In this there is an assumption of failure. Wisdom is born of experience. Holiness ripens slowly. Necessity is the mother of invention. For the way of the Lord requires time to fall down (sin), take stock (confession), make changes (repentance) and get back up again and again (resurrection). Sometimes our rising is of our own volition; more often than not, however, it is of the Lord. Each year that we are conscious of God's grace carefully leads us into a time of feasting and fasting, celebration and solitude, traveling through the light as well as the darkness, understanding and mystery, knowing and unknowing all within the eternal embrace of God's love. St. Paul got it right when he wrote in Romans 8:
After observing the liturgical calendar faithfully for 40 years, you see, too much of it felt like mechanical. And given the gravitas of the number 40 - so pregnant with scriptural significance - I wanted to claim this as an opportunity. Think of the forty days and nights on the ark after the flood, the forty years in the wilderness after the Exodus, and the forty days and nights Jesus fasted in the desert before moving into his public ministry. My forty years of pastoral ministry demanded a comparable season of stillness. So trusting a grace greater than my anxiety, I stepped into a quietude that would lead me towards a renewed rhythm of fidelity. Psalm 46 was my clue: Be still and know...
One year later, two inner truths have risen to the top:
+ First, there can be no doubt that my organic spirituality is saturated in sacramental vision: I sense the holy in all things and feel God's presence everywhere.
+ Second, my spiritual vocabulary had become woefully limited. I was mystically experiencing the radical unity of heaven and earth in my ordinary world, but my old school religious words were no longer able to describe this blessing. I might as well be talking to myself as nobody uses such words any more.
Stepping outside of my comfort bubble taught me that I needed new words to celebrate the healing presence of the holy so often present in the midst of our brokenness. In my old school tongue, I needed another personal Pentecost. My first Pentecostal experience came when the Beatles took the stage on Ed Sullivan's show in February 1964. When John Lennon sang "Twist and Shout," everything changed: the spirit of love washed over me and I was convinced that the gospel of rock and roll (and later jazz) could build bridges between very different people. For 50 years that was my frame of reference, but in 2018 I needed more than just a reissue of the White Album. Now I needed up to date and inclusive images, sounds, visions and experiences from poets like Naomi Shihab Nye and Mary Oliver, Billy Collins and Margret Atwood, Geraldine Connolly and Gary Whitehead, Tupac, Grace R, Carrie Newcomer, Pam McAlister and so many others. This poem by Grace at one of my last official church events made it all clear...
You see, while I knew the poems of the Scriptures reasonably well - and they still rang true to me - to connect beyond a small circle of friends required learning to speak beyond my tradition. The Canadian theologian, Ralph Heinzman, was insightful in Rediscovering Reverence:
Reverence conveys a human attitude of respect and deference for something larger or higher in priority than our own individual selves; something that commands our admiration and our loyalty, and may imply obligations and duties on our part. In a gesture of reverence, either physical on mental, we acknowledge superior worth, our relationship with it, and our potential obligations towards it. Reverence results from humility as a Jewish text puts it... (It seems to me that reverence) flows from awe - the emotion we feel when we encounter someone or something that transcends our normal life, and embodies qualities of excellence or beauty... it is a natural component or source of reverence... and provides the drive that causes people to act: to devote themselves to something, to stand up for something, or to take a stand against something - even to just go on living. Awe can overwhelm us, but it also motivates and empowers us. (pp. 18-19)
So was the work of Bill Yehele and his promotion of local poetry slams and readings throughout our region. Bringing together young poets as well as senior citizens and everyone in-between, he creates 21st century "happenings." Last night I played upright bass in between the poems of 17 local artists. About 30 of us gathered in the local library to see what might happen - and it was engaging, sometimes raw and very real. Check them out @ https://www.facebook.com/wordx wordfestival/. My experience last night brought to mind this poem by Geraldine Connoly called, "The Right Words."
I need to find them,
certain words,
particular syllables.
But everywhere I look,
in yellowed newspapers
and the blue-black dictionary,
under the glossy magazine photos
and tattered envelopes,
they evade me.
I peek under my old stove
and inside my new gloves.
I want to twirl them, swallow them,
send them on errands.
I want to get as close
as I can to the right words,
I want to gulp their wisdom
and eat their sadness,
want to forget the thorny bushes
and dreary blizzards,
to escape
from the mute times.
In this era of Trumpian 1984isms - where the Google and Facebook thought police monitor and manipulate our words and preferences to say nothing of our elections - small gatherings of poets and musicians offer an alternative that is immediate, honest, creative and earthy. These mini-communities give us a chance to cut through the lies, noise and confusion with intimacy and respect. When I got home last night, Laura Grace Weldon's poem, "How to Soothe," came to mind. She evokes what has been lost in this age even as she offers a tender corrective.
When babies cried
my father picked them up,
politely, as if to apologize
for their locomotion issues,
then stepped outside.
He named trees, birds, rain.
"This is grass," he'd say.
"In no time at all
you'll be running on it."
Babies calmed at once,
eyes wide, awake
to the planet's glories.
I learned from my father
it's a matter of walking
inside to out
with someone capable
of truly seeing.
The poet/theologian Christine Valters Paintner of Abbey of the Arts recently has been exploring this theme too:
+ First, there can be no doubt that my organic spirituality is saturated in sacramental vision: I sense the holy in all things and feel God's presence everywhere.
+ Second, my spiritual vocabulary had become woefully limited. I was mystically experiencing the radical unity of heaven and earth in my ordinary world, but my old school religious words were no longer able to describe this blessing. I might as well be talking to myself as nobody uses such words any more.
Stepping outside of my comfort bubble taught me that I needed new words to celebrate the healing presence of the holy so often present in the midst of our brokenness. In my old school tongue, I needed another personal Pentecost. My first Pentecostal experience came when the Beatles took the stage on Ed Sullivan's show in February 1964. When John Lennon sang "Twist and Shout," everything changed: the spirit of love washed over me and I was convinced that the gospel of rock and roll (and later jazz) could build bridges between very different people. For 50 years that was my frame of reference, but in 2018 I needed more than just a reissue of the White Album. Now I needed up to date and inclusive images, sounds, visions and experiences from poets like Naomi Shihab Nye and Mary Oliver, Billy Collins and Margret Atwood, Geraldine Connolly and Gary Whitehead, Tupac, Grace R, Carrie Newcomer, Pam McAlister and so many others. This poem by Grace at one of my last official church events made it all clear...
You see, while I knew the poems of the Scriptures reasonably well - and they still rang true to me - to connect beyond a small circle of friends required learning to speak beyond my tradition. The Canadian theologian, Ralph Heinzman, was insightful in Rediscovering Reverence:
Reverence conveys a human attitude of respect and deference for something larger or higher in priority than our own individual selves; something that commands our admiration and our loyalty, and may imply obligations and duties on our part. In a gesture of reverence, either physical on mental, we acknowledge superior worth, our relationship with it, and our potential obligations towards it. Reverence results from humility as a Jewish text puts it... (It seems to me that reverence) flows from awe - the emotion we feel when we encounter someone or something that transcends our normal life, and embodies qualities of excellence or beauty... it is a natural component or source of reverence... and provides the drive that causes people to act: to devote themselves to something, to stand up for something, or to take a stand against something - even to just go on living. Awe can overwhelm us, but it also motivates and empowers us. (pp. 18-19)
So was the work of Bill Yehele and his promotion of local poetry slams and readings throughout our region. Bringing together young poets as well as senior citizens and everyone in-between, he creates 21st century "happenings." Last night I played upright bass in between the poems of 17 local artists. About 30 of us gathered in the local library to see what might happen - and it was engaging, sometimes raw and very real. Check them out @ https://www.facebook.com/wordx wordfestival/. My experience last night brought to mind this poem by Geraldine Connoly called, "The Right Words."I need to find them,
certain words,
particular syllables.
But everywhere I look,
in yellowed newspapers
and the blue-black dictionary,
under the glossy magazine photos
and tattered envelopes,
they evade me.
I peek under my old stove
and inside my new gloves.
I want to twirl them, swallow them,
send them on errands.
I want to get as close
as I can to the right words,
I want to gulp their wisdom
and eat their sadness,
want to forget the thorny bushes
and dreary blizzards,
to escape
from the mute times.
In this era of Trumpian 1984isms - where the Google and Facebook thought police monitor and manipulate our words and preferences to say nothing of our elections - small gatherings of poets and musicians offer an alternative that is immediate, honest, creative and earthy. These mini-communities give us a chance to cut through the lies, noise and confusion with intimacy and respect. When I got home last night, Laura Grace Weldon's poem, "How to Soothe," came to mind. She evokes what has been lost in this age even as she offers a tender corrective.
When babies cried
my father picked them up,
politely, as if to apologize
for their locomotion issues,
then stepped outside.
He named trees, birds, rain.
"This is grass," he'd say.
"In no time at all
you'll be running on it."
Babies calmed at once,
eyes wide, awake
to the planet's glories.
I learned from my father
it's a matter of walking
inside to out
with someone capable
of truly seeing.
The poet/theologian Christine Valters Paintner of Abbey of the Arts recently has been exploring this theme too:
When we rush from thing to thing, never pausing, never allowing space, we see only what we expect to find. We see to grasp at the information we need. We see the stereotypes embedded in our minds. We miss the opportunity to see beyond what we want. We walk by a thousand ordinary revelations every day in our busyness and preoccupation. We move through our lives, often at such speed, that our perception of time becomes contorted. We begin to believe that life is about rushing as fast as we can, about getting as much done as possible. We are essentially skating across life’s surface, exhausted, and disoriented.
(Abbey of the Arts: dancingmonk@abbeyofthearts.co)
We were created in the image of a loving God, not an assembly line horror show or a computer bot. We know this deep within. We yearn for something more beyond filling in the slots, buying more trinkets, and punching the time clock. Religious language rarely communicates this longing in 2019. For a time, the institutional church has disqualified itself as a place of trust, too. What seems to cut through the din, however, is the meeting of beautiful words and music shared in small settings by those with open hearts and minds. This is where the calendar of the holy is being revealed in my experience. This is where Pentecost is happening again. This is where kairos time is encountered and treated with reverence.
credits:
+ https://www.aquinasandmore.com/buy/year-grace-liturgical-calendar-20858/
credits:
+ https://www.aquinasandmore.com/buy/year-grace-liturgical-calendar-20858/
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