Journeying Into Mystery

Today is Ruthie’s birthday. I am so in awe and love of this woman, and because of the recovery from my surgery feel so badly because I am unable to celebrate her life in a manner befitting one of her great stature. So, I present here two poems and a song honoring this most wonderful person who has shaped my life so greatly.

INTERLUDE: RUTH 1

A beautiful canvas
decorated with freckles,
eyes of brown,
sparkle with dreams
of a future yet-to-be,
a heart-warming smile
hinting of a giggle
seeking to be expressed,
encompassed by a frame
of full, lush brunette hair.
Cheeks ruddy with joy,
your face flush with compassion
speak of your life then
as it is now.
Were it not the distance
that parted us, even then,
I believe, our hearts
would have been drawn together,
 two hearts linked by mystery,
two hearts joined as lovers
join hands,
and simply rejoice in being present.
Oh, what I would give
to eavesdrop on the whispered thoughts
and feelings we might have shared then,
laden with innocence, yet
preternaturally formed by
God’s breath over the waters of time.
Gifted and blessed were all
your eyes beheld at your birth,
how gifted and blessed am I.

© 2014, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

This song was composed for Ruthie as a Christmas present in 1990. The songs for Opus 3 were based on the Christmas stories we hear every year. The story I chose for Ruthie was that of the Presentation, when Mary and Joseph brought their child, Jesus, to the Temple to offer sacrifice. It was there where they encountered Simeon and Anna. It was an encounter with divine mystery as Simeon gave praise to God for having his eyes behold the Messiah. He told them that their son would be a sign of contradiction for the world. And, to Mary, as a result of her son’s ministry, a sword of sorrow would pierce her heart. The music reflects the mystery the Holy Family encountered that day. The melody is not as straight forward as in other songs I have composed, but enclosed within the harmonies.

Ruthie has always been a person of mystery for me, and, yes, I would say, a person of Divine Mystery for me. One thing I have said consistently from the time we were dating is that there is the mystery of the Trinity and the mystery of Ruthie, two mysteries which I will never fully understand. The one thing about a mystery is that I find myself always surprised.

The poem, “Learning How To Walk” is a poem I wrote in 2015. The poem uses the physical act of walking as a metaphor about a journey helping me to find meaning in my life. It is true that the years before I met Ruthie were one of self-discovery. However, it has been in my 50 year old relationship with Ruthie (counting our years dating), that I have truly discovered who I am. She has allowed me to grow as a man in so many ways, and, I will never forget it. I will be forever a student at her feet, learning from this great teacher of love.

LEARNING HOW TO WALK

When did I learn to walk?
The awkward stance,
a toddler’s uncertain step,
stumbling, falling,
getting up again until
rhythm  of feet and
balance work in sequence,
was that when I learned
to walk? No.

When did I learn to walk?
Kindergarten marches,
a military parade of sorts
around a classroom,
rhythm band instruments
in hand, banging on toy
cymbals and drums
to the measured beat
of feet and blare of
prerecorded sound? No.

When did I learn to walk?
Was it the long hours
in marching band
practicing routines,
memorizing music,
and the beating of feet  
on hot pavement along
humid parade routes on
July mornings in hot
woolen uniforms? No.

When did I begin
to learn to walk?
From the moment
I held your hand, strolling
by the Strand Theater
on the sidewalks of St.
Paul, along the shores
of Lake Como on
Spring and Summer nights,
through Rosedale, your
hand in mine as we looked
at engagement rings
in jewelry store windows
and dreamed dreams.

I learned to walk
in earnest down
the aisle of
St. Bridget of Sweden,
into a new wedded
life filled with
wonder and love,
the many walks of
pregnancies, Pitocin
drip walks down
hospital corridors,
during nights with
restless infants, and
sick children, to
parks and baseball
diamonds, plays
and musicals, concerts
and gymnasiums,
graduations, weddings,
funerals, grandchildren,
all of them walks
along the spherical
path of life.

To walk with you is
to learn how to love,
each measured step,
a grace-filled journey
to something greater,
far beyond and far better
than the stumbling steps
that I could have
made on my own.

To  walk with you,
is to see the
world with different
eyes, colors bursting
through the greys,
warmth on the
coldest of days, your
voice floating, playing
delightfully in the air
alongside until the
sound settles gently,
gracefully in my ears.

We have walked many
steps together in life,
my gait now not as steady,
these days of uncertain
limbs, joints and cane.
In walking with you,
new discoveries never
end, new beginnings
abound, and that
with you, the first
and the finest of
all teachers, learning
to walk is never
fully learned.

© 2015, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

I remember back in college reading “stream of consciousness” writing. My professor had us open to the end of James Joyce’s novel “Ulysses”, in particular, the thoughts of the prostitute as she was drifting off to sleep. Sentences ran together, one thought making a giant leap to another topic altogether. I was greatly impressed by the creativity of Joyce, and the way he was able to capture in words, that which many of us experience, especially at night. This poem is, in essence, composed in my own version of a stream of consciousness, as experienced in one night’s sleep. I fall asleep, awaken, glance at the time projected on the ceiling, fall asleep again, only to waken, and then fall asleep again throughout the night. The dreams are accurate (I’m sure Jung would have a field day. The dog’s injuries and symbolic of my own injuries and time in the ER? Religious services in a converted theater. Is that which we celebrate in religious services real, or is it just an elaborate play with fancy costumes? I am not too sure why my deceased brother showed up, but then, his cremains still remain in my bedroom, as I await the ability to walk again and have them buried on my sister’s grave. And, so on.). Here is the poem

I awaken.
Another night filled
with dreams. My
pet dog, Belle,
set upon by several
mastiffs, I picking up
her torn, limp body
in my arms and enter
the E.R. of the local
hospital, where her
wounds are stitched
up as I record it all
on my cell phone,

I awaken,
another dream, the
theater on Main Street
transformed into a
church, my brother
haunting the space,
the front row, stage right
his place, as I assist at
Mass, ducking out after
Communion to the
coffee shop next door,
sipping a sixteen ounce,
skim, chocolate latte,
no whip cream, Patty,
the proprietor smiling
at me … the one
pleasant part of
this long night of dreaming.

I awaken.
Squinting at the time
projected in red numerals
on the ceiling, 8:44 am,
eight hours have passed
since I settled in bed
for the night. My mind
goes back to the nightmare
of 2011, remembering
the long nights I spent
in bed. From 9:30 pm,
when you left for work,
to 8 am as you entered
our bedroom. Turning,
bandage changing, another
round of antibiotics, a
seemingless cycle of
no respite for either of us,
hopping from bed to commode,
then from commode
to my chair, a journey
made numerous times daily.

I turn seeing your
sleeping form next to me.
You open your eyes,
gazing at me and repeat
the words that saved me
many years ago. “This
will pass. You will heal.”
I swing my feet over
the side of the bed.
A one, two, three and
up on my right leg,
grasping the awaiting
walker with both hands,
the beginning of
another day.
As I begin to hop to
the bathroom, I think,
“Here I go. Another day.
Five, or is it,
Seven weeks to go?”

(c) 2019, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

Today we hear two very familiar stories. God is intent on destroying Sodom and Gomorrah for the evils that the two cities were perpetrating against humanity. Abraham pleads with God to spare the two cities so that those who are innocent do not suffer the horrible fate of the those who are evil. God agrees that if there is a minimum of 10 innocent families, God will not destroy the cities. In Luke’s Gospel, we hear Luke’s version of the “Lord’s Prayer”, and the familiar parables about God’s generosity. Rather than focus on God’s willingness to hear and grant our prayers, I would like to focus on the contrasting pictures of God that the three readings (I will get to Paul’s letter to the Colossians) with which we are presented.

To begin this reflection, I go back to my favorite definition of God which Benedictine Sister Joan Chittester wrote a number of years ago. She wrote, “God is changing changelessness.” I think this is important for us to keep in the back of our minds especially when we read/hear the contrasting descriptions of God throughout all of sacred scripture. God never changes. God remains God. However, humanity’s understanding of God is ALWAYS changing.

In the reading from Genesis, the God we encounter is the warrior God of the warring nomadic tribes. Abraham was a war lord of a nomadic tribe. The story of Abram soon to be Abraham was one of Abram choosing a God other than the gods of his people from the city of Ur. In cutting a covenant with this “new” God, Abram was transformed into Abraham. The God of Abraham would later be known in history as Israel’s God.

The gods of these ancient tribes were not to be trifled with. You cross them and you will find yourself diced up into little pieces and fed to the dogs. A case in point, note how Yahweh deals with Pharaoh and the people of Egypt, namely, the ten horrific plagues and the drowning of the Egyptian army and Pharaoh in the Red Sea. Yahweh dealt with equal severity those who adored the Golden Calf.

Contrast this picture of the warrior God with that of the God of the prophets and poetic literature. In the Song of Songs, in rather erotic terms, God is the lover who like a gazelle leaps after his Beloved, upon whose physical attributes I will not expound except to say, think of pomegranates. In prophetic literature,  God’s portrait begins to be transformed into the husband of an adulterous Israel. The people of Israel, ignoring the covenant cut with Yahweh by their ancestors began to adore the gods of the Canaan. God, the much abused husband of an adulterous wife, maintains the covenant cut with Israel, even though she is cheating on him. God knows that her adultery will bring down great ruin upon Israel and allows it to happen. (God loves her so much that he gives her what she wants even if it might destroy her.) When Israel, beaten and broken, eventually returns to her husband, God welcomes her back and loves her as before. The Book of the Prophet Hosea is a an allegory of God, the maligned husband, married to a cheating harlot.

Now contrast these two pictures of God with the God Jesus paints for us today in the Gospel. Jesus describes God as his Abba, his daddy. Jesus’ God is the father of the prodigal son. Jesus’ God is painted as the one, who, you can go to for anything and be granted what you need. This is the God with whom Jesus has a most intimate relationship (see the Last Supper Discourse from John’s Gospel). In the language of Paul, this is the God with whom we share in the same son and daughter relationship as that of Jesus. We enter into this intimate relationship through baptism, the means by which we become adopted daughters and sons of God.

Yet we run into a conundrum. Not everything for which we ask we will receive. Not everything we seek will we find. To the “ask and you will receive, seek and you will find”, what about Jesus? Not everything for which he asked did he receive.

In the Passion accounts of the Gospels, with the exception of John, Jesus prays to his Abba to take away the torture and execution that awaits him the next day. In Matthew and Mark’s accounts, his Abba remains silent and does NOT answer Jesus’ prayer. In Luke’s account Jesus’ Abba sends an angel to comfort him. Nevertheless, God allows Jesus to be brutally tortured and executed. Why? Is the loving Abba of Jesus suddenly revealed to be the cruel and heartless warrior God of Abraham who has no problem obliterating the civilizations of Sodom and Gomorrah? Did a vengeful God needed his “pound of flesh” (“Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare) to get even with an evil humanity, even if that pound of flesh was extracted from his own son, Jesus?

This bloodthirsty God whose demand for a reparation for our sins has been a stumbling block for many people. The existentialist philosopher and author, Albert Camus, struggled with this question all of his life. He could never reconcile this idea of a bloodthirsty God with the portrait of God that Jesus gives to us, especially in the Gospel of Luke. As a result, Camus rejected Christianity. How do I reconcile this is in my own faith life?”  

One, God did not demand that Jesus had to die. The power of SIN in the world had turned human hearts into inhuman hearts black and dead. This is an inhumanity that lived lives absent of all love. This is an inhumanity for whom greed, vengeance, and eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth was the main law of existence. Into this vast history of dead humanity, in which death, greed, and vengeance is the rule of life, Jesus is sent to give an alternative way of living. The rule of life, which Jesus reveals that God intended for humanity from the moment of creation, was that of selfless love, not being served, but serving the needs of those most in need. Jesus taught that in giving of ourselves for this new Gospel, this new rule for life, while our lives may be sacrificed, we will not die but have everlasting life.

In Colossians, Paul writes today, “And even when you were dead in transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he brought you to life along with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions;  obliterating the bond against us, with its legal claims, which was opposed to us, he also removed it from our midst, nailing it to the cross. (Colossian 2: 11-14, NAB)

The dark heart of inhumanity would never be receptive to this new way of living. In spite of all the miracles of Jesus, feeding the 5000, calming the storm at sea, the exorcism of demons, the raising of people from the dead, the dead, black heart of inhumanity refused to change. As in the case of many of the prophets, in order to silence the prophet, inhumanity has to kill the prophet.

Jesus was not stupid. He knew that eventually the power of inhumanity would turn against him. His own religious leaders, their hearts equally dead and blackened, plotted the execution of Jesus. As horrific as this eventuality would be for him, Jesus reluctantly but resolutely accepted the fate of the prophets of his own religion. God, his Abba, didn’t take any vengeful glee from Jesus’ gruesome torture and execution. God, his Abba, grieved, as do all parents grieve the death of their children. However, God the Abba also knew what Jesus knew. In order for the cycle of death and destruction to be ended in human life, inhumanity had to be altered dramatically. The Gospel of Love had to reign supreme over the gospel of death. The only way for this to be achieved was Jesus dying in love for those whom he had created.

In order for this to happen, Jesus’ Abba, had to stand by in silence and allow inhumanity works its worse on the One for whom the Abba loved the most. As hard as this was, Jesus was not the loser, as inhumanity thought, but rose victorious. Standing by in silence, was Jesus’ Abba’s greatest act of love for his Son.

This is the message of Paul in the second reading. In order for humanity to break the cycle of death and violence, humanity had to witness Love at its most powerful. Jesus did not remain dead. Rather Jesus rose from the dead in the image of what God had intended humanity to be from the beginning. This is the humanity which Jesus offers to those who will be his disciples. The pattern of Jesus death and resurrection, what we call the Paschal Mystery, would be the model of human life from this point onward.

This continues to be played out in our lives today. Inhumanity has not been eliminated from our earth, evident by the sins of many governments, including our own. Prophets, Christian and non-Christian, e.g. Pope Francis I, Oscar Romero, Brother Roger Schütz, Martin Luther King Jr, Mahatma Ghandi, continue to be persecuted and executed for proclaiming and living the Gospel of Jesus, often by their own people and religious authorities.

Abram made the choice of rejecting the gods of the City of Ur, and by choosing God was transformed into Abraham. We are offered the same choice. We can choose inhumanity and accept the gods of our world, greed, death and vengeance. Or, we can choose humanity and the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus.

Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find continues to be our mission today. And what is that mission? It is reflected in the words of Jesus as expressed in today’s Gospel.

“When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.” (Luke 11: 2b-4, NAB)

This poem is the result of a conversation I had with Ruthie last evening. The poem does not mean to equate sexual misconduct to ordination (though there is no denying that clergy of all religious traditions, along with educators, business executives, politicians, etc. have been guilty of using their power over relationship to sexually abuse the powerless). What the poem addresses is that acting on these impulses is equally crazy, for both will impact life in a very drastic way and, in time, elicit the question, “Just what was I thinking?”

“Remember when?”,
I asked you, “When my friend
(a local musician) was arrested
for sexual misconduct
many years ago?” You
look at me puzzled at
this resurrected memory.
Your facial expression,
the raised question mark
eyebrow speak the words
yet to be spoken, “Yes, so?”
“You told me that all
musicians were crazy
and, if I would ever think
about doing something
strange, to warn you.”
You nod, your beautiful
face painted with incredulity.
“I forgot to warn you,
(I pause) that I wanted
to be ordained a deacon.”
You bend over,
kiss me on the lips,
and whisper, “Too late.”
I already know.”

You look at me confused,
haunches poised to
leap upon my lap.
Eager to slobber my face
with kisses, and for
your ears to be scratched.
I stop you, arm extended,
with a strongly articulated, “No!”
Initially, you look confused,
then hurt wondering
what wrong you have committed.
I smile, and pet your head,
my smile conveying, “It’s alright.
Not yet, but soon.”
You turn, and hop up
on the leather couch,
turning three times,
and plop into the nest
you created, and, sigh.

(c) 2019, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

I enjoy reading poetry. Like many, I have my favorite poets, William Butler Yeats, Carl Sandberg, Emily Dickinson, Denise Levertov to name just a few. I suppose it is in reading the poems of these great poets that I try and make my pathetic attempts at poetry.

One of my favorite times in the day to read poetry is at night. I was reading poems from a wonderful source last night namely, “The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry”. Here are some of the poems that leapt off the page for me. Most are not long and are pertinent to our time.

Given the recent display of racism in our nation. This poem from Langston Hughes is very timely.

I, too, sing America

I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow, I’ll sit at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America.

Langston Hughes, 1926

. The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry (Kindle Locations 717-721). The Seashell Press. Kindle Edition.

This is a good question. God is all knowing we believe. Did God know what God was getting into when humanity was created?

They Ask: Is God, Too, Lonely?

When God scooped up a handful of dust,
And spit on it, and molded the shape of man.
And blew a breath into it and told it to walk—
That was a great day.

And did God do this because He was lonely?
Did God say to Himself he must have company
And therefore He would make man to walk the earth
And set apart churches for speech and song with God?

These are questions.
They are scrawled in old caves.
They are painted in tall cathedrals.
There are men and women so lonely they
believe
God. too, is lonely.

Sandburg, Carl. Harvest Poems: 1910-1960 (Harvest Book) . HMH Books. Kindle Edition.

Though this poem is from World War II, the death of our young continues just as brutally, whether it be in gun turret on a B-17 or a Humvee.

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
 And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

 Randall Jarrell, 1945

 . The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry (Kindle Locations 1755-1760). The Seashell Press. Kindle Edition.

Were we to go through the personal effects of an enemy soldier, would we not find that which is similar to ours? Pictures of children, sweethearts, parents, and others?

Reconciliation

Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of
carnage must in time be utterly lost,
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night
incessantly softly wash again, and ever again,
this soiled world;
For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,
I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin—
I draw near,
Bend down and touch lightly with my lips
the white face in the coffin.

Walt Whitman, 1865

 . The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry (Kindle Locations 1817-1824). The Seashell Press. Kindle Edition.

Nature has a way of erasing all signs of human life. Look at what the jungle has done to cover up the advanced civilizations in Central America. It would take just a century for the sands of the desert to cover up all traces of human life. This poem by Carl Sandberg reminds us that for all the memorials we may construct to mark that we had lived, all the tombstones and other markers last only for a small amount of time. We, too, will pass away unknown to the rest of humanity.

Grass

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers
ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.

Carl Sandburg, 1918

 . The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry (Kindle Locations 1867-1873). The Seashell Press. Kindle Edition.

The effects of war do not cease when an armistice is announced.

What Were They Like?

1. Did the people of Viet Nam use lanterns
   of stone?
2. Did they hold ceremonies to reverence the
   opening of buds?
   3) Were they inclined to quiet laughter?
   4) Did they use bone and ivory, jade and silver,
              for ornament?
   5) Had they an epic poem?      
   6) Did they distinguish between speech and
              singing?

1. Sir, their light hearts turned to stone.
   It is not remembered whether in gardens
   stone lanterns illumined pleasant ways.
2. Perhaps they gathered once to delight in
   blossom, but after the children were killed
   there were no more buds.
   3) Sir, laughter is bitter to the burned mouth.
   4) A dream ago, perhaps. Ornament is for joy.
   All the bones were charred.       
   5) It is not remembered. Remember, most        
   were peasants; their life was in rice and        
   bamboo. When peaceful clouds were        
   reflected in the paddies and the water buffalo        
   stepped surely along terraces, maybe fathers        
   told their sons old tales. When bombs        
   smashed those mirrors there was time         
   only to scream.     
   6) There is an echo yet of their speech which was          
   like a song. It was reported their singing         
   resembled the flight of moths in moonlight.        
   Who can say? It is silent now.

         Denise Levertov, 1966

 . The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry (Kindle Locations 1914-1921). The Seashell Press. Kindle Edition.

Though this poem applies to the time of the Cuban Missile Crises in which the world came close to World War III, look at global warming and climate change is close to ending life as we know it on Earth.

Earth

“A planet doesn’t explode of itself,” said drily
The Martian astronomer, gazing off into the air—
“That they were able to do it is proof that highly
Intelligent beings must have been living there.”

John Hall Wheelock, 1961

 . The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry (Kindle Locations 1988-1990). The Seashell Press. Kindle Edition.

The greatest of cathedrals, the beauty of the Sistine Chapel are mere nothings in contrast to the beauty of a field of daffodils.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth, 1804

 . The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry (Kindle Locations 2088-2090). The Seashell Press. Kindle Edition.

I have a great problem with the Catholic Feast of Christ the King which ends the liturgical year. Jesus had nothing to do with the title of King while he was alive. In fact, when people came to crown him king he fled from them (see John’s account of the feeding of the 5000). He scoffed at the title King when interrogated by Pilate in John’s Passion. This is does not deny that Jesus is the Word or Logos of God who addresses all the universe. I think the most appropriate image of Jesus is that in the image of the vulnerable lamb. Behold the “Lamb of God.” John the Baptist cries. This is a lovely poem.

The Lamb

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb,
He is meek, and he is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!

William Blake, 1789

. The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry (Kindle Locations 2102-2110). The Seashell Press. Kindle Edition.

These next two poems describe in a beautiful way, my Ruth, the love of my life.

Her Heart

Her heart is always doing lovely things,
Filling my wintry mind with simple flowers;
Playing sweet tunes on my untunèd strings,
Delighting all my undelightful hours,

 She plays me like a lute, what tune she will,
No string in me but trembles at her touch,
Shakes into sacred music, or is still,
 Trembles or stops, or swells, her skill is such.

And in the dusty taverns of my soul
Where filthy lusts drink witches’ brew for wine,
Her gentle hand still keeps me from the bowl,
Still keeps me man, saves me from being swine.

All grace in me, all sweetness in my verse,
Is hers, is my dear girl’s, and only hers.
John Masefield, 1915

 . The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry (Kindle Locations 2342-2350). The Seashell Press. Kindle Edition.

On a Certain Lady at Court

I know the thing that’s most uncommon
(Envy be silent, and attend!)
I know a reasonable woman,
Handsome and witty, yet a friend.

Not warped by passion, awed by rumor,
Not grave through pride, or gay through folly,
An equal mixture of good humor
And sensible soft melancholy.

“Has she no faults, then (Envy says), sir?”
Yes, she has one, I must aver:
When all the world conspires to praise her,
The woman’s deaf, and does not hear.

 Alexander Pope, 1732

 . The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry (Kindle Locations 2353-2359). The Seashell Press. Kindle Edition. fffffffff

St Francis of Assisi had that wonderful ability to see the presence of God in all of God’s creation, whether it be the lowly worm to the wolf of Gubbio. This poem is my attempt of expressing how I find God embodied in our pet dog, Belle. The one attribute that dogs have over human beings is that dogs never put on airs. They live authentic lives, always being true to themselves.

My family has had three “official” pets over the years. FloydRMoose, and Henri “Puppyboy”, both AKC Great Pyrenees dogs, very loving and sadly, short lived. And, now Belle E Button, a rescue pooch who is officially a “Boxerdore” part Boxer and part Labrador. Unlike the Pyrs, who were pretty laid back, Belle has the high strung character of the Boxer. She is a very loving dog, but needs a lot of attention. The joy of having this dog in my house is that I am reminded of two things: One, I am always loved. This dog reminds me how well I am loved pretty much most of the time. Secondly, because of her own needs, I am reminded that as she serves me, I need to serve her needs equally, even at times when it can be very inconvenient. Here is my poem.

BELLE

You sit by my chair,
anticipating a tossed,
discarded crumb
of toast, cracker, or popcorn kernel.
I acknowledged my failure,
reinforcing habits frowned upon
in polite canine etiquette.

You, not highly born of breed,
but more the result of unsafe sex,
your parents’ careless passion
resulting in your spindly legs,
your Boxer disposition,
your “house elf” ears and Labrador face.
Your life more shaped by the cats
than the dogs at the animal rescue.
You are a living contradiction,
facing down thunder storms
with a lion’s courage, yet
cowering in your safe place
behind the chair in dread fear
of the vacuum cleaner.

Are you cat or dog burglar?
I remember well the purloined steak
marinating on the kitchen counter,
one of those nights of infamy,
in which the question was
whether the steak was worth
the discomfort and diarrhea
in which we all had an unfortunate
share, the wee hours of that night.

In love with forbidden fruit,
should I have named you Eve?
Chocolate, dark or milk, no matter,
you consume and savor equally
with great relish this canine poison.
Just why is it that you are still alive?
Did the cats with whom
You were raised as a puppy,
bequeath to you a portion
of their nine lives?

Discreteness, not one of your fortes,
the evidence of your kitchen counter thefts
strewn behind the coffee table,
your fortress of naughtiness,
torn, stolen bags of licorice,
chips, candy wrappers and paper.
Yet, for all the theft,
your life and mine strewn
about the house,
you remain for me a living metaphor
of God’s unconditional love.

For all your incessant barking,
I am reminded of your constant
love and protection, your willingness
to ward off the forces of evil
perpetrated by the children
and the elderly walking by my house.
You greet me with unbridled joy
every time I walk through the door
excitedly offering to me a
treasured bone, a sign of God’s
unlimited hospitality toward all.

In your crying to be let out in the yard,
the potty breaks in the middle of the night,
and, yes, waiting by my chair in hope
of getting a crumb of bread or snack,
you remind me of my need to embody Christ,
to serve and not to be served.

As I scratch under your muzzle,
and that spot you can’t reach
just above your tail;
as I rub your belly,
and you stretch out your legs
and hear that sound of contentment
only you can make, I remember
that it is giving that I receive,
and in dying to myself I find everlasting life.

The past 4 weeks and another 6 to 8 weeks of a non-weight bearing left ankle, I find myself obsessively consumed in finding balance. Here is a poem about exactly that.

FINDING BALANCE

My daughter calls it a stripper pole,
a floor to ceiling invitation
for exotic, gymnastic moves
designed to raise the libido
of the observer … or, in my case,
that upon which to grasp,
holding and assisting me in
raising my body from the bed
to the walker staring at me,
double dog daring me to stand,
presently far more important
than my libido, which has long
been in the depths of a Rip Van Winkle slumber.

My present pursuits seek not
those earth-shaking epiphanies
of eschatological  mystery.
My pursuits are more isolated
to the mundane, the more parochial,
a Question of movement …
reaching in safety,
my chair, commode, bed,
those long sought after Quixote quests
spiritual, and psychological balance
set aside for a while.

I find myself desperately grasping
for balance, as central to life
as a drawn breath, a dance
filled with complex steps,
fragile and perilous,
suspended over uncertainty
with no visible net underneath.
It is that moment, when
the pole is released, the quick
reach for the walker, hoping
that an open, grasping hand
will make the journey with surety
to the walker, awaiting a new day.

(c) 2019, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

I was looking at this photograph of Alyssa, Owen, and Julissa this week. It is a wonderful picture of the solidarity of the human race. Alyssa’s parents are Caucasian. Owen’s parents are Caucasian and Filipino. Julissa’s parents are Mexican. Seeing these little children playing at my parent’s home on Easter Sunday 2003, showed me the salvation that Jesus extended to all of the world when he rose from the dead on that Easter over 2000 years ago. It reminds me of a meme published a number of months ago of a Caucasian child embracing another child of Color. The banner underneath the meme was “Racism is not natural. It is learned.” These are very true words.

Now contrast this photograph of our common humanity, to the horrific racism exhibited by certain people of our executive and legislative branches of government and echoed at a political rally this week.

When I was in graduate school at the St Paul Seminary School of Divinity, among the many wonderful texts given us during school was one entitled Dangerous Memories: House Churches and American Society, written by theologian, Rev. Bernard J Lee, and Psychologist and theologian, Dr Michael A Cowan. In the book, they examined how people learn the important values in their lives. A child’s values is the result of an nteraction of those taught by the child’s parents and relatives, with that of the culture in which the child lives. They call this the child’s “Assumptive World.” Those values taught by the child’s parents and the community in which the child lives will shape the behavior of the child in adulthood. These values or “ethos” are hard to change. Something dramatic must happen for the child to challenge or reject the values that the child has learned. This is a very important concept for us to absorb and upon which to reflect. All values, good and bad, will shape our lives up to the time we take our last breath. It is important for us to look at those values we have learned, and how we have passed them on to our own children.

In working with people suffering from domestic violence, I have found, and it is documented, that abusive behavior is a learned behavior. The perpetrator of abuse learned this behavior from one of his/her parents. The behavior is passed on, like an evil gene, from parent to child, and summarily passed on by the child’s to his/her own children. It is a horrible chain of violence that is hard to break. Children in a household of domestic violence have two choices: 1) to become a perpetrator of abuse; or, 2) to become a victim of abuse. The victim will commonly marry a perpetrator of abuse, because the victim believes that the normal relationship between a married couple is one of abuse. The perpetrator will seek out someone to control and abuse. Tragically, this is more common than not. This learned behavior of abuse and the circle of violence it spawns is very hard to break and change. For the victim, it is not impossible. For the perpetrator, it is so deeply rooted in his/her life that it is close to impossible.

Now apply this same concept to the sin of Racism, especially so graphically portrayed for us on national television this week. With the passage of the Civil Rights legislation in the 1960’s and the election of Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008, many thought America had been cured of the Sin of Racism that has afflicted our nation from its very beginnings. Racism passed on from generation to generation over 200 years is not so easily eliminated. The racism has just gone underground continuing to fester and infect the many, many lives of innocent children.

In order to address the Sin of Racism in our society, we must first do the hard work of addressing the racism we have learned. I started to do this my freshman year of college.

MY STORY

My parents never taught me racism nor any prejudices, because they themselves suffered discrimination for being children of immigrants, Swedish, Irish, and Polish, and being Roman Catholic. At the time they grew up there was a great deal of prejudice leveled at many Roman Catholics in the United States. My father had to change his name from Wojnar to Wagner, to make it sound more Protestant in order to get a job as a mechanical engineer in his company. My mother lost her job as a home economics teacher in the Pittsburgh Public Schools because she was Roman Catholic. Being victims of religious prejudice, growing up poor in the Great Depression, they made sure that prejudice of any kind, classism, religious or race, would never be passed on by them to their children.

So, as a freshman talking three city buses to and from college every day, I was surprised to find myself very uncomfortable when the color of the bus changed from exclusively white to black in color at the intersection of University Ave and Snelling Ave. I was dismayed to find myself feeling this way. I was in no danger, yet I felt threatened. I realized at that moment as a young man that I harbored racist thoughts and feelings. Where did I learn it? It certainly was not at home.

I tend to be introspective and wanted to examine where I learned this behavior. After some considerable thought and reflection, I determined it was from television and the communities in which I had lived. As a child, my home was in exclusively Caucasian neighborhoods. From fellow students I learned that when driving in certain neighborhoods of St Paul, namely the Selby/Dale neighborhood, it was important to “roll up your windows” and lock the doors in the car to protect myself from “those dangerous people.” It was also from my fellow students I learned racist and cultural jokes, from Afro-American to Polish jokes, and sexist jokes e.g. “Blond jokes”. All of these jokes were baseless in fact and were clearly meant to demean and degrade the people or cultures targeted in the jokes. The same could be said for prejudice against “queers”, or what we would call the LGTBQ community today. Much of the prejudice I learned was from my own peers, who had been taught what they passed on by their parents, relatives, and communities.

I also found that my prejudice was influenced and reinforced by television. At that time, the only people you saw on television in television shows and advertisements were Caucasian. There were no people of Color playing important roles on television, with the exception of roles as servants or criminals. So the portrayal of people of Color on television isolated those people to roles that were perceived as either demeaning or criminal. Portrayals of Asian people were isolated to those running Chinese restaurants or laundries, or the Japanese whom our parents fought in World War II. In general, people of Color were portrayed on television as people who served or harmed the Caucasian race and were not worthy of the American Dream to advance themselves culturally or economically.

Once I found the source of my racism, I set to the task of reversing what I had been taught. It is a lifelong of relearning. In pursuing friendships with people who were from other races and cultures, and listening to their stories, I discovered the reality of the world of “White Privilege” in which I had been raised. The obstacles in the path of many people of Color to better education, better employment, a more fulfilled life were far more numerous than any I had. I naturally presumed the playing field was level for all races. I learned that my presumption was totally false.

Being educated formally as a musician, I also had many good friends among the gay and lesbian community. In listening to their stories of discovering their sexual orientation and the fear of being “found out” by family, church, and society upset me greatly. Their sexual orientation never shocked me. How they were treated for being gay and lesbian upset and shocked me. Then as I studied the lives of the composers whose music I performed and admired, I discovered that many of them were homosexual. Tschaikovsky feared his homosexuality would be discovered all of his life. To hide his homosexuality he got married to a woman who was nymphomaniac. She blackmailed him his entire life. Since homosexuality was a capital offense in Russia, he feared being executed for the crime of homosexuality. Aaron Copland, Benjamin Britten, and Ravel, all hid their homosexuality. Leonard Bernstein came out when he was director of the New York Philharmonic. He ended up resigning his position. I admired their great courage living in a world that hated them for being homosexual. Homosexuality is not a learned behavior. As in the color of our skin, it is how God created us. I once asked one my of gay friends when he knew he was gay, he replied by asking me how I knew I was straight. I answered him, “I just know.” He said, “It is no different for me.”

UNLEARNING FALSE AND DANGEROUS VALUES

How do we unlearn the harmful values that we have been taught? The key to this unlearning is “relationship”.

The first we thing upon which we must base our unlearning are the words from the first chapter of Genesis. We are all made in the image and likeness of God. This is exclusively true for all races, gender, or sexual orientation. In the Hebrew Testament, it is written that God is the God of all nations. In the Christian Testament, it is doctrine that Jesus died for all people of all nations. Salvation is not isolated to only a small group of people. The salvation for which Jesus died and rose from the dead is extended to all of humanity. God’s love and acceptance is always exclusive, never inclusive! To be taught otherwise is nothing more than the false teachings of our own fears and prejudices being projected on God. In short, heresy.

Secondly, we need to cultivate relationships with people of other races, cultures, and sexual orientation. When we do this, we find that our differences are very few. I remember when I was at St Stephen’s parish in South Minneapolis, if I sat after Mass with a heterosexual family and then with a homosexual family, the topics talked were about all the same things of family life. The diversity of people on parish staff and Human Services staff enriched my life so greatly that I was completely, utterly changed shattering many false values I once believed. We all share in the same pain, sorrow, joys, and worries regardless of our family of origins, religion, race and culture. Whether we be Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, we may call God different names and religious rituals may differ, but our need for salvation and our desire to be united to God for eternity remains the same. Forming relationships with people different from us expands our understanding of the world, destroys the fears we were taught by our parents, relatives, and community, and shatters forever false and dangerous values.

Thirdly, it is important to pass on to our children and our grandchildren values that values that build up the reign of God in our world. This is the mission that Jesus entrusted to us at his Ascension. There is no place for fear in God’s reign. There is no place for racism in God’s reign. There is no place for sexism or sexual prejudice in God’s reign. There is only one law that holds primacy over all human laws, “Love one another as I have loved you.” These words were spoken to the Apostles as Jesus prepared himself to be arrested and executed. These words continue in perpetuity until that time that Jesus returns again. These words of Jesus must be imprinted in our heads and our hearts and must be not just mere words but the mission statement of our lives.

Perhaps this is what shocked me the most at the political rally held this past week. The complete and utter lack of love present there. There was no visible or audible sign of Jesus’ commandment to “love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus’ last words to his apostles the night before he was executed, must become our life’s mantra and must hold primacy over all other values we hold in our lives. This must include the hard task of loving others who hate us, fear us, and act against us.

It is a lifelong mission and task of our lives.

REFLECTION ON THE READINGS FOR THE 16^TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, 2019.

If we look back over the last two weeks, the readings have addressed the qualities of being a disciple of Jesus. This is true for this week, too.

The readings present to us a dichotomy in which Christian disciples live. The first is the busyness in being a servant of God. The second is doing nothing but resting in God.

In the reading from Genesis (Genesis 18: 1-10a), we hear the story of Abraham greeting the three strangers standing by his tent and inviting them to rest and freshen up from their journey and have some food and drink. The three strangers reward his generosity by telling him that his wife, Sarah, would bear him the child he had always wanted.

Paul begins his letter to the Collosians (Collosians 1: 24-28) stating that he is offering himself up as an oblation in service to the Collosian community. “I became its servant according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints.” (Collosians 1: 24*)

Then, in the Gospel (Luke 10: 38-42), Jesus presents another side to discipleship. To borrow the old proverb, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Martha is busying herself, preparing food, cleaning, working very hard being hospitable to Jesus, while her sister, Mary, is doing nothing but sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to him. Martha, naturally, feels very put upon by what she perceives as laziness on the part of her sister, and complains to Jesus.  We then hear Jesus’, famous quotable response to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things;  there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10: 41b-42a)

I worked with a wonderful priest at St Hubert from 1984 to 1989, Fr Barry Schneider OFM. Unlike many priests with whom I worked up to that time, Barry was multi-faceted and talented. Before becoming pastor of St Hubert, Barry was an accomplished author of plays, taught at Hales Franciscan on the South Side of Chicago, traveled throughout the United States presenting plays with his acting troupe from Hales Franciscan, and was Director of Religious Education for the Diocese of South Falls, SD. He was also an activist priest, marching throughout Cicero with Dr Martin Luther King Jr. He protested the Vietnam War. He told me one day that because of his activism, he thought the dossier the FBI had on him was pretty thick. Prior to his coming to suburban, Chanhassen, he was pastor for a number of years at an African American parish in Nashville.

One day, in the midst of a very busy day, I found Barry sitting in silence in the church. He had been there for some time. He invited me to sit next to him and begin to speak to me about his life as a priest. When he was at his most busy, when he was teaching at Hales Franciscan in Chicago, busy with his plays, traveling, and his activism, he said, “I almost lost my faith and my vocation as a Franciscan priest.” I asked him to say some more about this. He replied, “I thought that my work was my prayer and neglected my need to pray.” He got to the point that he became overwhelmed by all the work he was doing and almost left the priesthood. It was then he realized that in all his busyness he was not paying attention to his relationship with God. With this insight, he made it a point to schedule in his busy day an extended time of solitary prayer with God. Sometimes, usually in the winter months, that solitary place as an empty Church. However, his most favorite and frequent place to pray was in nature. He, and his miniature schnauzer, Scamp, would go for long, prayerful walks in the nature preserves around Chanhassen. This was how Barry kept a spiritual balance between service and resting in God.

This is an important lesson for all of us. We as disciples, and especially for those of us in ministry, have a misconception that discipleship is about pouring ourselves out as a libation in service to everyone. I suffered under this misconception in my early years doing Church ministry, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, that eventually threw me in to a very deep, dark burnout. Isolating discipleship to mean all work and no rest can, as Barry observed, can lead to losing our faith and abandoning discipleship altogether.

Jesus insists that it is absolutely necessary to find a place to be alone and be in quiet with God and ourselves. We hear in the Gospel stories, Jesus seeking away, and on one occasion, fleeing from the crowds and the apostles to find an out of the way place to sit in quiet, in order to be in relationship with his Abba.

I remember a romantic comedy in which an American woman traveling through Italy has lunch with an Italian businessman. The lunch goes about 2 hours in length, in which the woman says to the man, “don’t you have to get back to work?” He replies to her something I have never forgotten, “That is the problem with you Americans. You live so you can work. We who are Italian work so that we can live.”

So how do we attend to this important need to spend time by ourselves and with God?  Are we that busy with the things in our lives that we cannot schedule an hour, 30 minutes, 20 minutes in our day to do nothing but just “be” with God and ourselves? All the busyness in life and in ministry, for that matter, will not earn our way into everlasting life. What is most important for everlasting life is growing our relationship with God. While part of that is being in good relationship with others and serving them (Martha), we must also build a good relationship with the God who created us in love (Mary).

“Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” Todays readings tell us we are not to choose between being a “Martha” or a “Mary”. We must embrace both in our lives.

*All scriptural texts taken from the New Revised Standard Version, Coogan, Michael D.; Brettler, Marc Z.; Perkins, Pheme; Newsom, Carol A.. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version. Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.