small acts of preaching to the choir as embodied prayer...

On August 1st, Lughnassadh, I noticed one red leaf on one of the massive trees in the wetlands behind our home.Ten days later, small red vines are growing everywhere on this giant, more of her leaves are shifting, too and there are more red tips becoming visible on the shrubbery that fills the field. Our once "new" corn is now mature, bigger and with more zesty flavor than those first ears of early July. And now that the heat has finally broken, a hint of brown is starting to spread throughout the wetlands. With temperatures in the 50s at night, autumn is clearly coming: not fully here yet, but not far away.

As I've taken in what our commitment to letting more and more of the land return to its "prarie" splendor, more birds, bees, and butterflies are starting to visit. It's a small change, barely consequential outside of our tiny eco-system. But, as Carrie Newcomer notes in a recent essay, paying attention to small changes is at the core of embodied prayer. "At a time of wrestling with deep feelings of grief and a sense that the world had stopped making sense - a feeling that I’ve often revisited in these complicated times in which we live..." (noticing) the repeating patterns in nature is grounding and even salvific.

The expansive spiral of a galaxy millions of light years away was the same shape as the perfect spiral of a snail shell. The fractal shape of lightning was the same pattern seen in an area view of the Mississippi delta or the veins of a sycamore leaf. I found myself returning to this... for inspiration and reminder. In world that seemed to stop making sense, so much around me continued to be beautiful, consistant and utterly right.

She goes on to say that working on a friend's farm this past week, getting her hands into the earth and caring for its bounty, has been a true gift. "When things feel so uprooted, what a gift it is to plant - and harvest - something."

What a reminder of promise it is to harvest what has been so lovingly tended. What a symbol of hope to keep doing what we can to help the process by weeding, pruning, cutting back the suckers, adding plants that attract the bees, mulching with sweet hay—even when so much is not in our control and that rain will come as it will and the trees will fruit according to their own internal clock. (Carrie Newcomer's blog, A Gathering of Spirits, August 10, 2022.)

I find myself living into this blessed gift while making music, too. We are NOT doing anything huge: we're simply a small circle of trusted and talented friends gathering each week to play the music we love, crafting it for others in ways that celebrates solidarity, and explores what it means to "preach to the choir." Since 2017, Rebecca Solnit's essay, "Why We SHOULD Be Preaching to the Choir," has lived in a special part of my head, heart, and soul. She writes: "Do you win by chasing those who don’t share your views, or by serving and respecting those already with you? Is the purpose of the choir to sing to the infidels or inspire the faithful? What happens if the faithful stop showing up, donating, doing the work?” (Read the whole Harper's article @ https://harpers.org/ archive/2017/ 11/preaching-to-the-choir/?single=1)

On our small back deck, we've started to gather folk from time to time for what we're calling "a music house party." Our small band, plus various friends and neighbors, share 90 minutes of music and encouragement with one another. We sing, laugh, weep, share food and drink as we talk with one another about how to keep living with open hears. I've known most of those who attend for 15+ years. One young woman who will sing with us on August 28 was a confirmation class regular. Now she's a college grad, a young artist in the world, who still finds a measure of resonance by making music with us from time to time. Same goes for those who come to take it all in. Ms. Solnit insightfully notes that:

The phrase preaching to the choir properly means hectoring your listeners with arguments they already agree with, and it’s a common sin of radicals, the tendency to denounce others as a way of announcing one’s own virtue. But it can be applied too widely, to malign conversation between people whose beliefs happen to coincide. The phrase implies that political work should be primarily evangelical, even missionary, that the task is to go out and convert the heathens, that talking to those with whom we agree achieves nothing. But only the most patient and skillful among us can alter the views of those who disagree profoundly. And is there no purpose in getting preached to, in gathering with your compatriots? Why else do we go to church but to sing, to pray a little, to ease our souls, to see our friends, and to hear the sermon?

Most of our music has been heard before but we're not a "cover" band. Rather, we're troubadors in a digital era that is saturated in cynicism. That's one of the reasons we sing together: sharing the songs we love is an embodied act of encouragement - and who doesn't need encouragement right now? "Adults, like children," writes Solnit, "love hearing the great stories more than once, and most religions have prayers and narratives, hymns and songs that are seen as wells of meaning that never run dry. You can go lay down your sword and shield by the riverside one more time; there are always more ways to say how once you were blind and now can see." At our last gathering in late June, we kicked things off with the Wailin' Jennys' "One Voice" followed immediately with the Doobies' "Listen to the Music." Most of those on our deck knew both songs. They sang along with us and one another. And, there were tears of lament, gratitude, and dare I say affection flowing from both band and audience? This was embodied and audible prayer, right? An act of tender solidarity in a time of uncertainty. Or as the author of the Letter to the Hebrews puts it at the start of chapter 11: "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Clarence Jordan of Koinonia Farms used to translate this as: "Trust is the turning to dreams into deeds." 

The older I become the more I trust that my work during these later days of my life is not to convert others politically or spiritually, but to share encouragement. I belileve Solnit is right when she tells us: "One reason we emphasize conversion is that we tend to believe that ideas matter more than actions, that beliefs directly determine behavior, that a preponderance of agreement will result in political and social change." But that is simply not so. No, what more often than not brings meaningful change and healing to our world is when a small cadre of loving and grounded people persist in being embodied prayer to their culture.

The majority of Americans, according to Gallup polls from the early 1960s, did not support the tactics of the civil rights movement, and less than a quarter of the public approved of the 1963 March on Washington. Nevertheless, the march helped push the federal government to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It was at the march that Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech — an example of preaching to the choir at its best. King spoke to inspire his supporters rather than persuade his detractors. He disparaged moderation and gradualism; he argued that his listeners’ dissatisfaction was legitimate and necessary, that they must demand drastic change. White allies were needed, but black activists didn’t need to wait for them. Often, it’s an example of passionate idealism that converts others. The performance of integrity is more influential than that of compromise. Rather than meet people where they are, you can locate yourself someplace they will eventually want to be.

I am slowly learning to cherish preaching to the choir - or should I say singing WITH the choir? Or letting Mother Earth guide our work alongside the hilltop wetlands? If you are around this area on Sunday, August 28th @ 6 pm why not stop by for some songs, refreshments, and encouragement. Drop me a note and I'll forward to you the details.