What a storm uncovers

As the good people of the great state of Oklahoma dig out of this mess, a lot of things will be discovered.  The extent of each family’s loss will be calculated: first by the insurance company, then by the banks, and finally by the people themselves.  What the businesses are concerned about and what the people are concerned about may differ.  The bank will not care that a wedding album was lost or baby pictures destroyed.  Report cards and Citizenship Awards from 1^st grade will not be on the books of the bank nor the insurer. 

Some things will have survived against all odds.  There are always these little glimmers of hope even in the biggest disasters.  There will be stories of folks who are safe because they had to stop somewhere and so they weren’t home when the storm hit their house.  These stories will be uncovered.

I live far away.  I have not been in Oklahoma since I was a girl and my grandparents moved from Missouri to Texas.  Because of that, so we no longer drove through and stopped to visit cousins in Valliant, Oklahoma on the annual pilgrimage.  It has been many years since I’ve seen the farm where I first rode a horse, the same one my father rode in his youth.  It has been as many years since I fed any chickens.  It has been even more years since I visited with my Great Aunt Ida who has long since been with the Lord.

I’ve been thinking about all of that today.  My paternal grandmother, Miriam Elizabeth Olson, nee Shirley, was born in Cherokee County Oklahoma.  Her brother-in-law Bert Thurber, born a year or two earlier in the same place, was born in Indian Territory.  So if Laurey and Curly in the musical Oklahoma had had a baby within a year or so of getting married, that child would be the same age as my grandmother of sainted memory.

Today, I live in Miami-Dade.  It is the 7^th most populous county in the country.  I am surrounded by accents from all over Latin and South America.  But my roots are uncovered today.  My people, born in Oklahoma, Colorado, Mississippi and Texas – western people and southern people are on my mind today.  (For the record, I was born in Baton Rough, LA.)  In my head, I’m talking again in a Texas accent. 

I am praying for my people.  As Nehemiah prayed for his people, I pray for mine.  As Jesus wept for his people, I weep for mine.  May God bless the people of Oklahoma and help them recover.  May they know again the joy of home.  May they know the shelter love.  May they again feel safe.  As they uncover all of their losses, may they also uncover their resilience and their faith.

Time

I don’t know about you, but I waste time.  If there is plenty of time (or at least some time) between the current moment and the last possible moment I could start something, then I procrastinate.  It leads to a lot of moments when I am yelling at my self, “What is the matter with you?”

A couple of weeks ago I decided to tackle my procrastination problem with a new schedule.  I realized that to really be ready with both English and Spanish preparation for a Sunday, I needed two weeks with the texts.  I set out a schedule for printing, studying, etc.  I set up a notebook with tabs for each week, including tabs for special services coming up.  It is very nice.

Everything was going according to plan until my father fell ill and had to have a by-pass and aortic valve replacement.  While I still had time, I had no ability to concentrate or to think.  I was worrying and any efforts to stop worrying were met with fierce resistance!

And so, there I was on Saturday at the church doing a Spanish language service that I was completely unprepared for.  Thankfully, I had my church around me and they were able to take care of the cracks and I did what I could.  The daughter of the woman who had died and I hugged with more mutual understanding than I probably share when we are not going through such similar things.  There was God and there was Grace.  

No plan, no schedule, not amount of preparation can truly prepare you for everything that is coming.  Instead we need to rely on other things – God, faith, family, friends, and the church.  These are what got me through the days of fear. 

I received this blessing from my seminary Dear Ward Ewing, though I’ve modified it a bit, I share it here.

Life is short,
and we do not know how much time we have
  to gladden the hearts of those
  who make this earthly pilgrimage with us,
So, be swift to love,
Make haste to show mercy . . .
Shower abundant hospitality on friend and stranger alike,
And walk in justice,
that you may follow the path of mercy and love.

And may the God who first loved you,
The God whose property is always to show mercy
The God who invites you with infinite hospitality to share eternity with him
And the God who is the measure of Justice

            Bless you, in the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Racism and the Beloved Community

Since Easter, we have been reading from the Gospel of John on Sundays.  Each Gospel writer has a distinct voice, but John is quite different from the other three.  They are so alike that they are called the synoptic Gospels – the look alike Gospels.

What Jesus has been saying to us in this Gospel is that he was sent by the Father, to show us the Father.  He and his Father have a uniquely loving relationship that he wants us all to be a part of, the Beloved Community.  To be a part of it, we need to listen to his words of love, to believe that they are from the Father, and to follow.  Just and Jesus and his Father are one, so we should also be one – with each other and with the Father and Jesus.  ONE

Well, we all know that ONE is not something that we have really lived into.  Yesterday as I listened to the news I learned about three young women who had spent 10 years as captives of three brothers in Cleveland.  The nation listened in amazement as Charles Ramsey described how he heard one of the women screaming and he helped her kick the door down.  We heard him describe his surprise to learn that there were three women and a child involved in this. 

As the story unfolded we had villains, victims and a true hero in the person of Charles Ramsey.  His interviews went viral on the Internet.  He was funny, and down to earth.  He had nice details about bar-b-queing with the neighbors who seemed like regular guys.  Charles Ramsey was perfect for this.  He’s on top of the world!  I say, “Good for him!!” 

Then I noticed something in his story, and I wasn’t the only one.  I read it on Slate and at NPR.  Charles Ramsey was telling another part of the truth.  He said, describing the rescue of Amanda Berry and her fellow captives, he says, “I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man's arms. Something is wrong here. Dead giveaway!”

RACISM

This is not some white person “doing” something to this man, but his lived experience that has become completely internalized.  He knows, living in what is described as one of the most segregated cities in the country, that white women do not trust black men and would only turn to them in extreme circumstances.  I hope it made you weep as it made me weep. 

When I posted my observations on Facebook, I got two general responses.  From other liberal white people, I got likes and sentences of support.  From black people, I got more of a “business as usual” response.  As one friend Kathy Boeschenstein, an Episcopal priest in Colorado, said, “We are in so much trouble. Racism is everywhere including our blessed church.”

The church has made some serious miss-steps in our history.  This is true in the Church Universal, but specifically in the Episcopal Church.  Rather than becoming the beloved community where we share in the love of the Father and the Son as Jesus prayed, we became the church of the segregated community.  We not only did not tear down the walls that divide us, we put them up and put crosses on top of them and called them holy!

As Jesus prayed, “²⁰ I pray not only for these but also for those who through their teaching will come to believe in me.  ²¹ May they all be one, just as, Father, you are in me and I am in you, so that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me.” (Joh 17:20-21 NJB)  May we truly become the people who can lead the world to the Father, by becoming those people who show the love of God in our love for one another.

As they say, from your lips Jesus, to God’s ears!

Baptisms, Confirmations and Reaffirmations

Yesterday at our 10:00 service, the Rt. Rev. Calvin O. Schofield came to St. Luke’s.  He baptized a baby and a young man.  He confirmed three teenagers and an adult.  He heard the reaffirmation of a grown woman.  The church was blessed.

I was confirmed in the Episcopal Church as an adult.  It was a profoundly moving experience for me.  For a year I could feel the trace of Bishop Schofield’s finger putting that cross on my forehead.  I felt the power of the sacrament and the importance of the moment.

Now what is next?  For me the path forward included study, retreats, teaching Sunday school, and eventually seminary and priesthood.  For one of the teenagers it will include becoming the godfather of his soon to be born sibling.  For the adult confirmand it will include leading his two sons in the faith.  We all have a path and our faith helps us see it and to live it out.

Most of us do not have our faith so radically reaffirmed regularly, but perhaps we should.  Perhaps we were as aware of the anniversaries of our Baptisms and Confirmations as we are of the anniversaries of our births, then we could celebrate our spiritual growth and development.  It might even help us to notice when we had stopped growing and were merely marking time.

One of the more significant pieces of my spiritual journey was to attend Cursillo.  In that community we keep those memories alive by always remembering them in our introductions.  “Hello, my name is Cori Olson.  I worship at St. Luke the Physician Episcopal Church in Kendall, Florida.  I attended Episcopal Women’s Cursillo number 80, where I sat at the table of St. Margaret.”  Then the people clap.  Each of us, when we are introduced include our weekend number and our table name and each is welcomed back into the community with applause.

Would that we did that in our churches!