keep on rockin' in the free world...

Sometime about 25 years ago an elder, learned colleague of mine in ministry told me something like: "Savor and cherish those times in parish ministry when you have an excellent staff, a dedicated group of lay leaders and the opportunity to worship, serve and witness in the world with creativity and depth. It only happens once or twice in a life time." Today, first at lunch with a long time friend and member of my former congregation and then this evening making music with old friends, I was awash in emotion giving thanks to God for the fact that in each of the four congregations I served over the past 40 years I have had holy and sacred seasons where everything lined up and clicked.

This afternoon I had lunch with a faithful and humble lay leader. I have loved his young family from the first day I met them. At lunch we talked about how that once very young family is now maturing with one child heading off for college in the fall and the other achieving local accolades in sports. Later this evening, that same child we were talking about joined me at band practice. He will be a part of the benefit show we're doing on Saturday, June 15 for the homeless shelter in town. I gave him his first guitar lesson and helped his father purchase his first serious instrument. Now 11 years later he is enrolled in one of the best regional music schools as a 2019 fall freshman. He can play any style with verve and grace. We both agreed that there was something magical about having this chance to play music together once again one last time.

And the gig will be in my old church. It is a grand old building - every time we did a show in those hallowed halls, it reminded me of "the Last Waltz" - and this performance won't be any different. Tonight we reworked some tunes, added new ones and switched around the instrumentation. And talk about blessing upon blessing: the current interim minister - an accomplished musician - has joined up with our ensemble. What a cosmic resolution on so many levels. And he is a KILLER player on keyboards, guitar and bass! And he sings like one of the Beatles. In fact, we're doing "The Word" and in addition to the piano part he sings the weird, high third harmony. He told me tonight that a number of the old folk at church are excited to have us return to rock and roll the Sanctuary once again. 

One of the insights that has emerged for me in setting up this gig - in which my new band, Famous Before We're Dead, plays alongside my old band, Between the Banks, with one of my favorite local singer/songwriters, Linda Worster - is that once again we're sharing beauty and solidarity on behalf of compassion and justice. For the past four years I have been listening, reading, praying and studying with Jean Vanier and the L'Arche Ottawa community. And one of the key insights of this movement is embracing small acts of love consistently in a local setting. Like Jesus said, "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matthew 6:34) The late Vanier used to teach that if we each do small acts of love consistently where we live, not only will be bring a measure of joy and hope to those who need it the most, but we will also avoid getting lost in despair. One of his oft quoted insights was: "We are not called by God to do extraordinary things, but to do ordinary things with extraordinary love."

For the past 16 months, Di and I have been committed to what we have called a "year of beholding." An extended time of watching what God brings into our lives and responding with gratitude. This gig - and all the sweet people involved in it - feels like we are closing an important chapter even as a new one starts to take shape and form. Tonight's practice was a gas. We've put together a show with Duke Ellington and Neil Young, the Wailin' Jennys and the Beatles, original and new songs mixed with beloved favorites. My deepest hope is that we will create a small and safe place of beauty and love for a time as we share our gifts in gratitude. This concert in all its manifestations is how I express this insight from Jean Vanier:

It is my belief that in our mad world where there is so much pain, rivalry, hatred, violence, inequality, and oppression, it is people who are weak, rejected, marginalized, counted as useless, who can become a source of life and of salvation for us as individuals as well as for our world. And it is my hope that each one of you may experience the incredible gift of the friendship of people who are poor and weak, that you too, may receive life from them. For they call us to love, to communion, to compassion and to community.

me and my shadow...

One of the downsides of writing about spirituality in the first person is that there are times when I fail to include my shadow in the story. Now that's part of what the shadow is all about, right? An awareness of an unseen but real presence in our lives that drags behind us. Others know it is there even when we don't: the shadow is rarely a part of our ordinary consciousness. But owning it and dealing with it is essential for authentic spiritual and emotional health. The poem, "Yo no soy yo/I am not me" by Juan Ramon Jimenez (translated by Robert Bly) hits a home run.

Yo no soy yo
Soy este
que va a mi lado sin yo verlo;
que, a veces, voy a ver,
y que, a veces, olvido.
El que calla, sereno, cuando hablo,
el que perdona, dulce, cuando odio,
el que pasea por donde no estoy,
el que quedará en pié cuando yo muera.

I am not me.
I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;
who remains calm and silent while I talk,
and forgives, gently, when I hate,
who walks where I am not,
who will remain standing when I die.

Part of the quest of spiritual practice is to embrace our shadows, live with a measure of awareness that they are as real and significant as our flesh, and move gently and tenderly with their consequences without fearing or fighting them. Befriending our shadow is part of how we live in peace with all that is real both within and beyond. My mentors in learning to love my shadow include Parker Palmer, Robert Bly, Frederick Beuchner, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Ernest Kurt, Joanne Harris, Fr. Ed Hays, Fr. Thomas Keating, Fr. Matthew Fox, Fr. Richard Rohr, Fr. Thomas Merton, Fr. Henri Nouwen, Sr. Joan Chittister, Gunilla Norris, Elie Wiesel, Rumi, Jean Vanier, Christopher Heurtz, Coleman Barks, Cynthia Bourgeault, CG Jung, and Joseph Campbell. 

I am eternally grateful to Jung for his invitation to honor the wisdom and compassion of Matthew 25 - "When did we see Thee, Lord, naked or hungry, alone or afraid" - within ourselves as profoundly as in the world. Activists and social justice folk use that text all the time, but rarely do we let it speak to ourselves. And we need to be loved, clothed, nourished, protected and fed just as much as our neighbors, yes?  Rohr has been equally nourishing for me in his reminders that the way of the Lord is never cruel. Or judgmental. Or degrading. There is pain in our journey, to be sure, but never to vanquish or diminish us. The way of Christ is always to strengthen a tender, gracious love. Anyone who uses the word of the Lord to harm is not of God. 

Hays taught me that the blessing our shadows bring to us in grace are "the wisdom of our wounds." Heurtz amplifies this in his enneagram work noting that our brokenness is one of the ways God's love speaks to us through our flesh and feelings. But it never arrives punitively. Rather the wisdom of our wounds ask to be embraced through the upside-down grace of God. When we feel angry, it is time to stay quiet and listen. When we want to run away, it is probably better to stay engaged. When we want to triumph over an adversary, why not back off and become vulnerable? From my experience, this approach to our wounds and our shadow is a practical application of the Prayer of St. Francis: 

Lord, make me an instrument
of Thy peace;
Where there is hatred,
let me sow charity;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is error, truth;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light; and Where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled, as to console;
To be understood as to understand; To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned; And it is in dying to ourselves that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.

And then there's Ernest Kukrtz: working in the spirituality of AA and the 12 Step Movement, he playfully links our shadow to both humility and humor. His easy to read collection of tales from the Sufi, Buddhist, Hassidic, and Christian Desert Mothers and Fathers traditons entitled, A Spirituality of Imperfection, is one of my favorites:

Humility involves learning how to live (and even rejoice in) the rejection of all or nothing living... (More often than not) we are mixed-up, our being is both saint and sinner, beast and angel. To live with and rejoice in this mixed-up reality (often evokes) humor which is defined as 'the juxtaposition of incongruities" - the placing together of two things that do not belong... and what could be more incongruous than the strange mixture of beast and angel that we are, the spark of divinity encased in a hunk of nothingness!

There are certain moments in our lives when it seems "as if the fundamental choice is between fighting ourselves and laughing at ourselves." I have long practiced fighting with myself - for decades - and it is still a losing proposition. It exhausts and frustrates me - and I never seem able to successfully beat myself into submission. There are times, however, when I can laugh my way into a soft and tender place. 

When confronting our own incongruities, humor is usually the healthier choice, as the wisdom of the word's origins hints. For the words humor and humility both have the same root - the ancient Indo-European ghom - best translated into English as humus... that 'brown or black substance resulting from the partial decay of plant or animal matter.'

I like that. It rings true to me. As St. Joni sang: "I've looked at life from both sides now, from win and lose and still somehow its clouds illusions I recall... I really don't know life at all." According to the wisdom of the world, today was supposed to be raining. So rather than work on my garden terrace, I set time aside for bread baking. I haven't made time for that in a month. But, bad news, the sun came out. And is out still! What's more, the damn wind is cool and comforting. With a measure of frustration, I nevertheless picked up a new bread recipe and chose to go ahead with my plans. 

Right from the get-go I knew something was off. And by the time I started to knead it, I was clear that something was way off. Nothing felt right and then it hit me: apparently I was working with a recipe for only one small loaf! Usually, if I am going to devout a whole day to baking bread - and I do - I make four loaves at a time. But letting the beauty of the day distract me and even frustrate me... who the hell knows how this loaf will turn out? It is still in the oven getting ready to rise. (Maybe it will become croûtons!) See what I mean? Laughter is tons more healing and tender-hearted than carping or crying.

Not cruel or sarcastic laughter. And never humor that denigrates. But honest, self-deprecating humor can be a great spiritual practice. It gives some shape and form to the shadow, too so that we can embrace it with grace. I remember reading years ago while I was still doing urban ministry in Cleveland, that many of the parables of Jesus were considered humorous in a Zen-like way. (Robin Williamson, that wild Scotsman who was instrumental in creating the Incredible String Band, once said that Zen wisdom was much like "weak humor." It hurts a little and reveals a lot.) I just checked on my bread. It doesn't look promising.  How does John Prine put it: "That's the way the world goes 'round, you're up one day, the next you're down, a half an inch of water and you think you're gonna drown: that's the way the world goes round." Amen.

credits
1) https://www.widewalls.ch/shadow-art/
2) http://avax.news/pictures/60130
3) https://cyprus-mail.com/2018/11/22/art-in-the-shadows/
4) https://www.artpal.com/daniel_bonnell?i=8106-37

portals of mystery as the seasons go round and round...

Four years ago during an on-line retreat course with Abbey of the Arts I took this photo quickly on my way to Sunday morning worship...

One of the spiritual directors for this retreat noted that, "this mysterious photo looks to be a prophetic portal beckoning you into the next albeit unknown phase of your journey." She was right - personally and professionally. 

It is in this yard that I have worked to reclaim my experience of tender unity with the earth. Beside and beyond this portal, I watched and learned something about the rhythms of nature - and the unique gifts and limitations of this plot. I practiced the spirituality of the seasons and listened to God's first word in creation. I discovered what can and what won't grow here - and what likes to eat what does grow! I learned to love winter. And the smell of mud. To carry massive, dead limbs from our trees out to the wetlands to become compost as the cycle of life goes on. To stay alert for the presence of snakes and ticks - and sometimes skunks, ground hogs, deer, and coyotes, too. To use power tools from time to time -image, an egg-head intellectual like me repairing the deck under the tutelage of one wiser in that realm - but true. To plant flowers and herbs and cherish the short growing cycle that rules this part of creation.

The more I cherished the spirituality of the seasons, the more I trusted that God's way carries each day. My anxieties and stress never made any thing better. So, following the rhythm of the day, I have attempted to practice following the light: there is time enough for physical and intellectual work as well as a whole lot of laughter, cooking and talking. Four years after I took this photograph, I am certain that my portal called me to trust God enough to leave pastoral ministry for a new chapter grounded in rest, tenderness, joy and what I call a ministry of presence. What's more, I am certain that without spending time in the seasons and learning the wisdom of this place and land, I would not have dared step out in faith.

Once again old Matthew Fox is on to something when he writes that for many men - and for our culture as a whole in the West - when we stopped honoring the Divine Masculine in Nature we killed masculine creativity and courage. When we lost touch with the enormity creation, forsaking awe for the the bottom line and a culture of control, something essential died within and among us. "From the seventeenth to twentieth centuries (we) shut down Father Sky, the ancient archetype of the Sacred Masculine, teaching that the cosmos is an insensate machine. This left the male heart bereft and potentially more violent, for men had no place to invest their sky-sized hearts and souls." He continues:

D. H. Lawrence sensed this when he wrote: “What a catastrophe, what a maiming of life when it was made a personal, merely personal feeling, taken away from the rising and setting of the sun, and cut off from the magic connection of the solstice and equinox! This is what is the matter with us, we are bleeding at the roots, because we are cut off from the earth and sun and stars….” What happens when cosmology is replaced by psychology? When cosmic connections are displaced by shopping malls? The heart shrivels. Men’s souls shrink. The Sacred Masculine dissipates. And untold violence goes through their heads. 

Yesterday, we took down a beautiful willow tree that had come to its natural end. No power tools were available, so I sawed and sawed and sawed. My muscles hurt. My back ached. And we finally took it down - and trimmed the branches to use in the terrace we'll make on our garden hill later this week. I have taken to heart the words of Parker Palmer who speaks of the wisdom of this season carefully:


Spring begins slowly and 

tentatively, it grows with a tenacity that never fails to touch me. The smallest and most tender shoots insist on having their way, coming up through ground that looked, only a few weeks earlier, as if it would never grow anything again. The crocuses and snowdrops do not bloom for long. But their mere appearance, however brief, is always a harbinger of hope, and from those small beginnings, hope grows at a geometric rate. The days get longer, the winds get warmer, and the world grows green again. In my own life, as my winters segue into spring, I not only find it hard to cope with mud but hard to credit the small harbingers of larger life to come, hard to hope until the outcome is secure. Spring teaches me to look more carefully for the green stems of possibility: for the intuitive hunch that may turn into a larger insight, for the glance or touch that may thaw a frozen relationship, for the stranger’s act of kindness that makes the world seem hospitable again.

Today the sun was bright and the wind vigorous. I started to lay out the foundation of our terraced garden. Tomorrow it will rain, so I will bake bread and clean the house. And practice music for the upcoming gigs. And return thanks for that portal which lured me beyond the known into the mystery of faith. Our old portal finally collapsed two years ago. I wept as I finally tore it down and broke up the wood - but rejoiced, too for the gifts it has shared. To everything there is a season - the seasons go round and round-and there's something lost and something gained in living every day.

credits:

Matthew Fox: (http://dailymeditationswithmatthewfox.org/2019/06/03/father-sky/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Daily+Meditations+with+Matthew+Fox%3A+June+3%2C+2019&utm_campaign=Daily+Meditations+June+3%2C+2019)

Parker Palmer: https://fetzer.org/blog/enter-spring-parker-palmer-muses-season

resting in the grace of creation's rhythms...

Yesterday and today have been dig in the dirt, get the herbs in their pots, and cut back more of the bramble day at Chez Lumsdemott. After a late breakfast on the deck, we spent hours potting, arranging, and replanting this year's herb garden. We even made a halting step towards this year's terrace, too. It will be relatively simple utilizing the ton of old tree limbs I've cut over the past year. But it will be perfect for chard, cukes, pumpkins, potatoes, spinach and the peas that are yet to come.

All the while I was sweating and messing about in the dirt, I was thinking about my recent reconnect with the work Matthew Fox. He is currently teaching about the archetypal green man and what he/she means for 21st century creation spirituality. I was introduced to Fox back in the mid-seventies when he reclaimed the ancient Christian mystical tradition for a new generation. His writing was playful, profound, and pragmatic. Fox has been linked in my heart to Fr. Ed Hays and his Forest of Peace retreat center. They both entered my world at about the same time. Over the decades these two Roman Catholic priests (and later Henri Nouwen, Richard Rohr and Sr. Joan Chittister) served as my go-to-elders in the search for a spirituality of tenderness and joy. Of particular interest to me was the biblical and theological insights Fox shared concerning compassion: in renewing the importance of living with an open heart, Fox pointed me towards a path that practiced honoring all of life as holy:

Compassion is the way we treat all there is in life - ourselves, our bodies, our imaginations and dreams, our neighbors, our enemies, our air, our water, our earth, our animals, our death, our space, and our time-as sacred. Compassion is a spirituality (that recognizes that) creation matters. It is treating all creation as holy and as divine... which is what it is... (Remember) compassion is not pity. Compassion never considers an object as weak or inferior. Compassion... works from a strength born of our shared weakness, not from someone else's weakness. And it is from this awareness of our mutuality that we find new ways of sharing... and living... and being. (NOTE: for more on this go to: https://innerself.com/content/personal/spirituality-mindfulness/inspiration/5029-altruism-vs-compassion-by-matthew-fox.html)

In a recent reflection, Fox suggested that St. Thomas Aquinas could be called one of creation's green men. Reminding us that Aquinas was grounded in the wisdom school of Aristotle (like Jean Vanier) Fox writes: 

Why was Aquinas so at home with Aristotle and other pagans? One reason is that his sense of revelation was not anthropocentric—he didn’t see revelation as simply what is in the Bible. He wrote, “Revelation comes in two volumes: the Bible and nature.” He took nature seriously as a source of the experience of the divine and of divine truth. To take nature seriously is to study it, and to do this one turns to scientists whose task it is to uncover the truths of nature. “All creatures confess that they are made by God”–we study them because they lead us to the divine wisdom. “All natural things were produced by the divine art, and so may be called ‘God’s works of art.’” Every single creature leads us to the “Source without a source” who is God and “leads to the knowledge of the first and highest One, which is infinite in every perfection.” Aquinas sees creatures as a “mirror” or image of God. “Every creature is for us like a certain mirror. Because from the order, goodness and magnitude which are caused by God in things, we come to a knowledge of the divine wisdom and goodness and eminence. And this knowledge we call a vision in a mirror.” (For more on this series re: green men and creation spirituality, please go to: http://dailymeditationswit hmatthewfox .org/2019/06/01/thomas-aquinas-as-a-green-man/?utm_ source= ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Daily+Meditations+with+Matthew+Fox%3A+June+1%2C+2019&utm_campaign=Daily+Meditations+June+1%2C+2019

I didn't grow up in an earthy environment. We never went camping as kids. We never dug or planted gardens. And there wasn't much connection to the natural world from my parents or the church of my youth. Yes, we had a funky, old, ramshackle summer cottage in Webster, MA that my grandparents built in the 1930s. It was heated by a massive fire place and spending summers there put me in touch with the mysterious beauty and power of water. But besides a few Boy Scout escapades, and summers at the lake, I didn't know much about being green until I worked with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers. The first few years involved resourcing the grape and Gallo wine boycotts. They were spent in the urban neighborhoods of St. Louis and Kansas City. When we moved to La Paz, the farm worker headquarters in the Tehachapi Mountains of California, most Saturday mornings were spent in Cesar's garden. It was a massive raised-bed, French intensive gardening experiment that regularly brought 75 of us out into the sun and soil. It was there that I learned about irrigation, shaping and building raised beds, the growing cycle of a variety of plants, and the pure joy of being quiet in the presence of natural world.

When life took me to seminary - and later to four local churches as pastor - I never felt quite at home until we were able to create a small garden of our own. Gardening, it seems, not only reconnected me to creation in an intimate way, it was also my first mentor in contemplation. Forty five minutes each evening weeding or watering was soul food for me. It cultivated an inner peace. And eating those first tomatoes! Oh Lord, it was ecstasy! 

While in the garden today, I remembered an NPR interview long ago with Robert Kennedy Jr. who was engaged in a project bringing inner city children into encounters with Mother Earth. "It is a proven fact," he said with conviction, "that violence decreases and hope soars when human beings spend time with their hands in the dirt." My affiliation with Fr. Jim O'Donnell in Cleveland verified this as he worked near the King-Kennedy projects on the East Side of the city to reclaim abandoned lots and convert them into community vegetable and flower gardens. Slowly and with intentionality, safety and beauty began to emerge where once fear and decay prevailed. Lot by lot, street by street, gardens replaced ruins and Habitat for Humanity houses built in partnership with local banks helped local folk reclaim their neighborhoods. It was an encounter in real time with God's promise in Isaiah 58:

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

I find this time of year to be restorative. It does my heart and soul good to get back into the dirt. Sitting on the deck each morning for breakfast while watching the birds, flowers and trees communicate is prayer. And I can't wait to cook with my new herbs. It also does my old heart good to know that the public school my grandson attends in Brooklyn has a weekly encounter with nature built into their curriculum. This year's emphasis in the kindergarten is "sea school" where the class goes to the shore or the aquarium to learn about tide pools, sea life, and the cycles of the moon, the tides and the rain. When Louie was in preschool, his momma organized a "woods school" for neighborhood children; on a regular basis they would head off to a park to watch the worms, meet the grass, dig in the soil, and listen and learn from the trees, wind and water. 

Today we may be living under the authority of an ignorant, belligerent blow hard who denies science, degrades compassion, panders to religious fundamentalists and seems hellbent on destroying nature. But there is an ever-growing army of nonviolent warriors committed to living as green men, women and children, They are creating new/old ways of being that honor our mutuality with one another,  and celebrate Mother Earth and all of God's creation. Today I lift up my heart and trust to the rhythm of creation that has endured far worse than the current regime. And rest in its grace.

abolish the priesthood: reflections on the wisdom of james carroll

Last night I read the most challenging argument James Carroll has yet penned concerning the Roman Catholic Church. His compelling jeremiad, "Abolish the Priesthood," has been published in the June 2019 edition of The Atlantic and warrants your prayerful attention. (see: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/06/to-save-the-church-dismantle-the-priesthood/588073/ )

Those who know Carroll's work will find resonance with his castigation of the clericalism that infects the Roman Catholic Church. He has made this case before: in his Boston Globe articles re: sexual abuse perpetrated by priests, in some of his works of fiction, and most thoroughly in both Constantine's Sword and Christ Actually. That he does so again highlights the depth of the Church's current brokenness - and moral bankruptcy. His disappointment with Pope Francis' attempts to administer justice and mercy in the wake of the massive sexual desecration of children and nuns by priests is palpable. His synthesis of his tradition's perversion is searing. And his agony over the status quo in Rome is compassionate and authentic. As he writes with grief, "what has been allowed to take place over decades... is murder of a soul." An early paragraph in Carroll's article sets the stage for what follows and is illustrative:

Not long before The Boston Globe began publishing its series on predator priests, in 2002—the “Spotlight” series that became a movie of the same name—the government of Ireland established a commission, ultimately chaired by Judge Sean Ryan, to investigate accounts and rumors of child abuse in Ireland’s residential institutions for children, nearly all of which were run by the Catholic Church. The Ryan Commission published its 2,600-page report in 2009. Despite government inspections and supervision, Catholic clergy had, across decades, violently tormented thousands of children. The report found that children held in orphanages and reformatory schools were treated no better than slaves—in some cases, sex slaves. Rape and molestation of boys were “endemic.” Other reports were issued about other institutions, including parish churches and schools, and homes for unwed mothers—the notorious “Magdalene Laundries,” where girls and women were condemned to lives of coercive servitude. The ignominy of these institutions was laid out in plays and documentary films, and in Philomena, the movie starring Judi Dench, which was based on a true story. The homes-for-women scandal climaxed in 2017, when a government report revealed that from 1925 to 1961, at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home, in Tuam, County Galway, babies who died—nearly 800 of them—were routinely disposed of in mass graves or sewage pits. Not only priests had behaved despicably. So had nuns.

Carroll then summarizes the hope and failure of Vatican II. The institution did articulate and implement an authentic conversion from antisemitism to fraternal solidarity with Judaism. The quest to ground the liturgy in the language of real believers rather than arcane Latin was an important change, too. Even the church's attempt to empower faith communities to become "the whole people of God" rather than sheep under the authority of the priesthood is celebrated - even as its demise is lamented. Carroll cuts to the chase with the claim that "clericalism, with its cult of secrecy, its theological misogyny and its hierarchal power, is the root of Roman Catholic dysfunction" and renders the remainder of "Abolish the Priesthood" to this analysis. It is brutal and soul numbing, but vital for the Body of Christ and the world, too.

Carroll lifts up the ethics of Jesus as salvific. He honors the universal works of mercy the church has embodied for millennial as holy. And recognizes that life without the church would be a catastrophe:

The renewal offered by Vatican II may have been thwarted, but a reformed, enlightened, and hopeful Catholic Church is essential in our world. On urgent problems ranging from climate change, to religious and ethnic conflict, to economic inequality, to catastrophic war, no nongovernmental organization has more power to promote change for the better, worldwide, than the Catholic Church. So let me directly address Catholics, and make the case for another way to respond to the present crisis of faith than by walking away. What if multitudes of the faithful, appalled by what the sex-abuse crisis has shown the Church leadership to have become, were to detach themselves from—and renounce—the cassock-ridden power structure of the Church and reclaim Vatican II’s insistence that that power structure is not the Church? The Church is the people of God. The Church is a community that transcends space and time. Catholics should not yield to clerical despots the final authority over our personal relationship to the Church. I refuse to let a predator priest or a complicit bishop rip my faith from me.

He continues by offering what strikes me as a sacred corrective: the reclamation of the laity as the whole people of God.

Replacing the diseased model of the Church with something healthy may involve, for a time, intentional absence from services or life on the margins—less in the pews than in the rearmost shadows. But it will always involve deliberate performance of the works of mercy: feeding the hungry, caring for the poor, visiting the sick, striving for justice. These can be today’s chosen forms of the faith. It will involve, for many, unauthorized expressions of prayer and worship—egalitarian, authentic, ecumenical; having nothing to do with diocesan borders, parish boundaries, or the sacrament of holy orders. That may be especially true in so-called intentional communities that lift up the leadership of women. These already exist, everywhere. No matter who presides at whatever form the altar takes, such adaptations of Eucharistic observance return to the theological essence of the sacrament. Christ is experienced not through the officiant but through the faith of the whole community. “For where two or three are gathered in my name,” Jesus said, “there am I in the midst of them.”

I love the Roman Catholic Church. Over my 40 years of serving as a pastor, all of my spiritual directors have been Roman Catholic. I have been strengthened and edified by Roman Catholic authors like Henri Nouwen, Joan Chittister, Jean Vanier, Thomas Keating, and Richard Rohr. And I have found a way back into resting/trusting in God's grace through the mystical love of Jesus experienced in meditation and Eucharist. I know that clericalism is just as toxic in my Reformed realm as it is in the Roman world. That is why I believe Carroll is on the right track.

Richard Rohr and Cynthia Bourgeault - like Phylis Tickle, Brian McLaren, Diana Butler Bass and others - have been making the case that the old way of being faithful is dying. My experience suggests that they are right. The mass exodus from all types of organized religion in the West has been documented ad nauseum for decades. A few courageous souls have even suggested clues as to what new forms of shared worship and faith formation might look like in a new incarnation. My gut tells me that these projections are premature and likely to be transitional. For what is still emerging - and what aches to be born - is a way of being the whole people of God beyond institutions. Not ecclesiastical anarchism, but rather small communities with vibrant lay leadership. This is where I keep discovering new life, new faith and new hope: in a spirituality that proclaims that small is holy. In L'Arche. In intentional poetry readings. In small, new music venues. In on-line prayer and study. In Taize. In the movement of new monks. 

Like Carroll, our new forms, "will always involve deliberate performance of the works of mercy: feeding the hungry, caring for the poor, visiting the sick, striving for justice. These can be today’s chosen forms of the faith." I sense that Rohr is on to something when he puts it like this:

If something comes toward you with grace and can pass through you and toward others with grace, you can trust it as the voice of God. One holy man who recently came to visit me put it this way: “We must listen to what is supporting us. We must listen to what is encouraging us. We must listen to what is urging us. We must listen to what is alive in us.” I personally was so trained not to trust those voices that I often did not hear the voice of God speaking to me, or what Abraham Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature...” We must learn how to recognize the positive flow and to distinguish it from the negative resistance within ourselves. It takes years of practice. If a voice comes from accusation and leads to accusation, it is quite simply the voice of the “Accuser,” which is the literal meaning of the biblical word “Satan.” Shaming, accusing, or blaming is simply not how God talks. God is supremely nonviolent. God only cajoles, softens, and invites us into an always bigger field and it is always a unified field.

Lord, may it be so.

NOTE: some may want to consider a recently publish rebuttal to Carroll printed in the Jesuit journal America @ https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/05/30/church-without-priests-i-cannot-find-redemption-response-james-carrollutm_source= Newsletters&utm_campaign=22bbade73b-DAILY_CAMPAIGN_2019_5_30&utmmedium=
email&utm_term=0_0fe8ed70be-22bbade73b-58843693

credits:

1. Pope Francis

2. Maternidad-guayasamin

3. Catholic Worker: mercy/war

4. Communities of Christ

5. World regligons

6. National Catholic Reporter

a spirituality of silence, stillness and solitude...

It is another cool, gray day in these Berkshire hills, perfect for tending the lawn while pondering emerging insights about silence, stillness and solitude. It begins with words found in Christopher Heurertz's excellent, The Sacred Enneagram re: "a spirituality marked by solitude, silence and stillness." Walking around with those words for a few weeks, I've been wondering how I both practice and avoid them. I've been curious, too about how I embrace and embody each of their discrete differences. 

Few truths take root within me quickly. I know that's not true for others, but I must ponder and flirt, explore and then hide away for a while, listen and test new insights before being ready to make a commitment. The late Jesuit scholar, Ray Brown, used to tell students at Union Seminary that we should always have "walking around time" to let the Spirit do her work within us. "That's what Jesus did," he would smile. "He walked around a lot before teaching and preaching. You should, too." Both the Psalmist and the prophetic poet, Jeremiah, speak of taking time as trusting and resting in the Lord much like trees that are planted by the water. "Blessed are those who delight in the Lord," begins Psalm 1, "for they are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, with leaves that do not wither." 

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green, in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit. (Jeremiah 17: 8)

Over time I have come to trust that if I am anxious then I'm not taking it slow enough to stand on holy ground. Small wonder I resonated with St. Leonard Cohen when he wrote in his seductively spiritual way: "I’m slowing down the tune, I never liked it fast. You want to get there soon, I want to get there last. It’s not because I’m old, it’s not the life I led, I always liked it slow that’s what my momma said." (check it out...)

Letting the question simmer within over time concerning what a true spirituality of solitude, silence and stillness might mean is yielding fruit in its own season. Three clues popped up last week. The first arrived in a FB meme quoting the late Gerald May. It went something like: "Love ripens and matures within us shrouded in the mystery of darkness because if we knew in advance what this love would mean for our lives we would either flee or sabotage it..."

Love's true nature remains forever beyond the grasp of all our faculties. It is far greater than any feeling or emotion and completely surpasses any act of human kindness. It is the one sheer gift of contemplation, completely unattainable by autonomous human effort. The realization of this love always remains mysterious.

My hunch is that this is one of the meanings of silence. It is unknowing. Or trusting the questions with time and grace. Silence embraces waiting. It rests in a sacred emptiness so that at the right time and way a creative Word can be revealed. The second clue came from Richard Rohr who recently in his daily meditation:

One of the most profound spiritual experiences of my life came in 1984 during a journaling retreat in Ohio led by the psychotherapist Ira Progoff (1921–1998). [2] Dr. Progoff guided us as we wrote privately for several days on some very human and ordinary questions. I remember first dialoguing with my own body, dialoguing with roads not taken, dialoguing with concrete memories and persons, dialoguing with my own past decisions, and on and on. I learned that if the quiet space, the questions themselves, and blank pages had not been put in front of me, I may never have known what was lying within me. Progoff helped me and many others access slow tears and fast prayers, and ultimately intense happiness and gratitude, as I discovered depths within myself that I never knew were there. I still reread some of what I wrote over forty years ago for encouragement and healing. And it all came from within me!

And, of course, the silence: emptiness, trust and waiting give birth to the words we need. In an age of too many words, sounds and noises, silence is redemptive. As Rohr writes, it is where our flesh communes with the Spirit in a manner much like the Virgin Mary when the story strengthens our theological symbolism. "Unless we are able to tap into a spirituality of interior poverty, readiness to conceive, and human vulnerability" the words of our tradition become a “mere lesson memorized” as Isaiah puts it (29:13) that “save” (read: heals) no one. 

I know that even as I trust the waiting and honor the emptiness, I also often fill up my life, heart and head with stuff like anxiety, pleasure, sounds, busyness, fear, and tasks to avoid resting. One of my favorite re-workings of Scripture is Eugene Peterson's take on Romans 7:

The power of my inner wound keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, my brokenness is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? 

So, silence as emptiness and waiting; stillness and resting in trust. The third clue that is yielding fruit for me comes from an extended reflection from the late Henri Nouwen and his lessons in spiritual direction. Nouwen observes that at this moment in time, we must distinguish between solitude and privacy. He writes:


In order to understand the meaning of solitude, we must first unmask the ways in which the idea of solitude has been distorted by our world. We say to each other that we need some solitude in our lives. What we really are thinking of, however, is a time and place for ourselves in which we are not bothered by other people, can think our own thoughts, express our own complaints, and do our own thing, whatever it may be. For us, solitude most often means privacy. We have come to the dubious conviction that we all have a right to privacy. Solitude thus becomes like a spiritual property for which we can compete on the free market of spiritual goods. But there is more. We also think of solitude as a station where we can recharge our batteries, or as a corner of the boxing ring where our wounds are oiled, our muscles massaged, and our courage restored by fitting slogans. In short, we think of solitude as a place where we gather new strength to continue the ongoing competition of life.

Nouwen helps me realize that an overly busy and hyper-scheduled life pushes me towards privacy. And if I confuse privacy with solitude, it is another way to avoid the emptiness of silence and the rest of stillness. If I want to live in the presence of grace I must own that "solitude is not a private therapeutic place. Rather, it is the place of conversion, the place where the old self dies and the new self is born, the place where the emergence of the new man and the new woman occurs." I think that Brother Henri also makes it clear that transformative solitude is saturated in prayer. 

If solitude were primarily an escape from a busy joy, and silence primarily an escape from a noisy milieu, they could easily become very self-centered forms of asceticism. But solitude and silence are for prayer. The Desert Fathers (and Mothers) did not think of solitude as being alone, but as being alone with God. They did not think of silence as not speaking but as listening to God. Solitude and silence are the context within which prayer is practiced.

This is what Nouwen means when he writes: "Solitude is the place where we go in order to hear the truth about ourselves. It asks us to let go of the other ways of proving, which are a lot more satisfying. The voice that calls us the beloved is not the voice that satisfies the senses. That’s what the whole mystical life is about; it is beyond feelings and beyond thoughts." We step into the emptiness and quiet so that resting we can listen to the "voice that calls us the Beloved." There is more to be revealed, more to trust, and more to be practiced. But I give thanks for an afternoon of weeding, cutting grass and hauling stones to the garden, that my inner tree might be watered by the flowing stream of grace.

living into a world where everyone has a place...

We are putting together a music and poetry show on Saturday, June 15 unlike

any I've organized before. It started as a simple invitation to a number of local musicians in the area that I have loved making music with over the past decade: would you like to get together again after a few years break and do a benefit for those most in need in our town? In fact, I invited the musicians themselves to share what organization or ministry they would like to support. It was all wildly open-ended. And two interesting things popped-up:

+ First, most of my old musical colleagues signed-up for this gig within 24 hours. That blew me away. I love these men and women and adore making music with them. We had done so two or three times each year for nearly a decade before my retirement brought it all to a close. That they were as psyched about getting together again as I was confirmed my belief that music making can be a way of caring for our broken and wounded culture while binding up our own wounds, too.

+ Second, everyone sensed that raising funds and awareness about homelessness in our town was essential. Organically, I think, we knew we needed to take care of our own. Not in a jingoistic or cruelly nationalistic way as the current US regime advocates. But rather in a manner that might make a real difference for those closest to home. It was a manifestation of Jean Vanier's "Ten Foot Rule" being realized in our small town.

When I reached out to the local advocates combating homeless in our area, Barton's Crossing and Service.Net, they LOVED the idea. After all, only 70% of their operating budget is covered by grants. My old congregation was equally supportive and will be hosting the event in the First Church sanctuary. Our old sound man, Rob "the Genius" Dumais, signed on, too. And we were able to cobble together a collection of old buddies to create an evening in solidarity with those on the front line of providing shelter and food for women, men and children.

This won't be an overwhelming event, mind you. Just 90+ minutes of folk, jazz, rock and roll and poetry in a safe and beautiful setting. Mostly, it is an act of incarnation where all the holy words become flesh as we listen and respond to one another in pursuit of beauty and community. I know I sound like the late John Lennon in "Imagine." But for a few hours, we will live into our deepest hopes and dreams about how we can build a world where everyone has a place and all belong. I know for me it is another expression of what I have been learning from the witness of Jean Vanier and L'Arche. 

One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn't as individuals. When we pool our strength and share the work and responsibility, we can welcome many people, even those in deep distress, and perhaps help them find self-confidence and inner healing. Community is a sign that love is possible in a materialistic world where people so often either ignore or fight each other. It is a sign that we don't need a lot of money to be happy - in fact, the opposite. (Community is where) every child, every person (knows) that they are a source of joy; (where) every child, every person, is celebrated. Only when all of our weaknesses are accepted as part of our humanity can our negative, broken self-images be transformed. (Community and Growth)

Throughout the evening we'll be pushing the edges of paradox in style, form and sound. We'll open with "One Voice" - a stunning folk anthem to community with rich harmonies - and pair it with the Doobie Brothers' rockin' "Long Train Running" that reminds us that "without love... there is nothing!" There will be poetry and silence. Jazz and rock. Cover tunes and original new music. Electric and wooden sounds. If you are in the area on Saturday, June 15 @ 7 pm, please stop by First Church of Christ on Park Square (27 East Street in Pittsfield) and raise your voice as a part of the festival.

reconnecting to joy...

It is a cold, damp day in part of the woods - a perfect day for getting some inside chores finished.  After a full weekend of visiting with our family from Brooklyn and the hill towns - feasting, telling stories, getting caught up on what's going on in our respective lives, and just hanging together with love - it was time for me to get back in the groove. I've now dusted and washed floors, done the laundry, and worked on follow-up publicity for the June 15th music and poetry concert in solidarity with Barton's Crossing. 

Truth be told, I cherish days like this: slow stretches of solitude in service to the ordinary. I sing to myself and try to listen to what bubbles up. Yesterday, as our visiting was coming to a close, my grandson Louie sat next to me at my desk. After looking through a few pictures on my computer of his mother and aunt  when they were young, he said, "Gwad, you retired so that you could do other important work, didn't?" I looked over at my little buddy and smiled as he continued, "So you didn't really stop working. You just do NEW work now." My little man doesn't miss a trick. He listens carefully to everything taking place even when it doesn't look like it. He ponders his reality profoundly - and feels free to share his observations with those he loves and trusts. Doing my house work this morning led me to reread this morning's poem that has Louie all over it:

Missing It by Naomi Shihab Nye

Our cousin Sarni said at night when he can't sleep
he thinks about everything he missed that day.
Which way didn't he turn his head?
Whose face didn't he notice?
He gets the answer to the problem he missed
on the test. He finally remembers where they buried
the one cat who sat in anyone's lap.

Walking, talking, playing, listening, and praying with Louie and Anna this weekend - as well as with their parents and auntie/uncle - filled me with joy. The NY Times columnist, David Brooks, wrote about joy and happiness last week and this words right true.

Happiness usually involves a victory for the self. Joy tends to involve the transcendence of self. Happiness comes from accomplishments. Joy comes when your heart is in another. Joy comes after years of changing diapers, driving to practice, worrying at night, dancing in the kitchen, playing in the yard and just sitting quietly together watching TV. Joy is the present that life gives you as you give away your gifts. The core point is that happiness is good, but joy is better. It’s smart to enjoy happiness, but it’s smarter still to put yourself in situations where you might experience joy.

In my spiritual tradition, joy comes from a generous heart and a compassionate soul. It is deep speaking to deep. It evokes dancing, illumination, exuberance, song, and celebration where there is unity between the holy and the human. "In thy presence is fullness of joy, in thy right hand there are pleasures for ever more.(Psalm 16: 11) The New Testament is equally formed by encounters with joy: "I have come," testifies Jesus, "that my joy may be in your and your joy may be full." (John 15: 11) Both the Hebrew and Greek texts honor the centrality of living into joy. The Hebrew text uses שִׂמְחָה (simchat) 97 times to describe the experience of gladness, mirth, festivity and rejoicing; and the Greek text utilizes χαρά (chara) from xáris (charis - grace) 57 to tell much the same story. 

How then did our religion become so deadening? Deadly? Judgmental, harsh and punitive? Our Judeo-Christian heritage is all about exodus and freedom, grace and renewal, welcome and homecoming for even the least of our sisters and brothers. Don't misunderstand: I still read and revel in the holy words of my tradition and seek to root myself in our heritage of joy. But more often than not, it takes the poetry of contemporary women and men of grace to help me reconnect with what the holy breathed into me at the dawn of creation. Poets - as well as dancers, artists, musicians and little children - put me back in communion with my essence and my birthright as one created in the image of joy.

There was the method of kneeling,
a fine method, if you lived in a country
where stones were smooth.
The women dreamed wistfully of bleached courtyards,
hidden corners where knee fit rock.
Their prayers were weathered rib bones,
small calcium words uttered in sequence,
as if this shedding of syllables could somehow
fuse them to the sky.

There were the men who had been shepherds so long
they walked like sheep.
Under the olive trees, they raised their arms—
Hear us! We have pain on earth!
We have so much pain there is no place to store it!
But the olives bobbed peacefully
in fragrant buckets of vinegar and thyme.
At night the men ate heartily, flat bread and white cheese,
and were happy in spite of the pain,
because there was also happiness.

Some prized the pilgrimage,
wrapping themselves in new white linen
to ride buses across miles of vacant sand.
When they arrived at Mecca
they would circle the holy places,
on foot, many times,
they would bend to kiss the earth
and return, their lean faces housing mystery.

While for certain cousins and grandmothers
the pilgrimage occurred daily,
lugging water from the spring
or balancing the baskets of grapes.
These were the ones present at births,
humming quietly to perspiring mothers.
The ones stitching intricate needlework into children’s dresses,
forgetting how easily children soil clothes.

There were those who didn’t care about praying.
The young ones. The ones who had been to America.
They told the old ones, you are wasting your time.
Time?—The old ones prayed for the young ones.
They prayed for Allah to mend their brains,
for the twig, the round moon,
to speak suddenly in a commanding tone.

And occasionally there would be one

who did none of this,
the old man Fowzi, for example, Fowzi the fool,
who beat everyone at dominoes,
insisted he spoke with God as he spoke with goats,
and was famous for his laugh.

Rolling in the grass with Anna as Dima laughed and held her with tenderness made me think of something Louie said to Dima (Dianne as grandmother) one Easter afternoon. To her question "Aren't these flowers pretty?" Louie replied, "Aren't all flowers pretty?" I believe, I believe, O Lord, help my unbelief.