home repairs, prayers and the grateful dead...

Today was given over to a variety of small carpentry repairs: a few door frames

needed to have the rot chiseled out, small inserts added along with a bit of plastic wood and then repainted in anticipation of autumn and winter. The same was true for two steps on the front staircase that needed to be replaced. Working with the old wood on our house in various degrees of well-being gave me a new appreciation for a good chisel. And a descent electric chop saw. After a few hours, I think we're ready for the seasons to change. I came upon this poem by Scott Matthews this evening that, at day's end, resonated on a number of levels.

They come,
Seeking answers
To scratch paper sketches;
Porches, playrooms
Pantries and problems;
Resultant conundrums of a material world.

Expecting-
High pressure tactics,
Pushy sales person
Running up tickets,
And, of course, technical expertise.

What they don’t expect,
Is a Home Depot holy man.
An orange apron-ed mystic,
Offering solutions to drywall dilemmas.

Who studies the cracks in foundations,
Listens to camouflage
overlying faint cries of despair.
And hears-

How do I build a stairway of sincerity?
Tall as a tower, shining steps rising
Above the crippling contrariness of my life?

What manner of steel is so stain-less,
To weather the corrosion of my debaucheries,
To anchor my heals in righteous construction,
So Heaven someday may be within reach?

What padding can be so resilient,
To keep disappointment from scorching my ass,
Dragged through the coals of work-a-day world?
Flat on my bum, one foot entangled,
Eternally caught in the crux
Of life’s bottom rung?

And

Where do I find the cheapest fix,
To patch this hole in my heart,
Out through which my humanity bleeds?

Welcome to the Depot, he replies.
Mirrors, aisle seven.

I didn't grow up in a home with either a "handy man" or "handy woman" present. My dad was a closet intellectual who liked the independence he found in real estate sales. My mom was his Irish high school sweetheart who wanted lots of children and kept a fine house. She was a great cook, too who sometimes moonlit at Woolworths or later Giant to make ends meet or to give her six children a special Christmas. But home repair? No, for that her brother, Malcolm, and later her brother-in-law Ed were the experts. So, I never really learned to use a hammer. Or a saw. And power tools? Forget about it! Over the years, I have been blessed with loving handy people in the various congregations I've served - remembering Roger in particular. He was an angel - and a good friend, too.

For a number of years here in Western Massachusetts, however, the world was different. This wasn't a working class church. And there were not many skilled trades people in it unless you count teachers, nurses, and doctors - which I do - but it turns out only one knew how to do home repairs. He became a friend long before I knew his carpentry skills. But once discovered, we worked on our deck numerous times over the past 13 years. He taught me how to really work a chop saw. He insisted that I purchase a good crow bar, too for those times when a plank needed to be taught a lesson. And don't forget the magic of a chisel. Jon was a master at getting part of a plank out and replacing it with a small insert. We did this on the deck. He did it on the trim of the roof when a squirrel decided to try to take up residence in our attic. And it was his wizardry that I applied today on the front steps. (NOTE: the whole front deck and stairs needs to come down next spring, but that's another story.)

As I was doing these small repairs - and applying touch up paint - I found myself returning thanks to God for Roger and Jon who set the stage for this year's adventures in solo home repair. Not only did they train me, but also gave me the confidence to try it myself. I gave thanks, too for: my mom who taught me to cook (along with Frank Loeberbaum of the Our Daily Bread restaurant on Delmar in St. Louis), my dad who passed on a love of music and books to me (and my children) in spades, as well as Sam and Ray and Adolfo who guided me in my quest to pray, and Martha who turned me on to great literature, poetry and film. As I was washing up the paint brush and throwing away the discarded wood, I couldn't help but think of the way Bobby and Phil put it back in the day: what a long, strange (and grateful) trip its been.

I love this season more than the rest... and now it has begun

The seasons are shifting: the linden leaves are turning yellow, the burning bush is

shifting into crimson, and the temperature is 50 F. I love autumn in all its phases: from the first whisper of color in mid-August and the hint of golden rod and asters in the wetlands as September peeks around the corner to the full blown visual assault of earth tones in early October and the eerie grey emptiness of All Saints Day. It is my favorite time of the year. And now it has begun...

... we bought our first wee pumpkin at the fruit stand last Sunday. I can't yet imagine being masked as we tromp through corn field mazes and pick our weight in mature pumpkins in a month, but I'm down for it, for sure! So many of my kin are apprehensive as autumn arrives: winter is soon to follow with all of its dark gloom they say. Stanley Kuntiz captures their angst as well as any:

An agitation of the air,
A perturbation of the light
Admonished me the unloved year
Would turn on its hinge that night.

I stood in the disenchanted field
Amid the stubble and the stones,
Amazed, while a small worm lisped to me
The song of my marrow-bones.

Blue poured into summer blue,
A hawk broke from his cloudless tower,
The roof of the silo blazed, and I knew
That part of my life was over.

Already the iron door of the north
Clangs open: birds, leaves, snows
Order their populations forth,
And a cruel wind blows.

But I feel a numinous quality in the air, the thin places revealed and honored.

Must be my Celtic soul bubbling up from below. Of course, I feel melancholy. Who doesn't? That is part of the blessing, yes? The awareness of endings becoming beginnings, life embracing death, sorrow kissing hope, and ancestors long passed singing our favorite hymns one more time? It is a remarkable season sated by apple cider and extraordinary shadows. These are the days when I start to bake bread again. And prepare Shepherd's Pie. I dust off my Celtic tunes to let deep speak to deep even as my back aches from raking leaves. Once again, we can walk in the wetlands free from the scourge of deer ticks and gather more milkweed pods for Louie's butterfly garden. Better than most, Carl Sandberg gets it.

Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

Tomorrow, after Scottish Breakfast tea and toast, I will repair a few rotting stairs, finish painting faded door trim, and walk around taking note of the trees that line our yard. I need to know them better: what are they saying - and why? I love this season more than all the rest. And now it has begun...

more thoughts on paradoxical hope...

These words from the incarnational poet of country music, Kris Kristofferson, are likely to start Sunday's live stream reflection on hope and faith in the age of contagion: 

He's a poet, he's a picker, he's a prophet, he's a pusher

He's a pilgrim and a preacher, and a problem when he's stoned

He's a walkin' contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction,

Takin' ev'ry wrong direction on his lonely way back home.

I've loved that song from the 1971 "Silver-Tongued Devil and I" album since my late sister, Linda, played it for me during her days of wild ass rebellion. It speaks to both my nearly complete ease with contradictions of all types, AND, my own ragged and haphazard spirituality that a church member in Tucson once described to his mother as the Pentecostal, Zen Buddhist monk who side lines as a snake handler. I could never have concocted that one for myself. And yet he whimsically captured the paradoxical tensions I live with on my quest to be faithful to Jesus and self. To that end, let me expand Kristofferson's list:

+ I am by nature a wanderer drawn to the quiet stability of monastic prayer.

+ I love gospel music and the passion of the early Jesus movement songs but need lots of silence and treasure the theology and aesthetics of chanted Psalms.

+ I am at home in high church liturgies but chafe under the patriarchal hierarchy; at the same time that I celebrate the democracy of my low church background, I detest our sloppy and sappy approach to liturgics and the neglect of the physical resources of worship.

+ My soul is grounded in a Celtic sacramentality that is nearly unknown to my traditional Reformed heritage.

+ I celebrate the Protestant mysticism of Quakers and affirm the  Catholic critique: where the Quakers insist that evil and suffering can be overcome by more light - that is, knowledge, reason, and education - Rome is clear that human beings can never overcome our brokenness all by ourselves. To think otherwise is to be enslaved to the arrogant illusions of the bourgeois Enlightenment.

The best summary or affirmation of faith I know comes from the Community of

Iona Scotland. First, they share this prayer of confession, and please notice the order and intentionality:

Trusting in God's forgiveness, let us in silence confess our failing and acknowledge our part in the pain of the world. Before God, with the people of God, we confess to turning away from God in the ways we wound our lives, the lives of others and the life of the world.

It first insists that God is at the heart of all grace and forgiveness. Second, we share an awareness that whenever we wound ourselves, our neighbors, or creation we are turn away from the holy. A Trinitarian absolution follows:

May God forgive you, Christ renew you, and the Spirit enable you to grow in love. Amen. 

The Lord's Prayer in the new ecumenical version roots us in tradition before a thoroughly new/old conclusion:

With the whole church we affirm that we are made in God's image, befriended by Christ, empowered by the Spirit. With people everywhere we affirm God's goodness at the heart of humanity planted more deeply than all that is wrong. And with all creation we celebrate the miracle and wonder of life, the unfolding purposes of God that are forever at work in ourselves and the world. 

This prayer honors our faith community - the church - speaks to the foundational truth that we are all created in God's image and guided and helped by Christ and the Holy Spirit. The affirmation confesses that our essential nature is goodness - original creation as the Franciscans and others teach rather than primal sin - and recognizes that this truth is far deeper than previous Christian doctrine. It closes with miracle and wonder - what Brueggemann teaches as the core of Torah - asserting that we experience and participate in the world within co-creators with God in reality.  A commitment to this paradoxical way of living in habit and heart is the practice of incarnation where intellect embraces flesh and the holy marries the human. As I ponder the experience of hope more seriously, I realize hope is a discipline as well as a doctrine that demands that I allow the Word to become

flesh. 

blessings abound...

Like President Obama, I am concerned about the current state of American democracy. Like other mystics throughout the world, I worry about the rise of nativism and spiritualities of fear and vengeance all over creation. And at the same time, my trust in God - my commitment to a  hope born of expectant waiting, the steadfast love of the Lord that endures forever, and the pattern of life, death, and resurrection built into the fabric of Mother Earth - is equally vibrant. Octavia Butler put it like this:

When apparent stability disintegrates,
As it must —
God is Change —
People tend to give in
To fear and depression,
To need and greed.
When no influence is strong enough
To unify people
They divide.
They struggle,
One against one,
Group against group,
For survival, position, power.
They remember old hates and generate new ones,
They create chaos and nurture it.
They kill and kill and kill,
Until they are exhausted and destroyed,
Until they are conquered by outside forces,
Or until one of them becomes
A leader
Most will follow,
Or a tyrant
Most fear.

Every day, therefore, I feast. And wait. And listen. And love. And pray. And study. And attend to the garden. Today I worked in our small garden with my grandson and later sat on rocks in a stream with him talking about the approach of a new year in school in NYC. He worries about me and the Covid virus because, "Remember, Gwad, you're old and I don't want you to die."  Life does not get any better than this... 

deepening thoughts on hope, expectant waiting and the pashcal mystery...

In a recent post and Sunday live-stream I shared a reflection on hope as an

unsentimental commitment to expectant waiting and trust in God's steadfast love. This is different, to paraphrase Dr. Cherice Bock, from personal goal-setting and/or psychological/emotion longing. Rather, this hope is a counter-cultural commitment to living beyond the confines of empire. Such a way of living resonates with my own life experiences and theology, so I want to articulate how hope becomes a spiritual discipline or practice. In this, hope is a way of being guided by discernment - embodying "eyes to see and ears to hear" - the quiet but salvific presence of the holy in our ordinary lives. I have found the writing of the Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann to be helpful:

“Hope, on one hand, is an absurdity too embarrassing to speak about, for it flies in the face of all those claims we have been told are facts. Hope is the refusal to accept the reading of reality which is the majority opinion; and one does that only at great political and existential risk. On the other hand, hope is subversive, for it limits the grandiose pretension of the present, daring to announce that the present to which we have all made commitments is now called into question.”

In An Introduction  to the Old Testament: Canon and Christian Imagination, he makes the case that the Hebrew Bible has consistently been shaped and redacted by the faith community's experiences as a "displaced people." One of the consequences of ancient Israel's various encounters with exile is their "imaginative remembering" of history, stories, prayers, and songs. This "disciplined, emancipated act of imagination" produced a tradition guided by a "relentless act of imagination. "That is, the literature (of the Bible) is not merely descriptive of a commonsense world; it dares, by artistic sensibility and risk-taking rhetoric, to posit, characterize, and vouch for a world beyond common sense." (Brueggemann, p. 9) The purpose of this creative body of writing is to train people apt to be seduced by a culture that rejects wonder, gratitude and obedience  - empire - in practices reinforcing the character of God for individuals as well as the whole community of faith. Expectant patience and waiting with discerning hearts Brueggemann notes become foundational spiritual disciplines.

"It may be that the final form of Torah was not reached in the brief period of the Babylonian displacement, but rather during the subsequent Persian period during which there continued to be communities of passionate Jews far from Jerusalem. Either way, after the disruption of 587 BCE, under Babylonian or Persian aegis, Jews understood themselves to be exposed, vulnerable, and at risk without the visible supports of a stable homeland... Displaced people need a place from which to validate a theologically informed peculiar identity and practice of life. The traditioning process that produced Torah thus strikes me as a remarkable match for displacement, so that we may understand 'the Torah of Moses' as a script for displaced community." (p. 22)

I have come to trust that a similar and equally creative imaginative remembering

is taking place within Western Christianity, too. And the key doctrine in transition is the Paschal Mystery. In the realm of dogma, the Paschal Mystery addresses both the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as a discrete sacrifice in history, and, how this sacrifice is shared during the celebration of the Eucharist. There is now a cadre of creative people of faith exploring how the rhythm of Holy Week not only mirrors an individual's spiritual renewal - what Richard Rohr calls falling upward through descent before new life or the healing of the 12 Step process is realized - as well as the theological interpretation of cosmology being explored by Matthew Fox, Cynthia Bourgeault, David Steindhl-Rast, Thomas Berry, Sally McFague and Pope Francis. Annie Dillard and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin might also be included as a part of this movement. 

What I hope to do over the next few weeks here and during my Sunday live-cast is describe key components of the new eco-theology as it applies to a

contemporary understanding of the Paschal Mystery. This might be helpful in practicing how a Christian discipline of hope of expectant patience is at the core of our liturgy. The wetlands behind our house is slowly shifting in hue and scale. It serves as a constant reminder to me of creation's journey from life into death before a profoundly different new life. i think the United Church of Canada got it right in their modest Statement of Faith:

We are not alone,

we live in God’s world.

We believe in God:

who has created and is creating,

who has come in Jesus,

the Word made flesh,

to reconcile and make new,

who works in us and others

by the Spirit.

We trust in God.

We are called to be the Church:

to celebrate God’s presence,

to live with respect in Creation,

to love and serve others,

to seek justice and resist evil,

to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,

our judge and our hope.

In life, in death, in life beyond death,

God is with us.

We are not alone.

Thanks be to God.

NOTES ON GROWING A COMPASSIONATE SOUL: Unsentimental Hope

NOTES ON GROWING A COMPASSIONATE SOUL: Unsentimental Hope

This morning I want to speak with you about hope: back in March when I started doing these live streaming reflections, I sensed that while there was not a lot I could do about the contagion except wear a mask, stay at home, practice social distancing and say my prayers, I could offer a measure of quiet and tender words of encouragement for 21st century adults with a spiritual heart. So, what began as a small online offering of consolation has matured into a still small consideration of how we might move through these perplexing days together albeit apart simply, sincerely, and with solidarity. I like the way Christine Valters Paintner puts it when she says that to be: “A monk in the world means to live slowly in a fast-paced culture, to treasure the gift of 'being' in a world that says my value comes from 'doing,' to linger over life's moments and recognize that what I seek most deeply is already here waiting to be revealed."

That is why I want to speak with you about hope as an act of subversive imagination; hope as prophetic tenderness born of God’s steadfast love within our strong, fragile and often broken lives; and, hope as a conscious conviction to incarnate compassion and clarity into our ordinary, walking around, every day existence. Maya Angelou speaks of authentic, adult hope when she sings

Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops, weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I’ll rise.

In this season of contagion and political reckoning, when a mature and honest hope free from magical thinking, naivete, and judgment, might serve as our North Star, some of us are stumped. You see, for many hope has been given a bad name – and for good reason. Some speak of hope in snappy, sappy, pastel bromides of feel-good religiosity that refuses to acknowledge the place suffering, experience, confusion, lament, and grief play in a healthy spirituality. Others wield hope as a bludgeon to silence our hard questions concerning the complexities of living into the Beloved Community. These privileged but often untested warriors of hope, like their New Age allies, would have us believe that the troubles of the world live on fundamentally because we don’t try hard enough. Small wonder the early church called out such self-absorbed moral and political illiteracy as heresy. For without the wisdom, patience, and humility to grasp the difference between what can and cannot be changed, the peace of the Lord eludes us forever. I like the way Brené Brown puts it: “All I know is that my life is better when I assume that people are doing their best. It keeps me out of judgment and lets me focus on what is, and not what should or could be.”

I think back to the time one of our daughter’s returned home from a regional church youth event wailing: “Dad, I can never do that ever again – all that shiny, bouncy, happy Jesus talk that denies the reality of pain and fear – just makes me want to ralph!” Me, too. Her confession called to mind the time I had to go before a panel of seasoned pastors and educators in anticipation of my ordination. My assignment was to articulate the core of my theological convictions – how I talked about my experiential and intellectual connections to the holy as revealed in Jesus – which I thought I did with verve, poetry, and enthusiasm. After all, I was the co-chair of our student body – an earnest, straight, white, bourgeois, male liberation theology student from Union Theological Seminary in NYC – who had studied in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, organized with Cesar Chavez and the farm workers, gone to Mississippi to organize pulp woodcutters, did get out the vote work in Watts for Jimmy Carter, and could quote Marx and Gustavo Gutierrez chapter and verse. Man, I was at the top of my self-important grad school game when an old pastor from Hungary asked me: “Mr. Lumsden, what is your understanding of sin?”

He took me completely by surprise: in my privileged activism, I was certain I had a monopoly on ways to solve the woes of the world. So, I verbally fumbled around a bit trying to bluff my way through this query, until this seasoned survivor of both WWII and Eastern European Stalinism said pointedly: “Sir, your theological anthropology is woefully inadequate. Before I can in good conscience support your ordination into the way of Jesus and his Cross I need to know that you can dig deeper.” Woah – talk about a smack-down. But… he was right – I needed to be humbled having NO idea what a theological anthropology even meant – and I’ve been working on his assignment to go deeper into the foolish blessing of the Cross ever since. In that time I have come to see how zealous, privileged liberals who self-righteously dismiss those who disagree with us are just as destructive to authentic hope as the shiny, bouncy, pastel Jesus people with no connection to the Cross. The Reverend Dr. Walter Brueggemann, Old Testament professor emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary and wise, old man extraordinaire, is on the money when he writes:

Hope, on one hand, is an absurdity too embarrassing to speak about, for it flies in the face of all those claims we have been told are facts. Hope is the refusal to accept the reading of reality which is the majority opinion; and one does that only at great political and existential risk. On the other hand, hope is subversive, for it limits the grandiose pretention of the present, daring to announce that the present to which we have all made commitments is now being called into question (by the holy!) (Hope is, therefore, in our tradition) the decision to which God invites ancient Israel, a decision against despair, against permanent consignment to chaos, oppression, barrenness and exile.

I rather like the insights of Pope Francis, too. Born Jorge Mario Bergolio in Buenos Aires, Argentina this Jesuit priest with advanced degrees in philosophy and chemistry who lived through his nation’s fascism in the 70ès wants us know that hope has been woven into the tapestry of creation by God.

Rivers do not drink their own water, trees do not eat their own fruit, the sun does not shine on itself nor do flowers spread their fragrance for themselves. No, living for others is a rule of nature. We are all created to help one another. So, no matter how difficult life becomes… goodness is built into it all for your happiness. Life is good when you are happy, but so much better when others are happy because of you.

There are three different but inter-related insights about hope I have come to trust from within the Judeo-Christian tradition that I want to share with you as my take on why I hold fast to hope like Langston Hughes did dreams in his poem: Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go, life is a barren field frozen with snow.

In our culture and context, hope has become more of a vague feeling of anticipation than a spiritual practice rooted in trust, patience, and a counter-cultural character – and herein lies the problem. Contemporary Western Christianity – and to a lesser extent other spiritual traditions in the West – has lost its counter-cultural identity. In what may be his life’s work, Walter Brueggemann writes that the distilled purpose of Torah – the redacted insights of Moses and the commitments of Sinai summarized in the Ten Commandments – is to offer Jews a script for living as a displaced people. Those who have been exiled “need a place from which to validate a theologically informed peculiar sense of identity and practice of life. The traditioning process that produced Torah” Brueggemann notes trained God’s people in the practice of wonder and waiting, gratitude, grace and justice in ways that stood in vivid contrast “to the dominant culture of empire” that skillfully destroys distinctiveness with conformity while replacing the paradoxical dance of celebration and lament with complacency, busyness and anxiety. Brueggemann carefully concludes:

Torah, in its final, normative form, is an act of faithful imagination that buoyantly and defiantly mediates a counterworld (to the status quo) that is a wondrous, demanding alternative… The world visibly and immediately at hand is characteristically a world that has no patience with Jews nor with the God of the Jews, that has no tolerance for wonder when the world can be managed, no appreciation for gratitude when the world can be taken and owned in self-sufficiency, and certainly no readiness for obedience when the world is known to be an arena of autonomy… It has been a characteristic of Jewish teaching, nurture, and socialization to invite the young into the world of miracle and to resist assimilation… and only recently have alert Christians begun to notice that the challenge that has always been before Jews is now a fresh challenge to us as well… The liberal Christian temptation is to accommodate dominant culture until faith despairs. The conservative Christian temptation is to fashion an absoluteness that stands disconnected from the dominant culture… but neither sustains the community in its mission to love and heal the world.

Like Brother Brueggemann, I too believe that a renewal of a peculiar, counter-cultural identity for those committed to the way of Jesus is the key to unlocking the beauty and promise of authentic hope. And what I find as I wade through the competing and often complex stories, poems, songs, and narratives of the Hebrew Bible is a practice that integrates expectant waiting and imaginative trust as the core of faith both personal and collective. Biblical scholars and theologians are clear that there is no SINGLE word for hope in the Hebrew Bible. The Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament tells us that, “There is a “highly differentiated cluster of linguistic tools” used by the authors of the Hebrew Bible to speak to the concept we call “hope” in English” including such words as trust, wait, patient longing, and expectant searching. There is consensus that the two most “relevant Hebrew words for our consideration are yachal and tiqwah meaning to trust with expectant waiting and to live anticipating the arrival of God’s blessings.

Hopeful waiting is different from feelings or desire for there is an expectation of wonder that can be trusted. Jeremiah 29 puts it like this: I know what I am planning for you, says the Lord, a life of peace not evil and a good ending (that is, a hopeful end) filled with blessing. Isaiah 40 tells us that: those who trust and wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like the eagle: they will run and not be weary, they will walk and not be faint – to which we often add the sung chorus: teach me, Lord, teach me Lord… to wait.

To hope in the tradition of our spiritual heritage is to look at life expectantly, know how to pause with a reverent patience, and accept that pain is woven into the fabric of creation as well as joy. It is not coincidental, I think, that the wisdom literature of ancient Israel, along with the prophets and the Psalms, speak more of hope, patient waiting and living with an expectation of blessing than the early narratives. Such hope has been shaped by both suffering AND exodus, exile AND restoration, sorrow AND celebration. This hope knows the polarity of reality where to everything there is a season. At the same time, knowing and trusting this rhythm that God has built into creation cultivates a character that trusts God’s love to be unfailing. Psalm 33: the eyes of the Lord are upon those who stand in awe of Go as they trust and hope in God’s unfailing love.

Our mentors in ancient Israel also remind us that our waiting is NOT forever. Like the seasons that come and go, so too our joys and sorrows bringing a patience like God’s own. And that is important because the character of Torah is meant to cultivate the character of God in human beings NOW as we ripen beyond abstract feelings into a life of love, joy and shalom. Individuals nourish this with practices that cultivate patience and the greater community does likewise by teaching stories of people like us who experienced God’s presence in the midst of their compassion, humility and quest for shalom. The Rev. Dr. Cherice Bock, professor of ecotheology at Portland Theological Seminary, put it well:

This is a much deeper and richer understanding of hope than can be found when looking at hope simply as goal creation or at hope from an individual psychological perspective. When we recognize a hope that goes beyond our personal lifetime and is mediated by a broader vision than our own comfort or current level of life satisfaction, we are able to draw on a vast and deep well of experience, communal vision, and purpose than we can when we only have our own life experiences and past successes and failures upon which to base our hopes. This communal understanding of hope allows us to continue working for justice and righteousness even when we despair of that hope manifesting fully in our lifetime.

The foundation of authentic Judeo-Christian hope is NOT feelings but cultivating a character that trusts expectant waiting and knows that lamentation is not the end of the story. Pain is REAL – but not eternal. A poem by Audre Lord speaks to these complexities.”

For those of us who live at the shoreline standing upon the constant edges of decision crucial and alone - for those of us who cannot indulge the passing dreams of choice who love in doorways coming and going in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward at once before and after seeking a now that can breed futures like bread in our children’s mouths so their dreams will not reflect the death of ours;

For those of us who were imprinted with fear like a faint line in the center of our foreheads learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk for by this weapon this illusion of some safety to be found the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us this instant and this triumph we were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are afraid it might not remain when the sun sets we are afraid it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard
nor welcomed but when we are silent we are still afraid

So it is better to speak – remembering - we were never meant to survive.

First, hope is cultivating a character committed to living a counter-cultural resistance to empire personally and as a community. Hope is not desire, feelings or abstract anticipations, but all that helps us expect and experience fully joy and sorrow, wonder and waiting, gratitude and lament as our place within the sacred cycle of life. Second, the cultivation of character that once shaped the Jewish identity as the early disciples of Jesus was always meant to be part of our formation, too. Spiritual practices became the minority report in Western Christianity, but the charism of prophetic imagination continues to be trusting the grace of God profoundly enough to tenderly, patiently, and incrementally carry the truth of the periphery into the center of our being.

Jesus spoke to this saying where our treasure is, there our heart will be also. That is, the values and habits we cultivate and practice at our center will disclose our true nature: Do we love God and neighbor with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, strength and being? Or are we conflicted with how hard this truly is? Are we at war with hope, or, do we recognize we’re a work in progress and give ourselves time and space to ripen and face our fears, addictions, and confusion?

One of the gentle truths I have come to trust about God’s love is that often prophets articulate God’s truths to us obliquely using music, poetry and the arts to awaken our dreams. If you watched any of last week’s Democratic Convention, you saw some prophets in action. They touched our long dormant and broken hearts with songs and poems and words that rang true beyond the divisions of race, religion, gender, and class. That montage of children singing the National Anthem was salvific. Same for Springsteen’s reworking of “The Rising,” Gabby Gifford telling us that the forces of hatred can try to silence her with a gun but will never take away her voice. Common and John Legend singing “Glory” and Brayden Harrington sharing his stutter was holy ground, too. I can tell you without hesitation, there wasn’t a dry eye in our house on those nights – and that was true for much of America and the world. We wept as deep called to deep and the prophets called us to trust our better angels.

The former president of Chicago Theological Seminary, the Rev. Dr. Susan Thistlethwaite, confessed just how parched her soul had become over the past four years when she realized “It’s like we’ve been drinking sand and were finally given cool, clean water to sip” as real people spoke of truth and love to the hatred and fear of this regime. I don’t know about you, but I heard the poetic prophet, Isaiah from today’s lesson, singing last week singing: Rise up, come on, rise up!

Listen to me, all you who are serious about right living and committed to seeking God. Ponder the rock from which you were cut, the quarry from which you were dug. Ponder Abraham, your father, and Sarah, who bore you. Think of it! One solitary man when I called him, but once I blessed him, he multiplied. Likewise I, the Lord your God, will comfort you, comfort all the mounds of ruin, transform your dead ground into Eden, your barren moonscape into the garden of God, a place filled with exuberance and laughter, thankful voices and melodic songs

This foundation shaped Jesus as well as Rabbi Saul whom we know as St. Paul. In chapter 12 of Romans where the apostle instructs us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice this is a poetic way of calling us to practice cultivating the character of hope within and among us. Earlier in this same letter to Gentile believers in Rome, St. Paul tells us that patient and expectant waiting is both at the core of our spiritual practices; and, how we experience God’s spirit being poured into our hearts by love.

“Beloved we celebrate our sufferings because we know from previous experience that suffering can produce endurance, and endurance can strengthen our character, and as our character learns to wait patiently, God gives us hope, a hope that does not disappoint because hope is God’s love being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit in real time.” 

We don’t often talk about that anymore: hope being our experience of God’s love being poured into our hearts by the Spirit. But it could help. In chapter 8 St. Paul adds: we know this is true whenever the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for human words. The former rabbi Saul is teaching the Gentile folk of Rome what he learned from Torah shaped by exile: we have all had hard times before – and we’ll know them again – but we have also known joy and celebration, too. Those who practice waiting upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Those who practice trusting the wisdom of the Cross know that nothing can separate us from the love of God. 

Can hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we have experienced God’s presence with us through love. Therefore I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God revealed to us in the life, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus our Lord.

Character cultivated in the Cross incarnates a unique identity that is a bold and tender contrast to the status quo. We live by trust, not just what we can touch. We live by gratitude because this is what God’s love feels like. We live by patience for this is how we discover the extraordinary within the ordinary. Like God coming into the world as a baby in the manger, our eyes are not on the grandiose and haughty but on all that is simple, humble, and real. Which is where the third insight about hope is revealed: in the Cross.

· Do you know that grand old hymn, “I have decided to follow Jesus – no turning back – no turning back?” The closing verse is: “The world behind me, the Cross before me… no turning back, no turning back.”

· By “the world” we don’t mean real life, but the status quo – the domination system of fear, competition and hatred – the rat race – empire. In John 3: 16 and 17 the gospel tells us that: God so loved the world that God shared the Son with us so that everyone in the world who learns to trust may not perish but have everlasting life. God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but to heal it and make it whole.

A counter-cultural character committed to compassion is at the core of the Cross revealing a hope that weeps as well as laughs, waits in wonder for what is here within and among us right now, and shows us how new life springs from death throughout all creation. This third way of cultivating hope has a few different names. Henri Nouwen calls it the wisdom of the Eucharist. The early church mothers and fathers called it the Paschal Mystery. Fr. Richard Rohr calls is the core of the cosmos:

Jesus’ life, death, and raising up is the whole pattern of creation revealed, named, summed up, and assured for our own lives. It gives us the full trajectory that we might not recognize other-wise. He is the map. The Jesus story is the universe story. When we follow Jesus through his life, death and resurrection we have the universal and salvific message for the rest of the earth.

Dying to self, trusting that God’s love is bigger than our fear, is how hope grows: as we let ourselves rest into God’s presence and trust that God will carry us beyond all we know, in this death new life begins. Like the Rev. Dr. Cynthia Bourgeault says: “Dying-to-self… is not only possible but imperative for to fall through fear into love is the only way we will ever truly know what it means to be alive.” The heart of Christ’s truth – the essence of the Paschal Mystery – is found in the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples that is then embodied when he goes to the Cross, suffers death and is raised by God’s love beyond death.

· Jesus is patient with his hard-headed disciples at the Passover foot washing just as he has been patient with them along the backroads of ancient Palestine. Almost every time Jesus speaks about the necessity of his death, the disciples argue with him and among themselves. They want to win – not die. They want a king not a suffering servant messiah.

· So, Jesus kneels at their feet, like a servant, washes them and tells them: THIS is my new commandment. You are to love one another patiently. Humbly. Over and over, not for yourself, but for one another. And here’s the blessing: as you let go of yourself you will find new life.

If you want to be important, serve others. The son of man himself did not come to be served but to serve, to give his life so that everyone might be set free (Mark 10:42-45). Jesus offered the world a new pattern of power and leadership, which few in church or state have ever really agreed with.

Sometimes

if you move carefully

through the forest,

breathing

like the ones

in the old stories,

who could cross

a shimmering bed of leaves

without a sound,

you come to a place

whose only task

is to trouble you

with tiny

but frightening requests,

conceived out of nowhere

but in this place

beginning to lead everywhere.

Requests to stop what

you are doing right now,

and

to stop what you

are becoming

while you do it,

questions

that can make

or unmake

a life,

questions

that have patiently

waited for you,

questions

that have no right

to go away.

(David Whyte, Sometimes)

Hope takes practice – a lifetime of practice – so be gentle with yourselves. You are already doing the best you can – and God cherishes that. Hope cultivates the character of Jesus – Torah – the Living God in our small and humble lives, not empire. For hope embraces joy and sorrow, the prophetic challenges as well as the healing of grace, waiting and wonder.

loving last night's democratic national convention...

Some people hated it, others (like us) loved it while many were indifferent. (Can't help but think of Lou Reed's "Sweet Jane" where the master states: "Some like to go out dancing, others like us we gotta work. And there's even some evil mothers who'll tell you life is full of dirt..") I am talking about the opening of last night's Democratic Presidential Convention. The jaded politicos and adrenaline junkies, of course, missed the drama and roaring crowds. They even had the cynical audacity to say that the sane remnant of the Republican Party - including John Kasich et al - fell flat, missing entirely the historicity of openly defying the Emperor with no clothes. Oh well, those from the heartland couldn't help but notice that the sands really are shifting. Four moments stood out for me...

The opening montage of America's diverse youth singing the National Anthem

The use of Springsteen's "The Rising" to evoke this moment in history...

Bernie Sanders' endorsement of Joe Biden in the context of challenging the current resident at the White House's authoritarianism, white supremacy and narcissistic incompetence. And, in a league all her own, Michelle Obama, who not only laid it all on the line, but made it clear that unless people of good will come together: life in the USA and all over the world will get a whole lot worse. She was passionate, honest, down to earth and very persuasive. Like Cory Booker tweeted last night: "I've missed Obama - I've missed her husband, too!" 

If you haven't watched this yet, please take the time. And if you have, perhaps you could watch it again as she articulates what's at stake.

My experience watching political conventions started with John Chancellor being carried out of the Republic National Convention before Barry Goldwater secured the nomination in 1964. I, too, love the drama, the crowds and the pageantry. I am a total sucker for the best of the American promise just as I grieve mightily our onerous failings. I openly weep while singing the National Anthem at baseball games and gladly put my hand over my heart to pledge allegiance. I am not afraid or ashamed to love my country even as I despise our bigotry, sexism, racism and war against Mother Nature. We are a wildass mixed bag and much as I would rather be living in Canada, like Little Steven sings, "I am a patriot..."

So count me IN for tonight - and the rest of the week, too - as this new/old story unfolds in a wonderfully diverse way.

treading water in the covid blues...

Coming to terms with the consequences of the contagion washes over me from time to time - and lays me low. The new normal - face masks, self-imposed limitations on social interaction, instacart groceries, virtual meetings, family visits by Zoom and all the rest - no longer feels unsettling. It makes macabre sense. What grabs me unexpectedly by the throat is the breadth and depth of this new normal. Like having to plan, prioritize, and orchestrate how our small family might simply visit together for a quiet meal or birthday party. Or the precautions we will need to take in order to vote in the upcoming primary election in September - let alone count the costs of showing up at our polling place for the November presidential contest. Or when will travel to Canada - or even our favorite places in our home state of Massachusetts - be safe again? And I mean really safe? I know that I will not likely feel free to interact openly until probably next spring 2021 at the earliest - and that cuts deep.

This truth caught me unawares again last night as a wave of grieving rose up and pulled me into its undertow. All day I have been struggling to keep my head above water. I know that this, too shall pass. Yet taking stock of our losses, personally and collectively, feels staggering. Like other types of grief before it, these covid-blues have thrust a mean-spirited, bony hand into my heart in a a cruel and demanding manner and for the first time in months I feel fragile. Yes, yes, our feelings come and go. My emotional life is only a part of this puzzle, too. And, by faith I am certain that what I am experiencing is not the end of the story. And still, like other seasons of grief, this one took me totally by surprise. 

That's one of grief's curses, yes? You never see it coming. It always pulls you down when you least expect it. And you're not in control of its magnitude or longevity. It has a life all its own. Small wonder I sensied it wise to consider the dance of faith and hope this week during my Sunday morning live-streaming reflection. In times like these, even while knowing these covid blues are unique, I realize I am feeling like this Leonard Cohen song as interpreted by Judy Collins. In ways that are sacred, the angst of suffering is married to the joy of faith ever time that incredible chorus comes around with its angelic harmonies.

 

My Sunday live- streaming gig will open this week at 9:55 am with an original blues improvisation from my favorite jazz quartet. We created it for our 50th anniversary celebration of John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme." It is a moody, moving conversation between piano, bass, sax and drums performed on Good Friday 2016 that culminates in a vocal improvisation on William Billings' "When Jesus Wept." (check it out this coming Sunday @ https://www.facebook.com/Be-Still-and-Know-913217865701531) I am looking forward to my study, prayer and writing this week as I go deeper into the paradox of trust, joy, faith, hope, and love while treading water in the blues.

returning thanksgiving...

Today felt grounded: open, real, honest, quiet, connected, alive and in-sync with

my heart. We had the chance to Zoom-visit with our family in Worcester. For most of our time in the Berkshires, they have lived in the rolling hill country just 25 minutes away. This summer, well in advance of the contagion, they made plans to move into the city both for reasons of work and creativity. Given the lock down, we have not seen them (except for Zoom) since March 13th. It was delightful to visit and we will plan to head over to their new place for an afternoon visit on the deck soon.

After my Sunday morning live-streaming reflections, Di and I visited out on the deck and then did gardening and yard work. As she noted, the garden is starting to pop now that it is August. And the flowers that surround our property are showing mini-hydrangeas along with gladiolas. The "fire" bushes have just begun to offer up a few red leaves and the wetlands are hinting that an abundance of golden rod is just around the corner. A baby hawk continues to make its presence known, young blue jays are "cawing" all about, too and both red wing blackbirds and gold finches flutter by from time to time. Our small corner of creation is restorative and is beginning to tell us that autumn will be here soon. It is already cool at night. For the next few weeks the days will be bright - sometimes even stiffing - but the sun is shifting in the sky as we journey towards summer's end. Soon the purple asters will dance with the bright yellow golden rod and the tips of our tallest trees will show off their vibrant autumn reds. Christopher Hill wisely notes that:

August is summer that has heard a rumor of fall. It doesn't sparkle with the liveliness, motion, and lightness of May or June or the high, festive brightness of July. It shimmers away toward the horizon in a hot blue haze. I know a painter who says she sees a distinct kinds of light in August, different from both summer and fall... Blue shadows hide in the corners, like the patches of cobalt light after a flashbulb goes off. A still-ness falls, like one of those lapses in conversation around a dinner table. We're aware only in the vaguest way, but summer is already looking ahead to its end. (Holidays and Holy Nights: Celebrating Twelve Seasonal Festivals of the Christian Year, p. 187)

One of the reasons I know that I feel newly "grounded" again has to do with my decision to renew my "associate member" vows with the Community of Iona. It has been almost three years since moving into retirement - and so much has changed - even if we have remained centered in our old home. We left decades of life in community which was both liberating and somewhat unsettling. We took up the novel slack by travel. And then my time with a musical project as well as my involvement with the community of L'Arche Ottawa. There were grandchildren to visit, birthdays to celebrate, travel to the jazz clubs of Montreal as well as our forays into the countryside of Quebec's Eastern Townships. But now that the US/ Canadian border is closed and will remain so for the foreseeable future - now that my time playing in the band is over and travel is out of the question - now that we are unable to connect to the rhythms of the Christian year through worship with our Brooklyn family: I have discovered the need to be connected in community in a way beyond myself. I require some external boundaries to help guide and shape my journey in faith. I need a bit of order, a "rule of life," and some resources, too.

Our recent marking of the Celtic festival of Lughnasdh or Lammas- the festival of corn, wheat, and bread baking that roughly falls on the Feast of the Transfiguration - was a catalyst for me to get off the dime. Ordinarily I would have baked fresh bread, celebrated the shift in the seasons, and started to ready my heart for the wisdom of autumn. Not this year - it just came and went - and left me feeling adrift. We've been eating an abundance of local sweet corn - and attending to our garden and flowers - but I revel in the festivals of the church year that link my soul to the seasons. Feeling the blues, clearly a part of nearly six months of living in solitude, was the emotional/ spiritual kernel that needed to fall to the earth and die so that I might respond with deeper focus and appreciation. Iona posts a daily interactive morning prayer liturgy - and a newly revised Book of Worship, too - that helps me move into this new way of being grounded during the contagion. The late, Denise Levertov, put it like this in a poem:

As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and waters bears them, 

As hawks rest upon air and air sustains them; 

So would I learn to attain freefall, and float into Creator Spirit’s deep, 

Knowing no effort earns that all-surrounding grace.

The United Church of Christ has a lovely rendering of the "Phos Hilaron - O Holy Radiance, Joyous Light" - the candlelight hymn used monastically for the early evening prayers of Vespers. In the United Church New Century Psalter this text is changed to the Tallis' Canon tune:

O holy radiance joyous light, O splendid glory shining bright

Immortal Father, heavenly One, O blessed Jesus Christ, the Sun. 

We see the sunshine fade tonight and welcoming the evening light,

To Father, Son, and Spirit raise our hymns of wonder, love and praise.

Unceasingly our tongues shall laud your worth, Begotten One of God.

O Breath of life; let all proclaim the glory of your wondrous name.

Now it is time for me to roast some chicken, prepare some pesto, and return thanksgiving for a sweet day and ripening within.

sometimes I have to trust God is big enough that I can be small...

 Yesterday I had the privilege of sharing a brief homily at our weekly Friday prayer gathering at L'Arche Ottawa. Here is what I offered.

READING: The grateful heart recognizes that each day has been given to us as a

gift. This gift is the love of God who fills everything. Each moment is an opportunity to say, “I will accept this with a heart of thanks even if it is difficult.” In Thomas Merton’s book Thoughts in Solitude, he speaks about the grateful heart and its need to recognize the love of God in all things. He writes, “For the grateful person knows that God is good not by hearsay but by experience.” 

REFLECTION: Some days during our Covid lockdown have been better than others for me. Most of the time, I manage the solitude simply fine; I like being quiet and without multiple interruptions. Most days I work on a project at home, do some study and prayer, some writing, check in with our children and grandchildren, take care of the dog and then fix a lovely supper for Di and myself. But sometimes – and I think this is true for everyone no matter how grateful – the weight of our waiting gets to me. It grinds me down – and tires me out even though I haven’t done very much. What I am learning is that I can still be thankful to the Lord by being honest and saying, “Gracious God, I love you and give you thanks for this day, but I really need a break – some extra rest – even some time to feel the blues.” Our God is big enough to keep loving me even when I feel small. Or afraid. Or confused. If I try to pretend everything is fine, I am not being real – and while God continues to love me – nothing gets better. Sometimes I just need a time out. Maybe you do, too. Knowing we can be down, or sad, or weary and still give thanks to the Lord has been an important lesson for me. And, like Fr. Merton says in the reading, “I know its fine with God because I have felt God’s love even in those down times.”

ora et labora for a reluctant but patient novice...

For the past four days I have been living into the ora et labora rhythm of prayer

and work as summer ripens. Mostly it has been labora with a bit of ora thrown in for good measure. Our lovely wooden deck and back doors serve us well all year long. Over the past 13 years, however, they have been in constant use and this summer quietly called out for some in serious rebuilding. After all, they are well over 30 years old - and ours is an OLD house. An old wooden house in the rolling hills of New England. So while I am still older than our domicile, the wooden structure was brought into being in 1955 with modest wooden shingles that needs regular attention given the damp, snow, rain, wind and moss peculiar to these parts. In the past I worked on our parts of the deck with a dear and skilled friend. But in these days of corona contagion, it was time to fly solo - and, in doing so, I learned a few things.

+ A great number of things on this house are "irregular." That is partly due to changing building code standards, partly the handiwork of the highly talented previous owner, and partly the work of Satan. There can be no other explanation for why the wood molding around our doors measures 2 1/4" in width but you can only purchase 1" or 3" molding. Or why the local lumber yard will sell you all types of wood but will not cut it for length. For width, no problem. But ask to take 1" off a 3" board and now we're talking things forbidden which casts novice carpenters like myself into yet another circle of hell. When I expressed my distress, the very wise, very young and ultimately very stubborn clerk said, "Oh, you don't have a circular saw?" with a look that implied I probably did not have my parent's permission to be shopping let alone working with power tools.  He quickly added, "We have some on sale, you know..."  Oh yes, I nodded, I DID know, but refused to take the bait. Upon returning home I learned just how difficult it is to saw a straight line for 11 inches let alone 6 feet. Twice on this first day I struck out trying to do this and chose to cobble together another homemade solution that was far easier but not nearly as aesthetically satisfying. All the while I was counting on Bruce Springsteen's wisdom in "Human Touch" to save the day where he assures us that all it takes is "a little touch up and a bit of paint." But after nine hours, the jury was still out on the whether advice from the Boss on love can be transferred to wood working. Let's just say that I now have a new appreciation for the limits of beginner's mind. Building, demolishing and rebuilding two door's worth of molding and frames will do this to a soul. 

+ Carpentry for beginners ALWAYS takes twice as long as you anticipate - and always costs twice your budget. On day two there was much less cursing. There was a little more prayer as well as a variety of extended silences that were only interrupted by the deep sighs born of my aching back. I was moving at half speed on knees that now ached like an old man's. Ok, ok, I AM an old man - and I felt like one on day number two as my lower back engaged me in constant conversation and complaint. David Bromberg used to sing, "You've got to suffer if you want to sing the blues" and I made some stunning discoveries through my pain: like boards that have been labeled 12 feet in length are really 3/4 of an inch shorter. Who knew and why has this been kept a secret from me and those I love? Thank God i bought up all the available 12" and 10" boards on  Monday morning. There were none to purchase on Sunday afternoon given the covid production lag. A quick Google search told me that this was true across the US of A. So I returned to the lumber yard on Monday morning where I scored all the wood I needed only to find that the entire aisle of deck screws was now empty. And I mean totally void of anything looking like the 2 or 3 inch coated screws necessary in holding deck planks to their appropriate joists. This required a third scouting expedition on Tuesday morning where I found six lonely boxes of screws - and yes, I counted them - sitting in sad isolation. Instinctively I grabbed two like Jean Val Jean stuffing bread inside his shirt in "Les Mis"  and rushed to the self check-out line praying there was not a screw quota.

+ Who knew that it would take 45 minutes to chisel through a strong

albeit very thin piece of molding wood? I mistakenly believed that day number three would be a walk in the park. There was only a 7" splice to be made on a rotting board along the roof. So, just a cut here, a replacement there, a dab of paint and then crank out the sangria, right? Except that the one little piece of molding wanted a fight. Only 2 inches were rotten - the rest was strong and healthy and oh so goddamn stubborn! Forty five minutes later, perched 8 feet in the air using a chisel like I was carving the Hebrew commandments into stone, I completed a reasonably straight cut all the while despising this tiny freaking piece of wood. Di often laughs when I curse inanimate objects. "That's one of the funniest things you do," she often tells me. Rest assured, I did not think that stinking little bastard of a board was a laughing matter at all. The silver lining was that now the words of the Boss did make some sense and with a little touch up an a bit of paint things looked pretty good. I still had to wrestle with plastic wood in the afternoon. That stuff is like quick sand. It is supposed to fill in holes and then harden so that compromised wood might last another season. But it sticks to your fingers - and putty knife - without always adhering to the gap in the wood. My brother wrote something like, "I admire your courage taking on all this without every once consulting You Tube or 'This Old House,' right?" How did he know? I wrapped up this encounter with work and prayer this morning by touching up some fading paint on other exterior walls.

Cynthia Bourgeault makes a point in her wisdom training school that one of the reasons monks of the Western tradition insist upon a balance between prayer and work is that one feeds the other. Silence over long stretches of time doing repetitive labor does open the mind and heart to deep thoughts. It's a great time to memorize texts, songs, and prayers, too. This week I was able to sort out what I can share on my Sunday live-streaming reflection . I had the time to hold loved ones in prayer even as I came to terms with the fact that it will remain impossible for me to travel to the L'Arche Ottawa community until sometime in 2021. My soul is nourished by the time I spend in community - and I love nearly everyone I have met at L'Arche. During my working prayers this week it became clear that I need another layer of engagement and accountability. There is just so much I can expect from Zoom. So, I renewed my associate membership in the Iona Community this week as a way of reaching out for the spiritual, intellectual and artistic interaction I need personally. I continue to cherish my engagement with L'Arche even as I add the guidance of the Rule of Iona to my shifting spirituality.

As I have noted elsewhere, I am much more of a friar on pilgrimage than a monk living in cloistered stability. My Brooklyn buddy, Pam, wrote to me that this was a dilemma for Herman Hesse, too and he resolved it by choosing a life on the road. That is not an option now so, like Merton advised, I need to grow where I am planted. And the Rule of Iona is a resource to keep me focused. It has been a rich, demanding, physically painful but aesthetically satisfying week of prayer and work. Macrina Wiederkehr has written: "If I am slavishly attached to the previous moment or if I'm already living tomorrow's moments, then I am not free for the moment of the eternal now." Thanks be to God.