email: whitpresby@mindspring.com
Spiritual readings "Greetings from Whittier Presbyterian Church"
Jan.
2003 Emails
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Henderson @about.religion.com on environment. |
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JS Bach Lyrics from Cantata 153 |
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Kathleen Norris on the best spiritual writing |
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Dallas Willard on stewardship of the environment |
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Howard Rice on the need for piety and activism |
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Pico Iyer on the Spirituality of Travel |
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George Herbert “Love Bade Me Welcome” |
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George Herbert “The Call” |
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Balzar (LA Times) on Power of words |
Regular readers of these emails will remember Rev. Charles Henderson and his columns on the Christian Faith. I’ve quoted him several times before. Continuing with the WWJD theme, here is an excerpt from his latest column where he picks the big stories of 2002. His number 5 pick had to do with the environment. Here is that excerpt from his column
The emergence late in the year of the "What Would Jesus Drive" ad campaign sponsored by a group of evangelical Christians was, in my view, and important milestone. The highly imaginative ad campaign was part of a wider effort to persuade large numbers of Americans that protecting the environment is an important part of one's religious duty. Bringing together conservative and liberal Christians with people from a variety of faith traditions, this movement has the potential of transforming concern for the environment from a specialty of "environmentalists" into a topic of critical interest to people of all faith traditions. When and if religiously active citizens see caring for the environment as being as important as care of the soul, expect politicians and corporate leaders to quickly follow.
All I can add is “Amen.”
May your new year see greater blessings and more of the presence of God in your life.
Grace & peace
Geoff
I am a big fan of the music of J.S. Bach, particularly the church cantatas, musical compositions written for particular Sundays in the church year. During Advent of 2001 I got a 4-CD set of Bach Cantatas covering the period from I Advent through Epiphany. I’m able to listen to cantatas for each Sunday or holiday of the whole season. It makes me as happy as a clam at high tide! Here is an excerpt from Cantata “Schau, lieber Godd, wie meine Feind/Behold, Dear God, How All My Foes,” BWV 153, for the first Sunday after New Year’s Day. The lyrics are taken from the recording by Helmuth Rilling and the Bach-Collegium and Gachinger Kantorei of Stuttgart, on a Musical Heritage Society recording, #5459801.
Thus will I, while I yet have life,
The cross with gladness bear to thee;
My God, make me for it prepared.
The cross will serve me all my years!
Help me my life to meet forthright,
That I my course may run complete,
Help me to master flesh and blood,
From sin and scandal keep me free!
If thou my heart in faith keep pure,
I’ll live and die in thee alone;
Jesus, my hope, hear my desire,
O Savior mine, bring me to thee!
After the indulgence of the Christmas season, its good to be reminded that it was for the cross that Jesus was born. We turn liturgically towards Lent and Easter, a time in which we find the sense of restraint and self-denial that provides a balance to the indulgence of Christmas. As the 12 Days of Christmas come to a conclusion, may you have had a blessed season of warmth and joy. New we get down to the work of maintaining that joy and warmth and continuing to spread it to others.
Grace & peace
Geoff
I have a book entitled “The Best Spiritual Writing – 1999,” edited by Philip Zaleski, Harper, San Francisco, 1999. Kathleen Norris, one of my favorite spiritual writers, writes the introduction to it. She says
“The best spiritual writing, it seems to me, is like good poetry in that it is not about success or failure but allows us to find value in what seems meaningless or dull, or even filthy. It does not offer answers but hints at possibilities for transcendence. It does not transport us magically to a realm of light above: the ordinary, beyond the capacities of more common people, but instead offers us insight into living through the contradictory and often painful processes of life and death that are at work in us all.”
As Christians we believe God came to human life in Jesus, thereby hallowing (making holy) all of human life. As Norris says, we need to find the “possibilities for transcendence” that are all around us in the ordinary events and things and relationships of our lives. I close with the blessing I use often here:
May you find the presence of God in the ordinariness of your life today.
Grace & peace
Geoff
Looking for help to find God in the ordinariness of your days? Try the Companions on the Inner Way Conferences, one of which will is noted below. There will be a link to the web page soon.
On New Year’s Eve, I used a quote from the book “The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives,” by Dallas Willard, Harper Collins, San Francisco, 1988. As I read this book I’m startled and impressed with his insights. One of his points is that we are governors (stewards) of creation, based on his reading of Genesis 1:28. Here is what he says:
“We have every reason to suppose that the task is one that in the best of circumstances was planned to take hundreds or thousands of generations.
Even though it would be vastly different because of the absence of evil and its effects, perhaps the process originally intended would not be WHOLLY dissimilar to human history as we know it. Perhaps our present tendency to have pets and zoos, to be fond of living creatures and domesticate them, and our amazing powers to train and control other creatures on the planet are but dim reflections of the divine intention for us.
Our care about the extinction of species and our general feeling of responsibility and concern for the fate of animals, plants and e en the earth also speaks of this divine intention. Scientists talk easily and often of our responsibility to care for the oceans and forests and wild, living things. This urge toward such responsibility is, I think, only a manifestation of the IMAGO DEI (image of God) originally implanted in humankind and still not wholly destroyed.”
There has been a long tradition of linking environmentalism with Genesis 1:28 and Willard’s statement is as fine an articulation of it as I’ve run across. Will we heed the warnings that are all around us? What part do YOU play in the stewardship of this island, Earth?
Grace & peace
Geoff
How does our spirituality work itself out in the world? That is a vital question addressed by all spiritual writers of importance. Here is one take on the answer from Rev. Howard Rice, in his book, “Reformed Spirituality,” Westminster/John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 1991.
“The need of the church today is for a spirituality that combines a deep and renewed personal piety with a passionate concern for the world. Piety without world concern gets reduced to sentimentalism and the pursuit of experiences aimed at making the individual feel happier or more adjusted, more content, and at peace within. Such religion becomes truly the opiate of the people; it numbs them to the heartbreak of much of the world. Words and deeds must go together. Words take on credibility when they are accompanied by actins that are congruous with them. Our deeds help us to interpret our own vocabulary. As we act in the world, words like salvation, forgiveness, grace, and compassion are enfleshed by our experience with other people. Yet matching words with deeds is not easy. It requires a great deal of sacrifice, and most of us would rather avoid such a demand.
Wise words indeed. If you would like to know more about this subject, let me encourage you to attend the Companions on the Inner Way conference in February. The subject will be dealing with this very topic. The conference is entitled “Do Justice, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly with Your God: Transformation of Self and Society.” For those in the Whittier area, we have registration materials at the church. Contact information is on the web page too.
The old proverb “practice what you preach” covers this subject well. May you find the guidance you need in living out your spirituality this day.
Grace & peace
Geoff
Do you ever think of travel as a spiritual experience? The spiritual dimensions of travel are there and some are good at writing about it. Pico Iyer is a travel writer and has an essay in “The Best Spiritual Writing 1999,” Harper San Francisco, 1999. Iyer’s article is entitled “Why We Travel: A Love Affair with the World” and here are some excerpts from his article.
“…travel can be a kind of monasticism on the move: on the road, we often live more simply (even when staying in a luxury hotel), with no more possessions than we can carry, and surrendering ourselves to chance.” “Travel is the best way we have of rescuing the humanity of places, and saving them from abstraction and ideology.” “…travel enables you to bring new eyes to the people you encounter. You can teach them what they have to celebrate as much as you celebrate what they have to teach. This, I think, is how tourism, which so obviously destroys cultures, can also resuscitate or revive the., hot it has created new ‘traditional’ dances in Bali, and caused craftsmen in India to pay new attention to their works. If the first thing we can bring the Cubans is a real and balanced sense of what contemporary America is like, the second—and perhaps more important—thing we can bring them is a fresh and renewed sense of how special are the warmth and beauty of their country, for those who can compare it with other places around the globe.” “Camus said that what gives value to travel is fear, disruption, in other words (or emancipation), from circumstances and all the habits behind which we hide.”
“Hiding behind our habits” is one way to describe our daily lives, but I also find habits as a way to better express who I am and what gifts I have. Different strokes, as we say. But one of the ways God works in our lives is to show us different perspectives on life and ourselves. Travel can indeed do that.
May you find a new perspective that enriches and deepens your life today.
Grace & peace
Geoff
I have been listening to some old long playing records, things that might be called antiques by some of you! I have a recording of Ralph Vaughan-Williams’ “Five Mystical Songs” which was first performed in 1911. He set to music some of the poetry of the English poet George Herbert, who wrote in the early 17th Century in England. Here is one of the poems that Vaughan-Williams used. Its called “Love Bade Me Welcome.” I am reproducing the lyrics/poem in the form I find printed on the back of the record cover. If you want to see it in its original verse form, start a new line at each slash.
Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back, / Guilty of dust and sin. / But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack / From my first entrance in, / Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning / If I lack’d anything. “A guest,” I answer’d, worthy to be here”: /Love said, “You shall be he.” / ‘I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear, / I cannot look on thee.”
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, /”Who made the eyes but I?” / “Truth Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame / Go where it doth deserve.” / “And know you not,” says Love, “Who bore the blame?” / “My dear, then I will serve.” /
“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat,” / So I did sit and eat.
George Herbert wrote many a wonderful poem of faith, but has to be one of my favorites. What a marvelous way to tell the gospel: despite our protestations of unworthiness, God continually invites us into relationship. If you can get a hold of the Vaughan-Williams setting in a recording, listen, by all means.
Grace & peace
Geoff
Here’s another selection from the poetry of the English poet George Herbert, who wrote in early 17th Century England. It too is one of the poems that Ralph Vaughan-Williams used in his “Five Mystical Songs.” This Herbert poem is entitled “The Call.”
Come my Way, my Truth, my Life:
Such a Way, as gives us breath:
Such a Truth as ends all strife:
Such a Life: as killeth death.
Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength:
Such a Light, as shows a feast:
Such a feast as mends in length:
Such a Strength, as makes his guest.
Come my Joy, my Love, my Heart:
Such a Joy, as none can move:
Such a Love, as none can part:
Such a Heart as joys in love.
May you find such a call in your life today.
Grace & peace
Geoff
Having watched the President’s State of the Union Address, I am struck by the power of words in our human life. Here a couple of comments I’ve run across over the last few weeks reflecting the power of words.
Erica Jong said somewhere: "And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more."
There is a case for that kind of thinking, supportable by some of the things Jesus says about leaving mother and father to follow him.
On the other hand, here is an excerpt from an L.A. Times editorial by Mr. John Balzar, from earlier this month. Its entitled “Words May Indeed Hurt Us.” He says:
Our subject is the woeful state of American business, and by modest extension, the current state of American values…How do we get things back on track? Stop glorifying aggression and risk. We have talked ourselves into deep trouble by assigning false virtues and granting respect to these two characteristics when it comes to the pursuit of money.
In most aspects of our lives, aggression is cause for dread, and for understandable reasons. We don’t want it in our children, in our pet dogs, in rattlesnakes under the porch, in our encounters with strangers and in our dealings with citizens of nations around the world.
Likewise, risk. In our travels, at the lunch counter, in parking lots at night, we strive to minimize, or at least control, risk. We wear seat belts. We limit our fat intake. We park near light poles. Our good lives depend on it.
Balzar goes on to talk about the need for lowering the heat around these concepts of risk and aggression, bringing in some reflection on what we are about as people and a society. Our faith includes the creation story in Genesis, where God speaks creation into being. Our use of words needs to be in harmony with our character and our spiritual lives. Can you say that about your life? To use an older expression, do you practice what you preach?
May you find the wisdom today to know whereof you speak, and the courage to speak.
Grace & peace
Geoff
