Celtic Spirituality Archives - Page 4 of 6

Interview on the Spiritual Side of U2 with Greg Garrett, author of ‘U2 Gospel’

August 4, 2009 by David Crumm

The title of Greg Garrett’s new book about the spiritual side of Bono and U2 proclaims his central argument from the front cover. The book is called “We Get to Carry Each Other: The Gospel According to U2.” Do you know those famous words?

Rolling Stone ranks, “One” (the song in which this line appears), as No. 36 among the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It was released way back in the early 1990s, when the band was at a crossroads and nearly broke up. Depending on your age, you might recall the more recent Mary J. Blige version of the song, which also was a hit.
The words that end the song—which prompt men and women around the world to “sing along”—are:

One love, one blood, one life.
    You got to do what you should.
    One life with each other: sisters, brothers.
    One life, but we’re not the same.
    We get to carry each other.
    Carry each other.
    One, one.

And, in singing along, we’re essentially joining in a global hymn, Greg argues. He writes, “The meaning of life, U2 ultimately reminds us, is not in how much gold you pile up, how many mansions you build, how many people you can order around, or even how loudly and devoutly you pray and proclaim your salvation. It is in what we get to do for each other.
“This is U2’s faithful message to the world.”
Did you catch that key phrase, “get to,” in the lyrics and in Greg’s book? That phrase means that it’s one of life’s great privileges that we get to help each other. Wow! That’s a sermon that’ll snap your head around, if you stop to listen to the lyrics!

Our spiritual mission doesn’t lie in graciously deciding that we’ll donate a little bit of money or expend a little effort on behalf of the needy—when it’s convenient for us. No. The orientation here is waking up in the morning and feeling thankful that we get to help out wherever we can.

From that sermon, we could jump off in a dozen directions: Get involved in “Lift (Your City) in Prayer.” Or, check out this week’s series about helping overwhelmed parents. Or, click on the Amazon link to grab a copy of Greg’s book—and plan a small-group series in your congregation to fire up some real enthusiasm for strengthening your community. (If you missed it, jump back to Part 1 of this series for some additional U2 gems you can use in small groups.)

But, before you rush off—here’s Greg Garrett himself (that’s Greg in the next photo at right) to explain his own decades-long fascination with “the world’s most popular band.”

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR CONVERSATION
WITH GREG GARRETT ON U2:

DAVID: We’ve told readers about your work before, Greg—especially your earlier book on the spiritual lessons of comic book super heroes. You’re always drawing creative connections between spirituality and popular culture. Tell us what you do for a living—beyond writing books.
GREG: I am professor of English at Baylor University and I’m writer in residence at the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest in Austin and I’m a licensed lay preacher in the Episcopal church. Mostly, I’m known as a writer and a teacher.
DAVID: We should explain to readers that, in addition to attending U2 concerts and following the band’s work over the years—you once had an opportunity to sit down with these guys and interview them.
GREG: I did. It was back in the days when I was a rock journalist. I interviewed them after they had recorded their second album.
DAVID: These guys are not card-carrying members of any particular religious group, are they? They’re not regularly practicing Catholics, for example.
GREG: No, they absolutely are not. The interesting thing for many of your readers is that they have been people of faith—but outside of almost any organized religious tradition for more than 30 years.
They grew up in Ireland and saw the people of Ireland blowing each other up over divisions of faith. They’ve felt they could live out their lives of faith more authentically outside of any organized tradition. Three of the four members would think of themselves as Christian but they have not been part of a formal Christian organization for more than 30 years. They seem to be very much in tune with various faith and wisdom traditions, though. They have worked with the Dalai Lama and with Jewish leaders and many others—so it’s a very ecumenical understanding they have about how we are called to be the face of change for the world.

DAVID: In a way, they’re a voice for the “Nones”—the growing ranks of Americans who answer with the word, “None,” when pollsters ask them for their “religious affiliation.”
GREG: Yes, Brian McLaren talks about them in this way. In a very real sense, they model new ways of being a faith community. The have a very clear sense of mission—we are called together to help people. And, as they work out this mission, they seem to be modeling a new way to be people of faith.
DAVID: Why are they so enduring in their popularity?
GREG: Not only are they a band with incredible longevity, so they have lots of sales and awards and fans who follow them, but they’re also a band that continually reinvents itself and keeps itself relevant. The new album, “No Line on the Horizon,” has new sounds and ideas.
I don’t want to criticize other bands by name, but people know which bands only go back to work when they need more money. U2 was freed from that necessity very early in their career because of some smart business decisions they made. They’re free from having to worry about making more money.
So, in an album like “No Line on the Horizon,” there are elements of their past albums—but you also hear some new Eastern stuff that comes from recording in Morocco. It’s recognizable as U2, but they’re still exploring new music. They’re not resting on their laurels.
DAVID: They started out with some concerns very close to home, but they’ve become world citizens. That’s a pretty surprising transition for four guys from Dublin.
GREG: The four did grow up in Dublin. Ireland was what they knew. But they soon had some powerful experiences of the world.
Particularly, Bono traveled to Central America and Africa. In Ethiopia, he had a father hand him a starving child and tell him: “Take him home with you, please. If he stays here, he will die.” That’s powerful stuff.
Their consciousness expanded so greatly that they came to see the whole world needs help—not just the people in Ireland.
DAVID: Is this spiritual mission we’re talking an effort by the entire U2 band? Or is this really Bono we’re talking about in terms of these spiritual commitments?
GREG: That’s a cool question and difficult to answer. From years of following U2 and from my research for this new book, I would say: Bono is the point person, but he is representing the band in concerns they share.
When we look at the benefit concerts they do—or the benefit tour they did for Amnesty International—you can see this is a thrust they’re making together. It’s like they’re part of a family and they make these efforts together.
Here in America recently, the guitar player The Edge partnered with Gibson guitars to help get instruments back into the hands of musicians along the Gulf Coast who lost their instruments in the big hurricane. So, the whole band obviously cares about these issues.
DAVID: With so much music released over the years, what albums would you suggest that newcomers pick up to familiarize themselves with U2?
GREG: The obvious and perhaps the easiest answer is to get one of the “Best Of” albums. If you listen to some of the music from early to mid career, a lot of people will say: “Ohhh, that song is by U2?”
Another good first choice is “All That You Can’t Leave Behind.” This is the album that came out in October of 2001.
DAVID: Rolling Stone called it the band’s “third masterpiece.” “Joshua Tree” and “Achtung Baby” were the first two in Rolling Stone’s list.
GREG: This is the album associated with many of the things we were dealing with after 9/11. Then, early the following year, they performed at the Super Bowl. So that album is a good choice.
But I also recommend the new album, “No Line on the Horizon,” because it’s as intentionally spiritual as anything they’ve ever written.
DAVID: In Part 1 of this U2 story, we shared some of the words from a song on that new album, “Cedars of Lebanon.” The song warns people to “choose your enemies carefully, ‘cause they will define you.”
GREG: Yes, they’re warning that we can be defined by our hatred. The album has allusions to the Middle East adventures of Great Britain and America.
U2 has been standing up against practices like torture and rendition that are just now coming to light more fully. In a very real sense, they’re saying that your enemies will define you. You’ve got to be cautious about how you combat evil—because it can make you evil yourself.
DAVID: They seem to be stepping into the classic tradition of the ancient Hebrew prophets—these courageous figures who stood up to powerful figures and called for justice and a return to basic religious values.
GREG: One of the sections of my book deals with the tradition of prophetic voices and I take a look at the idea of “prophetic” as not referring to “predicting the future,” which is a definition a lot of people know from popular culture, but “prophetic voice” as a phrase really describing someone who speaks truth to power.
For Bono and U2, this isn’t about religious propositions or orthodoxy—it’s about deep spiritual truths like standing in solidarity with the poor. Bono describes what he is doing now as serving as a lobbyist for the poor.
DAVID: You’ve traveled widely, Greg. You’ve heard many of the world’s great preachers—yet your book explains that you’ve been profoundly moved, over many years, by the spiritual messages preached by this rock band.
GREG: I wrote this book because I do have a profound personal connection with the band. And it’s not just that I sat down with them for an interview 27 years ago. It’s because their music and their lives have shown up in my life over and over again.
All the work I have done in writing and teaching about religion and culture has grown out of this kind of experience.
U2 is one way that many people feel God moving in their lives. For so many people, they don’t feel it in organized religion but in experiences like turning on the radio and hearing a song they desperately needed to hear at that moment.
I have a passion for this particular book and this group—because these musicians have set out on an authentic spiritual quest and have told the world about it honestly.
They are reaching out to millions through their music—letting us know we are not alone in our journeys.

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(Originally published at https://readthespirit.com/)

487: Gospel of U2 and Bono—Is it only popular culture? Or prophetic wisdom?

August 3, 2009 by David Crumm

U2 isn’t history just yet.
This week, the “world’s most popular band” is performing in Poland. That’s after having wowed 80,000 fans in Dublin—before the band headed out to tour the rest of the world. There’s a whole lot of “voice” left in these four guys. So, it may be too early to write the final book on their prophetic legacy.

    But somebody’s got to try. The band’s body of work is too huge and important to ignore. The task fell to Greg Garrett, who regularly tackles the convergences of spirituality and popular culture. (We featured Greg earlier talking about the spiritual messages in comic books.)
    Greg’s new book is “We Get to Carry Each Other: The Gospel According to U2” and in Part 2 of this series, tomorrow, you’ll hear from Greg. His research into U2 is the focus of our Wednesday interview this week.
    In this case, though, you can decide for yourself what you think about the overall message. That’s not always so easy to do. When we profiled the fairy-tale life of Madame Blavatsky or described the remarkable defense of the natural world by Holmes Rolston III—most of our readers didn’t know much about these figures.
    But U2? You know ‘em! We’re talking—145 million albums sold worldwide! We’re talking—22 Grammy Awards.
    So, today, to get you thinking, here are some words from U2 to ponder.

FIRST, BONO and THE BIBLE:

Did you know that Bono wrote a “Preface to Psalms”? He did. It was an introduction to the Bible’s ancient “song book” that was bound into some very popular editions of the Bible sold in the UK some years ago. His “Preface to Psalms” and other unusual introductions to books of the Bible (by other famous writers) are available now in a book called “Revelations.” Here’s part of what Bono says about the Psalms:
“David was said to have composed the first Psalm—a Blues. That’s
what a lot of the Psalms feel like to me: the Blues. Man shouting at
God—’My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far
from helping me?’ (Psalm 22)
“I hear echoes of this holy row when
un-holy bluesman Robert Johnson howls ‘There’s a hellhound on my
trail!’ or Van Morrison sings ‘Sometimes I feel like a motherless
child.’ Texas Alexander mimics the Psalms in ‘Justice Blues’: ‘I cried
Lord my father, Lord-eh Kingdom come. Send me back my woman, then thy
will be done.’”

BONO and GOD:

    Greg Garrett found this concise bit of preaching by Bono about the nature of God. The U2 frontman spoke from the heart at a prayer breakfast he attended:
    “Look, whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists, most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives.
    “Check Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone. I mean, God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill. … I hope so. He may well be with us in all manner of controversial stuff … maybe, maybe not. … But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor.”

U2 and MODERN PSALMS:

    As the title of Greg’s book suggests, he argues that the band’s central theme is the need for global community—caring for one another instead of finding excuses to grab the best of the world for ourselves.
    That’s a warm and easy-to-accept message. But there’s also real fire in U2’s music—like the song “Cedars of Lebanon” in the band’s latest album, “No Line on the Horizon.”
    The song is a complex meditation on love, loss and potential flashpoints of conflict in regions like the Middle East. Indeed! Amazing that they include all of that in a single, fairly short song!
    The real fire in the song, though, comes in the final lines, warning us all against the temptation to define our lives by our enemies. We may not intend to do it, the band sings, but it is ohhh so tempting to let our hatred become our life’s testament. The final lines of the song go like this:

    “Choose your enemies carefully ‘cause they will define you
    Make them interesting ‘cause in some ways they will mind you
    They’re not there in the beginning but when your story ends
    Gonna last with you longer than your friends.”

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475: Readers tell us about … Wandering in Layoff Land, News from Iona, and Christmas in the heart of summer

July 16, 2009 by David Crumm

WELCOME!
Once again, thanks to readers like you,
we’ve got your feedback to share …

AMAZING! As it turns out …
The Spiritual Wanderer is doing better
in the scary realm of Layoff Land!

Back in the old days of journalism —you know, back when courageous journalists were the heroes of mystery novels and movies like “All the President’s Men”—everybody in the newsroom dreamed of Pulitzers.
    Today? It may be more valuable to make the “top spot” on “Newspaper Death Watch” as our own Spiritual Wanderer Rodney Curtis did this week! Suddenly, readers began flocking to a Web site where Rodney promotes his book, “Spiritual Wanderer.” Readers began sending us notes, urging us to welcome this new audience—and urging Rodney to release his inner muse.
    Immediately, Rodney jumped into his bathtub—yeah, he actually writes there sometimes—fired up his laptop and began blazing a new path through the spiritual forest.
    Check it out! Follow his ramblings. Millions of us are going through enormously challenging changes in employment. Here’s a friend who’ll wander with you!

Iona Community is sung by millions,
but its powerful voices aren’t as well known here …
and we’re changing that, now.

If you’re a regular in Christian worship, the odds are that you’ve sung an Iona hymn or prayed an Iona prayer—probably without knowing its source in the Celtic-Christian Iona Community, based in Scotland. This week, we published two newsy stories from Iona: The first shared Iona’s sometimes startling perspective on praying for cities. The second was an in-depth interview with hymn-writer John Bell, whose new book is jam packed with great ideas for congregations.
Here’s the kind of response we got from readers this week: Judy Trautman, the News Editor of the North American Interfaith Network, Emailed to say, “Ah, you bring back fond memories of my three visits to the lovely Isle of Iona. I had the great privilege of meeting the Rev George MacLeod, founder of the Community. My third visit was on the occasion of the dedication of the MacLeod Center (1988), to which our local Presbyterian Church in Perrysburg contributed a small sum. Rev. MacLeod was 92, I believe, at that time, but could still pray so very powerfully! It seems a very long time since those visits, but they were surely a very important part of my spiritual journey.”
And clearly the Iona Community continues to shape the spiritual journeys of many men and women around the world.

Hey, it’s so cheery to see crusty ol’ Ed Asner smile!
Catch him in a unique “Christmas in July”
on the Hallmark Movie Channel

Check your cable TV lineup and see if you get the Hallmark Movie Channel HD. This is a feel-good channel usually filled with quality made-for-TV movies (and some rebroadcasts of theatrical releases, too). And, all this month, it’s Christmas in July!
    Personally I’m a sucker for Christmas movies and I did hear from a couple of readers suggesting we should remind our readers, again, about this series.
    “I read about this in the Planner (our free weekly Email newsletter) and we do get that station and all. I’ve got to tell you, my husband and I watched two movies,” said Sandra Kinny from New York. “It’s sappy and sweet and the girl always gets her guy, or the poor folk always survive, you know, but thanks for telling us about it. We didn’t even know it was on our cable.”
    Well, coming up tonight, Ed Asner returns to TV for “The Christmas Card.“ I previewed the film with my wife Amy this week and I can tell you—this is classic Hallmark stuff: Great production values, a star turn by a beloved actor and a heartwarming story that—sure enough—warms your heart in the end. The storyline involves family members in one small American town, headed by patriarch Asner, who take the time to reach out to our American troops overseas. One year, a Christmas card to a random soldier results in the young man actually showing up on their doorstep.
    As an old news reporter and editor myself, I’m also a sucker for Asner, who ran a TV newsroom in “Mary Tyler Moore” and then an a newspaper metro desk in “Lou Grant.” It’s great to see him once again.
    Check your local TV listings for channel numbers and showtimes. “Christmas Card” will air several times this week.

PLEASE TELL US WHAT YOU THINK:

473 Interview with hymn writer John Bell on a new book & new ideas for ministry

July 15, 2009 by David Crumm

Today, we’re reporting that world-renowned hymn writer John Bell is publishing a new book, “Ten Things They Never Told Me About Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to a Larger Christ.” That’s all many of his fans need to know. If you’re a John-Bell-Celtic-Iona fan, you’ll snap up the new book—and soon you’ll be tearing it apart to pull out John’s fresh ideas.
    For the rest of us, who may not be so familiar with his work, the most important thing to explain about John Bell is that he works at the core of the Iona Community. This is a Scotland-based, international network whose collective name captures its two central missions: First, these men and women celebrate the Celtic-Christian insights that have arisen from the legendary island of Iona—and they work in community.
    You might have skipped over that second point. We all talk about “community.” But for Iona and John Bell, community is where the Spirit of God works.
    Here’s a prime example: Even though Bell’s music is sung in churches around the world, he argues that hymns are not a personal product. In fact, he strongly critiques those Christian singer-songwriters who write deeply personal songs and then publish them as contemporary hymns. Bell does encourage people to create personal songs, poetry and other creative arts expressing their faith—but that’s not the same thing as creating useful hymns and liturgies for worship.
    Worship should be a community experience, Iona teaches us. And, the community should form its own worship. So, Bell wouldn’t think of composing a new song and offering it to the world as a finished “hymn.” He road tests his works in many congregations. He revises his works with the needs of other people in mind.
    That’s why “Ten Things They Never Told Me About Jesus” is a kind of Bible-study guide to the life of Jesus. But it’s also a book jammed with ideas about how people—working together—can roll their sleeves up and discover a far larger Jesus than the little bearded figure in children’s picture books.

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR CONVERSATION
WITH HYMN WRITER AND TEACHER JOHN BELL

    DAVID: It’s terrific to talk with you! ReadTheSpirit Publisher John Hile and I have traveled to the isle of Iona, off the coast of Scotland, on two different pilgrimages. We’ve published a series of articles about our first pilgrimage—articles that continue to be popular with readers.
    Millions of Americans love your hymns. But I think it’s important to explain that your mission in life is a lot bigger than song writing. The opening line in the Wikipedia entry about your life says that you’re “a hymn-writer”—period. What do you think about that? Are you “a hymn-writer”—period?
    JOHN: I don’t think of that as defining my life. I don’t sit down every week and decide I have to write a song. I only write new songs to help people. If we find a new need, I may write a new hymn. It’s not like a career choice I made.
    When I was ordained into the Church of Scotland years ago, my first job was in youth work. We didn’t have many ministers engaged in Scotland in youth work. I was one of only two at that time. It was during my 10 years in youth work that I became aware of how much people’s lives are shaped by hymns.
    There are so many old hymns still with us and they cause some confusion for people. Are we seen by God as “worms” or ‘blight” as some of the older hymns tell us? Or, are we “flowers” with potential and beauty?
    I want to help people find bigger categories in which to hold God and Christ and Spirit—and themselves. I want to help them supplement and expand their images of God beyond those old images we’ve inherited from Victorian times in many cases.
    DAVID: That’s a great way to introduce this new book. When I first heard the title, I thought it was a Bible-study book. But, now that I’ve read it, I think it’s more like a workbook—or sourcebook of ideas—for congregations.
    JOHN: This book is biblically substantial. I was concerned that anything I would write about the Bible be solid and sustained.
    But, in each chapter, there are references to working with people, with groups of kids, with congregations—settings where questions are raised about the background of Jesus. I want to help people ally both the scriptural witness and people’s experiences.

    DAVID: Let’s give readers an example of what they’ll find. One idea you describe in the book is a worship service that features the long genealogy of Jesus from the gospel of Matthew. This is a passage of scripture most people skip over. It’s a list of names from many generations.
    But you describe a liturgy—and you even quote portions of it—in which something surprising happens when the handful of women’s names show up in that list of generations. When a woman’s name pops up in the reading—a woman somewhere in the congregation actually gets up and reads a short piece about the importance of the woman listed by Matthew.
    I can imagine that it’s startling to have people jump up like that during a scripture reading.
    JOHN: The witness of women in scripture has been silenced or patronized by a church in which men primarily choose the readings for worship and who preach. In this genealogy of Jesus, four women are mentioned—and these four women have rather unusual histories. Two of them had been prostitutes.
    When people hear more about figures like this, they realize that the Christ we are asked to follow does not come to us with a pristine pedigree. His very genes have the same taint we all have—a mixed background.
    We need to help people make a much more personal and immediate connection with Christ, so that we don’t leave Jesus simply as this baby who never cried in his mother’s arms and then suddenly was catapulted from that scene onto the cross.
    No, that is not the humanity of Jesus. Jesus comes to us and lives with us and this tainted genealogy is a part of his spiritual armor.

    DAVID: Here’s another example from your book. This is jumping ahead to Christmas time. Probably every Christian church in the world has some kind of Nativity story or play or pageant—often involving children portraying the parts.
    In your book, you describe standing up before such a play begins and asking the people sitting in the pews a few questions. You ask them to stand up if they’ve ever played a shepherd? Then, all the former angels stand. Then inn keepers. And so on. Why do you do that?
    JOHN: The first time I did it was in the Episcopal cathedral here in Glasgow. It was partly because I knew that—as always on Christmas eve—there were a whole lot of people who have never been in church over the past year. But, nearly all these people who do show up have an investment in Christmas because, when they were children either in school or in church they enacted this play and they were shepherds or played some other role.
    Asking people to identify themselves like that is a way to gather the experience of the people together and to begin to use that familiarity to bring them to a deeper level.
    DAVID: One of the great American evangelists, these days, has the same last name as yours: Rob Bell. He’s not related to you. But especially in his new “world tour”—he travels around and delivers this very creative, multimedia sermon. Halfway through his talk, Rob also asks people to stand up and identify things about their lives. He does this in a very welcoming way and I’ve seen people really moved by the experience.
    The fresh idea here is: People in the seats aren’t just a passive audience, right?
    For years in America, “seeker churches” tried to make people in the seats feel that they could come, sit back, feel comfortable—and they really didn’t have to do anything. You and Rob Bell both are talking about a completely different approach to Christian community.

    JOHN: Every month in Glasgow, we offer a liturgy we call Holy City. It’s a time of experiment. We never have anyone preaching but we do always have people bringing the word of God to each other. We might ask people a question like Rob Bell asks. Or we might ask people to turn to each other and talk about a question like: How has the image of angels changed in your life over the years?
    And we actually trust people to open the scripture to each other. For example, if we’re talking about concerns like cancer, we might take one of the miracle stories from scripture and marry this miracle story with a question about health as people have experienced this.
    We need to find opportunities where people can open up to each other and share their insights from their own lives and from scripture. We are no longer dealing with an illiterate congregation that needs to be a silent audience simply waiting for pearls to fall from the lips of a preacher.
    Now, there is no substitute for worship and for the proclamation of the word in preaching. I’m not talking about doing away with all of that.
    But we must also find ways to invite people to relate the scriptures to their own experiences—and then to share those insights with other people in community.

    DAVID: I don’t want to leave readers with some warm-and-fuzzy idea that when you use this word, “community,” you’re talking about a cozy circle of friends. In the new book, you write about how important it is to talk with strangers.
    That idea runs counter to what we usually teach people here in America: Don’t talk to strangers! Especially in our cities—we learn to walk fast and never stop to talk with people.
    You actually say: Stop! Talk! Meet someone completely outside the boundaries of your friends and neighbors. Your book is full of these conversations you’ve had yourself.
    JOHN: My understanding of the Christian faith is that it isn’t supposed to be lived in isolation. It’s always in community.
    But—I don’t see in the Bible where God is calling like-minded people to be part of this new community. No, for the priorities and the signs of the Kingdom of God truly to be manifest, God calls the unlikely—and the unliked. That’s the kind of community God envisions.
    Jesus’ disciples were not people of money or influence or any proven intellectual acumen. Sometimes Jesus consorts with people who are of great wealth and wisdom—but he also interacts with people who are poor and who are persecuted. All of these people are called together.
    For the church to be the essential, important community God is calling—then the church must be a place that calls people with a variety of opinions and many backgrounds.
    The call to love one another we read in scriptures? That’s a cautionary call because, if we’re truly a community of all kinds of people, then our own pet passions can take control of us and we find ourselves in conflict. We need someone to remind us to love one another.
    DAVID: But where do we even start toward such a radical vision? It’s scary. Talk to strangers? Call the unlikely—and the unliked?
    JOHN: You have to realize that your life is not the only significant life in the world. By calling a community together like this, you begin to understand that God—who made us all in God’s image—has this amazing ability to create great diversity in humanity.
    One of our supreme joys should be just talking with other folk—unlikely folk. If we only mix with people of our own sort, then we miss so much about life’s great beauty.

CARE TO READ MORE FROM IONA?

    VISIT “IONA BOOKS” FOR BELL’S NEW BOOK: Here’s the home Web site of Wild Goose Publications, sometimes better known as Iona Books. This link takes you to the page featuring Bell’s new book, including PDF-format excerpts you can download.
    GIA PUBLICATIONS’ AMERICAN PAGE: John Bell works closely with GIA Publications in the U.S. Eventually GIA will produce his book for American audiences. Also, GIA helps with American connections to John’s work. Here’s his “home page” at GIA.
    READ THE WORDS TO A SONG FOR CITIES: We’ve also published a short sample text, Emailed to us by John Bell’s hymn-writing colleague Graham Maule. Here’s a link to that song for cities, giving you a good example of the way Iona writers approach these themes.
    WILD GOOSE RESOURCE GROUP: This is a semi-autonomous project within the Iona Community,
set up to house joint work in worship and music resources headed by
Graham Maule and John Bell. This page contains various links that focus
on their work.
    THE RESOURCE GROUP ON FACEBOOK: Another way to connect with the ongoing efforts of the Maule-Bell group is via this Facebook group. The Facebook page also offers helpful links to members and non-members.

PLEASE TELL US WHAT YOU THINK:

Native American spirituality

June 11, 2009 by David Crumm

WELCOME!
Once again, thanks to readers like you,
we’ve got great feedback to share …

Native American Memoir
“Dancing My Dream”
Shares Healing Wisdom

ON MONDAY, we introduced Warren Petoskey, an important new Native American voice. His memoir is “Dancing My Dream” and he has a new Web site within ReadTheSpirit. In response this week, you sent us notes of encouragement—and suggestions of links we should include to other Indian sites and programs. Most encouraging are notes from readers who are not Indian themselves, but who are inspired by Warren’s wisdom. He writes eloquently about the natural world and also about overcoming life’s traumas.

Here’s one example of a reader note:
Elaine Greenberg is a cancer survivor and musician who specializes in using music to help cancer patients find hope and strength. In addition to patients, she works with survivors and medical personnel. Elaine connected immediately with Warren’s story through our Wednesday interview with him. She wrote:
“Your interview with Warren Petoskey
was so touching. I ordered a copy of his book. I am really looking forward to reading it He said many things that touched me in your interview, but the one quote I wrote
down was ‘Those of us who have survived trauma must help others still
hoping to survive.’ Those words really struck home as I continue my
mission as a cancer survivor whether I am speaking to Med Students,
Residents or the everyday person sitting in a group.”

    To read more about Warren and “Dancing My Dream,” here are quick links:
    Visit http://www.DancingMyDream.com for much more about the author and his inspiring message.
    Read our interview with Warren this week, the one that inspired Elaine and other readers.
   Read a sample chapter of Warren’s book.

A SPIRITED CONVERSATION
ON AMERICAN VALUES, PRESIDENT OBAMA
AND THE MIDDLE EAST

LOTS of readers are visiting the http://www.OurValues.org/ Web site for Dr. Wayne Baker’s special series on the future of American relations with the Muslim World and the Middle East in the wake of President Obama’s historic address in Cairo.
Each day, Dr. Baker has been raising provocative questions, not only about American foreign policy—but also about Arab Americans’ lives here in the U.S. Visit the Web site and scroll down through his recent posts. Readers have had a lot to say in response.
(Note: If you scroll past this week’s posts, you’ll also find a timely discussion of American values related to the General Motors bailout. Readers have had a lot to say about that topic as well!)

    PLUS: In another section of ReadTheSpirit, readers continue to read our stories about the 19th-century Muslim hero Emir Abd el-Kader—and the two Iowa high school students who have drawn fresh lessons from his nearly forgotten life in Africa and the Middle East.
    Reader Doris Norrito wrote to us about one of the student’s essays: “Dear Stephannie, I read your story with keen interest. So well
expressed, not only did it reveal the origins of your town’s name, but
leaves readers with a role model and inspiration to carry on. I spent last summer in Bethlehem as a volunteer
reporter. Nearby is the village of Al Khader. Every Friday at noon,
Palestinians, Israelis and Internationals gather for group prayer
followed by a peaceful demonstration against the building of the wall on
Palestinian land at Al Khader village.
    “Not widely reported by mainstream media, there
are many peace movements taking place in the troubled ‘Holy Land’ And
unless you go—I hope one day you will—few Americans will ever hear about
them. Reading your wonderful story, I believe the
derivation of this Palestinian village name may also stem from the the man who
inspired the name of your town. The determination of people from these towns to
work for peace among all peoples is perhaps his finest
legacy.
    “Thank you for this wonderful story: keep up your
fine work. Peace, Doris Norrito.“

IONA AND ST. COLUMBA
BACK IN THE NEWS THIS WEEK

IN ANY GIVEN WEEK OF THE YEAR, some readers are visiting to explore the series we published about a pilgrimage to Iona, the historic island off the coast of Scotland that has been attracting Christian pilgrims for more than 1,000 years.
    Well, this week, Iona was in the news, because of the Feast of St. Columba, the monk, scholar and artisan who made the tiny island famous many years ago. Click here visit our current “Spiritual Season” column and learn more.
    Reader Kathleen Finn enjoyed the Iona series of stories and photos this week and wrote: “Thanks very much for your moving and beautiful presentation on making a pilgrimage to Iona. I appreciate your insight and your artistry in describing the interactions among the pilgrims and with the place. The photos are magnificent. I found your site this morning in googling ‘Iona’ and I feel blessed by the experience. Lately, I’ve had a thirst to make such a pilgrimage, and your account has really allowed me to feel refreshed.
    “I’ve just joined Christ Church Cathedral (Episcopal) of Nashville and, after reading your articles on Celtic spirituality, look forward to J. Philip Newell’s visit in October.
    “Blessings, Kathleen”

PLEASE TELL US WHAT YOU THINK:

379 Conversation with Diana Butler Bass on Reclaiming Spiritual Treasures in her New “A People’s History of Christianity”

March 3, 2009 by David Crumm

“History will not tell us what to do, but will at least start us on the road to action of a different and more self-aware kind, action that is moral in a way it can’t be if we have no points of reference beyond what we have come to take for granted.”
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams
(quoted in “A People’s History of Christianity”)

    Earlier this week, I was talking with a small group of educators — women representing various religious and cultural backgrounds — and I told them that one of the most powerful things we can do to light up our neighbors’ lives is: “Teach people how to make a friend across a boundary they don’t expect to cross.”
    The most important thing I can tell you about Diana Butler Bass’ new book, “A People’s History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story,” is that you’ll leave her book having made dozens of new friends across the chasms of history — friends who will light your spiritual pathway in directions you may not have expected.
    The title of Bass’ new book pays homage to the influential historian Howard Zinn. His famous 1980 book, “A People’s History of the United States,” recovered the stories of many Americans — and groups of Americans — whose stories were marginalized in traditional histories. Bass is a historian and educator herself and knows how to produce a 14-week course that jogs undergraduates quickly through 2,000 years of Christian history.
    This new book is not that kind of work.
    Rather, this new book is more of a manifesto about rediscovering and reclaiming spiritual gems long overlooked in Christian history. Or, as Diana herself puts it: “Exploring the past, we begin to understand our actions anew; we discover new spiritual possibilities for our lives.”

    You — as you read our online magazine today on this Internet page — already are a part of this same community of inquiry that Diana is trying to encourage in her new book. This is a book specifically about Christian history, although the interfaith significance of the book is obvious in correcting many misconceptions about the world’s single largest and most powerful faith.
    But don’t miss the catalytic energy between these covers. Millions of people already are reclaiming the treasures in their religious history. They’re discovering, for example, that Protestants may have been too quick to abandon ancient practices like fasting and fixed-hour prayer. They’re learning that figures like Methodism’s founder John Wesley actually had strong and prophetic messages about the importance of the natural world around us. They’re discovering often-overlooked moments of religious heroism — like those Muslims who rescued Jews during the Holocaust.
    In this book, Diana is providing rich provisions for our journey. Her book also is a terrific choice for small-group discussion and study. (NOTE: You can click below on the Amazon link today and have a copy in your hands later this week.)

HERE ARE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE CONVERSATION
WITH DIANA BUTLER BASS

    DAVID: I’m amazed at the number of revisionist histories of Christianity hitting bookstores over the past year — many of them pointing out the most terrible abuses committed by this worldwide faith. You and I both agree that people should be honest about our religious history. But, your book argues that neither the all-good, inspirational stories of the past — nor the all-bad, broadsides against Christianity — are accurate.
    DIANA: Yes. There are lots of terrible things that happened in Christian history but there were lots of good things as well. Many people today are suffering from a kind of spiritual amnesia about all of it, especially the good parts. In this new book, I’m honest about the good and the bad, but what I hope people will find in reading this book is that they’ll close the book, at the end, and they’re realize that they suddenly have 50 new friends from Christian history that they never knew they had before.
    DAVID: How significant has Howard Zinn’s work been in your career as a scholar, historian and writer?
    DIANA: That’s an interesting question. I have a PhD in American religious history, so on a professional and academic level, I’ve had myriad classes on Western civilization and American history. I don’t remember when I first saw and read Zinn’s book but one thing that I was quite taken with in that book was his ability to recover stories that had gotten kind of fuzzy through the years. He did that and he was able to create a usable history that could motivate people to make constructive social change.
    His primary influence on me, I would say, is as an author of usable history. I don’t think history should sit on shelves in libraries. It should motivate people and inspire people. I feel passionately that history should give us the tools to help create a better world.

    DAVID: We should explain to readers of this Conversation that your book is not really a “History Book” in the sense that people think of thick textbooks from school. Your book is substantial at about 300 pages, but it’s quick and inspirational reading — plus, it keeps jumping back and forth between present-day concerns and chapters of history in our past. So, this is different even from Zinn’s approach to history, right?
    DIANA: Yes. I think there are two very big differences between what I am trying to do and what Zinn did. Those differences come out of the changes that have happened in American cultural and intellectual life in the last 30 years. When Zinn wrote his book initially he could assume that his readers had a certain base-line knowledge of history and that they knew how to make connections between their world and the older world they were reading about. He was writing to people who had deeper academic memory of our history – and now that is gone for the most part. It’s very difficult for people to read history today. They don’t often know how to read it. They find it boring or tedious or they don’t understand its conventions – and they don’t know what to do with it once they’ve read it.
    The challenge for any historian today is to write shorter and more accessible books and to point out directly the connections with readers’ lives. That was my two-fold challenge with Zinn’s style. I had to write a quicker narrative for an audience with a shorter attention span. And I knew that I had to draw the connections for people through history.

    DAVID: I think the problem may run even deeper than you’re describing here. I talk to people all the time, now, who make it clear that they don’t even trust history anymore. Things have changed so much. Versions of history have changed so dramatically.
    DIANA: Many are arguing that we are unmoored today.
    The threads of memory and tradition that connected generations have been cut or are unraveling. This is particularly true in the West but it also is an issue in other parts of the world. The danger is that people can become merely tourists, traveling through the world with no memory of what came before us. There’s a French writer who talks about the spiritual amnesia of the West.
    That’s a very compelling image, because if we’re suffering from spiritual amnesia, I actually wonder as a Christian and as a person who is politically progressive, if our future is spiritual Alzheimer’s. Loss of memory is a deadly disease. We see it in parents and grandparents who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. It’s not a funny issue. I don’t want to be part of a faith community that winds up in religious Alzheimer’s.
    I’m inviting people of faith — and people who might be interested in exploring faith — to read, to think, to talk and to begin to remember our past in a new way.

    DAVID: Examples of this process of spiritual rediscovery — of recovering gems from our past — are all around us. We published an interview with Tony Campolo that’s still popular with readers in which Tony talks about his own amazement in rediscovering John Wesley’s teachings about the natural world.
    Frankly, if you look at important evangelical figures like Rob Bell and Shane Claiborne, I think a persuasive case can be made that they’re preaching the themes of John Wesley centuries after those themes first caught fire. You actually talk about Wesley early in your book and make this very point, right?
    DIANA: I’m amazed you’d ask me this question, because I was just at a conference where I did some work around Wesley. It was interesting to me that, even though there were Methodists at this conference, most of them knew little about him.
    My approach to recovering a figure in history begins with the assumption that it does us no good at all to think of these people as saints who never did anything out of line. When I approach Wesley’s life, I approach him as a person who had lots of fits and starts. He did some amazing things and he made some mistakes.
Contemporary historians are quick to point out his problems in relationships with women. There were broken love affairs. The extent of those love affairs we don’t know because but we do know there were lots of broken love affairs. We know that he and his wife didn’t have a good relationship. Here’s a person who did enormous good in the world and yet he was a person who struggled and didn’t do everything right. That’s one of the things I try to communicate: We’re looking back at really human stuff in history.
    But, given all of that, Wesley is a pivotal figure. He’s important because of the things he’s able to combine. He combines a very powerful sense of spiritual practices. He was deeply shaped by medieval Catholic prayer practices that had been carried through Anglicanism to him so his life was framed by a methodical sense of practice. Because he engaged in these things on a regular basis, they changed him and he taught those practices to others.
    Then, the other thing I find very compelling about him is that we have this great story of John Wesley who on his 80th birthday was walking through the snow in the north of England and he was giving away all of the money in his pockets to the poor. That was very much as Wesley always was — he could not hold onto a penny. He gave away everything he had. His hands were constantly open to the least of these.
    In both of those ways Wesley is a great model. Then there are other aspects of Wesley that we don’t consider enough. He was a real. He had a very ecumenical heart. He never wanted to start his own denomination. He was part of the Anglican Communion his whole life. He reached back toward Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism. He was always interested in picking and choosing the best of everyone’s traditions and presenting that to the world.
    If we understand him properly, John Wesley was a person who is very worthy of emulation today.

    DAVID: To give readers a feel for some of the stories they’ll find in this book — let’s point out that you do, about halfway through the book, write a section about Christian reflections on our spiritual relationships with animals. You introduce us to St. Francis in a new way here and you introduce us to a contemporary thinker: Paul Waldau, an ethicist specializing in animal rights.
    DIANA: I got interested in this subject through meeting Paul Waldau. Paul was raised a Christian, a Roman Catholic and had basically rejected Christianity because of the whole tradition’s bad treatment of animals. As I talked with Paul, I said: “You know it hasn’t always been like that.”
    I said, “The whole tradition may not be friendly to animals but there are characters in our history who have very rich theologies on animals. I pointed him toward Celtic tradition that has an incredible tradition of seeing animals as divine actors in the world. Then, there’s the Franciscan tradition.”
    We need to begin pulling these threads through our tradition and, from Celtic and Franciscan traditions, we can weave that thread through later figures like Wesley. We begin to see that this has been a theme all along — a theme we can reclaim.
    DAVID: Many people are engaged in this process right now — and not just within Western Christianity. Philip Jenkins’ new book about rediscovering the history of Christianity in the East and in Africa is a very important new contribution to this process, for example. And, we heartily encourage this process through ReadTheSpirit in all of the world’s faith traditions. We’re the publishers of Sharing Islam to showcase Muslim themes that are important for building stronger communities.
    I know that your book is written specifically about your area of expertise — Christian history of the West. But it’s clear from reading your book that it easily could be used in small community groups exploring religious diversity.

DIANA: I hope people do read it in small groups.
I am a Christian. I love the Christian path and I invite people to join me on the Christian path all the time. But God is very mysterious and there are many paths toward that end of God’s love.

When people find other paths toward wholeness of love of God and love of neighbor there is no reason to redirect them. As a Christian, I find it enormously helpful in my own journey listen to my Jewish friends and Muslim friends and Buddhist friends and see how they practice their faith and how they do social justice.
I am glad for the friendships that are possible among us.

PLEASE, Tell Us What You Think.
This is a good time to sign up for our Monday-morning ReadTheSpirit Planner by Email —it’s
free and you can cancel it any time you’d like to do so. The Planner
goes out each week to readers who want more of an “inside track” on
what we’re seeing on the horizon, plus it’s got a popular “holidays”
section.

Not only do we welcome your notes, ideas, suggestions and personal
reflections—but our readers enjoy them as well. You can do this
anytime by clicking on the “Comment” links at the end of each story.
You also can Email ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm. We’re also reachable on Facebook, Digg, Amazon, GoodReads and some of
the other social-networking sites as well, if you’re part of those
groups.
(Originally published at https://readthespirit.com/)

294: What “DaVinci” overlooked are fabled Rosslyn’s true “Green” gems

November 5, 2008 by David Crumm

There are few religious destinations in the world as steeped in mystery, at least since the cultural earthquake known as “The DaVinci Code,” as Rosslyn Chapel south of Edinburgh, Scotland. And, today, our series of stories that began with Celtic themes and the spiritual work of Matthew Fox continues as we introduce you to one of the most intriguing of Rosslyn’s mysteries—the Green Man—overlooked in Dan Brown’s wholesale manufacturing of other symbols that suited his suspenseful plot.
That remark isn’t a bunch of sour grapes tossed at the feet of a mega-best-selling author. The fact is: Dan Brown is a terrific novelist, but careless with his facts. Among other things, Brown’s cutting-and-pasting of fictional symbols literally led to some members of the movie crew pasting a fake Star of David onto one of Rosslyn’s priceless walls. According to Rosslyn staff, the Hollywood crew didn’t even ask before gluing the star-shaped prop onto a fragile stone wall—and the removal of the fake movie prop permanently marred the stonework.

The overlooked symbol we’re going to explore today is known as “The Green Man,” and this rich imagery shows up front and center, once again, in Matthew Fox’s latest book (see our Conversation With him if you missed it).
BUT, first, a word about Rosslyn—the ornately decorated, 15th-century stone church featured in the final scenes of the novel and the movie version of Brown’s book.
I recently spent a day at the fabled chapel, where members of this active Church of Scotland parish don’t speak too kindly about the professionals behind “The DaVinci Code.” They say author Dan Brown never so much as visited the chapel before making up a lot of brand-new mysterious details about what took place in its stone chambers.
“The only time we ever saw him was when the movie crew finally came here to make the movie and then he only popped his head in about 30 minutes and was gone,” said one guide leading dozens of visitors through the dense symbolism packed inside the abbey.
“We have enough symbolism here without adding more. And what did they add? Well, a lot of it was just fiction. They said Rosslyn means ‘Rose Line,’ and of course it doesn’t at all. In Gaelic it means waterfall—a ross is a rock outcropping and the lyn part refers to falling water,” said another guide. “You could pull up our carpeting all day long and all you’d find is perhaps a little dust. There’s no ‘Rose Line’ here at all.”
Another said, “And in the movie when you see the characters walk down into the sacristy? They cut to a Hollywood set after they go down the steps. There’s nothing here like what they showed on screen. You can go down there today and see for yourself.”
“And there never was a six-pointed Star of David here at all,” said the first guide. “In fact, the Hollywood people had one made and stuck it on the wall here without asking us! When they finished, we discovered it and the adhesive left a circle on the wall. We weren’t happy about that!”
That’s not to mention the fact that neither Brown nor the movie studio shared their millions in revenue with the trust that is fighting a last-ditch battle with centuries of decay to save this world-class spiritual landmark. The movie crews paid a basic day-rental fee for the site, “which wasn’t much at all,” said a parishioner.

BUT, here’s the good news about Rosslyn’s encounter with Dan Brown and “DaVinci.” When the movie opened in 2006 and millions of people around the world got a big-screen glimpse inside this amazing chapel, tourism exploded from less than 10,000 per year to more than 170,000 in the next 12 months! By charging modest fees to enter the church, the non-profit trust, which has been struggling for years to save this sacred site, finally began to accumulate the funds to accomplish some serious work.
The chapel itself has been “drying out” under an enormous metal canopy, but an enormous amount of conservation work lies ahead for the congregation. You can see from the Green Man at left, who already has lost many of his features, that the situation is dire.

A complete analysis of every inch of the chapel is still emerging. For example, just a few years ago, Rosslyn staff told visitors that there were slightly more than 100 images of the Green Man around the church’s complex stone surfaces. Now, more images have been found hiding in nooks and crannies and staff tell visitors there are more than 110!

What’s the significance of the Green Man?
Well, there are various versions of the image in sacred sites that range from human faces that appear to be hiding among foliage to faces with open mouths sprouting vines or branches to faces like the one on Matthew Fox’s cover that seem to be made up entirely of vegetation.

Here’s what Matt says about the image from a portion of our Conversation that we didn’t publish yesterday:
“The Green Man archetype is ancient, pre-Christian. In the 12th century, the Green Man came strongly into Christianity in Europe along with the goddess. The Green Man kind of rides her shirt tails. This is a figure often depicted with bows or tree limbs growing out of his mouth. His beard is often leaves or grasses or green things and so it is a metaphor about our relation with nature and with vegetative nature especially.
“In the Celtic tradition, the Green Man will often have antlers. It’s a celebration of male sexuality as well as a part of the generativity of nature and of creation itself. This also awakens our energy to defend nature. … And when we do this, this will heal us along with healing creation.
“This archetype is huge for us in our times, because it supports our ethical view of things today. Because of global warming, we know that humans have to change our ways. … We’re talking about a huge spiritual movement in our time and the Green Man is a marvelous archetype to celebrate that and to bring those energies alive and to connect with our ancestors who were not stupid and who were more aware than we are of the natural world.“

What does Rosslyn itself have to say about trying to preserve one of the world’s major collections of Green Man imagery? Well, the church today houses an active Protestant congregation and the official guide to Rosslyn by the current Earl of Rosslyn skirts the Green Man’s larger spiritual associations. The Earl talks about it mainly as a kind of proud symbol of diversity.
The Earl’s book about Rosslyn says, in part: “The Chapel is rich in carvings of the Green Man. … a profusion of pagan fertility symbols not unexpected in a place so influenced by Celtic tradition. … The story of Robin Hood has its origins in this legend and was a popular maytide play in Scotland during the 15th and 16th centuries, often performed by gypsies.
“The St. Clair family generally and in particular Sir William St. Clair, great grandson of the founder of the Chapel, were known to be sympathetic to the plight of the gypsies in an age when the laws of the country persecuted them severely.”

But what do you think about this powerful spiritual figure and its messages for us today? Tell us!

CARE TO READ MORE?
VISIT ROSSLYN’S OWN WEB SITE: Given Rosslyn’s global fame at the moment, you might expect a Disney-like Web site. On the contrary, the congregation that still worships in the church and the trust that is trying to save this masterpiece of architecture are devoting every available dollar to a massive preservation effort. So, the site appears fairly basic, at first glance. HOWEVER, don’t miss sections on History, Architecture and other gems via links at top and bottom of the site.
CHECK OUT WIKI’S GATEWAY: The Wikipedia page on Rosslyn is very good. In fact, you’ll find a better introductory overview on Wiki than on Rosslyn’s own page. Plus, if you’re really intrigued, Wiki offers a series of other fascinating links.
KEEP FOLLOWING ReadTheSpirit: We’ve got more to share about Scotland and our recent pilgrimage to Iona in coming months. One great way to keep up with our stories and latest news is to subscribe to our free Monday-morning Emailed Planner. Click here to learn more and subscribe, if you wish.

PLEASE, Tell Us What You Think.

Not only do we welcome your notes, ideas, suggestions and personal
reflections—but our readers enjoy them as well. You can Email ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm. We’re also reachable on Facebook, Digg, Amazon, GoodReads and some of
the other social-networking sites as well, if you’re part of those
groups.
(Published in the ReadTheSpirit online magazine.)

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HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR CONVERSATION WITH GREG GARRETT ON U2:

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR CONVERSATION
WITH GREG GARRETT ON U2: