What is Old is New or What the hell?

Gasoline prices at Shell in Denver

Prices for the three grades of gasoline light up the pump at a Shell station Friday, May 25, 2020, in Memphis, Tennessee and over the United States

Marilyn, my beloved, just arrived home from her intermittent hunting and gathering safari, what used to be called “grocery shopping”.  She said, “What do you suppose gasoline cost just now?”  I shrugged,  no idea. “Sixty-eight cents a galleon!” I am 68 years old.  When I was 16, gasoline cost 15 – 20 cents per gallon.

In the year of the plague, we stand at threshold of a new world.  We can choose to embrace the ADVENTURE of life on this changing planet, making new economies such that the planet has no need to wipe out human  beings in order to survive in her orbit.

I vote for adventure, a new epoch of history that has clear skies over New Delhi. Fish swimming in the clear lagoons of Venice and the nations turn swords into hemostats that we may safely get off Mother Earth while we still are able. May Mother Earth recover and may the Kingdom of God come and increase.   To God be glory now and forever.

I live in hope in spite of the facts.

John Sewell

 

Going Through Home, Again.

Chapel of the Cross Madison MS

The Chapel of the Cross, Madison, Mississippi, 1848

Last Sunday afternoon,  I preached at the Chapel of the Cross, Madison, Mississippi.  It was almost seventeen years since last I stood in that ancient place, built by slaves of bricks made from the very ground on which it sits.  Fr. Ben Robertson, present Rector of the parish, was very kind to invite me “home” again.

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Indeed it was home to me from All Saints Day, 1989 until midnight of New Years Eve 2001.  It was a rich time.  I learned many things as the congregation grew from 125 or so to the mid-800s in a decade.  Of course in that time, I received more credit and blame than I deserved (is it not always so?).  When people remarked on the growth, I learned to reply, “I can’t make people come here, but I can keep them from staying,” (that too is always true).

Chapel_of_the_Cross_04

So many people I loved in Mannsdale have departed to greater life.  As I reverenced the altar the other night,  trough the clear glass of the altar windows the tombs of the dead were framed by magnolia leaves.  Some, I had said the words over their mortal remains, Chapel members having dug the grave as they continue to dig them even today. Sitting through the night with the dead is a rare privilege we can give each other.  Keeping the establishment open all night does not appear on the business plans of the funeral industry.

I struggled to find the right words. Finally,  I settled on a series of meditations from Easter Week 2016, ending with the last three paragraphs from my sermon on Easter Day 2015.  Please find it embedded below.

I suffered burnout in 2000 and 2001, culminated  by an eleven week stay at Menninger Hospital in Topeka, Kansas.  I recovered but realized late in 2001 that I could no longer sustain the kind of workload that required at least twelve her days on numerous days per week.  So,  I stepped down.  Later in Memphis,  I found that I had Type 2 Bi-polar disease and through the support of Marilyn, Doctors and my staff at Saint John’s,  I have come to a good place with that disease.  It is, by the way, the most under diagnosed disease of American adults.

“You can’t go home again,” as Thomas Wolf declares. You can, however, “go through home again,” as I have learned about the various “homes” of my life.  It was healing to go through The Holy Ground of the Chapel of the Cross last Sunday.  God bless you all who welcomed me home and saw me off back home to Memphis.  I love you all.

I live in hope, in spite of the facts.

John W. Sewell+

 

 

The Holy Birth Cannot be Induced.

reliquary cross

The divine birth cannot be forced. You can only create the conditions for this birth to take place. How do you know if the new soul is born in you? The famous mystic Meister Eckhart wrote about this: Now you turn your face entirely to this birth. Yes, you will encounter this birth in everything you see and hear, whatever it is. You are like someone who looks for quite a while at the sun, and afterwards sees the image of the sun in whatever he looks at. As long as you do not seek and perceive God in everything, this birth has not yet occurred in you.

 

 

The Feast of Saint Hubert

 

st-hubert

Saint Hubertus, Bishop of Liege, Patron of Hunters, Fishers, Hunting dogs,  Rabies victiums

 

October 23, 2016
Saint John’s Episcopal Church
Memphis Tennessee

Hubert was the self-absorbed heir of the Duchy of Aquitaine in the 600’s. He was obsessed with hunting and went every day. Hubert could not restrain himself even in Lent continuing the chase during the forty days of (expected) self-denial. He crossed the line when he chased an enormous stag on Good Friday. With his dogs in full cry he pursued the deer – only to have the animal stop and turn. In the stags antlers was a crucifix – and the animal spoke & said essentially, “HUBERT IF YOU DON’T GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER YOU ARE GOING TO HELL!”

This young man got more than he expected on that Good Friday hunt. He became a priest and then a bishop and followed Jesus as a hunter of souls all because the Holy One went hunting for Hubert’s soul on a Good Friday.

In the OT reading, Isaac and Rebecca had twin sons, Esau and Jacob:

Esau emerged first from the womb – 114. Redness thus suggests earthiness, capacity for reproduction and humanity. It is positive for a young man to be called ruddy. Ruddy and Hairy – Hairy is animal-like, thick, smelling of the fields.”[115] My Brother Esau is a Hairy Man

Esau was a hairy man’s man – a mighty hunter (if you will pardon me) a bubba – with gun-racks (or in this case bow-racks) on the side of his chariot.

Jacob was a momma’s boy – staying at home reading cook books, while there is nothing wrong with cooking and many of the great chefs are male, the little brother has not yet begun to move from the nurture of childhood into the journey toward man-hood. Esau and Jacob are the twin issues of men not leaving home and not growing up AND leavening home but not growing up either.

tissot_the_mess_of_pottage

Esau comes home down and very hungry from a hunt having bagged nothing. Jacob has cooked up a pot of red lentils which must have smelled better than I imagine, so he says he’s dying can he have some of the, literally, red-red stuff. Jacob says sure big brother, it’s yours if you will give me the birth-right making me the eldest of the two of us and the heir. So Bubba did it despising his birth-right.

Esau could read the signs in the field but he could not discern the signs in his own life, does not connect to the deepest issues of his heart. In this we, especially men, are the sons of Esau who sell our treasure without considering its value.

The twin’s grand-father, Abraham, was a great hunter. Although there is no mention of his hunting game – he stalked a greater prize – a country promised by God. Leaving everything hunting the place God promised. By faith he left home not knowing where he was going – and he went.

Faith is the evidence of things not seen – Abraham is the type of this for believers ever since – today the religions count him as their spiritual ancestor. Abraham is the grand-father of hunters and from him the lore and the art of spiritual hunting is our legacy and our inheritance.

What are we hunting when we go hunting and who is hunting us when we go hunting? Hunting is a metaphor for growing up and going on adventure – the goal being maturity and wholeness.

Jesus is God’s best and most complete attempt to come and hunt so that we and all who have ever lived and ever will live may be saved. After all, he said he came to seek and to save that which was lost. He of course tended to bring them back alive as he told the fishermen by the lake, “come and follow me and I will make you fishers of men;” of course he could just as easily told a party of hunters to follow him and he would make them hunters of men.

Hunting has a shadow:  The Shadow of Hunting, lies, however, in the fact that early in their evolution, humans, with their Hunting is embedded not only in the drive for survival and the killer instinct, but also in the lust for domination, the pleasure of blood sport and the desire for trophies.  Headhunt, bargain hunt, job hunt and house hunt, to detect disease and track down criminals, in search and destroy missions, gang wars, sexual predation, stalking and serial killing. The Book of Symbols: Reflections on Archetypal Images

The shadow is always present but also there the tradition of feeding families and doing it carefully, humanely and respectfully. Prayer and hunting have always go together because one dies on this planet to nourish the life of another. I have been taken to task about hunting by some who live by vegetables alone. My response, “Do you not realize that broccoli screams at being pulled up by the roots? Something always ends in order others to begin or continue.

In addition Hunting became a powerful metaphor in religion.
• This hunting metaphor becomes the metaphor of evangelism.
• While hunting and feeding on the animal becomes the language of sacrament, “behold the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world” AND Jesus’ admonition, “eat my body and drink my blood” has been practiced by Christians ever since. In matters of faith as in nutrition you are what you eat.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is passing through Jericho, the oldest continuous human settlement on the planet. Here the trade routes from Africa, Asia and Europe intersect. And wherever the trade goes the tax-collector follows.

Rome said, “Come and follow me and I will make your taxers of men.” Tax-collecting was a franchise with a stated amount required by the state, whatever else the tax-man could squeeze out of the traffic was his to keep; and trust me they could squeeze quite a lot – Zacchaeus was the head-taxer and therefore filthy rich.

Somehow, Zac knew that Jesus was coming. So he went out hunting that morning. He didn’t have too far to go from his home in the gated community, the bombing incident had been some years back but any scalawag worth salt knows you have to keep your eyes open. Parking, he walked down into the crowds. Apparently, this Jesus draws a crowd.

zacchaeus

James Tissott

 

He goes out to see Jesus and he is a little man so the crowd no doubt made sure he couldn’t see (the sort of petty revenge taken by the weak on the powerful). But Zac didn’t get where he was because of his dignity or passivity so he shinnied up a sycamore tree. As Jesus came along he looked up and realized that he has treed something important or this case someone.

Jesus said, “Zacchaeus, come on down, I’m inviting myself and a bunch of my closest friends to lunch.” The text doesn’t record the reaction of Mrs. Zacchaeus when her husband showed up with all those strangers. After lunch, Zacchaeus – I will give half of all I have to the poor and if I have defrauded anyone [of course he had], I will pay them four times as much.

hubert-bronze

Saint Hubertus – German Art Bronze

 

When you are hunted and treed by Jesus things change and they change for the better. In 1492 Columbus set sail to the west to find the orient only to run into the Americas, and in that case for the explorer, as the tax-collector in Jericho, what he found turned out to be better than what he was looking for. Saint Hubert heard the call of God and laid down his bow and took the hunt for souls, even as Jesus called the disciples. Let us seek God knowing that we find be found by Him and know that he sent his Son so that we might be Brought back alive – in fact more alive than we have ever been before – to have life and that life abundantly; may that be the ultimate concern of all hunting.

In the name of God… Amen

Feast of Saint Hubert


hubertus
Patron of Hunters & Dogs
October 26, 2014

Hubert (657 – 727 AD)  was the self-absorbed heir of the Duchy of Aquitaine in the 600’s. He was obsessed with hunting and went every day. Hubert could not restrain himself even in Lent continuing the chase during the forty days of self-denial. He crossed the line when he when he chased an enormous stag on Good Friday. With his dogs in full cry he pursued the deer – only to have the animal stop and turn. In the stags antlers was a crucifix – and the animal spoke said essentially, “Hubert if you don’t get your act together you are going to Hell!”

This young man got more than he expected on that Good Friday hunt. He became a priest and then a bishop and followed Jesus as a hunter of Men.

Jame Tissot  "And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright." (Genesis 25:30-31)

James Tissot
“And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.” (Genesis 25:30-31)

In the OT reading, Isaac and Rebecca had twin sons, Esau and Jacob:
Esau was a hairy man’s man – a mighty hunter – a Bubba – with gun-racks (or in this case bow-racks) on his chariot.

Jacob was a momma’s boy – staying at home reading cook books, while there is nothing wrong with cooking and many of the great chefs are male, the little brother has not yet begun to move from the nurture of childhood into the journey toward man-hood.

Esau and Jacob are the twin issues of men not leaving home and not growing up AND leaving home but not growing up either.

Esau comes home down and very hungry from a hunt having bagged nothing. Jacob has cooked up a pot of red lentils which must have smelled better than I imagine, so he says he’s dying can he have some of the, literally, red-red stuff. Jacob says sure big brother, it’s yours if you will give me the birth-right making me the eldest of the two of us and the heir. So Bubba did it despising his birth-right.

Esau could read the signs in the field but he could not discern the signs in his own life, does not connect to the deepest issues of his heart. In this we, especially men, are the sons of Esau who sell our treasure without considering its value.

The twin’s grand-father, Abraham, was a great hunter. Although there is no mention of his hunting game – he stalked a greater prize – a country promised by God and left everything behind to go and hunt the place that God promised. By faith he left home not knowing where he was going – and he went

Faith is the evidence of things not seen – Abraham is the type of this for believers ever since – today the religions count him as their spiritual ancestor. Abraham is the grand-father of hunters and from him the lore and the art of spiritual hunting is our legacy and our inheritance.

emblemWhat are we hunting when we go hunting and who is hunting us when we go hunting? Hunting is a metaphor for growing up and going on adventure – the goal being maturity and wholeness.

Jesus is God’s best and most complete attempt to come and hunt so that we and all who have ever lived and ever will live may be saved. After all, he said he came to seek and to save that which was lost. He of course tended to bring them back alive as he told the fishermen by the lake, “come and follow me and I will make you fishers of men;” of course he could just as easily told a party of hunters to follow him and he would make them hunters of men.

This hunting metaphor becomes the metaphor of evangelism. While hunting and feeding on the animal becomes the language of sacrament, “behold the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world” AND Jesus’ admonition, “eat my body and drink my blood” has been practiced by Christians ever since. In matters of faith as in nutrition you are what you eat.

Zacchaeus

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is passing through Jericho, the oldest continuous human settlement on the planet. Here the trade routes from Africa, Asia and Europe intersect. And wherever the trade goes the tax-collector follows.

Rome said, “Come and follow me and I will make your taxers of men.” Tax-collecting was a franchise with a stated amount required by the state, whatever else the tax-man could squeeze out of the traffic was his to keep; and trust me they could squeeze quite a lot – Zacchaeus was the head-taxer and therefore filthy rich.

He goes out to see Jesus and he is a little man so the crowd no doubt made sure he couldn’t see (the sort of petty revenge taken by the weak on the powerful). But Zac didn’t get where he was because of his dignity or passivity so he shinnied up a sycamore tree. As Jesus came along he looked up and realized that he has treed something or this case someone.

Jesus said, “Zacchaeus, come on down, I’m inviting myself and a bunch of my closest friends to lunch.” The text doesn’t record the reaction of Mrs. Zacchaeus when her husband showed up with all those strangers.

After lunch, Zacchaeus – I will give half of all I have to the poor and if I have defrauded anyone [of course he had], I will pay them four times as much. You see that when you are hunted and treed by Jesus things change, they change for the better and they they change in a hurry.

In 1492 Columbus set sail to the west to find the orient only to run into the Americas, and in that case for the explorer, as the tax-collector in Jericho, what he found turned out to be better than what he was looking for.

The Vision of Saint Hubert - Jan Brueghel - after Rubens

The Vision of Saint Hubert – Jan Brueghel – after Rubens

Saint Hubert heard the call of God and laid down his bow and took the hunt for souls, even as Jesus called the disciples. Let us seek God knowing that we find be found by Him and know that he sent his Son so that we might be…

…brought back alive – in fact more alive than we have ever been before – to have life and that life abundantly; may that be the ultimate concern of all hunting. In the name of God… Amen

PEGGY

peggy I gave Peggy’s money to the girl with orange hair. She held up a bucket with a sign “cure cancer.” “Are you sure?” She was shocked at the three bills; clearly, generosity exceeded her expectations. I didn’t compound her confusion by telling her the truth; the folded paper was intended for a dog and a man who live in the street. Peggy is a black Whippet. Salt and pepper sprinkle her elegant snout. Her Dad, Keith, told me they lost their shelter when the fellow they lived with died. While my discernment of homeless economics is primitive, I suspect that put them in the street was more complicated.

Neither he nor Peggy was malnourished, but autumn in York advanced toward All Hallows’ and Whippets have only fur veneer. She shivered, and he held her, arms wrapped around his best girl giving her more blanket than he could spare. I dropped a few pounds in his hand. “Get you and Peggy something to eat.”. I saw them last where Stonegate meets Saint Helen’s Square. Peggy, wearing a coat like a fashion model, was mighty sporty. “I got her a coat,” Keith grinned. He has a good smile, and only the missing upper front tooth reminds me life is hard. I set aside some pound notes for them.

stonegate

At twilight, Evensong sung, a solitary high C floated; releasing stacked overtones that whispered down the sound chamber of the Nave.

“Lighten our darkness,we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer – Collect for Protection)

I came out the South Transept down Stonegate searching. The Shops mostly closed, patrons gone, leave shop-keepers to turn the key and turn toward home. Medieval buildings, like eccentric neighbors, leaned out, beckoning across the cobbles, straining to learn the gossip of the day’s trade past. The people lying in the gate alone seem less so in anonymous dark than when ignored by the crowds. I stopped and inquired if they had seen a man and his dog. None had. Full Night fell, and I turned back.

Some would think it odd that a man in the street would have a mouth to feed not his own. They are ignorant. Remember poor ignored sore Lazarus? Was he not comforted in the gate by the dogs. A burden to some, an extravagance to most is all Keith has. He admitted as much when he stroked her elegant neck and whispered, “she’s eight almost an old lady.”

Determined to honor them, that last day I went round again looking but found no “Peg o’ My Heart“. Time ran out. I caught the train to the plane in Manchester. Reluctantly, I gave Peggy’s money to the girl with the orange hair.

October 2013
York, United Kingdom
JWS+

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The Rumors of Bad English Food are Greatly Exaggerated!

Food Festival in York - Amazing!

Food Festival in York – Amazing!

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Reputations have a long shelf-life.  As I prepared to come to England people warned me that the food is not that good and encouraged to go to France for food. Well, the foodies came to town this week and set up camp in the city centre.  This weekend is the end of The York Food Festival. IMG_0481

The photos speak for themselves.  I’m no photographer but I think I got enough for you to see there is no danger of bad “vittles” in these parts.  York leads the country in organic, sustainable agriculture.  Many of the people in the booths grew what they sell or at least know the people who grew what is in the booth.

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As one man explained to me (yes, I’m still talking to people) that when the hoof & mouth epidemic broke years ago people cast about to find what else they could do to sustain the farms. The products you see in these photos are the results of that tragedy.

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The smells of roasting meat in the air people walking about with their children and their dogs amidst tents and booths looks a little like the Grove in Oxford might this weekend. No marching bands but the street musicians do what they can to keep the party going.

Nowhere in Britain is far from the sea. Scotland is as far from York as Kentucky is Memphis.

Nowhere in Britain is far from the sea. Scotland is as far from York as Kentucky is Memphis.

This young man told me that the fish in front of him was swimming of the coast of Scotland last Wednesday.

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One cannot live simply by bread.  No danger of that in York this weekend.

One cannot live simply by bread. No danger of that in York this weekend.

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James’ company supplies people who sign up for fresh vegetables to be delivered in season. This sounds very similar to what Woodson Farms of Oxford, Mississippi delivered at Saint John’s this past growing season.

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A few flowers for the table and off you go with amazing food. All that was lacking was an Alka Seltzer booth in the middle. I'm just saying. JWS

A few flowers for the table and off you go with amazing food. All that was lacking was an Alka Seltzer booth in the middle. I’m just saying. JWS

Dogs Rule

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Dogs Rule

You see dogs a lot in the city. They are always on leash and remarkably well behaved. This gentleman told me that the Jack Russell Terrier in his lap runs their house. The one hanging out under the bench is a rescue and a bit timid.