I missed doing my Christmas Day Sermon yesterday.  Not because someone else preached, but because we decided, on the night before Christmas Eve, to cancel the Christmas Day service because of the weather.  I was willing to be labeled “that wimpy southern girl” in order to stop anyone from driving in what, at the time, was been predicted to be the storm of the decade.  So, after consulting with some others, we sent the word out that the Christmas Day service was canceled.  It hurt.  But, safety comes first. 

So the three Christmas Eve services were wonderful; 4:30pm a packed house full of all kinds of people – it was the Christmas pageant and crying babies singing children and an angel with high heels and a Joseph who rolled his eyes in embarrassment. (I figure Joseph probably rolled his eyes sometimes in real life). Then, our new service at 8:00pm – better attended than I expected (because the weather was getting worse by the minute); the choir was wonderful, the church beautiful with greens and poinsettias, again, so many different kinds of people, there for so many reasons – looking for comfort, peace, community, some answer to the myriad problems of life, or simply to enter into the mystery of the incarnation.  Then, a group of choir members stayed to lead the music for the 11pm service – Erika brought food, some wine was opened, and we visited and laughed and kept each other awake till the next time we sang “Joy to the World”.  The snow was coming down heavily, few cars were on the road, but 30 people made it to the 11pm service.  I knew four of them, which tells me that the people who made it to the 11pm service needed to be there.

Thanks to our sexton and my friend, Hunter Olson, who made sure I made safely to Summit Avenue at just after midnight and on my way west.

Then, on Christmas Day, a strange event.  No church.  It was strange, and despite the opportunity to sleep in and open presents still in my bathrobe and slippers, to drink coffee and not get dressed till noon (something I haven’t done for 10 years), it was strange.  Despite the great communication work of everyone who helped with the phone and website, and a few phone calls I made, I spent a good bit of time worrying yesterday morning that someone who really needed to be at church at 10:30am would trudge through the snow and ice and find a locked door.  And there was snow and ice, and eventually rain, for it warmed up to 37 degrees and turned out, of course, NOT to be the storm of the decade.  Of course.

And then I realized that it was ok.  This is not about us, or me.  It is about God.  God’s love and the mystery of God breaking into the world to be in the midst of our lives and our prayers and our joys and our sorrows.  It is about the promise of God to be with us in everything and in all of our journeys.  It is about God.  Yes, it is hugely important to gather in community, as the church, to feast at the banquet of the Eucharistic table, to confess and know that we are forgiven, to be comforted and uplifted by the beauty of the music of the season and the beauty of the Christmas decorations. But the thing that is the most important is that we remember and mark the miracle of the birth of Christ, somehow, someway, and it can be done in our own way. 

Christmas lasts for 12 days, so I will find a way to preach my Christmas sermon.  Not tomorrow, for our seminarian, Jim, is preaching tomorrow (In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.)  But next week, it will still be Christmas.  God’s love is still being poured into the world.  Jesus is born.

I have just returned from spending five days on the road with the five candidates for the 9^th Bishop of Minnesota.  30 or so folks, including candidates, spouses and partners, and some children, shepherds for the candidates from both the Transition Team and the Search Committee, a few extra folks from the Search Committee, and our bus driver, Dean, drove around and across the state of Minnesota, beginning on Monday and ending on Saturday, so that the candidates could see the diocese, hear the stories, and present themselves to various groups around the diocese by answering questions that had been posted on the Search blog – 111 to be exact. 

It was an amazing, exhausting, life changing week.  I had to leave the bus on Friday morning to drive back to St. Paul to get ready for our Pledge kickoff event this past Friday evening.  I was beyond tired, driving from White Earth Reservation to St Paul, a five hour drive.  I can only begin to imagine how our candidates must have been feeling; processing almost a week of intense information, meeting people from all over, getting up before dawn and going to bed very late, eating too much great food and then having to gather up every energy to be on their best behavior, present themselves to a group of strangers, answer hard questions, and do it all in a time frame of:  five minutes to tell us about yourself, two minutes to answer a question, two minutes to give a conclusion, all while being filmed and webcast and recorded.  More about the candidates later.

Speaking for myself, I am so glad that I signed on to be a part of this event, even though it was almost more than I could chew on.  I am the shepard to Douglas Sparks.  Early on in the week we decided that we would be “handlers” and not “shepherds”.  Sounds better.  Anyway, this was an intense, rich, information-overload week about the Diocese of Minnesota. I learned more in five days than I have learned in three years!  Every group and congregation that we visited welcomed us with open arms, warm hospitality and in most cases, lots of food!  Our stomachs were trained to expect food every three hours or so, creating a real need to find the fitness clubs on every overnight stop we made.

As I continue to process the week, I am clear that for me the most significant part of the week were the days we spent on Native American Reservations – a part of a day in the Lower Sioux Reservation, and an entire day and two nights on the White Earth Reservation.  I knew who Bishop Whipple and Enmegabow were, but truthfully these men became, over the week, two more riders on our bus.  The Diocese of Minnesota is inextricably tied up with ministry to and with our Native brothers and sisters.  That’s the way we started and that’s the way we still are.  There is currently some budgetary unrest on the Diocesan level about funding our native ministries. I can say that I have returned after this week a completely converted person.  The Diocese of Minnesota will simply not survive without the continued ministry on the Native American Reservations, and without the other ways we minister to one another.

I would like to arrange a two or three week Adult Forum on this subject in the late winter/early fall, as we in our state and diocese are moving towards the 150^th anniversary of the “Dakota conflict”, as it is called, a tragedy that included the hanging of 38 Dakota Sioux in Mankato.  This travesty of justice still rankles in the Native American community, especially as it is usually told only from the view of white people. Yes, settlers died. But, this was after years of land stealing, wife raping, children kidnapping on the part of the white settlers and administrators, against the Indians that were living here.  Bishop Whipple earned the endless trust of the Native Americans when he appealed to Abraham Lincoln to pardon the Indians who had been arrested after the uprising.  Lincoln pardoned all but 38, and those 38 were hanged.  Their descendents still live on the reservations, and the sorrow is very much alive.  One of our Dept. of Indian Works priests, John Robertson, uses that analogy of Al-Khaida for the Indians 150 years ago and has said that Bishop Whipple defending the Indians then would be like a Bishop standing up to defend the actions of Al-Khaida today.  That is a great analogy for now, and for the future, as we consider as a diocese how to get ready for 2012.

I am glad to be home, and know that the candidates must be glad, too.  I am looking forward to the election on October 31, and have high hopes and lots of optimism for the next Bishop of Minnesota.

It has been cloudy and chilly with off and on rain and snow in St. Paul for a week now.  Not so unusual for winter, but unusual for early October and so it’s been a week of growls and grrs for many that I know.  What happened to the glory of the October Blue Skies and crunch of dry leaves, the brilliant red of the maples and yellow of the gingko?  The gingkoes in my neighborhood shed their leaves early, all still green.  You probably know about the gingko trees; they turn brilliantly yellow, and after every other tree has long since lost their leaves, the gingko waits for the absolutely right time, and then…all at once, at one time, the leaves fall in a shower of gold, carpeting the earth underneath.  Well, not this year and I mourn that.

But then this morning on the local NPR station I was introduced to an author I had not met before; Diane Ackerman.  Her newest book is “Dawn Light: Dancing with Cranes.”  I can’t wait to read that book and her others.  “Dawn Light” sounds to be a series of meditations about the dawn.  Diane’s own meditations plus others’ - peppered with rituals found in nature and around the world.  In this morning’s interview she talked about how vulnerable creation is at the dawn, both humans and animals, and even bees.  She described watching a bee wake up – if bees don’t make it back to their hives before it gets cold then they have to find a place to rest for the night. 

Hearing Diane speak and anticipating reading her book I was reminded that every single day is a complete gift from God.  To sit and watch the dawn; to watch a bee wake up or watch the creep of light in the sky even when all we can see are clouds.  To be able to wake to a new dawn and have the freedom to step outside, breathe in new air, pay attention to the sounds and smells and sights.  To be able to understand that we are as vulnerable as a bee, or as a crane, or as anyone of the creatures with which we share this earth.  Well, this is a gift.  Each day is the only day we have.  Each day presents us with challenges and surprises, opportunities to be a hero or a villain, moments of fear and of joy.  But with the dawn comes a new time.  Every time.  How can we make the most of it?

I’ve just returned from a quick trip to Sewanee, Tennessee.  Sewanee is the location of The University of the South – a college and seminary owned by the southeastern Dioceses of the Episcopal Church.  The Bishops of those dioceses are called “the owning bishops.”  I spent two years in college at Sewanee, and then returned for my MDiv degree in 1996.

The occasion of this trip was the tenth reunion of my seminary class, deemed T’99.  (School of Theology, 1999.)  I debated and debated going to the reunion; it was a very expensive trip for a 48 hour stay – there is no flight to Sewanee unless you happen to own or fly or have a friend who flies a small private airplane.  Also, I had long planned a “real” vacation to Lake Huron starting next Saturday night, to stay for a week.  Giving up a vacation Sunday for a two day trip is hard – those vacation Sundays are precious.  But a good friend said, “It wouldn’t be a reunion without you”, and so my ego took over, the plane ticket to Atlanta was purchased, and off I went.

And how glad I am that I did go.  This group of people – this class of ’99, is a very special mix of friends – seminarians and their spouses – who came together for three years, ten years ago, to do a particular, peculiar thing; to follow an indistinct, often unclear, frustrating and scary, yet overwhelmingly compelling sense of call from God to follow a path towards ordination – some to the priesthood; some to the diaconate; some to just become a better Christian.

We all had sensed that we were an especially blessed group – not every seminary class bonds and likes each other the way we did.  But when many of us met last Friday night at a barbecue, it was as if we had only seen each other the day before.  The whole weekend was like that – a remarkable coming together of friends, people who will from this day forward continue to love and support one another through the ups and downs of life.  It was a joyful reunion – to see the growing children, the new children, the children who have grown up and married; it was a sad reunion – two class members have lost beloved wives to death at far, far too early an age; children have lost mothers.  It was an amazing reunion – some children have gotten married; one or two of us are now grandmothers or grandfathers.

We swapped stories of parishes – some wonderful and healthy (ah hem, St. Clement’s), and some not so wonderful.  Some of us had moved around a lot, some had stayed put in a first church setting; one had left parish work.  We ate and drank and hiked and talked and caught up and toasted and laughed and cried.  But more than anything else, we loved one another. We told each other what good priests we were, and we recognized that in fact, God had allowed us to find the thing that God had intended for us to do. We blessed one another and were blessed by one another.

Friends – fellow travelers – how precious this is.  What a gift from God.

I’m not so great in keeping up with people who I know but see no longer.  It is a failing in me.  I will try to do better.  I remember how life giving friends can be.

p.s. If you are in the Sewanee neighborhood – that is off of I24 between Chattanooga and Nashville, at the top of Monteagle – take the exit and head to the campus.  You will be glad you did.