I should be working, but it's Monday, and I'm not moved to write. I will get to it eventually, but not quite yet. So I'm blogging instead.
I was thinking, on reading over the last post, more about worshipping and prayer and writing. When we were chrismated, I was hit on the head that the transcendent is present in the real. The night of our chrismation, I wanted to be airy-fairy and otherworldly and drift off on the words and music of the liturgy and be all "spiritual". But what happened instead was that I was completely rooted in the here & now - my senses went into overdrive and everything was right there in front of me. There were no angels & saints noticeably present, except in the bodies and voices of the faithful and choir and priests and servers, the incense was so thick we could barely see the altar (we were in a tiny chapel, and at the greatest distance there was no more than 25 feet from one end to the other in church). And then I got that shock at communion - proving, to me at least, that while God might be in His heaven and watching us, He's also very much here in the here & now and with the kids zooming their cars around the floor behind me, and in the little guy who has discovered the two-year old independence phase six months early in church yesterday, and in the people who come into church late and reverence the icons during the epistle.
Which relates to singing, reading and writing - in the Orthodox church at least, being "spiritual" means being very much here in the here & now. It means praying, yes, the traditional stand in front of the icons and say the prayers, and the arrow prayers during the day, and evening prayers before bed. But it also means (and I probably have the quote wrong) working out our salvation in fear & trembling right here in our day to day lives grappling with the world as she comes to us. That means putting up with the grumpy family first thing in the morning; dealing with the crowds at the mall; not giving the finger to the driver who can't seem to make up his mind what lane he wants while he chats on the cell phone glued to his ear; all the petty stuff. It also means feeling joy when you see the eagle soaring on the wind; glorying in the blue of the Stellar Jay's feathers, and letting your spirit soar with the hummingbird's song (yes, they do sing.)
I like a faith that keeps pointing to this world as a way of getting into the spiritual world. And that lets me write and offer it to God as a prayer - however poor it is, or however good it is. So now I should go do just that.
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2 comments:
Funny. It sometimes bothers me how some people get really jazzed on church and I can't. I don't like standing up for a long time. I get tired and grumpy and distracted just STAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANDING there and crossing myself at the right times, even though it's becoming rhythmic and all. But I don't feel super present with the angels or anything. I am more aware of the kids on the floor playing with their toys. Or like this morning, when I was watching Ella munching on fruit leather and granola bars...I think that when I finally have to start fasting before the liturgy (won't be long I guess), that will drive me MAD.
I guess what I'm saying is that I don't feel the church vibes that some people seem to get, like Mira or Father John for example. For example, the only cave I'm in today is my blinking office. In other words, the visceral world upstages the liturgical calendar world. And you know what? I like it that way.
It's more the 'real life' (sorry to use that term) things that get me going. Examples: being outside hiking, playing my guitar, talking to people, doing dishes, or writing poems and blogs and songs.
But I wonder, too, if I would be more present to God in these day-to-day things if I could just learn to pay attention in church.
Your faith is not that much different than mine. As Abraham Joshua Heschel said "God is of no importance unless He is of supreme importance". One does not need to see "miracles" when one realizes that they exist all around- in the mundane, hidden workings of life. God is just as much at work in the busyness of living as He is in the still small voice of the contemplative.
Matthew's mom
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