In this quote from 'Spiritual Defiance' Robin Myers uses the term 'fleeing churches' appropriately.
People are not fleeing churches today because they have lost their deep hunger for a spiritual connection and participation in authentic spiritual communities. Rather, they are fleeing because so many churches now seem bereft of the very spirit that birthed them in the first place. If clergy want to find their people, they might try looking in coffee shops, in homeless shelters, among the young who have pitched their tents in parks to dramatize economic injustice. While we shop, salute, and worship celebrities and athletes, the world is falling apart. What we need today is a move to Occupy Religion.”
― Spiritual Defiance: Building a Beloved Community of Resistance
Peace, justice and blessings to all.
Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise Without delayes, Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise With him mayst rise: That, as his death calcined thee to dust, His life may make thee gold, and much more, just. Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part With all thy art. The crosse taught all wood to resound his name, Who bore the same. His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key Is best to celebrate this most high day. Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song Pleasant and long: Or, since all musick is but three parts vied And multiplied, O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part, And make up our defects with his sweet art. George Herbert, "The Temple" (1633) Paulist Press New York 1981.Christ is risenHe is risen indeed. AlleluiaThe Peace and Blessings of Easter be with you all. |
His spirit and his life he breathes in all
Now on this cross his body breathes no more
Here at the centre everything is still
Spent, and emptied, opened to the core.
A quiet taking down, a prising loose
A cross-beam lowered like a weighing scale
Unmaking of each thing that had its use
A long withdrawing of each bloodied nail,
This is ground zero, emptiness and space
With nothing left to say or think or do
But look unflinching on the sacred face
That cannot move or change or look at you.
Yet in that prising loose and letting be
A memory of Kreisler once:
At some recital in this same city,
The seats all taken, I found myself pushed
On to the stage with a few others,
So near that I could see the toil
Of his face muscles, a pulse like a moth
Fluttering under the fine skin,
And the indelible veins of his smooth brow.
I could see, too, the twitching of the fingers,
Caught temporarily in art’s neurosis,
As we sat there or warmly applauded
This player who so beautifully suffered
For each of us upon his instrument.
So it must have been on Calvary
In the fiercer light of the thorns’ halo:
The men standing by and that one figure,
The hands bleeding, the mind bruised but calm,
Making such music as lives still.
And no one daring to interrupt
Because it was himself that he played
And closer than all of them the God listened.
– R. S. Thomas, ‘The Musician’ in Tares (Chester Springs: Dufour Editions, 1961), 19.
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Anne Lamott is an American writer whose work I am beginning to explore. Her major works, 'Bird by Bird' and 'Travelling Mercies' are New York Times best sellers. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1960's. I am reading 'Travelling Mercies' and finding it a very good read. Its subtitle is 'Some Thought on Faith'
Here is a quote from her other writings.
- Anne Lamott
Peace, justice and blessings to all.
by Nadia Bolz-Weber
And you have such questionable taste in servants.
Your servant selection process needs some work
Because O God you have again called your
Foreign women and weary retirees
You have called your pole dancers and police sergeants.
O God you have again called thirsty
women and broken men and we who foolishly think we volunteered, as if
we raised our eager hand and you called on us when really we were
conscripted.
I don't know how this story ends, Lord.
Could we maybe just skip to the end so I could read the last few verses?
I won’t tell anyone, I promise.
Because, If I can’t see the ending then how do I know if I am getting
close?
So God if you could please just give this servant that blue pin at the end
of my Google Map directions so that even if the route keeps changing I
at least know where I am eventually getting to. Then I’d know which
route takes 4 minutes longer, one graduate degree longer, a few
emotional breakdowns longer than the one I’m on. Should I face Moab or
Bethlehem? Egypt or promises? What I already know or what I will
surely learn?
We’ve not been where we are going yet.
Make a way on these paths we’ve not yet taken – through parks where
junkies fix and children play,
through starter mansions and public housing and suburban strip malls
and dry land wheat farms and cheap motel that charge by the hour if you
know how to ask for it.
Wait. Perils? Well, ok so maybe I take back the thing about knowing the
end because I don't think Gandolf meant for us to go this way Mr. Frodo. I
want to know the end and also know the way to the end but not to know
the perils that get me to the end because if I knew the perils I would
never start the journey because I’m certain I am just not peril-ready. I
am never peril-ready.
So, Lord of The Questionable Servants we’re gonna need some help.
So....
Hand it over. Seriously. Cough it up. We don’t generate enough of our
own so if you call us, equip us, Lord.
Give us faith to go out with good courage,
Or at least good enough courage.
Your strong hand. Your soft hand. The one that molded us out of dirt.
If your hand can lead Jesus out of his own grave, then it is
indeed strong enough to lead us out of ours too.
…who breaks open prisons, frees slaves and captives,
feasts with the outcast and celebrates strangers.
Jesus who was so bad at choosing his friends and just as bad at
choosing his servants.
Jesus who even now stands among his faltering friends and shows us
his hand and his side and gives us his peace. Gives us his faith, gives us
his good courage, gives us his leading hand, gives us his love gives us
his support.
And it is enough for the ventures of which we cannot see the end. Amen.
