A "Lantern Waste" in Leavenworth

The Jerusalem Cross Garden lies dormant and bleak now. Soon it will be covered by a cold blanket of snow leaving the harvest of spring, summer and fall a distant memory. But I am discovering something very exciting - that gardening continues this winter in the fertile souls of those meeting each week in the lectionary groups to study God's Word and be accountable for the Three Simple Rules (Do No Harm, Do Good, and Stay in Love with God), or the four acts (devotion and worship, compassion and justice) the Jerusalem Cross serves to remind us of .

In C. S. Lewis' tale, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lantern Waste is a place that connects the children to a world of purposeful adventure. The warm light of a lamppost shines on a land, Narnia, trapped in the gloom and cold of perpetual winter, and serves as a promise that this need not always be so. Because the lamp burns, there is hope for this land and all the people and creatures living in it. Spring will one day return!

On my morning walks with my bird dog, Gilfillan, I often take the river walk to Blackbird Island. The many lampposts I pass by cause me to reflect on how the weekly lectionary groups serve as a type of Lantern Waste...places where God's warm light shines, where participants wrestle with the meaning of that light and the purposes of God and our role in it. Just as the children arrive in Narnia at Lantern Waste to deliver a land facing the curse of perpetual winter, we are discovering that God calls us to be the light in our world as we allow the Spirit, through the discipline fostered by these small groups, to empower us for kingdom living.

We are discovering we cannot do that by ourselves, or even by only attending worship each week. But in the community of the small group, a place of meaningful friendships, we are kept from living distracted lives by being accountable for holy living - engaging in acts of devotion, worship, compassion and justice - and sharing how this is happening. Truly there is a winter gardening that is happening in this season of winter. Hearts are being pruned, our souls fertilized. And the season of advent, the time of preparation, is more real as we discover the joy of living lives touched by a person, Jesus Christ, and filled with his purpose.

From Soil to Soul

The fruitfulness of spring and summer is over, and the beautiful fall hues surrounding us color our streets, valley and lives, prelude to the white landscapes to come. After the harvest from the garden - bright red tomatoes, golden wheat baked into a brown communion loaf, green basil - comes a frigid rest, the first frosts and an early snow having already arrived in our valley. The Jerusalem Cross Garden lies barren and empty, necessitating a shift in the focus of these blog ramblings - from soil to soul.

The faces of a small group of faithful men spring to mind. We have been meeting every Wednesday morning at 7 a.m. at our little church for about a year now. And first things are happening each time we gather. One, a new day begins with that vital cup of coffee (Fair Trade) and the friendly banter and fellowship of common purpose. Two, engaging the Word and the Three Simple Rules (do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God) we submit to the truth that life is not all about us.

The group is not the most handsome or holy. There is Wally and Jay from Ski Hill; Randy, Tony and Dale from down Icicle Road; Bruce from North Road; Charlie from up the Chumstick; and yours truly from here in town. And the gardening quality of persistence in their commitment to the cultivation of their own souls and those of the rest of the group, is yielding a harvest in each of us. We are all being fed. And truly, no loaf of bread from any garden, Jerusalem or otherwise, is proving to be so nourishing for life as him who is the Bread of Heaven.

Much More Waiting to be Birthed

It felt like a wake! In the early hours of this new day, again I stood with Gilfillan, my Brittany pup, on the banks of the Wenatchee River, holding vigil. The Chinook salmon, those liquid shadows in the waters, kept place in the steady flow of the current. And in the pregnant stillness, as voiceless fish waited their time to spawn, much more than a new day and a multitude of tiny fry awaited birth.

The summer run of Chinook, arriving this fall, was predicted to be good. And it has been! "Keeping watch" like the faithful few on Golgotha of old, I have been visiting the river most mornings. Today I saw the first one - the lifeless, soon to be mutilated, body lying in the shallows of the crystal clear waters. Having laid her eggs, her purpose to give life being done, this Chinook salmon was dead, and it was difficult not to feel the weight of this magnificent creature's great sacrifice, her death a gift to us in the generation of fish to come and the nutrients of her body that will fertilize our valley. Life coming through death.

How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given...a Christmas carol?... when creation's Good Friday in the river before me weighs my spirit down? But then followed victory! Relief came in a wondrous affirmation of faith, written boldly across the same heavens in which a star once led wise men to a humble manger centuries ago. For above me a flock of migrating Canada geese winged their "V" boldly across the sky to complete the story being enacted below that "unmerited suffering, willingly endured as the will of God, redeems," or as Aslan explains his death to the children in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, "When a willing victim who has done no wrong is killed in a traitors' stead, the stone table will crack and time itself will turn backwards." Resurrection follows sacrificial death!

So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven...the words of the Christmas carol continued in my thoughts as a winging victory disappeared into the morning mist above me. Soon our Christmas town's streets will be filled with the Norman Rockwellian longing for picture postcard living. But the Creator's voice whispers from our rivers just as advent approaches that the Christ child, born to die, comes that all the world might be redeemed.

Truly, in the pregnant stillness, as voiceless fish wait their time to spawn, much more than a new day and a multitude of tiny fry wait to be birthed. I felt God's finger gently pointing at me. And Gilfillan and I turned towards home. Soon the Jerusalem Cross Garden at the church will be buried by snow. But beneath it will lie the spring wheat, enduring it's burial, waiting for Spring and resurrection. How might God be waiting to use what I (we) am willing to sacrifice, or die to, to redeem the world?

"Crucidance" - Dying we Live

Visible only as fleeting splashes and liquid shadows in the crystal clear waters, Chinook salmon announce their arrival in our beautiful rivers without fanfare. The "crucidance" begins - living to die, dying to live - and these messengers from the deep in turn invite us to think on deeper things.

Some of these magnificent creatures will fall to hook and line as anglers like myself find satisfaction in sport and flesh. But survivors, paired up with their mates, will dig, lay, defend and die...to live again in the next generation.

Liturgically, kingdomtide is drawing to a close with the approach of advent. Good Friday and Easter are still far off in the annual rehearsal of the story of Jesus' birth, life, death and resurrection. Yet this kingdomtide-crucidance of life-giving death taking place in our rivers, reminds us that God's kingdom comes not through crown but cross, not on war horse but humble ass, not through power but in servanthood. It is good to splash the refreshing waters of such thoughts onto our often indifferent faces.

And I ponder a fish emulsion of the entrails of salmon caught this season with which to fertilize the herbs and vegetables in the Jerusalem Cross church garden? So will the "crucidance" of the salmon in the waters of the Wenatchee be poured out onto the soil of garden that a greening cross might turn us towards Him alone who is the perfecter of our faith. And in the holy gardening of our souls, 'the gates of God's kingdom" will "open in us" (Click to hear).

Monthly Church Pot Lucks - Good for Body and Soul

An e-mail I received after the feast on Autumn Leaf Harvest Sunday this past week said it all. "The celebration was absolutely fabulous. I'm thinking it's time to reconsider a monthly potluck after worship." - Stephanie.

It truly was fabulous - both the worship and the harvest meal! My mouth waters as I remember the taste of the communion bread, baked using the whole wheat flour grown in the church's JCGarden wheat patch. Others thought so too. "...that was the sweetest wheat bread that I have ever tasted. Amazing how the flavor lingered – a beautiful gift…." - Susan. Then there was the harvest meal. It featured locally raised organic beef patties, church baked hamburger rolls, bean soup made from plants grown from seeds passed out during the Blessing of Seeds and Gardens Sunday, and many other local dishes lovingly prepared by members of the congregation. All were tasty and made more so because we knew whose hands had prepared them.

As the e-mailer noted, it is time to reconsider monthly church potlucks! I agree, for two things happened on Sunday. Firstly, Christ Jesus was made known in the breaking of bread during holy communion. And secondly, Christ Jesus was made known in the "breaking of bread" during the harvest meal as we experienced him in table fellowship with each other. And that was good!

It IS time to get back to regular church potlucks. These should be held on communion Sundays, so that monthly, bread is broken in sacrament and, after worship, table fellowship too. For Jesus longs to make us one with him (communion) and one with each other (table fellowship) that we might live in relationship with God and neighbor as the starting place for Christian living.

Each monthly potluck could be flavored in some way with one of the four different herbs that grow in the four little crosses. The devotion and worship herbs, processed into herbal vinegar or herbal oil as salad dressing, would remind us how these two works of piety draw us ever deeper into relationship with God. And the compassion and justice herbs could remind us how these two works of mercy connect us not only to friends but to all who stand in need of love and care. A brief story could introduce the herb of the day and share how the act it represents (devotion, worship, compassion or justice) was practiced and found meaningful.

In this fashion, springing directly from the centrality of the cross, the potluck might allow us to sacramentally ingest the very truth of God, that we might be one with Him in purpose and prayer, "Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven." Amen!

From JCGarden "Wheat Field" to Communion Loaf

Today, a sunny Sunday in the fall of 2009, a full year after sowing tiny wheat seeds in the Fall of 2008, a "miracle" loaf of communion bread, home-grown, -ground, -baked and promise-filled, lay upon the altar.

Leavenworth - the village - celebrated Autumn Leaf Festival this weekend. Leavenworth United Methodist - the church - joined in and celebrated Autumn Leaf Harvest Sunday. And the Sunday celebration made the weekend festivities complete.

During the worship hour, thanks was given for the fullness of the earth - apple and pear trees laden with fruit in our valley - evident in our own Jerusalem Cross Garden with its' red tomatoes and mini wheat field. Then the special home grown loaf of bread was broken, the wine poured, and on our knees the heavenly feast partaken of. This is my body broken for you. This is my blood of the new covenant poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this as often as you eat this bread and drink this wine in remembrance of me. And we were reminded that fullness came and comes, not in harvesting more and more of worldly pleasures and things, but in the constant planting, through self-emptying love and sacrifice, of acts of compassion and justice.

More than the harvest of pears and apples and grapes and veggies was celebrated this Autumn Leaf Festival as the surrounding hills change color. For this weekend our lives were colored with the divine as we took our place at both the banquet table of creation (in the harvest meal of local food following worship) and the heavenly banquet of holy communion, while in my own mind sounded the words and refrain of the Taize Alleluia:
Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word,
that proceeds from the mouth of God
Allelu alleluia.
Truly, we were fed in both body and soul.

Salmon Watch

Gilfillan, an energetic Brittany Spaniel pup, still learning how to follow his bird dog instincts, takes me for an early walk most mornings. Our destination of choice lately has been the Wenatchee River, for we are on salmon watch. Salmon Sunday which included a salmon bake on the lawn beside the Jerusalem Cross Garden this past Sunday, along with Leavenworth's Wenatchee River Salmon Festival, have come and gone. Still we wait with a lenten-type expectation for the annual re-enactment of a life-giving sacrifice in our waters.

Soon the beautifully sad, and sadly beautiful procession will begin. The summer run of salmon, arriving in the fall, will rise and turn in our shallow waters, each sleek fish having swum hundreds of miles from the Pacific Ocean, to spawn in the gravel bottoms of our crystal clear rivers. Then they will die, their flesh torn, their bodies scarred. And hundreds of emaciated carcasses will litter our river banks, mere shadows of the magnificent creatures they once were, to be picked over by crows and ravens, raccoons and other critters.

It's difficult to accept death in such large numbers. The grandson of one member, his little soul unable and unwilling to process death in such mutilated fashion, is troubled by the sadness it engenders in his still sensitive heart. I picture Mary, Jesus' mother feeling much the same as she saw her son hanging on the cross with nails through his hands and feet, his possessions being picked over by the soldiers on Golgothan duty.

Yet beyond the death of the salmon will come the miracle of new life, as hundreds of thousands of little salmon hatch to cavort and grow in Pacific Northwest waters. Similarly, beyond the cross came the resurrection, life beyond the grave. And the good news is that the Lenten and Easter event of long ago still brings resurrection life today. It comes to people who learn to die their own deaths, so that rising with Christ as new creations, their Godly living can help redeem the world. The salmon remind us so graphically of this truth each year.

The Jerusalem Cross, laid out so beautifully in garden form at the church and planted and tended by the Harvest Team to bring forth life - red tomatoes, orange carrots, green squash - as "bread of the earth," reminds us of these deeper things. That through the cross we learn to die to self, and, nourished by the "bread of heaven," we are empowered to live resurrection lives by joyously engaging the four acts of devotion, worship, compassion and justice.

It feels good to be "devoting" weekly with a small group where, watching over each other in love, we extend support in the gardening of both our souls and the soil of God's creation. This is Jerusalem Cross gardening, filled with promise.