From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let light stream forth into human minds.
Let Light descend on Earth.
From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth into human hearts.
May the Coming One return to Earth.
From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide all little human wills -
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.
From the centre which we call the human race
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.
Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.
(Alice Bailey)
28 november, 2009, back home
After I left Denmark, I spent a week in England working with three of the other composers who make up the collective known as The Collegeville Composers Group. We've been working for about eight years now on a project called Psallite (pronounced “Sal-lee-tay.”) It's a corpus of liturgical chant. By “chant” I mean (as I have probably said hundreds of times now) music that is essentially vocal--it might be harmonized, rhythmic and accompanied, but is not dependent on any of those things. Thus, we have not adopted any one style of chant but have drawn liberally from the many sources and influences that make up our corporate deposit. By “liturgical,” I mean it is essentially ritual music, meant to accompany the Christian sacramental rites, and therefore it usually winds up being almost totally scriptural as well.
I do little work in liturgy and/or liturgical music anymore, though that was my first and for years main discipline; the work in the Universal Call both in teaching and music has taken over. But I have stayed with the project, not only out of a sense of duty to see it through to its proximate conclusion, but because it is still a fascinating process. We actually compose as an ensemble, around a table piled high with Scriptures, liturgical books and music resources, one computer (the intrepid English composer Paul Inwood inputting directly to Finale files), and a candle. We “massage” a text until we find a rhythm and a form that suggest themselves, and then start testing bits of melody on each other. One piece of music may have a melodic contribution from all four of us. And then if there is to be harmony we sing and sing and sing it until that reveals itself as well.
Two of the composers (Paul and his wife Catherine) live in England, and so a few times in the past few years when I have had other reason to go to Europe, we arrange to have a session there instead of them always having to make the trek to us. Every time but one, the other Californian (Carol Browning) has made the trip over to meet them and me as well. It’s probably hardest on her, since she has little reason to come except for this work, so she leaves her work in California, barely gets over the jet lag, and then flies back home to work again. The other founding member of the group, who first convened us, Paul Ford, has never been persuaded to join us “across the Pond.”
As in past sessions, we housed together this time. I think all of our favorite sessions were the ones we held in Santa Cruz during the times I was filling in for Mark at Holy Cross and turned the rectory into Hotel Cipriano. But this session will stand out for me too. Paul arranged for us to stay at St John's Convent, in the village of Green Kiln, west of London about halfway to Reading, and not far at all from Windsor Castle. (Actually we went to Windsor for tea on Friday afternoon--not to the castle itself, mind you, though Her Majesty's standard was waving that day, as I'm told she is there every Thursday evening and Friday possible). St John’s is run by the Sisters of Pity, whose specific charism is caring for elderly and infirm priests. The property and housing are both ample, so they also offer retreat space and guest housing both in the large main house and in an assortment of flats and bungalows around the property. Carol and I were alone on the top floor of the main house. The sisters seem to delight in catering to their guests’ every need, and they spoiled the stuffing out of us: we were overfed; the beds were so comfortable that I slept painfully deep every single night; when I asked to use the clothes washer Sr Antonia insisted on washing and ironing all my clothes for me; a single mention of anything brought the desired item. There was a long stretch of a narrow road across the main highway from their street and so I had a beautiful jog every morning out into the countryside. Aside from our outing on Friday and our customary festive dinner at the end of the session--at the venerable Crown and Bray Pub, exactly what you might hope a pub to be on a rainy English night: generous portions, lager on tap, fires burning in every room, and laughter ringing ‘round the rafters--we never left from Tuesday through Sunday, working 9:30 ‘til 12:30, 2:30 ‘til 5:30 or 6. It may not sound much like work, but it is intense and tedious, so the spoiling was much appreciated.
While I was there I, as is my wont, rummaged through the books available to the guests. Among the many old volumes that our bibliophile friend Michael Doherty would have been tempted to slip into his backpack, there was a history of the Reformation by one Philip Hughes. It was perfect bedtime reading for me, especially having just come from eminently Lutheran Denmark and presently staying in the motherland of the Anglican Communion. (Interesting also to watch the BBC’s, and read the Daily Mail’s, report about the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ visit with the Pope in Rome this past week.) So I poured through Hughes’ portrayal of Luther, Zwingli and Calvin. While a Catholic--an English Catholic to boot--and writing before the Second Vatican Council as well, when one could assume there could be more bias and counter-Reformation rhetoric afoot, Rev Hughes did seem to be even-handed.
I had the same two reactions this time as when I have studied that era in the past. First, if history is to be believed, I am appalled at the corruption, mediocrity and fatuousness of the Roman church at that time. I had the same reaction when I read the biography of Michelangelo, mind you, and other historical biographies and novels about Rennaissance Italy. One can understand why Luther would be believed when he taught that “Catholicism itself... (was) now considered to be a corruption of the Gospel of Christ.” I found this phrase of Hughes’ interesting particularly, that the origins of Luther’s convictions lie not just in his own “discovery of the true meaning of the religion of Christ,” which according to him was divinely guided, but also and maybe especially “in his own personal experience of the ineffectiveness and the mischievousness of Catholicism as a solution offered him for his spiritual troubles.”
On the other side, the second thing that struck me, as usual, was this: while I sympathize with the rancor at the Roman church for whatever that corruption was and the desire to return to a pristine articulation and practice of religion, and aside from the external changes that the Reformers inaugurated, I just can’t go where they go theologically, and anthropologically. Because they were so disgusted with faith by works––which was really faith by magic formulas, Deus ex machina, buying one’s way to heaven especially through the practice of selling indulgences––the formula salvation by faith alone is based on the premise that there is no natural goodness in the human person. Human nature is totally corrupt (according to Calvin, for instance), and we are utterly powerless to do good. Even if an act is good in itself there is still sinfulness in it, so it is impossible to fulfill God’s commands. The “righteousness” that Luther taught “is no more than a righteousness cast around [us] by God, imparted to us.” But behind that righteousness “the sinner remains as he was before the divine acceptance.” At one point Luther talks about grace functioning like “snow over a dung heap.” It follows of course that “even the most virtuous of philosophers of the old pagan world were necessarily damned.” And so, one could assume, so were even the most virtuous sages of other traditions, never mind “seeds of the Word,” unless they expressly know and confess their belief in Jesus Christ.
I hasten to add, I mean this with no disrespect to Lutherans or other Protestants. I have no idea how operative this mentality is in peoples’ minds, though I know it is the foundational argument I have had with many Christians of the more evangelical persuasion. But it does become the philosophical garden out of which all one’s opinions are grown. I remember debating with a Contemporary Christian musician once about chant, basing my remarks on the fact a vocal form of sacred music developed in most of the world’s spiritual traditions. He countered by saying, “Yes, but they were pagans and that was music written before they knew Jesus,” and therefore it had to be replaced by “Christian” music. The same thing happened with Catholic missionaries all over the world up until Vatican II, mind you, replaying the “native genius” with Roman ritual and poorly executed Gregorian chant. Sigh. And that of course brings us back to the Psallite project I mentioned above, why I stress that “chant” does not mean “Gregorian chant,” and why we can draw from the native genius of other traditions. (Side note: we were working with the new translations of the Roman rite, not released yet. From the stilted language used in them and the whole trajectory of the “reform the reform” afoot, I fear we are heading back there.)
To counteract that, I was also finishing up Ilia Delio’s book, “Christ in Evolution.” In tracing the theology of Teilhard de Chardin, Raimundo Pannikar, Thomas Merton and Bede Griffiths, along with contemporary, mostly Franciscan, authors such as Ewert Cousins, Zachary Hayes and John Haught, Sr Ilia pushes forward two things. First the understanding that “Christ” cannot be limited to the historical Jesus of Nazareth. (This is theological thin ice for some, so tread carefully.) Before Jesus was born there was still the Second Person of the Trinity, the Word, associated with the Greek Logos, as well as, by some, the Tao of Chinese philosophy. After the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, the Christ is the whole Body: first of all understood as the church, which is understood primarily as “his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (as St Paul says in the letter to the Ephesians; and must include, as Ilia points out numerous times, all of creation which “is groaning and in agony as we await the redemption of our bodies” (as St Paul writes in the letter to the Romans).
Put those two things together and suddenly we see that Christ is now located at the heart of the whole evolutionary process, as a matter of fact what we call Christ is the whole evolutionary trajectory; or vice verse: the whole evolutionary energy of the universe is what/who we name Christ; Christians resolutely claim that the center of the universe is “personal and personalizing.” Christ is spirit wedding itself to matter, and matter then empowered to tend toward spirit. (Remember again here Sri Aurobindo: “Matter will reveal spirit’s face.”) Among the many paragraphs that I entirely underlined is this one:
We can now locate Christ at the heart of the whole evolutionary process: from cosmic evolution to biological evolution to evolution of human consciousness and culture. Within the evolution of human consciousness, Jesus emerges as the Christ, the fullness of God’s self-communication in history and the absolute expression of that self-communication in love… Christ is the dynamic life of the world. Christ symbolizes the fullness of life in God… Jesus is the symbol of every person and creature intended to rise from the dead and share in the glory of God… the realization of what we hope for in the universe: union and transformation in God.
Now this is a counterpart to the snow over the dung heap, because instead of starting with the corruption of human nature and the necessity for someone to come and redeem us from that corruption, this Christology starts out with the assumption that the Incarnation was not an after thought, but that this fullness of divinity dwelling bodily in human flesh was the design all along, the whole point of creation, the Omega point: “the realization of what we hope for in the universe: union and transformation in God.” (Ilia writes a line similar to that many times throughout the book and each time I underlined it.) And each person––here she quotes Panikkar––“Each person bears the mystery of Christ within.” And so “the first task of every creature, therefore, is to complete and perfect his or her icon of reality.”
The optimism of this view spills over. Why we would be in dialogue with other traditions is because any actions that are directed toward the good of the cosmos––the good, the true, the beautiful, the whole trajectory of evolution consciousness, and the evolution of matter to spirit––fall under the impulse of grace; their actions have eternal value, they are Christ inspired, because whether or not one explicitly knows Jesus, what we call “Christ” is the mysterious energy that is at the core of human life and life in the universe. To be a Christian then is to recognize a specific kind of mysticism of action as well as contemplation: to enter into dialogue with persons of other religions and cultures in which this Christ energy is making itself manifest; it is to plunge ourselves into the world, “getting involved with the tribes of humanity, earth’s people and the earth itself.”
I couldn’t help but think of Fr Bede and Abhishiktananda’s love for the concept of Purusa, the Great Person, as I read the closing lines of Ilia’s book, which also seem very poignant on this first Sunday of Advent, as we begin the great holy waiting:
We can look forward to a time when there will be one cosmic person uniting all persons, one cosmic humanity uniting all humanity, one Christ in whom God will be all in all.
When I was doing the presentation with Soren at the Center of Living Wisdom in Aahus, they ended the evening with a beautiful prayer. I later found out it was very famous, written by Alice Bailey of the Theosophical Society, and used by folks of many traditions who believe in a universal teacher who will come in some form––the second coming of Christ, the Lord Maitreya, the Imam Mahdi, the Messiah. I couldn’t find anything in it that was problematic. So, if you don’t know it, I leave it with you here as a great Advent prayer for anyone of any tradition, who is looking forward to the unfolding of the evolutionary process of matter and consciousness for the good of the cosmos, through Beauty, Truth and Goodness, seeds of the Word wherever they may fall.
From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let light stream forth into human minds.
Let Light descend on Earth.
From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth into human hearts.
May the Coming One return to Earth.
From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide all little human wills -
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.
From the centre which we call the human race
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.
Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.
