MAUNDY THURSDAY OBSERVATION
DO YOU HEAR IT?
by Gregory Talipson
a.k.a. Snark
As I sat down on Maundy Thursday * to begin writing this piece, in the silence of my study and quite unexpectedly, I heard within myself a familiar song. I hadn't heard or sung it in maybe 20 years: Bob Dylan's Blowin' In The Wind. Though it was the second verse that I heard first, the others followed and here they are:
How many roads most a man walk down
Before you call him a man ?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand ?
Yes, how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned ?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
Yes, how many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea ?
Yes, how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free ?
Yes, how many times can a man turn his head
Pretending he just doesn't see ?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
Yes, how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky ?
Yes, how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry ?
Yes, how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died ?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
I was surprised at this experience. I had thought of beginning with the Biblical texts of Jesus' washing the feet of the disciples at the last supper and how he commanded them to love one another just as he did. And who knows? Perhaps those texts cued my unconscious . . . or more probably . . . helped me to be more attentive to the voice of the God who inhabits my unconscious mind . . . and yours as well . . . deep, deep down in that sacred psychic space where most of us hardly ever set out consciously to explore.
Dylan's words seemed to echo Isaiah's when he heard God calling him to speak to his people about returning to God's agenda, ** even though they would not listen. "How long, O Lord?" Isaiah asked. Until, the answer came, their refusal to follow God's call to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly would lead to their being conquered by the Babylonians . . . and being exiled en masse to Iraq . . . of all places. And who could sing the Lord's song in that foreign land?
"How many roads . . . how many years . . . how many times . . . ?" "How long, O Lord?" Apparently until all seems nearly lost . . . burned, barren, empty . . . like an oak forest ravaged by a fire so that even the stumps are blackened and turned to cinder.
We know that mood and that experience, do we not? The front page of every newspaper, the lead stories on PBS and CNN, all recount countless instances in which the fires of greed, prejudice, hypocrisy, malice, revenge, and demonizing strangers leads to a wasteland that is at once political, personal and spiritual. Tune in next hour or tomorrow or next week: it will all be the same. Nothing is likely to be reported that is really news in the sense of it being unusual. It will all be SSDD. Or, in keeping with our PG-13 rating, SSSSDDD . . . Same Sad Stupid Stuff Desperately Done Daily. For this is indeed a desperate world . . . desperate for life, for freedom, for dignity, for belonging, for compassion . . . for all those things Dylan sang about . . . for all those things so dear to God's heart . . . for all those things to which the better angels of our spirit would surely fly if only we would unpin their wings.
As I sat in my study hearing Dylan's tune, a song written by another Jew entered my mind: Phil Ochs' What's That I Hear? The verses appear below:
What's that I hear now ringing in my ear
I've heard that sound before
What's that I hear now ringing in my ear
I hear it more and more
It's the sound of freedom calling
Ringing up to the sky
It's the sound of the old ways falling
You can hear it if you try
You can hear it if you try
What's that I see now shining in my eyes
I've seen that light before
What's that I see now shining in my eyes
I see it more and more
It's the light of freedom shining
Shining up to the sky
It's the light of the old ways a dying
You can see it if you try
What's that I feel now beating in my heart
I've felt that beat before
What's that I feel now beating in my heart
I feel it more and more
It's the rumble of freedom calling
Climbing up to the sky
It's the rumble of the old ways a falling
You can feel it if you try.
Hearing that upbeat tune and hopeful lyrics brought me back again to the same part of the Book of Isaiah which contains the answer to Isaiah's question and makes reference to the burned-out oak stump. It ends with this sentence: "The holy seed is its stump." What's this!? You mean that, after all the desperate devastation there is still something hopeful? Yes! There are still seeds . . . and they are holy indeed.
Last year, on a trip to Glacier National Park, Margaret and I observed a large section of the lodgepole pine forest around Lake MacDonald that had been obliterated by a forest fire. All looked blackened and dead from a distance. But, closer up, we could see new trees growing! From the ranger we learned that each year, the tree empties its seed-containing cones onto the ground where they stay . . . waiting. Surprisingly, it is only the heat from a fire that can crack open their husk and permit the new life that was hidden within to emerge . . . thus populating the forest with new growth out of the ruins of the old.
"A new commandment I give you: that you love one another as I have loved you." I imagine Jesus continuing: "I am right now demonstrating the nature of that love by washing your feet. That is how it must be with you as well. You must not insist on claiming power, place and privilege. Instead, empty yourselves of that vain and illusory pursuit in order to be there for others.
"Yes, that is very difficult. It is difficult to put the ego aside . . . to enter your Authentic Self. That is the place where the Father lives within you and out of which he speaks to you in the wee hours of the morning . . . sometimes whispering, sometimes discomiting, sometimes with an invitation. It is out of that place within you that New Life . . . the Kingdom . . . Transformation comes. Do not turn a deaf ear to it . . . but wrestle with it as Jacob did of old. This is the wrestling I will do later on in the Garden of Gethsemane . . . for my ego most assuredly does not want to step aside . . . and I do not want to die! But if you are to follow this new commandment, you must join me in praying 'nevertheless, not what my ego wants; but what You want.' You must yield to the God who makes all things new.
"Do this everyday . . . in all things . . . that is your cross. This is the spiritual sacrifice you must make, the spiritual death you must daily undergo. But it is a spiritual death that is essential if you are to receive the New Life that . . . I promise you! . . . awaits you each . . . here and now . . . as well as hereafter. In a more roundabout way I have told you this before . . . now I will tell you quite directly . . . keep this commandment as I have said and you will do greater things than I!
"I came to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Go and do the same. That is your task too. You are yourselves the holy seeds Isaiah wrote about. And, don't worry when you don't see me anymore. I promise you that I will find another way to be with you.
"Others will know that I have kept my promise when they see what you yourselves are doing. They will stop in their tracks and listen with young ears. They will see with new eyes. They will feel within their heart . . . which is no longer one of stone, but of flesh. They will feel the old ways a-falling . . . see a new light in what had been only the darkness . . . and hear that great sound that was present at the Creation: the sound of freedom calling . . . freedom from all that twists, distorts, imprisons, blinds, impoverishes, and enslaves . . . freedom even from death and the fear of death!
"This meal has ended. I came singing love. I have lived singing love. I will die singing love. I will arise in silence. If my song is to continue, you must do the singing. *** Let us go forth."
By the power of the Mystery we call "God," Easter is coming! Can you hear it?
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* from the Latin mandamus for "command." Hence "Maundy Thursday", the night of the last supper where Jesus gave his disciples this "new commandment."
** Isaiah, Chapter 6
*** from He Came Singing Love, words and music by Colin Gibson
