audio-visual meditation- "Dear God" by the Monsters of Folk

I've put this video on Facebook before, but I wanted to return it and write a bit more about why I find it so powerful.  I recommend you watch it beforehand; I think you'll find it a powerful audio and visual meditation on the mystery of God.

Dear god, I'm trying hard to reach you
Dear god, I see your face in all I do
Sometimes it’s so hard to believe in
Good god I know you have your reasons

Dear god I see you move the mountains
Dear god I see you moving trees
Sometimes it’s nothing to believe in
Sometimes it’s everything I see

Well I’ve been thinking about,
And I’ve been breaking it down without an answer
I know I’m thinking aloud but if your love's
Still around why do we suffer?
Why do we suffer?

Dear god, I wish that I could touch you
How strange sometimes I feel I almost do
And then I'm back behind the glass again
Oh god what keeps you out it keeps me in

Well I’ve been thinking about,
And I’ve been breaking down without an answer
I know I’m thinking aloud but if your love's
Still around why do we suffer?
Why do we suffer? 

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I've said before that wonderful spiritual music--I mean music that touches the soul--is not limited to religious artists. Some of my favorite spiritual pieces come not from "praise bands," but from secular artists who share their faith with us. At one point, I could not articulate my own appreciation of their work. I remember writing and thinking that between the secular artist and the contemporary praise musician, the secular artist seemed more authentic to me. I think it is because I don't buy into the overly sentimental nature of modern "praise" music. That's not to say that I doubt the religious artist's sincerity, but it seemed to me to be shallow.

Now, I know that is a gross generalization, but I think I can point to the difference.  For me, a praise musician is often limited to the positive expression of faith.  The task is to make music for worship, which typically does not leave matters of theology open for question but instead seeks to wrap up God/belief/faith in a tidy package.  Where I think secular artists are unhindered--and more realistic--is that they can end a thought, a song, with a question.  That, to me, takes more courage.  Instead of pushing aside the difficult parts of theology for the sake of a sentimental expression of hope, or the drowning of an experience of doubt, the secular artist can write a song that performs a harder theological task:  sitting with the difficulties of the examined life of faith.

The song above is a meditation on the problem of theodicy--the existence of evil in a world created by a supposedly good, gracious, all-powerful, all-knowing, always present Creator.  I take it to be from the viewpoint of a believer or a seeker who has known times of closeness to God, and yet even then the questions linger.  The video that the band chose (by a video-making contest) to accompany the song is--in my opinion--a conceptually separate-yet-linked metaphor of the experience of our human existence:  blindness of the world around us (sometimes by our own will), discovery of both the bad and the good, joy, freedom, exploration, boundaries, terror, confusion, the experience of being lost and of being alone, the search for the comfort of the loving embrace.  Every move the little girl makes breaks open a realm of deeper meaning.

Breaking open realms of deeper meaning.  This is for me the difference between bad-to-good Christian art and excellent Christian art--or maybe just art by Christians.  While bad art cleanly ties up concepts, over-explains, or tells you the conclusions to draw from within the work, and good art does so less explicitly or offers a fascinating avenue of thought, great art instead invites one into a sustained engagement in which meaning is not exhausted and one is invited deeper into one's soul every time one beholds the object.

(Quick excursis:  Other than music, the easiest medium to see this distinction is film.  Compare the heavy-handedness and utter fantasy of Christian life in films like Facing the Giants to the deeper questions of human existence and responses to God present in, say, The Mission,...which explores issues of slavery, pacifism, sin, redemption, war, politics, and ecclesiastical authority.)

The Womb of God, Mysticism part 2

Of my most direct experiences of God, the strongest one was a particular night in December 2010.  It has become something of my barometer for knowing how close I am to God in particular instances.  In those moments the direct experience of God—the description of which varies for many people--most resembled a dark buoyancy.  It felt safe and calm. I called it, and continue to call it, "the womb of God."

It is a place where one attempts to drop all walls, all self-deceptions, all excuses, and lay bare one's self before God.  It would be despairing, if there were not something to break the fall.  All doubts, all false certainties, all attempts at self-justification, all hatreds of oneself; they fall away.  One is left with God, who begins the work of removing the scales from one's eyes.  

See yourself as I see you.  See the world as I see it. 

Broken, yet beloved.  The space between God and me becomes clear--the space between the sacred and the profane--and yet God is joined to me, and I am in God.   The world will go from shades of grey to vibrant color and contrast.

One finds parts of one's very being transfigured.  Changed.  The parts of me that seemed soiled become pure as I hold it up to God.  

This part of you can stay, but it will not stay the same.  You will not let it.

"You will not let it." Not a command, but an observation.  God reclaims that which God made and turns its purpose back to its original glory.

Things will change once you see as I see.  You are forgiven.  You are loved.  You now know this. Try not to forget it. 

Dark buoyancy is replaced by gravity as I feel myself sitting in my chair.  No, I wasn't levitating, but I was back from somewhere.  I opened my eyes to see the candle, cross, and labyrinth laid out before me. 

What I am describing is not a one-time event, but an example of a lifetime's work of returning to God.  It happens every time I find a part of my life I have been keeping God away from, either intentionally or by oversight.  And, silly me, God is already there, waiting for me to catch up.  Waiting to show me the fullness for which I was made.

Mysticism part 1

[Christian] educators ought to remember that a religion which is first entirely bound up with narrow and childish theological ideas, and is then presented as true in the absolute sense, is bound to break down under greater knowledge or hostile criticism; and may then involve the disappearance of the religious impulse as a whole, at least for a long period.

Did we know our business, we ought surely to be able to ensure in our young people a steady and harmonious spiritual growth. The "conversion" or psychic convulsion which is sometimes regarded as an essential preliminary of any vivid awakening of the spiritual consciousness, is really a tribute exacted by our wrong educational methods. It is a proof that we have allowed the plastic creature confided to us to harden in the wrong shape. But if, side by side and in simplest language, we teach the conceptions: first, of God as the transcendent yet indwelling Spirit of love, of beauty and of power; next, of man's constant dependence on Him and possible contact with His nature in that arduous and loving act of attention which is the essence of prayer; last, of unselfish work and fellowship as the necessary expressions of all human ideals—then, I think, we may hope to lay the foundations of a balanced and a wholesome life, in which man's various faculties work together for good, and his vigorous instinctive life is directed to the highest ends. -Evelyn Underhill, Life of the Spirit (1922).

"The Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist at all." –Karl Rahner[1]

I've been fascinated these past two semesters by mysticism and, I would argue, it's necessity in the Christian life (for the purposes of this post, my definition of mysticism is simply 'union with God').  To that end, I've been reading Evelyn Underhill, an Anglo-Catholic mystic who wrote from around 1912-1941.  Even though an Anglo-Catholic in a time when factionalism in the Church of England was bitter, Underhill’s keen attention to the balanced spiritual life led her to frequently hearken back to the evangelical John Wesley’s life and work.  Underhill counts him as a saint and her approving mentions of Wesley are also representative of her willingness to pull from all of the Anglican tradition in her work, though she was also by no means limited by the Anglican Communion--or even Christianity--in her examples.

The above quote came from a book Underhill wrote in 1927 which included a chapter on Christian education.  What interested me about it is what I interpret to be a reference to what is nowadays called a 'born-again experience,' an experience which some evangelicals claim to be necessary in order to call oneself a Christian.  Often this is described in Evangelical circles as the moment one can point to, to the day or time, in which a person felt Jesus 'come into his or her heart,' usually after the admission of grievous sin.  Then one prays the 'Sinner's prayer,' Jesus makes residence in the person, and the person is considered saved.  If you are ever asked if you are 'saved,' you are probably being asked if you've ever experienced something like this.[2, see footnote below]

I think what is being described by Evangelicals as the born-again experience qualifies as a mystical experience and is real.  To say otherwise would be to admit limit to God's capability to reach people.  But I am unconvinced that this introductory experience is the only way to understand or gauge one's entry into the Christian life.  Further, I worry that when mystical experience in a certain prescribed way becomes the basis of deciding who is made truly Christian and who is not, it opens up a Christian group to drawing the borders of the faith too narrowly.  It also opens up the Christian group to attempting emotional manipulation in order to bring about the belief in a certain mystical experience.  I think Underhill would agree with my assessment, and she points to the particular type of born-again experience as a failure of education in the Christian tradition-- a tradition which in its fullest expression understands and discerns the direct experience of God.  She wished instead to instruct others (particularly children) into a 'steadier' entry in the life of God. 

So why is mystical experience so important?  First and foremost, Christianity is a religion with many abstract concepts and theologies which attempt to explain an objective reality that its own concepts grant to be ultimately indescribable.  But faith in something cannot live on it's philosophical underpinnings alone.  It is precisely reliance on these concepts that Underhill is worried about, especially if these concepts never evolve beyond simplistic and too-rigid understandings of the faith.  A simplistic understanding of Christianity in the abstract-- particularly that which does not allow for further knowledge, self-examination, or the admission that one may be wrong-- does not prepare someone to maintain their own convictions under the realities of human life or criticism from others.  Experience is necessary for fully understanding what one believes because Christianity is not a religion that posits a disinterested God, but of a god who seeks full relationship with the created universe.  

Christianity is a faith of ever-expanding relationship--of relationship both to God and to all of Creation.  The Christian, in the mystical experience of Reality (The way God would see the world, mediated through Christ, and sustained by the Spirit), receives “the vision of an intensely loving heart; and love, which cannot keep itself to itself, urges him to tell the news as widely and as clearly as he may.”[3] John Wesley would certainly agree. For if one wants to preach the Gospel of Christ, one must already possess the experience of God in order to relate it others.[4] Without this experience, the love of God is hearsay and a proposition, and not much more. 

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[1] Karl Rahner, Concern for the Church:  Theological Investigations Vol. 20 (New York, Crossroad Publishing Co., 1981), 149.

[2] Broad, sweeping, too-simple theological proviso:  I don't think 'salvation' works like what I've described above.  Salvation (which is not to be easily explained) is an incomplete work on all of Creation brought to completion at the Eschaton, and to worry about being "saved" in an afterlife is to completely jump over other important concepts of Christian theology and life:  justification and sanctification (or theosis), which are linked to salvation.

[3] Underhill, Practical Mysticism.

[4] Underhill, Life of the Spirit.

"Starlight"

There are a few songs that I can listen to again, again, and again.  I'm sure many people have these songs.  They are songs that are tied to particular events; they may help put people in certain moods.  What I have been most interested in recently is how certain songs or tunes give expression to certain emotions.    The music becomes a vehicle by which the unspeakable is expressed--unspeakable joy, exuberance, anger, melancholy, pain. 

When I listen to music for the work it does on me emotionally, the song I most readily turn to is "Starlight" by the Wailin' Jennys.  (Below is a youtube video with the song and lyrics, but I ask you not look at the video; the background picture will be distracting.)

(Lyrics)

When a song or tune rocks me to the core, I can't help but close my eyes and sink in to the experience of the music.  But a peculiar part of my experience of music is that songs rarely take me back to a particular place in my own memory, but to a place the song creates.  It is in this space that the song creates that I remember past emotions.  In hearing a new song that seems to promise to touch somewhere deep within me, I close my eyes to see where the music will take me.

This song brings me to the middle of a snowy field at night, a clearing miles wide surrounded by forest.  The only light is ambient.  Stars shine brightly against pitch black moonless night; the snow reflects the light back up to its source, as only snow can. The cold air is oppressive and makes breathing difficult. There are signs of civilization in the distance--power lines with no origin or destination in sight--but they seem so far off, and in the emotive space created by this song, civilization is not good enough.  Home--warmth-- is what I long for.  I imagine beginning to walk...in any direction... but never quite making it out of the field.  Yet the movement itself is important; the attempt to leave the frozen fields keeps some sense of hope alive.

The closest approximation to my mind's eye's view.

That sense of hope is a feeling muted in the song, but it is there.  This is not a song describing the hopeless, although I imagine that it is a song that would speak to one in pain and despair.  The song speaks of victimization, brokenness, pain, coldness, the dark night of existence...but...there is also resilience.  The lyrics and tune are plaintive, yet insistent.  A cry of defiance against the night after naming the pain.  "Take us home."

I was reminded of this song, and the images it conjures for me, a few months ago.  I've always experienced this song in my mind.  In my mind I've stood in the field.  I've laid in the snow staring at the stars. I've felt the heat of my body desert me for the surrounding air and the ground in that field, leaving me chilled.  I've walked with only the sound of boots crunching the snow in my ears. But I have never seen this field in what is commonly called reality. That changed in January.  

I was riding in the back of a friend's car on a trip to a retreat.  We were driving at night, due north from New Haven into Massachusetts.  Near the state line the urban landscape became rural and we crossed into snowy ground.  It was a welcome sight for me.  I am not often in the back seat on road trips anymore, but I took it as something of a treat that night.  We passed fields I have only imagined in listening to this particular song.  Sure, I have seen plenty of snow in my time in New Haven, but this was different.  In New Haven, snow becomes brown in a day, and nowhere qualifies as deserted. But here...along this road... moments would sometimes pass where, aside from the headlights and instrument panel of the care I was in, stars and moon were the only lights falling on fields of undisturbed snow.  I pressed my hand against the window, and felt the heat leave my body.  The song jumped into the realm of the intellectual, then reactivated the realm of the emotional, and finally entered the realm of the physical.  The song was finally in the flesh...in my flesh...a living expression of melancholies in which I have found myself.  

That night, I didn't find myself experiencing the melancholies and pain that I have taken with me to the snowy field.  I remembered them, like running my hand over healed scars, but they were not opened by the experience. Now I listen to the song to remind me of the reality of pain (and I know there will be a time that  I will return to the song for its expression of a truth within me); but the need for resilience is what is at the forefront in the song for me.  

And, now, I'm not in the middle of the field.  I've walked quite a distance...towards a light long ago seen, and it beckons still.

  

Time and family

In two months, to the day, I will be ordained a Deacon in the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Arizona (provided that God is willing and the people consent).

Wow, it is becoming a reality in my mind.  More on this later.
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Tomorrow I will be contacting the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a group of Roman Catholic women religious with a community in Hamden, CT.  I mentioned this September, on this blog, that I have a family connection to this order--my grandfather's aunt was a sister--and I've felt a pull to visit the community for reasons unknown to me since I have been in New Haven.  I'm hoping to visit over some of a day during this spring break.

Another odd fact jumped out at me today.  In preparation for contacting the Apostles, I pulled out Sister Caroline's obituary, only to discover that I was serving as a chaplain in the same hospital in which she passed away.  

Another synchronicity has presented itself.  Sister Caroline is memorialized by the Apostles on March 22nd, the same day as my middler review at YDS.  Considering that Caroline's journey to taking vows has figured into both my exploration of religious orders and re-appropriation of the substance of catholic Christianity, that she is memorialized on the same day as a significant moment in my formation seems wonderful to me.

Progress Report

I'm still off of Facebook.  But this has not translated into words-on-paper, which was my hope for the fast of Lent.  But all is not lost.  The time off of Facebook has still given me more time in the day, and that was filled with a wonderful amount of time to be in sustained thought.  The topics I wish to write about are never far below the surface of my thoughts.

The last one and a half weeks were very busy, and while allowing myself the time to think--if not write--felt risky with all of the assignments that were coming due, everything was either done to a level I felt was satisfactory or I arbitrarily judged the deadlines I faced to be softer than I originally thought.

I am on a two week spring break, which will allow me to fully commit myself to a sustained time of writing every day.  Beginning a habit is the hardest part, but I feel good about the project since I have two months of material that need processing.  Since December 31st (2011) I've been on two retreats which were incredibly revelatory.  The first retreat has been spoken of by me as earning the framing of BR/AR--'before retreat' and 'after retreat.'  The implications of the internal work I did at that retreat are not yet settled, and I need to write it out.

But, so that there is some accountability, I'd like to list some of my topics.  If there is something you'd like to read sooner rather than later, let me know.

1. Mystical experience in Alabama
2. The EEN Retreat
3. The Ignatian silent retreat
4. Music and pastoral care/ how I use music for my own care/ particular songs and tunes
5. Art and God
6. Celtic Spirituality
7. Spiritual Autobiography