Are you unbalanced?

Today at lunch, I saw a church member I hadn't seen at the Sunday Holy Eucharist in a long time. "I've missed you," I said. I say that to a lot of people these days.

She responded: "My life has gotten so out of balance."

She was the second person today who'd said that to me.

Life gets out of balance quickly because of family, work, travel, sports.

With so many commitments and so much stress, we jettison God, prayer, Bible reading, and especially weekly worship.

We say we don't have time. We declare, sometimes sharply: "I need that extra time on Sunday for my family. For myself."

The problem is that without that focus on God in daily prayer, silence, Scripture reading; without the Holy Eucharist or other worship at least once a week, every week, we lose our balance.

We wobble, then fall, and hurt ourselves, like a bicyclist who crashes on the roadside.

God becomes a stranger to us. Our fellow Christians who are in the pews from Sunday to Sunday become strangers to us as well.

Before long, we either forget about God altogether; or if we think about him and the possibility of worshiping him on a Sunday, we hesitate because we feel guilty or otherwise awkward returning to church after a long absence.

Perhaps we think God or the pastor will be angry with us.

But the Good News is that God's is always seeking us, wanting us back, welcoming us into his loving embrace when we re-turn to him.

I'm glad my friend recognized that her life had become unbalanced, that she was spending too much time working, too little time simply being with God.

If you're unbalanced, why not restore the balance right now? Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. And pray: "Come Lord Jesus."

And come, worship Christ this Sunday. He'll be glad you did. You'll be glad you did.

And that feeling you discover in worship will be what you've been missing for a long time now:

Balance.

Reflecting on September 11, 2001 in Christian community

Yesterday, September 11, was Remembrance Sunday at Christ Episcopal Church, Springfield, MO. We remembered and prayed for the victims of the terrorist attacks ten years ago in New York City, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, PA.

And we recommitted ourselves to the work of love, justice, and peace as the followers of Jesus Christ, who met and destroyed evil, sin, and death forever.

Our worship at 11 am included a special piece of music composed by senior choir member Dr. Carlyle Sharpe, who teaches music composition at Drury University.

His offertory piece at the Holy Eucharist was based on Psalm 61 and was beautifully sung by our St. Gregory's Choir and by the Drury Singers, directed by our Director of Music Dr. Allin Sorenson.

Thank you Dr Sharpe, Dr. Sorenson, St. Gregory's Choir, Drury Singers, and Mrs. Barbara Hays, our organist.

Sunday after Sunday, many people comment on the beauty of worship at Christ Church, especially the music. I like to hear those comments. And yesterday, it seemed to me as if everyone who had worshiped at one of our three services felt moved, inspired, upheld in the midst of remembering a national horror. And everyone told me so.

As I reflect on Remembrance Sunday, I realize how important it is for people regularly to come together in prayer, music and hymns, silence, reflection on the Holy Scriptures, and for that Holy Communion with Christ and one another.

This gathering in worship of the living God is especially important on occasions like the anniversary of September 11.

Marriages, births, deaths, and other human experiences are occasions in which people want and need to enter into sacred space. It is our refuge in which to mourn our losses, to celebrate our blessings, to mark passages of all kinds. And it is there that we find deeper meaning, strength, courage, and wisdom for our earthly journeys.

Yesterday, as this country contemplated the terrible events of ten years ago, many of us turned to our communities of faith. There, we remembered the departed. We expressed our solidarity with their families. We listened to God's word and sought God's guidance for how we should live. We tried to find some meaning, however small, to help us carry on in this often frightening and unpredictable world.

In a television interview, one young man who had lost his father in the terrorist attacks said he was thankful he had his father for the first ten years of his life, which he regarded as the most formative one for him as a human being.

As I think about the services yesterday, I realize how much we human beings need one another and need to be together, especially in times of loss and sadness and confusion.

I also realize that these times when we are together with one another are also times when we are together with God. And in God, we people of faith find our fullest meaning and the hope and faith to live amid tragedy.

Daily God consciousness

It's easy enough to do: save one's time with God for Sundays, if even then.

And that's too bad, for in doing so, we're missing out on God's second-by-second presence in our lives.

God, of course, is everywhere--not just in a church building's sacred space wherein God makes God's presence known to us in Word, Sacrament, and blessed community. Remember, Jesus says in the gospel--just this past Sunday, in fact--that, "When two or three are gathered together in my name, I am among them."

And the way to discover the everywhere-ness of God, as it were, is to practice mindfulness of God.

Try this for a day: in every task, however ordinary, offer it to God: when you're cutting the lawn, washing the dishes, writing a friend or a blog entry, walking or running or cycling, ask God to be part of that experience.

The monks at my favorite retreat site, the Trappist monastery of Gethsemani in Kentucky, pray as they work, "All for Thee."

In doing so, you'll further your consciousness of God, that second-by-second encounter with God. You'll discover God's presence with you everywhere and always, and not just on Sunday at church.

Indeed, with a consciousness overflowing with God's daily presence, you'll want to be in church and with God all the more.

Ahh: life is good, very good

Today, Labor Day, is a gorgeous day, at least here in Springfield, MO. The sun beams from a cloudless blue sky, while cool breezes bring a welcome respite from the blistering triple digit temperatures of much of the summer.

And now, if only we could get some showers. This gorgeous day would then become a perfect one.

As I rode my bike early this morning, I felt joyful, thrilled to be alive. With all the problems in our country--including those caused or aggravated by weather and politicians and economics--I can easily lose sight of my blessings and the goodness of creation.

And so I need times like this morning to make me stop and consider the gifts of being alive.

Among them are: Penny and our 35 years of marriage; our daughter Clare, who is an excellent mother; and of course our grand daughters June Elizabeth and Christa Marie.

Yesterday, the two of them delighted in their own creation at our church picnic at Camp Shawio. (Christ Episcopal Church is another of my great blessings.) While Christa stayed close to her Grammy and played, June and her Poppy played football with the big kids on the lawn. June, who will soon be four years old, ran from one end of the field to the other, kicking and throwing the ball, and, at times, wrestling other youngsters for it.

On days like today, I remember that life is not a problem to be endured until we take our final breaths, but life is a gift to thank God for daily, to be celebrated and enjoyed, and to be lived as fully as possible every minute of every day. Our lives are precious and unrepeatable.

Yes, at times, we struggle, facing many problems and even tragedies. Today may be such a day for you (I'm sorry; please let me know how I can pray for you); but in my experience, the good things in life--like a bike ride on a bright cool morning--far exceed the bad things. In Genesis, God says of all God has made, it is good, very good.

May you know today--and every day--that God speaks the truth. Always.

Michele Bachmann on God's judgment

Whenever a hurricane or earthquake strikes, TV preacher Pat Robertson or someone of his particular theological persuasion will inevitably comment that God is punishing some part of humanity for a supposed transgression.


And today, U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota made just such a comment.

Ms. Bachmann, who draws many of her religious ideas from frightening fringe writers, said today that Hurricane Irene was God's judgement on Washington, D.C., for not being fiscally conservative enough.

She lashes out like a hurricane against Washington for spending too much public money--on the poor and ill and old, on schools, on research, on the unemployed, on food safety, on protecting the environment.

Her politics and religion, as recently reported, are more in line with the atheist proponent of selfishness Ayn Rand than with Jesus Christ. For more on her world view, read Ryan Lizza's profile of her in the New Yorker on August 15.


Ms. Bachmann believes God is destructive, angry, punishing. He uses nature to inflict pain and suffering on people who disobey his will, and his will coincides remarkably with her own.

She has created a god in her own image, which is the biblical definition of idolatry. John Wesley, the Anglican priest of the 18th century, once told a man who believed in such a god: "Sir, your god is the devil."


Unlike Ms. Bachmann's god, the one true God is bringing creation and order out of chaos. Natural disasters like Hurricane Irene are evidence of the disorder of creation. Creation is fallen, as are human beings, but God is raising up a fallen creation in redemption.


Despite what Ms. Bachmann believes, God's final word to humankind is not destruction, but new creation.


And new creation comes in Jesus, the Son of God, the Savior. Jesus brings order out of chaos. He begins this work in his life--remember the stories of his calming of the seas?--in his death on the cross, and in his resurrection. And he continues his saving work through the Holy Spirit until the end when he will come again to bring all things to their perfection.

May Michele Bachmann turn her heart from the proponents of selfishness, division, and hatred to the one true God who is revealed in Jesus, who says he has come not to judge and destroy the world, but to save it.

Happy birthday, Mother, on your 90th

Penny, Clare, grand daughters June Elizabeth and Christa Marie, and I went to Louisville this past weekend for a family gathering, our first in two years.

The occasion was my mother's 90th birthday. The whole family, together with many friends gathered around tables in my sister Antoinette's lovely home on the outskirts of Cherokee Park. We enjoyed food and drink and told stories.

We looked at pictures, including ancient ones of my grandfather Michael Bodner's garage in South Louisville. Over the weekend, Mother talked about how strong her mother, Katie, was--how she managed a business and reared six children and took care of her husband following his stroke when he was still a relatively young man.

Being away from Louisville now for 25 years, I miss hearing the stories and that sense of family togetherness. I know many families are more distant, and not just geographically, than they are close and know that some families are more for feuding than deep fellowship.

But not ours. Even when my brother Ed and I are arguing politics--we called a cease-fire for this event--we still know we're bound by blood and shared history. He knows I spent a year praying for him to survive his tour of duty as a combat infantryman in Vietnam, where he was awarded both the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star.

I'm proud of my brother's service. And I'm glad Air Force ROTC at the University of Louisville protected me from the draft and from Vietnam until the risk of draft passed over me like that angel of death who passed over the Israelites in Egypt. I'm content to let Ed be our only war hero. And thankful he's a living one.

Happily, my mother is in great health for a woman of her many years. She still drives and does some occasional work for my sister, who owns a women's clothing business in Louisville. She still attends Mass--if not daily, then at least on Sundays. I'm a person of faith because of my mother's holy example.

How has my mother lived so long? Her faith is the first and immediate answer that comes to my mind.

Her hearty, indomitable Germanic temperament is another. Mother is a hard worker. I used to joke that cleaning was her hobby. As a boy, I hated Saturdays, which were spent cleaning the house and yard. During the fall, Mother ordered me to keep the leaves raked up. I used to think she expected me to stand beneath the maples and oaks and catch the leaves as they fell. Our yard was always perfect. Just as our house was. Her house is immaculate today.

A woman of an indomitable and positive spirit, Mother's a survivor--of two marriages to alcoholic husbands and two divorces, which put her on the outs with the Roman Church for a time. When it was uncommon, she managed being a single mother with sole responsibility for providing for her children. She got work where she could and sacrificed to make sure we had what we needed. We children never had a lot, but always had what we needed. I still remember how food was rationed; I craved more than one slice of brisket at supper.

And she made sure that my siblings and I attended Roman Catholic schools for our religious and intellectual formation. The church was important to her. And still is. It's her foundation, as it was for her Austrian and Swiss forebears. I used to lament my time at the all-boys St. Francis of DeSales High School--I longed for the freedom (and girls) of public schools--but now I'm glad for the education and the self-discipline that those Carmelites imparted to me.

I'm the person I am largely because of my mother. I'm glad she's still with me. I hope that she'll be with me for years to come and that her great grand daughters, June and Christa, will come to know and love her as much as I do.

Happy birthday, Mother.

Which way?

In Terrence Malick's new film, "The Tree of Life," the character of Mrs. O'Brien, played ethereally by Jessica Chastain, says there are two ways of living--the way of nature and the way of grace.

Mrs. O'Brien lives the way of grace--open, free, loving, accepting, even angelic--while her husband, played by Brad Pitt, lives the way of nature.

He is a driven perfectionist, frustrated that he never succeeded as a musician, but instead had to make do managing a plant in Waco, Texas. Mr. O'Brien, at times a brutal disciplinarian, takes out his frustration on his three young sons, especially on first-born Jack.

Malick's film, which earned the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, is imaginative, slightly autobiographical, certainly theological, but at times disjointed. It regularly departs from the conventional Hollywood narrative style of beginning, middle, and end--a point that a woman in the theatre noted when she said, "I just want t a story."

Amid stunning images from nature that tell the story of creation and shifts in time and perspective that tell the story of the O'Brien family, "The Tree of Life" raises important ultimate questions, including: Why is there evil? Is there a God? Does God care for creation?

(Malick, a graduate of Harvard, read philosophy at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.)

And at the heart of the film is the question: Is this universe governed by something transcendental--the way of grace--or by something more elemental and natural, the human struggle for survival in a hostile world?

His mother's voice echoing in his memory, Jack recalls his mother saying of the way of grace that the only true and lasting happiness is when we love. If only Mr. O'Brien had followed that same way.

For me, the question "The Tree of Life" raises is: Am I living the way of nature or the way of grace? The way of death? Or the way of life.

Frankly, some days I live the way of nature, when I let my fears and troubles dominate me, when I fail to trust Christ with my life. These are miserable days. Happily, they're becoming increasingly fewer.

In contrast, the days when I live the way of grace, as Mrs. O'Brien does, I feel like dancing in the sprinkler in the front yard. I feel like singing and laughing. I feel so light and free that I think I'll take flight and flutter off like a butterfly.

God makes humans for the way of grace, and I seek a life in which the days of grace greatly outnumber the days of nature.

When God and I dance in the sprinkler in the front yard. And neither of us cares who sees us.