There’s a virus called COVID-19 whipping its toxicity around the globe. We are to practice “social distancing”—the term coined to suit the daily habits of anti-social grumps, but now a term signifying the principal life-saving behavior to avoid contacting the virus that spreads by human contact. Staying away from each other in order to stay well. How paradoxical:the farther away you stay from other people, even loved ones, the healthier you will be.
The other life-saving behavior is more obvious: wash your hands—again and again and then once more. Thirdly, avoid being in large crowds of people, and of course don’t travel. Such life-saving advice may just kill sports-crazy Bostonians and/or families whose kids are players in some sport and hoping for a college scholarship based on their performance—or their parents who are praying for same.
If you’re a overzealous extrovert you could go into withdrawal. OR you could stay healthy. If you’re already a clean-freak, you’ll be ecstatically squeaky-clean. Disappointment is not life-threatening. Choose life—yours.
Equally attractive stay-well guarantees include Lysol-spraying or wiping the surfaces in your home. They don’t say exactly how many times a day, but for persons with OCD inclinations this would mean, well, the obvious overdo. Absolutely the most perfected police detection methods will never discover any fingerprints anywhere in your house, except your own on the Lysol spray can or the Lysol wipes container. This precaution will be particularly difficult if you have small children about, because they use every surface as if it were a personal touchscreen—evidence of their omnipresence. Do NOT wipe their faces with the disinfectant. This will cause a tantrum at the very least. Soapy water is old-fashionedly enough for most of this, by the way.
Those at highest risk to contract the virus, and possibly die from it or contract a secondary infection that proves resistant to the latest antibiotic, are persons over sixty, persons whose immune systems are already compromised, persons with lung or heart disease, and compulsive “huggers” who tent you with Christian affection.
As to our executive leadership, the President at first minimized the little “bug,” then declared himself an expert by “intuition”and “hunch” on such medical decisions, then finally, as the only official authorized to make such a declaration, declared this virus a “national emergency.” Okay so NOW we can start taking this virus seriously—but not really, because it is, according to the President, a foreign virus, brought into this pristine country from outside—probably without a proper passport or visa. But that should not be a problem with our wondrous immigration policies, unless the virus makes its case as a tourist. If so, all it has to do is cut short its visit and go on “home.”
Quarantine, including closed schools and colleges, events, and churches, is the only appropriate and effective answer, and it is global. Personally, I feel for young happy-proud college graduates who are staging “fauxmencement”ceremonies to avoid drawing a huge crowd. No fans. Morally, I feel pained, because obviously people who work in food stores, restaurants, construction and many other kinds of workers cannot afford to lose an ounce of income. The virus exposes our racist classist society. Medically, there is also the danger of over-stressing the hospitals and other healthcare facilities if the virus spread too rapidly to manage critical cases.
Personally, I can tell you it’s a bit lonely if not boring. What helps?
Online efforts. I attended online Eucharist at our cathedral this morning.
Phoning my adult children a few more times than is necessary, yet the sound of each voice on the answering machine lifts me from quarantine gloom.
This is one of the few times in my life when I’ve been totally obedient—compliant to a fault. Nice to know it’s in me.
I can write. Words heal. I can pester my husband with baloney, read, watch television, and pray—a powerful energy force through which I know I am not alone and by which I trust God’s faithful Spiritual presence, like a masseuse, de-kinking.
Keeping a robust sense of humor. Not possible to frown while laughing.
Poetry is the best salve. Here is a poem that frames quarantine and pandemic in a creative religio-spiritual way. To see more of Lynn’s fine poetry visit her website lynnungar.com.
Pandemic by Lynn Ungar
What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.
Promise this world your love--
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.
--Lynn Ungar 3/11/20
And one more thing: tears. Tears cleanse, refresh, and release. I am mourning the death on March 13th of a beloved bishop, the Rt. Rev. Barbara Clementine Harris, the first woman bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion after being elected, proudly, by the Diocese of Massachusetts where she has served as Suffragan since 1989. Barbara was a force for justice, a friend who supported my writing, a woman of piquant humor, no matter what was happening, and a vibrant presence we all will greatly miss.
Our present diocesan bishop of Massachusetts, the Rt. Rev. Alan M.Gates, sent an eloquent pastoral message to the clergy and people of the Diocese of Massachusetts. His words caught up my soul:
A few hours later I found myself at the bedside of one beloved to us all who had just slipped peacefully from this world to the next. In the sure and certain hope which we claim, I gave voice to the Church’s prayers of commendation: Depart, O Christian soul, out of this world . . . into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light.
A solitary moment, yet embodying the fullest companionship imaginable.
At no time are we alone. Here, there. Now, then. At few moments in our memory have we more needed to remember this, to assure one another of this and to show forth that conviction to others as Christians.”
And I wept.
Sunday, March 15, 2020
Sunday, March 8, 2020
2020.03.08 Being Born Again—And Again
You must be born again to enter the kingdom of God, the realm of heavenly things, Christians say.
How many times?
At first, Kaia Rolle, 6, appeared not to understand what the police officers were doing.
“What are those for?” she said, eyeing the zip ties the officers had brought to the school office in Orlando, Fla.
“It’s for you,” one officer responded.
As he tied them on, she started to sob: “No, don’t put handcuffs on. Help me!” (from an article in the New York Times of 2/27/20, “Body Camera Footage Shows Arrest by Orlando Police of 6-Year Old at School” by journalist, Mihir Zaveri, first published in The Orlando Sentinel.)
The child continued to sob and plead, begging for help, and wailing: “Please, please. No, please” as two officers arrested her, cuffed her, and placed her in the back of a police vehicle. Later she was charged with battery and taken to the Juvenile Assessment Center—jail. Out of respect I will not include her mug shot taken after finger-printing. But don't tell me this is legal!
I first saw the live footage on the nightly MSNBC Greater Boston news program last week. It made my blood curdle, my innards recoil, and my eyes fill with tears. I had trouble getting the image out of my mind and still do.
From a spiritual perspective, I am sure that if you ever see such a horror you will know that you are being born again—awakened to the end of sweet heavenly visions of divine kingdoms in the sky. You will never be the same again. You will never be naive or judgmental about the true meaning of what Christians call being born again. Is there heaven in this hell?
The arrest of Kaia Rolle happened in September after she had an emotional tantrum at school in which she kicked a school staff member and may have hit out at another student. The arresting officer had arrested a six-year-old boy in a separate episode on the same day was terminated from his job. The incident raised immediate political and legal alarm, and steps were taken that require a deputy chief’s approval before a child under twelve was arrested. Kaia’s grandmother offered explanations about the child’s sleep apnea and their efforts to treat it.
Emotional outbursts like Kaia’s happen all the time in classrooms. Teachers are trained to manage them as creatively and kindly as they can. But did you now that our states have laws that legalize arrests for children that young? They call it juvenile, as if that word could soften the impact of such cruelty. I tell you that the law sanctioning such child abuse is against the “law” of Christ and, as one attorney said, represents a broken system that needs fixing.
What happened to Kaia is the definition of sin, systemic and individual. It’s the Cross of Christ. I saw this little girl break. I felt born again into the evil potential of this world.
I can only pray that my own emotional breakage will be used by God for good and beg, like Kaia, for help—again and again and again.
How many times?
At first, Kaia Rolle, 6, appeared not to understand what the police officers were doing.
“What are those for?” she said, eyeing the zip ties the officers had brought to the school office in Orlando, Fla.
“It’s for you,” one officer responded.
As he tied them on, she started to sob: “No, don’t put handcuffs on. Help me!” (from an article in the New York Times of 2/27/20, “Body Camera Footage Shows Arrest by Orlando Police of 6-Year Old at School” by journalist, Mihir Zaveri, first published in The Orlando Sentinel.)
The child continued to sob and plead, begging for help, and wailing: “Please, please. No, please” as two officers arrested her, cuffed her, and placed her in the back of a police vehicle. Later she was charged with battery and taken to the Juvenile Assessment Center—jail. Out of respect I will not include her mug shot taken after finger-printing. But don't tell me this is legal!
I first saw the live footage on the nightly MSNBC Greater Boston news program last week. It made my blood curdle, my innards recoil, and my eyes fill with tears. I had trouble getting the image out of my mind and still do.
From a spiritual perspective, I am sure that if you ever see such a horror you will know that you are being born again—awakened to the end of sweet heavenly visions of divine kingdoms in the sky. You will never be the same again. You will never be naive or judgmental about the true meaning of what Christians call being born again. Is there heaven in this hell?
The arrest of Kaia Rolle happened in September after she had an emotional tantrum at school in which she kicked a school staff member and may have hit out at another student. The arresting officer had arrested a six-year-old boy in a separate episode on the same day was terminated from his job. The incident raised immediate political and legal alarm, and steps were taken that require a deputy chief’s approval before a child under twelve was arrested. Kaia’s grandmother offered explanations about the child’s sleep apnea and their efforts to treat it.
Emotional outbursts like Kaia’s happen all the time in classrooms. Teachers are trained to manage them as creatively and kindly as they can. But did you now that our states have laws that legalize arrests for children that young? They call it juvenile, as if that word could soften the impact of such cruelty. I tell you that the law sanctioning such child abuse is against the “law” of Christ and, as one attorney said, represents a broken system that needs fixing.
What happened to Kaia is the definition of sin, systemic and individual. It’s the Cross of Christ. I saw this little girl break. I felt born again into the evil potential of this world.
I can only pray that my own emotional breakage will be used by God for good and beg, like Kaia, for help—again and again and again.
Sunday, March 1, 2020
2020.03.01 This LIttle Chair of Mine
Downsizing is an ongoing process, made bearable by tempting interruptions. Unlike Jesus, I allow myself to get drawn away from the task at hand and into the sweet joy of every distraction—whispered memories that remind me who I am and who we are.
Many pieces of furniture have a story to tell. I listen to their stories—sad, funny, puzzling, sacred, delicious. The stories let me know which items I will keep for now, which will go to 1-800-Junk, to the weekly recycling bin, into the city sidewalk box to be picked up and treasured by someone else, and which will stay with me till death do us part.
This little chair of mine is I suppose an antique. It is over eighty years old, like me. It was a gift to me on my birth day from a woman I used to call Aunt Dodie, the first wife of Uncle Louie, one of my dad’s older brothers. That’s the brief bio of my little chair.
I adored my little chair from the beginning. Less so Aunt Dodie who was a woman of extravagantly overbearing personality. She did, however, hit the jackpot with my little chair. I sat in it each night as my parents enjoyed their cocktail hour—a boring ritual that shifted all attention away from me and onto a martini glass. I rocked very fast in my sturdy little chair, hoping to attract attention. My chair did its job perfectly. I trusted it to stand guard on the cocktail hour while I hopped off, snitching some Ritz crackers as any wise explorer in search of other “worlds” would. I ended up under my parents’ large dining room table where I chattered, kvetched, and lamented to God who listened to my every word without comment. Such was my earliest spiritual experience. Such is the story the little chair tells.
I’ve had my little chair reconditioned twice. It has lived with me in New York, Connecticut, Alabama, and Massachusetts in five different towns and two cities. It has rocked more than one of my own children and a grandchild or two.
Today it sits next to my home altar in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but it is never alone. Our Francis bear, a tiny disheveled dog named Love sit in the chair, and a St. Bernard rescue dog named Steadfast stands at the ready next to the chair. Francis is curious and has never-ending questions, like me. Steadfast and Love I gave to my beloved when we were courting. They represent how we feel, and sometime behave, towards each other. More deeply, they represent the principal, and I’d dare to say only, quality of divine love, as does my little chair.
I hope a great grandchild will one day sit in my little chair, add to her story, and rock and rock and rock. The story goes on.
I’ve come to believe that when we stack up all our stories, including those we hear from our most treasured objects, the story-power alone will bust through any dammed up resentments, hostilities, or fables that threaten to keep us apart.
Thank you, Little Chair.
Many pieces of furniture have a story to tell. I listen to their stories—sad, funny, puzzling, sacred, delicious. The stories let me know which items I will keep for now, which will go to 1-800-Junk, to the weekly recycling bin, into the city sidewalk box to be picked up and treasured by someone else, and which will stay with me till death do us part.
This little chair of mine is I suppose an antique. It is over eighty years old, like me. It was a gift to me on my birth day from a woman I used to call Aunt Dodie, the first wife of Uncle Louie, one of my dad’s older brothers. That’s the brief bio of my little chair.
I’ve had my little chair reconditioned twice. It has lived with me in New York, Connecticut, Alabama, and Massachusetts in five different towns and two cities. It has rocked more than one of my own children and a grandchild or two.
Today it sits next to my home altar in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but it is never alone. Our Francis bear, a tiny disheveled dog named Love sit in the chair, and a St. Bernard rescue dog named Steadfast stands at the ready next to the chair. Francis is curious and has never-ending questions, like me. Steadfast and Love I gave to my beloved when we were courting. They represent how we feel, and sometime behave, towards each other. More deeply, they represent the principal, and I’d dare to say only, quality of divine love, as does my little chair.
I’ve come to believe that when we stack up all our stories, including those we hear from our most treasured objects, the story-power alone will bust through any dammed up resentments, hostilities, or fables that threaten to keep us apart.
Thank you, Little Chair.
Sunday, February 23, 2020
2020.02.23 Societal Transfiguration
On February 19, 1963, Betty Friedan’s book, The Feminine Mystique, was published. It’s opening words and question ignited a revolution of awareness in American culture.
"The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the 20th century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night — she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question — 'Is this all?'"
That question would spark a second wave of feminism in the United States, would permanently transform the American social fabric, and would come to be seen as a pioneering moment in American history. Friedan’s book is one of the most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century.
I was a brand new mother in 1963, delighted and awed by my baby daughter, born Jan 13. I knew I didn’t favor my own mother’s hovering, smothering, mothering style, but I wasn’t quite sure what kind of mother I could be. Friedan’s question sat silently brooding in my heart but didn’t take shape until the 1970s when I sat alone, spiritually deadened and bereft in my kitchen over yet one more batch of chocolate chip cookies. Suddenly, our of nowhere I heard this question: “Why are you doing this?” That inner voice was deep and jolting. I understood it to be God's voice. It moved me to tears, and in time to ask myself another question:
“Can there be more than motherhood for me?”
Motherhood has much to do with love and child-bearing, if that’s a possibility of course. It also has to do with the capacity to love yourself enough to make personal life choices—NOT against any children but for yourself and your life.
Today, nearly sixty years post-Friedan's book and fifteen years after her own death, women of all colors and nations are still asking the same questions and embarking on the same quests for sexual equality in church and state. I would call this very long, groaning-in-travail, movement "societal transfiguration".
The New Testament records an experience of transfiguration—a solo event just for Jesus. The light shone all around him, and his disciples were afraid. They interpreted this as the light of God’s glory. All biblical narratives are exaggerated to make sure they are unforgettable, and yet we must still interpret their meaning in every generation. With every transfiguring advance there is cruel and vicious backlash, yet the movement does not, and will not, die.
In the beginning, Creator God made all things good and called it ALL good. ALL of it. ALL of us. Good doesn’t mean morally sound, although that helps I suppose. The word is of germanic origin, god in Old English. Goodness is not a performance word, or even a value word, a love word, or a justice word. It’s a Being word, a soul word, a spiritual word, a transfiguring word. It means authenticity of word and deed, through and through. You all know a good person when you meet them. It’s catching. Is this all?
NO. We do not yet know a good society—anywhere.
May we keep praying and working for global Societal Transfiguration.
"The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the 20th century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night — she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question — 'Is this all?'"
That question would spark a second wave of feminism in the United States, would permanently transform the American social fabric, and would come to be seen as a pioneering moment in American history. Friedan’s book is one of the most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century.
I was a brand new mother in 1963, delighted and awed by my baby daughter, born Jan 13. I knew I didn’t favor my own mother’s hovering, smothering, mothering style, but I wasn’t quite sure what kind of mother I could be. Friedan’s question sat silently brooding in my heart but didn’t take shape until the 1970s when I sat alone, spiritually deadened and bereft in my kitchen over yet one more batch of chocolate chip cookies. Suddenly, our of nowhere I heard this question: “Why are you doing this?” That inner voice was deep and jolting. I understood it to be God's voice. It moved me to tears, and in time to ask myself another question:
“Can there be more than motherhood for me?”
Motherhood has much to do with love and child-bearing, if that’s a possibility of course. It also has to do with the capacity to love yourself enough to make personal life choices—NOT against any children but for yourself and your life.
Today, nearly sixty years post-Friedan's book and fifteen years after her own death, women of all colors and nations are still asking the same questions and embarking on the same quests for sexual equality in church and state. I would call this very long, groaning-in-travail, movement "societal transfiguration".
The New Testament records an experience of transfiguration—a solo event just for Jesus. The light shone all around him, and his disciples were afraid. They interpreted this as the light of God’s glory. All biblical narratives are exaggerated to make sure they are unforgettable, and yet we must still interpret their meaning in every generation. With every transfiguring advance there is cruel and vicious backlash, yet the movement does not, and will not, die.
In the beginning, Creator God made all things good and called it ALL good. ALL of it. ALL of us. Good doesn’t mean morally sound, although that helps I suppose. The word is of germanic origin, god in Old English. Goodness is not a performance word, or even a value word, a love word, or a justice word. It’s a Being word, a soul word, a spiritual word, a transfiguring word. It means authenticity of word and deed, through and through. You all know a good person when you meet them. It’s catching. Is this all?
NO. We do not yet know a good society—anywhere.
May we keep praying and working for global Societal Transfiguration.
Sunday, February 16, 2020
2020.02.16 Words Matter. Wisdom Sweet, Calm, Compelling Matters
DESIDERATA
GO PLACIDLY amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
By Max Ehrmann © 1927 Original text
Desiderata is Latin for “things desired”—not desirable but desired.
Author bio: Max Ehrmann (1872-1945) was of German descent, the son of Bavarian emigrants, an immigrant to the United States where he was educated at the Terre Haute Indiana Fourth District School and the German Methodist Church. He received a degree in English from De Pauw University and studied philosophy and law at Harvard University where he edited the Delta Tau Delta’s national Magazine. In 1937 Ehrmann received an honorary Doctor of of Letters from De Pauw University, and by 2010 Terre Haute honored him with a life-size bronze statue, posed with pen and pad as the writer.
Well, well, you can’t get much spark from Wikipedia, but isn’t it fun that this bright German immigrant from the Midwest, educated at la-dee-dah Hahvahd, frat boy, hoosier, Christian, employed as an attorney and businessman, produced such a grand corpus of material for which he is still admired—and remembered?
Good gawda’mighty, perhaps he should run for our highest office in 2020.
GO PLACIDLY amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
By Max Ehrmann © 1927 Original text
Desiderata is Latin for “things desired”—not desirable but desired.
Author bio: Max Ehrmann (1872-1945) was of German descent, the son of Bavarian emigrants, an immigrant to the United States where he was educated at the Terre Haute Indiana Fourth District School and the German Methodist Church. He received a degree in English from De Pauw University and studied philosophy and law at Harvard University where he edited the Delta Tau Delta’s national Magazine. In 1937 Ehrmann received an honorary Doctor of of Letters from De Pauw University, and by 2010 Terre Haute honored him with a life-size bronze statue, posed with pen and pad as the writer.
Well, well, you can’t get much spark from Wikipedia, but isn’t it fun that this bright German immigrant from the Midwest, educated at la-dee-dah Hahvahd, frat boy, hoosier, Christian, employed as an attorney and businessman, produced such a grand corpus of material for which he is still admired—and remembered?
Good gawda’mighty, perhaps he should run for our highest office in 2020.
Sunday, February 9, 2020
2020.02.09 Salt of The Earth. Who, Me?
Jesus is on a roll with his platform, Sermon on the Mount, as remembered in Matthew’s gospel, delivering a hefty load of expectations, addressed to his Jewish listeners: “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, then how can its saltiness be restored? It is no good for anything but is thrown out and trampled underfoot.”
Pretty harsh! Jesus was a wise and compassionate teacher, not one to offer gut courses in how to get into God’s graces. He offered Beatitudes (blessings) to help his listeners feel safe before he unfurled the full syllabus, replete with many images they would not/could not forget. One has always drawn me up short. I remember it often.
You are the salt of the earth. Do not lose your saltiness!
They didn’t forget. Even after Jesus was long dead and it took sixty years for anyone to write things down, they never stopped talking—talking, arguing, wondering, puzzling. We’re still doing this centuries later. The biblical memoir retains its powerful sting and crispness—saltiness. Why?
First, Jesus was so charismatic they came to believe that he was intimate with their God and Creator—intimate enough to speak for God, and to God.
Second, the followers, mostly poor and filled with fear and longing, were open to a message of hope against hope, even though it bewildered them and left them reeling. So drawn were they into Jesus’s irresistible message that God had not abandoned them that they kept on coming back for more.
Finally, there was a compelling reason to stay—a promise: energy and inspiration to find their own answers, to become activists if you will. To stay salty.
You are the salt of the earth. Do not lose your saltiness!
Today this charge looms large on our own horizons in this United States and in our Christian religion. How do we believe in ourselves when we’re so divided? How are we to be salty when so much feels flavorless? When so many do not want even to keep up with the daily news? When we go blind to the salty potential of putative enemies? Whom shall we follow?
Religious and political authority of Jesus’s day were stumped yet attracted as well, but they resorted to politics. They said: Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” they scoffed. Jesus was of course from Nazareth, a veritable slum not worth its own salt.
We are as scattered and in disarray in this country as they were in Jesus’s day. And yet we hear the echo and the challenge of Jesus’s wisdom ring in our ears, and sometimes from our public platforms.
You are the salt of the earth. Do not lose your saltiness!
I don’t know where you look for your saltiness, but I wonder if there is a Nazareth inside you, a hidden place you don’t easily reveal for fear of ridicule? Or outside you: someplace or group you revile out of fear? We all have our “nazareths.” Many can still feel stunned by ancient words so profound, demanding, and simultaneously compelling and frightening.
You are the salt of the earth. Do not lose your saltiness!
I don’t use salt anymore for health reasons and plain common sense, so I miss salt, its taste on my tongue, how it enhances an already good meal. Salt can jar my taste buds awake. I miss saltiness. Yet, if salt loses its saltiness can it be restored, or is it really doomed and worthless, a Jesus suggests?
Well, salt is not just a flavor savory, it is also a preservative. Most of us know people who are like the salt of the earth—good folks, often old, who have character, sardonic wit, and crust. There were many old salts in Gloucester where we served a parish for thirteen years. These are the people who remember, who preserve the good with the bad in their history and culture. These are they who are not afraid to argue and fight for what they love—and also to change their views for the same reason.
Our American democracy is at stake right now. It feels to many as if the saltiness has drained right out of it. This is not a new phenomenon. According to Jill Lepore, writing for The New Yorker Magazine (2/3/2020):“It’s the paradox of democracy that the best way to defend it is to argue about it.” That has been true throughout our history. This is how we preserve it. This is not at all to dismiss genuine concern and worry; it is, however, to say that when we are puzzled and bewildered and sure there’s not any good thing to come out of this, like Nazareth, just keep talking and arguing and loving and caring anyway, just as Jesus’s followers did.
I would say the same thing about the Bible—scriptures some call holy in the way that many Americans reverence the Bill of Rights and our Constitution. Why is this immense Holy Bible still alive? Why still salty?
We argue about what we love the most, and in the arguing process itself come new vitality, new awakenings, new directions, new ways to stay salty—both flavorful and preservative. So it was for Jesus’s listeners. So it will be for us.
You are the salt of the earth. Do not lose your saltiness!
Pretty harsh! Jesus was a wise and compassionate teacher, not one to offer gut courses in how to get into God’s graces. He offered Beatitudes (blessings) to help his listeners feel safe before he unfurled the full syllabus, replete with many images they would not/could not forget. One has always drawn me up short. I remember it often.
You are the salt of the earth. Do not lose your saltiness!
They didn’t forget. Even after Jesus was long dead and it took sixty years for anyone to write things down, they never stopped talking—talking, arguing, wondering, puzzling. We’re still doing this centuries later. The biblical memoir retains its powerful sting and crispness—saltiness. Why?
First, Jesus was so charismatic they came to believe that he was intimate with their God and Creator—intimate enough to speak for God, and to God.
Second, the followers, mostly poor and filled with fear and longing, were open to a message of hope against hope, even though it bewildered them and left them reeling. So drawn were they into Jesus’s irresistible message that God had not abandoned them that they kept on coming back for more.
Finally, there was a compelling reason to stay—a promise: energy and inspiration to find their own answers, to become activists if you will. To stay salty.
You are the salt of the earth. Do not lose your saltiness!
Today this charge looms large on our own horizons in this United States and in our Christian religion. How do we believe in ourselves when we’re so divided? How are we to be salty when so much feels flavorless? When so many do not want even to keep up with the daily news? When we go blind to the salty potential of putative enemies? Whom shall we follow?
Religious and political authority of Jesus’s day were stumped yet attracted as well, but they resorted to politics. They said: Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” they scoffed. Jesus was of course from Nazareth, a veritable slum not worth its own salt.
We are as scattered and in disarray in this country as they were in Jesus’s day. And yet we hear the echo and the challenge of Jesus’s wisdom ring in our ears, and sometimes from our public platforms.
You are the salt of the earth. Do not lose your saltiness!
I don’t know where you look for your saltiness, but I wonder if there is a Nazareth inside you, a hidden place you don’t easily reveal for fear of ridicule? Or outside you: someplace or group you revile out of fear? We all have our “nazareths.” Many can still feel stunned by ancient words so profound, demanding, and simultaneously compelling and frightening.
You are the salt of the earth. Do not lose your saltiness!
I don’t use salt anymore for health reasons and plain common sense, so I miss salt, its taste on my tongue, how it enhances an already good meal. Salt can jar my taste buds awake. I miss saltiness. Yet, if salt loses its saltiness can it be restored, or is it really doomed and worthless, a Jesus suggests?
Well, salt is not just a flavor savory, it is also a preservative. Most of us know people who are like the salt of the earth—good folks, often old, who have character, sardonic wit, and crust. There were many old salts in Gloucester where we served a parish for thirteen years. These are the people who remember, who preserve the good with the bad in their history and culture. These are they who are not afraid to argue and fight for what they love—and also to change their views for the same reason.
Our American democracy is at stake right now. It feels to many as if the saltiness has drained right out of it. This is not a new phenomenon. According to Jill Lepore, writing for The New Yorker Magazine (2/3/2020):“It’s the paradox of democracy that the best way to defend it is to argue about it.” That has been true throughout our history. This is how we preserve it. This is not at all to dismiss genuine concern and worry; it is, however, to say that when we are puzzled and bewildered and sure there’s not any good thing to come out of this, like Nazareth, just keep talking and arguing and loving and caring anyway, just as Jesus’s followers did.
I would say the same thing about the Bible—scriptures some call holy in the way that many Americans reverence the Bill of Rights and our Constitution. Why is this immense Holy Bible still alive? Why still salty?
We argue about what we love the most, and in the arguing process itself come new vitality, new awakenings, new directions, new ways to stay salty—both flavorful and preservative. So it was for Jesus’s listeners. So it will be for us.
You are the salt of the earth. Do not lose your saltiness!
Sunday, February 2, 2020
2020.02.02 LIturgical MIndfulness
The Church blasts on about the Epiphany LIGHT of Christ. It’s Candlemas. We bless candles. We light candles. Remember however that shedding light can hurt as well as enlighten. Christ’s light exposes the whole truth and nothing but the truth—the ugly with the lovely, the good with the un-good, the godly with the ungodly.
I picked up one of my liturgist-spouse’s old WORSHIP magazines recently and read the column, “The Amen Corner.” Anthony Ruff, O.S.B. wrote that “liturgical incompetence” is “killing us.” Ruff, Associate Professor of Theology at St. John’s Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota, is a gifted teacher of liturgy and music, author, and blogger who calls himself an “accidental activist.”
Ruff quotes this report of a priest who went to a summer parish mass on Sunday morning while at a weekend gathering at the beach of 25-30 extended family and friends—all cradle Catholics. Only the priest went off to Mass. No wonder.
“There was no opening hymn, because the organist hadn’t shown up on time. The organ was in the sanctuary, so you could see she wasn’t there, and you could also see when our luck ran out and she did show up (during the homily) . . . Nobody sang or even pretended to try, except the organist herself who also served as a kind of Wagnerian cantor (she definitely didn’t need that mike). And she seemed fine with the ‘no one else is singing but me’ part; really, she did.
The lector read the readings in a way that convinced me that he’d never read eyes on them before.
We powered through the . . . Mass as if the building was on fire. When I returned to my seat from communion, almost the entire section I was seated in was gone. . . .
At the dismissal, instead of some charge to go in peace and serve the Lord or announce the Gospel, the celebrant says, ‘Don’t forget, at the beach, it’s always Happy Hour.’ Really? Did he just give them permission to start drinking?”
Why would I want any of my dechurched family members to have set aside their various weekend activities to witness this gathering of the Body of Christ? The last place I would want to reintroduce them to worship was this half empty church for . . . a full miss when it comes to what the Christian community is supposed to be about when it assembles.”
This report is hilarious, incredible, and depressing. Tragically, it is NOT fake news! Okay, Ruff is Catholic, and okay, it was summer, and yes, okay, there are brilliant exceptions. Nevertheless, Ruff hit on something diagnostic that ails all churches today: liturgical incompetence. I might call it a lack of liturgical mindfulness. Mindfulness is focus, paying attention. We do it in yoga classes. Do we do that in liturgy?
Episcopalians rush to say that our church is liturgically exceptional, but it’s not. I have been in too many parishes in which mindless things happened, such as:
-the tempo is lickety-split (“powering” through, according to Ruff) as if worship of God were to be measured by clock time, or tee time;
-a reader does not know the difference between between prophecy (noun) and prophesy (verb), screeching out boldly proclaiming the voice of God calling the prophet to Prophesee! Prophesee!
-Lepers becoming “leapers.” Honestly, it’s happened, making the amazing gospel story of Jesus’s healing ten Leapers quite effective visually. One leapt back to say thanks.
-a young lector either races anxiously through a text, seemingly to show off their reading skills, or drags through it slowly and inaudibly, making the proclamation a secret;
-the POPS (Prayers of the People) being so wordy I forgot the focus, and/or there is absolute silence from the people, save for a parroted response: “Lord, hear our prayer”—proof we can read and obey instructions;
-a reader announcing the Opening CollECT, instead of COllect. We CollECT your money; we pray a COllect
-The Peace, originally instituted as a way for worshipers to share the Peace of Christ with one another, turning into a back fence hug fest of affection, as if it were our own personal greeting, including our own daily news;
-the Holy Eucharist becoming a contest to see who can get to the altar first, gulp a wafer, and race out in pursuit of the “real spread” at coffee hour.
These are pet peeves only, yet in truth, Ruff is right: we need to shed the harsh, illuminative light of Christ on liturgy, helping everyone experience the meaning of what we do and why. What does it tell us about God, ourselves, ritual, and prayer? Be mindful not rigid.
Cautonary: The late Aidan Kavanaugh, OSB, faculty at Yale Divinity School’s S.T.M. (Masters of Sacred Theology) program, and liturgical scholar issued a warning about liturgical perfectionism:
“To be consumed with worry over making a liturgical mistake is the greatest mistake of all. Reverence is a virtue, not a neurosis, and God can take care of [sic] Godself.
Tragic postscript: In 2019, Anthony Ruff was credibly accused of sexual predation by a minor at a summer camp, run by the National Catholic Youth Choir. The outcome is pending.This makes me feel very sad, but, in my opinion, it neither discredits or demeans Ruff’s scholarship, wisdom, wit, and keen liturgical perspective. His writing still edifies. He does not deserve erasure, only time, prayer, perhaps institutional mindfulness regarding its own roles and rules—and the Light of Christ.
I picked up one of my liturgist-spouse’s old WORSHIP magazines recently and read the column, “The Amen Corner.” Anthony Ruff, O.S.B. wrote that “liturgical incompetence” is “killing us.” Ruff, Associate Professor of Theology at St. John’s Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota, is a gifted teacher of liturgy and music, author, and blogger who calls himself an “accidental activist.”
“There was no opening hymn, because the organist hadn’t shown up on time. The organ was in the sanctuary, so you could see she wasn’t there, and you could also see when our luck ran out and she did show up (during the homily) . . . Nobody sang or even pretended to try, except the organist herself who also served as a kind of Wagnerian cantor (she definitely didn’t need that mike). And she seemed fine with the ‘no one else is singing but me’ part; really, she did.
The lector read the readings in a way that convinced me that he’d never read eyes on them before.
We powered through the . . . Mass as if the building was on fire. When I returned to my seat from communion, almost the entire section I was seated in was gone. . . .
At the dismissal, instead of some charge to go in peace and serve the Lord or announce the Gospel, the celebrant says, ‘Don’t forget, at the beach, it’s always Happy Hour.’ Really? Did he just give them permission to start drinking?”
Why would I want any of my dechurched family members to have set aside their various weekend activities to witness this gathering of the Body of Christ? The last place I would want to reintroduce them to worship was this half empty church for . . . a full miss when it comes to what the Christian community is supposed to be about when it assembles.”
This report is hilarious, incredible, and depressing. Tragically, it is NOT fake news! Okay, Ruff is Catholic, and okay, it was summer, and yes, okay, there are brilliant exceptions. Nevertheless, Ruff hit on something diagnostic that ails all churches today: liturgical incompetence. I might call it a lack of liturgical mindfulness. Mindfulness is focus, paying attention. We do it in yoga classes. Do we do that in liturgy?
Episcopalians rush to say that our church is liturgically exceptional, but it’s not. I have been in too many parishes in which mindless things happened, such as:
-the tempo is lickety-split (“powering” through, according to Ruff) as if worship of God were to be measured by clock time, or tee time;
-a reader does not know the difference between between prophecy (noun) and prophesy (verb), screeching out boldly proclaiming the voice of God calling the prophet to Prophesee! Prophesee!
-Lepers becoming “leapers.” Honestly, it’s happened, making the amazing gospel story of Jesus’s healing ten Leapers quite effective visually. One leapt back to say thanks.
-a young lector either races anxiously through a text, seemingly to show off their reading skills, or drags through it slowly and inaudibly, making the proclamation a secret;
-the POPS (Prayers of the People) being so wordy I forgot the focus, and/or there is absolute silence from the people, save for a parroted response: “Lord, hear our prayer”—proof we can read and obey instructions;
-a reader announcing the Opening CollECT, instead of COllect. We CollECT your money; we pray a COllect
-The Peace, originally instituted as a way for worshipers to share the Peace of Christ with one another, turning into a back fence hug fest of affection, as if it were our own personal greeting, including our own daily news;
-the Holy Eucharist becoming a contest to see who can get to the altar first, gulp a wafer, and race out in pursuit of the “real spread” at coffee hour.
These are pet peeves only, yet in truth, Ruff is right: we need to shed the harsh, illuminative light of Christ on liturgy, helping everyone experience the meaning of what we do and why. What does it tell us about God, ourselves, ritual, and prayer? Be mindful not rigid.
Cautonary: The late Aidan Kavanaugh, OSB, faculty at Yale Divinity School’s S.T.M. (Masters of Sacred Theology) program, and liturgical scholar issued a warning about liturgical perfectionism:
“To be consumed with worry over making a liturgical mistake is the greatest mistake of all. Reverence is a virtue, not a neurosis, and God can take care of [sic] Godself.
Tragic postscript: In 2019, Anthony Ruff was credibly accused of sexual predation by a minor at a summer camp, run by the National Catholic Youth Choir. The outcome is pending.This makes me feel very sad, but, in my opinion, it neither discredits or demeans Ruff’s scholarship, wisdom, wit, and keen liturgical perspective. His writing still edifies. He does not deserve erasure, only time, prayer, perhaps institutional mindfulness regarding its own roles and rules—and the Light of Christ.
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