As I Have Grown Older…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

I have come to view the weeks of spring with a greater sense of appreciation. As the snow fades and the green emerges from the ground I feel the cool air give way to warmth and listen to the birds announce life’s return to the trees. There is a kind of gentle hope in all of that, a hope that means more to me now that I realize there are more years behind than ahead, more days past than days to come.

Hope and spring allow me to endure the craziness of the world, the sense of the whole thing flying off its axis and spinning madly through space and time. More than anything else these days I’m simply sad at what I see around me, a great delusion with victims who have no idea of how to escape and transcend. I find myself caught up in it as well, drowning in a stormy sea and waiting for the Master to reach down and pull me from the waves. Yet, at least  I know there’s a Master there and couldn’t imagine what it would be like if I didn’t. Such is the world these days, the world of headlines, 24 hour access, and a culture designed to make drones of us all.

Then spring comes and resurrection and a still, small, voice speaks with a clarity beyond the storm. Life begins anew. It always does. Crazy, bitter cold winters can wreak havoc with their temperamental winds driving us to huddle inside by any fire we have left to keep us warm. Yet they never last. Life, sanity, joy, better things, they always return. Sometimes, of course, there is much pain in the journey to that return, but the return, like spring, is inevitable.

One day my body, worn down by all the days that have passed will enter its winter slumber. One day the world around me will enter its night as well. Perhaps it already has. Yet I will rise and so will the world, both by the same force, the grace of God, God’s eternal spring which even death, the death of a person or the death of a culture, cannot overcome. What the birds in the trees announce now. the angels will then, and so the hope inside me never dies.

 

 

I Have a Gay Cousin…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

and I discovered that he recently married his long time partner, so all the stuff in the news these days has come a little closer to home.

My mother has met my cousin’s partner and apparently he’s a pretty nice guy. He’s an academic, a musician, and they have a nice home where they’ve lived together for years. There’s a beautiful garden in the yard and a certain kind of domestic stability that pervades the place. Had the judge not overturned their state’s laws on marriage and given them the opportunity to wed they would still be together as they have been for years. This is their house, their place, and their life.

It’s been decades since I’ve seen my cousin and years since we’ve talked, briefly, on the phone. The last surviving member of his immediate family, I only have a picture in my head of what he looks like and mostly I remember his paintings on the walls of their cabin on the lake. The son of my dad’s older sister I can’t say we’ve ever been close. In fact I don’t recall being close to any of the family on my dad’s side of the equation. So, in some ways. there is a distance between me and the news that he had married his partner.

I know what I’m not going to do. I’m not going to ostracize. I’m not going to despise. I’m not going to yell, badger, or harass. There will be no phone calls with Bible in hand and, if by chance, we meet some time we’ll talk of old times, look at some of his paintings, and catch up on all the years gone by.

Of course its hard for me in a way, but not the way most people may think. I was part of a team that spearheaded the introduction of HIV care to a health care facility. I’ve been a health care chaplain. I’ve watched good men, witty, bright, artistic, interesting, full of life, who happened to be gay, get sick and die. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t good. It bore very little resemblance to the movie “Philadelphia”. Above all it was just sad.

The truth is that the image of a young man I cared for in tears, full of the realization that the man he looked to for love and happiness gave him an incurable illness, is stuck in my head and probably will be for the rest of my life. I see the statistics. I keep up on the health news. To be a sexual person in these United States is like running a gauntlet and for folks who identify as gay the risks are even higher. That’s not hate, just medical fact and there’s absolutely no joy or sense of “I told you so” in any of it. As a Christian I’ve given my life to helping make other people’s lives better and my heart aches in the face of human suffering. I’m glad my cousin has a steady place to be and people who care for him, as I understand it that’s not always been the case, but I also don’t want him to be another name on some quilt.

So, yes I worry a bit and pray, a lot. I cannot change anyone else. It’s enough that I struggle to change myself. I don’t have to agree with the choices other people make or the life they live as a condition for caring for them or having them as family or friends, so my door will always be open for anyone come what may. If there really is some kind of culture war to be fought I will fight it in my prayer corner and with loving service to others in confidence that God will shine His light where it is most needed.

Yes, my cousin is gay and married. But God isn’t finished with him, or me, yet.

 

 

 

 

Youth Retreat…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

Another youth retreat is over and my thoughts are with the younger members of my parish. I don’t recall being as busy, or at least feeling required to be as busy, when I was younger as they seem to be. Advanced placement classes, sports, jobs, various groups, family things. I wonder, sometimes, when they actually sleep. They have a lot of adult stuff thrown at them at a time when they’re still working out all kinds of big questions and if it was rough for me sometimes, and it was, I can’t imagine how it is now.

So when we have a youth retreat people sometimes ask me what the “program” is, what series of events, lectures, and activities am I using to fill the time. I think they’re surprised when they discover there is very little “program” and wide swaths of open space. I guess the idea is that even these times need to be be shaped by the same form that dance class, school, and everything else in their lives seems to have.

And that’s why I don’t often do it that way. To me these good young people are in a whirlwind of daily activities where well meaning people try to cram as much into their lives as possible and fill their potential college application essays with everything they’re supposed to have. It’s almost a kind of competition to do everything and be everything in the shortest amount of time.

There will be plenty of time for that in life after high school and college. In the not too distant future they will be dancing in a blender filled with work, kids, and everything the mad world can throw at them. They need something else.

They need to be allowed to be kids and not just mini adults. There is a kind of fun, goofy, exuberant, kind of life in children that we shouldn’t try to kill off too soon, if ever. Kids need to play. So do adults, by the way, but that’s another post. Somewhere there has to be a release valve where the pressures to do and be and perform are loosened and they can have a precious space of time to be kids without the adult world making its constant demands on them.

Young people need to learn how to rest. Their adult life can be filled with never ending tasks and if they don’t learn how to rest, the beautiful art of doing nothing, they will, sadly, join the herd of unhappy, harried, people who have gained the whole world but lost their soul. God declared a day of rest so we humans could be more than our work, tending to the garden of our relationships and soul which are, in the long run, exceedingly more important than whatever office we can acquire as we claw our way up the corporate ladder.

They also need to learn to contemplate, to look at the stars, live with the kind of silence that can let them think clearly, and ponder great things in the absence of the world’s noise. At one retreat a group of our young folks spent a few hours out on the dock looking up into the night sky and considering the stars above. The knowledge, the wisdom, gained from that is, in my opinion, as important to the development of true character as what they learn in school. While understanding advanced calculus can be a mark of intelligence, pondering the larger world, the whole of God’s creation and its vastness, is what helps make a person wise.

In the end that’s my only program, to create a space where, in the sometimes crazy world, young people can step back from their world, even for a few hours, and be open to something larger than just the continual tasks of any given day. Freed from the moment I hope they will be open to see eternity because no one can see eternity and not be profoundly changed for the good.

Which is Worse…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

the fact that people in darkness are acting out of that darkness or that the people who claim to have Light have been apathetic in the face of the darkness around them? Perhaps the greater judgment will be, not on the people around us who are acting out of a darkness that has made them blind, but rather on those of us who claim to see clearly and have done next to nothing to help those who cannot see.

When Someone…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

tells you, as a Christian, that “You’re on the wrong side of history” remember two things. First, history is fluid. What is on the “wrong side of history” now may very well change as the times change. We know from our recent Orthodox experience that the Communists were confident that history was on their side and religion would disappear. In actuality only a few moments of history, painful ones for sure, were theirs and then only partially. Only those who have no understanding of eternity place all their hope in a moment or era of history. The second thing to know is that history is in God’s hands and to be with, and in, God is always to be on the right side of history because it is His realm. Moments come and go, but God, and all things godly, endure.

You Should Be at Matins (Orthros)

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

Sometime around 9 tomorrow morning a handful, just a handful, will be in Church. That’s a shame.

Busy with what a Sunday morning brings, much of which could have been handled on another day, it’s a mad rush to get things together and everyone packed in to the car.  Many, maybe most, will find themselves skidding into the nave just seconds behind the beginning of Divine Liturgy and more than a few will try to sneak in the doors while the Priest’s back is turned during the Epistle.

So before you tell me about kids and stuff and getting everyone up in the morning please know that I’m not angry and I don’t have to judge. I’m just sorry you’re missing one of the best services of the Orthodox Church, a treasure right underneath your nose. A treasure which, for most Orthodox in this country, remains unclaimed.

Matins, Orthros, or morning prayer is a service that proceeds the Divine Liturgy. For the person outside the iconostasis there’s actually not much to do. You come in, take your place, and listen. There’s one procession to venerate the Gospel and in many parishes there is also time to make a good confession. For the most part its quiet an uneventful. Sit, stand, listen.

And that’s the beauty, the treasure of it. The world is busy, challenging, fragmented, and noisy. It’s nearly impossible for a person to come rushing in from that kind of world into the Divine Liturgy and, as the service asks us, “Lay aside all earthly cares.” The Orthodox Liturgy is not mindless, it requires thought, engagement, and time to instill the sacred in hearts that have been immersed in the world for most of the past week. There is no “microwave” version of this recipe and the Liturgy refuses to trade a quick sentimentality for lasting and deep transformation.

In Matins (Orthros) a person is given the gift of time. Time to be bathed in holy hymns, prayers, scripture, and most of all the presence of God. It’s a kind of decompression from everything outside the walls of the church, a time to slough off everything out there and prepare yourself to taste of heaven. This is crucial time, time of value to prepare yourself for the Divine Liturgy, time to reflect, confess, pray, get the noise out of your head, and be ready when the presence of the Kingdom is announced.

It takes, like many things in Orthodoxy, effort. You have to rearrange your schedule on Sunday morning to focus on the services of the Church. You’ll need to get the kids set up for Sunday on Saturday and make sure you don’t hit the snooze button either. Let Martha fuss over Sunday dinner, Mary has chosen the better part and so should you.

When you get there it might take some getting used to everything. We’re so used to constant noise and busy work that we’re often stunned, sometimes even traumatized, by holy peace. Give yourself time to adjust. Yet,  when, over time you “get” it you’ll probably never want to go back. Because as the holy words, holy space, and holy Presence begin to find their way into your heart during the service of Matins you’ll understand why your fathers and mothers in the Faith took time to let the world fade away before they stepped into the light of the Kingdom of God.

I know, you’re busy, the whole world is busy. Yet no time in the presence of God is ever wasted, either now or in all the time to come. Come to Matins (Orthros) and begin to understand.

 

The Guitar Playing Priest…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

Apparently that’s how I was described a few days ago and there’s some truth to it. I do make music out on the town a few times a month and its also part of my work with seniors in Assisted Living. On the whole it was something that has always seemed “natural” for me and in my life music has been one of the constants. Yet, the truth is I rarely play the guitar and my “bread and butter” instruments are the bass and the ukulele.

Although I’ve made a little money at it, music is basically a serious hobby for me. When you serve others there’s a need to have things to fill you up for whatever you give away. I do enjoy being with people, and I’ve spent most of my life caring for them, but there are times when an hour or two with music can be remarkably refreshing. Sometimes people can’t imagine the clergy in their lives having, well, a life outside of the church. We do. I like, among other things, westerns on TV, reading history, traveling, and music. As I write this I’m on the couch and wearing a baseball jersey from a local minor league team and athletic pants. I never have slept in my vestments and my house doesn’t smell like incense.

And my life, like many people’s, is quite varied. I’m neither a full-time Priest or a full-time musician. When I’m not helping out as I can at St. George Church here in Minnesota I travel to other parishes around the area filling in when their Priests are ill, on vacation, or need to be away. I’ve served in probably 20 different parishes in a five state area and I’ve had the privilege of serving overseas as well. Two other out-of-state parishes are in my plans for the coming months. In fact, the original name of this blog was actually “The Traveling Priest Chronicles” and if the reader cares to read back far enough they can hear the tales of the various places I’ve been along the way. When I’m not doing that, I work with Seniors in Assisted Living to pay the bills with another kind of ministry, and once in a while someone gives me some money for my music. Sometimes when there are gaps in this blog it’s because I’m out and about somewhere doing something and time just slips away.

I actually don’t mind the travel. It’s good to see new things and be with new people. I hope some day to be able to serve a parish as a Priest in Residence but things haven’t worked out that way quite yet and so I do what I can and try to help people where the opportunity rises. Until a more settled time presents itself I consider myself a kind of missionary, a Priest out and about, mixing and mingling with people in a variety of places and hoping to share some grace wherever I go. That I happen to be a sometimes gigging musician is just a plus because it gets me in to places where my collar may not.

Overall, that may be the point. Whatever our situations we can be the presence of Christ where we are, being who God wants us to be wherever our talents or travels take us. Wherever I am is where my ministry is, and that truth applies to every Christian. Precious time is sometimes wasted by people seeking out some kind of “call” when, in fact, the very place they live, work, make music, or do whatever they do is, in fact, their call, their mission, and, as it were, their parish.

One day, perhaps, I’ll get that letter from the Bishop and there will be a single place for me. Until then wherever I am is where God has something for me to do and I plan on doing it until I’m told otherwise.

 

 

It’s Not So Much…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

the spiritual and moral breakdowns I see all around me that causes me to fear. More often than not I simply grieve for those people who are looking for something, accepting less than the best, and then suffering the consequences. We’re paying a steep price because we thought that by discarding the “rules” we would be free, and have, instead, often found ourselves in even greater slavery.

What gives me pause, though, is that one day at the darkest point of this breakdown, people will not choose to understand that the solution is the rebuilding of themselves as moral and spiritual beings but will rather opt for the easy answer of a dictator, someone who promise them simple answers, scapegoats for their problems, and takes away freedom in the guise of providing security and predictability.

That truly frightens me.