Whirling Dervishes!
Atlanta’s Rialto Theater presents:
The Whirling Dervishes of Turkey
The Sacred Dance of Mevlevi Sufis
Saturday, November 10 at 8:00 PM
With the 800th birthday year of the great Muslim mystic and poet Rumi, the Whirling Dervishes of Turkey take the Rialto stage. It is scientifically recognized that the fundamental condition of our existence is to revolve. Although most of these revolutions are natural and unconscious, the Whirling Dervishes intentionally and consciously participate in the shared revolution of other beings. The universal values of love and service shared by all Sufis are relevant to the social and political realities of today. This ritual dance, which is performed exclusively by the Dervishes, has come to symbolize these values in the hearts and minds of millions throughout the world. Through revolving in harmony with all things in nature, The Whirling Dervishes of Turkey testify to the existence and majesty of their Creator. Like all sacred dance, its purpose is to make spiritual energies availabe for the audience. Called ‘The Turn’ because the Semazens are turning back to God, back to their source, back to their true beginning, and the energy they make available is love. So if it is Real, and the audience receptive, the audience is melted in love by the end…
The Shack
The Shack
By William P. Young
Windblown Media, 2007
Review by Carl McColman
There’s a fair amount of hype surrounding this slender work of independently-published Christian fiction from first-time author William P. Young. Eugene Peterson (of The Message fame) gushes that it could be the Pilgrim’s Progress of our generation. My own friend Mike Morrell (who first told me about the book) says “If you read one work of fiction this year, let this be it.”
Well… for once I’m happy to join in the chorus.
First, as a reviewer I feel obliged to make an initial disclaimer. This is a religious novel and needs to be appreciated as such. In other words, the novel supports the theological lesson contained within it (and not the other way around). This is not J.R.R. Tolkien or Flannery O’Connor, folks. But what I’m happy to note is that it’s actually quite a good read, as such novels go. After all, the most well known novels-with-a-message tend to be, well, pretty awful when judged on purely literary terms (think The Celestine Prophecy or The DaVinci Code). By comparison, The Shack truly shines. (more…)
Waterfall
A professor of mine in graduate school told the story of a young man (back before cars etc.) who grew up in a remote mountain setting next to a huge waterfall. Having lived his whole life next to the waterfall, he basically didn’t hear the roar of water as it thundered over the cliff into the canyon below. Years went by and when he reached adulthood he kissed his parents and gathered his belongings to make his way into the world. For the first time, he climbed down the steep mountain, away from home — and the waterfall. Suddenly he heard ‘silence’ for the very first time. He had been so used to the sound of the waterfall that he did not notice it until confronted by its absence.
I believe we are all similarly so filled with the music of the spheres and the presence of God that we cannot even begin to conceive what life would be like without them. But they are so universally, eternally present that we have grown used to not paying any attention whatsoever.
Contemplative prayer is the long, slow, but necessary process of learning to pay attention — to the presence of God, the reality of Divine Love, and the celestial melodies of the music of the spheres.
The Prior’s Column
I just discovered another blog worth getting to know: The Prior’s Column by Bede Thomas Mudge, OHC. I met Br. Bede almost twenty years ago when the Episcopal Order of the Holy Cross still had a small monastery in South Carolina; I only made one retreat there but I remember him as a gentle and sweet man. I doubt if he’ll remember me, but that’s okay. I was just a nervous young pup in his 20s who couldn’t figure out why I wanted to get married but was also so interested in monasticism (two decades later, I still can’t figure that one out, but since nowadays I’m happily married and I work at a monastery it’s an amusing rather than distressing puzzle). At any rate, check out Brother Bede’s blog, it will be worth it.
Longhand
Last night I went down to our friendly neighborhood Borders and I bought a journal. Yep, a blank-book type of journal. Got a really pretty one, with a cover design straight out of the book of Kells, it looks like this:
So why did I invest my shekels into something a low-tech as a journal? Well, I’m conducting an experiment. (more…)
Purity and Hospitality
Today I thought about “Purity Rings.” They’re popular among young people nowadays. They are worn as part of a vow to abstain from certain sexual activities such as pre-marital or extra-marital intercourse. In and of themselves, I suppose they can be meaningful to those who wear them, as a sign of holding and maintaining important boundaries in a culture that all too often has no clue what “boundaries” are.
But what bothers me is not so much that we pay so much attention to purity, but rather that we pay correspondingly little attention to hospitality. And I think this might be because hospitality sometimes subverts purity.
I’m reminded of the Irish legend about St. Brigit and two of her nuns who were travelling during Lent. (more…)
Quote for the Day
The Truth Feels Good.
— bumper sticker seen in a gay & lesbian bookstore,
Norfolk, Virginia, sometime in the mid-1990s
So this explains why Americans vote the way they do!
Conscious Contemplation
I’ve been reading Robert Llewelyn’s perfectly wonderful book With Pity, Not with Blame: The Spirituality of Julian of Norwich and The Cloud of Unknowing for Today in preparation for my upcoming class on Julian at Central UCC in Atlanta. Yesterday I read Llewelyn’s comment that, when Julian used the word “contemplation” in chapter 46 of her long text, she doesn’t mean it in the sense we use it (as “contemplative prayer”) but rather as referring to “levels of awareness.” Of course, this brought to mind Ken Wilber’s spectrum of consciousness theory, as well as the ideas of an old meditation teacher of mine, Carl Clarke, who used to define meditation as “the art of managing consciousness.” Here’s the insight I received: perhaps we who practice contemplative prayer ought to see it as a form of sacrifice — not a painful, “giving something up” kind of sacrifice, but rather a joyful, “giving a gift to someone you love” kind of sacrifice. So, then, what is it we sacrifice — that is to say, give to God — in the act of contemplative prayer? (more…)
Mass in Jig Minor
I’ve been corresponding with a priest of the Celtic Christian Church about the relationship between mainstream Christian mysticism (of the Neoplatonic/Benedictine/Carmelite variety) and the indigenous spirituality of the Celtic lands. It’s been a great little conversation so far, and hopefully it will provide grist for the future blogging mill. But for now, I just want to share a little daydream I indulged in before mass this evening:
Imagine, if you will, a faith community centered on the Celtic tradition. Celtic spirituality is by nature earthy, joyful, optimistic, humorous, and — at least at times — raucous and rowdy, if not downright ecstatic. (more…)
Quote for the Day
Julian [of Norwich] is without doubt one of the most wonderful of all Christian voices. She gets greater and greater in my eyes as I grow older, and whereas in the old days I used to be crazy about St. John of the Cross, I would not exchange him now for Julian if you gave me the world and the Indies and all the Spanish mystics rolled up in one bundle. I think that Julian of Norwich is with Newman the greatest English theologian.”
— Thomas Merton, quoted in With Pity Not With Blame:
The Spirituality of Julian of Norwich and The Cloud
of Unknowing for Today by Robert Llewelyn
Celebrating the Love of God: The Wisdom of Julian of Norwich for Today
Celebrating the Love of God: The Wisdom of Julian of Norwich for Today
England in the 14th century gave rise to a number of Christian mystics: visionaries whose writings convey a profound sense of God’s presence in their lives. Perhaps the best known of these medieval spiritual masters is an obscure woman who is known as Julian of Norwich. Julian’s teaching is surprisingly relevant to our time: her writings convey a profound sense of Divine Love expressed through the Motherhood of God. This series of three Saturday morning classes will introduce you to Julian’s optimistic spirituality and her three-fold approach to prayer as yearning, beseeching, and beholding Divine love. Each session will include exercises such as prayer, meditation, lectio divina (sacred reading of scripture) and journaling — practical ways that Julian’s wisdom can bring healing and empowerment to our lives today.
The presenter for this series is Carl McColman, a graduate of the Shalem Institute’s program for leading contemplative prayer groups. He regularly teaches classes on mysticism and spirituality at churches in the Atlanta area and through Evening at Emory. Visit him on his blog at www.anamchara.com.
The class will meet in the fellowship hall of Central United Church of Christ, 2676 Clairmont Road, Atlanta; on September 8, 15, and 22, 2007, from 10 AM until noon. The recommended offering for the three sessions is $30 per person. For more information or to register, contact Bob Saye at 770-452-1927.
Resistible Grace
Many of my readers might be surprised to learn that I believe in the doctrine of hell.
Universalism is very appealing, and given my experiential and intuitive sense of divine love, as well as the splendid description of the same by Julian of Norwich, I simply cannot understand the notion that God is in the business of damning souls. I think the notion of damnation, of divine wrath meted out to the impenitent, is mostly a caricature of our very human thirst for revenge and punishment projected onto eternity.
Even the Bible subverts the notion of hell-as-punishment. “Perfect love casts out fear,” notes the author of the first letter of John. Jesus may have used hyperbolic language to describe the separation of the “sheep” from the “goats” and to depict hell as a place of eternal torment where “their worm will never die nor their fire be put out,” but he also tells parables of the prodigal son or the widow searching for her lost coin, where the emphasis on divine love and mercy clearly trumps any human fear of retribution. Really, only the Revelation to John leaves the reader with a truly harrowing sense of damnation, as the author notes how “anybody whose name could not be found written in the book of life was hurled into the burning lake,” — but the entire book of Revelation is little more than an acid-trip-metaphor that declares God’s judgment on the time in which it was written; when we realize this, its potency as “prophecy” of the end times loses its sting.
Christian progressives and liberals will all be nodding with my fairly by-the-book deconstruction of divine retribution. How, then, can I turn around and say I still believe in hell? (more…)
More Adventures in Interfaith Spirituality
Here’s a blog that looks promising: Quaker Pagan Reflections by Peter and Cat Chapin-Bishop. I think the title says it all…
Quote for the Day
‘With Jesus human and divine nature began to be woven together, so that by fellowship with divinity human nature might become divine, not only in Jesus Himself, but also in all those who believe and embrace the life which Jesus taught, the life which leads everyone who lives according to His commandments to friendship with God and fellowship with him.’
— Origen as quoted in Early Christian Doctrines by J.N.D. Kelly
Ozzfest Gospel
In 2001 I went to see Ozzfest when it rolled into Atlanta. No, I’m not a metalhead; I had free tickets because a friend of mine was dating a roadie who worked for the band Slipknot. So I got to go see bands like Black Sabbath, Marilyn Manson, Papa Roach, Linkin Park, Mudvayne, and numerous others, and also got to hang out backstage with some of the musicians.
It was bonecrunchingly loud. I wore ear plugs most of the day and it still made my ears hurt. But there the kids were, sweating in their mosh pits and dancing on the edge of ritualized violence. I was forty at the time, right at the cusp of midlife. Part of me wanted very much to be one of the kids rocking out to my favorite bands. But another, and ultimately bigger, part of me kept thinking about how I’d be a lot happier listing to a choir sing a mass by William Byrd (and I was still a pagan at the time).
The most memorable point in the day was when my friends and I got a chance to visit with the members of Mudvayne after their set. (more…)
The Integral Vision
The Integral Vision: A Very Short Introduction to the Revolutionary Integral Approach to Life, God, the Universe, and Everything
By Ken Wilber
Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2007
Review by Carl McColman
In Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone, young Harry encounters the Mirror of Erised, a magical object that reveals the deepest desire of a person’s heart. Harry’s mentor, Albus Dumbledore, points out that “The happiest man on earth would be able to use the Mirror of Erised like a normal mirror, that is, he would look into it and see himself exactly as he is.” But of course, for all the rest of us who have desires that are as yet out of our reach, this magical mirror relentlessly depicts what we want, but do not have — a beguiling vision that could lead to madness.
I’ve begun to suspect that if Ken Wilber were to gaze into the Mirror of Erised, he would see himself as the proud author of a mega-bestseller, a book which once and for all explains the poetic intricacies of his philosophy in a way that millions of people can understand — and accept. Integral theory would rise to the same level as existentialism or postmodernism — a philosophical movement that transcends the confines of the ivory tower to become a truly popular ideology, changing society and culture from the ground up.
I suspect that this is the secret desire of Wilber’s heart because he’s written several books over the past decade or so that purportedly present his theory in an accessible, “everyman” format. (more…)
Decatur Books
Attention all metro Atlanta folks:
The Decatur Book Festival is coming up on Labor Day Weekend, featuring folks like Roy Blount Jr., Terry Brooks, Charles Frazier, Kinky Friedman and Natasha Tretheway — over 200 authors will be there. Meanwhile, the Atlanta Antiquarian Book Fair will take place simultaneously at the Decatur Conference Center. If you love antiquarian books as much as I do, you’d better hide your credit cards before you dare to go in there.
See you there!
Two Zen Sayings
I was corresponding with a person online about belief and disbelief, and I saw fit to quote my two favorite zen sayings. I read these years ago, and couldn’t cite the source if you held a gun to my head. So with my apologies to whomever said these first (or first wrote them down in English), here are my favorite windows into zenspace:
Three things are required for zen: great faith, great doubt, and great perseverance.
Quit trying. Quit trying not to try. Quit quitting.
They’ve only got one good jump in them.
If you’re a Harry Potter fan you will likely find this amusing: Chocolate Frog, a filk song from my Celtic-minstrel friends, Emerald Rose.
A Sign of the Times?
On Sunday night AT&T hosted a webcast of a Pearl Jam concert; in the course of the concert, the band sang some lyrics critical of George W. Bush. The lyrics were censored.
AT&T is now backpedaling and calling it a mistake and a regrettable incident. But Pearl Jam has thoughtfully observed on their website:
This, of course, troubles us as artists but also as citizens concerned with the issue of censorship and the increasingly consolidated control of the media.
AT&T’s actions strike at the heart of the public’s concerns over the power that corporations have when it comes to determining what the public sees and hears through communications media. …
What happened to us this weekend was a wake up call, and it’s about something much bigger than the censorship of a rock band.”
My friends, we are living in perilous times. Whatever you do and wherever you are, always speak the truth. Even if “your voice shakes,” as Maggie Kuhn put it.
Jerry and Edith
Today is the anniversary of the death of Jerry Garcia, who passed away on August 9, 1995. At the time I had grown bored with the Grateful Dead; I hadn’t seen them in concert for over four years, and didn’t really miss it that much. When he died, I went though a period of remorse that I hadn’t gone to see some shows over that period of time. Now, over a decade later, I have a longer view of things, and I realize I was doing what I wanted to do, and one of the things I wanted to do was not go see the Grateful Dead. I had seen them dozens of times over a five year period (1986-1991), and granted, there were songs I loved that I never saw them perform, and I’m sure I would have enjoyed some of the shows I missed. But it’s okay that I missed them, and it’s okay that I felt bad when Jerry died and went through a phase when I wish I had gone to more shows… and now it’s okay that I’m back to feeling more thankful for the shows I did see than disappointed for all the shows I missed.
This morning at mass I learned that today is also the anniversary of the death of a Carmelite saint, Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, who is more widely known by her secular name, Edith Stein. Stein, a convert to Catholicism from Judaism, was gassed to death by the Nazis on this date in 1942. She was 50 years old; three years younger than Garcia was when he died, and only four years older than I am now. Stein was a philosopher (she studied under Edmund Husserl) and was a fairly prolific writer, although I haven’t read any of her works; she converted to Catholicism after reading the autobiography of the great Carmelite mystic, Saint Teresa of Avila. After the Nazis rose to power in Germany she was transferred to the Netherlands, but in an act of political retaliation there the Nazis imprisoned even Jews who had converted to Christianity. So Stein was shipped off to Auschwitz where she was killed on August 9, 1942 — just eight days after Jerry Garcia was born. Today the Catholic Church honors her for being a martyr, even though she died for being a Jew, not being a Catholic. I think there’s a wee bit of interfaith solidarity there.
The Nazis killed Edith Stein, and Jerry Garcia basically killed himself with cigarettes and chili dogs and heroin. And so now I think August 9 is a good day to listen to some good music and to ponder on how humankind can be so inhumane in dealing with one another. Let’s try to love each other a little bit more (and take good care of our own bodies, too). After all, as the Dead sang in Uncle John’s Band,
Ain’t no time to hate… barely time to wait… whoa-oh, what I want to know, where does the time go?”
The Integral Ooze
If you’re a fan of the very-cool emergent Christian website The Ooze, do check out where they’ve posted my rather scathing review of Richard J. Vincent’s ebook Integral Christianity (and if you’ve never visited The Ooze before, go do so. It’s a site worth getting to know).
