There’s a well-known Zen Buddhist proverb: “before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”
My typical process in planning for a reflection is to review all the readings for the day from the lectionary, and then try to find any insights I can tease out of them.
But given what’s going on in our country and in the world, I decided to go in a different direction today; instead, I’d like to reflect on large, medium and small but heroic or beautiful deeds and gestures that I know about, on what I’m seeing folks do here in our church, and out in the world to help keep Jesus’ directives moving forward. I’d like to share some of the things I’ve found helpful, and later on, I’d like to invite everyone here to share things that they’ve found helpful or inspiring.
So, I’ll start by saying that things are really, really bad out there; it’s demoralizing. We’ve seen congregants afraid to come to church. My friend Lidia is now a US citizen, but most of the siblings that she rescued from an orphanage and from the streets of Guatemala after her mother died just have a green card; they work, they pay taxes, their kids were born here – but they are all in danger of illegal deportation every day; they carry copies of their documents with them everywhere. My family has it pretty easy; however, the government funding that pays for our kid’s PhD in cellular biology is in jeopardy – Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Penn – who knows what’s next. My husband’s decades of science work at the Berkeley Lab is paid almost completely by grants from the Department of Energy – no idea what will happen there. His grad students and postdoctoral fellows come from all over the world – many of them from Asia…. And who knows what will become of our social security payments and 403(b) investments….
But every Sunday when I come to church, you, my Friends in Christ, our visiting clergy and our musicians bring us such hopeful and inspiring messages and actions to strengthen us. It really helps!
Among the messages which have helped me are those about a light shining in the darkness, and the darkness not overcoming it – or not comprehending it, in the King James version – there’s a mindblowing choice of words! And all of the empowering and comforting messages about trusting in God’s goodness and mercy really help. And the themes of some of our common hymns have given me insights I’ve never noticed before; have you ever thought about how often the words “rock,” or “foundation” come up in hymns? “How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent word!” goes one. “The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord; she is his new creation by water and the word” goes another. I never gave it much thought before, but these times have really gotten me thinking about what a foundation does; it not only gives us a structure to rest upon, it gives us a structure to build upon. Every Sunday we come together not just to remind ourselves of God’s love, and to recommit to the work of loving our neighbors as ourselves, but to actually build the work together.
There was the Sunday when Don brought Archbishop Budde’s mailing address so that we could send her thank you cards for speaking up for mercy. And Steve bought us letter samples and addresses to write in support of food aid. Of course there’s Beth’s work with Albany Thrives Together, and all the folks from our church who make sandwiches for our unhoused neighbors. There are the many simple acts of fellowship and caring we do for each other – not to mention actually planning all of the worship services and managing the physical structure of this church! All of these things are building on the foundations of our church.
Nevertheless, these times are so unnerving, and cruel, and we often feel powerless, and don’t know what to do to stop the evil that is spreading before our eyes. So I’d like to reflect a bit more on acts of kindness and of bravery that I have seen or that I know of.
So: first, something more about Lidia, who I mentioned earlier; Lidia has never forgotten how hard it was to struggle to feed her family, to find housing, to find work. Every Thanksgiving for many years now, she buys or is given over a dozen turkeys, and piles of vegetables, rice and rolls. She uses her church kitchen, and for days in advance of Thanksgiving, works with friends and family – including the two granddaughters she’s now raising on her own, since her youngest son died unexpectedly at the age of thirty – and cooks it all up, and makes huge dispensers of coffee. They load up their minivans and go to homeless encampments and the places where day workers congregate, and pass out food until it’s all gone.
I’m going to dig into my family’s past a bit to share a few things that I find inspiring. My mother and her family are from Germany; her father was born Jewish and converted to Christianity as a boy at his stepfather’s suggestion. My grandfather became a doctor; he met my grandmother, who was a nurse, at the hospital where they were both working; they married and had three children, and he took a job as a public health official. When the Nazis came into power, they took his job away. The family moved to a small town outside of Heidelberg to be closer to his mother and stepsister. The noose kept tightening. The minister at their local church told my grandfather he was no longer welcome there. But the minister of a bigger church in Heidelberg welcomed them. Heroic act #1. Then the Nazis put my grandfather in a work camp; somehow, my grandmother was able to get him out, and the family used every bit of money they had to get him out of the country; a Congregational minister in western Massachusetts sponsored him at a home for refugees and helped him get on his feet again; Heroic act #2.
My grandmother and the three girls were stuck in Germany for the duration of the war – eight more years – and the rules on how “mixed” children were treated became increasingly harsh; at 14, you were no longer allowed to attend school. At 16, you had to go to work far from home, or you’d be sent to a work camp; my eldest aunt went off to become a nanny far from home to avoid the camp. A teacher in Heidelberg, Leni Pretorius, took in girls who were no longer welcome in school. She taught my mother and her little sister up until the war ended. Heroic act #3.
There’s a photograph in the family album of my mother and her sisters, wreathed in smiles, eating roast goose one Christmas during the war. The goose, a black market luxury item in wartime, had magically appeared on their front steps one morning. The family always assumed that it had been misdelivered – just luck! – that’s the story my mother told me. But years later, it occurred to me: might it not be that it was delivered on purpose? Yes, the family was ostracized and starving – but maybe some folks secretly empathized? Heroic act #4.
Now: onto small but beautiful things I’ve seen or felt or done in recent months; I’ll list a few – then, please, Friends – you share yours!
Total strangers have been saying hello to me on the street, wishing me a blessed day! Other strangers have told me how much they love my coat, or my glasses, or my outfit. Last week I was in Grocery Outlet singing along with “I’m going to Kansas City,” when a man started singing along with me – so fun! And then he tracked me down to tell me that my voice “isn’t bad.” Being able to plan Richard Cushman’s memorial concert, and the new organ scholarship program in his honor have really helped, as has working on Calliope concerts. Our hummingbird nest – is that not a direct proof of God’s love? My beloved cats, of course. And all the beautiful cats and dogs I meet on my walks. Flowers. Heather Cox Richardson’s daily newsletter, Letters from an American, keeps me informed and my panic at a minimum. Thank goodness for Faithful America calling out false prophets.
“Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”
Now, friends – what have you seen, done, or experienced that you are finding helpful in keeping focused on not just surviving this flood, but helping to build the work?
