Items of General Interest about liturgy, the liturgical calendar, church customs and culture, our unique “Episcopal vocabulary,” the intersection of faith and culture, and all other items not fitting into the other categories (or fitting into multiple categories).
Wind in the Chimes: Prayer as responding to God with or without words
O wonder of wonders! when I think of the union of my soul with you, O God! You make my soul flow out of herself in joyful ecstasy, for nothing but you can content her. A spring of divine love surges over my soul, sweeping her out of herself into you, O God, her original source.
Wind in the Chimes: A brief meditation about prayer changing the one who prays
I pray because …
In a scene from Shadowlands, a film based on the life of C.S. Lewis, Lewis has returned to Oxford from London, where he has just been married to Joy Gresham, an American woman, in a private Episcopal ceremony performed at her hospital bedside. She is dying from cancer, and, through the struggle with her illness, she and Lewis have been discovering the depth of their love for each other.
As Lewis arrives at the college where he teaches, he is met by Harry Harrington, an Episcopal priest, who asks what news there is. Lewis, hesitates; then, deciding to speak of the marriage and not the cancer, he says, “Ah, good news, I think, Harry. Yes, good news.”
Harrington, not aware of the marriage and thinking that Lewis is referring to Joy’s medical situation, replies, “I know how hard you’ve been praying…Now, God is answering your prayer.”
“That’s not why I pray, Harry,” Lewis responds. “I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God—it changes me.”
It doesn’t change God; it changes me. Prayer is not a message scribbled on a note, jammed into a bottle and tossed into the sea in hopes that it will wash up someday on God’s shoreline. Prayer is communion with God. We speak to God, but God touches, embraces, shapes and changes us. Whether we pray for rain or pray for sunshine, our prayer is answered, because in the act of praying we receive the gift we really seek—intimacy with God.
Source: Thomas G. Long, Whispering the Lyrics: Sermons for Lent and Easter, Lima, OH: CSS Publishing Co., 1995 quoted in Pulpit Resource, January, February, March, 1998 p. 30
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Prayer is responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words.
1979 (Episcopal) Book of Common Prayer, 856
About Wind in the Chimes
Wind in the Chimes (renaming and reintroduction of Wind Chimes, 7/21/20)
“We are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.” 1 Samuel 8:19b-20
Israel Demands a King, engraving, 1778, J. Winter, active 18th century. This engraving was published in The Bible and its Story, 1909, Edited by Charles Horne and Julius Brewer.
When the prophet Samuel was advanced in years the Israelites began to worry about their future. Who would be their leader and how would they be able to deal with their enemies? The elders went to Samuel with their concerns and said “You are old and your sons do not follow your ways, appoint for us a king to govern us, like other nations.” Samuel was displeased that they asked for a king. When he prayed, God instructed him to listen to the people, but also to warn them solemnly about what they could expect if they were to bed given a king. Samuel warned the elders to be careful about what they wished but they would have none of it and said, “No… we are determined to have a king…
Winter’s Israel Demands a King (detail above) the figures are placed in an open courtyard and strong opposing opinions are suggested by a face-off between Samuel and the elders. Samuel, a slightly hunched over old man, is at the left. He has assumed a solid stance and is pointing forcefully with both index fingers as he states his opposition to Israel having a king. To the right an animated spokesperson for the elders is leaning forward as he argues forcefully to make a point. He seems ready to interrupt Samuel at any moment. The gestures of the elders are exaggerated for effect and their claw-like hands are emphasized. A young man standing behind Samuel seems to be taken aback by the demanding elders. Have they no respect … how could they talk to Samuel like that? After listening, praying, and explaining what it would be like to have a king, Samuel followed the people’s wishes and anointed a king.
J. Winter, Israel Demands a King (full engraving)
In medieval art, illustrations were added to enhance the text of gospel books. Often subjects were events in the life of Jesus, Mary, his mother and the Apostles, and Old Testament kings, prophets and events in other’s lives were illustrated. Illustrations also presented artists with an opportunity to venture into less-depicted subjects but sometimes these did not have visual impact. An engraving of Samuel arguing with elders could not compete with the drama of Moses and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea or Elijah ascending to heaven in a fiery horse drawn cart. When a subject lacked action an artist was challenged to generate interest by staging the subject in a dramatic way. This could engage a viewer and describe a work’s subject but often these were not enough. The arrangement of figures in Winter’s IsraelDemands a King requires knowledge of the biblical text in order to understand the subject being depicted.
At mid-fifteenth century the printing press was invented and by the end of the century, books were being published. Instead of hand-painted illustrations as in gospel books, art in the form of engravings, could be inked and printed with the text. Engravings continued to be popular even after the halftone (a photo-mechanical process) was introduced in the late nineteenth century.
Wind in the Chimes: To whom do you turn in the midst of trouble?
Prayer and Peace in a single verse
Trouble, danger, chaos, upset, frustration: whatever you call it, it can happen in just a moment or last years. From moment to moment in a day, day by day in a week, week by week in a month, month by month in a year, we may experience “trouble.”
In the midst of trouble, the Psalmist is our guide: that is the point to turn with heartfelt trust (like the Psalmist) and declare, “you [my God, my Lord] preserve me against the wrath of my enemies; you stretch out your hand, and your right hand delivers me.” You are not alone in the midst of trouble.
Trust these words. Let your God walk with you, love you, and deliver you. God’s Peace is yours, always, in the midst of trouble.
About Wind in the Chimes
Wind in the Chimes (renaming and reintroduction of Wind Chimes, 7/21/20)
I give you thanks, O LORD, with my whole heart; before the gods I sing your praise… Psalm 138:1 (NRSV)
Welcome!
Psalm 138 (NRSVue) gives thanks and speaks powerfully to the majesty and humility of the God who loves us. Sometimes it helps to hear more than one translation of the ancient text to discover new dimensions of our relationship with God.
Here is Psalm 138 from the New Jerusalem Bible:
1I thank you, Yahweh, with all my heart, for you have listened to the cry I uttered. In the presence of angels I sing to you,
2I bow down before your holy Temple. I praise your name for your faithful love and your constancy; your promises surpass even your fame.
3You heard me on the day when I called, and you gave new strength to my heart.
4All the kings of the earth give thanks to you, Yahweh, when they hear the promises you make;
5they sing of Yahweh’s ways, ‘Great is the glory of Yahweh!’
6Sublime as he is, Yahweh looks on the humble, the proud he picks out from afar.
7Though I live surrounded by trouble you give me life—to my enemies’ fury! You stretch out your right hand and save me,
8Yahweh will do all things for me. Yahweh, your faithful love endures for ever, do not abandon what you have made.
Here is Psalm 138 from the Tanakh:
1Of David. I praise You with all my heart, sing a hymn to You before the divine beings;
2I bow toward Your holy temple and praise Your name for Your steadfast love and faithfulness, because You have exalted Your name, Your word, above all.
3When I called, You answered me, You inspired me with courage.
4All the kings of the earth shall praise You, O Lord, for they have heard the words You spoke.
5They shall sing of the ways of the Lord, “Great is the majesty of the Lord!”
6High though the Lord is, He sees the lowly; lofty, He perceives from afar.
7Though I walk among enemies, You preserve me in the face of my foes; You extend Your hand; with Your right hand You deliver me.
8The Lord will settle accounts for me. O Lord, Your steadfast love is eternal; do not forsake the work of Your hands.
As always, our sacred text (in its various English translations) questions us even as we speak, listen to, and hear the words:
Throughout the day, how often do you pause and give thanks? How often is thanksgiving done with all your heart? How might you experience or describe a half-hearted thanksgiving? A whole-hearted thanksgiving? (v. 1)
In verse 1 the Psalmist sings before “gods” (NRSV), “angels” (NJB), or “divine beings” (Tanakh). Which translation speaks to your heart? Why is that? Close your eyes, picture and feel and hear yourself singing your thanksgiving in such hallowed company. Well?
In the NRSVue verse 3 reads: “On the day I called, you answered me; “you increased my strength of soul.” The NJB translates God’s answer as “you gave new strength to my heart.” The Tanakh translates God’s answer as “You inspired me with courage.” Again, which translation speaks to your heart and why is that?
With these few examples from verses 1 and 3, I encourage you to allow the text (in various translations) to question you. Become quiet. Hear what the Spirit is saying to you. Hear how the Spirit—in the sacred text—both questions and encourages you.
*Most Wednesday mornings a group of us gather online to explore the readings that will be used in worship the following Sunday. This week’s handout features readings, commentaries, and notes for the Third Sunday after Pentecost (June 9, 2024) in Year B of the Revised Common Lectionary. Please: View or download the handoutwe used to guide our discussion and tune our hearts to the Spirit.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you. 2 Cor 13:13 NRSVue
Welcome!
Along the way I read—and remember now—Marcus Borg’s observation that credo, “I believe,” is probably better rendered, “I give my heart to.”
Everything we say in the Nicene Creed is about giving our heart to God who we experience as one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Enter into our Nicene Creed as an expression of trust born of love:
WE GIVE OUR HEARTS TO one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.
WE GIVE OUR HEARTS TO one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made.
WE GIVE OUR HEARTS TO THE ONE WHO, For us and for our salvation, came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. WHO, For our sake was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried.
WE GIVE OUR HEARTS TO THE ONE WHO, On the third day rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; WHO ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. WHO will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and WHOSE kingdom will have no end.
WE GIVE OUR HEARTS TO the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets.
WE GIVE OUR HEARTS TO THE one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
On Wednesday, May 22, 2024, we* read through the scriptures appointed for Trinity Sunday, Year B. We spent the most time on the reading and learning from the letter to the Romans (Chapter 8, verses 12-17)
“There was the true light, which enlightens everyone who comes into the world” (John 1:9)—the Father.
“There was the true light, which enlightens everyone who comes into the world”—the Son.
“There was the true light, which enlightens everyone who comes into the world”—the other Paraclete (John 14:16, 26).
“Was” and “was” and “was,” but one thing was; “light” and “light” and “light,” but one light and one God. This is what David too imagined long ago when he said, “In your light we shall see light” (Psalm 36:10 [36:9]).
And now we have both seen and proclaimed the concise and simple theology of the Trinity: out of light (the Father) we comprehend light (the Son) in light (the Spirit).
Source: Christopher A. Beeley, Leading God’s People: Wisdom from the Early Church for Today (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012), 99–100.
Christopher Beeleyis the Walter H. Gray Associate Professor of Anglican Studies and Patristics [Yale Macmillan Center]. He teaches early Christian theology and history and modern Anglican tradition. He is an Episcopal priest.
*Most Wednesday mornings a group of us gather online to explore the readings that will be used in worship the following Sunday. This week’s handout features readings, commentaries, and notes for Trinity Sunday (May 26, 2024) in Year B of the Revised Common Lectionary. Please: View or download the handoutwe used to guide our discussion and tune our hearts to the Spirit.
Wind in the Chimes: We remember those whose graves are marked and those whose passing is commemorated in our hearts
Sacrifices remembered with grateful hearts
Jesus, Prince of Peace, we remember before you with grateful hearts the men and women of our country who in the day of decision ventured much for the liberties we now enjoy and especially we remember with gratitude those men and women who have laid down their lives in the service of our country.
Grant—to those whose graves are marked in hallowed grounds and to those whose passing is commemorated in our hearts—your mercy and the light of your presence.
And give, O Lord, to the people of our country a zeal for justice and the strength of forbearance, that we may use our liberty in accordance with your gracious will. As you know us and love us, hear our prayer.
Adapted from the Book of Common Prayer: Thanksgiving for Heroic Service (839); Collect for the Nation (258)
Trinity with Three Faces, Fresco, c.1400, Antonio da Atri, c.1350-1433
The much-quoted statement, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” is true in some instances but not all. A picture cannot represent adequately images such as those that come to mind in the words of the Twenty-third Psalm or the Sermon on the Mount. Art may at times clarify ideas that cannot be expressed by other means but there are times when neither words nor pictures are adequate. A challenge facing early Christian artists was how to create visual images that could communicate concepts found in their faith. A concept such as the Trinity was difficult to explain through art or with words.
In the early Church, there were questions about how (or if) a depiction of God should (or could) be made and if so, what would the image be? God was depicted ultimately as a bearded father figure (possibly derived from the description, “ancient of days” mentioned in the Book of Daniel). A lamb represented Jesus and a dove represented the Holy Spirit. As long as members of the Godhead were depicted as separate entities, artists did not have to deal with the problem of creating an image that represented all three.
The three figures that appeared before Abraham in the Book of Genesis were portrayed as the Trinity but they were shown as separate individuals. By placing them adjacent to each other they were seen as a visual unit. Official use of this form of Trinity was ended by the Pope in the eighteenth century but it continued in places such as the American Southwest.
Retablo of the Trinity from an altarpiece of a mission church, New Mexico, USA
Another attempt to depict the Trinity is found in the Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta in Atri, Italy. Antonio da Atri’s fresco, “Trinity with Three Faces,” shows Christ standing and facing the viewer. His right arm is raised in a blessing and his left hand is holding a book. To depict Christ as part of the Trinity, Antonio has given the figure one body but three faces. Right and left profiles have been added to Jesus’ head with radiating lines emanating from the halos. As a setting for this composition, Antonio framed his Trinity image in a Late Gothic arch and decorative elements.
Multi-headed divinities existed in other religions and although a three-faced Trinity such as Antonio’s fresco was accepted by the Roman Catholic hierarchy, it was ridiculed by Protestants. It was called the “Catholic Cerberus.” [In Greek mythology, Cerberus was the three-headed dog that guarded the gates of Hades.] As a consequence, in the sixteenth century, the Pope ended the use of the three-faced Trinity but the image remained in remote regions. Pope Innocent XII went further in the seventeenth century and ordered them all to be destroyed. The three-faced Trinity at the Basilica of Atri survived because it was not in sight. It, and other frescos at the Basilica, had been covered with plaster for fear their surfaces might in some way contribute to the spread of the bubonic plague.
Note: links to the artwork were updated on May 25, 2024; the content was lightly edited. Find additional images of the Trinity with Three Faces using Google Search.
Image: Antonio da Atri, Wikimedia Commons; upload of Retablo of the Trinity, ca. 1936, Watercolor, colored pencil, and graphite on Paper [This is a copy from an altarpiece], E. Elizabeth Boyd, 1903-1974.
Wind in the Chimes: The Sunday after the Day of Pentecost is Trinity Sunday
Trinity Sunday (May 26, 2024)
Feast that celebrates “the one and equal glory” of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, “in Trinity of Persons and in Unity of Being” (BCP, p. 380). It is celebrated on the first Sunday after Pentecost. Trinity Sunday is one of the seven principal feasts of the church year (BCP, p. 15). The proper readings and collect for Trinity Sunday are used only on the feast, not on the weekdays following. The numbered proper which corresponds most closely to the date of Trinity Sunday is used (BCP, p. 228). The BCP also provides the proper “Of the Holy Trinity” for optional use at other times, subject to the rules of the calendar of the church year (see BCP, pp. 251, 927). The Hymnal 1982 presents ten hymns in a section on The Holy Trinity (Hymns 362-371), including “Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!” (Hymn 362), “Come, thou almighty King” (Hymn 365), and “Holy Father, great Creator” (Hymn 368).
Celebration of Trinity Sunday was approved for the western church by Pope John XXII in 1334. This feast is associated with Thomas Becket (c. 1118-1170), who was consecrated bishop on Trinity Sunday, 1162. His martyrdom may have influenced the popularity of the feast in England and the custom of naming the remaining Sundays of the church year “Sundays after Trinity.” The Sarum Missal and editions of the Prayer Book through the 1928 BCP named these Sundays the Sundays after Trinity. The 1979 BCP identifies this portion of the church year as the season after Pentecost, and names these Sundays the Sundays after Pentecost (see BCP, p. 32).
Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit… (Acts 2:3-4)
Welcome!
What does Pentecost mean to you? How have you experienced the gift of the Holy Spirit breathing life into you, guiding your thinking and choosing, and enlivening your day-to-day activity?
On Wednesday, May 15, 2024, we* explored Acts 2:1-21, the account of the events on the Day of Pentecost.
Pause, remember, acknowledge, and even celebrate, the presence of the Holy Spirit “the Lord, the giver of life” in you.
From a commentary on Acts 2:1-21
The language of the Pentecost experience, with its images of “wind,” “spirit,” and being “filled” with the Spirit or the “breath” of life, is reminiscent of God’s initial creative activity (Gen. 1:2; 2:7). Here, however, the emphasis is not so much on creation or God’s works in history as on direct contact with the Spirit of God, who is now filling the world in a new way. The roll call of nations and languages points to the universality of the Spirit’s work for the whole world. God’s Spirit is the divine energy that now enables an eternal life to be real for those on whom God’s Spirit is poured and in whom the Spirit dwells (cf. Rom. 5:5).
Even more, linking the Pentecost events with the prophetic word about “last days” (Acts 2:17) points forward to the ultimate consummation of God’s reign in a “new heaven and new earth” (Rev. 21:1).
Source: Donald K. Mckim, “Theological Perspective on Acts 2:1‒21,” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year B, ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, vol. 3 (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 2.
*Most Wednesday mornings a group of us gather online to explore the readings that will be used in worship the following Sunday. This week’s handout features readings, commentaries, and notes for the Day of Pentecost (May 19, 2024) in Year B of the Revised Common Lectionary. Please: View or download the handoutwe used to guide our discussion and tune our hearts to the Spirit.
Hear what the Spirit is saying 
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