what have we learned 15 years later...

On the 15th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the USA - September 11, 2001 - I can only post these two poems. I do not believe we have opened our hearts to the wisdom of our wound. I do not believe we have grown more compassionate nor connected to the suffering we cause in a broken world. I hate to my core the violence and venom our attackers brought to innocent Americans on that day - and continue to advance - and still I sense that rather than go deeper because of this attack, we have become more shallow and shrill. I love my nation and my people and I know we are masters of denial and privilege, too. So, in sorrow, I read the poetry of Naomi Shihab Nye - and wait.

BLOOD  

“A true Arab knows how to catch a fly in his hands,”
my father would say. And he’d prove it,
cupping the buzzer instantly
while the host with the swatter stared.

In the spring our palms peeled like snakes.
True Arabs believed watermelon could heal fifty ways.
I changed these to fit the occasion.

Years before, a girl knocked,
wanted to see the Arab.
I said we didn’t have one.
After that, my father told me who he was,
“Shihab”—“shooting star”—
a good name, borrowed from the sky.
Once I said, “When we die, we give it back?”
He said that’s what a true Arab would say.

Today the headlines clot in my blood.
A little Palestinian dangles a truck on the front page.
Homeless fig, this tragedy with a terrible root
is too big for us. What flag can we wave? I wave the flag of stone and seed,
table mat stitched in blue.

I call my father, we talk around the news.
It is too much for him,
neither of his two languages can reach it.
I drive into the country to find sheep, cows,
to plead with the air:
Who calls anyone civilized?
Where can the crying heart graze?
What does a true Arab do now?

ARABIC

The man with laughing eyes stopped smiling
to say, "Until you speak Arabic,
you will not understand pain."

Something to do with the back of the head,
an Arab carries sorrow in the back of the head,
that only language cracks, the thrum of stones

weeping, grating hinge on an old metal gate.
"Once you know," he whispered, "you can
enter the room
whenever you need to. Music you heard
from a distance,

the slapped drum of a stranger's wedding,
well up inside your skin, inside rain, a thousand
pulsing tongues. You are changed."

Outside, the snow has finally stopped.
In a land where snow rarely falls,
we had felt our days grow white and still.

I thought pain had no tongue. Or every tongue
at once, supreme translator, sieve. I admit my
shame. To live on the brink of Arabic, tugging

its rich threads without understanding
how to weave the rug…I have no gift.
The sound, but not the sense.

I kept looking over his shoulder for someone else
to talk to, recalling my dying friend
who only scrawled
I can't write. What good would any grammar
have been

to her then? I touched his arm, held it hard,
which sometimes you don't do in the Middle East,
and said, I'll work on it, feeling sad

for his good strict heart, but later in the slick street
hailed a taxi by shouting Pain! and it stopped
in every language and opened its doors.

loving God's first word: creation

To go deep into the blessings of real life, a dying is required. Recently Richard Rohr spoke of this taking place through the practice of contemplative prayer:

Contemplative prayer is one way to practice imposing “silence upon our cares, our desires and our imaginings.” Contemplative practice might be twenty minutes of “dying,” of letting go of the small mind in order to experience the big mind, of letting go of the false self in order to experience the True Self, of letting go of the illusion of our separation from God in order to experience our inherent union. Prayer is quite simply a profound experience of our core—who we are, as Paul says, “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).

The regular practice of such small deaths not only connects us to a rest greater than anything we might construct on vacation, but also experientially unites us to our place within the web of creation:  we are part of the community of God. And this connection embraces sentient beings as sisters and brothers as well as flora and fauna, water and wind, earth and sky. My roots in Reformed Christianity rarely encouraged this truth. It is there in the mystical wisdom of Calvin, of course, (see Belden Lane's insightful text Ravished by Beauty as an antidote), but remains the minority report within the majority of our history. Perhaps this is one reason I have become so committed to the new liturgical "Season of Creation" (September-October,) It gives us a chance to fast from anthropomorphic theology while practicing dying to our self-centered fears and obsessions. This week - Flora and Fauna Sunday - we are asked to listen to the Lord like Job:

Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?
Do you observe the calving of the deer?
Can you number the months that they fulfil,
and do you know the time when they give birth,
when they crouch to give birth to their offspring,
and are delivered of their young?
Their young ones become strong, they grow up in the open;
they go forth, and do not return to them.
‘Who has let the wild ass go free?
Who has loosed the bonds of the swift ass,
o which I have given the steppe for its home,
the salt land for its dwelling-place?
It scorns the tumult of the city;
it does not hear the shouts of the driver.
It ranges the mountains as its pasture,
and it searches after every green thing...

Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars,
and spreads its wings towards the south?
Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up
and makes its nest on high?
It lives on the rock and makes its home
in the fastness of the rocky crag.
From there it spies the prey;
its eyes see it from far away.
Its young ones suck up blood;
and where the slain are, there it is.

Organically most of us acknowledge we live with a limited understanding of our intimacy with God in  creation.  In our core, we know there is a wisdom and love holding life together beyond us and we unconsciously trust it, too. Then we open our mouths and bottom-line thinking and self-centered spirituality tumbles out betraying our souls.  We are at war within ourselves:  our heart knows we are part of the created family of God, and, our minds have been conditioned to believe that we are the crown of creation. Small wonder that St. Paul urged us to "die to ourselves and our conditioning (sarx) so that we might be raised in the glory of God." Diane Butler Bass, author of the crucially important and beautifully written book Grounded, has confessed:

Much to my surprise, church has become a spiritual, even a theological struggle for me. I have found it increasingly difficult to sing hymns that celebrate a hierarchical heavenly realm, to recite creeds that feel disconnected from life, to pray liturgies that emphasize salvation through blood, to listen to sermons that preach an exclusive way to God, to participate in sacraments that exclude others, and to find myself confined to a hard pew in a building with no windows to the world outside. This has not happened because I am angry at the church or God. Rather, it has happened because I was moving around in the world and began to realize how beautifully God was everywhere: in nature and in my neighborhood, in considering the stars and by seeking my roots. It took me five decades to figure it out, but I finally understood. The church is not the only sacred space; the world is profoundly sacred as well. And thus I fell into a gap - the theological ravine between a church still proclaiming conventional theism with its three-tiered universe and the spiritual revolution of God-with-us.

Me, too.  It is for this reason I believe we can never tire of - or suggest we have completed our exploration into - the truth and mercy of God shared with us in creation. As others have noted: nature is God's first word.  The Reformed Church, by abandoning any sense of sacramentality, discarded this blessing - and now it is up to us to reclaim and restore it. 

In a few minutes we will head South to join my family at a wedding.  It will be on a beach on Maryland's Eastern Shore. There was a time when I thought that liturgies celebrated outside of a Sanctuary were flaky and infected with New Age narcissism. That can still be true. But today I realize that ordinary people were claiming a truth beyond what my tradition honored: namely, the divine connection between people, animals, water, sky, plants and all of creation. They ached - and needed - to be present to the wider family during such celebrations even when they lacked the theological vocabulary to say why. They were pioneers. Their hears knew what their words could not yet express. And they abandoned our buildings and rules and rushed into the arms of the Lord. Today, I can't wait to hear the crash of the waves and the chorus of sea gulls mixed with my nephew's wedding vows:  the whole earth cries glory indeed!

all things must pass...

Vacation time is winding down - and it has been lovely. All summer has been sweet with a family reunion, reconnections with the Kelly cousins, time in Ottawa and Montreal and a grand house painting by my musical colleague - and expert painter - Grahm Sturz (check out his information: http://www.buzzfile.com/business/G.-Sturz!s-Painting-Company,-Inc.-413-281-0808) There was a church picnic, jazz festivals and lots of down time, too. What's more, I was able to complete ALL the liturgies for worship for the next four months - through Christmas - what a hoot! And tomorrow we head down to Maryland for two days for my sister Laura's son, Thomas', wedding.

Clearly autumn is in the air and I will be back as worship leader this Sunday. In addition to the summer reunions, feasting, music and travel, I must report that the time finally came when I had to tear down my dear backyard arbor. It was, if you'll pardon the expression, a rite of passage of sorts for me, as the arbor has been the source of focus and fascination as I learned to mark the spirituality of our seasons. There are literally hundreds of pictures of it on my computer and postings - but now it is no more. This is appropriate for autumn where some things move into death so that others can rest only to return with beauty and new life at another time. The wisdom of the seasons is vital for balance and all too often I try to live beyond the limits its rhythms.  As one friend noted in her quote of a George Harrison song, "All Things Must Pass."

When we returned from Canada last week, it was seriously listing and looking fragile. After a recent rain, it was nearly on the ground. So, after trying to straighten it again and having the rotting wood break off in my hands, the time had come to pull it completely down. The picture at the top shows autumn from three years ago. The arbor looks like the gateway o a place of mystery and wisdom in my imagination. Parker Palmer put it like this: 

Autumn is a season of great beauty, but it is also a season of decline: the days grow shorter, the light is suffused, and summer’s abundance decays toward winter’s death. Faced with this inevitable winter, what does nature do in autumn? She scatters the seeds that will bring new growth in the spring – and she scatters them with amazing abandon.

In my own experience of autumn, I am rarely aware that seeds are being planted. Instead, my mind is on the fact that the green growth of summer is browning and beginning to die. My delight in the autumn colors is always tinged with melancholy, a sense of impending loss that is only heightened by the beauty all around. I am drawn down by the prospect of death more than I am lifted by the hope of new life. But as I explore autumn’s paradox of dying and seeding, I feel the power of metaphor. In the autumnal events of my own experience, I am easily fixated on surface appearances – on the decline of meaning, the decay of relationships, the death of a work. And yet, if I look more deeply, I may see the myriad possibilities being planted to bear fruit in some season yet to come.

As I pulled the old wood down and tossed it onto the compost pile, another part of Palmer's came to mind: 

I can see in my own life what I could not see at the time – how the job I lost helped me find work I needed to do, how the “road closed” sign turned me toward terrain I needed to travel, how losses that felt irredeemable forced me to discern meanings I needed to know. On the surface it seemed that life was lessening, but silently and lavishly the seeds of new life were always being sown. This hopeful notion that living is hidden within dying is surely enhanced by the visual glories of autumn. What artist would ever have painted a season of dying with such a vivid palette if nature had not done it first? Does death possess a beauty that we – who fear death, who find it ugly and obscene – cannot see? How shall we understand autumn’s testimony that death and elegance go hand in hand?

What follows are a few other pictures showing the slow passing of this inanimate but intimate old friend.  At the right time another will be built, but only at that time still to be revealed.

flora and fauna sunday: insights for the season of creaiton...

NOTE:  Here are my worship notes for this coming Sunday, September 11, 2016. It is the15th anniversary of Al Qaeda's attack on the US. It is also Flora and Fauna Sunday for those of us honoring the liturgical season of creation. And also Islam's Eid al-Adha (the feast of sacrifice.) While still on vacation today, it was important to do some preparation for Sunday's worship as I will be attending a family wedding at the end of the week. If you are in town for worship, please join us.( I am grateful to the scholars who published The Season of Creation: Preaching Commentary as well as Krista Tippett's interviews with both Naomi Shihab Nye and Ellen Davis.

Introduction
Today is the 15th anniversary of Al Qaeda’s terrorist attack on the United States. At the time, some claimed that this experience changed us forever – but I don’t sense that this is true. It wounded and frightened us for a while. It challenged our social naiveté and tarnished our internal understanding of our place in the world. But, as the poet Naomi Shihab Nye articulates, we lost a great opportunity to go deeper into truth, compassion and humility in the aftermath of September 11th.  And our failure continues to haunt and hurt us all even today. In the days immediately following the carnage, she wrote:

Apparently, the entire United States has (recently) taken to reading more poetry, which

can only be a good sign. Journalists ask, "Why do you suppose people are finding strength in poetry now?" Those of us who have been reading poetry all our lives aren't a bit surprised. As a direct line to human feeling, empathic experience, genuine language and detail, poetry is everything that headline news is not. It takes us inside situations, helps us imagine life from more than one perspective, honors imagery and metaphor—those great tools of thought that deepens our confidence in a meaningful world… Perhaps, she continued, when men with hard faces do violent things – and fanaticism seizes and shrinks our minds – people of tenderness will not abandon our songs, maybe we should sing them louder?

But at best our chorus of poetry and song remained fleeting – uneven – often shrill and nearly always incomplete. Most of our sisters and brothers never quite grasped the wisdom of this wound. We were not encouraged much to see how this injury, which is almost universally understood beyond our shores, is steadfastly resisted and even rejected here. So yet again Americans were denied the possibility of learning how pain and brokenness can become a bridge into humility and solidarity with the agony of others – what we call compassion – but only if we honor it and quietly choose to sit with it as with a mentor. St. Paul taught us this just a mere decade after Christ’s crucifixion and we have been avoiding it ever since: suffering (in deep trust he wrote in Romans) can produce endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because hope is God’s love being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why the calendar of Christianity is circular, celebrating the same holidays time and again and asking us to revisit certain readings over and over in the hope that maybe – now – we might get it.

That’s what strikes me about the questions and insights from Job and Jesus in today’s lessons.

They give us another chance to listen to grace – especially on Flora and Fauna Sunday in the Season of Creation – that just happens to fall on the 15th anniversary of September 11th. I hear these ancient words as poetry, not doctrine, and never ever linear, bottom-line, utilitarian facts. “Poetry” says Naomi Shihab Nye, “humanizes us in ways that the news – and even religion – has a harder time doing. Poetry has the unique ability to capture the significance that the ordinary imagination cannot grasp.” It creates space for us to wonder – and listen – and ask questions without rushing to judgment. It creates an opening for our hearts to mature and ripen. So, on this day wrought with so many connotations and lessons, let me: First, share with you a story about how one of the Lord’s four legged mentors has helped me move a step closer towards patience and trust. Second, offer you a few insights from the wisdom of our Scriptures. And third, ask you to share with me and one another your reactions, thoughts and questions.

Insights
First, a story set in the context of learning from God’s flora and fauna something about how to live more faithfully in the Spirit of the Lord. Some of you know Dianne and I have a dog name Lucie. She is a precious, beautiful, highly intelligent shepherd/hound mix who brings into our lives profound joy and delight – most of the time. You may also recall – or if you’ve met her you know – that Lucie is stone, cold crazy: neurotic, anxious, strong-willed and remarkably stubborn. This is not my typical Scots-Irish hyperbole, beloved, just the simple facts. Now, when we are at home in our quiet, little house of Crane Avenue, and nobody comes to visit or do repairs, Lucie is the sweetest and most loving dog I’ve ever known. But bring strangers into the mix – or take her into the busy and noisy world of Montreal like we did a year ago on sabbatical – and she melts down, can’t function, flips out and becomes a royal pain in the ass. It is simultaneously heart-breaking to see her like this and exasperating to try to live life when she is in this condition.

So the entire time we were away in Canada last year, Lucie was bonkers: cowering in the house, whimpering in terror whenever we took her out to the park to do her business and jumping around in the middle of the street doing 360 degree flips that regularly pulled Dianne off her feet. It was misery for all involved – and it never got any better. For the first month we thought we just had to tough it out and, with practice, she would improve. But that never happened. She was just as unglued on the last day as on the first. So after consulting a dog trainer for both her well-being and our sanity, we came up with a few short-term strategies including the use of beer - for Lucie – that helped us get through the worst of her terror.

Now, here’s the thing I learned: I wasn’t in control – no matter how tough or patient, strict or lenient, consistent or flaky, I acted Lucie wasn’t going to change for she was always going to be panicked. I could either learn to be more patient and tender with her, or, I could kill her. Those were really the only choices available to me and I love my dog. She is precious to me – even with all her absurd, tragic neurosis – so it was up to me to change – to listen and wait, to practice being in solidarity with her anguish so that I could help her with my patience. I would be a liar to say that I always got it right – she could make St. Francis abusive – but… but we did grow closer and I did learn how to better hear what she needed and try to love her through her agony.

I think that is part of what the words of Job and Jesus ask us to explore today, too: what do our relationships with other living creatures on Earth reveal to us about living more compassionately and cooperatively with one another as well as what nature reveals to us about the sacred order of God’s love in the rhythm of life? Most middle class, professional white folk rarely think in these terms – and we certainly don’t go far beyond our anthropocentric notions of God to praise the Lord who is revealed in creation – but that is what both Job and Jesus ask of us today – and here’s how I see it taking shape:

Job was written as a way of making peace – and learning from – the inevitable suffering that happens in real life. You may recall that the legend of Job was borrowed from Babylon during the time ancient Israel was held in captivity there after 587 BCE. It tells the story of a good and innocent man who is forced to endure untold agony. His friends try to use religion to explain his pain – insisting that God doesn’t punish the innocent so Job must have screwed-up and sinned somewhere – but this only pushes Job into deeper alienation. Eventually, after 31 heart-breaking chapters, Job explodes at God in a rage and demands an answer to why he is suffering.

Now there are two clues I want you to remember: first, Job teaches that it is ok and even necessary for us to become angry with God. There are things we can’t understand, things that are unjust and unfair, and part of our responsibility is to be in honest dialogue about them with the Lord. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, all the great wisdom teachers argue and fume with God both because they want answers and because they love God. The arguments and rants are part of a relationship, you see, so don’t play it cutesy-nicey-nice with the Lord: to everything there is a season – even shouting at and doubting the Lord’s love and grace, ok?

The second clue is that after Job’s outburst, God replies – there is often a sacred response to our needs if we are paying attention – but rarely in a linear, news-you-can-use manner: Job wants an explanation for his suffering and human injustice and God never once directly replies. Rather, first the Lord speaks of the magnificence of the universe (in chapter 37) and then in chapter 39 asks what is implicitly true about the holy through some of God’s most fascinating animals?. Please notice that God’s reply comes in the form of questions not answers. This was one of ancient Israel’s adaptations of the Babylonian story – the use of questions to take people deeper rather than mere facts – and here God asks: “Do you know how mountain goats give birth? Do you know how many months a deer calf requires to mature? What about the wild boar – know anything about its existence?”

Now remember that this text was being honed during and after ancient Israel’s bondage in Babylon – the same time that the Jewish priests were working on parts of what we know as Genesis – specifically the first two creation stories. And the reason that’s important is because what God does with Job – parade a number of animals before him – is very similar to what happens in Genesis 2 when God parades a host of animals before Adam who is asked to give them names. In Genesis, Adam responds to the Lord suggesting that his names are connected to some knowledge of the animals’ nature. But in Job – when two ground animals and two birds of prey are presented -- Job is clueless. Are you with me? The suggestion is that Job is out of touch with God’s nature in creation – he is living out of balance – he is self-absorbed and self-centered even in his suffering.

And the Bible drives this home with the animals Job is asked to consider. Scholars have observed that the mountain goat lives in the “high, inaccessible hills and cliffs” of the area, so far from human habitation that their normal behavior would be unknown to Job. That means, of course, that he would have no clue about how the female gives birth. Further, he wouldn’t know that almost immediately after birth, these goats are able to fend for themselves making human care or interaction unnecessary. Do you see where this is going? The same would be true of the wild boar: it is NOT domesticated and needs no human care as it thrives unrestrained in the wilderness.

These two animals expose Job’s limitations and limited vision – and the same is true for the hawk and the eagle. The hawk soars on winds that are invisible, carrying it through the seasons in ways that humans cannot comprehend. And the eagle, the sky's equivalent of the lion in the forest, swoops down on its prey without warning before returning to a roost far beyond human control. All that Job can do is express amazement.

One commentator put it like this: “God’s challenge to Job is to consider some of the marvels of the Lord… that he cannot begin to comprehend and over which he exercises absolutely no authority.” This is not unlike the lesson Jesus shares with us when he reminds us: “…the flowers of the field grow wild and their charm, delicacy and beauty have nothing to do with human control.” The grass that appears in spring and dries up in the summer is fleeting. The raven – a bird that feeds on carrion and was considered ritually unclean by Jews of the time – is still given nourishment by the Lord as part of the sacred balance. And if so these – unclean birds, perishing grass and wild flowers – how much more so you and me?

+  Jesus is using a form of argument favored by the ancient rabbis called a fortiori – making a case for God’s care from the lesser to the greater – if what we humans can see God’s care in little things, why not trust it with greater matters? Another way of saying this would be: God’s providential care saturates creation. “It is present to all like the flowers of the field, it is granted to those despised by some like the raven, and even to those who moment in life if brief like the desert grass… for in God’s love there is no discrimination.”

+  Jesus and Job speak to us of learning about God’s grace and providence through animals. In other places the same truth is told about children becoming wise teachers, the least of our sisters and brothers being ambassadors of the kingdom or the movement of the sun and stars showing us the power of God’s love.

Conclusion
Both Job and Jesus learned to trust God more deeply through nature – in this case through

some of the Lord’s four-legged and winged friends. They also learned to sit with their questions and God’s and watch and wait what was to be revealed rather than rush off and try to control things they did not understand. In the contemplative tradition, this is spoken of as “taking a long, loving look at what is real.” Like Mary, the mother of our Lord, we are asked to hold all these things in our hearts and ponder them quietly without anxiety. Small wonder that Jesus could tell us: Do not be anxious and do not worry – look around you every day – and you will see signs of beauty and grace and God’s presence.

The words of Jesus and the wisdom of Job were shaped by a profound understanding of the Bible’s creation stories, particularly that passage from Genesis 1 where we read that after all of creation was formed, God made human beings in the image of God to have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air and every living being. And before I ask your reactions and/or questions, please ponder this:

+  To live in the image of God in the world is NOT about being king or queen or the crown of creation. Rather, it is to live among creation as God does: aware of our “special and unique power and privilege – our responsibility – to share love, interdependence and respect” just as the Lord did in the beginning. The ancient Hebrew story, you see, does not make the first people nobility or even divine unlike all the other creation stories of the era. No, we were created in the image of God to strengthen and cherish the way of God in creation.

+  And we know this is true from God’s charge to us: this is how you shall live into my image – by exercising dominion – rawdah – over the earth. Sometimes this Hebrew word is translated as rule, sometimes as reign; when the Bible was translated into the vernacular during the age of Europe’s explorers, rawdah was translated in the King James Bible as dominion. Such was the limited vision of that era, but this is a nuanced and evocative word that contemporary scholars render differently. Ellen Davis at Yale Divinity School and others suggest it should read: you are to exercise skilled mastery amongst the creatures.”

God has already set creation’s order and rhythm in motion: the birds of the air and the fish of the sea are to be fruitful and multiply – not just human beings – so what is really being encouraged is living in a way that honors and strengthens the blessings God has set in motion. Not controlling them. Not acting in self-absorbed and ruthless ways, nor losing ourselves in self-pity. But rather living into the image of God as the Lord intended. 

+  So… that’s what I have to share today: what about you? Thoughts? Reactions? Questions?

+  Knuckle headed, neurotic pets like Lucy can teach stubborn and bone-headed guys like me about living into the skilled mastery of God’s image. The rhythm of creation can evoke awe and humility. in even the most arrogant soul The pain and suffering that touches every life can put us into communion with compassion and solidarity if we are willing to watch and wait rather than rush to judgment. And every day we have the chance to try again.

How manifold – how numerous and awesome – are your works, O Lord? All of them show us your wisdom. Let’s sing to the glory of God…

credits:

+ www.stirlinganglican.org.au

+ marybutton.com

\+ prayersofthepeople.blogspot.com

happy birthday sunshine superman...

So it is the 50th anniversary of Donovan's "Sunshine Superman."  In the summer of 1966 I played that album over and over until I feared my parents were going to steal and smash it. After being turned on to his first two LPs - Catch the Wind and Fairytale - the year before, and riding with the culture into the swinging London groove generated by the Beatles, Stones and Yardbirds, I was ready to obsess on the joyful optimism of "Sunshine Superman." But the opening tune and single was merely a teaser for me for the remainder included "Guinevere," "Fat Angel" and my favorite, "Season of the Witch."  (The UK album had three of my other rav ups, too:  "Sand and Foam," "Bert's Blues" and "Young Girl Blues.")

For the cynics and aesthetes among us, Donovan is easily characterized as a hippy, dippy folkie blissed out on too much acid, meditation, flower power and electric guitars. But the cognoscenti know he captured the true heart of a more innocent moment in time with verve and accuracy. He was not a cynical copycat nor a sad wannabe: he was the real deal, filled with tenderness and sweet, sweet music, always more about fun and hope than making money. (Not that he didn't make a ton of cash, of course, but that's another story.) Over the next three years of his career, his chart-topping songs included "Atlantis," "Mellow Yellow," "Wear Your Love Like Heaven," Jennifer, Juniper," "There Is a Mountain," "Barabagal" and "Happiness Runs." He worked with session players like Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Danny Thompson, Shawn Phillips and Tony Carr. He hung with the Beatles and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi..And when the counter culture came crashing down in a tidal wave of drugs, violence and stupidity, Donovan just took stock of reality and kept on making music. 

His collaboration with the Jeff Beck Group in 1969 was great - but then things went downhill. He gave the 70s a shot, but with Mickey Most producing (and editing) Donovan started to become a shadow of his former self - sometimes too shrill and other time just foolish. His attempt at 21st century hipness - recasting himself as a West Coast Beatnik a la Ginsberg - was a disaster.. It was clear that his time had come and gone. Repackaging his best material kept the light shining, however, and awakened a new generation's interest in the magic that once was. He is a trooper who, despite late career fumbles and missteps, is still a gas. 

Today I give thanks for the 50th anniversary of "Sunshine Superman." 

vacation 2.0 midpoint reflection...

At midpoint of vacation 2.0 in Canada - a time of rest, reflection and renewal - I must confess to a thought that has been haunting me most of the summer: the public irrelevance of most local church congregations. Notice I am not claiming that our small institutions are personally or pastorally insignificant, nor that they hold no value for those within; only, as others have observed over the years, that these small communities have become increasingly irrelevant to the wider public. I know that in my small city, even after nearly a decade of activity designed to both better serve the common good AND reintroduce the town to its founding congregation, most people still have no idea that we exist.  Right before we left on vacation, for example, the regional visitor's map was published showing points of local interest:  other churches were pinpointed - as were the new art galleries and eateries - but not our faith community and we've been in the same place for 253 years!  In fact, a New England town could not be charted until a Congregational Church was established. And still... so let me share three intersecting thoughts about what I think this means:

+ Faith communities like our own can no longer sustain full time traditional ministries.  It is an expensive proposition to fund a full-time clergy person with benefits. Even a modestly compensated minister is beyond the ability of most small churches in the US. Most of these churches have avoided finding alternative funding sources for decades - an act of denial as well as a lack of imagination - making a living wage in the 21st century plus insurance and annuity a near impossibility. Different insurance options might help for a time, but when the burden of compensation is added to the demands of a large, aging building (and seminary debt) the problem becomes fiscally insurmountable. 

This could become a creative catalyst in the ministry of small communities of faith that seek to serve Christ in this era. As the former mayor of Cleveland, OH used to say, "Learn to make poverty your friend." That is, let your limited dollars help you revamp what really needs to take place in your church re: staffing, emphasis and authentic acts of compassion and justice so that Christ comes alive through your community. Sadly, inertia, fear or privilege too often define the hour and new opportunities to thrive are squandered or not even conceptualized.

+ Faith communities that are more impassioned about tradition and bricks and mortar deserve to perish.  This is about control, creativity and the karma of ministry: our old facilities could become community centers - public places of beauty, refuge, renewal, solidarity and artistic imagination - but that would require a leap of faith so profound that many churches choose to close their doors instead of throwing them open in radical ways. Rather than revision how a facility could foster healing in a town, the building  becomes an albatross dragging hope into despair. In time, this means that while the edifice may remain standing in the form of a condo, the Spirit of Christ's caring for people will disintegrate. How did Joni Mitchell put it: "Pave paradise to put up a parking lot?" 

It is my experience that such a loss of outward creativity and compassion did not emerge just at the time of financial distress. It's roots are much deeper and older. Inwardly focused churches create a culture that fails to notice the world around them. We become aloof and elitist. We become deaf to the cries of the wounded. As St. John Chrysostom put it in the second century:  "If you cannot find Christ in the beggar at the church door, you will not find him in the chalice." What I have see over the years is that when the numbers (however they are marked) no longer work in a congregation's favor, the default position that most congregations return to is so myopic that we cannot see possibilities in our challenges, only the problems. Limited vision has so shaped ours ethos for generations that we obsess on internal problems so that outward possibilities never come to the table. 

I have a friend, now long retired, who observed that the legacy of a church or denomination has a long half-life: the troubles Western Anglicans are currently having with their former colonial charges who are no longer under their thumb is one manifestation. I would wager that local congregations that have tended towards self-importance over the centuries are also now reaping what we have sown.  Again, this need not be our death knell, but such training is hard to overcome - and requires a trust in God that will test our faith.

+ Faith communities that no longer serve the status quo can be liberated to become

centers of solidarity, hope and creativity IF we are willing to embrace the 21st century.  Again, this takes a tremendous leap of faith, hope and love but some old school, elitist churches have let the Spirit help them become places of joy, solidarity and creativity. These congregations are thriving in a small is beautiful manner. They have part-time staff focusing on discipleship, worship and community organizing as well as the creative arts, caring for Mother Earth, solidarity with the LGBTQ and serving refugee communities. We have visited Anglican and United Churches in Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax that let the Spirit of the hour open them to new ministries. God's grace and inspiration has set them free from their pasts while unlocking the trap of fear to the status quo, too. This recent report from the United Church of Canada offers a bit of objective reality - and hope for those with eyes to see. (Check it out @
http://www.united-church.ca/blogs/round-table/future-church-becoming-clear-almost-1)

As I head into my second week of vacation, I entrust the care of my congregation - and my denomination - to the grace of God. May this be a time of deep searching and quiet joy for us all.

le temps d'explorer ce quartier dans le vrai mode de flâneur...

So we're now safely ensconced in our home away from home in Mile End after a weekend in the Eastern Townships and a minor Airbnb mishap yesterday. No biggie - just a missing key - that was resolved by dinner time. Now we have to figure out the local parking drill - it has changed since this time last year - and will require un peu de travail de détective. It is also time to explorer ce quartier dans le vrai mode de flâneur. Here are a few pix from the journey thus far...

how am I called to help?

As Dianne and I head out of town for two weeks of rest and reflection, this is my last post on this site until we return. As I prayerfully explore the call of the Spirit in these late days of ministry for my life, she too is on a journey. This expresses her calling and if you can help, we would both be grateful.

rocky ground...

Over the past fifteen years, an essential truth for me involves "the foolishness of the Cross." Not only has this insight helped give shape and form to my activity, but it also has provided me with a window into the meaning of life.  Fr. Keating writes that the purpose of our lives is compassionate sacrifice. Fr. Rohr suggests that it is falling upwards so that humility and love become our foundation rather than selfishness.  St. Paul notes that Christ Crucified is God's mystery revealed:  

For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For (some) demand signs and (others) desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to (insiders) and foolishness to (seekers),4but to those who are the called, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.  (NOTE:  these changes are mine and are intended to broaden Paul's insight beyond the theological polemic of his day.)

For my ministry, the foolishness of the Cross has encouraged both my downward professional trajectory rather than an obsession with upward mobility; and, the challenge of sharing this wisdom in a loving and tender manner with 21st people of faith.  The fundamental disconnect here is simple:  the totality of bourgeois culture is grounded in self-centered advancement.  A brief listing of popular advertising slogans is illustrative:  Be a winner.  Make a name for yourself.  Be all you can be.  Addictivity is good. Embrace the luxury class. Free to be you.  The heart and soul of our efforts involves greater accumulation, increased productivity, and a commitment to doing it all by ourselves. How does Burger King put it?  Have it YOUR way! Such egocentricity is pervasive and insidious - and unless you retreat to an island or a forest, there is no escape.

Two of the multiple implications of our addiction to market place ideology for ministry must include:

+ The stunning absence of alternative metaphors for the meaning of life. When the Soviet juggernaut collapsed under its own oppressive inefficiency in the 90s,  Marxism was discredited and cooperative socio-political experiments discarded..This meant the West lost a mode of offering a critique of greed as the driving energy of social activity. It also meant that our metaphors for meaning were simultaneously constructed upon market place terminology and infected by the limitations of our truncated imaginations.  "Bottom line thinking" became the norm for measuring value as all manner of self-help imagery ascended.  It is not coincidental 
that the so-called "gospel of wealth" grew in popularity and power given the absence of a social gospel alternative. 

Contrary to the conclusions of conservative economic historian, Frances Fukuyama, in The End of History, the collapse of communism did guarantee the triumph of Western liberalism but rather the rise of religious fundamentalism as a sacred alternative to the naked greed and oppression that became normative in our realm.  As one Al Qaeda spokesperson said in the still smoldering sadness of our post-September 11th reflections: we hate what the West has become - a dog eat dog existence of greed - so we do not want any of this for our children, our women or our men.  Without a vibrant and creative alternative to capitalism on steroids, however, the best Western Christianity could come up with was a call for "compassionate conservative" values.  It should be noted that even these were more about manipulating voters for the Right through the strategic use of the culture wars whenever an election looked too close to call.  

And so, two or three generations came of age in the church without the necessary language to question the vicious excesses of the market and precious few cultural options to brighten our imagination. I would suggest that U2 and Springsteen did their best to create a communitarian vision for the 21st century, but pop singers can only seed our collective imaginations.

+ The  insistence that business models are appropriate for the body of Christ.  This could become a rant with very little effort:  how many clergy have been demoralized and diminished by church leaders insisting on using business/performance based evaluations that both ignore the foolishness of the Cross - clearly an objective failure by any business model - and dismiss the untold hours of prayer and pastoral presence given to God and hurting people in love? But recognizing a congregation's abuse of their clergy (and staff) is not the focus of this observation.  No, what I want to highlight is how the goal of winning has corrupted our vision. When business metrics became the standard for understanding church dynamics, we let the wisdom of the Cross stay buried in the tomb and ignored the dynamic connections between Good Friday and Easter.  

We came to believe that only human effort could revitalize our congregations. We gave up the time-tested insights of the Paschal Mystery - that God's love can triumph in human failure - for short term profits like a spike in financial giving and/or a rise in Sunday morning attendance. I am not saying that more money and people is bad.  Never. I am simply observing that most of our folk have so little connection and trust with the foolishness of the Cross that it never enters our conversation when making plans about the future. We almost regularly fail to grasp God's blessed potential in times of crisis and get caught up in our own fears and desires to "fix" the problem instead of listening for what the Spirit is saying to the church. 

Our addiction to the market place is one reason why this is pervasive:  if we can't fix it, it should be thrown under the bus so that our efforts can produce more satisfying results. As middle class and wealthy church members, most of our experience is grounded in control. We chart our own course in life. We tell our employees what to do. We write our own ticket. Even in our personal engagement with physical activity, we want to be in charge. Small wonder that running and the use of treadmills are so popular - and not just to increase health and attractiveness. These are activities we can do on our time table. Having it all our way has become a standard by which our lives are measured and judged.  We are obsessed with control. 

Should we be unable to control a situation - or problem or reality - if for some reason we are unable to correct a problem, we have so little practice in letting God's presence fill this vacuum, that we go into crises mode. Everything becomes filled with frenetic drama rather than the non anxious presence of God's Holy Spirit. Either that or we walk away from what we cannot fix saying, "I no longer care." And our modest incomes and habits give us the illusion that we are disconnected.  We may love that Forrest Gump used "Turn, Turn, Turn" in the soundtrack - and nostalgically sing along, too - but apply the wisdom that "to everything there is a season... even a season beyond our control" and that we must wait for the Lord rather than control the moment...? Well, that is just absurd. Untrue. Impossible.

When I first entered ministry over 35 years ago as an urban intern, my mentor, the Rev. Dr. Ray Swartzback, said to me:  Man, we have to figure out how to make the church a real alternative of love in our urban areas where the problems of real life are naked and obvious. Because if we can't do it here - were everything is out on the line and visible - then we'll never be able to do it in our suburban places where the facade of control rules the day. More prophetic words were never spoken about the challenge of living into the foolish wisdom of the Cross and encouraging middle class and wealthy people to trust it. 

We can read about it in the words of the Bible and still refuse to let it shape us because disembodied Bible study has become a product not a life standard. We can hear it in our hymns over the course of 80 years of worship and still push it away. because our congregations have forsaken accountability for the illusion of being nice.  Like Rohr says, only when we ourselves fall into the valley of the shadow of death - and let God come to us there rather than fight our way out on our own terms - do we get it.  

Please understand I haven't figured out how to hold this challenge together in ministry. I haven't figure out how to consistently let go of my own yearning for control either. What I am attempting is to name the challenge clearly and then try to trust God for new patience and insights. The old teachers used to say that the theological virtues of faith, hope and love cannot be acquired - they are gifts - and always beyond our ability to control. So, as I enter into 14 days of vacation time, I'm going to take a break from writing here and sit with this observation. I need to listen in the silence for the still small voice of the Lord and see if I can discern where God's love is calling to me. 

See you in a few weeks...

midday eucharist...

We depart soon for Québec - first a few days in the Eastern Townships and then Montréal - for ten days of rest and reflection and I am ready for the change.  Still, as I was sitting in the silence of today's midday Eucharist, it hit me: one of the reasons I cherish this gathering so much is that there are no expectations. None. Nada. Zero. There is no need for rigorous preparation - we do lectio divina - so all anyone need do is show up. There is no expectation whether or not you will be in attendance either; sometimes it is just one person besides me (so we talk together for about 30 minutes before sharing prayer and Eucharist) while  there are other times when 5-9 semi-regulars find themselves seated in the Chancel. And every now and then a guest wanders in for a spell, too. No pressure. No demands. No entertainment or excessive liturgical preening. Just ordinary people opening their hearts to God in chant, prayer, silence and table fellowship.

All I have to do is:  1) show up, 2) put on my white alb, 3) light a few candles, 4) set out the Psalters and printed liturgies, 5) turn on the lights, and 6) lead the folk in an order of worship from Iona I adore.  Often I have studied the scriptures we used because I have written my Sunday message on Tuesday, but not always. And mostly it doesn't matter because in holy reading - lectio - we simply speak the words that are moving our hearts at that moment with a bit of humility. It is all very Zen and in the moment.  The chants we share are a capella. The printed words are simple and direct. And there is ample silence in our cavernous Sanctuary where, on a summer day with the windows open, you can hear the city doing business as we pause for quiet reflection.

This gathering keeps me grounded.  It keeps me sane, too. And the reason is clear: I can just love the Lord and whomever else shows up by just being present and real. How did Ram Dass put it?  Be here NOW?! Well, that's what we do - and I will miss being with my midday peeps for the next few weeks.  For those who are reading, know I love you and will see you soon because September is just around the corner.

Peace out for a few weeks,
J

pray for us now... and at our time of death

Two recent icons have grabbed my heart. The first is a beautiful and unsettlilng Theotokos inspired by the Black Lives Matters movement.

To see the Christ Child in the crosshairs of a weapon gives shape and form to the horror that is part of everyday life for so many people of color. This is a brilliant and terrifying gift to everyone of us.

The second evokes an equally mind-numbing reality concerning the agony of a refugee mother.

Too often Western religious art is schlocky sentimental piety marketed to manipulate the faithful and generate funds. But these two are true icons - visual prayers - that express part of the truth of this moment in time. May we be as moved as these two Madonnas to bring to birth peace in our flesh, in our minds, in our communities and in our congregations.

Hail Mary, full of grace.

The Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou among women,

and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,

Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,

pray for us sinners,

now and at the hour of our death.

Amen.