Fear not. We don’t come from separateness. We come from wild, wild, holy, love. It’s so close. It hovers in the precious flushed cheeks of the conspiracy theorist. It hovers in the tired eyes of the nurse. This wild love hovers everywhere, in everyone. (Like it or not). We are storytellers. If we want the story to turn out in chaos, we can tell that story. If we want it to become more self- righteous and cynical, unbelievably, it can. Hear the music though? See the dancers? The feasters? The trees making merry in the moonlight? See the ancestors? Have we forgotten to pray for them? They are all around us, waving their dazzling hands in front of our eyes, and we can’t see them. They’re trying to tell us the meaning of life, and we can’t hear them. Listen with me this weekend. Rest and be still and sink beneath the surface of all this noise. Hold fast to irrational love with me and cast away the fear.
That’s what I hear the Psalmist saying to us, too: stillness and rest can be both resistance and renewal. “How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of hosts to me. My soul is longing and fainting for a new way of being – a way that is at home in the oikos – breeding love not hate.” We often treat our anger, our despair, our anxiety, hatred, or frustration with the state of the world and its pain as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But the wisdom of nondual spirituality – the path of Jesus, the Psalms, the prophets and God’s oikos – is to simultaneously own our pain while recognizing the presence of the sacred calling to us from within it. I’ve shared with you that wonderful Rumi poem, “Love Dogs” before and today warrants a second reading:
One night a man was crying: Allah! Allah! His lips grew sweet with the praising, until a cynic said, "So! I have heard you calling out, but have you ever gotten any response?" The man had no answer to that. So, he quit praying and fell into a confused sleep. He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls, in a thick, green foliage. "Why did you stop praising?" "Because I've never heard anything back." This longing you express, THAT is the return message." The grief you cry out from draws you toward union. Your pure sadness that wants help is the secret cup. Listen to the moan of a dog for its master. That whining is the connection. There are dogs no one knows the name of: Give your life to be one of them.”
Our heartbreak and anguish, our resentment and anxiety, our fear and anger can become mystical expressions of communion with the Lord if we allow them to invite us to simultaneously own our reality as hard as it is AND let God move us into a new way of being through it. Theologically it’s the apophatic, via negativa of the East dancing with the kataphatic, via positiva of the West. It is the alpha becoming the omega, heaven meeting the earth, as opposites embrace and our humanity is wed with the holy. To be sure, our binary habits and conditioning well try to keep us confused at first. No less a wise elder than The Reverend Dr. Barbara Taylor Brown spoke of her own confusion recently saying:
The last sixteen months have been hell for a lot of people. I know some who took their sick relatives to the emergency room and never saw them alive again. I know small business owners who kept everyone on payroll and watched their savings run through their fingers like rain. I know two people who killed themselves because they ran out of hope. That makes it hard to talk about the gifts of the pandemic, which stole a lot of things from a lot of people. Every time I try, it feels like being unfaithful to them. But if I don’t do that—if I don’t name the gifts of the past sixteen months along with the thefts—then that feels like unfaithfulness to the Wholeness that is always at work on my own wholeness, inviting me to the marriage of opposites and startling me with their chemistry. Why do I feel more noble when I lament than when I rejoice? Why is it so difficult to admit whole truths, not partial ones, into the mixed company of our own hearts?
And it’s those last two sentences – Why do I feel more noble when I lament than when I rejoice? Why is it so difficult to admit whole truths, not partial ones, into the mixed company of our own hearts – that speak to this moment in time for those seeking to be faithful to God’s nonbinary love. I suspect that one of the reasons it feels more noble to lament than live into paradoxical love is that outwardly lament looks productive: it is a public expression of grief and solidarity – and God knows we love to be seen by others in the best possible light. Paradoxical, non-binary love that integrates whole truths rather than segregating and judging, however, is unchartered territory in our culture. It is part of the inward journey beyond bottom line results. Which is why souls far wiser than I consistently say that the best way into this type of revolutionary being – this new way of living that’s in harmony with God’s oikos and in balance with all our kin in creation – starts with rest and silence – or as the Psalmist likes to sing: being still in order to know.
+ Do you know the poet and activist, Tricia Hersey? I didn’t until this week, but I’ve learned that back in 2016 she began a movement of rest and resistance called The NAP Ministry. Yes, that’s right, a movement predicated on Sabbath rest where napping is sacramental.
+ As an exhausted, committed Black woman and mother, Hersey began experimenting with stepping out of the fray each day for a time of rest and renewal. And as she did she found that silence and sleep helped her make sense of her own inner trauma and the agony of her social oppression all the while bathed in God’s peace. “Rest as resistance,” she says, “allows us to tap into the unlimited nature of our imagination. It is a spiritual, political, and justice practice that will allow us to begin unraveling from capitalism and White supremacy. These systems have socialized us from birth to believe our worth is tied to how much we produce. While rest becomes a disruption to grind culture and offers space for radical care and healing.” How lovely is thy dwelling place, indeed!
An interview in the NY Times amplifies this insight: The concept of rest imagines a new mental space. It’s rooted in liberation and justice. It’s more than a nap; it’s a pushback and disruption to help make people see themselves as divine human beings. It’s about community care: the idea of communal care, mutual aid, and interconnection with each other. We offer care to people who live in a place that doesn’t give them that care. We all have been traumatized by the systems in place. And when people are mean and angry, I really just see it as an indication of deep trauma… and the absence of real, restorative rest.
It has been my hunch for some time, the intuition of my contemplative heart, that NOW is the time to nourish, strengthen, and honor God’s nonbinary way as expressed by Jesus with a renewed radicality. If we are to move through the portal of the pandemic with love, there’s some baggage to be shed as the old gospel tune tells us: We’ve got to lay DOWN some burdens if we’re going to walk with the Prince of Peace in this new era. So, I’ve started to think of this new way as living as embodied trust – letting our flesh relearn the time-tested ways of God’s oikos even if our binary minds remain confused – incarnating lives of deep rest as the foundation of our resistance.
Look, we already know how our fears can trap us and our anger imprison us so that we wind up doing what we hate – or else crumbling in impotent despair. We don’t have to rehearse THAT old way of being any more: we KNOW it by heart. I wonder: could it be that the time has come for you to let the darkness that is so genuinely oppressive become one of our guides into God’s light? I am so ready to let my broken heart open in a subtle, nuanced way and become a path through the abyss and into God’s healing love – maybe you are, too?
If that horrible new law in Texas that the Supreme Court let stand tells us anything – a law that turns neighbors into vigilantes and pits women and their doctors against the state – it is that our fears have overcome our common humanity. Further, our exhausted imaginations have recycled the terror of East Germany’s STASI and Castro’s Cuba for the Word of the Lord let alone coherent social policy while banishing any sense of social compassion or the common good. My colleague, the Rev. Dr. Marvin McMickle of Colgate Rochester Theological Seminary – whom I knew from our shared days back in Cleveland, OH – articulated my perspective well when he said:
I am a Pro-Choice male advocate who believes that women have the wisdom and should have the right to make choices about their own reproduction activity in consultation with physicians, clergy, and other trusted voices. I do not believe that state or federal politicians or judges should have control over these personal decisions. Nor do I believe that 30% of this country’s population should impose its particular ideology on the 70% of the population that believes that women should have reproductive rights. I am also a Pro-Life human advocate when it comes to all child-ren being provided with adequate housing, nutrition, education, protection against COVID-19, and being kept safe from random gun violence… many so-called “conservative Christians” and right-wing Republicans view the world through the exact opposite lens. They demand that all children be born but vote for politicians who do nothing to safeguard the quality of life that all of our children deserve. What kind of pro-life policy is that? Now comes this abominable abortion law in Texas that is being replicated in many other states. I am shocked and appalled at the midnight move made by the US Supreme Court that upheld that Texas law which makes no provisions for rape or incest. It even requires a stillborn fetus to be carried to term! It turns family, friends, neighbors, and total strangers into vigilantes who can receive $10,000 if they report on a woman or anyone who aids or even transports that woman who is seeking an abortion.
Lord, have mercy – there HAS to be another way – one that allows us to journey through the portal of the pandemic with open hearts and loving souls. You know, when the pandemic started, I was unnerved. Terrified and rattled. But as it continued, and I tried to make peace with reality, one of the upside-down gifts I discovered was a renewed appreciation for the fragility and unpredictability of life. We saw so many of our habits, and certainties upended in ways we could NEVER have pre-dicted. And while it’s been harsh, bewildering, and exhausting, with a staggering and unnecessary loss of life and unimaginable suffering, at the very same time, many of us have encountered a new-found resiliency, too. Like Carrie Newcomer sings, we’ve rediscovered that we CAN do this hard thing, right? We became creative and connected in wildly new ways. We remembered that self-care is intimately connected to caring for the common good. And, despite the polarization and public hostilities of this moment, we learned something about gratitude and patience, too. Even as our hearts were being broken open, something inside our souls was being healed.
So, I have to say the paradoxical WHOLE truth of this time is that it’s been a season of blessing AND curse, solidarity AND isolation, trust alongside despair – and it has empowered some among us to taste again what it means to honor God’s oikos. It’s made more of us ready to move beyond binary consciousness into paradoxical love and embodied trust. Which, I dare say, is the essence of Jesus Christ.
During our extended solitude, I came to believe that the way of Jesus, his personal spiritual practice and preferred spiritual formation for those who love him begins by incarnating the oikos as God desires through rest and quiet: In the silence, without distractions, we slowly learn to trust God’s love more than ourselves and our culture; and as this trust ripens in our hearts, we find God pushing us outward to embody our trust through quiet, tender acts of love in public.
It’s no wonder the Psalmist sings the sparrow finds a home, the swallow builds a nest, and we all learn to rest within the courts of the Lord’s creation: incrementally, intentionally, alongside a whole lot of humbling mistakes: trust takes shape and form in our flesh. Today’s gospel from St. Mark is all about embodied trust growing as we risk listening to and learning from our mistakes – something that was true even for someone called Messiah.
+ When the story opens, Jesus is operating within the confines of his culture: he’s shared healing love with the children of Abraham and Sarah, but not with those outside the fold. So, when this uppity, heathen Syrophoenician woman starts heckling him about healing her small daughter, Jesus gets annoyed. He’s a busy holy man with a full calendar, for God’s sake! What's more, Jesus was seeking a bit on anonymity in a place outside of Israel. In this case, Tyre, the land of the Phoenicians. It would be important to note that the Jews not only opposed these people politically, but spiritually for at one point in time the Phoenicians practiced child-sacrifice while Israel strived to celebrate the sanctity of life. Here was an unclean woman throwing herself at the feet of Jesus in public.
+ The story tells us she is laying upon Jesus' feet so he cannot ignore her and she doesn't quit: the more she prods, the more agitated he becomes – especially when she smirks: “Are you REALLY about a new way of being that breaks down the walls of fear and hatred?” It’s an interesting passage that shows us Jesus being cajoled beyond his comfort zone by this sly Gentile mother with a creative sense of humor and a big heart for her baby. Those familiar with the text may not see this, but there’s a whole lotta chutzpah being expressed when she replies: Don’t even the puppies under the master’s table get to eat the scraps, Lord?
I've come to think that this combination of gentle humility and tenderhearted persistence gives him the nudge needed to accept his mistake of withholding love from an outsider. I think when he sees how exhausted SHE is he connects with his own weariness and takes another step into the radical and inclusive love of God he was born to incarnate. She modeled for him a bit of what embodied trust looks like. And the more he relinquished himself, the more his movement was able to share healing and hope with others – then and now – especially those of us who feel left out, frightened, or for-gotten. After this encounter, Jesus is all about welcoming the totality of creation into the oikos of God. It feels to me like we could be in one of those moments, too.
We could choose to remain lost, or confused by the unprecedented anguish all around us, staying trapped in the supposed safety of our small safety zones, and hope that the worst will pass us by… or we could step into our mistakes, add some humility to them and take another step towards embodied trust. Let me be blunt, ok? We’re NOT back at square one with the pandemic: it’s not over yet, of course, but we’re not where we were in March of 2020 when this thing knocked us upside the head and changed our world forever. Same is true with climate change: we’re not going to get off without suffering: true. But the current administration is working triple time to get our carbon emissions under control and everyday hundreds upon hundreds of creative scientists are finding new ways to make solar energy truly affordable to say nothing of the new technologies being developed to devour pollution.
To be about the WHOLE truth of this moment is to own the pain and loss without giving in to fear and despair. Speaking personally, I know how easy it is to get locked into a downward spiral. Just when we thought things were about to change and open-up again, we were dis-appointed and thrown back into uncertainty. The challenge now, as one elder put it, is to simultaneously “acknowledge our weariness and still dig deep into what keeps us resilient and supports trust.” And that’s where I think the Psalmist’s rest as resistance comes into play.
+ Last weekend, standing in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park at my granddaughter’s 4th birthday party, I was speaking with a dad who told me that after 16 months of lock-down, during those fleeing moments when we thought we’d beaten the plague, he and his young family traveled to France to visit family they’d not seen for nearly two years – and that time became holy ground for him. “You know,” he said, “This damned pandemic has shown me that love is what’s really important.” He paused for a moment and then added, “It’s also shown me how intentional I must be these days in order to live into its blessings.”
+ That is TRUTH, beloved: sacramental, incarnational, sacred, hard-won truth. LOVE, intentionally and carefully celebrated is all its wild fullness, nurtured by rest and shared with humility, leads us to holy ground, a living alternative to despair. It doesn’t happen automatically anymore. Now we must cherish the ordinary, refuse to take it for granted, see the connections – blessings alongside the curses – and boldly resist the unprecedented anguish that seeks to devour us. The words that father shared with me last week confirmed, however haltingly, tenuously, and imperfectly that we are entering a season of embodied trust. We’re going to have to practice strengthening it, of course and be willing to make mistakes like Jesus. But deep in my heart, I do believe that we starting to know again in our flesh – not just conceptually, but incarnationally – that we are connected, part of a common family of life joined together within God’s oikos. And when we act on this intentionally… holy ground is no longer illusive.
Right now, some of my friends are starting to fast and pray asking God to empty them of fear and pride so that they, too can be a part of this new reckoning. Fasting is a time-tested spiritual practice and if it works for you I say go for it. As for me and my house as we shift from summer into the spirituality of September, I’m going to some time off for rest, reflection, renewal, and resistance. My take on the way of Jesus is one of feasting, not fasting; so, for the next three weeks I’m going to take a break from live streaming and sleep-in late: I’m going to walk quietly and with a mask around our beloved Montreal with my sweetheart, reconnect with my community in L’Arche Ottawa, drink some good French red wine, eat some simple good food, and renew my practice of silent prayer. And I am going to do so with clear-headed intentionality: I think that's part of what this new in-between time requires.
To stay connected, which is vital for this new era, I’ll be writing regular reflections, So, if you want to check them out, they’ll be on this Facebook page. But once again, I need to listen carefully for new clues about how Small is Holy can help us live more authentically into the unforced rhythms of grace that are nourished by sacred stillness.
My buddies in AA used to tell me: If you always do, what you’ve always done, you’ll always get, what you’ve always got. We don’t need more fear, inertia, rage, judgement, or busyness… My gut tells me that upon our return Small is Holy will become more contemplative. I’m not Reverend Barber or MLK or even Valarie Kaur. I’m an aging, bourgeois white guy who loves Jesus. It’s time for me to respect the wisdom of the activists and double-down on what I know and do best: the in-ward journey that prepares our hearts for our outward engagement. Like the poet, Anne Lighthart, I sense that this new season of embodied trust is all about listening to the second melody that is always present alongside the first. She wrote:
Now I understand that there are two melodies playing,
one below the other, one easier to hear, the other lower, steady,
perhaps more faithful for being less heard yet always present.
When all other things seem lively and real, this one fades.
Yet the notes of it touch as gently as fingertips, as the sound
of the names laid over each child at birth.
I want to stay in that music without striving or cover.
If the truth of our lives is what it is playing,
the telling is so soft that this mortal time, this irrevocable change,
becomes beautiful. I want to stop and stop again to hear the second music.
I hear the children in the yard, a train, then birds.
All this is in it and will be gone. I set my ear to it as I would to a heart.
