Mother's Day Sermon,
The Rev. Este Gardner Cantor
Mother, the hour has come; glorify your daughter so that the daughter may glorify you. Amen.
This is a plausible prayer for Mother's Day. Perhaps one that a daughter might pray to a mother in heaven at the hour that the daughter first gives birth. I think I prayed a prayer something like that like that when my daughter was born. I prayed for courage after 31 hours of labor that culminated in the glorious birth of my first daughter.
If you are a mother, there's nothing I can tell you about being a mother that you don't already know. If you are not a mother, then maybe you will do what I am going to do today. Maybe you will reminisce about your own mother. Maybe you will recall her in all her short-comings and all her glory.
When I think about how the Holy Spirit worked through my mother to bring me into the Episcopal church, I picture it like this. In the beginning, the Spirit of God moved over the face of the deep and chlorinated waters of the Indian Springs country club in rural Maryland. She then glided over the shallow end and kept moving until she rested on the sun-tanned face of Babs Warren, who immediately removed her sunglasses and sat bolt upright. She turned to the sunbathing figure of my mother lying next to her and proclaimed, "Joan! I've been meaning to tell you about this neat little church I've started going to! St. Michael and All Angels Church over in Adelphi!"
The next Sunday my mother took me there. She didn't say I had to go. She never said I had to go. She would just put on some great-looking little suit and say, "I'm going to church. Wanta go?" I did want to go. I always wanted to go. I had never set foot in a church until I was 8 years old so it was strange, fascinating and exotic to me. Since I was a girl I could not, of course, be an acolyte like my brother, but I did everything I could do. I joined the choir, I went to Sunday school, I performed in the variety shows. I went to the pot lucks. After a while my mother got confirmed and I asked her if I could do that. She told me that I had to be baptized first, and I was all for that. And so I was baptized on Easter Even in April of 1962, and a week later I was confirmed by Bishop William Creighton.
My mother had purchased a beautiful white lacy dress for the confirmation. This purchase caused a screaming fight between my mother and father, so the dress must have been really expensive. My father boycotted the confirmation event, probably because of the dress. But I had the satisfaction of watching my priest, Don Seaton, storm into our apartment without knocking on the afternoon of my confirmation. He shouted at my father, who had been reclining on an easy chair, "Where the hell were you this morning, Dave Gardner?" I was thrilled. My mother had extraordinarily high boundaries when it came to church work. She never joined the choir. I never saw her enter the church kitchen. She was never on the altar guild. Never even taught Sunday school. And for years she never joined a committee. I later realized that as the daughter of a preacher she felt she had done her time as far as church work was concerned all through her childhood and youth. But she was in those pews every Sunday, and finally, there came a time when she did join a committee.
My mother not only introduced me to the Episcopal church, she also introduced me to social justice. In the sixties the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity was very active in the civil rights movement, and St. Michael and All Angels became involved too. This was the committee that my mother finally joined. Groups from the church would go out and participate in civil rights demonstrations which Mother, however, felt were too dangerous for me to go to. But I remember joining my mother and a group from St. Michael's to picket a housing development in rural Maryland called the "Belle Aire Estates." They cluelessly advertised the fact that they would admit no black families to their housing developments. At twelve years old I walked proudly behind my mother in the picket line, carrying a placard and miming her obliviousness to the rude comments that were hurled in our direction.
In August 1963 the March on Washington was being organized and I begged to go. But in many quarters it was feared that the march would be a bloodbath, as so many marches had been in the South, and so my mother forbade me to go. Not many people in our church had the courage to go to that march, but my mother was one of them. She got to hear the "I Have a Dream" speech by Martin Luther King Jr., and all I got was this lousy bulletin from the march. It was clear from the remarks on the bulletin that the organizers expected the march might be violent as well. It read in part, "We call upon all marchers, black and white to resist all provocations to disorder and violence." The march, of course was a peaceful and history-making event.
My mother was also before her time in her support of the support gay rights, although she wouldn't have called it that. When I was five years old, she worked as an Arthur Murray's Dance Studio instructor. I loved this cool new job my mother had, and I loved watching her dance in her gauzy formal gowns. I noticed right away that most of her co-workers were good-looking young men who dressed extremely well. And they all seemed to pair off socially. When I asked her about this she told me that the reason they liked each other so much and were not married was because they were gay. And that's also why they are so much fun, she added, I agreed completely.
The advent of the sixties seemed to suit my mother really well. In one of St. Michael's infamous floor shows, she organized a group of women to do a modern dance as beatniks. Dressed in black tights, long black turtlenecks and berets, they did a slow and Jules Feiffer-like modern Dance while they intoned the nursery rhyme, "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot, nine days old" My mother looked great in tights, and she was aware of this.
My mother, through St. Michael's church, also introduced me to pastoral care. We would frequently drive out with the church group to orphanages or half-way houses for youth to play with the children there. I clearly remember my mother sitting on the sidewalk with a few of the girls from the half way house, playing jacks and laughing.
After I left home my parents separated and my mother moved out of the suburbs and into a breathtakingly dangerous neighborhood. She immediately made friends with her neighbors and allowed the children of the neighborhood to have the run of her small apartment, often feeding them or giving them small gifts. She was not tempted to move out of the neighborhood even when her apartment was, predictably enough, burglarized. Finally, one of her neighbors was murdered and her family insisted that she move into a safer area. So she moved directly across the street from Christ's church in a slightly safer part of town, as if to say that this was all the protection she needed.
Like many great women and men in history, my mother's courage and virtues did not always extend to her duties as a mother. But she had no patience for my complaints. She seems to lack the guilt gene that I inherited so strikingly. In answer to my protests about her neglect or her dishonesty, she would exclaim with great incredulity, "Oh, give me a break!" When pushed she might finally say, "Mea Culpa! Mea Culpa! All right?"
By the time I was 24, which was the year she died, I had decided that her manifold sins and wickedness were beyond my powers of forgiveness. We were barely on speaking terms. I was in art school at the time, painting large silver cubes or something. When she ventured that she couldn't see that there would be any money in that, I took it as proof of her great, sabotaging lack of faith in me. Then, miraculously, a week before she died, she heard me being interviewed on the radio for a show I was in. The next time I saw her, which was the last time I ever saw her, she embraced me and told me how proud she was of me – that she was glad I was doing what I really wanted to do, and was sure I would succeed. This exchange was so utterly uncharacteristic of her, that I don't think I uttered a word in response. Luckily I did return her embrace.
My mother brought me back to the Episcopal church again, twenty-some years later, when my long suppressed mourning for her reached a fever pitch, and going to church was the only thing I could think of doing. Over the years, especially as I have been on the rocky path to holy orders, I have thought about her a lot. Sometimes, when I am sitting in the front row of a service that has particularly low attendance (Christmas day, for instance, or Thanksgiving ) I realize that contrary to appearances, I am not sitting all alone on that pew. I can sometimes feel her presence very palpably at those times, sitting right next to me in one of those great little suits.
I have been preaching about my mother from my very first sermon, and as you can see, it's still all about her. I feel sure that she will be with me as I celebrate with my family, and without her. But you can be my witnesses today, on this Mother's Day, that at least in part, what I have done I have done to glorify my mother in heaven, so that she just might shed some of her glory on me.
Amen.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Paul’s Commute to Damascus
Earth Sunday, April 22, 2007
OK, you heard about my mom...
When I think of the earth, I always think of my father. My father was a geologist and a great lover of nature. As a small child it was easy for me to mistake my father for God, maybe even more than most kids. Because he was the one that told me about the mountains and the glaciers and the forests and the great boulders and the sun and the moon, and what they were all made of. He was the one who told me about granite, slate, sandstone and obsidian. He would take us all to gorgeous natural wonders- mountains, forests, oceans. He would show me a tiny garnet that had formed on the tip of a great mound of granite on a mountaintop, or how a perfectly round pothole in a great bolder in the Shenandoah Valley produced a perfectly round stone inside it. He talked about granite (his personally favorite rock) so much that when I first heard of taking someone for "granite," I thought it meant mistaking them for a large gray rock, and I could see how that would offend them.
He took us to Assoteague Island off the cost of Maryland and Chincoteague off the Virginia coast where we watched the wild ponies run. He took us to beautiful quarries in the Maryland woods filled with rainwater so treacherously deep and so freezing cold that the thrill of the immanent danger somehow enhanced the beauty for us.
He showed us the breath-taking grandeur of the Appalachian Mountains, making sure we knew exactly how they were formed. And unlike the student in Al Gore’s film, I knew for sure that the continents fit together like puzzle pieces from the time I was five. He took us to the glorious beaches of the Maryland/ Delaware shore- Bethany Beach with its ghostly row of lighthouses and Rehoboth with its powerful waves and wonderful scruffy sand dunes. We camped a lot. My father even liked to camp in the snow, and he would take us to the beach even if a storm was threatening. I began to get an impression of a glorious, gorgeous, seemingly endless abundance and beauty- fresh, cold, wild, limitless abundant life, long before I ever heard about Jesus.
My father, the confirmed atheist, accidentally gifted me with a deep spirituality through his great love of creation. My mom finished off the job by taking me to church when I was 8. But I felt my first stirrings of the holy as I walked through tall trees on the way to fetch our food out of an ice-cold creek while we were camping in the mountains of New Hampshire. Surrounding me, singing along with me, lifting up my child’s heart as I skipped along, I felt something as huge as the sun and as familiar as my own soul. I knew God was right there- was all around me.
This still recurs for me every time I find myself walking down a wooded path, birds singing and nature glorying around me, and I feel myself being fed by the great roaring pristine abundance of the air, the trees and the sun.
As we talked with the bishop this past week those of us who were clergy in Marin had to admit that the secular world was way ahead of us in stewardship of the earth- in awareness of the fragility of the planet, and the vital importance of sustainability. But our bishop suggested that perhaps there was a place for us in this holy work. He urged us to open people’s eyes to the holiness of creation, to recognize the sacredness of our duty toward it- to make it Holy work. And perhaps can be our job as Christians in this post-Christian culture
In our reading of today, and in almost every story of Jesus after the resurrection, Jesus is at first unrecognizable. In the road to Emmaus story, he walks right long with the disciples and they take him for a stranger. In a post-resurrection story from the gospel of Luke, Jesus suddenly appears to them saying, “Peace be with you,” and they think he is a ghost.
In the appearance to Mary Magdalene, she is just fresh from a conversation with two angels, when Jesus addresses her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?” How in the world could she fail to recognize him? He stood before her. He spoke to her. And yet she mistakes him for …the gardener (John 20: 11-18). And in our Gospel story today, after fishing all night and catching nothing, having lost their beloved teacher to a torturous death, another dawn was breaking for the disciples, perhaps not unlike that first Easter morning. A stranger is standing on the beach and calls out to the bedraggled disciples, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” And they don’t recognize him.
They take him for some anonymous fisherman, just as Mary took him for some anonymous gardener. And we have mistaken our precious planet earth for our own personal garden, our own personal harvest of fish. There is unimaginable abundance in this world of ours, but it is not, alas, infinite.
Jesus’ ministry in the Gospel of John begins with unimaginable abundance- the turning of vast amounts of water to vast amounts of very fine wine. This miracle brought forth the first recognition of who Jesus was. And John’s gospel ends with a great miracle of abundance as well- the vast amounts of fish that allow the befuddled disciples to at last recognize the risen Christ.
I believe that we have to be the miracle that wakes up our own souls, because Jesus has no other hands or feet than ours at this point. St. Francis took Jesus literally when he said- “Go forth and preach the Gospel to all creation.” And so Francis preached to the birds, the rocks, to insects. He took care of his fellow creatures, moving a tiny worm off of a path and out of harm’s way, saving a wolf from being murdered by the town folk. Francis also said “Preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary use words.”
It is this gospel of no words that we need to preach- this cruciform willingness to have less and love more. To recognize the amazing extent to which we really are part of the whole, and what we do does make an enormous difference.
Here is a quote from a theologian you are all familiar with:
Human beings are part of a whole, called by us “the universe.” A part limited in time and space. However, they regard themselves, their ideas and their feelings as separate and apart from the rest. It is something like an optical illusion in their consciousness. This illusion is sort of a prison: it restricts us to our personal aspirations and limits our affective life to few people very close to us. Our task should be to free ourselves from this prison, opening up our circle of compassion in order to embrace all living creatures and all of nature in its beauty.
This is from the writings of that wild eco-feminist, Albert Einstein.
In a really annoying twist of fate, I am now commuting for the first time in my life. Just as the severity of Global warming has really hit my consciousness, I am driving my vintage Volvo 35 miles every time I come to work, packing ever more carbon into our fragile atmosphere. There must be a reason this is happening to me at this time. I have to assume that God is giving me my wake-up call. I am staring Jesus right in the face and not seeing him. I am living in the little bubble of illusion that what I do has only to do with me.
In our reading from Acts, we hear the beautiful story of Paul’s road to Damascus experience. He had been a proud pious Jewish man- well versed in all the scriptures, utterly sure of himself. And in his great assurance he was a leader in the persecution of those upstart heretics, who belonged to “The Way,” as early Christianity was then called. But on the road to Damascus, Paul had a profound experience of the risen Christ. Right in the middle of his commute, he fell flat on his face. His previous blindness turned into real blindness, and he had to continue on being led by the hand, stumbling along unseeing. He kept on going in his journey to Damascus, but in a very different way for a very different reason. He went to meet his teacher.
Because we have not been able to recognize and treasure the glorious abundance that we have been gifted with, we are in danger of losing it. But who will be our teacher? Who will lift the scales from our eyes? I believe our own lives must be our teacher. The glory of nature must be our teacher. And our growing awareness of our harm we do to that glorious abundance must be our teacher. And God will surely open our eyes and God will surely help us as we preach the wordless gospel and walk the sacred way of cherishing and protecting this unimaginably abundant Earth for ourselves, each other and our children.
Amen.
OK, you heard about my mom...
When I think of the earth, I always think of my father. My father was a geologist and a great lover of nature. As a small child it was easy for me to mistake my father for God, maybe even more than most kids. Because he was the one that told me about the mountains and the glaciers and the forests and the great boulders and the sun and the moon, and what they were all made of. He was the one who told me about granite, slate, sandstone and obsidian. He would take us all to gorgeous natural wonders- mountains, forests, oceans. He would show me a tiny garnet that had formed on the tip of a great mound of granite on a mountaintop, or how a perfectly round pothole in a great bolder in the Shenandoah Valley produced a perfectly round stone inside it. He talked about granite (his personally favorite rock) so much that when I first heard of taking someone for "granite," I thought it meant mistaking them for a large gray rock, and I could see how that would offend them.
He took us to Assoteague Island off the cost of Maryland and Chincoteague off the Virginia coast where we watched the wild ponies run. He took us to beautiful quarries in the Maryland woods filled with rainwater so treacherously deep and so freezing cold that the thrill of the immanent danger somehow enhanced the beauty for us.
He showed us the breath-taking grandeur of the Appalachian Mountains, making sure we knew exactly how they were formed. And unlike the student in Al Gore’s film, I knew for sure that the continents fit together like puzzle pieces from the time I was five. He took us to the glorious beaches of the Maryland/ Delaware shore- Bethany Beach with its ghostly row of lighthouses and Rehoboth with its powerful waves and wonderful scruffy sand dunes. We camped a lot. My father even liked to camp in the snow, and he would take us to the beach even if a storm was threatening. I began to get an impression of a glorious, gorgeous, seemingly endless abundance and beauty- fresh, cold, wild, limitless abundant life, long before I ever heard about Jesus.
My father, the confirmed atheist, accidentally gifted me with a deep spirituality through his great love of creation. My mom finished off the job by taking me to church when I was 8. But I felt my first stirrings of the holy as I walked through tall trees on the way to fetch our food out of an ice-cold creek while we were camping in the mountains of New Hampshire. Surrounding me, singing along with me, lifting up my child’s heart as I skipped along, I felt something as huge as the sun and as familiar as my own soul. I knew God was right there- was all around me.
This still recurs for me every time I find myself walking down a wooded path, birds singing and nature glorying around me, and I feel myself being fed by the great roaring pristine abundance of the air, the trees and the sun.
As we talked with the bishop this past week those of us who were clergy in Marin had to admit that the secular world was way ahead of us in stewardship of the earth- in awareness of the fragility of the planet, and the vital importance of sustainability. But our bishop suggested that perhaps there was a place for us in this holy work. He urged us to open people’s eyes to the holiness of creation, to recognize the sacredness of our duty toward it- to make it Holy work. And perhaps can be our job as Christians in this post-Christian culture
In our reading of today, and in almost every story of Jesus after the resurrection, Jesus is at first unrecognizable. In the road to Emmaus story, he walks right long with the disciples and they take him for a stranger. In a post-resurrection story from the gospel of Luke, Jesus suddenly appears to them saying, “Peace be with you,” and they think he is a ghost.
In the appearance to Mary Magdalene, she is just fresh from a conversation with two angels, when Jesus addresses her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?” How in the world could she fail to recognize him? He stood before her. He spoke to her. And yet she mistakes him for …the gardener (John 20: 11-18). And in our Gospel story today, after fishing all night and catching nothing, having lost their beloved teacher to a torturous death, another dawn was breaking for the disciples, perhaps not unlike that first Easter morning. A stranger is standing on the beach and calls out to the bedraggled disciples, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” And they don’t recognize him.
They take him for some anonymous fisherman, just as Mary took him for some anonymous gardener. And we have mistaken our precious planet earth for our own personal garden, our own personal harvest of fish. There is unimaginable abundance in this world of ours, but it is not, alas, infinite.
Jesus’ ministry in the Gospel of John begins with unimaginable abundance- the turning of vast amounts of water to vast amounts of very fine wine. This miracle brought forth the first recognition of who Jesus was. And John’s gospel ends with a great miracle of abundance as well- the vast amounts of fish that allow the befuddled disciples to at last recognize the risen Christ.
I believe that we have to be the miracle that wakes up our own souls, because Jesus has no other hands or feet than ours at this point. St. Francis took Jesus literally when he said- “Go forth and preach the Gospel to all creation.” And so Francis preached to the birds, the rocks, to insects. He took care of his fellow creatures, moving a tiny worm off of a path and out of harm’s way, saving a wolf from being murdered by the town folk. Francis also said “Preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary use words.”
It is this gospel of no words that we need to preach- this cruciform willingness to have less and love more. To recognize the amazing extent to which we really are part of the whole, and what we do does make an enormous difference.
Here is a quote from a theologian you are all familiar with:
Human beings are part of a whole, called by us “the universe.” A part limited in time and space. However, they regard themselves, their ideas and their feelings as separate and apart from the rest. It is something like an optical illusion in their consciousness. This illusion is sort of a prison: it restricts us to our personal aspirations and limits our affective life to few people very close to us. Our task should be to free ourselves from this prison, opening up our circle of compassion in order to embrace all living creatures and all of nature in its beauty.
This is from the writings of that wild eco-feminist, Albert Einstein.
In a really annoying twist of fate, I am now commuting for the first time in my life. Just as the severity of Global warming has really hit my consciousness, I am driving my vintage Volvo 35 miles every time I come to work, packing ever more carbon into our fragile atmosphere. There must be a reason this is happening to me at this time. I have to assume that God is giving me my wake-up call. I am staring Jesus right in the face and not seeing him. I am living in the little bubble of illusion that what I do has only to do with me.
In our reading from Acts, we hear the beautiful story of Paul’s road to Damascus experience. He had been a proud pious Jewish man- well versed in all the scriptures, utterly sure of himself. And in his great assurance he was a leader in the persecution of those upstart heretics, who belonged to “The Way,” as early Christianity was then called. But on the road to Damascus, Paul had a profound experience of the risen Christ. Right in the middle of his commute, he fell flat on his face. His previous blindness turned into real blindness, and he had to continue on being led by the hand, stumbling along unseeing. He kept on going in his journey to Damascus, but in a very different way for a very different reason. He went to meet his teacher.
Because we have not been able to recognize and treasure the glorious abundance that we have been gifted with, we are in danger of losing it. But who will be our teacher? Who will lift the scales from our eyes? I believe our own lives must be our teacher. The glory of nature must be our teacher. And our growing awareness of our harm we do to that glorious abundance must be our teacher. And God will surely open our eyes and God will surely help us as we preach the wordless gospel and walk the sacred way of cherishing and protecting this unimaginably abundant Earth for ourselves, each other and our children.
Amen.
Monday, April 2, 2007
Morning Prayer for the Inclusive Mind
A note: This is an adaptation of the Book of Common Prayer Daily Devotions for Individuals and Families on page 137. Most of the changes involve inclusive language, but I have also changed language (regretfully because of the beauty of the verse) because I do not believe that God would ever cast me away from her presence, or take her Holy Spirit from me. Rather I believe that I forget or distance myself from the Holy Spirit on occasion. I also change “Father” to “Abba” because what Jesus was saying was not “Father” but the Hebrew name for “papa" or "daddy.” And I use the New Zealand Prayer Book version of the Lord's Prayer.
In the Morning
From Psalm 51
Open my lips, Oh God,
and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.
Create in me a clean heart,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Help me to deeply feel your presence
and forget not your Holy Spirit.
Give me the joy of your saving help again
and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit
As it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever. Amen
A Reading
Blessed be the God and Abba of our Savior Jesus Christ!
By God’s great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
A period of meditation may follow.
A hymn or canticle may be used. The Apostle’s Creed may be said.
Prayers may be offered.
This alternative to The Lord’s Prayer from the New Zealand Prayer Book may be used.
Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and all that shall be,
Mother and Father of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven,
The Hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the people of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your reign of peace and freedom
Sustain our hope in heaven and on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us. From the grip of all that speaks of death and not of life, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
Now and forever, Amen.
The Collect
Oh God, almighty and everlasting Creator, you have brought us in safety to this new day. Preserve us with your great love and grant us your peace, which passes all understanding, that me might stay on your path, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your name. And in all we do, direct us to the fulfillment of your purpose; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen
In the Morning
From Psalm 51
Open my lips, Oh God,
and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.
Create in me a clean heart,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Help me to deeply feel your presence
and forget not your Holy Spirit.
Give me the joy of your saving help again
and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit
As it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever. Amen
A Reading
Blessed be the God and Abba of our Savior Jesus Christ!
By God’s great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
A period of meditation may follow.
A hymn or canticle may be used. The Apostle’s Creed may be said.
Prayers may be offered.
This alternative to The Lord’s Prayer from the New Zealand Prayer Book may be used.
Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and all that shall be,
Mother and Father of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven,
The Hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the people of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your reign of peace and freedom
Sustain our hope in heaven and on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us. From the grip of all that speaks of death and not of life, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
Now and forever, Amen.
The Collect
Oh God, almighty and everlasting Creator, you have brought us in safety to this new day. Preserve us with your great love and grant us your peace, which passes all understanding, that me might stay on your path, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your name. And in all we do, direct us to the fulfillment of your purpose; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen
Saturday, March 31, 2007
The army just called for my 13 year-old daughter
Today at 11:oo I received a call from young woman who, without identifying herself asked to speak to my 13 year old daughter, who is out of town in Las Vegas at a family Bar Mitzvah (that's another story).
"No she's not here- can I take a message?" I said.
"Yes, tell her Tabatha is calling about opportunities in the army."
"The ARMY!!!???" I screamed, "Are you out of your mind- SHE IS THIRTEEN YEARS OLD! It's bad enough that you call ANYONE to try to get them killed but a thirteen year old girl? Don't you dare call this number again! You should be ashamed of yourself! What is your na-"
She hung up on me, but luckily I have her number and am pondering what to do with it. Legal action seems as appropriate against her as for a drug dealer or kidnapper who tried to reach my child. How did she get her number?
Almost immediately after the call, my 15 year old daughter, who is visiting relatives in New York called to say she had received an identical call minutes after the call I received. That meant that after screaming in her ear for five minutes the lady immediately called my OTHER daughter. As I have heard, they have no shame, are utterly desperate and lie easily to try to ensnare the kids they are trying to enlist. In the case of my 13 year old they are calling her five years before she can be enlisted so as to be able to work on her for that long. They had my other daughter's CELL PHONE, and did manage to talk to her without my knowledge or consent. "Are you interested in job opportunities with the army?" the woman brghtly asked my 15 year old.
"No I'm not!" She said. "Well, do you think any of your friends might be interested?"
"No!" she said and hung up.
I have just read that under the federal No Child Left Behind Act (I've just re-named it the No Child Left Alive Act) high school are required to provide military recruiters with their student's names and contact information unlss students sighn an "opt out" form. We, of course, never saw this form. I doubt if they realize that getting a call from the army for your 13 year old child is proably the most radicalizing event short of the death of that child.
The army is so desperate now that enlistment bonuses have doubled and now are up to $40,000.00. How many impoverised kids could resist that? The recruiters go to shopping malls and any place kids hang out and offer them t-shirts, frisbees, video games. They tell them that in the army they get free meals and gym membership. And the dangers of the war are drastically played down. In one tape recorded recruiting call the recruiter told the teenager "We are not really at war."
"No she's not here- can I take a message?" I said.
"Yes, tell her Tabatha is calling about opportunities in the army."
"The ARMY!!!???" I screamed, "Are you out of your mind- SHE IS THIRTEEN YEARS OLD! It's bad enough that you call ANYONE to try to get them killed but a thirteen year old girl? Don't you dare call this number again! You should be ashamed of yourself! What is your na-"
She hung up on me, but luckily I have her number and am pondering what to do with it. Legal action seems as appropriate against her as for a drug dealer or kidnapper who tried to reach my child. How did she get her number?
Almost immediately after the call, my 15 year old daughter, who is visiting relatives in New York called to say she had received an identical call minutes after the call I received. That meant that after screaming in her ear for five minutes the lady immediately called my OTHER daughter. As I have heard, they have no shame, are utterly desperate and lie easily to try to ensnare the kids they are trying to enlist. In the case of my 13 year old they are calling her five years before she can be enlisted so as to be able to work on her for that long. They had my other daughter's CELL PHONE, and did manage to talk to her without my knowledge or consent. "Are you interested in job opportunities with the army?" the woman brghtly asked my 15 year old.
"No I'm not!" She said. "Well, do you think any of your friends might be interested?"
"No!" she said and hung up.
I have just read that under the federal No Child Left Behind Act (I've just re-named it the No Child Left Alive Act) high school are required to provide military recruiters with their student's names and contact information unlss students sighn an "opt out" form. We, of course, never saw this form. I doubt if they realize that getting a call from the army for your 13 year old child is proably the most radicalizing event short of the death of that child.
The army is so desperate now that enlistment bonuses have doubled and now are up to $40,000.00. How many impoverised kids could resist that? The recruiters go to shopping malls and any place kids hang out and offer them t-shirts, frisbees, video games. They tell them that in the army they get free meals and gym membership. And the dangers of the war are drastically played down. In one tape recorded recruiting call the recruiter told the teenager "We are not really at war."
Monday, March 26, 2007
The Outrageous Anointing: John 12:1-8
Sermon for Sunday morning March 25, 2007.
The story of the anointing woman is a well-known and well-cherished one and probably was at the time that the Gospel of John was written as well. It is dear to my heart because it illuminates two of the biblical elements that fascinate me most: Jesus’ relationship with the women of the New Testament, and the teaching that Jesus tried so hard to convey to his uncomprehending disciples - the teaching of unconditional, extravagant love.
The story of the anointing woman occurs, in differing versions, in all four gospels, which is very unusual for any of the New Testament stories. In every version it is an outrageous act, for differing reasons. In only one of the four stories, in the Gospel of Luke, the anointing woman is a sinner. And so in that version it is the fact of Jesus receiving and touching a “woman of the city- a sinner,” that shocks the on-lookers. As his host testily says, “If this man were a prophet he would know who and what this woman is.” And no first century woman could let down her hair in front of anyone besides her husband, without breaking a serious taboo.
But in the story in John that we read today and in Matthew and Mark, it is the extravagant waste of the very precious oil that shocks the bystanders. It was then and is now an utterly counter-cultural act. Love without counting the cost.
It is Mary of Bethany who perpetrates this scandal in our story of today, and this is the only anointing story in the four gospels where the woman is named. This is the second scandalous act that Mary of Bethany has committed with Jesus of Nazareth. Earlier, as Jesus sat and taught his male disciples, Mary chose to sit at his feet as well, breaking the taboo of women studying with a rabbi. Even her sister is scandalized and admonishes Jesus to remind Mary of her place. But as in the anointing story, Jesus defends Mary and asserts that she has taken the “better part.”
To pour such extravagant value at the feet of anyone who is not yourself or in your immediate family is presently as foreign to us now as it was then. However, the value that the nard was reported to have in our Gospel story may have been in line with so many symbolically inflated figures in the bible- Noah was over 800 years old, and by today’s standards, the story of today describes Mary of Bethany pouring $40,000 worth of perfume on Jesus’ feet.
If this really happened before your eyes, you might say exactly what Judas did- why waste this great value on a mere gesture? Why not use the money for the poor? Our passage of today hastens to explain that, although Judas reaction would have mirrored our own, it was not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief.
Peter had much the same reaction as Judas did when Jesus told him that he wanted to wash Peter’s feet. “Lord, you will never wash my feet!” Peter sputtered. He was appalled at the seemingly meaningless wasteful extravagance in the gesture of a master washing the feet of his student. Washing the feet of a guest was considered a chore of such low status that only a slave, and a non-Jewish slave at that, would be expected to serve in this way. But Peter missed the point, just as Judas missed the point, just as we all so often miss the point. The point was unconditional, abundant, redeeming, limitless, utterly unselfish love.
The Gospel of John is made up of two halves- the Book of Signs, and the Book of Glory. The very first sign was presided over by another Mary- Mary of Nazareth- at the Wedding of Cana. And the very last sign is performed by Mary of Bethany. At the wedding of Cana there is another expression of almost unimaginable extravagance; the astonishing quantity of very fine wine provided by Jesus. His ministry is sandwiched in between two acts of great, extravagant generosity, both initiated by women. And the anointing story falls just before Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, and his special instructions to his disciples at the last supper to “love one another” (John 13:34). It seems clear that Mary of Bethany’s act anticipates his commandment.
There are many examples of Jesus performing miracles of unimaginable abundance: The feeding of the multitudes (also one of the rare stories that occur in all four gospels) the massive catch of fish that Simon and his fellow fishermen harvest, and his instruction to forgive your brother not seven times but seventy times seven times ”. And there are also many stories of Jesus breaking taboos in the interest of compassion: healing on the Sabbath, allowing the touch of a bleeding woman, speaking with, healing and raising up women of the despised races of the Canaanites and the Samaritan, and, of course dining with tax collectors and sinners.
But in the story of Mary of Bethany, we have someone other than Jesus actually performing a courageous, taboo-breaking act of tremendous generosity. We are shown that one doesn’t have to be Jesus of Nazareth, one doesn’t have to have miraculous powers to emulate the kind of unconditional and almost limitless love that Jesus models. We can all find comfort in the fact that it was humble, human Mary of Bethany who anointed the Anointed One. Anyone can identify with her. She ducked out of doing the dishes so she could do something more fun- study at the feet of Jesus. She yelled at Jesus for being late immediately prior to his miracle of raising her brother from the dead.
In Matthew and Mark, Jesus defends the anointing woman from the scolding disciples saying, “Truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.” Ironically, in these two Gospels, she is never named. And sadly, for the most part, it is Luke’s sinful woman of the city that has traditionally remained as a composite portrait of her. She has often been inaccurately identified as Mary Magdalene, although nowhere in the Gospels is it written that Mary of Magdalene was any kind of sinner. But this sermon today and so many throughout the centuries have fulfilled the prophecy that she will be remembered. And Jesus’ words hold more importance than can be ascribed to a simple act of extravagance. It is the anointing of the Anointed One. It is the good news- the news that we can allow the Grace to rain from us for a change; we can give something without calculating the cost.
In our Old Testament reading, God is speaking through the prophet Isaiah. God says,
Do not remember the former things,
Or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing
Now it springs forth do you not perceive it?
Like the Old Testament God of Isaiah, Mary of Bethany, and Jesus of Nazareth, were trying a new thing. As it sprang forth, like that flood of fragrant oil, like that extravagant gesture of love that Jesus presented to the uncomprehending disciples, a new idea came into being, a new life and a new hope, not based on market forces, not based on self-preservation, but based on unlimited love.
There was an anointing woman in one story of the Buddhist tradition as well. After his wanderings, as the Buddha had tried everything to reach enlightenment, he was at the end of a long fast, and he decided it was better to live than to die. A young and beautiful woman knelt at his feet and offered him a bowl of rice milk. Its sweetness and abundance was a sharp contrast to his previous regiment of 7 grains of rice per day. The rice milk was not only deliciously sweet, but also served in a solid golden bowl, a bowl that the Buddha tossed into the river afterwards. The extravagant gift gave the Buddha enough strength to go on with his journey, to his Jerusalem and his glorification. He had the strength to start his famous vigil beneath the Bodhi tree, his journey to enlightenment. Perhaps Jesus experienced something of that feeling of sweetness, of great generosity after the leanness and danger of his ministry before this abundant anointing, the anointing that would signal the end of his ministry. Perhaps it was a reminder of the abundance of God, that he tried so hard to model all his life. And it is the Christian Buddhist, Thick Nhat Hahn who best describes for me this abundance that we are all gifted with: He reminds us that:
The winds of grace are always blowing- we have only to put up our sails.
Jesus calls us to mirror the anointing woman and give back in some small measure, the love that has been so extravagantly poured out for us.
The never-ending raining down of Grace in our lives- Grace we did not earn, Grace we can’t even conceive of, and grace that does not ever exist in terms of lack or cost, but only in glorious abundance.
Amen
The story of the anointing woman is a well-known and well-cherished one and probably was at the time that the Gospel of John was written as well. It is dear to my heart because it illuminates two of the biblical elements that fascinate me most: Jesus’ relationship with the women of the New Testament, and the teaching that Jesus tried so hard to convey to his uncomprehending disciples - the teaching of unconditional, extravagant love.
The story of the anointing woman occurs, in differing versions, in all four gospels, which is very unusual for any of the New Testament stories. In every version it is an outrageous act, for differing reasons. In only one of the four stories, in the Gospel of Luke, the anointing woman is a sinner. And so in that version it is the fact of Jesus receiving and touching a “woman of the city- a sinner,” that shocks the on-lookers. As his host testily says, “If this man were a prophet he would know who and what this woman is.” And no first century woman could let down her hair in front of anyone besides her husband, without breaking a serious taboo.
But in the story in John that we read today and in Matthew and Mark, it is the extravagant waste of the very precious oil that shocks the bystanders. It was then and is now an utterly counter-cultural act. Love without counting the cost.
It is Mary of Bethany who perpetrates this scandal in our story of today, and this is the only anointing story in the four gospels where the woman is named. This is the second scandalous act that Mary of Bethany has committed with Jesus of Nazareth. Earlier, as Jesus sat and taught his male disciples, Mary chose to sit at his feet as well, breaking the taboo of women studying with a rabbi. Even her sister is scandalized and admonishes Jesus to remind Mary of her place. But as in the anointing story, Jesus defends Mary and asserts that she has taken the “better part.”
To pour such extravagant value at the feet of anyone who is not yourself or in your immediate family is presently as foreign to us now as it was then. However, the value that the nard was reported to have in our Gospel story may have been in line with so many symbolically inflated figures in the bible- Noah was over 800 years old, and by today’s standards, the story of today describes Mary of Bethany pouring $40,000 worth of perfume on Jesus’ feet.
If this really happened before your eyes, you might say exactly what Judas did- why waste this great value on a mere gesture? Why not use the money for the poor? Our passage of today hastens to explain that, although Judas reaction would have mirrored our own, it was not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief.
Peter had much the same reaction as Judas did when Jesus told him that he wanted to wash Peter’s feet. “Lord, you will never wash my feet!” Peter sputtered. He was appalled at the seemingly meaningless wasteful extravagance in the gesture of a master washing the feet of his student. Washing the feet of a guest was considered a chore of such low status that only a slave, and a non-Jewish slave at that, would be expected to serve in this way. But Peter missed the point, just as Judas missed the point, just as we all so often miss the point. The point was unconditional, abundant, redeeming, limitless, utterly unselfish love.
The Gospel of John is made up of two halves- the Book of Signs, and the Book of Glory. The very first sign was presided over by another Mary- Mary of Nazareth- at the Wedding of Cana. And the very last sign is performed by Mary of Bethany. At the wedding of Cana there is another expression of almost unimaginable extravagance; the astonishing quantity of very fine wine provided by Jesus. His ministry is sandwiched in between two acts of great, extravagant generosity, both initiated by women. And the anointing story falls just before Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, and his special instructions to his disciples at the last supper to “love one another” (John 13:34). It seems clear that Mary of Bethany’s act anticipates his commandment.
There are many examples of Jesus performing miracles of unimaginable abundance: The feeding of the multitudes (also one of the rare stories that occur in all four gospels) the massive catch of fish that Simon and his fellow fishermen harvest, and his instruction to forgive your brother not seven times but seventy times seven times ”. And there are also many stories of Jesus breaking taboos in the interest of compassion: healing on the Sabbath, allowing the touch of a bleeding woman, speaking with, healing and raising up women of the despised races of the Canaanites and the Samaritan, and, of course dining with tax collectors and sinners.
But in the story of Mary of Bethany, we have someone other than Jesus actually performing a courageous, taboo-breaking act of tremendous generosity. We are shown that one doesn’t have to be Jesus of Nazareth, one doesn’t have to have miraculous powers to emulate the kind of unconditional and almost limitless love that Jesus models. We can all find comfort in the fact that it was humble, human Mary of Bethany who anointed the Anointed One. Anyone can identify with her. She ducked out of doing the dishes so she could do something more fun- study at the feet of Jesus. She yelled at Jesus for being late immediately prior to his miracle of raising her brother from the dead.
In Matthew and Mark, Jesus defends the anointing woman from the scolding disciples saying, “Truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.” Ironically, in these two Gospels, she is never named. And sadly, for the most part, it is Luke’s sinful woman of the city that has traditionally remained as a composite portrait of her. She has often been inaccurately identified as Mary Magdalene, although nowhere in the Gospels is it written that Mary of Magdalene was any kind of sinner. But this sermon today and so many throughout the centuries have fulfilled the prophecy that she will be remembered. And Jesus’ words hold more importance than can be ascribed to a simple act of extravagance. It is the anointing of the Anointed One. It is the good news- the news that we can allow the Grace to rain from us for a change; we can give something without calculating the cost.
In our Old Testament reading, God is speaking through the prophet Isaiah. God says,
Do not remember the former things,
Or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing
Now it springs forth do you not perceive it?
Like the Old Testament God of Isaiah, Mary of Bethany, and Jesus of Nazareth, were trying a new thing. As it sprang forth, like that flood of fragrant oil, like that extravagant gesture of love that Jesus presented to the uncomprehending disciples, a new idea came into being, a new life and a new hope, not based on market forces, not based on self-preservation, but based on unlimited love.
There was an anointing woman in one story of the Buddhist tradition as well. After his wanderings, as the Buddha had tried everything to reach enlightenment, he was at the end of a long fast, and he decided it was better to live than to die. A young and beautiful woman knelt at his feet and offered him a bowl of rice milk. Its sweetness and abundance was a sharp contrast to his previous regiment of 7 grains of rice per day. The rice milk was not only deliciously sweet, but also served in a solid golden bowl, a bowl that the Buddha tossed into the river afterwards. The extravagant gift gave the Buddha enough strength to go on with his journey, to his Jerusalem and his glorification. He had the strength to start his famous vigil beneath the Bodhi tree, his journey to enlightenment. Perhaps Jesus experienced something of that feeling of sweetness, of great generosity after the leanness and danger of his ministry before this abundant anointing, the anointing that would signal the end of his ministry. Perhaps it was a reminder of the abundance of God, that he tried so hard to model all his life. And it is the Christian Buddhist, Thick Nhat Hahn who best describes for me this abundance that we are all gifted with: He reminds us that:
The winds of grace are always blowing- we have only to put up our sails.
Jesus calls us to mirror the anointing woman and give back in some small measure, the love that has been so extravagantly poured out for us.
The never-ending raining down of Grace in our lives- Grace we did not earn, Grace we can’t even conceive of, and grace that does not ever exist in terms of lack or cost, but only in glorious abundance.
Amen
Friday, March 23, 2007
Kids Say the Darndest Things...
Working with children for the past ten years I have heard wonderful and strange things. One three-year-old handed me an illegible piece of paper and said, "Give this to God for me." One child said, "I believe two things. That Jesus Christ rose from the dead and that God is a man." The three year old naturally assumed I could deliver a note to God for her because I was always spouting off about God as if I knew God personally, and the child who knew that God was a man had only heard of God referred to as "He." What else was she supposed to think?
Children, like many adults, don't understand symbolism or generalizations or words that are supposed to represent something other than what they imply. If you heard the following liturgy:
"The White Male God be with you
And also with you
Lift up your hearts
We lift them up unto the White Male God..."
You might be disturbed. You might say,
"Well, that seems like a God that does not represent a huge percentage of humanity, and we are after all supposed to be formed in God's image."
And you might get the following reply:
"Well, of course we are only SAYING 'While Male' really we mean anyone- man, woman, any race, we only say 'White Male' to represent everyone."
This is what we are told when we object to calling God "He" or referring to God as "Lord." To many ears, and not just female ones, the words "Lord" and "he" seem to mean what they seem to mean. And most of all to childish ears, that have not been sufficiently taught to be oblivious to their own perceptions.
Particularly because our faith is a faith whose designated savior was the most revolutionary feminist that first century Judaism have ever seen, we should think on these things. In his outrageous flaunting of the laws of his day, he taught women, he spoke to women on the street, he touched women who were ritually unclean, he healed women, he lived from the means of the women who supported him, and he raised up women who were rejected as the lowest of the low. And he called God not "Father" but "Papa, or Daddy," (the more accurate translation of "Abba") terms not meant to connote masculinity, but the incredibly complete and intimate and utterly loving relationship he felt with God.
Surely Jesus was a brilliant student of the scriptures and surely he knew of "Chochma", the Wisdom Sophia, the compassionate, wise, peaceful and feminine aspect of God in the Old Testament.
"She is the way to everlasting true wealth and honor. Her way is pleasant, and all her paths are peace. She is a Tree of Life to those who embrace Her, and those who unite in her find happiness." - Proverbs 3:14-18
In many ways the Wisdom Sophia sounds like the God of Jesus' describing. It is hard to imagine Jesus denying anyone the ability to identify with and feel utterly close to God, his Dad.
Children, like many adults, don't understand symbolism or generalizations or words that are supposed to represent something other than what they imply. If you heard the following liturgy:
"The White Male God be with you
And also with you
Lift up your hearts
We lift them up unto the White Male God..."
You might be disturbed. You might say,
"Well, that seems like a God that does not represent a huge percentage of humanity, and we are after all supposed to be formed in God's image."
And you might get the following reply:
"Well, of course we are only SAYING 'While Male' really we mean anyone- man, woman, any race, we only say 'White Male' to represent everyone."
This is what we are told when we object to calling God "He" or referring to God as "Lord." To many ears, and not just female ones, the words "Lord" and "he" seem to mean what they seem to mean. And most of all to childish ears, that have not been sufficiently taught to be oblivious to their own perceptions.
Particularly because our faith is a faith whose designated savior was the most revolutionary feminist that first century Judaism have ever seen, we should think on these things. In his outrageous flaunting of the laws of his day, he taught women, he spoke to women on the street, he touched women who were ritually unclean, he healed women, he lived from the means of the women who supported him, and he raised up women who were rejected as the lowest of the low. And he called God not "Father" but "Papa, or Daddy," (the more accurate translation of "Abba") terms not meant to connote masculinity, but the incredibly complete and intimate and utterly loving relationship he felt with God.
Surely Jesus was a brilliant student of the scriptures and surely he knew of "Chochma", the Wisdom Sophia, the compassionate, wise, peaceful and feminine aspect of God in the Old Testament.
"She is the way to everlasting true wealth and honor. Her way is pleasant, and all her paths are peace. She is a Tree of Life to those who embrace Her, and those who unite in her find happiness." - Proverbs 3:14-18
In many ways the Wisdom Sophia sounds like the God of Jesus' describing. It is hard to imagine Jesus denying anyone the ability to identify with and feel utterly close to God, his Dad.
I am a pilgrim and a stranger, travelling through...
I was born in a doctor's office upstairs from a hardware store in Sandusky Michigan and I've had a fondness for building
materials ever since. Soon thereafter we moved and I grew up in and
near the Appalachians, in Virginia and Maryland, gifting me with a love
of wooded mountains and mountain music. My Cherokee blood comes from a
great-great grandmother who escaped the Trail of Tears and fled to the
Appalachian woods and hid, later marrying my Irish Immigrant
great-great grandfather.
My father was an atheist and a geologist. He accidentally
grounded me in a deep spirituality based on his enormous love of
creation. I never darkened the door of a church until my mother brought
me at 8 years old to a wonderful, daring, spirit-filled little
Episcopal Church inAdelphi Maryland called St. Michael and All Angels.
She had still been rebelling against her father, a Presbyterian
preacher, so she only went back to church when she had to, just like
me. I fell in love with the Episcopal Church at that time, although
most of my friends were Jewish, and my first boy friend was Jewish as
well.
Still having that hardware store thing, I put myself
through art school doing construction and then married a Jewish
carpenter. We now have two lovely daughters not yet enlisted in the
army, (see my post "The Army called for my 13 year old daughter") and
we live with three cats in Berkeley.
I attended the Corcoran
School of Art in Washington DC, around the corner from the White house.
Our convenient location made it easy to attend the demonstrations
against the Vietnam War, (like the Levitation of the Pentagon and the candle-lit Moratorium March) and to have interesting guest teachers like Allen Ginsburg. I
was in a great art school band (Ronnie and the Doves- I sang and played fiddle) and made a lot of small, strange films and videotapes. After graduation I went to Antioch
College where I majored infilm making. I worked as a documentary filmmaker for many years also serving as president of my union, NABET Local 532, in San Francisco, producing some award winning films and a sore back. Tiring of equipment and fund-raising, I started a theater Company, San Francisco Actors Theatre, and we had a terrific run of five glorious years of theatrical art.
After I got religion in a big way, I enrolled in the Church Divinity School of the Pacific where I got my Masters of Divinity and the ability to juggle my job as Director of Religious Education, my marriage and my kids needs that would make
any Cirquedu Soleil acrobat jealous.
I now very happily work as Associate Rector at Church of Our Saviour in Mill Valley
and more, I am sure, will be revealed...
materials ever since. Soon thereafter we moved and I grew up in and
near the Appalachians, in Virginia and Maryland, gifting me with a love
of wooded mountains and mountain music. My Cherokee blood comes from a
great-great grandmother who escaped the Trail of Tears and fled to the
Appalachian woods and hid, later marrying my Irish Immigrant
great-great grandfather.
My father was an atheist and a geologist. He accidentally
grounded me in a deep spirituality based on his enormous love of
creation. I never darkened the door of a church until my mother brought
me at 8 years old to a wonderful, daring, spirit-filled little
Episcopal Church inAdelphi Maryland called St. Michael and All Angels.
She had still been rebelling against her father, a Presbyterian
preacher, so she only went back to church when she had to, just like
me. I fell in love with the Episcopal Church at that time, although
most of my friends were Jewish, and my first boy friend was Jewish as
well.
Still having that hardware store thing, I put myself
through art school doing construction and then married a Jewish
carpenter. We now have two lovely daughters not yet enlisted in the
army, (see my post "The Army called for my 13 year old daughter") and
we live with three cats in Berkeley.
I attended the Corcoran
School of Art in Washington DC, around the corner from the White house.
Our convenient location made it easy to attend the demonstrations
against the Vietnam War, (like the Levitation of the Pentagon and the candle-lit Moratorium March) and to have interesting guest teachers like Allen Ginsburg. I
was in a great art school band (Ronnie and the Doves- I sang and played fiddle) and made a lot of small, strange films and videotapes. After graduation I went to Antioch
College where I majored infilm making. I worked as a documentary filmmaker for many years also serving as president of my union, NABET Local 532, in San Francisco, producing some award winning films and a sore back. Tiring of equipment and fund-raising, I started a theater Company, San Francisco Actors Theatre, and we had a terrific run of five glorious years of theatrical art.
After I got religion in a big way, I enrolled in the Church Divinity School of the Pacific where I got my Masters of Divinity and the ability to juggle my job as Director of Religious Education, my marriage and my kids needs that would make
any Cirquedu Soleil acrobat jealous.
I now very happily work as Associate Rector at Church of Our Saviour in Mill Valley
and more, I am sure, will be revealed...
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