In Praise of Praise

A neighbor's daffodils

A friendly email exchange with a regular reader of this blog about last week’s reference to “How Great Thou Art” prompts me to share again this post about praise music from 2012. 

Attending the Sunday evening praise service of MCC San Francisco, my partner turned to me and said, “For this service, you’re gonna need a lot more rhythm!” I had just moved there to serve as interim pastor, and the clapping and swaying and emotional singing had not been a regular feature of my worship experience.

A visit to the service a year earlier had alienated me. “What if I’m in pain when I come to the service?” I judgmentally thought, “I wouldn’t fit in with all these happy people.”

Sharing that thought with the former pastor, the Rev. Jim Mitulski (one of the world’s finest preachers), he corrected, “We started that service to give voice to all of our feelings facing the AIDS crisis in the Castro.” He explained it was the old gospel songs and Taize style chants that expressed the range of their emotions, from lament and longing to hope and faith. One might compare the similar range of the Psalms.

I’ve just finished reading a book by a progressive Christian who expresses many insights I cherish, but who suggests we praise to “flatter” God to get what we want. That may be true for some, but not for me, and not for most, I would say.

Rather, we praise to be uplifted into God’s realm, to feel and to be embraced by something larger than ourselves—spiritual community, planet earth, the cosmos and all that is within it. The expanding universe calls for our own expansion. Spiritual ecstasy, like sexual ecstasy, gets us out of our selves, literally “out of stasis,” out of the status quo.

Just like prayer, praise is the place, not of God’s transformation, but of our own! To paraphrase the spiritual, “It’s not you but me, O Lord, standing in the need of praise.” In her book, Suffering, the late German theologian Dorothee Sölle affirms that collective “lament, petition, expressions of hope” empower those who suffer to address wrongs, comparing workers’ protests to liturgies, particularly the Psalms.

I come from traditions—both Baptist and Presbyterian—suspicious of the charismatic expressions of worship. Even the simple act of lifting our hands and faces upward—ironically, the praying posture of the Jews and Christians of biblical times—seemed indecorous in our more somber and earnest worship.

There is “bad” praise music, of course—uninspired, unpoetic, musically dull, and theologically untenable for progressive Christians. But even the theologically questionable ones, if inspired and poetic and musically interesting, may be fun to sing. Just don’t take them literally (just like scripture!).

I introduced a new song with just the right theology at an annual Kirkridge men’s retreat I co-led, but when we faltered at its difficulty, someone started singing “Jesus Loves Me,” and it became the reprise of the weekend.

My preference is for Gregorian chants, and songs and chants from Taize and Iona, and John Michael Talbot songs, as well as spirituals, sambas, salsas, and freedom songs. But I also still hum and sing the old gospel songs and staid hymns as well. Just ask our dog, Hobbes.

I was invited to be among the contributors to Ashes to Rainbows: A Queer Lenten Devotional that includes meditations for Ash Wednesday, the Sundays of Lent, and the days of Holy Week. Go to: https://justiceunbound.org/queerlent/

Related post: The Sound of Eden

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I will be co-leading “Beside Still Waters: A Contemplative Retreat” with Debra Weir April 27-May 1, 2020 at Sacred Heart Monastery in Cullman, Alabama. It is open to the public, and some limited scholarships are available. Three readable texts are recommended to prepare but are not required to have been read by opening day. Here is the link: https://app.certain.com/profile/form/index.cfm?PKformID=0x3039640abcd

Copyright © 2012 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. I welcome the use of Progressive Christian Reflections as contemporary readings in worship, discussion starters, or other non-profit purposes.  My hope is that you will also browse the archive (right column on the site) to use previous reflections in your daily or occasional meditation.

Poetry Makes Life Last Longer

"The breakers steady crash..."

The end of a year seems a good time to reflect on time: what shortens it, what stretches it. The beginning of this year I eagerly read most of Alan Burdick’s Why Time Flies: A Mostly Scientific Investigation (2017). Though I recommend it, I found the text sometimes contradicted the title as I trudged through scientific studies and jargon.

A similar fate awaited me as I read a book about spirituality toward the end of this year. I felt as if I needed to come up for air, and found my eyes pausing over the text and searching the ravine behind our house from the vantage point of our deck for something more, something inspiring, maybe even God.

Then I remembered J. Barrie Shepherd had sent me a copy of his latest book of poetry, entitled Bench on the Bluff, and I set aside my dutiful reading of the somewhat dry tome on the spirit and sought the poetic wisdom of a writer who had been my spiritual director as a young man, unbeknownst to him, one whose books of daily reflections helped me establish my morning prayer routine and inspired my own desire to provide such reflections for others in my books and now this blog.

The image of a “bench on the bluff,” taken from his Maine retirement village’s cliff overlooking the Atlantic, reminded me of a tranquil spot on the palisades of Santa Monica overlooking the Pacific, where, according to an inscription on a circular stone bench (as I remember it) “in the sunset of his life, John P. Jones used to come here every evening to watch the sun set over the ocean.”

At 81 years of age, that is similar to what Barrie Shepherd is doing in what he calls a “chapbook”: “a small collection of poetry…that often centers on a specific theme.” It is dedicated to his and Mhairi’s Yorkshire Terrier, Iona, and “all her canine neighbors.”

In college I had a double major: English Literature and Religious Studies. So I’ve loved poetry from the start, and used to write poetry regularly, like many a youth. But I had to read so much of it, so quickly for courses, and think too much about what made poetry work that my first love became a source of anxiety and even competition. One of my texts, Understanding Poetry (a good book despite a presumptuous title), made me sympathize with Robin Williams’ character in The Dead Poets’ Society who advised his prep school students to rip out the first chapter of a similar text.

Poetry, like art and scripture and pornography, is something you know when you see it. And poetry, when unhurried and absorbing, stretches time for me.

And so it is with Barrie’s poems, and it was all I could do to restrain my impulse to read them all in a few sittings. I’ve mentioned in an earlier blog that I can’t read anything meaningful without a pen, underlining or marking texts to return to. The problem I’ve faced reading Barrie’s book is that I’ve wanted to underline and mark everything. Writing about it as I’m doing now made me want to quote so much of it that I would be infringing on his copyright!

I will never look the same way at the slender month of February or the shimmering surface of a lap pool. I will find haikus in every aspect of my community. I will look to nature and the seasons to welcome my own life cycle. His encounter with the Perseid meteor shower took me back to my own encounter in the night skies above Santa Barbara’s Mount Calvary Retreat House. I will counter the pains of aging with laughter in the wisdom of an “even-older-than-I-am-now lady” advising “When you wake up in the morning and nothing new hurts…you know you’re dead.”

And did I just call him “Barrie”? A person I’ve encountered less than a dozen times, but whose words befriended me in his books and now, continue to “friend” me in email exchanges about my blog. Yes, I feel like we are chums, and I am sitting with him on that bench missing the latest news “in an age of the absence of angels,” but watching: 

The breakers steady crash

and crumple as they rolled ashore

reporting on the deepest state of things,

reminding me that they will still be singing here

when all my news has fled like so much sea spray

on these stark, primeval rocks.

Copies of Bench on the Bluff are available @ $10 plus $5 shipping from:

The Rev. Dr. J. Barrie Shepherd

Piper Shores Retirement Community

15 Piper Road, Apt. K325

Scarborough, ME 04074

Proceeds are donated to charity.

For my other posts that mention J. Barrie Shepherd, go to:

http://chrisglaser.blogspot.com/search?q=barrie+shepherd

Here’s hoping we all have happy and new years!

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Copyright © 2017 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  Photo from visit to Hawai'i, October, 1985.

In Praise of Praise

Copyright © 2012 by Chris R. Glaser. All rights reserved.
 

In memory of a friend and colleague in ministry, the Rev. Julie Two Suess.

Attending the Sunday evening praise service of MCC San Francisco, my partner turned to me and said, “For this service, you’re gonna need a lot more rhythm!” I had just moved there to serve as interim pastor, and the clapping and swaying and emotional singing had not been a regular feature of my worship experience.

A visit to the service a year earlier had alienated me. “What if I’m in pain when I come to the service?” I judgmentally thought, “I wouldn’t fit in with all these happy people.” Sharing that thought with the former pastor, the Rev. Jim Mitulski (one of the world’s finest preachers), he corrected, “We started that service to give voice to all of our feelings facing the AIDS crisis in the Castro.” He explained it was the old gospel songs and Taize style chants that expressed the range of their emotions, from lament and longing to hope and faith. One might compare the similar range of the Psalms.

I’ve just finished reading a book by a progressive Christian who expresses many insights I cherish, but who suggests we praise to “flatter” God to get what we want. That may be true for some, but not for me, and not for most, I would say.

Rather, we praise to be uplifted into God’s realm, to feel and to be embraced by something larger than ourselves—spiritual community, planet earth, the cosmos and all that is within it. The expanding universe calls for our own expansion. Spiritual ecstasy, like sexual ecstasy, gets us out of our selves, literally “out of stasis,” out of the status quo.

Just like prayer, praise is the place, not of God’s transformation, but of our own! To paraphrase the spiritual, “It’s not you but me, O Lord, standing in the need of praise.” In her book, Suffering, the late German theologian Dorothee Soelle affirms that collective “lament, petition, expressions of hope” empower those who suffer to address wrongs, comparing workers’ protests to liturgies, particularly the Psalms.

I come from traditions—both Baptist and Presbyterian—suspicious of the charismatic expressions of worship. Even the simple act of lifting our arms and faces upward—ironically, the praying posture of Jews and Christians of biblical times—seemed indecorous in our  somber and earnest worship.

There is “bad” praise music, of course—uninspired, unpoetic, musically dull, and theologically untenable for progressive Christians. But even the theologically questionable ones, if inspired and poetic and musically interesting enough, may be fun to sing. Just don’t take them literally (just like scripture!).

I introduced a new song with just the right theology at the annual Kirkridge men’s retreat I co-lead, but when we faltered at its difficulty, someone started singing “Jesus Loves Me,” and it became the reprise of the weekend.

My preference is for Gregorian chants, songs and chants from Taize, Iona, and John Michael Talbot, as well as spirituals, sambas, salsas, and freedom songs. But I also still hum and sing the old gospel songs and staid hymns as well. Just ask our dog, Hobbes.

+++

Serendipitously, for those of us in the Atlanta area, I just learned that John Bell from the Iona community will be leading an evening of song at 7:30 p.m. March 20 in Cannon Chapel on the Emory campus as part of the Candler School of Theology’s conference, “The Singing Church: Current Practices and Emerging Trends in Congregational Singing.” Tickets are $20 for the evening.

And, in regard to last week’s post, I have since found and recommend the film version of the book, “Lord, Save Us From Your Followers” on Netflix.

Finally:

I welcome the use of Progressive Christian Reflections with attribution of author and blog site as contemporary readings in worship or other non-profit purposes. 

My hope is that you will also browse the archives (right column) to use previous reflections in your daily or occasional devotions.

Kirkridge: Where Retreats Become Advances

Copyright © 2011 by Chris R. Glaser. All rights reserved.

I just returned from a retreat with forty men at Kirkridge in Bangor, Pennsylvania. I was reminded of a minister friend who led so many retreats, we kidded him that it was time for him to stop leading “retreats” and instead lead “advances.” This annual retreat may be characterized—along with other Kirkridge retreats—as an advance for the participants.

Founded by a progressive Christian minister and administered by and host to progressive Christians since, Kirkridge’s motto is “To picket and to pray.” Social justice, personal growth, and progressive wisdom are reflected in its programming and even its operational style—for instance, it costs a little more than some other retreat centers because staff are paid fairly and provided health benefits. Yet the cost is less than most secular conferences.

Kirkridge’s spiritual roots are found in Celtic Christianity—an expression of our faith in which women could be spiritual leaders as well as men, clergy could be married or celibate, clergy and lay people were equally regarded, Christ walks among us in two shoes: scriptures and creation, there is no such thing as original sin, and what sins there are can be removed by Christ or an experience of nature without the church’s intervention. The Beloved Disciple that lay his head on Jesus’ breast during the Last Supper, “listening for the heartbeat of God,” is the patron saint of this contemplative movement that predates much of the present day church. The “soul friends” (anamchara) of Celtic spirituality led to the rite of reconciliation, the pastoral counseling movement, and present day spiritual directors.

Kirkridge and its adjacent Columcille (called “America’s Stonehenge”) have spiritual kinship with Iona, a center for Celtic spirituality on that isle off the west coast of Scotland.

A week before the retreat, the 85-year-old founder of Columcille, Bill Cohea, phoned me. “How are you?” I asked. “Well, I died a few months ago,” he said, chuckling, “I was having a procedure and my heart stopped for awhile. I was so prepared for whatever’s next that when they revived me, I said, ‘Shit! I’m still here! Shit! I’m still here! Shit! I’m still here!’"

I laughed and told him I just learned that Steve Jobs’ dying words were, “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.”

Celtic spirituality recognizes those thin places on earth through which the awesome is revealed. The entwined threads on Celtic crosses and artifacts symbolize how heaven and earth intimately interweave.

Kirkridge is one of those “thin places” of Celtic spirituality. Though I’ve been going there for decades, only this weekend did I realize the significance of its name: it not only provides  a spectacular view from a ridge, but also a sacred vision of the forty men with whom I advanced as “church” (“kirk”).