Putting up the tree - decorating the shrubs with lights - and literally hauling out our suitcase of Advent/Christmas music ushers in a rush of memories of Christmas past. Mine are mostly gentle and loving, but that is not the case with everyone. There is reason why Advent is a time of the blues for so many, yes? Through years of quiet meditation, therapy, prayer and the blessings of time most of the painful memories of Christmas past have been resolved for me. Wise old New England Frederick Buechner put it like this:
I am inclined to believe that God's chief purpose in giving us memory is to enable us to go back in time so that if we didn't play those roles right the first time around, we can still have another go at it now. We cannot undo our old mistakes or their consequences any more than we can erase old wounds that we have both suffered and inflicted, but through the power that memory gives us of thinking, feeling, imaging our way back through time we can at long last finally finish with the past in the sense of removing its power to hurt us and other people and to stunt our growth as human beings.
This sacred work of time and memory and resolution has no obvious time table. Just because I want someone else to "get over it," neither means I'm right or their ready. And while some do become addicted to their wounds - and those wounded identities - time and grace move in their own unique and holy ways, so it is best for me to be silent - even as a pastor. I know that is true as a father (even if I don't always get it right.) Brother Beuchner continues:
The sad things that happened long ago will always remain part of who we are just as the glad and gracious things will too, but instead of being a burden of guilt, recrimination and regret that make us constantly stumble as we go, even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength for the journey that still lies ahead. It is through memory that we are able to reclaim much of our lives that we have long since written off by finding that in everything that has happened to us over the years God was offering us possibilities of new life and healing which, though we may have missed them at the time, we can still choose and be brought to life by and healed by all these years later.
This is one of the reason why I remain so fiercely "incarnational" in my theology: God becoming flesh in Christ Jesus speaks to me of the deep healing that the Lord continues to offer through both time and memory. Like Bono said: Grace trumps karma... and I am grateful.
Every year I tell myself that I will deepen my formal prayer life during Advent, but it rarely happens. This spiritual charade has been going on for over 25 years; you would think I might have learned something from all of this, but... apparently not. And yet something of Christ still often breaks through to me during this season that is revealed as the real gift - the authentic spiritual discipline - and almost I am surprised. I look at the prayer book and candles nicely set out on my home altar and notice that the book mark is still in the week of Advent One.
So what was revealed to me as this Advent draws to a close? I think at least these things...
+ First, my heart, mind and soul has been stretched and nourished this season by playing with the Sister City Music Ambassadors. Having to learn - and practice - jazz riffs and walking bass scales has been both fun and demanding; it feels like when I was learning Spanish while studying at Seminario Biblico in San Jose, Costa Rica in 1980. There were days when my head hurt from trying to do simultaneous translation. And then, often before I realized it, there were times of real communication and connection in this foreign tongue. Same thing with the jazz: lots of practice and fretting (sorry for the pun) - feelings of true inadequacy and humility, too - and then I'd find the groove and it was sweet. What's more, these musicians are both demanding and gentle - living models of the peace-making we hope to share - and I've learned a lot from them already about keeping silent (which for a preacher is a very good thing.)
+ Second, it would seem that my connection with my congregation is moving into a deeper level of trust and love, too. I find I have a deeper affection and concern for their well-being - individually and as a body - and throughout the day I find I am holding them up to God's love in prayer almost spontaneously. Our worship series - peace-making through music - has given us a chance to sing and talk about our journey with Jesus in new ways, too. There have even been some folks who have let themselves be touched by the great songs of the heart - people I would never have expected - and once again I am humbled and reminded to let go of all judgments when it comes to God's work within and among us. This isn't about me, it is what God is doing in our hearts - and clearly (and thankfully) God isn't finished with us yet. I am so regularly surprised by grace...
+ Third, I've found that only a few Christian authors really communicate with me during the Advent season - most either bore me or seem too abstract - except for Peterson, Buechner, Chittister. Rohr and Brueggemann. I am rereading the December section from Buechner's, Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations, and they cut deep. I've started Peterson's Practice Resurrection - his exploration of the book of Ephesians (which I think I will use during worship in those long days after Epiphany and before Lent.) Fr. Richard Rohr gave me a clue as to why this might be true for me this year when he wrote:
First World cultures tend to think that more is better. I am told that busyness is actually a status symbol for us! It is strange that when people have so much, they are so anxious about not having enough—to do, to see, to own, to fix, to control, to change. What decreases in a culture of affluence is precisely and strangely time (in spite of our many “time-saving” devices)—along with wisdom and friendship. These are the very things that the human heart was created for, that the human heart feeds on and lives for. No wonder we are producing so many depressed, unhealthy and even violent people, while leaving a huge carbon footprint on this poor planet for the following generations.
My professors at Seminario Biblico said much the same thing when they told us that we would only read two or three books each semester - and we would read and discuss them in depth - rather than read LOTS of writers but only brush the surface. My Advent teachers this year have been long trusted friends who invite me to go deeper - and call me to pay careful attention - to the long journey of "practicing resurrection." I am grateful.
+ And fourth, I've learned a little bit more about the value of shutting up. I could say a LOT about this, but let's just say that once again it has become clear that when I have strong feelings and thoughts about something I sense is an injustice, it is always better to be like Mary and "ponder these things in my heart" for a while rather than rant. It takes time for these things to simmer and bake, yes? And most of the time they are better left unsaid...
So, I may not have prayed formally much this Advent, but it has been saturated in prayer - and blessings, too. Buechner says it best:
(The sacred story) that faith tells in the fairytale language of faith is not just that God IS, which God knows is a lot to swallow in itself much of the time, but that God COMES. Comes here. "In great humility." There is nothing much humbler than being born: naked, totally helpless, not much bigger than a loaf of bread. But with righteousness and faithfulness the girdle of his loins. And to US came. FOR us came. Is it true - not just the way fairytales are true but the truest of all truths? Almighty God, are you true? When you are standing up to your neck in darkness, how do you say yes to that question? You say yes, I suppose, the only way faith can ever say it if it is honest with itself. You say yes with your fingers crossed. You say it with your heart in your mouth. Maybe that way we can say yes. He visited us. The world has never been quite the same since. It is still a very dark world, in some ways darker than ever before, but the darkness is different because he keeps getting born into it. The threat of holocaust. The threat of poisoning the earth and sea and air. The threat of our own deaths. The broken marriage. The child in pain. The lost chance. Anyone who has ever known him has known him perhaps better in the darkness than anywhere else because it is in the dark where he seems to visit most often.
Today the String Ensemble from Pittsfield High School played 30 minutes of meditative music in our Sanctuary over the noon hour - it was so sweet. In addition to selections from "The Nutcracker." they also included string versions of Vince Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy" and other highlights from "It's a Charlie Brown, Christmas."
Given my spiritual monkey-mind, today's music set me to thinking about ALL the different songs music this old hall will host during this week alone:
+ Yesterday we practiced Sarah McLachlan's ethereal take on "Bring on the Wonder" which we'll do in worship on Sunday. Today it was Tchaikovsky and Guaraldi and tonight it will be 15th century Latin chant.
+ Then on Sunday, in addition to the Christmas carols, we'll have the Music Ambassadors bringing jazz and gospel into the celebration - everything from Dave Brubeck to Sonny Rollins and Odetta - with the choir bringing an "Ave Maria," too.
So I've been thinking a lot about Christmas music this year - what works within worship and beyond - when all of a sudden I'm thinking about Christmas songs that I love waaaay beyond the church. Number one on my hit parade - without reservation - is Springsteen's reworking of the old Johnny Moore R and B classic: Merry Christmas, Baby.
I've been loving me this song for too long to even count; but EVERYtime it comes on the radio I have to turn it up and sing a-long. It is just so much fun!
Number two, without exception, would have to be the King's version of "Blue Christmas." Man, I grew up on this one - my momma LOVED her some Elvis - and when the man did it on his comeback TV special, OMG: it was like heaven on earth. (I'll be doing this on TV/radio next week with Andy for his holiday show in Pittsfield.) This song may have been recorded first by Ernest Tubb - and it was - but let's be clear: Elvis OWNS this song.
Number three goes to the King, too: from the 1957 LP and a song written by the legendary Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller at the end of the recording session as per Elvis' request for a bluesy, innuendo-driven Christmas rocker. And damn if they didn't nail it with "Santa Claus is Back in Town."
Number four in my Christmas book goes back to the Boss and his reworking of the Phil Spector take on "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." My children grew up with this version and still think that every other take is just white bread... I think it shows an incredible rock historian honing his craft and building on tradition.
Number five is John McCutcheon's masterpiece: "Christmas in the Trenches." His recounting this true story from WWI is to be cherished. Perhaps it will make a reappearance this year...
Four others always grab me, too:
+ John Lennon's "War is Over" is an essential.
+ Joni Mitchell's "River" always rips me up.
+ And both Greg Lake's, "Father Christmas" and U2's "Peace on Earth." Perhaps it would be wise to let Sarah McLachlan take this home...
NOTE:Here are my worship notes for this coming Sunday, December 19th - Advent Four - and the conclusion of my series re: peace-making through music. Our guests will be the Sister City Music Ambassadors who will be sharing a ton of jazz and gospel throughout worship. We'll begin with a version of Brubek's "Take 5" and morph into "O Come, O Come Emmanuel." Will groove and improvise on "My Lord, He Is a'Comin' Soon" (this year's bluesy Advent prayer.) And then share a conversation in words and music including "Someday My Prince Will Come," "Blue Skies," "Somebody Talkin' 'Bout Jesus," and "Feliz Navidad. I suspect we'll do Sonny Rollins' "Tenor Madness" as the postlude. Should be fun and insightful, too. Our band - Between the Banks - will also be sharing Sarah McLachlan's take on "Bring on the Wonder." Please join us if you can.
Today we’re going to experience – and listen – reflect and consider how it is that the very Spirit of God we know in the Christmas story might also be alive and well and at work in the music and mission of the Sister City Music Ambassadors.One part of our story, you see, speaks to us of a young Palestinian peasant girl named Miriam whom we know as Mary. In some ways, I think of these musicians in the same spirit as Mary for Fr. Richard Rohr has written that:
There is no mention of any moral worthiness, achievement or preparedness in Mary, only humble trust and surrender. She gives us all, therefore, a bottomless hope in our own little state. If we… try to “manage” God, or manufacture our own worthiness by any performance principle whatsoever, we will never bring forth the Christ, but only ourselves. (You see) Mary does not manage, fix, control or “perform” in any way. She just says “Yes!” (to the mystery) and brings forth the abundance that (the prophet) Isaiah promises (Isaiah 48:17-19).
Another part of our story looks towards Joseph – who like his namesake in the book of Genesis – explores his dreams to discern God’s will. And believe me: these musicians are dreamers on a quest to do their small part to advance the cause of peace in this wounded and broken world. My colleague, Kate Huey, in the United Church of Christ puts it like this:
Joseph is a man who wants to be observant and faithful to the Law but also answers to an inner sense of compassion and mercy… when he chooses not to humiliate Mary with a public divorce… In the early church, the word "righteous" didn't mean hypocritical or judgmental, but faithful and good and Joseph is surely faithful and good… as he searches for a way through "the tension between the prevailing understanding of God's commandments and the new thing that God is doing in Jesus (Matthew, The New Interpreter's Bible).
Faithful people in every generation are just like Joseph whenever what we’ve “been taught to do conflicts with what our hearts know is right and good.” I can’t help but think some of that spirit is at work in our upcoming people-to-people peacemaking trip to Istanbul next summer. Don’t get me wrong: I’m NOT saying this is a religious mission – it is not – but then Mary and Joseph weren’t on a specifically religious mission either when they let their hearts open to God’s mercy.
So, sit back right now and listen as the band plays a sweet jazz waltz, “Someday My Prince Will Come,” by Frank Churchill from Walt Disney’s version of “Snow White.” And let the music speak to you of how God is at work within and among us in the quest for peace…
One of my central commitments about music – and one of the on-going revelations of the Sacred in my life – has to do with what happens to people when they play beautiful music together. About a week ago, when Andy and I were planning for this celebration, I said something to him like, “Whenever I play music with artists who are truly committed my heart is opened to new possibilities.”
• Then I said: Music helps me become more creative and centered in life so that I can be more cooperative, compassionate and constructive in the world. I have to listen carefully – I have to respond creatively – and I have to let the soul of the song carry me to a new place.
• To which he said: Write that down – what did you say with all those C words…? And I couldn’t remember – which happens all too often – but I worked and got most of it down on paper.
And that’s the first insight I want to share with all of you - and ask the band about today – do you experience music as a peace-making discipline? Do you think it helps you become more creative, compassionate and cooperative? What do you think?
Let the band members respond and reply…
Well, here’s an example of how a jazz standard does all of these things in one song. Now I don’t think this happens consciously, ok? I mean when I am playing “Blue Skies” I am not aware of thinking: “Oh yes, Lord, thank you for helping me feel more grounded and compassionate and connected to the work of peace in the world.” Not at all – I’m just hoping to get most of the notes right and get into a sweet groove – yes? But when I think about the music later – when I listen for the Spirit of God in the sounds – then other things crack open. So let’s play “Blue Skies” in all of its swinging, prayerful beauty…
Do you see what I mean about how music is a peace-making discipline that not only encourages cooperation and centering but creativity and even compassion, too? It makes me think of that church in San Francisco down on Fillmore Street - right next to Yoshi’s, the city’s premier jazz club – and it is called: the St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church. I’m not kidding: each week at 11:45 am – still the morning but not too early for jazz musicians – there is worship using the heart of Christianity and the music of Coltrane’s masterpiece, “A Love Supreme.”
• This music, you see, is playful and structured – grounded in form as well as improvisation – that is what prayer is all about. Or living with an openness to the Spirit.
• No wonder those who have explored the connection between music and spirituality have observed that: The discovery of song and the creation of musical instruments both owe their origin to a human impulse which lies deeper than conscious intention: it is the need for rhythm in life. The need is a deep one, transcending thought and disregarded at our own peril. (Richard Baker)
Let’s play a little more music right now: can we give the old gospel song by Odetta and reworked by Kathy Mattea, “Somebody Talkin’ ‘Bout Jesus” a shot? This is a chance to put what I was talking about into practice because we’ve never played this together before…
Play “Somebody Talkin’ ‘Bout Jesus” here
Alright, let’s shift gears for a moment and talk about this summer’s musical pilgrimage to Istanbul. We’re going to take up a special collection for this trip this morning so I’d like to ask each of you two questions:
• First, why do you play with the Music Ambassadors? It can’t be because of the fame and fortune: so why do you do it?
• And second why does going to Istanbul matter to you?
Band members share their thoughts here…
One of the challenges of being a person of faith in this age – and probably all times – is getting to the heart of things. An old rabbi once said to me, “You know, I feel much safer when you are living fully and deeply as a Christian because the heart of Jesus is about peace not conversion or confrontation.” He went on to say much like Gandhi did before him that the way of Jesus opens hearts to see the face of God in every person.
• Think of Mother Teresa bowing to all her guests with the Hindu greeting: Namaste. Do you recall what that means? “The divinity within me recognizes the essence of God within you.”
• That’s the very heart of the Christmas story, too, where God the all-powerful takes up residence in the flesh of a small and insignificant peasant child in Palestine.
This peace-pilgrimage in music is NOT about conversion – it is NOTabout advancing our way over another’s way either – rather it is about finding holy and common ground with others through music. And allowing the sacred within us to recognize and honor the sacred in our new albeit unnamed friends in Istanbul. I hope you will want to help us realize this dream…
And now, in the spirit of our time, let’s bring it all home with “Feliz Navidad” a song I hope you’ll all sing with gusto!
Today's worship for Advent 3 was gentle and sweet - sad and bluesy, too. We used three songs - two from U2 and one from Sarah McLachlan - and talked about how the blues help us express the hard times. I shared a few thoughts including how:
+ Churches are historically unprepared for helping us express our laments - that's why God gave us the blues - which is a good thing given the fact that so many people feel blue during this season. There are tons of reasons why - death, war, unemployment, fear, disease, emotional loss, loneliness and so much more - and they are all real.
+ I also noted that while singing the blues doesn't change any of our externals, they are curiously cathartic - and that is healing in a counter-intuitive way. In this, Mary's Song - the Magnificat - is much like a cathartic blues song that also nourishes encouragement within and among us. Funny how in the gospel text for today, Matthew 11, Jesus and John are parsing words about the consequences of ministry while in the middle of it all the liturgy also asks us to consider Mary's song. Sometimes, it would seem, we don't have the right words... so all we can do is sing the blues.
At the end of worship there were a lot of tears: I guess we really needed to have a time to weep with one another for one another. Mary's song encouraged that, too. I know that I was frazzled before worship started - LOTS of little details to accomplish and time seemed to be racing - but my bandmates encouraged me to chill and congregation sang like angels - and when it was done it was clear that Jesus had been in the house.
This morning's New York Times ran two stories about a dead artist - David Wojnarowicz - and the current controversy his ants/crucifix video is causing all over again. The newsarticle recounts the artist's first battle with censorship after America's self-appointed champion against pornography both real and imagined - the Reverend David Wildmon - misrepresented Wojnarowicz's work and was sued for misrepresenting his art. The artist won! (For context and the actual NY Times story: www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/arts/design/11ants.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper)
But the battle isn't over because the Smithsonian Institution - under pressure from Bill Donohue of the Catholic League - has now withdrawn Womnarowcz's work from the "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture" exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. Art critic, Holland Cotter, gives some shape and form to the current censorship skirmish in the second Times'article.(www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/arts/design/11hide.html?ref=)
(NOTE: this video clip is disturbing and may not be suitable for every person.)
In all of this, there are all too troubling shades of the 80s culture warriors blustering against the all too visible and shocking excess of the 60s gone rococo in the 70s. Remember the fracas religious zealots raised about Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ." Without ever seeing it, I recall being offended. But then I saw the photograph - and learned what the artist was trying to accomplish - and my offense gave way to a deeper appreciation of both the beauty and the scandal at work in this complex creation. In Cynthia Freeland's insightful little book, But Is It Art?, she concludes:
Serrano's title is (no doubt intentionally) jarring. It seems we are meant to be torn between being shocked and musing over an image that is mysterious and perhaps even reverential. With regard to the artwork's 'material' qualities... Serrano does not regard body fluids as shameful, but as natural. Perhaps his attitude stems from his cultural background as a member of a minority group in the United States (he is part Houndran and part Afro-Cuban.) Art historian, Lucy Lippard, notes that in Catholicism, bodily suffering and body fluids have been depicted for millenia as sources of religious power and strength. Vials in churches hold fabric, bits of blood, bones and even skulls that commemorate saints and stories of miracles. Instead of being regarded with panic or horror, these relics are reverences... (Clearly) the artist wanted to condemn the way that culture pays only lip service to a religion without truly endorsing its values... (for) Serrano claims that his work was not done to denounce religion but its institutions - to show how our contemporary culture is commercializing and cheapening Christianity and its icons. (pp. 18-21)
The same depth and insight must be applied to Wojnarowicz, too. Holland Cotter writes: That "A Fire in My Belly" (the artist's video creation in question) is about spirituality, and about AIDS, is beyond doubt. To those caught up in the crisis, the worst years of the epidemic were like an extended Day of the Deay, a time of skulls and candles, corruption with a promise of resurrection. Wojnarowcz was profoundly angry at a government that barely acknowledged the epidemic and at political forces that he believed used AIDS - and the art created in response - to demonize homosexuality. (NY Times, December 22, 2010, p. A3)
Religious zealots in the United States almost always feel entitled, if not qualified, to criticize and condemn art they don't comprehend. Think of the creation of the National Legion of Decency formed in 1933 by Archbishop John McNichols of Cincinnati, OH. The goal was to identify and control motion picture content that was deemed objectionable by the Roman Catholic Church. For 25 years this coalition of Catholics, Protestants and some Jews censored film art in the USA by forcing the creation of a ratings code.
The Presbyterian elder, Will Hays, created much the same type of censorship through the Hays Code of the Motion Picture Association between 1930-1968. Tipper Gore and other Protestant evangelicals were instrumental in bringing to birth the Parents Music Resource Center in 1985 to inhibit the sale of certain music to young teens. And, of course, the infamous David Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association, used his position as a United Methodist clergy to pursue censorship in the name of Jesus on artists, musicians, writers and social activists.
All were religious zealots who, to paraphrase Mark Twain, "were good people in the worst sense of the word." And none understood art: they did not have eyes to see and more often than not reacted out of fear and bigotry. Some things never change... And yet, thanks be to God, there is a growing school of religious thinkers and artists who DO understand and appreciate the arts.
+ Some take their roots back to Paul Tillich and the insights he gleaned from visual artists working in post WWI Germany. + Others look to Hans Rookmaaker, a Dutch Reformed theologian - or the English theologian, Jeremy Begbie, now at Duke - or the Swiss Roman Catholic Hans Urs von Balthasaar.
+ And still others are exploring the interpretive work of the New Religious Humanists affiliated with Gregory Wolfe -or the renewed sense of theological aesthetics of Eugene Peterson - or the movement of beauty in Makoto Fujimura's International Arts Movement.
In the introductory essay to For the Beauty of the Church - a collection of essays born in an arts and theology conference held in 2008 in Austin, Texas - David O. Taylor recalls the third verse to a beloved old hymn by Folliot Pierpoint:
For the joy of ear and eye, For the heart and mind's delight, For the mystic harmony, Linking sense to sound and sight: Lord of all, to thee we raise This our hymn of grateful praise.
There are those without eyes to see - and they are dangerous: Lord, strengthen your servants of beauty that they might help us.
So today - my Sabbath - Di has to work (bummer) and our house needs cleaning (blessing!) I've finished three rooms and a bath and it is time for a break. And as I was dusting and mopping a thought kept running through my head: you are like a spiritual George Winston. Ok, it helped that I was listening to his "December" CD - one of my favorite Advent treats - but I think the thought is valid: I tend to take a simple and beautiful spiritual/theological idea and work it over and over and over till some people cherish it and others run in the opposite direction. (I once heard Winston himself say something like, "People either appreciate or hate my music because of the way I develop - or brutalize - a theme.")
Three reasons for this reflection:
+ First, I have been thinking about a colleague who is experiencing a lot of emotional and spiritual pain right now. I've been in a similar place in a whole bunch of ways and recall how lonely that was for me. What's more, it seemed as if only those outsiders - not my supposed church buddies and friends, but those on society's margins - had the courage and compassion to reach out to me in love when I wasn't very lovable. That's a theme I revisit often and once again find myself face to face with trying to give what I have received. Like another friend, Fr. Jim O'Donnell of Cleveland (who in retirement found himself ministering to a lot of middle aged, white Christians going through divorce) said to me after I finally mustered the nerve to go to confession: "Like the woman at the well whom Jesus forgave, your penance is to do likewise: give away the joy you have received over and over again!" I hope I can...
+ Second, unintentionally I offended some of my friends with one of my blog rants about zealots. As a consequence, I have withdrawn it - not because it isn't true (it is) but because it was hurtful - and as I age I find it better to shut up more often than not. I have to be reminded of this from time to time. And sometimes, before I know it, I've stuck my foot in it and wounded one I value and respect. Like St. Paul says in Romans 7: more often than not I wind up doing what I hate even while trying to do what I love! Another theme in my life, yes? And one I keep revisiting like George Winston on a theme: be still - and maybe then you can know I am God. + And third, why am I still stunned when Christians confuse "avoiding conflict and controversy" with peace-making? Over the years, I've discovered there is a lot more nuance and patience required in truly hearing an other's point of view; so most of the time I try to be extra careful in listening and appreciating challenging perspectives. Why, then, are there some people who are old enough to know better who INSIST that their way is the only truth and demand that the Body of Christ stand for nothing except the lowest common denominator? OMG it just burns my ass! Look, the Lord was always searching for common ground, but in pursuit of compassion and justice not ideology or some illusive non-offensive pseudo-heaven. After all, the good news is BAD news for some before it becomes GOOD news for all. And so when conservatives tell me that even talking about limiting Israel's arrogance and violence has no place in the Church - and liberals prattle on that getting the best deal possible with the Republicans at any one point in history makes the President a moral traitor - my head starts to explode!
Bono and the Edge put it best when they implored both Roman Catholics and Protestants - and I would add liberals and conservatives, too - to PLEASE get up off your knees. Quit limiting God to just your own narrow habits and fears and start to see the face of the Living Christ in those you are wounding all around you...
Fr. Richard Rohr wrote earlier this week that the Advent cry, "Come, Lord Jesus, come" is NEVER about escapism and ALWAYSabout healing the brokenness within and among us. Perhaps the very nature of Advent is like my George Winston CD and spirituality...
Yesterday I listened to a colleague whine about Obama selling out his ideals when he should have stood to fight. Blah, blah, blah... you've all heard it before, yes? It sounds like what the Peanuts characters hear in Charlie Brown's Christmas when the adults speak: whah, whah, whah, whah, blah, blah, blah.... ad infinitum... ad nauseum. And how about this, Olberman and Saunders: put a sock in it?
Politicians are bad enough - I expect blah, blah, blah from them because not only is it their job to piss and moan, but it advances the debate by defining the polarities - but church leaders who have never organized in a community - or had to make a payroll - or ever really worked retail? Come on, join Keith and Bernie with sock, please? It is clear: multi-millionaires should NOT hold us all ransom - neither a handful of banks - AND let's look at what the President's deal actually accomplished rather than carp about our imagined ideological purity.
Here's the way the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities put it - check it, please -because it really cuts to the chase.
The Positives in the Package
In several respects, the package exceeds the expectations we and many other observers had set when the negotiations began.
■The 13-month extension of federal unemployment benefits is a major accomplishment. Only a few weeks ago, the House fell short of passing a three-month extension. The 13-month extension will prevent 7 million jobless workers from losing essential income support, without which they would have to cut their purchases substantially, causing the loss of many more jobs. The Council of Economic Advisers recently estimated that an end to these benefits would cause the loss of 600,000 jobs and cut already-inadequate economic growth by 0.6 percentage points by the end of next year, quite a large amount; Goldman Sachs recently made a similar estimate of the impact on economic growth.
■The package continues for two years all of the 2009 Recovery Act improvements in the Earned Income Tax Credit, the American Opportunity Tax Credit (which helps students from low- and middle-income families afford college), and the refundable component of the Child Tax Credit. These measures are simultaneously effective stimulus policy, desirable social policy, and admirable anti-poverty policy. They encourage work over welfare and help more Americans obtain a college education; they provide sound stimulus by putting money in the hands of hard-pressed working families that will spend it; and they substantially reduce child poverty.
■The package also contains a one-year reduction of 2 percentage points in the employee share of the Social Security payroll tax; workers will pay a 4.2 percent tax on their first $106,800 in wages, rather than 6.2 percent. This provision, which would replace the current “Making Work Pay” tax cut, would raise workers’ take-home pay by $120 billion in 2011 (relative to current law) and consequently should provide some economic boost.
These provisions would protect low- and middle-income workers and their families and, by boosting their incomes, also preserve or create substantial numbers of jobs. Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, estimates that federal unemployment benefits generate $1.60 in economic activity for every dollar in cost; the refundable tax credits generate about $1.20 to $1.40 in activity for each dollar in cost; and the payroll tax reduction generates about $1.25 for each dollar in cost. In other words, all of these measures rank high in “bang-for-the-buck” effectiveness. In this part of the package, the White House achieved everything it sought for low- and middle-income families. It apparently did not compromise on these issues.
The Negatives
But the package also extends President Bush’s tax cuts for households above $250,000. The Tax Policy Center says these tax cuts average over $100,000 a year for people whose incomes exceed $1 million a year; the Congressional Budget Office ranks such an extension last among the tax and spending options it studied for spurring the weak economy and creating jobs; and Zandi ranks it near the bottom of his list of options. The package’s biggest disappointment is a provision that would shrink the estate tax well below its 2009 level for the next two years.
President Obama sought to reinstate the already-generous 2009 estate tax rules, under which the estates of 99.75 percent of people who die would be entirely tax free, according to the Tax Policy Center. Under the 2009 rules, the first $3.5 million of an estate ($7 million for couples) would be exempt from the tax, and the maximum tax rate on the taxable portion of estates would be 45 percent; the average effective tax rate on taxable estates would be below 20 percent.
But this was not good enough for Senator Kyl, who insisted on the inclusion of a proposal that he and Senator Blanche Lincoln have pushed for some time. Their proposal would exempt the first $5 million of an estate ($10 million for a couple) from the estate tax and set a maximum tax rate of 35 percent on the taxable portion of large estates. This would provide an estimated $25 billion in tax reductions over the next two years exclusively to the top one-quarter of 1 percent of estates. Those estates would receive an average tax break of about $1 million each — the bigger the estate, the more lavish the new tax break. Only the top one-seventh of 1 percent of estates would owe any tax at all, and their effective tax rate would average about 14 percent, based on Tax Policy Center estimates.
What Should Policymakers Do?
Despite the provisions concerning the upper-income tax cuts and the estate tax, which would squander billions of dollars while doing little to help the economy, policymakers should approve the package. The unemployment insurance and refundable tax credit provisions are essential to prevent large losses of purchasing power that would slow the economy — and large increases in hardship and poverty. The temporary payroll tax cut is also important for spurring economic growth. In all, the package provides $216 billion in unemployment insurance and low- and middle-income tax benefits — $120 billion for the payroll tax cut, $56 billion for unemployment insurance, and $40 billion for the refundable tax credits. (The high-end and estate tax provisions appear to total about $125 billion.)
Moreover, congressional defeat of the package would create a need for new negotiations with the Congress that takes office in January. That Congress will be more hostile to unemployment insurance and tax credits for low-income working families, just as insistent on continuing the Bush upper-income tax cuts, and aggressive in pushing for even more egregious estate-tax policies. Many in the new House majority favor estate tax repeal.
In addition, defeat of the package could lead to a protracted period during which all of the tax cuts have expired and federal unemployment benefits have ended, damaging the economy and even possibly tipping it into a double-dip recession.
The big concern about the package is that policymakers will extend again in 2012, and subsequently make permanent, the high-income and estate-tax provisions, thereby making our serious long-term fiscal problems considerably worse. This is a serious threat, and it is the fundamental danger in the package.
However, there is a potential remedy. In 2012, the economy should be stronger than it is today. In addition, Congress likely will have enacted some significant budget cuts, and the nation likely will be debating the sort of further cuts that various commissions have recently proposed, including cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits for elderly widows and seriously disabled people with incomes as low as $20,000. At that point, the President will need to make clear that he will veto any legislation extending the high-end tax cuts or the weakening of the estate tax beyond its 2009 parameters, and he should use the bully pulpit to take this case to the country.
The country will not likely believe that millionaires should continue to get tax cuts averaging over $100,000 a year and multi-million-dollar estates should continue to receive $1 million average tax cuts while programs ranging from education to environmental policies to Medicare and possibly Social Security are on the cutting block.
My thanks to my Tucson buddy, Mark, for posting this. Let's get on with Advent and Christmas, ok?
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Dear John Lennon - the Walrus and all the rest - was gunned down 30 years ago today. The Beatles changed my life - and the world - for the better. As a young teen I idolized John: I loved his hard-edged sound, I found courage in his chutzpah, I savored his tenderness and wept over his wounds. He gave me a role-model in "Hard Day's Night" that I still cherish. And while I moved on from John to George in the Myers-Briggs Beatles typology as I grew up, I still miss him...
I was in seminary when he was shot while returning to his home at the Dakota in NYC. My dentist's office was right across the street from the Dakota, so I knew the scene well. And as I sat in my apartment that night - endlessly listening to Vin Scully on WNEW-FM radio - I got a call from my old buddy, Ross, whom I hadn't heard from much after high school. Ross taught me to play guitar. We used to head to his house before confirmation class every Wednesday and work out Beatles' songs. He was skilled - I had hammer hands - but we loved the Beatles and went to the same church. Eventually we formed a band together that lasted through high school. And when he called that night to lament in our shock that John Lennon had been murdered, his voice was food for my soul.
I still love him - he was the Paul McCartney to my John Lennon back in high school - even though we've gone our separate ways as adults. From time to time, I see what he's up to on Facebook and note how well his children are doing. Life is so funny... so my prayers go out to all those who loved John like we did all those years ago and give thanks to the joy John and Ross brought into my life tonight on the 30th anniversary of John's assassination. Here's to you, brother...
NOTE:My worship notes for Sunday, December 12, 2010 - the Third Sunday of Advent - and part three of my series, "Peace-making through Music." Today I highlight the work of both Sarah McLachlan and U2 and the band will play some of these tunes, too. Please join us if you are in town at 10:30 am. And note that NEXT Sunday, December 19th, we will have the Pittsfield Sister City Jazz Ambassadors with us in worship to conclude the series.
“How long…?” To sing this song? To wait in the darkness? To see justice thwarted – the hopes of the poor dashed by the greed of the powerful – and peace sacrificed on the altar of violence and atrophied imagination? How long… indeed?!?
• We begin today with this contemporary setting of Psalm 40 by the rock band U2 because it SOUNDS like Advent: longing, hopeful but still in the dark.
• The song comes from the band’s early days in Dublin when they were young evangelical Protestants surrounded by the demands of the Irish Catholic Church.
Paradoxically it comes from a song collection called, WAR, their 1983 lament against the historic violence between Catholics and Protestants that had long marred the very soul of Ireland.
It is an outsider’s song: a call for peace in a culture of violence – a call for the common good when the status quo celebrates greed – a call for patience in a time of frustration and instant gratification. Like the band’s front man, Bono, has said: It is a song of grief and hope together – it is the blues – because that’s what the Psalms really are: the blues. In the UK preface to Eugene Peterson’s reworking of the Bible called The Message, Bono put it like this:
Before David could fulfill the prophecy and become the king of Israel, he had to take quite a beating. He was forced into exile and ended up in a cave in some no-name border town facing the collapse of his ego and abandonment by God. But this is where the soap opera gets interesting (because)… this is where David was said to have composed his first psalm -- a blues. That's what a lot of the psalms feel like to me, the blues. Man shouting at God -- "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me?" (Psalm 22). And I hear echoes of this holy row whenever un-holy bluesman Robert Johnson howls, "There's a hellhound on my trail" or Van Morrison sings, "Sometimes, I feel like a motherless child." Texas Alexander mimics the psalms in his tune, "Justice Blues": "I cried Lord my father, Lord kingdom come. Send me back my woman, then thy will be done."
Sure it is humorous, sometimes blasphemous, the blues was backslidin' music but, by its very opposition, it flattered the subject of its perfect cousin, gospel. Abandonment and displacement are the stuff of my favorite psalms… For me its despair that the psalmist really reveals and the nature of his special relationship with God: it is an honesty, even to the point of anger, that shouts: "How long, Lord? Wilt thou hide thyself forever?" (Psalm 89) (www.atu2.com/news/psalm-like-it-hot.html
That’s the first thing I would like you to consider on this the third Sunday of Advent: have you ever thought of Advent as our time to really sing the blues? It is no secret, you know, that amidst all the joy and expectation, countless Americans are weary to their core and bone tired by all the hype of this season. Psychologists tell us that seniors, women and single people of all ages have deeper and more profound feelings of depression during this season than at any other time of the year.
• This is the blues season, people, the blues writ large – and I think Bono and the boys are onto something because here is something blues artists have known for ever: when you sing and express the blues – when you share the sounds of your wounds together with those you love – God sends you comfort, too.
• Did you know that? It’s something ALL the great blues artists from Howlin’ Wolf and Bob Marley to Koko Taylor and Bessie Smith know: when you share the blues with those you love, blessings come from above.
Now look, I’m not saying this makes any sense, ok? It is just one of those wild and weird spiritual truths that help me have faith in the Lord. Like they sometimes say in AA: you don’t have to understand WHY it works, it just does! That’s a pretty solid, working definition of faith, too, don’t you think? You don’t have to know WHY it works, it just does – so trust it! Bono concludes his insights about HIS blues psalm like this:
We wanted to put something explicitly spiritual on the end of our third record to balance the politics and romance of it; like Bob Marley or Marvin Gaye would. We thought about the psalms -- Psalm 40. But there was some squirming. We were a very "white" rock group and such plundering of the scriptures was taboo for a white rock group unless it was in the "service of Satan." But Psalm 40 is interesting in that it suggests a time in which grace will replace karma, and love will replace the very strict laws of Moses (in other words, fulfill them). I love that thought. David, who committed some of the most selfish as well as selfless acts, was depending on it. That the scriptures are brim full of hustlers, murderers, cowards, adulterers and mercenaries used to shock me. Now it is a source of great comfort.
So "40" became the closing song at U2 shows, and on hundreds of occasions, literally hundreds of thousands of people of every size and shape of T-shirt have shouted back the refrain, pinched from Psalm 6: "How long (to sing this song)." I had thought of it as a nagging question, pulling at the hem of an invisible deity whose presence we glimpse only when we act in love. How long hunger? How long hatred? How long until creation grows up and the chaos of its precocious, hell-bent adolescence has been discarded? It was odd, too, you see, because in the vocalizing of such questions they brought us such comfort – to me, too.
One of the reasons I wanted to share this series about peace-making through music with you this Advent is right there in Bono’s words: this is God’s odd season when the vocalizing of our blues also can bring us comfort. That is part of what Mary is trying to tell us today, too. Apart from all the cultic paraphernalia that some drape upon Mary – and beyond all the sloppy piety that often smothers the heart of the Virgin – there is something unique and beautiful taking place in her song. We hear God’s grace breaking through a world of oppression, fear, violence and confusion.
And it comes to us NOT high church Latin – or incense and priestly robes – but from the SONG of an unwed and pregnant Palestinian peasant girl. I love the way Kate Huey puts it:
Advent is (usually) a time for the prophets like Jesus (and Isaiah) and John the Baptist; men who came out of the wilderness speaking of world-shaking events and exhorting us to turn our lives around in preparation for what is to come. On this Third Sunday in Advent, however, we listen to another kind of prophet, a simple maiden who comes not from the wilderness but from her own village to visit her older cousin, Elizabeth. Mary and Elizabeth are women with voices and something to say, or in Mary's case, something to sing. Women – who are definitely not at "the top of the heap" here, especially not when there's an actual priest in the house, Zechariah, an expert in matters of faith. (But pay attention to the story because) Zechariah is the one in this scene without a voice, literally, since he's been struck speechless during his own angelic visit; now we have the rare opportunity to hear from the women for a change – and what a change they dream of!
And while Jesus and John the Baptist continue to argue and try to figure the best way to express the loving reversal of God within and among us, the young Mary sings to us about the real heart of the season: not only is God GREAT, but God is… good! Traditionally we call Mary’s song the Magnificat because it magnificently distills the very essence of Christ in Luke’s gospel. In one sweet song it says that:
Mary, filled with the Holy Spirit, gives voice to those who are lowly, like the shepherds to whom the angels later announce the birth of Jesus. Like Hannah (before her), Mary sings out of her own experience, her own hope, but (like the blues it is also) out of the experience and hope of her people as well. The Magnificat… is a stunning expression of joy at God's promises kept, a celebration of the tables being turned or overturned… so that the lowly are lifted up, the proud are brought down and the hungry are fed. It testifies that God remembers the people of Israel and all the promises God has made to them forever!
Are you with me here? Am I being clear? Mary is using SONG to not only express her deepest experience with God’s love but also to encourage you and me. That’s the second reason I want you to explore the importance of peace-making through music. Songs can touch us at our deepest and most wounded place – make us weep and moan – and then bring us comfort in the midst of our sorrow.
Do you know the contemporary singer/song-writer Sarah McLachlan? I think of her as one of the embodiments of Mary’s heart and soul for our culture: she brings hope and encouragement, she practices grace and beauty and she uses her music to advance the cause of healing in our broken word.
• Back in the 1990s – and again just last summer – she organized the Lilith Fair concerts – a forum for women artists to share their music in a supportive and creative environment. And part of the proceeds from these events was turned over to various environmental justice groups.
• Do you know her song, “I Will Remember You?” It became the prayer of the students after the massacre at Columbine. If you saw the movie, “City of Angels,” her smoldering song, “Angel” expressed what the union of sensual/spiritual energy can mean in all its complexity
And then there is her song, “World on Fire” that articulates the peace-making challenge of this moment in time…
In so many ways, the music of Sarah McLachlan captures the essence of God’s servant Mary beyond the hype and romanticism. I like the way the renegade Dominican priest, Meister Eckhart, put it:
We are all meant to be mothers of God. What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself? And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace if I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture? This, then, is the fullness of time: When the Son of God is begotten in us.
I sense that the musical ministry of both Sarah McLachlan and U2 helps awaken us to the Spirit being born within and among us to give shape and form to the Christ child in our generation. Like Mother Theresa says: “One filled with joy preaches without preaching.”
Now, before I wrap up this reflection, let me add that one of the responsibilities of joy is to share it – and note its absence. That is what compassion is all about: sharing and embracing one another so that God’s goodness isn’t privatized but multiplied. The call to compassion is bigger than any one spiritual tradition, it is greater than all our theologies and doctrines put together, it cuts across any of our real and manufactured divisions and it is at the heart of what Jesus came to proclaim.
+ Remember, Jesus didNOTask: are you Catholic or Protestant, Jewish, Muslim or Buddhist?
+ And he didn't ally God's grace with one political party or race or nationality either, ok?
Tell me, when you read these words from chapter 25 of the gospel according to St. Matthew, what does it say?
When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's why:
I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was homeless and you gave me a room, I was shivering and you gave me clothes, I was sick and you stopped to visit, I was in prison and you came to me.
Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.'
And this is where the music of U2 is critical: they bring the peace-making challenge of the gospel all over the world – breaking down the barriers between Protestants and Catholics; Christians, Jews and Muslims; rich and poor; gay and straight; women, men and children – without compromising the essence of grace. Like Bono says, “Grace trumps karma…”
So we’re going to close with their most challenging Christmas song, “Peace on Earth,” that was written after the Good Friday Peace Accords were affirmed in Ireland. It seems that a hold-out group of rogue IRA bastards decided that blowing up innocent children in the city of Armagh was more holy than finding a way to common ground. It is a heartbreaking song about the selfish stupidity within us all that gets in the way of God’s peace and joy…
literally hauling out our suitcase of Advent/Christmas music ushers in a rush of memories of Christmas past. Mine are mostly gentle and loving, but that is not the case with everyone. There is reason why Advent is a time of the blues for so many, yes? Through years of quiet meditation, therapy, prayer and the blessings of time most of the painful memories of Christmas past have been resolved for me. Wise old New England Frederick Buechner put it like this:
er go at it now. We cannot undo our old mistakes or their consequences any more than we can erase old wounds that we have both suffered and inflicted, but through the power that memory gives us of thinking, feeling, imaging our way back through time we can at long last finally finish with the past in the sense of removing its power to hurt us and other people and to stunt our growth as human beings.
f being a burden of guilt, recrimination and regret that make us constantly stumble as we go, even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength for the journey that still lies ahead. It is through memory that we are able to reclaim much of our lives that we have long since written off by finding that in everything that has happened to us over the years God was offering us possibilities of new life and healing which, though we may have missed them at the time, we can still choose and be brought to life by and healed by all these years later.
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