worship notes: living into gratitude

NOTE:  These are my worship notes from Sunday, July 16, 2017 in the on-going

series of Spiritual Practices for 21st Century People of Faith.

Introduction
No one likes to consider sin: the very word makes us uncomfortable, anxious and angry – especially so in our 21st century personas. For reasons both excellent and absurd, we contemporary believers have long abandoned our tradition’s concern with human sinfulness in both its personal and social manifestations. Too many of us have been wounded by self-righteous religious bigotry – beaten up with the Bible and demonized by moral midgets – who may have been well-meaning in the abstract but became abusive and cruel when their words became flesh in our lives.

From our misogyny, homophobia and racism on the macro level to our petty obsessions with who does what to who in our bedrooms, there is good reason for 21st century Christians to quit talking about sin. I’ve done so for decades. The only problem with such a commitment, however, is that sin doesn’t go away just because we avoid talking about it. And to make matters worse, when Christians don’t have a healthy and grace-filled way of addressing and healing sin, the Church becomes a caricature of its true self. H. Richard Niebuhr, brother of Reinhold, use to tell his social ethics classes at Yale Divinity School that in our current incarnation, the American Church “teaches a God without wrath who brings men and women without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” So, as you may have gathered by now, I’m going to try to talk with you today about the reality of sin and what our historic Reformed tradition offers as a healing way to do so.

Specifically, for the next three weeks as a part of my spiritual practices series for the summer, I want to outline for you a cleansing and liberating way to both own the brokenness of sin in your lives and renew the blessings of God’s grace within you. This was an integral aspect of Christ’s ministry as St. Paul tells us in this morning’s reading: Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud of guilt and fear. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death … It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!

To do this let me first tell you a little bit of church history that has long been forgotten; second give you a form or template to use each week in addition to your daily prayer if it is helpful; and third remind you of Christ’s blessings found in today’s Scripture, ok? Three essentials for this morning that we’ll amplify and practice over the course of the next three weeks. So would you take a moment to be grounded with me now in prayer?

Insights
Church history question number one: WHAT is the difference between Puritans and Pilgrims? And there are bonus points in glory if you can add why this matters? The simple answer is: The Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock were Separatists from the Church in England while the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay colony were non-separating Christians who believed the Church of England was the one true church. Puritans were loyal to England, but not all the ways they worshiped.

And when it comes to spiritual practices why do you think this matters? Pilgrims rejected almost ALL of the established Christian tradition – they only looked to the Bible and their very selective reading of it – in their new churches. Puritans, however, understood it was wiser not to throw the baby out with the bath water and looked to reform and reshape the pre-Reformation practices of Christianity. And while our roots are with the Pilgrims, our practice has been much more Puritan focused. Howard Rice, in his essential book, Reformed Spirituality, reminds us that Puritans were connected to the Pietist movement that swept through Europe in the mid-16th century. He writes: “Puritanism was the British manifest-tation of continental Pietism and as such was a protest against religious formalism, dogmatism and lack of spiritual passion.” He goes on to say that within our Reformed Puritan tradition, “the word that was used most commonly to mean spirituality – or spiritual practices and disciplines in our daily lives – was piety… and piety has to do with the pattern by which we shape our lives before God in grateful obedience to the grace God has given to us.” Are you with me? He adds: “Our piety – our spirituality – is the way we exercise our Christian freedom as people whose lives have been touched by grace and who are thus keenly aware of being responsible to God. Our piety is the way we live our lives responding to God’s presence and attending to that presence carefully.”

Puritan patience suggests that our lives in faith can be simultaneously emotional and rational, inward and outward, sacramental and intellectual without sacrificing our unique heritage. Historically, there were three emphases in Reformed Puritan spirituality: Righteousness – meaning living justly in right relationship with our neighbors. Frugality – living as compassionate and wise stewards of God’s resources in the real world. And holiness – what theologians speak of as sanctification – meaning taking regular note of where we hit the mark as well as missed it. Joseph Driskill of the Pacific School of Religion speaks of piety like this: We have been called by God’s love “to evaluate our spiritual lives… looking at the fruits of the Spirit in our actions and discerning whether our actions and deeds flow from love and compassion.” St. Paul makes the same point in Romans 8: if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him… and if you who welcome him dwells within you even though you still experience all the limitations of sin you yourself experience life on God’s terms. If the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, God will do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you to new life by love.

This is why, of course, when I started this summer series with you I began with the Beloved prayer, right? If we don’t fully trust and honor that we are God’s beloved through Jesus, we will NEVER risk looking at our sin. And if there is one empirical spiritual truth that we can see everyday unless we’re delusional, it is that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God – all – no exceptions. So, before I give you a working resource for evaluating where God has been present and where we have decided to ignore God, let me ask you again personally: what did you experience last week with your smart phone call to prayer? I’m NOT going to ask how many of you are DOING this prayer – that would be shaming and not akin to grace – just what did those of you experience or notice when you let your day be interrupted with reminders that YOU are God’s beloved?

The early Puritan/Reformed church leaders like John Calvin in Geneva, Ulrich Zwingli in Germany, Elizabeth Singer Rowe, Richard Baxter as well as the hymn writer Issac Watts in England, and let’s not forget Jonathan Edwards over in Northampton, MA all used a form of daily prayer that has come to be known as the Prayer of Examen. It has its origins in the spiritual practices of St. Ignatius of Loyola – founder of the Jesuit Order in 1534 – but was never limited to just Roman Catholics. Calvin as well as many of our early faith leaders insisted upon a regular examination of conscience as a way of honestly and humbly honoring grace as God’s beloved. They did it daily, but given the busy nature of our lives – and my commitment NOT to add burden and insult to injury – I am going to suggest a 21st century modification by calling it a WEEKLY prayer of examen. There are six simple parts to this prayer – and let me lay them out for you clearly – as they are outlined in my resource and then answer any questions.

First, we’re invited to become aware of God’s presence or reality. You can do this in a variety of ways – breathing in and out silently, lighting a candle, listening to a treasured song, praying the Lord’s Prayer, making the sign of the Cross, using your prayer beads or even a reading from the Psalms or Scripture – whatever helps you slow down and listen deeply to begin with is what you should use, ok?

Second, you review the week’s experiences and activities with gratitude. Did you hear that word gratitude? It is essential – not shame or disappointment – not failure but thanksgiving. This part of the prayer is a way to remember what happened during the week and what it might mean for you. Where were you blessed? Where were did you meet challenges? Who was a part of your life? Who did you share meals with? You might need to review your phone or your calendar to see where life took you in the week. I know that doing that helps jog my memory – and please do it with gratitude.

Step three is to pay attention to what you feel as you remember the week: where do you feel joy? Were there times of anxiety? Sorrow? Grief? Did you take a person or a blessing for granted? What does that feel like to you now as you remember? This is where you are likely to discover missing the mark – what we have traditionally called sin or brokenness – and naming and owning with your feelings is one way to make it real. Don’t be afraid of being honest with yourself. Calvin’s personal motto was: Knowledge of self is knowledge of God and knowl-edge of God is knowledge of self. If we want to let God’s grace love and cleanse our sin, we have to own it.

Fourth, feel where you have been in cooperation with God’s grace this past week?what act of service and love did you share? What in your reading or what music or movie or TV program or conversation opened your heart to the way of compassion? Try to be as specific and clear as possible so that the very word of God is cherished in your flesh. What are you truly grateful for from this past week?

Fifth, were there areas of your week where you feel you resisted God’s presence? Or didn’t listen carefully? Or actively chose to go against the rule of love? Were there actions or thoughts that call you to ask for God’s for-giveness? Are there parts of your life you sense God is calling you to give over to the Lord? To ask for a change of heart? A new awareness? Release from guilt?

Then bring your prayer to a close with a time of silence. You may want to close your silence with a formal prayer like a Doxology of praise – or the sign of the Cross – or even a hymn of gratitude. As your prayer closes you might be aware of something you can do as a consequence of this time with God – an action or an insight – that calls for follow-up.

Is that overview clear? Six simple steps that can be done in a modest amount of time that help clarify the places God is speaking to you each week. Tell me what you are thinking or feeling about this resource: what do you think might be gained for you by using it?

Howard Rice of San Francisco Theological Seminary used to say that “our desire to hold on to the façade of our own importance, our determination to take care of ourselves and our need to be strong and independent are so deep seated it often takes a crisis in our lives to be broken open to a new vulnerability… so long as we cling to the notion that we are ultimately in charge of everything in life we do not really need God and will not make the space to pray. We will view our weakness as a disgrace rather than an open door for God’s love and will only pray in moments of extreme desperation.”

Conclusion
Spiritual practices are a slow but tender way of getting to vulnerability without a crisis. That is one aspect from today’s gospel that St. Matthew asks us to affirm about the way of Jesus: The sower – Christ Jesus – shares the seeds of faith, hope and love abundantly and without hesitation, right? This might better be called the parable of extravagant sowing as “the sower scatters his seed carelessly, recklessly, seemingly wasting much of the seed on ground that holds little promise for a fruitful harvest.” New Testament scholar, Elizabeth Johnson writes: “Jesus invests in disciples who look just as unpromising (as the soil.) He squanders his time with tax collectors and sinners, with lepers, the demon-possessed, and all manner of outcasts. Yet he promises that his profligate sowing of the word will produce an abundant harvest.”

His mentor in the Old Testament, Isaiah, says much the same thing: 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.”

In the course of every life – and every congregation – there are times when we’re ready for God’s new life and it will grow in good soil; at other times we’re too distracted and the busyness of life chokes off all possibility. Sometimes, we’re so wounded that the seeds of love blow away and we remain in a harsh, dry and broken place; yet at other times we get all jazzed and excited only to give up and quit when the going gets rough like seed up shallow ground. I think Jesus is asking us to remember that God’s seed is abundant – God’s grace doesn’t quit – just like Jesus didn’t quit on his disciples when they fizzled out or even betrayed him. My hope and prayer for this week is that you embrace the practice of this new/old prayer of examen like our Puritan ancestors did; let it help you receive the blessings the one who created us as beloved forever and let go of whatever else gets in the way.

the wisdom of our wounds...

Once, when I was a young boycott organizer with the farm workers, I was in a conversation with a supportive priest and nun about why supporting the consumer boycott of grapes, lettuce and Gallo wines was important. They were Vatican II people with a strong social justice commitment. As our discussion became more animated, I said something like, "I never want to act like those goddamn growers! They deserve every shitty thing that happens to them." There was a stunned moment of silence before the nun said, "James, do you really think you are all that different from the growers?" I was self-righteous and cocky and rushed right into her challenge. "Damn right I am different.I am very different. They are all about greed and my heart is about justice." To which the priest said softly, "Slow down, man, and be very, very careful about your zeal. None of us live out of pure motives." I felt like I'd been sucker punched before he added, "You may not believe it but we're all much more alike than we are different."

That conversation happened more than forty years ago but it still haunts me from time to time: be careful of that zeal... none of us live out of pure motives. St. Paul frames this truth theologically: all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.(Romans 3: 23) It has taken me most of my adult life to own this insight as foundational - and I am still learning. As I look backwards, four things were essential:

+ First, the willingness of the nun and priest to call me out with grace.

+ Second, the sucker-punch of feelings that told me a truth I didn't want to recognize.

+ Third, 35 years of reflecting on the mystical message of Christ's life and death.

+ Fourth, consciously meditating on Ed Hays' "wisdom of our wounds." 

There's much more, too - from the humiliation and rebuilding of my life after divorce to the ups and downs of learning to be a parent, a pastor and a musician - but the combination of being tenderly called out by people I respected, mixed with learning to discern what my feelings were trying to teach me, has been invaluable..

I liken it to the word relinquish - voluntarily ceasing to keep a claim - rather than surrender. It is akin to acceptance in the parlance of the 12 Step movement and comes about both consciously and intentionally. There is loss, to be sure, but it is a letting go born of going deeper rather than fighting or being forced to something give up. Fighting is a part of this, too, carrying our anger and hurt fully and as long as necessary, but only until the feeling is finished teaching us its wisdom.
I have learned that if I don't take regular time to sit with God in the quiet - or physically walk with God for at least 45 minutes - my feelings will play tricks on me. Like Loki, the Trickster, I am easily confused by feelings and can get lost in them.  And when I follow the obvious path of my feelings, rather than the upside-down wisdom of these wounds, I always cause myself and others trouble. How many times have I had to recognize what the old apostle got right in Romans 7:

I’m full of myself—after all, I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison. What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope.

When I am in that place it is because I haven't been resting/trusting/embracing God's quiet grace in silence. It comes every time I quit practicing relinquishment and go back to trying to control my life from the trap of my feelings. In the Henri Nouwen reflection for today are these words about brokenness:

Jesus was broken on the cross. He lived his suffering and death not as an evil to avoid at all costs, but as a mission to embrace. We too are broken. We live with broken bodies, broken hearts, broken minds or broken spirits. We suffer from broken relationships. How can we live our brokenness? Jesus invites us to embrace our brokenness as he embraced the cross and live it as part of our mission. He asks us not to reject our brokenness as a curse from God that reminds us of our sinfulness but to accept it and put it under God's blessing for our purification and sanctification. Thus our brokenness can become a gateway to new life.

And so it goes for me on this quiet Saturday in the Berkshires.

relinquishing ourselves into Christ's rest...

There was a wise post shared within the United Church of Christ recently that included the following insight:  "This 'savior' stuff does not come naturally to our competent, self-reliant, 'can do' culture.  We're all for healing the world but less inclined to admit we also need a healer. We can identify racism, sexism and xenophobia in our culture, but be slow to admit the need to exorcise those demons from ourselves.'"  Such is the legacy of our lop-sided Reformed tradition that equates being "created in the image of God" with possession of knowledge and reason and relentless productivity. Not that rational thought or social engagement for justice is absent from our intimacy with the Holy, of course; it is simply not the whole story. In Joseph Driskill's highly practical and instructive book, Protestant Spiritual Exercises: Theology, History and Practice, he reminds us:  

+ First, that our creation includes both breath and dust, spirit and matter, imagination and living flesh.

+ Second, that our creation in God's image is much more living in relationship to love, mercy and justice than abstract, rational thought.

We are created with a capacity to be in relationship with the creating, sustaining, loving, compassionate power of the universe. Being thus created means that at the most profound level of existence we are not alone; we have the potential to be in a relationship with God. (p. 13)

Jean Vanier pushes this deeper noting that "the Holy Spirit has revealed to (our) age that is obsessed with (human) achievement that the essential value of each person lies not in the intelligence, but in the wisdom of the heart."  To be fully alive in a creative relationship with the Divine is NOT something we ourselves can manufacture. It is a gift of the Spirit, born of a Savior who calls us to rest in God's love rather than work ourselves into anxiety. "Come unto me all ye who are tired and heavy laden and I will give thee rest." (Matthew 11: 28) In this rest, what some speak of as surrender but might better be named relinquishing, we find both the energy to live by love rather than productivity and the desire to cease competition. This rest gives birth to a secret power of healing.  A video from L'Arche puts it like this:
 
Such are my thoughts after spending this day, my Sabbath, at rest.

victim of comfort...

Yesterday's bout vertigo has come to a blessed end. During my down time I read two quotes from Jean Vanier that continue to swim around my heart. The first describes a reality I have come to know intimately:  the second calling.  

Those who come close to people in need do so first of all in a generous desire to help them and bring them relief; they often feel like saviors and put themselves on a pedestal. But once in contact with them, once touching them, establishing a loving and trusting relationship with them, they mystery unveils itself. At the heart of the insecurity of people in distress is the presence of Jesus. And so they (we) discover the sacrament of the poor and enter the mystery of compassion. People who are poor seem to break down the barriers of powerfulness, of wealth, of ability, and of pride as they pierce the armor the human heart builds to protect itself.

Vanier, who has 50+ years of living with the most marginalized and forgotten people of the world at L'Arche, does not romanticize this ministry. It is often grueling work without obvious consolation - especially when we're operating from our first calling. A generous and merciful heart is where we all start, but this place is fundamentally self-centered. That we don't comprehend or embrace this yet is not our fault. It is how the heart matures. But all too often this realization is painful - humiliating - frustrating. It confronts us with our own inner greed and exposes our insecurities. Small wonder that many good-hearted people quit giving of themselves when this happens.  We blame the poor rather than own our own wounds and move on to another romanticized encounter or else retreat into ourselves in cynicism. Joni Mitchell put this into song on "The Last Time I Saw Richard," the closing track on Blue.

The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in '68, 
And he told me all romantics meet the same fate someday 
Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark cafe 
You laugh, he said you think you're immune, go look at your eyes 
They're full of moon You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you 
All those pretty lies, pretty lies 
When you gonna realize they're only pretty lies 
Only pretty lies, just pretty lies 



Cesar Chavez used to talk about this too, but he spoke from the perspective of an immigrant farm worker: when the going got rough, he used to say, the nice "church" people always quit because they became afraid or bored or challenged to give up their comfort. That is why poor people need their own social justice networks.  Vanier's point resonates with me: our first calling is always a combination of generous altruism mixed with undisclosed selfishness. If we stay within this first calling, we remain spiritually and emotionally an adolescent.

The second quote describes his own experience pushing through to a second calling:

... when we accept that we cannot do big or heroic things for Jesus, we face a time of renunciation, humiliation and humility... we are no longer appreciated. If the first passage is made at high noon, under a shining sun, the second call is often made at night... little did I know that I was on the road to an amazing discovery, a gold mine of truth, where the weak and the strong, the rich and the poor would be brought together in community and find peace, where those who were rejected could heal and transform those who rejected them.

In another text, he amplifies this saying that the second calling "reveals to an age obsessed with achievement that the essential value of each person lies not in their intelligence, but in the wisdom of the heart. God has chosen to manifest himself in a particular way in people with disabilities, through their fragility and the simplicity of their hearts." And what I have experienced is that if you stick around long enough - do some of your inner work, too (knowing that it is never over) - this second calling is revealed as a ministry of tender presence. This ministry looks and feels very different from the first fundamentally because it is not all about us. Then Vanier writes 38 simple words that I find inspirational:

We are all weak and needy in some way. We all have our vulnerabilities, our limits and or disabilities. When we recognize our weaknesses, we can ask for help, we can work together (knowing) that we need each other..

Let me suggest that this revelation is personally wonderful but professionally costly.  Many in our churches don't want to name and own their vulnerabilities any more than we do; and they are profoundly uncomfortable with a "wounded healer," too. Not that ministry is where we do our own therapy, not at all. But the social disease of professionalism and business metrics has poisoned the culture of Christ's church in ways that are insidious:  We want results, goddammit, not a ministry of presence. To which the gospel says:

Jesus did not seek to become a king so that he could create a new, just society in which each person would be properly respected (with measurable results.) Rather, he took the downward path of humility in order to become one with the wounded. Paul invited his disciples in Philippi to take the same path:

     Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
     who, though he was in the form of God,
     did not regard equality with God
     as something to be exploited,
     but emptied himself,
     taking the form of a slave,
     being born in human likeness.
     And being found in human form,
     he humbled himself
     and became obedient to the point of death -
     even death on a cross.

This second calling holds a lot for us to ponder, yes?  I have been consciously wrestling with it for over twelve years now - intensely doing so for the past three. There is much to hold in prayer. Much to give up to God. Much to question. Yet its core resonates with me and causes my heart to sing.

credits:  Pinterest

the blessings beyond the vertigo...

This morning I was assaulted by vertigo. It was horrible - and now exhausting. Who knows why it hit me or what caused it to move on?  I am simply grateful that the room is no longer spinning, my stomach no longer retching and my head no longer pounding. The abrupt onset of violent, physical illness is humbling: I am in charge of so very little in real life. Running water, air conditioning, mobile Internet devices, and on/off electrical switches create an illusion of control. But the approaching thunder storm tells a deeper truth. I am vulnerable. Fragile. Dependent on others and God's love. I know this viscerally to be true while my insides churn, only to relinquish it rapidly when a measure of health returns. This is one clue that in spite of his many mistakes - including an ugly, misogynist spiritual anthropology that continues to wound us all - St. Augustine's insights into what the West calls "original sin" rings true. 

My sin was this, that I looked for pleasure, beauty, and truth not in (God) but in myself and God's other creatures, and the search led me instead to pain, confusion, and error.

Not that pleasure, beauty and truth are problematic, not at all. Rather, that a self-absorbed and self-centered way of living - one that avoids and denies vulnerability, compassion and solidarity - leads to pain, confusion and suffering both personally and socially. Augustine's point is that we are hard-wired for both guilt and grace (to paraphrase St. Leonard Cohen.) Without an inward commitment to truth and tenderness - spirituality - an an outward community of accountability - religion/culture - we will actively collude in our own demise. That is why 16th century spiritual guides in both the Roman Catholic and Reformed traditions - Jesuits and Calvinists alike - urged people of faith to practice re-membering. When we take the time to reclaim the feelings evoked in a day - or an experience or even in a week - we discover one of the ways the Holy helps us live beyond illusion or denial.

Jean Vanier of the L'Arche community puts it positively: The beauty of human beings lies in their capacity to accept who they are, just as they are; not to live in a world of dreams or illusions, in anger or despair, wanting to be other than they are, or trying to run away from reality.  Feelings are important clues in practicing this letting go so that we might live as we truly are. My helplessness this morning was an earthy invitation to honor my frailty as well as my need for loving care, but only if I remember it within and re-member it through my actions with others. Without the remembering, it is a gift wasted. Small wonder that Vanier insists that the true measure of any life-giving spirituality is "downward mobility." Living in solidarity and compassion - vulnerability - with others who are equally fragile. For me as a 21st century Christian, St. Paul's words in Philippians gets it right: "Though in the form of God, Jesus did not deem equality with God as something to be grasped at. Rather he emptied himself and took the form of a servant."  

Novelist, teacher and essayist, Marrilynne Robinson, describes what happens when people commit to both their better angels and life in a community of accountability: we do not always do the right thing, but we have a better chance of enfleshing the mercy of Jesus than the crass selfishness of the Social Darwinists(who seem to hold the reigns of power at this moment in time.

In The Descent of Man, Darwin says: "With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of everyone to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to smallpox. Thus the weak members of civilized society propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. This is pure Malthus. So is the demurral: “[We could not] check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature … We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind…” None of this is abstract or general or innocent of political history or implication. The Descent of Man (1871) is a late work which seems to be largely ignored by Darwinists now.  (The Death of Adam)

It is the inward/outward journey in community of whatever tradition that empowers us to remember and then re-member all that is good, noble, true and beautiful. Vanier concludes:

The longer we journey on the road to inner healing and wholeness, the more the sense of belonging grows and deepens. The sense is not just one of belonging to others and to a community. It is a sense of belonging to the universe, to the earth, to the air, to the water, to everything that lives, to all humanity.

This is how I understand the challenge and core of resistance at this moment in my life and our culture:  to become fully human in concert with a universe saturated with gratitude.

letting go continues...

Time and again, I return to the cycle of prayer - sometimes with clarity and enthusiasm, often with only a gnawing awareness of emptiness - and so it continues. This morning's gospel reflection from St. Matthew speaks of Jesus looking upon his people with "compassion for they are like sheep without a shepherd." These nine words will serve as my anchor as the day matures.

Two thoughts from the insights of Jean Vanier of the L'Arche community have been swimming around in my head and heart for the past few days. The first is disarming in its simplicity:  until we are at peace with our own imperfections, we will always react harshly to the failings of others.  In other words, to live as one who honors Christ's compassion in my everyday, walking around life not only must I learn to rest in my brokenness, but let go of how others respond to these imperfections. As long as I try to maintain my addiction to bourgeois control - wearing the outward mask of success and wisdom - I dissipate and exhaust myself to such a degree that I don't have the energy to love. Letting go of social illusions in order to befriend my brokenness frees God's love within me to find expression. It also means, however, that I am willing to trust God's love beyond me enough to be vulnerable to those who would do me harm. That's a LOT of trust, yes? Truth be told, I am rarely that open. And without multiple times of prayerful reinforcement throughout the day, I wouldn't even attempt it.

The other idea that Vanier puts out there that has captured my attention builds upon the call to be open, vulnerable and trusting. He speaks of this as "the way of the heart."

Power and cleverness call forth admiration but also a certain separation, a sense of distance; we are reminded of who we are not, of what we cannot do. On the other hand, sharing weaknesses and needs calls us together into “oneness.” We welcome into our heart those who love us. In this communion, we discover the deepest part of our being: the need to be loved and to have someone who trusts and appreciates us and who cares least of all about our capacity to work or to be clever and interesting. When we discover we are loved in this way, the masks or barriers behind which we hide are dropped; new life flows. We no longer have to prove our worth; we are free to be ourselves. We find a new wholeness, a new inner unity.” The way of the heart is the embodiment of the Spirit of God’s love.

Such tender living calls to me.  It awakens what is most hungry and hurting within me. It is how I ache to live even as it stands as a compassionate judgment of what is missing from my soul.  To live into Christ's mercy is to let go of my need to prove my worth. No wonder Jesus tells his disciples: Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.  As the centurion replied:  I believe, Lord, help thou my disbelief.

you are the Lord's beloved for ever...

NOTE:  Here are my worship notes for Sunday, July 9, 2017 re: spiritual discipline. We

have been practicing interrupting each day four times with a phone chime and the simple prayer: I am God's Beloved forever. Amen.

Introduction
When I was away in Montreal during our shared sabbatical two years ago, I had an insight about my heart for ministry and our lives together. In a word, it became clearer and clearer to me that in whatever time remained for us to sojourn together, my​ call was to emphasize ​Christ​-ianity rather than ​Church​-ianity – for there is a huge difference. A popular meme on Facebook restates this challenge with clarity: ​let’s leave church growth to God while we concentrate on training disciples. Disciples visibly ​embody​ Jesus in the world. Disciples consciously take on the character of Christ sharing compassion and love in their ordinary lives. Disciples are committed to the unforced rhythms of grace as practiced by Jesus when he invited ​all​ who are weary and carrying heavy burdens to come unto him and find rest for our souls. 

Old timers used to say that disciples are ​made​ not born; they are women and men trained and disciplined in the way of Jesus rather than self-selecting members of a religious social club. In other words, the church is always one generation away from extinction for the way of Jesus is never inherited but passed on through disciple-making.

There are two, intertwined tiers in the practice of discipleship: the personal and the social. On one we nourish an intimacy with God; on the other, we learn the habits of the heart in community. Elizabeth O’Connor likes to call this the inward and outward journey, practicing our faith personally and socially, because both are essential for those devoted to the way of Jesus. What has happened in our generation over the past 60 years – and what happens periodically in the life of the Christian Church in history – is that the personal and social ways of Christ have become separated. Divided. Oppositional rather than embracing. We have lost touch with the wisdom and practice of both spiritual discipline ​and​ compassionate neighborliness to such a degree that frenzy and angst, fear and loathing, social conflict and mistrust have become the new normal.

Insights
Old Testament scholar and preacher, Walter Brueggemann reminds us, however, that at the ​core​ of Christianity is Christ’s call to love our neighbor as we love God and ourselves: Biblical ethics ​and​ spirituality are always pre-occupied with learning how to ​become​ good neighbors.

Neighbors who trust God’s abundance, neighbors who welcome the stranger and protect the vulnerable, neighbors who practice the unforced rhythms of grace, and neighbors who know that whenever we act like we have a monopoly upon wisdom and truth, danger lurks right around the corner: ​When we live according to our fears and our hates, (our own privileges and myopic vision) our lives become small and defensive, lacking the deep, joyous generosity of God. If you find some part of your life where your daily round has grown thin and controlling and resentful, (something is out of whack because) life with God is much, much larger, shattering our little categories of control, permitting us to say that God’s purposes lead us well beyond ourselves to live and forgive, to create lives we could never have imagined” if left just to our own vision. (Brueggemann)

That is why we’re taking significant time this summer to explore, practice and wrestle with the integration of the inward and outward journeys. Discipleship, you see, is God’s antidote for anxiety, alienation, fear, bigotry, boredom and the illusion we have to do everything all by ourselves. St. Paul confessed as much in today’s passage from Romans 7 saying that when he relied solely upon himself, what?  He could not consistently accomplish what was loving or healthy: ​I do the things I hate and the things I love remain left undone.​ ​Such are the inevitable consequences of spiritual and social amnesia: we find ourselves physically weary, emotionally anxious, politically despairing and spiritually unmoored from the tender harbor Christ offers us in his unforced rhythms of grace. Brother Brueggemann reminds us that: We practice prayer because our life comes from God and we yield it back to God in our prayer. Prayer is the great antidote to the illusion that we are self-made.

So as I have done before – and will continue to do throughout the summer – let me ask you what you learned, experienced, and discerned from practicing our simple prayer of rejoicing that we are the Lord’s beloved? How did it go…?

Our loss of connection to the spiritual practices that can open us to Christ’s unforced rhythms of grace and the blessings of discipleship has a context and history. Our tradition emerged through conflict: the founders of the Protestant Reformation not only challenged the popular piety​ of their age, but also the way disciples were trained and nourished. We gave up a sacramental spirituality – using our senses to touch, feel, taste, hear and smell the goodness of the Lord – for a rigorous intellectual and doctrinal faith.

Howard Rice, Professor of Ministry and Chaplain Emeritus of San Francisco Theological Seminary, put it like this in his history of ​Reformed Spirituality : John Calvin taught that knowledge of the Lord is the soul of discipleship saying: “To know God is to know oneself and to know oneself is to know the Lord.” But two very different understandings of the word ​knowledge​ emerged over time. One was experiential, the other was intellectual. Calvin meant both, insisting that knowledge of the Lord was empirical ​and ​subjective, inward ​and​ outward, writing that “believers experience God as they experience – but can hardly be said to comprehend – thunder. This was one of Calvin’s favorite metaphors for religious experience. As thunder inspires us to awe, so the experience of God is so majestic and powerful that it defies expression and does not lend itself to logical explanations.”

But many who followed in the Reformed Protestant tradition after Calvin broke the experiential apart from the intellect. “Too often,” Rice observes, “knowledge of the Lord has been interpreted as rational and dispassionate so that to know God is to be able to describe God’s qualities correctly.” This is the doctrinal path – the composed and detached theology born of the mind – wherein our creation in the image of the Lord is to be found in our ability to think rationally. This is one of the reasons spirituality and disciple-making has fallen out of favor in our part of the church. The other is that since the early 1900s, we have taught that mainstream faith is a synthesis of science and ethics, reason and ritual, culture and theology.

Ours was a religion that opposed fundamentalism. In 1925, when Clarence Darrow defended John Scopes in the so-called Monkey Trials of Tennessee, the social elites and growing middle-class in America rejected the “old time religion” that abolished nuance and metaphor from religion. We joined churches that gave glory to God rationally. We affirmed a synthesis of intellect alongside the poetry of Genesis, casting off the God who literally created the world in seven exact days for one who set in motion the rational process of evolution.

By the late 1950s, however, this world view was losing influence – and by the 1980s it was no longer the dominant heart of American Christianity. Truth was now relative as the hard science of physics destroyed any notion of “timeless, objective veracity.” White privilege, male sexism and middle class morality were turned upside down by the proliferation of liberation movements around the world. And our abstract assumption “that God was too preoccupied with the cosmos to get involved in the nitty-gritty of personal intimacy with believers” no longer brought solace, hope or rest. In a word, our worldview collapsed.

And while this collapse is currently unnerving, it is also exciting for we are now living through the third great reformation: a time without theological consensus that is simultaneously pregnant with compassionate albeit diverse possibilities. Hence my emphasis on spiritual practices – discipleship – a return to the heart of piety that let’s God sort out institutional problems and church growth while we nourish the personal and community practices of following Jesus in our generation. I submit to you that the more we experience from the inside out that we are God’s beloved, the more we can act like it within our souls as well as our society. Knowing – trusting – celebrating that we are God’s beloved is the foundation upon which everything else is built – and this leads me to three insights from today’s gospel according to St. Matthew.

+  First we read that in Matthew’s day that there was an internal disagreement about what it meant to be a disciple​: Matthew uses a comparison and contrast between John the Baptist and Jesus to make his point. At the start of chapter 11, Matthew quotes Jesus speaking to his disciples about himself as well as the difference in the Baptist’s ministry and his own. He paints John the Baptist as a fierce, bold and judgmental prophet from the wilderness. “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at” he asks? A reed shaken by the wind? Someone dressed in soft robes? No, you went out to see a wild and demanding prophet in the desert.”

Then Jesus speaks of himself in contrast:​ “When asked by John the Baptist whether or not I am the Messiah, Jesus replied, go tell the prophet what you hear and see: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor experience hope.” Do you grasp the distinctions being made here? Matthew is clarifying for his community that the way of John is over​ for Christians and the way of Jesus, the coming one, is breaking into history. For the community of Christ, the way of the Baptist is complete and now a new way of living for God is to be incarnated.

+ Second we’re told that because ​both​ the way of the Baptist as prophet and Jesus as messiah are of the Lord, they upset the status quo : ​paraphrasing a Jewish wisdom text Matthew says that society is much like a group of fickle children in the marketplace too distracted and noisy to pay deep attention. Jesus came playing a flute with an invitation to the dance and the feast and he was slandered as a drunk. John came wailing and mourning calling us to the burial of the status quo and he was labeled a demon.  Judgment is inevitable for those who follow either path. For Christian discipleship we must pay more attention to God’s love than the carping children complaining in the market place. ​Matthew wants us to know that​ ​the way of Jesus is not always obvious. It is confusing. Like John locked in a prison cell, the way of Jesus often seems baffling especially in a culture like our own. So we need to pay attention to the fact that the Baptist asked questions about the way of Jesus, ok? We all have questions: personal questions and ultimate questions, questions of what it will cost us to pick up our Cross and follow Jesus, questions of what following Jesus looks like in our own era. Questions are important?

+ And third, Matthew then adds some commentary to clarify the upside-down wisdom of discipleship in the kingdom of God: it is what later theologians call the Paschal Mystery, the foolishness of the Cross that isn’t visible to those who rely only upon their intellect, status, wealth or pedigree for it is revealed to the wounded, broken and vulnerable when all they have left is trusting God​. “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden (the good news) from the wise, the wealthy, the intelligent and those too smart for their own good, but have revealed it to infants.” This is another way of saying what Jesus proclaimed at the start of Matthew’s text in the Sermon on the Mount: ​You are blessed when you are at the end of your rope for with less of you there is more room for God.

“Faith does not​ grow from testing Jesus against our rational criteria to see if he measures up; Jesus is not merely the best example of values we ​already​ have; validated on the basis of our intellect.” (Eugene Boring) Rather, the way of faith comes from the heart – from revelation and love from above – that is nourished and brought into the light of day by practicing trust not rational discourse. Those who ​know​ they are exhausted – burned out on religion to use Peterson’s phrase – emotionally, spiritually and physically fried after trying to consistently love and be open to joy in the face of hardship and failing over and over, ​these​ are the ones who are ready to come and take on the yoke of the kingdom. These are the ones willing to relearn how to live, to trust like a child again the unforced rhythms of grace, to practice spiritual exercises so that our old ways are worn down like water on a rough stone so that the new and beautiful ways of the Lord might be reborn in our flesh from the inside out.

Conclusion
I have often quoted from the writing of the late, great disciple of Jesus, Henri Nouwen. I love his work. I also love the fact that Nouwen was so vulnerable for most of his ministry. He eventually owned and disclosed his brokenness, but for decades tried to hide it. He was successful in the academy, revered by his students, but not an intellectual so felt shamed and judged by the elite at Harvard and Yale. When he left teaching, he travelled to Latin America to try living the life of a poor, liberation theology priest only to discover that he missed the world of the intellect and didn’t experience community with the Spanish speaking ​campesinos. He felt guilty for his bourgeois affectations. He visited with Mother Theresa in India and asked her the secret of spiritual rest but wasn’t satisfied when she told him to mostly stay on his knees in silence for one hour every day and suck it up. Nouwen was confused thinking himself a failure as an academic, a liberationist as well a monastic.

In time, the Lord led him to a friendship with Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche, and Nouwen began to find his true calling as the resident spiritual advisor to the Daybreak Community in Toronto. But even there he ran into his shadow which eventually resulted in an emotional and physical break down. You see, Henri was a closeted gay priest who would not openly challenge his bishop or the Pope. As long as he remained busy and obsessed over where he​ didn’t​ fit in, he didn’t have to deal much with his sexuality. But, in Toronto, in a supportive community that felt safe and unhurried, he fell head over heels in love with another man – and it wasn’t reciprocated. Not that Nouwen wished to violate his vow of chastity. He simply was over taken with a deep love that crushed his heart because his beloved rejected him.

For two years this brilliant but broken priest was devastated. “Where is God in all of this?” he pleaded in his private prayer journal. “What blessing could possibly come from such grief and rejection?” Vanier helped Nouwen get into therapy – and spend time on retreat in prayer – and after another year Henri began to discover a new life as the primary care giver to one severely intellectually and physically challenged man by the name of Adam. Nouwen came to call Adam – wheelchair bound and mostly non-verbal – his most important spiritual director. Because with Adam time as we know it stopped: all that mattered was caring for a vulnerable and loving little man. Nouwen learned to take as much time every day as was needed to make sure he loved and served Adam as one of God’s beloved.

As Henri healed, he showed his prayer journals from his breakdown to a few friends who universally agreed that they were the BEST and most IMPORTANT writing he had ever done. They were thoroughly honest about hitting bottom. They were tenderly open about questioning God’s love and existence.

And they showed how the light of grace broke through the darkness to lead Nouwen back into a life of love and service that he never imagined possible. In time Adam died and a year after that death Nouwen died suddenly, too. During what became his last year on this side of life, Fr. Henri wrote a great deal about coming home to God as the Beloved. He used the parable of the Prodigal Son and the Loving Father as his inspiration. He also wrote about what he had learned about the hidden, mysterious but life-changing grace of God that was poured into his heart when he took on the yoke of the Lord.

You are not what others, or even you, think about yourself. You are not what you do. You are not what you have. You are a full member of the human family, having been known before you were conceived and molded in your mother’s womb... God loved you before you were born, and God will love you after you die. In Scripture God says, ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love.’ This is a fundamental truth of your identity. This is who you are whether you feel it or not. You belong to God from eternity to eternity. Life is just a little opportunity for you during a few years to say, ‘I love you, too… so choose now and continue to choose this incredible truth: claim and reclaim your primal identity as beloved daughter or son of a personal and love Creator and Lord.

winnowing in season...

When we returned from sabbatical two years ago, we began to down size our home:  there were probably 300 books and an equal number of CDs that went into the "letting go" pile along with  14 garbage bags of clothes.  I had hoped the momentum might continue but the practicalities of church life took precedent - negotiating and praying a way into semi-retirement was exhausting - and everything else ground to a halt.  After Easter 2017, however, I ventured into the basement to sort through vinyl records and works of fiction. After three vigorous days of sorting, I had 200 fewer albums and nearly 900 fewer books (all of which were donated recently to our local library.)  It is time for another romp through the CDs and then onward to my church library.

My clergy colleagues tell me that winnowing their theological library was tough going - and I know that's one of the reasons I haven't attempted it. Not only are there profound memories embedded in those wonderful books; but alongside the acquired wisdom is the stark awareness that this leg of my professional journey is nearly complete. There is a haunting hint of mortality, too. For years I have kept this part of my humanity at bay. I live joyfully, I pray wildly, I saturate my days with music and poetry, and I celebrate creativity and love with those dearest to my heart with abandon. But actually speaking with a living being at the Social Security office interrupted all illusions that I might escape the shared fate of my kin.

Clearly the time has come to do more than whittle away a few forgotten relics from my days at Union Theological Seminary. Now is the hour for shedding all but my most essential friends.  Barbara Brown Taylor, Henri Nouwen, James Carroll, Richard Rohr and Jean Vanier will remain alongside Mary Oliver, Rumi, Robert Bly, Wendell Berry and Scott Cairns. It will be more complicated weeding through my doctoral dissertation research - these allies fed my soul for so long - but who really needs a whole shelf devoted to U2, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, Madonna, Sarah McLaughlan and Simon and Garfunkel respectively? I probably won't profit much from our London tour books either let alone long lost dreams of touring the Hebrides, right?  I think Parker Palmer, Walter Brueggemann and my Iona liturgies will remain as well as my beaten up Book of Common Prayer. But probably not a whole lot more except Amy Jill Levine's The Jewish Annotated New Testament.

These next six months will involve a great deal of leave taking. Saying farewell to all but the essential books and recordings for my soul evokes a sorrow that simultaneously feels refreshing. Or is the right word liberating? Parker Palmer writes in his "spirituality of nature" series that "from autumn's profligate seedings to the great spring giveaway, nature teaches a steady lesson: if we want to save our lives, we cannot cling to them but must spend them with abandon."

When we are obsessed with bottom lines and productivity, with efficiency of time and motion, with the rational relation of means and ends, with projecting reasonable goals and making a beeline toward them, it seems unlikely that our work will ever bear full fruit, unlikely that we will ever know the fullness of spring in our lives.

From deep within I know that after 35 years this season is coming to a close and another time for simply being and sharing is starting to germinate - maybe even grow. I find myself returning again and again to Isaiah 55:

Ho, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food...
Seek the Lord while he may be found,
call upon him while he is near;

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.
Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial,
for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
  

artisans for peace...

Two conversations in the last 24 hours have touched my heart deeply, reminding me yet again that we walk by faith not by sight. The first took place outside on a coffeehouse terrase sharing tea with a colleague. It was a perfect Berkshire morning with sun, a light breeze and no humidity. My friend is going deeper into the practice of contemplation and training for spiritual direction. The other took place this morning inside my study via Skype with a friend from the L'Arche community. They are anticipating the 45 anniversary of their  Ottawa community this fall and gearing up for a joyfully simple celebration. Both friends expressed something of the embodied wisdom and tenderness of God to me simply by their being. And in ways greater than words, I was renewed.

In his April 2017 letter to the international L'Arche community, Jean Vanier speaks of discerning signs of God's budding presence within and among us. "Where in our world is spring time?" he asks.

With so many different situations in Syria and Iraq, the continued growth of Israeli settlements, the fears of terrorism, the turmoil around the presidential elections, the economic difficulties, and the poor who become poorer. In all that, where is America and what will be the future for Europe? So many, many questions! Where is the springtime of a new world?

Watch, watch closely, those who are rising up and walking in the footsteps of greatness, the greatness of Nelson Mandela (28 years in prison and yet he never doubted that justice would triumph over injustice), Martin Luther King and Dorothy Day in the US, Sophie School, Pope Francis with Justin Welby the Archbishop of Canterbury, and so many other great ones who work towards ending the separation between rich and poor. There are so many people today who work toward uniting the human family, search to do works of peace, meeting people wounded by abandonment, rejection and anguish, struggling to make our beautiful earth a place of life, freed from abuse and avarice. (read more @http://jean-vanier.org/en/home)

Like many heart-centered people, we find ourselves overwhelmed with grief and fear. There

is an energy running amok among us that has been seduced by hatred and enslaved to violence. If you have seen the recent NRA membership video - truly a vulgar exercise in fear mongering and white supremacy - you can't help but be concerned. (Check out Bill Moyers' insightful take on this @ http://billmoyers.com/story/new-low-nra/) The current political regime has emboldened the allies of chaos and they are taking full advantage of their time in the sun. Niebuhr used to tell us:  the children of darkness are much better at taking advantage of the hour than the children of light. To which Vanier replies:  "In a world such as our own, which is so divided, are we not called to... move towards those people with whom we feel less comfortable, to listen to them and to respect them?"

At the moment, I am very touched by two people, very different, who both work for peace. One is Vera Baboun, a Palestinian woman, who is Mayor of the town of Bethlehem, and whose motto is: "Grace is born from the womb of suffering." She has written a magnificent book, Pour L'amour de Bethlehem, ma ville emmuree (For the love of Bethlehem, my walled city.) The other is Yakir Englander, born oa Hassidic Jew in Jerusalem, who tries to help young Jews and Palestinians meet each other so that they can work together with those living in poverty. On both sides of the wall separating Israel and Palestine, these young people are working for peace.

Vanier asks the question that my two friends embodied and that fuels my own heart: How can each of us become an artisan for peace?  As I consider this challenge, two words take on gravitas:  artisan and peace. An artisan practices and nourishes his or her craft with patience and clarity. In a throw-away world, many artisans have been rendered obsolete yet their presence is crucial.  Living in this small city surrounded by small farms, there are still enough artisans to help teach us what it means to creatively practice your craft. My car mechanic is one such healer; rather than soak his customers with inflated dealership prices, he cobbles together repairs to fit a working person's budget. A local luthier does much the same thing with instruments both old and new.

Their lives suggest to me that being an artisan for peace has something to do with bringing creativity and patience to birth, yes?  No one hit wonders here, just women and men willing to carefully retool what is broken and share their hearts quietly without fuss or ego. I felt that on July 4 as we sang songs of freedom and resistance marching through the streets of Pittsfield.  This wasn't a concert - it was a community event - where song leaders helped empower everyday people to sing a simple but long forgotten song. I sense the invitation to live as an artisan for peace in my movement towards the L'Arche Ottawa community, too. Even the worship series I am doing this summer re: spiritual practices series for 21st century people seems like a piece of the puzzle, too. Vanier concludes with this challenge: We are healed by those who are most excluded and rejected if we live with them in a relationship of friendship.

singing for freedom with a new generation ...

Today I had the privilege to join Sara Lee Guthrie and about 45 other hearty souls for the Pittsfield Fourth of July Parade. Our group, number 175 out of 176 ensembles, sang songs written by or inspired by her late grandfather, Woody Guthrie, and his comrade in song, Pete Seeger. At the close of the parade we shared a tune for some local vets that was made popular by her poppa, Arlo Guthrie, "City of New Orleans." Her current brigade of songsters, "The Hoping Machine," added zest and verve to the Four Freedoms Coalition stalwarts. It was a gas.




In addition to her own artistry - and it is moving and insightful - Ms. Guthrie has called together other folk musicians and singers to create The Hoping Machine.  After bringing a cadre of artists to the Climate March on Washington, DC, she shared a few insights in The Daily Hapmpshire Gazette.  First, the name of the ensemble is "Inspired by words from her grandfather, Woody Guthrie: “The note of hope is the only note that can help us or save us from falling to the bottom of the heap of evolution, because, largely, about all a human being is, anyway, is just a hoping machine.”  When asked about why she felt called to resurrect some of the old - and a few new - songs of protest, she said:

I have to admit I may have thought that myself, like protest music didn't really apply to me and my generation — at least not until now. A few major events recently changed this for me. The first was when Pete Seeger died. I never thought I’d find myself wanting to fill his shoes, but I felt I had a certain responsibility to carry on his legacy. I hope we all did! It hit me hard: who is going to advocate for the water and the planet through song like Pete did? It’s going to take everyone to fill those shoes.

Next was Bernie Sanders. I was asked to perform for some of his campaign rallies out in California. This changed my life. It was such an honor. I knew he was a fan of Woody and Pete so I brought forth some of the songs I felt were appropriate for these campaigns. This was the first time I really found myself in a position of singing for justice, equality, peace and hope. It gave me such purpose. I was empowered and, for the first time ever, hopeful that the government could actually serve me and the things I cared about. The Womens’ March was the next time I felt that. I felt I had a place in this world that I could really contribute to. The optimism that I have is rare, and I felt I had to share it. I know now for sure that songs have the power to unite. Like a heartbeat, our breath and voices together make us one. When we feel like we are one, we have strength, courage, and hope. It’s the opposite of fear; it’s exactly what we need now. Songs have the power to heal the hopeless.

I had a very strong intention with this group. I didn't call in all my professional singing friends; we are a group of regular people. Everyone has a voice and you don’t have to be good to be great! Before Pete’s legacy of getting everyone to sing along fades over time and generations, I want to make sure everyone feels what it’s like to join in the chorus. It’s also just fun!

As we walked with one another, waving at the hundreds of people lined up applauding the parade who joined us in singing "This Land Is Your Land" I saw black, brown, white and yellow faces singing this song - men and women, young and old, gay and straight and trans, too - and when my voice gave out (and it did in the heat) others picked up the refrain and sang it with gusto. It was the perfect way to celebrate July 4th for me and I give thanks to God for the Four Freedoms Coalition and for Sara Lee Guthrie and the Hoping Machine. I think I'll head down to the Guthrie Center next Monday and join another song.