It is my growing conviction that in Jesus the mystical and the revolutionary ways are not opposites, but two sides of the same human mode of experiential transcendence. I am increasingly convinced that conversion is the individual equivalent of revolution. Therefore, every real revolutionary is challenged to be a mystic at heart, and one who walks the mystical way is called to unmask the illusory quality of human society.
Mysticism and revolution are two aspects of the same attempt to bring about radical change. Mystics cannot prevent themselves from becoming social critics, since in self-reflection they will discover the roots of a sick society. Similarly, revolutionaries cannot avoid facing their own human condition, since in the midst of their struggle for a new world they will find that they are also fighting their own reactionary fears and false ambitions.
As we were approaching Denver International Airport, I was listening to Leonard Cohen (Album — Leonard Cohen Essentials). This song came on and it spoke to me about where we are today. Of note, the day my son Alec was born (4 June 1989) the Tiananmen Square massacre was broadcast on national television. Cohen wrote it in 1992 and, sadly today I wonder if Democracy is still coming today… The song lyrics speak for themselves.
It’s coming through a hole in the air;
from those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It’s coming from the feel that this ain’t exactly real;
Or it’s real but it ain’t exactly there.
From the war against disorder;
from the sirens night and day.
From the fires of the homeless, from the ashes of the gay:
Democracy is comming to the U.S.A.
It’s coming through a crack in the wall, on a visionary flood of alcohol.
From the staggering account of the Sermon on the Mount which I don’t pretend to understand at all.
It’s coming from the silence on the dock of the bay.
From the brave, the bold, the battered heart of Chevrolet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It’s coming from the sorrow in the street, the holy places where the races meet.
From the homicidal bitchin’ that goes down in every kitchen to determine who will serve and who will eat.
From the wells of disappointment where the women kneel to pray
for the grace of God in the desert here and the desert far away:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.
It’s coming to America first;
The cradle of the best and of the worst.
It’s here they got the range and the machinery for change,
And it’s here they got the spiritual thirst.
It’s here the family’s broken
And it’s here the lonely say that the heart has got to open in a fundamental way.
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
It’s coming from the women and the men.
O baby, we’ll be making love again.
We’ll be going down so deep the river’s going to weep,
and the mountain’s going to shout Amen!
It’s coming like the tidal flood beneath the lunar sway.
Imperial, mysterious, in amorous array:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Sail on, sail on …
I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean.
I love the country but I can’t stand the scene.
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
that time cannot decay,
I’m junk but I’m still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
“I believe we are here on the planet Earth to live, grow up, and do what we can to make this world a better place for all people to enjoy freedom.”—Rosa Parks
Verse of the day
O Lord, I love the house in which you dwell and the place where your glory abides.
– Psalm 26:8
Voice of the day
paradise is a world where everything / is sanctuary & nothing is a gun.
– Danez Smith, “summer, somewhere”
Prayer of the day
Jesus, our Prince of Peace, violence has no place in your sanctuary. Help us to lay down each weapon we’ve made and build pieces of paradise instead.
“We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.”—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To start seeing that the many events of our day, week, or year are not in the way of our search for a full life but are rather the way to it is a real experience of conversion. We discover that cleaning and cooking, writing letters and doing professional work, visiting people and caring for others, are not a series of random events that prevent us from realizing our deepest self. These natural, daily activities contain within them some transforming power that changes how we live. We make hidden passage from time lived as chronos to time lived as kairos. Kairos is a Greek word meaning “the opportunity.” It is the right time, the real moment, the chance of our lives. When our time becomes kairos, it frees us and opens us to endless new possibilities. Living kairos offers us an opportunity for a profound change of heart.
I have always been very conscious of my clock-time. Often I asked myself: “Can I still double my years?” When I was thirty I said: “I can easily live another thirty!” When I was forty, I mused, “Maybe I am only halfway!” Today I can no longer say that, and my question has become: “How am I going to use the few years left to me?” All these concerns about our clock-time come from below. They are based on the presupposition that our chronology is all we have to live. But looked upon from above, from God’s perspective, our clock-time is embedded in the timeless embrace of God. Looked upon from above, our years on earth are not simply chronos, but kairos—another Greek word for time—which is the opportunity to claim for ourselves the love that God offers us from eternity to eternity.
“Don’t believe anyone who says that since nature is based on a struggle for life, we need to live like this as well. Many animals survive not by eliminating each other or by keeping everything for themselves, but by cooperating and sharing.”—Frans de Waal
“Peace. It is not merely the absence of war; it is the presence of justice and the absence of fear.”—Ursula Franklin
I’ve been doing a lot of reading and reflecting on this Fourth of July holiday. Even thought it is sunny right now, we’ve had rain showers off and on all day with the accompanying thunder and lightning. I experienced something similar to those weather patterns as I read various articles on Substack and in the Christian Century and America magazines. Some of the readings have been hopeful and others revealed various shades of pessimism and even despair.
After reading all of that and doing some sermon preparation, I decided to pick up a book that I have had for quite some time but haven’t read (Follow the Ecstasy: The Hermitage Years of Thomas Merton by John Howard Griffin). A couple of years ago I read another one of Griffin’s books which is a combination of Merton’s photography and reflections on his conversations with Merton (A Hidden Wholeness: The Visual World of Thomas Merton).
Denise and my visit to Merton’s hermitage with a group of emerging Merton scholars and others was two weeks ago and the sense of wonder from that visit is still very strong and I began wondering what a conversation with Merton would be like on this particular day. Griffin shared the following in his prologue to Follow the Ecstasy.
Tom was a man of enlightened pessimism about the world. Many of our meetings left us with the feeling that this country was moving closer toward ever increasing sacrifice of the freedoms we professed to uphold. But even with such a depressing prognosis, his natural buoyancy, his robust humor and his grasp of the absurd made the most pessimistic meetings happy ones… So meetings with him had a kind of joy that remained untainted no matter what else might be happening around us. (p. 3)
Fr. Louis (Merton’s monastic name), how I would love to be with you on the front porch of your hermitage. While I crave the opportunity to talk at length about what is going on today in this nation and world, what I would really like to experience is your robust humor and laughter. We wouldn’t solve all of the problems in this nation and world, but your presence would be a blessing to this weary Padre. Even in the midst of the insanity that I see all around this nation and world today, which is eerily similar to what you experienced in the 60’s, I believe that you would share your pithy insights along with a healthy dose of laughter and joy.
But I am not sitting on the front porch of your hermitage today. However, I do feel your presence close by me, and as I reflect and ponder, I can see you joining me on our back porch here in Mobile, Alabama enjoying a beer, laughing, sharing in the silence, and smelling the wonderful curry that Denise is preparing for dinner. Thank you, Fr. Louis for your presence and encouragement in my own life as I seek to serve our Lord in this crazy world.
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