Psalms of lament

6/23

Martin’s been waiting to talk with me all day long. Antigone, he says, the music, the beginning. Well, the beginning, you know what you’ve been watching, it’s like a flowing river, like crossing over into death…

The river Styx…

Yeah, but then I looked and i realized it was like a vagina….like a birth canal…

I saw that the first time…

But the music. Like ancient prayer …I can’t get it…the priests, the Delphic Oracles, they get messages from God, pass them on…but they speak to God. Say Why must we suffer like this/? How long must this go on? Zeus, do something…our joy is but a fleeting moment, the suffering…I’ve been listening to Muslim muezzins. Close to our flamenco. But….not …anguished enough. Our flamenco, still too much show.. Where do I go?

I think. In the Bible, there are laments. The Psalms are strong. And uncensored. They express anger to God. Hatred of enemies. Abandonment. They were sung…

Yeah, but what do they sound like?

Here’s what you do. See if you can find Greek Orthodox settings. Same roots. Our oldest Christian music. Or try Jewish liturgical settings. There’s a holiday, Tish  B’Av, the commemoration for the destruction of the Temple. For 24 hours they sing the Lamentations.

OK, ok….

An hour later, he’s back. This is it, he says. And he plays for me a setting of Psalm 22, Eloi, eloi lama sanbacthani…My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? It’s been set as a Holocaust lament.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSOB4Oqe-bs )

Perfect, I say. It’s what Jesus quoted on the cross. Hear how close to Muslim it is?

Yeah, and our gypsy music. All from the same place.

That Spanish romance with death, I say.

And he laughs.

I recall when an Honduran judge, a defender of human rights, was cast into jail. They asked him what he would do. He said, I will sit. And read. And write. And reflect on my sad situation.

He laughs again. Yeah, that’s it.

I’m working late. RL drops in. He’s concerned that he found Jeremy and Priska’s door open again. Place looked empty in the dark. He’s very protective of us. We go up and check. I think it’s OK, but I call Jeremy just to make sure.

So I stop in. Watch an Alfred Hitchock Presents from the ‘50’s. And a Leverage. Yeah, goo to be back.

Forming new spiritual communities: the church that could be

3/1

Martin is working intensely on Antigone. Yesterday, he was excited for me to have a look in the studio.  One dancer, very,very tall..eight, nine feet? in height,  was standing at one end of the studio. A long flowing back dress stretched all the way the length  of the studio. All of the sudden,there is a stirring at the base of the dancer. Under the long stretch of dress, a figure is moving  forward. Strange and eerie. And then Marina’s head pops out. Slowly she frees herself and proceeds to move through an anguished dance.

Strong effect, right? Martin asks.

Great, I say, mesmerizing. And it is. I’m blown away and not sure what to say.

I look in today and now there’s a guy standing there. And the body is not Marina.

I go in to my meeting. Ask Jeremy and Katherine, did you look into the studio? Both nod yes. Both have eyes very wide, very wide indeed, like they can’t believe what they have just seen.

Katherine and Jeremy are soon joined by Felicita and a young woman from Greece by way of Toronto to who has just arrived and hosted the work center. Katherine and Felicita have been in email exchange.  It’s an important conversation. First and simplest, Katherine’s issues around the simple clarity of their performances. How hard the words are to understand.  If I hadn’t told her that it ws Ginsburg poetry she’d have  never known.

More important is the issue of context. Their work clearly has spiritual content but what is the context? Any performance seeking to create a spiritual experience must come from some place unless we’ve happened into a post-modern derridaist construct. What is the spiritual place they understand themselves to be coming from? Where do they seek to take us? As Katherine puts it, what kind of experience are they trying to decant?

Felicita agrees that they are good questions. Doesn’t necessarily have answers. They need to reflect on these things.  Any performance that seeks to create a spiritual experience is essentially a liturgy. That liturgy has theological content and ultimately a theologic, that is an intentional progress from one point  to  another with a conscious intention behind it. What Katherine refers to as a scaffolding. What our former music director, accordionist extraordinaire Bill Schimmel (Dr.William) referred to as the architecture of the liturgy. To this analysis the young woman from Greece adds the category of dramaturgy, that is the inner dramatic logic and structure of any particular theatrical performance. All agree that this us an important conversation. When  asked why it hasn’t been doe before, Felicita says that she hasn’t wanted to distance herself from the experience by dissection, even vivisection, of the work.  Which leads to a discussion of the process of action (or experience), reflection and revision leading to new action. An ongoing cycle.

I have  a different but connected concern. Much of  Mario’s work connects with existing spiritual communities. According to Felicita, Mario is looking for particular competencies.It is essentially  a dialogic process, two communities sharing their gifts and understanding together.

I am concerned for that growing circle of people who call themselves spiritual but not religious. And that when they come to open choir, say,they’re coming in a search for community. That community in formation must not only look inward but outward, transformation of the self and the world around us. That the music they are using from the American south, whether plantation work song or spiritual or Appalchian white mountain music is music of communities of struggle and that apart from engagement in the world the music becomes abstract aesthetic.

We want to talk about who comes to the open choir, and why. What are they looking for. And can we provide the space and support for building an ongoing community and how does that connect with the existing church here. We have open space and time now to do that. My experience tells me that this is the direction that the future of church lies, the creation and formation of new spiritual communities of shared experience, mutual accountability and commitment to building a more just, humane and sustainable world. That is what young people see in Bread &Puppet, Dzieci, Work Center. That’s where we need to go.

Katherine stays as our meeting breaks up. Almost screams as little mice scramble across the floor. (Yesterday in my office, Felcitia kept looking towards the closet. Is there an animal? She asked. I smiled and said yes.  The exterminators are coming next week.

Leaving, late, it’s freezing. Outside the door, there’s Rachel. I tell her you can’t come in, no one’s there. She holds out her gnarled hands, my hands are freezing, she says. I hesitate a minute, I’m sorry you can’t be here. No one is here. I can’t stay here. You’ve got to go somewhere….

                                                             ****

моїм друзям на Україну, прийняти серцем

You looked like you could use this

2/26

Martin is sitting with a copy of Berthold Brecht’s translation of Antigone. 
I see you’ve got the right one, I say.  
This thing is amazing, he says. And tells me the story of Antigone again. He’s working on a song of the priests of Delphi who are basically singing, whatever little joy we have in this world is just the gods messing with us. (Word that.) He’s translating that into flamenco. I love it. Sophocles to Brecht to flamenco. This is West-Park. He looks at me intently. This is the Jesus story, you know? But with a woman...

Yeah, I say, same thing. We’re talking archetypes. Deep stuff, at the core. (There’s Grotowski, peeking out again.) What I saw at Joe’s Pub was like no flamenco I’d never seen before. 
Martin responds, It’s we gotta stop hating, you know, stop the cycles. Say no. Only love, you know?

Funny. We were talking about the same thing at our clergy group this morning. With a variation. I’d mentioned that there was something  worse than hate. Hate is still engaged. Connected. Even if destructive. What’s worse is invisibility. Not to be seen. Not to be noticed to all. As if humanity, existence itself is denied.

Nan comes in  to see if there are any checks to go out. Her work as bookkeeper is much easier with some money in the bank. We talk about the issues involved with going for city money and she speaks from her own time also working for SPSA who lived through the experience of landmarking then the nightmare of promised city funding not arriving. They are still recovering financially from that.

Jason W drops in. He’s working  two jobs, as a bike messenger and as an ice cream delivery guy. Long, hard hours. We’re working on finding him housing. While we’re talking, Peter M from the Interfaith Assembly Board stops in.  He’s got a project of looking into various programs. Seeing what they have to offer. I explain that we don’t have programs per se, but ministry. He’ s surprised when he discovers that Midnight Run stops here regularly. It’s not their appointed stop, he says. They’re supposed to stop at SPSA.

But they come here because of the people on the steps, I say.  They’re not on the steps at SPSA anymore.

That’s because someone tried to set the church in fire! He says.

But, point is, they come by almost every Friday. I even got a stocking cap from them before I get my own winter clothes out of storage.
Peter will see if he can help Jason W, too.

Cara is here, working, and she and Jason find it tragic that virtually all the other church steps have been closed off. No temporary sanctuary. Though I’m always on the verge of going there.

Peter leaves and Jason and I finish our exploration. There are possibilities.

Cara returns with a young blond woman. From the Midwest.  Wants us to post announcements for auditions for a Christian youth theatre. That seems to present straight up plays, like Seussical. And summer camps. She’s been looking for a church. While Jason and I were talking, Cara had given her tour, making sure that she saw the rainbow flag. She still seems interested.  We invite her to come Sunday.  We’ll see what happens.

There’s no get acquainted meeting this afternoon with a proposed anchor tenant. Not going to happen. Speculating why is not helpful.  It just is. We’ll deal with it. Sigh.

Late in the day. Priska comes into my office with a cup of coffee. I saw you in here, she said. You looked like you could use this.