Author Archives: Elizabeth Richardson

Attunement

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As my time at Emmanuel is coming to an end, I feel like I’m just getting started. I’m in a place where I feel comfortable taking risks, stepping outside the box, and sharing my ideas. Over the course of the week I have been reminded that it is okay to try something new, no matter how far along in the process I am.

On Thursdays, I lead a movement group with the folks from Café Emmanuel. I have had so much fun with this group. The participants vary from week to week, and there is one person who has not missed a session. Each week we dance and move with multicolored scarves to different songs, most recently Broadway tunes. The returning participant is always trying to get others to stay and dance with him. I feel his desire to have more than just me and a volunteer. So, in an attempt to entice folks to participate I played the music earlier than normal, gathered a few scarves and placed them in people’s hands. I physically invited people and resisted the urge to be complacent and just accept that folks are not interested in movement. It worked! We added people to our group, and I think it was the most enjoyable session yet! Continue reading →

Keep coming back. It really works.

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Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B, May 3, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 8:26-40 This is a wilderness road.
1 John 4:7-21 God is love.
John 15:1-8 Abide in me.

O God of Love, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

This morning I want to preach about everything – the humanitarian crisis in Nepal; Baltimore and the widespread damaging effects of racism in the United States; my discoveries sifting through family archives when I was in Denver for my aunt’s funeral last week; the huge number of people who go hungry in Massachusetts, where the poverty rate is at its highest since 1960 (the year I was born); the pending jury decision about the sentence for Johar Tsarnaev; and the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania, and that’s just for starters. Bishops and scholarly theologians in the Anglican Reformation had a remedy for this kind of challenge: they wrote approved homilies to be read at sermon time. Article 35 in the 39 Articles of Religion, pages 874 and 875 in the Book of Common Prayer (the red prayer book in your pews), states that homilies from an authorized book are “to be read in Churches by the Ministers, diligently and distinctly, that they may be understanded of the people.” But then in 1801 as the Episcopal Church was being organized in the post-Revolutionary War era, the requirement was suspended “until a revision of them may be conveniently made, for the clearing of them, as well from obsolete words and phrases, as from the local references.” We are still living in that suspension! Continue reading →

Slow & Steady

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I just learned that one man finished the Boston Marathon at 5am Tuesday morning. He was the last one to cross the finish line. Maikel Melamed is from Venezuela and has severe muscular dystrophy. In watching video clips online of his crossing the finish line in the dark hours of early Tuesday morning, I was struck by Maikel’s sheer tenacity to finish but also by the group of walkers who stayed with him and walked painstakingly slowly alongside him. Step by step, they stayed clustered close to him and crossed the finish line with him. This gesture of support and solidarity with Maikel’s resolve to finish the Boston Marathon had me thinking about all the ways in which I get to slow down and walk with another at Emmanuel. I believe that many of my learning experiences have been shaped by times where the therapeutic presence needed in the moment necessitated slowing down. Continue reading →

Mystery, Meaning, Risk & Relationship

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Third Sunday of Easter, Year B, April 19, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 3:12-19. You Israelites
1 John 3:1-7. We should be called children of God and that is what we are.
Luke 24:36b-48.  And the psalms must be fulfilled.

O God of Hope, grant us the wisdom, the strength and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

You probably know that the Gospel of John, for all of its beautiful love poetry and prose, is notoriously anti-Jewish or anti-Judean in its rhetoric about the death and resurrection of Jesus, written as if it were Jews and not Romans who were the threat to Jesus. In the Gospel of John is codified one side of a late first century argument about ways to move forward socially, politically and theologically in the precarious time after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. The writer of John places anti-Jewish words anachronistically in the mouths of Jesus and his friends who were, of course, all Jewish. Continue reading →

Somatic Energy

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On Monday at Art and Spirituality I led the group in opening ritual, card making, and the closing ritual. I introduced percussive movement in the opening name share. During our closing sharing, conversation emerged, and there was a shift in the circle. I felt the energy move from sharing about the cards they were making for others to sharing about their preferences, their artistic desires and their ideas for the future art-making. I couldn’t help but notice the program officer and the two nurses who were waiting for the program to finish were drawn to our conversation. Usually I see the nurse sorting pills or making small talk with the officer. This time they watched, silently and patiently waiting for the women to finish. It was as though they were drawn to the increased energy of the circle. Continue reading →

Become trusting!

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Second Sunday of Easter, Year B, April 12, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 4:32-35 There was not a needy person among them.
1 John 1:1-2:2 If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves.
John 20:19-31 Peace be with you.

O God of hope, grant us the wisdom, the strength and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

 

Many of you know that one of my life projects has to do with increasing literacy, particularly Biblical literacy among progressive Christians, who have tended to cede the Bible to more conservative Christians. For example, I want people to understand that what we call “The Bible” is actually more like a library or an anthology than a book. The anthology contains more than a dozen different kinds of literature – and each kind of literature has different rules and built-in assumptions for understanding it. For instance, one would read biography differently from reading a sermon or an editorial. One would read legislation differently from poetry or a song. It helps to know what type of literature one is reading in order to understand what it might mean or how to apply it to our lives. Unfortunately, figuring out the genre is often complicated by many centuries and many miles of distance, and further complicated by modern inventions – inventions such as the English language, punctuation, customs of printing, etc. Continue reading →

Looking Forward

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Easter, April 5, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Isaiah 25:6-9 Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of God’s people will be taken away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.
1 Corinthians 15:1-11 Also you are being saved.
Mark 16:1-8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

O God of life, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

While the younger kids are engaged in the Lindsey Chapel with the Small Wonders program, I want to tell you a little story. About fifteen years ago, my wife Joy came home from a walk through Mount Auburn Cemetery with our then four-year-old daughter, Grace. They had been enjoying a beautiful summer day, looking at statues and gravestones and flowers. After being quiet for a while, Grace looked up and said, “Mom, what happened to that guy who died in church?” Joy repeated the phrase to give herself time to think, “the guy who died in church.” Her mind raced. Had there been a recent medical emergency during worship? Had there been prayers for a loved one who had died? Had Grace heard something in the news? She hadn’t been to any funerals yet. Grace repeated, “you know. The guy. Who died. In church.” All of the sudden, Joy knew who she meant. “Jesus?” “Yes!” said Grace, “Jesus! What happened to him?” As Joy was relating this conversation to me, before I could learn what she said next to Grace, I interrupted with, “did you tell her he died from listening to sermons that were too long, or from singing every verse to all the hymns?” Continue reading →

Watch the women!

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Palm Sunday, B; March 29, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Isaiah 50:4-9a I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.
Philippians 2:5-11 He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death.
Mark 14:3-15:47

The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Mark §1

3While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. 4But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way? 5For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her. 6But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. 7For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. 8She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial.9Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”
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Trauma Healing

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It was not that long ago that I was writing here about the treacherous ice on the road near my house that caused my only bike wreck of the winter. I referred to the ice in that blog post as a metaphor for various elements in my life that had been unseen by me and thus caused some recklessness or even damage to others due to my blind sightedness. Well, it’s been a couple months since I let my painful and inflamed wrist go untreated for that time. On Monday I went for an x-ray (finally!) and got the good news that there were no breaks although there was plenty of swelling clearly illuminated. I’ll go back to the hospital in a week to see a hand specialist to see if some of the pain and swelling can be alleviated. So, here’s to not knowing. Continue reading →

American Caste System

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I have been thinking a lot about vulnerability and how it shows up. I have been thinking about how I can allow my own vulnerability to be a guide into deeper connection with others. I am also curious about the ways in which vulnerability can reveal the nuances of power, privilege, and oppression within interpersonal dynamics. There was a specific conversation that occurred a few weeks ago that had me feeling particularly vulnerable and has given me great pause to reflect on the intersection of vulnerability and systemic racism. Continue reading →