Everyday Boy

Easter Sunday

Good Friday

Note: The following was written a few years ago but edited a bit today.

I happily caught up on Six Feet Under this past week; one of my favorite television shows. It is a dark, quirky, funny drama about a family whose lives fluctuate around a funeral home they own. The show of course deals with death, but also deftly touches on family relationships and dynamics, drugs, sexuality, violence and in this last season especially, mental health issues.  The writing is sharp and the acting is superb. I was quite disappointed to find out that I was watching the the last season.

Death seems to be one of those ultimate realities that we sometimes forget about or avoid.  For me, Good Friday seems like a good time to face such a reality, in light of the Christian tradition of meditating on Christ dying as a sacrifice so that we might partake in a relationship with the Divine.  Just like death, Christ on the cross is still a mystery to me.  I'm still unsure of all the implications and meanings behind it all.  More questions than answers.  I know "for God so loved the world"... and hopefully that's one of the more important parts, but the story does seem very outlandish to me sometimes.

The following is a poem from episode 5, season 5, of Six Feet Under, read at a funeral of a loved one.  Perhaps not the best Good Friday poem.  Perhaps we should be meditating on something darker.  And perhaps it doesn't quite work out of context of the television show, but I offer it here anyhow.  I recommend Six Feet Under to all of you.  Unfortunately I gave away my box set DVD's of season 1 and 2, but if you want to borrow seasons 3 to 5, let me know.

Our death is our wedding with eternity.
What is the secret? "God is One."
The sunlight splits when entering the windows of the house.
This multiplicity exists in the cluster of grapes;
it is not in the juice made from the grapes.
For he who is living in the Light of God,
the death of the carnal soul is a blessing.
Regarding him, say neither bad nor good,
for he is gone beyond the good and the bad.
Fix your eyes on God and do not talk about what is invisible,
so that he may place another look in your eyes.
It is in the vision of the physical eyes
that no invisible or secret thing exists.
But when the eye is turned toward the Light of God;
what thing could remain hidden under such a Light?
Although all lights emanate from the Divine Light,
don't call all these lights "the Light of God";
it is the eternal light which is the Light of God,
the ephemeral light is an attribute of the body and the flesh.
...Oh God who gives the grace of vision!
The bird of vision is flying towards You with the wings of desire.

- Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi, Mystic Odes 833

During The Days Of Lent

During Lent, the monks are to go on working but to increase their reading time.  In this period, they are to be assigned a book to read straight through.  In Lent they are to put themselves on a regimen and study what they are told to study in a serious and ordered way.  Nevertheless, the work continues.  Benedictines were to earn their bread by the labor of their hands, and no devotion was to take the place of the demands of life.  These were working monastics who depended on God to provide the means of getting food but who did not, as the ancients said, depend on God to put it in the nest.

At the same time, work is not what defines the Benedictine.  It is the single-minded search for God that defines the Benedictine spirituality.  That is what the monastic pursues behind every other pursuit.  That is what gives the monastic life meaning.  This is what frees the monastic heart.  The monastic does not exist for work.  Creative and productive work are simply meant to enhance the Garden and sustain us while we grow into God.

In today's culture in which people are identified more by what they do than what they are, this is a lesson of profound importance.  Once the retirement dinner is over and the company watch is engraved, there has to be something left in life that makes us human and makes us happy or life may well have been in vain.  That something, Benedictine spirituality indicates, is a mind and a heart full of a sense of meaning and an instinct for God.

(124)

Joan Chittister
The Rule of Benedict: Insight For the Ages

T.S. Eliot's Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday
Thomas Stearns Eliot

I

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessèd face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

II

Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree
In the cool of the day, having fed to sateity
On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been contained
In the hollow round of my skull. And God said
Shall these bones live? shall these
Bones live? And that which had been contained
In the bones (which were already dry) said chirping:
Because of the goodness of this Lady
And because of her loveliness, and because
She honours the Virgin in meditation,
We shine with brightness. And I who am here dissembled
Proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love
To the posterity of the desert and the fruit of the gourd.
It is this which recovers
My guts the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions
Which the leopards reject. The Lady is withdrawn
In a white gown, to contemplation, in a white gown.
Let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness.
There is no life in them. As I am forgotten
And would be forgotten, so I would forget
Thus devoted, concentrated in purpose. And God said
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only
The wind will listen. And the bones sang chirping
With the burden of the grasshopper, saying

Lady of silences
Calm and distressed
Torn and most whole
Rose of memory
Rose of forgetfulness
Exhausted and life-giving
Worried reposeful
The single Rose
Is now the Garden
Where all loves end
Terminate torment
Of love unsatisfied
The greater torment
Of love satisfied
End of the endless
Journey to no end
Conclusion of all that
Is inconclusible
Speech without word and
Word of no speech
Grace to the Mother
For the Garden
Where all love ends.

Under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered and shining
We are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each other,
Under a tree in the cool of day, with the blessing of sand,
Forgetting themselves and each other, united
In the quiet of the desert. This is the land which ye
Shall divide by lot. And neither division nor unity
Matters. This is the land. We have our inheritance.

III

At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapour in the fetid air
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears
The deceitul face of hope and of despair.

At the second turning of the second stair
I left them twisting, turning below;
There were no more faces and the stair was dark,
Damp, jaggèd, like an old man's mouth drivelling, beyond repair,
Or the toothed gullet of an agèd shark.

At the first turning of the third stair
Was a slotted window bellied like the figs's fruit
And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene
The broadbacked figure drest in blue and green
Enchanted the maytime with an antique flute.
Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown,
Lilac and brown hair;
Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind
over the third stair,
Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair
Climbing the third stair.

Lord, I am not worthy
Lord, I am not worthy

               but speak the word only.

IV

Who walked between the violet and the violet
Whe walked between
The various ranks of varied green
Going in white and blue, in Mary's colour,
Talking of trivial things
In ignorance and knowledge of eternal dolour
Who moved among the others as they walked,
Who then made strong the fountains and made fresh the springs

Made cool the dry rock and made firm the sand
In blue of larkspur, blue of Mary's colour,
Sovegna vos

Here are the years that walk between, bearing
Away the fiddles and the flutes, restoring
One who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearing

White light folded, sheathing about her, folded.
The new years walk, restoring
Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring
With a new verse the ancient rhyme. Redeem
The time. Redeem
The unread vision in the higher dream
While jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse.

The silent sister veiled in white and blue
Between the yews, behind the garden god,
Whose flute is breathless, bent her head and signed but spoke no word

But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down
Redeem the time, redeem the dream
The token of the word unheard, unspoken

Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew

And after this our exile

V

If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice

Will the veiled sister pray for
Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee,
Those who are torn on the horn between season and season, time and time, between
Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait
In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray
For children at the gate
Who will not go away and cannot pray:
Pray for those who chose and oppose

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Will the veiled sister between the slender
Yew trees pray for those who offend her
And are terrified and cannot surrender
And affirm before the world and deny between the rocks
In the last desert before the last blue rocks
The desert in the garden the garden in the desert
Of drouth, spitting from the mouth the withered apple-seed.

O my people.

VI

Although I do not hope to turn again
Although I do not hope
Although I do not hope to turn

Wavering between the profit and the loss
In this brief transit where the dreams cross
The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying
(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things
From the wide window towards the granite shore
The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying
Unbroken wings

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices
In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell
Quickens to recover
The cry of quail and the whirling plover
And the blind eye creates
The empty forms between the ivory gates
And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth

This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.

Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.

Via Crucis - Help Along The Way

Jesus even experiences our struggle to receive help. He is made to experience the poverty of not being able to carry his burden alone. He enters into the experience of all who must depend upon others to survive. He is deprived of the satisfaction of carrying this burden on his own.

Stations of the Cross, Simon Helps Jesus Carry His Cross

I received an e-mail this past week that touches on Simon being thrown in rather haphazardly to help Jesus carry his cross. It speaks a little about what I wrote yesterday, about shedding the idea of always keeping a brave front. This station again grants me the courage to reach out to others, both in asking others to help carry my burdens, and being open, ready and willing when called upon to help carry others' burdens. Ronald Rolheiser has an interesting question: How do you become a Simon of Cyrene, helping Jesus carry his cross?:

The cross of Jesus appears in many forms: Whenever you are the one who has to take care of an aging parent because circumstance arranges that you are the one who happens to be living close by; whenever you are the parent of a handicapped child and are asked to do things ordinary parents aren't asked to do; whenever you are the one to whom the emotionally needy person at work chooses to reach out; whenever you are the one whose gentle nature makes it difficult to say no and people take advantage of you; whenever you are the one who is the first at the scene of an accident; whenever you are the one whom the drunk accosts on the sidewalk; whenever you are the one who forever finds herself caught up in duties not of your own choosing that always have you around when the less-glamorous work needs to be done; whenever you are the one whose plans and dreams can be sacrificed because everyone else's are deemed more important; whenever you're the one whose life is disrupted by unwanted circumstance, you are Simon of Cyrene, helping Jesus carry the cross.

The next station seems less practical, like that of Jesus' mother Mary meeting Jesus along the way. Why is the wiping of Jesus' face by Veronica of such significance? I'm not completely sure, but I find it interesting seeing the prominent role of both men and woman disciples in the Stations of the Cross. Both Mary and Veronica do seem to imbue a loving presence to Jesus beyond words. Consolation - to be with the lonely one. The simple act of wiping someone's face when facing sickness, suffering or death. Again, as Nouwen would point out - not cure, but care.

Via Crucis - Stumbling Into Love

The weight is unbearable. Jesus falls under it. How could he enter our lives completely without surrendering to the crushing weight of the life of so many on this earth! He lies on the ground and knows the experience of weakness beneath unfair burdens. He feels the powerlessness of wondering if he will ever be able to continue. He is pulled up and made to continue.

Stations of the Cross, Jesus Falls The First Time.

The third and fourth stations of the cross depict Christ fallling for the first time, and Christ encountering his mother Mary. For some reason I imagine it being muddy, rainy and steep all the way up to the hill of Golgotha. I hear laughter and goading from some of the onlookers, a solemn head turn away from others. I hear heavy sighs and panting from Jesus. I now realize that my questions as to why no one was around to defend Jesus was somewhat naive. Who would want the same fate as this?

I never imagined Jesus struggling so much that he falls under the weight of the cross. It is another in a series of exclamation points of embarassment and humiliation, that God incarnate should slip and fall and be so weak and powerless. Becoming weak for the sake of the weak takes on new meaning for me. At the same time, it makes me think of something both my spiritual director and another spiritual guide have challenged me face this past year; my propensity for perfectionism, and perhaps also my inclination to not show any vulnerabilities or weakensses to others, but rather to just show a strong side all the time. I've been listening to the Wailin' Jenny's CD 40 Days over Lent this year, and these lyrics from Heaven When We're Home have stuck: There's no such thing as perfect, / and if there is we'll find it when we're good and dead. Seeing Christ fall here helps me loosen my grip a little on prideful attitudes of perfection, and opens me up to confessing my times of falling down. I take comfort knowing how profoundly (Christ) understands my fatigue and my defeats.

She knows the sorrow in every mother's heart, who has lost a child to tragedy or violence.

The image of Christ seeing his mother Mary along the way... perhaps a little glimspe of what this passion is all about. That suffering would be met by love. We are lucky if we have such encounters in life, and blessed to offer it. Not necessarily the ability to take away someone's suffering, or to fix anything - but to be there, to look in that person's eyes and say I am here. I like to think it counts for something.

Via Crucis - Death and Suffering

There is a group of bloggers from around the world participating in a grid blog called Via Crucis, writing down their responses this Holy week to the Stations of the Cross. I've needed something to focus on in prayer, and I thought this would be a good opporutinity to set aside some time for that. The first two stations deal with Christ condemened to die and Christ carrying his cross:

I've heard folks say, in effect, that all of us born in this world are condemned to die at some point in our lives. Reflecting on the first station of the cross though, there is a crucial difference between Jesus and I. While I stand guilty before God and humanity, Jesus remains innocent, and was condemened to be executed in a kangaroo court. And for what? Blasphemy? It makes me want to take a closer look at the life of Christ - all the events of his life bringing him to this condemnation, because Jesus not only challenges the status quo of the religious establishment of his time, but confronts them in a way that threatens their sense of power and security. The radical nature of his life, that as one blogger has pointed out, began at the very beginning of the Gospel when even then his life was threatened, carries him along to face his accusers mostly in silence, submitting to their unjust actions, claiming only he is who he claims he is.

It is a way that is strange to us. Why doesn't Jesus plead innocence? Where are his family, friends and followers to defend him? We don't understand this man who talks of the kingdom of God coming, here now, but allows this injustice to happen to him and doesn't seem to put up a fight. And so we scatter. I know I betray Jesus like Judas and fall in despair. I know I follow him only at arms length and deny him like Peter. But are we not called to follow Jesus to the end?

I think of all the innocent woman and men around the world who are condemned to die, for no other reason for being who they are. Do I wash my hands of their cirucmstances? Christ is condemned now as then: when police brutality goes unchecked on the streets of Vancouver; when someone with power abuses someone physically, sexually, and emotionally; when warlords in Africa keep basic food and necessities from the people; and perhaps even when a rich and free nation like the United States at times wields it's power on the international stage in fear and self-interest. We condemn others to certain kinds of deaths.

I've been trying to follow an online retreat, with my spiritual director and a friend. We're working through week five, which focuses on accepting the evil, pain and suffering of the world. It is good to meditate on Christ carrying his cross - our cross really; bearing the weight and darkness of sin. But what do we do in the face of such death and suffering? I turn to Christ on the cross in sadness and gratitude. And I turn to some of Nouwen's words for some help:

Finding new life through suffering and earth: that is the core of the good news. Jesus has lived out that liberating way before us and has made it the great sign... To look suffering and death straight in the face and to go through them oneself in the hope of a new God-given life: that is the sign of Jesus and of every human bing who wishes to lead a spiritual life in imitation of him. It is the sign of the cross: the sign of suffering and death, but also of the hope for total renewal.

Even though Jesus went directly against the human inclination to avoid suffering and death, his followers realized that it was better to live the truth with open eyes that to live their lives in lillusion.
       Suffering and death belong to the narrrow road of Jesus. Jesus does not glorify them, or call them beautiful, good, or something to be desired. Jesus does not call for heroism or suicidal self-sacrifice. No Jesus invites us to look at the reality of our existence and reveals this harsh reality as the way to new life. The core message of Jesus is that real joy and peace can never be reached while bypassing suffering and death, but only by going right through them.
       We could say: We really have no choice. Indeed, who escapes suffering and death? Yet there is still a choice. We can deny the reality of life, or we can face it. When we face it not in despair, but with the eyes lf Jesus, we discover that where we least expect it, something is hidden that holds a promise stronger than death itself. Jesus lived his life with the trust that God's love is stronger than death and that death therefore does not have the last word. He invites us to face the painful reality of our existence with the same trust. This is what Lent is all about. (127 - 129)

Henri Nouwen, Show Me The Way

Fasting & Solitude

Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self. Jesus himself entered into this furnace. There he was tempted with the three compulsions of the world: to be relevant (turn stones into loaves), to be spectacular (throw yourself down), and to be powerful (I will give you all these kingdoms). There he affirmed God as the only source of his identity (You must worship the Lord your God and serve him alone). Solitude is the place of the great struggle against the compulsions of the false self, and the encounter with the loving God who offers himself as the substance of the new self. (14)

Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart

I find I can trick myself into thinking of my alone time of reading and writing as being times of solitude, however solitude in the truest sense of the word - being alone in the presence of God, without all the distractions we surround ourselves with - is something different altogether.  It is work.  It is struggle. It as an encounter with a Living Being who challenges us to face ourselves in all the ways we miss the mark, and offers a new way of being.  I find it so easy to slough off change, and to just continue along in our tissue of habits.  How often do we really allow God to transform us?

I've been listening in on a discussion about how fasting over Lent can take a different forms, and have different meanings for everyone.  Thinking about Jesus' preparation for being tempted in the wilderness, I find myself asking what exactly he did for the forty days leading up to the temptations. Did he take anything with him? It's funny, if I was going into the wilderness for forty days I think I'd at least be taking a backpack full of Mountain Equipment Co-op supplies, a little food and water, my digital camera, a few books and maybe a journal to pass the time. A prolonged fast away from my everyday comforts, let alone my basic needs, is quite radical, and quite far off my radar.

That being said, while I haven't been inclined to fast this Lent, I've been trying to take a closer look at what I do or possess that supplants God in my life.   I am challenged to take a look at what I turn to when I'm flailing about, be it food, or drink, or other pleasures and distractions, rather than turning to God.  As has been suggested to me, for some fasting might actually might be detrimental to ones spiritual life, drawing the person away from God instead into the presence of God. I'm reminded of one nun relating how her superior told her to go to the refectory and have a slice of chocolate cake during Lent instead of fasting, as she was wont to neglect such pleasures in life. It is a healthy balance which I appreciate in Benedictine spirituality.  I'm trying to be more mindful of eating regularly and healthily, as I sometimes am neglectful that way.  I am also trying to eat out less, as I tend to splurge a bit to much... although tonight I will be happy to for our house-mate's birthday.  We are going to a wonderful, though expensive, Indian fusion restaurant called Vij's.

And I wonder how community plays it's role in fasting. Are we to encourage one another to all go off into our own solitary deserts to struggle there alone, and then come back to community? Fasting is still a bit of an anomaly to me.  Ideally and probably in a romanticized way I think I'd go off with nothing into the wilderness - but since that isn't going to happen anytime soon, I will try to discern what is sustaining and defining me these days - my relationship with God, or everything else?  What needs to stay, what needs to go?  What behaviors need to change?

I'm stealing the following St. John Chrysostom quote from Lisa.  Words concerning holy living and the fasts that we observe to help make us more holy:

Do you fast? Give me proof of it by your works.
If you see a poor man, take pity on him.
If you see a friend being honored, do not envy her.

Do not let only your mouth fast,
but also the eye and the ear and the feet and the hands
and all the members of our bodies.

Let the hands fast, by being free of avarice.
Let the feet fast, by ceasing to run after sin.
Let the eyes fast, by disciplining
them not to glare at that which is sinful.
Let the ear fast, by not listening to evil talk and gossip.
Let the mouth fast from foul words and unjust criticism.

For what good is it if we abstain from birds and fishes, but bite and devour our brothers and sisters?

May He who came to the world to save sinners,
strengthen us to complete the fast with humility,
have mercy on us and save us.

Lent Stencil

From Protest Records:

More Or Less

The heart of the Christian ascesis - and the work of Lent - is to face the unconscious values that underlie the emotional programs for happiness and to change them. Hence the need of a discipline of contemplative prayer and action...

Lent is the season in which the church as a whole enters into an extended retreat. Jesus went into the desert for forty days and forty nights. The practice of Lent is participation in Jesus' solitude, silence and privation.

Thomas Keating, Foundations For Centering Prayer & The Christian Contemplative Life (287)

I've had a few conversations this past week about what folks are sacrificing for Lent this year. Is less more? Is more, more? It is Fat Tuesday but I haven't had the urge to gorge on anything before this period focused on fasting, almsgiving and prayer begins, though  I have been giving much thought as to what this season of Lent means to me.

I've been reading a bit of Thomas Keating. In The Mystery of Christ: The Liturgy of Spiritual Experience, he writes how Lent is our confrontation with our false self: the self developed in our own likeness rather than in the likeness of God: the self-image developed to cope with the emotional trauma of early childhood. It seeks happiness in satisfying the instinctual needs of survival/security, affection/esteem, and power/control, and bases its self-worth on cultural or group identification. Kind of heady psychological stuff, but nonetheless helpful.

Keating frames this against Jesus' temptation in the desert, which has become a clearer example of what Lent is for me. There Jesus seems to cement his identity and relationship with God as Beloved, and where he seems to surrender all his instinctual needs (survival/security, affection/esteem, and power/control) into the care of God.   So, the idea of less or more is lost in the idea of being and having enough as God's beloved.  This helps me as I enter Lent. There are many things I rely on more than God that I would benefit in giving up for a period of time, or perhaps giving away, or maybe just surrending to God (that movement of illusion to prayer). "Repent" means "change the direction in which you are looking for happiness."

In many cultures there is an ancient custom of giving a tenth of each year's income to some holy use. For Christians, to observe the forty days of Lent is to do the same thing with roughly a tenth of each year's days. After being baptized by John in the river Jordan, Jesus went off alone into the wilderness where he spent forty days asking himself the question what it meant to be Jesus. During Lent, Christians are supposed to ask one way or another what it means to be themselves... To hear yourself answer (such a question) is to begin to hear something not only of who you are but of both what you are becoming and what you are failing to become. It can be a pretty depressing business all in all, but if sackcloth and ashes are at the start of it, something like Easter may be at the end of it.

Frederik Buechner (a quote Karen has passed along before)

Along with descriptions of what Lent is about in Insights For The Ages, Chittister's commentary on the Rule of Benendict (Chapter 49), here are some Lenten readings I've gone back to the past couple of years:

A Lenten Psalm by Edward Hays

Articles by Joan Chittister, from the National Catholic Reporter:

First Sunday of Lent
Second Sunday of Lent
Third Sunday of Lent
Fourth Sunday of Lent
Fifth Sunday of Lent
Sixth Sunday of Lent
Easter Sunday