So. Future Housemate, Sweetie and I went to view one house today.
It's... well. It's not perfect. But I don't think we'll find something that suits our needs better, not at that price. It's... Future Housemate referred to it as dignified, and that it is, with a bit of history and character. It's in reasonably good nick. The amount of storage space is wonderful, and will be even better once we get bookshelves in. There's room for my teaching studio. There's one more bedroom than we were looking for. The location couldn't be better, literally around the corner from one of my dearest friends, with a wonderful grocer at one end of the road and ancient parkland at the other. I can't tell you more than that without sacrificing anonymity.
I know it's hasty to rent a place without having looked at other houses in the area. I know it's a renter's market and we have the clout to find something really spectacular. I know they may decide not to replace the shower, and might balk at our request for a gas hob rather than electric. I know the kitchen is a bit smaller than I'd like (but there is an Actual Dining Room, something I've long yearned for, and I think that will make smallish kitchen okay). I know the rent is a teensy weensy bit higher than we'd planned. I know the garden is north-facing and not as large as I'd hoped for (though it is not without promise... the roses, jasmine and honeysuckle can all stay, in any case).
But I'm rather smitten. I know what houses in that general area are like, having visited a few friends, and this one does feel special. It seems to just be begging us to move in and fill it with life and music. It feels like somewhere that will become home. Future Housemate feels the same. Sweetie likes it too, especially the flexibility of having the extra bedroom.
I may not make it to Evensong tomorrow at Default Option Church. Last week I had a rather dismal and discouraging experience there involving sexist comments, being accused of stealing a hymnal and another sermon I couldn't quite follow (not all the same incident I might add!), but that's not the reason for staying away. I have a friend who had surgery last week and the only time I can get up to visit her is going to be tomorrow night after I'm teaching, so if she's feeling up to visitors I will be going there instead of to church. I figure God understands these things.
That said, I didn't want to miss it entirely. So today I went to St Paul's Cathedral for Evensong there.
The tube was running late of course and I arrived just after the last stroke of five, almost too worried about disturbing things to have the nerve to go in at all. I've lived in London for nine years but for most of those I was chasing Judaism or not really engaging with any structured spiritual practice... I'd not been to a service in a cathedral before. I needn't have worried, it was full of tourists. After I sat down I realised there was an area nearer the front where people actually had service sheets and so on, but I was feeling a bit too shy to go up and join them. So I sat, and I stood, and I sat, depending on which part of the service we were in--I could hear enough of the music to keep track and the spoken prayers were on a speaker system. It's also very echo-y in there and I didn't hear everything clearly, people around me were talking a lot which didn't help much.
But I'm very glad I went, and I'm glad I participated on some level.
Once in a sermon at Leafy Suburb Church, the vicar mentioned a blog I read and comment on. I had a slight panic and then realised that no, she probably doesn't follow back to commenters' blogs and read them all, she might not be able to identify me for sure from what I write here, and even if she did I don't mind her knowing who I am. And it struck me today in St Paul's that I wanted to write about being there, but any number of you lot could have been there too. Do I identify myself or not? I'm trying to remain somewhat anonymous here because it gives me a freedom in my writing that I do not think I could have if my professional life and my blogging here were to overlap much. I'm less clear about where my social life and my blogging are allowed to overlap, and how comfortable I am with the people I meet on my in-person spiritual explorations having access to my more vulnerable, private musings. Do I say that I was there, I was the rather tall lady in the purple skirt and dark blue top and the rather dirty light blue hat? What are the chances? This is London... chances are rather high. I'm undecided. Only I've gone and done it now, haven't I?
This leads into a slightly knottier problem.
One of the things that is very much a part of who I am, no matter which online identity or personal or professional role I'm stepping into, is my work as a student and a performer of music. It's unavoidable.
Not too long after my Big Final Exam Recital I'm having a more personal, celebratory recital. I don't want to put the place and time online, but it'll be in London, at a church reasonably close to a central location. I've struggled somewhat with making this event personal but not exclusive; I don't want to turn away anyone who would like to come, but I want it to be clear that this concert is primarily for me to have the opportunity to play for colleagues, family, teachers and friends, new and old. As concerts should be, it's a gift I'm making to the audience, not a product I am selling. So I've invited pretty much everyone I know, though I'm late getting invitations sent out. And every time anyone says, "Oh, can I bring so-and-so along?" I say yes, of course.
I have been surprised and delighted by the guidance, support, encouragement and, yes, friendship, that I have found through blogging here. So if you are in London, or think it might be possible for you to be in London during the summer, and you would like to hear me play: please contact me, and if I recognise you and trust you not to blab all over the internet about who I actually am, I'll send you invitation details. I mean it. I am absolutely serious about this. My getting this degree (okay I don't have it just yet, but you give me a few more weeks...) has been very much a group effort and I am honoured to include some regular readers here in that group. You might not think you've done much but a kind word here and a bit of encouragement there have been lifelines, and then there is everything that I have read... even when I can't keep up, these words on screens are important, are necessary. It would be a joy and a privilege to play for you. It's the closest thing I have to sacrament, in this line of work.
I'm happy to give you the option of remaining anonymous yourself. I know lots of you have higher stakes in the anonymity gamble than I do, and I respect that. Lots of people at this concert will be people I primarily know online, though many have gone on to become wonderful in-person friends; everyone there will understand if you say, "Oh, I know the performer from conversations we've had on the internet". For that matter, you don't have to talk to people at all if you don't want to, you can leave the second the music stops or even slip out early. Hiding in the vestry for the entire concert is another option, although of course if I get many of you all wanting to do that it won't work very well as a hiding place!
But please, if you read this regularly, consider coming if it's at all practical.
Showing posts with label evensong. Show all posts
Showing posts with label evensong. Show all posts
Saturday, 30 May 2009
Sunday, 3 May 2009
Feeling sheepish
It is Good Shepherd Sunday. My memory of this story from childhood is always one of wondering, if one sheep got lost and the shepherd went after it, who looked after the rest of the flock while the shepherd was away looking? Yeah, I was missing the point a bit.
Today I missed Evensong. I went to the church in the area where I teach, where I usually go for Evensong on Sundays if I'm not able to get to Leafy Suburb Church or elsewhere. It has become a sort of default option. I turned up. I started folding up my bicycle. I realised nobody was there.
Default Option Church is okay. They do well, I think, to have Evensong most Sundays. They're not unfriendly, not as welcoming as Leafy Suburb Church but they probably just don't know what to make of me. The sermons range from good to wishy-washy to downright confusing.
I've been telling myself that I go for the music.
The choir usually outnumbers the congregation. The singing is directed with care and a great deal of precision but lacks a certain passion and doesn't take risks, the hymnody is often planned in such a way that doesn't encourage congregational participation (alternating women and men for verses when there aren't many strong singers in the congregation means people get lost; and I can't easily sing the soprano line for consecutive verses in many hymns so generally stick to harmony except for first and last). Overall my impression is that it's a little insipid and uninspiring. But... I turn up anyway. I can't easily get to another service most Sundays. I turn up, and I sing the hymns, and I try to take something from the sermon, and I try to notice what the music is trying to do, and I sing along in the psalmody, sotto voce and slightly behind because I don't have the dots to tell me what notes are next.
I knew sooner or later I'd turn up and there wouldn't be a service, and tonight it happened, and there was nothing for it but to head home.
I didn't expect it to upset me so much. I guess I am there for more than just the music.
I read the Evening Prayer service from the Book of Common Worship courtesy of the C of E website and then took a psalter and went to sit in the park and sing... sotto voce again so as not to attract undue attention. And the park got dark and cold and I came home. And saw this post, among others.
There's rather a lot of church on the internet after all.
Today I missed Evensong. I went to the church in the area where I teach, where I usually go for Evensong on Sundays if I'm not able to get to Leafy Suburb Church or elsewhere. It has become a sort of default option. I turned up. I started folding up my bicycle. I realised nobody was there.
Default Option Church is okay. They do well, I think, to have Evensong most Sundays. They're not unfriendly, not as welcoming as Leafy Suburb Church but they probably just don't know what to make of me. The sermons range from good to wishy-washy to downright confusing.
I've been telling myself that I go for the music.
The choir usually outnumbers the congregation. The singing is directed with care and a great deal of precision but lacks a certain passion and doesn't take risks, the hymnody is often planned in such a way that doesn't encourage congregational participation (alternating women and men for verses when there aren't many strong singers in the congregation means people get lost; and I can't easily sing the soprano line for consecutive verses in many hymns so generally stick to harmony except for first and last). Overall my impression is that it's a little insipid and uninspiring. But... I turn up anyway. I can't easily get to another service most Sundays. I turn up, and I sing the hymns, and I try to take something from the sermon, and I try to notice what the music is trying to do, and I sing along in the psalmody, sotto voce and slightly behind because I don't have the dots to tell me what notes are next.
I knew sooner or later I'd turn up and there wouldn't be a service, and tonight it happened, and there was nothing for it but to head home.
I didn't expect it to upset me so much. I guess I am there for more than just the music.
I read the Evening Prayer service from the Book of Common Worship courtesy of the C of E website and then took a psalter and went to sit in the park and sing... sotto voce again so as not to attract undue attention. And the park got dark and cold and I came home. And saw this post, among others.
There's rather a lot of church on the internet after all.
Saturday, 2 May 2009
Thoughts on Trinity
Last Sunday I had a conversation which seems to have changed my understanding of the Trinity.
I don't claim that this is a new idea, or an orthodox idea, or a correct idea or even an idea that I haven't encountered before. But for some reason it stuck and I'm finding it significant. I'm going to try to explain what I remember of it. I wasn't able to find the words at all on Sunday so this might be a mis-remembering, and at best there's going to be some heavy paraphrasing. I said in a comment on Margaret's blog that I only understood something at the edges of my brain, where the words won't go. I think now that I wasn't accurate: it's the core of my being where the words won't go. The words are the edges, they're the result of deeper things and can influence deeper things but the still small voice is wordless.
Anyway, last Sunday...
I'd just sung and played Evensong in a rather adorable church. We were talking as we packed up, and I mentioned to another musician that I'd never really got on with the Trinity, couldn't wrap my brain around three being one being three.
"But you have a mind," said M, "and a body," and her hand rested gently on my shoulder a moment, "and you have a soul. Each of these things is uniquely yours, definitely you rather than anyone else. None of them is you in your entirety. The Father is the Mind of God, the Son is the Body of God, the Holy Spirit is the Soul of God." And then the conversation moved on to other things.
I don't know why this stuck; maybe it was the way M spoke, shining with quiet wisdom. Maybe it was the singing. Maybe it was the unexpected setting, the oh-by-the-way relaxation of discussing it so casually instead of getting tied up in knots. I don't know. I just know it stuck.
For as long as I can remember, I have had a much easier time relating to the Father/Creator and Spirit/Ghost than any of the doctrine regarding the Jesus as the Son of God... that which is so integral to Christianity. But insofar as Christ is the Body of God, insofar as the church and all humanity is called to be the Body of God, to do the work of God, in some sense this works.
I don't know how I reconcile that with Jesus the human being as the Son of God. I cannot shake the feeling that human body is too small a container for the infinite. But the business of Jesus being on Earth in that form rather than with all humanity as His body seems to be an event in time, and I'm not all that sure that time is relevant for God the way it seems to be for humans. If God loves us, that love has not changed; the crucifixion and resurrection were a result of that love, a demonstration of that love, but not something that somehow changed our status as God's creations, God's children. These historical events were not something that changed our invitation (responsibility? compulsion?) to show to each other the love that God has for us. I suppose in some sense you could say that though they happened (if you trust Scripture/your experience/whatever enough to believe they happened--another matter entirely) in historical time, they've always been reality, always will be reality. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.
If that's the case, whether the historical facts are accurate is rather on the irrelevant side.
I don't claim that this is a new idea, or an orthodox idea, or a correct idea or even an idea that I haven't encountered before. But for some reason it stuck and I'm finding it significant. I'm going to try to explain what I remember of it. I wasn't able to find the words at all on Sunday so this might be a mis-remembering, and at best there's going to be some heavy paraphrasing. I said in a comment on Margaret's blog that I only understood something at the edges of my brain, where the words won't go. I think now that I wasn't accurate: it's the core of my being where the words won't go. The words are the edges, they're the result of deeper things and can influence deeper things but the still small voice is wordless.
Anyway, last Sunday...
I'd just sung and played Evensong in a rather adorable church. We were talking as we packed up, and I mentioned to another musician that I'd never really got on with the Trinity, couldn't wrap my brain around three being one being three.
"But you have a mind," said M, "and a body," and her hand rested gently on my shoulder a moment, "and you have a soul. Each of these things is uniquely yours, definitely you rather than anyone else. None of them is you in your entirety. The Father is the Mind of God, the Son is the Body of God, the Holy Spirit is the Soul of God." And then the conversation moved on to other things.
I don't know why this stuck; maybe it was the way M spoke, shining with quiet wisdom. Maybe it was the singing. Maybe it was the unexpected setting, the oh-by-the-way relaxation of discussing it so casually instead of getting tied up in knots. I don't know. I just know it stuck.
For as long as I can remember, I have had a much easier time relating to the Father/Creator and Spirit/Ghost than any of the doctrine regarding the Jesus as the Son of God... that which is so integral to Christianity. But insofar as Christ is the Body of God, insofar as the church and all humanity is called to be the Body of God, to do the work of God, in some sense this works.
I don't know how I reconcile that with Jesus the human being as the Son of God. I cannot shake the feeling that human body is too small a container for the infinite. But the business of Jesus being on Earth in that form rather than with all humanity as His body seems to be an event in time, and I'm not all that sure that time is relevant for God the way it seems to be for humans. If God loves us, that love has not changed; the crucifixion and resurrection were a result of that love, a demonstration of that love, but not something that somehow changed our status as God's creations, God's children. These historical events were not something that changed our invitation (responsibility? compulsion?) to show to each other the love that God has for us. I suppose in some sense you could say that though they happened (if you trust Scripture/your experience/whatever enough to believe they happened--another matter entirely) in historical time, they've always been reality, always will be reality. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.
If that's the case, whether the historical facts are accurate is rather on the irrelevant side.
Sunday, 26 April 2009
peace that passeth understanding
The weekend went by fast. Monday tomorrow already? Oh dear...
Tonight at Evensong I was playing and singing, with a choir I play and sing with regularly. It was at a church I've never been to, a lovely chapel attached to an art college of some sort.
I really, really like some of the settings we performed. Or prayed. Much the same thing from my perspective.
Talking afterward with some other choir members, someone asked about the reader who had taken the service, and this sparked off a conversation about ordination and various people we know who have taken various holy orders. M who I was talking with was adamant that she had no aspirations in that direction. Not much later she was explaining one interpretation of the Trinity to me, in a fairly sensible and matter-of-fact way, and the funny thing is that it did make a sort of sense. And the touch on the shoulder while she spoke said, "It's okay to be where you are," as much as her spoken words took me beyond where I was. The whole thing took perhaps thirty seconds, we were packing up to go home in a roomful of busy people also packing up to go home, nothing like as intimate as it felt. But it seems significant, enough so that I'm writing about it here rather than going to bed. I felt like, still feel like, another piece of a puzzle has been put into place.
I don't feel I can repeat the explanation, which makes me a bit uncomfortable: I like being able to explain things on intellectual levels. I'm not wonderful with words but I generally throw great quantities of them at a concept until I'm satisfied, and yet there are no words for this and to be honest I barely remember what M was saying.
If I hadn't had the same feeling a thousand times while singing I'd be quite terrified right now.
I don't doubt that I'll continue to struggle with Trinitarian doctrine. I've felt less stressed about it recently than I used to, but it still niggles. But right now it niggles in a slightly different way.
I have no idea if any of this makes sense to anyone other than me.
Tonight at Evensong I was playing and singing, with a choir I play and sing with regularly. It was at a church I've never been to, a lovely chapel attached to an art college of some sort.
I really, really like some of the settings we performed. Or prayed. Much the same thing from my perspective.
Talking afterward with some other choir members, someone asked about the reader who had taken the service, and this sparked off a conversation about ordination and various people we know who have taken various holy orders. M who I was talking with was adamant that she had no aspirations in that direction. Not much later she was explaining one interpretation of the Trinity to me, in a fairly sensible and matter-of-fact way, and the funny thing is that it did make a sort of sense. And the touch on the shoulder while she spoke said, "It's okay to be where you are," as much as her spoken words took me beyond where I was. The whole thing took perhaps thirty seconds, we were packing up to go home in a roomful of busy people also packing up to go home, nothing like as intimate as it felt. But it seems significant, enough so that I'm writing about it here rather than going to bed. I felt like, still feel like, another piece of a puzzle has been put into place.
I don't feel I can repeat the explanation, which makes me a bit uncomfortable: I like being able to explain things on intellectual levels. I'm not wonderful with words but I generally throw great quantities of them at a concept until I'm satisfied, and yet there are no words for this and to be honest I barely remember what M was saying.
If I hadn't had the same feeling a thousand times while singing I'd be quite terrified right now.
I don't doubt that I'll continue to struggle with Trinitarian doctrine. I've felt less stressed about it recently than I used to, but it still niggles. But right now it niggles in a slightly different way.
I have no idea if any of this makes sense to anyone other than me.
Monday, 13 April 2009
Hallelujah
Oh, what a few days.
Thursday, got to Dorset, walked around a lot. Went to Evening Prayer at Christchurch Priory, because it was there and I could. More said psalmody! But I was made quite welcome. Chickened out of going to Maundy Thursday services, partly because of my hosts' schedule and partly because I'm a big chicken.
Good Friday, walked some more. Spent a lot of time reading, thinking, reflecting; tried not to hide from my hosts too much. And of course, the performance in the evening.
Saturday, Holy Saturday I guess. Went for another walk. I walk a lot if I have the time and energy. I might have walked too far this time, my injured hip isn't very happy with me, but it was a good walk. I walked to Mudeford and along the beach there until I came to some cliffs. I sat and watched the tide coming in for a while. I took off my shoes and socks and let the cold eternal ocean wash my feet and couldn't help think of Maundy Thursday. Then I spent far too long on a train back to London, where I found we were out of certain essential items and so I went out for those and didn't get to any Saturday night vigil services. I was sorry not to.
Yesterday I spent in Leafy Suburb. I went to the 9.30am service at Leafy Suburb Church, and was delighted. The renewal of baptismal vows bit was difficult for me, in that I don't know which of these vows which were made for me when I was a baby are ones I feel I can make for myself. I have no real problems with the Father, the Creator, no problems with the Holy Spirit. But I do balk, I do clam up somehow, when we start talking about the Son. I have no problems singing about it. I have no problems talking about it in an abstract sense, in a sort of model-for-thinking-about-God way. But as much as I want to there are things I don't believe in the way I think the creeds mean them, not when they're the spoken word or the word on the page, and I can't say "I believe this" when I don't. Why am I so afraid to believe this?
Only singing works. I wish I knew why! I wish I knew whether what I believe when I sing is what I actually believe and my intellect is just getting in the way the rest of the time, or whether what I believe when I sing is some sort of ridiculous fantasy and my intellect is right to stop me believing it at other times. I wish I knew. I don't think I will be rid of this problem, this uncertainty, any time soon.
Nevertheless, I was grateful that the vicar was so thorough in her sprinkling of the congregation. There's so much water imagery in this desert faith... the Flood, the Red Sea, baptism. Ritual washing of hands, feet, souls. For a moment all of that was in the drop of water that landed on my cheek.
I'm still itchy about the Eucharist, still not sure whether I'd be welcome (formally or informally), but again, going up for a blessing seemed to be right, yesterday. The text leading up to it was different than on Tuesday. I was sorry not to have the Summary of Law. I missed the very Jewish blessings over the bread and wine. I don't really understand some of the differences, and I find myself wanting to. Is there a guide to C of E liturgy somewhere that's aimed at foreign heretics? I feel like I must be making context errors but I don't know what they are. I want to understand this.
Singing is meaningful to me and singing is, eventually, what I got: I had intended to stick around for Evensong anyway. I asked one of the choir members whether I might sing alto, if I came to the rehearsal in the afternoon... they've all heard me singing in the hymns at Evensong a few times now. I was welcomed with open arms by choir, musical director and clergy. So I sang my little heart out, in the rehearsal and in the service, and I'd do it all again today if I could. I won't say the performance was of a very high musical standard; the choir does very well for the amount of rehearsal and the spread of skills they have, but it's not what I'm used to at Academic Institution. But it meant something, and I believed every word I sang with every particle of my being. I managed to avoid tears but my eyes were quite ready to add their own water to my cheeks.
I think sung creeds and sung Eucharist might change my understanding and experience of Christianity in profound ways, with enough repetition and in an environment of loving kindness.
At the other church I at which I attend Evensong I don't think I would have the courage to ask to sing in the choir. I've been to about as many services by now, and people are welcoming enough, but there isn't the warmth of spirit. I think that when I am looking for a church to attend in the area of London I'm moving to, I need to look for somewhere that has the warmth of spirit that I can feel at Leafy Suburb Church. It may be a while before I can spare my Sunday mornings for singing in a choir but I hope to be able to do so at some point: it seems to be where I belong in church. There is a part of me that considers moving to Leafy Suburb, but it would make my commute to my existing teaching work, my existing social network, and Sweetie rather horrible, and wonderful as the people of Leafy Suburb Church are, I don't think I want to start over yet again. Leafy Suburb Church can't be the only one with that sort of community. That love must exist elsewhere. I hope I can find it, and add to it.
During the afternoon I had lunch with some choir members and then went for a walk. It was more of a sit than a walk really, I found a comfortable park bench and sat on it to read for a while, and then I walked a bit and found a comfortable tree to sit under and sat there reading for a while. My hip was hurting too much to do any serious walking. It's better today.
There has not been much time in all of this for reading teh internets. I may or may not catch up today in amongst various chores. Tomorrow it is nose back to the grindstone: I need to get the write-up for Big Project out of the way, as well as getting a good start on various other projects.
Thursday, got to Dorset, walked around a lot. Went to Evening Prayer at Christchurch Priory, because it was there and I could. More said psalmody! But I was made quite welcome. Chickened out of going to Maundy Thursday services, partly because of my hosts' schedule and partly because I'm a big chicken.
Good Friday, walked some more. Spent a lot of time reading, thinking, reflecting; tried not to hide from my hosts too much. And of course, the performance in the evening.
Saturday, Holy Saturday I guess. Went for another walk. I walk a lot if I have the time and energy. I might have walked too far this time, my injured hip isn't very happy with me, but it was a good walk. I walked to Mudeford and along the beach there until I came to some cliffs. I sat and watched the tide coming in for a while. I took off my shoes and socks and let the cold eternal ocean wash my feet and couldn't help think of Maundy Thursday. Then I spent far too long on a train back to London, where I found we were out of certain essential items and so I went out for those and didn't get to any Saturday night vigil services. I was sorry not to.
Yesterday I spent in Leafy Suburb. I went to the 9.30am service at Leafy Suburb Church, and was delighted. The renewal of baptismal vows bit was difficult for me, in that I don't know which of these vows which were made for me when I was a baby are ones I feel I can make for myself. I have no real problems with the Father, the Creator, no problems with the Holy Spirit. But I do balk, I do clam up somehow, when we start talking about the Son. I have no problems singing about it. I have no problems talking about it in an abstract sense, in a sort of model-for-thinking-about-God way. But as much as I want to there are things I don't believe in the way I think the creeds mean them, not when they're the spoken word or the word on the page, and I can't say "I believe this" when I don't. Why am I so afraid to believe this?
Only singing works. I wish I knew why! I wish I knew whether what I believe when I sing is what I actually believe and my intellect is just getting in the way the rest of the time, or whether what I believe when I sing is some sort of ridiculous fantasy and my intellect is right to stop me believing it at other times. I wish I knew. I don't think I will be rid of this problem, this uncertainty, any time soon.
Nevertheless, I was grateful that the vicar was so thorough in her sprinkling of the congregation. There's so much water imagery in this desert faith... the Flood, the Red Sea, baptism. Ritual washing of hands, feet, souls. For a moment all of that was in the drop of water that landed on my cheek.
I'm still itchy about the Eucharist, still not sure whether I'd be welcome (formally or informally), but again, going up for a blessing seemed to be right, yesterday. The text leading up to it was different than on Tuesday. I was sorry not to have the Summary of Law. I missed the very Jewish blessings over the bread and wine. I don't really understand some of the differences, and I find myself wanting to. Is there a guide to C of E liturgy somewhere that's aimed at foreign heretics? I feel like I must be making context errors but I don't know what they are. I want to understand this.
Singing is meaningful to me and singing is, eventually, what I got: I had intended to stick around for Evensong anyway. I asked one of the choir members whether I might sing alto, if I came to the rehearsal in the afternoon... they've all heard me singing in the hymns at Evensong a few times now. I was welcomed with open arms by choir, musical director and clergy. So I sang my little heart out, in the rehearsal and in the service, and I'd do it all again today if I could. I won't say the performance was of a very high musical standard; the choir does very well for the amount of rehearsal and the spread of skills they have, but it's not what I'm used to at Academic Institution. But it meant something, and I believed every word I sang with every particle of my being. I managed to avoid tears but my eyes were quite ready to add their own water to my cheeks.
I think sung creeds and sung Eucharist might change my understanding and experience of Christianity in profound ways, with enough repetition and in an environment of loving kindness.
At the other church I at which I attend Evensong I don't think I would have the courage to ask to sing in the choir. I've been to about as many services by now, and people are welcoming enough, but there isn't the warmth of spirit. I think that when I am looking for a church to attend in the area of London I'm moving to, I need to look for somewhere that has the warmth of spirit that I can feel at Leafy Suburb Church. It may be a while before I can spare my Sunday mornings for singing in a choir but I hope to be able to do so at some point: it seems to be where I belong in church. There is a part of me that considers moving to Leafy Suburb, but it would make my commute to my existing teaching work, my existing social network, and Sweetie rather horrible, and wonderful as the people of Leafy Suburb Church are, I don't think I want to start over yet again. Leafy Suburb Church can't be the only one with that sort of community. That love must exist elsewhere. I hope I can find it, and add to it.
During the afternoon I had lunch with some choir members and then went for a walk. It was more of a sit than a walk really, I found a comfortable park bench and sat on it to read for a while, and then I walked a bit and found a comfortable tree to sit under and sat there reading for a while. My hip was hurting too much to do any serious walking. It's better today.
There has not been much time in all of this for reading teh internets. I may or may not catch up today in amongst various chores. Tomorrow it is nose back to the grindstone: I need to get the write-up for Big Project out of the way, as well as getting a good start on various other projects.
Monday, 6 April 2009
Praxis
Last night I posted a sort of snapshot of my current beliefs.
Today I am going to look at a more practical side of things.
I would say that the major change in my spiritual practice over the last few months has been that I am regularly engaging in structured prayer in a way that I have not before.
When I was young, one of the problems I had with Christianity as I encountered it then was that it seemed to be something we did on Sundays, and very fleetingly with grace before meals, and that was it. When I was very small I was taught to say bedtime prayers but it was obvious as I grew older that nobody else in the family did this. Somehow I stopped, too. I did try to pray in church, but my experience of church wasn't something that supported my private prayer. It didn't help that we moved every few years and so our little family was the only continuous community we had.
When I was observing Judaism I took on a lot. I took on habits of dress that were fairly restrictive. I took on dietary changes that make giving up chocolate for Lent look like a walk in the park. I took on making Shabbat, complete with timers for the lights and not cooking after sundown on Friday and not carrying--and there was no eruv in North London then. And all of these felt like prayer, in their way. But they were also very much things I did to fit in with the community. The bar is set pretty high for conversion to Orthodox Judaism and much of the time I found myself concerned with 'passing'. The community was warm and welcoming, and I wanted to be part of that.
Communal prayer in Judaism was strange and mysterious to me at first, then grew more comfortable and beautiful as I learned more of the language. Last spring I found, visiting a friend, that I could still get through much of the Grace After Meals, despite not having prayed it for years. But... again, my communal prayer did not support my private prayer. As a woman I would only be expected to pray once per day but I did not even manage that, most days. I did not even manage grace after meals when I was alone. I think this is partly because it was too hard for me in Hebrew, and partly because I was already doing so much and worrying so much about how I looked to others. When I moved to a geographical location where the community was less accessible, eventually all my practices faded away. My prayer had been so community-based that without the trappings of community it couldn't sustain itself.
I suddenly feel nervous about telling teh entire internets about my prayer life. A bit silly really. But I don't want to start writing about this just for the comments, I don't want to present myself one way and then find that actually, I'm another way, I don't want to walk into a trap of saying I do something adn then feeling a sham on days I don't manage to do it. So please, friends, take this, like yesterday's post, as a snapshot of where I am now, not a commitment to stay there.
Sometime in January I started praying Morning Prayer, first from the Oremus website and then the Common Worship version from the Church of England site. I think it was very soon after I read Jane R's book, When in Doubt, Sing... somehow I stopped worrying about doing it wrong, stopped worrying about agreeing with every single word and decided it would be better to pray, if that's what I want to do, than not pray. I've missed a few mornings here and there, usually due to internet outage. When I am home or alone I sing most of this, and read the readings aloud. When I am staying with Sweetie or when I'm so disorganised that I end up praying on the bus I pray silently, but that often means singing in my head. An interesting recent development has been finding myself imagining the psalmody in parallel fourths and fifths; I didn't make a conscious decision to try it, just noticed I was doing it.
I found myself wanting to pray by mid-afternoon most days. So I did, but sometimes the words wouldn't come, or more often I'd get distracted. I have a very wandery mind. It's easy to slide from praying to the sort of fidgety worrying that just wears me down.
I bought a book, Work and Prayer, which has Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, Midday Prayer and an order for Compline in it, for Monday to Saturday. I started using the Midday Prayer and Compline many days. The midday prayer has most often been silent and I might get to it anywhere between about 10.30am and 5pm. It's hard to control my schedule in the middle of the day so I end up praying in breaks from rehearsals, praying in lunch break, praying on the train or the bus. Compline, I usually sing, though quietly so as not to wake my flatmates. I've been doing both of these most days since I bought that book, which the magic of the internets tells me was at the end of February. I'm not as consistent with these as with Morning Prayer.
Work and Prayer lacks much in the way of seasonal variation. Singing Morning Prayer from the C of E website and finding that oh, the text changes for Passiontide, I decided to look at other resources. I poked around the website. I considered printing off the bits I was going to use. I realised that by the time I've finished deciding what I want and printing it I may as well just go and buy a book, so on Friday I did that. I took myself off to the Church House bookshop to see what I could find. I ended up with Daily Prayer, which I will use at home when there is no internet or when I am brave enough to read the scripture from a Bible rather than nicely tucked into a website (this could be a good thing, giving me extra context. Or it could lead to entire mornings spent reading the Bible when I ought to be doing other things. Having a wandery mind is hazardous). But it's a bit big to carry around so I've also got a copy of Time to Pray, which has an order for Prayer During The Day and an order for Compline but more seasonal variation in it than the resource I had been using.
I still want more of the Summary of Law. To me this seems like the most important thing and yet it doesn't seem obviously prominent in any of these structured prayers.
I've also been going to church. I teach on Sunday mornings so the main service is out of the question. In fact I usually teach Sunday afternoons, as well. But my usually-in-the-evening students have cottoned on to the fact that early afternoon is easier for them, and my late-afternoon student can often do earlier in the day. When there is Evensong at Leafy Suburb Church, where Deacon Friend is spending her curacy, I go there if I can juggle my schedule appropriately. I don't know now whether I'm going to see her or for the worship. I've been made to feel very welcome there, despite my coming from so far away. When there is not Evensong at Leafy Suburb Church I go to Church on Hill for Evensong instead, which is in the area where I teach. I have to say, I don't feel as warmly welcomed, I find the music more polished but less heartfelt, and there have been some sermons which left me more confused than anything else. But week after week it's there, and I finish teaching, and I may as well drop by really. So I do.
My teaching schedule has changed a bit; I've lost some students. My first thought, after the teacherly regret, was that I might get to sleep a bit longer on Sundays. My second was that I might find an early service to go to. I'm not sure about that; the transport logistics don't work out very well at all.
I'll be moving house this summer, moving to a different area of London. I'm choosing the area based on many of my friends living there already and the possibilities for teaching from home, among other things. But recently I've also been thinking, "must check out churches in that area, see which are places I might feel comfortable, see where I might get involved even if I still can't make Sunday morning services." I can imagine myself getting to a weeknight Parish Eucharist. I can imagine myself getting to Morning Prayer at 8am somewhere.
I wrote, in an earlier post, of how others have influenced my own spiritual searching. I want to make clear again that none of them have put any pressure on me to change what I am doing or to encourage me to do as they do. In fact, all of them would be saddened, I think, if they thought I were doing this out of some desire to please them. But on days when I feel a bit sluggish, knowing that Deacon Friend will be saying Morning Prayer makes me want to get out of bed and do so too. On days when saying Compline seems like a silly, childish, goody-two-shoes empty ritual, knowing that Catholic Friend prays and takes it seriously helps me to take it seriously, too. And when I read prayer requests, great long lists of them on some of the blogs I read, I offer up my silent or spoken prayers then and there but I am also reminded, invited, to take time to pray at another point in the day. So while I'm not attached to any one community very strongly right now, I do feel supported, generally, by a community of prayer. I think that helps. And I think that maybe part of what I'm looking for in a church is a geographically convenient group of people to pray together with, something that will be able to carry me along when I'm less able to pray on my own than I am right now.
I don't know where I'm going with any of this. It feels like something I am doing out of need and curiosity, not something I am doing out of obligation or trying to impress others. So I am trying to take a wait-and-see approach, trying not to get too attached to this sort of structured prayer as any kind of hard rule but rather trying to remain faithful to the curiosity, trying to see where I end up next.
I've been doing all of this in a Christian context. This is partly because after trying to learn even the slightly familiar but new to me faith of Judaism, I don't underestimate how hard it is to learn something that isn't the mainstream culture. It's partly because the resources for Christian prayer are so accessible online, which is a by-product of some form of Christianity being the mainstream culture again. It's partly because people I love very much happen to be Christian and I want to understand them better. And it's because I think what I perceive as the underlying message of Christianity is true, and I'm willing to put up with some cognitive dissonance on issues like the Trinity if using Christian prayer structures is going to help me love the world better.
I don't think that makes me Christian. More on that in another post, though. This one is too long already.
Today I am going to look at a more practical side of things.
I would say that the major change in my spiritual practice over the last few months has been that I am regularly engaging in structured prayer in a way that I have not before.
When I was young, one of the problems I had with Christianity as I encountered it then was that it seemed to be something we did on Sundays, and very fleetingly with grace before meals, and that was it. When I was very small I was taught to say bedtime prayers but it was obvious as I grew older that nobody else in the family did this. Somehow I stopped, too. I did try to pray in church, but my experience of church wasn't something that supported my private prayer. It didn't help that we moved every few years and so our little family was the only continuous community we had.
When I was observing Judaism I took on a lot. I took on habits of dress that were fairly restrictive. I took on dietary changes that make giving up chocolate for Lent look like a walk in the park. I took on making Shabbat, complete with timers for the lights and not cooking after sundown on Friday and not carrying--and there was no eruv in North London then. And all of these felt like prayer, in their way. But they were also very much things I did to fit in with the community. The bar is set pretty high for conversion to Orthodox Judaism and much of the time I found myself concerned with 'passing'. The community was warm and welcoming, and I wanted to be part of that.
Communal prayer in Judaism was strange and mysterious to me at first, then grew more comfortable and beautiful as I learned more of the language. Last spring I found, visiting a friend, that I could still get through much of the Grace After Meals, despite not having prayed it for years. But... again, my communal prayer did not support my private prayer. As a woman I would only be expected to pray once per day but I did not even manage that, most days. I did not even manage grace after meals when I was alone. I think this is partly because it was too hard for me in Hebrew, and partly because I was already doing so much and worrying so much about how I looked to others. When I moved to a geographical location where the community was less accessible, eventually all my practices faded away. My prayer had been so community-based that without the trappings of community it couldn't sustain itself.
I suddenly feel nervous about telling teh entire internets about my prayer life. A bit silly really. But I don't want to start writing about this just for the comments, I don't want to present myself one way and then find that actually, I'm another way, I don't want to walk into a trap of saying I do something adn then feeling a sham on days I don't manage to do it. So please, friends, take this, like yesterday's post, as a snapshot of where I am now, not a commitment to stay there.
Sometime in January I started praying Morning Prayer, first from the Oremus website and then the Common Worship version from the Church of England site. I think it was very soon after I read Jane R's book, When in Doubt, Sing... somehow I stopped worrying about doing it wrong, stopped worrying about agreeing with every single word and decided it would be better to pray, if that's what I want to do, than not pray. I've missed a few mornings here and there, usually due to internet outage. When I am home or alone I sing most of this, and read the readings aloud. When I am staying with Sweetie or when I'm so disorganised that I end up praying on the bus I pray silently, but that often means singing in my head. An interesting recent development has been finding myself imagining the psalmody in parallel fourths and fifths; I didn't make a conscious decision to try it, just noticed I was doing it.
I found myself wanting to pray by mid-afternoon most days. So I did, but sometimes the words wouldn't come, or more often I'd get distracted. I have a very wandery mind. It's easy to slide from praying to the sort of fidgety worrying that just wears me down.
I bought a book, Work and Prayer, which has Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, Midday Prayer and an order for Compline in it, for Monday to Saturday. I started using the Midday Prayer and Compline many days. The midday prayer has most often been silent and I might get to it anywhere between about 10.30am and 5pm. It's hard to control my schedule in the middle of the day so I end up praying in breaks from rehearsals, praying in lunch break, praying on the train or the bus. Compline, I usually sing, though quietly so as not to wake my flatmates. I've been doing both of these most days since I bought that book, which the magic of the internets tells me was at the end of February. I'm not as consistent with these as with Morning Prayer.
Work and Prayer lacks much in the way of seasonal variation. Singing Morning Prayer from the C of E website and finding that oh, the text changes for Passiontide, I decided to look at other resources. I poked around the website. I considered printing off the bits I was going to use. I realised that by the time I've finished deciding what I want and printing it I may as well just go and buy a book, so on Friday I did that. I took myself off to the Church House bookshop to see what I could find. I ended up with Daily Prayer, which I will use at home when there is no internet or when I am brave enough to read the scripture from a Bible rather than nicely tucked into a website (this could be a good thing, giving me extra context. Or it could lead to entire mornings spent reading the Bible when I ought to be doing other things. Having a wandery mind is hazardous). But it's a bit big to carry around so I've also got a copy of Time to Pray, which has an order for Prayer During The Day and an order for Compline but more seasonal variation in it than the resource I had been using.
I still want more of the Summary of Law. To me this seems like the most important thing and yet it doesn't seem obviously prominent in any of these structured prayers.
I've also been going to church. I teach on Sunday mornings so the main service is out of the question. In fact I usually teach Sunday afternoons, as well. But my usually-in-the-evening students have cottoned on to the fact that early afternoon is easier for them, and my late-afternoon student can often do earlier in the day. When there is Evensong at Leafy Suburb Church, where Deacon Friend is spending her curacy, I go there if I can juggle my schedule appropriately. I don't know now whether I'm going to see her or for the worship. I've been made to feel very welcome there, despite my coming from so far away. When there is not Evensong at Leafy Suburb Church I go to Church on Hill for Evensong instead, which is in the area where I teach. I have to say, I don't feel as warmly welcomed, I find the music more polished but less heartfelt, and there have been some sermons which left me more confused than anything else. But week after week it's there, and I finish teaching, and I may as well drop by really. So I do.
My teaching schedule has changed a bit; I've lost some students. My first thought, after the teacherly regret, was that I might get to sleep a bit longer on Sundays. My second was that I might find an early service to go to. I'm not sure about that; the transport logistics don't work out very well at all.
I'll be moving house this summer, moving to a different area of London. I'm choosing the area based on many of my friends living there already and the possibilities for teaching from home, among other things. But recently I've also been thinking, "must check out churches in that area, see which are places I might feel comfortable, see where I might get involved even if I still can't make Sunday morning services." I can imagine myself getting to a weeknight Parish Eucharist. I can imagine myself getting to Morning Prayer at 8am somewhere.
I wrote, in an earlier post, of how others have influenced my own spiritual searching. I want to make clear again that none of them have put any pressure on me to change what I am doing or to encourage me to do as they do. In fact, all of them would be saddened, I think, if they thought I were doing this out of some desire to please them. But on days when I feel a bit sluggish, knowing that Deacon Friend will be saying Morning Prayer makes me want to get out of bed and do so too. On days when saying Compline seems like a silly, childish, goody-two-shoes empty ritual, knowing that Catholic Friend prays and takes it seriously helps me to take it seriously, too. And when I read prayer requests, great long lists of them on some of the blogs I read, I offer up my silent or spoken prayers then and there but I am also reminded, invited, to take time to pray at another point in the day. So while I'm not attached to any one community very strongly right now, I do feel supported, generally, by a community of prayer. I think that helps. And I think that maybe part of what I'm looking for in a church is a geographically convenient group of people to pray together with, something that will be able to carry me along when I'm less able to pray on my own than I am right now.
I don't know where I'm going with any of this. It feels like something I am doing out of need and curiosity, not something I am doing out of obligation or trying to impress others. So I am trying to take a wait-and-see approach, trying not to get too attached to this sort of structured prayer as any kind of hard rule but rather trying to remain faithful to the curiosity, trying to see where I end up next.
I've been doing all of this in a Christian context. This is partly because after trying to learn even the slightly familiar but new to me faith of Judaism, I don't underestimate how hard it is to learn something that isn't the mainstream culture. It's partly because the resources for Christian prayer are so accessible online, which is a by-product of some form of Christianity being the mainstream culture again. It's partly because people I love very much happen to be Christian and I want to understand them better. And it's because I think what I perceive as the underlying message of Christianity is true, and I'm willing to put up with some cognitive dissonance on issues like the Trinity if using Christian prayer structures is going to help me love the world better.
I don't think that makes me Christian. More on that in another post, though. This one is too long already.
Monday, 23 February 2009
And after the fire
Evensong on Sunday was wonderful. Not just because I got to see Deacon Friend, which always makes me pretty happy, but because the sermon she gave seemed so relevant. I hadn't heard her preach before, and didn't realise she was going to be speaking last night. I'm very glad I made the journey to Leafy Suburb Church, even though it meant I got home late.
That marks six weeks and counting of going to church every Sunday. A year ago you'd never have convinced me this would happen, even if most of the services have been Evensong. I've changed such a lot in a year. It's appropriate, then, that the subject of the sermon was transformation.
A few things stood out for me. One was the acknowledgment that being open to God and to the possibility of transformation can be a frightening thing; changes in ourselves and in others can be scary, especially when we don't yet understand what's going on. I've certainly felt that in my own life and I don't really know how to deal with it, though I think I'm improving in some respects.
Fear is a very powerful thing, perhaps the closest thing to evil that I can bring myself to believe in. Much of my depression, I think, was related to how I responded to fear. I allowed it to rule my life. My comfort zones got smaller and smaller as I shied away from any discomfort or uncertainty, and the fear only got bigger. Eventually I was so tired of being scared that it just wasn't worth it to try any more. Retreat and withdrawal seemed like the only options.
I still get scared. I've always been cautious, easily frightened, perhaps more sensitive than I should be to life's lack of stability and consistency. I can't say what changed, exactly, and I can't point to all of how it changed, but my response to fear is different now than it used to be. Oh, I still have days where I hide under the duvet, unwilling to cope with life, but I choose them strategically now, and they don't spiral out of control. I still get discouraged, but somewhere along the line I learned to hope that tomorrow will be better, to let myself believe that things might improve. I still get frightened, especially when my mental state has been patchy for a while, but having experienced recovery once I know it's possible to experience it again, and that helps a lot. I haven't become an optimist, exactly, but I'm a lot less likely now to write off the world just because it is sometimes terrifying.
That's a pretty powerful transformation, at least from my perspective, and I don't really know how it happened. I can point to lots of little things, but adding them up doesn't seem to balance with the sort of change I've felt.
Which brings me to another point from last night's sermon: that transformation can happen on many levels. Sometimes learning a new perspective sheds new light on a subject and our thinking is transformed. I am blessed to see this in my teaching work: a student understands something and the light goes on, and in that instant they are transformed by delight. Other times transformation can be more profound: someone who has recovered from a serious illness or addiction can seem like a completely different person afterward. That sort of caterpillar-into-butterfly metamorphosis can be frightening to watch and frightening to undergo because it is so far-reaching. It has the potential to be extremely disruptive. But it can be a wonderful, inspiring thing to witness.
DF said in her sermon that the transformation Christians seek is to become more Christ-like: more loving, more merciful, more just, more compassionate, more encouraging, more faithful. If that's what Christianity is all about then sign me up! I'm not sure that isn't what most religion is about, though. I think Karen Armstrong might point out that increasing compassion is a major component of at least the three Abrahamic faiths as they are today, as well as that of several Eastern religions. But I digress. The point was that the sort of transformation Christians seek is to become more Christ-like, and that can be inconvenient, uncomfortable, frightening, disruptive. It changes lives.
And it's contagious. In loving others more fully, in forgiving those who harm us, in seeking to meet the needs of those less fortunate than ourselves, in encouraging those who struggle, in consoling the unhappy and fighting for the justice of the oppressed, what we do is teach people, by powerful example, that they are loved, they are worthwhile, they are valued. When they learn this they will often turn around and try to do the same for others. When they see that it is through God's grace that kindness has been done to them, they will seek God's grace themselves. And we don't have to say a word about it, we don't have to tell them how it's done, we don't have to push them to accept anything that's hard for them to believe, we just have to take loving, kind action. That's my understanding of what she was saying, anyway.
That has certainly been my experience with a number of people. Appropriately, DF is one example of someone who has been hugely influential in my own spiritual searching, despite--or perhaps because of--her complete acceptance of where I am now and her steadfast refusal to push her own belief system on anyone else. She helped me, a lot, when I most needed it and when she could have just walked away. I've seen her do the same or similar for many other people. Her capacity for loving, kind action astounds me. It has long been clear to me that her kindness to others is a result of her own relationship with God. I see the way she treats others, her commitment to the wellbeing of everyone she meets, and I am inspired. I want to live that way. And if her way of life is a result of a relationship with God, then I need to cultivate a relationship with God. And so here I am, cultivating that relationship with the aim of augmenting compassion, in the ways that I know how: reading scripture, praying daily, going to church of all things, and she didn't have to say a word. She didn't bother telling me the word, she just got on with living it as best she could.
That leads to the third point of her sermon, one that is perhaps most difficult for me. It was a suggestion of silence as a valuable means of seeking such transformation. I don't doubt that it's useful. I don't doubt that most of us, in this busy, noisy world, need more time for contemplation, more silence and stillness in our lives. But stillness and silence have never come easily to me. The closest I come to having a mind free of scampering, skittering thoughts is when I am playing or singing music, which is hardly something that counts as silence. My head is full of words and sounds and pictures, and all my efforts to clear it have failed; the best I seem to be able to do is to fill it with words, sounds and pictures that inspire and encourage me rather than cause me to feel desolation and despair. I don't know if silent contemplation or meditation would be transformative for me: I never get that far. The closest I get is in song.
So which hymn did we sing? This one, of course:
Jesus, these eyes have never seen
that radiant form of thine;
the veil of sense hangs dark between
thy blessèd face and mine.
I see thee not, I hear thee not,
yet art thou oft with me;
and earth hath ne'er so dear a spot
as where I meet with thee.
Yet, though I have not see, and still
must rest in faith alone;
I love thee, dearest Lord, and will,
unseen but not unknown.
When death these mortal eyes shall seal,
and still this throbbing heart,
the rending veil shall thee reveal
all glorious as thou art.
The veil of sense hangs dark between thy blessed face and mine. That sounds about right for my incessant attempts to make logical sense of something I actually believe to be ineffable. I really want to understand this... I really want to understand how Jesus fits into this world, this life, my life. It's proving difficult. The Trinity is not an easy concept for a rationalist like myself, and all I get from reading everyone from Tom Wright to Paul M Collins to Karen Armstrong is that some very influential Christians also don't think it's an easy concept... but while it doesn't make sense to me, thinking about God in Trinitarian terms gets in the way of thinking about God in terms of what I should do next. Veil of sense indeed! At the moment the only time I believe in a triune God is when I'm singing about it. The rest of the time, my concept of God is one of overwhelming unity and interconnectedness, of infinite wholeness.
I will give more thought to silence. I will keep trying. But in the meantime, I'm going to keep singing.
That marks six weeks and counting of going to church every Sunday. A year ago you'd never have convinced me this would happen, even if most of the services have been Evensong. I've changed such a lot in a year. It's appropriate, then, that the subject of the sermon was transformation.
A few things stood out for me. One was the acknowledgment that being open to God and to the possibility of transformation can be a frightening thing; changes in ourselves and in others can be scary, especially when we don't yet understand what's going on. I've certainly felt that in my own life and I don't really know how to deal with it, though I think I'm improving in some respects.
Fear is a very powerful thing, perhaps the closest thing to evil that I can bring myself to believe in. Much of my depression, I think, was related to how I responded to fear. I allowed it to rule my life. My comfort zones got smaller and smaller as I shied away from any discomfort or uncertainty, and the fear only got bigger. Eventually I was so tired of being scared that it just wasn't worth it to try any more. Retreat and withdrawal seemed like the only options.
I still get scared. I've always been cautious, easily frightened, perhaps more sensitive than I should be to life's lack of stability and consistency. I can't say what changed, exactly, and I can't point to all of how it changed, but my response to fear is different now than it used to be. Oh, I still have days where I hide under the duvet, unwilling to cope with life, but I choose them strategically now, and they don't spiral out of control. I still get discouraged, but somewhere along the line I learned to hope that tomorrow will be better, to let myself believe that things might improve. I still get frightened, especially when my mental state has been patchy for a while, but having experienced recovery once I know it's possible to experience it again, and that helps a lot. I haven't become an optimist, exactly, but I'm a lot less likely now to write off the world just because it is sometimes terrifying.
That's a pretty powerful transformation, at least from my perspective, and I don't really know how it happened. I can point to lots of little things, but adding them up doesn't seem to balance with the sort of change I've felt.
Which brings me to another point from last night's sermon: that transformation can happen on many levels. Sometimes learning a new perspective sheds new light on a subject and our thinking is transformed. I am blessed to see this in my teaching work: a student understands something and the light goes on, and in that instant they are transformed by delight. Other times transformation can be more profound: someone who has recovered from a serious illness or addiction can seem like a completely different person afterward. That sort of caterpillar-into-butterfly metamorphosis can be frightening to watch and frightening to undergo because it is so far-reaching. It has the potential to be extremely disruptive. But it can be a wonderful, inspiring thing to witness.
DF said in her sermon that the transformation Christians seek is to become more Christ-like: more loving, more merciful, more just, more compassionate, more encouraging, more faithful. If that's what Christianity is all about then sign me up! I'm not sure that isn't what most religion is about, though. I think Karen Armstrong might point out that increasing compassion is a major component of at least the three Abrahamic faiths as they are today, as well as that of several Eastern religions. But I digress. The point was that the sort of transformation Christians seek is to become more Christ-like, and that can be inconvenient, uncomfortable, frightening, disruptive. It changes lives.
And it's contagious. In loving others more fully, in forgiving those who harm us, in seeking to meet the needs of those less fortunate than ourselves, in encouraging those who struggle, in consoling the unhappy and fighting for the justice of the oppressed, what we do is teach people, by powerful example, that they are loved, they are worthwhile, they are valued. When they learn this they will often turn around and try to do the same for others. When they see that it is through God's grace that kindness has been done to them, they will seek God's grace themselves. And we don't have to say a word about it, we don't have to tell them how it's done, we don't have to push them to accept anything that's hard for them to believe, we just have to take loving, kind action. That's my understanding of what she was saying, anyway.
That has certainly been my experience with a number of people. Appropriately, DF is one example of someone who has been hugely influential in my own spiritual searching, despite--or perhaps because of--her complete acceptance of where I am now and her steadfast refusal to push her own belief system on anyone else. She helped me, a lot, when I most needed it and when she could have just walked away. I've seen her do the same or similar for many other people. Her capacity for loving, kind action astounds me. It has long been clear to me that her kindness to others is a result of her own relationship with God. I see the way she treats others, her commitment to the wellbeing of everyone she meets, and I am inspired. I want to live that way. And if her way of life is a result of a relationship with God, then I need to cultivate a relationship with God. And so here I am, cultivating that relationship with the aim of augmenting compassion, in the ways that I know how: reading scripture, praying daily, going to church of all things, and she didn't have to say a word. She didn't bother telling me the word, she just got on with living it as best she could.
That leads to the third point of her sermon, one that is perhaps most difficult for me. It was a suggestion of silence as a valuable means of seeking such transformation. I don't doubt that it's useful. I don't doubt that most of us, in this busy, noisy world, need more time for contemplation, more silence and stillness in our lives. But stillness and silence have never come easily to me. The closest I come to having a mind free of scampering, skittering thoughts is when I am playing or singing music, which is hardly something that counts as silence. My head is full of words and sounds and pictures, and all my efforts to clear it have failed; the best I seem to be able to do is to fill it with words, sounds and pictures that inspire and encourage me rather than cause me to feel desolation and despair. I don't know if silent contemplation or meditation would be transformative for me: I never get that far. The closest I get is in song.
So which hymn did we sing? This one, of course:
Jesus, these eyes have never seen
that radiant form of thine;
the veil of sense hangs dark between
thy blessèd face and mine.
I see thee not, I hear thee not,
yet art thou oft with me;
and earth hath ne'er so dear a spot
as where I meet with thee.
Yet, though I have not see, and still
must rest in faith alone;
I love thee, dearest Lord, and will,
unseen but not unknown.
When death these mortal eyes shall seal,
and still this throbbing heart,
the rending veil shall thee reveal
all glorious as thou art.
The veil of sense hangs dark between thy blessed face and mine. That sounds about right for my incessant attempts to make logical sense of something I actually believe to be ineffable. I really want to understand this... I really want to understand how Jesus fits into this world, this life, my life. It's proving difficult. The Trinity is not an easy concept for a rationalist like myself, and all I get from reading everyone from Tom Wright to Paul M Collins to Karen Armstrong is that some very influential Christians also don't think it's an easy concept... but while it doesn't make sense to me, thinking about God in Trinitarian terms gets in the way of thinking about God in terms of what I should do next. Veil of sense indeed! At the moment the only time I believe in a triune God is when I'm singing about it. The rest of the time, my concept of God is one of overwhelming unity and interconnectedness, of infinite wholeness.
I will give more thought to silence. I will keep trying. But in the meantime, I'm going to keep singing.
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