June 27, 2009

Denise Kelsall

Pentecost 4     2 Sam 1:1,17-27     Mark 5:21-43

Saul and Jonathan are dead. David, anguished and bereft laments three times “How the mighty have fallen.”

As King in waiting and challenging the power and position of Saul he had been banished from the Israelite court. David became an outlaw, a ‘soldier of fortune,’ a mercenary one could say. He took his men and went over to fight for the other side – the Philistines, who, excusing David from the battle ‘just in case,’ killed Saul and his sons in battle. Yet David loved them both deeply and laments their deaths, particularly that of his soul-mate Jonathan. Even so, David knows that his time has come. He will now fulfill his destiny to become King and will go on to carve out an unparalleled empire founded upon the house of Israel.

David is an enigmatic, complex and terribly romantic figure. Chosen by God, he comes to prominence in slaying Goliath, is accepted at court as the sweet psalmist, as a soldier he twice spares his adversary Saul’s life, and he becomes the great King and commander able to consolidate warring and diverse tribal allegiances and forges the nation-state of Israel.

He is also ruthless in battle and treacherous and deceitful in his desire for the woman he wants. Limpid images waft before our eyes of a beautiful woman bathing on the rooftops in the moonlight and deep down we see and understand too, even though we know that the shadows of the image hold a yet unseen story of trickery and death. It is the stuff of legend and is our story too – part of our faith history that stretches back 1000 years before the birth of Jesus.

Fast forward to last Friday morning. On the way to a conference entitled the “Theological Meaning of Evolution” I heard a snatch on BBC radio telling of the death of Farrah Fawcett. Instantly it took me back to the days of Charlie’s Angel’s and all the pregnant beautiful fun life that beckoned. The glittering sun and sand and beautiful girls running around doing their girly derring-do that we were entranced by - that invites us back into the frothy and optimistic world that has become a memory. My sombre reverie included those impossibly perfect and beautiful locks of wavy blonde hair and that toothy gleaming smile that was everywhere, that somehow epitomised an era that was so much simpler and less worrisome than what we inherit today. This too is part of our own albeit more recent history.

Later in the day I heard from my daughter that Michael Jackson was dead. I felt such a bolt of shock, and I too am, with much of the world, inwardly lamenting. The King of Pop is dead. The global sensation, the musical genius, the performer and mover par excellence is no more. It is hard to believe. In spite of all the controversy surrounding him Michael Jackson was, like David, a legend. So many memories rush in and swirl about in my mind and his music and energy invades my space. My children and I grew up with Michael Jackson. We danced and danced and sang and danced to his music – they would get up on the lounge coffee table and do their groove thing in the mirror to the magnetic and irresistible music Jackson created. I must have bought at least 3 or 4 copies of the album ‘Thriller’– they always went missing in a house with dancing and teenagers. I remember too my daughter playing his song “Heal the World,” heal the world make it a better place – so it went…. She played it at All Saints in Ponsonby when the Sunday school did a number within the church service. Michael Jackson has a special place in the heart of my small family and along with millions worldwide we lament his passing. He truly is a testament to the fact that music transcends all boundaries and seizes our souls and inspires us to celebrate, to dance and to sing and to be glad.

Shall I go on with my lamenting and celebrating I ask? It is part of life, this dying, I tell myself in the midst of interior tears and joyful memory.

Before Friday my lamenting, inspired by the David story, centred upon two men, one who died earlier this year and another on June 1st.

The first was a man called Arne Naess. A Norwegian Professor who was the founder of what is termed Deep Ecology. This form of environmental ethics claims that all the living environment has as much right to live and flourish as humankind which is merely a part of the diverse whole. Humans therefore have no claim to a superior place and no right to devastate and plunder the earth unless it is for vital needs. All things are part of the ecosphere, there is no ranking as all things are intrinsically connected and have their own interests – even plants and fleas. Deep ecology holds that spiritually, as we expand the self to identify with others including people, animals and ecosystems alike, the more we self-realize and become whole. Naess criticised the Judeo-Christian idea of stewardship as placing humans as middlemen between Creator and Creation, which leads to the continuing domination and devastation of the environment that we witness today. His vision was much closer to that of St Francis of Assisi where all creatures and nature are equal and part of the whole. He was 97 when he died and has inspired a particular form of ecological wisdom that has growing traction in today’s world.

Second is Thomas Berry. He was a Catholic priest but preferred to be called an ‘earth scholar.’ He saw the universe as the primary story overarching all of our stories and as the ultimate referential context for everything. In his vision the fundamental sacred community is the universe. Therefore every being, every other community is sacred through its participation.

His was a cosmic prophetic and mystical spirituality. Creation theologian Matthew Fox saw him as a new Moses" leading religious people out of "bondage of a land of anthropocentrism [1]to a land of cosmology and ecology.” Berry’s passion found expression in what he termed the coming ‘Ecozoic Era’ in which human societies would live sympathetically in the natural world.

In 2005 he said “The catastrophe of our time is the loss of any real human connection to the natural world. That’s why ecology itself is not the answer because it’s a ‘use’ relationship to the natural world. The earth is saying, ‘You used me.” Trees, birds – all living things have rights, he wrote. If nothing has rights but humans, then everything else becomes the victim.” He was 94 when he died on June 1st.

You might ask why I lament these two men who lived to such a great age. I lament and celebrate because they were courageous visionaries who had the courage to go where the church largely does not in its unique particularity. They are prophetic about eco-justice and cosmic storytelling set within the sacred of which we are all a divine part. They address those difficult things that we can find hard to understand and articulate – our place in the vastness of the universe, our concepts of God, how we can look at life in a different and truly majestic and creative way, how magnificent we are and how blessed we can be if we live with sensitivity for each other and all life. God is in there, no doubt, but such divine ultimacy and mystery becomes beyond definition, beyond words and is within us and all creation.

And so lament and celebration, music and moves, optimism and beauty, visions and courage, love for one another, sensitivity – these are our favourite things.

Endnote:

[1] Anthropocentrism regards humans as the most important and central factor in the universe. Consequently this has, in ecological views, lead to the rape and depredation of the earth, its ecosystems and resources.