Christmas After All

Our Christmas revels were tempered by a miserable cold suffered by my six-year-old daughter, although she did perk up enough to enjoy opening presents and watching movies.

My daughter is a being of pure energy. For me, she exists not so much as a child as an unstoppable force in a child's guise. So, seeing her laid low--even with something so clearly insignificant in the grand scheme of things--fills me with fear. I am made painfully aware of my own weakness and the flimsy pretense of invincibility with which I cloak myself and those I love most.

Today, it is not joy that connects me with others I know. Instead, it is this: we have all walked in a great darkness, and we walk in darkness still. Sometimes as we walk, we tell stories or sing songs. Sometimes we hold hands or fall asleep in each other's arms. Sometimes we laugh or cry or simply stare in silence.

As the snow falls in tonight's darkness, I imagine it is falling not just here but in Ohio and Michigan and Illinois, in Kentucky and Tennessee, in New York and Massachusetts.

The snow falls tonight as a benediction, covering with a quieting beauty, the hopes and fears that met to make this day a blessing, a holy day after all.

Illuminating Manuscripts

Let’s say the barbarians have taken over,

And let’s say they’re burning everything,

And the only way to save the books—

All the sacred writings that breathe

Light and meaning into our dusty shells—

The only way to preserve that which

For all these years has preserved us

Is to illuminate it,

                        To construct a place,

A scriptorium where we sit each day

And read and paint with gold and silver,

In hopes that maybe the texts so adorned,

Shiny, exquisite, pleasing, mysterious,

Will be deemed valuable enough to save

By those who left their souls behind

To conquer for the sake of conquest.

Let’s say we awaken suddenly to find

The smoke is already billowing through

Our streets, and darkness is falling:

Find your holy place and take up

Your pen and brush, your gold leaf

And your silver dust, and now at once

Begin and do not cease, begin and

Do not cease, begin and do not cease.

A Lesson Learned from My First Semester in Divinity School

When you are busier than you have ever been in your entire life, you have to make some difficult decisions about how to spend your precious time. What I believe you must not do is completely abandon that which nourishes you, that which fans the flames of your soul, that which has brought you to this special place and this particular moment.

I believe it is especially important to keep the creative energy flowing. If you are a dancer, dance; if you are a painter, paint, if you are a singer, sing. You probably won't get class credit for any of these things (with a few notable exceptions), but you will be happier and healthier than if you were to limit your activities to reading dusty textbooks and producing even dustier papers. If nothing else, I recommend keeping a journal. The energy and the ideas that are generated by journal writing frequently become something upon which you can build.

These past six months have been an amazingly fertile time for me as a writer and musician.  Theoretically, I have much less time for writing than ever before.  And yet, almost every time I've taken the time to write a poem or a song or a journal entry, I've learned something new and significant about myself and about the world, both visible and invisible.

As a seminarian, I do not believe it is my job to cough up digested bits of other people's wisdom. Rather, I believe my task is to take the received wisdom of others into my hands like bricks with which I can construct something entirely new and meaningful and beautiful. May it be so.

Speed Reading the Book of Psalms

My Hebrew Scriptures class has covered a lot of territory--almost the entirety of the Hebrew Bible--in a very short time, which has necessitated reading these amazingly rich and complex texts much, much faster than is desirable.

So, most of the time, I've been in "reading-for-comprehension-rather-than-appreciation" mode.  But, when a particular passage has really struck me right between the eyes, I've tried to slow down and take a good look at it.

Sections of several psalms struck me in just such a way. So much so, that I've actually set one of these passages to music (audio and/or video to follow).

It occurs to me that the parts of the Bible that are most meaningful and important to me are often poems, or are at least poetic.  And I think that's true for most other people, too.  Why is this the case?

The answer, at least for me, is that poetry speaks not just to the mind but to the soul.

As Kim Rosen says in her book "Saved by a Poem":

"Indeed, the very indefinability of the word gives us the need for poetry. Poems can speak these ineffables with a kind of mysterious accuracy. 'Poetry is a commitment of the soul,' Gaston Bachelard writes. 'Forces are manifested in poems that do not pass through the circuits of knowledge.'"

What kind of understanding is deeper than knowledge? And why is it that we spend so much time gleaning facts when we read, rather than experiencing this deeper understanding?

I understand the exigencies of a demanding MDiv program, but I also understand the need of the human soul to breathe its way into the deeper understanding that poetry can provide. And now to learn how to balance the two . . .

I'm a seminarian now

Based on actual conversations between real people:

Mere Breath and Herding the Wind

I read Ecclesiastes today, and I recently started re-watching the HBO television series Six Feet Under. There's a similar kind of wisdom at work in both places.

No matter who we are--rich or poor, righteous or wicked, wise or foolish (and all of us are all of these, I think)--we shall all meet the same fate.  All human enterprise and undertakings are like herding the wind, and, in the end, it all passes as mere breath. But this merest of breaths exhaled, that ephemeral dewy moment that soon turns to vapor, how much it contains!

And the riddle is this: how can all that we know be so full and yet so empty?  And how can this elegant dance we do on the edge be all that there is? And why do we think we need anything more?

What We've Given Up and What We're Gaining

I was thinking about the various things my classmates have given up in order to complete this rigorous MDiv program, and I came up with this poem:

Sacrifice and Sacred Presence

We have lost lovers, left mystified friends behind,

given up time with family, seen our own time shrink to nothing,

felt wearier than weary, thrown away careers,

increased our indebtedness a hundredfold—

and sacrificed more things than these.

We have given up some layers of protected privilege,

let go of the outer garments of comfort that hid us

from what is real and what is really calling us.

We hear it now at the bedsides of the sick and dying;

we hear it in the soup kitchens, in the prisons,

the homeless shelters, the community meetings.

We hear it in the rituals that mark the Sabbath

and births and deaths and weddings;

and we’ve begun to share it with others—

at first cautiously and then with more confidence,

more openness, more authenticity.

This presence that draws us in and draws us out

and leads us on; this moment; this shimmer

that seems to disappear just as we turn to gaze at it

is our pillar of cloud and fire in the wilderness.

Sweet Silence

Since starting divinity school, my already busy day-to-day life has become an even more rigorous and demanding experience. There’s no getting around the work that must be completed and the accompanying whirlwind of activities in which I find myself.  Even the reflection that I do is structured and purposeful—a means to an end.

And all of that activity is good.  But it’s also very noisy.  Whether it’s external noise or internal chatter, I have found that moments of real silence are increasingly hard to come by.

And it is for this reason that, for 36 hours this past weekend, I retreated to a cabin in the middle of the woods, soaking in the silence of the natural world.  People are such loud creatures, and most of the noise we make is a by-product of some other activity—usually trying to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible.

I believe that we get so lost in the noise that it is almost impossible for us to recognize the presence of anything truly important.

Acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton wrote, “Silence is not the absence of something, but the presence of everything.”  In other words, silence allows us to be aware of a presence that we cannot otherwise perceive.  When this presence is lost, I believe we have lost our center.

The silence of the woods allowed me to be in the presence of a large oak tree towering over the cabin, shedding leaves in the afternoon sunlight, recycling itself and transforming light to earth and earth to light.

If we are to be witnesses to the presence of something beyond the chatter of our minds and roar of the highway, I commend to you, one and all, silence.  Find it where you can, as often as you can; live in it and learn from it.

All the books in the world, all the lectures, all the busy doing of our lives will get us only so far. The quiet of the silent oak is by far the greatest teacher I have recently encountered.

On Learning

There are ways of learning that are less like gathering up glittery little bits of data than they are like feeling your way through darkness until you come upon something that you recognize.

It's easy to forget the things that you try to implant in your brain--little shards that seem to be a part of something bigger, although you may never know what that bigger something is.  But you cannot so easily forget that which suddenly illumines your path and helps you realize that what you were looking for needed only to be uncovered.

With each step through the darkness, I find more that I can recognize.  And, even when I feel completely lost and abandoned, I can appreciate the stars, the smell of nighttime, and the comforting stillness of the air.

The View from My Window: Rapidly Increasing Religious Diversity

My office window faces an alley where a local artist, Michael Brown, is renovating a mural that he originally painted some 20 years ago.  It had faded and peeled, so he's putting on a fresh coat of paint--and also making a few changes in detail to modernize the work.

The woman with the academic gown and cap had been holding a Latin book, but now seems to be texting.  And the woman carrying the large stack of books was originally depicted with free flowing curly locks, but now she has donned a Muslim headscarf.  The world is changing before my eyes!

However, when I look up, I notice that the spire of the University United Methodist Church remains unchanged:

Disembodied Reason, Embodied Experience and the Hebrew Bible

In his book Faith without Certainty, Paul Rasor identifies as a liberal "myth" the idea that moral stands are (or can be) arrived at purely through disembodied reason. In other words, liberals tend to do things because we have decided as the result of a rational process that these things are right to do.

But, Rasor points out, "moral stands can be understood as moral only within the context of a defining community." And that's where things start getting messy because the world has become increasingly complex and interconnected in new ways, which means that we are all members of multiple communities that overlap in various ways.

And when the going gets messy, liberals tend to get skittish. (As opposed to conservatives, for example who tend to get mean.) It's difficult to balance the reality of ourselves as social beings interacting with other social beings with the fact that we are also products of our own culture, even when we are critics of that culture.

But I think that this is the point at which an emphasis on embodied experience becomes really useful.  When you bring a sense of community down to the fundamentals, you're left, I think, with something to which most of us can feel connected.

I understand the need for food and water and a warm place to sleep.  And that's where real community begins. And that's where justice begins--when we recognize viscerally that many of us do not have adequate food, water and shelter.

Poverty and oppression are not abstractions when we live in deep community with others--not just a community of "like-minded" individuals, but a community that is really and truly radically inclusive.

And what does all this have to do with the Hebrew Bible?  Most of what I've read in the Hebrew scriptures thus far has something to do with direct embodied experience.  Think of the many provisions for those who are in the greatest need and the wayfarers (not to mention the obsession with bodily fluids).

Think, too, of the passage from Deuteronomy I quoted in another post about how the word is in our mouths and in our hearts.  Moses didn't say the word dwelt in our minds, but in our mouths and hearts--right where we live.

How My Life Is Being Changed by Seminary

Last week, when I was in the middle of reading Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (and actually enjoying it!), I found myself thinking, "There's no way I would ever do this on my own."  That's not to say that I would not engage with the Hebrew Scriptures in some way; but, without taking this required course, I'm pretty sure that I would never have taken the time to wade through these books as I am now doing.  Instead, I'm fairly certain I would have cherry-picked a few passages that I liked and ignored the rest.

And this morning, as part of my site work for my Community Studies course, I met a homeless man who, at age 60, decided he wanted to learn to read and has been going to classes for the past couple of months.  Last week, at his recovery group meeting, he read the serenity prayer out loud to open the meeting.  Would I have met this man had I not been in seminary?  Not likely.  I might have waxed on about the determination of many homeless people to learn and grow, but this kind of first-hand engagement probably would not have occurred.

So, what I'm learning from seminary is not so much "things" (as in facts and figures); rather I am learning how to engage with the world in new and meaningful ways.  In other words, that whole "living our way into new ways of thinking" thing seems to be working for me.

I am so grateful for this opportunity for deep and profound learning.

And here's a common thread across courses that I just picked up on: embodied experience.  It's a term that's central to the theology of Sallie McFague (whose work I'm learning about in my reading for my upcoming Liberal Theology course); it's also what I'm learning about in my field site; and it's definitely a central theme in the Hebrew Bible.  More on this topic later . . .

But the word is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart . . .

Deuteronomy presents a number of challenges, but I found it interesting, if only because of the lofty rhetoric employed to recapitulate (and, in some cases, reformulate) the story of the Israelites, the hardships they faced in Egypt, their escape from the cruel tyranny of the Pharoah, their struggles in the wilderness (always led by God just before them), their various battles with other tribes, their laws, and their eventual deliverance.

The book reads as a series of sermons to rouse the troops and to remind them of the good that will surely be theirs if they obey the law of the LORD, and the curses that will befall them is they do not.  As usual in the Mosaic books, the curses outnumber the blessings by about 4:1, so it was clearly the theory back then that the stick was more effective than the carrot as a motivational tool.

So, as I said, Moses rouses, reminds, reassures and harangues the Israelites in this lengthy valedictory address.  And then, toward the end, in chapter 30, my favorite passage appears:

"For this command which I charge you this day is not too wondrous for you, nor is it distant. It is not in the heavens to say, 'Who will go up for us and take it for us and let us hear it, that we may do it?' And it is not beyond the sea to say, 'Who will cross over for us beyond the sea and take it for us and let us hear it, that we may do it?'  But the word is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it."

Here Moses proclaims that the era of the mythological hero is over.  It's not up to some superhuman to go find that elusive something from the gods that will help us lead our lives and fulfill our destiny.  Rather, the word (the word!) is already with us in our mouths and in our hearts.  And it is up to each of us to live up to it and to live into it.

May it be so!

" . . . and things of this sort befell me": Reading Leviticus

I found Leviticus pretty rough going--especially the lengthy section on the particulars of burnt animal offerings. And the God character is still huffing and puffing and refusing to conform to any of our contemporary warm and fuzzy notions about Him.

And then I came to the 10th chapter, which begins with a startling narrative about two of Aaron's sons who bring "alien fire" before the Lord, and, because of this offense, God kills them on the spot.  Moses tries to explain to Aaron why this was necessary, but, of course, his words don't quite seem to hit home. As the Bible says, "And Aaron was silent."

Then Moses starts to insist that Aaron and his remaining sons eat a meat sacrifice in the proper place and the proper way as an offense offering in order to atone for the wrong that their family has done.  And it's at this point that Aaron speaks:

"'Look, today they brought forward their offense offering and their burnt offering before the LORD, and things of this sort befell me. Had I eaten an offense offering today, would it have seemed good in the eyes of the LORD?' And Moses heard, and it seemed good in his eyes."

I notice something interesting about this rather poignant passage.  One of its messages seems to be that Moses' relationship with his brother Aaron trumps priestly law in some way.  Moses did not continue to insist that Aaron and his sons make further sacrifice, nor did he chastise.  Rather, he simply "heard."

I find it significant that there are echoes of Genesis 1 here; and notice how that echo moves from "seemed good in the eyes of the LORD" to "seemed good in his [Moses'] eyes."

I am reminded of one of my favorite Miraslov Volf quotes: "Relationship is prior to moral rules; moral performance may do something to the relationship, but relationship is not grounded in moral performance."

I was also thinking about one of James Luther Adams' observations about covenant: "The covenant can include a rule of law but it is not fundamentally a legal agreement. It depends on faithfulness, and faithfulness is nerved by loyalty, by love . . . Ultimately the ground of faithfulness is the divine or human love that will not let us go."

And such was the love, it seems, between Moses and Aaron.

Up to My Neck in the Hebrew Bible: Big, Muddy Wisdom

I've been reading a lot of commentaries, criticisms, and reflections about the Hebrew Bible for my Hebrew scriptures class.  Almost all of it is interesting and helpful, and much of it is ambiguous and leads to more questions than answers.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who is involved in scripture studies who asks himself--repeatedly--why am I reading this and what real relevance could it possibly to life as I know it?  And, as with most questions that I've stumbled across recently, the answer seems to be "nothing" and "everything."

The textbook we're reading makes it clear that the Hebrew scriptures are literature and not mathematical formulas or scientific data.  Nor is this literature historical in a contemporary sense, although the historical elements are very important.  But what's there is, at its most essential level, narrative and poetry.

So any appreciation, I think needs to start from that place.  We're not likely to find hard and fast historicity or hard and fast anything, for that matter.  The genius of the Hebrew Bible, at least in part, is its stubborn and apparently purposeful ambiguity.

We are so far removed from the authors/editors/redactors/copyists of these works that it's pretty much impossible to understand exactly what they were thinking and what the exact significance of this literature was to them.

So, the tradition that becomes most important is the one that points to the narrative itself, to the poetry, the wordplay, and the other devices employed to create something that is endlessly meaningful.  And how does meaning (and in some cases Truth) emerge from that which is so ambiguous?

I'm beginning to learn that meaning and truth are elusive targets.  I'm beginning to learn that the struggle which is ours is informed and enriched by the struggle that others have had for centuries when facing these same ambiguities contained in the Hebrew Bible and elsewhere.

Jacob wrestled with God and was rewarded for his efforts, even though he had no idea what he was doing.  We, as students (of life, of love, of meaning and truth), wrestle with what we have inherited--the myths, the poetry, the redundancies and inconsistencies--in order to reap the reward of making sense of what is going on in our own lives in our own time.

We can't fully know what the scripture meant to those who wrote and developed it, but by building our own relationship to it, we can find our own meaning.  And therein lies the great big, muddy wisdom of the Hebrew Bible.

The Story of God Learning to Be God

I've been reading Genesis for my Hebrew Scriptures class, and I really like the idea, suggested in one of the commentaries I read, that the book of Genesis is, at least in part, the story of God learning to be God.  He's all over the map in terms of his relationship with humankind, sometimes stern, sometimes forgiving, sometimes seemingly indifferent.  And he's willing to strike bargains.

At one point, Abraham is trying to save his nephew Lot and asks God if he will spare Sodom from destruction, despite the depravity of everyone living there.  God says if 50 virtuous men can be found there, he will spare the city.  Abraham eventually talks him down to just 10 men.  But none of that seems to matter as God's angels start destroying the city before anyone can even start the search for virtuous men.

In contemporary parenting parlance, we might say that God had boundary issues.  The experts tell us that we are supposed to set firm (not rigid, but firm) limits with our children and enforce those limits consistently.

But not only does God keep changing his mind about the limits, he's also very selective in how he enforces them. Is it any wonder, then, that humankind has turned out to the the petulant, whining, wild child that it is?

As Genesis progresses, it does seem as if God gradually backs away from so much direct involvement in human affairs and is content with sending angels to do his business for him.  So is this backing away sort of like the father who yells at the kids and then returns to watching the football game?  Or is it more like the parent who has found out that some (if not most) lessons are best learned without a parental mediator?

Still, even in the midst of all this dysfunction in Genesis (and there's a lot of it), there are moments of grace, like the way Joseph deals with his brothers:

"Fear not: for am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them."

Beauty Walk

The first assignment for our Community Studies class was to read an essay by Carol Lee Sanchez, "Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral," and then take a mindful walk through our neighborhood.  We were to describe where we walked and one thing that surprised or delighted us.

Carol Lee Sanchez is an artist and poet who believes that Euro-Americans waste resources and destroy the environment "because they are not spiritually connected to this land-base, because they have no ancient mythos or legendary origins rooted to this land . . ."  She attempts to articulate the "concept of 'relationship' or relatedness and the idea of the sacred in our lives, from a Native American-American Indian perspective and to suggest some ways of embracing a Tribal way of thinking."  Sanchez posits that there is nothing in this world that can be called unnatural or separated from Nature: "Indians say that to live a good life is to walk in Beauty."

Below is an excerpt from my own 'beauty walk."

I am surprised by the first hints of fall—the tinge of yellow on the edges of leaves, the delightful coolness of the morning, the beginning diminuendo of chirps and buzzes, croaks and flutters.  When I left five days ago, it was late August in North Carolina—temperatures in the upper 90s, sun-scorched yards, and humidity that only the mosquitoes could enjoy.  But sometime during my absence, a seasonal shift began, and now the morning is filled with the clearly discernible whisperings of autumn . . .

Many of the houses here, including my own, are “mill houses” constructed for the workers and their families, who had to pay rent to the mill owners for the privilege of living in these small wooden structures, built low to the ground.  Many of them still have their original tin roofs; almost all of them have additions that have been constructed over the last 75 years or so to accommodate our ever-expanding lifestyles and the advent of indoor plumbing.

I walk past the one remaining mill building in town, which since the mid-1970s has been a shopping mall with clothing boutiques, a hair salon, jewelry store, restaurants.  The red-brick structure with rough-hewn hardwood floors sits at the center of town, and next to it is our beloved food co-op, whose yard serves as the unofficial town commons—a gathering place for shared meals and music and seemingly endless streams of conversation . . .

I turn to the right, onto a side street that leads me to the elementary school where my daughter recently began her career as a kindergartener, just across from the tiny house that served as her pre-school.  Our community has a rapidly growing Hispanic population, and my daughter is in a dual-language program, spending half of her day learning in Spanish and the other half in English . . .

I'm reminded of the Native Americans who must have lived here, probably close to the creek that runs a few blocks behind our house.  And I wonder if they enjoyed the first promises of autumn as much as I do.  As I return to my house, I begin thinking about the words of Rumi, "Let the beauty that we love be the beauty that we do."

The Goddess of Not Cleaning Up

A snippet of theological conversation between my 5-year-old daughter Ella and me tonight at bedtime:

"How many gods are there?"

"Well, different people believe different things, but I tend to believe there's one spirit that binds everything together, and that's what I call God."
"I think there's like 40 gods and goddesses."
"Oh, yeah?  Like a goddess of the moon and a god of the sun, and the trees and everything?"
"Uh-huh.  And a god of candy.  And a goddess of not cleaning up--and you know who that is?"
"Who?"
"Me!"

The music of what happens

If, like me, you are setting out to achieve something that seems at this moment impossible, something that simply can't be done, I direct your attention to this quote from Thomas Powers:

"The composer Stravinsky had written a new piece.  After it had been in rehearsal for several weeks, the solo violinist came to Stravinsky and said he was sorry, he had tried his best, the passage was too difficult, no violinist could play it.  Stravinsky said, 'I understand that.  What I am after is the sound of someone trying to play it.'"

Meadville Orientation Day 3

We started the day with another excellent worship experience, including a very nice homily by David Owen-O'Quinn.  The rest of the morning was devoted to learning about community studies site logistics, teaching pastor logistics and credentialing logistics.  There was a fair amount of anxiety about seemingly conflicting information and questions about special situations.  I started to drift away a bit during some of the discussion but regained a sense of place and purpose after staring at the stained glass window at the front of the chapel and writing a short poem (posted elsewhere on this blog).

After lunch, several second-year students presented their end-of-year projects for the community studies course.  All three were outstanding and aptly illustrated the kind of perspective-shifting experiences that each of us might expect over the course of the year.  I was especially taken with Jennifer's experience volunteering at Cathedral Kitchen in Camden, New Jersey.  She quoted a passage from Father Michael Doyle who has done a lot of work in Camden, which he described as being located ". . . one hour from Philadelphia's Independence Hall and zero seconds from God."

The students then took questions from us newbies, which was helpful, if somewhat anxiety-provoking.

We ended the day with vespers, being joined by all the faculty and the second-year students, whose congregational studies orientation begins tomorrow.  I wasn't expecting the faculty to process fully-robed into the chapel in such warm weather, but process they did, accompanied by some beautiful organ music and all of us singing "Rank by Rank Again We Stand."

Lee Barker delivered a very thoughtful and inspiring sermon, entitled "I Bloody Did That"-- a line borrowed  from the poem "Cathedral Builders" by John Ormond:

They climbed on sketchy ladders towards God, 

with winch and pulley hoisted hewn rock into heaven, 
inhabited the sky with hammers, 
defied gravity, 
deified stone, 
took up God's house to meet him, 
and came down to their suppers
and small beer,
every night slept, lay with their smelly wives,
quarreled and cuffed the children,
lied, spat, sang, were happy, or unhappy,
and every day took to the ladders again,
impeded the rights of way of another summer's swallows, 
grew greyer, shakier,
became less inclined to fix a neighbour's roof of a fine evening, 
saw naves sprout arches, clerestories soar, 
cursed the loud fancy glaziers for their luck, 
somehow escaped the plague, 
got rheumatism, 
decided it was time to give it up,
to leave the spire to others, 
stood in the crowd, well back from the vestments at the consecration, 
envied the fat bishop his warm boots, 
cocked a squint eye aloft, 
and said, "I bloody did that."

Chapel poem

Zoning Out During Seminary Orientation

Staring at this stained-glass window
Amid the arches at the front of the chapel
I wonder how many people have stared
At this window and what was held in their hearts.
What sorrows, what joys, what concerns,
How many prayers have found their way

Through this window, flying up and out
Over our heads, flowing through and around
This place, this sacred space,
This place of learning and worship.
The hymns that have stirred souls
Piping through the organ and in voices raised.

What can this moment filled as it is
With anxiety and unknowing have to do with
The beauty of the human soul revealed
In attitudes of praise and prayer and wonder?
Everything, I think, and nothing.
Still, something is moving.

Meadville Orientation Day 2

Quotes of the day:

"Love is not enough, but it is essential."  David Owen O'Quill during morning worship.

"Just because something is desired does not make it good, right, justifiable or wise.  That's why desires must be critically examined."  Mike Hogue presenting on the theological foundations of the Meadville educational model.

"Roots in motion."  Sharon Welch describing the kind of experience we hope to have as participants in the community studies signature course.

"I have the luxury of experiencing hope as a convenience.  These people experience hope as a necessity.  That's where you learn about hope."  Father Bruce Wellems, pastor of the Holy Cross/Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in the Back of the Yards community, talking about his work with people in need.

It was another very full and very informative day of activities.  I'm really starting to have a greater appreciation for the work of the faculty and staff in developing a unique vision for ministerial formation and for their commitment to making it work.

After a morning of lecture and discussion and and a very hot afternoon touring local Community Studies sites, we ended the day with a dinner that was graciously hosted by Lee and Kris Barker at their home near the school.

I am sometimes almost overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude for being here and having the opportunity to learn with these people.  Blessings.

Meadville Orientation Day 1-B

Mark Hicks presented after dinner tonight on the topic of critical pedagogy, which undergirds the Meadville Lombard Educational Model.  Essentially, it is a process of learning, unlearning and relearning.  The goal is to be aware of the power dynamic in learning--and that the dominant point of view which pervades most education is not necessarily the only view or the right one.

To illustrate different views of the same subject, we listened to five different versions of the national anthem ("Oh, say can you see . . .)--from a very traditional navy band and chorus version to Jimi Hendrix, hip hop artists, the Latin All Stars, and Whitney Houston at the Super Bowl.  We then divided ourselves into groups based on which rendition we felt best expressed the "American dream" to us.  We talked in small groups and then reported back to the larger group.

One of the themes that emerged was how much better we were able to appreciate other people's choices after we had a chance to listen to them discuss their thoughts and reasons for picking a particular version, rather than focusing on our own choice solely.

I liked the Latin All Stars version of the national anthem best--mostly because of the poetry, which, even in translation was beautiful:

In fierce combat, a symbol of victory
the glory of battle
(My people fight on)
the march toward liberty.
(The time has come to break the chains.)
Throughout the night they proclaimed:
"We will defend it!"
Tell me! Does its starry beauty still wave
above the land of the free,
the sacred flag?

I sense some similarities here to the famous Chicago poet, Carl Sandburg, from "The People, Yes":

In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
  the people march.

In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people march:
  Where to? what next?

Meadville Orientation Day 1

It's great to be back in Chicago!  Despite being fuzzy-brained from getting up way too early this morning in order to catch a 6:00 a.m. flight here, I enjoyed the opening orientation session.

We got to hear some well-crafted and deftly delivered "sermonettes" from David Owen O'Quill and Qiyamah Rahman at our opening worship.  They both addressed the theme of darkness and light in life and what to do "when the lights go out."  David talked about his two-year-old's recognition of the necessity of darkness in order to fully experience light--flashlights aren't very fun to play with in well-lit spaces.

Mark Hicks led us through some experiential learning exercises centered on the theme of "who loved us into this place."  We wrote "six-word novels" that told the stories of ourselves and the people that helped bring us here.  And we created some clay artwork to represent what and/or who anchors us in our journeys.

I'm again finding myself very impressed by the creativity, openness and warmth of my classmates and the staff and faculty here.  And what a joy it is to see some of these people again after July intensives.

Sharon Welch and Mike Hogue walked us through all three years of the MDiv program, with an emphasis on the "signature courses" that are at the heart of the Meadville educational model.  And now I hope to get some rest before dinner and our evening session.

My main regret in life right now is that there's no air conditioning in our meeting space, but we're all hanging tough so far.

Sanctifiers of Souls, Aflame with Love

I came across a "Prayer for Seminarians" that I'm taking the liberty of revising for UU divinity school students as follows:
"May we become possessors of wisdom and sanctifiers of souls, steeped in humility and aflame with love for all of creation."

I especially love the "sanctifiers of souls" part.

As upholders of the inherent worth and dignity of every person and respect for the interdependent web of all existence, I do believe we are doing the work of sanctifying souls.  It's accomplished, I think, by holding up a mirror that reflects who we are and how the world is and reminding everyone that what they see in the mirror is sacred and that all who gather in front of that mirror are on holy ground.

And who does not want to be aflame with love?  When we burn in this way, we are not consumed but serve as beacons for all who are seeking to open themselves and the world to transformation.  Blessed be.

My first sermon as a seminarian

I've given a few sermons at my home congregation in the past, but this is the first one since I've officially become a seminarian.  I wanted to avoid giving the kind of sermon that just reeks of divinity school--like an extended treatise on James Fowler's stages of faith development or a contemporary reflection on Emerson's Harvard Divinity School Address--not that there's anything wrong with such things, of course.

I mostly kept it simple and personal and talked a little bit about my call to ministry.  Here's an excerpt:

The Calm Before the Storm

The school year is about to start--and, with it, the official beginning of my career as a seminarian.  I'm diving into the reading next week and will be journaling about what I'm reading.  Then, week after next is orientation in Chicago.  Then, the following week I will begin my community studies field placement at Club Nova, and will start my online Hebrew Scriptures class, along with the readings for my January intensive classes, including the somewhat daunting Liberal Theology course.

For now, I'm trying to remember simply to breathe.

Art That Is Made and Understood by Being Still

Sometimes magic happens when we are able to remain still.  Still and aware.

Andy Goldsworthy made this impression of himself (from the movie "Rivers and Tides") by lying motionless on the ground for several minutes just as it started to rain.

Cultivating this kind of openness and curiosity is key to developing an awareness of what is holy in every moment.

Woman with a Parasol

This painting, Woman with a Parasol, by Giovanni Boldini, was my "discovery" at the Art Institute of Chicago during our "double-parked at the Louvre" exercise as part of John Tolley's Arts and Aesthetics in Ministry class.

It struck me then, as it does now, because of the way wild nature seems to be triumphing over human contrivance. The bramble appears to be swallowing this elegant woman whole, with no regard for the niceties of high society.

In person, it's easier to see the contrasting techniques the painter used in this piece. The figure of the woman is rendered in great and beautiful detail--very fine, flat work. But the foliage all around her was created by laying the pigment on in great, thick blobs.

The painting hooked me in part because of the discussion we'd been having in our Contemporary Paganism class about Bron Taylor's "Dark Green Religion" and what it has to say about the place of humans in the natural world.

We might try to conquer nature--and we humans are certainly capable of a lot of destruction--but in the end the dark green goddesses and gods will prevail for we are all born of the earth and to it we will all return.

Reflections on Ritual and Art

Another connection that became clearer for me than ever before as a result of my seminary classes is the connection between art and ritual.  It it apparent to me that one of the primary purposes of both ritual and art is to connect us with each other and with that which is greater than us.  The best rituals are artistic, and most art has ritualistic elements--it's no coincidence, I think, that art museums and places of worship seem very much alike.

And it's not just "pretty" art that resembles religious rites.  The challenging, startling, sometimes suffocating pieces created by artists provide a means for connecting with the shadow side of ourselves and gives us an opportunity to reflect on the cruelty of life in a seemingly indifferent universe.  Those reflections are religious almost by definition.

"A voice says, 'Cry!' And I said, 'What shall I cry?'" (Isaiah)

Contained in that fragment is the whole of the artistic process and the whole of religious ritual writ small.  This verse, I think expresses succinctly and beautifully the concept of the artist and the religious celebrant as co-creators with the divine.  And what's created, ultimately, is almost always a statement about transience and permanence.

For implicit in the idea of creation is idea of death as well as the idea of joining together with everything that has been and everything that shall be.

"The grief you cry out from/draws you toward union." (Rumi)

Human existence is marked by grief and joy and isolation and coming together, both in joy and in grief, circling around, and going back to where we started but maybe on a slightly higher plane than before.

I love the "COEXIST" bumper stickers that have sprung up.  But I'd like to aim for something more like "CO-CREATE."  May it be so.

Why is any of this important?

One of my classmates asked this question during our arts and aesthetics class:  "Why is any of this important?"--meaning, how did our readings and discussions about art and art appreciation have any bearing on our work as ministers?

John Tolley had already answered that questions pretty well, I think.  Since approximately two-thirds of the people in the world process information primarily visually or kinesthetically, we're less likely to be able reach them if all we do is talk to them.  Finding ways to present religious ideas with art and movement can be a powerful tool for communication.

I'd like to go a bit further with that idea.

If we're serious about transforming people's lives--and I think that we'd better be--then we're fooling ourselves if we think that we're going to get the job done by giving folks a few interesting ideas to think about on Sunday mornings.  There's nothing wrong with interesting ideas --indeed, the world would be a much worse place without them.  But I believe meaningful change starts to occur when people are able to open their hearts, and this process of opening our hearts is the fundamental work of religious communities.

Mere words work around the edges of our consciousness, while art pierces the layers of armor that our minds have created and allows us to feel a profound connection to that which is Universal.  And those moments of connection, especially when shared in community, can make all the difference.

Meadville's current marketing motto is "Changing Lives to Change the World." Sometimes we have a tendency to give short shrift to the first part and concentrate more on the second part, which can be very discouraging, especially when we see all the tragedies and insanities that are featured prominently on the 24-hour news machine.

But real change is only possible when we know--when we really know--that we are connected to each other and to something greater than ourselves.  Art anchors us in this connection and shines a light on the here and now, illuminating and lifting up the only thing that we really and truly have--this moment, this fleeting Now.

Change starts to happen when the light is shining.

Connecting seemingly disparate ideas

One of the things I most liked about being an undergraduate student was having moments when I was able to make connections among the various classes I was taking.  I remember one semester when I was taking philosophy of art, science and society, Russian history, and Shakespeare--and I had one of those moments.  It seemed like all the courses were pointing me in the same direction and toward a single underlying thought that had to do with metaphor as something much bigger than just a rhetorical device.

I've had a similar experience since I've started divinity school.  I saw multiple connections between my first two classes--most of them had to do with the role of ritual in perceptual shifts and in a spiritual "opening up."  Since I've started making those connections, I tend to see them everywhere.

Yesterday, I attended a work retreat and got to hear a couple of very good speakers.  Barbara Fredrickson, in particular, really had my mind buzzing when she was talking about meditation techniques (especially lovingkindness meditation) that result in a more "positive" outlook and lives that are flourishing.  Meditation, for me, is a ritual--sometimes shared and sometimes not--that clearly leads to perceptual shifts and a general opening up.

Fredrickson mentioned that one of the worst things to do is to tell yourself to just "be positive."  Instead, it's much more effective to strive to be "open, appreciative, curious, kind and real."  That's where it's at, and that's where I hope to keep going.  People who are working on being all those things are much better able to work on problems of all sorts, from personal to global in scale.  And Fredrickson, because she's a research psychologist, has the hard scientific data to prove it.

Paper complete (sort of)

I finished the writing of my final paper for my Contemporary Paganism class and now just need to add footnotes and references.  Everything that I've been writing lately (from my Meadville admissions essay and Sanders Scholarship essay, to class papers and sermons) is about the same thing: engaging with some "other" (whether it is a person, a tree, a rock or a summer breeze) in such a way as to recognize the profound connection between ourselves and that other.

I haven't set out to write the same thing over and over again, but, when the smoke has cleared and the computer keyboard has started to cool off, there it is--some variation of the exact same thing that I've already written about--albeit in a slightly different form.

People say that every minister has just one sermon, and maybe I've already found mine.  We'll see . . .

Arts & Aesthetics Journal excerpt

The Arch that Spans Thought and Expression

Throughout my recent stay in Chicago, I was drawn to the arches (Gothic and otherwise) that I saw around campus and around town.  I see arches as representing one of the class themes that emerged during the week: the role of creative tensions in art and in life.

An arch spans space, connecting one side to the other, while supporting weight that keeps the structure from collapsing.  The tension between opposing sides is a necessary part of any structure, and the arch bridges these seeming opposites while providing space through which light and air and people can pass.


Creative tensions that are bridged by art and art appreciation include:

• Wildness and Purpose
• Stillness and Motion
• Divine and Human
• Intent and Outcome
• Birth and Death
• Mystery and Certainty
• Hunger and Satisfaction
• Known and Unknown
• Love and Fear
• Sin and Faith

Making progress

I finished my journal/scrapbook for my Arts and Aesthetics class and will mail it tomorrow--the last remaining requirement for that class.  I also made some good progress on my final paper for the Contemporary Paganism class--I just need to write a conclusion and then do a bit of editing.  The topic I came up with is "Practical Enchantment: Concepts of Magic in 'Dark Green Religion.'"  Some of it is re-worked from posts on this blog--Yay!

I'll write more about the "Dark Green Religion" book later.

Ever onward . . .

Shared Experience

It's been a bit of a rough landing here in the real world after breathing the rarefied air of divinity school.  So, what was it about my experience at Meadville that made it feel so alive to me?  And what can I do now to make every moment holy?

Here's what I brought (or tried to bring) to the experience in Chicago: an open heart and an open mind, a willingness to do pretty much whatever was asked of me, the expectation that something special might happen, and an immense sense of gratitude for the opportunity.

My classmates, I think, brought pretty much the same thing.

And therein lies the magic.

I wish I could get everyone at work to join hands and do a spiral dance with me.  I wish I could look each person that I encounter each day straight in the eyes and tell them that they have my love and respect (and that they could do the same for me).  I wish that I could trust everyone (and the world) enough to drop my fear of making a fool of myself.  I wish that I could say, "Look at this!" and everyone would look and see what I see.

I wish I could open up like a flower in a field of flowers, full of life and light, but still aware of my own smallness, grounded in the moist, rich darkness of the earth.

Here's how I'll work on getting there: keeping my eyes (and heart and mind) open while prying at every crack that seems to let the light in.

May it be so!

Bricolage

I've run into this word--bricolage--a couple of times in the last few weeks: first in Bron Taylor's "Dark Green Religion," which I read for the Contemporary Paganism class, and then again in a "Sightings" post from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.


Taylor uses the term to describe what he sees as some common themes shared by a number of contemporary earth-centered groups, drawn from various traditions and ideologies.  In his words: "In a bricolage these various ideas and practices are fused together, like a bricklayer or mason piecing together a wall or building with mortar or stone."


In the Sightings post, contributor Benjamin E. Zeller writes about "The Bricolage Religion of LOST and American Religious Culture."  He points out that the television series LOST (which I admit I have not seen) put together various elements from a number of religious traditions to create a unique "mythos" on the island.  Zeller goes on to note that such bricolage is not at all new in American culture.  He describes this tendency as " a continuing proclivity for combinativeness in American religious culture."

It occurs to me that we UUs are bricoleurs par excellence.  We reuse and recycle various elements of different religious traditions to come up with something new and personally relevant.  And I don't think there's any need to apologize or feel bad about that.  If there ever was any such thing as a "pure" religion, untainted by other influences, it has long since turned into something else.


I believe that any contemporary religious movement needs to recognize that there is a multiplicity of religious and ideological notions floating about in the cultural ether and that people will tend to combine those elements that best correspond with their interests and experiences. We do need to be respectful when we engage with other religious traditions, but engagement itself is the key, I think.


Vive le bricolage!


(So, somewhere in there, I hope, is a paper topic.  Hmm . . .)