Giving Birth

On Sunday, December 10, 2017, I had the privilege to facilitate worship with the UUCF (Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship) of the congregation I serve here in Charlottesville.  This is the text of the reflections I offered (along with some of the other elements of the service):

Chalice Lighting:  The mystic  Evelyn Underhill wrote, "The Incarnation, which is for popular Christianity synonymous with the historical birth and earthly life of Christ, is for the mystic not only this but also a perpetual Cosmic and personal process.  It is an everlasting bringing forth, in the universe and also in the individual ascending soul, of the divine and perfect Life, the pure character of God."

Prelude:  Islamo-Christian Ave Maria (Tania Kassis)

Opening Words:  Two more quotes about the mystical, cosmic nature of Christmas. Thomas Aquinas said simply, "The incarnation accomplished the following:  that God became human and that humans became God and sharers in the divine nature."  And in the 13th century the Christian mystic Meister Eckhardt wrote, "People think God has only become a human being there--in his historical incarnation--but that is not so; for God is here--in this very place--just as much incarnate as in a human being long ago.  And this is why God has become a human being: that God might give birth to you as the only begotten [child], and no less."  In another sermon he wrote, "We are all meant to be mothers of God.  For God is always needing to be born."

Opening Hymn:  “Silent Night”

Sermon:

A while ago I was reading a book I’ve read several times –  Francis:  the journey and the dream, a beautiful blending of biography and meditation on the life of St. Francis of Assisi by the Franciscan priest and poet, Fr. Murray Bodo.  In it I found this wonderful reflection on Francis' understanding of Christmas:

"At Christmas it was the infant Christ who was born again in human hearts, and it struck Francis that God came to earth as a baby so that we would have someone to care for.  Christmas was the dearest of feasts because it meant that God was now one of us.  Flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone, this child we could approach without fear.  We could be silly and uninhibited as we sought to make [God] laugh.  We could be totally ourselves because a child accepts us just as we are and screams with delight at our little performances on his behalf.

Someone to care for, someone to try and please, someone to love.  God, a helpless babe; God, a piece of Bread.  How much trust God had in creatures!  In the Eucharist and in the Nativity, we grow [?] up, because God places Himself [and I’d add, “Herself … Itself …”] in our care.  We come out of ourselves if we are aware, because we now have responsibilities for God.  Not only the earth to till and creation to subdue, but now God to care for."

It is common for people to comment on the Incarnation as a both powerful and beautiful description of the nature of God.  God – King, Creator of the Universe – did not choose to incarnate as one of the mighty and powerful.  God’s incarnation, God’s becoming “one of us,” took place in the midst of a poor family from a tiny, backwater of an oppressed land.  Yet Francis reminds us that this isn’t the end of it – God can as “one of us” in the midst of a poor family from a tiny, backwater of an oppressed land as a baby!  An infant.  A utterly dependent infant.  That struck Francis’ fancy; that touched his heart deeply; that was for him a sign of the true nature of the Divine.

There is a phrase that rather graphically describes the utter dependence, the fragility of this “God made flesh” who resides in that manger crib of myth and faith.  I couldn’t remember it exactly, and I couldn’t remember who’d written it or where I’d read it.  So I turned to Google, and found something really interesting.  It showed up without a citation in a 2013 sermon by the Episcopal priest, the Rev. Dr. Pam Birrell.  It also shows up, again without citation, in a book by Michael Mayne, Mark Oakley, and Joel Huffstetler.  And it shows up in the book Whistlingin the Dark: a doubter’s dictionary, by Frecderich Buechner.  I have to say, it sounds like Buechner to me.

“The Word become flesh. Ultimate Mystery born with a skull you could crush one-handed. Incarnation.”

Ultimate Mystery born with a skull you could crush-one handed.

History has it that the first nativity scene was created by St. Francis of Assisi in 1223 because he wanted to encourage people to really engage with "God [the] helpless babe."  This seems to have gotten lost in all the hubbub and hullabaloo surrounding the holiday.  Yet even those who would have us "put the Christ back in Christmas" seem to be totally focused on the adult Jesus, even the crucified Christ.  But what about that baby?  That little, helpless baby for which we "now have responsibilities"?  What would it mean to your spiritual life if you spent this Advent season not so much preparing to receive God, as preparing to take care of God?  (Something I’ll leave you to ponder …)

Now … the mystics we heard from a moment ago were clear that for them the deepest understanding of the birth of Christ in the Christian tradition(s) really has little to do with the birthing of the baby Jesus—it has to do with the sacred coming to birth in and through us.  It has to do with us being, in that wonderful phrase from Meister Eckhardt, “mothers of God, because God is always needing to be born.”

Consider:  what needs to be born in you today? Can you imagine the possibility of giving birth to gifts you’ve felt within you but feared to let out because you are afraid that you’ll not be “good enough”?  Do you need to give birth to a little more patience or playfulness?  Are you ready to give birth to greater understanding of those with whom you disagree, or more self-confidence, or a little more hope in these trying times?  Maybe there’s a project that you’ve long dreamed of starting, or a change you’d like to make ...  What would it take for these things to be born in you—through you—this year?

So what needs to be born in you this year?  Let’s find out.

Take to share with one another the things people feel called to “birth.”

I did my Spiritual Direction training with the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation.  They had what seemed to me at the time, and does still, as a radical understanding of prayer.  We do not pray, they said.  They suggested that God is always praying within us, and that our act of prayer is really an emptying of ourselves, and a quieting of our minds and spirits, so that we can hear what God’s prayer is for us.

With that in mind, the question we were just discussing is something of a trick question.  For us to consider what we want to give birth to is important, yet the even deeper spiritual issue is what it is that God wants to birth in and through us. 

Take two minutes of silence for individuals to try (as best they can) to nurture such silence.

When teaching about this approach to prayer, Tilden Edwards (one of the founds of Shalem) said that the first thing that comes to mind may well not be the thing you’re listening for.  So set it aside.  It may not be the second or third things, either.  Set them aside as well.  But when you notice yourself going back to the same thing repeatedly – especially, perhaps, if it’s a surprise to you, or feels unwelcome – that may well be it.

Going back to the image of that “first” Christmas, I’d just remind us that the author of “silent night” clearly had never spent much time around infants – who are rarely silent for long – and most definitely did not have any acquaintance with births.  Labor and delivery are not easy.  There’s panting, and grunting, and crying, and laughing, and fear, and courage, and challenges, and celebrations.  (A friend who’d given birth once told me that it was like passing a ham.)  And so it will no doubt be for us.  Whether the thing we wish to birth, or the thing that wishes to be birthed, it will not be easy, it won’t always be fun, it won’t be spiritual and serene.  It will be hard.  It will be messy.  It will quite probably be painful.  But as just about any mother will tell you, it will be worth it.  

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Liberation Theology

This is the text of the sermon I preached at the congregation I serve -- Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian Universalist.  As always, you can listen if you prefer.

I want to tell you a story about a guy named Frankie.  That’s not his real name, actually.  He came from a pretty wealthy family and had one of those long, aristocratic sounding names, but all of his friends called him Frankie.  And Frankie had a lot of friends.  He had an outgoing personality, and an extremely charismatic spirit; he told great stories, and even better jokes; he could sing all of the popular music of his day; and, as I said, he came from a pretty wealthy family so he could throw some really awesome parties.   Which he did.  All the time.

On a Friday or Saturday night Frankie would get in his Bugatti Chiron and cruise around town, calling out invitations to everybody he saw.  Well, almost everybody.  There was a pretty large homeless population where Frankie lived, probably because of the encampment they’d made just outside of town, and Frankie just couldn’t stand the sight of them.  He probably never really thought about it this way, but for him they represented the complete opposite of everything he saw himself as.  He wouldn’t even, couldn’t even, look at the ones standing on the median strips asking for help as he drove by.  He tried to not even think of them at all.

When the time came, Frankie volunteered to join the army and go off to fight.  He expected to be as successful in this realm as he was in everything else, and had visions of honor and glory.  But that’s not the way things turned out, and he came home different.  He was quieter, more serious.  His parties weren’t quite as much fun, and he didn’t throw them as often.  He spent more time driving his Bugatti in the hills and woods that surrounded his town … thinking.  He always seemed to be thinking deeply.

He’d seen such horrible things in the war, experienced such horrible things, and he was having a hard time reconciling these with the privileged life he’d been leading.  He’d seen people who were so very unlike the friends he’d gathered together on Friday and Saturday nights, and he’d seen how many people had problems and challenges he could never have even imagined.  And as he thought about what he’d seen he felt a growing need to do something about it, to do something about the unfairness he now saw everywhere he looked.

What he thought most about was how far to take this new sense of urgency.  He made sure that he always had bottled water in his car to hand out of the window to the people on the medians.  And he began to take some of the money he used to spend on parties and give it to various charities.  He volunteered a bit of his time rebuilding some of the dilapidated buildings around town, even using some of his own money to pay for supplies.  He started going to church … and not just on Christmas and Easter!  But always the question echoing, how far to take this.

It had been a couple of months since Frankie had stopped driving his Bugatti around town and had begun walking or taking public transportation.  Better for the environment, and he could give his gas money to people who needed food.  He was walking down the main street in town and saw a homeless man on the median.  The man was everything Frankie had despised – he was dirty, his clothes were dirty, his hair was unkempt, his teeth were bad.  And yet … and yet on this day Frankie found himself looking beneath or through all of that and seeing the human being within.  And that person he was now looking at was what we all are when we’re really seen – beautiful.  And without even thinking about it, Frankie walked up to the man who just a few years ago he wouldn’t have even looked at, and hugged him.  And at that moment he realized he that knew the answer to his question of how far to take things – he moved out of his house and moved into the encampment, and he lived there for years.

How far to take it?  This feeling, this urge, to do something, to do something to address the inequities we see all around us, to make the world a better place – how far should we take it?

I know that this is a question I wrestle with a lot.  Maybe some of you do, too.  After I change out all of the halogen bulbs in the house for LEDs (which, I’ll confess, I haven’t quite done yet), and I make sure I diligently turn off all the power strips when I’m not using the things that are plugged into them (which I don’t), and I buy only sustainably raised foods, and wear only organic cotton clothing (washing them with non-toxic biodegradable soaps, of course), and … well … how far should I take it?  How far can I take it?  And, honestly, how far do I want to take it? 

Do you ever wonder about things like this?  Maybe you do only after a Sunday morning when you’ve felt guilted from the pulpit about all there is to do to heal this all-too broken world, or after you’ve read a book about racism like Ta-Nehesi Coates’s Between the World and Me, or listened to people talking about income inequality, or … or maybe you’ve woken up some night, in the middle of the night, and thought about the world your children, or your grandchildren, are going to inherit from us and you wonder – shouldn’t I be doing something more?  Couldn’t I be doing something more?  And then there’s the real question – how far am I supposed to go?  How much sacrifice?  How much am I supposed to give up – of my things, the way I live?  How much?

After all, we’re learning – we as individuals and we as a religious movement – that it’s not enough to show up and offer our help to those people who are in need.  That’s pretty easy, actually, but it really does nothing to address the underlying systems that perpetuate the problems we see around us and feel called to address.  When we stay up here and reach down to help, no matter our intention we reinforce those relative positions.  So we know that we can’t stay in our safe spaces and reach out our hands to give someone some assistance without having to be really touched by their problems.  We know that that’s not enough.  But what is enough?  How far out of our comfort zones do we need to go? 

As I say to my kids all the time – I have good news and I have bad news.  The bad news is that that story about Frankie?  It’s a true story.  It’s an updated telling of the story of a young man named Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, who lived in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries in Italy, the true story of a rich kid who had it all and then gave it all away to move from the center of society to its outermost margins and throw in his lot with those who had almost nothing at all.  The good news is that today we know that young man by a different name:  Saint Francis of Assissi.  So the bad news is that the story tells us just how far some people have been willing to go to answer that deep soul urging to make a difference; the good news is that the guy was literally a saint.  Both will be important to keep in mind through the rest of the sermon.

Liberation theology, the ostensible topic for the morning, is a theological framework that appeared in modern Christianity in the Catholic Church of Latin America in 1950s, although that name wasn’t used until the Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez wrote one of the movement's defining books, A Theology of Liberation in 1971.  (It should be noted that the concept of “liberation theology,” or “a theology of liberation,” has spread far from its Latin American Catholic roots and can be seen as the foundation of Asian, Black, Womanist, and Palestinian liberation movements, to name just a few.)  The simplest summation of this theology is that the God of the Gospels and the early Christian church has a “preference” for those people who are “insignificant," "marginalized," “unimportant," "needy," "despised," and "defenseless."  Gutiérrez called this “a preferential option for the poor.” 

Of course, liberation theologians would argue that this theological framework didn’t begin in Latin America in the 1950s but, rather, in Palestine in the 1^st century, and that it was already really well established by Hebrew Prophets like Isaiah and Amos, Micha and Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Nehemiah.  These theologies don’t say that God’s love is limited to the poor and the oppressed, just that God has a soft spot for those who have been marginalized and mistreated.  “Blessed are the poor,” not because all people aren’t blessed but because the poor are so often treated as though they’re not that it bears highlighting.

St. Francis wasn’t part of the movement known as liberation theology, but he definitely saw that the place of the church was with the disenfranchised.  The current Pope, not coincidentally named for the earlier saint, has said as much today.  “Poverty is the flesh of the poor Jesus,” he has said, “in that child who is hungry, in the one who is sick, in those unjust social structures.”  He also said, “A way has to be found to enable everyone to benefit from the fruits of the earth, and not simply to close the gap between the affluent and those who must be satisfied with the crumbs falling from the table, but above all to satisfy the demands of justice, fairness and respect for every human being.”

And good social justice minded Unitarian Universalists that we are we say, “Yes!”  “Right!”  “Absolutely!”  Yet if you’re anything like me, while you’re affirming that ideal you’re also asking yourself, “How far do I have to take this?  If I go down this road, how far will I need to go?  Where will be the end of it?  Will there ever be an end of it?”  I ask these questions, and you may too, because I know how insatiable the needs of the world are, and I am afraid … afraid that if I set out on this path it’ll soon be one of those “slippery slopes” and I sure don’t want to end up at the bottom on … well … my bottom, all muddy and bruised and unable to get back up to where I’d been.

Remember, Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, and hundreds … thousands of people like him, prove that it is possible to go all the way, to so care for the poor and the oppressed as to become poor and oppressed oneself in solidarity.  That is the answer he ultimately came to after wandering the hills of Assissi wondering how far to go.  All the way; no holding back.  And if his, and their, testimony is to be believed, rather than some kind of regrettable burden this going all the way opened the way for a joy that had been previously unimaginable to him.  Giving up his wealth, he asserted, brought him to a richness incomparable.

Remember too, though, that young Francesco was a saint and that we – again, if you are anything like me – are not.  So how far should we go?  How far can we go?  And, let’s be honest, how far do we want to and are we willing to go?  I don’t know.  I don’t know the right answer to that for you; I can’t say that I’ve yet figured out the answer for myself.  I can say, though, that I don’t believe the answer is, for me or for most of you either, as far as St. Francis went, but I do believe it’s farther than I have gone so far.  I do believe, I know as a certainty, that I need to go farther than I have so far, and I know that it’s not going to be easy.  I know that I’ll take most of the steps kicking and screaming.  But maybe, just maybe, if we help one another, it’ll be easier.  And maybe that’s part of what it means that we Unitarian Universalists are a people of liberation.  It means that none of us have to be about this work on our own.  We can walk this path together.  In fact, it's really the only way we can.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Freely Following Jesus

"Freely following Jesus."  That's the motto of the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship.  But what does it mean?  What does it mean, in 21st century, to "follow Jesus," and what might it mean to people who've largely left behind them whatever Christian identity they'd had (and those who've never identified as Christian)?

"Christianity" has gotten a really bad rap in recent years -- especially among those who look at the world with liberal or progressive eyes and who fully embrace all the scientific discoveries and insights that cascade all around us.  Doesn't "following Jesus" require us to put our minds on pause, to align ourselves with some extraordinarily oppressive institutions, and to believe (in the words of the Queen's admission to Alice) "six impossible things before breakfast"?  And doesn't it, perhaps most challenging of all, require us to acknowledge Jesus as "our personal Lord and Savior" (whatever that means) and to worship him above all others?

Well, not necessarily.  The scholar and theologian Marcus Borg defines a Christian as someone "who takes seriously what Jesus took seriously."  None of that other baggage, just taking seriously the things Jesus took seriously -- justice, especially for the poor and dispossessed; the end of oppressions and those distinctions that divide us; to "to bring good news to the poor ... to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free."  (Luke 4:18)

Here's a way of looking at all of this that hit me one day -- when someone says that they are a Franciscan, it doesn't mean that they worship St. Francis.  It simply means that they see in the life of Francis of Assisi the kind of life they would like to live; they see the kind of commitments they would like to make.  It means that they want to emulate his way, his approach to life and to the world.  In short, to follow him -- to follow his example.  

And remember, this doesn't require a slavish attempt to "do what Francis would do."  After all, as he lay dying it is said that Francis looked at his friends and said, "I have done what was given me to do.  May Christ show you what is given to you."  How much like the Buddha's dying words of "be a lamp unto yourselves."

Could following Jesus, then, mean something very much like following Francis does?  I think yes.  In my book Serving With Grace:  lay leadership as a spiritual practice, I encourage church leaders to identify a "leadership saint" or two -- people they know, or have known of, who exemplify a leadership style or strength they aspire to.  I suggested even bringing a picture of this person to meetings and, whenever it seems needful or helpful, to ask yourself, "What would my leadership saint do in this situation?"  When you, yourself, don't know how to respond or what to say or how to act, it can be instructive to imagine what someone you admire would faced with the same thing(s) you are.

This, too, then is what it means -- or, at least -- can mean to "follow Jesus."  The WWJD bracelet fad is thankfully largely over.  Thankfully, because it far too often stemmed from the sense that we know exactly what Jesus would do in every situation, that he had laid down clear instructions that we needed to adhere to.  That's not what I mean at all.  Rather, I'm thinking about a matter not of "instruction" or "rules" or "specific answers" but, rather, "example."  What would a person like Jesus, or Dorothy Day, or Gandhi, or Malcolm X, or Mother Jones, or whoever you look to -- what would a person like that do if she or he were here.

Hopefully we're now a little more clear on the "following Jesus" part.  But what about that first word -- "freely"?  There are so many people who identify as Christian not because of any real, internal conviction but, instead, because of external expectations.  Never having really thought about it, never really questioning it, they simply assume their identity as Christians.  I think the gift of progressive Christian groups -- like the UUCF -- is that they encourage a "free" following of Jesus.  Let it be a choice -- an informed, an intentional choice.  Knowing what we know about Jesus -- from the Gospels, from history, from tradition, from our own intuitions -- and know about "the things Jesus took seriously," we make a conscious decision to take those same things seriously, to strive to live the same kind of life.

If this sounds interesting to you, intriguing, you might want to check out the UUCF.  (Or the Center for Progressive Christianity, as another example.)  You might want to read one (or both!) of the books below.  And, of course, you might want to engage in conversation right here.

Pax tecum,

Rev Wik


Christian Voices in Unitarian Universalism                 Teacher, Guide, Companion

                             

In Gratitude for St. Francis

Today is the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi -- Giovanni Francesco di Pietro di Bernardone.  He was born in either 1181 or 1182, and died in his mid-forties in 1226.  He is known in some circles as Alter Christus -- the other Christ.  I know him as the religious figure who speaks most directly and powerfully to my own soul.  A charismatic preacher who yearned for a life of prayerful solitude; a holy fool, whose primary message might well have been Rejoice! and yet who himself knew such deep melancholy.  I could go on.

Last evening I was surfing the web for images of Francesco and came across this one on the FaceBook page of the Order of Ecumenical Franciscans.  I do not know (yet) who created it, but it is without a doubt my current favorite.  Here's why:

A number of years ago I had a revelation.  It came to me that the best image for God (at least the best image for my understanding of God) would not be a King, nor even a parent.  It would be a puppy.  A dog is joy unbridled.  No matter who you are, or how you are, a dog can't give you enough kisses.  And over and over and over again a dog calls out to you, "Play with me!"

So here is that holy fool of God, Francesco Bernadone, embracing and being embraced by that most playful of pups.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Study Leave Book Reports, part 3

I know many people who frequently have two or more books open at the same time.  I think I even used to be able to do that (if I could it was so long that I can't remember for sure now).  All I know is that I generally don't do that now.  I like to read one book, focus on it, until it's done and only then move on to something else.

But last month while I was on Study Leave I had two books both calling out to me with such equal passion that I couldn't choose between them.  And since they are actually quite related to one another, I decided to give it a try.

I need to say that I am a fan of St. Francis of Assisi.  I would like to be able to say that I am a disciple, but I'm not (yet?) that disciplined.  But I have been studying his life, his teachings, and his legacy fairly seriously for the past couple of years, and I've even been involved with a group called The Ecumenical Order of Saint Francis (an ecumenical "third order" monastic community).  So I knew that I wanted to do some more reading about Francis during this time.

The first book I picked up -- and I'd been waiting to dive into this for some time -- is a classic:   Leonardo Boff's Francis of Assisi:  a model for human liberation.  I hadn't known that Boff was a Franciscan himself but he knew him as one of the premier liberation theologians, so I was eager to get his take on the "poverello."  This book was originally published in Boff's native Brazil in 1981, and I was reading an updated twenty-fifth anniversary edition published in 2006.  (Throughout I found myself wondering what Boff would say about direction the new Pope Francis seems to be taking the church.)  Boff lifts up Francis as an example of a joyful Christianity, an exemplar of a path that focuses on the poor in a radical way, and that shines a new light on humanity's interrelationship with the rest of the natural world.  It is clear that Francis has earned both Boff's personal affection and theological respect.

The second is titled Saint Francis and the Foolishness of God.  It is, itself, written by an ecumenical team:  Marie Dennis, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Joseph Nangle, and Stuart Taylor.  This is in many ways a more personal book or, to put it another way, a book that aims to help individuals bring the lessons of Francis into their own personal lives.  It can be read as a book study (and I'm thinking of using it at TJMC sometime in the future), or as a personal meditation, but either way it seems to be perfectly in keeping with what I understand to have been among Francis' own last words, "I have done what Christ called me to do; go and do what Christ is calling you to do."  The "Franciscan Way" is not about slavishly reproducing the actions and behaviors of Francis, but of bringing his way of life into reality within the reality of our own.  (Which, of course, can be said of Christianity in general.)

I will confess that I found Boff's book tough going at first. It's been a while since I've read any really dense, "heady" material. As I read on, though, and especially as I did so alternating with my second book, I found many things coming together for me.  (One thing I'll lift up is my delighted surprise as seeing Francis' way described as one which brought clergy and laity together in radically new ways that equalized them in the Order.  In fact, the earliest Franciscans were, by and large, not ordained priests, as Francis himself was not, and so in many ways it is a lay movement!  Considering my own current efforts at this same project it's nice to see that I'm on track.)

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Laid in a Manger

A while ago I was reading the book Francis:  the journey and the dream, a beautiful blending of biography and meditation on the life of St. Francis of Assisi by the Franciscan priest and poet, Fr. Murray Bodo.  In it I found this wonderful reflection on Francis' understanding of Christmas:

"At Christmas it was the infant Christ who was born again in human hearts, and it struck Francis that God came to earth as a baby so that we would have someone to care for.  Christmas was the dearest of feasts because it meant that God was now one of us.  Flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone, this child we could approach without fear.  We could be silly and uninhibited as we sought to make Him laugh.  We could be totally ourselves because a child accepts us just as we are and screams with delight at our little performances on his behalf.

Someone to care for, someone to try and please, someone to love.  God, a helpless babe; God, a piece of Bread.  How much trust God had in creatures!  In the Eucharist and in the Nativity, we group up, because God places Himself in our care.  We come out of ourselves if we are aware, because we now have responsibilities for God.  Not only the earth to till and creation to subdue, but now God to care for."

History has it that the first nativity scene was created by St. Francis in 1223 because he wanted to encourage people to really engage with "God [the] helpless babe."  This seems to have gotten lost in all the hubub and hullabaloo surounding the holiday.  Yet even those who would have us "put the Christ back in Christmas" seem to be totally focused on the adult Jesus, even the crucified Christ.  But what about that baby?  That little, helpless baby for which we "now have responsibilities"?  What would it mean to your spiritual life if you spent this Advent season not so much preparing to receive God as preparing to take care of God?

In Gassho,

RevWik

Choices

As I've noted I've been reading Fr. Murray Bodo's meditative biography of St. Francis of Assisi, Francis:  the journey and the dream.  A lovely book, and a powerful one.  Much of what I've read has moved me deeply.

Here, for instance, is a portion of the chapter titled, "Barefoot in the Dirt":

One of the hardest trials of poverty, that sometimes made Francis forget how glorious was the service of his Lady Poverty, was the inconvenience of the poor life.  To be poor was to be subject to countless little annoyances that the lords, or even the rich merchants like his father, could buy their way out of.

To be poor was to take the road on foot while the rich rode.  To be poor was to wait long hours in the shops while the rich went before you.  To be poor was to beg and eat what was placed before you, and that monotonously the same gruel, while the rich ate at tables ever varying their fare.  To be poor was to mingle with those who were petty, narrow-minded and whose conversation was dull and uninspired, while the rich chose companions with care and welcomed the educated, the artist, the entertainer.  To be poor was to live among those who had given up hope and whose lives were lived from moment to moment with no star to lead them on, while the rich still had ambition and the will to accomplish something in life. . . .

[It was] the sacred penetration of dirt when you wanted to be clean, of a cold stone slab when you wanted a warm bed, of sleeping alone when you wanted someone beside you, of the will of others when your own was wiser and more efficient, of routine when you longed for variety."

There is so much in there to reflect on.  How many of us could willingly accept such a life?  I was especially struck by the emphasis on the inconvenience of it -- how contrary that is to our modern preocupation, perhaps even obsession, with making all things ever-more convenient?  And the thought of choosing the companionship of the "dull and uninspired" -- how would that play in a religious tradition such as Unitarian Universalism which tends to draw more people with advanced degrees than any other (even while we affirm the principle of "the inherent worth and dignity of every person")?  And what about choosing to follow the will of someone else "when [my] own was wiser and more efficient" -- what might that do to our experiences in our work places or our homes?  What a commitment to peace.

Inconvenience.  As Modo puts it, "The earthiness of it all, the gritty, day-to-day reality of poverty was what would kill the Dream for many."  Perhaps we could muster the energy to mount a glorious campaign of some kind, but to willingly accept a life of mundane inconvenience? 

There is so much here to reflect on.  Lent might just be a good time to do so.

In Gassho,

RevWik

Surrounded by Friendship

I had to drive for a little over an hour to get to the airport for my last trip.  I took with me one of my favorite CDs -- Dane Zane's House Party.  Zanes was once the front man for the band the Del Fuegos, and now has made a new career for himself as quite possibly the hippest purveyor of "children's music."  (Of course, to paraphrase Leo Tolstoy's comment about literature, "There is no such thing as good children's music; there's simply good music.")

One of the songs on this album, written by Cynthia Hopkins, is called "Surrounded by Friendship."  As I listened I found myself musing that St. Francis would have approved . . . and probably would have started singing along. 

Maybe you will, too.

In Gassho,

RevWik

PS -- You can find more dan zanes albums at Myspace Music , or at Zane's own website.

Once More on Begging

Tomorrow is "Ash Wednesday," the beginning of the Christian period of Lent.  I have mentioned in other posts my love of St. Francis of Assisi, and this year I am very excited that both he and his soul friend St. Clare will be my guides and companions on a Lenten journey thanks to the book, Lent and Easter Wisdom From St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi by John V. Kruse.  For each of the coming forty days there is an excerpt from the writings of one or the other of these saints, a passage of Christian scripture, a prayer, and a suggested action.  I am very excited about this.

I'm also reading (yet another) biography of Francis, this one called Francis:  the journey and the dream by Murray Bodo.  It's a beautifully imaginative telling of the life of Francis by a Franciscan priest and poet.  Absolutely lovely.  And apropos of my recent posts about begging and homelessness, I found these words worth sharing:

Francis had noticed from the beginning that when he went begging, especially, very few people looked into his eyes.  They seemed always to avoid eye contact, either from embarrassment or fear or contempt.  There were, of course, the few bright-eyed, often people whose eyes were surely the lamps of their whole selves radiating love and goodness and trust.

It was marvelous how people became who they really were once you reached out your hand to them in the gesture of the beggar.  Even the insight into people head had gained in his father's shop paled when compared to what he learned begging in the streets of Assisi.  So often the veneer of respectability would be sloughed off and something like a monster would emerge, cursing and destroying you with the venom of words and gestures.  It was an experience only beggars understood.

This morning I saw my friend Shaggy again after not having seen him for several weeks.  I asked him how he was doing and he said, "Ah, you know.  I'm standing here watching people walk past me."  He know.

In Gassho,

RevWik

To The Least of These, part 2

Yesterday I wrote about a link that I've been thinking about for some time between the homeless people on our streets who beg for their livelihood and the monks and holy people in every religious traditions who have chosen poverty and begging as a way of life.  I said that I'd been reading about the life of St. Francis and found that even these holy beggars were often ridiculed and reviled.  The question I left hanging at the end was, why?

I suggested in an even earlier piece that one way of looking at the poor and homeless is that they have a job -- an incredibly difficult job.  They remind society that life isn't fair.  That, "there but for the Grace of God go I."  Or you.  That, in the words of the folksinger Greg Brown, "No matter how we plan and rehearse, we're at pink slip's mercy in a paper universe."  Or, as an old friend used to say, "that's why they call it life and not picnic."

Most of us walk around most of the time doing all that we can -- both consciously and unconsciously -- to ensure (or, at least, to convince ourselves) that things will be okay .  We want to believe that, like a fairy tale, there will be a happy ending and that, like a sitcom, even the most difficult situations will work themselves out in the end.  We want security, and we're willing to settle for the appearance of security.

But beggars threaten this.  Those who choose their life of poverty and want are a threat because they call into question my sense that I "need" to be so secure -- and, of course, can cause me to wonder about all the things that I give up to gain my semblance of security.  Those who have their poverty "thrust upon them," as it were, are threatening, too, because they show me that it may not actually be up to me -- one catastrophic illness, one layoff, one bad break and I could watch my carefully constructed house of cards come crashing down around me.

Now . . . the mystics and spiritual teachers who choose, as Francis called it, "Lady Poverty," do so because they believe that the rest of us need to see these facts -- that life isn't fair and that our so-called security isn't as secure as we work so hard to convince ourselves that it is.  They also want us to see that, if that's indeed true, perhaps we don't need to work so hard at building a house of cards but, rather, could put our energy into creating Beloved Community instead . . . something that is real, and enduring. 

Yet some of us are so afraid.  We hang on so tightly to the things we're afraid to lose and, so, must attack those who threaten us.  And so we mock (and worse) those who need us the most.  People like my friends Shaggy, Mike, Jim, and Brother John.  People like St. Francis, and St. Clare, and Brother Juniper.  But it might be worth remembering that in the Christian tradition, God identified himself with the poor and the homeless -- Jesus described himself as having "no place to lay his head," and taught that while all women and men should be seen as our kin, it is by our behavior to "the least of these" that we will be most truly judged.  (Matthew 25: 35-40)

In Gassho,

RevWik

To the Least of These

I saw Shaggy this morning.  He's one of the four homeless men I pass regularly on my walk to the office in Boston whose name I've learned and who I've gotten to know a bit.  There's Michael, Jim, Shaggy, and Brother John.  I rarely carry cash so I don't often have any money for them, but I do stop and talk with them and try to give them what I can -- recognition and respect.  I've learned a lot from them about what it's like to live on the streets.

I've written previously ("Get A Job?  They've Got One Thanks.") about how frustrated I get when I hear people denegrate the poor, the jobless, the homeless by calling them "lazy," or "unmotivated," and telling them derisively to, "get a job."  I wrote,

"[W]hen I look through [the spiritual] lens I see people who remind me -- who remind us all -- that the world is far from fair. That those of us living comfortable lives do not represent the vast majority of people on the planet and that part of our comfort comes at the cost of their discomfort. They remind me that there is want and misery and pain and that, as Jesus himself is remembered as saying, "the poor shall always be with you." These people I pass each day put a human face on that proverb."

 Recently I've been reading about the life of St. Francis of Assisi, one of the great Christian saints.  He choose a life of extreme austerity, and made his living by begging for his daily food.  He made that the way of his Order.  Holy women and men in other traditions, as in the photo of Buddhist monks above, have also included this as part of their spiritual practice.

I understand that the intentional adoption of begging as a spiritual practice has two primary foci -- for the person who begs, it is a practice of humility and of trust.  I remind myself that I am not the be-all and end-all of things, and allow myself to be taken care of by others -- be at their mercy, in fact.  I remind myself that without the care of others I am nothing.  "We need one another" means, put in terms we hardly ever use in our culture, that I need you.

And for the person who gives, there is the benefit of allowing for the experience of generosity and freedom.  I could be afraid that whatever I give away is less that I will have for myself and, so, be tied to my possessions.  But when I give to one who begs I remind myself of my own innate freedom and allow my inherent generosity to blosson.

This seems so clear.  So obvious.  So beautiful, really.  Why, then, the disdain heaped upon those like my friends Shaggy, Michael, Jim, and Brother John?  It's not a new phenomena of our modern society, if that's what you're thinking.  As I said, I've been reading the biography of St. Francis, and he and his brothers were ridiculed and reviled because of their choice to become beggars.  They were considered madmen, and worse.  (In some of the stories the men say that it's because of the scorn that would be heaped upon them that they embraced such a life, but that's another story.)  Tomorrow I'll explore a possible explanation.

In Gassho,

RevWik