dance me to the end of love: let those who have ears to hear...

Forty years ago, my mentor in ministry, the Rev. Dr. Ray Swartzback (pictured here with his wise and beloved Jane) often closed his weekly sermon saying: "Let those who have ears to hear, hear." His prophetic admonition took up residence in my heart. As a theological neophyte, a young man without adequate comprehension of the life-changing implications of this summons, those eight words spoke deep unto deep. Somewhere in the still hidden recesses of my heart, I was being fed - and hungered for more. As is often the case for me, this yearning first took me back into the Scriptures. Six times in the New Testament gospels and seven times in Revelation, Jesus invites us to wrestle with this challenge:

St. Matthew: Matthew 11 finds Jesus explaining the importance of John the Baptist to some of the Baptizer's disciples noting that John was the
personification of Israel's prophetic spirituality under the law. Jesus then clarifies the way his own ministry of tenderness differs from John's calling even as it embodies the essence of the prophetic charism: "The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers[ are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them." (11: 5) Likening John to Elijah, Jesus concludes by suggesting that John had a job to do, and he did it to completion - and now a new era has begun for "those with ears to hear."
Matthew 13 is the parable of the sower where Jesus speaks about people who react to God's love in four different ways: some miss the blessing entirely, others are enthralled quickly but lack depth and dry up, some have the grace squeezed out of them by their harsh environment, and a few go deep and yield bountiful blessings for others. So "let those who have ears to hear: hear." Later in chapter 13 there is an explanation of this parable with a fiery apocalyptic conclusion (13: 40-43.)

St. Mark: Chapter 4 is the original written form of the parable of the sower that is restated in Matthew 13.

St. Luke: There are two uses of the phrase in St. Luke's gospel. Luke 4 is a later treatment of the parable of the sower; Luke 14 articulates the challenge at the close of a series of parables concerning the cost of discipleship: "“Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

The Apocalypse of John: Throughout the second and third chapters, the Alpha and Omega speaks directly to the seven churches of Asia Minor about their essence: some are faithful, some are lukewarm, and some have forsaken the grace of God entirely. After each judgment (2:7, 2: 11, 2: 17, 2: 29, 3: 6, 3: 13, 3: 22) a common challenge is pronounced: "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches."

There are a few other places in the Hebrew Bible that offer clues about the words Jesus uses to call us into discipleship. The first would be the Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is One!" Another comes from the wisdom tradition of Proverbs 8:34: "Happy are those who listen and hear the word of the Lord." But my favorite comes from Psalm 40:6: "Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required." I particularly like the late Eugene Peterson's brilliant explication of the metaphor:

Literally it reads “ears thou hast dug for me...” The Hebrew verb is dug. Imagine a head with no ears. A blockhead. Eyes, nose, and mouth, but no ears. Where ears are usually found there is only a smooth, impenetrable surface, granitic bone. God speaks, no response... So God gets a pick and shovel and digs through the cranial granite opening a passage that will give access to the interior depths, to the mind and heart. Or imagine... something like wells that have been stopped up with refuse: cultural noise, throw-away gossip, garbage chatter. Our ears are so clogged that we cannot hear God speak... so God redigs our ears filled with audio trash... (and in this) our eyes become ears to hear. (Eugene Peterson, Working the Angles, pp. 101-102)

The Bible offers two broad insights into what it means for "those who have ears to hear." One has to do with the Scriptures themselves: how do I hear about/learn from/and live into the grace of the Lord? Peterson's interpretation has been foundational. One path has to do with letting the holy help me get rid of the cultural noise and audio trash with silence. Not with more words, but rather with the simplicity of "being still so that I can know..." To be sure, my immersion into the texts of my tradition gives a context for trusting the sacred nature of the silence. I think of Elijah in I Kings 19: 11-13 where the prophet is instructed by God to: “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord... and there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence." It is in the still, small voice of silence - the emptiness and quiet - that the holy can be heard. The late Thomas Keating, master of Centering Prayer, put it like this:

Without thinking or feeling some emotion, there is just awareness. There is no desire for bliss, enlightenment, or to teach others. Things are just as they are. In that so called emptiness, enjoyment arises of itself. As soon as we try to enjoy it, the enjoyment ceases. Somehow at the bottom of emptiness (openness, pure awareness) there is the Divine Presence and the peace that surpasses all understanding.

Being grounded in Scripture taught me that Jesus practiced being in this silence, too. The gospels remind us that he often went out to a quiet, lonely place to simply rest into God's presence. But Scripture is just one way of learning to be still and hear and learn to hear what our ears can hear. The other implied path in the Bible is to choose everyday to discover the delights all around and within us. Maria Popova wrote this morning about one of her favorite books this year: Rob Gay's The Book of Delights. 

Each day, beginning on his forty-second birthday and ending on his forty-third, Gay composed one miniature essay — “essayettes,” he calls them, in that lovely poet’s way of leavening meaning with makeshift language — about a particular delight encountered that day, swirled around his consciousness to extract its maximum sweetness. (Delight, he tells us, means “out from light,” sharing etymological roots with delicious and delectable.) What emerges is not a ledger of delights passively logged but a radiant lens actively searching for and magnifying them, not just with the mind but with the body as an instrument of wonder-stricken presence — the living-gladness counterpart to Tolstoy’s kindred-spirited but wholly cerebral Calendar of Wisdom. Page after page, small joy after small joy, one is reminded — almost with the shock of having forgotten — that delights are strewn about this world like quiet, inappreciable dew-drops, waiting for the sunshine of our attention to turn them into gold.

This is to my soul the essence of incarnation. It is the loving practice of our words becoming flesh. A way of living sacramentally wherein the first word of the Lord - creation and nature and all that exists - become a partner for us to dance with into the fullness of our existence. Popova adds:

In a passage evocative of those delicious lines from Mary Oliver’s serenade to life — “there is so much to admire, to weep over / and to write music or poems about” — he adds: "It didn’t take me long to learn that the discipline or practice of writing these essays occasioned a kind of delight radar. Or maybe it was more like the development of a delight muscle. Something that implies that the more you study delight, the more delight there is to study… I felt my life to be more full of delight. Not without sorrow or fear or pain or loss. But more full of delight. I also learned this year that my delight grows — much like love and joy — when I share it."

I can't help but think of Leonard Cohen, my totally mixed-up mentor, who both danced with and wrestled with his flesh in the presence of God's spirit. At times, there was joy, often there was suffering; and more often than not there was no clear distinction between the start of suffering and the end of joy. He grasped the blessing of sacramental living as well as its curse. He knew the breath-taking awe of life even as he experienced the suffocating agony. From the very beginning, his poems and music articulated a paradox with a sensual irony that often felt like prayers.

As my tradition's season of Advent moves into its conclusion this Sunday, I can see that my journey towards Bethlehem is every bit as convoluted as was that of Brother Lenny: just as joyous, just as sad, just as exalted, just  as human, and always just as tarnished. As the journey continues, in the midst of the mess of this season, I continue to hear an invitation: let those who have ears to hear even as we close in on Christmas.

credits:
+ Ray and Jane Swartzback
+ Shema @ https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4089302/jewish/10-Facts-Every-Jew-Should-Know-About-the-Shema-Prayer.htm
+ Still Small Voice @ https://astillsmallvoice.org/writings/

+ James Lumsden

the wisdom of tears...

Nearly every night during Advent and Christmastide, I sit silently in the glow of the Christmas tree lights and the Advent wreath candles before bed - and wait. Sometimes I sit in the silence. Other times I add a CD by Loreena McKinnit or Medieval Babes and let their haunting melodies take me to wherever the music wants me to go. 

I rarely have any idea what I am waiting for. Just, as Anne Lamott says about grace that, "(While) I do not at all understand the mystery of grace (it is clear that it not) only meets us where we are, but does not leave us where it found us." These night journeys often evoke tears: tears of joy for those I cherish, tears of sorrow for the ways I have wounded those i love, tears of remorse for the amends I haven't yet accomplished, tears of awe for the beauty all around me, and tears of fear for the escalating danger that defines this moment in time. In the early days, I had no idea why I wept. But slowly, fearfully, and then lovingly, I started to accept my tears rather then fight them. For within there is a unique wisdom waiting to be revealed. For decades I have long trusted the poet, Pat Mora, to be open-hearted and grounded guide into the wisdom of weeping.

The desert is powerless
when thunder shakes the hot air
and unfamiliar raindrops slide
on rocks, sand, mesquite,
when unfamiliar raindrops overwhelm
her, distort her face.
But after the storm, she breathes deeply,
caressed by a fresh sweet calm.
My Mother smiles rainbows.

When I feel shaken, powerless
to stop my bruising sadness,
I hear My Mother Whisper:

          Mi'ja

don't fear your hot tears
cry away the storm, then listen, listen.

Two nights ago my tears said to me: "Hello darkness my old friend, I've come to talk with you again..." Smiling at the irony I realized that right now it feels as if we are not simply circling closer to the darkness of the Winter Solstice (for a stunning celebration, check out the live streaming of Paul Winter's festival from St. John the Divine tonight at 7:30 at this website: @ http: //solsticeconcert. com), but we're descending into an obscurity of political fear, grief, and violence unlike anything the majority of Americans have known. Brother Paul's lyrics kept popping up: "And the people bowed and prayed to the neon gods they made; and the signs flashed out its warning in the words it was forming, and the sign said the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls and whisper in the sounds of silence." Our consumerism has not saved us. The world is on fire. Our arrogance and violence has not saved us. We are more afraid than ever before. Our science and technology has not saved us. We know what needs to be done but can't find a way to break out of our greed and ignorance. Our brash and vulgar way of being bullies in the wider world has not saved us. We are the laughing stock of Europe, the lap dog of Putin's oligarchs, and a fading empire with no moral authority. Geneen Marie Haugen captured this dilemma well in her Wild Faith blog: 

How do we hold both the magnificence and tragedy of the world, as if we stand at a threshold with Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and endings, looking in two directions? How do we find the way if we can't see around the bend? In our time of disturbance and radical change, we are crossing a threshold, a portal, or an unseen bridge from one world to another. It could be said that the bridge is either collapsing beneath us, or being made as we walk together. 

Snark is not sufficient for this season; nor is it a strategy for strengthening the soul for the anguish still to come. Slipping back into the privilege of our self-righteous, ideological critiques does nothing to train us in embracing both the magnificence and tragedy of this moment in history. But our silent tears do. They open our hearts to reality. They instruct us in the discipline of listening rather than speaking. They lead us beyond ourselves. They soothe us within and nudge us outwardly towards paradoxical solidarity with everyone else who weeps. Often tears are how the Spirit speaks to God's people. In my tradition, the shortest sentence in our Scriptures is: Jesus wept. It tells us he prayed with his eyes. He listened with his heart. He learned to trust his sighs too deep for human words. 

In the days to come we shall need to have safe places where we can learn the wisdom of our wounds - and maybe practice trusting our tears. This invitation of the Spirit cuts beyond religious differences. It invites us into the realm of the Beloved Community that exists beyond faith, culture, race, gender, class, and age, respecting all without a singular allegiance. Rilke gives us a clue about this new way of being in a complicated time:

Quiet friend who has come so far,

feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change...

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent Earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.

PS - After posting this - and a few others during Advent - a friend wrote to me and asked, "Why are you writing so many sad blog posts? Are you depressed?" Part of me was bit annoyed and I wanted to reply: "Aren't you paying attention!?!" But my better angels prevailed and I said, "No, not depressed. Sad? Yes. Frightened? Without a doubt. Uncertain? Absolutely. But I am not depressed." In my heart there is a joy born of trust. I trust, beyond what is obvious, that God's love is greater than all our brokenness, greed, and violence. Like our Lady my "spirit rejoices in God my savor" and I hold all these things in my heart.

I have also come to know that in times of trial there are two essentials: solidarity with compassionate fellow travelers, and, prayer. Solidarity with compassionate fellow travelers means community: a small, safe place where we can take care of one another. Feed one another. Hold one another. Listen and weep, laugh and sing, bring solace and peace when the world has gone to hell - as it does from time to time. And prayer can mean any type of opening our hearts so that we can nourish trust. Some call it faith. I believe trust is better for me because trust doesn't imply any theology, doctrine or abstract thinking. Community and trust is what will see us through the coming darkness.

So please, don't fret for me, ok? Just make certain you are connected with those who love you and you can count on because you're going to need them. If you already have a spiritual discipline of prayer, keep at it. If not, it is not too late to make one your own. If you need help, send me a note and I can offer a variety of suggestions so that you, too can nourish the love within.

quiet... it is enough

In a recent biography of the late Jean Vanier, founder of L'Arche, there is an exquisite little passage about silence:

Teresa of Avila spoke about the prayer of quiet... (It is) a very beautiful word, quiet. It retains something of the physical. The whole body is in a state of silence, repose. Simply sitting down is sufficient and... being contented, without ideas, without thoughts, just simply being contented!... (this) gives the soul the profound sensation of tasting happiness and peace."
(Anne-Sophie Constant, Jean Vanier: Portrait of a Free Man, p. 42)

In its earliest Old French (c. 1300 CE) quiet meant the absence of strife and freedom from conflict. As life changed, quiet came to describe what a body experienced after exertion: physical and emotional tranquility. That we have narrowed its meaning over the ages to speak only of silence - the absence of sound - suggests a monosyllabic parable to me.

These days I thirst for quiet: it seems to be the only prayer I can offer. I have no words for this moment - except for my centering prayer mantra by day - and a few dozen Hail Marys each night. The poet, W.S. Merwin, put it bittersweetly in his evocative,"Thanks."

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
standing by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
taking our feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is


Henri Nouwen captured some of this season, too in this short rumination:

The small child of Bethlehem, the unknown young man of Nazareth, the rejected preacher, the naked man on the cross, he 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. I remember seeing a film on the human misery and devastation brought by the bomb on Hiroshima. Among all the scenes of terror and despair emerged one image of a man quietly writing a word in calligraphy. All his attention was directed to writing that one word. That image made this gruesome film a hopeful film. Isn’t that what God is doing? Writing the divine word of hope in the midst of our dark world?

Into this darkness, I have only candles and quiet to bring to the table. And like the the lone voice crying in the wilderness of "In the Bleak Midwinter," it is enough.

Angels and Archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But only His Mother in her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a Shepherd I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him, give my heart.credits:
+ https://hybridpedagogy.org/essential-silence/
+ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/67905906853090702/

the love of mary shared by jesus...

In the present as in the past, my wandering disorientation during Advent usually comes back into focus by Gaudete Sunday, the third of four holy days, when the Shepherd's Candle is lit. As noted before, I am often ready for the first Sunday when the Prophet's candle of hope is kindled. After that I become distracted and have to play catch up during Advent II if the Bethlehem candle of faith is to be lit - and I'm usually late. By Advent III the new rhythm is starting to take root and I find I am looking forward to lighting the Shepherd's candle of joy as I anticipate the Angel's candle of love on Advent IV. 

On December 17, a week before Christmas, the monastic tradition adds the "O Antiphons" to the daily office of song and prayer. They are the ancient Latin names for the Messiah including wisdom, God, Root of Jesse, Key of David, Dayspring, Ruler of Nations, God with us. As my friend, Pam, notes in her fun, insightful and lovely articulation of the O Antiphon tradition: there is a hidden message in these ancient prayers - a playful acrostic - that can be decoded like this:

Drop the beginning O’s. The first letter of each line then spell S-A-R-C-O-R-E. Reverse the order of those letters, to make two words: ERO CRAS. n Latin “Ero cras” means “Tomorrow I will be” or “I will be present.” It all leads to Emmanuel — “God with us.

O Sapientia (Wisdom) — Proverbs 1: 20
O Adonai (God) — Isaiah 40: 9-10
O Radix Jesse (Root of Jesse) — Isaiah 11:10
O Clavis David (Key of David) — Isaiah 22:22
O Oriens (Dayspring) — Isaiah 9:2
O Rex Gentium (Ruler of the nations) — Isaiah 2: 4
O Emmanuel (God with us) — Isaiah 7: 14

(Pam McCallister, "Ask Her about Hymn(s)" @ https:

//askherabouthymn.com. For a familiar way to sing these prayers, please see The New Century Hymnal's reworking of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel.")

My heart rejoices in singing the O Antiphons. I also grow closer to the holy whenever Mary's "Magnificat" is included in the liturgy. The Roman Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran traditions always insert this song of praise for the Psalm on Advent III, but many of the Reformed churches do not to our collective loss. The text is brilliant - and it has trained me to consider this week in Advent as a time to honor Mary.

My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has looked upon his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed:

My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

The Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation.

My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

He has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel

for he has remembered his promise of mercy,

My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

For one who did not grow up with any connection to Our Lady,my devotion to Mary has matured over the years as her wisdom and spirituality shapes my own. While reading the new biography of Jean Vanier, I came across an evocative quote from St. Frances de Sales that is filled with Marian wisdom: "Be like little children: as long as they feel their mother is holding onto their cuff, they go forth boldly and run around. They are not surprised by the little trifles they experiences because of the weakness in their legs." (Anne-Sophie Constant, Jean Vanier: Portrait of a Free Man, p. 43.) 

Vanier has stated in his commentary on St. John's gospel that the presence of Mary is vivid in this text. Not only has Mary shaped her son's intimate spiritual communion with God, but she has shared stories and experiences about Jesus with the evangelist that are found no place else. These are the insights only a mother would remember - which rings true to me. A passage from Henri Nouwen's conversation about living into the spirituality of Jesus in a time of anxiety amplifies the influence of Mary on the ministry of Jesus. Nouwen writes:

Jesus came to reveal to us the first love (before all brokenness.) It is the original love... (which) says, "I have loved you before you could love anyone or before you could receive love from any one. I have accepted you. You are accepted. You are loved no matter what mother, father, brother, sister,school, church, society does. You are born out of my love. I have breathed you out of my love. I have spoken you out of my love. You are the incarnation of my love and in me there is no hatred, there is no revenge, there is no resentment. There is nothing that wants to reject you. I love you. Can you trust that love?"

This is a unique love. It is not "transactional" or dependent on repayment according to Nouwen. "The transactional quality of worldly love is precisely why people are always in trouble. If they give something they expect something in return." But the love of Jesus is different: it is relational. Intimate and grace-filled, like Mary herself, whom the angel Gabriel called "full of grace." All that is asked of us is that we trust this love. And trust is built on experiences of intimacy where we are held, nurtured, taught, and cherished simply for being. Jesus embodies the love of God he experienced from the inside out by trusting the grace of Mary. For those who have known this love, he invites us to do likewise.

Adonai, my heart isn’t proud;

I don’t set my sight too high,

I don’t take part in great affairs

or in wonders far beyond me.

No, I keep myself calm and quiet,

like a little child on its mother’s lap —

I keep myself like a little child.

So many of us have not known this grace-filled love. We find it challenging and often perplexing to trust it. That is why we must know it from the inside out. It is not an academic exercise. It is a change of heart. A mystical encounter with love beyond our comprehension. And the good news is that everyone can taste this love if we are willing to open ourselves to quiet prayer. "How do we know this love?" writes Nouwen.

Prayer. We have to pray in order to let the first love (of God) touch us so that we can trust it again. We pray to know not only in our head, but in our heart, and in the center of our being that we are fully loved... We pray so that we can walk around the world and not be so needy, not be wounding others, and not be giving so that we can get something in return. We pray to be free. (Nouwen, Following Jesus, p. 58)

We sit in solitude so that we can trust. René Girard, the French anthropologist turned theologian, describes it as a inward, mystical experience of reconnecting to God's first love like this:

Our first encounter is passive and involuntary in nature. It is not preceded by any warning and does not require any effort. (It is a gift.) The second characteristic is joy. A third is a feeling of eternity that cannot be separated from its infinite power of renewal, its extraordinary fertility And the last characteristic combines all the others and that is an intuition of a divine presence... (As the prophet Isaiah says,) "Since you were precious in my sight... I have loved you." (Constant, p. 32)

More than anything else I do these days I wish to trust and share this first love. I am letting a few new ways simmer and percolate within me during Advent to see how they might come to birth after Christmas. Like that small child in her mother's lap, I am sitting in the quiet and waiting. Beyond the Magnificat, the prayer that grounds me most in this quiet time is the Salve Regina:

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee.

Blessed art Thou among women

And blessed is the fruit of Thy womb Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,

Pray for us sinners now

And at the time of our death.

Amen.

hibernating...

Six years ago the view from my study window looked like this:

Today it looks like this:

And tomorrow? Who knows - as more snow is predicted. Finally I am getting reconnected to my world. Without belaboring the point, this past month has been a bunch of maladies that not only zapped my energy, but also my enthusiasm for being outside. To be sure, it has been healing for me to hibernate. It feels rather like one of my favorite winter graphics: a stunning pencil drawing of a young woman burrowed underground with her books and animal friends.

It was not in my plans to be so isolated so soon in the season. I prefer to walk in the woods during these early days of winter. I wanted to be in Ottawa with my friends at L'Arche during Advent. And play a few more music gigs, too. But as the mystic Meister Eckhart teaches, "Reality is the will of God." It can always be better, but we have to start with what is real. No prolonged magical thinking for those who seek to live in the spirit. So, I have mostly made the best of my solitude: resting, reading, lighting the Advent candles, and savoring the quiet. The poet, Dave Edmands, catches some of the mystery of hibernating during this season of increasing darkness when he writes:

In autumn I watch you, bear like, preparing your room
Against winter's weight. The bear, having eaten its way
To sleep, fills its cramped room with the breath of wild berry.
The snow batters its dirt walls, blankets them
In the silvery whiteness of a February moon.
The bear stirs ever so slightly, lost in the womb
Of its own winter dreams.

You, in your bear-like room, watch the days of winter
Grow long with white. Like the bear, you also have
Stored autumn, hanging your walls
With wild flower and root..
Daily, you move about your lavender and thyme,
Uneasy with your dreams of spring.

In March, the sun slides across the western sky,
Remaining a few minutes longer each day.
The bear, giant world that it is, makes one last turn on its axis,
While you, sensing the move of the bear,
Rotate each small pot just so,
Gathering the new and lingering light of a wakeful season.

I am in no hurry for March to dawn or the wakeful season of new challenges in the light. For now I am content to take it slow. In solitude. There are gifts to wrap. A holiday letter to write. Quiet prayers to share. Next week we will travel to Brooklyn to feast with part of the family on Christmas Day. We'll arrive early to settle in, go to the Christmas Eve family Eucharist and pageant at Trinity/St Paul's, and return thanks for the gift of life that thrives in small ways beyond the current political posting and fear mongering.

One thing the Christmas story teaches is that there have always been tyrants and suffering. And there always will be. But while their reign is often vicious and deadly, it never wins. Love wins. Over and over and eternally: love wins. Like the seasons that ebb and flow and ripen and pass, the will of the holy love is built into the fabric of creation. When I came upon this FB meme earlier in the day, it spoke to my Advent- drenched heart.

This one did, too.

credits:
+ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/390335492681145974/?autologin=true
+ https://www.facebook.com/nakedpastor/photos/p.2761559053873587/2761559053873587/?type=1&theater

learning to love small steps...

For most of my adult life I have walked fast. I have long legs and like to get places promptly. When my daughters were little I had to practice slowly down as they took four quick steps to my one. But that was temporary - and when I was on my own, it was back to the hustle. These days, however, I am learning to love taking small steps.

I first noticed a change in my gait while visiting my grandson in Brooklyn. He and I amble along at roughly the same speed. We stop and look at things on the side walk, smile at those in the neighborhood, and sometimes stop to pick up little treasures and surprises. When we're with his momma, a real New York City pro, we both have to kick up our game: even when she's pushing his sister in the stroller, she can leave us in the dust in a New York second! After really crashing hard in a recent fall that messed up my backside and legs on a slippery, wet deck, I have found a new affection for the beauty of taking small steps. Imagine my surprise while reading a recent Henri Nouwen book to come across this:

Our response to the call to follow Jesus... is to take small steps away from "me" and "my fears" toward the Lord... The great secret of the spiritual life is that you already know the little steps, even if you don't know the big ones. You don't need to know the big steps to take the little steps. You only have to take one step at a time.The interesting thing is that the person who is in touch with the Lord knows what those little steps are... If we look back (over time) we see that it was a long journey of little steps. All the great people in history stared with small steps: St. Francis o f Assisi didn't suddenly rip off his clothes and move to a cave. It was four years of struggle taking little steps... We (like to) focus on the dramatic end of it all, but that is not what I want you to pay attention to: focus on the small steps. (Following Jesus, pp. 43-44) 

For most of my life I have been torn between cherishing these small steps in life, and, hating to waste time. After all, I sensed I had important things to do, say, and create. Don't hold me back or tie me down because I'll shake myself free and leave you in the dust. They call this grandiosity - a common character flaw in all addicts - that sees the self as the center of all things creative and important. We can be introverted in our brokenness and revel in self-pity, or, extroverted by lamenting the pain and suffering the world's stupid people inflict upon themselves. We can be carping wannabe martyrs or disillusioned idealists, it doesn't matter. The result is still an obsessive, unhealthy fixation upon our superiority. Joni Mitchell captured some of this in the brilliant close to Blue: "The Last Time I Saw Richard."

To which the spirit of holiness says: stop - it is NOT all about you. First, listen to Jesus. That's the first small step. Listen to how he talks. And to whom he talks. If you listen long enough you might hear a second small step:

Step away from "mine." When making decisions we can ask ourselves, "Am I doing this out of fear for my survival or can I act in trust?" We will know when we are acting out of fear and when we are acting out of love. Always choose love. Do not act out of fear. Again it is a small change... but following Jesus is moving away from fear and toward love (in small steps.)

Another way of speaking about moving toward God is to live into "a long obedience in the same direction." The late Eugene Peterson wrote a book of the same name (from a quote by Nietzsche) that notes: "There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness... (So) I decide, every day, to set aside what I can do best and attempt what I do very clumsily - open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is better than succeeding in pride.”

Once, when my personal and professional life was collapsing in burn-out, I sat watching the sun go down behind the Sangre de Cristo mountains in northern New Mexico. Sometimes I watched that same sun rise, too. Through a combo of therapy, prayer, reading, and exhaustion I went on vacation one summer determined to take the 12 Steps to a new level.  Step number one was a killer: I could honestly say that my life had become unmanageable (that's the second part of the confession); but I was too proud and stubborn to speak the first and essential truth: I was powerless to fix what was unmanageable. I wanted to jump to the second and third steps: turning my mess over to God and trusting God's love was greater than my pain.

And therein lies the paradox of small steps: I would not let go of control so I locked God out of my heart. God will not violate our free choice. So for the better part of two weeks I sat and argued with God. And wept bitter tears. And shouted to no one in particular for relief. And nothing changed. Not until I let go of control. One morning, watching the sun come up. probably because I was so exhausted by wrestling with God, it hit me: I am not raising the sun. I am not keeping creation in balance. I had nothing to do with this beauty and will have nothing to add once I am gone. So why not accept that I cannot manage the chaos and pain in my life? It wasn't a grand confession. More like the still small voice of the Lord coming to Elijah after the thunder and the earthquake. There was no flash of insight or mystical encounter with holy power. Just a bit of relief. A small step towards acceptance that over 25 years has changed everything. 

Driving home from that agonizing but sacred time in the mountains, a verse from the conclusion of St. John's gospel kept popping into my head: "Truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” No fooling. For decades I had refused to relinquish control of my life. Even when it became self-destructive and ugly, I still fought God's gentle grace in my quest to maintain control. Until, as some in AA like to say, I just felt so sick and tired of being sick and tired that I gave it up to God.

We live in what one writer has called the "age of sensation." We think that if we don't feel something there can be no authenticity in doing it. But the wisdom of God says something different: that we can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting. Worship is an act that develops feelings for God, not a feeling for God that is expressed in an act of worship. When we obey the command to praise God in worship, our deep, essential need to be in relationship with God is nurtured.

(Peterson)

Sitting quietly in the presence of Jesus, walking in the snow and the woods, or joining my Brooklyn family for Eucharist is how I worship these days. Very small steps. Not only has my stride been diminished by time and age, but maybe also by grace. Take the small steps you already know how to take. I think that's why I so love Psalm 131 as Advent II comes to a close:

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,

my eyes are not raised too high;

I do not occupy myself with things

too great and too marvelous for me.

But I have calmed and quieted my soul,

like a weaned child with its mother;

my soul is like the weaned child that is with me

confession and grace: advent two...

The Christian season of Advent is slowly ripening and, as is often the case, I am about one full week behind. When I was much younger, my distractions - and liturgical laziness - drove me crazy. Usually I was ready for Advent I with the wreath, candles, and lights to help us focus on hope. Somewhere during the next seven days, however, I lost my place within the rhythm of prayer. Were it not for the fact that I was a worship leader, I would have missed the second Sunday in Advent completely. 

Peace? How in God's name could I contemplate peace, let alone embody it, with all the demands of the season crashing in on me? When the children were small this included figuring out how to stretch our meager finances to buy gifts as well as a tree. The second week of Advent was about the time shame washed over me like waves on the shore: church leaders are always horribly under paid and I felt my financial inadequacy as a provider superlatively living in the shadow of the season's glitz. No matter that we consciously chose to live a simple life as a corrective to conspicuous consumption: old demon shame found a way to sneak into my heart during this week of peace and drag me into its shadows. 

About that time I would become obsessive with our evening Advent wreath  ceremony. If I couldn't give my daughters the lovely clothes and fun toys that all the other kids would get on Christmas morning, at least I could share with them the beautiful mystery of Christ's birth. The only problem was that I wanted this ceremony to be perfect. An adult mystical encounter with candles and music. And the girls were 5 and 7. Children - with wandering attention spans and only a modest interest in medieval Advent music. 

We would begin by stumbling and bumbling our way through a few nightly lessons, each aware of my brooding mood, all striving to get the readings right. And sing from our hearts. And expertly move the animals and shepherds towards the Nativity's stable. And then something would trigger my inner rage - some innocent mistake - and the fury within would explode outwardly. "Why can't you do this RIGHT!?!" I would bark, reducing someone to tears and everyone to despair. There was no physical violence, to be sure, but my inconsolable rage still evoked terror in their young hearts. And I became what I hated. I became a tyrant in those moments like St. Paul knowing even as I acted I ached to do otherwise:

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that... nothing good dwells within me. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. And if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. (Romans 7)

Perhaps you've been there, too? Yearning for peace but creating chaos and fear In those early days, there was such a gap between the serenity I hurt to know and the reality of my heart, that whenever my inner wounds erupted in words of anger, my precious children experienced the sins of their fathers and mothers being passed on to their generation. In the aftermath of these storms, I wept as addicts often do. I lamented my behavior praying for the "Peace, Perfect Peace" of the old hymn, but felt only emptiness.

Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin?

The love of Jesus whispers peace within.

Peace, perfect peace, by thronging duties pressed?

To do the will of Jesus—this is rest.
Peace, perfect peace, with sorrows surging round?

On Jesus’ bosom naught but calm is found.

Peace, perfect peace, with loved ones far away?

In Jesus’ keeping we are safe, and they.

Peace, perfect peace, our future all unknown?

Jesus we know, and He is on the throne.

It was about this time that I was introduced to the 12 Step spirituality of the AA movement. Thanks be to God. As a few members of my congregation needed me to walk with them towards sobriety - attending meetings and starting to work the steps for myself - I discovered the healing of confession. This morning, Richard Rohr's reflection emphasized the importance of confession like this:

Both Christianity and the Twelve Steps believe that our sins and failures are the setting for transformation and enlightenment. Grace isn’t a gift for getting it right but for getting it wrong! But as any good therapist will tell you, you cannot heal what you do not acknowledge; and what you do not consciously acknowledge will remain in control of you from within, harming you and those around you, particularly those you love. Step Five sets forth a clear structure of accountability for knowing, speaking, and hearing the full truth so that it does not ultimately destroy the addict or others. But it is not an easy step to take.

Step Five in this spirituality states: I admitted to God, to myself, and to another human being the exact nature of my wrongs. This is confession. This is both how we get the darkness within out into the light, and, how we own its power and pain over ourselves and those we love. The late Thomas Keating used to say: "Humiliation is the way to humility." Like the Eneagram, step five exposes what we fear and dread. It gives shape and form to our brokenness and shows us the consequences of our actions. No more lies. No more denial. No more excuses: humiliation is the way to humility. And here's the blessing: the more we release into God's grace in an accountable way with honesty and humility, the more light replaces darkness within. 

You (incrementally) lose the sense of shame and gain more and more

inner freedom. The point may come when you actually love your weaknesses and faults because they keep you humble. The feelings of shame and humiliation give way to a loving acceptance of the truth and a complete trust in God’s infinite mercy... (Not that we're) asking anybody to think that we are good, because now we see that whatever good we have comes from God. We don’t deny that we have this basic goodness, but we acknowledge that we have made a mess of our lives... and that God is healing us. (And) instead of grieving (and obsessing over) our sins, we realize that God has used them for our great benefit. (Thomas Keating on Richard Rohr's CAC blog @ https://cac.org/category/daily-meditations/) 

Thirty years ago I started to work the 12 Steps. As a recovering adult child of two alcoholic parents there was a lot of shame, fear, and anger within that I needed to own. And release into God's grace. Gradually, in God's own time not my own, as I accepted my wounds and the pain I created, learning to change direction rather than descend into my shadow, many of my inner demons were been set free. Not all, to be sure, so I must stay close to the light. But experiencing the release and relief of trusting God I joined the ancient Psalmist who sang: I have tasted - and seen - the goodness of the Lord. 

At the start of this Advent, I realized (again) that I had slowly wandered away from simply following Jesus. Recognizing and confessing this helped reorient me to the hope of Advent I. Like Henri Nouwen wrote: "Following Jesus is following the voice of the One who calls us away from useless wandering or just from sitting there."

Jesus says, "Follow me." If we choose to listen and follow, our life gradually comes into focus. It is no longer tiring. We know where to direct our energies. We know what is important and what is not... Following Jesus means to dare to move out of ourselves and to slowly let go of building ourselves up. (Nouwen, Following Jesus, p. 46)

Now, as the second week of Advent II draws to a close, I know I am late to the feast and way behind in the season. But I feel ready to rest a bit into the quiet peace of the Christ Child. 

Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to us to preach repentance and prepare the way for our healing: Give to us grace to listen to their warning and turn away from our wounds, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

owning and challenging the legacy of anti-Jewish stereotypes in liberal theology...

This may come off as a rant -  the last thing I desire - as I hope to write a critical reflection on a well-intended survey of the role Mary and other women play in the gospel according to St. Luke for Advent. The article that caught my eye appears in Sojourners Magazine under the heading: "Advent: Hearing God in a Female Voice." The author, Joe Kay, suggests that in the time of Jesus as in our own era, "Female voices are widely ignored, marginalized, and muted by those who think that only males should be heard. The Jesus story turns all that upside-down. It places women front and center, right from the start." (See the full article here @ https://sojo.net/articles/advent-hearing-god-female-voice?sfns=mo&fbclid= IwAR0lecqbe2cruUcIbAsh WEB3ch8Z1O9PEUzvW7IwzqZfhgJY4Xjt33YOY2c) 

There is no question that the voices of women are denigrated, ignored, mocked, and vilified in our culture. Just this morning, the US President once again tweeted his attack on the young climate activist, Greta Thunberg, after she was named TIME Magazine's person of the year.

Violence against women continues to be a public health epidemic. Ugly and unfair double standards in demeanor, dress, vocabulary, attitude, morality, opportunity, and income are so blatant between men and women that the Republican majority in the Senate could easily confirm the appointment of Brent Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court without so much as a second thought. And while the "Me Too" movement has accelerated our slow march towards changing culture - and holding men accountable for their actions and attitudes - the gap between the realm of justice and our current dysfunction is incomprehensible.

So please don't mistake my concern: it is not with the author's solidarity with the cause of equal rights for contemporary women. Rather, I am distressed that in 2019 liberal theology still advances the false dichotomy between the so-called liberating practices of Jesus and the oppressive actions of First Century Judaism. It is one of the most egregious blind spots within our tradition. Not only is this fallacy a product of incomplete scholarship, it is also one of the ways the sins of our mothers and fathers unquestioned anti-Jewish stereotypes are passed down to the third and fourth generation. In the ground-breaking, Jewish Annotated New Testament, eds. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi-Brettler cut to the chase:

Out of ignorance many pastors and religious educators strip Jesus from his Jewish context and depict that context in false and noxious stereotypes... There are five major reasons for this problem. First, most Christian seminaries and divinity schools do not offer detailed educations about Judaism, whether at the time of Jesus or subsequently... Second, whereas a number of churches have guidelines on the presentation of Jews and Judaism, not all clergy know of the guidelines... Third, as church demographics shift increasingly to Asia and Africa, new forms of anti-Jewish biblical interpretations
develop. Christians from these areas lack direct memory of the Shoah, the Holocaust, and so may be less sensitized to the dangers of detaching Jesus from his Jewish tradition...Fourth, biblical studies does, appropriately, speak to contemporary issues. In this effort to deploy the biblical text for purposes of liberation, interpreters insensitive to the issue of anti-Jewish teaching sometimes present Jesus as the liberator from his social context, namely Judaism, which they depict as analogous to present day social ills... And fifth, and perhaps most pernicious, the problem of ahistorical, anti-Jewish interpretation in not always acknowledged. (Bearing False Witness: Common Errors Made About Early Judaism, p. 501)

Dr. Levine then carefully offers ten areas where anti-Jewish stereotypes remain in much of contemporary Christian preaching, teaching and writing. She has written extensively about these concerns throughout her career including in The Misunderstood Jew (2006), in conversation with Ben Witherington in their New Cambridge Bible Commentary on the Gospel of Luke (2018) as well as in Light of the World (2019.) Her fourth and sixth concerns in this summary offer places where balance could amplify the omissions of the Sojourners article:

+ The broad theological view that contrasts Jewish law with Christian grace.

+ The misconception that Jews follow Torah in order to earn God's love and a place in heaven. This equates Judaism with a religion of "works righteousness" rather than grace.

+ The misconception that views purity law as burdensome and unjust.

+ The belief that early Judaism "was so misogynistic that it made the Taliban look progressive by comparison, and that Jesus liberated women from this oppressive system."

+ Confusion over Jewish practices and teaching concerning divorce.

+ The "substantially vague rhetoric that claims Jesus ministered to the outcasts and marginals" of his day while the Jewish community did not.

+ The incorrect notion that all Jews wanted a militant messiah and rejected Jesus because he proclaimed a love for our enemies.

+ The inaccurate belief that early Judaism celebrated a distant and remote God while Jesus uniquely spoke of the Lord as his intimate "abba."

+ The insistence that Jesus objected to the "temple domination system" that overtaxed the popularization.

+ And finally the lie that Judaism was narrow and exclusive while the way of Jesus was broadly inclusive.

Clearly the Sojourners piece speaks in broad strokes to a general audience. It is certain that the author seeks in solidarity to link the challenges of contemporary women with the perceived problems Jesus addressed in his era. In our tradition, it is popular to do so to document our continued relevance and the deep wisdom of a biblical faith. The late Marcus Borg, those in the Jesus Seminar and Bishop John Shelby Spong worked hard at reinterpreting Jesus for a new world. In their writing Jesus became a mystical, social revolutionary who called out the oppression of his generation with a radical gospel of love. In this, Jesus offered modern people a way back into a broken and patriarchal Christianity. I resonate with their intent. The fundamental problem with it, however, is as Levine and Zvi-Brettler state: there is no historically accurate or theologically honest way to talk about "a feminist Jesus and a retrograde Judaism."

The New Testament, as well as other Jewish literature of the time, from the deutero-canoncial texts to Josephus and Philo to inscriptional evidence to early rabbinic sources, tells us the Jewish women owned their own homes (see Luke 10: 38, Acts 12: 12), served as patrons (Luke 8:1-3), appeared in the Temple (which had a dedicated "Court of the Women") and in synagogues; had use of their own property... had freedom of travel. Clearly it was not because of Jewish oppression that women joined Jesus. Perhaps some women outside of marital situations
were particularly attracted Jesus' movement given its possible focus on celibacy (Mt 19:22), non-privileging of child-bearing (Luke 11: 27-28) and alternative family structures ( Mk. 3: 35.)

It is simply false to state: "Then and now, those female voices are widely ignored, marginalized, and muted by those who think that only males should be heard." It is untrue that "the Jesus story turns all that upside-down (and) places women front and center, right from the start." And Mary's role is not a shocking alternative to a culture where "only men made the big decisions and women were treated more like property than persons." Rather, Mary joins a long cast of Jewish women liberators that include Sarah, Deborah, Rachel, Esther, Leah, Miriam, Hannah, Abigail, and Rahab. Indeed, Mary's song - The Magnificat - is a reworking of Hannah's ode of thanks to God in anticipation of Samuel's birth with echoes from Judith, Miriam and Deborah woven throughout. (See 1 Samuel 2: 1-10, Exodus 15: 19-20, and Judges 5: 1-31.

The article closes with an important insight that still needs amplification: over the years the Christian male hierarchy has not only erased and silenced the role of women in the Jesus movement, but continues to do so in the 21st century. An excellent corrective can be found in Cynthia Bourgeault's seriously documented study: The Meaning Of Mary Magdalene. My hope and prayer this Advent is that the feminine voices of God are given a new and honest hearing within the Christian community. To do requires owning the legacy of anti-Jewish stereotypes in our theology, liturgy, and worldview and reclaiming the beauty of the Jewish roots of Mary, Elizabeth, John the Baptist and Jesus himself.

credits:
+ Madonna: https://www.etsy.com/listing/675718261/madonna-and-child-reclining
+ Jesus of the Desert: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/173670129351462898/?lp=true
+ Christ Sophia: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/346003183845537302/?lp=true