So, I have arrived at the point in my life where I need to write. But I have NO discipline, whatsoever, towards that end, and so I am forcing one upon the situation. Each day this Advent, I have to do a little. And people are helping, too. Tonight at Salem we start a series of Advent concerts and meditations, and I will read this little piece I wrote after Jules and I do a 20-minute improv interweaving wordless vocalises of: Lili Boulanger Gabriel Fauré Camille Saint-Saëns and Lee Hoiby It all starts about 7:00. Dinner beforehand. Heres the text of my talk: “O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie! Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by. Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light; The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” Here, even in the hopelessly sentimental Victoriana of Philips Brooks’ immortal carol, there is enough poetry for us to connect all of the themes of our Advent devotional effort here at Salem this year: 1. The historical Bethlehem; then and now; 2. The star and its significance and guidance; and 3. The opening of our own hearts and minds through them so that Christmas might burst upon us with renewed joy and gladness. Now, as in the time of Jesus or Nazareth, Bethlehem is a sleepy, small, not-too-interesting backwater; population 25,000. And a sleepy backwater with SERIOUS issues: converging faiths at disagreement and at actual war with each other; an economy based on not much more than exigency – then a town of local food production; now a tourist-based industry; but mostly, an urgent irony: How on Earth does something so significant take place HERE? Of all places?? And the imagery of a “heavenly star” is crucial here: since HOW ELSE are you supposed to find such a tiny, reality-ridden, painful little place - if not with some sort of celestial guidance? As in the rest of life, it is the darkness, our darkness – the “dark streets” in our own minds are hearts – that defines light, that gives any light is super-significance and value. The Magi would never have even remotely imagined they would have to find such a non-place as Bethlehem. But there they went. And there we shall go. Guided by the gifts of Advent – a deliberate quiet, a seeing and not just a looking, a listening and not just a hearing, an active inventory: which means a time to stop and press our God-given senses, all of them, into the genuine reality of our hearts, however disarrayed – we, too, may gain the ability to see what vaguely smelly, inexplicably fearful, dark and dim alleys of our own need a bit of light: -A bit of examination. -A bit of repentance. -A bit of accepting of the forgiveness that WAS ALWAYS THERE. -A bit of willingness to do some forgiving of our own. -A bit of a desire, finally, to commend the faith that was born, innocently and well, into each of us, regardless of the location of the wilderness where we came to be. Wherever that was. Now, personally, one of my greatest gifts is taking inventory. Yours. I can hand you a personally-tailored list of ALL the things that need cleaning up or changing or modifying just the teensiest bit. All with uncanny accuracy. But my challenge, which I lay before you this evening, is to turn my prodigious empathies and intuitions INWARD. I need to forget about you people for a week or two or three. I need to have a good hard look - not a harsh look necessarily, just a thorough one - and tend to my own little house-cleaning and door-unlocking projects. And don’t expect me to share any of these details, either. It’s not only not necessary - because I’ll use anything, even your very understandable curiosities, to justify my own unwillingness to heal - but ultimately it’s really, really uninteresting. Especially to God Almighty, who knew all of this already, and to whom NO sin is really any more egregious than any other. But a willful darkness? That’s a problem. Back to Philip Brooks, this time verse four, which no one ever much sings since it doesn’t make it into very many hymnals, but which has been a starting point for me now for 35 or so Advents: I will offer each line of the stanza, with my plain-spoken recap: “Where children pure and happy pray to the blessèd Child, [PAY ATTENTION TO THE LITTLE ONES...] Where misery cries out to Thee, Son of the mother mild; [LISTEN TO THE VOICES OF PAIN AND NEED AROUND YOU...] Where charity stands watching and faith holds wide the door, [LOVE PEOPLE; AND BELIEVE, WHETHER YOU DO OR NOT...] The dark night wakes, the glory breaks, and Christmas comes once more.” [MAY SUCH GLORY BREAK IN UPON US ALL.] Amen.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Dec 2013 21:09:16 +0000
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