Grandfather God

I have trouble seeing the Divine as a father, due to too much Christian imagery of the stern and patriarchal "Lord and Father of mankind". The word Grandfather makes me think of Native American spirituality instead. But the imagery of this prayer does not draw on that source, but rather on childhood experiences of my own grandfather.

Grandfather God,
who trails beards of moss over the rocks and the trees
and decks the bushes in autumn with hairy seed-cases;
you are not an authority figure but a playmate.
We come to your house on holy days
to play hide and seek,
sing lustily,
and have tea and cakes.
Your wisdom is of the humble variety,
quietly spoken, close to the earth.
You love to gaze at the stars
and give bread to the ducks.
You don't tell me off,
you just hold me close
and tell me jokes about life.
Tell us another story, Grandpa.
Tell us how we are loved.
Let me bring you something -
a cup of tea? a biscuit?
No. Only my heart will do,
as I sit cradled in your arms
by the hearth of dreams.
A heart bruised by experience,
brimming with joy,
suffused with love.
Well, then.
Cheerio, Grandpa.
See you soon.

prayer of Yeshua

Do we need yet another version of the Lord's Prayer, I hear you ask? Well I think everyone should write their own version; it may not be the world's greatest prayer, but it is deeply embedded in our culture, and most people can still recite it even after years and years of not doing so. Also, it was itself a version of the classic Jewish prayer the Kaddish, so why not create new versions of it?

So, here's my version.

O Genderless Engenderer,

Flame of life at the heart of all things,

Holy, holy, holy are your names.

Your republic of informed hearts is always within us and around us.

Your mysterious way unfolds before us

as matter and spirit dance together to create life.

May the finite tell its stories to the infinite

and may the infinite lend its everlasting peace to the finite.

May our hearts be open to forgiveness given and received,

and may we move accurately in harmony with all

and remain present in the now.

The republic of heaven on earth is all and each of us

reverberating with glory and power

in infinite space-time.

Amen.

UPDATE: I have removed the link to the Nazarene Way website, because there are issues with the "translations" there. The Aramaic blog explains all.

Happy Vertumnalia

Today is the festival of Vertumnus, the lover of Pomona.

I like this story because Vertumnus appears in disguise to woo Pomona, and wins her by his eloquence. Because of his disguise, he is the god of seasons, change and growth. I also love the turning seasons, and approve strongly of change and growth.

Wikimedia Commons has an interesting selection of pictures of Vertumnus in a very convincing disguise.

But I prefer the word-picture painted by Ursula Fanthorpe in her poem, Pomona and Vertumnus.

Auras are real

Hurrah! Auras are real (I knew that of course, but it's nice to see science catching up with magic). Humans glow in visible light.

The human body literally glows, emitting a visible light in extremely small quantities at levels that rise and fall with the day, scientists now reveal. In fact, virtually all living creatures emit very weak light, which is thought to be a byproduct of biochemical reactions involving free radicals. The researchers found the body glow rose and fell over the day, with its lowest point at 10 a.m. and its peak at 4 p.m., dropping gradually after that. These findings suggest there is light emission linked to our body clocks, most likely due to how our metabolic rhythms fluctuate over the course of the day.

(via Geekologie)

I can't see auras but I can feel them as heat.

Naomi and Ruth

I just put up a post at my other blog about Naomi and Ruth as depicted in art over the centuries (a search inspired by recent posts at Monkey Mind and Jesus in Love), and remembered the poem by John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale, that mentions Ruth.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

I particularly liked this painting, from a blogpost entitled Ruth and Naomi: The Bible on Lesbians. I like the pinky desert landscape. It looks as if they are just going to kiss...

Ruth and Naomi, Orpah departing
by Philip Hermogenes Calderon (1833-1898)

And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried.

Ruth 1:16-17

staying compassionate

Liz Williams has a great post about how TV can make one blasé about suffering.

This is why I don't watch the news on TV and have not done so for about 2 decades (deliberately so for the last decade). Watching things on TV inures us to them - it is external, somehow unreal, "just a story" — an attitude which is encouraged by the way the newscasters constantly refer to items as "stories".

I listen to things on the radio, where they frequently make me cry. This morning I heard a story about the death of a 17-year-old pilot in WW2, which made me cry. It was on Desert Island Discs with Martin Shaw. His mother met a young pilot in a tea-shop, just before he was sent to war. They danced to a song called J'attendrai by Tino Rossi. He asked if he could write to her. Three weeks later she received a letter from his commanding officer saying that he had been killed on his first sortie, and they had found her address in his wallet.

I frequently cry at things on the radio, because the pictures are in my head, not external to me on a screen. As someone once said "The pictures are better on the radio."

When they recited the list of those killed in the World Trade Centre, that made me cry. Another occasion when I cried at radio news was a story about some Australians crossing the desert to free some asylum seekers from a detention centre. It always makes me cry when people help others where there is no particular benefit to them for doing so.

Another way to prevent oneself becoming blasé about news is only to read the weekly newspapers, which summarise the events and give a slightly longer-term perspective. (This was an approach recommended by Thomas Merton.)

Of course, if one spent all one's time weeping over the suffering of others, one would be completely useless for anything else, including doing something to alleviate it — but I still wouldn't want to ever become inured to it. There is a sort of mental trick whereby one can set aside one's involvement and focus on solving the problem and seeing it objectively, but that takes some time to acquire.

building bridges

Queer theologians are in no doubt that the message of religion, and the nature of the divine, transcends gender and sexuality, and yet embraces gender and sexuality, the world and our bodies. But mainstream theology is having a hard time keeping up with the cutting edge.

Should religion be about transforming the world, or celebrating it? This is at the heart of religious conflict on the issue of human sexuality. But if the central message of religion is love, connection, compassion, then loving relationships are part of the solution, not part of the problem. In Wicca, we have a saying, "All acts of love and pleasure are Her rituals", and that means all, including same-sex love. Similarly, Unitarians and UUs have been LGBT-affirming for decades.

I want to celebrate the brave pioneers of LGBT spirituality, and the continuing activism of those who seek to end religious homophobia.

Soulforce is an organisation that campaigns for freedom for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from religious and political oppression. They engage in dialogue with homophobic organisations and religious spokespersons.

The LGBT Religious Archives Network coordinates identification, collection and preservation of personal papers and organizational records from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender religious people. There are some truly inspirational stories on their website, and it is a vital historical resource.

There are many more individuals and groups out there speaking up for the inclusion of LGBT people in religious life - too many to list here. I will leave you with two examples to illustrate why including LGBT people is so important:

Peggy Neff and Sheila Hein made their lives together for eighteen years. Then, on September 11th in 2001, Peggy was aboard the plane that was hijacked and flown into the Pentagon. Like so many surviving husbands and wives, Sheila’s life was torn apart. And like so many others in her situation she sought assistance in her home state. The response she received was “Please accept our condolences on the loss of your friend. We regret to inform you that you are not eligible to file a claim under (the) Virginia Victims of Crime Act.”

from Don't be Afraid of Change: A Briefest Reflection on the Dynamic of Creation by James Ishmael Ford

There are many more examples like the one above that happen every day around the world.

The second example was a leaflet, If I told you, a collection of essays by LGBT college students. It was the saddest thing I ever read. In it, various college students told of their isolation and fear at having to hide their sexuality. Sadly it is no longer available online, but I copied some excerpts.

Of course, none of this will reassure people who feel that their tradition, or their holy book, tells them that LGBT sexuality is wrong. I am sure they feel that they are listening for the Divine will in their adherence to this view. So there's no point in shouting at them - we need to calmly engage in dialogue, examining their (and our) underlying assumptions, patiently going through the texts and the traditions, listening to their fears, and so on. That is why the work of people like Soulforce and the Equality Riders is so important, because it's all about changing the hearts and minds of the anti-gay lobby in a non-confrontational way.

This post is part of the Bridging the Gap synchroblog.