Truth in Transition

This is my second year in EfM. In fact, I'm almost to end of it, though I haven't really written about it too much on the blog. We have an honored and well-respected agreement that what happens in the group stays in the group, but occasionally I have a personal flash of insight that doesn't check any boxes that aren't my own. Tonight was one of those times.

Rather than fill you in on the complicated machinery that is "Theological Reflection," let me just recommend EfM as a worthy discipline, and Theological Reflection as a sometimes clunky, sometimes amazing method of gaining insight through your own ruminations, those of your neighbor's, and related passages in Scripture. Most of the time, it's nice. Occasionally it's just confusing. Once or twice it blows your hair back.

Tonight was very much in the middle. We did an exercise that had us reflecting on the word "identity." That this can mean lots of things to lots of people is news to exactly no one, but since I've spent a lot of time untangling what was handed to me in my family of origin from what is genuine, I'm more than familiar with both the anxiety and exhilaration of coming to understand one's true nature.

One thing I've learned is that sometimes you have to just step back and let things emerge, and when the anxiety gets to be too much, sometimes it's easier to participate in what you know to be true rather than worrying about what might be true.

Music is one of my touchstones. Music, and my children, and my husband's consistent and eternal ability to make me laugh (mostly about esoteric and nerdy stuff, but sometimes just with a look). There's also poetry.

Tonight during class the wild claim was made that the poet W.H. Auden wrote Eucharistic Prayer C in the Book of Common Prayer. For those of you who don't know it, it's a version of the service which involves the phrases "the vast expanse of interstellar space" and "this fragile earth, our island home." You can imagine whomever you want saying those things, but Vincent Price and Lando Calrissian are my own personal favorites.



However you feel about Prayer C-- and generally I can take it or leave it, but if I take it it HAS to be combined with this hymn-- "loud boiling test tubes," anyone?-- you can't deny the interplanetary kick-assery of Wystan Hugh Auden. Well, you can try, but you'd be both wrong and silly.

It's rare to find a poet who gets it so damn right so often. And it's not in every poem-- some are more emo than emo-- but some are so perfect that it's like they found you and not the other way around.

I can't find any evidence to support what I so wildly hope to be true, which is that W.H. Auden did, in fact, write Eucharistic Prayer C. I'll keep looking. In the meantime, let me point you to two places in his writing where truth is. These are places where I can be found, even when I'm more scattered than straw.

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"The More Loving One"

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.


the Chorus in "For the Time Being"

He is the Way.
Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness;
You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.

He is the Truth.
Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;
You will come to a great city that has expected your
return for years.

He is the Life.
Love Him in the World of the Flesh;
And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for
joy.

Amen.