bibliographic control

A book for every reader

A reader for every book

Save the reader's time

Books are for use

The Library is a growing organism

SR Ranganathan's five laws of library science

time's arrow

errata

By now people might have noticed - the occasional browser, the person who is brings up this blog in their searching for answers (and answers are not here) - that my posting is infrequent now - as opposed to the first two or three years. Apparently people have a difficult time commenting - which is fine. For a time spam from China cluttered up the comments - that's thankfully gone. In fact, I'm comfortable with very few people reading this. Sometimes I post a post as a status update on facebook - people might comment on that. Still someone might say, "how about the forum for experimentation? Isn't that what this is about - the freedom to write what ever you desire and publish it?"

time spent in the museum

Lenten Meditation 3/3 - 3/9

Isaiah 55: 1-9
Psalm 63: 1-8
I Corinthians 10: 1-13
Luke 13: 1-9

Introductory Meditation

Lent is the anti-Christmas, the anti-Advent. After all the parties, all the auld lang syne, the kings and shepherds and the little baby - all culminating in Mardi Gras - the triumph of Carnival, we enter the 46 day slog of contemplation, renunciation, and lacramentation (a nice word for teary eyed, weepy). Groups of carolers don't go door to door singing Gesualdo's Tenebrae (though that would be nice to me and other music majors - many more would be puzzled who don't share my taste). And the commercial interests have left this holiday totally alone. There is no "A Charlie Brown Lent."  Lent doesn't sell jewelry or cars. There is no war on Lent (excepting a painting by Peter Bruegel, which is riotously funny to look at - and in Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel) .

Lent has been left alone, left to us believers. What might we do with it? Consider this, that musically the rhythm of Lent is slow. On a metronome, Lento's only one or so degrees above Grave - the slowest tempo. The association is spiritually helpful. A faster tempo allows a person to show off, to display technical brilliance - but also to hide. The very speed and rapidity of notes allows a performer to fudge, to impress the casual listener. A tempo as slow as Lento requires attacks to be clean, but also for the note to be sustained. Being out of tune is more noticeable. The arcs of the phrase are longer. More attention is required of performer and listener.

Lent is often caricatured as a time "I gave something up" - as if merely giving something up were all the richness to be delved from this season. Consider the musical metaphor above, though, and how it might apply to the rhythm of your life: how each day is a piece, performed. How is your attention sustained during the day? How in tune with the Spirit are you?  Are you rushing ahead to a more interesting place on the score? Or are you playing the part you have now?

Hold onto this thought: This is not a solo on your part. Each part of the day God is there. Is God accompanying you, or are you accompanying God? Is God setting the beat, or are you? God is a merciful conductor, a kind partner, who will guide us into all the richness of the divine grace. Let us meet God with patience filled with love for all creation - even as we slow down to embrace it all.

Sunday 3/3
While the Old Testament passages above encourage us to come to God and be filled, to discover the abundance available in listening for God (Psalm 63) and seeking to understand God (Isaiah 55), the New Testament passages proffer a puzzle. Examples are offered and they are all bad. Paul offers a set of ways in which the Israelites in the wilderness were and counsels his hearers "not to be like them." In sum: all these people received the blessings and grace of God, just as you (Corinthians) have, and it availed them nothing. They squandered all the wealth of God's gracious favor (a favor described in Isaiah 55 as beyond monetary valuation - free and infinite for you; a grace that fills and strengthens). They treated Christ, as Karl Barth critiques such behavior in his Romans Commentary, as "one thing among others."

When I first read these words of Barth's, I was struck by their aptness. How easy it is to forget we worship a living Lord - a Lord we might meet, as those disciples traveling to Emmaus  did, "along life's way." How easy it is to take Christ as a means to an end. Whereas, Jesus is not an end but a process that constantly pulls us away from recognizeable ends - products that might be bought, things that we can have - if we pay the price (consider Isaiah 55: 1 - 4). But we are offered something incalculably rich - and hence beyond price, whose only purchase is faith and whose only currency is love.

Monday 3/4

Think of the pace of life. How it stretches out like an accordion's bellows before compressing - but the tone is sustained.  

Tuesday 3/5

We move through life, or perhaps life moves all around us. It is hard to tell sometimes, whether a person is a nomad in place or in a home migrating across the countryside. We meet people every day unaware of their struggles. As the Scottish author and minister Ian MacLaren wrote, "be kind for everyone is fighting a great battle inside." Every day, like the Samaritan, the Levite, and the Pharisee, we come across people flayed out on the road (and sometimes we're that person).  Kindness is quite a spiritual gift to be able to give.

Wednesday 3/6

Spend some time thinking about your movements as a kind of drawing. Perhaps take a piece of paper and draw it out. Take your time. Keep the pen or pencil in contact with the paper as much as possible. Don't erase - we can erase nothing in our lives. Consider though that God accounts all that with a definite beauty. God seems reluctant to call something ugly. Why is it so easy for us? Draw your day freely and with abundance - and refrain from using or accepting the words Ugly or Mistake. 

Thursday 3/7

 Christ said, "except a seed falls to the ground and dies, it abides alone." How does that notion of being alone strike you? Recently I was aware again of my belief that I should be able to do everything by myself. Certainly there are some things like fishing or knitting or creating anything where we are just fine by ourselves. Often we do need help, especially for a big job like building or repairing something - or moving a couch up the stairs (never again!) or a grand piano down them (never never again!). Even more so, for problems in the soul, I think," If I simply read the right thing, understand more, probe more, I'll solve my sadness, or I'll quit having this problem with procrastination." But I wager there is no such thing as self help. Like Positive Thinking, self help might work for a while, but then the difficulty comes back - even stronger. Often we need someone else's ear. Perhaps a professional ear - but certainly an ear that listens and helps us approach the grand puzzle of our lives. That sees our issues (in the words of Barthes in Camera Lucida) "not as a problem to be solved, but as a wound to be explored." 

Friday 3/8

In the Luke 13 passage Christ says that there is no quid pro quo between a person's sinfulness and calamity, and then offers a quid pro quo, "unless you repent you'll all likewise perish." Ironically enough, we'll all perish. Maybe that is his sense here. We get caught up in other people's spiritual state, like Peter referring to John in Johns' gospel at the very end, "Lord, what about him?" And it smacks of trying to find a loop hole. As if we can find a way to live life under the radar enough - hugging the terrain like a fighter plane - staying away from towers in Siloam, staying away from Pilate. Always staying just to the side of someone who's a bit too visible (just like Peter visibly betrayed, while John was more discrete, perhaps). All this loses sight of the fact that our lives discover a common end. Christ asks what will we do with our common Now. Not what XY or Z person is doing? Like a good chaplain or counselor Christ realizes the last person the patient wants to talk about is themselves. It is not an easy thing to talk about ourselves. We may think we're talking about ourselves, but soon enough we're talking about something that happened to us, what happened to others, or others as getting away with something. But that self portrait - not a great saint and not a great sinner - is difficult to achieve. One day I sat down to do a self portrait and discovered that I don't really know what I look like; I have a fantasy I project onto myself. And often people blanch at portraits painted of them - their stomach doesn't pooch out like that, their nose is straighter, their hair is neater.  Take sometime and try a self portrait. Draw what you think you look like, then set up a mirror and draw. Again: don't erase, keep your pencil point down on the page. Draw without looking at the page. Don't make judgments about the results. Don't laugh or call yourself clumsy. Just accept it. Be kind to your work. Do as many self portraits as you like.

Saturday 3/9

Thank you for letting me spend a week of Lent with each of you. I would say, feel free to color in all the printed images - as you like. 

Monday 3/4
Tuesday 3/5
Wednesday 3/6
Thursday 3/7
Friday 3/8
Saturday 3/9