Earth Day recycling sculpture in front of Ithaca College's Handwerker Gallery

The Training

This is all about a tradition, a teaching that frames human life in this world in a different perspective.
As you read this it is important to remember that a "name" reflects the MISSION of that being here on Earth called "Father", and that the "church" is the assembly of those beings who are drawn to a source for understanding life in this world.

Play that again, please!

Our choir works hard to master hymns that may not be very familiar to the congregation to help us through the words and thoughts of these weekly mini-lessons. As Father Charles mentioned during the Annual Meeting, it is important to make full use of this ancient teaching device if we are to grow in love and understanding.
I was especially struck by the Hymn #302 that we sang that morning, for I had the impression that here was a basic teaching handed down by tradition from the earliest days. You can imagine how surprised I was to see in the notes at the bottom of the page that the words were a Greek verse from the year 111CE. As often happens to me in these cases, I had to do a fair amount of detective work to find out where these lines originated.
The translator, F. Bland Tucker, gave us an English version in 1895, just a few years after the discovery of a document we now call The Didache, a short tractate (tract) on Christian life that survived oblivion in an ancient library in Constantinople. According to a leading modern scholar "The Didache represents the preserved oral tradition whereby mid-first-century house churches detailed the step-by-step transformation by which gentile converts were to be prepared for full active participation in their assemblies". (Aaron Milavec,2003)
What we have in the verses of this hymn is an early version of the Eucharistic Prayer that we repeat each time we celebrate the Christian sacrifice. Listen again to the words as they are recorded in this "book of common prayer" of the Second Century:

10.2 We give thanks to you holy Father
for your holy Name which you have made to dwell in our hearts
and for the knowledge, faith and immortality which you have revealed to us
through Jesus your servant.
To you be glory for ever.
10.3 You Lord almighty
have created everything for the sake of your Name;
you have given human beings food and drink
to partake with enjoyment so that they might give thanks;
but to us you have given the grace of spiritual food and drink and of eternal life
through Jesus your servant.
10.4 Above all we give you thanks because you are mighty.
To you be glory for ever.
10.5 Remember Lord your Church,
to preserve it from all evil and to make it perfect in your love.
And, sanctified, gather it from the four winds
into your kingdom which you have prepared for it.
Because yours is the power and the glory for ever.
10.6 Let grace come and let this world pass away.
Hosanna to the house of David.
If anyone is holy let him come,
If anyone is not let him repent.
Maranatha.
Amen.

Now let's try that hymn once again, and see what treasures we can find buried in the notes and staffs of our musical heritage. According to Milavec, the Didache is more like a mnemonic path: not merely to be repeated but illustrated, inquired of, questioned, listened to, and challenged by each candidate in such a way that not only the words but also the deep meanings of the way to life were being suitably assimilated and applied at every step. Thus a new
way of life, the way of life imposed on the new Christian, is the core of the Didache, a
document that in this way becomes an important witness to the countercultural force of
early Christianity.

What's in a name?

Whenever we deal with things relating to the Spirit, we inevitably use an English proper noun: "God". We do it so frequently that we become desensitized to this name and fall back upon our earliest inklings if we try to find some meaning in it. Perhaps the great painters supply us with an image to anchor our concept of such a Being.
When Moses went up on the mountain and asked for a name from heaven he was told: "I AM THAT I AM". With time a considerable number of different attributions were developed by the Hebrews, as aids for their worship. While the priests used the four letter "tetragrammaton" YHVH in the Temple prayers and in study, by the time of the Talmud it was the custom to use substitute names like "Adonai" [Lord], or simply say "Ha-Shem" [lit. The Name].

What would happen if we did what the ancient Jews finally did and ceased using the traditional name altogether?
Look again at the Commandment: " You shall not misuse the name…." (Exodus 20:7 TNIV). Take this to heart and ponder its meaning.

The central metaphor of Christianity tells us "God is Love". Surprisingly, the Gospels refer only once or twice to this attribution. In the teachings of Jesus and the Letters of Paul the emphasis falls upon the manifestation of love in human experience. In order to make the concept of deity more concrete in our understanding it might be a worthwhile practice to consciously substitute the word "Love" for The Name each time we use it in prayer or study. We cannot depend on the insights of others to make clear to us the nature of the Supreme Being we worship. But if we are attentive to the subtle nuances of love, we can become more aware of this Unutterable Name, the center point of our religious heritage.

Summer Sunday at Home

My prize student is finishing up her summer in a flurry of activity She's learned a lot during the past year and I'm happy to present this painting as an example of her recent work.




Thanks, Clarissa!

HELPFUL GEORGE

George was always being helpful. Who could fault him for that? He'd probably been doing that since childhood. As the youngest of seven, with three older brothers, he was the baby of the family and lost his mother soon after he was born. Helping out the sister raising him and getting along with the brothers taught him how to make his way in life. It was a survival technique. He learned how to use it to gain control. It was a life-long tool.
Whenever someone brought up a plan or a desire helpful George jumped in. He'd do it for you. You wouldn't have to bother with that. Or he had a suggestion for a better way to accomplish what you wanted. "I'll take care of that for you" was his refrain. He used it often with my mother. He was so nice. Mother almost never ventured out from home without him. She always counted on his help for everything in life. It wasn't always that way for her, however. Before she married she was successful in her own right.
He went to work every day being helpful. He was a bank teller, helping people take care of their savings. Later on he moved up to helping other tellers do their work well, and helped the bank make the transition from hand-sorted punch cards to electronic processors. He ended his career in the same bank he started out in after High School, helping employees manage their personal affairs through various bank sponsored benefit plans.
He helped out with the Boy Scouts, he helped out in Sunday School and church affairs. As his own children moved away he helped them whenever they encountered financial difficulties. But that was it. If he couldn't help you he wasn't really interested in you. He was pretty much a closed book. He had no personal friends. He was not affectionate. Perhaps he was always helpful, but he was never there. How can virtues be so deviously disguised that we never realize how terribly handicapped we might be?

PINOCCHIO

It was diabolical, however he got there. He never did me any kindness, but then, of course, he wasn't a real person. But, somehow, in my imagination, and for the purpose of this essay, let's say he became a real boy.
All day long he sat in his favorite chair in the corner of my small, rather dark, bedroom. The muted tones of browns, reds, and yellows swallowed him sufficiently so that he was not immediately visible. You had to know he was there, otherwise he might surprise you with a hard poke of his wooden nose when you tried to sit in that chair. He never made room by scooting over so that you could sit comfortably with him in that child-sized, padded rocker.

He had teeth. You could stick your finger in and feel them, almost sharp, inside. And a tongue too, when you kissed him on the mouth. His big ears stuck out and didn't bend when you brushed by them. But what was most impressive about Pinocchio was his shiny black hair that was never out of place, and his wide-open eyes, blue and never blinking.

As long as you stayed up there, with the head and the face, you were safe. Safe, that is, unless you happened to catch a glimpse of it from the crib when it was almost dark and that wide grin assumed a more malevolent aspect. As soon as you began to explore his large body with your fingers however, you were in trouble. He seemed to bite no matter where you grabbed him. The worst punishment was meted out when you tried to pull him apart, for his joints opened up and then snapped shut when you let go. Getting pinched there was no fun!

He wore a black bow tie, that was soft and silky, but his shiny white collar and all the rest of his clothing, bright red shorts and yellow shirt, were molded and painted on his strong but hollow body. Arms and legs were articulated like a medieval knight's armor, and standing alone was just as difficult for him as it must have been for an unhorsed jouster. That's why he spent so much time in his chair.

I don't know why but I was constantly falling over him. He was unyielding, pointy, snappy, and when he hit you it hurt. Who would ever have thought of him as a playmate? I tried stuffing him in the toy chest but couldn't close the lid; he was too big. So that's why he spent most of his time alone in the corner. I never used the rocker myself any longer.

In later years he was the perfect smiling patient for my sister and me to welcome into our medical office. No matter what we did to him he grinned. Operation after operation failed to change his personality so we finally tired of him and discharged him as hopeless. He probably bummed around homeless for many years afterward. I ran a search for him on the Internet and did come up with a picture of him, and his friends. He hasn't aged a day.

Trained Not to Look

If anything was wrong we weren't supposed to notice. That's what made life possible, according to the Disney principles that governed in our household. "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." was a line repeated over and over by our mother. How did I ever develop the hyper-critical attitude of spotting errors; mistakes made by others more often than not? Perhaps it was defensive. Perhaps I was being constantly criticized and needed to deflect attention onto someone else.
I could have chosen my younger sister as my target. She was getting more attention than I was as we aged. I seemed to need to prove that I was smarter than she was. I think that need carried over into the schoolroom later on. And I can remember the pleasure I experienced when I could correct my father when he said something at the dinner table. It was surprising what he could forget, or how misinformed he could be about new developments in science. But, in public, it was essential not to notice and not to embarrass anyone making a mistake. No one wanted to be singled out for criticism. I, especially, could not bear being found at fault.
We lived, as Candide's Pangloss says: "In the best of all possible worlds". Nothing could be amiss, could it? Why was everything so disappointing to me? Why did things always break? I found myself always in a rush to fix something before the malfunction was noticed. I think I learned that from my father. My role in life was eventually to become Mr. Fix-It. No one else was supposed to notice how broken life really was. I could see the faults all too clearly. I trained to see nothing else. In doing so I became invisible.
For a very short while I did function at a higher level of criticism. I was able, with the help of my girlfriends, to see beauty; to look with awe at the world around me. They helped me acquire a taste for art, music, poetry and the intellectual order of the universe. I learned to delight in my senses and appreciate the cultivation of tastes. History, philosophy, and writing stimulated me and drew me into new and different worlds. Alternative communities offered ways to explore possibilities for living in creative relationships. I came to see another life. I didn't see the disappointment that was to come.
The reality of life in the late '60s was summarized by the voices in Washington Square Park that spoke of "co-opting" the principles and approaches that the "Flower Children" broadcast so effectively into our culture. The fix for social problems became the "hype" that corporations and their publicists cloaked themselves with as capitalism responded in force to the innocent steps we had taken. The reality was a disappointment for those of us who struggled with communes, sexual identities, new music and art forms, or the commerce of the future. We trained ourselves not to look, not to see what had become of our insights into this "best of all possible worlds". We became a world culture, trained to follow our dreams, and not to look at what the reality of what we had become. We became invisible, lurking behind the broken forms we had brought into being. Trained not to look. To do otherwise would lead to despair.