embracing the wisdom of sister autumn at the equinox...

The next few months are among my favorite as they evoke both "liminal space" and a sense of nature's wisdom calling us to listen and tenderly shift gears. The wetlands behind our home are already turning shades of amber, auburn, and crimson. Pumpkins dot the terrain, too with their vibrant orange and gold. Evenings are increasingly cooler as Brother Sun gives up 2-3 minutes of light every day. And a combination of sorrow mixed with possibility is present in the very air we breathe. The wise feminist teacher and shaman, Starhawk, puts it well:

A real relationship with nature is vital for our spiritual development as well as our psychic health. It is also a vital base for any work we do to heal the earth and transform the social and political systems that assault her daily.

For one who savors this season, New England is the place to be as fresh apple cider fills roadside stands, gardens share the bounty of summer's last hurrah, and the few remaining ears of sweet corn linger to tease us with their impending farewell. Those far wiser than I teach that as the autumn equinox approaches, all that is sacred in creation ask us to recognize God's invitation to find reclaim a measure of balance in our lives.

A balance of light and dark, spirit and body, mind and soul. As we return thanks for the blessings of the summer harvest and the fruit of our gardens, we also take stock of the mystery that is life as it once again opens us the the blessings of transformation. Like leaves falling away from their branches, Mother Nature asks us to release our attachments to who we think we are. Like a caterpillar in a chrysalis, we slowly enter the darkness of our own being and surrender to the unknown. And like a monarch butterfly, we let the winds of change become our guide and welcome a season of flowing within quiet grace. 

I didn't grow-up honoring the spirituality of creation. I suspect that's true for most of us white folk - especially those without intimacy with the land. But now I find the ebb and flow rhythms of creation to be a time-tested mentor into the unforced rhythms of grace. St. Paul told us this in chapter one of Romans: "The basic reality of God is plain enough if we open our eyes to creation: there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: the eternal power of the sacred as well as the mystery of God's divine being." (The Message) This, of course, was never unpacked in the Congregational churches I grew up in throughout New England. But that was true of the genocide perpetrated by my spiritual and familial ancestors, too. A great deal was hidden just below the surface for those with eyes to see; but like many other bourgeois white folk - women as well as men - my post WWII generation learned a sanitized and sentimentalized history of the USA  that we're still working at relinquishing in a quest for the truth.

On Sunday, September 22, I begin a conversation and Bible study into the spirituality of the 12 Steps. This is part of my own healing and a chance to share with others the practical wisdom of this way of embodied prayer. Later that same day, the Autumnal Equinox, our band, Wednesday's Child, will play a gig in a friend's barn stating @ 3 pm. This, too is one of the ways I seek balance: the music and poetry of the season open my eyes and all my senses to the next part of life's journey. This prayer says it well:

For the light-filled days behind us and the darkening days to come: we give thanks. For the harvest itself as well as the wisdom and beauty of that still surrounds us in fading vibrance: we return thanks. For the turning of the wheel, the insights of letting go, the liberation of release, and the promise of winter's rest: we give thanks. In this brief season of repose, this sacred pause in the turning of time, that illuminates the balance of light and dark: we give thanks.

If you would value marking the equinox with us and the music, prayer, and poetry: please send me a note.

celebrating labor day 2024...

This weekend our culture celebrates Labor Day – a national holiday honoring ALL working women and men – and giving us one more Monday off from work. Labor Day’s origins date back to May 4, 1886, when Chicago police killed and wounded strikers at the McCormick Reaper Works. In an act of solidarity, trade unionists organized a mass protest of over 2,000 peaceful demonstrators who were rushed and roughed-up aggressively at the end of the rally by overzealous police trying to get home early. This provoked some still unidentified anarchist to throw a bomb at the constabularies who opened fire on the crowd in self-defense. Some workers returned fire and in the end, seven police officers and one striker lay dead causing some self-righteous elected officials to impose strict anti-labor laws while others renewed their commitment to the burgeoning labor movement. 

The tragic chaotic origins of Labor Day have mostly been forgotten by contemporary Americans – sanitized of all class consciousness – and largely treated as simply the end of summer. All too often passion has been leached out of our national holidays so that MLK Day becomes yet another excuse for a white sale and Veteran’s Day is stripped of both lament and gratitude for those who made the ultimate sacrifice for peace. It’s my hunch that one of the many reasons our nation is so polarized is that we’ve lost touch with the complicated roots of our nation. We've also forsaken the reality of paradox where blessings are often mixed with curses and unintended consequences. Our commitment to the common good has been eroded, too as a sense of collective struggles for justice has long been buried in the dustbin of our history.

It would seem, however, that a modest renewal in the labor movement is taking root in the United States once again. The United Auto Workers continue to reclaim lost ground bringing a measure of economic justice and dignity back to the hard working women and men who build our cars and trucks. The organizing campaigns at both Starbuck's and Amazon also suggest that labor is striving to once again become a movement rather than a mere limp. But we have a LONG way to go before true equity is realized and the super rich pay their fair share. The alliance the Rev. William Barber has forged with the North American labor movement is yet another side that a possible awakening of conscience is taking place in our wounded and unfair realm.

our addiction to violence is part of our legacy...

I am deeply saddened by the attempted assassination of former President Trump. It was a horrible act of hatred. At the same time please note that Mr Trump has increasingly advocated violence against his political opponents and consistently thrown rhetorical gasoline on any attempt to de-escalate our polarization. I am glad he is safe and understand he is not the source of our chaos and pain but rather the most recent manifestation. 

I pray we stop lying to ourselves about violence being un-American: sadly we were founded on settler genocide, institutionalized the dehumanization of Africans in our founding documents, celebrated slavery as a source of financial necessity, fought a still unresolved civil war that is erupting again, periodically engaged in campaigns of terror against immigrants and political agitators, regularly resorted to assassination both internally and internationally, and continue to treat guns as more sacred than the lives of our children. We’ve romanticized vigilantes, taught our history with half truths, and consciously ignored the consequences. Today’s horrific act is not an anomaly but yet another example of chickens coming home to roost as Malcolm X presciently told us some 61 years ago. 

Violence is not our only legacy, of course: our pursuit of an ever more perfect union is a blessing we must strengthen and celebrate; but we’re long overdue in breaking our addiction to conflict resolution through murder and must begin to own our collective shadow that is destroying us from the inside out. This is an important albeit frightening moment in our evolution as a nation. May God’s grace and truth be our guide in the coming days.

LISTEN to the music...

So today I am pondering the joy and meaning of music-making after reading this poem by Hannah Fries entitled: Let the Last Thing be Song.

i.
Memory is safest in someone with amnesia.
Behind locked doors
glow the unmarred pieces—
musical notes humming
in a jumble, only
waiting to be
arranged.

ii.
What is left in one
who does not remember?
Love and music.

Not a name but the fullness.
Not the sequence of events
but order of rhythm and pitch,

a piece of time in which to exist.

iii.
A tone traveling through space has no referent,
and yet we infer, and yet it
finds its way between our cells
and shakes us.

Aren’t we all still quivering
like tuning forks
with the shock of being,
the shock of being seen?

iv.
When I die, I want to be sung across the threshold.
Don’t you? Doesn’t the universe,
with its loosening warp
and weft, still
unspool its symphony?

Sing to me — please —
and I will sing for you as all unravels,
as time continues past the final beat
of the stutter inside your chest.

Harmonize, at the edge of that horizon,
with the black hole’s
fathomless B-flat.

I have had the privilege of creating music with a variety of excellent artists. Over the years I have been blessed to find the most wonderful artistic companions wherever we go. In Saginaw it started small with a folk quartet we called the Saginaw Rounders, we went through a few small band iterations in Cleveland, then began a youth band as part of our ministry in Tucson only to see it morph into what I considered the "liturgical Grateful Dead" as about 10 seasoned performers joined the fun, and now our music-making continues with 2 or 3 discrete ensembles including the All of Us trio, the All of Us big band, and from time to time sitting in with Andy Kelly's Jazz Ambassadors. 

Each ensemble has its own niche: the trio is a straight ahead rock'n'soul bar band, the larger ensemble is built upon close 3 and 4 part harmonies with an emphasis on eclectic songs of solidarity (we play mostly to raise funds for peace and eco-justice groups), and the Ambassadors sometimes play New Orleans jazz and at other times Irish drinking music. What I've discerned is that each group shares a few commonalities:

+ First, if it ain't fun or aesthetically moving, we don't do it. Our music is NOT about ego: it's about joy. We rehearse hard, we have high standards, and then we let it rip and expect everyone to hang their egos up at the door. We can be spontaneous: last week someone at the bar suggested "Mustang Sally" so we tore it up at Methuselah while playing more acoustic Wailin' Jennys songs at Edwards Church in Northampton. 

+ Second, each band is committed to building community. In our polarized and mean-spirited culture of privilege and privation, we do NOT want to add to the misery. In fact, we trust that singing and dancing together can help us nourish a sense of shared commitment. We are not overtly political, more Grateful Dead/Allman Brothers groove than earnest folkies with the qualification being we work at building a safe and joyful space. Like the community of Taize used to say: we don't offer answers, just one living alternative carnival to the current culture of competition.

+ Third, we love to find ways of including the wider audience in the groove. I love group singing - so we make sure that it happens - and I love wild ass dancing - so we encourage that, too. Its easier most days to shake your booty in a bar than at church but like the song "Hell Yeah" insists, our faith communities could learn some important lessons in compassion and acceptance from some watering holes - so we do our best to be genre-benders pushing the limits.

+ Fourth, whether its rock'n'soul or hymns: it is ALL sacred to us. There is NO division between the human and the holy: we're ALL in this together. And that includes all of creation, nature, and its flora and fauna as well. 

Maria Popova added this to the mix that warrants review, too noting that Beethoven's Ode to Joy had "become the official Hymn of Europe — a bridge of harmony across human divides. I remember wondering as I sang whether music is something we make or something we are made of." Her extended reflection reminds us that:

That is what Pythagoras, too, wondered when he

laid the foundation of Western music by discovering the mathematics of harmony. Its beauty so staggered him that he thought the entire universe must be governed by it. He called it music of the spheres — the idea that every celestial body produces in its movement a unique hum determined by its orbit...The word orbit did not exist in his day. It was Kepler who coined it two millennia later, and it was Kepler who resurrected Pythagoras’s music of the spheres in The Harmony of the World — the 1619 book in which he formulated his third and final law of planetary motion, revolutionizing our understanding of the universe. For Kepler, this notion of celestial music was not mere metaphor, not just a symbolic organizing principle for the cosmic order — he believed in it literally, believed that the universe is singing, reverberating with music inaudible to human ears but as real as gravity. He died ridiculed for this belief. Half a millennium after his death, our radio telescopes — those immense prosthetic ears built by centuries of science — detected a low-frequency hum pervading the universe, the product of supermassive black holes colliding in the early universe: Each merging pair sounds a different low note, and all the notes are sounding together into this great cosmic hum. We have heard the universe singing.

I don't recall who said it but my recollection is that whomever it was clearly believed - like myself - that we were NOT made to spend our days battered by anxiety and manipulated by media. We were born to sing. To make love. To share compassion and creativity and that means turning off the news and reconnecting with humanity. When asked what was the first sign of human culture, anthropologist Margaret Meade replied that the first sign of civilization was a broken but healed femur. "A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts. Be civilized, be safe, be cautious.. be in care. We are at our best when we serve others."

And so we sing - and rock - and groove and harmonize and dance - and share it as boldly as possible: it's where I draw sustenance for the journey and hope for another day.

wandering in the wonder of it all...

In my personal inward/outward journey of faith - as well as my professional work as musician, pastor, and spiritual director (or Anam Cara - soul friend) - I consciously pay attention to that tiny string of synchronicity that has been woven into the fabric of my life. The poet, William Stafford, put it like this in "The Way it Is."

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among

things that change. But it doesn’t change.

People wonder about what you are pursuing.

You have to explain about the thread.

But it is hard for others to see.

While you hold it you can’t get lost.

Tragedies happen; people get hurt

or die; and you suffer and get old.

Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.

You don’t ever let go of the thread.

For decades I've intuitively trusted this to be a spiritual practice that is the essence of a prayerful life: a way to pray without ceasing. About ten years ago, however, I learned that the ancient Celtic monks - my kith and kin - consciously trusted the thin threads of synchronicity to be the way of wisdom and revelation. The sustained explorations into Celtic spirituality by John O'Donohue, Christine Valters Paintner, and John Philip Newell all celebrate this truth. Dr. Paintner wrote, "We cannot become so impatient for the destination that we arrive before we are ready." Consequently, these wisdom seekers from ancient Scotland, Ireland, and Wales transformed the ancient practice of pilgrimage from one driven by the goal of destination to a prolonged act of wandering till the heart experienced the rest and renewal promised by Christ's resurrection. "There's going to be these little synchronicities. And if we take them seriously enough, it becomes part of a conversation that's unfolding."

When we awaken to the holy shimmering in each flower, tree, and bird, we suddenly discover that we are woven into a vast community. We find ourselves nourished and supported in ways we didn’t see before. We are called to hold this deepening awareness and trust that we are sustained and called forth by the choirs of creation into our own creative journeys of expression. The Celtic imagination moves in circles and spirals; values dreams and visions; sees animals as wise guides; and gives reverence to Earth, her seasons, and land as wisdom guides. Living in Ireland has broken open my own creativity in new ways and has affirmed my own inner sense that the creative process is best nourished by letting go of our goals and opening our hearts to what wants to arrive each moment.

Like the indigenous wisdom-keeper, Robin Wall Kimmerer, suggests: this spirituality celebrates practice and embodiment over abstract thinking and belief as defined by creed and dogma. Bono wasn't kidding when he sang: Grace trumps karma. When synchronicity and awareness are recognized as an authentic and healing spiritual practice, or as Nick Cave puts it - when our yearning is honored as relationship with the sacred - then we find ourselves saturated in the earthy holiness of God. As one of my spiritual friends often tells me: "Thinking is NOT the same as being." 

I don’t hold a lot of attachment to belief. I hold a lot of attachment to practice and how we embody what it is that we hold most dear. Whether or not someone believes a particular doctrine is not as important to me as the conversation that happens—and how we are in relationship to each other, how we show up for one another. I often think that so many of our world’s problems could be softened, alleviated, solved if we danced together. You know, what if we just had space? What if our politicians danced together before some sort of big summit? Dance for me is a symbol of joy and release and surrender and vulnerability. We could be bringing that kind of spirit into our relationship to others—whether we agree with them or not, that isn’t actually that relevant to me.  
(From an interview with David Dault in the April 2024 edition of the Christian Century: https:/ /www.christiancentury.org/interviews/our-unseen-companions)

Imagine my delight this morning, therefore, upon reading the reflections of Carrie Newcomer, Richard Rohr, and Mark Longhurst as they each and all spend time pondering the sacred nature of synchronicity. Rohr calls it evolving faithfully:

To fight transformative and evolutionary thinking is, for me, to fight the very core concept of faith. I have no certain knowledge of where this life might be fully or finally heading, but I can see what has already been revealed with great clarity—that life and knowledge always build on themselves, are cumulative, and are always moving outward toward ever-greater connection and discovery. There is no stopping this and no returning to a static notion of reality.

Longhurst writes: As enjoyable as thinking is, it impedes me from being present to what is right in front of me. When I’m thinking, I’m not paying attention. I might be thinking about ways to pay attention, or waxing philosophical about how the French mystic Simone Weil considered attention a form of prayer—all while missing out on the unique sounds, needs, and people that the current moment is placing in front of me. When I’m present, I’m receptive to an uncertain immensity that might lead me to new places; when I’m thinking, I’m trying to control and direct reality.

And Newcomer adds: I love love love people and places and my always surprising, changing outward life as a traveling musician and story teller of human possibility. But I also know that by nature, I “re-charge” in solitude. That I am deeply drawn too stillness and I know the essential importance of attending to my inner journey and inner work. It feels like these days we’ve all been invited to a huge banquet table culturally... It seems as though there are countless entities vying for or claiming the “head of the table”, asking for our daily full attention with a million pings and notifications and screens saying, “hey look over here, you don’t want to miss this thing that will fill your head with fear or anxiety or FOMO" when most of us would actually rather spend time at the middle of the table, with perspective and access to a balanced view of things and more inclusive conversation. Some of us long for the conversations that can only happen at the quiet end of the table, with a new or trusted friend. This includes those inner conversations and inner work that is easier to do away from the din of lots of outer hubbub.

When I step away from the "head of the table" to wander and notice the thin strands of synchronicity calling to me in the quiet: I am renewed. Revitalized. Part of our sojourn into the Eastern Townships of Quebec is a chance to wander without any concern to outcome or destination. Part of it, too, is to slip deeper into stillness in a shared solitude. And still another aspect is to listen carefully to whatever emerges during our wandering. This Mary Oliver poem popped up a day ago and captures the soul of our quest:

Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean--the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down --who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

our summer hiatus...

We are in the midst of our annual summer escape from the USA tour of Quebec's Eastern Townships: the hoopla and hype, the crass jingoism and MAGA madness that now permeates the Fourth of July has become intolerable. And just to add insult to injury, there's America's obsessive hand-wringing re: President Biden's health that's been exaggerated, manipulated, and twisted daily by frantic polling that's ostensibly been conducted to measure the micro heart palpitations of the electorate but is actually designed to keep us all anxious, angry, and afraid a la 1984. We started getting out of Dodge at least once during July about 15 years ago and have now extended this to include an annual retreat during the American Thanksgiving/Black Friday insanity. Like David Bowie sang with help from Nine Inch Nails: I'm afraid of Americans!

This summer our retreat is being housed in a refurbished Quebecois trapper's cabin with a nod to the 1600's in New France. We booked expecting an adventure and were both stunned and delighted to find a rebuilt chapel in the backyard as well as a mighty rustic cabin. What a treat! So we're resting a LOT, talking about our aging lives, walking slowly around Lac Orford, and savoring  the stillness and solitude of Mother Nature. 

This year we have Lucie with us as her kennel was all booked - and she's holding her own. Some of you know her as our special needs dog who requires careful handling: when rattled, she sadly gives new meaning to compulsive anxiety disorder. But with patience and tenderness she can find her way through the chaos to make the best of it. For the past 8 years, Lucie has been helping me stay grounded and without (too many) expectations. In a totally upside down way, she is one of my spiritual mentors along with reclaiming prayer according to the guidelines the late Fr. Ed Hays crafted in: Prayers for the Domestic Church. 

Silence is one of the blessings of these retreats: there is NO TV and precious little internet so we literally become secular monastics shunning the busyness of culture for long periods of solitude and study. We get a bit of walking in, too whenever Di's back allows it and take long drives in the countryside to soak in the beauty. Today we found our way to one of the lake's inlets, drove through the neighborhood of wealthy chalet owners, ate tourtière and monk's cheese for lunch, and will bring the day to a close sipping red wine and reading the new Ian Rankin (Rebus) novel aloud. Tomorrow we're off to walk about Louise Penny country and check out the local bookstore before returning to retreat central.

Last night I came across this poem by Naomi Shihab Nye that warrants a mention given the political and cultural chaos that currently grips our homeland. It isn't about the USA but the last line rings so true.

Before I Was a Gazan - Naomi Shihab Nye (1952 – )
I was a boy
and my homework was missing,
paper with numbers on it,
stacked and lined,
I was looking for my piece of paper,
proud of this plus that, then multiplied,
not remembering if I had left it
on the table after showing to my uncle
or the shelf after combing my hair
but it was still somewhere
and I was going to find it and turn it in,
make my teacher happy,
make her say my name to the whole class,
before everything got subtracted
in a minute
even my uncle
even my teacher
even the best math student and his baby sister
who couldn’t talk yet.
And now I would do anything
for a problem I could solve.

As Ms. Shihab Nye notes: there is tranquility and purpose before "everything got subtracted in a minute... and now I would do anything for a problem I could resolve." Life in the United States continues to become increasingly unhinged, vicious, and dangerous - and that's not going to change any time soon. Sadly,  we are in this mess until this era plays itself out; and from my perspective that means making peace with problems we cannot currently solve. We must learn to endure. And accept. And reclaim what is holy in the most ordinary and small places. We must strengthen our affection for one another while the desecration continues. And find ways, like Anne Frank, to return thanks every day. By faith, I trust that the violence and danger to come is not the end of our story. The Paschal Mystery is unequivocal: God can and does transform some tragedies into opportunities for new life for those committed to peace, love, and justice. Our calling is to nourish a deep reservoir of patience and prayer that we can share as the brutality intensifies.

living into the slower charism of summer...

After five months back at leading worship - and sharing pastoral care and support - it feels a bit off to be at home this morning. Not bad, mind you, as I've been resting profoundly. Just off a bit. One of the lovely traditions in Palmer is to truly take a break during the summer and share worship with two other congregations: the Universalists and Baptists. This gives me six Sunday's off before I take over the shared worship commitments during the later part of August. I will still do some pastoral care throughout the summer - some planning and meetings, too - but no Sunday morning commitments for 42 days!

The next three weeks will be full: some solitude and quiet in North Country for a week, a quick trip to Tucson for an important memorial service, a weekend in MD for our nephew's wedding, then almost a week with my brother and sister-in-law from San Francisco. This week is chock full of engagements: pastoral work tomorrow, rehearsal and playing Methuselah on Tuesday, packing the car to bring Lucie with us on vacation, and departure on Wednesday. We celebrated Di's birthday yesterday. We had hoped to pick strawberries together but the weather did not cooperate so we did the next best thing: hung out at Matt's Bookstore in Lenox. Later we feasted together and shared a killer chocolate fudge cake. 

I quickly forget both how much a cherish worship, and, how easy it is to get out of
the habit. I delight in this time off even as I miss being with the faith community. I had the same experience last year at this time when my "bridge ministry" in Williamstown came to a close. So, from the solitude of my garden, I offer up these words from the SALT Project and Mary Oliver as we all enter the mystery of this season.

Sweet Jesus, talking
his melancholy madness,
stood up in the boat
and the sea lay down,

silky and sorry.
So everybody was saved
that night.
But you know how it is

when something
different crosses
the threshold — the uncles
mutter together,

the women walk away,
the young brother begins
to sharpen his knife.
Nobody knows what the soul is.

It comes and goes
like the wind over the water —
sometimes, for days,
you don’t think of it.

Maybe, after the sermon,
after the multitude was fed,
one or two of them felt
the soul slip forth

like a tremor of pure sunlight
before exhaustion,
that wants to swallow everything,
gripped their bones and left them

miserable and sleepy,
as they are now, forgetting
how the wind tore at the sails
before he rose and talked to it —

tender and luminous and demanding
as he always was —
a thousand times more frightening
than the killer sea.

”Maybe” is one of Mary Oliver’s theological classics, just in time for this coming Sunday’s lectionary readings, which include Mark’s story of Jesus calming the storm (Mark 4:35-41; check out SALT’s commentary here). In a sense, Oliver picks up where the story leaves off: the sea is silky and sorry, but soon enough, the people get restless. Something different has crossed the threshold. We may plead for deliverance, but the truth is we’re often attached — more than attached — to the way things are, the devil we know, and wary when things threaten to change.

In this way, Oliver helps us understand Mark’s story, and its aftermath, on a deeper level. “Everybody was saved that night,” yes, the disciples and also the “other boats” Mark says were with them — but at its core, the episode is more unsettling than settling. The disciples are astonished, and also unnerved. “Who then is this?” they ask. Even they, who’ve left everything to follow him, who presumably believe him to be someone extraordinary, the Messiah, the deliverer — even they are perplexed, eyes widening. Who then is this?

The storm has gone silent. But now they’re left with him, and with his tender, luminous demands.

A thousand times more frightening / than the killer sea.

living into our existential anxiety takes practice...

Yesterday I saw a post from a long ago and far away colleague that spoke to my
heart: "Not sure which bothers me the most: the lousy performance by Biden or the hysteria taking over the Dems." And I would add: not just the Dems but a host of other good souls with tissue paper feelings who have grown accustomed to living in our bubble of privilege over the past 50 years. Those on the so-called Left (whatever that really means in the United States right now) have become isolated, arrogant, and afraid. And while these very real fears might impel us toward solidarity, like others of us dealing with our various addictions, more than likely we're going to need to hit bottom before we will accept reality - and Thursday's presidential debate gave shape and form to what that bottom looks like at this moment in time. Life under a MAGA régime driven by Project 2025 would be the contemporary  incarnation of A Hand Maid's Tale.

The knee-jerk, no context editorial the NY Times posted yesterday urging Biden to withdraw is an excellent example of liberal hysteria. In this era of digital magic where I can log on to the Times editorials in less that 5 seconds and still carp about how slow my high speed internet works, all perspective has been abandoned. The late Jim Morrison wailed prophetically in 1968: we want the world and we want it... NOW! I, too, would have preferred that Mr. Biden step aside before the primary season so that other candidates would have to tough-it-out in pursuit of the nomination, but that didn't happen. Had it been true then our Vice-President, Ms. Kamala Harris, would have had to complete as an equal even if considered the heir apparent. She's no shoe-in either in my analysis and carries her own inconsistent baggage. But again, competition did not happen. So, like the Serenity Prayer teaches, I need the courage to accept what I cannot change while changing the things I can. And politically, ethically, and spiritually there are a two insights that ring true to me:

First, we need to nourish both a long obedience and a commitment to reality. The church historian, Diana Butler Bass, framed this well when she quoted Teilhard de Chardin: Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability — and that it may take a very long time.

Our arrogant politics and social isolation didn't occur overnight and it's redemption won't happen any time soon either. Thomas Merton told us back in 1948: It is true that the materialistic society, the so-called culture that has evolved under the tender mercies of capitalism, has produced what seems to be the ultimate limit of this worldliness. And nowhere, except perhaps in the analogous society of pagan Rome, has there ever been such a flowering of cheap and petty and disgusting lusts and vanities as in the world of capitalism, where there is no evil that is not fostered and encouraged for the sake of making money. We live in a society whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and keep it at the highest pitch of artificial tension, to strain every human desire to the limit and to create as many new desires and synthetic passions as possible, in order to cater to them with the products of our factories and printing presses and movie studios and all the rest.

And don't forget the critique Eliot crafted in 1934: All our knowledge brings us near to our ignorance, All our ignorance brings us nearer to death, But nearness to death, no nearer to God. Where the the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries Bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.

We no longer know how to wait - or relinquish - and I dare say we're living into the consequences of this arrogance. It is a corrective - harsh and ugly, to be sure - but as the Dominican mystic, Meister Eckhardt, insisted: "Reality is the will of God... it can always be better, but we must start with what is real." What is real in 2024 is that millions of our fellow citizens have been shut out of hope let alone security and they, like Jim Morrison, want a cataclysmic change NOW. More than any other moment in my life time, 2024 has become the year when the Serenity Prayer reclaimed its political wisdom in much the same way it did before WWII when Niebuhr wrote it. We, too face the threat of a home-grown fascism that is not fantasy but fact. And while it will not endure forever, it will be harsh, ugly, punitive, and tragic for many of us and the entire world community, too.

Second, practicing a contemplative discipline that reminds us that our feelings are not the whole truth is a vital antidote to our culture's chaos and doing so in community is salvific.  Look, I'm worried about this era - sometimes terrified, too - but my feelings are not the totality of reality. They are clues about how to respond. Fr. Ed Hays calls this the wisdom of our wounds - and they are counter-cultural. The Anointed Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mount that we are blessed when we're not so full of ourselves. When we feel filled with fear and want to run away or strike out, that's a sacred clue to do the exact opposite and stay connected and engaged. When we want to scream, its time to be still and reconnect to the unforced rhythms of grace. Unlike Jon Stewart who recently said it's time to contact a real estate agent in New Zealand, now is the time to be still, listen to what's going on all around us, and respond with a tender compassion that is reasonably consistent. To do so from within a spiritual community insures both a measure of accountability and periodic encouragement. The virulent anxiety that has become dominant today need not be normative for ever. The Talmud teaches:

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

All of the spiritual masters of my Judeo-Christian tradition insist that until we can unplug from the chaos, we'll be a part of the problem, not the solution. This does NOT mean isolationism or abstract navel gazing. It does mean learning how to let go of all expectations so that we can rest for a spell within God's presence and come to trust grace. If we do not know at our core that the universe is a friendly place despite the set backs and pain, we'll either retreat into privilege, try to self-medicate our fears (which never works), or become what we hate. Merton once again cuts to the chase:

Without reverting to sentimentality or cynicism, Richard Rohr reminds us:

What empowers change, what makes you desirous of change is the experience of love. It is that inherent experience of love that becomes the engine of change. Faith does not need to push the river because faith is able to trust that there is a river.

In another, longer post he speaks truth to the challenges of this moment: "I think there are three basic levels of social ministry, and none is better than the other. I believe all are the movement of the Holy Spirit within us for the sake of others. I like to imagine a river flooding out of control—symbolizing the circumstances and injustices that bring about suffering—overflowing its banks and sweeping those in its path off their feet."

At the first level, we rescue drowning people from the swollen river, dealing with the immediate social problem right in front of us: someone hungry comes to our door and we offer them some food, or invite them inside. These are hands-on, social service ministries, like the familiar soup kitchen or food pantry. Such works will always look rather generous, Christian, charitable, and they tend to be admired, if not always imitated.

At the second level, there are ministries that help people not to fall into the swollen river in the first place, or show them how to survive despite falling in. In general, these are the ministries of education and healing ... that fill the world with schools, hospitals, and social service ministries that empowered people and gave them new visions and possibilities for their lives.

Finally, on the third level, some ministries build and maintain a dam to stop the river from flooding in the first place. This is the work of social activism and advocacy, critique of systems, organizing, speeches, boycotts, protests, and resistance against all forms of systemic injustice and deceit. It is the gift of a few, but a much-needed gift that we only recently began to learn and practice. It seeks systemic change and not just individual conversion.

I don’t think most people feel called to this third level of activism; I my-self don’t. It was initially humiliating to admit this, and I lost the trust and admiration of some friends and supporters. Yet as we come to know our own soul gift more clearly, we almost always have to let go of certain “gifts” so we can do our one or two things well and with integrity. I believe that if we can do one or two things wholeheartedly in our life, that is all God expects.

The important thing is that we all should be doing something for the rest of the world! We have to pay back, particularly those of us born into privilege and comfort. We also must respect and support the other two levels, even if we cannot do them. Avoid all comparisons about better or lesser, more committed or less committed; those are all ego games. Let’s just use our different gifts to create a unity in the work of service (Ephesians 4:12–13), and back one another up, without criticism or competition. Only in our peaceful, mutual honoring do we show forth the glory of God.

Ours is a moment of profound consequences and we all have a role to play in creating an alternative to the brokenness. The best contemplative wisdom invites us to: 1) take a LONG and LOVING look at reality; 2) Cultivate an inward practice of acceptance; 3) Nourish our practice with discipline and community so that we discern which of the three steps of social change are most important to us; and 4) Trust that God is a loving and just God. We are in for a long and agonizing journey but this moment is NOT the end of the story - only a part.

it ain't over til it's over: an inner debate between my head and my heart after presidential debate...

Well, last night's Presidential debate was NOT for the feint of heart: Mr. Biden not only looked lost in the beginning, but sounded... what? Disoriented? Drugged? At odds as to the consequences of a poor performance? All of the above? And Mr. Trump - our once Liar-and-Groper-in-Chief? He was certainly the more commanding presence even as he lied in the most outrageous manner. Accusing the Democrats of infanticide? Projecting his failures on to the Biden Administration? Dodging bullet after bullet with belligerence and obfuscation? All of the above and more? Without a doubt. 

Today I am experiencing an inner debate within myself concerning my head and my heart. No sooner did the President walk on the stage, shuffling and looking oddly pale as befits an 81 year old person fighting off a cold, than my heart sank: this is all over before it begins I felt wondering why someone on his team didn't consult Sir Paul McCartney who is also 81? When the former President took the stage a moment later, his orange hue had been toned down, his faux-Mussolini scowl was still intact, and he showed up exuding bravado - false or not - making Biden's pallor even more troubling. And for the next 30+ minutes, I found myself wondering: where IS the President and why is he so incoherent? Trump was bombastic in his lies, over powering the foggy insights Biden tried to articulate. 

Suddenly, about 25 minutes into the fray, the light inside Biden seemed to come on as he literally looked like he had risen from the dead. There was a sharp focus absent at the start. He spoke in complete sentences and had command of the values being contested by his opponent. He avoided the "cute stories about his dad" that have outlived their usefulness. And he was fully engaged. Trump simply ratcheted up his revilement - as is his want - without any relationship to the truth. Fact checkers afterwards (see https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/06/ 28/us/trump-biden-debate) noted 45's increasingly fraudulent hyperbole which was intended to appeal to our deepest fears. And from my perspective, Trump succeeded. He diminished Biden, he evoked emotion, and he continued to amplify the "strong man" persona celebrated by the current crop of fascists. Sadly, the President's resurrection came too late in the debate so the former President's grandiosity captured the moment. 

Given that most of my fellow Americans don't pay much attention to politics - for both good and bad reasons - this debate was clearly a win for Mr. Trump. And while Mr. Biden looked alive today in North Carolina - and sounded engaged, too - for the time being, angst will rule the day amongst those who oppose 45. Yes, it is still early in the struggle; and yes, President Obama failed to rise to the occasion during his first debate as President, too; so as Yogi Berra wisely told us: it ain't over til it's over! But my heart aches for another candidate - not RFK or any of the other pretenders - just someone more vibrant, articulate, and focused. I get why the Dems are wringing their hands, trying to clean up the President's mess, and doing spin control 24/7. But I think Nancy Pelosi had the most thoughtful response - and it is what my head is trying to hold on to right now. When asked if the Democratic Party needed a new nominee, she said: "NO. From a performance standpoint it wasn’t great, but from a values standpoint it far outshone the other guy,”

As a committed follower of Jesus, values matter - and no matter how you slice it - Joe beats Donald in this realm hands down. Biden has delivered working people a practical populism that remained only rhetoric during Trump's term. The President cares about those who are vulnerable and afraid; the former President only cares about himself. So, as one who trusts the Anointed and Resurrected Jesus over any and all politicians, my head impels me to stay the course with Biden. Calls for a new nominee, if truly useful, have time to ripen. My hunch, however, is that they will likely shrivel on the vine because it ain't over til it's over, right? And politics as life is filled with surprises. I lament last night. Even grieve it. But know that a poor performance in a debates is not the end of the story. I trust and serve a God whose love is greater than all of that - and that remains even should the Orange won win.

image credit: Avasna Pandey https://kathmandupost.com/miscellaneous/2017/06/10/head-over-heart

the embrace of june's feast days and our rock'n'soul music...

June is saturated in feast days - Pentecost, Sacred Heart, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Nativity of John the Baptist, and Saints Peter and Paul Day being the most significant - and I find myself reveling in the bounty. I didn't grow up with feast days. The Congregational Way threw that baby out with the bath water of the Reformation along with contemplative prayer, liturgy, chant, and the importance of discerning tradition. Our "solo scriptura" was both an earnest and arrogant attempt to reclaim primitive Christianity from institutionalization and empire. The mentors of my first nascent spirituality were cock sure they had a monopoly on the truth and soon joined the ranks of our earlier religious despots who somehow made peace in their souls with the misogyny and violence of the witch hunts, burning so-called heretics at the stake, torture, and genocide. 

I was duly indoctrinated and bought the sanitized mythology of the Pilgrims as celebrants of religious freedom without once wondering what happened to the first inhabitants of New England. Through prayer, study, resentment, and a degree of acceptance I've come to see my Puritan ancestors as haughty, adolescent bullies who convinced themselves of their own righteousness while wounding, abusing, and violating the land, its first caretakers, and all who couldn't stomach their religious zeal. There are aspects of my tradition that I cherish, it's rugged non-conformist tendencies being paramount, but this has included incarnating Merton's insight about learning to "grow where we're planted." I have had to reclaim so many spiritual babies from their discarded bathwater over the years including the sanctity of Eucharist, feast and fast days, mystical wisdom, and liturgical prayer being the most important. Thank God for communities like Taize, Celebration, and Iona who have been allies in reclaiming our lost treasures with a measure of humility.

I suppose its no wonder that ALL of my spiritual directors have been Roman Catholic - some priests some renegades - but all grounded in prayer, study, and the challenge of sorting out what is sacred and what is dross from tradition. Same holds true for many of my intellectual mentors including Thomas Merton, Richard Rohr, Joan Chittister, and Henri Nouwen. As Sr. Joan puts it: we must learn how to see the eagle within the egg if we're to renew what is holy in our traditions. A few brilliant and non-conformist women scholars from the Reformed tradition have been blessings, too: Cynthia Bourgeault, Barbara Brown Taylor, Margaret Guenther, Gertrud Mueller-Nelson, Diana Butler Bass, Phyllis Tribble, and Kathleen Norris being the most important. Add into the mix Walter Wink, Gustavo Gutierrez, Clarence Jordan, Thomas Keating, Mary Oliver, MLK, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Bono, Springsteen, Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Zappa, and Robert Bly and you have the faculty that has guided me through the haze into clarity over the past 60 years.

All of this is prelude to this moment when I've been reconnected to my earliest calling of sharing both rock'n'soul music for the body and mind (to paraphrase Country Joe and the Fish) and the spiritual renewal of individuals and congregations. Back in 1968, shortly after Dr. King's assassination, I was in the Potter's House in Washington, DC with my church youth group when I sensed a "call to ministry." As the artists of the Church of the Savior did experimental liturgy in their coffee house ministry, I "heard" the Spirit whisper: "You could do this, too!" Fifty seven years later this journey keeps on truckin' in ways that delight and astound me. Like the Dead still sing: What a LONG strange trip it's been! I feel that way weeding the garden, preaching in Palmer, playing music at the Sideline Saloon and Methuselah in Pittsfield, being grandad to my precious Lou and Anna, and loving my life partner. 

Last night at the Sideline, my heart was full to overflowing when the crowd started to get up and dance to our music. And clap. And singalong: whoa-wo listen to the music! When Dave played his extended lead guitar breaks during "Can't You See" I was in the zone of solidarity and ecstasy. In many ways, our wee band, ALL of Us, is a throwback playing with and reforming our rock'n'soul tradition. We're kin to the Allman Brothers, Gov't Mule, Joan Osborne, Dylan, Springsteen, Beatles, and ZZ Top: let's boogie while we can and care for one another tenderly in the process.  When this happens the blessings of our feast days becomes real for me in ways that transcend words. 

       

anti-zionism is NOT the same as anti-semitism

Let me start off by acknowledging that OFTEN I am late to the party practically, politically, theologically, sometimes spiritually but RARELY emotionally. My soul grasps the wounds and blessings of creation long before my head catches up to my heart. That's part of the legacy of being an adult child of alcoholics where rage was mixed with affection and safety came and went without warning. Being outwardly cautious, therefore, not only became my default position during times of conflict, but became a discipline I cultivated as I matured. My hesitations are a natural part of a childhood legacy - I KNOW I am terrified of conflict and physical violence - as well as part of my quest for wisdom and humility. In many situations, I find its best to go slowly rather than spontaneously both to sort out what is authentic and true when feelings are swirling and because no one can see their own shadow. Watching and waiting, observing and testing the waters of life have proven to be healthier and safer for me than all the alternatives. 

Which isn't to say I haven't rushed to judgment. Clearly, I have in matters of the heart, politics, the buzz of a party, the heat of an argument and so much more. But as St. Irenaeus of Lyons insisted during the second century CE: we were made to grow into the image of God by learning from our mistakes. There is NO original sin, just humans growing in faith and becoming incrementally more Christlike in the process. The Eastern Orthodox celebrate this as "divinization" and I affirm it in spades. As life has ripened, my mantra has become: be still and know! As well as: follow me and learn the unforced rhythms of grace.

Consequently, most of the time, it takes forever for me to share my take on the events of the day: not only are they transitory - and often a distraction from living into Christ's compassion - but shifting sands that are rarely clear at the outset. I am not one who will jump on today's cause celebre: intellectually, morally, politically, and ethically I can't do it. And that brings me to the agony of owning that Israel's war against Hamas is genocide. Today's horrors are the most naked example of Israel's historic hatred of Palestine. At times over the past 78 years their violence has been clandestine, at other times blatantly vulgar, and always a violation of the spirit of hope that emerged out of the ashes of  the Holocaust. 

I know such a conclusion is generational, ok? Like many of my peace-making peers, for decades I only heard part of the story. I was morally blinded by the incomprehensible horrors of Auschwitz. I knew nothing of the Nakba. I only read what the NY Times wanted me to read. Until the 90's I believed that Israel truly acted only defensively against aggressors hell-bent on its destruction. And while that's part of the truth, it's not the whole truth so help me God as the nearly 40,000 and counting Palestinian deaths document. The terrorist slaughter of October 7th can never be excused or rationalized as a righteous consequence of oppression. But let's be clear: the wildly disproportionate violence the IDF has rained down upon women and children as well as the innocent sick and elderly - to say nothing of the campaign of starvation currently in place throughout Gaza - stands as proof of Israel's commitment to genocide. I hate that this is true. But I hate the brutality and death that innocent Palestinians are enduring more than my own broken heart. 

So, what I have long known within - and been hesitant to say out loud - is now all too obvious . As Chris Hedges presciently wrote in February: 

There was never any possibility that the Israeli government would agree to a pause in the fighting proposed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, much less a ceasefire. Israel is on the verge of delivering the coup de grâce in its war on Palestinians in Gaza – mass starvation. When Israeli leaders use the term “absolute victory,” they mean total decimation, total elimination. The Nazis in 1942 systematically starved the 500,000 men, women and children in the Warsaw Ghetto. This is a number Israel intends to exceed. Israel, and its chief patron the United States, by attempting to shut down the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which provides food and aid to Gaza, is not only committing a war crime, but is in flagrant defiance of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The court found the charges of genocide brought by South Africa, which included statements and facts gathered by UNWRA, plausible. It ordered Israel to abide by six provisional measures to prevent genocide and alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe. The fourth provisional measure calls on Israel to secure immediate and effective steps to provide humanitarian assistance and essential services in Gaza. https://scheerpost.com/2024/02/08/chris-hedges-let-them-eat-dirt/

Pope Francis has noted us that: we are living in an era overcome by the magnitude of the violence and the acute hopelessness that surfaces when the scale of destruction, violence and injustice comes to the surface... this sense of apathy and willful ignorance arises in the face of global violence. In today's world, the sense of belonging to a single human family is fading, and the dream of working together for justice and peace seems an outdated utopia. What reigns instead is a cool, comfortable and globalized indifference, born of deep disillusionment concealed behind a deceptive illusion: thinking that we are all-powerful, while failing to realize that we are all in the same boat. Or as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel put it: few of us are guilty, but all of us are responsible. 

My caution has its place - I will always trust it - but now it has run its course and can serve only to excuse and deny the genocide born of blind and arrogant Zionism.