Today, if you hear his voice

A Friday Poem (and an endorsement for the Comfort Retreat)

Some context

I wrote this poem at the Comfort Retreat last year. We spent a good part of the day groping inthe spiritual dark for something to hold on to. We found it in each others hands and our own hearts. we found it in shared songs and stories. We found it in showing the tenderest parts of ourselves to the Light and expecting the healing that is promised there.

The original draft had the word “pinkening” in it. As in “turning pink” but I decided not to be so bold as Billy Shakespeare and invent another word. My first audiences, couldn’t get the context of the vision of a lake at dusk, unleashing its vapors as the temperature changed. I hope you can fit this poem into your context, and that you sign up for the Comfort Retreat on June 6, at circleofhope.net/shop. Our friends, Angie and Jordan, have ways to lead us through a morning together. We won’t be on zoom the whole time, of course. They will help us choose and create a space for time alone with return to the larger group online.

Learning What I Don’t Know
(At the Comfort Retreat)

This evening pond now pink with eyes aloft
Pours whispers up from dreams I had put down
Like days disappearing into soft, soft
Uncreased sheets of darkest blue from which sounds
Don’t come but in which presence whispers true.
Now rising endless up above the trees,
Unmaking what I see and hear and do,
And showing more than eyes and ears perceive —
A wafting more than anything. Unsaid,
Unheard and yet the truth of you and me;
Somewhere between the living and the dead,
Someone repeating sweet things on his knees
I look at more than could be rightly here,
I feel at what I love and hope and fear.

You can listen to me read it here

The Mental Health Benefits of Circle of Hope

It seems to me that it is common to separate the mental health benefits of participation in our church from the other things we do to gain and maintain our mental health. We go to therapy, we practice mindfulness, we exercise, we do yoga, we journal… oh! and I guess there’s church, too. I don’t think most of my incredible partners would ever say, “Circle of Hope is not a benefit to my mental health.” By no means! They would say the opposite if asked. But I don’t think we are always asking. Church is not part of the mainstream conversation about good mental health regimens. This blog post aims to make what is implicit and fairly obvious, explicit and very obvious.

Why don’t we think of church as part of our mental health?

Church is less marketable – It’s not like people haven’t tried (and succeeded) at making a lucrative business out of the Gospel. But true discipleship doesn’t really sell that well. Love your enemies, bless those who persecute you, share everything in common, discipline your appetites. These are not blockbuster sentiments. It’s hard to sell a free gift. And really, it’s things that are bought and sold that get the world’s first attention. If the church is not on the open market it must not be important. I don’t think it will be too hard for us to resist this temptation, but we must accept that ours is a quiet revolution — unlikely to be televised and trumpeted by those whose eyes are trained on the big money.
Because it is not a technique – One way “Self-Help” and other beneficial practices like mindfulness and yoga have gotten onto the tips of our tongues when we think about our mental health is that they are techniques that can be mastered and practiced, and they have been marketed as such. There is great appeal to learning the moves, and conditioning our minds. These are good things to do, but they center the individual as the master of their fate. Take your life back. That sounds like winning! The messy, and often difficult, way of living and loving in Christian community doesn’t seem nearly as easy — and it’s kind of all over the place. There might be a thing or two we can learn form the clear paths that have been made by folks who teach these techniques, but maybe not. Our question is “How can the most excellent way of Love, as Paul describes it in 1 Corinthians 13, be lifted up as the most excellent way to mental health?” I think love in Christian Coimmunity definitely leads to mental health, but it is a way of life, not a technique; and it can be somewhat unwieldy.
The cure is communal and cannot be done in isolation – It’s being together that really has the biggest impact on our mental health. We are part of a community that cares about us. Our cells and congregations are sized so that you can be known face to face. You can find acceptance for who you are right now. But, of course, that requires the risk of being with others. You could have any number of reasons why that is hard for you. I say it’s worth the effort and the risk, and the faith it takes to trust others is the same faith it takes to trust God. The community is a proving ground for our trusting and a place for healing hearts that have experienced a lot of broken trust.
Mutuality is required and requirements are hard when you are hurting – In Circle of Hope we help one another process the inevitable conflict that comes with being closely related. We are taught to relate in ways that help us recover from trauma. And if you are hurting, the mutuality that can be such a source of healing can seem like an impossible demand. It’s hard. I can’t say it isn’t, but I will vouch for its efficacy.
Somewhere along the lines church and psychology got in a fight – I don’t know enough about it to expound upon it, but somehow a significant number of Christians decided that psychology was against God. I still meet people who have been told that to seek the help of a professional therapist is a faithless act. Ugh. We are doing our best to de-stigmatize professional counseling and we dedicate a significant portion of our budget to subsidize counseling at the counseling center founded by one of our pastors. Circle Counseling is amazing!

So if you are working on gaining or maintaining your mental health (especially in quarantine)…

Invest in the church! Invest in your relationship with God! Of course Jesus can heal you in supernatural ways, but the simplicity of life together ought not to be overlooked. The Church is a great source of mental health resources. I am particularly glad that Circle of Hope is trying to be a psychologically healthy church. And to that end we have compiled a list of resources for you and our community wayofjesus.circleofhope.net/wind/mentalhealth. May we find our way together through this mess and beyond.

How Does a Christian Celebrate Memorial Day?

During the Covid 19 pandemic should we hit the boardwalk or stay at home? Are the CDC and the government our only authorities? What does Jesus say? And in any Memorial Day, how do we relate to those who died in war and their families while also resolving to decry the existence of war? Jesus makes our purpose more clear when it comes to war than when it comes to the pandemic, but it all requires resolve and dialogue — and above all, LOVE.

Forcing It – a Friday sonnet

My poet’s pen is a bit dried up of late. Not sure why. This poem form last year gets at some of the feelings of trying to make something happen that isn’t happening. I like the suggested submission to the concrete shards on the urban beach most. Something about smoothed over brokenness seems to be needed right now, at least in me.

Forcing it

I threw a rotting catfish from the shore
Beneath Tacony and Palmyra Bridge
Because I didn’t want the fly and gore
Assault on my contriving hermitage —
Of rivershine views from my driftwood seat
With bright sun strobing off rippling peaks.

My pen is poised on journal page to mete
Out ev’ry chance sublimity I seek.

The rounded concrete shards, a pebble beach
Below me, listen for a word from God,
But they are better chosen for the speech –
My thoughts are gravely too, but broke for laud.

This poem cannot make the river wide,
And that flung fish will come back with the tide.

September 2019

Poem and image by Ben White

What if online church sucks?

This is objectively not the same

What if online church sucks? I don’t think there is any question that this sucks. I know, I probably shouldn’t say “sucks”, but if you just want to suck your teeth at the prospect of your next zoom cell meeting, or live stream Sunday meeting, trust me; you are not alone. I think a lot of my friends are feeling the suck, the sap, the drain of church in the Quarantimes.

Quarantimes Church Timeline

The past 50+ days have gone something like this for me:

What, the church is going to meet on YouTube live?! Ew, gross! That goes against the whole point of being the church. How can we be face to face through a screen?
Whoa, that wasn’t as bad as I thought. I actually felt something when we prayed/worshiped/chatted in the comments. I wasn’t expecting that.
2b. But also whoa, what am I supposed to do with my kids when this thing is happening?
[Raising fist to the sky defiantly] I ain’t gonna let no virus separate me from my community. How many apps can I download? What is Marco Polo? Oh, this is cool. Hi friends!
It’s Holy Week! Yes! We’re actually doing this thing. #sacredspot is really cool and I am actually doing this breath prayer thing. I feel connected.
Resurrection! Missing out on Easter traditions is a major loss, but Jesus IS still alive, I’m holding on to that.
Ok… now what? This isn’t over yet? Dang.
“Zoom Fatigue,” “The Great Disruption,” “#Classof2020”
I haven’t really “done church” for a while. And I don’t want to. Lemme just hunker down.

I think there was a flurry of enthusiasm at the beginning (or was that just me and my pastor friends who were animated to meet the challenge?) And now the reality of another month of shelter in place, and maybe going through the end of the year without meeting in large gatherings — this is hitting hard. How can we make it through this?

Let’s just name it and trust God

You don’t really have to overcome your fears. Not everyone is David slaying a giant. You don’t have to become a hero and triumph over all these icky feelings. The way you feel is the way you feel. There is, however, a kind of subtle shift that can happen when we name those feelings and hold them with Jesus. Taking the pause to reflect and describe the feelings clearly makes space between our selves and the feelings themselves. That little gap is big enough for the Holy Spirit to get into. The feelings don’t go away, but the presence of Jesus gets in there, and then — the subtle shift. Then comes the ability to persevere, the extra well of gentleness and kindness for yourself and others, the joy despite your consideration of all the facts, the peace that surpasses all understanding. The Holy Spirit is like a dandelion, only needing that small crack to grow roots in and eventually spread on the wind to ever greener plot of grass on which you cast your eyes.

Because, again, this does suck

I’ve said for years that the pilgrimage we take to show up at our cell meetings, and Sunday meetings is so significant. “You made it!” is such a shout of victory sometimes. That embodied togetherness does so much for us, and those who are part of a church have come to rely on it. I give my one friend a hard time because she always answers my “How ya doing?” with “I’m here.” I always wanted more of an answer — more than just her presence. but now, in the Quarantimes, I am elevating her former “here-ness” for sheer lack of it. In our collective absence from one another, “I’m here” would be great — and not just for me and my need for connection, but for her and all the unconscious ways our togetherness buoys her and her faith.

We have to do everything on purpose now

Much of what happened before our separation could happen implicitly. A gentle shoulder squeeze as I passed by could communicate more than a million zoom calls. Being together on a screen, either at the Sunday meeting or in a cell meeting, now requires a lot of will. We are still creating a new habit, for one, but we are also relating in an environment that demands cognition almost exclusively. We are talking, and listening mostly — tasks which are harder in this context. All of our energy is getting sucked out by the mental processes of this foreign form of communication. Don’t they say that body language is more than half of communication? Well, we’re only half talking then. We’re only half together. Overcoming that limitation is really demanding. if you’re feeling it, I’m feeling it with you. Our bodies aren’t breathing together. Our spirits aren’t feeling each other. There is so much that happens when humans are in the same room. And now we are not in the same room with anyone but our families. And for those of us who live alone, it’s no one, EVER.

We have to do our relating on purpose. We have to focus so much on just being present when we are relating on a screen. We can’t depend on our physical presence to communicate our love to others. We can’t enjoy the power of just showing up to communicate something about our faith to ourselves.

But it’s worth it. Do it with me, please

I want to have a church when this is over. I am almost positive we will, but the threat is real. Falling out of practice, is falling out of faith. Practice and faith — the two go hand in hand. The new habits required to be the church require a lot from all of us. In the grand scheme of things, though 50 days feels like forever, it is a relatively short period of time. We have not been able to adjust to this way of relating. For most of this thing, we have held out hope that it would soon be over. For the past few weeks at least, I have been settling into the fact that it will not soon be over. Restrictions may ease, but I do not foresee Circle of Hope meeting at 3800 Marlton Pike for several more months if not through to the beginning of next year. With that immediate future stretching out before us (and praying for the shorter end of the prognosis), we must learn these new ways of being the body. Yes, they are not as good. No, I do not like them either.

Let’s name the problems and get practical about solving them. Let’s lament the loss and allow the Holy Spirit to get between us and our sorrow to make something new. Let’s tune into the joy of our community’s creativity and perseverance. Let’s do our purpose on purpose, because that’s how we have to do it now. There are so many ways we are being the church in spite of this separation. Tell me a story in the comments or email me. How are you seeing the church be the church in the Quarantimes?

Holy Geese

Revisitation

Our breath prayer in Circle of Hope this week has been “Holy Sprit/Open our hearts.” It reminded me of this poem and reflection from a few years back. I’ve now recorded it and added it to my soundcloud.

From 2016:

I don’t think I can tell people enough that in Celtic iconography the Holy Spirit is often represented as a wild goose. To the Celts of ancient Ireland and Scotland, Ah Geadh-Glas (Wild Goose) was a more apt description of their experience of the Holy Spirit. How caged and docile is your experience with the Holy Spirit, how unlike a dove?

I’m sure if I studied the mourning doves that come to the feeder in my back yard I could find the appropriate mystery and wildness in them too, but geese have just spoken to me more in my life.

I started my early rising prayer life at Eastern University with the Canada Geese on the pond there. I trained the ducks to eat out of my hand, but the geese would have nothing to do with me. Only the nesting mothers would allow me near them and they scared me with their violent hisses. I’ve come back to the morning geese this fall because, again, I live by a pond (though this one calls itself a lake).

The geese are there waiting for me when I rise and then I wait for them to leave the water, which they do every morning in the fall. Watching and waiting for them to go is the most wondrous part of them. It’s the thing about them that makes them best in my opinion to tell the Holy Spirit’s story. The geese talk about leaving for a while and the interval of conversation is not always the same. At first I thought it must be the angle of the sun–they usually leave soon after the sun crests whatever treeline it rises over, but as I paid attention I could tell that it wasn’t nearly so exact.

The fun of it is I can tell when they are leaving but I’m never sure of the moment they will go. They flick their heads and grunt at each other, seemingly consulting one another about the every day revelation that it is time to fly to the best grass nearby. Scientists have studied this phenomenon and measured it. One study reported that this period of consultation lasted anywhere from nine to twenty-two minutes.

The wild goose then is a perfect symbol for the Holy Spirit because they are common enough (At least in Ireland and Scotland and Haddon Township, NJ where I live ), but they are also unpredictable and elusive. They can even bite you. Following the Holy Spirit can feel like an actual wild goose chase, yes, but if we give up trying to catch Her and instead be contented in watching and listening when She happens to be there in the morning (and who knows for how long?), we will love Her and She will shape us. And in many, many mornings She will still be wild but we may just be tamed.

Here’s a poem I wrote for Her.

Ah Geadh-Glas

O Holy Sprit, Ah Geadh-Glas,
I am familiar with your leavings,
Though uncertain of your path.

I could tire of the finding–
Leave your joy here in the grass,
But I’ll marvel at your going,
Water-walking noisy splash!

And I’ll wonder at your flying.
Flocked with kin above me, pass!
Make me happy, wild and singing,
O Holy Spirit, Ah Geadh-Glas!

You can listen to me read it here

Poem and image by Ben White

Turning to Before and Behind — A Friday Sonnet

Proper Labyrinth Care

On my parents’ property in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, we built a labyrinth with demarcating stones in a clearing by the gravel road that encircles the lake called Hallowood above which the house sits. I use the possessive personal generously to include myself, for I only helped a little. It was definitely a group project, even if my mom and dad were the main contributors of sweat. There is no sweat contribution needed now, but the project is ongoing. The labyrinth needs to be walked. The labyrinth needs to be prayed. The labyrinth needs to be physically tended by grass-treading feet, stone-replacing hands and stick-removing eyes. The labyrinth will be swallowed by the woods if it is not walked, prayed and tended — all of which are simply done by doing.

The added attention the walking requires in early Spring amplified my prayer as I walked it yesterday. The moss had covered a rock or two. Something had displaced or shifted several of the line stones from their guidance. It was most likely the grandchildren of the labyrinth who walked the way with me, trouncing over the lines as if it didn’t matter (It doesn’t, really; it’s the walking that matters). But it seemed that Winter might have been the culprit somehow, or maybe even emerging Spring. I crouched to uncover hidden stones, and nudged as many drifting ones back into place as I could, placing my feet between their glistening faces on the carpet of moss that was sponging up the Spring snow shower in which I walked. I crouched less often to remove the many sticks that had fallen along the path. I only stooped for the most obnoxious trespassers because there were many and my plodding progress was required for this meditation.

There was power in the walking and the making. Maintaining the physical space added a concreteness to my prayer. This is the main feature of walking a labyrinth in the first place, but it was even better to make the way for future me and future loved ones to walk it, especially for the grandchildren of the labyrinth (my children) who mostly miss what I am doing when I take this journey to the center. One day, I pray they know the power that can be met person-to-person using this walking tool along with many others. Until that day, and for that future — and toward it — in me and them, — I’ll walk it every time I’m here.

I wrote a poem from this moment. I took the photo above in anticipation of what might be said in this sonnet.

Turning Before and Behind

for Ernest Hilbert, a Philly/South Jersey boy like me

Walking the labyrinth and tending the stones,
Tossing the sticks to the side in a crouch.
A bend here, careful mossy step there,
Turning corners with my real flesh and bones —
Making way for making ways to vouch
Safe for Thee my heart. For I’ve none to spare.
Wending in, then unwinding out around —
Deeper, further; wider, nearer; then and now,
Watching step and stone, caring not to miss
A moment or a misplaced line I’ve found,
And knowing as I do it’s walking how
We make the way upon our Way. It’s this:
This wending and tending. Winding to find
In the turning You’re before and behind.

As always, you can listen to me read it here

Tumbled Open Good Friday Prayer

It’s Good Friday. I wrote us a poem that’s also a prayer. Hope on a death day. Jesus was the first one, but now they are all that for those who are in Christ. One of Circle of Hope’s blogs celebrates death days of those who have gone before — Celebrating Our Transhistorical Body . Today, April 10th, we remember Howard Thurman. Join me in this prayer, you can hear me read it below.

Tumbled Open Good Friday Prayer

Graves tumbled open the day that you died,
And darkness fell down where noon used to shine.
The temple shook and all were welcome inside.
Erased, cracked or broken you made every line,
Between death and life, between dark and light;
Between in-and-out, between right and might.

You reversed our reversals; gave us much more —
So much more than we hoped for. What had you done?
How could we see that your death was a door?
And how can we follow where your victory’s won?
We could die even now, here as we breathe,
And then again, out beyond our own breath’s reprieve.

We will see what it’s like to live on forever,
We will know what we look like with you in our eyes;
We too will tumble and darkness will never
Bring sorrow and sadness, loud angry cries,
But not without now, not some not-here place,
No escape yet from sorrow, no exit but grace.

Poetry and images by Ben White

Swallows Show — A Saturday Sonnet

Looking out the window

Dear friends, since the Covid 19 quarantine began, I have spent a lot of time sitting at a little desk I put in my bedroom (now office). My lovely little room has windows which face the lake on which I live. Newton Lake in spring and summer is home to a colony of tree swallows which dart across the water in the morning and evening in dizzying patterns. They make me feel big inside. They “make the water wide” I say in the poem below. Newton Lake is really rather small, and I feel small sometimes too — constricted on the inside; longing for wider spaces, deeper breaths. I find myself wanting more of something specific and external, and everything that is intrinsically me all at the same time. Creating space inside ourselves for such colliding thoughts to hold their own flight patterns is crucial to the spiritual life. I hope this poem helps you feel that even slightly as much as the swallows help me to feel it.

Swallows Show

The swallows have returned to Newton Lake
To make the water wide from bank to bank
And give a show of living for your sake–
An iridescent praise, a flight of thanks,
A sweeping burst of joy made for your eyes,
For narrow squinting eyes. Now ask how do
They fly to make all those inches realize
Their depth, and the air its true thickness through
The circling swim of a dance just above
The shimmering below. Making wide, too,
Somewhere in you. Some inside dreaming of
A flight like these — so close, so quick, so you,
So far, so flung, so open with your doors,
There’s breath to breathe and sky to fly — there’s more.

As always, you can listen to me read it here

Alas – A Sonnet for the party we will have

Rainy Day Longing

I sat down this morning and looked out my bedroom window to the rainy water of Newton Creek and wished with all the melancholy of the gray day to be rid of this virus. “Alas” was the word for the feeling. Almost all sigh with a hint of french pity in it’s roots. The perfect word wanted more than just disappearance, the fantasy wandered to the sea and a beach party it seems. It felt good to imagine the future. In the wake of the reverie about God knows how many tomorrows from now, I had a longing feeling that landed again on “Alas.” However, giving my heart to words made me feel less alone.

Alas

Could the spring rain but wash this all away
And make a summer feast so full of love
It spills its season’s banks right into May!
And to pandemic’s fear, a jaunty shove,
Or surge of tide to float this out to sea.
Can falling rain replace the falling sky?
And dancing limbs crowd in again so free —
A swirling wash of salty sway and cry
Made loud and bright — bass, treble up to thump,
Feet, knees and necks, lips , breath and lifted hands,
All these abreast in rhythmic wave and bump.
I’d give up lots to get down with that band,
But May will not be long enough to say, “At last!”
So with mournful sigh (with those who mourn) I say, “Alas!”

March 28. 2020 — Image and Poem by Ben White

You can listen to me read it here

Poolside – a love poem to many moments and a prayer

Poolside

Heat baking up
Through terry cloth towel —
Drying me up as the sun dried me down.
And red-yellow dancers
Amorphously moved
Between the backs of my eyelids and eyes.
Seal slick hair,
Tufting up in the air
As I turned back from fish into boy.
Sometimes so hot
If I lay there too long
I’d roll right back into the pool.
It must be just right
This transforming heat —
A boy body needs fine attention.
And nothing is new
With memories so old —
I still need that warm transformation.

You can listen to me read it here

The Sudden Silences — a Friday Sonnet

The actually physiology of your ears might help you pray in silence. I’m intensifying my contemplative prayer practice during Lent and thinking about how to get above, below or behind the chatter of my churning brain. It has to do with hearing the silence for me. It has to do with tuning in to the sound of quiet, listening to my inhale, listening to my exhale, and letting everything I’ve heard lead me to a state of mind and heart in which I know God is very near. I’m not just trying not to think or speak, I’m trying to listen to things I don’t always hear. I need a daily reminder that I can hear more than I hear and see more than I see. I need to make regular contact with the infinite love that propels my life. The meditation can start with what I’m actually hearing. My experience in contemplative prayer is an occasional sudden woosh of quiet in which the Fullness fills me. Only onomatopoeia serves to describe the sudden sound of silence that precedes my most conscious presence to the Presence. If I remember similar sounds of sudden silence it helps me skip through the initial stage of settling I must pass through every time I sit. Here is a poem to honor those sounds and maybe push my readers through whatever stops them from hearing and seeing more than they yet know they can.

The Sudden Silences

The moment when the starlings start to fly
A sudden hush fills ears to empty brims,
As trees spill noisy swarms into the sky,
Now silenced by their million-feathered wind.

The moment when you surface from the wave–
Quick roar and dive replaced by quiet now,
This loud emergence from the barrel’s cave,
When soundless voice of awe suggests you bow.

The moment when the fading ember tone
Of singing bowl’s long resonance goes out,
And I am left with silent thoughts alone
To snuff, so I can hear the Silence shout.

These moments come to mind and ear, thank God,
To aid my aim to trust Thy staff and rod.

You can listen to me read it here

Images and poem by Ben White

First Flight – another Friday Sonnet

Here’s a sonnet trying to capture a moment and make it more than it was, and exactly what it was. It was with a bird, of course. Happy Friday!

First Flight

The hawk’s flight flew me as we went along
Together for a pair of football fields
In perfect flapping union. I’m not wrong
To say so even though I had to yield
To traffic as he whirled away from view
And my quick craning neck could Oh! But catch
A fading sense of where he must have flew.
But let my mind be forever feather etched,
May flying be remembered as my own,
May that correlation of car and wing
Persist among the things my heart has known,
And may whizzing wheels forever sing
Of more than locomotion on a road —
Of soaring joy and glory overflowed.

You can listen to me read it here

https://soundcloud.com/benwhitepoetry/first-flight-a-sonnet-by-ben

Poem and image by Ben White

Master, where are you staying?

If Unseen

Man turning around on the street,

What did you forget?

Unaware I’m watching,

You skip

The show that lets us know

You aren’t a lunatic.

No finger to your temple,

No shoulders shrugged,

Or arms outstretched,

No palm to the forehead,

Or even an expression.

You just turn around

To get your keys,

Or find your government ID.

No one’s watching you but me

And you can’t see I see —

Or maybe you don’t care?

And if that’s the case,

Master, where are you staying?

You can listen to me read it here

Sleepwalkers – a Friday Sonnet

Sleepwalkersfor George MacDonald
When darkness burns a hole in all our views,
And knowledge-ash-curled edges seed dismay,
Can we know anything we know we knew?
Will you show us all and call this today?
We see few truths with heartless, burned out eyes;
Twice-seared with every disappointment first,
And second by the fire’s condemning lies.
These leave us twice blind with nothing but thirst
To guide us stumbling on dark wisdom’s feet;
We’re senselessly grasping all with death’s grip,
Our sockets sooted, our hearts incomplete,
Mistakenly naming as oceans each drip.
Dawn bright, O Dayspring, name this as night–
Shine on and show us how shadowed our sight.

Poem and photo by Ben White (Thanks to Gwyneth White for her assistance)

You can listen to me read it here

https://soundcloud.com/benwhitepoetry/sleepwalkers-a-sonnet-by-ben

How do Yoga and Christianity Intersect?

Talking about Yoga with Some Christian Yogis (#kamikazeyogi)

I’ve been looking for someone like the Reverend Kevin Flynn, an Anglican priest from Canada who practices yoga and writes about it. Yoga is a major part of the life of many people I love, and many people in the region to which God has sent me. I need help developing the theology of the intersection between Yoga and Christianity. I have tried yoga some, especially through the influence of my friend Anita Grace Brown. For Lent one year I listened most mornings to her podcast It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere in which she offers guided meditations with body movement suggestions. I liked the physical submission of doing what I was told in my earbuds and the variation of prayer, which was both distinct and similar to my usual practice of stillness and contemplation. It was a great way to focus.

Not surprisingly, Anita and I talk about this intersection all of the time. This week, she shared this post with me from Flynn, World religions: Christian Approaches and Reflections on his website christianspracticingyoga.com. Anita is writing a book about her experience with Jesus and yoga called Kamikaze Yogi. I can’t wait to read it. It seems like she and Flynn are on the same wavelength, so I appreciate premeditating with this post.

How Inclusive is Jesus? (and How Exclusive are we?)

Flynn wants Christian to consider their posture toward other religions. He offers some common perspectives to help us identify. Anita and I are essentially always dancing around the divide between what Flynn calls the “Exclusivist View” and the “Inclusivist View.” Personally, for right now, I think I am closer to Flynn’s more generous subset of the “exclusivist” view, but I share his generosity and posture, or try to, toward other holy people.
This is Flynn’s paragraph that gets close to my perspective:

“A variant of [the exclusivist] view sees value in the human search for God but holds that God’s self-revelation in Christ fulfils and perfects these aspirations. This approach often speaks of non-Christian religions as “natural religions” and Christianity as “revealed religion.” While this variant ascribes real value to the natural religions, Christianity remains nevertheless inherently superior.” — Reverend Kevin Flynn

The language of superior or inferior is not quite right. I would say salvific or not salvific. The aim of Jesus is not well-being or holy living of his followers, though they are by-products of relationship with him. I don’t know how God will judge on the last day, so I don’t have to make any conclusions. In fact, Jesus tells me not to (Matthew 7:1-6); but I do know what Jesus said about himself and the great lengths that he went to in order to center himself as the means of salvation for all people. He seems to frustrate other paths intentionally, especially those which try to center religious practice. In the Gospels he seems like he really wants people to connect with him for who he is, not for what he offers. He wants a love connection, not a subscription to a system.

I want people to experience that connection with Jesus and I think anyone can through an explicit relationship with the real, living person Jesus is. He may be up to other things he didn’t talk about in scripture but these other ways are speculative. I’m a Bible guy, so I offer what I have been given without much sense of responsibility to codify things happening beyond that. Though I am intrigued and interested in the actual yogis I know, especially my friend, Anita, but also her friends and the others folks I’m always meeting. There are A TON of people interested in yoga, so I am interested too.

Following Paul in Athens (Acts 17 is the G.O.A.T.)

When it comes relating to World Religions I think a “yes, and” posture is the best. Like Paul in the Areopagus in Athens.

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

I would liken the technique of yoga to the gold or silver or stone in Paul’s speech, but not in a dismissive way (I don’t think Paul is being dismissive either). I see yoga as an amazing means for personal well-being made by human design and skill. At its best it brings people very near to an understanding of themselves as people who are in God — living and moving and having their beings. But the means of salvation which is Paul’s proclamation, and, according to Paul, God’s command, is that we need to repent — turn around. I think among the plurality of yogis I know, this repentance is turning from trusting the technique that they can control to trusting the living God that gives them the breath that leads their focused movement. Unfortunately, yoga in the United States is more often than not a commodity to be sold. The product is self-control, which when submitted to the Body of Christ as a gift from the Holy Spirit is incredibly fruitful, but when wielded for purely personal well-being it ends up being another source of misery. It’s even worse when it is as a means of wealth generation alone. The maintenance of the tyranny of self that separates so many from God can be found as ubiquitously as the God who is “not far from any one of us.”

Thank God for Christian Yogis like Anita (and Kevin Flynn)

That’s why I’m so glad Anita is doing what she does. Yoga needs Jesus. But yes, the church also needs yoga, because the Western Church has been so dominated by Enlightenment rationality that many are divorced from their bodies completely and miss out on the wholeness of human experience that yoga undeniably affords many who practice it. Anita always says, “It’s East meets West.” God is doing a new thing. What Paul did in Athens was shocking then, so we must listen now to the Spirit and move with where God is moving next. Because God is not done calling all nations to himself, and humanity is still reaching out and finding him in surprising ways.

Is Love Enough? A Poetic Meditation

Will the simplicity of loving my neighbor communicate everything I want to tell the world about Jesus? Will it communicate the same to me? It seems too small, and my particular love seems especially too small. Can love be enough? Jesus says so, but wondering never hurt. This is a bit of a ditty with all it’s “rhymes with cheer” and “enoughs.” I wrote it at Camp Men-O-Lan on a retreat with the Leadership Team of Circle of Hope. Our agenda was loving each other as we enter our next era of leadership, and Circle of Hope’s Daily Prayer that morning had a quote from Teresa of Avila that I wanted to be true:

The surest way to determine whether one possesses the love of God is to see whether he or she loves his or her neighbor. These two loves are never separated. Rest assured, the more you progress in love of neighbor the more your love of God will increase.” — Teresa of Avila

You can hear me reading the poem on Soundcloud here.

https://soundcloud.com/benjamin-white-24/enough-of-love-a-poem-by-ben-white

Enough of Love?

Wondering if love can be enough–
Real enough, in-gear enough
To make the Presence clear enough–
Of God’s Come-Near-Us-Son?

If my little love coheres enough?
Have I made him our dear enough?
Do I revere enough
To heed my Peerless-One?

Wondering if I’m sincere enough,
When loving all those near enough,
To my expanding sphere enough,
To please my Dearest-One?

And will those I love have ear enough?
See him as premier enough?
Escape the cavalier enough
To open up and hear The-One?

Wondering if my heart appears enough
To see his eyes come clear enough–
Lifting us from drear enough.
To glimpse the Eyes-of-Care

Can I allow this love to steer enough?
Can I persevere enough?
Can he cast out my fear enough
For me to trust the Prize We Share?

Thanks for reading. I’d love your feedback.

A Poem for New Creation

Kainos Ktisis
(for Francis Quarles)

A fourth dimension that’s more than math,
And more than hypothetically true,
New Creation makes a walkable path
Through actual me and actual you,
Here and now revealed by an ancient holy one who
Let old things go and look! — everything has become new.

A feeling on the edge of what is known,
And always approximated by our speech;
There’s a light that’s glimmered more than shone
From sources just beyond our eyesight’s reach;
Another spectrum’s waves that Jesus takes us through–
The unnamed purple-black of death it took to make us new.

But somehow death did not prevail at all,
For the pale rays of that third day’s dawn
Saw colors once again beyond our awe,
Across the truest living human canvass drawn;
God painted beyond life and light for all on earth, not few;
When that living body shook the tomb to birth the new.

So with the urge to name your life with words
Or colors you can’t discern just yet,
Be ready with your joy for, no matter costs incurred,
The arrival of as good as it must get
Is not a foolish dream that won’t come true–
Old things have gone. Look! — everything has become new.

Listen to me read it here

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We’re studying 2 Corinthians 5 in Circle of Hope’s Sunday meetings. This is my inspiration for the week. Join us at 10:30 am in South Jersey (3800 Marlton Pike, Pennsauken NJ 08110), or 5 pm in our three Philly locations. Fishtown and South Philly have 7 pm meetings too. More at circleofhope.net/locations

New Birds — a poem

New Birds

The low, pink-gold light
of an evening in winter
Made new birds in the tree
Behind my house.

Standing underneath and looking up,
I was astonished by
Their tropical candescence,
Bright bursts of feathers on their breasts
Which glowed like embers
As they flitted westward,
Following the pull of the Brightness
which had lain itself bare
upon their transformed bodies.

A sharing of brilliance,
Unassuming to them and almost
Baffling to me;
Do I know these birds–
Do I know this tree–
How can this be?

(photo and poem by Ben White)

You can listen to me read it here

Four Advent Sonnets

Four Advent Sonnets for my 2019 Christmas Story

Ever since I was seven years old I have written a Christmas story with my family. This is a cherished tradition. I invite you into my living room to share in what I wrote this year. Advent has traditional characters that help us walk through the active wait of the season. The Prophets, John the Baptist, Mary and sometimes Joseph, and the Shepherds. Each personage in their ordinariness helps us embrace the grand miracle of the incarnation. As part of my meditations this year, I wrote these Four Advent Sonnets . Their form is the Petrarchan Sonnet which has a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBACDDECE. I like the puzzle of finding words that fit the form and the opportunity to embrace the paradox of the God-Man, Jesus Christ, but juxtaposing language and images in provocative and hopefully revealing constellations. Each poem is preceded by a short explanatory paragraph which may very well be superfluous.

Week One

I like to be like more than I like to be liked. Discovering my theological bedfellows in the ancient and recent past gives me so much hope. When my inspiration matches someone from years ago and miles away; when people I never met but in their books are my brothers and sisters in Christ; I know that the Holy Spirit is alive and moving. How else could we be of one mind and heart across these impossible divides? We are on a big team of hope. Among others, my time includes those listed in the poem: Gerard Manley Hopkins, Isaiah son of Amoz, George MacDonald, Moses the Israelite, Clive Staples (C.S.) Lewis, Miriam the Prophetess, Francis of Asissi, Menno Simmons, Amos of Tekoa, John the Revelator, Flannery O’Connor, and Julian of Norwich.

Prophets: Old Friends for New Foes

Thanks be to you, women and men of old
Who find me when I find you there beneath
Your dusty, years-worn, paper jacket sheaths.
The words I read are slicing knives through cold
Of lies so lonely and benumbed, yet told
As if they’re true by thief after lying thief.
Come now again to take truth from their teeth,
Incise the false and spit back truth so bold,

Gerard, Isaiah, George, Moses and Clive,
O Miriam, Frank, Menno, Amos, John
Sing, Flannery and Julian, your songs
The Spirit is resounding through these years,
Your brave imaginations help me dive
Into the fray of love’s defeat of fear.

Week Two

Relic radiation is the cosmic background radiation which is a remnant from the Big Bang according to scientific theory. In the 2000’s we actually measured the postulated frequencies. The data we measured are called acoustic peaks. In this poem I play with this idea, a bit like playing with fire since I have not studied it enough to fully comprehend it, and the thought that came to me as I drank coffee with a friend: The background music of the universe is love. The self giving of creation is from and for love. Jesus coming as Emmanuel is the completion of a long ago begun project to be face to face with the creation that began from “In the beginning God said let there be light,” and “In the beginning was the Word.”

John the Baptist: Making a Big Bang

The relic radiation’s cosmic hum
Is thrumming from the beginning of time
And ever since, through eons on the climb,
We try and try to make the numbers sum.
Acoustic peaks may fall and rise un-plummed
But I know it’s the sound of love they chime,
And you’re aware that love itself is prime,
See this is what made Zechariah dumb:

Love undivided in hís life could ring too–
His son now caught up by love’s long-held drone,
His wife now with child and his mouth a stone.
“His name is John,” unloosed his doubting tongue,
And leaping John leapt toward his Jordan blues
To tell his tribe how love himself would come.

Week Three

Our epistemology is completely jacked. We think we know so much more than we do, and we exclude whole swaths of knowing from the realm of knowledge. What a mess. I’ve learned this Advent that knowing is doing, loving is obedience, and loving and knowing go hand in hand. Mary’s yes and Joseph’s trust of his dream were unverifiable and undeniable at the same time.

Mary and Joseph: You Know You Know

Oh Mary, will they all disown you know?
When you won’t disavow your angel tryst?
Will they destroy your name if you insist
That screwed up story was from God somehow?
And Joseph, can a dream assuage your doubts?
May be and maybe not and maybe this:
Every hope you’ve had can be dismissed.

It doesn’t matter what it was about–
If visions, night-borne-angels, or your dreams–
Twas truth not proof that made you so unswerved
And faith that kept the promises preserved.
Twas hope that lit the room for your belief
And wonder still makes more things true it seems
Than any fact pretends it could conceive.

Week Four

There’s as much purple and blue in the color black as there is, if there is, any black at all. Black crayons, black paint, black markers are all shortcuts no true artists ought to take save for monochromatic studies. The night sky is alive with color you see. Shepherds looking up were best to believe the sky-borne angels because they knew more than most what night skies were capable of, from cold to hope and even desperation. That sort of looking is an art in itself.

Shepherds and Angels: Looking Long

The nights are growing shorter as our view
Of Venus creeps up closer in night’s plan.
Light star by star unwinds the blackest span
Of sky with washes deepest purple-blue.
Where careless eyes will not detect these hues
We must look up and long to understand;
We must long for morning even more than
Ideas sprung from all that we held true.

We must know how small is all we know.
Our hearts can tumble down as stars can fall–
As sometimes angels rip the midnight pall.
For eyes adept at looking up and long
Were once met by much more than nuanced glow,
When shepherd hearts were filled with heaven’s song.

Thanks for reading. Merry Christmas! (It’s the 10th day of Christmas today)