This past week was a cornucopia of color as fall ripens in the Berkshires. Here are just a few of my favorite pictures from this time...
Tonight I am loving this poem, "Processional," by Joanna Klink:
If there is a world, let me be in it.Let fires arise and pass. The sky fill with evening air then sink across the woodlots and porches, the streams thinning to creeks. In winter there will be creatures half-locked in ice, storms blown through iron grates, a drug of whitest ardor. Let the old hopes be made new. Let stacks of clouds blacken if they have to but never let the people in this town go hungry. Never let them fear cold. If there is a world, let it not be temporary, like these vague stars. Let us die when we must. And spinelessness not overtake us, and privation, let rain bead across tangled lavender plants. If there is a world where we feel very little, let it not be our world. Let worth be worth and energy action—let blood fly up to the surface skin. If you are fierce, if you are cynical, halfhearted, pained— I would sit with you awhile, or walk next to you, and when we take leave of each other after so many years, the oaks will toss their branches in wheels of wind above us—as if it had mattered, all of it, every second. If there is a world.
We act towards justice by building relationships within our
communitiesand across lines of
difference, developing our leaders' skills in the public arena,and
taking action on issues of common concern. The proceeds from tonight’s concert
will support a sanctuary congregation in the Berkshires – a place of safety
supported by the inter-faith community for those seeking a new and hope-filled
life in a new land – an act of love and solidarity in the face of all the
forces of hatred that wound us all.
Andy Kelly – Charlie Tokarz - Linda
Worster
Jon Haddad - John Hamilton
Between the Banks – Juan
Pablo – Jesse Miner
Berkshire County Poets and more!
I am thrilled to post this and invite everyone in the area to join us. It will be part preaching to the choir - everyone needs encouragement in these hard times - part progressive/interfaith music/poetry/art revival, part reunion of our old Thanksgiving Eve bands and part something entirely new and challenging. And if you can't be a part of the fun, but want to contribute, please be in touch with me by email and I will send you the details.
Two years ago I formed a small spiritual direction practice: Be Still and Know. After 30 years of informal practice, it was time for me to both honor this work in public and incrementally deepen it, too. Given the richness of my retirement - travel, rest, solitude, and study - my commitment to community with L'Arche Ottawa, and the new music I was playing with Famous Before We're Dead, I moved into this practice slowly. There simply was too much to encounter last year - and I wanted to savor it all. Now I have nearly completed my on-line web page as well as a new Facebook site and will launch them over the weekend. This, too, will be a slow-moving train: I will only take-on a few more consultations each month so that I can be fully present with this these new commitments. My prayer is that I might engage with a few more individuals from both the Christian as well as inter-faith community who wish to go deeper on the inward/outward journey. Those who seek companionship on the path of compassion and contemplation. Those who sense the holy calling them into a spirituality of tenderness. Currently this is taking place both in-person (at my home) and will soon also happen on-line (via Skype.)
The wisdom teacher, Cynthia Bourgeault, writes that "seeing with the eyes of the heart" involves discerning connections and patterns in our lives. She also teaches that her spiritual guides have taught her that "human beings tend to prefer a manageable complexity to an unmanageable simplicity." That is, we love to make rules and rituals that clearly measure our spiritual honesty rather than moving in the freedom of the mystery of grace and trust. My hunch is that she is right - and when I saw the ripening tomatoes hanging up in my basement, and later clicked on my "poem for the day" and found Nickole Brown's "Prayer to be Still and Know" popping up - I could only smile and finish up working on the public web page. Lord, let my ears go secret agent, each a microphone so hot it picks up things silent, reverbing even the hum of stone close to its eager, silver grill. Let my ears forget years trained to human chatter wired into every room, even those empty except of me, each broadcast and jingle tricking me into being less lonely than I am. Let my ears forget the clack and rumble, our tambourining and fireworking distractions, our roar of applause. Let my hands quit their clapping and rest in a new kind of prayer, one that doesn’t ask but listens, palms up in my lap. Like an owl, let me triangulate icy shuffling under snow as vole, let me not just name the name when I spot a soundtrack of birdsong but understand the notes through each syrinx as a singular missive—begging, flirting, fussing, each companion call and alarm as sharp with desire and fear as my own. Prick my ears, Lord. Make them hungry satellites, have your way with their tiny bones, teach the drum within that dark to drum again. Because within the hammering of woodpecker is a long tongue unwinding like a tape measure from inside his pileated head, darting dinner from the pine’s soft bark. And somewhere I know is a spider who births a filament of silk and flies it to the next branch; somewhere, a fiddlehead unstrings its violin into the miracle of fern. And somewhere, a mink not made into a coat cracks open a mussel’s shell, and with her mouth full of that gray meat, yawns. Those are your sounds, are they not? Do not deny it, Lord, do not deny me. I do not know those songs. Nor do I know the hush a dandelion’s face makes when it closes, surrenders, then goes to seed. No, I only know the sound my own breath makes as I wish and blow that perfect globe away; I only know the small, satisfactory popping of roots when I call it weed and yank it from the yard. There is a language of all you’ve created. Hear me, please. I just want to be still enough to hear. Right here, Lord: I want to be.
If you would like to join with me - or want to know more - drop me an email and I will follow-up. Watch for an update re: the new web site, too.
This has been an introspective day: I started to build my All Saints/All Souls Day family altar. For the better part of the morning I went through the scrapbooks my daughter M compiled for me over the years. In addition to the care and beauty she brought to this task, there are wonderful pictures evoking important memories and a collection of letters from friends and colleagues. What a treasure. Then I worked my way through a vat of unorganized pictures and papers that I had set aside nearly two years ago. That, too was fascinating and I came up with some more winners. About this time last year I participated in an on-line study organized by the Abbey of the Arts called "Honoring Saints and Ancestors." One of the suggested practices involved creating an altar to celebrate and honor those in our lives and families who have helped shape and guide us. Two quotes from the study capture the essence of these altars: "We clasp the hands of those who go before us," said Wendell Berry; and Alice Walker noted that "And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see—or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read." The short but lively course was grounded in both the contemporary observance of All Saints Day in the Western Christian calendar as well as the ancient Celtic feast of Samhain, "which marks the beginning of the dark half of the year in the northern hemisphere and is a festival of the final harvest and remembering the dead." (For more information:https://abbeyofthearts.com/programs/self-study-online-classes/honoring-saints-and-ancestors-online-retreat-for-the-season-of-remembrance/)
Last year was filled with changes for me and upon looking backwards I was clearly in a sorting out mode: I tossed most of my sermon notes from 40 years, shed close to 1,500 books, went through all my files and pictures, too and kept only a plastic vat's worth of the past. We visited Tucson in the winter, started to work on our garden the way we've always wanted it, celebrated the wedding of two of my oldest friends, went to worship with the crew in Brooklyn, played a ton of new music, and slowed life down to a contemplative pace. Which is to say, I never got around to building that family altar. But this year felt right - and I now have the foundation up. Facing me are pictures and art that shapes my daily prayers: it is a wall of living contemplation. Behind me is now an altar to the beloved departed who continue to touch and shape my life. I still need to find a few more pictures of those who have joined that great cloud of witnesses and will continue the quest tonight. To date I have added: my mother's sisters, both sets of grandparents, my sisters Linda and Beth, Ray and Jane Swartzback (with whom I did my urban internship in NYC), Sam Fogal (pastor of my home congregation and life friend), Michael Daniels (who introduced me to AA through his own journey to sobriety), the grave of civil rights workers Goodman, Schwerner and Channey in Philadelphia, MS, my Aunt Donna, Fred Rogers, the construction workers at Ground Zero, some of the holy ground from Chimayo, NM, my United Farm Workers jacket patch and our old dog Casey. I have long cherished that passage from the New Testament book of Hebrews that begins in chapter 11 and closes with these words from chapter 12:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.
Clarence Jordan, who always pushed for clarity in his explication of scripture, renders this passage on"faith" as the turning of dreams into deeds. Faith is the assurance - the promise and reality - of all we have hoped for in Christ: new life within, hope, compassion and justice in this world, and intimacy with God in the world to come. As I hold my sisters and brothers in the community of L'Arche Ottawa up in prayer this week as they move through their pilgrimage of trust at Taize, I was grateful to come across this commentary from Taize concerning our "great cloud of witnesses."
The “great cloud of witnesses” that surrounds us are people from every age whose lives were determined by their faith in God. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews compares them to sports fans in the stands of a stadium. They have already finished their race. But they do not lose interest in those who are still struggling and running. They urge them on and applaud them. That is how witnesses support our faith. But however encouraging the presence of these witnesses is, we are not called to look at them but at “Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” Jesus himself agreed to run a difficult race, to keep going in suffering and in shame. He agreed to be himself a simple witness and not a judge. (http://www.taize.fr/en_article167.html?date=2013-07-01)
Today, all around me, the hills are alive with vibrant hues of yellow. The fire bush in our yard celebrates the holy with arms of red as it moves into a time of quiet winter contemplation. The warm autumn air is also a reminder that soon this too shall pass. How did the Blessed Virgin Mary put it: My spirit rejoices in God my savior? I am surrounded by a GREAT cloud of witnesses.
Most men have been condition to understand themselves through what they do: in this we are more human do-ing than human be-ing. As the bottom-line, acquisitive culture of 21st century capitalism becomes normative, women too have increasingly taken to defining themselves by their work and function. Do not mistake me for an old world, male chauvinist lamenting a mythological past where women maintained the home fires with patience, culture, and delicacy while men duked it out in the trenches. Such a fantasy may drive the thoughts of some of the "upstairs" members of the manor, but rarely those working and dwelling down below. No, human equality in all its possibilities guides my understanding of the realm of God in both this life and the next. The anthem of the 1912 Lawrence textile strike got it right:
As we go marching, marching we bring the greater days For the rising of the women means the rising of the race No more the drudge and idler ten that toil where one reposes
But the sharing of life's glories, bread and roses, bread and roses
Sadly, my concern is that in 2019 this poem has not become prophetic: hell, it isn't even remembers as life has become so inverted that now men's alienated work/life balance has become that for women as well. Rather than the blessings born of a "rising," there is more despair founded upon our dog-eat-dog culture of lowest common denominators. The recent stories of death and disregard in the new economy's "model workplaces" like Amazon make it all too clear: we have created a brave new world without even a nod to bread or roses. (See https://www.theguardian.com /technology/ 2019/oct/17/ amazon-warehouse-worker-deaths)
What has been lost in our race to the bottom is an appreciation of relationships - real human connections - that nourish our hearts and build community. I have been stunned at how revolutionary the idea of a "smart phone sabbath" sounds to many bright, connected, and engaged people. This morning I read David Leonhardt's' NYTimes op-ed, "24 Hours Without My Phone" that begins:
In 2008, Tiffany Shlain’s father, Leonard, was diagnosed with brain cancer, and she began to change her use of technology when the two of them were together. “Some days he would have only one good hour,” she later wrote in the Harvard Business Review, “and I didn’t want to be distracted when I was with him, so I’d turn off my cellphone.” Eventually, Shlain, a filmmaker, extended the idea into a full day without screen use. She called it a tech shabbat — after the Jewish day of rest — and she has written several articles and a recent book, called “24/6,” about the idea. “The digital revolution has blurred the lines between time on and time off, and time off is disappearing,” she wrote in The Boston Globe. “As for our leisure time, we’ve created a culture in which we’re still ‘working’ while we play: needing to photograph every moment, then crafting witty posts of our ‘fun, relaxing activities’ on Instagram, then obsessively checking responses. We can barely catch our breath in the tsunami of personal and work digital input, which results in us not being truly present for any of it.”(https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/22/opinion/technology-shut-off.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fdavidleonhardt&action=click&contentCollection=undefined®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection)
He concludes with a celebration of a true sabbath writing: "I really appreciated the break. I spent time reading a delightful book. None of us was distracted by texts when talking to each other. And I was able to ignore all manner of non-urgent work email. We’re not quite ready to sign up for a tech shabbat every weekend, given various obligations. But we are ready to do it again soon, and it served as a good reminder that putting away phones for even short stretches of time is an excellent idea." I have no words - well, ok, a few. Bewildered. Saddened. Perplexed. And angry. We have lost so much of what it means to be human beings who love and cherish one another beyond our function. Job. Or usefulness. Marrilynne Robinson wrote a brilliant essay in her Death of Adam collection wherein she takes to task the utilitarianism of modern day social Darwinists who refuse to notice that compassion and altruism are built into our species. We save the wounded. We care for the broken. We grieve over death. Not always, of course, and sometimes imperfectly. But we know from the inside out that we are not machines. We care. We treasure relationships. And so much of our bottom line culture works to isolate and ignore our capacity for caring. Perhaps that is why earlier today I burst into tears upon seeing this Canadian commercial. Yes, it too comes from a corporation wrestling with a bottom line. But it is beautiful and prophetic at the same time. A true embrace of bread and roses in an appropriately tech-savvy manner.
Today is stunning in these hills: the sun is bright, the wetlands and woods are shrouded in yellows and grays, the burning bushes are shouting in crimson, and the autumn air rolls softly with a quiet warmth. It won't last, of course: by All Saints/Souls Day, the temperature will have fallen a full twenty degrees. That is why the invitation is to abide in the beauty of the now while we can, yes? At the close of his reflection on anxiety, Jesus told his friends with a subtle smile, "So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today." (Matthew 6:34) Stillness and presence are key to abiding. It is so easy to become distracted. I am thrown off course daily by shame or anxiety, feelings of judgment from others or from within, worries about our long term financial well-being to say nothing of the political/moral chaos of this moment in time. The alternative - and antidote - to these diversions is letting go. Nourishing a deep encounter with stillness. Practicing and then living into the Serenity Prayer: "God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things I can, and the Wisdom to know the difference." Which is never automatic and always in need of refreshment. Maria Popova put it like this in her reflection on Tolstoy and the Quest for Kindness: In our culture, it has been aptly observed, "we are never as kind as we want to be, but nothing outrages us more than people being unkind to us." In his stirring Syracuse commencement address, George Saunders confessed with unsentimental ruefulness: "What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness." I doubt any decent person, upon candid reflection, would rank any other species of regret higher. To be human is to leap toward our highest moral potentialities, only to trip over the foibled actualities of our reflexive patterns. To be a good human is to keep leaping anyway.
To be a "good" human is to keep leaping, yes; but to be a wise and faithful human requires more than repetition. The spiritual masters of AA are clear that "if we always do what we've always done, we'll always get what we've always got." Or as another quipped, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results." This is where the practice of stillness becomes a matter of true life and death. Nourishing the ability to rest in whatever reality brings to us is the universal, time-tested practice for strengthening serenity. Consistent compassion. A heart and soul at peace even in the tempest. Popova builds on her insight re: stillness in another essay exploring Pico Iyer's conversations with the late Leonard Cohen concerning quiet meditation: In our Productivity Age of perpetual motion, it’s increasingly hard — yet increasingly imperative — to honor stillness, to build pockets of it into our lives, so that our faith in beauty doesn’t become half-hearted, lopsided, crippled... In a sentiment that calls to mind Annie Dillard’s memorable notion of “unmerited grace [that] is handed to you, but only if you look for it,” Iyer considers the rewards that beckon us from that space of stillness: "It’s only by taking myself away from clutter and distraction that I can begin to hear something out of earshot and recall that listening is much more invigorating than giving voice to all the thoughts and prejudices that anyway keep me company twenty-four hours a day. And it’s only by going nowhere — by sitting still or letting my mind relax — that I find that the thoughts that come to me unbidden are far fresher and more imaginative than the ones I consciously seek out... Going nowhere … isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply."
Over the years I have stumbled upon a truth that needs regular repeating: there are a ton of ways to practice stillness. That is, there is no one size fits all when it comes to contemplation. As both Rumi and Annie Lennox proclaim: there are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the earth.
What is a constant and not open for debate, however, is that some form of quiet reflection is essential for rewiring our hearts and habits away from the curse of judgment. Dualistic thinking. Putting our feelings at the center of creation. That is always deadly - and seems to be best unlearned and rewired through failure. Talk about the mystery of paradox, right? "Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their soul?" (Matthew 16: 25-26) Hitting the wall, crashing and burning, losing our mooring and drifting in anxiety and/or shame seems to be the way most of us realize we need an alternative. If you are like me, you'll try a lot of ways to make a change that are essentially cosmetic before coming to grips with the need for surrender or relinquishing control to the grace of God.
My descent and incremental renewal has been constant. Thankfully there have been modest plateaus that pop up from time to time to help me regain my breath and perspective. It hasn't been a half century of free fall. Yet while I have come to appreciate my own peculiar and slow way of practicing acceptance it would be fair to say that the challenge of surrendering to God's grace hasn't been fully resolved in my heart. Right now I'm in a quiet season of consolation. A breather of sorts. And I am grateful because the last four years have been agonizing. Yes, there were oasis for rest. Yes, there was love and support in my life. But mostly I had to experience wave upon wave of anxiety because I refused to let go of outside judgments. They truly got the best of me more often than not. They filled me with fear. And failure. So it would not be too strong a confession to note that I needed to break down before I was ready to accept what could not be changed - and learn to quietly savor God's small but certain presence in serenity.
"Taste and see," the Psalmist sang. Apparently we cannot think our way into rest or busy ourselves into stillness. We must feel our need from the inside out with an intensity that compels surrender before we're able to trust the quiet. Or as they put it in AA: "You gotta be sick and tired of being sick and tired before you're ready to get well." Owning my inner spiritual roller coaster out loud helps me remember what an uneven ride it has been thus far. And if past is prelude to future, will likely be again. Karen Paul Homes' poem, "Rental Cottage, Maine" speaks to me today:
We thought we were the perfect family— loyal, stable, a brick wall you couldn't topple with a wrecking ball. Parents dependable as the frozen Minute Maid juice we squeezed from cardboard cans and drank mornings, reconstituted.
We'd come to this place just to be together. October in Ogunquit, record heat, no need for the sweaters we'd packed. Dad had died but Mom, in her 80s, sat pouring green tea, our wicker chairs on the small porch, six sets of knees touching.
She didn't mean to mention Dad's first wife.
To our collective what? she sputtered lasted a year, before the war, her name: Phyllis. Remember that chest in the basement? It was hers.
Some moments passed, then mutely we agreed to let it go. Radium glowed green in our brains but didn't burn. The knowing, a relief: We didn't have to be perfect.
The August-warm wind felt pleasant and odd. We sat on that porch, orange leaves pinwheeling down the street.
Thanks be to God that I can rejoice in the stillness of this day and abide in its love.
I am not want to rise early. Beyond a doubt, I have reveled in the majesty of a sunrise. And tasted the sweetness of awe in the solitary stillness of a new day. But I rarely get myself out of bed early. I value sleeping-in more than the solitude of dawn. And, after years of ripening, have come to accept and love the fact that I am a guy who resonates more with Compline than Lauds.
For decades, this was not the case. I did not fit into the mold of those who made prayer a priority. I was soft. Lazy. Undisciplined. In one of the hundreds of books on prayer and contemplation I once owned, a story told by a Presbyterian minister stuck with me as judgment. Many cherished Mother Teresa in his church, he said, without ever emulating her. They celebrated her compassion, their hearts were moved by her selfless devotion to the wounded and outcast, most admired her spirituality, and all exalted her simple humility. "My flock loved who Mother Teresa was," he lamented, "without doing what Mother Teresa did." Whether through ignorance or sloth, he concluded, she was revered, but never copied. The late Clarence Jordan of Koinonia Farms used to say much the same thing about Jesus, too: we put him on a pedestal. And the reason we put things on a pedestal is that are pretty - and delicate - and irrelevant to the way we live. We like to look upon them for a spell but then put them away so we can get on with real life.
I understand the heart of these stories. I've said something similar at various times myself, too. The goal is to underscore the importance of nourishing a contemplative practice in a rich and mature manner. Fr. Richard Rohr writes:
Contemplation is an entirely different way of knowing reality that has the power to move us beyond mere ideology and dualistic thinking. Mature religion will always lead us to some form of prayer, meditation, or contemplation to balance out our usual calculating mind. Believe me, it is major surgery, and we must practice it for years to begin to rewire our egocentric responses. Contemplation is work, so much so that most people give up after their first futile attempts. But the goal of contemplation is not success, only the continuing practice itself. The only people who pray well are those who keep praying! In fact, continued re-connecting is what I mean by prayer, not occasional consolations that we may experience.
I agree. What got in my way, however, was the narrow and rigid ways that spiritual practices were often described. When prayer and the life of faith are defined primarily with athletic or military terms - running the race set before us or putting on spiritual armor for warfare - the inward/outward journey became an endurance contest. Then the way of the heart is no longer about incarnating the gift of life with joy, but a battle to subdue our bodies. When asceticism is the primary practice advocated for going deeper, these stories in combination with the commitments made by monastics of all types convinced me that I was a poser. Yes I prayed, but mostly after noon. Of course I could sit for 30 minutes of silent contemplation in Centering Prayer, but I needed a pot of tea first. And while I regularly practiced lectio divina with Scripture, poetry and texts on the inward/outward journey, more often than not it was after midnight. Or after an evening taking in jazz and talking to strangers about the communion born of music. Like Fr. Keating said about himself as a young monk: when harshness shapes the story of spirituality, it is only natural to conclude that scrupulosity is the only real way to the sacred.
Thank God I stumbled upon Rumi: he was every bit as dedicated to the sacred as St. Benedict - or Thomas Merton or Kathleen Norris - but much more earthy, funny, sensual, and incarnational. It was brother Rumi who showed me how to value the road less traveled in the contemplative world of music, feasting, solitude in the garden as well as chanted Evening Prayer, baking, friendship, dancing, poetry, presence, and laughter. These, too were honorable practices in an earthy spirituality. Stillness and solitude were still foundational, but now there was more than one path to follow. One poem puts it like this:
Where is a foot worthy to walk a garden,
or an eye that deserves to look at trees? Show me a man willing to be thrown in the fire.
+
In the shambles of love, they kill only the best,
none of the weak or deformed.
Don't run away from this dying.
Whosoever's not killed for love is dead meat.
+
Tonight with wine being poured
and instruments singing among themselves,
one this is forbidden,
one thing: Sleep.
+
Two strong impulses: One
to drink long and deep,
the other,
not to sober up too soon.
Wild. Bold. Sensuality in service of the Spirit's calling. Like the mature Leonard Cohen, Rumi writes:
Has anyone seen the boy who used to come here?
Round-faced trouble-maker, quick to find a joke,
slow to be serious, red shirt,
perfect coordination, sly, strong muscled,
with tings always in his pocket: reed flute,
worn pick, polished and ready for his Talent
you know the one?
Have you heard stories about him?
Pharaoh and the whole Egyptian world
collapsed for such a Joseph.
I'd gladly spend years getting word
of him - even third or fourth hand.
It is said that John Coltrane played himself clean from heroin and into a life of sobriety by immersing himself in his saxophone. In fact, his mystical quest for improvisation had something to do with the sacred sound that once brought him healing. This was contemplation by another name. St. Leonard, St. Joni, St. George Harrison, St. Lou Reed, St. Laura Nyro, St. Aretha Franklin, St. Marvin Gaye, St. Curtis Mayfield and many more all journeyed on this less traveled road of contemplation. For at it's heart, the inward journey involves practices that reconnect us to our deepest loves and wounds. Rohr writes:
Contemplation allows us to see the truth of things in their wholeness. It is a mental discipline and gift that detaches us, even neurologically, from our addiction to our habitual ways of thinking and from our left brain, which likes to think it is in control. We stop believing our little binary mind—which strips things down to two choices and then usually identifies with one of them—and begin to recognize the inadequacy of that limited way of knowing reality. Relying solely on the binary mind is a recipe for superficiality. Only the contemplative, or the deeply intuitive, can start venturing out into much broader and more open-ended horizons... Contemplation is simply a way of maintaining the fruits of great love and great suffering over the long haul and in different situations. And that takes a lot of practice—in fact, our whole life becomes one continual practice.
As I have continued to explore an earthy spirituality, listening to the wisdom of
the seasons has become vital. In this morning's Brain Picking, Maria Popova tells of Pico Iyer's sublime reflection on autumn. If winter is for "tending the inner garden," offering a stark contrast to "the electricity of spring... What, then, of autumn — that liminal space between beauty and bleakness, foreboding and bittersweet, yet lovely in its own way?"
Perhaps, between its falling leaves and fading light, it is not a movement toward gain or loss but an invitation to attentive stillness and absolute presence, reminding us to cherish the beauty of life not despite its perishability but precisely because of it; because the impermanence of things — of seasons and lifetimes and galaxies and loves — is what confers preciousness and sweetness upon them. (Iyer writes: "We cherish things, Japan has always known, precisely because they cannot last; it’s their frailty that adds sweetness to their beauty. Beauty, the foremost Jungian in Japan has observed, “is completed only if we accept the fact of death.” Autumn poses the question we all have to live with: How to hold on to the things we love even though we know that we and they are dying. How to see the world as it is, yet find light within that truth." (Brain Pickings @ https://mailchi.mp/brainpickings/ pico-iyer-autumn-light-gordon-hempton-harry-clarke-poe?e=d53a9 10493 )
I am struck by the way sensing the air of autumn on my face becomes an act of contemplation. The sun feels different in October than March. So does the wind. The air smells different, too. As I was raking leaves to add to our compost this afternoon I was keenly aware that I was standing in-between the season of vibrant life and jarring death. An extended meditation on the cold darkness that is coming, but has not yet arrived. The hills are mostly bar now. The ground is muddy and covered in pine needles, too. When we sense these realities in stillness, it becomes as Popova writes where, "all eternity is in that moment." More than many others, this tune by Leonard Cohen, "Slow," speaks to being still as well as sensual in the heart of the Spirit. As he did so often, St. Leonard
Today is my brother's birthday. He is in Northern California and heading to a little hippie town in Marin County for supper with his sweetheart and a film. It is also the 6th anniversary of my father's death. We marked both milestones by repairing our deck one last time until spring and finalizing the yard for the arrival of winter. In these parts, the cold can come without any warning even though predictions suggest later in November. Our neighbor was prepping his snow blower on Monday so... you be the judge. Anniversaries, birthdays, remembrances, and the approach of All Hallow's Eve as well as All Saints/All Souls Day brings up something the late Henri Nouwen said and from my perspective and experience, he nails it: The great secret of the spiritual life, the life of the Beloved Sons and Daughters of God, is that everything we live, be it gladness or sadness, joy or pain, health or illness, can all be part of the journey toward the full realization of our humanity. It is not hard to say to one another: “All that is good and beautiful leads us to the glory of the children of God.” But it is very hard to say: “But didn’t you know that we all have to suffer and thus enter into our glory?” Nonetheless, real care means the willingness to help each other in making our brokenness into a gateway to joy.
Some 20+ years ago my spiritual director said much the same thing to me: "Do you think the holy is only in the good, the light, the pure, and the fun? What about all of our pain? Or confusion? Suffering? Injustice? Is not the sacred present there, too? Maybe in mystery or solidarity, but never just in the good." Confronting the limitations and problems of my adolescent and overly romantic theology was one of many illusions that needed to be exploded that year - and they were! It was disorienting and challenging, exhausting and anguishing, too, but vital and necessary if I was to grow in trust. And tenderness. And live more fully into an adult faith rather than that of a child. Part of the paradox of spiritual maturing is that as simplicity is shattered and literal truths replaced with nuance, shades of gray, and even a "cloud of unknowing," another faith is born within. This radical trust invites us to live into the kingdom of the holy in all seasons of life - including in our pain. Most of the time this hard won adult faith doesn't show up without a soulful struggle that searches for the sacred in all things. And without it, spiritual people tend to settle for a foolishly idealistic spirituality that confuses magical thinking for faith; or else a religion of shrunken horizons that squeezes complexities into either/or moral choices that tend toward the punitive. Like St. Joni Mitchell confessed: I've looked at life from both sides now, from win and lose, and still somehow it's life's illusions I recall: I really don't know life at all. After six years, I am ready to grieve and honor my father's passing. I can hold him honestly in love even as I lament his brokenness. For some unknown reason I am feeling deeply drawn this year to remembering the saints and sinners in my family who have passed into that great cloud of witnesses. Early next week I am going to construct a family altar with pictures of those who have passed into glory. We may have a feast on All Souls Day, too with foods from the various cultures that have shaped this wild and crazy family. One of the liturgical prayers for this day puts it like this: Gracious God, source of all life, we pray to you for those we love, but see no longer. Grant them your peace,let light perpetual shine upon them,and in your loving wisdom and almighty power, work in them the good purpose of your perfect will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. After today's work, upon returning from the grocery store, I looked out at my neighbor's back yard and this is what I saw. If confirmed in my heart that now is the time for remembrance.
The fullness of fall has arrived in these New England hills. The temperature is sliding ever lower each day, every 24 hours we regularly lose 2-4 minutes of sunlight, a cold rain has now enveloped our region, and two thirds of the leaves in our wetlands are down on the ground. The local NPR meteorologist even suggested that some of the hill towns might wake up to snow this morning. The electricity was knocked out for a few hours last night during a storm with wild gusts of wind - and for about 30 minutes this morning, too - yet another clue that autumn has taken up residence and is moving us towards winter in these parts. The hills are now totally gray, brown, and yellow. All afternoon his tractor pulls a flat wagon with bales to the barn, then back to the waiting chopped field. It trails a feather of smoke. Down the block we bend with the season: shoes to polish for a big game, storm windows to batten or patch. And how like a field is the whole sky now that the maples have shed their leaves, too. It makes us believers—stationed in groups, leaning on rakes, looking into space. We rub blisters over billows of leaf smoke. Or stand alone, bagging gold for the cold days to come. - David Baker, "Neighbors in October"
It is somehow fitting that for the first time in 67 years I am just now paying close attention to the land. Certainly, in times past, I have paid attention to other things. But for the past eight months our home has become a living tutorial offering me the chance to take-in the wisdom of God's first word: creation. As I have confessed before, I was unable to grasp the insights of the seasons and unwilling to honor the sacred intelligence of the soil, plants, trees, sky, air and water. Mine was a thoroughly anthropocentric spirituality that arrogantly and ignorantly missed the presence of the holy in nature that invited me to rest into a love greater than myself. For decades I read these words from St. Paul but ignored their deeper meaning: "Ever since the creation of the world God's eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things God has made. So (we) are without excuse; for though (we) knew God, (we) did not honor God as holy or give thanks to God, so we became futile in our thinking, and our senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, (we) became fools... (Romans 1: 20-22) Periodically I experienced flickering clues - the mysterious majesty of a cave behind a waterfall in Southern Ohio, random bubbling brooks springing up in the woods that evoked a timeless serenity, a sense of grace under the stars of Northern New Mexico, the awe of holding my newborn daughters, the staggering humility of witnessing 4,000 sandhill cranes land at a migratory watering hole, or slipping into an undeserved contentment by a roaring fire - yet still I remained stubbornly rooted in my intellectual hubris. Only now can I celebrate that cumulatively these small sparks have burst into a flame within and where once I was blind, now I can see. The moon drops one or two feathers into the field. The dark wheat listens. Be still. Now. There they are, the moon's young, trying Their wings. Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone Wholly, into the air. I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe Or move. I listen. The wheat leans back toward its own darkness, And I lean toward mine. - James Wright, "Beginning"
Without access to the Internet this morning, I sorted through various files on my computer, discarding letters and pictures that no longer mattered. It felt like an appropriately autumn act. When I came upon these lyrics from Donovan, however, I had to smile - and let go of my carping about how long its taken me to wake up to creation's wisdom - and simply give thanks that my entry into the wisdom of nature is a continuing process. A gradual awakening. The old master put it like this in his soundtrack to the Zeffirelli film about Francis and Clare, "Brother Sun, Sister Moon." "If you want your dream to be, take your time, go slowly. Do few things, but do them well, heartfelt work grows purely. Day by day, stone by stone, build your secret slowly. Day by day, you'll grow, too. You'll know heaven's glory." It continues to be one of my favorite movies.
The first time the song appears it is winter and Francis has been wounded in the Crusades. After meeting death, and being brought back to health, he senses Jesus calling him to "rebuild his church." Without fully comprehending this call, Francis sets out to literally rebuild the chapel of San Damiano. The tune is slow and tentative, defined by the snow and the cold.
Later, the same song returns during the dedication of the rebuilt San Damiano chapel. It is now early summer. Creation is bursting with fecundity. The young lambs have been born, the first fruits of the field are yielding their treasure, and the core of creation is full to overflowing with life. I like to use this scene in my conversation with cradle Congregationalists about the multi-layered blessings of Eucharist. (Also the French dinner scene in "Babette's Feast," a clip from "Chocolat" and the closing of the great cloud of witnesses from "Places of the Hear." This tune never ceases to nourish me...
Sorting, cleaning, listening, watching, making careful choices that move slowly seem to be part of the blessings of autumn. I am going to start morning prayer with this wee song during the growing darkness before Advent. I am going to start baking bread again, too. I didn't feel like it was a summer practice: the house was too hot and the food would be too filling for June, July, August and even September. It has been a full quarter year since I made a loaf. But, the very air of this day suggests that the time has come to shift gears.
The whiskey stink of rot has settled in the garden, and a burst of fruit flies rises when I touch the dying tomato plants.
Still, the claws of tiny yellow blossoms flail in the air as I pull the vines up by the roots and toss them in the compost.
It feels cruel. Something in me isn’t ready to let go of summer so easily. To destroy what I’ve carefully cultivated all these months. Those pale flowers might still have time to fruit.
My great-grandmother sang with the girls of her village as they pulled the flax. Songs so old and so tied to the season that the very sound
seemed to turn the weather.
- Karina Borowicz, "September Tomatoes"
Christine Valters Painter, a wise and subtle teacher about the spirituality of the seasons and the elements, asks us to "follow the thread... of our unique story and calling in the world." That is, be like Francis and Claire, moving slowly without full knowledge of how the story ends. "Let it emerge in its own time, tending the symbols and synchronicities with guide it along." She continues:
I think of autumn and winter as the seasons of the monk, with their invitations to release and move into stillness. Our modern culture embraces the energies of spring and summer with their emphasis on perpetual blossoming and fruitfulness. But the entire cycle of creation offers us a wise reminder of what is necessary for the fullness of life. Releasing and resting are integral to the spring being able to arrive again. In the great monastic traditions of Christianity, we find those ancient monks teaching us about this path of falling. The desert mothers and fathers left their lives in the cities behind, and fled to harsh landscapes to be stripped down to their essence. They longed to find God in that place of radical simplicity. The stories of these early wisdom guides reveal their desire to not be owned by things, but to live with an open-hearted and open-handed approach to life.
The closing words in her autumn spirituality essay speak to me as I honor and own my own entrance into this wisdom:
The nature of the human mind is to grasp onto things, to try and figure life out, to try and maintain control when things feel chaotic and wild. Monastic wisdom teaches us that this kind of grasping hardens our minds, our hearts, and our bodies. Our lifelong journey is always toward a softening, a greater tenderness, so that we can meet life with a raw opening toward beauty and wonder. Yesterday, on the last warm day of fall, a friend gave me a rosary he'd selected on a recent trip to Fatima. Today, intuitively sensing the shift among us, Di made soup for lunch using the cale remnants from our garden. Tonight we'll meet to start practicing songs for our late November show in solidarity with the Sanctuary congregations in town. Let the journey into tenderness continue...
One of the strangest things I have read recently was a note from an organic gardener in New England offering advice on ripening tomatoes. Here is the essence: If you have a lot of unripened tomatoes on the vine you can bring your plants inside after uprooting them. Shake off most of the dirt before hanging them upside down in a reasonably warm place indoors. "They will ripen almost as well as if left outside." To say that I was apprehensive would be an understatement. How was such a thing possible? But I am a novice with beginner's mind through and through. So, that is exactly what I did: uprooted the three mature tomato plants, maintained a modest amount of roots, shook the dirt off and hung them in the basement. And I'll be damned if they aren't ripening after just three days! Its kind of a trip to walk downstairs to do the laundry and be surrounded by these inverted, uprooted tomato plants. Kind of fun, too. If this holds up we will have another 25 fresh tomatoes by week's end at just about the same time we will get our first frost. Learning how all of this works is fascinating. I have my two resource texts now and am beginning to get a handle on how to help our sandy soil, too. Next year will be better than this year albeit still part of my learning curve.
For some reason this poem by Karen Paul Holmes, "Rental Cottage, Maine," keeps popping up in relationship to this year's tomatoes. Back in the early days of being a dad, husband, pastor, writer, and musician I tried to hide away my failings, faults and wounds. I couldn't, of course, but I sure tired to do so. Years later I learned from my children that this striving to look perfect in public made them feel crazy. Some insights are hard won - painful - and blessedly humbling. Most of the times these days I revel in my mistakes. Foolishness. And try to honor my massive learning curve. It is a relief to know I don't have to be perfect. We thought we were the perfect family— loyal, stable, a brick wall you couldn't topple with a wrecking ball. Parents dependable as the frozen Minute Maid juice we squeezed from cardboard cans and drank mornings, reconstituted.
We'd come to this place just to be together. October in Ogunquit, record heat, no need for the sweaters we'd packed. Dad had died but Mom, in her 80s, sat pouring green tea, our wicker chairs on the small porch, six sets of knees touching.
She didn't mean to mention Dad's first wife.
To our collective what? she sputtered lasted a year, before the war, her name: Phyllis. Remember that chest in the basement? It was hers.
Some moments passed, then mutely we agreed to let it go. Radium glowed green in our brains but didn't burn. The knowing, a relief: We didn't have to be perfect.
The August-warm wind felt pleasant and odd. We sat on that porch, orange leaves pinwheeling down the street.
