My Induction into the West Fargo High School Hall of Fame

 

Induction into the West Fargo High School Hall of Fame

September 20, 2024

 

The other day I posted a question on my special media:

 

If your 17 year old self could see you now would they be happy or disappointed?

 

For me, my 17 year old self, way back in 1987, would be shocked, I think, to know that the 2024 me would be standing here, in this auditorium (that would not yet have been built in 1987) and be receiving this honor.

 

Considering who I was then, I don’t know if I could’ve even imagined anything like this.

 

Teenagers like I was then, didn’t imagine honors like this in the future.

 

I wasn’t a typical West Fargo teenager.

 

I wanted to be a priest since I was 13 years old (even though I was a Lutheran at the time).

 

And I wanted to be a poet since I was 16 years old.

 

These were not “normal” things teenagers in the 1980s in places like West Fargo aspired to be.

 

And I still am amazed that my poor parents, for whom such things as priests and poets were things they didn’t experience very often (or at all) in their lives, supported their strange teenage son so fully and completely.

 

(I’m sure there were many discussion between them about me)

 

But I realize that without them, without the opportunities I have had in my life, I would not have been able to live this strange, unusual, but absolutely amazing life that I have lived.

 

As grateful as I am for being what I aspired to be even back then, I will admit that for many ears, I envied my "normal" friends, who lived normal lives, who got married, who settled down, who had normal jobs and normal schedules.

 

I envied them.

 

But I never wanted their lives.

 

Finally, one day somewhere along the way, I just started to embrace this unique life that I lived –this life of poetry and faith and books and service to others.  

 

One of my favorite quotes is by the writer Edna Ferber.

 

Ferber, who was the author of books like Giant (which was later made into a film starring James Dean), struggled for years over the fact that she never wanted to get married and settle down in a time when those things were expected.

 

Later in life, she wrote, "Being an old maid is like death by drowning, a really delightful sensation after you cease to struggle."

 

My life has been so much more delightful as soon as I ceased to struggle and just embraced this life I have lived. 

 

I now wear my life as a poet and priest as a badge of honor that I've rightfully earned through a lifetime of learning. And struggle.

 

My life has been a rich one.

 

I have known truly good friends.

 

I have traveled widely.

 

I have delighted over amazing things and seen things not many other people have ever seen.

 

My only regret is that I didn't figure it out earlier.

 

But then, I wouldn’t have had the great experience of finding myself in the process.

 

I wish my parents were here to see this day.

 

They would be so proud of this.

 

And they would be so proud of me.

 

And they were proud of me. I know that.

 

But I am happy my friends and family who are here today are celebrating this honor with me.

 

I want to thank especially Cindy Bleier, who was my Junior Year English teacher.

 

She was the one who introduced me to contemporary American Poetry.

 

I remember as clearly as if it happened yesterday the moment when poetry just sort of “clicked” in my head in that class, while reading Walt Whitman and William Carlos Williams.

It was in that moment that I knew I was going to be a poet.

 

I will always be grateful to her for making poetry come alive for me.

 

She wanted to be here today, but she called this morning to inform me she was sick. But I will visiting her later this week.

 

I want to thank my best friend in high school, who is still my best friend, Greg Bachmeier, who is also not here. He’s not sick, but in true best friend fashion, he just thought it was ridiculous that I’m being inducted.

 

I thank my good high school friends who are here, who also probably think this is crazy—Paul Naseth (who I've known since the seventh grade) and Mike Pulcinski (who I've known since Kindergarten).

 

I thank my aunt uncle, Rhoda and Herm Rabans, and my  dear cousin, Renaye Clemenson, who with her family have been my biggest supporters over these last years.

 

I thank my many friends who are here today, especially my parishioners from my eclectic parish of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in north Fargo.

 

Thank you to the West Fargo Area Education Foundation for this honor.

 

Thank you especially to Nancy Peterson, who has been wonderful to me.

And thank you to Angela Otteson for walking me through this whole process as well.  

 

I have had many opportunities to live elsewhere, and I have traveled far and wide, but I always, always come back to West Fargo. This will always be home for me.

 

Thank you again!   

 

 

Holy Cross

 

September 15, 2024

 

John 10: 11-16

 

+ This morning, we have the red on.

 

It’s on the altar.

 

Deacon John and I are in the red.

 

We usually put the red on for the Feast of Pentecost.

 

Or for the feast of a martyr.

 

But no, we’re not commemorating a martyr.

 

But, sadly, we are commemorating something not all that pleasant either.

 

This morning we are commemorating probably the one most important symbols of who we are as Christians.

 

We are commemorating the feast of the Holy Cross.

 

Actually, yesterday was the Feast of the Holy Cross.

 

But we transferred it to today.

 

We’r enot really supposed to do that.

 

But, my thinking is this: if we don’t, most everyone will miss this important feast, since we don’t have a Mass on Saturday here.

 

This isn’t the first time we’ve transferred a feast like this.

 

The last time it happened, someone scolded me on Facebook, referencing a priest who is somewhat well-known on Episcopal social media, who in a post went on and on and on about how clergy who transfer a feast like this are in danger of violating their ordination vows.

 

Clergy, of course, promise to confirm to the doctrine, discipline and worship of the Episcopal Church.

 

So, according to this priest’s argument, any clergy who transfer the feast is in violation of rubrics (those italicized instructions we find in the book of Common Prayer)  which, as we all know, must be faithfully followed to the letter since they are obviously commandments from God on high.

 

(They are NOT).

 

The priest referenced was actually someone I once knew and actually admired at one time.

 

But a few years ago he decided to cull his expansive Facebook friends list and. . .well. . .guess who didn’t make the cut (though about 200 of our mutual friends did)

 

I responded to the person who referenced this priest by saying that if I wasn’t good enough to be this priest’s Facebook friend any more, his opinion on this issue meant nothing to me.

 

Besides, I went on, he wasn’t my bishop—or anyone else’s for that matter, though it seems anytime there’s a bishop’s search in the Church, this guy’s name appears on the list.

 

So, I really don’t care what that priest thinks about this or any other issue.

 

But. . .you all get to benefit from your heretical priest’s flagrant “breaking” his ordination vows. . .though, who knows? I may get defrocked for it.

 

The late , great Father John-Julian of the Episcopal religious order, the Order of Julian or Norwich, wrote about this very important feast in his wonderful book, Stars in a Dark World, which we occasionally use at our Wednesday evening Eucharist. .

 

He writes:

 

“It is noteworthy, I think, to see that the Church celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross not with the penitential purple of Lent or the mortal black of Good Friday, but with the brilliant passion red of celebration and honor! And the propers of this feast do not dwell on the bloody death of Christ but on rather upon the wonder of the utterly holy [instrument], because the executioner’s instrument has been exalted as the means of the salvation of the world. The salvic resurrection of Christ transformed the gross and ugly Cross of death into the most enduring symbol of life and hope.”

 

Now, we probably don’t really think about the Cross as an object too often.

 

We find of take it for granted.

 

We see it every Sunday.

 

We see the cross on the churches we pass every day.

 

We probably wear the cross around our necks or hang it on the walls of our homes.

 

For us, of course, the Cross is more than just two pieces of wood bound together.

 

For us the Cross is our symbol.

And more than that.

 

We have essentially been branded with the cross.

 

Each of us were marked by the Cross in our baptism.

 

And as a result, it is ingrained into our very souls.

 

And we have been told by the One we follow that to truly follow him, we must take up our own cross.

 

Again, not pleasant to do.

 

But it is essential.

 

Look at how deceptively simple it is.

 

It’s simply two pieces, bound together.

 

For someone who knows nothing about Christianity, for someone who knows nothing about the story, it’s a symbol they might not think much about.

 

And yet the Cross is more than just another symbol in our lives.

 

The Cross is what truly defines as Christians.

 

We are followers of Jesus.

 

And to be a follower of Jesus means to follow him not only in the nice, sweet times of life.

 

But it also means following him to the very  darkest shadows of Golgotha.

 

And like him, following him, we too need to take up our crosses.

 

The Cross is what gives our faith its very essence.

 

The Cross, as much as it defines us, as much as it is symbol of our faith, is also, sadly, an instrument of torture and death.

 

To take up a cross means to take up a burden that we must bear, even though we don’t really want it.

 

To take it up is torturous.

 

It hurts to take up the Cross.

 

When we think of that last journey Jesus took to the place of the skull, carrying that heavy tree on which he is going to be murdered, it must’ve been more horrible than we can even begin to imagine.

 

And, without the resurrection, it would have been.

 

But the fact is, what Jesus is saying to us is: carry your cross now.

Carry your burden—whatever issues you have in this life--with dignity and inner strength.

 

Because if you carry you cross, then you are truly following Jesus.

 

By carrying our cross, we are following Jesus to the place he leads.

 

That place, is of course, the joy of Resurrection and Life.

 

That place is our eternity with the God of Jesus.

 

But the road there leads first through the place of the skull.

 

To face this reality, we find ourselves facing our fear of pain and death.

 

We sometimes allow ourselves to slip deeply into fear and despair in our lives.

 

As we all know, fear can be crippling.

 

It can devastate us and drive us to despair.

 

But, as Father John-Julian says,

 

“In a sense, the Cross underwent the first transformation of the Resurrection; and that same transformation has been part of the salvation offered by the Crucified and Resurrected One. Pain and death became resurrection and exaltation—and that has never changed. The sign of the Christian’s salvation is not some giddy, mindless, low-cost bliss, but rather an entry into the deeper parts of the reality of pain and death [and I would add, fear], soaked, as was the Holy Cross, with the blood of sacrifice and finally emerged, brought by God on the other side, resurrected, exalted whole, and in heaven.”

 

If we take the crosses we’ve been given to bear in this life and embrace them, rather than running away from them, we find that fear has no control over us.

 

The Cross destroys fear and pain and death.

 

The Cross shatters pain and death into a million pieces.

 

And when we do fear, we know we have a place to go to for shelter.

 

When fear encroaches into our lives—when fear comes riding roughshod through our lives—all we have to do is go to the Cross and embrace it.

 

And there, we will find our fears destroyed.

 

Because of the Cross, we are taken care of.

 

Because of the Cross, we know, all will be well.

 

The cross Jesus asks us to bear is not a frightening and terrible thing.

 

It was, at one time.

 

It was a symbol of defeat and death and pain and torture.

 

It was, for the people of Jesus’s day, what the electric chair or the hangman’s noose or even the lethal injection table is to us this day.

 

It was, for the people of Jesus’s day, a symbol of ultimate defeat.

 

On it, hung criminals.

 

On it, hung those who, by society’s standards, deserved to hang there.

 

On it hung the blasphemer, the heretic, the agitator.

 

But now, for us, it is a symbol of strength and joy and unending eternal life.

 

Through it, we know, we must pass to find true and unending life.

 

Through the Cross, we must pass to find ourselves, once and for all time, face-to-face with God. 

 

It is a reminder to us that God, in the end, always, always, always brings victory out of what seems like defeat.

 

God always turns around what seems like something terrible and transforms it into something life-affirming.

 

So, let us notice of this great symbol in our lives.

 

As we drive along, let us truly notice the crosses on the churches we pass.

 

Let us notice all the crosses that surround us.

 

When we see the Cross, let us remember what it means to us.

 

Look to it for what it is: a symbol of the power of God to overcome terror and death.

 

Let us look at the Cross and, when we see it, let us see it for what it truly is: a triumph over every single fear in our lives.

 

And more importantly, let us continue to bear those crosses of our life patiently and without fear.

 

If we do, we too will be following the way of Jesus, and that Way doesn’t end at the Cross.

 

Rather the Way of Life unending, Life Everlasting, really and truly begins at the Cross.

 

Dedication Sunday

 

September 8, 2024

1 Kings 8:22-23,27b-30;

+ Today, we are celebrating our Dedication Sunday.

 We are commemorating 68 years of service to God and others.

 We are blessing backpacks.

 We are retiring our 100 year old processional cross.

 We are welcoming new members.

 It’s all very exciting.

 And I especially love our scripture readings for today.

 I love all this talk of a building being God’s house.

 I think we sometimes forget that fact.

 We forget that this is God’s house.

 God, in a very unique ways, dwells with us here.

 But this is Sunday is more than all these physical things.

 It is about than just a building, and walls.

 It about us being the House of God.

 It is about us being the tabernacles in which God dwells.

 It is about us and our service to God and others.

 And you know what it’s really all about.

 It is about LOVE. 

 Yup, it’s gonna be another love sermon.

 Years ago, I read an amazing biography of the American poet Denise Levertov, I came across this wonderful quote, from another poet, St. John the Cross:

 “In the evening of our lives, we will be judged on love alone.”

 Later I heard a friend of mine comment on that quote by saying

  “we will be judged BY love alone.”

 I love that!

 That quote has been haunting me for years.

 And it certainly has been striking me to my core in these days leading up to our Dedication Sunday celebration.

 If this congregation could have a motto for itself, it would be this.

 “In the evening of our lives, we will be judged by love alone.”

 Because this, throughout all of our 68 year history, is what we are known for at St. Stephen’s.

 Love.

 We are known for the fact that we know, by our words, by our actions, by our faith in God and one another, that it is love that makes the difference.

 And by love we will, ultimately, be judged.

 That’s what the Church—that larger Church—capital “C” Church— should be.

But sometimes we forget what the Church should be.

This morning, there are many people here who have been wounded by that Church—the larger Church.

I stand before you, having been hurt be the larger Church on more than one occasion.

And for those of us who are here, with our wounds still bleeding, it is not an easy thing to keep coming back to church sometimes.

It is not any easy thing to be a part of that Church again.

It is not an easy thing to call one’s self a Christian again, especially now when it seems so many people have essentially highjacked that name and made it into something ugly and terrible.

 And, speaking for myself, it’s not easy to be a priest—a uniform-wearing representative of that human-run organization that so often forgets about love being its main purpose.

 But, we, here at St. Stephen’s, are obviously doing something right, to make better the wrongs that may have been done on a larger scale.

 We, at St. Stephen’s, (I hope) have done a good job I think over these last 68 years of striving to be a positive example of the wider Church and of service to Christ who, according to Peter’s letter this morning, truly is a “living stone”—the solid foundation from which we grow.

 We have truly become a place of love, of radical acceptance.

 As God intends the Church to be.

In these last 68 years, this congregation has done some amazing things.

It has been first and foremost in the acceptance of women in leadership, when women weren’t in leadership.

It was first and foremost in the acceptance of LGBTQ people, when few churches would acknowledge them, much less welcome them and fully include them. 

Certainly in the last few years,  certainly St. Stephen’s has done something not many Episcopal Churches are doing.

It has grown.

And that alone is something we should be very grateful to God for on this Dedication Sunday.

Seeing all this we need to give the credit where the credit is truly due:

the Holy Spirit.

Here.

Among us.

In our reading from First Kings today, we hear Solomon echoing God’s words, “My name shall be there.”

God’s Name dwells here.

As we look around, we too realize that this is truly the home of God.

We too are able to exclaim, God’s name dwells here!

And, as I said at the beginning of my sermon, by “the home of God”  I don’t mean just this building.

After all—God is truly here, with us, in all that we do together.

The name of God is proclaimed in the ministries we do here.

In the outreach we do.

In the witness we make in the community of Farg0-Moorhead and in the wider Church.

God is here, with us.

God is working through us and in us.

Sometimes, when we are in the midst of it all, when we are doing the work, we sometimes miss that perspective.

We miss that sense of holiness and renewal and life that comes bubbling up from a healthy and vital congregation working together.

We miss the fact that God truly is here.

So, it is good to stop and listen for a moment.

It is good to reorient ourselves.

It is good to refocus and see what ways we can move forward together.

It is good to look around and see how God is working through us.

In a few moments, we will recognize and give thanks for now only our new members but for all our members and the many ministries of this church.

Many of the ministries that happen here at St. Stephen’s go on clandestinely.

They go on behind the scenes, in ways most of us (with exception of God) don’t even see and recognize.

But that is how God works as well.

God works oftentimes clandestinely, through us and around us.

This morning, however, we are seeing very clearly the ways in which God works not so clandestinely.

We see it in here at St. Stephen’s.

We see it in the vitality here.

We see it in the love here.

We see it in the tangible things, in our altar, in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, in our scripture readings, in our windows, in the smell of incense in the air, in our service to9ward each other toward others.

In US.

But behind all these incredible things happening now, God has also worked slowly and deliberately and seemingly clandestinely throughout the years.

And for all of this—the past, the present and the future—we are truly thankful.

God truly is in this place.

This is truly the house of God.

WE truly are the house of God.

This is the place in which love is proclaimed and acted out.

So, let us rejoice.

Let us rejoice in where we have been.

Let us rejoice in where we are.

Let us rejoice in where we are going.

And, in our rejoicing, let us truly be God’s own people.

Let us be God’s people in order that we might proclaim, in love, the mighty and merciful acts of Christ, the living and unmovable stone, on whom we find our security and our foundation.