Brian’s Reflection: Monday, March 1, 2010

To Speak of Woe that is in Marriage

"It is the future generation that presses into being by means of
these exuberant feelings and supersensible soap bubbles of ours."
- Schopenhauer

"The hot night makes us keep our bedroom windows open.
Our magnolia blossoms. Life begins to happen.
My hopped up husband drops his home disputes,
and hits the streets to cruise for prostitutes,
free-lancing out along the razor’s edge.
This screwball might kill his wife, then take the pledge.
Oh the monotonous meanness of his lust. . .
It's the injustice . . . he is so unjust--
whiskey-blind, swaggering home at five.
My only thought is how to keep alive.
What makes him tick? Each night now I tie
ten dollars and his car key to my thigh. . . .
Gored by the climacteric of his want,
he stalls above me like an elephant."

Robert Lowell, American poet, born on this
date, 1917, in (of course) Boston


Whew! I had no idea that Robert Lowell, that Brahmin of that famous Boston clan, was such a tough poet! And this is a tough poem! After a Sunday thinking about “Jerusalem” as the symbol of that “place” where God and God’s people live together in an unbreakable relationship of Love , and thinking of how Religion has so often equated marriage with this symbol, this poem of the mid-20th century powerfully challenges us! (Forget the Schopenhauer quote: I can’t figure it out either!)

But, I think a lot about marriage these days. Especially as Dennis and I are not allowed to get married (except spiritually, which we are, and which is most important) given the last referendum vote by the good people of California. Given the fact that at least 50% of all marriages in America end in divorce. Given the fact that marriage has long become a civil contract by which the government makes money, and married people gain many tax and other benefits. Given the fact that most “counseling” in preparation for marriage is useless. Given the fact many young people today don’t get married; just live together. Etc, etc.

Anyway: here’s my comment. Until men learn how to be decent human beings, see women as human beings rather than sex machines, come to an understanding that their lives will be greatly enhanced and blessed by marrying an equal, marriage will rot. As it should, IMHO.

But worry not (I know, I know, this is too long!) : we are, I think and hope, in a phase. Shakespeare shall prevail:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
Oh, no! it is an ever-fixéd mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come'
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Brian+ (offering but a point upon which to think)

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, February 26, 2010

Adversity makes [persons], and prosperity makes monsters.

Victor Hugo, author, born on this date, 1802


In my understanding of Christianity (and I do wish I understood enough of another faith to be able to speak with authority!) , it is the love of prosperity that makes monsters. “Having things” is intrinsically not contrary to the Christian Life. What is contrary is worshiping either – that is, worshipping an idol. Worshipping an “idol” simple means that we have been deceived as to what is worthy of value and what is not.

I’ve read a lot of Hugo. I think he was a wise man. “Prosperity makes monsters.” How true in America and other “wealthy” parts of the World today – which includes the rich in horrifyingly poor countries. Have you noticed where we are going in America after our near financial collapse? Right back to the same old ideas and principles which brought about our near destruction. The answer, alas, was not to help us re-vision our lifestyle or our vales; it was to get us back to the same destructive and dehumanizing situation. I find it very very sad.

“Prosperity” has made monsters of all our politicians. And of many of us. You can’t be in our government unless you are (a) rich) or (b) supported by the rich and powerful, who are, by definition, controlling and manipulative and very often without compassion, amoral and and cruel. We now have a political party which ingloriously represents this idolatry of “Prosperity”. At least the obvious is obvious.

The Gospel Message is reported once to have said, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ”. (The Letter to the Galatians, 6:2). This is what Jesus meant by “loving one another”. Jesus warned against not bearing one another’s burdens and the consequences of it. We are seeing it in every part of the World today. In a word: Fear.

“Sharing one anothers’ burdens” means making sure that we all have the basic necessities for Living - and that means spiritually, psychologically, emotionally, as well as physically. As long as one person is dying of hunger or a victim of religious hatred, we are failing.

Most of us can’t change the World. But we can do something within ourselves, and among those with whom we live.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, February 25, 2010

[Pius V’s] bull, Regnans in Excelsis, dated April 27, 1570 ….
declared Elizabeth I [of England] a heretic and released her subjects from
their allegiance to her. In response, Elizabeth, who had thus far
left Catholics alone, now actively started persecuting them.

History of Pope Pius V and Queen Elizabeth 1 of England


From my perspective in 2010, this seems utterly absurd! But, looked at from the contemporary history, we can see what’s happening, politically, theologically, etc. Seen from hindsight, one can only sigh and lament “the times”. Even more absurd, the Bull said that anyone who killed her would go immediately to Heaven. Does this sound lie the modern absurdities of suicide bombers [male] going to meet with their reward of 70 Virgins? Pul-eeze! (And: what about women suicide bombers???? What do they get?)

However, the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy and many Muslims and several other fundamentalist expressions of their Faiths continue to act out of an hopelessly primitive context. What bothers me is that any sensible people pay any attention to them! It really does diminish my desire to think of human culture as evolving to a deeper more human dimension!

NO RELIGION HAS THE WHOLE “TRUTH”. All parts of the human community have invented gods/goddesses in a process of trying to understand our meaning, our purpose. Religions may align themselves with political and cultural agenda, but Faith is beyond such venial manipulation.

Look Friends: it is my unshakeable belief that “Jesus” is a universal symbol for our common community as human beings living in the power of Love.

“Those who have ears, let them hear”.

Or we are doomed.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, February 24, 2010

God the Father, the supreme Architect, had already
built this cosmic home we behold, the most sacred
temple of His godhead, by the laws of His mysterious
wisdom.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Italian philosopher &
scholar, born on this date, 1463, in Mirandola, near Modena


“….. by the laws of His Mysterious wisdom”. Now, there’s an interesting phrase! Sounds like a 15th C intuition of Darwin to me.

What is most interesting to me is the thought that the Earth/Creation is the “Home of God”. And that this Earth screams the Holy Presence of God. St. Paul thought so. He said clearly that no one, contemplating the Universe, could miss the Divine presence.

From an “anthropological” perspective, I agree. Right now, I can hear the music of Handel resounding in my head – “The heavens declare the glory of God”! For a very long time, I have equated our trashing of the environment with the spoiling of “God’s Body”.

God’s Wisdom is indeed “mysterious”. Bottom line, we know nothing about God – as the great mystics throughout the ages have said. Some of them even called God “Nothing”. But I have to confess that, apart from great Liturgy (rare as it is), I have experienced God most vividly in the stunning beauty of the Earth. Oh could I expatiate on those countless moments!! Above all things – except perhaps for wildly unselfish acts of love – “God” has been manifested in the extravagant beauty of the Earth.

Dennis and I watched the Ice Plant flowers unfold in the morning sun in our little garden the other day. I can honestly say, those flowers rank higher than any philosophy or theology.

“This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, February 23, 2010

A monk who is skilled in concentration
can cut the Himalayas in two.

Anguttara Nikaya 6:24 [Buddhist]


I very often feel that we live in an era (at least in the West) where we have very little control. My perception is that this is the foundation of so much of the deep anxiety, often unconscious, that Westerners experience. And one thing I have been aware of for many years now: almost no Christian denomination these days teaches a spirituality with any power. Christian churches and “hierarchies” have become caught up in, have been co-opted by, worldly power and by the intent to control persons in a sterile “moral” setting. Why is it that after millennia, hierarchs have not learned that they are on a fool’s quest??

Jesus said (I am paraphrasing) that if one had faith, one could move mountains. I do not think He was speaking “literally”. Jesus would not be interested in showing someone hw to move a physical mountain; that’s just a stunt, with no mystical meaning to it, as well as no meaning for living one’s Life in society.

Whether mountains of the Gospel or the specific Himalayas of the Buddha, they stand for “obstacle” – things that stand in the way of becoming fully human in the imago dei. By which is meant, we are all destined to the highest manifestation of what the most holy imagination can conceive of as “human”. And ….. each of us contributes to the definition of the nature of that “manifestation”.

Roadblocks to Being are thrown up by Life every second of every day. That is the way Life is! That’s what makes it exciting. Every day we arise, we arise into an arena where we are confronted by “ravenous beasts”. They represent Evil, “false gods”, Deception, a host of powers seeking to drag or lull us into an indolent way. Our anchoring in the practice of Holy Living allows us to shake these succubae off!

Spiritual Truth is simple. It is easy to learn, if not so easy to apply. The principles are unshakably sound. May we be granted gifted Teachers and Livers of these Principles. And the courage to apply then in our daily lives. If we are faithful, the very “Himalayas” – every obstacle to Servanthood - will be cut in twain like the veil of the Temple, and we will unfold as a servant of Christ’s love in the World.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, February 22, 2010

Departure

It's little I care what path I take,
And where it leads it's little I care;
But out of this house, lest my heart break,
I must go, and off somewhere.

It's little I know what's in my heart,
What's in my mind it's little I know,
But there's that in me must up and start,
And it's little I care where my feet go.

I wish I could walk for a day and a night,
And find me at dawn in a desolate place
With never the rut of a road in sight,
Nor the roof of a house, nor the eyes of a face.

I wish I could walk till my blood should spout,
And drop me, never to stir again,
On a shore that is wide, for the tide is out,
And the weedy rocks are bare to the rain.

But dump or dock, where the path I take
Brings up, it's little enough I care:
And it's little I'd mind the fuss they'll make,
Huddled dead in a ditch somewhere.

'Is something the matter, dear,' she said,
'That you sit at your work so silently?'
'No, mother, no, 'twas a knot in my thread.
There goes the kettle, I'll make the tea.'

Edna St. Vincent Millay, poet, born on
this date, 1892, in Rockland, Maine

As Life wonderfully is, I was with dear friends last year travelling about NY State from opera to opera. And we chanced upon Austerlitz NY and were thrilled to find the home of Edna St. Vincent Millay. We immediately decided to go there – and we had a lovely time roaming the grounds of her home, and visiting with the curator of the “monument”. Here’s the sign we saw at the Post Office, and my dear dear friend Gilly will not mind her photo shared, taken in Ms. Millay’s garden!

The poem is long. But perfect. It reminds us of how much of the Truth, and our pain, about ourselves we hide. Don’t. This is Lent for Christians – but for all of us Life demands, for authenticity, we “own up”. Make the tea – but be honest with yourself.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: The Weekend, Sat, February 20, 2010

[ Lent I in the Christian Kalendar ]

Jesus ….. was led by the Spirit in the wilderness,
where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.

The Gospel called Luke, Chap 4 [for Lent 1 C_RCL]

[ Here is the link for the Readings - http://www.io.com/~kellywp/YearC_RCL/Lent/CLent1_RCL.html ]


How are we seduced? That’s the issue on this First Sunday of Lent. Seduced from what? Seduced from living our lives as a “child” (not a good term, in my opinion, with all it’s both negative and positive connotations for us) of the God of Compassion and Unconditional Love, Justice and Mercy.

[ I’m not interested in what more or less degree you think this story falls, from “literal” or “metaphorical”; I’m interested in what it means for us living our lives today.]

What are the “temptations? Well :

1. Ignoring what sustains Life beyond sustaining the physical being. (Changing stones into bread)
2. Forgetting what God, and our lives, are essentially about. Our lives are not about unholy power and praise, and the acquiring of them (The kingdoms of the World)
3. Misunderstanding God. God is not a magician, an intervener in the natural order of things, someone who abrogates our freedom, or the requirement to exercise our human gifts. (Testing God)

Lent, as a liturgical season, is a focused time of paying attention to those things that seduce us away from living our lives as a compassionate, loving, merciful, kind, generous, thankful human being. It also reminds us that this is our daily journey.

Jesus was on a long retreat, fasting and praying. This reminds us to take focused time to think and learn. The “devil’s” presence to Jesus in his time of deep prayer reminds us that Temptation becomes more vivid in such times. The “angels” remind us that God is with us, near to us, sustaining us, helping us to reject false wisdom. Remember: Jesus was deeply anchored in His Scriptures and faith practice.

The principle warning here is : “Stay Grounded”.

Brian+