My son James and his wife Corey experienced a tragedy yesterday. A good friend of theirs who was a part of the restaurant community went missing last Friday, and just yesterday he was found dead in his car, an apparent suicide. James called me yesterday just to talk it out. How can anyone become so sad and lonely that they loose the will to hold on to life? How can one give up hope, he pleaded. I had no answer. His brother Rhett has had bouts of depression, so this hit close to home for James. He said he was going to check on Rhett and offer help if Rhett ever felt like he needed it. He said he has never been so thankful for his family.
James said he had come to the realization that we humans as a species were made to help each other, that we are intensely communal beings. He believes that in our post modern, post existentialist world we have learned to value the individual above all else. He wondered if the rise in the rate of suicide in the first world were a sign of this continual encroachment of isolation. The signs of such isolation are everywhere. Katharine and I notice on our morning walks, that most cars on the road only have one occupant; people are immersed in their smart phones; many meals we take are hurriedly on the go and often taken alone. James averred that we just can’t survive isolation. I agree.
James and I from time to time have conversations about the church. He doesn’t go, but he is not militant against it, and he seems interested in what I do as a priest. I told him that church in its truest form is a symbol of his thesis, that we can only thrive in community; that we are born to nurture and take care of each other, and to take care of ones who are given to us. The church is a dramatic image of our call to community. We have an innate need, we humans, to act out the truth…that is what liturgy is. in fact drama itself evolved from ancient religious rites. I pointed out that it is no accident that the central symbol in the liturgy is the Eucharist…a community meal shared which empowers us not just to hold on, but to boldly go out into the world and help the lost ones to hold on as well.
Before we hung up, he told me that early last week, before any of the news of their friend surfaced, that he and Corey were having a meal together out on their patio; and James observed how many people were connected to them through this meal…farmers, butchers, cheese purveyors, vintners, on and on…they counted some fifty persons that helped prepare this simple and intimate meal…there at the table with them, a community of souls living their lives, making a living for the good of the whole. A shining symbol of the web of life, the communion of saints. Let us hold on to one another. It is our certain hope.
Excellent post, my friend! Amen!
A beautiful piece and right on. Church is not about creeds, but deeds.
In specifics, drama’s first floor is thought to have been a “threshing floor,” so the notion of breaking bread, and all the way back to making the bread, keeps us partially sane when we take the time to do it. Nice piece about your son, his feelings, and you taking the time to share them with us.
Surely ‘church’ is about both – creeds and deeds – otherwise we could close our doors and give half a million dollars a year to the Food Bank.
Wondered why we used the word “Governor” in The Gradual this past Sunday (5/26/13) in stead of “Lord” as in, “O Lord our Lord, how exalted is thy Name in all the world.” We were asked to say, however, “O Lord our Governor…” ‘Governor’? Sounds more like politics to me. Yes, I know. I know, if you Google, ‘O Lord our Governor’ you’ll come up with some places where it’s used, including an Episcopal Church in Austin, TX, but All Saints? I just can’t see it – at least not without some explanation.
A quick internet search reveals that the word “governor” comes from the Greek word “kubernao” which means to steer, drive, or direct, as a pilot would a ship. It was then rendered into Latin as “gubernare,” from which we get the English word “governor.” The Greek word “kubernesis,” a relative of “kubernao,” is used in Paul’s 1st Letter to the Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 28 where the word is translated as “forms of leadership” in the NRSV, “guidance” in the NIV, and “administrating” in the English Standard Version. One could argue that each one of these translations of “kubernao” into English has a political connotation. Of course, the word “political” itself does not mean just related to the secular state, but includes the whole panoply of human relationships, particularly as those relationships take shape within institutions like the church in Corinth to whom Paul wrote the letter.
But the Gradual this past Sunday should not have been the first time that an Episcopalian encountered the word “Governor” in reference to God. Psalm 8 (on which the Gradual is based), which can be found on page 592 of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, begins and ends this way: “O Lord our Governor, how exalted is your Name in all the world!” Episcopalians who are aware of and who follow the Lectionary cycle, will hear Psalm 8 read on the Feast of the Holy Name (January 1) all three years of the Sunday lectionary: A, B, and C. It is also read as part of the Daily Office lectionary, Year 1 and Year 2, on the Sunday of Week 4 of Advent, as well as the Sunday of Week 4 of Epiphany, the Sunday of Week 2 in Lent, the Sunday of Week 5 of Easter, and several occasions in the season after Pentecost.
Since the Book of Common Prayer is used in all Episcopal Churches in ECUSA and not just a single church in Austin, Texas or just at All Saints, Mobile, it would follow that the reason why “Governor” was used in Sunday’s Gradual is because that particular hymn is based on the psaltery which comes from the Book of Common Prayer that all Episcopal churches use.
WOW