Turmoil and Truth

Life in New York City feels a bit precarious these days. News reports of financial turmoil, job losses, and bank failures hit home here. It is said every job on Wall Street creates three jobs in the city. These are scary times.

What is at risk?

This week’s lectionary reading contains what I like to call the dogshit epistle. “I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ…” The Greek word here can be translated as dogshit.

Our financial system and our American way of life is a blessing. It is a wondrous way of living which allows for great freedom and a flourishing of the human spirit. But it is temporary. It is passing. The American dream, which seems so real today, is slightly different from that same dream in the 80’s or the 60’s or the 40’s. We have changed demographically, socially, religiously. As a people, we want different things, the culture changes. It is passing.

3:8 More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 3:9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. Philippians 3:4b-14


In times like this it is apparent to me to hold fast to that which is good. I would lose my head (I though I did a few times already), if I didn’t have eternal truth to which I might hold fast.
A friend of mine said a few months back when we were talking of finance and mergers and the passing nature of what seems so real, “I can’t believe I have outlived Chemical Bank.” The illusion of security that banks create and maintain can lull us into thinking that they will be around forever. The truth is as soon as the market loses faith in a bank, the myth is exposed and it crumbles.

Much of the crisis right now is due to a loss of faith. Banks won’t trade short term debt obligations with each other for fear of default and the financial markets cannot operate. The banks and the companies which trade with them cannot fund their operations. The system is broken down. No faith.

I want to believe in something eternal. Something not subject to the whims of “the market”.

Where is your faith?

Oh yeah... And no matter how bad it gets, there is always that bit about resurrection.


http://divinity.library.vanderbilt.edu/lectionary/APentecost/AProper22.htm

Everyday Mystics

Everyday Mystics

What is it about human being that propels us to reach out? What is it that drives our impulse to create? To explore? To discover? What is at the heart of the phenomenon of desire?
Isn’t there a fundamental desire for happiness? For joy? Something in us propels us to love, to hope, to dream. Many theologians speak of this as the experience of grace.

Grace is God’s self-communication to each of us. In some of us, we experience this in terms of a religious framework -we have all seen the athletes thanking Jesus for touchdowns. But simply an alcoholic grateful for a day of sobriety, a mother holding her child, lovers caught up in the bliss of affection; all of these can either be experienced within a religious framework as a willed gift of the personal God or simply experienced as a hint, a taste of something beyond ourselves.

Whenever we experience hope, love, or trust we are experiencing something gifted to us, something which propels us out of ourselves into the shared experience with the other. In these human experiences, we find our world opened up to something greater than our limited selves. We are experiencing grace. When we recognize that God is at the heart of all human experience, we can recognize the other as ultimate mystery.

Often we read of mystics and think of saints levitating, or Yogis surviving under water for ridiculous amounts of time. These may or may not be mystical events, but surely whenever any human being experiences something of God –faith, hope, love, mercy- we are having a mystical experience. Religious practice gives us a frame of reference, but is not required for our opening ourselves to God.

Karl Rahner ( Roman Catholic Systematic Theologian) said that whenever we say something of god, we say something of human being; and whenever we say something about human being, we say something about god. Human being is a mystery of love which opens in our hearts to the mystery which is God.

We are all everyday mystics.

Surprised by Prayer

This morning I found myself sitting in the Chantry Chapel at St. Thomas 5th Avenue. I felt compelled to go there, to sit in the quiet majesty of that beautiful space and to pray. It has been a while since I have done anything like that. I feel as if God has broken my heart. But there I was, on my knees praying the Our Father. I then sat in silence and asked for God to bless the things which are dearest to me - my family, my friends, my art, my health, the health of my unborn niece, the health of my good friend’s father. I asked God to bless my work.

I spent time petitioning for the continued blessing of the joy and connection I feel with a most magnificent woman. I believe in love again. And that is a good place to be.

I gave thanks, and then I read a little bit of Paul, got a little bit mad and left for my new job.

Well, it’s a start…

Don't look to me for answers, I can't even remember the question...

It has been some time since I posted anything on here. I have probably lost my readers and disappointed some of you. I am sorry. I have been scrambling to survive in NYC. Life happens.

Much of my writing time has been consumed by a project I am working on for television.

I don't have the answers.

What freedom! I don't have the answers. Sometimes I read these posts I have written and I think, "What an arrogant jerk." Who am I to say what is true or not? I can only speak from my experience with any authority. So here is some experience...

Pakistan was a watershed for me. I traveled there with the hopes of it revving my spiritual engines. I had been drifting for a while. I grew disillusioned with the Episcopal Church after feeling torn apart by the ordination process- Most of it my own doing (that is another story entirely). I lapsed in my spiritual practices, my faith felt dead.

Then I was broken open by Pakistan. I was hoping to find God, but I wanted it on my terms.

And since when does God show up on our terms?

I am not interested in a God I can control. That isn't much of a God- that's magic.

In all three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke- Jesus is quoted as saying something like this, "Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs."

When I read this I think of the wonder and curiosity with which a child approaches the world. They ask questions. They are amazed and astounded by things we adults take for granted. They look to thier parents for the answers.

In our world we are called upon to have answers. The one with the information wins. It is easy to forget to be amazed.

Sometimes I get so busy giving answers I forget the question. Maybe I can learn form the little ones and a get a little piece of the kingdom...

All art as revelation

I am being very encouraged By something I read while in Pakistan. I brought along Edith Stein's "The Science of the Cross" She was a Jewish woman who converted to Roman Catholic Christianity, became a Carmelite nun (like Mother Theresa), and was martyred by the Nazi's. She was an accomplished philosopher and this book is a fine study on work of St. John of the Cross.

Anyway she is speaking of art as Holy Realism. This is what happens when the artist follows Him, or whose receptivity is in light of 'heavenly' or holy values rather than 'worldly' or materialistic ones. The impression creates in the artist the urge to create their art which occurs as image within structure. Therefore all art is also symbol.

Here is the kicker for me:

"It is a symbol: that is, it comes from that infinite fullness of meaning into which every bit of human knowledge is projected to grasp something positive and speak of it. It does so in such a manner, in fact, that it mysteriously suggests the whole fullness of meaning, which for all human knowledge is inexhaustible. Understood this way, all genuine art is revelation and all artistic creation is sacred service."

When artistic creation is attuned to the infinite life and the unfailing self-gift of love which is God, is becomes an unveiling of Holy mystery.

As a struggling artist with a deep struggle of faith right now, these are words to live on for know.

trouble connecting

I am sorry. I'm making little films, but have no way to connect to upload them. I am safe and my hosts are gracious and I am enjoying the Pakistani food. I hope to have a better update soon. This is from my blackberry.