Hanisian Preaches First Sermon, No One Dies

So this past Sunday I preached my very first sermon. Hoorrraayyy! It was delivered to a crowd of 65 residents at Goodwin House, Bailey's Crossroads. Goodwin House is the retirement community in which I'm doing my CPE (clinical pastoral education) work this summer as a student chaplain. The average age was about 78-years-old, and the text was Matthew 10:16-33 with some cranky Jeremiah thrown in for the OT reading. The funny part in this whole thing is that they didn't laugh at any of the "humorous" bits, but did laugh at some odd places. I am trying to find a way to upload the audio recording to my blog here, but have run into some interesting technical problems. However, if you have an email account that will withstand the barrage of a 7 MB file hitting it, let me know and I will be happy to email you the audio.

Here's the text. My thanks to Charley Hughes :)

In this morning’s Gospel lesson from Matthew one has to imagine that many a preacher has taken comfort in the words the gospeler writes, “do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time” and indeed as I prepared my sermon for this morning I got a good chuckle. You see, this is the first sermon I have ever preached, so those words definitely hit home!

So as I was preparing for this morning’s sermon I was reminded of my last job before moving to Alexandria to attend Virginia Theological Seminary, I had a job in sales and worked for a company that helped computer programmers find temporary jobs and projects in our clients’ companies. I worked for a gentleman named Charley who was our divisional manager.
Charley was from Tennessee and, in his 12 years with the company, had performed just about every job within our division. One of his charms, and an interesting management skill that he employed with us when things had not gone so well with a particular client or with one of our consultants was that Charley always seemed to have some sort of a story, or saying that was designed to teach us some valuable lesson. He had one for every possible situation. Perhaps you’ve known someone like this in your lives?

Now most often these “Charley-isms”, as we grew to call them, took the form of a home-spun, folksy story or anecdote. Many of these our team found very humorous, not only because of his back-woods Tennessee accent, but because at first blush they seemed to have not much to do with the situation in which we found ourselves.

For example, if one of our consultants quit working on a project for some reason Charley would ask us, “Have you ever tried putting rabbits into a hutch? You put one in and sometimes two jump out…” Or if we were negotiating rates with one of our clients he would offer up this gem, “Have you ever tried to boil a live frog?” Of course none of us had. “You don’t throw him into a pot of boiling water, you put him in a pot of cold water and slowly turn up the heat,” Charley had several dozen of these little stories.

One story he told, however, struck me immediately when I read today’s gospel lesson. Charley gave us this advice when we were trying to pick the right programmer to send to a particularly difficult and challenging assignment.

He instructed us, “explain the job to them on its worst day. Tell them how it will be when the job is the least glamorous and when it will be the most frustrating. Tell them about all the things that could go wrong and all the things of which they should be frightened. If you tell them all of that and they still want the job, why you’ll know you’ve found the right person for the job.”
Last week we heard the naming of the twelve disciples as they received the first part of their instruction on how to go out into the world and deliver the Good News. In the Gospel reading for this week we see Jesus further instructing his disciples before he sends them out into the world. He is telling them what to expect, explaining to them what they will encounter—describing to them just how they will be treated: “I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves”, Jesus says. “You will be handed over to councils and be flogged because of me” he continues. And for the ultimate he tells them, “Brother will betray brother TO DEATH, and a father his child, and children will rise up against parents and have them put to death”! Talk about painting a worst case scenario, my boss Charley would be so proud.

This morning we also hear echoes of this same sentiment in the reading from the prophet Jeremiah. The prophet laments, “I have become a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me. For whenever I speak, I must cry out, I must shout, ‘Violence and destruction!’” Jeremiah continues, “For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and a derision all day long.” In these two readings from Matthew and Jeremiah it is clear that doing the work of God is trying and potentially dangerous and even fatal business. It can turn our friends against us; it can divide our families tearing them apart pitting brother against brother, parents against their children. This is a frightening message—everything that we hold as “safe”: our friends, the people who we know and love even our families may betray us, possibly even to death. I mean, where is the Good News in THAT?

The answer comes in the second half of the gospel we just heard. If you look closely we hear three times to not be afraid. Jesus says in verse 26: “So have no fear of them” those who wish to do you harm, and later in verse 28 he says, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” and finally in verse 31 he concludes, “so do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows”.

So often times it seems we let fear take over our lives—we get so completely wrapped up in being afraid. I can remember being a young boy, maybe seven or eight years old and being frightened at night by the woods behind our house. It was silly. I would play back there in the woods all day long yet when night fell everything changed. My fears were the worst in the summertime when we slept with the windows open.

My room faced the back of our house, towards the woods and as soon as my parents kissed me goodnight and turned off the light I started to get scared. I would get so scared I would pull the covers up over my head to hide. Sometimes when that wasn’t enough, I’d take my pillow, put it over my head and then throw the covers over myself. I spent many a sleepless, sweat-soaked night like that often staying under the covers until I just couldn’t take the heat any longer. Eventually I would fall asleep when I was so tired I couldn’t stay awake, literally exhausted from being so afraid.

You and I know fear, we know it well. Sometimes it seems we become so terrified of whatever it is we are afraid of that we put all of our thoughts and energy into being afraid—so much so that we become utterly exhausted-- physically and emotionally drained. Maybe it is the fear of things like natural disasters—like the floods that are currently displacing thousands of families in the Midwest. Or, maybe it is the fear that we have for our family, for the safety protection of our children and those we love. Perhaps it is the fear of our bodies and our minds getting older and not operating the way they used to; or the fear of having to move with the upcoming construction and renovation projects going on here at Goodwin House. Maybe it is the fear of simply being alone.

The problem with fear is that it robs us of whatever power we think we have. Fear creates powerless-ness and that loss of control can be debilitating. The truth is that God who creates all, knows all and is all—is in control of even the things we are worried about and the things that make us afraid.

As we look at this gospel lesson the point Jesus is trying to make here is that no matter how hard it gets, how horrible it may seem, God is with us and we are precious to God. God knows everything about us, even the hairs of our head are counted—for some of us counting all our hair may take a little more time than for others, however.
The point simply is this: God knows our fears and is with us when we are afraid. God has given us, through his love and care, freedom from fear.

So, I wonder what would happen, for you and I, if we truly believed that God was present with us in our fear—that the God that made us and infinitely loves us was in control of the very things that made us afraid. I wonder how we would view the world if we truly believed that. In the last month since I have been here at Goodwin House I have seen you all, in this community, at various moments helping one another to become free from fear. I have seen it in small, quiet moments shared between two residents and in larger group settings…in a number of interactions as you help to dispel fear with one another here in this place, becoming the caring, loving and compassionate God for that person who is truly afraid.

Some times it is simply sitting with someone who you know is afraid. Or taking their hand and letting that person know that you are here with them and reassuring that other person it will be alright. Your presence with that person in their fear may be all that it takes.
To live without fear allows you to become free, it allows you love boldly. To live without fear makes you free to love the other person that you find unlovable; to enter into those situations that you know are going to be difficult knowing that God is present with you, and present in the very thing that you find difficult. So, the question for us this morning is: what changes will you make and how boldly will you live truly believing that God has given you freedom from fear? Amen.

So this past week the D.C. area was blessed with the presence of the Bishop of Rome. Of course, given it was the first time this Pope has been here and the fact that this city can’t handle a light rain without going all nuts…everyone went all crazy. Things shut down. Roadways were closed, businesses closed early, the ball park was decorated and packed with people all wanting to see the Pope while he was in town. There was a special twinge of excitement because on top of all of that it was the Pope’s birthday. A double helping of pandemonium please.

I didn’t realize just how much people were in a tizzy about this until I went with our daughter for her 5-year checkup (another interesting parenting lesson: if you can get your spouse to go to that for you, DO IT; MAKE THAT DEAL. There’s nothing like holding your screaming child down as he/she is being poked repeatedly with needles for booster shots). It turns out that our pediatrician is a relatively “non-practicing” Catholic who has a son who works in the GAO. The son was able to wrangle a ticket for his dad to be one of about 1,000 people the White House had arranged on the front lawn of the White House to sing Happy Birthday to his pontifness. What a wonderful photo op I imagined.

Now we at the seminary were thinking, since the Episcopal Church is a cousin of the Catholic Church that we’d perhaps be invited to any of the myriad of lunches, breakfast meetings, mid-morning “Scones and Tea” parties, etc. as one of the “other religious leaders and groups” that could meet the Pope. Not so. Apparently there was just no room for us…OK, I don’t know that for sure, but no one asked ME if I wanted to go meet the Pope. And, oddly enough, I’m just fine with all that.

There was a very interesting picture that The Washington Post decided to use with its header on just about every page of the online paper having to do with the mayhem surrounding the Pope’s visit. They actually had a “Pope Watch”. Honestly, you’d think they were Fox News. The best part is this picture. First off, it looks like he’s holding a window pane. Second, he looks PISSED OFF. One can only imagine the graphic artists sitting around trying to find the best picture to be the lead graphic for the “Pope Watch”…this was the one they came up with. I guess most Americans see the Pope as an old German guy who is pissed off about having to hold up windows all day long. If I were 81 and had to hold up windows all day long, I’d be pretty pissed off about the whole thing too.

The Hanisians Get a New Home

Well, at long last I've decided to update the blog. My apologies to all (both) of you that have checked back time and time again since January only to be disappointed that I've slacked off yet again. But, NO MORE!

So, the big news around the seminary is that this past week most of us first year, or Juniors, found out where which parishes we will be serving for the next 1-2 years. We've spent since August traveling to the various churches around the metro D.C. area and then interviewing with the rectors at the places we feel we could learn a thing or two...and then it was Super Selection Friday--my coining of a new term--when we got the calls of either, "yes, we want to call you to be our seminarian", or "welllll, after hours upon hours of agonizing prayer, discernment and finally using the holy ouija board, we've decided to go a different direction."

I'm very happy to announce that I will be serving at Emmanuel Church, Alexandria. Or, Emmanuel-in-the-hole as it is more commonly known 'round these parts. (There is another Emmanuel church which sits up on top of the hill near the seminary, and this one sits rather, well, down in the hole so there you are.) Here's the link to their website, please check it out for yourselves: Emmanuel Episcopal Church


I'll be working with Rev'd. Dan Eckman the rector who is very happy to have me, but more importantly was very glad to have our family as well. This was a decent deciding factor as to where we were going to go. There are some great things going on at Emmanuel and I can't wait to jump in and start learning. That won't "officially" happen until the summer time, but we'll start attending there, um...this Sunday!

One of the nice things about Emmanuel is that it is very close--I could walk there in a pinch if I really, really, really had to, in an emergency. It is only about .4 miles from our apartment. They have two Sunday services an 8AM and a 10AM which is also nice--not having to do church from 7:30 AM to Noon like a lot of places here which have 3 services on Sunday mornings. Also, there are a couple of kids from our son's school, and even one from his class that attend there so that will be really nice for him. There is a strong and growing number of young families that attend Emmanuel, and Dan says that they have always attracted young families which is great.

Dan also seems to be a very open supervisor that will allow me the flexibility to do what I want in terms of what I'll be learning but also will let me take on whatever other tasks I might like to do--like start a new bible study, help with a particular ministry, etc. This was great to hear because there are a number of parishes where the seminarians get told exactly what they are going to do and/or they don't get to do things like preach a lot, or take on projects that seem interesting to them, etc. Example: Dan says that I can plan on preaching at least once a month...one of my friends will be starting out as an acolyte and working his way up to torch bearer, then maybe thurifer, then finally be able to administer the chalice his senior year if things go well.

We are going to attend the weekend long parish retreat at the diocesan conference center, Shrine Mont. http://www.shrinemont.com/ So we are looking forward to that event in May.

I'll keep you posted as we start to settle in there, but know that we've found a great parish and are very happy!

Lions, Tigers and Komodo Dragons, oh my!

So yesterday (Saturday), it was about 55 degrees and sunny out--perfect for Holly to go spend 3 hours inside at some Antique Fair (or some such place that Holly would find exciting and wonderful and that me and the kids would be bored with before we even got there). The only good part about the Antique Show was that it was very close to the Smithsonian National Zoo--hooray! So, we all boarded the Metro (light rail system in D.C.--EXACTLY like the one that Cincinnati should build if it ever gets it's head out of it's rear end). For $3.45 round trip we all got to ride the train, wait in line, and mingle with a nice cross-section of D.C. populace. Wait, what was I talking about again? Oh yeah, the zoo.

So, the kids and I said good-bye to Holly and proceeded hiked a half-mile to the zoo from the Metro stop. Like all the other Smithsonians around D.C. or "The District" if you live in D.C. (I'm protesting that stupid name, BTW--that and we don't live in D.C.) the zoo is free. Double score!

We had on our short list wanting to see: I wanted to see the pandas, while the kids wanted to see the Lions and Tigers and the Komodo Dragons--I'll let you figure out which one wanted to see which.

Not surprisingly, the zoo was not that crowded given the weather. However, the animals were all outside which was fun to see. We got a special treat and watched the elephants getting an afternoon snack. The highlight of the elephant house wasn't the pygmy hippo, or the capybara--always sweet to see a rodent that is larger than a German Shepherd--but the hippo. I don't think that any of us have ever really seen a full-grown hippo before, at least not this size. The best part about it, according to the kids was that it pooped in front of us. It pooped a lot. I mean A LOT. No picture of that unfortunately--I'll let you use your imaginations--and yes, it was that bad.

So, here are some pictures from our zoo adventure.
Apparently, pandas eat a lot of bamboo a day. I'm talking a LOT of bamboo. It seems that when they are awake, they are pretty much eating non-stop. Much like our old cat Cicero...who now weighs in at a healthy 18 pounds.






Here is the Capybara. Apparently it likes standing in pools of water. It too was eating--but I couldn't get it to stand still long enough to get a clear shot...except when it was standing in the water. Water apparently equals Capybara tranquilizer. Who knew. Nothing like a 60-pound rodent to brighten one's afternoon at the zoo I always say.

Male lion. The one thing I'll say about the National Zoo is that they really haven't gone out of their way to make the animal habitats anything like their native habitats. I guess if you are a lion that comes from a place where there are a lot of oak trees, clover, and bamboo you're all set. Props to the Cincinnati Zoo's cat house--those crazy murals, and the ambient noise for the cats...this lion would kill one of you to get a room there. Well, maybe kill is the wrong word--I have to constantly remind Holly that in the wild, the lion is looking at you thinking, "Oh good, dinner is here."

Female lion. She stood still for quite a while sniffing the air. I think she saw all the little kiddies around and was just trying to figure out which one smelled like it wanted to be her snack the most. Interestingly, they had the male and female lions in separate enclosures. No idea why, but there you go.

Here is the Komodo Dragon. It pretty much was in a corner of it's enclosure looking rather depressed. We stared at it though the thick glass and it just blinked back at us. This went on for about 3 minutes until we gave up that it was going to do anything interesting. Sometimes the zoo can be like that...oddly, much like a couple of my essay questions on my New Testament exam apparently (I got a B-).

We did also see some other wonderful animals, and a giant octopus who really didn't take a liking to us sticking our faces right up to the glass--either that or it was hungry (it kept on spreading out it's tentacles over our faces. Do you blame it, really?). As we were about to leave the zoo we saw, in the new Asian Trail exhibit, one of the sloth bears come out to pose so we got a couple of pictures. "It needs a Kleenex" one of the little kids next to us observed. From the mouths of babes....

Vestments---THANK YOU!

So, here are the vestments that many of you helped me to get--THANK YOU! First off, they are wonderfully made and very high quality. I don't think I'll need to get new vestments for a LONG time. I was able to get my cassock, alb, cincture and surplice. I'd especially like to thank my grandparents, my mom, Chet and Joy Cavaliere, Bruce Freeman, Mark Blocher and, of course everyone at my home parish, The Church of The Redeemer.

This is the alb. Classic white...could have gone with some sort of "flax" or "natural color", but nah. Went with the plain white. Medium weight, and somewhat wrinkle-free-ish.




















Here is the only real option I added to the alb. Thought it was a nice touch.














Here is the cassock. Went with the Latin style--lots of buttons but I thought it looked better overall. Getting in and out of it is a bit of fun. Again, medium weight, but lined throughout which is nice. I'm sure 1987 Redeemer in August would say the lining isn't such a great idea, but funerals in the middle of winter say otherwise.
















Here it is with the surplice. In Virginia, with our low church attitudes towards vestments...I might be getting some mileage out of this combo depending on my field ed site. More on THAT subject in another posting.

Again, THANK you to everyone that helped contribute to my vestments, I truly appreciate it!

Jingles the Snowman

So, for Christmas, my dad and Alex decided to give us a 4-pound chocolate snowman. A certain "Jingles" by name. One of those presents that you really never expect to get. Ever. But, it is one that when you get it you think two things immediately: 1) "did I really just get a brown snowman made of chocolate?" and 2) "I BET I can eat all of that. Seriously, I think I can". So in being true to my word, here is our progress to date. All of us have helped out with this project. We are now a couple of weeks in and we've gotten through the hard part of the challenge, the solid hat--sorry we should have taken a picture of it before we stared eating it so you could FULLY appreciate the grandeur, glory, and magnificence of "Jingles". I'll quote some of the back of the box, which totally rocks:

Master Chocolatier, Dana Taylor Davenport has created this delicious chocolate snowman using only the finest white, milk and dark couverture quality chocolate. Now, for those of you who are wondering--much the same way I was wondering (before I googled it) what in the wide wide world of sports "couverture quality chocolate" is...um, it is:

"Couverture (French for coating or covering ) chocolate is the basis of all chocolate, as grapes are the basis of wine. It is professional-quality chocolate that is used for tempering and making bonbons, truffles and chocolate bars, or enrobing other confections (chocolate-covered pretzels and marshmallows, e.g.). If you are a serious student of chocolate and want to understand why you prefer one brand over another, you need to learn your couvertures—and the companies that make them. Couverture chocolate is made with better beans. It is ground to a finer particle size and has a higher cocoa butter content than most chocolate bars for eating†. These two latter qualities enable it to be used for delicate work—for example, to be molded into delicate designs." Thank you very much to thenibble.com for the preceding information. So now you know. And as G.I. Joe will tell you at the end of every episode where no one really dies and Cobra commander somehow manages to get his hiney kicked (even though having a 300:1 advantage in guns, tanks, planes, men, boats, hovercraft, laser blasters and a thousand dudes with masks) and get away from four guys--in rad outfits with "swivel arm battle grip"--with one jake-legged helicopter and a pack of explosives....and somehow all the guys always manage to get out of their tanks, helicopters, planes, boats, etc. before they explode. Amazing how the body count for those cartoons was always ZERO. Amazing.....but I digress.

Wait, what the heck was I saying? I dunno. Anyways... so we've got this thing and we are battling on (Xena warrior princess). We'll keep the update going throughout the year as we attempt to put this bad boy down. I know you can't wait.

We got a Wii, Jimmy got a Mii

So, true to form, it has been just about a month since I've had any time to sit and write about...well, anything. Which, naturally is because EVERYTHING has been hitting the proverbial fan. But, that time has passed--thank you very much Jesus.

One of the items our family received for Christmas--surprising me most of all since a certain SOMEONE said that in no way shape or form would we, "ever EVER have a video game system unless it is over MY DEAD BODY!!!" is a Nintendo Wii. I am here to tell you that the Wii rules. Plain and simple it is amazing. It takes some getting used to with the remote controllers, but having the character on-screen mimic your own movements is pretty wild.

One of the best things about the Wii--I mean, aside from all the cool games, and the extra things it does (the weather channel is pretty darn pimp if you asked me)--is that you get to create a virtual you for the system, a Mii. It is much like an Avitar if you know what that is. If you don't know what that is then, well, um....nevermind. Each of us made our own person, and we did a pretty good job of it if I do say so myself.

The one we had the best luck with, however, was my dad. Here are a couple of pictures of him taken at Kate's wedding... You'll have to agree he tends to look like this about 45% of the time in some capacity.






Here is another picture of him that we took the same weekend. You'll note that he only usually looks like this about 25% of the time.








Now, we worked long and hard to get everything just right with his Mii. I mean, we (and by we I mean, ME) spent about 15 minutes creating, editing, tweaking, scrapping-and-starting-over until we got just the right Mii for Jimmy. Here he is on-screen:



He's a great bowler, and has almost reached pro level. He's also a pretty average baseball player it turns out with a nice slider and an ability to hit the long ball upon occasion. He still likes to take long windy walks on the beach (OK, I'm making that part up...I think). He's a pretty decent golfer--who, just like in real life, has no ability to hit an approach shot--odd how the video system knew that. And, he's an excellent tennis player. Here he is in action:
You'll note that his skill level is at zero. That was his first game. Since then he's defeated a number of computer players and has moved all the way up to the pro-level. Currently he is at 1037--I think that is good. Well done, Jimmy!