Blog : Give Me Grace

Give Me Grace: In A Dark Wood

Posted on October 23, 2016October 23, 2016 by lisha epperson

At one point midway on our path in life, I came around and found myself now searching through a dark wood, the right way blurred and lost. How hard it is to say what that wood was, a wilderness, savage, brute, harsh and wild. Only to think of it renews my fear! So bitter, that thought, that death is hardly more so. But since my theme will be the good I found there, I mean to speak of other things I saw. – Dante Alighieri

I’ve never read Dante. Embarrassed to admit my complete ignorance on this classic work, I nodded and smiled at all the right moments at a seminar hosted by Dante expert Peter S. Hawkins last week. When he recited, slowly, the passage above, I knew I hadn’t read it for a reason. I couldn’t have read this text any sooner than now. Fifty cycles around the sun and I’m sure. I’m ready. The dark wood doesn’t frighten me.

A dark wood. The direct way – lost. How did I get here? As many assurances as midlife has offered – the many good things – it’s also left me in a dark, impenetrable wood – one I’ve come to accept as a biblical wilderness. A place of questions and doubts, of baptism and fire – a journey through life to salvation.

But what of the ‘other things?’

The other things are real and holy hard. If you’re of a certain age we’d give each other the nod of midlife solidarity, knowing well the difficulty of this phase of the journey.

It’s as it should be. For me, anyway. Midlife is the perfect time to dig into a story of crisis, to reconsider paths taken or denied, to remember how easily it is to stray and how difficult the road to redemption can be. Dante does it at 35, the half way marker of the biblical promise of 70 years in Psalm 90. Being a little older gives me an advantage. Although I recognize the dark wood I also know God is there too. The spirit of God is never far from the dark wood.

In the Divine Comedy, Dante writes out the struggle of his hearts redemption. Between the of feeling of exile in seminary and the looming cloud of political catastrophe, I identify with Dante in ways I never imagined. I’m writing mine too.

Do you have a favorite translation? In purchasing this one, by Robin Kirkpatrick, I supported a small local bookstore , but I hear Dorothy L. Sayers offers an option I might appreciate.

Tell me about your favorite translation or experiences with this work in the comments.

I won’t have time to finish this any time soon but I did paint my thumbnail for the picture.

Let your handmaiden find grace in your sight … #GiveMeGrace

♥

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Give Me Grace: The Cup of Reconciliation

Posted on October 15, 2016October 16, 2016 by lisha epperson

”You are about to be ordained into a church that thrives on its English and colonial past,” he said, ”a church which historically has sought to make its black congregations and churches invisible either by not admitting them to the councils or by trying to model them on the basis of English piety and English preaching.” – Dr. Hood, Prof. General Theological Seminary

Ouch. Recited at the ordination ceremony of Reverend Sandra Wilson in 1982, it’s a hard word to read, a hard word to remember.

As a second year seminarian part of my work load includes field education, a part-time job at a church or organization connected to the work I hope to do in the future. I’m following a God calling to serve in the Episcopal church – but I’ll be honest, I’m scared. Although the church now actively supports and fosters the growth of black congregations, and through recruitment, training, and development programs encourages black postulants and candidates to seek vocations in lay and ordained ministries”, that statement is still true.

Jesus, help me not get stuck here. Help me drink from the cup of reconciliation.

Sandwiched between two very different neighborhoods my field education site is a posh Episcopal Church on Manhattans East Side. A 10 block walk north takes you to East Harlem – half a mile, but a world away. Here economic disparity manifests itself as wounds that won’t heal. It looks like broken families, a host of preventable diseases and poorly performing schools. It looks like food and housing insecurity. And yet, East Harlem is where I call home.

My field education site is a white space. A justice-seeking, reconciliation hungry space, but still … a privileged white space. Not just predominately, overwhelmingly. How do I make peace with my placement? My calling? How do I silence the voice that asks – “what are YOU, doing here?” This is about race and culture and class and I see myself at the center of a handful of difficult conversations. I am the family churches like this seeks to help with grab and go meals, my children would be the recipients of backpacks purchased for “disadvantaged” youth. We are the family wondering over the stability of programs that promise to keep our apartment from making the leap to market rate. My presence asks that I dance around those boundaries, that I step outside of the margins I live within – to be the other in this space.

And otherness is everywhere. It’s at the forefront of our national consciousness. It’s the hot topic of our political discourse and the thing many churches won’t touch. It greets me at the door when I walk into the church I’ll serve 15 hours a week for the rest of the year. The 15-minute walk from my apartment to the church is a moving meditation on dichotomy. The stark contrast between uptown and downtown is hard to face, the walk from handicap to privilege, a bitter pill to swallow. I’ve always lived in two worlds but I’ll never get used to it.

Ballet and a love of the arts kept me in, yet out of the ‘hood – that and a set of parents who both loved and disciplined well. Where we lived was one thing, what we did and where we went was another. Where you lived and how much money your parents made was a private matter. The takeaway for me … Make your way to the arena by doing the work. Period.

So here I am more than 30 years later and I’m still doing the work of living in liminal spaces – playing with the big dogs, in the big park – hoping no one notices, or at least we won’t have to talk about the line I have to cross to get home. It’s exhausting.

We’re talking about the hospitality of reconciliation at Grace Table. Join us.

Let your handmaiden find grace in your sight … #GiveMeGrace

♥

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Give Me Grace: When I Set Her Voice on Fire

Posted on October 9, 2016October 9, 2016 by lisha epperson

It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. – Frederick Douglass

I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live. – Psalms 116:1-2 NIV

“Even to me the issue of “stay small, sweet, quiet, and modest” sounds like an outdated problem, but the truth is that women still run into those demands whenever we find and use our voices.” – Brene’ Brown

Mine was a quiet word, highlighting a woman who goes unnamed in the text. A woman who was given no voice. I preached on the significance of words and a woman who was given none. In the gap I heard her speak. I witnessed her conversion. I witnessed her evangelism. I heard the pillow talk she shared with her husband. If no one else did or does … I experienced – her fire. In the absence of any text about her, I pray I was successful in lifting the voice of Namaan’s wife.

I almost missed her. Hidden behind the words of a young girl, a girl given the first words of the text – a prophetic speech no less. There she was. But I almost missed her. “There is a prophet. You can be healed,” the young girl declared. Like I said, I almost missed my silent heroine. When I noticed her, I couldn’t look away. My hope was to set fire to her words, to set her voice free. By daring to stand in front of my class mates and professors with a quiet word about a wife – I set fire to my own.

I don’t think we can really be free with our voices unless we’re willing to go down in a blaze of god glory with our words. It’s the kind of truth that sets us free, but only if we’re willing to let it all go up in flames. Claim them, write them, then set them aflame … And then do it again.

I think I’m learning to believe in my self enough to try it again.

Here’s an excerpt … but first the text

2.”Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. 3. She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” 4. So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said.”

Did you hear her? Do you see her sitting in the gap between verses 3 and 4?

Namaan’s wife is charged with establishing the credibility of the young girl. Beyond that, her words are the first seeds planted in his conversion experience. Charged with telling him about a prophet, (a prophet of Israel who professed faith in the God who claimed to be above all other Gods), Namaan’s wife is charged with evangelizing her husband.
I believe it is her validation of the young girls’ voice that brings about the next step on Namaan’s journey. When she tells him about the hope of healing with the prophet, Namaan takes a giant leap towards healing – he begins to believe.

Following the trail of the Holy Spirit I hear a question posed by the life of the unnamed women in the text. They ask … Whose ear do you have and what will you say? I hope to share the importance of stewarding well the gift of our words. I hope to share it with a room full of women one day.

Let your handmaiden find grace in your sight … #GiveMeGrace

♥

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Give Me Grace: Little Things

Posted on October 2, 2016October 2, 2016 by lisha epperson

I am only a very little soul: bringing little things to you, O Lord.- from the Book of Common Prayer

The older I get, the more I’m conscious of ways very small things can make a change in the world. Tiny little things, but the world is made up of tiny matters, isn’t it? – Sandra Cisneros

“I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.”
Mother Teresa

It’s quiet here today … that sermon that I told you about will be preached on Tuesday. I’ve rewritten it at least 5 times and slowly sinking my teeth into the message I will preach that day. I’m asking God to make it my own. I’ll read a prayer by Barbara Taylor Brown and dance in the Blessing of the Animals service at James Chapel that day.

I’m giving thanks for the little things that helped me find a rhythm when I felt crazy this week – like : apple picking with 23 1st graders and eating spicy shrimp sushi after a long day of classes.

I’m super busy but getting the work done – will be back next week.

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Here’s a little beautiful truth and inspiration for my writing/speaking friends … from Audre Lorde

Next time, ask: What’s the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it’s personal. And the world won’t end.

And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don’t miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” And at last you’ll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.”

Let your handmaiden find grace in your sight … #GiveMeGrace

♥

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