Poem for Dream Group 2015

Poem

A Jill: I stepped through the Holy Portal
B Norm: Kanuga- Increasing trust beneath Cherokee Pines
C Margaret W Butler: Come shadow, break bread with me
D Candy Smith: It ends the way it begins (she suggested two other variations of that line as well) one of them was Thus the spiral Continues
E Mary Priore: Given in prayer, received in faith
F tom: Spirit loving and blessing time
G Pat: Jung: interrelatedness of all in the universe; quantum field

H Debbie: the mirror of our souls

I Doris- my shadow. injured. wholeness. befriended. sacred space?

J Roberta - "the door of my heart is open.”  Or "echoes reverberate life's ancient call."

This would be the poem with no attempt at rhyme and just a collection of the thoughts as they came in Also this isllustration is Candy's Flower Fairy illustration and her explanation of it 

Hi Tom,

Here is the Flower Fairy if you want to use her for the back of the brochure. I will send the little boy fairy that I call the Keeper of the Lamp Fairy next. I tried to think of a symbol that in some way defined all of our classmates and Roberta. You'll see that this little flower fairy represents Mary's paintings of flowers; Margaret's canes, Pat's red shoes, Jill's Tarot cards; and the Tarot card is from the Jung deck - the Ace of Wands, which is the caduceus. The Ace of Wands represent "a brand new course of action," and the caduceus has the intertwined snake figures - "snake" for me.

If the computer image doesn't work for you, I'll be glad to mail the drawings snail mail.

Hugs,

Candy

Flower Fairy 

Distilled moments 2015

I stepped through the Holy Portal
Kanuga- Increasing trust beneath Cherokee Pines
Come shadow, break bread with me
It ends the way it begins
Given in prayer, received in faith
Spirit loving and blessing time
Jung: interrelatedness of all in the universe; quantum field

the mirror of our souls

my shadow. injured. wholeness. befriended. sacred space?

the door of my heart is open.

This is the other of Candy's illustration with her and the draft of the poem done as a French Pontoum and open to any and all editing  

Hi again!

Here is the Keeper of the Lamp. He has red shorts for you; glasses for Norm (which Norm will understand since he wrote to me and mentioned driving off in his car with his glasses on top! Needless to say he had to order new glasses.) The gym shoes are for Doris (I couldn't think of anything else and she always wore her gym shoes.) The blue rock he is sitting on is for Debbie; and the oil lamp is for Roberta.

Hope these little guys will work. I should have drawn this little boy facing the other way. I'm sure you can shift him on your computer. If not, I can flip him and re-send - so they are facing each other if that's how you want them.

Feel free to add to or manipulate the designs. I did not do a background since I wasn't sure how you would use them.

I have finished my paper and fairy book, so if I can do anything else just let me know.

Merry Christmas to you and Pat!

Love,

Candy

Keeper of the Lamp Fairy

Distilled Moments in Pantoum 2015                        

I stepped through the portal free,
Cherokee pines increasing trust.
"O, shadow; break bread with me
spiral beginnings as endings must,

under Kanuga pines, increase trust.”
Giving in Prayer, receiving faith
spirally beginning as endings must
to be loved by blessed Holy wraith.

We, given by prayer, faith receiving

of lived interrelated quantum fields,

blessing time of spirit to us cleaving.

as this mirror of our souls shields

through Jung’s universes of Quantum Field.

In sacred space befriended shadows all in all

where a holy mirroring of our souls does heal

as hearts echoes reverberate life's ancient call

for injured, broken, to wholeness now replace.

Come shadow, break bread with these mortals

opening the doors of our heart with joy to face

once again stepping through these holy portals.

My suggestion is to use the fairies to illustrate the poems ands use Norm's picute of the Gate  as the end of the bulletin and Jill painting  of Tree of Life on the front 

Plighting Troth

A Reflection for I Christmas All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Southern Shores, NC December 28, 2014 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Isaiah 61:10-62:3 Galatians 3:23-25;4:4-7 John 1:1-18 Psalm 147:13-21

Plighting Troth

In John's Gospel for today the author calls Jesus, the Word of God; God gave word. The preface begins “In the beginning was the word.” The phrase “In the beginning” has a double meaning – it means “at the beginning of time”, and it can mean “first, most importantly of all.” The author of John means both at the same time. “First of all, God gave God's Word.”

How do we give word?

I think of the Christmas shopping experience where I pulled out my hunk of plastic and handed it over to the store clerk. That clerk took a risk and accepted my word when I signed the piece of paper that the money would be there. That hunk a hunka of burning plastic is useless - it is just a piece of petrochemical organic polymer of dense molecular mass, but it has meaning because my word is imbedded into its very being. I can cut this card up and throw it away but my word, once given, needs to be upheld. Without the respect for word in daily life, our economy would fall apart.

Indeed our economy did fall apart because people were playing fast and loose with their word. Some called it being clever, with all sorts of Word statements hidden under bushels of verbiage which robbed the Word of meaning. They said, “Trust me” as they bundled worthless paper together as a tissue of lies and sold it as worthwhile Word. The manipulators of great wealth became strangers to truth and innocent people were hurt.

There is a collapse of the political system because of a suspicion that the leaders and truth have become strangers. In the political ads in the last election, all sorts of charges were made in 30 to 60 second blips of sound and image about opponents, and the candidate's voice would be recorded saying that they sponsored that ad. They pledged that it was true. When caught in the lie, they would backtrack and call it a misstatement. But even if you win the election with that method, you have sown the seeds of your own ineffectiveness to rule, for - can your word be trusted?

Or do we just see words as syllables thrown up in the air? There is a scene in Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3, where Claudius, Hamlet's uncle and stepfather, speaks words of repentance for the murder he has done, saying:

Hamlet refusing to kill Claudius because he thinks that Claudius is in a "state of Grace" while Praying

O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven; …

Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it when one can not repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay!
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!
All may be well.

He kneels down in prayer but when he gets up he admits: “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below; words without thoughts can never to heaven go.” If the opposite of heaven is hell, then the inability to treasure the word, to fill the words we say with the fullness of our being, makes a hell for all of us.

There have been times when I have had to go back on my word, as was the case when I got a divorce. We had given our word to each other and to God, but now we said that we would not keep it. We had said, “I plight thee my troth” to each other. “I plight thee my troth” has been replaced with “This is my solemn vow. The word “Plight” is a Middle English word which comes from the old English “to put at risk”. It means I am taking a risk - I am putting myself out there. The word “troth” comes from an old English word which has evolved into truth. Troth meant the word being spoken resonated with the depths of my very being. I can find all sorts of excuses and rationales, and I can be forgiven, but I had to face, and mourn, the fact we had taken risks with each other and the truth, and we had been strangers.

John's Gospel preface says that God plighted God's troth to us, entering into a relationship of love with us. God pledges God's very self to us and asks for our word to be echoed back from the depth of our being. The Gospels were not written as historical biographies of the man Jesus who lived in a small mid-eastern nation 21 centuries ago; they were written as witness to an acted-out drama which declares God's love to us and invites our love in return.

God loved us so much that God would empty out God's self for us to live as a servant and to put up with indifference and abuse and even death, but God would keep his Word no matter what. Every Sunday we come together and we hear God's word. We do not mean that the surface of these words came from the lips of God, but that the words contain God's promise, God's deeper word, God's love for us and commitment to us. When we come, we are invited to give our word back to God.

Jim MacDonald

Jim and Deb make an entrance

A Reflection on the Occasion of a Memorial Service for

 James Peter MacDonald

All Saints, Episcopal Church, Southern Shores, NC

December 27, 2015

Tom Wilson, Friend

I have been an ordained cleric in the church for over 30 years after I was trained in seminary to study theology and proclaim it by sermons and teachings -using my mind and my mouth. In Seminary they warned me to keep a professional distance. They said I could be friendly with my parishioners but I should make my real friends outside the parish because the people in your parish are your job. If you make friends with your parishioners you open yourself up to a world of pain. I followed that advice for a number of years because there was always a danger with being in an inappropriate relationship where I could destroy trust in God. But as the years went by I stopped, avoiding frienships; yet my professors had a point for there is indeed a price to pay because it hurts to lose a friend like Jim. While I know all about the fact that the deep energy in each of our lives,  this energy has been connected at the deepest level to the great river of energy which burst forst out of the womb of the Big Bang making this universe 14 Billion Years ago. This energy does not die, our bodies may die but the true substance of our very selves continues to be swept into that current of love to be joined into the divine sea, which I call God. Yes, I know all that, but I will miss Jim.

Today we will have a eucharist, a Holy Communion in which  we will bless and give out bread and wine as symbols of the Body and Blood of Christ. We invite you to come forward and receive these symbols and take them into yourself so that you may become what you eat- the Body of God living and working in this world. If you feel uncomfortable coming forward- that will be fine- “all may some should, none must.” If you are allergic to wine – it is fine if you do not drink it for it is meant to give you hope, not to give you grief. In my understanding, Jim's energy is still here with us and in my theology Jim and all who continue to be in God are on the other side of the table, unseen except with the eyes of faith. Heaven is not what happens after you kick off but about what current we choose to swim in this life and the next. I know all that stuff, but I will miss Jim.

I know I am not the only who will miss him. In our busy lives we miss connecting with each other so casually- for instance I missed the last Bocce Ball Tournament in the neighborhood. Jim did not for he took play seriously; himself he took less seriously but his friends and neighbors he took very seriously. Jim and his family- he was a parent and grandparent, father mentor to all his 7 children and 7 grandchildren. All of them were different but loved unashamedly equally. To some he was not only their dad but also their best friend. When a friend was going through a divorce  he asked Jim how he could continue to be a good father. His advice was simple: always show up, talk them every day if possible, and love them unconditionally. His greatest joy was those crazy summers that allowed he and Deb to spend one on one time with each family and create memories with them.

It would be kind to say that he had a checkered history on marriage but I did love the way he looked at Deb and as they celebrated the holy space between them. Maybe it is only when you mess up and come to grips with your complicity in the mess that you are able to realize how precious life is. Family was precious, I remember one men's group gathering last month where the subject of police brutality which had been in the news at the time came up and this old left winger started to wind up on the subject of “occupying forces”. Jim stopped my rant cold as he told me of the pride he had in knowing, and being related to, public safety officers. There may be some bad apples but he had faith and believed in friends and family.

Jesus asks us to believe and have faith and Jim MacDonald believed and had faith. There are two kinds of faith in this world. The first kind is the formal agreement to a set of propositions about God – or whatever it is in which you have faith; this is where you believe things in your thinking, accept them and speak them with your mouth. This is the institutional view of religious belief and faith which sets up creeds and boundaries between belief systems.  Some people keep their distance from their belief and faith systems and do not let them interfere with how they run their life. We see this in the daily news as people who profess active belief in religious institutions founded by people who preached of a God of love and compassion don't let that love and compassion get in the way of their own agendas of getting rich, or getting power or getting even.

There is another definition of belief and faith and it is about not what we do with our thinking and our talking but about our living on a daily basis, by how we use our hands and where our feet go, or how we touch and how we walk. This was Jim's way. His study of formal theology ended early in his life with the recital of religious formulae. He was good in his work with his jobs using his brain and mouth. Speaking of his mouth; that boy could talk, he was charming; he could talk the warts off a toad. I remember when I was sitting in the hospital room with Deb, I said, “You know this is the longest I have been in Jim's presence when he didn't laugh.” To which she replied, Or talk.”

He had many skills and talents; even in retirement he was sought by many organizations for leadership. Last year he finished a productive three year term on the Vestry, the elected leadership of this church, and was drafted to head up the Annual giving campaign, which was a great success, because he took it seriously, He understood that the goal was not in how much money was raised but about how much commitment it encouraged. Money was nice but it was commitment that was a cornerstone of his life and recovery; commitment enabled by amazing grace. He was good in his work with his brain and his mouth but, long before he moved here, long before I knew him, he found in the crossroads and back alleys of his life, that all sorts of what is referred to as “stinking thinking” was messing up his life. As a result Jim committed himself to a life on honestly looking at the world in which he lived and live anew in the one grace filled prayer that seemed to help him. The prayers goes- and those of you who might be fellow friends of Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith can join in-  “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. Just for today- one day at a time.”

Jim's faith was about using his hands and his feet. He went wherever he was needed as he walked with those who wanted to walk a new life. You could count on Jim to be there and sit with you and listen and maybe tell you the truth you may not want to hear. It did not matter if you were a Priest or a homeless person, his hand would grasp you in fellowship as he would invite you to walk with a power greater than ourselves, which he would not define in words but which he lived with his life. He knew how to love, he was good at it and his hands were how he showed it. I can still feel his arms around me exchanging the peace of God. St. Teresa of Avila, a 16^th century Spanish nun and mystic, wrote a poem which went:

Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
      no hands but yours,
      no feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which to look out
      Christ’s compassion to the world
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about
      doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.

Today I invite you to continue to be the hands and feet of God as Jim was in the too, too short time we knew him in this world.

Swaddling Clothes and lying in a manger

A Reflection for Christmas Day                                 All Saints’ Episcopal, Southern Shores, NC December 25, 2015                                                            Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Swaddling clothes and lying in a manger

I have a dog  I got from shelter and his name is Yoda and, apparently, or so we think, he may have had an early trauma before we got him involving thunder and lightning, for whenever it looks like it could thunder, he starts hyperventilating.  We try drugs - for him, not for us – as well as this contraption called a “Thunder Vest”, which is an elaborate system of pieces of cloth sewn together that you wrap around his chest so that, the theory being, he will feel safer. It is a variation of that “bands of cloth” that the reading from Luke speaks about, or if you use the King James Version, “swaddling clothes”. 

The theory behind swaddling babies was that this practice would make them feel safe. It used to be a universal practice across early cultures as a way to help shape the baby to grow up straight, and if they were indoor babies, it was to keep them from messing up the rest of the world. Our modern medical science is divided about the practice, but during Jesus’ time, almost all babies were bound with bands of cloth. And Luke wants to use that information twice - a sure sign that he thinks it is important. He also repeats the information about the baby being in a manger. So what is Luke trying to point out?

I think of several  things: 1) the swaddling of babies is almost universal. This baby Jesus is a full human being just like every other human baby. You would be hard-pressed to notice any difference between this person Jesus and any other person of his culture. The exceptions would have been the shepherds or other families who lived outside and who were so poorly paid they would not have had enough cloth to waste on covering up babies. So saying that you will find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes was a useless bit of information two thousand years ago in Judea; almost all babies in towns were wrapped in bands of cloth. A family temporarily down on its luck might still have some habits that poverty has not forced them out of and might use swaddling clothes until they couldn’t afford it any longer. 2) This is not a “wonder child” who pops out the womb and wrestles snakes or tames lions like other myths; this Jesus has limits. It becomes an enacted symbol of what will happen in the rest of his life; the end will be like the beginning, or as Paul says in his letter to the Philippians “who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.” The unlimited God empties Godself and knows what it is like to live in a very messy world which the God chooses not to control.

The empting goes further with this baby being laid in a manger. Now this is a piece of helpful information for the shepherds so they might find the baby – look for the animals, the stables, don’t waste your time looking in the houses of the prosperous, don’t waste time looking in mansions and palaces, look in the place where the utterly poor hang out, for it is when we enter our own emptiness that we have a better chance of finding God. How strange that we associate the birth of Christ with having too much to eat and spending money like we were rich. Maybe on Christmas Eve we should go to homeless shelters and spend time with people who are cut off from their families and bring them comfort that had been denied to the Holy Family two millennia ago. The shepherds did that, the first church assembly was this group of smelly outsiders who went out of their way to go to Bethlehem and worship God as their better angels had invited them to do.

It was a manger, a feed trough, in which the poor parents placed the baby Jesus. Maybe the symbol of a place for feeding, the feed trough, can remind us that it is the God dwelling with us that feeds our souls. So many times we go to where people are fed, and Jesus reminds us that whenever we eat the bread of sustenance to get through each day, and drink the wine of celebration, the spirit of new beginnings,  it is in those moments that we can take God into our very selves.

Today we have come in the daylight as the shepherds came after the angels had called them during the night. Today we have come as a new day has come that leaves the past behind. Today we have come to feed on the God that dwells with us. May you today have a Merry Christmas.

Mr. Jones Response

A Reflection for Christmas Eve                                              All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC  December 24, 2014                                                                Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Isaiah 9:2-7        Titus 2:11-14         Luke 2:1-14

Mr. Jones' Response

Steve Blackstock, our organist, sends me all sorts of stuff, and last week he sent me a Saturday Night Live skit  http://www.hulu.com/watch/726779    about a college kid coming home for the holidays and attending Christmas Services.  As a newly-arrived atheist, Devin say, “You can always tell a sophomore, but you can't tell him much.” I was a bit of a rebel and a wannabe atheist coming home from Carolina for Christmas break, and I went to the Christmas Eve service at the downtown church. I saw all those people who seemed so focused on the ceremony and saying Peace on Earth when there was this war going on. At that time I wanted to sing a song from one of my favorite albums, Highway 61 Revisited, by Bob Dylan. The song was Ballad of a Thin Man. This is the part that I wanted to sing out:

And you know something is happening
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones ?

Now you see this one-eyed midget
Shouting the word "NOW"
And you say, "For what reason ?"
And he says, "How ?"
And you say, "What does this mean ?"
And he screams back, "You're a cow
Give me some milk
Or else go home".

Because something is happening
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones ?

I did not sing that song out loud that night, but it went coursing through my brain. 49 years later that song came back to me, and I realized that this was what was going on in Luke's Gospel message for tonight. Luke starts off with Caesar Augustus, the one who destroyed the Roman Republic and became its military dictator, the “First Citizen”, and began the Roman Empire. Augustus proclaimed the “Pax Romana”, Roman Peace, which was done by military conquest followed by state-sponsored terror over its citizens. That is what Caesar meant when he proclaimed “Peace on Earth” from his sumptuous palace in Rome with battalions of bodyguards protecting him and brigades of servants catering to his every desire.  His wife was waiting for him to die, and some say she poisoned him in 14 AD, so that her son from a previous marriage, the sociopath Tiberius, could really show the world how to bring “Peace through Terror”.  “Something is happening and you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Caesar?”

Luke remembers Caesar Augustus, sure of his power, calling for an Empire-wide census; as misers like to count their coins, so tyrants like to count their subjects. At the same time in a nowhere part of the Empire, there is a little nobody called Mary. She, unlike Caesar, is outwardly vulnerable. She has no servants to care for her during her pregnancy, she only has Joseph, a man who married this young pregnant and unwed teenage girl. Joseph is called a “tecton”,  which we like to translate as “carpenter” but could also mean itinerant laborer, a very vulnerable person.  Joseph probably lived in Nazareth, probably working in Sepphoris, a city built by the Roman Client King Herod the Great and later destroyed in the same year as his death and Jesus' birth.  Joseph probably was a poor man and there were no servants. According to the story this poor family has to make a trip to Bethlehem, 80 miles, a week-long journey for a pregnant woman walking barefoot. Herod the Great  was a good client and friend of Augustus ever since Augustus defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra for control of Rome, and Herod changed sides and sucked up to Augustus. Herod was a ruler who had killed one of his wives and three of his sons because he was so paranoid - and he had good reason to be paranoid.  His life was centered in his fear of being vulnerable. He was afraid of losing his title,  “King of the Jews”. And now, in Herod's own Kingdom, there was a defenseless family whose son would be heir to the title of King of the Jews.  Something is happening but you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Herod?”

Luke calls the town of Bethlehem “the city of David” because David was born there, but Jerusalem is also called the “City of David” because he made it his capital; so Jesus will be born in one of the cities of David and will die in the other. There were David's descendents all over Bethlehem who were having family celebrations because of the census which called people to go back to their families’ hometown. They probably had connections and found out about the decree before it was announced and booked all the rooms in the inns.  There was no room for this poor family with no connections. They have no time to care about these poor relations; but something is happening and you don't know what it is, do you Mr. David?”

There were shepherds outside of the town, expecting a quiet night watching their sheep  and the angels appeared to them and they knew something was happening.  They wanted to know what it is and they made the journey to go to the center of their soul and find out what it is. “Something is happening and you want to know what it is, don't you Mr. Shepherd?”

Tonight we remember the night something happened. Tonight is like that night; every night is like that night, when something is happening and if we become still and listen to the angels speak to our hearts, then we will know what it is. Bless you for coming here to night and being open to what God is doing.

Mr. Jones' Response (poem)

Now, listening for it.

Now, beyond the fear we know.

Something happens, now.