Shawna R. B. Atteberry

“In the Kitchen”
Father Kilian McDonnell, O. S. B.

Bellini was wrong.
I was not kneeling
on my satin cushion
quietly at prayer,
head slightly bent.

Painters always
skew the scene,
as though my life
were wrapped in silks,
in temple smells.

Actually I had just
come back from the well,
placing the pitcher on the table
I bumped against the edge,
spilling water on the floor.

As I bent to wipe
it up, there was a light
against the kitchen wall
as though someone had opened
the door to the sun.

Rag in hand,
hair across my face,
I turned to see
who was entering,
unannounced, unasked.

All I saw was light, white
against the timbers.
I heard a voice
I had never heard.

I heard a greeting,
I was elected,
the Lord was with me,
I pushed back my hair,
stood afraid.

Someone closed the door.
And I dropped the rag.

Jay Cormier says this in response to “In the Kitchen”:

And so Mary’s Child comes to us, often unannounced, into our kitches and living rooms, our offices and plants, our classrooms and playgrounds. He comes to transform not only human history but also our own personal histories. In him, the compassion of God takes on a human face; in him, our everyday struggles and confusions are transformed in the peace of the Father (Daily Reflections for Advent and Christmas: Waiting in Joyful Hope, 2007-8, 43).

It’s not easy to write sermons with migraine-like sinus headaches, but I have done it. Hopefully, I won’t have an uber-headache while preaching it tomorrow. I’m posting it tonight because I have decided to take a Sabbath from the computer on Sundays.

Tables of Love

Scripture Readings: Psalm 100; Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Philippians 4:4-9; John 6:25-35

When I think of tables, I think of eating with friends and family. Through the years these tables have taken different shapes and forms. Sometimes it’s just me and another person and at other times there could be 15-20 of us gathered around. Sometimes it’s quiet conversation and other times a cacophany of chatter, dishes, and someone yelling down the table to get someone else’s attention. I’m Irish-Italian; we tend to be a loud bunch. Of course that didn’t change when I headed off to seminary, and all of my friends were religion geeks like me. There was still a lot of talking over one another, around one another, and yelling at someone in order to get a word in edgewise. I felt right at home.

The table I normally think of is our family table growing up. Mom, Dad, my sister and me every night for supper. We didn’t have very many family rules set in stone, but eating supper together was one of them. When friends were over, they ate with us. Same thing if family visited: eating supper together never changed except when we slept over at a friend’s or had a school function. Some nights there was a lot of chatter, some nights we played Jeopardy more than we talked, and other nights we ate in relative silence because we were tired. The ebb and flow of activity may have changed but supper itself did not. We ate one meal as a family at the table everyday. Period.

One of the hardest things to get used to when I moved out and started living on my own was eating alone. It seemed odd, wrong. And not just because of family dinner. Before college I had always eaten breakfast with my sister, lunch with friends, and dinner with the family. In college I always ate with friends or a the family that adopted me at church. Eating by myself bothered me more than living by myself. In the movie Under the Tuscan Sunher neighbor invites Francis over for supper saying, “It’s not healthy to eat alone.” I absolutely agree with him.

In fact the Mediterranean people know how to do supper. I lived in Barcelona for a year as a Nazarene in Volunteer Service or NIVS for short. I loved their attitude about food. Food was something to be enjoyed, not scarfed down. I am a slow eater. I always have been and I will stubbornly remain so. I get teased because I refuse to scarf my food down in order to “do” something more important. What’s more important than nourishing yourself? And I don’t believe you can nourish yourself if you inhale your food. I fit right in in Spain and with the Mediterranean mindset: food is to be enjoyed and preferably enjoyed with family and bunch of friends. They take supper seriously. There it is a three hour affair with three or four courses and a lot of conversation. Talking, joking, sharing the day, getting caught up. It’s relaxed. Everyone is enjoying themselves. Everyone is enjoying the food. I fit right in. I found out the Italian genes I got from my full-blooded Italian great-grandmother ran true in my blood. They somehow skipped the rest of family.

How the Mediterraneans view supper is very much how people in both the Old and New Testaments viewed supper. Breakfast was some bread, probably left over from the night before. Lunch was at work and normally a piece of dried fish and what ever fruit or vegetables that were in season. But supper–supper was different. You were paid for your work at the end of the day. You went shopping then came home, and the whole family–and you have to remember in the Bible this would be three generations who lived close to each other–all of them would get together and eat supper. It was a relaxed, joyous time for the family. They had food, they had each other. They enjoyed their day’s labor at the end of the day. And they took their time. This meal was not to be rushed. It was to be savored and enjoyed. It was the only time the entire family ate together.

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Today is All Soul’s Day. I prefer Day of the Dead for one simple reason. In Mexico and Central America people take food to the graves of their loved ones and eat with them. They remember them and look forward to the time they will be reunited.

One of my little sisters, Tanya Anne Bound, died when she was nine months from a brain tumor. When I lived in Oklahoma, I always visited her grave and caught her up on everything. Now I spend this day thinking of her. She in now 35. On November 28, she will be 36. She literally grew up in the presence of Jesus. I wonder what that was like. I can’t wait to ask her. I can’t wait to see her. I was 2 when she died, and I don’t remember her. I long to have memories of my little sister. I wonder what she looks like. Did her eyes stay blue? Or did they turn like mine and Trina’s did. Trina has green eyes, and I have hazel (a blue/green mix). I wonder if she looks more like Mom or Dad. If she has curly hair like Dad or straight like Mom. Did she get the Bound height (my Dad is 6′2″ and Trina 5′9″) or Mom’s family shortness (Mom is 5′2″ and I’m 5′3″)? What does her smile look like. What does her laugh sound like? Is she an arrogant loud mouth like the rest of our Irish-Italian family, or did she have a chance, since she didn’t have to grow up with us? One day I will find out. Trina was born after Tanya died. The three of us have never been together, but one day we will be together for eternity. I spend this day celebrating that.

Tomorrow is my niece’s birthday. How appropriate that Tonya should be born, not only in November–her namesake’s birth month–but also the day after All Soul’s Day/Day of the Dead to remind us that life does not end here.

Eternal Lord God, you hold all souls in life: Give to your whole Church in paradise and on earth your light and your peace. Amen.

Who do you remember today?

I stood before her tomb: St. Catherine of Sienna at Sant Maria Soph de Minerva, Rome’s only Gothic church. Her remains were entombed in the high altar, which was gorgeous. Her likeness had been sculpted and laid in a glass sarcophagus. I gave an offering, lit a candle, and said The Lord’s Prayer. Later I thought of how I would have asked her to pray for me, if I prayed to saints.

There were were a few things Catherine did not like about the Catholic Church the same way there are a few things I do not like about the Church of the Nazarene. In fact, when we were in Rome, I was seriously considering leaving my denomination because of decisions made on the general leadership level that I thought were nonbiblical and unethical. I didn’t know if I could stay a member–especially an ordained minister–when I doubted decisions and motives at the highest levels of our leadership.

Catherine was born in 1347 in Siena, Italy. This was the time of the Great Schism in the Catholic Church with France and Italy vying for power. 75 years earlier French cardinals and the monarchy had succeeded in moving the papacy to Avignon, France. A move the Italians saw a betrayal of the highest order. For a time there were two popes because Rome and Italy refused to recognize the French “puppet” pope. By the time Catherine was born the papacy was firmly established in France.

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Happy belated Easter! I was not online much yesterday. Our pastor reminded us yesterday that a lot of us live in Saturday: the Saturday of doubt, grief, and pain. Our Saturdays include job losses, family problems, addictions, or problems at work. But the Resurrection gives us hope. With the Resurrection God has once and for all broken the power of sin and death. Through sharing in Christ’s suffering, death, and now resurrection we have the hope that through God’s grace we, too, can have victory over our Saturdays. Not that it will be easy. We have to trust in God and submit to God, and trust God’s power and grace to redeem us. We have to obey what God tells us to do. But we do have hope—hope that the way this world is, is not the way it should be. The hope that God’s kingdom can come on earth as it is in heaven. Hope that this life isn’t all there is, and that this life has more of God’s grace and power than any of us believe. What would happen if we believed?

“Some women were there, watching from a distance, including Mary Magdalene, Mary (the mother of James the younger and of Joseph), and Salome. They had been followers of Jesus and had cared for him while he was in Galilee. Then they and many other women had come with him to Jerusalem. . ..Joseph [of Arimathea] bought a long sheet of linen cloth, and taking Jesus’ body down from the cross, he wrapped it in the cloth and laid it in a tomb that had been carved out of the rock. Then he rolled a stone in front of the entrance. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where Jesus’ body was laid” (Mark 15:40-41, 46-47).

At sunset the Sabbath began; the first Vigil Saturday. What did they do that Sabbath? How did the mother of God, who had just watched her son die and these other women who had followed him right up to the cross spend that Saturday? Did they go to synagogue? Did they say the prayers? Did they take part in the joy of the Exodus? Would they go to the Temple? Would they worship side-by-side with the people who had condemned and cheered her Son and their Savior to death? Would they too pray Jesus’ prayer, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do?” Or was their grief and anger too great? Did they just stay inside, holding on to each other, comforting each other as best they could? They saw where Joseph buried Jesus. They knew he did not have the time to properly anoint and wrap the body of their Beloved. They knew what they would do the first thing Sunday morning. But what did they do that long, long Saturday?

I know the Resurrection happened. I know tomorrow I will celebrate the Resurrection with my brothers and sisters in Christ. And this day is a long day for me. The waiting. Living an entire day between the last breath of death and the first breath of resurrection. It is hard. It is long. My first reminder is during morning prayers when I see there is no Gospel reading. There will be no Gospel reading tonight when I pray Compline. This is the only day of the year, we do not read the Gospel. The Gospel is in the grave, and we feel that loss, that void. Today the Church lives between life and death. And we long for, anticipate, and hope for Sunday morning. We live in anticipation and expectation of waking up Sunday morning to the creedal cry of the Church: “HE IS RISEN!” “HE IS RISEN INDEED!” I long for tomorrow when the silence of death will be broken. When I will walk into the sanctuary and see the cross draped in the victorious white of the Resurrection. We will shout our creedal cry. We will sing. We will hear the word. We will renew our baptismal vows. We will take communion. We will pass the peace. We will worship our risen Lord and Savior. But today is one of silence and waiting—vigil.

I will always wonder what the women who watched Joseph place Jesus’ body in the tomb did on that first Saturday. They didn’t have our hope. They thought Jesus was dead, and the kingdom he proclaimed was destroyed with him. What did they do on that day between death and life?

Christ himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.
That we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

Almighty God,
your Son Jesus Christ was lifted high upon the cross
so that he might draw the whole world to himself.
Grant that we, who glory in this death for our salvation,
may also glory in his call to take up our cross and follow him;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(From The United Methodist Book of Worship. Painting by Paul Heussenstamm.)