordinary stone carving (the entrance to which is pictured above). What a thing to imagine in our day: a bishop simply praying with his clergy! No hired expert, no panel discussion, no complex agenda or expensive multi-day conference. Just prayer. Perhaps our economic difficulties will force us to consider such humble things once again.

I first met the Southwell Litany in a revised form for laypeople published by the Forward Movement Press in the Episcopal Church. It was the first “examination of conscience” I encountered. I met it again, this time in its original form for clergy, in a copy of The Cuddesdon Office Book I purchased on my first visit to England in 1984. At that time, I had no real idea how important these words would be, thinking as I did then I was going to be an attorney. When I entered seminary, however, the deep wisdom in this litany—even if couched in at times the most purple of Victorian prose—became evident and very applicable. It has formed a part of my Rule of Life since.

This prayer, along with the Litany of Missionary Intercession, The Litany of the Holy Spirit, and other traditional Embertide prayers has helped me to become open in new and deeper ways to what God is saying in my life. Far from being a welter of words or ecclesiastical rhetoric, such prayers have taken root in my soul. Their beauty has not masked their almost ruthless honesty, their absolute insistence that the Pastoral Life—like all Christian life—is a call to share in Christ’s holiness, Christ’s wholeness. I cannot imagine serving as a priest and pastor without such tools.

In our own day, the priesthood has been “deconstructed” and “demythologized,” so to speak. Clergy today have a tendency to be more akin to spiritual technicians or, as Rumpole of the Bailey once sneeringly put it, “members of the caring community.” This reaction to the mystification and hierarchical manipulation of an earlier era is to some degree understandable, of course. However, like all reactions, it has tended to become simply the inverse of the illness it seeks to correct.

While largely ignored today, the Embertides remain there in the calendar. They call to us—lay and ordained—with their quiet, patient voice, reminding us that no amount of techniques, seminars, how-to’s, revolutionary new technologies, or re-clothed bankrupt strategies of the past will suffice. Our ministries live or die to the degree they are lodged in the living Christ, who is always and eternally in the Will of the Father. 

I like to think of Bishop Ridding in his billowing rochet, kneeling down in the Chapter House of Southwell Cathedral, leading his parish clergy in their quarterly prayers together. Sometimes it was cold and dank in that stone room; sometimes it likely was hot and sultry. But, they were there. They knew it was essential. I like to think of joining them in their sacred obligation to review their ministry and the state of their vows. I am grateful for their company, and I pray that through it, I may be strengthened to be a better pastor of the people I serve in this corner of Christ’s vineyard.

X X X

A Litany of Remembrance

(Commonly called “The Southwell Litany”)

[Dr. George Ridding, first Bishop of Southwell, who composed this Litany for use at meetings of his clergy, was accustomed to introduce it with the following words:

Seeing, brethren, that we are weak men but entrusted with a great office, and that we cannot but be liable to hinder the work entrusted to us by our infirmities of body, soul, and spirit, both those common to all men and those specially attaching to our office, let us pray God to save us and help us from the several weaknesses which beset us severally, that he will make us know what faults we have not known, that he will shew us the harm of what we have not cared to control, that he will give us strength and wisdom to do more perfectly the work to which our lives have been consecrated--for no less service than the honor of God and the edifying of his Church. I will ask you to let me first say the suffrage to each petition, and then all join in repeating it together; after which a short pause shall be made.

Let us pray.]

O Lord, open our minds to see ourselves as Thou seest us, or even as others see us and we see others, and from all unwillingness to know our infirmities,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.

From moral weakness of spirit; from timidity; from hesitation; from fear of men and dread of responsibility, strengthen us with courage to speak the truth in love and self-control; and alike from the weakness of hasty violence and weakness of moral cowardice,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.

From weakness of judgment; from the indecision that can make no choice; from the irresolution that carries no choice into act; and from losing opportunities to serve Thee,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.

From infirmity of purpose; from want of earnest care and interest; from the sluggishness of indolence, and the slackness of indifference; and from all spiritual deadness of heart,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.

From dullness of conscience; from feeble sense of duty; from thoughtless disregard of consequences to others; from a low idea of the obligations of our Christian calling; and from all half-heartedness in our service for Thee,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.

From weariness in continuing struggles; from despondency in failure and disappointment; from overburdened sense of unworthiness; from morbid fancies of imaginary backslidings, raise us to a lively hope and trust in Thy presence and mercy, in the power of faith and prayer; and from all exaggerated fears and vexations,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.

From self-conceit, vanity and boasting; from delight in supposed success and superiority, raise us to the modesty and humility of true sense and taste and reality; and from all harms and hindrances of offensive manners and self-assertion,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.

From affectation and untruth, conscious or unconscious; from pretence and acting a part, which is hypocrisy; from impulsive self-adaptation to the moment in unreality to please persons or make circumstances easy, strengthen us to manly simplicity; and from all false appearances,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.

From love of flattery; from over-ready belief in praise; from dislike of criticism; from the comfort of self-deception in persuading ourselves that others think better than the truth of us,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.

From all love of display and sacrifice to popularity; from thought of ourselves in forgetfulness of Thee in our worship; hold our minds in spiritual reverence; and in all our words and works from all self-glorification,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.

From pride and self-will; from desire to have our own way in all things; from overweening love of our own ideas and blindness to the value of others; from resentment against opposition and contempt for the claims of others; enlarge the generosity of our hearts and enlighten the fairness of our judgments; and from all selfish arbitrariness of temper,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.

From all jealousy, whether of equals or superiors; from grudging others success; from impatience of submission and eagerness for authority; give us the spirit of brotherhood to share loyally with fellow-workers in all true proportions; and from all insubordination to law, order and authority,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.

From all hasty utterances of impatience; from the retort of irritation and the taunt of sarcasm; from all infirmity of temper in provoking or being provoked; from love of unkind gossip, and from all idle words that may do hurt,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.

In all times of temptation to follow pleasure, to leave duty for amusement, to indulge in distraction and dissipation, in dishonesty and debt, to degrade our high calling and forget our Christian vows, and in all times of frailty in our flesh,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.

In all times of ignorance and perplexity as to what is right and best to do, do Thou, O Lord, direct us with wisdom to judge aright, order our ways and overrule our circumstances as Thou canst in Thy good Providence; and in our mistakes and misunderstandings,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.

In times of doubts and questionings, when our belief is perplexed by new learning, new thought, when our faith is strained by creeds, by doctrines, by mysteries beyond our understanding, give us the faithfulness of learners and the courage of believers in Thee; alike from stubborn rejection of new revelations, and from hasty assurance that we are wiser than our fathers,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.

From strife and partisanship and division among the brethren, from magnifying our certainties to condemn all differences from all arrogance in our dealings with all men,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.

Give us knowledge of ourselves, our powers and weaknesses, our spirit, our sympathy, our imagination, our knowledge, our truth; teach us by the standard of Thy Word, by the judgments of others, by examinations of ourselves; give us earnest desire to strengthen ourselves continually by study, by diligence, by prayer and meditation; and from all fancies, delusions, and prejudices of habit, or temper, or society,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.

Give us true knowledge of our brethren in their differences from us and in their likenesses to us, that we may deal with their real selves, not measuring their feelings by our own, but patiently considering their varied lives and thoughts and circumstances; and in all our relations to them, from false judgments of our own, from misplaced trust and distrust, from misplaced giving and refusing, from misplaced praise and rebuke,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.

Chiefly, O Lord, we pray Thee, give us knowledge of Thee, to see Thee in all Thy works, always to feel Thy presence near, to hear and know Thy call. May Thy Spirit be our will, and in all our shortcomings and infirmities may we have sure faith in Thee,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.

Finally, O Lord, we humbly beseech Thee, blot out our past transgressions, heal the evils of our past negligences and ignorances, make us amend our past mistakes and misunderstandings; uplift our hearts to new love, new energy and devotion, that we may be unburdened from the grief and shame of past faithlessness to go forth in Thy strength to persevere through success and failure, through good report and evil report, even to the end; and in all time of our tribulation, in all time of our prosperity,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord.

O Christ, hear us.

Lord, have mercy upon us.

Christ, have mercy upon us.

Lord, have mercy upon us.

Our Father…

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all forever. Amen.

St. Mary the Virgin

Blessed are you among women!

All generations will call me blessed!

In these two phrases from the 2^nd chapter of the Gospel according to Luke (the first spoken by St. Elizabeth, the second by St. Mary herself) we find the Scriptural basis for today’s feast. For us, Mary is blessed, “higher than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim,” as one beloved hymn puts it.

Holy Scripture makes Mary, mother of Our Lord, the most honored of all the saints. Because of her willing gift of a human body, Christ the Redeemer is born into the world. This is the source of one of her ancient titles: Theotokos (Greek for “God-bearer”).

While August 15^th is traditionally associated with her “repose in the Lord” (meaning “falling asleep,” as the New Testament refers to the death of Christians), it is for us the main annual celebration of her life and witness. Mary was there from the beginning of the Gospel story to the Day of Pentecost. She remained faithful when others didn’t. Christ made special provision for her as he was dying on the Cross (John 19: 26-27), showing the Church the honor to be paid to her.

St. Mary has always been a pattern for the Church: attentive, faithful, willing to give of one’s self to God even when perplexed, loving Christ with personal devotion “in season and out of season.” Such was the witness of the Blessed Virgin Mary; such is our calling as we join her in following Christ—her Son and Lord.