Of Masks and Honor 😷🎭

Reasons why I’ll continue to wear a mask most of the time outside even though vaccinated:

• Both Philip and I have underlying health issues that weaken our immune systems, and we don’t want to take unnecessary risks.

• Two of our (fully-vaccinated) adult children also have autoimmune conditions, and it’s too early to tell how that might affect the efficacy of the immunization.

• Four of my grandchildren still are not old enough to be vaccinated, and I worry about the risks to them.

• I haven’t had an upper respiratory infection of any kind since March 2020, when masks first came into our every day lives. (That’s a big deal, because between 2016 and 2019, I came down with severe cases of late-season flu that lasted 10 days in one case and 15 in another.)

And, last but most important, the new guidelines rely heavily on the honor system…something that I’m almost (but not quite) chagrined to admit I haven’t always been good at. (Not quite chagrined because, you know, grace.) 

So permit me to share a personal story:

When I was a little girl in parochial school, I used to love going into the parish church after school to light a candle. I would dutifully put a tissue on my head (this was in the pre-Vatican II days, when head coverings were a must), put my nickel in the offering slot, and proceed to light a votive. Then I’d carefully look to one side and then the other and light as many candles as I could for my nickel. 

I failed the honor system at a young age. 

(This, I might add, is a genetic predisposition. One of my children, about the same age as I was during my compulsive candle-lighting period, was with me at a wedding rehearsal in a Roman Catholic church and did precisely the same thing, except the candles were of the electric kind.) 

I worry that the honor system will be put to a test even greater than a young child’s when it comes to masks. Especially since masks - and the pandemic itself - have become politicized, a further deepening of our cultural divide. 

Will there be folks who, unvaccinated, will unmask, even if it puts others (think: children) at risk? The reality of fake vaccination cards for sale already points to the fact that there are persons who are willing to bend any and all rules, even those that are intended for the well-being of all. Are there adults out there feeling free to still channel their honor code-breaking inner child, as long as they’re not caught?

We all want life to return to normalcy. We’re getting closer. But we’re not there yet. So I’ll keep wearing my mask for the foreseeable future. For you, for me, for those who remain vulnerable, for the love of neighbor that my faith proclaims.

Besides, I’ve got a really cool collection of musical theater-themed masks that haven’t outlived their usefulness by a long shot.

#OTD 2020

March 6, 2020 turned out to be my last regular day in the office where I have worked for almost 21 years, in a building in which I've worked and to which I've commuted daily since 1993. 

The following week was one to remember. On Sunday, March 8, I left for the airport immediately after worship to attend a three-day event in Tennessee. 

I was home for one day that week - Wednesday - before leaving Thursday morning, March 12, for another three-day event in Illinois. 

Returning home on Saturday, March 14, both my departure (O'Hare) and arrival (LaGuardia) airports were virtually empty. The anxiety among the few that were traveling was palpable.

The following day, I presided over worship, with five persons in attendance. That evening, we received news that my office would be closed starting Monday, March 16. With the exception of one day in July when I attended an onsite meeting, I have been working from home for almost a year. Our church services went virtual on March 22 and remained that way for four months; returning to in-person worship from late July until Christmas; then back online until we return to the sanctuary later this month.

OTD in 2020, I couldn't have imagined how much life would change. None of us could.

We started out by learning to make hand sanitizer at home. 

We baked. And cooked. 

We simplified, trying to stop agonizing over the inconsequential, and focusing more on what was truly important - the health and wellbeing of our loved ones scattered all over the country.

The April 2020 transatlantic cruise we had booked a year earlier was cancelled.

Once it was warm enough, we fixed up the back porch and started making other home repairs, knowing that we would be spending a lot of time here for the foreseeable future. 

After four full months of separation, we were finally able to bring Katie home for the weekend over the Independence Day holiday.

We lost a beloved elder in the family to the pandemic, and worried and prayed when other family members were diagnosed with the coronavirus. 

And throughout it all, Philip and I considered ourselves fortunate in comparison to so many. We have a home, food, a steady income, health insurance, and each other.

There is hope now. 

We have received the first dose of the vaccine, as have my 94-year old mother and three of our offspring who are educators. Katie, living in a group home, received both doses in Phase 1, the first among our family. Each day, more persons in our "older adult/elderly" age demographic are reporting having been vaccinated. 

But this pandemic is not yet behind us, and we can't say when it will be. One thing we can be certain of is that life will not go back to the way it was, even when we get past this. Nor should it. We can do better, be better.

May the breaking of old patterns and living into something new be the grace that moves us all toward a more compassionate and just future.

Stay safe and be well, Dear Ones. Love and blessings to you all.

Sin embargo, ella persistió

I have appreciated the many memes and posts these past few days lifting up the words, "Nevertheless, she persisted." Yet, I cannot think of women's fierce persistence without reflecting on the matriarchs who came before. 

In my family, I think of the persistence of that generation of women who, as jovencitas in the old country, left school early in order to help support their families; who as mujeres y madres jóvenes in the face of oppression, left behind their homes, possessions, and all they had, llevando sus niños y niñas de la mano as they made their way to a strange new country. I am awed by the persistence of our mothers, who worked as seamstresses, caretakers, who took in all kinds of odd jobs for the few extra dollars it would bring. I look at my generation - the daughters and sons of those persistent women - knowing the large measure to which we are indebted to them for what we have been able to accomplish and become.

In my maternal line, only two women are left from that persistent generation. We, their children, carry on their story, and we, their daughters and nieces and granddaughters and great-granddaughters, their sons and nephews and grandsons and great-grandsons, and all whose lives were made possible by their refusal to be silenced...We persist, in their honor and for the sake of those who will come after us. 

#NeverthelessShePersisted 

#NeverthelessTheyPersisted 

#SinEmbargoPersistieron 
#NoPareSigueSigue

Gimme Mystery

January 7, 1962.

Fifty-five years ago today, I made my First Communion at Saint Michael's Roman Catholic Church in Manhattan.

My understanding of communion has changed/continues to change through the years of my eclectic spiritual sojourn... Sacrament or ordinance? Open or closed? Transsubstantiation, symbol, or real presence?

Not sure my answers today would be any clearer or more theologically sound than they were as a precocious seven-year old making my way up to the altar rail in my white dress and veil, gloved hands folded and pointing heavenward. And, as the expressions in these First Communion pictures reveal, there's always room in faith and spirituality for a doubtful smirk.

I'll take mystery...then, and now.

What Next? A Post-Election Day Sabbath Reflection

Isaiah 65:17-25
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Luke 21:5-19


I’m quite certain my hair has gotten whiter over the past week. A few months ago my mother, a striking nearly 90-something matriarch, pondered aloud about the strangeness of having a daughter who was blanca en canas – roughly translated, a gray-haired old woman. Now, she makes certain I understand that gray hair comes from my father’s side of the family, and not hers…But without arguing the genetics of hair color, I think it’s safe to say that the past few days have been enough to make anyone’s hair turn white, or stand up on end, or fall out in fistfuls.

As a nation, we witnessed the conclusion of the most contentious presidential election cycle that many of us can remember. Roughly half of the people who cast votes on Tuesday were elated with the result, while the other half were disappointed. Among those of us here, this morning, some of us put our hopes in the lady in the pantsuit and some in the gentleman with the hair. Unless this is someone’s first time voting, it’s something we’ve all experienced before, every four years, and the world keeps on spinning. And we go on with our lives.

Aaron Sorkin, the creator and writer of hit television shows like The West Wing (which featured perhaps the greatest president of all time, but hey, he was fictional) and The Newsroom described our democratic process well. We get to “drive to the fire station and overthrow the government and there isn’t a policeman on the street.” As an immigrant, that’s a duty and privilege I value – the country of my birth only enjoyed something remotely resembling free and fair elections for eight years in its entire history.

But the ugliness of this particular campaign has left a bitter taste. Sister Simone Campbell, Executive Director of the Roman Catholic group NETWORK and one of the “Nuns on the Bus” that travelled the country during the 2012 and 2016 campaigns, notes that “More often our politics are about policies. This election was about feelings.”

The truth is, people are hurting. On all sides. For a long time. David Brooks, a Republican op-ed columnist for The New York Times, points out that the terror attacks of September 11 were really what delineated the start of the 21st century. We have lived with a pervasive national feeling of anxiety and fear, with suspicion and distrust, of grief and loss.

The prophet Isaiah spoke God’s message to a community that had been living with these same emotions. The Northern Kingdom of Israel had been conquered by the Assyrians, a significant segment of the population was forcibly resettled, and Jerusalem – the Holy City – while not conquered had nonetheless come under siege. Isaiah’s listeners were people who felt uprooted, unmoored, threatened.

Like many in our current world. And when human beings feel threatened, they seek security, wherever they think they can find it, from whomever they believe will make things right.

And in the midst of their anxiety and uncertainty, they heard the prophet proclaim the promise of a future in which God would set things right:

No more shall the sound of weeping be heard…or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime…They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the LORD-- and their descendants as well.

What a beautiful vision! Filled with hope – not all that different from what we hope for, long for, in our own time. But there’s one important difference. Our hope must rest in God, and in God alone. Not in our elected leaders, no matter how qualified, no matter how eloquent, no matter what the specifics of their legislative agendas. Our hope is in the Holy One, who – regardless of claims made by the opposing sides – doesn’t hold membership in any political party.

But that still leaves us with work to do. The Christ whom we confess as Lord and Savior calls us to love our enemies, to turn the other cheek, to forgive as we have been forgiven. That is the task before us, now more than ever. And it won’t be an easy task.

Dr. Arthur Cribbs, a United Church of Christ pastor and well-known leader in the global faith community, talks about the “polarization produced by the politicos’ pontifications and patronizing promotion of paranoia.” The goes on to say that, “deep wounds have been opened…The genie has popped the cork and cannot be easily contained or placed back in the bottle.”

The genie that has been let loose is seen in the increase in hate and bias incidents over the past few days – by one estimate, over 200 incidents of harassment and intimidation reported since last Tuesday alone.

The genie that has been let loose is evidenced in incidents where Muslim women have had their hijabs pulled off.

The genie that has been let loose is at work when students of color are psychologically taunted and physically threatened.

The genie that has been let loose can be seen in the protests have erupted in New York and other cities, and that are planned in the weeks and months ahead.

The genie that has been let loose is seen in the tense climate that feels like it might erupt into violence at any moment.

This isn’t a partisan issue. No one group is solely complicit, and all sides share in the problem. As a society, we have lost the ability to engage in civil discourse, in the public square, even around our kitchen tables, and perhaps even in our communities of faith. And, as difficult as it may be to acknowledge in a world that prefers to see people in terms of heroes/villains, good guys/bad guys, our God equally loves the president-elect and his followers AND the lady in the pantsuit and hers,

And, if anything, the Gospels tell us time and again that Jesus had a particular soft spot for those who society painted with a negative brush – the sinners, the tax collectors, women, the disabled, the Samaritans, those caught in the act. And because he has a soft spot, his love doesn’t distinguish between the person who traces her or his roots to the Mayflower and the undocumented day laborer who mows that same person’s lawn or minds their kids. And because all of us have fallen short of God’s glory, that non-discriminating, all-encompassing love is something we should celebrate. Something to shout “Hallelujah” about. It is taking seriously the verses that we learned to sing as children, Jesus loves me, this I know. Jesus loves US, all of us, this we know...Red and yellow, black and white…ALL are precious in his sight.

And when God take does take sides, the side God is on is the side of love, of mercy, of compassion, of forgiveness, of reconciliation, of justice.

So, in these contentious and overwhelming times, what are we as the Church – as followers of Jesus Christ – called to do?

We are called to hold on to faith. Even when we feel like we’re holding on by a thread, hold on to that which the author of the epistle to the Hebrews described as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Hold on to faith.

We are called to persistence even when the going gets tough. As we heard in the epistle to the Thessalonians: Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right. Keep on doing the work of discipleship: proclaim the Gospel, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger. (And yeah, “stranger” by nature means someone who will quite possibly seem strange to all you hold to be normal. Show welcome.) Share Christ’s love – even to those we consider nasty and the deplorable. Especially to those we consider nasty and the deplorable. Because, no matter what we were or are, Christ didn’t hold back love from us.

Remember that there is no “me,” no “them,” only “us.” Together. We are all created in the image of our God, we are all beloved of God, loved and cherished beyond belief, and because of that, we are intricately, intimately, and intrinsically a part of each other.

As we live into whatever the future may hold, let us not forget what really defines us – we are God’s people. We belong to God. We belong to each other. And we are called and sent forth into the world as God’s laborers, in the name of divine, redeeming, saving love. By your endurance you will gain your souls.

Richard Rohr notes, "God and goodness offer both the first and final words to history." May the peace of the Lord be with us all, today and always. Amen.

The Old Hippie Behind the Curtain

Vinick:      “Whatever happened to the separation of church and state?” 


Bartlet:      “It’s hanging in there, but I’m afraid the constitution doesn’t say anything about the separation of church and politics.” 


Vinick:      “You saying that’s a good thing?” 


Bartlet:      “I’m saying that’s the way it is: always has been.”

– President Josiah (“Jed”) Bartlet and Senator Arnold Vinick

TheWest Wing
Season 6, Episode 20, “In God We Trust”

“Every two years, we drive to the fire station and overthrow the government…”

– Will McAvoy
The Newsroom 

Season 1, Episode 3, “The 112^th Congress”

I usually don’t drive our 14-year old minivan to the churches where I’m invited as a guest preacher.

It’s not because the car has seen better days (it has) or because it’s not a fuel efficient-enough vehicle to take on long drives (oddly enough, it is). Rather, it’s because over the past three presidential election cycles, the van has become a political billboard of sorts, boldly proclaiming that we are “Old Hippies Against __________.” And, while this will no doubt come as a surprise to family and friends who have endured my political rants (not to mention the steady stream of debate-inspired memes on Facebook), for the most part, when I don the robe on a Sunday morning, I have tended to keep my decidedly partisan convictions to myself. So instead, it’s our other car that transports me on my itinerant preaching journeys – the one whose sole political statement is a small sticker on the rear windshield that reads: “Jed Bartlet Is My President.”

In a perfect (or at least, more interesting) world, presidential candidates would be more like Jed Bartlet – brilliant, witty, with deep moral convictions, and capable of bridging the great partisan divide. In the interests of full disclosure, let me say that there have been election cycles in which I’ve done my small part to span the partisan chasm. I have voted Socialist and Libertarian (before my frontal lobe was fully formed) and even voted for the other party in a gubernatorial election as a fully-lobed, middle-aged adult for no reason other than the incumbent’s having presented the championship trophy to the Port Chester High School Marching Band the year my son was a senior in the trumpet section.

This year, election day falls on the 29^th anniversary of my ordination. Today as I drive, not to the local fire station but rather to a former Masonic temple-turned-Orthodox church to exercise my right as a citizen to participate in the peaceful and orderly overthrow of the government, I will vote for the candidate whom I believe will accomplish the most for the common good and who most shares the core values that have been shaped by my faith and by half a lifetime of ministry. That said, here, in no particular order, is a very short list of what will be on my mind as I step behind the curtain into the voting booth:

1.    I will cast my vote mindful that I am the daughter, the mother and the spouse of persons counted among the “47%.”

2.    I will cast my vote as an immigrant for whom the phrase “…take back America…” is all too reminiscent of  “…why don’t you go back to…”

3.    I will cast my vote as a mother of a multiethnic, multicultural family that believes that diversity is a gift and not a threat; as the mother of an adult child with a disability who depends on government programs to provide essential services; as the mother of daughters who have a right to unrestricted women’s health care.

4.    I will cast my vote as one who believes in and affirms the sacredness of all life and all love.

5.    I will cast my vote knowing that for all those whose convictions will lead them to vote along these same lines, there will be as many others (or maybe even more), equally led by their deeply-held beliefs to vote for the other guy.

Who knows – perhaps in another four years, you’ll spot me driving to church some Sunday. I’ll be the one in the ancient minivan held together with bumper stickers. And maybe by then, the newest one will read: “Old Hippies For __________.”

Ch-Ch-Changes

It wasn’t all that long ago that she was leaping out of her crib, fearlessly scaling a chest of drawers and turning our lives inside out and upside down. Today, my youngest daughter graduates from college, cum laude, ready to take on the world.

The celebration of a milestone invokes nostalgic memories. And so, to mark this occasion, I’m dusting off a piece that Victoria inspired a long time ago (and in what seems now like a galaxy far, far away), when her mother was a freelance writer and columnist for a widely-respected – at least in our household – and now long-defunct, denominational magazine. 

Change, Frightening Change first appeared as a Christmas meditation in the column, In the Word, in December 1990 issue of The American Baptist:

Victoria Lindsay Cruz-Griffith will soon be a year old. Unlike our first two children – who are much closer in age than we had ever anticipated – there is a three-year difference between Victoria and her older sister, Katherine. Three years is just long enough for parents to selectively forget some of the realities of parenting. With good reason! While you always remember how cuddly newborns are, how nice and fuzzy their heads feel, and how soft their skin, you tend to block out the memories of such things as 2 a.m. feedings, colic, diapers, spit-up, and feeling like a pack mule every time you venture out of the house. Babies have an uncanny way of altering their families’ lifestyles.

No wonder Gabriel scared the living daylights out of Mary with his strange message. Even under normal circumstances, a child would have meant change and upheaval in her life…To say that Mary was perplexed is probably an understatement. From the moment the angel Gabriel arrived at Mary’s doorstep, the predictability of her life was shattered once and for all.

That’s what happens when a baby comes into the world. Everything changes. It is also what happens at that moment when God in Christ enters our lives…

Change disrupts the comfort we find in the routines and patterns in life. It often means dealing with the unexpected and relinquishing some of the control we may have grown accustomed to. Change involves taking things as they come, without always having the ability to arrange them to our convenience or liking. Change often leads us on a course of troubling uncertainty.

But the certainty that God is with us allows us to look past our troubles to see the joyous upheaval that God has in store for us. Witness the certain faith of Mary, the peasant teenager who looked the angel square in the eye when all was said and done and announced, “Let it be.” Witness also the certain faith of her kinswoman, Elizabeth, whose own baby leaped for joy in her womb in the presence of the Messiah; or Joseph, who trusted a message delivered to him in a dream; or the shepherds who dropped everything to rush off to the manger; or the wise men who knew that a King even greater than themselves had come into the world; or all those – then and now – who believe in the outrageous promise that has already come true in Bethlehem’s child.

Victoria is at the age where she is discovering the world around her. That means most of the time she amuses herself by pulling things out of drawers and off shelves and otherwise rearranging what little order there is in our home.

Christ’s presence in us brings some reordering and reshuffling. Some things will be moved around, some tossed out and some turned topsy-turvy. But the you that emerges from his rearranging will be stronger, better, renewed and reborn.

May God always turn your world inside out and upside down.