Sermon 02/03/08
Mardi Gras Sunday
Ode 3
The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.
_________________________
. . .the way you make love is the way
God will be with you.
- Rumi
Ode 30
A meditation on the mutuality of love between the soul and the divine.
A celebration of the union with God that overcomes all separation and isolation.
A mystic's experience of communion with God.
"I am putting on your love, O God, I am clothing myself with you, . . ."
My first thought was to turn to the Song of Songs for some more mystic, poetic literature on these themes, but alas, the allegorical interpretation of that text is a latter one. It was originally erotic love poetry. . . .
So I had to look elsewhere for other illustrations of mystic experiences of communion with the Divine Lover. It's important to me to have a variety of illustrations that are each a bit different lest we think that our experience is supposed to be compared to someone else's.
Rumi, was a thirteenth century Sufi mystic poet whose life was forever changed by his meeting and deep friendship with the wandering dervish Shams of Tabriz. Today, Rumi's poetry is quite popular and widely read. Ram Dass said, "At the end of our wanderings there is only the soul's yearning to return to God. No one speaks that yearning better than Rumi."
Sometimes a lover of God may faint
in the presence. Then the beloved bends
and whispers in the ear, "Beggar, spread out
your robe. I'll fill it with gold.
I've come to protect your consciousness.
Where has it gone? Come back into awareness!"
This fainting is because
lovers want so much.
A chicken invites a camel into her henhouse,
and the whole structure is demolished.
A rabbit nestles down
with its eyes closed
in the arms of a lion.
There is an excess
in spiritual searching
that is profound ignorance.
Let that ignorance be your teacher!
The friend breathes into one
who has no breath.
A deep silence revives the listening
and the speaking of those two
who meet on the riverbank.
Like the ground turning green in a spring wind.
Like birdsong beginning inside the egg.
Like this universe coming into existence,
the lover wakes, and whirls
in a dancing joy,
then kneels down
in praise.
Coleman Barks, THE ESSENTIAL RUMI, p. 274f
How is a chicken inviting a camel into her henhouse like the experience of God? Your house will never be the same!
Rumi compares the experience of awakening to "birdsong beginning inside the egg."
Dag Hammarskjold studied law and economics, worked for the Swedish Department of finance and went on to become secretary general of the United Nations. He might seem an odd and improbable person to be writing about mystic union with God, yet he was widely read in religious philosophy and poetry and is regarded today as being "one of the few authentic mystics in modern times to have also served in public life." (Andrew Harvey, THE ESSENTIAL GAY MYSTICS, p. 261). The following excerpt is from his book MARKINGS, which was published after his death in 1961.
In the faith which is "God's marriage to the soul," you are one in
God, and
God is wholly in you,
just as, for you, God is wholly in all you meet.
With this faith, in prayer you descend into yourself to meet the
Other,
in the steadfastness and light of this union,
see that all things stand, like yourself, alone before God,
and that each of your acts is an act of creation, conscious, because
you are a human being with human responsibilities, but governed,
nevertheless, by the power beyond human consciousness which
has created us.
You are liberated from things, but you encounter in them an
experience which has the purity and clarity of revelation.
In the faith which is "God's marriage to the soul," everything
therefore, has a meaning.
So live, then, that you may use what has been put into your
hand. . . .
Rather remarkable writing for a former secretary general of the United Nations!
Finally, a poem from twentieth century poet Elsa Gidlow. Born in England, raised in Canada and later moved to the United States, she eventually ended up in San Francisco and co-founded the Society for Comparative Philosophy. Gidlow wrote poetry for over seventy years, much of which celebrates the empowering love of the Divine Mother.
In the blaze of love it is known:
We are particles each of each
We are cells of the Mother of all
We cannot be cast off
From sister cells or from Her.
Her breath is the breath of our lungs
Her heartbeat times our own;
Where She is winged we fly,
We swim with Her dolphins; wind
through rocks with Her jeweled snakes;
We bloom in Her million flowers;
We grow in Her ancient trees
And die in a night with her moths.
In rock we wait for Her
Dreaming of fin or flesh,
Of the awful miracle
Of human heart and mind.
In the blaze of love it is known,
No being, no life is born,
Exists, or dies alone.
(As found in Andrew Harvey, THE ESSENTIAL GAY MYSTICS, p. 271)
Gidlow gets to the heart of the mystic's awakening here when she writes that no one is alone. For ultimately, union with the Beloved is union with everyone and everything: there is in reality no separation or isolation, all is connected.
So today as we celebrate Mardi Gras, let us also celebrate the blaze of love, "God's marriage to the soul," the awakening of the lover, and the communion of lover and beloved, the indivisible union of God and the soul.
Odes of Solomon 3
I am putting on your love, O God,
I am clothing myself with you, for you love me.
How would I know how to love you, God,
If you did not love me?
And who can tell us about love?
Only one who is loved.
I love you my Beloved and my soul loves you.
I am where you repose and I will be no stranger.
For you are not petty or jealous,
My high merciful God.
I have gone to unite with you,
For the lover has found the Beloved,
And because I love the Child,
I shall become your child.
Whoever joins the immortal becomes immortal.
Whoever delights in the Living One is living.
This is the Spirit of God.
It does not lie. It teaches us God's ways.
Be wise. Be understanding,
And let your eyes be open.
Hallelujah!
Copyright © 2008, the Reverend Rick Yramategui, All Rights Reserved