embodied trust: wisdom from deep ecumenism - part two

NOTE: Yesterday I note two important 

insights from Rabbi Rachel Barenblat
concerning the significance of embodied trust from within the Jewish tradition. Today I draw upon the research and reflections shared by the late Reverend Dr. James Nelson in his 1975 masterwork: Embodiment. Jim was an ordained clergy person in the United Church of Christ as well as a respected member of the faculty at United Theological Seminary. I have also found wisdom in Integral Christianity: The Way of Embodied Love by Roland Michael Stanich.

When considering modern works of spirituality, theology, or Bible criticism, I mistrust authors who too easily confuse personal opinions for rigorous scholarship. I am equally suspicious of those who are unable to critique their own tradition honestly and with love: humility and careful analysis always trump the mono-minded rants of most apologists no matter how much I might favor the intentions of the later. Consequently, when considering Biblical history or textual research, I look to the deep research scholars like Raymond Brown, Rosemary Radford Reuther, Phyliss Tribble, N.T. Wright, Walter Brueggemann, Sara Coakley, Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, Amy-Jill Levine, Douglas John Hall, Lauren Winner, Dorothee Soelle, James Cone, James Washington, and John Dominic Crossan. Like authors Barbara Brown Taylor, Henri Nouwen, Cynthia Bourgeault, Kathleen Norris, Thomas Keating, Richard Rohr, and Marilynne Robinson, they illuminate rather than obscure and interpret instead of projecting ideology. They are time-tested and objectively valued by their peers.

Now I must add James Nelson to this pantheon of allies: his robust and profound historical, Biblical, and ethical treatment of embodiment is without parallel. That it came out in 1975 does not diminish his achievement; in fact, his prescient insights are as valid almost 50 years later as they were when this text was first published. I only wish I had paid more attention back in the day. Take Nelson's insistence that St. Paul was not thoroughly addicted to the dualisms of his Hellenistic culture. Citing John A.T. Robinson, Nelson writes: "the concept of body (soma) forms the keystone of Paul's theology." (Embodiment, p. 50)

'It is from the body of sin and death that we are delivered; it is through the body of Christ on the Cross that we are saved; it is into His body the church that we are incorporated; it is by His body in the Eucharist that this community is sustained; it is in our body that its new life has to be manifested; it is to a resurrection of this body to the likeness of His glorious body that we are destined.' Further, when Paul contrasts flesh (sarx) with spirit, it is a mistake to read this as unvarnished Greek dualism - the immortal soul over against the corruptible body. More typically, Paul uses 'the mind of the flesh' to refer not to sensuality as such but to the denial of human dependence on God and a reliance on the law as a means of salvation.

These "body" references presuppose the literal and traditional substitutionary or vicarious atonement theologies - Jesus died for me religion - where Christ's body becomes an innocent sacrifice offered to an angry God. As a substitute, the body of Jesus on the Cross ransoms all humankind as his execution fulfills God's requirement that sin be punished by death. This perspective very loosely borrows metaphors and rituals from ancient Judaism's various vicarious rituals of sacrifice. It has shaped Western Christian thought since the earliest days with periodic refinements such as Anselm of Canterbury's medieval doctrine of satisfactionary atonement - where Jesus redeems humankind by his innocent death - as well as Reformed Christianity's penal substitutionary doctrine - where Jesus pays God for the punishment we deserve by substituting his life for ours. 

I understand the emotional experience embodied by belief in these atonement theologies: they honor shame and guilt and offer release. At the same time, I reject any notion that we are ever fully alienated or separated from the sacred. Further, the image of an enraged deity who demands the torture and execution of any one - let alone "His son" - is unconscionable. That's why I find the most persuasive theology of atonement and the meaning of the Cross in the work of the French anthropologist Rene Girard. It is his understanding that Christ's sacrifice neither redeems sin nor pays off an enraged deity. Rather, what Jesus does on the Cross is document what human violence looks like from the perspective of the vanquished. 

Girard teaches that societies historically select weak and powerless people to demonize and project fear and anxiety upon. By doing this, elites evoke a sense of solidarity within the majority and reclaim validity for their continued authority. Most often, after a season of hate-mongering and blame, the demonized become scape goats who must be destroyed - an act that further united people. Think of the Third Reich's campaign against European Jews after WWI or the experience of the US after September 11th 2001.Girard believe that the unique spiritual truth that Jesus shows us is what it looks like from the perspective of the scape goat. Religion typically celebrates the destruction of the scape goat as salvific. Jesus gives us the upside-down truth of what violence against the innocent and powerless looks like in all of its bloody horror. The blessing that can come from this broken body is the sobering recognition of what our religious/political violence looks like and the opportunity to become allies with God's grace. We can end our addiction to demonizing and executing our scape goats. From a Girardian perspective, I would redefine the gifts St. Paul's body theology offer like this:

+ Christ's body saves us from body of sin by showing us the consequences of our lives without illusion. As we relinquish our dependence upon lies, scape goating, spiritualities of shame and fear we not only incarnate compassion, but also begin to realize that we are always embraced by God's grace and never unwelcomed.

+ Christ's body on the Cross does not purchase our health but offers us the alternative of love, renewal, and peace-making. This is the authentic source of sacred solidarity. In this, our very bodies practice trusting God more than self.

+ Christ's body in another form - the church - not only gives us a community of encouragement where we can practice living by love, it is also a physical home for all who have been rejected, demonized, shamed, and wounded. As the Taize community states: we become a sign of festival within the brokenness.

+ Christ's body as Eucharist trains us in finding the holy in our horizontal commitments; it never rejects the vertical aspects of our communion with God, but rather asks for a both/and spirituality much like the two bars of the cross +. Together we are nourished: mystically we ingest the essence of God, socially we practice acceptance and welcome, and spiritually we renew our commitment to peace. When we enter into this embrace, our own flesh becomes as Christ's to the world and we give shape and form to the resurrected body of Christ in a new albeit wounded form. 

Nelson's insights accept the contradictions of St. Paul as he apostle worked within a patriarchal milieu as well as a licentious context. His "concern for sexual purity through dissociation from the idolatrous practices of the pagans is clearly understandable." This does not, however, render him an opponent of embodied trust nor does it make him a celebrant of his culture's body/spirit divisions. It is true the the Apostle often embraces the sexism of his era and is inconsistent in honoring his "Hebraic understanding of the unity of body /self." But as Richard Rohr repeatedly reminds us, St. Paul uses the word flesh (sarx) to mean our broken self, our wounded self, our alienated and self-absorbed spirit, what we would now label our false self that is being transformed into our truest bodyself by God's love and our ongoing commitment to key spiritual practices. 

The Apostle Paul tends to use dialectics in his writing, jockeying two seemingly opposite ideas to lead us to a deeper and third understanding. One of his most familiar dialectics is the way he speaks of flesh and spirit. Paul uses the word sarx, typically and unfortunately translated as “flesh” in most contemporary languages with a negative connotation in opposition to spirit. John’s Gospel uses this same word, sarx, in a wonderfully positive way: “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14). So flesh must be good too! But Paul’s usage had the larger impact. If you read Galatians or Romans, you’ll probably understand these two terms in the usual dualistic way, which has done great damage: “Well, I’ve got to get out of my flesh in order to get into the spirit.” This was even true of many canonized saints, at least in their early stages—as it was with the Buddha. But I want to say as strongly as I can: you really can’t get out of the flesh! That’s not what Paul is talking about.

The closest meaning to Paul’s sarx is today’s familiar word “ego”—which often is a problem if we are trapped inside of it. So what Paul means by “flesh” is the trapped self, the small self, the partial self, or what Thomas Merton called the false self. Basically, spirit is the whole self, the Christ Self, the True Self “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3) that we fall into by grace. The problem is not between body and spirit; it’s between part and whole. Sarx or ego is the self that tries to define itself autonomously, apart from spirit, apart from the Big Self in God. It’s the tiny self that you think you are, who takes yourself far too seriously, and who is always needy and wanting something else. It’s the self that is characterized by scarcity and fragility—and well it should be, because it’s finally an illusion and passing away. It changes month by month. This small self doesn’t really exist in God’s eyes as anything substantial or real. It’s nothing but a construct of your own mind. It is exactly what will die when you die. Flesh is not bad, it is just inadequate to the final and full task, while posing as the real thing. Don’t hate your training wheels once you take them off your bicycle. You should thank them for getting you started on your cycling journey! To easily get beyond this confusion, just substitute the word ego every time you hear Paul use the word flesh. It will get you out of this dead-end, false, and dualistic ping-pong game between body and spirit. The problem is not that you have a body; the problem is that you think you are separate from others—and from God. And you are not! (Center for Action and Contemplation, https://cac.org/flesh-and-spirit-2018-04-06/)

St. Paul's  emphasis on embodied trust points to the holiness of Christ's integration of body/mind/spirit. This is one of the blessings underscored in Integral Christianity where Roland Michael Stanich writes that it is not coincidence that the first of Jesus' miracles - turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana - prefigures the transformation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. Noting that the bread and wine which Jesus calls his body and blood come from the earth and are fashioned by human hands, Stanich invites us to see the unity of God's presence within Jesus and all creation. "The vastness" of Christ's mind recognizes "the vastness of his body and blood" that is born, formed and shared from Mother Earth. In this, none of us are separated from the sacred no matter what confusing dualisms our spiritual traditions may have sacralized. Small wonder I have found gardening to be a sacramental practice: I am figuratively embracing the very essence of Christ's body and blood. 

embodied trust: wisdom from deep ecumenism - part one

NOTE: Today is part one of a two part reflection on discovering the wisdom of my Judeo-Christian heritage concerning embodied trust. This post touches upon both Judaism and contemplative Christianity. Part two will consider the literal and figurative celebration of the body in the lives of Jesus and St. Paul.

While doing online research into the origins of "embodied trust," I came upon a blogpost by a colleague and friend: Rabbi Rachel Barenblat at Velveteen Rabbi. Her insights, reflections on scripture, poetry, and analysis of the always evolving Jewish traditions are edifying and enlightening. (For those who wish to know more, please see: https://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com) The post that caught my attention this time hails from 2007 entitled (wait for it...) embodied trust! Two observations have been particularly helpful

(https://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2007/09/embodied-trust.html)

+ First, she notes that in the Jewish tradition there are three discrete yet inter-related types of elemental trust: the trusting mind, the trusting heart, and the trusting body. The Hebrew word, emanuh, includes each of these aspects with "the highest of these is emunat ha-evarim, trusting with one's limbs, where deep trust penetrates every fibre of one's being." The wise rabbi notes that "Rabbi Shalom Noah Barzovsky, the previous Slonimer Rebbe" teaches that:

The classic example he offers is the crossing of the Sea of Reeds. In that moment of leaping, he writes (in his commentary on parashat Beshalach), the children of Israel trusted fully in the One, and therefore the holy spirit rested upon them and sang in them (this is a Hebrew pun -- שרתה / shartah, rested, relates aurally to שירה / shirah, song) and song burst forth not only from their lips but in their very limbs.

+ Second, many of us are inclined to trust the sacred with our hearts - and our minds can be trained "through contemplation and study." But how do you help your flesh, blood, and limbs move through the day knowing/trusting/resting in the steadfast love of the Lord which endures forever? She suggests that ripening into this type of trust is a slow work that is always in progress.

In my own contemplative Christian tradition, two new/old resources are taking on greater significance as I incrementally give attention to embodied trust. The first are the various body prayers that model the pilgrimage into incarnational trust while simultaneously training our flesh to trust the unforced rhythms of grace: making the sign of the Cross at the start and close of meditation, lighting candles and incense while touching prayer beads, speaking and/or chanting my prayers, bowing, kneeling, feasting and fasting, praying with my eyes with icons, receiving and sharing Eucharist. Each and all of these resources prefiguratively celebrate trusting the sacred beyond the confines of abstract thought. 

Having been raised in the ways of New England congregationalism, where just a small wooden cross on the communion table of the Sanctuary was once considered idolatrous, has meant investigating the time-tested body prayers of the larger Christian realm independently. Like many little, white suburban children of the 50's, I learned the Lord's Prayer and "now I lay me down to sleep..." and that's about it. My dad came from an intellectual, Unitarian Scottish family while my mom was rooted in the world of working class Irish folk with both Catholic and Protestant roots. We started attending the Congregational Church in Connecticut as a compromise of sorts when I was in second grade but learning about prayer was not a strong point. As a professional colleague much later used to say: "Back in those days, worship in the Congregational church meant a song, a poem and a book report!"

I didn't know much about the physicality of prayer until a born-again, evangelical language instructor in Costa Rica told me that she continued to make the sign of the Cross during prayer from her Catholic days as a way of connecting to Jesus. This was frowned upon by the Protestant missionaries who arrogantly wanted to convert her from what they considered her quasi-pagan past, but she suggested it was a ritual of love. And that was ALL the permission I needed to start exploring the liturgical wisdom of both Eastern Orthodoxy and mystical Western Roman Catholicism. The physicality of these prayers felt like home to me. After an extended hiatus, I'm once again rediscovering these tools as guides into yet another encounter with embodied trust. Using all of my senses - including a return to Christian hatha yoga - resonates with every part of my being. These resources have been helpful:

+ An Invitation to Christian Yoga, The Reverend Nancy Roth, Cowley Publications, 2001.

+ Pray All Ways and Prayers for the Domestic Church, Fr. Ed Hays, Forest of Peace Books, 2007.

+ "How to Pray with Anglican Prayer Beads", Unspoken Elements blog @ https://www.unspokenelements.com/pages/how-to-use-anglican-prayer-beads

+ Chanting the Psalms, The Reverend Cynthia Bourgeault, New Seeds Books, 2007.

walking, watching, listening, and trusting...

Yesterday we walked through Parc Lafontaine in the Plateau neighborhood of Montréal. We shared a late lunch lakeside accompanied by mallard ducks, seagulls, and cormorants. A few dedicated sunbathers lay on the hills soaking up as much warmth as possible before the weather turns harsh. And as evening arrived, we took in two smokin' Latin jazz sets at our beloved Dièse Onze under the leadership of Alex Bellegarde. Speaking with him during a break about the importance of live music, he said: the hardest thing about the pandemic for him as a performer (aside from the suffering and loss of life) was the absence of the energy created between an artist and those entering into the magic of the music. It was as isolating, lonely, and anguished 18 months that is only now slowly changing. 

Today is a slow, inward time for Di and myself as we write, take care of small administrative chores, and mostly rest after being so public and active beyond our habits. I will likely take a long solitary walk later just to feel the vibe of the city - and get a few goodies like TP and soap. Such is the rhythm we've embraced as flâneurs: we each need our own quiet time for physical and psychic space after wandering this world with awe and gratitude. Being older and a bit infirm adds to this reality, too. "To everything there is a season," yes? One of the gifts of this gentle trip is being cut off from the barrage of so-called "news" that has polluted so much of our North American culture. Even gasoline pumps now have TV screens blaring some upsetting headline at you with no OFF switch available. And as I learned six years ago while on sabbatical here, living in a Francophone area of town makes certain I listen more than speak and trust the silence ever more deeply. To be sure, we've been monk-like at home even before sheltering in place. Solitude and silence have long been our friends. But being in this part of town adds another layer of quietude that I have come to cherish.

After a simple monastic breakfast of tea and toast, I read a brilliant article by Ragan Sutterfield entitled, "Climate Change is a Symptom of Deeper Planetary Dysfunction" from The Christian Century. (check it out here: https://www.christiancentury.org/article/critical-essay/climate-change-symptom-deeper-planetary-dysfunction) It is an elegant invitation to humbly give up our anthropocentric worldview and habits:

We should seek to end fossil fuel use, divest our assets from companies that promote it, and invest in clean energy. We should replace our gas guzzlers with more efficient vehicles. We should quit flying whenever we have the whim to go someplace—we should make long-distance travel rare. We should do many of the things that have been promoted as responses to our climate crisis. But in all of this we must be under no illusions that this will mean the reconciliation of human life with the whole of crea­tion. Solar panels on every church rooftop will not be the healing we need. Instead, as with so many aspects of our broken world, the real healing of injustice comes through a long walk of humble mercy and the repentance that means changed hearts and lives.

He then suggests five inter-related embodied practices that have been time-tested as essential for living into the beauty of creation as a partner: withdrawal, geography, sanctuary, skill-sharing, and mercy. It is a rich and nuanced call to deepen what I am calling embodied trust so that from the inside out and within our bodies as well as the body politic healing happens:

The years ahead will be critical to the future of the life we have known on our planet. We need energy transitions, infrastructure changes, and much of what has become the standard response to the climate crisis. But that crisis is only a symptom of a disease that goes to the heart of the human relationship with creation. We must cut all of the carbon we can as quickly as we can. But we should seek to do so within a frame of healing the whole, of exorcising the demons of our dominion made manifest in industrial civilization. We should not build windmills at the expense of migrating birds. We should not trade carbon pollution for lithium waste. The world should suffer no more from human life beyond its creaturely limits.

On our walk home, I came upon this tiny reminder that in the midst of our pain, confusion, anger, and fear there is still the tender presence of the sacred for those with eyes to see. Right now Miles Davis et al are playing "All Blues" on our small portable sound system reminding me it's time to quit sitting in front of my computer and put on my walking shoes:

The sea, the sky, for you and I - I'll know we're all blues

All Shades, all hues, all blues

Some blues are sad but some are glad,

Dark-sad or bright-glad they're all blues

All shades, all hues, all blues

The color of colors the blues are more than a color

They're a moan of pain, a taste of strife

And a sad refrain a game which lief is playin'

Blues can be the livin' dues we're all a-payin'

Yeah, Oh Lord in a rainbow a summer day that's fair

A prayer is prayed a lament that's made... all blues

thankful for a time to wander...

Wandering again - and watching the world with awe in public! What a treat after 18 months of relative solitude. We arrived back in beautiful Montréal after a two year hiatus. Our last visit found us in a small flat above a liquor store on Prince Arthur not far from where we are staying now. We walked that pedestrian way again last night and found many of the former hot spots closed down and boarded up. The pandemic has been rough for everyone, but especially complicated for businesses dependent upon students and tourists. The open-air dining establishments were doing a booming business - and St. Laurent was hopping, too. But while the Plateau is returning to vibrancy, death and disease have taken a toll.

When we went to a jazz eatery in le vieux porte by the St. Lawrence, a young man was following covid protocols and checking that every patron held a vaccine passport. Tourists have not been included in this Quebec mandate as of yet; but he dutifully looked at our vaccination cards before saying, "I know that if you are here, you have been fully vaccinated in the United States. Please, enjoy and bon appetit." It was a new experience to be in a full restaurant - with live music - basking in the sunshine and seeing hundreds of unmasked faces. The wait staff, of course, remained fully masked. And guests masked up upon entering and leaving. But for the better part of an hour there was lively conversation, laughter, and a feeling of freedom among those taking-in some earthly delights on a late Sunday afternoon.

Such is the promise of the vaccine mandate in the USA, too: there will be a time when many of us can reconnect in public. Oh happy day! Di and I encountered a bit of this at the Joan Osborne/Madeline Peyroux concert at the start of our wee trip. Vaccination records were carefully reviewed, all the concert goers remained masked throughout the three hour show, and both artists were openly grateful that we were respectfully caring for one another - and them - as we all lived into a brave new world where live music was a real possibility once more. Osborne was visibly moved and close to tears. Why 80 million others have chosen to oppose safety, compassion, and respect for others in public continues to baffle me. With nearly 75% of Montreal at least partly vaccinated, the radical minority is slowly being shunned into new behavior - and well they should be. 

Today will be a bit more wandering in Parc La Fountaine (not far from our flat) and then an evening a Diese Onze (our favorite jazz club in all the world!) One of the city's finest contra basse players, Alex Bellegarde, is the headliner. While on sabbatical six years ago, we regularly took in his shows and particularly loved his Tuesday jam sessions where old timers and young music hot shots from McGill University waited patiently for the second and third sets when Alex invited them up to give it a shot. It was like the 40's in the jazz cellars of NYC all over again. It will be a reunion and delight for us to support a small business that creatively found ways to keep the music flowing during the worst of the lockdown and stay afloat with a take away menu. We'll hit Diese Onze a few other times during this stay for sure.

embodied trust: a challenge to hating our bodies...

The appointed texts for this day, Sunday September 12, are poignant and pregnant with possibilities. The first reading from the First Testament is one of my favorites:

Proverbs 1:20-33: Lady Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice. At the busiest corner she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: ‘How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? Give heed to my reproof; I will pour out my thoughts to you; I will make my words known to you. Because I have called and you refused, have stretched out my hand and no one heeded, and because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when panic strikes you, when panic strikes you like a storm, and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently, but will not find me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my counsel, and despised all my reproof, therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way and be sated with their own devices. For waywardness kills the simple, and the complacency of fools destroys them; but those who listen to me will be secure and will live at ease, without dread of disaster.’

Note it is LADY Wisdom - the feminine heart of the holy - speaking to the masses. She calls out not the uncomplicated nor those who choose simple living, but rather "the simple" - pthiy in Hebrew - meaning the willfully naïve and/or those who choose to ignore realty and truth. This is one of the Biblical passages that sounds like karma: you reap what you sow. It is an earthy wisdom sharply shared so that we might wake up and smell the coffee that Mother Earth, Gaia, Lady Wisdom has brewed for us. She does not suffer fools gladly. Rather, she has grown weary with our hubris, angry with our greed, and broken-hearted over the way our selfishness brings pain to the innocent. It seems the more life changes, the more it remains the same, yes?

The gospel lesson in St. Mark 8 is equally bold: "Jesus called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?" Too often these words from the second testament are spiritualized, robbing them of any incarnational connection with the Messiah who loved to feast, and was chastised for hanging-out with drunkards. Too often these words become a denial of our flesh when Jesus doesn't say that - then or now - his focus on the Cross is a challenge to the self-absorbed life not contempt for our bodies. Yet, as the late James Nelson wrote back in the 1975: 

In the Christian West, theology has too often been a disembodied enterprise. It has been understood as preeminently a rational discipline, a matter for the head. There have been, of course, exceptions... (but for the most part) there continues to lurk a deep suspicion of the body... Suppose on a Sunday the minister were to announce as the day's text Romans 12: 1: 'I appeal to you, therefore... to present your bodies as a living sacrifice holly and acceptable to God as your worship.' Would bodies be interpreted by most hearers as the entire self (the body-mind-heart self as Paul intended?) Probably not. Would the mood conveyed by that text be the prospect of wholeness, joy, ecstasy? No, more likely it would be heard as the injunction addressed to the mind or spirit to engage in the dreary duty of disciplining and controlling one's body imposing upon it from outside and alien willpower. (Embodiment, pp. 30 and 41)

How does our distorted hatred of our flesh empower us to listen and heed the cries of Lady Wisdom? How does despising the flesh into which the essence of the holy was incarnated advance the cause of compassion? A spirituality of embodied trust is the antithesis of traditional Western Christian spiritual formation. As I walked around Montreal today with Di, whose body hurts and has slowed down considerably, I prayed that we might both rest in what has been given and make the most of our time together. We walked and rested. We talked and watched the beauty of the world move all around us. It was a quiet festival of incarnation that nourished my soul.

naunce and grace in embodied trust...

As I explore the practice and meaning of embodied trust more deeply, it's  become clear that I must expand my poetry canon beyond my treasured favorites. Decades ago I encountered the work of Alicia Ostriker in an Oxford anthology: Chapters into Verse - A Selection of Poetry in English Inspired by the Bible. A poem she entitles, "The Story of Joshua," moved me in its clarity, nuance, and paradox. That is most certainly one of the gifts of the Hebrew Bible: its variegated insights entwining literal insights within the sacred embrace of myth, archetype, contradiction, paradox as well as history recited factually and from a robust imagination. 

The Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann wisely notes in his Introduction to the Old Testament: Canon and Christian Imagination that given the evolving redaction of these texts by a variety of liturgical leaders ranging from the most primitive to the evolving priestly caste, words like "wilderness" and "chaos" are simultaneously part of ancient Israel's origin stories as well as a description of their exile in Babylon to say nothing of the inward/outward spiritual journeys of individuals. He writes:

The sojourn material is organized around a series of encounters at different oases, as Israel moves, in stylized telling, by stages. Attempts have been made to recover the itinerary of the sojourn by identifying

 various oases and connecting them in terms of realistic possibilities of travel. The narrative give the impression, however, that the oases are in fact only staging arenas for narratives of crises, so that any geographical recovery of the sojourn is likely impossible... it is important to understand the function of "wilderness" in the tradition. It is easiest to take "wilderness" as a geographical reference, and that is surely what the tradition itself understood. As a geographical location, the term refers to the area traversed by Israel between Egypt (slavery) and the promised land (and secure well-being.) This is clearly how the tradition presents the matter of wilderness. Since the exodus itself is something of an act of imagination, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the wilderness that is presented with geographical realism is an arena of imaginative construal. It is a launching pad for God-Israel transaction in an environment of acute risk and deep jeopardy. In the lived experience of Israel, it is plausible that the sixth century deportation, when Israel was removed from the land, provides (another) "historical" connection of Israel to the wilderness (where) the wilderness serves to comment upon the palpable experience of "exile... especially when noting that the tradition reached something like final form in the sixth or fifth century (where) contemporary experience is read into and through the ancient remembering. (pp. 59-60)

We know that families do much the same thing - blending fact with fiction, the truth with imaginative recollection - at reunions, funerals, and weddings. The arch of Marilynne Robinson's "Gilead" books is a recent example of how the same story can be told from the perspective of four very different individuals. It is the same story, with the same events and players, but with dramatically different insights. The Christian texts of the second testament carry on this tradition in the highly selective and romantic rendering of everyday life in the faith community as given by St. Luke, the careful way St. Mary Magdalene has been written out of the story, as well as the symbolic retelling of Genesis from the experiences of the Apocalypse of John. The stories of the Hebrew Bible offer us a complex yet stunning mosaic of insights - and Ostriker illuminates this in "The Story of Joshua" like this:

The New Englanders are a people of God settled in those which were once the devil's territories. (Cotton Mather, The Wonders of the Invisible World, 1692)

We reach the promised land

Forty years later

The original ones who were slaves

Have died

The young are seasoned soldiers

There is wealth enough for everyone and God

Here at our side, the people

Are made with excitement.

Here is what to do, to take

This land away from the inhabitants:

Burn their villages and cities

Kill their men

Kill their women

consume the people utterly.

God says: is that clear?

I give you the land, but

You must murder for it.

You will be a nation

Like other nations,

Your hands are going to be stained like theirs

Your innocence annihilated.

Keep listening, Joshua.

Only to you among the nations

do I also give knowledge

The secret.

Knowledge that you are doing evil

Only to you the commandment:

Love ye therefore the stranger, for you were

Strangers in the land of Egypt, a pillar

Of fire to light your passage

Through the blank desert of history forever.

This is the agreement.

Is it entirely

Clear, Joshua,

Said the Lord.

I said it was. He then commanded me

to destroy Jericho.

Choosing to hold competing truths together in tension is, I have come to believe, a part of learning to live with embodied trust. I know that within my life - and clearly within my heart - are opposing truths. Much like St. Paul in Romans 7 there have been times when I have known what is good, true, and loving, but have been unable to do such - no matter how hard I tried. I know that God's love shines on the just as well as the corrupt, too. Or as Bono says: Grace trumps karma! 

Most of the time I resonate with these truths intellectually, but now I yearn to trust them in my limbs. I suppose it's part of a twenty year sojourn that began one Christmas morning in Tucson when I announced: "I want fish for breakfast!" Before that morning I had been a conscientious practicing vegetarian of the ovo-lacto variety. I made that bodily commitment while on the road of living as a conscientious objector to the war in Vietnam. It only made sense that I would stop eating flesh if I was opposed to killing. Like other young idealists, I was intent on eradicating contradictions from my life. Some fifty years later I smile at my naivete, but back in the day I was earnest and as doctrinaire as pacifist could be. That's why my Christmas pronouncement about a fish breakfast stunned my family. Really? Are you nuts? You've ALWAYS been a vegetarian. Why don't you wait until after the Christmas morning Eucharist is over: if you still want fish, then we'll do it. And we did. That breakfast of fried catfish was an incarnational prayer that confessed: Ok, I am a mess of contradictions, like everyone else, and I trust that God still loves me. My failings - and sins - were real. The wounds I had brought to those I loved did not disappear. And, I was making peace within my flesh with grace.

I still am - and this quest for embodied trust is growing deeper - as I learn to make peace with embodied paradox. Another wise poet, Scott Cairns, puts it like this in "Imperative."

The thing to remember is how

tentative all of this really is.

You could wake up dead.

Or the woman you love

could decide you're ugly.

Maybe she'll finally give up

trying to ignore the way

you floss your teeth as you

watch television. All I'm saying

is that there are no sure things here.

I mean, you'll probably wake up alive,

and she'll probably keep putting off

any actual decision about your looks.

Could be she'll be glad your teeth

are so clean. The morning might be

full of all the love and kindness

you need. Just don't go thinking

you deserve any of it.

Now it's time to pack for a few weeks of wandering with my sweetheart through our beloved Montréal.

like a child upon her mother's breast: embodied trust

One of the best insights into embodied trust comes from Wisdom-Teacher and
Episcopal priest, the Rev. Dr. Cynthia Bourgeault. About this time last year, while in Montreal (where we're headed in two days) I participated in her Introduction to the Western Wisdom Tradition online study. I also spent time scouring her book, The Wisdom Way of Knowing: Reclaiming an Ancient Tradition to Awaken the Heart. Without reservation I can affirm that this small book holds a panoply of vital truths about ripening into a heart-centered spirituality. 

One insight warrants additional comment. In a chapter exploring "freedom and surrender" she writes: "Where there's surrender, synchronicity tends to follow, which is one of the most delightful side effects of the surrender practice." Then she gives a gift that keeps on giving.

Although there are any number of spiritual practices both ancient and universal to bring a person to this state of permanent inner "yieldedness," the most direct and effective one I know is simply this: in any situation in life, confronted by an outer threat or opportunity, you can notice yourself responding inwardly in one of two ways. Either you will brace, harden, and resist; or, you will soften, open, and yield. If you go with the former gesture, you will be catapulted immediately into your smaller (ego-driven) self, with its animal instincts and survival responses. If you stay with the latter regardless of the outer conditions, you will remain in alignment with your innermost being, and through it, divine being can reach you. Spiritual practice at its no-frills simplest is a moment-by-moment learning not to do anything in a state of internal brace. Bracing is never worth the cost. (p. 75, Wisdom Way of Knowing)

Utilizing this practice has been the best way to incarnate a training regime for my flesh so that trusting God becomes embodied rather than abstract. It takes intentionality, of course, and awareness. But incrementally, along with other embodied practices, a shift from anxiety towards trust is ripening within. Not totally and not without confusion, but authentically and gracefully. As a TV commercial from my childhood suggested: "Try it, you'll like it!"

towards embodied trust...

To say that I've wrestled with a fundamental paradox in Western Christianity in many of its forms for most of my life would be an understatement: why is the way of Jesus, God's word made flesh, so abstract and cerebral? Why has our spiritual formation been essentially the training of the mind? Orthodoxy - right thought - rather than orthopraxis - right action? Not that I am advocating the know-nothing, anti-intellectualism that has polluted so much of our common life in these quasi-United States. I celebrate creative, in-depth theological queries and value the great religious minds that have helped articulate what a deep life of faith looks like in real time: Dorothee Soelle, Thomas Keating, Richard Rohr, Cynthia Bourgeault, Harvey Cox, Joan Chittister, Gertrud Mueller-Nelson, Kathleen Norris, Douglas John Hall, Walter Brueggemann, Henri Nouwen, Elie Wiesel, Parker Palmer, Amy Jill Levine, Lawrence Kushner, James Nelson, James Cone, Abraham Heschel, Paul Tillich, Carl Jung, St. Francis, St. Clare, St. Paul, Ed Hays, and Howard Thurman to name the most important for me as well as the author of the anonymous mystical classic: Cloud of Unknowing.

Somewhere along the way a charismatic friend stated that faith was NOT only an intellectual endeavor: faith was the difference between thinking that a chair would support my weight - orthodoxy - and actually sitting in it - orthopraxis! My charismaniac phase put me in touch with some beautiful aspects of embodied faith - certainly the ecstasy of some of our worship back in the day was sensually exhilarating - and yet most of my formation (even in this subset of Western Christianity) was hyper-abstract and profoundly cerebral. I don't think that I ever came across a set of practices and/or teachings concerning embodied trust: knowing in my flesh and limbs that God's love is the ultimate truth of creation. Celtic spirituality has helped: it is grounded in God's first word in nature. The newly crafted liturgical season of Creation has deepened my awareness that trust/faith is incarnational, too. And, some feminist/womanist writing along with some First Nations spirituality moves in this direction as well.

+ I suspect that embodied trust is at the core of the spiritual practices Dorothy C. Bass et al at Valparaiso University and later at Calvin College have worked so hard to articulate and advocate, too. (see both: https://centerforcongregations.org/ resource/practicing-our-faith as well as https://goodfaithmedia .org/valparaiso-project-launches-faith-practices-web-site-cms-1077/)

+ Certainly this has been at the heart of the Center for Action and Contemplation in New Mexico as well as the insights the Rev. Dr. Cynthia Bourgeault has shared in her Wisdom workshops. (see https://cac.org/introductory-wisdom-school/)

For the past 15 years I have been closing-in on this contradiction through my focus on a spirituality of tenderness. This put me back in touch with Jean Vanier and L'Arche. (NOTE: I was moved and enriched by Jean's writing. I was sickened and frustrated by his abuse - and the abuse done to him by his mentor. Sorting this out is still a work in progress, but as Krista Tippett has said: Jean's legacy is a mess that we're still unraveling.) At L'Arche, I have experienced radical acceptance, a way of being faithful that is simple, trusting, and incarnational. And a sense that grace born of listening and being present that is far more salvific than most of the words written about the meaning of faith. That is, living into a trust that is animated from the inside of our flesh outward is essential. 

As I gather my gear for our trek to Montreal and Ottawa - and as we walk about those grand places quietly - I am going to be practicing some yoga prayers as well as some silent, centering meditation. Maybe you want to join me...?

embodied trust, grateful dead, and our long, strange trip....

One of my favorite metaphorical insights comes from the Grateful Dead: "What a LONG, strange trip it's been." I never did acid, but the ups and downs, circles and dead-ends, celebrations, sorrows, prayers, broken hearts, and resurrections of my nearly 70 years of exploring what it means to be fully alive in the late 20th and early 21st century has been a trip and a half.

It is no secret to those I love that the Dead mean the world to me: I've seen them often, followed them around one summer in the early 70's, and continue to savor their sublime and soul-stirring grooves even at this late stage of my "truckin'." That Bobby Weir sings this song makes it even better: some of the other rockers have gone on to the great concert, but Bobby is still shakin' it up with the help of John Mayer and a host of drop dead brothers and sisters in Dead & Company.

I post these two contrasting performances separated by nearly 40 years to kick off my sabbatical reflections on "embodied trust." Over the next three weeks I am going to share reflections on my studies into this aspect of Christian spirituality. The term, embodied trust, is a natural extension of my commitment to a nearly 10 exploration of a spirituality of tenderness and sacramental/incarnational prayer. I am discovering now some wise Jewish insights about trust as faith alongside the practice of Christian yoga. The late Jim Nelson's exploration of embodiment will be another part of my Canadian reading. There will be feminist poetry, centering prayer, and regular trips into silent wandering as well. Frances Croake Frank articulates what's at stake in this search for embodied trust in this stunning poem:

Did the woman say,

When she held him for the first time in the dark of a stale,

After the pain and the bleeding and the crying,

“This is my body, this is my blood”?

Did the woman say,

When she held him for the last time in the dark rain on a hilltop,

After the pain and the bleeding and the dying,

“This is my body, this is my blood”?

Well that she said it to him then,

For dry old men,

Brocaded robes belying barrenness,

Ordain that she not say it for him now.

I hope you'll stop by here - and at Be Still and Know on Facebook - as this sojourn ripens.

small is holy on retreat: rest as renewal and resistance

 One of my favorite spiritual resources is Psalm 84 set to an old Scottish folk song. The Community of Celebration crafted it almost 50 years ago and it continues to capture the soul of what I want to share with you this morning: in God’s love there is a gentle, resting place of renewal and resistance that creation herself is calling us to trust.

How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of hosts to me.
My soul is longing and fainting the courts of the Lord to see;
My heart and flesh they are singing for joy to the Living God:
How lovely is they dwelling place, O Lord of hosts, to me.
Even the sparrow finds a home where he can settle down,
And the swallow she can build a nest where she may lay her young
Within the courts of the Lord of hosts, my God, my Lord, and my all
And happy are those who are dwelling where the song of praise is sung.

From the smallest to the greatest, from the strongest to the most frail, each and all of us have been created as a part of the steadfast love of the Lord that endures forever. It’s the core message of the Season of Creation celebrated today by faith communities around the world where we confess that there is a home for all in the oikos of God. Oikos, the Greek word Scripture uses for the community of creation, is the root of the word ecumenical – oikoumene – meaning our common home on earth shared with all living beings. It celebrates solidarity rather than selfishness. Another Psalm shouts: the Earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.” Every living thing – trees, soil, fish, water, humans, animals, air, and insects – are all a part of the community of the earth; AND, the entire community of life is sacred. As Pope Francis said: Our common home, the Earth, belongs to God and each beloved creature has a cherished home within it.

That’s what I hear Mother Earth trying to tell us in the raging fires of the West, the devastating floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and storms of the South and Northeast, and the anguish and death of the pandemic: we are ALL connected. We all MUST have a place – a home – a place at the table and a safe lodging within creation. Living carefully within the oikos gives peace a chance with enough clean water, air, food, shelter, and love for God’s creation to thrive. The World Health Organization has determined that Mother Earth could easily manage to provide every living person today with the 2,353 calories of protein, vitamins and minerals needed for optimal health daily IF we valued being in community. Instead, in the US alone we take-in an average of 3,682 calories or more each day – and many still seem empty and unsatisfied as we fill our veins with opioids, poison and junk.

+ Something is clearly out of balance: the recent report of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has quantified the meaning of this imbalance with a clarity that is alarming and apocalyptic. It is now code red for humanity. Danger and pain are no longer projections for the future, but a certainty for all of us over the next 40 years. And while we can still halt the worst effects of climate change and economic injustice, we must make lasting changes now before time runs out.

+ This is how God’s oikos works: it is regenerative, seeking balance, it requires sharing our gifts intentionally, welcoming the stranger, and loving our enemies. Fr. Richard Rohr contrasts the wisdom of God’s oikos with the way many of us look at life saying most of the time:

Our dualistic mind is essentially binary. It knows by comparison, opposition, and differentiation. It uses descriptive words like good/evil, pretty/ugly, smart/stupid, not realizing there may be a hundred degrees between the two ends of each spectrum. Dualistic thinking works well for the sake of simplification and conversation, but not for the sake of truth or the immense subtlety of actual personal experience. Most of us settle for quick and easy answers instead of any deep perception, which we leave to poets, philosophers, and prophets. Yet depth and breadth of perception should be the primary arena for authentic religion. How else could we possibly search for God? We need the dualistic mind to function in practical life, to do our work as a teacher, a nurse, a scientist, or an engineer. It’s helpful and necessary as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough. The dualistic mind cannot process things like infinity, mystery, God, grace, suffering, sexuality, death, or love; this is why most people stumble over these issues. The dualistic mind pulls everything down into some kind of tit-for-tat system of false choices and too-simple contraries, which is largely what “fast food religion” teaches without even knowing it. Without the contemplative and converted mind – non-binary consciousness or honest and humble perception—much of religion (becomes) dangerous.

Reality is now pushing us to get grounded. The non-binary wisdom of the oikos has become THE essential resource for moving through the portal of the pandemic. For if we’re to heed the cries of Mother Earth, we need another way of being a part of the common family – one that respects the necessity of sharing and celebrates solidarity and sacrifice more than self-indulgent narcissism. First Nations people suggest evaluating life through the lens of what it might mean unto the seventh generation. Frederick Buechner calls it “unclenching the fist of our spirit.” Whatever words we use it takes a ton of intentional practice to help one vision die so another can spring to life.

Earlier this week, I was moved when Canadian artist, Alana Levandowski, candidly confessed that she’s been frustrated and resistant about bringing love into some of the events, tragedies, politics, people, and hubris of this era. “The divisions across this world” she lamented, “are stretching the flesh of my heart beyond what feels possible.” It’s SO much easier – seductive even – to disdain and despise those we disagree with and so much HARDER to embrace our opponents with a shared sense of our common home. So, channeling the mystical Thomas Merton, she sang: 

Fear not. We don’t come from separateness. We come from wild, wild, holy, love. It’s so close. It hovers in the precious flushed cheeks of the conspiracy theorist. It hovers in the tired eyes of the nurse. This wild love hovers everywhere, in everyone. (Like it or not). We are storytellers. If we want the story to turn out in chaos, we can tell that story. If we want it to become more self- righteous and cynical, unbelievably, it can. Hear the music though? See the dancers? The feasters? The trees making merry in the moonlight? See the ancestors? Have we forgotten to pray for them? They are all around us, waving their dazzling hands in front of our eyes, and we can’t see them. They’re trying to tell us the meaning of life, and we can’t hear them. Listen with me this weekend. Rest and be still and sink beneath the surface of all this noise. Hold fast to irrational love with me and cast away the fear.

That’s what I hear the Psalmist saying to us, too: stillness and rest can be both resistance and renewal. “How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of hosts to me. My soul is longing and fainting for a new way of being – a way that is at home in the oikos – breeding love not hate.” We often treat our anger, our despair, our anxiety, hatred, or frustration with the state of the world and its pain as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But the wisdom of nondual spirituality – the path of Jesus, the Psalms, the prophets and God’s oikos – is to simultaneously own our pain while recognizing the presence of the sacred calling to us from within it. I’ve shared with you that wonderful Rumi poem, “Love Dogs” before and today warrants a second reading:

One night a man was crying: Allah! Allah! His lips grew sweet with the praising, until a cynic said, "So! I have heard you calling out, but have you ever gotten any response?" The man had no answer to that. So, he quit praying and fell into a confused sleep. He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls, in a thick, green foliage. "Why did you stop praising?" "Because I've never heard anything back." This longing you express, THAT is the return message." The grief you cry out from draws you toward union. Your pure sadness that wants help is the secret cup. Listen to the moan of a dog for its master. That whining is the connection. There are dogs no one knows the name of: Give your life to be one of them.”

Our heartbreak and anguish, our resentment and anxiety, our fear and anger can become mystical expressions of communion with the Lord if we allow them to invite us to simultaneously own our reality as hard as it is AND let God move us into a new way of being through it. Theologically it’s the apophatic, via negativa of the East dancing with the kataphatic, via positiva of the West. It is the alpha becoming the omega, heaven meeting the earth, as opposites embrace and our humanity is wed with the holy. To be sure, our binary habits and conditioning well try to keep us confused at first. No less a wise elder than The Reverend Dr. Barbara Taylor Brown spoke of her own confusion recently saying:

The last sixteen months have been hell for a lot of people. I know some who took their sick relatives to the emergency room and never saw them alive again. I know small business owners who kept everyone on payroll and watched their savings run through their fingers like rain. I know two people who killed themselves because they ran out of hope. That makes it hard to talk about the gifts of the pandemic, which stole a lot of things from a lot of people. Every time I try, it feels like being unfaithful to them. But if I don’t do that—if I don’t name the gifts of the past sixteen months along with the thefts—then that feels like unfaithfulness to the Wholeness that is always at work on my own wholeness, inviting me to the marriage of opposites and startling me with their chemistry. Why do I feel more noble when I lament than when I rejoice? Why is it so difficult to admit whole truths, not partial ones, into the mixed company of our own hearts?

And it’s those last two sentences – Why do I feel more noble when I lament than when I rejoice? Why is it so difficult to admit whole truths, not partial ones, into the mixed company of our own hearts – that speak to this moment in time for those seeking to be faithful to God’s nonbinary love. I suspect that one of the reasons it feels more noble to lament than live into paradoxical love is that outwardly lament looks productive: it is a public expression of grief and solidarity – and God knows we love to be seen by others in the best possible light. Paradoxical, non-binary love that integrates whole truths rather than segregating and judging, however, is unchartered territory in our culture. It is part of the inward journey beyond bottom line results. Which is why souls far wiser than I consistently say that the best way into this type of revolutionary being – this new way of living that’s in harmony with God’s oikos and in balance with all our kin in creation – starts with rest and silence – or as the Psalmist likes to sing: being still in order to know.

+  Do you know the poet and activist, Tricia Hersey? I didn’t until this week, but I’ve learned that back in 2016 she began a movement of rest and resistance called The NAP Ministry. Yes, that’s right, a movement predicated on Sabbath rest where napping is sacramental.

+  As an exhausted, committed Black woman and mother, Hersey began experimenting with stepping out of the fray each day for a time of rest and renewal. And as she did she found that silence and sleep helped her make sense of her own inner trauma and the agony of her social oppression all the while bathed in God’s peace. “Rest as resistance,” she says, “allows us to tap into the unlimited nature of our imagination. It is a spiritual, political, and justice practice that will allow us to begin unraveling from capitalism and White supremacy. These systems have socialized us from birth to believe our worth is tied to how much we produce. While rest becomes a disruption to grind culture and offers space for radical care and healing.” How lovely is thy dwelling place, indeed!

An interview in the NY Times amplifies this insight: The concept of rest imagines a new mental space. It’s rooted in liberation and justice. It’s more than a nap; it’s a pushback and disruption to help make people see themselves as divine human beings. It’s about community care: the idea of communal care, mutual aid, and interconnection with each other. We offer care to people who live in a place that doesn’t give them that care. We all have been traumatized by the systems in place. And when people are mean and angry, I really just see it as an indication of deep trauma… and the absence of real, restorative rest.

It has been my hunch for some time, the intuition of my contemplative heart, that NOW is the time to nourish, strengthen, and honor God’s nonbinary way as expressed by Jesus with a renewed radicality. If we are to move through the portal of the pandemic with love, there’s some baggage to be shed as the old gospel tune tells us: We’ve got to lay DOWN some burdens if we’re going to walk with the Prince of Peace in this new era. So, I’ve started to think of this new way as living as embodied trust – letting our flesh relearn the time-tested ways of God’s oikos even if our binary minds remain confused – incarnating lives of deep rest as the foundation of our resistance.

Look, we already know how our fears can trap us and our anger imprison us so that we wind up doing what we hate – or else crumbling in impotent despair. We don’t have to rehearse THAT old way of being any more: we KNOW it by heart. I wonder: could it be that the time has come for you to let the darkness that is so genuinely oppressive become one of our guides into God’s light? I am so ready to let my broken heart open in a subtle, nuanced way and become a path through the abyss and into God’s healing love – maybe you are, too?

If that horrible new law in Texas that the Supreme Court let stand tells us anything – a law that turns neighbors into vigilantes and pits women and their doctors against the state – it is that our fears have overcome our common humanity. Further, our exhausted imaginations have recycled the terror of East Germany’s STASI and Castro’s Cuba for the Word of the Lord let alone coherent social policy while banishing any sense of social compassion or the common good. My colleague, the Rev. Dr. Marvin McMickle of Colgate Rochester Theological Seminary – whom I knew from our shared days back in Cleveland, OH – articulated my perspective well when he said:

I am a Pro-Choice male advocate who believes that women have the wisdom and should have the right to make choices about their own reproduction activity in consultation with physicians, clergy, and other trusted voices. I do not believe that state or federal politicians or judges should have control over these personal decisions. Nor do I believe that 30% of this country’s population should impose its particular ideology on the 70% of the population that believes that women should have reproductive rights. I am also a Pro-Life human advocate when it comes to all child-ren being provided with adequate housing, nutrition, education, protection against COVID-19, and being kept safe from random gun violence… many so-called “conservative Christians” and right-wing Republicans view the world through the exact opposite lens. They demand that all children be born but vote for politicians who do nothing to safeguard the quality of life that all of our children deserve. What kind of pro-life policy is that? Now comes this abominable abortion law in Texas that is being replicated in many other states. I am shocked and appalled at the midnight move made by the US Supreme Court that upheld that Texas law which makes no provisions for rape or incest. It even requires a stillborn fetus to be carried to term! It turns family, friends, neighbors, and total strangers into vigilantes who can receive $10,000 if they report on a woman or anyone who aids or even transports that woman who is seeking an abortion.

Lord, have mercy – there HAS to be another way – one that allows us to journey through the portal of the pandemic with open hearts and loving souls. You know, when the pandemic started, I was unnerved. Terrified and rattled. But as it continued, and I tried to make peace with reality, one of the upside-down gifts I discovered was a renewed appreciation for the fragility and unpredictability of life. We saw so many of our habits, and certainties upended in ways we could NEVER have pre-dicted. And while it’s been harsh, bewildering, and exhausting, with a staggering and unnecessary loss of life and unimaginable suffering, at the very same time, many of us have encountered a new-found resiliency, too. Like Carrie Newcomer sings, we’ve rediscovered that we CAN do this hard thing, right? We became creative and connected in wildly new ways. We remembered that self-care is intimately connected to caring for the common good. And, despite the polarization and public hostilities of this moment, we learned something about gratitude and patience, too. Even as our hearts were being broken open, something inside our souls was being healed.

So, I have to say the paradoxical WHOLE truth of this time is that it’s been a season of blessing AND curse, solidarity AND isolation, trust alongside despair – and it has empowered some among us to taste again what it means to honor God’s oikos. It’s made more of us ready to move beyond binary consciousness into paradoxical love and embodied trust. Which, I dare say, is the essence of Jesus Christ.

During our extended solitude, I came to believe that the way of Jesus, his personal spiritual practice and preferred spiritual formation for those who love him begins by incarnating the oikos as God desires through rest and quiet: In the silence, without distractions, we slowly learn to trust God’s love more than ourselves and our culture; and as this trust ripens in our hearts, we find God pushing us outward to embody our trust through quiet, tender acts of love in public.

It’s no wonder the Psalmist sings the sparrow finds a home, the swallow builds a nest, and we all learn to rest within the courts of the Lord’s creation: incrementally, intentionally, alongside a whole lot of humbling mistakes: trust takes shape and form in our flesh. Today’s gospel from St. Mark is all about embodied trust growing as we risk listening to and learning from our mistakes – something that was true even for someone called Messiah.

+  When the story opens, Jesus is operating within the confines of his culture: he’s shared healing love with the children of Abraham and Sarah, but not with those outside the fold. So, when this uppity, heathen Syrophoenician woman starts heckling him about healing her small daughter, Jesus gets annoyed. He’s a busy holy man with a full calendar, for God’s sake! What's more, Jesus was seeking a bit on anonymity in a place outside of Israel. In this case, Tyre, the land of the Phoenicians. It would be important to note that the Jews not only opposed these people politically, but spiritually for at one point in time the Phoenicians practiced child-sacrifice while Israel strived to celebrate the sanctity of life. Here was an unclean woman throwing herself at the feet of Jesus in public.

+ The story tells us she is laying upon Jesus' feet so he cannot ignore her and she doesn't quit: the more she prods, the more agitated he becomes – especially when she smirks: “Are you REALLY about a new way of being that breaks down the walls of fear and hatred?” It’s an interesting passage that shows us Jesus being cajoled beyond his comfort zone by this sly Gentile mother with a creative sense of humor and a big heart for her baby. Those familiar with the text may not see this, but there’s a whole lotta chutzpah being expressed when she replies: Don’t even the puppies under the master’s table get to eat the scraps, Lord?

I've come to think that this combination of gentle humility and tenderhearted persistence gives him the nudge needed to accept his mistake of withholding love from an outsider. I think when he sees how exhausted SHE is he connects with his own weariness and takes another step into the radical and inclusive love of God he was born to incarnate. She modeled for him a bit of what embodied trust looks like. And the more he relinquished himself, the more his movement was able to share healing and hope with others – then and now – especially those of us who feel left out, frightened, or for-gotten. After this encounter, Jesus is all about welcoming the totality of creation into the oikos of God. It feels to me like we could be in one of those moments, too.

We could choose to remain lost, or confused by the unprecedented anguish all around us, staying trapped in the supposed safety of our small safety zones, and hope that the worst will pass us by… or we could step into our mistakes, add some humility to them and take another step towards embodied trust. Let me be blunt, ok? We’re NOT back at square one with the pandemic: it’s not over yet, of course, but we’re not where we were in March of 2020 when this thing knocked us upside the head and changed our world forever. Same is true with climate change: we’re not going to get off without suffering: true. But the current administration is working triple time to get our carbon emissions under control and everyday hundreds upon hundreds of creative scientists are finding new ways to make solar energy truly affordable to say nothing of the new technologies being developed to devour pollution.

To be about the WHOLE truth of this moment is to own the pain and loss without giving in to fear and despair. Speaking personally, I know how easy it is to get locked into a downward spiral. Just when we thought things were about to change and open-up again, we were dis-appointed and thrown back into uncertainty. The challenge now, as one elder put it, is to simultaneously “acknowledge our weariness and still dig deep into what keeps us resilient and supports trust.” And that’s where I think the Psalmist’s rest as resistance comes into play. 

+ Last weekend, standing in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park at my granddaughter’s 4th birthday party, I was speaking with a dad who told me that after 16 months of lock-down, during those fleeing moments when we thought we’d beaten the plague, he and his young family traveled to France to visit family they’d not seen for nearly two years – and that time became holy ground for him. “You know,” he said, “This damned pandemic has shown me that love is what’s really important.” He paused for a moment and then added, “It’s also shown me how intentional I must be these days in order to live into its blessings.”

+ That is TRUTH, beloved: sacramental, incarnational, sacred, hard-won truth. LOVE, intentionally and carefully celebrated is all its wild fullness, nurtured by rest and shared with humility, leads us to holy ground, a living alternative to despair. It doesn’t happen automatically anymore. Now we must cherish the ordinary, refuse to take it for granted, see the connections – blessings alongside the curses – and boldly resist the unprecedented anguish that seeks to devour us. The words that father shared with me last week confirmed, however haltingly, tenuously, and imperfectly that we are entering a season of embodied trust. We’re going to have to practice strengthening it, of course and be willing to make mistakes like Jesus. But deep in my heart, I do believe that we starting to know again in our flesh – not just conceptually, but incarnationally – that we are connected, part of a common family of life joined together within God’s oikos. And when we act on this intentionally… holy ground is no longer illusive.

Right now, some of my friends are starting to fast and pray asking God to empty them of fear and pride so that they, too can be a part of this new reckoning. Fasting is a time-tested spiritual practice and if it works for you I say go for it. As for me and my house as we shift from summer into the spirituality of September, I’m going to some time off for rest, reflection, renewal, and resistance. My take on the way of Jesus is one of feasting, not fasting; so, for the next three weeks I’m going to take a break from live streaming and sleep-in late: I’m going to walk quietly and with a mask around our beloved Montreal with my sweetheart, reconnect with my community in L’Arche Ottawa, drink some good French red wine, eat some simple good food, and renew my practice of silent prayer. And I am going to do so with clear-headed intentionality: I think that's part of what this new in-between time requires.

To stay connected, which is vital for this new era, I’ll be writing regular reflections, So, if you want to check them out, they’ll be on this Facebook page. But once again, I need to listen carefully for new clues about how Small is Holy can help us live more authentically into the unforced rhythms of grace that are nourished by sacred stillness.

My buddies in AA used to tell me: If you always do, what you’ve always done, you’ll always get, what you’ve always got. We don’t need more fear, inertia, rage, judgement, or busyness… My gut tells me that upon our return Small is Holy will become more contemplative. I’m not Reverend Barber or MLK or even Valarie Kaur. I’m an aging, bourgeois white guy who loves Jesus. It’s time for me to respect the wisdom of the activists and double-down on what I know and do best: the in-ward journey that prepares our hearts for our outward engagement. Like the poet, Anne Lighthart, I sense that this new season of embodied trust is all about listening to the second melody that is always present alongside the first. She wrote:

Now I understand that there are two melodies playing,
one below the other, one easier to hear, the other lower, steady,

perhaps more faithful for being less heard yet always present.
When all other things seem lively and real, this one fades.

Yet the notes of it touch as gently as fingertips, as the sound
of the names laid over each child at birth.
I want to stay in that music without striving or cover.
If the truth of our lives is what it is playing,
the telling is so soft that this mortal time, this irrevocable change,
becomes beautiful. I want to stop and stop again to hear the second music.
I hear the children in the yard, a train, then birds.
All this is in it and will be gone. I set my ear to it as I would to a heart.