23/01/07
[Please remember this is a sort of "menu" from which to select. No one has to read it all]
Collect
Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
++++++++++
Today's Scripture
http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/
Ps 45; 35; Isa 48:12-21; Gal 1:18-2:10; Mark 6:1-13
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Mark 6:1-13. And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands upon a few sick people and cured them.
Mark loves to describe Jesus as the great wonder-worker, so it's remarkable that he should describe him as powerless in his own hometown. "He could do no deed of power there." It's like what happens in the comic books when Superman stumbles across a piece of kryptonite that drains him of all his superpowers. But this is no comic book, and Jesus is no superhero in the comic book mold. In spite of the impasse of unbelief in Nazareth, Jesus goes ahead and heals people anyway: "he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them." No kryptonite can stop this hero; his inability to do a deed of power in his hometown has nothing to do with some silly piece of magic rock. In Jesus' ministry, compassion always triumphs-it's as if he cannot help but heal. The issue in Nazareth, as Mark describes it, is not Jesus' healing power. The issue is people's refusal to believe. God's redemptive power is always at the ready, but can only be felt by those who turn to God in hope and trust. At stake in Nazareth is what the gospels elsewhere call conversion and repentance. It was so for the people in Jesus' hometown, and it is the same for us.
++++++++++
Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm
PHILLIPS BROOKS, BISHOP AND PREACHER
Psalm 84:7-12 or 33:1-5,20-21; Ephesians 3:14-21; Matthew 24:24-27
O everlasting God, who revealed truth to your servant Phillips Brooks, and so formed and molded his mind and heart that he was able to mediate that truth with grace and power: Grant, we pray, that all those whom you call to preach the Gospel may steep themselves in your word, and conform their lives to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Madurai-Ramnad (South India)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
We continue to observe the week long prayers for Christian Unity:
http://wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/faith/wop-index.html
Intercession
Our God, heal us from exploitative social structures,
that condemn many to poverty and expose them to infections.
Heal us from poverty
that renders the body susceptible and forces us into unsafe behavior.
Heal us, God in your grace, and transform the world.
Heal us from international injustice,
that sets up exploitative economic policies of trade
and denies millions access to HIV drugs.
Heal us, God in your grace, and transform the world.
Heal us from violence that spreads HIV.
Heal us from ethnic and civil wars that spread the virus.
Heal us, God in your grace, and transform the world.
Heal us from unhealthy gender relations
that leave women powerless to protect themselves,
and that exposes partners and spouses to infections of HIV
and other diseases with it.
Heal us, God in your grace, and transform the world.
Heal us from unhealthy family relations
that tolerate unfaithfulness and bring pain
and hurt to all family members of all generations.
Heal us, God in your grace, and transform the world.
Heal us from social stigma and discrimination that lead
us to uncompassionate acts of isolation and failure
to provide quality care and prevention.
Heal us, God in your grace, and transform the world.
Heal us from resignation and exhaustion
that make us hopeless and inactive and blind for the life in fullness
that you promised to provide.
Heal us, God in your grace, and transform the world.
Heal us from our broken hearts and grief
that continue to pain our spirits and minds
and leave us empty about the meaning of life.
Heal us, God in your grace, and transform the world.
Heal us with resurrection power.
Cause us to rise from fear and hopelessness.
Cause us to rise into your resurrection hope.
Cause us to reclaim our right to life and to quality of life.
Transform us through the joy of your spirit
and your peace that surpasses all our understanding.
Amen.
(Adaptation from “Prayer for Holistic Healing” in AfricaPraying, p. 147 © Musa W. Dube.) ++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
"Enter within yourself and work in the presence of your Spouse Who is ever present loving you."
St John of the Cross
Spiritual Canticle, 1.8
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians
http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
On Judging Others:
Abba Pastor said, "Judge not him who is guilty of fornication, if you are chaste, or you will break the law like him. For He who said "do not commit fornication" said also "Do not judge"."
A brother asked Abba Poemen, "If I see my brother sin, is it right to say nothing about it?" The old man replied, "whenever we cover our brother's sin, God will cover ours; whenever we tell people about our brother's guilt, God will do the same about ours."
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
Community, a Quality of the Heart
The word community has many connotations, some positive, some negative. Community can make us think of a safe togetherness, shared meals, common goals, and joyful celebrations. It also can call forth images of sectarian exclusivity, in-group language, self-satisfied isolation, and romantic naiveté. However, community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another. Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own (see Philippians 2:4). The question, therefore, is not "How can we make community?" but "How can we develop and nurture giving hearts?"
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:
(23) Humility confesses that we have nothing that we have not received
and admits the fact of our insufficiency and our dependence upon God. It
is the basis of all Christian virtues. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux said,
`No spiritual house can stand for a moment except on the foundation of
humility'. It is the first condition of a joyful life within any
community.
O God, You resist the proud and give grace to the humble: help us not to
think proudly, but to serve You with humility that pleases You, so we
may walk in the steps of Your servant Francis and receive the gift of
Your grace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Love, Joy & hopefully, Peace, I'm trying to think of a chorus part of
which is "and of your goodness we have all received, grace upon grace,
kindness on kindness", Grahame Kendrick?
++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"You Must Be Like Children"
Jesus said, "Unless you change and become like little children you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3). You can't even recognize the Kingdom of heaven, he says, except through childlike eyes. I think a very legitimate interpretation of that is that all of us grew up in families where not all our needs were met - families that carried degrees of darkness, and even abuse. Every one of us has been sinned against. That's really the doctrine of Original Sin: All of us carry the wound. We pass down that wound from father to child, from mother to child. Someday, each of us has to walk back through our family of origin to rename our fears and security needs, re-feel repressed emotions, re-own, relive and re-feel the things we were never allowed to feel and never allowed to think. And that is, in truth, becoming a little
++++++++++
From John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., Tradition Day by Day: Readings from Church Writers. Augustinian Press. Villanova, PA, 1994.
http://www.artsci.villanova.edu/dsteelman/tradition/sources.html
The gift of the Holy Spirit
When the Creator of the universe conceived the magnificent plan of gathering up all things in Christ and restoring human nature to its original condition, he promised that along with all his other gifts he would once more give us the Holy Spirit. This was the only way for us to regain secure possession of God's blessings. By God's decree the time for this descent of the Spirit upon us was to concur with the coming of Christ. God gave his word that in those days—by which he meant the days of our Savior—he would pour out his Spirit upon the whole human race.
So it was that when the time for this great act of generosity arrived and brought God's only Son into our midst in human flesh, a man born of a woman as holy scripture says, God the Father began at once again to give the Spirit. The first to receive the Spirit was Christ, since he was the firstfruits of our renewed nature. John bore witness to this when he said: I saw the Spirit coming down from heaven, and it rested on him.
Cyril of Alexandria, (~444), patriarch of Alexandria, was a brilliant theologian who combatted the Arian and Nestorian heresies. Cyril presided at the Council of Ephesus in 431 where Mary's title as Mother of God was solemnly recognized.
read more: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_of_Alexandria or
www.newadvent.org/cathen/04592b.htm
++++++++++
Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict
http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 5: On Obedience
But this very obedience
will be acceptable to God and pleasing to all
only if what is commanded is done
without hesitation, delay, lukewarmness, grumbling, or objection.
For the obedience given to Superiors is given to God,
since He Himself has said,
"He who hears you, hears Me" (Luke 10:16).
And the disciples should offer their obedience with a good will,
for "God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Cor. 9:7).
For if the disciple obeys with an ill will
and murmurs,
not necessarily with his lips but simply in his heart,
then even though he fulfill the command
yet his work will not be acceptable to God,
who sees that his heart is murmuring.
And, far from gaining a reward for such work as this,
he will incur the punishment due to murmurers,
unless he amend and make satisfaction.
Selections above from Saint Benedict's Rule for Monasteries, translated from the Latin by Leonard J. Doyle OblSB, of Saint John's Abbey, (© Copyright 1948, 2001, by the Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, MN 56321). Adapted for use here with the division into sense lines of the first edition that was republished in 2001 to mark the 75th anniversary of Liturgical Press. Doyle's translation is available in both hardcover and paperback editions.
++++++++++
Phillips Brooks and Helen Keller
By The Rev. Barbara C. Crafton, BCCRAFTON@AOL.Com
© 1992, 2002 by The Rev. Barbara C. Crafton
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man.... Ephesians 3:14-15
Phillips Brooks was the most famous preacher of his generation in America -- an honor few clergy of his Church have been able to claim. His name was synonymous with the fearless and passionate proclamation of the word of God to the people of his time, which was the latter half of the 19th century. His Lectures on Preaching is still one of the best books a person contemplating the practice of that art could read, and it is still assigned in seminaries where the craft of preaching is taken seriously. Which is probably why it's out of print.
He believed that a preacher's entire self needed to be in the preaching event, yet that to preach in order to impress others or in order to butttress a slender ego was a terrible abuse of the pulpit. He believed that the right to preach was grounded in the faithful relationship a pastor had with his people -- it was only "hims" who preached in those days, but we know what he meant. He believed that the faithful preacher always pointed to a God of love whose love walked the earth in a form so like God, yet so like us, that we called it "The Son of God." As if God were a father, a parent like we can be parents, love like the most unselfish love we know about. He believed that the preacher needed to be up and about, walking through his world, part of things, part of the joys and sorrows of human life. Just about the worst thing he could think of to say about a preacher or a pastor would have been that he was "otherworldly." And so Phillips Brooks did that: traveled, met people, wrote to people, found out about them.
One of his friends was Helen Keller. Blind and deaf from the age of two, she had lived a life of isolation, unable to speak words she could not hear, unable to know what a word was. She was taught to communicate by a dedicated teacher in a process that has inspired people ever since. She learned to speak, to read, to write. She went to college and graduated with honors. She dedicated her entire life to educating the world about its responsibility to its disabled members. Until her death in 1968, Helen Keller was consistently among the world's most admired women, and her name was always on lists people made of those women.
Helen and Phillips Brooks wrote letters back and forth. The young girl with such a heavy burden and the elderly cleric with so many natural gifts, they were so unlike each other. Yet Brooks recognized that Helen and he did the same thing. Reaching out of the total darkness of her isolated life, Helen was already touching people's hearts with her courage and noble spirit, already challenging people to look at what could be. She lived in silence. She lived in darkness. But out of her silence the Spirit burst forth with grace and power. And out of her darkness, light shone. This was what Phillips Brooks had dedicated his life to bringing about: Let the people hear of what can be. Let them know what astonishing good can come from God, even in the face of terrible sorrow.
In one of her letters, Helen told Bishop Brooks that she had always known about God, even before she had any words. Even before she could call God anything, she knew God was there. She didn't know what it was. God had no name for her -- nothing had a name for her. She had no concept of a name. But in her darkness and isolation, she knew she was not alone. Someone was with her. She felt God's love. And when she received the gift of language and heard about God, she said she already knew.
Phillips Brooks was thrilled by this. This was the God he knew, the God who would come to a lonely child, a frustrated and lonely little girl, and find a way to speak love to her without a word. He wrote a hymn we have loved ever since; I wonder if he had Helen in mind when he wrote:
How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is giv'n!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of his heav'n.
No ear may hear his coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him, still
The dear Christ enters in.
Love without words. Love that knows of love even before it knows anything else. God who comes to the meek, to those who are hidden, to those whom the world discounts. The old preacher, famous for his eloquence, was like old Simeon at the temple when he heard this from Helen Keller. It was a confirmation of his ministry of proclamation. It was all true. God was really among us. What Helen knew proved it.
Phillips Brooks knew something of what it was to be hidden. Few people knew that he knew it, or how he knew it, but he did. Nobody in his Church had words to talk about it -- the topic was outside the Church, something that could not be spoken. Phillips Brooks could not reveal everything about himself, for he knew that to do so would have been to sweep everything away. Nobody would have listened to him speak of the loving God he knew so well. Nobody would have thought that God could possibly have loved him if it had been known that he was gay. I hope that he did not think that way about himself; I hope that the did not build a wall around his sexual orientation in his own soul and say to himself, "Except for this one thing. Except for this." But he may have. People did in those days. They do in these days too.
I cannot help but think of the silence imposed upon this great man of the spoken word by the centuries of prejudice to which he was heir. No wonder Helen Keller moved him so profoundly. He couldn't speak either, not about this. But he spoke about other things. His silence was not total, although a part of him as basic as any part of ourselves we know about could not speak its name. Love matters. He knew that. And he must have known how much it matters, even though he could not tell the truth about all the ways in which it had mattered to him. God could still speak through him and did so; spoke in a way so powerful that its equal has not been seen again in this Church. Perhaps some of that was out of his pain, out of his silence, love denied expression forcing its way into the open in some other way. How much that has flowered among us has flowered from this sad beginning: unable to be who we are and trying, trying, sometimes with brilliant success, to be something else.
It is time to stop, though. Our gifts cannot depend on our true selves being dammed up. We can manage without the truth, but we're better off with it. Helen Keller made brilliant use of her gifts under the burden of a terrible handicap, but it still would have been better if she could have seen and heard. Phillips Brooks was a gift to the ages, but it still would have been better if he could have been accepted and celebrated in the totality of who he was. That was then. This is now. It is time for the truth. "Strengthened through his might in the inner man," the lesson says. Let the inner man come forth. It is time now.
This essay was preached as a sermon to Integrity/New York on January 23rd, 1992 and appeared in Outlook March 1992, 3-5. It is re-published here with the permission of Barbara Crafton the author, and Nick Dowen, the editor of Outlook at that time.
Collect
Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
++++++++++
Today's Scripture
http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/
Ps 45; 35; Isa 48:12-21; Gal 1:18-2:10; Mark 6:1-13
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Mark 6:1-13. And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands upon a few sick people and cured them.
Mark loves to describe Jesus as the great wonder-worker, so it's remarkable that he should describe him as powerless in his own hometown. "He could do no deed of power there." It's like what happens in the comic books when Superman stumbles across a piece of kryptonite that drains him of all his superpowers. But this is no comic book, and Jesus is no superhero in the comic book mold. In spite of the impasse of unbelief in Nazareth, Jesus goes ahead and heals people anyway: "he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them." No kryptonite can stop this hero; his inability to do a deed of power in his hometown has nothing to do with some silly piece of magic rock. In Jesus' ministry, compassion always triumphs-it's as if he cannot help but heal. The issue in Nazareth, as Mark describes it, is not Jesus' healing power. The issue is people's refusal to believe. God's redemptive power is always at the ready, but can only be felt by those who turn to God in hope and trust. At stake in Nazareth is what the gospels elsewhere call conversion and repentance. It was so for the people in Jesus' hometown, and it is the same for us.
++++++++++
Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm
PHILLIPS BROOKS, BISHOP AND PREACHER
Psalm 84:7-12 or 33:1-5,20-21; Ephesians 3:14-21; Matthew 24:24-27
O everlasting God, who revealed truth to your servant Phillips Brooks, and so formed and molded his mind and heart that he was able to mediate that truth with grace and power: Grant, we pray, that all those whom you call to preach the Gospel may steep themselves in your word, and conform their lives to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Madurai-Ramnad (South India)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
We continue to observe the week long prayers for Christian Unity:
http://wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/faith/wop-index.html
Intercession
Our God, heal us from exploitative social structures,
that condemn many to poverty and expose them to infections.
Heal us from poverty
that renders the body susceptible and forces us into unsafe behavior.
Heal us, God in your grace, and transform the world.
Heal us from international injustice,
that sets up exploitative economic policies of trade
and denies millions access to HIV drugs.
Heal us, God in your grace, and transform the world.
Heal us from violence that spreads HIV.
Heal us from ethnic and civil wars that spread the virus.
Heal us, God in your grace, and transform the world.
Heal us from unhealthy gender relations
that leave women powerless to protect themselves,
and that exposes partners and spouses to infections of HIV
and other diseases with it.
Heal us, God in your grace, and transform the world.
Heal us from unhealthy family relations
that tolerate unfaithfulness and bring pain
and hurt to all family members of all generations.
Heal us, God in your grace, and transform the world.
Heal us from social stigma and discrimination that lead
us to uncompassionate acts of isolation and failure
to provide quality care and prevention.
Heal us, God in your grace, and transform the world.
Heal us from resignation and exhaustion
that make us hopeless and inactive and blind for the life in fullness
that you promised to provide.
Heal us, God in your grace, and transform the world.
Heal us from our broken hearts and grief
that continue to pain our spirits and minds
and leave us empty about the meaning of life.
Heal us, God in your grace, and transform the world.
Heal us with resurrection power.
Cause us to rise from fear and hopelessness.
Cause us to rise into your resurrection hope.
Cause us to reclaim our right to life and to quality of life.
Transform us through the joy of your spirit
and your peace that surpasses all our understanding.
Amen.
(Adaptation from “Prayer for Holistic Healing” in AfricaPraying, p. 147 © Musa W. Dube.) ++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
"Enter within yourself and work in the presence of your Spouse Who is ever present loving you."
St John of the Cross
Spiritual Canticle, 1.8
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians
http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
On Judging Others:
Abba Pastor said, "Judge not him who is guilty of fornication, if you are chaste, or you will break the law like him. For He who said "do not commit fornication" said also "Do not judge"."
A brother asked Abba Poemen, "If I see my brother sin, is it right to say nothing about it?" The old man replied, "whenever we cover our brother's sin, God will cover ours; whenever we tell people about our brother's guilt, God will do the same about ours."
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
Community, a Quality of the Heart
The word community has many connotations, some positive, some negative. Community can make us think of a safe togetherness, shared meals, common goals, and joyful celebrations. It also can call forth images of sectarian exclusivity, in-group language, self-satisfied isolation, and romantic naiveté. However, community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another. Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own (see Philippians 2:4). The question, therefore, is not "How can we make community?" but "How can we develop and nurture giving hearts?"
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:
(23) Humility confesses that we have nothing that we have not received
and admits the fact of our insufficiency and our dependence upon God. It
is the basis of all Christian virtues. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux said,
`No spiritual house can stand for a moment except on the foundation of
humility'. It is the first condition of a joyful life within any
community.
O God, You resist the proud and give grace to the humble: help us not to
think proudly, but to serve You with humility that pleases You, so we
may walk in the steps of Your servant Francis and receive the gift of
Your grace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Love, Joy & hopefully, Peace, I'm trying to think of a chorus part of
which is "and of your goodness we have all received, grace upon grace,
kindness on kindness", Grahame Kendrick?
++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"You Must Be Like Children"
Jesus said, "Unless you change and become like little children you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3). You can't even recognize the Kingdom of heaven, he says, except through childlike eyes. I think a very legitimate interpretation of that is that all of us grew up in families where not all our needs were met - families that carried degrees of darkness, and even abuse. Every one of us has been sinned against. That's really the doctrine of Original Sin: All of us carry the wound. We pass down that wound from father to child, from mother to child. Someday, each of us has to walk back through our family of origin to rename our fears and security needs, re-feel repressed emotions, re-own, relive and re-feel the things we were never allowed to feel and never allowed to think. And that is, in truth, becoming a little
++++++++++
From John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., Tradition Day by Day: Readings from Church Writers. Augustinian Press. Villanova, PA, 1994.
http://www.artsci.villanova.edu/dsteelman/tradition/sources.html
The gift of the Holy Spirit
When the Creator of the universe conceived the magnificent plan of gathering up all things in Christ and restoring human nature to its original condition, he promised that along with all his other gifts he would once more give us the Holy Spirit. This was the only way for us to regain secure possession of God's blessings. By God's decree the time for this descent of the Spirit upon us was to concur with the coming of Christ. God gave his word that in those days—by which he meant the days of our Savior—he would pour out his Spirit upon the whole human race.
So it was that when the time for this great act of generosity arrived and brought God's only Son into our midst in human flesh, a man born of a woman as holy scripture says, God the Father began at once again to give the Spirit. The first to receive the Spirit was Christ, since he was the firstfruits of our renewed nature. John bore witness to this when he said: I saw the Spirit coming down from heaven, and it rested on him.
Cyril of Alexandria, (~444), patriarch of Alexandria, was a brilliant theologian who combatted the Arian and Nestorian heresies. Cyril presided at the Council of Ephesus in 431 where Mary's title as Mother of God was solemnly recognized.
read more: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_of_Alexandria or
www.newadvent.org/cathen/04592b.htm
++++++++++
Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict
http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 5: On Obedience
But this very obedience
will be acceptable to God and pleasing to all
only if what is commanded is done
without hesitation, delay, lukewarmness, grumbling, or objection.
For the obedience given to Superiors is given to God,
since He Himself has said,
"He who hears you, hears Me" (Luke 10:16).
And the disciples should offer their obedience with a good will,
for "God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Cor. 9:7).
For if the disciple obeys with an ill will
and murmurs,
not necessarily with his lips but simply in his heart,
then even though he fulfill the command
yet his work will not be acceptable to God,
who sees that his heart is murmuring.
And, far from gaining a reward for such work as this,
he will incur the punishment due to murmurers,
unless he amend and make satisfaction.
Selections above from Saint Benedict's Rule for Monasteries, translated from the Latin by Leonard J. Doyle OblSB, of Saint John's Abbey, (© Copyright 1948, 2001, by the Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, MN 56321). Adapted for use here with the division into sense lines of the first edition that was republished in 2001 to mark the 75th anniversary of Liturgical Press. Doyle's translation is available in both hardcover and paperback editions.
++++++++++
Phillips Brooks and Helen Keller
By The Rev. Barbara C. Crafton, BCCRAFTON@AOL.Com
© 1992, 2002 by The Rev. Barbara C. Crafton
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man.... Ephesians 3:14-15
Phillips Brooks was the most famous preacher of his generation in America -- an honor few clergy of his Church have been able to claim. His name was synonymous with the fearless and passionate proclamation of the word of God to the people of his time, which was the latter half of the 19th century. His Lectures on Preaching is still one of the best books a person contemplating the practice of that art could read, and it is still assigned in seminaries where the craft of preaching is taken seriously. Which is probably why it's out of print.
He believed that a preacher's entire self needed to be in the preaching event, yet that to preach in order to impress others or in order to butttress a slender ego was a terrible abuse of the pulpit. He believed that the right to preach was grounded in the faithful relationship a pastor had with his people -- it was only "hims" who preached in those days, but we know what he meant. He believed that the faithful preacher always pointed to a God of love whose love walked the earth in a form so like God, yet so like us, that we called it "The Son of God." As if God were a father, a parent like we can be parents, love like the most unselfish love we know about. He believed that the preacher needed to be up and about, walking through his world, part of things, part of the joys and sorrows of human life. Just about the worst thing he could think of to say about a preacher or a pastor would have been that he was "otherworldly." And so Phillips Brooks did that: traveled, met people, wrote to people, found out about them.
One of his friends was Helen Keller. Blind and deaf from the age of two, she had lived a life of isolation, unable to speak words she could not hear, unable to know what a word was. She was taught to communicate by a dedicated teacher in a process that has inspired people ever since. She learned to speak, to read, to write. She went to college and graduated with honors. She dedicated her entire life to educating the world about its responsibility to its disabled members. Until her death in 1968, Helen Keller was consistently among the world's most admired women, and her name was always on lists people made of those women.
Helen and Phillips Brooks wrote letters back and forth. The young girl with such a heavy burden and the elderly cleric with so many natural gifts, they were so unlike each other. Yet Brooks recognized that Helen and he did the same thing. Reaching out of the total darkness of her isolated life, Helen was already touching people's hearts with her courage and noble spirit, already challenging people to look at what could be. She lived in silence. She lived in darkness. But out of her silence the Spirit burst forth with grace and power. And out of her darkness, light shone. This was what Phillips Brooks had dedicated his life to bringing about: Let the people hear of what can be. Let them know what astonishing good can come from God, even in the face of terrible sorrow.
In one of her letters, Helen told Bishop Brooks that she had always known about God, even before she had any words. Even before she could call God anything, she knew God was there. She didn't know what it was. God had no name for her -- nothing had a name for her. She had no concept of a name. But in her darkness and isolation, she knew she was not alone. Someone was with her. She felt God's love. And when she received the gift of language and heard about God, she said she already knew.
Phillips Brooks was thrilled by this. This was the God he knew, the God who would come to a lonely child, a frustrated and lonely little girl, and find a way to speak love to her without a word. He wrote a hymn we have loved ever since; I wonder if he had Helen in mind when he wrote:
How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is giv'n!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of his heav'n.
No ear may hear his coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him, still
The dear Christ enters in.
Love without words. Love that knows of love even before it knows anything else. God who comes to the meek, to those who are hidden, to those whom the world discounts. The old preacher, famous for his eloquence, was like old Simeon at the temple when he heard this from Helen Keller. It was a confirmation of his ministry of proclamation. It was all true. God was really among us. What Helen knew proved it.
Phillips Brooks knew something of what it was to be hidden. Few people knew that he knew it, or how he knew it, but he did. Nobody in his Church had words to talk about it -- the topic was outside the Church, something that could not be spoken. Phillips Brooks could not reveal everything about himself, for he knew that to do so would have been to sweep everything away. Nobody would have listened to him speak of the loving God he knew so well. Nobody would have thought that God could possibly have loved him if it had been known that he was gay. I hope that he did not think that way about himself; I hope that the did not build a wall around his sexual orientation in his own soul and say to himself, "Except for this one thing. Except for this." But he may have. People did in those days. They do in these days too.
I cannot help but think of the silence imposed upon this great man of the spoken word by the centuries of prejudice to which he was heir. No wonder Helen Keller moved him so profoundly. He couldn't speak either, not about this. But he spoke about other things. His silence was not total, although a part of him as basic as any part of ourselves we know about could not speak its name. Love matters. He knew that. And he must have known how much it matters, even though he could not tell the truth about all the ways in which it had mattered to him. God could still speak through him and did so; spoke in a way so powerful that its equal has not been seen again in this Church. Perhaps some of that was out of his pain, out of his silence, love denied expression forcing its way into the open in some other way. How much that has flowered among us has flowered from this sad beginning: unable to be who we are and trying, trying, sometimes with brilliant success, to be something else.
It is time to stop, though. Our gifts cannot depend on our true selves being dammed up. We can manage without the truth, but we're better off with it. Helen Keller made brilliant use of her gifts under the burden of a terrible handicap, but it still would have been better if she could have seen and heard. Phillips Brooks was a gift to the ages, but it still would have been better if he could have been accepted and celebrated in the totality of who he was. That was then. This is now. It is time for the truth. "Strengthened through his might in the inner man," the lesson says. Let the inner man come forth. It is time now.
This essay was preached as a sermon to Integrity/New York on January 23rd, 1992 and appeared in Outlook March 1992, 3-5. It is re-published here with the permission of Barbara Crafton the author, and Nick Dowen, the editor of Outlook at that time.
posted by Gloriamarie Amalfitano @ 8:55 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home