Category Archives: Religion

Death in the Wood of Ephraim (Dennis Aubrey)

Posted on by
Reply

Dennis Aubrey of Via Lucis posted Death in the Wood of Ephraim (Dennis Aubrey), a one-of-a-kind reflection on the biblical David and the death of his slain rebellious son Absalom.

Dennis and PJ continually bring to the internet something very special: their thoughtful interplay between their photographs of Romanesque and Gothic architecture and commentaries on what they experience while photographing them and researching their histories.

Via Lucis is an example of the spiritual and artistic integration of external (visible) and internal (invisible) reality. This morning I left this comment for Dennis:

Dennis, this is such a profound reflection, in my view. Once again you weave the thread through the highs of joy and the depths of sin and sorrow in ways that move us beyond the separation of light and shadow/darkness that too often keeps us in spiritual and moral diapers, separating the sheep from the goats. Your note gives me hope that the time preparing for the pulpit is not in vain, especially when it is appreciated by someone who does not define himself as a practicing Christian. Friedrich Schleiermacher spent his life in conversation with “the cultured despisers” (i.e., good, rational people whose sophistication had led them to conclude that religion was a relic  that impedes the sure ascent of historical progress).  In your photography and writings I find a conversation partner who lives at the razor’s edge between belief and disbelief, joy and despair, the heights and the abyss of nothingness, and the honest search for hope and truth beyond the illusion of inevitable progress. If Romanesque architecture “induces internal experience and reflection…” – the internal experience of the external expression of Gothic – your photography and commentaries continually weave the two together to achieve a rare depth, and a balance between the seen and unseen, the external and internal. I am deeply grateful. – Gordon

If you go to Dennis’s site, please take a moment to comment. Or you may leave a comment here.

Latest “All Things Considered” commentary

Posted on by
Reply

During campaign season, maintaining serenity is a good trick

by Gordon C. Stewart, “All Things Considered” guest commentary (MPR)

Aired August 20, 2012

Click HERE for the Minnesota Public Radio publication, including an Audio link. Here’s the text.
.

Some days are brightened by a trip to the nursing home.

Take last Monday, for instance.

The members of the group that meets every Monday at 10 a.m. shuffle in on their walkers, or roll in, in their wheel chairs.

Ninety-seven-year-old Frances (not her real name; nor are the others to follow) walks in without assistance. Her 78-year-old son is dying of cancer. Another relative, 30 years younger than she, is next door in the memory care unit. “Good morning!” she says.

Georgana has been confined to a wheelchair all her life. But her mind is as sharp as her sense of humor. Gwen, who’ll be 90 this week, is coming to the end with hospice care. Pat, recently moved from Assisted Living to the Care Center, is in a wheelchair. All 12 of them smile and offer each other greetings: “Good morning!”

This morning I’ve watched too many campaign ads brought to my computer by Unedited Politics, a website that republishes campaign ads and political speeches without editorial comment. I’m all stirred up.

The 12 people from the nursing home have been drawn here by their desire for light. “Rejoice!” says the reading for the morning. “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation ….”

I ask: How do you rejoice in a nursing home? What is the secret of being content when your body and your mind don’t do what they once did?

Listening to their reflections reminds me of how small our footprint is on the larger world. They share my distress about the news, but their years have taught them to recognize light wherever it meets them and to relish the little things of daily life: a smile, a kind word, the cardinal and the squirrels playing outside their windows, a sense of inner peace, a strange contentment. I hope to be more like them — to pay more attention to the things that are beautiful, admirable and lovely.

While they shuffle out on their walkers and roll out in their wheelchairs, Frances, Georgana, Gwen, Pat and the rest of the ad hoc community at the nursing home thank me for coming and wish me a good week. They have lightened my step. I’ll still pay attention to the news, but I’ll listen and watch with a greater lightness of being.

Getting to “the Still Point”

Posted on by
Reply

Steve Shoemaker sent this Breath Prayer on March 24, 2012 during Holy Week based on Jesus’ word to another criminal hanging on the cross next to him. I waited until now to post it on Views from the Edge.

Prayers (breathing) –  8 syllables in (inhale); 8 out (exhale)

– Steve Shoemaker

Jesus Christ, Child of God, Savior: (teacher) Have mercy on me, your sister.

(brother).  (on us your siblings.)

(Have mercy on me, a sinner.)

…

Gracious God, Jesus Christ, Spirit:

Give me (us) peace, patience, joy and love.

…

Loving God, you create, sustain:

give us dreams, energy and skill.

…

Holy Spirit, Comforter, Fire:

Mold us, move us, keep us alive.

…

Mysterious Divinity:

Show us what we can know and do.

…

We have left the path, lost our way:

Forgive us, O God; set us straight.

…

Your grace and love surround us, God:

Help us be grateful, loving, kind.

…

Our life will soon be over, God:

Remember us in paradise…

I waited until now to share this prayer. It strikes me as an antidote to the onslaught of misery and hate during this campaign season. Breathing Prayer calms my soul, slows down my whirring mind, and brings it down into the heart. The ancient practices of Breath Prayer and Lectio Divina move me into the great Stillness at “the still point of the turning world”… where the dance is.

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither
from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest
nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered.
Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the
point, the still point,There would be no dance, and there is only the
dance.

– T.S. Eliot, 1888-1965), The Four Quartets.

For more on Breath Prayer and the variety of prayer in the Christian tradition, click on this link: Ten Ways to Pray: A Short Guide to a Long History of Talking with God.

A grief expressed

Posted on by
Reply

How does one give expression to the depth of horror that follows the death of a son or daughter, as in the case of David’s lament for Absalom? (See sermon “Holy Tears: David, Absalom…and Us” posted here yesterday.)  Percy Bysshe Shelley expresses it in poetry.

O World! O Life! O Time!
On whose last steps I climb,
Trembling at that where I had stood before;
When will return the glory of your prime?
No more -Oh, never more!

…

Out of the day and night
A joy has taken flight:
Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar
Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight
No more -Oh, never more!

But music, the language of the soul, best expresses the cry from the depths, the prayer from the abyss for help for the helpless. In such moments of loss – and in the spiritual discipline of Good Friday reflection – I listen to “Libera Me” from Gabriel Faure’s Requiem. So soulful. So honest. Real. Vulnerable. Pleading. A primal but lovely cry, given voice from the depths by a great composer.

Feast or Fast

Posted on by
3

Is the Spiritual Discipline of Fasting Un-American?

“The Supper of the Lamb,” Robert Farrar Capon’s

great theological cookbook, dissed dieting,

insisting it was better far to feast, then fast.

…

But we are surrounded by ads, take-outs,

fast-FOOD!  Can we really just be drinking

plain water for a day?  Can a fast last?

…

We can remember to say Grace

(recall when a prayer was thinking

food was a gift?)  Be thankful FAST!

…

Then souls will grow, waist-lines

shrink.  It bears repeating:

we must first feast, then fast.

…

Americans

meditating,

while moving fast…

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL August 21, 2012

Steve’s poem transported me back in time to the boyhood where Grace preceded every meal. All heads were bowed. All ears were open and mouths shut before we feasted on my mother’s cooking. Many of the words my parents offered are gone, but the gift they gave us was deeper than words: the quiet, humble, reverent tone with which the prayers were uttered… on our behalf…and on behalf of those who had no food. Nothing at the feast was fast or taken for granted. “Give us this day our daily bread….”

Heinrich Schutz’ lament for Absalom

Posted on by
Reply

Thanks to Dennis Aubrey of Via Lucis for sharing Heinrich Schutz’s rendering of David’s lament, “My son, Absalom!” in response to “Holy Tears: David, Absalom…and Us” posted here on Views from the Edge this morning.

A Visit to the Nursing Home: Staying Sane

Posted on by
2

Click During campaign season, maintaining serenity is a good trick to read last Friday’s guest commentary published by MPR. The commentary will also air on All Things Considered, “the most listened-to, afternoon drive-time, news radio program in the country”.

“Holy Tears: David, Absalom…and Us”

Posted on by
8

A sermon inspired by the personal story of a king who was losing it and his son, Absalom, leading to the larger question of how we define abundance in our time. If you can get by the first minute and have the time – it’s dreadfully long 🙂 it might be of interest. Please let me know your responses to the last part of the sermon re-defining the idea of abundance.

The Creator’s Playfulness

Posted on by
2

“Good morning, world!” – New-born giraffe

How can you not love a face like this?

Those big eyes. Those big ears. Those things on the head. That Joe E. Brown mouth and smile of a new-born giraffe?

Take 44 seconds to see the giraffe’s likeness in Joe E. Brown – same DNA? -see for yourself the Creator’s great sense of play and humor. God is laughing with us, not at us.

“Someday, I’ll be big too, just like you and Joe E., right Mom?”

Baby and mother giraffes – Antwerp Zoo

This hour in history….

Posted on by
4

Remember this?

George W. Bush – battleship USS Abraham Lincoln: “Mission Accomplished!”

Now we have copycats:

Romney, Ryan, and the U.S.S. Wisconsin

But we will always have this:

This hour of history – The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Take your pick.