Sometimes, Ever So Rarely, a Good Idea

Wednesday night the high school youth took their turn on the labyrinth. I'll have to admit, I was reticent. They are, after all, teenagers whose very job description is to be unpredictable -- emotionally mercurial, intermittently mature, fiercely compassionate while simultaneously cloyingly narcissistic. We can be having the deepest, most insightful conversations one minute, and then effortlessly slip sideways into petty trivialities and gossip the next without so much as a comma, let alone a period and a new paragraph. They are, I suppose when I put it that way, only louder, slightly more hormonal versions of the rest of us.

So, I had some questions about how the labyrinth would go. It is a silent walk, and our group isn't known for being quiet. It requires personal space, and our group is incessantly sitting on, picking at, playing with and throwing things at each other. It demands persistence, and we don't stick very long with very much -- except, I'll have to say, with each other, and that last fact gave me some hope. The labyrinth was either going to be just intriguing enough to hold our attention, or a total bust.

I began with a little history, then transitioned to a few instructions -- primarily involving leaving each other alone -- asked everyone to remove their shoes and then to mentally, spiritually prepare. I suggested they simply sit quietly before beginning the walk, and when finished, to consider sitting back down to reflect for a moment before leaving, since this was to be the last activity of our time together this week. I invited them to have no preconceptions or expectations of the experience, but to simply take the walk and allow it to be whatever it might be. It isn't magic, I said. Some people, I told them, find it a waste of time; others find it to be a very powerful, enlightening, even emotional experience of insight, clarity and holy presence. It is, I suggested, not for everyone, and while I hoped they would try it, it was not a requirement. Do it if you want, or don't. And then I stopped.

It was quiet as I walked to the back of the room where another adult was trying to get my attention. After conferring there and clarifying a few logistical questions, I turned to rejoin the group. I was aware that the gentle music was the only sound I could hear, and the labyrinth was alive with footsteps. It really was something beautiful and awe-filling. Slipping off my own shoes, I joined the group among the circuits, and when later I finally reached the center, I found the space quite crowded. All of the kids were there, still utterly silent; none yet ready or willing to begin the path back out. Everyone graciously made room for the next to arrive, and as I had suggested, gradually stood in a different place in the center to take in its unique view. After several minutes, one simply sat down at the edge of the center and bowed his head.

Eventually the circuits were animated by exiting steps, slowly, patiently, reverently working their way back out. From there, each moved to the chairs and sat quietly. Still, the one remained seated at the center, head down, unmoving. No one spoke; no one moved -- even the one who had opted to sit this one out remained silent and still. A moment later, the last walker rose and made his way back out and into a chair. A palpable spirit held us in suspension. It was time to leave, but no one was really willing to break the moment. Finally I asked if anyone wanted to comment about the experience.

"I told someone at school what we were going to be doing tonight, and how dumb it sounded, and how I was going to just laugh my way through it. But I loved it. I have never felt that peaceful. You are wrong -- there is something magic about it."

And the one who had lingered so long in the center said, in a voice calmer than I have ever heard from him, said, "for the first time in my life I felt at peace with myself. And it's strange; I was aware of walking in to the center, but I don't remember walking back out. I never knew when I left. This was an amazing experience -- the closest I think we can come to Nirvana."

A few other comments were shared, underscores of the others, and then gently, almost reluctantly, we filed out the aisles to go home. Just before exiting the door, one turned back for one last look...

...one last breath...

...one last savor...

...of the peace.

And locking the door and driving home, I somehow felt it, too. Every once in awhile -- ever so rarely -- you have a good idea.

The Feet's Circuitous Worship

After worship, the chancel was cleared -- pulpit and lectern pushed to the side; communion table and piano rolled to the corner; chairs stacked away. No words would be read or proclaimed in this space for a time; no rituals enacted or songs sun aloud. For the next several days our worship expressions would be footsteps -- silently contributed, one in front of the other, following the circuits of the canvas labyrinth unrolled across the hardwood expanse.

Contributed, but to whom I'm not at all sure. The walking is an act of devotion, to be sure, and so God is surely recipient. But it is just as certainly an act of centering, of quieting, of more consciously "being," and so perhaps the footsteps are equally offered as a profound and encircling gift to self.

Who can say what thoughts arise along the courses and amidst the turns? Who can say what clarities emerge and what insights surface or what prayers are raised or what emotions freed? Who can say what "good" the walking finally does?

Certainly not me. I can only say that I, too, self-consciously slip off my shoes, step in through the entrance, and lose myself among the coming and the going, the stretching and the twisting in a way that is finally finding.

And I leave wishing that all the worship that occupies this floor could somehow be this good.

Welcoming those Avian Heralds of Spring

The robins are back, which in more ways than one afford something of a harbinger of spring. They come at a time when winter has stretched our last nerve and, like a guitar string, is plucking out a monotonous and abrasive tune.
The chill and snowflakes that felt quaint and appropriate and even invigorating in the run up to Christmas by now are feeling interminable and grating and demoralizing. We are, as March blusters along, literally aching for spring.

The robins always surprise me when they appear every year about this time, because any mid-western fool knows that the occasional milder days appearing randomly through the week will very likely be slapped down by yet another bitter turn. This for at least another month. Indeed, last Friday saw mercury in the 50's, while Sunday brought new snow, and Tuesday the low was again near 0. Robins are either incredibly intrepid or dangerously naive to show up this early.

But what I love the most about their appearing -- and what makes their arrival as much of a metaphor as a fact -- is their girth. Everyone of them seems to be carrying a dozen or more eggs. They are huge -- bellies swollen almost into caricatures. After somehow managing to get airborne, they clunk back down gracelessly to the earth to hunt for food or, more likely, simply to rest. And there they move lunkishly across the lawn as feathery promises -- pregnant with both the assurance and the foretaste of the spring that is -- one of these days -- to come.

Welcome back, you comical, beautiful, very pregnant avian heralds. We have been waiting.

The Desperate Pursuit of Something to Complete

Thunder and lighting swept in during the night, birthing a Saturday gloomy, chilly and wet. Like a new convert drifting back into a bar, it was a difficult backslide away from the springlike days just ended. As dreary as it has been, the shivering rain made it easier to spend the morning at the church in a visioning retreat. Reaching deeply and squinting forward, the group of us did good work. Hospital visits followed -- one, where a stroke was ruled out, and the other where heart problems aren't the concern after all.

And then John finally died. "Finally" here is not toned with dismissal or impatience. This was a dear and beloved man who man whose body, in old age, simply wore out. Death, in his case, fit that pastoral but still somehow cerebral assessment of "blessing." Under hospice care for a week, John had lingered, languished, and slowly, ever-so-slowly dissolved into death. His family, constantly at his side, holding his hands, slipping ice chips between his lips, calling his name and trying to adjust their minds to the inevitable, were tired. It was, in that biblical sense of the word, "time."

Vision, illness, death. Rain. I came home and dismantled the pipes beneath the bathroom sink. Running slow -- if perceptively at all -- for quite some time, they undoubtedly needed attention. But just now I had some desperate attention I needed to pay to something I could I could take a wrench and a pipe snake to -- something that had a good reason for stinking and making a mess apart from simply "that's the way life goes." And once the pieces were miraculously back together it felt good, if only for a moment, to watch the hot water swirl in the bowl and then simply go away.

Plumbing is not my long suit, but it was nice, for a change, to see something fixed. It will clog up again, I know; but for the moment I did something I can check off. The hospitals will still be there tomorrow, filled with loved ones impaled on ambiguous symptoms. Visioning is always about planting seeds of trees in whose shade we will never likely sit. And tomorrow we will plan a memorial service for John -- only the beginning of an indefinite process of reweaving the fabric of life absent his thread. But at least I know how to remove the trap beneath the sink.

It's raining, and it's Saturday, and somewhere in the tangled intersection of grief and hope, I'm wondering if the neighbors have any sink problems I can tackle.

In Deliberate Pursuit of Splendor

The preacher last week talked about the need for building a repertoire of splendor.  She observed that it is easy for preachers to talk about depravity -- we see it all the time.  We know what it looks like simply by looking within us and around us.  We boast a very large, full-color portfolio of ways that people treat people badly, even despicably.  Say the words and the images spring to mind.  But, she went on to argue, we are also supposed to be talking about glory -- the very desire and experience of God.  Surely our calling is not simply about berating our baser instincts, but finally about whetting an appetite for something better.  The problem, she pointed out, is that most of us have so few experiences of splendor.  Say the words and what images appear?  For most of us, they are likely to be only the faintest impressions.  We know so little about it first-hand.  We can talk boldly in abstractions, but only tentatively by experience.

Her recommendation was to be deliberate about splendor -- building a repertoire of such experiences; planning for them; seeking them out.  She revealed that when she goes on sabbatical she intentionally builds in plans for splendor.  She offered a few examples.  Hers, of course, are not the point.  The point would be reflecting upon and designing and seeking out our own.

I have certainly been blessed by more than few glimpses.  Some of them have been geographic -- the compelling beauty of the South Pacific; the intricate, fragile balance of the Galapagos; the awe-filling grandeur of mountain vistas and the silencing wonder of the sun setting over the ocean.  Some of them have been interpersonal -- in humbling conversations with a saint or a sage.  Some of them have been participatory -- in the rhythmic descent into baptismal waters with a wonder-eyed youth or a cancer-laced dying adult; in the prayerful heavy/lightness of elders' hands on my head in ordination; holding hands and repeating vows in front of family and friends and an evergreen tree.  Some of them have been purely personal -- late night vespers in a lakeside church of rocks when, for all the silence, the very stars of my soul exploded; that expansive, momentary hush on Christmas Eve just after the singing has ended but before the candles have been blown dark.

Splendor (n): 

1. Great light or luster; brilliance.
2. A Quality that outshines the usual
   
3. 1. Magnificent appearance or display; grandeur.
   2. Something grand or magnificent.
4. Great fame; glory.

I am in favor of it.  And I am in favor of building a vast repertoire of it -- so that we can talk about it, taste and smell and hear and feel it, if only in its imperfect part.  But I don't think the world can afford for any of us to wait for sabbaticals to begin executing the plan.  Surely there is splendor to be found somewhere in the hours and experiences of today.

I will watch for it...
...so that I can remember it.

Grooving on the Flash of Recognition

I like to pretend that I have simply grown more sophisticated. It's more realistic to conclude that I am merely growing out of touch. In my younger years -- even well-beyond the junior high and high school brackets -- the Grammy Awards show was one of the benchmarks of the broadcast season. The live performances, the feeling of vested interest as my favorites were pitted against...the others. I knew them all, and had artistic opinions. I, after all, was a musician myself and kept up with these things.

But in recent years I have recognized fewer and fewer of the nominees and cared about even fewer. The performances became increasingly...er, uh, ummm...silly, and the suspense -- not really knowing the artists, and not really liking their music -- was, shall I say, suspended.

All of which is to say that when I looked over this year's list of nominees I was surprised by the light of recognition. If I can't quite say it is a "bright" light, it is at least to know it as something other than darkness. And I don't merely recognize many of the names; several of them are actually on my iPod. Adele, nominated for "Record of the Year," "Song of the Year," "Best New Artist," "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance" and perhaps others; Duffy, nominated in many of the same categories; Jasan Mraz, John Mayer, Alicia Keys, Death Cab for Cutie -- they are all there in my playlist. And at least I am somewhat familiar with Leona Lewis and Sara Bareilles and Coldplay. And, as if to provide ongoing proof that there is a God, nominated right alongside these newer faces are the likes of The Eagles, James Taylor, Paul McCartney and Robert Plant. Heart be still.

Maybe I'm groovier than I thought -- which, I suppose, is proof positive that I'm not.

That said, maybe I'll watch the broadcast anyway. For old times sake.

Valentines as the Super Bowl of Love

So, what now? Christmas and New Year celebrations are past, as is the celebration of Lori's 50th birthday. The Presidential inauguration is now history, likewise the 50th anniversary commemoration of "the day the music died" which looks back at the last concert by Buddy Holly, J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson and Richie Valens before dying in a plane crash nearby. Time has expired in the 43rd Superbowl, and even Bruce Springsteen's new album has been released, downloaded and played. What's left? What can a guy virtually drunk on big events look forward to now?

Well, there's spring, but given the forecast of 1-degree tonight and -1 tomorrow, changing seasons could be tough to imagine. Today is Groundhog Day and that could extend the super weekend excitement for a moment, but a furry rodent's climatic assessments have never really plugged me in. A new Susan Werner album should hit iTunes tomorrow, and new music from her is always welcome. But big events? Iconic celebrations? Easter feels a very long way off, as does Memorial Day. Sure, President's Day is just around the corner, but only bank employees and letter carriers are likely to get real charged by that anticipation.

And, of course, there is Valentine's Day. Hmmm. Valentine's Day. Now, that has some possibilities. Traditionally focused on romance, that, alone, sounds like a welcomed change of topic for this season of layoffs, bankruptcies, liquidations and foreclosures. Even the word, "Bailout", omnipresent and defining the cultural moment and mood, sounds demoralizing rather than encouraging. Why not, then, rally around a little respite of romantic planning and thinking and practice. Goodness knows we could benefit from a little more attention to the practices of wooing as opposed to our preoccupation with winning and crushing. A dozen roses and some fancy chocolates just might be good medicine for more than our intimate affections and relations.

What might happen if we devoted more attention to Valentines -- beyond the schmaltzy cards and heart-shaped candies? What if we expanded our attentions beyond just romance, in particular, to include love in general, and the skills and practices that nourish it? The newspaper could feature expert advice on healthy communication. Churches could preach about forgiveness. Schools could sharpen their attention to appreciating differences. The President could give a major policy speech on diplomatic relations. This could, in other words, become a national focus on developing and sustaining relationships of positive regard -- a kind of "Super Bowl of Loving".

Who am I kidding? A quick look at the crowded court dockets, global military conflicts, the Pentegon budget, and party-line votes in Congress makes it clear that no one really wants to talk about getting along -- let alone the discipline of learning how.

It was, though, fun to dream about even if only for a moment.