I recently read a brief on-line article focusing upon criticism in ministry. At the heart was this
gem: if there is a logic to a person's concern, listen and take stock; if it is only anger and rant, let it go, shake the dust off your feet and move on. Maybe there is something deeper than the presenting issue, maybe not. It takes some discernment, but the distilled wisdom born of compassion is that all people of faith are called to listen for the word of the Lord in others, but not all words are of God. There are critiques born of projection, shame, fear, disappointment and resentment just as there are genuine differences of opinion born of substance and integrity. We are not called as Christians to be the dumping ground for disgruntled souls. There is a place for taking on the wounds of others but not to become their punching bags. If the heart of a critique is strengthening ministry and growing closer to Christ, be open to it. Otherwise, let it and the critic go. Too often clergy and church workers feel that they must be "nice" and simply take an other's bullshit. Wrong. Jesus did not do this, so neither should we. With practice and courage - compassion, support and trust, too - we can learn to shake the dust off our sandals and move on. Or let our critics move on. Because anything less is self-inflicted violence. I continue to be inspired by Henri Nouwen's insights when he advises that before we can truly understand and love an other's challenges, we must be in touch with our own The first task of seeking guidance then is to touch your own struggles, doubts and insecurities - in short, to affirm your life as a quest. your life, my life, is given graciously by God. Our lives are not problems to be solved but journeys to be taken with Jesus as our friend and finest guide... Prayer helps us stand in the presence of God with all we have and are: our fears and anxieties, our guilt and shame, our sexual fantasies, our greed and anger, our joys, successes, aspirations and hopes, our reflections, dream and mental wanderings, and most of all our family friends and enemies - in short, all that makes us who we are. To do this we have to listen for God's voice and allow God to speak to us in every corner of our being. Today, at midday Eucharist, we shared our reflections on the call to spiritual poverty - and how that frightens us - while being essential for wholeness. I give thanks to God for this day.
Three recently discovered quotes from my time away in prayer
and discernment are likely to find their way into this week's All Saints' Day
message. I find that most of the liturgical movement between All Saints Day and
Christ the King Sunday in November touches me deeply. As my ancient Celtic
ancestors knew in their bones, this is luminous time both literally and
figuratively. You can see and sense this when walking in the woods in late
afternoon: when you inhale the cool clarity of the air, smell the leaves
rotting into hummus, taste the apples of autumn and see the stark appearance of
the moon you know something is up.
They
ancient Celts created their own solar/lunar calendar that was eventually
abridged into the Julian calendar of Rome in the 2nd century CE albeit with the
distinctive Celtic holidays still woven throughout. This remained in effect
throughout the region until the Pope Gregory enforced his
"reforms" throughout Europe in 1582. Like many "one size fits
all" endeavors, however, something was lost even while standardization was
gained. For example, the Celts discerned that autumn (August, September and October)
was the close of the year.So before the Gaelic New Year of November 1st, there
was at time of wild feasting - Lughnasadh- a season halfway between the summer solstice and the
autumnal equinox on August 1st. It was a time of rejoicing in the bounty of the
earth, partaking of its sensual blessings match-making and athletic games (i.e.
the various Highland Games that still take place.)
As the month drew to a close and the sun began its descent
into the dark half of the year, these Gaelic ancestors embraced Samhain - a one
day ritual feast marking the threshold between this world and the next - with
bonfires, offerings to the Sacred, fear and trembling as well as an embodied remembrance
of loved ones who were now departed. They truly "celebrated" this day in a manner that was borrowed and transformed into our All Saints and All Souls Day in the 9th century. At their feasts, place settings were laid for those no longer a part of this realm. The practice of mumming and guising was also set into motion - a roving group party that wandered from house to house in costumes designed to confuse the faeries from doing mischief or damage on this night - a foreshadowing of what became our Halloween.
Let me be clear: I'm not one for neo-paganism or Celtic revivalism. As Merton once advised: Grow where you are planted. I am a straight, white, middle-class Christian mystic/intellectual guy and I don't pretend to be anything but. And still... I have always been enchanted and drawn to this season. I love everything about it. And so, in anticipation of All Saints' Day this Sunday, I have been reading and praying our sacred texts with a sense of anticipation.
+ First, regardless of what my theologically adolescent Reformed ancestors once taught and believed, I am all about sacramental wisdom. Henri Nouwen was explicit when he taught that "prayer is leading every sorrow to the source of all healing." Our goal in ministry, he went on to say, is to help others move from seeing only what is opaque to what is transparent. It is helping one another transform and convert our deepest loneliness into solitude.
Ministry is how we make the world more transparent to the other so that the world speaks of God and people are enlightened by the love of God... Ministry is to help others open their eyes and ears, so to speak - to make what is cloudy and opaque clear and beautiful - to proclaim to to others what we have experienced in prayer: God's beauty, truth and wisdom is here for you, too... Life becomes an unbearable burden whenever we lose touch with the presence of a loving Savior and see only the hunger to be alleviated, thin injustice to be addressed, the violence to be overcome, the wars to be stopped and the loneliness to be removed. All these are, of course, critical issues and Christians must try to solve them; however, when our concern no longer flows from our personal encounter with the living Christ, we feel only the oppressive weight.
He goes on to observe - and this continues to be my experience, too - that when we spend time with God in quiet solitude, then "the God within us begins to recognize the God in the world."
God speaks to God, Spirit speaks to Spirit, heart speaks to heart. Contemplation, therefore, is participation in this divine self-recognition. It is the divine Spirit praying in us who makes our world transparent and opens our eyes to the presence of the divine Spirit in all that surrounds us. It is with our heart of hearts that we see the heart of the world and explains the intimate - and essential - relationship between contemplation and ministry.
+ Second, to take time away from being "productive" - to truly rest in the love and presence of the Lord - is profoundly counter-cultural. Two quotes from a recent biography of Nouwen entitled, Genius Born of Anguish, by Michael Higgins and Kevin Burns, explains why:
The caustic and endlessly charming commentator and writer Rex Murphy observed in 2005 that '"a culture that offers intellectual hospitality to the chatterings of Dr. Phil and the romps of Desperate Housewives doesn't have the stamina to pursue the idea of faith and its agency.Ouch! But let's not lay all the blame at the doorstep of a bottom line consumerist and shallow culture. Laurence Freeman, OSB, challenged the institutional church, too:
It is puzzling and frustrating to try and understand how the mainline Churches, despite all their determination and resources, still seem unable to connect with the profound spiritual needs of our time. Most young people are ready for idealistic and sacrificial commitment and hungry for inspiration. And yet, instead of discovering in the Church an inclusive vision and a comprehensive philosophy of life and spirituality, they dismiss what they find as narrowness of mind, intolerant dogmatism, internal feuding, inter-denominational sectarian, medieval sexism and their most damning criticism: the lack of spiritual depth.
As I prayed in the chapel of Vermont's Weston Priory - and walked in the almost winter woods of the Green Mountains - I heard the voices of the saints in my life calling a word of love and encouragement. They are black and white, rich and poor, male and female. They are well educated and street wise. They are Michael and Don - Dolores and Roger - Rick, Vicky and Grace - Jim, Betty, Beth and Linda - Don and Shirley - Casey and let's not forget St. Lou Reed. They are all wounded lovers of the Lord who, in their way, tried to be witnesses to God's love.
The time has come to CELEBRATE All Saints Day. Own it and treasure it, revel in it and reveal its beauty. Peterson renders one of the readings for this feast day like this:
I saw another Angel rising from where the sun rose, carrying the
seal of the Living
God. He thundered to the Four Angels assigned the task of
hurting earth and sea, “Don’t hurt the earth! Don’t hurt the sea! Don’t so much
as hurt a tree until I’ve sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads!” I
heard the count of those who were sealed: 144,000!
I looked again. I saw a huge crowd, too huge to count. Everyone
was there—all nations and tribes, all races and languages. And they were standing,
dressed in white robes and waving palm branches, standing before the Throne and
the Lamb and heartily singing:
Salvation to our God on his Throne! Salvation
to the Lamb!
All who
were standing around the Throne—Angels, Elders, Animals—fell on their faces
before the Throne and worshiped God, singing:
Yes, o Yes! The
blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving, The
honor and power and strength, To
our God forever and ever and ever! Oh,
Yes!
But now it is on to choir practice where we get to refine our take on Brahms Requiem for this Sunday:. What a joy!
"After everything has been said and done," observes the late Henri Nouwen in an overview of
the art of spiritual direction, he concludes: "what we have to offer is our authentic selves in relationship to others. What matters most, what transforms, is the influence of a humble, vulnerable witness to the truth." Therefore, the essence of spiritual direction is the quality of witness, and witness is the proclamation of what "we have heard and seen with our own eyes, what we have watched and touched with our own hands. (I John 1:1) I've been thinking a lot these days about the connection between authenticity and presence as the core of sharing life's pilgrimage with another as a spiritual friend. Fourteen years ago I left the spiritual direction doctor of ministry program at San Francisco Theological Seminary because I sensed that my calling at the time was not focused upon individuals but groups - or to be more precise - upon the congregation. Even though I was personally hungry to go deeper into the one-on-one ministry of spiritual friendship, my public identity suggested it was wiser to defer this feast for another time. And in retrospect, it was the right call. Fourteen years later, however, with a profound sabbatical rest under my belt and time to go deeper into the wisdom of contemplation, that call is changing. More and more, not only am I practicing a time of daily quiet and refreshment in prayer, but I am curious to explore sharing the importance of this commitment with others one-to-one. Like playing music in community with those I respect and love, the act of helping one another "convert our loneliness into solitude" is starting to take shape and form within. Nouwen puts it like this concerning solitude: A life without a lonely place, that is, a life without a quiet center, easily becomes destructive. When we cling to the results of our actions as our only way of self-identification, then we become possessive and defensive and tend to look at our fellow human beings more as enemies to be kept at a distance than friends with whom we share the gifts of life. In solitude we can slowly unmask the illusions... and discover in the center of our self that we are not what we can conquer, but what is given to us. In solitude we can listen to the voice of the One who spoke to us before we could speak a word, who healed us before we could make any gesture to help, who set us free long before we could free others and who loved us long before we could give love to anyone. It is in solitude that we discover that being is more important than having and that we are worth more than the result of all our efforts... Our life is not a possession to be defended, but a gift to be shared. The ancient prophetic poet Isaiah put it like this: In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength. (Isaiah 30:15) Oddly, David Brooks' most recent column about Lady Gaga and artistic passion helped all of this come together for me. At a recent dinner sponsored by Americans for the Arts, Lady Gaga was honored along with Herbie Hancock, Sophia Loren and others. He wrote: when she remembered her
childhood dreams she said: “I suppose that I didn’t know what I would become,
but I always wanted to be extremely brave and I wanted to be a constant
reminder to the universe of what passion looks like. What it sounds like. What
it feels like." That passage stuck in the
head and got me thinking. When we talk about living with passion, which is sort
of a cliché, what exactly do we mean? I suppose that people who
live with passion start out with an especially intense desire to complete
themselves. We are the only animals who are naturally unfinished. We have to
bring ourselves to fulfillment, to integration and to coherence. Some people are seized by this task with a fierce longing. What a brilliant summary of the call of the Lord in our hearts, minds, souls and flesh: seized with a fierce longing. As Nouwen notes elsewhere, this is the work of ministry - a fierce longing to "help others open their eyes and ears, so to speak - to make what is cloudy and opaque clear and beautiful" - so that they, too know that "God is not against us, but for us; not far from us, but with us; not outside of us, but deeply within." Passion is what we are witnesses to - a love that is greater than ourselves - a truth deeper than all our lies, fears, shame and wounds. Brooks goes on to suggest that those living into their deepest truths: They construct themselves
inwardly by expressing themselves outwardly. Members of the clergy sometimes
say they convert themselves from the pulpit. By speaking out their faith, they
make themselves faithful. People who live with passion do that. By teaching or
singing or writing or nursing or parenting they bring coherence to the
scattered impulses we are all born with inside. By doing some outward activity
they understand and define themselves. A life of passion happens when an
emotional nature meets a consuming vocation. Another trait that marks
them is that they have high levels of both vulnerability and courage. As Martha
Nussbaum wrote in her great book “Upheavals of Thought,” to be emotional is to
attach yourself to something you value supremely but don’t fully control. To be
passionate is to put yourself in danger.
Living with this danger
requires a courage that takes two forms. First, people with passion have the
courage to dig down and play with their issues. We all have certain core
concerns and tender spots that preoccupy us through life. Writers and artists
may change styles over the course of their careers, but most of them are
turning over the same few preoccupations in different ways. For Lady Gaga fame
and body issues predominate — images of mutilation recur throughout her videos.
She is always being hurt or thrown off balconies. Passionate
people often discover themselves through play. Whether scientists,
entrepreneurs, cooks or artists, they explore their issues the way children
explore the possibilities of Play-Doh. They use imagination to open up
possibilities and understand their emotional histories. They delight in new
ways to express themselves, expand their personalities and move toward their
goals.
Then he offers us three clues about why passionate creativity is vital:
+ First, the integration of play and imagination with our life's calling turns our faith into flesh. It is vulnerable and honest, imperfect and changing, accessible and real.
+ Second, this quest moves beyond reason and the confines of professionalism into authentic living.
People with passion are just less willing to be ruled by the tyranny of
public opinion. As the saying goes, they somehow get on the other side of fear.
They get beyond that fog that is scary to approach. Once through it they have
more freedom to navigate. They opt out of things that are repetitive, routine
and deadening. There’s even sometimes a certain recklessness there, a
willingness to throw their imperfect selves out into public view while not
really thinking beforehand how people might react.
+ And third passionatecreativity pushes us to ask ourselves: who would you be and what would you do if you weren't afraid?
Jazz master, Wayne Shorter, answered this question perfectly when he told Wynton Marsalis: "Play the way you want the world to be!" This is the fierce longing of our souls. When we give ourselves time, space and courage to be seized by it, our lives become full, rich and creative. Anything less feels incomplete and even deadening to me. The paradox of this long, strange trip is that passion and creativity is evoked in quietness and rest. - and we are saved.
I haven't written about this for some time - besides a passing FB challenge or meme - but today feels right: how about a moratorium on snark, sarcasm and cynicism from those of us committed to peace? You don't have to be a person of one faith or another to grasp that all too often our words do violence to those we know and love. It happens when we try too hard to be funny - or hip - or ironic. It takes place when we're unconscious about our inner motives, or, when we're acting in a passive/aggressive way. And it oozes out like toxic slime when we refuse to let a love and grace greater than ourselves nourish us from the inside out. Let's go deeper and push the envelope: too many times our humor is a thinly veiled form of cruelty. Sarcasm is the obvious offender. I know some people pride themselves in this form of humor, but consider its roots:"mid 16th century: from French sarcasme, or via late Latin from late Greek sarkasmos, from Greek sarkazein‘tear flesh,’ in late Greek ‘gnash the teeth, speak bitterly’ (fromsarx, sark- ‘flesh’)."That's what it feels like to be on the receiving end of sarcasm, yes? Like the words shared in bitterness have torn your flesh. It is violence and needs to be called out. "Oh, I didn't mean any thing by that," some will say and try to laugh or deflect the wound away from themselves. So why then say it? It is an ugly but obscure form of bullying - an act informed more by cowardice and inner confusion - than anything resembling love or friendship. Indeed, this veiled violence is more insidious than other types of destructive humor. Outright rage and the vicious maligning of the vulnerable is obviously odious - think Sam Kinison or the cynicism that drove George Carlon in his later days - whether it comes from the Left or the Right. Same goes for racist and misogynist "humor." Humor that is clearly sick is out in the open and can be challenged. Not so, however, with most sarcasm - primarily because its pain is so quickly denied by the perpetrator and deflected back onto the wounded as "a misunderstanding."
Henri Nouwen, Barbara Brown Taylor and Parker Palmer have all noted that there is a wisdom experienced in our bodies that we need to honor. When we are attacked by the cruelty of another's attempt at humor, we know it. We feel it. It is NOT a misunderstanding no matter how vigorous the denial. So we must defend ourselves - and I think there are three strategies for self-defense against the violence of sarcasm: + First, we must name it for what it is: violence. It isn't humor. It isn't hip. And it isn't insightful or ironic. It is cruel and born of cruelty. Lewis Black is funny - biting, to be sure - but funny. Sara Vowel is funny as is Margaret Cho, Sarah Silverman, Amy Poehler, Louis C.K, John Oliver, Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle. Each and all of these comics are not Pollyannas. They are often crude, course and even dangerous. But they understand their calling to be puncturing the self-importance of the powerful and giving voice to those who are hurting. Their goal is not violence but strengthening the common good. Such has been the role of jester and fool since the beginning of time and we need this type of comedy to help us mature. + Second, we must not tolerate, encourage or support violent humor in our friends or colleagues. Just as racial bigotry needs to be called into question - or Islamaphobia or misogyny - so too personal violence disguised as humor. If we give a pass to those closest to us, we are part of the problem rather than part of the healing. With kindness and clarity, let's unpack these attacks and name them for what they really are: backhanded acts of cruelty. This is hard to do - it makes us all uncomfortable - but if we always do what we've always done, we'll always get what we've always got. Time has come to call the bullies out and invite them into compassion and responsibility. + And third, we must nourish a whole other type of humor in our hearts, souls and minds: self- deprecating jokes, stories and anecdotes.When we are able to laugh at ourselves - and point out our own foibles - we nourish humility and build allies with those we love rather than alienate or shame. Self-deprecating humor also helps another see the splinter - or plank - in their own eye. It is about honesty and trust and is in too short supply. When I was introduced to the poetry of Rumi - and the Sufi stories of Nasrudin - I realized the blessings and insights that could come through a new and tender type of humor. I am still working at it and find it so much more satisfying than the ways of veiled cruelty. One of my favorite Rumi poems gets it completely right. Who makes these changes? I shoot an arrow right. It lands left. I ride after a deer and find myself chased by a hog. I plot to get what I want and end up in prison I dig pits to trap others and fall in.
I should be suspicious of what I want. A spirituality of tenderness cries out for a sense of humor that builds one another up rather than tears them down or reduces us to tears. Here's a song that has always spoken to me of a real life tenderness; it is simultaneously sassy, sensual and safe in the most vibrant way. Dig it.
We are currently working on a stellar project that combines caring for the common good with artistic creativity: the Berkshire premiere of Paul Winter's "Missa Gaia/Earth Mass." It was commissioned for St. John the Divine and has been a part of their St. Francis Feast Day celebration since 1982. It is a unique work that combines jazz and chant, contemporary sounds with ancient pipe organ as well as the organic music of wolves and whales.
As has become our custom, large musical events are never seen as ends unto themselves: they are dedicated to raising funds and consciousness about a key local concern. Sometimes that involves emergency fuel assistance for our brutal winters. At other times we have cast our hearts towards Mother Earth or brothers and sisters who are neighbors in need of food. This show - on Sunday, November 22 @ 3 pm - is in solidarity with BEAT (Berkshire Environmental Action Team.) When I began ministry here, we narrowed our mission/outreach focus to four broad areas: eco-justice, peace, food security and regional justice issues. We also decided to stop re-inventing the wheel and partner with secular groups already doing vital work in the wider community. In this, we have been able to support BEAT and help them deepen their impact on the
Berkshires as well as welcome church folk into their work as partners. How does the Psalmist put it? "How good and pleasant it is when sisters and brothers dwell in unity?" Our goal - and we have to wrestle with staying focused - is to use our time and resources in wise and effective ways. It is very easy to become distracted by the plethora of needs that are presented to us every day. But if we honor our limits - and this is always challenging - we can remain true to our calling of living into the blessed rest and trust of Christ Jesus. For "Missa Gaia" there will be a 20 person chorus comprised of many First Church members as well as key soloists and guests from the wider artistic community. There will also be a small jazz ensemble: soprano sax, guitar, upright bass, drums, cello, oboe, pipe organ and piano. And a professional dance troupe will open and close the gig adding visual power and color to the festivities. It has become my conviction that whenever we create a work of beauty dedicated to the common good everyone benefits. And while beauty is, indeed, its own reward - one of the truths that can heal and save the world - it helps church people if such creative work is also linked to one of our mission commitments. All too often, religious peple are woefully utilitarian. Richard Rohr and Parker Palmer label this "functional atheism" wherein we act like everything in creation depends upon our endeavors rather than God's presence in and through creation. By linking our mission work with acts of beauty, hope and joy, my hope is that we slowly help others see how important the arts are in strengthening embodied spiritual integrity. I may be deluding myself as you can never please all the people all of the time, but I suspect that we are building bridges concerning the ways acts of creative beauty are socially, spiritually and even politically transformative. Here is a congregation in Worcester, MA performing the Kyrie from "Missa Gaia" complete with wolf song, improvisation and choral reply. Our performance will be equally stunning so if you are in the area, please join us..
After worship and choir practice on Sunday, Dianne and I will be away for three days of retreat and renewal to reflect on what it means to be back in ministry. As part of our Lilly Foundation grant, we built in three such retreats over the course of the next year. We will have been back for seven weeks. It is time to step back and consider what we are hearing of the Holy Spirit in our experiences so far. Three things have already become clear: + One has to do with how east it is to get caught back up in busyness that truly does not require my presence. Not only do I get worn out from such things, but my music practice suffers. I am already applying a corrective. Charles Davis calls giving into these unnecessary demands "a form of self-inflicted violence." A recent meme on FB gave this reality clear shape and form.
+ Another has to do with my growing experience of centering and contemplative prayer. Nouwen and Rohr are right: we cannot sustain compassion and peace-making in the world without a strong and living encounter with God's grace deep within. "Prayer
is leading every sorrow to the source of all healing, it is letting the warmth
of Jesus’ love melt the cold anger of resentment; it is opening a space where
joy replaces sadness, mercy supplants bitterness, love displaces fear,
gentleness and care overcome hatred and indifference." + And then there is the nourishment of making certain to share dinner each night with Dianne by candle light and music.
As part of my work on an emerging "spirituality of tenderness" I've been slowly reading a book by Charles Davis: A Spirituality for the Vulnerable. Davis was a former Roman Catholic who left that realm for the Anglican Church, taught theology and religion at Concordia University in Montreal before eventually returning to England and the Roman tradition. This book, originally published with the equally tender title of Soft Bodies in a Hard World, is not an easy read - but it is insightful. Last night I read through a short chapter he calls "Weariness in Well Doing," an invitation for people of faith not to get caught up in sadness, and a guide for how to avoid slipping into a "mood of spiritual depression." This is valuable wisdom that is neither taught to contemporary clergy nor congregations - and is vital for staying in ministry over the long haul. Davis suggests that there are three practices essential to maintaining our balance and integrity. + First, we must "acknowledge that we are finite... not just in words but in a practical realization of what it means to be limited, fallible creatures." We all have confines when it comes to wisdom, energy, virtue and ability. Writing in 1990, Davis was aware of the ideology of unlimited economic growth as the foundation of contemporary culture. His era marked the "end of ideology" when unfettered capitalism finally defeated communism and "greed became good" according to "Wall Street's" Gordon Gekko. In 2015 we sadly realize that a credo of greed is neither good nor sustainable - and is certainly unhealthy to apply to our real lives."Inadequate as applied to economic activity itself, the pursuit of unlimited growth is disastrous when transferred to other areas of human living. It replaces the reality of human existence with illusory dreams. It destroys the joy in the reality of what we have and fills the empty space with febrile desires."One of the truths I relearned on sabbatical is to own my abilities and limits, trust that God does not relate to me in a utilitarian way, and cherish that God's grace is not dependent upon what I produce. + Second, a "requirement for avoiding a lapse into spiritual weariness is to call a halt to that incessant busyness which is a form of self-inflicted violence."The call is NOT to do more - whatever that more might be - rather it is to love authentically and be focused and tender with that love. I was speaking to a clergy person after Sunday's CROP Walk who expressed to me a staggering weariness and resentment over the way congregations seek to blame their clergy whenever their church isn't "growing." It must be the pastor's fault this soul said with a sorrow that was palpable. We both know it usually isn't the clergy person's fault that our culture and priorities have shifted dramatically from the 1950s. We also know that the self-inflicted violence of our parishioners own busyness is more to "blame" than any one thing we may do or not accomplish. But still the blame game goes on: "It is violence to allow ourselves to be constantly carried away by a multitude of projects, concerns and activities. We take on too much. We suppose we can help everyone in everything. We think we are doing fine when we haven't a moment to rest or gather our thoughts... but (in this ) we destroy joy, we kill the spirit... We must shake off the false conviction that we are not accomplishing anything unless we are caught up in a tumult of activity."A friend of mine from a clergy consultation service reminded me when I returned from sabbatical: "Some people are going to resent your restful demeanor and others are going to want to get you back into the rat race of their lives. If, however, you are able to resist - and I hope you do - there will be fall out." Davis concludes: "we provoke a spiritual sadness when we drive ourselves forward by frenetic energy. I repeat that such busyness is a form of violence."
+ And third involves our "engagement in redeeming our sins." Sin, notes Davis and many others including Richard Rohr, is a failure to love: it is "a failure to meet the occasion with love or the spiritual energy (the moment) calls for." Our invitation, therefore, is to trust God's grace knowing that God's future can change, transform, heal and redeem both our past and our present. That is to say, it is learning to live trusting that God is God so we don't have to try to be Lord over heaven and earth. We can rest in God's grace. We can trust in God's forgiveness. We can stop the inner chatter. We can, as Buechner urges, "stop trying to protect, to rescue, to judge, to manage the lives around you... they are God's business not yours. Leave it to God.. unclench the fists of your spirit and take it easy." Like the Psalm I read this morning - Psalm 126 - proclaims: "Those who sowed in tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves." This is precisely what the prophet Isaiah teaches, too: Seek the Lord while he
may be found, call upon him while he is near;let the
wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return
to the Lord,
that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly
pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways,
says the Lord. For
as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down
from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making
it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the
eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not
return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed
in the thing for which I sent it. For you shall go out in joy, and be led
back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. An abiding commitment in these post-sabbatical days, practiced imperfectly to be sure, but affirmed nevertheless, comes from the wisdom of the late Henri Nouwen who wrote: Prayer is leading every sorrow to the source of all healing; it is letting the warmth of Jesus' love melt the cold anger of resentment; it is opening a space where joy replaces sadness, mercy supplants bitterness, love displaces fear, gentleness and care overcome hatred and indifference. But most of all, prayer is the way to become and remain part of Jesus' mission to draw all people into the intimacy of God's love. More than anything else I think, say or do, this is the key. I can't do it all, I can't fix it all and I can't know it all. I can just do what I can do and like Abraham Joshua Heschel said: trust God with the rest. Such is the wisdom of Sabbath rest - and it has saved my life!
"Ministry," writes Henri Nouwen, "is how we make
the world more transparent to the other so that the world speaks of God and
people are enlightened by the love of God."Now I amsodown with
that understanding of ministry that I want
to start dancing! Since our return from Montreal, I have
been.searching for both a new way of understanding whatever ministry I still am
called to share with others, and, a new set of shared commitments within the
community. To borrow a brilliant phrase from Diana Butler Bass, these new
commitments, however, must be shared commitments born from below because the
era of "top down" religion is over (or at least dying a slow and
painful death before our very eyes.)
I have known since leaving Montreal that my personal/professional calling has
changed significantly. As Nouwen observes, just as Christ invites us never to
treat others as characters or "roles to be used," I wanted that for
myself, too. I wanted and needed to be understood and loved in community as a
full person - just James as I keep saying - rather than fundamentally as
"pastor James." So, upon returning from sabbatical, I changed my
business cards to show this more grassroots and complete sense of self. At my
first council meeting, I also shared with our leadership team that when I was
first summoned to serve in Pittsfield, I brought with me a plan for our
renewal: it was born of prayer and study, to be sure, but it was a plan
inspired by my own critical reflection on our context. It was not, at first, a
shared or even cooperative plan. Rather it was a tug of war wherein I labored
with love and stubbornness to yank a loving but resistant congregation into the
the 21st century. It was a prayerful act of the will to move from fear and
nostalgia into new possibilities. Along the way, trust was built and a
foundation for cooperation emerged - but not at first.
Nine years later, we are
in a very different place. Not only do I no longer have the energy or interest
in playing the role of "the man with the plan," but the very
community has changed as well. Now we are simultaneously in a place where
we can help one another "open our eyes and ears to make what is cloudy and
opaque clear and beautiful. Our work in shared ministry is to proclaim to
others what we have experienced in prayer: we are all much more loving people
than we realize." (Nouwen)
Yesterday, both during
worship and while at the CROP Walk, I glimpsed again the possibilities of our
new reality. And as one of my favorite people said, "You can see it in all
the pictures taken at the walk. So many smiles. So much love and joy at being
with one another in service to others!" In his book re: Spiritual
Formation, Nouwen reminds us that "the training and work of spiritual
formation requires an articulate not-knowingness and a receptive emptiness
through which God can be revealed."
Just as theology asks us
to empty our cup so that we can open our min to the incomprehensible things of
God, spirituality asks us to empty our mind so that we can open our heart to
receive life as a gift to be lived. Even more than our mind, it is our heart
that needs to be empty enough for the Spirit to enter and fill it. This process
for self-emptying and spirit-filing is called spiritual formation - the
gradual development of the heart of God in the life of a human being
(and dare I add a congregation?) aided by contemplative
prayer, inclusive community and compassionate ministry.
The essence of this work,
for those who pray from the heart, is to first encounter a personal
transformation where what appears opaque in the world becomes transparent. This
is what we are initially called to consider: learning how to taste and see the
goodness of the Lord. Our commitment is to become open and empty through
contemplative prayer in order that we might "see and make visible that
which is hidden from ordinary sight."St.
Paul uses the word"mystery"
- μυστήριον -mysterion- which often confuses contemporary
disciples. It is not a detective story to be solved by
intellectual work nor a collection of obscure facts available only to
the cognoscenti. Christianity is not a Gnostic religion. It is a
grassroots spirituality where all of God's blessings are free, open and
available to all.
+ In I Corinthians 2: 7-8: we speak of the wisdom of God as a mystery, even a hidden wisdom, that God has ordained before the beginning of time.
+ In Romans 16: 25: the preaching of Jesus Christ reveals to us a mystery that has been obscure throughout time.
+ In Colossians 4: 3: in prayer God reveals to us the mystery of Christ.
+ In Colossians 1: 26-27: We pray to God that which has been obscure since the beginning of time - which is Christ in you - might become your hope.
What
Paul is talking about is learning to discern the light in the darkness.
Nouwen calls this
discovering how what is opaque can become transparent.
It is a sacramental vision that sees and trusts the eagle in the egg, the
presence of the Lord in the bread and wine, the grace and living image of God within each
person. It is what Jesus embodied as the Word made Flesh and is at the core
of a grassroots, vibrant ministry in the 21st century.
The
practice of contemplative prayer reveals to us the true nature of things; it
unmasks the illusion of control, the possessiveness of possessions and the
pretense of the false self. For those who practice contemplative prayer, the
world no longer is opaque or dark but has become new and transparent - the new
earth shining with its inherent character. To live spiritually in the world is
to unmask the illusion, dispel the darkness and walk in the light...The Spirit
of God shows us (all) how to move continuously from opaqueness to transparency
in three central relationships: our relationship with nature, with time and
with people.
In another writing, Prayer Embraces the World, Nouwen puts it like this:
Prayer is leading every sorrow to the source of all healing; it is letting the warmth of Jesus' love melt the cold anger of resentment; it is opening a space where joy replaces sadness, mercy supplants bitterness, love displaces fear, gentleness and care overcome hatred and indifference. But most of all, prayer is the way to become and remain part of Jesus' mission to draw all people into the intimacy of God's love.
And in this, there is a NEW ministry and mission within and among us. It is NOT preserving a building or fumbling with a budget. It is not fortifying a burial society for those addicted to the past nor becoming a club of like minded souls in the present. Rather it is cultivating and sharing a heart for God - and living in ways that share God's heart with a hurting world - one person at a time. "I want their hearts to be encouraged and united
in love, so that they may have all the riches of assured understanding and have
the knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ himself,in whom
are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." (Colossians 2:2)
Such is the essence of tenderness - God's mystery revealed in Jesus - and such could become our common call into ministry.
Man am I beat - but blessed! It snowed and poured sunshine three or four times today. We had a good crowd at worship and then raised nearly $7K for the CROP Walk. We sang and prayed, said farewell to a young family heading to North Carolina and met new friends, too. It was the first anniversary of my musical colleague and partner in ministry and his spouse and it was the first anniversary of my father's passing. The music for "Missa Gaia" really came together at our rehearsal after worship and we had a blast walking together throughout Pittsfield with friends from area churches and Berkshire Bank raising funds and consciousness about hunger needs. I crashed completely when the day was done and then awoke to prays for a dear friend in Brooklyn entering the hospital today for stomach surgery. I am finally over the stomach flu and now Di is suffering under its influence. Today calls to mind not only 10,000 Maniacs by Charles Baudelaire.
You have to be always drunk. That’s all there is to it—it’s
the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your
back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.
But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be
drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green
grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again,
drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the
bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning,
everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is
speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer
you: “It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be
drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish.”
