AWESOMENESS

Awesomeness

Never ever forget that you are an awesome child of God, graced with talents and abilities meant for good.

It may seem odd to write about awesomeness, especially everyone's innate awesomeness, during lent. I mean this is supposed to be the time of repentance and ashes, weeping and confession.  It's the season when we remember that we are wretched unworthy souls who will never be good enough for God's love.  All of the previous three sentences are true.  You are a wretch AND you are awesome.  Within each of us is both notorious sinner and humble saint.

Lent is a journey.  We begin at Ash Wednesday remembering just how far we are from God.  As the season progresses we journey via prayer, worship, self-denial, study, and generosity toward not only Easter but toward God, toward unification with Christ.  As we approach Jesus, it is both meet and right for us to discover our innate awesomeness.  As we grow closer to Christ it is good to recognize not just the unloveable parts of us, but also the loveable parts, the ways we bring beauty and joy into the world, the ways we practice grace, the ways we share the good news, the ways we are creative, the ways we love as God loves.  Part of growing closer to Jesus is to practice these things more and our unloveable parts less.

So this lent, do not fail to discover your awesomeness. BUT make that awesomeness an offering to God.  Bring it to God's altar and dedicate it to the purpose of building the free, just, and loving kingdom of God.

Pride

Pride

Last week I posted a link to the anglican chants I have been writing for lent on a Facebook group for Gen X and Millennial Clergy.  One of my colleagues, in a polite and humorous way, called me out for the sin of pride.  Essentially, that I was turning the acts of my lenten discipline into something to brag about.  I wasn't offended by his comments, quite the opposite because they gave me pause to check my motivations.  Was I indeed sharing these chants to say, "Look at what cool thing I can do?" Was my motivation for my lenten discipline to grow closer with God or to show off my abilities?

It was good to pause and reflect.  Asking myself those questions helped me clarify that I am indeed doing this composition project as an offering to God.  I have posted on the blog that people can use these in their liturgies, and I am spreading the word to folks who might have use of them so that they don't just exist on my hard drive or even just the blog.  If I kept these compositions to myself, then that would be selfish and maybe even prideful.  All of us have talents and it is part of the life of faith to polish and hone those talents not for ourselves but as an offering to God.  I want these Anglican Chants sung to complete the offering. They have only been crafted, now they need to be prayed.  

Lenten disciplines are tricky things because as we pass the halfway mark of lent, we can indeed become prideful.  We can say to ourselves look at me, I'm not eating meat, or I haven't had a drink in 21 days.  No bacon for me, what are you doing?  It's easy to slip into the roll of the pharisee who prayed in the temple, "thank you God for not making me like that lowly tax collect" meanwhile the tax collector is in the corner praying "God, have mercy on me a sinner."  Luke 18:11-15

As I wrote last week, lenten disciplines are about transformation, not merely spiritual olympics.  They are meant to bring us closer to God, not for mere self-gratification.  Pride is a temptation that draws us away from God.  So, how do we combat the temptation?  When we offer what we accomplish up to God for both the glorification of God and for God to use as God will, then our pride is rightfully placed.  When our accomplishments, creative endeavors, even our professional achievements are used to bring about life for others in any way, then they are righteous not prideful.  

Transformation

Transformation

On Ash Wednesday I preached about Truth Telling, Mindfulness, and Transformation. My point was that the practices of speaking the truth about ourselves to ourselves coupled with mindfulness lead us toward transformation. These are actually year round practices, but the penitential season of Lent is an especially fruitful time for these efforts. See, lent is a journey. We start with Ash Wednesday where we confess/remember how far we are from God, what keeps us separated from communion with God and community with each other. Then we journey through prayer and fasting toward Holy Week. On palm sunday we march like Jesus into Jerusalem, and then with the Triduum (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil) we identify with Christ by liturgically reenacting his last days. Then we are unified in the Resurrection through the first Eucharist of Easter at the Great Vigil. The purpose of lent is transformation, from separation to unity with God.

During the Ash Wednesday liturgy the Gospel reading is Jesus warning his disciples not to disfigure their faces when they pray. It it beyond hipster level irony that we use this Gospel on the same day we mark each other with ashes. Nonetheless, the readings warn us against practices of piety just for show. It should be overtly clear to us that what we take on in lent should aid our transformation.

This lent, for my lenten discipline I have been composing Anglican Chants to the psalms. This process of sitting with the each psalm, beginning with number 1 with psalm 40 as the goal, and then creatively responding to it has been both prayerful and transforming for me. Truth be told, I have been in a pretty dark place for over a year now. I have been blessed to have a supportive wife, a great therapist, and a patient congregation as I have worked through this. I have seen more progress however in these first couple of weeks of lent then I have in the last year. I believe it is from sitting with these psalms. The emotions are so raw, and yet the psalms are essentially ancient, very ancient prayers. I have heard the book of psalms called Jesus’ prayer book. Sitting with the wrought emotions of the psalms has begun to transform some my wrought emotion into a better head space. Many of the material and actual problems still remain to be solved, but my mindset is changing. I can now address the external issues with a healthier mind and with faith.

Lent is about transformation from the darkness of separation and sin into the light of communion with God. Disciplines such as telling the truth and mindfulness are righteous if and only if they lead us toward transformation, toward deeper communion with God. Otherwise they are just self serving and not life giving.

40 Days of Chant, Psalm 11

There is a brightness about this psalm, but it also expresses a lot emotions.  So, I wanted to be both firmly in Bb but also hint at other keys.  I love chromatic mediants because they bring both brightness and ambiguity to a progression.  I split it with a single chant for the first three verse and another for verses 4-8.  The tone of the psalm changes in verse four from less pleading to proclaiming.

1 In the Lord have I taken refuge; *

     how then can you say to me,

     “Fly away like a bird to the hilltop;

2 For see how the wicked bend the bow

     and fit their arrows to the string, *

     to shoot from ambush at the true of heart.

3 When the foundations are being destroyed, *

     what can the righteous do?”

4 The Lord is in his holy temple; *

     the Lord’s throne is in heaven.

5 His eyes behold the inhabited world; *

    his piercing eye weighs our worth.

6 The Lord weighs the righteous

    as well as the wicked, *

    but those who delight in violence he abhors.

7 Upon the wicked he shall rain

    coals of fire and burning sulphur; *

    a scorching wind shall be their lot.

8 For the Lord is righteous;

    he delights in righteous deeds; *

    and the just shall see his face.

Mindfulness

I am enjoying the #lentunedited hash tag because it is simply true that we are all a mess.  No matter how much we might give the impression of having our “stuff” together, no matter how anal-retentive, organized, or fastidious we might be, we simply are a mess.  In some way, shape, or form we are cluttered: materially, emotionally, or spiritually.  The #lentunedited hash tag is giving us a chance to practice telling the truth. 

Speaking the truth about ourselves to ourselves is a key practice of lent.  The Ash Wednesday liturgy is so thoroughly clear about just how broken we are the truth becomes unavoidable.  It is a beautiful thing because the truth sets of free as it invites us to mindfulness.

It is so easy to go through the day on auto-pilot.  It is excessively simple to make the motions of contemporary life with never a thought.  Indeed the "powers that be" prefer us to be mindless.  It makes it easier for the fallen spiritual forces of this world to control us and maintain the status quo if we simply get out of bed, go to work, come home, "veg out" in front of the TV, go sleep, and repeat.  

On the other hand, when we are mindful; when we are aware of what we are doing; when we pay attention to our actions, we can then ask why we are acting and we can wonder if there are better ways to act, individually and communally.  

So how do you become mindful?  How do you wake up to the present moment?  The first step is to tell your self the truth.  You are a mess, and pretending to be otherwise is a lie.  However, you do not have to stay messed up.  Internal tidiness is possible.  Start by paying attention to your breathing.  If you think about it, breathing is the most mindless act you ever do.  It is reflexive, but it doesn't have to be.  When you pay attention to your breath, you become aware of your most mindless act.  Your awareness allows you to become more aware of your other less mindless acts.  It opens the door to being fully present in the moment. 

To become aware of your breath, simply breathe in through your nose for a slow count of four, then exhale through your mouth for a slow count of four.  Do this for three to five minutes.  At first your mind will run in 90 directions each one begging for your full attention.  That's okay, let it happen and keep returning to counting your breath.  Soon your thoughts will settle like those fake flakes in a snow globe and you'll be able to just breathe.  Mindfulness follows, then creativity, and then transformation. 

40 Days of Chant Psalm 2

So today is the second day of Lent; so today's chant if for Psalm 2.  Again, the text comes from the BCP 1979 Psalter.  I split this psalm because there is a change in the text.  I did a single chant for the first five verses and a double chant for verses 6-13.  However, they are both in Emaj, but the single chant is deliberately ambiguous to reflect the questions in the text.  Oh, and I promise to get a beer post up tomorrow.

1 Why are the nations in an uproar? *

 Why do the peoples mutter empty threats?

 2 Why do the kings of the earth rise up in revolt,

and the princes plot together, *

 against the Lord and against his Anointed?

 3 “Let us break their yoke,” they say; *

 “let us cast off their bonds from us.”

 4 He whose throne is in heaven is laughing; *

 the Lord has them in derision.

 5 Then he speaks to them in his wrath, *

 and his rage fills them with terror.

6 “I myself have set my king *

upon my holy hill of Zion.”

7 Let me announce the decree of the Lord: *

he said to me, “You are my Son; this day have I begotten you.

8 Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance *

and the ends of the earth for your possession.

9 You shall crush them with an iron rod *

and shatter them like a piece of pottery.”

10 And now, you kings, be wise; *

be warned, you rulers of the earth.

11 Submit to the Lord with fear, *

and with trembling bow before him;

12 Lest he be angry and you perish; *

for his wrath is quickly kindled.

13 Happy are they all *

who take refuge in him!