The Answer. (Well, sort of. Otherwise known as the Trisagion)

I love a good story.  I have been trying to tell the story of the process of breathing and cellular respiration for the past week now.  I am afraid my students may have fallen asleep and woke back up just in time for the selected out takes, if their quiz grades are any indication.  I am not offended, because truthfully cellular respiration doesn’t have the makings of an epic. It is kind of sitting through a really bad sermon or reading James Joyce aloud.  PAINFUL. So I wish I could tell them this story, but it has nothing to do with cellular respiration.

I love words.  Maybe that is why I am drawn to teaching, or maybe that is why I love sermons so, or why some books I consider as friends. 

Last night I found myself thinking about what the word holy actually meant.  As it turns out, there is quite a debate among scholars or at least that is what Google told me. The idea of holy can be traced back to the ancients.  To the Hebrews, it was the chief word used to describe the character of God. The Hebrew word is “qadosh”. Etymologists have traced "holy" back to an Old Norse word for good health and wholeness, "heilagr", through German "heil" (meaning "health, happiness and good luck") to Old English "hal" (related to hallow). According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the pre-Christian meaning was probably "that which must be preserved whole or intact, that cannot be transgressed or violated.”

Almost 700 years before the birth of Christ, the prophet Isaiah wrote a vivid description of a vision that was beyond description…he declared it…Holy, holy, holy.  800 years later while on the island of Patmos, St. John saw a vision also beyond words and beyond description and he declared it holy, holy, holy. The Trisagion.

Holy God
Holy mighty
Holy immortal
Have mercy on us

It appeared in the Church liturgy around the fourth century and is still in use today.  Among my many loves of the Anglican liturgy is perhaps its universality.  It reminds me of the timelessness and richness and diverseness of the Church. This ancient hymn is found in almost all of the Eastern Catholic and Orthodox liturgies. There are hundreds of variations on the melody to which it is chanted or sung. 

Those of you who believe in God, well, we can never be sure of what (holiness) means exactly.  If God can show up in a stable or be a ram in the thicket or in an earthquake or in fire, or on a mountain with Moses, or in Isaiah’s dreams or as a carpenter from Nazareth or hanging dying on a cross, well then God can show up anywhere and looks like anything and maybe that is the point.   Frederick Buechner writes: 

 

“Once they have seen him in a stable, they can never be sure where he will appear or to what lengths he will go or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of humankind.
If holiness and the awful power and majesty of God were present in this least auspicious of all events, this birth of a peasant’s child, then there is no place or time so lowly and earthbound but that holiness can be present there too.”

I have come to believe that holiness is more about wholeness than anything else. And by singing the Trisagion, we invite that wholeness in. And since I am one of those characters always in need of saving again and again, I probably would do well to pray the Trisagion Thrice a tri-zillion time over. I am of the belief that salvation is not so much a moment in time as an ongoing experience that happens over a lifetime.  I used to only get “born again” about once a year.  Like at a revival meeting or church camp.  So if you are still young enough to go to church camp keeping getting born again yearly because by the time you get to college you are going to be doing that about twice a year and by the time you are about 30, once a quarter and in your 40’s and 50’s about four times a day.  Given that I am about a 12 months away from 50, I am in the much latter category.

It was after it was sung that I began to think that maybe we are not as safe as we would like to think and perhaps this is holiness.  "There is no place where his power won’t break and re-create the human heart." It is probably just when God seems the most helpless, when it seems as if God’s hands are tied, and just where we least expect him that God shows up. 

To me it was the most beautiful version of that simple, ancient prayer I have ever heard. And it was words last night, very simple words or perhaps it was The Word that reminded me that I need reminding again and again and again why the gospel matters.  It matters because it makes us whole.  And I need reminding of that again and again and again…and to tell the truth I will always pray more “I don’t know, I am not sure if and life can be unbelievably cruel and beautiful at the same time…” than

Holy God
Holy mighty
Holy immortal
Have mercy on us

But I am also one of those foolish people who still believes the answer lies somewhere in the mystery of the holiness of God. Maybe the mercy of God is really where we find the answer to every tear we cry and it is in that holiness three times over that we are held even when it feels as if nothing is holding us.  And maybe the mystery of the Trisagion is that it binds our broken hearts to God’s broken heart.  And maybe that is the answer, sort of.

Holy God
Holy mighty
Holy immortal
Have mercy on us,

Kathleen

The link to perhaps at least to my ears the most beautiful version of this ancient prayer:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ad9fZ72lbVg

What we really can't live without

 

At church Saturday night one of my many rambling thoughts included “Jesus, we believe the weirdest stuff.”  I will let you decide if I meant a proper noun, an adverb or a verb.  I think Jesus would like us perhaps to think all three but eventually circle back to the first choice.  I had forgotten what Rite I of the BCP sounded smelled and looked like and why I love it so and hope it never goes out of vogue.  According to people who observe such things, there is a large movement of the postmodern generation of church goers who are leaving their low protestant roots and more hip styles of worship and flocking to the more orthodox style of worship.  

The last time I had been in that church was for a funeral.   She was my very first hospice patient and I loved her.  Somehow, I think she might have sat down next to me Saturday and whispered in my ear, “Child, would you please settle down.”  She always called me that.  Child.  She also promised to always watch my back from heaven and to always pray over Davis.  I believe she does.  She would have loved my Prada shoes that I found for 35 dollars and my new cream colored silk ruffled blouse.   She would have told me however, that I probably should keep my wrap on since it was sleeveless and I was after all in God’s house.  I forgot.  She also would have approved that I walked up the aisle bare-footed to receive communion.   She would have thought I did that because I knew I was walking on holy ground, but in truth, I forgot to slip them back on.  Not kidding.  I hope the priest didn’t mind.  And I can promise you she would have made Davis tuck his shirt in and wear socks.  She like I, were raised in the buckle of the Bible belt south and you always dressed for church.  To be honest, I kind of miss that.  Dressing for church. 

So, if you think you can’t live without food, water and shelter, you might just be in the minority.

Time magazine reports that out of 5000 people surveyed:

84% said they could not live without their cell phone for a single day.

1 in 5 said they check their cell phones every 10 minutes.

72% of adults use social networking websites.

73% of all American smartphone owners said they would feel panicked if they lost their device.

 When British respondents were surveyed on things they couldn’t live without:

Facebook came in at No. 5 and flushing toilets at No. 9.  And thank God we fought that war.

32% of all college students said that the Internet is just as important to them as food, water, shelter.

49% said it was not as important BUT PRETTY CLOSE.

High speed internet is the one technology that they couldn’t live without.

30% of all Americans check their phones while having dinner with someone.

40% of all Americans check their phones while on the toilet.

1 in 4 Americans have sent a sexually provocative image to their partners via their cell phones.

97% of consumers use the web to do local shopping and 72% of internet users have sought health care information online in the past 12 months.

91% of teens have posted a picture of themselves on Facebook and Instagram.

46% of adult Americans use Facebook to post videos they have created.

So if you think you can live without your phone, Facebook profile and internet…turns out maybe not.

But it occurred to me Saturday night that I can’t live without smells and bells.  The liturgy helps us live out a story in a story deprived generation.  We are characters in a divine drama that helps us realize we are part of something larger than ourselves. 

 Originally, the use of incense in worship was to mask the smell of the sacrifices, later in the medieval church it was used to mask the scent of the animals kept close to the church and the body odor of the worshippers.  Incense invokes a blessing.   The Gospels are blessed with it, the altar, the congregation, the priest, the bread, the wine.   

The practical use of the big bells at the belfry is to call the attention of the faithful before the celebration of the Holy Eucharist and other sacraments. It is also used in times of fire, storms and any other disasters to warn the people. Generally, important liturgical celebrations of the Catholic Church are heralded by the sound of the bells. St. Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, introduced the bells as a means to summon monks to prayer in the fifth century. Another practical use of the altar bells may have originated in the very architecture of the old Church. Before, there was a certain degree of physical separation between the faithful and presider in the sanctuary. There were even communion rails before the Second Vatican Council. In some cases, the altar was totally concealed from the faithful and only the sound of the bells could give a hint that the priest has reached consecration.

The processional used in Anglican worship is stunningly beautiful:  from the crucifer to the gospeller to the thruibers to the priest to the deacon.   Watching them process allows me for a moment to forget about my shoes.  Practicing genuflecting allows me to forget me.  And Jesus really does know I need that.  The icons remind me of the beauty of our world and no one really knows what Jesus looked like and this is good because Jesus looks like all of us.  The color of the vestments remind what time it really is and to remember the measure of all of our days.   Smelling the incense reminds me to stop… and breathe….just breathe.  The bells remind me that angels are all around us and sometimes we know their names and there really is a great cloud of witnesses watching over us all.  The altar facing East reminds of times far more ancient than my own and this good…people before me and after me have watched this ancient rite of the Church and stood in awe and wonder.  The blessing and standing for the reading of the Gospel reminds me how good the story really is.  And my story is part of The Story. The Nicene Creed written in the year 325 still is relevant….We  believe  in God…the maker of all things visible and invisible…Jesus…God from God…light from light…begotten not made.   We believe in the resurrection…forgiveness and life everlasting.  Repeating the prayers, the creeds, and the collects reminds of the power of the word that is The Word.   The kneeling reminds me to be humble and to remember that we are standing on holy ground.  The breaking of bread and blessing of the wine still speaks to me of mysteries that I will never understand.   Every single element of the worship service is laden with mystery and meaning from the number of candles to the number of times the bells are rung to the colors to the bowing to the words to wine to the bread to the hymns and psalms.  Mystery and meaning that transcend time and eternity.

I really do pray, “Jesus we really do believe the weirdest stuff.” And usually, hopefully, prayer after prayer and after experiencing perhaps a year praying with the Church year after year…the whole liturgical year…I am reminded of as we pray…we believe.   And I really do pray if I was polled and asked to name the one thing I can’t live without…that I hopefully I might say…The Anglican Mass…Rite I. 

In  deepest gratitude for the congregation at Christ Church for sharing the power of liturgy with those of us who forget and struggle with the weirdest stuff.