thank you holy fools...

Now that our pilgrimage into a Celtic Advent has come to a close - a quiet time of reflection, silence, song, prayer, and creative wandering for 40 days - I've been wondering

where our Sunday morning reflections might be headed for the New Year? (For those who are interested, you can find the video series here @ https://www.facebook.com/Be-Still-and-Know-913217865701531/videos) My heart suggests that for most of us 2021 will

continue to be unchartered territory - an evolving pilgrimage of sorts - where the challenge and invitation will be to experientially honor a new manner of emotional, physical, political, spiritual, and creative meandering by faith. Fr. Richard Rohr speaks of our time as an unveiling where, "despite the uncertainty and disorder, our present moment is an opportunity to awaken to a deeper transformation, love and hope." He adds that finally "learning that we are not in control situates us correctly in the universe."

If we are to feel at home in this world, we have to know that we are not steering the ship. That teaching is found in the mystical writings of all re
ligions. Mystics know they are being guided, and their reliance upon that guidance is precisely what allows their journey to happen.

A few clues keep climbing into consciousness. Christine Valters Paintner insists that paying attention to the threads of synchronicity that keep showing up in our lives - following them, listening to them, observing them, and honoring them - is one way to live into the holy wandering of Celtic pilgrimage. The ancient monks did not move towards a fixed destination as theirs was neither a linear pilgrimage nor a goal as is common in the West. Rather, theirs was an expedition of the heart, a quest for inner resurrection where our best self is revealed and renewed. It is where our truest songs are heard and sung. It is where our soul finds safety and succor to resume our odyssey into mystery. And while our heart's resurrection always rings true deep within, discerning where it will show up next is always a surprise.

Before Advent, I found myself reading about Alana Levandoski and listening to selections from her most recent album: Hymns from the Icons (check her out @ https://gumroad.com/alanalevandoskimusic) Awhile back I'd seen some press for her work with James Finley - particularly Sanctuary - but truth be told I am so done with worship and praise music that I stayed away. In retrospect, that was my mistake because it is a powerful collection, but as they say, "only when the student is ready will the Buddha appear." I liked the artists she covered on Icons - Leonard Cohen, Bob Marley, Mary Gauthier, Bob Dylan, Grateful Dead, Johnny Cash and others - they are among some of my favorites, too.  And while listening to "Mercy Now," there were tears in my eyes. 

Frederick Buechner wrote in his masterful, Whistling in the Dark, that we should pay attention to our tears:

YOU NEVER KNOW what may cause them. The sight of the Atlantic Ocean can do it, or a piece of music, or a face you've never seen before. A pair of somebody's old shoes can do it. Almost any movie made before the great sadness that came over the world after the Second World War, a horse cantering across a meadow, the high school basketball team running out onto the gym floor at the start of a game. You can never be sure. But of this you can be sure. Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go to next.

So I went to her website, found that she was offering a collection of CDs before Christmas, and put in an order. Coming from Canada took a bit of time and when they finally arrived I was wrapping up my own Celtic Advent and L'Arche Ottawa writing. I thought, "Let's just wait until the 12 days of Christmas and take this new music slow." Last night, however, Levandoski put out a steam-punk song based on lyrics from Alfred Lord Tennyson she calls, "Ring Out the Bells." It is brilliant - and her own precise and insightful description of why and how she put it out warrants sharing.

In 1850 Tennyson published a requiem called In Memoriam, written as he grieved the sudden death of his sister's fiancé, who was also a beloved friend. The poem Ring Out, Wild Bells, oft-used to ring in the New Year, was part of that requiem. In my own more roots-oriented style, I composed music for this poem because I was drawn to the universal hope and longing contained within the poem. It is overreaching, and perhaps naive, especially in light of the colonialism of Tennyson's time, and that two world wars were on their way, that would catapult a technology that was rooted in destructive ideas, rather than life-giving ideas. Still, I was drawn to how universal the sincerity of the longing was. 

I decided to have a steampunk-themed video, because steampunk was inspired by early tech and the victorian era... and as a contemplative Christian, I wanted to push the envelope a bit... in terms of the boxes we put ourselves into. This year has been strange and difficult, and filled with suffering. And invoking a bit of the sacred clown energy, I decided to bring in a bit of burlesque, to offset the "awful solemnity" (as Thomas Merton called it) I am seeing, especially in spaces of comfort and privilege. I sometimes struggle with awful solemnity... and it renders me unable to find the infinite possibilities for traction that we have... to work collectively toward true equity, which is what, I think, this song is longing for. 

I think this song is a prayer for JUBILEE. Forgive us our debts. 

And... from a 21st century perspective, part of my work is to draw attention to the debts owed to people of colour, and indigenous people. When I sing this song, and invoke the words "purer laws", I imagine (at the very least), archaic policies in Canada, harmonizing with the United Nations Declaration of Indigenous Rights. When I sing "ring out the narrowing lust of gold", I imagine a time when a critical mass of people who own more than their fair share of land, participates in a phenomenal movement of land reparations, and all the young people of colour who want to farm, can own land, and have total sovereignty. When I sing "ring in the Christ that is to be", I imagine a day when the over 27,000,000 people still who are enslaved today, are raised the very highest of all. 

In other words, I didn't record this song as an excuse to bypass the heavy lifting that is ahead, for especially people who live with more comfort than is good for them. I wrote, and recorded this for the longing... and the vision... and maybe it was naïve of me... but I still hope for epiphany... which is just around the corner from New Years!!!

And AGAIN with those tears - and once more later today while doing errands and listening to Point Vierge in the car. Tears, tears, and more tears. Tears of gratitude and joy. Tears of confession and clarity. Tears of synchronicity and sojourn. That's when it all came together for me: the sacred clown. She has been my mentor since "Godspell" days. The holy fool impelled me bring Frank Zappa music into church back in the day. The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, the Eels, U2, Sarah MacLachlan and Joan Osborne too in a later incarnation. The holy fool and the feast of fools was at the center of my doctoral dissertation, While My Guitar Gently Weeps: A Spirituality of Rock'n'Roll and so much of what we did in ministry back in Tucson and Pittsfield. No wonder I copied this from note from Carrie Newcomer's "Speed of Soul" reflections over the weekend and saved it:

"You've made this day a special day, by just your being you. There's no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are."
— Fred Rogers

I have to admit, I totally love Mr. Rogers. He was never afraid to speak directly to a three year old. He didn't worry if people made jokes about is communication style, he just put on his sweater and spoke about love and kindness, community and neighborliness. He wasn't talking to adults, although he didn't mind if we listened. He was speaking to the hearts and ears that needed to hear they were special, they were whole and that the bedrock of their very being was good stuff. 

What I learned from Mr. Rogers was to never be embarrassed of being tender. That I could go ahead and speak from the goodness of my heart and the truth of who I am, go ahead and say out loud, "I love you." "There is no one in the whole world like you, and I'm so grateful you are in my life" or "I believe in you" or even, "I'm so sorry." 

So today - think of it as a little Mr. Rogers exercise - Tell someone in your life you care. Tell them a specific something you love and appreciate about them. Maybe just a text saying, "This thing you do and are...I so deeply appreciate", or a phone call or email to say, "I know this is hard, but I believe in you." Tell someone in your life today what Mr. Rogers hoped 4 year olds ( and who they became when they grew up) could learn to say to one another and to themselves, " You are special, You are whole and the bedrock of your very being was and is good stuff."

Fred Rogers, in his own humble way was a holy fool challenging the cruelty of the status quo with tenderness. While on sabbatical in Montreal, I heard my heart urging me to go deeper into what I was calling a "spirituality of tenderness" that was more profound than the peace-making of my youth and more foundation just music alone. Listening to the song of the sacred clown led me to L'Arche - and keeps me connected. It is one of the few truths that remains strong in my heart after living through the desecration of the current political regime's manipulation of Christ's church. And, upon careful reflection, that holy fool was my inspiration for spending 40 years in ordained ministry. In middle class Protestant America, there was not a lot of interest in contemplation and simple living. There was even less interest in sacramental spirituality let alone the importance of beauty as one of God's voices.  Yet that's where God called me - and for years I thought I had made a mistake - but now I realize it was one incarnation of the holy fool who: "attempts to live calmly in the middle of chaos, productively in an arena of waste, lovingly in a maelstrom of individualism, and gently in a world full of violence." (Sr. Joan Chittister)

So that is what I am sensing we'll explore as we resume our pilgrimage into 2021 during the age of contagion, chaos, solitude, and disorder. Thank you, Alana Levandowski! Thank you Joan Chittister! Thank you Frederick Buechner! Thank you, Harvey Cox! Thank you, Celtic pilgrims! Thank you, Christine Valters Paintner! Thank you, Henri Nouwen! Thank you, L'Arche Ottawa! Thank you band mates in Tucson and Pittsfield! Thank you, Martha! Thank you, Pam! Thank you, don E! Thank you, Frank Zappa, Beatles, U2, Sarah MacLachlan, Joan Osborn, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Joan Armatrading, Bob Marley, Tom Waits and so many others. Thank you, Richard Rohr! And especially thank you, Di! It seems like now is the right time to honor "being small rather than strong, valuing joy over pleasure, avoiding positions of power, and enjoying rather than avoiding moments of insecurity, fear, and awkwardness." (Jon Sweeny in The St. Francis Prayer Book)