The Rev. Drew Foisie, Vicar
'From the Vicar' monthly article
The human spirit is an amazing thing; a thing breathed into earthy bodies by God’s own Spirit and imbued with a will to hope and persist and reach for life to a degree that is dizzying and beautiful. One can’t help but think of stories like the man left behind on mount Everest presumed dead and frozen, but who held onto life until he was found again. Or the Italian ultra-marathon runner who during a 100 mile race got separated from the designated course in the Sahara desert, and should have been dead in a matter of hours, but persisted for days and weeks surviving on bats in a half buried and abandoned temple he stumbled upon. He was ultimately rescued and returned to his family who received him as a man literally resurrected from the dead.
The human spirit and spiritual life can survive and thrive under any circumstances, but in times of deprivation, hardship, and uncertainty the human spirit and spiritual life often takes on a new character. I wouldn’t wish difficult circumstances on anyone as a pathway to spiritual growth. That’s just crazy. But it does seem that the human spirit was given by God with a certain resiliency that is stretched and renewed in uncertain times. Many scholars have argued that the Church gained critical cohesion during the second and third centuries when it experienced the heaviest blows from persecution. When it was finally favored and then adopted by Rome it can be said that while Christianity was enlarged and gained safety a certain agility and dynamism was lost or atrophied.
As we navigate the unpredictable and disruptive realities of a global pandemic and/or social upheaval few things feel stable or life-giving for many people of faith. The desire for stability and spiritual sustenance in all the usual ways is strong, not to mention good and holy. Such a desire represents a recognition of the deep truths of the spiritual nourishment that has sustained us up this point. But sometimes their absence invites a deeper engagement and a revived awareness of what they are and what they mean. Fresh water takes on new significance when one is adrift on the open ocean under the hot sun without it. So much so that some will very naturally drink salt water to assuage the essential and necessary need for hydration. While satisfying, it is ultimately not sustaining in the ways water is intended to be for the human body.
Holy Eucharist or the Lord’s Supper is similar to water for the Christian in their life, ministry and vocation. So many of us are missing it in profound and acute ways, perhaps none more than me. Some churches and traditions are attempting a variety of modifications and virtual adaptations, but we have chosen a Eucharistic fast during this altered, physically distanced time period. Eucharist is at its heart a physical act as well as a spiritual reality, and in deed the two cannot be separated. It points to, honors, and sacralizes the holiness of material things like bread, wine, water, and the physicality of Jesus living, breathing, and dying as one of us. To receive the Sacrament of the Lord’s Table is to enter into a union of the physical and spiritual, of Christ and the Church, of the individual and the Body of Christ. While approximations of this can be offered virtually, few virtual modifications can fulfill what the Sacrament intends actually. This does not mean God cannot be present in this or any other well intentioned act of worship. However, as our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, has said so well, this time may be an opportunity “to recover aspects of our [Anglican] tradition that point to the sacramentality of the scriptures, the efficacy of prayer itself, the holiness of the household as the ‘domestic church,’ and the reassurance that the baptized are already and forever marked as Christ’s own. We are living limbs and members of the Body of Christ, wherever and however we gather.”
No matter where we are the God who gave the Sacrament, and our desire for it, is the same God who is with us now, sustaining us in the wilderness by the Spirit within us.
Grace and Peace to you.
Yours In Christ,
Drew+
The human spirit is an amazing thing; a thing breathed into earthy bodies by God’s own Spirit and imbued with a will to hope and persist and reach for life to a degree that is dizzying and beautiful. One can’t help but think of stories like the man left behind on mount Everest presumed dead and frozen, but who held onto life until he was found again. Or the Italian ultra-marathon runner who during a 100 mile race got separated from the designated course in the Sahara desert, and should have been dead in a matter of hours, but persisted for days and weeks surviving on bats in a half buried and abandoned temple he stumbled upon. He was ultimately rescued and returned to his family who received him as a man literally resurrected from the dead.
The human spirit and spiritual life can survive and thrive under any circumstances, but in times of deprivation, hardship, and uncertainty the human spirit and spiritual life often takes on a new character. I wouldn’t wish difficult circumstances on anyone as a pathway to spiritual growth. That’s just crazy. But it does seem that the human spirit was given by God with a certain resiliency that is stretched and renewed in uncertain times. Many scholars have argued that the Church gained critical cohesion during the second and third centuries when it experienced the heaviest blows from persecution. When it was finally favored and then adopted by Rome it can be said that while Christianity was enlarged and gained safety a certain agility and dynamism was lost or atrophied.
As we navigate the unpredictable and disruptive realities of a global pandemic and/or social upheaval few things feel stable or life-giving for many people of faith. The desire for stability and spiritual sustenance in all the usual ways is strong, not to mention good and holy. Such a desire represents a recognition of the deep truths of the spiritual nourishment that has sustained us up this point. But sometimes their absence invites a deeper engagement and a revived awareness of what they are and what they mean. Fresh water takes on new significance when one is adrift on the open ocean under the hot sun without it. So much so that some will very naturally drink salt water to assuage the essential and necessary need for hydration. While satisfying, it is ultimately not sustaining in the ways water is intended to be for the human body.
Holy Eucharist or the Lord’s Supper is similar to water for the Christian in their life, ministry and vocation. So many of us are missing it in profound and acute ways, perhaps none more than me. Some churches and traditions are attempting a variety of modifications and virtual adaptations, but we have chosen a Eucharistic fast during this altered, physically distanced time period. Eucharist is at its heart a physical act as well as a spiritual reality, and in deed the two cannot be separated. It points to, honors, and sacralizes the holiness of material things like bread, wine, water, and the physicality of Jesus living, breathing, and dying as one of us. To receive the Sacrament of the Lord’s Table is to enter into a union of the physical and spiritual, of Christ and the Church, of the individual and the Body of Christ. While approximations of this can be offered virtually, few virtual modifications can fulfill what the Sacrament intends actually. This does not mean God cannot be present in this or any other well intentioned act of worship. However, as our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, has said so well, this time may be an opportunity “to recover aspects of our [Anglican] tradition that point to the sacramentality of the scriptures, the efficacy of prayer itself, the holiness of the household as the ‘domestic church,’ and the reassurance that the baptized are already and forever marked as Christ’s own. We are living limbs and members of the Body of Christ, wherever and however we gather.”
No matter where we are the God who gave the Sacrament, and our desire for it, is the same God who is with us now, sustaining us in the wilderness by the Spirit within us.
Grace and Peace to you.
Yours In Christ,
Drew+
St Aidan's Episcopal Church
1318 SR532, Camano Island, WA 98282
PO Box 145, Stanwood, WA 98292
Office@StAidansCI.org
(360) 629-3969 ~ Like us on Facebook
Copyright © All rights reserved.
1318 SR532, Camano Island, WA 98282
PO Box 145, Stanwood, WA 98292
Office@StAidansCI.org
(360) 629-3969 ~ Like us on Facebook
Copyright © All rights reserved.