|
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
IRev It Up... |
|
“What is the color of apples?” the teacher asked the first grade class. Most of the children answered red. A few said green. Kevin raised his hand and said white. The teacher tried to explain that apples could be red, green, or sometimes golden, but never white. Kevin was quite insistent and finally said, “Look inside.” Look inside. Look down deep. There is much to see beneath the surface. There are multiple levels of reality. Give us new eyes to see, intones the ancient prayer. Buddha was once threatened with death by a bandit called Angulimal. “Then be good enough to fulfill my dying wish,” said Buddha. “Cut off the branch of that tree.” One slash of the sword, and it was done! “What now?” asked the bandit. “Put it back again,” said Buddha. The bandit laughed. “You must be crazy to think that anyone can do that.” “On the contrary, it is you who are crazy to think that you are mighty because you can wound and destroy. That is the task of children. The mighty know how to create and heal.” - Anthony de Mello, in The Heart of the Enlightened That’s what we were doing last night when we offered a service of remembrance in honor of the victims of senseless violence – children of war, victims of the Holocaust, those suffering from the great sin that enslaved them on American soil, and also those whose world was lost on September 11 six years ago. We were looking inside the apple. We were seeking to create and heal the work of those who mistakenly thought they are mighty, using texts and tunes from traditions that are often placed in tension with one another out of fear. O, that the leaders of the world could learn to see with new eyes! One who did was our iconic president, Abraham Lincoln. Carl Sandberg, in the volume about Lincoln’s life entitled The Prayer Years and the War Years, tells of the time Lincoln went to visit the sick and wounded soldiers in Virginia during the final days of the war. He stood in front of one of the great tents, waiting to go in. A young army doctor came to him and said, “Mr. President, you do not want to go in there. They are sick rebel prisoners.” “That is just where I want to go,” said Lincoln, and he strode in and shook hands from cot to cot. “Shot-torn in both hips lay colonel Harry L. Benbow, who had commanded three regiments at Five Forks. And according to Colonel Benbow: ‘He halted beside my bed and held out his hand. I was lying on my back, my hands folded across my breast. Looking at him in the face, ‘Mr. President,’ said I, ‘do you know to whom you offer your hand?’ “I do not, he replied. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘you offer it to a Confederate colonel who has fought you as hard as he could for four years.’ Well, said he, I hope a Confederate colonel will not refuse me his hand. ‘No, sir,’ I replied, ‘I will not,’ and I clasped his hands in both of mine.’” p. 802 Telling the story of Alex the Gray Parrot, age 31, who died unexpectedly last week, and who had mastered a surprising vocabulary of words and concepts, Verlyn Klinkenborg brings us on home. No one can say for sure whether or not this remarkable bird truly understood the world as we do, or was just parroting back sounds. Could it be that he truly understood our language? Could it be that it is time we learned better to understand his? Klinkenborg muses. What we do know is that Alex the Gray Parrot’s last words, spoken to his owner, the woman with whom he shared his life and learned so much, were “I love you.” “To wonder what Alex recognized when he recognized words is also to wonder what humans recognize when we recognize words. It was indeed surprising to realize how quickly Alex could take in words and concepts,” writes Klinkenborg. “Scientifically speaking, the value of this research lies in its specific detail about the patterns of learning and cognition. Ethically speaking, the value lies in our surprise, our renewed awareness of how little we allow ourselves to expect from the animals around us. NYT, 9.12.07, italics mine Give us new eyes to see, new ears to hear, intones the ancient prayer. I’ll offer you one more gift, a poem by Mary Oliver. The Summer Day Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean – the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down – who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to lie idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? May you find something you cannot take your eyes off of today. |
|
602 Mitchell Drive ● Alcester, SD 57001-0229 ● Phone: 605.934.2341 |
|
Church e-mail: alcesterucc@alliancecom.net |
|
Webmaster: parapub@iw.net |
|
Entire contents © Copyright 2007 Alcester United Church of Christ |
Reflections
on Faith and Life