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| This post is adapted from my facebook, where many of my friends are fellow seminarians. It is meant to be general, to let poetry and metaphor set free what prose and people must mask in order to 'survive'.
Where I am right now, some people wonder why they must slink around like deceptive teenagers, or rebellious children. They would try to be free, to speak truth and live truth, but they must often ask, "Do I want to die on this one?" Each person wrestles with the appropriateness of each battle- and so many day-to-day choices, like the height of a skirt, the choice of blue jeans, where to eat, who to invite over, to go to a celebration dinner or event or to stay home, how to spend one's time with kids/wife/husband, whether to work or go on foodstamps, whether to stand up for ethical or fiduciary change, whether to schedule a get-together, how to treat a non-student family, where to live, when to attend church. When s/he finishes deciding if the battle is worthwhile, s/he must make the choice opaque. It is not acceptable to stake a claim, to represent openly, to defend or address. One must do what one has to quietly, in the shadows, hoping to "not get caught."
And, if we don't fight that battle, we must allow ourselves to wrestle inwardly. We must ask, "Am I a part of the problem because I did not stand up to the powers that be?" Why must we stand up and fight for which clothes to wear, which restaurants to choose? Why are so many little things necessary to "fight" for?
"The People won't stop singing,/ or stop being the people,/just because
they no longer have the right to vote." (Thiago De Mello "A Song of
Armed Love")
So, on nights when I'm so tired that I'll collapse for regaining any
sense of the novel or treatise I'm plodding through, I pick up one of
the collections of poetry I keep at my bedside. Those of you who know
me, know that I arrange my bookshelves according to vanity,
accessibility and passion. Poetry goes at my bedside. Keep your friends
close, right?
So I was reading from my volume of Latin American Revolutionary Poetry.
And my enemies happened to feel distant that night- when I rolled over
as I often do and started reading stanzas to my husband.
I thought that much of the Orwellian culture which I've experienced in
recent years- via a few principals and other teaching institutions, was
slipping away. It is a culture, not unlike my experience in a small
charismatic church growing up, where rules are hard and fast, but not
published. Procedures are rules. Everything is justified but no source
for the reasoning, no beginning is cited.
So I thought I'd take my writing time this morning to "blog" which I've
switched to my facebook. This is a matter of convenience to me, but
appears to have a larger audience. That could backfire for me, so bear
with me.
Some of my favorite poets from this volume include Thiago De Mello (Brazil) and Ernesto Cardenal.
One of my favorite's is De Mello's "Song of Armed Love," which is
fitting now as the elections are just days away. I can taste the blood
from the lip that I bite as we hold our breaths for new- a new
president, a new metropolitan, a new day when people preparing for
priesthood, when spiritual children, are treated with trust and respect
and dignity, and respond with trustworthiness, and obedience, and love.
From De Mello's "The Statutes of Man"
Article 1
It is hereby decreed
that now what counts is truth
that now what counts is life
and that, hands joined,
we will all work for what life really is.
Article 2
It is hereby decreed
that every weekday
even the grayest Tuesday
has the right to become a Sunday morning.
Article 5
It is hereby decreed that men are free of the yoke of lies.
No one will ever have to wear
the armor-plate of silence,
the weapon of words.
Man will sit down at the table
with a pristine eye
for he will be served truth
before dessert.
Article 6
The practice dreamed of by Isaiah the prophet
is, for ten centuries, hereby decreed:
the wolf will pasture with the lamb,
and their food will taste no different than before.
Article 12
Be it decreed that nothing will be ordered or forbidden.
All things will be permitted,
including playing with a rhinoceros
and walking in the afternoon
with an immense begonia in the lapel.
Paragraph 1.
Only one thing will be forbidden:
to love and feel no love.
Article 13
It is hereby decreed that money
will no longer be able to buy
the sun of dawns to come.
Cast out of fear’s coffers,
Money will become a fraternal sword
With which to defend the right to sing
And celebrate the day that’s come.
And a final poetic metaphor upon which to meditate:
"Everyone should have his weapon,/ any weapon, even a thing/ as light
and innocent as this/ poem in which the people sing-- / as simple song
of love. /But of armed love.
"Do all things to the glory of Christ" whether you eat out, dress up or
dress down, sing, praise, dance. Seek first his Kingdom and His
Righteousness. Or, as Vladyka is quoted for saying, "Worry Less. Pray
More. Do not Entangle." | | |
| Bear with me! This is rough drafting....
Two days ago, my hierarch, retired. Calls for his head, his kingdom, his horse abound. But as the fog rises over the Lackawanna River Valley, and the crickets hold Vigil, I find myself thinking about the movie I watched last night. It seems so linked to the story of St. Antony below. I can disagree wholly, resist and take a stand against poor leadership, and still be a person of forgiveness, can't I?
You see, I've asked my walls aloud, how much is the Church hierarch like the sitting Commander in Chief of the US? Both men just want us to rubber stamp their decisions. They quash engagement because it means losing control. It means they don't get to dictate the how and when and where. They taught us that questioning them was unrighteous or unholy or unpatriotic or unpious. What this leadership style means to say is, "You are usuper."
In "Lions for Lambs," the story teller raises themes about American service and engagement, about being anti-war vs. being uncomfortable, of having integrity and being a person of integrity. And, of our willingness to be forgetful of the past in order to preserve our comfort.
I've struggled for a long time at watching the population of the country shift positions on the war in Iraq. I've heard them say, "My country right or wrong." (I laughed recently to learn that GK Chesterton wrote in "The Defendant" "'My country, right or wrong,' is a thing that no patriot would
think of saying. It is like saying, 'My mother, drunk or sober.'") The inane failure of the American leadership who said they wanted the hearts and minds of American people was that it didn't ask us for our whole person. They did not want our muscles, our stomachs, and our spirits. They want us to acqueisce to the loss of volunteer serviceman, but not to engage the world with sacrifice, selflessness and service. And the volunteer servicemen and women are still socio-economically disadvantaged and/or ethnic minorities.
Now we want to rack 'em.
This is how we engage, and I propose that it is misguided. In Lions for Lambs, a Latino and African American propose that engagement in the US, by a year of service in PeaceCorps, or urban renewal, or the military, would teach our young people something about what is righteous and patriotic. If nothing else, it trains body not to be flaccid and leave all the work to the head. If the metaphor of body can be applied to Christ's Body, can it not be applied to the unity of a country's citizens?
Perhaps the body would be able then, strong enough then, to redirect the head, when necessary, as opposed to waring against itself, neutering itsself. and failing any action?
In that spirit, we can marry the story of St. Antony to Lions for Lambs. We must engage. It is better to put our energies to making the change, from the depths of our nous (hearts and minds, if you will), then into the world, than it is to believe that arm-chair quarterbacking and living for ourselves will change our leadership.
Go, our work will never be done.
+ + +
One day, while St. Antony was sitting with a certain Abba,
a virgin came up and said to the Elder: 'Abba, I fast six days of the
week and I repeat by heart portions of the Old and New Testament daily.
To
which the Elder replied: 'Does poverty mean the same to you as
abundance?' 'No', she answered. 'Or dishonour the same as praise?' 'No,
Abba.' 'Are your enemies the same for you as your friends?' 'No', she
replied.
At that the wise Elder said to her: 'Go, get to work; you have accomplished nothing.'
St. Peter of Damaskos
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|      He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if
you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this
mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be
impossible for you." MATT. 17:20 (nkjv)
So on Sunday we listend to this gospel I pondered it and wondered, as my friends, the Sextons, were installed at a parish with such obvious trouble as (1) fewer than 20 members, (2) all older than 65, while they have (7) children.
What does faith like this mean? I've asked this many times this year, when I've been asked to pray for the health of ____________, daily provision for __________, and comfort of __________. What business do I, one who once believed such faith was simple, have praying, I ask? I have so little faith compared to my beloved St. Mary of Egypt, or St. Maria of Paris, or St. Herman of Alaska, or St. Elizabeth the New Martyr, or, even- heaven forbid- the Theotokos, whom I'm growing to know and  love and fear.
These are saints who moved mountains. I have nothing. I am learning to pray morning and night. I cannot even pray without ceasing. And there is such need for mountains to be moved. Yesterday the Brinegars, my friends, neighbors and landlords, left in exhaustion and, in such a heap with need for provision, traveling mercies and comfort, that I wondered what I have to offer. We are broke. We have been so broke now for so a month. We could muster but a bit of cooking, some packing, and kid watching. We can manage our groceries and gas this week, if we raid every change jar in the house.
What of them? Fr. Gabriel, my father confessor, would tell me to pray as I have nothing else to offer, but what do my prayers matter? What can I offer to our Lord Jesus Christ by way of faith? It is smaller than a mustard seed. I used to think I could do hoodoo and just say or think, "I believe..." but that is not belief. That is words. It is hoodoo and tomfoolery.
Real faith. I don't know what that is. I hope someday to say "yet" with that last clause. How far am I from such faith that I cannot even say "yet."
May God have mercy on me and accept the prayers of his servant, not as those that move mountains, as did my Patron Saint Mary- whose repentence was purified in the desert, by faith, that she was found worthy enough by the Holy Spirit that Fr. Zosimos was chastised by her piety- or by the saints Elizabeth the New Martyr and Mary of Paris, they worshipped and ministered in the Bolshevik persecution and in Buchenwald, despite torture and godlessness.
Pray for me, a sinner.
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| Don't have time to inform yourself about the issues we can and should be conscientious of? Watch these documentaries or movies:
1. God Grew Tired of Us (the Lost Boys of Sudan)
2. Maxed Out (on credit card and other debt)
3. The Devil Came on Horseback (Saving Darfur)
4. What Would Jesus Buy? (Materialism in America)
5. Sometimes in April (The Rwandan Genocide dramatized)
6. Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars (What happened under Charles Taylor)
7. Who Killed the Electric Car? (Why the electric car is no longer on the road)
8. Blood Diamond (Fiction)
9. The Last King of Scotland (Fiction)
10. Osama (Fiction on Women under the Taliban in Afghanistan)
11. The Kite Runner (Afghanistan under the Taliban)
12. Voces Innocentes (about the FMLA in El Salvador)
13. When the Levees Broke (New Orleans)
14. The Agronomist (About a famous Haitian Journalist)
15. Lake of Fire/ Unborn in the USA (Abortion debate in America)
I'm just encouraging us to learn.
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|
What is sacred? Hold on. I’ll get back to that question in a
second.
It’s February again, my month without solace. I have the
romantic notion that I suffer from SAD because every year I hit this month like
an indy car hitting a wall. And few things carry me through. In Indiana I felt trapped,
but knew that by mid-March my daffodils would come up. Here in NEPA, where the
snow will persist until April, and where in December it’s dark by 4:15, I feel
trapped. I want long walks so bad my joints and muscles ache. I exercise on my
elliptical like a frenetic clown, but I gain weight. Liam, my six year old,
bounces off every wall and challenges every polite request like a 6 year old
Helen Keller. Ophelia mops, mourning friends left behind in Indiana and friends who will move to a
parish in May, even though she has months yet, to spend with those here. Joel
and I tell ourselves we’ll take in stride the “hit” of our renters in C-ville
moving away. We’ll not panic about working remotely, missing a week of classes,
the cost of travel, new carpet, finding a “property manager” until the renter
is secured and moved into our 1870’s Victorian newly restored to an enviable,
rentable state. We’ll manage the spring.
A friend in Indiana
wrote me this week, just after Ash Wednesday to share about the beginning of
another Lenten journey. Another friend and colleague here in NEPA, one who
happens to be Catholic, comforted me through yet another major tech disaster
Friday with the reminder that the devil works twice as hard in Lent. In both cases, I was taken aback. Yes, its
February and I can feel Great Lent approaching, as I always do, but it’s still
nearly a month away for Orthodox Christians, so I’m eating ice cream and
enjoying mulled wine (as vegetarians do) with one eye on the 8 week journey in
the future. I’m a bit shocked by these
messages that the devil is. This same colleague-friend asked me last November
to ponder what Joel and I believe is ‘sacred.’ She was facing heart surgery-
any surgery is scary but heart surgery is one of the most frightening.
So here comes Great Lent. It’s the end of one of those “fall
apart” weeks that I feel for about 8-10 weeks after both Nativity and Great
Lent, and I haven’t given my friend- colleague an answer. Don’t think I haven’t
pondered what I consider ‘sacred.’ Joel and I have discussed it, but our answer
seems so “unorthodox,’ with nothing singularly Orthodox in it.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t Orthodox. What is sacred, Joel
and I we realized, is the “space between” as coined by Dave Matthews, but not
as he defined. It’s not the space between wicked lies, or even the space
defined as “la difference” as put
forth by postmodern critique Jacques Derrida, who defines la difference as the space
wherein human beings interpret one another’s words and communication
differently. It is not, as he seems to posit, an implicit lie in words. No, the
space between is where we might be joined, not because we understand one
another without gap, but where we empathize because we imagine that we
understand the other. It is the space where we stretch our imaginations to meet
the other. Where we abnegate or deny ourselves, in illusion or truth, enough to
believe we can relate to another.
Still I love la
difference! One idea implied in
Derrida’s difference is that words
betray their speaker. How true! St. Isaac the Syrian says:
The
more a man’s tongue flees verbosity, the more his intellect is illumined so as
to be able to discern deep thoughts; for the rational intellect is befuddled by
verbosity.
In other words, the sacred is not expressed in word. In
fact, if our minds, created by God are any kind of gift, words may betray them
in spite of words’ goodness. In our
modernized age, literacy and words are the capital of intellect. But if
Vygotsky did any good to thought, we have learned from him, that intellect and
intelligence are not tied to words and expression. Oh, no. Just as we know from postulate and
observe from Vygotsky’s theory that varied ethnic or sub-ethnic groups will not
succeed on our verbal tests- high stakes assessments of their intelligence- so
we know can extrapolate that not all will express their brains with words.
Sacred is the space between two or people, where the work of
the Spirit happens.
Sacred is what I trampled this week, so many times that as I
watched the Russian Film “Octpob” (The Island) I wondered if I would ever be
penitent enough to make it to heaven. I started this week with a Superbowl
party of seminarians, single and families, along with my parents, two sibs, and
my grandmother. I overindulged, cried, talked too much, and I woke up at 3am
wondering what had come over me. I spent
Monday night, reading from St. Isaac the Syrian about cultivating silence and
mercy: “Silence is a mystery of the age to come,
but words are instruments of this world.” It was my penitence.
On Tuesday, I watched
a good portion of “Octpob,” which a friend in Indiana sent to me. In it, I found myself
being gently restored-- ah, the mark of a movie I will treasure. In this film about a “fool for Christ” at a
monastery in Russia,
the “fool” is a ‘prankster’ monastic, who is spending his life in penitence for
betraying and killing his captain to the Nazi’s during WWII. He will paint his door handle with coal tar
to pester a proud priest, but weep and recite the Psalms for hours over his
sins.
So, here I am, thinking about what is Sacred. Why do I feel
most worthy of the Kingdom
of Heaven when I a
repository for other’s struggles, their fears and their secrets? Why is silence
the end of my appetites, for food, drink and more, critical to connecting to
others? Even too much food distracts me from others, makes me edgy and unable
to silence my thoughts in conversation and inhibits my ability to hear others.
At the end of Octpob, our “fool-for-Christ,” Fr. Anatoly is
free to die in peace because he not only learns the fate of his victim, but has
offered some healing, after years of servanthood to those of whom knows little,
to one he knows better than he anticipates.
It is in learning to serve his ‘neighbors’- a pregnant, unmarried girl
begging for a blessing for her abortion, a single mother who prefers her job to
the spiritual and physical health of her crippled son, and self-indulgences of
brothers in his monastery. What is sacred? To Fr. Anatoly, it is not the icons
in the cell where he never sleeps or in the chapel where he turns 90 degrees
from the altar. Not the candles which he lights at times to pray and other
times he prays while pining to find the corpse of his victim.
The sacred is revealed in the icons, in the candles,
services, chapels, prayers and more. But the sacred is a verb, rather than noun
or adjective in the salvation of Fr. Anatoly’s soul.
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