underway, shift colors

 

Clear, 76F 91%, wind SSE 10 mph, sunrise 6:01 AM. Interesting to take note that according to my Weather app "the days are getting shorter" - - as last week sunrise was at 5:59 AM, then 6:00 AM, now 6:01 AM already. If my mind keeps paying attention I may start noticing what it says about sunset as well, days growing shorter by the minute on each end. 

Generally hours of daylight grow shorter from spring solstice about June 20 to winter solstice about December 20, then longer from December 20 to June 20. Here we are on the down side of that, then. 

With the coming of what seems to me in extreme old age to be shifting back and forth from insufferably hot to unbearable cold, I no longer have the favorite season that school summer vacation brought starting when school let out the spring of 1942. My last Freedom Summer would have been 1956, when Linda and I went to summer school together at the University of Florida. The following summer, 1957, I had graduated and begun what I thought was three but turned out twenty years in the U S Navy.

As the first day of the rest of my life dawns here in 7H, I'm reminiscing, recalling the exact moment when I realized that, for me, a certain annual cycle of life had ended forever. I was standing at attention with the rest of Charlie-Four Company at Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island in the chilly stiff breeze of the day. It was the beginning of September 1957, my mind suddenly went, "it's September, I should be starting the fall semester at school," when it burst on me that that phase of my life was over and that summer vacation would never come again. 

In round numbers, two decades growing up, two decades as Navy officer, four decades as priest and pastor. The first two decades being the Time of freedom and innocence: after that, summer vacations are over and life starts getting serious.

Now here in 7H the best Time of all, and it keeps getting better and better, I'm easing off on life's seriousness. A dozen or so years ago, Roland, a favorite doctor friend, the wisest and very kindest of men, told me, "don't retire or you'll die," which has become my personal wisdom proverb. So at this stage of slower life but still apparently reasonable sensibilities, I'm thinking to stay on the preaching schedule and continue as supply priest as long as it's helpful, at HNEC only. As for other commitments, duties and responsibilities, cast off all lines.

Exceptions only for Love: the almost overwhelming heaviness of last week, that ended by suddenly lightening up with Saturday lunch at a dear friend's house; next, God willing, a wedding in November 2023. 

Now I'm to Father Richard, this morning's meditation. I don't read them as regularly and faithful as I might, but am usually glad when I do. Today's on wisdom and innocence. Over my years of experience in life and Time, I've come to lay aside the nonessential rubbish that religion accumulates over its centuries of human fear, self-preservation, embellishment, dogmatic and doctrinal certainty and control; to choose and live into the goodness it offers, what seems innocently to me to be the Jesus of Nazareth part exclusively. Radical; where radical means back to the roots, radical from what the institution and its innumerable wandering breakaways over centuries and millennia have feverishly fashioned into being Saved, back before Paul to simply WWJD, the Jesus part that I understand to be grace alone: agape, precisely chesed, selfless lovingkindness. 

At any event, mindful that I totally disagree with you on absolutely every single social, political and religious matter, today's meditation stirred me in that particular direction of self-reflection. Perhaps his meditation will stir you into your own reflection. 

RSF&PTL

T

      

Monday, August 1, 2022 

Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

From the Center for Action and Contemplation

Wise as Serpents, Innocent as Doves

“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” –Matthew 10:16

The late author and preacher Peter J. Gomes (1942–2011) considers the type of seasoned innocence to which Jesus calls his disciples:

You need both innocence and experience, both the serpent and the dove, if you have any chance of making it as a Christian in this world. Innocence without experience eventually becomes a state of pure illusion, and experience without vision deteriorates into cynical despair. . . .

When Jesus speaks of the wisdom of the serpent he is not giving us an invitation to cynicism; he wants us, like the serpent, always to know what is going on. Of all creatures, the serpent is the one most aware of his environment, most sensitive to his surroundings, most in touch with his circumstances, for his entire body is a live wire of sensation. We are meant to be aware, heads up, eyes open, mind on full throttle, not easily fooled or seduced by the blandishments of this life. . . . 

To be innocent as a dove is an exercise neither in naïveté nor in deception. The dove is the symbol of the spirit of God, and where the dove is, there is to be found serenity, reconciliation, and peace. When Noah wanted to know if it was all right to go back into the world, he didn’t ask for a weather report; he sent out for the dove. When Jesus was baptized, God’s favor was shown in the descent of the dove; and the Holy Spirit, the present tense of God, is represented in Christian art by the dove. Give me the dove any day; the dove is no dumb bird.

In other words, Jesus tells us that to survive in this world . . . we need to know what is going on and not be overwhelmed by it; and to do that we need to live all of the time in a divine and creative dialogue between innocence, the first and last love of our faith, and experience, by which we learn what we need to know. [1] 

Father Richard describes these deeper stages of spiritual maturity as a “regained innocence”: 

There is a regained innocence, which could also refer to the highest states of enlightenment. This is the clarity and freedom found in a person who has been deeply wounded but, after passing through a healing purification, comes out the other side with the best of both worlds; they are cleverly wise and yet not overly defended or guarded. I suspect this is exactly what Jesus represents and what he describes when he tells his disciples to “Go forth wise as serpents but innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). This would be those who have left the Garden, eaten a few more apples, and returned again because they now know how to live and love both inside and outside of the Garden. [2]

 

 

[1] Peter J. Gomes, “Innocence and Experience,” Strength for the Journey: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living: A New Collection of Sermons (San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003), 102, 103, 104. 

[2] Adapted from Richard Rohr, introduction to Oneing 3, no. 2, Innocence (Fall 2015): 12. Available in print or PDF download.