The sun is shining brightly, which makes it easy to forget it actually is getting cold out there—it isn’t frost territory yet (this is Oregon after all) but the nights are cold enough now that it’s time to add another blanket to my bed and to keep an eye on the lemon tree on the patio.
One of the wonderful things about life here is the way most of society lives in harmony with nature. We even are proud of our reputation as folks who care about the trees (and the sky and the rivers and, well, everything in creation). One of my friends talks about the thick forests by describing how the tall trees hold each other up. We measure the seasons by keeping a close eye on all of the ways in which nature gives us constant cues. We were pretty much blindsided by the wildfire crisis in September, which threw everybody but also, apparently, cost some vegetation (holly in particular) new growth. I laughed at the time that I hoped my lemons weren’t going to taste smoky—we’ve been gorging ourselves on ripe figs (at least when we can get them before the squirrels do) and they are delicious and not the least bit smoky I’m glad to say.
Harmony in general is a wonderful thing. For instance, consonance brings a sense of peace and contentment. It’s absence, dissonance, leads to an enormous sense of relief when resolved. When I was a music student decades ago we all laughed at the idea in our history books of a “Doctrine of Affections,” but it clearly is reflected in the music of the Baroque, and has become an important clue to music information retrieval in the 21st century (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_the_affections). I have been playing Bach on the piano most evenings through the pandemic because I find it is a wonderful tonic at the end of the day. It is no surprise to me that guest musicians from the Oregon Symphony interviewed on local classical radio have all chosen something by Bach to perform in this time. The harmonies of the universe are reflected in music, just as they are in nature.
Indeed, the harmonies of the universe are reflected in relationships as well. We might consider consonance as an expression of love and dissonance as the expression of the need to recover love. I am trying to word this with care—dissonance is important in relationships because it helps us find places where we need to bring more love, just as it is important in music because it helps move from point to point on the harmonic spectrum. The point is that love is the core commandment from God because love is the glue that brings harmony to all of creation.
Of course, just as God is always pointing us to the truth that love is everything, so it is that we often refuse or are unable to see love, even though it is all around us. We might ask why love is so difficult? I always have thought that some of it has to do with an innate preservation instinct. It is hard to resort to love when running from a predator after all. But in this day and age I think more of it has to do with emotional walls that we throw up to protect ourselves. Unfortunately, those walls protect us all right, they protect us from any love at all. The less love we express the less love we perceive and so on in a spiral away from the harmony of creation.
But God’s grace, which is eternal and atemporal is always with us, always near, always was and always is and always will be. When we are able to express love, to give love, to love, then we are able to experience grace. Indeed, when we can love we can build up grace.
Jesus sums it all up in Matthew’s Gospel (22:37-40): “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” There is little that can be added. God is love. Love is God. Loving God is just loving. And loving is loving God.
It is our ability to see love that is the key, it is our ability to resolve dissonance with love that is the gateway to grace. Like Moses standing on Mount Nebo (Deuteronomy 34:1) we are enabled by God to see the landscape of love. The question is whether we can muster the courage to embrace life’s dissonances and respond with love and nurturing (1 Thessalonians 2:1-8).
There was much attention paid this week to comments by a Christian leader about the humanity of equality for LGBT people. Followers of that denomination live in a veil of oppression and thus hang on every utterance for a scintilla of grace. Anglicans, especially in North America, have embraced not only equality but love itself by empowering the love shared by LGBT folks in our logical families (https://rpsplus.wordpress.com/2020/07/26/the-majesty-of-love/). This grace builds up the love we share, which in turn builds up the love we give to creation, which makes us critical pilgrims on the pathway to grace, to consonance, to harmony. We walk in love because we must. And when we walk in love the sun shines from our hearts.
Proper 25 Year A 2020 RCL (Deuteronomy 34:1-12; Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17 Domine, refugium; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8; Matthew 22:34-46)
©The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.
Dimensions of Reality: glbt Christian spirituality 