Our Shared Vocation

My message in Trinity Cathedral’s August 26, 2010 enewsletter:

I had just sat down to write this e-news update.  I was planning on reporting on the three day conference I went to with 40 positive, energetic clergy.  (It was quite good.)  I had spend the earlier part of the day trying to get caught up on email and phone messages.  The phone rang.  It was Sutter General.  Victoria, one of Trinity’s very faithful saints, was in the ER and was near death.  I gathered a few copies of the “Ministration at the Time of Death” service (aka Last Rites) and oil for anointing and headed out the door.  In the ER I was greeted by Richard, Victoria’s husband and one of their sons.  I got to see Victoria, this beautiful child of God who had lived and long and faithful life, lying in her bed sleeping.  After talking with Richard, we gathered at her bedside.  I placed my hand on Victoria’s head.  Her eyes opened.  I don’t know if she heard us, but Richard and I spoke to her.  We then prayed the service.  I made the sign of the cross on her forehead and anointed her with oil as I prayed one of the final prayers in the service: Depart, O Christian soul, out of this world; In the name of God the Father Almighty who created you; In the name of Jesus Christ who redeemed you; In the name of the Holy Spirit who sanctifies you, May your rest be this day in peace, and your dwelling place in the Paradise of God.

Much of my time as dean is spent in administration.  I go to conferences and meetings, answer email, make phone calls and meet with people.  Today I got to be a priest — to speak words of God’s abiding and faithful love in a situation of sadness.  It is a lovely vocation.  And it is one we all share.  As Christians we all have the blessed vocation of loving others through difficult times — of being present with them, and reminding them of God’s love, when they are filled with sadness or fear or grief.  We are blessed by a love that will never let us go and we are blessed with opportunities to be the incarnation of that love for others.  Thank you for sharing this vocation with me.

Easter Letter

Here’s my Holy Week/Easter letter to Trinity Cathedral:

When faced with tragedy – from massive earthquakes to the death of a beloved individual, I can’t help but ask the question “Why.” It is a question that is never adequately answered. We never know why such tragedies happen. I do not believe they are caused by God. God is not in the business of killing people.

One of the reasons I love Christianity is it does not shy away from the harsh realities of life. It is not a religion where we pretend life is beautiful all the time. Life is sometimes tragic, and often heartbreaking. For me the question that Christianity addresses is not “why” but rather “where.” “Where are you God?” That is a cry that has welled up in my own heart. It is a question that is answered as we move toward Easter. In the suffering of Jesus, we see God present with us in the midst of our own pain and suffering. In Jesus hanging on the cross, we see God in radical solidarity with us. The cross of Christ tells us we are never alone – we are never separated from the presence of God. Even our own feeling of god forsakenness will not separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Jesus himself cried from the cross, “my God, why have you forsaken me.” In the mystery of the cross, God experiences god forsakenness.

While it helps me to know that God is present with us in the midst of tragedy, I’m glad there is more to my faith. Holy Week leads to Easter, where Jesus rose from cold tomb of death to new, glorious, resurrected life. I believe the story of Easter shows us the real work of God – resurrection. Not only is God present with us, weeping with us, in the midst of our tragedies, God brings us to new life on the other side of tragedy. I believe this is God’s primary job. God is in the resurrection business.

Resurrection happens. After every tragedy, every death, every heartbreak, resurrection happens. That is God’s business. And I believe we are called to be God’s business partners. Our task is to participate in resurrection, to help bring people to new life. Easter invites us to stand firm in the faith that God brings life out of death. Easter invites us also to be an agent of resurrection for others. We can’t be Easter people in isolation. When my world is falling apart, I need you to help bring me back to life. I hope to be able to do the same for others.
I invite you to join us this weekend at Trinity Cathedral as we enter into thy mystery of Christ’s passion, our own suffering, and God’s abiding love that draws us all to new and abundant life.

Judy LewLoose Homeless Paintings with Stations of the Cross

Judy LewLoose is a Sacramento artist who, a year ago, shifted her career to focus on raising awareness on the needs of people who are homeless.   She painted a series of people who were at Sacramento’s “tent city.”  Now she is painting women and children at St. John’s shelter.  We installed her paintings in the nave of the Cathedral with our stations of the cross.

Here are some of the paintings with the stations they accompany:

Jesus is Condemned to Death

Jesus Receives the Cross

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Jesus Meets His Holy Mother

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The Corss is Laid on Simon of Cyrene

A Woman Wipes the Face of Jesus

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Jesus Falls the Third Time

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Jesus Dies on the Cross.

The Body of Jesus is Placed in the Arms of His Mother

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Jesus Now

Kirstin Paisley has written an excellent reflection on encountering Jesus in her ministry to folks who are homeless through her work hosting Safe Ground at Trinity Cathedral. Kirstin writes beautifully. I was going to post an excerpt, but you really should read the whole thing, so here it is:

I’ve been thinking about the question, “Who is Jesus?”  I’ve been told I’ll be asked that; the implication being that I’ll need a good answer.  I don’t have one.  I can give you all the academic language you want, but my heart doesn’t know how to dissect the Trinity.  God is love, and God simply is.  God is the ground of all being.  I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about who is what, and how, and when.

But ask me, “Where is Jesus?”  Then, I get it.  I can run with that.  Come with me.

Jesus is in R, the old, nearly toothless man I met in the Great Hall yesterday evening, who pulled me aside to ask me to save him a dinner plate.  He told me his story; lots of them do, when you give them an ounce of attention.  He told me about having had open heart surgery, the stents holding his arteries open, and the 23-year-old kid who saved his life.  He was crying when he hugged me.  He left his tears on my cheek.

Jesus is in the Facebook friend who was two years behind me in high school, whom I didn’t know then but was aware of.  I remember wanting to get to know her, because her energy and joy captivated me.  We connected this past summer because a friend of hers, classmate of mine, died in August of the same cancer I survived.  She drove through California last night, on her way back to Seattle from France, and stopped by for the fifteen minutes that I could spend with her.  She got, and loved, what we were doing.  Vivacity still lights her eyes.  And she told me that I have the same light now, that I did then.  At 15 and 17, we never would have shared this.  Now, it’s as natural as “Can you stay for dinner?”  (Alas, I had to run to a meeting and she had to get back to the road.)

Jesus is in T, homeless for seven days.  A week ago he was in Los Angeles.  I never got to ask him what brought him to Sacramento.  Last night, he went with David and me to speak to the council of St. John’s Lutheran about the possibility of them hosting Safe Ground.  He didn’t know any of these people.  He was tall, and stocky, and wore a Hard Rock Café T-shirt and a crew cut.  He didn’t look like he’d ever been afraid of anything.  He told these polite strangers exactly that, when he talked about the adventures he’d had and the kinds of work he had done.  Then he told them that nothing had ever scared him half as much as being homeless.  And that Safe Ground had helped him not to be afraid anymore.  He told us he was nervous—but he spoke with confidence and grace.

Jesus is in everyone who came just to listen, and in every encounter where people were heard.  Jesus is in every look of surprised understanding; every smile, every laugh.  Jesus is in the space that creates relationship between strangers, in every pause between the words.

Jesus is in everyone who came to cook dinner, and who saved plates for R and me because I’d asked them to.  (I’d gotten caught up in talking, and missed my chance before we had to leave.)  Jesus is in the conversations we had in the kitchen, in the hugs, schemes, and crazy laughter over I don’t even remember what.  Jesus is in the latecomers who asked for dinner, and in the instinctual willingness of everyone to feed them.

Jesus is in the elders, who take so very seriously their responsibility to keep everyone safe.  In the quiet gentleness with which they treated the guests.  In the very sense of knowing we were being watched, in a loving and protective way.

Jesus is in H, who came to us after lights-out to tell us there was someone being drunk and disorderly outside.  When I figured out that it was R, and jumped up because I felt guilty that he hadn’t gotten dinner, H made me promise to be safe before I went outside.  I saw two long-time friends of Safe Ground, standing near R who was kneeling on the concrete.  I asked them if I should bring him food or water.  They said no, he was well past keeping it down.

They weren’t letting him in, but they weren’t leaving him either.  They kept a respectful distance, watching.  Not engaging with his rants; just being there.  The way they held their bodies spoke compassion.

I went back inside.  T came and whispered to me how beautiful everyone was who was sleeping.  She shared the love she felt from Steve and me, and the other volunteers.  H debriefed with me when I wanted to help R; he showed me that I couldn’t do anything for him, and that my responsibility was to do exactly what I was doing for everyone else.  Later, he came and told us that R had walked away, and had been standing against a tree for a long time.

I know that Jesus was in R then.  Keeping him calm, clearing his head, giving him peace in a night of unknowns.

I don’t know R.  But I’d made a connection with him.  I was startled at how hurt and frustrated I was, when I couldn’t do anything to help him.  I wasn’t barred from trying; no one exerted power over me.  They just explained to me that there was nothing I could do.  R’s work was and will be his own.  He wasn’t coherent.  And he might not even remember that night, when he woke up from whatever sleep he found.

These are really hard lessons—to watch someone you care about and feel some responsibility to, go beyond where anyone can reach him.  To know that God is with him and that has to be enough, because right now he’s beyond human help.  To feel another layer of naivete slip off of you, and to know that you will need the skills you’re learning.  To listen to someone explain to you why you cannot help—and to know that he knows because he has been there.  To hear, “I know you want to, but you can’t,” and to feel the love in the voice speaking to you.  To watch people you trust, who know what they are doing, hold the line with patience and compassion.  To remember in your mind, heart, and body what you see and hear them do.

Why do I tell this story?  I’m obviously still wrestling with it.  Beside the pain, there is grace.  After the frustration is expansion, competence, understanding.  This, too, is love.  And this, too, is real.  Jesus walks, here.

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Come walk with us.  Steve Skiffington coordinates shelter nights, and manages the volunteer e-list.  If you’re interested specifically in a ministry of presence, have a skill to share, or ideas for summer projects, contact Kirstin.

Kirstin Paisley

Costa Mantis Films Homeless at Trinity Cathedral

Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing

I am way behind in blogging.  Time for a little catch-up.

Last week, Kirstin Paisley, a member of Trinity who works with our homeless ministry was in our Thursday night Catechumenate class, where they study the upcoming Gospel reading.  They looked at the text from Luke’s 4th chapter, where Jesus goes into the synagogue, opens the scroll from Isaiah and reads, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”   Jesus then rolls up the scroll and says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Friday night Kirstin welcomed 120 homeless people into the Great Hall, helped feed them dinner and gave them a warm, safe place to sleep.  Throughout the night, that last sentence from Jesus kept resonating for her.   As she was eating and resting in safe community she realized that it indeed is being fulfilled.  She wrote a beautiful reflection that’s posted on Trinity’s Crosstalk Blog.  I commend the entire piece.  Here’s an excerpt:

This is easy.  It’s joyful and loving and wonderful.  This is just fun.  And sometimes it breaks my heart.

Wednesday at breakfast, I was passing out napkins at the front of the line.  I wasn’t even fully awake yet.  I was rolling spoons inside of napkins, offering them, and saying hi, or asking how someone slept; that sort of thing.  Without the slightest bit of consciousness of how my behavior might affect anybody.

I gave someone a spoon and a napkin.  I have no idea what I said to him.  He asked me, “Why are you always so nice to us?”

I answered with the first thing that came to my head:  “Because we’re all human beings.  And because you guys deserve it.”  I was thinking, “My God, what did you expect me to be?”

That’s what it does to someone’s soul when everywhere they go, they’re trespassing.

The homeless people that we host come here because they know that they can.  They know that we will welcome them.  We offer them food, company, community.  We invite them into church—we explicitly do not compel them.  They are free to be themselves here.  We laugh with them.  We listen to them.  We love them.  And they love us.

“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

On these cold, wet nights, “inbreaking” is too weak a word.  Time and time and time again, we witness the reign of God crashing into the space we walk around in.  There is so much love here.

Sacramento Bee Article on Trinity’s Homeless Ministry

Jennifer Garza visited our new homeless ministry on Monday night.  We have started feeding and housing up to 120 (so far) homeless people when it gets wet or cold.  There are lots of people with no place to go, and when it is raining or cold, it is not only uncomfortable, it is dangerous.  A group of Trinity folks decided to partner with the “safe ground” movement and open our parish hall.  We don’t have any authorization to be a “shelter” and we don’t want to adversely impact our neighbors, so we don’t do this more than two nights in a row.  We are working on getting other churches to partner with us so there is a place for people to go on other nights.  I’ve posted the first paragraphs of Jennifer’s article.  The full article is HERE.

The homeless people who walk through the doors of Trinity Cathedral in midtownSacramento have faith in the church, the only one in the area to offer them a hot meal and a roof over their heads.

Since mid-December, the homeless have escaped the wet and cold for a warm sleeping bag on the floor of the church hall twice a week. A slice of heaven on earth, said one.

“You have no idea how much that means,” saidRonnie Holiday, who has been on the streets for years. “They’re going to be blessed for doing this, I’ll tell you that.”

No other church runs a program like the one atTrinity Cathedral, homeless advocates said.

Read the entire article HERE.

Sister Libby’s 1/17 Sermon

Hosting Safe Ground

Kirsten Paisley joined Trinity a few months ago with a passion for serving people who are homeless.  We had already begun a relationship with the “Safe Ground” movement in Sacramento.   Here’s a reflection from her about our new ministry hosting homeless people in our parish hall.  It was originally posted on Trinity’s Crosstalk Blog.

I ought to be sleeping.  I was up half the night, by choice, helping Safe Ground do security upstairs where the women slept.  Really I was a presence; someone friendly from Trinity who could help them feel safe.  And for that reason, I don’t mind the lost rest.  I can always take naps.  I’ve never lacked a warm bed.

We’ve been hosting homeless people overnight, once or twice a week since the middle of December.  We started hosting Safe Ground when the weather turned wintry.  Steve realized that there would be people sleeping out on that first cold night, got the right permissions, and went out to find them.  I missed the first night, because I was out of town.  But I’ve been there every night we’ve hosted since.  I wouldn’t miss it.  Being with this community—these communities together—is entirely too much fun.

I’ve had a relationship with Safe Ground since early fall; Brian pointed me toward them.  But I’ve mostly interacted with them at meetings (either their own, or the Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee).  My passion for street ministry led me to Trinity.  Before we started hosting, I knew some Safe Ground members, and they knew me as an advocate.  It’s an entirely enriching experience to be with them on a sleepover night.  They’re no longer “homeless people,” in the abstract.  They’re not stereotypes.  They’re a bunch of really nice people.  We’ve all gotten to know them, and they’ve gotten to know us.  We’ve talked about anything from how cold it is in a tent by the river, to expanding universes and what might be beyond them.  We’ve had fun together.  Some came at Christmas, saying that they knew they’d be welcome.  They feel like friends.  They feel like part of us.

If that’s not the reign of God in our midst, I don’t know what is.  I’m so grateful to be part of a community that encourages these relationships.  I’m grateful for the generous, open, and loving people whom I get to serve with.  I’m grateful for all the open doors.

Here is something like a typical night: Read more »

A Great Night to be the Church

Here’s what I wrote for this week’s enewsletter:

On Tuesday night the vestry concluded its discussion of Stephanie Speller’s Radical Welcome.   I chose this book because it focused on a core value of Trinity Cathedral – openness.  Stephanie challenges churches that consider themselves to be inclusive or welcoming to look beneath the surface and see how open they really are to people who are different.  She asks us to look at our neighborhood and see if the people inside the church reflect those who walk by the church.  She also points out that if we are truly open to others, we will be changed by welcoming them into our midst.   This books has had a lovely impact on the vestry.  We are now more open to the leading of the Spirit.  We are more sensitive to the presence of people that pass through our facility who aren’t connected to our community.  We aren’t sure quite where we will be led, but we know God afoot and we are being led on an adventure.

At the same time we were having this discussion, 93 homeless people were being fed dinner in the Great Hall.  They were to be our guests for the night.  This was the fourth night in the past week we have housed homeless people in response to this sudden cold and wet spell.   The vestry talked about the possibility of opening the church so our guests could enjoy the peace and beauty of the sanctuary.  We couldn’t do it that night because we were also hosting a community musical group that was presenting Handel’s Messiah.

It was a great night to be the church.

I hope you can find some way to be involved in the activities at Trinity Cathedral this next week.  There are many, many exciting things happening.