I watched a little of the inaugural prayer service at the National Cathedral this morning chiefly to hear the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church deliver the closing prayer. The service was grand and ecumenical, not ecumenical just among Christian denominations, but among all faiths as well. The theme of the gathering, in the preaching, in the singing and in the prayers...was the central theme of all the great religions of the world: that the world as God sees it rightly lives amid a just peace; that we live compassionately including the least of us; that we always serve first the common good. Upon this enlightened practice of the faith, we, the interfaith community have much in common....and it is practice from which true theology and belief are born....ever evolving...always on a journey of making and remaking....If the faithful in every culture practice the faith; then theologies will converge.
And then there was the procession out of the church, a decided Episcopal touch; we know about processions: Processions are the outward and visible sign that we are on a journey; that we are not the same travelers once we take our leave; that life is forever about change and transformation....and we hold up this reality as beautiful....human nature on a journey towards its perfection...a paschal event, as it were, a sacred crossing over from what has grown old into what is becoming new... We live our lives in this process and we name it as beautiful along the way.
And the procession goes out into the world...the community of the faithful, the people of imaginative conscience bearing this transforming beauty into the world, for the world's transformation...all of us now, a compassionate commonweal bearing God's life and love for the world's sake; taking on new travelers, some improbable companions, in this mystical journey, this process of becoming....and the predisposition for this manner of journey is sacrifice... (every traveler knows that) a profound act of humility wherein we embrace the very truth of the universe that in order to love God we must love neighbor first. This is the Gospel truth that is shared by all people of faith...and we see it coming to fruition in the practice of the faith...theology and dogma will forever be mere speculation....It is enlightened practice that saves...and it begins again with every breath we take.
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Thanks for that, my friend. It reminds me of one of my favorite passages from "scripture":
I tramp a perpetual journey, (come listen all!)
My signs are a rain-proof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut from the woods,
No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair,
I have no chair, no church, no philosophy,
I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, exchange,
But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll,
My left hand hooking you round the waist,
My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road.
Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,
You must travel it for yourself.
It is not far, it is within reach,
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know,
Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land.
Shoulder your duds dear son, and I will mine, and let us hasten forth,
Wonderful cities and free nations we shall fetch as we go.
If you tire, give me both burdens, and rest the chuff of your hand
on my hip,
And in due time you shall repay the same service to me,
For after we start we never lie by again.
This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded heaven,
And I said to my spirit When we become the enfolders of those orbs,
and the pleasure and knowledge of every thing in them, shall we
be fill'd and satisfied then?
And my spirit said No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond.
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