Showing posts with label My Tattoo My Love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label My Tattoo My Love. Show all posts
What Would Pete Think?
Ok. I have to admit Lisa Fox's story about her Uncle Russell inspired me to write this post. Her post got me to thinking about those things in our lives that, if we did not grow up in the Episcopal Church, might have been the "prequel" to our finding TEC as our church home.
Now, for at least two and a half decades, I would have told you that this man, Wellington Buel (aka "Pete") Stewart, was one of the people who encouraged me to go to medical school and, ultimately, lead me to a career in pathology, even though he died before I ever graduated from medical school. But it was only in recent years that I have come to realize he also posthumously led me to the Episcopal Church, in some ways. The photo above is of him when he was chair of Pathology at the University of Kentucky Medical School, in 1960--the year of my birth.
I knew Pete from my Amateur Radio ("ham" radio) activities in the 1970's-1980's. But the part that was lost to me back then, and has grown over the years, is that I realize he was a loyal Episcopalian, and a member of Calvary Episcopal Church in Columbia, MO. Pete was one of those guys who didn't really "talk church" much, but I now realize he was one of those guys who led "a secret life of faith." He simply mentioned "heading off for church" or "getting back from church" in a matter of fact way, or things would come up in the conversation that exuded what I would call "A comfortable faith." It was "just part of him."
Church was simply "part of the 'fit' in his life." He didn't ever get too worked up about church politics or the details of sermons. He was the kind of person who was more likely to go to the early service than the late one. He was old school, and deep down inside, he was a "Rite I" sort of guy, and was not crazy about a lot of singing, preferring the spoken service. But his love for the Book of Common Prayer showed through every now and then.
At the time, I was living my life as a "disaffected LCMS Lutheran." Once in a while, we'd discuss deeper subjects over a beer. I distinctly remember his classic line when we were talking about prayer--what it was, what it does, and speculating "how it works." He used to say, "I don't pray anything that isn't in the Book of Common Prayer." At the time, I thought he was being a stodgy, unimaginative old fart. Now that the BCP and I are old friends, I realize his words had more to do with the fact there is probably something in the BCP to use as a "jump starter" for any possible prayer, and that the BCP has had so much thought in it, it truly has an almost universal quality to its ability to "fit the situation."
Only once in my exile did he ever bring up anything even halfway close to the "E" word--evangelism. We were doing the "discussing deeper subjects over a beer" thing at the old Heidelberg restaurant/bar in Columbia, MO (the one that burned, for you natives) and we were discussing my self-imposed exile from the LCMS. He very matter-of-factly, without missing the timing of his beer-swigging, "Have you ever thought about coming with Polly and me to Calvary sometime? Everything you're mad at about church, it's not an issue with us. We ordain women. Our theology is based on the Incarnation, not about guilt or shame for your sins, or "boy, oh boy, aren't you lucky Jesus died for you." It's not about that stuff. It's a theology for thinking people, and really, the way your mind works, you'd actually make a very good Episcopalian."
Then he sort of winked and added, "Of course, in the beginning, we might have to let you in the side door," then quickly said, "Not really--I'm kidding. Seriously, you could even go up for the Eucharist the first time you visited."
But nope...nope...I was still more interested in being mad, I guess.
I did, however, go to the rail at his funeral Eucharist. I had remembered his words. I wonder sometime if that wafer planted a seed, albeit a very slowly germinating one.
Seventeen years later, I began to regularly attend Trinity.
I think about him now and then when we do Prayers of the People and remember the dead, especially when the week of his birthday and the week of the date of his death rolls around. I wonder sometimes if he's sitting among the company of Heaven on those Sundays and hears me think it, and tells the gathered company, "I KNEW IT! See, I knew this was a fit! It just took a long time, that's all, but I WAS RIGHT!" I do muse now and then in church, "I wonder if Pete can believe it? Yeah, he probably can and does." I worry now and then he is scrapping with my late friend Debby for dibs on the credit. I imagine Debby credits her role in all of it, too.
When I think these things, I do have one unfulfilled longing. I do long for one time, that I can feel him sitting in the pew beside me. I think I would like, just once, to feel he and I have transcended a boundary and have "attended the service together." There's a lot there to thank him for, and I think I have felt that I have thanked him for everything in this life he did for me sufficiently except this one little leftover part. Maybe some Sunday, I will feel it. I hope so.
"...Star differs from star in glory..."
(Vincent Van Gogh, "Starry Night over the Rhone," 1888)
I Corinthians 15:40-44:
"There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory. So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body."
I had a magnificent set of evenings over Memorial Day weekend sitting out among the moon and the stars--even sleeping out all night in my yard one night, it was so glorious--and seeing the lightning bugs begin their summer debut for the season. It was simply a magnificent weekend to be a speck in God's Universe. The sheer size and awesome timelessness of the "big" things in nature--the sky, the stars, the ocean, just to name a few--have always been the major spiritual grounding rods for me, my entire life. People just don't do it for me the way nature does.
I looked at the stars these last few nights and pondered the paradoxical dance that "people" seem to occupy in my existence, thinking how each star, in its own way, is its own "person." How like the stars in the sky, we are called to community, and how each of us in our own way feels called to individuals in that community. Yet for me, the paradox has always been nothing gets my goat like people sometimes. I can only handle people for so long, and then that secular monastic in me takes over and I retreat to my safe hermitage of my country life. There is my daily retreat from work, as well as "add on" forms like my occasional "silent Saturday morning," and my "stay-cation retreats where I never leave home." Yet I never feel "un-called" to be a part of a community. When I am home alone, after a certain amount of time enjoying my alone-ness, I think of what it is I am supposed to "do next" when I enter back into community. When I am in that community, after a while I start daydreaming of what I want to do next in my "alone time." Each needs the other, and truthfully, each feeds the other.
On one of those nights, I sat out and thought about different people with each star--what they were experiencing in their lives, and how it is that I am supposed to combine with them to light up the sky, yet maintain my own individual "star-ness." Each one of us with the incarnational light of God within us, but manifested in so many unique ways.
There seem to be at least three kinds of stars in my life experience. Most valued are the "stars I can always see"--for instance, in the winter, I can always find the constellation Orion, and in the summer I can always fix my gaze on Scorpio. They are like the people in my life who have now been my friends for three decades or more. How we relate to each other has changed drastically over the years--sometimes not even close to the roles in which our relationships started out--but we somehow can always adjust. Sometimes their light is very intense and intimate in my life, and vice versa; other times, the light is dimmer. But they are constants. They are appreciated for both their longevity and their versatility.
Then there are the stars that once were a major focus, but I now no longer pay much attention to. I really don't pay much attention to the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, or the North Star itself, per se. But there was a time I always looked for them. They are like the people who were once very involved and intimate in my life--old lovers, intense best friends, etc.--and somehow no longer figure much into the tapestry other than to be a thread once cherished, but no longer. Some of these fizzled out in a supernova of conflict, whereas others just sort of atrophied and slowly burned to extinction. Sometimes their light returns--but it is almost never of the same intensity that it once was, nor does my need to tend to that light return with the same intensity. I appreciate those stars for the history they have given me, even if it includes hard lessons.
Finally, there are the stars I just got around to noticing, like the time I first recognized all of Ursa Major, rather than just its "dipper." The first time I realized the dipper could be converted to a bear, it was an exciting time. It made the sky seem a little bigger than it used to be. I think about the gifts and talents in people I just now got around to appreciating in people who have been around me all along, or about the new people that come into my life over the years, and something about them challenge me to tend their light and let them tend mine. I appreciate those stars because they represent hope and promise.
Even the stars are perishable--which enhances my knowledge that people are perishable. It makes me understand the urgency of the Gospel of Mark, and in Paul's letters. If even stars are perishable, then people definitely are. Yet timelessness and infinity rides within all of them. What a beautiful, but messy, dance it all is!
The Stations of the Resurrection--Eighth Station--Jesus Strengthens the Faith of Thomas
("The Incredulity of Thomas," by Michelangelo Merisi da Carvaggio)
The Eighth Station--Jesus Strengthens the Faith of Thomas
Leader: O Risen Christ, Light of the world, we adore you;
People: You allowed Thomas to believe in the way he understood best.
Thomas had been absent from the other disciples when Jesus had breathed the Holy Spirit upon them. When they told him of their encounter with Jesus, Thomas just glared at them and did not say anything for a long time. He had no doubt his companions had experienced something--but wondered if their desire and wishes to see Jesus again had not clouded reality for them. Perhaps they had met someone who reminded them of Jesus and they wished it so. Perhaps someone had played a cruel trick on them. Perhaps they were so grief-stricken they were having delusions.
Thomas was still grieving terribly himself. He simply did not want to hurt any more than he was hurting already. He didn't want to hear these stories--it did not make his own pain any better. So finally, he growled back, "You know what? I don't want to disagree with you, but I just can't buy it, as much as I love and believe in you. I won't believe it until I see it--and I'd have to feel the nail marks and the hole in his side myself before I could even begin to believe it."
A week later, the disciples were again behind closed doors and Thomas was among them. Suddenly, Jesus was again in their midst! "Peace be with you," repeated Jesus. He looked squarely at Thomas, holding out his hands. "Thomas, put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt, but believe."
The Gospel of John doesn't say whether Thomas actually did touch Jesus--that is left up to our imaginations--but whatever did happen caused Thomas to exclaim, "My Lord and my God!" What is clear, though, is that Jesus understood exactly what it took to come to Thomas on his own terms--and he was perfectly willing to do that.
Leader: Jesus came to Thomas to the way of his own understanding,
People: Just as Christ can come to us in the way of our own understanding.
Leader: Let us pray.
(a brief period of silence is observed.)
Lord God, perceiver of all things,
Sometimes it hurts too much to simply accept and believe your truth.
Sometimes when our worries and fears overtake us,
the gentle touch of your loving hand sears our flesh like acid.
It becomes easier to doubt than to believe.
Remind us in those moments
that we are loved by a Son with nail holes in his own hands
and a gash in his side, a Son who cries and bleeds,
and will not ask anything of us in our pain
but to simply touch his own wounds and feel one with them.
People: Amen.
Leader: Alleluia! Christ is risen!
People: The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
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