Songs from the Tower

Recently, I have been singing and playing many of the Leonard Cohen songs that are in my repertoire.  This has brought home to me how many of the lines/phrases are truly wonderful and memorable.  Unlike many lyrics by other composers, many of Leonard’s are poetry which stand on their own, and which resonate with me, as I know it does with so many other people.  I thought I would share some of my favourite lyrics with you.

I have just been starting to learn to play Tower of Song.  There are a couple of the lyrics which are on my list:

Well, my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on
I'm just paying my rent every day in the Tower of Song

This may not be the best known of Leonard’s lyrics, but it came to mind recently as I was contemplating my stage of life.  Many friends are no longer in my life and my hair is gray – what’s left of it, and I certainly ache in places that I no longer play.  I’m not sure I’m crazy for love thank God and perhaps my rent is overdue in the Tower of Song – where I have spent countless hours of the life.

Another verse for this Tower may surprize those who don’t think a lot of Leonard’s vocal abilities:

I was born like this, I had no choice
I was born with the gift of a golden voice
And twenty-seven angels from the Great Beyond
They tied me to this table right here in the Tower of Song

Yes, Leonard’s singing is an acquired taste – it does grow on you.  On the live performance on his last tour, this verse was met with thunderous approval.  For me his voice is exactly what it should be for his songs.  They go together – hand in glove – a cliché but I don’t know a better description.

Turning to something in a different vein, there is the song Passing Through, which opens with someone watching Jesus on a cross on Calvary:

I saw Jesus on the cross on a hill called Calvary
"Do you hate mankind for what they done to you?"
He said, "Talk of love not hate, things to do, it's getting late
I've so little time and I'm only passin' through."

Leonard was not, as far as I know, a Christian being Jewish and studying Buddhism for many years.  However, he was able to draw on Christianity as a source for his lyrics as he did for so many sources of inspiration.  For me, this sums up the message of Jesus Christ and the meaning of the cross.  We should talk of love and not hate.  It is what the world needs now – love sweet love, to borrow from a song by a different composer.  We are all only passing through and it is getting late.

The next song, Coming Back to You, says a great deal about the challenges of relationships which many people have experienced:

Maybe I'm still hurting
I can't turn the other cheek
But you know that I still love you
It's just that I can't speak
I looked for you in everyone
And they called me on that too
I lived alone but I was only
Coming back to you

The last song I want to reflect on today, has, undoubtedly the most poignant and wise line of all; Leonard’s song, Anthem:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

I suspect, without checking with AI, that this is probably the lyric from Leonard that is most quoted.  It says so much about the human condition and the struggle and challenges that people have in becoming more fully human.  These four lines sums it up perfectly.

I could go on delving into the depths of that deep well that Lenord has shared with the world.  I invite you to drink from that well as often as you are willing and able.

Thank you, Leonard, for all your songs from that Tower you inhabited so well.  As he predicted, we are hearing from him long after he has gone to take his place with Hank Wiliams in that Tower of Song. I will give Leonard the last word, as he deserves:

Now I bid you farewell, I don't know when I'll be back
They're moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track
But you'll be hearing from me baby, long after I'm gone
I'll be speaking to you sweetly from a window in the Tower of Song.

 

That’s How the Light Gets In

As is often the case, one of the Daily Meditations from Richard Rohr gave me something to reflect on.  This one reminded me of the challenges that we are given and give ourselves to be perfect.  This apparent decree by Jesus to be perfect is something that needs to be reframed or understood differently. 

Divine perfection is precisely the ability to include what seems like imperfection. Indigenous religions largely understand this, as do the Scriptures (see Psalms 98, 104, 148, or Daniel 3:57–82 [1]). In Job 12:7–10, and most of Job 38–39, YHWH praises strange animals and elements for their inherently available wisdom—the “pent up sea,” the “wild ass,” the “ostrich’s wing”—reminding humans that we’re part of a much greater ecosystem, which offers lessons in all directions.   Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations April 30, 2025

Years ago, I discovered a small book, or I should say it found me.  It was entitled A Prayer for the Cosmos by Neil Douglas-Klotz.  This little gem is a translation of The Lord’s Prayer and other saying of Jesus from Aramaic sources.  One of the passages that the book addressed was from the Gospel of Matthew (5: 48).  This is traditionally translated as ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’.  However, the translation by this author is, ‘Be all-embracing, as you heavenly Father is all-embracing.” 

This passage and similar ones direct Christians to seek perfection and the understanding of God, as all good.  I could not reconcile them with my understanding of humanity as creatures of God, created in the image of God.  This new translation reconciled that dichotomy for me and brought my Perfection Complex into a conscious awareness.  This enables me to reconcile these passages with my understanding of the human psyche.  We are to seek wholeness not perfection.  I will continue to relate to my Perfection Complex in new consciousness and new appreciation for the drive for perfection that has been part of me – recognized or not though much of my life.  I will continue to offer my imperfect offerings to the source of my being which desires my wholeness and not my perfection.

Finally, I offer you my favourite lyrics from Leonard Cohen which encourages us to forget our attempts at perfection:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

I invite you to reconsider your desire for perfection and let the light into your life. 

An All-Embracing Perfection

Last week, I came across a couple of things which addressed the desire which we have for perfection.  Psychologically and culturally, we are averse to making mistakes.  We want to go through life with nothing but wins rather than losses.  We want to be right rather than wrong – we want to be perfect.  This, of course, is impossible and it probably would not be a great or even good way of being even if it were possible.  The first thing that came to me was one of the offerings by the Society of St. John the Evangelist (SSJE) which sends out a daily short reflection, Brother Give Us a Word.  The word that was given to me was Failure:

Remember that your weakness doesn’t disqualify you from God’s love, but instead opens the way for God to act in and through you. Let your failures or your fears remind you of your need to rely on God for all things. God’s strength is made perfect in your weakness.  Br. David Vryhof, SSJE

The second offering to me was an interview on CBC Radio.  The interviewee was a scientist – unfortunately I didn’t get his name.  He was speaking about the development of vaccines and the criticism that some people had for the changes in advice that was given during the COVID pandemic by officials.  He noted that science makes progress by making mistakes.  My understanding of what he was saying is that if a hypothesis is proven not to be true, that is a step forward in scientific knowledge.  A quick Google search produced the following applicable quote by Paulina Kuo, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)., “Making errors in science is just part of the process and allows scientists to learn and broaden what we know. It’s only by being wrong that we ever learn what’s right.”

We are given many messages in our culture that mistakes are not okay.  We often see people honoured for what they have accomplished but there may be no mention of the challenges that they have had in accomplishing what they are being honoured for including the mistakes they have made.  There seems to be a greater tendency to knock people from their pedestals when past mistakes are revealed.  Acknowledging them and asking for forgiveness doesn’t cut it anymore.  Even Jesus seems to support the drive for perfection. An alternative to being perfect was offered in a little book I came across some years ago - A Prayer for the Cosmos by Neil Douglas-Klotz.  This little gem is a translation of The Lord’s Prayer and other sayings of Jesus from Aramaic sources.  One of the passages that the book addressed was from the Gospel of Matthew (5: 48).  This is traditionally translated as ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’.  However, the translation by this author is, ‘Be all-embracing, as you heavenly Father is all-embracing.” 

This passage and similar ones direct Christians to seek perfection and the understanding of God, as all good.  I could not reconcile them with my understanding of humanity as creatures of God, created in the image of God.  This new translation reconciled that dichotomy for me.  This enables me to reconcile these passages with my understanding of the human psyche.  We are to seek wholeness not perfection.  To quote my all-time favourite song writer and philosopher, Leonard Cohen,

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in

I will continue to offer my imperfect offerings to the source of my being which desires my wholeness and not my perfection. My you also be so blessed on your journey. 

Ringing the Bells

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.

(Anthem by Leonard Cohen)

Yesterday on Easter Sunday, the bells were still ringing or perhaps I should say ringing again, after what seems like an eternity of silence.  Perhaps it was the sound of silence to call up another popular song.  There seems to be a defining sound of silence these days.  However, yesterday that silence was broken across Canada as the leader of the Anglican Church, Archbishop Linda Nicholls, called for the bells of Anglican churches to be rung at 9:00 a.m.   Lorna and I went over to St. James Anglican Church in Parkhill, Ontario and rang the bell – we only have one but that one rang out.  I hope that this let those within hearing distance recognized that this was the evidence that church bells still can ring even though church buildings have been closed for a month and we have not been gathering for worship. Before ringing the bell,  I prayed the collect prayer for Easter Morning and Lorna served as acolyte holding a candle:

Collect
Lord of life and power,
through the mighty resurrection of your Son,
you have overcome the old order of sin and death
and have made all things new in him.
May we, being dead to sin
and alive to you in Jesus Christ,
reign with him in glory,
who with you and the Holy Spirit is alive,
one God, now and for ever.

Our offering of the bell ringing out was an offering even if it was not a perfect offering when compared to gathering together in worship especially on Easter Sunday.  We did not raise our voices together with those many beautiful Easter Hymns such as Jesus Christ is Risen Today, or Welcome Happy Morning.  However, we were able to tune in to the Easter Services on-line, of which there were many.  These were of varying quality as many clergy are using social media for the first time to make there worship available and, as one priest noted, he did not receive any training in how to do this in his theological studies.  However, as the great lyrics by Leonard Cohen state so wonderfully we need to forget our perfect offerings - all are acceptable to God. 

There is a deep truth in the song lyrics.  There are cracks in everything which have been made obvious at this time of self-isolation and quarantine.  We human beings do not easily embrace the cracks that appear in our lives whether it is in what we have believed is the foundation of our existence or even in our physical appearance – who is that old guy staring back at me in the mirror anyway?  However, perhaps in these days of COVID -19 we are beginning to see the light that is shining through those cracks.  We are beginning to really appreciate what is important and what is essential.  We can see that perhaps those people who are serving us and ensuring we have the necessities of life in this time of COVID-19 are the true heroes; the cleaners in the hospitals, the staff in the food stores, the truck drivers who are bringing the all the products to stock the shelves, the front line workers in hospitals and nursing homes.  All those who we now see as essential are so often the ones who are not compensated appropriately for people who are essential.  Perhaps there is some light shining through those cracks.

Blessings, stay well and keep the distance on this journey we are all on. 

The Crack in My Heart

Lorna and I attended the Easter Vigil service on Saturday at Trivitt Memorial Church in Exeter.  It was a truly wonderful service of new light.  I was particularly moved when the wonderful bells rang out after the Exsultet which was beautifully wonderfully sung by the cantor. 

That experience brought to life great line of poetry from Lenard Cohen (or Saint Lenny as I have come to call him):

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

Those bells certainly still can and do ring.  The light of Christ was brought into the church in a very moving procession at the beginning of the service with the Deacon proclaiming “The light of Christ” and the congregation singing in response “Thank be to God”.  

The question that was focused for me in that moment was, what is the crack in our lives that lets the light of Christ in?   We often think of a crack as something negative.  There is a crack in the foundation of our house or another building that needs to be repaired.  If we have a crack in a dish it will probably have to be discarded.  If we fall and crack some bone in our body it will have to be put in a cast until it heals.  So what crack can let the light in?

I first heard this phrase many years ago when I first heard St. Lenny’s song Anthem on his album The Future which was released in 1992.  It was probably in that year as I have always bought Leonard’s albums (or received them as gifts) as soon as they are released.  That phase resonated with me immediately and I understood it as an expression of the reality that it is through our humanness and imperfections that we receive the blessing of life from God; that is how we become more fully the people God created us to be.  We will make mistakes and better yet mistakes are inevitable as we are created to live and love and learn and discover who we are and who God made us to be.  That does not happen without living our lives as fully as possible and we cannot do that without making mistakes.  It is through our mistakes and cracks that we are made whole.

I still believe that and it has become truer for me the longer I live.  However, the new realization that came to me during the Easter Vigil is that the crack needs to be in the protective armour that we build around ourselves and particularly around our hearts.  We spend so much of our lives creating protective walls and barricades and cocoons.  We encase our hearts in iron cocoons again the hurts that others have inflicted on us.  The crack in that protective armour will let the light on Christ—the love of Christ in to our hearts.  However, there is no guarantee that this will happen.  Even if a crack in that armour opens it, we may let fear close it up again. 

We are called to let the light of Christ into our hearts.  We are called to share that love with others; with the world. So let us all:Easter Vigil

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

Breaking the Interior Chains

I had planned to write about sin as the things that chain us to the past.  However, with the evens at the mosque in Quebec City yesterday I am moved to reflect on that event.  As I write this it occurs to me that both topics are connected.  I do not know at this point who the perpetrators of this terrible dead are or anything about their background.  However, I know that they are in chains to their beliefs and attitudes.  They are in chains as certainly as someone who is in outer slavery.

When someone is enslaved on the inside they are much more difficult to set free.  They chains are invisible.  Only their actions and words give the evidence of the interior condition.  How do we engage these people and each of us in ways that will free them and us from our inner chains?   I certainly do not have any answers that will provide a silver bullet to break those chains.  I almost wrote to kill those beliefs but I do know that the language of killing is not the answer. 

If we respond in hate and look to strike out in vengeance we will be allowing the perpetrators to win.   If we build walls and battlements to hide behind to exclude those who we see as “the Other” we will also allow them to win.  As long as we see” the Other” as those who are out there they will win.  Rather than the aspects of ourselves which we do not want to recognize and acknowledge we will see them in “the Other” out there and react in ways that will only build a higher barrier to hide behind. 

I do not for one minute to say we should welcome those who see us in the same way i.e. as “the Other” to be eliminated.  I am not so naive or blind to the real threats that exist in our times as they have always existed.   I do believe that love is stronger than hate even though it often seems that it is not.  Hate seems to win more often—or perhaps it just has a better press secretary. 

There does seem to be many cracks in our world right now.  To draw again on Leonard Cohen, that is how the light gets in.  I will close with a prayer I discovered on the internet when I looked for resources for a prayer service tomorrow.  It is from jesuitresouces.org :

We pray,
O God,
for all Christians, Muslims, Hindus or Jews
whose hearts are consumed
by a zeal that has hardened them;

all
whose vision is partial,
whose mind is narrowed,
whose perceptions are simplified,
whose soul is poisoned.

And yet,
O God,
we read of Jesus that
"zeal for your house consumed him".

His life teaches us that
without the zeal of a burning love for you
that will endure through
the night-time of our enmities
we shall not see your kingdom come.

So we ask,
O God,
that you give us
a zeal that insists on acceptance
a commitment that endures in non-violence
and a patience that works for your coming;

and teach us to hate
only our tribalism and prejudice
which separate us
from those different to us.

We ask it in the name of the Prince of Peace,
Jesus Christ
Our Lord,
Amen.

An All-Embracing Perfection

Ring the bells (ring the bells) that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in (Leonard Cohen)

In his most recent column in the January edition of Huron Church News, the Rev. Jim Innes closes his column, Goof Bravely: the joy of making mistakes, with the above quote from Leonard Cohen.  I was most please to see this reference by a fellow priest who happens to be the Rector of the congregation I attend.

This quote is my favourite lyric from my favourite song writer (I have been and remain an unapologetic Leonard Cohen fan most of my life—which is a long time indeed).  It is from his song Anthem which was in his album The Future released in 1992.  These few lines reveal a depth of wisdom that has resonated with me ever since I heard it.  It also cracks open a challenge I have had (and still do); that is the desire for perfection. That is also a challenge which plagues many people.  It may surprise those of you who know me that I have what might be described as a perfection complex. 

I had not consciously thought of myself as a perfectionist as I did not strive to do many things in my life perfectly, as I believed that perfectionists engaged the world.  They, I believed, would spend endless time and countless energy to ensure that whatever they did was perfect.  I did not attempt to engage in things that I believed would require me to be a perfectionist.  This is true for instance in things that required me to do work with my hands such as woodwork.  I knew it was not possible and I therefore did not undertake them. There are many other aspects of life that I probably avoided in part because I knew I could not do them perfectly.    

In his column, Rev. Jim addresses this problem very well.  He notes that, “The fear of making mistakes will lead us to some terrible consequences, or that making mistakes is a sign of weakness or incompetence.”  This approach to perfection is enabled and even made worse by Christianity.  As Jim notes, “This guilt driven life sentence can unfortunately find validation in our Christian churches”. 

Christian theology tells us to strive for perfection.  For example, the Gospel of Matthew 5: 48 is traditionally translated as ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’.  This seems to contradict much of Jesus’s teaching which, for example, is addressed to the crowd not to stone the woman caught in adultery.  Jesus said only the one without sin could cast the first stone knowing that they (and we) are all sinful and need repentance.  An alternative translation to the passage is proposed by Neil Douglas-Klotz in his book A Prayer for the Cosmos.  The author looks at the original Aramaic, Jesus native language, and translates the passage, “Be all-embracing, as you heavenly Father is all-embracing.” 

This passage and similar ones direct Christians to seek perfection and the understanding of God, as all good.  I could not reconcile them with my understanding of humanity as creatures of God, created in the image of God.  This new translation reconciled that dichotomy for me and brought my desire for perfection into a conscious awareness. 

This understanding enables me to reconcile these passages.  We are to seek wholeness not perfection.  We need the cracks in our lives.  That is how the light comes in; Hallelujah (but that is another Leonard Cohen song and another story). 

I will close with a quote from Richard Rohr:

One great idea of the biblical revelation is that God is manifest in the ordinary, in the actual, in the daily, in the now, in the concrete incarnations of life. Our experiences of ordinary life will transform us if we are willing to experience them fully. This is quite different than much of religion’s emphasis on being pure, perfect, or correct to find God. Jesus stands religion on its head! In fact, some historians of religion claim that Jesus proclaimed the end of religion. (Of course, we quickly undid this mistake!)  Richard Rohr Daily Meditation January 13, 2017