A Priest and Her Communion Kit

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Mar 11 1
  • Church of the Holy Nativity, Clarendon Hills, IL
  • Eucharist

I’m WAY LATE in posting this entry; I think I’ve been sitting on these pictures for three weeks. :/

One thing Episcopal parishes do better than most Disciples congregations is their emphasis on communion being for the whole church. Most Disciples reading this probably scoff and guffaw at such a claim, but in my experience, it’s true! They build it into the end of the worship service: lay members of the parish come forward and receive the bread and wine to go do home communion ministry to the “shut-in” and hospitalized members of the church. The whole church knows and proclaims “We who are many are one body because we all share one bread, one cup.” In fact, that exclamation is usually heartier and louder than the opening call and response in the services. Any Eucharistic theology that doesn’t include this practice is automatically impaired in its ecclesiology — if the only people who can receive communion are those who can physically get inside the sanctuary, then the sanctuary is protecting those who least need it and the church’s self-portrait will always have someone missing. (Ed Foley, my CTU professor, would have added that ALL churches suffer from this – and that we’ll never have a perfect Eucharist until the eschaton!)

Even though Episcopal churches capture the mission of home communion ministry so well in their worship services, sometimes the emphasis is excessive in other areas: like sinfully expensive “communion kits.” There’s a fine line between the dignity of the ministry and the grotesque financial stewardship equipping that ministry. Take, for example, the sterling silver home communion kit for $1069. RIDICULOUS!!!

Church of the Holy Nativity has some nice, home assembled kits graciously supplied each week by the volunteer members in our Altar Guild.

When Heidi first got to St. Benedict’s, they didn’t have a home communion kit. The ministry was dormant. Luckily, at her ordination in December, the offering was split and given to all the new priests for their discretionary funds. Since Heidi didn’t have a discretionary fund – and since it’d be so wrong to spend that money on herself – she got the communion kit for St. Benedict’s to use. (She also got the Rite Song software that makes it easy to print the music in their bulletin each week!) The problem was: with communion kits being so expensive, she didn’t have many options … until she found Altar Calling, a group in Colorado who do this for affordable prices as their ministry. How cool is that?!?

(Heidi also blogged about this, if you want to read her thoughts and see more pictures!)

U2Charist: Miracle Drug

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Mar 11 0
  • Church of the Holy Nativity, Clarendon Hills, IL
  • amf_u2charist

I plan to do these weekly/bi-weekly devotionals using U2 songs as we lead up to the May 16th U2Charist. For this first week, we’re using the song Miracle Drug, the second track on U2’s recent (2004) album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. If you don’t already have the CD or song, here are two electronic outlets. Through iTunes, you can buy and download the track through the iTunes Store. Or you can order the full CD through Amazon.

Miracle Drug
When U2 came to Chicago in May 2005 on the Vertigo Tour, Bono introduced Miracle Drug by telling the story of how U2 fell in love with Chicago when they played in small bars 25 years ago. But Bono avoided resting in the nostalgia:

“We don’t really look back that much in our music. We don’t look at the past. The best bits of the past, we try to bring with us. There are songs – songs like Pride (in the Name of Love), songs like Sunday Bloody Sunday, songs like Where the Streets Have No Name. They’re the best bits of the past and we’ll take that with us. Because we’re interested, and we’re excited and we have faith in the future. That’s where we’re headed. So for a city of the future, this is our music. This is our … the thing that we’re strung out on. This is our drug. Miracle Drug.”

We all have these crutches that carry us into the future. Our families, our friends, our sometimes simple hope — we all have these touchstones that tell us who we are and why we work to change the world while we’re in it.

Miracle Drug is often lifted up as a “medical care anthem.” And indeed, it works for that. The bridge in the song has a surreal mixture of three voices singing different lyrics all at the same time.

Beneath the noise
Below the din
I hear a voice
It’s whispering
In science and in medicine
“I was a stranger
You took me in”

At the same time, “God I need …” and “Oh, yeah, ohhhhhhhh, yeaaaahhhhh” are layered on top of the soft, steady lyrics. Researchers, doctors, nurses, and all caretakers know these words in their hearts — it’s probably one of the most accurate voicings of their vocations. Their medical ministry reflects the care and persistence others have shown them in their lives. Even though Jesus didn’t mention that type of care in Matthew 25, it’s still that same hospitality that the doctors and nurses share.

But this song reflects a wider Christian truth as well. It acknowledges God’s ongoing revelation to the world. God didn’t stop speaking once the books of the Bible were set. Through the small miracles of medical breakthroughs to the bending of the long arc of history towards justice — Christians correctly pray for God’s knowledge to be ours. We don’t want to have to learn about God’s knowledge through narratives and recountings like we do in school and sermons. Such descriptions are imperfect. We want our knowledge to literally be God’s knowledge – with no intermediary.

I want to trip inside your head
Spend the day there …
To hear the things you haven’t said
And see what you might see

I want to hear you when you call
Do you feel anything at all?
I want to see your thoughts take shape
And walk right out

H. Richard Niebuhr, a 20th century American theologian, wrote in The Meaning of Revelation, about God’s action and the way we relate to it:

We acknowledge revelation by no third person proposition, such as that there is a God, but only in the direct confession of the heart, “Thou art my God.” We can state the convincement given in the revelatory moment only in a prayer saying, “Our Father.” Revelation as the self-disclosure of the infinite person is realized in us only through the faith which is a personal act of commitment, of confidence and trust, not a belief about the nature of things. (p81)

We don’t have to be able to describe God’s thoughts or order for a perfect world in order to work toward it. We should want to, but we don’t have to be able to.

What is your miracle drug? How will the world be better by the time you leave? If you could see one thing through God’s eyes, what would it be?

Other Resources
Each week I’ll also include other resources. These will be videos such as excerpts for Bono’s speeches, documentaries led by Bono on the MDGs, or music videos from U2 and other artists.

This week, check out the video from Bono’s speech (sermon!) at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 2, 2006.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUdrYDk8rVA]

Wedding Date, Photo Play, and more

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Mar 2 0
  • Life

Wedding Date
Six weeks ago Heidi and I announced our engagement. So many of you responded with congrats, and I know I didn’t do nearly enough personal replies, so here’s a collective THANK YOU!!!

Heidi and I set our wedding date for August 30th, 2008. It’ll be on the Saturday morning of Labor Day weekend. We’re having it at St. Paul and the Redeemer Episcopal Church in Hyde Park. (This was Heidi’s local church in Chicago after she became Episcopalian and during her time in seminary.) Heidi and I will finalize many more of the details in the upcoming months, but here’s what we’re currently excited about:

  • Because it’s going to be a Saturday morning wedding, many of our clergy friends, including out-of-Chicago ones can hopefully make it back to their churches for Sunday worship services.
  • I originally planned to do CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) in a hospital this summer, but those plans switched and I’ll be doing it this coming fall. That lets me be more available for planning details and preparing for our marriage.
  • SP-R is a beautiful church that has GREAT natural lighting through the windows on the sides. Our wedding pictures will be amazing! (And no, several of you have told me this, but I’m not crazy enough to think I can photograph my own wedding).
  • We’re wanting to have a simple and inexpensive wedding. So the reception will probably be at the church and my extended family will hopefully help with the food. It’ll be a nice, end-of-summer barbecue theme.
  • Because both of our denominations insist on regular Communion, our service will definitely have a Eucharist part. We haven’t decided yet whether the Episcopal priest or the Disciples minister will do that portion. (We’ll make that decision once I finally decide which Disciples minister to ask!)

Photo Play
My Divinity School curriculum has never been my sole area of study while at Chicago. The Div. School’s Ministry Program has had the ingenuity (and funds) to start recording students’ sermons to DVDs so they can watch and critique themselves visually instead of just audibly. I’ve created most of those DVDs and each time I make one, I learn something new in the software. Having a constant source of good content lets me learn the programs without the boring and pointless tutorials the software manufacturers always include. This work is important – and it seems to make learning more enjoyable as well.

Besides the video learning, I’ve also grown addicted to a blog called Strobist. The addiction started when I moved to Chicago a year and a half ago. The author is a photographer on-leave from his Baltimore paper and he’s written a full series teaching how to do off-camera lighting for photography. In addition to the accompanying flickr community (with >86000 pictures with lighting set-up descriptions and diagrams), I absolutely love the DIY (do-it-yourself) projects for good lighting.

Many of my church members do woodworking as their creative, hands-on activity. Some of them are managers at companies and work in offices all day — but they still feel the need to create something physical. Living in a communal house in the city, I don’t have the space/equipment/money to have such a hobby. This is why Strobist is so perfect. I can create small light modifiers and scratch that metaphorical itch. For instance, this past month I created a Macro Studio (for taking detailed, zoomed-in pictures of objects) and a grid-snoot (that focuses a flash beam into a tight circle):

Other Blog Entries
Heidi was giving me a hard time about my snack habits, and then introduced me to a delicious healthy snack: baked snap peas. In addition to finding healthier habits for my hunger, I’m working with my church on helping fight global extreme poverty and hunger (1, 2). All the fun of my field parish works in tandem with the fun I have at the Divinity School; last Tuesday we had our annual Ministry Banquet with catered food and great parodies of life at the Div. School (read through to the end of the post for the accounts and pictures — the beginning is more of my rambling). It’s even better when the hilarity of the school isn’t strictly confined to our skits. Take, for example, our Lilly program’s Music conference in January: speakers, music presentations, and … a fire alarm! — it was hilarious watching the intellectual hierarchy instantly flattened by seeing many of the smartest people I know debating whether they should go directly outside or go up to their offices to get their coats. I love the funny ways we can remember the great gift of life and all the funny illusions we read into it.  Oh, and in addition too all those activities, I also photographed the Installation and Ordination of Chicago’s new Episcopal Bishop.  (I wrote about it, and posted a gallery!)

Thanks for reading – and remember, the wedding is on August 30th!