Week 2 – Is Healing Necessary?

Lent 2024 – Week 2:  Is Healing Necessary?

Mediations 1-6, “And the Night is Long” by Dr Catherine Meeks

As any medical patient can tell you, there are very few shortcuts to healing.  We have anesthesia and pain killers but at some point the drugs wear off.   It is at this point we learn healing hurts.  I once had surgery that could only last a specified time with me being under anesthesia.  After the surgery I could not have any pain medication.  For reasons too long to explain now, the normal protocols for keeping me sedated while my body healed could not be followed.  I quickly learned that healing hurts.

In her first meditation, Dr Meeks writes:  “The ego is the one entity that has a contrary voice.  It wants to maintain whatever image it has formed about the nature of reality and who we are in the world, but that image is the very thing that must be explored.”

In Meditation 2, there is the story of a black man walking into a locker room at a health club.  He speaks to the two men present and changing their clothes.  Neither man returns his greeting.  Because they are both white, the black man assumes that have not responded because of his color.  Later a friend explained to him that both men are deaf.  They did not respond because they could not hear.

Years ago, a doctor, remarking on the refusal of a patient to appreciate his own health and its seriousness, exclaimed:  “Denial is not just a river in Egypt!”  His play on words – denial and de[the] Nile – is fact.  Denial and its twin action of scapegoating is not new to the human condition.  It is one of the first stories in the Bible.  Adam made a choice to take a bite from an apple, yet millennia of religious pundits put the blame on his companion Eve.  The result has been to subjugate women as a way of protecting the world.

Meditation 2 speaks a very vital truth:  “The energy to find a new way to act and heal must be grounded in intention.”  In order to heal, one must approach with intent.  Otherwise, we are adrift on a raft going nowhere on the river Denial.

Meditation 3 is entitled “We Wear Masks’.  I am reminded of the childhood rhyme: “Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief; doctor, lawyer, Indian chief.”  This first appeared in “Games and Songs of American Children” by William Wells Newell in 1883.  Which are you?

The word “persona” is discussed in this meditation and the title is a good indication of the definition assigned to it.  We spend much of our lives asking and attempting to answer some very basic questions.  Who am I?  What is my place in this world?  The answers to these are reflected in our own personality but are they part of our persona? The Latin word “persona” referred to an actor’s role or mask, masks being the original costume of the early theatre.  Today’s playbills list these as a “cast of characters”.  Our English word “person” is derived from the Latin “persona” and originally was defined both as “an individual human being” and “a character or part in a play.” 

As language as evolved, the word “persona” now means the face you present to the world.  In its evolution, the word “person” actually came to the English language from the French dialect.  Carl Jung is given credit for using “persona” and defining it as “actor’s mask” but he failed to mention it was the dramatic definition used only in relation to the theatre.  The French “personage” from which the English “persona” is derived refers to the “state of being human”.  In the early 1900’s Carl Jung spoke of the outward attitude or projected character of a person.  This is very different from the original which simply meant “an individual human being”.

Mediations 4 and 5 refer to fear and rage,  Dr Meeks makes an extremely vital statement that I wish was on billboards and city murals worldwide:  “Fear is a weight that we can ill afford to bear.”

Meditation 6 asks:  “Can I get a witness?”  I think she answers the need for this in Meditation 4 when she writes:  “All thoughtful and caring humans are called to do everything possible to assist in healing the planet… every act, no matter how small, affects us all.”  If you want to live in a better world, a world with less violence, then you must be the witness.

In the year 2024, we are living in a society that is motivated by false personas and fueled by anger and the resulting rage because we cannot achieve those false personas.  I never planned to be a parent because children are loud and icky messy.  I was very comfortable in this until one day an acquaintance pointed out I “parented” my friends with unselfish compassion and concern.  Once a parent, I realized it wasn’t the loudness of children I found objectionable but the loudness of temper tantrums.  Anger and rage are negative energy so I taught my children to release that negative energy by exercising instead of throwing a tantrum.  To be sure, I got some odd looks in the toy aisle when my children would start doing jumping jacks after I told them they could not buy every toy they saw, but no one’s ears burned from the overly loud crying of a temper tantrum.  “All thoughtful and caring humans are called to do everything possible to assist in healing the planet… every act, no matter how small, affects us all.”

Shakespeare wrote in his play “As You Like It”: “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.”  Will your life and world be a story of love, a comedy or a tragedy?  The choice is ours … to heal or live in denial.

Lent 2024 – Week 1B

Lent 2024 – Week 1B

Introduction by Episcopal Presiding Bishop Michael Curry

Foreword by Catherine Meeks

Bishop Michael Curry describes this book as having been written by a “soul friend and sister”, Dr Catherine Meeks.  He goes further and reflects that the book is written in the spirit of the late Howard Thurman, an American author, philosopher, theologian, mystic, educator, and civil rights leader; Rabbi Abraham Joshua Herschel, a Polish-American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century; and Thich Nacht Hanh, a Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk, peace activist, prolific author, poet and teacher exiled from Vietnam in 1966 to the United States.  All three of these men were spiritual advisors of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. 

These multiple faith references illustrate that racism affects us all and is not simply a black and white issue nor is it only in the United States.  It is important that we realize this, I believe.  Discrimination of any type is wrong and separates us from our deity of choice as well as our neighbors.  In his foreword, Bishop Curry concludes that “Now is the time to act” and mentions the many who have suffered.

Bishop Curry believes that “action is needed” and goes further to define that action as love, love that is “unstoppable, unselfish, unsentimental”.  He quotes Archbishop Oscar Romero,  the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador. As archbishop, Romero spoke out against social injustice and violence amid the escalating conflict between the military government and left-wing insurgents that led to the Salvadoran Civil War in 1980.  Archbishop Romero was murdered while conducting a religious mass.  Archbishop Romero described action based upon love as “the force that will overcome the world”.  He also quotes Dr Martin Luther King, Jr who believed that love was “the only answer to 9hu0mankind’s problems.”

 Bishop Curry goes further in stating that such love will transform rage into righteousness characterized by passion for a better world, a more just social order, a compassionate global community and humanity.  He relates this to the parables told by Jesus of Nazareth.

In her foreword, Dr Meeks described her book as a series of meditations offering possibilities, and a chance for personal reflections.  She challenges the reader to listen as one undertakes positive action in moving forward.  She uses the metaphor of the world as a “house on fire” and says it is time to “stop bickering over which fire extinguisher to use.”

In his introduction, Bishop Curry spoke of how the actions and parables of Jesus have been characterized as healings and exorcisms.  I would ask each of you if there is ever a healing without an exorcism?  When we cure ourselves of a cold, we are exorcizing our bodies of germs, are we not? 

The book’s title we are discussing this Lent is based upon the scripture found in Mark 1:35 which references “that lonely place” with God.  If you practice contemplative prayer or meditation, then you are probably families with that lonely place, often found in a long, lonely dark night. 

I hope you will follow along and read this book, learning from the meditations contained within as we travel our Lenten journey.  We will discuss these mediations twice weekly.  Dr Meeks ends her foreword with a question: “Do you really want to be well?”  It is a most valid and important question.  Do we want our world to be well?  Do we want to be well?  Will we broaden our vision and recognize the world is indeed sick?  Perhaps the ravages of hatred have not yet reached your front yard but if they haven’t today, they soon will tomorrow.  After all, hatred spreads faster than Covid-19.

The Reality of Our World

Lent 2024 – Week 1A

Will you open your eyes to see the reality of our world?

Ash Wednesday this year fell on February 14^th, also known as Valentine’s Day.  Lent is a liturgical season noted for its penitence and solemnity.  Some might say it is the exact opposite of the love and festivities of Valentine’s Day but I would bed to differ.  At its core, pure love is a sacrifice for another, a feeling that evokes putting oneself aside and focusing on another.  During Lent we are called to remember the sacrifice of the man we call Jesus.  During Ramadan, which this year falls on March 11^th which is during Lent, the faithful are called to fast and in their fasting give thanks for their blessings and help those less fortunate.  It is difficult to separate the concept of love from either of these religious and spiritual periods of fasting and discernment.

A Psalm often read during Ash Wednesday services is Psalm 51, also known as” Miserere mei, Deus.”  This is loosely translated as “have mercy on me, O Lord.”  The Latin verb is interesting as from it come our English words of mercy and pity.  We do not usually consider mercy and pity as synonyms so why do they share the same root word?  Basically, it is considered that pity is an emotion and mercy is an action.  Psalm 51 begins with the prayer asking for God’s pity and the subsequent action of mercy:  “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving-kindness; in your great compassion blot out my offenses.”

In his book “The Way of Love’, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Michael Curry advocates that we make love the basis of all our actions.  In each of the series on this blog, I encourage you to explore different ways and examples in order to improve your life and the lives of your neighbors.  During this series for Lent 2024, we will read a book written by Dr Catherine Meeks entitled “The Night is Long but Light Comes in the Morning”.

Dr. Catherine Meeks, founding executive director of the Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing, has been named a 2022 Presidential Award Lifetime Achievement Honoree.  In addition to her work at the center for racial healing Dr. Meeks was also recognized for her work as a Georgia Public Radio commentator, editor of “Living into God’s Dream: Dismantling Racism in America and co-author of “Passionate for Justice: Ida B. Wells as a Prophet of our Times.”

Dr. Meeks holds a Bachelor of Arts in speech education from Pepperdine University, a Masters Degree in social work from Clark Atlanta University, (formally Atlanta University) and a Ph. D from Emory University.  Dr Meeks spent 25 years at Mercer University serving as Assistant Dean of Women, Instructor and Assistant Professor. While at Mercer Macon, Mayor Jim Marshall recruited her to be a loaned executive where she led the Youth Violence Prevention Task Force for two years. That work brought her to the attention of Wesleyan College where she was recruited to be the Clara Carter Acree Distinguished Professor of Socio-Cultural Studies until retiring in 2008.  In 2017, Dr. Meeks returned to the work force with the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta as founding director of the Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing in Atlanta. There she was tasked with making The Center a resource for the entire Episcopal Church as it continues to imagine the way forward in building the Beloved Community. Her work at the Center has also made it internationally known as an important and essential resource for racial healing work.

The title of this book, which I hope you will read along with me< comes from the first chapter of the gospel of Mark, verse thirty-five. (Mark 1:35).  Through many of Mark’s retelling of the actions of Jesus, there is a pattern in which Jesus seeks contemplative and solitary meditation.  This example is important for us all. We cannot do the ministry God gives us to do if we are not filled with Him. Everyone who claims to follow the Way of Love and God’s teachings should take the time alone to recharge, talk to God, read Scripture, and consider what God has for us next.  Our engaging in ministry based solely on our own power will likely lead to fatigue and burn-out or even worse, pride resulting in a sinful fall from grace. Spending time with God keeps our focus on Him and off ourselves.  This is the very focus of both Lent and Ramadan.

During Lent which are encouraged to make sacrifices but also in our sacrifice, take on new and productive, healthy habits.  I hope during these forty days of Lent you will find some quiet time for meditation and engage in healthier habits.  We cannot fight the ills of society if we are not engaged in productive, positive action.  The first step is to ask ourselves:  Do we want good health?  Do we want to be well?  Do we want to fast from the societal paths of greed and selfishness to make the world better for us all? 

Week Six

Week Six

Balance

[Back by popular requests is my annual updated  Super Bowl Sunday blog post. ]

A teacher once told her children that they could use profanity, just as long as they wrote an essay about the word or words before using it.  “You should know your vocabulary,” she stated.  “Write about the word’s etymology or history, where it came from, and why it is considered to be profane.”  Needless to say, her children waited until they had their own abodes before expanding their language skills to include cursing.

Eighteen years later, the same teacher, now retired, was watching a television movie with one of her children when a cell phone advertisement appeared.  “That is so silly,” remarked the child.  “Why?” queried the mother.  “James Earl Jones has a voice like black velvet or maybe rich ebony silk.  Malcolm McDowell could read the menu at McDonald’s and make it sound like Shakespeare.  I loved it.”  “Were you listening?” continued the child.  “They were talking like teenagers!”  The mother had to admit she really was too enthralled with the actors to even notice what company they were representing.

A few weeks passed and again the two were watching a program on television.  Suddenly the same advertisement appeared and this time the mother paid strict attention.  “Oh, how cute!” she exclaimed.  “Rather like a modern-day Dr. Seuss.  Totes McGrotes!”  The child disdainfully glared at the mother and then offered a piece of cake.  “Thank you, dear,” said the mother.  “This is …Totes McGrotes!”  She reached for another bite when the plate was snatched out of her hand.  “You may not use that type of vocabulary, young lady,” admonished the child, “until you have written an essay on what it means, where it came from, and then maybe you will understand why it is so silly!” 

The circle of life is complete!  With the curiosity that characterizes most teachers, the parent did indeed study the new wordings.  She learned that Totes McGrotes meant “totally the best”, also spelled McGoats, having originated in a 2009 movie starring Paul Rudd.  Totes Adorbs was someone who was totally adorable and Totes Presh was used to describe something totally precious.  A gossip Internet columnist claimed “amazeballs” to be his own but actually fashion blogger Spiridakis used it several years earlier as an updated form of pig-Latin. 

This past weekend was Super Bowl Weekend.  An thirty second commercial in 2024 for the Super Bowl cost $7 million dollars.  We witnessed a great ball game and entertainment but also why parents are urged to know what their children are saying and to what music they are listening and singing.  On any given Sunday approximately 450,000 sermons are given.  They are not be promoting something to make your life easier or make you look better.  They discuss living fuller, feeling better about yourself, the sacrifice of One who always thinks you are Totes McGrotes, regardless of what you do. 

If costing the same as a Super Bowl ad, those sermons, based upon a fifteen minute homily, would value 210 million dollars – $210,000,000.  One man paid for the lessons in those sermons with his life.  Because he thought we were Totes Presh.  Without having to run a single yard, this one man scored the ultimate winning goal for each of us, thereby making us Totes Adorbs, and exchanging his life for ours.  Amazeballs!

What if we listened to those 450,000 sermons as intently as we will those thirty-second advertisements? What if a person’s life of faith was as widely followed as the World Cup games?  What if each church received an audience of the 200 million that watched Super Bowl last night?   There are usually thirty minutes of advertisements during a regular Super Bowl.  If we substituted those advertisements for a sermon and the churches got paid, each church would receive, based on the current pricing, $6.3 billion.  Of course, churches are not prepared for a total audience of 200 million but perhaps for an annual budget of over six billion dollars, they could expand. 

Last night the game of football was about balance – balance between offense and defense.  Today we will all go about our daily living, encountering obstacles and needing to make important decisions.  We will face our own game of life with its call for offensive moves and defensive plays.  Hopefully, we will all go to bed winners, having made the world a little bit better for our having played the day well – in balance with kindness, grace for others, and hope.

Week Five

WEEK FIVE

Gratitude

It is often said that “Home is where the heart is” but where exactly is our heart?  Earlier in this series we discussed about how we wanted to be known.  What do your daily activities say about you?  How do they illustrate your beliefs? 

During this series about manifesting how faith in how we live, we have peeked into the lives of many humanitarians through the use of verbs, those action words found in each and every sentence.  In past blog posts we talked about the comic genius of Tom Shadyac, the youngest writer to have ever worked for Bob Hope. 

Long before Tom Shadyac was even born, Bob Hope had made a name for himself in Hollywood as an actor, singer, dancer, vaudeville performer, producer, comedian, and yes, even an athlete.  Hope appeared in over seventy films and countless television programs during his eighty-plus year career.  He also made over fifty USO tours to entertain United States military personnel overseas.

Bob Hope’s passion for living was illustrated in his unique ways of saying “Thank you”.  His popular and annual USO tours were his way of showing gratitude to military personnel who fought for freedom and peace worldwide.  An avid golfer, Hope appeared in over one hundred and fifty charity golf tournaments each year.  He and his wife Delores adopted four children and lived in the same house from 1937 until his death in 2003 at the age of 100 years.

Bob Hope is proof that one needs not be born into wealth in order to create it or spread it in gratitude to multiple agencies and people worldwide.  Born in London to a stonemason and opera singer who later worked at a dry cleaners business, Lesley Hope came to the United States with his six siblings and parents, arriving through the famed Ellis Island in 1908.  He worked as a butcher before signing up to take dance lessons with a girlfriend.  Hope then decided on a career in show business and began as a dancer on vaudeville.

Bob Hope actually flunked a screen test in the 1930’s but used the experience to better his skills.  His career began on radio and he became known for his comedic wit and timing.  While known for his support of the USO or United Service Organization, Bob Hope lent his name and efforts to various other charitable organizations.  It was because of his gratitude and support for the military that Congress awarded him an honorary veteran in the late 1960’s.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once advised “Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”  With all of his talents and skills, perhaps the greatest one Bob Hope possessed was the ability to show gratitude.

Gratitude is simply saying “Thank you” to someone and yet, it is often overlooked.  How many times have we failed to tell a friend thank you or neglected to follow up with said friend when they are absent?  Once upon a time writing thank you notes was a common trend but somehow, we have detached ourselves from saying thank you. 

Many claim they are too busy and others just assume that the gratitude we feel in our hearts somehow gets known by others.  The truth is that most of us fail to show gratitude or express it.  There are no excuses.  I am not going to sugar-coat this.  We need to live an attitude of gratitude every minute and especially show it to our friends.  There is even an app to help us out, an app called the Art of Giving.

In her book “Eat, Pray, Love”, Elizabeth Gilbert writes:  “In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.”

At the end of each performance, for over fifty years, Bob Hope expressed his own personal style and gratitude by his famous one-liner….”Thanks for the memories.” There will always be another job to do, another hill to climb, another dish to wash, or book to read.  This moment, this minute, though, will never come again.  Take a minute to show gratitude to someone.  Let them know…Thank you.