"Your Soaking In It!"

It was a moment right out of that old Palmolive Dishwashing Liquid commercial, the one where Madge, the wisecracking manicurist, shocks a customer by telling her that her hands are soaking not in beauty salon lotion, but a dishwashing product.

Flanked by Amy and Nicole, with whom I had just spent a grimy week rebuilding Katrina homes in New Orleans, I am sitting in an express nail salon at Dulles International Airport, on a short lay-over on the return to Boston. A newbie to the world of mani-pedis, on a whim I had decided to join them as they sought some cosmetic first aid for hands more attuned to the rigors of texting and typing than ripping out ceiling tiles, pounding nails, and painting trim. “I’m new at this”, I told them, as the manicurist worked on softening my cuticles (what is a cuticle, anyway?), “but I think we are supposed to talk about whether Jen is over Brad yet and if his thing with Angelina is really going to last….”

Well next thing you know, Irina, who is applying some sort of disk-sander to Amy’s soles, asks where we were and what we were doing, and when she finds out that we were on a church mission trip, starts in telling us about how much she loves the Russian Orthodox church she belongs to. Then Abril, busy applying a vermillion shade to Nicole’s fingernails, starts in about what a great Hispanic Pentecostal church she attends, and how she doesn’t know how she would get through a day without her faith.  At which point Marcy starts chiming in about the evangelical church she calls home.

It was a “Toto, I don’t think we are in Kansas anymore” moment for us three New Englanders, where the odds of anyone talking about their faith in public are about as long as a summer Friday back-up trying to get over the Sagamore Bridge.  Funny thing is – I went in looking to get my hands worked on, I came out renewed in soul.

Restoring My Soul

A young monastic came upon an elder one day sitting among a group of praying, working, meditating people.

“I have the capacity to walk on water,” the young disciple said “So, let’s you and I go onto that small lake over there and sit down and carry on a spiritual discussion.”

But the Teacher answered, “If what you are trying to do is to get away from all of these people, why do you not come with me and fly into the air and drift along in the quiet, open sky and talk there.”

And the young seeker replied, “I can’t do that because the power you mention is not one that I possess.”

And the Teacher explained, “Just so. Your power of remaining still on top of the water is one that is possessed by fish. And my capacity for floating through the air can be done by any fly. These abilities have nothing to do with real truth and, in fact, may simply become the basis of arrogance and competition, not spirituality If we’re going to talk about spiritual things, we should really be talking right here.”   (Joan Chittister, “Wisdom Distilled from the Daily”, pps. 1-2).

            The internet, the bookstores, the entire world is full of those who offer one fad after another which all share the promise that if we would just sign on and follow their program we will have all the answers to the struggles of life. And church can be no exception, telling us that the path towards spiritual wellness lies through meditation, or mastery of particular prayer practices, or attendance at specialized retreats, or some sort of Lenten study program. And more often than not, and just as fad diets more often than not fail to deliver on their extravagant promises, these fads fail to deliver what people who are looking for a new perspective, new meaning, and new hope are yearning for.  As the ancient story reminds us, our souls will not be restored “out there” somewhere, and not through our efforts alone.  Restoration of our souls is not something that we do, but is something that is done for us, and it is done where we are. The psalmist tells us not, “I restoreth my soul”, but “He restoreth my soul.” (23^rd Psalm)

            Maybe this is one of the greatest arguments for infant baptism. A child, far too young to have any intention about it, far too unformed to even have a conception of wanting to be ushered into a new community and a new life, is washed cleaned and refreshed and renewed and empowered though the waters of baptism.  What a model he is for us, what a teacher for all of us who yearn to have our souls restored. Just as the infant does nothing to restore their soul, so too we need do nothing to have our souls restored. This is grace, a free, unmerited gift that our Good Shepherd offers to each and all of us: “He restoreth my soul.”

            And yet, the soul is not restored as an end in itself, so that one might lean back in the recliner, put up one’s feet, and with a contented sigh settle in comfortably for the duration.  Life is a journey, not a destination, and the restored soul is expected to renew the pilgrimage. There are paths of righteousness – roads of right-living -- to be walked; there are valleys of danger to be negotiated, for peace and justice and abundance for all will not come in on their own and unopposed; and there is that final safe harbor at the end of the day, where one might dwell in the house of the Lord, all this life long, and forever. 

To the run-down, depleted, un-nourished soul, that journey might seem at best terribly daunting.

To a restored soul, a soul refreshed and renewed and empowered, that is an invitation to a journey of a life truly worth living.

In Lent . . . Easter!

 

Ashes

In my hands,

heavy,

like a five-pound bag of flour, or, better, 

sugar,

wrapped in brown paper, hard and somewhat crinkly,

yielding grudgingly to the pressure

of cupped fingers.

Yet

when I pulled out her favorite

Swiss Army knife,

and with gentle care slid the clean bright blade into the top,

peeling the paper back as a surgeon

must have peeled the scalp back

before boring through her skull

searching for the tumor,

And on bended knee

in the early summer dirt

knelt

and poured the ashes

of my beloved

into the grave,

pouring them

down,

down,

down

into the deep carved grave,

I discovered the lightness of ashes,

the emptiness of the tomb,

the truth of the Apostle’s words,

“O death, where is thy victory?”

as they came puffing lightly back up and out,

Uncontainable

-- RRB

Mardi Gras! Put On Your Mask!

            Years ago, in New Orleans, somewhat down in the dumps, friends insisting that we go downtown for the Fat Tuesday parades and celebrations.  Demanding that we dress for the occasion, wear masks.  They put a big smiling clown mask on me.

            It was, of course, a blast. After a short time, I didn’t need a mask to make me smile, caught up as I was in the joy of the day.

            “Fake it ‘til you make it”, so the saying goes.  Today, I am remembering the deep truth underlying that old saw.  So often we think that when we want to change our lives, first we have to have a change of heart, we have to get our heads screwed on straight; we think that for change to happen, we have to change from inside out.  Trouble is, we can spend so much time working on that inner transformation (or not!) that we never quite get around to changing how we live.

            But sometimes it can work the other way around.  That what we need to do is put our feet on another path and start walking, need to set our hands to another task and start working.  And then find out that the heart and the head will eventually play catch up, and that inner change, which we once found to be so impossible, has happened as if on its own.

            So maybe today, if you have been thinking about wanting to make a change in your life but have yet to put your heart into it, just put the mask on.  And if want to be a more spiritual person, but have just been waiting until you got that warm spiritual glow to go back to worship, just set your feet on the path down to the local church or synagogue or mosque and go; just set aside a few minutes to be still, to give thanks, and to be open to a sign from beyond yourself; just stop down to the local food pantry or Habitat for Humanity build to lend a hand.  Don’t fret about whether you are being authentic or genuine of however else you might want to grade yourself – just go.  And who knows, maybe you will find that your mask, instead of hiding your true self,

will be mirroring it.

Bailing with a . . . boot.

           A brutally cold and blustery March day long ago, the Coast Guard Academy, New London, Connecticut; an intercollegiate sailing event, teams from across New England and the Mid-Atlantic, all foul-weather clad, bundled up as best as possible in those pre-dry suit days.

            Standing on the dock, jumping up and down trying to get warm, happy that a capricious puff had not flipped our little two-person dinghy into the icy Thames in the previous races, we waited to swap boats with those had finished behind us.  A number of boats were being towed in, having capsized and swamped, their crews unable or unwilling to get them upright and sailing again.  One boat came sailing in, bringing up the rear, the last place finisher, but a finisher none the less, and we could see that they still were half-full of water, the crew bailing furiously while the skipper struggled to control the boat. It was the Navy boat.

            Only when they drew right up to the dock did we see that the crew was not using the bucket that came standard with each boat – it had apparently been washed away when they capsized. He was using . . . his boot.  Standing in that freezing water, refusing to accept rescue, determined to finish the race and return under their own power to shore, he was bailing with his boot.

            At the time, I marveled at what I took to be Naval Academy discipline, assuming that the skipper, having sized up the situation, ordered his crew to take off that boot and bail.  But thinking back on it, I now believe I had it wrong, that the crew, on his own initiative, and understanding what had to be done, made that decision instantly and on his own.  And so now I marvel all the more.

            Yesterday I had a funeral for a local firefighter who over the course of forty years put his life on the line each and every day for the public safety, for folk he likely had never met, for what we used to call the “common wealth.”  As each day dawned, he had no idea if that would be the day he would have to put it all on the line, but he did know that this was something that he was called to do, and was ready to do.

            In our life voyage, we can be sure that at some point we, in our turn, will face our own stormy seas, that there will come those times when the capricious winds will threaten to lay us on our beam ends, and the icy waters will threaten to pull us under.  And so maybe the time is now, before it is too late to do anything about it, to ask, will we have the internal resources, the courage, the will, the faith, to pull off a boot, and bail?

------------

Luke 8:  One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they put out, and while they were sailing he fell asleep. A windstorm swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in danger. They went to him and woke him up, shouting, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. ²⁵He said to them, “Where is your faith?”