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lenten journal: unseasoned

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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0
lenten journal: unseasoned

We drove up to Hartford for the Connecticut Flower Show today and were caught by surprise by light snowfall–enough to cover the ground and remind us of how little snow we have seen this winter, and send me to writing.

unseasoned

it will not
make sense
to most for
me to say
I have missed
a real winter
february has
fallen away
with nothing
more than
a dusting
outlining the
rocks and
beds with
a reminder
of what
we’ve missed
what cold
has come
has not
been bitter
the shovels
are still in
the storeroom
spring may
still hold
surprises
but that will
not make up
for this
lost season
story-less
almost
other than
its mildness
even the
groundhog
didn’t see
this coming

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: what we don’t know

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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1
lenten journal: what we don’t know

One of my jobs along the way was as a Creative in the Apple Store, which meant I helped people learn how to use their various devices. We often talked about those who didn’t know what they didn’t know, which was another way of saying the thing that brought a person in wasn’t necessarily the thing they most needed to learn; we had to help them see what they didn’t know so they could ask questions that would help them get where they wanted to be.

I have several arenas of my life where I am aware I don’t know what I don’t know. My car would be a good example. To drop it off at the mechanic for updates, service, or repair is an act of blind trust because I have no real understanding of what it takes to make my car run well other than make regular visits to the service department.

When it comes to cars, I am not that drawn to learn more. When it comes to cosmology, I am. So the news this week that the James Webb Space Telescope sent back images that seem to have blown the minds of cosmologists sent me reading things I didn’t fully understand because I am fascinated by the universe. The data is new and has yet to be fully researched, but what is evident is that the working models of how the universe came into being and grew in the beginning have been blown up. Scientists have been surprised by what they didn’t know they didn’t know.

I’m sure it won’t be long before someone writes or talks about the failure of scientists, or uses this turn of events as a way to dredge up a new round of creationist warfare, and that saddens me because the news that the universe could be 100 times larger than we imagined is not a failure; it’s a revelation. And the scientists interviewed in the articles I read responded with excitement to find they had more to learn. Though I am sure science has its share of fundamentalists, like any other discipline, I am encouraged by general idea that one of the premises researchers follow is that they don’t know it all. They continue to look for what they are missing.

I wish we were better at that, when it comes to theology, but we’re not. Too often we have chosen intransigence over imagination, or even inspiration. We camp out in certainty rather than explore what we don’t know that we don’t know.

I read a description recently of those who sailed the sees from Western nations to map the rest of the world as “colonizers who saw themselves as explorers.” I thought the phrasing was incisive because it highlights the impact of their voyages along with the possibility that it might not match the intent. The story they told themselves didn’t match what actually happened. They didn’t know what they didn’t know and acted with a devastating certainty.

Even in our little town we have enough light rising from our buildings to hinder our view of the night sky. I can find Orion and a couple of his companions, but I cannot see the fulness of the starlight. It’s hard to stare into what looks like an empty sky and imagine light that won’t come into view for another 13.5 billion years. Orion’s belt is more than the three dots I can see. I don’t know what I don’t know. And as I read the story of Jesus’ time in the wilderness as I prepare to preach on Sunday, I wonder, as I said last night, what happened beyond the conversation that was written down. Look closely at all the gospel stories. There is as much open space as there is in the evening sky; yet, in both cases, something is there. We just don’t know what it is.

May we make room for what we don’t know that we don’t know.

Peace,
Milton

Thanks for reading. I write a free weekly newsletter, mixing metaphors that comes out every Tuesday. I would love for you to subscribe. If you would like to support my writing, you can become a sustaining member or buy me a cup of coffee.

lenten journal: wilderness

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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1
lenten journal: wilderness

The origin story for Lent, one might say, is Jesus’ venture into the wilderness for forty days.

That image rolls off our tongues and out of our sermons as though we know what happened is described by only eleven verses in Matthew’s gospel and thirteen in Luke’s. The conversation between Jesus and the tempter can be read in a minute or so. I keep wandering what Jesus did for over a month and, actually, where he was while he was doing it.

The gospel writers, at least in our translations, say John was out in the desert baptizing people–including Jesus–in the Jordan River and that after that Jesus went out into the wilderness to fast and pray and be tempted. In Greek, the word we read as either desert or wilderness is the same. It is less a description of a particular type of terrain as much as an indication of a place that is not really a place in terms of human population or activity. John was outside of town doing his thing and Jesus just moved farther out.

As far as the forty days go, the number is a consistent symbol throughout both Hebrew and Christian scripture that intends to mark a significant period of time or a time when something significant happens. It makes me think of my youth ministry days and some of our long trips. When kids would ask how much farther we had to go, I always answered, “An hour and a half,” as if to say, “It will take as long as it takes.”

Journeys always take longer when don’t know how much farther you have to go.

However long he was gone, he wasn’t counting how many more Sundays until Holy Week began. We are also left to wonder (imagine?) if the temptations were the point of the pilgrimage or an intrusion. Either way, he had to negotiate the terrain around him, whether he stayed along the river or went out into the rockier arid land that rose around it. I wonder if he met people or was alone the whole time. What kind of animals did he encounter? Did he spend his days hiking or swimming or sleeping on the river bank?

Maybe I am taken by the wilderness and Jesus’ time there because landscape is a lively metaphor these days, thanks to some of my reading that talked about grief as terrain rather than process–not something we get through but something we live in and navigate. I am finding the image helpful as a metaphor for depression as well because it is the land I live in. I hesitate to say that because I feel like I have talked a lot about my depression lately, but it is the land in which I am living these days and I find the best way to remind myself that the terrain is not uninhabited is to speak up and hope for some response from others who live here as well.

Years ago, Ginger and I were driving from El Paso to Big Bend National Park in Southwest Texas. On that stretch of I-10 the exits are literally sixty miles apart. The landscape is a mixture of mountains and deserts and forests and wild life. As we passed one of the signs telling us we had an hour to go until the next exit, I said, “This is beautiful.” At the same time, Ginger said, “There is nothing out here.” Both things were true.

The landscape of life feels a lot like I-10 these days.

Perhaps that is why I am intrigued with how Jesus spent his time in the wilderness. He was out there long enough to come to a place where he had to stare down who he was for however long it took. And the questions he faced out there stayed with him the rest of his life. They weren’t one offs.

So I come back to my Lenten Journal–a day late–to see what I have to learn from the landscape this year. As I was preparing to write, I found this song by Bruce Cockburn that was new to me, “Forty Years in the Wilderness.” The chorus says,

take up your load
run south to the road
turn to the setting sun
sun going down
got to cover some ground
before everything comes undone
comes undone

A good word. It will take as long as it takes.

Peace,
Milton

what we can’t explain

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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1
what we can’t explain

Recent church tradition names this Sunday—the last Sunday of Epiphany before Lent begins—as Transfiguration Sunday, which means the Gospel reading for the day in most mainline churches is the story of Jesus transformation in front of Peter, James, and John, which we just read together. The story shows up In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, each offering a few different details, and all of them telling of events that are hard to fathom. Transfiguration is an old word, and not one we use much, which makes the account even stranger. Let’s look again at what happened.

Jesus took the three disciples to the top of a hill or a mountain and, while they were up there, Jesus’ appearance became excessively brilliant–almost overbearingly bright–and Peter, James, and John saw Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus in the midst of the brilliance.

Peter’s first response was to build shelters to capture the moment, or perhaps to stretch the moment into something longer; if the story were contemporary, Peter would have been posting to his Instagram account. But he was interrupted by a cloudy presence that overshadowed everyone and a voice said the same thing Jesus heard at his baptism: “This is my beloved son in whom I delight.”

Matthew says the disciples were frightened. Luke and Mark say the disciples were awe-struck; the Greek word can be translated either way. Jesus told them not to be afraid, and when they looked up, it was just the four of them again, on the top of a hill in Galilee.

As many times as I have read this story, I am never sure what to do with it. This past week, a question kept coming to mind: What do we do with things we can’t explain?

When it comes to comedy, we are told a joke isn’t funny if you have to explain it. Perhaps that is also true of experiences of awe and wonder.

Many years ago, I was listening to A Prairie Home Companion and Garrison Keillor told a joke that has remained one of my favorites.

Two penguins are standing on an iceberg.
One penguin says to the other, “You look like you’re wearing a tuxedo.”
The other penguin replies, “Who says I’m not?”

I can’t explain why it’s so funny to me, and, if it is not funny to you, my explanation wouldn’t help.

Late in the afternoon Monday I was running errands when I realized it was almost sunset. I called Ginger at home and told her to meet me in the driveway and we went down to the marina in Guilford in time to see the sky melt into pinks and purples and oranges as the sun dropped below the horizon. We did little else but sit there and talk to a couple of others who had stopped for the same reason.

Again, I can’t explain why we were moved by the way the fading light hit the clouds, and again, my explanation wouldn’t help convey how it felt to be there. Instead of breaking the sunset down into its component parts, the power of the moment was in the way our hearts expanded as the day drew to a close, and the sense of appropriate insignificance–the awe–we felt alongside of the shoreline and the sunset.

As people of faith, we are called again and again to trust what we can’t explain–that’s what faith is: trust, even when we don’t completely understand. That is not to say we are to accept things without question, or that the stories shouldn’t be examined. Sometimes we come to these stories from a more analytical perspective, just as a scientist might approach a sunset as a way of understanding the properties of light; those moments matter.

And sometimes we are given the gift of living with moments we can’t explain—the chance to engage life without the comfort of an explanation or a definition. The two are not mutually exclusive or necessarily opposites. They can both be avenues to deeper understanding. The latter, however, carries the reminder that life is not easily explained.

Our passage today begins with the words “six days later,” which lets us know we’re in the middle of the story. What happened earlier in the week was Jesus said, “All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me. All who want to save their lives will lose them. But all who lose their lives because of me will find them. Why would people gain the whole world but lose their lives? What will people give in exchange for their lives?”

After thinking about Jesus glowing on the mountain and the sunset on the marina, I heard something I had not before in his words, “All who lose their lives because of me will find them.” That reminded me to the closing line of one of my favorite hymns, “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” which says, “Lost in wonder, love, and praise.”

We often connect Jesus’ words about losing our lives to find them with ideas of calling and compassion–and those are good connections–and six days after he said that, he and three of his disciples were lost in a transcendent moment on a mountain. It was not an experience that reached a multitude like the feeding of the five thousand, or a healing that restored health to someone who was in despair over their physical condition. We don’t really know the point of the whole thing–why Moses and Elijah showed up, or why only Peter, James, and John were there–because, well, Jesus doesn’t explain it. All we hear is the voice from the cloud expressing love and delight.

We can’t explain what happened on that mountain with Jesus and the disciples. Peter, James, and John got to be there because they trusted Jesus and followed him up the hillside where they stumbled into a moment where they lost themselves in wonder, love, and praise. We may not see Moses or Elijah, but we live in a world–in a universe–that offers us opportunities to find ourselves by getting lost in wonder.

Dacher Keltner is a scientist who studies awe. In a recent interview, he talked about the role awe played in the grief that followed his brother’s death from colon cancer. He realized, he said, that he need more new in his life, more reminders of the transcendence and connection. He said,

For me, the awe practice in the grief was . . . to go out and do a walk and look for things that amazed [me], big and small. And you can do that. I gathered up a lot of sacred texts to stay close to. I went to “awe spots.” I don’t know much about music, but I intentionally went into music to find what is awe-inspiring about it. So, I made it a practice in life like a lot of people do, . . . like religion or spirituality. And it changed my life.

At the end of the Prairie Home Companion skit where Garrison Keillor told the penguin joke, he said, “Such a small joke, but a haiku is small, too. Or a piano etude. The Mona Lisa isn’t that big. There can be grandeur in a small thing. I myself am capable of grandeur. Who says I’m not?”

We may not end up on a mountain with Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, but we see wonders most every day that we cannot explain; we are offered the chance to be awed regularly. Perhaps Jesus’ words to us, rather than “do not be afraid” would be, “Pay attention—let the world surprise you.” It is in the songs we sing:

O Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds thy hands hath made
I see the stars I hear the rolling thunder
Thy power through out the universe displayed
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee,
How great thou art, how great thou art
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee
How great thou art, how great thou art

We are God’s beloved children in whom God delights; may we also be those who are open to being delighted by all we cannot explain. Amen.

Peace,
Milton

Thanks for reading. I write a free weekly newsletter, mixing metaphors that comes out every Tuesday. I would love for you to subscribe. If you would like to support my writing, you can become a sustaining member or buy me a cup of coffee.

divided attention

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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1
divided attention

I waited until this morning to post my sermon in hopes that it would not get quite as buried under the Super Bowl hype. The text is 1 Corinthians 3:1-9, a passage that offers a less-than-flattering look at the people in the Corinthian church, but also offers a connection with them because they acted in ways we too often find familiar. Thanks, as always, for reading.

___________________________

Last year I was asked to conduct a memorial service for a man I didn’t know. He had connections to the church where I was serving as interim, and the family wanted the service there. I met with family members beforehand to learn a bit about him, and they told me a few family stories and talked about the company he had founded and built, but I was caught by surprise when I walked into the church and a red MAGA hat was in the middle of the spray of memorial flowers.

I could feel my guard go up, in part because I have encountered intense views from some wearing those hats. I realized as I sat in my place that the hat brought up stereotypes I learned from the way we talk about each other and the way we have been taught to define one another.

After several family members and friends had eulogized the man, I asked if anyone else wanted to comment. Four people got up from a pew in the back and came forward. They identified themselves as long-time employees of his company. There were two men and two women: one Black man, two Latinas, and one white man. They wept as they told stories of how he had created opportunity for them, loaned them money to get through crises, and helped take care of their families.

After the service, several people came up to say how meaningful the service was and to tell other stories. What I learned from listening is the man was more than his hat.

I thought a long time about using that story to open the sermon because just the mention of the MAGA hat would make some folks wary of the direction the sermon might take, or that others might decide they know where I stand politically and then make further assumptions. My choice to include it was bolstered by the words we read from Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth. They were a congregation that argued a lot, it seems, particularly around who they thought was the best teacher: Paul or Apollos, who was another missionary traveling between churches across the region.

The people in the church had taken to choosing sides rather than listening to each other–and that’s what took me back to the story. My impression of the man who died was changed by listening to those who knew him and loved him. A lot can change by listening.

I have a friend name Hugh who lives in Mississippi. He is a minister, a writer, and a community organizer. He wrote this week about sharing a meal with someone who shared very few of his political ideas and yet they found they had much in common. Hugh wrote:

We seem to have lost the capacity to listen. I’m not trying to sound nostalgic there as if I am mourning for an idealized past where everything was rainbows and kittens. Rather, it is harder to listen to other people now than it once was – largely because we have so many alternatives. Our hyper-connected world has made it easier and easier for us to find like-minded people, but also easier to shut out those who differ from us.

And because we do not listen to each other, we don’t truly know each other, and thus it is easier than ever for people in power to divide us. . . . Years of listening have taught me one critical thing: We are not nearly as divided as we think we are. Or, more accurately, we are not as divided as those who profit from our separation want us to believe we are.

We are divided, perhaps as much as we think we are; the issue is what we do with the divide. Hugh’s last sentence is powerful: We are not as divided as those who profit from our separation want us to believe—which is another way of saying it matters who we listen to.

If we listen to much of both public and social media, we are an irreconcilable nation, broken in two, divided into red and blue. Pick any issue, and we are poles apart. There is no nuance, no discussion of ideas, no sense of a continuum of thought. It’s either our side or their side, so we better take what is ours. The perspective prioritizes issues over relationships and individualizes systemic problems that we need to work on together. Over and over we are told we are not capable of learning how to live together–yet is what we are called to do.

Ginger, my wife, often speaks of the UCC as a place where we choose relationship over doctrine. I like that. But notice that it doesn’t say we choose not to talk about tough issues, just that when it comes down to it, we will choose each other over whatever the issue might be. In an interfaith workshop recently in Guilford to deal with increasing physical and verbal anti-Jewish violence, the trainers talked about choosing “counsel culture” over “cancel culture”—to find a way to move beyond just writing each other off.

Though it didn’t happen in church, the choice of relationship played out in public as LeBron James broke Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s all-time NBA scoring record–a record that had stood for thirty-eight years. There was a lot of talk about how Kareem would feel about LeBron’s achievement, and most of it assumed the record was what mattered most to Kareem. But he wrote an open letter to James on his blog to say he celebrated the achievement largely because the record didn’t define who he was–or who he had become as a person. Since he retired from the NBA, Jabbar has been an activist and writer–he has invested his life in relationships. He was happy to pass the torch without feeling as though his accomplishment had been negated.

As she reflected on Jabbar’s words, writer Rebecca Solnit said,

“Or maybe there’s one thing to say, about the capitalism of the heart, the belief that the essences of life too can be seized and hoarded, that you can corner the market on confidence, stage a hostile takeover of happiness. It’s based on scarcity economics, the notion or perhaps the feeling that there’s not enough to go around, and the belief that these intangible phenomena exist in a fixed quantity to be scrambled for, rather than that you can only increase them by giving them away.”

In other words, Kareem–or anyone else for that matter–could celebrate LeBron and still see Jabbar’s achievement as worthy of recognition. There is more to life than being in first place, or always being right, or making sure you are the one with the power because we have enough to go around if we are committed to choosing relationships over, well, pretty much anything.

In the last few minutes, we’ve gone from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians to a funeral to coffee in Mississippi to basketball to scarcity economics as a metaphor for how not to live. The thread I have been trying to follow–and I hope you have been able to see–is we have to keep reminding ourselves that what matters most is each other. Listening well is an act of love. Trusting one another is an act of love. Being trustworthy is an act of love. Being open to growing and changing is an act of love.

Rev. Susan did good work with us last week in her presentation after church, asking us to think about who our neighbors are. The implicit question was what kind of neighbor do we want to be? Our UCC motto says, “Whoever you are and wherever you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here,” but welcome just gets you in the door. Belonging takes work: attention, listening, vulnerability. It happens in small, significant gestures, not grand statements.

Let me give you a specific example. When Ginger and I decided to get married, it created big problems within my family. It’s too much to go into now, but the rifts and the fact that we moved to Boston four months after the wedding enabled the distance to grow. The divide seemed too expansive.

After a couple of years of living that way, Ginger said, “We are never going to get to have the conversation that clears the air, so maybe we should try another approach. Why don’t you pick a day of the week and call your parents and say these things: How are you? What did you do this week? Here’s what we did this week. I love you. And hang up.

I did just that, Saturday after Saturday. It became a part of our lives, and it grew in significance. After a time, I began to call on days other than Saturday, or my parents would call me. We still had serious disagreements about how we looked at life, but they died knowing I loved them, and I knew they loved me.

If we want to feel like we belong here and help others belong as well, we have to listen, to move beyond our assumptions, and trust that we have enough love to go around. May we be people who make those choices every day. Amen.

Peace,
Milton

it’s a metaphor!

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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2
it’s a metaphor!

My sermon this week grew out of three verses where Jesus talks about seeing ourselves as salt and light, and his words set me thinking about metaphors, particularly the metaphors we use to understand who we are. Thanks for reading. The sermon title gives me reason to also add if you have not subscribed to my weekly newsletter mixing metaphors, I wish you would. It is free and it comes out every Tuesday.

_______________________

For about a decade of my life I taught high school English.

Those three words–high school English–may cause a visceral response for some of you. Perhaps I should have given a trigger warning before I began. Some of us were fortunate to have good teachers–mine was Ms. Morse for senior English–while some of us felt like we were being severely punished for forty-five minutes every day. Algebra was the place that felt like that for me, but that’s a story for another time.

Today let’s talk about metaphors.

When I first started teaching, I dreaded the poetry unit because I remembered how poetry was taught to me, which was we cornered the poem in a corner of the room and wrestled all the meaning out of it, tearing it apart word by word. Neither we nor the poem survived the experience well.

I didn’t want to do that because by the time I had begun teaching, I had learned to love poetry–and not because I could interpret it. I loved it because of the images–the metaphors–that helped me find ways to talk about how life felt to me.

I taught for seven years at Charlestown High School in Boston. Seventy percent of my students were nonnative English speakers. About the same time, I learned of the poet Naomi Shihab Nye through her poem entitled “Famous.” Listen to her words.

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.

I read it for the students a couple of times with the text in front of them, and then I asked different ones to read it. Then we began to talk about what lines spoke to them, and then we asked how the poem affected what we thought it meant to be famous: the river is famous to the fish; the tear is famous to the cheek; the cat is famous to the birds watching from the birdhouse.

The poet wasn’t talking about being famous like a movie star, but saw being famous as another way of saying connected or vital or important: the bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it. What she was saying about how we make our place in the world sounds a lot like the metaphors Jesus used in today’s passage: you are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world.

His poetry, if you will, asks us to stop and think about what it means to be salt and light because he wasn’t speaking literally. Like Marisa Tomei said in the 1992 comedy My Cousin Vinny, “It’s a metaphor!”

And here’s the place where I don’t want to turn this sermon into a bad poetry lesson by beating the life out of the metaphors. Instead of spending the next several minutes examining all the ways we can be salt and light, please sit for a moment and see how those images land for you. Jesus didn’t go into much detail, he just painted the images and let people take them in.

What does it mean to you to be the salt of the earth, or maybe just the salt of Mount Carmel?

What does it mean to you to be the light of the world, or at least the light of Whitney Avenue?

Let me ask it this way: Who do you think of when I say salt of the earth and light of the world? Who do you know that exemplifies those things?

Now, is there anyone who is willing to share their thoughts with the class?

As I worked with these verses this week, each time I looked at these metaphors I saw faces rather than concepts. I thought of my friend Leon who flavors the life of those around him with encouragement and hope. I thought of Abby who works at the coffee shop across the street from our house and who asks people what they want to drink in a way that makes them feel like that cup of coffee is going to change their day. I think of my goddaughter Julia and her wife Shelby who both work as child therapists, helping kids who live with trauma find their footing, the way salt on the sidewalk keeps us from slipping on the ice. I think of my friend Angela, who is an amazing singer and choir leader and has led a group called Shoreline Soul for twenty years, inviting people into the joy of singing gospel music.

The faces and stories tell us so much more about salt and light that any words studies or linguistic analyses. I think that is the reason Naomi Shihab Nye closes out her poem by saying,

I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

Instead of defining famous, she pointed to it in those around her. Jesus did kind of the same thing–well, I guess since he did it first, we could say it was his idea. To be salt and light is to be the one who smiles and smiles back, the one who helps, the one who listens, the one who shows up, the one who does what they do best: be themselves.

What metaphors define our lives? How do we see ourselves in the world?

The questions are not rhetorical. The metaphors we choose shape the way we look at the world and how we see ourselves in it. For example, as a nation, war is a primary metaphor for America. We have had a War on Poverty and a War on Drugs. The image conveys the crucial nature of the issues, and wars have casualties and collateral damage. If war is a metaphor, then we are always looking for an enemy. How might the way we deal with poverty and drugs—and the people affected by them—be different if we didn’t think we were at war?

How are our personal metaphors shaping us? What new metaphors do we need? When we expand our vocabulary, we create new ways of looking at the world.

As we share Communion this morning, we lean into the metaphors of the bread and the cup–images of sustenance and sacrifice, as well as pictures of connectedness and solidarity. We remember who we are and who we want to become. We come to the table where everyone belongs, where everyone can eat and drink, where we sit alongside everyone who has ever taken this meal and everyone who will come after us. We are famous to God at this table, just as God is famous to us.

We will pass the elements to one another, serving the meal and being served, as though it has cosmic consequences–and it does because we are all in this together. We are not at war; we are at supper.

Come, let us go to the table. Amen.

Peace,
Milton

failer

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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1
failer

failer

it’s been thirty years
since we first watched
Phil Connors keep waking
up in Punxsutawney

trying to figure out how
not to live the same day
again and again and again
he failed failed failed . . .

someone calculated that it
took about thirty-four years
of February seconds for
Phil to get to February third

and finally free himself
from his festival of failing
except the years stood
on their heads for him

when the day finally changed
it was simply tomorrow
no one else understood what
it took for him to get there

I am two days away from
marking thirty-four years
since my first date with Ginger
Lyle Lovett at the Caravan of Dreams

we have not lived the same day
but I have kept circling the
same lessons same sadnesses
I feel like the king of near misses

one day she said you fail
better than anyone I know
my favorite compliment
from the one who knows me

she saw failing as an act of hope
not an indication of inadequacy
I know how to fail well
and I am loved: enough

Peace,
Milton

Thanks for reading. I write a free weekly newsletter, mixing metaphors that comes out every Tuesday. I would love for you to subscribe. If you would like to support my writing, you can become a sustaining member or buy me a cup of coffee.

blessed

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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blessed

I started a new interim today–actually a bridge interim, which means I am there to bridge between two stages of life for the congregation. The passage today was the Beatitudes. As I say in the sermon, a book, a conversation, and a movie gave me a new way to look at these familiar words.

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I have been thinking this week about how to describe our passage for this morning and it strikes me that we might say it is “familiarly unfamiliar.” What I mean by that is we think we know what it means, but we would be hard pressed to actually describe it–sort of like the Second Law of Thermodynamics. I remember learning about it, so it is familiar, but ask me to nail it down and I couldn’t tell you if it is every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction, or things in motion stay in motion, or look both ways before you cross the street.

When we say we are going to talk about the Beatitudes from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, we could probably say that those are the verses that start with “blessed are,” and maybe even remember those who mourn, or the meek, or the peacemakers, but we might struggle after that. In addition, when we do read them, we let that word blessed go by like we understand it. Listen as we read them again this morning and see what you think that word means.

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he began to speak and taught them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to God.” (Matthew 5:1-16 NRSVUE)

Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who are mourning, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers; how can that word go in all those different directions and mean the same thing? What are we to make of what it means to be blessed?

Some translators use the word happy instead, but “happy are those who mourn” makes Jesus sound like he’s rattling off oxymorons–at least in the way we understand the word happy today. Some read the word blessing to mean a sign of God’s favor, sort of like the t-shirt I saw once that said, “Jesus loves you but I’m his favorite.” I’ve heard people talk about “the paradox of blessing,” meaning that being chosen by God is not always an easy thing. They use Mary, Jesus’ mother, as an example because she had the blessing of being his mother but that also meant she had to watch him be executed by the Romans.

But isn’t that the paradox of being human? Don’t most all of us lose those we love?

We have to be cautious as we talk about blessing because we bump up against the idea that suffering has a purpose, that we are supposed to learn something, which too easily becomes that God is trying to teach us something, and then we end up at everything happens for a reason, which means if we can’t figure out the reason then something is wrong with us.

To say those who mourn are blessed does not mean God won’t give us more than we can handle, or there is an explanation or a reason for our hardship. When we look back–when we remember what we have been through–we find meaning that might not have been apparent in the moment things were happening, but I’m not sure that is what Jesus was saying.

A book, a conversation and a movie helped me find a new understanding of our passage. The book is called Life is Hard by Kieran Setiya. It is full of good things, but I want to highlight one sentence and then ask you to keep it in your mind: ““Hardship is routinely hidden.”

Let me say it again. “Hardship is routinely hidden.”

In one of our conversations this week, Ginger, my wife, said she had finally realized I was always going to be depressed and she was able to stop feeling guilty about not being able to fix it.

I have lived with depression for most of my life, but I didn’t begin to figure that out until the fall of 2001 when a combination of choices and circumstance sent me into a free fall. I had no idea what was happening to me. I had never talked to anyone who had gone through what I was feeling. The way that Ginger loved me through those days is the main reason I am even standing here this morning. I didn’t expect her to fix it; I just needed her to be there.

As we were getting ready for church one Sunday–when things felt unbearably heavy to me–she said, “I have to ask you to do a hard thing this morning. I think you need to ask for prayer for yourself; I can’t do it for you.” When it came time for prayer requests, I stood up and said much what I just said to you and asked for prayers. At coffee hour, five people came up to me and said, “I had no idea we could talk about this out loud.” Hardship is routinely hidden.

Their words gave me a toehold: if I would tell people what was happening, I would be able to remember I was not alone.

And now–twenty-two years later–and we are still coming to new understandings of what my depression has meant in our lives. We have learned to love each other more deeply not because of the depression but because of our commitment to each other in the presence of my depression and all the rest that has made up our lives.

This weekend marks thirty-four years since the day we met. We went to the movie to celebrate–I mean, in the theater with popcorn and M&Ms. The movie we saw was A Man Called Otto. All I knew about it was Tom Hanks played what appeared to be a grumpy old man. What we learned early in the movie (without giving too much away) was part of his grumpiness came from grief: his wife, whom he loved dearly, had died six months earlier.

As the story unfolded, we got to know Otto and the folks who lived around him. In a way, they were a live action Beatitudes–they were mourners, meek ones, persecuted ones, people with pure hearts, peacemakers, merciful ones, along with a couple of other categories Jesus didn’t mention. And what they reminded each other was that the way we get through this life is to take care of each other.

Perhaps, then, one way we can read Jesus’ words is that he is saying,

This is how life is:
you are going to live with a wounded spirit;
you are going to mourn;
you are going to be humbled;
you are going to yearn for justice when it isn’t there;
you are going to be kind;
you are going to feel a singleness of purpose;
you are going to make peace around you;
you are going to be ridiculed for taking a stand.
And so is everyone else.
When you do these things together–when you share your stories and your burdens and whatever you have–you flavor the world; you make life worth living. You become a blessing.

From time to time, I hear people talking about “living their best lives,” and that usually means some sort of carefree existence. Jesus said that’s not our best life, in fact, life is not about comparisons; it’s just life, and we flourish–we find blessing, we live into the image of God that created us–when we engage whatever is happening, when we see our circumstances and experiences as means to offer help and to ask for it, as ways to connect, to flavor each other’s lives and the world around us.

Our verses this morning are part of a larger sermon that goes on for a total of three chapters in Matthew, and most of it has to do with how to treat one another, focusing on relationships rather than rules or doctrine. Jesus gives tangible examples of what it looks like to love our neighbor as ourselves, as well as how we learn to trust God that we ourselves are worth loving. We will look at parts of it over the next couple of weeks. For now, may we be people committed to speaking the truth in love, to not keepint the hard parts hidden, to listening with open hearts, offering help to one another, and asking for help even when we don’t feel like we are worth it. And if you don’t feel like you are worth it today, hear these words: you are wonderfully and uniquely created in the image of God and worthy to be loved, no matter the circumstances you face or the weight you carry. We are blessed because we are breathing. Amen.

hardship

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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0
hardship

hardship

“Hardship is routinely hidden.”–Kieran Setiya

the sentence came at the
end of the second paragraph
I’m not sure he meant for
it to be as significant as it was
as I read down the page

I think about people I meet
our stories were mostly hidden
we are trained to keep them so
the answers we offer are only
as good as our questions

“how are you?” we ask
as a pleasantry more than
a question worth answering
because we have become
accustomed to saying “fine”

then what comes to mind is
the scene in Jaws where
they are comparing scars
while they waited for a giant
shark to attack their boat

their ship their hardship
a play on words that borders
on the more-than-obvious
still they came out of hiding
just as the fish hit the boat

life is more than we can
handle if we don’t ask for help
that feels even more obvious
but we can’t be found until
we come out of hiding

tell me about despair yours
and I’ll tell you mine Oliver
wrote in an honest invitation
should we choose to accept
we’ll need a bigger boat

Peace,
Milton

 

 

get rhythm

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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2
get rhythm

get rhythm

I live with an arrhythmia
I know of what I speak
it’s awfully hard to dance
when you cannot find the beat
somewhere along the way
as I traveled through my week
the metaphor extended
‘cause we still can’t find the beat
to life beyond these past two years
of isolation and defeat
as we try to find each other
seems we cannot find the beat
one that’s steady and consistent
instead of faint and incomplete
it’s awfully hard to dance
when we cannot find the beat
life is a hard waltz anyway
without our COVID hide and seek
the din of woe and weariness
has taught us to retreat
but fear claps on the one and three
don’t fall for its deceit
our souls all know a deeper song
our hearts still know the beat
so don’t despair do not give up
hope is not obsolete
tap your feet and clap your hands
keep listening for the beat

Peace,
Milton

Thanks for reading. I write a free weekly newsletter, mixing metaphors that comes out every Tuesday. I would love for you to subscribe. If you would like to support my writing, you can become a sustaining member or buy me a cup of coffee.

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