I could always get out...

I remember a long time ago seeing the mediocre-to-bad 80s movie Soul Man with C.Thomas Howell and Rae Dawn Chong.  It tried to be socially significant but for the time and place it fell flat on most accounts.  Except something that I was reminded of today

The premise of the movie is that Howell's character is a college student who pretends to be black by taking tanning pills and wearing a wig in order to access a Harvard law school scholarship meant for black applicants only.  He wins the scholarship and much silliness occurs.  He meets and consequentially falls in love with Chong's character who was SUPPOSED to get the scholarship money.  Long story short, he gets caught and the dean of Harvard law (James Earl Jones), after much grilling, allows him to stay in school.

"You've learned", he says.  "You've learned what it feels like to be black."

"With all due respect you're wrong, sir" Howell's character answered.  "If I couldn't take it, I could always get out."

"You've learned a great deal more than I thought."

This is how I felt today.  I have a SILENCE IS BETRAYAL t-shirt that I was wearing for the 1st time today.  Doesn't even explicitly say BLACK LIVES MATTER or address the movement as a whole.  But that is the reason I bought it; my silence in the matter of race relations - particularly in this bright red dot in a blue state - IS a betrayal.  Not only my own beliefs and what I know to be right and just, but to millions of my fellow citizens who are treated as 2nd class; in the economy, in the criminal justice system, the penal system, politics, culture, by the race of which I am a part.

I FELT That privilege, maybe consciously for the first time, wearing that shirt out and about today.  I got some looks, got some mumbled comments about it (my paranoid mind may have imagined this, but I don't think so).  After running a couple of errands, the urge to stop home and change my shirt was almost overwhelming.

I can ALWAYS get out...

And that thought changed everything.  I wore it for the rest of my errands and made sure my bandanna did not block the message.  Bottom line; POC cannot go changing their skin any time they feel put upon for the shade of it.  The ABSOLUTE least I can do is offer a few brief moments of discomfort, some tiny shred of solidarity.  To remind myself that is unjust that "I can always get out" while a huge segment of our country's population deal with immoral consequences because they cannot.

So I'm learning.  Maybe not a great deal yet, and certainly not as quickly as I would like.  But learning all the same.  And I refuse to stop.

Black Lives Matter.

Solemnity of St. Thomas the Apostle
Daily Mass Readings
Ephesians 2:19-22
Psalms 117:1bc, 2
John 20:24-29

What now?

Our country is in turmoil, in flux.  No need to rehash the plague of disease and racism and protesting.  There are too many places where this is done in greater detail out there; no need for me to add to that.

I don't know what I can do. But the world is ripe for change, and there will be a conflict before that change is birthed into the world. What that change is, I cannot quite imagine at this intersection. I feel like Gandalf and Pippin in Minas Tirith awaiting the coming Battle of the Pelennor Fields:

It's so quiet.

It's the deep breath before the plunge.





America as it once was will not exist any longer.  Will she survive?  Will Love finally rule the day or be driven further underground for us to unearth again during a worse crisis?  I said half jokingly in the summer of 2016 that while I think Hillary Clinton would make a poor president, Donald Trump would be our last president.  I did not really believe it at the time.  Deep seated trust in bureaucracy and our system made tn a joke, a one-liner I threw out to make me seem clever.  Never did I imagine how bad this would get. And that is my guilt in not speaking up louder and faster; I honesty could not believe what I was witnessing.

I was asleep.  For better or worse I am awake now. And I am clergy.

Divine Spirit, I am asking.  What would you have me do?

I am ready.

Daily Mass Readings
Amos 7:10-17
Psalm 19:8, 9, 10, 11
Matthew 9:1-8

No more.

Watching George Floyd get casually lynched by the police in Minneapolis is kind of it for me.

This is not our America.  All people are certainly created equal, but only some benefit from that equality. It's taken me a long time to awaken, being in my thick white bubble of the suburbs of Long Island.  But Lord I am awake now.  And I am angry.

But that doesn't much matter in the face of the anger and hurt and fear and oppression of an entire race of people in this country.  A country whose founding documents speak of freedom but where THIS execution style murder can happen based on skin color.  Again and again and again and again.  (By the by, if you think this was not a race related execution, ask yourself if a white person suspected of a $20 forgery would have received the same treatment by law enforcement.  Be honest with yourself, if you can.)

I am going to be ordained a minister in a week's time.  I hope use the pulpit made available to me to stand up, speak up, write about, preach about, march about racial injustice, among other things.  Before I do any of that however, I promise to LISTEN.  And I hope to all that is holy that I can LEARN.

Divine Spirit rest the soul of George Floyd and grant peace and comfort to his family, his loved ones, and all people who are suffering because of his murder. Let justice be done upon those responsible for his death.  Let true justice find her way into our legal system and our society.  

Our Lady of Sorrows, PRAY FOR US.

What does it mean...

... when your personal spiritual makeup goes against where you WANT it to go?

I have wanted to be a Witch, for so many decades now.  How many times have bought the books, made the contacts, lit the candles... only to miss my Christ terribly and embrace Him once again?  I am a self-procalimed and proud left wing pinko!  And I can't get around the idea of the seamless garment of life, from "womb to tomb"; hardly an upstanding trait of a self procalimed feminist and advocate of a woman's right to choose.

Maybe these ideas SHOULDN'T be easy, maybe they are meant to be struggled with.  But it's hurting my heard today.

Daily Mass Readings
Acts 5:27-33
Psalms 34:2 and 9, 17-18, 19-20
John 3:31-36

Entering the Triduum...

It has not felt like Lent at all this year.  Only getting to "zoom" Masses, while uplifting, is simply not the same as being in the face to face presence of your community.  But it is what it is.

Tonight the altar will be laid bare.  The sanctuary will be emptied.  The Agony will be felt as Jesus, terrified, falls to his knees to beg his Abba if here was any other way, any other way at all.

As when he grieved his friend, this instance lays bare Jesus as a man; he is frightened and doesn't want to die; he wants OUT of this!  Who wouldn't?  And all his friends with their lofty aspirations of going to die for him and with him, drunk and already sleeping.  Knowing they would scatter when the first sogn of trouble arrived.

Alone.

Frightened.

About to be abandoned.

About to be mocked tortured and executed in a most exquisitely horrible fashion.

I know most everybody has heard Jesus Christ Superstar by Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice.  The depiction of Jesus's pleading with God in Gethsemane brought me so much closer to understanding his Passion and his humanity than any writ of Holy Scripture or homily ever has.  And I mean, Ian Gillan for crying out loud...

Jesus Christ Superstar - GETHSEMANE (I ONLY WANT TO SAY...)

I only want to say, if there is a way...
Take this cup away from me, 'cause I don't want to taste its poison.
Feel it burn me!  I have changed, I'm not as sure as when we started.
Then, I was inspired.  Now I'm sad and tired.
Listen, surely I've exceeded expectations!
Tried for three years seems like thirty.
Could You ask as much from any other man?

But if I die,
See the saga through and do the things You ask of me,
Let them hate me hit me hurt me, nail me to their tree.
I'd wanna know, I'd wanna know, my God!
I'd wanna know, I'd wanna know, my God!
I'd wanna see, I'd wanna see, my God!
I'd wanna see, I'd wanna see, my God!

Why I should die!

Would I be more noticed than I ever was before?
Would the things I've said and done matter anymore?
I'd have to know, I'd have to know, my Lord!
I'd have to know, I'd have to know, my Lord!
I'd have to see, I'd have to see, my Lord!
If I die, what will be my reward?
If I die, what will be my reward?
Have to know, have to know, my Lord!
Have to know, have to know, my Lord!

WHY SHOULD I DIE???

Can You show me now that I would not be killed in vain?
Show me just a little of Your omnipresent brain?
Show me there's a reason for Your wanting me to die.
You're far too keen on when and how, and not so hot on why!

ALRIGHT!!! I'LL DIE!!!!!
JUST WATCH ME DIE!!!
SEE HOW I DIE???

Then...I was inspired.  Now... I'm sad and tired.
After all, I've tried for three years.  Seems like ninety.
Why then am I scared to finish what I started?
What YOU started.  I didn't start it!
God, Thy will is hard.  But you hold every card!
I will drink Your cup of poison!
Nail me to Your cross, and break me!
Bleed me!  Beat me!

Kill me.

Take me now.  

Before I change my mind.


Daily Mass Reading
Holy Thursday - Mass of the Lord's Supper

Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14 Psalm 116:12-13, 15-16bc, 17-18 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 John 13:1-15

Jesus grieving

During virtual Vigil Mass with St. Francis Community yesterday (check them out, they are mystic, holy and welcoming!), Fr. Ken proclaimed the Gospel in which Jesus dramatically raises his friend Lazarus from the dead.   I'm a lifelong Catholic, so this reading is "old hat", usually comes up around the tail end of Lent.  But Fr. Ken and Fr, Michael made me think a bit more about it this weekend.

And Jesus wept.

John 11:35.  One of the shortest versus in Scripture.  And it punctuates the humanity of Jesus above most others, in my opinion.  How well we all know the sadness that engulfs us at loss of a loved one, and to be overcome with grief when the reality of their death is final.  Not only that, how the grief of others may indeed feed into our own. Seeing my sister sob at the memorial of my our dear cousin poured into me; I knew her pain and she knew mine.

How Jesus must have felt, knowing that he did not get a chance to say goodbye to his friend, knowing he missed him (regardless of what His plans were for him).  Then the added burden of both Martha and Mary, seemingly all but blaming Him for Lazarus's death, by insisting he wouldn't have died, had Jesus only come sooner.  When Jesus saw Mary, Martha and the mourners weeping, Jesus "became deeply troubled", and finally broke down with them after they brought him to the grave.  He knew He would raise Lazarus up.  But as He grieved as any man would at the death of his friend.

As He would during Passiontide, Jesus first entered into our human suffering before raising Lazarus.  This helps me know Him as my brother and my friend, aside from being my Lord and my God.


Daily Mass Readings
Ezekiel 37:12-14
Psalms 130:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8
Romans 8:8-11
John 11:1-45

Imagining Mary...

Today the Church recognizes the Solemnity of the Annunciation; when the Archangel Gabriel visited Mary to tell her she would conceive, bear a son, and that he would be God.

Talk about adjusting to a new normal.

Whenever I come across this reading, I feel TERRIBLE for Mary.  She just got betrothed to Joseph the carpenter, she's going about her business and... well that information is a game-changer, isn't it.  Mary has been told (by someone she rightly suspects is no normal 'messenger' that she will have a child out of wedlock, not by her husband, that they will raise as their own.

Having children out of wedlock bu someone other than your spouse was... frowned upon in ancient Galilee.  Joseph had the right to have her brought up on charges of adultery (death) or cast her aside at the very least, leaving her to raise this "Son of the Most High" on her own.  In short, due to the nature of the messenger AND the message, Mary must have been terrified.

And then...

"May it be done to me according to your word."

Mary says YES.  The very model of faith and discipleship.  The entirety of salvation hinges on what this poor Nazarene girl chooses.

THIS is why Catholics (even dissenters like myself) believe what we do about Mary; that she is venerated above all other saints, that she is to co-redemptrix along with Christ, having her own
special role in humankind's redemption.  Because Christianity doesn't happen, indeed CHRIST does not happen, with her allowing it to happen.

What folks in my lifestyle call consent!

Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord
Lectionary: 545

Daily Mass Readings

Isaiah 7:10-14; 8:10
Psalms 40:7-8A, 8B-9, 10, 11
Hebrews 10:4-10
Luke 1:26-38