The Old Man and the Burnbing Bush

The You Tube Video of this  is    http://youtu.be/WJm1XMxcYrw

A Reflection for XII Pentecost (Proper 17) All Saints’ Episcopal, Southern Shores, N.C. August 31, 2014 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Exodus 3:1-15 Romans 12:9-21 Matthew 16:21-28

The Old Man and the Burning Bush

I was not here last week as Bob Morisseau was with you and in the sermon he preached to remind us that the life that does not end is the deeper life in the spirit. I was hearing in different words that same message while I was at the Dream Group Leader Intensive Training as we saw each moment, awake or asleep, as the gift of God’s spirit being present with us. It is a matter of opening one’s eyes to see all things in a different way. I wrote a reflection, and then distilled it in a poem, which I called “The Old Man and the Lake”, about taking a canoe out on the lake and looking at the event through the eyes of prayerful creative imagination. I have posted that experience on my blog: http://pasontomstomes.blogspot.com/. I want to ask your indulgence and try that process again as we look at the Moses story for this week and see it again through the eyes of prayerful creative imagination. I call this “The Old Man and the Burning Bush”.

The Old Man woke up too early in the morning, put on his sandals, went outside the tent as part of the ritual of growing older, did his business, scratched, and spit. There was still more time before having to relieve the night shepherd and, when dawn came, to move those lousy, stinking sheep to find some new pasture in God-forsaken Midian. He was never going to feel at home in this place. “Don't get me wrong”, he thought, “My father-in-law, Jethro, is a good man, even if his superstitions just rub me the wrong way.” “It is all a crock”, he thought, “for you are born, you slog through most of life, you have a few nice moments, and then you die.”  The Old Man wished he could believe the stuff that Jethro babbled about being descendants of Abraham, but he had seen plenty of religion – too much of it.

He had been born years and years ago, and the story he was told was that his mother had pulled him out of the bull rushes and called him “Moses”, which meant in Egyptian, “coming out of the water”. He actually believed that story for a while until he overheard some of the kitchen help suggest that his mother had a fling with the Babylonian Ambassador and probably came back home with a bundle and made up that story of calling him Moses to cover up the scandal. They laughed as they noted that everything that is born is coming out of the water when it breaks in labor. He had confronted her, but she kept to the story that he was a product of a chance encounter when she was taking a bath in the Nile, and he was probably a Hebrew of the tribe of Jacob or Israel. He had said, “Thanks a lot, Mom! I had seen the Israelites, and a scruffier group of misfits I have never seen before. There was one woman who was a wet-nurse that felt some affection for me, and there were two playmates, Aaron and Marian. However, when I was five your brother forbid me to associate with those ragtags. The wetnurse, Arron and Marian spoke a strange language and mumbled a lot to their God - fat lot of good that did them!”

Marc Chagall's Reflection of Moses and the Burning Bush

He remembered that language was similar to what the people in Midian spoke, and they were some of the same racial stock, but the Midianites had copper and trade whereas the Israelites had nothing but sorrow. The ruling elite of Egypt had Gods and Temples, and it seemed that their God's smiled on them.

He remembered going to school where the other kids saw him as a half breed, but he learned what life was like with the elite. He was always on the fringes, the outside of the crowd, a visitor tolerantly endured for hospitality's sake. It changed that night when he had enough of being an outsider and went out to the worksites on the fringes of the palace grounds. It seemed the place for him to go, an outsider going to the fringes. There he came across an overseer whipping a man who wasn't doing enough work. He went up and stopped the beating. The overseer muttered something about not listening to a half breed. Something snapped in him and he took out all his frustrations on the overseer and ended up killing the man, then burying the body to hide the crime. Of course, nothing stays hidden and he had to run for it, ending up in God-forsaken Midian. There he tried to get by, but was always the outsider on the edge of the crowd. He had no real home, no real family, and no real God. The only place where he could kick off his sandals and relax was inside his tent out in the wilderness.

Today the herd was close to Mount Horeb, and in the predawn light he searched for the stragglers of the sheep. Suddenly, the predawn light was a lot brighter and that did not make sense, but out of the corner of his eye he caught the sight of a bush burning. “That is where the light is coming from”, he surmised. He turned aside and approached the bush; it was on fire but it was not burning up. “This does not make a lick of sense”, he thought. “Flames need energy to consume, and here the energy is not being consumed; it is like the fire is independent of needing anything else. This has to be a dream or a demon possession; no God worth its salt would be out here when it could so easily be in a Temple being worshipped with pomp and circumstance.”

Then a voice, familiar and yet hard to place, says, “Moses, the one who comes through the water.” 

 

The Old Man says, “What?” 

 

The voice replies, “Take your sandals off!” 

 

The Old Man says, “I didn’t get to be an old man by taking my sandals off where the ground is hot and scorpions hang out, just because a bush gives me advice.” 

 

The voice saiys, “I am the God of your fathers.” 

 

The Old Man asks, “Which father? The Babylonian ambassador of the one night stand, or Jethro my father-in-law, or some nameless Hebrew slave? I don’t have a father worth having!” 

 

The voice says: “I am your father; I am the ground of your being, I am Being itself. I am who I am, and I was who I was, and I will be who I will be. I have been speaking to you all of your life, but you have been so full of bitterness, that you would not listen, or even hear.”

 

Moses sighed, “I thought the voice was somewhat familiar.” 

 

The voice continues, “Wherever you have been, I have been. Every step you have taken has been on Holy Ground. You would not listen or even hear that I am your true home. You are invited to take off your sandals and make yourself at home with me. I need you to pay attention as you walk with me; each step will be a return to your deeper self and to your people and to my people and will be a walk with them in my path to a new home. I will take you again out of the water; I will walk with you through the deserts and accompany you in the wildernesses. Come follow me and I will set you free. Now, on the first step of this journey go to Pharaoh and say to him; ‘Set my people free.’”

So the Old Man left that place, walking on sacred ground wherever he went for he was now going home.

Let me distill this reflection into a poem in the French Pontoum form. I have gleaned eight phrases from the reflection and placed those eight phrases into sixteen lines in four stanzas.

The Old Man and the Burning Bush

The fire is independent of needing

Speaking to you all of your life

Coming out of the water when it breaks

But you are so full of bitterness

Speaking to you all of your life

You would not listen, or even hear

But you are so full of bitterness

That I am your true home

You would not listen, or even hear

Egypt had Gods and Temples

That I am your true home

Tell Pharaohs to set my people free

Egypt had Gods and Temples

Coming out of the water when it breaks

Tell Pharaohs to set my people free

The fire is independent of needing.

The Old Man and the Lake

Just got back from a Dream Group Leader Intensive and did a reflective Short Story and then did a poem in French Pontoum Form using 8 phrases from.the reflection and then
Stanza 1 A B C D
Stanza 2 B E D F
Stanza 3 E G F H
Stanza 4 G I (or A or C) H J (or A or C)

The Old Man and the Lake

A fine picture I got off web of Kanuga Lake

The Virgin Lake calls and the Old Man surrounded by people and ideas hurriedly answers as he must be with her spirit. In his haste, he forgets that long ago ritual of hardening his bare feet at the beginning of summer, but now softened by decades of shoe enclosure he feels every sharp pebble on the gravel road. But summer’s last gasp is here and he must be with her breath, her pneuma. Putting on the Life Vest as a refuting the once youthful denial, he finds it tight. The young attendant smiles as the Old Man waddles into the canoe and pushes off. The Old Man sits heavy in the stern and the bow rises up sail-like to catch the crossing zephyr which snickers as she pushes against the long remembered and unused J-stroke. The cellular memory of Northern Rivers returns on this Southern Lake, heading to new discoveries.


As a dragon fly, who will not be slain on this quest, flies by, trhe canoe spots a pink Water Lily, isolated and segregated alone away from the large while colony of White Water lilies. The pink petals of the flamboyant intruder catch the sun and are reflected in the water, as the Old Man marvels at the pale grey-blue inner petals and the bright yellow pollen laden rods promising more Pink immigrants whose roots will go deep into the dark rich mud. The Old Man thinks he hears the White Petaled ones harrumph that is the Pink is “So very –SO – You know!” in his showiness.


The paddle digs deeper coming to a downed drowned tree. The Old Man apologizes to the tree for bumping it with his paddle and asks the tree if she remembers reaching up to the sun, or praising in the light of Diana’s waning diadem as there had been last night and does she still dream of serving her Goddess in the watery sleep? She says she misses the turtles that have slipped off the sunny purchase of her broken limbs into the water, away from that hard shelled mammal mover the Old Man paddles. The turtles have left a remnant of refuse in their wake. “Refuse” is Majestic translation by Royal James Minions of that much earthier, fine old New Testament Pauline Philippian Greek word- “SKUBALA”. )" For I consider all “σκύβαλα“ that I may gain Christ (3:8))


That word bounces off the Old Man’s brain as he wonders how much Skubala is there in this Virgin Lake. There are the turtles, of course, and the geese, the fish, the dragonflies, and there was this Wedding Rehearsal party the night before. Did an over mellow Groom’s man recycle his beer? Did an embarrassed Ring Bearer relieve a remnant or frightened Flower Girl deposit her dew? The lake is not chaste but as Marion Woodman says, that the Pregnant Virgin archetype “has the courage to BE and the flexibility to be always BECOMING”. She can deal with it as she gives life and gives rich mud for the turtles, dragonflies and lilies.


The Old Man turns the canoe by the spillway and wonders if the water will reach the coast of the Great Sea. Will they meet again as all the waters return to Poseidon’s great Pond? The Old Man returns and baptizes himself in the waters of the Pregnant Virgins Lake’s Teaming beauty. He dives into the waters of the turtles resentments, the downed trees memories, the Pink Water lily’s pride. the memories of the waters of rivers and wombs gone by.


He walks back to the meeting, wincing again on the pebbles and takes the ancient Nun’s advice to offer up the pain as participation in the fullness of life. He laughs as he almost remembers “Blessed are the feet of those who bring God- News”. Tom Wilson August 2014

The Old Man and the Lake

Tom Wilson --- August 2014

The Lake calls and the Old Man answers

J-Stroke paddling to other side

Through waters of Memories

Deep dark Mud nourishes Lilly roots

J-Stroke paddling to other side

Frogs on downed drowned trees

Deep dark Mud nourishes Lilly roots

Worshipping Diana’s waning diadem

Frogs on downed drowned trees

All the waters returning

Worshiping Diana’s waning diadem

Pregnant Virgin Lake giving life

All the waters returning

Through waters of Memories

Pregnant Virgin Lake giving life

The Lake calls and the Old Man answers

   

Mary: “I’m bursting with God-news; I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3b_RX7pRX0                    to watch this sermon on You Tube 


A Reflection for the Feast of Mary                                     All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, N.C. August 17, 2014                                                                 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Isaiah 61:10-11 Galatians 4:4-7 Luke 1:46-55 Psalm 34:1-9

Mary:“I’m bursting with God-news; I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.”

I have moved the lessons from the Feast of Mary the Virgin on August 15^th to today. Since we call ourselves All Saints, I like to recognize the patronal days of different saints when I can. Saints are not perfect people, but regular folk who have encounters with God. We are Saints, and historical Saints remind us that God chooses all sorts of folk, maybe even you and me, to bring in God’s Kingdom.

When I get off center about things, I need to center myself by breathing. I close my eyes and breathe in and breathe out; understanding that each breath in is the breath, the pneuma, the ruarch, the spirit of God, that which is greater than myself, coming in to me to give peace and to allow me to rest. This is what I call prayer; where I approach God not with anything I know in my head but with a heart full of longing. Sometimes I will add words of which two of my favorites are the Hail Mary from the Roman Tradition and the Jesus Prayer, an ancient prayer from the Orthodox Church tradition: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.” 

 

I came across that prayer in high school when I was reading the book Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger, the author of Catcher in the Rye. At one point in the story Franny is reading a book called The Way of the Pilgrim about a Russian Monk who is traveling across Russia reciting this prayer as a sort of mantra as part of his breathing until the prayer moves from his lips to his heart, and then he is able to see God. He no longer needs to use words. Franny’s longing for a mystical relationship caught my imagination and I went out and got the book and started to pray. One variation is to cut the prayer down every tenth repetition:

“Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

“Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me,”

“Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy.”

“Lord Jesus Christ, son of God.”

“Lord Jesus Christ,.”

“Lord Jesus.”

“Lord.”

The other prayer I got from my Roman Catholic grandmother, is the Hail Mary: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen”

I will say this prayer quietly and calmly until the calm in my breathing, in my heart, in my soul matches the calm in my voice.

Two different prayers to the same God, but one uses the male side of my faith and the other uses the 

female side of my faith. But God is neither male nor female. One of the challenges of the western 

patriarchal tradition is that we tend to use masculine pronouns when we refer to God. What the 

Trinity tells us is that God is relational. When Michael Downey talks about God in his 

book, Altogether Gift: A Trinitarian Spirituality, he uses the terms “giver, given and gift/ing”. He 

also writes:

“The Hebrew word for a woman’s womb and the word for compassion are related, and both 

are related to the word for mercy. Thus, the mother’s intimate, physical relationship with her 

newborn is the prime image for compassion and, hence the compassion of God in Christ. To

 speak of the compassion of God is to speak of God’s quivering womb — a womb that 

trembles at the sight of the frailty, suffering and weakness of the child.” 

 

Therefore, one way I understand God is through praying with Mary. The ancient religions all had a male - female pairing of God energies; there were Osiris and Isis, Zeus and Hera, Shiva and Kali, Mars and Venus, Baal and Ishtar, Yin and Yang which were seen not as competing but as complementary forces that created a whole. The Hebrew insistence on the Monotheism of God with the patriarchal priestly caste tended to eclipse the feminine aspects of God’s mercy in daily life. Jesus tries to return that feminine of compassion when he says things like “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing”.

When the followers of Jesus took over the family business of the church, they emphasized the masculine again. However, there was a strain that held on to the feminine and that coalesced around the icon of Mary. Over the centuries the men of the church didn’t know what to do with a full woman, so they focused in on divorcing Mary from sex with increasing doctrines like perpetual virginity, where she never had any children and remained a virgin after the birth of Jesus, to the Immaculate Conception, where Mary’s parents, an old couple, never had sex. But I like to see Mary as full of life and blessing all of life. I like to see her as Eugene Peterson translates the Magnificat in his translation called The Message:

I’m bursting with God-news:

 I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.

God took one good look at me, and look what happened—

 
    I’m the most fortunate woman on earth!

What God has done for me will never be forgotten,

    the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.

His mercy flows in wave after wave

    on those who are in awe before him.

He bared his arm and showed his strength,

    scattered the bluffing braggarts.

He knocked tyrants off their high horses,

    pulled victims out of the mud.

The starving poor sat down to a banquet;

 
    the callous rich were left out in the cold.

He embraced his chosen child, Israel;

    he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.

It’s exactly what he promised,

    beginning with Abraham and right up to now.

from enemylove.com about the subversive Magnificat

I like to see her singing and dancing lustily. I like to see her wrapping up the baby Jesus and leaving Bethlehem just before Herod’s soldiers get there to kill the babies. I like to see her ripping Joseph a new one when he loses track of the young boy Jesus on the trip to the Temple. I like seeing her going around the wedding party at Cana of Galilee and telling her son to get busy and help the guests have a good time. I like to see her showing up at Jesus’ place and telling him that he was causing the family too much grief and he needed to get his butt home. I like to see her with a group of friends and just laughing up a storm at a bawdy joke. I like to see her hurling insults at the religious rulers and hypocrites that lined up against her son. I like to see her crying at the loss of her husband and her son because she knew how to love deeply. I like to see her, not as a white marble, perfect, patient goddess, but as a full-blooded sister, mother, wife who cares what happens to people - full of compassion. The kind of person I need on my side as she prays for us sinners now and at the hour of our death - and beyond.

Andrew Greely, a Roman Catholic Priest and storyteller, relates a tale about Mary as all compassion:

Once upon a time the Lord God went out on patrol of heaven just to make sure that it was still a city that worked. Everything was fine, the hedges trimmed, the grass cut, the fountains clean, the gold and silver and ivory polished, the mall neat (Of course they have a mall in heaven. Where else would they put the teenagers!). He stopped by to listen to the angel choirs sing and they were in great form. Then on one of the side streets he encountered people who had no business being in heaven, at all, at all. Some of them should have been serving a long sentence in purgatory, others would not get  out until the day before the Last Judgment, still others would make it into heaven only on very special appeal. So he went out to complain to St. Peter. “You’ve let me down again”, he said “and yourself with the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” “I have not”, said St. Peter. “Well, how did they get in?” “I didn’t let them in.” “Well, who did?” “You won’t like it.” “I have a right to know how they got in”. “Well, I turned them down and didn’t they go around to the back door and didn’t your mother let them in!”

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen”

“Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”