LEX ORANDI, LEX CREDENDI - A HEART FIXED ON TRUE JOY

This homily was delivered in Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton, South Dakota on March 18, 2018 on the Fifth Sunday in Lent.

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Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners:  Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen  

(The Collect for the Fifth Sunday in Lent, The Book of Common Prayer, The Church Hymnal Corporation, 1979, pg. 219)

Walking through the doors of this church or any church on any day; particularly, on day of worship like today is, in essence, an act of public confession. We are saying, “I am a sinner in need of redemption.”  

At the beginning of Lent, on Ash Wednesday, I presented a homily in which I said sin could be defined by one word: selfish.  I said that “Any term that can be suffixed with ‘ish’ is an indication that it’s not the real thing but rather an approximation that is less than real or presented as being more than what it is; therefore, sin is anything that approximates us; lessens who we truly are, or tries to make us look more than who we truly are.”  We have all, in some way or another and at some point or another, acted selfishly.  As the Apostle Paul wrote in his Letter to the Romans, “All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.” [1]

In our collect for today, we acknowledge, that despite our selfishness God’s influence is pervasive; that God “alone can bring into order our unruly wills and affections. What this prayer indicates is that sin/selfishness does not nor cannot keep God at bay. God is always in search of the lost, and God comes running to meet the contrite in heart as Jesus taught in his parable of the Lost Sheep and the Prodigal Son.

In other words, God goes where we go to get us to the place where God is.

In this prayer, we ask for grace, the unmerited gift of God to love what God commanded, and what is it that God has commanded?  It is what Jesus summed up as the greatest commandant – to love that which God’s loves; to love our neighbors as ourselves, to love our enemies; in short, it is to love all that is in order to fully love God with all our hearts, souls, and minds.[2] 

In this prayer, we ask for grace to desire what God has promised, and what is it that God promised?  God’s promise is the restoration of creation and the redemption of humanity to the goodness in which and for which it was made.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus is depicted as putting the promise of God in these terms, “I came that they (all) may have life, and have it abundantly.”[3]  Several Sundays ago in a homily on a baptismal prayer we examined this sense of abundance in terms of finding the gift of joy and wonder in all of God’s works.[4]

In this prayer, we ask for grace that amidst the swift and varied changes of the world; our hearts are fixed; are anchored where true joys are to be found.  Each age, in which this prayer has been said; including our own, finds itself caught in the riptides and whirlpools of current events that are ever in flux. 

It is easy while walking on the troubled waters of the present to be caught up in its turmoil and like Peter to lose faith, to lose hope, and start caving inward, sinking into a deluded sense of self. It is so easy in such an environment to drown in a vision of a faithless, hopeless, and unloving world, to put on a truly dark lens that hides the reality of God’s love for the world we live in and that prevents us from seeing ourselves for who we truly are.

So where is true joy to be found?

Since I begin this series of homilies, I find so many of our collects and prayers mentioning the heart.  To the modern ear, all this talk about the heart may seem archaic, if not sentimental.

Why not talk about the mind? 

Isn’t the “heart” only a metaphor for what we now call the mind, our thoughts and our emotions? After all, isn’t it what we think, what we perceive as good and evil that gets us into trouble or keeps it out of it?

Undoubtedly, there is a connection between our thoughts and our troubles and joys. We know, scientifically, that there link between what we perceive, think, and feel. Scripture acknowledges this connection as noted in the commandment to love God with all one’s heart and all one’s mind. 

The heart and the mind are closely linked, but function differently.  Physically speaking, the heart feels and the mind perceives. 

Take the broad field of science, for example. As an engine of science, the mind perceives that it is limited to and by what questions it can answer as empirical fact.  It can answer when questions, where questions, what questions, and how questions, but the question that all the empirical sciences struggle with are the pure why questions; especially, the question why we exist – “Why anything?”

It’s at that point empirical science hits a wall, begins to unravel, and becomes vacuous. Any attempt to answer the why of existence causes the mind to enter the realm of speculation, philosophy, ontology, and theology.  Having said that, however, one thing both theologians and scientists can and most do agree on is that there is no scientific proof or disproof for the existence of God or why we exist, and this, I believe, is where the heart comes in.

Our minds recognize another way of knowing that comes by way of experience or feeling.  To know God is to feel God in some manner or another and that is why scripture and our prayers talk in terms of the heart. We know God, not because we know what God is, know how God is, or know where God is. We know God because we feel God and the feeling by which we know God is called love.

 Scripture tells us God is love,[5] and that feeling of love is centered in the core of our being, our soul, what we call the heart where our made-in-the-image-of-God-self resides.  Almost every personal encounter with God in scripture is conveyed through an experience which conveys the feeling of God’s presence. Read the Psalms, and consider the terms the apostle Paul uses to describe our relationship to God:  faith, hope, and love.  They are all feeling terms, and they are found in one form or another in every letter Paul wrote. 

Joy is a feeling. 

The mind doesn’t feel. The mind processes feelings; gives them a name, tells us where, what, and how we feel, but frequently can’t tell us why we feel the way we do.  We can think happy thoughts that lead to happy feelings or we can think bad thoughts that lead to bad feelings.

It is a scientific fact that our visceral feelings can affect the physical heart’s health. Scripture intuitively gets the importance of paying attention to what we feel as a matter of the heart more than the head. Scriptures gets it right when obeying the greatest commandment begins with the heart then moves through the totality of being to the mind, the agency by which we perceive and comprehend the joy and wonder of creation as an expression of God’s love.   

 As followers of Jesus, we have come to understand that our true joy is experienced in the immense parental love of God for all creation, a love we see in Jesus, a love we share with Jesus and with all God’s children. It is that love; that feeling of joy which anchors us against the tug of the swift and varied changes of the world.   When our hearts are fixed on the source of our true joy, God’s love for us and all creation, we can say with Paul:

^“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[6]

When we came into this house of worship this morning, we made a confession that we are sinful and in need of redemption.  When we leave this place, by God’s grace,  may we  feel sent into the world professing that faith and that hope which is fixed on our true Joy, the love of God we experience and feel in Christ Jesus.

Amen.

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[1] Romans 3:23

[2] Deuteronomy 6:5

[3] John 10:10

[4] “The Book of Common Prayer,”  The Church Hymnal Corporation, New York, 1979, pg. 308

[5] 1 John 4:8

[6] Romans 8:38 & 39



LEX ORANDI, LEX CREDENDI - THE INQUIRING AND DISCERNING HEART

This homily was delivered at Christ Episcopal Church in Yankton, South Dakota on February 18, 2018 on the First Sunday in Lent.

Not being raised an Episcopalian, one of the prayers that caught my attention when Kathy and I joined this church occurred when we witnessed our first baptism here. 

The prayer goes like this:

Heavenly Father, we thank you that by water and the Holy Spirit you have bestowed upon these your servants the forgiveness of sin, and have raised them to new life of grace.  Sustain them, O Lord, in your Holy Spirit.  Give them an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works.[1]

This quickly became one of my favorite prayers in The Book of Common Prayer.  Lex orandi, lex credendi (what we pray reflects our deepest beliefs), as intimated in this prayer, acknowledges that the heart is shaped by what it seeks and especially by what it finds to be true.

Questioning has not been held in high regard throughout much of the church’s history and remains so in some Christian churches.  Yet in the Anglican tradition, our tradition, we have a unique theological perspective that shapes our identity as Episcopalians.  The 16^th century English Theologian, Richard Hooker, wrote:

“What scripture doth plainly deliver, to that the first place both of credit and obedience are due; the next whereunto, is what a man can necessarily conclude by force of Reason; after this, the voice of the church succeedeth”.[2]   

This has become known as the three-legged stool upon which Anglican theological perspective is derived: Scripture, Reason, and Tradition.  There were few Christian denominations at that time and since that time that have given human reason, by itself, a place of prominence in theological discernment and discourse. What makes us unique among the Christian family of denominations is that we honor the human faculty of reason as essential in discerning the will of God in the light of Scripture and by its reflective wisdom embedded in our traditions.

Two individuals baptized as Anglicans came to mind as I thought about this prayer:  Charles Darwin and Thomas Merton; both examples of individuals with an inquiring and discerning heart.

CHARLES DARWIN

Born to a free thinking father and a Unitarian mother, Charles was baptized in the Church of England, the Anglican Communion.  Before taking his fateful journey aboard the Beagle in which he weighed the plethora of possibilities why so many diverse life forms in the world exist, Darwin had seriously considered taking Holy Orders and becoming a curate in the Church of England.  In reading his life story, I came to appreciate the struggle he had with the knowledge he acquired; whether to publish his findings that he knew would cause controversy and put him in a spotlight he did not seek.   He sat on the knowledge his experiences gave him for decades and only published his famous “Origen of the Species” when friends pleaded with him to do so.  The weight of his reasoned discoveries and the inner conflict it caused him took a toll on his health.

Our understanding of the world was forever changed by his reasoning mind; his inquiring and discerning heart.  Advances in the field of medical science are largely traced to what he revealed.  Charles Darwin not only broadened our understanding of who we are and how we came to be and the world we live in, he also broadened our understanding of God.  While that may not have been his intent nor would he have thought it a result of his work, it certainly was an outcome of it; traceable to God’s intent working through him. His findings brought many religious communities, including our own, to rediscover the deeper meaning of their scriptures and their traditions in a new and brighter light.

In 2011, when Kathy and I took our daughters on a post-graduation tour of Ireland and Great Britain, we visited West Minister Abbey in London.  Appropriately, Charles Darwin, an admitted agnostic in later life, was laid to rest in its hallowed nave by a supporting church faithful in its vow to support him at his baptism. As I stood looking down on his tomb, a few steps from the elaborate tomb of Sir Isaac Newton in the north aisle, marked by a single marble slab bearing his name, I could not help but think of him as a saint; a person who gifted us with a deeper appreciation of the joy and wonder of God’s work in all creation.  Fortunately for us, Charles Darwin found the courage to will and persevere, whose integrity in speaking the truth of his experience reflected the integrity of God’s truth expressed in all creation.

THOMAS MERTON

Thomas Merton was the 20^th Century Trappist Monk who reintroduced Western Christianity to contemplative practices. Merton was baptized an Anglican in the Pyrenees of South France.  Educated in France and in Cambridge England, he didn’t seem drawn to religion in his early life.  At one point in his life, he claimed to be an agnostic and fathered a child out of wedlock. 

It wasn’t until some years later that he met a Hindu monk, Brahmachari, who sparked his interest in religious life, but instead of pointing Thomas to Hinduism, he pointed him back to his own religious roots, Christianity, and told him to start there.  Merton eventually became a Trappist monk at the Abbey of Gethsemane in Indiana. His books on contemplative prayer and his life journey are considered Christian classics.  His groundbreaking work in interfaith dialogue with Buddhists, like Thich Nhat Hanh, helped Christians everywhere better understand our scriptures and traditions through the lens of what others have to offer. 

My reason for briefly sharing their stories is that we don’t know what wonders God will perform through those baptized into Christ or where their journey will lead them and us.  Both Darwin and Merton encountered experiences that drew out a faith that shattered previous held beliefs for them and for us.  Both demonstrated what I would call the integrity of faith by embracing their experiences, learning from them, and sharing the knowledge garnered from them with the world.

BAPTISM

In the ritual of baptism we witness a symbolic reorientation to one’s original state of grace – the death of a prejudicial worldview that only sees sin and a sinner; a presentation of the clean slate that every newborn and every reborn represents.  Baptism is a symbolic reset of creation to the goodness that it is.  This is Christ’s mission in the world; a mission we share.  In that reset, we honor the creative Spirit of God that each of us has been proportioned; the inquiring and discerning heart that in its individuality is uniquely in sync with the mind of Christ and the will of God in ways that stretch the imagination.  

I have come to see baptism as something that should change how we see the person being baptized; a wiping away of our prejudicial biases; to look at the recipient of this ritual sacrament as a grace filled child of God who is set on a journey of inquiry and discernment, no matter what their age or the circumstances they come from.  We need to remember that regardless of where that journey leads them, we have pledged them our support.   In this baptismal prayer, the path to knowing and loving God in the joy and wonder of creation is opened in ways for the baptized that we cannot see or understand at the time.

DISCERNING THE WAY FORWARD

This prayer also reminds me of the journey this congregation is currently on. We are all headed towards something; an ending that is likely a beginning whether we like it or know what that means and nothing brings this to the forefront of a congregation’s awareness than when it loses a pastor and is faced with searching for someone to shepherd its flock.

Now is the time for using our inquiring and discerning hearts. 

Now is the time to find the courage to will and persevere.

Discernment is a unique process that asks us to listen deeply to the heart of this congregation in order to find the mind of Christ in our journey forward.   Anyone who has experienced a discernment process for ministry knows that it is not so much about exercising one’s will as it is about letting go of it and letting God lead the way forward.

Thomas Merton wrote what is probably one of the best personal prayers regarding discerning the way forward which I am paraphrasing for our collective use:

OUR LORD GOD, We have no idea where we are going. We do not see the road ahead of us. We cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do we really know ourselves, and the fact that we think that we are following your will does not mean that we are actually doing so. But we believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And we hope we have that desire in all that we are doing. We hope that we will never do anything apart from that desire. And we know that if we do this you will lead us by the right road though we may know nothing about it. Therefore, will we trust you always though we may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. We will not fear, for you are ever with us, and you will never leave us to face our perils alone.[3]

Amen.

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[1] “The Book of Common Prayer,”  The Church Hymnal Corporation, New York, 1979, pg. 308

[2] Richard Hooker in “Laws of Ecclesial Polity.”

[3] Thomas Merton, (paraphrased) see original version From “Through the Year with Thomas Merton”  

LEX ORANDI, LEX CREDENDI - THE OPEN HEART

This homily was delivered at Christ Episcopal Church in Yankton, South Dakota on January 7, 2018, the First Sunday after Epiphany.

Lex orandi, lex credendi is a Latin phrase that comes to us from a little known fifth century theologian, Prosper of Aquitaine.  The literal translation of this phrase is “The law of prayer (is) the law of belief,” or “What we pray reflects what we hold true in our hearts.” Lex orandi, lex credendi is part of our Christian and Anglican heritage. 

During this interim period, while we are searching for a rector, I would like to share some reflections on this heritage by taking a closer look at the prayers we use and probing some of the  nooks and crannies, maybe even a rubric or two, found in the Book of Common Prayer that tell us something about ourselves.

Our Book of Common Prayer identifies churches of the Episcopal Church, first and foremost, as places of Prayer and Praise. We take seriously what Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew (quoting the prophet Isaiah), “My house shall be called a House of Prayer.”[1]  

Prayer shapes us and how we see and interact with the world we live in. What we say also says something of who we are. Corporate prayer is a shared intercommunicative process that presents us as a unit in an intentional act of communing with God. In other words, coming together in a service like Morning Prayer or Holy Communions adds a deeper dimension to communing with God, as doing so involves communing with one another as the body of Christ. 

Corporate prayer and worship enacts what Jesus said is the greatest commandment: “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind’ and the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” [2] Our coming together to worship and pray is a visible sign and symbol of such love in the world.  This is perhaps the most important gift our small congregation offers our community and those seeking to better know the God who knows us better than ourselves – the unifying love of God in Christ

In our increasingly polarized world where we can find ourselves divided on so many levels, it is in our common prayers that we find common ground and common purpose. Our prayers cross boundaries and collect us into a unified voice regardless of any apparent differences that exist. It is in the prayers that have be said by Christians throughout the ages that give us the assurance that differences can be set aside in the face of the mutual needs and  in expressing gratitude  for the grace of God that sustains us in faith. 

The prayers in our prayer book are made up of canticles, collects, confessions, litanies, prayers of the people, sacramental prayers, suffrages, thanksgivings, and much more. All the prayers are highly crafted and present an economic use of words; saying a great deal in a few short statements. 

One of the advantages to the prayers in our prayer book is that they can be said with great intention. You can study them, meditate on them, and think them through before saying them.  Taking a few brief moments before the start of the service to look at the Collect for the Day and the other prayers allows one to say those prayers from the depth of one’s heart and with the totality of one’s mind and soul.

Prayer is also a kenotic act – an act of emptying ourselves – of letting go and letting God.  Anyone who has been involved in Centering Prayer or any form of contemplative prayer has experienced this practice of mindfully letting go and letting God.  In corporate worship, the use of liturgical prayer is likewise intended help us let go of the smaller self, the ego, in order to engage the large self, the Body of Christ.

So I want to start this series by briefly examining the familiar kenotic prayer said at the beginning of every Holy Eucharist service, a prayer we should be familiar with: 

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid:  Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name; through Christ our Lord.  Amen[3]

This prayer is all about the heart, the core of our being.  And by core of our being, I mean that the heart is where our God- image dwells – the essence of that being in which we move, live, and have our being.[4] So it should not come as any surprise that our hearts are open to God; that God knows our desires better than we can express them, that there is nothing to hide from God and nothing that can be hid from God.  

Although God is addressed as Almighty, we know that God is mightily in love with us – loves us deeper than we can love ourselves. In this prayer, we acknowledge God as intimately knowing us beyond the limited perception of our minds. There is no need to fear God knowing our desires and secrets. Rather, we should feel a sense of comfort in knowing that we don’t have a need for pretense or trying to find the right words to express what it is we desire when seeking God’s help.  

This prayer then asks that our hearts be cleansed- emptied of the bothersome clutter of our thoughts – the anxieties, the emotional baggage, the fear, the hatred and the wrong-minded desires and have them be replaced with the breath of our origin – the inspiration of the Holy Spirit – the purity of our original being. In that perfection – the perfection of God’s image – we can love God as our true parent, and in that love, encounter a love for all, that Love which words alone cannot express. 

We end this prayer, as we end most collects as the collective body of Christ, whose name we bear as our own – the name of Christ who claims us as his own. 

This is why we come to this place.  This is why we worship:

To empty ourselves of all that is selfish and small minded; 

To find our true made-in-the-image of God selves, to reclaim and proclaim our original state of grace, to be renewed by God’s life-giving Spirit;

To commune with our larger self, the Body of Christ;

To love God perfectly, if only for a moment;

And this is why we keep coming:

Because once we walk out of these doors, we will encounter a world that is alluring, deceptive, and imperfect; in short, a world of our making that needs much forgiveness, much healing, and much love. 

And if during this next week we are inspired by this brief moment to bring about such forgiveness, healing, and love for just one person; if we garner in these brief moments of prayerful worship enough personal integrity and faith to kenotically dispense the grace offered us here to others, the world will be a better place.

Amen.

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Until next time, stay faithful.

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[1] See Isaiah 56:7 and Matthew 21:13

[2] Matthew 22: 37 - 39

[3] “The Book of common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church together with the Psalter or Psalms of David”  according to use of The Episcopal Church, The Church Hymnal Corporation, New York, 1979, page 355.

[4] Acts 17:28

PRAYER - LEX ORANDI, LEX CREDENDI

This post marks the beginning of a series of posts on prayer.  The small Episcopal church I attend is in the process of searching for a new priest as our former priest has retired.  As a result, the laity of our church has had to take on the role of conducting worship services in the form of Morning Prayer, a particularly familiar service to those in the Anglican Communion.

As my church's organist, I usually don't officiate, but I frequently give the homily during Morning Prayer.  During this interim period between priests I am working on a series of homilies based on the prayers found in The Book of Common Prayer.  I have named the series, "Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi" after the phrase coined by Prosper of Aquitaine, a disciple of Augustine of Hippo in the fifth century. I will be sharing these homilies or portions of them in this series. Before doing so, however, I would like to explore the topic of prayer and the manner in which I am using Prosper's phrase.

WHAT IS PRAYER?

Prayer is defined in many ways:  a conversation with a divine or spiritual other, contemplation, intercession, meditation, supplication, worship to name a few.  Prayer is many things to many people. To define prayer, I am compelled to speak of it from a personal perspective in order to talk about it in a broader context.

FOXHOLES

What jumped into my mind as I began thinking about prayer is the saying,  "There are no atheists in a foxhole."   While the veracity of that saying is questionable, what brings this admittedly odd thought to my mind is that the foxhole represents the isolation that we humans face if left to fend for ourselves. Such a situation calls to mind the Impulse of Religion, the need of each other or the need of an other as a means of coping with an unembellished reality and the frailty of existence which we mostly go about ignoring until we find ourselves in one of life's foxholes.

Of course most people don't need a foxhole to bring them to prayer. The dramatic image of the foxhole, however, underscores the influence that human experience has on our attempts to reach beyond ourselves in order to appeal to and access a power beyond our collective and personal capabilities.  Prayer projects one to the position of a observer of a condition that is either personal or involving others or both.  All prayer has this projecting, observational quality.

To carry this analogy a bit further, the foxhole experience for the person on side A is like or likely to be a similar experience as the person on side B is having.  They may be considered enemies, but they are entangled by virtue of their mutual situations that has placed them in such a miserable sympathetic position.  Each understands the other's sense of deadly responsibility, misery, loneliness, vulnerability and desire for an end to being in a foxhole.  Over time and if in close proximity, their conditional mutuality can lead to a conversant camaraderie, even if for brief periodic moments, as was noted in accounts of those stuck in foxholes and the trenches of World War I.

ENTANGLEMENT

Entanglement is a term associated with Quantum Physics in which particles interact with each other even if divided by great distances so that if one particle reacts to a stimulus the other also reacts even though it wasn't subjected to a stimulus.  That's as far as I will delve into  quantum physics, but entanglement phenomena would appear to have relevance in the macro world we live in.  If this phenomena exists on a micro level, does it not carry over and exist on a macro/human level?  Science has yet to explain why two particles theoretically separated by light years will react simultaneously if only one particle is being stimulated.  What is their connection?

I believe prayer intuitively expresses this mysterious phenomenon in the form of a person being affected in some reciprocal manner by reaching out to one another by appeal or prayer.  One can call this reciprocal reaching out intentionality.  Naturally, this raises the question of  whether prayer is effective.

It is to those who experience it as such and that's as far I can go regarding its effectiveness.

There is no scientific proof that prayer is effective, but then again, there is no empirical answer to the question why particles at the quantum level react when separated by great distances at the same time or the ultimate why of me or the why of you; or the ultimate why I am sitting at my computer writing this post or why you are reading it at this particular time on the other side of the globe, and so it goes on and on.  The simple, unexplainable inference is that we are interconnected in various ways and at various levels with each other and the entire cosmos.

A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE

As a Christian, I have come to see prayer as an intimate experience that oddly is not so much projected out into the macrocosm as it is projected into the microcosm of my own being.  I have come to appreciate that at the core of my being lies a repository of human experience embedded in my made-in-the-image-of God-self that I share with others .  I believe this is true for all humans and for all creation. In other words, connecting with my own microcosmic (personal) experiences ultimately puts me in connection to that Being in which we all live and move and have our being.

This is not always how I understood prayer.  For most of my life, prayer was something I projected out and "up" to an imaginary realm of God and an imaginary image of what I thought God must be.  I say imaginary because that was the only way I could visualize who God is and where God resides. I have since moved away from such imaginary visualizations and pay more attention to what I feel.

Today, prayer for me is personally directed to the seat of my feelings, the heart which I will talk about further along in these posts. For me, God is not only out there and all about but is both intimate and imminent - a heartbeat away and as near as my own breath.

I find that prayer deepens me as I get older.  I find myself easily conversant with the God-particle of my being.  I think this is because I have come to experience many things and I am now at an age and in a position to examine the value of those experiences as the transfiguring moments they were which have brought about a deeper understanding and appreciation of the life I am part of. Prayer comes quickly and is done quickly.  I'm a minimalist when it comes to prayer, perhaps that is because I am influenced by my Episcopalian affiliation. 

I belong to the prayer group in my church.  When there is a request for prayer, the information is about as sparse as it can be unless the person making the request wants to forward specific information about a need, but for the most part the only information the members of this group receives is a first name and request for comfort, guidance, healing, peace, and God's presence. 

That's it, and that's all we need.  We don't need specifics.  I don't need to know who the person is in any detail beyond being a person; an individual made in the image of God like myself. All I need is a name, and a request for prayer.  After all the named person shares this life with me and whatever her or his need is I have only to delve into my inner experiences with doubt, suffering, anxiety, the will to carry on experienced in faith, the longing for resolution experienced in hope, and the type of pain experienced in deep love will fill in the blanks; for these feelings are ever-present in a request for prayer.  And in no time at all, I am finding myself one with that person and the person's loved ones which leads me to breathe a word of prayer for all concerned.

CORPORATE PRAYER

What about corporate prayer?

As an Episcopalian and part of the broader Anglican Communion, I am very fond of the Book of Common Prayer.  It's prayers; particularly, its collects are well-crafted, saying a great deal in a few short statements.  The prayer book is, itself, a study in prayer and its very forms.

Prayers in the Book of Common Prayer are brought to the level of a fine art. If you want to know what we Episcopalians believe and how we see the world; how we understand God, how we relate to Christ Jesus, read our prayers.  What I find intriguing in corporate prayer and especially in the well-crafted prayers found in liturgical services known as collects, litanies, suffrages, and other prayers of intercession and thanksgiving is that they shape the perspective of the person who prays them.

Formal prayer is not everyone's cup of tea.  The notion of spontaneous prayer has been promoted by some as being more heartfelt and more directed in its intentionality to a specific need of a person or congregational concern.  Let me be clear that I do not object to spontaneous prayer, but I would point out that such prayers seem, at least to me, to have a form and prescribed manner that identifies them as being spontaneous which in turn, permits one to readily identify the person's denominational affiliation.

Formal prayer runs the risk of being said with little or no thought, but for those of us who use them regularly, we know when they're missing or a word is changed, which is to say that these prayers become part of who we are which brings me to Prosper's statement. 

LEX ORANDI, LEX CREDENDI

The law of prayer (is) the law of belief. 

Where was Prosper of Aquitaine when the Council of Nicea met? 

He was on to something that the council could have used; that prayer and our beliefs are enmeshed.  Lex orandi, lex credendi is a bit ambiguous.  What Prosper was getting at is that how we pray (and he gives prayer a broad definition that includes liturgical worship) shapes what we believe.  Being equivalent statements, however, permits one to reverse the order and conclude that what we believe shapes our prayers and the way we Christians worship.

BELIEVE AND FAITH

As most of my readers are aware of by now, I am cautious when it comes to using words like belief and believes in my theological musings, but one cannot escape its relevance in Western Christianity and Western thought.   To recap my cautious approach to using belief-language in theological discussion is that it skews the meaning of faith-language (trusting without knowing) found in the original Greek texts of the New Testament where faith is used as a verb, which then became translated in Germanic and Latin languages as believe. In its Greek verb form, faith is not synonymous with believe.

Having said that, believe has become the predominant term used to express the active form of faith in Western thought. It was obviously used in Western Christianity by Proper's time in the fifth century.  What is important to understand is that the reason for the odd correlation between believe and acting in faith is the connection both terms have with the heart. Believe is Germanic in origin and is etiologicaly connected to beloved,as something loved in the heart.  Credo or credendi is also etiologicaly connected to cor, the Latin word for heart. Faith as trust is also more a matter of the heart than of the head. The problem is that the terms believe and belief  have evolved in Western thought to become matters of the mind rather than the heart. 

A MATTER OF THE HEART

Lex orandi, lex credendi is best understood as a matter of the heart. The equivalency of these two terms allows for a circular interplay between them.  What brings us to prayer are our deepest, heartfelt needs that engage the affective elements of life in Christ described by Paul: faith, hope, and love.  When cognitively engaged, these elements bring us to God in the form of prayer where heart and mind meld intentionally.   As such, prayer becomes the deepest expression of faith. Prayer is the most personal form of creed. Ultimately, prayer shapes one from the heart up.

COLLECTED

The same principles mentioned above are involved in corporate prayer.  The term Collect is used to describe a prayer in liturgical worship that is a collection of short petitions intended to be said in a collective setting such as a congregation. One of the subtle and most important aspects of these ancient and thought-through liturgical prayers is that they break down the ideological  barriers that separate us.  They collect us as one heart, one mind, and direct our collective attention and intention in common purpose.  They have been said for centuries and remain relevant in every age they are said and that is why I find them so meaningful and important in this age.

This coming together in prayer is demonstrated in the Episcopal Churches I know and in most liturgically-based denominations.  The Episcopal Church was once noted as being "The Republicans at Prayer."  That is no longer the case. 

The Episcopal Church in the U.S. is very diverse today and in those brief and treasured moments of worship an interesting phenomenon occurs.  No matter what our political, social, economic, or even our religious views are we become collected as a family of faith directing our intentions in common purpose as expressed in our ancient, traditional prayers, and that is a beautiful thing to behold and be part of.

Prayers that are thoughtfully written serve as a catechism on life, a life grounded in source of our being, God, and for Christians, grounded in the experience of Christ Jesus.  Ultimately, such prayers, as do all prayers, finds their effectiveness in shaping who we are as individuals and collectively as a world.

Until next time, stay faithful.

KEEPING FAITH IN GOVERNMENT - Standing with the students of Douglas Stoneman High School

The students from Douglas Stoneman High School in Parkland, Florida are an inspiration to all U.S. citizens and to all who care about the liberties defined by our nation's Constitution.  After the devastation experienced at Sandy Hook Elementary School  in Newtown Connecticut, I had drafted a letter that I didn't send because I thought two things:

First, that it was pointless to send it to my state's congressional delegation because it would fall on deaf ears.

Second, I was convinced that given the horrendous impact that event had on this nation, something surely would be done.  I was wrong on both accounts.

I have kicked myself for not sending that letter ever since, not because I believe my letter would have changed the minds of the congressional leaders of my state, but because in not saying something I was doing nothing and caving to a sense of hopelessness that can become pervasive if not checked.

What has checked my sense of hopelessness is the courage demonstrated by a group of high school students directly impacted by the horror of seeing their classmates gunned down.  What has given me hope in their generation is that when others attempted to vilify the shooter as "crazy" or a "monster," some reacted with anger and shock at the use of such language being applied to another human being. 

What has given me faith and has given me hope in and for our nation is the students of Douglas Stoneman High School who have taken up the issue of gun violence in the public space in a way that is not only poignant but influential and powerful.  Their appeals to their own state legislature and to the governing entities of our nation is truly inspiring.  More importantly, their ability to listen to those opposing gun regulation and reason without anger or vitriol demonstrates a level of maturity that often is lacking in the halls of government. 

This time I cannot sit back and say nothing while these courageous students take up a cause they shouldn't have had to.  So I am compelled by conscience to stand with them, and to that end I have sent the following letter my state's congressional delegation in Washing D.C.:

* * * * * * * * * * *  

Dear Representative Noem, Senator Rounds, and Senator Thune

In January 2013 I started to write a letter to our state’s congressional delegation after the devastating shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  I never sent that letter because I felt that surely something would be done to protect the public from a lone shooter with an automatic gun.  Nothing was done.

Since that time there have been multiple incidents of mass shootings:  of congregants having a Bible study at church in North Carolina, of patrons of night club in Orlando Florida, of an audience at an open air concert in Los Vegas, to name a few.  Here we are, five years Sandy Hook, talking about another school shooting, this time in Parkland Florida at the Douglas Stoneman High School. 

Each time something like this occurs, I go back to our nation’s Constitution and wonder why its Preamble receives such little attention in the debate about gun regulation.  

“We, the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessing of Liberty to ourselves and our Prosperity, do ordain and establish the CONSTITUTION for the United States of America.”

The Preamble to the Constitution is the one part of the Constitution that is sacrosanct and unamendable; that should it change the Constitution would be void.  Every other part of the Constitution is contextual both in its history and in its applicability, including the amendments known as the Bill of Rights.  As such, the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights is also contextual both in its history and applicability.  Unlike the Preamble, the Second Amendment is not sacrosanct nor is it unamendable.  

If the Second Amendment is to be protected, it must answer to the context of the age in which it is being applied.  Congressional failure to address gun violence and regulate the proliferation and sale of military-grade guns such as the AR-15 to our nation’s civilian population is a failure of constitutional proportions. 

That Congress has done nothing to stem the sale of military-grade guns serves only to undermine the purpose of the Constitution stated in its Preamble.  As such, Congress appears negligent in establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and in securing the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our prosperity.

When this nation lacked a standing military force and adequate law enforcement entities in the late eighteenth century, Congress relied on the local citizenry to establish justice and insure domestic tranquility as mandated by the Constitution because it did not have the means to do so nationwide.  At that time, Congress acted responsibly in ratifying the Second Amendment.  A historical fact relevant to our time is that the Second Amendment was written at a time when guns were single-load weapons.

Today, we have a standing military, established law enforcement agencies, and military-grade automatic guns designed to cause massive casualties being legally marketed and sold to our civilian population with very little legal oversight. We also have a civilian population periodically targeted by individuals to whom these guns are being sold to.  The type of guns being sold and the unlimited amount of guns that can be legally owned by an individual is, in itself, a dramatic contextual shift from the time in which the Second Amendment was ratified.

When the Second Amendment was drafted, gun ownership was a necessity in providing for a well-regulated militia.  That context has change, and Congress must, for the sake of our constitutionally ordained liberties recognize the glaring fact staring our nation in the face:  It is easier to regulate things than it is to regulate people; in particular, the individual armed with an automatic gun.  This fact, so readily dismissed by many in Congress has been well established by other liberty-loving, democratic nations who have strict gun laws which have greatly reduced gun violence in those nations. 

Our mental health system certainly requires help, but improvements in mental health alone will not prevent an undetected psychopath armed with such a weapon who is intelligent and has no regard for his or her own life or that of anyone else; who if faced with the prospect of being killed will likely take out as many people possible, as was notably demonstrated in the case of the Los Vegas shooter.

What Congress can immediately do to curb gun violence is to regulate guns, a creation we humans made and something we can control.  Guns, per se, are not protected by the Second Amendment.  The Second Amendment is there to protect the basis upon which the Constitution was written, its Preamble.  In today’s context, such protection extends to the regulation of military-grade guns being sold to civilians.  

The ignored reality is that the legal sale and proliferation of military-grade guns has resulted in allowing individuals to act as militias unto themselves, vigilantes who take it upon themselves to right the wrongs they perceive others have done to them.  Any person who commits such horrendous acts will be likely diagnosed after the fact as having some form of mental health disorder that went undetected or untreated.

Perhaps the broader mental health question applicable today is why any civilian would own such a gun as an AR-15; much less numerous guns of that type.   Is it because they are led to believe that our government is the enemy or could become the enemy as some militant groups do – a sign of paranoia?  Is it the thrill of watching things being decimated for the sake of recreation as some claim – a sign of underlying insecurity and/or an expression of delusional fantasy?   Is it because Congress does nothing but tell the People of the United States that we must fend for ourselves (as in arming public school teachers) because it lacks the will to regulate a thing made by humans to cause massive casualties?

I respectfully ask you to act and end gun violence by fulfilling the mandate of our Constitution’s Preamble in this age by regulating the sale and proliferation of military-grade guns to civilians.  I am confident that the force of law will prove more effective in protecting our public spaces from gun violence than relying on the use of force by civilians armed with automatic weapons to do so. 

Sincerely,

Norman Wright

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Until next time, stay faithful.

ART AND THE MYSTIC PERSPECTIVE



When I talk of art, I am talking about the things we humans do to express who we are and what we're about; that gives us a sense of identity. I could (and perhaps should) talk about art in terms of the arts; the art of movement, architecture, fashion,  cooking,  drama, writing, sculpture, painting, plumbing, farming, multimedia, music, woodworking, and so on.

Art is pervasive.

Art is anything and in everything we humans do that involves creativity; from the person who puts initials in the newly poured cement of a sidewalk to a grandchild who makes grandma's cake recipe for a family celebration.

One might ask what do such mundane experiences have to do with mysticism?

Mysticism involves recognizing the markers that remind us who we are, what we're connected to, and where we are on the path toward a greater realization of being, what I have referred to as Paradise Regained in past posts.  These markers are echoed in the products we humans create.

LESSONS IN LEFSE

My wife's grandmother, Grandma T. was Norwegian and made a lot of lefse around Christmas.  My wife was not a fan, but I became one.  Grandma T. came from humble Norwegian stock - farmers and homesteaders in South Dakota.  They lived simply.  Her lefse captures the essence of that simplicity.  She didn't have any fancy devices to make it, no specific lefse roller.  It was all made by hand, rolled out by hand, and baked on a cast iron griddle.  People in the area loved her lefse.  I love her lefse.  It has its own flavor and texture.   She made no secret of it and gladly taught people how to make it. 

She taught me, and that was an experience in  itself.  Everything done by touch, taste, sight and smell.  "You boil your potatoes and wait until they're this temperature,"  thrusting my hand in to a pot of drained boiled potatoes, "and then you add about this much lard and mash it all together.  Then you add about this much flour, and knead it until it feels like this. Then you roll out like so and put it on the griddle and wait till it starts to bubble and brown a little and smell like this." 

Touch, sight, smell, and eventually taste.

People on my wife's side of the family and in the area Grandma T.  lived use her simple recipe to this day.  I've had other types of lefse and none of them come close to what Grandma T. made.  If I want it, I have to make it.  I have her cast iron griddle and pans - prized possessions.  You can't taste lefse made from her recipe without calling her and her life stories to mind.

Her lefse is not about perfection, it's about experience.  There is no consistent outcome in making Grandma T.'s lefse.  Each piece is an individual creation in itself; each piece a playful experience awaiting one's creative way of enjoying it.   Each piece a work of art.

Mysticism is experiencing a greater sense of  what I call Self.  I'm not a blood relative of Grandma T.. Apart from the relationship I share with her as my wife's grandmother, we are part of the same Self that all humans, all created things, are. All of us are discrete aspects of that same Self, that myriad of individual creations expressing a universal Being, the Self we emerged from and are merging with.  We are works of art for the moment at least, just like Grandma T.'s lefse.  As individual aspects of the Self we emerged from, we interact with other aspects such as my interactions with Grandma T..  This broad interactive and mystic perspective of life is embedded in all forms of human art.

CREATED THINGS

It is unfortunate that the term creation has been hijacked in the mindless debate over evolution by "creationists" who insist on their literal understanding of how everything came into being.  I'm not going to spend time on that debate but rather attempt to reclaim the concept of creation as it applies to art.

Essentially art is using a material or the function of material things in way to create something "more" than the mere sum of its individual parts and their functions.  Creativity begins in the imagination, the sense of things before being realized.  More often than not, the sense of things evolve as they take shape. The imagination is never far from the completed work. One could say that imagination is embedded in each work of art and is what connects the work of art to the person experiencing it.

The mystic perspective is connected to this imaginative property experienced in art.  There is always a  part of the creator residing in the creation, and that is not all.  Works of art take on a life of their own;  inspiring interpretation and other creations.  Once a painting is framed, a sculpture put on a pedestal, a musical score completed, a playwright's  script published, a piece of lefse put on a plate, it is freed to be interpreted, free to inspire the creative imagination of others.

Once you experience a Rembrandt, a Rothko,  a Van Gogh, a Vermeer; once you experience a Michelangelo, a Rodin, or a Calder; once you experience Bach, Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole, The Beatles, or Eminem; once you experience a play by Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Arthur Miller; once you experience Grandma T.'s lefse, you know something of the artist and are open to inspiration.

Paradoxically, the individualism expressed in art has a unifying effect on those experiencing it. 

Art congregates. 

Museums, concert halls, restaurants, or a family dinning table ; anyplace that uses art in any form to draw people attests to art's congregating properties.

PAUSE

Art replicates the human experience.  Go to any museum, whether it be a fine art, a historical, or  scientific museum and what they all have common is a series of still lifes that portray the human journey.  Go to any theater, concert hall; any venue where art is being performed and one can be drawn into a unitive (shared) experience of the human journey. What all of these places have in common is that the experience of them is more than the art or more than the performance, it is also about the experience the audience, the spectators standing or sitting in silence have in a shared, unitive moment of mutual observation on what it is to be human.

A Starry Night

When we are visiting our youngest daughter in New York City, I like visiting one of their many museums. My favorite is the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).  There is one painting in MoMA that consistently has a small crowd gathered around it, Van Gogh's Starry Night.  I love that painting as do millions, and it is always a thrill to stand in front of it to see it "live." 

I am always impressed by the small crowd, pressed together, trying to share the same view.  There is a sense of hushed reverence.  Spectators become silent in its presence.  In essence, it is a religious experience.  The only thing that seems to missing is candles and incense to underscore it.  The painting is the draw, and it speaks to us of the wonder of the universe in which we live.  The experience is in standing with people from around the world in a shared, unitive moment of deep respect for a human creation and the human who created it. Van Gogh remains present in the painting's colors and swirls of the sculpted oil he created.

One thing that can be missed on a first visit is the fact that Van Gogh didn't fully cover the canvas with the painting.  There is a space on the left and right side of the canvas that is untouched by paint.  One might be tempted to say he didn't finish the painting but he did, and the thin uneven patches of raw canvas peeking out at the painting's edge sends its own message (at least to me), "There is more." 

The blank patches give the painting a sense a linearity (probably unintended); that the scene Van Gogh painted is a moment squeezed between a before moment and an after moment; that we are transfixed by the moment he portrays and what a moment it is.  What Van Gogh captures is the essence of Pause as I have been using it in these posts on mysticism; those moments between moments that lead to transfiguration.

Pause is not only expressed in the visual arts, but all of the arts.  The noted rest in music, the prolonged pose in dance, the dramatic or comedic pause by an actor in the performance of her line are done to bring the audience to a transfiguring moment  frequently defined as resolution.

TRANSFIGURATION

One of the best artistic examples I can personally think of that demonstrates an artistic resolution of pause into transfiguration is a performance by Simon Johnson on the grand organ at  St.Paul's Cathedral in London, England.  I consider the cathedral Christopher Wren built and the pipe organ that has been installed  and added on to over the centuries to be one instrument. The resonance of the domed cathedral is unique in its ability to capture and hold onto sound whether vocal or instrumental.

While visiting the Cathedral with my family in 2011, I purchased a recording of Simon Johnson playing the organ which included William Strickland's  arrangement of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings.  Barber's Adagio  has been adapted from its original string composition to arrangements for voice, organ, and piano.  The Adagio exemplifies the transition from Pause to Transfiguration.  It lyrically builds upon a slow, soft, melodic theme framed by various notational contexts (variations) that from a mystic perspective express the unitive force finding expression in individual moments, the variations of a common theme played out in various contexts of life.

My favorite way of listening to Simon Johnson's performance of  Barber's piece at St. Paul's is to sit in candle light or dim lighting with my headphones on to keep away any distractions.  In fact, I prefer to listen to all musical performances from a recording rather than live performances for the same reason.  I find audiences distracting during musical performances.  It's not the audience.  It's a me-thing.  I'm easily distracted by people. Church services being an exception; in part, because my focus is on other things. 

Mr. Johnson brilliantly plays the cathedral as much as he plays the organ.  He utilizes its unique reverberation and the organ's tonality to maximize the impact of Barber's Adagio on the listener.  As the piece reaches its pinnacle point of the prolonged crescendo, I visualize the dome of the cathedral as an inverted cup filling up with sound - sound that overflows the rim of the dome and pours out into the transepts and into the nave until he stops feeding it.  When his hands and feet leave the keyboard and pedalboard, the sound lingers for few seconds as it naturally decays and decrescedos into the silence of the cathedral which he allows to settle in (pause) to give the piece the dramatic effect it deserves, and then the theme quietly begins as it started and continues to an elongated, hushed ending that hints at its continuation in another realm.

Transfiguration is about merger; the end point we are all headed for, the singularity from which it all began, from which we and everything before and after emerges. This transfigurative property is found in artistic expressions.  Transfiguration results in seeing things differently, hearing things differently, and feeling things differently.  Transfiguration is seeing the bigger picture of our unitive existence through a perspective that can be experienced and expressed only through a work of creativity.

The Transfiguration Story Revisited

To illustrate what I've just said and to connect the dots to what I've written in my posts on the mystic journey, allow me to revisit the work of art that started me on this venture into mysticism, the story of Jesus's Transfiguration.


When Jesus was on the mountain top with his disciples Peter, James and John, Jesus began to glow and there appeared in that glow along with him, Moses and Elijah.   Then a cloud covers all six of them and the voice of God says, "This is my beloved Son, listen to him."  


At that very isolated moment, which beloved son was God referring to?  Moses, Elijah, or Jesus?  Each, in their own linear moment, could have been referred to as such.  Each in their own time demanded attention.  

Theologically speaking, there are answers to why God meant Jesus, but at the moment I'm not going to consider them because there appears to be mystical perspective offered in the story that transcends mere theological speculation; a perspective hinted in the  artistry of the story's presentation.  This story is all about sight, sound, and feeling, the tools of art used to bring one to a greater sense of being.  It is about being transfixed by and in a momentary experience shared by others.

What the story utilizes is something that Christians largely treat with suspicion, numerology as symbolism.  Numbers have been given meanings through the ages beyond their mere arithmetic functions. The New Testament uses numbers in a symbolic fashion. 

Three disciples and three personages of the term "Son;" three observers and three conversers.  Six in all; the number representing  making of man by God in God's image.  The number six is also used to represents chaos or confusion as reflected in Peter's response. 

Then there is the cloud - bright in one version, hinted at being dark in others - a dramatic  (one could say abstract) pause between one moment and another - a moment of wilderness before transfiguration brings us back to a new perspective of the person left standing on the mountain, Jesus.

 Jesus in this story is portrayed as the unitive Son of God - the Son or Child of God in whom all God's Children are present.  That's the art of this story (and the art of theology at its finest).

The mystic perspective always brings us back to the present in a new transfigured light after shedding light on the moment captured by an artist. It is the new light of transfiguration that moves one forward on the mystic journey we are all on. 

Art makes us pause.  Art transfigurates. 

Art expresses the unitive force that is keeping the universe together; the force that is heard in Barber's Adagio, the force that is seen in Van Gogh's Starry Night, and the force that is tasted in Grandma T.'s lefse.

Until next time, stay faithful.