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By Dr. Bruce T. Marshall
December 12, 2010
Words for Reflection
Song lyrics can be poetry, and not just because they sometimes
rhyme. They also can address the human condition: the fears that
haunt us, the aspirations toward which we yearn. A lyricist does not
have the luxury of unlimited words to make a point. He or she has to
fit them into a tune. So the writer relies upon suggestion,
symbolism, and story to evoke deeper thoughts and feelings. It can
be a spiritual practice to reflect on song lyrics that speak to us
or intrigue us, live with them, let them take us where they will.
I’m going to play a song, the lyrics of which are included in an
insert in your order of service. It’s called When I Fall written and
performed by the group, Barenaked Ladies. This a services auction
sermon, that is, the right to name the topic was purchased by
Michael Hardy, who just happens to be our worship associate this
morning. He asked that I reflect upon these lyrics which I had not
been familiar with previously. We’ll start by listening to the song.
When I Fall
I look straight in the window, try not to look below
Pretend I’m not up here, try counting sheep
But the sheep seem to shower off this office tower
Nine-point-eight straight down I can’t stop my knees
[Chorus]
I wish I could fly
From this building
From this wall
And if I should try
Would you catch me if I fall?
My hands clench the squeegee, my secular rosary
Hang on to your wallet, hang on to your rings
Can’t look below me, or something might throw me
I curse at the windstorms that October brings
I look straight in the boardroom; a modern pharaoh’s tomb
I’d gladly swap places, if they care to dive
They’re lined up at the window, peer down into limbo
They’re frightened of jumping, in case they survive
I wish I could step from the scaffold
Onto soft green pastures, shopping malls, or bed
With my family, and my pastor and my grandfather who’s dead
Look straight in the mirror, watch it come clearer
I look like a painter, behind all the grease
But painting’s creating, and I’m just erasing
A crystal-clear canvas is my masterpiece
[Chorus]
Barenaked Ladies
Sermon
There is a “to be or not to be” quality to these lyrics that involve
a window washer at work on a tall building. He’s high above street
level, buffeted by the winds, working the squeegee up and down the
surface he’s cleaning, sprayed by drops of water that break loose,
and trying not to look below. He peers inside the building, where
it’s warm and comfortable, but there doesn’t seem to be life in
there—a modern pharaoh’s tomb, he calls it. The people inside seem
just as frightened as he is. They peer out the window, down to the
street below. “They’re afraid of jumping in case they survive.”
The window washer worries about falling from the scaffolding, and
also about the impulse to jump that sometimes comes upon us as we
look down from a high place. He is on the cusp of life and death,
being and non-being, dreaming about stepping off the scaffolding,
breaking free, entering green pastures, wanting to fly. He wonders
if he does fall from those heights, who would catch him, who would
care. He’s wondering when he falls, who will catch him, who will
care.
To me, the lines in the last stanza bring the song together.
“Look straight in the mirror, watch it come clearer
I look like a painter, behind all the grease
But painting’s creating, and I’m just erasing
A crystal-clear canvas in my masterpiece.”
This man cleaning windows envisions himself as an artist, working on
a rectangular panel, as a painter does. An artist puts things on a
canvas, a wall, whatever the media. He or she creates something that
wasn’t there before. But this window-washer artist is removing
things, wiping the slate clean. His masterpiece is when there’s
nothing on the surface, nothing left to see.
● ● ●
There are two basic forms of spirituality,
both of which have names that don’t often come up in polite
conversation. One is called kataphatic spirituality. The other is
called apophatic spirituality. The names don’t really matter; the
concepts do.
The kataphatic way draws upon words, images, stories,
music—something external—to help express and guide one’s
spirituality. Drawing upon a sacred text such as the Bible or the
Koran is an example of the kataphatic way. Or reflecting upon an
image—a painting or a statue. Or telling a story. Or participating
in a liturgy. Or listening to an inspiring work of music. An ornate
Catholic or Eastern orthodox church with its statues and images and
stained glass windows and candles and all the stuff that gets
gathered are examples of kataphatic spirituality. It draws upon
external representations to express the life of the spirit. The
kataphatic is referred to as the positive way. It is by far the most
common form of spirituality.
Apophatic spirituality is referred to as the negative way: the via
negativa. Where the kataphatic way generates external expressions of
spirituality, the apophatic way removes them. Those who follow this
path contend that the stuff of the world can get in the way of
spiritual development. They seek not to fill themselves but to
become empty. The medieval German mystic, Meister Eckhart, put it
this way, “God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by a
process of subtraction.”
Meditation is a practice of apophatic spirituality because it’s
about letting go of the images that crowd our minds. Intentional
simplicity is another such practice, living with as little as
possible because each of our possessions makes claims on us. The
architecture of Unitarian churches—particularly old New England
Unitarian churches that are completely devoid of any kind of
imagery—tends more toward this apophatic way than of the kataphatic
way. The traditional Quaker service—that is, the silent meeting—is
an expression of this way that involves emptying, rather than
filling ourselves.
The window washer who imagines himself an artist clearing a canvas
is practicing the apophatic way. He removes obstacles to our vision
rather than giving us something new to look at. The apophatic way is
about emptiness, silence, an absence of images. To quote Meister
Eckhart again, “Nothing in all creation is so like God as
stillness.”
We find expressions of the apophatic way in other realms, such as,
the arts. I have heard jazz musicians say that what creates their
music is less how they play the notes than how they play the spaces
between the notes. And the French impressionist composer Claude
Debussy was quoted as saying, “Music is the space between notes.”
Or in painting. Two exhibits I saw fairly recently come to mind;
both were at the National Gallery. One was a collection of works by
Edward Hopper, whose most famous painting, called Nighthawks,
features four people seen through the windows of a late-night diner.
Hopper painted urban and rural scenes, also houses on Cape Cod. In
the exhibit I saw, several of his paintings were matched with
photographs of the scenes he painted. There was the photograph and
then next to it was the painting of the same scene. Comparing the
two—the photograph and the painting—it was striking how much of the
original scene was left out of the painting. The photographs were
busy and uninteresting, nothing you would notice, nothing you would
remember. But when Hopper painted the same scenes, he left out much
of the detail, much of what was there. The completed painting
acquired its power through simplicity.
And then there was another exhibition of works by Mark Rothko.
Rothko’s later work featured canvases consisting of several
rectangles of mostly solid color. Then his canvasses became black,
completely black. That’s all they were: black, like staring into the
void. One of his best-known installations was partially reproduced
in the National Gallery show. It was for a chapel where visitors are
surrounded by black panels he had created. It sounds odd: a chapel
whose sole ornamentation consists of these large black paintings,
dominating everything—but it works. Sitting quietly surrounded by
these images of the void, the experience deepens. I felt a certain
calm overtake me, and then what had seemed to be solid black began
to pulsate, suggest patterns, show more variation than I was aware
of when I first saw them.
As a writer I’ve learned that removing words is as important to
producing good work as the words I put in. Too many words and it’s
like those photographs that Edward Hopper simplified to make his
paintings: all too busy. Fewer words if chosen well almost always
makes a stronger impression. Or consider the example of the
comedian. Essential to making comedy work is how the comedian uses
the spaces between the words. Comedy is about timing: the pause
that’s just long enough to intensify attention but not so long that
our minds wander.
So the apophatic way appears in many contexts but always with the
same intent, the same message. There is power in emptiness, in
simplicity, in stillness. We encounter the mystery at the center of
being not by filling our lives, but by letting go.
The Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton, put it this way:
Be still
Listen to the stones of the wall
Be silent, they try
To speak your
Name.
Listen
To the living walls.
Who are you?
Who
Are you?
Whose
Silence are you?
● ● ●
I was recently talking with a Quaker, a man fairly new to the Quaker
style of worship. What happens at a traditional un-programmed Quaker
meeting is that the leader announces it’s starting and then those
who have gathered sit quietly until the spirit moves someone to
speak. That person makes a statement and then silence returns. In
Quaker services I have attended, there has been far more silence
than speaking.
This man talked about his experience of this kind of worship with
gratitude and not a little surprise. He said he was raised a
Baptist—lots of noise in those services so this is different for
him. And he admitted that sometimes it’s hard to settle down, he
gets fidgety—sometimes he never gets where he wants to be. But at
other times, something happens. Something comes through the silence
that he couldn’t quite define. “It fills me up,” he said. “It’s like
nothing else.” “It’s what brings me back.” How odd: the absence of
content, sound and stimulation fills him up.
When Amy and I moved to this area three years ago, we downsized our
home. We went from a large house in Shaker Heights in which we had
raised four children to a little Silver Spring cape cod. This
required serious emptying of the house, getting rid of things,
simplifying—particularly since the real estate agent charged with
selling the place was constantly at us to de-clutter the house.
Every week, on trash collection day, we had another pile to be
hauled away. And every month or so another charity came by to pick
up things they might be able to sell. At the beginning, I kept a
list of what we donated: what, when, and to whom. Tax deductions,
you know. But then I abandoned the practice. It was enough of a
challenge to just gather up the stuff. There is more to life than
tax deductions.
As a young person I had imagined that what you did in life was
collect things and experiences and achievements, gather them
together, and then all these would make you who you are—each object,
each experience contributing to the construction of the person who
would be me. So it was hard to let go of so many things: it seemed
like I was giving away or throwing away much of my life. And I admit
that there are times today that I think of an item—most likely, a
book—that I fleetingly wish we still had. But mostly not. Mostly I
felt released from the burden of those things.
It’s funny. I had thought those things and experiences I had been
collecting for some 50 years would make me who I was going to be.
But then I had to get rid of them in order to be who I am, in order
to grow toward who I can still be.
Our window washer, balanced precariously outside a tall building: he
doesn’t have much of anything—a squeegee in hand is about it. He’s
on the edge, right on the edge between life and the void, as he
cleans the windows, his masterpiece, removing whatever obscures his
vision.
Maybe he’s depressed. That’s what several people have written in
offering their interpretations of this song. Maybe he’s suicidal.
Maybe he just doesn’t have anything going for him. But I think
something else. I think of those moments when we are on the edge,
perched on a precipice: then we become fully present. Right here,
right now, attentive to our lives and to life itself. You have to be
fully present if you’re many stories high above the streets. You
have to be in the moment—because if you’re not in the moment now
there might not be more moments later on. The present is all there
is.
And that’s the object of the apophatic way of spirituality, of the
via negative: being fully present. Attentive. Accepting. In this
moment. Surrounded by the mystery of being, the mystery of our
lives, the mystery that gives us life, the mystery from which all
life and creation emerges.
The Tao Te Ching, the classic text in the religion of Taoism, says
what’s taken me a lot of words to do far more succinctly:
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
“The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.”
● ● ●
We are mostly afraid of namelessness.
That’s why we put labels on everything. We are mostly afraid of
silence. That’s why we fill our lives with noise. We are mostly
afraid of emptiness. That’s why we fill our lives with stuff. We are
mostly afraid of the dark—that’s why there’s so much light
pollution. We are mostly afraid of aloneness, of inactivity, of just
being. That’s why we can feel so driven. We are afraid of falling.
The window washer on the scaffolding wonders who will catch him if
he falls. He wonders who will catch him when he falls.
Because we all fall, sometimes. Each one of us falls off that
scaffolding we have so carefully built. Can we trust that fall? Can
we trust that it’s not a descent into nothingness, that there is
something we fall into? That when we lose something near and dear,
life may generate something new. That when we have to give away
something of ourselves, then we may find something else. That when
we peer into the mystery at the center of being, that there is
something there. Something that fills us, guides us, draws us toward
who we can be, infuses us with strength for the journey.
Maybe we don’t have to be so afraid. Maybe we can welcome the
darkness. Maybe we don’t have to be so busy. Maybe we can let life
come as it will. Maybe when we clear away those smudges on the
window so that we can see clearly through, we’ll find something of
what we always been looking for, for which we’ve always yearned.
As the words from our closing hymn express it:
“Winds be still. Storm clouds pass and silence come.
Peace grace this time with harmony.
Fly, bird of hope, and shine, light of love
And in calm let all find tranquility.”
● ● ●
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