Midweek Meditation: "Ask Me" (William Stafford)

Photo Credit: Poetry Foundation

Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.

(William Stafford, 1914-1993, American Poet)                        

BookPastor >> "The Spirituality of Wine" (Gisela H. Kreglinger)

This book was first published on March 16th, 2016 at Panorama of a Book Saint.

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TITLE: The Spirituality of Wine
AUTHOR: Gisela H. Kreglinger
PUBLISHER: Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016, (272 pages).

What is so spiritual about wine? What has wine got to do with the Bible? How do we understand the love-hate relationship with wine in the history of the Church? What is the significance of wine in the Communion and general feasting? What did the Bible say about wine? These and many more are eloquently described in this perceptive book about wine and spirituality. The main purpose of this book is to recover the vision of the Christian life that is able to see God at work in all things, and in this case, in the producing, the processing, the consuming, and the enjoying of wine. It is about paying attention to the beauty of creation instead of thoughtless economic use. It is about connecting the work with the enjoyment; the material with the spiritual; the life-giving conversations over the table. It is tending to the ordinary and to appreciate how the world has been blessed by God.

In Kreglinger's words, Part One is the "sustenance" and Part Two is "sustainability." The five chapters in "Sustenance" go back to the biblical significance of wine; the history of the perceptions of wine in the Church; the use of wine in the Lord's Supper; how wine is used in feasting; and the way wine can help us pay attention to life in general. There are lots of references to wine in the Bible. According to scholars, there are 810 occurrences of "wine" in the Old Testament, and 169 occurrences in the New Testament. In the Ancient Near East, wine is considered one of the three most important food groups; the other being bread and olive oil. From the Bible, we see wine being received as a gift. From the history of the Church, wine has been a source of controversy. With the second century suspicions over the connection between wine and vice, many had to defend the use of wine provided it does not lead to drunkenness. In fact, in the twelfth century, the biggest producers of wine were the monasteries! During and after the Reformation, many monasteries were closed and wine production curtailed. People like Luther, Calvin, Knox, and Zwingli all had to come out to affirm wine as a gift rather than a source of vice. In terms of the use of wine in the Communion ritual, the controversial became more theological as different parties debated on the status of wine and Christ. Yet, understanding it properly will push Gnosticism out the door. Wine can bring communities together through pleasure and enjoyment. It can also help cultivate our attentiveness in engaging our various senses.

In Part Two, Kreglinger brings us back from a nostalgic past into the contemporary reality. She presents us with a challenge to make a choice on the subject of wine, insisting that there is no "neutral ground." She interviews individual vintners who are also practicing theologians to learn how their faith had shaped their wine making endeavors, such as enjoyment and community engagement. She learns about how caring for the soils and the land is essential for good grapes. The scope of experience from the interviewees is breath-taking. There are reflections from both the Old and New World Wine countries. The interesting point is not the difference between them but the similarity they have in wanting their wine to represent the best of the land and their identities. At some point, readers will realize that appreciating wine is not about achieving some tangible objectives but more about lingering in wonder and gratitude. For wine making is a craft that can be mysterious in many ways. Learning to enjoy wine need not be any different. Wine making is also not a stagnant exercise. There is tremendous opportunity to be creative not only in production but also in creativity. The chapter on "Technology, Spirituality, and Wine" is a must read for those of us interested in the intersection of work, faith, and technology. Kreglinger cautions on some of the damaging aspects of globalization such as "homogenization of taste" which can unwittingly eliminate the uniqueness of each type of wine. Toward the end, readers find themselves back to the garden metaphor where God is the gardener and the Church is the vineyard. Gradually, we are reminded that in our world of consumption, we are equally called to be producers. Sustainability is not about non-stop consumption but a respectful rhythm of producing, consuming, recycling, and redeeming.

BookPastor >> "Let Your Life Speak"

TITLE: Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
AUTHOR: Parker J. Palmer
PUBLISHER: San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2000, (120 pages).

This book is one of those that deserves to be read over and over again. Some friends I know read it each year. It is a beautiful book written by an educator, a professor, a practitioner, a listener of hearts, and one that forces us to engage ourselves in the process of reading the life of the author. It comprises six essays about weaving one's personal search for meaning, calling, and significance.

Chapter 1 starts appropriately with listening. Against a silence-averse culture that takes comfort (even pride) in speaking first, Palmer helps us calibrate our inner lives with what is happening outside of us. Vocation comes from a Latin word for "voice" which gives us a clue that listening is key to understanding calling. Far too often, we go for conferences, seminars, and various teaching courses to try and learn something from external sources, without recognizing that we too can learn from within ourselves. The tragedy is that we listen so much to the outside that we fail to legitimately listen to what is inside us. We need to learn to listen. We need to discern. We need to respect the beauty of silence.

Midweek Meditation: "Who am I?" (Parker Palmer)

"From the beginning, our lives lay down clues to selfhood and vocation, though the clues may be hard to decode. But trying to interpret them is profoundly worthwhile - especially when we are in our twenties or thirties or forties, feeling profoundly lost, having wandered, or been dragged, far away from our birthright gifts.

Those clues are helpful in counteracting the conventional concept of vocation, which insists that our lives must be driven by 'oughts.' As noble as that may sound, we do not find our callings by conforming ourselves to some abstract moral code. We find our callings by claiming authentic selfhood, by being who we are, by dwelling in the world as Zusya rather than straining to be Moses. The deepest vocational question is not 'What ought I to do with my life?' It is the more elemental and demanding 'Who am I? What is my nature?'"

(Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2000, p15)

"How to Find Your Mission in Life?"

TITLE: How to Find Your Mission in Life
AUTHOR: Richard Nelson Bolles
PUBLISHER:Berkely, Toronto: Ten Seed Press, 2005, (96 pages).

This little book gives a spiritual dimension to a world of job hunting and purpose finding. Using a pyramid that comprises 4 layers, the author explores the issues of the job-hunt. The lowest level deals with the question "What's happening?" The third level is about survival. The second level is about meaning and mission while the highest level is about effectiveness. At the very minimum, the spiritual director teaches us that we ought to have learned to make this world a "little richer" in our presence, and a "little poorer" in our absence. Bolles also cautions us that the book is not meant to be the only way. Neither is it primarily designed to be an intellectual exercise. Instead, it is to learn to remove obstacles that prevent us from finding our mission, and to take our search in stages.

Bolles states upfront our three missions in life.

1. "to seek to stand hour by hour in the conscious presence of God, the One from whom your mission is derived."
2. "to do what you can, moment by moment, day by day, step by step, to make this world a better place, following the leading and guiding of God's Spirit within you and around you."
3. The third mission is in three parts.
1. "to exercise that Talent which you particularly came to Earth to use - your greatest gift, which you most delight to use,"
2. "in the place(s) or setting(s) which God has caused to appeal to you the most,"
3. "and for those purposes which God most needs to have done in the world."

The rest of the book deals with thoughts about the three missions in life, beginning with right thinking, followed by right practicing, and then right living. Bolles ends with a priceless quote from CS Lewis.

"We now have a strong desire for living combined with a strange carelessness about dying. We desire life like water and yet are ready to drink death like wine." 

Bolles follows this up with an apt word, "We know that we are here to do what we came to do, and we need not worry about anything else." (61)

This nice little book is easy enough to read and provocative enough to spur us to action.

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