Brooding and Broadcasting

Brooding and Broadcasting

Dad’s got his mouth full of babies!  Talk about a caring father.  This jawfish is one of many fish who are “mouthbrooders,” often the dads.  See the cute babies’ eyes?  The brood stays safe inside dad’s mouth for a week or more after he and mom have created fertile eggs.  Periodically he carefully opens up to let the babies aerate and get a little food, then closes up for safety.  And no food for dad during this gestation.

These days after Easter are rich in resurrection and possibility, but life still happens, death still happens, and it’s sometimes hard to put some “flesh” (literally) on “Christ is Risen Indeed!”

But I had a “Christ is Risen” moment last week when I learned how fish reproduce; either    That was the gospel lesson I heard in the weekly update we Aquarium volunteers get before going on shift.

by broadcasting or brooding.

Fish broadcasters shoot out egg and sperm in massive amounts directly into the water, trusting they will meet, and multiply into “spawn innumerable.”  (That’s how C.S. Lewis describes the miracle of the loaves and fishes; “God doing close and small, under His human hands, a workman’s hands, what He has always been doing in the sea, the lakes and the little brooks.” ) 

At our Blue Theology retreats for youth and adults we tell parables of these broadcasted multitudes; a fish goes forth to spawn, the extravagant spawner.

Others fish are brooders. Like the jawfish.  It doesn’t mean they are dour grumpy guys.  No, brooders pay close attention to their brood.  Rather than broadcast and say goodbye, brooders hover and hold and nurture their young, often a smaller group than the broadcasters, but more likely to survive.

In our faith communities I’ve known both broadcasters and brooders.  Both help the Body of Christ to birth and grow. Broadcasters run from the tomb saying, “We have seen the Lord!”  Brooders walk beside us on the long way and invite, “Come and share our meal.”

Today I thank the brooders, who gently, patiently feed and protect the young or the new, sometimes forsaking their own needs.  Like that jawfish, they care not about role, but only about new life.  When Mary the mother of Jesus was said to “ponder” what she saw and heard, she was a brooder.  Thanks to all who have bred us in the faith, and those who keep caring for our fragile brood.

I wrote this a couple years ago but thought about it again yesterday when I walked with 16 fabulous brooders and broadcasters of the faith (clergy and religious educators) on a Blue Theology Retreat/Resource Day.  We had a great time and I believe that some new life and new ideas were hatched!  More will be revealed.  Bluetheology.com

The Liquid Pulse of God

The Liquid Pulse of God

“I wanted the boat to appear small, almost lost in the sea, but pointed to the lighthouse which appears as our faith, that which keeps us forward on uncertain seas.

“The small lanterns are meant to illustrate those who wait for us at our journey’s end.  I wanted to illustrate the pulse of our God and the love and faith we have for her.”

Andree Bouty, member of San Lorenzo Community Church United Church of Christ, with help from members Katie McPherron and Candace Frawley, created this Blue Theology altar last Sunday.  The church had invited me to preach there because 15 members are coming to Pacific Grove for a Blue Theology pilgrimage day with me next month. 

I had done my good sermon prep, chosen scriptures (Luke 5 – Cast Your Nets Out into the Deep, Psalm 104 – Behold the Sea, God’s creation) and hymns, wore my blue jacket and my Blue Theology stole (beautifully crafted by Sandy Johnson.)

But I had no idea the worship space itself would so richly, symbolically, visually evoke the ocean.  Every week, Andree says, she and others create a different sacred space.  “We try to bring a sense of the sacred, respite and ritual to our church.  Next week it will be the green earth – we are doing a month on Earth Justice – and people will bring in plants to be blessed to help fill the sanctuary with life.”

The ocean literally saved Andree’s life.  “I ran away from my Arizona home as a teen, and ended up in Pacific Grove.  I walked out onto the beach for the first time and was completely overwhelmed, flooded with the knowledge that my world was bigger than just me, flooded with the sound of the surf in my head, I could feel it in my pulse, in my heartbeat.  I could hear the voice of, to me, the Goddess telling me I was safe, loved, enough.  I spent 30 days there, went to ocean each day, learned to pray, created ritual, learned about the inner part of me.  Eventually we were caught and returned home, but I never forgot the ocean.  And when I went back home I was stronger and better equipped to deal with life.”

Many years later, Andree now lives near her life-saving ocean and worships her life-saving God.  And creates beautiful sacred spaces, which also save lives.

Do you see the tuna fish cans on the left – those can save hungry lives too.  Thanks, Andree.

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I write these Blue Theology “Tide-ings” each Wednesday.  Come on a pilgrimage and hear the liquid pulse of God.  Bluetheology.com

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Let Us Now Pause for a Moment of Science

Let Us Now Pause for a Moment of Science

Welcome to our worship here at the Church of Marine Mammals. I am the Rev. Ursus Maritimus, Rev. Sea Bear.  Let us pause….

Many of you below the Arctic Circle know me as Rev. Polar Bear.  I’ve heard that you think I am cute, but I hope you also want to know as much science about me as you can, so that’s why I am telling you my scientific name, Ursus Maritimus.  I am a bear who loves the sea.  Let us pause….

Scientists call us all “marine” mammals because we spend most of our time at sea and get most of our food from the sea.   I am honored to lead this congregation of seals and sea lions and otters and walruses and dolphins and manatees and whales – we are a diverse group!  God clearly loves diversity, so much diversity in God’s creation, and yet so much unity.  Let us pause….

We gather today to pause, and to pray, not in SILENCE (although that’s a good thing) but in SCIENCE.  Whenever we pray we say at least five things:

-THANKS! Thanks for all the Science Marches last week, even above the Arctic Circle!  I saw lots of signs like this one, that’s me on the sign!  Science has told the world how vulnerable and threatened we sea bears are, and helped stop the widespread hunting of us that almost wiped us out last century.  Science advised the Nixon administration to pass the Marine Mammal Protection Act and help us.  Thanks!

-HELP!  But now we pray asking for more scientific help because climate change is melting our home, the ice shelf.  We have to swim farther for food, we can’t find ice in which to build maternity dens for our babies, we are having fewer babies, and more are dying.  Our population is threatened, less than 20,000 of us.  That blue I’m sitting on is the lapping melted water where my home used to be.  Help!

-I’M SORRY!  Some of you said you saw another polar bear sign on the marches. It simply read, “First they came for the polar bears….”  I’ve heard people say, “Polar bears seem so far away.  What difference does their plight make for me?”  But if climate change came first to the polar bears, now it’s coming for all those land mammals down south.  Then it will come for the people, and there may be no one left to help.  We all need to say, “I’m sorry I thought we could live on our own, that we are someone not connected to all life.”

-WOW!  That’s a great prayer, Wow!  Wow, that millions marched for science.  Wow, that some parts of the Artic have been set aside as sanctuaries (love that word!)  Wow, that when scientists spoke at the marches, everyone cheered!  Wow, at all the other cool signs, like “Got Plague?  Me neither, thank a scientist!”  Wow!

-HOW LONG, O LORD?  That’s a lament prayer.  Sometimes in marine mammal prayers we say, “This sucks!”  How long will we watch our babies die, our homes melt, our plight ignored, our image on Coke bottles but not in people’s hearts?  How long?

Our Church of Marine Mammals is not a silent lot, nor a glum lot!  We roar and squeak and click and blow and sing!  We pause for science, not for silence.  And we ask you all to pray with us, in thanks, help, sorrow, wow and lament.  Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Bluetheology.com.  Still room at our May 9 Resource/Retreat Day for clergy and religious educators on ocean spirituality and stewardship, and this summer for youth group mission trips and adult pilgrimages in Pacific Grove.  I post these “Tide-ings” each Wednesday.