What feeds your spirit?

For the past few weeks I've been posting videos that I find deeply spiritually filling.  (I hope you have as well.)  While in many ways quite different from one another, there are four things which all the videos have in common that I think make them "spiritual."

First -- and these really aren't in any specific hierarchical order of importance -- they are all highly visual.  Whether the lush imagery on John Boswell's Symphony of Science videos, the often breathtaking scenery in Matt Harding's Where The Hell Is Matt?, or the sight of musicians from a wide variety of human cultures all working together to create something beautiful, all of these videos offer us images.  Imagery can touch us in very deep ways.  It's no wonder that all of the great religions we humans have ever developed make use of imagery -- whether Greek Orthodox Christian's icons or Tibetan Buddhism's ephemeral sand paintings. 

Next, these videos also are not just visual, they are also musical.  Music, too, can take us to really deep places.  It has been said that, "Music is what feelings sound like out loud."  (The quote is attributed to a number of people.)  Saint Francis of Assisi is remembered as telling his companions, "Preach always.  When necessary, use words."  Music is a way of "preaching" spiritual truths in a way which bypasses our more literal, linear thinking.
Of course, words aren't all bad, and all but Matt Harding's video include words.  John Boswell's Symphony of Science videos use words to convey meaning more heavily than does Playing For Change's "Stand By Me," yet the song's lyrics certainly support the message (implicit in the images) that we are one human family and need to stand by one another.  I think I could make a case that even in Matt Harding's dace video, the decision to include the place name of each scene constitutes a use of words to convey meaning. 

Finally -- again, not because it's least or most important -- there is the fact that when watching and listening to the videos we are having an experience, yet an experience we from which we have a little distance.  We do not have to be invested in the work of creation/production.  We do not have to be hampered by any kind of "performance anxiety."  Nothing is demanded of us but that we engage with these works and allow them to "enter" our hearts and our minds.

These four things are not the only things that define a source of spiritual inspiration and nurture, yet one of more is very often involved.

To round out this series of posts I offer these questions for your consideration:

• Where do you find inspiration and nurture for your spirit?
• What qualities do the sources share with one another?  What do the share with the four qualities I've writes about here?
• In what ways do the things that speak to your spirit differ from these videos and/or from each other?

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Dancing With The World / Co-Creators

For the past two weeks I've been posting videos from the Symphony of Science series, created by the musician, remix artist, and video maker John D. Boswell.  I think of them as meditations on reflections of the beauty of the scientific understandings of the cosmos (and our place within it).  People often think of science and religion as diametrically opposed to one another.  I prefer to think of them as simply two different ways of looking at the "Great Mystery" this is Life, and I think Boswell (Melodysheep) proves the point.

This week I want to introduce you to two more videos.  The first is called, "Where The Hell Is Matt?" and is the work of a man named Matt Harding.  Harding has now made several of these videos, each one pretty much the same in format -- he travels the world, filming himself dancing the same "goofy" dance, most often dancing with people from where ever he is.  In this video he filmed in 42 countries, dancing with thousands of people along the way.

He describes this venture like this:  "I dance with people all over the world.  I make videos of it and I put them on YouTube to show that the world is a whole lot safer and friendlier than it looks on TV."

The signature on my emails is a phrase that came to me several years ago as a way to sum up the theology of the Unitarian Universalist tradition which I serve.  I think it also expresses the message in these dancing videos:

"We are one human family, on one fragile planet, in one miraculous universe, bound by love."

As with the previous videos, I encourage you to watch this one and, while watching Matt dance, watch what you're feeling:

• How did you feel while you watched?
• How did you feel after having watched it?  (Did you feel at all different?)
• Did particular scenes stand out for you?  (Which ones, and why do you think they did?)
• What "message" did you get through the video?
• What else might you wonder about how this video speaks to your spiritual life?

* * * * *

In some of the more progressive stands of Christianity, it is said that God did not create "the heavens and the earth," but that the universe is in the on-going process of creation, and that we humans are its co-creators.  That is, we are partners in the sacred and holy work of creation.  This idea is not entirely new --  the Catholic theologian Meister Eckhardt said as much during his lifetime (which spanned the 13th and 14th centuries).  You can also find the concept expressed in the writings of countless mystics through the millennia.

Today this idea is often termed, "Creation Spirituality."  The website Creation Spirituality Communities defines creation spirituality as a, "way of living within the community of earth that deepens our reverence for life, participates in the creativity of the cosmos, and develops our passion for justice and human transformation."

Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people receive daily a brief meditation that come from the writings of the Franciscan priest Fr. Richard Rohr.  If you look through the archives of these reflections, you will see that this approach to spirituality runs through his writing and, he would say, throughout Franciscan spirituality generally.  (At the website where these archives are you can also sign up to receive the meditations in your inbox daily!) 

I would also make the case that the videos I've been posting recently also share in this spiritual understanding.  (Although I don't believe all of their creators would put it that way!)  Today's offering focuses more directly offers an experience of what "co-creation" can look like, and while it may not seem obvious that the people in this video are co-creating the universe, I encourage you to let that thought dance with the experience of watching and listening to this video.

This rendition, performed by a band of musicians that literally spans the globe, was the first effort by what has become the Playing For Change Foundation.  Here is the description from their website about how it all started:  

Playing for Change is a movement created to inspire and connect the world through music.  The idea for this project came from a common belief that music has the power to break down the boundaries and overcome the distances between people. 

Playing for Change was born in 2002 as a shared vision between co-founders, Mark Johnson and Whitney Kroenke, to hit the streets of America with a mobile recording studio and cameras in search of inspiration and the heartbeat of the people.  This musical journey resulted in the award-winning documentary, "A Cinematic Discovery of Street Musicians."

In 2005, Mark Johnson was walking in Santa Monica, California, when he heard the voice of Roger Ridley singing "Stand by me."  Roger had so much soul and convicion in his voice, and Mark approached him about performing "Stand By Me" as a Song Around the World.  Roger agreed, and when mark returned with recording equipemtn and cameras he asked Roger, "With a voice like yours, why are you singing on the streets?"  Roger replied, "Man, I'm in the Joy business, I come out to be with the people.  "Ever since that day the playing for Change crew has traveled the world recording and filming musicians, creating Songs Around the World, and building a global family.

19 people or groups participated in this performance of "Stand By Me."  The YouTube video has had over 100 million views.  Besides being a technological marvel -- how did they get all of those musicians, in all of those different places, to sync up so perfectly with one another? -- it is also a marvelous demonstration of our human ability to co-create.

I encourage you to reflect on some of the same questions with this video as you have with the others.  I encourage you, too, to simply enjoy!

Pax tecum,

RevWik

We Are Stardust / The Greatest Sermon Ever

Last week I shared two videos that I find to be beautiful meditations on the scientific realities which are so powerfully and, in the deepest and truest sense, awesome.

Some people maintain that science and religion/spirituality exist in opposition to one another -- each one, some think, negates the other.  Yet a great many scientists -- even those who eschew traditional religions and religious language -- often express the same kind of awe and marvel which many spiritual traditions also exhibit.  There is a joy, a deep and profound appreciation for this incredible universe in which, and of which, we exist.

Today's first video, "We Are Stardust," is actually the 15th video John D. Boswell (who goes by the name Melodysheep) made in his Symphony of Science series.  This one,  contains material from:

• Cosmic Quandaries with Neil DeGrasse Tyson
• 10 Questions for Neil DeGrasse Tyson
• Beyond Belief 2006 with Neil DeGrasse Tyson
• The Most Astounding Fact
• A Universe from Nothing - Lawrence Krauss
• Feynman "Fun to Imagine" Interviews
• Journey to the Edge of the Universe
• Finding Life Beyond Earth (NOVA)
• Wonders of the Universe (BBC)
• Sunshine

As with the videos last week, I encourage you to pay attention to how you feel while watching it.  I suggested that you might consider questions such as:

How do I feel while watching this video?

Which effected me more -- the words, the visuals, or the music?

Did the video in any way change the way I look at myself or the world?

Am I continuing to reflect on the video for some time after watching it?

What might this video -- and the act of engaging with it -- have to do with my spiritual life?

I also suggested that you might want to share these videos with friends and family members -- encouraging them to also watch the meditations, or perhaps watching them together.  You could then talk with each other about your experience(s).

* * * * *

To close out this series of videos that celebrate the beauty, and dare I say spirituality, of the revelations science offers to the world we live in, I direct your attention to a video that is often referred to as "the greatest sermon ever."  As someone who makes my living writing and delivering sermons ... I have to agree.  At least, it's the greatest, most inspiring sermon I've ever heard.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson gave this talk at the end of a three-day Beyond Belief Conference in 2006, as a way of summing up his thoughts and feelings about taking a "cosmic perspective" on things, as well as the power and beauty of science.  It is not "religious" in any traditional sense, yet if the word "religion" has it's roots in the Latin religare ("to bind things together"), which it does; and if the word "worship" goes back to the Old English weorthsipe ("to consider things of worth"), which it does; then Dr. Tyson's talk is unquestionably religious, and listening to it is, to my mind at least, an act of worship.

Enjoy.

Pax tecum,

RevWik