The Lavendar Bath of the Gospel

When I drive into the parking lot of St. Patrick's each Wednesday to be at Malachi's Storehouse,  I am regularly  struck by the deep relief I feel.   I feel my whole body exhale and relax into the simplicity of the Gospel.  Sorta like lowering myself into a fragrant lavender bath which envelops me into a world of sentience.   When I'm at  Malachi's Storehouse,  my contract with the outside world falls away and I'm surrendering to the elegance of the Gospel.     "Feed my Sheep".    "Love your neighbor".    "Know that you are One Body".    The Gospel writers provide us with snippets of Jesus' clarifying instructions that are like rudders in a tempestuous sea.  "Love One Another".   Pretty clarifying instructions  and I am plenty grateful for them.  

At Malachi's, when we say that  we gather and distribute food and it's  "not just about the chicken" this is to what we refer.   We mean that we are so educated by the systems of hierarchy and domination that it takes practice and intentionality to remember who we are in God's Kingdom.  We mean that we are so informed by our  US citizenship that we have to work and remind ourselves that we are first and foremost  citizens of God's kingdom.

I'm as competitive and "me first" as the next human, so having a weekly pilgrimage that provides me a place to walk home from the far away land of "me and mine" 

has been a great practice for me.   Malachi's grounds me in a contract with the Gospel that eclipses my contracts with the cultural mores and mantras "you only get what you deserve",  life should be fair", 

"everyone has equal chances in the world".    

Not everyone can get to Malachi's.    Not everyone is called.   Finding YOUR  Malachi's is something to which I would encourage you to be open.  We need the simplicity and the elegance of the Gospel in these chaotic and cacophonous times.   We need to hear the clarifying single bell call us out from the thunderous din.

We need the clarification of contract that our baptismal vows offer to soothe us against the rant of the day.  

“Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?” 

“I will, with God’s help.” 

“Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” 

“I will, with God’s help.” 

We need to come home to ourselves as citizens of God's Kingdom.   Malachi's is it for me, the place that calls my soul home.

I'll enjoy hearing what it is for you.

Not breathing

"Breathe."    It's a phrase that has become synonymous with being present, slowing down, paying attention.   It's often touted as the portal to the Holy.    But today, it was my NOT breathing that ushered me into Presence.

Today was another Ordinary day at Malachi's Storehouse.    We scored 75 CASES of  free diapers from the Atlanta Community Food Bank to give away to low-income moms and dads.  We gave away a rich, gorgeous crib and all the accoutrements to a family who didn't have the resources to buy such 'luxuries'.   These gifts were "magically" donated by an MSH advocate who heard about the family in need.  We met the affable driver from the Atlanta Community Food Bank at the Storehouse and stocked the freezer with meat we bought for 16 cents a pound which we will joyfully and communally give away on Wednesday.   All these things, I am embarrassed to report, I took in relative immune stride.  Just another Ordinary day.   Until.

I was meandering through the halls and stumbled upon a meeting of the retired school teachers who were planning the Explorer's Camp that will be held at St. Pat's this summer which will include our Malachi's kids.  I poked my head in to say 'hello' and 'thanks' and and ask them if they needed anything from us, hoping against hope they'd say 'no'.    I told them about a boy who came bursting into MSH last Wednesday heading straight for their reading room.  He was blowing past us as he announced rather ebulliently, "I wanna go to the library!!!!"

A handful of retired school teachers and some committed others have created and resourced Malachi Reads (aka Malachi's StorYhouse )   Each week. they methodically set up little chairs and tables and read to our client's children while the moms and dads wait for their groceries.   Each week, each child takes home a book that they may call their own.   Simply put, the kids LOVE it.   As I was finishing my story about the  boy, one of the ladies offered, "Oh, I bet that's the little boy who puts books up his shirt to get to take home more than one!"    I felt myself stop breathing. 

At MSH, we talk a lot about meeting desperation with grace.    We volunteer because we've all felt some kind of desperation for something or more to the point someOne.   Some of us volunteer because we are desperate to find meaning in our lives or we are desperate to find community and connection.  Some of us are there because we are desperate to practice gratitude.  And then,  some of us are desperate for books.   I listened to those ladies speak graciously about the little boy who was clever, who was so 'out there' with his vulnerability and desperation, who just wanted chapter books to show to his friends how studious he was.   I heard their care and Love and graciousness towards him  and slowly I began to breathe again.   

I could breathe because I remembered  that it is in my moments of desperation that God, in all of God's costumes,  meets me with graciousness or  books or chicken or a crib.   I remembered that the Meeting of God comes sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly;  but it always comes.   I remembered that I belong to a community of faith that allows for both the ordinarily desperate and the continually Breathtaking.   And I could breathe.

So mostly I don't get poetry.....or rather it doesn't "get" me. But I've come to think of it like coffee, or dark beer or tight jeans. Takes some getting used to before I'm entirely swept away.
And so it was with this poem....I had to TASTE it's dark aroma several times before I surrendered to it's charm. I have LOVED this winter...cold and dark and empty, the trees naked and cruel. Soon enough this winter will give way to the early signs of hope. But until then, here's to enjoying the necessary dark, whether it be Guatamalan Antigua, Guinness or Campion, with the silent hope of Spring.

Now Winter Nights Enlarge by Thomas Campion

Now winter nights enlarge
This number of their hours;
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze
And cups o'erflow with wine;
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine!
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love
While youthful revels, masques, and Courtly sights
Sleep's leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense
With lovers' long discourse;
Much speech hath some defence,
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well;
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys,
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights.

Lenten Parade

I always am somewhat enamored when I see them. Their strong and upright necks easily balance their sometimes jerky, always inquisitive beaky movements. Most-times they catch my eye whilst they glide overhead. Or sometimes I'm graced with their presence while I'm trying to catch up with myself at the river's edge. But not today. Today they walked right out in front of my car as I was heading strongly over the windy road.....sorta like they were in a well-orchestrated Ash Wednesday parade. Gooses, even the really silly ones, would probably not think of parade and Lent in the same sentence. Lent is really not that much of a parade sorta season what with the ashes and fasting and all that dust to dust talk. So, I put my ear to the ground.....I listen......if they are not here to salute Lent......what have they wandered out into this busy, fast-paced life of mine to tell me? It's then that I remember Mary Oliver and the Wild Geese poem that I read to my daughter every day whilst yet and still she was inside of me. You know the one, it relieves us of the notion of goodness being completely good for us. The first line relaxes the strident superego within. And then shameslessly. she recommends allowing ourselves to move out from the facade and into authenticity by allowing the "soft animal to Love what it Loves". Suddenly I got it.... the Lenten parade.....the celebration of vulnerability and the encouragement to open to Love. Breathing deeply does not always go along with holding up traffic but occasionally it can. I rolled down the window, snapped a pic of the geese, thanked them deeply for the foreshadowing and moved through this Ash Wednesday a little softer and a little more open and a little more thankful for not so silly gooses who know that anytime, and maybe even especially Lent, is a good time for a parade.