prayer, bread and music - part three

NOTE: This is part three of a five part series re: spirituality and going deeper into the blessings of grace. Please see the previous posts for context. Later this week I will share my thoughts on bread and music. Today I'll consider what I mean by prayer.

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, one of the major liturgical celebrations in the Christian realm. It is also the Feast of the Nativity according to the calendar of Eastern Orthodoxy and Eastern Rite Catholics. I will always carry with me the sounds of an Orthodox choir rehearsing on the Eve of this feast day back in 1984. It was in then Leningrad (now restored to St. Petersburg) at about 7 pm. The air was frigid and dark. I was leading a group of 25 youth and their parents (as well as 20 other adults from the local community college in Saginaw, MI) on a pilgrimage of understanding to the former Soviet Union. Entering the candle lit Sanctuary with about ten students and a few parents was a moment of mystery: the a capella music rose towards the Sanctuary's dome, the incense and candles surrounded us in a sweet diffused light, and the young women who spoke English greeted us as sisters and brothers from part of a once long, lost wing of their beloved family. For half an hour our hearts were full to overflowing with comfort and joy as East kissed West and Christmas embraced Epiphany for a moment in time. 

In the West, Epiphany marks the arrival of the Magi - mystical Gentiles who came to pay homage to the baby Messiah in the manger - while in the East the "revelation" of this feast is more about the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist - a sacred affirmation announced by the Holy Spirit proclaiming the reign of God's beloved. In Western Christianity, Epiphany comes at the close of the 12 days of Christmas. It also opens the celebrations of festivities that culminate in Mardi Gras before the fasting of Lent. In the East, this festival takes place on January 19 followed by five Sundays anticipating Lent including: Zacchaeus Sunday, Publican and Pharisee Sunday, Prodigal Son Sunday, Final Judgment /Meatfare Sunday (the start of the Lenten fast from meat),Forgiveness/ Chessefare Sunday (and the start of the Eastern equivalent of Mardi Gras with rich foods eaten in abundance before all the remains are burned in anticipation of the fast of the Great Lent itself.) 

My heart cherishes the way the Eastern Christian tradition mixes food, weather and prayer with the sacred calendar. Feasting and fasting are part of an old tradition that pre-dates the Church, of course, but so what? My more austere Reformed upbringing knew nothing of the liturgical calendar nor the sensual /ascetic ways of growing in holy trust that it teaches. It was well into my early 20s before I began exploring this realm - and now I continue to find ways to take it deeper. I suspect that is why I have defined my spiritual practices with the words prayer, bread and music. 

There have been different articulations of this Trinity over the years including solitude, hospitality and celebration as well as silence, sound and communion. Whichever way I cast the words, however, its been more suggestive than definitive. Having experimented with a variety of formulations, today I sense that my words are simply small, one word poems that evoke the soul of what has become my incarnational and sacramental spirituality: prayer, bread and music. 

PRAYER: the inward/outward practices of listening, responding and experiencing to the holy. My practice with prayer has multiple layers. In some ways, prayer is about how I live and "see" the holy in all things. It includes contemplative prayer, spiritual friendships, study, reflection and worship. It is saturated with silence as well as the sounds of songs, Psalms and traditional liturgy.

Like most children, my first experience with prayer began at home and then in public worship at church. Learning to be still in the company of others, to look inward and beyond myself for short periods, and to make the sounds of tradition part of my memory bank was an important training ground. In time, I heard the hymns of worship as vehicles for prayer. My prayers went deeper when I learned to memorize not only the Lord's Prayer of my Reformed training, but also Hail Mary, psalms, and liturgical chants like the Gloria, Doxology and the blessing of Aaron. These have become trusted tools that take my heart to a safe place for times of reflection. In recent years I have learned to use prayer beads and my breath to focus my inward journey, too. These resources belong to kataphatic spirituality: the "via positivia" where thought, word, liturgy, linear theology, sound and images of the holy inform, guide and shape the life of faith. It is a decidedly Western approach to the inward journey and seeks to help us know the way of the Lord descriptively.

Another way of participating in this journey is the "via negativia" - an apophatic spirituality - that refuses to name or describe the sacred, but rather seeks to experience it. This begins as the way of silence. The gospel stories point to this path whenever Jesus steps away from his active life and retreats to the mountains, sea, desert or other empty places in private to be still and wait upon the the Lord. Visiting Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox churches, spending time in study and prayer at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary in NY, and later reading Henri Nouwen's devotional book on praying with icons, awakened a hunger to go deeper into silence. I yearned to know how to pray with my eyes. I ached to experience the presence of the holy more authentically. I used the mantra-like Jesus Prayer throughout the day to awaken an awareness of the sacred in my ordinary consciousness. The sung meditations of Taize prayer became another trusted friend on this journey. So, too the work Fr. Thomas Keating shared with centering prayer. This reintroduction of apophatic and contemplative spirituality to Western Christianity revived the mystical wisdom of Christianity to our various traditions after nearly 500 years of banishment.

Silent, contemplative prayer opened my heart to a new way of being. I was trained and encouraged to practice it by my spiritual director Fr. Jim O'Donnell in Cleveland. He loved engaging my  intellect. He helped me explore the interface of spirituality and theology. But mostly he insisted that it was impossible to think my way into transformation. Nor could I stay locked in my head if I wanted to live into the depth of God's grace. In time he asked me to practice "sitting quietly alone two times each day until I experienced being held in the palm of God's hands." It took a few months - and a lot of frustration and resistance, too - but one night it happened. Not in an earth-shattering way. And not like a a romantic, mountain top revelation. It was more like a still, small voice. Quietly, without fanfare, I realized that I was resting in the protection of God's love. 

Such is the blessing of contemplative prayer. It is experiential. It is of the heart not the head. It is slow-moving and unlocks grace from within and beyond. It awakes you to the promise of a transformed life. Letting go of self, we learn to die to what is false and honor what is true in real time. I like the way Rohr articulates the essence of this journey:

All prayer disciplines are somehow trying to get head and heart and

body to work as one, and that changes one’s thinking rather entirely. “The concentration of attention in the heart—this is the starting point of prayer,” says St. Theophane the Recluse, a nineteenth-century Russian mystic. Any other “handler” of your experience, including the rational mind or even mere intellectual theology, eventually distorts and destroys the beauty and healing power of the Big Truth. The second principle is that truth is on some level always beautiful—and healing—to those who honestly want truth. Big Truth cannot be angry, antagonistic, or forced on anyone, or it will inherently distort the message (as the common belief in a punitive God has done for centuries). The good, the true, and the beautiful are always their own best argument for themselves, by themselves, and in themselves. Such beauty, or inner coherence, is a deep inner knowing that both evokes the soul and even pulls the soul into All Oneness. Incarnation is beauty, and beauty always needs to be incarnate, that is specific, concrete, particular. We need to experience very particular, soul-evoking goodness in order to be shaken into what many call “realization.” It is often a momentary shock where you know you have been moved to a different plane of awareness.

Today my inward journey celebrates silence while also making time for the joy of spoken liturgy, worship, confession, prayers of petition and song. Both inward paths help me wander into my inner wilderness and practice letting go of control by trust. In still times and emptiness I begin to own my obsessions and name my pain. Rohr is truly persuasive when he teaches us that until our personal and collective pain is transformed by love, we will continue to inflict it upon others.

Pain teaches a most counterintuitive thing: we must go down before we even know what up is. In terms of the ego, most religions teach in some way that all must “die before they die.” Suffering of some sort seems to be the only thing strong enough to both destabilize and reveal our arrogance, our separateness, and our lack of compassion. I define suffering very simply as “whenever you are not in control.”  When religion cannot find a meaning for human suffering, human beings far too often become cynical, bitter, negative, and blaming. Healthy religion, almost without realizing it, shows us what to do with our pain, with the absurd, the tragic, the nonsensical, the unjust. If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it. If we cannot find a way to make our wounds into sacred wounds, we invariably give up on life and humanity... If there isn’t some way to find some deeper meaning to our suffering, to find that God is somehow in it, and can even use it for good, we will normally close up and close down. Mature religion is about transforming history and individuals so that we don’t keep handing the pain on to the next generation. 

.
This is my practice of the inward journey. There are many others and I don't pretend to know what works best for others. This discovery requires a ton of trial and error - and it is all good. Let me suggest a few resources that I have found valuable in my quest.

+ Dakota by Kathleen Norris
+ Open Mind, Open Heart by Thomas Keating
+ Pray All Ways by Edward Hays
+ The Other Side of Silence by Morton Kelsey
+ Listening to Your Life by Frederick Beuchner
+ Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor
+ Behold the Beauty of the Lord by Henri Nouwen
+ Immortal Diamond by Richard Rohr
+ Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer
+ The Heart of Centering Prayer by Cynthia Bourgeault

prayer, bread and music - part two

NOTE: This is part two of a series re: spirituality and growing deeper. The first appeared on January 1, 2019 under the title, Honoring the Start of 2019: Prayer, Bread and Music - Part One (https://rj-when lovecomestotown.blogspot. com/2019/01/honoring-start-of-2019-prayer-bread-and.html)

+

This morning I was at the public library picking up a few mystery novels to enjoy over the next two weeks. While chatting-up the librarian, he mentioned that I had a 10 cent fine. "Are you ok with me taking care of that next time as I don't have any change on me?" He smiled and said, "It won't go any where or get any bigger. No problem." At which point I felt a tap on my shoulder, "Would this help?" asked a woman of a certain age with a soft smile. She was handing me a dime. "You're too kind," I replied, "and what a grand way to pay it forward at the start of a New Year. Thank you." For a few seconds, we shared a sense of shalom at it hung in the silence between us. Then just as quickly as we recognized its presence, it was gone. I waved good-bye and headed out to my car, she smiled again and the librarian said quietly, "May I help whose next?"

It is my conviction and experience that little acts of compassion like this take place all over creation at every hour of every day. They are mostly small and usually hidden, meaning very little in isolation but contributing to the collective beauty and well-being of God's creation like it was in the beginning. Intuitively, whether we are consciously cultivating a spiritual life or not, I choose to trust that the image of God within us reminds us that we have a part to play in holding together the social fabric of our society. 

It can always be punctured or wounded, to be sure. Sometimes some of us are in such pain that we lose touch with our true selves and violate this sacred calling. The anguish we inflict on those we love - or on innocent victims - is staggering. Having been part of four local congregations and two social justice organizing movements over the past 40 years, I have seen excruciating human depravity and the consequences of unspeakable vengeance. Having been pastor to combat vets from WWII, Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf Wars, it is clear that whenever personal wounds become widespread through the perversion of truth and the manufacture and manipulation of fear, social chaos combines with unconscionable acts of violence to rule the day. Yet even when human suffering is massive and savagery lurks just beyond the shadows of consciousness, cruelty will never define the core of the human experience. For in the beginning we were created in the image of God. And God's mercy and steadfast love endure forever both within us and beyond, too. Victor Frank's words about surviving the Nazi death camps of Auschwitz, Theresienstadt, Kaufering and Türkheim warrant our consideration:

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way... It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.                     Man's Search for Meaning

In one of modernity's worst encounters, Frankl testifies to what others before and after him have learned to trust, too: love wins. Not in naiveté, never easily or gratuitously, but nevertheless consistently, persistently and dependably. I think of Sydney Schanberg and Dith Pran in the killing fields of Cambodia. Or Nelson Mandela imprisoned in South Africa. I think of Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Fannie Lou Hamer in the USA. Or Mallala Yousafzai in Pakistan. Or young Bana Alabed blogging for peace from Syria even as the regime's bombs fell. Each and all confirm in their own way the wisdom that St. Paul describes in I Corinthians 13:

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled. When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

Which brings me back to the worldwide organic commitment to sharing small acts of compassion on a daily basis: it is part of our DNA. It is both the how and the why of our creation. And the more we trust our truest self - our original self, the reality of compassion and tenderness that has been placed in our core since before there was time - the more we can live from the heart. This means that there is less energy for our wounded (or false) self to be actively hurtful in our lives - and  so more justice, trust, beauty and solidarity. Fr. Richard Rohr puts it well:

From the very beginning, faith, hope, and love are planted deep within our nature—indeed they are our very nature (Romans 5:5, 8:14-17). But we have to awaken, allow, and advance this core identity by saying a conscious yes to it and drawing upon it as a reliable and Absolute Source. The true and essential work of all religion is to help us recognize and recover the divine image in everything. When we see the image of God where we are not accustomed to seeing the image of God, then we see with eyes not our own. For the planet and for all living beings to move forward, we can rely on nothing less than an inherent original goodness and a universally shared dignity. Only then can we build, because the foundation is strong, and is itself good.

A friend on Facebook sent me another meme that cuts to the chase like this:

Spirituality is no longer abstract. Rather, it is the practice of finding our true and original self and strengthening that self inwardly and outwardly. There are, of course, a variety of ways to do this. The disciplines or practices of living from our heart and caring for our soul are how the words of wisdom become flesh. In my Christian tradition there are a host of spiritual paths to explore. In my next post I will share what I have discerned to date as the three, broad practices that work best for me: prayer, bread and music. 

honoring the start of 2019: prayer, bread and music - part one

An insightful meme showed up on FB that resonates with what I've been mulling over for this post at the close of 2018.

This is often how most of us feel about our faith journey: others look like they have ups and downs - and do - even as they move towards greater spiritual insight and maturity. In reality, however, this drawing needs to be corrected so that the lower picture reads: EVERYONE'S spiritual journey. Confusion, chaos, pain, joy, hope, fear, love, hate, dreams and deeds that are both good and bad are the truth for each of us - and every family, too. In reality, I think this meme is closer to the truth.

I recall like it was last week a conversation with the then Senior Minister of my first church in Saginaw, MI. It was perhaps six months after I started my ordained ministry in the local church. We were driving to a retreat house for two days of planning when he asked, "So what's the most important insight you've gleaned so far since leaving seminary?" It didn't take long for me to blurt out, "Oh, man, I am stunned by how much pain everyone is carrying around. On the surface, people look like they've got it all together. But with a little time and a little trust, the wounds just below the surface start pouring out." We finished our drive in silence.

Less than a year later I had the privilege of spending a week of study at the Hazelden Center in Minnesota. A middle aged couple sponsored me so that I might learn how to be present with addicts seeking to share a fourth and fifth step in the 12 Step process. The couple knew the prominence of pain in the human condition - and how often we mask it with alcohol and other diversions - as they were actively recovering alcoholics themselves. After our group was welcomed by the Hazelden staff, our first assignment was to spend some time constructing an honest gen-o-gram of our own family's history with addiction. I went back four generations and saw for the first time the depth and breadth of dis-ease and substance abuse that shaped my lineage. It was humbling and unsettling to objectively look at the pain, wounds, denial, damage and confusion in my family that I had accepted as normal. It was frightening, too to realize that I had not escaped the consequences of the sins (wounds) of my mothers and fathers that were now being "visited upon the third and fourth generation." (Exodus 20) At the end of the week, I sought out counseling and spiritual direction for the first time. The words of Moses in Deuteronomy 30 took on new significance:

I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you... I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days...

Candidly, I felt more like this drawing than Moses although we were both at the edge of the wilderness and close to the promised land. After that seminar it was clear that if I didn't live into and through my wounds, I would never be able to discover their wisdom.

Since that time, my spiritual journey has rested upon four touch stones:

• To give names to the wounds within so that I might learn their wisdom
• To trust that God's mysterious grace can transform my pain into embodied compassion for myself and others
• To practice contemplation as the pathway to peace 
• To be quietly present with others so that when they are ready to explore the wisdom of their wounds I can share a few clues

This journey has shown me that my suffering need not be useless: grace, honesty and patience can bring to birth a bit of humility and a measure of illumination. Part two of this reflection will suggest that the resources I have embraced as essential are prayer, bread and music.

the sacred wisdom of our tears...

For the past week, this quote from Frederick Buechner has been popping in and out of my thoughts:

YOU NEVER KNOW what may cause them. The sight of the Atlantic Ocean can do it, or a piece of music, or a face you've never seen before. A pair of somebody's old shoes can do it. Almost any movie made before the great sadness that came over the world after the Second World War, a horse cantering across a meadow, the high school basketball team running out onto the gym floor at the start of a game. You can never be sure. But of this you can be sure. Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go to next.
- Originally published in Whistling in the Dark

For the longest time, my tears have been an authentic spiritual guide although it took me decades to trust them. My earliest recollection that something holy was happening came about in second grade during a music appreciation series.  Our music teacher would play an important classical composition each afternoon. Before and after each song, she would tell us some of the background and history, too. For the rest of the week we would listen to it after lunch break. This is where I was introduced to "The William Tell Overture," "Flight of the Bumblebee," "Moonlight Sonata," "Danse Macabre" and others. What I recall is that I was moved to tears of joy while hearing "Scheherazade" over the course of one week. With my head on my desk and my eyes closed, I was transported to another realm of beauty and gentleness that still seems to be wrapped in a veil of turquoise. Apparently I didn't realize I was weeping until one day my teacher put her hand on my shoulder and whispered, "Jimmy, is everything alright?" It took a few seconds to come down from this rapture and re-enter this world. Drifting back into the third grade I realized I was wiping tears away from my dream-like fog. I smiled up at her an nodded silently.

Something similar happened later that year while visiting my grandparents over spring break. Aunt Donna, a mere five years older than me, loved "American Bandstand." When "The Stroll" by The Diamonds came on, she taught me how to do it in their living room - and I was full to overflowing again. During that same visit she told me about racial segregation while traveling in the Deep South. "Do you know that Negroes can't drink from the same water fountain as white people in Oklahoma?" she asked one night when we were supposed to be asleep. I had no idea what she was talking about so she explained a bit of the early Civil Rights movement to me - American apartheid - although she didn't use those words. "Can you imagine what that might feel like?" she asked in the darkness - and I was crying again - this time tears of sadness. Whodathunk that Rimsky-Korsacov, Rosa Parks and Doo Wop line dancing would be portals to the sacred?

My maternal grandfather died the next year. My aunts and grandma gathered at our house through the night and I felt waves of sorrow wash over us all. I had no idea what was actually happening, just that a heavy stillness hung over everyone in the morning. I wanted to cry but didn't know why. My dad kept me home from school that day - and stayed home from work, too. After mom, grandma and my aunts left for the funeral parlor, we walked and walked through the afternoon and he told me a little about death. We both cried at different times. It was my first encounter with deep loss and it ached from the inside out. The finality of death hurt like hell. At the same time, my father shared a level of tenderness with me in those shared tears that has lasted beyond his own death. Indeed, despite all our future battles - and there were many - we struck a bond that day that continues to live beyond the grave.

Looking backwards, the list of holy tears includes: JFK's assassination; the first time I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan; listening to MLK on TV during the March on Washington; Peter, Paul and Mary's version of "Blowin' in the Wind;" playing "Gimme Shelter" with my high school band; falling in love; breaking up; seeing the funerals of MLK and RFK on television; getting married; getting divorced; the births of my daughters; the joy of new love and commitment; getting married again; the anguish of saying good bye to loved ones in death; watching my daughter dance to "Simple Gifts;" listening to my daughter play the viola in concerts; walking in the woods; playing with our dogs; worship at St. John the Divine; singing Christmas carols in St. Petersburg; my first Easter vigil; singing carols at midnight on Christmas; the birth of my grandchildren; and on and on and on. For the longest time, I was embarrassed that these tears flowed so often. Thankfully a retreat leader in Cleveland said to me, "You are full to over-flowing with joy and grief. Let them come, ok? They are God's gift to you." It took decades before I could let go of the shame of these tears but now know that they are one of my connections to the sacred.

This past week was filled with tears and I was so blessed by them all. Walking and wandering in Ottawa with Di in the snow on the Winter Solstice made the city streets holy ground. Singing Christmas carols in community with my friends at L'Arche Ottawa gave birth to Jesus again. Driving from Ottawa to Brooklyn with the car radio tuned to "the sounds of the holidays" brought on the water works when John Lennon sang, "So This Is Christmas/ War is Over." Sitting next to Louie at St. Paul's in NYC before the Christmas Eve liturgy overwhelmed me with gratitude as did walking with him on Boxing Day. And holding Anna. And feasting with our extended family. And even picking up our wacky dog, Lucie, last night at journey's end. Buechner was spot on when he observed:

Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go to next. 

On this fourth day of Christmas I return thanks for the blessing of all these tears - and those still to come.

Christmas Pageant at L'Arche Ottawa

After wandering through Ottawa on the Winter Solstice

Christmas Eve pageant at St. Paul's NYC

a very charlie brownish advent...

Last night Di asked, "How does it feel NOT to be leading Christmas celebrations this year?" That's a lively question - perfect for the closing this phase of our mini-Advent get away. (After the L'Arche Christmas pageant this afternoon we head back to the USA to join our extended family for the festivities.) Over the next 90 minutes at dinner we spoke together of our personal and public experiences with this holiday, how this year feels so very different for us both, and raises questions that we trust can be clarified as 2019 takes shape.

Clearly, I do not miss leading public worship this year. I thought I would as it has been central to my theological and personal observance of this season. But for now: no. I am at peace mostly resting in this season. Both of us look forward to being in worship as grandparents with our children and grandchildren on Christmas Eve. I have no desire to critique the preacher's Christmas message or carp about the flow (or lack thereof) of the liturgy. I have not prepared a stealth Christmas homily to share with the guests at Tuesday's feast. Nor have I any real desire to do anything but quietly soak up the blessings however they may arrive. Now I simply want to sit with our grand babies and sing carols with them - not at them - side by side. I want to help with caring for the little ones while momma and poppa set the table. i want to pick up the trash after the gifts are open and simply soak up the whole experience as thoroughly sacred knowing it will never come again. 

In many ways, this is the first year I have been free to practice what I once preached for decades: watch, wait, listen and receive the blessings that are sure to come in surprising and hidden ways. God is being born where we least expect to find the holy. In the past, there were rehearsals to organize, liturgies to write, trees to buy, meals to plan, pastoral emergencies to honor and so much more. Not so right now. And that is how Advent has unfolded for me: quietly, privately and with almost no expectations. To be totally honest, without the weight of my expectations and those of others, I feel rested and free. Like the late Henri Nouwen wrote:

Where is God? God is where we are weak, vulnerable, small and dependent. God is where the poor are, the hungry, the handicapped, the mentally ill, the elderly, the powerless. How can we come to know God when our focus is elsewhere, on success, influence, and power? I increasingly believe that our faithfulness will depend on our willingness to go where there is brokenness, loneliness, and human need.

This year, more than in year's past, I am finally trusting this to be true. Another change that is rising to the surface this year has to do with how we mark the festival. In the past, the ritual of decorating the house has been important to our family. Not only do we all enjoy creating beautiful and warm environments for guests and family, but after so many years our decorations are ripe with history. There are sentimental memories, to be sure, as well as important family stories worth telling and retelling as ornaments are unwrapped and added to this year's tree. As I realized during last night's conversation, my theology of this holy season has not changed much - maybe gone a little deeper - but what I don't yet know is how to practice it. What is my older, retired, grandfather spirituality of this season that used to be so public and is now profoundly private? That's still to be revealed. I am rather moved by Robert Bly's oblique insight on this in his poem, "Think in ways you've never thought before."

Think in ways you’ve never thought before.
If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message
Larger than anything you’ve ever heard,
Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats.

Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,
Maybe wounded and deranged; or think that a moose
Has risen out of the lake, and he’s carrying on his antlers
A child of your own whom you’ve never seen.

When someone knocks on the door, think that he’s about
To give you something large: tell you you’re forgiven,
Or that it’s not necessary to work all the time, or that it’s
Been decided that if you lie down no one will die.

Next year? It will likely all be different. Less travel for sure. More time with the family, too. Maybe even a new home? Lots of changes are on the horizon. One constant that kept popping up this Advent was my old friend Vince Guaraldi: at home on the CD player, in clubs, on the street, in shops and on the guitars of holiday buskers at the market everyone was playing tunes from "A Charlie Brown Christmas." And mostly "O Christmas Tree," too. Whatever else that music means for others, its feels slightly blue to me. Not sad and certainly not despairing. But indigo. A little bit playful with the tradition, a little be weary of how little time remains. Very Charlie Brownish - humble, alone, tender and looking for deeper connections.

advent wandering feeds my soul...

In so many ways this year's observance of Advent has been different from year's past. Beyond the obvious absence of opting-out of a worship community, we are in a genuinely stripped-down mode. Much of the last calendar year was shaped by de-accessorizing. Small wonder the minimalist mode has continued into our spiritual practices: candles, fairy lights and chant seems to rule the day.

In many ways, this is as it should be: having stepped back from public ministry in most of its forms, this is our unique time for being intentionally small, quiet and hidden. Di has been working vigorously since August at her on-line teaching gig. Since November she's been dealing with the return of chronic back pain, too. There has been precious little opportunity for us to be still together. Alone, yes, but not together to reflect on the blessings and challenges of this year. Or simply share our thoughts and feelings as we move through these strange, perplexing, broken but joyful times. 

That's probably why last August we intuitively set aside a few unstructured days to wander without commitment in the mid-winter beauty of Ottawa. Of course we wanted to celebrate the Lord's birth at the L'Arche Christmas Pageant. These dear friends have become a part of my heart. And now that our grandchildren are getting older, the time is right for us to travel to them and join our extended family in Brooklyn for feasting on Christmas Day. This year, you see, there is no longer any external pressure for us to be engaged or connected - and for two introverts this is a gift, indeed! Not that I would trade welcoming the Christ Child as we did for decades in church for anything. It was a privilege to lead Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Eucharist and I cherished it all. 

But that was then and this is now - and the stillness feels right. Yesterday we walked and walked, stopping in little shops from time to time to find gifts for our children and grandkids, before heading back into the mist for more exploring. It was the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year in our parts, so as the dark descended we found an appropriately Celtic pub and hoisted a pint in honor of the coming light. Then retired to listen to carols from Brittany and Ireland. I suspect that today will be
much the same.

Back in our days of public ministry, we would take similar wee trips every 8 weeks or so just to get away from the demands of being on. And while those days are over, Di said, "I felt a weight lift as soon as we crossed the New York border." She was right. One of the truths we'e discerned in this year of beholding what God is already bringing into our lives is that as much as we love our little house in the Berkshires, its time to move on. Where, exactly, is not yet clear, but one chapter is over even as a new one is unfolding. It will likely become a complete surprise, too.

That's another blessing. Having these two days alone lets conversations bubble

up and then go deep. Little by little the mystery of this new life is taking shape. There is much more to be revealed - and that cannot be hurried - so here's to more wandering, yes? It feels a bit a pilgrimage where the journey is every bit as valuable as the destination. We came upon this giant Christmas tree last night as we stumbled upon a new street we'd never traveled. I know from my past life that this wandering doesn't make sense to some friends: "make a plan and do it" they would demand! But the holy doesn't speak to either of us on command. I don't think she ever does. The Russian poet, Anna Ahkmatova, got it right in "I Taught Myself to Live Simply."

I taught myself to live simply and wisely,
to look at the sky and pray to God,
and to wander long before evening
to tire my superfluous worries.
When the burdocks rustle in the ravine
and the yellow-red rowanberry cluster droops
I compose happy verses
about life's decay, decay and beauty.
I come back. The fluffy cat
licks my palm, purrs so sweetly
and the fire flares bright
on the saw-mill turret by the lake.
Only the cry of a stork landing on the roof
occasionally breaks the silence.
If you knock on my door
I may not even hear.

what is being born within me this advent...

This year, for about 20 dollars and some attentive shopping at second hand stores, I was able to find four Advent music CDs for Dianne. The sounds of this season have always been as important to how we enter this sacred time as the sights and smells. Maybe more so as a few candles and a little evergreen are enough decorations if the right music is playing. My gifts included a collection of French carols, the tunes of Advent/Christmas in Celtic Brittany and The Virgin's Lament from the Glenstal Abbey in Ireland. Yes, we have a few popular culture holiday albums and CDs, too - my favorite being Vince Guaraldi's Charlie Brown Christmas that I have played relentlessly this year, but there's also Amy Grant, Bing Crosby, Sheryl Crow, Diana Krall and more than a few of the Windham Hill collections but mostly its the medieval chants or those using the instruments of the Gaelic world that capture our attention.

As everything about this year has shifted given my retirement and Di's work with on-line teaching, we chose to make our Advent/Christmas celebrations different, too. No Christmas tree for us because we're going to Brooklyn for the feast of the Nativity. We'll worship on Christmas Eve with Louie and his momma at Trinity/St. Paul's in Manhattan and then feast with their clan. We'' visit with the Massachusetts folk on the Feast of the Epiphany at the end of this season's cycle. And we're heading up to Ottawa tomorrow to be with our L'Arche friends and their Christmas pageant. We'll take in a craft fair or two, get a few simple gifts, stop by our favorite pub, walk in a nature reserve, and celebrate the Christmas story in community. 

This Advent, like every year, has been pregnant with its own charism. At first I couldn't grasp what was striving to be born within me. I knew it was dark. And quiet. And stripped down. That's probably why I kept playing the opening cut from Vince Guaraldi's Charlie Brown Christmas over and over. It is his jazz trio's take on O Tannenbaum - wistful, creative and rhythmic without ever becoming sentimental - a song rooted in tradition but made completely new through their careful improvisation. I think that's what is taking shape in my heart: a gentle playfulness with my spiritual tradition that seeks to let go of sentimentality. 

In Gertrud Mueller-Nelson's To Dance with God, a text I have referred to often this Advent, she writes:

Sentimentality is the emotion we feel when we scoop off a part of the truth, that part which we are willing to accept, and slather it like syrup to cover what we do not want to see. Usually what we don't want to see is our own responsibility to the remaining truth. A half-truth is a very dangerous thing, because it is a lie... 

Advent/Christmas has long been filled with unrealistic expectations for me as a parent, a spouse, a pastor. Now I can let go of those half-truths and demands. Now I can be as tender and quiet as I have ached to be for decades. Now I can rest in the dark, simple silence of this song and let the Spirit speak to me as she will. That's what it feels like is being born within me this Advent: the freedom to follow the Spirit more simply, more playfully, more honestly even through the darkness. This poem, "Adult Advent Announcement" by David Redding, gets close to what it stirring as we move closer to Christmas.

O Lord,

Let Advent begin again

In us,

Not merely in commercials;

For that first Christmas was not

Simply for children,

But for the

Wise and the strong.

It was

Crowded around that cradle,

With kings kneeling.

Speak to us

Who seek an adult seat this year.

Help us to realize,

As we fill stockings,

Christmas is mainly

For the old folks —

Bent backs

And tired eyes

Need relief and light

A little more.

No wonder

It was grown-ups

Who were the first

To notice

Such a star.

finding my true self in little, hidden prayers of silence...

The Anglican mystic, Evelyn Underhill, certainly had a way with words. One Christmas observation cuts to the chase: 

Human nature is like a stable inhabited by the ox of passion and the ass of prejudice; animals which take up a lot of room and which I suppose most of us are feeding on the quiet. And it is there between them, pushing them out, that Christ must be born and in their very manger he must be laid – and they will be the first to fall on their knees before him. Sometimes Christians seem far nearer to those animals than to Christ in his simple poverty, self-abandoned to God.

 

Who could question her blunt clarity this year as so-called people of faith bray-on about a non-existent "war on Christmas," spend enormous amounts of money and time on holiday gifts meant to honor the babe in the manger while living children are abused, ridiculed and left to die of dehydration along our southern border with Mexico?  Sometimes, indeed, we Christians seem far nearer to those animals than to Christ in his simple poverty and self-abandonment to God. Perhaps it is always true in our world that there is an abundance of cruel darkness and only a tiny light.

Henri Nouwen confessed that he, too, like me, "keeps expecting loud and impressive events" to arrive in bold ways to redress injustice and usher in the realm of comfort and joy. Yet over and again, "our salvation comes from something small, tender, and vulnerable, something hardly noticeable. God, who is the Creator of the Universe, comes to us in smallness, weakness, and hiddenness." As the prophet Isaiah wrote: A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. (Isaiah 11: 1-2)

Advent encourages me to  reclaim, however haltingly, the practice of inner silence. As Fr. Richard Rohr writes in his daily reflections: cultivating contemplation keeps our unrealistic expectations in check. It nourishes balance rather than feeding despair. And invites us to see the blessings in the small and often hidden presence of the holy.

I’m convinced that once you learn how to look out at life from the contemplative eyes of the True Self, your politics and economics are going to change on their own. I don’t need to teach you what your politics should or shouldn’t be. Once you see things contemplatively, you’ll begin to seek the bias from the bottom instead of the top, you’ll be free to embrace your shadow, and you can live at peace with those who are different. From a contemplative stance, you’ll know what action is yours to do—and what is not yours to do—almost naturally.

Rohr quotes the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, concerning the importance for those who engage in social justice to also bathe their hearts in silent contemplation. As one of my mentors used to say: Contemplation is NOT navel gazing, but rather taking a long, loving look at what is real.

[Contemplation] is very far from being just one kind of thing that Christians do: it is the key to prayer, liturgy, art and ethics, the key to the essence of a renewed humanity that is capable of seeing the world and other subjects in the world with freedom—freedom from self-oriented, acquisitive habits and the distorted understanding that come from them. To put it boldly, contemplation is the only ultimate answer to the unreal and insane world that our financial systems and our advertising culture and our chaotic and unexamined emotions encourage us to inhabit. To learn contemplative prayer is to learn what we need so as to live truthfully and honestly and lovingly. It is a deeply revolutionary matter. (http://email.cac.org/t/ViewEmail/d/2DDB91A
4DE6041972540EF23F30FEDED/1FA396565E084E10A10BC276F201ED4B)

With candles and Advent music my practice has been simple: I sit in the dark stillness, breathing in, breathing out. "Come, Lord Jesus" breathing in; "Have mercy on me" breathing out. Nothing fancy, nothing complicated. More often than not, my monkey-mind leads me into places I didn't know existed. I wish after all these years I was better at this. But as the masters of Centering Prayer suggest, when I realize I have wandered, its time to return to my breathing prayers. No scolding or shame allowed, just a gentle return to God's quiet blessing. This tenderness links me to the prayers of Jesus. Nouwen wrote:  

The small child of Bethlehem, the unknown young man of Nazareth, the rejected preacher, the naked man on the cross, he (is the one who) asks for my full attention. The work of our salvation takes place in the midst of a world that continues to shout, scream, and overwhelm us with its claims and promises. But the promise is hidden in the shoot that sprouts from the stump, a shoot that hardly anyone notices.

credits:

+ Susan Schleck @ http://www.ecva.org/exhibition/icons/pages/schleck.html

+ Allendale UMC

+ Me

now I know why I travel to L'Arche Ottawa...

On the Henri Nouwen Society's Advent site, he reflects on Psalm 126:5 like this:

Keep your eyes on the prince of peace, the one who doesn't cling to his divine power; the one who refuses to turn stones into bread, jump from great heights and rule with great power; the one who says, "Blessed are the poor, the gentle, those who mourn, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; blessed are the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers and those who are persecuted in the cause of uprightness" (see Matt. 5:3-11); the one who touches the lame, the crippled, and the blind; the one who speaks words of forgiveness and encouragement; the one who dies alone, rejected and despised. Keep your eyes on him who becomes poor with the poor, weak with the weak, and who is rejected with the rejected. He is the source of all peace. Where is this peace to be found? The answer is clear. In weakness. First of all, in our own weakness, in those places of our hearts where we feel most broken, most insecure, most in agony, most afraid. Why there? Because there, our familiar ways of controlling our world are being stripped away; there we are called to let go from doing much, thinking much, and relying on our self-sufficiency. Right there where we are weakest the peace which is not of this world is hidden.

It has taken me most of my life to trust that this is true. I have always believed that I must be in control in order to be at rest. Safe. At peace. Some 18 years ago, however, I melted down. Striving to stay in control led me to a breakdown of sorts where the only peace I could imagine involved running away. Thanks be to God there was a wise and clear-headed spiritual director in my life at that time who helped me stay put. Wander in the wilderness, he encouraged me, let it hurt and force you to your knees. Feel it all. And then, maybe if you're lucky, your grief and shame will help you trust God. 

In time, it did. Not easily. Not quickly. But authentically. "Right there where we are weakest, the peace which is not of this world, is hidden." It took me about twenty years to hit bottom. I am a very slow learner. Stubborn and arrogant, too. I don't bring my wounds to the surface very easily and can distract myself with good things for decades. I thought of that today when finally, after 4+ years of sitting in my basement, we finally found a resting place for my father's antique deacon's bench.

It was always my favorite piece of furniture in my grandmother's house and then when it joined my family. And when my dad came to the realization that he could no longer live by himself, he asked if I would keep it in the family. My sisters had already done herculean work in cleaning, sorting, handling the sale of the property and getting him relocated. They had taken a lot of the things that were not put in the estate sale, too. But no one had room for this old bench that had been in my grandparent's parsonage during the Great Depression. It was a joy to drive down to Maryland and bring it back to Massachusetts. My dad died just six months later.

Perhaps that's one of the reasons I couldn't bring it upstairs: it takes me a long, long time to welcome my wounds. I didn't grieve for him in any obvious way for three years. It took me almost seven years to acknowledge feelings of loss after my mom died. In the peace of this weakness, however, I've come to trust that God's timetable is perfect. Three years. Seven years. Immediately. However it ripens, that's what is best. I know it took Nouwen decades to truly trust that the grace of God - and the Lord's healing peace - could be his, too. He had to crash and burn before he was ready to relinquish trying to be in charge, too.

Since my crashing and burning time, however, I have worked at practicing waiting on the Lord. Not perfectly at all and often haltingly and reluctantly. I think that's what practice is: getting it wrong over and over on the path to getting it right. Not long ago the importance of such waiting came to me while I was sharing a homily at the close of a L'Arche Ottawa retreat. Since starting to volunteer and visit, people have asked me, "Why do you drive 6+ hours each way to come here?" As one of the border patrol officers on the US side asked, "Isn't there someplace closer for you to go?" Well, sure, but those who trust the Spirit of the Lord know that proximity is not always where we're called to be, right? St. Paul had to make extensive trips beyond his comfort zone. Many of the other early followers of Jesus did, too. My answer to those who want a clear, logical and linear reply never seems satisfying: "I go to Ottawa because that's where I feel God wants me." 

So, I was reflecting on the peculiarity of my situation in this homily, and linking it to the experience of both the core members of L'Arche as well as the many young assistants who come from all over the world to experience L'Arche. In one of the homes where I have shared meals there is a house leader from India, an assistant from Kenya, another from Jamaica and another from Japan. In the first home I started to connect with the house leader had taught in the States, one of the assistants was a lawyer from Paris, another a woman from Mexico, an other a woman from Uganda as well as a man from Germany. True, they are in residence and I have been driving up for the past three years, but still these are souls who are trusting the wisdom and timing of the Spirit.

In the middle of my homily the significance of this truth hit me: back when I was very young, most likely about fourth grade, my grandmother and I were talking about religion. She was the spouse of a Unitarian minister and I told her I didn't really like going to their Sunday School. The more we talked, the more clearly I realized that I was searching for an encounter with the holy. "I want to see the face of God!" I announced during this talk. Grandma Deanne was clearly uncomfortable with my piety and brought the conversation quickly to and end. But my passion for the sacred wasn't over.

That's when it all clicked and I said to my friends gathered for Eucharist. "I have been waiting for nearly 55 years for an experience with God's face. And just now it hit me that you, L'Arche Ottawa, you are the answer to my quest. You show me the face of the Lord Jesus the way he taught us in Matthew 25: "Whatsoever you do unto the least of these my sisters and brothers, you do unto me." Now I know the reason why I drive 6+ hours each way to be with you: you are the answer to my prayer. I've been waiting a long, long time to see the face of the Lord - and now I have." There was a brief silence before one of the core members smiled at me and said softly, "Yes... we are Jesus in a wheel chair."

More and more I know that those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, indeed. I am not in control of God's time table. I often resist and misunderstand. But the peace that passes understanding is waiting there for me in my weakness - and it is the best peace of all.