Getting ready for Christ the King...

Seated in silence in anticipation of today's midday Eucharist, I heard an "audible prayer" as my friends and colleagues in ministry entered the Chancel and took up their seats.  Quietly they picked up their Psalters and liturgies.  In shared silence we listened to hymns offered to Salve Regina.  And at 12:15 pm, I invited them to open their hearts to the Lord.

There is a sweet sense of calm in our Wednesday Eucharists that I secretly look forward to entering.  Often I am not aware that I am longing for our common prayers, but no sooner do I take up my place in the choir loft then I experience the blessing promised in Psalm 46: Be still and know that I am God.  We prayed this psalm in anticipation of Christ the King Sunday (the close of the church year on November 24th) and also shared lectio divina on Sunday's gospel. Luke 23 is the story of Christ's crucifixion - and we read about the paradox offered as the thieves on either side of Jesus speak of cynicism and faith - clearly and invitation for us to decide.  As one person said, "Quite a challenge, yes?  Do I have eyes to see and ears to hear when the Lord is present?  Or am I caught up in just what I know even while Jesus is coming close in the most horrible situation?"  As a prompt for the start of Advent on December 1st it is the right challenge:  Advent is coming, will we have eyes to see and ears to hear?

Both the Psalm and the Gospel use paradoxical language to push us beyond the obvious.  Fr. Richard Rohr put it like this in this morning's reading:

And I chose to have Wisdom rather than the light, because the splendor of her never yields to sleep.  Wisdom 7:10

The beauty of the unconscious is that it knows a great deal, whether personal or collective, but it always knows that it does not know, cannot say, dares not try to prove or assert too strongly, because what it does know is that there is always more—and all words will fall short. The contemplative is precisely the person who agrees to live in that unique kind of brightness (a combination of light and dark that is brighter still!). The paradox, of course, is that it does not feel like brightness at all, but what John of the Cross calls a “luminous darkness,” or others call “learned ignorance.”In summary, you cannot grow in the great art form, the integration of action and contemplation, without (1) a strong tolerance for ambiguity, (2) an ability to allow, forgive, and contain a certain degree of anxiety, and (3) a willingness to not know and not even need to know. This is how you allow and encounter mystery. All else is mere religion.

Tonight we meet again to work on our Sabbatical application to the Lilly Foundation.  We will review my hopes and plans and then spend serious time playfully imagination how the congregation might embrace a project, too.  One of my friends and band mates earlier sent me a tune from the Police that evokes this dance in the luminous darkness.

You will see light in the darkness
You will make some sense of this
And when you’ve made your secret journey
You will find the love you miss