Category Archives: Uncategorized

Pass the Peace

Poetry, Uncategorized

Two women, 
whose stories we do not know,
One sits at one side
Her mouth askew
From birth or accident,
Or maybe tumors left too long.
So good at sheltering
She is seldom seen.

     So who will see her?
Who will pass the peace to her?
For peace is what she needs.

The other,
Whose story we do not know
Sits on other end
Of this long and blackened pew.
Straight and tall
She looks ahead 
or looks down
  from unseen wall.
What troubles must she carry, 
To hide behind them all?

     Who will see her?
And who will pass the peace to her?
For peace is what she needs.

So who will sit between them
And see them as they are
And who will scale the walls
And see beyond the scars
To pass the peace between them
For peace is what they need.

…So as I seat myself between them
I wonder if I am seen?
My story known to me
I see the walls I’ve built
And know some scars are deep.
Who will pass the peace to me?
For peace is what I need.

There are other verses that could be written.  People whose stories we don’t know.  Who sit alone or sit with others, yet lonely. Or, the people who are beyond the walls of our churches and homes, who are sick and homebound or don’t attend a church, who don’t need our judgement but need peace.

Mary Herbert  April 2022

This poem comes from a picture painted by a participant in a Narrative Circle that I gather with.  She painted a picture of a recent experience that she had in church (and gave me permission to use it in this poem), which brought to mind the sermon I heard the Sunday before.  The sermon acknowledged the sign of peace as something more than a coffee hour greeting but an incarnational gift that we give and receive.

What does it mean?

Recovering, Uncategorized,

Deconstruction.

Such a scary word. And you know what? It should be. Because when we take something apart, we can be pretty near certain that it won’t go back together the same way. Not if you are honest about it.

That. That right there is what is really scary about taking apart your beliefs. It requires honesty with yourself. In todays society of filters, seeming perfection, or complete avoidance, being honest with ourselves is hard, uncomfortable, and a rarity. It is easier to accept church tradition, teaching and/or doctrine (TTDs) than it is to look at it naked, away from the pressure, hype, and lights.

I am NOT saying that all TTDs are wrong or unhealthy, I’m not saying that. I am saying that the unexamined faith, isn’t really faith… that’s just drinking the Kool-Aid and we all know how that story ended.

Example: Easter. David Hayward, the Naked Pastor, posted on Facebook, “We say the grave could not contain him but believe our theology can.” And Oofta, that has been so relevant this month for me. My church history and tradition told me that Jesus came to die for me. Because I have sinned and sin equals death thereby he died for me. This can also be known as substitutionary atonement. And for the first 30 years of my life, I ignored the little beep in my brain. All of this comes back every Easter season full force. This season I began to really ask the questions out loud.

  • Why did it have the be so violent a death? If the point is victory over death, couldn’t this have been achieved by dying absolutely any other way and coming back again?
  • Was the point of Christ’s entire life those three days? Or was it really about life and how he lived and, since being human, he experienced death?
  • At the time of Christ, I had done nothing wrong. How was it my sins, my wrongs that put him on that tree? How can you atone for what has not even happened??? How does that answer mesh with free will? Pre-destination?
  • What kind of father or mother knowingly sends their child to a gruesome, horrible execution? That goes against every single instinct in my body— instincts that are God given. It doesn’t make me feel better that Abraham was willing to do so to Isaac. “I love you so much. Would you be willing to go die for these people I created?” Uh…. What? No… I would go so my kid didn’t have to. But then you have the mess of the Trinity being three at one time, so technically, maybe? I wonder how much of my previous military approach to scripture affects my view of Scripture? How much has it effected my view of God?

Deconstruction looks like this ⬆️. Maybe those are simplistic questions and probably, quite common. I’m not saying I’m original or that this is my idea. This is just my approach.

Honest answers to those questions are hard. And many of them, I don’t know. I don’t need to know all the answers, but the mystery and wonder are increasing the more I ask and challenge. The God I believe in is good and kind. Much of what I see in Easter doesn’t mesh with the simple, easy answers that are cheaply given in rote.

In Easter, I see victory in compassion over cruelty and love over hatred. I see a moment where the Christ shared in the suffering around him to the point of allowing himself to be crucified. I see women so desperate for answers they hang around a tomb, asking any who come close. I see men racing with hope. I see Jesus. Ending his ministry as he began it. One on one with the people he loved. I am reminded of the song “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie.

Cause love’s such an old fashioned word

And love dares you to care for

The people on the edge of the night

And love (people on streets) dares you to change our way of

Caring about ourselves

This is our last dance

This is our last dance

This is ourselves under pressure

Bowie, D., Mercury, F., Deacon, J., Roger , T., May, B., “Under Pressure”, single released in 1981.

The people that followed Jesus only to see him die a vicious death, they were in a trauma induced forced deconstruction. Those hours that felt like years between seeing him take his last breath and miraculously appear to them individually in precious moments, were long and filled with every thought, question, and probably the realization that they had come full circle. The people on the edge. The broken, the weary, the desperate. Me. You.

I would love to hear your faith questions. I won’t have answers to them, but… we feel less alone when we ask questions out loud together.

My Life Before the Face of God

Poetry, Uncategorized

To place 
My life before the face of God…
Not behind or hiding.
And without mask or covering,
I am 
  Before the penetrating look 
    of this Sacred Presence.
Let me sink down into…
As though to stay planted,
In this garden dust,
Before this Face.
Where watched 
And loved,
I place my dreams,
As though they were seeds.
I place my words and voice,
The things I’ve said, and should have said.
I place my identity and my dignity, 
My humility and my pride,
My hopes
And my laments,
My wounds, and scars,
And places still whole.
My faith, my unbelief and doubt,
My sin and regrets…
Like weeds,
   Laid bare in dust before this Face.
And with greatest trust, I place
Those I love
And things I like,
Talents 
   and the time I’m left, 
and
As I look up, eye to Eye, I plant it all
    Before this Face…
…This Face of Love.

Mar Herbert. February 2022

This poem comes from a  meditation on a paragraph written by Madeline Delbrêl.  In, We, the Ordinary People of the Streets she writes .  

“To place our lives before the face of God,
to surrender our lives to the movements of God,
is to roam free in a space in which we have been given…
solitude…”

My All Time Favorite Books

Must Reads, Uncategorized

It really is interesting the books one rereads and to ask oneself, why this one? Why theses.  I have many I want to re-read, but these I have re-read at least six times.  So what is it that draws me.

My first read of trilogy, The Hawk and the Dove, by Penelope Wilcock, began during lent of 2002, my second reading 2005, then 2008 till I have read it 6-7 times.   Till my last read in 2019 when I discovered an additional six books.  These books are fiction and for me a story for Lent. 

Maybe the series call to some deep desire to hear the deeper story, or to be told a story not just for the history, but for the wisdom that can be accessed from another’s experience.  But, the first two books are of a mother telling her teenage daughter stories of the monastic life that is a part of their history.  Frequently these are told on the walk home from Compline or Evening Prayer, sometimes they take place in the candle lit room as the mother is calming the younger children into sleep.  Always a time that seems to be a very peaceful time.  But, each story, each chapter, holds a lesson about loving the other, understanding others, having compassion for others, and the ordinary daily exchange that happens when living in close proximity with others that few of us can escape.  There are profound lessons in confession and forgiveness,  suffering and gentleness, community and loneliness.  These are the stories of transformation and hope.

I love that the setting for the books is centuries old, takes place in a monastery, that there is a rhythm to their lives and seem to have nothing in common with most of my life.  I am safe…it’s not about me.  I can enter this story unafraid and with abandon.  I will not have to be vulnerable.  I will not have to try to figure out some puzzle or deeper meaning.   But, as my heart opens to the characters, I find myself hiding in them, being seen by others.  I’m as needy as the newest novice,  and at times without mercy like the strict and exacting novice master.  I find that I am broken and frequently limp along, but that I have the capacity to listen like the abbot, and also to tend like the brother who tends those who are infirm. I’m very like the brother who is in charge of the kitchen…grumpy and bossy. And I am really no different from the brother who finds the courage to do the hard things.

The author has what I consider a trustworthy understanding of the sacred and of humanity.  She tells these stories with authenticity…maybe from experience.  I want to absorb the wisdom of these collective stories about a compassionate community.   The stories caught me while I was escaping into a fictional world.  They made me want to turn around and return to enter them in a deeper way and explore the truths that are so loving and compassionate.  These stories allow me to look at myself more lovingly and with a longer view.  Maybe I need to read them again.

“Now, just try to blend in.”

Must Reads, Some Other Thoughts, Uncategorized

Isn’t it interesting when you have a thought then a dear friend expresses that similar thought a day later? My thought: “What is it about Sister Act that keeps bringing me back over and over again?” My mother’s thought: “What is one book, poem, or movie that you find yourself returning to again and again?” She wrote her thoughts on a book series by Penelope Wilcock, “The Hawk and the Dove,” read her thoughts here, while I find myself returning to a favorite movie.

Have you ever visited some work of art— be it written, spoken, sung, drawn, or acted— and find yourself returning to it when you find you need that little bit of something extra? This movie is one of mine. At first it called to my soul through music. (I am a theater junky. Get with it or get over it.) Then it became an unspoken tradition to watch it with my grandparents. Now, after having seen it easily a hundred times— and that is a conservative estimate, I have realized that there are parts of who I am because of this film.

I can still hear my Grandfather and Grandmother chuckle when Sister Mary Lazarus raps the table with her knuckle while talking about her convent with no running water in Canada and says, “It was hell on earth. I loved it!” Here is the truth, life here on earth is hell. There is pain, there is suffering, there is hunger, there is loss. John Milton, in Paradise Lost, wrote, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” And this film portrays that very trial gently.

Sister Act is a call to remind ourselves about the hard stuff. It is uncomfortable. It is awkward. It is dysfunctional. A black, Las Vegas show woman sees a murder and is hidden in a white washed, sequestered convent from her mob boss ex-boyfriend. And it is hilarious.

It is a poignant reflection of the church. One that has been sitting here for almost three decades now. One that we joke about understanding, but clearly do not. Make church more accessible— put in the coffee shop, brighten up the music, I don’t need to go on as you have heard it all before. But we miss the point!!!! When was the last time you saw a non- Christian speak from the pulpit of a church? When was the last time you saw a non-Christian have value outside of needing to be “saved” inside the church? When was the last time you went out into the community, just to serve the community? Btw, doing this in hopes of increasing your church numbers doesn’t count.

In many ways, it reminds me of the final song in Encanto where Abuela apologizes for holding on to tight. She sings, “The miracle is not, some magic that you’ve got, the miracle is you. The miracle is you, not some gift, just you. The miracle is you. All of you, all of you.”

This seems counter to what church teaching has been for thousands of years. But why not welcome everyone? Towards the end of the film, the nuns have taken down the chain link fences, started a soup line, created a kids playground, and at the very end, the choir performed for the Pope. The people that they served in the community showed up in all of their jewelry, leathers, and raucous applause. Quit worrying about whether they change or not… maybe they aren’t the ones that need to. After all isn’t it God’s job to separate the goats from the sheep, the weeds from the grain?

Ps: I am a huge fan girl to both Whoopi Goldberg and Maggie Smith. ❤️❤️❤️ okay. I’m done. 😬😁