Indian Summer and Emily Dickinson--Sacramentalist?

It's starting to get chilly here in Wisconsin: The last two mornings the house has been quite cold when I awakened, and we're all wrapping up in fleece throws until the sunshine does its heating work.

But we had beautiful "Indian summer" days last week, and I just ran across this poem that eloquently expresses how I feel about summer's end:

Indian Summer
by Emily Dickinson

These are the days when birds come back,
A very few, a bird or two,
To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies put on
The old, old sophistries of June, -
A blue and gold mistake.

Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief,

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,
And softly through the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf!

Oh, sacrament of summer days,
Oh, last communion in the haze,
Permit a child to join,

Thy sacred emblems to partake,
Thy consecrated bread to break,
Taste thine immortal wine!

***

The last six lines piqued the interest of the Anglican and the literature minor in me, so I looked up Emily Dickinson's religious beliefs. (Oh, the wonder of the internet, that we can have our curiosities fulfilled at the click of a button!) She was a Puritan looking for something transcending its rigid theology, so she blended it with Transcendentalism, creating "a third alternative":

Elisa New suggests Dickinson's third alternative to religion is closely related to the ideas of Kierkegaard, a philosopher and theologian. Dickinson "is quite simply no longer able to conceive God in the sanguine, essentially 'centered' or logocentric terms Emerson borrows . . . from Augustine . . ." (New 4). For Kierkegaard, as for Dickinson, "the very nature of religious experience requires that we yield up our sense of God as centered in our world, yield up the logos or knit of Reason that makes God's order explicable through Revelation. Replacing the centre, then, is the 'unknown,' a limit distinctly outside the boundaries of what the mind can grasp . . ." (New 4). (emphasis mine) (from this article)

I'm totally an amateur here, but I think Dickinson would have loved a more sacramental theology like Anglicanism, if she'd had the exposure. (The Church of England had little presence in Puritan New England, I gather.) This combination or "third alternative" sounds similar. And I'd rather read her poetry--which has always stirred me--through that lens than the Transcendentalist one.

Now I'm wondering about Kierkegaard....

But it's time to go encourage my kids to follow their own rabbit trails of interest!

Confirmation Sunday

Our bishop is amazing. Here he is, praying for Bantam17...


...and for Bantam13.

For each one of our 23 confirmands, he prayed an individual, Spirit-led prayer that made you wonder how he could possibly know them so well, never having met them. Only by the power of the Spirit, of course!

We meet in this beautiful old chapel only for feast days or special occasions like today. Even though it's aesthetically worshipful, the space itself is difficult to conduct a service in, because of a large wooden rood screen which divides the space in half. Today, we started out with everyone behind the screen:


Another challenge is having both horizontal and vertically arranged pews!

(I like this shot of Father Rooster, in between his father and his bishop. It was a special Sunday for my husband, with his parents, his brother, his sis-in-law, his niece, his wife and four of his children all confirmed!)

After the sermon, the confirmands came forward and were seated in the choir, up near the altar...

...while the rest of the congregation remained on the far side of the screen.


It worked, but our musicians and the altar were too far away from the congregation when we were all on the other side of the screen. We'll try something different next time.

We were blessed to have so many visitors today, especially extended family members of the confirmands, but also a couple of families who were making repeat visits. (And of course, our intrepid photographer friend from Illinois who took on the lighting challenges with an unfamiliar camera: Thanks, Ray!)

Our soup, bread and salad lunch for 23--(same number, but not the same 23!)--came off fine. We had to eat in shifts, however, since I realized late on Saturday night that although I have table and breakfast bar space for 22, I only have 12 chairs and 4 barstools! (I can no longer put off that trip to IKEA. Must buy: bookshelves, folding chairs.) A small group actually used our dining room-turned-schoolroom as a dining room today, on a school/craft table cleared off just for the occasion--with room to spare!

***

Last year, when we met in the chapel on Pentecost Sunday, a mighty wind blew the doors shut.

Today, we met in the chapel for our Bishop to confirm the baptisms of 23 people and pray for them to be filled and equipped for ministry by the Holy Spirit--and there was flooding all over Chicagoland (of which Kenosha is considered a part).

***

Last night, a group of fathers and sons who were being confirmed met at the same chapel for a prayer vigil, just as a page who was to be knighted spent the night before in church. It was a holy time for all who attended.

At the same time, there was a woman attending a celebration in another part of the building. Many years ago, she had been an alcoholic. She had joined AA and hadn't touched a drink in years, but at this particular celebration, she decided to have one. Then she had another, and she began to fear that she couldn't stop. She went for a walk in the building, praying for God's help, and she came near the chapel where our group was praying. Suddenly, she sensed the power of the Spirit come over her, and all desire for another drink was gone.

This morning, she called one of the dads she had recognized in the chapel to tell him about her experience.

***

Despite the chapel's challenges, it certainly seems that the Holy Spirit meets us in a special way in that place!

A Look at Confirmation

So we're all getting confirmed on Sunday! The four oldest and I, that is. Papa Rooster was confirmed in our early days as Anglicans, but I was pregnant or nursing and unable to go into downtown Chicago with him at the time. Then at our old church, we kinda didn't worry about adult confirmations there for awhile--they've started offering classes now, I believe--and Bantam17 and Blondechick15 missed the kids' classes for two years running because of spring performances by our theater group. Then we moved and...we now have a church full of folks who've never been confirmed!

So we've all been going through a few classes on the basics of the faith. The younger kids (under 13) have been discussing and memorizing the Apostle's Creed, the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer. In the classes for teenagers and adults, we focused on Baptism and Eucharist at length, as the two essential sacraments explicitly mandated by Christ, attested to by the practice of the early church from Acts on, and essential for salvation (John 3:6 and John 6:53-58).

We also discussed the defining characteristics of a sacrament vs. symbols and "sacramentals" (reminders like the sign of the cross). Just as a handshake only symbolizes an agreement, but a signature effects a contract, a sacrament is not just a symbol but an effective, "outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace." (~Book of Common Prayer)

Confirmation is a sacrament that, while not essential for salvation, is best viewed as a part of Baptism; it is mentioned repeatedly in Acts and has been practiced since the earliest days of the church. All through Acts, you see the apostles covering two bases with new converts: Have they been baptized? Have they received the Holy Spirit? In several cases in Acts, the Holy Spirit comes with baptism, but in a number of cases, one comes without the other.

So the early church made Confirmation--the prayer for the Holy Spirit--a part of Baptism. But the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation became separated over time, for practical reasons. As the church grew, it was not always possible for the bishops to get around to all the churches very often, and because of the high infant mortality rate, priests began going ahead and baptizing; when the bishop came, he would "confirm" the baptism with the laying on of hands and the prayer for the Holy Spirit.

The Eastern Orthodox church dealt a little differently with this problem, by delegating to the priest the authority to pray for the Holy Spirit, using oil that a bishop had consecrated. But the West kept the idea that only a bishop should confirm the believer's baptism, pray for the Holy Spirit and welcome him into the Church Universal, just as Peter, Paul and the other apostles performed this function in Acts. The bishop was a symbol of unity across time (the idea of apostolic succession, or the laying on of hands from the apostles which has been passed down to present-day bishops) and across the present day (because of his membership in the college of bishops). The unity of the Church remains intact, despite the personal fallibilities of bishops past or present.

Over time and because of the influence of the Reformation, Confirmation has become more of a rite of passage for children who were baptized as infants, as a public affirmation that they receive the faith as their own. But in a sacramental understanding, it is organically connected to baptism, which is why the Confirmation liturgy includes the renewal of baptismal vows, as well as the laying on of hands by the bishop, the prayer for the Holy Spirit, sealing with oil and participation in the Eucharist.

So do I believe that all these years I have not had the Holy Spirit? No, I believe I received the Holy Spirit with my baptism at age 7, since I have seen the fruits of the Spirit in my life. But do I believe that the Holy Spirit's power in my life may be strengthened by my Confirmation? I do. It never hurts to have a godly bishop pray for you :), and just as I am eager to receive the Eucharist each week, as an act of obedience and because of its strengthening qualities, I look forward to receiving this sacrament, confirming that I am fully equipped by the Spirit for ministry.

(Special thanks to Stephen G, who taught our classes and whose outlines were the basis of this post!)

Something Happens...

In my last post in this series, I contrasted a typical evangelical view, of communion as a memorial only, with a sacramental understanding of it as a spiritual feast--food and drink for our souls. With a sacramental worldview, you believe that something happens when a sacrament is performed or received.

You believe that something happens when you anoint someone with oil for healing--that it is a special avenue for God's grace. When you have been anointed with oil for ministry, whether it is for reading the Scriptures or serving communion or becoming a priest, you believe that you have been set apart for a purpose; you understand that it is Christ Himself who ministers through you.

You believe that something happens in baptism, and you want that for your newborn. While baptism alone doesn't save, you believe that it sanctifies, or sets apart; it plants a seed of faith that, with proper care and watering, will grow into a flourishing tree of faith which the child, when he is older, can choose to publicly confirm in the sacrament of confirmation, a sort of parallel to "believer's baptism." (I know that baptism and confirmation are not always thoughtfully practiced in many liturgical churches, but when they are, it is a wonderful way to bring up children as fully-included members, from birth, of the household of faith.)

Confession, too, is another sacrament in which something happens, as Lauren Winner describes in Girl Meets God:

I say confession because the church teaches that we should, and I say it because, when I don't, I feel over full--not in a good, cup-overflowing way, but in a sticky, sweaty, eaten-too-much way.

Confession makes sense to me because it is incarnational. In the sacraments, the Holy Spirit uses stuff to sanctify us. In the Eucharist He uses bread and wine, and in confirmation He uses oil and in baptism He uses water. In confession, the stuff He uses is another person. In that way, confession teaches us about the Incarnation all over again. ...

Here, in confession, God is connecting us to Himself not through bread or oil or water or wine, but through another broken body, one who absolves you, and then says, "Go in peace, and pray for me, a sinner."

Let me highlight this sentence: "In the sacraments, the Holy Spirit uses stuff to sanctify us." Sacramentalists tend to have a high view of matter. Liturgical services are filled with material symbols--candles, robes, special linens for the altar, incense--and experiences, such as standing, kneeling, crossing oneself, prostrating oneself. In a sacramental worldview, something happens when the light signifying God's presence is lit. Something happens when you get on your knees before God.

Something happens when you use holy water for cleansing. When I first encountered this practice, I thought it smacked of superstition--and indeed in some cultures where Catholicism has blended with paganism, ones does find an extreme of superstitious materialism. But properly understood, the use of material substances in worship is God-designed and expands to include our very own bodies. As C.S. Lewis, that great Anglican theologian, has explained:

And let me make it quite clear that when Christians say the Christ-life is in them, they do not mean simply something mental or moral. When they speak of being 'in Christ' or of Christ being 'in them', this is not simply a way of saying that they are thinking about Christ or copying Him. They mean that Christ is actually operating through them; that the whole mass of Christians are the physical organism through which Christ acts -- that we are His fingers and muscles, the cells of His body.

And perhaps that explains one or two things. It explains why this new life is spread not only by purely mental acts like belief, but by bodily acts like baptism and Holy Communion. It is not merely the spreading of an idea; it is more like evolution -- a biological or super biological fact. There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it.

Something happens...

You don't check your reason at the door when you enter a liturgical service--but we do worship a God whose higher ways we cannot begin to understand. Our faith is more than a rational affirmation of belief. God chose to send his Son to earth in a material body, and He continues to minister his presence not just through right understanding of his word, but through the material things which He created.

(to be continued)

Girl Meets God

I wish I could say I discovered this book, because it feels like a discovery! But so many people have recommended it to me, and I have seen it so widely mentioned around the blogosphere, that I almost hesitate to review it.

But I have to, because it's that good. Especially if you're Jewish or Anglican, you've got to read Lauren Winner's account of how she traveled from a minimally religious upbringing through Orthodox Judaism to Anglican Christianity, only to discover that her Jewish roots were worth hanging onto after all. And if you're not from either of those traditions, it's a delightful exploration, told in a fresh and clear voice.

I am not a big fan of non-fiction. It doesn't hold my interest, generally. But there is a certain style of non-fiction writing that I not only admire, I try to imitate--and Lauren Winner is now on my short list, along with Peggy Noonan, Jeanne Marie Laskas and Frederica Mathewes-Green. Though these women write with great insight on completely different subjects, they all write simply and clearly. They are direct and honest. They have a sense of humor, but it doesn't take over. They write from the heart in a personal and winning tone; you feel as if they're sharing their stories with you from across the table over lunch. They are real people.

I can't wait to read more books by this author. Googling just now, I am delighted to see that she's written several books since Girl Meets God, and that I'm not alone in thinking she's a fine writer. And she's Anglican! Which means she writes about things I care about. Here's a great quote:

I'm not sure I understand the sacrament of confession much better than the first time I sat down with Father Peter. I say confession because the church teaches that we should, and I say it because, when I don't, I feel over full--not in a good, cup-overflowing way, but in a sticky, sweaty, eaten-too-much way.

Confession makes sense to me because it is incarnational. In the sacraments, the Holy Spirit uses stuff to sanctify us. In the Eucharist He uses bread and wine, and in confirmation He uses oil and in baptism He uses water. In confession, the stuff He uses is another person. In that way, confession teaches us about the Incarnation all over again. ...

Here, in confession, God is connecting us to Himself not through bread or oil or water or wine, but through another broken body, one who absolves you, and then says, "Go in peace, and pray for me, a sinner."

I have other quotes all lined up for my little series.

Because it's just so tempting to say, "What she said"!

For other book reviews, check out Semicolon's Saturday Review of Books.

More on the Sacramental Stream

Weeks ago, I began a little series explaining more about the church we're planting, and why we believe people will come and are coming to it. In Part One, I described it as a "three streams, one river" church, made up of the three streams of liturgical/sacramental tradition, evangelical, Bible-based teaching and discipleship, and freedom of the Spirit in worship. I've been exploring the least-familiar-to-most sacramental stream; Parts Two and Three discussed its emphasis on ritual and ceremony.

I mentioned that a visitor to our church plant emailed me in advance of her visit and shared: "I feel like the Episcopal churches here are dead but also that the non-denominational churches are missing the importance of the sacraments." She was one of four people in the same week who said to me, essentially, "We've crossed over a 'sacramental line' and now, we can't go back."

What did she mean, that the evangelical churches were missing the importance of the sacraments? In Part One I touched on the difference between the official church "Sacraments" and the adjective "sacramental," but now, let me illustrate the crossing of that sacramental line by contrasting views about Eucharist, or communion.

Most evangelical denominations hold a memorialist position on communion; that is, they believe that it is a remembrance of Christ's death, and no more. Sacramental churches believe, by contrast, that somehow the bread and wine become the spiritual food of Christ's body and blood. It is not a memorial service the priest invites us to, but a feast!

(This Wikipedia article summarizes various theological positions of sacramental churches. Some believe in varying degrees of a literal transformation, with detailed theological explanations for how and when that happens; Anglicans are less interested in the rational discussion, believing simply that something happens in the Eucharist service that is a mystery, and somehow ordinary bread and wine become containers of the "Real Presence" of Christ.)

The conventional definition of sacrament is "an outward sign, instituted by Christ, that conveys an inward, spiritual grace through Christ."

Memorialists practice the outward sign, but don't realize or emphasize the inward spiritual grace that comes with it. So they usually decrease the practice to once a month or only once a quarter. They tend to place emphasis on searching one's heart for unconfessed sin right before "taking communion" rather than on the grace that they are receiving by it. (Even the verb choices are significant. Growing up in my Baptist church, we "took communion;" in liturgical churches, you simply "receive," often without a direct object.)

In a liturgical service, confession has its place before the Eucharist, but then we switch gears to a section of liturgy called the Great Thanksgiving. In it, we focus on what Christ did on the cross to cancel our sins and we ask God to "sanctify these gifts, to be for your people the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord, the spiritual food of new and unending life in Christ."

We receive the bread and the wine with the words, "the body of Christ, the bread of heaven; the blood of Christ, the cup of salvation," reminding us again that Christ not only died once for us, but He continues to feed us with spiritual food. The emphasis is on what Christ did and continues to do for us.

See the difference it makes to believe that communion is more than a remembrance; it really is spiritual food? Food strengthens and sustains; it builds up the body. One is so thankful for food. That is why we call it Eucharist, which means "thanksgiving." When you believe that, you want Eucharist every Sunday! You know you need more than an intellectual feeding through the sermon; you need spiritual sustenance as well.

Not to say that you can't receive spiritual sustenance through the worship, the sermon, the prayers and the fellowship at a non-sacramental church; God feeds us all through them as well. But communion is like an extra helping (or two) of grace and spiritual strengthening!

So that's the sacramental line that once you've crossed, you can't go back. Because that sacramental understanding begins to pervade all elements of your worship--and life, not just communion...

More on that next time!

All the Saints in Heaven

Yesterday was All Saints' Day.

All Saints' always reminds me of a banner that our sending church displayed every year on the Sunday we celebrated that day in the church year. It was a joint effort of a gifted painter and an experienced banner maker, and it depicted Christ on the cross, painted in oil on canvas. Underneath his outspread arms, were painted many faces, half hidden in shadow, that disappeared into the folds of fabric that formed the rest of the unpainted parts of the banner.

Those faces peeking out from beneath Christ's arms and from the folds of fabric represent all those who have gone before us, that "great cloud of witnesses." We join them in the heavenlies during the Eucharistic liturgy when the priest invites, "And now, joining our voices with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, who forever sing this song" and we sing, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of heaven and earth; Hosanna in the highest."

That moment often reminds me of my friend Beth, who lost her 17-year-old son in a car accident. She told me once that she feels so close to him during those moments in the service. "It's as if the veil between heaven and earth is so thin during the Eucharist."

I often think of those who lived before modern medicine, who experienced death far more often than we do. As painful as it would have been, there was a grace for them in knowing death to be part of life, in expecting it, instead of being so far removed from it as we often are. Heaven would be a much more real place to those who imagined it peopled with relatives and friends, a place of joyful reunion as well as worship. As Beth said to me, "Heaven seems so much nearer to me now that I have someone so close to me there."

And that reminds me of one of my favorite books, Stepping Heavenward by E. Prentiss. In it, the young diarist remarks, "It seems now that I have a child in heaven and am bound to the invisible world by such a tie that I can never again be entirely absorbed by this."

One can even imagine why the practice of praying to saints was so popular in past centuries, with Heaven so real and so close. C.S. Lewis remarked:

There is clearly a theological defense for [devotions to saints]; if you can ask for the prayers for the living, why should you not ask for the prayers for the dead? There is clearly also a great danger... The consoling thing is that while Christendom is divided about the rationality, and even the lawfulness, of praying to the saints, we are all agreed about praying with them. (from Letters to Malcolm)

Praying with them..."joining our voices with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven"...perhaps even for us moderns and post-moderns, the veil between Heaven and earth is thinner than we imagine.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith... (from Hebrews 12)

Who Needs Ritual and Ceremony?

Last week, I wrote a post which discussed why people are interested in an Anglican church like the one we are helping to start. (Remember? AMIA, "three streams, one river," Sacrament, sacramental....)

I ended with the question: But who needs all these extra-biblical rituals?

I said the answer may be surprising; and it is--all of us!

Think of a wedding ceremony. It is full of meaningful symbols--the bride's white gown, her veil, the flowers, the rings, the unity candle, the choice of music, the vows, the pronouncement. They hit us somewhere below the brain--closer to the heart--with their underlying significance, often moving us to tears. These symbols reference a wondrous past and a hopeful future, captured in a present moment. And as Christians, we can't help but be aware of something mystical happening in a ceremony that turns two into one.

We celebrate birthdays, graduations, and holidays with traditional rituals and ceremonies. Ancient cultures celebrated and worshipped in the same way, with ritualistic ceremonies, sacrifices and partying. Ritual and ceremony is common to humanity across cultures and across time...so why is it so frequently ignored in the American church?

From To Dance With God (by Gertrud M. Nelson):

"Remember, we are a marvelously human lot, and our feeling and passion was never meant to be checked at the church doors. If sports can bring thousands to shouting and waving flags and banners, what is it about our church-related rituals that make so many reticent and self-conscious? Liturgy is exactly concerned with what is most human about us. Theology and history do not tell us everything we need to know about religion. Beyond the rational, ritual and symbol allow us to risk powerful feeling expressions within the safety of a discipline or form.... Yes, we risk putting ourselves out. But to hold back or deny out of fear is to deny people a form to contain their human expression; it is to rob people of a religious life."

"Beyond the rational" sums up that extra something--the mysterious, the supernatural--that needs to be present in the worship of a supernatural God. Through ritual and ceremony, we express the inexpressible, acknowledge the unexplainable.

I was struck a few weeks ago by the meditations of this blogger--quoted by this one--after hearing Ted Tripp speak at a conference (so I don't really know if these are her ideas or Ted's):

Our children are worshipers, he said, they were born to worship. ...Our craving for pleasure can be satisfied in a hunger for the Lord...Help your children to feast and delight in the Lord. He said a shrunken God will not be one before whom they will tremble and obey with reverence. What he said that hits me the most was that *our* joy, our life, our treasure must be in Christ. We must be driven by joy. I must have the beauty of God, the glory of God, before my eyes and heart. We must be dazzled by God to dazzle our children.

"...a shrunken God will not be one before whom they will tremble and obey with reverence." This phrase has stuck with me. How often--in our thinking, in our writing, in our worship--do we shrink God down to the understandable, the explainable, the convenient, the neat theological box.

By contrast, sacramental, liturgical worship is exceedingly comfortable with mystery. It is filled with layer upon layer of meaning and symbol, all designed to highlight the holiness, the dazzling spendor, the beautiful, glorious presence of God--and our transformed identities because of Him.

Such a service is not readily understandable to all. It is certainly not convenient. It takes longer than most worshipers are used to, and it requires more effort--standing, sitting, kneeling, leaving their seats for communion, following along to respond at appropriate times. "Liturgy" means "the work of the people" and it demands participation!

Yet it is pure joy to participate in the celebration of our life in Christ. What better way than by participation do we teach our children "to feast and delight in the Lord."

Next time: C.S. Lewis on ritual and solemn celebration.

Church Plant Update Plus

There's not a buyer in sight for our house, but Sunday mornings at Light of Christ have been so encouraging! We've had lots of visitors recently who appear to be interested in joining us regularly. I'll hold off on telling you much about them yet, but it might be enlightening to share what brought them in the first place.

How do folks find a tiny, unadvertised Anglican church in a little-known town in Wisconsin? (And why do they want to??) The common thread seems to be the Anglican Mission in America (AMIA). Of the four new "family units" (one is a single) who've visited us in the past two weeks, all had visited or been members of AMIA churches before. And they were all looking for what AMIA offers.

What is that, exactly? Well, AMIA churches tend to represent the "three streams, one river" approach to doing church. The three streams are the liturgical/sacramental tradition, the evangelical, Bible-based teaching and discipleship, and the freedom of the Spirit in musical worship.

The three streams merge into a river of balanced worship. The liturgy isn't lifeless and dull; the Spirit enters into it and it's ministered in a way that is full of the presence of God. The worship is gloriously free, but there's no room for excesses, because the liturgy keeps it in bounds. Rather than a topical or individual pastor's approach to Bible teaching and preaching, the liturgy provides a cycle of Scripture readings which ensure that the most important passages and theological concepts are covered on a seasonal basis.

Though right now many lifetime Episcopalians (who are considering jumping ship due to the heresy in their leadership) are looking seriously at AMIA and its "sisters" (other networks formed by Anglican churches who've disassociated with the American version of the Episcopal Church), most of the Anglican folks we know are formerly from mainline evangelical denominations and independent churches. They've been drawn by the sacraments, which they feel is something missing in typical evangelical worship.

One of our visitors emailed me in advance of her visit and shared: "I feel like the Episcopal churches here are dead but also that the non-denominational churches are missing the importance of the sacraments." She was one of four people in the same week who said to me, in so many words, "I/We've crossed over a 'sacramental line' and now, we just can't go back."

You may wonder what I mean by "the sacraments." It's helpful to think of the word as both a noun and an adjective. There are official Sacraments, and there is a sacramental worldview.

All Christian churches recognize two official sacraments: Baptism and Eucharist (communion). The Catholic and Orthodox churches, and some Anglicans, recognize others, such as Matrimony, Confirmation, Ordination and Anointing of the Sick. Wikipedia says: "The most conventional functional definition of a sacrament is that it is an outward sign, instituted by Christ, that conveys an inward, spiritual grace through Christ."

But we more often use the word as an adjective: "sacramental." I referred above to the "sacramental tradition" and by that I mean a form of worship that has been handed down from the earliest days of the church, in which every section of the liturgy, every gesture of the priest, the rising, the kneeling, and the spoken words of the congregation are full of meaning and symbol.

For example, crossing oneself is an affirmation of the trinity. It is performed each time a liturgical prayer is ended with a reference to the trinity, and by this association, this simple gesture itself can become a prayer, invoking the protection or the blessing of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Likewise kneeling during confession is a way that the body prays too, not just the mind.

A sacramental service is full of ceremony and ritual. A service may begin with a processional of priests, deacons, communion ministers, and Scripture readers, led by a crucifer with cross lifted high. The clergy wears special vestments; there are special candles and alter linens. The bread, the wine and the altar are prepared by the Altar Guild in a certain way.

But who needs all these extra-biblical rituals?

The answer may surprise you.

To be continued...not neccessarily right away....

Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

Part Five

Washing Dishes...and Worship

A few days ago, I shared one of my favorite sections from The Pace of a Hen (Josephine Moffett Benton, 1961). There Ms. Benton described an accepting attitude toward our responsibilities that lightens their burden. These two little anecdotes are from that section, and they have always been meaningful to me:

Casual remarks are often so much more character-forming than all our carefully thought-out speeches. How deeply we need to be good and whole and honest. I can still see the country kitchen, the brown patterned ironstone ware, and the old aunt who said to the do-less little girl beside her, “I like to wash dishes.” No sermon was preached, but those five words summed up a not-to-be-despised way of life.

I used to ask the busy mother of six young children, “Don’t you get awfully tired and find you need to rest in the afternoon?” Because her work was the expression of her deep love, and because she had an inner rest so many of us know nothing of—“In Him I live and move and have my being”—she could answer, “Oh, I keep going, and I get my second wind.”

I think these pictures are helpful because we know we're not supposed to complain, but we honestly don't know sometimes what to think or say if it's not complaining! To find one task that we can honestly say of it, "I like to do that," can begin to change our whole mindset. Though I used to enjoy it more when there wasn't so much of it, I actually enjoy doing laundry--I like turning smelly hampers full of damp clothes into clean, neatly folded piles. (We won't discuss putting the laundry away.) I wonder if one reason I like laundry is that, when I was in high school, my dad once confided in me that he finds laundry a satisfying job! Now, what attitudes about work am I passing on to my kids?

I can relate to the busy mother of six, too, who says she just keeps going, and she gets her second wind--me too. It's nice to think that that second wind can come from a place of "deep love", of "inner rest" that has nothing to do with how much sleep I've had or haven't had!

(I'll go out on a limb here too, and say that I think Mental-Multivitamin is preaching the same message when she says of homeschooling--and of life: "It's. Just. Not. That. Hard." Benton's version is: "…whether [work] is hard or easy depends upon a woman’s feeling about the multitudinous, monotonous tasks that confront her each day...Work does not wear us out, but an emotional jag of feeling abused and overburdened very quickly produces a “cumbered Martha.” They're both saying that you can choose your attitude. That's also the point of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning...but that's another post.)

Ms. Benton goes even further, then, to say that our work can be worship:

When all work is done to the glory of God, Martha learns from Mary the blessed sacrament of the present moment.

If one feels this sacramental quality in daily living every piece of work can become a consecrated act. It is not too difficult to pray on one’s knees as a floor is scrubbed, “Wash me, O Lord, as I wash this floor, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.” Awakening from sleep can be woven into a beginning prayer for the day: “As I stretch my body and limber my joints for the day’s tasks, thou O Lord, make my spirit supple and ready to accept whatever the day may bring.” Again, a prayer of thanksgiving for the first refreshing cold water of the morning: “As this water cleanses the sleep from my eyes, cleanse thou the sins of selfishness and pride and fear from myt being. Pour upon me the water of life.” And then in the act of dressing: “Clothe me in the garments of righteousness.” Prayers so brief can run through all the day’s activities. They can be simple, symbolic, spontaneous, based upon the needs and acts of the day.

…Certainly, Mother Currier made the preparation of food a sacrament. “My children came home bringing other relatives and I did everything alone and became neither fussed nor tired. My secret feeling about preparing a Thanksgiving feast is that it should all be done in a spirit of worship. It isn’t stuffing a turkey and peeling onions, and washing celery; it is preparing food to place before people to remind them of all their unearned blessings on this day. Then there’s a high joy in having the food my strength and care have produced become a source of strength to those I love. In that way—a mystical thing perhaps—I become part of them.”

Another writer who has delved this idea of work as worship is Kathleen Norris, in her book The Quotidian Mysteries (1998), which Papa Rooster gave to me soon after it came out. I read The Pace of a Hen a year or two later, and found that Norris and Moffatt were saying many of the same things to women--though separated by 37 years and huge cultural shifts during that time.
For more from Norris, see here and here. (Highly recommended; inspiring reading.)