30 July 2007
Beloved in Thomas the Apostle:
;)
Hilda Clare (my puppy) is a fawn Pug. She has two Pug pals who are black. In the world of Pugs, black ones are the more sought out (Don’t tell Hilda Clare that, please). Their color, to Hilda Clare and Francis and Lola, her pals, is irrelevant. The three of them have known each other for some time and save for Hilda’s hyper enthusiasm at having another Pug in the house instead of just me; they get along as if it did not matter. They are members of a community…the community of God’s creation. All of it seems like something to be known, enjoyed, played with and greeted. That’s Hilda’s way of relating to God’s creation. I try to pay attention when doing my own relating to God’s creation. She has things to teach me about that community.St. Thomas the Apostle is a community. I have hammered on that theme hard and long trying to make the point that we belong to one another in some special way. We do. But, if my hammering home that point has in any way prevented us from understanding our connectedness to the rest of God’s creation, say to the Diocese of Dallas; or to people with another skin color than most of us have; or to people whose births happen to take place south of the border; or the desperately poor; or the bigoted right-winged evangelical standard family folk; or the unhappy at the Episcopal Church members of the broader Anglican Communion; or the current administration in Washington, D.C.; or the Taliban; then I have mislead us. Those folk are a part of the same community to which we belong, God’s creation.
Hilda Clare knows that. Why don’t I? She would greet any of those sorts with her same enthusiasm, making my tentative openness to most of them all too obvious (to me if not to them). That’s the problem with community. Once you get it that we are part of one, the size keeps getting larger and larger, expanding whether we want it to or not. We can’t be in God’s creation community and put a limit, any limit, on whom the other members of that community may be. Think of the Ark. Apparently God did take two of every part of the creation…to save them all so they could reform the creation which had run amuck. Most of us would have left some of the creation out had we been in charge of who got on the big boat and who stayed to swim for it.
;)
We participate here in a program the purpose of which is to foster community…not just among us but also throughout the world. It’s the Foyer Movement. Foyer is a French word (the French are back in favor, thank God) meaning “hearthside.” It “implies the warmth of a close, small group of friends or family members sharing a common love and concern for each other.” The idea for Foyers came from the Cathedral of St. Michael in Coventry, England. The 14th century cathedral in Coventry had been destroyed during World War II. “Some of the old nails that fell among the ruins were twisted together to make a cross, and this cross of nails and the words “Father, Forgive” became the symbol of the International Ministry of Reconciliation. In 1967, the staff of Coventry Cathedral began meeting together in small groups to ‘bridge the divisions which subtly separate us one from another.’ Two years later, the Foyer movement spread to the congregations of Coventry Cathedral and then beyond.” We have participated in Foyers for longer than I have been your rector.“To bridge the divisions which subtly separate us one from another” seems a way into deeper community. If our experiences in Foyers here can do that they will enhance our common life. We are not one person, but many. Because of that it is important for us to do all we can to open up to each other, especially those we do not know … and maybe especially those to whom we do not cotton! Given the roots of the Foyer movement, the necessary work of always bridging gaps and mending fences, to live together in peace, remains essential to our own Foyers. And you thought it was about a good bottle of wine, some expensive cheese and an over the top dinner prepared by other members of the parish, laced with biting conversation and a soupcon of gossip. Whatever the food, whatever the conversation, Foyer is about bridge building…and learning that the bridges we build here in St. Thomas the Apostle must also be built throughout the rest of God’s creation…especially among our “enemies.”
Hilda Clare and I are about to create the August - December Foyers. Build bridges.
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