Contemplation, winter day

This is a country whose center is everywhere
and whose circumference is nowhere.
You do not find it by traveling but by standing still.
Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin.
It is here that you discover act without motion,
labor that is profound repose,
vision in obscurity,
and, beyond all desire,
a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity.

Exhortation, Day, Sunday
Thomas Merton, A Book of Hours, ed. Kathleen Deignan

September 11, 2010: reflection for a student-initiated "interfaith solidarity" gathering

In light of recent events and less recent ones, some students at Guilford College, where I teach, organized a gathering for reflection and meditation. The event was simple and included readings from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim holy scriptures followed by Quaker-style silence with opportunity for anyone to speak. It began with a spoken reflection by a faculty member, who happened to be your friendly Acts of Hope blogger.

Here is the reflection. Bear in mind that

1) it was addressed to a particular audience --in this case, mostly "adult-escent" students and one or two faculty, including a variety of religious, non-religious, I'm-not-religious-but-I'm-spiritual, and other folks, so "pitching it" was tricky;

2) it has some repetitions and will seem a little rambling in places, with questionable sentence structure. I wrote it to be spoken aloud, slowly and somewhat meditatively.

In spite of this, perhaps some of this reflection will be useful to you.

As you may surmise from the words below, I've been teaching Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dorothee Soelle, Diana Eck, and Eboo Patel these days. And the early centuries of the Christian church.

Shalom. Salaam aleikum. Peace be with you.

Reflections on Interreligious Solidarity
Today and in the Long Haul

We welcome each other to this gathering
to which we come in peace
with both our common humanity
and our profound differences.

I always smile and take a deep breath
when someone says to me
“Well, all religions are the same.”
Actually, they are not.

Our gathering today
is an invitation to open our hearts and minds
and (as Thomas said in his invitation letter) our arms
to those who are
not us.

To learn:
Allah is worshipped by Muslims,
as all-merciful and compassionate.

To learn:
There was a Muslim nonviolent leader
Kahn Abdul Ghaffar Khan (known as Badshah Khan)
in what is now Pakistan
in the same era as the Hindu nonviolent leader
Mohandas Gandhi
(known as Mahatma Gandhi).

To learn:
Jewish law is not a set of rules
but a path of life.

To learn:
The Torah and the whole Tanakh
and Judaism
are not just a prelude to Christianity.

To learn:
Jesus was not a Christian.

To learn:
Orthodox Christians who venerate icons
of Jesus, Mary, and the saints
are not worshiping idols.

To learn:
There have been times and places in history
in which Jews, Christians, and Muslims
have killed in the name of God.

To learn:
There have been times and places in history
in which Jews, Christians, and Muslims
have lived together and learned from each other.
Cordoba. Sarajevo. New York.

To learn:
Muslims worshiped peacefully
on the 17th floor of the World Trade Center
and were among the dead 9 years ago
along with Christians, Jews, Buddhists,
humanists, agnostics, atheists, and
many people whose faith we will never know.

To learn:
On that day,
an openly gay Franciscan Catholic priest
was one of the people who died
not because he was working in the twin towers
but because he rushed over there
and went in
to help care for and pray for
the wounded and the dead.

To learn:
Long before 2001,
September the 11th was the day in 1973
that a coalition of military generals
toppled the democratically elected government in Chile
and established a dictatorship that ruled with terror
for 16 years, banned trade unions,
exiled 200,000 dissenters
killed thousands of others,
and used its laws against a million native people,
the Mapuche.
The U.S. government, except during the Carter era,
supported the dictatorship.

Now,
having said all this,
let me make something clear.

Knowledge alone will not save or heal the world.
Higher learning will not guarantee justice
or alone teach compassion.

That would be to say
that only educated people can be holy
and that all educated people are righteous.

That is not true.

The Nazi doctors had lots of education.
They had medical degrees
from distinguished universities
and they used their knowledge
to torture and kill other human beings
both children and adults.
And then they went home
and listened to classical music.

Education is important
and truth and accuracy do matter.

but I want to raise the question for us today
of what kind of education we need.

More specifically,
I want to ask
what practices
–I’d like to call them spiritual practices
and I hope this is a phrase that has meaning
to all or most of you—
I want to ask what spiritual practices
we need to cultivate
in order to live as compassionate neighbors
in this conflicted world.

The world in which we live
is dangerous as well as beautiful.

The hate which we have witnessed in so many ways
--poverty that kills,
violence that kills,
cultural violence,
the threat of burning scriptures, the Qur’an, in Florida,
the burning of bodies in New York and Washington (and Pennsylvania),
the bodies maimed and raped and murdered in wars
right now
in so many countries,
the hasty language in the comments on news websites,
the swastika that showed up on someone's door
in Binford dorm the other day, right here on campus—
all that hate is not going to go away.

The hate is not going away,
though the good news is that there are
many people and groups
from many religions and places and cultures
who do the work of love,
who embody solidarity,
who exercise humility and who labor for justice.

In this world
you will be asked to stand up
for the same values and sentiments
for which you stand today
here in this circle.

You will need to do so
in hostile environments.

Will you be ready?

How will you prepare yourself?

How are you preparing now, while you are in school,
for the kind of witness we give today?

On what (or on whom)
will you draw to help you?

Let me use a word
that will not have a benevolent meaning
to all of you;
it is the word "tradition."
Thank you for bearing with me.

What tradition
or traditions
will you drawn on?

You see, we have company here.

We have company in the way of peace:
in religious peacemaking
and in secular groups devoted to peace.

We have to forge new paths
but we do not have to reinvent the wheel.

People have been here before us.

This is part of today’s good news.
We are not alone, here in our little group.

Both the dead and the living
walk with us and teach us and encourage us
if we will only listen.

We can’t do this work
without community.

And we are not the first.

Our particular community
may be a community of faith and practice,
or a humanist community.
Our communities may be
communities of struggle,
communities of peacemakers,
long established
or fairly new groups
(like the Interfaith Youth Core).


Some of us here
believe that our way
and our community’s way
is the best and the holiest.

Others
are not sure what we believe
or where the way is for us.

Whether we are one or the other
or somewhere in between,
encountering the other
is part of our work in the classroom.

It is also our work everywhere else.
Everywhere.

Think of how often
you –let me say “we” here
since of course I do it too.
Think how often we
respond hastily,
inwardly or outwardly,
jump to conclusions,
think first of our own good.

Especially those of us who are privileged
by virtue of our education,
our race, our gender,
and yes, our religion,
if we are members of the majority religion.

Others
are our teachers.

The poor and the uneducated will teach you.

The one you fear will teach you.

Your own fear will teach you.

We have to school ourselves
for solidarity.

It is hard for all of us.

Those of us who are older,
who have some experience and perhaps some wisdom
can lock ourselves inside that experience
and wall off new insight.
We need to remember that wisdom will come
from those half our age
and from territory
where we have not ventured
over the years
out of fear
or habit
or laziness.

Those of us who are younger
who are still figuring out who we are,
building our egos,
shoring them up,
and in the process resisting and reacting,
which is good and part of the journey,
may find out we need to ease up
to let wisdom in.


Solidarity:
this will cost you.
This will cost us.

Wherever we draw our inspiration and our strength,
whatever our primary community,
of faith
or blood
or friendship
there will be a cost.

So again,
ask yourselves:

Given the state of the world,
given the misunderstanding, the bias, the hatred,
and given the hope and vision that others
here and elsewhere
have shared with me,
how will I spend these college years?

I urge you,
spend these years equipping yourselves.

And do remind us who teach
that we need to equip ourselves
and school ourselves as well
for the path of peace.

Solidarity is not just today.

Solidarity is a long road.

Learning about each other takes time.

The Torah and the rest of the Tanakh,
the Christian Bible,
the Holy Qur’an:
the riches in them,
the commentaries on them
the disagreements about them
take years to study.

The traditions of the children of Abraham
take years to understand.

So do the traditions of the children of Sarah,
of Hajar (her Muslim name – Jews and Christians call her Hagar),
of Mary, who is also Mariam and Miriam.

Some traditions are written, others not.
They are also part of our collective story
and may take even more discernment and insight
to learn and understand.

Can we take the time for this?

Can we learn
not to make assumptions
about why someone covers her head with a scarf?
Can we learn not to make fun of people
who live by a different calendar from ours
or won’t do business one day a week?
Or of people who lay a mat on the floor to pray
or fall into the joyous ecstasy of Pentecostal Christian worship
or use images in prayer?

Can we learn not to make haste?

How do we learn to discern
when to choose holy patience
and when to choose holy impatience?

How do we learn to listen?

All this requires practice.

Daily.

More than daily.

Zen Buddhists would call some of this
the practice of mindfulness.

How do we take a breath
and not rush to reaction?

Can we learn
what gives the other person sorrow
but also what gives this person joy?

Can we try to understand
the whole person before us?

Will we also learn to understand systems and communities?

Can we acquire understanding of how
the many media and modes of communication
work
and of how they shape our perceptions?

Can we learn to understand
our own emotions and reactions?

We can’t do this alone.

We can’t do this without community.

It starts right here.

Holocaust map - Europe and the teaching of 20th century theology

The link to this map doesn't work, but I saved the image as a jpg.

I am linking a Facebook post to this since the link is cranky and refuses to show up on Facebook.

Make sure you click on the image to enlarge it. (Click twice and it will get really big and detailed.)

Post on Facebook:

Map for the little darlings to study. Yeah, I'm teaching a Christian theology course and they are also getting a good dose of theological vocabulary & questions. But woe unto those who study European theologies in the mid-20th century & after without looking this in the face. And without asking whether & how this affects the questions & the language. And how we understand God. And how theology & ethics are related. And what responsibilities Christians bear.

End of speech. I'm off to edit the Tome.

Thursday night / early Friday : from the New Zealand Prayer Book

Lord,
it is night.

The night is for stillness.
**Let us be still in the presence of God.

It is night after a long day.
**What has been done has been done;
**What has not been done has not been done;
**let it be.

The night is dark.
**Let our fears of the darkness of the world and of our own lives
**rest in you.

The night is quiet.
**Let the quietness of your peace enfold us,
****all dear to us,
****and all who have no peace.

The night heralds the dawn.
**Let us look expectantly to a new day,
****new joys,
****new possibilities.

In your name we pray.
Amen.

God forgives you.
Forgive others;
forgive yourself.

Silences, part 2

From Tillie Olsen's Silences (New York: Delacorte Press / Seymour Lawrence, 1978).

In case it is not obvious, italics in black are my words. The words in color are Olsen's.


Literary history and the present are dark with silences: some the silences for years by our acknowledged great; some silences hidden; some the ceasing to publish after one work appears; some the never coming to book form at all.

What is it that happens with the creator, to the creative process, in that time? What are creation's needs for full functioning? Without intention of or pretension to literary scholarship, I have had special need to learn all I could of this over the years, myself so nearly remaining mute and having to let writing die over and over again in me.

These are not natural silences--what Keats called agonie ennuyeuse (the tedious agony)--that necessary time for renewal, lying fallow, gestation, in the natural cycle of creation. The silences I speak of here are unnatural: the unnatural thwarting of what struggles to come into being, but cannot. In the old, the obvious parallels: when the seed strikes stone; the soil will not sustain; the spring is false; the time is drought or blight or infestation; the frost comes premature.

The great in achievement have known such silences --Thomas Hardy, Melville, Rimbaud, Gerard Manley Hopkins. They tell us little as to why or how the creative working atrophied and died in them--if ever it did.

...

Kin to these years-long silences are the hidden silences; work aborted, deferred, denied --hidden by the work which does come to fruition...

Censorship silences. Deletions, omissions, abandonment of the medium (as with Hardy); paralyzing of capacity (as Dreiser's ten-year stasis on Jennie Gerhardt after the storm against Sister Carrie). Publishers' censorship, refusing subject matter or treatment as "not suitable" or "no market for." Self-censorship. Religious, political censorship --sometimes spurring inventiveness--most often (read Dostoyevsky's letter) a wearing attrition.

The extreme of this: those writers physically silenced by governments. Isaac Babel, the year of imprisonment, what took place in him with what wanted to be written? Or in Oscar Wilde, who was not permitted even a pencil until the last month of his imprisonment?

Other silences. The truly memorable poem, story, or book, then the writer ceasing to be published. Was one work all the writers had in them (life too thin for pressure of material, renewal) and the respect for literature too great to repeat themselves? Was it "the knife of the perfectionist attitude in art and life" at their throat? Were the conditions not present for establishing the habits of creativity (a young Colette who lacked a Willy to lock her in her room each day)? or--as instanced over and over--other claims, other responsibilities so writing could not be first? (The writer of a class, sex, color still marginal in literature, and whose coming to written voice at all against complex odds is exhausting achievement.) It is an eloquent commentary that this one-book silence has been true of most black writers; only eleven in the hundred years since 1850 have published novels more than twice. [Olsen backs up her statement with a citation; note that she was speaking in 1962.]

There is a prevalent silence I pass by quickly, the absence of creativity where it once had been; the ceasing to create literature, though the books may keep coming out year after year...

...

Almost unnoted are the foreground silences, before the achievement. [T.O. names writers including George Eliot, Joseph Conrad, Isak Dinesen]-- all close to, or in their forties before they became published writers; [more names, including Laura Ingalls Wilder] in their sixties. Their capacities evident early in the "being one on whom nothing is lost;" in other writers' qualities. Not all struggling and anguished... ; some needing the immobilization of long illness or loss, or the sudden lifting of responsibility to make writing necessary, make writing possible; others waiting circumstances and encouragement...

Very close to this last grouping are the silences where the lives never came to writing. Among these, the mute inglorious Millions: those whose waking hours are all struggle for existence; the barely educated; the illiterate; women. Their silences the silence of centuries as to how life was, is, for most of humanity. Traces of their making, of course, in folk song, lullaby, language itself, jokes, maxims, superstitions--but we know nothing of the creators or how it was with them...


Olsen then quotes Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, as one expects. I think of Alice Walker's title essay in In Search of Our Mother's Gardens about the creative gifts of Black women. Olsen also quotes Rebecca Harding Davis, who writes of the illiterate ironworker in Life in the Iron Mills who sculptured great shapes in the slag: "his fierce thirst for beautiy, to know it, to create it, to be something other than he is--a passion of pain."

....

..."Without duties, without almost without external communication," Rilke specifies, "unconfined solitude which takes every day like a life, a spaciousness which puts no limit to vision and in the midst of which infinities surround. "

Unconfined solitude as Joseph Conrad experienced it:
***"For twenty months I wrestled with the Lord for my creation... mind and will and conscience engaged to the full, hour after hour, day after day... a lonely struggle in a great isolation from the world. I suppose I slept and ate the food put before me and talked connectedly on suitable occasions, but I was never aware of the even flow of daily life, made easy and noiseless for me by a silent, watchful, tireless affection."

I'll bet that was a woman. Who was silent and watchful, that is, and made the food, and provided affection.

...

But what if there is not that fullness of time, let alone totality of self? What if the writers, as in some of these silences, must work regularly at something besides their own work--as do nearly all in the arts in the United Sates today.

I know the theory (kin to "starving in the garret makes great art") that it is this very circumstance which feeds creativity. .... But the actuality testifies: substantial creative work demands time, and with rare exceptions only full-time workers have achieved it. Where the claims of creation cannot be primary, the results are atrophy; unfinished work; minor effort and accomplishment; silences. (Desperation which accounts for the mountains of applications to the foundations for grants--undivided time-- in the strange bread-line system we have worked out for our artists.)

Twenty years went by on the writing of Ship of Fools, while Katherine Anne Porter, who needed only two, was "trying to get to that table, to that typewriter, away from my jobs of teaching and trooping this country and of keeping house: "Your subconscious needed that time to grow the layers of pearl," she was told. Perhaps, perhaps, but I doubt it. Subterranean forces can make you wait, but they are very finicky about the kind of waiting it has to be. Before they feed the creator back, they must be fed, passionately fed, what needs to be worked on. "We hold up our desire as one places a magnet over a composite dust from which the particle of iron will suddenly jump up," says Paul Valéry. A receptive waiting, that means, not demands which prevent "an undistracted center of being." And when the response comes, availability to work must be immediate. If not used at once, all may vanish as a dream; worse, future creation be endangered -- for only the removal and development of the material frees the forces for future work. ...

There is a life in which all this is documented: Franz Kafka's. For every one entry from his diaries here, there are fifty others than testify as unbearably to the driven stratagems for time, the work lost (to us), the damage to the creative powers (and the body) of having to deny, interrupt, postpone, put aside, let work die.

... [Excerpts from Kafka's diaries follow. Also comments on Rilke, who neglected and moved away from his wife and child to protect his poetry writing, and on marriage and childbearing and how rare, till recently, most women writers did not marry, or if they did, did not have children. Or if they did, they had household help.]

The power and the need to create, over and beyond reproduction, is native in both women and men. Where the gift among women (and men) have remained mute, or have never attained full capacity, it is because of circumstances, inner or outer, which oppose the needs of creation.

Wholly surrendered and dedicated lives; time as needed for the work; totality of self. But women are traditionally trained to place others' needs first, to feel these needs as their own...; their sphere, their satifaction to be in making it possible for others to use their abilities...

...

...[W]e are in a time of more and more hidden and foreground silences, women and men. Denied full writing life, more may try to "nurse through night" (that part-time, part-self night) "the ethereal spark," but it seems to me there would almost have had to be "flame on flame" first; and time as needed, afterwards; and enough of the self, the capacities, undamaged for the rebeginnings on the frightful task. I would like to believe this for what has not yet been written into literature. But it cannot reconcile for what is lost by unnatural silences.

*******Originally an unwritten talk, spoken from notes at the Radcliffe Institute in 1962, transcribed and edited, and published in this version in Harper's Magazine, October 1965.

Sölle on limits, transcendence, and the Communion of Saints

At a peace gathering

We’re not only ten thousand I said
there are more of us here
the dead of both wars
are with us

A journalist came and asked
how could I know that
haven’t you seen them
i ask the clueless guy
haven’t you heard your grandmother
groaning when they started it up again
do you live all alone
without any dead who drop in
for a drink with you
do you really think
you are only yourself

****--Dorothee Sölle

******The Mystery of Death

******2007 (posthumous book - Sölle died in 2003 with the manuscript in draft)

The English version of the poem is by the book's translators, Nancy Lukens-Rumscheidt and Martin Lukens-Rumscheidt. The German original, "Auf einer Friedensversammlung," appeared in Dorothee Sölle, Loben ohne Lugen (Berlin, Wolfgang Fietkau, 2000).

Photo by the blogger New York Portraits, 2008.

A day of mindfulness: more in the "DO SOMETHING for Health Care Reform" series

I promised you a mindfulness exercise for Tuesday and it's Thursday. I really ought to remember that Tuesday and Wednesday are my long days at work. I did, mindfully, watch two presidential speeches, one each day. I will post links to them, back-dated, so you will find them below soon.

What I meant to do, though, and I am doing now, is to invite you to take a break from the politicking and letter-writing and move into a day of mindfulness about health. Your health. The health of others. What constitutes good health.

This goes beyond good health insurance coverage, of course. A few times today and this evening, observe your breathing. Then take some deep, slow, breaths.


When you get up, what do you do for your own health and well-being? What does your understanding of health include in your daily life? Sleep? Food? Exercise? Drinking water? Laughter? Community? Spiritual practice? (For some this means prayer or meditation, for others it may mean Tai Ch'i or reading or baking. Think about what this means for you.) Intellectual or physical activity? Creative work?

As you go about your day, do you think about your health? In what way? What is the place of self-care ? How much time and energy does worrying take? Do you have one or more conditions that require treatment or visits to health practitioners?

Simply observe. Do not judge.

As you go about your day, do you think about the health and well-being of others? In what way? What form does this take? Who are the others? Are they persons and animals who are members of your household? Are they at your workplace? In your congregation or other community of spiritual practice? Are they at the place where you volunteer?

Take your time. Notice.

Are there ways in which "health" becomes particularly concrete for you? Are there ways in which "health" is an abstraction?

What happens when you take time simply to observe, to notice, and then perhaps to name, taking time out from the rush of acting and doing?

See what happens to your day, your health and your approach to health when you consider these questions.

Try to do this without judgment and without undue rush.

If you like, write us in the comments to this post and let us know your observations, experiences, and thoughts.

Peace to you.

Taking up our cross: a meditation by Magdalene

Okay, back to Lent.

Magdalene, ever the fine preacher, theologian, and biblical interpreter, has a meditation on what the cross is which is a must-read. When you think of someone "having a cross to bear," what do you think? When Jesus says "take up your cross and follow me," what does he mean? Read Mags's thoughts on this here.

Healing Psalms, Day Nine

Psalm 137 is today's Psalm, the ninth in the series of ten healing Psalms according to Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav.

This beloved, well-known, poignant Psalm is best known for its first six verses.

The end of the Psalm makes it one of the "angry Psalms," and a particularly shocking one at that, with its violent image. What shall we do with it? The other "angry Psalms" can be consoling, especially if one is despondent, depressed, feeling powerless, turning one's anger inward. But calling God's rage upon the children of others is another matter entirely. It feels far more horrible than calling God's rage upon one's enemies.

I have no answer for this, and today's commenter from the book, Rabbi Amy Eilberg, does not really address this dilemma.

Jewish and Christian traditions, including African American Christian traditions, have embraced this Psalm of exile and clung to it, and even transformed it (there is a fine book on African American Catholics called Taking Down Our Harps) - but they usually stop at verse 6.

Is the end of the Psalm something we need to say no matter way, lest we edit the Psalms at will and edit out their anger and passion?

Or is it one of those "texts of terror" that we should study like other texts of terror but not recite or listen to as holy scripture?

Here's the Psalm. Tolle lege, and see what you think and feel.

By the rivers of Babylon,

***there we sat and we wept

******as we remembered Zion.

Upon the willows on its banks

***we hung up our harps.

For there our captors demanded of us

******words of song;

***Our tormentors asked of us (with) joy:

*****'Sing to us the songs of Zion!'

But how shall we sing the song of Adonai

***on alien soil?

If I ever forget you, Jerusalem,

***may my right hand forget its cunning!

May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,

******if I remember you not;

******if I do not set Jerusalem

*********above my highest joy!

Remind the songs of Edom, Adonai, about the days of Jerusalem--

***Remind those who said,

******'Raze it, raze it to its very foundation!'

Daughter of Babylon,

***it is you who are the annihilated one;

******Happy is the one who will repay you

*********for all that you have done to us!

Happy is the one who will grab your little ones,

***dashing them against the rock!

Rabbi Eilberg writes that she "had always read Psalm 137 only in historical terms, the homesick lament of the Jews in exile in Babylon, weeping for Jerusalem, their home. But to read the Psalm through Rabbi Nachman's eyes is to imagine the lament as my own, as a cry of despair and longing in my own times of pain and lostness and confusion, when I am disoriented, forcibly removed from the normal, comfortable times and places of my life. Rabbi Nachman invites us to read the psalm as our own cry, our own prayer, inviting us to move, as the psalm does, from despair to joy to power."

I gave you my commentary as much as Rabbi Eilberg's (there's more of hers in the book, but the paragraph above is a good summary introduction) and would be interested in knowing how you read and hear this Psalm, especially when you read it in the context of your own illness, suffering, troubles, and healing.

This makes me want to go to Reb Nachman's teachings to find out what he said.

Commentary and Psalm translation from Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub, C.S.W., ed., Healing of Soul, Healing of Body: Spiritual Leaders unfold the Strength and Solace of Psalms. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1994.

Art: "A rare large framed Hungarian 19th century Jewish oil on canvas painting depicting the remembrance of the destruction of the Temple, in Hebrew "Zecher Lechurban" above the words of "The Rivers Of Babylon." Very vivid and colorful oil with various Jerusalem scenes, the painting is signed by an unknown Hungarian artist. It is a Jewish custom leaving a small part of the home unfinished in memory of the destruction and this painting covers that particular place. 88cm X 72cm." Via IVAntiques

Healing Psalms, Day Eight: Breaking the Spiritual Gridlock

I spoke with P.'s partner B. earlier today and P.'s recovery is proceeding as well as can be expected. He's at the grumpy-and-in-pain stage, which I remember well from when my father had his CABG. But he's where he is supposed to be and the medical and nursing care at the hospital is excellent and very attentive. And kudos to the staff, all up and down the line, for courtesy and warm behavior toward B. as a same-gender partner. We shouldn't have to notice when people who are family to each other are treated properly, but since it's not the norm everywhere, especially with same-gender couples, we do. Would that this courtesy and kindness were the case all over the U.S. and all over the globe.

Today's Psalm from the Tikkun HaKlali, the Complete Remedy according to Reb Nachman of Bratslav, is Psalm 105.

Note: The commentator uses "He" a lot for G*d. Do not let the language keep you away from Godde. Change the gender if you need to. I am not doing so because I am quoting from a book, but in prayer I would change the language.

Rabbi Maurice Lamm writes in "Breaking the Spiritual Gridlock: An Introduction to Psalm 105," one of the chapters in the book we've been following (see bottom of this post):

****If we are going to heal from illness we need to break two kinds of spiritual gridlock. One paralyzes us so that we become passive and resigned; the other steals the very song from our throats, leaving us with only a groan. The spirit evaporates from our souls and we become submissive and flat. Psalm 105 teaches two positive ways to heal, and healing is the essence of health.

****First, when illness de-activates us, we follow a prepared script and act like victims--we become couch potatoes, helplessly watching ourselves get weaker. We are fed and injected and analyzed and tested and predicted and watched over and prayed for and spoken of behind our backs. It is a gridlock and paralyzes us and makes us feel worse. Psalm 105 tell us: "Don't act like a victim."

****Notice how the psalmist erupts and fires off ten staccato charges in five sentences--give thanks; call Him, make known His works; sing to Him; praise Him; speak of Him; glory in Him; search for His presence; seek Him; remember Him! To heal, to become whole, we must respond even ten times; energize our minds; and not allow ourselves to sink into victimhood.

****... It will require heroism to take our mind off our condition, to take control of our souls, to be courageous, to feel empowered again. You may say: "I can't think of anything else." Perhaps you can't, but try it. ...

****Now break the second gridlock. In the ten charges of the psalmist, one appears not to fit --"Sing to Him!" What's the value of a song? In our sophistication, we think of singing as an art form; but the Torah teaches that to sing is a blessing. In terms of the spirit, singing is on a higher level than speaking--it is why the Levites sang in the Temple. The word shir, meaning song, also derives from shur, meaning insight. When we sing we raise our souls to God, and we gain insight into Him. Through song we address God.

****And through song we learn to better endure our hardships. When life is not a song, sing! When King David was ill, he sang; when Cervantes, the great writer, was ill, he said: "He who sings frightens away his ills." ... Singing is an antidote to panic. The Hasidim taught us that. It lightens the burden, lessens the fear, steadies the nerves. Singing gives voice to our deepest feelings; it enables us to express ourselves even if we are the only ones who hear it. And we will have made ourselves heart. Singing lifts the heart.

****Even if all we do is chant "Oy Vay," over and over, to a tune we improvise--Shiru lo, "Sing to Him." Even a melancholy song somehow takes us out of ourselves and gives expression to our inner being. Sometimes I break out in a niggun--a melody that uses sounds shaped only by my emotions. It articulates a groan that forces its way oout of my interior; sometimes, it expresses an indescribably joy inside me that's in search of an audience.

Note from Jane: I am struck by how related this is to the African American Spirituals, the "sorrow songs" of slavery which are classics and still sung and listened to today. Many of them, like the Psalms of old, are laments. In naming suffering, they transcend it and in some ways also revolt against it. Laments help us both to survive and to resist.

******

Singing with friends, says Rabbi Lamm, harmonizes our own souls with the souls of those who empathize with us. The harmony, in magical ways, transfers the energy of the group to us fragile individuals as we lift up our voices and keep time together.

****Sing what you like; help others by offering to sing with them. ....

****To groan when we are ill is common; to sing is courageous. Think actively, sing passionately,. It will break the most common gridlocks of illness, and let our souls soar to new heights.

As for Psalm 105, it is really long.

I'm just going to post a few pieces of it, including the one to which Rabbi Lamm refers at the beginning of the long passage from his chapter (oops, sorry, Fair Use people; this really is fair use):

Give thanks to Adonai, call upon His name;

***Let all nations know about His deeds!

Sing to Him, compose songs, play instruments for Him;

***Tell all about His wondrous acts!

********

Take pride in His Holy Name;

***The heart of those who seek Him rejoices!

Search for Adonai and for His might,

***Seek His presence always!

Remember the wonders He has performed,

***His miracles, and the laws from His mouth.

Then comes the story of Adonai's relationship with the people of Israel from Abraham on, with Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron (no Miriam, no women), the Plagues and the Exodus, quail and manna and water from the rock...

For He remembered His holy word, His promise

******to Abraham, His servant.

He brought out His people with gladness,

******His chosen ones with joyful singing.

He gave them the lands of nations,

******they inherited that which nations acquire by labor.

So that they might keep His statutes,

******and treasure His teachings,

*********Halleluyah!

I know, it's an Alleluia during Lent, but I'm quoting. ;-)

Besides which, we're doing this in the context of a Jewish commentary.

Commentary and Psalm translation from Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub, C.S.W., ed., Healing of Soul, Healing of Body: Spiritual Leaders unfold the Strength and Solace of Psalms. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1994.

Illustration above:

***

***Commemorative International (in the text about an Israeli coin modeled on this image) writes:

*****

*****The Bible abounds with stories about Miriam, Moses and Aaron's eldest sister. We learn about her heroism and her compassion, as well as her great intellectual knowledge and leadership abilities.

*****The book of Exodus, describing the Exodus from Egypt, offers a depictive description: "And Miriam, the Prophetess, Aaron's sister, took the drum in her hand and all the women followed her with drums and dance" (Exodus 15:20). While others were complaining about the desert conditions, Miriam was giving thanks for the great and miraculous Redemption that had just occurred after the parting of the Red Sea.

******

*****The drawing ...was chosen from "The Golden Haggadah" printed in Barcelona circa the year 1320. The pictures in this Haggadah, among the earliest and most spectacular of the Sephardic Haggadahs, portray the events and characters beginning with Adam in the Book of Genesis and ending with Miriam's song in the Book of Exodus.

Healing Psalms, Day Seven: Crisis and Confidence

Continuing to pray with and for my friend P., who has just had a coronary bypass, and with all who need prayer and all who pray for others.

Psalm 90 is the seventh in this series of healing psalms according to Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav, and the commentator today is Rabbi Eugene B. Borowitz.

Rabbi Borowitz speaks of "the simple shifts that are part of the quiet rhythm of the everyday. They raise us from the stability of routine to a warm feeling of confidence, or lower us into doubting that anything really matters or is worth our effort.

Our psalm speaks to me of this alternation of temper. We begin it confidently enough. After all, it is a psalm, part of our sacred literature, something Jews have recited for millennia and perhaps familiar from the early part of the Shabbat service. ..."

I am keeping the quotes from the commentary short because the Psalm speaks powerfully for itself.

A prayer of Moses, a man of God:
***Adonai, You have been a refuge for us

***in every generation.

Before the mountains were born,

***before You brought forth the earth and the inhabited world,

******from world to world--

*********You are the Almighty.

You bring people down

***from arrogance to contrition;

******You say,

*********'Return to Me, children of Adam and Eve!'

For a thousand years are in Your eyes

***like yesterday, which has just passed,

******like a watch in the night.

**

The stream of human life is like a dream;

***In the morning, it is as grass, sprouting fresh;

***In the morning, it blossoms and flourishes,

******but by evening, it is cut down and shrivels.

So are we consumed by Your anger;

***were are terrified by Your rage.

You have placed our sins before You;

***Our hidden misdeeds

******are exposed by the light of Your countenance.

All our days vanish
***in the glare of Your wrath;
***We have used up our years;
*******which pass like a word unspoken.

The days of our years may total seventy;
***if we are exceptionally strong, perhaps eighty;
******but all their pride and glory is toil and falsehood,
*********and, severed quickly, we fly away.

Who can know the force of Your fury?
******Your rage is as awful as our fear!
To count every day-- teach us,
******so we will acquire a heart of wisdom.

Return, Adonai--how long?
******Take pity, have compassion on Your servants.
Satisfy us in the morning
******with your Hessed/Lovingkindness,
******and we will sing and rejoice all our days!

Give us joy
***that will challenge the days of our affliction,
*********the years we have seen evil.

Let Your work be revealed to Your servants,
***let Your splendor be on their children.

May the pleasantness of my Master, our God, rest upon us,
***and may the work of our hands be established;
******Establish the work of our hands!

Rabbi Borowitz writes of the many shifts in mood in this psalm. He concludes:

"Will our prayer be answered? That is for God to determine. But in one sense, it already has been, for we end this prayer different from when we started it."

The sentence that strikes me is "Give us joy / that will challenge the days of our affliction, / the years we have seen evil." Is it not usually evil and affliction that challenge our sense of joy? Here the prayer is for Godde to do the opposite: to give us joy that challenges us! that challenges our past sorrows. That challenges even evil. And if we ask Godde for this, we must believe that it is possible. It will happen. Joy will challenge the worst of our memories, the deepest of our sorrows, the most terrible of evils. Joy will. Joy.

Photo: In the Woods (France), by Sébastien Lallement

Mary Hunt on the recent Brazilian abuse/ pregnancy/abortion/excommunication case

My friend and colleague Mary E. Hunt has an essay at ReligionDispatches.org again. This time it's about the recent and tragic case in Brazil. The mother of a nine year old girl who was pregnant with twins (a pregnancy which would have killed her) was excommunicated for helping her have an abortion. The doctors were excommunicated too. The girl's stepfather has admitted to sexually abusing her.

Dr. Hunt, a Roman Catholic feminist theologian, writes:

........ My sadness in this case comes not only from what has been done in the name of God to people who are living a nightmare, but from what might have been done to help. Sexual abuse, especially incest, is hard to stop. But once perpetrated it need not be made worse by ecclesial sanction.

A proper pastoral response would include: support for the pregnant child as she lives through an abortion; care for the mother who is responsible for the child and the rest of the family; protection for the family from the stepfather whose arrest may trigger backlash behavior; sensitive work with the other daughter who has also been sexually abused; HIV and venereal disease testing for the girls and the mother; economic support for the family; counseling for the family, the community, even the neighbors and parishioners who have been affected by this trauma; prayer and pastoral attention, including reception of the sacraments according to the family’s wishes. They need a spiritual community more than ever. Instead they got excommunication. “Is there anyone among you, who if your child asks for bread, will give a stone?” (Matthew 7:9). Apparently there are several in Rome and Brazil.

..... They claim to know the law of God. But here’s the rub: even if they do, an overwhelming number of Catholics and others of goodwill do not care. We do not believe in the cruel, vindictive, callous God they cite. Many believers put our faith in a loving, merciful divinity whose response to human tragedy is to weep not condemn, to embrace not exile. That is a Catholic view, well-supported by scripture and life experience. The bishops are welcome to their views, but beware of people who think they know more about God’s will and God’s law than the rest of us. They are selling a product we are not buying.

.............Let this case signal the end of any credible claim to authority such bishops might make, and the beginning of a new era when local communities determine their own members.

Read the full text of Mary Hunt's commentary here.

The essay is titled "Excommunicating the Victims."

Ugly scary memos - not entirely a surprise

Memos describing ways to a police state? Yup. Have a look here. We weren't just being paranoid.

I know, it didn't happen. But the thought was there. In some detail.

Vigilance, vigilance.

A little perspective: "Depression Survivors Remember Hope"

From the Los Angeles Times, some memories of the Depression of 1929 and onward. This is my parents' generation.

And the great sucking sound you hear...

...is me, whirled into the Facebook vortex.

I have succumbed.

A note on the reactions to the death of John Updike (R.I.P.)

This isn't really about John Updike, may he rest in peace, but about the descriptions of John Updike on the radio.

I found myself yelling at the radio this morning. Yes, me, yelling at my blessed NPR shows in the car on the short drive to work.

Updike was a great writer, no doubt about it, and an art critic and thinker and many other things. So this isn't a dissing of Updike.

What is getting to me is how everyone is speaking of him as a writer about (the United States of) America, American post-war life, the American middle.

Excuse me?!

Updike wrote about white American post-war life.

Of course, he wrote about other things too. I have had his novel about a fictional African country, The Coup, on my shelf for years and have been meaning to read it, and I will read it in memory of him. Updike was, as one critic said, kaleidoscopic.

But Rabbit is not (the U.S. of) America.

Is Rabbit a part of it? Of course. A significant part of it? Of course. The whole story? No. "Representative" (of the whole story)? No.

We are so (as the kids would say) not out of the era of white privilege.

If we're going to name the fact that people are chroniclers of Jewish life or Black life in these United States, then let's name the fact that people are chroniclers of White or White Protestant life in the United States. (Or, for that matter, of the U.S. white middle class, or of middle-class Northern men.)

Either that or I want the obits for Toni Morrison (long may she live and continue to write) to say as much as the obits for Updike that she wrote the Great American Novel.

'Cause if you think that slavery and its aftermath or love and work in Harlem or the U.S. South have not been as American as apple pie and as the life of suburban white businessmen, you are still thinking of white America as normative --as the rule, the standard, the "normal"-- and the rest of these United States as the exception or the other.

White privilege is not just present in what we do or in what happens to us, but in how we think and how we speak. *

Think about it.

*See, for instance, re: the American novel, item 7 in the list on the document at the "white privilege" link above.

Episco-crats in shelter-land

Doxy's pal UT from Under the Overpasses has a new blog under his real name. Turns out he is Tim, an Episcopalian from Western North Carolina. His blogging continues to be eloquent, informative, and challenging.

When +Nedi Rivera spoke to us today about becoming welcoming congregations she slid into her talk, briefly put pointedly --I didn't miss it-- a little comment about how, make no mistake, this is not just about ethnicity and culture and race but also about class.

After that, I was also glad to read this over at Tim's. Well, glad that he wrote about it, but it made me shudder. This class issue is part of what kept me away from the Episcopal Church for years (that and the dominant Anglo culture) and Tim notes how this class privilege affects even life in shelters.

As some of you know, Tim directs a shelter for homeless people. His new blog is called "Caught a glimpse of Jesus down by the railroad tracks..."

Nedi Rivera rocks: a brief note, and full text soon, I hope.

No, she's not a rock star,* she is the Episcopal bishop mentioned below, and she addressed the Diocese of North Carolina Convention this morning on mission, outreach, multicultural ministry, justice, Jesus, and related topics. As she did yesterday when she preached, she spoke without a note (that I could see, anyway) and with complete coherence. She said some things I have never heard anyone say out loud (about kitchens, bathrooms, and liturgy, among others) and she said them with joy and clarity. I am hoping there will be a text and/or a video and if so I will post them here. If not I will try to reconstruct from my notes, but I really hope I can bring +Nedi's words to you as fully as possible. I wish all Episcopalians, and for that matter all Christians in the U.S. (especially, but not exclusively, those from majority white Euro-American cultures and the more privileged classes) could hear her.


*Okay, so maybe she is a rock star in the other sense, but personality is not my point here, though +Nedi's personality and style are part of what help people listen to her and hear her. Now let's see if we do anything about what we heard.

Other than that, I skipped most of the sessions and had meetings with folks I needed to see, mostly about our committee work for racial justice and reconciliation, but also some involving more personal and ministerial catching up. I also stopped by various exhibits and learned about various people, places, groups, and ministries. Always enlightening and sometimes fun.

I will post in the next week or so a very nice pledge for straight allies that PFLAG is offering.

That is all Her Grace the Feline Bishop is letting me write. I am under orders to have a nap.

Click to enlarge and see detail.

Aha! What did I tell you about the presidential dog?

Back to serious business. Remember who first suggested to you that the Obamas get a Portuguese water dog. Well, they are now down to two options, and guess what one of them is.

Though they may go with the labradoodle.

See here and here.

As the President said: tougher than choosing a Commerce Secretary.

Institutions

Dealing with a lot of them these days. But, as a member of my family said to me yesterday, "If Obama can become president, you can get through this."


Meanwhile, in the big outside world, the President is going to close Guantánamo. A decision not without risk. But a human is a human and torture is wrong. We become what we dole out to others. So beware what you sow.

Better to sow the good seed -- even if you never see it grow and bloom. Others will.

How hard it is to live by principle, to live truthfully, to negotiate the shoals of institutional life -- all institutions, without exception.