Coulee Flowers

Alberta Wild Rose

Prickly Pear Cactus

Shot with my trusty iPhone 5

Evening Prayer in the Twenty-First Century and Blowing on My Embers

I posted this photograph on Twitter last Wednesday: the brightness of his presence through the clouds seen in the reflection of the trees and the sky on the iPad page. Pleasing. I noticed the photograph before I noticed verse 7 near the bottom of the page. 

It comes from the Daily Prayer feed from the Church of England via Aimer Media's Daily Prayer app and my iPad camera. 

Daily Prayer gives me Morning, Evening and Night Prayer each day. I don't have to look up what day it is, or the readings, it's all there so I can follow my nose through the office without even switching apps. It is Scripture set to prayer and two readings from Scripture morning and evening. I don't have to be feeling spiritual or holy, it just picks me up wherever I am and however I'm feeling and carries me along in that mysterious yet absolutely trustworthy and true  holy stream which is the Daily Office. Brilliant. 

Then, there came this message on Twitter: 

Maple Anglican ‏@MapleAnglican  Jun 25

@kiwirev It's an Ember Day?!?!?! #WasntThatTwoWeeksAgo

…to which I replied: 

Gene Packwood ‏@kiwirev  24h

@MapleAnglican According to the CofE Daily Prayer iPad- iPhone app it is.

Maple Anglican then pointed out, correctly, that we'd just had Ember Days two weeks ago during Whitsuntide (BCP for "just after Pentecost") and wondered whether there was an error in the app. The makers of the Daily Prayer app then entered the conversation: 

Aimer faith apps ‏@AimerFaith  14h

@kiwirev I have found it is correct - EDs are normally observed Wed, Fri & Sat in the week before Sunday nearest to 29 June

…which a little Googling showed is true for the CofE. Concerning Ember Days, Rules to Order the Christian Year states: 

Traditionally they have been observed on the Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturday within the weeks before the Third Sunday of Advent, the Second Sunday of Lent and the Sundays nearest to 29 June and 29 September.

The intriguing thing is that what Maple Anglican says is true also. For Canadian Anglicans,

Ember Days of solemn prayer and fasting are traditionally kept at the turn of the four seasons (Wednesday, Friday and Saturday after Advent 3, Lent 1; the Day of Pentecost and Holy Cross Day). The origins of the tradition are obscure, but in time Ember Days came to be associated almost entirely with solemn prayer for ordinands. In this case the BAS suggests they do not need to be kept at the traditional times, but in relation to local diocesan ordination arrangements. The Ember Days, like Rogation Days, have been de-emphasized in liturgical revision since the 1970s, but there seems to be a reviving sense of their pastoral usefulness. They can be helpful in engaging the church in intentional and deep prayer for its whole ministry: for peace in the world, missionary work, Christian unity and economic justice. (From here)

Who knew? So far I haven't found why we do the week after Pentecost and they do the week before the Sunday nearest June 29. It's one of those lovely, odd Anglican things. Perhaps The LORD thought we need an extra set of Ember Days. 

To me, the important thing is that we just keep praying whatever the day. Ember Days are a lovely idea for prayer whatever the week—special days to drill down a bit deeper, to keep the devotion-to-Jesus-Christ embers burning, to fan them into flame (2 Tim 1.6) and to be a nice dry bit of Anglican kindling for Jesus, ready to burst into flame should he come to baptize me with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Luke 3.16). 

Many thanks to Maple Anglican and Aimer Faith Apps for the conversation and for making me do a little extra blowing on my embers. 

Reckless in Slo-Mo: Small, Daily and Unglamorous

Reckless

If you debate for a second when God has spoken, it is all up. Never begin to say—‘Well, I wonder if He did speak?’ Be reckless immediately, fling it all out on Him. You do not know when His voice will come, but whenever the realization of God comes in the faintest way imaginable, recklessly abandon. It is only by abandon that you recognize Him. You will only realize His voice more clearly by recklessness. (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest, June 8th)

I can't say I heard God speak giving me a retirement date. For me it always seems to come to the point of saying to God, "I haven't heard from you and I really want to do Your will and please you. This is what I'm hoping/planning to do. If it's not what you want, please let me know."

For me it was more a matter of three things:

• age; in the middle of the range at 67
• dates; after Easter with the summer then available for posting, interviewing and a move for a new priest 
• circumstances; my mother, who lived with my sister for fifteen years, always said she'd move into a senior's home before she needed extra care. Advancing years and a couple of strokes took her ability to choose that away so when the move had to happen it was very difficult for her and my sister. There's a lesson in that, I thought; you've got to move before you think you have to because too-late sneaks up on you. 

How reckless is retirement? I suppose one could argue that it's reckless to retire before one has to. It's reckless to abandon a well paid job and to join the ranks of the fixed income pensioners when one doesn't have to, especially when the Canadian Anglican pension fund has had some solvency issues. But it doesn't feel reckless. It's too comfortable for reckless. If it is reckless, it's reckless in slo-mo.

Which brings me to…

Small, Daily and Unglamorous

On their Facebook page Slow Church posted:

Slow Church hopes to affirm the small, the daily, and the unglamorous. It all matters.

Reckless retirement in slo-mo is about small, daily and unglamorous, too. I like it. Especially in the light of some things I've been reading in my daily offices lately.

Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass. Joshua 21.45

Not one word. And,

So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. Luke 12.21

Retirement, I find, has not a whole lot of opportunity for laying up any treasure for myself so far. I'm hoping small, daily and unglamorous in slo-mo will be rich toward God.

Meeting Waterloo Again

Battle of Waterloo - William Sadler(1782-1839)

Today is the 199th anniversary of the battle of Waterloo, fought on The Fourth Sunday after Trinity 1815 (if my math is correct—Easter Sunday was March 26th). It was the battle in which the Duke of Wellington finally defeated Napoleon. The battle was significant enough that its very name has become part of English phraseology. To "meet your Waterloo" is to be overcome by your ultimate challenge.

20mm Airfix Napoleon's Polish Lancers I Painted In My War Gaming Days

Yet "It was a near run thing," the Duke of Wellington said about it afterwards, "The nearest run thing you ever saw in your life." Another participant, when asked about his experience of the battle, said, "I'll be hanged if I know anything about the matter for all day I was trodden upon and ridden over by every scoundrel who had a horse." A close call. Touch and go. Trodden upon and ridden over yet victorious.

Where have I heard that before?

From There to Here and Not Having to Come Back from My Summer Holidays

If these were my holidays they would be over or close to it. But they're not. I'm retired (I know, I've been bleating on about it for some time now). I won't be back. I don't want to go back (although we are looking forward to returning to StB as parishioners, LORD willing and when the time is right). I believe it was God's timing to go when we did. But still. After forty-eight years of deadlines and appointments and struggling to fit what most often seemed to be too many things into my calendar, this is strange new country. Sometimes I like the openness. At other times I feel adrift. 

A good deal of my sense of being for the last forty-eight years has come out of what I did for a living. I won bread for my family. I really felt made for that. 

For twenty of those years I was enormously blessed to earn our living by telling stories with moving pictures in glowing phosphors. There were stresses and strains, but what a wonderful way to make a living! 

Then, after a brief foray into teaching television production and three years in seminary, it was ordination and parish priesting—Jesus and real life in his church—a big, messy family with all the gatherings, joys, sorrows, squabbles, beginnings and endings that go with it. 

What is like moving from there to here? Three images come to mind: 

From television days: so far retirement feels like going from the stress and hype of the shoot to the peaceful, dimly lit editing suite where you have time to look at everything you’ve shot, reflect and get it all to make sense so the story gets told—only there is no longer any deadline to keep me moving. 

Parenting: retirement’s like going from parenting’s challenging intensity to grandparenting's freer, more relaxed pace. 

Daily Devotions: retirement is going from praying the Daily Offices (Morning, Evening and Night Prayer) with the doings and anxieties of vocation and the parish and Sunday's worship and preaching always in mind, to worshipping and reading Scripture and praying non-productively, just because, just being present to The One in whom I live, and move (rather less often than before), and have my being. 

Towards Another Great Awakening: 'Tis the Season to Pray for Revival—Decently, In Order and Daily—with The Church of England

It's official. The CofE is praying for revival! Morning Prayer from the day after Ascension Day until the Day of Pentecost begins with the usual,

O Lord, open our lips

and our mouth shall proclaim your praise.

Great first words for the day and then we pray,

Send your Holy Spirit upon us,

and clothe us with power from on high. Alleluia.

O, yes! And after the scripture readings we pray, 

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your people

and kindle in us the fire of your love.

All who are led by the Spirit of God

are children of God and fellow-heirs with Christ.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your people.

Renew the face of your creation, Lord,

pouring on us the gifts of your Spirit,

and kindle in us the fire of your love.

For the creation waits with eager longing

for the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your people

and kindle in us the fire of your love. (cf Romans 8)

Let the renewed filling and kindling proceed!

Join in here. 

Lake Retirement

Four weeks retired yesterday; Ascension Day. Not sure I feel ascendant in retirement so far or that I have gone up with any kind of a mighty shout. It feels more as if my life has simply opened up so that I am now floating in something more like a lake than travelling busily between the vocational banks of being a parish priest—moving steadily with the current sometimes, drifting in quieter eddies at other times, and speeding through rapids that left me breathless every now and then. Banks give direction and velocity. There was always the next thing; the daily office, a call, a visit, Sunday worship approaching, a meeting.

In retirement the banks have receded and I drift facing one way and then the other; no particular destination or things that demand my attention. Oh, there is plenty to do, but apart from actual appointments, I can do them, or not, whenever. I like that. I like being able to go and visit children and grandchildren at a moment's notice. I like not having to be "on" and somewhere at a particular time every week. I enjoy the time to pray Morning Prayer with Jude at a leisurely pace. To read. To walk. To potter around the house and yard.

I'm a recently retired Anglican priest bobbing around in Lake Retirement and I'm okay.