it was 60 years ago today (well, almost...)

A FB meme recently proclaimed that it was 60 years ago that Meet the Beatles was released in the USA: January 20, 1964. 

Two weeks later, February 9th, they were on the Ed Sullivan Show - and my world changed forever for the better! Not only did the Beatles open my heart as if it were Pentecost, but they gave me an aesthetic that would ripen right along with them from the sassy young rock'n'rollers from tough Liverpool to the mystical musical mentors  who kept going deeper into culture, politics, spirituality, and creativity. Two weeks after the first Sullivan show, they returned - and when I heard John Lennon scream during "Twist and Shout" the skies opened, the Spirit fell upon me, and my life finally had meaning.

And I'm not speaking just metaphorically - although that was true, too. In the fullness of time, as the Scriptures often say, my soul was lifted by the Beatles beyond the drudgery of teen age angst in a way that impelled me to learn to play the guitar, find common ground with four other guys my age, create our own music, and publicly share the sounds that fed our hearts. Those who have not been awakened like this will think I'm exaggerating. But those who speak in tongues know what I'm talking about. Those who have experimented with psychedelics know, too along with Beat poets, jazz players, and gospel choirs. The music can literally raise you from the ordinary so that every pour feels fully alive.

We lived in Sudbury, MA when all of this broke. I had a small red Japanese transistor radio that I took to bed with me every night first to listen to WINS in NYC - 1010WINS with Murray the K @ 7 pm - and after his count down to switch over to WBZ in Boston for a comparable Beatles extravaganza. (check it out @ https://www.murraythek.com) Right after Christmas '63, I was at my friend, Frank Sisson's home, when his father brought home that first American Beatles album. Earlier, I'd bought a cheap Beatles' rip off album for $1.98 that I didn't know was a knock off. I played it relentlessly until my naive self discovered the scam.

Sitting in Frank's living room with the REAL deal, however, kept the fire burning. This was 6-7 grade. We begged and pleaded with Grandma Deanne and Poppa Fred to take us to the Oxford Drive In Theatre when "A Hard Day's Night" premiered. And before I got my first guitar in 8th grade, my brother Phil and I made fake wooden guitars in the shape of Lennon's Rickenbacker and Harrison's Country Gentleman which we took down to the basement with our record player and mimed our way through Meet the Beatles and The Beatles Second Album with a Dionysian passion: cranked up high, this was ecstatic and life-affirming embodied prayer for two adolescent guys who were almost pathologically shy. We could be cocky and cute, we could shake our booties innocently, and begin to sense what sensuality was all about.

And what was true 60 years ago today continues to be true for me now: I STILL go wild with the Beatles. Dave and I, in The Two of Us, play a LOT of Beatles' tunes from "I've Got a Feeling" and "You Can't Do That" to "It Won't Be Long" and a lot of the acoustic songs from 1965. And my grandson, Lou, at 10 years old is getting down to "She Loves You" and "I've Just Seen a Face." Right now "Day Tripper" and "While My Guitar Gentle Weeps" are our favorites. 

Not everyone grasps our passion. That goes with the territory. But for those whose eyes have been opened, the Beatles create common ground with beauty and style. As I was out in San Francisco working on my Doctor of Ministry degree, my brother and sister-in-law joined me in North Beach for a weekend festival. It was cold and foggy as we sat on the ground in Washington Square Park in North Beach. There were street people still sleeping off last night's buzz along with yuppies and young families. Then the "Sun Kings" - a Beatles' cover band - took the stage, played the opening chord to "A Hard Day's Night" and that crowd of 600 strangers became community instantaneously. Little ones from Dot.Com families were dancing with wizened denizens of North Beach, old hippies were chatting up cops, and every imagined sexuality was singing along together in a unified chorus of pure joy for two hours. It was holy ground - and continues to be holy ground as we keep the magic alive.

Today I give thanks to the One who is holy for opening my heart and soul to the Beatles - and for that first mind-blowing album.

the snow has arrived...

The snow has arrived - and for at least a moment all feels right with the world. We walked through the wetlands this afternoon as the dry powder poured down upon us. Lucie romped like a puppy. Our new neighbors introduced their six-month old son to the pleasures of snowboarding. It is quiet, cold, and dark here just as January should be in these parts.

Today's snow struck me as a sacramental gift as we walked in quiet solitude. Less than 24 hours after the close of the Iowa caucus it whispered that there is still more awe, beauty, serenity, and joy to be revealed. Debacle and despair are real, but never the whole story. So let's savor the winsome wonder of this day however it surfaces because, at some point, just below this frosty blanket of elegance lies a new mess waiting to be revealed. The frozen powder currently covering our barren landscape and muffling the noise of the road, will eventually give way to the comingling of mud, muck and the detritus of autumn. They, too, move us towards new life as winter slowly morphs into spring. But for a time what was once pure will become soiled. What once felt reassuring will seem unhinged. And what once strengthened our souls will give way to the practice of patience and careful discernment.

This election cycle, like Mud Season in New England, will expose all that is ugly, dangerous, and challenging within our body politic. I studiously refuse to pretend that I know how this shakes out. I just trust that humility and love are the necessary virtues of this hour. Those who choose otherwise are either ignorant or arrogant or both. All we know for certain is that there is more volatility in play in 2024 than 2020 or 2016 - more guns, propaganda, fear, loathing, and suffering, too. I can't recall who said it but it rings true that the reason fascists hate love is because love is unpredictable. Uncontrollable. Healing and transformative. With a prophetic prescience, MLK said: "I have decided to stick with love; hate is a burden too great to bear." St. Paul got it right when he told us:

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love. Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head, doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,” doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, doesn’t revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, Trusts God always, always looks for the best, never looks back, and keeps going to the end. Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

Love connects us - it is how solidarity transforms individuals, cultures, and even nations. Hatred corrals us into siloes. It celebrates segregation. So let's be clear right now that we are called by the sacred to see beyond the mean-spirited demagogues who manipulate the all too real wounds of rural America and the white working class and remember they are family. Let us choose to trust love and mystery whenever they preach division and violence. And let us listen ever so carefully to the cries of the poor, the silence of those denied a voice, and the unspoken fear of so many sisters and brothers of every race, gender, class, and nationality. 

Walking in the snow is not only therapeutic and refreshing, it is soul food for compassion. It offers us the gift of silent beauty at the same time it invites us to know that there is so much more going on just below the surface. It is a both/and prayer not a binary judgement.

why the inward journey is essential for social justice...

Last night I began reading James Finley's insights in

Christian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of God. He makes three wise, counter-intuitive, and helpful observations.

+ First, to practice meditation is to recognize both our ego consciousness and our mystical consciousness. "By ego consciousness, I am referring to the consciousness that manifests itself in saying: I want, I think, I need, I feel, I remember, I like, I don't like, etc... it is a precious gift from God" but it is incomplete because it separates us from the totality of creation. "Ego consciousness, in and of itself, is not expansive enough to fulfill our hearts... it is not generous enough to bring us all the way home (and) too one-dimensional to be the subjective ground of infinite union with eternity." To recognize and honor our ego consciousness is vital as a first step in awakening "to the eternal unity with God that IS the deeper reality of ourselves and everyone and everything around us." 

+ Second, meditation can only play a part in healing some of the suffering humans experience. "Even if we could manage to become a perfectly healthy ego, there would still remain the suffering that arises from experiencing ourselves as nothing more than our ego." This distinguishes authentic meditation from self-help practices that focus on an individual's personal inner transformation. The inward journey is vital, but too often remains segregated from the rest of reality. Ego consciousness is too small: "it perceives being as a separate self that must search for God (who is also perceived as a being other than one's self.) As ego consciousness yields and gives way to meditative awareness, we beging to recognize the surprising nearness of God, already perfectly present in the intimate recesses of our very being."

+ And third, the point and practice of authentic meditation is to "awaken us to the already present oneness with God we seek." Finley is so on target here writing "to practice meditation as an act of faith is to open oneself to the endlessly reassuring realization that our very being and the very being of everyone and everything else around us IS the generosity of God... we meditate that we might awaken to this unitive mystery, not just in meditation, but in every moment of our lives."

This is how Jesus lived. Whether he was seeing a child crawling up into his lap or a leper wanting to be healed; whether he was seeing a prostitute or his own mother; whether he was seeing the joy of a wedding feast or the sorrow of loved ones weeping at the burial of a loved one; whether he was seeing his own disciples or his executioners: he saw God. We meditate that we might learn to see through Christ's eyes the divine mystery of all that surrounds us.

Small wonder Fr. Richard Rohr recruited Finley to be a part of his core master teachers: learning to see and live beyond the limitations of our binary ego is essential in releasing a liberating compassion. I read somewhere that the reason fascists strive to replace love with fear is that love cannot be controlled. And living in a loving unity with reality is journeying with the holy. That's where so many activists get into a mess: they rely on their feelings, intellect, and analysis - their egos - without realizing that what separates us eventually gives up the ghost. It is not big enough to embrace the suffering. How did Joni Mitchell put it back on "The Last Time I Saw Richard" on her masterwork Blue? "All romantics (and I would add activists) meet the same fate some day: drunk and cynical and boring someone in some dark cafe." Left to ourselves, we all run out of gas. Joined mystically with love from the inside out, however, we are a part of creation itself.

Now let me add that I am a wayward monk when it comes to disciplined meditation. For the past 30 years I have dabbled  in, vigorously practiced, and then incrementally abandoned centering prayer. I keep returning, like Siddhartha to the Ganges River, and find it refreshing and restorative. And still I wander. When I was wacked with RSV earlier this month, however, two realities hit home. One had to do with my mortality: this was the first time I truly felt old. Recognizing at a heart level that there is much less precious time in front of me than behind is a hard master - and it broke through some of my ego illusions that have encouraged procrastination. The other came from something Cynthia Bourgeault wrote: those truly empty and silent moments of absolute serenity that happen during Centering Prayer are a taste of eternity. The dark, tender abyss we experience in silence is prelude to what we shall know forever on the other side of this life. Being sick, at least for me this time, was a threshold - and I've learned a lot about thresholds from the late John O'Donohue:

At any time you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter? What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it? A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms, and atmospheres. Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that it intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up. At this threshold a great complexity of emotion comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossings were always clothed in ritual. It is wise in your own life to be able to recognize and acknowledge the key thresholds: to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward. The time has come to cross.

I am taking my time with this one but it is clear it's time to cross back towards a deeper practice of silence. 

a humble look at a new way of serving God's church...

In three weeks I start serving a new congregation as their Interim Minister: it will be a journey of discovery for us all. Like many old-timers entering this new type of ministry, I come with a set of skills that are not always valued by those who "do" interim work over the long haul. Indeed, I have witnessed healthy congregations disoriented and wounded as "professional" interim pastors apply a one-size-fits-all approach to their calling. Not so for me: as I learned over 40 years of full-time service in four different congregations, my first job is to listen carefully to the people and the Spirit as we pursue incarnating the love of Jesus for our context.

Starting in the 1980's, an extended "family systems" type of interim ministry became normative throughout the once mainstream - but now side-lined - Protestant churches of the United States. The intent was both noble and well-intended; this type of interim ministry was predicated upon solving problems. For a few centuries, pastoral accountability had become non-existent. Clergy abuse was sky-rocketing, pastoral alienation and loneliness was epidemic, and a host of bad habits had evolved that often left congregations caught in a cycle of "doing the same old thing over and over while expecting different results." The "new" model was designed to interrupt old patterns of thinking and acting, help lay leaders explore new and healthier models of ministry, and offer the necessary training to turn our words into deeds. 

The former interim ministry model involved tapping retired and experienced pastors to serve for a few months while new settled leadership was brought into place. (For an insightful take on this, read my colleague's reflection @ https: //richardlfloyd.com/2010/08/09/ten-theses-about-interim-ministry/) For many churches the old model worked, but for just as many, it did not. And the new reform clearly worked in identifying entrenched bad habits that could be named and addressed. What did not work, it seems to me, was treating the reform in a linear or sequential manner. This created a mechanical approach to nourishing the life of the Spirit. Remember how sequentially many treated the "stages of grief?" It also reinforced the "pastor as fixer" model rather than the pastor as partner in ministry. Pastoral accountability continued to be minimal, congregations continued to be sold a bill of goods about what their "fixer" could truly accomplish, and a wooden application of the interim work wounded and diminished existing strong, faithful, and creative lay leadership.

Nearly 50 years later, another corrective has come into play intended to bring greater sensitivity to the interim work, address the clergy shortage crisis, tenderly discern what the Spirit may be saying to each congregation, and do so using skills that are analytically objective AND spiritually humble. What's more, the potential exists for this new model to practice what I call "small is holy" or please do not rush the movement of the Holy Spirit. Pastoral skill is valued, as is a slow pace of interaction, so that trust and respect is nourished. Further, in the five identified tasks of interim ministry, it is now normative that not ALL tasks are equal in value in every congregation. Some faith communities are NOT broken. We are all risk averse to one degree or another, but that does not make them dysfunctional. And while not all existing churches are called by the Spirit to close, or merge, the new working hypothesis is: it takes time to discern this so move with careful deliberation. As one wise soul put it: The rule of an interim should be like a doctor: “Do no harm.” A good interim will leave a small footprint.

One of the realities I find most refreshing five years after walking away from the church, is the pastoral and programmatic expertise of our new crop of denominational leaders. These servants are stretched and challenged by a 21st culture of disdain for organized religion. But instead of despair and exhaustion, many of the new leaders see possibilities. As one wise soul has said to me on multiple occasions: remember, we serve a God of resurrection. I am humbled to be a part of this era's transitional ministry. I start in February - and I'll keep you posted. I'll also keep you up-to-date on the music work we're doing because that is just as important in culture care as anything more formal.

postponing small is holy until epiphany 2024...

As disappointed as I was yesterday about having to postpone the start of a New Year of contemplative reflections on "Small is Holy," I am even more bummed today as I realize it's best to simply chill this week as I recover from whatever muck has taken control. Talk about invasion of the body snatchers! Thankfully, it’s not COVID again (that unwanted guest came, left, and returned in October.) No, this stranger is more of a raw throat, respiratory congestion with periodic bursts of hacking. I’m old enough to know that this too shall pass but this means another week of practicus interruptus where my music plans have been moved to hold. The upside is that I can stay warm while enjoying the entirety of Christmastide. Not everyone in our culture has such a luxury and I don’t want to waste this unintended down time.

Two poems by Madelene L’Engle have been close to my heart this season: The Risk of Birth, Christmas 1973 and First Coming. Both gently insist that sentimentalizing the Christmas story is both historically and spiritually wrong. If we’re to find eyes to truly see, we must practice a sacramental metaphysics, one that knows how to wait and search the most unlikely places for presence of the Christ-child. That’s why this year we’ve seen so many nativity icons set in the rubble of the war between Israel and Gaza: NOT because Jesus was a Palestinian (that’s an ideological simplicity of the most damaging type; yes, modern day Bethlehem does lay within the confines of West Bank, but to call Jesus (or the Holy Family) Palestinians is anachronistic and dishonest). Rather, this war – and all the others – reminds us that the holy continues to break into history whether we choose to see it or not.

This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.

That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honor & truth were trampled by scorn–
Yet here did the Savior make his home.

When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn–
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

Her second poem, First Coming, challenges us to go beyond ideology, simplicity, sentimentality, and all the consumerism of a contemporary Christmas and trust that the holy is already being incarnated even in our own broken realities. It is, if you will, a holiday restatement of MLK’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, written during his i1962 incarceration, Dr. King tell us:

“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

Carrie Newcomer channels MLK and Rabbi Hillel when she sings, “If not now, tell me when.: Ms. L’Engle does likewise as she reframes the Christmas story in it’s authentic context.

He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace
He came when the Heavens were unsteady
and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. He did not wait

till hearts were pure. In joy he came
to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
He came, and his Light would not go out.

He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

So, no music for me this week – except personal practice – and we’ll pause “Small is Holy” until NEXT Sunday and the Feast of Epiphany. Be well, beloved. Be grounded. Be safe. And rejoice in the Lord always.