Laurel Massé

Tongues

I have some friends who have very profound and committed spiritual lives in non-Christian traditions. Of late I have been less guarded and careful in my language when speaking to them (perhaps an unforeseen consequence of OneGoodBook). What I mean by this is that I've said "the Lord", or "my Lord Jesus" and other specifically Judeo-Christian terms, said "God" rather than using the word "Universe" or referring to my own inner knowing. I have been speaking my own language without trying so hard to translate into theirs.

This is newish behavior for me. I love languages. I speak three: American English, British English, and French. There is nuance in French that does not translate into English, and I am sure this is true of every language. Languages are cultural melodies to me. Also it behooves a citizen of the world to try to honor another citizen's language. I remember being upset as a child - 10 or 11 - to find out that what is called Firenze, Italia by the people who live there is called Florence, Italy by us. I thought we were being very rude, changing their home's name like that. I didn't like being called Laura Mace, did I? Why didn't we call people what they wanted to be called?  Why couldn't the map in my schoolbook say Italia? So I have some Italian and Spanish, a few words of Arabic (hello, tea, coffee, water, thank you), and Hebrew (hello, and the sh'ma, and "let everything that has breath praise the Lord"), some Greek (good morning, good evening, thank you), a little Latin, and enough Cajun French to figure out song lyrics. I've also became familiar with terms from many spiritual/religious traditions, which stands me in good stead when teaching at Esalen and Omega and the New York Open Center, where some students for their own personal reasons are hostile to Christianity. If a word for God is upsetting, then we can find some other way of speaking.

But I am not leading such a workshop now, but rather talking with friends - friends who meditate, who chant, who put up pujas in their living rooms, or keep the solstice - and I would like to be able to speak freely of my own condition in my own language. I am not so worried anymore about being thought stupid if I "speak Christian" - thank you all for that. Your comments have been very freeing.   So when I speak godtalk with these deeply spiritual friends, who are devoted, and admirable, and following the promptings of their own spirits, I am a little shocked to find I am getting language corrections. And thinking corrections. Don't limit yourself, I am told. God is such a small word. Everything you need lies within, I am reminded, and why cling to outmoded language from a corrupt tradition? Jesus is a myth, a symbol.I must expand my thinking. I should read The Secret. I should study A Course in Miracles.

Here it gets noisy. Hear the moan of one who wonders why her friends seem unwilling to meet her halfway. Hear the exasperated groan of someone who wonders what exactly is limiting about these concepts of God, other than the limitations of our own human understanding, I mean? Has anybody read the Athanasian creed lately? Under that, catch a whisper of hurt. Ah. This is clearly an old feeling. I have felt this before. When did I first learn that it is not alright to be openly Christian, or not more than ceremonially so?  But under all this other noise, right now, hear the low throbbing hum of a spirit that does not want to be called by a name other than its own anymore.

Here I am... wasn't I?

It's very hot in the city this morning, and has been for a couple of days. I live on the top floor of an older building, right under the roof, where it heats up early and stays hot late. My air conditioner won't be installed till after the weekend. All this to acknowledge that I am not at my best. Now, my grandparents lived on the top floor of a 6-floor walkup in Washington Heights for many years, and they never had air condioning. The hardiness genes must be deteriorating with each succeeding generation. 

Whatever the reason, I had a spiritual meltdown yesterday. On a break from working on a friend's recording project, I heard another recording the engineer has been working on. The track was swinging, one of the singers was terrific - great intonation, hip choices, totally in the groove.. The other was not. This other, albeit a very fine theatrical singer, Did Not Swing. Was not in tune, either. I heard all that, and felt envy - envy that that one singer was getting to record in my genre (mine mine mineminemine waaaaah!) while I cannot afford to, frustration that agencies and labels have not been interested in me since I left the Transfer, exhaustion from having to do everything by myself. I was just a mess inside, and probably at that moment had all the emotional and spiritual maturity of a two-year old. The only credit I can claim is that I did not fling myself to the floor and wail. And that I probably would not have done so even if I had been alone.

The sting is this: I actually don't believe in the competition model of the arts, and I don't accept the limitations of genre, either. In fact, I believe that one must offer real support to one's fellow artists, and honest encouragement when they stretch beyond their perceived limits, and generous, genuine rejoicing when they have opportunities and successes. Let's face it - it is easy to find folks in your field who will whine in harmony with you. It is being honestly celebrated by your peers that is scarce. So my inner behavior was completely contrary to my profound convictions.

I have been wondering all night and this morning about this. How can I seem to have come so far, and then step in my own leavings? Conversion is not a single event. That's what I am forced to remember. It is a daily, hourly, every-minute event. Think it's done? and it ain't, and here's proof: my inner Waaaah! Of course that's found throughout scripture, with St. Peter is the all-purpose example. Lived with the Lord, loved the Lord, and the minute he thought his own skin was at risk, he denied ever having met the man.

In dog training (ride with me on this) I learned that mammals under stress revert to earliest learned behavior. And what is our earliest learned behavior, us humans? Crying to get what we want. And being afraid of being neglected, uncared-for, unloved. And that is the territory I visited yesterday. In the studio, no less, which I must add is like a sanctuary to me. A place of shelter.

Well, waiting in the mailbox for me when I got home was a copy of James Alison's On Being LIked, which has been recommended by a friend with whom I have been musing about the Atonement and substitutionary sacrifice. I opened the book briefly to sniff at it (doesn't everyone?) and "happened" to open it to these sentences:
In other words, we are taught to be loving lookers at what is by the One who is calling into being and loving what is. We are taught to see and delight in what is by the One whose delighting is what gives it, and us, to be.

Oh. Lord, I believe with all my heart... and help me in my unbelief. Lord, be my vision.

I am saving the rest of that book for July because of the ongoing One Good Book Experiment. My final word (at least for now)about my envy fit (see? it's not even green anymore) is the Word that knocked me back into a better balance this morning. It is in John's gospel, chapter 3: Now a discussion arose between some of John's [the Baptist's] disciples...so they went to John and said, ""Rabbi, the man who was with you on the far side of the Jordan, the man to whom you bore witness, is baptising now, and everyone is going to him." [Here is where John could have said "Going to him? But I'm the Bapist. Waaah!"]. He replied, "No one can have anything except what is given to him from heaven.... It is the bridegroom who has the bride; and yet the bridegroom's friend, who stands there and  listens to him, is filled with joy at the bridegroom's voice. This is the joy I feel, and it is complete."

Going public in teeny tiny ways

I scared myself yesterday morning. I responded to a NY Times call for reader comments on an article about shifting emphasis within the evangelical movements. In case you have not been aware of it, there is an increased environmental concern within these groups of politically-savvy committed Christians, and the original article can be read here. Check it out. You can then read all the responses by clicking on "Post a Comment", but I warn you in advance, the majority of them are harsh and intolerant, even nasty, and many are also ill-informed. And I am not talking about evangelicals' responses. Here's my contribution.

Though I know that the comments posted here about the tragedies resulting from religious intolerance are right, I also know that Christian evangelicals are people who tend to roll up their sleeves and plunge into the work at hand while many others are still having meetings and formulating positions. So I have believed for a long time that the evangelicals are our best hope for addressing climate change - because the earth is the Lord’s, and we must care for it - and poverty - because we are commanded to love one another, and feed the hungry, house the homeless, tend the sick and the dying, minister to those who have lost hope - and war, again because we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to beat our swords into plowshares, converting weapons (and the money that buys them) into tools for growth and nurture. Now, as more and more prominent evagelicals are speaking to these issues, the shifts I am seeing fill me with hope.

We are so easily distracted when we put our attention on our differences, and when distracted, we are too easily manipulated into ineffectiveness. We must begin to focus on that which unites us. If I join with you to save a wetland or a battered child, does it even matter that I do it because Christ commands me and you do it because of your passionate social convictions? What matters is that we are doing it, and together.

So what, one might ask, was the scary part? I signed with my full name.

Big brave me. Give me a medal.

Gee whiz.

uh oh...

I have this evening finished reading what Christians call the first five books of the Old Testament, and what Jews call the Law, or Torah. Steeped as I am in English murder mysteries and books about dogs, I cannot pretend to much knowledge about how this body of work is read and understood from the Jewish traditions. My own Bible's notes call it "the memorial of the beginnings of God's people". They were bloody beginnings. I find this very difficult reading, and it has been slow going. Slow, and riveting, once I stopped my ears to my imaginings of the struggle of animals in the thousands that were being sacrificed. I am hoping that some of you will join in here, and help me understand what I am reading. Am I wrong to see this as a practice of substitutionary sacrifice? You must not deliver your children to be slaughtered for the god Moloch, for I am your God, but I know you have to kill something because you humans are like that, and it takes blood to get your attention, so sacrifice the firstborn and perfect of your herds and flocks for me instead.

Beyond this, though, lies a story of a people being chosen. Wanted. Desired. It also is a story of screwing up a relationship over and over, of being repeatedly unfaithful and untrustworthy, and being taken back, but with ever more conditions. "OK, but now you have to do this and that". Hence Leviticus and much of Deuteronomy. The Israelites are told over and over that God will take care of them, cherish them, put them above all other peoples if they are faithful to him, and castigate them, punish them, kill a generation of them, and keep some of them forever out of the land flowing with milk and honey if they are not faithful. And they keep wandering off.

While I have been reading this, my church has moved through Easter season, and I am also reading and hearing the New Testament. Christ has died, Christ is risen, and now we are in a waiting time before he sends the Comforter, the Holy Spirit that he promised to us, promised to send to us because he loves us. Loves. Loves. Us. This also is hard reading, because it is initiating a gnawing, a restlessness, a radical discomfort. I am not sleeping very well, actually. How does one respond to this extravagant love? Of course, I don't really mean some abstract theoretical "one". I mean me.

In the most recent edition of her brilliant radio program Speaking of Faith , Krista Tippett interviews 'new monastic"  Shane Claiborne, who quotes the Danish philosopher/theologian Soren Kierkegaard as saying: "The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly."

In the wilderness

Leviticus. Blood blood blood. This is hard reading. Three is a progression from human to animal to symbolic sacrifice here. And a lot about lampstands and priestly robes. But most of all, blood.
I didn't want you to imagine me lying in a hammock reading "People"...

In the beginning

Well, the experiment has begun. Slowly. It seems I am leery of being seen reading a Bible in a public place like a train or café or park. If it looks like one, that is. And the one I have chosen to read certainly does, black leather cover, gilt-edged pages RSV. The experiment already has an unexpected dimension: my own prejudices and intellectual vanity. It's very fine for the world's great scholars to sit in their studies or seminaries and read scripture, but someone doing the same thing on the subway must be a religious fanatic or somehow narrow-minded - where the heck did I pick THAT up? - and heaven forbid anyone should think that of me.

I'd better live a long life, because there is still so much improvement to be made.

Now to the book. I was struck by the story of Abraham's readiness to sacrifice his only child, Isaac, in obedience to a voice he heard. We are told it is God, testing. We are told that Abraham's fear of and devotion to the Lord is so great that he prepares to do this unspeakable thing. He binds his son, and lays him on the altar, and is about to slay him when the Voice calls to him again and says "Stop", and a ram appears, stuck by its horns in a thicket. Abraham sacrifices the ram instead. Then he leaves, rejoins his servants, and goes to live at Beer-sheba. Isaac does not go with him. Rupture.

What is now the relationship between father and son? What can it possibly be? What a lonely child Isaac must have become. His father raised a knife to slaughter him in obedience to a god. His half-brother, Ishmael, has already gone far away. He is the only child of Sarah - does he go back to live with her? The next paragraph speaks of her death at Hebron, not Beer-sheba where Abraham dwelt. We are told that Abraham goes to mourn for her and then arranges to find a wife for the boy from amongst his own people; the granddaughter, in fact, of his brother Nahor. When the match is made, perhaps Isaac finds some happiness, for it says he  "took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother's death." (Genesis 24:67b).

The sacrifice incident is not directly mentioned again. The name Isaac means "he laughs".