Sunday, January 14, 2018

A Peace Passing Reading

This is a reading I shared during Peace Passing in our gathering this week, from a beautiful book I'm reading by Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter (pg. 11-12). Among the many themes he explores, the one that has meant a lot to me as I've been reading is the idea that it is important to be present where we are, to recognize and name where we are, whether that means saying "I am in a joyful place" or "I am falling apart." To name and welcome where we are can be painful, but it can also bring great relief.

<^>

In many circles of faith or spirituality, there is generous time given to the testimony--the telling of the story of conversion or re-conversion, of enlightenment or change. It is a moving thing, to listen to the testimony. But testimony, if told or heard unwisely, can be a colonisation of a single experience into a universal requirement. Jesus fed me when I was hungry, we hear, and those who are hungry feel bereft. Jesus healed me when I was sick, say the healthy, and the burdened feel more burdened. Meditation cured me of depression, say some, and others make plans to hide the Prozac. Upon whom is the burden of words? I don't know. I don't think there is an answer. I cannot dampen gladness because it will burden the unglad. But I cannot proclaim gladness as a promise that will only shackle the already bound. Faith shelters some, and it shadows others. It loosens some, and it binds others. Is this a judgment of the message or the messenger, the one praying or the prayer prayed? I don't know.

Hello to what we do not know.

What I do know is that it can help to find the words to tell the truth of where you are now. If you can find the courage to name 'here'--especially in the place where you do not wish to be--it can help you be there. Instead of resenting another's words of gladness or pain, it may be possible to hear it as simply another location. They are there and I am here. At another point, we will be in different locations, and everybody will pass by many locations in their life. The pain is only deepened when the location is resented or, even worse, unnamed.

Hello to here.

<^>

May these thoughts bring you peace as they have brought me peace, even in the sharpness of being present in difficult things. 

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Community Lent Project - Weeks 1 and 2


Welcome to the Lenten season, friends.

Much as we did during Advent, we're reflecting through writing during this season of Lent. Our first contribution, shared with us by Paul Shotsberger last week, coincided beautifully with our play-dough idol smashing activity (we each formed a small shape that symbolized something that had become an idol for us, then smashed our idols). Enjoy Paul's Lenten contribution.
In Matthew 21:44, referring to Himself, Jesus says something very strange: “He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.” He is giving His hearers a choice, between being broken and being crushed. I think if I’d been in the crowd that day, I would have asked Jesus, “Is there another option?” Tommy Tenney paraphrased the verse this way: “Fall on the rock before the rock falls on you.” All of this may sound very negative, but there is a surprising amount of grace in it. We fall on the rock, Jesus, in order to die to self, and this is to our advantage. The Apostle Paul, who fell on the rock many times in his life, makes the key observation in Colossians 3:3, “For you have died, and your life is now hidden [or protected] with Christ in God.” If we are dead with regard to the world and our own desires – the lust of the flesh, the pride of life – then satan is robbed of the weapons he can use against us. At the same time, we understand from Scripture that God is close to us in our brokenness, and that we will receive the healing we need. Psalm 147:3 assures us that our Lord “…heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” And there is even joy that results from this kind of voluntary brokenness. As it says in 1 Peter 4:13, we participate in the sufferings of Christ so that we may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed. In this Lenten season, we need to actively fall on the rock through repentance and humility, in order to receive the protection and grace and healing we need so much.
During today's gathering, I read an essay by Barbara Cawthorne Crafton entitled "Living Lent" (which you can find at this link). Once again, the reading coincided quite beautifully with the tactile activity we engaged in during our time of corporate confession. We each held a marble in our hands and thought of our sins and failings, the things that hinder us. Then we tossed them into a deep tub of dark water, acting out the words of Micah 7:18-19, "Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea." Crafton's piece reflects on all the baggage that we carry through our lives, and how Lent allows us to be refreshed by our "homeless, jobless, possession-less Savior."


Come back next week for more of our Community Lent Project. If you're interested in sharing, email me at boyteremily@gmail.com

Monday, February 20, 2017

On Missing Epiphany

I'd planned to write a post for Epiphany, the day that celebrates the revelation of God incarnate as Christ. When I missed that, I figured I'd still make Epiphanytide. There was so much fun to be had: "Epiphany singing, chalking the door, having one's house blessed, consuming Three Kings Cake, winter swimming, [and] attending church services" were some of the fascinating activities Wikipedia suggests for celebrating Epiphany. Much to my chagrin, though, Epiphanytide ended on Candlemas, February 2nd (which commemorates Jesus' presentation at the temple).

Although I had a particularly hectic post-Christmas wind-down, and although at the best of times I'm still working at blogging more regularly, I feel like the same is true of most years. I enjoy Advent so much, and then once it's over I tumble right back into the swing of things without thinking twice. And now here we are only a week and a half from Ash Wednesday. 

In the spirit of not just allowing Epiphany to pass me by completely, I'd like to share one of the Epiphanytide prayers from the Book of Common Prayer, the prayer for the Eighth Sunday after the Epiphany: 

Most loving Father, who willest us to give thanks for all
things, to dread nothing but the loss of thee, and to cast all
our care on thee who carest for us: Preserve us from faithless
fears and worldly anxieties, and grant that no clouds of this
mortal life may hide from us the light of that love which is
immortal, and which thou hast manifested to us in thy Son
Jesus Christ our Lord; who liveth and reigneth with thee, in
the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

Sunday, December 25, 2016

Community Advent Project Wrap-Up

Hello Friends!

Apologies for the lateness of this post--this season is always full of activity and movement. But I thought Christmas Day would be a good time to slip in the beautiful reading that Kim Lilley shared last Sunday. If I hear back from some of our previous readers (Raine, I'm looking at you!), I'll post them in the coming weeks.

Without further ado, here is Kim's piece:

The Rhythms of Life and Death
 by Kim Lilley

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot.
-Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

Winter is upon us. The fallen leaves crunch beneath my feet. The sun hangs low and slides golden rays across the tips of tree that look like they are on fire against the blue gray December skies. This is the rhythm of our earth. This is the rhythm of our lives.

Winter gives us the sacred gift of rest. We are forced into our homes early as the sun sets sooner. We are forced into darkness and quiet as the birds stop their chirping and the moon climbs higher. The earth grows quiet and dim. The trees do not bud, the flowers do not bloom, but they are getting ready to. Gentle, expectant, hopeful- winter whispers of longings fulfilled. A longing fulfilled is a tree of life. We long, we groan, we wait through the winter and a green, swaying, glorious, limbs-reaching-to-heaven tree is delivered. Winter bequeaths our earth life in it’s death.

And in the same way there was a man who bequeathed us life in his death. A baby born to be sacrificed. Birth and death intermingling before a single human could perceive this great mystery coming to us. This story that would become life for us. This death that would mean salvation. And in the same way when we choose life in this man, we choose death to ourselves.


This is the rhythm of our earth. This is the rhythm of our lives- until one day the second advent interrupts us from our sleep, our quiet, our waiting, our winter and brings us home forever.

Sunday, December 4, 2016

Community Advent Project - Week Two

This week we had a contribution from some of our dcf kids, which was very exciting.

This reflection was written by Isaac:
Transcript: 
HOPE - The hope they may have a new savior.
JOY - The joy his mother must have shared when he was born.
PEACE and LOVE - The peace and love he gave in his miracles to the people. These words are so alike but so different.
HOPE JOY PEACE and LOVE.

And this reflection was written by Luke:

Transcript: I am thankful that God brought hope into the world when...he...died...on the cross. And he took our sins away and brought peace to us. 

Thanks for sharing, Luke and Isaac!

Thursday, December 1, 2016

Community Advent Project - Week One


Think Smaller
By Emily Boyter

It seems no use to talk of
small things sometimes,
and yet we have to
if we want to understand.
Deep truths with which
we are familiar are filled
with the infinitesimal:
mustard seeds that
burst into profusion;
gates as narrow as eyes of needles
and pearls of great price and
lamp wicks and ants that labor
and numbered hairs
and those little bright-eyed
sparrows that never
learned to worry about
tax season.
And children.
Especially children.
So we think, when we're
pondering incarnation,
of Jesus as a child,
as a tiny squalling
baby, and we think,
how could God have been
so little?
But God was smaller once.
At one time, God was
no bigger than a bean,
and his mother had
the promise of Him
but could not yet feel Him
stirring.
You have to wonder,
when Jesus told the parable
of the mustard seed,
did he remember, smiling,
the time when
He was no bigger than
a mustard seed Himself?
Think of every
tiny thing waiting to
burgeon into abundance.
There is great hope in that,
I think.

Applying the Brakes

*Ahem*

Hello.

The first post of any blog always feels a little strange to me, like when you're at a party and someone says, "Tell me about yourself." Suddenly, you can't think of a single thing about yourself except that you eat food and that sometimes you sleep and that you like sitting on soft things and that you are basically like every other human. So the plan is just to steamroll through this like you do when you're writing an online dating profile or the first letter to a pen pal or a 250-word bio for a school project or your workplace's website.

I'm Emily. I'm a deacon at a wonderful church in Seneca, South Carolina, downtown community fellowship. I'm a writer and a teacher and a researcher.
This is a blog about our church's engagement with liturgy throughout the year. It is addressed to the members of our body, but it's not exclusively intended for us. If you're not a dcf-er you will still hopefully find something valuable here. The dcf family has observed many of the more prominent features of the liturgical calendar (Lent, Easter, Advent) for a long time, and this blog is a way for us both to continue with and deepen these practices as well as to expand our experience of celebrations and practices we might be less familiar with.

At times that will come in the form of reflections and writings of mine, but often I'll be linking to some wonderful sources (books, blogs, poems, essays, etc.) that can give us more to reflect on. Sometimes there will be reflection on the value of liturgical practices. Other times, like during this Advent season, we make an extra effort to encourage members of our church family to participate in written reflection and sharing (of course, contributions are welcome any time of the year). Anything that gets shared during our Sunday Gathering will also be posted (with the permission of the author, of course), on this blog. If anyone wants to participate, please email me at boyteremily@gmail.com.

A note on the blog's name:

I considered a lot of different words, especially some that get used at dcf a lot: rhythm, practice, season, etc. I settled on cadence because it is related to these words, but it has some additional connotations that I found particularly significant for this blog.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "cadence" can refer to the flow of musical or poetic verses, rhythmical construction, and "the measure or beat of music, dancing, or any rhythmical movement." These cadences come about by design and for the purpose of beauty and expression. Another definition refers to the "equal measure or proportion which a horse observes in all his motions when he is thoroughly managed," bringing to mind the idea of cadence as discipline.

On the other hand, cadence can refer to less measured things like the rise and fall of the human voice or the rise and fall of "elemental sounds, as of a storm, the sea, etc."


Fascinatingly enough, the term "cadence braking" refers to "repeated rhythmic application of the brake pedal in order to slow a skidding vehicle" (I knew the technique but not the name). At first I passed over this definition as irrelevant to the topic at hand, but then it occurred to me that the rhythms of spiritual life can serve just such a purpose: to slow down the skidding vehicle of our hectic lives and give us space to breathe and reflect and be still. That's my hope for this blog, and I'm eager for what's to come.