Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, Jan 12, 2010

http://www.youtube.com/atenordelaopera

This arrived from a dear and valued friend yesterday afternoon. I’m an “opera buff” (ignorant mostly of the sophisticated details, but enjoy all efforts). So I listened. And I had to keep wiping my eyes with my hankie.

Why? Because the World is so bitter these days. Filled with such anger and viciousness. Even if perpetrated by a small minority, it affects all of us – limiting us, causing fear and hesitation.

I have no idea if this video was “spontaneous”, or “staged”. To me, it doesn’t matter. It is a kind of parable of how easy it is for us human beings to create community, smile and laugh, rejoice in the sense of being together.

We need to start multiplying such moments! In whatever simple little ways we can.

Viva Valencia!

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, Jan 11, 2010

Compared to what we ought to be,
we are half awake.

William James, philosopher, psychologist,
Harvard professor; born on this date, 1842


Why? Why are we, thousands of years into being and religion and science and culture and art, “half awake”? This bedevils me, frustrates me, depresses me, shocks me.

Our little (7 this morning) 8am band of worshippers at St. Benedict’s, listening to the readings, were extolling God’s great, enormous, boundless love for the human community. We few 8am-ers love this “service” (why is it called that?). We sit in a circle. We begin in Holy Silence. We “collect” around the Collect. We listen to the Readings – with two to three minutes of silent reflection between readings. We pray for each other, the World, our parish community, and offer our Thanks. We take the Body and Blood of Christ, tingling with the vast mythical implications. We “retire” to drink coffee and visit. Perfect for Dennis and I. After fifteen years of monastic life and work, and twenty-five years of parish ministry, I love this Sunday rite! Kudos to Caro, our Priest-in-Charge, for having this worship experience available.

I asked: why do we know this great unfathomable Love of God, and yet fail so much to live this Reality, this Truth, this Call, to make a difference in the World, to change the suffering and hate and extrangement? Why do I not do it? We shared our thoughts. (I love this part. People are amazing! So wise! So honest! It is wonderful as a priest to hear this from faithful Christian (perhaps condescendingly called) layfolk!

Of course there were no “answers”. No solutions. There are not nor will ever be. We just struggle with the facts, the realities. In the midst of a World that is so wounded at this moment in history. We affirm our belief in the “vision” – a whole Humanity, Love, Grace, possibility, acting locally, self-transformation. We “buck ourselves up”, encourage “keeping on keeping on”.

“Religion” is, for me – especially in this wonderful time post-“retirement” – an amazing time of re-assessment – about Everything. My understanding of the Gospel and “God” has expanded faster than the Cosmos! I’m lurching around, off-balance, stunned, thrilled, scared. But I’m also caught in the utter joy of being taught the Wonder of Life. It’s a grand time.

I doubt that I am anyways near half awake! I feel no shame or guilt at age 63 and near 37 years into priesthood at being on a new threshold. Rather, I feel ….. renewed. Given a new Life. Reborn.

I want to move beyond “half awake”. I’m engaged by it. It makes me see that I am alive, that Life is one glorious adventure after another if you can say “Yes”.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, January 8, 2010

When we encounter the family from the point of view
of the soul, accepting its shadows and its failure
to meet our idealistic expectations, we are faced
with mysteries that resist our moralism and sentiment-
ality. We are taken down to the earth, where principle
gives way to life in all its beauty and horror.

Thomas More, “Care of the Soul”


My deepest inner “soul” pushed me. I fled “family” – on various levels of the understanding of “family” – when I determined to go to university at age 16 against my father’s wishes (this was my intellectual and spiritual preparation, having left the Presbyterian church and become an Anglican at age 18), and then in a more radical way when, at age 21, I left home and country to join the Order of the Holy Cross. I knew, at a profound level of unconscious understanding, that if I was to survive as a Gay man, I had to find another Family. My heart and spirit knew that the Order of the Holy Cross was 95% Gay – and that I would find support and a loving God – and I did.

I have no regrets. Over the last 43 years, every time I hear the words of the Gospel – “there is no one who has left home and family and country for me who shall not receive ……” – I see the hand of a caring Mystery/God calling me to “safety” and to “family”. I have been deeply nourished.

But. More’s words present a challenge. I have chosen my family – those who accepted me for who I was as a Gay man. And church communities that did. And friends who did. However, there have come times, with friends and church, when they have rejected or hurt me. Then the challenge has come, from the “point of view of the soul”. There have been times when I chose to leave those “families”. I’ve left friends. Over the years I have been tempted to leave the “church”, and the Episcopal Church in particular – even now after 45 years, as we contemplate whether or not to remain part of a Communion which seems to want to force the Episcopal Church to reject Gayfolk.

I’ve worked my way – grudgingly - to “accepting its shadows and its failure to meet our idealistic expectations”. I have little peace with it. I accept that it is a “mystery”. I reject that I am moralistic or sentimental about it. But I do feel “taken down to earth”. I see its “beauty and horror” – but I do not let go of my principles.

“Beauty and horror”. That is earthly life in the human race. I guess I see that engaging with the Beauty and the Horror is Reality. It teaches us to mature – if we find the wisdom and peace and courage to do so. I am grateful for the Path I chose. May yours serve you well.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, Jan 7, 2010

The Bible shows the way to go to heaven,
not the way the heavens go.

Galileo Galilei, genius, scientist. On this date,
1610, he sighted four of Jupiter’s moons


That’s because “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims His handiwork”. The opening line of Psalm 19, I believe. And someone famously set it to music – I can hear it ringing in my ears!. Who? Handel?

In other words, Nature has its own character and way of “behaving”, showing the “way the heavens go”. But it is a rich metaphor for “rising to be with God in eternity”. The two relate – but they connect two different realms. When we leave Nature’s heaven, we are guided to a home for our enduring Spirit.

Religion’s “Heaven” and Science’s “Heavens” are not synonymous. They do not contradict each other. They serve each other. As Dennis and I were driving to Vespers last night, the sunset, from Santa Maria all the way to Shell Beach, was one of the most spectacular we had ever seen. We rejoiced in this glory of our earthly existence. We also understood it’s message. Appropriately, it being Jan 6, the Feast of the Epiphany, it “manifested” the great Mystery: “We are gods, sons/daughters of the Most High”.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, January 6, 2010

……. were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth,
certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had
seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different;
this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like
Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these
Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old
dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their
gods.
I should be glad of another death.

from “The Journey of the Magi”
by T. S. Eliot, on this Christian Feast
of the Epiphany


Whoever imagined the story of the journey of the Magi to Bethlehem was a master story-crafter. Eliot scuffs it up some – making us aware of the difficulty of such a long journey, even for wealthy people, in those days. That’s ok; he makes his point. I prefer the shining, brilliant, magical Biblical story – a star-filled sky, three fabulously arrayed Wise Men, the sound of camel bells jingling in the clear night, the golden caskets filled with exotic rich gifts of Gold, Frankinsense, and Myrrh with their mysterious meaning.

As I have come to understand it, this Story of the Magi is about each of us “coming to” our true full Selves. A story about discovering the core of who we are as human beings, and as the unique individuals we are.

Our humanity is glorious and brilliant enough – rich and wise and noble and beautiful like the Magi. This is an important aspect of the story: it is important not to denigrate the wonder of being human, or of personhood.

What we need to know about who we truly are is manifested – an epiphany! – in the little child in the manger. For the Biblical storyteller, the child Jesus is the Divine One. Emmanuel - God With Us”.

The Story of the Magi tells us that we will become fully human when we recognize the Divine within us, when we know that we are one with the great Mystery of Being that some call “God”.

Eliot is right. Once we know who we are, we are “no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation”. We must die and be born anew. This is the Journey we are all on. We are led to our simple humanity to discover that we are of royal birth.

[ Eliot’s poem can be found here in full: http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/t__s__eliot/poems/15123 ]

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, Jan 5, 2010

If you love it enough, anything will talk with you.

Our creator is the same and never changes despite
the names given Him by people here and in all parts
of the world. Even if we gave Him no name at all,
He would still be there, within us, waiting to give
us good on this earth.

George Washington Carver, American scientist,
botanist, educator, inventor; who died on this date, 1943


I am stunned to realize that Carver died only 3 years before I was born!

One of the great challenges in my Life came to fruition after I “retired”. It has made the last 20 months very “tumultuous”! The process had been going on for a very long time, of course. I know that. I look back over the sermons I preached over 3 decades. They clearly show the flow of my Journey.

I understand, and remain “centered”, in the Christian religious tradition and faith. I was “raised” in it, and it is the most vibrant path that has formed my human development. But through the decades, I have come to see what Carver speaks to: that there is only a Life Force, “even if we give [Him] no name at all”, who is “within us, waiting to give us good on this earth”.

I have come to see that “reality” is essentially connected with the human heart and spirit and mind – that “God” is real because we have “created” the God we need in order to navigate this great Mystery we call Life. I see the great problem we have: God has put Herself at the mercy of human need – and there are so many portrayals of God that may be, and are in my opinion, inaccurate.

Carver says that “God” is there to “give us good”. I agree wholeheartedly. Any other God is useless. We would be stupid to worship any other God. Knowing such a God, I thrill to Carver’s thought: “If you love it enough, anything will talk with you”. I am beginning to experience this. When I stand and look out over the Pacific on Grover Beach, the Creation “talks to me”. It says what Carver says: God is within me, waiting to me good on this earth. I know the greatest Peace and Unity. I am challenged to live up to this truth. And – I believe this truth.

It is late in my Life. But I am urged to try more faithfully to live up to this core Truth. God is within me, offering Good. I must learn daily to accept it – and to manifest it around me.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, January 4, 2010

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.

T.S. Eliot, poet, Nobel in Literature 1948.
He died on this day, 1965. Known for
“The Four Quartets” & “Murder in the Cathedral”


Well. How people so very often reflect – as we should expect – the deliberate hiddenness of their own lives. I have no idea in what context Eliot said these words. But they (only perhaps unconsciously) reflect Eliot’s inner conflict. He was certainly Gay, as can be seen in his friends and behaviour. He was “closeted” – or so he thought. But most of those who knew him knew the “reality”. Eliot was – alas, as with most of us – unable to apply his wisdom to himself.

However, he was certainly a brilliant poet, and thinker. And I support his words. They illuminate a sad reality about us human beings. We live a great deal of the time in fantasy. We seem to have a very minimal capacity to face the truth. I see it in every era of history. I see it today vividly – the cancer that lies behind the base and hideous way that human beings are treating and thinking about each other – often resorting in horrifying violence and cruelty to our fellow human beings. This includes Islamic suicide bombers, so-called “Christian” (I see no resemblance) murders of abortion providers, Israeli bombings of Palestinian people, American status as the biggest supplier of arms in the World, and the Taliban – and a host of others.

We can’t bear Reality very much. We can’t admit how fearful and hateful and greedy we can be – individually and corporately. And so we resort to lies. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and many others in every land and culture and religion and state have done it. It has only fostered both increased cruelty and destructive behaviour, and an entrenchment in the pattern of lying.

All great spiritual leaders, including Jesus, espouse Reality. Jesus was relentless at demanding that people look at the truth, to stop pretending. To own up to Reality and be set free by it. I know of what I speak. I have been taught by the Gospel to look at my own Reality and to repent of those things that have marred my humanity. I know how hard it is to do, believe me. Our pastor preached a fine sermon today that highlights this point, and I hope to share it with you tomorrow.

We are trapped in lies and an addiction to Unreality in our World these days. As an example, just listen to the nonsense we tell our young people about sex and violence these days and expect them absurdly, to be responsible – especially when we expose them to hours of both on television. Reality may be hard to embrace. But unless we do, we will all continue to live in a Hell of our own creation. One of the great messages of the Gospel (and other faiths) is that there is a simple path out of the Hell.

Repent, and go and sin no more.

Brian+