becoming wise - part three...

Here are today's worship notes for part three of a "Becoming Wise" series inspired by

Krista Tippett's book of the same name.

Introduction
The wisdom of the Lord has taken up residence in our flesh – and we’re often too busy to notice. The arc of the Advent/Christmas message in the Christian tradition speaks of incarnation – the Word became Flesh in Jesus Christ and dwelt among us full of truth and grace – and yet time and again we persist in abstractions and disembodied theology that confuse and wound rather than embrace the healing holiness of our embodied selves. In the first century of the Jewish/Christian Common Era, St. John wrote:

In the beginning was the Word – the abstract idea of creative holiness – and this Word was with God, and this Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being, in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. God was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He even came to what was his own and many of his own people did not recognize him.

… and this hasn’t changed – nor has our stubborn refusal to listen to the wisdom of the Lord within our flesh. And because God loves us so much – beyond our stubbornness, beyond all hubris and the myriad contrivances we create to keep ourselves distracted and disembodied – the One who is Holy keeps sending us prophets to wake us up and slow us down. Barbara Brown Taylor, the Episcopal priest who left parish ministry in order to teach young college students in Georgia the wisdom of the Lord in our flesh, once wrote:

Who among us deserves the way a warm bath feels on a cold night after a hard day’s work? Who has earned the smell of a loved one, embracing you on your first night back home? To hold a sleeping child in your arms can teach you more about the meaning of life than any ten (theological) books…. With all of the conceptual truths in the universe at his disposal, Jesus did not give his disciples something to think about on his last night. Instead, he gave them concrete things to do – specific ways of being together in their bodies – that would go on teaching them what they needed to know when he was no longer around to instruct them… (Why else did he say about the wine and bread and water on dirty feet…) do this – not believe this but do this 0 in remembrance of me?

And so this morning, as I explore with you chapter three of Krista Tippett’s book, Being Wise, in light of the appointed readings from Scripture, let me offer a confession. I most keenly experience the wisdom of the Lord in my body through my tears. Sometimes they are tears of rage, other times tears of joy; I have known tears of bone-numbing grief and confusion as well as the sublime tears of ecstasy. I sobbed in gratitude and awe when my babies were born, I wept like Job when they grew up and moved into their own homes and lives. I have burst into tears in the arms of my lover; I have banged my head against the steering wheel of my car crying for a word of clarity from God about my calling. I bawl during chick flicks, I get misty looking through photographs of my family in days gone by and I have found myself full to overflowing during the singing of certain hymns in worship.

Earlier this week, I even let my tears flow without shame sitting in front of my television set during a political convention when heart and soul were joined by the Spirit in ways that were both gracious and just: we go high when they go low said preacher-in-residence Michelle. Obama and the flood gates of gratitude were opened within me in ways that were thoroughly beyond my control. Now, for most of my life, I’ve been embarrassed and even afraid of these tears: I’m a man, damn it all; I should be more in control of my emotions, right? But clearly that hasn’t always been true – and it was maddening for me for decades. And then my wife, Dianne, and a mentor from a distance, Frederick Buechner, said: Don’t fight your tears – they are trying to tell you something. Welcome them tenderly. Buechner put it like this:

Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go to next.

For the past 15 years, I’ve been trying to do just that: pay attention to the wisdom of the Lord in my body that is coming forth through my tears. And it is from that place that I’d like to talk with you about the insights Ms. Tippett shares with us in a chapter entitled, “Flesh: the Body’s Grace,” I hope that we might do so in dialogue with the fascinating albeit opaque blessings provided in today’s Bible lessons. Specifically, let’s concentrate on: 1) the connection between eating and ethics; 2) how being at home in our flesh strengthens compassion; and 3) why beauty nourishes a call beyond tolerance into community and social justice.

Insights
One gift given to us in Becoming Wise is the reminder that “for most of history, religion was a full-body experience, a primary space in common life where we danced and sang and laughed and cried and ritualized the passages of our lives.” The farther we travelled away from our primal roots, however, the more and more our faith traditions became abstract and disembodied hints of an increasingly forgotten blessing.

Rituals, you see, are sophisticated ancient intelligence about the body. Kneeling, folding hands in prayer and breaking bread; liturgies of grieving, gathering and celebration – such actions create visceral containers in time and posture. They are like physical corollaries to poetry – condensed, economical gestures that carry inordinate meaning and import. Rituals tether emotion in flesh and blood and bone and help release it. They embody memory in communal time. (Tippett, p. 58)

Now many of you know that I genuinely despise the way Reformed Protestant religion has abandoned and forgotten our sacramental origins: the way we’ve sanitized Eucharist away from a full fledged feast into a hyper-individualized, antiseptic act of personal piety with shot glasses for chalices and cubes of Pepperidge Farm white bread for a meal – or the way we sprinkle a little water, but not too much, at baptism rather than plunge a body under the water of death – and don’t even get me started on our queasy avoidance of foot washing! Jesus told us to do THAT too in remembrance of him but we have locked away sacramental foot washing as if it were some prehistoric rite of superstition that embarrasses our modern sensibilities.

Our earliest traditions, however, were earthy – and sensual – and included real meals alongside authentic fasting. There were observances in light as well as darkness, processions that were somber and dances that were joyful, tastes and smells that washed over our senses to proclaim: listen to the wisdom of the Lord in your flesh. But in most of Protestant worship in the 21st century, and a far too much in the Roman Catholic realm, too, worship doesn’t feed our senses – it bores us to sleep and numbs us into jumping through the hoops as fast as we can so we can get out of church and on to the more important and fun things of real life.

I think it was Christian educator, John Westerhoff, who said that for most of us worship just takes place from the neck up: it is so full of words that it is a miracle our bodies have not atrophied or turned into stone!

Cut to the first lesson from the Hebrew Bible: the book of Ecclesiastes for Christians who use the Greek translation of the Hebrew texts or the words of wisdom from Qoheleth in the Jewish Tanakh. “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity… there is nothing better for a person to do than to eat, drink and sate himself with good things through their toil.” On the surface, it would be effortless to conclude that the Teacher/Preacher, for that’s probably what the Hebrew word Qoheleth means, is filled with despair over the human condition. All we do is work – and then we die. But the truth of the matter is that Ecclesiastes offers us a counter-cultural, radically dialectical poem that boldly articulates how savoring good food can lead us towards a spiritual practice we now know as mindfulness. Three important clues advance this insight:

+ First, vanity, vanity, all is vanity: what do we gain from the toil of our brow… but death? The English word, vanity, is a poetic but now archaic rendering of the Hebrew word havel. Modern translations substitute futility or absurdity for the 17th century King James language, but these words are abstract and disembodied. Robert Alter, professor of Hebrew and comparative literature at UC Berkeley, writes that “the Hebrew word havel… indicates the flimsy vapor that is exhaled in breathing, invisible except on a cold winter day and in any case immediately dissipating into the air. It is the opposite of the word ruah, ‘life breath and Spirit of God,” which is the animating force in living human beings.” (Alter, Wisdom Books, p. 340) Do you grasp the nuanced difference? The old and weary Hebrew teacher of the 4th century BCE is saying that after all his study and hard work, he has concluded that most of what passes for existence is a fleeting exhalation, the merest breath. What gain is there for us when all of life comes down to a broken hearted sigh?

+ Second, the opening line of this text tells us that the old preacher, Qoheleth, is a son of David, king of Israel. For generations, Bible scholars assumed that this meant the author was Solomon, King David’s progeny with Bathsheba; but the linguistic clues ground this book in about 350 BCE, nearly 700 years after Solomon. So the working wisdom now is that this is a poetic clue indicating someone with resources, enough to have experienced fully all the ups and downs and possibilities of real life, ok? A verbal shading that suggests that the old teacher has tried everything out. And, having done it all, has concluded that life is a grind: hard work, whether rich or poor, suffering and fear for wise and foolish alike, that leads ultimately to the grave. The core of living, in essence, is the merest sigh that can’t even be seen or grasped.

+ Now most people leave Ecclesiastes right here: all is vanity and despair. If they even bother to read more they conclude that the old preacher is telling us to become cynical hedonists who just eat and drink before we buy the farm. But such dark and despairing words are NOT of the Lord IF we are practicing mindfulness. IF we are living full awakened to the blessings available to all of us when our eyes are open, then we feel God moving within us through our flesh. The best Bible scholars of both Judaism and Christianity teach that Ecclesiastes is a dialectical poem – it places contrasting images alongside of one another in order to push us beyond the obvious into deeper truths – the awareness that sacred joy can be experienced every night at supper. Or that we can learn the meaning of life as our grandson falls asleep on our chest. Or even through the tears shed during a political convention.

The invitation to eat, drink and be merry, you see, is an invocation: you can find the fullness of God in simple, good and delicious food – in a pure glass of water or a full bodied wine – IF you wake up. That’s one of Tippett’s points, too when she discusses food” “Our crises of eating and bodies and food are driving us to revisit the gift of the land, “she writes as well as, “the complexity of ecosystems and the structure of our economies. And at the center of all that analysis, we’re relearning that taste can be a measure of moral good – the freshness of the produce, the life and death of the animal, the vitality of the soil.” In a word, food that tastes good cannot be unethically produced whether that’s a lamb chop or a tomato. And the more we collaborate on producing good and ethically grown food, the more we share these material blessing with one another, the deeper we come to trust one another and practice generous listening.

That’s why I asked you to bring a simple but tasty treat to share for the start of worship: it gets us out of our heads, it helps us practice being our best sharing selves and it lets our body teach us something about the goodness of the Lord through our taste buds. In sharing simple pleasures we become fully awake and alive in our flesh. And that’s the second truth I want to lift up today: how being at home and awake in your flesh and moves us towards compassion rather than selfishness. In an interview with Matthew Sanford, a yoga instructor who has been paralyzed from the waist down since the age of 14 because of a car accident, Tippett writes: when we become at home in our bodies, we become increasingly compassionate towards all bodies. “Our body,” she quotes Sanford, “will be faithful to living in all its forms as long as possible.” Did you catch that? Our body will be faithful to living in all its forms as long as possible.

When we are disconnected from our flesh, we are totally cut off from the grace and holy wisdom of our bodies. Maybe because we’re exhausted or stressed-out – could be we’re addicted to stimulants or trying to get away from excruciating physical or emotional pain – there are times we hate our flesh because we’re out of shape or believe we’re too fat or too skinny or too ugly or too old – and in this state we become islands unto ourselves. We are not embodied; we are not fully alive or fully aware of our relationship to the rest of existence. That is at the point of the second story from St. Luke’s gospel: living in a way – for whatever reason – as if we are the center of the universe cuts us off from blessings.

Jesus never says that wealth is wrong – only if it is used selfishly and without sharing. Having an abundance of crops and resources is not the problem in this parable either: it is just that the farmer has no sense of being part of the wider community. He could be sharing and serving rather than hording. But he acts as if his concerns are the totality of creation – only to discover too late at his unexpected death that such living has robbed him of meaning, depth, connection to the Lord and hope. I rather like the way Krista Tippett puts it in her interview with psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk: “Really feeling your body move and the life inside yourself is critical (for the healing and repair of the world.) Western culture is astoundingly disembodied and uniquely so. The way I like to say it is that we basically come from a post-alcoholic culture. People whose origins are in Northern Europe had only one way of treating distress: with a bottle of alcohol. North American culture continues with that notion. If you feel bad, take a swig or take a pill. The notion that you can do things to change the harmony inside yourself is just not something that we teach in schools and in our culture, in our churches or other religious practices. But if you look at religions around the world, they always start with moving: dancing, singing, physical experiences. It’s only the more ‘respectable’ people become, the more stiff we become, too.” (p. 87)

Now you may be surprised at this – or not – but the antidote to being stiff and disembodied and addicted involves creating safe places where our bodies can move and rest. Places like: a feast, a cook-out, singing around a camp fire, joyous activities that put us in trusting relationships with other people and get us out of our self-centered fears and obsessions. That’s the second way we can learn the wisdom of the Lord in our flesh.

And the third is living into the creation and sharing of beauty. Now, too often we confuse glamour with beauty. The late poet John O’Donohue, a former Irish Catholic priest, offered this distinction: glamour is manufactured prettiness; beauty in all its nuances is the presence in our moment-to-moment realty that helps us feel more alive. “Beauty is in creation, not destruction; balance, not chaos; the human intellect and the human heart connecting our particular lives to the wholeness of creation.” As Tippett wrote, “Here is the litmus test: does this action reveal a delight in creation and in the image of a creative and merciful God? Is it reverent with the mystery of all of this?” I submit to you that ancient Israel’s psalmist was singing a similar song as she called into question those who held their wealth too dear to share with those in need:

No one will live forever is the refrain of Psalm 49: the rich and the poor shall both perish, the wise and the fool, as well. So, as Jesus asked, what does it profit a man or a woman to inherit the whole earth but lose their soul in the process? What joy is advanced in hoarding when others are in need? What blessing is created by possessing when others are in pain and we could help? The Psalmist, the ancient Hebrew teacher and the Gospel all speak of such selfish individuals with one word: FOOLS. Those who store up their treasures only for themselves cut themselves off from the beauty of God’s love made flesh in creation. They shrivel and die even before this life is complete.

Beauty, you see, evokes ethical living and ethical living strengthens life as well as joy and hope. Beauty is visible and palpable in acts of kindness and goodness. And like feasting and mindfulness, it fortifies compassion in our ordinary lives when we are at our weakest.

Conclusion
Our bodies are one of the most important ways God communicates grace to us if we are willing to feel and respond. St. Francis used to tell his friends: Preach the gospel always – use words only when necessary. Our calling is to bring safety and love to real people. Our ministry is to enflesh the grace of God made visible in the body of Jesus to a world that is afraid, alone and hungry. And as much as I value words – precise, life-giving words and stories and poems – there is a staggering need for the unspoken communication of tenderness and hope in our world.

Let me leave you with this true story from Parker Palmer, the Quaker educator, who once articulated how he learned to listen to God’s love through his experience with psychological depression. In his wee book, Let Your Life Speak, Palmer shares his collapse into depression during his late 40s. “People came to me to encourage me, he says, “but their words only cast me into a deeper darkness.” Then he tells us:

There was this one friend who came to me, after asking permission to do so, every afternoon at four o’clock, sat me down in a chair in the living room, took off my shoes and socks and massaged my feet. He hardly ever said anything. He was a Quaker elder. And yet out of his intuitive sense, he from time to time would say a very brief word like, “I can feel your struggle today,” or farther down the road, “I feel that you’re a little stronger at this moment, and I am glad for that.” But beyond that, he would say hardly anything. He would give no advice. Somehow he found the one place in my body, namely the soles of my feet, where I could experience some sort of safe connection to another human being. And the act of massaging just, you know, in a way that I really don’t have words for, kept me connected with the human race.

What he mainly did for me, of course, was to be willing to be present to me in my suffering. He just hung in with me in this very quiet, very simple, very tactile way… and it became for me a metaphor of the kind of community we need to extend to people who are suffering… a community that is neither invasive of the mystery nor evasive of the suffering, but willing to hold people in a space – a sacred space of relationship – where the one who is wounded can get a little confidence to come around to the other side from the dark side of the moon.
Lord, let it be so within and among us…

prayer and quiet waiting DNC 2016: part two

My closing thoughts about tonight's DNC 2016 are shaped by an unexpected turn of events. We were able to share dinner with our daughter and son-in-law as well his parents who just arrived in from NYC this evening. It was a grand time of excellent fresh, local food and wonderful stories. Then, before W's blueberry pie and homemade ice cream, we retired to watch the close of the DNC. It was too late for Dolores Huerta and the Rev. Barber, but we caught the generals - an excellent and sober theatrical touch - emphasizing the irrationality of Mrs. Clinton's opponent. And also Chelsea Clinton's introduction and homage to her mother. Then it was time for Hilary's acceptance speech and three truths hit me hard:

+First, I was watching this historic event in the presence of three strong, independent and creative women: a mother, a step-mother and my daughter. Each of these women have weathered discrimination and oppression unique to their generation and each have found ways to both address it and challenge it with grace and courage. There could not be a better spot in the world to be taking in this monumental moment.

+ Second, during a speech laying out a vision of inclusivity and diversity, it hit me that we were: urban, rural and small city together, male and female, young and more mature, too. Further we were Christian, Jew and nones listening to a speech by America's first woman as she accepted her party's nomination to be president. There was a humility about her call to nourish trust in community and that resonated in a room where some of our ancestors had immigrated from Russia during the pogroms of the late 1880s, others had been Scots Irish farmers, English sheep herders or the children of French Huguenots.

+ And third, what a wonderful contrast of visions the DNC presented in clear opposition to nightmares of the RNC. Say what you will about some of the failings of the Democrats, they pointed towards hope and humor, compassion and credibility to say nothing of the importance of taking the next step in perfecting our ever-changing union. By contrast, the Republics were crude, rude, vulgar and mean-spirited. Further, they bowed down to a bully with a limited attention span and no business ethics. For me, the best moment of Mrs. Clinton's speech came when she said something about "people often accuse me of paying too much attention to the details... but these details matter when they involve the life of someone you love!" Brilliant, bold and tender all at the same time. And as I sat in the room with three generations of strong, creative and brilliant women and heard her accept the nomination to be president, my eyes were full to overflowing.

There is a lot of work to be done over the next 100 days and the polling between these parties shows a tight race. I am grateful that this convention articulated a choice that Michelle Obama summarized as: when they go low, we go high! All of this is additionally poignant to me for over the next two weeks our home will be filled with a family reunion of sorts:  the Brooklyn family is moving today from their home of 7 years and will be staying with us on and off until the new condo is ready. My dear brother and sister in law from San Francisco will be coming into town next Sunday, too in anticipation of the remaining Lumsden Clan gathering in Webster, MA to lay the cremains of our parents and sister Beth to their final resting place. In between, there will be feasting and story-telling - and maybe a shared trip to the lawn at Tanglewood. We've been moving furniture, cleaning floors and getting things ready for a few weeks of loving reconnection. To those of you who check in here from time to time: I'll be writing a bit over the next few weeks but it will be intermittent. Blessings.

organizing for freedom: how?

When I engage in public political critique, it comes from a discrete set of experiences: that of a

straight, white, middle class American male who continues to be influenced by the New Left, the organizing principles of Saul Alinsky and Fred Ross, the American Civil Rights movement and the wisdom of E.F. Schumacher's "small is beautiful" practices. I came of age during the close of the Vietnam War and the rise of 20th century feminism. My theoretical foundation for social action was built upon the hard work of MLK and Malcom X, Germaine Greer, Dave Dellinger, Ann Moody, Cesar Chavez, Carol Hanisch, Tom Hayden, Frantz Fanon, Mohandas Gandhi, Karl Marx, Dick Gregory, Gustavo Gutierrez, early Cornel West, James Weinstein, Dorothee Soelle, Todd Gitlin and Michael Harrington. At different times I was a member of Democratic Socialists of America and/or the New American Movement.

My worldview is neither unique nor more insightful than any other analytical frame of reference giving shape and form to theory, action and reflection in the USA.  No better than some, no worse than others. I live with the blinders and burdens of class, gender and race as well as the blessings of great teachers, mentors and experiences that far exceed the limits of my bourgeois origins. I have been able to:

+ Organize with the farm workers and Mississippi wood cutters for better wages and work place safety.

+ Work in solidarity with the Nicaraguan revolution in the early days (visiting Managua on the first anniversary of its liberation) as well as the revolutionary quest for freedom in El Salvador.

+ Collaborate in cross cultural, multi-racial education politics in Cleveland where I was twice elected to public office as part of an interracial reform effort to bring better schools to poor students.

+ Serve as a lead sponsor (and organizing officer) for three grassroots, community organizing projects (Cleveland, Tucson and the Berkshires) using Alinsky-esque principles.

+ Participate in multi-cultural, people-to-people peace and art projects to the former Soviet Union (four times) and once to modern Turkey.

The closer I get to retirement after 35 years of parish ministry, the more questions and concerns I collect about how to connect with the ever-changing dynamics and issues for social justice that are emerging in the 21st century. After the ups and downs of the "Occupy Movement" five years ago, the way organizing is being accomplished (and measured) is morphing beyond my experiential comprehension. The bold and creative expressions of liberation that are currently engaging the hearts and minds of many Americans - from Bernie Sanders' bid for the presidency to the advocacy of Black Lives Matter - strike me as insightful, passionate and yet organizationally "soft." That is, there is a clear articulation of the problems without equally clear lines of responsibility and accountability. 

Consequently, I have three questions about the viability of these movements for the future. And let me be explicit: it is not because I am trying to diminish the important work of a generation's expression of social justice commitments, nor is it because I think my old school ways are superior. Rather, my concern has to do with mobilizing social change that can endure.  It is no secret that during Obama's first bid for the presidency, he had a tremendous ground game that utilized both the traditional tools of empowerment as well as the new blessings of social media. After the election, however, no matter how hard they tried, his network was never able to turn out comparable numbers of people or money for on-going agitation. The time-tested axiom that "power is either organized money or organized people" was proven once again after the initial fervor had passed. This causes me to ask those currently engaged or re-energized for justice work in this era the following:

1) How does a social movement that operates fundamentally through social media hold participants accountable?  How do "members" learn discipline? How do they come to trust one another? Who drives the intra-organizational communication network? How is consensus achieved re: issues? Who formally articulates these issues? How are these leaders selected - and evaluated?  There is a school of thought about social change that has been best summarized by Frances Fox Piven:  social movements rise and fall like waves - the challenge is to ride these waves and get everything possible during their brief cresting before the energy subsides. The Alinsky/Ross school, however, questions the lack of sustainability of this approach. Their alternative is to train local grassroots justice leaders to build inter-faith/inter-cultural/inter-class organizations working in networks defined by local issues to draw disparate people into relationships of self-interest. As disempowered individuals achieve local power, they discover new ways to strengthen solidarity across personal differences and regional isolation so that larger, macro-issues can be tackled. One approach is dependent upon exploiting an unpredictable spirit moving through the culture. The other begins by listening to the felt needs of ordinary people and helping them act on their shared self-interest. How can this second approach ripen in organizing built primarily upon social media resources?

2) How will the advocacy efforts of 21st century organizing projects be sustained after discrete campaigns end or the emotional passion dissipates? Cesar Chavez used to teach that the reason he was committed to building an organizing base that controlled its own fundraising mechanism was simple:  good-hearted people grow weary. When good people get tired - or bored - or distracted, they always take their money with them. Not so for those with a vested self-interest in a cause, although even the most self-interested people still need systems in place to generate operational funds (or dues) on a regular basis. Without adequate resources for leadership, education and advocacy, too many justice projects die on the vine. The romantic, neo-anarchism of recent movements relies a great deal upon feelings - waves of social concern for motivation as Fox Piven describes - without much cultivation of self-interest and infrastructure. This is worrisome - especially when self-interest itself is so often confused with selfishness. The community organizing model posits that there are three responses to an issue: 1) selfishness 2) selflessness and 3) self-interest.  Selfishness is akin to greed, selflessness is about detachment, while self-interest identifies a personal need or concern that needs resolution. Resources for social movements without a well-defined understanding of self-interest tend to fizzle out. How is this being addressed today? IS this being addressed in a systematic and sustained way today? The Tea Party evoked grassroots self-interest but was funded by Koch Brothers money born of selfishness. How are progressive justice people addressing this reality for our era? 

3) How is new leadership identified, trained and empowered in what appears to be a

loose organizational structure?  When a wave of concern emerges over an injustice, local leaders rise to the surface. When the specifics of that wave pass, most of these leaders drift back into obscurity. Without a committed effort to leadership training and recruitment - like that which equipped Rosa Parks with the analysis, courage and skills to challenge American apartheid - social change remains locked into the ups and downs of the zeitgeist. Asking for volunteers to run for down ticket offices on social media is, at best, a meager nod to real leadership recruitment and training - and most likely ineffective. Recently Bernie emailed his cadre NOT to boo during the DNC - and it did not work. Emails do not evoke discipline or commitment. Electronic communication can sometimes offer one level of training, but nothing like the schools of civil disobedience that flourished during Mississippi Freedom summer or even the larger campaigns in South Africa. Those events took leaders who had been personally trained in time-tested organizing skills - and regularly evaluated to help strengthen their interactive relational tactics - and mentored them so that they, in turn, could mentor others. Where is a comparable effort like this taking place today? I am not being nostalgic, just strategic. Justice movement don't need more distracted dilettantes, but authentic and well trained leaders.

Some have suggested to me that slow cultural change helps people acquire the ability to think and act in new ways. That strikes me as partially true: over the past 10 years, for example, the core of American culture has embraced and even celebrated LGBTQ civil and marriage rights in ways that were once unimaginable. But this cultural change came about only after decades of sustained organizing, agitating, fund raising, education, movies, music and TV shows as well as the active participation of the once mainstream Protestant churches and synagogues of our land. It was not inevitable nor accidental.

Perhaps a music analogy makes sense in closing.  The Beat Poets of the 50s used to think that jazz improvisation was simply riffing on a feeling in the moment. This infuriated jazz artists who knew that being in the moment required hours of playing scales. And rigorous study and practice. To say nothing of trying new ideas out in the privacy of their studio or shed before bringing it to the bandstand. My experience suggests the same is true with advancing the music of freedom: it too needs a structure before it can maintain its beauty for the long haul.  What do you think? What am I missing? All kind and genuine comments and insights welcome!

prayer and quiet waiting: DNC 2016 part one...

So let me confess from the outset: I wept without reservation 3 times tonight during the DNC 2016 in Philadelphia. Frederick Buechner used to advise us to pay attention to our tears. " Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention.They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go to next."

The first time came when Paul Simon sang "Bridge Over Troubled Waters." This was soul food on so many levels: recognizing the very real differences that exist in our nation and world, acknowledging the differences (real and imagined) between Hilary and Bernie and inviting us into a truth that are greater than our differences: "I'm on your side..." This is prayer language with pop/gospel music and it brought the convention into focus: we are not petulant adolescences or polarized individuals disagreeing with our parents and/or leaders, we are sisters and brothers struggling for the the future and the soul of our nation.

The second time was when Al Franken and Sarah Silverman spoke - especially when she told us of "feeling the Bern!" She honored the profound contribution and hope Senator Sanders evoked and mobilized over the past 18 months. And then, with equal candor and zeal, she told the ideologues in the crowd to "Stop being ridiculous." It was an invitation to grow up and take account of a reality bigger than our respective hurt feelings or disappointments. As a Bernie fan, this was powerful to me and spoke of the deep consequences involved in this election from the Supreme Court to the needs of working women and men - and freedom of choice on every level.

And then there was Michelle Obama... words are not great enough for her personal testimony of what it means to live into the promise of American equality and justice. She made it real, she kept it grounded and did so with grace, humor and integrity "Every morning I wake up in a house built by slaves..." Her very essence celebrates what binds us together - and what is at stake in this election. And I am not ashamed at all to say I wept and wept and wept - and they were tears of joy, gratitude and solidarity.

One of the people I read on FB from time to time wrote that she did not get the "religious" feelings some people have when it comes to love of country. I do - not when our American dream is forced to pander to race hatred, fear of the immigrant or economic discrimination - but I still am stirred whenever I sing "America the Beautiful." It is not the only blessed nation in creation, but it is my blessed nation and I cherish the call to care for our people and our land in respectful and just ways.

I don't have much to say about either Elizabeth Warren's address or Bernie's swan song. They were both clear, predictable and played to their respective audiences. And while I am grateful that Senator Sanders didn't pull a Ted Cruz - Bernie has too much integrity (and Hilary was not a cruel and belligerent bully towards his family either) - neither speech touched me. I thought Bernie's highlight was the emotional response of his followers at the start of the speech. They are genuinely people of the dream, too - and I have the greatest gratitude for them.

The energy of this opening night was just as Cory Booker said: it is about loving one another and needing one another not tolerance. It was profoundly different from the fear and hatred of the RNC. Let's see where this takes us tomorrow...

generous listening, precise and living giving stories...

NOTE:  Here are today's worship notes for the second Sunday of the summer using Krista

Tippett's new book, Becoming Wise, as a starting point.

Introduction

One of my political and ecclesiastical colleagues from Cleveland, the Reverend Dr. Marvin McMickle who currently serves as the President of Colgate-Rochester Theological Seminary, recently wrote these words to his friends on Facebook:

At times like these when the world seems to be at its darkest, it is essential that our faith in Christ shines forth at its brightest level. Whatever we say or do about the hateful and hurtful events occurring around us in this country and abroad, we must always remain faithful to the core teachings of Jesus. This is no time for foolishness and frivolity in the pulpit. This is a time for prophets to rise and for God's message of justice, love, mercy, and grace to be declared. Many people will be protesting many things over the next two weeks. I hope the words of the gospel can be declared and heard above the shouts and chants of the moment. The prophets always began by saying, "Thus says the Lord." Preachers, please don't step outside of your authority and become just another news commentator. Tell the world what the Lord says.

Brother McMickle knows that words matter:  as Krista Tippett sp carefully articulates in her new book, Becoming Wise, “words make worlds… and our words can either help us repair the world or tear it further apart.” Today as I press on with part two of our worship series constructed upon the insights of Ms. Tippett’s text in dialogue with the appointed Bible reading for this day, there are three broad points I would like us to consider:

·    First, the importance of knowing, telling, hearing and sharing life-giving stories and poems in community – especially in times of trouble and anxiety – as an alternative to fear.

·    Second, the imperative of listening carefully and generously to all people – but especially those with whom we fundamentally disagree – and responding to them with vulnerability and humility rather than anything even remotely resembling arrogance.

·     And third,  the  indispensable urgency of honing our verbal skills in public with precision and probity so that creative alternatives to hatred, panic and chaos are birthed among us.

The Word made Flesh never asked us to agree with everyone we meet nor find common ground where it does not exist. But we have been advised to become wise as serpents and gentle as doves in pursuit of shalom and this cannot come to pass without clarity.  Our words make worlds – and our world’s a mess partly because of our sloppy, ugly and dangerous words – speaking without thinking as a Polish dissident once said to me in Warsaw.  “Americans do it all the time,” he said, “You are privileged to live in a place where your words seem to have no consequences – or so you think – but that would never happen here in our police state.”  So, using Tippett’s book as a launching pad, let’s talk together about this morning’s stories from the Bible and tease out a few implications for living into these challenging times.

Insights

The first narrative we are asked to contend with speaks to Tippett’s point about sharing

creative, nuanced, poetic and life-giving stories if we are ever to move beyond our culture’s current starvation for fresh language.  We live in an era drenched “in the failure of official language and discourse” to tell us the truth. She writes:  “We crave truth tellers. We crave real truth – and there’s so much baloney all the time… the performance of political speeches you see on the news (are so often double-speak) that it feels like there should be a thought bubble over the head of the speaker saying “what I really would say if I could say it is… this!’”

+ That is part of the attraction and appeal to Donald Trump’s stream of consciousness shenanigans:  his words may be filled with lies, hatred, dangerous and incoherent free associations – they may be jingoistic and soaked in white supremacy code words – but they are passionate and hit some of us in the gut.  The same was true for many of the speeches shared at the Republican Convention in Cleveland: they were crude and often vulgar diatribes, hardly what we have come to expect in public presentations, but they were saturated in deep experiences of loss and anxiety and thus articulated authenticity.

      + I don’t think I heard one talking head get behind a podium and use policy wonk during that whole event. It was reality TV on steroids – immediate, passionate and forceful words.  What it wasn’t, however, was compassionate or even life-giving. It was rant without reason, coarse rage without constructive alternatives, a public temper tantrum in prime time that never moved real people beyond their grief to lament and then the humble and complicated reconstruction of our common lives.

That’s why all the world religions insist upon telling and retelling the time-tested stories of our respective traditions.  These stories keep us from becoming too self-absorbed and offer broad, poetic language that annihilates ideology.  Professor Walter Brueggemann put it like this:

The Old Testament prophets hardly ever discuss an “issue.” What they’re doing is going underneath the issues that preoccupy people to the more foundational assumptions that can only be gotten at in elusive or poetic language.  Sadly, the institutional church has been preoccupied with issues. And when we do that, we are robbed of transformative power because then it is ideology against ideology and that does not produce very good outcomes for anyone.

Consider the deeper truths offered to us in the story of Abraham on the road to Sodom.  Please

note that this is still chapter 18 of Genesis – this is still a narrative about God doing extraordinary and surprising things in our lives – like what has just preceded today’s text. Those of you who were here last week, do you remember what happened during the story of Abraham and Sara in their old age?  God’s promise of progeny was delivered in the form of a baby named Isaac, right?  And what does the name Isaac mean, if you recall? He laughs – laughter – one who is surprised by God’s extraordinary gift of life even in the most unexpected situations.  So, while the action we going to hear about today moves beyond the laughter, the surprises born of grace are still be held close and not forgotten, ok? And they include: first, a story that speaks of God’s commitment to share the fullness of life in all its complexities with Abraham and Sarah and by implication you and me, too. 

·     Verses 16-19 tell us: “That the men (the angelic messengers of the Lord) set out from there, and they looked toward Sodom; and Abraham went with them to set them on their way. The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? No, for I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice; so that the Lord may bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”

·     Do grasp what’s taking place in these three sentences?  Abraham is given an awareness of the cruelty and sin taking place in Sodom and Gomorrah – the wickedness and offense – but it has nothing to do with the homosexuality we were once taught. Rather the sin of Sodom is their wanton selfishness, greed and the total absence of hospitality – especially to the poor. The prophet Ezekiel was explicit in chapter 16: This was the sin of your sister Sodom – she and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned – self-absorbed – for they did nothing to help the poor and needy in their community. What this story is telling us in vibrant detail is that we are intimately tied into the healing of the world – tikkun olam as the Hebrew prophets put it – the repair of the world.  It begins with understanding both the brokenness of our sisters and brothers and the complexity that informs this breech.  In our text we are told that Abraham has been charged by the Lord to do righteousness and justice – tzedek and mishpat – advancing merciful and true relations between kindred flesh and healing acts of fairness in real time. So in conversation and questioning, God and the angels decide that Abraham cannot be kept in the dark about the wounds of the world.  That’s one truth we need to reclaim in this story.

The other is that there are precious few easy answers in the work of compassion and justice – rarely are their satisfying short-cuts or one size fits all solutions – so we need all the rigorous conversation and questioning of one another and God we can muster if we’re serious about repairing the world. That’s the second insight:  Abraham openly argues with the Lord and raises questions NOT because he knows better than God, but because this is how wise people learn and clarify what is true and possible. He isn’t playing “gotcha” but searching out the meaning of loving kindness in the real world.

That means Abraham has to listen generously, like Tippett urges, and speak with precision in order to come to some sense of what compassion and justice could mean for his moment in time: Platitudes and official political language or ideology do NOT save the day. Plagiarism doesn’t advance the cause much either. Only conversation impregnated with personal vulnerability and genuine generosity cuts the mustard.

      And that’s what we get here:  Abraham realizes that there is going to be bewildering collateral damage in God’s proposed destruction of Sodom, so he challenges the Lord saying, “I grasp your need to act, O Lord, but do you have to destroy everyone? What if I can find 50 just and loving people? Will your loving kindness trump your anger? Is your mercy greater than your wrath?”  Good questions and they cause God to reconsider the excessive implications of even holy anger. “Well, no I don’t actually have to act that way….” Then the real parsing begins:  well how about 45? Or 40?  It is the origin of sacred bargaining with blood and lives hanging in the balance: suppose I find 30?  Will you still be cruel in the name of loving-kindness?  20? 15? 10?  Will you hold off your righteous anger, Lord, for just 10 loving people?

This is a GREAT story if we’re paying attention that points to the way wisdom takes up residence in the human experience. It urges us to honor gracious questioning in community and prayer. It pushes us past “debating issues by way of competing certainties… so that we sense what is at stake for real human beings.”  And it emphasizes that our “well-being is linked to that of others in wider and wider circles, beyond family and tribe.” But we only comprehend this if we’re willing to wildly raise questions and then listen with intense generosity. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote:

Love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers (all at once) which could not even be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. For the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answers.

We tell and retell and insist on telling again the life-giving stories and poems of our tradition so that we can move beyond egocentricity and immature fears into the adult realm of ambiguity, paradox, surprise, generosity and compassion.  This takes practice – and time – and commitment, virtues and disciplines that are in short supply these days.  Small wonder we no longer know how to listen to one another with generosity or speak to people we mistrust or disagree with patience, precision or vulnerability.  The way of the Lord, you see, is NOT about winning or being snarky.  In fact, our Savior Jesus was the biggest loser ever born:  his life didn’t wind up at Trump Towers but in the shame of death upon the Cross.  So let’s be clear that if we are going to experience and honor the counter-cultural compassion, justice, mercy and peace of the Lord, we need to practice it. Make it a priority. Commit to learning it as a discipline, a goal and a life standard not a hobby or an occasional distraction.

+ Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, believes that in the 21^st century that living as one of Christ’s disciples has become a lost art:  “The notion that we need to be skilled, need to be wise in order to be God’s creatures, has been discarded and abandoned.”

      + The Lord’s disciples in the other story for today, found in St. Luke’s gospel, tells us precisely this truth: teach us to pray they ask!  Show us the way!  Help us to learn what we do not already know. In this we see the value of humility and trust and even fortitude in pursuit of serenity.

And Jesus delivers in two illuminating ways: He  gives them first a prayer outline to master by practice – what we call the Lord’s Prayer – and then speaks to of living with into life’s questions:  ask, search and knock and it shall be given to you.  These are not stream of consciousness ramblings or off the cuff remarks, but the careful distillation of sacred wisdom. 

The poet, Susan Stewart, said “that hearing is how we touch one another at a distance.” Jesus gave his followers precise words to practice – and in the hearing of these words as well as their spoken repetition – the disciples found themselves touched by God’s wisdom rather.  Specifically, when the disciples listened to Jesus, they were practicing a spiritual discipline that included:  trusting a love greater than their imaginations, surrendering to an authority built upon love and compassion rather than competition and forgiveness within and among others even those who wound us:

Father – our Father, not my father nor my possession, but our shared source of life beyond all

control – open us to your kingdom – your truth – your vision for creation that is not narrow or ideological – but pregnant with possibilities and peace for all.  Unlock for us a life of trust and hope that transcends anything we can control. In fact, let us live as if you were already the Lord of the earth as you are now in heaven. Let us only be concerned only about what we need for today – our daily bread – not hording or greed like Sodom and Gomorrah – but simple satisfaction like your children in the desert with Moses – where sharing by all meant scarcity for none and hording turned your holy manna into maggots. Let the totality of our lives, Lord, be guided by forgiveness – not shame or guilt of competition or winning – but tenderness within and humble generosity beyond for that is what you require:  do justice, share compassion and walk with me in humility.

Jesus taught them – instructed them – and insisted they not only learn these words by heart, but practice expressing them in their own words and actions; so that over time, but within history, these words of love would become flesh.  The Lord’s Prayer is a parallel New Testament story to the Hebrew Bible’s tale of Sodom and Gomorrah where Abraham pleads over and over for mercy as if he were saying: Lord, you are the one who forgives us as we have forgiven others, so let your judgment pass that grace may rule this day as it already does throughout your kingdom in heaven.  Today’s Psalm tells us much the same thing: the steadfast love and faithful-ness of the Lord endures forever. They are greater than God’s anger and wrath and at the heart of all that is holy.

Conclusion

We tell life-giving stories and poems to nourish our better angels.  We practice listening to others with generosity for this is how we touch one another at a distance beyond time and culture.  We cultivate precision in our words so that we bring healing rather than cruelty to creation.  I love the stories of the Hebrew Bible. I cherish the words of Jesus. And I give thanks to God for wise teachers like Krista Tippett who remind me that our words create worlds so our words, stories and poems must be generous and vast enough to give shape and form to the mercy and grace of our God.  Let me leave you with a story from the late Elie Wiesel that has guided my heart for nigh on to 35 years. It comes from the Hasidic master Israel of Rizhin born in Eastern Europe in 1797. He is the last undisputed leader of the Hasidic tradition – and a master story teller.  He used to speak of a young Hasid, a student of the second great rabbi Maggid of Mezeritch, who married the daughter of an opposing school of spirituality, who “forced him to choose between his family and his Rebbe.”

The son-in-law swore that he would not return to Mezertich and the wedding took place. But after a few months – or perhaps years – the young groom could not resist the impulse to join his companions and their Master as they prayed and danced in the forest. When he returned home his angry father-in-law marched him to the local rabbi for a judgment.  The rabbi consulted the Shulkhan Arukh (the 15^th century guide to Jewish law in Europe) and issued this verdict: since the young man had broken his promise, he was to give his wife a divorce at once. Overnight, the young Hasid found himself homeless and on the street. He had no means of his own, no relations. Inconsolable, refusing all nourishment, they young mystic fell sick and with no one to care for him, died shortly thereafter.

“Well,” Rebbe Israel the Rizhiner used to say, “when the Messiah will come, the young Hasid will file a complaint against his father-in-law as well as the local rabbi charging them both guilty of his premature death. The first will say: “I obeyed the rabbi.” And the rabbi will say: “I obeyed the tradition.” And the Messiah will say: “The father-in-law is right, the rabbi is right and the Law is right, too.” Then he will kiss the young plaintiff and say: “But I, what do I have to do with them? For the Messiah has come for those who are not right.”

Let those who have ears to hear: hear.

credits
+ http://www.revendeurs.rmngp.fr/fr/catalogue/produit/2623-abraham-et-les-trois-anges-detail.html?r=L2ZyL2NhdGFsb2d1ZS9yZWNoZXJjaGUvMT90aD1yZWxpZ2lvbg%3D%3D

+ conservationmagazine.org

+ www.mirandaplum.com

+ www.saatchiart.com

you can't always get what you want? the inmates ARE running the asylum...

Beyond the obvious megalomania, despite the calculated demagoguery, last night's coronation

of Donald J. Trump at the RNC 2016 convention exposed America to the authentic, cruel and manipulative vision of how the Donald understands the working of the world. We already knew that he - and his family - were playing parts in his ultimate reality show : the rock star, backlit entrance on Monday night's introduction of Mrs. Trump, as well as Thursday's brooding portraiture during his acceptance speech, should have erased any ambiguity on this count. Even the audacious claim that he was the only one capable of solving our problems, while messianic, was not unexpected nor particularly insightful. We may have forgotten that this was a kabuki dance being played out in the public square, full of sound and thunder, and signifying almost nothing - but not so Mr. Trump. Most of the time, he knows what he is doing.

This was not the case, however, as closing convention music swelled up in the Quicken Loan Coliseum in Cleveland and the red, white and blue balloons tumbled gently down upon the delegates. This was Mr. Trump's closing tableau, outwardly a self-conscious paean to his power, but inwardly an unintentional projection of his ugly, crude and vicious worldview:

+ His team took the stage - all beautifully poised, professionally coiffured with NYC model-perfect designer clothes  - while the 70s rock band Free pumped out "All Right Now." This is a favorite tune for classic rockers - and strippers - with its insistent backbeat, power chords and ingratiating chorus:  "All right now, baby, it's all right now." I have no beef with classic rockers - or strippers - and on the surface, this song's chorus works. But the verses suggest a tactical Freudian slip of Trumpian magnitude because this song is about a man trying to hustle a babe into bed only to be shot down when she calls out his aggression. "I took her home to my place, watching every move on her face... but she said, 'Love?' Lord above - now you're trying to trick me with love!?!" 
I wondered, "Is this another example of Team Trump not doing due diligence on vetting and follow through? Is this another case of sloppy preparation like Mrs. Trump's plagiarism?" Could be, as much of the convention smacked of too little planning rolled out too late. I thought the Pence family looked oddly uncomfortable with this music, too. It could be, of course that their solidly Mid-Western frumpiness stood out against the Trump family's posh presentation and they felt like the out of step country cousins they so obviously were. But it could also be that the old culture warrior instincts that Mr. Pence has honed well were telling him that he was in hot water over his head with no place to duck and hide.  All right now, indeed.

+ My nature - even with Mr. Trump - is to give the benefit of the doubt. When the second closing song of the evening, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" started to blast the arena, however, I was certain that someone - the Donald? his staff? Beuller? Anyone? - was secretly shouting: watch out for this guy - he is dangerous.  Two things to know about the song. It was released in July 1969 as the B side to "Honky Tonk Women." with the ironic message that no matter how much life gives you, most of us want more. Some say it is about Maryanne Faithful's drug addiction (Mick Jagger's main squeeze at the time.) The closing verse, in my opinion, brings it all together in a bleak manner:

I saw her today at the reception, in her glass was a bleeding man
She was practiced at the art of deception, I could tell by her blood-stained hands

Grim, yes? A trapped, bleeding man in a deceptive woman's cocktail glass - with her hands stained by blood? This is NOT Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow!" This is not let's move towards the future with a sense of shared purpose and hope. This is something from the apocalypse. Remember: this Stone's album opens with their darkest and most challenging song ever recorded. "Gimme Shelter!" So what in God's name was Mr. Trump or his handlers trying to communicate to us? That the Donald is not what we want but what we need for this moment in time? Only 38% of Americans believe that. Could they be telling us - beyond their unvetted mistake - that this guy is a deceptive and dangerous hustler? Stranger things have been found to be true, yes? 

Further, the Stones (as well as Queen, Neil Young and others) have asked the campaign NOT to use their music. These artists have explicitly requested that their songs NOT be used in relationship to Mr. Trump's campaign. But that apparently doesn't matter: for Mr. Trump everything seems to be a commodity to be bought and sold before being discarded. Earlier this year, when Neil Young insisted that "Rockin' in the Free World" be taken out of the Trump playlist, the Donald did so but first made sure to publicly insult the artist even while stealing the artist's intellectual property for cheap political gain. Trump's relationship to music - like almost everything else including people - is that things are to be used as a resource,  exploited after it serves his purposes, and then thrown away like used tissue.

I went to bed last night bewildered by both musical presentations. Obviously, social media was equally a-buzz with questions, too. This is one dangerous dude, all glowing reports from his charming daughters notwithstanding. The way he treats music is tells us something we can deny at our own peril  be afraid - be very afraid. 

And then remember, the antidote to fear is knowledge AND organizing for justice.