Five Days that Changed a Life

It is Easter Sunday.  The day is almost over and tomorrow classes begin once again.  Tomorrow I go back  to my normal routine of reading, writing and classes. Yet, I will never forget the past five days.  Prior to arriving at CDSP, the word Triduum was not in my vocabulary. It was not something that I would ever have thought I would use in a sentence, let alone write a blog post about.  But once again I have been proven wrong.

Holy week, beginning with Palm Sunday and ending with Easter Sunday has always been a special time. The celebration of Jesus triumphant entry into Jerusalem, the parade around church properties singing "All Glory Laud and Honor" followed by Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday.  This year though it has special meaning.  It is probably the last year when I won't be required to work in a parish.  This is the last time that I will be allowed to worship as a member of the congregation rather than as a member of the altar party.  With that in mind, a fellow student, Twila and I decided to ask around the seminary community which parishes had the best service for each of the days.  We got varying answers but many people could agree on certain churches. With that information, we decided to plot out our plan of attack, beginning on Wednesday.

My grandmother, Catherine, passed away last year on April 15 and she had always spoken of the Tenebrae service she attended at her church.  I had never attended one so we decided to start there on Wednesday night at St. Mark's Church in Berkeley.  It was a moving service with lots of chanting and ending in darkness.  During the service I listened intently and could feel my grandmother looking down from heaven.  It was pretty moving for me.

Maundy Thursday we went back to St. Mark's again for their service.  During this service, the priests washed the feet of the parishioners just as Jesus had done for his disciples over 2000 years ago.  I have been to these services in the past and knew what to expect even still St. Mark's service was touching. I have never gone forward to have my feet washed and I am still trying to understand the practice.  After the foot washing the entire church was stripped bear and we all left in darkened silence.

Thursday night an altar of repose was set up in the chapel and seminarians took turns praying in the chapel.  I prayed from 6:30 - 7:30 am and spent much time in mediation and contemplation.  In my life, the time was a great respite from the hustle and bustle of life.  My hour of prayer was followed by morning prayer at 7:30.

For Good Friday, we were told to go to St Mary's in San Francisco.  During this service I was moved to tears.  It was a service like I have never attended.  After the gospel was read, the cross was carried in church and laid on the floor at the base of the altar.  In our bulletins, we were given a piece of paper to write something we wished to pray for.  We then took turns walking to the cross, kneeled down, prayed and placed our paper at the base of the cross.  While this practice was something I had seen before in other settings, I never seen it done during a Good Friday service.  After everyone had placed their prayers at the foot of the cross, the choir sang an anthem.  These are the words:

Rest well, you sacred limbs,

for which I no longer weep - - 

rest well,

and bring me also to my rest.

The grave that is allotted to you,

and contains no further suffering,

opens heaven for me and shuts off hell.

For me, I finally had prayer for something that I have been burdened with and carried for many years.  It was a time to leave them at the foot of the cross and then to hear the choir sing the words, Rest well, you sacred limbs, for which I no longer weep were more than I could take.  It was like a damn had broken and I was freed.  I will never forget that night or that place as a place where I was able to let go of the guilt I carried for far too long.

  

Saturday is the Easter Vigil.  Third and final service of the Triduum.  This service begins where the Good Friday service ends and by the end of the service marks the beginning of Easter.  It is when the light of Christ is brought back into the church after having been extinguished on Thursday night.  For the Vigil, we went to St. Gregory's.  St. Gregory's is a church like no other.  All I can say is that if you are ever in San Francisco, you need to worship at St Gregory's at least once.  The service began at 8:00 pm and was over at 11:15.  Twila and I had to quickly leave in order to catch the last bus back to Berkeley.  

Today for Easter, we decided to try Christ Church, a church of the Nippon Sei Ko Kai, the anglican church of Japan.  The service was in English but the majority of the congregation is of Japanese descent.  It was a wonderfully moving service with two baptisms.  From there we decided to have a Easter feast of Sushi and then take the bus back to Berkeley.

Something changed our minds though.  We felt called to witness another Easter service though.  It was during this second Easter service, that I know I met the Risen Christ.  I have spoken about Open Cathedral in the past but today was different.  In the heart of San Francisco on a small walkway between a federal building and another building, about 75 people mainly homeless gathered to celebrate Easter.  Here among the people that most of society would call "the least of these" I witnessed community like no other.  We sang praise songs, heard a sermon that felt like I had stepped into a revival, and then broke bread.  During the entire service, some people walked up to join us, other got scared by the looks of the people and turned the other way, and yet others merely walked by as if nothing was happening.  Yet, as we worshipped and prayed, the members of that congregation poured out their hearts for all the people who have less then them.  A group of homeless men and women praying for others.  There was not one ounce of pity among them.  In fact they were praising God that they were alive and doing well.  I wish that I could have just one tenth of the grace and kindness that they had.  If more of the population could model their behavior, the world would be a much better place.  I left that service knowing that Christ is alive in well in that small part of San Francisco.

This morning, during the baptisms, we renewed our baptismal covenant.  In those covenants, we are asked to proclaim the Good News of God in Christ, seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves and strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being.  Although I am tired from attending these services, I am also leaving Holy Week refreshed.  Refreshed because I have a newfound strength for my personal call.  A call that I feel is to help Christians everywhere live into the Baptismal Covenant that we make with God.  But I know that I can't do this alone and for that I answer my call with the same answer we give to our baptismal covenant, I will, with God's help.

May you all have a Blessed Eastertide!

Jesus Triumphant Entry

The Liturgy of the Palms

Today marks the beginning of holy week, a time when we hear the stories and walk with Jesus on the path to his crucifixion and resurrection.  The reading from Mark that began this morning’s service tells of Jesus preparation and entry into Jerusalem.  In some translations of the bible, this story is entitled Jesus triumphant entry.  This title has always puzzled me, what is so triumphant about it?

Two different takes on this story include Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar and our own entry into the santuary this morning.  In Jesus Christ Superstar, Jesus enters a town with crowds of people walking around him shouting Hosanna and waving palm fronds.  It is a joyous and raucous parade.   Similarly, we began this service commemorating the entry into Jerusalem by reading marks gospel story, blessing our palms and then parading around the church singing, All glory laud and honor.  In it, we sang the words, “thou art the king of Israel, thou David’s royal son, who in the Lord’s name comest, the king and blessed one.”  The whole sequence of events this morning is an indication of how the church celebrates Jesus entry. We read the words of Mark telling of Jesus entry and then as a congregation, we act upon those words.  We move out into the world in procession before returning to the church to continue the celebration.  During OUR celebration, we recognize that Jesus is entering Jerusalem as the Messiah, the King.  The long awaited savior has arrived and His time has come.  Yet, this celebration is short lived because immediately afterward this point, we read the entire passion story ending with Jesus death on a cross. But lets not get ahead of ourselves, I want to stay in Palm Sunday.  Because Holy Week has only just begun.

What must it have been like to be present when Jesus entered Jerusalem? For just a few minutes, let’s think about that. 

You are in Jerusalem, a city occupied by the Romans, THE imperial power.  It is Passover, a time when many people are making pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  A time when the people commemorate the exodus from slavery, it is a celebration of freedom and redemption. You are peasants standing on a dirt road outside the city walls.  In the distance you see people running into the street to meet a large group of people, probably another group of pilgrims. It seems this isn’t a normal group though.  You begin to hear people whispering comments, comments you strain to hear, but can’t.  Slowly you begin to recognize that leading the group is a man.  This man isn’t walking though, he is riding on a colt, possibly a young donkey so small that the man’s feet are dragging on the ground.  You are confused, why a colt, a symbol of peace?  As the group of people nears, the excitement continues to build.  You see other people running from the fields and placing palm fronds on the ground in front of him.  Still others are removing their cloaks and placing them on the ground in front of the group.  Your cloak is your identity, a part of who you are.  Is this man royalty?  Only kings get this type of greeting.  Finally the group is close enough that you see the man on the colt in the center.  He is not royalty, He is dirty and wearing only a tunic.  You can’t make out what he is saying or doing but you now can understand what the crowd is saying.  They are shouting, Hosanna, Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David. Hosanna in the highest heaven.  Again something is strange, the crowd is singing songs, typical of the pilgrims heading to the temple.   As the procession nears you, you have a decision to make?  Should I remove my cloak and place it on the road?  Why are the people shouting Hosanna? Do you recognize whom this person is that is riding into town on a colt?

Today’s liturgy of the palms is about just that.  Recognizing the person coming into town on a colt.  How do WE recognize the face of Jesus?  Jesus triumphant entry is as much about Jesus entering the city of Jerusalem as it is about the reaction of the people.  They were treating Jesus as royalty, a king.  The people on the road into Jerusalem gave of themselves in order to praise Jesus not knowing what would happen next.  They gave of themselves expecting nothing in return.  Just like the peasants on the road put down their cloaks and palms, we too are called to do the same.  We are called to give of ourselves.   This giving takes many different forms.  For some it is service to an underserved population, to others it can be performing random acts of kindness, and yet to others it can be paying a good deed forward.   It is in this selfless giving that we are closest to the people of Jerusalem that day.  For the people of Jerusalem, cloaks were precious property.  What are our cloaks, the things we wrap our identities it.  As we begin our holy week walk with Jesus, I leave you with question,

Would you take off your cloak and lay it on the road?  Throughout this Holy Week,  What does it mean to lay our identities at the foot of Christ?

Jay Walton, 4/2/2012, Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Pacific School of Religion

Fear and Phobia conquered

First off let me apologize for the lack of posts this semester.  It has to been for lack of trying.  I did something this semester that I thought would be challenging but never anticipated how crazy it would make me.  I am currently taking five classes and auditing a sixth.  What makes it crazy is that all six classes require me to do the work for each class.  This means that on average I am in class 16 hours per week and then doing an additional 40 hours of work outside of class, plus I am also working about 10 hours per week in my work study job on campus.  Needless to say, I am starting to feel burnt out.

I am taking six classes for a reason though.  It isn't just for fun.  Let me explain.

As a second year M.Div student, we are required to work in a parish for 10 - 12 hours per week.  During that field ed, I will be exposed to all aspects of life in a parish.  This includes preaching and I had never done that.  Typically, a student takes an intro to preaching (homiletics) during the fall term second year, but next year the homiletics professor is on sabbatical so there will not be a class offered.  I was concerned about not having a homiletics class so I looked around for something this spring.  I found a class on Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary.  This class is a 4000 level third year class but I asked the professor if I could audit the class.  She graciously accepted me with one condition, I would be required to do all the work.  After much thought, I said if I'm doing the work I might as well take it for credit and thus my sixth class was born.

But the story doesn't end there.  As many of you know, I love to get up on my soapbox and express my opinions on things, but in reality, I am deathly afraid of preaching.  I have never preached in front of a congregation before.  So I took this class to try to get over my fear of preaching.

I am glad to say that after this morning, I now have written and preached a sermon, not in front of a congregation, but in front of a class.  It is a start.

If you are interested, I will post the sermon shortly.

The Wait is over

When I was a kid, the last day of school was always an exciting time.  I looked forward to all the things I was going to do when I didn't have to go to school.  Then by the end of August, the summer became boring and I looked forward to the start of the new school year.  Well, those feeling don't just happen when you are a child.  I am feeling the same feelings now in seminary as well.  At the end of last semester, I was ready for classes to end.  The stress of final exams and papers had taken its toll, and I was crispy.  Now I have had about six weeks off and I am ready to begin again.  Luckily, I don't have to wait too long, as classes begin tomorrow.

This term my schedule is pretty busy.  I am taking 12 credit hours plus auditing an additional 4.  So my schedule looks like this:

Monday
9:40 - 12:30 Preaching the New Common Lectionary

Tuesday
9:40 - 11:00 am Intro to Worship
2:10 - 5:00 pm.  Intro to Pastoral Theology
6:30 - 9:30 pm Intro to New Testament

Wednesday
1:00 - 2:00 Fundamentals of Music

Thursday
9:40 - 12:30 History of Christianity II

Friday
9:40 - 11:00 Intro to Worship

This schedule is a pretty tough schedule.  For Tuesday's classes, I have already had to write two one page papers, and read about 150 pages.  Oh the joys of seminary, I wouldn't trade it for anything!

The 12 Steps, Addictions and the Church

I'm not sure where to begin with this one.  If you have heard me speak about seminary (or read my blog for that matter), you know that I go on and on about how CDSP and my seminary experience has stretched me and my current intersession class is no exception.

For my intersession class, I am staking The 12 steps, Addictions and the Church.  The class is a week long exploration of addiction, the AA program and many other issues surrounding substance abuse.  Today was only the second day and I can see how this class will impact my life and ministry for years to come.  The person teaching the class is a retired MD who spent the majority of his career working with addiction.  He is a wealth of knowledge on the subject and gives real life examples of many of the addiction subjects we are discussing.

Of course pretty much any class can give you that information, but the challenging part of this class is that we are required to attend at least three different meetings at night after the class is over.  There is the challenge.  I am not an alcoholic and I was intimidated walking into my first meeting last night.  I have heard people before say that the hardest part is walking into the meeting and I can now say it is true. BUT, I can also say that once you walk into the room, everyone in the room will make you feel welcome and encourage you to stay and feel comfortable.

Last night, two of us attended an Al-anon meeting near campus.  This meeting was specifically for people that have been effected by alcoholism, not necessarily that they were alcoholics.  We walked in and there were 18 people in the meeting.   After reciting the serenity prayer, reading a welcome and the 12 steps, each of us took turns reading from a book titled, From Survival to Recovery: Growing up in an Alcoholic Home.  After the reading, which was incredibly moving and thought provoking, each member had three minutes to share a piece of their own story.  I found it amazing how each person could relate a portion of the story we had just read to a specific time in their lives.  In that instant, as each person shared, you could see how by sharing their story each person began to heal.  Not major healing but small pieces of their life being put back together.  Then it was time to close, a member of the group came over to us and asked us if we had any questions and we left.

Tonight, we chose to attend an AA meeting.  This meeting was located in Downtown San Francisco.  We arrived and their were probably 40 people in attendance.  It started with the usual welcome, serenity prayer, 12 steps, and then a speaker started speaking.  This was a young man, let's call him John, was in his twenties and told his story.  He grew up in a middle class suburban family, not really concerned about his needs and did well in school.  By looking at him you would never know that he is an addict.  (He self labelled as an addict so please don't think I'm judging him.)  He started drinking at the age of fifteen and by the time he was eighteen he was fully addicted to alcohol.  After his parents divorce at the age of 16, he got involved with pills and became addicted to them as well.  Even while his addictions were going on, he still had a 3.8 GPA in high school and was elected the vice president of his class.  People didn't see his addictions.  He didn't drink daily, but when he did he couldn't stop himself.  He graduated from high school and went to college.  In college, his addictions only got worse and he started stealing to get money for the drugs and alcohol.  Finally, his family held an intervention.  He said he was happy to not hide his addiction anymore and he went into outpatient rehab for 30 days.  It didn't work and he relapsed.  He found a job, and started stealing money from his employer.  When they caught him, they fired him, paid him severance pay, and he went into rehab again.  Again rehab didn't work.  Finally he was arrested, and now is in a in-patient rehab center here in San Francisco and has been clean and sober for six months.

I tell you John's story because he could be any of our friends, neighbors, co-workers or even sons. He was a typical twenty-something young man by all appearances, yet he is definitely not typical.  By listening to him speak tonight, I see how easy it is for people to become addicted to things and how the addiction takes over the persons life.  John was not a bad person.  He was just making bad decisions.

So why is the study of addictions important to a seminarian you may ask?

In short, by attending these meetings, I have another tool in my tool belt to help people n their own recovery.  I also have the ability to talk about AA from the first person, I can say that I have attended a meeting and that I will be comfortable walking with someone as they accept their own sobriety one day at a time.

If you know someone struggling with an addiction or would just like some more information about AA, please visit their website: www.aa.org.

The Serenity Prayer spoken at the beginning and end of each meeting.  I have gained new insight into this prayer after attending the meetings.

God Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And the Wisdom to know the difference.
                                                                  Attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr

San Francisco Night Ministry

When I was a teenager, the youth group started going on mission trips to Appalachia and feeding the homeless in Philadephia with Trevor's Van Run's.  Back then as a teenager at Trinity Lutheran Church, I never thought that those actions would begin a lifelong yearning to help others.  Now twenty years later, as a seminarian, I am once again being called to help those less fortunate than I.

Last semester while visiting a parish, I saw a brochure for something called the San Francisco Night Ministry.  The brochure talked about an ecumenical ministry that served the homeless population of San Francisco.  It piqued my interest and I decided to look for more information after the term ended.  What I didn't know was that another first year student was also interested in the program.  So last night, she and I visited the program and walked along with the minister as he completed his rounds.

According to their website, www.sfnightministry.org, their mission is to provide middle-of-the-night compassionate, non-judgmental pastoral care, counseling, referral and crisis intervention to anyone in any kind of distress.

According to Lyle, the minister who we walked with, the mission is to be the face of the church for the people on the street.  It is that statement that Lyle exudes as he walks.  We met Lyle, Monique, and Keith at 9:45 pm last night.  We said a prayer and Keith took to the phones, Monique went to the winter shelter and Lyle, dressed in clerics, Twila and I took to the streets.  As we walked, Lyle told us the history of the program, why it was started and the population it originally served.  Before long, we were stopped by a man on the street who asked for a blessing and a prayer.  He told us that his girlfriend was suicidal and depressed after the recent loss of her fifteen day old child.  Lyle was an active listener, and after ensuring that the woman was not a harm to herself immediately, he prayed with the man.  We then continued our walk.  A block away we were stopped by a woman, visibly strung out on crack.  She asked for our prayers to kick the habit and release the demons that have hold of her.  She was concerned for her children.

As we walked, different people would come up and just ask for a prayer.  Every once in a while, someone would ask for money and Lyle would politely say, we don't give money but I can give you socks, coats or blankets.  (He was carrying the socks, the other stuff was easily accessible.)  After while, we came to a new neighborhood, and Lyle started discussing the history of San Francisco.  It wasn't until the 1970's that homosexuality was legalized in San Francisco.  Prior to that, there were many underground clubs and the neighborhood we were walking through was one of the original neighborhoods.  He mentioned a bar up the street and said that many nights he goes in, sits at the bar, and drinks a club soda while patrons come over and talk to him.  As we entered, he explained this evening was a quiet one since neither Karaoke or a drag show were taking place.  The bar looked like any other bar you might walk into except that mostly everyone was the same sex.  We left the bar and continued walking.  Every block or so stopping to have a conversation with someone.

Lyle showed us how Union Square and all the expensive stores, (Saks, Nordstroms, Macys, etc, photos can be found on the Miscellaneous Photos page) are located not a block from where some of the poorest people on the city live.  How the hotels have blocked off their entrances and windows so the tourists cannot look out and see the abject poverty right outside their windows.
As we continued to walk, it became very clear that to the people on the street, Lyle was a friend.  They would warmly welcome him, love to tell him jokes, and just be present with him.  He was honoring Christ in each person as he met them.  A bit later, we entered the next neighborhood which was a pretty trendy straight area.  It was filled with twenty somethings oblivious of their surroundings only really concerned with having a good time.  For these few blocks, people avoided Lyle, eyes would shift as we walked, people crossed the street. It was very different that before.  But as we continued to walk, again the neighborhood shifted.  We came to another bar that he serviced.  While we did not go into the bar, he explained that it was a bar frequented by transgendered patrons.  He mentioned that it took many trips into the bar to build up a trust with the patrons but now there were many times when he had very meaningful conversations with the patrons.  I'll be honest, as we stood down the block from the bar, I had a very difficult time wrapping my head around the transgender culture and specifically the transgender prostitution culture.  This is not something I have been exposed to in the past so it is completely new to me.

As we wrapped up our time together and walked back to the office, I came to realize that to the outlying population, the gay, transgender, drag queens, homeless, night ministry is their church.  The clergy of night ministry are the official clergy of the the drag organizations of San Francisco.  The communities look to the ministers in good times as well as bad.  Lyle said he presides over many funerals, unions, memorial services for people that don't always fell they belong elsewhere.  The relationship that has been built up between all the populations and the night ministers is not only one way though.  Night Ministry, as a 501c3 does look to donations to pay their bills.  Lyle specifically mentioned the drag queen organization as a large benefactor of night ministry.  The community gives back to the people that help them.

After spending a little over four hours on the streets of San Francisco, I am looking to get more involved with this organization and hope that in the near future, I will be trained to be a crisis counselor to man the phones as well as walk along with the night ministers from time to time.

But the bigger thing that I have seen is that while seminary is about learning theology and history, it is also about learning how to minister to all of God's children, whether they look like me or not.  There is no way that I would have ever gotten this experience at any other seminary.   Once again, my experience at CDSP has helped to broaden my understanding of what it is to be a Christian living out our baptismal covenant which calls us to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself.

If you would like to learn more about San Francisco Night Ministry, please visit their website, www.sfnightministry.org

Of course, the night ministry would have been an adventure enough by itself but we still needed to get back to Berkeley at 3:00 in the morning.  We had gone into the city using BART and Muni busses.  At 3:00am BART is shut down, so we were dependent on busses.  We got the first bus without an issue but the transbay bus, the bus that crosses the Bay Bridge and goes into Oakland and Berkeley didn't show up.  We waited at the bus stop in downtown San Francisco at 3:00 am in 40 degree for an hour until the bus showed up.  Once it did show up, the bus driver didn't know the route and got lost in West Oakland.  As Twila said this morning, I think the ride home was more of an adventure than the walk along was.  Finally at 4:45 this morning, we walked back into the dorm and called it a night.

I've created a new page

I have decided to make a slight change to how I'm doing my blog.  I am going to start uploading additional pictures to a different page than the home page.  With that in mind I have created a new page entitled, Wild California.  It can be accessed from the link above this post.    Wild California will contain nature, wildlife and scenery pictures.  As I get other pictures, I will create separate pages for those.