July 31, 2016

I went to St. Gregory Church thinking that their style of worship could be emulated and I needed to learn what was done so I could modify and imitate. What I learned is that what St. Gregory’s does is unique to its culture, context, and members. The most important thing I learned is that what makes St. Gregory’s successful is that its members are invested in their liturgy and they work to make liturgy happen. The lesson I take away is that liturgy, the work of the people, needs to be just that—a community working together to make liturgy. According to Paul Fromberg, Rector, much of the liturgical philosophy of St. Gregory is based on Gordon W. Lathrop’s book Holy Things: A Liturgical Theology (Fortress Press, 1998), which I read in preparation for my time at St. Gregory of Nyssa.

The choir sings as the 10:45 service goers enter the rotunda where the service begins. Those coming in off the busy street are greeted with beautiful a cappella music. Two children are sitting on the far end of the building conferring over a cup of juice and chatting away until they run around the sanctuary and outside onto the patio. Most families go to the earlier 8:30 service, which usually has a dozen or so children present, but on this particular morning, several families come to the 10:45 service, and children are making themselves at home. At the 8:30 service this morning, we had two new deacons—Matilda, age 8, and Soren, age 10—who were vested, read parts of the service, and helped distribute communion. They did a great job! I’ve become quite close with Matilda, her sisters Aska and Rumi, and her mom Naomi who all volunteer at the Food Pantry with me on Fridays. When I showed up this morning at 8:00 for Morning Prayer Naomi was there with the girls and Aska sat with me and drew me pictures while Matilda was vesting and preparing. She asked me if I’d watched Rwby yet, a show they want me to see on Netflix and I haven’t watched, but better because they won’t stop bugging me until I do.

Before the 10:45 service, I sat quietly and watched the beautiful dance of liturgy unfold as people entered, greeted one another and settled in for singing, dancing, and sharing a Eucharist feast. A dad shows up with his baby strapped to his chest in a baby carrier and his wife meets him inside. Kerri, the Youth Director greets all the children and pulls them in to perform tasks like ringing the bell, lighting the candles, holding a chalice, or ringing the gong. For the younger kids, she finds play dough and trays for them to play on or books to read. The presider and the lay liturgical leaders are all robed in colorful African-inspired vestments and they stand around greeting people as they enter the rotunda where saints dance above our heads and shower us with blessings of joy, courage, and love.

A child rings the bells to signal the start of the service as we stand around the altar and listen to the initial prayer, which is sung, just like the entire service, which is found in the St. Gregory Music for Liturgy book, compiled by members of the church and contains many compositions by founding member Richard Fabian. Yesterday we celebrated the 101^st birthday of Esther K., a composer whose song, …. We sang from St. Gregory Music for Liturgy book. There is also music from all over the world keeping with the overall inclusive nature of the worship space that includes a Japanese shrine, Ethiopian icons and crosses, Russian icons, Persian rugs, African textiles, and Tibetan singing bowls and chimes.

While at St. Gregory I learned a lot about music from Marissa Glynias, a musicology doctorate student from Yale who was studying the world music of St. Gregory’s. My conversations with Marissa raised interesting questions about our role in appropriating music, liturgy, liturgical objects,

After the after which all the vested people greet each one of us and welcome us into the space.   One of the founders, Donald Schell told me that his wife Ellen, a nurse, read a study years ago about the influence of touch on helping people feel welcome and satisfied. The study was done at a library where the librarian, while helping patrons check out books, safely and non-invasively brushed her hand against a random sample of people. Those that were touched by the librarian expressed more satisfaction with their visit and felt more welcome in the library. Donald said, “People don’t expect to be affectionate in church but over the years we have increased our level of affection towards one another and people express they appreciate and enjoy the level of intimacy that brings them closer to one another.”

As Sanford, the Music Director, sings the psalm we sing one of the many alleluia chants in the St. Gregory Music for Liturgy book, and move to the seating area where we sing, hear the collect, sing, and listen to an Epistle reading. Readers are plucked out of the seating area as the liturgical leaders head for the lectern. After every reading there is a period of silent reflection ushered in by the ringing of Tibetan singing bowls and gently ended by the ringing of Tibetan meditation chimes. The readings are done on one end of the bema, a long raised platform that separates the seating area into two sections with the chairs facing each other, and the bishop’s seat on the other end of the bema. This design is based on the synagogue structure after the destruction of the second Jerusalem Temple (70 CE) when the diaspora increased and necessitated the need for synagogues. The synagogue structure was originally based on the Temple architecture and this traditional structure is the inspiration for St. Gregory’s seating area. (For further explanation see Liturgy and Architecture by Louis Bouyer, University of Notre Dame Press, 1967.)

Next we sing again as the candle bearer, the gospel book bearer, and the reader approach the lectern for the gospel reading. Due to the design of the space, we face each other as we sing and the choir is conveniently dispersed throughout us singers so they can carry us along and set the tone and pitch for us. I’ve noticed that this encourages me to sing and try to stay in tune and I’ve been less self-conscious of my singing since I’ve been attending all the services—I’ve had lots of practice! There is more silence after the gospel reading followed by a sermon, more silence, and then a short time of sharing by anyone that wants to add a word, story, or insight from the gospel reading.

After the gospel reading and sharing, we all sing another alleluia song and greet the gospel book by touching it or kissing it as it is walked through the room by all the liturgical leaders. This is an Eastern Orthodox custom, and although the elements of an Episcopal service are present, the service is heavily influenced by the Eastern Orthodox Church. Other Orthodox practices include the singing of the liturgy, no instrumentation other than percussion, dancing around the altar to celebrate Eucharist, the prevalence of icons throughout the worship space, and the architectural layout of the church. Founders of St. Gregory of Nyssa Church, Donald Schell and Richard Fabian, were both influenced by Eastern Orthodox theology while seminary students and then later as Chaplains at Yale University they developed the liturgy that is still used at St. Gregory today. It is a living liturgy that changes over time as the church changes and as the members change, but the structure and influence have remained constant.

When I asked why use an ancient tradition as a foundation, Paul Fromberg, Rector of St. Gregory of Nyssa, told me, “In some ways this ancient liturgy is more flexible and tolerant of difference and is more open to change as the church changes. When Christianity became a religion governed by the state, it became more systematized but prior to that it was being formed according to context and local culture and customs.” This is definitely true of St. Gregory’s—it is very much formed based on the culture of San Francisco. One of the things I discovered about the liturgy, the worship space, the art, the vestments, and the Eastern Orthodox influence is that they work because they are so tailored to the culture and context of San Francisco. San Francisco is home to many Buddhist communities and many of St. Gregory’s members have practiced Buddhism and are attracted to St. Gregory’s contemplative practices such as silences throughout the worship and chanting. San Francisco is also home to one of the most diverse populations in the country, which is reflected in the art and décor of the church.

After the gospel reading and veneration of the gospel book, the preacher gave a sermon. On Sundays I would attend all the services and I noticed that over the course of the morning only a random selection of the daily readings were read.   After paying attention for several weeks, I couldn’t find a pattern so I asked Paul about it and he responded, “Sometimes less is more. The readings are chosen from the lectionary according to what the preacher wants his/her sermon to be about.” The gospel was always read at the later service along with another reading but only one reading was read at the early service. After each reading and after the sermon there was a period of silence for contemplative reflection.

A unique aspect of St. Gregory’s sermon is a time at the end of the preacher’s sermon for any participant to add his/her own reflection or story or thoughts on the gospel reading. Time was allotted for one or two people to speak. This same ethic of participation was present in the prayers of the people as all spoken prayers were those of the people gathered together in worship. At the early service, the prayers of the people were woven into the Eucharistic prayer and at the later service the prayers of the people were woven into the Lord’s Prayer. After praying together, members sang and moved in step to the altar where they circled it in preparation for the Eucharist. After reaching the altar, the peace was exchanged, the Eucharistic pray was sung and then members along with the liturgical leaders shared communion, which is open to all people present at the liturgy. After a post communion prayer, offertory, blessing, and announcements, the participants sang and danced around the altar ending with a final blessing.

Dancing at St. Gregory consisted of a simple four-step walking sequence leading away from the seating area to the altar and then a simple eight-step grapevine dance for the final choral song. There are no bulletins and no written directions to read and follow as everything that a participant needs to know is explained as part of the service. In other words, instruction is woven into the service, which makes it very approachable to new-comers that only need to follow verbal instructions and don’t feel left out because they don’t know what is going on.

August 9, 2016

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old– and Sarah herself was barren– because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”

All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them. (Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16)

I have a feeling that I haven’t posted in a week or so. Last week I helped with the logistics of the icon painting workshop at St. Gregory, mostly getting food, making copies, and helping participants feel comfortable, but I did sit in on the teacher’s, Dimitri, lectures about the theology, history, and spirituality of icon painting—it was really interesting. I like how when I volunteer to just show up and help out that I meet interesting people, learn a ton, and have fun. On Sunday, Paul preached about showing up to those things that are present in our lives and I’ve been thinking a lot about that—how do I (or do I not) show up and how can I be present.

Yesterday, my last full day in San Francisco I was a tourist, something I rarely did when I lived there and it was usually only when people were in town visiting. As a result, I lived in the Bay Area for 15 years but never rode on a cable car, which I had always wanted to do. Yesterday I was determined to make it happen, I did, and it was fun. Then the most amazing thing happened—I ran into friends from my church in Minnesota. But I’ll back up.

It all started early in the morning when I cut my finger taping up a box to ship home. After going to the Parcel Post store I backtracked 2 blocks to a little neighborhood market (with great murals btw) to buy bandages for my finger, then I needed coffee and had to drop something off at St. Gregory’s. My first destination was Grace Cathedral where I looked around and attended the noon Eucharist service before heading to Peet’s to buy coffee for Ernesto. Peet’s was a surreal experience. Every Peet’s I’ve ever been in was always a quaint little coffee shop, kind of dark like the study of an old professor and filled with people talking in hushed tones about all things important and intellectual, but this particular Peet’s was inside a bank and there were ATMs everywhere and long tables with power strips where people sat on their laptops too busy to look at the person across from them. I don’t know what they were doing, but I’m pretty sure they weren’t looking for Pokemon. And yes, there was a counter to order coffee but that didn’t seem to be the main reason that people were at Peet’s—they were there to stare at their computers. I got a complimentary cup of coffee with my purchase of beans so I decided to sit and take in the scene for a bit, but honestly it was pretty boring watching people type on their laptops. Normally I like to watch people and I can spot the couple on their first date or watch an old person interact with a child or guess what books people are reading or overhear interesting conversations. None of that was happening—boring!

But, if I hadn’t cut my finger, rode the cable car, and stopped at Peet’s, I never would have stopped by the small beach near the end of the cable car line, closed my eyes, decided it was time to go, look up and see Gretchen and John from church. That was so weird and random—what are the chances of running into someone from Minnesota on a tiny beach in San Francisco? Amazing—those are the chances.

Seeing Gretchen and John was like a beacon calling me home. Although I’ve had a more than awesome experience in San Francisco, I’ve been homesick ever since Ernesto, Elena, Benjamin, and Dreamer drove off without me to head back home, but this was different. I’ve always known that my family will be there when I get back, but seeing friends I realized that there is a whole community of people calling me home to a place I belong and to a place where I belong to people I love and hold dear—a homeland.

My first blog post before I left for my San Francisco adventure was about homeland, so it was fitting that he Epistle reading from Hebrews on Sunday mentioned homeland: They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. It was even more fitting that Mark, the worship leader, asked me right before the service to read the Epistle reading, which I did not fully comprehend until I was standing and reading and realized that homeland was one theme of the reading. And of course, faith is a huge theme of this reading and it could be interpreted in many different ways, but for me I was stuck on having faith that my homeland is promised to me and that I will know my homeland. Being apart from my family has taught me that my homeland is not a geographic place but a way of being in the world—being comfortable where ever I am and having faith that God has promised me a home and that home is where my family is. I’m so happy to returning to my family, my homeland.

July 24, 2016

I attended a meeting supporting those offering care to loved ones that are sick or dying, which they call the Elders Caregivers Group. In Christian circles we call this Pastoral Care and yet for the life of me I can’t quite grasp the meaning of those words that have lost all bearing like what happened when I was a kid and repeated a word over and over again until it was unrecognizable. Harper Collins Online Dictionary (www.collinsdictionary.com) gives two definitions, 1) help with personal needs and problems given by a teacher, and 2) help with personal problems given by a priest. Got questions (www.gotquestions.org) says, “In its most general sense, pastoral care refers to the ministries/services usually performed by a pastor. Some denominations of the Christian faith use the phrase to refer to more specific aspects of a pastor’s ministry, such as counseling and visitation.” A caring shepherd is another, more literal translation, although I don’t find any of this that useful because those of us who care for the sick and elderly are not generally pastors but are the common folk—children of elders, home health care workers, nursing home aides, and assisted living employees.

The kids and I took a road trip to Ohio, Michigan, and Ontario in June to visit family. Before every visit to my family I ask myself to pay attention to how I have grown since the last time I’ve seen them (assuming I have grown) and also what is different about my family and how they have grown. This time, the one thing that was acutely apparent to me is that roles with my mom are beginning to reverse themselves. This awareness has been growing over the last few years as she has started to deal with more health issues, the most recent being a debilitating arthritis of the spine. While visiting doctor after doctor to confirm a diagnosis, she spent months in bed, the only place she could manage the excruciating pain until one doctor finally realized the problem and medicated her for arthritis. Despite the relief from the medication, she cannot turn her head to look over her left shoulder, which makes the prospect of safe driving grim.

This was my revelation, my recognition of growth: from now on when I return to Michigan I will be caring for my mom. I’ll be driving her to her homeland, Canada, to visit family and I don’t know what else. Jill, my sister, lives close to my mom so she does a lot for her, but I was whacked over the head by the fact that I need to step up my role, whatever that means.

While in Michigan I made a plan to drive my mom to Amherstburg, Ontario to visit her sister Virginia, who is my aunt and godmother, and whom I call Auntie Gin. Auntie Gin has been in an assisted living facility for nearly eight years I’m guessing and had recently fallen in the bathroom during the night bruising every inch of her face and one arm but miraculously avoiding any broken bones. Auntie Gin was married to Uncle Bill, who died in 1993, but they did not have any children so the extended family were always their children. My cousins, who live near Auntie Gin and are her legal guardians and oversee her care, agreed to move her to a more secure room on the upper level of the assisted living facility where she would get 24-hour care but where the floor was locked and she will be essentially be confined to a one-room apartment.

Sara, the facilitator, three members, and me, attended the Elders Caregivers Group at St. Gregory’s. I’ll call the members Joyce, David, and Michael, not their real names. Joyce is caring for her husband who has early on-set Alzheimer’s, and David and Michael are both caring for elderly parents who live 1000s of miles away. I sat and wept through the whole meeting as they all described the issues and concerns and emotional and practical things they were going through, and how they were caring for their family members and trying to care for themselves. My tears were partially in empathy for them and partially for me as I realized I’ve been so busy thinking about the practical aspects of my mom’s care that I have not processed any emotions.

Joyce has remarkably embraced her husband’s illness and seems content to grapple with what comes her way and to learn from every moment and every experience. I marveled at her resilience, her adaptability, her honesty, and her ability to support others. When Sara invited me in to the Elders Caregiving Group it was on the condition that I have cared for a sick loved one. What immediately popped into my head and came out of my mouth is that I’ve spent a lot of time with elderly members of my church waiting with them while they are dying, sitting with them when they were recovering, and supporting their family members while they coped with change and death. What I realized as I sat in that gathering is that I’ve been ignoring the next frontier, which is my mother, I do not want to face the emotion associated with her eventual decline.

David and Michael talked about living so far away from their families and how difficult is it to manage care from that distance and the massive amount of time they’ve spent traveling back and forth between their home in San Francisco and their families elsewhere. They both talked about the difficulty of dealing with siblings and their sibling’s ability or non-ability to help with care and practical things like filling out paperwork and making phone calls. I cried because I felt empathy for David and Michael’s situations but I also cried because I am so far away and that makes it hard for me to help. I originally chose to be far away because I needed distance to help me heal from a traumatic childhood and to learn detachment and to learn healthy independence. I’ve paid a price for these privileges—being ostracized by family members, anger and resentment towards me, guilt trips for not being available for family events like weddings, birthdays, and baptisms. Despite healing and better relationships with my siblings, I still have that internal critic that guilts me into feeling like a bad daughter for not being in Michigan to care for my mom. Clearly, I have some issues to deal with concerning my role in my mom’s care.

Joyce described her careful process of including her son in the information about his father’s illness and care. She used the word transparency and talked about the need to discern information she could share and at what rate. I cried because transparency is not a word that I grew up with and not a practice that I was familiar with until I had children myself. My family lived in denial of my father’s mental illness and the resulting abuse he inflicted on his family such that most of us lived under a very thick cloud. Ours was not a transparent family; if anything we were shrouded in secrecy and ignorance and even when we knew what was going on we shrouded ourselves in thick cloaks of silence to protect ourselves. This is no different when it comes to the care of the elderly in our family and in some ways I suppose it is not just a result of mental illness but of a broader way of being in my extended family as well. It is present in Auntie Gin’s care. My cousins, her guardians, have not always disclosed how she would be cared for. When she fell several years ago and needed recovery, they put her in a transitional care facility telling her it was temporary and all along having made the decision to keep her there. I live 1000 miles away so I am not involved in her care and trying to practice detachment I have not expressed an opinion unless asked, but I don’t agree with this. When I found out, I told my children to always be honest with me even if dementia prevented me from understanding. I am learning that all I can do right now is be clear about what I want; I need to create an Advanced Directive. We all need one.

July 26, 2016

Already this morning several people have commented on how nice a morning it is. I smile and nod and agree and all the while think, “it is beautiful and was this beautiful yesterday and will be tomorrow too because the weather never changes here,” and then I wonder if I’m missing something and I marvel at their ability to notice subtle changes in the weather that are lost on me, the one who prides herself on being incredibly observant. Maybe that is just wishful thinking.

Went to Morning Prayer and am now sitting in the Thinkers Café, a place I like to go to drink coffee, work, sit, write, and think. There are sayings stenciled on the walls, like There never has been a genius without some touch of madness (Seneca) and I wonder if since I have a touch of madness does that make me a genius—but as much as I want it to, I don’t think it works that way. Another says Be not afraid of going slowly be only afraid of standing still (Chinese Proverb) and I wonder, “should I be afraid of going too fast because I am always going too fast, what happens if I never stand still?” The one next to it reads, Give me a place to stand and I will move the world (Archimedes). (These must be where all the quotes about movement congregate and argue.) So what is it? Stand still, move? Maybe I can move so fast it will appear I’m standing still—the Flash, I want to be the Flash (Marvel Comics). Can I wear red cowboy boots? Ernesto and the kids are driving through Wyoming and told me everyone wears cowboy boots and I put in my order for a red pair, size 8.

Liturgy is on my mind a lot lately especially since the biggest reason I wanted to be at St. Gregory’s is that I am enamored with their liturgy and with their worship space, which facilitates their liturgy, and their practice of making liturgy the work of all the people present. I’ve attended every service for three Sundays so far (10 services all together) and I’m beginning to pick up the rhythm and pattern of each service—Sunday Morning Prayer, the 8:30 Eucharist Service, and the 10:45 Eucharist Service, as well as the once-monthly Supper Service. Services are well orchestrated without appearing to be orchestrated and amazingly the people are doing the work to make the services happen. I think this is amazing because outside of a house church that I helped form and I attended, most services I’ve ever attended have clearly been performed by a few leaders and it is clear who those leaders are. At St. Gregory’s, there is a worship leader, and this person plays a role, but it is never clear to me who is leading because many people are robed but they are all leading us and it feels like all of us unrobed people are leading each other. It is like watching an Alvin Ailey well-choreographed dance performance where Alvin has trained us all in a way that we never knew we were being trained and he trained us in the art of improvisation because we are fluid and pick up where others have left off or forgotten things. It is beautiful and fun and feels a bit like sitting and standing and dancing and singing in someone’s living room—it is comfortable and inviting and the food is good and the company is great.

Liturgy—the work of the people, people eating bread and wine, people sharing the body and blood of Christ, people loving one another, people dancing around an altar that feeds people with the bread of life. Last week after the Food Pantry I had a conversation with Sara, founder of the Food Pantry, about her vision and how she made it happen. Despite all she told me the thing that stuck in my brain and has been rattling around bumping into other thoughts and experiences until I can fully process it is, “Giving away food needs to be done in the same way the Eucharist is experienced—open to all and participatory.” Sitting in the Thinkers Café I am struck by the thought that the Food Pantry is liturgy, the work of the people giving away food, just as the Eucharist is the work of the people giving away food. At the Food Pantry we are all workers (Christ’s hands and heart) giving away food as people circle the altar, just as it happens every Sunday at two Eucharist services when workers (us) give each other the body and blood of Christ. I get it Sara, I get it! Not only do I get it, I experienced it in my body (not just in my head) and every cell understands what it means to do the work of the people. That is liturgy. OK, add my participation in the Food Pantry to my count of services I’ve attended—13 in all and more to come!

July 25, 2016

After Morning Prayer at St. Gregory I wandered around for about a half hour looking for a restaurant I saw yesterday and wanted to try for breakfast. I thought it was down the Texas Street hill where I’m staying, but it was at the end of De Haro Street at 16^th Street down the hill from the church. I walked in a circle then said to myself (out loud), “I’m funny!” I like getting lost because I discover things that are there all the time but I probably would never see like the giant kale in the community garden at Lincoln Park. This kale had trunks, like tree trunks; the cool foggy summer weather is the ideal growing conditions and it must grow as a perennial getting bigger and bigger each passing year. I also discovered that 17^th Street between Texas and Carolina (I think) has a bustling little market district. And I saw a banner for the San Francisco Craft Design Museum, which I must check out and a Mediterranean restaurant that looks good, and many people bustling off to work and I wondered where each one was going.

After I found the restaurant I was looking for—a neighborhood breakfast/lunch diner I ordered a gluten free waffle—they have gluten free waffles—yippee! I love waffles and haven’t had one since leaving Stillwater over a month ago. Waffles are a food group in our house right behind butter, garlic, and bacon—I ordered a side of bacon with my waffle—heaven in San Francisco this morning! The girl sitting at the table next to me ordered French fries for breakfast—good idea, I love French fries!

When I sat down there was only one other person in the diner so I had my pick of seats and sat in a sunny corner the best spot for people watching and a quiet place to think and write. Despite the plethora of empty tables, a family sat down at the table right next to me. There must be something about people being drawn to other people—the need for us to congregate in solidarity against the isolation of the world despite the fact that they will probably not talk with me. Yet, I found it comforting that they chose that particular spot for no other reason than I suddenly did not feel so alone. I love people! The previous people vacated and now a dad and his two young boys are sitting next to me. It is a good day!

Been thinking a lot about prayer these last few days. I’ve been saying the Daily Morning Prayer (BCP) for a few years and have to confess that I still struggle with the Psalms not because I don’t like them but because I can’t pay attention. I usually like the first few stanzas and say to myself, this is beautiful, I want to remember this one, and then the next thing I know I’ve read the whole thing but have nothing but my grocery list floating around in my head. How can I read something while at the same time think about how much reading I have to do or the paper I have to write or what I want to eat for dinner? I don’t get it. Same thing happened this morning except we were singing the Psalms and I checked out a few seconds in and started going over bus lines to get to the SF MoMA all the while singing. I just don’t get it. The little (she’s actually big and scary) critic in me thinks there is something wrong with me. Is there something wrong with me? Why am I so distracted? Overactive imagination? Bus lines are hardly imaginative.

Ernesto, Elena, Benjamin, and Dreamer left in in San Francisco about a week ago and I still feel like someone ripped my heart out. Have I already said this 10 times? I have never been apart from them for so long and I miss them so much. I see things that I want to show them or think of things I want to tell them or I want to watch a movie with Benjamin or listen to Elena talk about school and friends and take Dreamer for a walk or have Ernesto tell me I’m cute and sweet. Who ever thought I could miss a dog so much—she is my constant companion. OK, true confession time—I even miss my chickens at home not to mention my cats and Elena’s rabbits, and I miss my garden and my kitchen. I’m a little homesick!

It’s been nice to be at St. Gregory and to be participating in a faith community and practicing my faith. Being in seminary I read so much about faith, religion, and theology that it becomes abstract and theoretical instead of something I am or something I do. I sometimes entertain the idea of a doctorate because I love to study so much but it has been clear the last few weeks that whatever I decide to do I need to participate in a faith community and God willing participate as a leader in a faith community.

There were other random thoughts and pondering…art and how much I need to create and partake of it…Benjamin’s question of the day: what would I take on a trip during the zombie apocalypse?…how much I enjoy texting with Elena…how imaginative Benjamin is…I wish I could be half as imaginative as that kids…is thinking about my family and friends prayer?…why can’t I find the Accordance software I downloaded before I left home?…that is really bothering me…how can we not confine God by naming God?…I’m reading too much Derrida…I need to mail Livia’s birthday present…it is foggy this morning…I love the orange jacket I found at Goodwill before I left…I’m so mundane and shallow sometimes…is this man homeless?…what is prayer?…these waffles have a lot of corn flour in them…the couple sitting across from me just started dating…they are cute…does that guy ike working for SF Parks?…why are they tearing down that building?…I hope no one is reading this ridiculous list that occupies my brain…time to move on and get some other stuff done…is any of this prayer?…what is prayer?…God???….

Elena just texted me and they are at Voodoo Doughnuts in Denver, Colorado. I asked her if they handed out pins to poke the doughnuts with and when she said no, I asked way and told her to tell them they needed to come with pins. Then I told her not to hurt anyone too badly. Voodoo Doughnuts…I want a t-shirt.

July 24, 2016

Been thinking a lot about hospitality in the last few weeks since I’ve been traveling and have been the recipient of many people’s definition of hospitality. There have been hotels where staff was kind and helpful, and campgrounds where the kids got yelled at for not having Dreamer on a leash, and campgrounds where our neighbors talked with us about their lives and travels. There was Betty, from Texas, the clerk at the store in Two Medicine at Glacier National Park, who has been on the road for 18 years living in an RV and moving from place to place, working when she wants to. She called herself a full-time RVer, a term new to me. And in the Grand Tetons we met a cashier from Maine, and at Crater Lake one from China, all practicing hospitality to strangers traveling in a strange land. In Berkeley, there was Cara, who rented us an apartment, but whom we never met, yet her home was the epitome of hospitality with its well-stocked kitchen, clean sheets and towels, and a place to do our laundry. In San Francisco I am renting a room in a home that is again very hospitable.

What does it mean to be hospitable? Is it welcoming the stranger? Abraham and Sara welcomed three strangers into their tent who turn out to be angels come with an incredible, unbelievable, life-giving message (Sara laughed). Jesus welcomed the hemorrhaging women, a stranger afraid to speak to Jesus because she was ostracized from her community due to her chronic bleeding, who touched his garment and was healed. I am a stranger and I have been welcomed into someone’s home, but it wasn’t for free, so does that count as hospitality? For the last two Fridays I have been welcomed as a volunteer into Saint Gregory’s Food Pantry, where I experience an incredible sense of hospitality—I am welcomed for the simple and profound reason that I am a human being. This feels very different than me being welcomed because I have the ability to pay or because I am white and middle-class or because I have/or don’t have the “right” education or because I am nonthreatening, etc., etc. I am welcomed at the Food Pantry just because I am.

This morning, at the early service at St. Gregory of Nyssa, I watched hospitality in action. Keri, Paul, Sara, Mark, Cheryl, Brian, and others pulled in a visitor to read, a child to distribute Eucharist, another child to lift a chalice, me to do a reading at morning prayer, and they invited other to participate in the many tasks that needed to be done during the liturgy. Liturgy means the work of the people and they made sure people were working to make the liturgy happen. Is part of hospitality to help the other find their role; to help the other live out a Christ-filled life by inviting them into the work of Christ? I’ve been reading John Caputo’s book The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida Religion without Religion in which he describes Derrida talking of love as the ultimate way we allow tout autre est tout autre (the other is fully/always other) to manifest itself. Derrida says this love is hospitality—allowing the other to be the other without our agenda for what we want or need from the other, without our agenda of changing the other, and without need for acceptance from the other (page 47). I’ve never made the connection between love and hospitality before and have tended to view hospitality as a giving to the other not an allowing of the other—allowing the other to fully be himself/herself.

Jess, a member of the choir, read the Sodom and Gomorrah Old Testament reading that describes inhospitality and ill-treatment of the stranger and Abraham’s plea to God to save the city even for just one righteous soul. My humble interpretation of this passage is that my denial of the stranger or my cruelty towards the stranger is serious cause for alienation from God (sin), and (that is a big AND) I must try to practice hospitality, I must call others out when they are not practicing hospitality, and I must recognize those times my inhospitality is causing harm to others. So does that mean that hospitality in its truest sense is a gift with no expectation of reciprocity? Yes, probably, yet how to make this happen is another story. I need to add that as Jess, originally from the south, read this passage slowly with a hint of his southern drawl, it was funny and we laughed and it felt like we were there to share our stories (Scripture included). This laughter, I realized, allowed a certain comfort to settle among the participants, and was a form of participation that gave us all the chance to engage in the work of the liturgy by offering a gift—our laughter. Jess was practicing hospitality, most likely without knowing it, by inviting us to be fully ourselves, a true gift.

July 22, 2016

Today I realized that I’ve been avoiding expressing myself about all the violence in the world this past month (and year and several years). When I returned to my rented room in San Francisco this evening after volunteering at the food pantry all day, I got a New York Times alert that there was a mass shooting in Munich then I opened my email to an art exhibit in memory of Philando Castile and I wept. I wept and wept and wept. I could not stop weeping. Perhaps I’m not avoiding expressing myself because I have nothing to say about such senseless violence other than it is senseless. Perhaps all I can express at the moment is tears. I am not trying to get out of my responsibility of speaking out against violence; I do speak out and will continue to speak out against violence. It’s just that today I realized there is a place for tears, a time for weeping and this is one of those times. Jesus wept (John 11:35).

July 22, 2016

This was the second week I volunteered at St. Gregory’s Food Pantry. I ripped bananas into bunches of 3 or 4, organized the bread items, and handed out the most popular item: the Bok choy. Edmund did not want to be on the Bok choy handing out duty because he doesn’t like having to tell people that they can only have one and he doesn’t like telling people that they can’t pick out their own. Elena assigned me to the honorable task of being the Bok choy police. I did a fine job but did break down a time or two and hand out more than one bunch when someone was really begging or I didn’t want to haggle any more. Mable, who speaks Cantonese and was my ally on cabbage said it was OK to give in to the really determined people because it wasn’t worth arguing over. I was grateful she was standing near me.

Interestingly the same volunteers from last week were there today. I love this mix of people that form community on Fridays for six hours in the sanctuary of a beautiful sun-lit church. They are what I image Christ would define as community—no two people are alike and they choose to act together for the greater good of the broader city in which they live, and despite differences, they choose to be here together and to care for and nurture one another.

There is a homeless man that talks to me about Malcolm X, Queen Elizabeth I, Star Trek, and the movie Oh Brother Where Art Thou, and today he told me about how he liked to fry his baloney as a kid as we checked out the free baloney and cheese slices the pantry had to give away today. There is a young man that once you talk to him he never stops talking. When I told Sara that I thought he was great, she told me that he drives people crazy all over the city but that he really just needs something to do, so everyone at the food pantry puts him to work and he is happy. Today he helped me pile up my Bok choi and sop up some coffee I spilled. There are several Ukrainian immigrants, one or two volunteers that only speak Spanish, a few fluent in Cantonese or Mandarin, several white Americans, some Filipino men, a woman from Ghana, and others that I can’t remember at the moment. There are several children that helped me break banana bunches today and who give me hugs when I see them.

In a very short period of time I have grown very fond of all of these friends. I hesitated to type the word friends because perhaps it is too early to classify our relationship that way, but when I went to type the word “people” it felt much too impersonal for the conversations we have had, the recipes we have shared, and the stories we have told about our lives and loved ones. They are not just “people” they are dear ones, they are gentle souls and rough souls, they are hearts and hands that work and love and hand out food to people they don’t know. They are more than people, they are a community that has also taken me in and claimed me as their own. Many asked me today, “Where are your children?” They seem to have claimed them also and expected them to be there for our community meal, to unpack boxes, and to hand out food. When I explained to Valentina that they were in Los Angeles visiting family she told me, “You need to go. It is not good that you no go” (this is in a Ukrainian accent in case you can’t hear that while I’m typing).

When I read Scripture and imagine Christ eating with prostitutes, sinners, saints, tax collectors, Scribes, Pharisees, Mary, Martha, many women—all the people he was not expected to eat with, I imagine our Friday food pantry gatherings as a venue he would have been very pleased to attend. More than pleased in fact, he would be delighted, ecstatic, and joyful; Christ would dance and kiss our faces (like Rudy kisses mine) and he would smile and eat a good meal and tell a good story. Today I sat on a step next to Edmund and just listened while he told me story after story and I tuned out for a moment to imagine what it would have been like to be Mary at Jesus’ feet and to take it all in and feel full—full of good food, full of good company, full of companionship, full of grace, full of love. Perhaps each volunteer I met is Christ and all I need to do is listen. Listen, listen, listen…this sounds so easy, but it is not.

Why is it so hard to listen? I think it is because sometimes I don’t want to know things like someone doesn’t have a home and I can’t fix that, or someone doesn’t have a job and I can’t fix that. I pray for ears to listen…just listen.

July 21, 2016

I met a 66 year-old African American man at the bus stop this morning while going to the Legion of Honor. He moved to San Francisco 44 years ago because his sister lived here and on the first day he arrived he walked about five miles downtown and got a job driving the Gray Hound bus all over the country. He left for the Vietnam War, lived in Alaska for a time and moved back to the city recently. We were sitting on the corner of Geary and 33^rd Street in the Richmond District (or the Avenues as many call it based on the street numbering), and he started telling me that he wanting to watch the GOP convention tonight because Mike Pence was accepting the nomination for Vice President. I assumed that since he is an African American man and the recipient, like so many other’s, of Trump’s racist and hateful remarks, he was going to express outrage at the idea of a Trump Presidency and an ultra conservative and right wing Vice President. Not wanting to verbally express my assumptions, I asked, “How do you feel about the presidential race?” His response, “We have to do something, this country is falling apart.” I took that to be he was a Trump supporter, especially when he exuberantly began to explain all the negative ways San Francisco was changing. He expressed many of the same arguments that white men are expressing as their reasons for supporting Trump, yet I found it ironic and sad that he lumped himself with those exposing hatred especially hatred against non-white people.

He went on to explain that the rents in the neighborhood where we were sitting used to be about $600 a month and were now between $3500 and $7000 a month and that long-time residents were being forced out and that average people could no longer afford to live in the city. This man asked the bus driver, “Hey, what do rents go for around here,” to which the bus driver replied in a kind and joking manner, “If you have to ask, you cannot afford them!”   The man I was talking to said he purchased a large van when he arrived in San Francisco this time around and was living in it while moving it from place to place so as to not be squatting anywhere in particular. He went on to explain that the young workers from Silicon Valley moved into the San Francisco neighborhoods, drove up rents, then moved across the Bay to Berkeley and Oakland where the weather is sunnier, leaving the rents in San Francisco unaffordable to the average worker.

As I ride the bus through the city, there is evidence of closed shops and run-down neighborhoods where people have fled to cheaper rents farther down the Bay. Paul, Rector at St. Gregory, told me that restaurants cannot afford to pay their workers a living wage so they are closing down and moving elsewhere as the service workers flee also to cheaper rents outside the immediate vicinity of San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley. The people that make the city function—the street sweepers, the toilet cleaners, the servers, the clerks, the janitors—can no longer afford to live in the place where they work.

Potrero Hill is home to what are called earthquake shacks, slapped together after the 1906 earthquake to temporarily house families and workers that rebuilt the city (see Instagram or Facebook for photos). Temporary in San Francisco lasts a long, long time because these earthquake shacks are still here and were one of the last bastions of places for tech workers to move in and gentrify, which they have done with great gusto. There is still the occasional house that looks like a shack but many of the houses have been renovated and are beautiful examples of the lasting architecture of a temporary time in San Francisco’s history. The Google bus stops frequently in this neighborhood to transport workers to and from their place of employment, and on the surface, this seems like a brilliant ecological brainchild to get cars off the road and people on buses to reduce traffic and pollution. And, ironically, the Google workers have settled in this particular neighborhood because it is affordable compared to the real estate in Mountain View where Google is located, and a starter home (aka a fixer upper) starts at $1,000,000 dollars. Despite the frugality of Google employees in choosing “affordable” housing and public transportation they are resented in the Potrero Hill neighborhood and especially in the nearby Mission neighborhood where they have driven up rents and driven out long-time residents. The Mission neighborhood has traditionally been home to immigrants from Central and South American and these are typically many of the workers that keep San Francisco going—the workers I described above.

As I wander through the Mission District gentrification is not noticeable on the surface but an increase in homelessness certainly is. Along 16^th Street, a major thoroughfare in the Mission and home to the 16^th Street BART Station, there are tents lining the sidewalks where people have created their own neighborhoods. Max, a member at St. Gregory’s told me that an organization wanting to help the homeless provided the tents as temporary housing but temporary has turned into long term. There were also tent villages in Berkeley, a particularly large one under the freeway on the Gilman Street exit of the 580 West, a major Bay Area commuter freeway. A man we met at the park who was walking his dog told us the rents in Berkeley have skyrocketed and that with the recent past economic downturn many people turned to the streets to survive.

In 2013 protesters in San Francisco and Oakland held public protests against the use of Google buses, and the occupant’s gentrification of their neighborhoods, to ferry people from those locales to the South Bay Google offices about 35 miles away. In Oakland the protesters were more aggressive and broke the window and slashed the tires of one Google bus. The protesters primary complaint was that rents were driven up in the neighborhoods surrounding Google bus stops and one research study conducted by the University of California Berkeley City Planning Department found that rents increased by 20% near a Google bus stop. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bus_protests and Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity by Douglas Rushkoff)

St. Gregory’s is not immune to these changes in the neighborhood. The neighborhood is rapidly changing and becoming more unaffordable and more fancy, yet at the same time there are several RVs parked within a few blocks of St. Gregory’s where people live. This morning when I walked to the church several men exited one of these homes; they were well-dressed and looked like they were walking to work. In a recent staff meeting, Paul announced that another church in San Francisco sent him a great questionnaire that they used to assess the needs of their neighborhood and then Paul expressed that they hadn’t done this in a while and maybe it was time to do it in the neighborhood of the church. A lively discussion, with a plan to table the issue temporarily, ensued with some interesting comments:

We are no longer a neighborhood church

We don’t know our neighbors

I am not knocking on the doors of our neighbors

We can ask some of the members that live in the neighborhood to talk to neighbors

I’m not sure what we did before was useful

What would we do with this information?

My sense is that we aren’t asking the right questions or approaching the phenomena from the right perspective. Instead of asking, “What can I do for my neighbor or who is my neighbor?” Perhaps we need to start with the questions, “How do I live as a faith-filled person in a secular age? How do I model living a faith-filled life in a secular age? How do our church communities maintain a faith-filled presence in our secular neighborhoods?” I can’t say for certain, but I’m guessing that many of the tech workers living in Potrero Hill are not attending church. Perhaps it is not about helping our neighbors, but about us helping ourselves to be faithful people in a secular age. That is not to say that we get to shirk off our responsibilities of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, housing the homeless, taking care of the orphans and widows, working for justice, and advocating for non-violence, but maybe, just maybe if we approach our faith lives differently by focusing on what we can do rather than getting people in our doors, we can have stronger communities.

James K. Smith, in his book How (Not) to be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor, interprets Charles Taylor’s book A Secular Age. Charles Taylor describes three kinds of secular, which I won’t go into (read the book if you are interested), but we are living in a secular3 age where the predominate cultural ethic is secularism, thus we are religious people living in a secular world trying to maintain a cultural identity as faith-filled people as a minority in the majority secular world. This is a shift from our church of just 50 or 60 years ago when it was expected that everyone would go to church and people relied on the church to meet basic needs when a family needed help. Generally, we no longer supply this help to church members and expect them to go to a government agency or a non-profit, which have become very good at meeting the needs of the hungry, homeless, and naked.   We live in a world that Taylor would call extreme humanism—meeting basic needs of the disenfranchised by non-religious organizations. Thus, the church has become obsolete at the very thing that Jesus asked us to do—care for the sick, children, orphans, widows, hungry, naked—because non-religious organizations have mastered the art of doing this. Ironic, huh?

I don’t have answers, just more questions: Where does this leave the church? What is the role of the church in a secular age? How do we live Christ’s message today? I believe this is an exciting time to explore our role as church and community, but first we need to focus on these questions and clarify what needs we have before we can ask ourselves what our neighbors need. Again, this is not to say that we can shirk our responsibilities to Christ’s message and expectations of our work, but hopefully exploring these questions can lead us back to how Christ wants us to be in the world and lead us to our role as faithful people in a secular world. Amen!

July 12, 2016

I’ve been dragging my feet on writing about the St. Gregory’s staff meeting because, honestly, it was as eventful as any staff meeting, which is to say that it was not very eventful, yet I am chastising myself for not expounding on this event because I’m trying to convince myself that it should be noteworthy. (I’m not sure what that is about; I’ll discuss it with my Spiritual Director and hire a therapist is necessary—I say this in jest in case you can’t hear the humor in my voice as I type away.) Anyhow…here goes my exciting description of the first staff meeting I attended at St. Gregory’s.

Paul, the Rector, started the meeting with Bible study, which wasn’t really study because he handed out the readings for the next Sunday and everyone glanced at them and started making comments and giving their insight, which led me to believe that everyone except me was prepared for this because they all knew what to do and I was clueless. It was too quick for me, I’m not good at thinking on my feet—I need time to read and absorb before I can make any thoughtful observations. I’ll try to read them ahead of time before the next staff meeting, which will not be this week because everyone except Paul was not able to attend.

Sherri, in addition to being the most important person on staff as the Office Administrator, is a fellow fiber artist that is currently artist in residence at the San Francisco dump. She explained that it is not really called the dump, it has a fancy name, The San Francisco Recology Center, but Sherri said she prefers to call it the dump, where she gathers materials for her art projects that need to be made with 90% of the materials gathered in the dump. I love it! Sherri also writes the newsletter and spent time at the meeting asking for all the news items for the upcoming newsletter.

Sara, the Director of Ministry, was called away from the meeting by a person wanting to know if St. Gregory’s had surveillance cameras on the corner because a Google bus had run over her foot and she wanted documentation. While gone, Paul and Sanford, the Director of Music, had a lively conversation about another woman that was supposedly hit by a car in the neighborhood and continues to show up at the Food Pantry looking for the person that hit her even though the accident took place five or six blocks away. It was clear that she is suffering from some mental health issues and the staff tried to help her as best they could. Sara returned to the meeting and reported that Paul and Sanford were confused about which woman was at the door, and that she took care of the matter, which involved a Google bus running over the foot of a Google employee and that no, St. Gregory’s did not have cameras. She also returned with a pair of sunglasses found on the cactus in front of the church that had two decorated Christmas trees with holes for one’s eyes—very glamorous. After the camera and sunglass drama, Sara gave a report on the supper service that happened the previous Sunday, which included her wanting the youth to run the debrief meeting instead of the adults and she didn’t like the part where participants were asked to bow during the prayers. Her feeling is that at St. Gregory’s all are welcome to worship in ways that make sense to them and if they are asked to perform a particular act such as bowing it goes against the philosophy of wanting people to determine their own acts of worship.

Sanford expressed concern that the cantor was off key and needed to have someone cue him. I confessed that I am not musical and I didn’t notice and wondered if others had not noticed also. This is where I feel incredibly deficient being at St. Gregory’s—I am self-consciously NOT musical and really, really wish I was, but I didn’t grow up with a youth choir like my children and I just didn’t learn to sing. One of the first things I was asked when I got to St. Gregory’s is if I wanted to sing with the choir because it is a really important part of worship because the liturgy is sung. I want to think that I could take some singing lessons and be able to fully participate but I have a small (OK, she is really big) inner critic that says I could never do it. I’m trying to hold onto that little part of me that sings the mantra from the little engine that could…I think I can, I think I can.

Music is so important that there is a Ph.D. musicology student from Yale, Marissa, who is doing her research on St. Gregory’s for her dissertation. She was at the staff meeting, too, but honestly she spoke music, a language that I don’t understand, so I’m not really sure what she said or what her concerns were. Mental note—take a class on liturgical music.

I brought up the issue of the stewardship campaign and how the bible study group that met on Sunday was concerned about the member survey that went out asking about pledge commitments. Paul and Sara were unaware that anyone was disgruntled so were appreciative that I brought it up. Next, the staff went over schedules and who was doing what and when and who was going to be on vacation and where and when.

So…there you have it, all the staff meeting discussion topics—liturgy, neighbors, music, money, youth involvement, scripture, schedules, and a little bit of fun and laughter to round out the morning gathering.