Category: Thought for the Day

By on 1 Comment

The story of the Epiphany (Matthew 2:1-12) tells of a group of Magi who read in the stars a mysterious sign, touching something deep inside them, moving them to journey toward Jerusalem in search of a newborn king. These Magi enter the story abruptly and then, just as quickly, go out again by another way never to be heard from again. We do not know their names or their origin.

The best historical evidence we have comes from Roman Herodotus who said that the magi were part of a Median tribe in the empire of the Persians. An attempt by the Medes to take power from the Persians failed. The magi gave up their ambitions for political power and became a tribe of priests. They studied philosophy, natural science and religion. Many were holy men and women who saw life as a continual quest for meaning and truth.

I think it is this attitude, this quest for meaning and truth that give the magi their unique place in the Christmas story and why they have such a strong appeal for us. They represent that part of us that longs for something more, for confidence and hope, for a life of fullness and possibility.  The novelist George Eliot wrote,

“It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are alive.  There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger for them.” —George Eliot

What journey or quest do we find ourselves on in the present season of our lives?  There are a myriad of ways to approach this question depending on age, culture, religious formation, and our own individual convictions. But I wonder if there is not some perennial wisdom that can summarize the human quest no matter our religious or non-religious background. Philosophers and mystics, and we could add magi, have expressed a summary of the quest that points to a universal recognition:

  • There is a Transcendent Reality underneath and inherent in the world of things;
  • There is in the human soul a natural capacity, similarity, and longing for this Transcendent Reality;
  • Humanity flourishes when it seeks union with this Transcendent Reality.

My hope is that we will nourish and give room for this “Epiphany Adventure,” throughout the days of the coming year.  May we honor the importance of caring for our minds and our hearts as much as any other critical responsibility laid upon us. May we recognize the quest unfolding in those we do not normally or only occasionally encounter and discover more common ground than we ever thought possible.

“Once this spirit becomes part of a person’s life, every day is Christmas and every night is freighted with the dawning of fresh, and perhaps holy, adventure.” —Howard Thurman

By on

For all the great thoughts I have read
For all the deep books I have studied
None has brought me nearer to Spirit
Than a walk beneath shimmering leaves
Golden red with the fire of autumn
When the air is crisp
And the sun a pale eye, watching.
I am a scholar of the senses
A theologian of the tangible.
Spirit touches me and I touch Spirit
Each time I lift a leaf from my path
A thin flake of fire golden red
Still warm from the breath that made it.

Steven Charleston, “Scholar of the Senses,” in Spirit Wheel: Meditations from an Indigenous Elder (Minneapolis, MN: Broadleaf Books, 2023), 22.

By on

Earlier today, I listened to remarks that Secretary of State Antony Blinken made during a press conference in Israel. In those remarks he referenced a text written by his stepfather, Samuel Pisar, to be performed as part of Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 3 more commonly known as the monumental “Kaddish Symphony.”

The Kaddish Symphony is a dramatic portrayal, through the powerful interaction of words and music of humanity’s crisis of faith and the disorientation it provokes in our contemporary world. Before Bernstein’s death, he turned to his friend, Samuel Pisar and asked him to write the definitive narrative for “Kaddish,” based on the Holocaust – one of the worst catastrophes perpetrated by one group of people over another under the eyes of a seemingly uncaring God. Having been a holocaust survivor himself, Pisar felt unable to produce a text equal to the grandeur of Bernstein’s music. It would also mean a revisiting of his own lifelong struggle with reason and faith. But soon after the horror s of September 11, 2001, Pisar was convinced it was time to fulfill Bernstein’s request and write his aching and eloquent “Dialogue with God.”

The section of the dialogue from which Secretary Blinken quoted today is worth reading in light of the overwhelming tragedies we are witnessing in Israel and Gaza and indeed in so many places within our world today. I admire Pisar’s  fierce honesty with God, his “Job-like” arguments, and the urgency of his warning to turn from depravity and cherish the sanctity of human life.

I have posted a link to the entire text and the “Kaddish Symphony” below.

Majestic deity:
Whoever You are, wherever You are,
Your omnipresence in our midst
Is so old, so immense, so ingrained,
That I dare not even ask myself
If You are reality or illusion.
Either way, for us mortals,
You are an indispensable source of hope.

Still, my Kaddish is not a confession
Of sudden religious reawakening.
Like most of my fellow-men,
I remain torn between belief and doubt,
Revelation and enlightenment
Tradition and modernity.

Since my return from the valleys of death,
A rage to live and learn has pushed me
Toward the summits of existence.
Yes, providence has smiled upon me,
And today my cup truly runneth over.

But in the end, what am I,
If not a humble messenger
From a world that once collapsed,
Alarmed to see our world headed
For another collapse?

And what entitles me
To claim Your attention,
If not a duty to bear witness
To the martyrdom and rebirth of my people;
Of all peoples exposed to
Existential danger?

And what is my message,
If not that man,
Though created in Your image,
And endowed with freedom to choose
Between good and evil,
Remains capable of the worst,
As of the best,
Of hatred as of love,
Of madness as of genius.

That unless we curb our predatory instincts,
Cherish the sanctity and dignity of human life,
And espouse the core moral values
Common to all great creeds
-Sacred and secular-
The horrors of the past will return
To darken our future.

Complete Text of “Dialogue with God” by Samuel Pisar
John Axelrod and Luzerner Orchestra on Spotify

By on 1 Comment

The gifted oboist and conductor, Michael Helmrath, once asked a student the following question:

“Where is the music?”
“In the CD when you started playing it?”
“No the CD is a photo. But it isn’t the music.”
“Then is it in the score, when you write it?”
“No the music only exists in the moment when it is played. Therefore, don’t be afraid. Just play.”

By on 2 Comments

“The starting point of contemporary Christian faith is an experienced liberation from hatred, greed and ignorance, brought about by a vision of transcendent goodness in and through the risen Christ. Such a liberating apprehension needs to be worked out tentatively yet creatively in relation to the modern scientific and historical worldview. That is the view of a long cosmic evolutionary process within which the divine life can be expressed and become the matrix of a transformation of the cosmos itself to participate in the life of the eternal God. That expression, that matrix, and that goal to which all creation strives, is Christ. To be a Christian is to place all your faith in that vision and that goal”.

Ward, Keith. Re-thinking Christianity (p. 180). Oneworld Publications. Kindle Edition.