going into and through our wounds: part two...

NOTE: In part one of this reflection re: discovering and embracing various parts of what some speak of as the wisdom tradition within Christian contemplation. I shared a part of my early questioning as well as three clues and resources that spoke to both head and heart: 1) The Benedictine tradition of balance; 2) Centering Prayer; and 3) The spirituality of Fr. Ed Hays in St. George and the Dragon. In part two, let me add just one other resource that has offered intellectual clarity and practical insights concerning the descent into my brokenness: 1) the serenity prayer/spirituality of imperfection. In what will likely become parts three and four I will consider the importance of :anam caras (spiritual guides or friends), Taize, and Jean Vanier and L'Arche. I will also add a word for appreciation to the once unpublished but now collected spiritual direction/formation notes of Henri Nouwen, too. And, in whatever becomes the conclusion (probably late next week) I will note the ways baking, gardening, creating music, poetry,t ears and Eucharist have been my spiritual guides, too.

Wendell Berry put it like this a poem he calls: How to Be a Poet (to remind me).

Make a place to sit down.

Sit down. Be quiet.

You must depend upon

affection, reading, knowledge,

skill — more of each

than you have — inspiration,

work, growing older, patience,

for patience joins time 

to eternity. Any readers 

who like your poems, 

doubt their judgment. 

Breathe with unconditional breath

the unconditioned air.

Shun electric wire.

Communicate slowly. Live

a three-dimensioned life;

stay away from screens.

Stay away from anything

that obscures the place it is in.

There are no unsacred places;

there are only sacred places

and desecrated places. 

Accept what comes from silence.

Make the best you can of it.

Of the little words that come

out of the silence, like prayers

prayed back to the one who prays,

make a poem that does not disturb

the silence from which it came.

I cherish this poem because it says what I need to remember in plain words. There are blessings in being an intellectual, mind you, but not so much when it comes to the spiritual realm. Therein the words of Jesus, "Unless ye become as a little child..." take on added significance. For decades, there was one old dude in recovery who used to say to me: "You're too damn smart for your own good." At nearly every monthly lunch he said this to me adding: "By now you should know that you can't think your way into anything of value." By then, indeed, I did know that he was right. But still he persisted, so most I just kept eating my grilled cheese sandwiches in silence. In time it would dawn on him that I wasn't biting, so he would look at me with curmudgeonly affection, shake his head and proclaim one more time, "You're still full of shit, smart guy. Cuz deep down inside I know you still believe that you can think you way into recovery. Or grace. Or anything else, man, and that's just total bullshit."

My commitment to a spirituality of imperfection advocated by AA and 12 Step groups is all in that story: intellectuals truly do believe that we can think our way into and out of everything - and it is total bullshit. As those who work the steps know, the only way out of hell is through it. The only way to endure the journey of descent is through grace freely given accompanied by some wise personal guidance. Most of us, you see, need to be humbled before we're ready to taste and see God's grace: without being sick and tired of being sick and tired we will keep on trying to think our way out of bondage. And why not, being smart has had its rewards, right? Our teachers loved it. Our parents celebrated it. And most of our employers depend upon it. It is only natural to resist what has worked for so long. Besides, letting go is hard and we come from a get rich quick culture and economy. Richard Rohr hit a home run with his description of 12 Step wisdom in his Learning to Breathing Under Water. 

All mature spirituality, in one sense or another, is about letting go and unlearning... We suffer to get well. We surrender to win. We die to live. We give it away to keep it.You cannot heal what you do not first acknowledge... How you do life is your real and final truth, not what ideas you believe.

The fourth resource in my exploration into the way of descent comes from the Serenity Prayer and what Ernest Kurtz calls a "spirituality of imperfection." The Serenity Prayer, authored by Reinhold Niebuhr, distills the essence of the spiritual journey into 25 words: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Three petitions: peace, courage and acceptance are all dependent upon God's grace and our emptiness. In what I consider to be a brilliant commentary on 12 Step wisdom, A Spirituality of Imperfection by Ernest Kurtz brings together hundreds of stories from the Sufi, Hassidic and Mothers and Fathers of the Desert traditions describing how encounters with failure can open us to humility. It is not an accident, Kurtz is quick to tell us, that the words humility, humiliation and humor all come from the same root:  humus. Each is constructed upon "the ancient Indo-European, ghum, that has been rendered as humus in English."  Our dictionaries add: humus is "a brown or black substance resulting from the partial decay of plant and animal matter" filtered through worm excrement." (p. 191) Kurtz continues:

Humility involves learning how to live with (and even rejoice) in a reality that is not all-or-nothing, but rather one of mixed-up-ed-ness... of our being both saint and sinner, both beast and angel... and acceptance comes for owning our imperfection rather than trying to find some specialness. Humility is the foundation and keystone of any spirituality of imperfection - and this spirituality is first and foremost free-ing. (p. 192)

Learning to laugh at myself became a spiritual practice for me. Still is. Giving up sarcasm was critical too. Self-deprecating humor is much healthier and a lot funnier because it takes our bullshit and turns it into something wise. Coming to grips with my young adult daughters' various fears drove me to the Serenity Prayer in those times when I couldn't fix or help anything. Same again with my now deceased parents untreated alcoholism - and cancers. I don't think there is a better personal prayer for sitting with a friend or parishioner during their last hours of life than the Serenity Prayer. It became a go to essential - and still hangs on my wall at my home study. 

It surprises me how long this reflection is turning out to be, but oh well. I head out for a few days with my friends in community at L'Arche Ottawa tomorrow, so I don't think I will have time for much writing. Like so much of this journey, you have to play it as it lays. So, I'll take my time and keep sharing until this one is done. Be gentle with yourselves. 

waiting yet again...

So part two (and now part three) of my reflection on brokenness is taking its own sweet time in being born. That's as it should be. I am enjoying the wait and being patient with the words. A favorite and often quoted (by me) verse from Gertud Mueller-Nelson about the feminine wisdom of Advent spirituality reminds me that:

As in a pregnancy, nothing of value comes into being without a period of quiet incubation: not a healthy baby, not a loving relationship, not a reconciliation, a new understanding, a work of art, never a transfor- mation. Rather, a shortened period of incubation brings forth that which is not whole or strong or even alive. Brewing, baking, simmering, fermenting, ripening, germinating, gestating are the feminine processes of become and they are the symbolic states of being which belong in a live of value, necessary to real transformation...

(To Dance with God)

Having been blessed with delivering both of my wonderful daughters (with the wise and tender assistance of some Earth Momma midwives in California and a fiercely independent and strong woman partner back in the day) - and being a part of at least a hundred plus other births during my days in ministry to say nothing of the joys and sorrows of praying/waiting,listening/holding my breath that took place with the births of our grandchildren - I know that Diana Ross and the Supremes were right: you can't hurry love! 

So, I wrote today - and then ran errands. I edited and washed the kitchen floor. I took a nap and let my thoughts bubble up from below. Then I spent a long time taking in the hills behind our home. There is clearly a shift in this realm and autumn is in the air. Poet, Erik Nixon, touched me with his "Peak Summer" because I, too have been aware that some leaves have now become red and each evening demands a blanket on the bed.

We're steeped deep in summer

And everything around me
Seems to indicate it'll never end
But still I'm spending time
Looking for the subtle signs
Trying to figure out when
We've reached peak summer
When the billion green trees
Start to dull ever so slightly
When the bounty of vegetables
Found at all the local farm stands
Start thinning in quantity and quality
When the Halloween candy
Appears in the supermarkets
And the Back To School! signs
Show up in the big box stores
When the sun sets a little earlier
And gets a little more noticeable
Each night, night after night
Until you start thinking about
How much daylight you've lost
All of the signs and all of the things
I've been noticing are telling me
That we're right in the midst of
Peak summer and if I'm not careful
It'll be completely over
And I'll have missed it entirely
As the season folds into fall

One of the tiny blessings that has accrued from my back porch contemplation is an awareness that life according to God's order is relentless. Nothing stays the same. The only things that don't change are things that are dead. Also, the non-stop nature of the movement I see and feel all around me is towards life. Not death. Decay and loss have their place, to be sure, but it is always so that greater life might flourish. Take a look. 

In December, the view from my deck looked like this.

By February, this is what I saw.

In late March, it looked like this.

And when we returned from Ross and Jennifer's wedding in California - and seeing Phil and Julie in SF in mid-May - here's what was going on.

By late July, the place was bursting with fecund wonder.

And now in Mid-August, the browns and oranges are gathering strength as the green fades to grey and the air whispers a quiet invitation to "hold on."

This morning I started an online course at the Center for Contemplation and Action featuring Cynthia Bourgeault. She is unpacking the perennial truths of the Wisdom School. Part of the experience is intellectual, but most of it is experiential - especially this week's chant. As I started to learn it and pray it, my tears returned. The same thing happened earlier as I sat watching the beauty on our deck. If I have absorbed anything from this gazing it is that our current political and cultural madness will not last forever. Yes, it will likely be worse before it gets better. Ugly and harsh before the beauty returns, too. But the way of God suggests that creation's drive for life is built into ever fiber of the planet and life is relentless. 

In these later days of waiting - and watching - writing and cleaning floors, I trust the life that God has imbued into every ounce of creation with much more life than any of the spin doctors or merchants of doom. And as I wait, I find myself trusting it even more. This poem, "Problem" by George Bilger, obliquely posits the choices before us all. 

Jerry is at his usual table this morning
with his cup of coffee and his laptop,
working on his science fiction/fantasy novel.

In every café in America
men and women are hard at work
on their science fiction/fantasy novels.
Perhaps you are one of them. If so,
I salute you; it's a very competitive field.

Forty years, says Jerry, I sold life insurance.
Now I can do what I really want to do.

The planet where his story takes place
has three suns, and the problem he's working on
is how do the people there tell time.

I suggest having everyone wear three watches,
which Jerry doesn't think is funny.
This is a serious novel, he's taking it seriously,
and he wants to get everything just right.

Forty years I sold life insurance, he says.
Now I can do what I really want to do.

going into and through our wounds: part one

For most of my adult life I have heard it said that our "wounds are the way into our healing." From the first time I read Henri Nouwen's The Wounded Healer in seminary to well into my 50's, I found that I was drawn to this truth. Not only did it evoke my conviction that inward and outward compassion was the essence of authentic living, it also rang true to the gospel: "Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life." (John 12:24) The problem for me, however, was no matter how profoundly I wanted to live into and through my wounds, I had no idea how to do it. The invitations resonated: what I needed was guidance if the words were to become flesh.

In time I found spiritual directors who led me into conversations about my pain and introduced me to the sacrament of reconciliation. That was joy upon joy.  Pastoral counselors and those in AA also opened up for me the legacy of the brokenness in my life as well as the wisdom cultivated by dealing with addiction and abuse. The first time I did a "fearless moral inventory" at the Hazelden Clinic, I was overwhelmed - and became a 12 Step believer. Still, something was missing: I was starting to name my demons and wounds, but remained in the dark about how to enter my brokenness as the way into grace. For decades, I found these words of Henri Nouwen's compelling and confusing at the same time:

You know something about brokenness. You know about the broken world. You know about brokenness in your country. But most personally, you know it in your more intimate life. You know we are broken people and we suffer very intimate pains. The pain of a desire for intimacy that hasn’t been fulfilled... the pain of a relationship that did not work... the pain of an addiction that is so hard to confess... The secret pain of loneliness that can bite us so much... And what I would like to say to you is don’t be afraid of your pain, but dare to embrace it. If you are wounded, and I know that you and I are, put your brokenness under the blessing. We are called to give our lives to others, so you and I can bear fruit. And all brokenness, and all dying, and all suffering is there to allow you to enter into solidarity with the whole human family, and to give yourselves to others so that your life can bear fruit. God asks you not to have a successful life but to have a fruitful life.

Maybe you have known this dilemma, too? Trusting that faith calls us deeper - even deeper into own inner darkness in the shadow of the Cross - but never really knowing how to explore or navigate this descent? Poetry certainly evoked parts of the journey for me; consider the opening of Dante's Inferno:

In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood, where the direct way was lost. It is a hard thing to speak of, how wild, harsh and impenetrable that wood was, so that thinking of it recreates the fear. It is scarcely less bitter than death: but, in order to tell of the good that I found there, I must tell of the other things I saw there.

So too with key works of music, film, dance, sculpture and literature. But the arts were clues to authenticity, but not guidance into the depths. What I was looking for was an articulation of the essential spiritual practices that I could make a part of my ordinary life. Not a guarantee, a promissory note or encouragement; just a road map of the soul. Early on I wondered if the written wisdom of others on this pilgrimage might be useful, but discovered that The Cloud of Unknowing was too obscure and The Dark Night of the Soul seemed impenetrable. I had much the same reaction when trying to embrace the medieval mystics like Julian of Norwich or Hildegarde of Bingen. My own Reformed tradition didn't fare any better: the implied spiritual practices of Calvin, and the early Puritan tracts on prayer, left me puzzled as well. As has always been true for me, Reformed writers seem more interested in right thinking - doctrine - than embodied right living from the heart. (NOTE: years later, the work of Howard Rice and the Spirituality Network at San Francisco Theological Seminary teased out a tender-hearted alternative with Reformed Spirituality and The Pastor as Spiritual Guide. Let me add that the work of Richard Rohr et al at the Living School of the Center for Contemplation and Action has also raised up clear and accessible tools for entering the mystical realm of descent and renewal. For more information, please see: (https://cac. org/living-school/living-school-welcome/) 

My first clue concerning a guide to the spiritual life came through Dakota, a spiritual biography by the poet Kathleen Norris, who found her own grounding in the Rule of St. Benedict. Learning about the way of Benedict led me to Sr. Joan Chittister's two gems: Wisdom Distilled from the Daily and The Rule of St. Benedict: Insights for the Ages. Both volumes explained the practices Benedict established for his monks along with wise, practical contemporary commentary. From Sr. Joan I learned to pray the hours and seek a balance in each day between work, prayer, rest and engagement. Benedictine practices led me to the Community of Celebration - a modern Anglican monastic order in Aliquippa, PA - who combined beautiful new folk music with the Rule of Benedict and gave me a way to practice, question, explore and adapt praying and living the hours. (For more information: https://www.communityofcelebration.com)

My second resource in learning how to enter the wisdom of my wounds came from Fr. Thomas Keating and the Centering Prayer movement. Three insights were revealed in the work Keating shared with the world: 1) silence is the first language of the holy; 2) silence opens us to our powerlessness; and 3) learning to trust God's loving presence within the silence is the only way healing ripens. Silence is frightening. Silence is clarifying. It is cleansing, counter-cultural, and takes practice. Keating put it like this: 

The real spiritual journey depends on our acknowledging the unmanageability of our lives. The love of God or the Higher Power is what heals us. Nobody becomes a full human being without love. It brings to life people who are most damaged. The steps are really an engagement in an ever-deepening relationship with God. Divine love picks us up when we sincerely believe nobody else will. We then begin to experience freedom, peace, calm, equanimity, and liberation from cravings for what we have come to know are damaging—cravings that cannot bring happiness, but at best only momentary relief that makes the real problem worse.

Learning to experience my wounds in the silence, neither running away from them nor obsessing upon them, was huge. Making a measure of peace with boredom, anxiety and monkey-mind was critical, too. From Keating, I was also reintroduced to Thomas Merton: "If our life is poured out in useless words, we will never hear anything, never become anything, and in the end, because we have said everything before we had anything to say, we shall be left speechless at the moment of our greatest decision.” I am still a novice with silence - and continue to carry a ton of anxiety - and that's just who I am. This fall I have made a commitment to practice resting more in the sacred silence as another step on this pilgrimage into peace. (For more information: https://www. contemplativeoutreach.org/category/category/centering-prayer)

My third resource came from Fr. Ed Hays in his little book, St. George and the Dragon: the Quest for the Holy Grail. I had been reading Fr. Ed's prayers and insights since the early 1970's. His book, Prayers for a Domestic Church, gave me contemporary sacramental language for my own inner life as well as a simplified order for daily prayer. And truth be told, I had owned this book for probably 12 years before I read it. As I have said elsewhere that "when the student is ready, the Buddha will appear." 

Clearly, I was ready in Tucson after a serious crash with burnout and exhaustion. What was particularly useful were the playful parables the dragon shares with St. George (who was also dealing with the consequences of being too busy and too tired.) Specifically, the chapter that literally discusses the wisdom of our wounds opened my eyes, heart and mind: our wounds are gifts only if we learn their upside down blessings. Such is the challenge; our feelings are clues and we must learn to do the exact opposite of those feelings. Feel afraid and want to run away and hide? The way of holiness asks you to stay and engage. Feeling angry and want to judge and punish? The way of the heart invites you to be silent and forgiving. Want to rant, scream and rage? Better to listen and wait. This one chapter in this little book was exactly what I had been looking for - it was life-changing - but it took me 15 years to be ready to receive it. (For more information: https://www.edwardhays.com/st-george-and-the-dragon.html)

NOTE: In part two I will share four other resources that brought intellectual clarity and practical guidance to me concerning the descent into my brokenness including: 1) the serenity prayer and a spirituality of imperfection, 2) the value of anam caras (spiritual guidance and friendship), 3) the horizontal worship of Taize, 4) Jean Vanier and L'Arche, and 5) the once unpublished but now collected spiritual direction/formation notes of Henri Nouwen. This quote from Christine Valters Paintner has also been life-giving to me:

Being a monk in the world means, for me, choosing to live contemplatively in resistance to the demand for speed, to live mindfully and with intention instead of rushing through life, to savor my experience rather than consume it, and to remember that my self-worth is not defined by how much I do or achieve, and so I am called to make time for simply being. At the heart of contemplative prayer is an encounter with the Holy One who mystics like John of the Cross tell us dwells in our hearts as a "living flame of love". Contemplative living is about relationship and extending that infinite source of compassion within us to self, others, and creation.

on road blocks, late summer and the journey of grace...

For the better part of a week I have been struggling to state how I learned to enter my wounds honestly and let the grace, silence, and light of God lead me towards a more embodied and tender way of being. It has been a slow journey - one of humiliation, humility and humor - but my written reflection still feels too labored to share. So, I am taking it back to the drawing and editing board trusting that when the student is ready, the Buddha will appear. 

For the time being, in between the fits and starts, I'll be watering the plants, walking the dog, sharing some music, and participating in Cynthia Bourgeault's on-line study course re: wisdom, silence and renewal at the Center for Action and Contemplation.  After hitting another rhetorical brick wall with my morning writing, I sat on the deck with my lover and came upon this poem by the late Jane Kenyon that became my balm in Gilead: "Coming Home at Twilight in Late Summer." The wetlands behind our house is already morphing into a dry green/yellow/red tone that was once lush and verdant. Late summer is coming, indeed. 

We turned into the drive,
and gravel flew up from the tires
like sparks from a fire. So much
to be done––the unpacking, the mail
and papers…the grass needed mowing…
We climbed stiffly out of the car.
The shut-off engine ticked as it cooled.

And then we noticed the pear tree,
the limbs so heavy with fruit
they nearly touched the ground.
We went out to the meadow; our steps
made black holes in the grass;
and we each took a pear,
and ate, and were grateful.

Tonight I will make foule medames, couscous as well as fresh native corn and leave the writing for tomorrow. I am already grateful... 

a spirituality of late summer redux...

The first flowering of goldenrod showed up by a fence at our place yesterday and I thought: "Slow down, man, summer is racing by!" We've been consuming our fair share of fresh native corn and tomatoes this year so it feels as if we've been living into the season reasonably well. Every day the pumpkins mature, the tomatoes ripen, the cucumbers grow and the herbs get bigger. But we're already talking about what the garden will become next year: summer is racing by. On Saturday, we'll do some serious repair on the back deck to replace rotting and/or broken wood; we need to do this in a timely way not only for the sake of safety and aesthetics but also because... summer is racing by.

I have become acutely aware of what this moment in August feels like and is saying to me if I have ears to hear. It certainly evokes a bit of melancholia for me as the days grow cooler and also incrementally shorter. But there is also a sense of letting go, too -  abandon - or maybe it is enthusiasm for what is real in this moment even as I take stock of what is about to be. Gemma Simmons at Thinking Faith (https://www. thinkingfaith.org/articles/20080801_1.htm  ) puts it like this:   

The liturgy (of Ordinary Time) tells us that times and seasons matter. Our bodies are attuned to the onset and passing of seasons of the year, our whole cycle of life as Christians is dominated by liturgy and sacrament – the embodied signs of what it means to be worshippers of the incarnate God. So, in that sense, we can talk about a spirituality of summer and be making sense... Liturgically, summer is ordinary time, when we let go of the drama of Lent and Passiontide and Easter and (let ourselves) begin to wallow in some of the big, extravagant feasts: Ascension, Pentecost, the Sacred Heart, Corpus Christi (and I would add the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene and Transfiguration.)  All of these are, in some measure, feasts of the body, where we come to terms with the absence of the earthly body of Christ and begin to get the measure of what ‘This is my body’ means in day to day terms...

I rather like the way the sacramental spiritualities of the Jesuits and Franciscans search for tangible, meaningful signs of the Word becoming Flesh in our ordinary lives. The late Henri Nouwen spoke to this also in a reflection posted yesterday that caught my attention just before we played a Bistro gig last night. Nouwen wrote:

You have to be really aware of the difference between fruitfulness and success because the world is always talking to you about your success. Society keeps asking you: “Show me your trophies. Show me, how many books have you written? Show me, how many games did you win? Show me, how much money did you make? Show me. . . .” And there is nothing wrong with any of that. I am saying that finally that’s not the question. The question is: “Are you going to bear fruit?” And the amazing thing is that our fruitfulness comes out of our vulnerability and not just out of our power. Actually it comes out of our powerlessness. If the ground wants to be fruitful, you have to break it open a little bit. The hard ground cannot bear fruit; it has to be raked open...

After we played for two hours, one of the true aficionados of the groove said to me, "I got here a little late, but when I walked in, the combination of your music and the connection between the people, the food, the ambiance made me feel like, "THIS is how it is supposed to be." My heart was full to overflowing. Yes, we felt like we were playing well - and having a ton of fun, too - but we were also putting ourselves on the line. Sharing heart and soul in a vulnerable way. So we grew more at ease as the crowd slowly grew. And stayed. And listened. And applauded. The symbiotic relationship between the groove, the music, the safety, the warmth, and the shared values all met to embrace for a moment. And it was palpable. Like the music man said, "It felt like this is how it is supposed to be." The English Jesuit, Gemma Simmons, notes that this is one of the delights of summertime:

...Lies in being able to shed layers and carry round fewer protective barriers between our bodies and the cold and damp of the external world. Behavior becomes less guarded: people sit in parks picnicking over lunch breaks, take coffee outside, sit at pavement cafes instead of huddling indoors. Summer becomes a time for reconnecting with the natural light, the greater opportunities for communal living afforded by being able to sit out of doors for longer, watching children playing and people talking outside instead of sitting enclosed. There is a sense of a general relaxing into the present, a willingness to linger over meals or encounters, savoring the moment, allowing the time to flow by... In the Ignatian tradition, the application of the senses is a way of praying over material for prayer that allows what has surfaced to be savored and tested through the medium of the senses. It is a more contemplative type of prayer and one that allows the body to verify what the mind and heart have groped towards during the day. The warmth and light of summer bring so much enrichment in sight and scent and touch and taste. Perhaps part of the spirituality of summer is an invitation to a more contemplative approach to ordinary things: the feel and scent and taste of food, of flowers and plants, sea air, sunlight and warmth, fresh wind and the sound of cities, streets and gardens unusually alive.

This feels particularly true in August in North Country because we know that just around the corner a more complicated and testy season awaits us. Now is the time to savor the beauty and grandeur. Simmons adds: 

Whether in the country or just passing neighbors’ gardens or public parks, summer reminds us of the insane generosity of God. Trees and plants flower and fruit in a way that can seem almost criminally wasteful. Bumble bees amble past, drunk on nectar. Neither animals nor humans can eat and use all the fruit that emerges from the trees and bushes. If a spirituality of summer tells us anything, it is that the fruition of the earth, the fruit of time spent contemplatively going about our daily tasks, is always going to be more than we can calculate and make use of in obvious ways. A sense of the sacrament of the present moment can liberate us from the tyranny of time, dominated by market forces and the idolization of work, of cost effectiveness, of productiveness as value. Wasting time with the God whose times and seasons are full of generous wastefulness can remind us of what truly matters. 

A spirituality of late summer - August - is not naively indulgent as if there were no tomorrows and today is all that mattered. Rather, it is one of savoring the blessing of the moment in all its richness because we know that this will not last forever. The late Jane Hirschfield evoked something of the wisdom of a late summer spirituality in her poem "Three Foxes by the Edge of the Field at Twilight." 

One ran,her nose to the ground,
a rusty shadow
neither hunting nor playing.

One stood; sat; lay down; stood again.

One never moved,
except to turn her head a little as we walked.

Finally we drew too close,
and they vanished.
The woods took them back as if they had never been.

I wish I had thought to put my face to the grass.

But we kept walking,
speaking as strangers do when becoming friends.

There is more and more I tell no one,
strangers nor loves.
This slips into the heart
without hurry, as if it had never been.

And yet, among the trees, something has changed.

Something looks back from the trees,
and knows me for who I am.

it's coming from the sorrow in our streets...

This searing poem from gentle Wendell Berry speaks to this ugly moment in time. "Questionnaire" is to contemporary poetry what Lisa Fischer's interpretation of "Gimme Shelter" is to live music: brilliant, challenging, without ambiguity, piercing, confessional and so real it hurts. 

How much poison are you willing to eat for the success of the free
market and global trade? Please name your preferred poisons.

For the sake of goodness, how much
evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks
with the names of your favorite
evils and acts of hatred.

What sacrifices are you prepared
to make for culture and civilization?
Please list the monuments, shrines,
and works of art you would
most willingly destroy

In the name of patriotism and
the flag, how much of our beloved
land are you willing to desecrate?
List in the following spaces
the mountains, rivers, towns, farms
you could most readily do without.

State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,
the energy sources, the kinds of security;
for which you would kill a child.
Name, please, the children whom
you would be willing to kill.

As our band, Famous Before We're Dead, played an open air street festival in Kent, CT yesterday, I kept hearing Fischer's remaking of my favorite Stones' song. While taking in the Ottawa Jazz Festival four years ago, Lisa Fischer and Le Grand Baton took the stage on a perfect summer evening. Just two weeks before the show, a young white man, Dylan Root, had gone into the Mother Ship of African American Christianity in South Carolina and opened fire killing nine innocent people. As Fischer introduced "Gimme Shelter" she openly wept over the madness - and as the song ripened with improvisation it became a lament that brought all of us together in prayers of petition, confession and grief. It was simultaneously cathartic and convicting, a call to embody love beyond terror that was every bit as moving as any sermon I've ever heard. 

If you have seen the documentary, "20 Feet From Stardom," you'll know Fischer as the long time back up singer for the Rolling Stones. For a few decades she sang Merry Clatyon's part whenever the Stones hit the road - and a whole lot more. It would seem that after sharing the music of the Stones for all those years she gleaned insights into the deeper nuances of these songs. Taking the cocky, macho disco groove of "Miss You," Fischer turns it inside out so that it becomes a sultry torch song. With equal wisdom and finesse, she takes on "Jumpin' Jack Flash," too. That she's joined by three other musical geniuses who are equally at home in jazz, rock, fusion, pop and various versions of world music only adds to the grandeur. Just for kicks, why not take the time a listen to their take on "Flash"? Fischer harmonizes with herself, adds vocal percussion to accent the feel, and recreates this kick ass rocker from 1968 into a hymn of triumph for all of us facing hard times. Fusing Middle Eastern and African chant-song to a signature classic of Western rock'n'roll is brilliant by itself. But Fischer et al turn the chorus, "But it's all right now, in fact it's a gas," into an anthem of affirmation giving shape and form to the mystical renewal and exuberance of a soul on fire. It is IMHO freakin' brilliant... Further, this "woman of a certain age" shows us all - men as well as women - what embodied spirituality can look like even as we grow older.

Yesterday, in the midst of our sorrow and anger over the epidemic of white nationalist violence and hatred raging throughout the USA, our wee band created a few moments of solidarity and even joy through our songs. For a few moments in time there was dancing, laughter and singing out in the open albeit in a tiny Connecticut hamlet. There were open hearts, too in spite of our fears. And there were a few musical moments of transcendence when we slipped into a zone that lifted us all beyond this realm for a time.

Like Lisa Fischer - and Richard Rohr - I believe all religion, spirituality, art and ethics begin with mysticism. That is, with an encounter with a love that is not only bigger than our wounds, but evokes awe and trust. "Everything stems from mysticism, or primary religious experience, whether it be revelation or a personal mystical state of consciousness," wrote Wayne Teasdale. "We need... direct contact with the divine, or ultimate mystery, even more (than religion.) Religions are valuable carriers of the tradition within a community, but they must not be allowed to choke out the breath of the spirit, which breathes where it will." (Richard Rohr's morning mediation, August 5, 2019) Teasdale goes on to say: 

Each great religion has a similar origin: the spiritual awakening of its founders to God, the divine, the absolute, the spirit, Tao, boundless awareness. We find it in the experience of the rishis in India; the Buddha in his experience of enlightenment; in Moses, the patriarchs, the prophets, and other holy souls of the biblical tradition. It is no less present in Jesus’ inner realization of his relationship with his Father, who is also our Father. And it is clear in the Prophet Mohammed’s revelation experience of Allah through the mediation of the Archangel Gabriel.

Yesterday, for a host of reasons, my encounter with the holy in the midst of our humanity was renewed. Bringing songs of hope and challenge to small groups feels like church once did for me: holy ground. How did St. Leonard Cohen put it in the midst of his brokenness? 

It's coming from the sorrow in the street

The holy places where the races meet
From the homicidal bitchin' that goes down in every kitchen
To determine who will serve and who will eat
From the wells of disappointment where the women kneel to pray
For the grace of God in the desert here and the desert far away...

Rave on...

honoring the ebb and flow...

In a few minutes I will load up the car with my musical gear and head off to a gig in Kent, CT. We're playing for a few hours at one of their outdoor/street fair events. On Wednesday, we'll play the Bistro at Infinity, Norfolk, CT for the early dinner crowd between 4:30 and 6:30 pm. Then, we're laying low for a few weeks before returning to the groove in September. During the hiatus, I'll have a chance to reconnect with my buddies at L'Arche Ottawa, celebrate Anna's second birthday, do some more house repair/painting before heading off to Montreal for some late summer, quiet wandering time. This rhythm of engagement and solitude, connection and retreat, called to mind a quote from Henri Nouwen:

Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure. Somewhere we know that without a lonely place our actions quickly become empty gestures. The careful balance between silence and words, withdrawal and involvement, distance and closeness, solitude and community forms the basis of the Christian life and should, therefore, be the subject of our most personal attention.

As part of my commitment to strengthening this rhythm, I am going to be a part of Cynthia Bourgeault's on-line wisdom school course this fall. For one hundred days we will pause, read, reflect and practice going deeper into the heart. From time to time, I find I need to renew the core of my spiritual practices. Doing so under the guidance of Bourgeault feels right. It is so easy to get lost in the chaos of these days and lose contact with that love that binds us all together. As Nouwen wrote, to be a part of the movement to change culture and share a bit of God's healing peace in public, I need ample quiet time that grounds me in grace. Let's just say that after a full summer I know in my soul that my season of intentional solitude has arrived. Christine Valters Painters put it like this:

One of the central hallmarks of the monk is a commitment to contemplative ways of being in a frenetic world. Instead of being carried away by the daily demands of modern living, the monk makes space for holy pauses and the silence which holds everything together. Contemplative moments are an act of resistance to a world that judges our value by our productivity and achievements rather than who we are.

Such is the sacred wisdom of August as it matures and yields to autumn, too. In the next 12 months I will be deepening my commitment and presence at L'Arche Ottawa. Not only does the community feel like "home" to me - a gathering of people sharing the values and practices that nourish my best self - but it is also where I sense I can best use my gifts. The time has come to go deeper in so many ways. This poem by Linda Pastan, "Rereading Frost," calls to me:

Sometimes I think all the best poems
have been written already,
and no one has time to read them,
so why try to write more?

At other times though,
I remember how one flower
in a meadow already full of flowers
somehow adds to the general fireworks effect

as you get to the top of a hill
in Colorado, say, in high summer
and just look down at all that brimming color.
I also try to convince myself

that the smallest note of the smallest
instrument in the band,
the triangle for instance,
is important to the conductor

who stands there, pointing his finger
in the direction of the percussions,
demanding that one silvery ping.
And I decide not to stop trying,

at least not for a while, though in truth
I'd rather just sit here reading
how someone else has been acquainted
with the night already, and perfectly.

CREDIT: gun by Ringo Starr

a new iconographer for our time...

Recently I stumbled upon a few more contemporary icons painted by the artist Kelly Latimore. Last year at this time, I posted his rendering of the Holy Family seeking sanctuary in the Southwest of the USA: Refugees la sagrada familia.

I also have celebrated his interpretation of Dorothy Day: Don't Call Me a Saint.

Shortly after Jean Vanier passed from this life into life after lasting, an icon of his spirituality appeared - but I didn't know it was from Latimore:

And now I find that he has created an on-going series including Frederick Douglas, Maya Angelou, Thomas Merton, Transgendered  Woman, Pops Staples, Mary Oliver, Mother of God: Protectress of the Oppressed and so many more. (Please go to: https:// kellylatimoreicons.com) While his style is different, I am reminded of the icons painted by Robert Lentz. 

                   

Like Mary Oliver's poetry, these icons move me both in their simplicity as well as their respectful bending of the rules of tradition: there is an intentional tender wisdom in them that touches my heart. She put it like this in "Wild Geese."

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

 

Please stop by Latimore's shop for prints: 

https://kellylatimoreicons.com/store/

lammas...

Ah, the bounty and beauty of summer comes full blown as August arrives in the Berkshires: the lilies and hostas are magnificent, the native corn is delicious, our tomatoes and pumpkins are ripening on the vine, and the berries are abundant. Parker Palmer has written that:

Summer is the season when all the promissory notes of autumn and winter and spring come due, and each year the debts are repaid with compound interest. In summer it is hard to remember that we had ever doubted the natural process, had ever ceded death the last word, had ever lost faith in the powers of new life. Summer is a reminder that our faith is not nearly as strong as the things we profess to have faith in--a reminder that, for this single season at least, we might cease our anxious machinations and give ourselves to the abiding and abundant grace of our common life.

And yet at this very moment, within the heart of these riches, at the very same time our hills and fields are bursting with the promise of plenty, there comes a hint of autumn. Christopher Hill puts it like this:

August is summer that has heard a rumor of fall. It doesn't sparkle with the liveliness, motion, and lightness of May or June or the high festive brightness of July. It shimmers away toward the horizon in a hot blue haze. I know a painter who says she sees a distinct kind of light in August, different from both summer and fall. The name of the month comes from the emperor Caesar Augustus, and the purple robes of those august caesars color the last of summer. Blue shadows hide in the corners, like the patches of cobalt light after a flashbulb goes off. A stillness falls, like one of those lapses in conversation around a dinner table. We're aware only in the vaguest way, but summer is already looking ahead to its end.  (Holidays and Holy Nights: Celebrating Twelve Seasonal Festivities of the Christian Year, p. 185)


What a fascinating paradox: while the harvest is still literally waiting on the vine, a hint of the next cycle of life emerges, too. We have only just celebrated the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene in all of her fecund, midsummer presence when we notice a glimps of color in the trees and the scent of of autumn on the wind. In Celtic lands, these first few days of August are called Lughnasadh (sometimes called 'the earth's sorrowing in summer".) As the early grain harvest takes place "the Anglo-Saxons refashioned this festival to become"Lammas" - the loaf mass - with bread baked from the first fruits of the fields of summer. 

The wider church holds the Feast of the Transfiguration during these early days of August, too. At the summit of Mt. Tabor Jesus mystically communes with both Moses and Elijah - the law and the prophets - after which he announces his march towards the Cross in Jerusalem. "Jesus takes his friends up Mt. Tabor to see everything... we are aware only in the vaguest way, but summer is already looking ahead to its end. Here at the end of summer - like Mt. Tabor - the world shows us everything caught in the still center of August." (Hill, p. 185) There is abundance as well as the end of the harvest, there is warmth plus the cool winds of evening, there is life, death and life beyond death.

Often, Dianne and I spend the close of August in Montréal: the northern light is exquisite, the crowds of summer have dispersed, and a cool breeze often fills the vibrant nights in that grand city. We also wander a bit through the Eastern Townships where vineyards abound and the autumn color peeks through the summer green. There is a mix of joy and sorrow in the air and our hearts on these trips. Melancholia? A bodily prayer of endings and the patience to wait before new life returns? All of this and so much more? In three weeks, we will go again mostly to just wander. No agenda. No plans. Just a time to walk and watch together. A time to talk and listen to one another and be silent together, too. To be sure, we'll spend some evenings taking in the best jazz club ever - Dieze Onze (http://www.dieseonze.com) - but mostly we will be les flâneurs, strollers open to the mystery of each day.

The late Jane Kenyon captures this brilliantly in her poem, "Evening Sun."

Why does this light force me back
to my childhood? I wore a yellow
summer dress and the skirt
made a perfect circle.

                          Turning and turning
until it flared to the limit
was irresistible . . . . The grass and trees,
my outstretched arms, and the skirt
whirled in the ochre light
of an early June evening.
                           And I knew then
that I would have to live,
and go on living: what sorrow it was;
and still what sorrow ignites
but does not consume
my heart.

(pictures from our garden earlier today...)

painting, waiting and w.h. auden...

All this week I have been doing painting and repairs on our home. After the crew from Brooklyn left on Sunday, I have been at work keeping our old house in working order: fixing porch steps, painting cracking exterior paint, changing the look of bathrooms to better fit our lives in 2019. Next week, there's a day of deck repair to get into, too. 

I find that there is something meditative about painting - especially rooms requiring multiple coats of paint - because beyond the body's movement of physically applying stroke after stroke of color, there is so much waiting: waiting for the paint to be mixed, waiting for the paint to dry, waiting before applying additional coats, waiting before resetting and cleaning the room. 

While sitting in the midst of this waiting, I came upon a poem by W.H. Auden called, "The More Loving One." This Englishman become US citizen who loved his winters in NYC, left Christianity at 15 but returned to the faith as an adult - mostly because of Niebuhr, Kierkegaard and the insights of the Inklings and Charles Williams in particular. During the 60's and early 70's, Auden left his home in Brooklyn Heights to dwell among the joys of life on St. Marks Place in the East Village. Like many unschooled in the finer arts, I first heard Auden in the movie, Four Weddings and a Funeral, where "Funeral Blues" shaped the eulogy of a grieving man for his beloved. "The More Loving One" is less dramatic, to be sure, but there is a comforting tenderness in its humility. 

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

I hear something of the Via Positiva and Via Negativa in this wee poem. It rings true to me - especially when he confesses: "Were all the stars to disappear or die, I should learn to look at an empty sky and feel its total dark sublime, thought this might take me a little time." A little time, indeed. Self-deprecating humor is a sign of spiritual integrity in my book - and Auden gets that just right. So thank you, dear W.H., you have opened my heart this day.