abolish the priesthood: reflections on the wisdom of james carroll

Last night I read the most challenging argument James Carroll has yet penned concerning the Roman Catholic Church. His compelling jeremiad, "Abolish the Priesthood," has been published in the June 2019 edition of The Atlantic and warrants your prayerful attention. (see: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/06/to-save-the-church-dismantle-the-priesthood/588073/ )

Those who know Carroll's work will find resonance with his castigation of the clericalism that infects the Roman Catholic Church. He has made this case before: in his Boston Globe articles re: sexual abuse perpetrated by priests, in some of his works of fiction, and most thoroughly in both Constantine's Sword and Christ Actually. That he does so again highlights the depth of the Church's current brokenness - and moral bankruptcy. His disappointment with Pope Francis' attempts to administer justice and mercy in the wake of the massive sexual desecration of children and nuns by priests is palpable. His synthesis of his tradition's perversion is searing. And his agony over the status quo in Rome is compassionate and authentic. As he writes with grief, "what has been allowed to take place over decades... is murder of a soul." An early paragraph in Carroll's article sets the stage for what follows and is illustrative:

Not long before The Boston Globe began publishing its series on predator priests, in 2002—the “Spotlight” series that became a movie of the same name—the government of Ireland established a commission, ultimately chaired by Judge Sean Ryan, to investigate accounts and rumors of child abuse in Ireland’s residential institutions for children, nearly all of which were run by the Catholic Church. The Ryan Commission published its 2,600-page report in 2009. Despite government inspections and supervision, Catholic clergy had, across decades, violently tormented thousands of children. The report found that children held in orphanages and reformatory schools were treated no better than slaves—in some cases, sex slaves. Rape and molestation of boys were “endemic.” Other reports were issued about other institutions, including parish churches and schools, and homes for unwed mothers—the notorious “Magdalene Laundries,” where girls and women were condemned to lives of coercive servitude. The ignominy of these institutions was laid out in plays and documentary films, and in Philomena, the movie starring Judi Dench, which was based on a true story. The homes-for-women scandal climaxed in 2017, when a government report revealed that from 1925 to 1961, at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home, in Tuam, County Galway, babies who died—nearly 800 of them—were routinely disposed of in mass graves or sewage pits. Not only priests had behaved despicably. So had nuns.

Carroll then summarizes the hope and failure of Vatican II. The institution did articulate and implement an authentic conversion from antisemitism to fraternal solidarity with Judaism. The quest to ground the liturgy in the language of real believers rather than arcane Latin was an important change, too. Even the church's attempt to empower faith communities to become "the whole people of God" rather than sheep under the authority of the priesthood is celebrated - even as its demise is lamented. Carroll cuts to the chase with the claim that "clericalism, with its cult of secrecy, its theological misogyny and its hierarchal power, is the root of Roman Catholic dysfunction" and renders the remainder of "Abolish the Priesthood" to this analysis. It is brutal and soul numbing, but vital for the Body of Christ and the world, too.

Carroll lifts up the ethics of Jesus as salvific. He honors the universal works of mercy the church has embodied for millennial as holy. And recognizes that life without the church would be a catastrophe:

The renewal offered by Vatican II may have been thwarted, but a reformed, enlightened, and hopeful Catholic Church is essential in our world. On urgent problems ranging from climate change, to religious and ethnic conflict, to economic inequality, to catastrophic war, no nongovernmental organization has more power to promote change for the better, worldwide, than the Catholic Church. So let me directly address Catholics, and make the case for another way to respond to the present crisis of faith than by walking away. What if multitudes of the faithful, appalled by what the sex-abuse crisis has shown the Church leadership to have become, were to detach themselves from—and renounce—the cassock-ridden power structure of the Church and reclaim Vatican II’s insistence that that power structure is not the Church? The Church is the people of God. The Church is a community that transcends space and time. Catholics should not yield to clerical despots the final authority over our personal relationship to the Church. I refuse to let a predator priest or a complicit bishop rip my faith from me.

He continues by offering what strikes me as a sacred corrective: the reclamation of the laity as the whole people of God.

Replacing the diseased model of the Church with something healthy may involve, for a time, intentional absence from services or life on the margins—less in the pews than in the rearmost shadows. But it will always involve deliberate performance of the works of mercy: feeding the hungry, caring for the poor, visiting the sick, striving for justice. These can be today’s chosen forms of the faith. It will involve, for many, unauthorized expressions of prayer and worship—egalitarian, authentic, ecumenical; having nothing to do with diocesan borders, parish boundaries, or the sacrament of holy orders. That may be especially true in so-called intentional communities that lift up the leadership of women. These already exist, everywhere. No matter who presides at whatever form the altar takes, such adaptations of Eucharistic observance return to the theological essence of the sacrament. Christ is experienced not through the officiant but through the faith of the whole community. “For where two or three are gathered in my name,” Jesus said, “there am I in the midst of them.”

I love the Roman Catholic Church. Over my 40 years of serving as a pastor, all of my spiritual directors have been Roman Catholic. I have been strengthened and edified by Roman Catholic authors like Henri Nouwen, Joan Chittister, Jean Vanier, Thomas Keating, and Richard Rohr. And I have found a way back into resting/trusting in God's grace through the mystical love of Jesus experienced in meditation and Eucharist. I know that clericalism is just as toxic in my Reformed realm as it is in the Roman world. That is why I believe Carroll is on the right track.

Richard Rohr and Cynthia Bourgeault - like Phylis Tickle, Brian McLaren, Diana Butler Bass and others - have been making the case that the old way of being faithful is dying. My experience suggests that they are right. The mass exodus from all types of organized religion in the West has been documented ad nauseum for decades. A few courageous souls have even suggested clues as to what new forms of shared worship and faith formation might look like in a new incarnation. My gut tells me that these projections are premature and likely to be transitional. For what is still emerging - and what aches to be born - is a way of being the whole people of God beyond institutions. Not ecclesiastical anarchism, but rather small communities with vibrant lay leadership. This is where I keep discovering new life, new faith and new hope: in a spirituality that proclaims that small is holy. In L'Arche. In intentional poetry readings. In small, new music venues. In on-line prayer and study. In Taize. In the movement of new monks. 

Like Carroll, our new forms, "will always involve deliberate performance of the works of mercy: feeding the hungry, caring for the poor, visiting the sick, striving for justice. These can be today’s chosen forms of the faith." I sense that Rohr is on to something when he puts it like this:

If something comes toward you with grace and can pass through you and toward others with grace, you can trust it as the voice of God. One holy man who recently came to visit me put it this way: “We must listen to what is supporting us. We must listen to what is encouraging us. We must listen to what is urging us. We must listen to what is alive in us.” I personally was so trained not to trust those voices that I often did not hear the voice of God speaking to me, or what Abraham Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature...” We must learn how to recognize the positive flow and to distinguish it from the negative resistance within ourselves. It takes years of practice. If a voice comes from accusation and leads to accusation, it is quite simply the voice of the “Accuser,” which is the literal meaning of the biblical word “Satan.” Shaming, accusing, or blaming is simply not how God talks. God is supremely nonviolent. God only cajoles, softens, and invites us into an always bigger field and it is always a unified field.

Lord, may it be so.

NOTE: some may want to consider a recently publish rebuttal to Carroll printed in the Jesuit journal America @ https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/05/30/church-without-priests-i-cannot-find-redemption-response-james-carrollutm_source= Newsletters&utm_campaign=22bbade73b-DAILY_CAMPAIGN_2019_5_30&utmmedium=
email&utm_term=0_0fe8ed70be-22bbade73b-58843693

credits:

1. Pope Francis

2. Maternidad-guayasamin

3. Catholic Worker: mercy/war

4. Communities of Christ

5. World regligons

6. National Catholic Reporter

a spirituality of silence, stillness and solitude...

It is another cool, gray day in these Berkshire hills, perfect for tending the lawn while pondering emerging insights about silence, stillness and solitude. It begins with words found in Christopher Heurertz's excellent, The Sacred Enneagram re: "a spirituality marked by solitude, silence and stillness." Walking around with those words for a few weeks, I've been wondering how I both practice and avoid them. I've been curious, too about how I embrace and embody each of their discrete differences. 

Few truths take root within me quickly. I know that's not true for others, but I must ponder and flirt, explore and then hide away for a while, listen and test new insights before being ready to make a commitment. The late Jesuit scholar, Ray Brown, used to tell students at Union Seminary that we should always have "walking around time" to let the Spirit do her work within us. "That's what Jesus did," he would smile. "He walked around a lot before teaching and preaching. You should, too." Both the Psalmist and the prophetic poet, Jeremiah, speak of taking time as trusting and resting in the Lord much like trees that are planted by the water. "Blessed are those who delight in the Lord," begins Psalm 1, "for they are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, with leaves that do not wither." 

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green, in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit. (Jeremiah 17: 8)

Over time I have come to trust that if I am anxious then I'm not taking it slow enough to stand on holy ground. Small wonder I resonated with St. Leonard Cohen when he wrote in his seductively spiritual way: "I’m slowing down the tune, I never liked it fast. You want to get there soon, I want to get there last. It’s not because I’m old, it’s not the life I led, I always liked it slow that’s what my momma said." (check it out...)

Letting the question simmer within over time concerning what a true spirituality of solitude, silence and stillness might mean is yielding fruit in its own season. Three clues popped up last week. The first arrived in a FB meme quoting the late Gerald May. It went something like: "Love ripens and matures within us shrouded in the mystery of darkness because if we knew in advance what this love would mean for our lives we would either flee or sabotage it..."

Love's true nature remains forever beyond the grasp of all our faculties. It is far greater than any feeling or emotion and completely surpasses any act of human kindness. It is the one sheer gift of contemplation, completely unattainable by autonomous human effort. The realization of this love always remains mysterious.

My hunch is that this is one of the meanings of silence. It is unknowing. Or trusting the questions with time and grace. Silence embraces waiting. It rests in a sacred emptiness so that at the right time and way a creative Word can be revealed. The second clue came from Richard Rohr who recently in his daily meditation:

One of the most profound spiritual experiences of my life came in 1984 during a journaling retreat in Ohio led by the psychotherapist Ira Progoff (1921–1998). [2] Dr. Progoff guided us as we wrote privately for several days on some very human and ordinary questions. I remember first dialoguing with my own body, dialoguing with roads not taken, dialoguing with concrete memories and persons, dialoguing with my own past decisions, and on and on. I learned that if the quiet space, the questions themselves, and blank pages had not been put in front of me, I may never have known what was lying within me. Progoff helped me and many others access slow tears and fast prayers, and ultimately intense happiness and gratitude, as I discovered depths within myself that I never knew were there. I still reread some of what I wrote over forty years ago for encouragement and healing. And it all came from within me!

And, of course, the silence: emptiness, trust and waiting give birth to the words we need. In an age of too many words, sounds and noises, silence is redemptive. As Rohr writes, it is where our flesh communes with the Spirit in a manner much like the Virgin Mary when the story strengthens our theological symbolism. "Unless we are able to tap into a spirituality of interior poverty, readiness to conceive, and human vulnerability" the words of our tradition become a “mere lesson memorized” as Isaiah puts it (29:13) that “save” (read: heals) no one. 

I know that even as I trust the waiting and honor the emptiness, I also often fill up my life, heart and head with stuff like anxiety, pleasure, sounds, busyness, fear, and tasks to avoid resting. One of my favorite re-workings of Scripture is Eugene Peterson's take on Romans 7:

The power of my inner wound keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, my brokenness is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? 

So, silence as emptiness and waiting; stillness and resting in trust. The third clue that is yielding fruit for me comes from an extended reflection from the late Henri Nouwen and his lessons in spiritual direction. Nouwen observes that at this moment in time, we must distinguish between solitude and privacy. He writes:


In order to understand the meaning of solitude, we must first unmask the ways in which the idea of solitude has been distorted by our world. We say to each other that we need some solitude in our lives. What we really are thinking of, however, is a time and place for ourselves in which we are not bothered by other people, can think our own thoughts, express our own complaints, and do our own thing, whatever it may be. For us, solitude most often means privacy. We have come to the dubious conviction that we all have a right to privacy. Solitude thus becomes like a spiritual property for which we can compete on the free market of spiritual goods. But there is more. We also think of solitude as a station where we can recharge our batteries, or as a corner of the boxing ring where our wounds are oiled, our muscles massaged, and our courage restored by fitting slogans. In short, we think of solitude as a place where we gather new strength to continue the ongoing competition of life.

Nouwen helps me realize that an overly busy and hyper-scheduled life pushes me towards privacy. And if I confuse privacy with solitude, it is another way to avoid the emptiness of silence and the rest of stillness. If I want to live in the presence of grace I must own that "solitude is not a private therapeutic place. Rather, it is the place of conversion, the place where the old self dies and the new self is born, the place where the emergence of the new man and the new woman occurs." I think that Brother Henri also makes it clear that transformative solitude is saturated in prayer. 

If solitude were primarily an escape from a busy joy, and silence primarily an escape from a noisy milieu, they could easily become very self-centered forms of asceticism. But solitude and silence are for prayer. The Desert Fathers (and Mothers) did not think of solitude as being alone, but as being alone with God. They did not think of silence as not speaking but as listening to God. Solitude and silence are the context within which prayer is practiced.

This is what Nouwen means when he writes: "Solitude is the place where we go in order to hear the truth about ourselves. It asks us to let go of the other ways of proving, which are a lot more satisfying. The voice that calls us the beloved is not the voice that satisfies the senses. That’s what the whole mystical life is about; it is beyond feelings and beyond thoughts." We step into the emptiness and quiet so that resting we can listen to the "voice that calls us the Beloved." There is more to be revealed, more to trust, and more to be practiced. But I give thanks for an afternoon of weeding, cutting grass and hauling stones to the garden, that my inner tree might be watered by the flowing stream of grace.

living into a world where everyone has a place...

We are putting together a music and poetry show on Saturday, June 15 unlike

any I've organized before. It started as a simple invitation to a number of local musicians in the area that I have loved making music with over the past decade: would you like to get together again after a few years break and do a benefit for those most in need in our town? In fact, I invited the musicians themselves to share what organization or ministry they would like to support. It was all wildly open-ended. And two interesting things popped-up:

+ First, most of my old musical colleagues signed-up for this gig within 24 hours. That blew me away. I love these men and women and adore making music with them. We had done so two or three times each year for nearly a decade before my retirement brought it all to a close. That they were as psyched about getting together again as I was confirmed my belief that music making can be a way of caring for our broken and wounded culture while binding up our own wounds, too.

+ Second, everyone sensed that raising funds and awareness about homelessness in our town was essential. Organically, I think, we knew we needed to take care of our own. Not in a jingoistic or cruelly nationalistic way as the current US regime advocates. But rather in a manner that might make a real difference for those closest to home. It was a manifestation of Jean Vanier's "Ten Foot Rule" being realized in our small town.

When I reached out to the local advocates combating homeless in our area, Barton's Crossing and Service.Net, they LOVED the idea. After all, only 70% of their operating budget is covered by grants. My old congregation was equally supportive and will be hosting the event in the First Church sanctuary. Our old sound man, Rob "the Genius" Dumais, signed on, too. And we were able to cobble together a collection of old buddies to create an evening in solidarity with those on the front line of providing shelter and food for women, men and children.

This won't be an overwhelming event, mind you. Just 90+ minutes of folk, jazz, rock and roll and poetry in a safe and beautiful setting. Mostly, it is an act of incarnation where all the holy words become flesh as we listen and respond to one another in pursuit of beauty and community. I know I sound like the late John Lennon in "Imagine." But for a few hours, we will live into our deepest hopes and dreams about how we can build a world where everyone has a place and all belong. I know for me it is another expression of what I have been learning from the witness of Jean Vanier and L'Arche. 

One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn't as individuals. When we pool our strength and share the work and responsibility, we can welcome many people, even those in deep distress, and perhaps help them find self-confidence and inner healing. Community is a sign that love is possible in a materialistic world where people so often either ignore or fight each other. It is a sign that we don't need a lot of money to be happy - in fact, the opposite. (Community is where) every child, every person (knows) that they are a source of joy; (where) every child, every person, is celebrated. Only when all of our weaknesses are accepted as part of our humanity can our negative, broken self-images be transformed. (Community and Growth)

Throughout the evening we'll be pushing the edges of paradox in style, form and sound. We'll open with "One Voice" - a stunning folk anthem to community with rich harmonies - and pair it with the Doobie Brothers' rockin' "Long Train Running" that reminds us that "without love... there is nothing!" There will be poetry and silence. Jazz and rock. Cover tunes and original new music. Electric and wooden sounds. If you are in the area on Saturday, June 15 @ 7 pm, please stop by First Church of Christ on Park Square (27 East Street in Pittsfield) and raise your voice as a part of the festival.

reconnecting to joy...

It is a cold, damp day in part of the woods - a perfect day for getting some inside chores finished.  After a full weekend of visiting with our family from Brooklyn and the hill towns - feasting, telling stories, getting caught up on what's going on in our respective lives, and just hanging together with love - it was time for me to get back in the groove. I've now dusted and washed floors, done the laundry, and worked on follow-up publicity for the June 15th music and poetry concert in solidarity with Barton's Crossing. 

Truth be told, I cherish days like this: slow stretches of solitude in service to the ordinary. I sing to myself and try to listen to what bubbles up. Yesterday, as our visiting was coming to a close, my grandson Louie sat next to me at my desk. After looking through a few pictures on my computer of his mother and aunt  when they were young, he said, "Gwad, you retired so that you could do other important work, didn't?" I looked over at my little buddy and smiled as he continued, "So you didn't really stop working. You just do NEW work now." My little man doesn't miss a trick. He listens carefully to everything taking place even when it doesn't look like it. He ponders his reality profoundly - and feels free to share his observations with those he loves and trusts. Doing my house work this morning led me to reread this morning's poem that has Louie all over it:

Missing It by Naomi Shihab Nye

Our cousin Sarni said at night when he can't sleep
he thinks about everything he missed that day.
Which way didn't he turn his head?
Whose face didn't he notice?
He gets the answer to the problem he missed
on the test. He finally remembers where they buried
the one cat who sat in anyone's lap.

Walking, talking, playing, listening, and praying with Louie and Anna this weekend - as well as with their parents and auntie/uncle - filled me with joy. The NY Times columnist, David Brooks, wrote about joy and happiness last week and this words right true.

Happiness usually involves a victory for the self. Joy tends to involve the transcendence of self. Happiness comes from accomplishments. Joy comes when your heart is in another. Joy comes after years of changing diapers, driving to practice, worrying at night, dancing in the kitchen, playing in the yard and just sitting quietly together watching TV. Joy is the present that life gives you as you give away your gifts. The core point is that happiness is good, but joy is better. It’s smart to enjoy happiness, but it’s smarter still to put yourself in situations where you might experience joy.

In my spiritual tradition, joy comes from a generous heart and a compassionate soul. It is deep speaking to deep. It evokes dancing, illumination, exuberance, song, and celebration where there is unity between the holy and the human. "In thy presence is fullness of joy, in thy right hand there are pleasures for ever more.(Psalm 16: 11) The New Testament is equally formed by encounters with joy: "I have come," testifies Jesus, "that my joy may be in your and your joy may be full." (John 15: 11) Both the Hebrew and Greek texts honor the centrality of living into joy. The Hebrew text uses שִׂמְחָה (simchat) 97 times to describe the experience of gladness, mirth, festivity and rejoicing; and the Greek text utilizes χαρά (chara) from xáris (charis - grace) 57 to tell much the same story. 

How then did our religion become so deadening? Deadly? Judgmental, harsh and punitive? Our Judeo-Christian heritage is all about exodus and freedom, grace and renewal, welcome and homecoming for even the least of our sisters and brothers. Don't misunderstand: I still read and revel in the holy words of my tradition and seek to root myself in our heritage of joy. But more often than not, it takes the poetry of contemporary women and men of grace to help me reconnect with what the holy breathed into me at the dawn of creation. Poets - as well as dancers, artists, musicians and little children - put me back in communion with my essence and my birthright as one created in the image of joy.

There was the method of kneeling,
a fine method, if you lived in a country
where stones were smooth.
The women dreamed wistfully of bleached courtyards,
hidden corners where knee fit rock.
Their prayers were weathered rib bones,
small calcium words uttered in sequence,
as if this shedding of syllables could somehow
fuse them to the sky.

There were the men who had been shepherds so long
they walked like sheep.
Under the olive trees, they raised their arms—
Hear us! We have pain on earth!
We have so much pain there is no place to store it!
But the olives bobbed peacefully
in fragrant buckets of vinegar and thyme.
At night the men ate heartily, flat bread and white cheese,
and were happy in spite of the pain,
because there was also happiness.

Some prized the pilgrimage,
wrapping themselves in new white linen
to ride buses across miles of vacant sand.
When they arrived at Mecca
they would circle the holy places,
on foot, many times,
they would bend to kiss the earth
and return, their lean faces housing mystery.

While for certain cousins and grandmothers
the pilgrimage occurred daily,
lugging water from the spring
or balancing the baskets of grapes.
These were the ones present at births,
humming quietly to perspiring mothers.
The ones stitching intricate needlework into children’s dresses,
forgetting how easily children soil clothes.

There were those who didn’t care about praying.
The young ones. The ones who had been to America.
They told the old ones, you are wasting your time.
Time?—The old ones prayed for the young ones.
They prayed for Allah to mend their brains,
for the twig, the round moon,
to speak suddenly in a commanding tone.

And occasionally there would be one

who did none of this,
the old man Fowzi, for example, Fowzi the fool,
who beat everyone at dominoes,
insisted he spoke with God as he spoke with goats,
and was famous for his laugh.

Rolling in the grass with Anna as Dima laughed and held her with tenderness made me think of something Louie said to Dima (Dianne as grandmother) one Easter afternoon. To her question "Aren't these flowers pretty?" Louie replied, "Aren't all flowers pretty?" I believe, I believe, O Lord, help my unbelief.

playing for our lives: a concert to combat local homelessness June 15 @ 7 pm

In an interview with Krista Tippett a few years ago, the late Jean Vanier gave contemporary people of compassion his antidote for despair: the Ten Foot Rule. The whole interview is worth your time (check it out @  https://www.iheart.com/

podcast/563-on-being-with-krista-tippe-28288089/episode/jean-vanier-the-wisdom-of-28288581/) but the Ten Foot Rule is essential for times like our own. First, he invites us to reach out and touch what is real in our immediate life: bring a measure of presence, healing and love to those who are just 10 feet away. They are the only people we can impact anyhow; fretting about those beyond our reach not only reinforces our sense of impotence, but demoralizes us as well. Do what you can to touch the real lives closest to you. Second, and I gleaned this from the many articles written after Jean's death, only watch the news once a week. Apparently Vanier watched it on Sunday evenings - and it broke his heart - but he didn't keep beating himself up. He simply made certain the tv was off 6 out of 7 evenings.

It has been one of my spiritual practices for the past few years to do just as Jean advised: turn off most of the news on TV, computers and print except once a week, and give my attention to what is immediately within my world. To that end, we are putting together a small benefit for the local Berkshire homeless network - Barton's Crossing - on Saturday, June 15 @ 7 pm. Not only will this event bring back together some of my favorite musicians from First Church (and we'll be performing back at First Church, too) but the concert will highlight our long-standing friendship with local singer/songwriter, Linda Worster, who became a trusted ally in many of our musical offerings. My old friend, Patricia Mason-Martin, will bring her brilliant poetry to the evening, too. And our new band, Famous Before We're Dead, will share a set of upbeat and community building tunes. It has been a gas to bring some of the old gang back together. It has been rewarding to partner with Service.Net the agency bringing direct services to those most in need. And, to be honest, it has been a blessing to be able do this all back at what was once home base for us at First Church on Park Square. Our old buddy, Rob Dumais, will return to work his magic on the sound board. Jon Haddad will delight us on the drums. And, joy upon joy, John Hamilton - the current interim minister at First Church - will ground us all by playing the keyboards. 

If you're in the area, please make a point to stop in. It will be a blast and our sisters and brothers in in need of the shelter could use your support.

Playing for Our Lives

 

A Music and Poetry Benefit Concert to Combat Homelessness

In Solidarity with Service.Net and Barton’s Crossing

Saturday, June 15, 2019

Special Guests

Linda Worster, Famous Before We’re Dead

Patricia Mason-Martin

 

First Church of Christ on Park Square

27 East Street, Pittsfield, MA 01201

7:00 PM

Service.Net is our community resource that offers a progressive pathway out of homelessness through local shelters and housing programs. 70% of its funding comes from local, state, federal and United Way contracts – but 30% must be raised through private donations. All proceeds from tonight’s concert will go to direct services to support our homeless sisters and brothers.  

stillness is what I need...

Some of us are in the vanguard, others are late to the party - and a few others, for a variety of reasons, don't seem to know that there's a party going on. As a rule, I tend to fall into the second group: slow to act on important matters. It is not that I don't know something's going on all around me. No, I just seem to need a long time for discernment. When I have acted against type, jumping into decisions without lots of conversation, prayer, study, and waiting, more often than not it has been a disaster. I used to fight my inclination to pause. I wanted to be spontaneous as a full fledged member of the age of Aquarius. But over the years I have come to trust that joining the party late is, for me, the path of wisdom. For as the poet said, "Yo no soy yo - I am not me - I am that long shadow I drag behind me that I cannot see." So I have learned to trust my inner voice and find a few trusted souls to both help me see what is true that I cannot see, and, encourage me to move to honor taking small, deliberate steps.

Those who work with the enneagram - especially Heurtz, Rohr and Bourgeault - suggest that our deepest nature holds simultaneous blessings and curses. Our deepest virtue is infused with comparably deep fixations and passions. When we are living lives of balance and self-awareness, we can self-correct if we find we are moving towards disintegration. As Huertz writes in The Sacred Enneagrm:
""If we can't self-observe, we can't self-correct."

The path of disintegration is surely an indication that we are unwell, but recognizing when we are moving in this direction helps us wake up to the destructive tendencies that keep us at our lower levels of mental, emotional (and spiritual) health. Think of this as a warning sign or flare signal, designed not to condemn a person, but to guide them back home. (p. 70)

The purpose of recognizing both our deepest virtues and fixations is to learn from the darkness as well as the light. Indeed, our shadow is not ever to be construed as condemnation nor punishment. As the Eastern Orthodox teach: missing the mark, sin, disintegration is how we learn to rest and trust God's grace. If we are paying attention, these wounds can lead us into wisdom. And even a measure of healing. Elbert Hubbard was on to something the Orthodox call divinization when he wrote, "We are punished by our sins not for them." Or as Fr. Ed Hays taught: there is wisdom in our wounds that can lead us into grace if we realize that the wisdom is usually the polar opposite of our feelings.

When I was in Tucson working with a spiritual director, he used to remind me that growing up as the oldest son of an alcoholic family gave me some unique tools. That startled me and struck me as absurd. But he went on to note that out of necessity I had learned to read a room for safety within a minute. I had also cultivated an acutely developed BS detector. Further, I was often able to bond with other wounded souls giving them both space and safety. At the same time, however, my need to be accepted and valued - yea, to be treated with love and respect - often made me emotionally vulnerable. And fragile. And easily hurt. There was real wisdom to my wounds as well as a whole lot of hurt. When I started to see this truth, he added: "And its not going to change. What is, is. All you can do is deal with what is real. And honor the wisdom of both the light and the shadow as well as you can." It is a life time commitment.

This commitment requires a serious dose of regular stillness. Some need 
solitude. Others need silence. I need stillness. Because I am "obsessed with quieting my inner distress in an effort to create external peace and security," (Huertz, p. 94) my spiritual core must be bathed in stillness. And if I don't make that happen on a regular basis, I am at war with myself and everyone else. It can be said that feeling frenetic for me is one of the ways God speaks to me: be still and know...

When we learn to tune into the ways God is speaking in and to us, we are guided into wise living. Can we learn to listen to God in our minds, trusting the silence underneath the clutter of noise? Can we learn to trust the voice of God that speaks in our hearts, through feelings of pain and peace? Can we learn to sense God at work in our bodies, speaking to us through our resistances and our openness? Listening to thoughts, feelings, or instincts... is the beginning of learning to hear how God has always been speaking to you. (And is speaking to you still!) (Huertz, p. 89)

Yesterday, I let myself get distracted. Frazzled. Pressed for time. One result was rushing to get to an important meeting on time. I hate that I did this to myself but I did. Another consequence was not paying enough attention to the GPS and finding myself across town at the wrong address. How many times have I done this to myself and others? When I realized I was in a downward spiral - and was not going to get to my meeting on time - I had to take five minutes of quiet breathing and Centering Prayer. "Nothing is going to be made better by letting myself slip into anxiety and self-blame. You blew it. So own it and move on, man!"  Making sure I have ample time - and real inner stillness - to live into the most important daily commitments brings a measure of healing to my being. I suspect it makes me easier to live with, too. 

The poet Maxine Kumin speaks to this obliquely in her poem: Mulching. Like the late Jean Vanier, who advised living into the 10 foot rule (only watching the news once a week and only giving your energy to what you can physically touch in a 10 foot circle around yourself), Ms. Kumin realizes the chaos that surrounds us yet trusts that the simple act of composting will evoke a new blessing from the mess. Such is the Paschal Mystery in the practice of Christian contemplation.

Me in my bugproof netted headpiece kneeling
to spread sodden newspapers between broccolis,
corn sprouts, cabbages and four kinds of beans,

prostrate before old suicide bombings, starvation,
AIDS, earthquakes, the unforeseen tsunami,
front-page photographs of lines of people

with everything they own heaped on their heads,
the rich assortment of birds trilling on all
sides of my forest garden, the exhortations

of commencement speakers at local colleges,
the first torture revelations under my palms
and I a helpess citizen of a country

I used to love, who as a child wept when
the brisk police band bugled Hats off! The flag
is passing by, now that every wanton deed

in this stack of newsprint is heartbreak,
my blackened fingers can only root in dirt,
turning up industrious earthworms, bits

of unreclaimed eggshell, wanting to ask
the earth to take my unquiet spirit,
bury it deep, make compost of it.

the all vulnerable God rings true...

For the past 40 years, an incremental exploration of theological images for God has been taking shape and form throughout the West. As Richard Rohr recently wrote: "I think we are in the beginnings of a Trinitarian Revolution. History has so long operated with a static and imperial image of God—as a Supreme Monarch and Critical Spectator living in splendid isolation from what he (and God is exclusively envisioned as male in this model) created. His love is perceived as unstable, whimsical, and preferential." This is not new to Christianity as Frederick Buechner's The Faces of Jesus should make that clear. This brilliant and accessible visual testimony documents the way our understanding of the one we call Christ has changed.

What is new is the creative depth and breadth of the movement to ground the gentleness of Jesus as the most authentic living icon of God. Let me suggest that this movement includes: the post WWII work of German theologians like Jurgen Moltmann and Dorothee Soelle; the intuitive albeit it heavy-handed insights of the "God is dead" writers; the playful but profound words of Matthew Fox; much of the feminist/womanist schools; the best from Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan; the confessional theology of Barbara Brown Taylor, Annie Dillard and Kathleen Norris; much of Henri Nouwen's writing; the life and writing of Jean Vanier; Rene Girard; as well as Rohr and Cynthia Bourgeault. All of these writers and schools of thought - and more - have been struggling to do three things simultaneously: a) link the mystical tradition of Christianity to contemporary living; b) construct and articulate an understanding of the holy that bears witness to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus; and c) dismantle the violent legacy of empire that has shaped so much of Christian history and experience and replace it with Christ's tenderness. Rohr put it like this:  

Humans become like the God we worship. So it’s important that our God is good and life-giving. That’s why we desperately need a worldwide paradigm shift in Christian consciousness regarding how we perceive and relate to God. This shift has been subtly yet profoundly underway for some time, hiding in plain sight. In order to come together in politics and religion, to take seriously new scientific findings in biology and quantum physics, and for our species and our planet to even survive we must reclaim Relationship as the foundation and ground of everything.

Specifically, we must reclaim communion with Christianity's earliest wisdom that confesses that: "God’s power comes through powerlessness and humility. The Christian God is much more properly called all-vulnerable than almighty, which we should have suspected and intuited by the shocking metaphor “Lamb of God” found throughout the New Testament." Indeed, the work of René Girard re: the revelation that Jesus as the Lamb of God exposes what history looks like from the perspective of the scape goat - a challenge to claim solidarity and salvation from the experience of the vanquished rather than the victors - is essential for a new ethics let alone the well-being of creation. (For more insights, please see: http://www.imitatio. org/brief-intro)

Poets, of course, have long claimed the freedom to cherish the tender God that Jesus reveals. I think particularly of Mary Oliver, Lucille Clifton, Denise Levertov. Pam McAllister, Scott Cairns and Carrie Newcomer. Musicians like Newcomer, Springsteen and Bruce Coburn do similar creative work. And now there is vigorous theological energy for tenderness:

When you experience God as all-vulnerable, then perhaps God stands in solidarity with all pain and suffering in the universe, allowing us to be participants in our own healing. This does not make sense to the logical mind, but to the awakened soul it somehow does. (Rohr) It certainly does for me...

The Gift - Denise Levertov

Just when you seem to yourself
nothing but a flimsy web
of questions, you are given
the questions of others to hold
in the emptiness of your hands,
songbird eggs that can still hatch
if you keep them warm,
butterflies opening and closing themselves
in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure
their scintillant fur, their dust.
You are given the questions of others
as if they were answers
to all you ask. Yes, perhaps
this gift is your answer.

while scrubbing the floor...

Funny day today turned out to be: unexpected hassles and blessings. I did a lot of interior cleaning in anticipation of some spiritual direction appointments next week and then the arrival of the Brooklyn gang for Memorial Day. There was lots of vacuuming Lucie hair as it infects the whole house in relentless and even unimaginable ways. When I got to the kitchen floor, after one serious scrubbing there were white, blotchy spots all over the wood. After another remedial wash I searched for a scrub brush and a plastic scouring pad - and used my thumb nail - for the three hours. Eventually, most of the spots were taken up. It seems that something I used to wash the wood recently left a filmy residue. I am clueless what caused the problem. But after a few hours of elbow grease, the natural wood had been liberated - even if it will need to be refinished this summer. 

Ordinarily I wouldn't bore you with such quotidian concerns, but while working to get things clean, two thoughts kept swimming around my heart. First, I had set this whole day aside for chores. I have always known that surprises happen, but for most of my life I haven't planned for them. For the past few years that is different. Whether baking bread, doing yard/garden work or cleaning the house I set my schedule up to allow for a full day. That gives me space and permission to fix the problems without feeling frazzled. Or anxious. Or resentful. That is crucial for me, allowing time for surprises be they delightful or challenging, so that I don't feel pressured to react. Rather, I can simply be, dealing with what is real, and carefully taking care of business. Unplugging from compound demands or multi-tasking lets me be gentle and tender in many trying moments. Not always - and not consistently - but with greater frequency. And from where I live, tenderness seems to be in short supply these days.

That was the second thought that kept popping up while working on the floor: the call to tenderness. Pope Francis said that the late Jean Vanier was a disciple of revolutionary tenderness - and that spoke to my heart, mind, body and soul. For many years, I believed the story and witness of Jesus as it was taught by the empire. To be sure, mine was a liberal take on religion, but still I built both my public and private life around winning. Acquiring power of different sorts. Even in pursuit of justice, winning was essential. Yes, it often felt like a dead-end. And more often than not left me feeling empty even in the various victories. But power is how I learned about God - God the Almighty - and the gods we worship shape our ethics, politics and habits.

Maybe twenty years ago, I sensed that the dominant paradigm for the holy was not only worn-out, but wrong. I didn't know an alternative, however, so like Luther under siege, I chose to trust that as one baptized into the grace of Jesus a new vision would be revealed at the right time. Even at his lowest, Luther would confess: "I have been baptized." During my sabbatical from pastoral ministry, two additional pieces of the puzzle were revealed. First, I was truly done doing ministry in the traditional manner. Second, I found that I was powerfully attracted to the Taize practice and theology of horizontal worship. Sitting on the floor as equals energized me. Inspired me. Lifted my heart. At the same time that I was moved to tears of joy while sitting on the floor in Taize worship in Montreal, I began to read Jean Vanier. His words about the tenderness of Jesus connected my feelings with a new/old theology that gave me hope. 

I have been letting the old notions of the empire's God slip away for the past four years. More and more, I have trusted the witness of Jesus as expressed by Vanier and L'Arche. So as this day became one of scrubbing the floor, there was time to reflect on how Archbishop Pierre d'Ornellas of Rennes put it during Jean Vanier's funeral mass: 

Bending down to wash his disciples' feet, Jesus makes himself weak before us, To touch our hearts and heal them he uses no other means than presenting himself as weak, as the least of the servants. And through his weakness, he washes our hearts, which are hardened by pride and barricaded in power, security and the certainty of being right, He is 'master and lord, but he lowered himself out of love. He is 'master' because of his tenderness and unending forgiveness, which raises us up and sets us back on our feet with trust and joy.

On that same day, Richard Rohr had written that a new and liberating theology of the Trinity was arising that teaches that: "God is all-vulnerable... (and when this is our foundation) then perhaps God stands in solidarity with all pain and suffering in the universe, allowing us to be participants in our own healing." I believe in paying attention to the connections. So, as old friend in Tucson used to say, "THAT dog hunts!" That understanding of God rings true. That way of being with Christ opens my heart and sets me free. 

Thinking of Jean's funeral while scouring my kitchen floor - and the call to real revolutionary tenderness unplugged from the empire - filled my heart. It was a small thing, those three hours on my hands and knees, but it was holy time for reflection and gratitude. At the end of the day, my mind went to this poem by Naomi Shihab Nye called "Shadows."

Some people feel lost inside their days.
Always waiting for worse to happen.
They make bets with destiny.
My funniest uncle gave up cursing bad words
inside his head. He says he succeeded
one whole hour. He tried to unsubscribe to
the universe made by people. He slept outside
by himself on top of the hill.

When Facebook says I have "followers"––
I hope they know I need their help.
Subscribe to plants, animals, stars,
music, the baby who can't walk yet but
stands up holding on to the sides of things,
tables, chairs, and takes a few clumsy steps,
then sits down hard. This is how we live.

returning thanks through jean vanier's funeral...

Like many whose life has been changed by Jean Vanier and the communities of L'Arche around the world, I watched his funeral from Trosly this morning. Like so many others, I prayed - and wept - and listened as Jean's life was celebrated and honored. And when it was complete, I was moved as people who loved him stood to bless Jean Vanier in preparation for his burial. 

The liturgy was infused with Jean Vanier's charism: the first reading came from the prophet Isaiah; the second lesson was St. Paul's confession that God is hidden but revealed to us through what the powerful consider foolish, weak and small; and then St. John's gospel where Jesus not only washes the feet of his friends, but demonstrates a new commandment with his body by loving one another in tender humility just as he has loved us. The homily was clear and faithful. It rang true and could not have been otherwise. The chapel resonated with chants from Taize. The wider community was given shape and form through personal reflections as well as those who carried symbols of Jean's life. And all were enveloped in grace as the Eucharist was celebrated. Perhaps the three most moving moments for me included:

+  Jean's helper and long time home companion who told us how he grew ever more weak during the last months of his life - unable to speak - but sharing with his hands. And then only his breath.

+ the prayers of blessing the community leader of Trosly offered while young people shared symbols of what each blessing meant to Jean.

+ and finally the song leader's invitation to sing "Jesus We Adore You" which Jean regularly shared with those who visited with him towards the end of his life.  

I woke early today and lit my own candles - inviting communion with the body in Trosly but also Ottawa - and felt gently surrounded by love. The liturgy closed with friends, family, core members and assistants stepping to the casket and sprinkling it with water as a final blessing - and my heart went to the Prayer of L'Arche... 

Father, through Jesus our Lord and our brother, we ask you to bless us.

Grant that L'Arche be a true home, where everyone may find life, 

where those of us who suffer may find hope.

Keep in your loving care all those who come.

Spirit of God, give us greatness of heart 

that we may welcome all those you send.

Make us compassionate that we may heal and bring peace.

Help us to see, to serve and to love.

O Lord, through the hands of each other, bless us; through the eyes of each other, smile on us.

O Lord, grant freedom, fellowship and unity to all your people 

and welcome everyone into your kingdom.

AMEN