it's been a long time coming...

  

Indeed it HAS been a LONG time coming - decades, in fact - but the blessing is becoming clearer: the deeper I go into the spirituality of Jesus the more I lose interest in traditional theology and doctrine. I don't make this confession lightly, ok? I have found solace and insight for at least 50 years in some of my tradition's wisdom and its keepers. And yet, as I survey my current book shelf - after culling perhaps 600+ texts in anticipation of retirement - the evidence is staggering: I kept none of the foundational systematic theologies from the Reformation and a mere handful of Roman Catholic works concerning beauty as a revelation of the sacred. What remains?

+ Lots of Richard Rohr, Henri Nouwen, Barbara Brown Taylor, Cynthia Bourgeault, Frederick Buechner, Joan Chittister, Kathleen Norris, Belden Lane, John Philip Newell, and various volumes of Iona liturgies.

+ A bunch of Brueggemann, a cornucopia of Celtic spirituality, piles of poetry and mountains of music anthologies along with a variety of manuals re: spiritual direction, dreams, archetypes, mythopoetic men's issues, and history.

+ And since retirement I keep adding commentary of the Scriptures after giving most away 8 years ago. I am particularly grateful for the work of Amy-Jill Levine and her deep scholarship. In ways I never expected, I keep going back both professionally and personally to the "way" of Jesus. But not as my tradition has historically interpreted him in doctrine and creeds, but mystically. More as sacrament for authentic living than sacrificial lamb.

These days I find a life-giving resonance in Bouregault's reclamation of St. Mary Magdalene as a model of Christian discipleship. I experience centering and soul guidance from Richard Rohr's wisdom re: the Cosmic Christ/Paschal Mystery as a window into holy/human reality. And Barbara Brown Taylor's ripening critique of contemporary Christianity speaks to my heart when she writes that the way of authentic mysticism is all about liberation and tender accountability:

It is about freeing you from your ideas about God, your fears about God, your attachment to all the benefits you have been promised for believing in God, your devotion to the spiritual practices that are supposed to make you feel closer to God, your dedication to doing and believing all the right things about God, your positive and negative evaluations of yourself as a believer in God, your tactics for manipulating God, and your sure cures for doubting God. (Learning to Walk in the Dark, p. 145)

I suppose my path has always been experiential: my prayer is music - and now gardening. My guides have long been Dylan, Mitchell, Cohen, the Beatles, the Boss, U2, Coltrane, Miles, Simone, Lou Reed, CSN&Y, Gil-Scott Heron, Coburn, Gaye, Simon, Grateful Dead, and Carrie Newcomer. I keep going back to the poetry of Bly, Oliver, Clifton, O'Tuama, Berry, Levertov, Rumi, and Collins with side trips to Angelou, Lorde, Olds, and Kabir. As Taylor puts it: "Doctrines and creeds are no longer enough to keep faith alive. Instead, the faithful seek practical guidance and direct experience of the sacred." Small wonder, then that at just the right time - from an unexpected source - I've been redirected back to Walter Wink's brilliant and challenging, The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of Man, and Cynthia Bouregault's, The Wisdom Jesus: A New Perspective on Christ and His Message.

All of which has given me a fresh perspective on Lent and Holy Week. In the past I have gone deep into the story of what happened to Jesus. That still moves me. And yet what strikes me as more important now is how the events of Christ's life inform my own journey. How these events sacramentally teach me how to become more fully alive. Taylor writes:

What is saving my life now is the conviction that there is no spiritual treasure to be found apart from the bodily experiences of human life on earth. My life depends on engaging the most ordinary physical activities with the most exquisite attention I can give them. My life depends on ignoring all touted distinctions between the secular and the sacred, the physical and the spiritual, the body and the soul. What is saving my life now is becoming more fully human, trusting that there is no way to God apart from real life in the real world. To make bread or love, to dig in the earth, to feed an animal or cook for a stranger—these activities require no extensive comment-ary, no lucid theology. All they require is someone willing to bend, reach, chop, and stir. Most of these tasks are so full of pleasure that there is no need to complicate things by calling them holy. And yet these are the same activities that change lives, sometimes all at once and sometimes more slowly, the way dripping water changes stone. In a world where faith is often construed as a way of thinking, bodily practices remind the willing that faith is a way of being real in our everyday, ordinary, walking around lives.

It is, perhaps, appropriate then that earlier this week an old and mighty wooden arbor crashed to the ground during one of the recuring wind storms that are becoming normative. It was hefty and strong. It was here when we arrived some 16 years ago. But slowly, left to the sun, wind, rain, snow, and insects it rotted from the inside out - and collapsed when its time was done. For about 8 years, we used that old arbor for our outdoor chapel: we've gathered there for prayer with our children and grandchildren, we've sat in that silent space contemplatively, and adorned it with a horse-shoe cross our buddy, Roger from Tucson, made for us as well as a deep and melodic wind chime. And now our old friend is gone. I added the beams to a rustic fence that borders the wetlands out back all the while pondering what will replace it. So far nothing has grabbed my heart except adding a bit of bamboo fencing and wild flowers. Meister Eckhart writes: "The soul does not grow by addition, but by subtraction." And so we walk deeper into the darkness of Holy Week.