all saints and souls day before the election...

NOTE: It's been said that St. Francis encouraged his monastic partners to preach the gospel at all times - using words only when necessary. That's been a mantra for me of late as I favor incarnating small acts of mercy over extended political harangues. Indeed, as the election polling seems to document, people's opinions re: Ms. Harris or Mr. Trump have long been calcified with almost no change in the status of their stand-off even two days away from November 5th. Most of us who are not ideological stalwarts are exhausted. And afraid. What's more, I believe that no matter what the outcome, people of compassion must steel themselves for the aftermath of this divisive, mean-spirited, and wildly unpredictable campaign. Like Carrie Newcomer asks in song: "Will you be my refuge? My haven in the storm? Will you keep the embers warm when my fire's all but gone? Will you remember? And bring me sprigs of rosemary, be my sanctuary 'til I can carry on?" 

Pundits as well as social scientists have noted that we are in the midst of a massive cultural/political/spiritual shift - and it is not at all clear how it will play out. So, while I never hesitate to carefully delineate the stark differences in perspective, values, and goals between the two candidates with those interested in authentic dialogue, listening carefully to their concerns, I refuse to waste my time or energy picking fights with partisan militants. Period. I do not support condescending liberals who denigrate and dehumanize Trump loyalists any more than the racist, sexist xenophobes who continue to condemn Harris as the anti-Christ. Staying within the comfort of our self-righteous siloes changes nothing and only reinforces the destructive aspects of our shadows. I pray that compassion carries the day on November 5th. I support those who advocate for radical diversity, equity, and inclusion beyond all stereotypes. And recognize, as Niebuhr taught, that even our best intentions carry with them unintended consequences that often create new antagonisms. As he was want to say:

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness. 

As my life has ripened and changed, l believe like St. Paul that there are charisms for our different stages of consciousness: compassion, humility, and solidarity are constants but they can take on different configurations. Once I was an organizer. Now I am not. Some are called to aggressively challenge the injustices - others are called to bind up the wounded and offer consolation - and both are essential. This is what came to my heart during the celebration of All Saints and All Souls Day 2024.

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One of the joys of my trip from Pittsfield to be with you each week in Palmer is the roughly 75 minutes I spend twice a day on either the Mass Pike or Route 9 through Northampton. The trees this autumn have been spectacular in all their phases. Same was true, too, this spring and summer. The beauty of Mother Nature never fails to evoke prayers of gratitude from me; they are organic icons of God’s generous grace. Now, to be sure, there ARE a few downsides to my pilgrimages, too, ok?

I can say I truly HATE getting stuck behind a tractor trailer at night in the rain. I just had the passenger side, rearview mirror replaced after one of those bad boys inadvertently squeezed me into a traffic cone while crossing a bridge in repair that tore it right off. That wasn’t fun. And three weeks ago, while heading home after Sunday worship, no sooner had I entered the Pike than my brakes totally gave up the ghost. Seems a faulty gasket let all the brake fluid leak out over the weekend after just being repaired so that on my ride home – in the rain at twilight – well… I had to give thanks to God for my old school driver’s ed, believe me, and what-ever was left of my emergency brake, too!

But those autumn trees – or once in late February when they were shrouded in ice: when the sun came up over the mountain – totally breath-taking. I can’t help but think of something the late Henri Nouwen wrote about autumn maybe years ago when he noted that our fall foliage was a lesson in the beauty of letting go: Many leaves contain yellow and orange pigments all year round, but in the spring and summer they’re masked by the vivid greens of chlorophyll.

That’s the pigment responsible for the absorption of light to provide energy for photosynthesis. But as the days shorten and the temperature falls, the chlorophyll breaks down and drains away and those yellows and oranges begin to shine through. They were there all along, quiet and un-noticed, but now they emerge as the green curtain fades. If God is a painter of autumn trees, what we see is an art not of addition but of subtraction. It’s an art of revelation, of revealing the hidden beauty of what was already there. So, too, for the reds and purples: as the chlorophyll fades, the remaining sugar in their leaves is transformed into a flavonoid called anthocyanin that protects the leaves from the sun as it starts to fade into winter. Nouwen noted that the Divine Artist not only paints by revelation, but also by transformation, protection, and subtraction.

My soul revels in the wisdom God shares with us in nature: there’s a beauty, stability and awe that helps keep me grounded. And I find a measure of comparable beauty in the rhythms of the church year: our liturgical journey with Jesus that begins with his birth, continues with his death, and then mystically moves us into his resurrection and beyond. Today opens a unique, sacramental mini-season that simultaneously evokes both endings and beginnings. All Hallow’s Eve, All Saints and All Souls Day kick off a four-week sojourn into the close of the church year at the end of this month on Christ the King Sunday, and, the opening of a new cycle as Advent re-turns on the first Sunday of December.

My ancient Celtic ancestors called this month a liminal season, Samhain, where natural and spiritual light is diminished, the mystery of darkness invites us into a deeper trust, and any division between the living and dead shrinks. This holy time is called Caol Ait (culleeth) in Gaelic meaning a “thin place” where the distance between heaven and earth collapses. Like the earth itself which celebrates the cycle of life, the church year in November likewise offers us a sacramental insight into the joy and grief that swirls within us as we re-member our beloved departed. Poet John O’Donohue said:

May you know that absence is alive with hidden presence, that nothing is ever lost or forgotten. May the absences in your life grow full of eternal echo. May you sense around you the secret Elsewhere where the presences that have left you continue to dwell.

I hear this proclaimed obliquely in today’s gospel from St. Mark where Jesus celebrates rather than excoriates one of the Pharisaical scholars of ancient Judaism. Often, he tells us: You have heard it said in tradition THIS… but I say unto you THAT. But today, Jesus praises this elder saying: Today you are not far from the kingdom. This isn’t an act of abstract ideology or a solidarity of race, class, gen-der, culture or religion. Rather, it’s Jesus showing us that God’s grace can and does break through to us in the most unexpected places: it could appear among the Pharisees who regularly oppose him, another time in a Gentile woman at the well or even a Roman centurion from the occupation army with a dying child. In each of these – and a host of other examples – Jesus makes allies among ALL types of people who willingly open their hearts and minds to God’s unconditional mercy. And I suspect that many of us have experienced something of this, too from a whole HOST of people who have made God’s love real for us even when we’re at our worst.

They might be elderly wisdom-keepers or young holy fools, old souls regardless of age incarnating the insights of the seasons or wee’uns filled with an exuberance and innocent zest for all that is noble, true, beautiful, good, and loving. In a moment I am going to invite you to share the name of one such saint who has touched your life but now no longer tarries with us physically. That’s part of the charism of All Saints and All Souls Day: we can call into consciousness that great cloud of witnesses who have crossed over into glory yet continue to pray and bless us beyond our awareness.

· And ONE of those all too human but holy salty saints in my life was Michael Daniels of blessed memory. Sadly, he passed from this life into life eternal alone – without a blood family or church home – he was laid to rest in a pauper’s grave in Cleveland about 15 years ago. I met Mike one October night maybe 30 years ago night when his wife, Cheryl, called our church to tell us that her father (an in-active member) had recently died. She requested a pastoral visit to plan his memorial service, and I agreed to go than night with NO idea what I was getting myself into.

· I arrived at their modest home and found it pitch black – no welcome lights on outside – and precious few lit on the inside. I knocked, rang the bell, and eventually Michael opened the door looking whacked out, wild-eyed, and distraught. He was about THIS tall and the blackest man I have ever met. Without a word, he motioned me inside while Cheryl got herself presentable, silently directing me to take a seat on the sofa that he proceeded to clear off. Empty pizza boxes were tossed on the floor, a few crumpled newspapers, too. And in the process, he nonchalantly uncovered a pistol buried under the trash. I didn’t know if it was loaded or not but for a moment, I sensed I was about to meet my maker.

· Thank GOD Mike eventually picked the revolver up, put safety on, and placed it into a desk drawer. To say that an unexpected relationship began with Mike would be an understatement: after we got Cheryl’s dad buried, Mike and Cheryl started attending worship. Now, both he and she, beloved children of our Living God, were hard core alcoholics with a host of mental health is-sues. To make a LONG story a bit shorter, after about two years, Cheryl went off her meds, as so often happens, disappeared into the streets of Cleveland, and was consumed for a few sad months by the worst of her untreated schizophrenia.

I regularly helped Michael search for her over the course of two months and eventually, finding her sleeping rough in a bus stop, we got Cheryl to the hospital and back on her meds. After they were reunited and settled again, one Saturday morning when Mike went out for cigarettes, Cheryl’s demons got the best of her again and in her agony swallowed a bullet from that same pistol. When Mike got home 15 minutes later, and she was dead, a hurricane of tragedy unfolded as the police arrived and arrested him on suspicion of murder, the landlord threw all of his belonging out of their second story apartment onto the street where the neighborhood junkies had a field day gathering up all that might be valuable. By the time I got him bailed out of jail everything he’d owned had been stolen, his wife was dead, and he was now homeless.

In those days I was a young, earnest, quasi-evangelical pastor committed to the spirit of Jesus, so I naively brought him home with me to camp out on our living room floor – which, as you might imagine – simply thrilled my wife and two daughters. It was not a permanent solution, of course, and a few days later I got him into a halfway house. The only condition for remaining in their shelter was that Mike get and stay clean – which he did in a dry drunk for two days. He got busted, received his one and only warning, but couldn’t keep it together for long – and three days later was tossed out on the streets again because of his drinking.

After I picked him up, we sat in my car – and wept – both of us. I eventually said: Michael, I love you like a brother, and I want the best for you. But I can’t put you up in my house again and we’ve run out of options… except for this: I could, right now, drive you to the county hospital and get you into their rehab unit. Or, you can open that door and walk away from me forever til you get clean. For what seemed like a month, but was probably only a minute, we sat in my car with our tears and the silence until he said quote: Brother James, let’s give it a go. I done lost everything already; what more can I lose? We drove in silence to Cuyahoga County General Hospital where I dropped him off with NO sense he would make it – but after 28 days he came out clean and sober.

And Michael maintained his sobriety for another 25 years, praise God! Little by little, he mov-ed BACK into the land of the living and we grew closer. He often spent holidays with my family. Often he taught me about how to live a 12 Step spiritually in his new life of sobriety. And loved to tell me that I was too damn smart for my own good because, and this is crucial, be-cause I believed I could think my way out of all my fears, shame, and wounds. He was right, of course, and because I am a slow learner, stubborn, and sometimes too full of myself it took another 15 years before, I too began to work the 12 Steps.

When ministry took me away to Arizona and then to Massachusetts, on the anniversary of his sobriety, Michael Daniels would call me. Until… he didn’t. At a conference in Cleveland, I was told by a mutual friend that my old buddy had passed. Our old church home had merged with another, and Mike didn’t fit into their prissy piety so quit attending and with no blood family or spiritual home… Michael died alone. All that I had left of our friendship was one squirrely picture taken of Mike at a church picnic and the love and wisdom we once shared now experienced only in absentia. 

That’s when All Saints Day began to matter to me – the sacred invitation to remember our loved ones who’ve crossed over in-to God’s eternal love – so every year I raise a smile, a candle, and a prayer for Michael Daniels. He became one of my mentors – a gritty little wisdom-keeper of sorts – who kept challenging me with love and humor to deal with my brokenness, my addiction to work, my fears and angst. His inner peace was hard won, but like the wisdom-keeper in today’s gospel, it was clear that God’s kingdom had come close. And I’ll bet there are people YOU would like to remember and honor this day, too. People who have loved you, touched your heart, and brought you shelter from the storm. The artist and author, Jan Richardson, said it best: "It’s HARD but HOLY to honor our beloved dead."

They make different claims, offer comforts that do not feel comfortable at the first. They do not let you remain numb. Neither do they allow you to languish forever in your grief. They will safe-guard your sorrow but will not permit that it should become your new country, your home, They knew you first in joy, in delight, and though they will be patient when you travel by other roads, it is here that they will wait for you, here they can best be found here the river runs deep with gladness, the water over each stone singing your unforgotten name.

So, let’s share some of those names – not all the stories – let’s simply say aloud ONE name, which we’ll hold for a moment together in sacred silence, At the close, we’ll lift up a prayer of gratitude for all we’ve named as well as those still silently alive in our hearts…

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Let us pray:  Gracious and Tender, Loving and Faithful God,
when we hear the word "saint" we often associate it with those who no longer walk this earth, who are dwelling in eternal rest. We can think of many people in our own lives who had an impact with us, whom we cannot wait to see them again. Lord, we have named some today, those we dearly miss who are no longer here on earth. But we rejoice that they no longer experience pain or shed any tears of sadness. They have shaped us to be more like you, and for this we will forever return thanks. (And from Jan Richardson)

For those who walked with us, this is our prayer.

For those who have gone ahead, this is our blessing.

For those who touched and tended us, who lingered with us

while they lived, this is our thanksgiving.

For those who journey still with us n the shadows of awareness,

in the crevices of memory, in the landscape of our dreams,

this is a benediction offered in the presence of Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

tranquility in an era of destruction...

While chaos, violence, and destruction fills the air all around us - and so-called acts of God aided and abetted by human generated climate change and war bring death and despair all too close to the Lord's beloved -today life in these rolling hills are saturated in a sumptuous beauty. Clearly this tranquility won't last forever as it is all grace.: a gift to be savored and honored with gratitude.

I am all too aware of the electoral storms to come. Whomever is the victor in November will bring with them differing levels of anguish to half our nation and the world beyond our borders. Pundits have been predicting a new 1968-like political violence and division. But 2024 is unique. America has now banished all manner of public civility. To be sure, compassionate and honest citizens far outnumber the barbarians within who have hunkered-down in their silos of fear and disgust. We meet them everyday and I rejoice in their courage. But our land is now weaponized beyond recognition as gun violence is greeted with a nearly universal cynical acceptance.

Nevertheless, I reject the hyperbole of the Left that insists that democracy will be destroyed in our still imperfect union Project 2025 notwithstanding. Simultaneously, I refuse to even entertain the notion that a convicted sex abuser and felon could be God's lesser of two evils in our anxious era of fear and loathing. My vision recognizes these dangers but trusts that the totality of reality is NOT defined by what I can see or comprehend. The path of Jesus insists that the story is not yet over no matter how despondent or delusional we become for Good Friday is as true as Easter. And while we may be forced into a new encounter of Nazi ethics, or, a contemporary season of deeper polarization or even a more bizarre possibility... I look not unto the hills for solace but to God. In resistance and faith, I embrace this prayerful insight of Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you; your ideas mature gradually—let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

welcoming the growing dark mystery with trust and awe...

From the primal and sacramental wisdom of John O'Donohue:

On the day when

The weight deadens

On your shoulders

And you stumble,

May the clay dance

To balance you.

“And when your eyes

Freeze behind

The grey window

And the ghost of loss

Gets into you,

May a flock of colours,

Indigo, red, green

And azure blue,

Come to awaken in you

A meadow of delight.

“When the canvas frays

In the currach of thought

And a stain of ocean

Blackens beneath you,

May there come across the waters

A path of yellow moonlight

To bring you safely home.

“May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

May the clarity of light be yours,

May the fluency of the ocean be yours,

May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow

Wind work these words

Of love around you,

An invisible cloak

To mind your life.”

returning thanks on the autumnal equinox: let all creation cry gloyr!

This week marks the Autumnal Equinox: once upon a time I didn't even know such a thing existed. But now? Well, I am a bit more informed about the vital rhythms of Mother Nature. There are a ton of reasons why I'm less asleep about my place in creation than before, but being partnered with Di is foundational. She is a total water child who is more Selkie than almost any thing else. Our daughters - and their children and animals - have been instrumental, too. So, too, leaving urban America for the desert Southwest and then returning to the rolling hills of Western Massachusetts have been life-changing. And may I NEVER forget the role Lucie the Wonder Dog has played.

Getting reconnected with gardening and walking in the wetlands as been an encounter with embodied prayer. This evening I gathered up a basket full of fresh basil: besides pinon wafting through the house or frankincense in worship, is there any scent more holy? Not for me - so I cherish our herb garden as holy ground. The wetlands behind our home is filled with red grapevines, brilliant yellow leaves, bold white milkweed, and every hue of green and brown imaginable. As we sit for tea in the morning or lunch midday, the visual bounty before us sings praise to all that is holy! The Community of Iona's founder, George MacLean, used to insist that all of creation cries glory throughout the year - and these days, I'm a believer.

On Sunday, our band, Wednesday's Child, will share an afternoon of song and poetry at a friend's spectacular restored barn. This band is comprised of soul mates I have known for nearly 20 years. We trust one another. We pray for each with voices, hearts, eyes, and songs. And we blend harmonies - and kick ass rock and roll - with as much of grace and verve  as Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. And like that band, our Sunday gig will start off with "wooden/acoustic" music before cranking out our favorite "electric" songs. We've got some fascinating arrangements of "Paint It Black" along with "Fields of God," "Helplessly Hoping," and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." This poem/prayer by artist Jan Richardson evokes part of the groove:

Go slow
if you can.
Slower.
More slowly still.
Friendly dark
or fearsome,
this is no place
to break your neck
by rushing,
by running,
by crashing into
what you cannot see.
Then again,
it is true:
different darks
have different tasks,
and if you
have arrived here unawares,
if you have come
in peril
or in pain,
this might be no place
you should dawdle.
I do not know
what these shadows
ask of you,
what they might hold
that means you good
or ill.
It is not for me
to reckon
whether you should linger
or you should leave.
But this is what
I can ask for you:
That in the darkness
there be a blessing.
That in the shadows
there be a welcome.
That in the night
you be encompassed
by the Love that knows
your name.

So, tonight I'll make pesto as a prayer. I've already packed up our musical gear with sacramental tenderness. My rock'n'roll brother and I will set the stage tomorrow at midday with care. Then, I'll review my worship notes for Sunday. Lead worship in the morning. And then...may blessings abound. If you would like to join us, please send me a note and I will forward you the address. 

embracing the wisdom of sister autumn at the equinox...

The next few months are among my favorite as they evoke both "liminal space" and a sense of nature's wisdom calling us to listen and tenderly shift gears. The wetlands behind our home are already turning shades of amber, auburn, and crimson. Pumpkins dot the terrain, too with their vibrant orange and gold. Evenings are increasingly cooler as Brother Sun gives up 2-3 minutes of light every day. And a combination of sorrow mixed with possibility is present in the very air we breathe. The wise feminist teacher and shaman, Starhawk, puts it well:

A real relationship with nature is vital for our spiritual development as well as our psychic health. It is also a vital base for any work we do to heal the earth and transform the social and political systems that assault her daily.

For one who savors this season, New England is the place to be as fresh apple cider fills roadside stands, gardens share the bounty of summer's last hurrah, and the few remaining ears of sweet corn linger to tease us with their impending farewell. Those far wiser than I teach that as the autumn equinox approaches, all that is sacred in creation ask us to recognize God's invitation to find reclaim a measure of balance in our lives.

A balance of light and dark, spirit and body, mind and soul. As we return thanks for the blessings of the summer harvest and the fruit of our gardens, we also take stock of the mystery that is life as it once again opens us the the blessings of transformation. Like leaves falling away from their branches, Mother Nature asks us to release our attachments to who we think we are. Like a caterpillar in a chrysalis, we slowly enter the darkness of our own being and surrender to the unknown. And like a monarch butterfly, we let the winds of change become our guide and welcome a season of flowing within quiet grace. 

I didn't grow-up honoring the spirituality of creation. I suspect that's true for most of us white folk - especially those without intimacy with the land. But now I find the ebb and flow rhythms of creation to be a time-tested mentor into the unforced rhythms of grace. St. Paul told us this in chapter one of Romans: "The basic reality of God is plain enough if we open our eyes to creation: there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: the eternal power of the sacred as well as the mystery of God's divine being." (The Message) This, of course, was never unpacked in the Congregational churches I grew up in throughout New England. But that was true of the genocide perpetrated by my spiritual and familial ancestors, too. A great deal was hidden just below the surface for those with eyes to see; but like many other bourgeois white folk - women as well as men - my post WWII generation learned a sanitized and sentimentalized history of the USA  that we're still working at relinquishing in a quest for the truth.

On Sunday, September 22, I begin a conversation and Bible study into the spirituality of the 12 Steps. This is part of my own healing and a chance to share with others the practical wisdom of this way of embodied prayer. Later that same day, the Autumnal Equinox, our band, Wednesday's Child, will play a gig in a friend's barn stating @ 3 pm. This, too is one of the ways I seek balance: the music and poetry of the season open my eyes and all my senses to the next part of life's journey. This prayer says it well:

For the light-filled days behind us and the darkening days to come: we give thanks. For the harvest itself as well as the wisdom and beauty of that still surrounds us in fading vibrance: we return thanks. For the turning of the wheel, the insights of letting go, the liberation of release, and the promise of winter's rest: we give thanks. In this brief season of repose, this sacred pause in the turning of time, that illuminates the balance of light and dark: we give thanks.

If you would value marking the equinox with us and the music, prayer, and poetry: please send me a note.

celebrating labor day 2024...

This weekend our culture celebrates Labor Day – a national holiday honoring ALL working women and men – and giving us one more Monday off from work. Labor Day’s origins date back to May 4, 1886, when Chicago police killed and wounded strikers at the McCormick Reaper Works. In an act of solidarity, trade unionists organized a mass protest of over 2,000 peaceful demonstrators who were rushed and roughed-up aggressively at the end of the rally by overzealous police trying to get home early. This provoked some still unidentified anarchist to throw a bomb at the constabularies who opened fire on the crowd in self-defense. Some workers returned fire and in the end, seven police officers and one striker lay dead causing some self-righteous elected officials to impose strict anti-labor laws while others renewed their commitment to the burgeoning labor movement. 

The tragic chaotic origins of Labor Day have mostly been forgotten by contemporary Americans – sanitized of all class consciousness – and largely treated as simply the end of summer. All too often passion has been leached out of our national holidays so that MLK Day becomes yet another excuse for a white sale and Veteran’s Day is stripped of both lament and gratitude for those who made the ultimate sacrifice for peace. It’s my hunch that one of the many reasons our nation is so polarized is that we’ve lost touch with the complicated roots of our nation. We've also forsaken the reality of paradox where blessings are often mixed with curses and unintended consequences. Our commitment to the common good has been eroded, too as a sense of collective struggles for justice has long been buried in the dustbin of our history.

It would seem, however, that a modest renewal in the labor movement is taking root in the United States once again. The United Auto Workers continue to reclaim lost ground bringing a measure of economic justice and dignity back to the hard working women and men who build our cars and trucks. The organizing campaigns at both Starbuck's and Amazon also suggest that labor is striving to once again become a movement rather than a mere limp. But we have a LONG way to go before true equity is realized and the super rich pay their fair share. The alliance the Rev. William Barber has forged with the North American labor movement is yet another side that a possible awakening of conscience is taking place in our wounded and unfair realm.

our addiction to violence is part of our legacy...

I am deeply saddened by the attempted assassination of former President Trump. It was a horrible act of hatred. At the same time please note that Mr Trump has increasingly advocated violence against his political opponents and consistently thrown rhetorical gasoline on any attempt to de-escalate our polarization. I am glad he is safe and understand he is not the source of our chaos and pain but rather the most recent manifestation. 

I pray we stop lying to ourselves about violence being un-American: sadly we were founded on settler genocide, institutionalized the dehumanization of Africans in our founding documents, celebrated slavery as a source of financial necessity, fought a still unresolved civil war that is erupting again, periodically engaged in campaigns of terror against immigrants and political agitators, regularly resorted to assassination both internally and internationally, and continue to treat guns as more sacred than the lives of our children. We’ve romanticized vigilantes, taught our history with half truths, and consciously ignored the consequences. Today’s horrific act is not an anomaly but yet another example of chickens coming home to roost as Malcolm X presciently told us some 61 years ago. 

Violence is not our only legacy, of course: our pursuit of an ever more perfect union is a blessing we must strengthen and celebrate; but we’re long overdue in breaking our addiction to conflict resolution through murder and must begin to own our collective shadow that is destroying us from the inside out. This is an important albeit frightening moment in our evolution as a nation. May God’s grace and truth be our guide in the coming days.

LISTEN to the music...

So today I am pondering the joy and meaning of music-making after reading this poem by Hannah Fries entitled: Let the Last Thing be Song.

i.
Memory is safest in someone with amnesia.
Behind locked doors
glow the unmarred pieces—
musical notes humming
in a jumble, only
waiting to be
arranged.

ii.
What is left in one
who does not remember?
Love and music.

Not a name but the fullness.
Not the sequence of events
but order of rhythm and pitch,

a piece of time in which to exist.

iii.
A tone traveling through space has no referent,
and yet we infer, and yet it
finds its way between our cells
and shakes us.

Aren’t we all still quivering
like tuning forks
with the shock of being,
the shock of being seen?

iv.
When I die, I want to be sung across the threshold.
Don’t you? Doesn’t the universe,
with its loosening warp
and weft, still
unspool its symphony?

Sing to me — please —
and I will sing for you as all unravels,
as time continues past the final beat
of the stutter inside your chest.

Harmonize, at the edge of that horizon,
with the black hole’s
fathomless B-flat.

I have had the privilege of creating music with a variety of excellent artists. Over the years I have been blessed to find the most wonderful artistic companions wherever we go. In Saginaw it started small with a folk quartet we called the Saginaw Rounders, we went through a few small band iterations in Cleveland, then began a youth band as part of our ministry in Tucson only to see it morph into what I considered the "liturgical Grateful Dead" as about 10 seasoned performers joined the fun, and now our music-making continues with 2 or 3 discrete ensembles including the All of Us trio, the All of Us big band, and from time to time sitting in with Andy Kelly's Jazz Ambassadors. 

Each ensemble has its own niche: the trio is a straight ahead rock'n'soul bar band, the larger ensemble is built upon close 3 and 4 part harmonies with an emphasis on eclectic songs of solidarity (we play mostly to raise funds for peace and eco-justice groups), and the Ambassadors sometimes play New Orleans jazz and at other times Irish drinking music. What I've discerned is that each group shares a few commonalities:

+ First, if it ain't fun or aesthetically moving, we don't do it. Our music is NOT about ego: it's about joy. We rehearse hard, we have high standards, and then we let it rip and expect everyone to hang their egos up at the door. We can be spontaneous: last week someone at the bar suggested "Mustang Sally" so we tore it up at Methuselah while playing more acoustic Wailin' Jennys songs at Edwards Church in Northampton. 

+ Second, each band is committed to building community. In our polarized and mean-spirited culture of privilege and privation, we do NOT want to add to the misery. In fact, we trust that singing and dancing together can help us nourish a sense of shared commitment. We are not overtly political, more Grateful Dead/Allman Brothers groove than earnest folkies with the qualification being we work at building a safe and joyful space. Like the community of Taize used to say: we don't offer answers, just one living alternative carnival to the current culture of competition.

+ Third, we love to find ways of including the wider audience in the groove. I love group singing - so we make sure that it happens - and I love wild ass dancing - so we encourage that, too. Its easier most days to shake your booty in a bar than at church but like the song "Hell Yeah" insists, our faith communities could learn some important lessons in compassion and acceptance from some watering holes - so we do our best to be genre-benders pushing the limits.

+ Fourth, whether its rock'n'soul or hymns: it is ALL sacred to us. There is NO division between the human and the holy: we're ALL in this together. And that includes all of creation, nature, and its flora and fauna as well. 

Maria Popova added this to the mix that warrants review, too noting that Beethoven's Ode to Joy had "become the official Hymn of Europe — a bridge of harmony across human divides. I remember wondering as I sang whether music is something we make or something we are made of." Her extended reflection reminds us that:

That is what Pythagoras, too, wondered when he

laid the foundation of Western music by discovering the mathematics of harmony. Its beauty so staggered him that he thought the entire universe must be governed by it. He called it music of the spheres — the idea that every celestial body produces in its movement a unique hum determined by its orbit...The word orbit did not exist in his day. It was Kepler who coined it two millennia later, and it was Kepler who resurrected Pythagoras’s music of the spheres in The Harmony of the World — the 1619 book in which he formulated his third and final law of planetary motion, revolutionizing our understanding of the universe. For Kepler, this notion of celestial music was not mere metaphor, not just a symbolic organizing principle for the cosmic order — he believed in it literally, believed that the universe is singing, reverberating with music inaudible to human ears but as real as gravity. He died ridiculed for this belief. Half a millennium after his death, our radio telescopes — those immense prosthetic ears built by centuries of science — detected a low-frequency hum pervading the universe, the product of supermassive black holes colliding in the early universe: Each merging pair sounds a different low note, and all the notes are sounding together into this great cosmic hum. We have heard the universe singing.

I don't recall who said it but my recollection is that whomever it was clearly believed - like myself - that we were NOT made to spend our days battered by anxiety and manipulated by media. We were born to sing. To make love. To share compassion and creativity and that means turning off the news and reconnecting with humanity. When asked what was the first sign of human culture, anthropologist Margaret Meade replied that the first sign of civilization was a broken but healed femur. "A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts. Be civilized, be safe, be cautious.. be in care. We are at our best when we serve others."

And so we sing - and rock - and groove and harmonize and dance - and share it as boldly as possible: it's where I draw sustenance for the journey and hope for another day.

wandering in the wonder of it all...

In my personal inward/outward journey of faith - as well as my professional work as musician, pastor, and spiritual director (or Anam Cara - soul friend) - I consciously pay attention to that tiny string of synchronicity that has been woven into the fabric of my life. The poet, William Stafford, put it like this in "The Way it Is."

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among

things that change. But it doesn’t change.

People wonder about what you are pursuing.

You have to explain about the thread.

But it is hard for others to see.

While you hold it you can’t get lost.

Tragedies happen; people get hurt

or die; and you suffer and get old.

Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.

You don’t ever let go of the thread.

For decades I've intuitively trusted this to be a spiritual practice that is the essence of a prayerful life: a way to pray without ceasing. About ten years ago, however, I learned that the ancient Celtic monks - my kith and kin - consciously trusted the thin threads of synchronicity to be the way of wisdom and revelation. The sustained explorations into Celtic spirituality by John O'Donohue, Christine Valters Paintner, and John Philip Newell all celebrate this truth. Dr. Paintner wrote, "We cannot become so impatient for the destination that we arrive before we are ready." Consequently, these wisdom seekers from ancient Scotland, Ireland, and Wales transformed the ancient practice of pilgrimage from one driven by the goal of destination to a prolonged act of wandering till the heart experienced the rest and renewal promised by Christ's resurrection. "There's going to be these little synchronicities. And if we take them seriously enough, it becomes part of a conversation that's unfolding."

When we awaken to the holy shimmering in each flower, tree, and bird, we suddenly discover that we are woven into a vast community. We find ourselves nourished and supported in ways we didn’t see before. We are called to hold this deepening awareness and trust that we are sustained and called forth by the choirs of creation into our own creative journeys of expression. The Celtic imagination moves in circles and spirals; values dreams and visions; sees animals as wise guides; and gives reverence to Earth, her seasons, and land as wisdom guides. Living in Ireland has broken open my own creativity in new ways and has affirmed my own inner sense that the creative process is best nourished by letting go of our goals and opening our hearts to what wants to arrive each moment.

Like the indigenous wisdom-keeper, Robin Wall Kimmerer, suggests: this spirituality celebrates practice and embodiment over abstract thinking and belief as defined by creed and dogma. Bono wasn't kidding when he sang: Grace trumps karma. When synchronicity and awareness are recognized as an authentic and healing spiritual practice, or as Nick Cave puts it - when our yearning is honored as relationship with the sacred - then we find ourselves saturated in the earthy holiness of God. As one of my spiritual friends often tells me: "Thinking is NOT the same as being." 

I don’t hold a lot of attachment to belief. I hold a lot of attachment to practice and how we embody what it is that we hold most dear. Whether or not someone believes a particular doctrine is not as important to me as the conversation that happens—and how we are in relationship to each other, how we show up for one another. I often think that so many of our world’s problems could be softened, alleviated, solved if we danced together. You know, what if we just had space? What if our politicians danced together before some sort of big summit? Dance for me is a symbol of joy and release and surrender and vulnerability. We could be bringing that kind of spirit into our relationship to others—whether we agree with them or not, that isn’t actually that relevant to me.  
(From an interview with David Dault in the April 2024 edition of the Christian Century: https:/ /www.christiancentury.org/interviews/our-unseen-companions)

Imagine my delight this morning, therefore, upon reading the reflections of Carrie Newcomer, Richard Rohr, and Mark Longhurst as they each and all spend time pondering the sacred nature of synchronicity. Rohr calls it evolving faithfully:

To fight transformative and evolutionary thinking is, for me, to fight the very core concept of faith. I have no certain knowledge of where this life might be fully or finally heading, but I can see what has already been revealed with great clarity—that life and knowledge always build on themselves, are cumulative, and are always moving outward toward ever-greater connection and discovery. There is no stopping this and no returning to a static notion of reality.

Longhurst writes: As enjoyable as thinking is, it impedes me from being present to what is right in front of me. When I’m thinking, I’m not paying attention. I might be thinking about ways to pay attention, or waxing philosophical about how the French mystic Simone Weil considered attention a form of prayer—all while missing out on the unique sounds, needs, and people that the current moment is placing in front of me. When I’m present, I’m receptive to an uncertain immensity that might lead me to new places; when I’m thinking, I’m trying to control and direct reality.

And Newcomer adds: I love love love people and places and my always surprising, changing outward life as a traveling musician and story teller of human possibility. But I also know that by nature, I “re-charge” in solitude. That I am deeply drawn too stillness and I know the essential importance of attending to my inner journey and inner work. It feels like these days we’ve all been invited to a huge banquet table culturally... It seems as though there are countless entities vying for or claiming the “head of the table”, asking for our daily full attention with a million pings and notifications and screens saying, “hey look over here, you don’t want to miss this thing that will fill your head with fear or anxiety or FOMO" when most of us would actually rather spend time at the middle of the table, with perspective and access to a balanced view of things and more inclusive conversation. Some of us long for the conversations that can only happen at the quiet end of the table, with a new or trusted friend. This includes those inner conversations and inner work that is easier to do away from the din of lots of outer hubbub.

When I step away from the "head of the table" to wander and notice the thin strands of synchronicity calling to me in the quiet: I am renewed. Revitalized. Part of our sojourn into the Eastern Townships of Quebec is a chance to wander without any concern to outcome or destination. Part of it, too, is to slip deeper into stillness in a shared solitude. And still another aspect is to listen carefully to whatever emerges during our wandering. This Mary Oliver poem popped up a day ago and captures the soul of our quest:

Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean--the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down --who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

our summer hiatus...

We are in the midst of our annual summer escape from the USA tour of Quebec's Eastern Townships: the hoopla and hype, the crass jingoism and MAGA madness that now permeates the Fourth of July has become intolerable. And just to add insult to injury, there's America's obsessive hand-wringing re: President Biden's health that's been exaggerated, manipulated, and twisted daily by frantic polling that's ostensibly been conducted to measure the micro heart palpitations of the electorate but is actually designed to keep us all anxious, angry, and afraid a la 1984. We started getting out of Dodge at least once during July about 15 years ago and have now extended this to include an annual retreat during the American Thanksgiving/Black Friday insanity. Like David Bowie sang with help from Nine Inch Nails: I'm afraid of Americans!

This summer our retreat is being housed in a refurbished Quebecois trapper's cabin with a nod to the 1600's in New France. We booked expecting an adventure and were both stunned and delighted to find a rebuilt chapel in the backyard as well as a mighty rustic cabin. What a treat! So we're resting a LOT, talking about our aging lives, walking slowly around Lac Orford, and savoring  the stillness and solitude of Mother Nature. 

This year we have Lucie with us as her kennel was all booked - and she's holding her own. Some of you know her as our special needs dog who requires careful handling: when rattled, she sadly gives new meaning to compulsive anxiety disorder. But with patience and tenderness she can find her way through the chaos to make the best of it. For the past 8 years, Lucie has been helping me stay grounded and without (too many) expectations. In a totally upside down way, she is one of my spiritual mentors along with reclaiming prayer according to the guidelines the late Fr. Ed Hays crafted in: Prayers for the Domestic Church. 

Silence is one of the blessings of these retreats: there is NO TV and precious little internet so we literally become secular monastics shunning the busyness of culture for long periods of solitude and study. We get a bit of walking in, too whenever Di's back allows it and take long drives in the countryside to soak in the beauty. Today we found our way to one of the lake's inlets, drove through the neighborhood of wealthy chalet owners, ate tourtière and monk's cheese for lunch, and will bring the day to a close sipping red wine and reading the new Ian Rankin (Rebus) novel aloud. Tomorrow we're off to walk about Louise Penny country and check out the local bookstore before returning to retreat central.

Last night I came across this poem by Naomi Shihab Nye that warrants a mention given the political and cultural chaos that currently grips our homeland. It isn't about the USA but the last line rings so true.

Before I Was a Gazan - Naomi Shihab Nye (1952 – )
I was a boy
and my homework was missing,
paper with numbers on it,
stacked and lined,
I was looking for my piece of paper,
proud of this plus that, then multiplied,
not remembering if I had left it
on the table after showing to my uncle
or the shelf after combing my hair
but it was still somewhere
and I was going to find it and turn it in,
make my teacher happy,
make her say my name to the whole class,
before everything got subtracted
in a minute
even my uncle
even my teacher
even the best math student and his baby sister
who couldn’t talk yet.
And now I would do anything
for a problem I could solve.

As Ms. Shihab Nye notes: there is tranquility and purpose before "everything got subtracted in a minute... and now I would do anything for a problem I could resolve." Life in the United States continues to become increasingly unhinged, vicious, and dangerous - and that's not going to change any time soon. Sadly,  we are in this mess until this era plays itself out; and from my perspective that means making peace with problems we cannot currently solve. We must learn to endure. And accept. And reclaim what is holy in the most ordinary and small places. We must strengthen our affection for one another while the desecration continues. And find ways, like Anne Frank, to return thanks every day. By faith, I trust that the violence and danger to come is not the end of our story. The Paschal Mystery is unequivocal: God can and does transform some tragedies into opportunities for new life for those committed to peace, love, and justice. Our calling is to nourish a deep reservoir of patience and prayer that we can share as the brutality intensifies.

living into the slower charism of summer...

After five months back at leading worship - and sharing pastoral care and support - it feels a bit off to be at home this morning. Not bad, mind you, as I've been resting profoundly. Just off a bit. One of the lovely traditions in Palmer is to truly take a break during the summer and share worship with two other congregations: the Universalists and Baptists. This gives me six Sunday's off before I take over the shared worship commitments during the later part of August. I will still do some pastoral care throughout the summer - some planning and meetings, too - but no Sunday morning commitments for 42 days!

The next three weeks will be full: some solitude and quiet in North Country for a week, a quick trip to Tucson for an important memorial service, a weekend in MD for our nephew's wedding, then almost a week with my brother and sister-in-law from San Francisco. This week is chock full of engagements: pastoral work tomorrow, rehearsal and playing Methuselah on Tuesday, packing the car to bring Lucie with us on vacation, and departure on Wednesday. We celebrated Di's birthday yesterday. We had hoped to pick strawberries together but the weather did not cooperate so we did the next best thing: hung out at Matt's Bookstore in Lenox. Later we feasted together and shared a killer chocolate fudge cake. 

I quickly forget both how much a cherish worship, and, how easy it is to get out of
the habit. I delight in this time off even as I miss being with the faith community. I had the same experience last year at this time when my "bridge ministry" in Williamstown came to a close. So, from the solitude of my garden, I offer up these words from the SALT Project and Mary Oliver as we all enter the mystery of this season.

Sweet Jesus, talking
his melancholy madness,
stood up in the boat
and the sea lay down,

silky and sorry.
So everybody was saved
that night.
But you know how it is

when something
different crosses
the threshold — the uncles
mutter together,

the women walk away,
the young brother begins
to sharpen his knife.
Nobody knows what the soul is.

It comes and goes
like the wind over the water —
sometimes, for days,
you don’t think of it.

Maybe, after the sermon,
after the multitude was fed,
one or two of them felt
the soul slip forth

like a tremor of pure sunlight
before exhaustion,
that wants to swallow everything,
gripped their bones and left them

miserable and sleepy,
as they are now, forgetting
how the wind tore at the sails
before he rose and talked to it —

tender and luminous and demanding
as he always was —
a thousand times more frightening
than the killer sea.

”Maybe” is one of Mary Oliver’s theological classics, just in time for this coming Sunday’s lectionary readings, which include Mark’s story of Jesus calming the storm (Mark 4:35-41; check out SALT’s commentary here). In a sense, Oliver picks up where the story leaves off: the sea is silky and sorry, but soon enough, the people get restless. Something different has crossed the threshold. We may plead for deliverance, but the truth is we’re often attached — more than attached — to the way things are, the devil we know, and wary when things threaten to change.

In this way, Oliver helps us understand Mark’s story, and its aftermath, on a deeper level. “Everybody was saved that night,” yes, the disciples and also the “other boats” Mark says were with them — but at its core, the episode is more unsettling than settling. The disciples are astonished, and also unnerved. “Who then is this?” they ask. Even they, who’ve left everything to follow him, who presumably believe him to be someone extraordinary, the Messiah, the deliverer — even they are perplexed, eyes widening. Who then is this?

The storm has gone silent. But now they’re left with him, and with his tender, luminous demands.

A thousand times more frightening / than the killer sea.