2014.05.18 The Spirituality of Curiosity

Curiosity is a very pleasant place to dwell. Relaxing even.
And most certainly fruitful.

The above quote is from a prose poem, “Experiments,”  by Margaret Wheatley. I love this delicious idea. Of course I do. It's true of me. I used to drive my parents crazy with questions and more questions. All kids do that as they grow but I never grew out of it. My curiosity is insatiable really. I wish my brain could keep up with what I want to find out.

Since my curious bent knows no limits it has quite naturally turned to theology. I mean if you’re going to question everything, then eventually, or even first off, you must question the most mysterious thing we can name. Still, as long as I question it means that I’m faithful, which means not stuck on certainty.

Here is more from the Wheatley excerpt: 

Curiosity it a very compelling space—open, rich friendly. We’re willing to be surprised rather than having to get it right. We’re interested in others’ perspectives, intrigued by differences, stimulated by new thoughts. 

Curiosity is a very pleasant to dwell. Relaxing even.
And most certainly fruitful.

All it requires is letting go of certainty and admitting we
don’t know what we’re doing.

Let the experiments begin.

I doubt if curiosity ever killed any cats. They’re too smart. But I often get into trouble with my questions. To some people they can feel rude and invasive. Others love it and see my curiosity as a sign of caring, which it is.

There is a lovely woman in our neighborhood who drives a motorized wheelchair all over town, moving along the city streets, potholed and hazardous enough for cars, bikes and pedestrians, but for a wheelchair?  She goes some distance to get over to Mass. Ave. and the Dunkin’ Donut shop. One day I met her. She was toodling along in the rain holding an umbrella in one hand and steadying a sizable bag in her lap. She called to me for help. “May I borrow your cell phone? I forgot mine and also my keys.”

I gave her my old-fashioned flip-top phone, then helped her dial. Her husband didn’t pick up so we dialed her son. “Hi, it’s mom. I’m out here on someone else’s cell and I forgot my keys so will you go unlock the door? OK. Thanks.”

She thanked me profusely and we chatted a bit as neighbors do. We exchanged names and I then went on my way, reassured that she would go on home and be able to get in. I thought to myself: what an attractive friendly woman; I and wonder why she lives in a wheelchair. Did I mention that she has flaming red hair coiffed in a neat pageboy?

I expected she’d go right home. I went over to the square to do my errands and while walking back, still in the rain, I spotted her sitting near the window of the Dunkin’ Donuts shop drinking her special coffee. I tapped on the window and waved. She waved back and we grinned.

The next time I saw her she was on another street, this time traversing snowy, icy surfaces and griping about this winter like everyone else was. She is either intrepid or insane. 

“I just have to get out into the world,” she said. “Every day is a curiosity.”

“I know what you mean,” I said.

I had swallowed my curiosity and kept myself from asking what kept her in a wheelchair. I’ve met her several times now, and I call her by name and say hello. One day I asked her, “What keeps you in a wheelchair, Theresa?”

“I have MS,” she said with a smile.

“I’m so sorry,” I said smiling back. Should I have been more gushy, boo hoo-ish? Or apologize for my question?  No, I decided, remembering that she was as curious about each day as I was, and listening to my heart, which beat with compassion and admiration for this woman’s spunk.

It’s my mind that generates the curiosity. When accompanied by a compassionate heart, curiosity is more loving than invasive—”a very pleasant place to dwell indeed.”

I thought of the first disciples. If they hadn’t been curious they’d never have discerned resurrection.  Jesus often asked bold questions. Imagine asking a hopelessly crippled paralytic man if he wanted to be made well? Obvious, but Jesus was curious to know what the man wanted before he whipped out a miracle healing. The man’s own heart’s desire was as important to Jesus as Godde’s was for healing. 

(I promise I won’t ask Theresa if she wants to be healed next time we meet. I’m not that curious—and besides, I couldn’t deliver.)

Prayer will be enough—an act of honest care, of faith, not certainty. 

2014.05.11 Divine Mothering, Psalm 23

In honor of Mother’s Day and the mothering nature of Godde’s spirit—tender and bold—in all things, I share this beautiful prayer psalm written by Bobby McFerrin, vocalist and poet, born 1950.  By mothering I mean that capacity given to all humanity to hold close, to nurture, to guide and guard, empower, and to feed.

Julian of Norwich, mystic and saint, wrote of Jesus Christ thus: “Jesus, our beloved mother, who feeds us with his most precious body and blood. . .”


McFerrin wrote this version of the psalm and dedicated it to his own mother.  You can hear him chant it on YouTube (google his name of course:)—or click:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9fzWq-d8jU    I promise you it will make you weep.


The 23rd Psalm
By Bobby McFerrin

The Lord is my Shepard, I have all I need,
She makes me lie down in green meadows,
Beside the still waters, She will lead.

She restores my soul, She rights my wrongs,
She leads me in a path of good things,
And fills my heart with songs.

Even though I walk, through a dark & dreary land,
There is nothing that can shake me,
She has said She won't forsake me,
I'm in her hand.

She sets a table before me, in the presence of my foes,
She anoints my head with oil,
And my cup overflows.

Surely, surely goodness & kindness will follow me,
All the days of my life,
And I will live in her house,
Forever, forever & ever.

Glory be to our Mother, & Daughter,
And to the Holy of Holies,
As it was in the beginning, is now & ever shall be,
World, without end. Amen.

2014.05.04 Day Prayer

Lord,

It is dawn
The dawn is for awaking.
Let me awake into the Life of God.

It is day.
What has been dreamed has been dreamed
what has not been dreamed will wait.

Dawn is light
Let my fear of radiance in myself and in the world
rest in You.

Day is alive;
Let the liveliness of Your Life enfold me,
all who are dear to me,
and all who know no vitality.

Day drifts into dusk and 'tween light.
May I embrace this waning with hope—
deep sleep, sweet dark, silent vigor

AMEN.
                         (This prayer is patterned after Night Prayer in the New Zealand prayer book.)

2014.04.27 Serious Daring

Eudora Welty, b. 1909, offered this wisdom to all writers: “I am a writer who came of a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.”

This is absolutely delicious to the ears of a seriously daring introvert who grew up under the tutelage of a seriously extroverted mother. 

Welty’s wisdom is gospel for any writer, and it may be so for any woman striving to be heard in patriarchal societies, churches, and cultures.  Emily Dickinson gave birth to some of the best poetry in the world—from within her rooms and from within her own soul. She wrote of love: “That love is all there is, is all we know of love.”  Few could top that for serious daring from within!

Now, speaking of topping anything, I am currently wondering if I am an utter fool to keep on believing in my writing gifts and feminist slants. I’m riding on god knows what wave of feminist spirituality, probably fourth wave, which is more spiritually inclined.

Religious women are getting sick of feeling excluded from conversations in a secularist culture. Not long ago I attended a reading by Gail Collins from her fine book, When Everything Changed. The Story of American Women from the Sixties to The Present. Collins’ book is revelatory of the ongoing subordinate status of women in a patriarchal culture. It’s very thorough, often humorous, and also makes you wince. At the Q and A time I asked: “I don’t know if this omission was purposeful or not, but I noticed that there is nothing at all (I’d checked carefully) in your fine book about what was, and is, going on for women in religion during this time period—and there’s a lot.”  A hush fell over the small group of maybe 40 people, during which I thought to myself: Either I hit a nerve or I’m about to be run out of town.  (But I saw a few heads nod.)

Collins finally spoke, “You’re right and I’m sorry.” Then she explained all the instructions she had given to her researchers and how they used only secular journalistic sources, blah blah. Then she said, “I should have interviewed you for my book.”  I thought: You should have, and said, “Thank you. Maybe another book.” Maybe mine? People laughed and the tension was over. Collins was honest and gracious, yet it saddened me how isolated religion is from our culture, and how we women all have the same concerns about being treated with equality and dignity.

I won’t write a book like Collins’s. I don’t have the time or the energy, but what I do write does matter, so I persevere anyway, after a recuperative break to breathe, finishing my memoir and researching publishers—small ones.

I’ve questioned my desire to get published by a publishing house. I don’t aspire to any of the big houses. Well, I once did. Growing up and into one's gifts is a steady process of right-sizing for humility. But do I seriously dare to think I have something to say? Well, yes, in fact.

Is the case that my story illustrates relevant?— the need to establish full dignity and inclusion of women in all areas of ministry AND the need to liberate divinity from oppression by masculine pronouns? Yes, I believe so. Christian feminists continue to insist that words matter and language shapes how we feel about ourselves as well as how our relations are structured. Many people think that God is just as God is described in the Bible. Really? Every description? Count ’em. What we think is God is a portrait of God—not the same, Dorian! Scripture is full of portraits of God. Our work is to discern with integrity and not to make any one an idol. Perhaps the Church has sold its soul to market just one portrait: He-Man deity inflated with transcendence? It still sells.

It’s hard on our spirituality to live in a consumerist and market-driven culture. Nowadays for example, an author needs a sizable platform, a dazzling provocative brand, a perfect pitch, and an irresistibly alluring hook just to get in over the transom. Good Gawd, what an insane world. Anne Lamotte was right when she labeled America “the U.S. of advertising.”  Even my beloved late dad, the 1940s “mad man,”would agree.

I think we writers ought to rebel completely and make our own markets. Most of us, after all, have had some assertiveness training along the way! Between market demands and economics, our part feels almost negligible. Look how fast celebrities turn out memoirs! Really, I think it’s baloney-on-the-run—celebrity writing for either fame or fortune, or both.

Writers, it is time for some serious daring. Write your very best; make every word accountable; don’t sell your soul, or your words, to the market; let your soul speak. Publish yourself. It’s one way to protest and be prophetic—a prophet being one who sees the world for what it is and acts accordingly.

Thank you, Ms. Welty.

2014.04.20 Eastering, 2014

How many “easters” does it take to make a resurrection? 

Answer....... depends on your own faith so it’s up for grabs. It could be none, or it could be only one, or it could be many. I say it takes daily attentiveness to the ways in which the Spirit of divinity makes things rise and arise, seeking new life always, over and over.  Will you notice?

What eastering means to me is that life’s spiritual purpose is to go around fostering as many resurrections as possible. For me that means imitating God in my own far-from-divine-but-terribly- sincere ways—and failing lots. And I wouldn't want to leave Jesus out because he lived resrrrection much better than I ever could, and in a way that his followers realized that they had seen God in action.

 
Most of us want to make everything happy, but sometimes things that need to rise up in you or someone else, are not so immediately joyful, certainly not worthy of multiple alleluias. Take, for example an old wound that still needs healing, or a resentment or grudge you’ve kept in hibernation in the wintry soil of your soul because you are afraid of its power to mess up your life. Let it be resurrected; let it come into the light.

I swear that God Creator resurrected Jesus, not because he was so perfect and good, but because God wanted to see Jesus’ face, alive and bright—always. And perhaps to say thank you.

Eastering is dynamic, energetic, and often demanding. You and God somehow together have to consent to it, as near-death stories tell us.  But that’s true even if you don’t biologically die. Death is not a necessary condition for resurrection. Also, there are many ways to “die” or be “dead.” 

For years I’d harbored a resentment against the bishop who had rejected me for ordination. It was buried so deep I didn’t even know it was there until, in a different diocese, I saw him and freaked. He should have been dead by now, I thought. I didn’t resurrect him, but after lots of prayer, conversation, and reflection, I did invite him to lunch and told him how I felt. He listened and said, more than once, that he was “so glad” I did this. He paid for lunch.

Still and all, capital-R Resurrection remains a mystery and a hope. It’s a divine action we don’t control. None of our business anyway. Metaphorically, however, easter always looks the same—coming out of darkness into light. 

Here’s an eastering image I love in the marvelous book length parable by Kenneth Grahame called The Wind in the Willows.

  
“The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First the brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said ‘Bother!’ and ‘O blow!’ and also ‘Hang spring-cleaning!’ and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat. Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the gavelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, ‘Up we go! Up we go!’ till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.”

                                                     
                                                     
                                                      

What needs eastering in your life? What ought to die? What be resurrected?—with God’s help, of course because such things need assists, which begin from within or without or both.

May the one holy and living God adorn you with all loveliness, garland each daffodil with a golden halo, infuse each weeny sound with eternality, radiate the cosmos with glory, plant love in all things, make you wise in your bones, and deal out grace all round like a profligate gambler. AMEN.