Nosferatu... at long last!

Nosferatu

I’ve been promising Nosferatu for a long time now. And so here he is.

I am somewhat of an old movie junkie. I am not much for the current genre of horror movies as they are far too violent for me, but old ones, that’s another story. I love the silent film, Nosferatu. I love how gruesome the vampire is in this movie—not all lovely like that twlight dude with dirty hair or Tom Cruise from the Ann Rice generation before that.

Nosferatu moves slowly and silently and when he at last pounces on his victim they are held arrestingly still—captive to this being that darns life from them.

We love vampire stories— obviously they are once again on the rise as we have new stories about this old myth.

The question I was have about legends and stories and myths is this: How are they real?

Vampires are real to me. Vampires remind me of those people in my life that create chaos and drama. Those that drain my energy with their incessant need for conflict and attention.

But Nosferatu, he’s a little different. If you’ve watched that old movie, you know what I mean: gruesome silent and slow.

One night, sitting at home in quiet, I couldn’t sleep. I got up and sat on the couch and reviewed the very long day’s journey. I remembered those places in my heart where I felt like I wasn’t enough—where I had failed utterly. Those places that I felt less than. And in that moment, I suddenly understood: Nosferatu had crept into the room suddenly. I was held captive to him as he stalked me silently. I was arrested by his gaze—there wasn’t anything pretty about him.

Nosferatu reminds me of shame. Shame is an arresting emotion, it stops us dead in our tracks, it is a slow dreadful secret that stalks us silently. It freezes us and with the uttermost stealth, it pounces on our hearts and drains us of life.

This is how Nosferatu is real for me. In naming this feeling, this being, I am given some power to over come it.

By subjecting Nosferatu to the light, I can stop him. By placing holy objects before him, I stop him.

How can I do that with shame? Shame is often a silent creeping secret that overcomes us. I find that when I can speak it, it dies. We are only as sick as our secrets. And the more secrets we have, the more power we give to Nosferatu.

Holy Objects might be those things I use to remind myself that I am LOVED beyond my intellect, reason and imagination—so how do I know that I am loved? For some reason, photographs of loved ones whisper this to me. Maybe these are my holy relics.

So this is Nosferatu to me.

Who is he to you?

Time... time, time!!!

Time, that human made concept that marks all of us, marching on always. Has it ever marched on. I don't even remember when, but sometime back, the laptop hard-drive fried and whammo, just like that, I am off the web and thrown back into the stone age. So, I apologize for my protracted absence.

If I say that I am going to do a better job of keeping up my blog, would you believe me? Okay, maybe not. So, I am back in the cyber landscape once again, blogging, twittering, checking facebook and email obsessively.

What did I do without all these gizmos???

Now I promise that Nosferatu (did I spell that wrong?) will make an entry but not today. We'll save him for another day. Today, we ordain a new priest into the Episcopal church.

Allow me to get churchy for just a minute or maybe longer. Today, our Curate, Andrew is ordained at 7:00 p.m. It is a really special time not just for him but for me as well and for this whole community and even our larger region, that we call a Diocese.

It is special because it names a reality that we already know: Andrew is called by God. But not just him. ALL OF US ARE.

I sometimes wish that we had Ordinations for all kinds of people: firemen, teachers, school principals, street-sweepers... all of us are called to something. The hardship is knowing what that is and how to live and hear it.

I recently heard an interesting little tidbit about this. I credit my friend Lesslie with this story:

There was this guy by the name of Homer. Homer was a priest and for years, he dreamed of working in a church and being the head kahuna. (In our tradition, the head priest is called a Rector or a Vicar. For argument sake, we'll say Rector)
Homer felt called to be a Rector, but Homer found a job at a Seminary teaching and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get a job as a Rector.

Finally, Homer one day decided to give up that dream and to really launch himself into his work at the seminary. The more he dedicated his passion and balanced his work life with his personal, the more he became happy and at peace.

Well, one day, the PERFECT rector job came along-- the one he had dreamed of for years and now, he was so happy with the job that he couldn't decide what to do. So he left it to God to help him know. So Homer left the whole issue of what to do and where to go in God's lap.

And days went by... and nothing. No answers, no signs no nothing.

Of course, Homer had to arrive at an answer and soon so finally, Homer threw himself at the foot of the altar and cried out to God, "PLEEEASE God! Tell me what to do!!"

And finally, God answered.

"Homer," God said, "I don't care what you do-- just be happy!"

And so it was for Homer.

And so it is us.

What makes you happy?

Time time time marches on. The ordination is hours away and lots to see to. I will see you soon-- hopefully with Nosferatu.

Oh! One more thing: if you like my blog, and are located somewhere in the Olympia/Tumwater/Lacey area, come join me and our new community for our 5:30 Service on Advent I (that November 29) from that Sunday on, we will be doing a 5:30 service with expansive language, silence, conversation and best of all, beer or wine or whatever you want to drink at the local pub, O'Blarney's to follow. Good times...

Oh yes... time.

time time time

As soon as I have some more time, I will add a new post. Nosferatu is coming soon...

The Stream & the Potter

One of the biggest surprises on my spiritual journey has been prayer-- not just my private devotion or silence or meditation-- but the surprise has been for me in corporate prayer-- words or silences exchanged with large groups of people together.

It is like a stream that flows from us-- poetry and words or silence held together there is this flow that happens beyond the words, beyond the silence, there is the being in this together & putting this out there in the universe. The flow and stream that is sent-- be it Christian Prayer or Buddhist prayer or dare I say it, Atheist prayer. (yes, I know an oxymoron and perhaps I look like a moron, but.. we can ponder that in another blog!)

I realize that this statement must sound utterly absurd—for what is a spiritual journey but prayer. Prayer however is one the greatest mysteries and paradoxes of the unseen—how is it that our words or silence or walk or any sort of action that we might “do” and call prayer, how can it actually change or alter anything— and yet it does. Prayer changes everything. Not in some Hollywood special effects kind of a way, but the very core of our being is changed, made lovelier by prayer.

The image of a potter comes to my mind and I suddenly see the beautiful iridescent interior of a fired ceramic pot—on the exterior, you can’t see the loveliness of the hidden interior and yet you know it is present. So it is with prayer. Prayer, the filling of our consciousness with such joy poetry and love causes an interior beauty that can’t quite be noticed on the exterior and yet, you can tell gazing at the vessel that such care and beauty are present on the interior—an iridescent loveliness that is numinous is present in the one that centers their life on making space for God. That is the work of prayer. And prayer of course is not just bowing our heads and saying a few lovely words—it is an inner quality that softens the ground of our being. Prayer and a life time of it changes us in ways that aren’t quantifiable by any methodology or logic. Prayer is a way of being that is intentional and open to the presence of God.

I believe that all written traditional prayers—be they Christian or other—point us to that reality of such transformation. When we allow the words of any prayer to wash over our being, it smoothes out our roughness and makes us into that transformed being that we are called to be. All written prayer points us to that changed reality. So it is with the Lord’s Prayer, an ancient that points not just to Jesus Christ or Christians, but points to the ultimate human fulfillment—that we will be fully human by living into that transformation given to us by the divine. The Lord’s Prayer is about the growing up of our own humanity, the awakening of consciousness to our fulfillment as spiritual beings on a human journey. Each phrase is about our growth from selfishness into selflessness- it is about transcendence of our selves to God. It is not just the uttering of the words in repetition that will change us—its not about the words, Our Father in Heaven said over and over that make for transcendence. It is the intentional and interior space of a human soul that slowly opens in availability to those words spoken or held in silence. It is a saturation point or a receptivity that somehow opens up to such interior beauty and fulfillment.

The other oddity about such transformation is, however momentary it seems to be—it shimmers in the eyes briefly and then is gone, like a humming bird feasting for a moment, lovely and then gone. It is an awesome moving experience that is fleeting at best, at least in our human observation. I believe that ultimately, it is all that is truly seen revealed and known—because in those brief episodes of such beauty and goodness, it is where we find God and know that shining presence.

More than anything else, what I realize is that Spirit is not done with me yet.

Unspoken Agreements & Tribal Knowledge between the you and me

Sociological & Psychological Studies have been done showing that human beings without ever speaking a word to their friend or companion or family member or spouse make a deal. The deal is that each will remember different bits and pieces or aspects of memories: the halves will each hold a half of the virtual scrapbook in their minds.

Simply put, you remember one aspect of a memory and your beloved remembers another piece of it. And you remember one day and your beloved the next.

I was recently reminded of this unspoken reality when two close friends from the past got in touch with me via facebook. Both relationships were such that it was like picking up where we left off. And then it started to happen: remember… and soon we were each reminding the other of aspects of our common story that we’d forgotten: two halves once again brought back together to be whole again in that common story we held.

Even after getting off the phone, there were memories that came to me—stuff I had long since forgotten suddenly dusted off and remembered from the back recesses of my mind.

However, it isn’t always as pleasant as this. How many times have I uncomfortably sat with older couples arguing about some minute detail from their wedding day or arguing whether or not it was Thanksgiving 2006 or 2007 when old Aunt Ruth kicked the bucket. Ugh…

That of course is trivial in comparison to those embodied scrapbooks that are so disparate and incongruent that you’d swear that the two speaking are talking about different stories rather than their common one. It is this torn and ripped place that can feel very crazy.

The siblings that see childhood so differently: one claims that the other is a klutz while the klutzy one recognizes bruises from a violent father. One spouse sees alcohol abuse while the other sees only wanting a drink to unwind.

Stories are sacred—especially our own personal ones.

A friend some years ago shared with me after a very painful divorce a study about this embodied unspoken memory issue. I remember thinking at the time, “Oh yeah, this makes sense.”

And then there were so many light bulbs that went off after that: wow, this is why relationships that end catastrophically (divorce, not speaking to each other, etc) can be so painful and devastating-- we are losing not just a person, but half of our story.

Truly there is tribal knowledge between us-- and yes, it is difficult when we sever our stories from the tribal truth for the sake of our own reality and sanity. Wow, I remember thinking-- this is really helpful to know and to notice.

I am still haunted by the places of incongruence that I know—the places where the pictures in my virtual scrapbook that looks so different from the "yous" in my life. Its not the small differences or arguments like what year when such and such happened—it’s the bigger ones that are troubling. Is it me that's crazy or the you? Or maybe both? I don’t know quite what to do with those.

Of course, our perceptions are different and our memories are not accurate recording tools—rather they are story makers.

The question I have in the disparate places are how can you hold up both pieces of perception and honor them—is that a possibility? Or is it that the best we can do is choose not to talk about those places of radical incongruence? Or is it that we should flee from such places and relationships? I don’t have answers for this, only more questions and memories and unspoken pacts formed between relationships.


And notice, I've kept it simple-- there is only in this the two-- the you and the me but you know there's more than that: there's the tribal knowledge of relationships and unspoken memory between 3 or 4 or 5 or more.

I think I'll take that glass of wine now.

Blood & Water

You’ve heard it said, “Blood is thicker than water.”

But I say blood coagulates. It can seal up a wound or complicate a life. Water thickens to ice but melts again. Blood can only go in one direction.

Wounds sealed up, clots in the legs and heart and brain. Or hemophilia on the other extreme. Gushing and gushing and gushing free.

Blood is thicker than water.

Is that a good thing?

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