HOPE

As I write this our Muslim friends are preparing to keep the holy fast of Ramadan. It is not uncommon to hear the faithful declare that Ramadan is the “best” month. I have never walked that path and so I am in no position to say one way or another, but they do seem to be on to something lovely.

The authors I’ve read largely agree on the conditions in Arabia just prior to when the word of God was revealed to the Prophet (PBUH). At the time it was a land marked by tribalism, raiding parties, war games, usury, exploitation of the poor, abuse of women, rampant vice, idolatry, and a vindictive arrogance which demonized opposition. If all this sounds like the Evening News we might also remember that the classical era was ending, the Roman Empire was busy falling apart, and we were on the verge of the threshold of that period historians cheerfully call ‘the dark ages’. The slow but steady collapse of the unifying forces of the past, and the fractious uncertainty that created, may well have inspired in some a yearning for a religion of oneness, the spirit of tawhid.

The more unmanageable our life together becomes the faster we run towards the surrender we’ve been avoiding. Somewhere in all this there is hope. I have no grand predictions about the fate of the West, either in Europe or North America. I am no historian, I’m a priest; I live in the present with the eternal. What I have learned is simple: At the end of the day, humans are at a loss except for those who believe and live right and encourage each other to be truthful and patient. (Surah 103) Somewhere in all this there is hope.

LIFE BY RIVERS

It has been written that ‘faith’ is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. I suppose it could be said I had faith back in August of 2013 when I wrote on this blog of my intention to compose a collection of songs and call the album ‘LIFE BY RIVERS.’ I am thankful for those who believed in this project and I am happy to report that the album (CD) is done. We had a lovely release party on 8^th June, and the CD should be available on AMAZON by 3^rd July. LIFE BY RIVERS was recorded at Studio Seven in Oklahoma City and has been produced by LUNACY RECORDS.

LIFE BY RIVERS

Saint John River

Down Main Street

Resurgo

A River Called Miramichi

It Takes a While

Cimarron River

In My Home

The Place

Family Reunion

Tomorrow is Another Day

My Mother’s Fiddle

This River Town

(All songs by Dale Petley. All praise belongs to God.)

TO BE A PILGRIM

In 2004 the Catholic Church published an Instruction entitled The Love of Christ Towards Migrants (Erga Migrantes Caritas Christi, EMCC). It received Papal Authority on the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker:

In migrants the Church has always contemplated the image of Christ who said, “I was a stranger and you made me welcome.” Their condition is, therefore, a challenge to the faith and love of believers, who are called on to heal the evils caused by migration and discover the plan God pursues through it even when caused by obvious injustices.

Mary, the Mother of Jesus, can be well contemplated as a symbol of the woman emigrant. She gave birth to her Son away from home and was compelled to flee to Egypt. Popular devotion is right to consider Mary as the Madonna of the Way. (EMCC)

From the day Abraham left Ur to the night the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and his followers began the Hijrah from Mecca to Medina migration has been front and center as an image of spiritual growth, from dead ends to new beginnings, moving out of the darkness into the light. Holy Scripture is full of believers who became migrants for a number of reasons. Hagar and her son Ishmael were banished, thus beginning their migration. Israel was forced to take up residence in Egypt when faced with starvation, and then four hundred years later, they were homeless strangers again wayfaring through Canaan. In fact the Hebrew Law reflects a firsthand sympathy for refugees and sojourners and directs the faithful to feed, clothe, and help them, remembering how we are all the descendants of such brave, sturdy stock. Sometimes people became migrants because their lives were in danger. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph fell into this category when they fled to Egypt rather than face the wrath of jealous power.

I am related to migrants on both sides of my family. The ones on my Mother’s side were refugees. They were the Acadians of whom Longfellow wrote, driven away from their home in “the forest primeval.” Exiled from the only life they knew, those poor souls wandered “in want and cheerless discomfort, bleeding, barefooted, over the shards and thorns of existence.”  (Evangeline) I can see them even now; the women with their heads covered in imitation of Mary, favoring blue, our Lady’s color. So many places refused to allow the Acadians to take up residence. They were the despised outcasts of their day; the objects of hate, ridicule, fear, and loathing.

The term ‘refugee’ is derived from the concept of refuge. Among the ancient Hebrews certain priestly cities were appointed as ‘Cities of Refuge’. Someone responsible for taking a life but who did so unintentionally could flee to such a city. The wrathful cry of blood for blood could not reach you in a City of Refuge. That this pertained to priestly cities where worship was offered speaks to the connection between mercy and sacrifice. To this day churches still act as houses of refuge. It is why many of them paint their doors red.

The ancient Hebrews understood the connection between clemency and community. It’s not for nothing that Cain, the builder of the first city, was a murderer against whom vengeance was forbidden. From the beginning there was the recognition that there can be no living together without prevenient mercy seasoning our friendships and agreements. We cannot find our way together when each of us demands our pound of flesh, or as Gandhi put it, “an eye for an eye ends up making the whole world blind.”
                                                 

Though justice be thy plea, consider this;

That, in the course of justice, none of us

        Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;

                                        And that same prayer doth teach us all to render

                                                The deeds of mercy.

                                                (The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene 1)

 Not only did the ancients grasp the relation of mercy and sacrifice, they also understood the way mercy reinforces liberty. They knew that living together as free people means being informed by history but not controlled by it; that although they had been oppressed and taken advantage of in the past there was no need for them to treat others the same way. I suppose this is why a free Country once saw fit to summon the tired, poor, homeless, and tempest-tossed to her shores, and why a still great nation may continue to welcome wayfarers even today; and be a blessed home for Isa, Maryum, and Yusuf, as they come seeking refuge.

ADAB

I’ve been thinking about the meaning of ‘adab’. It is an Arabic word with no exact equivalent in English and has to do with kindness and good manners expressed with courtesy and refinement. It is similar to what we used to call ‘grace’ or ‘class.’ It’s what makes us civilized. I suppose this is why 16^th Century French Jesuits went to the trouble of composing 110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation, and why, when George Washington was a schoolboy, he transcribed these rules as part of a hand-writing exercise. Penmanship was taught back then and so were manners.

John Henry Newman wrote that a true gentleman’s concern is in “merely removing the obstacles which hinder the free and unembarrassed action of those about him.” Emily Post said that possessing good manners means having “a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others”, and Ann Landers defined class as “being considerate of others.” The First of the Rules of Civility proclaims that “every action done in company ought to be with some sign of respect to those that are present.” I don’t know about you but I’m beginning to see a pattern here. Good manners are the practical expression of loving-kindness. They reflect the charity which Holy Scripture says is patient and kind, and is not boastful, proud, self-seeking, or rude. We are told that Christians are to be kindly affectionate one with another with brotherly love, and when we visit each other’s homes for meals we should do so with thankfulness, eschewing all rudeness. ‘Adab’ at its root is a term related to mealtime. It comes from a culture in which dining together is still seen as an act of communion, and everyone eats with the right hand of fellowship, and dips in a common dish.

To live together as one nation is to dip in a common dish. It requires courtesy, thoughtfulness, neighborliness, good will, a desire for fairness, and the old-fashioned virtues of prudence, courage, temperance, and justice. Above all it takes charity and a preference for getting along. In other words we cannot be civilized unless we’re civil. 

In his essay: The Spirit of Appomattox Court House, historian Douglas Brinkley wrote that “while the scars of the monstrous Civil War still remain, the wounds have closed since 1865, in large part, because of the civility of Grant and Lee.” We need civility. No Country is so surely established or has a Constitution so well devised that it can long endure when good manners are abandoned, for then we have forsaken the very virtues required in self-governance. We need grace – the inner and outer adab of charity – if we’re to have any hope of living in peace.

O HIDDEN …

I’m reading Coriolanus for Lent. I’m meditating on the text. It is well worth while. T. S. Eliot thought very highly of the play, and, as he often did, took the quite contrarian view that it was, together with Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare’s “most assured artistic success.” (The Sacred Wood, 1919) I’ll let the scholars have that debate.

Although he makes reference to the character, Coriolanus, near the end of The Waste Land, Eliot’s extended treatment of the play’s central themes is found in his unfinished collection begun in1931 entitled Coriolan.  It was written at a time when fascism was spreading in Europe and society was sagging at the knees at home. The American philosopher Russell Kirk said of the poem: “It was an appeal to true principles of public order, rooted in religion and in historical consciousness, against ideology, against the cult of personality, against the indifference or irresponsibility of the crowd, against the ‘Servile State’ described by Hilaire Belloc, and against captivity to a moment in time.” (Eliot and His Age, 1971)

There was much in Eliot’s day to cause him to reflect on Shakespeare’s treatment of the story of the ancient Roman General. The rise of Nationalism full of bold promises by great men on horseback and the marriage of technology and empire led the poet to inquire into the deeper sources of authority and meaning. He sought to reflect upon the love that animates community and makes life possible. It seems to me that making room for such reflection is one of the reasons the church observes penitential seasons. We need simply to stand still every now and then and let the parade of pomp and circumstances pass us by, and in that simplicity, to look, and to listen.

 O hidden under the dove's wing, hidden in the turtle's breast,

Under the palm tree at noon, under the running water
At the still point of the turning world. O hidden.

 Have a lovely Lent.

HANK

On New Year’s Day, 1953, my mother and father were pulling the car into the driveway of the home of my maternal grandparents in Newton Heights, New Brunswick, when my grandfather, our pépère, came quickly out of the back door to greet them. They could tell by his expression that something truly momentous had occurred. As soon as Dad began to roll down the car window, Pépère, with his thick French accent told them, “Hank Williams died today.” That was huge news back then especially in our home with our great love for what was then called ‘Country and Western’ music. We came by it honestly. My mother’s uncles and aunts each played numerous instruments, most notably fiddle, accordion, and guitar. They performed at barn dances and County Fairs throughout Southeastern New Brunswick in the 1930’s, 40’s and early 50’s. My mother remembered how as a little girl she would listen to her aunts play fiddle and accompany a young singer/songwriter named Hank Snow who would come by the house to play music before heading over to do his show on Moncton’s CKCW radio.

Mum’s Uncle Arthur not only performed songs but wrote them as well. She recalled helping him with a song he was writing during the Second World War called ‘I’ll Miss You When You’re Gone.’

When grey skies are as blue

As when I first met you
And city lights are shining once again …

I enjoy writing lyrics. It’s my principle hobby. I play the guitar but am not a musician and would much rather listen to someone play and sing my songs than perform them. I suppose the great age of lyric writing was during the Big Band era with singers like Sinatra ready to give them voice. That was also the age of Musicals. Even the Beatles did a cover version of Meredith Wilson’s ‘Til There Was You’ from The Music Man (my favorite musical) because they just couldn’t resist a great song.

Getting back to 1953 and the death of Hank Williams, I’ve always had a hard time grasping that he was only twenty-nine years old when he died. He wrote so much in such a short time it’s no wonder he was called ‘The Hillbilly Shakespeare.’

Did you ever see a robin weep when leaves begin to die?

That means he’s lost the will to live
I’m so lonesome I could cry

My own songwriting has surprised me over the years. As a teenager I listened mostly to the Rock and Pop music of the day tuning in to the radio’s top 40. Then disco came along and I turned off the radio and haven’t listened to popular music since. As an adult I’ve been a devotee of folk and baroque. I wasn’t expecting that so many of my recent songs would have a Country feel to them. Oh well … I blame Hank.

 IT TAKES A WHILE

It takes a while to think some things over

It takes a while to see some things through
But then you know the world won’t stop turning
When you stand up and say ‘I love you.’

 

It takes a while to cross the wide ocean
It takes a while to sail every sea
But then you know even when your heart’s broken
How beautiful this world can be

 

It takes a while when you live by a river
To see every season come call
It takes a while for some hearts to open
Until it takes no time at all

 

It takes a while to write a love letter
It takes a while to say some things right
But then you know how feelings lie buried
And true love brings all things to light

 

It takes a while for roses to blossom
It takes a while for loved ones to mourn
But then you know it’s only in dying
That we are forever reborn

 

It takes a while when you live by a river
To see every season come call
It takes a while for some hearts to open
Until it takes no time at all

 

© 2015 Dale Petley (Oklahoma City)

IN MY HOME

HAPPY CANADA DAY to friends and family in the “true north strong and free.” While growing up in Moncton we called it Dominion Day, mindful of how our fellow New Brunswicker, Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley, suggested calling Canada a dominion based on Psalm 72:8, "He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth." Anyway, that’s our story and we’re sticking to it. By the way, if you’re from Moncton and still call it Dominion Day you probably remember The Bunkhouse Boys, The Bore View Restaurant, Moncton Family Outfitters, Bunny’s General Store, the days when we referred to places as Léger's Corner, Georgetown, and Newton Heights, when Cathédrale Notre-Dame de l'Assomption was the city’s tallest building, and when the subway overpass on Main Street was resplendent in glorious pink. Like the song says: “If home is where the heart is I’ve never been away.”

 I wrote this song a few weeks ago.

 

IN MY HOME

 In my home close to the ocean

There’s a river running by
And the memories of a lifetime
Are the ones that will not die
I know I can’t get lost there
No matter where I roam
For when I am in that city
I’ve already found my way back home

Hear the bells of old St. George’s
Calling everyone to prayer
It’s a Feast Day or a funeral
There is incense in the air
I see people taking pictures
As the tide comes roaring in
And if I try to explain it
I don’t know where I would begin

I took a walk down by the river

Saw the ghost of Molly Kool
She was Captain of her vessel
We never learned of her in school
I wandered back to Main Street
Where I watched the setting sun
And as I heard the sound of music
I knew the night had just begun

When I sing a hymn at midnight

That the angels joy to hear
God comfort me with apples
And the knowledge that you’re near
The busy streets grow quiet
I hear nighthawks in the sky
As I fall asleep I’m smiling
And love is the reason why

 © 2015 Dale Petley (Oklahoma City)

CIMARRON RIVER

I hope everyone has a Happy Fathers Day.

I had wanted to write an Oklahoma song since 2007, the Centennial year of Statehood. Only recently did this song come along as part of my ‘Life by Rivers’ collection.  I say it “came along” because that’s the way it happens with the songs I write. It starts with a phrase or an image and the suggestion of a tune and suddenly the lyrics just come tumbling out. I know I’m composing but it all seems more like a gift given and received. I’m grateful. 

 

This one’s for Diana.

 

CIMARRON RIVER

There’s a place that they call Oklahoma

She has been a good friend to me
I made my home where the buffalo roam
In a land where they live to be free

You can see it painted deep in their faces

It’s a love passed from father to son
Like the old man who cried just before he died
And told me what he wanted done

 Chorus:

Bury me by the Cimarron River
Lay me down near my home in the Plains
Where the eagle soars high in a clear blue sky
And wildflowers wait for the rain

Redbuds blossom in springtime

Cool breezes blow in the fall
Come autumn nights under stadium lights
We cheer for our team one and all

Red brothers and sisters before us

Were the ones to give this land its name
And throughout the years and a Trail of Tears
Had the grace and the grit to remain

 Chorus:

Bury me by the Cimarron River…

Folks smile here the first time they meet you

They assume that you’re already friends
They know hard times come to everyone
And they’ll stand by your side to the end

So if you like the wide open spaces

Then this is the place you should be
But lift up your head, it’s like Woody said:
“This land was made for you and me”

 Chorus:

Bury me by the Cimarron River…

© 2015 Dale Petley (Oklahoma City)

PRIMUM NON NOCERE

I have been blessed to have had two Christian Godfathers. The first (and official) one was a barber by trade. The second (unofficial) one did all the training necessary to become a psychiatrist before deciding that his true calling was to be a General Practitioner or as he likes to put it, a family doctor. I couldn’t help thinking how much he looked the part one wintery evening when he showed up years ago at our home wearing his stethoscope around his neck and carrying his little black doctor’s bag. He was making a house call to see my ailing grandmother. If you’re old enough to remember house calls then you might also recall milk delivery and how blueberries used to taste ... but I digress.

My first paying job was in a doctor’s office. I was put in charge of organizing files. Thinking back on it all I now realize my ‘job’ really amounted to a make-work project designed to keep me out of trouble during the relative idleness of summer. Be that as it may I learned many valuable lessons during those months. I came to understand the vital importance of discretion and confidentiality. Mostly though, I was blessed by observing the kindness, care, and compassion with which this beloved physician treated his patients.

Over the years I have found that illness can be a great teacher as well as a powerful catalyst for change. It bursts the bubble of complacency and shatters the illusion of self-sufficiency. It reminds us of our common humanity and shows us how we are all fragile vessels. It can also recall us to the fact that we are a lot less in control than we like to think we are, and that rather than succumbing to the ultimately slavish insistence of being the Captain of our own ship and the Director of our own play, true freedom may be found in surrender to one greater than our small self; one who can restore us to health and sanity.

One of my favorite sayings is ‘Primum non nocere’ – ‘First, do no harm.’ This sums up precisely the sort of conservatism I can get behind for it insists, as Yogi Berra might say, that we avoid improving things worse. And it means more than that. It reminds us that people are not merely problems to be fixed or puzzles to be solved but that their well being is our highest priority.  I have failed woefully over the years in living up to this standard, and yet, I continue in my aspiration to do so. I cannot imagine a better way of celebrating the precious gift of life. It is the way of Asclepius, Hippocrates, Saint Luke the Physician, and my Godfather, a family doctor.

FAITH

We are in the Season of Easter. For those unfamiliar with church festivals Easter is a lot like Christmas, only different. Christmas and Easter are the two major feasts when those who call themselves Christians actually attend church. These are followed by Mothers’ Day and any Sunday when the children’s choir sings.

Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus and Easter celebrates his resurrection, and both events are welcomed by women named Mary who are full of grace. Christmas and Easter alike call us to faith and invite us to see as united what we naturally think of as being separate and divided: shepherds and sheep, masters and servants, Logos/Word and speechless infant, boundlessness and embodiment, eternity and time, the one and the many, the universal and the particular, creator and creation, divinity and humanity, God and man.

 

WHAT IS TRUTH?

 I have been reading Dr. Anthony Esolen’s translation of The Divine Comedy. I enjoy his use of iambic pentameter, and his notes are insightful. I’m always moved by the way Dante is carefully guided by Virgil who I was taught represents the voice of reason in the poem. I’m exactly half-way through, smack-dab in the middle of Purgatory (Canto 17), where our pilgrim author walks “step by step beside the faithful stride” of his instructor. It seems to me a wonderful image of the role of philosophy in the life of the Church.

I know little about the character of the Church around the globe since my entire Christian journey, such as it is, has taken place in Canada and the United States. Even here I am unable, or at least unwilling, to make sweeping generalizations about the nature of North American Christianity. It would be easy, for example, to characterize fundamentalism in America as being anti-rational, but such a view fails to grasp the fullness of the situation. Our so-called Fundamentalist Christians don’t hate reason; they simply fail to see that their religious faith is accountable to it. Belief is regarded as essentially personal and entirely a matter of the will. Philosophy, largely pragmatic and analytical, is seen by some as a useful discipline in seeking clarity regarding social, ethical concerns. However, there is in most minds a wall of separation between one’s personal faith and the world of things which can be studied objectively. Science and philosophy are understood as belonging in the latter category. The disconnect remains. People who harvest fuel from dinosaur bones for a living go to church where they believe the earth is just 10,000 years old, and they’re fine with that, just as they’re fine with proclaiming Jesus is Lord while advocating social Darwinism. 

That some people bristle at the prospect of being bridled by sweet reason is of course nothing new. We can find anti-philosophical tendencies in most faith-traditions. What I find more distressing is the prospect of a philosophical religion which does not love wisdom. This travesty happens when religion seeks to use philosophy, treating it as a tool, not a guide. We want answers, and philosophy is useful insofar as it provides them. Religious types armed with a philosophy of answers are mostly concerned with the moral realm where they seek to help society by crafting stupid, destructive new laws. And although they might find philosophy useful in this endeavor they don’t much care for philosophers; they ask too many questions. Philosophers love wisdom and follow wherever she leads. That’s dangerous.

For me the relation of faith and reason amounts to answering a simple question: when do I decide not to follow the truth? Do I forsake the truth when it becomes unpleasant or inconvenient? Do I tell wisdom to take a hike when it costs too much? We are in Lent and so it seems like the right time to recall that Pontius Pilate faced a similar question, and his answer was to condemn the only perfectly innocent man he’d ever met.

SAINTE-ANNE-DE-BEAUMONT

Happy Feast of St. Anne!

 

While on holiday last year in Canada (New Brunswick) I went for a drive through Memramcook to Beaumont. It’s all very beautiful and on the way you pass through Belliveau Orchards with their wonderful apple trees. Much of the land across the Petitcodiac River from Beaumont was settled in the mid-1700s by German immigrants. There is an old story passed down in the Steeves (Stieff) family about how shortly after their ancestors arrived a Mr. Belliveau crossed the river in his canoe and helped the newcomers with useful, life-sustaining information and advice, one farmer to another, French and German, human to human.

 At Beaumont is Sainte-Anne-de-Beaumont Chapel built in 1842. As well as being beloved of the Acadians St. Anne is the Patron Saint of the Mi'kmaq (Lnu) people, and the chapel was used by members of the First Nations Reserve as well as the French who lived peacefully alongside them. It’s a lovely place and it’s where I wrote this song.

 

 

IN THE PLACE

 

Hey there, are you awake yet?
When you’re done hogging the blanket
Let’s go watch the dawn begin the day
Later, when we get the lawn mowed
We’ll take a drive down the old road
To where the river runs into the Bay
We’ll have a thermos full of hot tea
We’ll enjoy the quiet and the view
We won’t care about the weather
As long as we’re together
In the place
Where we first said I love you

 

Say there, do you remember?
That day back in December
It snowed so hard we couldn’t see across the street
We ate bread and molasses
And watched the storm as it passed us
And made a little fire to warm our feet
The sun came out and the world was covered over
With snow that was so clean and crisp and new
The cold wind made me shiver
Just like that day by the river
In the place
Where we first said I love you

 

Well now, you know what I’m wishing?
That we soon can go fishing
When the ice breaks on the river in the spring
We’ll go when the fish are biting
To a place so inviting
It stirs my soul and makes me want to sing
The beauty of the woods always reminds us
There is still so much living left to do
There is joy all around us
Just like the day that it found us
In the place
Where we first said I love you

 

© 2013, Dale Petley (Beaumont, N.B.)

BOB & CAROL & TED & THECLA

“I think of life as a cosmic joke, which keeps getting bigger all the time. But I've learned tolerance and maybe affection for the Chasidim. They are real people, who can see light in the darkest things.”

Paul Mazursky (April 25, 1930 – June 30, 2014)

 When I think about the earliest Christians I’m inspired by their joy. They were joyful in ways that did not depend on events and circumstances. They were joyful in trials and tribulations. They wrote things like: We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything. In John’s Gospel Jesus says, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” In his first Epistle St. John declares, “We write these things unto you so that our joy may be complete.” St. Paul called his brothers and sisters in Philippi to be joyful, using the words ‘joy’ and ‘rejoice’ repeatedly, and famously proclaiming “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again, I say rejoice.”

The joy of the earliest Christians was not caused by self-satisfaction over accomplishments but was simply the way that they were learning to be in Christ. They believed that they had died. They also believed that they had been born again and that the life they now lived was utterly identified with Christ. Sometimes they took on a new name as a new creature in Christ. Moreover they saw themselves as one body in Christ so much so that they held their goods in common. They saw their oneness not as some flimsy, ethereal, longed-for-yet-never-realized condition but as the fundamental reality of creation. Your early-church Bob, Carol, Ted, and Thecla understood that they were married to Christ and in Christ were one body. In chaste virginity, a Thecla, for example, was not seeking isolation but deeper fellowship. Even when she went to live in a cave she knew she was never truly alone but always moving into closer communion in the Body of Christ.

The unity consciousness of the earliest Christians was no regression to a childlike, pre-personal, oceanic feeling of oneness. They were not blurring distinctions and ignoring real contrasts in favor of a hazy, lazy, vague unwillingness to engage the world. That’s just self-protective avoidance, and avoidance is merely a veiled form of aggression which is why it turns hateful so quickly.

Attempts to manufacture such a sense of unity often are destructive of nature and tend to reduce human beings to concepts and abstractions. Only love can truly celebrate unity while not obliterating diversity. Love bears witness to unity while celebrating its own nature within all the glorious, scandalous particularity of life. We do not make unity, but simply let go of the obstacles keeping us from realizing it. Unity, like love, is the very nature of things. If we do not realize and ‘see’ the unity of life it is only because we are turned away from it to an image of our self and this makes us afraid of love because real love is self-emptying. It is joyful, though, and eternal, and it leads us to see light even in the darkest things.

DOWN MAIN STREET

Two enduring influences in my life have been Main Street in Moncton, New Brunswick, and the Petitcodiac River which runs alongside it. I am blessed to have grown up in a place where we could shop, visit City Hall, conduct business, go to the movies, enjoy a good meal, get a drink, have a haircut, be measured for a suit, do our banking, and watch the Santa Claus Parade without ever having to leave Main Street. Today the people of Moncton work diligently at maintaining a Main Street that is vibrant and alive. Because of their efforts much of what was said above is still true. In fact, it is now even a better place to go out for an evening of music and entertainment than it was in the old days. I remember a time when things did not look so promising but Monctonians decided to work purposefully at keeping Main Street as the vital heart of the city.

The fact that the residents of Moncton attend to Main Street as a center of activity speaks to their recognition of the importance of community. After all, one of the city’s oldest buildings is the Free Meeting House constructed in 1821 so that people of all faiths would have a place to pray. Moncton is a city where the Mayor and Members of Council, the Police Chief, the Fire Chief, Members of the Judiciary, and assorted other dignitaries joined residents from all walks of life to pack a large Catholic church for the funeral of a homeless man who had severe psychological disorders and crippling addictions, and who used to spend most of his winters incarcerated. I remember him from when I was a child. He was a fixture; part of the landscape; a character in a city full of them. He was written about in the newspaper by a friendly and compassionate reporter. Readers felt like they knew him. When I heard about his impressive funeral mass it surprised me for a moment, but then I thought that this was somehow typical of Moncton.

Sometimes it takes unspeakable tragedy to bring people together. Folks will remark on the uniqueness of such times and how out of character it all seems. To my mind, though, Moncton has demonstrated time and again the resolve to foster a strong sense of community that does not depend on circumstances and events, tragic or otherwise; a sense of belonging together as the tides of life come and go, both giving and taking away. It is a city shaped by a tidal river which even at its lowest never fails in its promise to rise again.

DOWN MAIN STREET

The first time that we met was down on Main Street

You said, “You got here fresh from the U. S., eh?”
You laughed at my stupid joke about your accent
Then we watched the tide take the river away

 

We ate at the first place we found open for coffee
You laughed when I tried to describe a poutine râpée
You told me all your dreams for the future
Then we watched the tide take the river away

 

Now surfers ride the tidal bore of the river
Where they built so many ships back in the day
Schooners and steamers would come to deliver molasses
Then ride out of town before the tide took the river away

 

Let’s do the dishes then take a walk down Main Street
To the spot where we met thirty years ago today
We’ll toast the past and smile toward the future
And watch the tide take the river away

 

© 2013 Dale Petley (Moncton)

DAD

It seems I have inherited my father’s sense of humor. My mother enjoyed a good joke, both telling one and hearing one, but she found my father’s idea of what was funny annoying. His humor was based a good deal on whimsy. I called him one day while I was watching coverage of a Papal Election on TV. I asked how he was doing:

“I’m busier than a one-armed paper hanger.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.
“I’m answering the phone all the time.”
“Who keeps calling you?”
"The Vatican; they want me to run for Pope but I told them I won’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“Not enough money in it.”

I laughed and he said, “When I told that to your mother she got mad at me.”

After New Brunswick’s Provincial Liberal Party destroyed the Conservatives by winning every single seat on election night Dad called me bright and early the next morning doing his best Connie Francis imitation as he sung: “Who’s Tory now, who’s Tory now?” I noticed a similar sense of humor in Dad’s older brother, Tom. I well recall driving around the village where he lived while he pointed out various odd looking characters old enough to be Civil War veterans and told me that they were the ‘Mayor’, the ‘Fire Chief’, and ‘Members of the Town Council’. When we returned from that drive to his home where Aunt Jackie was preparing supper he announced out of the blue that he had decided to buy a mule. He cracked me up, and I’m sure that I was laughing, smiling, or eating any time I visited Uncle Tom and Aunt Jackie.

A good example of what made Dad laugh is a story he told about his younger brother, Ern.  One day Dad and Ern were driving on New Brunswick’s Route 126 from Moncton to Harcourt. Ern was behind the wheel. Somewhere near Coal Branch he suddenly pulled the car off to the side of the road, put it in reverse, and backed up until coming to a stop where he sat looking past my father through the passenger side window. Dad turned to see what Ern was looking at and saw a man standing perfectly still in the middle of a field of hay, all alone, his hands down by his side, staring off into the distance. Ern sat there for a moment then put the car in park, got out and walked around to the front, took a deep breath and yelled: “What are you looking at?!” The man, startled, simply stuck his hands in his pockets and walked away. Ern, his mission accomplished, got back in the car and drove on. Dad laughed while he told me about this all those years later. He still found it funny.

Fathers try to do the right things for their children and say the right things to them but we children tend to remember other things. We remember that they were there for us more than what they said to us. We recall their advice and their aphorisms but we recall their voices with greater clarity. We cherish the memories of their foibles and fumbles, their humanity, and their humor, and it’s all because we love them. Happy Father’s Day!

THINKING ABOUT ETERNITY

“God don’t never change. Always will be God.” (Blind Willie Johnson.)

“No object has ever done the experience of being touched.” (Michel Henry.)

“And I’m thinking about eternity. Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me.” (Bruce Cockburn.)

The glory of the Incarnation is not that it somehow constitutes an ontological change in God but that it doesn’t. “God don’t never change.” God is Spirit and Spirit is not part of any duality. God isn’t half of anything. God is not an object of any kind and neither are we. If I have to define myself I am going to do so with reference to what is true about me eternally. Anything less, pre-ascension, seems like idolatry – trying to make eternal that which is by definition transitory. Anyway, about eternity …

1: Heaven isn’t in your future or mine. Heaven doesn’t begin at some point in time because it is not in time, although time might be included in it. This means that folks in the past, like Moses and them, were no further away from Heaven than are we, or closer. Why do I find this important? It reminds me that those I love but see no longer are as close to me as Heaven, and God.

2: If we are to inherit it then what is true of Heaven must be true of us. What is true of Heaven? When we recite the Creed we affirm our belief that Heaven means eternal life in the Communion of Saints. And so, if our ultimate destiny is eternal loving union and communion it must mean that every issue, controversy, and disagreement is transcended and overcome. Our divisions are merely temporary; hardly the sorts of things worth killing each other over. What is more, if Heaven is limitless then so are we. Jesus told us that the Kingdom of God is within us. It’s what Rumi meant when he wrote: “In this house is a treasure which the universe is too small to hold.” We feel intimations of our eternal vastness in our desire not only to survive but to keep growing. Unfortunately the materialistic mindset of our time expresses this as a sad, Cyclopean pursuit of expansion. We want more – more land, more money, and more power. In the world just now there seems to be no such concept as ‘big enough’. The problem is that we do not understand our spiritual nature. If we could remember who and what we truly are and live with a sense of boundlessness even here in the midst of the restraining confines of daily life knowing the peace and joy that belongs to eternal Spirit we would bring a wonderful and mysterious quality to this world. We would be a light to enlighten the people. We would manifest timelessness in time. We would be truly and profoundly free. We used to call this sort of thing salvation.

3: Contrary to motion pictures and popular misconceptions, Heaven doesn’t wait; it is complete, entire, and perfect. It has always been so. To put it another way, when we declare in Holy Communion that we join our voices “with all the company of Heaven,” we mean it; we’re serious. Let’s give Thomas Traherne the last word: “The contemplation of eternity maketh the soul immortal, whose glory it is, that it can see before and after its existence into endless spaces. Its sight is its presence.” (Centuries: 55.)

DEVOTION

The first time I noticed my mother’s French accent was when she spoke Latin. I heard no such accent when she spoke English. To my ears how she said things in English was simply the way words were supposed to sound.  Other people heard an accent but not me; not until one day when we were talking about the church and she recited parts of the Latin mass. (Agnus Dei, qui tollis pecatta mundi …) She remembered this from childhood. In the early1940’s her father (our pépère) gave her a tiny prayer book, 2 inches by 31/2,  which could be used to follow the services in Latin, French, and English. I still have it.

Mum participated fully in celebrations of the Holy Eucharist. She would sit as near as possible to one of the loudspeakers in hopes of hearing the readers and the officiating priest. Even though she knew the service by heart she would still have her copy of the Sunday Missal open and her reading glasses out of the case, ready to use. She listened attentively to the sermons and used to share with me some snippet of what the preacher had to say, especially if he told a story or a little joke.

Over the last several years I’ve been increasingly drawn to worship. This does not mean I’m especially intrigued by the wonders of the church. I’ve always said that being Anglican suits me because it’s just about as much religion as I can stand. I continue to have little interest in the history of liturgy and have experienced no sudden fascination with ecclesiastical architecture; no swooning over flying buttresses. When I say I’m drawn to worship I’m referring to the daily offices of Morning and Evening Prayer, noonday prayers, and prayers said and sung at sunrise and sunset. I suppose I should say I’ve become more devotional.

When I pray it is not because I feel somehow separated from God; it reminds me that we’re never apart. When my parents were alive and I was living more than twenty-two hundred miles away I felt I was far apart from them, but when they died, so did any sense of distance.  It’s like that when I pray. I’m not attempting to communicate with a remote deity from the great beyond but am in communion with the One in whom I live and move and have my being. I realize that God is transcendent but I am also aware that transcendence doesn’t mean distance.

Believing in God, for me, means trusting God and I suppose that’s why I like the word ‘devotion.’ As well as meaning worship, devotion connotes loyalty and love. Devotion means sticking with someone through thick and thin; never leaving their side. It inspires me to be more faithful, more in tune to the present moment, and more grateful. Devotion establishes a pattern for each day and helps keep me oriented towards what is true and good and beautiful.

Gratefulness and praise are qualities of eternal Spirit and it seems like Mother Nature expresses this every morning when I listen to the birds sing before sunrise. They greet the dawn as if they are joyfully testifying to evidence of things not seen. I do not suggest the birds are praying, as such, but they do seem to have a lot to celebrate. We all do.

Happy Mother’s Day!

PASCHAL PROCLAMATION

Christ is Risen! This is the traditional Paschal Proclamation. My computer thinks it ought to be ‘Christ is raised.’ At least it’s not ‘Christ was risen.’ I’m not questioning ‘historicity.’ I’m thinking about eternity, which is what the resurrection has to do with. Christ Jesus doesn’t merely come back to history in resurrection but transcends time itself and every other created thing. The resurrection does not restore Christ to history, it restores history to Christ.

I don’t much care for Bible movies. A film is a thing I watch passively as a spectator. The word does not allow such passivity. The word requires engagement. The word calls for a dance partner and says follow me. A film seems a step removed from its subject, not closer. On the other hand there is no real distance between the word and the one who receives. A spectator may be acted upon but the word acts within.

If we are going to present the Christian faith as a motion picture then we’re going to need a suitable screen upon which to view it. I suggest mending the Veil of the Temple and projecting our images on it. Be warned, though. This won’t work with the word for the word is a lover and is not content merely to be seen but tears the veil of our soul’s inner sanctum and enters in to share himself with us, planting the seed of eternal life.

Happy Easter!

LOVE

In Plato’s ‘Symposium’ Socrates tells the story of how a priestess, Diotima of Mantinea, taught him about Love. My guess is not everyone learns of it this way.

According to Diotima, Eros/Love was conceived on a Feast of Aphrodite as a result of the coupling of the Spirit of Plenty (Poros) and the Spirit of Poverty (Penae). The Gods do not seek wisdom for they are already wise, but Aphrodite insured that her beloved Son would be a seeker. Edmund Spenser pictured it this way:

Or who alive can perfectly declare
The wondrous cradle of thine infancie,
When thy great mother Venus first thee bare,
Begot of Plenty and of Penurie,
Though elder then thine own nativitie,
And yet a chyld, renewing still thy yeares,
And yet the eldest of the heavenly peares?

(An Hymne In Honour Of Love)

As Diotima describes him, Eros/Love is not “delicate and lovely, but harsh and arid, barefoot and homeless, sleeping on the naked earth, in doorways, or in the very streets beneath the stars of heaven.” He always partakes of his Mother’s poverty and yet is also his Father’s son, the son of Resource/Plenty. “He is a mighty hunter and a master of device and artifice – at once desirous and full of wisdom, a lifelong seeker after truth.” Love, says Diotima, is “neither mortal nor immortal, for in the space of a day he will be now, when all goes well with him, alive and blooming, and now dying, to be born again by virtue of his Father’s nature, while what he gains will always ebb away as fast. So, Love is never altogether in or out of need, and stands, moreover, midway between wisdom and ignorance.”

When I read Diotima’s description of Love as a tough, barefoot, lifelong seeker after truth, at once desirous and full of wisdom, I did not think of Socrates, even though he matches the description. I didn’t make the connection until later, when Alcibiades showed up and spoke of his exploits with Socrates during wartime in the field of battle. Not only did Socrates acquit himself with honor and valor, his bravery made enemy soldiers leery of him. This fact helped him save the life of Alcibiades when the latter was injured. Socrates not only enabled Alcibiades to escape with his life but also retrieved his armor. We’re told that during the winter months of the military campaign Socrates continued to dress in the same simple cloak he always wore (and apparently slept in), and continued to go barefoot as he always did without the slightest complaint. When rations were scarce and they went hungry, no one put a cheerier face on things than Socrates. It wasn’t that he didn’t care for food, for when there was something to eat he enjoyed it right along with the rest of the soldiers, but it just seemed that whatever life sent his way he accepted with remarkable equanimity, so much so, he became a source of amazement to those around him. I suppose they wondered why he was so happy.

Diotima says, “Love is a lover of wisdom, and, being such, he is placed between wisdom and ignorance – for which his parentage also is responsible, in that his Father is full of wisdom and resource, while his Mother is devoid of either.” Philosophy is for lovers, and for Plato no one embodies this more than Socrates. He loves wisdom, and in wisdom he knows that he does not know. He does not think he knows the truth when he does not. And so, Socrates is at once rich and poor, always midway between wisdom and ignorance.

The word ‘pharmakos’ is a loaded term for the Greeks. In Ancient Greece it referred to a cleansing sacrifice made on the 1^st Day of Thargelia, a festival of Apollo observed each year in Athens. The pharmakos was similar to a scapegoat. A condemned prisoner was led outside the city and beaten to death. All the misdeeds, mistakes, sins, and grievances of the previous year were symbolically removed from the city with the pharmakos. The 2^nd Day of Thargelia was a joyful occasion, a time of freshness to celebrate the newness of life as games were played, songs were sung, and children recited the poetry they had learned.

‘Pharmakos’ (pharmakon) also referred to a recipe for a medicine in which a small amount of what is harming us is used to make us well. Jews, Christians, and Muslims might think of Moses holding up the bronze image of a serpent in the wilderness so that those bitten by serpents could be healed by looking at what hurt them. Socrates was a kind of pharmakon in that he used the arts of the sophists against them to demonstrate the inherent weakness and fault of their position. He skillfully used an exact amount of what was making Athens sick to cure her, or more precisely, to allow the body/politic to heal herself. It was nothing if not a labor of love.

Philosophy is not the acquisition of wisdom but the love of wisdom. Plato had such a deep and profound understanding of this he chose to write in dialogue form. Approaching wisdom through dialogue the way Socrates and his interlocutors did is to be involved with each other intimately. Most of us find it less threatening to toss opinions back and forth, but coming together as one in order to move through (dia) the words (logos) of an argument in order to arrive at a mutual understanding requires a level of unity appropriate to lovers. To begin again from a place of not knowing is to be naked and exposed in one’s ignorance, open to the exploring questions of our fellow lovers of wisdom. All of this takes a good deal of trust, and gentleness. It is the stuff of deep spiritual communion.

Love is why Socrates was utterly content as well as a tireless seeker (one might even say a mighty hunter) after wisdom. Love is always full and always emptying itself for its beloved. I’m reminded of the Invocation of the Isha Upanishad: “Fullness comes from fullness. When fullness is taken from fullness, Fullness still remains.” Eros loves not because he is in want; he wants because he loves. Eros loves because it is his nature to love. He is always full and always emptying himself, spending himself into poverty for his beloved only to be raised again according to his Father’s nature.

It was love which allowed Socrates to accept fate as he did. Trying heroically to accept God’s will in a sort of ‘Amor fati’ without self-emptying love is likely to end in suicidal despair. We need the kind of love with which we can see through our selves. It is why Socrates said that Philosophy – the love of wisdom – is about learning to die.

According to Diogenes, citing Apollodorus, Socrates was born on the 1^st Day of Thargelia, the day of cleansing when the sacrificial victim was taken from the city. Plato was born on the 2^nd Day of the Festival, the time for celebration and renewal. These philosophers were true lovers of wisdom, and in love they were led to seek a vision of “an everlasting loveliness which neither comes nor goes, and which neither flowers nor fades away.”

MOTHERING SUNDAY

Mothering Sunday, when we give thanks for Mother Church, seems like the right time to post this golden oldie.

I had been reading the Saturday Newspaper’s listing of Religious Institutions and their Service Times when I came across a church’s description of itself as: Independent, Fundamental, Pre-Millennial, and Missionary Minded. The song wrote itself.

The italicized words in square brackets are spoken. Enjoy.

THE BIBLE BELT

[This is the story of the hand Fate dealt

In a part of the Country called the Bible belt

On a hot summer day when I wanted a nice, cold beer

I didn’t know where the tavern was

But I saw a young lad and thought ‘I bet he does’

And said, “Excuse me, son, can you point the way from here?

I’m a weary pilgrim, feeling cursed,

I’m looking for a place to slay my thirst

I need a spirit or two to help me cool down

Now, he was carrying a Bible and I should have known better

But I thought I’d die in this hot weather, and he said,

“I know just the place for you in this town”]

“Well … there … is …

First Four-Squared Open Bible Seminary

Reformed, five-point Calvinistic, Missionary

Free-will, Christ-Centered, Independent, Fundamentalist

Primitive Baptist Church”

“And … they … have …

AWANA Youth Groups, hearing-aid audio loops

Wheel chair ramps, elevators, summer camps,

Greeters at the door, plus a whole bunch more at the

Primitive Baptist Church”

[I said, “Young man, young man, listen to me

Let me explain and I think you’ll see that

We have got a misunderstanding here

The ‘spirits’ I want are the earthly kind

Secular, worldly if you don’t mind

Wink, wink, nudge, nudge

Would you tell me, am I near?”

He said: “I’m sorry that I misunderstood

But I’ll direct you to that neighborhood

Where you will find the awful things you crave

I would never go to such a place

With their worldly ways and actions base

Yet I’ll point the way and hope the Lord will save”]

“Well … there … is …

Old Memorial, highly editorial,

Social, liberal, literary-critical

Open, caring, feelyweely-sharing

E-pis-co-pal Church”

“And … they … have …

Tai Chi, Tie-dye, Yoga where you learn to fly

Roll playing, politics, agitation, meditation

Feminism with a bang, Meetings up the Yin/Yang

E-pis-co-pal Church”

[I said, “Young man, my friend, it is getting late

And what we got here is failure to communicate

I don’t want religion … I want to be amused

I want a lounge, a Club, a place to go that’s

Air-Conditioned with a stage and show

Now please help me; I’m tired and I’m confused

He said: “Well now I know the thing you want

Like Hollywood – a fleshly haunt – where people go

Because they like the show

I’ll point you to the place, but I hope you see

It is a Den of Iniquity

But I’ll tell what it is you want to know”]

“Well … there … is …

Holy Roller, re-born, tongues of fire, faith-alone

Renewed, unglued, always in a prayin’ mood

Get saved; know your fate, Exorcism while-you-wait

Pentecostal Church”

“And … they … have …

Guitars and a big drum, cushioned pews for you bum

Light-shows, TV Station, Tongues with translation

Miracles, prophecies, get a vision when you please

Pentecostal Church”

[Well my head was sore and my throat was dry

I felt like I was about to die, and I said,

 “Look at me, and get this through your head

I’m looking for a place to have a beer

Now can you tell me if there’s one near

If you soon don’t help me we both might end up dead”

He said, “My oh my, what a fool I’ve been

Pointing to all these churches when

What you really wanted did not dawn on me

You’re not looking for a Reformed Bible Church

That is not the purpose of your search

For I do believe that you might be ‘R C’”]

Well … there … is …

Hail Mary Full of Grace, Holy water in your face

Sacred Heart Family, purgatory, pay the fee

Sacramental Church of Rome, Papalism in the home

Roman Catholic Church

And … they … have …

Confession, fasting, bingo everlasting

Incense, K of C, Holy Sea and rosary

Homilies to bore ya, Saints, Medjugoria

Roman Catholic Church

And there used to be a tavern …

Owned by a lapsed Methodist …

But it closed!!!

© 1994 Dale Petley (Petitcodiac, N. B.)