Solidarity with Postulants

This is a picture of eight young men becoming postulants in the Province of the Solomon Islands March 1, just before Compline at the Chapel at Hautambu.

A couple of weeks ago, on the day before they were to become postulants, I was asked two questions:

What is a postulant?
And
Why do we wear brown?

The first question was from a delegation of four who worked up their courage to come see me at my hut, the second was from a young man who missed out wearing tht white cassock alb because we didn't have enough and he had to wear a brown tunic but without the rope or hood.

Explaining to my nervous delegation, I said the term "postulant" is related to the word "postulate," but none of them had ever heard that word before. Then I thought of Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet in which he advises him to "live the questions" but I didn't want to get into Rilke with them either. Postulants, I said, is a name for people who are asking the question: "What is God's will for me?" When you become a postulant you are asked a question: What do you seek? And the answer is God's will for me.

I also said I still wondered about it--what is God's will for me. It's a huge question, and although I feel I have answered some of the basic pieces of it, I still wonder. I am confident God's will for me is that I am a Christian, a priest and a friar. II enjoy my ministry and count it as God's will for me too. But there is the question of my daily choices, some of which can have far-reaching implications. What is God's will for me as a friar and a priest in the future?

Ogbviously it is not something I can answer til I get there, and the "future" is an ever-receding horizon, in one sense. But then I know one rounds a corner and life's choices seem stark and well defined. I felt very close to these men as they shrugged into their new clothes and said with utter seriousness: "I seek God and his will for me." In a way, I suspect each of us watching this eventprayed they would find a home with us, discover God's will in the working out of innumerable situations and relationships, in times of prayer and reflection. I hope without too many tears.

The "brown" question has to do with Francis and his desire to be humble and ordinary like the sparrows, to wear the color of humility. Again I had to go to Latin and tell them about brown the color of earth, which is called humus, which is related to humility. It like Ash Wednesday all year long when we are reminded we are but dust. But this is something that liberates us, it isn't a sad thing. We are from the earth, the source of our life is God, just as it is the source of all life on earth.

Watching new men come to test our vocation, old questions come back.

Lenten Penance

In the Solomon Islands there is a custom of observing Lent by performing "penance" together. It means an hour of hard work, usually with a machete in the hot sun, working silently.

I end up gasping.

And desperately sorry for all my sins.

Saturday I was whacking away and got a huge blister on my hand, and though it hurt I was glad it wasn't a nail wound or a spear hole, just trying to keep it all in perspective.

They also serve plain rice at least twice a week during Lent.

But the joy of it all is the working together, eating together, praying together. As a community we move towards Easter

Packing again

Only a few more days here at Little Portion before I get back on a plane and fly 24 hours to Honiara, Solomon Islands. I will cross the date line and completely miss Feb 14. No Valentines for me!!

What a great time I have had here. It has been absorbing, healing, fun. Mostly I have done projects around the friary. I grew up in a family that loved to do projects, so when I get the chance that is what I do. It's been cleaning, raking, pruning, cooking. I won't enumerate every little thing.

High on the list of wonderful things though was a retreat the brothers from Little Portion took together at a Catholic retreat center on Ender's Island near Mystic Connecticut. Amazing scenery, great food, and lots of time to pray. I am very grateful for that time.

And I highly recommend going away for several days. It requires a ruthless streak--co-dependent no more! Just go and do it, there is never a perfect time, a hassle-free way of getting away, even for friars. But the house didn't burn down, everything was in good shape on our return.

I finished two books on the retreat: Ravished by Beauty by Belden C. Lane, a surprising book on the contributions of Reformed Spirituality to thinking about the environment. I LOVED the book, and made me re-think who the puritans were. The Bibilical approach to the natural world and caring for it was energizing.

The other book I read was "Lit" by Mary Karr. An engrossing story of her recovery. It made my cry and laugh out loud.

A Christmas Sermon

Tonight we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. It is extraordinary, when you think of it, to come out in the middle of the night to remember, celebrate this event and to dedicate ourselves to the religious ideal it proclaims: God is with us, particularly the 99% as we say today. “God is on the side of the poor,” the theologians point out with this Christmas Gospel. The loneliness, the sense of dispossession, of being caught in a way of life that deep down we feel is not sustainable: these are all contributory themes in the Gospel story we’ve just heard.

Perhaps the Gospel story is familiar to you; I am surprised when I meet people for whom it isn’t familiar—but there are more and more of them. I think that that is a precious opportunity. The challenge isn’t overcoming the overly familiar, but to help people hear it for the first time. Put yourself into the story. Did you by any chance read the New York Times Travel section last Sunday? In Barcelona the Christmas Nativity scenes always include the caganer, a figure relieving himself in the corner. The article says it is a reminder of our essential humanity or perhaps the absurdity of life even at the holiest moments. I’d never say it if I hadn’t read it in the New York Times. The point is that he is there. And by extension so are we—any one of us. Being part of God’s plans for humanity has nothing to do with appropriate behavior, or better, all that is human has a place with God. The embrace of Luke’s Gospel story of the Birth of Jesus gathers us all together around that manger. It is not about dressing up or conforming to somebody’s expectations, but to come as you are and encounter the beauty and love of God.

Who else is around that manger? Luke includes the shepherds. 2000 years ago these men were considered uncouth. They didn’t earn much money. They were always with the sheep—so they couldn’t go to church or temple. Rough men: but they are the first to hear the message of the angels.

Mary and Joseph had encountered this counter-intuitive holiness months before when the angel appeared with its life-changing message of God’s favor. What was the angel’s counsel to Mary, to Joseph, to anybody who reads the story? “Don’t be afraid,” the angel said: timely words of encouragement for them and for us. Fear debilitates, shuts you down, keeps you home when you are needed to show up and help out, play your part in God’s story, to speak the truth to power.

The powerful are also characters in this Gospel story— those rulers Luke mentions in the beginning—Emperor Augustus, Quirinius (and Herod, of course, though he doesn’t get a mention in tonight’s passage). These rulers represent the 1% who gives their names to the times, who control the movement of people and goods. They are important to this story mostly because of Jesus—another Name that is being announced, a name to challenge the power of the rulers, a name that would come to characterize all that is good, all that is opposed to the forces that diminish people, making them go get counted in a census so that they could be more fully taxed to pay for their own oppression; Jesus opposes all that shuts people down, tells them they are not “appropriate,” not ready to govern, that they have no good ideas.

The Jesus movement and the Occupy Wall Street Movement have some intriguing point of connection, and I like to play around with the rhetoric: I attended an event in New York City last weekend, so it is all fresh in my imagination. But Christmas is not a time to get riled up about partisan politics—or is it? The message the angels proclaimed was “Peace.” When we look that up we find “Shalom” lurking in the roots of the word, sentiments informing the proclamation that urges a holistic view of life—let there be an end to war—shalom. Let there be health and strength for all the people—shalom. Let the minds of the people be opened, let them turn their hearts to each other and God—shalom. May the words of Scripture, the holy Wisdom abide with them—shalom. All this and more is in the angels’ saying: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors.

So it is, on the one hand, when the story we live in, the story we tell ourselves and the story we hear from Scripture and God all come together, we find this to be a huge affirmation. What a joy for any one of us to think: “I am doing God’s will.” On the other hand some wonder: how can this be? Perhaps their self-understanding, or the story they tell themselves, collides with the story God is telling them. “Who, me?” said Mary. When things collide it means we are being called to listen to God’s story, and I believe, turn our lives over to the care of God, trust the message we hear. Is fear your problem? Or do you think you are not important enough to change things? For 2000 years now God has been hammering away at this self-esteem issue. Christianity, or at least the Christian story, teaches that we all have a part to play, we all are capable of the greatest things imaginable—telling right from wrong, for instance. We are also all capable of living lives of beauty and productiveness. God is asking us to collaborate with him. Over and over God has taken initiatives towards us—sending prophets and teachers holding up a vision of what life with God could be like. But alas, as Jesus says later in his life, we stone the prophets, killing those who are sent. Finally God sent his Son to reach out arms and hands of love to all humanity. God is asking each and every one of us to work with him for the salvation of the world—meaning the forgiveness of sins, putting people in a right relationship with God and also healing the planet, restoring the beauty and integrity of creation. Don’t forget the animals were also there at that birth. “The cattle are lowing…” we sang earlier tonight. We are not to abandon the earth and its troubles, but to engage with the cosmos as God has, and continues to do so—head on, without fear, with love and compassion. God will work with whatever we have to offer. Nothing is unacceptable, no one is unimportant to the plan. Every little thing will be taken, broken open and multiplied for the joy and satisfaction of thousands more. So offer your gift, raise your voice and sing out about peace! Sing about justice! Join the happy throngs that have sprung up all over the globe and the faithful friends of Christ who have born his name in ages past.

This Christmas of 2011 is full of gifts we never imagined a year ago. Think of Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and all the other places of the so-called Arab Spring. We’ve seen the end of war in Iraq. People you never thought would get the message about sobriety or the need to change their lives—they’ve got it! It’s not all neat and tidy—none of it. Change—social and personal change—is messy and people have been hurt. But people are re-shaping the way they live. Our society is showing signs of an emerging consciousness. I believe God is re-shaping the way we live. We have a huge opportunity to live large these days, collaborating with God, the God who is with us, sharing all that we are and all that we have.

Repeat after me:

Don’t be afraid.

Seek peace.

God is with us now and to the end of the ages.

It was one of those trips

It was one of those trips I hoped never to have: stolen phone, septic leech bite that caused my leg to swell and weep pus, airport closure which caused me to miss an international connection, thus canceling all subsequent flights, vandalized ATM so no access to money, leaving me to beg for food, cold water.

What a relief to get back to Little Portion. Not even a bank overdraft could dim the pleasure.

Today I got a replacement phone re-activated, banking snafu straightened out, noted that all traces of the leech have disappeared (finally!).

I wish I could say I went through all of this undisturbed.

I had some moments of extreme aggravation.

Sometimes the most important thing is just to get through things and move on.

So I'm movin' on, with a backward look of gratitude at some of the really great things that happened during my trip to South Africa, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands.

I led a Quiet Day for the superiors of 10 Anglican Religious Orders in South Africa. I was leading them in some reflections on the vows that we take as religious: poverty, chastity and obedience. I'm not sure what they got out of it, but I found in myself a deep sense of gratitude for my life as a friar. Talking about the vows was a chance for re-committing myself.

In Papua New Guinea, I led a retreat for the students and staff of Newton college, the Anglican church of Papua New guinea's theological college. This time my theme was "Taking up the Cross" and I reflected on ordained ministry.

In the Solomon Islands I was asked to meet with a group of 35 eighteen year old "sixth form" students from Selwyn College. It was a real joy to recount for them the story of my conversion when I was about their age.

And to cap it all off I preached in London at a parish with deep connections to Society of St. Francis, St. Philip's in Plaistow, the East End of London. This had been the parish of the Society of the Divine Compassion which became part of the Society of St. Francis. They asked me to talk about Celebrating Diversity: Unity in Diversity.

And to be honest I always enjoy the time with the brothers, sharing our Franciscan life and collaborating in ministry in all the different cultures.

Songs to Give Us Courage

A young man wearing a black beret stood and read a poem. Every occasion demands the right costume, and he pegged it. I got the idea he was an ex-soldier, or at least the poem was from that perspective. His physique seemed soldierly, too. It was last Friday night, and we were crammed into a small café, maybe thirty of us: young, old, male and female, black, white: a poster gathering for the new South Africa. Television took a clobbering from this group: poem after poem decrying the soul-destroying impact of poll-driven capital conniving media (I’m writing under the poets’ influence, obviously).

Suddenly he started to sing. “Sim’s” voice was clear, loud and the pulsing rhythm crackled around the room. Then he wasn’t reading, he was looking at us as he sang, challenging, inviting, inspiring. He wasn’t singing in English, but I still wanted to join up! “We sang songs to give us courage,” he continued. Reading.

I began to think about the courage he might need: to challenge the corruption and violence in to South Africa, to collaborate in the dream of a just, multiracial, prosperous society.

Then I began to think of the songs I sing. It’s hymns usually, occasionally U2 (that’s how old I am). Words and tunes rise up in my mind: “God of grace and God of glory…” “Singing songs of expectation…” “Lift high the cross…” Not quite the whole hymnal, but they give me courage. U2: “You know Lord that I believe…I have climbed every mountain and scaled these city walls, only to be with you. And I still haven’t found what I’m looking for…”

Songs give courage for the living of these days. St Augustine said, the one who sings, prays twice.

It doesn’t matter how well we sing. The song’s the thing. I’m staying with some friends, the monks of the Order of the Holy Cross at Mariya uMama weThemba Monastery. They sing all the time. The songs get in your brain: antiphons, hymns, choruses. Moreover, these song-filled men live courageously. They are building a school for 60 local children in Grahamstown, South Africa. Sunday Mass is full of neighbors, black and white. They are creating a community based on justice; Gospel values of hospitality, care for the poor and following the way of St. Benedict. As Gandhi advised, they are being the change they want to see in the society around them. It’s their answer to the corruption and violence around them, and I think it is something to sing about!

Next week I lead a retreat for the Superiors of all the Anglican Religious Orders in South Africa.

I’m sure we will be singing.

Remembering 9/11

Last Sunday I preached during our First Order Chapter, here is the sermon!

Sermon for 9/11
By Br. Clark Berge, SSF
Delivered at Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Proper 19 Year A

Exodus 14:19-31
Romans 14:1-12
Matthew 18:21-35

Let us pray: Compassionate God, as we gather today, we open our hearts to you and ask for the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit, recognizing that there are only two feelings. Love and Fear. There are only two languages. Love and fear. There are only two activities. Love and fear. There are only two motives, two procedures, two frameworks, two results. Love and fear. Love and fear. (Adapted from Michael Leunig, A Common Prayer, HarperCollins Religious, Sydney, 1990)

What a great joy to be gathered here today with friends and people of faith; to be reading Scriptures about forgiveness and sharing the Sacrament, being assured of God’s forgiveness and commissioned to be ambassadors of reconciliation. This is the only context I can bear to think about 9/11. The hurt is still there, and we pray for all who died, all who suffer grief or disability because of the attacks on New York and Washington DC—all the wounded. We pray for them and hold them in our hearts. Politicians have to balance American interests and the authority of pollsters against their re-election chances when they talk about these events. Inevitably it becomes “us against them.” It is so easy to fall into that. Yet we are called to live differently as Christians. Embracing our pain, is there still room to love our enemies?

In the Exodus passage for today we are reminded God is very much active in human history, working in our midst to bring us out of slavery into freedom. Not everyone has moved beyond believing God takes sides in human conflict (that is a big part of the rhetoric from both Al Qaeda and some Westerners). But we must never lose sight of God’s action that is to free us from all the things that enslave us—capitalism, Islamism, “Christian-ism”, Marxism, liberalism, conservatism—and all the other “—isms.” God is actively leading us into a land of new possibilities for the human spirit. I say that with confidence because God has continued to lead his people through obstacles, from the Red Sea onwards, leading us to freedom. The evidence has mounted over the ages and God’s methods have matured. From drowning Pharaoh God gave his only Son. God raised the stakes. There is nothing God won’t do to set humanity free.

The reality of 9/11 is that a terrible thing happened. We live with the question: how will we prevent it from happening again in America, in Britain, in India, in Pakistan, in Sri Lanka, in Israel, in Palestine, in Iraq, in Zimbabwe, in south Africa, in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Norway, Syria, Northern Ireland,, Colombia, Mexico, Bali, the Solomon Islands, Japan…I’ve only just started on the list. Who can think of a country that does not commemorate a tragedy where bombs exploded, innocent and not-so-innocent people died? How can we prevent such things from happening?

What would happen if we stopped judging each other, as Paul suggests in this morning’s reading from Romans? I am not talking about “anything-goes” or suspending justice, but what if we humans started expecting the best of each other? What if we committed ourselves to a nonviolent response to whatever provocation? Not just you and me, but what if everybody made this commitment? Of course it won’t happen spontaneously. I won’t happen quickly. But I wonder if the perceived odds prevent us from even trying it at all? Alternatives can be taught, as the SSF Formator’s learned at our conference in the Solomon Islands last year the Alternatives to Violence Project. Do we cringe from being called naïve? Spreading the message of nonviolence means working with whomever we can. It means refraining from violent thinking and action. It means being willing to keep on with it even as it seems more and more futile. Because what else can we do—us Bible-reading, Sacrament eating people? Can we go from Altar to armory? Some have had to, and some still do. But as Religious, we don’t have to promote a diminished Gospel, a fear-based message.

The Gospel we have been given teaches love and forgiveness. Love is the opposite of fear. Love compels us to forgive our enemies. Jesus rejected violence and forgave his persecutors. That is the story that continues to inspire people throughout the ages. How many tims we fail at this is not the point. Rather the point s how often we dust off and try again. Love never ends. It is never too late to do the loving thing.

So today, as we remember 9/11, Christians using the Common Lectionary around the world hear the message from Matthew—how often should I forgive? Matthew frames the question in terms of forgiving brothers and sisters in the Church, but Jesus’ story is definitely not “churchy.” Forgiveness frees us from retaliation. Forgiveness makes the human spirit shine. It shows the active, death-defying, all-powerful presence of god—that spiritual power of forgiveness shining in the human breast is a pillar of fire shining in the darkness of our confusion and hatreds, our pettiness and our fully justified reasons to annihilate each other. The only way to stop it, I sense from Jesus’ teachings and example, even as he hung from the cross, is to forgive.

What are the stories that make you squirm and re-evaluate your life? What are the stories that make you pray: “Oh God, I wish I could be like that: like Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker movement, Mother Teresa, Dr. Martin Luther King, Gandhi?” Central to their stories is compassion, forgiveness, and a commitment to non-violence, we hear of love overcoming fear and hate. Their stories shape, for me, everything the Gospel stirs up in me. Jesus said things, Paul taught long ago, but these men and women show how it can be done today, in the face of horrendous modern evil. They show us that we live in a reality defined and infused with love.

We’re God-loving, Bible-reading, Sacrament-eating, world-serving people: what other reality is there?

Today is 9/11 and some say it is about Islam and terrorism. I want to close by reminding us of some people I have recently added to my list of inspiring people who make me squirm, the Trappist monks of Tibhurine, whose story has become famous recently with the release of the film “Of Gods and Men.” If you have seen the film, you know Christian de Cherge was prior of Notre Dam de l’Atlas, a small monastery in Algeria. He wrote a lot about Islam and Christianity. One thing he wrote was that “Forgiveness” is one of the names for God in the 99 praises of God. We know St. Francis loved that prayer and captured it for Franciscans in his Divine Praises, joyfully repeating the names of God: “You are forgiveness…you are love…you are joy.” Anticipating his death, Christian wrote a letter to be opened in the event of his death. Terrorists in Algeria killed him and several other monks.

If the day comes, and it could be today, that I am a victim of the terrorism that seems to be engulfing all foreigners living in Algeria, I would like my community, my Church, and my family to remember that I have dedicated my life to God and Algeria.

That they accept that the Lord of all life was not a stranger to this savage kind of departure; that they pray for me, wondering how I found myself worthy of such a sacrifice; that they link in their memory this death of mine with all the other deaths equally violent but forgotten in their anonymity.

My life is not worth more than any other—not less, not more. Nor am I an innocent child. I have lived long enough to know that I, too, am an accomplice of the evil that seems to prevail in the world around, even that which might lash out blindly at me. If the moment comes, I would hope to have presence of mind, and the time, to ask for God’s pardon and for that of my fellowman, and, at the same time, to pardon in all sincerity he would attack me.

I would not welcome such a death. It is important for me to say this. I do not see how I could rejoice when this people whom I love will be accused, indiscriminately, of my death. The price is too high, this so-called grace of the martyr, if I owe it to an Algerian who kills me in the name of what he thinks is Islam.

I know the contempt that some people have for Algerians as a whole. I also know the caricatures of Islam that a certain (Islamist) ideology promotes. It is too easy for such people to dismiss, in good conscience, this religion as something hateful by associating it with violent extremists. For me, Algeria and Islam are quite different from the commonly held opinion. They are body and soul. I have said enough, I believe, bout all the good things I have received here, finding so often the meaning of the Gospels, running like some gold thread through my life, and which began first at my mother’s knee, my very first church, here in Algeria, where I learned respect for Muslims.

Obviously, my death will justify the opinion of all those who dismissed me as naïve or idealistic: “Let him tell us what he thinks now.” But such people should know my death will satisfy my most burning curiosity. At last, I will be able—if God pleases—to se the children f Islam as He sees them, illuminated in the glory of Christ, sharing in the gift of God’s Passion and of the Spirit, whose secret joy will always be to bring forth our common humanity amidst our differences.

I give thanks to God for this life; completely mine yet completely theirs, too, to God, who wanted it for joy against, and in spite of, all odds. In this Thank You—which says everything about my life—I include you, my friends past and present, and those friends who will be here at the side of my mother and father, of my sisters and brothers—thank you a thousand fold.

And to you, too, my friend of the last moment, who will not know what you are doing. Yes, for you, too, I wish this thank you, this “A-Dieu,” whose image is in you also, that we may meet in heaven, like happy thieves, if it pleases God, our common Father. Amen! Insha-Allah!

(The Monks of Tibhirine: Faith, Love, and Terror in Algeria. John W. Kiser, St. Martin’s Griffin, New York, 2003, pp. 244-246)