The View from Bolton Street

Dear Parish Family,

Today is Pi Day, 3/14 for those of you who are not math afficionados. Through the years I have enjoyed Pi Day as a perfect excuse to have pizza, or a dessert pie or both in celebration of this inscrutable number. It is considered “irrational” because it is one of those oddities that cannot be expressed as a ratio of two whole numbers. Even if calculated out to more than a trillion digits, there is no repeating pattern.

Five years ago, on the eve of Pi Day, I abruptly canceled a Pi Day party at church—a smorgasbord of pizzas and dessert pies, because I began to be nervous  about what I saw as a dangerous pattern of an unexplainable respiratory ailments. I wrote the bishop and said, “I need to close down the church and go online because something strange is happening, and I don’t want to endanger the people.” He told me that was a serious decision, but that he trusted me to go with my instincts. A couple of days later, the diocese asked all of the churches to put a pause on in-person gathering as we plunged into the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a traumatic experience, but most of the churches stayed community, and five years later, we are still here! Then, still in pandemic times, three years ago, my mother died in the early hours of the morning on Pi Day, and it became even less fun for me as the day rolls around each year. 

However, this year is different. As I reflect on all of the things that have changed in my life in three years, I have begun thinking: pi is an irrational number—one not governed by patterns. It is stubbornly insistent, refusing to surrender to the conformity of repetition. And while I certainly value tradition and familiarity, the thing I love most about God is the endless innovation of our Creator. I decided to reclaim Pi Day as a symbol that we are not meant to be prisoners of repetition. Within any given moment exists the possibility of something new. God will always be the model of innovation. The prophet Isaiah spoke on behalf of God (43:19) Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

Waste no opportunity to find the new thing. Spring is here (or will be next Thursday). Don’t keep doing the same things; we can use our rational minds, but we can still break free of patterns like that super-hero number pi. 

Love and Light,

Pan +

The View from Bolton Street

Dear Parish Family,

I am excited about the start of our Lenten Supper Church activity tonight! I’ll open the Upper Parish Hall early, so you can come in as early as 5:30PM to bring whatever is your contribution for supper, and then we’ll get started at 6PM. In addition to what I hope will be a sweet time of fellowship and a simple supper, we will be celebrating Holy Eucharist as an integral part of the meal. Daviedra and I will teach you some new and simple songs as we go along, and we will go without bulletins by using projected images of the music and simple liturgy. 

We will have a short reading from one of Martin Luther King Jr’s sermons, and we will conclude at 7:15pm. As always, we can use a little help setting up and cleaning up afterward.

The purpose of these programs is to enjoy one another’s company and perhaps get to know someone a bit better with whom you have not had conversation before. But the Lenten Supper Church gatherings have an additional purpose. I hope you will come to see every meal shared with another person as a holy meal. While the ritual meal of Holy Eucharist is central to our worship in the Anglican tradition, my opinion is that when Jesus distributed the bread and wine to his friends in the upper room, he really meant “whenever you do this, do it in remembrance of me.” I think Jesus wished that whenever the disciples took nourishment together they should think of him and how he nourished them with the spiritual food of living water. I believe that is meant for us as well.

My hope for you is that the Holy Eucharist will become internalized, and you will be nourished routinely by sharing a meal with a community that loves you.

So off we go, into the wilderness with Jesus…

Love,

Pan +

The View from Bolton Street

Dear Parish Family,

You may think I am writing these E-Pistles only for you, but the opportunity to reflect on the Holy Scriptures really grounds me. Time in prayer and reflection is a gift that God has invited us to receive, and I am grateful for that respite each day. 

On this day, I am thinking of Moses, whose face shone because he had been talking with God. I wonder…would someone be able to tell from looking with me that I have been talking with God?

When I was in high school, I was very active in the youth group at my church. We had a huge songbook, and I loved these songs. One of the favorites, “We are one in the Spirit,” had a memorable refrain “And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, and they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” 

We are taught that the sacraments are outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace. I wonder…does our sacramental theology leave room for the possibility that we are also living sacraments—outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace? I wonder if the canonical sacraments are meant to remind us that WE are God’s living sacramental gifts?

Clearly I have music on my mind today, because I would point you to another song, “This little light of mine.” I commend this article about the song’s origins:  https://balladofamerica.org/this-little-light-of-mine/. This song is a defiant declaration that “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.” 

This is a time when we need to turn up the light. It would be a sorrowful thing for Church in America to leave a legacy that Christians are known for their white Christian nationalism rather than our love and our light. Shine on, people!

Love and Light,

Pan +

The View from Bolton Street

Dear Parish Family,

The theme of the readings for the 7th and final Sunday of Epiphany is forgiveness, and we’ll explore that on Sunday. But there is also something interesting in the Epistle text. It’s these lines, 1 Cor. 15:47-48:

“The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.”

Of course, it is no mistake that the Lectionary (https://www.lectionarypage.net/) begins to point us to Lent. The people who select the readings for each day of the liturgical calendar do so with prayer and intention. Beyond that, these verses also remind us of the relationship between physical and spiritual beings.

Paul was very focused on preparation for what happens after death. I would imagine that his life was so difficult that he focused on what “someday” would look like. If you or someone you love has lived with intractable pain or depression, you will understand Paul’s perspective easily. It is hard to experience the joy of the here and now when one is miserable in the here and now. 

Paul goes on in the final verse of the text to say:

“What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.”

He was pointing the people at the church in Corinth to a life of spirit—a life wherein the struggles of living and physical beings will be over, and they would reside forever with God. 

I am asking you to think about this text and wonder: Are we really meant to separate our physical selves from the image of God in which we were created? In my opinion, and as ever, I do not proclaim this to be more than that, the spiritual and the material are inseparable. Jesus said, “The kingdom of God has come near.” For me, it is not enough to say some day, because it absolves us of the responsibility to fulfill the potential that we all possess to be the beloved community that the Rev. Dr. King talked about, to fulfill the Dream of God, that Verna Dozier talked about. Every Christian should read Ms. Dozier’s book. 

I do not believe the Kingdom of God is only meant to be some day. When we can live our responsibility for being the Kingdom of God here and now as well as for then and someday, we will truly fulfill the great commandment. 

I wish Paul had said “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.” Maybe that would have been useful to the Corinthians, because it is helpful to me. I am much better behaved when I remember that I bear the image of Christ and am responsible for making it visible!

Sending Love and Light,

Pan +

The View from Bolton Street

Dear Friends,

I have Jeremiah on my mind today [Jer 17:7-8]:

“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
    whose confidence is in [God].
  They will be like a tree planted by the water
    that sends out its roots by the stream.
  It does not fear when heat comes;
    its leaves are always green.
  It has no worries in a year of drought
    and never fails to bear fruit.”

This is what it means to have such trust in God that one is able to be a calm and reassuring presence during a time of trial. 

I have spoken with many people this week. There is turmoil and anxiety swirling around in our country, because there is such chaos in the federal government, and it affects all of us in some way or another. It is not my purpose here to detail the many ways in which so many of us feel threatened, but rather to talk about what we are called to do when we feel there is nothing we can do.

Jeremiah spells that out for us. Whatever is happening around us, we can be a calm and non-anxious presence in the midst of it, both for ourselves and for everyone around us. We live in community and our community can do amazing things when its members bring that calm and non-anxious presence into it via trust in God. The community, in turn, brings that presence into the city.

In fact, just one steady hand on the tiller of a boat can get the whole crew to safety in choppy waters. Each one of you has the power to be that steady hand, and this is the time to bring it. That’s what it means to put your confidence in God and to have no worries in a year of drought and never fail to bear fruit. 

Today is Valentine’s Day, so sending you all BIG LOVE,

Pan+

The View from Bolton Street

Dear Parish Family,

I love reading call stories in the Bible and hope you do, too. All of us are called to be something different to fulfill our potential but sometimes figuring out what that is can be very confusing. I’ve had a few different professions and a wide array of interests and passions. All these expressions of who I am contributed to who I am now.

My sisters, however, focused early on being ballet dancers, and never had doubts about that as they grew to adulthood.

As Jesus followers, we are taught that we all have different gifts in the Body of Christ, and our faith walk demands that we ask not only who we want to be when we “grow up,” but also who is God calling us to be and what would God have us do. I have rarely been certain about who God was calling me to be, and I wonder if that has been true for some of you?

I’ve looked for insight my entire life, and often asked other people, “How did you know it was right for you to become a nurse, a teacher, an artist, a _ _ _? But my “How did you know?” queries took on a different character when I returned to the church after a long hiatus late in my life. For the first time, I felt with certainty that God was calling me to change direction and it was scary because I didn’t know what the new direction was. That Holy Spirit can be tricky!

The call of Isaiah to be a prophet is one that can be informative (Isaiah 6:1-8, 9-18). The Holy One calls to Isaiah in a vision: Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I; send me!"

A soon as Isaiah says, “Here I am; send me!” God says to Isaiah, “Go and say to this people [meaning Israel]:

“`Keep listening, but do not comprehend;

keep looking, but do not understand.'

Make the mind of this people dull,

and stop their ears,

and shut their eyes,

so that they may not look with their eyes,

and listen with their ears,

and comprehend with their minds,

and turn and be healed."

Then Isaiah asks, "How long, O Lord?" I can only imagine Isaiah’s horror when God responded:

"Until cities lie waste

without inhabitant,

and houses without people,

and the land is utterly desolate;

until the Lord sends everyone far away,

and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land.

Even if a tenth part remain in it,

it will be burned again,

like a terebinth or an oak

whose stump remains standing

when it is felled."

The holy seed is its stump.

You see, sometimes we are called to do something very hard. Sometimes it’s to jump into freezing water to save someone who has fallen into the river. Sometimes it’s to be the bearer of a truly horrifying message. And the story embedded within the call of Isaiah that leaps out at me is that while he was asked to prophesy very bad news, the potential of the felled tree remains in its stump. Note that this is my interpretation, and some scholars will disagree.

Perhaps your call is to do something easy, and perhaps it is to do something difficult like delivering bad news. If God ever calls you to do that, think of Isaiah, and think of physicians who must deliver a heartbreaking diagnosis. Whether you are called to deliver something joyful or something sorrowful, something that seems impossible or something you believe to be trivial, God will always want you to deliver love along with whatever the task, because love is the living water that sustains hope. That seed is present in all of us even when we walk through fire. These are some uncertain times right now, and God is calling each of us to show up for our colleagues, our communities and our families

God is calling each of you to something, so be willing to listen and invite God to speak. I am confident that you will indeed be given a message and a mission.

Love and Light to you all,

Pan +

The View from Bolton Street

Dear Parish Family,

My mind is on the families and friends of the people who perished on Thursday night in a mid-air collision over the Potomac River. Losing someone you love is tough in any circumstance. In a catastrophic accident, it is so shocking and unexpected that it can feel suffocating. Is there any help for that?

The way we respond to a disaster that happens quickly and unexpectedly is different than the way we respond to something that happens slowly. Sometimes the catastrophe unfolds so slowly we become accustomed to it. We can become numb, giving in to acceptance, perhaps even assuming that there is no goodness in the world and no light. 

The history of the universe is filled with catastrophic events that change everything. It doesn’t help people who are grieving to say, “This happened for a reason.” It doesn’t help someone who has made a catastrophic life choice to say, “This is all your own fault.” 

What does help? It’s different for everyone, but one of the most helpful things that anyone can do is choose solidarity with the person who has experienced devastation. Solidarity is love in action—showing up, asking what the person needs, and if they cannot articulate it, just stay present. 

Whether you personally experience a catastrophe, or you are trying to support someone else who experiences it, the path out of the paralysis and hopelessness that it can cause exists. It’s discoverable. 

The process of recovery after a soul-crushing experience or set of experiences might take a long time, but if we engage with it, we will find the path, and perhaps we will remember to mark it for the next person who must find their way through it.

In my experience “survival of the fittest” does not mean what we often think “fitness” means. I think it means that survival depends upon learning from a catastrophe and better preparing to survive the next one. The most crucial part of the process is letting go of the notion that we can “fix” a bad situation. It’s the wrong notion. Instead, I believe that we can transform a catastrophe. 

Sometimes that transformation means discovering the cause of a catastrophe first and then taking measures to prevent it as in the example of the COVID-19 pandemic. But sometimes we cannot waste precious time looking for a cause while people are waiting for us to help them during their time of trial. It is critical to recognize when it’s time to discover cause (NOT BLAME), and when we must instead immediately aid the souls who are traumatized.

It was just a few weeks ago that we read in the gospel of John [1:5] that 

the Light came into the world, and The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. As the Body of Christ, we are now that light. It’s time to shine so that the rest of the world may believe that the darkness will not overcome us. 

What happens to one of us happens to all of us, and in the face of unspeakable catastrophe, it is our job to be that Light. It may mean something different for each one of us, and I invite each one of you to discern how you will be the Light of Christ in a world that sorely needs it. 

Love,

Pan +

The View from Bolton Street

Dear Parish Family,

This has been quite a week, and I confess, I’m tired. And yet—I feel good about what we were able to accomplish with teamwork in a couple of different respects this week, especially with our justice work planning on Monday. I’d also like to call out our awesome finance committee, wonderfully persistent and striving hard to draft a balanced budget (we’re close). I’ll talk more about both examples of terrific teamwork when we have our parish meeting on Sunday following the 10:30AM service.

For now, I want to call your attention to the Epistle reading for Sunday: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a. Paul tells the Christians at Corinth that though we are one body with Christ, we consist of many members. The members are all different. And yet… we were all made to drink of one Spirit [1 Cor. 12:13].

Now is a time I feel we must all stand strong against any attempts to divide us as church by messaging that we should all be exactly alike. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it [1 Cor.12:26]. We need all of the members of the Body of Christ within our church, and frankly, within our country. Science also tells us that the resiliency of ecosystems depends upon their diversity! 

Your instincts, your Scripture and your church are all in alignment on this. The Body of Christ means all of us, all of our gifts, without regard to gender, race, religion, age, national origin, or any other characteristic that someone might exploit as a reason to sow disunity within the Body of Christ. All systems need diversity to be robust!

My experience of working together with various members of our church and staff to solve problems and keep the church moving along also confirms that the diversity of the gifts of the different people is essential to our health and our impact in Baltimore. 

We have several civil servants and federal contractors among our members who received letters from their administrators this week, forbidding them from continuing any work with respect to diversity, equity and inclusion. As I am still on the list of NASA contractors, I received one of these letters, so I know how morally injurious just looking at such a letter is for a Jesus follower. And this is not all: protections against discrimination in the workplace for federal government contractors that have existed for 60 years were also rolled back this week!

Our community of faith must never forget that If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. This is a time if ever there was one to pay attention to each other in our community, to deal with external pressures that would seek to demoralize and divide us, and to double down on loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love one another the same way. That is how we will stay family during a time of trial.

In love and light,

Pan +

The View from Bolton Street

Dear Friends,

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.    – 1 Corinthians 12:4-11

I first came across this passage from Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth when I was about fifteen and wondering who I was and who my future self would be. I was new to the church, and new to the Holy Scriptures, so before that time, everything I knew about God was experiential, and intuitive. When I finally made my way to a church, I was given a J.B. Phillips translation of the New Testament, which I still have. I read the whole thing, cover to cover in one weekend. Knowing nothing about the Bible, I wanted to learn as much as I could as quickly as possible. 

It wasn’t until I got the epistles where someone was talking to the people about who they were in the church that I felt a real connection between the people in that era and my life as a high school student. It was a tough time in my life, because there were great expectations placed upon me, and I constantly feared I could not live up to them. And then on my weekend Bible-reading marathon, I read this: Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

This bit of text was a huge comfort to me because it assured me that God would activate gifts in me just as would be the case for everyone, and that the Holy Spirit was manifested in me for the common good. I did not know what to do with my gifts, but I knew they were there, and they were given to me not for my own pleasure but for the common good. 

Since that time decades ago, I continuously ask myself, “What is the common good? Have I used all of my gifts for it? Have I made this day count for the common good?”

We can be so much more than we think we can be when we allow God to use the gifts manifested within us by the Holy Spirit for the common good. The common good is how we all thrive, my friends. We can choose to ignore it or nurture it. Imagine how the world would be if we all made the latter choice? Imagine how our own community would be?

In God’s love and peace,

Pan+

P.S. Please remember to let me know (pan@memorialepiscopal.org) if you are coming to the MLK Day activity BEFORE I go to the grocery store on Sunday afternoon! I want to have enough snackage for all 😇. 

The View from Bolton Street

Dear Parish Family,

I listened to some of the news coverage of former president Jimmy Carter’s funeral while I drove up to the church yesterday. He has always been a hero and a role model of mine because when he lost re-election and felt despondent and rejected by the people, he determined to find another way to do the most good with the rest of his life. I don’t need to recount all of those successes here—you all know how hard he worked to provide peace, shelter, freedom from disease, escape from poverty, and more. You also know that he taught Sunday School as a volunteer until he physically could no longer do so. He knew that compassion and action go together and that this must be taught to each successive generation.

I have often speculated on what it would be like to start a charter school with the foundational charism of chesed, the steadfast and loving kindness of God. Teaching compassion and chesed through stories and dialogue along with the 21st century survival skills we all need is a true call and an urgent need, now more than ever.

Grace and compassion and the drive that motivates someone to do as much good as possible in the “second half of life” as Richard Rohr calls it, is sorely needed, perhaps now more than ever. With a change of national administration more dedicated to tearing institutions down and dividing people over false issues than governing with compassion and an eye to the future, we must not become so discouraged that we become passive. We can all do something. 

We start with our own community. We must be observant. Who is struggling? Who is thriving? If we fall largely into the latter category, how can we elevate the struggling siblings with our love and compassion in action? 

With the fires raging in what used to be my home in Altadena, CA, and the loss of one of my statesman heroes, for just a few minutes yesterday, I felt that darkness and death were winning. As I began to prepare for my Sunday message I read these words from the prophet Isaiah with fresh eyes: 

For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you…   Is. 60:2-4a

Then I remembered, and I hope you will too: ours is a Light that the darkness cannot overcome. We can choose to live into and use that Light for good or we can hide it under a bushel. We can choose who we are until we are welcomed home to eternity, and we have the opportunity to remake that choice with every breath we take. Don’t let the darkness of despair overtake you when there is still work to be done: the work of compassion and chesed in action. 

What does that work look like for Memorial Episcopal Church? I have a vision, and I’ll bet many of you do, too. Please tell me about your vision. We are in the process of developing plans and a budget to fund those plans for 2025. Your vision and your voice are critical as we chart a course forward. You may write to me here: pan@memorialepiscopal.org.

Warmth and love to you all on this chilly day,

Pan+

The View from Bolton Street

Dear Parish Family,

For the final day of the Christmas season, there are three options for the gospel reading. One of those texts will be used this Sunday on the final day of Christmas, the 2nd text will be used when we celebrate the Epiphany on January 12th, and the 3rd text selection I present to you here from Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23:

After the wise men had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, "Out of Egypt I have called my son."

When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child's life are dead." Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, "He will be called a Nazorean."

I wonder what it was like for Joseph—did they leave immediately? How long did they travel to reach safety in Egypt? How did Joseph support his family once they got there? These are what I consider to be “rabbit hole” questions. They distract me from looking at Joseph and seeing what I can learn from his story.

The narrative that survives is scant, but for me, the important pieces are there: Joseph experienced a visitation by an angel. Again. Remember, we are told earlier in Matthew’s narrative that when Joseph discovered Mary to be pregnant and considered quietly canceling the betrothal an angel told him not to be afraid to marry her—the child was conceived by the holy spirit.

And notice that there is a third visitation by an angel while Joseph slept: the announcement that Herod had died and it was safe to return to Israel. Clearly, Joseph was a man who trusted the counsel of angels.

Would I know the counsel of an angel if I were to receive it? I hope so. Maybe that’s why the angels consistently visited Joseph while he slept, free from other distractions. Consider these lines from the New Zealand Prayer Book Night Prayer (based upon Psalm 127):

It is but lost labour that we haste to rise up early and so late take rest, and eat the bread of anxiety. For those beloved of God are given gifts even while they sleep.

This story of Joseph and his obedience to God’s counsel through angels should prompt us all to ask ourselves whether or not we would recognize God’s counsel delivered through angels and respond to accordingly. It may not always be a matter of life and death, but I believe that God does speak to us even while we sleep. Whether or not we will respond to such counsel is always our choice.

* * *

And now two announcements!

There is snow expected for Monday, so we will postpone the Epiphany party. Fortunately, Epiphany is celebrated for an entire season. We will announce the alternative date and time shortly.

COVID numbers are up post-Christmas travel, so please be mindful, especially if you are a person at risk for complications from respiratory infections. If you feel at all ill, join us on Zoom instead of in person for church.

Don’t forget! Wrestling with the Word (Bible study) begins this Sunday at 9:10 AM in the upper parish hall.

Love to all,

Pan +