Brian’s Reflection: Friday, December 28, 2007


Presented by jazz lovers from all over the world.
this piano is the only one of its kind in the world and
expresses the great genius of a man who has never
played a melancholy note in his lifetime on a planet
that has often succumbed to despair".

- Silver plaque on the Steinway of Earl “Fatha” Hines,
musician & pianist, who was born on this day, 1903


Earl Hines was born in Duquesne PA. His father was a cornetist and his mother played church organ. Happily for the world, playing the cornet hurt him behind the ears. The piano didn’t. In 1927, Louis Armstrong replaced his wife as the band pianist with Hines. Together, they made what are regarded as some of the most important jazz recordings ever made.

Our planet is in despair – and has been for awhile. Benazir Bhutto’s assassination is but the latest savagery. And it’s going to be like this for a long time, I think. My own feeling is that the bottom line for it all is the determination by some to refuse freedom to others in order to protect their position and power.

Sometimes melancholy is, I feel, appropriate. All human feelings deserve acknowledgment. But I’m grateful for Earl Hines’ non-melancholic “notes”.

I wish that, with perhaps a nod to melancholy, the World’s religions would play faithfully “Fatha” Hines note of non-despair. For, in my view, much of Religion contributes to that despair by contributing to the power mongering which only exacerbates that despair. Jesus, in my opinion, did not want everyone to be made a Christian. He desires every human being genuinely to love and respect each other, and build a World community that meets melancholy and despair with the music of hope and trust.

Something I need to learn too.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, December 26, 2007
[ Boxing Day ]


"ELEGY WRITTEN INA COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD"

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

…..The Epitaph

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melacholy marked him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,
He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
The bosom of his Father and his God.

- Thomas Gray, poet, born on this day, 1716


It’s Boxing Day to us colonials of the Dominions. The day when the “upper classes” gave gifts to the “lower classes”. We shall assume that this was, in the culture of the times, thoughtful. An expression of gratitude towards those who made life “work” and comfortable.

I elide to the “box” we shall all be carried out in eventually. And I love Gray’s beautiful line as a simple symbol of what life shall have been: He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.

Life is given us. May our bounty be great; our soul sincere. And the “friend from Heaven” walk with us.

Brian+

Grays elegy in full: http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Poetry/Elegy.htm

Brian’s Reflection: December 24, 2007 (Christmas Eve)


The true meaning of religion is thus, not simply morality,
but morality touched by emotion.

- Matthew Arnold, English poet, author,
born on this day, 1822


“Morality” is just rules. It isn’t “religion”, a linking to Goodness. Morality is heartless. Morality is an instrument of control. Morality is inhuman, without feeling, except perhaps of meanness. The “moral majority”? Just a bunch of control freaks afflicted by an innate inability to appreciate being human.

The Incarnation? God with us, God in us, God “human”? “Morality touched by emotion”.

Morality will never make us human. Emmanuel will.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: December 24, 2007 (Christmas Eve)


The true meaning of religion is thus, not simply morality,
but morality touched by emotion.

- Matthew Arnold, English poet, author,
born on this day, 1822


“Morality” is just rules. It isn’t “religion”, a linking to Goodness. Morality is heartless. Morality is an instrument of control. Morality is inhuman, without feeling, except perhaps of meanness. The “moral majority”? Just a bunch of control freaks afflicted by an innate inability to appreciate being human.

The Incarnation? God with us, God in us, God “human”? “Morality touched by emotion”.

Morality will never make us human. Emmanuel will.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, December 21, 2007


God is not attained by a process of addition to
anything in the soul, but by a process of subtraction.

- Meister Eckhart, Christian mystic

True, true. Of course, an argument can be made for any statement as well as its opposite. As I see it, our goal in Life should be to die to this earthly life with utter simplicity of soul. Die with everything that has piled on to us through the voyage of our Life burned away, as it were by the “fuller’s fire”, or the dross removed, leaving only the refined gold.

Are we born encumbered? I think so, by the very nature of human life. Perhaps this is what is meant by “original sin”. We have this journey to make. On it, we gather to ourselves great lots of baggage, much of which we believe we must have in order to live, to succeed, to be happy. But I think that if we have had good teachers, we begin to learn as we age and mature, that Life and success and happiness are more readily found in Simplicity. Life itself has a way of being such a Teacher. Finally, we must learn that we can do without our body. All that will be left is pure energy, the “fire of God” at the heart.

It’s exactly the opposite of the bumper sticker theology that says, “(S)He who dies with the most toys wins.” And the question is, “Wins what?” And “Was it worth it?”

I don’t really think that we can avoid the contest. It’s kind of a given, the growing process we all have to work through. But, as the parable says, whenever or however we get there, “those who labored in the field only a short time were paid the same as those who labored through the heat of the day”. If it was “easy” for us and “hard” for some, we can’t grumble. Each of us has our own journey, and we are happy for all who manage it.

We are not alone. Known or not, God stays close. When needed, God is there, providing the gear we need at the critical moments. In the times of trail, look within. What we need is present. And from there will come the wisdom.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, December 20, 2007


Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant
planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away
in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there
are far more galaxies than people.

- Carl Sagan, scientist, teacher & author, who
died on this day, 1996, age 62


Are you feeling insignificant today? Useless? Dumb? Unproductive? A failure? Life meaningless?

Does Dr. Sagan’s quote make you feel worse?

It should make you feel better! It does me. You’d think that being where we are in the Universe, we’d be destined for the deepest pit of everything really awful. But not so.

The Senegalese poet and president, Leopold Senghor, died on this day, age 95, in 2001. I remember, a young pup of a monk of 25 or so, in the early 70’s, flying east into the night from London to Dakar airport, Senegal, on my way to Liberia. As is still true, there are great patches of blackness when flying over the World. I had heard of Dr. Senghor, and had bought a book of his poetry to read on the flight. I looked out of the window, to see the glittering lights of Dakar like a gauzy bright mushroom in the blackness.

Amazing, both the poetry and the vibrant life. Since those days, perhaps before, I find everything more and more amazing. Not just the technology, my cow-tissue aortic valve, wireless communication, all the “new” stuff. But perhaps even more, the “old” stuff. If I close my eyes, my grandmother’s garden is before me, and I wonder at those glorious gladioluses tall and bright, and the “wild” tiger lilies swaying in the wind.

I’m looking forward to getting older, however long or short that may be. I anticipate being more and more filled with amazement and delight, listening to a violin player on a summer evening in Cortona, watching the Space Station float by among the stars.

“Lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a Universe”?

Irrevelant.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, December 19, 2007


He that would make his own liberty secure must guard
even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this
duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

- Thomas Paine, who published the first of his
“American Crisis” essays on this day, 1776


Jesus is recorded as saying, “Love your enemies”. Joseph Campbell, mythologist, said it was the most difficult, most challenging saying in the Gospel. Jesus had a reason for saying it, probably several. I believe that Jesus was making a point related to “Love your neighbor as yourself”, and to “Do unto others as you would have them do to you”. I believe it was a stern, wise, loving warning, one of the core things to pay attention to, to understand in all of its ramifications for human society.

Thomas Paine understood it, and obviously deeply respected it - and if you read Thomas Paine you will see that he was a stern critic of “church”. He once wrote, “All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.” Oh, I’ve probably quoted him “out of context”. However, I think he valued the Gospel, but not what men and women had made of it. We need to pay attention to his warning, especially in our times.

Would you want to be waterboarded? Kept awake long hours in extreme cold or heat? Or any of the other things some people in our government and land seem to be trying to justify for our “enemies”? And oh yes, we do have enemies, those who wish us harm. This does not negate the point. Both Jesus and Thomas Paine make the point that what we are willing to do to fellow human beings - for whatever reasons we might think justified - “establishes a precedent that will reach to himself”.

The spiral of inflicting inhuman and inhumane pain on others only spirals downward - eventually probably to us. The rejection of Jesus’ command, even in time of war, only encourages humanity to a descent into barbarism ….. the result can only be terror. Paine wrote, “He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.” We and others are bleeding from self-inflicted wounds.

My prayer this holy season is that every human being will begin to pray for, and begin to love, our “enemy”. It does not mean we condone unloving acts. But that we all might be led to make peace, not war.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 (corrected; ignore the one below)


I honour those who try
to rid themselves of any lying,
who empty the self
and have only clear being there.

- Rumi, Sufi poet


One of the things I liked about being a monk was the period of self-examination at Compline, the last monastic office (common prayer) of the day. I think people probably didn’t like it when I was the Officiant. Because I always left a relatively long pause for the self-examination. It was a time of utter quiet, the chapel hopefully in softened light. And there was always something ….. well, sensible about taking a few minutes to look at the day past and see where one might have strayed from one’s resolved path. There were always plenty! But it seemed to help that self-examination at the end of the day was (a) a habit and (b) encouraged an honesty that was liberating.

Alas, I don’t do that much anymore. Usually only when something goes wrong, or when I am challenged. Then I think it seems or is experienced in a more traumatic way - and one is less open to being honest, becomes more easily defensive. Compline began with the words, “Be sober, be watchful”. It’s good advice.

“Clear being.” The implication is that there is a “pure core” at the centre of us all. I’m not so sure. I think I tend to believe that we human beings are more “gray area”, even at the core. I don’t accept the theology which says there was a “Fall” from sinlessness to sin. My understanding of the Garden of Eden story is that, like Jesus’ parables, the details of the story are not the point. In my view, the story simply says that we are creatures who can choose either love and truth, or not. Perhaps the “clear being” is simply a grasp on what makes us most gloriously human.

I’ve never liked saying the Offices alone. But maybe I’ll take up saying Compline again, just for that quiet few minutes of self-examination at the end of the day. (Besides, who in our days wouldn’t value a bit of quiet peace at day’s end!)

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, December 18, 2007


I honour those who try
to rid themselves of any lying,
who empty the self
and have only clear being there.

- Rumi, Sufi poet


One of the things I liked about being a monk was the period of self-examination at Compline, the last monastic office (common prayer) of the day. I think people probably didn’t like it when I was the Officiant. Because I always left a relatively long pause for the self-examination. It was a time of utter quiet, the chapel hopefully in softened light. And there was always something ….. well, sensible about taking a few minutes to look at the day past and see where on might have strayed from one’s resolved path. There were always plenty! But it seemed to help that self-examination at the end of the day was (a) a habit and (b) encouraged an honesty that was liberating.

Alas, I don’t do that much anymore. Usually only when something goes wrong, or when one is challenged. Then I think it seems or is experienced in a more traumatic way - and one is less open to being honest, becomes more easily defensive. Compline began with the words, “Be sober, be watchful”. It’s good advice.

“Clear being.” The implication is that there is a “pure core” at the centre of us all. I’m not so sure. I think I tend to believe that we human beings are more “gray area”, even at the core. I don’t accept the theology which says there was a “Fall” from sinlessness to sin. My understanding of the Garden of Eden story is that, like Jesus’ parables, the details of the story are not the point. In my view, the story simply says that we are creatures who can choose either love and truth, or not. Perhaps the “clear being” is simply of grasp on what makes us most gloriously human.

I’ve never liked saying the Offices alone. But maybe I’ll take up saying Compline again, just for that quiet few minutes of self-examination at the end of the day. (Besides, who in our days wouldn’t value a bit of quiet peace at day’s end!)

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, December 17, 2007



My heart was heavy, for its trust had been
Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong;
So, turning gloomily from my fellow-men,
One summer Sabbath day I strolled among
The green mounds of the village burial-place;
Where, pondering how all human love and hate
Find one sad level; and how, soon or late,
Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face,
And cold hands folded over a still heart,
Pass the green threshold of our common grave,
Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart,
Awed for myself, and pitying my race,
Our common sorrow, like a mighty wave,
Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave!

- John Greenleaf Whittier, poet, born
on this day, 1807, in Haverhill, MA


I can’t talk. I don’t, I think, hold “grudges”. But I am pretty stubborn about cutting off relationships with people that have pushed me beyond the pale. People who demean and belittle other people, especially in a racist or homophobic or sexist way. I once read that one should not surround oneself with people who bring negativity into your life. So, I try not to. And forgiveness, well, I forgive for a selfish reason (as I have so often preached.) The first person that suffers from an unwillingness to forgive is ….. oneself. Like so many other things, it eats away at you. “Pinches” one. Not good.

Whittier is right. We’re all one. In the end, we’ve all got “cold hands folded over a still heart”. When we lie in our graves, all the things that we think distinguish us are moot. Just human beings. Struggling to find our meaning. We all have a “common sorrow”. True, some may not have acknowledged it. But that matters not.

The “bottom line”: if we want to fly on eagles’ wings, rise to the height of being human, it’s best to cultivate the grace to forgive. It allows us to see each other as human beings, it shatters the false barriers we build to distinguish ourselves from one another. We can “pity our race” – we’re all in the same soup. All the same.

Pondering our common mortality sweeps away all pride.

Let’s be kind one to another.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Saturday, December 15, 2007


Literally thousands of wonderful friends
have accompanied me in life, and many now
await me in the secret eternity to come.
I have enjoyed the long voyage.

- Ansel Adams, artist & photographer


We shall give thanks today at one of my congregations for the life of one of our members. Dottie was 87 when she died to this life. She had dealt with MS for many years and been in a wheelchair for about ten. Yet when she could, she would be at worship, even at our early 8:30am hour (!), faithfully attended by her husband Chuck. She was always elegantly dressed and coiffed, always a cheery smile on her face, a twinkle in her eye, and something nice to say. She is missed. One of our parishioners has started a Rogues Gallery in the Parish Hall – so those who go one ahead will be remembered.

Who really knows the details of the “secret eternity to come”. (What a lovely phrase!) We humans struggle to express our inner visions, following the hints that come to us from human hearts and minds throughout all the ages that we have been able to record. Wondering, wondering, dreaming, hoping. What amazing creatures we are. We know how to anchor ourselves, how to encourage our often faint hearts, how to soften the blows that this Earthly Life deals us. Friends and fellow journeyers of the spirit are a big part of it.

Today we will offer our last earthly accompaniment to Dottie, then continue with prayers and memories of love. We will envision her journeying on, and our hearts will be encouraged too.

May we all come to the moment being able to say, “I have enjoyed the long voyage”.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, December 14, 2007

If we can laugh, our heart-aches disappear!
Our minds become freed off tensions and stress;
If we make others laugh, they lose their fear,
And become dear, starting to us caress.

Laughter is good for both the young and old;
Laughter can turn a foe into a friend;
Laughter can help forget our woes, be bold;
Laughter can bring to grief, an early end.
Laughter is life’s most precious medicine;
Laughter is soothing balm for all our ills;
Laughter is euphoric much more than wine,
Causing no harm to one or increase bills.

Then laugh and be merry whenever you can,
For, that’s the way to live life better, man.

- Dr. John Celes, India


I certainly don’t laugh enough, that’s for sure! I’ll have to think about that - a lot. I must say, I rarely find church a place to laugh, more’s the pity. Though today we did have some wry laughs. We were repositioning pictures of two of our wonderful parishioners who has recently died. It was suggested that we put up a frame with just a large question mark in it. That created a giggle - probably because we knew that there were some who wouldn’t find that at all funny! Strange and diverse creatures, we human beings.

So, confession: the best laughs I have are watching “South Park” videos. I’ll leave it at that.

Laughter is indeed the best medicine. If you don’t have much of it in your life - and I don’t - it’s time to remedy that!

I declare Friday, December 14th, Laugh A lot Day. Enjoy!

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, December 13, 2007

There are hermit souls that live withdrawn
In the place of their self-content;
There are souls like stars, that dwell apart,
In a fellowless firmament;
There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths
Where highways never ran --
But let me live by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead
And mountains of wearisome height;
That the road passes on through the long afternoon
And stretches away to the night.
But still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice,
And weep with the strangers that moan,
Nor live in my house by the side of the road
Like a man who dwells alone.

- Sam Walter Foss, poet (part of his
poem based on similar words of Homer)


I am a big fan of the Episcopal Hymnal. I love the hymns in it and I know them all, many by heart, including the tenor line! It is said that Episcopalians sing what they believe, and what we pray. I have my funeral service leaflet in my little packet ready for when I croak - there will be lots of singing. I have to admit that I hear a lot of bitching and complaining about the hymns we sing, that they “don’t know them”. I am entirely unsympathetic. I’ve said many a time, “Don’t worry; by the time I leave, you will know them!”

Many of our hymns are ………. “sophisticated”? Would that be an appropriate word? Some might say “convoluted”, some “strange”. Many are ancient, many Victorian poetry; that can require some close attention and meditation.

Like poetry. I think I have commented that I can’t understand 75% of the poems in the New Yorker magazine, which I read cover to cover. But then there are certain hymns that strike a chord in their utter simplicity, simplicity in every way. Many of them I don’t like because they are, to me, “sentimental” - not a character I like in general.

But I will admit that “What a friend we have in Jesus” is ….. OK (as long as it isn’t overdone). I guess because I deeply value all of the wonderful friends I have had. They remind me that of all the things that “God” means to me, an unconditionally loving Friend is among the most important. True friends may not countenance all the nonsense one says or does, but they will always be there when needed.

I don’t need God to redesign nature or biology or time or mortality for me. I just need God always to be there.

So far, so good.

Brian+

The Katzenjammer Kids comic strip
was first published on this day, 1897

Just thought you should know this! I loved the Kids as a kid!
+

Peace on earth would mean the end of civilization as we know it.

Joseph Heller, author (“Catch 22”, for one),
who died on thus day, 1999, age 76


In two weeks or so, over a billion Christians (and presumably with maybe a billion Muslims paying attention, since Islam deeply honours Jesus ….. in case you had gotten it wrong) are going to hear the angelic words, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to people of goodwill”.

Now, I know that all of us are pretty good at co-opting the Bible for our own purposes, and yes, there may be many people who would find “peace on earth” to be a big unwelcome kick in the wallet (especially the USA and Britain, who are two of the largest arms dealers in the world). But (here’s my co-opt) it seems pretty clear to me that the angelic message connects the birth of Jesus with peace on earth ……. Yes? Maybe even to say that perhaps God desires Peace on Earth???

Well, I’m just sort of wondering why there aren’t one or two billion of us hept up and out there on the streets and in the halls of government - including those elected to govern - working and praying and legislating tirelessly for Peace on Earth?? Have I missed something here?? Isn’t one of Jesus’ honorifics “Prince of Peace”??

Oh, I know. Some will quote me Jesus’ words, “I did not come to bring Peace, but a sword”. Has anyone ever heard of ….. irony?? Peacemakers are always going to generate enemies - as I say, War is lucrative, and many of us love the rush of dominance and power. But Jesus wasn’t into dominance and power, I don’t think. And His “Peace be to you” ’s outnumber the other.

“Let there be Peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.” Sort of has a nice Christmas ring, don’t it!

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, December 11, 2007


HERE

Here I am in the garden laughing
an old woman with heavy breasts
and a nicely mapped face

how did this happen
well that's who I wanted to be

at last a womanin the old style sitting
stout thighs apart under
a big skirt grandchild sliding
on off my lap a pleasant
summer perspiration

that's my old man across the yard
he's talking to the meter reader
he's telling him the world's sad story
how electricity is oil or uranium
and so forth I tell my grandson
run over to your grandpa ask him
to sit beside me for a minute I
am suddenly exhausted by my desire
to kiss his sweet explaining lips.

- Grace Paley, born on this day,
1922, in Manhattan


“Well, that’s who I wanted to be.” Charming! Do most of know who or what we want to be? Not most of the people I know. And I, well ….. it changes a lot. I have this feeling that it’s going to keep on changing a lot. It has to. I think new things. I learn new things. Things of inner wisdom, whether that be little or much.

Rich. Healthy. Honoured. Beautiful. No, these are all Sic Transit Gloria Mundi. Maybe, maybe not - too many variables and happenstances.

Content with who I am? Ah, well, that’s up to me. I’d like to be content ….and thinner. But I’ll settle for content and grudgingly plump. And instead of wearing purple, I’ll dye my beard and wear hippie caftans.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, December 10, 2007


The good we secure for ourselves is precarious
and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and
incorporated into our common life.

- Jane Addams, social worker, internationalist,
first American woman winner of the Nobel
Peace Prize, on this day in 1931


I would bet that you have never heard of Jane Addams. She was born in 1860 in Cedarville, Illinois, to well-to-do parents. With a friend, she opened a settlement house in Chicago, to provide a center for a higher civic and social life, “to institute and maintain educational and philanthropic enterprises and to investigate and improve the conditions in the industrial districts of Chicago”. She was opposed to the entrance of the USA into WWI, and for her beliefs was kicked out of the Daughters of the American Revolution - tsk tsk! If you would like to know more, see http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1931/addams-bio.html

Jesus is recorded to have said, “What you do to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you do to me”. I take this to mean what Addams said. I take Jesus to be saying that He represents ALL people. And that in order to be faithful to respecting Him – and therefore God - you must make sure that whatever “good” is secured is secured for all. Because “all” are “children of God”, for whom God cares equally.

Many Americans who call themselves Christians say that America is a “Christian nation”. If so, why is it that they aren’t supporting the rights of women to make the same money as men for the same jobs? Why is it that they are not supporting the right of American Gayfolk to the same equal legal rights under the legal contract called marriage? Do they fail to see that in not doing so, they are insulting Jesus? And this would certainly be more serious that naming your teddy-bear Jesus, yes?

Christian folk: if in civil life you think you deserve something, then everyone deserves it. Period.

Thank you, Jane Addams.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Saturday, December 8, 2007


The basic thing nobody asks is why do people take drugs of any sort?
Why do we have these accessories to normal living to live? I mean,
is there something wrong with society that's making us so pressurized,
that we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it?

- John Lennon of the Beatles, murdered on this day, 1980


The answer, John, is Yes. There is something “wrong with society”. And it has ever been so, universally. Despite the fact that Guinea-Bissau is now overwhelmed with drug dealers from South America controlling and destroying their society and importing cocaine by the multi-tons to distribute to the World, alcohol is still I think the major all-purpose drug that pervades most societies of the globe. The rudiments of beer have been discovered in ancient Egyptian tombs, sake in ancient Japanese culture, fermented liquor in ancient African cultures, etc. America, America - drug czars notwithstanding, Americans float on a sea of drugs to cushion us against our society.

Is it just urban society? I don’t know. But I have lived in many a small town - and drugs of various sorts were prevalent, even northern Manitoba in the late 60’s, where boozing men were a scourge every night on the roads and in the domestic violence of practically every household.

I don’t think the problem is living in society, urban or otherwise. I think the problem is denial. Denial of what will make us happy as human beings. We human beings always have thought that power and “stuff” will make us happy. Millennia have wrestled with the same issue. Religions and philosophies come and go, trying to make us see that this is folly. Jesus “had no place to lay His head”. The Buddha lives homeless under a tree. St. Francis strips naked and finds happiness in poverty. A few “get it”. Most don’t. Most adopt a “religion” on the surface, but ignore the teachings and insights. The so-called “Gospel of Prosperity” is a perfect example: worship God and you will be rich - and therefore happy.

Bullshit.

Love is scary. Demanding. Asking of human beings the deepest personal understanding of what makes us happy and calling us to “do unto others” that which we know we ourselves require to be happy.

Maybe most of “us” will never “get it”. Maybe human society will always need those “accessories to normal living to live”.

As Joshua said, “As for I am my house”, I choose the God of Love.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, December 7, 2007



When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become
afraid of them as if their reason had left them. When it has left a place
where we have always found it, it is like shipwreck; we drop from
security into something malevolent and bottomless.

- Willa Cather, author, born on this day, 1873, in Black Creek Valley VA


Willa Cather was born into the Baptist religion, but “converted” (funny word, that) to the Episcopal Church in 1922. After co-authoring a very critical book about Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science (which so outraged the Christian Scientists that they tried to buy every copy printed!), she wrote for McClure’s magazine. In 1923, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel “One of Us”. She made the town of her youth, Red Cloud, Nebraska, famous. She died April 24, 1947, and is buried in Jaffrey, New Hampshire. And I’m sure that many of you will be thrilled to know that she was inducted in 1986 into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame!!

Kindness. Ms. Cather is right. Along with Love, and Compassion, Kindness is right up there in my book as a mark of great human soul. I think this is why I can’t watch any movie or read any book where someone is being tortured. And why I was so both stunned and angry that any high government official could possibly say that they couldn’t say whether waterboarding was or was not torture. The feeling I had was that indeed we had dropped from “security into something malevolent and bottomless”.

I can think of several instances when I have been unkind. It means that I have lost sight of a person’s humanity – and my own. And I am ashamed of myself for it.

The word “kind” has a telling etymology. It comes from the Old English “gecynde”, meaning “innate” or “natural”. Theough prehistoric Germanic, it is related to “kin”.

To be kind is to be innately, naturally human. And to be part of the human family.

Let’s join the human race.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, December 6, 2007


Refuse to pander to a morbid interest in your own misdeeds.
Pick yourself up, be sorry, shake yourself, and go on again.

The direction and constancy of the will is what really matters,
and intellect and feeling are only important insofar as they contribute to that.

- Evelyn Underhill, poet, author, and philosopher of religion,
born on this day, 1875


Could it be possible that whoever wrote that song (“Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again”) had read Evelyn Underhill?? Stranger things have happened!

Ms. Underhill had a life I would like to have had. She was well educated, she was a teacher and spiritual counselor, she wrote. I’ve had some of that. It’s the other part I’d have liked. Her father and husband were great yachters - and she spent a lot of her life sailing the Mediterranean for months on end, enjoying the artistic treasures of France and Italy! Sigh.

She wrote a fine book, titled Mysticism. It is still read today.

I agree strongly with the first quote. Religion has often put too much emphasis on spending great amounts of time beating one’s breast and pandering to a morbid (good word) interest in one’s own misdeeds. This is not helpful. It’s just slacking. The whole point of knowing that one can honestly repent and be forgiven is to Get On With Life! My friend Connor+ said it nicely once to me, something like, “make a quick touch of the hand to the ground and move on”. Doing so would be the sign that one truly believes in the gift of Forgiveness. (This is why I always begin the Liturgy with the Confession – acknowledge our sin, but worship in the light of Grace.

I obviously owe, or have a connection with, Ms. Underhill. I have preached for decades that Love is 95% a matter of the will. That it has, or should have, little to do with feelings. And I believe that exercising the will ultimately has the power to heal hurt feelings. Love has become far too identified with how one feels in our cultures. Someone like Jesus didn’t choose Love unto Death because it “felt” good.

Accept your capacity for evil. Let it flit by quickly. Embrace new life. Shape and nurture the Will. Decide who you want to be and do.

Do it.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, December 05, 2007


I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking,
what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means.
What I want and what I fear.

- Joan Didion, author, born on this day,
1934, in Sacramento CA


In my perception over many many years of contemplation, this is where Scriptures come from too. All Scriptures. When a human being begins to ask Joan’s questions - “What am I thinking?”, What am I looking at?”, “What do I see?”, “What does it mean?”, “What do I want?”, “What do I fear?” - “God” is at work. This is how the Source of Life and Meaning many call God reveals Its Nature, Its Being. I have come to believe that God is known only through the awakening and self-awareness of each individual person. Otherwise, God remains the utterly hidden “Other”, about which Mystery many religious thinkers have spoken.

Oh, I know. Many of us would like to believe that God puts a pen in someone’s hand and then uses that person as a conduit. Like Joseph Smith and the Golden Tablets. I don’t believe it works that way. The profound internal inconsistencies alone speak against such a concept - unless one is willing to accept a God Who is inconsistent! No, the Being of God and the Being of each human person are inextricably interrelated. When we have the courage to begin asking the critical questions about Life, the Two Solitudes awake in joy to each other.

This is why I read a lot more fiction than “theology”. Good fiction writers write out of the well of the Critical Issues of Life. As I think do the “writers” of scriptures. When I ask those questions, when I long to know what I’m experiencing and what it all means, I find the God Who is Compassion, Justice, Love, Gentleness. Baal, Molloch, the Hebrew God who would slaughter a nation, the Hindu God(dess) who would burn up a city, the Allah who would condone the “honour-killing” of women or the death of a woman whose school-children named a teddy bear Muhammad, the Christian God who would consign people to a Hell of pain - Nope. Not what I want Life to be. Or God.

Our understanding of God is fundamentally shaped by our own commitment to self-discovery. If on that journey we choose power, hate, aggression, such is the God we find. If we choose Compassion and Justice, the same. Indeed, God is at the mercy of our own self-perception and our choices.

Talk about a Vulnerable God! But in Jesus, Christians know this vulnerable God who places His/Her very existence trustingly in our hands.

This is only the beginning of a conversation. Keep thinking!


Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, December 4, 2007


I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two
people: that each protects the solitude of the other.

- Rainer Maria Rilke, poet, born on this day, 1875


Most of us probably know Rilke’s most famous quote:

Live your questions now, and perhaps even
without knowing it, you will live along some
distant day into your answers.


The Answers are not the most important. The Questions are. Answers that come long before the “distant day” make for dull, boring, rigid people. Such people make for a dangerous world. “Fundamentalists” are Answer people. They “get” them - often from God, no less! - they write them in stone - and they use those stones to batter those they fear. I have long been a Question person. And even now, at 61, many of the Answers I thought I had are slipping away. I am not afraid. It reminds me that I haven’t died yet; I have Life to live and much to learn.

I have for many years now loved the presenting quote. Because it is true. The most destructive relationships, and especially marriages, I have seen are those which do not or cannot honour the solitude of the other. Relationships which seek to redefine the other, reshape the other, deny the other, are fatally flawed - because the perpetrator is an incomplete human being. One of the glories of the Christian understanding of God is that God honours our solitudes. And we love Her by honouring Hers. By not attempting to remake Him in our own image. At the meeting of those Two Solitudes is the heart of Love.

Rilke said:

For one human being to love another; that is perhaps
the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last
test and proof, the work for which all other work is but
preparation.

Yes. Because authentically to love another, we must be our own Self. And it takes courage and acceptance and surrender and the hard work of self-awareness to do that.

For many, it is too hard. Many cannot break out of old roles and stereotypes. The failure of relationships in our time is the sign. The Trinity, strange a concept as it is, is a good role model: three Divine Solitudes forming the one pure Divine Love.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, December 3, 2007


If some longing goes unmet, don't be
astonished. We call that Life.

- Anna Freud, Austrian/English
psychoanalyst, born on this
day, 1895


Yep. Madam Freud is on the money. I often think about Jesus and the motley crew that He gathered around Himself. I hope He wasn’t trying to do what Madam Freud also once said, “Create around one at least a small circle where matters are arranged as one wants them to be.” Because if Jesus was trying to do that, I question His judgment! What a bunch, those disciples. Power-mad, or in-fighting, or wanting to do in opponents, or chopping off people’s ears, or elitist, or racist (Samaritans, ugh), etc.

Or, Jesus just understood Life, and knew that what He might have hoped for in a band of disciples was …. well, a longing not to be met, given human nature. That’s Life. He made the best of it - and still has to!

As I review my Life, I realize that many of my longings have been met. I have fine friends. I have had a vocation in which I’ve been a help to some people. I’ve seen glorious places on the Earth. I’m happy (in general) with the basic me, and have been accepted for myself by enough to make it ok, and best of all “God”. Some longings have gone unmet, though one in particular I thought never would be has indeed been. Anna has reminded me not to be astonished that some haven’t and probably never will be.

We call that Life. I’m on the plus-side of it - and I hope you are too!

Brian+