Lent-ward Leaning

I decided to keep giving up working for a living for Lent this year. It's going well. I really like it. The observing a Holy Lent stuff fits: self-examination, penitence, prayer, fasting, almsgiving and reading and meditating on the Word of God. Here's how.

Self-examination

I've done little else since I retired. Feeling it. How is my post parish ministry sabbatical year life serving God, if at all? It just feels so good! And why should I get to enjoy so much goodness when others have had to suffer so for their faith, especially in the Middle East recently? 

     I haven't missed presiding and preaching yet. I appreciate that I got to do it for a time, but retirement feels like a new thing for me. I've entered a new space. It reminds me of the big change from television directing to seminary and ministry in the late 80s. I was grateful for the TV years, but I didn't miss them though seminary and the early parish priest days until one day when I came across a crew shooting something in the foothills south of Calgary, one of whom was a sound guy with whom I used to work. That must have been five or seven years after the change. I felt a pang and a sense of loss, but not for long. Maybe I'm just slow. But I didn't want to go back. 

Penitence

I continue to be a thoroughly competent sinner in retirement. My self-examination reminds me of the selfish motives behind much of what I do and did as a parish priest—ambition, drawing attention to my abilities and talents—the list goes on. I have been reminded of how little I achieved that is measurable. Not that it was nothing. The LORD worked through me and the people I served in ways noticeable and not. So, penitence in retirement means I also, when I look back at what I've done, cannot say more than what Jesus suggested in Luke's gospel: "I am an unworthy servant; I have only done what was my duty" (Luke 17.10)—for some of the time, at least. My boat is so full of goodness, I am also reminded of Peter's words to Jesus, "Go away from me for I am a sinful man." (Luke 5.8)

Prayer

Anglican liturgical prayer in particular. I love leisurely Morning Prayer with Jude and a cup of coffee. I've enjoyed the time to pray Evening Prayer and Night Prayer, too. Rich. Especially this Lent. We've decided to use the traditional language CofE Daily Prayer app. The Canadian Book of Common Prayer was my introduction to Anglican daily prayer back in the 80s. I prayed through it thoroughly. The lectionary, the PRAYERS AND THANKSGIVINGS UPON SEVERAL OCCASIONS, the FORMS OF PRAYER TO BE USED IN FAMILIES. I prayed them all. Systematically. All 46+9 of the PRAYERS AND THANKSGIVINGS. I loved it. As a result, I got to know it pretty well. Praying it again this Lent is reminding me of those days of discovery. 

     The language is a treat. The LORD shews stuff, things are forgat withal, some women are strange, we are a thoroughly froward lot exhibiting all kinds of naughtiness all over the round world. We ought, therefore, and with haste, gat ourselves to the Lord, and that right humbly lest we be minished.

     The words have a certain Lenten grittiness and the liturgy is just as Sister Monica Joan said in Call the Midwife…

…happily clinging still, and that right happily. 

Fasting

Not so much other than on Ash Wednesday so far. Retirement has been more a feast than a fast. 

Almsgiving

Some opportunities. Here's a good one for Lent—or any time of year, for that matter—women in need of obstetric fistula repair. 

Reading and Meditating on the Word of God

My next post, LORD willing…

On the Merits of Liturgy and the Church Calendar

I've written about liturgy before. Here's another lovely take on it:

Liturgy, at its best, is more like the tracks of the train than the whistle. It’s silent and sturdy and, though almost unnoticed, it leads us to where our hearts long to go. In perhaps the most quoted address on liturgy, C.S. Lewis states, that liturgy is most useful “when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it. As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don’t notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.

…from Tish Harrison Warren, a priest in the Anglican Church in North America, in a piece on her discovery and appreciation for the church calendar in Christianity Today's excellent "Her.meneutics" here.

Liturgy's trustworthy tracks, along with the church calendar, keep our worship and personal devotions on course as, year after year, they carry us along through the story of Jesus from Advent through Easter and a focus on discipleship for the rest of the year. The accompanying lectionary ensures that we are all, including preachers, at least exposed to themes with which we might not otherwise be inclined to engage.

On Retirement and Things I Would or Would Not Do Differently

As retirement approaches I find myself wondering about what I think I’d do differently if I were starting out again.

One thing I wouldn’t change is being Anglican. I love the way we worship. I love the theatre of it, the drama, the colours, the visuals and the way the divine narrative is covered year after year whether we want to, or not. I love the amount of Bible in it; read out and set to prayer. I love the way it’s always all about Jesus. It picks me up and carries me along no matter how I’m feeling or how engaged I am.

As always, Matt Marino, Episcopal priest in Arizona, puts it well when he describes how Anglican worship works in one of his The Gospel Side blog pieces: To Donald Miller and anyone else considering dumping church: The church works best when you like it least, in which he quotes another Arizona Episcopal priest, Gil Stafford:

The liturgy is like a rock falling into a stream. It rubs the rough edges off of us week after week, year after year. It is an infinitely slow and quiet transformation that is about being with other rocks in the stream as the Spirit works through the years, the prayers, the Sacraments and the community of faith. 

I love it all; the daily offices, the church year, the chanting, the bread and the wine each Sunday. I love the traditional prayer book worship in Shakespearean language and the contemporary rites according to our rather gracelessly entitled Book of Alternative Services. I love the routine, having to resist ennui, the cycle of the church year, the politically incorrect Scripture passages that slip through on Sunday mornings despite attempts to protect our delicate Anglican sensibilities. I love the Englishness of it and having to abide by the pastoral direction of a bishop. I love the way the liturgical system draws me into something much bigger and older than me. I have to serve it. It is not there to serve me and meet my needs.

Marino describes it in a rather lovely Eugene Peterson-esque way, also in the aforementioned post:

It is a long obedience in the same direction. It is about consuming Jesus and being consumed by him. And, I am convinced, the church works specifically best when we do not like it! When we choose to engage and to cooperate with the prayers, and surrender to the Lord of the prayers, and come, kneel, reach out our hands and receive, and “taste and see that the Lord is good,” then we truly worship.

It works best when I don’t like it. It works best when it doesn’t feel as if it’s meeting my needs or feeding me. I like the awkwardness and real-ness of that.

I’m a soon to be retired Anglican priest and I’m okay.

Liturgy Works

Something from Arizona Episcopal Priest, Matt Marino, in his most excellent the gospel side blog and further to my previous post on church-going:

The liturgy isn’t mine or yours. It isn’t endlessly malleable by the church staff to do whatever they want in church. In short, it’s not about what we like or what we “prefer.” The shape of the liturgy was handed to us by the earliest Christians. They borrowed the pattern of Word and Sacrament from the Jewish synagogue and temple. We find hints of it in the New Testament and see it laid out in detail by 150 A.D. And don’t miss the significance of this – when we read what those writers describe, they describe it as already ancient, established practice. (You can read Ignatius from 110 CE, Justin Martyr from 150 CE, Clement from 200 CE, and Hippolytus from 225 CE.) Most of the church has followed that pattern since then, because, when your heart is surrendered to God, liturgy works.

Perhaps you have a sense of curiosity about the ancient ways of the faith. I would encourage you to go experience those ways at a church that is thoughtfully liturgical. I would be most surprised if you do not find it spirit-lifting, even though much of the symbolism is subtle and will probably be missed the first few times through.

So go old-school this year: Come worship with us!

…or someone like them :-)

Matt's full post here.

While you're there click around—he has some excellent material on ministry to youth.

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