Last night in worship, we found ourselves deep into the eighth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans, in which Paul offers one of his most evocative phrases:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. (8:26 NRSV)

“We do not know how to pray as we ought.”  I’ve been quite struck by how many of my conversations with people over the past month or two have touched on that struggle.  Some have spoken of how hard they find it to establish and maintain any practice of ongoing daily prayer, while others have confessed a difficulty in knowing what or how they should pray at all.  Many of the people with this latter struggle have hit what I characterized in my sermon as a “wall of logic,” in that prayers for particular things or around specific issues seem either too insignificant or self-serving to voice in the context of personal prayer.  There are 101 challenges in cultivating a practice of prayer, and often it seems easier to simply not pray at all than to work through those challenges.

(more…)

Church, Commentary | No Comments »

Who’s a part of this table, and why we don’t pass a plate…

So, on a fairly regular basis I’ll be having coffee with someone who has come out and joined us at worship a few times, and they’ll rather apologetically tell me that although they like what we’re doing they really feel a strong commitment to their own home church community.  The first couple of times this was said to me, I wasn’t entirely sure as to what was really being expressed, and then it gradually began to dawn on me:  since these folks didn’t feel like they could “join” us permanently, they were more or less offering to give up their “visitor’s privileges.”

Okay, so we need to be clear on a few things here.  For one thing, we don’t have anything like card-carrying membership at saint benedict’s table.  We’re a part of the whole church – a local manifestation of the Body of Christ – such that if you’re with us in worship you’re one of us.  You may well exercise your membership in the Body of Christ in another community on Sunday morning, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t express that with us on Sunday evening as well.  In fact, we have a fair number of people – including people who are with us a couple of times a month – who would identify another church as their home church… making us something of their home away from home.  Among these are people in positions of church leadership, who might find that on many a Sunday morning they’ve been so busy doing ministry that they never actually managed to worship.  Sunday evenings at saint ben’s can provide that space.

(more…)

Blogroll, Church, Commentary | 1 Comment »

Sometime in the late 1930’s, the Anglican thinker and writer Evelyn Underhill wrote a letter to Cosmo Lang, then the Archbishop of Canterbury.  In her letter, she reflected on just what it is she believed the church needed to be about, and made some fairly poignant comments on how and where she thought it had gotten itself off track.   Some 70 years later, excerpts of her letter have shown up in a very fine piece written by John Longhurst in the July 13, 2008 edition of the Winnipeg Free Press.

“God is the interesting thing about religion, and people are hungry for God.”  Many of her prescriptions had to do with the formation of clergy, who all too often had become “consecrated philanthropists,” and not guides in the life of faith and prayer.

I’ve read the letter countless times over the years, and as a priest I find it a good and challenging reminder of the need to stick to what is right, true, and “interesting” in my vocation.

Ironically, there is no evidence that the letter was ever sent.  A copy was found in her papers after she had died, but there was no sign of any letter back from the Archbishop.  Maybe she did send it, and maybe he did read it and take its message to heart.  Maybe.  But more importantly, maybe if a few of us read it in our own day, we’ll find there something to help us steer the course in the formation of our own community.

You can read the full letter by following this link.

Church, Commentary | 1 Comment »

a nod to Oliver Schroer, for taking his audience on his pilgrimage of faith

The Canadian violinist Oliver Schroer made one of my favourite albums of all time, Camino, which actually appears on this site in my list of my personal top 10 albums for the life of faith.  Camino is an extraordinary project: a series of recordings made as he walked a 1000 km of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage though France and Spain.  Go take a listen to the sample embedded in my list, just to get a bit of a feel for what he did on the project.

 Well, on July 3, 2008, Schroer succumbed to leukemia, but not until he had added one more album to his catalogue, Hymns and Hers, yet another exploration of the stuff of faith.

From his hospital bed, he told a Toronto Star reporter, “We’re all dying, you know,” and then added,  “At the moment we pass through that portal, things rearrange themselves so thoroughly (that) it cannot make any sense to us now. I have the feeling that, at the moment that I slip across, it will make ultimate sense. And I’m not going to look back.”

Anyone who has any sense that this walk of faith is actually a walk, and not just some set of foregone conclusions, would do well to pay attention to Schroer; to Camino in particular, but also to the shape that his life took as he walked toward his death.  It is good to have such guides as we make our various ways on this walk of life, of faith, even of death.

Jamie Howison

Audio, Commentary, Turntable | No Comments »

Robert Farrar Capon intrudes on yet another sermon…

Just home from our Sunday evening worship, and wanted to post this one right away.  Part of the gospel reading tonight included those wonderful words from the Gospel according to Matthew:  “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” (11:28)  As I said in the sermon, this reading put me in mind of an incredible set of conversations I shared with the writer and theologian Robert Farrar Capon back in the winter of 2004, sitting out in the sun room of his home on Shelter Island, New York.  As part of our conversation, we ended up engaged in a bible study, which took us into the text from Matthew.  He worked from his Greek New Testament, while I followed in my English version.

(more…)

Church, Commentary | 1 Comment »

album sampler

F

or the better part of two years, our community was fortunate to number Jenny Moore-Koslowsky among our regular songwriters and music leaders. In the months leading up to her departure last fall to pursue graduate work in England, Jenny headed into Signpost Studio, where she recorded seven songs live off the floor. There is no better way to give a sense of what informs this recording than Jenny’s own words from the liner notes:

i have often felt like it is insane that i offer music or ideas to such a monumental liturgy but, i don’t feel as though i make the words or form the songs. you make the songs; we all bring the music; i just ask you to sing it out with me – to sing what is already in us, what we have already discovered, survived, kept hidden and become. it has changed me forever to write for such a generous community.

Song samples and ordering information after the jump

(more…)

Music, Turntable | No Comments »