For my friend’s wedding over twenty years ago, I was asked to play Pachelbel’s Canon in D on my violin for the processional. We were to rehearse on the Friday evening. As I was running late, I drove over 120 km/hour on the Queensway from the west end all the way to Orleans. When I ran into the church, violin case in toe, the bride was waiting. I had made it just in time to set up and start the procession.
The notes lifted off the strings and the bridal party started down the aisle. But I was getting strange looks from them when all of a sudden the bride waved her hands and said: “Could we start over? Martin, did you tune your instrument?”
At that moment I actually heard the music I was playing – completely off key, sharp by at least three tones. “Ah, no,” I mumbled, even though the problem wasn’t that I hadn’t tuned my instrument. The problem was in my head.
You see, when I sat down to play, my mind was still travelling 120 km/h on the Queensway. My body may have been resting at that moment when I played the first note. But everything inside of me was still going. And going fast. No wonder I was playing sharp.
I learned from that experience, that before I play my guitar or violin, or sing any song, I must pause. I stop. And in my mind, before playing the first note, I hear what I want to play and how I want to play it. I need to imagine it first, before doing anything.
The truth is, you cannot even do something until you first have an image of it inside you. Albert Einstein, early 20th century inventor and scientist, once said, “I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge …”[1]
Late 20thcentury author, surgeon, and inventor — Leonard Shlain – made the case that images come before our capacity to verbalize or name what we see.[2]We have to see it in our mind’s eye, first. Our imagination dictates our reality to a large extent.
Attending the Festival of Homiletics in Washington D.C. this week is a real treat, as I have had a little time in the busy schedule hopefully to visit the National Gallery of Art.
There, until mid-summer is an exhibition of paintings about Francis of Assisi. Francis of Assisi from the 13thcentury is an important figure in Christian history. He is, of course, known for his spirituality about nature and all of creation. Francis is also credited for putting Christmas on the annual Christian calendar. Christmas is the celebration of God’s incarnation into humanity.
I was impressed to learn that “Francis of Assisi has the longest, single entry in the bibliography in the Library of Congress, also in Washington D.C. He is the most written-about human being in history. Every day there is another biography, monograph, that they enter into their files, from another language, another culture, even other religions.
When the Pope some years ago wanted to gather leaders of all the world religions to have a respectful, inter-faith dialogue, the only city in the world that they could agree to meet in was Assisi, Italy. Because the memory of this man doesn’t carry much negative baggage at all. “[3]He was one of those rare human beings whose humility and stance towards others garnered respect and love. Truly, a saint.
In one popular painting of him, he is standing with arms open and the birds flocking around him. But instead of looking up – which you might expect – he is looking down at the earth.
In the season of Pentecost we are entering now, we read from Book of Acts that the Spirit of God “came from heaven” upon those gathered in Jerusalem.[4]The Spirit of God came down upon the earth. The Spirit of God descended to the place where humans were gathered.
Often we assume that to be spiritual, or to be holy, we have to gaze upwards towards heaven – somewhere away from the here and the now. We may therefore over emphasize our destination in the heavenly realms while paying little heed to the earthly journey.
In the optioned first reading for today[5], we encounter a dramatic vision of what happens in the valley of dry bones.[6]The prophet Ezekiel conveys to us a message using fantastic imagery, not unlike later apocalyptic visions from Daniel and the Book of Revelation in the Bible. I hope our imaginations are stirred by this reading, where skeletal human remains join together and begin to walk again.
Christians have traditionally understood this vision primarily to point to the resurrection of the dead, in light of Christ’s resurrection. This rising, then, would happen at the end of time, after our physical death.
Such an interpretation does not do full justice to the text, whose context is the community of exiles in Babylon, some six centuries before Christ. These exiles – the people of God – felt dead, like the dry bones. They had lost everything when Babylon conquered Jerusalem – their temple, their homes, their land.
The prophet Ezekiel with the exiles, conveys the word of God to the hopeless. The vision of new life in the dry bones is a promise of new life for the exiles. They are given hope, in a hopeless world.
Holy people in art are often depicted looking up to God. While this is certainly an appropriate stance to have in life, let us not miss the point of the Pentecost message, which is not fundamentally heavenward. The primary movement and message of Pentecost is downward. To the ground. God’s Holy Spirit blows upon the earth, in the earth, and in humanity.
God’s Spirit comes to us, wherever we are in life on earth. To whatever circumstance of our lives. Whether we are imprisoned in the exile of our own making or constrained by forces beyond our control. It is into the ordinary, the mundane even sordid realities of life to which God now comes.
Our lives on earth matter to God. How we live and what we do with what we have matters to God. How we live and what we don’t have matters to God. How we live with others matters to God.
While in the passing season of Easter our gaze may have looked upward to the glory of Jesus, our gaze and focus during Pentecost levels out upon the earth. We now watch for the presence of God among us. We go where the Spirit blows to do God’s will and mission.
We pause to imagine, like African American slaves did centuries ago on this continent, that ‘dem bones’ will rise again out of captivity. Dem bones will sing a new song. Dem bones will embrace freedom in the loving grace of God.
Dare we imagine.
[1]Cited in Leonard Shlain, “Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light” (New York: HarperCollins, 2007)
[2]Richard Rohr, “Daily Meditation” 14 May 2018 (Center for Action and Contemplation), http://www.cac.org
[3]Richard Rohr, “The Art of Letting Go: Living the Wisdom of Saint Francis”, Session One/CD1 (Boulder Colorado: Sounds True, 2010)
[4]Acts 2:2 NRSV
[5]Day of Pentecost, Year B, Revised Common Lectionary
[6]Ezekiel 37:1-14
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