The Sunday Morning Forum at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Palm Desert, CA
May 26, 2012 Leave a comment
Now it is after sunset (in my patch of California). On the Eve of Pentecost I share with you this presentation of the hymn “Come, Gracious Spirit.” Enjoy (more than once) as you prepare for (or celebrate) Pentecost.
So you know: “A Christian hymn of prayer to the Holy Spirit written by Simon Browne, 1720. Sung in the video by the Altar of Praise Chorale.” [YouTube caption]
May 26, 2012 Leave a comment
“This is not what we were praying for, but this is what God sent.” After last night’s [5/23/12] In Good Faith podcast with Jane Knuth, I couldn’t get these words out of my head. … Late into the night I thought about this story and about the various reactions I’ve had when God’s response to me was unfathomable at the time. Sometimes I felt disappointed, confused, frustrated. Other times I had a good laugh, a new way to look at a situation, a deep sense of trust.
Sometime after midnight, I started to imagine God as the host of a TV game show called Jeopardy. On the show, the contestants get an answer first, and then they have to come up with the right question. It made me smile to think that maybe God is always giving me answers, and that maybe my prayers are actually questions.
What are some of the reactions you’ve had to God’s response to your prayers? What image of God and prayer does it bring to mind for you?
Read the entire post (I recommend it) here: Game-show God — A Nuns Life by Sr. Maxine
With Sister Maine I ask you “What are some of the reactions you’ve had to God’s response to your prayers?” I have experienced disappointment, confusion, and frustration—as she has. I would add disorientation, bitterness, and despair.
Fortunately God’s “angel” (messenger) has often been timely in arriving and helping me back to trust (in God’s love, and in God’s joy), back to hope (that with God all things are possible and all things will work toward the good), and back to that Peace that passes all understanding. Waiting for the angel, doing the work, takes patience. I know.
Please leave a comment, help me to hear your story, let us together fashion our story.
May 25, 2012 Leave a comment
Moving from study to action is one of the goals for those who participate in the Sunday Morning Forum, here, or in the classroom, or both. It works the other way, too: action needs to be informed by study. What are the needs of the world around us? What is being done? Listen…are we being called to minister here? Listen…are we being called to support the efforts of others? Listen…what is the Spirit saying?
In my listening i hear again and again the whisper of the Spirit to help others bring clean water to those who must work hard and risk much, every day, to provide water for their families. During Advent and Christmas the ministry of World Vision and charity: water were highlighted in the Advent & Christmas Calendar. As we prepare for Pentecost I put them in front of you again. These two videos are worth seeing time and again to help us remember that the need is still great and that others have already begun to address the need.
They help me to Listen so that I may hear what the Spirit is saying. They make me wonder what the need is in my own part of the world. I pray that they may serve the same purpose in you.
To “see” what the previous video illustrated graphically, I encourage you to watch “Walking in Sabina’s Shoes” from World Vision:
May 24, 2012 Leave a comment
“Recommend books, poetry, music, movies, videos, and so on,” we tell each other on Sunday. Just last Sunday (5/20/12) Stan recommended The Last Week by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan. (It is available at the Rancho Mirage Public Library.) Here are 2 Book Reviews to help you decide to pick it up and read.
A book review from Spirituality & Pracitce
Marcus Borg (Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time) and John Dominic Crossan (Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography) set out to explore the last week in Jesus’ life against the backdrop of Roman imperial control. Their purpose is not to attempt a historical reconstruction of what has become known as the “Passion” or suffering of Jesus, but to probe the things Jesus was passionate about. The text they use is the Gospel of Mark, the earliest to be written, the most succinct, and the one with the most time markers for the week’s events. Read more.
A book review from Journey with Jesus
In this simple exposition written for a general audience, two leading New Testament scholars use the Gospel of Mark to explain what happened to Jesus during his final week. They use Mark because most scholars consider it the earliest of the four Gospels, the primary source for Matthew and Luke, and because when you read carefully you see that Mark details the last eight days of Holy Week, from Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday. Read more.
Keep the conversation going: what is your experience with this book?
May 23, 2012 1 Comment
On Sunday, believing ourselves “sent into the world” by Jesus in his prayer—John 17:18—we looked at the “Five Marks of Mission” set before Episcopalians (and all Anglicans worldwide) in 1984 and again in 1990.
“The Mission of the Church is the mission of Christ.”
- To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
- To teach, baptise and nurture new believers
- To respond to human need by loving service
- To seek to transform unjust structures of society
- To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth
See: http://bit.ly/KCHAf6 (Anglican Communion)
(Bonds of Affection-1984 ACC-6 p 49,
Mission in a Broken World-1990 ACC-8 p 101)
Around the table each of us found one of the marks “hitting the mark” in our heart. For me it was the last mark “To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.” Men and women of faith have reached differing conclusions about “how” this ought to be undertaken, or if it should be undertaken at all.
For another the fourth mark “To seek to transform unjust structures of society” raised the question of discerning a God-given mission amidst the current political environment in America where men and women of faith who have reached different conclusions about what is an “unjust structure” of society tend to vilify and even demonize each other publicly.
It was a lively discussion. It raised more questions than it answered. It led us to pray for each other.
Please offer a question or comment, let’s continue the conversation.
May 23, 2012 Leave a comment
May 23, 2012 Leave a comment
Commentary by Hovak Najarian
Related post: B Pentecost, Art for May 27,2012
The importance attributed to artists by scholars can be determined usually by how many of their works are projected onto a screen in an art history class. Lazzaro Bastiani’s work is seldom shown or discussed and often he is left out entirely from textbooks. A reason for this is that his contemporaries were the major artists of his time; the fame of Renaissance artists such as Botticelli, Raphael, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Durer continue to overshadow Bastiani to this day. Bastiani did not work for the Medici in Florence or the pope in Rome; even in Venice where he lived, the artists of the Bellini family were more widely known. Yet, like a good journeyman, he was employed steadily and produced respectable work.
Before the early Renaissance, there was no separation of the arts but in the fifteenth century, painting came to be regarded as being of a higher order. Craft workers were erroneously thought to be occupied only with repetitious handwork whereas the arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture were recognized as having intellectual content. Although the weaving process was associated with the crafts, tapestries in effect were akin to painting and were admired. Artists such as Bastiani, were commissioned to make cartoons (full scale preparatory designs) that were reproduced in woven form. The creator of a cartoon, however, did not participate in the weaving process; a tapestry was made usually by a guild or a family of weavers
In Bastiani’s Pentecost, the fine wool, silk and silver threads make up a richness of texture that differs from the surface of an oil painting. The materials are different yet, in style, the Pentecost is in keeping with fifteenth century Venetian painting. Because contacts through trade had been going on with the Near East for many centuries, the rebirth of classicism during the Renaissance was not as strong in Venice as it was in Florence and Rome. The influence of Greek sculpture in works such as The Birth of Venus by Florentine artist Sandro Botticelli gives his painting a neat, uncluttered effect. Bastiani on the other hand, seems to be determined to fill all spaces with ornate details. In the tapestry, symbols of rebirth, resurrection, immortality, and purity are found in the form of such fauna as a hare, peacock, and stag; in flowers we are reminded of the transient nature of life and eternal life is symbolized by a palm tree. Unlike the setting described in the Book of Acts (2:1-21), Bastiani does not place the apostles in a room but instead he presents the scene as if it were an outdoor stage with Mary enthroned in the center. He places the apostles in two groups but does not place a tongue of fire resting above them individually as described by Luke. Bastiani gives us simply an overall reddish glow above their heads.
The placement of Mary on a throne (an image derived from Byzantine sources) in the center of the tapestry has made her the focus of attention. She is noted in the Book of Acts (1:14) as being in the upper room prior to Pentecost and she was there apparently during the event but Luke does not single her out as being a central figure. Instead, Bastiani’s placement of Mary seems to be a result of the extraordinary growth in the veneration of Mary that started in the early thirteenth century and continued through the Renaissance.
Like information on Bastiani himself, the original setting for the Pentecost tapestry is obscure. At the present time it is on the altar of Santa Maria della Salute (Basilica of St. Mary of Health) but the church had not been built at the time the tapestry was woven.
Note:
When preparing to weave a tapestry, strong parallel threads are stretched close to each other and tied onto a loom. These are the warp threads through which the weft – the threads that cross over and under them – are passed. If warp and weft are equal in size, color, and texture the fabric will be uniform throughout. When making a tapestry, however, a wide range of colors are used for the weft as the weavers follow an image that was designed by a painter. The result is like a painting except instead of pigments being placed on a woven piece of cloth (a canvas), the pigments are in the threads themselves and are an integral part of the fabric.
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© 2012 Hovak Najarian
May 21, 2012 Leave a comment
On Sunday, May 20th, we heard, “[Father] as you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” The speaker in each instance, of course, is Jesus. He is speaking to those who gather around him—in every age—to hear what he is saying. He is speaking to us. Today, WE are the ones sent into the world.
We prayed for each other and for all who listen for the Spirit this past Sunday: “We pray for the gifts of ministry.” Today I offer another prayer: A Litany of Women for the Church by Sister Joan Chittister, a Benedictine Nun living in Pennsylvania.
How are you responding to the Spirit as you go into the world as one sent by Jesus? How do you choose your way forward as one who is sent? I invite you to continue the conversation in the Comments section that follows.
May 20, 2012 2 Comments
On Sunday May 6th we heard “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.” Last Sunday, May 13th, we heard “You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last….” And today, May 20th, we hear, “[Father] as you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” The speaker in each instance, of course, is Jesus. He is speaking to those who gather around him—in every age—to hear what he is saying. He is speaking to us.
As the Sunday Morning Forum gathers (9am PDT) at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Palm Desert, CA this Sunday morning we will wonder aloud with each other what this means in 21st century America, in our lives, and in our common life. We will also pray for each other. Having heard something about who and whose we are and knowing that we are sent into the world to “bear fruit that will last” we pray for each other:
O God, we pray for the gifts of ministry. Inspire our minds with a vision of your kingdom in this time and place. Hear us, O Christ.
Touch our eyes, that we may see your glory in all creation. Hear us, O Christ.
Touch our ears, that we may hear from every mouth the hunger for hope and stories of refreshment. Hear us, O Christ.
Touch our lips, that we may tell in every tongue and dialect the wonderful works of God. Hear us, O Christ.
Touch our hearts, that we may discern the mission to which you call us. Hear us, O Christ.
Touch our feet, that we may take your Good News into our neighborhoods, communities, and all parts of the world. Hear us, O Christ.
Touch our hands, that we may each accomplish the work you give us to do. Hear us, O Christ.
Strengthen and encourage all who minister in your name in lonely, dangerous and unresponsive places. Hear us, O Christ.
Open the hearts and hands of many to support your Church in this and every place. Hear us, O Christ.
O God, we praise you for the depth of your love for the world revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. We thank you for choosing and sending us to reveal by our word and example your steadfast love: making some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers to equip your people for the building up of the Body of Christ. Bless us in our words and works that your Name may be glorified, now and for ever. Amen.
Litany: The Book of Occasional Services, 2003, excerpted, p. 246, Collect, p. 237 adapted
I welcome you to join us (who have more questions than answers and who have love to share). Consider becoming part of the Forum. Have questions but can’t attend? I encourage you to leave your questions here and I’ll answer as best I can. ~dan rondeau
