a new anointing (on being confirmed)

On Sunday I learned why I need Sacraments.Not why we have them, exactly. I know that story, the richness of worship, the liturgical work of the people of God, the long history of Orthodox and Roman Catholic and Anglican and these visible signs of invisible grace. I could trace a history through books I still need to read, walk around in the Oxford History of Christian Worship or write a long academic sounding paper about it.But on Sunday, I learned why I need them.I need the Sacrament because I get lost.I got lost all through college in the rambling halls of beautiful ideas and bigger questions, lost in the big ache of the world, lost in the small ache of my own heart.I got lost in high school in the race to be thinner, prettier, something more than what I was.I get lost in the work of growing up, dazzled by ambition, tempted by every conceivable thing I could want and don't have.And so Jesus offers me the liturgical life: a life of daily reminders of Him, a life of prayer at morning and evening, a life of meditation and silence, of gestures to seal the Gospel in my mind and in my heart and on my lips, to cover myself in the Cross of Him who died so that I might not die.I need to be confirmed because kneeling before the Bishop, a shepherd who follows the Good Shepherd, who prays powerful in the Spirit and lifts high the Cross, this work brings me home again. He cried as he prayed over me, and his words, simple, still, echo forever in my heart: "This is a new anointing, a refreshment, my daughter. We release this your daughter into your care, Lord Jesus."I need the Sacraments to help me stop all my running around, butting my head against the fence. I need the Sacraments to be a signpost and an emptying of myself and a moment to feel the rush of the Spirit move.This is a new anointing.This is a deepening, a widening, a pouring out.I need the Sacraments to insist that the Lord builds this house, and He is the sure foundation. And this Sunday, not tripping, but crying, the Sunday of St. Michael and All Angels, I received a new anointing.And my heart is forever changed.Love,hilary

i make you a promise (on being confirmed)

Tomorrow is the making of promises. The candidates stand before the Bishop, and he says: You stand in the presence of God and his Church; with your own mouth and from your own heart you must declare your allegiance to Christ and your rejection of all that is evil. Therefore I ask these questions:I'm getting confirmed tomorrow.That means promises. That's what confirmation is, this promise-making moment, myself in front of the Bishop and the Church and in the presence of Christ, and the words will flow and my knees will knock together and I'm one hundred percent sure I'll almost trip somewhere in the service.But I'm getting confirmed tomorrow.Therefore I ask these questions:Do you turn to Christ? I turn to Christ.Do you repent of all your sins? I repent of all my sins.Do you renounce Satan, his works and all the evil powers of this world? I renounce them all. Do you renounce the desires of your sinful nature and all forms of idolatry? I renounce them all.It isn't the same as when I first felt God move. It isn't the moment when I fell head over heels in love with Him in Italy looking at Fra Angelico's fresco and realizing that God loves art and music and beauty enough to let us make it. It's not that sweetness of prayer with a friend in a parking lot. It is me, out on a limb of  a promise to God. A promise that I see Him, His Cross, His story. A promise that I will stand up from the middle of the pigsty and come home to Him. A promise to name evil as evil, and not hide behind anything that's "cultural" or "philosophical" or "complicated."I now call upon you to declare before God and his Church that you accept the Christian faith into which you were baptized, and in which you live, grow and serve.Do you believe and trust in God the Father, who made this world? I believe and trust in him.Do you believe and trust in his Son Jesus Christ who redeemed humankind? I believe and trust in him.Do you believe and trust in his Holy Spirit who gives life to the people of God? I believe and trust in him.Tomorrow I will make a promise to trust. Tomorrow I will make a promise to believe, a promise that I do believe, to live and grow and serve out this one life as a long obedience and a wild journey and a joyful acceptance of grace.I make you a promise tomorrow, Jesus, that all I am and have and hope for, all of it, belongs to You. I make you a promise tomorrow, Jesus, in the better silence after my words, that I am bound up in You, and all is grace, and all is love.Tomorrow I make a promise to love the Truth. To belong to Him. Love,hilary

dear hilary: the twitter failure

Psst. I know I'm 22, and a new 22 at that - but if you ever had a question, or wanted to ponder something out loud with me in this space? Shoot me an email at hilary.sherratt@gmail.com. I would love to wonder about things with you (and I'm always looking for new questions). Dear Hilary,I don't want to write this letter to you. Writing this letter means admitting that I don't know how to do something. I am a blogger. Kind of. I am in love with writing. But I'm not being very disciplined about it. I started blogging a while ago, and then I wanted people to read my writing, and "follow" me, and I started (trying) to use Twitter, but I just... I don't know how to put my question into words - it is about discipline, and writing, and blogging, and how to do it. I don't want to fall off the horse. But I don't know how to make this writing go.Love,Twitter FailureDear Twitter Failure,140 characters. That's all you get in Twitter-land. 140 characters to share a story, a link, to ask someone a pithy question or jab at someone else with a witty turn of phrase. 140 characters and that INCLUDES spaces. I don't know who these Twitter-gurus are. Maybe they live on a mountain somewhere, coming up with ways to shorten jokes and make links zippier and find the oh-so-important tag line that will make people more likely to click over. There are Twitter parties, Tweet-ups and meet-ups and iPhone apps and Instagram. It's enough to make our heads spin and our fingers quake.It's enough to make anyone dipping at the beginning of things feel like a "twitter failure."But did you ever pause to think you didn't set OUT to be a twitter winner? You didn't start your blog because you wanted to tweet about it - you tweeted about your writing because you believed that people should read it. Because there are aching beautiful things inside you and you wanted to share them with the world. You try through twitter. You try through blogging. You try through coffee dates and prayers and shouting matches and letters written on old notebook paper.The heart of your complaint isn't about Twitter anyway, is it? It's about laziness and discipline and this work of writing.There are only two questions to ask you. Two questions, and the rest is simple:1. must you write?2. if you must, will you put your ass on the floor and write?If the answer is yes to one, then I hope your answer is also yes to two. I hope if you dig inside yourself, like Rilke tells us to in "Letters to a Young Poet" and you discover that you must write. That it sings like a bird aching to be uncaged, that it is the thing you can't help doing... then please, say yes to question two. Put your ass on the floor, as Dear Sugar says, and write. Pick a number of posts and promise your blog and your heart that you will write them. Pick the ways you share those with others - maybe twitter, maybe not... maybe you need to just write them for a while and not worry about whether anyone is reading them. But if you believe this is work you should do, then you must do it.The savvy use of Twitter will be irrelevant.Love,hilary