Yesterday and Next Sunday

July 19th, 2010
Yesterday, July 18, was the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost.
Next Sunday, July 25, will be the Nineth Sunday after Pentecost.
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I’ve not posted in a week or so because the circumstances in my life are changing.  I’ve just sold my Kentucky home in Richmond and am moving next Monday to Barnesville, Georgia.   As a consequence, as you might imagine, my wife and I are boxing up all our coffee mugs, books, and bed linens.  From now on I’ll not be traveling up and down I-75, living between two homes.  From now on, it’s mostly one home, just one study, one library, only one yard to mow, and merely one set of kitchen pots and pans to clean.  O yes, we have that little lake house near Jackson, Georgia, but taking care of that place will be something of a handyman’s side job.  And it’ll be only forty miles away. Managable.

To keep me intellectually alert (as far as that’s possible), I’ve been hired by Gordon College in Barnesville to teach several classes, most importantly American Literature I (Beginnings to 1865) and some freshman writing classes.  June’s son Stan is giving me a bike so that I can wheel myself to campus and back, and there’s a two-miles walking trail in a near-by woods that will give me a chance to stretch the legs and watch the birds.  Need I say that I’m looking forward to all of this? 

Importantly it’s my hope that in the weeks, months, and years to come–once settled in!– that on Mondays I can provide a posting that many of you will find interesting, provocative, and transforming. 

Last night after the Eucharist, my dear friend, Pastor Ron Luckey of Faith Lutheran Church, Lexington, Kentucky, promised to send me his Sunday sermons and has given me permission to publish them each Monday on this blog.  That’s a considerable privilege.   I’m quite sure Luckey will be diligent in sending me his homilies.  If, on my part, I can also be diligent in editing his seven- or eight-page “pulpit texts” into a readable ”blog texts,” then lots of you will be delighted to visit this blog at least at the beginning of each week on Mondays. 

You’ll notice that I’ve titled this posting “Yesterday and Next Sunday.”  “Yesterday” refers to what I will receive from Pastor Luckey, his Sunday sermons posted here on Monday,s a day later.  “Next Week” refers to Daniel B. Clendenin’s “weekly essay on the Revised Common Lectionary” readings for the coming Sunday, posted every Monday on The Journey to Jesus:  Notes to Myself.   Having read Clendenin’s essays for many years now, I’ve always found them insightful, challenging, and transformative, exactly like the sermons Pastor Luckey gives to his parishioners each Sunday.  By posting Luckey and Clendenin as Sunday and Monday witnesses to the Gospel of our Lord, I hope that I can alert all my readers to thoughtful re-listenings to yesterday’s Gospel lectionary reading and a preview of the lectionary reading that will arrive next Sunday. 

Here now is “yesterday’s” sermon by Pastor Luckey.  

If you were in church last Sunday and listened carefully to the gospel reading for the day, you have every reason to be a little confused this morning. Because in TODAY’S gospel reading Jesus seems to contradict everything he said in LAST week’s gospel reading.  

 

He Qi, The Good Samaritan

Last week Jesus told the very familiar story known as the parable of the Good

Samaritan.  A man is taking a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho.  Along the way he is beaten up and robbed and left to die by the side of the road.  A pastor walks by reading his Lutheran prayer book and looks up long enough to see the man in the ditch.  But the good reverend is so engrossed by these beautiful old prayers he’s reading in his prayer book that he ignores the man and continues on his way.  No doubt making the sign of the cross and saying, “God bless you, my son.”

Not long after that a man walks by on his way to teach Sunday School.  He hears somebody moaning and begging for help, and he looks over to see this poor guy lying there in a ditch.  But he checks his watch and thinks to himself:  “I’ve got a classroom full of third and fourth graders waiting on me right now.  They’re going to be running all over the church if I don’t get there on time.  I’d like to stop, but I just can’t.”  So, he too walks on by. 

But then, the story goes, a foreigner drives by—a Samaritan—and quite unexpectedly, he stops to help.  All he has is some oil and some wine to clean the wounds and an old t-shirt to tear in two for a bandage.  And so (and I’m quoting here) “He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them.”  And then he loads the poor guy into the back of his pick up truck and takes him to a walk-in clinic and hands the lady at the desk a “twenty” and says:  “Take care of this fella, will you?  And if you have to spend more on him, go ahead and do it.  And I’ll come back by in a day or so and reimburse you.”

 

Jesus says to the man he’s telling this story to: “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”  And the man says: “Obviously, the one who showed him mercy.” 

And Jesus says to him:  “Go and do likewise.”  Go and be like that man who served.  Not like those two people who were too busy doing “holy things”—thinking about God in their heads, talking to God in their prayers, and reading about God in their books. 

Now, that story ends with verse 37 of chapter 10.  Got it?  Verse 37.  The very next verse—verse 38—begins today’s gospel reading.  Jesus has just finished this story when he gets to the home of a woman who is a perfect illustration of what Jesus has just been talking about.  Her name is Martha.  

 

He Qi, Martha, Mary, and Jesus

You cannot find in all the gospels a better picture of someone trying to be a Good Samaritan.  She’s heard that Jesus is coming to her house for a visit.  He’s on his way to Jerusalem.  Martha knows this is a very dangerous time in Jesus’ life.  There are people who hate him in Jerusalem.  Who want him dead.  She knows what Jesus needs right now is a friend.  Someone who will take care of him.  And love him.  And pamper him. So she drops everything she’s doing, to concentrate on serving someone in need.  She polishes the silver.  Presses the linen table cloth.  She makes sure the good crystal is spotless.  Sets the table with the knife and the spoon on the right and the fork under the linen napkin on the left.  And when Jesus arrives, she goes to the door and kisses him on the cheek.  And says:  “Make yourself at home, Jesus.  Mi casa, su casa.  Dinner will be on the table shortly.”  And she goes into the kitchen.  Cuts up the chicken to fry.  Slices the tomatoes.  Snaps the green beans and puts them on to boil with a big hunk of pork meat she pirated in, in the dead of night.  Makes the macaroni and cheese from scratch.  Not that orange pasty goop from Kraft that you buy in a box, for God’s sake.  But the real thing.  She ices the chocolate cake she baked this morning. Puts the ice in the glasses for the sweet tea she’s made. 

She does it all.  Because she wants to serve this man in need who’s sitting in her living room.  She cannot do enough for him.  She knows that he’s on his way to Jerusalem.  For all she knows, his days are numbered. 

He may be sitting in her living room, but she understands that in his own way, he’s really lying wounded in a ditch.  And in HER own way, she’s bandaging his wounds and pouring oil and wine on them.  She’s doing everything Jesus just told a story about.  

And then . . . there’s Mary.  “Holy Mary, daughter of God.”  Not a hair out of place.  Not a bead of sweat on her brow.  If MARTHA’S hands smell like onions,  MARY’S smell like the pages of an old prayer book. Mary is sitting on the couch listening to Jesus while Martha serves Jesus.  And Martha’s a little ticked by that. She comes out of the kitchen wiping her hands on her apron and saying:  Jesus, I’d appreciate it if you’d tell this sister of mine to get up and come out here and help me.” 

Now, let me stop here for just a moment.  Imagine you’d never heard this story before.  Based on the parable Jesus had just told before coming to dinner, what do you think he is going to say?  Remember, you haven’t heard this story before.  What do you think he’s going to say?  After all, Mary is the pastor with his nose buried in his prayer book.  She’s the Sunday School teacher who’s weighed the two options and decided the well-dressed kids in church need her more than the guy dying in a ditch. 

Mary seems to be the very kind of person Jesus condemned in that parable he just told.  Surely, Jesus will say: “Mary, as much as I enjoy talking to you, you have work to do.”  

But he doesn’t say that.  He turns on Martha—a Good Samaritan—  and says: “Martha, Martha.”  Two times, he says her name, as if to make sure he’s got her attention.  “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by all the things you think you’ve got to do for me.  There’s really only one thing you’ve got to do.  The thing Mary is doing.  Come sit down and let’s talk.”    

Mary, the one who sits and listens, is the hero of this story.  And Martha, the one who breaks her neck for Jesus, is the goat.  

So, which is it? Which is better? To be Mary or Martha?  Last week, you’d get the impression it was Martha.  This week, it’s clearly Mary.  In Jesus’ words, she has chosen “the better part” in the two stories.  It just goes to show, you can’t necessarily take one story from the Bible and build your faith on it.  You have to read the whole shebang, cover to cover.  

If all you have is the story of the Good Samaritan, then the Christian faith is all about you and what you have to do for Jesus.  If all you’ve got is the story of the Good Samaritan, then the Christian faith becomes just one more burden to be taken on your shoulders.  That’s why Luke follows up the Good Samaritan story with this story of Mary choosing “the better part.” Listening to Jesus.  Talking to Jesus.  Singing hymns to Jesus. Eating a meal with Jesus. 

Luke puts these two stories back to back for a reason, you see.  Because he knows us.  Luke knows that you and I have a tendency to take the Christian faith about Jesus and what he’s done for us and twist it around until it’s all about us and all the things we must do for him to prove ourselves and save ourselves.  

Luke knows us.  He puts these stories back to back to remind us that as important as being a Good Samaritan is—working in soup kitchens, attending BUILD rallies, giving your money to church and charity, adopting orphans, visiting in jails, writing your representative in congress to ask:  “Why hasn’t our nation paid one penny yet of the 1.5 billion dollars we pledged to rebuild Haiti after the earthquake?” 

As important as service is, the Christian faith is ultimately not what about being a Good Samaritan.  It’s about Jesus being THE Good Samaritan. It’s about what Jesus has done for us.  And what, in our baptism, he allows us to do through the power of his Spirit.  We do not save ourselves by being Martha.  We are saved by grace.  And we remember that grace by being Mary.  Luke puts these two stories back to back to remind us that following Jesus does indeed involve hands that are busy like Martha’s.  But that in the end, it’s not about the meal we fix for Jesus.  It’s about the meal he fixes for us. That’s why we keep coming back to this place week after week after week.  To sit at Jesus’ feet.  To listen to the stories of the faith and in scripture and in the preaching.  To talk with him loudly in the hymns we sing and softly in the prayers we pray.  And to eat the meal with him that has cost him so dearly.  

It is only then—when we are reminded once more that it is by grace we are saved that Jesus says:  “Now, go in peace and serve the Lord.”  Find somebody in a ditch and be A Good Samaritan to them just as I have found you in a ditch and have been THE Good Samaritan to you. 

You see how it works?  It’s not Mary OR Martha.  It’s Mary AND Martha. But it’s Mary first. Because Mary knows when all is said and done, it’s really about JESUS first.  

And here is Clendenin’s essay alerting you to what you can look forward to next Sunday, the Nineth Sunday after Pentecost. 

If for next Sunday you have parish preaching or teaching responsibilities, you may want to prepare for your delivery of a sermon or Scripture lesson by consulting CrossMarks Christian Resources, especially Exegetical notes on texts from the Revised Common Lectionary by Brian Stoffregen.    Remember:  Next Sunday’s Gospel is Luke 11.1-13 (Proper 13, Year C).   Going to Crossmarks is well worth the visit.

Posted in Daniel B. Clendenin, Pastor Ron Luckey, Sermons, Sundays after Pentecost | No Comments »

July 8th, 2010

One of the gifts given to me on an almost daily basis is the gift of birds and animals that come visiting near my little cement sitting porch just outside my lakehouse basement study room.  From where I sit, write, and read, I look out toward the lake where, about ten feet from the glass door, bevies of birds, a single chipmonk, the neighborhood dogs, squirrels, and–now and then–a stray rabbit, come over to the feeders, the bird feeders and bath, and the various saucers set out with seeds, bread crusts, and cut-up fruits like oranges and apples.   Some of my guests are quite regular, and all seem to get along quite well as when the squirrels and chipmonk nibble at the base of the suet cages.  For the first time I have some very special guests: a pair of blue birds have taken up residence in the new Audubon nesting box I nailed to a deck post several months ago and already, as I discovered yesterday, they’ve managed to deliver a clutch of four light-blue eggs, soon to be hatched.   The presence of these friends reminds me of something Ernesto Cardenal who wrote:

All animals who lift their voices at dawn sing to God. The volcanoes and the clouds and the trees cry to us about God. The whole creation cries to us penetratingly with a great joy about the existence and the beauty and the love of God. The music roars it into our ears, the landscape calls it into our eyes. In all of nature we find God’s initials, and all God’s creatures are God’s love letters to us.

All of nature burns with love created through love to light love in us. Nature is like a shadow of God, a reflection of God’s beauty. The still, blue lake is a reflection of God. In every atom lives an image of the trinity, a figure of the trinitarian God. And also my own body is created to love God. Each of my cells is a hymn about the Creator and an ongoing declaration of love.

In the morning it’s not uncommon for the Carolina wrens and an early hummingbird to join me in Morning Prayer, and sometimes in the evening a blue heron stands watch over the cove waters when it’s time to do Evening Prayer.  I’m blessed with noisy blue jays, pairs of cardinals, a red-bellied woodpecker, nuthatches, and finches.  Once when a dead catfish washed up on the cove shoreline, a troop of Georgia’s best turkey vultures flew in to feast and pick the skeleton clean, leaving the bare skull a memento mori, the size of a softball.   Best of all, if I chant and sing the Office quietly, the more timid and social of these birds and animals seem unafraid to come sit in the choir and join in with an antiphon or two.   Just so the creation honors the Holy Trinity.

Posted in Birds, Daily Prayer | 1 Comment »

Remembering Jan Huss, Martyr, on July 6th

July 5th, 2010

Our Lutheran calendar, along with that of the Episcopal and Moravian Churches, asks us to remember and commemorate the life and witness of Jan Hus on June 6th.    John Huss (1372-1415) also spelled John Hus, Jan Hus, and Jan Huss, was the key pre-reformer in Bohemia (modern day Czech Republic).  Philip Schaff writes:

Across the seas in Bohemia, where the views of Wyclif were transplanted, they took deeper root than in England, and assumed an organized form. There, the English Reformer was called the fifth evangelist and, in its earlier stages, the movement went by the name of Wycliffism. It was only in the later periods that the names Hussites and Hussitism were substituted for Wycliffites and Wycliffism. Its chief spokesmen were John Huss and Jerome of Prague, who died at the stake at Constance for their avowed allegiance to Wyclif. Through Huss, Prague became identified with a distinct stage in the history of religious progress. Distinguished among its own people as the city of St. John of Nepomuk, d. 1383, and in the history of armies as the residence of Wallenstein, the Catholic leader in the Thirty Years’ War, Prag is known in the Western world pre-eminently as the home of Huss. Through his noble advocacy, the principles enunciated by Wyclif became the subject of discussion in oecumenical councils, called forth armed crusades and furnished an imposing spectacle of steadfast resistance against religious oppression. Wycliffism passed out of view in England; but Hussitism, in spite of the most bitter persecution by the Jesuits, has trickled down in pure though small streamlets into the religious history of modern times, notably through the Moravians of Herrnhut.

To learn more about John Huss, please visit the following websites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Hus
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc6.ii.vi.vii.html
http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/7.html
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/hutton/moravian.iv.ii.html
http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/john-hus.html
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07584b.htm

Here is a prayer Jan Huss wrote:

Most  kind God, without you we can do nothing, and unless you draw us we cannot follow you:  Give us, we pray, a courageous spirit, a fearless heart, a true faith, a sure hoope, and perfect love, that with great patience and joy we may offer our lives to you;  for the sake of Jesus Christ oour Lord, who lives and reign with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. 

Sources for this posting:  Reformation Art; Philip H. Pfatteicher, New Book of Festivals and Commemorations, 324

Posted in Martyr | No Comments »

Preparing for Next Sunday, the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, July 11, 2010

July 5th, 2010

An Icon: Amos the Prophet

As we have come to expect, Daniel B. Clendenin on his weekly Journey with Jesus has written another fine essay on one of the lectionary readings for next Sunday, the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost.   Here’s how it begins:

 This week’s reading from Amos relates one of the most dramatic encounters in all of Scripture. If the dust-up occurred today, it would go viral on YouTube. The actors in the drama come right from central casting. The script should come with warning labels like “not recommended for children,” or “side effects include severe political and spiritual discomfort.”  

Read the rest of the essay.

Posted in Daniel B. Clendenin, Lectionary, Sundays after Pentecost | No Comments »

Can we do something “evil” while doing something good—like praying?

June 12th, 2010

Here’s one of my favorite sayings by one of the Desert Fathers:

Abbot Pambo questions Abbot Anthony saying, “What ought I to do?  And the elder replied, “Have no confidence in your own virtuousness.  Do not worry about a thing once it has been done.  Control your tongue and your belly.”

A few days ago I shared some coffee with my friend Harry who uses the same prayer book that I use for Morning and Evening Prayers.  Our prayer books provide us with four daily readings: in the morning we read a selection from the Hebrew Scriptures and one from a New Testament epistle; in the evening we read from one of the Gospels and a selection from Christians who have written over the centuries.

pray-front-others-200X200As we were chatting, Harry said that one of his recent readings made him realize that as a believer in Christ even his so-called good works (what Abbot Pambo called “virtuousness”) markedly tainted (and sometimes saturated) with his personal sinning.  “Even when I’m trying to do good,” he said, “I’m usually guilty in seven ways.”  I knew what he was talking about because I too had recently read the fourth reading, one written by St. John of the Cross in The Ascent of Mount Carmel (Book III, Chapter XXVIII).  Here is what St. John tells us as to how we can “fall through vain rejoicing” in our good works:

The principal evils into which a man may fall through vain rejoicing in his good works and habits I find to be seven; and they are very hurtful because they are spiritual.

 The first evil is vanity, pride, vainglory and presumption; for a man cannot rejoice in his works without esteeming them. And hence arise boasting and like things, as is said of the Pharisee in the Gospel, who prayed and congratulated himself before God, boasting that he fasted and did other good works.

 The second evil is usually linked with this: it is our judging others, by comparison with ourselves, as wicked and imperfect, when it seems to us that their acts and good works are inferior to our own; we esteem them the less highly in our hearts, and at times also in our speech. This evil was likewise that of the Pharisee, for in his prayer he said: ‘I thank Thee that I am not as other men are: robbers, unjust and adulterers . . . .

 The third evil is that, as they look for pleasure in their good works, they usually perform them only when they see that some pleasure and praise will result from them. And thus, as Christ says, they do everything ut videantur ab hominibus [so men will see], and work not for the love of God alone . . . .

 The fourth evil follows from this. It is that they will have no reward from God, since they have desired in this life to have joy or consolation or honor or some other kind of interest as a result of their good works: of such the Savior says that herein they have received their reward. And thus they have had naught but the labor of their work and are confounded, and receive no reward. There is so much misery among the sons of men which has to do with this evil that I myself believe that the greater number of good works which they perform in public are either vicious or will be of no value to them, or are imperfect in the sight of God, because they are not detached from these human intentions and interests . . . . In these good works which some men perform, may it not be said that they are worshipping themselves more than God? . . . . In order to flee from this evil, such persons must hide their good works so that God alone may see them, and must not desire anyone to take notice of them. And they must hide them, not only from others, but even from themselves.

 The fifth of these evils is that such persons make no progress on the road of perfection. For, since they are attached to the pleasure and consolation which they find in their good works, it follows that, when they find no such pleasure and consolation in their good works and exercises . . . , they commonly faint and cease to persevere, because their good works give them no pleasure. In this way may be spiritually understood these words of the Wise Man: ‘Dying flies spoil the sweetness of ointment.’

 The sixth of these evils is that such persons commonly deceive themselves, thinking that the things and good works which give them pleasure must be better than those that give them none . .  . .

The seventh evil is that, in so far as a man stifles not vain rejoicing in moral works, he is to that extent incapable of receiving reasonable counsel and instruction with regard to good works that he should perform. For he is lettered by the habit of weakness that he has acquired through performing good works with attachment to vain rejoicing; so that he cannot consider the counsel of others as best, or, even if he considers it to be so, he cannot follow it, through not having the necessary strength of mind. Such persons as this are greatly weakened in charity toward God and their neighbor; for the self-love with respect to their good works in which they indulge causes their charity to grow cold.

All seven evils become possible in doing virtuous things, even in doing prayer.  We may (1) take pride and self-congratulatory satisfaction in our praying, (2) compare ourselves favorably with others who prayer differently, (3) find our prayer enjoyable when others see us doing it, (4) find ourselves miserable when prayer brings no reward from God (5) give up praying when we discover little or no progress, (6) deceive ourselves by thinking that enjoyable good works must be preferred to prayer, and (7) when not stifling such thinking, we refuse to receive reasonable counseling and instruction.

What are we to do when we realize how self-centered we are, not only by doing wrong, but also when doing what is right, right in prayer itself?  St. John provides something of an answer when discussing the fourth evil:

In order to flee from this evil, such persons must hide their good works so that God alone may see them, and must not desire anyone to take notice of them. And they must hide them, not only from others, but even from themselves.

This advice is good advice when confronting all seven evils.  One suspects that St. John in giving this advice is thinking of what Jesus says to us in Matthew,

When you do something for someone else, don’t call attention to yourself. You’ve seen them in action, I’m sure—’playactors’ I call them— treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that’s all they get. When you help someone out, don’t think about how it looks. Just do it—quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out. (The Message, 6.2-4)

It’s important to note that right after this advice, Jesus immediately give us his recommendations for doing prayer: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7682623@N02/3311369859

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7682623@N02/3311369859

Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.  (The Message 6.5-6)

This, of course, is the environment for centering prayer, something my friend Harry practices.  And in so doing he prays against the seven kinds of evil when being “virtuous” and doing something good.   And in centering prayer, his left hand has no idea as to what his right hand is doing.

Posted in Centering Prayer, Desert Ammas and Abbas, Orthodox Christianity | 1 Comment »

Thoughts on the Oil Spill after a Morning’s Walk

June 12th, 2010

For quite some time now it’s a habit of mine to take two walks each day: one in the morning from 5 to 6 by myself, another in the evening from 8 to 9 with June.  During my more quickly striden morning walk, I carry a walking stick, a small camera, and my prayer rope, finding it a good time to say The Jesus Prayer, take a picture now and then, and use the stick as an aid to arm swinging.  The early morning walk takes me into Kentucky’s farmland, fields drenched in dew and fireflies, birds doing their chorus work, horses and cattle munching on grass, ponded bullfrogs,  and dogs sometimes barking as they hear my shoes scuffing the pavement.  Now and then “Moose,” a neighborhood canine trots along with me, following me home for a biscuit and fresh bowl of water.

One of the ponds I see on my morning walk.
One of the ponds I see on my morning walk.

It’s in the morning that walking somehow takes me into the often palpable Presence of God. Not always, but often.  Just before dawn, especially when there’s a heavy cloud cover, I enter what seems like a foggy place outside and inside.  My thinking slows down; my thoughts are few.  After such times, Rumi’s little poem, “A Single Note,” comes to mind:

With a single note the nightingale
Make me notice the rose
Falling into that place
Where everything is music.

After coming home, I drink a cup of coffee with a slice of homemade bread and read the newspaper I picked up in the driveway.  These days one can’t do such reading without being reminded about the horrific oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  Of course, we’re concerned about the economic impact the tragedy has brought upon the marshlands and Gulfd waters.  We should be.  This morning my prayers included intercessions for everyone so profoundly affected by that disaster. 

Dying in Oil
Dying in Oil

But something else is happening to the people of the Gulf. I don’t know how to put it except to say that in the destruction of their environment, God is disappearing.  Of course, I don’t mean that absolutely, but surely in some real sense, the beauty of the earth within which God so often wraps himself has now turned to an ugliness quite repellent to any lovely hinting of God’s presence.

Having lived near Louisiana’s marshes and swamps where Fr. Alexander Sigour, a Roman Catholic priest friend, often invited me out to his get-away shack on a bayou some miles south of Lafayette, I know the smell of the place, the sound of snakes falling out of trees into waters, and the moistness of the marsh’s evening air.  I’ve eaten my piles of crawfish and Creole rue smothering so-called “dirty rice.”  Back in the 60’s, I listened to Creole radio stations still broadcasting in that soulful language, the music of Haiti.

Much of that has already disappeared, and more is disappearing fast.  What I feel about what’s happening in the Gulf, Wendell Berry says so well in one of his Sabbath poems:

Not again in this flesh will I see
the old trees stand here as they did,
weighty creatures made of light, delight
of their making straight in them and well,
whatever blight our blindness was or made,
however thought or act might fail.

The burden of absence grows, and I pay
daily the grief I owe to love
for women and men, days and trees
I will not know again.   Pray
for the world’s light thus borne away.
Pray for the little songs that wake and move.

As the terrible and seemingly unreversable devastation of the Gulf’s coastlands continues to condemn wildlife, grasses, oyster beds, and fish waters to death, I also count the going away of God’s palpable Presence as perhaps the greatest horror.  Yes, God is there; but it will take considerably more faith to see Him.

In “The Universe as Communion,” Thomas Berry has said all of this better than I shall ever manage:

The universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects. And we have this from our first awakening to the universe. Your first impression when you see a flower or see a tree or see a sunset or see the ocean, or see anything in the natural world, your first impression is a communion experience. How wonderful this is: to live in the universe where there’s a sun in the heavens; where there’s so many wonderful creatures of Earth; where the song of the birds and the butterflies and the cicada in the evening.

There’s one experience that I think has had a very deep influence on my life. When I was about ten years old I saw a meadow and I saw it first in spring time — in early May.  How wonderful this is to live in the universe where there’s a sun in the heavens; where there’s so many wonderful creatures of Earth; where the song of the birds and the butterflies and the cicada in the evening.

What is all this? Obviously, it’s not a collection of objects to be used. Obviously, it’s a world to be venerated. It’s a world to be communed with, to be present, to be delighted in, and together to have a certain experience that might be called ecstatic experience.  A good economy is what makes that meadow survive.  Good politics protects that meadow. A good religion is what enabled me to understand the deep mystery in the meadow.

If we don’t have certain outer experiences, we don’t have certain inner experiences or at least we don’t have them in such a profound way. We need the sun, the moon, the stars, the rivers and the mountains and the trees, the flowers, the birds, the song of the birds, the fish in the sea. All of this evokes something in our inner world, evokes a world of mystery. It evokes a world of Sacred and gives us that sense of awe and mystery.

The next time you take a morning amble, walk into God’s Presence.  Take along a prayer rope for The Jesus Prayer and maybe a walking stick to help arms to swing as you pray.  

__________________

Note:  Berry’s poem came to me by way of Krista Tippett’s radio broadcast and podcast download, “Land, Life, and the Poetry of Creatures,” an interview with Ellen Davis, available at Speaking of Faith.

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Posted in Environment, God's Presence, Jesus Prayer, Walking | 2 Comments »

“One who sings well prays twice”

June 2nd, 2010
"Joyous Light of Heavenly Glory" from Holden Evening Prayer by Marty Haugen.

"Joyous Light of Heavenly Glory" from Holden Evening Prayer by Marty Haugen.

Over the past several years, June and I have sung Holden Evening Prayer with others in our parishes and by ourselves.  The Holden setting for Evening Prayer is especially beautiful and has become enormously popular, especially in Lutheran churches.  It is called Holden because it was composed by Marty Haugen at Holden Village , a year-round Lutheran Center located in the North Cascade mountains of Washington State.

Most frequently used on Wednesdays in Advent and Lent, Holden Evening Prayer is also often sung mid-week in many parishes like that of St. John Lutheran Church in Griffen, Georgia, where the youth lead the worshippers in this form of Evening Prayer.  Accompanied by guitar and piano, these young Christians sing with exceptional clarity and enthusiasm as they come together for an evening meal, worship, and Scripture study.

On a more or less regular basis, June and I have incorporated two Holden songs into our Evening Prayers:  “Joyous Light of Heavenly Glory, ” which comes at the beginning of our prayers, and “Let My Prayers Rise Up,” sung just before we sing three or four psalms.

Adding songs and music to one’s Evening Prayers is a wonderful way  not only to enliven our time of worship and prayer, but such singing also slow us down in our use of Scripture and canticles so that we pay more attention to the words of our prayers.  Moreover, because the melodies of these songs are so easy to learn and beautiful, we find ourselves humming the tunes and quietly singing the words throughout the day, sometimes at the oddest moments—like when I was looking at a Scotch thistle last evening during our evening walk.

It’s my suggestion that everyone who prays regularly at more or less set times during the day might well add music to her or his prayer time.  One can use a hymnal to sing a song, a collection of songs like those published by the Taize community, or a favorite setting made available by musicians in one’s church tradition.  Remember that we Christian faithful gather and pray together as people waiting for the Lord’s coming as instructed by the Apostle Paul.  We are to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (cf. Col 3:16). Singing is the sign of the heart’s joy (cf. Acts 2:46).  ”Singing is for one who loves” (Saint Augustine), and “one who sings well prays twice” (Martin Luther).

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Back after 100 days

June 1st, 2010

It’s been some time since I last posted on Daily Prayer Blog. In fact, my last post was on February 24th, one week after Ash Wednesday.  Now that I look back on the past little-more-than three months, I wish I could tell you that my absence from blogging here was deliberate.  It wasn’t.  Perhaps it was because I found myself quite overly tired during Lent’s second week.  Perhaps it was because I thought I was spending too much time on the Internet.  Perhaps it was because something inside of me wanted more time to reflect quietly and less technologically on the shape of my life.   Maybe it was a combination of all three reasons–or something else or more.  I don’t know.

 What I do know is that although I continued to pray daily, I haven’t posted on the Praying Daily Blog for one hundred days.  While I wish I could tell you that this 101st day is particularly fortuitous, once again I simply cannot.  For whatever reason (might it be that the Holy Spirit is telling me something?), I’m now ready to begin blogging again, knowing that I’ll be reasonably faithful in my postings.

Over the past three months my spiritual life has been profoundly and profusely deepened and refreshed.   Why?  I’m not sure.  In late March and early April I went with

Andy in front of the Erechtheum on the Acropolis in Athens, Greece

Andy in front of the Erechtheum on the Acropolis in Athens, Greece

friends to Haiti to work at Grace Orphanage and Theophile School in Port au Prince.  It was a good trip.  Upon my return, June and I traveled to Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Egypt.  That journey took me to places I’ve always dreamed about seeing: the Acropolis, the churches of Rome, the great museums of Florence, Assisi, Greek Orthodox churches and Coptic monasteries. Tiring as that trip was, perhaps it had something to do with my refreshment of energies.

 Then too, beginning in Lent and continuing on, I’ve been observing the fasting tradition of the Eastern Church in an progressively deepening way and have lost more than twelve pounds in the past three months.  My blood pressure was beginning to climb, and my physician started me on medication and encouraged me to exercise more.  Following his counsel, I’ve been walking, with more regularity than I anticipated, about four miles a day.   Then too my considerable reading in the past three months has given me opportunity to find much needed quiet time for renewed reflection on the centering of my life.  As a consequence, although physically tired at times, I’m rested and finding myself living in a new sense of harmony with June, my large family, the Church as a whole, God, and life itself.  Need I tell you, it’s a good and blessed feeling.

Lest I begin to take too much credit, however, I found in this morning’s newspaper an article indicating that I should not be surprised at the emerging joy and happiness I’m experiencing.  Nicholas Bakalar in ”Happiness increases with age, poll finds” writes that such feelings are the common experience of many—many more than we might has guessed—older folks. It all seems to be a part of getting older, more mellow, less frustrated with life.  “It’s inevitable,” the research indicates.  It’s a good article; you should read it.

All of this is preface to my next posting which I’ll think about tonight and write tomorrow morning.  I have no idea as to what it will be about, but I’m anxious to find out.  In one way or another it’ll have to do with prayer.   In many ways that’s what the past three months has been about, quietly so.

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About the past two weeks

February 23rd, 2010

About two weeks ago my wife and I drove up from Georgia to Kentucky;  since arriving here I found it helpful not to do much writing, just enough to fill out a grocery list, a list of disciplines that I need to strive for during Lent, perhaps a letter or two, and the barest of email postings.  In lieu of writing sentences, I’ve been reading them, especially those in these four books:  The Cambridge Companion of Orthodox Christian Theology, Vladimir Lossky’s The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite, and Karen Armstrong’s The Case for God (especially Chapter 4 on ”Silence”).   Slowly, but what seems surely, I’m seeing more clearly what Eastern Orthodoxy is about, especially as it differs from our Western theological heritage; and, as I told my friend Harry this morning over coffee at Hardy’s, I find much of Orthodoxy more theologically and spiritually satisfying than what has been given to me in the Western church.  On a napkin this morning, I drew out (in an admittedly crude fashion diagrammatically) a rough sketch of Orthodoxy’s understanding of the Incarnation, quite wonderful in articulating the Biblical announcement of God’s enfleshment and our subsequent theosis. 

Years ago it was the pratice among some Lutheran churches to confess The Athanasian Creed on the Feast of the Holy Trinity, and I can remember always being profoundly unable (and in a larger sense I still am) to understand what the Creed asked me to confess when I said the following:

Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation; that he also believe faithfully the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess; that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; God, of the Essence of the Father; begotten before the worlds; and Man, of the Essence of his Mother, born in the world. Perfect God; and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father as touching his Manhood. Who although he is God and Man; yet he is not two, but one Christ. One; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh; but by assumption of the Manhood into God.

By the assumption of the Manhood into God.  This week I have come to more than simply an inkling as to what Athanasius and the Cappadotian Fathers were urging Christians in the Church to embrace in order to preserve and treasure rightly the fullest Presence of God in Christ and the Holy Spirit among and within us.   I now see that such an understanding can be appreciated best (some would say only) by those Christians and churches who understand the Gospel sacramentally in the strongest sense of that adverb.  Fortunately for me the Lutheran Church as I have lived within it has been profoundly sacramental (if not always orthodox in its articulation of the Incarnation).   Why it has taken me so long, now near the completion of my life, to be within my present understanding and enjoyment of the Incarnation, I don’t know.  Much has to do with the wayward life I have led.  All I know now is that I am grateful for the vibrant witness of the Orthodox Church and daily ask God to bless her as she witnesses to those like me outside her ecclesial embrace.

If any among my readers is an Orthodox Christian, I would deeply appreciate hearing from you.  Perhaps you might help me further my understanding of the Incarnation, my veneration of the Theotokos, my immersion in the Scriptures, my deeping appreciation and participation in apophatic prayer, and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

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A Merton observation

February 23rd, 2010

The contemplative Christian is, of all religious people, the one most likely to realize that she or he is not a saint and least anxious to appear one in the eyes of others.  –Thomas Merton

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