Marathon Day

I was planning to post this afternoon about the Boston Marathon.  I usually do since it gives me the chance to pretend to be a sports reporter and post pictures of the race.  I may still post those pictures but not today.  Today I am posting the letter I wrote to the congregation this evening while keeping the church open for drop ins.  It has been quite a day.  Blessings and prayers to you all...

 

 

Dear Members and Friends,

I watched the Boston Marathon, as I always do, from the steps of First Congregational Church in Natick. As most of you know, it was a beautiful day. I marveled at the number of people both running and watching. As the athletes went by I couldn’t help but be impressed by the strength of the human body and the human spirit.

As you know, the Marathon didn’t end the way it began and now we are all left to grapple with the act of violence that has marred such a great and peaceful event. My thoughts and prayers are with all of you, with the runners, the victims, and the many volunteers and emergency workers who have now been called into service. Right now we do not know who did this or why. Right now, for many of us, the feeling of shock and grief are just about all we can handle.

When events like this happen, I try to reach out to the people I love. I try to find people to talk to. I try to listen and I try to pray. I urge you to do the same. When a tragedy occurs it draws us closer and we find strength in that. If I can be any help—or if the church can be of any help—let me know. I would love to hear from you. Also, tomorrow the church will be open from 9am-11:30am if you want to sit and think or pray in the silence of our sanctuary. I will be in the office if you would rather chat. We can even talk about everything but the Marathon if you want to. Whatever helps.

So hang in there. Hug each other. Reach out to those you can. Accept the fact that others will reach out you. Show that our human race is capable of beautiful things. I and the church are around if you need us. Remember—wherever you are—that you are not alone.

Yours in Faith and Hope,

Adam

Monday Morning Comin' Down

 

 

It's official.  The storm is over.  The kids are home again today, though, as there is a great deal of heavy wet stuff to move around.  The sidewalks aren't cleared and most of the roads are missing about half a lane.  Oh yes...and it is raining, making everything very special indeed.  I took the snowshoes to work.  I suspect I looked a tad ridiculous cruising on top of the snowbanks at the traffic's edge.  However, I didn't mind being three feet above the growling, splashing cars.  It was also nice to find a practical use for these things so far south...

 

One aspect of the storm is that it reminded those of us in Burbania that we aren't really as in charge as we often like to think.  We sculpt our surroundings as a matter of course.  We choose our houses and our neighborhoods.  We pick our friends and our leisure activities.  Yes, there is always something we wish we could do that we cannot.  That yearning is a natural part of our humanity.  Still, Burbanians expect a certain amount of order and regularity.  For a couple days that was put into disarray.  Protect the Earth, people, because we are part of it.

 

 

At one point in my walk I passed over the Charles River.  Where I live, this historic body of water is only slightly larger than your average stream.  It gets massive closer to Boston but here it is a lazy spot for geese, ducks, and a couple of herons who also make it their home.  The drifts put me higher up than usual and the river appeared unperturbed so I grabbed a picture.



 

 

I realize that I have been going on about this storm for the last couple of days (see previous posts) but I am really appreciating what it has to tell us.  I realize, too, that as everything gets back to normal it's results will increasingly be an impediment to our efficiency.  I, too, will be (and already am) cursing and sliding about as I try to get from one place to another.  I hope those of you who are dealing with the burdens right now are doing OK.  Let me know if I can help.  I have a few gripes as well but am trying (not always successfully) to not let them take me over.

 

Anyway, that is all for now.  I thought about writing something about the Pope's retirement but as a liberal Protestant I am not sure what I really have to say.  I have to think a bit.  Perhaps later when I am not in a Transcendentalist mood...

 

Here is a link to a similar post from a couple of years ago.  In it I quote William Channing Gannett, a great figure in our movement and the brother of a former pastor of the church I serve.  I like to think of them trooping about on snowshoes over the Charles River in their greatcoats and snowy white beards, being philosophical...and scaring geese...

 

A Crown of Beauty or The Sermon I Would Have Preached this Morning

"A Crown of Beauty"

Rev. Dr. Adam Tierney-Eliot

Eliot Church Natick

2/10/13

Readings: Isaiah 62:1-7, "The Snow-Storm" Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 



 

 

It has been a busy weekend for most of us, hasn't it?  It's a weird sort of busy, though, because for the most part, everything  we thought we would be doing we didn't do and what we ended up doing after purchasing every gallon of milk and every loaf of bread was sitting and waiting, updating Facebook...and shovelling.

Now, there are different schools of thought when it comes to snow removal. There are those who wait for the storm to end and do the whole thing at once.  There are the ones who shovel during the storm so as to keep up, and there are those who get the kids to do it.  I am an adherent of the last two schools.  However, there is something not entirely satisfying about pushing the kids outside then following them out to clear away the snow.  This is particularly true when one looks up at the sky and sees more snow more coming down.  Later of course, (much later on Merrill Road), I get to curse the town plow as it pushes the road snow back toward our driveway and walk.



Now, I have done a lot of shoveling over the years but usually it is in smaller installments.  Today, like many of you, I am not entirely sure I am done...even though my back says I am.  There is a lot of tedium and drudgery in a storm and we have experienced it this weekend.  But you know, there are things that I already miss about the great blizzard of 2013 (and no, I haven't lost my mind). There are things to miss.  Storms are exciting, after all and there is something great about being where the action is. 

But what I miss the most...is the silence.  Not only does snow itself act as an insulator and sound barrier but the driving ban stopped all that traffic on Friday and Saturday.  When you live pressed right up against that part of Union Street that insists on calling itself Pleasant Street, most days the noise of the cars is a constant companion. Usually the cars run all night, too.

But suddenly, thanks to the storm all the sounds of modern life were gone except for the sound of the furnace occasionally...or some electronic device reminding us of its presence.

However, in spite of these obvious technological impediments we could, I think, almost grasp what Emerson was going on about in our reading
The whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm

It is in that sort of silence that we can, if we wish, begin to hear the still small voice of our hopes and our dreams. The yearning of our own souls.

It is in that sort of silence that we reclaim the gift of prophecy.  After all, it was in a world without modern noise that Isaiah heard the promise from God of a new name for his people...Of a new name and a new beginning: You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of God...You shall no more be termed forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed desolate.

This is the sort of promise I think we all would like to hear in the silence, or in the midst of the sounds during the storms of our lives.  For the Israelites in the reading, of course, theirs was a communal struggle...The challenge of exile, of dislocation, living among strangers in a land not their own.  We have communal struggles, too, ones less easily solved than a pile of snow. The weak economy has hit so many people so hard and, in spite of recent successes we struggle with...The continued specters of racism, sexism, and classism...The continued discrimination against the LGBT community...The constant problems of a world and country in a state of continuous war.  All of these and more take up our national discourse and to some extent local discourse. They settle in our hearts and minds as they affect individuals in our community, too.

But at the same time, there are storms in our hearts that are harder to express in community...That are harder to speak out loud even to our loved ones and to our friends.  These, too, require attention.   They require a prophetic voice.  You will be called a new name that the mouth of God will give and here in the silence during and after the storm (or at least after), I think, is where we can find some shelter, some peace.  The Israelites learned this and the Transcendentalists learned it in a different way.

While the storm separates us, slows us down, it also causes us to see things differently, to hear things differently and, perhaps, see the beauty in something that we couldn't see before.  Maybe, even, we can see the beauty in ourselves.

In Emerson's poem he writes about the north wind's masonry; How The snow changes the landscape.  It falls over the rocks and trees, the hills and valleys, the stuff that we have left outside and makes them different somehow.
The storm, in his words
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night work,



Even my crappy 12-year-old Saturn Ion gets a new look.  It seems somehow more majestic buried in the drifts on the driveway than it ever does lurching down the road.  So, too, the storms in our hearts change our landscape for better or worse (Hopefully for the better) and that is something to pray for.
In the end when the storm is over....and we have dug ourselves out....and the power is back on...we will be able to look back and reflect on what we have learned....

To find beauty in desolation
To pause to hear the voice in the silence
To value the hard times
For their hidden joys

The Snow Storm

So you may have heard that it is snowing where I live.  There is a good chance that it is snowing where you live, too.  We, like everyone else in the Northeast, have bought enough milk to bathe in and are now hunkered down for a couple of days.  The boys have been entertaining themselves by reading, sleeping, and sledding.  I have been picking away at the mandolin and the sermon.  It has been a nice day with lots of downtime. 

I like to think this is what it would have been like for those 19th Century parsonage dwellers. Here we are, working up some ideas for Sunday, gazing out the window, thinking or writing a bit more.  For many of the pastors of this congregation, inspiration came as much from the view outside the window--from the acts of nature and the inner natures of the people they met--as it did from the texts they read.  Right now I am thinking about how the snow can change the way the landscape looks.  I am also thinking about how storms can change our inner landscape.  A storm of either kind can make us see the same things as before, but see them differently.  I hope the view is good for you.

One of my readings is a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson.  I should say that Ralph is not my favorite Transcendentalist.  I find him vague and I am not so sure there is as much "there" there as many of his most devoted fans insist.  However, this one is about the snow and the storm and I like it very much. It is, in fact, called The Snow-storm and I think the first stanza describes our current situation well.

 

 

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,

Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,

Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air

Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,

And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.

The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit

Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed

In a tumultuous privacy of storm

 

 

I am enjoying this "tumultuous privacy".  It is a sort of quiet calm indoors while the wind and weather surge around the outside.  The rest of the poem is pretty good, too.  You can find it in most anthologies or you can come to church if you are able.  ...round every windward stake, or tree or door.  Speeding the myriad-handed, his wild work...

 

 

Anyway, it is getting dark now and there is call for me to make dinner before we settle in to our evening pursuits.  I suspect mine will be a lot like the afternoon.  Hang in there.  Stay warm.  Keep your phones and readers charged.  Find your candles and your guitar if you've got 'em.  You never know when they might come in handy...

 



A Joyful Noise: Sermon and Music

I did not preach yesterday.  The Sunday after Christmas is the day when many Interns, Assistant Pastors, and Associate Pastors preach while the Senior Pastors take a break.  My very capable Associate Matt Carriker did the honors.  I am recovering from a run of sermons that began before Thanksgiving and ended on Christmas Eve.  Good stuff, but I am glad for the rest!

Here is my sermon from December 23rd.  It reads as a little grumpy.  If you were there it wouldn't so much.  we had many carols and some of our gifted Middle School and High School guitarists helped me out.  Stephen James our Music Director was there, too.  Anyway, imagine little smiley and winky emoticans every once in a while.  I also took the liberty of putting in the rather shakey video of the songs we played.  The first and last are hymns (you should recognize them).  The middle one is a cover of "Journey of the Magi" by Frank Turner.

"A Joyful Noise"
Rev. Dr. Adam Tierney-Eliot

 

First let's thank the kids for playing today.  It isn't the easiest thing to take time out of your weekend to play at church and I, at least, enjoyed it very much.  I like playing with them.  I am glad they don't mind appearing in public with me.

The music also created something of a festive atmosphere, didn't it?  Which is just what we need today... 

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

The title of my reflection today is “A Joyful Noise” as in “make a joyful noise”.  It is the request, order, demand, that we see appear from time to time in the Bible in places like the psalms.  It also appears in sermons (though not always mine) and hymns.  It also shows up in prayers.  “Make a Joyful Noise”. Celebrate the certainty of our faith and the happiness in our hearts.

Now, certainly this time of year there is plenty of noise to go around. There are carols on CD players and ipods...and in the stores.  There are Christmas specials and Christmas commercials. There is even a tendency among friends and acquaintances to wish each other Happy Holidays and remain upbeat in conversation no matter how we might really be feeling...

In fact, the joyful noise this year hasn't quite cut it for some folks.  It sounds joyful but it doesn't reflect our own experience.  Outside we are presented with all the bright lights and holiday spirit but inside, for many, the joy has turned to exhaustion...even desperation.  We talked about this last week a bit, too.  In the season of the fiscal cliff, and Newtown just over a week ago and numerous real and difficult personal circumstances...it is hard, very hard, to make that joyful noise.   Or at least to make it as often as we are expected to make it.  So in the midst of our haste and pressure the sounds we hear turn to static instead.

But, really--as hard as things are today--even in a good year, we are all a bit ragged by this time.  Yes, it is only the fourth Sunday in Advent but it is also the 23rd.  It is Christmas Eve...Eve!  We are normally feeling stretched a bit thin.  We have every right to be.

Perhaps that is why we are given to nostalgia, of thinking of, and hoping for a simpler time like the one described by Charles Dickens.

When the clock struck eleven this domestic ball broke up.  Mr and Mrs. Fezziwig, took their stations, one on either side the door, and, shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a merry Christmas.

I love the Fezziwigs.  I love that fiddler dunking his face in the bowl of porter.  I love this party and Scrooge loves it too.  I love it partly for the same reason that I love Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist.  These are no-nonsense people.  They work hard and they know how to throw a party.  They care for the people who care for them and we know from Scrooge that they are forgiving and patient not just on this one day but everyday.

I think we all like them very much and we want to be like them.  But--I think, if we were to be honest--while we like to think of ourselves in that way, we really have a bit more of the Scrooge in us than makes us comfortable. 

Now last year I preached a sermon in which I stuck up for the Grinch (do any of you remember it?).  The Grinch was someone who just wanted to be left alone.  He was someone who didn't want to be told what to think or how to act around his vacuous neighbors.  Scrooge, on the other hand, is nasty.  He is greedy and territorial.  He likes to get his own way and when he does not, people are punished.
Dickens knew folks like this well.  Even for him the Fezziwigs were from a different idealized era.  Scrooges ruled Industrialized London.   He--Scrooge--is a tragic figure.  Blinded by his own needs, his own pain and, yes, his own wealth.  He is tired of the joyful noise but also unable to make his peace and unwilling for others to make theirs.

And so inside us (at least for Dickens) we struggle.  The angels (that we aren't so sure we believe in) tell us to sing in praise of a story we aren't so sure we believe either. Besides, we aren't sure we are up to all that celebrating in the mess of our lives anyway.

And so Fezziwig and Scrooge do battle inside us.  Sometimes one and then other steps forward.  One keeping us grounded in our better natures and the other challenging us with our longings and our regrets.  In the midst of this battle we seek solutions.  We try to find ways and traditions, best practices to improve our souls and spirits to keep Scrooge at bay.

Now. how we do this varies, of course.  We each have different needs and personalities.  We come with different stories and perspectives.  However, we all try to find some middle path, seeking the joyful in the midst of the static...finding peace in the midst of the chaos...and hope in the midst of the pain.

For me music helps shut out the less-joyful noise.  Services like today and like the ones tomorrow help in this way.  The performances of the boys and Stephen today...the congregation singing both now during the holiday season and at other times, too.  This helps me to focus and to celebrate.
Perhaps paradoxically, silence helps, too.  On Friday I enjoyed the time I could take out of my holiday planning to sit in silence during Jacqueline Brodnitzki's Solstice meditation.
Now, some of you might enjoy the same things.  They may turn the tide.  Since you hang out around here it wouldn't be a surprise!  Others may read books, or decorate the house, or garden when it isn't winter and plan next year's when it is.

Or perhaps you just need to spend time in community...in the community of family and friends...in the community of the church.  The options, after all, are endless...

Whatever it is that brings us joy and enables us to spread it, we need to make use of it now and every day.  To lift up our voices...To celebrate...To sing.

So let us take a moment now in silence
To think about what brings us to the joyful noise

"Hoping": The Pageant Sunday Homily

Someone asked me for this sermon yesterday so I have tried to make it fit into a readable form.  Like Bill Clinton I am a text preacher, but also like him I  both digress and I write it out as I would speak it.  This means that even in this form, grammar and punctuation serve the cadances of my voice rather than the rules of writing.  I hope it doesn't drive you crazy but--trust me--it reads better than what I bring to the pulpit.

Finally, liturgists will wonder if I am confused about which week the "hope" candle is lit.  All I can say is that we are liberals and we let our lighters choose what theme they would like.  This year there were two hope candles.  I don't think anyone ended up minding...

Hoping
December 16, 2012
Rev. Dr. Adam Tierney-Eliot

OK, So...  Here's the thing; this hasn't been the most “Christmasy” week for me.  It started OK with the annual caroling  trip to Leonard Morse Hospital on Tuesday and a Christmas service at Riverbend Nursing Home on Thursday morning.  But, you see at breakfast on Thursday, I was the victim of a comically random (but still quite painful) cooking accident that left me half blind and in the Emergency Room of that same Leonard Morse Hospital.  I can give you the details at coffee hour if you want them...and if you haven't already read about it on Facebook.  Then later that evening I nearly collapsed at the CVS over on West Central Street.  Let's face it, nothing says the holidays like creating a spectacle of yourself in front of total strangers in the middle of the night.

Then, of course, there was something in the news on Friday.  Something happened in Connecticut that left me (and many of you) wondering about this whole human endeavor.  We found ourselves questioning everything we think we know about the world and about humanity.  In that moment--and really for most of the weekend after--it was hard to envision the angels and the shepherds.  It was hard to embody that seasonal sense of Peace and goodwill to all.

In those moments it is hard to imagine what to do or think or say...even on Pageant Sunday.  We all go through times like this.  whether it because of personal crises...or we share in a national tragedy...or if it is simply the gradual wearing down of our better natures from too many problems at work or at home...or too many trips up and down Route 9.  In these moments we ask ourselves why.  Why do we live in a world where bad--even unspeakable things--can happen to us and where people can do unspeakable things.

We live these sorts of days plunged into the muck of human existence, traveling paths of darkness made no brighter because of their familiarity. We ask with Ann Weems, Where did the angels' song go? and we do not know where to look for the answer except, perhaps, to come to church.  Except to come to church on this Sunday because what we do know is that the kids will come out (as they did this morning) and tell us a story.  It is the story they tell every year.  It is the story we tell ourselves and each other now and at other times.

Most of us here today may be a little weak on the Parable of the Sower.  Am I right?  Can I see some hands?  That's OK...it's why you have me.  But you don't need me for the Christmas story.  The Christmas story we all know and it is a story most specifically about one thing above all others.  It was the theme of our Advent candle today.  It is a story of hope and hope is what we need in the dark times.  All those other good things that we talk about: Faith, joy, peace, even love?  They thrive off Hope.

It is hope that the people of Israel were trying to preserve when Isaiah made his promise that someday, somehow someone would come and bring about an era of peace and justice.  His authority Isaiah says will grow constantly and there will be endless peace for the throne of David...He will establish it and uphold it with Justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forever more.

This is the hope that gets us out of bed on tough days.  It is the expectation that things will get better and that maybe even a glorious future awaits.

And it is hope in that future that draws us to act.   Barack Obama once said that  In the unlikely story that is America there has never been anything false about hope.  Here in the church we might want to broaden that “unlikely story” a bit to include all of humanity but the fact remains that hope drives us to find a better way and a better world even when it feels like we are having to begin over and over again and again.

You know, things started looking up for me in the Christmas and Advent department as the weekend went on.  Fighting my way through traffic with one eye closed didn't help.  However my vision did improve  (just don't make any sudden movements on my right side today)...and last night I found myself not at the Epiphany Concert rehearsal I expected to attend but instead at the Candlelight Vigil on the Common for the people of Newtown, Connecticut.

I was there with my eldest son and a bag of old, mostly-used pulpit candles to contribute to the cause.  Many of us brought extra candles.  Slowly as people trickled in we lit them up and then walked around the periphery of the Common.  I was in front, but as I looked back I could see that our line stretched halfway around the park, a long, moving, flickering row of lights underneath the colored holiday lights in the trees and the menorah for Hanukkah almost completely lit.

Then when we gathered back in one place by the gazebo we took a moment for people to offer up prayers.  Each prayer was a prayer for action, understanding...and a prayer for hope.  This was when Advent returned for me standing in the cold dark, mostly with strangers praying and hoping and planning in support of other strangers we will never meet.

As we broke up into smaller groups and eventually drifted toward home, I think we all realized that for as long we we can light those candles in the darkness we can keep hope--and our humanity--alive.

We don't like to talk about it, but really, there is a bit of Lent in our Advent and Easter in our Christmas.  They are like a peanut butter cup.  These two holiday cycles are both about struggling through darkness and emerging in some sense reborn out of the tragedy and suffering we encounter in life.  For many of us this hope for rebirth is what draws us here.  In spite of and because of our doubts.

No matter what the niceties of our theology might be, what the children told us this morning in their pageant is that even in dark times--times like those that Mary and Joseph and the Innkeeper lived through...times like the one we are living through right now--there is always the chance of a miracle. There is always a chance that things will get better.

We just have to find the strength to work for this chance.  We have to find a way to keep it in our hearts alongside the pain and the joy that come with being alive.  We must move through this world with the hope and determination to make these dreams for a better world come true.

No. It is Not too Soon.

There was a time when I wrote a much more political blog that has since ceased to be (Parsonage Life).  Since then, my web interests veered in more spiritual directions.  I felt that the world had plenty of blogs in which folks spouted off their beliefs spontaneously and sometimes without adequate forethought.  I didn't want to be like that.  So with Burbania Posts I have tried to keep things more thoughtful, perhaps, but certainly less political.

However, I do feel right now, like something needs to be said about gun control in the wake of the still-developing story in Newtown Connecticut.  No.  It is not too soon. 

I realize that there are folks who like to talk about how "guns don't kill people" claiming that "people do".  However, that is half the story.  The fact is that people kill other people with guns.  Guns are more efficient than other methods.  They are fast.  They are easier in many cases to conceal.  If you want to kill a whole lot of people at once...  You use a gun.  There are other ways, of course, but most of them are regulated or outright illegal to own.  What happened today (and what has happened in numerous other places) was possible because of the national permissiveness around firearms.

That needs to change.  We need to change the culture of weaponry in the United States.  We need strict regulation.  No half-steps, either.

Part of the cultural issue, in my opinion, has to do with a misplaced sense of religion.  There is a segment of our society (a well-funded segment to be sure) who sees guns as icons of our national religion.  They see the Second Amendment as scriptural and unchanging.  To them it is a bulwark ensuring the existence of their hobby and their right to--in their minds--protect a nation from whomever they see as an enemy.  Some folks even think of it as a sort of crime-prevention technique and wish more people carried guns around.  The fact is, they would save more lives if they carried portable defibrillators. 

None of this gun culture makes sense in a rational world.  More guns on the street do not prevent more gun crime.  They just don't.  Like the Bible, the Constitution is open to interpretation as we encounter situations that the writers of those documents never anticipated.  Sorry, its just a fact.  We--liberals and conservatives--do this all the time with the Bible.  The Second Amendment certainly isn't a holier document than that.  Finally, guns are not holy relics.  They are machines that cause death.  That is their job.  That is their function.  There are plenty of dangerous things that we as citizens are not allowed to own unless the government has given us special permission.  Guns are dangerous things and should be tightly regulated.  This isn't a video game. Their impact is permanent.

That is all I have to say right now.  I hope that some of our political leaders are able to shake off the always-attractive NRA money and stand up for regulation and--frankly--for reason and sanity in a time and on an issue that could use some strong, sound leadership.  I am heartbroken thinking of the victims of today's shooting.  I cannot imagine how the families and friends of these children and teachers must feel.  I find myself praying for them...constantly.  This situation is ugly and tragic and preventable.  I also pray with all my heart that we get our acts together to ensure that this doesn't happen again.