Holy Habits

For most of the last month I have been traveling, visiting family and attending a variety of church functions. It feels like I've spent more days in airports and hotels than I have at home. It has predictably been challenging during that time to maintain a regular schedule of disciplined sleep, eating, exercise, and prayer. I relaxed my usual routine, but instead of being freeing, it has actually felt very unsettling. It has been a huge relief to return home to a stable pattern of living, to the grounding of holy habits.

Maybe that sounds pretentious, dull, or overly pious. And that wouldn't surprise me. After all, in 2016, discipline is counter-cultural, especially when it pertains to religious belief and practice. Athletes embrace discipline as a an indispensable pathway to excellence; and yet it is strongly resisted, even among many clergy. But I believe discipline is a indispensable pathway to--well, not excellence, in a competitive sense--but to greater faithfulness and spiritual maturity. There's no doubt about it; discipline can be hard, unpleasant. So many days I'd rather just lounge on the sofa in front of the TV, and sometimes I do. Sometimes, I'm just lazy. I still believe, though, that discipline has value, and we need to work on it. Our cultural valuation of immediate gratification lets us off the hook way too easily way too often. In addition, our preoccupation with novelty and devaluation of discipline can feed into our impatient expectation to see instantaneous results. But excellence in any human endeavor requires patience and an unwavering commitment. As one of my mentors once said from the pulpit, "don't you want a religion that requires something of you?"

One of my trips this month was to Atlanta for the 2016 Society of Catholic Priests Annual Conference. This year the conference theme was priestly formation, which not only includes the structure and content of academic preparation, such as seminary, but also the spiritual shaping of priests, both new and seasoned. Over three days, we prayed, sang, and worshiped together. We heard scholarly presentations and engaged in deep theological reflection. We formed and nourished friendships and offered each other emotional support. Though the discipline of prayer and study can be exhausting, I always find those few days exhilarating, as well. I come back home feeling recharged and renewed in my commitment to do better, resolved to pray more regularly, to go to spiritual direction and sacramental reconciliation, to eat more healthily and exercise more. As Dr. Luke Timothy Johnson declared at the conference, the job of the priest is to work to become holy. Pretentious, dull, or pious as that assertion may sound (I can see people's eyes rolling), it's still true, and that is humbling ... and daunting.

This message was reinforced this past week, when I attended our diocesan clergy conference. Over two-and-a-half days, we explored the development of a personal rule of life. As a member of the Society of Catholic Priests, I have already vowed to keep the Society's rule of life, but the clergy conference raised a number of personal dimensions that would enhance my health and well-being, and as a Christian, my faith. These commitments, whatever we discern them to be, will take discipline, too. One of the confessions I made is that I often rely on the accountability of other people who love and care about me to endure in my spiritual disciplines when I don't have the willpower to keep myself on track. My husband has said to me more than once, "Ethan, aren't you supposed to be saying Evening Prayer right now?" "Hrmph," I reply, and then shuffle sulkily toward my study to pray. I'm very grateful to him for holding my feet to the fire, for all my adolescent sulking.

At least once a year, I listen to the sermon the Rt. Rev. Rodney Michel preached at my ordination to the priesthood, which reminds me of the vow I made to practice holy habits. It is a sobering experience. Holy habits do take practice, a lifetime of practice, as it turns out. I always pull the earbuds out with a sheepish determination to do better. Nobody said it would be easy, but then most things worth having don't come without a huge amount of commitment, even when that commitment is uneven and halting at times. Yet this reminder of my imperfect discipline never feels shaming, because I know the bishop's advice came out of love. As our clergy conference speaker, the Rev. Charles LaFond, expressed it, "I love you too much to let you mess up like this." The tough love is encouraging, even though it is also intimidating. I will end by sharing with you the words that the good bishop offered me:

"As a priest, Ethan, you will be a servant of the servants of God, a friend, a companion, a marker on the road to the life of holiness that every believer is called to. You will model for others how to hold one another up in prayer, and by your presence you will help God's people remember that each relationship we experience is precious." 

"Remember the awesomeness of priesthood: you will now bless and consecrate, forgive sins, dispense the Word of God and his holy sacraments, and stand at the altar to make Jesus present in the Sacrament and in the moment, and that is awesome. Ethan Alexander Bingham Jewett, please stand. Remember that God does not expect you to be successful. God asks only that you be faithful: faithful to the Lord and to the Word of God as you will promise to do here today; faithful to God's people; faithful to your family; and faithful to your own self. Be diligent in your prayers and study of the Holy Scriptures. Administer the Sacraments and preach the Gospel and model quietness, peace, and love among all people. Remember to keep balance in your life and make time for your beloved and your personal relationships. [...] Say your prayers everyday. Our Blessed Mother intercedes for the ordained--continually ask for her prayers and her love. And finally, keep your eyes on Jesus."

Thank you, Bishop Michel, for this advice about holy habits. And I now pass this advice on to you, my sisters and brothers, as I resolve to do better.

Abundant blessings,
Fr. Ethan+

The Ladder

"I am going to send an angel in front of you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared." Exodus 23:20

Earlier this week, my mother and I teetered precariously on ladders, stretching and stapling wire mesh to screen in the large front porch of her house. The siding had just been replaced and painted, a new metal roof installed, the windows re-glazed, and now we were tackling the porch. We spent all day in the heat and humidity of central Florida, swatting mosquitoes, with our staple-guns, hammers, and X-ACTO knives in hand, trying not to get our feet tangled in electrical cords and the front yard's tortuous vines. It had been a long time since my mother and I had done a project together, and we discovered to our surprise that we actually worked quite well as a team. We had a delightful time despite the sweat and fatigue of the project, which didn't always go to plan. Getting the screen up perfectly taut without any ripples or gaps is challenging; it takes great patience and persistence. Sometimes we had to take a few steps back, unstaple the screen, and start over. After seven hours in the heat, it was a minor miracle that we were still speaking to each other. 

I came to Florida this week, not to staple and hammer, but to celebrate my sister's fortieth birthday and my niece's eleventh. When I think about the good relationships I have with my family now, I also remember those days growing up when they weren't so good: the misunderstandings, the quick tempers and tongues, the regret of things said or left unsaid. It took us a long and tumultuous journey to get to the good place we are now. It is not perfect, of course, but there are unexpected moments of grace that make me grateful and hopeful. That day on the ladder was one of them. Many families have similar stories. The good (or bad) relationships we have are fashioned by our choices and experiences, and yet I'd like to think that God has some hand in them. The Bible is full of stories of divine messengers (from the Greek, angeloi = "messengers") or angels communicating God's word and will to humans. I'm sure there were hasty moments when I did not heed God's advice to hold my tongue or to bear with patience a difficult conversation. There were undoubtedly urgings from God that I ignored in order to follow my own flawed judgment. I bear full responsibility for those failings, but I am grateful that God did not give up on me and continued to whisper in my ear and inhabit my dreams. And so does God with us all.

"Jacob's Dream" by William Blake, 1805.

The Church celebrates the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels this week, which emphasizes God's desire to speak and be present with us in our daily lives. In joy, pain, confusion. All of it. Whether the traditional image of gossamer-winged messengers resonates with you or not, the idea that God seeks to encourage us to walk in paths that lead to abundant life can serve as a source of comfort and strength. The decisions are ours to make, but God offers us a vision of what could be and guidance to get there. In the famous passage from Genesis 28, God speaks to Jacob in a dream and presents a vision of a ladder to heaven on which angels are ascending and descending. Jacob's ladder was probably grander than the aluminum one on which I worked and sweated this week, but both have been symbols to me of deep relationship. I have always imagined it as a metaphor for the back-and-forth communication between God and creation. It is an analogy of our ongoing relationship with a Trinitarian God that seeks us out in the unfolding of creation, the bread and wine and sacramental life of the Son, and the sanctifying guidance of the Holy Spirit. And as a people that participates in God's activity, we are often messengers of God to each other, as well. When we offer words of comfort, assistance in time of need, or nourishment when we are running on empty, we bear God's message of new life. Sometimes, God leads us forward through each other to the place God has prepared for us. Sometimes, it takes a person or a family quite a while to get there. When we sing the classic hymn for St. Michael and All Angels, "Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones," we should not only command the ranks of angels to sing God's praise, but challenge each other to be God's messengers in the world.

The Lord is glorified in his holy ones; O, come, let us adore him.

Abundant blessings,
Fr. Ethan+

Of Giant Crosses and Ketchup Bottles

One of the great joys of being between parishes is that I now have time to read, write, and travel. As my husband and I drove through the endless corn and soybean fields of southern Illinois a couple of weeks ago, we stopped at a few curiosities along the way: North America's largest freestanding cross in Effingham, the world's largest ketchup bottle in Collinsville, and a vintage Route 66 service station in Mt. Olive. Fun and kitchy, to be sure, but also reminders that people find identity and meaning in all kinds of unexpected things. They are markers of a people's history that have become cherished across generations, and so, are worthy of study. These three detours provided a thought-provoking contrast to the much grander stops on our itinerary, such as the St. Louis Arch and the Lincoln Presidential Museum. The first, where I became reacquainted with my fear of heights, serves as an awe-inspiring monument to engineering ingenuity and prowess. The second chronicles the life of one of our most revered leaders during an agonizing period in the nation's history. As signs of human achievement, and national crisis, and local pride, all of these markers of our lived experience have the potential to teach us something important about our faith.

"Fall Plowing" by Grant Wood (1931)

One of these insights is that we need to study subjects that we don't tend to examine through theological lenses. This became abundantly clear last week when viewing the special exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago, "America After the Fall: Painting in the 1930s." The exhibit was a commentary on the multiplicity of American artistic perspectives in response to the Great Depression, including the agrarian Regionalism of Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton, the Realism of Edward Hopper, the Modernism of Arthur Dove and Georgia O'Keeffe, and many others. What it conveyed to me was the variety and uniqueness of these lenses through which artists attempted to process America's economic time of trial. Images of agrarian abundance and industrial might, for instance, were expressions of an American ideal of prosperity, which served as both aspiration and nostalgic escapism. But in periods of adversity, those symbols of life on the other side of want and barrenness are important for survival. Americans in the 1930s must have felt defeated and hopeless, and yet some found ways to cope.

"Crucifixion" by Jan Provoost, 1500

The same was undoubtedly true for those who witnessed the Crucifixion. The Cross on which our Lord Jesus hung must have seemed so overbearing and oppressive that artists throughout the centuries have been deliberate in depicting it as insurmountable. And yet, there was life on the other side of death. What was an instrument of defeat, the Cross, was transformed into a sign of God's victory. The planks of wood nailed together in Provoost's painting at right represent a criminal's shameful death, and yet the meaning doesn't stick. And even the tomb is not able to contain the new life of the Resurrection; it becomes a sign of the destruction of death itself. Later, in the midst of Roman persecution, the early Christians must have found signs of new life in both the trivial and the important to bear their sufferings.

Things are not always what they seem. A giant ketchup bottle or vintage service station may be a community statement of civic pride. A series of abstract strokes of color on a canvas may express the anxiety of a lost generation or a tortured conscience. When we examine the world, we should be careful of accepting what we see at face value. And we all may see those same things differently. Signs of decay may hint at signs of life. The trivial may point to the important. The crucified criminal may point to God.

Abundant blessings,
Fr. Ethan+

*Pause at the Asterisk

Open thou, O Lord, my mouth to bless thy holy Name; cleanse also my heart from all vain, evil, and wandering thoughts; enlighten my understanding; enkindle my affections; that I may say this Office worthily, with attention and devotion, and so be meet to to be heard in the presence of thy divine Majesty. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

I always begin my recitation of the Daily Office with this prayer taken from the Anglican Breviary, because it reminds me of the posture of attentiveness with which we are called to pray. Prayer is not supposed to be perfunctory or distracted or incidental. And yet, I have been known to rush through reading the psalms (and everything else) during the Daily Office, especially if I'm standing in a crowded train or bus struggling to turn pages and flip ribbons in that fumbling, one-handed manner without dropping the book or falling over a nearby commuter. As the bus jerks and jostles me, I am grateful for those days when I can take my time to savor the Word of God over a leisurely sipped cup of coffee. On busy days, there is probably little attention and devotion, and an abundance of wandering thoughts. Sometimes, all I can manage is to just get it done, so I can move on to the next thing.

The Book of Common Prayer notes on page 583 that "an asterisk divides each verse into two parts for reading or chanting. In reading, a distinct pause should be made at the asterisk." I have been in congregations where the asterisk is completely ignored, and in others where the pause is so long and plodding that it makes me want to jump impatiently out of my seat. I think there is wisdom in that tiny asterisk, whether the pause is long or short, because it forces us to take a breath and stop. We should do a lot more of that. The pace of the world is so furiously fast that we often fail to pause and think before we speak and act. Our attention seems to be dominated these days by the relentless threat of terrorist attacks, the never-ending ping-pong of presidential campaign rhetoric, and the instantaneous reactivity of social media. I often feel weary, and wish I could take a break from this assault on my senses. I need to recharge my batteries, but there doesn't seem to be any relief in sight. It just never stops. I need an asterisk for my life. Who's with me?

Earlier this week, I was beginning my morning commute standing impatiently on the platform waiting for the train to come. Seated next to me was a transit employee in her fluorescent vest, who eyed my clerical collar and struck up a conversation. She asked if I was a priest and where my church was, and after I explained what the Episcopal Church was, she introduced herself as Leticia and requested that I keep her in my prayers. I offered to lay hands on her and pray with her right there, if she wished. She readily agreed and told me what she would like to pray for. So, we prayed amidst the morning hurly-burly in the background, and she thanked me profusely. And I thanked her. Leticia offered me an opportunity to pause. We had forced an asterisk into the day's script. We had created a moment for attention and devotion and to thrust our wandering thoughts aside. It was wonderful. I wonder if our inability to pause is a function of habit, and whether more moments for intentional reflection and retreat from the maelstrom might be available to us if we simply learned to pay closer attention to the opportunities already available to us in regular unfolding of our days. Maybe that little asterisk is an open space to let the Holy Spirit in and speak to us.

Abundant blessings,
Fr. Ethan+

A Voice is Heard in Orlando

Thus says the Lord: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more. - Jeremiah 31:15

When the news hit me of the mass shooting in Orlando, I was stricken by a sense of powerlessness in the face of so much violence and grief. It is hard to know how to respond to trauma on this scale without feeling that what we do is an empty gesture. One acquaintance of mine rawly declared that "thoughts and prayers" are a trite and perfunctory response to tragedy. "My prayers are with you in this terrible moment," is the sort of thing people feel socially obligated to say. After hearing it so many times, the words, however sincere they may be, lose their impact for the grieving. After all, people are devastated and terrified; they need something more concrete and actionable than a formulaic expression of solidarity.

I struggled with this. There was a very big part of me that resonated with my friend's sobering challenge. Are my thoughts and prayers just an easy, phone-it-in response that doesn't ask much of me? It doesn't inconvenience me, or make me go out of my way. It doesn't force me to change the pattern of my daily routine. It costs me nothing. I realized, though, that prayer--as unsatisfying as it may be for some people--is the foundational Christian response to everything in life, including tragedy. Our main job as Christians IS to pray. The whole pattern of our faith is grounded in prayer: the Daily Office, the Eucharist on Sunday, anointing, marrying, burying. It is all prayer. We pray for God's presence and activity among us in all of the moments of our existence; we call upon God's power to transform us when our own resources fail us.

As I walked into the cathedral to say Mass yesterday, I thought carefully about how the Church could be useful to the grieving. "OK," I thought, "let's own the grief and anger and pain and fear. That's where people are. The Burial Rite from the Prayer Book. Black vestments. The readings appointed for the Feast of the Holy Innocents." So, we did what the Church does in these moments: we prayed--hard. Praying isn't a passive act. Praying activates us to bear the Gospel into the world, to respond to the rhetoric of violence and death, of hate and despair with Jesus' message of love and healing and new life. Praying, both publicly and privately, is the act of drowning out the messages that destroy with the Good News that builds up. That's one reason we pray without ceasing. We keep preaching the Gospel over and over again, because the world desperately needs to hear it. The Evil One is a liar, don't you dare believe him.

Rachel's lament over her children.

Perhaps some of us pray the familiar words so often that we forget what we're calling upon. In morning prayer, for example, the collects reach out to God for peace and protection: "O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom: Defend us your humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we surely trusting in your defense, many not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." In the aftermath of a tragedy like Orlando, these words take on renewed meaning and power. They are relevant; they matter. Engaging the biblical stories of Rachel weeping for her children--the tribes of Israel that were gathered for deportation to exile in Babylon--and the slaughter of the Holy Innocents by King Herod enfold our current tragedies within the larger story of God's action and salvation. There is kinship between then and now, between Ramah and Orlando, between the babies martyred by Herod, and those martyred by Omar Mateen. But these stories are also linked to the assurance in the Revelation to John that "death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away." God urges us to respond to tragedy by working to bring this New Jerusalem into being with our hands, and our feet, and our lips in prayer.

Jesus gathering the Holy Innocents to himself.

We were a small congregation in the cathedral chapel, but the sincerity of the prayer was palpable. There was no doubt in my mind or my heart that we were doing something meaningful and healing. After the requiem was over and the chapel emptied, two men entered to sit quietly and pray. One shared that he was having a lot of trouble with his grief over the Orlando shooting, and the other that he was angry and discouraged over a recent disappointment in his life. I laid hands on both and prayed with them, and I suggested to one that he read psalm 35--a source of great comfort to me when I felt I was being badly treated. The look of profound gratitude and comfort on both of their faces was very moving, and I was reminded that praying is the action the Church does best. Prayer is the center from which we become agents of God's healing, whether in activism, interfaith collaboration, liturgy, or the pastoral care of each other. May the Church never lose sight of its power to offer the suffering the gift of new life.

Abundant blessings,
Fr. Ethan+

The Grace of Faith and Family

This past week, I received a very special gift in the mail. My maternal grandmother passed away last year, and so my mother and my aunt have been cleaning out her house before putting it on the market. They had been digging through endless boxes of old receipts and tax returns, news clippings, and mementos for weeks. When I opened the mailing envelope, I found a very old Book of Common Prayer, an 1892 edition. My grandmother wasn't an Episcopalian, so I knew it wasn't hers. It turned out to belong to my great-great-grandmother, Grace Ella Jewett. Her name is embossed in faded gold lettering on the lower right corner of the soft leather cover. I don't know if the book's fragile condition is simply a result of its age or a lifetime of devoted use.

Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, Allegan, MI

The Jewett side of my family came to America in 1638, and settled in Rowley, Massachusetts. They were definitely not members of the established Church of England. My family were Dissenters, that is Puritans, and included several ordained ministers suitably named after Old Testament prophets. When my great-great-great grandparents moved west to Michigan in the middle of the 19th century, they were among the founders of the local Episcopal Church, the Church of the Good Shepherd in Allegan, MI. My grandmother revered my great-great-great grandmother, Constance Ashley Bingham Jewett, and when she died, requested that she buried from the church that her ancestor had founded. It was a privilege to preside from the altar to which great-great-great grandma Constance must have looked as I buried her descendant, using the Rite 1 service that must have been familiar both to her and her daughter, Grace, whose Prayer Book I now have in my hand.

The Jewett women, including my grandmother, Helen, 
and her grandmother, Grace, both seated.

There is something very grounding in the artifacts of those who have come before us. They remind us that they and we are linked in a heritage of common worship and spirituality that invites us into a mystery greater than ourselves and our own experiences. In addition to Grace's Prayer Book, I also own an ivory rosary owned by my late paternal grandmother, which is sadly missing its crucifix. I still use it on occasion, just as I opened the 1892 BCP this week to read Evening Prayer, like my great-great-grandmother must have done. As I flipped through the book, it fell open to the page that contained "The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth." This place was bookmarked by a page torn out of a King James Bible, the second chapter of the Book of Proverbs, which begins, "my son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee; So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding [,,,] Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God." In the moment, it feels as if I am being offered a word of life from the distance of four generations, perhaps that I might be nourished with a verse that might have consoled or challenged a family member I never met. We never know how the Spirit will speak to us or through us. In response, I can do no better than to read the prayer that my great-great grandmother Grace saw fit to mark for herself:

"O Almighty God, we give thee humble thanks for that thou hast been graciously pleased to preserve, through the great pain and peril of childbearing, this woman, they servant, who desireth now to offer her praises and thanksgivings unto thee. Grant, we beseech thee, most merciful Father, that she, through thy help, may both faithfully live and walk according to thy will in this life present, and also may be partaker of everlasting glory in the life to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

Many thanks, dear God, for preserving this legacy of Grace, that I too might be preserved and put to your service.

This is the Lord's Doing

"This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes." Psalm 118:23

As many of you know, I say the 12:10 Mass every Monday in St. Andrew's Chapel at St. James Cathedral in downtown Chicago. I always begin by welcoming everyone grandly to the Cathedral Church of St. James in the City and Diocese of Chicago. The space is small, but that doesn't mean the welcome should be! The cathedral is just a couple blocks away from Michigan Avenue, the major tourist destination known as the Magnificent Mile. We often get visitors who are in town for sightseeing and business meetings, as well as folks from the neighborhood. It is a mixture of tourists wandering in from the street to see the building's architecture, homeless people looking for a refuge from the danger of the streets, and people searching for a quick lunchtime Mass. Attendance at Mass is never high, and usually ranges from 3 to 6, including me. But I'm glad the cathedral is there to offer sanctuary--in whatever form people are seeking it. For many, it may be their only experience of the Episcopal Church, so despite the modest attendance, the stakes are still high.

Most are not Episcopalians, which has taught me to be more mindful of leading worshipers through the service. The team that revised the Book of Common Prayer did not assume a largely uninitiated crowd when the rubrics and stage directions were crafted, and so I've had to make up my own, lest a deafening silence greet me at the places specified for the people to respond. At the Dean's encouragement, I always preach a short homily on the feast or readings of the day. For the most part, I preach extemporaneously, because I think it's good practice for a priest to offer a word of life without rehearsing.  After all, many of the pastoral situations in which we find ourselves require us to offer something useful on the spot--theology, a prayer, a verse of Scripture, an anecdote. Preaching off the cuff is not a skill that comes naturally to me, so I value the opportunity to practice. I am getting better. There are some days when I think, "now, what the heck was that about, Ethan?" This week's homily was pretty darn good, last week's less good.

AND YET ... we must never discount the role of the Holy Spirit in liturgy. This week, I was approached by a woman who had been at Mass the previous Monday, the day after the Feast of Pentecost. She told me how much my sermon that week had helped her. I had preached on the verse from Psalm 118, "This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes," and my words had resonated in light of her experience as a person living with a chronic disease. I don't know exactly what I had said, but I do remember preaching that it is hard for us to trust that God is acting and shaping us in moments of adversity. I also recall being underwhelmed by my performance at the time. So, I was grateful that the Holy Spirit had been present with us that day, compensating for any of my self-perceived deficiencies and making the Word something living and nourishing for her. After she had shared this with me, we prayed together for her healing, and I was reminded that none of us ever knows how the Holy Spirit will use us.

Alleluia, the Spirit of the Lord filleth the world: O come, let us adore him. Alleluia.

Abundant blessings,
Fr. Ethan+