A Summer Psalm

If you haven't guessed by now, I love Edward Hays' whimsical poetry prayers. Here's one that fits today... from p. 117 of Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim: A Personal Manual for Prayer and Ritual (Forest of Peace Books Inc. 1989. ISBN 0939516-10-1).

A Psalm of the Prophet Summer

O Sacred Creator of heaven and earth,
     like a loving parent with a choice Christmas gift,
     you keep your present of paradise
     hidden away from my sight.

Your son Jesus said that eye has not seen nor ear heard
     what you have dreamed up for us
     when we finally come home to you.
But I wonder: are there seasons in heaven
     just as there are on earth?

Or have you chosen one of earth's four as your favourite,
     one unending, changeless season of bliss
     for those who love you?
If so, I'd bet that you selected summer,
     with its picnics and leisurely pace,
     with its fun and play and whole-hearted zest.

I'd lay odds that you set apart summer,
     the season of vacations --
     children's favourite free time,
     when both young and old
     drink in the enjoyment of life --
     to be the work-free environment
     of your heavenly paradise.
May I, by your grace, taste your eternal sabbath
     in the warm pleasures of this summer day,
     and slowly savor the flavor of your reward
     in the nectar of this summer night.
+AMEN.

A Winter Psalm on a Sunday

It started to snow yesterday afternoon, a bit earlier than forecasted, and this morning the world is a different place. But I don't mind -- the garden has been put to bed and the produce put away, and I'm ready for some quieter winter evenings ahead, when I can actually read some books!

Today I remembered one of my favourite prayer books by Edward Hays, called Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim (1989, Forest of Peace Books) and looked into it for its winter psalms. Here are some tidbits from "A Winter Wonderland Psalm" (p. 124) for your enjoyment. I'm going to be praying some other winter psalms this week, I think...

...Be still, my soul, like a winter landscape
     which is wrapped in the white prayer shawl
     of silent snow fringed with icy threads....
Be still, my gypsy mind,
     from your whirling like a perpetual gyroscope,
     constantly restless, ever on the move....
Be still, my being,
     so that, like Lewis Carroll's Alice,
     you may, with grace, find the tiny, hidden doorway
     that leads to Wonderland.
Be still so that you can discover slowly, day by day,
     that God and you are one,
     to know in that Wonder-of-Wonderlands
     who you really are.

Book review: The Passionate Troubadour

Here I go again, on about Saint Francis, but if you've been reading here much, you know that I have a deep fondness for him. He's the patron saint of simplicity, ecology and animals, which partly explains that fondness. He also has a certain appeal for those of us who believe and want to live Christ's teachings in spite of the many distractions we find in our churches.

I may sound like a heretic with that last statement, but if so, I'm in very good company -- that of St. Francis. Edward Hays' The Passionate Troubadour:A Medieval Novel about Francis of Assisi (Ave Maria Press 2004, ISBN 0939516-69-1) is the story of a very human saint who faced some of the same sorts of struggles we do today, and who simply strove to love God through them all. While Hays' writing has been described as "wild, poetic and imaginative", I found that once I got past his whimsical style, his version of the life of Francis was wonderful. It's true that the author took a few liberties and created a few characters that are not found in traditional historical accounts of the life of St. Francis, but as a writer myself, I don't fault Hays for giving Francis a wise hermit spiritual director named Padre Antonio, or a Muslim friend named Ali. For those like Francis who want to faithfully travel a deeply spiritual path, it's always good to have a guide for the journey, and for Francis to overcome his era's hatred of Muslims, a soul-deep friendship with a Sufi fits the story really well. Hays does a wonderful job of capturing how an ordinary human being could become one of the most beloved saints of all time. It's a long book (638 pages) but I didn't want it to end.

I read The Passionate Troubadour during the last weeks of Lent and Holy Week, and found it to be a moving meditation on what it means to follow Jesus without the usual "trappings." Francesco Bernardone started out as an ordinary kid, the son of a wealthy cloth merchant. He was expected to follow in his father's footsteps, except... as time went on, his father's obsession with wealth and prestige began to ring hollow. Being a dutiful son, Francesco went off to fight in a skirmish with neighbouring city-state Perugia, and spent a year in captivity in a Perugian dungeon, where he had a lot of time to think about life. He came home a different person, dramatically renounced his inheritance, and became one of the minores, or small ones, in his society. Living with only basic necessities, working for his food, and preaching about God's love rather than fixating on hell and damnation, Francesco moved thousands of others to join the Friars Minor and associated communities by the time of his death in 1226.

Hays does a marvelous job of capturing the medieval mindset within his story -- for example, back in Francesco's day, the world was flat and the Pope was more like an emperor. The author sheds a lot of light on the13th century understanding of sin and salvation and the superstitious practices around both, making for a very interesting read. But what really touched me was Francesco's desire to do God's will in the simplest way... and how often he was stymied by people who made everything more complicated. Love God, love and serve others, and love yourself. Consider the lilies. And if you believe in a God who loves us all into heaven, how can you go around in gloom, even if things are wonky in this world? In this book, Francesco is a joyous, fun-loving man even in his struggles, with a heart for the poor and small. His passion for God and simplicity created and continues to create new life for many people... including me.

If you've been following my moodlings at all, you'll know that I've been struggling mightily with recent changes in my church... and many happenings that seem to indicate that Catholicism is moving backwards rather than forwards, over-complicating the simple basics of Christ's teachings. To my mind, recent fancier prayer wordings that put distance between us and God and seem to emphasize our sinfulness are not as critical as understanding and acting upon the fact that every being on the planet is beloved by God and should be treated as such. Emphasis on maintaining the structure of the Church seems to have overtaken the importance of making our relationship with God a real, living thing that cares for our planet, and seeks out the poor and makes them the heart of our hearts -- and because of that off- kilter emphasis, I'm afraid my love for the Church has taken a serious beating.

In my reading of The Passionate Troubadour, I came to see that Francesco also struggled with the Church and its many imperfections. He lived through a Lateran Council's changes and challenges, and still managed to remain within the Church as a faithful follower of Jesus. He didn't let church politics destroy his sense of community or sour his relationship with God. With God's grace, he was able to let go of his frustrations, acknowledge the imperfections in himself and others, and keep his relationship with God in focus right to the end.

That's what I aim to do, too... though it is anything but easy. My pride makes it impossible to swallow the injustices I perceive within Catholicism, and I admittedly shoot my mouth off frequently. So often I am tempted to simply walk away from a church that ignores women, makes priesthood more important than humanhood, and lives in its head rather than with the poor in the heart of Christ. But Francesco didn't quit. He continued to follow Christ's teachings in a radical way, speaking his mind to sympathizers within the Church, and eventually his example brought about some healthy change. Had he walked away, he would have vanished from the face of the earth without anyone knowing the difference, and our world -- and the Church -- would be much the worse for it.

Francis of Assisi is one of a very few people who took Christ's message to heart and lived it deeply in the midst of a society -- and a church -- that often didn't get it. I expect Edward Hays wrote a novel about him to encourage us all to do the same -- to follow Francesco by preaching the Good News of God's love with our lives. If you can get your hands on a copy of The Passionate Troubadour (an inter-library loan worked for me), I'd highly recommend it.

"Chasing Joy" and the wisdom of Edward Hays

These days I'm reading Edward Hays' delightful little book called Chasing Joy: Musings on Life in a Bittersweet World (Ave Maria Press 2007, ISBN 13: 978-0-939516-78-0). It's a marvelous thing to be reading as I continue to struggle with inexplicable dizziness issues, because it's about joyful living even when it's hard to feel joyful -- in a realistic sense, not just, "Everybody be happy!!!"

I've known and loved Edward Hays' writing since reading The Ethiopian Tattoo Shop when I was in High School. He's a Catholic priest, but not a boring one -- he's a great storyteller, and I suspect he's the kind of person who always has a twinkle in his eye. I just googled him to make sure, and wasn't disappointed. He looks like Santa's brother. He's written a stack of books, many of which I've perused, and several that I own because it's nice to inject some whimsy and humour into prayer now and then since God must have the greatest sense of humour of all. I mean, look at the walrus... or the emu... or the proboscis monkey. If they don't strike you funny, think of the last person who made you laugh...

I just wish the hierarchy of the Catholic church would stop taking themselves so darn seriously. In Advent, they took the Mass from solemn to downright depressing with "adjustments" to the translations of the Mass, all in the name of making it truer to the original ancient Latin. The problem is that no one speaks ancient Latin anymore, and now Mass feels pompous and frustrating. Up until recently, for as long as I've been alive, the church's prayers have always addressed God like S/he is a dear friend rather than as a solemn and distant being who demands our absolute, tongue-twisted adoration. And, as you know by now, I'm one for simplicity, not pomposity. Short and sweet is better than long, convoluted and boring!

I've already made public my opinion that the new translation of the prayers makes them inaccessible, exclusive, stilted and stuffy. In fact, the "new" prayers with their words like beseech, implore, devout oblation, blah blah blah O God Almighty Father (sorry, but God is more than male!!!), have tempted me to start a Facebook page called "People for a New New Translation" just to see how many others would join the club. Except I would prefer a catchier title than that. If you know of any such page, tell me, because I want to join it! Or if you can think of a zingier moniker...

Anyway, Edward Hays again brought to mind this recent pet peeve when I read the following in Chasing Joy, in a chapter called "clinging to the faith doggedly but without joy": 

"...clinging without joy to the faith can be a valid motto for the large numbers of faithful who today sadly lament the restoration of the clerical culture and the practices of the pre-Vatican Council Church [Maria's note: e.g. this new translation].... Don't bother to write letters to Rome. Complain directly to God!.... Pray with faith, and I'll wager you'll hear something like this: 

"Ah, you sound just like my son, Jesus! How he used to lament to me, moaning over the wretched worship of temple and its priesthood or the hypocrisy of the village elders with their strict observance of the petty religious rules..."" (p. 111-112)

According to Edward Hays, God encouraged Jesus (and encourages us) to be joy for the world, to make love the greatest commandment, to love those whom society finds the most unlovable, and to smile and laugh at those who would make a relationship with God into a frowning, pious, gloomy and guilt-ridden thing.

That's the challenge for me these days, to smile and laugh as I listen to these pompous new wordings of church prayers that have our older priests stumbling over the texts, poor guys. I don't mind change when it's for the better, but this is not. I find myself either rolling my eyes, or tuning out these new prayers most of the time because they have too much useless gibberish -- as though lengthier sentences using weird Latin sentence structures from the 1920s Roman Missal translation of Pope Benedict the XV are somehow more pleasing to God. With the prayers we used for the past 40-some years, I loved to listen for the gems among the direct and simple words. It's painful to hear pre-Vatican language when you've always loved post-Vatican prayer.

I'm not quite clinging to the faith doggedly and without joy, because having someone wise like Edward Hays putting his thoughts and feelings into encouraging words like this makes it just a little easier. If you're looking for a good read to challenge your heart and lift your spirits during the long season of Lent, I'd recommend  Chasing Joy. It's helping me to take heart and be of better cheer! (Though I may start that Facebook page yet!)