Category Archives: Spirituality

Four brothers who sing together

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Our parents took us to their church four times
each week: on Sunday, twice, and then for prayer
on Wednesday night–on Thursdays they sang hymns
in choir rehearsal while one, two, three, four
of us played on, around, and under pews.
“You boys be quiet!” they would often say.

We learned to sing in Sunday School: “Jesus
loves me,” and “Hallelu Hallelujah!”
Soon all of us were singing in the choir…
Then we grew up, our parents aged and died.
One atheist, one pantheist, one pair
of liberal Presbyterians–none tied
to our folk’s Baptist faith, yet when we drink
we sing their songs in four-part harmony.

– little stevie shoemaker, urbana, il, july 6, 2013

The Pine Grove

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Thrice happy he, who by some shady grove,
Far from the clamorous world, doth live his own;
Though solitary, who is not alone,
But doth converse with that eternal love.

– William Drummond, Urania

Next to the big barn attached to the big house on the big hill in South Paris, Maine was my favorite place: the pine grove.

It was a quiet place. The pine trees reached up to the sky, so tall that I wondered whether their tops could touch the blue sky and the white clouds I would watch floating over them through the filtered light of the trees, lying on the pine needles of the pine grove floor.

Sometimes Annie went with me to the pine grove. She lived just behind Grandpa’s and Grandma’s big house on the hill.

Annie liked my grandmother’s sugar cookies almost as much as I did…and the gingerbread cookies and the toll-house cookies, but mostly the big white sugar cookies my grandmother made every day because she knew we liked them best. We would settle on the granite steps outside the pantry with big glasses of fresh milk from real returnable glass milk bottles brought that morning by the milk man, and eat the cookies and drink our milk. Then a cookie or two would go with us into the pine grove.

We would lie there and look up…without talking…smelling the aroma of the pines. It was a sacred place of solitude and quiet – God’s greatest gift – where I could forget that my father was somewhere far away on the other side of some great big ocean in a great big war against a great big monster. I would retreat to the pine grove to get away from the radio broadcasts we listened to that might tell us whether my father was alive or dead.

There was no war in the pine grove. There were no people there. Just the great big pine trees that didn’t seem to care about the war. They just kept reaching up to the sky.

After we moved far away to Pennsylvania following my father’s return from the war, we returned to South Paris annually for vacation. Every year those pine trees were there waiting for my return.

During the 10 hour drive to South Paris, I looked forward to lying on the floor of the pine grove with a fresh-baked sugar cookie. As we drove up the road from Gray and rounded the bend by the Fair Grounds, the anticipation grew. I could almost smell the scent of the pines of the pine grove.

Until the year I looked up to see a franchise submarine sandwich shop standing where the pine grove had stood. The pine grove was gone. Clear cut. All the trees. All the pine needles. And the hill had been leveled to street level.

Someone had declared war on the pine grove, and the trees couldn’t fight back. Trees don’t fight. I sobbed like a baby.

The inward being and the secret heart

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I’ve been silent for awhile, absorbed in preparing a manuscript for submission, and the site will remain pretty silent over the next three weeks.

Between now and then, this sermon on YouTube was preached last Sunday at Shepherd of the Hill, the wonderful congregation I’m privileged to serve in Chaska, MN.

It is based on the 51st Psalm (selected) and sees the psalm in light of a rite for the cleansing of a leper in the Book of Leviticus in which the leper presents two birds.

1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.

3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are justified in your sentence
and blameless when you pass judgment.
…

6 You desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me away from your presence,
and do not take your holy spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and sustain in me a willing spirit.

13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
14 Deliver me from bloodshed, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.

15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you have no delight in sacrifice;
if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.
17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

MinnPost published Deep Water Horizon effects today

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Deepwater Horizon fire

Deepwater Horizon fire

Chief Albert Naquin

Chief Albert Naquin

Thanks to MinnPost for publishing this piece today. Click the title for the link to the conversation with Albert Naquin, Chief of the Isle de Jean Charles Band of the vanishing island of Isle de Jean Charles in Louisiana.

Deep Water Horizon: Three Years After

The Secret Heart and the Inner Being

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Nathan accusing David

Nathan accusing David

“Behold, You seek truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.” (Psalm 51:6)

What is the secret heart?

Is it the deepest place in us, the place where God is: the equivalent or synonym for “the inward being” – a poetic parallelism of Hebrew poetry?

Or is it, perhaps, the secret place where we hide from God: the hiding place where we go off to a different heart than the Divine heart?

Or could it be both synonym and antonym at the same time?
_______

Psalm 51 is a prayer attributed to David. It is not a quiet prayer. It is a wrenching, sobbing prayer, the words tumbling from David’s mouth in halting phrases and stammers with tears flooding his eyes and streaming down his face like rivers.

David’s secret heart is dirty and he knows it. He cannot wash the stain of blood from his hands. Nathan has exposed his sin. Nathan’s story-telling has seduced David into the trap where his secret is exposed to his inner being. Nathan has baited David with a story that has aroused David’s anger. “As the LORD lives,” said David to Nathan, ” the man who has done this deserves to die!” And Nathan then said to David, “YOU are the man.”

“Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,” cries out David in Psalm 51, “and cleanse from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is every before me.”

It is a scene straight from Shakespeare’s Macbeth:

“Out, damn spot! OUT, I say…. all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!”

_____

Hebrew Psalms are like that. The are not sanitized. They plunge the reader into the conflict between the reader’s own inmost being, the true secret heart, you might say – the heart that pumps life into us – and the secret heart of our own flight from truth and goodness, the heart of deception and self-deception.

Why is David crying out? What has he done? What is the sin that is ever before him, the blood he can’t wash from his own hands?

Psalm 51 comes in response to an accusation that has exposed the bloody behavior his secret heart heart has produced. It is Nathan, David’s commander on the battlefront, who confronts him with the truth.

Nathan, relying on a fresh report from the front line of battle, tells David that Uriah, the King’s next door neighbor, a man of valor and impeccable loyalty to King David, whom David had sent off to war to secure Uriah’s wife Bathsheba for himself, is dead! His blood is on David! Nathan has spoken the truth to power. And the way that Nathan has spoken it to the King has taken him into the deepest parts that are at war within himself.

There is no wisdom in David’s secret heart. There is only treachery.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from Your presence,
and take not Your Holy Spirit from me.”

“Purge me!” cries David. Imagine Richard Burton at his most dramatic. “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow!”

_____

What’s hyssop?

Hyssop is the foliage of an aromatic plant named in the Passover story (Exodus 12:21-27) and used in the cleansing of a healing and cleansing of a leper (Leviticus 4:51).

The rite of cleansing involves centers on two small birds. One bird is killed. The other bird is washed in the blood of the other under the flow of water and the sweetness of hyssop. The one bird dies. The second bird lives.

“Thus he (the priest) shall cleanse the house with the blood of the bird, and with the running water, and with the living bird, and with the cedarwood and hyssop and the scarlet stuff; and he shall let the living bird go out of the city into the open field; so he shall make atonement for the house, and it shall be clean.” (Lev. 14:52-53)

“Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation” cries Uriah’s killer curled up in a ball, hoping against all hope, “and my tongue will sing aloud of Your deliverance.”

_____

David in Psalm 51 is both birds.

He is the one who deserves to die. Yet he is also the one who lives. He lives not because of the heart that had conspired against Uriah and betrayed his own inward being – “Against You (God) only have I sinned…” (Ps. 51:4). He lives because there is more mercy in God (the inward being) than there is sin in him.

“The sacrifice acceptable to God,” he concludes, the tears still streaming down his face, but calmer now, “is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.”

His body quivers as he imagines himself as the bird released into the open field by mercy alone, “according to Your steadfast love; according to Your abundant mercy.” (Ps. 51:1) The inner being – his Deeper Being – has taught his released him for wisdom.

The Prophets: Parents of Newtown

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The parents of the murdered children of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown are back in Washington, D.C today and tomorrow. They are meeting with our nation’s law-makers.

Like Jeremiah, “the Weeping Prophet” who cried over the plight of his people, these mourning parents are courageous spokespersons for sanity, compassion, and an end to America’s love of violence.

May the Spirit that inspires these grieving parents to leave home for meetings in the center of American power and public scrutiny stir the consciences of the Congressional Representatives and Senators with whom they meet.

A friend brought to my attention “Thank God, I’m Alive” on the latest tragedy of gun violence to garner national attention in Santa Monica, California.

As Moses said when Joshua wanted to silence two people (Eldad and Medad) who were speaking out without authorization: “I wish that all God’s people were prophets!” (Book of Numbers 11:29, Torah, Hebrew Bible).

I invite your prayers and well wishes for the parents of Newtown as they carry forward the prophetic tradition. Let no one silence you. Speak the truth with love, and let the Spirit do its work.

Please share your comments.

Let sleeping dogs lie

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Poet and guilt-free friend

Poet and guilt-free friend

EDITORIAL NOTE: The author of this poem is the bald one, not the one with all the hair. He was taking a nap during the daytime because he couldn’t sleep at night.

AWAKE

I do not want to be awake. I wish,
instead my racing mind would shift into
a neutral gear, spin to a stop, rehash
no more today/tomorrow/yesterday.
I meditate, I take slow breaths, I say
the very first prayers that I ever knew…
I try to sing myself a lullaby,
but silently, so not to wake nearby
a gently sleeping soul who has it seems
a clear conscience and peaceful dreams.

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, sent by email to Editor @12:25 a.m., June 11, 2013

EDITOR’S NOTE: Albert Camus said, “A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.”

Thanks you, Steve, for the art.

Be in the Moment

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by Gordon C. Stewart, written five weeks ago in flight from Minneapolis to Los Angeles…before we learned that Kay’s ankle was broken.

“Pay attention. Live in the moment. Don’t rush to be where you aren’t. Be right where you are.”

If, for instance, you’re on the stairs… well, watch your step!

This morning Kay and I rose early to catch a flight for a much-needed vacation on the coast of California. We’re excited about this trip, planned at the last moment in the aftermath of losing the dog companions who have been with us for all but the first month of our 14+ year marriage.

Lonely at home without Maggie and Sebastian, I called Kay last Thursday. “Let’s get out of here. The house is empty without them…but we now have freedom to travel. Let’s go somewhere fun.”

Fred, Kay’s colleague at work, said he knew just the place: Cambria, California, a four hour drive north of LA, one his favorite places on the California coast just south of Big Sur.

Within 24 hours we had booked the flights, found a beautiful home in Cambria through VRBO (“Vacation Rental by Owner”), and looked forward to flying out of Minnesota on Monday (today).

Yesterday, Susan Lince, a local artist who moved to Chaska two years ago after teaching Eskimo children in northern Alaska, led us through exercises to become more aware of the senses. Most important is being where you are….touching, tasting, smelling, hearing, seeing.

So…this morning…with Maggie and Sebastian gone, we packed our bags and headed downstairs to the garage.

I had gone first, packed most of the bags in the car, and was waiting for Kay. I assumed she had gone back to get something or to turn something off in the kitchen. I was wrong.

She had fallen down the steps – nine of them – carrying a suitcase I had missed. She came into my sight in the garage limping badly on the ankle that is severely sprained, at best, pulling the suitcase behind.

We iced the ankle and left home for the airport.

Right now we’re on Sun Country Airlines Flight 421 to Los Angeles. Kay has been treated royally since we arrived at the terminal. A wheelchair. Special privileges in getting through security without a line. A Sun Country Airlines attendant pushing her wheelchair and taking care of her needs while the husband who had forgotten the suitcase that contributed to her fall took care of his own bodily needs. The people at Gate 3 arranged for us to change seats so that Kay could have her own row of seats to keep her leg up during the flight.

So…Live in the moment. Touch, see, smell, hear, and taste where you are. And if you’re on your way to California, watch your step when you’re still in Minnesota. You could end up feeling the cold of an ice-pack on your ankle.

Remembering Will Campbell

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Will Campbell

Will Campbell

Will Campbell (1924-2013) is unforgettable. Beyond unusual, he was idiosyncratic. In death, he calls us to the deeper selves we so easily lose.

Will Campbell was that rare person of integrity who seemed to fulfill the hard calling described once by his friend William Stringfellow – “to be the same person everywhere all the time” – and his different places still blow the mind.

He was idiosyncratic. Who else would or could march at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and ‘60s, once the law was changed, turn his ministry to sipping whiskey with the Good Ol’ Boys on the front porches of the Ku Klux Klan?

Campbell was a son of the Deep South, a white Southern Baptist preacher raised in Mississippi, who betrayed his white privilege as a matter of Gospel discipleship. He became one of the closest friends of the youth Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the only white person present at the founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference that led the charge for Civil Rights in America. He was trusted that much.

His life was threatened repeatedly. He gained national prominence as a field worker for the Department of Racial and Cultural Relations of the National Council of Churches, the nation’s largest ecumenical council that suffered heavy criticism from anti-civil rights forces across the country, but especially in the Deep South. The National Council of Churches and Will Campbell were to their critics what the KKK was to those who worked to eliminate segregation in America.

When the nine black school children walked through hostile crowds to integrate the public school system in Little Rock, Arkansas, Will Campbell was one of four people at their side.

He became Director of the Committee of Southern Churchman, a position he used to promote racial reconciliation, his vocation until the day he died.

With the passage of the Civil Right Act, the man who spent his ministry to help win freedom for blacks did something no one could have imagined. He chose to re-direct his ministry to the new lepers of society, the defeated hooded enemies of integration, the Ku Klux Klan.

No one but Will Campbell would have done this, and few others could have done this. But he did. He became known as the chaplain to the KKK. Campbell wrote in Brother to a Dragonfly, one of 26 publications that bear his name:

“I had become a doctrinaire social activist without consciously choosing to be. And I would continue to be some kind of social activist. But there was a decided difference. Because from that point on I came to understand the nature of tragedy. And one who understands the nature of tragedy can never take sides.”

Will Campbell was not a hater. He was a reconciler who loved people. All kinds and conditions of people, even his ‘enemies’. He was the same person everywhere all the time.

He confused his critics – first the Right and then the Left – by insisting that his soul did not belong to any team – racial, political, religious, cultural. It belonged to the Kingdom of God. There was only one team, and that was the family of ALL God’s children everywhere. Compassion came first in his hierarchy of values. Compassion led him to campaign for justice in the Civil Rights Movement, and compassion led him to sip whiskey with the cross-burners in the rocking chairs on their front porches. His was a ministry of reconciliation, a living, idiosyncratic expression a bold declaration of the biblical gospel that God was in Christ reconciling the world to God’s own Self.

The notice of Will’s death (June 3, 2013) at the age of 88 in Nashville, Tennessee reminded me of just how hard it is to be a disciple of Jesus, how hard it is to love my neighbor as myself, especially when the neighbor is the enemy of my own claims to righteousness. Would that all of us were as idiosyncratic as Will.

If only church leaders could speak like this …

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New Zealander David Earle of “In the Company of Hysterical Women” published this today. It features actor Patrick Stewart addressing the issue of domestic violence. Click

If only church leaders could speak like this ….

to read David’s post.