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May 30, 2020
The Sacrameto Newsletter
The Christian Community

 

 Whitsun 
                                                                                         


In heavy clouds let Him ascend
And so also let Him downward tread.
In cooling streams let Him be sent,
In flames of fire blaze His descent,
In air and essence, sound and dew
To permeate our whole earth thru.
                                                       Novalis 
 

In this newsletter:
  1. Announcements.
  2. Contributions from the Community: Donna Burgess and Vicky Boyd.
  3. ‘The Round Table’ by Brigitte Barz.  
  4. Inner Life.
  5. Gospel Reading.
  6. Contemplation by Luis González.

1. Announcements
  • We are celebrating the Act of Consecration with congregation again, though with some restrictions in the number of assistants. It is necessary to reserve a seat for the Sunday services. There are still spaces available in the 8:00 A.M. service.
  • The offering of Luis González for Whitsun through Zoom has been moved to Monday June 1, 7: 00 P.M. due to a time conflict with other activity in the community. You will receive an invitation to join in closer to the date.
  • If you are enjoying this newsletter and would like to subscribe, send us an email requesting to be added. If you would like to receive earlier newsletters you only need to let us know.
  • Please, consider contributing to the Christian Community in this unprecedented time. The many ways of giving are described at the end of the newsletter. Remember, any amount, however small, will be greatly appreciated.
                                   
           
2. Contributions from the Community

     Poem for the Pandemic
    Our last two newsletters have introduced me to the concepts of "liminal space" and "liminality". These concepts have helped me to shed light on and name some of the feelings and thoughts that I have been having during these many weeks of "sheltering at home". When I read the following poem by Isabella Fiorentini (a freshman at G. W. Carver School of Arts and Sciences), I was touched by her description of what I would characterize as the liminal space that she has been experiencing as a teenager in our community. So much is "in flux" for our youth and for all of their wonderful teachers.
                                                                          Donna Burges

Poem for the Pandemic
by Isabella Fiorentini ‘23
 
People have been praying more than they used to.
Hands are being washed more than they used to.
People are isolating more than they used to.
And we don’t have as much hope as we used to.
 
We’re watching more television than we used to.
We’re reading more than we used to.
We’re playing music more than we used to.
And we’re changing more than we used to.
 
We’ve been crying more than we used to.
We’ve been struggling more than we used to.
We’ve been stressing more than we used to.
And we’ve been holding on more than we used to.
 
Families are bonding more than they used to.
They are arguing more than they used to.
They are connecting more than they used to.
And they hang out together more than they used to.
 
We carry more fear than we used to.
We have more sympathy than we used to.
We’ve been more careful than we used to.
And we act more human than we used to.
 
Our world has been losing more than we used to.
We’ve been mourning more than we used to.
Some have been recovering more than they used to.
And they’ve been persevering more than they used to.
 
We’ve been working together more than we used to.
We’ve been helping more than we used to.
We’ve been battling more than we used to.
But we’ll get through it just as we always do.
 

      Earth is the Home
     I am sharing this song hoping it will be enjoyed. The music was written by the first class teacher at Summerfield Waldorf School - Michael Hall. My daughter was in that class. And the lyrics were written by Clifford Monks who taught Waldorf teachers at Rudolf Steiner College. The song carries fond memories for me of carpooling from the hills of Western Sonoma County to the school in the Santa Rosa Valley all the while listening to the students singing their favorite songs. This was one of them.                                                                                                                  Vicky Boyd
 
Use this link to print the music and lyrics
 
Use this audio to follow the music while singing
         
                                                                     
3. The Round Table

   An unknown ‘Westphalian Master’ painted this panel around 1380. Its composition is simple, clearly structured and clear in its statement. The twelve apostles and Mary are gathered at a round table. But they do not sit in a house, but rather on a juicy green grassy bench. The group is pressed close together; John and Mary however, have a posture such that a free space arises between them. Into this there descends the dove; in its beak there is a light, white bread. In the middle of the table there is likewise a round white bread. To the earthly bread, the dove brings the supersensible Bread of Life. Thus is depicted the process of the transubstantiation, the transformation of bread into the body of Christ.


 

   From this bread there issue rays which touch the lips of the participants of the community at table. The bread becomes nourishment; but more is happening. We can remember an event out of the life of Isaiah (6:1 f). As he begins to participate in a spiritual vision, he experiences himself as being unworthy, with impure lips. Before he is allowed to announce the Lord’s task, his lips are cleansed with heavenly fire. Before the apostles carry God’s Word out into the world, their lips are touched and cleansed with Pentecost fire. Speech shall be allowed to bear the Words of Life again.
    Not all of them are looking towards the middle of the table. Some are shown in a harkening, listening gesture. Others look at each other as if they want to verify that the other, their brother, is experiencing the same thing.
    Those gathered are clothed in joyous colors. The gold of their halos has darkened somewhat over time, but we can still recognize the mobile patterns and painted gemstone. This picture has a golden background. It is permeated with plant-like ornamentation. Out of the realm of eternal life comes the Pentecost event into the earthly, transitory world (see the green grassy bench). From the realm of the eternal this event can be repeated, at any time and with each human being.
     Whether the artist was conscious of this or not, there is a further mystery indicated in this image. The beautiful curving grassy bench shows a form which can remind one of the crescent moon. In it the community, sitting in the round, the round table, and the round bread is held secure. The crescent moon that holds the sun is the holy symbol that points to the mystery of the Holy Meal. This is a motif that also is connect in its meaning to the story of the Grail.
                                                                                            Brigitte Barz                                                                                                              
       
     
4. Inner Life

    The personal abilities and gifts begin to work unwholesomely as soon as the human being forgets that has only received them out of the spirit; he has not produced them in himself or out of himself. He is always in danger of misinterpreting the gifts of the spirit as his own possession and achievement. Against the onset of arrogance, Paul places self-training/schooling out of the power of community with the divine: “Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” (Philippians 1:1-4). These words can awaken and strengthen the power of community in us today.
                                                                              Gunther Dellbrugger


We call to you O Holy Spirit
One with the Father, with the Son
Pour yourself into our breast
Fill our hearts!
Mouth, tongue and mind
Loudly resound your praise
Enkindle our hearts, you,
Neighbor-love’s holy glow.
                   Ambrose of Milan, (340 – 390)

 
Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit,
giving life to all life, moving all creatures,
root of all things,
washing them clean,
wiping out their mistakes,
healing their wounds,
you are our true life,
luminous, wonderful,
awakening the heart
from its ancient sleep.
                Hildegard of Bingen, 1098-1179

                         
  
                                                  
5. Gospel Reading

     John 14: 23-31
     “If a human being truly loves me, they will cherish my word and reveal my Spirit and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our dwelling with them. Anyone who does not love me cannot reveal my Spirit. And the spirit word which you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me”.
   “I have said this to you while remaining with you, but the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you everything you need and awaken in you all the things I myself have told you”.
     “Peace I leave with you. Peace I give to you; but not the way the world gives do I give to you. Do not allow your hearts to be weak and full of fear. You heard what I told you: I am going away. But I will come back to you. If you truly loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Fatherly Ground of All-Being. For the Father is greater than I. I have told you now before it takes place, so that when it does happen, your hearts may open in knowing".
     “I will no longer say much to you, because the ruler of this world is coming and he has no part in me, or power over me. But the world must know how I love the Father, and how my deeds are in fulfillment of His aims. Seek to do the same, then we can in peace depart this place.”

                                                                            
6. Contemplation

    From Easter, through Ascension to Whitsun, the Christ has opened a way of communication between each individual soul and the Divine Father. This way of communication goes in two directions, the one strives heavenwards from ourselves to the Divinity, whereas the other works earthward from the Divinity down towards us in the form of grace.
   In the readings from the Gospel of John that have been accompanying us in this journey of recent weeks, this two-way communication has been described in two particular statements that have been repeated in different ways. One tells us that Christ is going to the Father and He will send us the Spirit of the Father to guide us, to give us strength, to enlighten us, to comfort us… This promise is then fulfilled in the experience of Mary and the disciples at Whitsun. The second statement tells us that we have not yet asked in His Name - that we need to ask in His Name, and then we will receive from the Father.  The point that interweaves these two streams with one another is ‘His Name’. In this path of communication there is a common thread between our striving heavenward and his working earthward, and that common thread is ‘His Name’.
    Christ’s name, the ‘I am’, we experience reflected in the essence of our own spirit, His creation. But we can find it also in our everyday life through the process towards gradually unfolding the ‘I am’ in our small selfhood, where the ‘I am’ is being revealed. This process requires the purification of our thinking, feeling and willing. When our thinking searches with a genuine gesture of questioning that does not want only to affirm itself, but that is prepared to let go of the anchors that it has found in what is already known, when it is open to what wants to be revealed from beyond itself… then it is more likely to encounter the Spirit of Truth. When our feelings are open to meet the reality as it is, with a loving interest for what is unfolding in each circumstance, without praying for what makes me feel comfortable and in control… it is more likely that the meaning that is actively at work in each situation will be revealed to us. When through our will we grow in honest devotion in our heart towards the good, struggling with our selfish motivations at every step, then our intentions and actions will become more transparent to the Spirit of Truth. 
    Then in this path of becoming, in this process of the ‘I am’ revealing itself in us, we will walk a path where the Spirit comes to meet us, accompany us, and heal us. In the earnest striving to ask in His Name, to purify our asking through the divine ‘I am’, His grace comes to meet us, filling our hearts with the fire and the light of the divine.                                                                                                                                                                            Luis González

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