Letter, April 2005

Dear Friends,

Greetings from points east! As I write to you this morning, I'm now nearing the end of yet-another cross-country migration. This afternoon, God willin', I'll cross Penobscot Bay in Bob Quinn's lobsterboat and take up residence once again in my little hermitage on Eagle Island, Maine. It will be another summer of "gitting further" with construction, along with a few writing projects and preparation for the summer's round of teaching and retreats. Just to make the point that spring has not yet arrived in New England, it's been snowing intermittently for the past couple of days, and the ski parka I'd packed away last March has been duly retrieved. I'm secretly hoping that the next little while will allow for nothing more than hermit solitude huddled next to the woodstove, for the winter has brought a flurry of impressions and activities that really want time to settle in.

Top on the list of impressions has been a whole new world that opened up to me during my two-week Easter pilgrimage to France. I was able to spend a few days again in Taize, where the community continues to turn out marvelous new chants (I came home with a new songbook, which I'm itching to try out this summer). But the real leading edge of my explorations centered around a relatively new young monastic community, the "Freres monastiques de Jerusalem," and the marvelous work they're doing rekindling mystical Christian practice in the grand old cathedrals of France. Despite the word "freres," they're actually a celibate co-ed order, rather like the Shakers of yore, where men and women live in separate houses but cooperate actively on all aspects of governance, liturgy, and ministry. Their motto is "in the heart of God, in the heart of the city," and their particular charism is to be a profound and compassionate spiritual presence at the center of urban life. So far, it seeems to be working brilliantly. Despite what you may hear of France having become a totally secularized nation, the churches I attended were overflowing during Holy Week, and new FMJ foundations are popping up left and right--including Montreal.

Key to their ministry is another new chant form composed by a French Dominican genius called Andre Gouze. You'll be hearing more about this in the next few years, I'm sure; it's a new wave which is already attracting considerable attention in Europe. It's based in some of the old style Galician chant of Southern France and the Pyrenees, which has a trace of Moorish/Islamic influence to its harmonies, combined with some decidedl6y Byzantine elements. Gouze chant is actually the reason I made this pilgrimage to France; when I was at Vezelay five years ago, I walked into the old cathedral and heard an ethereal chanting being carried on by a group of fresh-faced young men and women monastics. "What's THAT?" I wondered, and determined then and there to learn more. Many, many folks in Europe are apparently having this same reaction, as the dry bones of these old cathedrals have suddenly become vibrant hearts of flesh. I look forward to sharing with you this summer some of my deeper impressions, and also some samples of Gouze chant.

I am indeed looking forward to spending time with you all again this summer during our four Pacific Northwest summer events. These are: June 10-15: conference/retreat at Holllyhock, followed by an evening event in Vancouver on June 15; June 26-July 1: Wisdom School sponsored by St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Seattle; July 18-22: Summer School class on Meditations on the Tarot at Vancouver School of Theology; August 27-September 1: Victoria Wisdom School on Thetis Island. Registrations for these events have been filling up--some are already full--but I realize that that means full with YOU, my friends and fellow travellers, and I'm looking forward to seeing you all again.

My own work this past winter has been largely revolving around the questions of "Unitive Thinking for Christians" and "Encountering the Wisdom Jesus." You'll hear some of this material (which got pioneered this winter at our Aspen Wisdom School), particularly at the Seattle and Victoria Wisdom Schools. I am also intently pondering the "Mary Magdalene" influence, not so much from a feminist or sophianic standpoint, but because of a steady undercurrent and infusion of conscious love, which seems to emanate from this source over and over, snatching Christianity from the jaws of institutional death. It was very moving to spend Holy Saturday at Vezelay Cathedral, a Magdalene shrine, and recognize in a way I never had before that for her, Holy Saturday was a vigil of love (Magdalene stayed right there at the tomb through the entire Passover shabbat), and that all the while Jesus lay in the tomb or visited the regions of hell, her tendril of love held him to the earth and led him safely back that Easter morning. It was a profound shock to my system not only to intuit but to actually SENSE that tendril, which still holds the church in its love and calls us back, again and again. This revelation is very much a leading edge for me, and I'm sure it will spill over into our work together this summer.

On a closing note, perhaps politically incorrect, I was deeply saddened to hear from one of our members in the BC interior that she walked out of her Catholic parish on Maundy Thursday when the priest announced that only the feet of men would be washed. I simply couldn't believe this story when I heard it and checked it out with Richard Rohr who said that alas, it's true: the shadow side of an otherwise wise pope. For me, I am simply staggered that Jesus's beautiful words: "Behold, I give you a new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you," could be made such a mockery of as the locus for institutional sexism (only male apostles were present at the last supper--a disputable inference in its own right--ergo, only men can have their feet washed). In the midst of a growing institutional fundamentalism, both Catholic and Protestant, which has seen a steady erosion of Jesus's fundamental and simple command to love one another inclusively and unconditionally, I am more and more seeing contemplative practice as an altogether necessary path, and in fact about the only solid foundation for a genuine practice of unitive love. Its very power lies in its subversiveness: its undercutting of the mind that sees the world through the filter of dichotomies--them and us, black and white.

May we continue our journey together as compassionate subversives. I can't wait to see you all again this summer.

Peace,

Cynthia