We get to carry each other...

My boys, U2, played Boston last night, but I was not able to be there: damn! I am always energized, blessed and challenged by their creative use of technology, sound, prayer, liturgy and music. Just look at this stuff...

Bono sings to a mixed crowd: "The more you know the less you feel - some pray while others steal: blessings are not just for the ones who kneel... luckily!"

Tonight I start a new class - To Begin at the Beginning - with my own mixed crowd at church (decidedly fewer than trekked to Gillette Stadium, to be sure!) And we'll talk about how hard it is to find words for God. Our working text, a book by the same name by Martin Copenhaver, is as good a jumping off point as any; in it he reminds us that the first story of God in our tradition comes from the Exodus. Freedom and God within our suffering is the beginning - followed quickly by the gift of grace and a response of gratitude: covenant and law.

Who knows who will show up? Who knows where the Spirit will lead us? All I know for certain that while our words are important - and I have given my life to this quest - it is always incomplete for how can you contain the sacred in words? Poetry, music, art and creativity are the only experiences that move us into that paradoxical realm where heaven and earth embrace. All the rest is... we get to carry each other.

PS - So my first class happened and it was... lovely. A variety of folks came - for many different reasons - and we talked about God. God as experienced and celebrated in Exodus, God in the covenant of Sinai and God in the covenant with Abraham as well as Noah. We talked about grace and responding in gratitude and how the experience of liberation and hope inspired the commandments and torah.

And the one constant word after this conversation was, "Thank you for helping us connect the dots!" I was startled - and grateful - for it would appear that there has been precious little time in our tradition for talking about the "big picture" in small groups - creating places where it was safe to talk about the stuff we don't even know we don't know - and now there is.

What's more, at least in our group tonight, people are hungry to explore what it means to be people of a contemporary and living faith. And just so that I got the point: as I was driving home who should be talking with Terry Gross but... Karen Armstrong. They were discussing her new book, The Case for God, and I will have to get it tomorrow.
image: Marc Chagall: Exodus