Today, I make my Sacrament of Thanksgiving. I pass before me the mainsprings of my heritage: the fruits of the labors of countless generations who lived before me, without whom my own life would have no meaning; the seers who saw visions and dreamed dreams; the prophets who sensed a truth greater than the mind could grasp, and whose words could only find fulfillment in the years which they would never see; the saviors whose blood was shed with a recklessness that only a dream could inspire and God could command. For all these I make an act of thanksgiving this day. Amen.
Archive for May, 2008
Calvary has the honor of hosting a showing of the powerful documentary, New Year Baby. At 2:00 p.m. Sunday in Shallenberger Hall we’ll view the film then hear from the filmmaker. We’re excited the film got a shout out on Penn Quarter Living, and hope you’ll join us Sunday!
The people of Burma (Myanmar) cannot get a break!
With so much suffering in Burma already news of this devastating cyclone seems like adding insult to injury. Here at Calvary we are particularly concerned because so many of our fellow church members come from Burma. They still cannot reach many family members and are frantic with worry.
To help them try to “get up again,” we have made it possible to donate funds online, which will be made available to suffering people through denominational channels, not governmental agencies. Further, to lend your presence and support to our Burmese community here, join us for a benefit concert Saturday, May 17 at 6:00 p.m. at Calvary.
Do I need to draw you a picture?
Apparently.
It’s always curious how different strands of my life inevitably intersect. This morning I was chatting with my very good friend and Urban Artist Caroline Armijo about the courage it takes to be artistic. She’s exceptionally gifted, of course, so she doesn’t work so much at discovering her creativity as having the courage to rigorously practice it.
Me? I’m not creative at all . . . I don’t have those gifts . . . I can’t express myself this wa . . . . .. That was my internal soundtrack as we talked, but later I started to wonder if it’s not so much that I have a lack of creative artistic talent as maybe, possibly, potentially . . . a deep fear of summoning the courage it takes to be creative?
Hmmmmm.
This second thought emerged when I (grudgingly) sat down to read a book assigned for a required doctor of ministry class next week. In this book Envisioning the Word, Richard Jensen makes the strong case for using images in preaching and worship, not just words.
In the process of reading this book skeptics like me are liable to think the author is being paid a commission by Microsoft as we promise ourselves (again) we will never, EVER, preach with the glow of a PowerPoint outline shining behind us . . . .
That’s my reaction, anyway, until I reach page 71 and a section entitled: “Who Killed the Goddess?”
This seems suspiciously unrelated to PowerPoint and related to some theological issues I think are fascinating, so I decide read on. (I also decide to read on because it’s required.)
Jensen talks in this section about the widely known dichotomy (which apparently is not widely known enough for me to know it) between images and words. He cites a book by Leonard Schlain called The Alphabet versus The Goddess in which the proposal is made that: “When a critical mass of people within a society acquire literacy, especially alphabet literacy, left hemispheric modes of thought are reinforced at the expense of right hemispheric ones, which manifest as a decline in the status of images, women’s rights and goddess worship.”
In other words, through various social and historical trends we’ve all come to see words as superior ways to communicate, pushing images back to second (or fifth) place. All the “people of the book,” (Jews, Christians, Muslims) Schlain claims, have fallen into this trap and it happened just as soon as they took abstract ideas and codified them in words.
Words, he says, are exclusive. Images are more expansive.
And so, what I have concluded from all of this is that I have apparently been wasting my time writing blog entries and preaching sermons, an effort which has apparently unwittingly contributed to a patriarchal and male-dominated understanding of God. All this time I’ve spent in front of the computer subjecting the larger world to the scary inside of my mind thinking I was breaking the stained glass ceiling and I was really reinforcing it! Turns out I should have been sketching. Or painting. Or liturgically dancing!
Which makes me want to call Caroline and ask her to come back to my office to help me imagine how I might express ideas about God in a visual way that is not mistaken for a kindergarten craft project. Because while it’s getting more and more comfortable for me to post a written blog entry, it’s rather scary to think about taking an idea of God and depicting it in macramé. You know what I mean?
This very week we celebrate the Day of Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit. How do you describe the Holy Spirit in words? I could try (and, in fact, I will . . . for about 20 minutes on Sunday). But, I wonder, given what I’ve learned today about courage and visual art, words and containment: maybe the Spirit is better explained with a gust of wind? Or a splash of color. Or some balloons . . . or a puddle of fabric on the altar . . . ?
I can see already that this adds a whole new dimension to sermon preparation, in fact. When you start to see exegesis in finger painting, well, your whole view of the world changes. And so, now that I’ve put all of this down in words I need to summon the courage to draw you a picture.
Where are my crayons? I think I’ll go decoupage something.
In the first place, if you know me even casually you will know my dismay, if not downright disdain, when I am in almost any circumstance that involves sappy praise songs. (I particularly become bitter when we have to stand, swaying and clapping, for 15 excruciating minutes, then sit down to sing the same song some more. But that’s a whole other blog entry, isn’t it?).
This was certainly, if not the last place then pretty close to the last place I expected to receive a blessing, especially since “receiving a blessing” is a phrase that I would never be caught using in public under any circumstances that I can think of.
So I was already in a place of mild annoyance when the group of 30 or so African children filed onto the stage and began their performance with a dance and song in their native Ugandan tongue. The kids were great-really-but something about the whole situation felt vaguely uncomfortable. Here I was, sitting in a crowd of about 600 white Americans (really, there were perhaps one or two African Americans in the audience and no other minorities that I saw) watching 30 kids from very poor villages in Africa sing for my own personal enjoyment.
In the course of the performance we learned the African Children’s Choir was actually quite a big deal, touring all over the US and Great Britain to raise money to improve child welfare in Africa. The kids, ages 9-11 or so, travel with the choir for 15 months at a time performing all over the world. Through their music they are able to make significant differences in their communities back home.
Their story was heart-warming and they were amazing; but, the whole situation still felt wrong to me. And then they started singing praise songs. Little Ugandan children singing English language praise songs . . . “Lord I lift your name on high . . .”.
Oh, dear, get me to fresh air quick; I was feeling queasy.
But then the kids launched into their next song. It began with one little high, clear voice ringing out over the crowd: “You are the Shepherd, I belong to you. When I walk on rough ground, you will guide me through. You know my name, you know my voice. Before I was born I was your choice. Show me how to follow, Lord keep me close to you . . . you are the Shepherd, I belong to you.”
Unwittingly, without any warning, much to my utter surprise, tears started streaming down my face. As I listened to those words all the colors and accents, continents and cultures slid away until I felt like I could have been that little child with a high, clear voice singing to God: You are the Shepherd, I belong to you.
I do understand that singing those words probably means much more when affirming your value in the eyes of God means you have the right to clean water and healthy food. But right then I felt like a member of the choir, also in need of God in ways that were just as elemental.
And I wanted to get in line behind the little children so I could be blessed by this Shepherd, too. And I was:
People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’ And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
