Hawks Above the Frio (a Steve Orr Lectionary reflection)

The Frio River is cold ... really cold ... take-your-breath-away cold. The temperature of the Frio is counterintuitive. All about, the Texas heat is a hundred degrees and more, but the river remains shockingly cold.

We were spending the week at the Laity Lodge Family Camp, which sits right at the headwaters of the Frio. This is the location of the fabled “Blue Hole,” a place known for an icy plunge. All I had to do was just place the tip of my foot into that river to register its extreme cold temperature. No plunge necessary, thank you.

I write this about the Frio to highlight a kind of paradox. On the west side of those headwaters is a cliff that towers over the little river; its pocks, notches, and caves starkly etched by the morning sun, and all but invisible when the sun slips behind its edge at end of day. And it is that cliff which is the site of the paradox.

There are hawks above the Frio.

It you’ve ever watched hawks, you know they do a lot of gliding. They catch the lift of rising thermals. These warm thrusts of air allow them to gently spiral up, up, up ... until they finally tilt over and either glide or dive. Hawks are hunters. They repeat this process, with only a little change each time, to help them spot and then claim their prey. This is how they get their food.

Above the Frio, the hawks perform as expected. They corkscrew up alongside the face of that cliff, and then, when they reach the end of that thermal, they either glide along the cliff face in a long, slow decent, or they dive hard and fast toward their target. Eventually, as they near the bottom of their passage, those hawks catch another thermal and start a new ascent.

I sat and watched them do this for hours.

Oh, not all at once. That’s a cumulative number. There are some rockers which face the cliff and afford a perfect view of this beautiful dance. I love to sit there and just watch. But you can see this spectacle from almost anywhere in the central part of the camp. I sat one morning on the back porch of our casita and watched them glide across our length of the Frio as they swooped back toward the headwaters, searching for that next thermal.

The paradox, of course, is how there are thermals, at all.

The air above that river should not even be warm, much less hot enough to lift hawks above the lip of the cliff ... and yet, there they are. Somehow, God has contrived to place extreme Texas heat and extreme cold adjacent to one another and make them both do wonderful things. Neither appears limited by the other in any observable way.

God does some amazing things, and we can observe them —even participate in them— if we are open to what appear to be paradoxes. In this week’s Lectionary scriptures are some great examples of that. I love how the Psalmist in 138 praises God because "you increased my strength of soul," and how in 130 the Psalmist describes God's "great power to redeem." There's that stunning (and often skipped over) statement by Jesus in Mark 3:28 ("Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter").

I could spend hours reflecting on those passages. What is “strength of soul” and how is it increased? God knows. And then, of course, there is the great paradox of redemption: God redeems us even though we don’t deserve it. Why? God knows. And it pairs perfectly with the forgiveness of blasphemies ... not something we humans are very good about doing. Thank God for that forgiveness.

This brings to mind the 2 Corinthians passage: "Everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God." Do you see the formula in there? Expansion of Grace = Increase in Thanksgiving (to the glory of God). And, as each person receives that extension of grace, it doesn't result in only the addition of thanksgiving; rather, the thanksgiving increases exponentially. Like those hawks above the Frio, grace increases thanksgiving in ever-rising spirals. Mysterious. Beautiful. And God is glorified.

How? God knows.

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 5 (10) (June 10, 2018)

1 Samuel 8:4-11, (12-15), 16-20, (11:14-15)
Psalm 138
Genesis 3:8-15
Psalm 130
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1
Mark 3:20-35
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DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast meets every Friday morning at 8:00. We gather at the Waco "Egg and I" for food, fellowship, Bible discussion, prayer, and laughter. All are welcome.

Blessings,
Steve

Laughing All The Way (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

Saturday, December 14th
"Feel led to keep a diary. A sort of spiritual log for the benefit of others in the future. Each new divine insight and experience will shine like a beacon in the darkness!

Can't think of anything to put in today.

Still, tomorrow's Sunday. Must be something on a Sunday, surely?"
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That's how The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass, Aged 37 and 3/4 opens. Plass uses the diary entries to show us the earnest-but-often-silly choices of his fictional persona, and the consequences, which are their own hilarity. He skewers the foibles we church goers and God followers can sometimes exhibit, often despite of, and sometimes because of our best efforts.

It is one of the funniest things I've read, and I find myself laughing out loud on almost every page.

I make it a point to re-read the Diary every December. Yes, that's partly because a good rolling guffaw can sometimes be hard to come by. But more importantly, reading it reminds me not to take myself so seriously. It always pulls me back to the main things, the most important parts of my faith journey in this life. That kind of centering readies me for the coming new year.

December is a time when we tend to look forward, organizing for the future. That's what the sacred diarist is doing by starting in December. It is also, perhaps, the time we take stock of the year ending. I say, "perhaps," because we can easily get caught up in our planning for the new year, all the celebrations, our pledges toward improvement, etc. In the midst of all that excitement and forward orientation, we can overlook something important: beginnings imply endings. The "something new" usually replaces "something old." There's a reason we greet the new year with celebration. And it's not just because we're looking forward to all that potential. Truth be told, there's plenty we're happy about letting go.

Sometimes, we're just really ready to have the past behind us, to let the past be past.

And that brings me to the passage from Luke featured in the Lectionary this Christmas. It tells the story we all know: Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem where Jesus is born, the shepherds encountering angelic heralds, and, after coming to see Jesus, those shepherds going all about telling everyone what they saw and heard that night.

It was a celebratory event. And, at least on the surface, it's was all about the new thing that was happening. But, even though it was not part of the announcement, things were also ending. It's likely none of the folks involved in that night of nights actually thought about what was coming to an end.

That's the nature of beginnings: they mark the ending of something, whether anyone recognizes that fact or not. The birth of Jesus marks the end of how God had been relating to humans. The Law was being superseded by grace. The birth ushered in the age where all people who chose to follow the Son would become priests, able to boldly enter God's throne room, no longer having to wait until someone did so on their behalf.

The event is thick with irony: that a baby ---born among the animals, laid in a food trough, worshiped by scruffy shepherds--- ended the old way on His way to actually being the new way.

So as we end this year and look forward to the new one, the events of that holy night teach us to embrace both the endings and beginnings as we transit the calendar. If we find we can laugh at ourselves in the process, that's a good thing. And if things get a little ironic along the way, that's OK, too.

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CAVEAT: Not everyone appreciates Mr. Plass' humor. While there are millions of folk who have purchased, and cherish, his books, there are a few folks out there who take offense at the fun he pokes at believers. If you think you might be one of those people, then spare yourself the aggravation.

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Lectionary Readings for Christmas 2016

There are multiple options for Christmas readings in this year's Lectionary. I am using Proper I, but you should read the group that you are drawn to. Here is the link to the table of Christmas Lectionary readings: http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/lections.php?year=A&season=Christmas

Proper I
Isaiah 9:2-7
Psalm 96
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-14, (15-20)

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I hope you will have opportunity to join us at Lectionary Breakfast. We are still meeting Friday mornings at the Waco "Egg and I" restaurant at 8:00 and we still wrap things up around 9:00.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas as we pause to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Steve