Phil Ochs was an activist/folksinger who died way too soon (1940-1976). I remember back when I was becoming politically aware and making my first forays into the church, at the tender age of fifteen I would lie in the sanctuary of my room and listen as his lyrics moulded me. I rediscovered these lyrics in an old journal. They still ring true. I wonder if the budding progressive movement will be able to re-think christianity before it’s too late?
The Cannons of Christianity
Christian cannons have fired at my days With the warning beneath the holy blaze And bow to our authority Say the cannons of Christianity
Oh the children will be sent to schools Minds of clay are molded to their rules Learn to fear all of eternity Warn the cannons of Christianity
Holy hands will count the money raised Like a king the Lord is richly praised On a cross of diamond majesty Say the cannons of Christianity
Missionaries will travel on crusades The word is given, the heathen souls are saved Conversions to our morality Sigh the cannons of Christianity
Come the wars and turn the rules around To bend your soul on the battle ground And the Lord will march beside me Drone the cannons of Christianity
Cathedral walls will glitter with their gold And the sermons speak through silver robes Building castles amidst the poverty Say the cannons of Christianity
Worship now and wash your sins away Drop the coins, fall to your knees and pray Cleanse the world of all hypocrisy Smile the cannons of Christianity
Christian cannons have fired at my days With the warning beneath the holy blaze And bow to our authority Say the cannons of Christianity
In 1963, I was in grade one. My memories of my five-year-old self are vague; filled with blurred images and impressions. But one memory stands out. George Kennedy sat up close in the front row with me. George Kennedy was an odd looking little boy. I only know that he was an odd looking little boy because my classmates were in the habit of teasing him about his looks. I cannot tell you why they thought that he was odd looking because in my memory he looks like a cute little five-year-old boy. George Kennedy and I must have lived near one another because I can remember him walking up ahead of me and so I choose to believe that we were headed in the same direction and not that I was stalking him. My most vivid memory of George Kennedy happened the day that we were all unexpectedly sent home from school.
The crackly voice of the school principal announced over the PA system that President Kennedy had been shot and was dead and we were all told to go straight home. I did not know what a president was, I only knew that Mr. Kennedy was dead and so I remember walking home behind George Kennedy and feeling really bad because George’s daddy was dead.
I have flashes of memory from that week, spent huddled around the TV set with my mother and father, knowing that they were so very sad. I remember their tears. It is my first memory of them crying. President Kennedy’s funeral was the first funeral I can remember attending. The first three funerals that I remember from my childhood were John Kennedy’s, Martin Luther King’s and Robert Kennedy’s funerals. In my mind’s eye, I can see clearly little John John’s salute, Corretta’s black veil, and Ethel standing there with all Bobby’s children. There is a song from those long ago days, a song that to this day makes me weep no matter where or when I hear it. It begins with the sound of a mournful flute.
“Anybody here seen my old friend Abraham, can you tell me where he’s gone?
He freed a lot of people but it seems the good they die young.
You know I just looked around and he’s gone.”
The sound of the electric organ gives us but a moment to breath as verse by verse our good friends John, Martin and Bobby are snatched from us. That song is a lament that lives in the souls of those of us who grew up grieving common losses.
There have been other times when we have grieved together, times when we have lamented, like September 11, 2011, our cries of lamentation at the loss of so many lives on a day that forever changed our world. Not all our losses have been shared so widely. Sometimes we have gathered to lament losses that don’t quite make it to the world stage, but which are earth-shattering in their own circles. Sometimes we have lamented the ongoing pain that exists as a result of the lack of justice in this world.
The art of lament, in a world that hungers for closure so that it can be about its business, is a struggling art-form. It seems that our ancestors were so much better and lamenting and could launch forth into wailing and gnashing of teeth with much more abandon than we like are likely to tolerate in public places.
These days we think it unseemly for mourners to wail at a funeral, choosing celebrations of life over the wailing in the face death. But the act of lament has over the centuries played an important part in our human development and I would argue that the act of lament has also played an important role in the life of our God.
Lament is a transformative act. Lament moves us from one place in our lives to another. Lament moves us and thereby transforms our humanity. Lament is very much a part of our human evolution. And so I lament the disappearance of lament from our worship. Lament is the voicing of one’s anguish or complaints to God.
Lament provides us with the opportunity to gather together and express our anguish in the presence of the ONE who is, was and ever more shall be. The ONE we call God. For in the pit of despair we are made painfully aware that our hope lies beyond ourselves. Because hope is the only way out of the pit of despair we look to the ONE who is so much more than we can comprehend to through us a life-line and so we wail and weep, and shout and rant until we can begin to know the presence of the ONE. Often, the knowledge of the presence of the ONE comes to us through the presence of one-another. Sometimes, the knowledge of the presence of God comes to us in the very lament itself as we discover God in the midst of our pain. All too often our modern sensibilities tempt us to arrive at hope by trying to avoid the lament. But when we fail to utter our rage over suffering or injustice we tend to arrive at false hope, or failing hope.
Lament allows us to fully engage our despair, and by engaging one another and indeed God in our despair we are transformed. Lament is where we must begin if our rage at the suffering and injustice in this life is to be transformed into peace and justice. Lament is the place where our grief begins to move us from deadness of our shock and horror into a place were we can begin to cope and find healing. Lament is the place where we can begin to discover our God weeping with us; grieving with us and being transformed with us.
There’s a line from the Mystic Meister Eckhart that has been a sort of mantra for me of late: Eckhart insists that: “Every act reveals God and expands God’s Being.” As I look around me at the pain and suffering that exists in the world, I can’t help but lament all the poverty, the violence, and the hatred that exists as a result of our incomplete humanity. Most of us cope with the magnitude of suffering by limiting our exposure to it. We try not to dwell on it because we are afraid that it will overwhelm us and we won’t be able to cope. From time to time we let just a little bit of the suffering in; just a little lest we be overcome by despair. Sometimes we have no choice and the suffering bursts in on us and we are forced to deal with it. Either way, whether we let ourselves be touched by suffering or we have suffering thrust upon us, that suffering transforms us. Suffering can transform us in unhealthy ways or in healthy ways. But suffering will change us. If we have the courage to lament, to engage our God in our rage over the suffering; I mean really engage our God, we can be changed in ways that were once unimaginable.
In our lament we touched the pain of the suffering, we didn’t heal it, we didn’t cure it we just touched it. And the power of our lament changed us. We were changed by their impotent silence. And God, well God was revealed in our lament. And God’s being was expanded. Now I know that some will say that it was our perception of God’s being that was expanded and not God’s being itself. But to deny that God’s Being is capable of expansion as a result of interaction with us, is to deny the reality of relationship. God lives and breathes in with and through us so our evolution as beings changes God. In with and through us God weeps, God bleeds, God cries and God waits, for transformation. Our lament is an act of trust. An act that declares our intent to wrestle with God, to struggle with God as we begin the difficult transformation into the beings that we are becoming. The power of lament to transform our mourning into dancing, injustice into justice, and violence into peace is transformative.
Lament is a process, a process of transformation. There’s absolutely no point in lamenting the suffering of the world unless you’re prepared to be touched by that suffering and transformed by it.We are called to suffer with the poor in order that we might lend our strength to transform suffering into life-giving joy. Our God will wipe away every tear from every eye and our God will do this as God lives and breathes in with and through you. Taking up the cross of suffering is not about signing up for suffering for suffering’s sake. Taking up the cross of suffering is about engaging with those who suffer in ways that will forever change the world. It is about lamenting alongside, so that together we can be transformed. Engaging in the act of lament is no easy thing. But just like the blues, lament has the power to transform our mourning into dancing. To transform our weeping, bleeding, crying, suffering God, into a powerful loving, justice making, peace keeping, God who works in with and through us to transform our world. Let it be so.
The discussion during the dialogue with Willf Blitzer on Saturday, Sept. 28, pointed to an inescapable truth that clearly is emerging – the intersection of politics, religion and LGBT equality is pointing to a different direction forward. The conversation has a decidedly American flavour. However, Canadians are not immune to those interpretations and articulations of Christianity that damage the psyche. The hope I see in this conversation is a “mainstream media celebrity” like Blitzer is involved. While Blitzer’s ignorance is at times mortifying, it is representitave of the ignorance that all too often prevails in conversations that dare to mix religion and politics. That the conversation takes place in Raleigh, North Carolina, a bastion of rightwing religion and politics, is quite remarkable.
Panelists for the evening were Mitchell Gold and Rev. Dr. T. Anthony Spearman, both of Hickory, N.C., and Rev. Dr. Jack McKinney of Raleigh, N.C.
So, I learned something about myself at our PubNight: I need a manuscript! Even though I had committed the talk I intended to give to memory, when I got up to speak the entire talk disappeared from my memory banks and I was pretty much reduced to babbling. So, for those of you who were there here’s the talk I thought I had committed to memory. For those of you who weren’t there, here’s what you might have missed:
I know that I’m supposed to tell you something that will provoke you into thinking differently about Christianity. But the truth is I’d much rather you thought less about Christianity and more about living. That’s why this little talk was advertised under the title “Beyond Dogma”. You see I happen to believe that there is so much more to life than Christianity. But what do I know really. After all I’m always getting things wrong, especially when it comes to Christianity. I mean ever since I was a kid, I’ve been getting Christianity wrong. I just didn’t get it.
I remember the first so-called “Christian” event I ever went to I must have been five or six years old. It wasn’t church or Sunday School. No the first “Christian” thing I ever went to was a funeral. It was amazing. I’d never been inside a church before. And the first time I saw that guy hanging up there in his underwear, I had absolutely no idea who he was or how he got there. So, I asked my Dad and I simply couldn’t believe it when he told me it was Jesus.
“How did Jesus get up there?” I asked
“He was nailed up there, a long time ago?” Dad answered.
“Why Daddy, why did they nail him up there?”
“So he would die?”
“What? You mean they killed the baby Jesus? Why did they kill the baby Jesus Daddy?”
At this point my mother had had enough! So she tried to baffle me with the facts of the matter. “Jesus died for you, for all of us, because we’ve been bad. Jesus died so that we could all get into heaven?”
“Why Mommy? Why can’t we all just go to heaven? Why doesn’t God just let us in?”
“Because we’ve done bad things. Bad things must be punished. So. Jesus died on the cross so that we wouldn’t have to?”
By this point all I wanted to do was to get out of there. I mean, the murdering so and so’s killed the baby Jesus.Nailed him up there on the cross so that he would die. And all because of something I’d done? It was awful?
I remember watching the guy up at the front. I didn’t even want to ask why he was wearing a dress. And he kept doing this X (crossing himself) And when he did this X he kept mumbling something but I couldn’t figure out what he was saying. So, I spent the rest of the service waiting and watching for him to do this X and trying to figure out what he was saying when he did this X.
Well it wasn’t until we got out to the grave-side where I could get closer to the action that I finally figured out what the guy in the frock was saying when he did this X “In the name of the father and of the son and into the hole he goes!!!” For months after that funeral I would do this X, cross myself and repeat the magic words: “In the name of the father and of the son and into the hole he goes!!!” Now for those of you who don’t recognize it, I stole that routine from the great Irish comedian Dave Allen. I hoped it would make you laugh. But I also hoped that it would help you to think how ridiculous Christianity can be. Most of us have been hanging around Christianity for so long that we can’t or won’t see the humour in it. But it’s not all funny or laughable. It’s full of tragedy as well. Continue reading →
Dean Radin defines “spirituality” as an internal knowledge that there is something more and connecting with that more in a meaningful way. He asks whether science can begin to explore this connectivity and suggests that rather than a convergence of science and spirituality there will be a broadening of scientific perspective.
“Radin PHD., is the chief scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and teaches at Sonoma State University. Before joining the research staff at IONS in 2001, he held appointments at AT&T Bell Labs, Princeton University, University of Edinburgh, and SRI International, where he worked on a classified program investigating psychic phenomena for the US government. He is author or coauthor of over 200 technical and popular articles, a dozen book chapters, and three books including the award-winning The Conscious Universe(HarperOne, 1997), Entangled Minds (Simon & Schuster, 2006), and most recently, SUPERNORMAL (Random House, 2013).”
Peter Rollins, leader of the “radical Christianity movement” challenges many of the religious assumptions and indeed the religiosity of Christianity in this lecture delivered in early November 2013 at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney, Australia.
“Rollins argues for a radical and initially disturbing Gospel: we can’t be satisfied, life is tough, and we don’t know the secret. We should attack the idea of God as that which makes us whole, removes our suffering, and offers us the truth. Rollins is less concerned with the question of life after death than with the possibility of a life before death, and his “churches” challenge escapist versions of spirituality, inviting us to embrace complexity, ambiguity and pain. Doubt is part of life, and religion should be able to explore it — instead of presenting an all-singing, all-dancing distraction.”
In October of 1977, I was twenty years old. I was young and adventurous and with a rail pass in my hand, a back pack slung over my shoulders and several hundred dollars worth of American Express Travellers cheques in my pocket, I boarded a train in Zurich, Switzerland, bound for Athens, Greece.
I was tired. Several months of backpacking in Northern Europe had left me weary. In just five days my rail-pass would expire, so I decided to head for Greece, where the living is easy, where the warm sun, blue skies and equally blue waters held the promise of rest and relaxation.
As the train made its way through the Alps, I remembered a similar trip which I had made the year before and I tried to calculate whether my remaining funds would allow me to return to the village of Hannia on the island of Crete. I knew that in Crete I could find work. I planned to mix a lot of rest and relaxation with just a little work and try to live out the winter on the Mediterranean.
As the train rattled through Austria toward what was then Yugoslavia it began to get dark. I was disappointed that my journey through Yugoslavia would be completed in darkness. I remembered my previous journey, by car, through Yugoslavia and how at the time, I had marvelled at the diversity of this strange little country. I remembered men and women driving oxen as they ploughed their fields in much the same way as there ancestors had done. I also remembered my surprise at entering the ultra modern city of Belgrade; the showcase of Tito’s communist regime. I fell asleep pondering the sharp differences between the lives of the poor people in the villages who appeared to live without any modern conveniences at all and the lives of those who inhabited the city of Belgrade with its towering skyscrapers and streets filled with automobiles. Several centuries seemed to co-exist in Yugoslavia.
I was awakened by the sound of people shuffling to find their papers as the train conductor instructed us to get our passports and visas ready for customs inspection. When the Yugoslavian custom officials, with their rifles over their shoulders boarded our train they were preceded by men guided by vicious looking German shepherds. Even though I knew that I had all the right papers and that my back pack contained nothing more offensive than some dirty laundry, the sight of the dogs, guns and uniformed officials struck fear into my heart. I nervously handed over my precious passport to an official who looked younger than my twenty years. He carefully read over the visa which I had obtained in Zurich the day before; a visa that I could not read because it was written in an unfamiliar language and an unfamiliar alphabet. Continue reading →
I am indebted to Joshua S. Goldstein’s book “Winning the War on War: The Decline of Armed Conflict Worldwide” and his brilliant statistical analysis and summation of the successes won by peacekeepers, diplomacy and humanitarian aid.
Our liturgy this Remembrance Sunday was a service of lament. Our readings included a section from Elie Wiesel’s book “Night”. Here you will find a copy of our bulletin which contains the readings as well as the words to Brian Wren’s hymn “The Horrors of Our History” with which our Choir opened our lament. (pdf of the bulletin laid out to be printed double sided on legal paper)
To say that this video is disturbing is an understatement. I post it here because the images contained in the video continue to haunt me as I work on the sermon for tomorrow’s Remembrance Sunday. Perhaps this video itself ought to be the sermon. It’s images say so much more than any sermon I will be able to preach. It certainly serves as a reminder of the precious nature of our humanity. Lest we forget the humanity of our sisters and brothers, we would do well to question the impact of our distractions.
Lest we forget” is a phrase that has become synonymous with Remembrance Day. Sadly, our Remembrance Day commemorations have become disconnected from our history and the vast majority of those of us who observe Remembrance Day have forgotten its origins. Our collective amnesia about the phrase, “Lest we forget” is a case in point. I have always assumed that the phrase was coined to encourage the world not to forget those who have served, fought and in too many cases died to protect our freedoms. While the phrase’s attachment to Remembrance Day has served as a call to collective remembrance, it was coined for a far more humbling purpose than to honour the fallen heroes of foreign wars. The phrase, “Lest we forget” was coined by the great poet laureate of the British Empire Rudyard Kipling, in his daunting poem, “Recessional” written to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897. Kipling’s poem was a sobering call to humility at a time when the British people were basking in the glory of Empire. Recessional served as a reminder that the sun might never set on the British Empire, but God was still in God’s heaven and thus, the sun rises upon the evil as well as the good. Kipling warned those drunk on the excesses of Empire that God was sovereign and not the British people.
The entire poem is addressed to God as a prayer, and serves as a call to the Empire’s powerful Victorians to remember their place.
God of our fathers, known of old—
Lord of our far-flung battle line—
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
The tumult and the shouting dies—
The Captains and the Kings depart—
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
Far-called our navies melt away—
On dune and headland sinks the fire—
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe—
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard—
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding calls not Thee to guard.
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord! Amen.
Amongst the pomp and circumstance of this solemn day, it is all to easy for those of us who aspire to be Christians, to forget who we are and whose we are. For we are a people who follow a man whose life was given to the cause of non-violence; a man who resisted the temptation to fight even in the face of the most brutal occupation army that the world had seen in first century. Jesus of Nazareth refused to take up arms against cruel oppression. Jesus proclaimed a radical new response to violence. Continue reading →
“In this talk, Father Thomas Keating discusses the dynamic nature of God and the paradox implicit in experiencing divine oneness. With humor and wisdom, he explores the practice of contemplative prayer, and how we might begin to approach God through being present to our senses.”
A while back, I had the privilege of attending a lecture series given by Phyllis Tickle. During the Question and Answer session, Tickle was asked what advice she would give to someone who was preparing themselves to serve in parish ministry. “Study physics” was Tickle’s reply before going on to speak about the many ways in which theology is changing and will continue to change as a result of our expanding knowledge about the nature of reality. I have been struggling for years to make up for all the things I failed to study before entering the parish and Tickle’s advice rings true. However, physics textbooks are beyond my abilities. That’s why I love this video, which provides a brief glimpse into some of the most dynamic developments in the recent history of physics. For those of us who are practicing theology with our hands tied behind our backs as a result of our lack of scientific knowledge, this video is a fun place to begin to lay a scientific foundation. Using brief biographical dramatizations the filmmakers create a narrative that is both engaging and informative. Enjoy!
While Rob Bell’s theology only begins to pierce the dogmas that continue to plague Christianity, he does have the common touch necessary to provoke and encourage Christians to begin to question what they have long been taught about the nature of reality. If you’ve been questioning dogma for some time, you will find a kindred spirit in Bell even as you wish he’d move a little farther and deeper into his vision of what Christianity might have to offer in this new century. But his latest book “What We Talk About When We Talk About God” is worth considering as a gift to someone you might know who is just beginning to open themselves to the possibilities of a new way of exploring and articulating Christianity. In the videos below, Bell’s common touch is demonstrated as Oprah gives him ample opportunities to demonstrate his deftness at expressing Christianity in ways that encourage viewers to re-think what they thought they knew about Christianity.
Pastor Dawn and Pastor Tom Doherty’s All Saints’ Sunday sermon included stories from the congregation celebrating the saints in their lives. Be sure to listen to the Hymn of the Day that follows the sermon: “We Come to Tell Our Stories” with new words by Jann Aldredge-Clanton to an old familiar tune (HANKEY by William E. Fischer – I Love to Tell the Story).
click here to see an earlier post about Jann Aldredge-Clanton
L’Chaim – To Life!!! To all those blessed saints who have touched and continue to touch my life!!! All too often we forget the sacredness of the people in our lives! So here’s too all those saints who parade around us each and every day. May we have the wisdom to see the sacred in, with, and through them.
pastordawn 