I buried one of the community's saints today - a 96 year old former banker/ball player/musician - who was fair and honest as that day is long and gentle and kind, too. In preparation for his funeral I came across this poem by Diana Der-Hovanessian that cuts to the heart. As one singer/scholar told me afterwards, "No easy pass in this poem, nor cheap victimhood either, just the hard, complexity of fathers and sons."
When your father dies, say the Irish you lose your umbrella against bad weather. May his sun be your light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Welsh you sink a foot deeper into the earth. May you inherit his light, say the Armenians
When your father dies, say the Canadians you run out of excuses. May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Indians he comes back as the thunder. May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Russians, he takes your childhood with him. May you inherit his light say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the British, you join his club you vowed you wouldn’t. May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Armenians, your sun shifts forever and you walk in his light.
This brilliant New England poet gets it so right. I give thanks to God that I have been given the privilege to be with others at the start of the journey - births and baptisms one day - and at the end - hospitals and funerals the next - as well as everything in between.
After a pre-marital conversation tonight with a sweet couple, who asked me where I stood on gay marriage, I said: "I don't pretend to understand love. I don't fake it about understanding God either. All I know is that what God has brought together is sacred whether I understand it or not. So, because my tradition has hurt so many in the name of the Prince of Peace, I want to be a little part of the compassion and healing. I was honored to pastor the first Open and Affirming church in Arizona and I support offering blessings to all people who seek God's love in their commitment. So... yes I honor gay - and straight - marriage because it is all sacred. What's more, I have come to see that all love - gay and straight - is of the Lord."
So... for all those fathers and mothers and children... for all those young lovers and old ones, too... for those who are grieving and for those who are rejoicing...
Back in 1970, I was turned on to Cat Stevens - and I fell, man, hook, line and sinker - for both his passionate acoustic sound and the extraordinary beauty of his recordings. Mona Bone Jackon was what got to me - that killer 1970 release - but I was a believer through all the rest including "Angelsea."
So you can imagine what a treat it was to find out a few years ago that Cat - now Yusuf Islam - was not only recording but also performing again - even reworking some of his old tunes. And one, "I Think I See the Light" is a perfect example of a song that has always had a deeply spiritual meaning even when it wasn't fully realized by the performer - an example of what I call a "spirituality of rock and roll" where God's still speaking voice is in popular culture at a time when fewer people are interested in organized religion.
Last summer when we were in London, we went to the Central London Mosque - bought a fascinating a capella CD of Islam doing songs for Muslim children and some books - and began to educate ourselves about how an English Muslim might rethink/re-enter popular culture with a message of peace, hope and integrity.
I think brother Yusuf has figured it out and his reworking of this 1970 song kills me... it is so damned fine:
What's more, this is the sound I am sensing our little band moving towards in our New England home: powerful, jazzy, world music influenced with a taste of wild-ass rock and roll on the edges but also sweet and beautiful all at the same time. In my tradition I think Jesus said something about "whoever is not against me is for me." I think I've seen part of the light...
I just concluded a very important process of moving towards clarity with my church leadership. It was just about a year ago that we left Tucson for New England (with a grand vacation on a month in London thrown in before starting up the new work). And now, after study, listening, watching, waiting, prayer and cultivating the clues of the Spirit, we articulated a simple and clear way to both define our ministry/mission and speak to our future. It says: In community with God and each other we gather to reflect on our faith, do justice and act with compassion.
It is simple, active, honest and filled with commitment - and our group of 14 leaders left encouraged and hope-filled. There are a few obvious biblical connections, yes?
+ First is Micah 6:8: what does the Lord require but to do justice, share compassion and walk with humility with your God.
+ Second is I Corinthians 12: 12-26: There are a variety of gifts... but the same God who called us together into a body by the same Holy Spirit... for mission and ministry.
+ Third is I Corinthians 13: 12-13: Now we see as through a glass darkly, later we shall see face to face. Now I know only inpart but then I will know fully even as I have been known fully. For now faith, hope and love remain - and the greatest is love.
+ And fourth is Christ's very clear call to his public ministry in Luke 4: 18-19: The Spirit of the Lord is upon to... bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor: jubilee.
It will be a challenge, of course, making this commitment go deeper - but there is enough worry for today without considering tomorrow, yes? For now I give thanks and rejoice that we have moved forward in a way that is both true and calls us deeper. As the New England summer begins to subtly shift towards autumn - just ever so slightly - we, too, are shifting in ways that make the inward/outward journey of Jesus real for our times.
Now, I'm not saying that this crew of VERY New England people of faith and questions became as WILD and BOLD as these Jesus Freaks back in 1972... but in their own real, embodied, loving and authentic way... this scene from GODSPELL came to my mind as I drove home and deserves another look. (What's more a woman spoke to me of seeing a production of GODSPELL during her recent vacation AND I have been speaking with a music man about doing it soon at our church. Hmmmm... now we see as through a glass darkly... but later we shall see face to face.) I am SOOOOO blessed to be with this church at this moment in time...
There is so much pain - in ministry, in our own private lives, in the wider world, in God's heart - and so, I am coming to see, that we are called towards a commitment to beauty. It is both antidote and nourishment at the same time. Wendell Berry put it like this in The Peace of Wild Things:
When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of sill water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
My boy, George Winston, puts it like this in his reworking of Cast Your Fate to the Wind:
When I was a young teen I first heard Vince Guaraldi's version of this song and immediately fell in love with it. Later, Vin Scella used it to open his late night FM radio station on WNEW in NYC and it would always transport me to a place of openness and hope. Now I use Winston's version as a prayer and meditation tune - it evokes three worlds to me all at once - city jazz, the open sky of the southwest and the vastness of the inner soul.
It takes time to find beauty today - but it is always there - as our friends in the most harsh circumstances remind us who rush around with so much to do. It is always there...
Look at the ravens, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, carefree in the care of God. And you count far more. "Has anyone by fussing before the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? If fussing can't even do that, why fuss at all? Walk into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They don't fuss with their appearance—but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them. If God gives such attention to the wildflowers, most of them never even seen, don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?
"What I'm trying to do here is get you to relax, not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Don't be afraid of missing out. You're my dearest friends! The Father wants to give you the very kingdom itself. "
Tony's point is simple: often when we start out in ministry we not only think we know more than many others, but our insecurities push us into acting like that is true, too. But when we age - and really have to face our failures, faults, glaring contradictions, wounds and pain - there is the chance we might become more tender towards others and gentle towards ourselves.
He writes: I (began) as someone who taught the Bible to people and returned (or became) someone who taught people the Bible. You may have to read that last sentence again, it seems subtle but there really is a profound difference between teaching the Bible to people as opposed to teaching people the Bible... When I transitioned to being a someone who teaches people the Bible my list of stake truths (those are the ones I’d like to think I would be willing to go to the stake over) shrank dramatically. It used to take a legal page or two to hold all these truths, now I can fit them comfortably on the front of a 3×5 index card. Those who teach people the Bible clearly understand and are comfortable with not knowing everything. They love mystery and consider it vital to walking with and worshipping Jesus.
Life and love are complicated. Maybe that's why I find myself going back to Buechner over and over again. Last night before I went to sleep I read these words about imagination in Whistling in the Dark: Be the man who trips over a suitcase of hundred dollar bills buried in the field he's plowing if you want to know what the Kingdom of Heaven is all about (Matthew 13: 44)
Listen to Jesus saying, "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11: 28) until you can HEAR him if you want to know what faith is all about. If you want to know what loving your neighbors is all about, look at them with more than just your eyes... Hear not just the words they speak but the words they do not speak. Feel what it's like to be who they are...
When Jesus said, "All ye that labor and are heavy laden," he was seeing the rich as well as the poor, the lucky as well as the unlucky, the idle as well as the industrious. He was seeing the bride on her wedding day. He was seeing the old man in front of the TV. He was seeing all of us. The highest work of the imagination is to have eyes like that.
For the past 10 years this has been my favorite verse in Scripture - especially the way Peterson reworks it in The Message: Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me - watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.(Matthew 11: 28) So today, on my father's birthday, I think of aging and ambiguity and the unforced rhythms of grace. Here's another guy who has been thinking about this stuff along with Tony and me and Beuchner and my dad... Yusuf Islam. And it still sounds as if he's got it right!
Whether you are Republican or Democrat or Green or somewhere in-between... time has come to face the facts on our mean streets. Dig what Damoninsky did with a speech by Bernie Sanders and the sounds of Cinematic Orchestra. It is a prayer and a jeremiad all at the same time in the spirit of Micah and Amos: WHAT does the Lord require but to DO justice, ACT with compassion and WALK with humility with your God.
Many people don't remember the old Chambers Brothers who began - and continue - as four brothers from Mississippi singing gospel. When they added a white boy drummer in 1965, they scored big with "People Get Ready," but their true mark on American society came in 1968 when the gave us "Time Has Come Today." This was a simple but prophetic musical reminder that American society was broken 40 years ago - poverty, race hatred and international war were the signs - and for a moment it seemed as if we might take a step towards justice, compassion and humility.
I LOVE the Ramones remix of TIME because cuts to the chase and captures the heart of it all with a bit of self-deprecating humor thrown in for good measure - and they set it in a church, too, so you have to dig it.
Ok... now I'm on a jag and two more ESSENTIAL tunes come to mind: the first was a brilliant jazz jam shared by Les McCann and Eddie Harris at the Jazz Festival at Montrose that became "Compared to What?" a totally brilliant groove about real life in 1969. (There is precious little visual excitement here but sit back and take in all in, Jack!)
Which brings me to another forgotten and brilliant jazz/gospel prophet: Gil Scott-Heron. He just got out of prison for cocaine and man has that man paid his dues! He made it real with "The Revolution Will Not be Televised" but hit a home run with "B Movie" - and it sounds more real in 2008. This is rap at its best so sit back again and take it all in because in spite of brother Gil's wounds, he is speaking the truth.
One day children were brought to Jesus in the hope that he would lay hands on them and pray over them. The disciples shooed them off. But Jesus intervened: "Let the children alone, don't prevent them from coming to me. God's kingdom is made up of people like these." After laying hands on them, he left. (Matthew 19: 13-15, The Message)
When I consider this story from the gospel of Matthew – with its attention detail and clear sense of piety – I am awed by Christ’s deep desire to welcome, include and bless the children of his day. To me, there is a palpable sense of beauty in these ancient but revolutionary words. In two brief sentences we are told a world of wisdom: He wanted to lay his hands on the children and pray – that is, he wanted to give them a blessing – a prayer of assurance that God would protect and guide them always. Now, there is nothing challenging or innovative about a blessing – spiritual traditions of all types share them authentically all the time – but this blessing was being offered in opposition to Christ’s own disciples.
He was shaking up the status quo and teaching his followers that their spiritual vision was not only limited, but defective. Scholars tell us that, “In ancient culture, children had no status. They were subject to the authority of their fathers, viewed as little more than property.” What’s more:
Ethnocentric and anachronistic projections of innocent, trusting, imaginative, and delightful children playing at the knee of a gentile Jesus notwithstanding, childhood in antiquity was a time of terror. Infant mortality rates sometimes reached 30 percent. Another 30 percent of live births were dead by age six, and 60 percent were gone by age sixteen. Children always suffered first from famine, war, disease, and dislocation, and in some areas or eras few would have lived to adulthood with both parents alive. Thus the orphan was the stereotype of the weakest and most vulnerable member of society. Childhood was a time of terror, and survival to adulthood a cause of celebration (accompanied by appropriate rites of passage). It is no wonder that antiquity glorified youth and venerated old age. (Malina and Rohrbaugh, Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels)
First, Jesus is teaching us that there is a connection between loving and welcoming the forgotten and powerless and authentic religion: he wanted to lay his hands upon them and give them a blessing. Second, he makes it clear that in a world of status and discrimination, the mark of a true disciple is hospitality not judgment. Let’s be clear: Contrary to popular interpretation, children are not used in this story as an example of humility, but rather as a symbol for all the "little" and insignificant ones whom followers of Jesus are to receive. Do you grasp the difference?
Disciples are thus not to be like children, but to be like Jesus who embraces them. It is Jesus, not the child, who here demonstrates what it means to be "the servant of all” for it is in the small and powerless that God appears to the world, as Jesus so trenchantly described in the parable of the nations. (Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark, p. 288) Do you recall how Jesus put it in Matthew 25?
When did we see, you Lord, and offer you comfort? And he told them: “When I was hungry and you fed me, when I was thirsty and you gave me drink, when I was homeless and you gave me a room, when I was shivering and you gave me clothes, when I was sick and you stopped to visit me and when I was in prison and you took the time to see me… You saw me – and did all these things to me – whenever you did it to one of the least and forgotten ones – for that is me in another form!
Did you get that? When you have eyes to see what is beautiful in the broken and extraordinary in your ordinary lives – when you sense that everyone is welcome and no one is shut out – then you begin to find God and something of the sacred in your everyday, secular lives. Because there are no distinctions – no in and out, welcome and rejected – for those who live according to my Spirit. How does St. Paul put it in today’s other reading?
In Christ's family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female, young or old. Among us you are all equal. That is, we are all in a common relationship with Jesus Christ. Also, since you are Christ's family, then you are Abraham's famous "descendant," heirs according to the covenant promises.
Now, in our tradition, there is a curious and dangerous divide when it comes to comprehending and embracing this truth. One side senses and feels what it means while the other thinks and ruminates rationally about it. Both are necessary, it seems to me, but for over 300 years they have been in opposition in American religion – and I think it is time to call the feud to an end – but that’s going to take some work.
So here’s how this controversy strikes me – and it goes all the way back to the days of Jonathan Edwards and the First Great Awakening in the Congregational churches of New England in the 1740s – when a sharp division was made between emotional and intellectual spirituality. On one side of the divide are those for whom religion is essentially about a deep emotional encounter with God. The old hymn, “The Lone, Wild Bird,” captures this perfectly: The lone, wild bird in lofty flight is still with Thee nor leaves Thy sight. And I am Thine! I rest in Thee. Great Spirit, come, and rest in me. The poet, Kabir, said much the same thing like this:
Friend, hope for the Lord while you are alive.Jump into experience while you are alive!Think...and think...while you are alive.What you call 'salvation' belongs to the time before death. If you don't break your ropes while you're alive,do you think ghosts will do it after? The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic Just because the body is rotten - that is all fantasy.What is found now is found then.If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death. If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire. So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is, Believe in the Great Sound! Kabir says this: When the guest is being searched for, it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work. Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.
Ok - be a slave to intensity? On one side of the great divide is spiritual experience and even ecstasy and our forebears trusted and encouraged it. Unfortunately, however, what our early Congregational leaders also discovered is that all too often emotional religion – despite its passion and vigor – doesn’t translate into right or “beautiful” living. That is, there is often a huge gap between experience and reality.
Consequently, an even more rigorous intellectual tradition emerged within and among us that was in bold opposition to emotional religion. A recent article in The New Yorker about Emily Dickinson said it best by quoting Samuel Ward’s observation about the bard of Amherst’s style:
She is the quintessence of that element we all have who are of the Puritan descent pur sang. We came to this country to think our own thoughts with nobody to hinder… We conversed with our own souls till we lost the art of communicating with other people. The typical family therefore grew up strangers to each other… and while it was awfully high, it was also awfully lonesome.
Dickinson’s own poetry, too, speaks to this reality as she describes her inner world like this:
I felt a funeral in my brain, and mourners, to and fro, Kept treading, treading, till it seemed that sense was breaking through. And when they all were seated, a service like a drum Kept beating, beating, till I thought my mind was going numb And then I heard them lift a box, and creak across my soul With those same boots of lead, again. then space began to toll As all the heavens were a bell, and being, but an ear, And I and Silence some strange Race wrecked, solitary, here. And then a Plank in Reason, broke, and I dropped down, and down - And hit a World, at every plunge, and Finished knowing - then
I guess I took all of that in when I wrote a song about our town, Pittsfield, because I discovered that it, too, was often simultaneously joyful and sad – lofty and grounded – all at the same time. Hmmmmm… I call it, “Grace Is Rising Now at Last.”
After the haunting of the sadness and the shadows pass away There’s a gentle, healing madness and a song that seems to say… rest awhile from all your labors; let the evening come to pass, hear the calling of your hearts grace is rising now at last
You wear your wounds upon your coat sleeve You fear the worst is yet to come And while you’re locked into this grieving You miss the rising of the sun…
There’s a hunger here for beauty, a hundred ways to kiss the ground A cleansing of the Housatonic as the Berkshires chant this sound
As the snow comes down from heaven and the rain washes the earth So God’s blessing will anoint us as we journey towards rebirth...
Somehow, I believe, we have to bring these two sides together - two passages in scripture point towards a way to bridge the division between passion and intellect, experiential and intellectual religion. One comes from Psalm 85:
Truly God’s salvation is very near to those who are in awe of the Lord, that God’s glory and light may dwell in our land. Mercy and truth have met together – that is compassion and truth – have been reunited And justice and peace – mishpat and shalom – have kissed and embraced. Truth shall spring up from the earth And justice shall look down from heaven. We’re talking about integrating head and heart – feelings and intellect – compassion and reason all at the same time. Paul says that this is our calling, right? Now there is no longer Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female or young nor old: we are together in God’s love through Jesus.
Then, of course, is the beginning of St. John’s gospel that mirrors the early words of the Hebrew Bible: In the beginning… was the Word – the idea – the essence and spirit of God… and in time the idea – the word – became flesh and dwelt among us… as a child – or a stranger – or an enemy or outsider … as a friend and disciple and lover, too.
The poet, Wendell Berry, said it so sweetly:
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's life may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
or grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Membership in the community of Jesus is all about integration – between the races and ages, classes and genders, heart and head – it is about bringing it all together… as it was in the beginning. One poet said: Membership within the community of the faithful will involve giving status to those who have none. Accepting an unimportant member of society in Jesus' name is equivalent to accepting Jesus. And accepting Jesus is equivalent to accepting God. So a radical and integrated hospitality… is to be extended to the most unlikely… for this is how we are all made whole.
That’s how the intellectual puts it – and I love those words – but my heart also needs to feel it, too. There has to be integration - and so we sing…
If God had a name what would it be? And would you call it to his face? If you were faced with him in all his glory What would you ask if you had just one question? And yeah, yeah, God is great, Yeah, yeah, God is good Yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us Just a stranger on the bus Trying to make his way home
Mercy and truth have come together – compassion and integrity have embraced – justice and hope are alive and well as we join God’s Spirit of reuniting head and heart, young and old and all the rest. Sing with me as we welcome one the Lord's little ones today in baptism...
With grateful hearts our faith professing We ask you, Lord, come to our aid That we, our common faith confessing, May keep the vows that we have made. We know that in your true providing The young and old to Christ belong; Lord, help us to be wise in guiding And make us in example strong.
I began today with an extraordinary poem - a brief meditation before going to church - and it warrants sharing:
The woman across the hall is dying. She talks herself into death with a low rapid jumble. A rich African voice is talking over hers. It speaks of green, as in pastures; still, as in waters. A high clamor of geese falls through the dusk, taking a flock south. Geese are gone. And the woman. Elsewhere, the wind blows in from left field.
Josephine Jacobsen was from Ontario, Canada. When she "passed into the flawed dark" at age 94 she left behind this (and other undiscovered poems) which only came to light recently in addition to many other volumes of published poems and literary honors.
I visited two older church members later during the ordinary course of this day - they are 96 and 84 respectively (how do they stay so vibrant in New England?!) - and I thought of this poem. Especially as the 96 year old moves towards "his flawed darkness" with his own quiet charm and dignity. He had been a banker - a singer, too - who loved baseball and now he is slowly fading... The other is fading, too, but with more anxiety. She lived a life of service and beauty and now she is losing her sight and hearing. But she laughed with me - and made jokes about some of our wacky church community, too - which gave us both a moment of reprieve and maybe even hope.
"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."
So often that rod and staff comes in the form of an ordinary person offering an ordinary hug - or a time of genuine listening - and comfort comes. Extraordinary. Which took me to U2 and "Love Rescue Me" - a call to showing up and sharing ordinary life with all its rough places with love - and more often than not... it rescues us - at least for a moment. (And can you beat the band AND BB King!?!) "God makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters... and revives my soul."
In this week's New Yorker, there is a lengthy and insightful article re: Emily Dickinson and her spiritual suitor (of sorts) that contains lots of wisdom about this place we call New England. One particularly powerful quote, from Samuel Ward to Ralph Waldo Emerson after reading sister Dickinson's poems, is worth repeating in light of my quest for finding uplifting and joy-filled songs about this beautiful place.
She is the quintessence of that element we all have who are of the Puritan descent pur sang. We came to this country to think our own thoughts with nobody to hinder... we conversed with our own souls till we lost the art of communicating with other people. The typical family grew up strangers to each other... it was awfully high but awfully lonesome.
Her poem, "I Felt a Funeral in My Brain," captures something of her dilemma in excruciating detail:
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, And Mourners to and fro Kept treading - treading - till it seemed That Sense was breaking through -
And when they all were seated, A Service, like a Drum Kept beating -beating - till I thought My Mind was going numb -
And then I heard them lift a Box And creak across my Soul With those same Boots of Lead, again, Then Space -began to toll,
As all the Heavens were a Bell, And Being, but an Ear, And I, and Silence, some strange Race Wrecked, solitary, here -
And then a Plank in Reason, broke, And I dropped down, and down - And hit a World, at every plunge, And Finished knowing -then -
Juxtapose this high lonesome intellectual and spiritual angst with the passionate fervor and joy of the First Great Awakening and the work of William Billings and Jonathan Edwards. A wise and learned colleague recently noted that Edwards was never able to get a handle on the emotional power of the religious revivals he supported - people rarely translated their spiritual passion into beautiful and ethical living - which may speak to Dickinson's and Emerson's dilemma - a legacy that continues to exist 278 years later.
I came across a Billing's song, however, that blends both the high commitment of right thinking/living with a sense of God's lovely and passionate spiritual presence called, "Africa."
Now shall my inward joy arise And burst into a song Almighty Love inspires my heart And pleasure tunes my tongue.
This same composer wrote "When Jesus Wept," which captures such depth of feeling that it warrants a regular hearing. This performance by Owen/Cox dance group give it a social context that moves me beyond all words.
This morning I spoke about sharing little blessings with one another - blessings of love, kindness, hope and beauty in the real world - as a way of restoring and healing our community. And then right after worship I received a blessing: one of my new friends, a photo journalist, took a little clip of music I had shared with him a few weeks back and set it to images of our town. He calls it "Writing on the Wall" and it was a blessing to me - and I hope to others, too.
Then we walked around downtown for the afternoon "Ethnic Festival" and saw more signs of people here pulling together to help reinvent and heal the community... grace is rising now at last.
NOTE:Some of you know that after trying to find songs about my new hometown - exclusive of Springsteen's "My Hometown" which has a lot of parallels with Pittsfield in the last 25 years - and finding only a few tunes most of which were excruciatingly sad, I wondered out loud if maybe I should try writing a lovely and hope-filled song about this place. And some of my blogging buddies encouraged me. So... this sermon and their support became the catalyst for doing exactly that; and now I have the early stages of a tune and lyrics about opening to the blessings that are within and among us in this sad, beautiful and ever more creative place. My thanks to Nick, Cosmo and Black Pete as well as Nancy Fitz and her blog, "Pastor's Post," for the story included below.
+
We live in an odd and challenging time. I suspect that every generation tells itself something like this for we all like to feel unique and special. And yet, is it fair to say that there seems to be a harshness – even a coarseness – to our public lives that ...
+ reduces the blessedness of human life in all its phases – cradle to the grave – to merely bottom line commodities?
+ denigrates once treasured public standards of manners and morality as sentimental artifacts of a bye gone era to such an extent that road rage, rudeness and often murder, rape and assault are now considered commonplace if not inevitable? (Just think back to yesterday's shotgun attack at a Unitarian Church during a children's performance of "Annie" for God's sake!)
+ and regularly confuses the beauty born of God’s creativity with glamour and glitz – substituting the poetry and integrity of the imagination for “the highly fickle and commercially driven enterprises” that perpetuate this charade?
No wonder the old gray haired prophet of Israel, Isaiah, told us: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than yours…” (Is. 55: 8-9)
Ok, I know you think I’m on a rant as they say on the street – a jag about what happens to people when we lose touch with beauty – maybe even a tirade that borders on the obsessive. But listen to how the poet and moral philosopher, John O’Donohue, puts it:
(When beauty is forgotten) linear thinking dominates and gentleness dies out. We become blind: nature is rifled, politics eschews vision and becomes the obsessive servant of economics and religion opts for the mathematics of system and forgets its mystical flame. Instead of true leadership which would the servant of vision and imagination, we have systems of puppetry which are carefully constructed and manipulated from elsewhere. We never know who we are dealing with; hidden agendas operate to deepen our insecurity and persuade us to be hopeless. Our present dilemma is telescoped in this wonderful phrase from the Irish writer and political visionary Michael D. Higgins: This acceptance of inevitability in our lives is consistent of course with the suggestion that there is but one vision of the economy, an end of history, the death of ethics and an reprobate individualism that eschews solidarity and any transcendent public values.
I don’t think O'Donohue is far off the mark. So, I did a little test to see whether this sense of doomed inevitability and coarseness was as pervasive in our community as so many people like to suggest: I went searching for a joyful song about Pittsfield – or the Berkshires – or even the great commonwealth of Massachusetts. And guess what I found?
There is one incredibly sad lament about Pittsfield by Sufjan Stevens – and some very lovely but totally melancholy tunes about this area by James Taylor and Juliana Hatfield – there is even a wickedly funny, but angry Celtic punk rock rant about Massachusetts by the Dropkick Murphys: but only Arlo Guthrie’s hymn to this area speaks of faith, hope and love – unless you include “Alice’s Restaurant” which falls into another category altogether. Only one song about hope and beauty… And that puzzled me – troubled me – made me very sad because this is a beautiful part of the world. And so many people are working so hard to reclaim the cause of beauty here whether it is in the arts revival or politics or business. And the physical beauty – oh my God – it is stunning. We’re going to take some of our vacation time this year just sitting in our back yard enjoying the splendor we’ve been blessed to share because it is just that beautiful. We're calling it a "staycation" because this place is freakin' gorgeous!
So this sadness – and this beauty – got me to thinking – and praying – and I found myself looking at some of the parables of Jesus because he, too, lived in an odd and challenging time filled with fear and anxiety and a punishing sense of the inevitable pain of life. And his parable of the mustard seed came to mind: The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.
I don’t know if you recall this but a mustard seed was considered unclean by the religious authorities in Christ’s day: it was a weed that could take over the garden and choke out the productive produce. But Jesus tells us that something little – overlooked – and often considered irrelevant and maybe worthless, can bring blessing and comfort and even a sense of rest: “it is the smallest of seeds but when it has grown into the greatest shrub it provides the birds of the air a resting place to nest.”
Hmmmmm… little things that seem irrelevant can sometimes bring beauty and comfort and even hope and joy to the least among us. So as I was letting that sink in I came across an old story posted by a new blogger buddy, the Reverend Nancy Fitz down in Virginia, about a monastery – a community of monks – which was going through a rough time. It seems that the monks first faced persecution and later had to endure life after it became unfashionable to go to worship or enter a religious order. What had once been a very successful faith community had now shrunken to a solitary refuge run by five very old men – and they were charged with keeping up the gardens and the buildings and all the flowers. And as you might expect, the older they got the more discouraged they became because it was harder and harder to keep things going.
Now it happened that in a nearby town lived a rabbi, a wise man who led his own community of faith, and the rabbi had a habit of taking times of quiet reflection in the little hermitage in the woods near the monastery. Sometimes the abbot would visit with him, and at this time of great tension and concern, the abbot hoped the rabbi might have some wisdom for him. They visited together and commiserated over the changing times. No one seemed to be as committed to a life of faith as they had been in the good old days, they both agreed. When it was time to go, the abbot said to the rabbi, "I hoped you would have some advice for me, but it seems we have the same kinds of problems". And the rabbi said, "I’m sorry, I have no advice. All I can tell you is this: one of you is the Messiah."
Totally bewildered by these words, the old monk returned to the monastery and when his colleagues questioned him about what the rabbi’s advice, he told them: “He says one of us is the Messiah!” And with that, each of the monks began to look at one another differently:
Looking at one and then another, they wondered: could it be he? And because this possibility had been raised, the crankiness that had become part of their worried lives together began to give way to a sweetness of face and voice, for if we look into another person’s eyes, wondering if that person might be the Messiah, it makes us look at that person differently, makes us choose our words and our tone very differently.
Now the one thing that brought people to the monastery was its beautiful grounds. They came to picnic or to walk and enjoy the beauty of God’s creation and for a long time they had probably done this despite the fact the monks were grouchy and not very hospitable. But as the monks changed their way of treating one other, the atmosphere of the monastery changed, too. Visitors could feel the extraordinary respect shared among the brothers and they wanted to come back again and bring their friends.
And in time, it came to pass that younger men wanted to know more about this life of beauty, hope, integrity and compassion – and they joined the order which allowed the monastery to grow beyond its once feared death. Everything changed – the people, the prayers and the place – all because of the “small seed of mystery and respect planted by the rabbi.”(My thanks to the Rev. Nancy Fitz for her story adapted from the work of M. Scott Peck.)
Small changes – often seemingly insignificant and maybe even once considered unclean – can bring miracles to birth, yes? I believe this is one of the texts we need to embrace as a community of faith: The faith of the mustard seed – the trust that small acts of kindness and beauty matter – and can even bring to birth an encounter with God’s healing and hope in a community.
So… because I believe it is essential to practice what I preach – even though I know I get it wrong at least as much as I get it right – I’m trying to write a joyful song about our new home in Pittsfield. It isn’t finished yet – I have to test whether the words and melody really hang together – but it’s a sign or symbol to me of what it might mean for us to trust that our little acts matter, and, that we can help heal the sadness with God’s beauty with a mustard seed faith. (Once I get the groove worked out - and really test the lyrics - I'll post it so you can hear the tune which.... I think mostly works.)
After the haunting of the sadness And the shadows pass away There’s a gentle, healing madness And a song that seems to say… Rest awhile from all your labors Let the evening come to pass Hear the calling of your hearts Grace is rising now at last
You wear your wounds upon your coat sleeve You fear the worst is yet to come And while you’re locked into this grieving You miss the rising of the sun… Rest awhile from all your labors Let the evening come to pass Hear the calling of your hearts Grace is rising now at last
There’s a hunger here for beauty
A hundred ways to kiss the ground A cleansing of the Housatonic
As the Berkshires chant this sound
As the snow comes down from heaven And the rain washes the earth So God’s blessing will anoint us As we journey towards rebirth
Rest awhile from all your labors
Let the evening come to pass
Hear the calling of your hearts
Grace is rising now at last
There's a little of old Isaiah in there - I hope a bit of Jesus, too - reminding us that the time has come for each of us - and all of us together – to trust that doing something beautiful for the Lord – no matter how small – is part of our Easter and mustard seed faith.
y Diana Der-Hovanessian that cuts to the heart. As one singer/scholar told me afterwards, "No easy pass in this poem, nor cheap victimhood either, just the hard, complexity of fathers and sons."
