What can an honest person do when everything crumbles? (Psalm 11:3)

Today's reflection is by Darwin Janes,
member of the Episcopal Chaplaincy at Boston University

Recently one of my classes here in New Zealand had a field trip to a beach near us to investigate the area’s geologic formations. We observed that the bluffs along the shore had many layers of sandstone—a solid layer of rock that had once been grains of loose, unconsolidated sand that were then solidified deep under the surface into a layer of stone. It made me consider the Psalmist’s words: “What can an honest person do when everything crumbles?”

I often worry that the rocks on which I am building my own life—my future career, my friends, my schoolwork—may not be as sturdy as I thought they were; that I am not smart enough, or don’t work hard enough, and that everything I had worked on will crumble to pieces as soon as I am thrust into the harsh post-graduation world. Whether or not these fears are misplaced, as often as I have them I am reassured by the fact that we worship a God who makes broken things whole, just like the tiny grains of sand carved from mighty boulders that are squeezed and pressed back into towering cliffs of stone. To contemplate such a God is to contemplate, according to the Book of Common Prayer, the hope that we as Christians have: “to live with confidence in newness and fullness of life, and to await the coming of Christ in glory, and the completion of God’s purpose for the world.”  

I know your works—your love, faith, service, and patient endurance. (Revelation 2:19a )

Today's reflection is by 
Thea Keith-Lucas, Episcopal Chaplain at MIT

I keep shifting our copy of Boston Magazine from room to room without reading it. The cover story is a guide to this year’s marathon, and I don’t want to have to think about marathons. Like everyone around me, I was shaken by last year: a bombing in the heart of my city, an officer killed guarding my campus, the eerie quiet of sheltering in place.

It was also a hard time for a more personal reason, one that seems ridiculous compared to the experiences of those who lost a loved one or who were injured or who have to live with the memories of witnessing the explosion first-hand. My problem was just that I had no idea what to do.
Many kind people reached out to me with prayers and support. Some told me how glad they were that I was there to help bring healing to MIT. I thanked them, feeling like a fraud. Three months into the job, I knew a few dozen people by name, and none very well. Some healer.
It helps to remember that God knows me fully, in my strengths and in my limitations. My human eyes see things so starkly: Either I can work miracles or I can do nothing worthwhile. God teaches me to see things more clearly and more gently. To God, I can say: You know I don’t have much to work with here, but I’ll try my best. I trust you to take care of the rest.

I will walk with integrity of heart within my house. (Psalm 101:2b)

Today's reflection is by Cameron Partridge

Episcopal Chaplain at Boston University

One Sunday afternoon in October of my freshman year of college, my roommate picked up a message from my mom.  Call back immediately: there was a fire.  An inferno was raging in the Oakland hills, racing down toward my mom’s neighborhood.  Scores of homes were burning to the ground, and smoke was trapping people in the hairpin canyon roads.  My mom was preparing to evacuate, her dissertation and the family cat stuffed into the back of the car.  Was there anything I wanted her to bring? Yes, I said: my steamer trunk.  It had been my grandmother’s and held my journals, autographed baseballs, old coins, childhood mementos.  Sorry, too big, she replied.  From my three thousand mile remove, deep in the drama of becoming an adult, my childhood was basically on fire. 

Amazingly, my mom’s neighborhood survived, protected by fire fighters who somehow held the line in the hills above.  But even if it had joined the blocks and blocks of smoldering ruins, stone steps descending to nowhere and chimneys rising from rubble, the question of what to take and what to leave behind – of how to walk with integrity – would have persisted.  

Integrity is not simply honesty.  It is integrative, incorporative.  Integrity springs forward from the foundations of who and where we have been, into futures as surprising as they are authentic.

There appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years... When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” (Luke 13:11a, 12)

Today's reflection is by Mario Melendez

Ministry Associate in the Episcopal Chaplaincy at Boston University

The fear of being sick and the lack of compassionate and affordable health care is for millions of people a reality of pain, suffering, and in some tragic cases of death. While some critics of health care reform point to access to the Emergency Room to claim that there is health care for people who cannot afford it, the facts and data say otherwise. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) requires hospitals and clinics to provide care to anyone with an “emergency medical condition”. The problem is the following: if you are having a heart attack they will treat you, but the bypass surgery you need to not have another one is out of reach. The phrase “God only helps those who help themselves” (a saying that is attributed to Benjamin Franklin among other sources of his era) is an unbiblical idea used in certain circles to deny compassionate and affordable health care to millions of people, since it is claimed that it is the individual and the Church who should be taking care of the sick and the vulnerable in our society. However, this reasoning fails to recognize one of the most important questions to ask someone who is sick: ‘what do you need? ‘

Without being asked by the woman or by anyone else, Jesus answers: he sees her and he heals her. First, we must note that Jesus sees her. Part of the problem in our society is that we fail to see, recognize, and acknowledge the most vulnerable of us. Jesus sees the woman and he calls her to him, breaking in the process the social norm of not speaking to a woman in public. Then the woman is not asked by Jesus to believe in him, she is not asked to repent from sins, and he does ask for payment or to give anything in return: Jesus heals her. This act of healing has an ontological meaning because she is “set free” from her condition and per a later verse in this passage from the Gospel according to St. Luke, Jesus said that she is in fact “set free from this bondage”. She is rescued from a reality that, in ancient times, was believed to be reserved for those who were out of favor with God due to their own wickedness or of the parents. Jesus sees her and he sets her free.

In this season of Lent let us not just pray for everyone who is suffering this minute because of sickness and disease but we must ask ourselves: what can we do for those denied access to affordable and compassionate health care? Is our debate of the role of government, the private sector, the Church, and the individual in health care making us blind and not allowing us to first “see”, recognize, and acknowledge not just the suffering of the sick that continues every day but also their humanity? Will we allow health care to continue to be treated as a commodity? Are we ready to ask “what do you need?” and are we ready to listen? Let us pray and take action so that everyone can be “set free” and have a chance to a flourishing life, and be treated with dignity and respect; this includes when were are at our must vulnerable, and facing the bondage of physical and mental ailment.

Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you. (1 Peter 3:15b)

Today's reflection is by Kari Jo Verhulst,
Lutheran Chaplain at MIT and Pastor at University Lutheran Church

Have you heard this passage before from First Peter? Growing up in a deeply Christian environment, I certainly did. Usually it was to cajole us in being ready to “witness” to our faith, and it make me panic. I wasn’t sure I could “defend” myself—I had enough trouble on the playground, and in the realities of childhood and adolescence I didn’t always feel hopeful.

But it got better. (Isn’t that the hope of growing up?) Now I take these words as an invitation to pray for the grace to hope when I feel hopeless. When I do feel hopeful—in big (love will conquer hate) or small (spring will finally show up) ways, I take this as a call to silly-grinned freedom in the face of anyone who might demand to know: “What are you smiling at?” I smile, laugh, love, and hope because I have seen, heard, touched, and tasted the love of God in Jesus—in bread and wine, and lots of potlucks; in song and prayer, and endless conversation; in silence and rest.

Does God not see my ways, and number all my steps? If I have walked with falsehood and my foot has hurried to deceit— let me be weighed in a just balance, and let God know my integrity! (Job 31:4-6)

Today's reflection is by
Teresa Baker Peters
Alumna of the Lutheran Episcopal Ministry at MIT

I participated in the interdenominational Ash Wednesday service at Stanford this year.  At the beginning of the service everyone was given a paper and pencil and asked to write down a sin or need for healing.  Then everyone processed to the front of the church and put their paper in a bowl of fire to burn as a symbol of asking God for help.  I've been reading a book, "The New Jim Crow", and caught an article or two with comments from speakers at Martin Luther King Jr. Day gatherings, and found a clear prayer in my head for help with the injustice of the prison system in the US and help for the many who are incarcerated and burdened by past incarceration.

I feel bewildered about what to do, but was glad when I saw an article about a bill going through congress that would reduce the length of minimum prison sentences for drug crimes.  It's a very small step, but it's a step. I'll keep praying for justice and help.  I am glad God numbers our steps and I hope to act with integrity even in the things I am implicitly part of.

Show your goodness, O Lord...to those who are true of heart. (Psalm 125:5)

Today's reflection is by Thea Keith-Lucas
Episcopal Chaplain at MIT

Honesty is hard work. I remember riding my bike home from school and trying out twelve different ways I could tell my parents the story of some mistake. Which one would let me slide right by the truth of my failure? Telling the simple hard truth still isn't easy. There are countless opportunities in every day to smooth things over, go with the flow, put the best spin on something. Most dangerous are the stories we tell ourselves, when we put on a brave face and pretend that everything is just fine.

I recently discovered this poem by Galway Kinnell. It's no good, the poet says, to experience our emotions only halfway. We won't get anywhere if we only let ourselves have feelings that are appropriate and under control. In its gentle, comic way, this poem invites us to be "true of heart". When we are honest right down to our hearts, we can find true happiness, for then we can touch the endlessly loving heart of God.

Crying

Crying only a little bit
is no use. You must cry
until your pillow is soaked!
Then you can get up and laugh.
Then you can jump in the shower
and splash-splash-splash!
Then you can throw open your window
and, "Ha ha! ha ha!"
And if people say, "Hey
what's going on up there?"
"Ha ha!" sing back, "Happiness
was hiding in the last tear!
I wept it! Ha ha!"