Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Each morning when I awake, I experience again
a supreme pleasure - that of being Salvador Dali.

Salvador Dali, artist, eccentric to the max; he was
born on this date, 1904, in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain
[ He died in 1989. ]



Ah ah ah. No feelings of false modesty or false humility allowed. If you are feeling these, just stare them down. And put aside any urge to rationalize. Take a deep breath, and just say to the Universe, to God, to Yourself as you awake: “I experience again a supreme pleasure – that of being ____________ (your name).” Some may call you conceited, deluded, etc. Just ignore it. Many will be jealous.

This is the still point of Becoming. If this is not how you actually feel - and there are lots of reasons you might not! - it is the verbal sacrament shaping you for your destiny, for your becoming fully whole and “yourself”. It is the critical leaping off point by which you become a Christ, an enlightened Buddha, a bodhisattva. Yourself. There is no other path to this destiny. You must embrace You ….. and then follow what will be the often bewildering, twisting path to maturity. Be prepared to change radically … over and over.

Just as the Christ was unique, so each of us. Taking pleasure in this will not mislead you, as many will say. No. It will free you to give yourself away recklessly and never be diminished.

Dali also said:

I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject;
rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.

Somewhere in the mind of God our portrait exists. What we need is to follow the path whereby we grow to look like our portrait.

We must therefore choose carefully.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, May 10, 2011

It may be that when the angels go about their task

praising God, they play only Bach. I am sure, however,

that when they are together en famille they play Mozart.

Karl Barth, theologian; he was born on this date, 1886,
in Switzerland


Bach: ordered; measured; impeccable counterpoint, faultlessly played; ornate and enflowered but structured; quieting, mindful; passion “lying under”.

Mozart: passionate; unpredictable; enthusiastic; flirtatious; sly; underlying structure anchoring florescence; teasing; jolly, emotional.

Think about it. Get it? Worship, praising God, can legitimately be formal, wrapping us in Mystery. Think of the Passover Meal in the Upper Room. But when we are “en famille”, think of the Wedding Cana! We can be a little “unglued”, exuberant, reveling in God’s hilarious Presence.

We are heirs of the angels. We blend the Upper Room and Cana. Our lives are Bachian and Mozartesque, each flowing into the other. “Church” and “En Famille” may flow one into the other.

It’s all Praise and it’s all Delight in each other.

A Gift to ourselves and to the World.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, May 9, 2011

There is no passion to be found playing
small – in settling for a life that is less
than the one you are capable of living.

Nelson Mandela; on this day, 1994, having
been released from prison after more than
20 years, he was chosen to be the President
of the Republic of South Africa


I careen between absolute cynicism and wild, irrational, idealistic optimism about us humans. Now, here is this glorious quote from President Mandela. It resonates deeply with me. There is a part of my soul, shaped as it has been over five decades by the Gospel and by the great wisdom of humanity - and yes, by the serendipity of having been born in such a privileged part of the World - which desperately wants to believe that every single human being should not have to be “be found playing small” ~ should never never never have to settle for “a life that is less than the one you are capable of living”.

Then I think, “What about the person who is born in Darfur? In the slums of Mumbai? In one of the one-fifth of American families where children live hungry and in poverty? “ Are they to be held to the capability of their situation, never to escape from that, having to be satisfied with such restrictions? A lot of people would just say, “Well, that’s they way it is”. I can’t ….. and I don’t want to. I want to think that the World can change. That it can and will be different.

Dennis and I have been watching “South Riding” on Masterpiece Theatre. A youngish woman headmistress just before WWII, whose fiancé was killed in WWI, determined that “her girls” will learn how to do anything they want to do. She’s my heroine!

Alas, I think there are in our World far too many people who do not have the opportunity, for a multitude of reasons, even to envision a life of living it to the fullest of their capability. I so long for that to change! But: there are many who, with good teachers, could be encouraged and helped not to “play small”. Someone(s) taught Nelson Mandela this.

The vast majority of us will not be a Nelson Mandela on the World stage. It doesn’t matter. It’s relative.

Each of us can do what we can do to help each other not to “play small”.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, May 6, 2011

He does not believe that does
not live according to his belief .

Sigmund Freud, psychiatrist; he was
born on this date, 1856, in Freiborg


In my opinion, Freud would have done well to have a good personal psychiatrist! However, he had some useful insights. [I know, I know; I’m being condescending.]

Freud seems to be supporting, theologically, “justification by works”, not “justification by faith alone”. I think I’m with Freud. Jesus us reported to have said, “Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, will enter the Kingdom of Heaven”. By which I think he meant that Faith and Works are two necessary sides of the same coin. Or, that “belief” must be authenticated by appropriate behaviour.

However. If one thinks of God as the Judge who decides whether one is “saved” (a very mysterious concept, that!) or not, then Worry Not. Justification (i.e., recognition of one’s intrinsic value as a person) comes neither through belief, faith, or works, but only by the profligate, irrational Love of the Holy One.

Breathe a sigh of relief!

On a political note, Freud also said (ok, ok, I’m chortling a bit):

America is a mistake, a giant mistake.
….. America is the most grandiose
experiment the world has seen, but,
I am afraid, it is not going to be a success.

What think ye???

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, May 4, 2011

I do not say think as I think, but think in my way.
Fear no shadows, least of all in that great spectre
of personal unhappiness which binds half the world
to orthodoxy.

Thomas H. Huxley, English biologist & educator;
he was born on this date, 1825



Half the world only? I would say much more than half!

To be bound to “orthodoxy” (“right teaching”) can have a cozy and secure feel. But that “world” has for the most part gone. Many know it’s gone from Christianity, fragmented as it is. Many think it has not gone from Islam ….. but it has, and indeed has been built in since the 7th C - Sunni and Shiite and Sufi at each other’s throats. And so with many of the prominent religions.

But orthodoxy is very often a prison of the mind and heart and spirit. Life never ceases to change. Change is paradoxically Life’s only constant. And Change is always an invitation: to enter into it, and grow and deepen. Orthodoxy almost always separates from Reality, and Life with all its newness and freshness moves on. Eventually all that is left is an irrelevant and bitter cult of sorts.

Huxley postulates that “personal unhappiness”, casting its shadowy fear over all it can envelope, is what entraps us, makes us afraid of what worse could happen should we take the risky steps. We prefer the “devil we know than the devil we don’t”.

I have learned, through my life as a monk and priest, that “personal unhappiness” is the “voice of God”. Always! I envision God as One Who abhors unhappiness in any creature. If we sit with unhappiness for but a few moments, we hear the “still small voice” saying, as it said to Elijah, “Come out!”, and the loud voice of Jesus calling to Lazarus, “Come forth!”.

The voice of Personal Unhappiness says, if we listen with courage, “Fear no shadows”. Step into “unorthodoxy”. Often the unorthodox, the rejection of convention, is the only path to new Life.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, May 3, 2011

I still call myself a communist, because communism
is no more what Russia made of it than Christianity
is what the churches make of it.

Pete Seeger; musician, philosopher; he was born on this
date, 1919, at French Hospital, Manhattan; he’s 92 today.


Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?

Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?

Where have all the flowers gone?

Young girls have picked them everyone.

Oh, when will they ever learn?

Oh, when will they ever learn?

Where have all the soldiers gone, long time passing?

Where have all the soldiers gone, long time ago?

Where have all the soldiers gone?

Gone to graveyards, everyone.

Oh, when will they ever learn?

Oh, when will they ever learn?

Where have all the graveyards gone, long time passing?

Where have all the graveyards gone, long time ago?

Where have all the graveyards gone?

Gone to flowers, everyone.

Oh, when will they ever learn?

Oh, when will they ever learn?

Words and Music by Pete Seeger (1955)

I am grateful to Pete, whom I have been privileged to meet on his beloved Hudson River, for his unwavering commitment to the Earth, to humanity, to peace and to Justice, to his standing up to Joe McCarthy, and to his vision of what America could be.

How long will the cycle go on? Will we ever learn? Perhaps today, in honour of Pete, we could all vow to do what we can not to keep the cycle of death going. Howver small, we can all do something, in heart, mind, action.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, May 2, 2011

To bring the sublime into the mundane
is the greatest challenge there is.

Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan


I deeply deeply enter into the Holy Eucharist. I am in awe of it as a Sacred Mystery. It is the reason that I became an Anglican in Canada when I was 19, and one of the prime reasons I remain a Christian in the Episcopal/Eucharistic tradition despite my great frustration over its flip-flopping positions on the full inclusion of Gayfolk and its continuing refusal fully to commit theologically to the fact that there is nothing ontologically “wrong”, or as the Dalai Llama would have it “disordered”, about homosexuals.

I love receiving “mundane” things - bread and wine - into my hands and body, and knowing that I am “receiving God” into myself - that at least is the theological understanding. When I was a young monk, the devotion I most cherished was Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament – sitting in contemplation before the consecrated Host in its Monstrance on the altar. I was a “raging radical” about everything else ….. but no amount of taunting from my reformist brothers could change my mind. One brother would call it “The Nabisco Hour” to try and get at me ….. but I would just smile.

It did not take me long to understand that devotion to the Blessed Sacrament was a mighty metaphor. That, just as the Living God was “in” the holy bread and wine, God was in me, in my friends, in all human beings, in flower and animal, in every single piece of Creation. In my perceived enemies ….. though it took me longer to get there. That I should stand in awe and adoration before them, for they all were holy manifestations of the God of Compassion. That the whole World, seen and unseen, is a sacrament of the presence of the Holy One.

I am ashamed that still I do so little to honour the ubiquitous bearers of this Holiness. Tonight I learned that Osama ben Laden has been killed. Yet another extinguishing of a bodily tabernacle of God, however dim a tabernacle some may think him and however murderous his hate.

I wonder: is there any way that we all could learn to see the Holy in each other? It would change us.

Brian+