Psalm for Jonathan Daniels d. August 20, 1965

Jon Daniels went down to Alabama * a volunteer, helping black   

                  citizens register to vote.

He left his seminary studies back in Cambridge, * left the hills of New Hampshire,

                  his boyhood home.

At an incense-haunted altar he had a revelation, * and took magnificat to be his creed.

Guileless, he lived among the people; * their children trusted him.

Unknowing, he joined the group that went to Hayneville; * nonviolent, they spent the

                   night in jail.

Released that morning, they went to get a drink: * Coca-Cola, at the nearby little store.

In the street, Tom Coleman shot him, * and Father Morrisroe his friend.

Tom Coleman, a sheriff’s deputy, * believing that he did God’s will.

Jon Daniels placed his body * between the shotgun and a teen age girl;

He died instead of her, * white for black, male for female, him for her.

His novice priesthood sacrificed, * his cup spilled, but covenant unbroken.

The deputy went unpunished: * his jurors, twelve white men,

While, from the dust, another justice worked a silent plan * to heal the land.

Life in the kingdom of the kingdom-less

“...one might speak, in all perversity, of the possibility of a kingdom of the kingdom-less, a kingdom where no one reigns- or, if they do, they have no power- an unkingly anarchic kingdom, a kingdom where the only power that is permitted is the power of powerlessness, where the very condition of power is that it be without power.” John D. Caputo, The Weakness of God, p. 26

On vacation in Vermont our extended family lives a mild version of such a kingdom.

No one is in charge, although many experts are at hand to repair an outboard motor, discuss a dog, or prepare a meal. The weather influences us most, along with the dogs, and the youngest children.

Passionate about what we do at work, we discuss or projects and our problems: “When I worked for state government we had a new commissioner on average every fifteen months,” says my brother-in-law. “We just did our work and waited.” 

While in Vermont my boss and friend calls to say he is leaving, going to be the Dean of a famous cathedral. With this news, all semblance of an ordered future disappears for me, leaving inside a shrunken self, a fishless, future-less, potentially jobless relic of a priest and man, shrunk down like drought-stricken Lake Champlain that surrounds our peninsula on three sides.  When I look inside myself, I see only absences: our absent children, who are busy elsewhere with their own good lives; my long-dead parents; and my absent self.

I go fishing with my brother and his son. I am familiar with these three- they have fished together many times before, as boys and men. The youngest, Benjamin, has grown into a master angler, one who looks at the Lake and feels fish moving through the boat’s hull. I watch this triumvirate as if from some vantage-point along the shore. “Those three must be very close,” I observe, and think I remember how that must feel.

 The wordless process of casting and retrieving makes a sort of mantra, a rosary-like ritual of repeated movements and sounds from which a thought emerges and hovers, unsupported, in the air: “the blessing has departed from us,” is what I hear, imagine, suppose.

And, as if making a liturgical response, a fish strikes my floating lure and bores strong and deep against the drag. It is a heavy bass, a grandfather and a chief who fights hard and deep and then succumbs to a scurry of net and cell phone photos. Inside of me, a twelve year-old boy revives and swells to fill the empty space as we hoist our heavy fish for our father to admire. A strange, unbidden serenity prevails as we release the bass into his own anarchic kingdom.

“The kingdom of God as discussed in the New Testament is an anarchized field, produced by exposing being to the proactive name of God.” John D. Caputo, p. 14.

In the area where we fish in Lake Champlain there is a log that protrudes from the water just enough to be seen in the evening light, just enough for us to position our boat so as to aim casts in its general vicinity. We call it “David’s Log” because it was David, at age twelve or so, who first suggested fishing around it, and David who has caught many bass there, using an old-fashioned jitterbug lure that bubbles and slurps so disruptively  across the water that it seems more likely to frighten fish away than to make them want to bite it. But it works, and so we keep going back to David’s Log, even now that David has turned twenty-one, and rarely has opportunity to fish around his own log.

The Daily Office reminds me of David’s Log. The seasons change, but the pattern of psalms, lessons, canticles, and prayers stays pretty much the same. Our behavior at Morning Prayer is as predictable as an evening spent fishing on the lake. For the Daily Office we stand, sit, recite verses in rhythmic unison, and observe extended periods of silence. On the lake we motor over to the vicinity of David’s log, cast noisy surface lures out onto the windless water, and hope for a strike. Such ritual behavior always renews our connection to the lake and to each other, even when no fish is caught. In a similar way, the Daily Office always renews our connection to the living word of God, and to our spiritual ancestors, and to every living thing.

Perhaps you are thinking: “now I know why I don’t like going to church: it’s for the same reason I don’t like fishing. Boring!” If so, I will not try to disabuse you of your feelings. But I will ask you this: is there anything in your experience that reminds you of “David’s Log?” Is there a place, a symbol, a shared memory that connects you to some cherished current that runs through your life? I hope so, because most people can get by without bass fishing, and God will love you even if you never once show up at Morning Prayer Monday-Thursday at 8:30am in St. Paul’s Chapel, but you really need to have something like David’s Log in your life. 

And that is as about as judgmental as I ever get.

   Peace be with you,

  Jonathan+

Excerpt from a letter written by old friend and parishioner in 1985 after he and his wife retired and moved to western North Carolina.
"St. James near downtown Hendersonville... built of stone, very high...one things that tickles me, they have cushions in the pews...I never saw so many workers on an altar...the priest is wired for sound. The pulpit is raised some ten feet above the congregation.
     Talk about a parade coming and going. It is led by a little old man in black who carries a one-inch cross on a short stick. He is very bald, very short, very serious, and wears a black robe. He is followed by three acolytes, one carrying a cross, after an acolyte carrying a banner. Then comes the choir of about thirty...then comes some acolytes carrying another cross followed by the deacons, assistant priests, the lectors, and the priest. Man do you have to be on your toes.
     I have thought about you-what would you feel like to face some two hundred people at one service week after week and try to remember faces and names...there is a greeter doing what I so liked to do. He has learned our names and he greets everyone, makes sure the priest knows the new people. etc. Makes you feel good...but they lack the closeness of St. Timothy's...there seems to be four people to do every job. There is something about a large church-they really don't need me and though I sort of like that I also tend to resent it. Selfish I guess."
   Thanks for the letter, Mac, and for your friendship. Wherever you are, I hope you will pray for me, for "the prayer of a righteous man availeth much."It is interesting how the church you described resembles the one I presently serve in retirement... may God send us more greeters like the one you describe! May God send us more people like you...

                                           Near Ashville, NC
     
    

So, Katie has come home from the hospital. She has an ulcer, a painful but treatable condition, plus her usual hiatal hernia. This diagnosis comes as a HUGE relief, since an original CT Scan had suggested the possibility of something far more grave. 

How do we acknowledge the huge-ness of this relief? How many times have I been excused from walking down a certain dark road, and marked the occasion merely by resuming whatever mediocre pastime I had been engaged in before the crises arose?

U, God, are most “with” us at such times, U the Prodigal Father of an Impossible Son, whose death sentence was not commuted, whose execution proceeded without divine intervention. U carry all our possibilities within yourself, like a pregnant teenager in a Galilean village. U are the One who, having shared our tears, bids us join in delirious rejoicing.

Thank you, Brent, for creating this new persona for me. As Abba Jonathan of the Desert I can engage in all manner of random whimsy while preserving a measure of deniability. "Deny the consubstantiality of the Trinity I did not," cried Abba Jonathan, "that would have to have been John the Dwarf, or his cousin Alfred." Things like that.
    The following (100% legitimate) quote was shared at the Mini-Retreat last Monday (June 11...thanks to all who attended!)from the writings of Brother David Steindl-Rast...

“I remember Soen Roshi saying to us young monks, who thought of sweeping as something to get over and done with: ’That’s no way to treat the dust. Your hands are to make the broom say to the dust, ‘Sorry, you happen to be in a place where you don’t belong, let me help you out.’ “ Brother David Steindl-Rast, A Listening Heart  p. 75

    Sort of like, "Use the force, Luke." Right? Except "use" is not quite appropriate, and "force" is almost as misleading as "consubstantiality."Abba Jonathan says, "So stop talking and sweep out the cabin."

    

                                                     from rckmk.com

Brainwashed by the Psalms

    Anyone who follows the Book of Common Prayer system of daily worship reads through the Book of Psalms much more often than any other biblical book. We recite them in unison, ponder them in meditation, chant them in monasteries, elaborate upon them in choral anthems, weep during them at funerals, regret their frequent blood-thirstiness in inquirers classes, and edit out objectionable passages when revising lectionaries. The poetic merit and spiritual depth of the Psalms have been celebrated over the centuries, but I wonder if their influence upon our deepest spiritual and theological attitudes is fully appreciated.

       Here are some thoughts:

1. Anyone who uses the psalms in any systematic fashion must come to terms with the obvious contradictions between what the text says and what actually happens in life. When Psalm 91:10 says “There shall no evil happen to you, * neither shall any plague come near your dwelling,” the reader must either regard it as an over-simplification (if not an outright delusion) or simply close their eyes to the fact that “bad things happen to good people.” I believe, along with this Psalmist, that “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, * abides under the shadow of the Almighty,” but I also agree with Jesus that “the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.”  Using the Psalms in prayer requires us to think, and to accept that the Bible does not provide simple answers.
2. The Psalms as a whole make it obvious that religion changes over time. The nationalistic God who “will heap high the corpses; * [and] will smash heads over the wide earth” (Ps. 110:6), is not the God most of us worship. We can understand why the Psalmist may have seen things in this way, but our understanding of God has changed.
3. There is a passionate longing in the Psalms that inveighs against mediocrity and intellectualization. Psalm 142:6 is typical in its sense of desperation: “Listen to my cry for help, for I am brought very low; * save me from those who pursue me, for they are too strong for me.” Only someone who has been in some way imprisoned themselves can appreciate the intensity of verse 7 in the same Psalm: “Bring me out of prison, that I may give thanks to your Name; * when you have dealt bountifully with me, the righteous will gather around me.” 
4. The religion of the Psalms is implicitly sacramental. That is, some of the most beautiful psalms regard inanimate objects as choir members that join with the psalmists in praising God. Psalm 148:7-113 calls upon weather, geological formations, trees, reptiles, politicians, and all generations of human beings to praise God. Events and objects of many kinds can be instruments of grace.
5. Along with this comes a theological ecology, a perception of the world as an interdependent network of created beings, each carrying out their necessary function. Psalm 104 celebrates how God has made the earth habitable for human beings: “You make grass grow for flocks and herds * and plants to serve mankind; that they may bring forth food from the earth, and wine to gladden our hearts.” (vv 14/15)  But God has provided for all the species, not just humans: “You make darkness that it may be night, * in which all the beasts of the forest prowl.” Even the lions have their part to play as “they roar after their prey * and seek their food from God.” (vv 21/22).
6. Many Psalms do not hesitate to express anger with God. Psalm 44:23 scolds God: “Awake, O Lord! Why are you sleeping?” Few people are prepared for such drastic intimacy with God. We prefer a more polite approach, but the psalms recall us to a less refined relationship with God. “You are selling your people for a trifle,” complains Psalm 44:12, “and are making no profit on the sale of them.” And, of course, the most troubling psalm verse of all may be Psalm 22:1, the last words uttered by Christ on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” If these words are taken at face value, they could be understood as a rejection of everything Jesus’ life and teaching had been about. Taken in the context of the psalms, this verse can be understood as an expression of radical intimacy with God, of total trust and surrender, and of hope, as well as desperation.

    How could a church immersed in such diverse imagery fail to be more humble, more sympathetic to human frailty, more attune to the many voices of God? How could such a church fail to be less dogmatic, less arrogant, less triumphalist? That a church could indeed fail to be these things is evidence of how little attention we pay to the words we routinely pray, and suggests that we could do worse than devote ourselves to frequent, reflective, and shared recitation of the psalms. In doing so we can hope to equip ourselves for the rigorous work of analysis and apologetics, not to mention works of compassion, justice, and peace. We will also be joining with all creation in a living dialogue with God, joining with

               “…sea-monsters and all deeps;

               Fire and hail, snow and fog, * tempestuous wind, doing his will;

               Mountains and all hills, * fruit trees and all cedars;

               Wild beasts and all cattle, * creeping things and winged birds;

               Kings of the earth and all peoples, * princes and all rulers of the world;

                Young men and maidens, * old and young together.”   Psalm 148

Are there more appropriate companions for prayer?