Wrestling with God's absence - part two

On this Sabbath day (for me) I am getting ready to head out to the most incredible art museum I have ever visited: MassMoCA - the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, MA. (Check it out: http://www.massmoca.org/) It is a vast and meandering refurbished factory revived into a center for the creative arts. It is also a sanctuary for my soul from time to time - a place of renewal and challenge and beauty - and I cherish the time spent wandering, thinking and feeling. Three random thoughts are swimming about before we depart:

+ First, I got a chance to hear some great Dixieland jazz last night. My buddy, Andy Kelly, is the leader of Pittsfield's Jazz Ambassadors - our sister city touring band - and yesterday they were doing their Dixieland incarnation. Great and sweet sounds with lots of soul - and they even asked me up to do a Satchmo version of "Hello Dolly."

Now, besides the kick of performing - and being with a GREAT band - this song takes me back to the time my Poppa Fred asked me to sing it for him. I was a smart-assed teenaged rock and roller and couldn't be interested in playing such sentimental crap - even for my grandfather. So I blew him off - and refused to play "Little Green Apples," too. I offered George Harrison's "Here Comes the Sun" but that didn't resonate with him. And now, all these years later, at a time when I could be a grandpa (although nothing is on the horizon) I am sad for this missed chance to share a little happiness with a man who brought so much joy into my life. So, for dear old Fred, it was a gift to give it a shot.

+ Second, I found a book of new/old poems by Mary Oliver entitled, "Thirst," a collection of her insights and reactions to the loss of her beloved, long-time companion Molly Malone Cook. While all of them speak to my theme of "wrestling with God's absence," this one jumped out:

From the complication of loving you
I think there is no end or return.
No answer, no coming out of it.

Which is the only way to love, isn't it?
This isn't a playground, this is
earth, our heaven, for a while.

Therefore I have given precedence
to all my sudden, sullen, dark moods
that hold you in the center of my world.

And I say to my body: grow thinner still.
And I say to my fingers, type me a pretty song.
And I say to my heart: rave on.

The depth psychologist, Thomas More, walks with Jung, Woodman and Hillman in saying that only the creative arts can give us a way to speak of our deep and dark truths. Only a poetic mind, heart and soul can express the emptiness we all know but cannot articulate. Only time spent with the masters of the arts - in any of their forms - can give us the ability and courage to say what is true even beyond our imperfect words.

+ And here is part two of the message I was sharing last Sunday as it actually shook out in worship. (NOTE: for those with MACs, you may want to go directly to the YouTube station, Stevensoul7, for this video clip. Some have told me that sometimes rendering films through the PC world causes choppy replays on Apple equipment. At the very least, the sound will be better, ok?)

credits: http://makingmore.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/if-more-was-a-picture