Annual Clergy Retreat - The Episcopal Diocese of SC

 

Just returned from our annual Clergy Retreat and it was a fine time.  The average age of our clergy is decreasing and the joy among us is increasing.  TBTG!

Thou knowest, Lord.

 

A perfect anthem for Lent from Henry Purcell.. the text from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, Burial Office, Rite One.  

The text is one of the Anglican funeral sentences from the Book of Common Prayer. Early versions began possibly in 1672 and were revised twice before 1680. Purcell composed his last version, in a different style, for the 1695 Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, II.   From HERE

Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts;

shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer;

but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty,

O holy and merciful Savior,

thou most worthy Judge eternal.

Suffer us not, at our last hour,

through any pains of death, to fall from thee.

The Feast Day of George Herbert -February 27.

 

Today is the feast day of George Herbert - 1593-1633 - one of my favorite poets.  At the link is a good write up about him.  His poem Unkindness is one that convicts me every single time I read and ponder it..

More about George Herbert

Unkindnesse

Lord, make me coy and tender to offend:

In friendship, first I think, if that agree,

Which I intend,

Unto my friends intent and end.

I would not use a friend, as I use Thee.

If any touch my friend, or his good name,

It is my honour and my love to free

His blasted fame

From the least spot or thought of blame.

I could not use a friend, as I use Thee.

My friend may spit upon my curious floor:

Would he have gold? I lend it instantly;

But let the poore,

And thou within them, starve at doore.

I cannot use a friend, as I use Thee.

When that my friend pretendeth to a place,

I quit my interest, and leave it free:

But when thy grace

Sues for my heart, I thee displace,

Nor would I use a friend, as I use Thee.

Yet can a friend what thou hast done fulfill?

O write in brasse, My God upon a tree

His bloud did spill

Onely to purchase my good-will.

Yet use I not my foes, as I use Thee.

This Demented Inn

 

                                                                Art: Fritz Eichenberg

"Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it, because he is out of place in it, and yet he must be in it, his place is with those others who do not belong, who are rejected by power, because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world."  -  Thomas Merton

Post is from here:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/thomasmertonpropheticwitness

Simone Weil on Attention and Grace

 

                                                        Simone Weil (1909-1943)

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”

BY MARIA POPOVA

“Attention without feeling,” Mary Oliver wrote in her beautiful elegy for her soul mate, “is only a report.” To fully feel life course through us, indeed, we ought to befriend our own attention, that “intentional, unapologetic discriminator.”

More than half a century before Oliver, another enchantress of the human spirit — the French philosopher Simone Weil (February 3, 1909–August 24, 1943), a mind of unparalleled intellectual elegance and a sort of modern saint whom Albert Camus described as “the only great spirit of our times” — wrote beautifully of attention as contemplative practice through which we reap the deepest rewards of our humanity.

In First and Last Notebooks  — the out-of-print treasure that gave us Weil on the key to discipline and how to make use of our suffering — she writes:  Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

This piercing thought comes fully abloom in Gravity and Grace  — a posthumous 1952 collection of Weil’s enduring ideas, culled from her notebooks by Gustave Thibon, the farmer whom she entrusted with her writings before her untimely death.  Weil considers the superiority of attention over the will as the ultimate tool of self-transformation:

We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will.

The will only controls a few movements of a few muscles, and these movements are associated with the idea of the change of position of nearby objects. I can will to put my hand flat on the table. If inner purity, inspiration or truth of thought were necessarily associated with attitudes of this kind, they might be the object of will. As this is not the case, we can only beg for them… Or should we cease to desire them? What could be worse? Inner supplication is the only reasonable way, for it avoids stiffening muscles which have nothing to do with the matter. What could be more stupid than to tighten up our muscles and set our jaws about virtue, or poetry, or the solution of a problem. Attention is something quite different.  Pride is a tightening up of this kind. There is a lack of grace (we can give the word its double meaning here) in the proud man. It is the result of a mistake.

 

Weil turns to attention as the counterpoint to this graceless will — where the will contracts the spirit, she argues, attention expands it: Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer. If we turn our mind toward the good, it is impossible that little by little the whole soul will not be attracted thereto in spite of itself.

Gravity and Grace is one of the most spiritually nourishing texts ever published. Complement it with Weil on temptation and true genius, then revisit writer Melissa Pritchard on art as a form of active prayer and cognitive scientist Alexandra Horowitz on reawakening our capacity for attention.

The Tree of Life

 

      Yesterday at both Good Friday services at the Church of the Holy Communion, we offered the Reproaches as part of the liturgy of the day.  I had not encountered them before.  This morning I learned that they had almost made it into the 1979 Book of Common Prayer but did not because they were perceived as opening the door to antisemitism.  I confess this did not occur to me because I understood them as addressed to the Church rather than to the Jewish people.  They recall the great acts of salvation history of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.  In them, God asks, "O my people, how have I wearied you that you have treated me so poorly?" This surely stirs repentance in the listener.

The second section- which is in verse- includes these two stanzas:

V. God in pity saw man fallen, shamed and sunk in misery, 

when he fell on death by tasting fruit of the forbidden tree: 

then another Tree was chosen which the world from death would free.

R. Sweetest wood, and sweetest iron, sweetest weight is hung on thee.

 

 V. Bend thy boughs, O Tree of glory; thy relaxing sinews bend; 

for a while the ancient rigor that thy birth bestowed, suspend: 

and the King of heavenly beauty on thy bosom gently tend.

R. Sweetest wood, and sweetest iron, sweetest weight is hung on thee.

 

These stanzas brought to mind three things.  The first is  a text from the Song of Solomon (Ch. 2 v.3 )  "Like an apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down in his shade with great delight and his fruit was sweet to my taste."  

The second was a hymn I love greatly - "Jesus Christ the Apple Tree."  Most often sung at Christmas, perhaps it should also be an Easter hymn.   Below is the text...

And the third, Rev. 22:1-5.  

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; 4 they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign for ever and ever.

Once again, I understand that the Cross on which Jesus was crucified has become for us the Tree of Life.  Thanks be to God!  

A Blessed Feast of the Resurrection to you and yours!

__________________________

Jesus Christ the Apple Tree

The tree of life my soul hath seen,

Laden with fruit and always green: 

The trees of nature fruitless be

Compared with Christ the apple tree.

His beauty doth all things excel:

By faith I know, but ne'er can tell 

The glory which I now can see

In Jesus Christ the apple tree.

For happiness I long have sought,

And pleasure dearly I have bought: 

I missed of all; but now I see

'Tis found in Christ the apple tree.

I'm weary with my former toil,

Here I will sit and rest awhile: 

Under the shadow I will be,

Of Jesus Christ the apple tree.

This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,

It keeps my dying faith alive; 

Which makes my soul in haste to be

With Jesus Christ the apple tree.

Mud, Spit, and Illumination - Lent 4A

 From Jan Richardson.....

                                                                Jan Richardson

For you, from me, here on the eve of the fourth Sunday in Lent. Because when grace meets us, it is so often not tidy and shiny.

BLESSING OF MUD

Lest we think

the blessing

is not

in the dirt.

Lest we think

the blessing

is not

in the earth

beneath our feet.

Lest we think

the blessing

is not

in the dust,

like the dust

that God scooped up

at the beginning

and formed

with God’s

two hands

and breathed into

with God’s own

breath.

Lest we think

the blessing

is not

in the spit.

Lest we think

the blessing

is not

in the mud.

Lest we think

the blessing

is not

in the mire,

the grime,

the muck.

Lest we think

God cannot reach

deep into the things

of earth,

cannot bring forth

the blessing

that shimmers

within the sludge,

cannot anoint us

with a tender

and grimy grace.

Lest we think

God will not use

the ground

to give us

life again,

to cleanse us

of our unseeing,

to open our eyes upon

this ordinary

and stunning world.

—Jan Richardson

from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons

Image: “Mysteries of the Mud”

© janrichardsonimages.com

Inspired by John 9:1-41 See less