It is actually difficult to edit life. Especially in regard to feelings. Not being open to anger or sadness usually means being unable to be open to love and joy.
Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom, 203
Psychoanalysis is a psychology of pain.
Michael Eigen, The Electrified Tightrope, 259
This Thanksgiving I am grateful for many things: my wife Julie, my children: David, Beth and Sarah, my wider family, friends and acquaintances, food, home, music (I’ve been listening in recent days to Paul McCartney Good Evening New York City), movies, poetry, books, the ability to make some positive difference in the world, exercise. I am also grateful for those who help keep me open to myself and the world.
Rachel Naomi Remen reminds us of our need to be open to our own experience. The past year or so some of my favorite conversation partners in this journey of trying to stay open to experience and learn from it – all of it, even the painful stuff, have been writers who are psychoanalysts or who themselves are in significant conversation with the psychoanalytic tradition. Two writers, in particular, have been insightful dialogue partners – Michael Eigen and Ernest Becker.
Becker, writing about why growth and change are so difficult writes about the going through hell of a lonely and racking rebirth where on throws off the lendings of culture, the costumes that fit us for life’s roles, the masks and panoplies of our standardized heroisms, to stand alone and nude facing the howling elements as oneself – a trembling animal element. (The Death and Rebirth of Meaning, 146)
There is a hunger for nuance, for psychic taste.
Michael Eigen, Feeling Matters, 153
It takes a lifetime to grow into oneself, to become a home on can say yes to.
Michael Eigen, Flames from the Unconscious, 103
I am grateful for the journey and for these companions.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
Friday, November 27, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Adult Children
Pain teaches love. Joy teaches love. Which is the better teacher?
>Michael Eigen, Flames from the Unconscious, 119
Today our youngest daughter, Sarah, turned 18. My wife Julie and I now have three adult children – David (whose middle name is “Lloyd” – different from mine, and why I often use my middle initial “A”) who is 26, and Elizabeth (Beth), age 24. We have brought three children to adulthood, and in the process I have learned a lot about being an adult human being.
Eigen’s words ring true – pain and joy can teach love, and parenting children to adulthood involves both pain and joy. For me, the pain has most often been watching the pain of my children as they have grown – physical pain like David’s lacerated wrist or Beth’s broken hip (both in the fifth grade – and we were so glad when Sarah made it through the fifth grade without serious injury), but also the sorrows of friends who turn away, the hurt of relationships that have ended, the difficulties of moving and having to start again, the disappointments of dreams that have come up short. In other ways, parenting has not been particularly painful. Our disagreements have been few and far between, and we find our way to reconciliation well. I am so grateful for this.
The joys are as numerous as the stars that shine on this cold, clear Duluth night – laughter shared, hugs and smiles, good meals enjoyed, games played, family movie nights with popcorn or chips and salsa, vacations, watching as my children discover the joys of music and reading, Christmas Eve – even when we all attended four church services together – stopping for supper at a convenience store because everything else was closed…..
The joys and pain of parenting have taught me a lot about love, and even though all our children are now adults, I know the lessons continue. Love is a life-long learning process.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
>Michael Eigen, Flames from the Unconscious, 119
Today our youngest daughter, Sarah, turned 18. My wife Julie and I now have three adult children – David (whose middle name is “Lloyd” – different from mine, and why I often use my middle initial “A”) who is 26, and Elizabeth (Beth), age 24. We have brought three children to adulthood, and in the process I have learned a lot about being an adult human being.
Eigen’s words ring true – pain and joy can teach love, and parenting children to adulthood involves both pain and joy. For me, the pain has most often been watching the pain of my children as they have grown – physical pain like David’s lacerated wrist or Beth’s broken hip (both in the fifth grade – and we were so glad when Sarah made it through the fifth grade without serious injury), but also the sorrows of friends who turn away, the hurt of relationships that have ended, the difficulties of moving and having to start again, the disappointments of dreams that have come up short. In other ways, parenting has not been particularly painful. Our disagreements have been few and far between, and we find our way to reconciliation well. I am so grateful for this.
The joys are as numerous as the stars that shine on this cold, clear Duluth night – laughter shared, hugs and smiles, good meals enjoyed, games played, family movie nights with popcorn or chips and salsa, vacations, watching as my children discover the joys of music and reading, Christmas Eve – even when we all attended four church services together – stopping for supper at a convenience store because everything else was closed…..
The joys and pain of parenting have taught me a lot about love, and even though all our children are now adults, I know the lessons continue. Love is a life-long learning process.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
Friday, November 6, 2009
Book Group Again
This past Monday, my interfaith book group met again. The book for the day was Oscar Hijuelos’ book, Mr. Ives' Christmas. I had read this book a few years ago, and felt it was worth suggesting to the group. It was, and it was well worth a second read. I got most of my reading done on airplanes or in airports.
This well-written story takes us into the life of Edward Ives – adopted child, ad man, husband, father, person of faith. We come to know this man in his lonlinesses, in his joys, in his tragedies. We follow his journey of faith, which includes a mystical experience as well as years where his faith has lost heart. Whether caught in the throes of a deeply moving experience or just showing up to do what he needs to do, Ives never abandons the practice of his faith. The title of a Eugene Peterson book came to mind as I was reading the book, “a long obedience in the same direction.” This is a fully-embodied life (loneliness, art, love, sex, parenthood, the tragic death of a son, staying true to principles even when it is difficult, friendship, loyalty, struggle, forgiveness – it’s there) formed quietly by faith.
In a delightful serendipity, we discussed this book seated around a table in a local restaurant, and on the wall behind the table were photographs taken by a local artist. I could not help but look again and again at one in particular. It was a photo of a manhole over which were locked intersecting iron bars. The two bars looked very much like a cross, and underneath the picture were these words: “religious truths go deeper than we are allowed to know.”
Religious truths go deep, very deep, and they are often buried beneath the ground, seemingly locked away. I cannot say we are not allowed to go there. I do think many of us choose to keep the cover locked over some of the deep areas of our lives where we also discover deep religious truths. Michael Eigen has written, “I do think we are more afraid of ourselves than of death…. The taboo against getting deeper into oneself, learning about oneself, is more severe than sex” (Conversations, 60).
A book like Mr. Ives Christmas has the capacity to take us deeper. It took me deeper. It was an early “Christmas gift.”
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
This well-written story takes us into the life of Edward Ives – adopted child, ad man, husband, father, person of faith. We come to know this man in his lonlinesses, in his joys, in his tragedies. We follow his journey of faith, which includes a mystical experience as well as years where his faith has lost heart. Whether caught in the throes of a deeply moving experience or just showing up to do what he needs to do, Ives never abandons the practice of his faith. The title of a Eugene Peterson book came to mind as I was reading the book, “a long obedience in the same direction.” This is a fully-embodied life (loneliness, art, love, sex, parenthood, the tragic death of a son, staying true to principles even when it is difficult, friendship, loyalty, struggle, forgiveness – it’s there) formed quietly by faith.
In a delightful serendipity, we discussed this book seated around a table in a local restaurant, and on the wall behind the table were photographs taken by a local artist. I could not help but look again and again at one in particular. It was a photo of a manhole over which were locked intersecting iron bars. The two bars looked very much like a cross, and underneath the picture were these words: “religious truths go deeper than we are allowed to know.”
Religious truths go deep, very deep, and they are often buried beneath the ground, seemingly locked away. I cannot say we are not allowed to go there. I do think many of us choose to keep the cover locked over some of the deep areas of our lives where we also discover deep religious truths. Michael Eigen has written, “I do think we are more afraid of ourselves than of death…. The taboo against getting deeper into oneself, learning about oneself, is more severe than sex” (Conversations, 60).
A book like Mr. Ives Christmas has the capacity to take us deeper. It took me deeper. It was an early “Christmas gift.”
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
Friday, October 30, 2009
Leaving on a Jet Plane
On my last flight out of town this month (I have one more next month) I flew to Asheville, North Carolina for a meeting at the Lake Junaluska Assemby. This lovely retreat center is owned by the Southeastern Jurisdiction of The United Methodist Church. Nestled outside of Asheville in the Great Smokey Mountains, it is a great place to visit.
My flight left Duluth early Thursday (6:30 a.m.). I flew first to Detroit and then on to Asheville. It was on my way to Detroit that I was greeted by a beauty wholly unanticipated, and experienced a serendipity of grace.
It had been cloudy leaving Duluth, but on our way to Detroit we flew above the clouds and between the clouds. Looking out my window, the sun was rising – or rather peering through holes in the walls of clouds off in the distance. With the light of this fiery red sun illuminating them, the clouds below looked like a warm cotton blanket. It was all a feast for the eyes.
I was also reading, coming toward the end of a book I began earlier this month, Jacob Needleman’s Money and the Meaning of Life. In his final chapter, Needleman quotes poets Rilke and Rumi. They were the perfect accompaniment to the beauty I was witnessing from my airplane window.
Isn’t the secret intent
of this taciturn earth, when it forces lovers together,
that inside their boundless emotion all things may
shudder with joy?
Earth, isn’t this what you want: to arise within us,
invisible? Isn’t it your dream
to be wholly invisible someday? – O Earth: invisible!
What, if not transformation, is your urgent command?
Rilke
Deliberation is one of the qualities of God.
Deliberation is born of joy,
like a bird from an egg.
Rumi
And so there was beauty and in that invitations to deliberation and to shudder with joy. Serendipitous grace, a grace wholly gratuitous.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
My flight left Duluth early Thursday (6:30 a.m.). I flew first to Detroit and then on to Asheville. It was on my way to Detroit that I was greeted by a beauty wholly unanticipated, and experienced a serendipity of grace.
It had been cloudy leaving Duluth, but on our way to Detroit we flew above the clouds and between the clouds. Looking out my window, the sun was rising – or rather peering through holes in the walls of clouds off in the distance. With the light of this fiery red sun illuminating them, the clouds below looked like a warm cotton blanket. It was all a feast for the eyes.
I was also reading, coming toward the end of a book I began earlier this month, Jacob Needleman’s Money and the Meaning of Life. In his final chapter, Needleman quotes poets Rilke and Rumi. They were the perfect accompaniment to the beauty I was witnessing from my airplane window.
Isn’t the secret intent
of this taciturn earth, when it forces lovers together,
that inside their boundless emotion all things may
shudder with joy?
Earth, isn’t this what you want: to arise within us,
invisible? Isn’t it your dream
to be wholly invisible someday? – O Earth: invisible!
What, if not transformation, is your urgent command?
Rilke
Deliberation is one of the qualities of God.
Deliberation is born of joy,
like a bird from an egg.
Rumi
And so there was beauty and in that invitations to deliberation and to shudder with joy. Serendipitous grace, a grace wholly gratuitous.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Meeting Madness Month
October is meeting madness month for me. To date: Minnesota Conference Budget Process Team, Minnesota Conference Common Table, Minnesota Council of Churches Nominations Committee, General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, Twin Ports United Methodist Ministry, Minnesota Conference Board of Ordained Ministry, Minnesota Conference Episcopacy Committee. Up-coming: North Central Jurisdiction Religion and Race Event, Commission on Theological Education review of Garrett-Evangelical Seminary, Committee on Faith and Order. This list does not include the meetings of my congregations Staff-Parish Relations Committee, Church Council, Finance Committee, or Nominations Committee; nor the great event I attended Sunday night with area United Methodists and led by Dan Dick. Nor does it include the presentation I made earlier this month at the College of St. Scholastica on “What Do Methodists Think About Perfection (process and results), the meeting I facilitated last week sponsored by Churches United in Ministry to discuss the elimination of Minnesota’s General Assistance Medical Care Program, the presentation I am making Wednesday to our United Methodist Women on “Living the Sacred,” the presentation I am giving at St. Luke’s Hospice on Thursday, nor the panel I am speaking on next week at the University of Minnesota Duluth Medical School on the topic of abortion.
This is an unusually busy month – did I mention the two funerals I have officiated at in the past week – both for delightful people, women whose combined age was 190! I am not complaining about any of this (after all, at some point I said “yes” to it all), just reporting, and letting you know why I have not written much this month. However, I enjoy keeping this blog going, and so will fill the remaining space this time with a couple of quotes from things I have read in the past months.
Something at the center of life incredibly beautiful, precious, holy, a sacred sense at the heart of life
Michael Eigen, Conversations with Michael Eigen, 77
To be a questioner is important. To be a critic, a questioner. To be ignorant. Does one have to sacrifice this need if one also feels God? Does one have to sign on a dotted line?
Michael Eigen, Conversations with Michael Eigen, 3
The contradictions of man’s earthly situation cannot be resolved by easy belief or by reflexively relaying the meaning of it to God. Genuine heroism for man is still the power to support contradictions, no matter how glaring or hopeless they may seem. The ideal critique of a faith must always be whether it embodies within itself the fundamental contradictions of the human paradox and yet is able to support them without fanaticism, sadism, and narcissism, but with openness and trust.
Ernest Becker, The Birth and Death of Meaning, 198
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
This is an unusually busy month – did I mention the two funerals I have officiated at in the past week – both for delightful people, women whose combined age was 190! I am not complaining about any of this (after all, at some point I said “yes” to it all), just reporting, and letting you know why I have not written much this month. However, I enjoy keeping this blog going, and so will fill the remaining space this time with a couple of quotes from things I have read in the past months.
Something at the center of life incredibly beautiful, precious, holy, a sacred sense at the heart of life
Michael Eigen, Conversations with Michael Eigen, 77
To be a questioner is important. To be a critic, a questioner. To be ignorant. Does one have to sacrifice this need if one also feels God? Does one have to sign on a dotted line?
Michael Eigen, Conversations with Michael Eigen, 3
The contradictions of man’s earthly situation cannot be resolved by easy belief or by reflexively relaying the meaning of it to God. Genuine heroism for man is still the power to support contradictions, no matter how glaring or hopeless they may seem. The ideal critique of a faith must always be whether it embodies within itself the fundamental contradictions of the human paradox and yet is able to support them without fanaticism, sadism, and narcissism, but with openness and trust.
Ernest Becker, The Birth and Death of Meaning, 198
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Pray Within Me
I enjoy writing, and my blogging is one evidence of this. Over time, I have written some poetry, most of which I keep to myself. Occasionally I have had an inkling to write new words for hymns, but have never really followed through on this.
Last Thursday I read a brief devotional thought offered by Brother Roger of Taize, based on Romans 8:26-27. As I was closing the book, words began to form – “pray within me.” A tune attached itself to the words. I looked in The United Methodist Hymnal to find the tune – Tallis’ Canon. The thought of this “hymn” kept at me all day, until by day’s end, I had most of what follows, though I have revised it slightly in the days since.
In the coming weeks, we may try this in the church where I am pastor.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
Pray Within Me
Pray within me
God this day
in all I do
in all I say.
Let even silence
speak your name.
Pray within me
God this day.
Within without
let all be prayer,
the loving heart,
the soul laid bare;
acts of justice,
deeds of peace,
Pray within me
Spirit please.
Transform the world
transform my heart,
rekindle faith
let fear depart.
May joy and loving
grace my life.
Pray within me
Jesus Christ.
Tunes:
Tallis’ Canon (682)
Gift of Love (408)
David A. Bard, 2009
Last Thursday I read a brief devotional thought offered by Brother Roger of Taize, based on Romans 8:26-27. As I was closing the book, words began to form – “pray within me.” A tune attached itself to the words. I looked in The United Methodist Hymnal to find the tune – Tallis’ Canon. The thought of this “hymn” kept at me all day, until by day’s end, I had most of what follows, though I have revised it slightly in the days since.
In the coming weeks, we may try this in the church where I am pastor.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
Pray Within Me
Pray within me
God this day
in all I do
in all I say.
Let even silence
speak your name.
Pray within me
God this day.
Within without
let all be prayer,
the loving heart,
the soul laid bare;
acts of justice,
deeds of peace,
Pray within me
Spirit please.
Transform the world
transform my heart,
rekindle faith
let fear depart.
May joy and loving
grace my life.
Pray within me
Jesus Christ.
Tunes:
Tallis’ Canon (682)
Gift of Love (408)
David A. Bard, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Ahead of Oprah Just This Once
Last Monday (September 21) I met with an interfaith book group I have been leading since the Fall of 2006. We met for our regular monthly gathering to discuss the book we had chosen in August, Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan. If the title sounds familiar that is because just days before our group met, Oprah Winfrey has chosen this book as her next Oprah pick - - - but our reading group was weeks ahead of her! We were ahead of Oprah, just this once!
I have appreciated this group for the quality of our discussion and for helping me read novels I might not otherwise have the opportunity to read. A reading list from our group is found at the end of this piece.
Akpan’s book is probably one of those I might well have missed, but am glad I didn’t. This is not because the book is pleasant reading, but precisely because it is difficult in the way books should sometimes be difficult. This book of short stories has as the setting for each story a country in Africa. Children play primary roles in every story, and the stories are told through the voices of children. The childhood portrayed here is nightmarish and horrifying – a twelve year old prostitute in Kenya, children being sold into slavery by their uncle, young friends separated by an adult world where religion serve as yet another way to divide people from one another, a young man with family roots in two religious traditions finding that he can be persecuted by both, a family torn by ethnic division. While these stories are fiction, they are grounded in the real life stories of conflict- and poverty-ridden countries. Reading them brings a painful, but necessary awareness of how far our world has to go in becoming more just and peaceful place. The stories can leave one in despair about the possibilities for change, but they also inspire a deep determination to help make the world better in whatever way one can. The stories can leave one in despair about the role of religion in the world – religion is often a divisive force, and a violently divisive force at that. Yet the stories can also inspire a deep determination to make religious faith, which can provoke division and violence, a force for justice, peace, compassion and goodness.
When Oprah chooses a book, many people read it simply for that reason. Others probably avoid reading these books just because they have now become so “popular.” This is one Oprah pick I hope is widely read and discussed. As a person of faith, I hope that other people of faith join me in helping make religious faith a force for good in the world, rather than a force for hurt, destruction and evil.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
Interfaith Book Group Reading List
Camilla Gibb, A Sweetness in the Belly
Leila Aboulela, The Translator
Zadie Smith, White Teeth
Philip Caputo, Acts of Faith
Kiren Desai, The Inheritance of Loss
Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake
Nathan Englander, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges
Mark Salzman, Lying Awake
Dalia Sofer, Septembers of Shiraz
Yasmina Khadra, Swallows of Kabul
Dara Horn, The World to Come
Elizabeth Strout, Abide With Me
Eliot Pattison, The Skull Mantra
Orhan Pamuk, Snow
Marlo Morgan, Mutant Message Down Under
William Young, The Shack
Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum
Arvind Adiga, The White Tiger
Geraldine Brooks, People of the Book
Jon Hassler, North of Hope
Amy Tan, Saving Fish From Drowining
Clayton Sullivan, Jesus and the Sweet Pilgrim Baptist Church
Uwem Akpan, Say You’re One of Them
Oscar Hijuelos, Mr. Ives’ Christmas (reading now)
I have appreciated this group for the quality of our discussion and for helping me read novels I might not otherwise have the opportunity to read. A reading list from our group is found at the end of this piece.
Akpan’s book is probably one of those I might well have missed, but am glad I didn’t. This is not because the book is pleasant reading, but precisely because it is difficult in the way books should sometimes be difficult. This book of short stories has as the setting for each story a country in Africa. Children play primary roles in every story, and the stories are told through the voices of children. The childhood portrayed here is nightmarish and horrifying – a twelve year old prostitute in Kenya, children being sold into slavery by their uncle, young friends separated by an adult world where religion serve as yet another way to divide people from one another, a young man with family roots in two religious traditions finding that he can be persecuted by both, a family torn by ethnic division. While these stories are fiction, they are grounded in the real life stories of conflict- and poverty-ridden countries. Reading them brings a painful, but necessary awareness of how far our world has to go in becoming more just and peaceful place. The stories can leave one in despair about the possibilities for change, but they also inspire a deep determination to help make the world better in whatever way one can. The stories can leave one in despair about the role of religion in the world – religion is often a divisive force, and a violently divisive force at that. Yet the stories can also inspire a deep determination to make religious faith, which can provoke division and violence, a force for justice, peace, compassion and goodness.
When Oprah chooses a book, many people read it simply for that reason. Others probably avoid reading these books just because they have now become so “popular.” This is one Oprah pick I hope is widely read and discussed. As a person of faith, I hope that other people of faith join me in helping make religious faith a force for good in the world, rather than a force for hurt, destruction and evil.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
Interfaith Book Group Reading List
Camilla Gibb, A Sweetness in the Belly
Leila Aboulela, The Translator
Zadie Smith, White Teeth
Philip Caputo, Acts of Faith
Kiren Desai, The Inheritance of Loss
Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake
Nathan Englander, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges
Mark Salzman, Lying Awake
Dalia Sofer, Septembers of Shiraz
Yasmina Khadra, Swallows of Kabul
Dara Horn, The World to Come
Elizabeth Strout, Abide With Me
Eliot Pattison, The Skull Mantra
Orhan Pamuk, Snow
Marlo Morgan, Mutant Message Down Under
William Young, The Shack
Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum
Arvind Adiga, The White Tiger
Geraldine Brooks, People of the Book
Jon Hassler, North of Hope
Amy Tan, Saving Fish From Drowining
Clayton Sullivan, Jesus and the Sweet Pilgrim Baptist Church
Uwem Akpan, Say You’re One of Them
Oscar Hijuelos, Mr. Ives’ Christmas (reading now)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
