WORSHIP IS A LOT LIKE COMMUNITY FARMING

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In my last post, I ended the questions “what is worship?” and “who is it for?”

Well, worship is a lot like community farming.  You come together and grow as a group. You have your own individual patch of ground, but what you are cultivating is part of the greater whole.  There is a sense of purpose that is larger, loftier, spiritually speaking, than the albeit satisfying task of raising your own vegetable garden. Both are good, but they are very different. They both feed you, but community farming includes, the community!

Week after week, sowing seeds, tending to the fragile shoots, rooting out weeds in tandem.  As in worship, you develop a kinship with one another over time, in the shared weekly rituals. You are joining forces to rejoice in creation, the Creator, to create.  It doesn’t happen overnight and takes patience. Much of it happens in the darkness of the soil you are tilling and you trust they while you are not in the control of the process; it is worthy of your time and devotion.  In worship, you are growing a soul and that can only happen in relationship.  

The etymology of worship which dates back to the 13th century, Old English.  “Wor” comes from the word worth and “ship” means to shape.  Simply put, worship means to shape worth.  In worship, people come together to affirm, ordain, and revere what they believe to be worthy.  The vast majority of houses of worship in the world (churches, synagogues, and mosques) are worshipping God. Yet while the God they are each pointing to can differ vastly, their concepts of God reflect what they consider as a community to be the most vital, important beliefs to have in life  and instruct their most dearly held values. 

There is joy in devoting yourself to the work, but it can be hard and arduous too. There are big and little sorrows that cry to be heard.  As well, it is good to talk with one another about what’s working and what’s not in your daily efforts, and whether your prayers for rain or sunshine have been answered.  You listen to a trained expert in the field, but then you have to go out and live it each day, gathering knowledge in your heart and mind but bearing the fruit of it only by lived experience.  You find rocks in the garden, stumbling blocks in your own personality, that you would have never known were there, save for the friction that digging deeper and risking the rough and tumble that goes along with being in community.    

When you are in awe of a spectacular sunset or marveling at the vast splendor of  a deep forest, you may indeed have a spiritual experience or a feeling of Unity with Creation.  But it is not worship.  Worship is an outward expression of the love and appreciation we have for the Highest Good it AND it involved a commitment on our part to frame our life around that love and appreciation. Worship may be to God, but it is for us.

A NICE GOD

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The Christian Century‘s August 10, 2010 cover story, entitled “Our God is Too Nice”, contains a survey conducted by the National Study of Youth and Religion on what today’s Christian American teenagers believe.  They created a new term to describe this loosely held set of beliefs, “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism”.  Here is a condensed version of the findings:

“1. A god exists who created and orders the world and watches over life on earth.

2. God wants people to be good, nice and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.

3. The central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about yourself.

4. God is not involved in my life except when I need God to solve a problem.

 5. Good people go to heaven when they die.”

Hmm.  Here are my thoughts (in no particular order):

Having three teenagers myself, I see their struggle between the adult rising within them, with complex ideas and  accompanying responsibilities, and their desire to revert back to simple, more comforting, childlike roles.  Teenagers are not quite a grown up, not quite a kid.   With that as a backdrop, I can see how some of these notions would fit the age.  It is reassuring to believe that someone else is in charge and that someone will take care of us (only if and when we ask them). It is certainly assuages our human fears of death and/or hell.  If we are good, if we behave, we will go to heaven.  

However, I asked my own children (19, 18, and 16) to respond to the above list of basic concepts of “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism”. My kids are typical American teenagers in many ways, but they are unusually deep and perceptive thinkers. (I know; I’m their mother, so of course I think they’re brilliant; but just indulge me). In addition, they were steeped in church life since infancy and have the privilege of being well-educated.  Here are their answers to the above 5 points:

1.  “God created the world, yes/ puts in it order, perhaps, but don’t forget about evolution’s role as well/ watches over us (hope so, but more likely is within us and around us in the world, actively participating in our joys and sorrows, not Mr. Fix it).”  One stated that “the jury is still out if there really is a God.”    

2. A resounding yes, “this is just common sense, what it means to be moral and ethical.” “Sounds overly simplistic though.”

3. A qualified no….being happy is good and feeling good about yourself is important, but they are not the central goal of life.  While none of them was sure what the central goal of life was, words like “love, service, growth, and relationships”, were included.  “Feeling good about yourself was necessary to be happy, but happiness is a byproduct, not a goal, and what about the people in Darfur and Afghanistan?” “This belief of the goal of life being personal happiness isn’t even Christian.”  “This is just our consumerist culture.”

4. “Won’t even answer this, it’s too ridiculous.  Who believes that?? It’s like a genie in a bottle.  This is the same kind of personal deity who saves some people on a plane (and that proves to them, there’s miracles) while allowing others to die, including babies (and they say that’s God’s will).”  

5. (Note: This is what they were all taught as children in the Catholic Faith).  Here are their 3 very different answers:

a.” Yes”. 

 b. “I believe good and bad people go to heaven, all our welcome, a loving God takes everyone.” (My Universal Salvationist).

c.”I don’t know if there is a heaven, I don’t believe in hell, but I’m starting to think they are both just human constructs or metaphors pointing to something else”.

The writer of The Christian Century article, Kenda Creasy Dean, is rightfully discouraged by the wave of “MTD” sweeping the churches.  It certainly does reflect how our predominant culture has infiltrated even our views about God and the role of religion in our lives.  And she is right, this milquetoast of a faith won’t stand up against the pain and suffering that besets every human life.  REAL religion, whatever it is, has to be solid enough to provide a firm foundation and clear enough to utilize in our daily lives. Superficiality and vague platitudes don’t have the substance when it’s time to just hold on.  If your faith doesn’t provide spiritual sustenance, perhaps the place to begin is to ask the questions, “What is worship?, “Who is it for?”

THOUGHTS ON THE TRINITY BY A UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN (what and huh?)

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Note: Please hold this quote from Walt Whitman while reading today’s blog: “Do I contradict myself?  Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”

Ever since my days with the nuns (the real ones, who by the way I drove crazy with my incessant questioning during Catholic catechism classes), I have struggled in vain with the dogma of the Trinity. Try as I might, my rational mind has always found it to be too much philosophy and too little of the practical.  It has been only recently that I have begun to admire its poetry, for me personally, its’ saving grace. 

The construct of the Trinity originated with a handful of  Church Fathers, around or about 345 CE.  Before that, Christians had their own local “covenant groups”as it were, which met in people’s homes or shops. Ideas about who and what Jesus was flowed freely and unencumbered.

First, let me try to explain what the meaning of the Trinity is.  It means one God in three persons. They are all coeternal with one another (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). They all have their own substances, but at the same time are consubstantial.  And oh yes, they are all one essence (and other stuff called hypostasis, which means the substance, essence, or underlying reality).

What is an essence?  You must look to the tomes of Greek philosophy for this.  Words such as substance, consubstanital, essence, all have their roots in the Greek philosophers’ discussions of ontology (the study of what it means to be, to exist).  Thank you, Aristotle… NOT! 

So I’ve decided to blame the early Christian clergy’s infatuation with Greek philosophy for introducing a tradition that I can’t find in the Old or the New Testament.  In fact, in John 20:17- Jesus refers to, “my Father and to your Father, and to my God, and to your God.”  How could Jesus say that and then add, but my Father is me and my God is me? I guess  maybe because he was in his human body and at that point had limits in his knowledge of actually being God himself?Also, Jesus was a pious, practicing Jew, which means that he was a strict monotheist.  “The Lord our God is one God.” (Deuteronomy 6:4)

A multitude of proponents point to the familiar refrain of the “unfathomable mystery” of the Trinity. I’m all for unfathomable mysteries, although life itself is already a mystery,  do we need to make it any more complex?” Yet, I quote humbly from the words of Simone Weil: “I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without being degraded.”

Nun Tuck may be a heretic, but at least one in good company.  In 1531, a scholar named Michael Servetus wrote a treatise called “De Trinitatis Errorbus” or “The Errors of the Trinity”.  He was promptly burned alive at the stake for it.  He spoke of the Oneness of God, the Unity of God.  Many Unitarians consider him to be the first Unitarian martyr. 

I wonder if it would have helped any if they had known about the popular slogan, “What would Jesus do?” before choosing to burn him alive.  It’s difficult to believe that the Jesus in the Bible would have been as intolerant. Instead, if someone disagreed with him, Jesus would have done as he advised his apostles in Luke,  “Shake the dust out of your sandals”…  forget about it (or them), and move on.

For me, being a Christian means that if I follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, I will live wholly and holy.  It’s hard work with limited success, but like those who follow Buddha or Muhammad to the best of their ability, life is more abundant.

I mentioned earlier that what moves me is the more metaphorical understanding of the Trinity; a phrase that resonates for me is “The Dance of the Trinity.” Modern poet Ruth Duck describes it beautifully:

“Holy Spirit, who moved at the beginning of creation, teach me your divine dance, that I may move with you./Through my hands, invite others to the circle of love, that we may move in rhythm together./Praise to you, Spirit, who breathes the pulse of life, through Jesus Christ, who danced among us, to the glory of God the Source, in whom we live and move and have our being.”

FOUNTAINS FOR ETERNAL YOUTH

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What is it about fountains that make people go, ahhh, or that entice little kids to run through them (clad or unclad)? You know how they make you feel happy in either a peaceful kind of way or in a ‘yippee it’s a party’ kind of way?

I’ve been thinking about this for off and on for a while now.  My posts “Place” and “Gonna Take a Sacramental Journey” back in April reflected on how certain environments and elements awaken in us a deeper connection with our spiritual self.  And just as certain religious rituals provide sustenance for the soul (my grandmother was nourished by the food of daily holy communion for years), the sight, sounds, and sometime scents of moving water always brings me back to myself. 

I hear the continual but varied splashing of water against stone and it calls to me from an open window. My simple little wheel of a  fountain blends into the landscape like a miniature grist mill’s stone. Tucked into a shady corner of rambling pink rose bushes and low-lying Vinca (the prolific green ground cover with bright purple flowers),  it is your ear that first finds it. I love to hear the sound and even from an upstairs window, I can almost feel it. And it’s not just fountains either….it’s water than moves continually and evenly uneven, rhythms as varied as our own breath. 

I recall spring and summer days as a small child where I would spend an hour in the late afternoon with nothing but a twig as my paintbrush and I would pull stones up out of the water’s bed, sit by the gurgling brook in the woods behind our house letting them dry, and then “painting them with water again” to watch the colors change.  The coolness of that busy brook emanated right up to the mossy patch from where I took my respite, sometimes for a moment so tiny I would only catch it when a breeze sent it to me.

My current front yard fountain and my old back yard brook shared similar sounds of quiet tinkling.  I am grateful for their offerings.

Then, there are the ones that are “OH, WOW”.  I have had the great blessings to have seen, felt, heard, and yes, even smelled, the many incredible ancient and modern fountains that dot all of Italy, especially Rome.  The Trevi Fountain with its awe-inspiring statues and the pool filled with coins from luck hopeful tourists is heart lifting joy.  For me, these fountains, each more beautiful than the next, was like my children on their visit to Disney World.  They ran from one exhibit to the next…”Hey, Mom, look at this!  Hey, Mom, come over here quick, look at this!”

That is exactly how I feel. Get me around fountains or bubbling brooks or the ocean or a rushing river or oh yeah, A WATERFALL (so cool, such a rush) and yet all of these simultaneously peaceful. 

So on this last day of July, for us here in New England perfect bliss, you’ll find me near the water, listening.

THE FIERCE SWORD OF COMPASSION

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Today’s post is about compassion, what it is and what it isn’t. The title for the post comes from Jack Kornfield, world renown Buddhist teacher and guide, from a book I can not recommend highly enough entitled The Wise Heart. Citing from Kornfield’s introduction of what Buddhism is and isn’t provides a helpful backdrop to the universal application of compassion. It is a principle that is a cornerstone of every life well lived, whether one adheres to a particular faith or not:

“In approaching this dialogue, I’d like to underscore a point the Dalai Lama has made repeatedly: “Buddhist teachings are not a religion, they are a science of mind.”  This does not deny the fact that for many people around the world Buddhism has also come to function as a religion.  Like most religions, it offers its followers a rich tradition of devotional practices, communal rituals, and sacred stories. But this is not the origin of Buddhism or its core.  The Buddha was a human being, not a god, and what he offered his followers were experiential teachings and practices, a revolutionary way to understand and release suffering.” 

In fact, an Italian scientist named Giacomo Rizzolatti and his colleagues discovered a class of brain cells called “mirror neurons.”  Their research showed that through our mirror neurons we actually feel the emotions, movements, and intentions of others. It is part of our social brain, “a neural circuitry that connects us.” 

Linguistically, the word compassion has its roots in Latin and Old French.  From the Latin compassionem, com (with), pati (to suffer), ion (state of, act of), it means “the act of suffering together.”  When we feel another’s sorrow:  at a friend’s husband’s funeral, with a mother whose child is undergoing chemotherapy, we often weep with them and for them. On another level, we feel the anguish also for ourselves.  We too are not immune, we all have experienced or will experience pain and death, of one kind or another.  There is much healthy connection in feeling sympathy for another’s pain.  If we have experienced similar tragedies, we may have something insightful to contribute to alleviate the suffering.  Yet, even if we have never had that experience, as humans we contain the urge and strong desire to end their suffering. Our willingness and openness to become a vehicle for healing can, in and of itself, bring comfort. 

That healthy connection means that I will stand with you in your pain and you will stand with me in mine; and we will bear it together.  We CAN bear it.  It is the opposite of fearful aversion that does not want to look, that feels like it can’t look.  This keeps us tucked away in our separateness, holding on for dear life with the delusion that such and such could never happen to me. This paradigm contains the seeds of suffering for everyone.

So what is meant then by the fierce sword of compassion? It is the “no” of compassion.  We can know and serve others, but we are not going to save the world.

 Again, Kornfield:  “Compassion is not foolish.  It doesn’t just go along with what others want so they don’t feel bad.  There is a yes in compassion, and there is also a no, said with the same courage of heart.  No to abuse, no to violence, both personal and worldwide.  The no is said not out of hate but out of unwavering care.  It is the powerful no of leaving a destructive family, the agonizing no of allowing an addict to experience the consequences of his acts.”

It is the learning to finding the harmony between holding on and letting go…in love.  May you find courage in the yes and no of your compassion.

HERE’S YOUR HAT-WHAT’S YOUR HURRY?

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There was a hit country and western song some years back with this refrain:

I’m in a hurry to get things done/Well, I rush and rush until life’s no fun/All I really gotta do is live and die/But I’m in a hurry and don’t know why

It seems the popularity of that song could have been the fact that so many people in Western culture (Americans, in particular) can relate to its message.  The “rat race”, the “to do” list, and the attending “road rage” are shared and common images in our culture.  Knowing that others are as out of sorts as we are makes us feel that we are not alone, right? 

In addition, if that’s the way it is, maybe we should just learn to grin and bear it  After all, removing ourselves from the status quo, changing, is scary and a discipline and hard work.  The truth is the “quick, get me a band-aid” balm that we all want so badly in order to continue on our own well-worn path, with its arteries of impulses and ingrained habits, creates such lasting infections of mind, body, and soul that the journey back to any semblance of wholeness becomes treacherous indeed.

We do not need a specialist to tell us that this manner of living is not healthy.  But the questions remains:  what do we do?  There remains a chasm between knowing something is out of whack and doing something about it.  For me, God bridges that ravine.  Developing a relationship with the God of my understanding has given me the wide perspective of eternity and a comfort that I am being cradled in God’s ever and ever presence.  God is the breath that I take and closer than that.  With this knowledge, I can challenge that clamor of my days with the breadth of my life.

Like all relationships, this takes commitment, time, and attention.  The fruit of blending the rushed routine of our everyday self with the person who we are, way down deep, is a kind of spiritual maturity that does not jump at every tugging.  Of course, in order to find a slower cadence in the flurry of daily activities requires us to stop at intervals throughout the day.  In my experience, without time for prayer and meditation, true inner peace cannot be sustained in any meaningful way. 

Once an ongoing sense of the Presence of God has been established in the subtleties that encompass and extend well beyond the epiphany moments of our lives, the roominess of eternity can get good and cozy in our souls.  The erratic pace kept up in averting the eyes from death, is like the proverbial ghost in the closet.  He frightens us less and less, as we come to know him more and more. 

From the lazy river of a timeless spirit, our cup overflows.  We can promote peace, bring mercy, and be comforted.  We can then wholeheartedly ask that “Thy will be done.”  As Howard Thurman states, “the will of God is native to my spirit.  It is the fundamental character of me.  It is the foundation of my mental, physical, and spiritual structure.  It is what I find when I am most myself.  It is what I find when I get down to the deepest things in me.  It is what is revealed when all the superficial things are sloughed off and I am essentially laid bare.”  Then, and only then, can Thy will be done.

“LIFE-WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU WHILE YOU’RE BUSY OUT MAKING OTHER PLANS”

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John Lennon wrote these lines for his song “Beautiful Boy”.  A bit of wit and concise wisdom, these words have been a refrain of mine for some years. They remind me that my BIG plans for the day, week, month, or year are just that…plans.  As an example, many of us have had similar experiences like this one: you’re about to go for a hike and as you walk out the door, you hear a loud banging sound coming from the washing machine. Water is seeping onto the floor.  You are not going for a hike, you are going to have either fix it yourself or call a plumber, or least get the water to stop running and then go for the hike. 

This is life. We need to be easy in our saddle for when life interrupts our agenda. The little annoyances, which are more numerous,  can be viewed as daily practice drills for developing spiritual and emotional resilience, gaining a modicum of patience, and as a way to avoid the soul’s arch-enemy, complacency.

I, for one, need to be continually reminded of this.  Generally speaking, I consider myself a good-natured, happy sort of person.  When life goes really smoothly for any length of time, my human tendency is, I want it to continue! I don’t want (notice how many times I am using I) to have to deal with unexpected unpleasantness.  Yet it is the perennial curve balls that are a part of life that polish us our edges and hopefully keep us humble and grateful.  There is always grace in  “embracing the whole catastrophe”. 

That includes the REAL (i.e. IMPORTANT) stuff too.  Not just the washing machine, the flat tire; but the sick kid, the dying parent, the divorce… the losses that take our life’s journey as we  had known it and catapult it onto another plane entirely. We are temporarily disillusioned, disoriented, and at times, disheartened.  It is these big things that can and do stop us in our tracks, seize us (for a time) from the endless being busy making other plans.  We are present in a way that only suffering and great change provides.

Now I’m not a believer that everything happens for a reason or that God saves some people in a car crash while letting others die.  I don’t want a Puritanical God who like Jonathan Edwards envisioned, “holds us like tiny spiders over an open pit.”  If there is a tally maker up in the sky counting transgressions, He/She/It has too much time on their hands.  I know that sometimes things make no sense, and that bad things happen randomly and without warning.  I believe God is our co-conspirator in grieving, in healing, and in finding creative ways to make some larger meanings in our life from ALL of our experiences.  I do.  I have witnessed it too many times to doubt it. 

It’s necessary to make plans. It’s good to be busy (as long as we also take some time to just be).  Yet it is those surprising events (in turns gleeful and terrifying), chance meetings, or tiny disasters that change us.  Take courage. If we let them, our life will grow in miraculous ways.

Some food for thought from a great little book entitled “The Right Questions” by Debbie Ford:  “Will I use this situation as a catalyst to grow and evolve or will I use it to beat myself up?”   

When someone whines, “life is just one thing after another”, I always think, yeah, right, life IS just one thing after another.  The difference in whining about it or in simple acceptance is Your REALITY.

CAN YOU DIG A HOLE TO CHINA?

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As a kid, I can recall long summer days on the beach when my brother, sister, cousins, and sometimes just random kids would spend a better part of an afternoon helping to dig a hole to China. It was largely a group effort, the attempt being short lived if you were solo.  Invariably, however, we would be shoveling madly, with our plastic jelly bean colored diggers when we would hit water.  I suppose that’s what would happen in real life, if you tried to dig to China with big fancy high-tech equipment, your hole would eventually fill up with water.

Still the concept behind digging to China (besides keeping gainfully busy on the beach) was the idea that we could create a portal to take us to another place, a foreign world.  What would they think of us when we showed up in our bathing suits and pail and shovels?  Where there children in China at that very moment digging to Cape Cod?  What would we eat?  How far do you think we have to go; how far do you think we’ve gotten? We would discuss all sorts of thoughts like these while digging.   

It’s summer. Summer is a time for the imagination to run wild.  Good ole’ Will Shakespeare knew this only too well.  He let loose a host of fairy fantasties and sultry shenanigans in A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

“The cowslips tall her pensioners be/In their gold coats spots you see/Those be rubies, fairy favours/In those freckles live their savours/I must go seek some dewdrops here/And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.”  The fairy’s description of cowslips as gentlemen who wait upon the fairy queen. 

 Whether you are revisiting the surreal world of Alice in Wonderland this summer or are, like The Beach Boys dreaming of an Endless Summer;  I, for one, second that notion.  The pulse of life, the green on the trees, the warmth of the sun, the joys of being plant or animal, all revels in the present moment during this time of long days.  We’re not waiting for summer to be over.  We’re just happy it’s here.  Anything is possible, anything can happen. 

We can plant a garden, build a castle made of sand, sit on a beach all day and read a novel, bike, swim, sail, and row….or we can simply be.  The whole of it is just like one giant prayer.  Mystic and theologican Meister Eckhart once said that if in your whole life you only said one prayer, “Thank You” that would be enough.  I’ve heard this many times.  Right now I mean it, Thank you.

“ARE YOU A RESERVOIR OR A CANAL OR A SWAMP?”

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This has been the longest time in between posts since I begin in March. I have sorely missed writing.  A high school graduation, seeing one “chick” off to China, getting a part time gig, yada yada, I am back…and inspired.

I don’t know if any of you know the wonderful African American theologian and writer, Howard Thurman, but I would encourage anyone reading this to Google him, delve into his biography, peruse a list of his works, and read one.

My favorite is Meditations of the Heart; today’s blog and blog title were inspired by it.

Thurman asserts, “The dominanat trend of a (person’s) life may take on the characteristics of a canal, reservoir or swamp.  The important accent is on the dominant trend.  There are some lives that seem ever to be channels, canals through which things flow.  They are connecting links between other people, movements, purposes.  They make the network by which all kinds of communication are possible.  They seem to be adept at relating needs to sources of help, friendlessness to friendliness. Of course, the peddler of gossip is also a canal.  If you are a canal, what kind of things do you connect?

Or are you a reservoir?  Are you a resource which may be drawn upon in times of others’ needs and your own as well?  Have you developed a method for keeping your inlet and your outlet in good working order so that the cup which you give is never empty?  As a reservoir, you are a trustee of all the gifts God has shared with you.  You know they are not your own.

Are you a swamp?  Are you always reaching for more and more, hoarding whatever comes your way as your special belongings?  If so, do you wonder why you are friendless, why the things you touch seem ever to decay?  A swamp is a place where living things often sicken and die. The water in a swamp has no outlet.  Canal, reservoir, or swamp-WHICH?”        

Great stuff: here is my reflection…at different times in my life and certainly on different days, I have been all three.  Yet clearly my life’s arc is that of a canal.  I have always had the desire to connect friends, ideas, and causes together.  It gives me great joy. As one who likes to weave a good yarn and talk to everybody, literally; I think I was born to be a canal.  Tides of gossip that have polluted the water flow from time to time have ebbed over the years.  I’ve discovered that low-esteem and fear fuel the impulse to gossip.  Feeling grateful and peaceful are protective antidotes, and my life has too much interesting and engaging pursuits to waste time and energy unneccessarily on unproductive and soul sucking pastimes (yet  I’m human….) 

The reservoirs in my life are several and are some of my greatest blessings.  Everyone absolutely needs a reservoir or two in their life that they can go to and “drink” or “wash” and be refreshed, while leaving the water still and clear and full. It’s equally important to recognize these special people as such; we often take reservoirs for granted.  They seem like they will always be there, however they too are in delicate balance with boundaries and limits.

Not too much needs to be enumerated about swamps, we all know them (some are our neighbors, family, co-workers), we may have to wade lightly on the periphery of their presence.  We can enjoy the view while being careful not to step in too deeply, lest we get mired in the muck.

I think regarding the reservoir or canal or swamp that most important thing to remember is the idea of “WHICH”.  Ultimately, we choose.

OIL ILLS HAVE NOT BEEN FOR THE PELICAN BRIEF

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This past week I was listening to a woman being interviewed on NPR.  She has been volunteering for some weeks now cleaning the thick oil off the pelicans in Louisiana.   Her voice faltered several times as she described the heartache of watching several of them die or struggle with wings to laden to lift.  I hear the weary gratitude when her scrubbing efforts with simple dish soap and water restore a number of these birds towards health.

The photos of oil slicked birds display in Technicolor detail what havoc we humans can wreak on the rest of the animal kingdom in our insatiable need for more. Even if you are the unusual “bird” who doesn’t get too emotional about animals or feel a kinship with nature, amongst the gazillion other lessons we can glean from this disaster, one is the absolute necessity to put our environment before the profits and desires of big business.

We are discovering the hard way that this paradigm of short term gain is actually putting the “people on Main Street” out of their small businesses and livelihoods that have been a family’s source of pride for generations.  We all have become accustomed to being an active consumer in a consumer society (myself included).  So, to a degree, we are all complicit in the continuing crisis.       

One of the sources of healing, that can change our thinking and shift the collective perspective is the wisdom of Celtic spirituality.  Theirs is a language that can guide us to a new or remembered perspective about the creatures (on land and sea) and the landscape we inhabit. As John O’Donohue relates in his book Anam Cara- A Book of Celtic Wisdom, we are the newcomers here: 

“The animals are more ancient than us.  They were here for millenia before humans surfaced on the earth…Animals live outside in the wind, in the waters, in the mountains, and in the clay… (They) know nothing of Freud, Jesus, Buddha, Wall Street, the Pentagon, or the Vatican.  They live the politics of human intention…The Celtic mind recognized the ancient belonging and knowing of the animal world.  The dignity, beauty, and wisdom of the animal world by any false hierarchy or human arrogance.”

Instead, Celtic spirituality was a reservoir of stories that told of the union between animals and humans.  These tales fastened us to the wild landscape, grounding ourselves as a part of the circle of life, not as apart.  

My friend Kim has a saying she often uses for when her deepest intuition guides her to make a difficult decision or leads her to a clear perspective.  She says, “I know it in my knowings.”  That’s what Celtic spirituality calls us to.  Not to heed the heated and divisive mob mentality, but to listen in stillness to a saner, less selfish approach. 

Instead of “drill baby drill”, what we have gotten is “spill baby spill”.  This too shall pass (with a heavy toll for years to come), but LET’S LEARN THE LESSON IT IS TRYING TO TEACH US.