I am one of the most un-rhythmic people I know - my life is like reading a good book but you keep losing your place. I need a book mark, and a way to remember what I’ve read and where I am in life. Maybe you are like me.
Others are rhythmic to a point of tedium. T.S. Eliot writes of his regimented rather than rhythmic culture in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”
Let us go then, you and I,
when the evening is spread out against the sky
like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go through… streets that follow like a tedious argument….
To lead you to an overwhelming question…
Do I dare disturb the universe?
For I have known them all already, known them all:
have know evenings, mornings, and afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
How do you measure out your life? Meetings, weekends, parties, dates, nights out, nights in, vacations, classes, holidays, sports… I’m not sure if any of these are much more nurturing for the soul’s rhythm than coffee spoons. At least, by following these lesser rhythms, we don’t have to worry about disturbing the universe.
Jesus, however, the Ultimate Disturber, seemed to judge his culture based upon their chosen rhythm. Using a dance analogy, he scolded the “keepers of societal rhythm” for their lack of imagination and unwillingness to join in the rhythm of God:
To what can I compare this generation?
They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:
We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.”
(St. Matthew 11:16-17)
Jesus’ generation did not hear God’s rhythms. Whether John the Baptist’s mournful tune and Jesus’ party mix, they simply didn’t dance. They just sat there and measured out their lives in the first century equivalent of coffee spoons. They followed a societal rhythm that was leading to them to death rather than life.
It seems that whatever dictates our rhythms has claim on our soul. If your driving rhythm is work, then work has your soul. If your driving rhythm is a relationship, then that has your soul. To live by a rhythm other than God’s is like trying to learn to dance without listening to the music, doing the polka to Earth, Wind & Fire.
To what shall I compare this generation?
Those who seek to follow the ways of God have always found and nurtured God’s rhythm in life. Embedded in our design and brought to consciousness in the generation of The Exodus, our Sacred Scriptures offer us three Divine Rhythms:
I am going to rain bread from heaven for you,
and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for the day. (Exodus 16:4)
Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.
Six days you shall labor and do all your work.
But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord... (Exodus 20:8-10)
Three times in the year you shall hold a festival for me. (Exodus 23:14)
In these Divine Rhythms we find our soul: a daily rhythm to remind us of our dependence, a weekly rhythm to offer us rest, and a seasonal rhythm to instill in us hope. May we find ourselves as we dance mightily within our Holy Design becoming dancers and poets of the soul and not simply mindlessly keeping in step with the latest rhythm.
Soul poets embrace hope that God’s rhythm – unlike our own – is always on time, always in perfect measured beat to his purposes.
– Joy Sawyer, Dancing to the Heartbeat of Redemption
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
God Bless the Cougher
This morning, I almost said “God bless you” to a young woman coughing. It was an involuntary impulse that was only narrowly averted by voluntary restraint. That got me thinking…
Why do we say “God bless you” to a sneeze but not a cough? A cough is routinely the vocal evidence of an illness. It could be the visible result of an invisible killer, like tuberculosis. It could reveal a person who should be home in bed but is forced to be in public (is this case, serving me coffee) because they can’t afford to miss work lest the baby starve! Disease! Poverty! Outside of the benign tickle in the throat, the tell-tale cough has a sordid story, to be sure. I think we could make an easy case for blessing the cougher.
Now, a sneeze may be a symptom of something sinister as well, but it is often produced by too much pepper. It doesn’t matter, though; the blessings come freely without judgment. That is my point. Like my 6 year-old son who demands a “Bless me!” response after every sneeze, who wouldn’t want to be blessed when they coughed as well as sneezed?
Offering a blessing is a wonderful thing. Given the opportunity, I oblige my son and the stranger in the airport with equal enthusiasm. When else do you offer such positive words to people you’ve never met? That’s why I think we ought to include coughs in our blessing repertoire. Maybe we could say “peace be on you” instead, but it offers the same kind of welcome sacred response.
Why stop at coughs? What about hiccups? Burps are clearly too unsocial (at least in the West) to provide such a holy opportunity with a straight face, but hiccups have potential. We’re already armed with a host of cures to try. Why not offer a blessing instead?
We’ve all heard the etymology of the “God bless you”. Apparently superstitious theologians of the middle ages thought that the sneeze opened the soul’s door for some roaming demon to enter. This naturally warranted the blessing of God for protection. There was no dichotomy of body and spirit in those days. The sneeze threw back the curtain and reminded anyone within earshot that blessings were desperately needed and the words offered by the immediate community were the ordained vehicle. It wasn’t about good health but about the human condition and the chance to participate in another’s salvation, if you will. They were actually protecting the souls of their sneezing comrades.
We don’t buy that anymore, of course. We bless the sneezer to be polite not to fight evil. But even that is rare chance to offer something to a stranger as well as a friend; a welcome opportunity for words that mean to bless, comfort, and connect.
Who wouldn’t want more of that?
Why do we say “God bless you” to a sneeze but not a cough? A cough is routinely the vocal evidence of an illness. It could be the visible result of an invisible killer, like tuberculosis. It could reveal a person who should be home in bed but is forced to be in public (is this case, serving me coffee) because they can’t afford to miss work lest the baby starve! Disease! Poverty! Outside of the benign tickle in the throat, the tell-tale cough has a sordid story, to be sure. I think we could make an easy case for blessing the cougher.
Now, a sneeze may be a symptom of something sinister as well, but it is often produced by too much pepper. It doesn’t matter, though; the blessings come freely without judgment. That is my point. Like my 6 year-old son who demands a “Bless me!” response after every sneeze, who wouldn’t want to be blessed when they coughed as well as sneezed?
Offering a blessing is a wonderful thing. Given the opportunity, I oblige my son and the stranger in the airport with equal enthusiasm. When else do you offer such positive words to people you’ve never met? That’s why I think we ought to include coughs in our blessing repertoire. Maybe we could say “peace be on you” instead, but it offers the same kind of welcome sacred response.
Why stop at coughs? What about hiccups? Burps are clearly too unsocial (at least in the West) to provide such a holy opportunity with a straight face, but hiccups have potential. We’re already armed with a host of cures to try. Why not offer a blessing instead?
We’ve all heard the etymology of the “God bless you”. Apparently superstitious theologians of the middle ages thought that the sneeze opened the soul’s door for some roaming demon to enter. This naturally warranted the blessing of God for protection. There was no dichotomy of body and spirit in those days. The sneeze threw back the curtain and reminded anyone within earshot that blessings were desperately needed and the words offered by the immediate community were the ordained vehicle. It wasn’t about good health but about the human condition and the chance to participate in another’s salvation, if you will. They were actually protecting the souls of their sneezing comrades.
We don’t buy that anymore, of course. We bless the sneezer to be polite not to fight evil. But even that is rare chance to offer something to a stranger as well as a friend; a welcome opportunity for words that mean to bless, comfort, and connect.
Who wouldn’t want more of that?
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