Running right along

As odd as this sounds, I am becoming a person who runs.  I don't mean that I dash about to and fro.  No I mean a runner, as in one of those persons who simply puts on running shoes and runs.  

Now, I can wholly rationalize this.  I did not start out to be a runner. I am by nature and body habitus much more suited to walking.  I love to walk so much that I am planning a walking pilgrimage next summer that will entail lots, and lots of walking.  The fly in the ointment for next summer is elevation.  Some of the walking will be at altitudes -- different walking  altogether.  I asked a friend of mine, who is a serious runner, one of those extreme marathon dudes, what would be the best way to train to walk at higher altitudes?  His response, train for a 5k.  It will give you the stamina that you need.  While I could see the logic in that, I wasn't quite sure how to go about it. 

Turns out, they have an app for that.  Actually they have MANY apps for that.  I started with an app that I already had to monitor my walking, and it turns out it had an option for training for a 5k.  However, one glance revealed that the app was WAY more optimistic about my ability than I ever may have been.  And I didn't want to make a false start.  I found this other delightful app, that started the running so slowly and slow insidiously, that at first it wasn't really like I was running.  And the time frame was good, I was to run about three times a week.  By the end of the first week, three days in, I was looking for excuses -- to run more!  I knew running was moving towards addiction when on a rainy morning, I donned my foul weather gear and RAN.  

Now by no stretch of anyones imagination, including my own, am I a future marathoner.  My pace times are only a little faster than I actually routinely walk.  But now I am physically able to use the other more exuberant app (because I finished the first one), which is building better stamina and increasing my pace.  One of the additional benefits I have received is the support offered to me by people I don't even know.  A couple of older fellahs, and by older I mean just a bit older than me, cheer me on as I run past their condos.  One of them told me he was so proud of me.  A much younger man, who was completing his run, told me that he felt my pain. Right, 100 pounds and 30 years you will feel my pain, but I appreciate the sentiment.  

All this is to say, you can do things that you can't possibly imagine that you will do.  Clearly, running doesn't sound all that much of a challenge, but you literally have to get off your butt, put on your shoes, and get out there.  Just like real life.  And, interestingly, it has become its own source of holiness.  My constant prayer while running is please don't let me fall, just like real life.  And for a few brief moments, while pounding the pavement in a new way, it is simply me and God, lumbering along. 

This is a thin place.  

from day to day

A real struggle can be finding the holy, the thin places in our day to day.  Because there is so much that goes on in our day to interfere with our search or awareness of how God is at work.  And even when we attempt to focus, things quickly distract us.  How might we be more attentive?

If a thin place is where the veil between heaven and earth can be brushed easily to one side, how can we be more attentive for those places?  How can we tune our beings to be more aware of those moments and places?  I think one practice can be to attend more to the moments and those that are around us in those moments.  For whatever reason, whether having worked in service industries or having had so many large classes of students or even from serving in the local church, I tend to ask people to tell me their names.  From the casher at the grocery to the waitress in the restaurant, I talk to folks using their first name.  Doesn't actually mean that I will recall their name later, but I will address them by their name.  This credits a level of familiarity and dignity between the two of us, which I find holds them in a place more credible than simply being the nameless person.  

Because of the variety in my past, I always make a point of knowing where I am.  Not simply in terms of geographically, but in terms of who is in that space with me, and what is taking place in that space.  The beauty or starkness of a place needs to be observed and appreciated.  It is a place, regardless of how we perceive it, that God has made.  It has a purpose, even when we don't understand it, that must be honored.  Often we look past areas which we are familiar with, or see too often, or choose not to see.  I think one way we can become more aware of thin places is in watching for them in places that we might not anticipate there presence.  Sure, the Isle of Iona is a thin place.  As is St. Joseph's Abbey, and any of the holy sites in Israel.  

But equally thin are the places like Bossier City, La, 

let's look in our own places for their thinness.

Among the brothers

Truly one of the most amazing places I have ever traveled to is St. Joseph's Abbey in Covington, LA.  A mere five hours or so from my residence, this may have been the first thin place that I encountered.  And although it is different for me today, both physically and spiritually, it remains among the thinnest of places.  Here the veil is truly drawn open.

St. Joseph's is a Benedictine monastery, nestled in the forest of the Northshore, north of Covington, north of Mandeville, north of New Orleans.  Like the Isle of Iona, you don't accidentally arrive here, you have to have the intent of showing up at the Abbey.  The grounds host a retreat center, the Abbey church, the monastery, a college and seminary.  And while there is nothing unassuming about its church, it remains quite simple.  None of the grandeur of limestone, it is constructed of brick and mortar, and the interior furnishings are constructed of the materials of grounds it sits on, the pews constructed of pine harvested from its forests. 

To access the grounds, you have to cross a single track bridge, one lane, either going in or out, no opportunity for indecisiveness halfway across.  Years ago, the abbey church and other structures were not visible from the bridge, towering oak and pine blocked the view, but those were wiped out by Hurricane Katrina, which not only redecorated the grounds, but changed the life of the monks. 

I was drawn here many, many years ago, having the beauty of Benedictine traditions revealed to me through books I had read.  It was here that my call to ordained ministry was affirmed.  Affirmed by a monk whose own tradition would not ordain me.  I include a few images to catch its beauty, and perhaps in small part its holiness. 

And so it goes

Doing a quick visit/tour of NOLA (New Orleans, LA), Covington, Denham Springs, and Baton Rouge.  These are all great towns, big and small in the southern part of Louisiana. New Orleans and Baton Rouge account for the majority of our population center, with New Orleans claiming the capital of fun and Baton Rouge claiming the state capital.  

I have done alot of time in both places, not a prison sentence, well almost.  Following Hurricane Katrina the church that I served made a one year, which became an 18 month, commitment to send a team each month to help rebuild.  Some of the most rewarding, and devastating work that I have done.  And  our jobs changed as the time passed.  We began by mucking out homes and clearing debris, and ended by hanging drywall and painting.  All that to say I have a fairly good understanding of the town.  I tend not to visit the tourist spots, where newly emerging college students are attempting to determine what their alcohol limit may be.  I love to stroll through the garden district and view the great homes, and the smattering, big smattering, of churches.  If nothing else you must remember this place was settled by the French and the Spanish -- we got us some fine churches.  

And we got some fine and different people. Geographically New Orleans sits essentially surrounded by water, as you may have learned, which makes it an island.  An island, although attached very much apart.  And islands, as you may not have learned, attract an especially odd assortment of characters.  Now clearly some are here to entertain the tourists, but others are here because they belong here and wouldn't fit anywhere else.  A couple of fiends of mine and i used to come to NOLA for Halloween.  The game that we would play was "who is dressed up and who looks like that every day of the year?"

As I was riding in on the trolley last night, a tall middle aged man with raggedy clothing got on and sat a couple of rows in front of me.  He looked tired.  Not sleepy tired. Bone tired.  Life tired.  And he had hair.  Lots of hair. Hair that was unkept and reached the floor.  Seriously.  Would not have been surprised if not so tiny creatures were living in his hair.  It was pretty stunning.  He arose from  his seat to exit before me, and I gave him a big smile when our eyes met.  And he smiled back.  I offered "enjoy your evening," and he responded "thanks, I will."  He was just a big ol' scary, hairy guy headed home.

it was a thin place. 

In the everyday

Here it is the summer time and my plans for this year are rather mundane.  That is to say I am not traveling amazing lengths of time to any far off and glorious place.  And that is not to say that I am not going to visit glorious places, they will simply be closer to home.  As it turns out, if you want to travel extreme distances, someone has to pay for that, and I would be that someone.  So this is a working summer.  But if my premise has become that thin places are where we are, and we only have to them where we are, then what greater excuse could I have to search for thin places in my everyday.  

Now the inherent problem is perhaps two fold -- the largest of which is what if the everyday is not a thin place or doesn't actually have the potential to become a thin place -- well certainly no other way to discover that than by jumping in with both feet.  The second problem, one that I encountered when attempting to write this blog during Lent, is that "real life" can impose itself with such voracity that I am not permitted or not able to keep up with the blog.  The beauty of writing when removed from the day to day is that you actually have time.  So the challenge is maintaining the blog, and the search for thin places in the midst of reality.  

And what about those glorious places.  Well on tap this summer, a quick multi-purpose jaunt to New Orleans, 10 days sailing the Texas coast, a pleasure and business trip to Colorado, and a host of summer school classes.  Plenty of potential for the thinness of places.  

Will you come along?

Return

            Funny how words take on different meaning in different contexts and other words maintain their meaning but exist in a variety of contexts.  To return almost always has to include leaving.  If you are returning something to its rightful place, well you are going to leave it there.  In our court systems when something is returned, an indictment, a verdict, someone will be leaving something behind, maybe their freedom.  And when we travel, whether returning to someplace familiar or returning to someplace for the first time, we had to leave something behind.  Sometimes we look forward to returning, like I look forward to returning to Scotland someday.  Sometimes we hold the return in dread, like often I resent having to return to work.  The word of the day is return.

            My image is a familiar sight if you have ever left the Isle of Iona.  The staff aligns the jetty and bid you farewell.  They do it in creative ways, which I will not share with you in case you have not yet had that privilege.  Now on this particular day it was lovely weather, but they bid adieu regardless of the conditions.  Perhaps the most touching part is the next part of your journey will be on a bus, for an hour on single track roads, returning you to the “real world.”  It is little wonder the Scots say goodbye with a simple “haste ye back.” 

            But by far, my favorite return can’t be captured in an image; returning to the sanctuary of my home church.  I was there when the first spades of dirt were turned. I wrote the number of trips left to seminary on its concrete slab.  I have led worship, read scripture, served communion and “done church” in that place.  However, when I return to its structure, alone, in the peace and stillness of early morning or late evening, I have no doubt that I have returned to God.  In the steamy, sticky, dirtiness of each day, when it is easy to forget what I should be about, I can return to this place and know.  Just know… God is there and goes with me as I return to the world outside.

This is a thin place. 

Typically for Lent, I am working on a collective blog put together by clergy members of the Louisiana Annual Conference, but alas, this year, that is not the “thing” that I am taking up for Lent. I was in a bit of a quandary about what to take up, but discovered that @umcrethinkchurch was hosting a Lenten photo-a-day. They have provided a list of words, and as participants we are to upload an image to twitter or pinterest or facebook, sharing our vision of that word. What a great thing to take up! And even better to share! And while I love taking images, and I will embrace this practice for Lent, I believe I will take it a step beyond, searching for the thin place in words with words for Lent.

On this Ash Wednesday the word is actually a phrase – who am I? And what a loaded phrase. When I first saw the list of words, I admit to being a bit daunted by the kick of phrase. Who am I is a struggle at the present. I seemingly have a better handle on who I want to be, but it is not mine to recreate the phrases or the words on the list. I can rattle off the list of responsibilities that I have, but really quite certain that doesn’t define who I might be. I can wax eloquent about whose I am, and often do, not struggling so much with the knowledge as much as the implications. And then there it was.

It’s my freezer door. My freezer door defines me, by the magnets and the objects held in place by the magnets. There are magnets from the thin places God as taken me; Isreal, Cambodia, Scotland. There are magnets that represent my love for teddy bears and dogs. There is a house blessing and a prayer given to me by a friend. There is a Buddhist quotation given to me by another friend. There is a magnet from the House of Blues laying down the rule of the house. And there is my St. Benedict’s card, given to me by Father Dominic on the occasion of my first oblation at St. Joseph’s Abbey. Probably my second tentative step towards ordination. And all of that is on the door of my freezer.

I am a child of God. A child that has opportunities to do many things. A child that gets confused by the myriad of opportunities available before me. I am a child whose God is still defining “who am I”!

And this is a thin place.