FAITH HOUSE Manhattan

Living Room Gathering: LENT - 40 Days for Learning to Let Go

~ by Bowie Snodgrass

On February 26, in our regular space at Intersections, we participated in an interactive and experiential Living Room gathering, designed to introduce the Christian season of Lent to non-Christians and Christians who do not observe Lent.  Members of the community came early to help set up the space, practiced singing the hymns beforehand, read the scripture readings and litany, participated in the stations, and shared afterward. The program lasted about an hour and 20 minutes, including prelude, followed by time for socializing around food and conversation. You can follow the program below as an online Lenten mediation at home or adapt it for your local community.

Prelude Music: David Bowie “Ashes to Ashes” and J. Snodgrass “If My House Burned Down”
(or select other modern songs or music from your community with Lent-like themes)

Welcome & Family Time
(announcements, new people introduced themselves, overview of gathering, etc)

Song: “The Glory of These Forty Days” 

Mathew 3:13-17; 4:1-11 (this was read by three youth: one read words of Jesus, one read John the Baptist and the devil, and the third was narrator)

Psalm 19:7-14

Lent 101 - Bowie Shared About the Forty Days of Lent & Learning to Let Go (there is good, basic info on Wikipedia) followed by personal stories and insights from things I’ve given up in past Lents…including going Vegan in 10th grade, giving up processed sugar in 12th grade, allowing myself a final 40 days to finish “getting over” an ex-boyfriend in my mid-20s, and quitting cigarettes (with a lot of preparation, will power, and nicorette gum) the Lent before my 30th Birthday. What are we called to give up to create new space in our lives for God and Love? 

Interactive STATIONS

* LISTEN Psalmi poenitentiales: VII. Domine, Exaudi (Psalmus 142)
Composer: Orlande de Lassus, 16th Century
(or select 15+ minutes of some other meditative music to play during Stations)

* ASHES Meditate on the words “Remember, you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  Ask someone to mark an ash cross on your forehead or you can put ashes elsewhere on your own skin.

* LETTING GO Take a stone, imagine the pressures, cares, and worries you are carrying.  Drop the stone in the water as a way of letting go of them and offering them to God.

* OFFERING Support this Faith House community by giving a financial offering.  No amount is too small or too large.  Take a small sandalwood soap Bowie brought from India as a tangible gift back . . .  

* PROSTRATE In the designated area, prostrate in the Eastern Orthodox style.  Feel free to kneel, do salat, assume the Yoga “child’s pose,” etc. or to ask someone to show you what they are doing.

Community Sharing – reflections on what you’ve heard or done today

Litany from Alternative Worship: Resources from and for the Emerging Church

Jesus you fasted alone for 40 days
You pushed yourself to the limits
You faced your demons and
met  your angels
We ask you to be in our fasting
Jesus give us courage
Jesus give us courage   

Jesus you feasted with outcasts
You broke down the barriers that
divided people
by sharing food and drink
We ask you to be in our feasting
Jesus give us courage
Jesus give us courage   

Jesus you had a passion for a life of extremes, you taught us that to live we have to be prepared to die, to eat we have to be prepared to fast, to love others we have to learn to be alone.  We ask you to be in our living
Jesus give us courage
Jesus give us courage

Closing Song: “Forty Days and Forty Nights”

From my Whirling Cousin In Istanbul

~ by Samir Selmanovic

Following is an email and pictures I have received from my second cousin Bekir Yenerer who lives in Istanbul, Turkey, and is following Faith House on the web. This is published with his permission.

The first picture, I took last year in Istanbul at the 800-year celebration of the birth of Rumi Mevlana. It was published in the newspapers here in Turkey. The others are from Yalova, taken during the yearly meeting of an international Mevlana organization, including people from 44 different countries and religions. The meeting went on non-stop for 40 days. I went for four days and we all felt like brothers and sisters there. In this prayerful whirling dance, all the incidents and details of life disappear and the only thing left is God's love, everything else, including me, disappears. The whole cosmos is God's shadow. Enjoy the pictures. I am so glad we have connected again.

 

Bless Your Pharaoh

~ by Amichai Lau-Lavie, Faith House Advisory Council member, and founder, executive, and artistic director of Storahtelling Inc.

"God Bless You"– this common post-sneeze sacred invocation that has gone completely secular is uttered endlessly and mindlessly around the world. Just like 'God Bless America,' this is often simply a polite figure of speech, a civic, civil nicety. In Hebrew you say "La'brioot" – "to health."

The cultural differences are interesting but either way, these are expressions of empathy, and I've been intrigued by this word/concept--empathy--for about a week now. How come there is no word for "empathy" in Hebrew? No exact translation, that is – Israelis say "empatia," one of many foreign words that migrated into Modern Hebrew and stuck. It's a telling fact, though, that words like 'empathy' or 'pluralism' or 'text' do not have an Israeli life of their own. These days, I wonder not only about the missing word in Hebrew but also about the collective ability to exercise the word's imperative: to feel empathy towards others, esp. others in distress, and esp. others in distress who are very much 'the other.'

Ten days since the ceasefire in Gaza, and many efforts at rehabilitation take place– physical, emotional, political and diplomatic. But for many here in Israel, the anger remains. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. Merely suggesting the expression of empathy towards the people of Gaza, alongside support for the IDF soldiers and the people of Sdeort, gets many Israelis – including family members and close friends – furious. Calls for empathy and care for the estimated 20,000 Gaza residents who are now homeless is met with pursed lips: "let Hamas help them, its their own fault." Empathy, generally recognized as "the ability to sense and understand someone else's feelings as if they were one's own," seems to take a backseat to her fierce and frugal sister -- survival. "I just can't afford to be thinking about them right now" M. tells me. I get this approach but it drives me nuts. ‘You’ve been in NY for too long’ B. tells me ‘this is how we roll here, remember?’ This isn’t helping either.

There are, thankfully, other voices, and other initiatives that think and do otherwise. L., for instance, a 27 year old student from Jerusalem who teamed up with another student and organized within 5 days a 7 truck convey of emergency supplies to Gaza, thousands of Israeli donations of clothes, food, blankets and personal letters from Israeli citizens to the families beyond the border. I met L. at the weekly Zohar class we attend at the Hartman Institute – who knew she was such an organizer? She didn't sleep for a week and offered many of us a way to be really helpful. I helped by carrying boxes. The story hit the media two days ago -- even Al Jazeera wanted to interview her…

And meanwhile, I've been asking people for Hebrew translation for 'empathy' – heads are scratched, options offered, all admit that there is no one single perfect Hebrew word for it. Yet. How long has it been missing? How come there isn't one?

"In essence," L. tells me, mid-carrying-boxes, "'love your neighbor as you love yourself' is the root of empathy – and Judaism's core concept – but I guess it got lost in translation. isn’t this in the Bible somewhere?"

So I turn to search for empathy in Exodus and check the tale out this week's Torah reading. It’s got the Prime Time coverage of the actual moment of the Exodus – the last midnight in Egypt. The firstborn of Egypt are slain – and there isn't a home in the land that has not been struck by death. Amid the screams, the king relents – demands that they leave the land – and offers the most audacious invitation for empathy:

"Take both your flocks and your herds and be gone; and bless me also" (Ex.12:32).

He's asking them for a blessing?

How can he expect Moses and his people to have anything but hatred in their hearts towards him? And yet he asks. And we are invited to consider, seriously, his request. Can we bless the enemy – then, now?

And let's say we do decide to grant him a blessing – let's pretend that empathy swims in our veins – what blessing would he receive? What blessing would you offer the ruler who has ruled over your misery?

This past Sunday evening, right after the Zohar class (in which L. updates us that the convoy of trucks, courtesy of the UN, made it into Gaza and that the supplies have already been delivered) I walk over to my parents’ house to have dinner. it’s a 10 minute walk, the evening is cold and crisp, and on the way I ponder this question – who is my Pharaoh? Would, could, should I bless him? I recall the psychological/mystical reading that the Zohar offers the Exodus saga – this is all a description of our inner drama. The oppressed slaves are within me – yearning for more freedom, for more autonomy, for more self expression, Moses is my inner drive for growth, my connection to the Higher Self, and sometimes this inner Moses will resort to strange tricks or fierce strikes to get its point across. And Pharaoh – Freud would call him ‘ego’, and I see him as that part of me that refuses to change, yet knows he – I – have to change in order to grow. Can I have empathy towards my inner resistance? Can I have empathy towards my fellow Israelis who have no empathy?

After dinner with my father (my mother is out at some lecture) I sit with him and open a Torah and read the verses with him and ask – what blessing would you have given the king?

My father, who is no Pollyanna, may or may not be thinking of his Nazi jailers, or the Hamas fighters or any other mythic or historical 'Pharaoh' as he quietly, and with great empathy, offers this version of a blessing to the King of Egypt: "May your river continue to flow."

God Bless him.

(And, If you were to bless the Pharaoh – what would your blessing be?)

The Invitation Home (Part 2)

~ by Juliet rabia Gentile

(This is a continuation of the last week's article. To read Part 1 click HERE.)       

 Konya is a small industrial town set like a dusty jewel in the crown of Central Anatolia. It is famous and widely visited only due to the fact that it holds the tomb of Mevlana Jelaladdin Rumi. Over the years since Mevlana Rumi’s death on December 17th 1273, a mystical order based upon his teachings called the Mevlevi order grew. The ritual practice called Sema that one associates with Mevlevis or whirling dervishes – think spinning figures in generous white gowns with funny tomb stone shaped hats whirling for hours - developed out of an incident in a marketplace right there in the town square in Konya. Everything that we know about Rumi has been preserved by his students and family members and can be found in the landscape or in the hearts of the people of Konya.

My flight from Istanbul touched down several hours late due to a burgeoning fog that wrapped itself around Konya’s empty streets like an old friend. Soon after my arrival the phone began to ring and plans mounted up. The celebrations in Konya were well under way despite the cold and fog: there was no time to rest!

It is tradition that Sufis gather together from across the globe every year for seventeen days leading up to the Shebi-Arus celebration which culminates on December 17th. This event known as the “wedding night” commemorates the time when Mevlana Rumi went to join his Beloved. The anniversary of his death is celebratory rather than somber. In fact Rumi wrote in one of his poems, “if you harvest the wheat growing over my grave and bake bread with it, it is sure to intoxicate!” So strong was Mevalana Rumi’s love for God that his fragrance still attracts lovers of all walks of life, religions and nationalities, some 800 years after his death, like bees to honey.

My first stop in Konya was the informal headquarters of the trip: Dervish Brothers Center. DBC was the place of beginning and ending of all journeys and adventures and was visited by many dervish sisters despite its name. It was a place to make and break plans, listen to music and poetry, sip endless cups of tea and have intimate discussions extending into the morning. Before long I had lost track of the number of dhikrs, impromptu musical gatherings, meals and endless prayer vigils I had attended. One highlight of historical importance was a Sufi dhikr held at the tomb of Shems i Tabriz (the mystic thought to be responsible for the full flowering of spiritual wisdom in Rumi’s adult life). This beautiful prayer ceremony which somewhat spontaneously coalesced after the afternoon prayer in the Mosque of Shems was well attended and miraculously accepted by the Mosque authorities, a quiet, though great victory for Sufi activity in Turkey.

One of curiosities of traveling to Turkey is that everywhere you go you encounter people and businesses selling Sufism and Sufi paraphernalia (not always authentic) to tourists, even while its practice is illegal under Turkish law. You may ask yourself why, at a time when Islam is weighed down with fundamentalisms of various stripes and colors, would anyone want to suppress an interpretation of Islam based upon the principle of universal love? Well, despite changing public and political opinion in favor of Sufism, its practitioners are still vulnerable to law enforcement, therefore making the beautiful that day a great triumph towards further opening the gates of understanding and tolerance. 

Perhaps more than any other lesson this journey to Konya taught me the importance of tolerance and understanding, even when I fell short. When you are in a strange country, speaking a new language the importance of open heartedness and true understanding become crystal clear. You become acutely aware of your utter dependence on the kindness of others and their willingness to cover your faults. It takes truth, sincerity and perseverance to navigate cultural divides and find common ground with the other in often difficult or awkward circumstances.

At home, surrounded by the comfort of “my family, my city, my country” it is easy to become complacent and intolerant. It is harder to extend a hand of guidance, friendship, or love. We think our lives don’t depend on it.

In a rapidly shrinking global world colored by increasing violence and polarization, perhaps now more than ever we are challenged to open, rather than shut down, to question and learn, rather than judge. This realization, which I experienced directly rather than ‘thought about’ was one of the most precious gifts I received from Mevlana Rumi and my journey to Konya. In the shadow of His light I witnessed the power of personal connection. The soul stirring invitation afforded by a warm glance, a smile, a prayer – signals that reach across language, race and religion.

In the airport on the way home we encountered that divine fog once again, hemming us in as we waited for hours in the small Konya airport. In the huddled masses there were various fellow pilgrims from England, Pakistan, South Africa and Iran. As the hours wore on and we shared stories, fruit, tea and tears it became crystal clear that we were all drawn to Konya from our various far-flung destinations for one reason: love.

Despite what shade our skin was, what language we spoke or what lives we were returning to, we were all, in our essential natures, one. In those hours of listening to the stories of my fellow pilgrims, the inner meaning contained in Rumi’s famous verses - the importance of extending the invitation of love to others, despite what we think of them - was revealed. This is true Godliness, this is the invitation Home.

"Come, come again
Whoever you are.
Pious one, infidel, heretic, fire worshipper.
Even if you promised a hundred times
And a hundred times you broke your promise,
This door is not the door
Of hopelessness and frustration.
This door is open to everyone.
Come, come as you truly are."

The Invitation Home (Part 1)

~by Juliet rabia Gentile

Since July my colleagues at Faith House Manhattan; Samir, Bowie, Jill, Lauralea and I have put much energy and thought into building a brick and mortar Home for people of all traditions or faiths, or of no particular faith at all. In early December, following a successful Faith House Living Room gathering entitled, Holy Journey: Hajj and Eid ul Adha, where we hosted various leaders from the Muslim Community in New York City, I departed to Turkey for both a personal, spiritual journey and a ground-laying expedition for an International Conference of Sufi women.

On the lengthy plane ride it dawned on me: Istanbul is my spiritual Home. Home is a laden word. For some it conjures happy memories and warm feelings while for others, like victims of violence or exile, the word signals profound grief and longing for what once was. Growing up in and around New York City, a place forever in flux and transition, the word has meant many things to me at different times. Over time I learned not to settle into one set notion of home. Therefore this thought came as a surprise. Perhaps all of us have at one point or another felt a longing for a physical home-land and similarly have felt a pull inward, a longing to find a personal sanctuary, a spiritual home to bring peace, balance and rooted-ness to our life.

Being a student of mysticism I have been taught to seek and find this center in the locus of my “heart.” Called qalb in Arabic and gunul in Turkish, the heart I speak of is not the physical heart but your emotional center where your soul resides, where one’s true essential humanity is to be found. The door to this home is always open, the entrance always immediate.

Despite this fact, on this bitterly cold day in early December I was decidedly on an outer journey into space and time. I was set to arrive in Istanbul, Turkey for a few days and then make my way to Konya, in Central Anatolia, for the Shebi-Arus (literally, wedding day) festival in honor of the poet Mevlana Jelaladdin Rumi, known as “Rumi” in the west. This trip was a long anticipated pilgrimage which I had dreamt of for years.

Islamic tradition relates that the Awliya or (Saintly friends of God) never spiritually die and therefore old cities like Istanbul and centers of spiritual learning, like Konya –places where many Awliya lived and died, are potent places to visit. Therefore I always prepare spiritually and mentally to receive whatever teachings these visits have to offer. You could say I use these travels as litmus tests or sign posts for my own spiritual journey. Spiritual pilgrimage in all traditions is like a continual Sabbath, a state in which your mind and heart are at peace and open to receive the treasures placed before you by God. In this state of openness, every person you meet, every place you visit has something to teach you.

When I arrived in Istanbul, the city was windswept and subdued by rain. The streets were virtually empty as people took a much needed rest after a week of Eid ul Adha (feast of sacrifice) celebrations. That first morning I met up with a young dervish (spiritual initiate), Kemal, who is a life-long member of the Halveti-Jerrahi Sufi order (a Sufi order founded in the 17th century in Istanbul). That day Kemal took me around to some of the sights of Istanbul including Topkapi Palace, which holds Holy relics of the Prophet Muhammad and my favorite Tea garden, the ‘Mystic Water Pipe.’ I ask you where else one can sip Turkish ‘cay’ and smoke a ‘narguila’ (a popular water pipe for scented tobacco in flavors ranging from rose to mint) all the while surrounded by floor to ceiling carpets, lamps and stray kittens cozying in warmth? This is perhaps the best way to adjust to a slower pace of life and to take in the ambience of the old world. After a few days of paying my respects and sending salams to the various Sheikhs of different Sufi orders and branches, it was time to prepare for the real adventure. I was soon to depart to that blessed city, Konya that I had long heard about and longed to visit. What I would find there, of course, defied my expectations and proved to be a memorable and life-changing experience.

(for Part 2 click HERE)

Living Room Gathering - Season of Waiting: Advent

~ by Bowie Snodgrass

Yesterday we had a wonderful, meditative Living Room based on Advent, the season in the Christian calendar that precedes Christmas.  In American consumer culture, the Christmas shopping season begins after Thanksgiving (or even before!), but in the Christian calendar, Christmas begins on December 25 and the feast continues for twelve days.  The four weeks of Advent are a time of preparation, penitence, expectation, anticipation, pregnancy, darkness, quiet, silence, and listening… 

You can go through the service we did yesterday by yourself at home.  You just need a computer with internet, speakers or headphones, and a couple of candles to light.  In this modified “Lessons and Carols", you will read the first chapter of the gospel of Luke (the silence of Zacharia, the song of Mary, the birth of John the Baptist, etc.), selections from Isaiah (a prophetic vision of social justice), a psalm and the beginning of the gospel of Mark.  Interspersed are verses of O Come O Come Emmanuel, which you can sing aloud or read along, and “anthems” you can watch or simply listen to on YouTube. 

Enjoy!

Instrumental Prelude: Isaac Everett
[at home: listen to “Incarnation” at www.isaaceverett.com/listen]

Welcome  [at home: think about what this time before Christmas means to you]

“O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.”

Luke 1:1-25

Isaiah 11:1-10
* Note: we used the JPS translations for the Hebrew Scripture readings in the service, but this translation is not available online

Young@Heart Sing Coldplay

Post-surgical Reflections

~ by Bill Ashlock (see recent picture from the day before surgery), a seasoned business executive, writer, want-to-be wood turner with a passion and calling to tend God’s trees, and a great friend of Faith House. His tools include innovation, excellence, and compassion with an unending view of community. Bill lives in California and is often found in the city he loves - New York.

The idea of stepping out of the high-powered business world during a period of massive financial uncertainty to undergo brain surgery was unthinkable. Yet a few weeks ago doctors, family, and God convinced me I had to do just that. Brain tumors, even when benign, are powerful reminders about what really matters in our upside-down world.

Looking back on the journey I have taken since last July is still overwhelming. Initially, I saw the numerous barriers as uniquely mine, regulated by physicians and lengthy periods of sleep and silence. My fears, uncertainties, and doubts overwhelmed my ability to see beyond the immediate. 

As I now inch back into the world of business, it is hard to believe how much has changed in such a brief period of time. Banks, investment houses, and financial services are in a totally different place than they were before my surgery. Every financial fact I knew and depended on to guide me in my work has been challenged. I have to examine everything I knew with a fresh perspective to see what is true today. Whatever certainty I thought was with us appears to have disappeared. Nothing is certain. It is a daunting situation.

And I am not alone.

My business community in New York, like economists and business people globally, are being tested in a wholly unique way. Traditionalists are no longer sure if their traditions are to be trusted. Conservatives despair of the values being abandoned. Everyone, even progressive and liberals, are struggling to live with unending change. The future is chaotically fuzzy even to the most optimistic. The present is filled with unknowns, uncertainties, and forces outside of our control.

Where does this leave you and me? The answer is all too obvious. We are in the same place we were yesterday, a month ago, a year ago. We are living in the present moment; we cannot live in any other time. The only realty we can know for sure is what is right now.

This may not seem like much. However, it is as much as we have ever had. The wonder of today¹s chaos is that we have been forced to face how much we do not know. Yesterday we thought we knew much. It turns out we did not.

In my self-centric world, I blissfully forget that the rest of the world is walking on regardless of where I am in my recovery process. It is sadly funny. In far too many ways, I had learned to behave as if the world revolves around what is in my vision.

The reality is that we are in a boat together. Each of us knows someone who is struggling with difficulties greater than our own. Family and friends are struggling to survive day to day. Hope seems to be a slippery commodity. Support, often taken for granted, is tentative at best.

I find myself thankful for what I have, in awe of the moments in which I live, and in a place where I can help someone near me. Members of the family have reminded me that we are in a boat together. I can see God's light in the darkness.

The question for me is one of listening and responding--do I hear, am I helping? Am I making a difference in someone else¹s life? There are actions I can take. In times of such uncertainty, I can share hope. For pain, I can offer compassion and empathy. I have experienced compassion and love; I can share.

We all can.

Circumstancial Faith?

~ by Nathan Brown, a writer and editor, based near Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of three books, including the novel Nemesis Train.

As a believer—for present purposes, defined simply as one who believes—I have often wondered what and how I would believe differently had I been born into a family and culture with different beliefs. Obviously I believe what I believe because I believe it to include truth but would I have believed in that truth if I had not been raised and taught in the way that I have? Is what I believe so “true” that I can reassure myself that if I had not “inherited” it, I would still have searched for it, found it and embraced it?

Of course, for my belief to be of value to me, I have had to make it my own, not merely “inherit” it. In its own way, this is a kind of conversion—moving from one belief to another—but perhaps a gentler process than many. But how would that process have been different and how would it have changed the way I believe if I had come to the set of beliefs I now hold from a background further removed? Indeed, would—or even could—I have arrived at that set of beliefs?

And perhaps the most difficult decision for believers to accept is when fellow believers choose differently. So what about friends with whom I have shared various aspects of my faith tradition, experience and education but who have chosen to be less committed to it or even chosen other beliefs to pursue? What in their experience or circumstances has made the difference? Not only does it strain the friendship that has existed and had been reinforced by shared belief, it must also critique one’s own belief. Are they less committed and less focused or do they demonstrate greater courage in stepping away from the safe and the assumed? And is my belief somehow diminished without the community support offered by the formerly fellow believer?

Ritual and Repetition

~ by Bowie Snodgras

A couple of weeks ago I was in Seattle for a conversation on what it means to be "Anglimergent."  Abbess Karen Ward of Church of the Apostles hosted a dozen of us to talk about the innovative "emerging" work that is happening around the country by people and communities with an Anglican bond or affection.  If you are interested in learning more about Anglimergence, check out anglimergent.ning.com. 

The night before our gathering began, I stayed at a friend's house and was reading an early-summer New Yorker magazine with a series of one-page reflections on "Faith and Doubt" when I came across one called "Counting Pages" by Allegra Goodman.  I have included the first and last paragraphs below... a beautiful reflection on being inside and just outside of religious structures.

As a young girl, I spent more time outside synagogues than in them.  Services were long, and I always found some excuse to get away.  I remember the Quonset hut where my family went to services when we first moved to Honolulu.  The building looked like a white cylinder half buried in the ground.  I remember borrowed space in a Unitarian church, an elegant old house with woven mats covering hardwood floors.  A weathered tree house sat in the branches of a large tree in the garden.  I'd leave my sandals on the grass and climb the ladder to read Wizard of Oz books.

. . . And yet, inexorably, some of my own religion rubbed off on me.  Might that be the way belief works for some people?  Not  a sudden epiphany but a long, slow accumulation of Sabbaths.  No road-to-Damascus conversion but a kind of coin rubbing, in which ritual and repetition begin to reveal the credo underneath.  As I grew older, I was drawn to poetry, and I began to study the haftarah - the weekly selection from the prophets.  As I grew busier, I began to appreciate the time away from the world.  Services became a refuge.  I did not need to rest when I was a child, because I did not work.  I did not want to come inside, because the outside world was still entirely beautiful to me.

Songs About All of Us: Dan Bern's God Said No

~ by Samir Selmanovic

This song has been coming back to me over and over again, ever since I first heard it on Dan Bern's 2001 album New American Language (thank you Ralf for this gift!). Dan is an indie acoustic folk/rock singer-songwriter. God Said No is a time-travel song that questions our desire to change the past (and by extension, see into the future).  Dan's vision of an encounter with God implies we cannot escape from now, where God is. This song, once it enters your system, can help free you from some illusions you might have about yourself.

I could not find Dan Bern's video performance of this song. Following are the lyrics and a video rendition from a YouTube dude with shades, named Malvasio.

Welcome to a walk to the edge of town.

God Said No

I met God On the edge of town
Where the wind meets the stillness
Where the darkness meets the light
Where the ocean meets the sky
Where the desert meets the rain
Where the earth meets the heavens
On the edge of town
I met God

I asked God
Do one thing for me
Send me back in time, send me to Seattle
Let me go find Kurt Cobain
Take away his gun, take away his bullets
Talk to him, make him wanna live
Tell him how we love him, help him see his glory
God Said No

If I sent you back
If you really found him
You would only ask him
If he could help you get a deal
If he knows a lawyer, if he can help you
God Said No

I asked God
Do one thing for me
Send me back in time, send me to Berlin
Let me find the one they call Hitler
I will stalk him, I will bring him down
I will bring along a powerful gun, loaded with bullets
Obliterate his memory

God Said No
If I sent you back
You would get caught up in theory and discussion
You would let your fears delay and distract you
You would make friends, you would take a lover
God Said No

I asked God
Do one thing for me
Send me back in time, send me to Jerusalem
Let me go, let me go find Jesus
Let me save his life as they try to kill him
Let me take him down, down from the cross
Take the iron from his body, try to heal his wounds
God Said No

If I let you go
If you really found him
Walking with the cross you would stare
Your tongue no longer working,
Eyes no longer seeing
Ears no longer hearing

God said Time
Time belongs to me
Time's my secret weapon
My final advantage
God turned away
From the edge of town
I knew I was beaten
And that now was all I had

God Said No

For more Songs About All of Us click:

Susan Werner's Heaven So Small

Sting's Fragile

Two Poems That Will Stop You In Your Religious Tracks

~ by Samir Selmanovic

April is National Poetry Month. Here are two poems of war I recently came across (thank you Robert Darken for “Revenge” and Erica Wright for “The Diameter of the Bomb”). Read them and be prepared to carry them inside of you for weeks to come.  These are about you and me, no matter what our religion, race, or nationality. We fall within the diameter of every bomb and we all find solace in suffering of our enemies. And we have a say about the wars raging close and far away. No war is ever merely their war.

THE DIAMETER OF THE BOMB

(by Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000),
translated from Hebrew by Yehuda Amichai and Ted Hughes,
Selected Poems edited by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort)

The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its
effective range –
about seven meters.
And in it four dead and eleven wounded.
And around them in a greater circle
of pain and time are scattered
two hospitals and one cemetery.
But the young woman who was
buried where she came from
over a hundred kilometers away
enlarges the circle greatly.
And the lone man who weeps over her death
in a far corner of a distant country
includes the whole world in the circle.
And I won’t speak at all about the crying of orphans
that reaches to the seat of God
and from there onward, making
the circle without end and without God.

                REVENGE

                (Nazareth, April 15, 2006,
                by Taha Muhammad Ali,
                translated from Arabic by Peter Cole,
                Yahya Hijazi, and Gabriel Levin)

                At times ... I wish
                I could meet in a duel
                the man who killed my father
                and razed our home,
                expelling me
                into
                a narrow country.
                And if he killed me,
                I’d rest at last,
                and if I were ready—
                I would take my revenge!

                *

                But if it came to light,
                when my rival appeared,
                that he had a mother
                waiting for him,
                or a father who’d put
                his right hand over
                the heart’s place in his chest
                whenever his son was late
                even by just a quarter-hour
                for a meeting they’d set—
                then I would not kill him,
                even if I could.

                *

                Likewise ... I
                would not murder him
                if it were soon made clear
                that he had a brother or sisters
                who loved him and constantly longed to see him.
                Or if he had a wife to greet him
                and children who
                couldn’t bear his absence
                and whom his gifts would thrill.
                Or if he had
                friends or companions,
                neighbors he knew
                or allies from prison
                or a hospital room,
                or classmates from his school …
                asking about him
                and sending him regards.

                *

                But if he turned
                out to be on his own—
                cut off like a branch from a tree—
                without a mother or father,
                with neither a brother nor sister,
                wifeless, without a child,
                and without kin or neighbors or friends,
                colleagues or companions,
                then I’d add not a thing to his pain
                within that aloneness—
                not the torment of death,
                and not the sorrow of passing away.
                Instead I’d be content
                to ignore him when I passed him by
                on the street—as I
                convinced myself
                that paying him no attention
                in itself was a kind of revenge.

Encounter the Mystics: Julian of Norwich

~ Dr. Frederick Roden is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Connecticut and lives in New York City. He has published primarily on homosexuality and Christianity. He is a lay Associate of the Episcopal Order of Julian of Norwich (see www.orderofjulian.org) and the author of a commentary companion to her text which will be published by Liturgical Press later this year. He is currently working on a book on Jewish/Christian intersections and can be reached at fsroden@aol.com.

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well…”  This familiar phrase of the 14th-century English writer Julian of Norwich inspired poet T. S. Eliot to look around his broken world—the devastation of twentieth-century war and genocide—and glimpse the power of the Unseen working in and through All Created Thing. We read these words and immediately assume that we should get what we’re asking for, that our prayers should be answered, that the outcome we crave is the outcome God will provide. In Julian’s theology, the answer is: yes and no. For her, as for all the great mystics and poets, the Divine is ever bursting through the material world. She maintains that we cannot know ourselves without knowing God; that God is nearer to us than our own souls. The depth of our human experience is firmly grounded in the Divine: the Divine is fully known in our material experience, not outside of it. Our deepest longings— our truest selves—are inseparable from God.

The problem comes with how things look on the outside versus inside. This question of separation versus inseparability defines Julian’s theology. She had prayed for a full experience of Jesus’s Passion. She wanted to feel the depth of human suffering her God knew. Her desire led to a vision that opened her awareness. Julian could not turn from the suffering human body of her God because there she found her heaven. Her God willed to know human suffering so deeply that it physically “one-ed” God with All Created Thing. Julian’s famous “all shall be well,” so often cited out of context, is God’s answer to her questioning of this eternal “one-ing.” How can all be well given the brokenness, suffering, and separation in the world? How can all be well given what she had been taught to understand as “sin”? In the theology Julian develops, “sin” is literally no-thing. It is separation: the wound that God constantly works to heal—the brokenness of our experience for which we can never be blamed. In and by our wounds (our divisions) we are healed and the world is made whole.

In Jewish terms, that opening is the space of tikkun olam, the repair of the world. In Julian’s words it is the work of “mercy” and “grace” dynamic and active in and through Creation. Julian’s God is a verb. This God’s sole purpose is healing separation. In a sense we have a choice whether to answer this call. Yet Divine Love (inseparable from Divine Reason) continuously works in and through us whether we like it or not, whether we cooperate or not! Julian’s Christianity understands this as the Incarnation, the Real Presence of the Divine acting through our material existence. This “Incarnation” isn’t limited to Jesus: there is no difference between God in Jesus the Christ and God operating throughout the material world. The degree and level of perfection (literally, as “fully realized,” “fully made”) may vary, but the Presence and call to be present is true for all of us in all incarnations.

Julian lived at a time of plague and war. Her society rigidly separated “saved” from “unsaved.” As much as she was a product of her culture, Julian challenged this view in claiming God as one: unity as the work, truth, and destiny of all Creation. She rejected a world-view that separated sheep from goats. While grounded in Christian Trinitarian theology, the singular experience of Divine Love working in and through the world defined that meaning Julian put forth as God’s message for all humanity. 

Julian never stopped asking questions of her God. Although professed as a hermit, her hermitage was attached to a church in a busy market town. Hers was no escape from the world but a way of living deeply in it, fully present to the experience of All Created Thing. With a literal window open to her society (who viewed her as a spiritual director) Julian conveyed her God’s ultimate message: one she spent over twenty years contemplating—the final answer to her question.  At the end of her visionary text (written in a time and place where few men and fewer women read, let alone wrote), she concluded that “Love was His meaning.”  In the end, all shall be Love. Julian did not intend that we await the end of time for realization of this Love. Rather, we are called to awaken to it in our lives as we glimpse the Divine—our truest self—in the face of The Other.

Blessed Julian of Norwich (1343-1423)

THE DAY OF

my spiritual awakening

    was the day I saw

    and knew I saw

       God in all things

       and all things in God.

Friends Don't Let Friends Consume!

~Alvin Poblacion recently moved to New York City with his best friend, Rosemary Poblacion. He currently works in Manhattan as a physical therapist. Alvin is an avid cyclist, and a photography enthusiast. He thoroughly enjoys getting lost in the City with Rosemary.

I have been drifting away from religion. The question it asks and the answers it provides seem orchestrated. I am attracted to life instead.

Just recently, I had a refreshing chat with a client of mine, (lets call him Craig) as I was treating him for low back pain. As people lie sprawled out in precarious positions, often only partially clothed, thoughtful conversations come about.

As one might expect from “patient-therapist” small-talk, I started out by asking Craig some generic questions about how he planned to spend the upcoming holidays and if he had all his holiday shopping complete. Craig was happy to say that he would be in the company of good friends and family during Christmas. However, he was a bit conflicted about what he was actually going to do during the holidays, and how he felt about shopping for gifts this season.  He wished he had the time and skill to make gifts with his own hands this year. He felt most us in the US have enough junk than we know what to do with anyway. He said he could certainly live without another remote control cozy (I didn’t even know they had those). He went on to elaborate on his growing suspicion towards the “institution” shopping has become in America. We agreed that there must be better ways out there to express our love for our Kin than what BestBuy and DeBiers might suggest.

As we were wrapping up our PT session for the day, Craig was pulling his shirt back over his head. Just then he remembered to share one last thing with me. It was a website address. When I got home from work that day, I logged on and was pleasantly surprised to find a short but informative, video clip. For many people, most of the information here is nothing new. However, I feel it was put together in a way that is bite sized and digestible for people like me. That is, people just coming into the growing conversations about hyper-consumerism, climate change, equitable living, fair trade etc. While these issues may have some political implications, I feel they have a great deal to do with personal and corporate ethics and moral values. I feel that people of faith can and must have something to say and do about the global crisis we find all of God’s creation in. I have great hopes for Faith House and its commitment to use religion to help life and not the other way around.

I trust these will be twenty well spent minutes of your life. Enjoy and use in your work as clergy, educators, activists, or with your family members, friends, and enemies! We are in this together.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Extraction

Reflections: The World We Want to Live In

~ by Rathi Raja

Rathi Raja is president of the Arsha Vedanta Center of Long Island and executive director of the Young Indian Culture Group. She has been featured extensively on PBS in their “Asian Indians in America” and in The New York Times. She is an active member of the Herricks Clergy Coalition, an interfaith group based in New Hyde Park, engaging in educating through programs in the community, schools and colleges. She has been a Hindu spiritual teacher for the past 17 years, sharing the teachings of the Vedic vision with youth and adults. She is an ethnographer and storyteller of Asian Indian heritage, and a founding trustee of Young Indian Culture Group, Inc. Rathi served as a panel member of the New York State Council on the Arts for 2003-2005, was named the Long Island Traditions’ Honoree of the Year, and received the Nassau County Community Service Award in 2000. (Recently we had the privilege of sitting down with this effervescent woman, and found her views most insightful and energizing as we continue to make plans for Faith House. Here is her contribution to our blog.)

Healing starts by knowing ourselves and then allowing the powers of desire and action to do their work. Inter-religious or inter-group dialogue without self-reflection takes us nowhere. That vital first step of knowing oneself facilitates every other progress. Without self-awareness, a dialogue is a nonstarter.

Our relationships should be far more than tolerant, but a true spirit of tolerance matters. Not one based on law, for that will be short lived, rather one rooted in compassion. Tolerance without compassion is barren.

Every religious tradition builds on the cornerstone of compassion, because this is a key aspect of what it means to be truly human. No matter what our religious tradition, we can find compassion there. It may be buried under layers of distrust, anxiety, hatred, anger and jealousy, but when we rediscover this compassion, tolerance will happen!

And out of these two—tolerance and compassion—will come trust in each other. Lack of trust is the most eroding thing in our lives today, at a personal level, in our families, community, and country. Without getting that trust back, we will never know how to speak of and live out peace.

Faith that comes from restored trust, when expressed through our personal lives or organized religion, can douse the flames of hatred and anger, and dismantle the rigid boundaries we sometimes erect for self-protection. In contrast, a faith that encourages its followers to draw rigid boundaries will lead to deepening distrust and fear, and a sense of hopelessness about ever being able to establish peaceful human relationships.

We spend so much of the world’s resources on biological diseases, but what about the spread of hatred? Unfortunately distrust and hatred spread as fast as biological diseases and are most destructive in terms of loss of human life. Like restoring human health, restoring human trust will bring with it unmeasurable good.

What is key in this process of rediscovery of what we can be? Forgiveness! We must forgive ourselves first, for our past fears and for our hatreds. And we must forgive others for the pain and sorrow they have caused us. We must forgive society for our collective ignorance and forgive history for its wide swath of painful, violent events. Justice without forgiveness is an empty vessel that will not quench our thirst or heal our social ills.

The only antidote for this epidemic is to realize there is a larger force, a bigger order to this universe, and to take the journey forward to re-learn to trust this grace for all and this order. That is how people change—true trust, one person at a time. And when these individuals find one another and become friends, the movement can multiply exponentially.

Just as our physical environment needs immediate attention if we are to avoid catastrophic consequences, our social and religious environments need immediate attention if we are to quell the spirit of violence, mistrust, and hatred engulfing so many areas of our world. The path away from the brink begins with the steps of self-exploration, compassion, forgiveness, and trust. These are the essential healing qualities we must share with every person we meet.

Thank you for Faith House dream. Your enthusiasm and openness is based on strength and a desire to reach beyond the tried, tested and failed sequence of steps. You are curious and will surely discover that people are waiting for that spark to know they have nothing to fear, only something to gain!

Count me in friends!

________________________________________________

Truth is one: sages call it by different names
It is the one Sun who reflects in all the ponds;
It is the one water which slakes the thirst of all;
It is the one air which sustains all life;
It is the one fire which shines in all houses;
Colors of the cows may be different, but the milk is white;
Systems of Faith may be different but God is One.
As the rain dropping from the sky finds its way towards the ocean,
So the prayers offered in all faiths reach the One God, who is supreme.

    —Rig Veda

Live Words: Thanksgiving is Never Over

"Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living. It is all we can offer in return for the mystery by which we live. Who is worthy to be present at the constant unfolding of time? Amidst the meditation of mountains, the humility of flowers—wiser than all alphabets—clouds that die constantly for the sake of God’s glory, we are hating, hunting, hurting. Suddenly we feel ashamed of our clashes and complaints in the face of the tacit glory in nature. It is embarrassing to live! Only one response can maintain us: gratefulness for witnessing the wonder, for the gift of unearned right to serve, to adore, and to fulfill. It is gratefulness which makes the soul great."
                                           ~ by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

A Benedictine Monk on Gratefulness

~ by Samir Selmanovic

I came across this video a while ago and have been keep coming back to it.  It is featuring the words and narration of Brother David Steindl-Rast, a highly respected Benedictine monk, author and spiritual leader.  He calls us to have "eyes to see and ears to hear."

He asks, "What makes a good day?"

Brother David reminds me of St. Francis who said that we all live in this sacred place, existence.  I believe that gratitude is the primal religious sentiment.  We did not earn our right to become or to exist. To be is to be given grace.  In fact, grace came before anything that we call Sin. Grace can exist without sin. Grace was first. And shall be last. Most fascinating implication follows: Anyone or anything that exists is experiencing grace, and can therefore be a witness of that grace to us, religious people!   

DIRECTIONS: This is one of those videos you should not rush through, thinking "Let me click this and see if it is worth my time."  Instead, decide to set aside seven minutes, perhaps this coming Thanksgiving Thursday. Breath in, and out, again, and again.  Then click the play button.  Happy Thanksgiving friends.  Thank you for being a part of Faith House adventure.

"A GOOD DAY"