Category Archives: Video

Palm Reading – a meditation for a new year

Posted on by
Reply

Have you made resolutions?

If you are not resolved to see them through, don’t bother. Instead, read your right palm. Look at it carefully as if you are looking into your own soul and tell me what you see. Tell me last year’s word:

  • Broken
  • Sore
  • Lonely
  • Ugly
  • Fat
  • Poor

See last year’s words written there and weep if you have to, and remember: last year.

That was then. This is now.

Time to read the words on your left hand which should resemble the one on the right (if you’re playing our game correctly) and there on the left, on the “bad hand,” you see the resemblance, and you see that the writing on the left takes those old words and turns them on their pole:

  • Made whole
  • Exercised
  • Loved
  • Handsome
  • Perfect
  • Blessed

The trick to turning over a new year is to take all that sludge that is left over in life from the past year, and do what is in your power to transform it. Start with the easy stuff – start with how you look vs. the way you think people see you. Start with the weight of bad thoughts that you think others have against you, and realize that they. too, feel the same about the way others see them. And if they are so worried with their own lives, surely there is no time for them to single you out to think all the bad things you are convinced they think about you.

The solution sounds as if talking is in order.

The solution calls for an end to our loneliness by removing ourselves from the ones who dislike us, and drawing close to the ones who love us. Not that “I love you” second date talk or the “I love you” passing the Peace at church but the honest, true, “who is the person you most want to go out on a bender with, and then smile when you wake up next to them in jail the next morning.” That, children, is some love!

See what you were and see where you are going, and rest in the great wonder of what you will be when you get there! Dreams are not just the playground of children. Teach yourself to be who you were in order to be where you are now, in great anticipation of where you are going. Now is the time to move away from what is bad and wrong and the people who are bad and wrong. Now is the time to stand up and say No! to those preachers who tell you that you are sinful and wrong.

Now is the time – and this is the place – to realize we are a united, loved and very blessed people. The great challenge of this new year is:

We only need to believe it.

Keep the faith!
 - Amen

from “I Sing the Body Electric”
a poem by Walt Whitman in his collection,
Leaves of Grass

 

from Leaves of Grass

19. I Sing the Body Electric

1

I SING the Body electric;
The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them;
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the Soul.
Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves;          5
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do as much as the Soul?
And if the body were not the Soul, what is the Soul?
2

The love of the Body of man or woman balks account—the body itself balks account;
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.   10
The expression of the face balks account;
But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face;
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists;
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees—dress does not hide him;
The strong, sweet, supple quality he has, strikes through the cotton and flannel;   15
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more;
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.
The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the contour of their shape downwards,
The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up, and rolls silently to and fro in the heave of the water,
The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats—the horseman in his saddle,   20
Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,
The female soothing a child—the farmer’s daughter in the garden or cow-yard,
The young fellow hoeing corn—the sleigh-driver guiding his six horses through the crowd,
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty, good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown, after work,   25
The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
The upper-hold and the under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,
The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,
The natural, perfect, varied attitudes—the bent head, the curv’d neck, and the counting;   30
Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother’s breast with the little child,
Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with the firemen, and pause, listen, and count.
3

I know a man, a common farmer—the father of five sons;
And in them were the fathers of sons—and in them were the fathers of sons.
This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person;   35
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard, and the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes—the richness and breadth of his manners,
These I used to go and visit him to see—he was wise also;
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old—his sons were massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome;
They and his daughters loved him—all who saw him loved him;
They did not love him by allowance—they loved him with personal love;   40
He drank water only—the blood show’d like scarlet through the clear-brown skin of his face;
He was a frequent gunner and fisher—he sail’d his boat himself—he had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner—he had fowling-pieces, presented to him by men that loved him;
When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish, you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang.
You would wish long and long to be with him—you would wish to sit by him in the boat, that you and he might touch each other.
4

I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,		   45
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them, or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment—what is this, then?
I do not ask any more delight—I swim in it, as in a sea.
There is something in staying close to men and women, and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well;   50
All things please the soul—but these please the soul well.
5

This is the female form;
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot;
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction!
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor—all falls aside but myself and it;   55
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, the atmosphere and the clouds, and what was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed;
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it—the response likewise ungovernable;
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands, all diffused—mine too diffused;
Ebb stung by the flow, and flow stung by the ebb—love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching;
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice;   60
Bridegroom night of love, working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn;
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.
This is the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, the man is born of woman;
This is the bath of birth—this is the merge of small and large, and the outlet again.   65
Be not ashamed, women—your privilege encloses the rest, and is the exit of the rest;
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.
The female contains all qualities, and tempers them—she is in her place, and moves with perfect balance;
She is all things duly veil’d—she is both passive and active;
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.   70
As I see my soul reflected in nature;
As I see through a mist, one with inexpressible completeness and beauty,
See the bent head, and arms folded over the breast—the female I see.
6

The male is not less the soul, nor more—he too is in his place;
He too is all qualities—he is action and power;   75
The flush of the known universe is in him;
Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well;
The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is utmost, become him well—pride is for him;
The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul;
Knowledge becomes him—he likes it always—he brings everything to the test of himself;   80
Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail, he strikes soundings at last only here;
(Where else does he strike soundings, except here?)
The man’s body is sacred, and the woman’s body is sacred;
No matter who it is, it is sacred;
Is it a slave? Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?   85
Each belongs here or anywhere, just as much as the well-off—just as much as you;
Each has his or her place in the procession.
(All is a procession;
The universe is a procession, with measured and beautiful motion.)
Do you know so much yourself, that you call the slave or the dull-face ignorant?   90
Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has no right to a sight?
Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float—and the soil is on the surface, and water runs, and vegetation sprouts,
For you only, and not for him and her?
7

A man’s Body at auction;
I help the auctioneer—the sloven does not half know his business.   95
Gentlemen, look on this wonder!
Whatever the bids of the bidders, they cannot be high enough for it;
For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years, without one animal or plant;
For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll’d.
In this head the all-baffling brain;  100
In it and below it, the makings of heroes.
Examine these limbs, red, black, or white—they are so cunning in tendon and nerve;
They shall be stript, that you may see them.
Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant back-bone and neck, flesh not flabby, good-sized arms and legs,  105
And wonders within there yet.
Within there runs blood,
The same old blood!
The same red-running blood!
There swells and jets a heart—there all passions, desires, reachings, aspirations;  110
Do you think they are not there because they are not express’d in parlors and lecture-rooms?
This is not only one man—this is the father of those who shall be fathers in their turns;
In him the start of populous states and rich republics;
Of him countless immortal lives, with countless embodiments and enjoyments.
How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring through the centuries?  115
Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace back through the centuries?
8

A woman’s Body at auction!
She too is not only herself—she is the teeming mother of mothers;
She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.
Have you ever loved the Body of a woman?  120
Have you ever loved the Body of a man?
Your father—where is your father?
Your mother—is she living? have you been much with her? and has she been much with you?
—Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all, in all nations and times, all over the earth?
If any thing is sacred, the human body is sacred,  125
And the glory and sweet of a man, is the token of manhood untainted;
And in man or woman, a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is beautiful as the most beautiful face.
Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool that corrupted her own live body?
For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.
9

O my Body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you;		  130
I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the Soul, (and that they are the Soul;)
I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems—and that they are poems,
Man’s, woman’s, child’s, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s, father’s, young man’s, young woman’s poems;
Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eye-brows, and the waking or sleeping of the lids,  135
Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,
Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,
Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the ample side-round of the chest.
Upper-arm, arm-pit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,  140
Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, fore-finger, finger-balls, finger-joints, finger-nails,
Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
Ribs, belly, back-bone, joints of the back-bone,
Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-balls, man-root,
Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,  145
Leg-fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under leg,
Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body, or of any one’s body, male or female,
The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,  150
Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
Womanhood, and all that is a woman—and the man that comes from woman,
The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,  155
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
The skin, the sun-burnt shade, freckles, hair,
The curious sympathy one feels, when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body,
The circling rivers, the breath, and breathing it in and out,  160
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward toward the knees,
The thin red jellies within you, or within me—the bones, and the marrow in the bones,
The exquisite realization of health;
O I say, these are not the parts and poems of the Body only, but of the Soul,
O I say now these are the Soul!

 

 

Saving who from whom and other circular debates on gay relationships

Posted on by
Reply

Torn - Rescuing the Gospel from the Gay vs Christian DebateAs happens more times than I can remember, things pop up on the radio or in news articles that make me stop ignoring the white noise and pay attention. Such is the case with this short NPR Radio interview this week with Justin Lee on his book,

Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays vs. Christians Debate.

Justin Lee is an online friend from way back and I’m looking forward to reading his book (I’ve probably heard/read  most of it in conversation with him.) I may not agree with everything he has to say (how boring that would be) but his evolving method of religious thought is inspiring and worth giving a look-see. Spiritual thought in general, and quite specifically Western Christianity is a growth industry for one’s brain cells. This begins with the three legged stool of Christian belief that (a) The Bible is the inerrant word of God vs. (b) Maybe it is, but it’s edited by humans, vs. (c) everything that we need for “salvation” is found within. Christians are big – in general – on speaking of things in trinities.

I’m glad he mentions in this brief interview CS Lewis‘ remark on the separation of state marriage and church marriage, because of an online  debate that ground away at my patience with the GayChristianNetwork “Side A“ vs. “Side B” Christians (I can’t remember which letter is which) debating “premarital” (same sex) intimacy vs. “waiting for marriage.” I saw the great spiritual danger in that debate when we speak of “waiting for” something that in many states – constitutionally – will not happen. (In their defense, the debate centered  around “waiting to be in a relationship” rather than being a gay person who is single and sexually active.)

This then leads to a very large spiritual question of: what to do?

This point makes me want to take a look at his book because: what, indeed? There are as many different types of sexual humans as there are spiritual humans, and the two needn’t be mutually-exclusive. To hold on to some theologically-irrelevant heterosexist  theory on “adultery” among people on a marriage path is too facile: if gay people either by law or by choice do not have the option of state supported and church-blessed marriage, why are we – as gay Christians – tied to an impossible to achieve ideal?

The point is to go back to one of those versus above  (not verses,) remembering that “all that is necessary for salvation is found in the Bible.”

I probably wouldn’t have responded to his interview except that he mentions one of my favorite thoughts on the topic of sin and salvation (etc.) from Tony Campolo who says that Jesus never said (or implied) “Love the sinner and hate the sin.” To believe that, I have said, goes against the singular foundation of Christian thought based on the teachings of Christ, as presented in this Bible, above, which has everything within that we need for … etc.

Jesus taught that we should “Love the sinner and hate your own sin,” and illustrated this by the famous analogy of not pointing out the speck of dust in your friend’s eye until first you have dealt with the large stick of wood pointing out from your own. I agree with Lee that this is how this discussion/debate should happen. If you want to show me some missionary zeal, before you can stand and preach on a street corner or fly off and wave your Christian flag, please do some homework – at home – first. All of life is a perpetual growing and learning process. The addition that Christians face is that great chapters of that growth happen in public view. And when we open up our hearts and minds (and too often we pre-open our mouths) things can get messy.

Lee says “I don’t blame people for coming to other conclusions than I have” on the topic of Gays and Christianity and Gospel and Commandments (pronouncements.) The great underlying adventure of the Hebrew Bible (The Old Testament) is showing us what a covenant looks like. Without that covenant, we cannot have a relationship with the God that is mentioned throughout the many books of the Bible. And guess what: we also cannot have relationships with those around us: friends, co-workers, family (even the ones we don’t like,) lovers.

Any good spiritual belief set flows forth from conversation and discussion and even argument. The best spiritual belief sets are formed when each of those arguments and discussions come from a place of respect for the others’ thoughts. They come from an inside knowledge that my telling you what I believe and how I believe it is certainly not going to sway your thoughts, but, in conversation, perhaps we can teach each other. And something will come from that. Something far greater and much stronger than the compromise of “we agree to disagree.”

Compromise without growth and improvement is a lose-lose situation.

Nobody ever said this stuff was easy. Even more so when you have to do that second coming out of “I am a gay christian,” and suddenly all your traditional Christian friends think you’ve lost your soul, and all your gay friends think you’ve lost your mind.

If you listen quite carefully, and speak quite calmly, and ask good questions, you will make great gains in both mind and soul. Whether or not your friends in either camp agree… well… that’s another parable from Christ we will save for another day.

Someone will likely ask you this year what you think about… and what you believe about….

Think first. Teach (the Baptists call it “testifying”) second. Always listen with your heart.
And from that teaching, you will learn.

Keep the faith!
- Amen

Just in case you didn’t click on the link above, here is the link to Justin Lee’s NPR interview about his book.

more about Tony Campolo on Gay People and the Church:

Here we sing Christmas – an Advent meditation

Posted on by
Reply

 My public speaking professor said that in order to be a good public enunciator (and as I see now, either a Preacher or a Politician… ahem…,) we should learn French phonetics because it teaches you to “control your tongue.” I must have learned things in the wrong order because I have decent command of speaking in public and of spoken French.

That “controlling my tongue” thing gets me trouble every time.

There are two words I love to say in French: the first is the car name “Citroën” because it’s a beautifully southern-like word with an extra syllable in there where one shouldn’t exist (this concept came native to me because “no” is a three-syllable word when my mother says it. She’s Southern.) Citroën is fun to say because it sounds like you’re getting ready to hock a loogie from the middle of your mouth. This is a foreign concept (the pronunciation – not the loogie hocking) to Americans. They never quite get the hang of it and instead go for  “Citron.“

Or they spit all over the person they’re speaking to.

The other word is “Noël” because the vowel part comes from way back in the throat about as far as you can get and not swallow it. There’s a cadence and lifting of the tone of your voice as you say bonjour Noël as if you were greeting Christmas the same as you would greet a friend you just ran into on the street: Bonjour Joe! Bonjour Marie!

Christmas should be like that.

Not up in the very front of our “OMG! What are we going to do about … X … !?” brain, but way back (“back yonder“) in the farthest “back yonder” beyond memorization, or thinking about it. Noël just like life should just… be.

This isn’t a story about what you believe when you say a phrase or sing a song. This is about where the phrases and songs come from. At first you act from memory. These are the things we do every year at this time and we do them because, well, because we’ve always done them this time of year.

Perhaps there’s more.

Maybe it’s all a language that our body and soul takes on over the years. In theory, the longer we speak a language the better we get at it. And with this time of the year as we get older we become more rehearsed at what we are supposed to be doing, or we build a sort-of ritual of shared and common memories that comes from way back there in that farthest back back yonder of our lives.

In one of the Americanized translations of the French carol Noël Nouvelet, the first phrase is:

Christmas come anew…

I like that image. Christians have the Nativity of Christ as an ongoing sacramental holiday. It has been the same for all these years and it will be pretty much the same pushing onward into our civilization’s infinity (and beyond.) It is a tradition based on as many social and family rubrics (“Oh dear. What are we going to get for Uncle Bob this year?”) as there are standardized forms of celebration.

If the idea of all that tradition tries your patience (especially around trying so hard to get it right every year), think of the other phrase that is linguistically more familiar, but to put into practice requires a little thought, and an entire (spiritual) year of planning. This isn’t a centering concept you can pick up at whatever is the Black Friday of Prayer, and run with until New Year’s Eve, then pack and stow away in the attic until next year about this time.

Christmas comes anew requires both understanding where it came from (good or bad) and as it approaches, is among us, and rolls back out. Seeing it in this anew state helps us imagine where this year’s Christmas is going to take us into the brave new world of an unknown  new year.

Noël Nouvelet is quite a brave little song. Besides having a nice little danceable tune, it makes a stand: Here – in this spot – we are going to stand and sing… and what follows is the Christmas story, but it’s girded with this exclamation first that Christmas is very much among us in present-tense, and not in some concept, or some poem or some letter to the editor from a young girl named Virginia.

Maybe Christmas is not a defensible position in your life because everybody around you does it (liking it or not) and we simply do not change, or even vary the tune.

Tradition is strong.

Maybe you don’t do it at all and really want to be left alone from all this fake joviality and forced consumerism.

Independence is always a little hard-of-hearing.

Maybe you do some other thing over here on the side, and Christmas is not familiar, not warm and cuddly, and not noticed because you are busy with the other thing you do.

Good choices makes for a good pot of stew.

The what-if question in this story is: what if you then take this Christmas concept with whatever definition it has in your life (if any) and you skip what has always been, and what likely will be done again, and you think about that phrase: Christmas comes anew. Greet it like that friend you meet on the sidewalk: bonjour Noël! and go about your business of greeting and standing and singing. Because you have spent the whole previous year in anticipation of this time when you get to spend your days reveling in it, and then spend another great year in anticipation (and preparation) of it’s coming again.

Let today become that Black Friday of Prayer.

Each year it comes fresh to us in whatever swaddling we have wrapped around it. Each year we take our stand and say here… now…  we sing.

Can you think of a better way to spend your year?

Keep the faith!
- Amen

Noël nouvelet

traditional French carol
performed by The King’s Singers

 

Noel nouvelet, Noel chantons ici,
Devotes gens, crions a Dieu merci!
Chantons Noel pour le Roi nouvelet, Noel!
Chantons Noel pour le Roi nouvelet,
Noel nouvelet, Noel chantons ici!

L’ange disait! pasteurs partez d’ici!
En Bethleem trouverez l’angelet. Refrain

En Bethleem, etant tous reunis,
Trouverent l’enfant, Joseph, Marie aussi. Refrain

Bientot, les Rois, par l’etoile eclaircis,
A Bethleem vinrent un matinee. Refrain

L’un partait l’or; l’autre l’encens bem;
L’etable alors au Paradis semblait. Refrain

Translated Version:

Christmas comes anew, O let us sing Noel!
Glory to God! Now let your praises swell!
Sing we Noel for Christ, the newborn King, Noel!
Sing we Noel for Christ, the newborn King.
Christmas comes anew, O let us sing Noel!

Angels did say, “O shepherds come and see,
Born in Bethlehem, a blessed Lamb for thee.” Refrain

In the manger bed, the shepherds found the Child;
Joseph was there, and Mother Mary mild. Refrain

Soon came the kings from following the star,
Bearing costly gifts from Eastern lands afar. Refrain

Brought to Him gold and incense of great price,
Then the stable bare resembled Paradise. Refrain

 

Playing Just the White Keys – help in adversity

Posted on by
Reply

It’s best to listen and watch and pay attention to the things going on around us in our lives because, all too often, lessons abound and if we aren’t ready, we miss out.

I am a some-time pianist and deal with a few more issues than most aging amateur piano plonkers: problems with focusing on the words (notes) on the page, fatigue in my body that gives out before my hands do, and a constant internal conversation about “why can’t I do this the way I used to?”

In life, today, we can never do it (whatever it is) the way we used to. We do it the way we do it now!

We all have our troubles and challenges in our lives and they are all different except for one major thing: they are the troubles in our lives.

Everybody has them. If they’re not having them, they just got through with them; if they didn’t just come through, then the troubles are on the way.

My friend Jessica Roemischer (see her YouTube channel here: Jessica Roemischer) is an accomplished musician and a great teacher of simple, life-changing lessons. She taught me about playing the white keys:

Part of Jessica’s work is with with women who have various developmental differences or medical situations by which expression for them doesn’t work the same as it does for everyman on the street. Jessica is an adaptive pianist who can wend her way through mash ups of combinations of songs that transport the mind away from singing along with some pop tune. They move the listener to a place at which the song that she is playing may not even be the song that we hear as the melody evolves and the listener becomes so immersed in the meditation of the moment.

That’s not nearly the whole story.

When she’s working with students at the piano, she tells them to sit with her and play what it is that they feel/hear/want to say. And there is only one bit of instruction:

play the white keys.

What happens next is the student playing what she is sensing/hearing/feeling with no theory, no sheet music, no lead sheet. At the same time, the teacher fills in the bits and pieces around the student’s music, and from that, the single song emerges.

Here is what I learned:

Many times I’m up against the wall of intense challenge that I cannot scale, or that I certainly cannot scale (or navigate around) by myself. Without realizing what I was doing, in those times I was following the example of Jessica’s students and “playing just the white keys” with what I feel and what I hear around me, and – in return – some teacher is there to fill in all the rest and we create a song.

  • A teacher is there to fill in the logic around my emotions and together we create a prayer.
  • A physician is there to fill in what I do not know and to translate what I have read and do not understand.
  • A helper is there and picks up what it is that I cannot do, and together, we get it done.

Fill in your own example here.

At the beginning of his famous “…ask not for whom the bell tolls” quote, John Donne began by saying:

“No man is an island, entire of itself…”

We are not alone. We are surrounded by family, friends, acquaintances, colleagues, santos. That which we set out to do – regardless of how tough it may seem – we do not attempt alone to ourselves, except in our own imagination.

There will always be that most difficult of times in our lives when we must step up to that which we do not know. We must put our hands to the instrument that we do not know how to play. We may be invited by providence to sit for a while and pick out what we feel and what we hear and what we wish to say. Put your hands to the keys and simply… go.

And soon that providence, that helper, that teacher, that God… that extra set of knowing hands is near us, filling in the rest, and from it

We create the song.

Keep the faith!
- Amen

Inappropriate Prayers – Losing elections mixed with sacred words

Posted on by
Reply

The older I get, the less I like elections. They get longer every time. They get nastier. They do more to split up friends and families than any other scourge that I know. And this one was different: it was worse.

I caught myself being the victim.

It’s not easy for me to look back and say “this is how it was last time,” because memories over time will cloud and skip the forgettable details, and then fill in with the details we wish had been, until it all seems real. So I can’t look back and try to “remember” how much less anguished this was the last time. I can’t remember the truth.

This time, the morning after election results, I checked into social media and found that some of my oldest friends were very angry, though I’m not completely sure what they were angry at.  And in that moment of rage, words boiled forth that may have been campaign rhetoric and stump speeches the day before, now, post-election, were personal insults that seemed directed at me. They sounded directed at our people.

In that mosh pit of raw feelings I remember in particular a few people who prefaced their comments with “God help us…” or “God have mercy on us…” in both cases, for what the country – or the state – had just done. My brain reads that very emotional, hyper-dramatic statement as meaning, “it just doesn’t get any worse than this, and now only God can see us clear.”

This line became particularly annoying in a statement ca. 2003 when Robert Duncan (then Episcopal Bishop of Pittsburgh) asked for this same divine intervention as he thought we were “a broken people” because of the Episcopal Church’s decision to ordain a gay bishop. I was outraged by this solemn, doom-filled line delivered like a hanging judge in a Saturday afternoon black and white B-western movie.

“You will hang by the neck until you are dead, and may God Almighty have mercy on your soul.”

Is this what was going on? Had some of my friends turned into hanging judges over night while I slept? Was an election result so damaging to the country and its people that only God can save us now?

The answer is – of course – yes. (Keep reading.)

First, in times of great trial when all we want to do is throw our hands up and walk away and cry, the only way to get the blame out of our system is to throw it at God. “There is nothing more that I can do in this situation, so if God can’t get us out of this, I guess we’re hosed.” By venting frustration in terms of “God have mercy on us all,” you have over-stated the obvious because if one has this spiritual belief, then God always has mercy on us, always forgives us, always lets us get our crying fit out of us, and helps us to move forward.

Second, to pull away from the super-dramatized feelings of a situation, seeking the mercy and forgiveness of God is part of the daily motion of prayer and contemplation, whether we are aware of it or not.

Before communion (Eucharist) Christians ask for mercy and forgiveness as well as spiritual peace. This is one of the strongest moments of the approach in prayer to God before partaking in communion:

Oh, Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world,
Have mercy upon us.
Oh, Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world,
Have mercy upon us.
Oh, Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world,
Grant us thy peace.

At this moment even as the words we say or sing are “us,” more importantly, that means “me.” Before I can step forth to participate in this rite (to “commune” with God), I must find within myself grace and forgiveness. And just as important, I must forgive those around me, and seek to put forth that Christian peace into the world. Before we can so commune with God and then be sent out into the world to do “the works that he has prepared for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10), before we can rise from our prayers, we seek the mercy and forgiveness of a merciful and ever-forgiving Ywwh.

The answer to the question about “is this thing so bad that only God can save us” is Yes, because in every step and every breath, it is such that we exist because of this mercy (this love) of God. This is something that we can rejoice and be glad in when we realize that the use in this particular instance is more venting bad feelings at God than it is about getting love, finding peace, and going out to do our work.

The question I have for these “God have mercy on us” folks – once cooler heads prevail – is: Yes! Amen! God will have mercy on us as has been in the case in every second of the past and as will continue for every moment into the future. Now: given that knowledge, since you have that “salvation” (mercy, love, etc.) with you…

what do you do next?

Keep the faith!

 - Amen

Agnus Dei