Responding!

Today I visited an exhibit called  Helmi Juvonen: Dispatches to You (R.S.V.P.) at the Frye Art Museum. Helmi, as the artist was known, was both a painter and she made woodblocks. She was very influenced by Native American motifs, though she was not herself Native American. Just a surface glance at her work was interesting enough, but what interested me most was her story, and the story the exhibit was telling about her.

Helmi had several experiences with mental illness, including several long stays in the hospital after experiencing a psychotic break. She ended her life still hospitalized.

She also fell in love with one of her artistic contemporaries, another one of the Northwest Mystics- the group of artists she belonged to in the region. Her feelings were never returned.

One of the curators' summaries of one of her pieces also describes her generosity with other artists. It tells a story of her freely giving away money to other artists who were even less well off than she was when they needed lunch!

The exhibit, then, is a "response" to Helmi. The curators' summary suggests that Helmi's work was calling out for a response, and that the exhibit is a way of responding to her. Responding to the distress she must have experienced in her illness, and the loss she must have felt at never receiving love in return. The curators hoped that we, as viewers, would "read" the exhibit as an "RSVP" to Helmi.

I don't know exactly what it was about Helmi's story that struck such a strong chord for me. Certainly, there are many ways her story resonates! Her struggles with mental illness remind me of my own work with organizations supporting those with mental illness here in Seattle, and her creative response to the inner struggle that mental illness is reminds me of how creating art is way to dig out hope, out from under the many layers of fear that mental illness creates. Creating art, for me, shows me my own inner light that is impossible to see when looking at the external world.

When I went home, I found that simply seeing the exhibit as a response was not enough. Branching out from my own 'Ignatian' prayer routine- which involves a meditation on scripture, followed by a reflection on the day, paying attention to all one's senses in the process- I began to draw based on the feeling I remembered from seeing the exhibit for Helmi. Here it is. It is simple, and not about being good, but about being a response to feeling present-to, and in the presence of someone else's inner world.

 

The Spiritual Exercises in Ordinary Time ~ ‘Behold who you are, become what you receive’

The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost: Readings 2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a Psalm 51:1-13; Ephesians 4:1-16; John 6:24-35

In the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius, retreatants spend four weeks journeying through Jesus’s life. In this journey, they are asked to not merely observe – or even to accompany – Jesus on his journey (although they do both) – but to become his life- to become the Christ in themselves.

This is no small aspiration, even in thirty days, the traditional time period for the retreat…

So to do this, retreatants spend each week on a piece of this journey, with each week leading him or her closer to total self-identification with Jesus. Our readings today travel a parallel arc to the weeks of the spiritual exercises. So I’ll say a bit about each reading in light of the themes of each week of the spiritual exercises.

In our first reading, David takes Uriah’s widow as his wife after she completes the expected time of mourning. Not long after, David receives a visit from Nathan – though indirectly a visit from God, as God has sent Nathan to deliver a message to David. Nathan tells David a parable about a rich man who took the one only, beloved lamb of another man. The rich man had many other animals of his own, but he chose to take the poor man’s one lamb. David is outraged, proclaiming that the man who did this deserves to die- and he should restore fourfold what he took. Nathan then says “You are the man!” and David responds “I have sinned against the Lord.”

Imagine, then, that David begins to sing our psalm right after he responds to Nathan—here David journeys inward, reflecting on his actions – but equally as much on God’s mercy. “Give me the joy of your saving help again/and sustain me with your bountiful spirit” he concludes.

David has just guided us through the first week of the spiritual exercises. In the first week, the retreatant reflections on his or her own actions –some of which may be failings and shortcomings—and at the same time, recognizes God’s mercy.

Anthony DeMello, a Jesuit who wrote of his experience leading people through the spiritual exercises, calls this a “strange paradox.” He says: “If we take the extreme of our sinfulness, we fall into depression. Or we might say: ‘No, man, everything is grand!’ That reflects superficiality … life is all roses. Since we have never tasted what life is all about, we are superficial. If we put both extremes together, then we sense life in its depth and the exhilaration of being loved and redeemed. We reach the point of repentance” (p. 27 in Seek God Everywhere).

But we do not stop there (with repentance). Experiencing this strange paradox, the point of repentance, there is only one direction to go: towards the experience. So the retreatant ends the first week that way, asking ‘what shall I do for Christ?’

And this question- ‘what shall I do for Christ?’ begins the journey of the second week- and it is also Paul’s question in our second reading.

We hear Paul begging the Ephesians “to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called”—“each of us” he says “was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift” and “we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.”

In the second week, retreatants begin meditating upon the life of Christ with a disposition toward exactly what Paul is asking of the Ephesians. This is not an intellectual sort of meditation, but an affective one in which retreatants are asked to place themselves in scenes from Jesus’s life, and to pay attention to their feelings and senses as they do so. And so we might begin imagining ourselves in tonight’s readings … who would we each be … how would you feel … what would you see, and touch and smell …

Like Paul’s hope for the Ephesians, it was Ignatius’s hope that retreatants would begin to recognize themselves in Jesus’s life through the use of their imagination, so as to “grow up in Christ.”

This growing into the life of Christ is the path of the third and fourth weeks of the spiritual exercises- and also our gospel. And that path leads from growing into, to becoming – and finally to being.

The people ask Jesus to show them a sign. They cite the sign they know: the manna Moses fed the people in the wilderness. But Jesus is not interested in signs. To him, the manna in the wilderness was not a “sign” the people could witness and therefore believe—but that bread came from the Father- and not just the Father, but his Father. And so he says “I am the bread of life.”

In the third and fourth weeks of the spiritual exercises, the retreatants are asked to totally self-identify with the life of Christ: to become, themselves, the bread of life. At a prior parish I attended, the words we heard just before the people went up for communion were: behold who you are; become what you receive.

The spiritual exercises are traditionally done in thirty days, but they can be done in everyday life … and they can be done out of order. They are a way of life and an ongoing journey that many a past retreatant will say is never finished. I wonder … where do find yourself on this journey … with one of the weeks I have spoken of … or in a scene within one of the readings?

I invite your reflections.

Jester and Monk Image

jester and monk clip art, public domain image

Approaching Easter Poems

Here are a couple of poems I wrote last year around this time.

Martha Remembers Palm Sunday

I remember his journey into Jerusalem:
hot, arid, o so bright a day,
the first two layers of people in the crowd
drop palm leaves in his path,
the bright green shone over the red earth.

I ran my hands across the ground near me;
ground hard as rock,
and I wondered how this man, coming into town on a donkey,
could possibly have mud with this earth,
mud watery enough to sate the thirst of many,
and clear enough to let the people see.

But I do not
question. He saved
my brother.
And here I am,
for once taking time to pause!--
amidst the crowds,
about to exclaim
for joy
at his return.

O how bright this day is!
Here he comes now:
his face is set. He feels our joy,
but I see he has more coming.

I must return to my sister.

O Mary! Come out, I call,
even before I am in the house.
I thank her for cooking,
but say, we must go!
Now.

I know, she says.
And together
we disappear
into the crowd.

---
Jesus Departs for Galilee

On the day Jesus left Galilee, his parents lamented. His friends spoke no words, but looked at him appraisingly. They did not walk outside to see him off.

Only his mother walked with him to the gates of the city. She said, I know you must go.

Some driftwood had gathered by the water and, as her son departed, she stood by the slowly moving water. There were some boats, too, but she did not depart in one of them.

Instead, her feet felt the rocky ground, her eyes the clear water, her fingers the wind cutting through. She drifted home, remembering the angel before her son was conceived.

Tonight her meal at home would be her consolation.

"...And tell of his acts with shouts of joy": in thanksgiving for Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

Let them offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving*
  and tell of his acts with shouts of joy.

So we heard in Psalm 107 today, those of us following the Revised Common Lectionary.

Today these words resonated with me in light of Rowan Williams' resignation: not because I wanted to list off his acts during his tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury as a litany of sorts. I am not sure I would be able to come up with a list of singular events that would compose such a litany.

No, these words resonated with me because I would like to offer shouts of joy for his courage to fill the position of Archbishop in a time riven within tension and dismay in Church. As I read the various takes on his resignation these last couple of days- including speculations about his successor- I could not help but ask, how can we sit by while some are calling him the Archbishop who failed to heal "the schism"?

No, he did not "fix" the Anglican Communion in his time. But he gave all of himself to his position and the Church we all know he loves. Let's offer thanksgiving for his leadership in such a time.

It seems to me, at least, that there is no way forward in times of unrest except shouts of joy and thanksgiving for what we do have: communion.

Lent 3: God’s Generous and Impassioned Invitation into a Holy Life

Lent 3: God’s Generous and Impassioned Invitation into a Holy Life

The Readings: Exodus 20: 1-17; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22

“You shall have no other gods before me”

On hearing this, we might be inclined to be reminded of the beginning of our creed: “We believe in one God …”

But God’s words are not necessarily a theological statement.

They are, instead—as some commentators have suggested— God expressing his desire that we would be faithful to him alone. A desire that our God is holding because he, alone, was the one who companioned his people as they journeyed through the wilderness.

As one writer explained, nowhere in the Decalogue is a punishment ever stated. Rather, obedience to the commandments becomes the people’s  response to a desire to live according to God’s will. A response that becomes necessary because the desire on both sides – God’s and ours—is so great.

The writer Peter Rollins, in his book Insurrection,  says of desire: “It is not then our beloved’s mere existence that lights up our life with meaning; it is our beloved’s desire for us that has this luminous effect.” We discover, he says, “that our beloved is not simply the object of our desire, but the very source of it.” So he says that it is because God’s desire for our faithfulness is so great that we desire to be faithful to God.

I wonder, then, if we might understand the Decalogue as an impassioned and generous invitation from God into a holy life.

I wonder if, in our gospel, Jesus was hearing an impassioned and generous invitation to faithfulness … and if that is what caused him to respond to the moneychangers in the temple as he did.

But how do we hear this invitation?—especially when the invitation does not arrive in the orderly form of the Decalogue. In what ways do we experience God’ invitations into faithfulness?

I wonder if a way to hear these invitations in our lives is through desire – both our own and God’s.

But …

If we do hear God’s invitation through desire, then we are still left with the question of: how do we know our desire?

And that makes for two difficult questions for ourselves: first about the  invitations we are experiencing. But also, what do we and what does God desire for us and with us?

In our collect, we asked “Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls” –a phrase that could remind us to look outwardly for the invitations in our daily lives and inwardly for desire.

We might imagine that Jesus might have prayed a prayer like our collect for him to be able to discern his right action to take in the temple with the moneychangers. What would it have been like for Jesus to enter the temple and find it crowded with the moneychangers—and how could his response – driving them out—have been driven by anything but desire for God and being-in-God?

We find ourselves in the middle of Lent—halfway through the journey when it is most difficult to remember the beginning and to see the way forward. How are experiencing God’s invitation to faithfulness during this season? Or … how are you experiencing God’s desire that is that generous and impassioned invitation into faithfulness?

I invite your responses …

Anger ... a doorway to healing?

I found a new use for this blog space ... posting homilies! This is from Sunday just past.

The format of homilies at the evening service is shared ... meaning that the homily is succinct, and then is followed by congregational responses. Unfortunately, I could not recapture the responses from Sunday as I wrote this up before Sunday.

---------------------

Anger-A Doorway to Healing – 6^th Sunday after the Epiphany, February 12, 2012, St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 5pm Liturgy

Readings: 2 Kings 5:1-14 — Psalm 30; 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 — Mark 1:40-45

For he is angry but a moment,
And when he is pleased there is life.

This is the Jewish Bible’s translation of the lines we heard as

For his wrath endures but the twinkling of an eye,
His favor for a lifetime.

I give you the Jewish translation of these lines because they tell us more about God’s actions – a movement from anger to life – or, as the next two lines of the Psalm say, from weeping to joy.

These lines about divine anger and divine joy are like a filter with which we can look at all the readings-for many of the characters in our readings today experience anger …  followed by healing … from which we can only imagine there must have been great joy.

But before we go to the readings, I want to tell you a brief story. This is a story that is true in spirit- I have changed the name of the person I describe, as well as some of the details-but the essence remains true to how I remember this.

There once was a man named Tim. Tim was hospitalized, against his will, after several psychotic episodes. Sometime while he was at the hospital, his case manager Alice introduced him to an organization that had a house called the “house of healing.” Alice said that Tim was invited to consider moving there after he was stabilized on his medications and that if he did, this “house of healing” would be a community that would support him in his recovery and his search for permanent housing. He was not sure about the idea, but he decided he would go there because he did want to find his own place sooner rather than later.

When Tim arrived he learned that he was “supposed” to take his medication while living in the house, as well as come home for a community dinner every evening, but that no one could force him to do anything. So Tim only took his medications if someone reminded him. He never would ask. He also started leaving the house for hours at a time and not calling to say he would not be home for dinner. He also became increasingly frustrated with other residents who were in the house, people who had been in the hospital like he had. They reminded him of his experience there. He also stopped eating for a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, the staff who worked for the house became very concerned and started reinforcing that Tim had to take his medications in order to stay in the house. Also, the other residents were avoiding him because they picked up on his anger. This made Tim even more angry because he felt he was being watched and told what to do- just like in the hospital. Circumstances continued to unfold and Tim ended up having to go back to the hospital.

---

Tim, like Naaman was surrounded by people who cared and offered a very simple suggestion for healing: please take your medication and please come home for dinner. First Naaman heard from Elisha, wash in the Jordan seven times in order to be clean. And Naaman is outraged—how could he have traveled all this way to simply be told to wash in the river? Isn’t the water at home good enough? And Tim, too, was angry when he was given such simple solutions: take your medication and come home for dinner.

In the story I told, I gave you my imagined account of Tim’s perspective as I remembered it. But I could have also focused on my own frustration as I saw Tim’s experience- for all I could do, as staff in the house, was repeat please take your medication and come home for dinner. And this was not working. And so I certainly was left to feel rather like the king of Israel, who was sure that the king of Aram was out to make a fool of him by sending him someone he did not have the power to heal.

Our gospel also tells us something about anger: the line we read as “moved with pity” can also be translated “moved with anger” or “moved with compassion.” So Jesus-perhaps feeling a combination of anger, pity and compassion, reaches out to touch the leper in the story. The gospel does not tell us why Jesus might have had these feelings, but we might make some guesses about how he might have been frustrated, sad and angry about how vast the needs for healing seemed to be among the crowds he was surrounded by.

Notice, though, that anger does not stand alone for any of the characters in our readings – all of them, like the writer of the Psalm—experience anger and then healing. When the king of Israel becomes angry, Elisha responds to his need, saying, send Naaman to me. When Naaman becomes frustrated with Elisha, his servants urge him to listen- which he does, ultimately, so he is made clean. Could the expression of anger itself open the door to healing? Or perhaps even just the recognition of anger?

Our gospel might offer us some insight here. Jesus is first moved with anger, compassion and pity. He then acts on his feeling, reaching out and saying “I do choose. Be made clean.” One can only imagine that as he reached out to touch the man in the story, his movement contained within it all the anger, compassion and pity he felt- and gave him the conviction to act as he did, to choose to participate in another’s healing.

I wonder how the stories of the characters in our readings resonate with you this evening. I wonder whether if you have experienced a frustration like Naaman’s, when you received simple instructions for healing that could not possibly be enough … only to find out later that they were right after all. Or I wonder if you have experienced the king of Israel’s frustration, when you felt others expected you to be able to solve someone else’s problem or even your own … only to discover you were not alone to fix the problem in the first place. Or I wonder if you have experienced an anger like Jesus’s, that compelled you to act towards healing because you could not do otherwise.

Whose story might resonate the most with you today? Do you find yourself identifying with one or more of these characters’ experiences of anger that opened the door to healing?

I invite your responses …

St. Ignatius Chapel Art, Part 2

Below-this is not in or of the chapel per se, but it is certainly inspired by it- and also by Isaiah during Advent.

Around the Neighborhood

 A view from the Dr. Jose P. Rizal park.

Learning Drawings

The pieces in this post are ones I call "learning drawings" because they are pieces that began initially as exercises to learn a new technique, a new kind of paper, a new kind of pastels, etc. But in the process these exercises turned into pieces that I consider worth others seeing ...

 The tree to the left was an exercise in learning lines and hatching, a technique in which the pastel artist overlaps lines of different colors in layers so as to create definition and depth.




Below, the view out my window drawn with just oil pastels.

Here I was integrating charcoal with chalk and oil pastels.

St. Ignatius Chapel Art

From Top: Advent 2011 (Year B); Four Rivers Converge on the Chapel Door; West Side of Chapel; Blessed Sacrament Chapel inside the Chapel of St. Ignatius, Seattle University.

Summer 2011 Retreat Art

Most of these were created at Sacred Heart Jesuit Retreat House, but one is from Seattle University and another from Durango, CO. From top: summer garden at Seattle University; Statue of the Ascension, Sacred Heart; Statue of the Ascension 2, Sacred Heart; Durango, CO view; Inner Imaginings at Sacred Heart; Jesus in the Garden of Gethesemane (based on a memorial statue to one of the Jesuits at Sacred Heart). Sacred Heart is located in Sedalia, CO. Its site is here: http://www.sacredheartretreat.org/.