Notices and Announcements   As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. - Colossians 2:6-7

From Lee, Our Priest-in-Partnership

Dear Friends,
Every once in a while something insignificant comes around that still is capable of throwing me for a loop. Such is the case of my laptop cratering on me while at Executive Council last week. Its timing was impeccable: the night before the first of four days of meetings at which I serve as secretary to the Standing Committee on World Mission, my computer decided not to boot up. First, there is the sense of betrayal by the machine — a Mac no less! — and then there is the frustration factor — having to borrow a friend’s computer, thereby inconveniencing him, plus being relegated to getting emails via my cell phone (at least that!). Upon return to Vermont, the demise or grave illness of my computer demanded a round-trip to South Burlington, ‘buying’ a loaner and having to get it working enough by installing various applications so that I can type this note to you.

Lest you think I am stuck in a litany of woe, be assured that I have also put it all into perspective and considered the blessings this inconvenience has brought about. As I spent the weekend unable to putter (more realistically, waste time) on the internet, I was able to go
out for walks in a new place, Omaha’s Old Market, and spend time with friends and colleagues whom I see three times a year, normally under intense schedules. Not having all the computer applications at hand — music, desktop publishing, internet, I returned back to a life I once knew, one that consisted of simply reading books and the newspaper and taking notes by hand. (There also was some watching the Olympics, not something I can do at home, not having a television by choice). This involuntary fast gave me opportunity to consider what the Lenten fast might mean.

Keeping Lent means more a conscious attempt (or struggle!) to be silent, still aware, to listen to my heart at prayer, and to find those moments of intersection of the holy and the daily and the daily with the holy. Maybe it is a function of my life, with its busy-ness, the time spent doing things when I really need to be still, but the idea of giving up something for Lent in quite the same terms as I did as an earnest seventh-grader just doesn’t ring true.

Maybe we need to remember Lent’s original purpose. It was two-fold in function but singular in purpose. Lent was a time for preparing newcomers into the faith tradition, a time to introduce newcomers to their future relationship with God. At the same time, as the Ash Wednesday exhortation in the prayer book reminds us, Lent was a time when notorious sinners sought forgiveness and were restored to right relationship with the rest of the community. In both cases, Lent was a time to sustain relationships— with God and neighbor.

‘Lenten disciplines and routine that call us to self-examination and interior meditation only strengthen our tendencies to bear up under life alone, or in silent communion with some distant deity. In a society already fractured and isolated, and among a people hunkered down in
individualism, many of our customary spiritual disciplines serve not as preparation for life in community or the healing of our disaffections, but rather as exercise to extend our powers of endurance. So much of what passes for Lenten or other spiritual discipline renders us unfit for human companionship.’ These critical words written by Sam Portaro, Episcopal Chaplain to the University of Chicago, also contain grains of truth.1

We are relational beings with one another and with God. We need one another. And God needs us. Rabbi Abraham Heschel believed that God created humanity in order to have a conversation with us, because God needed someone to share the wondrous stories of creation and covenant. And Heschel also believed firmly that it was dangerous to pray alone. One had to pray in community, too.

On a deeper level, according to writer Wendy M. Wright, ‘Lent is a time when we enter into the mystery of pain and brokenness, both our own and the world’s, to discover that we are not alone, that what seems hopeless is in fact hope-filled, that what appears dead can spring forth in life. It happens because we are embedded in a wider, more sustaining matrix of love than we can possibly imagine.’

If we are to fast this Lent or take on some discipline, then it should be the type of fast that Isaiah envisioned God desiring: This is the fasting that I wish: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke; sharing your bread with the hungry; sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your
back on your own.

These are all relational activities, actions that bring us not only closer to our neighbor but also to God. So maybe Lent is more about finding the balance between personal and private reflection and engaging on a true, honest level with our neighbors, to try to bring about healing
and integration to this broken world.

And maybe for some of us, it means detaching ourselves from the grip of our machines and returning to a more simple life.

In Christ’s peace,
Lee

(The Rev’d Canon) Lee Alison Crawford,
Priest in Partnership

1 Sam Portaro, Daysprings: Meditations
for the Weekdays of Advent, Lent, and
Easter (Cambridge, MA: Cowley, 2001),
75.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and the Rev. Canon Lee Alison Crawford at the 76th General Convention (c. 2009, Richard Schori)

Announcements

Prayer Beads

As a means of helping parishioners enrich their prayer lives and as a benefit to support the church, Tom & Joanne Williamson offer Trinity Prayers Beads for sale. Prices are $20 and a "senior price" (for people over 65). The entire "profit", after the cost of materials, goes directly to Trinity Church. Anglican prayer beads make a thoughtful birthday, confirmation or baptismal gift. Please speak with Tom & Joanne or call them at 775-0433.

Music Events and Concerts

Special events will be posted as they are announced.

 

Unless otherwise credited, all contents copyright © 2003 - 2010, by Trinity Episcopal Church, Rutland, VT   05701
All rights reserved.
We wish to thank the creators of The Mission of St. Clare   for permission to use some of their graphics on this web site.

This page was last modified on March 3, 2010