We love that Eckhart Tolle uses the term “good news” to preface his exploration of all the illusions humanity clings to.  Christians will quickly recognize the phrase … good news (or good messenger) that comes from the Greek work evangelion/εὐαγγέλιον which has come to commonly refer to the four gospel accounts that record Jesus’ life and teachings.  These are stories of the one sent to break through the darkness of humanity’s illusion and reorient the world to the fullness of God’s intention for creation.
 
Breaking through illusions and seeking a new earth is a consistent theme in the evolution of all human spirituality and philosophy.  While, the Buddha, the Hebrew Prophets, Confucius, Jesus, and Muhammad might have defined this good news quite differently, the message was always the same … human selfishness, greed, and a desire for power creates profound injustices in our life together.  To rediscover the fullness of our humanity begins with the recognition of these false reality that surrounds us … but we mistake as reality.
 
These enlightened men and women, along with their followers, have always relied on the arts and the creative imagination as a key tool to name and to break through the illusion.  Music, storytelling, drama, poetry, and the visual arts provided the tools, storyline, score, and stage sets for this new or awakened consciousness. 
 
As this community witnessed Pat’s energetic embrace of this ancient spiritual tradition through contemporary teachers like Eckhart Tolle, this community witnessed profound shifts in her artistic production.  Pat’s artistic practice and her spiritual practice are becoming reflections of one another.  Gone are the fun and light-hearted paintings and multi-edition prints that where much loved … and financially lucrative.  In their place are profound meditations on the human spirit and visualizations of our interconnectedness with each other and our world. 
 
The works in this exhibition were selected from the last four years of Pat’s artistic and spiritual practice.  Utilizing her often repeated mantra … “it’s either love or fear” … the works reflect her spirituality about choosing love.  Like any good disciple, Pat invites us to look through the illusion … past the ego … and toward a diverse and loving world filled with hope. 
 
As many spiritual traditions recognize, the transformation of an individual’s consciousness is solely the interior work of the individual.  The gift of the creative imagination … for both the seeker and the viewer … is to provide alternative visions of reality to contemplate, and thus aid the journey of awakening and a new vision of reality.
 
The visual centerpiece of the exhibition is an intentional installation of a donkey, an elephant, and the old church pew.  The exhibition invites to viewer to rethink the reality/illusion around us.  There is no greater feeling in our culture than the seemingly insurmountable divides we have created for ourselves and our life together.  This assemblage invites us to sit and ponder what is the reality …. and what is the illusion … and how do we reorient our current cultural crisis.  As Eckhart Tolle reminds us … the survival of illusion depends on us mistaking it for reality.
 
Mitchell Bond and Patrick Ellis

"life sucks, here's why, you can fix it, here's how"
 
- The Buddha
(as paraphrased by Andrew Henry, Religion for Breakfast)
 
The brokenness that is at the root of our current divisions and polarization is not new, but a sadly ever-reoccurring cycle in human history.  However, each of these cycles is also accompanied by great strides in philosophical and spiritual thinking.  Crises can bring great opportunities to reorient our understanding of our life together.  Religion and art have always responded in profound ways to human brokenness! 

A genuine confession of personal fault and the sincere desire for reconciliation are the key ingredients of any social healing.  The rites and rituals of all the world’s great religious traditions not only provide the opportunity to acknowledge personal fault, but they also offer accompanying rites and rituals of healing and reconciliation to bring what was broken back together.  Religion can give us a design for a journey toward wholeness. 

It is not the intention of this installation for viewers to choose a side, but rather to recognize that we find ourselves on either side of this installation at any given time.  In all religions … the rites and rituals associated with confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation are by necessity repeatable!  We are all broken … and need to be made whole … repeatedly.

This is the third time we have used Shelley Koopmann’s piece depicting Donald Trump alone at Leonardo DaVinci’s Last Supper it in a curated show.  Over the years the painting has shifted from a real-time political cartoon to a commentary on how politicians weaponize faith.  In this installation, the painting serves as a symbol and metaphor of an entrenched polarization in our collective consciousness and current social zeitgeist.

So, what do we mean when we say that Donald Trump becomes a symbols/metaphor?  In this show, Trump has become each of us, an image of our own brokenness and our isolated lives … lives lived in an age of global social and electronic connectedness.  The man alone at the table represents the worst in all of us … a shorthand for human immorality and pride … and an image for the political and religious division we choose to fester and exploit, and not to heal.  Donald Trump is us.

The human brain is complex and mysterious.  Even after centuries of scientific and medical discovery, there is so little we know about what the brain does and how it influences our thoughts, emotions, and actions.  However, one thing we do know is that the brain is divided into two asymmetrical hemispheres and that each hemisphere interacts with and shapes our world in distinct ways. 
 
The left brain is where language originates, and it craves details, labels, and categories.  The left brain wants closed endings and certainty.   We use this left mode to analyze the past and plan for the future. 
 
The right brain instead is comfortable with open endings and takes in the big picture – the forest not the trees.  The right brain deals with ambiguity, paradox, and mystery and helps us to make sense of metaphors and allegories.   We use this right mode to be aware of all that is happening the present moment.
 
Another thing we know about the brain is that, in most humans, the left brain is dominant.  Often impatient with the wondering musings of the right brain, the language-making left brain will take over and try to reach a logical conclusion even when it is not suited for the task at hand.*
 
Which brings us to Thomas.  The Thomas we encounter in the Gospel of John – the proverbial “Doubting Thomas” – is in full-on left mode.  He could not understand how the other apostles had seen Jesus.  After all, Jesus had died.  He saw it with his own eyes.  A resurrection made no logical sense.  Before he would believe, Thomas wanted proof.  He wanted answers.  He wanted certainty.
 
We can certainly relate to Thomas’ predicament.  How often are we so attached to the need for certainty, that we are stuck in place?  Unable to move?  How often are we clinging to the past or anxious about the future that we miss finding the presence of the divine mystery in ourselves, each other, and the world around us?  It is how we are a wired. The dominant left brain needing to see in order to believe. However, the big picture right brain is still there ready to believe without seeing but it may take some work to access it.
 
Throughout time, spiritual seekers have identified tools to quiet the verbal left mode – what Buddhist refer to as “the monkey mind” – and access the present moment in order to encounter the divine mystery.  Through spiritual disciplines such as prayer, meditation, fasting, mindfulness, movements, and postures we can disrupt our entrenched patterns and tap into the right mode skill of belief without seeing.
 
Lynne Goodwin painted Thomas for Thomas Chapel employing such a discipline.  The orans posture is an ancient posture of prayer.  It is a posture of openness and vulnerability.  The following is an opportunity to meditate on Psalm 63 and explore the orans posture to the extent that you feel led.

Read this translation** of Psalm 63 to yourself or aloud:
 
I will meditate on thee in the night watches;
Far from life, lone and still.
In the shadow of thy wings will I live and move.
Thy right hand upholdeth me; my soul has found its peace.
So, I will bless thee while I live, lift my hands to thee;
My soul followeth close behind thee, how my heart does sing!
I will seek thee all my life, meditate through time.
Thy loving-kindness, better than life, it has been my help.
Just to be there in that holy place, feel the breath of God!
I will meditate, meditate – I can touch my heart to thee.
 
Now from a seated near the front edge of the chair or a standing position on the floor, place your feet about hip with apart or a little wider.  Bring your awareness to your feet.  Perhaps you look at your feet or bring your gaze to the floor in front of you.  Notice the grounding of your feet into the floor, the weight of your feet, the pull of gravity.  How does that feel in your feet, your legs, the rest of your body? Bring your arms by your sides and turn your palms out slightly. 
 
Now bring your awareness to your breathing.  Follow the sensations of your inhale in through your nose as your lungs fill up, and your belly expands.  Follow the sensations of your exhale as your belly collapses, your lungs release, and air escapes through your nose.  Take at least 3 steady and even breaths.
 
Now add some movement to your breath.  As you inhale, lift your arms to shoulder height or a little higher and lift your gaze upward.  As you exhale, lower your arms and gaze.  Moving with your breath, inhale up and exhale down. 
 
As you do this, don’t be surprised if the left brain comes up with things like – “I’m not doing this right” or “when is this going to be over” or some other distraction.  Try to let those thoughts come and go without reacting to them.  Continue to focus on your breath and movement.
 
After several rounds of this movement.  Hold the orans pose with arms and gaze lifted and breath naturally.  Perhaps you may want to turn the corners of your mouth into a smile like Thomas in the painting.  Take one last deep inhale and as you exhale lower your arms back by your sides.  Take note of the sensations in your body.  Be present and aware. 
 
Finally, find a quiet, grounded posture. It could be orans, hands in prayer, hands over heart, hands by your sides, or hands in lap.  Perhaps you close your eyes, lower your gaze, or focus on one spot in the room.  Scan your body from head to foot and be aware of what you are feeling.  Hold this posture for several moments then slowly bring your awareness back to your surroundings with sense of contentment and gratitude.
 
Peace.

MEB

Notes:
* This is a gross oversimplification of the complex workings of the brain’s hemispheres. If you want to dig deeper, listen to this Hidden Brain podcast with Iain McGilchrist and/or read his book “The Master and His Emissary; The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.”
 
** Lyrics from “Meditation I” by Joe Utterback

The stories within the Advent liturgies of the Christian tradition recount situations when humanity is most lost in its own greed, tribalism and violence and the victims are those most outside, vulnerable, and powerless  These stories include a remarkable cast of very human characters who played pivotal roles in God’s extraordinary interventions into human history.
 
They are us.  The sacred texts hold a mirror up to the hearer not only urging us summon the courage the be faithful servants, but also challenging us to recognize the villain within ourselves.  These stories call us not only to be watchful and alert, but also to be proactive in the divine plan.  Today, we conclude with postscript of sorts in the story of Stephen, the Ready Martyr.

Saint Stephen
(from the Ora Pro Nobis series)
oil on canvas
Daniel Kennedy
2000

Sorry to kill the holiday cheer!  But it is not just me; the liturgical year does not even give us a chance to catch our breath from the festivities before we get the gruesome story of the stoning of Stephen.   This back-to-back sequence of birth and homicide is not chronology, but rather intentional theology.  In retrospect we should not be surprised.  The whole of the Advent season has pointed repeatedly to the high cost of discipleship. 

Daniel Kennedy’s Saint Stephen comes from a series of images of holy people that lined the walls of a theological school library.  In this rendering, Stephen is only glimpsed in a silver outline as if he is merely memory.  In one hand he holds a stone and in the other a laurel branch … his death and his victory.  He is clothed in a dalmatic, the symbol of his ministry of service, and a halo surrounds his head.  But the outline of the martyr recedes in this rendering.  The dominant element of Kennedy’s composition is not the person, but rather the blood-red wounds and the liturgical refrain “ora pro nobis”.  The artist captures the theological reason for the startling sequence of these days in these two elements.

“Ora pro nobis” (pray for us) is the congregational response within the ritual calling of the saints on significant holy days throughout the year.  This liturgical prayer is a form of memory/anamnesis or making present the gifts and graces of a past events.  The congregation’s response to the invocation of each named saint has a two-fold purpose; to both ask for intercession and to celebrate their willing participation in the divine plan for all God’s creation.  The cadence of this call and response is a communal chant that literally folds time and space to bring saints of the past together with the saints of the present.  In this ritual action all God’s people find their strength and their purpose in a time-defying and multi-era communal event.

Stephen, like a whole group of early witnesses to the gospel, when confronted with the alternative of renouncing their faith or suffering death, many voluntarily embraced the death prepared for them.  While this action might seem to some to run perilously close to recklessness (or even suicide), the passions that motivate these actions are at the very core of the commemorations we celebrate in the shadow of the nativity. Stephen was not simply protecting some private claim to win his salvation, he was convinced that the good news of the gospel could radically change the way the world could see itself.  He knew the transformative possibilities of love and therefore renouncing his faith in that promise was unimaginable.  Out of his great love, God had intervened in human history and Stephen was an inheritor of that vision … and that vision was worth dying for.  The self-sacrifice and the blood-red wounds were not personal triumph, Stephen saw himself as a warrior in this great reawakening.  Stephen’s self-sacrifice in the cause of love, justice and social transformation is not death … it is life eternal.  Now that is a nativity!

"She told them that the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine. That if they could not see it, they would not have it."

In Toni Morrison's Beloved, Baby Suggs begins her sermon in the clearing with an invocation.  She calls the people to gather with laughter, dancing, and crying in an urgent celebration of bodiliness, a manifestation of incarnate grace.

"We may not reach the ending but we can start slowly but truly mending, brick by brick, heart by heart. Now, maybe now, we start learning how." -  "Beautiful City" from Godspell

Jesus told his disciples that God's reign is among them, in the midst of them, within them.  The learning, building, and mending begins here and now.

What can you learn from the life and death of Stephen?  How do you embody grace?  What are you learning, mending, building?  How will you respond?
 
Suggestions for further exploration:

• Read and meditate on the daily readings for the Feast of St. Stephen.
• Explore the writings of Martin Luther King, Jr.  Perhaps begin with Letter from a Birmingham Jail or Strength to Love.
• Work your way through My Grandmother’s Hands.  In this book, Resmaa Menakim explores how racialized trauma manifests in our physical bodies and offers practices and exercises to begin healing and recovery.
• Spend time with the poems of Mary Oliver.  Much of her work reflects on embodiment, grace, and awareness of the present moment.  Perhaps begin with Mornings at Blackwater, Mindful or The Journey.
  

The stories proclaimed within the Advent liturgies of the Christian tradition recount situations when humanity is most lost in its own greed, tribalism and violence and the victims are those most outside, vulnerable, and powerless  These stories include a remarkable cast of very human characters who played pivotal roles in God’s extraordinary interventions into human history.
 
They are us.  The sacred texts hold a mirror up to the hearer not only urging us summon the courage the be faithful servants, but also challenging us to recognize the villain within ourselves.  These stories call us not only to be watchful and alert, but also to be proactive in the divine plan.  This week, The Unlikely Liberator.

Sacrifice
oil on canvas
Sr. Mary Grace Thul, OP
2008
 
We treasure the memories and events that shape our lives and our ethical outlook. They come to form the core of our tribe’s identity.  We seek to preserve them for ourselves as well as pass them on to later generations.  They become the honored stories retold at family gatherings, and mementos find places of honor in our homes. 

Regrettably, the love and reverence we have for these stories can become misshapen in our enthusiasm to preserve them.  We see this in the frame shop all the time.  Folks bring in memories of people or events or places that have shaped their lives and formed their identities.  At the heart of the client’s desire for preservation is to have a tangible and visible expression to keep the memory an ever-present reality in the complexities of a life well lived in this generation and hopefully in the next.   

But too often the well-intentioned embellishments of this conservancy can misshapen the memory.  The memento, the photograph, the article of clothing, or the letter is placed behind glass and surrounded by a decorative frame.  This new presentation often shifts the memory from a living event to an object of veneration.  We physically remove the memory from its engagement with its tribe.  We look at it, but we do not touch.  We admire it, but we do not participate.  A wall of separation is built between us and the memories that shape us. 

The same wall is built with the ornamentation, embellishment, and gloss bound to the stories of the season of Advent.  Like us, the ancients embellished their memories in their enthusiasm to preserve them.  Tales of royal courts of great kings and queens, generations of hereditary leadership, a people set apart for favor, and mighty and ever-lasting kingdoms become a decorative frame that can literally remove us from the foundations of our tribe’s story and identity.  At their core, the Advent stories are so much more unpretentious, and filled with a very real, and a very ragtag cast of characters.  When we side-step theses embellishments, we get the true heart of the memory that past people of faith desired to pass on.  These characters are us, and like them, we are called to be more than onlookers in the divine plan for humanity.

It might seem strange to spotlight Sr. Mary Grace’s image Sacrifice when so many churches are placing the baby Jesus in the manger on this Sunday in Advent.  I appreciate this image because it is about memory and memento without any embellishment or gloss.  Like the unwed teenage mother from last week, or the outsider mystic from the previous week, or the angry rants of an ignored and misunderstood prophet that underpins the entire season, Mary Grace’s Jesus is stripped bare to the raw essentials of the story of salvation.  This unlikely liberator is the reason for the season.  He is not separated from his tribe.  Emmanuel is touch-able. This is a real memory/moment in time, and we can have first-hand experience of God’s intervention in the beloved creation.   A new kind of ruler has come to live (and die) among us and remind us of our required participation in the work of salvation.

In speaking about Exodus, midrash scholar Avivah Zornberg says, “I think one of the important issues is…the need for those who have to be liberated to achieve in themselves some sense of the possibility of change…the story of the Exodus is one in which… one of the most important themes for liberation is the need for a process of growth within the persecuted if they are to have a history.” In this powerful anthem from The Greatest Showman, the “sideshow freaks” from P.T. Barnum’s circus imagine the possibility of change when they find their voices, take a stand for their humanity, and proclaim their self-worth. 

In the Liturgy of the Hours, evening prayer on the final days leading up to Christmas features a series of antiphons preceding the Magnificat.  These short verses bid the coming of God’s liberating action with a rich use of imagery addressing each character with the vocative expression “O” – O Root of Jesse, O Key of David, O Radiant Dawn, and so on.  Thus they are known as the “O” Antiphons.  These texts are most familiar in the Advent song, O Come Emmanuel.  Here is a setting by Sufjan Stevens.  Find a comfortable seat and settle as you listen and reflect on the lyrics and music.

How do you experience God as liberator?  What is your role in the work of salvation?  How will you respond?

Suggestions for further exploration:

• Read and meditate on the lectionary readings for this week.
• Explore the myth of the Exodus by listening to this interview with Avivah Zornberg.  Her work reframes the roles of the characters in the story – Moses, Pharoah, and the Israelites. 
  
• Honor the Winter Solstice with restorative meditation or movement.  As we mark the shortest day/longest night, it is helpful to explore ways to intentionally tune into winter.
• Pray the O Antiphons in the final days of Advent.

The stories proclaimed within the Advent liturgies of the Christian tradition recount situations when humanity is most lost in its own greed, tribalism and violence and the victims are those most outside, vulnerable, and powerless  These stories include a remarkable cast of very human characters who played pivotal roles in God’s extraordinary interventions into human history.
 
They are us.  The sacred texts hold a mirror up to the hearer not only urging us summon the courage the be faithful servants, but also challenging us to recognize the villain within ourselves.  These stories call us not only to be watchful and alert, but also to be proactive in the divine plan.  This week, Mother & Child.

Wild Eyes
mixed media
Matt Sesow
2010

On a hot summer evening at an airfield near his home in Nebraska, eight-year old Matt Sesow was struck by the propeller of a landing airplane.  The accident resulted in his left arm being severed and the loss of his left hand.  With the help of family and friends, Sesow learned to excel in both athletics and academics.  It was not until he was working as an adult in the tech industry that Sesow discovered painting.   In the evenings and on weekends he played with painting and ultimately developed his hobby into a path of healing and a mission in life. 
 
"My paintings are the emotional response to a traumatic past, the road to healing, and the confidence of finding a new language to express feelings felt but never shared.  While some people see my paintings as angry or aggressive, many of my collectors and fans (including myself), see my work as hopeful, joyous, and eager to take on the world!"
 
Matt Sesow’s Wild Eyes expresses what any new mother might feel. This wild-eyed mother holds her child close as she looks toward a future she knows will be filled with both struggle and hope.  The child in her lap with a severed hand is more than an autobiography.  Sesow’s image is a universal message of family, protectiveness, and faithfulness.  It is about a journey from brokenness to wholeness. 
 
In what will become her great song of praise, the mother that dominates the Advent stories accepts both the pain and hope of a journey she is destined to take with her child.  Her strength for this task comes from her knowledge of the long prophetic traditions of her faith.  Even at her young age, she knew the stories and songs of a God who empowers those of humble estate (from every generation) to scatter the proud in their conceit and bring the mighty from their thrones.  While this mother knew she was unprepared to be in the middle of this great cosmic drama, she also knew that she would grow into the role as all new mothers or prophets do.  God and family and friends would provide.
 
But maybe more heroically, she understood from these same stories and songs the ultimate cost of this discipleship and this journey.  There would be much sorrow before vindication.  The real courage of faith is simply saying yes to the call to be a player in the divine spectacle of deliverance.  Faithfulness is the place where faith is worked out in actions and where even the most banal of actions and gestures achieves profound meaning and significance. In the actions and gestures of this woman/mother are the aesthetic expressions of an ethical worldview lived out.

“In you the journey is.”  Tony Kushner begins his epic work Angels in America with the funeral of the grandmother of one of the main characters.  In this scene, the rabbi (yes, portrayed here by Meryl Streep) describes this Jewish refugee as “not a person but a whole kind of a person.”  Such a person’s actions motivated by a drive for survival and sustained by faith and perseverance, cultivated the ground from which her descendants grow their own futures.

Mary exclaims that all generations will call her blessed and in doing so she affirms the upside-down character of God’s reign – valleys raised up, mountains made low, a little child leading.  Her blessing does not come from seizing worldly power but rather from relinquishing a safe and normal life to play a pivotal role in Gods divine plan.  This does not mean that she gave up agency or self-worth. On the contrary, she stakes her claim by actively consenting to help overturn the status quo and bring about justice.  As Rory Cooney’s setting of Mary’s song, Canticle of the Turning (sung here by Katherine Moore) proclaims, “My heart shall sing of the day you bring.  Let the fires of your justice burn.  Wipe away all tears.  For the dawn draws near and the world is about to turn.”

What do you learn from Mary's story?  How do you experience the call to participate in God's reign?  How will you respond?

Suggestions for further exploration:

• Read and meditate on the lectionary texts for this week.
• Listen to Steve Thorngate's After the Longest Night:  Songs for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany.
• Practice walking meditation to bring mindful awareness to your movements and actions.  Like mindful breathing practice, walking meditation brings focus and awareness to a common action that is often taken for granted.   Such awareness helps in gaining a greater sense of understanding of thoughts, feelings, and actions and leads to more constructive ways to respond. 
• Watch this TED conversation with Marian Wright Edelman reflecting on her lifetime mission to fight childhood poverty. She says, "The reinforced lesson from (my parents) is that 'God runs a full employment economy' and that if you follow the need, you will never lack for a purpose in life."
• Give of your time and resources to support local organizations that serve women and children. Find out more about The Bedford Christmas Station, Bedford Domestic Violence Coalition, Bedford Community Health Foundation, and Bedford Area Family YMCA.

The stories proclaimed within the Advent liturgies of the Christian tradition recount situations when humanity is most lost in its own greed, tribalism and violence and the victims are those most outside, vulnerable, and powerless  These stories include a remarkable cast of very human characters who played pivotal roles in God’s extraordinary interventions into human history.
 
They are us.  The sacred texts hold a mirror up to the hearer not only urging us summon the courage the be faithful servants, but also challenging us to recognize the villain within ourselves.  These stories call us not only to be watchful and alert, but also to be proactive in the divine plan.

What sort of person ought you to be,
conducting yourselves in holiness and devotion,
waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God,
because of which the heavens will be dissolved in flames
and the elements melted by fire.
But according to God’s promise we await a new heaven and a new earth
in which righteousness dwells.
Therefore, beloved, since you await these things,
be eager to be found without spot or blemish before God, at peace.
 
The 2nd Letter of Peter

Spiritual traditions throughout time have addressed humankind's relationship with money and possessions.  Greed and attachments are impediments to right relationships with others and with God.  However, the drive to consume more than we need and to want more than we have is integral to the human condition.  With a contemporary prophetic warning, Tracy Chapman's Mountains O' Things gives a first person view of this struggle.

What does repentance look like?  Padraig O Tuama, in his poem Twisted, offers that it requires us to "twist our spines to the truth and see behind us."  And in doing so, we take in the consequences of our actions on ours and others lives. Watch O Tuama read his poem below.

I will hear what God proclaims.
Kindness and truth shall meet.
justice and peace shall kiss.
Truth shall spring out of the earth,
and justice look down from heaven.
 
Unnamed Lyricist of the 85th Psalm

Wait, Repent, Renounce, Twist, Hear.  How will you respond?

Suggestions for further exploration:

• Read and meditate on the lectionary texts for this week.
• Listen to Krista Tippett's interview with Bryan Stevenson.  Stevenson's work explores mercy and redemption in American culture.
• Spend some time with Sister Joan Chittister's book, The Time is Now:  A Call to Uncommon Courage, in which she offers a series of brief reflections about the characteristics of prophets and urges readers to abandon complacency and work for justice and peace.
  
• Experience the physical sensations of twisting.  Try a basic seated twist or practice a more advanced reclined yin twist posture.
  
• Learn more about Padraig O Tuama and about the work of the Corrymeela Community to bring peace and reconciliation in Ireland.

Art/Spirituality/Social Change
Advent at Thomas Chapel

As we enter into Advent this year, we find ourselves in a time of chaos and unrest.  It seems that, now more than ever, we are confronted with perennial issues of opportunity and wealth, hospitality and immigration, justice and race, power and powerlessness.  And so, we turn to ancient stories and sacred myths to learn how other people from other times addressed such human brokenness.
 
The stories proclaimed within the Advent liturgies of the Christian tradition recount situations when humanity is most lost in its own greed, tribalism and violence and the victims are those most outside, vulnerable, and powerless  These stories include a remarkable cast of very human characters who played pivotal roles in God’s extraordinary interventions into human history.
 
They are us.  The sacred texts hold a mirror up to the hearer not only urging us summon the courage the be faithful servants, but also challenging us to recognize the villain within ourselves.  These stories call us not only to be watchful and alert, but also to be proactive in the divine plan.
 
Join us over the next five weeks as we reflect on the lives of these Advent characters, and in turn reflect on our own lives, listening to contemporary voices responding to brokenness and longing, and seeking new ways to respond with justice and love. 

War and Tweets
Shelley Koopmann
oil on board/2020
 
The scene is the Musée d’Orsay.  The painting is entitled War by the primitive post-impressionist painter Henri Rousseau.  The artist created the monumental piece twenty years after the Franco-Prussian conflict of 1870, his personal horrors with that experience still very much with him.  In the center of the painting is a grimacing female character holding a sword and a torch. This goddess of war rides a horse surveying an earlier slaughter.  A single raised fist in this field of corpses suggests one last stand of resistance.  Rousseau leaves out any anecdotal or narrative elements that would identify any specific time or place.  This is a work about all human inspired carnage.  The dark ground is covered with a pile of bodies, with crows feeding on human flesh. The trees look charred. The clouds are red. The choice of colors contributes to the ambiguous story line: the green of hope is completely absent; black and grey and red, the colors of mourning and blood, dominate. 

In front of the painting a solitary man sits in comfort and tweets seemingly unaware of the chaos that is in front of him.  Whatever his reason for coming to the museum is outweighed by a more immediate need to respond to something outside.  Lost in his own concerns, he misses the lesson the artist longs to teach and the museum works to preserve.  Maybe, just maybe, Shelley Koopmann’s painting, like Henri Rousseau’s before her, is not about a specific time or place.  Is this solitary man only a stand-in for each of our own responses to what we have faced (or avoided) in the chaos and carnage of the previous year?  It is important to remember that the Hebrew prophet Isaiah’s rants that underpin the Advent stories are never directed at the tyrant, but rather toward the faithful who enabled the despot by their own unfaithfulness or inaction.

The following is a scene from the BBC limited series Years and Years.  Set in an alternative near future where political power in both the US and Britain is held by far right entertainers turned politicians.  The drama follows one family over a period of many years as their lives are impacted by political decisions that they seemingly have no control over.  Here the matriarch of the family sets the record straight about their own complicity in and responsibility for their situation.

The text for Each Winter as the Year Grows Older was written by UCC pastor William Gay in 1969 at the height of the war in Vietnam.  Much like the psalmist, Gay laments the brokenness and suffering of the human condition.  Also like the psalmist, he offers visions of hope that God will intervene to renew creation and bring justice.  William Gay's wife, Annabeth, composed the tune "Carol of Hope."

Find a comfortable place to sit or lie down to listen to this arrangement by Marty Haugen.  Close your eyes or focus your gaze.  Breathe with steady and even inhales and exhales, letting the music guide your senses.

How will you be watchful and aware during this Advent season?  How will you respond?

Suggestions for further exploration:

• Read and meditate on the lectionary texts for this week.
• Work your way through the Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life by Karen Armstrong.  In this book, Armstrong explores how some variation of the Golden Rule is prevalent in nearly all religious and spiritual traditions.  She argues that compassion is intrinsic in everyone and offers concrete ways to strengthen our capacity for compassion.  Also see Armstrong's TED prize project, The Charter for Compassion.
• Practice metta meditation, also known as loving-kindness meditation, a process of directing good will to self and others.  Find instruction and guided meditations here and here.
• Learn about Bridges Out of Poverty, a nationally implemented strategy for understanding poverty and building resources for a more sustainable future.  In addition the book, there are also opportunities for online and local training.

As we noted in our previous blog post, there are legends that tell of the Apostle Thomas traveling to India after the resurrection to spread the Gospel.  To this day, there are still Christians in the Indian state of Kerala who trace their origins to Thomas.  They are known as Saint Thomas Christians, Syrian Christians or Nasrani.  This community blends elements of Hinduism and Indian cultural symbols into their Christian liturgy and iconography.   It is one such blending of these elements that we have adapted for the Thomas Chapel logo which is based on the Saint Thomas Christians Cross, featuring a square cross resting atop a lotus flower.  The lotus flower is a symbol of the sacred.  It represents purity, enlightenment, self-regeneration and rebirth.  Through incorporating the lotus into our logo, we create a connection to one of the earliest Christian communities and draw insight from the symbolic meaning of the lotus.

Bedford artist Lori Leist graciously accepted our invitation to create her vision of this symbolic flower for the space at Thomas Chapel.  Lori is well known for her large floral paintings which feature bold colors and movement.  When explaining her frequent choice of subject, Lori explains, “Flowers are very alive and familiar to me. The colors and fragrances can transport me to another place and time, connecting me to memories of family and friends.”  She also connects the flowers she paints and the process of painting to a broader spiritual and cultural context, saying, “…one of my hashtags on Instagram is #flowersfeedmysoul. I do believe that my need to create or paint is a gift from God. I am so thankful to be able to express myself through my art, and his gifts. Also, when I am painting either florals, or my new landscapes, I feel like I am part of something bigger, more connected to the earth, and humanity as a whole.”
 
The lotus flower and the environment in which it grows illustrates deeper insight into understanding the human condition.  With the Four Noble Truths, the Buddha explained that, while inevitable human suffering comes from attachment and craving, happiness can be attained by following a path of renouncing our cravings and attachments.  This does not mean ignoring suffering and only focusing on happiness.  On the contrary, it requires a concerted acknowledgment that the suffering and happiness are intertwine and, in fact, we cannot fully understand one without the other.  Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh illustrates how the lotus symbolizes this juxtaposition when he writes “Everyone knows we need to have mud for lotuses to grow.  The mud doesn’t smell so good, but the lotus flower smells very good.  If you don’t have mud, the lotus won’t manifest.  You can’t grow lotus flowers on marble.  Without mud, there would be no lotus.”  He goes on to explain how confronting suffering head on is critical to this understanding, writing, “The Buddha was saying that if we can recognize suffering, and if we embrace it and look deeply into its roots, then we’ll be able to let go of the habits that feed it and, at the same time, find a way to happiness.”
 
The juxtaposition of mud and lotus is not unlike the juxtaposition of death and resurrection in the Christian tradition.  The empty tomb of Easter can only be understood through the experience of suffering and death on the cross. To fully understand the promise of new life, we must confront the death of our old ways of living and being.  Through the liturgy – baptism, proclamation of the word, and the shared meal – the assembly has gathered to meditate upon and respond to this juxtaposition for millennia.
 
Through the work and prayer at Thomas Chapel, and through the greater project of the Portiuncula Guild, we hope to offer opportunities to explore juxtapositions such as these – mud and lotus, suffering and happiness, death and resurrection –  and how they can inform our lives in community with one another.  In doing so, we invite artists and seekers, the faithful and doubting alike, to delve deep into the mud of human experience and revel in the beauty of life’s lotus flowers.  We are blessed that Lori Leist has shared her spiritual reflections and her gift of art with us to guide us in this journey.

MEB
____________________

No Mud, No Lotus:  The Art of Transforming Suffering, Thich Nhat Hahn, 2014.

More on Megan Davies
More on Mary Oliver

More on Susan B. Viemeister
More on Birago Diop and listen to Sweet Honey in the Rock's musical setting of Breaths