On Friday at GA I attended the John Murray Distinguished Lecture, with the Rev Dr. Rebecca Parker, head of Starr-King, on the relationship between beauty and justice. Fusing theological, psychological, and poetic insight, she further elaborated the meaning of “sin”: a delusion, a disease or distortion of perception in/by which external appearances, or rather prejudgments based on them, blind us to the true beauty and worth of another, of ourselves, of anything with which we share life and being. This denial of or blindness to the beauty at the core of each being, results in those attitudes of irreverence, indifference, and insensitivity, or plain disrespect, which manifest as to injustice. And one might add, further compound the insult by ideologically or even theologically justifying it, even in its most brutal and systematic forms, i.e., racial or other discrimination, the denial of the rights of indigenous peoples, and the recent immigration law.
I hardly need to add to what’s been said already. Better, for contrast’s sake, to show the flip side of all this: what we can experience when we’re emptied enough, transparent enough in our feeling and perception, to see the beauty in one another and in Creation all around us, and so walk in the harmony, grace, and blessedness of that beauty. From a church hike to Big Sur:
We walk in beauty
where the mountains meet the sea.
We walk in beauty
where the shining river runs.
We walk in beauty
where the green meadows roll.
We walk in beauty
where the wildflowers bloom.
We walk in beauty
where the fierce winds blow.
We walk in beauty
where the breakers roar.
We walk in beauty
where the seabirds sail.
We walk in beauty
where the sealions lay.
We walk in beauty
where the redwoods soar.
We walk in beauty
where heaven touches earth,
land, sea, and sky,
body, mind, and spirit,
heart with living heart,
God walking with us.
< --Adapted from Navajo prayer-chant.>
When your eyes are clear, your heart become transparent in this way, even the humblest creature speaks of the blessed interdependency of the web of all existence:
Blessed are you, little one,
for all that you are and all that you need
in order to live and sing and soar
has been ordained and provided for
from the Big-Bang Beginning of time;
from the very foundation when
this molten Earth was formed
from the dust of exploded stars.
And though you be small, you are yet born
of the same lode of matter
as comets and planets
and the very Sun.
Blessed are you, little one,
for you reveal another aspect
of that divine Wisdom
in which all these are formed.
Blessed are you, little one,
for your every feather is numbered;
the angels watch over you,
and all of Creation feels it
when you fall.
Blessed are you, little one,
for in your humble way
you are a reflection
of those very angels;
melodious in song,
joyous in energy,
clothed in beauty.
Blessed are the little ones,
for theirs is the Kingdom
of Earth and Heaven.
--So, why are we so consumed with getting and hoarding things? Even ideas? The Rev. Parker explains much of it in terms of fear-conditioning: we’re always afraid of want, of lack, of someone taking away what we have, or need, or think we need. The very fear on which an oppressive culture, political regime, and most corporate advertising systematically plays in order to get us to work, buy, and hoard more fervently; and which works against any kind of openhanded sharing and mutual empowerment. All our energies are taken up in defending what we have against threats both real and imagined -- or deliberately manufactured -- until that fear colors, and polarizes, our whole perception of the world: black and white, friend or enemy, with us or against us. So we end up divided not only against each other, but against ourselves.
“The abuser takes possession of the soul through the body”, she quoted. Fear becomes imprinted on, and in the case of torture, systematically and deliberately imprinted on the physical nervous system, straitjacketing perception, imprisoning the soul in a web of fear and lies. All of it reinforced by the propaganda of church, state, and commerce, which engenders paranoia against designated “enemies” of the Faith, the State, or in our case the Free Market. We see it all around us; but, can we discern, and break, its hold within us? Particularly the effect of the “stupefactive poison” of advertising, which turns even our wants and desires away from Heaven, and toward all that, those idols, which cannot feed the soul.
Under the sway of such conditioning, it’s as hard to see who even we really are, as to see the other as they are. –Who are we, really? Who am I? I’ve so often asked this; but, rather than trust in the cracked and distorted mirrors of society, I’ve usually looked to Nature to tell me. To water:
When the waters are a calm, clear mirror
spreading unbroken to the horizon,
and everything in Earth and Heaven
is caught, reflected on their surface,
then I can almost see His face.
And when the wind blows over the waters,
creating a sparkling field of diamonds,
spreading ripples in all directions,
their infinite fields of interconnection
reveal of the tracings of His hand,
the intricate patterns of His mind,
oft-hid, now openly-displayed
where the wind and sunlight play…
As I continue on my journey,
this lifelong odyssey,
breathe your breath of life into me;
open and heal these eyes to see
the great and unbroken Unity.
Fill in the empty spaces in me,
my mind, my entire reality,
until I can see your face more clearly,
mirrored still more faithfully
upon the shining face of the sea,
in the beauty of a mountain stream,
in the River of Life which flows through me
and all of the living world around me.
And may your glory be revealed
in all that’s good and free and wild;
in the shining eyes of a little child,
in the glory of a loved one’s smile.
And may I even ask the grace
to be able to see the original face
I had when you first conceived of me;
show me my true identity!
I pin much of my hope on the belief, however childlike (--what’s wrong with being a child?) that some part of God’s Creation, if not the human part, is still capable of mirroring the truth and beauty of who we are, if we’re able to open to that. My main task as a poet has been to open and remain open to that. This is the faith I live and create by, and it’s served me well as far as it goes. But it only goes so far. The harder faith to come by is the one that we can, somehow, be that kind of mirror to one another.
Sometimes I’ve been enabled to see another person in this way, just as a few key people in my life have, from time to time, through the lens of poetry, art, or of Christian faith, been able to see me in this way. In moments of insight and compassion, of extraordinary emptying and opening, one may catch a glimpse of the beauty of the soul, beyond all fear, prejudice, and delusion:
Forming within the deep hidden places,
born out of silence and dream, of the Dreamer;
(can you hear? can you see? I can begin to...)
The heat and the pressure, the fiery furnace
of conflicts unseen, unshared, unsuspected
in times spent alone when noone could reach you,
lost in the dark...the lines on your face tell.
Yet.....this beauty emerging before me
layer on layer, facet by facet,
this deep-wrought miracle flashing in sunlight,
this infinite treasure......how comprehend it?
Though the darkness has not understood it,
the light has again taken tangible substance
of body and mind, of soul and of spirit,
both yours and mine. I see a reflection:
the treasure I've sought for, wandering endless,
appears to my eye, unfolding within us.
Sometimes it comes as a revelation, a profound religious experience which opens the inner eye for a moment. The trigger can be the face or smile of another person, or it can be something glimpsed within: a radiance in the sun, the sky, the world all around, suddenly come to a focus. A sudden glimpse of what poet Rainer Maria Rilke (after Sufi tradition) named “the Angel”:
This love-haunted face, this never-told secret,
this form which describes my inmost desire…
I find my sight reshaped around a smile.
Your heart, your eyes are so like a diamond
refracting the innermost rays of the Sun
through all the colors of living Creation.
Something divine again shines through the human,
and the world becomes bearable, meaning/truthfull
at least in some small part I might cleave to.
Your coming to light is a tangible witness
that beauty is real and hope never wasted,
that God hears the heart and knows every longing.
Open your heart, allow me to know you,
for you were made to be known, and so I was
made to know you, so endlessly, always.
Who knows how endless this love may yet be,
this infinite sky, this angelic chorus,
the gates of eternity opening for us.
One may even glimpse the Angel in the Earth, in the face of Gaia, rising in the heart, forming within the mind’s eye, even in the midst of all the heartbreak and destruction we are witnessing. Amid death and breaking of the world we knew and loved, comes the birthing of a new and greater, more beautiful world. I try to view the Earth’s suffering through the lens of the passion of Christ:
And God becomes flesh
and bleeds among us,
nailed to the cross
of all our contradictions,
the denials of all those
who can no longer feel;
of our techno-world logic,
cold, hard as steel.
Lifted from the ground
against a barren sky,
her arms spread wide
to embrace all mankind,
Her throes are upon her;
she is Earth-stuff in labor,
a new birth in Nature,
in space and time.
I feel her pulse within me;
her cry has become mine.
Light shines out of darkness,
beauty out of ugliness,
life out of death,
she the deathless,
words of divine substance
dripping from her breast,
birthing her children
in tears, blood, and sweat.
The meek shall yet inherit...
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed ar the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst
for righteousness,
for they will be filled;
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted
because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matt. 5 3-10
--So spoke the poet-prophet Jesus, 2,000 years ago. After two millennia of creed, greed, and conquest, will we finally listen to this poetry, and to the Voice, the Word, the Spirit of God which speaks there, so as to take it to heart? Can we become that poetry, as he did, so that it echoes on in and through us, our lives, our work, our witness, for the next 2,000 years? Isn’t that what the world most needs? Isn’t that the New Creation to which Gaia would give birth? One that loves and embraces her as she does us? For, surely she takes part in the pain and anguish of our birth, or rebirth, just as we take part in hers.
Christ, said Rev. Parker, died on the cross not to expiate our sins (substitutionary atonement), but to reveal the beauty, the compassion, the all-inclusive and forgiving heart of God. If regular denominational Christians ever REALLY GET THIS, I might consider rejoining them. But I’m not exactly holding my breath…
Thus endeth the Lesson.
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