Living and Breathing Faith: Day 40

{The is the last day of Lent 2021. And my last daily posting of sanctuary images and writings prompted by those photos. I am tempted to return to my past Lenten writings, those from previous years with themes that ranged from “wideness of God’s mercy” as seen in panoramic pics to that recent year with forty coffee mugs — to see what I had written on other Holy Saturdays. That temptation passed when I realized it was a cop-out. I need to resist re-running past material. Today’s image has been in the planning stages for several days. The writing? No clue as to where I’m going in the next hour or so!”}

Today I return to The Netherlands, and to Haarlem’s Grote Kerk, or Sint-Bavokerk, once a Roman Catholic cathedral, now a Reformed Protestant congregation. Instead of looking upward to the lofty peaked ceiling with its intricate design pointing heavenward, or up to the magnificent pipe organ chamber that sings praises even without a key being touched, I look down. To the floor. and to the tombs, or at least the graves marked by these huge heavy slabs.

For maybe 500 years someone has lain locked under those carved ledger-stones. I’m guessing that the slot in each marker is for opening up the grave for burial. Many of those stone slabs are beautifully decorated, though the designs have been worn away with centuries of worshippers walking on them. Some have dates, names, symbols, titles.

I understand that while customs vary, there may be a touch of prestige involved with placement inside the church sanctuary. The closer to the altar, the better. Or, the closer to the most important dearly departed who have earned their proximity to the holiest place in the church, the better. If the altar area is reserved for the saints (and/or the most prominent of citizenry), then being buried closer to them signaled some higher nobility. And if one hadn’t reached such notoriety by pure reputation, then one’s family might be able to buy some pricier real estate on the floor.

(I don’t remember who told me — maybe a childhood friend? — but I was advised that it was bad luck, or at least disrespectful to step on a grave in our church cemetery. One can hardly avoid such a transgression while walking cathedral aisles where nearly every step would be like stomping on a sidewalk crack and breaking your…well, you know the rest.)

I’ve read that one bit of rationale for being buried in the actual church rather than in the surrounding church yard is that if one is depending on the prayers of others to eventually spring you from purgatory, it is better that those prayers be prompted everytime someone sees your grave and is reminded to add you to their prayer list. If you were interred outside in the cemetery, visits might be very few, perhaps only annually. But with your grave right underfoot as one entered the church each Sunday, there’d be that frequent reminder that you required some prayerful attention.

At my age, I do think of death more often than I did when I was younger and somewhat carefree. (I was never totally free of cares; my Dad was a worrier and I have that gene.) My wife Joan and I have thought about what to do with our no-longer-useful bodies, and where a grave for us might be when we die (“God forbid,” as our insurance agent Barney Bass used to say — and you gotta trust an agent named Barney, right?). We’ve decided. And soon we may as well invest in the plot. It’ll be outside, in nature’s beauty, which this past year was snow-covered for months on end.

Speaking of end, my instructions for my obituary are few. But of utmost importance is mentioning my actual death. I will die. I will not “pass away.” I will not “be reunited with [anybody].” (I don’t think that’s even Biblical.) I will not “pass into the arms of Jesus” who I assume has his hands full finding parking spaces for the really, really faithful. I will not move “from this mortal coil,” which sounds like a broken Slinky. I will die. Dead. Maybe I will see those who have gone before. (“…Gone…?” There; even I did it. “Died” before.) Maybe a lot of things.

There’s no denying it, though I would prefer to. See… Jesus died. Dead. And buried. Instead of “Holy Saturday” maybe we should just call this “Tomb-day.” I mentioned in my italicized introduction that I was tempted to go back and see what I had written on my previous Day 40 of Lent posts. I’m betting that I wrote of the disciples laying low, fearful that what happened to Jesus might happen to them if they were named co-conspirators. I may have noted that I would have been with them, huddled against discovery, shaking in my sandals. But today, I’m more interested in what was going on with Jesus that Saturday.

Nothing. He was entombed. But I do have these questions. Fully human, fully God, the creed says. So, was there any secret spiritual communication going on? Did Jesus dream? No, he wasn’t asleep; he was dead. Because if he was merely asleep, then the resurrection wasn’t real. It was more a resuscitation, and that doesn’t make for Easter, more an EMT medal of some kind. My cousin Dave was headed to the ministry early in his college days, but decided on science instead, and taught college botany his whole career. Yet, he still seemed to consider God a reality. But not life after death. “I’ve taught biology all my life, and I know full well what happens when something dies. It dies. Deteriorates. End of story.” Dave now knows one way or the other. I hope he was pleasantly surprised. (But that’s tomorrow’s story, not today’s, and you will have to write it yourself. Lent will be over and so will these writings.)

As I said, I do have some questions. Death is such a mystery. Our elderly Vermont farmer friend had one question for his pastor after his wife’s death, and he posed it to me many times. “I don’t understand. Where is Marion? Where is she?” Albert had been an aircraft mechanic during WW2, and as a long-time farmer his knowledge of mechanics and agriculture and woodworking made him a man of many talents. He knew time and space and things. But he had to know where, in death, Marion was. I tried over and over to explain that beyond our physical death there was no physical place, no measure of time or acreage, that all was in the mysterious (to me) realm of pure spirituality. Albert wasn’t having it. And I wasn’t really getting it myself. As I said: mystery.

Oh, there’s a lot in the Bible about graves opening up, trumpets blowing, the dead rising up. But that was all written when even those God-inspired writers thought the heavens were a canopy with holes through which light shine penetrated, and the earth was flat, and viruses were demons, and some people were ritually unclean and untouchable. That’s why there’s no book of the Bible that is titled, “Here’s What You’ll Find in God’s Heaven.” (You’re right. I don’t take the Book of Revelation(s) as a literal map to doom and glory.)

Here’s where I must lean on God’s continual and constant message of grace. Love. Abundant life. God is good, and God is with us. As God was with Jesus even behind that rock that locked the tomb.

I keep wanting to say that when Jesus made his post-resurrection appearances, he didn’t tell… anyone anything about… but, see, that is still in tomorrow’s morning sunrise, not for discussion on Tomb-day. We have to remain here in the dark awhile longer.

And avoid stepping on ledger-stones lest we wake the dead. Or send our mothers to chiropractors.

{An italicized postscript: I know I have written lightly about a profoundly sad part of everyone’s life. We have lived through a year of loss, with headlines day after day announcing the deaths of strangers, friends, family members, and neighbors, to a deadly pandemic. Hearts have broken, tears shed, and emptiness endured, and even with vaccination protocols, there is no definite end in sight. Even on Easter Sunday, that day that explodes with promise, that lights up with new life, the newspaper obituary pages will note the sorrow of survivors, those left behind to grieve. I have lost family members, not to a pandemic, but to the natural death that ends even younger lives. And at my age, I will encounter the deaths of former classmates, neighbors, good friends, and family members more frequently until my own last breath. I know how to take it seriously. And the profound mystery of it all both haunts and encourages me. I have always considered myself a creative, imaginative person, but here’s what I cannot imagine: my own non-existence. I would rather hold to that which I know, and that is faith, living and breathing faith. Thank you, Jesus.}

 

Living and Breathing Faith: Day 34

{During Lent 2021, I’ve been perusing my photo files, choosing pics of church sanctuaries, and writing random reflections prompted by the images, while drinking fair trade coffee. OK, that last phrase was irrelevant. The main thing is that the pandemic has kept many of us away from the sanctuaries that welcomed us as people of faith, and this blog is one way to reconnect with those special places.}

Pictured here is the sanctuary of First Presbyterian Church, Champaign, IL. I took the photo, but have never been in the room. Throughout the global pandemic, we have worshipped with many congregations via video streaming, and this church is one of our favorites. (So, my camera was aimed at the TV screen.) On this day before Palm Sunday I thought this image might be appropriate. See the guy in the back there? He’s waving a palm branch. All by his lonesome.

That’s one of my best friends, the Rev. Matt Matthews. He’s the “Senior Pastor,” something difficult for me to grasp since I’ve known him since his college days, just a couple of years ago. Or three decades? Anyway, he’s the head of staff there, and you’d think he could have found some underling to wave that branch, but there he is. Hosanna, and all that.

The scene pictured here was from a year ago when churches were beginning ro realize that things would be different for some time to come. As Lent 2020 was nearing an end (an end that really didn’t seem to arrive), Palm Sunday insisted on happening. (Church calendars don’t pay attention to mere human events or circumstances…wars, pandemics, whatever…Christmas and Easter persist on their quirky schedules.) The usual procedure for many churches of all kinds of stripes is to buy palms of some sort (unless they happen to grow nearby, and here in Upstate New York they don’t), hand them out to parishioners and force even the introverts to leave their pews and march around the sanctuary singing “All Glory, Laud, and Honor.” Some shouting of Hosanna! is also encouraged. Did I say “around the sanctuary?” Yes, it says so just above this query. Many churches take the parade a bit further; they parade around the block, or around the periphery of the church exterior, a public display of affection for Jesus.

Matt’s parade last year was kind of abbreviated. He was by himself. He didn’t march. He just stood there and waved. And smiled. Because he has a warm sense of humor and an endearing connection to his church folk. He was inviting us, the worshipping congregation at home in recliners, drinking coffee or tea, maybe still in PJs, but nonetheless eager for the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem to be re-told — he was inviting us to virtually gather around the Word, listen for new understanding, and say our prayers. The church’s cantor sang the hymn, a puppet asked the questions the church’s youngsters might have asked about the palms, Matt sat casually in the front pew and spoke with us what he had discerned about the celebration from his study of the Book. (He didn’t actually preach. “Preaching” assumes a group to whom a sermon is projected, loudly enough to reach the back of the room and the wandering mind. Matt as much as conversed with us, though that verb infers an exchange of words between two parties. Still, as he informally shared his thoughts, we did nod, hum an affirmation, maybe even mutter an amen.)

Hosanna in the highest heaven! Hosanna is one of those words reserved for church. It’s not part of normal speech or common vocabulary. I have yet to hear someone shout the word upon seeing the new Corvette or Lady Gaga video. (Though “Halleluia” is far more common, and though I’m not allowed to utter it during Lent, I didn’t; I typed it. Gee, I hope you’re not reading this aloud.) But on Palm Sunday, virtual or not, the hosannas echo through the centuries, and the joyous acclamation shouted and sung at Jesus’ arrival in the holy city is repeated by the global community of faith. If Jesus were coming to town today, we might wave our lighted cellphones, or giant foam pointy fingers (“You’re number one!) or pom poms. There’d be some entrepreneurs selling light sticks and glow rings, too. But back then, the custom was plucking palm branches from trees and laying them before the entering dignitary or waving them overhead.

Hosanna in the highest heaven! The highest heaven! The gospel writers see Jesus as the one who joins earth and heaven, the lowest earth (the meek, the poor, the hungry, the humblest child) and the highest heaven (that would be Godself). Hurrah! Hooray! How soon, within days, the shouts would be, “Crucify him!” Like the turn of a card.

Before I end here, a note about that empty (except for Matt) sanctuary. It doesn’t indicate at all that Matt’s church is empty. Its mission continues, and it is ambitious under the guidance of Matt’s beloved, The Rev. Rachel Matthews, the church’s Mission Coordinator. A praise band often joins the organist and cantor in leading music for streamed worship. The multicultural congregation hears the scriptures read in French as well as English each week, and that Word is proclaimed orally and actively, with FPC Champaign’s church life continuing to reflect a living and breathing faith through these challenging times. Social justice, the arts, campus ministry — those are part of the outreach of a vital church. Matt even sends a daily email to each church member and friend, offering news, pastoral concerns, mission invitations, prayers and poetry, and just awful humor. (Insert smiley face here! Or one that grimmaces.)

Hosanna, then, to the Jesus who is alive and well in that congregation! If I had a palm, I’d wave it!

 

Living and Breathing Faith: Day 19

{We are almost halfway there…that is, day 19 of our 40 day journey in Lent 2021. I am posting pictures and descriptions of church sanctuaries, noting that due to the pandemic many of us miss being present in such places set apart for worship, devotion, and prayer.}

Iona Abbey

Here is the Iona Abbey Church on the Isle of Iona in Scotland. The Celts refer to this whole island as a “thin place,” one of those too rare locations where the spiritual and physical realms touch, or blend, as if separated only by the most fragile veil. When one has a pilgrimage at Iona, one understands.

We spent a week at Iona, staying in the Abbey proper, hiking the weekly day-long “pilgrimage” around the island, worshipping in this medieval church, going to daily programs (akin to a continuing education course), and learning the songs of the Wild Goose Music Group. We ate the simple and very healthy meals in the refectory, and did our assigned chores without complaint. I shot video of the pilgrimage, something I really should put up on YouTube. We’ll see about that.

There is a resident community at the Abbey, as well as visitors who sign on for short lengths of time to live on the grounds and take part in the shared life there. Of course, there are also tourists who stop by for informal tours of the Abbey and the beautiful isle itself. It was St. Columba who came to the island in 563 A.D. to found a Christian community. The full history of Iona Abbey is worth an on-line search, and I won’t go into that here, except to note that the Abbey Church I photographed during our stay dates from the 13th century. (And it is thought that the Book of Kells originated in the Iona community.)

Here’s what I found especially impressive about worship in this space. First, there is the history. Look where we are. Look what has led us here. We are very aware of the dedication of those who have revitalized the crumbling Abbey into a vital, living and breathing faith community. (I keep using that ‘c’ word, but looking at synonyms for community isn’t helpful. Sect? Fellowship? Cult? Society? No.) And in the midst of that long heritage, there are the contemporary songs of Iona, the prayers focused on the here-and-now, and leadership shared by clergy and laity of various traditions.

During the week, one service centers on healing, another on justice and peace. The Iona Community believes that prayer and politics belong together as do confession (because we all play a part in the injustices of the world) and commitment to action. To that end, there is a service of commitment too, with the explanation coming from the Iona Abbey Worship Book:

…the call to commitment to Jesus is at the same time a call to commitment to all that Jesus identifies himself with…to the brothers and sisters throughout the world who journey with Jesus…a commitment to the suffering and poor of the world with whom Jesus inseparably identified himself…to caring for the earth, sea and sky which God called into being through the Word.

That worship time can never be seen as separate from the rest of the Iona journey. There’s a thin place between the worship offered in that sacred space and the servanthood offered in our life away from Iona. As the songs we sing linger in our memories and our hearts (so singable!), the words remind us wherever we go beyond the Abbey that Christ goes with us, pushes us, pulls us, walks beside us, points us toward places of ministry.

This closing prayer comes from Celtic Prayers from Iona, by J. Philip Newell:

Bless to me, O God 
the earth beneath my feet. 
Bless to me, O God
the path on which I go.
Bless to me, O God
the people whom I meet.
O God of all gods,
bless to me my life.

 

Living and Breathing Faith: Day 15

{Sanctuaries…places of worship, yes, and toward that end, art. Always art. From wood carving to stained glass, stone work to theater, music to fabric, and, how daring to say it, the art of preaching, which some would say is the point of it all. Today we reach the 15th in this Lenten series.}

That work of art is a pulpit. At its base is Samson holding it all up. And at the very top is the the triumphant Christ. The rest of the figures represent the biblical story from creation to resurrection. This magnificent art is in the Stavanger Domkirk, St. Swithun’s Cathedral, The Church of Norway. The church dates from 1125. And the pulpit was carved and painted by Adam Smith in 1658.

Having explored this kind of carving on a trip to Germany, Smith created this work in the North-German “gristle” baroque style, according to that white interpretive sign next to Samson. (Why “gristle?” Good question. A very quick internet search brought no answer.) Below is a close-up, though it would take days to take in every scene.

We saw many other examples of Adam Smith’s intricate work throughout the sanctuary. I can’t imagine the skill, the dedication, the patience the artist had through the years there. And over three and a half centuries later, his work continues to communicate through wood and color and imagination.

Now think of the preacher who climbs the steps into that pulpit and under that sounding board (or tester). How small he must have felt. Compared to the sweep of the biblical images of salvation history or Heilsgeschichte over and around him, the voice of the minister (or priest), even amplified by the sounding board, would seem lost. Yet, the Word was to be proclaimed, the Gospel communicated, so that it would live. Or be lived in the lives of the people. At last, after two weeks of these sanctuary visits this Lent, I refer to the title I decided on when I began writing. The faith is not held within the bounds of any sanctuary or the walls of any church. It lives. It breathes. It wanes. It resurrects. But it is always and forever good news. God’s grace abounds. Just ask any of the countless figures whose stories are contained yet re-told on that pulpit wood.

The preacher, in that setting probably smothered in vestments, ascends the pulpit and looks out over the congregation, seeing some already asleep, but others sharply expectant, hopeful, even desperate to hear anything from the biblical story that will speak to their doubts, anxieties, or spiritual loneliness. They yearn for healing, or for renewal of heart. Other faces reflect mere curiosity. As the preacher glances at those faces and reads those hearts before looking down at notes or manuscript, he (far more recently, of course, she) realizes Jesus probably saw the same as he sermonized on mount or plain.

Jesus spoke from his experience with Torah and rabbis, having no papers to shuffle, no commentaries to read, only divinely-inspired stories to tell, parables to puzzle, or peace and justice to prophetically proclaim. But the preacher in this pulpit in Stavanger or I in Richmond, Craftsbury, or Trumansburg — we studied, we prayed, we scribbled, we struggled and scribbled some more. What is this passage saying to me? What did it mean when it was first told or written? What will it mean to these people whose faces I see from this high perch? Pray some more. (My prayer even before entering the sanctuary was always, “Lord, don’t let me get in the way of what you want to say today.”) Some preachers would begin the reading and preaching of the Word with what we call the “Prayer for Illumination.” Let there be light! Enlighten us, O God. Not a bad way to have begun sermon prep too.

Surrounded as we are in sanctuaries filled with artistic expressions of the stories and symbols of faith, there is the art of preaching. Countless books have that very title, and these days so do websites and blogs and podcasts. Most of us have heard our share of artless sermons. And the communication styles preachers have used over the centuries have changed, naturally. We visited a Presbyterian church in Scotland a few years ago, a throwback to a different time, but hanging on. And the sermon was a fifty minute harangue, almost angry words about why Christians should be more joyful in spirit. Fifty. 50 (to be clear). In many American pulpits, with the congregation’s attention span dramatically shortened by electronic media bursts, the Gospel goes “lite,” with mini-sermons of 8 to 12 minutes. In fact, that piece of oratory furniture, the pulpit, is being removed in many sanctuaries so that the preacher/priest can wander about the worship center extemporaneously spouting whatever the Spirit places on her/his heart. Me? Judgey? No, I gave that up for Lent.

I hereby proclaim that preaching is indeed an art. It takes training as any artist is taught, mentored, challenged. It takes imagination and creativity and patience and struggle and texture and color and rhythm and light and truth. And courage! One artist uses fabric, another glass, another sounds. We preachers use words. And then we need to know when to stop.

So, I’ll stop here. For now.

But there’s always tomorrow.

 

Lenten Windows: The Day Between the Days

And today my Lenten series comes to a close. This is the 40th image of windows I’ve photographed through many years of pointing my camera at places near and far. I’ll post one more photo tomorrow, without words; but today, a few lines.

The Phelps Mansion, Binghamton, NY

Maundy Thursday. Good Friday. Easter Sunday. But today? I know of no universal code word for today, this day between the days. And I won’t accept one. It is just empty.

In a sermon many years ago, I tried to imagine how Jesus’ disciples dealt with the events of the days before. I thought of how high their hopes were on what we now call Palm Sunday. And how very low emotions ran the night Jesus had had that last meal with his friends. Later that night: betrayal, arrest, terror. And hiding. I recalled that one of the first sermons I wrote while in seminary was based on the short phrase in Matthew 26:58 — “Peter was following him at a distance.” At a distance. I couldn’t blame Peter for his lack of rock-like courage. I too would have been fearful of arrest and conviction and execution.

I would have hidden out. Or, in. I’d be holed up in one of the dark rooms pictured here, staying away from the windows for the most part. Maybe risking peeking out, to be sure I was not followed. Jesus dead and buried. Along with his movement. Along with the hosannas, the Kingdom promises, the teachings and sermons and prophetic vision. Love embodied. Now dead. How long before dashed hopes are forgotten altogether? This was not only an admired teacher or spiritual mentor who suffered and died before their eyes; it was a beloved friend. He had assured them of that many times with quiet words in intimate settings.

He was hero, mystery, truth-teller, healer, companion along the Way, one who had shown no caution in crossing boundaries and touching the untouchables. Past tense. But now, now love nailed down, pulled away, and buried. Who’s next? We must hide. Did you see a curtain move in that upstairs window? It’s me…just checking. And then back to cower in a corner, almost shivering with fear. I do not have his courage, if that’s what it was. Nor, his faith — that’s what it was. Peter denied him three times. I’ll deny him more. To save my skin.

And, look, I can rationalize my hiding a thousand ways. I have to stay alive to keep his message alive. If we all die for this cause, doesn’t the cause die too? Someone has to keep the flame lit. Right? Follow me, he said. But he didn’t mean all the way, did he? What would be the point? Since last night it’s been wise to follow at a distance. A very safe distance. So, we’re up there now, in that darkened upper room. When this all blows over, we’ll reconvene, say our prayers, eat something, and decide what to do next. Maybe we’ll cast lots or something if we can’t agree where to go, what to do.

In the meantime, has anybody seen Judas recently?

 

Lenten Windows: Good Friday

Throughout Lent 2020 I have been choosing photographs of windows I have seen, looked through or looked into over the years. And each day, prompted by an image, I write some words.

Today is Good Friday. Explanations of why this day is called “good” abound. Some say it is “good” because without this day there would be no Easter. No death; ergo no resurrection or new life. Another exegesis: “good” in the context of this day simply means “holy.” In another season altogether, there is “Good Tide” which is an old way of referring to Christmas: holy season of the Nativity. One more possibility is that Good Friday is a corruption of “God’s Friday.”

The word “good” itself has root meanings that indicate the sense of gathering or bringing together, or more curiously, something “fitting.” Those meanings may miss the mark in the context of observing the dark day of Jesus’ crucifixion. Or, is there in this observance a gathering of sorts. As people gathered at the cross that day on Golgotha, we gather globally around the cross today, remembering the profound drama of an itinerant rabbi found guilty of sedition and subjected to a grisly capital punishment.

Good Friday.

The crucifixion of Jesus has been imagined and reimagined in stained glass in churches and cathedrals throughout the ages. The images are there not so much for striking decoration as light pours through, casting colors into sanctuaries of worship. The colored glass teaches and illustrates, inspires and reminds. The artists tell the stories of faith, and the stories of the life and teachings of Jesus are certainly prominent from rural chapels to massive cathedrals.

For today’s image, I did not look deeply into my files. This one just drew my attention first. We saw it in the South Quire aisle of the Southwell Minster Church, Nottinghamshire, England.

This outstanding window was designed by Nicholas Mynheer in 2014. It is a memorial to the men from Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire who lost their lives in the First World War. The design seeks to reflect the need for forgiveness and reconciliation.

When I glanced through my photos looking for an image for Good Friday, I found this window depicting the removal of Jesus from the cross. That’s the central focus. But then I looked at the detail, and realized that those removing the body from the cross are not Roman soldiers, nor broken-hearted friends of Jesus. The helmets hint at World War 1. Behind the cross is a line of soldiers, headed by a wounded man being supported by a comrade. (One thinks of the song, “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother,” but more, the teaching of Jesus: “Greater love has no one than this, but to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”)

Look at the other images here. Begin at the bottom and see the work horse pulling a plow through an English countryside, presumably in peace time. And in the background, there stands Southwell Minster Church itself, as it has stood for 900 years. At the left, a young woman reaches toward her clothesline with that clean white sheet catching the breeze. (At least, that is how I see it. We all must interpret the pictures and symbols ourselves.)

A single red Flanders poppy, symbol of dead soldiers, is just below the cross. And then there is Jesus, his uniform the same as that of the men who surround him. Is that to signify that Jesus identifies with victims of war, and by extension, any victim of violence: those suffering any human tragedy…storm, flood, pandemic, human trafficking or any exploitation, or violent conflict between nations or within households?

And now, look higher. A vision of heaven. A dove. Soldiers of different uniforms embracing. The holy communion of bread and cup, that heavenly banquet.  And music, the sound of the trumpet. Is it too early to sing of Easter? Yes. Our focus must go back to the cross for now. For it is Good Friday. We must endure the darkness before the ultimate sunrise. It is not pleasant. Warring powers vie for our very souls, and our only Savior is dying. Wood and nails have done him in, thanks to human-held hammers.

We hold out hope, though, that plowshares and white linen, green fields and sturdy poppies will once again prove that God’s peace prevails over all violence, and that all the earth will again hear a Voice that declares Creation “good.”

 

 

 

Lenten Windows: For the Beauty of the Earth

Another day in Lent 2020, and another of forty selected photos of windows I’ve seen on various journeys. And some words, always some words.

Stunning, isn’t it? It’s a church window that looks perfectly out toward the views of Grand Teton National Park. No doubt the builders of this small sanctuary situated the church site so that this view would be the focus of the worshipers’ attention. And then there’s the cross.

The altar is that of the Episcopal Chapel of the Transfiguration. “Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And  he was transfigured before them…” (Mark 9:2) The mountain Jesus and his three close buds climbed wasn’t like these peaks! But if you’re going to situate a chapel facing these grand, majestic heights, you may as well name your church something that links the life of Jesus to the sights.

There’s a little conversion experience that happens when you enter this chapel. After all, you’ve already experienced the grandeur of the Tetons. The immense beauty surrounds and envelops and embraces you. When you first glimpse the mountains on a clear day, yes, it takes your breath away. Then, in that sublime setting, you breathe easier as you take in the awesome wonder of creation. You don’t just glance, hop in the rental Subaru, and drive off to the next view. You stop. You look, You listen. You are moved as you take it in and it takes you in. That’s not the conversion experience though.

That comes when you enter the chapel. And you see the view through the altar-framed window. If it wasn’t quite in focus outside, it is here, with the peaks seen behind the cross. The vacation, wondrously enjoyable as it was, is transformed, if even for a moment, into a religious experience. I smile as I type these words: a mountaintop experience in a box. No longer surrounded by creation’s ravishing artistry, as we settle into a chapel pew the framed wooden structure forces us to look in that one magnificent direction: purple mountains’ majesty, as we have sung since we were six or seven. And the cross. Reminding us where we are.

I’ve climbed several mountains. At least, they were called mountains. They weren’t at all like the Grand Tetons, but grand in their own way. Cadillac Mountain in Maine’s Acadia National Park. The Priest, on a backpacking hike along the Virginia section of the Appalachian Trail. Montreat’s Lookout Mountain, maybe the easiest trek in the Black Mountain area. We hiked a little ways up Mt. Rainier once, just to see it from more than a distance. And, with hiking mountain paths being Joan’s very favorite thing to do on any vacation, we have climbed countless hills and peaks, wondering “how much further?” as breath and muscle complained.

And at the top? Each time: stop, look, listen. And breathe. And wonder. And pray. It’s no wonder that Jesus’ friends saw him in a new light that day. And that his life and mission came into clear focus. And that they wanted to linger, more than linger…set up a headquarters with four corner offices with picture windows looking out over the panoramic views of God’s good earth.

But Jesus saw more than mountain majesty. He saw the cross. What else he saw or understood or imagined we cannot pretend to know, though theologians and preachers (like me) have framed twenty minutes of presumptive commentary. Jesus saw enough that day to know there were needs to address, people to serve, life lessons to teach, until his last breath.

We’ll close with a hymn today. One verse, from the poet/hymn-writer Episcopal priest Carl Daw.

Sing of God made manifest on the cloud-capped mountain’s crest,

where the law and prophets waned so that Christ alone remained:

glimpse of glory, pledge of grace, given as Jesus set his face

Towards the waiting cross and grave, sign of hope that God would save.

Comfortable and stunning as the chapel is, we must move on…to the next path, the next peak, the next wonder.

 

Lenten Windows: Story-tellers

This is another in a series of photos I’ve taken of windows, some ornate, some ordinary…but all providing some prompt for writing. I have no plan — that may be evident — but I write as the Spirit leads. Or, doesn’t. This is my Lenten fast from routine.

This is just a partial view of the major stained glass window in the sanctuary of the Exeter College Chapel in Oxford, England. Our quick tour of the church allowed no more than a couple of minutes to gape, take quick photos, and then move on to the next campus building. Imagine taking the time though to simply sit in that sacred space and breathe in the Spirit. I would also love to have the opportunity to stand beneath that glorious window in awe of its artistic majesty.

Then I would find a way to sit down to study the window’s stories. It would take more than a few hours — it would take days.

Like so many church windows of stained glass, whether medieval chapels or contemporary houses of worship, this window ‘preaches.” Or, perhaps more precisely, teaches. Some windows tell the story of the life and ministry, the death and resurrection of Jesus. Others include stories and figures from the Hebrew scriptures, and others pay homage to the lives of apostles and saints. We’ve seen parables in stained glass. We’ve marveled at traditional and more modern religious symbols in jewel-like colored glass. The melding of theology and artistry is inspiring, sometimes curious, and on occasion surprising. (Look for astronaut John Glenn in the faceted glass of Washington, D.C.’s National Presbyterian Church.)

While some stained glass simply creates a colorful array of “lightshine” in the sanctuary with no particular design in mind, I like the windows that for centuries have told stories. Before everyone had a Bible to read, or even before people were at all literate, artists painted on the walls of village churches and bits of colored glass were arranged in designs that represented gospel narratives and lessons.

The priest could gather a group of children and point to the nativity story. Heading toward baptism, the candidates for the sacrament might see in a window of the church a stained glass  scene of Jesus arising from the Jordan’s waters as a dove hovers near. Long before there were tracts, flannel boards (yes, some of us are that old), and illustrated Sunday School materials, there were those windows, whose colors have never faded, whose beauty has never been matched by digital projection. And whose designs continue to draw our attention toward the Light.

Besides the stories we see through the artists’ eyes, we might choose one particular section or  design in an ornate window and meditate on it, praying with or without words, letting the image guide our spiritual journey no matter the season.

Churches that have such windows and that still have children in worship might well, during worship, direct the children’s attention to some symbol or person depicted in the stained glass, and help the whole congregation pay attention to what so many have taken for granted week after week. Some churches would have enough “material” in those windows to last a whole liturgical year!

[This is not the only stained glass I’ll be posting in this series, but I thought I’d start near the top: a cathedral in Oxford.]

 

 

 

Lenten Notes: Music, Lyrics, and Action

{Lenten “notes” refer to notes of music, with music being my theme for an almost daily discipline of writing during this forty day season. We continue…}

A couple of Sundays ago, our pastor Rev. Pat Raube mentioned an experience she had with conferees at the Presbyterian Mecca: Montreat (NC) Conference Center. The gathering was in one of the larger meeting spaces there, appropriately called “The Barn.” The story of the Prodigal was being shared via the reading of scripture. When the verses reached the point of the Prodigal being welcomed home by his father, something startling happened. Here’s Luke’s description and the surprise:

 ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet.  And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast,  for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began.

Pat said that as soon as the words “So the party began” were spoken, almost half the people gathered there suddenly stood up, a blue grass band started playing, and the room was filled with dancing, and not only dancing, but clogging. After all, Montreat is in the Smokey Mountains of Western North Carolina, and clogging is a thing there! So, bluegrass music, the rhythmic and loud clunking of clogging shoes on the wooden floor, and the whoop-de-dos of celebration made sure everyone knew a party was in full swing. The scripture’s classic story of grace, forgiveness, and restoration came alive. The Word made fresh through music, lyric, and action.

Since I’d been in the presence of Montreat’s square dance Caller-in-Chief Glen Bannerman, and had experienced first-hand the creativity of the school* where Glen taught recreational ministry and I taught media courses, that account of the Party for the Prodigal brought a broad smile of recognition.

And a reminder of another time when music, Word, and action combined to enrich the biblical story. Richard Avery and Donald Marsh were the ministry team at the Presbyterian Church in Port Jervis, NY for many years. Avery was the pastor and Marsh the church musician. Together they wrote music for worship in a contemporary vein, decades before so-called praise music or “contemporary Christian music” became popular. Many churches still sing their songs, such as “We Are the Church,” “Every Morning Is Easter Morning,” and “Love Them Now (Don’t Wait ’til They’ve Gone Away).” One collection of their songs was called “Hymns Hot and Carols Cool.” They even had a calypso version of the Doxology.

Our school invited them to lead a continuing education event, and during one service of worship at a local church, Avery and Marsh used not a hymn of their own, but the somber Holy Week hymn based on Hassler’s “Passion Chorale,” “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded.”

Sadly, some of those powerful hymns of old are so familiar to worshippers that we sing them almost matter-of-factly, as if they are just another piece of business we need to accomplish before moving on to the next bit of ritual. But this hymn is so profound in lyric and music we do ourselves a disservice if we treat it as routine.

O sacred head, now wounded, With grief and shame weighed down;

Now scornfully surrounded With thorns thine only crown…

The words of the hymn are attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux, and if not actually written by him, the text surely reflects his theological thought. The harmonization of Hans Leo Hassler’s tune is by Bach, a far cry from the lighter musical fare of the Port Jervis team. But what we witnessed that day in the chapel of a Richmond church was so profound the image has remained with me decades later.

The first thing was to sing the hymn slowly. With depth of feeling and sensitivity to the text. Ponderous? Why not, if one is actually pondering the meaning of the words as they are sung. The four part harmony helps.

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered Was all for sinners’ gain:

Mine, mine was the transgression , But Thine the deadly pain.

Avery and Marsh had recruited four or five volunteers to enter the chapel as we sang. One pantomimed carrying a heavy cross, while the others pretended to bear whips, violently lashing at the stumbling, suffering cross-bearer. Marsh was into drama as well as music in his life in theater and television prior to his church work. So the pantomime was no quick trick; the volunteers took their roles seriously and were no doubt deeply  affected by the hymn as it was sung. The physical movements of the actors brought tears to us singers, so powerful was the union of music, text, and actions. Lashes, nails, cross planted, Jesus crucified.

When the last verse was completed, the tableaux remained in place, the worshippers remained silent.

O make me Thine forever; and should I fainting be,

Lord, let me never, never, Outlive my love to Thee.

(I’m trying to remember if Marsh had added an actual hammer and wood to this scene. The wordless, prop-less actions might have had the addition of that one disturbing sound of a hammer slamming into a board just before the actors lifted their Jesus from the ground to stand with arms out-stretched before the singing congregation. One would think I’d remember that more clearly.)

Through the ages the Church has communicated its stories through drama. Mystery plays, morality and miracle plays, passion plays — in village squares and church sanctuaries the drama of faith has been enacted and re-enacted, with lessons embodied, and new meaning made clear.

Sometimes, it is enough to sing. Sometimes, enough to read. But sometimes adding some movement, some theater to our stories and hymns would remind us that the Word is most alive when it is put into action.

• The Presbyterian School of Christian Education was a graduate center for educational ministry in Richmond, Virginia. It was absorbed into Union Presbyterian Seminary a few years ago.

 

 

Lenten Notes: Music and Memory

It was 1964, and Dave Cook and I were in his car driving on North Street past the shoe factories, heading toward…well, I’ve forgotten where we were headed. But I do remember what was on the radio as Dave drove. It was “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” And Dave asked me if I’d heard that that song was about marijuana.

The memory is so clear, and whenever I hear the song, admittedly not very often these days, I recall Dave’s question about little Jackie Paper.

The link between music and memories is something our brains are very good at. When I hear the Doobie Brothers sing “China Grove,” I’m back in the Q94 studio with Dave Collins in 1973. He’s sitting at the console, and I’m standing at the Neumann microphone holding my handwritten script. I hear “One” from “A Chorus Line,” and there’s my daughter Wendy in her high school show choir with one of those sparkly bowler hats. The Brahms “German Requiem” has a solo section with the words, “Lo, I unfold unto you a mystery,” and in my mind I can still hear (after more than fifty years) the bass voice of Westminster College music professor Isaac Reid, and I see him with a hand cupped over one ear.

Earlier in what we called Junior High School, I won a music appreciation award from Mr. Schmoll for identifying, among other classical tunes, “March” from “The Love for Three Oranges,” by Prokofiev. Every time I come across that music today, I see Mr. Schmoll smiling as he hands me a check for $5. One more? A song from “My Fair Lady,” recorded by my college girl friend Joan and sent to me on a three-inch reel of magnetic tape prompts a clear memory of playing it for my Mom who exclaimed over Joan’s lovely voice. I was on the side porch of the house, a summer afternoon, listening to “I’ve Grown Accustomed to His Face,” and feeling very much in love!

The people who study this link between particular musical experiences and our recollections talk about “autobiographical memories.” It’s all about neurons, and the right and left temporal lobes, and brain’s processing of emotions, musical stimuli, and memory formation and retrieval. I read about something called “Dispersion of memory:”  where a small reminder can reactivate a network of neurons wired together in the course of registering an event allowing you to experience the event anew.  Further, from an unattributed note I took from a quick internet search (no, not Facebook, but a professional journal): “The right temporal lobe is specialized to process nonverbal memories such as memory for pictures, visual scenes, familiar faces, routes or directions and music...”

When I plotted out some ideas for this Lenten discipline of considering and writing about music, this music-prompted memory idea was on my list to write about. And then we found ourselves on that ship on vacation and the voyage’s “Enrichment Lecture Series” featured a neural scientist who spoke each day about the human brain. And there was this reference to lobes, neurons, memory, and music… just up my neurological pathway.

(One thing that triggers emotional memories stronger than music, by the way, is smell. A particular odor or aroma can prompt a rich memory that may be tied to a time of great joy, deep sadness, or even anger. A certain aroma of burning autumn leaves takes me back to my boyhood, tramping through a vacant lot, carefree and six. Oh, and I can still hear the high school marching band practicing in the distance as I tramp. (See…that takes us back to the music link, too.)

While neurological research into this topic is still fairly recent, the phenomenon surely isn’t. So one wonders whether an ancient sung psalm rang in the ears some of Jesus’ disciples years after that “last supper,” when he washed their feet, broke bread, shared the wine, and left the upper room after singing a hymn. Maybe decades later that same hymn prompted an emotional response we couldn’t possibly understand.

Twenty centuries later, a congregation sings “Silent Night” on a candle-lit Christmas Eve, and tears flow as a man remembers his late mother or a pastor recalls a previous church’s nativity celebration. One can only imagine the memories that occur as “Taps” is played. Somewhere the first notes of a pop song come from a guitar, and a listener flinches and thinks, or prays, “Oh, God, no! Not that song!” Or, a couple are sharing an anniversary dessert and fondly remembering Noel Paul Stookey’s “Wedding Song” performed at their marriage service. Yes, the neural links work both ways, don’t they? Music triggers a memory, and a memory can lead back to a song, especially when an emotional link is evident.

I’m obviously no scientist, no expert in this stuff. It’s just good to know that when a heart sings the brain remembers, though the ship’s lecturer did remind us that no memory is a perfect representation of history or factual occurrences in our lives. Every memory is a mere sketch, not a high definition video recording. But sometimes, the sketch is enough to remind us that we are human, gifted, and recoverable.

This footnote before we close: in an interview, Noel Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul, and Mary told me, “No, the magic dragon song had nothing to do with pot or any other drug.” Remember that.