Prendre une petite pause d'une spiritualité de la tendresse aujourd'hui...

Prendre une petite pause d'une spiritualité de la tendresse aujourd'hui - taking a little break from a spirituality of tenderness today - but I will pick back up on it tomorrow. Today I actually purchased my new bass. We took it to the luthier's for a tune up and I paid the fees in full. It is a great deal with one half of this summer's rental going towards the total cost plus the benefit of the US dollar's exchange rate in Canada. Still it represents a serious next step in my bass playing commitment as this was serious money - and three months of my life, too. For the next week I will be reviewing music theory and practicing on my electric bass as Olivier work's his magic on a few minor repairs. This feels so right.

Then it was off to La Vieux Port and Impact Gallery (check it out: http://www.impactgalerie .com /shop/index.php) to get my new wedding ring repaired. We renewed our vows in this grand old town earlier this summer - and purchased new wedding rings, too. Last night part of the gold on my ring became loose so we needed to get it fixed before our departure in 10 days. 

We then schleped to the Places des Festivals for the Fashion and Design Festival and a late supper (check it out: http://www.festivalmodedesign.com/en). Dianne loves this vibe and it was a hoot to check out all the truly beautiful people and "talent" on display. I suspect that we'll head back down for a little more before this weekend is over. Tomorrow, come hell or high water, we're going to a hipster hair salon so that we can both re-enter the USA with a bit of style. I've been letting my mane flourish over the past four months - and to a lesser degree for the past year - so I need to find a way to keep the groove but make it work for ministry. Right now it is mostly Frank Zappa with an attitude.

There are just 10 days left for us in Montreal - almost impossible to comprehend - but oh so true. We are working on getting to "must see" destinations as well as talking about next steps when we return to Pittsfield. Tthere is a ton of packing angst just below the surface, too. What a total gas this time has been - sacred, fun, insightful, challenging and saturated with love - in ways I have never known. And now we're starting to get ready for a return with an equally wide open sense of what this new phase of ministry means. All I know for certain is that it must be filled with music and must be guided by tenderness. Everything else is up to the Spirit.

I have been slowly reading the Psalms in French and here is one of my favorites: 131.

Mon coeur n'est past trop haut

Non mes yeux ne se levent pas

Je ne vais pas vers de grandes choses

Ni vers celles qui sont trop etonnantes pour moi

Non je suis plus bas

Entierement silencieux mon etre

Comme un touy-petit sur la mere

Un tout petit enfant sur moi mon etre

Oh Israel espere en Yhwh

De maintenant a toujours.

a spirituality of tenderness - part five...

NOTE: my reflections on a spirituality of tenderness - a work in progress - continues today.

Two of my mentors in the quest for a spirituality of tenderness are Jim O’Donnell and Jean

Vanier. They are role models as their ministries are about embodied tenderness – the practices that change self and society – for both men gave birth to small communities committed to caring for the most vulnerable. Fr. Jim in Cleveland, OH – who was formed by the wisdom and experience of Charles de Foucault and the Jesus Caritas movement – continues to transform a small neighborhood on the East Side of Cleveland through his ministry of presence.

After he retired as a Diocesan priest, Jim went on a lengthy vision quest for discernment. Like Jesus, he literally went to the desert, the mountains, the waters and then the cities; through prayer, fasting and conversation he concluded that what he needed to do was create an oasis house in the heart of the ghetto. It became a place of beauty and solitude in an area saturated with crime and fear. In time, people gathered for Mass on Thursday evenings.  There was room in the oasis house for guests to come on retreat. And after a few years, as strangers started to experience the serenity of this oasis in the city, they formed a community. The Spirit led them into a relationship with Habitat for Humanity and soon they were rebuilding a burned out neighborhood right next door to the ferocious King-Kennedy Projects. Where houses could not be rebuilt, the land became an urban garden where flowers and fresh produce flourished. To my mind, this ministry was a clear sign of what a spirituality of tenderness meant for my generation – and it spoke to my soul.  For two years, Fr. Jim was my spiritual director.

Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche, was first called to serve God and community in the Royal Navy of England during WWII.  He sensed the battle against fascism was essential and gave himself over to making peace through war.  After eight years, he left military service and began a quest for another type of peace-making.  In time, a priest introduced him to a small community that cared for those with intellectual disabilities who had been abandoned by society. This led to his own calling with L’Arche that has grown into an international movement of compassion.  His wisdom, tenacity and caring presence documents the way tenderness can bring healing to the most wounded in our world. His is a sacrificial and sacramental way of living that embodies Christ’s calling.  Vanier makes me think of what Jesus said to the disciples of John the Baptist:

John summoned two of his disciples and sent them to the Lord to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’ When the men had come to him, they said, ‘John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”’ Jesus had just then cured many people of diseases, plagues, and evil spirits, and had given sight to many who were blind. And he answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.’

Both Fr. Jim and Jean Vanier are clear: unless the love of Christ becomes flesh something is missing.  Jim was friends with Henri Nouwen – and Nouwen only truly became himself after starting to live and work with Vanier in Toronto – and this has shaped my understanding, too. Vanier taught Nouwen and others that there are seven practical aspects to love that are crucial to letting the Word of God become Flesh in our humanity. He describes them in the small book Becoming Human like this: “There are… seven aspects of love that seem necessary for the transformation of the heart in those who are profoundly lonely. They are: to reveal, to understand, to communicate, to celebrate, to empower, to be in community with one another and finally to forgive.”

·    To reveal:  the call is to reveal another’s beauty to themselves by sharing your “time, attention and tenderness. To love is not just to do something for them but to reveal to them their own uniqueness, to tell them that they are special and worthy of attention… The belief in the inner beauty of each and every human being is at the heart of L’Arche, at the heart of all true education and at the heart of being human. As soon as we start selecting and judging people instead of welcoming them as they are – with their sometimes hidden beauty, as well as their more frequently visible weaknesses – we are reducing life, not fostering it. When we reveal to people our belief in them, their hidden beauty rises to the surface where it may be more clearly seen by all.”

·    To understand:  all of our brokenness has meaning but that meaning is often obscured or buried. To love in a spirituality of tenderness is to know that “all violence has a message that needs to be understood. Violence should not be answered just by greater violence but by real understanding. We must ask: where is the violence coming from? What is its meaning?” The work of L’Arche is clear that all of our wounds point to a deeper truth that sometimes screams to be undersood.

·    To communicate:  one of the keys to giving shape and form to tenderness is helping one another name the source of our pain. “When nothing is named, confusion grows and with it comes anguish. To name something is to bring it out of chaos, out of confusion, and to render it understandable. It is a terrible thing when certain realities, such as death, are never talked about and remain hidden. When these realities are not named, they haunt us… people of my grandmother’s generation knew that it was forbidden to speak of sex, so sex, because it was unnamed, became powerful and controlling.” But as we listen, and name, and begin to understand the source of our wounds, tenderness becomes a two way street where we help one another. Vanier insists that in this process it is essential to “listen to our bodies… and hear our reality through our experiences.” The same is true of the earth as our own bodies: everything that has been created has something to communicate to us about tenderness if we learn to listen.

·    To celebrate:  “It is not enough to reveal to people their value, to understand and care for them. To love people is also to celebrate them… only when all of our weaknesses are accepted as part of our humanity can our negative, broken self-images be transformed.” To celebrate what causes us fear or shame, to know that we can go on with life without fear, is to become truly free.

·    To empower:  Our work with those we love in tenderness is “like that of a midwife: to bring forth and help foster life, to let it develop and grow according to its own natural rhythm… for as we become more conscious of belonging to one another in our mutual dependence” we begin to see God’s plan and order for creation: community. It is not coincidental that one of the words for compassion in both Hebrew and Greek has roots in the womb, the heart and our gut feelings.

·    To be in communion:  “community and communion is mutual vulnerability and openness to the other. It is liberation… where we are allowed to be ourselves and called to grow into greater freedom and trust with the whole universe.”  Trust is at the heart of communion. “In trust we give ourselves. But we can only give of ourselves if we trust that we will be well-received by someone… that is why communion implies the security as well as the insecurity of trust. It is a constant struggle against all the powers of fear and selfishness in us, as well as the seemingly resilient human need to control another.” It is a never-ending dance between joy and freedom alongside vulnerability and insecurity – and this dance goes on forever.

·    To forgive:  because all of us carry within us brokenness, “as well as shadow areas, dark corners of the spirit where uncomfortable things are hidden, human beings cannot be constantly attentive, loving and nonviolent. If this is true in the greater world, it is even more true in the smaller world” of our communities. Thus, as St. Paul noted, because all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God – all of us – tenderness is rooted in forgiveness:  forgiveness of self, others, society and all the sources of our brokenness.

As should be clear by now to live into the promise and presence of such a sacred, embodied tenderness requires practice.  I will share some of my thoughts and insights about those practices in the next installment of this quest for a spirituality of tenderness.

photo credit: Dianne De Mott

a spirituality of tenderness - part four...

NOTE: In an on-going exploration of a spirituality of tenderness - perhaps something that just

interests me - or is more about my own work at this late stage in ministry than anything that grabs your attention - today's installment picks up with three texts from the Greek Testament. They add shape and form to the deep roots of the Hebrew texts I considered yesterday.

The three texts from the Greek Testament that are shaped by the Hebrew Bible and interpreted through the lens of the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus as the Christ are as follows:

+  First is the word mercy in English – eleos (ἔλεος) in Greek – which is how the Hebrew hesed is translated by the rabbis in the Septuagint.  Here again the sense of solidarity within a community is key with compassion and tender feelings of support during times of suffering being essential.  Mercy should not be confused with pity. Pity is an emotion that is experienced by those not connected to the suffering, while mercy/compassion is all about sharing the sorrow of the afflicted.  Mercy moves into action, while pity remains a feeling most often associated with the aloof. Mercy is used 217 times in the New Testament.  One of my favorite verses from St. Matthew is found in 9: 13 (and again in 12: 7): ^“Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

+ Second is the almost psychedelic sounding word for compassion in Greek – splagchnizoma (Σπλαγχνίζομα ) that appears 12 times in the Greek Testament. Like the Hebrew word, racham, that evokes a response of tenderness from deep within our vital organs, the Greek is equally embodied: the Hebrew root has its origins in a mother’s womb while the core of the Greek is born from the seat of our affections found in “the nobler entrails of the heart, lungs, liver and kidneys.” (Strong)  Splagchnizomai is also like the Hebrew in that it involves a compassion shared with those in a covenant relationship who are suffering. It is not an abstract or universal experience, therefore, but one grounded in intimacy and the particulars of real life.  In Mark 1: 41, it is a particular leper upon whom Jesus has compassion, not all lepers in general: “A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Moved with compassion,  Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.”

The same particularity is true in Matthew 9 where Jesus moves through the various towns of the covenant in Israel healing first a paralytic, then a girl and a woman, two blind men and one who was mute.  Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” In other words, Jesus was moved to bring healing and hope to the lives of those within his community of faith.

And I would be remiss in my exploration of the biblical roots of a spirituality of tenderness if I did not make reference to the way St. Paul takes the core of Christ’s words and actions and fleshes out the radical grace of the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Leah, Rachel, Miriam, Esther, Jesus, Magdalene and Paul.

+ Third, therefore, is the Greek word agape (ἀγάπη) which we know as tender, self-giving, compassionate love. The Gospel of John uses it often, the letters of Paul are saturated in its wisdom and the Greek Testament speaks of this love 116 times. The key text, of course, is I Corinthians 13. And the radical implications of this tenderness are made most clear in Eugene Peterson’s brilliant reworking of the classic text from The Message:

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled. When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good. We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

a spirituality of tenderness - part three...

Let me attempt now to build a biblical foundation for my emerging "spirituality of tenderness." I

need to do this not because I believe that the Judeo-Christian path is the only way to journey through life with integrity. But, rather, because I have affirmed Thomas Merton's invitation to "grow where you are planted." I have been firmly planted within the wisdom/mystical school of  contemporary Western Christianity. 

Some have called this tradition the contemplative side of the family of faith and that rings true, too. For like Huston Smith, the father of Western comparative religions, said: I believe that the collected scriptures of our great religions are the essence of what humans have discerned about the holy over countless generations. “If we take the world’s enduring religions at their best, we discover the distilled wisdom of the human race." They are not perfect and they are rarely prescriptive. At best, our holy texts simply describe how real people tend to behave in their ordinary lives, and, remind us of our sacred calling to become our best selves. The rabbis are clear: Remember that you were both created just a little lower than the angels and yet from dust you came and to dust you shall return.  For me, the Bible helps me listen for "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable" (Philippians 4:8) so that I might think about them as others have done before me. That is to say, the Scriptures give me a context to learn from tradition and be reminded that I am not the center of the universe.

To that end, let me suggest four key insights from the Hebrew and Greek scriptures of Judaism and Christianity that offer a measure of understanding about "applied tenderness." Because that is what a spirituality offers: a way to integrate our experiences of holiness and humanity into a life of integrity. "The process for searching for the truth," writes Jean Vanier, "demands an openness; it demands an evolution of thought, for individuals and entire societies...there are unchanging principles involved... and we need to integrate our experiences into these principles and let them enlighten our experience." ((Becoming Human) 

+ The key word is hesed (חֶ֔סֶד): it appears over 241 in the Hebrew Bible and is often translated into English as either "loving-kindness" or "covenant loyalty." The Septuagint, the Hebrew texts translated into Greek, almost always translate hesed as mercy ( Ἔλεος). The ethical core of hesed involves sharing a relationship built upon tenderness. To speak of covenant is to remember that God's people live in solidarity with one another and the Lord; it is an eternal relationship that is intimate and sacred. Consequently, hesed does not have universal or abstract connotations. It is all about living in relationship with the real people you know - and treating them as God treats you - as the Lord has made the way of holiness clear. 

Two texts are helpful to me: Micah 6: God has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?

And Hosea 6:6: For I (the Lord your God) desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

+ The second word from the Hebrew Bible is rachm (רַחוּם:  this word, often translated as compassion in English, speaks of God's powerful love from above (or beyond) us in ways that resemble a mother's love (as the Hebrew root grows out of the word for womb.) It is important to note that this tenderness is not about what happens between people, but rather what takes place between God and God's people. That is, this aspect of tenderness does not evoke human solidarity, but intimacy with the holy. Here Psalm 86: 15 comes to mind: But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

Tomorrow I will share two words from the Greek Testament - mercy and compassion - that draw upon the insights, wisdom and experience of Jesus as he lived into his tender Hebrew spirituality.

Discerning the wisdom of this day...

It is a funny thing how day's can have their own wisdom, yes? I thought I would be writing about Hebrew and Greek words having to do with compassion for my emerging "spirituality of tenderness," but it seems as if it was time to simply BE tender - especially with Lucie. She has seemed particularly needy today - and oddly nutty for the past two days. So, mostly this day has been given over to sitting with her - and scratching her - and playing with her and having her fall asleep on my chest (and Di's lap.)

As many of you know, Lucie is way to big to be a lap dog. She weighs in at about 65 pounds

and is a large, strong, sometimes graceful but also awkward three year old shepherd-hound melange. After nearly three months, she still hates mornings in the city because there are so many harsh sounds. Evenings and weekends can be better because there are fewer trucks crashing up and down L'avenue Mont-Royal, but sometimes she is just wacked. Today she was a bit fragile - we've had family and guests in town all of the past 10 days - so perhaps she simply needed to know she was treasured. 

Jean Vanier in his book, Becoming Human, writes that the fundamental problem with most of us (and I would include Lucie in this mix) is that we are often achingly lonely. His description of what a lonely child learns fits me at times, my dog most of the time and so many of those I love from time to time:

There is nothing to compare with the terrible loneliness of a child; fragile and helpless, a lonely child feels fear, anguish, a sense of guilt. And when children are wounded in their hearts, they learn to protect themselves by hiding behind barriers. Lonely children feel no commonality with adults... and lonely children cannot name their pain.

Just as this sabbatical started with our total surprise at discovering that part of what we would learn and experience had to do with caring for our neurotic dog, so too this day: it is truly a journey into tenderness. So now that we've finished our house cleaning, we'll go to the market and find fresh goodies for a light dinner before taking our little furry Zen master off to the park.

a spirituality of tenderness - part two

For the past year I have been listening quietly to what the word tender might mean for my personal spirituality. As I noted earlier this week, tenderness has become a guiding light for my inner life, an emerging commitment for my public life and a lens through which I view scripture as well as the presence of the holy in creation. It simultaneously shapes my ethics and aesthetics so the time has come to get serious about what I think  this spirituality of tenderness actually means.

Let me note from the outset that I am consciously articulating a spirituality rather than a theology. A spirituality is not just a trendy way of talking about mindfulness or balance - although it is often just that, too - but rather it is a set of practices that shape and form the inward and outward journey of faith. Sometimes this has been called a spiritual discipline or practice; at other times it has been defined as spiritual formation or even the cure of the soul. And always this commitment and practice is prefaced by "a" connoting the fact that there are a variety of spiritualities. Theology, on the other hand, is the study of theos - God - and includes the nature of the holy as well as a set of doctrinal insights. Theology is most often systematic and organized - think Augustine, Aquinas, Tillich or Barth - but not always - as in Niebuhr, Cox or Soelle. 

When I reference "a spirituality of tenderness," therefore, I am considering a collection of practices and habits of the heart that are designed to shape and guide me towards my best self. To be sure, these practices are built upon a theological foundation: in my case it is a Christian theology born of God's radical grace made flesh in time and history by the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus as Christ  My theological conviction is that the arc of Christ's existence in and beyond time offers me the clearest understanding of God's nature and plan. Consequently, this spirituality of tenderness is a means to this end - a practice to nourish and honor radical grace - and share it with others by my presence in the world. 

It seems prudent to begin my work with an understanding of the etymology of the word tender as part of my discernment of its spiritual value. Today let me offer a few insights:

+ The English word tender comes from the Old French, tendre, and the Latin, tener, and became the word we use after the Norman conquest of England in the 15th century. It is distinct from the word gentle that began in Latin as gentilis - of the same clan - and became the Old French gentil - of high or noble birth. In the Middle English it became gentle with its link to the courteous nature of nobility. Gentle implies moderation while tender suggests compassion. Gentle arises from "a disposition" of kindness that is offered from above; tender is more about a shared sense of our common fragility. 

+ Tender evokes the words Buechner wrote: "Beneath our clothes, our reputations, our pretensions, beneath our religion or lack of it, we are all vulnerable both to the storm without and to the storm within." Tender calls to mind Henri Nouwen's "wounded healer" or Jean Vanier's work with L'Arche. Vanier put it like this: "Every child, every person needs to know that they are a source of joy; every child, every person, needs to be celebrated. Only when all of our weaknesses are accepted as part of our humanity can our negative, broken self-images be transformed.”Tenderness also speaks to a text I will read after the sabbatical closes entitled A Spirituality for the Vulnerable by Charles Davis who taught for a time just down the road at Concordia University in Montreal before his return to the UK and his death. It was first published under the title: Soft Bodies in a Hard World: A Spirituality for the Vulnerable. My hunch is that it will be a great asset for Davis, too, writes about a shared sense of spirituality.

+ Tender moves outward: it is relational and anticipates interacting with others who are vulnerable. One who is gentle receives others without harshness but does not necessary go out into the world conscious of another's vulnerability. Vanier puts it like this: “I am struck by how sharing our weakness and difficulties is more nourishing to others than sharing our qualities and successes.”  It is not "leading with our wounds" - that is self-defeating and co-dependent - but rather honoring at a deep level that we are all wounded whatever our public 
circumstance. And just below the surface, we are all hurting, broken, beautiful and beloved children of God.

It is interesting to me that we speak of some food as "tender" - that is, not tough. We know that some plants are "tender" and need special attention. There are parts of our bodies that are tender and require extra care and even protection. Those "of a tender age" require a unique sensitivity. And some subjects warrant extra tact in our speech and action because they are "of a tender nature." (My gratitude to the Google Dictionary)

All of which to say that a spirituality of tenderness deepens sensitivity to our own wounds and the vulnerability of all living creatures. It invites and trains us to enter the world with care and to tread lightly whether we are acting, speaking, writing or living. As I continue to explore this, if you have any insights, questions or concerns I would love to hear from you. Let me close with one more quote from Vanier:

“Love doesn't mean doing extraordinary or heroic things. It means knowing how to do ordinary things with tenderness."

a spirituality of tenderness....

For all of my life unconsciously - and for the past few years intentionally - I have been inching towards what I am now calling a spirituality of tenderness.  It is a personal and political commitment to consciously cultivate compassion. It recognizes the inward/outward journey that Elizabeth O'Connor so wisely articulates. It has been shaped by the confessional writing of Frederick Buechner, Kathleen Norris and Henri Nouwen. It has been guided by the sacramental theology of Gertude Mueller-Nelson, Ed Hays, Richard Rohr, Parker Palmer, Wendell Berry and Rumi. And it looks and sounds something like Yusuf Islam, Carrie Newcomer, Cannonball Adderly, Joni Mitchell, George Harrison and a whole lot of Lisa Fischer. 

Earlier this month, my friend and first mentor in writing, MB from St. Louis, posted a picture/ quote from Buechner that perfectly captured one aspect of this spirituality of tenderness:

We all hurt. We have all been wounded by the status quo - some way more than others - but none of us have escaped the anguish of living in the real world. Some of us have more creature comforts than others; we often have more addictions and denial, too. In her book, Tragic Vision and Divine Compassion, theologian Wendy Farley made it clear to me that the key starting place for transformation is compassion. It is where God meets us and how our prayers become the Word enfleshed. I have explored this inwardly and intellectually in a variety of ways over the years starting with Thomas Merton and moving towards Harvey Cox, James Nelson, Dorothea Soelle as well as a variety of spiritualities of music. I now see, however, that the common thread woven throughout these explorations has been tenderness. 

So for the next few weeks I want to try to articulate both what I sense it means to practice such a spirituality of tenderness, and, why I discern this matters: at this fractious moment in US society the way of the heart strikes me as more important than ever. It has implications for the words we speak and write, the politics we endorse, the way we approach strangers, the manner in which we touch one another physically and emotionally and so much more. I have been so grateful for the way theologian Susan Thistlethwaite has consistently articulated the current phase of "the war on women." It is one aspect of her insights into a "just peace" theology and way of living. As she observed after the recent Republican "debate," Donald Trump's crude and ugly noise about Megyn Kelly - and almost everything else he said - must be heard by people of tenderness as the Id of US culture speaking loud and clear through a frightening vulgarian. As Ferguson once again erupts into public violence, as supporters of Bernie Sanders experience the shock of white privilege when race is pushed back into his campaign, when every Republican candidate spends time and money courting corporations and the radical right without once acknowledging the class conflict bubbling up from below, and when Pope Francis stuns the world with his clear call for a new way of living that heals Mother Earth and comforts the poor and broken of creation: a spirituality of tenderness is claiming shape and form.

At dinner last night with a friend, I had to confess that I was grateful for this extended time away from the United States with my sabbatical in Montreal. I have not read much of the news, I have not seen US television at all and besides a quick review of certain Facebook headlines, have remained outside the influence of the tools of propaganda and exploitation. We joked that I should request another 16 month extension of my sabbatical so that I might escape the presidential escapades that are already being cooked up. But that would denigrate the charism of this moment in history.

Suffice it to say I am certain that the way of tenderness must be expressed and embodied as a conscious alternative to the mean-spirited reality that grows like a cancer in my culture. It must also be shared as a means of solidarity with those whose lives are most obviously wounded by greed and oppression. Again, I believe it was Dr. Thistlethwaite who noted that Gustavo Gutierrez said: don't trust those who don't personally identify with the struggle for freedom for unless the struggle has an element of self-interest they will shrink away when the going gets rough. Forty years ago I heard Cesar Chavez say much the same thing when he spoke of why he became interested in community organizing. He said that church people are good and their charity is always helpful and necessary. But after a few years either they get bored and move on to the next good cause, or, their funding source is cut off. However it happens, they know they can always leave the struggle - and they do. 

So I want to spend some time writing about what it means to live into a spirituality of tenderness for these times. I am beginning to understand why I continue to be drawn to this song in all of its incarnations...

Onward into the mystery...

We are off to visit with a friend who has journeyed to spend two days with us at the end of our sabbatical. It will be a lovely reunion - we'll feast, toast one another and take in some Quebecois jazz - for this friendship is a taste of God's love. This morning Fr. Richard Rohr posted a reflection about Teilhard de Chardin that included the following:

In the words of Franciscan Sister and scientist Ilia Delio, "Christ is the purpose of this universe, and as exemplar of creation, [Christ is] the model of what is intended for this universe, that is, union and transformation in God. . . . Because the universe has a 'plan,' we can speak of the evolution of this plan as the unfolding of Christ in the universe, who is 'the mystery hidden from the beginning' (Ephesians 3:9)." 

Two quick thoughts:  first, authentic Christianity does not demand that everyone become a Christian; just that we share the love of God made known to us in Christ from the core of our being. In doing this, the body of Christ becomes flesh in our generation and the heart of God's mystery is revealed. Second, in Christ's life, death and resurrection we see God's plan for the world: compassion and renewal. Again, the more compassion and hope become flesh, the more the core of creation is realized within and among us. 

Few things rival the love, affection and respect between beloved friends - except maybe making music with such friends.  Onward into the mystery.