Table Talk—Continuing the March To The Promise Land

Below is the weekly chaplain's newsletter called 'Table Talk' that I write for the Holy Innocents' Lower School.

(We Shall Overcome -- artwork by a 1st grader). 

Dear Golden Bears, Parents, and Friends,

This month marks the 50^th anniversary of the historic 1965 civil rights march that began in Selma Alabama and ended in the state capital of Montgomery. The freedom march resulted in the passing of the Voting Rights Act, which federally prohibited voter discrimination across the United States.

The anthem of the Civil Rights Movement and the Selma march was the gospel hymn ‘We Shall Overcome.’ The promise of freedom from oppression is as much a spiritual issue as it is a political one. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other religious leaders helped to frame the Civil Rights Movement as fulfilling both the political promise of democracy and the spiritual promise of God’s kingdom. In his final speech, entitled “I’ve Been To The Mountaintop,” MLK referred to his famous dream as a dream of the ‘Promise Land.’

The Promise Land is an idea that dates back to about 600 BCE and is memorialized in the book of Exodus found in the Hebrew Bible. In the story of Exodus—‘exodus’ means ‘mass departure of people’—God chooses Moses to lead the freedom march of the Jewish people. Moses' freedom march overcomes Pharaoh, brings the Hebrews out from the bondage of slavery, and, eventually, leads them into the Promise Land of milk and honey. (Milk is a symbol of life and freedom; honey is symbol of abundance and justice.)

In the quest to overcome segregation, MLK drew on the religious traditions of marching toward the Promise Land. However, rather than referring to a specific location, Martin’s Promise Land pointed to God's intention for the world as a whole— a world of love, freedom, and justice for all.

In the Exodus story, the Hebrews spend 40 years marching through the wilderness until they reach the Promise Land. Echoing this, during Lent we recall the story of how Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness before beginning his ministry of overcoming hatred and sin with God’s healing love and grace.

During the 40 days of Lent, the Lower School is taking up the dream of marching towards the Promise Land and asking, “What shall we overcome?” What, in other words, are obstacles preventing us from living in a world of God's love, freedom, and justice for all? How shall we partner with God and help to overcome these problems?

With ‘overcoming’ as our theme for Lent, throughout the month of March the spiritual life of the Lower School is raising awareness about what our students can do to help overcome the problems homelessness, gender inequality, and educational inequality. Our three guest speakers in chapel will be DeCarlos Wardlaw of the Atlanta Children’s Shelter (March 5^th), the Rev. Noelle York-Simmons of All Saints’ Episcopal Church (March 19^th), and, the Site Director of Horizons at HIES, Christine Brodnan (March 26^th).

I hope you can join us and support the Lower School as we continue the spiritual work of overcoming obstacles that stand in the path of the Promise Land.

With Love and Prayers,

Chaplain Timothy J.S. Seamans

(MLK and Rabbi Abraham Heschel March in Alabama -- artwork by a 1st grader). 

Lent: Acknowledge, Apologize, Act

Below is the weekly chaplain's newsletter called 'Table Talk' that I write for the Holy Innocents' Lower School.

Dear Golden Bears, Parents, and Friends,

“To err is human; to forgive, divine.”

 — Alexander Pope

This past Wednesday hundreds of us at Holy Innocents’ joined the millions of others around the world that had their foreheads marked with ash. Placing ashes on your forehead is a sign carried over from ancient times that indicates you are sorry for something. As the ashes were imposed, we recalled the famous Ash Wednesday words: “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” which is really just a poetic way of saying ‘remember that you’re human.’ (The English word ‘human’ comes from the Latin word humanus, which is derived from humus meaning ‘earth’ or ‘soil’.)

It is human to make mistakes. Unlike God, all humans fall short of perfection. Each of us occasionally does things we know we shouldn’t, just as we sometimes don’t do things we know we should. Lent is the season in the Church calendar when we pause to 1) acknowledge our faults and sins, 2) apologize to God and to our neighbors, and 3) try to renew our lives and act in ways that mirror God’s love and forgiveness.

Acknowledgment is a practice in honesty. Apologizing is a practice in forgiveness. Acting is practice in agape or Godly love.

Over the weeks leading up to Easter, I encourage you to join me in practicing what I call The Three As of Lent. I’ll get us started by sharing one of the faults I acknowledge that I am often guilty of. Like many people, it’s easy for me to find myself spending too much time on my computer or my smart phone. When I give too much of my attention over to technology I find I don’t dedicate enough attention to the presence of the Spirit of God, I don’t pause long enough to listen to the quiet voice of my own soul, and I don’t devote enough attention to the lives and needs of the living, breathing people and world surrounding me. I am sorry and I apologize to God and to all who have been negatively affected by my lack of attentiveness, and, to show that I’m willing to act differently, I’m giving up the personal time I spend on social media for Lent and spending ten prayerful, tech-free minutes a day silently listening with my heart. 

I hope you join me on this Lenten journey. If you feel inclined, I also hope you’ll share with me how you’re renewing your relationship with God.

With Love and Prayers,

Chaplain Timothy

MLK Table Talk - Prophets and Partners with God

Below is the weekly chaplain's newsletter called 'Table Talk' that I write for the Lower School division of Holy Innocents' Episcopal School.

(Portrait of MLK by 1st Grader)

Dear Golden Bears and Parents,

Contrary to popular belief, prophets in the Jewish and Christian traditions aren’t fortune-tellers who predict the future. Instead, a prophet is a spokesperson for God who addresses people when they forget how to listen to God and fail lead holy lives of justice and peace.

Prophets often express God’s dismay over broken relationships between humans and they point humanity on the path towards healing.

This week in chapel we remembered how one prophet named John prepared the way for the healing work of Jesus. Before Jesus began his ministry he insisted that John baptize him. As soon as this took place, the Holy Spirit came down upon Jesus like a dove. A key point in the story is that the arrival of God’s peace in the world first demands active participation on our behalf.

God partners with humanity to fulfill the kingdom of God, and the story of Jesus and John the Baptist asks us: What are you doing to partner with God and help bring peace into the world?

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a prophet of peace who helped teach the world that if we’re to be partners with God we must actively work to mend the relationships that have been broken by slavery, segregation, and racism. Much healing has taken place since the Civil Right Movement—much still needs to be done.

This weekend I encourage you make the time to reflect and talk with your family about two things:

1.    How have the actions of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement affected your life and your relationships?

2.    How can your family become better partners with God and help continue the healing work that Martin Luther King did so well.

With Love and Prayers,
Chaplain Timothy

Table Talk - Unexpected Saints

Below is the weekly chaplain's newsletter called 'Table Talk' that I write for the Lower School division of Holy Innocents' Episcopal School.

Golden Bears and Parents,

Saints are central figures in the Episcopal tradition. At least once a month in chapel, we sing a favorite hymn called ‘I Sing A Song Of The Saints of God’. One of the lyrics goes:

They lived not only in ages past,

there are hundreds of thousands still.

These words are a great reminder that to find saints we need not look only to the past. A saint is anyone whose life serves as a witness to the love of God, and while it’s true that we encounter saints when we set aside days to celebrate and remember people like St. Francis or Martin Luther King, Jr., our most frequent meetings with saints are those quiet, daily occurances when we find God’s beauty and inspiration shining through the people closest to us.

My lesson in chapel this past week was about how naming the saints around us and identifying the ways they share God’s love makes it easier to find God’s presence and activity in the world. Naming saints is exactly what we’ve been doing in class, and it’s been very inspiring to see how many students recognize moms, dads, siblings, grandparents, classmates, and teachers as saints.

Students are realizing that you don’t have to be perfect to be a saint (we’re human, after all). Instead, the beauty of saints is that the perfect light and love of God gracefully shines through our imperfections. God uses saints to perfect our imperfect lives, and, as the song reminds us:

You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,

In church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea;

For the saints of God are just folk like me,

And I mean to be one too.

This week, I pray that you keep your eyes and soul open to the communion of saints that surrounds us.

Don’t be perfect. Just be saintly.

With love and prayers, 

Chaplain Timothy

Eucharist: Including The Excluded

Below is the weekly chaplain's newsletter called 'Table Talk' that I write for the Lower School division of Holy Innocents' Episcopal School.

Dear Golden Bears and Parents,

This semester in chapel, we’ve discovered how people find God’s love and goodness through the arts, through service, through nature, and through songs. While it may strike many as sounding odd, finding God’s love and goodness through fasting and feasting is one of the central themes of Judaism and Christianity. 

Yom Kipper, the Jewish holiday that took place over the weekend, is a period of fasting, repentance, forgiveness, and renewal. Judaism teaches that before renewing your relationship with God, you need to have renewed the relationships with those around you. Jesus stressed this point too, which is not surprising when you consider that he was Jewish. 

Jesus' favorite place to renew relationships was around a table. Hosting meals was among his central ways of showing others God’s love and goodness. This is why you’ll find a table—better known as an ‘altar’—at the front and center of just about any church in the world.

Who Jesus ate with was often surprising and controversial. Like the Hebrew prophets who came before him, Jesus went out of his way to identify with the least, the last, and the lost—the poor, the homeless, the handicapped, the sick, foreigners, prisoners, and all of the people who were regularly excluded from society. Though two millennia have passed, it is simple to think of people who are regularly and unfairly excluded today.

Situated in the prophetic tradition, the Eucharist feast is an important reminder that God is always on the side of those who are bullied and excluded. A renewed relationship with God always requires the elimination of bullying, and inclusion and welcome are peaceful forces that help to end bullying.

When we celebrate Eucharist in chapel each month, we reenact the meal of Jesus so that we can be shaped by the ongoing experience of God’s love and welcome. Eucharist is monthly practice for daily life. It’s meant to let the inclusive Spirit of God guide our actions outside of chapel so that each of us becomes more inclusive and welcoming in our thoughts, words, and deeds.

In the spirit of new and renewed relationships, our Chapel Challenge was to go to a person you see being excluded or bullied—either at recess or during lunch, in the classroom or after school, on the field or at home—and to stand beside that person and invite him or her to spend time with you and be your friend. 

I hope you encourage your children to take part in this challenge by attempting to befriend someone yourself. Kids, after all, often learn best by example.

With Love and Prayers,

Chaplain Timothy

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