Has anyone spent any time in the Great American South?  I hail from pretty sturdy Midwestern roots. I was raised among people who pretty much say what they mean or simply shut up and say nothing at all (which can be problematic for sure) but it does tend to keep things, at the very least, civil.   In my mid-twenties, I got married and moved to Birmingham Alabama. Where I was introduced to the phrase, “Bless your heart.” If you aren’t familiar, depending on how the phrase is delivered, it can mean something completely different. In the Midwest I had heard it when my great aunt Marge would hold my hand, look me kindly in the eye and say bless your heart—for Aunt Marge it was a blessing—a benediction. Then I got to Alabama and I heard it when I was being admonished for mowing my own yard because it…

They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.   God repairs us and the world. God saw that the creation was good and very good, and yet evil, sin, all those things that frustrate the purposes of life and beauty and good and deep love run rampant, cling and just gum things up. God’s final purpose, God’s intent without ceasing, is to bring us into that original design. So, God repairs and renews us, and the world. A passage has stayed in my mind since I got around to reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance during the covid pandemic. It is a story of a man and his son taking a Honda cb 350 across the country. It is a meditation of what it means to repair things, and a meditation…

We have a capacity to think and imagine. This is a gift of God. We can think and imagine stories, pipe organs, woolen tapestries, and custom bicycles and engines that run on straight vegetable oil. We can try to imagine what and how a person other than yourself feels or sees the world. We can image and imagine arrangements for life that better meet the needs of those who inhabit a place or share in the life of a community. We can imagine and describe patterns in the creation and how it lives and operates. We can image and imagine God. This capacity to imagine potentially draws us nearer to the truth of our things, our being and the God who is, who will be, who God will be. But we also get stuck with false thoughts and images that don’t get us where we need to go, or even…

Homily, July 9 2023, CHS Vashon, The Rev Evan G. Clendenin We don’t always know, see, what we are doing, how we are behaving. So, it can be helpful when someone with the wisdom to do so can gently enough hold up a mirror of wisdom, even divine wisdom, to help us know, see better what we are doing, who we are, and who we are in God. This is what Jesus does for us, and doing so invites us into the life of wisdom, the life of peace making and compassion building, the life of his yoke that is easy and light. Jesus does so in many ways. One of them is parables. He was a person who paid attention to things like plants and seeds and soil, and birds, and also businesses and their managers and employees, and widows, and housekeepers sweeping, farmers, and more. He paid attention…

What pouring out of God are you being made to be part of? What pouring out of Gods love are you being made part of? Jesus walked about in the story today and had compassion on the crowds, who were harassed a helpless-God pours out his love into our hearts. And that pouring out sends us into the world to shape things up a bit more in healing and gentling and wise and compassionate ways. What pouring out of God’s love are you being made to be part of? And as indicators of that love, you might just simply ask one another: What makes you leap when you see it? What makes you laugh to hear it? In the story of Abraham and Sarah, visited by three strangers during the hot and drowsy afternoon, there at the doorway of the tent, notice that they look and leap, listen and laugh.…

What work have you finished? What work do you have yet to do? As we round the bend in the church year where ascension appears, the question of the work we put down and pick up-as persons, as a church-presents itself to our hearts and mind. We will pick up and put down much work in our lives. What Work is God giving us, giving you now? To finish and to hand on to others. Jesus speaks of the work he has finished and the work he hands on to us in today’s gospel reading. He speaks of his work, his vocation, the work given to him by his father, as he prays over his disciples. It is a prayer spoken over us as well. Jesus prays to his father and over the disciples with great love and devotion. He does so as he prepares to put down his work…