It’s Not Christmas Yet

Are you tired of Christmas yet? The Santa Claus Parades are over.  I haven’t been in a mall for some time but I’m sure that Christmas music has been playing for quite some time now.  Outside Christmas decorations have sprouted up around her and I’m sure in your neighbourhood.  Christmas adds have been playing on TV and social media - I think the earliest one I saw this year weas right after Thanksgiving (which for the non-Canadian readers is the second Monday in October – not November).

 

I know it is pretty much a lost cause but it calls out for an establishment of a secular Advent just as there is now a firmly entrenched secular Christmas season.  Advent is a time of preparation for Christmas which, believe it or not, does not end on midnight on December 25^th.  The Christmas season in the church year goes from December 25^th to Epiphany when the Wise Men (they were not kings) arrive at the stable in Bethlehem to worship the new born King of the Jews.

 

It is a time of preparation for Christmas.  Here is a reflection on preparation form the Society of St. John the Evangelist:

 

Preparation

Gazing not at Christ’s first coming in our midst, but straining toward the horizon for his second coming, we enter into this season of preparation. But Advent preparation is not just about planning a party towards the end of December. The expectant waiting and preparation of Advent is time to do the soul’s work of conditioning for ultimate things, because eternity is on the horizon. Br. Todd Blackham, SSJE

 

To help you prepare one good way is to listen to an Advent Carol rather than a Christmas carol.  Here is one of my favourites with a link: O Come O Come Emmanuel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xtpJ4Q_Q-4.

 

May you have a blessed Advent on your journey to Christmas.

I acknowledge that we are on Turtle Island, the original homelands of the many Indigenous Nations who have lived since time immemorial in Canada or as many First and other Indigenous Nations
All of the lands in Canada are the subject of up to one hundred Treaties signed by the Crown in the right of Canada with these Nations.  I will only mention a few of the Nations: the Cree, Ojibway, Blackfoot, Blood, Dakota, Mig M'ag, Huron, Inuit and these lands are also home to the Metis people.

Love Your Enemies – Yes Really.

Sunday, Christians celebrated The Reign of Christ in the Christian Calendar.  Does this mean that the Kingdom of God has been established?   Well, yes and no.

Jesus gives us the great commandment which will be the rule when the Kingdom is fully established.  The Great Commandment from Matthew 22: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’

That certainly is a challenge but Jesus does not stop there.  He ups the ante, “You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

This is the essence of the Kingdom of God; love – love your neighbours and even your enemies.  Can you imagine if you were to tell this to someone who is not Christian or even many Christians?  I haven’t seen a lot of evidence of people loving their enemies on the news.    If we are honest, how many of us can say that we love those who persecute us or even neighbours who are difficult or even nasty?  If asked I will admit that I may be able to love the difficult people in my life with a lot of effort.  However, the nasty people are very difficult, if not impossible. 

How then, are we to love our neighbours of every variety and type- pleasant and nasty, good or bad or even your enemy – how are we to live out the Great Commandment that our Lord and Saviour gives to us as Christians?  I don’t know if you are familiar with Richard Rohr.   He is a Roman Catholic priest who I find very helpful in my journey following Jesus Christ.  He recently provided something which I believe can be helpful in this challenge to love our enemies.  I would like to invite you to participate in this short exercise.

Father Richard offers a practice of deepening love and healing:

How do we come to know love so that we can live from its depths? Love cannot be understood by the mind. And if God is love, God will never be subject to the mind as we know it. God and love can only be experienced. This simple practice is an invitation to encounter love in its very physical, connective reality.

Place the palm of one of your hands on your heart. Feel your heart beating, letting its rhythm bring you into the present moment and into the awareness of God’s blessing on your life, beat after beat after beat.

Bring to your conscious mind a loved one, an ancestor, a favorite place or animal, or anything that makes you smile with undeniable, spontaneous, unconditional love and joy.

Bring that particular beloved being or thing down from your mind and place it right under your palm, in your heart space. Relax your mind and let your heart relax at the same time, feeling the sensation of blood vessels, muscles, and chest cavity opening in warmth and love for that particular loved thing. Smile.

Now humbly place a challenging person, issue, or problem directly under your palm, within your wide-open heart space. This could be someone or something currently challenging you or an old hurt from a person gone from the living world. Silently continue to smile and hold this challenging thing in the warmth of your heart.

With closed eyes, look at the thing that causes you pain, visualizing the detail that bothers you the most, all the while smiling. Consider that there may be reasons why this thing brings hurt. Smile at the fragility, suffering, or misunderstanding that makes it this way.

Finally, give the person or problem to your heart and ask that your heart’s wisdom and love take over. Rest in the Love that loves both you and the other and wants to transform all into its loving image.  Open your eyes and return to what is around you. 

Let us love one another as Jesus loves us.  With God’s help it is possible.  May you be blessed on your journey to experience the love of Jesus and share that love with your neighbours - even those who are your enemies.

I acknowledge that we are on Turtle Island, the original homelands of the many Indigenous Nations who have lived since time immemorial in Canada or as many First and other Indigenous Nations
All of the lands in Canada are the subject of up to one hundred Treaties signed by the Crown in the right of Canada with these Nations.  I will only mention a few of the Nations: the Cree, Ojibway, Blackfoot, Blood, Dakota, Mig M'ag, Huron, Inuit and these lands are also home to the Metis people.

 

Are You Religious or Spiritual or Both?

A week ago, or so – actually November 4^th  – I was at the dealer buying new winter tires for my new car – earlier than I usually get my winter ties on – but I am getting more cautious (or sensible) in my old age.  While I was waiting for the work to be done, I went for a walk along Oxford Street, a major street in London Ontario – actually to see if I could get a Globe and Mail paper.  On my stroll, I passed three church buildings.  These three buildings were older and had probably been built at least 70 years ago and were likely main-line churches in a former existence – perhaps Anglican and United Church buildings by design.  One building had been turned into a wedding chapel and hall.  One is now a Seventh Day Adventist Church.  The third is a Heaven’s Lighthouse Ministries Church – which I am not familiar with.  Checking on-line, I found that this denomination is what I would classify as Pentecostal.

As a result, this focused the question that I have had frequently in recent years, ‘what is the future of organized religion in Canada and the Western World?’   There has been a general movement of society becoming secular and in people not being connected to organized religion.  A significant part of my question – perhaps I shouldn’t be looking for answers, based on my musings last week - centers around tending to identify a spiritual rather than religious. 

I also recalled a discussion of this some years ago on the CBC program Tapestry with Diana Butler Bass who is a professor of religious studies and a prolific author.    http://www.cbc.ca/radio/tapestry/finding-the-sacred-in-unexpected-places-1.3765363/finding-god-in-hgtv-a-spiritual-revolution-1.3765366

I also received this quote in my inbox this morning which is relevant to the question, “I really don’t think we can ever renew the church until we stop thinking of it as an institution and start thinking of it as a movement.” —Clarence Jordan, letter, 1967

Here are some questions that are relevant to the movement to spirituality from organized religion – no answers as questions should lead to more and better questions. 

Is Religion keeping up with the longings and questions of and for 21st Century e.g. What are people longing for – compassion and companionship/neighbourliness.  How do we embody compassion?

Is Spirituality opening the door for individualism?  A charge by those who primarily care about religious institutions that the spiritual movement is a base about self-indulgence.   How does religion connect with what people are longing for?  Does spirituality allow you to side step those things that challenge you?  But organized religion is no guarantee that doesn’t happen in a church community. 

What is the spirituality that 21st Century people have?  What is the shape of faith for the future?  

A God of 100 years ago – hierarchical and remote vs a God who is imminent, creative, with us, compassionate. Do our hymns and architecture need to reflect that – and do our theology and sermons and teaching?  Are we experiencing a tension between the memory (idealized view of a golden age of Religion) and the reality today?

What is religion missing in the 21st Century?  Does religion explore those areas?  Is post modern science i.e., Cosmology and Quantum physics - not to mention evolution – provide answers that negate theology or lead to more questions as good questions should. 

What can we understand from the popularity of HGTV?  People are longing for home.   What does that mean in terms of our seeking a relationship with what can be identified as the divine?  Bass notes that when she refers to her little home in her back yard where she does her writing and puts a picture of it on social media.  She is inundated with requests about where they could get the plans for it.  It is a sign of the desire for a ‘Room of one’s own’ to use the phrase by Virginia Woolf who wrote about it almost a hundred years ago.  Ah yes, my bunkie calls. 

May you be blessed with many questions on your journey.  

 

Should We Expect Answers, and if so, What Kind?

It is human nature to ask questions and expect or at least want those questions to be answered.  This seems to raise the question, should all questions be answered. You can probably think of many questions which you would like a definitive answer to.   Was there actually a virgin birth?  Did God create the world (however, you define it) in six days?  Or perhaps, why do bad things happen to good people? Coming from a different perspective, why do people believe in conspiracy theories which are patently absurd? 

In the past week I read two perspectives on this that I have found helpful which I want to share with you.  These are rather lengthy – particularly the second one – however, I believe they are worth the read. 

The first is from Richard Rohr and is addressed in one of the Core Principles of the Center for Contemplation and Action (CAC) which was founded by Fr. Richard:

The Sixth Core Principle of the CAC: Life is about discovering the right questions more than having the right answers. Father Richard expands on this counterintuitive wisdom:

This principle keeps us on the path of ongoing discernment, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:10). The key concept here is the contrast between the words “discovering” and “having.” A discerning and inquiring spirit will make us discoverers in touch with our hidden unconscious and the deeper truth. A glib “I have the answers” spirit makes us into protectors of clichés. Answers are wonderful when they are true and keep us on the human and spiritual path. But answers are not wonderful when they become something we hold as an ego possession, allowing us to be arrogant, falsely self-assured, and closed down individuals.

The second perspective in from Northrop Frye, the great interpreter of the Bible from a religious/literary perspective:

One of the principles involved has to do with the relation of question and answer. When you answer a question, you accept the assumptions in the question, so that the answer, if it is a satisfactory answer, consolidates the mental level on which the question is asked. If it is the answer, it also annihilates the question. If you ask me where the nearest telephone is, I can accept the assumptions in the question, answer it, if I know where the nearest telephone is, and consequently annihilate or abolish that particular problem which the question symbolizes. But if you ask me, 'Where is God?', I can say only that conceptions of 'where' do not apply to God, and that the only way of answering such a question is to refuse to answer it. I cannot answer the question because I cannot accept the assumptions in the question. It's one of those 'have you quit beating your wife' questions, in which the matter of accepting the assumption in the question is primary.

Now it is for that reason that no serious religion ever attempts to answer questions. Because seriousness, whether it is in religion or in art or in science, is a matter of proceeding steadily to better and more adequate questions. In religion, the questions that you raise are not answered except in the most perfunctory ways because, if you think about it for a moment, you will see that to answer such a question as, 'Why do innocent people suffer?' or, 'Why is there evil in a world created by a good God?' really cheats you out of the right to ask the question, and certainly blocks your further advance. It prevents you from reformulating a question with rather better assumptions in it, and so proceeding in the way the human mind does proceed in dealing with very large and serious issues, by trying to make the assumptions in the questions it asks more and more adequate.

In conclusion, you might say it is better to give than to receive i.e. ask and not expect a definitive answer.  Grace is in the ability to formulate more searching questions into the mystery which is God.

May you be blessed to have the right questions on your journey.

I acknowledge that we are on the original homelands of the many Indigenous Nations who have lived since time immemorial in Canada or as many First and other Indigenous Nations note; Turtle Island.  All of the lands in Canada are the subject of up to one hundred Treaties signed by the Crown in the right of Canada
with these Nations. I will only mention a few of the Nations: the  Cree, Ojibway, Blackfoot, Blood, Dakota, Mig M'ag, Huron, Inuit and these lands are also home to the Metis people. 

A Black Woman in Search of Hamlet

Last week, Lorna and I went to see a production of Hamlet at the Stratford Festival.  It was a very positive experience in many respects and a not so positive one in others.  It was great to be at Stratford for the first time in three years because of COVID.  The production was up to the usual good standards of the Festival and the acting by many of the cast was very good especially that of Polonius by Michael Spencer -Davis who really caught the essence of the self satisfied and foolish character.  However, the main aspect that was not positive was the portrayal of Hamel by Amaka Umeh, which was extraordinary in ways that were not positive. 

The aspects of the portrayal of Hamlet which were unusual in my experience were that Umeh is black and a woman who is slight in stature.  I found this portrayal of Hamlet was marred for me throughout by the actor.  I reflected on my reaction to this and was able to come to some conclusions.  On reflection, the phrase that came to mind to describe the portrayal was, with apologies George Bernard Shaw, ‘A Black Girl in Search of Hamlet’.   Given that, a better phrase might have been a ‘Black Woman in Search of Hamlet.’  I will explain why I came up with this phrase.

The fact that she is a black actor is something that had little significance in the portrayal and, in fact, became irrelevant after the first few minutes.  The fact that she was a woman was another matter.  My first thought regarding this was that perhaps this was the director’s update in the Elizabethan tradition of boys or young men playing women’s parts as women were not allowed on stage.  I thought that it might have been very interesting if Ophelia was played by a man.  But that was not the case; Ophelia was played by Andrea Rankin, who gave a commendable performance.  I was also left wondering if there was an artistic purpose in this casting decision which was beyond my comprehension because I could see that it added anything to the production.  On further reflection, I came to the conclusion that my adverse reaction to the performance was not that it was a woman in the part. but it was the nature of the performance itself. 

The physicality of the actor was a challenge in some aspects especially when she was required to lift Ophelia’s body and struggled to do it.  Her voice was also jarring at times when it was high pitched.  However, those were minor points.  The main problem was that the portrayal of Hamlet was over the top and histrionic in many scenes.  Basically, my objection to the portrayal was that there was little attempt to capture the essence of the character of Hamlet.  Hamlet, in essence, was a person who was caught by indecision and fluctuated in his desire for revenge and his indecision about the truth of what his senses were telling him.  There is certainly great room for an actor to bring different interpretations to the role of Hamlet.  However, in no way was the essence of who Hamlet was, portrayed in this performance.

I am currently reading a book by John Dourley, a Roman Catholic priest, professor of religion, and Jungian Analyst.  It has the rather clunky title, The Intellectual Autobiography of a Jungian Analyst.  In part, he explores the theology of Paul Tillich and discusses the nature of essence.  He speaks of a person’s essence as that which, “refer(s) to the divine power in the individual seeking to become conscious in the unfolding of the individual’s life.”  In Shakespeare’s portrayal of Hamlet, we have such an unfolding of who Hamlet is becoming or perhaps attempting to become.  Whether he is successful is open to interpretation and provides a playing field for the actor to explore and participate in the game in which the rules are provided by Shakespeare within the play.  In this case the portrayal was definitely out of bounds and should be relegated to the penalty box permanently – if I may be permitted to stretch a sports analogy to its limit. 

Knowing our essence is what we are called to do on our journey.  May you be blessed to discover it.