God In The Desert

Abram and Sarai leave Ur - Godly Play

Most of us, before getting too old have experiences that we could call “desert times.” We can’t get too far in life without them. They are never things that we go seeking but they happen. Like Abram and Sarai, when they left the city of Ur, we may wonder if God will be with us in times such as this. The Great Family in which Abram and Sarai were a part, were called to leave the place they had come to find solace. I imagine they had comfortable routines. They knew where to shop, worship, and had good times with friends. Why did they have to leave this secure place? In faith, they put one foot in front of the other and set out into the desert – a place where no one goes unless they have to. Sound familiar at all to you? This past March, you and I had no choice other than to step out into the desert of the pandemic. Will God be with us we may have wondered. After a few months – we may cry, “will this ever be over?” It was a very long journey for the Great Family. They thought it would never end. They began to be surprised by God however in places that they would never have dreamed of. They built altars in various locations so they would never forget that God was there. They continued to say their prayers and God would come close to them and they would come close to God. They began to hear promises from God that were too impossible to believe (have a child in old age!) God had told Abram that he would bless him and Sarai and that they would be a blessing to many. They kept going without seeing how this could happen. Because of their faithfulness, God changed their names to Abraham and Sarah. Through this incredibly difficult time they had changed. They had come closer into being the people of God. How are you being changed as you move through these desert times? I know that I have had experiences that would not have happened had I not been thrown into this time. I miss people, I get tired of the mask and distancing but I keep on. As one who has not been to technically inclined, I am finding deeper relationships through zoom. After close to 8 months – it feels like we really are together. My prayer life has deepened. I have found it easy to give up distractions. I don’t need stuff anymore. We left our “normal” ways of being community mid-March. How are you doing? How are you being changed to come closer to who God created you to be? I wonder what our new names will be when we come out after faithfully walking in this pandemic desert together? I wonder how we are being blessed and how we will be a blessing to many?

Love One Another

Beloved,

This has been a challenging season for many. Not only are we grappling with an unexpected virus but we’re facing one of the most divisive political elections in recent memory. To many Americans, regardless of political persuasion, it feels like the very heart of our democracy is at stake.

In times like these it is easy to give into cynicism and despair. It is easy to lose hope for the coming of God’s Kingdom in our world. And yet, these are the precise moments that end up being the precipice for God’s showing up, in unexpected ways, in unexpected places.

The movement of the Holy Spirit is unpredictable. As Jesus says in John’s Gospel, the Spirit “blows where it wills” (John 3:8). There is often no rhyme or reason for how God shows up, at least from our perspective. It can seem random.

Yet I have seen the Spirit reveal itself consistently over the past few months. The way you all have dug in deep together, transitioned into new ways of being in community, and have continued to put your faith into practice has astounded me. I am continually encouraged by your faithfulness, not only to God, but to each other in this new season of being the Church.

If there is anything I think our world yearns for right now, it’s a community of people who come together across boundary lines to embody a different way of being human. This way isn’t rooted in division or violence but is rooted in radical love and self-offering. That’s the spirit I’ve been experiencing in our community, and I’m honestly humbled by it.

I wanted to take a moment to thank you, and also to encourage you to continue living into our practice of being in community together. The next couple of months are going to be challenging, for many reasons. It’s important that we continue to love one another, continue to care for each other, and continue to bear witness to God’s Kingdom in thought, word, and deed.

For me, what this is means is that I have to continually seek Christ in all things, honoring that of God within others and God within myself. That’s our baptismal call and its one which anchors us in seasons like these. 

I am so grateful for each and every one of you, and am so glad that we are on this journey together. You give me hope, when it sometimes feels like hope is in short supply.

I want to lift up the following words for us as we continue to live into who we’re called to be. These words came during a particularly challenging time in Jesus life, when he and his community were on the precipice of significant change. These have often been called Jesus’ “final instructions” to his disciples, since they came relatively close to the end of his earthly ministry. 

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.” – John 15:12-17 NRSV.

Friends, let us continue to love one another as we bear fruit for God’s Kingdom.

Yours in Christ,

Fr. Will

Hope and the Holy Spirit

Written by Erich Balling, Canon Musician

Pentecost is one of the most miraculous stories in scripture. Imagine being a follower of Jesus and receiving the gift of language to teach and preach the gospel. And consider the incredibly dramatic way the story unfolded!

In staff meeting today, we took an inventory of the work we've accomplished thus far during the pandemic. We looked at the beginning of pandemic, decisions we made, pivots to a new way of life and work. Some of these seemed to happen in a moment, others took time to root and grow. As the discussion continued, it became overwhelmingly evident that the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit was in the middle of all our work. I think the key to that realization was our united belief in the hope God gave us to begin. One small spark to say "yes" instead of "I can't" gave each of us the confidence we needed to move forward and to persevere.

I have a friend who reminds me that hope is essential to our faith journeys. I believe that God knows the deepest hopes of our hearts. God helps clear the fog of our doubts and enables us to show the Gospel in a world that needs this message of hope.

May God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, enable us to do the work we are given. May we always remain hopeful and confident in the Love of God. And may we continue to build God's kingdom on earth.

Hope

Written by Kathleen Balling, Music Assistant

Faith, Hope and Love and the greatest of these is Love...
Love is the greatest of these, but in these unprecedented times, I think Hope is what people are looking for and need.

If you didn't watch the 10 am service on Sunday October 11, you missed our youngest singers, the Cathedral Imps! These young singers, ages 4-8, offer a glimpse of hope for the future in their faces and voices. Since March, Imps have met weekly via Zoom.

Speaking from a personal standpoint, seeing their bright faces early Saturday morning made my week. They love to sing, tell me their stories, greet each other and just show the pure joy of the open hearted children they are.

They are resilient, they are funny, they look forward to the next thing, whatever it is!  We all need that childhood simplicity and child-like hope that tomorrow will be better than today. We need to let our adult worries go and give them to God. We need to relearn to be expectant in the hope for tomorrow and trust in God. Take the time to look with in yourself and find that hopeful, expectant child. Look for the joy in simple things: a bird singing, a rainbow, fall colors of the leaves, or ....pure children's voices raised in song.

Hope is the light within us. Keep it burning bright. I witness Hope every time the Imps sing. Here is the link for the Imps Introit "Feed my Lambs."

https://youtu.be/MIIHDae3zFc

Space For Wonder By Nell Campbell

This past Sunday morning, after I shared the story of Creation with our 4th & 5th graders, a student asked if I thought God sat up late and made a plan for the next day, and the next, each evening preceding every day of creation. I sat for a moment as the inquirer went on, wondering aloud what that would be like for God with no one to talk to or make plans with. The immensity of that aloneness overwhelmed me for a moment, and I couldn’t think straight. 

 Luckily for me, in Godly Play we are not called to have firm answers. We are content to wonder about the mystery that we observe. And so, we did, we wondered about the time before everything when God was just God alone, before Creation. And about making plans. It has been my few day’s reflection. 

 This happens almost every time I get to be the storyteller in Godly Play. I’m given the gift of hearing a young wonderer’s mind frame a point of view spectacularly different from my own. What about those godly plans? I certainly plan. I probably make more plans than I need and have since high school. I’ve always thought planning work helps me wrestle with the idea, or task, that I’m getting ready to take on. I have lists, outlines, color coded calendars of various styles for different parts of my life, short term projects and long term goals. And just before St. Patrick’s Day this spring I, like most all of us on the planet, had to start unplanning. 

I hated making all those changes, to cancel so many things I was excited to do, see, and learn. I’ll probably be able to reschedule a lot of them for future months and years, but I was surprised by how this upended the way I’ve thought about life for the past 30 years. And sitting without any plans for most of this year has made me feel like the year is going to waste. This grief was churned up on Sunday wondering about how God might consider all this planning I had surround myself with. I have been wondering if I’m using my plans as shields against the stillness that would mean I have to actually engage with my soul and God without the backdrop of busyness. And then this morning I stumbled upon these few lines from T.S. Eliot’s Little Gidding: 

    We shall not cease from exploration
    And the end of all our exploring
    Will be to arrive where we started
    And know the place for the first time.
    Through the unknown, unremembered gate
    When the last of earth left to discover
    Is that which was the beginning;
    At the source of the longest river
    The voice of the hidden waterfall
    And the children in the apple-tree

Alright, I get it now. Pay attention to the questions children ask. They may be asking the questions we grown ups should be asking, too.

Finding Your Sabbath

"Today is a day of rest."

"Rest? We haven't done anything."

"Exactly. I've done everything. You now rest in what I've done."

If you know anything about the Enneagram, it should be glaringly obvious I am a strong Type 1, the reformer (or perfectionist...) I'm organized, responsible, orderly, and sensible, just to name a few of my more positive qualities. But for each of those more flattering attributes, I can easily give way to criticism, obsessive perfectionism, and an inability to rest.

Rest has never come easily. I will always find something that needs to be done. Even in a rare quiet moment when I'm alone in the house, I will clean the bathroom, fold laundry, work on bills, etc. Sitting, reading, watching TV, all give me a sense of unease, like I have left something undone. Even on the days I claim as my day off, I fill with appointments or some other task.

In the busy seasons of life, I power through to accomplish that which is asked of me. In the past two weeks I have helped my 8th grader get setup for virtual learning, sent my 3.5 year old to preschool, cared for my 20 month old, helped my husband get settled into his new job, found new insurance and doctors for our family, and kicked off online groups at the Cathedral. In the wake of meeting the needs of others, I forgot something very important. Me. My needs. My rest.

It's so interesting that when I am too busy to listen, God finds an abrupt way to make me pay attention. Last weekend I had no internet in my house for three days, and the Cathedral email server was down. On Saturday I woke up incredibly sick and stayed in bed all day. On Sunday, the Cathedral network crashed. I could keep going. I had neglected my Sabbath the past few weeks while meeting the needs of others. God was reminding me that the Sabbath wasn't a novel idea. It was something he commands. And the need for rest isn't just for my physical needs. It's to look deeply and rest in all that God has created and what he has done. 

Then Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls." Matthew 11:28-29

I am weary, and I carry burdens I shouldn't. My soul needs needs a Sabbath. So today, ironically Labor Day, I claim for rest. As soon as I'm done writing this, of course. ;)

Renewing Your Mind

How often have we let our thoughts rule our lives? How often do we let those voices inside our head tease us, pick at us, or scream at us? How often do we just give in to those thoughts? 

I have had my moments in my life when I let the defeat and doubt rule my thoughts. It is not fun. Once I come out of it and on the other side of my inferior thoughts, I wish I hadn't gone down the rabbit hole. I realize that God doesn't want us to waste our life in these thoughts. Thoughts that aren't true to begin with in the first place! He wants the best for us, especially in our mind. 

In Paul's letter to the Romans, he writes in chapter 12, verse 2, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." The words that stand out to me in this verse are transformed by the renewing of your mind. 

To be transformed means to become something new, to be changed. Renew means to make like new, to restore to freshness, vigor, or perfection. So how does this apply to your mind? If we renew (restore or make new) our thinking or mind, we will be transformed. We will become someone new. 

In Philippians 4:8, Paul tells us on what to think about: "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." When we think on these things, we have peace. (Phil. 4:9b) 

When you find yourself starting to give in to your thoughts of defeat, despair, doubt, disbelief or darkness, reach out to God. Choose to tell him your thoughts. Share with him your doubts and feelings. He won't turn you away. Ask for his help in changing what you think about. Life is hard and can throw us curveballs. God knows that. But don't let the curveballs defeat you! God only wants the best for us, to know his will for our lives. Let him renew your mind, so that your life can be lived to the fullest.