Friday morning I decided to ride my bike into the western hills of Portland where the Japanese Garden is located. It's only three miles from our apartment but the road to the Garden is steep. I've been biking along the river on the Springwater Corridor, a multi-use path for bikers, runners, and walkers, which is mostly flat. It was time to tackle the slopes. The only way out of Portland is over the hills.
We became members of the Japanese Garden as soon as we settled in. At just over five acres it is small but the design packs in a space- and mind-expanding array of plants and paths, two dry gardens, a pond busy with carp, a tea pavilion, and borrowed scenery that includes the Cascades. Even when there are crowds, it is possible to slip off into a corner behind a Japanese Maple and be alone.
Jefferson Street, where we are located, turns into Canyon Road just as the serious climb begins. I got about two blocks before I had to stop to breathe. I looked ahead; ahead was still up. Stopped again at the top of the next hill, I was panting when an elderly woman asked if I needed help. Yeah, I gasped, I'm lost. Where's the Japanese Garden (near by, I hoped)? Oh, she said, go up to the corner and turn left. You'll see the signs. I stood and pedaled to the top, turned left, turned right. Stopped to breathe. Not a walk in the park.
And so it went for another couple of endless hills. The scenery, by the way, was gorgeous, conifers of all sorts wedged among maples and a dozen varieties of green (I have to learn more about these trees). The clean air made my screaming leg muscles almost glad. At the top of the penultimate hill to the Garden, you can keep biking up the steepest incline or pick up your bike and climb the steps cut into a hillside. I picked up my bike. The switchback steps ascend a couple of hundred feet--not too bad given how far I'd come.
The Unitarian-Universalists were in town for their annual convention. I met a few coming down as I was heading up. You could tell they were UUs, as Connie and I call them, because they were wearing t-shirts with a flame on the chest. I felt like a sterling example of Portland culture hauling my bike on my shoulder up to the Garden. Grinning. Yeah, I do this all the time. Clean air, clean living.
There was an art show in the main pavillion, showcasing northwest artists who had created images based on the Garden. I bought a small collage by a resident of Lake Oswego, just south of Portland, and stuck it in my backpack. I went out to the graveled space in front of the pavilion and looked out across the city of Portland to the Cascades, which gently framed the city's modest skyline. Mt. Hood was not visible.
Hood looks like Mt. Fuji, just as this view from the Garden reminded me of a similar view I recalled from one of the Imperial Gardens overlooking Kyoto, Japan. On clear days you can see Hood from almost any part of the city, including our apartment terrace. I have begun writing a series of haiku, "Summer Views of Mt. Hood" (derived from the printmaker, Hokusai's, series, Views of Mt. Fuji). Here are a few of my haiku.
1
Extended wings
balancing a crow on a high spruce twig
fold carefully
2
Dawn silhouette
floating snowcap at noon
faded in evening marshgrass
3
Against darkening skies
at morning
the white cone advances
4
Pasted on the window
of the Wells Fargo tower
the mountain’s face
5
Crows call to crows
summer light rises
with the mountain
6
The eastern hills
edged in sharp pines
rain clouds shroud Mt.Hood
Monday, June 25, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
Speaking in Anglican Tongue
The Executive Council of the Episcopal Church issued a statement last week that caught my interest. It was titled, “The Episcopal Church’s Commitment to Common Life in the Anglican Communion.” (Read it at www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_86804_ENG_HTM.htm.) Those of you who don’t care about the Anglican Communion—and you are legion—might hold on for a moment because the subject of this entry is the misuse of language; the example is specific but the point is more general and one that is especially relevant to our common public life today.
The communiqué was a response to demands by Anglican Primates (Bishops-in-Charge of other national churches around the world) that the Episcopal Church stop ordaining gays in same-sex partnerships (ie, not celibate). The Primates imposed a deadline of September 30, 2007. In its statement, the Executive Council said:
“. . . the requests of the Primates are of a nature that can only properly be dealt with by our General Convention. Neither the Executive Council, the Presiding Bishop, nor the House of Bishops can give binding interpretations of General Convention resolutions nor make an ‘unequivocal common commitment’ to denying future decisions by dioceses or General Convention. We question the authority of the Primates to impose deadlines and demands upon any of the churches of the Anglican Communion or to prescribe the relationships within any of the other instruments of our common life, including the Anglican Consultative Council.”
In other, clearer language: “You can’t tell us what to do.”
Read the second sentence in the quote above. Can you tell me what it means? And can you tell me how this statement belongs in a statement about the church’s commitment to common life? The entire statement is written in a similarly legalistic and obfuscatory style. It is a political message dressed up in churchy language. Those who have tried to make the Episcopal Church change its ways and have interfered in the constituted governing authority of the church are addressed here as “brothers and sisters” (there are no sister Primates, by the way). The communiqué denies it is resting its message on legalities, asserting instead that it speaks out of loving concern for relationship in Christ.
That may well reflect the feelings of those who drafted the communiqué. I can’t claim to know their hearts. They are certainly good people. But the unintended effect of the language used is to suggest insincerity and even deceit. It is a speaking in tongues. If I were on the other side of this issue, I would respond: Bullshit.
Paul, in 1 Corinthians 14, makes a distinction that is perhaps helpful here between prophesy and speaking in tongues. (I thought it appropriate to bring in scripture since the communiqué itself begins with scripture, although a strange passage, in my opinion, for those seeking reconciliation.) The Council’s communiqué speaks in tongues, abusing the language of theology in the service of politics. The Episcopal Church is behaving prophetically in its stance on gays and women but politically in its dealings with the Anglican Communion. Paul says this:
“. . .those who speak in a tongue do not speak to other people but to God; for nobody understands them, since they are speaking mysteries in the Spirit. On the other hand, those who prophesy speak to other people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. Those who speak in a tongue build up themselves, but those who prophesy build up the church.”
The subject of this communiqué is not a mystery in the Spirit but an effort to placate members of the Communion who do not accept the stance of the American Church. It is a stall. It is in effect a lie. The Church is saying, "Well, we can’t do what you want because it isn’t the way we do things, and anyway, the point here is that we’re in relationship and we have to do something vague in Christ that allows us all to keep on as we are." Or something like that.
When we speak in tongues we mislead, intentionally or unintentionally, or as Paul says, build ourselves up. Corporate Speak is also like this. Political candidates always speak in tongues. So, increasingly, does the church. Unity bought at the price of deception and accommodation is no unity at all.
Some years ago when I was working in a parish in Manhattan I saw the implications of pandering to the toxic people among us. The few destroyed the work of many because we did not confront them directly. Everyone in every organization has seen the same thing. Toxicity spreads. In relationships, when your spouse continues to drink and beat the kids, you separate from him or her to protect yourself and your children. If a member of the church continues to accommodate those who abuse blacks or women or gays, while asseting a loving relationship to all, it is behaving hypocritically and in fact enabling discrimination.
In a true instead of rhetorical loving relationship, the Episcopal Church would not be worried about what to do if the family throws it out. It would be leaving.
And it would assert what it believes and why the current situation is intolerable in clear and forthright, even loving, language. The present communiqué is not a statement of love. It is a statement of aggression and deceit. Don’t believe it. The real subject is political power—something the new Presiding Bishop has claimed to abhor—and self-protection. The subject is money and property and power. It always is, even in the church.
That is not prophesy, no matter what prophetic work the Church does behind the veil of its snake-oil language.
The communiqué was a response to demands by Anglican Primates (Bishops-in-Charge of other national churches around the world) that the Episcopal Church stop ordaining gays in same-sex partnerships (ie, not celibate). The Primates imposed a deadline of September 30, 2007. In its statement, the Executive Council said:
“. . . the requests of the Primates are of a nature that can only properly be dealt with by our General Convention. Neither the Executive Council, the Presiding Bishop, nor the House of Bishops can give binding interpretations of General Convention resolutions nor make an ‘unequivocal common commitment’ to denying future decisions by dioceses or General Convention. We question the authority of the Primates to impose deadlines and demands upon any of the churches of the Anglican Communion or to prescribe the relationships within any of the other instruments of our common life, including the Anglican Consultative Council.”
In other, clearer language: “You can’t tell us what to do.”
Read the second sentence in the quote above. Can you tell me what it means? And can you tell me how this statement belongs in a statement about the church’s commitment to common life? The entire statement is written in a similarly legalistic and obfuscatory style. It is a political message dressed up in churchy language. Those who have tried to make the Episcopal Church change its ways and have interfered in the constituted governing authority of the church are addressed here as “brothers and sisters” (there are no sister Primates, by the way). The communiqué denies it is resting its message on legalities, asserting instead that it speaks out of loving concern for relationship in Christ.
That may well reflect the feelings of those who drafted the communiqué. I can’t claim to know their hearts. They are certainly good people. But the unintended effect of the language used is to suggest insincerity and even deceit. It is a speaking in tongues. If I were on the other side of this issue, I would respond: Bullshit.
Paul, in 1 Corinthians 14, makes a distinction that is perhaps helpful here between prophesy and speaking in tongues. (I thought it appropriate to bring in scripture since the communiqué itself begins with scripture, although a strange passage, in my opinion, for those seeking reconciliation.) The Council’s communiqué speaks in tongues, abusing the language of theology in the service of politics. The Episcopal Church is behaving prophetically in its stance on gays and women but politically in its dealings with the Anglican Communion. Paul says this:
“. . .those who speak in a tongue do not speak to other people but to God; for nobody understands them, since they are speaking mysteries in the Spirit. On the other hand, those who prophesy speak to other people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. Those who speak in a tongue build up themselves, but those who prophesy build up the church.”
The subject of this communiqué is not a mystery in the Spirit but an effort to placate members of the Communion who do not accept the stance of the American Church. It is a stall. It is in effect a lie. The Church is saying, "Well, we can’t do what you want because it isn’t the way we do things, and anyway, the point here is that we’re in relationship and we have to do something vague in Christ that allows us all to keep on as we are." Or something like that.
When we speak in tongues we mislead, intentionally or unintentionally, or as Paul says, build ourselves up. Corporate Speak is also like this. Political candidates always speak in tongues. So, increasingly, does the church. Unity bought at the price of deception and accommodation is no unity at all.
Some years ago when I was working in a parish in Manhattan I saw the implications of pandering to the toxic people among us. The few destroyed the work of many because we did not confront them directly. Everyone in every organization has seen the same thing. Toxicity spreads. In relationships, when your spouse continues to drink and beat the kids, you separate from him or her to protect yourself and your children. If a member of the church continues to accommodate those who abuse blacks or women or gays, while asseting a loving relationship to all, it is behaving hypocritically and in fact enabling discrimination.
In a true instead of rhetorical loving relationship, the Episcopal Church would not be worried about what to do if the family throws it out. It would be leaving.
And it would assert what it believes and why the current situation is intolerable in clear and forthright, even loving, language. The present communiqué is not a statement of love. It is a statement of aggression and deceit. Don’t believe it. The real subject is political power—something the new Presiding Bishop has claimed to abhor—and self-protection. The subject is money and property and power. It always is, even in the church.
That is not prophesy, no matter what prophetic work the Church does behind the veil of its snake-oil language.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Planet Portland
We all have heard, I imagine, that after death the second most stressful life event is moving (my guess is that the stress of death is that felt by the survivors). Divorce comes third, job loss next. Connie and I are still blissfully married; no comment about jobs.
Moving to Portland has been an almost unalloyed pleasure. Looking out the window I see the varigated greens of a park; below our (small) terrace along Jefferson the trees obliterate the road. Beyond, Mt. Hood goes through its daily changes: a silhouette in the morning, a floating snowcap at noon, fading at dusk, and then fully revealed against dark clouds. It is like Mt. Fuji in so many ways, coming and going. Far to the north this morning I saw the outline of Mt. Adams. Both Adams and Hood are inactive volcanoes; somewhere out there is Mt. St. Helens, visible from the western hills on a very clear day.
A crow alights on the top and thinnest twig of a swaying conifer (not sure yet what kind) at eye level with my terrace. The twig is an improbable landing site. His broad wings extended balance him, his body adjusts, teeters, head still. Then the wings tilt. He settles, stops moving. The wings fold as carefully as origami. He looks around, satisfied with his perch, with the world.
We are like that, satisfied with our perch. Sunday morning, reading the New York Times, we could see twenty blocks down 3rd Avenue toward the Pearl District, which is where the art galleries mostly are--Portland's Greenwich Village--and not a single car was moving. Not one. We are located in the middle of downtown next to the federal building, across from the Wells Fargo Tower, and the nights are so quiet we wake to see if the city is still out there.
The first three days were hot and sunny, not typical but welcome. This morning was rainy, heavy clouds moving in from the Pacific. (The ocean is to the west, remember that.) The dramatic sky is always performing: right now there are heavy white cotton clouds above an eastward tending layer of gray, bordering a west-side wedgewood blue. To the south rain-laden dark gray hovers over Oregon State Health University's elevated tramway. But no rain at the moment. Here, there are people who don't believe in umbrellas. They walk out in the rain and the notrain.
Sunday evening we walked down to the Willamette River (rhymes with DamnIt), bought some sorbet, and sat on a bench overlooking the marina. Because this is Rose Festival Week here (the one hundredth anniversary no less) there is a lot of merriment, high-school girls hoping to be elected queen standing around in evening gowns. Two square-riggers are maneuvering into battle positions before us and begin to fire blanks, the explosions echoing along the city as the night before fireworks announced the beginning of the week's celebrations. On the river is a carnival with rides and music. Walkers and cyclists mosey around, making way for one another. We stop in astonishment at a slingshot ride that catapaults two people strapped into a kind of carnival loveseat straight up into the sky at least a hundred feet, maybe more. They crash earthward on bungy cords and are again flung up into Sunday's clear blue and for a moment it appears they will keep going, set free.
We are terrified by the daring of it.
But it's also how we feel this week. Slingshot into space, landing on this other planet: the holodeck of the Enterprise? Exhilerated by the daring of it.
More about Planet Portland to come as we explore the wonders of this distant colony in a galaxy far away.
Moving to Portland has been an almost unalloyed pleasure. Looking out the window I see the varigated greens of a park; below our (small) terrace along Jefferson the trees obliterate the road. Beyond, Mt. Hood goes through its daily changes: a silhouette in the morning, a floating snowcap at noon, fading at dusk, and then fully revealed against dark clouds. It is like Mt. Fuji in so many ways, coming and going. Far to the north this morning I saw the outline of Mt. Adams. Both Adams and Hood are inactive volcanoes; somewhere out there is Mt. St. Helens, visible from the western hills on a very clear day.
A crow alights on the top and thinnest twig of a swaying conifer (not sure yet what kind) at eye level with my terrace. The twig is an improbable landing site. His broad wings extended balance him, his body adjusts, teeters, head still. Then the wings tilt. He settles, stops moving. The wings fold as carefully as origami. He looks around, satisfied with his perch, with the world.
We are like that, satisfied with our perch. Sunday morning, reading the New York Times, we could see twenty blocks down 3rd Avenue toward the Pearl District, which is where the art galleries mostly are--Portland's Greenwich Village--and not a single car was moving. Not one. We are located in the middle of downtown next to the federal building, across from the Wells Fargo Tower, and the nights are so quiet we wake to see if the city is still out there.
The first three days were hot and sunny, not typical but welcome. This morning was rainy, heavy clouds moving in from the Pacific. (The ocean is to the west, remember that.) The dramatic sky is always performing: right now there are heavy white cotton clouds above an eastward tending layer of gray, bordering a west-side wedgewood blue. To the south rain-laden dark gray hovers over Oregon State Health University's elevated tramway. But no rain at the moment. Here, there are people who don't believe in umbrellas. They walk out in the rain and the notrain.
Sunday evening we walked down to the Willamette River (rhymes with DamnIt), bought some sorbet, and sat on a bench overlooking the marina. Because this is Rose Festival Week here (the one hundredth anniversary no less) there is a lot of merriment, high-school girls hoping to be elected queen standing around in evening gowns. Two square-riggers are maneuvering into battle positions before us and begin to fire blanks, the explosions echoing along the city as the night before fireworks announced the beginning of the week's celebrations. On the river is a carnival with rides and music. Walkers and cyclists mosey around, making way for one another. We stop in astonishment at a slingshot ride that catapaults two people strapped into a kind of carnival loveseat straight up into the sky at least a hundred feet, maybe more. They crash earthward on bungy cords and are again flung up into Sunday's clear blue and for a moment it appears they will keep going, set free.
We are terrified by the daring of it.
But it's also how we feel this week. Slingshot into space, landing on this other planet: the holodeck of the Enterprise? Exhilerated by the daring of it.
More about Planet Portland to come as we explore the wonders of this distant colony in a galaxy far away.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)