I've been thinking about the dialog of preaching and of ministry.
I was reflecting, as my time at my field education site draws to a close, that ministry, at its best, might be described as a series of dialogs, and outside of field ed, we don't get much instruction or guidance in ways of opening up those dialogs—with God, with colleagues, with congregation members, with ourselves. In field ed, there has been attentive listening and conversation in reflection and supervision sessions, and with the teaching parish committee there has been feedback, listening and conversation built into the structure.
But we don't appreciate enough the gift of listening, I think, either in the giving or the receiving. I looked to my bookshelf and found two books on listening that I bought and never fully read, that I think I'll peruse over the summer: The Listening Book: Discovering Your Own Music by W. A. Mathieu (Boston: Shambala, 1991). The cover says it is "about rediscovering the power of listening as an instrument of self-discovery and personal and personal transformation." We've got two ears and one mouth, the old saying goes, so that we should listen twice as much as we talk.
The second book is The Third Ear: On Listening to the World by Joachim-Ernst Berendt (New York: Henry Holt, 1986). Berendt, according to the back cover, is the author of the international best seller The Jazz Book and has done a lot of work in organizing jazz music festivals. "He uncovers startling evidence that suggests dominance of the ear is directly linked to compassion and peacefulness, while reliance on the eye produces divisiveness and aggression. At the core of almost every spiritual tradition—from the West, East, Middle East, Africa Pacific Islands, and the Arctic—lies the knowledge that the world is made of sound and that the way to wisdom lies through the ear."
What the ear of the jazz musician knows or learns is how to hear the way through. If the listening goes awry, then jazz gets derailed, and it's obvious—sort of what happens to the rest of us in life a lot of the time, but we don't get that it's because we weren't listening enough and paying attention. It is so rare that I feel really listened to, rather than that a person is just planning their response while I'm talking. We need to give the gift of time in our listening as well, and not expect immediate response, or perhaps train ourselves to give time to listen in our dialog before we respond.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Counting
Originally posted at
Every day as I drive my daughter to school I pass by a lawn sign about half way there. Today it said 3253. According to tonight's news, they will need to change the sign, and I'll see if it is different tomorrow, because the count of American military deaths in Iraq is now three higher. When I drive by I often think that perhaps they need more signs, because counting only the American deaths does not tell the whole story of what is happening. The counts of wounded Americans can also be found on those sites, and the number of Iraqis who have lost their lives, is a much larger number.
Of course, this is not the only place in the world with deaths and tragedies to count--Darfur is another. These are hard numbers to count.
In our adult ed class at church yesterday we were finishing our series of lessons on our Music of Faith and Songs of the Soul with a selection of songs on blessings, and I included an adaptation of the chorus of the hymn "Count Your Blessings" that I wrote as a children's counting song when my daughter was small. The visiting four-year old sitting on his daddy's lap particularly enjoyed the song. So for all of you with young friends who are learning to count, I offer this way of counting:
Easiest to Count
This week at First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain we will have a Maundy Thursday service at 7 p.m. and we will be focusing on the new commandment that Jesus gave the disciples. Maundy is from the Latin mandatum (like mandate), meaning commandment. The new commandment is found in John 13:34-35: "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
Thinking of love and counting reminded me, of course, of the famous poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, that starts, "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…" When it comes to the ways we are loved by God, and the ways Jesus showed his love for us, perhaps these are the easiest of all the things we might count.
Somehow, though, it seems to me that we cannot count the ways God loves us, or our blessings, unless we also count each death, and unless each death or wound also counts. Surely, when we come to this week, of all weeks, where we remember the wounds in Jesus' hands and side, and his death, we must count all wounds and deaths, and begin to count the ways that we love one another, and more importantly, the ways that we show that love. Love counts.
Hard to Count
Every day as I drive my daughter to school I pass by a lawn sign about half way there. Today it said 3253. According to tonight's news, they will need to change the sign, and I'll see if it is different tomorrow, because the count of American military deaths in Iraq is now three higher. When I drive by I often think that perhaps they need more signs, because counting only the American deaths does not tell the whole story of what is happening. The counts of wounded Americans can also be found on those sites, and the number of Iraqis who have lost their lives, is a much larger number.
Of course, this is not the only place in the world with deaths and tragedies to count--Darfur is another. These are hard numbers to count.
In our adult ed class at church yesterday we were finishing our series of lessons on our Music of Faith and Songs of the Soul with a selection of songs on blessings, and I included an adaptation of the chorus of the hymn "Count Your Blessings" that I wrote as a children's counting song when my daughter was small. The visiting four-year old sitting on his daddy's lap particularly enjoyed the song. So for all of you with young friends who are learning to count, I offer this way of counting:
Count your blessings, name them one by one.
Count your blessings, see what God has done.
Count your blessings, name them one by one.
Count your many blessings, see what God has done.
Count your blessings, name them two by two.
Count your blessings, hear what God can do. …
Count your blessings, name them three by three.
Count your blessings, for earth and sky and sea. …
Count your blessings, name them four by four.
Count your blessings from God that we adore. …
Count your blessings, name them five by five.
Count your blessings, be glad that you're alive. …
Count your blessings, name them six by six.
Count your blessings, you are part of God's good mix. …
Count your blessings, name them seven by seven.
Count your blessings, you are on your way to heaven. …
Count your blessings, name them eight by eight.
Count your blessings, God is never late. …
Count your blessings, name them nine by nine.
Count your blessings, God is with us all the time. …
Count your blessings, name them ten by ten.
Count your blessings, and then sing them all again.
Count your blessings, name them ten by ten.
Count your many blessings, and then sing them all again.
Easiest to Count
This week at First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain we will have a Maundy Thursday service at 7 p.m. and we will be focusing on the new commandment that Jesus gave the disciples. Maundy is from the Latin mandatum (like mandate), meaning commandment. The new commandment is found in John 13:34-35: "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
Thinking of love and counting reminded me, of course, of the famous poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, that starts, "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…" When it comes to the ways we are loved by God, and the ways Jesus showed his love for us, perhaps these are the easiest of all the things we might count.
Somehow, though, it seems to me that we cannot count the ways God loves us, or our blessings, unless we also count each death, and unless each death or wound also counts. Surely, when we come to this week, of all weeks, where we remember the wounds in Jesus' hands and side, and his death, we must count all wounds and deaths, and begin to count the ways that we love one another, and more importantly, the ways that we show that love. Love counts.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Silence and Sabbath
Silence is scarce.
As I start to write this, wanting to write on our congregational experience during Lent of sitting in increasing amounts (a minute increasing by a half minute each week) of silence, my daughter is in the room next to me watching a re-run episode of "The Lucy Show." Somehow it seems like a fitting dose of reality. How hard it is to find quiet time, time to sit in silence. This Sunday, it seemed to me as if people were sinking into the silence. There didn't seem to be the shuffling and rustling that we've had in previous weeks. Note to self: don't announce the amount of time that we'll have and then people don't wonder when it's supposed to be up. But there was a power, an enfolding or upholding of the gathered community as the silence deepened. I think we were making space for God.
Even early in the morning, in my supposed quiet time, it's hard to find silence or space for silence. The kettle whistles, the furnace clanks, refrigerator whirs, the computer hums and cars swish by. Even now, although it is quieter since my daughter went upstairs, my chair squeaks and I hear the clock ticking as my fingers are tapping. Why is it easier to find God in the silence than in the busy-ness and noise? I'm not denying that it is—I'm just wondering why we're not wired to find God in rush of everyday?
I read somewhere recently that Sabbath is the most radical contribution of Judaism to the world, or maybe it was the most radical contribution of any religion to the world in 4000 years. Not that Sabbath is always silence, but it is holy time, and it seems to me that we were achieving holy time on Sunday in our silence. Somehow in my mind I equate the spaciousness of Sabbath with the quality of silence we had.
My calendar popup reminders intrude as I try to sit in silence again. And I suspect that if I close my eyes to sit in silence now, I may be asleep—restless night from aching shoveling muscles last night.
If we lost scents and ritual in the reformation, it was a much bigger loss to have lost Sabbath keeping, whenever it was that we did. Blue laws, that remnant of Puritanism, really didn't ensure Sabbath, although the laws helped to control the options. How hard would it be to buck the tide and keep a day of Sabbath in a Christian tradition? How hard is it to find 3-4 minutes of intentional silence? Yet, what an absolute blessing it is when we do.
I tried yet again to sit in silence, and my mind has too much chatter just now. So, there it is. Yesterday I felt enfolded by others around, like being wrapped in a communal blanket of silence. My mind was not nearly so noisy.
I'll miss the silence during service when Lent is over. I'm not sure that I've made enough space for God, but it's been a special part of the season, not a giving up, but a getting.
As I start to write this, wanting to write on our congregational experience during Lent of sitting in increasing amounts (a minute increasing by a half minute each week) of silence, my daughter is in the room next to me watching a re-run episode of "The Lucy Show." Somehow it seems like a fitting dose of reality. How hard it is to find quiet time, time to sit in silence. This Sunday, it seemed to me as if people were sinking into the silence. There didn't seem to be the shuffling and rustling that we've had in previous weeks. Note to self: don't announce the amount of time that we'll have and then people don't wonder when it's supposed to be up. But there was a power, an enfolding or upholding of the gathered community as the silence deepened. I think we were making space for God.
Even early in the morning, in my supposed quiet time, it's hard to find silence or space for silence. The kettle whistles, the furnace clanks, refrigerator whirs, the computer hums and cars swish by. Even now, although it is quieter since my daughter went upstairs, my chair squeaks and I hear the clock ticking as my fingers are tapping. Why is it easier to find God in the silence than in the busy-ness and noise? I'm not denying that it is—I'm just wondering why we're not wired to find God in rush of everyday?
I read somewhere recently that Sabbath is the most radical contribution of Judaism to the world, or maybe it was the most radical contribution of any religion to the world in 4000 years. Not that Sabbath is always silence, but it is holy time, and it seems to me that we were achieving holy time on Sunday in our silence. Somehow in my mind I equate the spaciousness of Sabbath with the quality of silence we had.
My calendar popup reminders intrude as I try to sit in silence again. And I suspect that if I close my eyes to sit in silence now, I may be asleep—restless night from aching shoveling muscles last night.
If we lost scents and ritual in the reformation, it was a much bigger loss to have lost Sabbath keeping, whenever it was that we did. Blue laws, that remnant of Puritanism, really didn't ensure Sabbath, although the laws helped to control the options. How hard would it be to buck the tide and keep a day of Sabbath in a Christian tradition? How hard is it to find 3-4 minutes of intentional silence? Yet, what an absolute blessing it is when we do.
I tried yet again to sit in silence, and my mind has too much chatter just now. So, there it is. Yesterday I felt enfolded by others around, like being wrapped in a communal blanket of silence. My mind was not nearly so noisy.
I'll miss the silence during service when Lent is over. I'm not sure that I've made enough space for God, but it's been a special part of the season, not a giving up, but a getting.
Monday, March 12, 2007
The scent of God?
I've been mulling about the sermon I'll be preaching on March 25. I have been thinking that I'll be improvising the sermon—that is, not writing it down, or at least not standing at the pulpit reading it, but one of the things that has drawn me about the gospel text, which is the woman anointing Jesus, is the fragrance.
Last night I found a place on-line (after looking unsuccessfully in several places locally) that sells essential oils and I ordered some spikenard, as well as frankincense and myrrh, among others. I'll hope it's here by March 25. I went rummaging through my drawers and crafts bags for fragrances this weekend. My daughter's Christmas gifts several years ago were potpourri boxes and sachets, and we had fragrance oils for those, and I had gotten some fragrances to add to massage oils, so I have quite a few essential oils around for one reason or another. I'm thinking that this might be a fragrant service. I have a lot of smells captured in bottles. The children will enjoy that...
Smell is the sense that is most primal and I'm wondering why we don't make more use of it in worship. Other than the smell of the coffee brewing—which actually isn't very strong, we don't do smells in Protestant churches. Is this another thing, like ritual, that we lost/threw away during the reformation?
Nard or spikenard was used in preparing a body for burial. I figure that's a coded way of saying that it's a potent enough scent to cover up the scent of a decaying, no—let's be blunt—a rotting body. If so, what primal associations would nard have? Yet, it's referred to as well in Song of Solomon: "While the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance." It's originally from India, and we know from the gospel that it was costly then. Was it a scent the poor would have known? Currently it's not as expensive as myrrh, and it's recommended for rashes, wounds, and tension, and is known as a very spiritual fragrance, apparently just from its historic association with the anointing of Jesus. Is that cause or effect now? If I didn't know it was nard, would I be affected spiritually?
So am trying to think of how to use fragrances in a sermon, especially since we have a hospitality theme going on… Bring my bread machine—baking bread is a current fragrance of hospitality. But apparently nard had an association with welcoming guests as well…
Where is God in all this? What is the scent of God? The scent of redemption? The scents of love and welcome and acceptance and hospitality? How can/do we think of those? If we make worship more sensual, with more subconscious or primal connections, what might happen? There are ways to have anointing as movement as a part of the service, because it wasn't just that the fragrance was there, but that it was lavishly used, and anointing was a limited act—by priests for kings, for example. So what radical notion is it for a woman to anoint an itinerant teacher/prophet/social reformer? But it was also love and recognition, captured in the scent and in the act. How might that be translated into worship/a sermon and for this particular congregation? And we are told in Matthew and Mark that wherever the good news is told, her story will always be a part of it in remembrance of her … should we re-enact it? There is an interesting echo "in remembrance of her" with communion …
Maybe when I actually get the nard and smell it, I'll decide that there's a different way to go for this…. In the meantime, thinking of the unusual sparks creative possibility.
What is the scent of God? I asked my girlfriend as I was writing this: My answer: the smell after a rainstorm on a freshly plowed field. Her answer: the way the house smells when you are cooking, preparing for company. What's your answer?
Last night I found a place on-line (after looking unsuccessfully in several places locally) that sells essential oils and I ordered some spikenard, as well as frankincense and myrrh, among others. I'll hope it's here by March 25. I went rummaging through my drawers and crafts bags for fragrances this weekend. My daughter's Christmas gifts several years ago were potpourri boxes and sachets, and we had fragrance oils for those, and I had gotten some fragrances to add to massage oils, so I have quite a few essential oils around for one reason or another. I'm thinking that this might be a fragrant service. I have a lot of smells captured in bottles. The children will enjoy that...
Smell is the sense that is most primal and I'm wondering why we don't make more use of it in worship. Other than the smell of the coffee brewing—which actually isn't very strong, we don't do smells in Protestant churches. Is this another thing, like ritual, that we lost/threw away during the reformation?
Nard or spikenard was used in preparing a body for burial. I figure that's a coded way of saying that it's a potent enough scent to cover up the scent of a decaying, no—let's be blunt—a rotting body. If so, what primal associations would nard have? Yet, it's referred to as well in Song of Solomon: "While the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance." It's originally from India, and we know from the gospel that it was costly then. Was it a scent the poor would have known? Currently it's not as expensive as myrrh, and it's recommended for rashes, wounds, and tension, and is known as a very spiritual fragrance, apparently just from its historic association with the anointing of Jesus. Is that cause or effect now? If I didn't know it was nard, would I be affected spiritually?
So am trying to think of how to use fragrances in a sermon, especially since we have a hospitality theme going on… Bring my bread machine—baking bread is a current fragrance of hospitality. But apparently nard had an association with welcoming guests as well…
Where is God in all this? What is the scent of God? The scent of redemption? The scents of love and welcome and acceptance and hospitality? How can/do we think of those? If we make worship more sensual, with more subconscious or primal connections, what might happen? There are ways to have anointing as movement as a part of the service, because it wasn't just that the fragrance was there, but that it was lavishly used, and anointing was a limited act—by priests for kings, for example. So what radical notion is it for a woman to anoint an itinerant teacher/prophet/social reformer? But it was also love and recognition, captured in the scent and in the act. How might that be translated into worship/a sermon and for this particular congregation? And we are told in Matthew and Mark that wherever the good news is told, her story will always be a part of it in remembrance of her … should we re-enact it? There is an interesting echo "in remembrance of her" with communion …
Maybe when I actually get the nard and smell it, I'll decide that there's a different way to go for this…. In the meantime, thinking of the unusual sparks creative possibility.
What is the scent of God? I asked my girlfriend as I was writing this: My answer: the smell after a rainstorm on a freshly plowed field. Her answer: the way the house smells when you are cooking, preparing for company. What's your answer?
Thursday, March 8, 2007
What is Creativity?
Creativity is us.
We are creative, creating beings, almost by definition: the Creator created us in the image of the Creator.
Creativity is as natural as breathing. We block our creativity in the same way we become toxic or in the same way we sin: not having space or time or beauty or care for ourselves or care for the rest of creation. If I'm not feeling creative, it's because I'm tired and I am not eating well, exercising, making love, being present/mindful, laughing—and finding things to laugh about and people to laugh and play with, or seeing or hearing or making beauty through art or movement or music or nature. Or I'm doing things that are soul sapping: work that does not bring me joy, or I've let my life and space get cluttered with junk.
Sort of like what happened this week. Finally had time to sit and play some music and pray, but before then it was about wanting to drop kick the computer at work into the bay while it was tied to all of the people who were being especially irritating.
Thank God for music and prayer, and the end of the workweek.
We are creative, creating beings, almost by definition: the Creator created us in the image of the Creator.
Creativity is as natural as breathing. We block our creativity in the same way we become toxic or in the same way we sin: not having space or time or beauty or care for ourselves or care for the rest of creation. If I'm not feeling creative, it's because I'm tired and I am not eating well, exercising, making love, being present/mindful, laughing—and finding things to laugh about and people to laugh and play with, or seeing or hearing or making beauty through art or movement or music or nature. Or I'm doing things that are soul sapping: work that does not bring me joy, or I've let my life and space get cluttered with junk.
Sort of like what happened this week. Finally had time to sit and play some music and pray, but before then it was about wanting to drop kick the computer at work into the bay while it was tied to all of the people who were being especially irritating.
Thank God for music and prayer, and the end of the workweek.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Preaching or writing about the body
I have been thinking about the body, how to write and talk about the body. Particularly approaching Good Friday, particularly thinking about the Incarnate One, being able to capture and evoke the sensations of the body seems important.
Woke up this morning, early, my back sore and tight. I'm attributing it to hunching in from the cold and too much computer time. My right foot also suffers with plantar fasciitis, where tendons are very tight after a night in the same position, so getting out of bed is a slow, deliberate process. My initial descent of the stairs to the kitchen can mean really holding onto the rail, because I don't really trust things to flex and bend the way they ought to. Yet, going down the stairs is exactly the stretching motion required to loosen it up, so that once I'm downstairs usually my foot is okay. Am going to think more about how to describe those sensations and try to write them down (again?).
In Imagining A Sermon, Thomas Troeger captures such a picture of Joseph's exhaustion: "Joseph sits a few feet to the side. A walking stick props up his right knee, which props up his right forearm which props up his drooping head. If a wind blows through the stable and topples him over, he will go on sleeping in the same posture on his side." (p. 62).
Here's a body vignette from my week:
The young person picks her way slowly up the hill, bowed under the weight on her back. She is still a girl, perhaps not yet a woman, her loose clothes giving no clear sign of breasts, as she is bent by her pack. She concentrates on where she puts her feet, carefully stepping around the slick places, and clambering over the rough spots on the path. Still she is alert to her surroundings, stepping aside as others push by, and looking up to see if her ride is waiting. She is bent by the weight of a backpack filled with textbooks and homework, a child of privilege, wearing fashionable glasses, with a gleam of orthodontic retainer when she gets closer and smiles.
Yet looking at her bent back as she climbs the icy sidewalk up the steep hill, I think that this is how a peasant girl would look carrying a load of wood or shopping up the hill from the village. Perhaps that would have been what she would have been doing if I had not traveled to China twelve years ago. Even in her bent posture there is suppleness in her movements, the possibility of springing back, of jumping from a snow pile, that would not be evident in an older woman similarly bent with osteoporosis.
As she jumps, her long hair lifts and falls in the breeze, a long, shiny, rich dark brown swirl. Perhaps it is how Mary, who was just slightly older, looked as she walked on the road to Elizabeth's house carrying her belongings for a stay with her cousin in the middle of her shame, confusion and wonder, bent slightly with the weight of more than just belongings, intent, yet alert, open to possibility, moving on to new things.
Still in the young woman, bent, it is possible to imagine the bending that might come with other burdens, with age, with sorrow—but that is yet another story.
Woke up this morning, early, my back sore and tight. I'm attributing it to hunching in from the cold and too much computer time. My right foot also suffers with plantar fasciitis, where tendons are very tight after a night in the same position, so getting out of bed is a slow, deliberate process. My initial descent of the stairs to the kitchen can mean really holding onto the rail, because I don't really trust things to flex and bend the way they ought to. Yet, going down the stairs is exactly the stretching motion required to loosen it up, so that once I'm downstairs usually my foot is okay. Am going to think more about how to describe those sensations and try to write them down (again?).
In Imagining A Sermon, Thomas Troeger captures such a picture of Joseph's exhaustion: "Joseph sits a few feet to the side. A walking stick props up his right knee, which props up his right forearm which props up his drooping head. If a wind blows through the stable and topples him over, he will go on sleeping in the same posture on his side." (p. 62).
Here's a body vignette from my week:
The young person picks her way slowly up the hill, bowed under the weight on her back. She is still a girl, perhaps not yet a woman, her loose clothes giving no clear sign of breasts, as she is bent by her pack. She concentrates on where she puts her feet, carefully stepping around the slick places, and clambering over the rough spots on the path. Still she is alert to her surroundings, stepping aside as others push by, and looking up to see if her ride is waiting. She is bent by the weight of a backpack filled with textbooks and homework, a child of privilege, wearing fashionable glasses, with a gleam of orthodontic retainer when she gets closer and smiles.
Yet looking at her bent back as she climbs the icy sidewalk up the steep hill, I think that this is how a peasant girl would look carrying a load of wood or shopping up the hill from the village. Perhaps that would have been what she would have been doing if I had not traveled to China twelve years ago. Even in her bent posture there is suppleness in her movements, the possibility of springing back, of jumping from a snow pile, that would not be evident in an older woman similarly bent with osteoporosis.
As she jumps, her long hair lifts and falls in the breeze, a long, shiny, rich dark brown swirl. Perhaps it is how Mary, who was just slightly older, looked as she walked on the road to Elizabeth's house carrying her belongings for a stay with her cousin in the middle of her shame, confusion and wonder, bent slightly with the weight of more than just belongings, intent, yet alert, open to possibility, moving on to new things.
Still in the young woman, bent, it is possible to imagine the bending that might come with other burdens, with age, with sorrow—but that is yet another story.
Friday, December 9, 2005
Women waiting, women singing
Advent 2005
I read a wonderful piece by Henri Nouwen in my Advent readings (November 28 in Watch for the Light by Orbis Press) about the spiritual practice of waiting. This is a time of year when we have to wait, by intention during the Advent season if we pay attention, or by default as we wait in line or on snowy roads. Often at this time of year our waiting is grumpy and passive: "I had to wait for hours!" Spiritual practice waiting is waiting with a sense of promise; spiritual practice waiting is not passive or hopeless, but active. "The secret of waiting is the faith that the seed has been planted, that something has begun." (p. 31) From the familiar Christmas story, Nouwen mentions Zechariah and Elizabeth and Mary as ones who typify this spiritual practice. Keep the faith as you have to wait for things, or ponder these things in your hearts, the seed that has been planted.
At this or any time of year there is not a restorative spiritual practice that includes a shopping frenzy, or rude drivers, or bad weather, but there are compensatory spiritual practices: smiling at harried store clerks and thanking them, for example, or deciding to spend ten minutes as a gift to ten people and waving the people who are waiting at intersections into the flow of traffic. And remember it's a practice to do this, not perfection.
Friday I took a mental wellness day--excellent timing as we got an amazing thundersnow and that meant I wasn't driving in that, but safely at home. I did a little deconstructive writing about Hell--but I won't go into more of that. School work continues to be engaging.
I did go out to the Mount Holyoke Christmas Vespers concert in Boston--taking public transportation because I hadn't shoveled out completely. As I walked by, I reminded someone who was shoveling and bemoaning that he didn't get his run in today that shoveling snow is really one of the best exercises to burn calories. Good to remember as I face another hour of it this morning.
The Vespers concert was wonderful. Cathy Melhorn, who was my advisor in college, is retiring, so this was her last Christmas Vespers concert. Despite the snow, the church was full of an audience there to honor her and enjoy the music. There was a solid five minutes of applause at the end of the concert--great concert. I also saw a number of friends from college whom I hadn't seen in several years who had come in from upstate New York and Vermont and Chicago. That's one of the gifts of holiday events--the people you might see there. It was good to catch up, even briefly.
I was reminded that the processional, the second antiphon for Christmas Hodie Christus natus est which is used before the Magnificat, was one of those pieces of music that was absolutely formational in both my musical and spiritual life. At this Vespers it's done by candlelight, and last night the movement of the sound of young women's voices as they were walking by was a flashback. The flashback though, was not just thirty years to when I did this, but back a thousand years or more. As they walked, singing, carrying single candles into a darkened stone vaulted church, bringing in the light, the music echoes in time--it's not just resonant in space. I actually referred to this chant in a paper last month as part of the link that music is in my pastoral or operative theology. Today Christ is born; my soul magnifies the Lord. Perhaps it is not a surprise that it echoes still. Mary's song, from the first chapter of Luke is one of the most powerful of Biblical prayers, echoing as it does Hannah's song before the birth of her son, Samuel (I Samuel 2: 1-10--can you tell that I'm taking Hebrew Bible classes this semester?). Women's voices bringing light and hope into the dark world: "God makes poor and makes rich; God brings low and also exalts. God raises up the poor from the dust; God lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor." "God has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. … God has filled the hungry with good things and the rich God has sent empty away."
One of the contemporary pieces tonight by Libby Larsen used this poem text by Catherine de Vinck which captured that idea:
The Womanly Song of God (2003)
I am the woman dancing the world
alive:
Birds on my wrists
sun-feathers in my hair
I leap through hoops of atoms:
under my steps
plants burst into bloom
birches tremble in silver.
Can you not see the roundness of me:
curves of the earth
Maternal arms of the sea
I am the birthing woman
kneeling by the river
Heaving, pushing forth a sacred body
Round, round the wind
spinning itself wild
Drawing great circles of music
across the sky.
Round the gourd full of seeds
round the moon in its ripeness
Round the door through which I come
stooping into your house.
I am the God of a thousand names:
why cannot one of them be
Woman singing?
I give thanks to and for those people in my life like Cathy Melhorn, and other fine teachers and musicians, who help me and others create life, and soul, and joy, and insight from little black dots on paper: both words and music. May song bless each of our hearts in this season.
Peace, hope, joy, love, and faith: our prayers for this time of waiting,
Nancy
I read a wonderful piece by Henri Nouwen in my Advent readings (November 28 in Watch for the Light by Orbis Press) about the spiritual practice of waiting. This is a time of year when we have to wait, by intention during the Advent season if we pay attention, or by default as we wait in line or on snowy roads. Often at this time of year our waiting is grumpy and passive: "I had to wait for hours!" Spiritual practice waiting is waiting with a sense of promise; spiritual practice waiting is not passive or hopeless, but active. "The secret of waiting is the faith that the seed has been planted, that something has begun." (p. 31) From the familiar Christmas story, Nouwen mentions Zechariah and Elizabeth and Mary as ones who typify this spiritual practice. Keep the faith as you have to wait for things, or ponder these things in your hearts, the seed that has been planted.
At this or any time of year there is not a restorative spiritual practice that includes a shopping frenzy, or rude drivers, or bad weather, but there are compensatory spiritual practices: smiling at harried store clerks and thanking them, for example, or deciding to spend ten minutes as a gift to ten people and waving the people who are waiting at intersections into the flow of traffic. And remember it's a practice to do this, not perfection.
Friday I took a mental wellness day--excellent timing as we got an amazing thundersnow and that meant I wasn't driving in that, but safely at home. I did a little deconstructive writing about Hell--but I won't go into more of that. School work continues to be engaging.
I did go out to the Mount Holyoke Christmas Vespers concert in Boston--taking public transportation because I hadn't shoveled out completely. As I walked by, I reminded someone who was shoveling and bemoaning that he didn't get his run in today that shoveling snow is really one of the best exercises to burn calories. Good to remember as I face another hour of it this morning.
The Vespers concert was wonderful. Cathy Melhorn, who was my advisor in college, is retiring, so this was her last Christmas Vespers concert. Despite the snow, the church was full of an audience there to honor her and enjoy the music. There was a solid five minutes of applause at the end of the concert--great concert. I also saw a number of friends from college whom I hadn't seen in several years who had come in from upstate New York and Vermont and Chicago. That's one of the gifts of holiday events--the people you might see there. It was good to catch up, even briefly.
I was reminded that the processional, the second antiphon for Christmas Hodie Christus natus est which is used before the Magnificat, was one of those pieces of music that was absolutely formational in both my musical and spiritual life. At this Vespers it's done by candlelight, and last night the movement of the sound of young women's voices as they were walking by was a flashback. The flashback though, was not just thirty years to when I did this, but back a thousand years or more. As they walked, singing, carrying single candles into a darkened stone vaulted church, bringing in the light, the music echoes in time--it's not just resonant in space. I actually referred to this chant in a paper last month as part of the link that music is in my pastoral or operative theology. Today Christ is born; my soul magnifies the Lord. Perhaps it is not a surprise that it echoes still. Mary's song, from the first chapter of Luke is one of the most powerful of Biblical prayers, echoing as it does Hannah's song before the birth of her son, Samuel (I Samuel 2: 1-10--can you tell that I'm taking Hebrew Bible classes this semester?). Women's voices bringing light and hope into the dark world: "God makes poor and makes rich; God brings low and also exalts. God raises up the poor from the dust; God lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor." "God has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. … God has filled the hungry with good things and the rich God has sent empty away."
One of the contemporary pieces tonight by Libby Larsen used this poem text by Catherine de Vinck which captured that idea:
The Womanly Song of God (2003)
I am the woman dancing the world
alive:
Birds on my wrists
sun-feathers in my hair
I leap through hoops of atoms:
under my steps
plants burst into bloom
birches tremble in silver.
Can you not see the roundness of me:
curves of the earth
Maternal arms of the sea
I am the birthing woman
kneeling by the river
Heaving, pushing forth a sacred body
Round, round the wind
spinning itself wild
Drawing great circles of music
across the sky.
Round the gourd full of seeds
round the moon in its ripeness
Round the door through which I come
stooping into your house.
I am the God of a thousand names:
why cannot one of them be
Woman singing?
I give thanks to and for those people in my life like Cathy Melhorn, and other fine teachers and musicians, who help me and others create life, and soul, and joy, and insight from little black dots on paper: both words and music. May song bless each of our hearts in this season.
Peace, hope, joy, love, and faith: our prayers for this time of waiting,
Nancy
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