Fencing Bear at Prayer

I'm sorry, I can't write this any other way.  I am sick to death of people ( white people , enlightened seekers, well-meaning agnostics who were scarred by the experiences of growing up in less than forgiving communities) bleating about how they dislike "organized religion."  As if they know the first thing about what it means to participate in a tradition or belong to a Church. There, I said it.  Now stone me.  But, first, listen for a moment.  Please.  Because maybe, just maybe what Krishnamurti so famously told the Theosophists when they hoped to recognize him as the World Teacher wasn't the whole of the story about what it means to be a Church.  Maybe there is a point to participating in a tradition, a community of worship, following others in the journey of life. No, I can tell you aren't listening, don't want to listen, know that what I am going to say will make you frustrated and upset.  You don't want to be told what to think--nor do ...

I can't quite explain it, but somehow the magic has gone out of travel for me. When I was younger--which may be all the explanation one needs--every journey was an adventure, and coming to Europe was the greatest adventure of all. Here was where everything that I had been learning about in the history books happened: right there was the place where the great painter lived; right there was the church where the king was crowned; right there was the place where the great battle was fought. Every building was the setting for innumerable stories; every museum a great treasury of wonderful things. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm still impressed. I have found myself more than once on this trip standing almost hypnotized by the beauty of the paintings I am seeing, and there is nothing that can compare with the manuscripts I have read. Likewise, I have greatly enjoyed visiting the churches and other monuments that I have been able to. The problem is that I no longer seem to have...

My father-in-law asked me an interesting question yesterday on our way to Canterbury: “What do Americans--specifically the Episcopalians in your parish--think about it?” I answered what I thought was his question by talking about how our parish had been praying for the bishops at the Lambeth Conference this month and how important it is for us, as an Episcopalian parish in Chicago, to belong to the Anglican communion as a whole. “But what about the cathedral itself?,” he asked. “Do they think about it at all?” I was embarrassed to admit that, as far as I know, the answer is no. Certainly, I have never thought much about the building myself. Indeed, until yesterday, when I got to see it for the first time, I had been convinced that it—that is to say, the medieval building in which I might have been professionally interested, if it were still there—had been destroyed in one of Europe’s more recent wars only to be replaced by a more modern, less appealing construction. Imagine my s...

Sitting in church yesterday morning, I started to think about how I would explain what I believe to my friends and family who are not Christians. The obvious place to start would seem to be the creed, that is, the trinitarian description of God as the creator who became incarnate, died and rose again for the salvation of humanity and then sent His Holy Spirit upon those who believed in Him, but this is rather like describing the point of fencing as hitting one's opponent with the tip of a metal stick. It is true, but almost laughably inadequate as an account of everything that makes attempting that action meaningful and worth years, perhaps even a lifetime, of practice. Yes, from the outside, all that seems to be happening in fencing is that two people are moving backwards and forwards along a narrow strip of ground, taking turns extending their arms towards each other while holding said sticks, sometimes hitting those sticks together, at other times landing the points of the sti...

I have a confession to make: I was not entirely open with you in my post last Sunday about what I experienced in church . When I started writing, what I wanted to tell you about was the great joy I experienced in singing praises to God and realizing that this in itself was the way to free myself from the anxieties about my own performance, whether on the fencing strip or, as here, at the keyboard. But as I started writing, the anxiety returned, and gradually I realized I was no longer saying what I had set out to say. I was hiding and apologizing and doing everything I possibly could to avoid saying directly, "When I was singing in the midst of our church, I felt a great weight lift from me, and I knew, even if only for a moment, that this--praising God--was the real purpose of life, for which everything else is simply a preparation, not an end in itself." Even now, my words are inadequate, perhaps inevitably so, for, after all, what we were doing was singing and the only ...

It may be hard to believe from what I said yesterday , but I am actually feeling quite hopeful again today. This, I am hoping, is one of the benefits of sharing these reflections with you on a blog. When I am writing for academic purposes, too much of the day-to-day experience of learning about prayer is subsumed into an overarching, polished argument. Under such circumstances, it is easy to forget the days on which hope seemed impossible, just as on those hopeless days, it is difficult to remember reasons for joy. What is it that gives me hope today that I could not remember yesterday? Well, it isn't just that I am rested after yesterday's practice because I actually woke up feeling just as angry with myself as I had been when I went to sleep last night. Nor is it that I started to recall the strong actions I made in yesterday's bouts, despite the final scores. I could remember those at the time, but they did not offset the sense of frustration and lack of control ov...