Union with God: Why I Am Rather Fond of the Episcopal Church

If you were in your twenties in the 1960s, you probably were overly interested in the search for “the meaning of life.” You could fulfill that quest for meaning through many avenues - political action, sex, drugs, rock and roll, and, believe it or not, through religion.  Well, it wasn’t so cool if it was conventional religion but Eastern religions and peyote certainly were. 

As one of those children of the 60s I developed an unusual interest in one quite conventional form of religion – the Episcopal Church. I discovered, unexpectedly, it brought all my other unconventional paths together.  The beauty of the parish church and the quiet, profound reverence surrounding the Eucharist were suggesting that a door to the meaning of life might lie just inside the Episcopal Church, a short walk from my college campus.  There was a dawning awareness that the answer to meaning in life was God. 

Yet those more eastern paths to God were also being explored.  I wanted to be just like J.D. Salinger’s Glass family.  I imagined a closet door inscribed with quotes from all the great world’s religions and myself immersed in the Vedanta, Sutras and the teachings of the great mystics.  One day reading Franny and Zooey by Salinger I reached this point in Zooey’s attempt to reach through to Franny in her crisis.  “I swear to you you’re missing the whole point of the Jesus Prayer.  The Jesus Prayer has one aim, and one aim only.  To endow the person who says it with Christ-Consciousness.” 

I was intrigued, but I really didn’t know what Zooey meant.  Nor did I know that The Way of the Pilgrim, the book that brought on Franny’s crisis, and the teaching about the Jesus prayer were real, not simply a figment of Salinger’s imagination.  Not long after as it happened, a friend and fellow reader of Salinger excitedly placed in my hand an actual copy of The Way of the Pilgrim.  And lo and behold, what did I notice but this exotic book that seemed to have leaped out the pages of Franny and Zooey and into my hands was published by an arm of the Episcopal Church – Seabury Press.  And as I stepped into this new and strange world of the Russian pilgrim I read this.  “My heart kindled with desire for union with God by means of interior prayer.”  At that point I understood Zooey’s words about the meaning of the Jesus prayer.  It was a turning point in my spiritual life. The goal of life is union with God and there is a way towards that goal.

And the connection between Seabury Press, which had the vision and courage to publish this strange book, and the Episcopal Church, where I was beginning to discover a home, was not lost.  These Episcopalians must value the spiritual journey.  They obviously are not afraid of the mystical aspect of the Christian faith.  And they believe that the end and purpose of life is union with God. 

There is meaning to this life.  It is union with God.  The Episcopal Church has provided a wonderfully beautiful environment for me to grow within the community of Christ towards this goal.  The examples of how this is so are countless, but the Episcopal Church has said it best.  In the catechism we’re asked what the Church is sent by God to accomplish, what is the mission of the Church?  “The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.”  And that’s one very good reason I’m fond of the Episcopal Church.

This month’s guest post is from The Rev. Bob Hart, an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Michigan where he currently serves as interim minister at St. James Episcopal Church in Birmingham, MI.

Connecting Faith and Food: Another Reason to Be Rather Fond of the Episcopal Church

Faith and food are at the center of Christian belief. The Eucharist takes the practice of sharing a meal to its most mystical extreme, uniting us with Christ and to all believers, past and present, who have gathered at our common table. Biblical stories of feeding—from God’s gift of manna to the wandering Israelites to Jesus’s feeding of the five thousand—animate the Christian values of hospitality, generosity, and compassion.

Of course, the centrality of food in faith is not about dramatic gestures but about the everyday practice of creating, sharing, and nourishing one another from the gifts we receive. Hence the lowly church coffee hour, soup supper and potluck, which extend Eucharistic spirituality further into community. Given how rooted our lives and our faith are in sharing food, its no wonder that food-related spirituality is part of the Digital Reformation.

A Facebook group called Episcopal Foodies Network (EFN) popped up a year ago, “To eat and drink and share the finest of things with the finest of people.” Members share recipes, restaurant reviews, links to other food-related sites, stories of food ministries, and photo after photo of delicious-looking dishes. Members have hosted one another as they’ve traveled to other cities and set up dining excursions to local restaurants, all by way of bringing together the basic human needs of food, friendship, and faith.

Likewise, the blog Catholic Cuisine (http://catholiccuisine.blogspot.com/), links recipes to the liturgical calendar. And, a growing number of the faithful, like a seminarian who blogs as The Reverend Chef (@reverendchef), link food to faith. All of this points to a fundamental irony about life in the Digital Reformation: rather than separating and dehumanizing us, our digital participation can be profoundly connective and deeply humanizing, illustrating the reach of faith in daily life and inviting us into new relationships that extend easily from digital to local space.

This month’s guest contributor is Elizabeth Drescher, former director of the Center for Anglican Learning and Leadership at Church Divinity School of the Pacific, and is currently at Santa Clara University.  She blogs at www.elizabethdrescher.net and her current book is Tweet if You Love Jesus.

From Transcendence to Presence: My Affection for Anglican Tradition is rooted in the Now – A Guest Post by The Rev. Jim Hamilton

 **First, an important word about our future: Facebook is shutting down our group!  Apparently we are an ‘old group’ and too big to be a ‘new’ group, so our best option is to become a ‘Page.’  This means you will have to opt-in to join.  So please go here right now: http://tiny.cc/rp6qx and hit the ‘Like’ button on the upper right. This will ensure we can stay connected!  Sorry for the hassle, talk to Zuckerberg.  And note that this message will be sent out a few more times just to make sure no one misses it.**

Now, our guest post:

The credence table is set, candles lit, altarware ready.  Now, I can prepare myself.  Sure, I can go through the motions; the drama will pull me in even if my heart resists.  Everything about the setting, the ragtag group gathered, the drone of prayers and praises undergirding the prayer I sing will guide me into my meditation.  No matter my anxiety, distraction or frustration, God will meet me in the moments to come.  Peace flows into me like the tide to the pool by the shore.*  But, I find that further depth is reached when I wade in first, wash up, prepare myself. 

“Set your minds on high,” I sing my invocation, now barefoot, surrounded by candlelight and dressed in a friend’s cassock.  “From common things to the mysterious we set our focus,” my friends and family reply, dancing with each other in harmonies as the melody is constructed for the first time.  While the prayer is far from common, it mingles in a choral mass enriched by every individual voice, mistakes and all, in search of perfection.  There may be no red book to follow along with, but we are people of the spirit of the book.

This service an emergent worship laboratory that some of my friends and I have been nurturing in a posh suburb of a disheartened Detroit.  Though this particular project is in its early stages, its dramatic otherness, its transcendence to draw me into Presence is a perfect example of why I love the Episcopal Church.

William Temple expressed what I mean; “To the restless fever of this world and its tumult no man can bring healing unless he habitually lives in the presence of the eternal God with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning, and has in his own soul some measure of the peace which passeth understanding.  We are not to neglect the eternal world but to live here and now as its citizens.”

It is the expansive now-ness of this church that I fell in love with in my twenties, its commitment to service, its readiness and community.  Now, in my thirties, I find that our unique blend of past and yet to come makes the now even deeper.  It is the peace in our worship that drives us to service, revived and excited to spread the love of God.  I would be wrong to brag that we have a monopoly on now-ness.  In fact, Episcopalians make up the minority of our little Anglican experimental worship service.  But, the service itself is a gift from an Episcopal tradition to an inquisitive world.  I see no reason why we must nurture our gift within a paradigm of worry, desperate for self preservation for its own sake.  Maybe our call is to, without requiring membership or inculcation, share this liturgical peace which passeth understanding with a restless, feverish and tumultuous world.

* from a poem by Sarah Teasdale

The Rev. Jim Hamilton is rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Farmington Hills, Michigan, and convenor of Lex Orandi.  Plug into their Facebook page here: http://tiny.cc/xdihe

Looking Out, Not Up: Another Reason to Be Rather Fond of the Episcopal Church (June 2011)

With Ascension Day upon us, and a bit of time to pause before the end of the world (phew, spared again!), we have a God-given reprieve to consider that part of our heritage that puts less weight on notions of Rapture and Apocalypse and more weight on the present suffering and our high calling to do something about it.

Harold Camping is just the latest in a long line of doom and gloom preachers who gather adherents not because of their faultless hermeneutics, but because of their appeal to our longing for home.  This would have us standing on the holy mount where Jesus ascended doing nothing but looking up, awaiting a promised return.  After all, 'that’s what the Bible says!'  Researchers note that during periods of rapid change, fundamentalism frequently gains popularity.  The world is spinning faster, more capriciously, and who doesn’t want control, certitude, and surety?  There is an appeal to a ‘Home Sweet Home’ for which many people are willing to pay a high price.

However, instead of endlessly parsing Revelation for a way out, what is greatly appreciated about the Episcopal Church is its emphasis on John 17 (this Sunday’s Gospel!), which promises eternal life right now.  We need not await the eschaton to be with Jesus, which means my posture is not one of standing around looking up for a divine escape route, but to look out, where Christ is calling us.  The Episcopal Church reminds me that a much more central message of Jesus is to ‘go ye’ into the world to do the work of Our Lord, to heal, feed, clothe, and reconcile.  We have only precious moments before check-out time.  Let us have the courage to look out at a mission field that longs for workers, not straining our ears to hear Gabriel’s trumpet, but the cries of the hungry, naked, and hurting whom we have the privilege to serve.

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**An important word about our future: Facebook is shutting down our group People Who Are Rather Fond of the Episcopal Church.  We are too big to be a ‘new’ group, so our best option is to become a ‘Page.’  This means you will have to opt-in to join.  So please type into your Facebook search box: “People Who Are Rather Fond of the Episcopal Church.”  Then go to the ‘Pages’ (not the Groups) result.  Once you are on this page hit the ‘Like’ button on the upper right. This will ensure we can stay connected!  Sorry for the hassle, talk to Zuckerberg.  And note that this message will be sent out a few more times just to make sure no one misses it.

A Great Place to Ask Questions: Another Reason to Be Rather Fond of the Episcopal Church (May 2011)

People of faith have certainly had plenty to ponder lately. Between deadly storms, assassinated terrorists, and the spectacle of the royal wedding witnessed by two billion people (though it took place in a lovely and historic abbey, not everyone agrees on how God might be at work there…).

In the midst of this swirl, Thomas the Apostle walks onto the stage on the Sunday after Easter.  Most people call him “Doubting Thomas” but I like to call him “Good Question Thomas.” He does what many would be afraid to do: he asks the obvious question.  How do we know?  How do we know that Jesus was raised from the dead? How do we know that God’s love is really stronger than death?

It is precisely in these moments that I am grateful for the Episcopal Church. We offer a place where it’s OK to ask questions. This is not a church where you have to nod along as if you understand everything, as if you agree with every word. You can ask obvious questions. You can ask difficult questions. You can even ask painful questions.

Thomas’s question was, I think, courageous. And to his credit, when confronted with the truth that Jesus was raised from the dead and that God’s love really is stronger than death, Thomas believed. My Lord and my God! He asked the question with an open mind, and he kept his mind open in discernment and inquiry.

I love that when we waver in our faith, we can ask questions. When we’re not sure where God fits into the picture, we can ask questions. As much as that, I love that the Episcopal Church is a place where the sacraments are offered beautifully, where people are fed fully, and where all people are welcomed openly.

Let us have the courage, like Thomas, to bring our questions. And like Thomas, let us keep our minds open to see God at work all around us. My Lord and my God!

This post was written by The Rev. Scott Gunn, a prolific blogger (www.sevenwholedays.org), a priest in the Diocese of Rhode Island who enjoys his family, reading, music, travel, and asking questions.

Ashes and Diamonds: Another Reason to Be Rather Fond of the Episcopal Church (Apr 2011)

A Special Lenten Guest Post by The Rt. Rev. Kirk S. Smith

As we all learned in our high school science class, life cannot exist without carbon. All life, from the lowest paramecium to the largest blue whale are dependent on this essential element — number 6 on the periodic table and the fourth most common element in the universe. We are all carbon-based.

An interesting element, this carbon - we usually think of it as black and crumbly, like charcoal, soot, or black smoke coming from a chimney or the graphite in our pencils, even though there is far more of it in the air as invisible carbon dioxide. But we should also not forget that this same element, which looks so dark and dirty, is also the same element that makes up the most beautiful and strongest thing we know — diamonds. Carbon is something we associate with death and decay, but it is also the source of strength, brilliance, and fire.

It is a juxtaposition we all know well.

St Paul says..."For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing...”  And Paul asks what we ask — "Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

So we see carbon-based life is destined for more than ashes, more than the grave. The ashes we wear in this solemn season remind us to await the power of God who desires more than anything else to turn our carbon, our ashes, into diamonds.

The Rt. Rev. Kirk S. Smith is the Episcopal Bishop of Arizona.

Incredible Poetry! Another Reason to Be Rather Fond of the Episcopal Church (Mar 2011)

(Guest post by Ashley Busse, PhD)

Episcopalians are the beneficiaries of a wonderful repertoire of rich and gifted poetry, few have contributed more than Richard Wilbur.  As you may know, he’s the author of the beautiful hymn, “A Stable Lamp is Lighted” (#104, Hymnal 1982).  Wilbur’s poetry is not only stunningly elegant, profound, and moving, it also clearly reflects many of the values and beliefs of the Episcopal Church, of which he is a longtime communicant. 

For example, across his 80-year career (b. 1921, he published his first poem at age 8), Wilbur has remained committed to the use of traditional verse forms and meters, even as these have gone in and out of fashion.  Despite what some might see as the constraints and restraints of these forms, Wilbur has said that they are “simply instruments or contraptions which heighten and empower [a poet’s] words,” enabling him to express simultaneously timeless and relevant truths about the human condition.  This idea might resonate with those of us nourished by the Book of Common Prayer, which both structure and set free our worship.

Wilbur’s poetry reflects the optimism and hope that the Episcopal faith offers in the midst of a dark and sometimes terrifying world.  He once told an interviewer, "I'm the sort of Christian animal for whom celebration is the most important thing of all…When I go to church, what doesn't particularly interest me is the Creed, although I find that I can say it... What I respond to is, ‘Lift up your hearts!’ It's lines like that in the Mass that belong to me, belong to my kind of religious experience." 

Wilbur recognizes how every time we celebrate the Eucharist in the Episcopal Church, we are reminded of the joy God inspires.

Wilbur has called poetry “a balancing act in which one trie[s] to enlist all of one's voices in the rendering of an inclusive view.”  At its best, the Episcopal Church embodies a similar poetry, even during our fiercest times of debate and conflict.  So thank you, Richard Wilbur, for reminding us through your verse that, “whatsoever love elects to bless/ Brims to a sweet excess/ That can without depletion overflow.”  We’re rather fond of you!

To read some of Wilbur’s Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry, click here:

www.poemhunter.com/richard-wilbur

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Ashley Denham Busse is a ‘Cradle Episcopalian’ who holds a PhD in English literature from George Washington University and has a love for all things Anglican and literary.  She lives in the Washington, DC area with her husband and their two young daughters, of whom she is also rather fond.