This is your editor speaking. My husband Andrew found this link to a rather amusing debate between two southern churches, carried out through the medium of the signs posted in front of their buildings.
Click here to see.
The topic is one near and dear to us at St. Paul's, and it's worth a good sunny Saturday afternoon giggle.
Enjoy! Keep an eye out here for more interesting and lively original content, coming soon..
-Alissa
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
I remember Mama
by Ellen Hill
Mother's Day arrives this Sunday surrounded by the usual blitz of advertising. As a mother, apparently, this observation of Mother's Day means I will be using my new Kitchen Aid while wearing my diamond bracelet but only after dabbing any number of expensive scents behind my ears.
As a family growing up we didn't even think those ads applied to us. My mother usually asked for and received a bouquet of flowers. The flowers were drawn in crayon, and as I grew older, in watercolor. The drawings tried, in my childish hand, to recreate all her favorite flowers. My mother was an incredible gardener. She had a rose garden that she had started from cuttings, bright beds of lilies and irises. And lilacs, the scent of lilacs in spring, that is my mother.
My mother would probably be called an abused child in today's vernacular. From what I learned from my father she was also an ignored child. After rheumatic fever left her with a damaged heart she was largely of no value to her family. A quiet child she tried to hold on to own sense of self in the face of unrelenting verbal abuse. Her one sole act of defiance was eloping with my father, who not only was not Irish Catholic, but worse still, a Protestant Englishman. My father loved and cherished her until he died suddenly of a heart attack. After his death, she became more reclusive and I became the parent.
When you are seventeen you can welcome responsibility. As the years passed I often felt weighed down with the role I had once happily assumed. So this is not the story of some strong, stoic mother who challenged the world. Not the happy, cake baking, fun mother that is portrayed on a Hallmark card.
It is the story of a person who faced down cruelty and never, never passed it on. A woman who loved her family above all else and allowed her children to be themselves. When she placed responsibilities on my shoulders it was accompanied by a firm belief that I would manage things and do a really good job. How many adolescents have someone who believes in them to that degree?
It has been years since her death, and in that time I have gotten the very best of her back. I remember her excitement when a rosebud opened, early mornings walks, and checking her flowers until her shoes were soaked with early morning dew. The exquisite embroidered tablecloths she made. I remember her abiding love. Her courage to accept each new illness. Her kindness to others. Her humor about herself. And ultimately the incredible gift of allowing me to be me. To which I can only say, thank you Mama.
Ellen Hill is a longtime member of St. Paul's.
Mother's Day arrives this Sunday surrounded by the usual blitz of advertising. As a mother, apparently, this observation of Mother's Day means I will be using my new Kitchen Aid while wearing my diamond bracelet but only after dabbing any number of expensive scents behind my ears.
As a family growing up we didn't even think those ads applied to us. My mother usually asked for and received a bouquet of flowers. The flowers were drawn in crayon, and as I grew older, in watercolor. The drawings tried, in my childish hand, to recreate all her favorite flowers. My mother was an incredible gardener. She had a rose garden that she had started from cuttings, bright beds of lilies and irises. And lilacs, the scent of lilacs in spring, that is my mother.
My mother would probably be called an abused child in today's vernacular. From what I learned from my father she was also an ignored child. After rheumatic fever left her with a damaged heart she was largely of no value to her family. A quiet child she tried to hold on to own sense of self in the face of unrelenting verbal abuse. Her one sole act of defiance was eloping with my father, who not only was not Irish Catholic, but worse still, a Protestant Englishman. My father loved and cherished her until he died suddenly of a heart attack. After his death, she became more reclusive and I became the parent.
When you are seventeen you can welcome responsibility. As the years passed I often felt weighed down with the role I had once happily assumed. So this is not the story of some strong, stoic mother who challenged the world. Not the happy, cake baking, fun mother that is portrayed on a Hallmark card.
It is the story of a person who faced down cruelty and never, never passed it on. A woman who loved her family above all else and allowed her children to be themselves. When she placed responsibilities on my shoulders it was accompanied by a firm belief that I would manage things and do a really good job. How many adolescents have someone who believes in them to that degree?
It has been years since her death, and in that time I have gotten the very best of her back. I remember her excitement when a rosebud opened, early mornings walks, and checking her flowers until her shoes were soaked with early morning dew. The exquisite embroidered tablecloths she made. I remember her abiding love. Her courage to accept each new illness. Her kindness to others. Her humor about herself. And ultimately the incredible gift of allowing me to be me. To which I can only say, thank you Mama.
Ellen Hill is a longtime member of St. Paul's.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
The Light of Christ
by Alissa Newton
When the alarm goes off at 3:30am Sunday morning I turn it off without even waking up. I have this habit, honed through the many middle-of-the-night phone calls from the road when Andrew was touring early in our marriage. I developed the ability to answer the phone, even talk to my husband, while continuing my sleep uninterrupted. I would have no memory of the event. Since I know this about myself, the second alarm goes off at 3:35, followed by Andrew's alarm at 3:45. That's the one that does it, because it's on his side of the bed and I am not able to reach it without sitting up and climbing over him. At that point, I'm up.
And glad to be - I was due at church at 4:15. I am there by 4:30.
As a child and young person growing up in an evangelical church there was always an Easter sunrise service. And, seeing as my mom was the choir director, we were always there for it. I have dim memories of being loaded into our green van half asleep in the morning darkness, and trudging up the hill behind our church building wrapped in blankets. We would sit in the rows of folding chairs that had been placed outside next to the giant tree overlooking the plot of land our congregation hoped to build on someday. And we faced toward the sunrise. It was never a long service, being as it was outside and people were cold, but it was timed so that the sun would come up as Pastor Rick was preaching, or maybe as we were singing. Wrapped in my blanket, perched on the edge of my cold metal chair, it was always the sunrise that thrilled me. Though the music and the preaching was fine, the goosebumps and that tight, holy feeling that spread though my body as we said "He is risen" to each other wouldn't have been there without the magic of that rising sun. That is what I remember about Easter mornings as a child.
Now that I'm an Anglo-Catholic Episcopalian in Seattle, I don't have Easter morning outside. For one thing, the sun makes fewer appearances here in the Pacific Northwest than it does in Sacramento, CA where I grew up. Most Episcopal churches participate in a liturgy called the Triduum , which is one service that takes place on three days: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and a service that is either late in the evening on Holy Saturday, or early on Easter Sunday, the Easter Vigil. I've done the Vigil both ways - when I was confirmed at St. Mark's it was a Saturday evening. Now at St. Paul's we are fairly hardcore about liturgy. So, of course, our Vigil is on Easter Sunday, and it starts at 5am.
I am there at 4:30, putting on my alb and enduring a gentle ribbing from my friend Kate, who managed to be there on time. The only thing better, in my opinion, than attending the Vigil is serving in it. While our 5am, heavily choreographed, ancient, three hour long liturgy is a far cry from the 45 minutes huddled under a blanket outdoor experience of my childhood, I feel a similar anticipation and excitement in this service to what I felt watching all those sunrises, years ago.
The church is dark as people file in. We wait in our white robes, holding our sturdy candles, unlit. Outside is Seattle, drizzling rain and for the most part fast asleep. But there is a steady stream of pilgrims coming in, getting their tapers at the door, finding places in the dark sanctuary, settling children on the wooden pews. The little Nelson kids are wide eyed, electrified with the rush of being awake when they are usually asleep, the novelty of total darkness in a place where there is always at least one candle burning.
The Vigil is like a sunrise, but longer. From the darkness a tiny light comes - a fire, lit at the back of our space, blessed, and then spread to the hundred or so handheld candles that fill the pews. Songs are sung, and we listen to many stories of the People of God, their readings punctuated by psalms and sung prayer. About 45 minutes in ushers quietly move down the aisles, offering replacement candles because most are dangerously close to burning out.
Then, still in darkness, a baptism. Kate and I are left back at the altar while the rest of the servers process with the baptismal candidate back towards the font, where our new fire began some hour ago. We wait until backs are turned and then tiptoe towards the altar rail that separates the congregation from the servers up front, so we can see. Baptisms always make me cry, like seeing someone married or born or dying does. It's something I cannot quite explain.
The sun is almost up now, not outside but in here, where we are. After the baptism Melissa, our priest, takes a bouquet of rosemary and dips it in the waters. She walks around the entire place, flicking water on everyone, letting each of us share in the sacrament of joining that has just taken place. The choir sings a long, chaotic recitation of all our saints, and we remember. Or maybe we just listen in awe. When she returns to the altar we servers face the congregation and all wait for the moment.
This is where Lent makes sense to me. This moment wouldn't be what it is, if we had not been avoiding the word "Alleluia" for the past six weeks. It wouldn't be what it is if our space had not been bare of flowers for the past six weeks, if our priests had not been in simple, spare vestments, if our altar had not gone unadorned by silver, if our Bread was not coarse wheat instead of the usual honeyed white. If we had not just spent ninety minutes in heavy candlelit darkness, if we had not listened again to the Old Testament stories of Creation, Flood, Dry Bones and promises this moment wouldn't hit with the weight that it does. And, this is key to me, if we were not together, a community of faith, all sorts of people who have been doing all of this in union these past six weeks.
"Alleluia Christ is Risen," she sings it. And the lights fly on (not all together, but choreographed, like a sunrise).
"The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!" we sing it back, and the pilgrims reach into pockets and purses for bells of all shapes and sizes and begin to ring them vigorously. The organ is playing something familiar and triumphant, and we can see for the first time the explosion of white flowers on both sides of the Table, the gold vestments adorning our sacred ministers and the matching cloth adorning our table.
The sun is up. And we proceed to celebrate an entire mass, basking in the glory of our new year, our new hope, the silver cups and plates, the white bread, the Alleluia, the Mystery of Easter that we can come close to in a sunrise, in a dark liturgy that ends in explosions of gold and light, in all these symbols and sacraments saying with their shapes, lines, and colors what our words cannot express.
"Whew!" My friend who works at the coffee shop down the block from St. Paul's says to me when I stop in after the Vigil for my americano. "That's commitment!"
But it isn't. It's Easter. It is the sun coming up, the trees turning white and pink, and the earth warming. It is a new fire inside me and hope burning so strong that my eyes water. It is a Mystery, and I would set one hundred alarm clocks if I had to, to make sure that I got to be there and hold my small piece of the Light.
Alissa is St Paul's Lay Pastor for Children and Young Families, a postulant to Holy Orders, and the editor of the parish blog. This post was originally published on her personal blog.
When the alarm goes off at 3:30am Sunday morning I turn it off without even waking up. I have this habit, honed through the many middle-of-the-night phone calls from the road when Andrew was touring early in our marriage. I developed the ability to answer the phone, even talk to my husband, while continuing my sleep uninterrupted. I would have no memory of the event. Since I know this about myself, the second alarm goes off at 3:35, followed by Andrew's alarm at 3:45. That's the one that does it, because it's on his side of the bed and I am not able to reach it without sitting up and climbing over him. At that point, I'm up.
And glad to be - I was due at church at 4:15. I am there by 4:30.
As a child and young person growing up in an evangelical church there was always an Easter sunrise service. And, seeing as my mom was the choir director, we were always there for it. I have dim memories of being loaded into our green van half asleep in the morning darkness, and trudging up the hill behind our church building wrapped in blankets. We would sit in the rows of folding chairs that had been placed outside next to the giant tree overlooking the plot of land our congregation hoped to build on someday. And we faced toward the sunrise. It was never a long service, being as it was outside and people were cold, but it was timed so that the sun would come up as Pastor Rick was preaching, or maybe as we were singing. Wrapped in my blanket, perched on the edge of my cold metal chair, it was always the sunrise that thrilled me. Though the music and the preaching was fine, the goosebumps and that tight, holy feeling that spread though my body as we said "He is risen" to each other wouldn't have been there without the magic of that rising sun. That is what I remember about Easter mornings as a child.
Now that I'm an Anglo-Catholic Episcopalian in Seattle, I don't have Easter morning outside. For one thing, the sun makes fewer appearances here in the Pacific Northwest than it does in Sacramento, CA where I grew up. Most Episcopal churches participate in a liturgy called the Triduum , which is one service that takes place on three days: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and a service that is either late in the evening on Holy Saturday, or early on Easter Sunday, the Easter Vigil. I've done the Vigil both ways - when I was confirmed at St. Mark's it was a Saturday evening. Now at St. Paul's we are fairly hardcore about liturgy. So, of course, our Vigil is on Easter Sunday, and it starts at 5am.
I am there at 4:30, putting on my alb and enduring a gentle ribbing from my friend Kate, who managed to be there on time. The only thing better, in my opinion, than attending the Vigil is serving in it. While our 5am, heavily choreographed, ancient, three hour long liturgy is a far cry from the 45 minutes huddled under a blanket outdoor experience of my childhood, I feel a similar anticipation and excitement in this service to what I felt watching all those sunrises, years ago.
The church is dark as people file in. We wait in our white robes, holding our sturdy candles, unlit. Outside is Seattle, drizzling rain and for the most part fast asleep. But there is a steady stream of pilgrims coming in, getting their tapers at the door, finding places in the dark sanctuary, settling children on the wooden pews. The little Nelson kids are wide eyed, electrified with the rush of being awake when they are usually asleep, the novelty of total darkness in a place where there is always at least one candle burning.
The Vigil is like a sunrise, but longer. From the darkness a tiny light comes - a fire, lit at the back of our space, blessed, and then spread to the hundred or so handheld candles that fill the pews. Songs are sung, and we listen to many stories of the People of God, their readings punctuated by psalms and sung prayer. About 45 minutes in ushers quietly move down the aisles, offering replacement candles because most are dangerously close to burning out.
Then, still in darkness, a baptism. Kate and I are left back at the altar while the rest of the servers process with the baptismal candidate back towards the font, where our new fire began some hour ago. We wait until backs are turned and then tiptoe towards the altar rail that separates the congregation from the servers up front, so we can see. Baptisms always make me cry, like seeing someone married or born or dying does. It's something I cannot quite explain.
The sun is almost up now, not outside but in here, where we are. After the baptism Melissa, our priest, takes a bouquet of rosemary and dips it in the waters. She walks around the entire place, flicking water on everyone, letting each of us share in the sacrament of joining that has just taken place. The choir sings a long, chaotic recitation of all our saints, and we remember. Or maybe we just listen in awe. When she returns to the altar we servers face the congregation and all wait for the moment.
This is where Lent makes sense to me. This moment wouldn't be what it is, if we had not been avoiding the word "Alleluia" for the past six weeks. It wouldn't be what it is if our space had not been bare of flowers for the past six weeks, if our priests had not been in simple, spare vestments, if our altar had not gone unadorned by silver, if our Bread was not coarse wheat instead of the usual honeyed white. If we had not just spent ninety minutes in heavy candlelit darkness, if we had not listened again to the Old Testament stories of Creation, Flood, Dry Bones and promises this moment wouldn't hit with the weight that it does. And, this is key to me, if we were not together, a community of faith, all sorts of people who have been doing all of this in union these past six weeks.
"Alleluia Christ is Risen," she sings it. And the lights fly on (not all together, but choreographed, like a sunrise).
"The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!" we sing it back, and the pilgrims reach into pockets and purses for bells of all shapes and sizes and begin to ring them vigorously. The organ is playing something familiar and triumphant, and we can see for the first time the explosion of white flowers on both sides of the Table, the gold vestments adorning our sacred ministers and the matching cloth adorning our table.
The sun is up. And we proceed to celebrate an entire mass, basking in the glory of our new year, our new hope, the silver cups and plates, the white bread, the Alleluia, the Mystery of Easter that we can come close to in a sunrise, in a dark liturgy that ends in explosions of gold and light, in all these symbols and sacraments saying with their shapes, lines, and colors what our words cannot express.
"Whew!" My friend who works at the coffee shop down the block from St. Paul's says to me when I stop in after the Vigil for my americano. "That's commitment!"
But it isn't. It's Easter. It is the sun coming up, the trees turning white and pink, and the earth warming. It is a new fire inside me and hope burning so strong that my eyes water. It is a Mystery, and I would set one hundred alarm clocks if I had to, to make sure that I got to be there and hold my small piece of the Light.
Alissa is St Paul's Lay Pastor for Children and Young Families, a postulant to Holy Orders, and the editor of the parish blog. This post was originally published on her personal blog.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Yet Even at the Grave…
by Stephen Crippen
I’m not a big fan of Lenten disciplines (is anyone?) but one discipline I’ve cottoned onto is the omission of ‘alleluia,’ not only from the liturgy, but from the regular conversations of my life. That’s why when I blogged about it this Lent, I couldn’t manage even to type the word out on my computer! It’s a weirdness I have. I admit it.
So imagine my excitement every year when Melissa sings it for the first time, punctures the power of another alleluia-less Lent, breaks the rule because on Easter Day the rule becomes its opposite: “Alleluia, Christ is risen!” she calls. And we sing back, “The Lord is risen indeed, alleluia!”
But this year, I didn’t get very excited. To be honest, as the lights flashed on and the bells rang and we sang the Gloria and we once again filled the liturgy with countless ‘alleluias,’ I didn’t feel glad. I felt a little manipulated. I thought, “I’m supposed to be chipper. Too bad I’m not.”
The biggest reason of course is that our delightful dog Hoshi ran off with our hearts on Holy Monday. His own heart gave out, and he died, poor baby, on a table in a clinic in Lynnwood, around 4:30 a.m. Nowhere in Scripture or our tradition do we hold that non-human animals receive the gift of eternal life. Yet I wonder: Hoshi’s premature death was so outrageous, so palpably sad, so unnecessary, so impossible to explain or interpret or justify…why can’t I hold out a little hope, childish though it might be, that I’ll see him again, that the line in Revelation about tears being wiped from our eyes means—for me at least—that Hoshi himself will greet me one day and lick my eyes (one of his weird but delightful pastimes)? That would take care of the tears, let me tell you.
And there are other reasons not to sing ‘alleluia’ with enthusiasm. I am not so self-focused to think that the grief of our family eclipses the grief that haunts the countless billions on earth who know death, live in the midst of death, call death by many names—many familiar names.
So here’s how I’ve worked it out, at least this year. This year—and every year, to some extent—I can’t sing ‘alleluia’ on Easter without thinking of All Souls, that holy day of black vestments, that day when the Church stares death squarely in the face and sings, “All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.”
If I made an ‘alleluia’ banner, I would weave strands of crimson and black into it. If I typed the word out, I would punctuate it with a period, not an exclamation mark. If I rang an ‘alleluia’ bell, I would let some of the soundings clang and clatter. If I sang the Great Alleluia—which we all did at the Vigil—I would drop out here and there. It’s not because I doubt the Good News of Resurrection, though often enough I do. It’s certainly not that I’m mad—at God, or the Church, or anyone in particular—that despite Christ’s redemptive work of salvation, humanity still contends with death, grief, injustice, and despair. (Seriously. I’m a therapist and I’ve had some therapy: I’m sad but I’m not angry! ;)
No, I would color my ‘alleluia’ crimson because I might be singing ‘alleluia,’ but I’m also—no joke—standing by that grave. I might rejoice in Christ’s presence, but there is still those aching absences. Hoshi. My mother. My friend Richard. The grief felt by those I love. The silent prophetic voices of all the innocent dead.
I’m not chipper this Easter. But I am singing…when I can. And when I sing, I eke it out, that great and terrible word, that song of joyful life in the midst of death:
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
Stephen is a therapist and postulant to the Diaconate. You can find his personal blog here.
“All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.”—Book of Common Prayer, Burial Rite II, page 499.
I’m not a big fan of Lenten disciplines (is anyone?) but one discipline I’ve cottoned onto is the omission of ‘alleluia,’ not only from the liturgy, but from the regular conversations of my life. That’s why when I blogged about it this Lent, I couldn’t manage even to type the word out on my computer! It’s a weirdness I have. I admit it.
So imagine my excitement every year when Melissa sings it for the first time, punctures the power of another alleluia-less Lent, breaks the rule because on Easter Day the rule becomes its opposite: “Alleluia, Christ is risen!” she calls. And we sing back, “The Lord is risen indeed, alleluia!”
But this year, I didn’t get very excited. To be honest, as the lights flashed on and the bells rang and we sang the Gloria and we once again filled the liturgy with countless ‘alleluias,’ I didn’t feel glad. I felt a little manipulated. I thought, “I’m supposed to be chipper. Too bad I’m not.”
The biggest reason of course is that our delightful dog Hoshi ran off with our hearts on Holy Monday. His own heart gave out, and he died, poor baby, on a table in a clinic in Lynnwood, around 4:30 a.m. Nowhere in Scripture or our tradition do we hold that non-human animals receive the gift of eternal life. Yet I wonder: Hoshi’s premature death was so outrageous, so palpably sad, so unnecessary, so impossible to explain or interpret or justify…why can’t I hold out a little hope, childish though it might be, that I’ll see him again, that the line in Revelation about tears being wiped from our eyes means—for me at least—that Hoshi himself will greet me one day and lick my eyes (one of his weird but delightful pastimes)? That would take care of the tears, let me tell you.
And there are other reasons not to sing ‘alleluia’ with enthusiasm. I am not so self-focused to think that the grief of our family eclipses the grief that haunts the countless billions on earth who know death, live in the midst of death, call death by many names—many familiar names.
So here’s how I’ve worked it out, at least this year. This year—and every year, to some extent—I can’t sing ‘alleluia’ on Easter without thinking of All Souls, that holy day of black vestments, that day when the Church stares death squarely in the face and sings, “All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.”
If I made an ‘alleluia’ banner, I would weave strands of crimson and black into it. If I typed the word out, I would punctuate it with a period, not an exclamation mark. If I rang an ‘alleluia’ bell, I would let some of the soundings clang and clatter. If I sang the Great Alleluia—which we all did at the Vigil—I would drop out here and there. It’s not because I doubt the Good News of Resurrection, though often enough I do. It’s certainly not that I’m mad—at God, or the Church, or anyone in particular—that despite Christ’s redemptive work of salvation, humanity still contends with death, grief, injustice, and despair. (Seriously. I’m a therapist and I’ve had some therapy: I’m sad but I’m not angry! ;)
No, I would color my ‘alleluia’ crimson because I might be singing ‘alleluia,’ but I’m also—no joke—standing by that grave. I might rejoice in Christ’s presence, but there is still those aching absences. Hoshi. My mother. My friend Richard. The grief felt by those I love. The silent prophetic voices of all the innocent dead.
I’m not chipper this Easter. But I am singing…when I can. And when I sing, I eke it out, that great and terrible word, that song of joyful life in the midst of death:
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
Stephen is a therapist and postulant to the Diaconate. You can find his personal blog here.
Monday, April 13, 2009
To Bee or Not To Bee: Why there is a bee on the Paschal Candle this year
by Ralph Carskadden
Once a year, at the Great Vigil of Easter, sometime between sundown on Holy Saturday and sunrise on Easter Day, Christians in the Western liturgical tradition gather in churches and cathedrals to kindle a new fire from which a great candle representing the Risen Christ is lighted. That Paschal candle is carried into the midst of the faithful, and there a deacon or cantor sings an ancient prose hymn praising Christ the Light who dispels the gloom of sin and banishes darkness. This hymn, called the Exsultet, from the Latin “rejoice,” is one of the poetic treasures of the Church, dating back to at least the 4th century. The chant begins with an invitation for the heavenly host, the entire creation, Mother Church, and finally our own assembly to share in the rejoicing.
Most—but not all—of the ancient sources include several lines giving thanks for the bees who made the wax from which the candle was made, and by which the flame is fed: “In the solemn offering of this wax candle, made out of the work of bees;” fire “nourished by the melting wax which the mother bee produced for the substance of this precious light.”
In southern Italy, by the 10th-11th century, the text of this hymn together with the musical notation was written on long illustrated scrolls. As the deacon stood in the ambo (pulpit) elevated above the people and sang the chant, the scroll unrolled over the desk of the ambo and the gathered faithful could see paintings which illustrated the text. While the verses regarding bees were sung, those standing near the ambo saw a picture of people harvesting the wax and the honey from bee hives and nests.
When the Roman Catholic Church restored the Great Vigil in the 1950’s and translated the official texts from Latin to English, the sections of the poem regarding the bees were retained. With revisions in 1970 the bees were dropped. Episcopalian scholars working on the current prayer book followed the Roman lead and when the Book of Common Prayer came out in 1976 the bees were not to be found. The latest Lutheran revision of the liturgy now includes the bees, and the new Roman Catholic translation in English of the Exsultet appears to have restored them once again. Many Episcopal parishes who celebrate the Great Vigil have used a form of the Exsultet chant published by Nashotah House, one of the seminaries of the church, which retains one of the lines from ancient sources regarding the bees.
To bee or not to bee has obviously been a question amongst liturgical scholars.
In late February I was in Oak Harbor to take my 98 year old mother out for lunch. While passing a nature store I noticed a poster in the window which read BRING BACK THE BEES. On it were illustrated a number of the species of bees which are so very important to the pollination of crops and the production of honey. The current bee-colony-collapse disorder is threatening agriculture and food production on which our daily life and the economic health depend. I am delighted that for just this year we depart from the Prayer Book and “bring back the bees” in the Exsultet at the Great Vigil. The added line is this: “We sing the glories of this pillar of fire, the brightness of which is undiminished even when its light is divided and borrowed, for it is fed by the melting wax which the bees, your servants, have made for the substance of this candle.”
If one knows ancient Greek mythology, the restoration of bees to a chant at St. Paul’s is particularly appropriate. The name Melissa means “honey bee” in Greek! The word for honey in Greek is “mel” and it is from this root that we get the word mellifluous, meaning sweetly or smoothly flowing, honey-like.
There is profound theological significance to the mention of bees. At the beginning of the Exsultet the whole creation is invited to rejoice. The celebration of the Resurrection occurs at a specific time of year in which (at least in the northern hemisphere) the natural world is undergoing rebirth and renewal. As sacramental Christians, we know that the “outward and visible” can be a sign of the “inward and spiritual.” The creation itself is a form of proclamation, visible evidence of God’s power to bring life from death! For too long humankind has abused and ignored so much of the creation. In every way possible the Church needs to assist her members in reconnecting with the earth and reclaiming a sense of responsible and caring stewardship for all living things. I believe that including a creature as small as a bee in our Easter rejoicing this year is a good thing, a tiny step toward making our prayers and faith more “green”.
The Paschal candle which I ornamented this year includes a small sturdy bee - a token of all the creatures, great and small, who in their own ways share our rejoicing and make life on this planet possible and wonderful.
Ralph Carskadden is a Priest Associate at St. Paul's.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Lenten Voices: A Good Friday sort of poem
By Sharon Cumberland
I was inspired to write this poem two Lents ago when we chanted the “Kyrie Pantokrator” at St. Paul’s. I was so taken with the phrase “I bend the knee of my heart” that I went home and developed another set of phrases that were similar, and this is the poem that resulted. It seems like a Good Friday sort of poem to me.
KYRIE PANTOKRATOR
The world was not for me, but for my brothers,
the horses, the science kits, the classrooms,
the rough training for the world, which was not
for me, but for my husbands, the work, the money,
the camaraderie over drinks and waitresses, which
was not for me but for my fathers, the wives, the tidy
homes and waiting children, the warm bed,
which was not for me.
I beat the chest of my soul.
The clear path was not for me but for the scions,
the boys of promise and grace, their football fields,
the locker room and all its promises, which was not
for me but for the scholars, their tutors, the books
and allowances, the mighty potential, which
was not for me but for the junior partners,
their swaddles of opportunity, the slap on the back,
which was not for me.
I bite the tongue of my mind.
The audience was not for me but for the speakers,
their podiums and printing presses, the bull horns which
were not for me but for the soldiers, their flags and taxes,
the guns and petroleum, their certainty of righteousness
which was not for me but for the kings, the popes, the presidents,
their parades and treasure, their chest of ribbons,
which was not for me.
I brandish the fist of my bowels.
The Church was not for me but for the Adams,
the ones who look like You in their secret bodies,
like the Father and the suffering Son in his ribs
and rags, which were not for me but for the saints,
their faith and miracles. Only the martyrs,
their persecutions, their resistance, the hopes
of forgiveness for their jealousy, their cowardice,
their despair, Pantokrator, are for me.
I bend the knee of my heart.
Sharon Cumberland is a member of St. Paul's and an Associate Professor of English at Seattle University.
I was inspired to write this poem two Lents ago when we chanted the “Kyrie Pantokrator” at St. Paul’s. I was so taken with the phrase “I bend the knee of my heart” that I went home and developed another set of phrases that were similar, and this is the poem that resulted. It seems like a Good Friday sort of poem to me.
KYRIE PANTOKRATOR
The world was not for me, but for my brothers,
the horses, the science kits, the classrooms,
the rough training for the world, which was not
for me, but for my husbands, the work, the money,
the camaraderie over drinks and waitresses, which
was not for me but for my fathers, the wives, the tidy
homes and waiting children, the warm bed,
which was not for me.
I beat the chest of my soul.
The clear path was not for me but for the scions,
the boys of promise and grace, their football fields,
the locker room and all its promises, which was not
for me but for the scholars, their tutors, the books
and allowances, the mighty potential, which
was not for me but for the junior partners,
their swaddles of opportunity, the slap on the back,
which was not for me.
I bite the tongue of my mind.
The audience was not for me but for the speakers,
their podiums and printing presses, the bull horns which
were not for me but for the soldiers, their flags and taxes,
the guns and petroleum, their certainty of righteousness
which was not for me but for the kings, the popes, the presidents,
their parades and treasure, their chest of ribbons,
which was not for me.
I brandish the fist of my bowels.
The Church was not for me but for the Adams,
the ones who look like You in their secret bodies,
like the Father and the suffering Son in his ribs
and rags, which were not for me but for the saints,
their faith and miracles. Only the martyrs,
their persecutions, their resistance, the hopes
of forgiveness for their jealousy, their cowardice,
their despair, Pantokrator, are for me.
I bend the knee of my heart.
Sharon Cumberland is a member of St. Paul's and an Associate Professor of English at Seattle University.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Lenten Voices: Small Deaths
By Ellen Hill
When my son Michael was a little boy, he underwent several operations for his heart. I read him many stories including those about his patron saint, Saint Michael The Archangel, who in the Talmudic tradition translates as "One who is like God". His name is the battle cry of the angels in their heavenly battle against Satan. Could there be a better saint for a small boy in a scary situation? Michael saw an angel that was bigger and better than "He-Man", his favorite toy. Larger than life, with bigger wings and followed by an army of angels, who better to surround you in the operating room? How does a child find the courage to confront the pain and fear that he is too young to communicate? Michael went through many operations with all the grace and dignity that a small child could manage. I do believe his faith was there sustaining him in those mighty images.
We all search for role models for ourselves and our children. As a child, I sought out strong women who battled adversity and survived. While I searched, I found something completely at odds with what I was looking for, not a woman, not bigger than life but someone who failed and failed terribly.
Three times Peter denied Christ. Three times. As the years go by and I grow older, more and more I take Peter to my heart. Peter, the fisherman who answered the call to follow. The rock on which the early church was built. The cock crowed and Peter faced his darkest moment. How did he confront that enormous unknown filled with the pain of betrayal?
Each day we make choices, decisions, actions. We make promises to ourselves and those we love. We take actions that succeed or fail. Each day we change by those choices. Sometimes life holds insurmountable pain as surely as it holds joy. And, we stumble along carrying our failures and vulnerability with us. And like Peter we manage to keep going. Surely, the third denial was an insurmountable moment, but belief carried Peter into a life of proclaiming the gospel and building the church. In the end it was his choice to be crucified upside down. Every day brings each of us moments of pain and beauty illuminated by faith.
Michael entered his operating room many, many times. Perhaps it is my conceit, that it was that belief of a child that enabled him to walk out.
Ellen Hill is a longtime member of St. Paul's.
When my son Michael was a little boy, he underwent several operations for his heart. I read him many stories including those about his patron saint, Saint Michael The Archangel, who in the Talmudic tradition translates as "One who is like God". His name is the battle cry of the angels in their heavenly battle against Satan. Could there be a better saint for a small boy in a scary situation? Michael saw an angel that was bigger and better than "He-Man", his favorite toy. Larger than life, with bigger wings and followed by an army of angels, who better to surround you in the operating room? How does a child find the courage to confront the pain and fear that he is too young to communicate? Michael went through many operations with all the grace and dignity that a small child could manage. I do believe his faith was there sustaining him in those mighty images.
We all search for role models for ourselves and our children. As a child, I sought out strong women who battled adversity and survived. While I searched, I found something completely at odds with what I was looking for, not a woman, not bigger than life but someone who failed and failed terribly.
Three times Peter denied Christ. Three times. As the years go by and I grow older, more and more I take Peter to my heart. Peter, the fisherman who answered the call to follow. The rock on which the early church was built. The cock crowed and Peter faced his darkest moment. How did he confront that enormous unknown filled with the pain of betrayal?
Each day we make choices, decisions, actions. We make promises to ourselves and those we love. We take actions that succeed or fail. Each day we change by those choices. Sometimes life holds insurmountable pain as surely as it holds joy. And, we stumble along carrying our failures and vulnerability with us. And like Peter we manage to keep going. Surely, the third denial was an insurmountable moment, but belief carried Peter into a life of proclaiming the gospel and building the church. In the end it was his choice to be crucified upside down. Every day brings each of us moments of pain and beauty illuminated by faith.
Michael entered his operating room many, many times. Perhaps it is my conceit, that it was that belief of a child that enabled him to walk out.
Ellen Hill is a longtime member of St. Paul's.
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