this sacramental life

spending time with these two fun people instead of blogging

2012-02-09T10:38:00.002-06:00

My parents came to Austin!

post script: on greased watermelons again

2012-02-04T08:29:00.000-06:00

A follow up note on an old topic:

1. Several times in the early years of this blog, I shared my jumbled-up imaginings of God as a greased watermelon (in that He sometimes hides from us, but only in the sense of delightful pursuit rather than the cruel and detached way).

p.s. I'm reading Sabbath, Dan Allendar's contribution to The Ancient Practices Series. In his chapter "Play Day" he tells us his readers that God the Creator did not Sabbath due to "lack, loneliness, or necessity", rather he chose a day of Sabbath for reasons "free and groundless -- that is, without reason, other than delight." Imagine my delight when Allendar, later in the chapter, uses the metaphor of God's playing a form of divine hide & seek with us as an act of holy play?

An excerpt:

Belden Lane offers a terrifying and thrilling proposition: perhaps God is truly playful. When we experience God's absence, perhaps God is "like a mother playfully hiding from her child or a lover playing hard to get, God hides from those God loves, occasionally playing rough for love's sake. The purpose of God's apparent absence of God's hiding, is to deepen in the lover a longing for the one loved, to enhance the joy experienced when fear dissolves and the separated are rejoined."

It is disturbing enough to cast God out of the garden. It conjures our deepest fear, as C.S. Lewis spoke about, being the toy in a divine game that is cruel and vile. Yet what do we do with the book of Job? Satan strolls into God's presence with a gamble that God takes as a worthy contest. Even as a literary convention, it is radically disturbing to our sensibilities. No wonder we don't like play, especially when it has to do with faith. Instead, we want the tried-and-true, the established and fundamentally solid. It is just too much freedom and risk to play with God.
Lane argues that our play with God requires us to be wakeful and simultaneously disengaged. It is the mystery of all deep play. To enter the realm of play, we must give ourselves to something or someone and turn away from all else. It is both a pledge and a betrayal.

We hide and desperately hope to be found. Our good mother knows when to return quickly when our fear is beyond our capacity to endure the anxiety of her absence. She also knows when her departure is necessary to sustain even when our fear rises beyond the heavens. God knows our frailty and our courage and never confuses one for the other and knows how to comfort and call forth when we would prefer God to simply answer us as we desire. More than any other purpose, God plays for the victory of union. We seek and hope to be reunited.

(chapter 5, "Play Day", Sabbath: The Ancient Practices by Dan Allendar)

Monday Mixtape: cleaning that shines

2012-01-30T06:03:00.000-06:00

Welcome to Monday Mix Tape, in which I pretend I'm Ira Glass. You know, I choose a theme and share with you several variations on the theme from the worlds of art, faith and culture. To keep up the fun little facade of making a weekly mix tape, I label each of these finds as "track 1", "track 2", and so on (and just like the stack of mixtapes you've got hidden in a box in your attic, you never know when you might see some love song from Journey or Lionel Richie show up here).

We're in the midst of the weeks of Epiphany, the weeks we remember some of the key moments of Jesus' life starting with the visit of the magi to the Child-King, the baptism of Jesus, and the water turned to wine at the Cana wedding. The word epiphany from ancient Greek speaks to a striking appearance, a manifestation. I barely know how to picture the word: manifestation. "To make manifest" does not help me at all, but synonyms shed more light: clear, distinct, unmistakable, open, palpable, visible, conspicuous. Oh, yes, this makes delightful sense to me now.

You've heard the pithy expression attributed to the theologian William Barclay, "There are two great days in a person's life -- the day we are born and the day we discover why." These vigorous words help me frame the liturgical seasons of Christmas and Epiphany and could be restated: In these two great seasons in the life of Jesus we celebrate the day the Messiah was born and the events Father, Son and Spirit reveal why.

Early on, only a few recognize the God in the boy body. Only a few had eyes trained well enough to follow the natural and supernatural signs pointing toward ancient prophesy fulfilled through the virgin in Bethlehem. Only a few were able to see by the light of stars only, everyone else needed the spiritual light bulbs of a divine epiphany. The triune God wastes no revelation, he does not randomly scatter revelation as if pouring magic fairy dust over a sleeping kingdom. With the accounts in the early chapters of the Gospels, God reveals not just the pragmatic truth of making invisible divinity visible in the body of Jesus; rather, He continues to reveal His very heart, His nature revealed carefully through the natural and supernatural moments of Jesus' life. In other words, we do well to pay attention to the who, what, where and how of these accounts. When we do, the eyes of our hearts will behold the face of God.

For the next few weeks, we gather round these flaming-bush moments in Jesus' life hoping for our sleeping hearts to be stricken with sight. This week I'm thinking about the heart of God lived out in a Christ who wandered the earth healing, forgiving and cleansing those who'd walked in darkness for a very, very long time.

track 1: visual art

Cosas que sería mejor que estuvieran limpias / Things that would be better if they were clean
installation, Madrid

Artist statement: The crisis has left important buildings in the city unused and in an appalling state of neglect, one of them was owned by Telefonica, the largest telephone company in Spain and it is located in the Plaza de España.This building was purchased with state money when Telefonica was a state owned company and sold when Telefonica was privatized in order to build a business park on the outskirts of the city. It is currently in a state of absolute disrepair and abandoned, waiting to be auctioned off following the bankruptcy of its current owners.

Passing in front of it, gives one a sensation of filth and sadness, especially at night, which could be lessened by a good cleaning.

Trying to call attention to its state, so that they proceed with cleaning it, we carried out the installation Things that would be better if they were clean, in which 100 pristine, white cloths, were placed on the entrance to this building, now darkened by filth and urine.

The photos, as always, are by Gustavo Sanabria.

Time of installation: 2 hours.
Damages: none.
Exhibition time: 12 hours.

track 2: music

A collection of some of my favorite hymns and anthems celebrating the way Jesus changes our broken, shameful, sorry pieces into whole, clean and joyous marks of redemption and grace.

Healing by Tamara Murphy on Grooveshark

track 3: a collect

Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world: Grant that your people, illumined your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christs’s glory,that he may be known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (via All Saints Church)

track 4: dance

This might be a tiny stretch and a touch sentimental, but I decided it was close enough to this week's theme to include in the mixtape. (and definitely one of my favorite moments on season 7 of SYTYCD)

track 5: a poem

Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

Mary Oliver, from her poem "Sometimes"

Happy Monday!
Won't you join me this week in keeping watch for every common bush afire with God....