This Is It - Episode 3: Finding Purpose

He’d returned from being on the road. He’d been traveling, observing, learning, and teaching. From time to time, he’d return to see how things were at home. Each time, it seemed things had further deteriorated. 

The occupation was putting more and more strain on the people. The average person found it difficult to make ends meet, as more and more taxes were being levied—some to fund pleasure palaces and cities meant to honor men who had no honor. Building the city of Tiberius over the bones of the dead, not good—unclean. No pious person could live there.

Having made his way out into the world, he learned that there were more ways of worship than what Jerusalem offered; the farther you traveled away from the Temple, the greater chance of discovering a new sect of people who proclaimed to know better, more perfect ways of divine observance. And then there were the Greek gentiles and all their gods—and their philosophical thinking. Everyone was competing to be “right.” 

But more immediately, having returned home for a visit, the family spoke to him about their growing concern for cousin John, his ministry and mission. He had not seen John much over the years; as an adult, John had become a bit odd and estranged from immediate family. He’d found he couldn’t live indoors, and had left town to live in the countryside. And then he’d found a purpose—and now had a following. The family feared his purpose would make him a target. Perhaps an intervention was necessary.

And so he had been shadowing John, at the behest of family, to see what it was all about, to hear what John had to say. He found that with much of John’s talk, he was in full agreement. 

Daily, he had witnessed the same corruption John spoke of, impinging on the lives of the people. It wasn’t enough that the Roman occupation was burdening the people with new taxes and gentrification, but there were things going on in Jerusalem, even at the Temple, that were disquieting to him. Human nature, business as usual, quid pro quo—whatever you wanted to call it, the world seemed utterly at odds with what the scriptures taught was “the way it should be.”

What disturbed him personally was that people were complacent in their powerlessness, rote in their observances and treating their mundane daily tasks as a burden rather than a blessing—or worse, as an emptiness rather than a fulfillment. It was easier to point fingers of blame than it was to find solutions from within the foundations of faith. The politics of everyday secular life was dividing people, and the life of the sacred was begging for renewal.

He watched as John helped people to renew their covenant, to acknowledge their need for healing, to turn back to the holy one. Person after person walked away refreshed and with new purpose. For how long that might last, who knew—but in the moment, with the support of the crowd, this was a shining moment in the life of a soul.

And a feeling welled up in his own soul, a need not to intervene, but to be a part of this movement and in support his kinsman, John. 

This, he felt to his core, was the sign he himself had been waiting for, in order to make his own purpose manifest.

So, he stepped forward, out of the crowd, and said, Me. Take me. I’ll be next.

© 2020 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com

A brief note about my literary exploration of the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth: I have undertaken this exercise having read, sung (in several languages), meditated and prayed on the contents of the Synoptic Gospels (as well as the Non-Synoptic Gospels) for at least 45 years. In that time, I’ve accumulated a bit of a library (which comes as no surprise to those who know me), and I try to follow modern scholarship. Here is a partial list of the authors and books that come to mind as I write these episodes:

Ballentine, Debra Scoggins, The Conflict Myth & the Biblical Tradition; Oxford University Press 2015

Erdman, Bart, various titles

Gaus, Andy, The Unvarnished New Testament; Phanes Press, 1991

Herzog, William R., Parables as Subversive Speech; Westminster John Knox Press, 1991

Louden, Bruce, Greek Myth and the Bible; Routledge, 2019

Tatian, Diatesseron; www.earlychristianwritings.com/diatessaron.html

Wajdenbaum, Philippe, Argonauts of the Desert, Routledge, 2011

Ward, Keith, The Philosopher and the Gospels, Lion Hudson, 2011

Yosef ben Maityahu (Titus Flavius Josephus), various writings

Meetings – A Remembrance of Dawn Foster-Dodson

I wrote the poem you will read below for Dawn in 2002 and revised it in 2004; who knows, perhaps it is not truly finished. This poem is actually about Dawn and her relationships with her cello and with one piece of music, Max Bruch’s Op. 47, Kol Nidre. But really, it is about the will and freedom of the spirit to express beauty.

I had the honor and joy to hear Dawn play Bruch’s Kol Nidre each year on Erev Kol Nidre from 1997 to 2015 at Temple Isaiah in Lafayette, most of those years in collaboration with organist Michael Secour.

Over those years, Dawn’s relationship with this piece and with her cello, as well as her ensemble with Michael, deepened and expanded. I was amazed to experience her cello’s voice growing in depth and expression, Dawn’s touch of the bow on the strings becoming so second nature into meditation – the experience of hearing her became more and more translucent, if that at all makes sense. The sadness of the melody really was an uplifted prayer, less sad than a balm of love, poured out for all in the sanctuary, and beyond the beautiful stained glass windows of the synagogue, released into the world.

In the early years, Dawn used sheet music. Over the years, I could see that piece of sheet music was well-loved; it became dog-eared and worn on the edges from use. One year, she came to services without the music. Of course, she didn’t need it anymore. She hadn’t needed it for years and years. The music stand and the music copy had long become superfluous – she always closed her eyes and just played. She had transcended that barrier.

Every year, Dawn and Michael would play that piece for an assembled congregation of at least a thousand or more, over the course of two evening services. And every year, she drew the congregation away from their cares, concerns, fidgeting, drew them into their prayers with her music. You could hear a pin drop, it was so quiet, as if the congregation was holding an uncharacteristic but necessary border of silence around Dawn and her cello, Michael and the organ, to protect the precious fragility of the beauty being recreated for them.

And every year, at the last note, a collective sigh of thanksgiving for that translucent, shimmering beauty sent all those prayers aloft to Adonai. Every year. When her illness kept her from us last year, another kind of sigh was heard. And this year, a different one yet shall be heard.

Dawn, Dear One, with tears, my soul sings the shimmering, translucence of your transcendence, as a prayer of thanksgiving for the beauty of your life among us.

Meetings

Paper worn,
sheets so old
there's no rustle left in them,
more like felt under her fingers,
or softer yet,
like the worn cheek
of a beloved old friend.

Settling the pages,
making them comfortable,
she arranged herself,
just close enough
to see the signs and symbols,
and on them meditate.

Cradling the instrument
within her warm embrace,
she took a long, deep breath,
filling her being with its sweetness.

Fixing her gaze
on those worn pages—
old friends, revisited often;
“the rules of engagement,”
she had once heard;
an apt description,
the thought occurred
—she drew the bow,
forward over the strings.

Then she leaned back,
closed her eyes,
and let the bow find the strings,
the way that they would do,
just now.

Inner ear to mind,
mind to thought,
idea to quill,
quill to manuscript,
symbols dot paper,
shapes greet the eye,
horsehair strokes steel,
steel vibrates wood,
wood sings,
space hums,
body rejoices,
soul soars.

The sum
of all these meetings
is God’s voice,
heard as music.

© 2017 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Not Trinitarian, But Devoted to Trinity

In the calendar of the greater Christian Church, this past Sunday was Trinity Sunday.

I am not Trinitarian, and I personally believe the doctrine of the Trinity to be heretical, scripturally unsupported and socially destructive.

I won’t spend a great deal of time on this; for most people, this comes under the heading “churchy, boring, and who cares?” I mention it because I care.

I do not have much in the way of scholarly authority, but I do know that the notion of Trinity hangs on one slim line of scriptural text, Matthew 28:19: Go ye, therefore, and instruct all nations; and baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. There has been a great deal of argument, in recent years as to whether this sentence is spurious or genuine. One of the main reasons for this is the fact that baptism as recorded in “The Acts of the Apostles” isn’t described in a way that matches with the description in Matthew. It seems obvious that things happened one or more ways in the beginnings of the early church, after which changes were adopted then for some reason, helped along by the zeal to establish an orthodoxy of practice.

There are triads all over the place in mythology and in many other cultural manifestations. The formula of “thought, word and deed” appears in Christianity by way of Judaism from Zoroastrianism. Three is a magical and a basic number, and I have no argument against the loveliness of three.

However, what I find offensive about the Christian idea of Trinity, as it comes to us today, is how it treats the feminine aspect in the world.

For me, three is the number that defines the basic family formula: Father, Mother, Child. Even in this modern era of wonderful families of two moms with a child or two dads with a child, it is still true that the only way for most kinds of children to arrive is by means of a fertile male component mingling with a fertile female component.

The oldest versions of words for Spirit or Wisdom are feminine. Ruaḥ is the Hebrew word for spirit (and Hokmah is the Hebrew word for wisdom; Shekinah is the Aramaic word for presence). Ruaḥ was translated into Greek as Pneuma, a neutral gender form, and the Vulgate has translated that into the Latin word Spiritus, which is masculine.

Just the other day, I wrote, in an Introduction to a collection of poems, “The more basic truth about words is that their accumulation constitutes the collective memory of our species, for better and for worse.” What I meant by that is that meanings and contexts can be and are lost through the avenues of translation. In terms of scriptural devices, the Trinitarian formula is invoked to make Yeshua into a super divine being, rather than a spiritually aware human. I’ll come clean and say I don’t think that is what Yeshua was about—Yeshua believed in YHWH, above all. Yeshua also believed that YHWH expected each person to respect, uphold and serve the holiness in every other person.

The Christian Religion has done a lot to ignore the recorded example of what Yeshua did during his ministry, opting to go its own way with generations of dogmatic hogwash and contradictory or even demeaning doctrine and theology, all of which has resulted in so much injustice and bloodshed. Indeed, most people who claim to be followers of Yeshua have no idea how many people were killed so that they can be materialist snobs, follow the ravings of ideologues, and revere commercialism during the Christmas season.

Getting back to that three-in-one idea, I have to say that I’ve never heard a single sermon on Trinity that has ever seemed anything but completely lame. But, we have to swear to it, because that is what came out of the Council of Nicea (in the year 325); a loyalty oath that was intended to build consensus throughout the church.

I’ll be honest and say that the only scripturally supported Trinity I can get behind is the one that Yeshua spoke as first clause of the Great Commandment: “Love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind.” The second clause is equated with the first: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Returning to an earlier thread, you might ask why I quibble over the translation of Ruaḥ? It is because I look around me and see that the feminine has been written out of the picture in exchange for a purely patriarchal understanding and mode of operation. I know that it just happened that way… one language was more masculine than the other when it came to matters of spirit. But I also know that men try to own spirituality. Men cannot own spirituality, but they try to do so.

Yeshua was for people, male and female; conversely, the church seems all about sacerdotal hierarchy, which is dominated by males. Not only true of Christian denominations, this seems to be a global enterprise. Even in this modern era, women pushed out of the picture, as much and as far as possible. Daily, I read about women being assaulted, cheated, kidnapped, denigrated, trafficked, enslaved and murdered. Hundreds of girls are kidnapped from their school! Who is doing these things? Some men are doing them. Societies, the world over, have allowed women to be treated as inferiors and as objects by some men. With the exception of a token few, women are not allowed to be identified as holy. And this priestly business has turned out so well, hasn’t it? The terms episcopoi, presbuteroi, diakonoi mean (respectively) overseer, elder and servant; these titles do not automatically imply priesthood at all, but a role in community rule.

But again I digress. Perhaps my meandering thoughts are no better than any sermon you have heard on the doctrine of Trinity, if you have heard any.

In the creation story that I read for our congregation, it says very plainly “male and female, He created them… God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” For me, this is the essence of what it is to follow the example of Yeshua: we must acknowledge that every being in this world is good, and we must respect, uphold and serve this truth with our actions. 

If there is a Trinity that must be respected, served and upheld, there is no mystery about what it is and what it means—it is the family unit: parent, parent, child. Everyone is both a parent and a child, worthy and beautiful: male and female, however they identify.

Peace be to you.

Have a Hollow, Jello Christmas, along with Pavlov’s dogs?

As we approach the final shopping weekend before Christmas, I thought I would jot a few lines about the holiday.

First of all, it is thought of as being a Christian Holy Day, but it really isn’t. It is thought to be a celebration of the birth of Jesus, but it’s not. The winter holidays are pagan. Church Father’s (somewhere in the early 4^th Century CE) thought it would be a good thing for Early Church PR to have some sort of Feast Day to balance out the Church year with Easter, and what better way to be welcoming to pagans (you plan to convert) than to syncretize a new holiday onto their own winter festivals?! So, if you wondered about the pine and fir trees, the yule log, and all that… it has nothing to do with Jerusalem, Nazareth or Egypt… it has to do with Saturnalia, Festivus, Yule and Dies Natalis Solis Invicti. Because of the magic of Wikipedia, you can look up all these festivals and find out what they are about, but basically it is about the season of winter and the winter solstice. It is a true fact that New Zealand holds its Yule festival in July… (Think about it.)

So, to all those cry that the spirit of the season has been usurped, and that we must put "Christ back into Christmas," I have to reply, we can't--Christ was never in it!

The traditional giving of gifts is always misconstrued to be the “Gifts from the Magi”, gold, frankincense and myrrh. But, folks, the truth of the matter is that the gift giving tradition comes directly from the Roman holiday of Saturnalia. It was all about conspicuous consumption, drunken debauchery and eating to excess. Even Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE) had to retreat to a suite of rooms in his manor, in order that the noise from the festivities might not interrupt his studies. Toys were given to children, and gag gifts exchanged between adults. [You know those ugly Christmas sweaters we all love to hate? Well, the togas at that time had to be either really tacky or were doffed completely, during these Empire mandated celebrations.] The gifts, if you want to know, are about the agricultural god Saturn, who was the embodiment of prosperity. You exchange signs of prosperity with others so that you will be blessed with prosperity—that’s the general idea. There were sacrifices, also… I won’t get into gory details; this is a family blog. All you need to know is that Alexander the Great found a way to eliminate that element from the holiday picture.

We are, therefore, acting in a truly Roman Empire sort of way when we deal with Christmas, which makes the holiday not very Christian, at all (because it isn’t). Add to that the fact that we have all been trained to be good little consumers, and you have a complete mash-up of priorities: giving to the poor means getting for ourselves. We must decorate and cook and wrap and give and get and buy and buy and buy and and and and… and by and by get stuck in traffic jams, everywhere, with grumpy people who fume and yell and text and commit acts of road rage against fellow drivers. How celebratory is that?

Sigh.

In the face of all this craziness, I and my colleagues have been commuting (though certainly not rushing at great speed) on these holiday-frenzied roads and public transit systems in order to offer the simplest, but perhaps the most profoundly intimate gift that can be given or received: sound. Into the sanctuary of churches, concert and social halls, living rooms and other spaces, set aside from the noise and the rushing and the personalities, musicians gather with scores, voices and instruments to soothe the savage breast (of strangers or family and friends) with healing vibrations. In the past few weeks, there have been many concerts, small and large; there are more to come. Give the gift of music to someone you know, with concert tickets or CDs purchased from local groups. There is a lot of great music happening where you are--don't miss it!

Is your ChristeSaturnalimas seeming shallow, hollow, empty of feeling or too full of hassle? Get away from all of that. Hie thee to a concert, now! Settle into a seat. Close your eyes. Let the music help release your spirit, to make it soar. In appropriate concert situations, public dance might figure in. Join in and let your body go; that is singing, too. Listen to beautiful music via electronic media, or go to the shore to hear the waves and the birds. Trust me, you will feel much better for it.

And have yourself as much of a merry something-or-other and as happy a New Year as you can stand.

The Day We Were Together

It was the day we were together,
perhaps the only one,
and Holy Heaven opened above us,
a place so vast it overflowed,
pouring down flaming, music-like wind
on our eyes, our ears, our hearts,
and when we spoke,
it was as if we were one being,
speaking in all the tongues of humanity.

Together, we thought,
“Woe is me! I have gone mad!
I am among crazy people!”

But a collective thought-stream commenced:
Sad it is that I must remind you:
I have created you and blessed you;

I have given you a heart of flesh.

Hear, and now understand,
See, and now perceive,
Be healed, now,
and go to share the news!

Mistake not fulfillment
for drunkenness;
your purpose is,
and has always been,
to love one another
— in thought, word and deed,
in dreams and in reality,
to love is to serve.

Rejoice and be Glad!

It was the day we were together,
perhaps the only one.
Do you remember?
Or was it just a dream?

             *****

Prayers of the People on Pentecost

To Holy Wisdom, that came

In silence, wind and flame,

We lift our prayers, saying:

            Holy Wisdom,

            Lead us with your Spirit!

As we bring forth our different faces, colors, gifts and voices,
Please guide our vision, our work, our ministries and choices.

            Holy Wisdom,

            Lead us with your Spirit!

Strengthen your ministers, ordained and lay, all,

To heed what our minds, hearts and covenant call.

            Holy Wisdom,

            Lead us with your Spirit!

Move those who govern beyond profit, loss and liability;
Guide them to uphold freedom, truth, justice and dignity.
            Holy Wisdom,

            Lead us with your Spirit!

Guide us in the sustainable use and care
of this Earth, our planetary ecosystem so rare.

            Holy Wisdom,

            Lead us with your Spirit!

Bring comfort to those with any concern or need;

            (that you may now name, silently or aloud)

Support every earnest thought word and deed.

            Holy Wisdom,

            Lead us with your Spirit!

We offer thanks for every blessing and beauty;

            (that you may now name, silently or aloud)

May our gratitude show forth as joy in our duty.

            Holy Wisdom,

            Lead us with your Spirit!

We pray for those who have died and those who mourn;

            (that you may now name, silently or aloud)

May they be wrapped in Peace; may their spirits be upborne.

            Holy Wisdom,

            Lead them with your Spirit!

With one accord, in unity, and in all the voices of humanity,
Let us say: Amen.

© 2013 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

From Isaiah 6 to Acts 2, in places near and far, love has been declared the common language. 

What will you do to celebrate?

Around the Corners of Reason

you,

you are;
you are what I cannot write,
the thought I cannot have or hold,
although I breathe your very breath,
driven, as it is, from the outermost edges of imagining
and all that precedes thought, knowledge and movement.

if I can see you, touch and taste you,
I do not know it—
so near, and also so far, are you,
apprehension is fleeting,
clouded by delusions
passing around the corners of reason.

perhaps my only truth:
compared to you,
I am an insubstantial mystery of life,
spindrift on your elegant shores of expression;
you, who are without craving or curiosity,
you are indeed the fullness of time.

surely, my feeble cries of longing
add only nominally to the perpetual white noise
that spins about your profound silence,
but I pray that my effort is somehow felt
within that great science of mind
that lies beyond knowing
and sense.

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

What I Wouldn't Give

Though we’ve never met,
we meet constantly

—In my dreams before waking,
in my waking thoughts,
in the sparkle on bay water
that blinds my senses

In the rare moment of quiet,
I apprehend the simplicity
of your great magnitude,
so near, we should be touching—

Yet, there is no need,
for we are, by near and far,
flexibly and inextricably
inlaid upon one another,
a complex, shared mosaic
of music and spirit,
tumbling into bits
and reforming
amid and among
the indelible, ineffable all.

What I wouldn’t give
to be face to face,
blinded by your beauty.

But I would not survive
the unraveling it would take
to get to where you are Now.

I am, you are,
and we together are us—

And, for the love of Now,
that will have to do.

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Softly

Softly, they fall;

some into the snow,
some into the soft earth—
they fall, these blossoms fall,
to falter, to fade and to fail,
the evidence
of that transience,
of that impermanence
that divides us,
yet that sings to us,
most especially when we
do not want to hear
the music of passing,
the words of parting,
to feel the emptiness
of longing
for the departed
One.

We long
for the song
of your presence,
in our sight,
in our hearing,
in our arms,
where so soon ago,
you were, every moment,
a thread in the fabric
of our days and our being.

Our tears are shed
in private silence
for being left behind;
indeed, we might gladly
have gone abroad with you,
oh, Beloved One.

We whisper a prayer to you,
oh, Vibrant Lovely,
hidden from us.

We sing a silent song for you,
because we know
that it is but illusion
that separates us
from one another.

Our tears,
they wash away
the sorrow of our loss;
for it is a sad truth:
though we can no longer
hold you in our arms,
we can still feel your kisses,
and know your presence,
and hear the sound
of your voice,
on our hearts.

You will not rest,
where you are,
and neither will we rest,
until the wheel of time
places us, once again,
in intimate proximity.

Oh, Beloved One,
Love to You;
Dearest One,
Good Night.

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

--This was written about the loss of a dear friend in 2009, brought to mind
by the passing of a colleague this week. Sing on, Todd, in the heavenly choir!
And may the winds carry your tune straight to our hearts. --

Draughting

unhampered by outcome
the vanishing line becomes
freedom for new
perspective &
dimension.

uninhibited by form
the mind flows toward
the vague and distant
presence,
seeking coalescence.

unencumbered by conformity,
the spirit gathers itself
for omni-linear
exploration &
expansion.

uninhabited,
the foreground
represents every
convention
left behind.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Ruach

Four walls, a roof,
unremarkable;
but they hold at bay
the water and the wind,
and make sounding boards
for our songs.

Lightning flashes outside,
but the four walls reverberate,
not with rolling thunder,
not with water and wind,
but with the music of song,
of our songs.

Later, we singers will exit
into the water and the wind,
into the music of light and rain;
but those walls will still tingle
with the weather of our making,
with our songs.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen