The bright red Cardinal arrives at the bird bath. After a few dainty birdie sips, he plops right in! Full immersion! A true bird bath -- dipping his head under the water, fluttering his wings, again and again, splashing water out of the bird bath in every direction. It is so comical that the watching human being laughs out loud!

Finally, the completely soaked redbird flies off. The human being, not only entertained observer but also joyful steward, carries water out to the bird bath and refills it to the brim.

It is ready for the next winged visitor.

One practice of the faith -- indeed, one of the most important! -- is to receive the blessings of this day. That requires stopping, sitting, becoming open to God's presence and God's gifts that come to us new each day.

This morning, for me, a blessing is that I have no schedule! I sit on the back porch, the warm weather and the end of pollen another blessing. I look out at the heavily wooded back yard, hearing the birds. Then I close my eyes. I simply listen. What wondrous sounds -- of birds that I had not heard when my eyes were open! Why is that? Does my sense of sight provide distractions to my sense of hearing? The cacophony of many species of birds, enjoying the early morning of a spring day! What joyful blessing from God on this day.

I think I'll eat some breakfast and then spend a couple of hours on my road bike, celebrating the blessing of a healthy body on this day. Being attentive to the gifts of God on this day. None can be taken for granted. Receiving them and celebrating them in faith leads to a response: praise of God the creator!

The past days of rain have made me think of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's masterpiece, One Hundred Years of Solitude, the novel with the greatest first line in the history of literature.* At one point in the narrative, it rains for so many days in a row that there is so much water in the air that fish are swimming through the air. What's really irritating is that the fish are tending to swim through open windows into houses, and they get caught in there! The solution? It's really very obvious: to open the windows on the other side of the house, so the fish can simply swim through!

Ah, there's nothing like Magical Realism, is there? (Can I get a shout out from all you English majors out there??)

Early this morning it looked like rain again. But I need to get out on my bicycle! I'm signed up for a long ride a week from tomorrow, the first day of May. May is Bike Month, and each year the Governor issues a proclamation to that effect on May 1, and members of the Williamsburg Area Bicycling Association receive the proclamation with some ceremony at the current state capital and then ride with it to Williamsburg, to present it to the mayor of the Colonial Capital.

I've never done that ride because it's usually on a week day, and I have to work, dontcha know. (Wow. What a far cry from my resolutions, as I re-learned how to breathe in the Progressive Ventilator Care Unit: to enjoy the gift of extra life I had received!) Well, this year I'm going to leave Mr. Responsibility behind. This year I'm going to go hog wild. I'm going to spend a Thursday on my bicycle.

(Of course, that's not really all that wild and crazy. But you who know me know that I'm stretching here.)

So I took a chance that it wouldn't rain this morning, and I got in a ride! In fact, you know what? When I go in to the office this morning, I don't think I'll even wear a tie!! Whoo hoo!

* "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

It's Earth Day! I actually would not have remembered that, had Patty not told me. I think of May 1 as Earth Day, because that was the date of the first Earth Day, in 1970. That was before it was changed to an annual observance that we now hardly observe. May 1: now that's a date that sticks in the mind! Who changed the date to the highly-forgettable April 20-something?

Today is also Williamsburg's special day of Garden Week in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Busloads of garden aficionados are scheduled to visit -- and it's pouring down rain, for the second (or is it the third?) day in a row ... It's been a cold and/or rainy spring. The most beautiful azaleas this spring have been those with white blooms. The white blooms stand out with a fierce beauty against the darkness of rainy days.

Speaking of the Commonwealth, I owe Virginia seven dollars. Yup. Seven. I sent in my tax return, and received a phone call the very next day from someone in the James City County Treasurer's office, explaining that my figures were not correct on the Spouse Tax Adjustment Calculator (for those who don't live in Virginia: I am not making this up!); and so I need to write an additional check for $7.00. Well, OK. I'm glad to get the personal service of someone in the Treasurer's office who quickly checked my return. But it makes me wonder: if they're going to check tax returns that quickly and that closely, wouldn't it be just as easy for them to do our tax returns for us? Why do we need to spend the time?

And speaking of the number "seven" (to again change the subject, dramatically), I was pleased to learn at a recent Project Connect meeting that St. Stephen is attracting notice among those in the ELCA who track candidacy (those preparing for public ministry positions in the church). This past weekend I was with the Virginia Synod Candidacy Committee, and had the high privilege of celebrating with Haley Poynter, Brett Wilson and Deanna Scheffel who were granted entrance approval to begin seminary this fall. This fall, between the congregation's members and the campus ministry program, we'll have seven students in seminary!! People in ELCA candidacy circles are asking, "What's going on at St. Stephen?"

Tom Glavine is a pitcher for the Atlanta Braves, and he will certainly be elected to the Hall of Fame when his career is over. He has won 303 games so far, without a hint of steroids! But he is 42 years old and this is his last year pitching. And yesterday against the Washington Nationals, he had to leave in the very first inning because of a hamstring injury. Glavine had pitched badly, perhaps due to the injury, and the next pitcher who came in gave up even more runs. The result: the Nationals registered a rare "W".

Nationals manager Manny Acta uttered some very strange statements, when asked about Glavine's injury and the fact that the Nationals won. According to the Associated Press, when asked about seeing Glavine leave, Acta said, “That’s what it takes. It’s destiny. You can always go hard in whatever you want to do. The guy above,” he said, and paused, pointing skyward. “He’s got the last word.”

Huh????

I'm not sure what Manny is really saying here. But, if he said what I think he said -- that God is responsible for Glavine's hamstring injury, which allowed the Nats to win -- then I'm afraid he's even a worse theologian than he is a baseball manager. And before yesterday's rare win, the Nats had lost nine in a row!

'Tis the season for pollen. As I walk on the backyard screened porch, my footsteps result in swirls of yellow dust. We've had a new sidewalk and driveway put in at the house, so we're having to park the cars outside (we can't get into the garage). I remembery when my Miata was red. Now it's a powderly yellow color! Yesterday, on my bike ride, the tire tread was yellow where it came into contact with the pavement.

It's the pine trees that release the yellow pollen, right? The pollen that comes from oak trees is that beige stuff, I think.

Speaking of oak trees, on my bike ride yesterday I saw a new neighborhood. I was riding on Fenton Mill road, which crosses over Rt. 199 real close to the entrance to I-64. Just past Rt. 199, the fancy brick wall and sign proclaimed the neighborhood to be "The Oaks at Fenton." Of course, there are no oaks. They were all clear-cut so the contractor could build the houses. Oh, wait. It's customary for a builder to include a tree with each house, isn't it? Maybe the sapling in front of the house is an oak? Maybe those are now the oaks at Fenton!

I love (not!) the way developers buy a heavily wooded piece of land, clear cut the trees, and then include the trees in the name of the neighborhood. "Monticello Woods" is another example, out Monticello Road.

In Delaware, it's more likely to be the names of farms that were bought and then built upon. That happened a lot during the late-50s and early-60s. There's Sedgeley Farms, for instance.

Do developers choose these names to memorialize what used to be there? Or to declare victory: "We've destroyed another wooded area! We've gobbled up another farm!"

Many readers of this blog read the St. Stephen newsletter, The Quill -- but many others don't! So, here's something that is in this month's Quill.

Sabbatical Report

When I was called to be pastor of St. Stephen in 2001, the Call Letter included provision for a three-month sabbatical every six years. On April 1, I will begin my eighth year! Time flies!

My sabbatical does not begin until May 19. But I have already begun my sabbatical reading! (It’s been in fits and starts, when I can grab a few minutes at a time.) Themes for the sabbatical have revealed themselves to me.

I have been drawn to praying and thinking about which practices especially feed us in our life of faith together.

Reading that is helping with that includes three books in a series. I have read The Practicing Congregation: Imagining A New Old Church, by Diana Butler Bass. (”Drawing on insights from recent studies of tradition, practice, narrative, and congregational history, [Butler Bass] is able to identify emerging forms of congregational life that display an unexpected vitality, adaptability, and faithfulness.”) I am making my way through From Nomads to Pilgrims: Stories from Practicing Congregations, by Diana Butler Bass and Joseph Stewart-Sicking. (“A collection of stories from pastors and congregations that have been on a pilgrimage to vitality, retrieving and reworking Christ practice, tradition and narrative.”) Next on the list is the third volume of the series – Butler Bass’ Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church Is Transforming the Faith. (None other than Marcus Borg writes, “The most important book of the decade about emerging Christianity and the renewal of mainline congregations.”)I’m dipping into two other books as well: Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived In Faith, in which Nora Gallagher participates in a congregation with the eyes of a newcomer, alert to the miracles of grace that occur in the “routine” day-to-day life of their life together. And I’ve picked up a book I’ve had for years: the Sabbatical Journey of Henri Nouwen, his journal of a sabbatical he took late in his life.

I am thinking of pastors who have been in one place for a long period of time, and who have remained fresh and energetic. I will want to visit with them during my sabbatical time to ask them, “How have you done that?”

My major reading project during the three months will be four substantial books. I want to work through three volumes of recent work by Gordon Lathrop (the preeminent Lutheran scholar of worship who actually worshiped at St. Stephen not long ago): Holy Things, Holy People and Holy Ground. I also want to read the most recent book of New Testament scholarship by NT Wright: The Resurrection of the Son of God.

Perhaps the highlight of my sabbatical time will be my trip to the Lutheran northern diocese of Tanzania June 11-25! Included will be a Sunday spent worshiping and visiting with the people of the Mongai Parish. It will be wonderful to put some faces to the names of those with whom I’ve exchanged e-mails over the years!

All day yesterday I just felt frantic. I had too much to do and so I worked and worked and worked and we're having a new driveway put in and so Patty would call with ideas of how to tweak the design and so I'd have to jump in the car to go home and say that looks great and then jump in the car to get back to the church so I could work and work and work and I had a staff meeting and then appointments through the afternoon and I worked and worked and worked and couldn't get everything done and at the end of the day what I was worrying about was what I hadn't gotten done and I was so tired that, after dinner, I turned on the Phillies game on the TV and fell dead asleep. (Actually that last bit was a good thing because I would wake up to see bits and pieces of the game and the Phillies were playing so badly that they more resembled the Peninsula Pilots that they did a big league team.)

So this morning I've been thinking about yesterday. The volume of work to be done was no different than any day. I never get everything done that I would like to in a day. Why did I feel so frantic?

It was because I forgot to do one thing at a time.

Probably you never have a day like yesterday was for me. Probably you don't need this reminder, words of Gerald May from The Awakened Heart:

Try a little consecrated Zen.
Do one thing at a time, with complete, immediate mindfulness.
Don't do it to get it done so you can get on to the next thing.
Do it for love.
Do it fully, sensitively, openly.
Do it now.
Then do the next thing.

(Special emphasis on the line: Don't do it to get it done so you can get on to the next thing.)

I tell you, it's the secret to happiness and joy.

There's an interesting article in this week's issue of The New Yorker, about Jeremiah Wright, the retired pastor of Barack Obama's church in Chicago. The writer of the piece gives a lot more thought to Wright's ministry of more than 30 years at Trinity Church than we have seen in the uproar over the not-even-30-second-long sound bites that have become so vilified. "God bless America? No! God damn America!" Those few words have come to overshadow everything else he did in more than three decades of ministry at Trinity.

In his oratorical style, Jeremiah Wright is solidly in the line of the Biblical prophets. Our shock and offense over his incendiary words? That is precisely how nearly everybody received Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Ezekiel, and all the rest in the Hebrew Scriptures.

There have always been two reactions to prophets, from Biblical times to today. They have been killed. Or, they have been dismissed, sanitized, edited.

For instance, both of these things happened to Martin Luther King, Jr. The brouhaha over Jeremiah Wright happened in the weeks leading up to the 40th anniversary of Dr. King's murder. I have been re-reading some history of the civil rights movement through the lens of the Wright controversy. One of Martin Luther King Jr.'s favorite preaching texts was the parable of the poor man Lazarus and the rich man who passed him by every day. Remember that story? When Lazarus dies, he is taken to be in the bosom of his father, Abraham. When the rich man dies he ends up in the place of torment, pleading for relief. Martin Luther King Jr.'s point? If America does not care for its poor, the nation will be damned in the same way that the rich man is condemned!

Over the course of the past 40 years, of course, Martin Luther King, Jr. has been turned by white society into a secular saint. His rough edges have been smoothed. He has been romanticized. In the process, two things have been lost to history:
1. That he was always, always a preacher first and foremost. He never gave a speech. Eveything he said and wrote, in every context was preaching, full of Biblical imagery.
2. That he was extremely radical. (He can only be considered "moderate" in the context of his times, when compared to Stokley Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Malcom X.)

Sometimes I hear a person say church is boring. And so, I pray that s/he will be opened to what the Spirit is doing during worship! Every Sunday morning I am brought to the point of tears, several times, as I notice how the Spirit is moving.

Yesterday, for instance, the first time was when I heard one woman's singing voice. I rejoiced! I hadn't noticed she was in the gathering before hearing her -- but she had missed weeks and weeks because her adult son has been in crisis, and she has been spending weekends with him, hundreds of miles away. Her presence in our worship is a sign that he is in a better place! Then there was the worshiper who offered a prayer of thanksgiving for my healing. (She must have read on my blog that my pulmonologist has released me!) Then there was the woman newly grieving over her husband, who had made it to worship alone for the first time. (She said, "It is much better to be here than to be sitting at home.") Then there was the astonished look on the face of one of the college students, when Theoogian in Residence John Hoffmeyer came to the climax of his story of the homeless beggar in Paris breaking the bread. Then there was the mother of a young daughter who, to keep her child engaged in the worship, began swaying back and forth with her, to the rhythm of the sending hymn. (What genius in parenting! Small children love movement! There's nothing to say that we must be the frozen chosen in worship!)

What amazing grace!

Health update. Today Dr. Donlan, my pulmonologist RELEASED ME!!! He said, "I don't need to see you anymore. I'm here if you need me."

The tulips bloomed yesterday, and the azaleas and dogwoods bloomed this morning! What a wonderful time of year here in Williamsburg!

And, as of yesterday, I am now a "long term pastor" at St. Stephen. That is according to the Alban Institute, which defines a long term pastorate as seven years and longer. (Think of what that says: of how many pastorates are cut short after only a few years, due to any number of factors -- parish conflict, personal failings...)

Since arriving on April Fool's Day, 2001, it has just been a joy to be here. My only disappointment, really, is that the Sunday morning adult faith formation has been a priority for only a small handful of people. So, I look at that as an opportunity to begin working with the senior high youth on Sunday mornings, beginning in the fall. I'll be able to play a role, then, in that crucial period in a youth's life, as s/he makes the transition from a childhood faith to a deeper, more dynamic adult faith that has the resources needed for the challenges of adulthood. I've been able to have very little contact with senior high youth in years past. And, in our congregation, adults do respond to faith formation opportunities during the week, so I'll continue to enjoy that contact.

Health update: my histoplasmosis count has dropped over the past four months. It was at 5.6 then. It's down to 2.59!