Please, please me...

BBC-America reminded me yesterday that it was 50 years ago that the Beatles recorded their first album, Please, Please Me, at Abbey Road studios - and when they debuted on Ed Sullivan's Sunday night TV program, my life changed.  Sometime in the fall of 1963 I remember reading a short article about these guys in Life Magazine - and then started to hear them on my little red Japanese transistor radio in September '63 when "She Loves You" hit the charts.  I know I was aching for a Beatles' album for Christmas of that year but had to wait until January 1964.

Three things grabbed me about the Beatles right away:

+ First, they played GREAT US R'n'B tunes.  Because the first rock and roll record I ever remember was when my Aunt Donna put on Little Richard's "Tutti Fruitti," I was ready for their action.  Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Dion and Jerry Lee Lewis were the sounds I loved in elementary school.  I liked some of the "girl groups," too but HATED the faux soul guys like Frankie Avalon, Bobby Vee, Fabian et al.  In fact, I can still recall the summer before "She Loves You" came out aching to hear something new that ROCKED - and then the Beatles showed up and everything was different.

+ Second, these cats sang and played their own instruments and wrote their own songs.  They could harmonize, play rock and soul and country, were smart and cocky, playful and melodic all at once - and both Lennon and McCartney could scream like banshees! In fact, my own rock and roll scream is based on what Lennon does in the Beatles' version of rockabilly legend Larry William's tune "Slow Down"  and what McCartney does on both "Kansas City" and "I'm Down." To me they were the real deal with wit, intelligence and lots of attitude!

+ And third the Beatles looked so freakin' cool:  black boots with Cuban heels, styled long hair, those collarless jackets and all the rest.  And they kept getting cooler whether it was their early posh thing, the wildass Carnaby Street scene or their explosion into the world of psychedelia, I totally loved the way the Beatles dressed.  About 10 years ago, we made a pilgrimage to Liverpool - and I bought a pair of Beatle boots that I still cherish - and wear.  These sequence with Harrison in "A Hard Day's Night" says it all...

There was a time in 1964 when the Beatles held 8 of the top 10 songs on the pop charts.  And every night I took my little red transistor radio to bed and first listened to the count down on WBZ out of Boston.  And then, if the air waves were right, I could then check in with Murray the K out of New York City on WINS.

As the Beatles matured together - and their music took on greater depth - I loved every minute of the ride.  As Springsteen once said, "Music saved my life..." and for this geeky, little chubby guy in Jr. High I know that was true for me:  I practiced my chords, danced in front of a mirror, practiced my John Lennon scream, memorized lyrics and eventually found some other guys who wanted to start a band in the summer when Sgt. Pepper was released.  I give thanks to God for the Beatles... and still love what they do.

The challenge of disorientation....

Yesterday I read that Gordon Cosby, founder of the Church of the Savior and the Potter's House arts ministry in Washington, DC, had passed from this life into the arms of Jesus. He was 94.  On Tuesday of this week, the United States marked the 10th anniversary of our ill-informed and reckless invasion of Iraq.  And throughout the week, Pope Francesco I offered gentle, hopeful and healing words to all types of people of faith - even those who declare themselves to be atheists - noting that we all need one another as allies in our quest for compassion, beauty and peace.

I feel close to all men and women who, although not claiming to belong to any religious tradition, still feel themselves to be in search of truth, goodness and beauty. You are our precious allies in the effort to defend human dignity, in building a peaceful coexistence between peoples, and in carefully protecting creation.

How did Paul Simon put it 25 years ago?

Earlier this week I was interviewed by a reporter from a small, local paper re: our up-coming DISORIENTATION meditation on Good Friday.  One of the most interesting questions was, "A lot of churches have, you know, started using contemporary sounding music to try and attract back some young people.  But what you are doing doesn't sound like this at all, right?  You're doing totally secular songs so what's up with that?" 

I suspect that my answer was a little too long for print (although we'll see) but what I was trying to say is:  we live in extraordinary times filled with "angels in the architecture, spinning in infinity and shouting, 'hallelujah!' (to paraphrase St. Paul (Simon.)  But because most of us are too busy - too depressed - too tired or simply too dispirited - most of the time we don't notice.  And when we fail to notice and honor the sacred in our midst, two things happen: we grow a little more cynical and unobservant, and, our soul slips further into malnutrition.  Our imagination atrophies incrementally and we find ourselves trusting a one-dimensional way of living more than the splendor of our Creator. Walter Brueggeman put it like this:

We need to ask not whether (an alternative to the status quo) is realistic or practical or viable, but whether it is imaginable. We need to ask if our consciousness and imagination have been so assaulted and co-opted by the dominant (vision) that we have been robbed of the courage or power to think an alternative thought. Imagination is a danger… that’s why every totalitarian regime is frightened of the artist.  It is the vocation of the prophetic poet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing alternative futures to the single one the king – or dictator – or CEO or even President – wants to urge as the only thinkable one. And the characteristic way of the prophet is that of poetry and lyric. (The Prophetic Imagination)

What I have experienced taking place in so-called "secular" songs is an awakening to the sacred in the middle of the ordinary - the shock of discovering the voice of God as something deep, beautiful and even challenging in an unexpected place - the surprise of grace coming to me where I really live.  And when other people are encouraged to hear God's still speaking voice in the midst of the every day life - in the music on their MP3 or car radio (or TV sets or computer screens) - they, too start to reclaim the wonder and sacredness of life.  They see angels in the architecture.  God in the beggar.  Christ in their own fears and wounds.  Not all at once and often haltingly but authentically and honestly.

So what we're trying to do on Good Friday is to keep this awakening rolling - to encourage more people of any or no official spiritual path to pause and listen for the divine - because we were created to be precious allies in the effort to defend human dignity, in building a peaceful coexistence between peoples, and in carefully protecting creation.  I learned some of that from Gordon Cosby back in 1968 when I received a call to ministry in his Potter's House coffee house/art gallery/worship center.  And like brother Brueggeman said so clearly, artists and poets have kept the spirit burning deep within as I've been led into a ministry of the imagination.  Mako Fujimura put it well after September 11th:

Often our reality is a broken and fragmented story in which dignity and value are stripped from humanity. (Like the prophets of old, I have found that) art can begin to address this dehumanization… (it can help us travel from) the trivial to the transcendent, bringing synthesis to fragmentation and hope to despair.” He adds that our creativity, however, must be generative:  “A generative response will mean that we reflect deeply to cherish what we love, and lament for what is lost. Art has a greater role to play today to help grieve and attempt to capture the "groans that words cannot express” than any time in the past 50 years.

These are, indeed, extraordinary times - please join us if you are in town on Friday, March 29th @ 7 pm for DISORIENTATION.  We are using the music of Portishead, Arcade Fire, Delta Rae, Herbie Hancock and Glen Hansard to evoke an awakening of imagination and the presence of the sacred in our every day lives.  I think Vaclav Havel was right:

Hope is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. . . It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.

 

 

Diorientation matures...

Some great local publicity for our Good Friday DISORIENTATION meditation on song, scripture, silence and solidarity.  Check it out @
http://berkshireonstage.com/2013/03/19/disorientation-an-evening-of-song-silence-scripture-and-solidarity-for-good-friday/

Let me say a word about my band mates ~ women and men who are members of the congregation who have made a commitment to create beautiful and non-traditional music for church ~ they are incredible!  One of the signs of God's presence in my life are my bandmates:  Carlton, Dianne, Eva, Jon, David, Brian and Sue.  Every week, come rain or come shine, we gather to practice, explore, rock, critique, pray and care for one another in pursuit of beauty, goodness and truth.  Often, when I am low, I see the face of Jesus in my mates.  And they are there when they feel like shit, when work is overwhelming, when family pressures are exhausting:  they are there.  Like the song says:  Won't you let me be your servant, let me be as Christ to you?

Tonight, just 10 days before our gig, we gathered after a surprise snow storm cancelled out Tuesday practice.  And in 90 minutes we NAILED five complicated songs with grace, fun and beauty.  OMG did this renew my spirit in ways I cannot explain.  So let me simply say that sometimes in life we are blessed to work with people who not only bring out our best, but show us the face of the Lord, too.  And my band mates do that for me over and over.

Thanks be to God.  If you can join us on Good Friday @ 7 pm, please do:  it will be a time of challenge and compassion saturated in beauty and grace.

Watching and waiting for Holy Week...

Today was one of preparation - and waiting.  All the bulletins for Holy Week are finished and all the liturgists recruited.  We still have some SERIOUS practice to do for the Good Friday meditation on disorientation, but all the ground work is finished. So at midday Eucharist, we read from Psalm 31 and spoke of the refuge... the fortress... and the net.

In you, O Lord, I seek refuge;
do not let me ever be put to shame;
in your righteousness deliver me.
Incline your ear to me;
rescue me speedily.
Be a rock of refuge for me,
a strong fortress to save me.

You are indeed my rock and my fortress;
for your name’s sake lead me and guide me,
take me out of the net that is hidden for me,
for you are my refuge.
Into your hand I commit my spirit;
you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God...

Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress;
my eye wastes away from grief,
my soul and body also.
For my life is spent with sorrow,
and my years with sighing;
my strength fails because of my misery,
   and my bones waste away...
But I trust in you, O Lord;
I say, ‘You are my God.’
Let's be real:  doing ministry is odd work. It is simultaneously filled with blessing and tumult.  Almost more than anything else I do, sharing this simple Eucharist feeds my soul. Afterwards, a few of us were swapping stories built on the theme, "no good deed goes unpunished," and it was a time of light and laughter as we tried to hold one an other's wounds knowing that whatever we might do it will never not enough.  And so we laugh - and share - and sometimes weep.  How does St. Paul put it:

It is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart... for we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.

So after finishing my Good Friday mini-homily re: disorientation I sat back to listen to some classic Herbie Hancock and early Miles.  Like Mary Oliver says so well:

The man who has many answers
is often found
in the theaters of information
where he offers, graciously,
his deep findings.

While the man who has only questions,
to comfort himself, makes music.

I think I'm going to end my Good Friday homily with Mary Oliver's wisdom.  Here's what I've got so far...
 

Namaste – welcome – peace be with you.  Tonight we want to invite you to consider with us a sacred truth known in every spiritual tradition that is often overlooked or forgotten:  disorientation.  Life is filled with unexpected tragedies and suffering as well as a sacred love that can transform our worst pain into something redemptive.   This healing, however, is never automatic or inevitable – there is evil, cruelty and senseless agony everywhere – and so tonight we gather to express our sorrow and solidarity with the wounded of the world. 

+ I think of young Malala Yousufzai – shot in the head by the Pakistani Taliban for being a girl who wanted an education.  I think of Gabby Giffords shot down and stricken for life by a wild ass gun man in Tucson.  I think of the children at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

+ I think of infants born with HIV/AIDS – I think of the elderly who have worked all their lives only to have to choose between buying supper and buying their essential medications.  I think of brothers and sisters with mental illness – friends and neighbors with cancer – loved ones attacked because of their skin or hated because of who they love – I think of political and religious violence – and the list goes on forever.

So, without any false piety or destructive sentimentality we come together tonight to be real.  Part of being real means owning how harsh and ugly life can be.  Another part of being real, however, means that we also come together to honor how God’s love is bringing healing and hope to us from out of the most horrible agonies.  I don’t know about you but it brings me tears of joy – and grief – to see Gabby Giffords get up every day and challenge those who would profit from death.  Or young Malala be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. 

So being real means celebrating that within the agony there is also a power at work in the world – a love much greater than ourselves – that brings light into the darkness and serenity into our chaos NOT because we deserve it or have earned it.  No, it comes to us as a precious gift if we are open and awake and empty enough to receive it.  Tonight is our meditation on the blessings of disorientation….

+ We began by embracing the polarity that exists between Good Friday and Easter. We juxtapose the ancient prayer – o blessed fault - o necessary sin – felix culpa – with the weird industrial groove of “Purple Haze” to give shape, form and sound to this tension.  As the readings and songs mature, we hope that you will sense the tension of the Paschal Mystery and wrestle with how God brings healing and hope into the ugliest realities: surrender and serenity, you see, are married to acceptance – and this always feels disorienting.

+ Left to ourselves, we live in a “Mad World.”  We know that something is wrong and want to “get outta Dodge,” but we don’t know where to go – so we “Keep the Car Running” even when bad becomes worse.   When all of our “Roads” lead to despair – and we find ourselves “At the Bottom of the River” – only then are we able to sense that an alternative has been offered to us that is pregnant with grace.  Only when we run out of options – when we have no more “High Hopes” – does God greet us in our Good Friday and lead us towards Easter.

Tonight’s meditation is grounded in the Christian story of Good Friday, but it is as true in the Jewish exodus and wilderness stories, the Buddha’s quest for enlightenment or practicing the 12 steps of AA. Towards the end of the evening – in a quiet affirmation of grace – we’ll close with an inclusive hymn and then Herbie Hancock’s arrangement of Peter Gabriel’s, “Don’t Give Up.”  And that is at the heart of this experience – the reality that hope and love are often to be found mixed-up next to our fear and despair – and we need one another to help us sort it out.  If you feel so inclined, when we are playing “Don’t Give Up” come on up and light a candle as a symbol of your commitment to being real. 

 

The man who has many answers
is often found
in the theaters of information
where he offers, graciously,
his deep findings.

While the man who has only questions,
to comfort himself, makes music.

Thank you for joining us – let the journey go deeper – in grace and peace.

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace...

We returned from our time away a day early because... we're in the middle of a mini-blizzard and we didn't want to get stuck on the mountain.  Well, that's not entirely right; it would have been lovely to be stuck in the snow on the mountain in our warm room with one another.  But we're rolling quickly into Holy Week so we zipped back into town before the snow hit.  Earlier today I saw two posts from writers I value.  The first is from Ann Howard at the Beatitudes Society who wrote her reflections on Pope Francis I, St. Francis of Assisi and Holy Week:

Can you imagine a Palm Sunday and Holy Week with less words and more simplicity? St. Francis was a man of gesture—the kiss on the leper’s mouth tells us more about compassion than any sermon ever could. The embrace of the wolf tells us more about facing fear with love than any sermon ever could. He told the story of the birth of Jesus by building a rough manger, filling it with straw and bringing in the animals.

So this coming week, when we get lots of words—we hear the whole Passion story in many of our churches, on Palm Sunday and again on Good Friday—what if we let the story stand on its own, without interpretation, at least until Easter Sunday?

We have the opportunity to tell our story without words—with palm branches in our streets, dramatic reading, overturned tables at banks-too-big-to-fail, footwashing at Veterans Hospitals, broken bread at soup kitchens, stripped altars and darkened crosses in our churches, stations of the cross in our city streets where people suffer—it could be a week for images and drama and artists and musicians, and just a few, very few words.

What if we started, this week, to follow Francis in his simple way? What if we found church at the margins? What if we changed some old patterns and tried some new gestures? We might hear that same call he did, to “repair my church” and that call might us, all of us. We might become a church that is known for its humility, simplicity and allegiance to the poor. We might become known once again as the church of Jesus.

This Sunday - in the midst of using Walter Wangerin's moving dramatic reading of the Passion narrative - I will confirm six young people into the life and mission of Christ's body.  It struck me as the right time to do this ceremony as it emphasizes a life of love and compassion more than anything else.  Another favorite author, Barbara Brown Taylor, posted this that rings so true, too:

So love God. Love a neighbor. Be a neighbor, and let us not complicate things by arguing about specifics. You know what it means to do love because some time or another you have been on the receiving end of it, but remember that knowing the right answer does not change a thing. If you want the world to look different the next time you go outside, do some love. Do a little or do a lot, but do some, and do not forget some for yourself.

That's clearly what I pray our young people will grasp on Sunday - and what they come to affirm as they mature with us in the Body of Christ.  I know I am still wrestling with this in the middle of bulletin preparation, administrative challenges, financial worries and all the other public preoccupations involved in "doing" church.  So, I pray seek for the deeper wisdom and spirit of Francis to guide me through the practices and preparations that are necessary for the celebration of Holy Week.  "Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace..." 

Taking a brief retreat...

Before the fullness of Holy Week arrives, we're heading "outta Dodge" for a few days of retreat and renewal.  Spring is starting to break into the air in the Berkshires... and just in time!  Poet Mary Oliver puts it like this in her new collection:

Every spring
I hear the thrush singing
in the glowing woods
he is only passing through.
His voice is deep,
then he lifts it until it seems
to fall from the sky.
I am thrilled.

     I am grateful.

Then, by the end of the morning,
he's gone, noting but silence
out of the tree
where he rested for a night.
And this I find acceptable.
Not enough is a poor life.
But too much is, well, too much.
Imagine Verdi or Mahler
every day, all day.
It would exhaust anyone.

So, it is off for quiet and private time before Holy Week.  See my bandmates in time for an extended practice on Tuesday.

Two other voices express prayers for Francesco...

One of the writers from inside the Roman Catholic Church that I listen to is Sr. John Chittister.  Her contemporary interpretation of the Rule of Benedict for our age, Wisdom Distilled from the Daily, has been one of my spiritual guides since its publication in 1990.  I have found her commentary on the Rule of Benedict and her insights into the church calendar (The Liturgical Year) equally satisfying.  Along with Fr. Richard Rohr and Fr. Thomas Keating, the words of Sr. Joan Chittister are key for this Protestant clergy person - and her recent commentary on the election of Pope Francesco I is important.

In this week's reflection in the National Catholic Reporter, Sr. Joan notes that there is a weariness within the American Roman Catholic Church - a weariness that is soul numbing and faith wounding.  She observes that "the problem is that weariness is far worse than anger. Far more stultifying than mere indifference. Weariness comes from a soul whose hope has been disappointed one time too many. To be weary is not a condition of the body -- that's tiredness. No, weariness is a condition of the heart that has lost the energy to care anymore."

Then she lays all her cards on the table:

People are weary of hearing more about the laws of the church than the love of Jesus.

People are weary of seeing whole classes of people -- women, gays and even other faith communities again -- rejected, labeled, seen as "deficient," crossed off the list of the acceptable.

They are weary of asking questions that get no answers, no attention whatsoever, except derision.

They suffer from the lassitude that sets in waiting for apologies that do not come.
There's an ennui that sets in when people get nothing but old answers to new questions.

There's even worse fatigue that comes from knowing answers to questions for which, as laypersons, they are never even asked.

More false news of a priest shortage drains the energy of the soul when you know that issue could easily be resolved by the numbers of married men and women who are standing in line waiting to serve if for some reason or other, some baptisms weren't worth less than others.

They get tired watching of Anglican converts and their children take their place at the altar.

It gets spiritually exhausting to go on waiting for a pastor again and instead getting a scolding, reactionary church whose idea of perfection is the century before the last one rather than the century after this one.

They're weary of seeing contraception being treated as more sinful than the sexual abuse of children.

All in all, they're weary of being told, "Don't even think about it." They're weary of being treated as if they are bodies and souls without a brain.

It's weariness, weariness, weariness. It's not an angry, violent, revolutionary response. It's much worse than that. It's a weary one, and weariness is a very dangerous thing. When people are weary, they cease to care; they cease to listen; they cease to wait.

These are the kind of people who waited for a new pope, whatever kind of man he might be. At first sight, Jorge Mario Bergoglio -- Pope Francis -- is a quiet and humble man, a pastoral man and as a Latin American, a leader of 51 million Catholics, or the largest concentration of Catholics on the planet, which is not business-as-usual as far as papal history goes.

But perhaps the most profound and memorable moment of his introduction is that he presented himself on the balcony in front of thousands of people from all parts of the world not in the brocaded fashion of a pope, but in a simple white cassock.
And then came the real shock: He bowed to the people. Bowed. And asked them to pray a blessing down on him before he blessed them. Francis, I remembered, was the Christian who reached out to Muslims. Francis, the one who listened to every creature in the universe and dialogued with it.

Indeed, if this Francis, too, is a listener, there is hope for reconciliation, hope for healing, hope for the development of the church.No doubt about it: We know who the people are who have been waiting for a pope and why they are weary. The question now is, Does he know how weary they are? And does he care? Really?

From where I stand, something has to change. Maybe, just maybe, this time ...

Fr. Richard Rohr, of the Center for Action and Contemplation, just posted these important comments that are helpful, too:

Let's look at his non-verbals in the first hours of his papacy, which experts believe are much more truthful than language, anyway. All of Pope Francis' early actions tell me that this man is first of all a man who knows who he is, before he is a churchman, a man fulfilling a role, a celebrity or a man taking an office. Here are some of Pope Francis' early non-verbal give-aways:

• According to insiders, he did not ascend the throne to greet the new cardinals who elected him, but stayed at their ground level. This made bowing, groveling and ring kissing very difficult. His self image is grounded, if this is true.
• He wore simple white in his first presentation of himself to the world, without a golden cross, red cape or priestly stole. In fact, he wore a plain wooden cross. He accepted the stole for the official blessing, but then, with a reverent kiss, immediately took it off for his personal "good night" to the people. (Any priest knows that this is a calculated decision.) I am told that he is still wearing his ordinary black shoes, having eschewed the three sizes of Prada red that had been crafted to fit any possible papal shoe size.
• He immediately called the people "brother and sister," and stood before them without the smiles or exaggerated hand waving of a celebrity. Rather, he presented himself in an almost "Ecce Homo" (John 19:5) way: "Here I am, as I am," it shouted to the world. Not much ego inflation for someone in his first moments of international exposure.
• The fact that almost every account of him uses the word "humility" or "humble" to describe him, is indicative of how we pick up people's actual energy much more than their words, clothes or precise actions. It might also reveal how we have not come to expect this from those who hold the papal office. Apparently, most were surprised, and also drawn to, this ordinariness and accessibility. I believe I would go to him for confession.
• We hear that the next morning he returned to the hotel where he stayed the previous night to pick up his own luggage and pay his own bill! I wonder how he got away with it. Only by insisting, I would think. This sounds like one who "came to serve and not to be served" (Mark 10:45).
• Perhaps most striking to any Catholic who has received many magnanimous blessings from priests and prelates, we have a pope first asking the people to bless him -- and bowing down before them to receive it! He had just asked for a moment of silence, which stunned the crowd into exactly that. Those of us who teach contemplative prayer were given hope that our church might move beyond its largely exclusive use of memorized and recited prayers in public. But even there, he recited the three memorized prayers that every Catholic child first learns: the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Doxology to the Trinity (also called the Glory Be). He might just know how to do things "both ways," which is the only way he can be a pontifex, a "bridge builder."

I am sure there will be things we disagree with in this papacy. I have had personal contact with the former Jesuit, now living in Germany, whom he apparently "persecuted." His quoted statements on gay adoption sound highly uninformed and fear-based. But my hope is that his love for the poor and the excluded will win out; now he has no higher-ups to please or placate. Let's hope and pray that this will allow Pope Francis to be a man of the Gospel more than a mere churchman. Then the world will be forever grateful, and grace will flow more freely in what has been a dry stream for some time.

Both Sr. Joan and Fr. Richard are faithful participants who know the challenges of raising hard and systemic questions about a church too top heavy with tradition and rules - as well as hierarchy - and often too short on compassion for the "least of these my sisters and brothers."  That's why I take their words of critique and solidarity to heart in my prayers.

Why Francesco matters to me...

Somebody recently asked me, "Why do YOU care about the new Pope?  You're a Protestant so why does it matter?"  Like many of the listeners who reacted negatively to NPR's in-depth reporting about the election of Pope Francesco I - and carped about it in calls, emails and letters - this soul saw no connection between the politics and practices of the Pope in Rome and everyday life.  And, on one level, I suspect that this is sadly true because for many there is no correlation between the life of the spirit - no matter what denomination, religion or spirituality - and what takes place in our businesses, homes, bedrooms and imaginations.  We are wildly free to spend ourselves with abandon and so we do.  In 2013 as in 1860 or 1517, Thoreau was right:  "Most men (and women) lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”

The wild-eyed Beat poet and Hebrew prophet, Allen Ginsberg, tried to summon our attention in 195   when he cried:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
contemplating jazz...

A generation earlier the more genteel poet, T.S. Eliott, said much the same thing:

“A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.” 

Post modern but deeply orthodox theologian, Douglas John Hall, is equally passionate when he writes:

The excruciating struggle for survival, which is both physical and spiritual, is often carried on by ordinary people quiet silently, for, especially in our rhetorically upbeat society, there is a strong pressure on individuals to seem content and in charge even when they are decidedly not so. It is said that one in four persons in our comparatively affluent and healthy society is clinically depressed... (he goes on to call attention to the appalling rate of suicide in our land) For behind each of (our) immense social problems are individual men, women and children whose lives cannot be studied objectively or addressed by remedial legislation.  They are bearers of stores that, no matter how common may be the themes and patters of them, are never simply commonplace - never easily nameable as "the human condition" or human nature... the life of the human person is so mysterious, so poignant and so often filled with pathos that biblical faith stands in awe of it.

So let's be clear: one reason I am so concerned with who the new Pope is and what he shall do is the suffering state of my sisters and brothers in the world.  The church - and in this case the Roman Catholic Church - not only ministers to 1.2 billion believers, but also sets the tone by which every other church acts in the world.  We Protestants may not be under legal or spiritual obligation to obey Rome, but the Holy See still defines what the wider Body of Christ considers important.  If it is humility and compassionate justice for the poor, that is good.  Already Pope Francesco I is hinting that such a direction is essential.  If, however, arcane doctrinal purity is Rome's deepest concerns - as was often the case with Benedict - not only does that inhibit all churches from cooperating with Roman Catholics in social justice campaigns, but it also emphasizes what keeps us a part rather than what we share in common.

St. Frederick Buechner put it like this:  There are Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians.  There are Presbyterians, Lutherans, Congregationalists.  There are Disciples of Christ. There are Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses. There are Moravians. There are Quakers - and that's only for starters... and while there are some genuine differences between them:

(Think) of all the duplication of effort and waste in human resources. All the confusion about what the Church is, both within the ranks and without.  All the counterproductive competition. All the unnecessarily empty pews and unnecessary expense.  Then add to that picture the Roman Catholic Church, still more divided from the Protestant denominations than they are from each other and by the time you're through, you don't know whether to burst into laughter or into tears.

When Jesus took the bread and said, "This is my body which is broken for you," it's hard to believe that even in his wildest dreams he foresaw the tragic and ludicrous brokenness of the Church as his body.  There's no reason why everyone should be Christian in the same way and every reason to leave room for differences, but if all the competing factions of Christendom were to give as much of themselves to the high calling and holy hope that unites them as they do now to the relative inconsequentialities that divide them, the Church would look more like the Kingdom of God for a change and less like an ungodly mess.

And THAT is why I pay attention - and am concerned - and believe the new Pope matters to me - and the whole Church:  he will set the tone and direction for the present and the future.  It matters to us all that Francesco visited an isolated former priest who chose to be married.  It matters that he paid his own bill for lodging.  It matters that he spoke of being in the street rather than remaining locked in the institution.  It matters that he called out his own when they refused baptism to the children of unwed mothers.  It matters that he kissed the feet of those with HIV/AIDS.

What the Pope does matters - to me, to my congregation and to all people beyond our faith tradition - because the Pope signals either a path of greater mercy or selfishness in the name of the holy.  Today I am quietly hopeful and filled with prayer.

Prayerful thoughts on Pope Francesco I...

"Wisdom," writes Marilynne Robinson, "which is almost always another name for humility, lies in accepting one's own inevitable share in human fallbility."  I might add to Ms. Robinson's insight this addendum from Holy Scripture:  Wisdom appreciates that "to everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven." 

A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

So what "season" is it for people of faith upon hearing the news that a new Pope has been elected for the Roman Catholic Church?  My hunch is that this is a season to "keep... and especially to keep silence and keep love" rather than anything else for wisdom - and humility - require it.  Let's take some quiet time to be prayerful.  Let's let Francesco I share some of his thoughts,words, writings and actions with the world before our rush to judgment. Let's let those with more depth than ourselves do some research and reflection on the Pope's mixed legacy in Argentina.  Let's not publish every passing snarky thought on FB as if they had lasting value.  And please let's not even allow our often ill-formed rhetorical questions to see the light of day because they rarely advance the cause of truth and compassion.  In a word, let's be quiet and keep silence for a season knowing that we don't yet know enough to speak.

Yesterday, for example, I was stunned at the ignorance and lack of good will exposed in many of the postings on Facebook.  First, there was a cornucopia of anti-Catholic rants written by those who likely have never cracked a book on church history.  As Peggy Noonan once quipped, "Anti-Catholicism is to contemporary American intellectuals what anti-Semitism was to another generation of bigots." And their mean-spirited bigotry and ignorance was all over the Internet after the conclave's votes were in.  What's more, these self-righteous rants betrayed a duplicity that would never be tolerated in any other context:  slander, half-truth, intolerance and hatred have no place in a Christian's critique of ANYTHING.  Yes, there are theological reasons to question the Roman Catholic realm - historical, practical and political reasons, to do this, too - just ask Gary Willis (who might serve as an excellent model for those willing to do some research.) 

But as people of faith who claim allegiance to the Prince of Peace, all our questions, concerns, fears and challenges must be grounded in an ethic of faith, hope and love.  If the Word made Flesh is our Lord, than this is how we, too, must live.  Sure it is easier to be a smart-ass - I've been there all too often myself - but a smart-ass never advances the cause of compassion or understanding.  Better to use our sharp tongues and quick wit on ourselves; self-deprecating humor is a certain path to humility - and must less destructive.

I was also struck with how quickly people expressed an opinion concerning the new Pope's chosen name:  Francesco.  Some were certain this signified he would be a man of peace like St. Francis.  Or an ecologist.  Or a servant dedicated to rebuilding the church.  Others noted that maybe the Pope was pointing to Francis Xavier - or even Francis de Sales - and what was the symbolism of that?  (And most of the Evangelical and Protestant world had no idea that these other saints even existed!)  That's when it hit me:  the name of the new Pope was like a Rorschach test that gave us unspoken permission to project some of our own hopes and fears on to this new name.  Again, this tells us much more about ourselves - and probably has some value - but mostly need not be shared out loud in this season for silence.

So what I think can be said is simple:  Pope Francesco I of Argentina has historically been a servant of the poor.  He is a man of intellect, wisdom and humility.  He is committed to compassion and a theological conservative.  He expressed authentic tenderness in his brief remarks to the crowd at St. Peter's yesterday - asking the people to bless him before he blessed them - and demonstrated a common touch this morning by going to a local school to greet the children.  More than that, we really don't know so let's not vent in ignorance or bigotry.  Rather let's lift up prayers of hope and generosity.

I confess that I have a deep love/hate relationship with the Roman Catholic side of my spiritual family.  ALL of my spiritual directors have been Roman Catholic - mostly priests - and I tend to read as many progressive Roman theologians as Reformed writers. I pray the Hail Mary as much as the Our Father.  I make the sign of the Cross after receiving both the bread and wine.  I still resonate with the commitments and reforms begun after Vatican II and celebrate the profoundly radical insights into peace and justice that my Roman Catholic sisters and brothers have shared with the world.  I once lived - with my children - in a convent in Saginaw (and when the boiler gave up the ghost during Christmas, we lived in the Rectory with my two priests colleagues.) I've worked closely with Roman Catholic sisters on peace and justice issues in Saginaw, Cleveland, Tucson and now Pittsfield.  And was a member of a small Roman Catholic Eucharistic community following the spirituality of Charles de Foucault.  I have a deep love, respect and history with this side of the family

AND... I have an equally deep history of disagreements both theological and political with my Roman Catholic colleagues.  From the ordination of women to equal rights in marriage, from the poetry and politics of inclusive language to a vastly different understanding of who is welcome at the Eucharist - let alone what is taking place at the Eucharist - from a visceral disgust over spiritualities that degrade and defile human flesh to the labyrinthine parsing and manipulation of words my issues with the Roman Catholic realm are real and challenging and troubling.

Sometimes my pain with this side of the family boils to the surface... but not right now.  Now is a season to be silent.

Oasis time in the middle of the day...

A small but vibrant midday Eucharist today ~ and totally blessed.  We pondered what Psalm 126 might be saying to us:

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,   we were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then it was said among the nations,
‘The Lord has done great things for them.’
The Lord has done great things for us,
and we rejoiced. Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
like the watercourses in the Negeb.
May those who sow in tears
reap with shouts of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
carrying their sheaves.

This evoked thoughts of gratitude - the rhythm of our life cycles - how good and hard times all have the potential to bring nourishment (trust and faith by grace) and our own experience with shouts of joy and tears of sorrow.  Then, as we've been doing in Lent, I read one of Nouwen's reflections re: the Prodigal Son.  Specifically, the Father's commitment to share only blessing even when his heart has been pierced.  One loyal member noted that the exclusive language was getting in the way of sensing the deep nature of God's grace, so we flipped genders and tried that, too.

And THAT'S when things got interesting:  this is actually a description of the feminine face of God, said one person, and I've never see that before until we switched pronouns.  After a little more conversation an idea popped up that I think has legs:  what would happen if this parable were rewritten to be a conversation between a mother and father - both the feminine and masculine face of God - set in our context?  We were all energized about that possibility and let it sit within our imaginations for another time.  But what a GREAT idea... and what a fascinating conversation might bubble up afterwards, too.

We gathered then around the table, blessed and broke bread and shared the cup and offered prayers for one another.  This midday oasis is a time for gentle contemplation and quiet prayer and I always leave refreshed in ways I hadn't realized I needed.

Keeping alive a ministry of imagination...

NOTE:  Here are my worship notes for Sunday, March 17, 2013 based upon the story of Mary, Martha and Lazarus at their feast.

 

Introduction

For some reason of late I have been reading a LOT of essays:  not the fluffy distractions that can capture your eye while waiting in line to check out at the grocery store; but rather meaty, thought-provoking and concise dissertations on art and culture, imagination and politics, the role of generative, embodied creativity versus the ubiquitous snarky cynicism that passes for wisdom in our overly stressed and broken society. 

+  Don’t get me wrong, I am just as interested as the next person in whether or not Lindsay Lohan is headed back to prison in cuffs and chains.  And the feud between Justin Timberlake and Kayne West?  Get outta town – that’s hot stuff, too!  And does anybody really know what’s going on with Justin Beiber?  I mean showing up for his London concert 50 minutes late:  what’s up with that?

+  Maybe this essay craze has something to do with the fact that I quit watching cable news for Lent.  Without the presence and sound of O’Reilly, Matthews, Maddow,  Anderson Cooper and Piers Morgan in my head I’m more inclined to want to spend quiet time with people like Mako Fujimura, Marilynne Robinson, Annie Dillard, Walter Brueggemann, Gregory Wolfe  and Douglas John Hall.

I guess what I’m trying to say is I don’t know exactly why my mind has taken me in this direction every night – my preferred bed time reading has always been New Yorker cartoons or British mysteries – but as one wise soul said, “when the student is ready, the Buddha will appear,” so there you are.  Given all of that I would like to share with you three quotes that have continued to percolate in my soul long after consumption for they shed a measure of light on today’s gospel challenge in a unique way.

Insights

First, from United Church of Christ pastor and celebrated scholar of the Older Testament, Walter Breuggemann, who notes that when a culture is wounded and a society confused – when ordinary people are exasperated and an increasing number of citizens look towards suicide as a solution to their angst – God’s people have a special role to play.

We need to ask not whether (an alternative to the status quo) is realistic or practical or viable, but whether it is imaginable. We need to ask if our consciousness and imagination have been so assaulted and co-opted by the dominant (vision) that we have been robbed of the courage or power to think an alternative thought. Imagination is a danger… that’s why every totalitarian regime is frightened of the artist.  It is the vocation of the prophetic poet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing alternative futures to the single one the king – or dictator – or CEO or even President – wants to urge as the only thinkable one. And the characteristic way of the prophet is that of poetry and lyric. (The Prophetic Imagination)

Are you still with me?  Did you hear what brother Breuggemann is saying?  In times like our own the community of faith has been summoned by the Lord to be extravagant and prophetic poets who keep alive the ministry of imagination.  That’s what Isaiah was asked to do by the Lord in his generation – keep alive the ministry of imagination – so he sang to his people words we have recorded in our Bible like this.

Forget about what’s happened and don’t keep going over old history (like a broken record.) Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?There it is! I’m making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands. Wild animals will say ‘Thank you!’—the coyotes and the buzzards together – because I provided water in the desert, rivers through the sun-baked earth, drinking water for the people I chose, the people I made especially for myself, a people custom-made to praise me.

He’s talking about creating refreshment – hope – an alternative vision from the dry, parched and painful experience of the status quo.  And the most important way of getting his beloved albeit wounded sisters and brothers to notice and take heart is through song:  Isaiah keeps alive the ministry of imagination by song and poetry, lyric and rhythm and a radically creative engagement with the people he loves.  Sadly, writes Marilynne Robinson, ours has become an era shaped more by a stagnant imagination than a prophetic and poetic extravagance – and there are mean-spirited consequences to this reality.  She writes:

Austerity is the big word through the West these days, with the implicit claim that whatever the Austerity manager takes to be inessential is inessential… and that whatever can be transformed from public wealth into private affluence is suddenly an insupportable public burden and should and must be put on the block.  Everywhere the crisis of the private financial system has been transformed into a tale of slovenly and overweening government that perpetuates and is perpetuated by a dependent and demanding population… so much so that not long ago I saw an emblematic bumper sticker on a pick-up truck in my Iowa town that read:  DON’T DISTRIBUTE MY WEALTH – DISTRIBUTE MY WORK ETHIC… (and it hit me) the populace at large is thought of by a significant part of this same population as a burden, a threat to their well-being, to their values (not kin or fellow Americans) but a threat.  (And part of the reason for this change) is that there is currently a dearth of humane imagination for the integrity and mystery of other lives. (When I was a Child I Read Books)

A dearth of humane imagination about the integrity and mystery of other people:  if they don’t advance my needs or values, don’t bring them refreshment in the desert or nourish the ties that bind with a cool sip of water, dismiss them and demonize them so that THEY become part of the problem – not our fear or greed or shame or despair – THEY become other – and the other is always dangerous, bad and never to be trusted.  Small wonder that one of our masters of the ministry of imagination, the Apostle Paul, urged us to:  Steer clear of the barking dogs, those religious busybodies, all bark and no bite. All they’re interested in is appearances—knife-happy circumcisers, I call them. The real believers are the ones the Spirit of God leads to work away at this ministry, filling the air with Christ’s praise as we do it.

Driving over to our Monday night class and discussion 2 weeks ago I happened to have the NPR show, Market Place, on the radio.  Kai Ryssdal, the host, was talking with a business owner who noted that most of the college graduates he interviews these days don’t know how to think creatively and are terribly under-skilled when it comes to both problem solving and talking in complete, clear sentences.  As the show progressed, two truths were revealed.  First, most of the young people being interviewed today for entry level positions have NO background in the liberal arts – they don’t know poetry or music, film, art or history – so all the college graduates that are hired by this entrepreneur are required to take his own year-long supplemental course in history, art and culture.  It is the only way to deepen their souls and make them creative employees.  And second, what are the college and high school level courses that are the first to be cut in times of austerity:  art, music and all the liberal arts, yes?

Canadian theologian, Douglas John Hall, frames our reality like this:

While for most of us there are indeed joys and laughter and moments of great happiness, human life is also filled with sorrow and pain at every stage, from childhood through to old age and death.  The excruciating struggle for survival, which is both physical and spiritual, is often carried on by ordinary people quite silently, for, especially in our rhetorically upbeat society there is a strong pressure on individuals to seem content and in charge… but still one in for persons in our comparatively affluent and healthy society is clinically depressed… and while our frantic quest for entertainment continues… and our excessive interest in food, sex and travel or anything allegedly new (distracts us for a time) all such realities may be seen as substitutes for any profound or lasting sense of purpose and vocation.

That is, we do not know how to talk about the profound emptiness that is at the core of much of our modern American life.  Visual artist and theologian, Mako Fujimura, notes:  “The world is not as it ought to be. We long for meaningful existence and involvement in our culture – to be part of a story greater than ourselves.

Often our reality is a broken and fragmented story in which dignity and value are stripped from humanity. (Like the prophets of old, I have found that) art can begin to address this dehumanization… (it can help us travel from) the trivial to the transcendent, bringing synthesis to fragmentation and hope to despair.” He adds that our creativity, however, must be generative:  “A generative response will mean that we reflect deeply to cherish what we love, and lament for what is lost. Art has a greater role to play today to help grieve and attempt to capture the "groans that words cannot express” than any time in the past 50 years.

Enter the mind-blowing extravagance of today’s gospel that both defies a linear explanation while giving us a vision of how we just might move from fear to trust by grace.  This is a wild and sensual story about creativity and incarnation – perfume and tears – a woman’s hair and the Messiah’s feet, prelude to Christ’s own foot washing ceremony at the Last Supper next as well as his Cross and so much more.  Every gospel contains a version of this story although each story teller changes some of the details to help deepen the truth – so we need to pay attention.

In John’s retelling some old friends return:  Lazarus has been resuscitated from the tomb of death after receiving the Lord’s tears of grief and his family is now throwing a party for Jesus.  His sisters Mary and Martha are co-hosts and as is often the case, Martha takes care of the details – she serves the meal – and becomes one model of discipleship in this story.  Too often she is overlooked in our sermons but we should celebrate her as the trusted and compassionate helper because the world wouldn’t work without the gifts that Martha brings to the table.   In a way, she is like the older son in the story of the Prodigal from last week – she keeps things going – while everyone else is caught up in themselves.

Her sister Mary, however, has a different gift – not a better gift, just one that is different – for Mary is spontaneous and passionate.  She pours expensive burial oil on Christ’s feet and then caresses them with her loose hair.  The fragrance of her perfume fills the house and touches everyone who enters.  She is neither afraid of being extravagant nor concerned with explaining herself:  she simple shares love in a bold way where it is needed the most.

+  And judging by the selfless passion of her love, Jesus was not only moved to call her the model of discipleship, but he mirrored Mary’s action before the last supper when he knelt to wash the feet of his own bewildered and quarrelsome disciples. 

+  Do you see that connection?  Mary responds to the Lord with gracious and extravagant love – not words, ideology or photo-ops – deep love and it moves Christ’s heart.  So much so that when the Master wants to help the other disciples at the close of his life, he, too neither speaks nor explains but kneels and serves in an extravagantly beautiful way.

Conclusion

For me this story of extravagant love is prophetic – especially given the call to refresh and renew our imaginations that have been so assaulted and co-opted by the dominant (vision of austerity) that we have been robbed of the courage or power to think an alternative thought.  Some like to tell me that given the dominant vision of austerity that rules our day that this must become a time for protest.  And while I think that is true, I remind them that not all protest or protestors look the same.  There are clearly some who have been called to be bold in well-orchestrated public events.  Others engage in the nitty-gritty of politics and organizing. 

And some others still who have been led to the table to be both Martha and Mary for our generation – to sometimes serve and love in quiet and constant ways so that others might enjoy the feast – and sometimes to create such a thing of beauty filled with song and visual art and poetry that its bold and extravagant grace keeps alive the ministry of imagination… and when that happens the fragrance of the gospel fills the whole house.