Day Two - London, 3 March 2010

Wash me thoroughly from my wickedness *

and cleanse me from my sin

For I acknowledge my faults *

and my sin is ever before me.

Psalm 51:2-3, From Morning Prayer in Lent, Common Worship - Daily Prayer

St. Katharine

So began my morning, with these words from Morning Prayer.  Not to say that I was feeling especially like a sinner today, but that the day (which was mostly cold and grey anyway) was covered with a scrim of regret, shame, and anxiety about being unemployed.  In all that I did to get away, it was there as a smudge, or smear over the wonderful things that I did and saw.  Chesley (my psychiatrist) will not be happy to hear this.  

Breakfast followed in the refectory - and I think that most Brits are more shy than I am.  Finally someone broke the ice, and we spoke - albeit briefly.  I took the Tube to South Kensington, a station that brought back memories of my visit here with Joanne in 1974.  Not much had changed at the station.  One nice thing was the pedestrian subway that connects the station to the Natural History Museum (which I did not visit) and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A).  I read somewhere that after all of these institutions were built, including Royal Albert Hall, the locals called this part of London Albertopolis.  I believe it.

Ceramic mullion at the V&A

At first I found the museum un-engaging.  I suspect that after experiencing the Uffizi in Florence, and the Bode in Berlin last Fall, the casts and assorted Della Robbia didn't seem quite right.  I did give it my best, however, wandering through room after room of stuff.  The V&A must be Britain's attic, much like the Smithsonian is ours.  What was utterly fascinating was the Theatre section, with costumes, photographs, videos, etc., of all the London stage productions.  Truly marvelous!  I avoided all of the Orientalia ( I may go back), and around 11:45 found myself hungry and wandered off to the Café.  Here is where I began to understand the V&A.  Having picked up my Steak and Mushroom Pie (what?  no kidney?!) and a Limonata, I went to the three indoor rooms, all of which are splendid in their Victorian decoration.  I wanted to take photographs, but didn't want to disturb the people around me.  It was then that I understood why I wanted to be there.  After lunch I photographed some architectural details including the fabulous ceramic staircase.

The Ceramic Staircase at the Victoria and Albert Museum

Taking a pause, and looking at the map, I realized that I needed to go see at least two paintings, one by Byrne-Jones, and the other by Dante Gabriel Rosetti (who's the Italophile?).  The painting, The Day Dream, is absolutely stunning, and I found myself taking a considerable amount of time with it.  

The Day Dream by D.G. Rosetti

There were Tuner's an Constable's in the next room - but my aesthetic receptors had all been blown.  It was time to go.

Out onto Brompton Road I took a few steps to John Cardinal Newman's Brompton Oratory.  Jo and I had visited here in 1974, and I recall being very impressed.  That was, however, before I had been to Il Gesu in Rome, or Einsiedeln in Switzerland - that is before I had seen real Baroque buildings.  So this visit was spiritual - I took in the good cardinal's faith, and noticed that the oratory was perhaps 3/4 size of what I had seen in Italy, France, and Germany.  

Up to Knightsbridge, and I avoid Harrod's, instead taking the Tube over to Euston Station.  My goal is to see the Sir Flinders Petrie collection at the University College - London.  This is not a museum.  One runs up a flight of stairs to a very ordinary looking door, having gone into one down on the street, where one is cordially greeted by some graduate assistant who tells me that I can photograph, but without flash, and to enjoy myself.  I pushed open a door and went into a wonderland.  You have to understand that I have been an Egyptophile since I was 8 (one of the first books I borrowed from the Library in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was a book on "the heretic king - Akhetaten").  

From right to left: Ahketaten, Nefertiti, and daughter Meriaten

And here he is, with his wife, Nefertiti, and daughter offering praise (see the hands of blessing coming from the obliterated sun) to the sun god, Aten.  As you can see from the photo, all of these treasures are propped up in rather ordinary cases of wood and glass.  There was glass, pottery, beads, pieces of sculpture, stelae, and a cast of the Palette of Narmar.  This was all stuff that I had read about as a kid - and there it was in front of me.  Especially wonderful were the pieces from Tell El Amarna, Ahketaten's abandoned capital.

As my daughter Anna reminded me once, as we travelled through the Colorado Rockies, "even splendor can become boring."  I wasn't bored, but I had taken in about as much as was possible, so I headed around the corner to a huge gothic revival church, The Church of Christ the King.  I was first aware of a small chapel on my way to the Petrie Collection, but when I actually got there, I realized that it was a huge building.  Someone was playing the organ, which was nice.  It was nothing that I could identify, but I liked it all the same.  

The English Chapel at the Church of Christ the King

I naturally thought that this was a "redundant" Anglican Church, since a sign stated that the church proper was not in regular use.  It wasn't until I got into the chapel that I read about what this building was really all about.  It was built as the "Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church" by a group in the late nineteenth century who followed the teachings of a Scottish Presbyterian pastor, who was not beholden to Romans, Orthodox, or Anglicans, but who believed in the catholicity of the church.  He ordained 12 men, who ordained others, but when all of the original 12 died, there were no more "new apostles" to ordain pastors, and so the movement died out (ca. 1910).  The trustees for this building rent it to the Church of England to serve as a chapel to the University.  The windows in the chapel are truly unusual, and I sneaked an illegal exposure of some of them.

I walked down to Tottenham Court, looking for either tea or an underground, which ever came first.  The underground won, and I train back to Knightsbridge.  The foodcourts at Harrod's are wonderful, but not as easily used as the ones at Ka Da We in Berlin, so I retreat across the street and have tea at Richoux (wonderful sandwiches, scones, clotted cream, fruit cake, and a pretty dreadful strawberry thing) which must serve as supper.

Thence back to Harrod's, perhaps to buy a hat, but way too expensive - so no to that.  Selfridges?  I am tired so I get back on the tube, which is really slow because of an "illness" at Westminster.  I get off at Lymehouse, and go to Cost Cutter and get some snacks.  

I think I've forgotten the scrim for a few moments, so off to dreamland.  Perhaps the Rosetti lady will help me.

Day One - London, 2 March 2010

St. Simeon Styletes sitting on his pillar.

How does one begin a retreat, or a spiritual quest?  When I made my new situation in life (being laid off from my job of some 24 years) known to close friends, almost universally they had the same advice.  "Go away," each one of them said.  "You have been given the gift of time."  The going away part proved to be relatively simple - it was the time part - that gift of time - that proved to be somewhat difficult.  How shall I spend the time?  It needed to have an intentional spiritual thrust to it, and my instinct was to go to Christ in the Desert, or something like that, and lay low and pray.

I wrote to a friend in England, and asked his advice.  Aside from the suggestion to go to Iona (which seemed way impossible) his alternatives were all urban.  So as I type this I am aware of the comings and goings of the Docklands Light Rail (DLR) system directly facing my window.  Around the calm garden and chapel of the Royal Foundation of Saint Katharine's are the working parts of this city, from the Canary Wharf developments, to the old brick dock buildings now housing other concerns.  This may not be a desert that Simeon Styletes would have appreciated, but it is an oasis in the setting like the one in which I try to do ministry.

It was ordinary things that got me here.  Seat 24J on a United 777, and an Express pass to Paddington Station and some dealings with the Circle Line on the London Underground.  As I walked under railway bridges, and between cars (I always looking the wrong way) suddenly I came on St. Katharine's, my urban wilderness.  Warmly greeted and shown to my "flat", I was informed that Evening Prayer was at 5:15.  So I went, and gathered with other clergy as we said the prayers, laying aside the C of E's Common Worship - Daily Prayer, to use a Roman breviary that was pronounced "not as wordy".  I had a hard time with my "hard 'r's'", as the British around me elegantly proclaimed the prayers.  It was hard not to fall into their cadence and pronunciation.  I thought of Arthur and the lady at Collins Street Bakery, "you playin' with me boy!?"  They wanted to know all about me,  did I know Alan Jones (from a former classmate),  had I done the Labyrinth at Grace Cathedral, which parish did I serve, and had I been to Sausalito?  All very human and ordinary stuff.  It was the prayers that led me beyond myself into the faith and customs that deeply united us.  I was sad when the office ended.

The chapel at St. Katharines

Now came the hard part - eating in England.  Trekked over to a restaurant called La Figa, which sits in a rather utilitarian manner on the ground floor of a residential block (two towers) called the Mosaic.  It was nominally Italian, although all the waiters spoke Italian, but the English with their boiling pot of water were there - this was not an Italian restaurant.  There was a little boy, quite cute actually, whose parents let him run around the space unattended and screaming.  The hard surfaces only made his and my plight all the worse.  I thought on St. Anthony and his temptations.  Was it my Großpapa who said, "the reason God made babies so cute is so that we wouldn't kill them."?  Right now I am in agreement.

So, I am both in and out of the desert, but am sufficiently alone to feel a tinge of loneliness, and spiritual purpose.  Tomorrow will bring other aspects to my search.

Travel Nerves

I'm sitting in the Church Street Cafe nursing a de-caf mocha, and taking care of last minute details before going home to pack.  I always have this free-form anxiety before I travel, and it's not fear of blowing up in the plane over the polar route, or getting lost, or anything like that.  I think it's about the loneliness that comes when I travel by my self.  I enjoy it immensely, but have walked around all morning thinking about Arthur and Anna, and trying to control my compulsion to phone them in the midst of their busy day.  

Some of the anxiety is tied to getting everything done before I leave: thank you notes, some business with various agencies, and churches, and then there is the waiting for the housekeeper to be done, so that I can return home and finish packing.  

From here it's off to downtown for a cheap shoe shine at Nordstroms, and then to pick up some Pounds Sterling at TravelEx - and then home, and maybe a nap.  The nap is THE best cure for free-form anxiety.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog - A Review

I read this book with my computer at the ready. Like Umberto Eco's work, it is necessary to complete the context of Barbery's book. Ideas, place names, artists, shops, and pastries were all new, and I felt the necessity to fully explore the references. What drives this work is not only the plot, which is intricate and compelling, but the entire context of the plot. The context is not only the places in which the action (which is largely intellectual) happens, but also the philosophical and esthetic environment which occupies or is occupied by the two main characters. Taking the time with each of these individuals, and especially for me, Reneé, served to fill in the many gaps that I have of French artistic and intellectual life. It surprised me that so much had left me by during my liberal arts education. On that level alone, the book was worth it.

The story itself is one of hope and discovery. At times I wondered if the two characters weren't really two manifestations of one personality - each reflecting a different time and history. They operate in sort of a prose xiasmus, each reflecting aspects of the other, including fate.  I found the older woman more attractive and compelling. The younger one had not yet lived enough life - but certainly had the capacity to do so. It gave me pause to think my own development as an individual ensconced in intellectual and esthetic history. It's not so much what I want to know, as it is what do I want to be?  The philosophical references, especially the German phenomenologist speak to this in the book, and the ghost of Sartre looms over it large.

Some in my book club commented that the characters were "over the top" and "unbelievable."  As they said this I wondered if this is not so much a French book as it is a piece of Japanese manga, albeit without all the drawing.  The two characters, and indeed the catalyst Kakuro, are all a bit larger than life, and printed in bold colors.  This is not a novel of characters so much as it is an interaction of symbols, types, and metaphors - a different type of literary aesthetic.  As such it serves to tell a story, but even more so to launch the reader into other modes of being and knowing.  To have read it only for the plot points and story line would have been a huge mistake.

"Adopted" - A Sermon for the First Sunday after Christmas

“Adopted”

The First Sunday after Christmas

27 December 2009

Trinity Episcopal Church

San Francisco, CA

Isaiah 61:10 – 62:3

Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7

St. John 1:1-8

INI

I.  A Theological Conversation

We had just come home from a friend’s on Christmas Day when I decided to quickly check my email.  In looking through the various FaceBook messages, and other oddities I noticed a message from a Trinity member, and opened it up.  There was a message which asked if we were “changing our theology at Trinity Church” due to a petition in the prayers of the people on Christmas Eve.  She had brought friends that weren’t Christian and was worried that they might have been offended by the prayer.  The offending petition read: “For the conversion of the whole human race to our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” 

So, first of all, as I responded to this individual so I respond to you.  My apologies are offered if our prayers on Christmas Eve offended you, or anyone, for that matter.   What ever we pray about or preach about is open to discussion and mutual edification, and sometimes we just get things wrong.  What did excite me, however, was the opportunity to talk some theology at Trinity – so I’ll be unapologetic about that.  It’s time we did some “God-Talk”, some theology, here.  In the years that I have been with you I have encountered more than once a great deal about what we aren’t.  I’ve heard, “Oh, we don’t do that”, or “we are well beyond that”, or “we really don’t believe that.”  There is precious little talk about what we do believe.  That, perhaps, will need to change, but right now, let’s wrestle with that petition, and the notion of what Jesus means to us.  I’m going to do that in two steps, based on the readings for this morning – so step one.

II: Step One: The Adoption

St. Paul gives us some direction when he writes in the Second Lesson for this morning: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.”  Paul is wrestling with an “us” – “them” problem, as he writes to the people of Galatia.  The question he addresses with them and indeed with the whole emerging church is about what role the Mosaic Law will play in the life of gentile Christians.  Paul’s strategy of basing his emerging churches on a core of Jewish believers was brilliant.  However, when gentiles began to hear the Good News, and began to be attracted by its message, a new question arose.  Did these people need to follow the dietary laws of Judaism, or the laws regarding circumcision, or work on the Sabbath?  When the early Christian authorities in Jerusalem said, “Yes, new Christians must follow these laws,” Paul replied with a resounding “No.”  It will do us well to understand Paul’s stance over against the Jews and Christianity.  If we read Romans and Galatians deeply, we will come to understand that Paul sees the Jews as having not been abrogated from their role as God’s chosen people.  They continue to enjoy that status and that righteousness. 

However, to underscore the argument about keeping the Jewish ritual law, Paul uses a very interesting word in his letter to the Galatians.  He says it quite succinctly in the reading for today: in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.”  Adoption!  We are the adopted ones, the “others” who are taken from the outside and brought in and included.  There is immense room in Paul’s theology for the other.  Third Isaiah has a similar notion in the first reading for this morning, when he uses these phrases in describing an Israel that returns to a devastated Jerusalem with its temple destroyed, and its people disenfranchised: “clothed with salvation,” “robed with righteousness,” “you shall be called by a new name.”  We might ask ourselves, “Who is the recipient of this grace, this ‘redemption of those under the law’”?  The answer is all of us – all who are welcomed in, or who want to come in, all who seek God, regardless of status or religion.

III.  The Pantocrator

Both Matthew and Luke have elaborate Birth Narratives, replete with angels, shepherds, wise men, evil kings, and gentle animals.  It is Matthew who bases his Birth Narrative, in part, on the story of Moses, but it is John who basis his “birth story” on something entirely different.  John’s prologue, which was just read as the Gospel, is a retelling of the Creation Story from the first chapter of Genesis. 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.  What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

In this retelling of the creation story, John reminds us of the strong word that comes from the mouth of God - breathing over the tohu vobohu, the formless void.  John sees Jesus, present at the moment of creation, participating as the very Word and breath of God, bringing light and life, separating dark from light.

Some years ago, Arthur and I took the subway in Istanbul out as far as it would go to the ancient walls of Constantinople, and from there walked back into the city, visiting churches and ruins along the way.  The first church, Saint Savior in Chora (Saint Savior in the country) is in a marvelous state of preservation, with frescoes, mosaics, and sculpture fairly untouched from the cleansings done to other holy places by their Muslim captors.  As you walk through the first and second Narthex into the Nave and look up high into the central dome,  (much like the space here at Trinity) you see a powerful image of Jesus as Pantocrator.  It is this image:

In this image we see Jesus as John saw Jesus – the pantocrator, the creator of all.  It is this image of Jesus that might be most useful to us as we explore the quandary of our prayer and petition.  It is this Jesus who is in all, and who made all, who embraces all, that gives us a clue about our role as Christians among other believers. 

We live in a world without boundaries, and so did the Romans, and Greeks, and other peoples living at the time John and Paul wrote their words.  A thousand religions, and mysteries clamored for the hearts of those who would hear, and so it is today.  We do also live in a time of exclusive claims.  One only has to listen to fundamental Islam, Christianity, Judaism, or Hinduism to understand that.  “We’re right, and you are not!”  The response to such exclusive claims cannot be constructed of our own unbending exclusivism.  We must remember the Jesus who creates all and who embraces all. 

At the 9:00 mass, I spoke about this problem with an old friend who showed up here this morning, and he offered me a wonderful insight.  Remember the words of the petition?  “For the conversion of the whole human race to our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”  My friend Michael offered this interpretation, which I thought, was particularly fine, and I offer it to you.  The conversion we pray for, he said, is the conversion of ourselves so that in seeing the other (those not like us) we may see Christ instead.  That is profoundly at the core of what we need to be as a people following Christ.  We need to be ready to see him in anyone we encounter.  We also need to be ready to talk about our relationship with Jesus – the Jesus who makes sense of it all for us.  As we talk to others about faith, Jesus is our touchstone, our wellspring, our metaphor, our deep understanding of the world and its questions.  It is this that we commend to others.  It is this conversation that we of faith, need to have one with the other.  It is this dialogue that we need to have with others who have no faith.

The goal is to live in the world where the image and body of Christ (remember who that is) embraces all.  So thank you, member of Trinity, who brought this to my attention, and thank you to Ormande Platter, Deacon of the Diocese of Louisiana, who wrote the petition and engaged us all in God Talk – Theology.

SDG.

In the midst of earthly life...

Sometime in the early sixteenth century, Martin Luther wrote these lines in hymn:

"In the midst of earthly life

the snares of death surround us..."

I could not get these lines out of my head as we watched Tom Ford's remarkable film, A Single Man.  Aside from the plot which tracks an individual's grief over a lost love, and through whose gaze we are enabled to see so much other grief and sorrow, there are other layers of insight and vision.  Placing it in the early sixties accentuates the "not yet" quality of gay life.  Freedoms beckon and are lived, but there is the usual cruelty and disregard.  Learning of his partner's death, the main character, George (Colin Firth) must abide the condescension of a family member, who informs him that the funeral is "for family," effectively denying him the ability to grieve finally and publicly.  The politics of this, however, is incidental.  The problems that Tom Ford pictures and that Colin Firth so effectively portrays, belong to more than just one class of people - they are universal.  That is the appeal of this film.

I found the visuals to be truly amazing, perhaps because they mirrored my own way of perceiving things.  I will be bold and say that I don't think that I am unusual in this regard, but live in a long tradition of gay men seeing things in a certain way.  Ford has us see with the main character's eye, and we track from eye (lot's of eyes) to mouth, to chin.  Some may link this to Ford's career in fashion, but I think that it is more than that.  It is the way some of us see - focusing totally on what is beautiful to behold, often so much that we stop listening.  In one remarkable scene we watch as the character played by Julianne Moore makes up her eye in full early sixties Cleopatra mode.  The mirror, however, that reflects the eye is distorted, and the attempts to beautify are actually ugly.  Through such images Ford signals directions in the story, and the character of those who encounter George.

The story is a debate about death and life.  It is about all the arguments, either for the one or the other, and the choices that we are allowed to make or not to make.  Temptations come, and Ford chronicles each of them carefully - making them as attractive as possible.  But again, he allow's the camera to be come George's eye, as it tracks from the stubble on Jon Kortajarena's chin, to the smoke that gently drifts from his open lips.  We don't need to be told what the characters are thinking or intending - the visuals say it all. In effect the grief, on the part of each of the characters, is a search - a search for some kind of normalcy and new life.  Each of the invitations/temptations stand on their own, and are only seen in clarity when they have been rejected.

This film also studies memory.  As George remembers his dead lover, and memories are stirred by place, sound, or smell we see the memory.  It is all utter happiness - no bad moments, fights, or difficulties invade this space hallowed by George's grief. There will be time for reality to creep back in.  The business at hand is fully taking in the loss.  Perhaps that is why each of the temptations are held at arm's length - there not being any psychological time to actually evaluate them and engage them.  They are kept in abayence.

Perhaps it is my Mad Men frame of mind lately, but I especially enjoyed the sixties aspect of this film.  Were the sixties really that elegant.  Julianne Moore's dress in the dinner scene is wonderful, as are the stationary, cuff links, suits, and house that George lives in.  Below the visuals, Ford captures sounds that we simply don't hear any more.  There is the sound of an old telephone being put into its cradle, or the sound that the dial of a "Princess Phone" makes.  I especially like the sound of a needle being placed on a LP recording - that soft, fuzzy, "pop" that began the recording.  All of this works to place us in a world that could have easily just been a fashion advertisement, but has been made a world we all lived in to some extent.

A final note of praise.  I like all of Ford's symbolism, especially in one of the final scenes where the flight of an owl signals wisdom, death, flight, and clarity.  This is a film that can be mined for so much more.  Should I read the Isherwood?

New Books!

If you've been to our house, you know how evident our love of books is.  Recently, three new volumes have come into my library - let me introduce them to you.

The first is Per Pettersen's "Out Stealing Horses", a charming tale of growing up in a Norway complicated by Nazi's, personal tragedies, and incipiant love.  This is one of the most calming books that I have ever read.  My immediate reaction was, "I want to live here - I want to be satisfied in this way."  Fiction has never interested me, although lately through the good graces of the Trinity Book Club, I have learned to see beyond what I thought was contrived, and to see the art.  A recent reading of Faulkner's "Absolom, Absolom!" convinced me of that.  This book, however, simply touches those things that we all know, and with which we are familiar.  I saw myself, and my own experiences in the commentary of the main character.  Pettersen has an uncanny knack for writing a convincing geography into which his characters are placed and move.  Rather than focusing on a single moral, or verity, he explores several.  Childhood is like that, as we taken in more and more of the world.  I recommend this one highly.

I have been wanting to purchase this one ever since it was first published a couple of months ago, but it has been difficult to find - selling out at several stores.  I am not a fan of Crumb's, and by that I don't mean that I don't like him, rather that I have not followed him, particularly.  Familiar with his work, I wanted to see what he would do in his "The Book of Genesis Illustrated".  As an armchair biblical scholar and theologian, and as a priest I have more than a glancing interest in this book.  Of special note is the translation by Robert Alter, who has, in addition to his translation of "The Five Books of Moses" also completed a translation of the "Psalms."  This professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley has provided Crumb with a readable and lively text, absent the implied images of the King James Version.  Crumb's work is to supply the reader with an alternate visual as the text is read.  In glancing through the copy I recently obtained, I realized that I had simply not read a great deal of the book - Crumb's drawings grabbing my attention and interest.  I'm going to have to do something with this at Trinity.

Finally, I saw a copy of Orhan Pamuk's new book, "The Museum of Innocence", in a bookstore in Austin, and had to have it.  I have been a fan of this author for several years now, "Istanbul", "Snow", and "My Name is Red" being among my favorites.  The structure of this book is for savoring, as you enter his world in Istanbul, and as you meet family, and involve yourself in the events that structure the world that is his Istanbul.  When I read Pamuk, I am reminded of Umberto Eco, but as an arbiter of a non-western cultural reference.  Pamuk either sends me off to the dictionary, Wikipedia, or a history book.  Reading his work is never a solitary experience.  I've only just begun this book and will have to report more later - but as of now, I'm finding it addictive.