2011.09.11 9/11

Do what you are able and for God’s sake be kind to yourself and all creation. But above all pray, for that is how you will be in touch with your internal arbiter, the soul voice that, at its most naked, conjoins with the transcendent to bring forth goodness and peace.

There is no accounting for tragedy—no need to quantify it, no need to compare it as if every tragedy weren't exactly the same to the human hearts involved, and no need to get even for we can't. There is just a need to name our heart's truth and grieve together.

To share on this day of remembrance I quote from Leo Tolstoi who in 1854 was at the front in the Crimean war. On leave he witnessed a public beheading in Paris that changed his spiritual life forever and brought forth his lasting work War and Peace.

Tolstoi wrote: "During my stay in Paris, the sight of an execution revealed to me the instability of my superstitious belief in progress. When I saw the head part from the body and how they thumped separately into the box, I understood, not with my mind but with my whole being, that no theory of the reasonableness of our present progress could justify this deed; and that though everybody from the creation of the world had held it to be necessary, on whatever theory, I knew it to be unnecessary and bad; and therefore the arbiter of what is good and evil is not what people say and do, nor is it progress, but it is my heart and I."

Judith Shulevitz writing about the sabbath remembrance in her book Sabbath World ends her fine book with wise and simple words: “We have to remember to stop because we have to stop to remember.”

To pray is to stop, remember, and allow Other to transform your heart’s soul. A sabbath community reminds us to stop, pray and remember to strengthen our collective hearts.

2011.09.05 Labor Day and Memorial Day

Today, a week before the 10th anniversary of the disaster in NYC we call 9/11, is a day on which a LABOR of love was revealed in New York. It is a MEMORIAL to help us remember what we can not restore.

I just saw a video of the memorial, “Reflecting Absence” —for me a spiritual experience, meaning awe, hand to my mouth, a gasp, and tears that flowed with the two enormous human-made waterfalls.

The two pools, a colossus to mark the foot prints of what were the twin towers plunge down, earthward, rather than up, heavenward.

Who decided Divinity was always up anyway?

Like the Vietnam Memorial in D.C. the names are engraved along the granite edges of the pools, in no special rank or order. If only life could be as great an equalizer as death.

I didn’t know anyone personally who lost life but I had a client whose new husband was on one of the planes. So I felt along with her.

I got to wondering about absence and presence. We assume that the presence of God is the only good thing, however in the tradition of the Psalms the felt absence of God elicits some of the most beautiful poetry and heart-rending spiritual aching ever created—a memorial to the biblical God who gave humanity freedom and made it sacrosanct, a gift never to be violated by power, even divine power, a Love willing to be powerless, to be experienced as absent.

The presence of God is not unimportant of course. I see it not in intervention but rather in the tears of a nation, in the labors of those who dropped their own lives for a time just to help in heroic ways offering whatever they had to give including prayers, and in the creation of great beauty in this memorial.

Reminds me of the biblical women who stood by Jesus to the end and so many others who sit in prayer or at bedsides keeping God company.

2011.08.31 Prodigal Lover

It’s my son’s 44th birthday today. Happy birthday, son.

I dedicate this little poem to him and to the biblical figures, Peter and John, who ran to the tomb to see if what the women reported could be true, that God always brings new life out of the stuff of our worries and fears.

A wise woman writer Judith Shulevitz wrote: “We have to remember to stop because we have to stop to remember.”



He is running for love
against the wind
Pushing aside
forces, furies, old wounds
in the path
as he runs for love
for love

Earth has no fire
like this man’s love.

2011.08.30 Goodnight Irene or Perfect Sunday, not Perfect Storm

I still think of going to church as an important part of my spiritual health. It’s part devotional duty and part inhaling the Holy in community through song, word and sacrament. So even though I’m retired and church-going is not a “job” I go.

That said, I don’t mind missing church for a good reason. Tropical storm Irene today was a good reason. Winds threatened, our porch door sailed open though locked, and our governor declared a state of emergency pleading with people to stay off the roads. It turned out to be not as bad as meteorology predicted. But who can really predict weather?

Yet, in New England at least, we love to talk about the weather. It’s as mysterious as Godde whose grace is even more unpredictable. The religiously sane among us don’t even try to predict Godde. Most clergy try anyway because we think it’s our job. It is, but who does any job perfectly?

So I wasn’t disappointed at all when, after careful discernment and checking news of parish cancellations, my husband decided to call the parish where he’d been contracted to fill in and crawled back into bed next to me this morning.

We slept till 10 a.m., made love, cooked a sumptuous brunch, read the Sunday papers with ease, had hunks of dark chocolate for brunch dessert, and remembered to thank Godde for this unpredicted Sabbath grace.

It was made even more beautiful to me when I read in the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine an article by Linda Wertheimer about a middle school in Wellesley Massachusetts where they have an education unit on religion that includes trips to worship sites and services.

It’s controversial of course but students have benefited from knowing something about religion. Religion, like it or not, has been and will continue to be a major player in history, world politics, and many personal lives. But it’s a “spiritual lemon.” People fear its bitter power and want to make lemonade out of it instead of getting to know its zest.

My favorite quotes from young students: “They are not teaching you the religion, they’re teaching you about the religion . . . they’re trying to get you to learn.” And: Before the comparative religion class I didn’t realize that Christianity came out of Judaism.”

That’s good education. That’s good spirituality. That;’s good religion.

Maybe the best part of this “perfect” Sunday was seeing that religion can be a respectable curriculum item in public education. When religion is too isolated it is dangerously subject to fanaticism, exclusionary politics, idolatry, and yes, war.

Paradox: the more you know about other religions and their participants, the more you are able to appreciate and value your own even if you are an atheist.

Good night Irene, and thank you in the name of Peace and Love.

2011.08.25 POLITICAL RANT

Today would be my father's 100th birthday. He died 30 years ago, too soon for the length of my love. This rant is for him. He loved to rant mostly against Democrats. But now I'm sure he, a sensible and respectful man, would wonder about his own party.


MICHELE BACHMANN ADVERTISES HERSELF AS A MODEL CHRISTIAN AND AN EXEMPLARY WOMAN WORTHY OF BEING THE PRESIDENT OF THESE UNITED STATES.

I AM A CHRISTIAN PRIEST IN THE CHURCH OF GOD, EPISCOPAL BRAND. I SPEAK FOR MYSELF NOT FOR MY CHURCH.

AND WHAT I AM ABOUT TO SAY IS AS AGAINST MY “CORE BELIEFS” AS BACHMANN SAYS UNCONDITIONALACCEPTANCE OF HOMOSEXUAL PEOPLE IS AGAINT HERS. .

I FIND MICHELE BACHMANN’S POLITICAL POSITIONING NAUSEATING, FULL OF GLITZ AND SHOWING OFF, TRYING TO MAKE A MEGA CHURCH OUT OF HER CAMPAIGN AND ARRIVING TELLINGLY LATE FOR EVERY SCHEDULED APPEARANCE. CATCH HER IF YOU CAN! CUTE GAME.

SHE MUST HAVE BEEN BULLIED BECAUSE SHE IS A BULLY, AND WORSE, A BULLY IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST WHO, LAST I LOOKED AT THE GOSPELS, WAS ONE GIVEN TO EMBRACING OUTCASTS, FINDING OUT WHAT THEY WANTED AND HEALING THEM ON THEIR TERMS.

JESUS DIDN’T DO WITH HIS BODY WHAT BACHMANN IS DOING WITH HERS; SHOWMANSHIP TO AVOID TRUTH. HE MOVED AMONG THE PEOPLE TALKING AND LISTENING AND RISKING HIS LIFE.

AS A CHRISTIAN I TRY TO EMULATE & TEACH THAT KIND OF MOVEMENT—WITH GOD’S HELP. I FAIL REGULARLY AND KEEP TRYING ANYWAY.

BACHMANN IGNORED THE COURAGEOUS GAY IOWAN TEEN WHO (see Boston Globe august 19,A1) SHOUTED OUT HIS FEELINGS ABOUT BEING A SECOND CLASS CITIZEN BECAUSE OF THE PREACHMENTS OF SOME CHRISTIANS LIKE BACHMANN. BACHMANN WENT “DEAF.”

I DON’T GIVE A DAMN IF SHE THINKS THIS KID IS LIVING IN SIN BECAUSE OF HIS SEXUAL ORIENTATION. HER ARROGANT AND, YES, FRIGHTENED AVOIDANCE SPEAKS VOLUMES ABOUT HER POLITICAL INCOMPETENCE AND HER CHRISTIAN DISGRACE.

IF BACHMANN’S POSTURING IS A COVER UP FOR SOME UNACKNOWLEDGED PAIN, I FEEL SAD—BUT NOT ENOUGH TO WANT HER ANYWHERE NEAR THE HIGHEST OFFICE IN OUR LAND OR STRIKING A POSE SHE CALLS CHRISTIAN.

2011.08.20 Bernard de Clairvaux:Love in Process

August 20 is the calendar day set aside to remember one of my favorite Church heroes. Yes, a Father, a man and a Saint Bernard, not canine with saving stimulants but human with saving spirituality.

“Who among you my brothers, was not born amid feces and urine?” he reminded those in his charge. Kinda keeps you humble, no?

But to be serious this 11th century Cistercian monk abbot gave us a summation of the spiritual process of Love
-Love of self for self’s sake.
-Love of God for self’s sake
-Love of God for God’s sake
-Love of self for God’s sake

2011.08.17 Habit & HIgher Level Spirituality

Vacation time is so gloriously sluicy it skitters by almost unnoticed or marked, a bit like retreat time. (That’s why this post is longer than my usual posts.)

Vacation is un-timed time. I love it in limited hunks. At the end of two weeks of vacation I feel both sad to leave and also glad to be getting back home to my routines.

I find comfort in my habits and quickly wonder if I’m therefore deficient spiritually. It’s like judging rosaries as rote and therefore spiritually immature. Still, I’m routinized more than I like to admit, and I need it.

In a wonderful book I’m reading by Judith Shulevitz called Sabbath World she researched human habits and discovered that we humans are wired for habits. Habituated behavior can change the shape of the brain enabling automatic responses to stimuli. That sound like instinct, like animals not of the human kind. Shouldn’t the human brain be beyond that?

The power of habit according to William James is the “flywheel of society, a conservative agent.” Oh yuk. Now I feel defensive and repelled. Conservative?

Shulevitz writes about the value of keeping the Sabbath. A a Christian priest I ascribe the same value to participating in the Eucharist. You gotta do something holy with your body, not just talk about it. And you gotta do it over and over again.

Shulevitz points out that we would rather be masters of our fate than creatures of habit but that, according to James, habit is necessary and efficient because it “reduces unnecessary expenditures of physical and intellectual energy AND FACILITATES HIGHER LEVEL THINKING.”

Imagine!

Thinking leads to doing and back to more thinking. So I see what it is that habits conserves, more energy to stretch yourself, and life itself. One value in keeping “sabbath” is that it becomes a habituated sanctuary of time and place to cultivate leisure, silence, love found in relationships with loved ones. Such habits are not dependent on the force of will but create AUTOMATIC core values on which to build a civil society—PEACE.

Once a toddler grandchild had mastered walking to proficiency, made it a habit ie. few falls and faster paces, he then developed higher level thinking which consisted in his case of a new activity: piling up a box, a hassock and a couple of blocks to get up to the counter to reach his heart’s desire: the missing box car to the train he was assembling.

I remember hearing a nine year old concert pianist execute prodigious musical wonders. The conductor asked him how he got his small hands to extend over the octaves required for the compositions he so skillfully played. The child thought for a minute and said simply, “Practice.”

I’ve practiced prayer, just talking to Godde and sometimes shutting up to listen in the silence, since I was a small child. Originally I did it to assuage loneliness and exercise my curiously religious imagination. Now it’s a habit. I just do it, like walking.

Prayer as habituated spiritual practice gave me the context in which self, Godde, church, Jesus, eucharist, priesthood, soul, and the occasional mystical experience thrive.

Ritual/habitual prayer and sacrament facilitate HIGHER LEVEL SPIRITUALITY—closer to Godde or the missing toy box car.

On vacation I take time off from good habits even organized prayer. Wherever I am is sabbath, is church, is prayer. I let myself float about in un-timed time, maybe eating lunch at five and dinner at 9, taking 3-4 walks a day, gazing at the sea or kids in the sand, indulging in random reading and writing like this. I pray with no pattern and make gratuitous assumptions about Godde’s presence.

But after a couple of weeks I need my habits back, those practices that make me both pharisee and monastic—until the next spate of un-timed time.

* * *
It just occurred to me that memoir and its current popularity may relate to the human need for habituated spirituality because it provides, for reader and writer alike, an anchor in time and space, some stability amidst time that is more fluid than fixed. Zazen, eucharist, sabbath serve similar purposes.