Yes, I watched the interfaith service at Holy Cross Cathedral in Boston last Thursday. And yes, I was moved to tears of both grief and joy. And yes, I was struck again about the energetic resurgence of religious vocabulary in our secularized culture at times of national catastrophe, in this case the holocaust of Marathon Monday in Boston, 2013.
Words like God, prayer, sacrament, blessing and many citations from scriptures abounded, led and modeled, in this situation and others, by our President Barack Obama—and he’s had more than his share of such occasions. Of course it was a religious service, therefore such language was natural, but it was also a civic commemoration, a collective funeral. Our civil “religion”emerged as strong and healthy as our spiritual religion. Is there a difference really?
A few things I loved.........
President Obama should have been a preacher. He took to the podium as if it were a pulpit, which it was. He cited verses from II Timothy 1:7 which are worth repeating here. Paul the apostle was encouraging his student and disciple for his mission to teach and proclaim the gospel of grace: “For God did not given us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.” These are inner gifts available to us all.
Is there a call to turn to our faith traditions for solace, strength, and national invigoration? Could it be that God, whom many think of as omnipotent in the way the world understands power, is begging us to consider a new/old theological perception: Godde as love within?
The visual diversity was an astounding image. Many “minorities” in leadership.
Cardinal Sean O’Malley spoke with calm eloquence and offered a biblical insight: Crowd and community are often present but are not the same phenomenon. A crowd is a bunch of individuals grouped together, loosely or tightly, each individual invested in her/his own desires and interests. A community is also a bunch of individuals but these individuals derive their identity, meaning, purpose, and quality of life from being part of a community with a unifying vision. Marathoners and fans have formed community over the years—and a vision, without which the people perish. (Scripture again.)
The cello, played by the inimitably passionate Yoyo Ma, is the one singular instrument able to convey the pathos of such a time—mournful, melancholic, yet as deep and rich as soil and soul ready to receive new seeds of life. In the final phrase the melody grew faint, trailed reluctantly off, leaving and not leaving.
Nasser Wadeddy, Islamic interfaith activist for democracy and an American citizen by only one week, remembered his own terrifying experience with a bomb explosion on a road in Damascus, Syria. (Some will recall St. Paul’s encounter with Christ on a road in Damascus, a time when he began his turn away from violent persecutory ways. )
Closing Hymn: “American the Beautiful” based in beauty and grandeur of landscape, not military victory as was our national anthem.
And didn’t love.............
Extremism in any form, including a bit too much American positivism and can-do pride
The phrase: “This doesn’t happen in Boston!”
That there were many many more men than women up front—still, still
I heard no prayers uttered for the young male criminals
That people who "don't believe in organized religion" flock to God and the offerings of organized religion when something catastrophic and inexplicable happens yet never mention the sacred in other venues or give religion a voice in public conversations. Do people flock to cathedrals for political reasons, or for spiritual reasons?
This week Boston and the nation have traveled the arc from vibrant life through death and despair, into hope and hints of healing, and now the journey arcs forward into a climate of uncertainty, unsteadiness and wondering.
Yes, we will go on. Yes, nothing will be quite the same. The best way I know to assimilate the “new normal” is to find a community that is not a crowd.
Showing posts with label President Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label President Obama. Show all posts
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
2012.08.29 To Organize or Not To Organize?
My son John quipped the other day, “Where is John the Baptist when we need him?”
(Today happens to be on the liturgical calendar to remembering the beheading of John the Baptist, the biblical prophet who organized the people around sin, repentance and a new way of life. Good idea, not good for the powers of his day who preferred the status quo: despair and poverty for the 99%, power, money and isolation for the 1% with the egos.)
Let’s get organized! hollered John the Baptist. I think I shouted that to my young family, or if I didn’t I thought it loudly. It seemed to me that in our family of six we needed to find a way to go in the same direction at the same time at least once a day—other than to bed.
I wonder if Godde conjured that divine thought in Her mind just the instant before the firmament split-seconded out of control and Creation burst through—disorganized as hell.
Well, my family never did get organized much—except in heart. We managed to stay in love despite internecine wars, divorce, suffering, geography, illness, alcoholism, sex, and even religion. We kept the vision of each other’s faces in heart and mind and memory. We occupied each other.
Occupiers recently occupied their vision of economic justice with their bodies. They sat down and stood for the shear voicing of truth. AND I want them to get organized so that voice won’t fade out and whoosh off like so much sage brush in the desert. I want them to keep screaming like John Baptist. I want them to influence voters who have privacy in voting booths to vote, not according to external ideologies but according to their highest values and their spirituality— especially women who may be afraid to stray from the “herd” or think that they are better off kept in a patriarchal world.
To be blunt I want them to vote for the vision they occupied. Republicans right now are organizing around a vision that compartmentalizes and categorizes human beings, envisioning an either/or nation, and excluding those who don’t fit their criteria. Some Christians agree. I shudder.
President Obama envisions a both/and, bipartisan nation, organized and occupied by all for all.
He could use a little more John the Baptist chutzpah but his vision bears my spirituality and will get my vote.
* * * * * * *
What about ORGANIZED RELIGION? — which is currently thought heinous.
The early seekers and followers of divinity realized there was more to this messy life than human effort. So they organized themselves and drew a community together to worship a Mystery they couldn’t know except by faith. Awestruck and wonderstruck they uttered prayers. It all began in astonishments and a vision.
And then they organized, the inevitable next step to preserve what they held most dear. This is true for families, nations and religions.
Of course organization can kill if it gets encrusted in mere habit and when it isn’t occupied by flesh and blood and soul. Let’s face it: Love, by its nature, is impossibly disorganized. But not abandoned if the people keep hold of the vision: love, peace, justice and equity for all earth.
So I want our church and our nation to re-organize, to re-occupy a vision of common good, love divine and human, sacred and secular.
So where IS John the Baptist when we need him?
(Today happens to be on the liturgical calendar to remembering the beheading of John the Baptist, the biblical prophet who organized the people around sin, repentance and a new way of life. Good idea, not good for the powers of his day who preferred the status quo: despair and poverty for the 99%, power, money and isolation for the 1% with the egos.)
Let’s get organized! hollered John the Baptist. I think I shouted that to my young family, or if I didn’t I thought it loudly. It seemed to me that in our family of six we needed to find a way to go in the same direction at the same time at least once a day—other than to bed.
I wonder if Godde conjured that divine thought in Her mind just the instant before the firmament split-seconded out of control and Creation burst through—disorganized as hell.
Well, my family never did get organized much—except in heart. We managed to stay in love despite internecine wars, divorce, suffering, geography, illness, alcoholism, sex, and even religion. We kept the vision of each other’s faces in heart and mind and memory. We occupied each other.
Occupiers recently occupied their vision of economic justice with their bodies. They sat down and stood for the shear voicing of truth. AND I want them to get organized so that voice won’t fade out and whoosh off like so much sage brush in the desert. I want them to keep screaming like John Baptist. I want them to influence voters who have privacy in voting booths to vote, not according to external ideologies but according to their highest values and their spirituality— especially women who may be afraid to stray from the “herd” or think that they are better off kept in a patriarchal world.
To be blunt I want them to vote for the vision they occupied. Republicans right now are organizing around a vision that compartmentalizes and categorizes human beings, envisioning an either/or nation, and excluding those who don’t fit their criteria. Some Christians agree. I shudder.
President Obama envisions a both/and, bipartisan nation, organized and occupied by all for all.
He could use a little more John the Baptist chutzpah but his vision bears my spirituality and will get my vote.
* * * * * * *
What about ORGANIZED RELIGION? — which is currently thought heinous.
The early seekers and followers of divinity realized there was more to this messy life than human effort. So they organized themselves and drew a community together to worship a Mystery they couldn’t know except by faith. Awestruck and wonderstruck they uttered prayers. It all began in astonishments and a vision.
And then they organized, the inevitable next step to preserve what they held most dear. This is true for families, nations and religions.
Of course organization can kill if it gets encrusted in mere habit and when it isn’t occupied by flesh and blood and soul. Let’s face it: Love, by its nature, is impossibly disorganized. But not abandoned if the people keep hold of the vision: love, peace, justice and equity for all earth.
So I want our church and our nation to re-organize, to re-occupy a vision of common good, love divine and human, sacred and secular.
So where IS John the Baptist when we need him?
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