Love Sustained in Beauty

Like most people, I have always been attracted to beauty. I even astonished myself and my spiritual director once years ago by announcing the audacious discovery that I realized I was called to encounter beauty. I suppose I should try to explain that I experience the unitive—the presence of The Holy—in encounters with beauty. Of course, it was not the experience that was a spiritual discovery but rather the comprehension that I have the same manifest physical symptoms of ontological union when I am in the presence of The Holy that I have when I am lifted out of myself by music, or nature, or dare I say it, the sight of those who are by and for me beloved.

I often have written about how it is that we always are in the presence of God but only aware of it occasionally. We tend to perceive that God comes and goes, but it is the other way around. God always is with us. It is we who allow our openness to holiness to wax and wane as it suits our mood or our busy-ness. To be always in the presence of holiness is not only possible, it is the intended reality of God’s creation. It is only our distractedness that gets in the way.

Thus, it is important to celebrate the importance of beauty—however one might wish to define it—in the comprehension of the depth and breadth and presence of love. Love is always ours, if only we can stretch beyond our sense of self to grasp it. And when we can grasp love, then we achieve the grace God intends for all of creation.

Our religious practices, the ways in which we live out our faith, are expressions of joy in the inculcation of love in our souls. We rely on religion the way we rely on hardware stores and pharmacies—they all give us tools we need at specific moments, they all have lots of tools, they all let us choose the tools that will work for us in the moment. Because even with love, the tools are important.

Scripture this week takes us into the forecourts of the metaphor of the beloved with text from the Song of Solomon (2:8-13), that paean to love and its triumph that resides in the Old Testament as the culmination of wisdom. The response is from Psalm 45 (2). Both express the overwhelming passion of the joy of love. Both remind us that the intensity of the love we experience is an exact pathway to the presence of holiness. Love creates passion, which creates more love, which creates more passion. We are called—indeed created—to love God in the way in which we love passionately. This is why I keep writing that LGBTQ people are innately created by God to build up the love in creation, because we are created specifically for the purpose of creating love, our very identity comes from the ways in which we are capable of loving.

We who are defined by our love, we whose families are not biological of necessity but rather, are logical of love, it is we who are the leaders in creation at building up love. This is our responsibility as LGBTQ heirs of creation to keep building up love.

James (1:17-27) reminds us to “be doers of the word.” Love comes from God because love is God as God is love. Giving is the expression of love. Love is action. Giving love brings more love. The proof is in the source of our love, which is God, which is our universality, which is made up of love and loving. And it is only action that sustains and maintains love. Imagine that–sustainable love!

Paul writes of spirit and flesh; Jesus in Mark’s Gospel (7:1-23) speaks of God and human—it is the same dichotomy. We are called to love, to give love, to perceive and sustain the love that comes from within. But the absence of love also can come from within, when we hold too firmly to the walls that protect us from each other, that prevent us from love. This is our solitary confinement, isolation within our own walls of protection. It is a human mechanism necessary for survival but yet it must be overcome to attain holiness, indeed even to allow love. We must learn to tear down the interior walls that prevent us from loving.

That brings us full circle to beauty. Creation, indeed all of life, is filled with beauty, placed there for our pleasure. Yes, pleasure—it is to give us pleasure. But more, it is to remind us that in those instances of pleasure, indeed of passion, we are at the peak of loving, which is where we are called to be. Here is the point of sustainable love.

Proper 17 Year B 2021 RCL (Song of Solomon 2:8-13; Psalm 45:1-2, 7-10 Eructavit cor meum; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23)

©2021 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

The Armor of Love

It was pretty cool all week. It even rained Friday night, a lovely surprise awaiting me when I awoke to puddles in the garden. My final (I promise!) raised bed arrived and got constructed and is waiting in the garden for plants to bless it (ordered online of course). We had typical Oregon weather the other evening for our first post-(okay still mid-)pandemic dinner party in the patio; it was delightfully warm all afternoon and through the first couple of courses, then as we got close to dessert the moon rose over the fir trees and the temperature dropped enough to justify using the fire pit. It was amazingly wonderful to spend time with friends again.

After dinner we cleaned up outside and gave our friends a tour of our house. We have lived here a little over two years now. It suits us well, and it has been a blessing during the pandemic for the way it has allowed us to live and walk and work in lock-down. It contains us and our lives pretty well.Solomon prayed (1 Kings 8:27) on the occasion of the consecration of the ark of the covenant in the new temple “Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built.”

Solomon prayed (1 Kings 8:27) on the occasion of the consecration of the ark of the covenant in the new temple “Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built.”

The psalmist sang (84:1) “How dear to me is your dwelling, O Lord of hosts! My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord.“

We are reminded that we human creatures have a propensity for capturing things. We want to make sure they last. We want to be certain we have them just where we want them and just when we need them. And of course, we try our best to do the same thing with God. We set aside time to be sure God is in our homes and in our lives and then we declare God in God’s place while we forge ahead on our own. We forget that God who is love cannot be captured. Love is spirit, love is action, love is unceasing, love is eternal—love cannot be captured it must be lived.

Ephesians (6:10) tells us to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God,” which is love.

We forget that love is more than warm feelings, it is the very force of life that not only sustains us, but also protects us. It is the force that keeps creation always in forward motion.

Jesus said (John 6:63) “It is the spirit that gives life.”

He meant that to embrace God is to be filled with love, to be ever loving, to be forever giving and receiving love. Peter answered him (6:68) “you have the words of eternal life” because it is the Spirit, which is love, that gives life.

And it is love that defines us as LGBTQ heirs of the kingdom of love. It is the love we share when we build homes for our logical families that is the whole armor of God. It is the love we model for all of creation through the ways we create sustenance for our own communities that is the life-giving gift of the Spirit.

We must wear that armor with LGBTQ pride in the loving people we are. We must eternally demonstrate the triumph of the active unceasing love we share.

Proper 16 Year B 2021 RCL (1 Kings 8:[1, 6, 10-11], 22-30, 41-43; Psalm 84 Quam dilecta!; Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:56-69)

©2021 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Grace, Wisdom, Love and Interesting Lives

I am now officially, constantly, in search of boredom. I am weary of having an interesting life and would happily spend an entire week with nothing to do except the things I want to do. In last spring I acquired a small raised garden bed in which I planted tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers and way too much zucchini. I enjoy spending time out there each day, squeezing the tomatoes and puzzling over the odd way cucumbers fill out. So happy was I with that experiment that I then acquired a smaller raised garden bed with the intention of planting some full sun flowers—zinnias and peonies to be exact. And so excited with that was I that I then spent two months playing the online shopping “out of stock” game—you know, you click on it every morning and once or twice else during the day until miraculously one day it says “1 left in stock” and you order it! In this manner I finally acquired two more, and set about getting soil and mulch and plants to populate my growing flower garden. Are you enjoying this story? Good! So that was the plan for this week; put the beds together, fill them, plant and water and enjoy the new flowers right along with those strange cucumbers.

But then en route to drop my husband for an appointment a tire went flat. Since we were only down the block I drove home the better to be safe while we waited for the spare tire person to arrive magically (LOL). But, then, a loud explosion and (never mind how it happened) the rear windshield shattered. Oh fine, now we have to find the magical windshield repair person too. Just to make it all more interesting this was all happening while the local meteorology folks began scaring us with news about another heat wave “stay inside, don’t go outside, don’t do anything, hold your breath” they seemed to say. (In the end, the worst of it was 105° F (40.5° C.) Not to mention that before the heat wave, when it was still cold at night, the furnace decided to stop working. So we got to arrange a visit from the not so magical furnace repair person on top of all of the rest. Trust me, it was a very interesting week.

Grace finally has come I’m glad to report. The heat wave has passed, everything is repaired, we are sleeping well, all is calm for the moment (although I still need to tend to those raised beds). Of course, grace comes from grace, by which I mean, grace creates grace in the same manner that love builds up. A little bit of grace—such as finding myself outrageously thankful for the magical spare tire and windshield people and thanking them effusively—creates grace, and that returns as more grace. It is a constant challenge for me to remain in a state of grace, given my penchant for detail and control. One of God’s gifts to us, then, is the pathway to a life of grace, and it is our charge, if not also our destiny, to maintain it by receiving it thankfully.

Closely related to grace is wisdom—the ripening of knowledge over time. Wisdom comes from the merger of experience and maturity with regard to the receipt of grace, the knowledge that grace comes from love given and received in equal measure. Wisdom manifests the courage and confidence to trust in grace, not only to receive it with thanksgiving but to know when to trust. Wisdom is a kind of gracious power emanating from a loving heart with its “on button” set to “care.” Care, because of course, love is the beginning of wisdom. The love we are created to manifest is the love and loving we are called to share. It is by the action of loving that we change our own hearts into sources of grace, it is by the ongoing building up of love that we grow grace and love into wisdom.

Scripture reminds us that King Solomon’s wisdom was indeed a gift from God given in response to an outpouring of love and care (1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14). The Psalmist (Psalm 111: 10) sings that worship of God is the beginning of wisdom, reminding us that it is in loving one another that we most effectively worship God who has given us love. Ephesians (5:15-20) reminds us that wisdom comes from the action of being filled with the Spirit because to fill our hearts and souls with joy is to build up love. John’s Gospel (6:53-59) reminds us that it is the living bread of God’s love given in Christ that is the gateway to eternity. To live forever is to live in love, which is to live in loving.

Grace, wisdom, love—what do these say to us as LGBTQ siblings and heirs? Grace is the gift we are given in our creation as loving people created in God’s own loving image, grace is in the love we share in our logical families, grace is in the smiles and laughter and hugs of the communities of love we create. Wisdom is in the ways in which we understand that we are not created to satisfy heteronormative traditions, but rather we are created and indeed called to use our grace-given mature knowledge to build up love and logical families and loving communities. And, of course, love is the glue.

Grace, wisdom, love—these are pathways to unity with the God who creates us through unity with one another. We are called to move past the details of our interesting lives and to focus instead on those moments of thanksgiving from which true grace emerges.

Proper 15 Year B RCL 2021 (1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14; Psalm 111 Confitebor tibi; Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58)

©2021 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Intersecting Dimensions of Love

It is interesting to ponder the intersection between the dimensions of the natural world and those of the soul. Of course, the soul inheres in us and we exist in the natural world. But do we inhere in the natural world, or do we only reside alongside it? In the Pacific Northwest now we are enjoying a few days of relatively cool weather, but the rain that was forecast never appeared. The trees are still stressed. Although the air smells clean and moist, we see another heat wave is coming in a few days and we wonder when we can look forward to our trademark rain. Even in Oregon, there usually is some rain in summer. If the trees are stressed, if the air seems thin with heat, are we stressed as well? Yes, of course we are. So, does the longing for rain inhere in our souls or in our minds or in both? And, where is the intersection between the dimensions of the soul and those of the natural world?

Psalm 130 is a lament of the soul longing for forgiveness “Out of the depths have I called to you … hear my voice … I wait …, my soul waits …, more than watchmen for the morning.” My immediate reaction was that at the moment we in the Pacific Northwest are watchpeople waiting less for morning than for rain. But you could say “I wait for rain, my soul waits for rain, more than watchpersons wait for the morning.” Thus, here we find a parallel between the dimension of the natural world and the dimension of the world of the soul. The truth of the dimension of the soul is that the forgiveness the lament awaits already has been given, the redemption, the salvation of unity with God already has been given. It is eternal. It is not that we wait for it so much as that we struggle to align our way of being with the dimension where salvation already exists. As Jesus says in all of the Gospels, the kingdom has come near. The question is can we get on the frequency of that dimension, can we learn to see the truth of our own salvation?

The letter to the Ephesians is clearly not written by Saint Paul, but is thought to embody his Gospel, as set in writing by one of his disciples. The essence of Paul’s Gospel is that we are intertwined by love. Again, it is about intersecting dimensions. Can we live in the dimension where love unites us with creation? In this week’s portion (Ephesians 4:25-5:2) we are given the tools we need to hone in on the dimension of God’s love: do not let the sun go down on anger; put away all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander and malice; be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving. This is how to live in love. This is how to occupy the dimension of God’s love. This is how to occupy the dimension of the soul. This is how the dimension of the soul intersects the dimension of the natural world. Love creates, love builds up, love is the source of all power.

I relish life in the dimension of the natural world, where, when I remember to dwell on the frequency of the dimension of love my soul melds with the natural world. Where my skin reflects the moisture in the air that I see in the trees. Where the flowering shrubs respond as quickly to the motion of the sun and the gentle breeze as does my heart. I am eternally grateful that the trajectory of the dimension of God’s love brought me back to this life in nature. I am even soothed by the new ways in which I see my sibling LGBTQ heirs of creation finding new forms of community, new ways to let our love shine as a light to lead the way to the dimension of living in the love which is ours in creation.

I give thanks for the mornings when the watch of God’s creation brings gentle peace to my soul in the intersection of the many dimensions of creation. I rejoice in the intersection of the dimensions of love.

Proper 14 Year B 2021 RCL (2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33; Psalm 130 De profundis; Ephesians 4:25-5:2; John 6:35, 41-51)

©2021 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Grace, Mercy, Love

One thing a year and a half of pandemic has taught us over and over is how interconnected everything is. We don’t need to be as extreme as was Jurassic Park to see the interconnections all around us. For example, I can see that the lockdown increased my landscaper’s depression, which mucked up his business, which left me with weeds and leaves everywhere, which led to the takeover by wildlife of parts of my yard. That’s a mild example mind you. But at last things are approaching a new sort of equilibrium. I have a nicer garden and a recovering lawn and once again am able to enjoy the outdoor space, especially under the star-lit Oregon evening sky. There is grace in the beauty and harmony of creation. And there is mercy in the forgiveness of nature.

Maybe then, there is grace in the equilibrium of life as we regenerate it and mercy too—we are forgiven our early pandemic transgressions the better to let grace fill us with love. Mercy is the action of showing love in the face of pain or adversity. It is a particular form of love in which power differentials shift so that forgiveness replaces the friction caused by the absence of love with the possibility of new love. Love, indeed merciful love, creates more love, which in turn teaches better than any retribution.

The epistle to the Ephesians (4:1-16) reminds us that we must grow up—mature–into loving people (“we must no longer be children … we must grow up in every way”) because the whole body of creation demands mature love, lived out in “humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing one another in love,” bringing grace to all. For how many of us has the pandemic been a “growing up” experience, despite our chronology? For how many of us has the pandemic been a time of mercy and grace?

In John’s Gospel (6:24-35) we have the aftermath of the feeding of five thousand with loaves and fishes. The miracle is followed by Jesus’ attempts to withdraw, to rest and restore. Here there is mutuality in the mercy because Jesus needs the mercy of solitude at the same time that the crowds need the mercy of his explicit love. He preaches that “the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” Of course, he means that he has come to give life to the world. The life he has come to give is the explicit knowledge of the power of love. The message is layered in the examples of grace and mercy, in the metaphor of the “bread of God” which is love, which is the food that endures for eternity. It is in the demonstration of the building of love in the multiplying of the loaves and fishes that we see the true power of God’s love.

The continuing saga of David’s sin (2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a) reveals the truth that all sin against each other is, in essence, sin against God. In his repentance David appeals for mercy and hopes for grace. Psalm 51 reminds us that a clean heart is the result of the receipt of merciful love. It brings us full circle to the mutuality and interconnectedness of creation, to the layered interplay of grace and mercy as pathways to mature love.

Complex theology and scripture lead us to the inevitable conclusion that we are critical players in God’s creation. We are pivotal actors in God’s dominion of love. It is the love we show each other that has the power to heal and restore and regenerate the equilibrium that must now evolve if the pandemic is to be overcome. It is the mature love we must live out that has the power to generate grace through mercy.

It is especially our call as LGBTQ heirs of the dominion of love to play a leading role in this time. It is we, those people who are created in God’s image as people who are identified by our love, who must show all of creation the corners of mercy and the neighborhoods of grace that magnify the love we share. It is we who create logical families with love who can show “humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing one another in love.”

Proper 13 Year B 2021 RCL (2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a; Psalm 51:1-13; Ephesians 4:1-16; John 6:24-35)

©2021 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.