6th August Trinity 2018, Be Opened

Mark 7, 31-37

6th Trinity August

As he was again leaving the region around Tyre, he went through the country around Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the middle of the region of the ten cities of the Decapolis. They brought to him one who was deaf and who spoke with difficulty and asked him to lay his hands on him. And he led him apart from the crowds by himself, laid his finger in his ears, and moistening his finger with saliva, touched his tongue, and looking up to the heavens, sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphata, be opened.” His hearing was opened and the impediment of his tongue was removed and he could speak properly. And he commanded them not to say anything to anyone. But the more he forbade it, the more they widely they proclaimed it. And the people were deeply moved by this event, and said, “He has changed all to the good: the deaf he makes to hear and the speechless to speak.

6^th August Trinity

August 26, 2018

Mark 7: 31-37

The inner ear is formed in a spiral like a seashell. Sounds whirl in ever tightening circles through the organ of hearing. This movement is an incarnational one; it generates words; it generates thought and meaning in the soul, which can then spiral outward again as creative speech.

The deaf-mute is someone who is hindered in this process. He can neither take in words and their meaning nor create them. Such a hindrance also cuts one off from one’s community. It tends to generate fears and suspicions in the soul. It hinders the exercising of our highest human function: objective thought, creative speech. Even without an organic problem, we human beings can be mind deaf, heartsick, soul mute.

Tissot

Christ’s healing consists of an intimate quality of touch. With His fiery words, ‘Be opened’, He opens the man’s ears, loosens his tongue, opens his soul. He restores to him his full human capacities—open senses, open heart and mind, open speech. The man goes from being imprisoned within himself to being able to spiral outward again. He is healed of his illness.

We too all suffer from “the sickness of sin”, the sickness of the human condition. But even this illness is there to create new capacities. In the words of John O’Donohue,

When the reverberations of shock subside in you,

May grace come to restore you to balance.

May it shape a new space in your heart

To embrace this illness as a teacher

Who has come to open your life to new worlds.

May you use this illness

As a lantern to illuminate

The new qualities that will emerge in you.*

*John O'Donohue, "A Blessing for a Friend on the Arrival of Illness", In To Bless the Space between Us, p. 60

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6th August Trinity 2016, Hand That Loved Me (Redux)

6th Trinity August

Mark 7, 31-37

As he was again leaving the region around Tyre, he went through the country around Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the middle of the region of the ten cities of the Decapolis. They brought to him one who was deaf and who spoke with difficulty, and asked him to lay his hands on him. And he led him apart from the crowds by himself, laid his finger in his ears, and moistening his finger with saliva, touched his tongue, and looking up to the heavens, sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphata, be opened.” His hearing was opened and the impediment of his tongue was removed and he could speak properly. And he commanded them not to say anything to anyone. But the more he forbade it, the more they widely they proclaimed it. And the people were deeply moved by this event, and said, “He has changed all to the good: the deaf he makes to hear and the speechless to speak.

6th Trinity August

August 28, 2016

Mark 7, 31-37

A wall separates two spaces. A doorway is an opening between the two. And the door itself opens or shuts. It regulates the flow between them.

Our senses are the doors between the inner life of the soul and the outer life of the world. In sleep, the doors of the senses are closed.  Upon waking, all sensory doors open. They will remain open or close, depending on where we choose to direct our attention. Being absorbed in the activities of the world, all doorways are open; being absorbed in the inner life can close the doors of the senses, making us oblivious to noise, for example.

The deaf mute’s sense organs for hearing and speech had become permanently closed. An exchange of words had become impossible. His friends bring him to Christ, the Logos, the Living Word. At Christ’s intimate and loving touch, at His fiery word – Ephphata! Be opened! – the closed doors open. The man can hear and speak again. He can fully engage with the world.

At the same time, Christ has opened the same doors in the crowd. And though He tries to tell them not to proclaim the event far and wide, they will talk. They represent that in us which cannot yet regulate our speech, which cannot yet recognize when to close the door.

Christ said of Himself: My I AM is the Door. He is that capacity in us that is able to choose to open or to close, and to know when it is time to do which. Both capacities, opening and closing, are necessary for the soul. It is only the extremes – always open, or always closed – that are unhealthy. Christ, the Door, helps us to know when we are to open and when to close.

The deaf mute’s experience of Christ is expressed in a poem by Antonio Machado:

Tissot

From the door sill of a

dream they called my name…

It was the good voice,

the voice I loved so much.

“—Listen: will you go

with me to visit the soul?…”

A soft stroke reached

up to my heart.

“With you always”… And

in my dream I walked

Down a long and

solitary corridor,

Aware of the touching

of the pure robe,

And the soft beating of

blood in the hand that loved me.*

*Antonio Machado, translated by Robert

Bly, from the book

Times Alone: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (Wesleyan Poetry in Translation)

6th August Trinity 2015, Hearing Loss

Mark 7, 31-37

6th Trinity August

As he was again leaving the region around Tyre, he went through the country around Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the middle of the region of the ten cities of the Decapolis. They brought to him one who was deaf and who spoke with difficulty, and asked him to lay his hands on him. And he led him apart from the crowds by himself, laid his finger in his ears, and moistening his finger with saliva, touched his tongue, and looking up to the heavens, sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphata, be opened.” His hearing was opened and the impediment of his tongue was removed and he could speak properly. And he commanded them not to say anything to anyone. But the more he forbade it, the more they widely they proclaimed it. And the people were deeply moved by this event, and said, “He has changed all to the good: the deaf he makes to hear and the speechless to speak.

6th Trinity August

August 30, 2015

Mark 7, 31-37

We can think of our senses as portals into the soul. They allow the outer world and our inner life to interact. Our sense of hearing brings things deep inside of us; it is also necessary so that we can speak properly. Our modern sense of hearing has lost its fineness. We no longer hear the music of the spheres, the singing of the stars. We are deaf mutes in the face of the higher worlds. The poet David Wagoner describes this:

When Laurens van der Post one night

In the Kalihari Desert told the Bushmen

He couldn't hear the stars

Singing, they didn't believe him.  They looked at him,

Half-smiling.  They examined his face

To see whether he was joking

Or deceiving them.  Then two of those small men

Who plant nothing, who have almost

Nothing to hunt, who live

On almost nothing, and with no one

But themselves, led him away

From the crackling thorn-scrub fire

And stood with him under the night sky

And listened.  One of them whispered,

Do you not hear them now?

And van der Post listened, not wanting

To disbelieve, but had to answer,

No.  They walked him slowly

Like a sick man to the small dim

Circle of firelight and told him

They were terribly sorry,

And he felt even sorrier

For himself and blamed his ancestors

For their strange loss of hearing,

Which was his loss now.  ....*

In the gospel reading the man’s lack of hearing and speech cut him off from his ability to interact with his fellow human beings. This must have resulted in an enormous sense of isolation. His own inner activity is severely hindered. And yet this deaf mute has a community of friends who bring him to Christ.

It is interesting that the first thing Christ does is to isolate him again – he takes him apart from the crowd. This probably serves to focus his attention and to emphasize his existence as an individual human being. Then Christ engages in a series of actions involving the sense of touch. He touches the man’s ears, his tongue. Then looking up to the heavens, from whence the life of our senses flow, he speaks the divine word that has the power to become reality on earth, the fiery word  - Be opened!

And the gateways are opened. The man can hear and speak. His isolation is overcome. At the same time Christ then asks the crowd not to speak. For we can both speak too little or too much. It is as though Christ is warning them against uncontrolled speech, which becomes just noise. Be opened, yet find the middle way.

*David Wagoner, "The Silence of the Stars" in Traveling Light

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6th August Trinity, Ears Awake

Mark 7, 31-37

6th Trinity August

As he was again leaving the region around Tyre, he went through the country around Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the middle of the region of the ten cities of the Decapolis. They brought to him one who was deaf and who spoke with difficulty, and asked him to lay his hands on him. And he led him apart from the crowds by himself, laid his finger in his ears, and moistening his finger with saliva, touched his tongue, and looking up to the heavens, sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphata, be opened.” His hearing was opened and the impediment of his tongue was removed and he could speak properly. And he commanded them not to say anything to anyone. But the more he forbade it, the more they widely they proclaimed it. And the people were deeply moved by this event, and said, “He has changed all to the good: the deaf he makes to hear and the speechless to speak.

6^th August Trinity

Quartz Geode

August 31, 2014

Mark 7: 31 – 37

Gem hunters look for a certain kind of rock formation, for certain round ball-shaped stones. These spheres are called thunder eggs. Cracked open, they have colored layers inside, and sometimes a hollow space filled with beautiful crystals. 

In today’s reading, a deaf man is brought to Christ by his friends. Being hard of hearing makes it difficult to both hear and to speak. One of the unfortunate results of being deaf is that one becomes closed off from interacting with others. Christ softens the rock-hardness of the man’s hearing , his tongue, with His own life-giving moisture. And like a gem hunter opening the thunder egg, his words strike emphatically – Ephphata – Be opened!

Christ also speaks to us today – be opened. For we have become hard of hearing, hard of heart. Yet we can be opened; we can become actively receptive. We can receive and bear the One who is himself the Word of God, the Logos. And we can actively bring him forth, sending him out to others on the stream of our own words. In the words of e.e. cummings we can jubilate:

i thank You God for most this amazing

day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

….how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any-lifted from the no

of all nothing-human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1]  e.e. cummings in Complete Poems 1904-1962

6th August Trinity 2006, Noise of Life

Mark 7, 31-37

6th Trinity August

As he was again leaving the region around Tyre, he went through the country around Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the middle of the region of the ten cities of the Decapolis. They brought to him one who was deaf and who spoke with difficulty, and asked him to lay his hands on him. And he led him apart from the crowds by himself, laid his finger in his ears, and moistening his finger with saliva, touched his tongue, and looking up to the heavens, sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphata, be opened.” His hearing was opened and the impediment of his tongue was removed and he could speak properly. And he commanded them not to say anything to anyone. But the more he forbade it, the more they widely they proclaimed it. And the people were deeply moved by this event, and said, “He has changed all to the good: the deaf he makes to hear and the speechless to speak.

6th August Trinity

August 27, 2006

Mark 7: 31-37

For someone who is a little hard of hearing, background noise is difficult to filter out. All sounds begin to have equal weight, so that out of a sea of sound, it becomes difficult to locate the one voice one wants to hear.

Modern life is noisy; not only literally, with traffic noise, media and crowds; but there are also all the things, all the information, all the personal, professional and world input that clamors for our attention. Through over-stimulus our souls have become hard of hearing. We can’t find the really important voice we want to pay attention to.

In this healing parable, Christ takes the man who is deaf and leads him apart from the crowds, by himself, so that it is just the two of them. He touches ears and tongue. And then he says, “Be opened!”

When

The words stop

And you can endure the silence

That reveals your heart’s

Pain

Of emptiness

Or that great wrenching-sweet longing,

That is the time to try and listen

To what the Beloved’s

Eyes

Most want

To

Say. *

Christ encourages us to step aside from all the inner and outer noise of the everyday. He helps us find our way through our pain and longing. The pure tone of a bell touches our ears. In communion His body touches our tongue. And we hear him say, “I am at peace. My peace, my clarity of stillness I give to you.” And our souls open—open to Him in gratitude.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

* Hafiz,  “When You can Endure” in The Gift, Daniel Ladinsky, p. 143

6th August Trinity, 2007, All That Happens

Mark 7, 31-37

6th Trinity August

As he was again leaving the region around Tyre, he went through the country around Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the middle of the region of the ten cities of the Decapolis. They brought to him one who was deaf and who spoke with difficulty, and asked him to lay his hands on him. And he led him apart from the crowds by himself, laid his finger in his ears, and moistening his finger with saliva, touched his tongue, and looking up to the heavens, sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphata, be opened.” His hearing was opened and the impediment of his tongue was removed and he could speak properly. And he commanded them not to say anything to anyone. But the more he forbade it, the more they widely they proclaimed it. And the people were deeply moved by this event, and said, “He has changed all to the good: the deaf he makes to hear and the speechless to speak.

6^th Summer Trinity

August 26, 2007

Mark 7: 31-37

Our eyes are on the front surface of our body. Our ears, however, our hearing capacity, comes from somewhere deeper. We can hear from more than one direction.

Last week’s gospel reading depicted the healing of human sight. Through the interworking of Christ and the soul who was ardent for healing, the human being was able to ‘look up and see again’. Looking up, he saw Christ Jesus.

Today’s reading is the sixth step of ten on the way toward Michaelmas. Today the healing of the human constitution goes deeper. Here we have someone who can barely speak and cannot hear. He is cut off. He has lost the ability to reach out and initiate his own healing. His friends have to bring him to Christ. And interestingly, after he is brought, Christ leads him apart and acts upon him in a way that is both individual and intimate. Touch, and the fiery word ‘Ephphata’ – be opened—address both body and soul.

Humanity today is in great danger of being self-encapsulated, of being cut off from the world of earth, from the world of the divine spirit, and from other human beings. Not only do we not see; we also cannot hear the voices who would converse with us. We are spiritually deaf.

Christ came to remove the impediments that block our participation in conversation with the divine. Indeed, he is still here, as the Angel of healing.

At the beginning of the Act of Consecration of Man, a bell rings three times. The resonating tone awakens our hearing, so that we can begin our conversation with the triune God, with the Father, the Son, and the healing spirit. We ask for healing. We ask that our prayers reach God’s ear. We ask for grace. And one day we may be healed enough to hear the answer that St. John of the Cross heard, when he asked God what grace was. The answer he heard was, “All that happens.”[1] For grace comes from all directions.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1]“ What is Grace”, St. John of the Cross, in Love Poems from God, Daniel Ladinsky, p. 321.

6th August Trinity 2008,A Day of Silence

Mark 7, 31-37

6th Trinity August

As he was again leaving the region around Tyre, he went through the country around Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the middle of the region of the ten cities of the Decapolis. They brought to him one who was deaf and who spoke with difficulty, and asked him to lay his hands on him. And he led him apart from the crowds by himself, laid his finger in his ears, and moistening his finger with saliva, touched his tongue, and looking up to the heavens, sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphata, be opened.” His hearing was opened and the impediment of his tongue was removed and he could speak properly. And he commanded them not to say anything to anyone. But the more he forbade it, the more they widely they proclaimed it. And the people were deeply moved by this event, and said, “He has changed all to the good: the deaf he makes to hear and the speechless to speak. 

6^th August Trinity

August 31, 2008

Wind chimes are clusters of mobile resonant objects. They hang free so that they respond to the breath of the wind. However, if one were to hang a heavy weight on them, they would be silent, no matter how hard the wind blew.

Today’s reading takes place in a cluster of cities. The deaf mute represents a state of mankind; a mankind so tied down with the weight of material concerns, with personal egotism and the burden of sin that it can no longer respond to the breath of the spirit; a mankind that can no longer move with the spirit, sing its song; a mankind not unlike today’s.

In the story it is interesting to note that the deaf mute is brought to Christ by his community, who led the man to Him and asked for healing on his behalf. The breath of the spirit blows through all of them in the Christ-word “Ephphata” – be opened. We cannot free ourselves from impediments by ourselves; we need the help of others, others who pray for us and lead us to Christ; others who catch the breath of the spirit, who open and resonate with it. Wind chimes are clusters that work in concert. But first comes the silence.

The poet:

A day of Silence

Can be a pilgrimage in itself.

A day of Silence

Can help you listen

To the Soul play

Its marvelous lute and drum.

Is not most talking

A crazed defense of a crumbling fort?

I thought we came here

To surrender in Silence,

To yield to Light and Happiness,

To Dance within

In celebration of Love’s Victory![1]


www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] Hafiz, “Silence”, in I Heard God Laughing, Renderings of Hafiz, by Daniel Ladinsky, p.129.

6th August Trinity 2010, Be Opened

Mark 7, 31-37

6th Trinity August

As he was again leaving the region around Tyre, he went through the country around Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the middle of the region of the ten cities of the Decapolis. They brought to him one who was deaf and who spoke with difficulty, and asked him to lay his hands on him. And he led him apart from the crowds by himself, laid his finger in his ears, and moistening his finger with saliva, touched his tongue, and looking up to the heavens, sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphata, be opened.” His hearing was opened and the impediment of his tongue was removed and he could speak properly. And he commanded them not to say anything to anyone. But the more he forbade it, the more they widely they proclaimed it. And the people were deeply moved by this event, and said, “He has changed all to the good: the deaf he makes to hear and the speechless to speak.

6^th August Trinity

August 29, 2010

Mark 7:31-37

Deep inside the ear is a fluid filled chamber. In it, little hairs stand up like reeds, swaying to the motion of the water as sound waves enter. This movement under water is translated to us as sound.

In today’s reading, water is the hidden background element in this healing— the paradisal Sea of Galilee, the sea where the healing takes place; the fluid-filled chambers of the deaf man’s ears, the moisture from Christ’s own mouth. The watery element in the man’s ears, in his soul, had grown stagnant, flat. Christ recharges it with the fiery sound of His word—Be opened! Christ’s fire-word brings the waters into movement, opens hearing, frees speech.

We too have become deaf, deaf to the speaking of the spirit. Everywhere, noise drowns out spirit-word. In defense, we close our ears.

In the Act of Consecration of Man, the communion service, we hear Christ ask that we take, along with the bread and watered wine, His body and His blood. This is an awesome, and even terrifying thought. Yet hidden in communion resounds His eternal healing, strengthening Word—Be opened!

For, in the words of David Whyte,

It is not enough to know.

It is not enough to follow

the inward road conversing in secret.

...You must go to the place

where everything waits;

there, when you finally rest,

even one word will do,

one word....

And now we are truly afraid

to find the great silence

asking so little.

One word, one word only.[1]


www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] "It is Not Enough" from Where Many Rivers Meet by David Whyte. 

  

6th August Trinity, 2011, Sickness of Sin

Mark 7, 31-37

6th Trinity August

As he was again leaving the region around Tyre, he went through the country around Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the middle of the region of the ten cities of the Decapolis. They brought to him one who was deaf and who spoke with difficulty, and asked him to lay his hands on him. And he led him apart from the crowds by himself, laid his finger in his ears, and moistening his finger with saliva, touched his tongue, and looking up to the heavens, sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphata, be opened.” His hearing was opened and the impediment of his tongue was removed and he could speak properly. And he commanded them not to say anything to anyone. But the more he forbade it, the more they widely they proclaimed it. And the people were deeply moved by this event, and said, “He has changed all to the good: the deaf he makes to hear and the speechless to speak.

6^th August Trinity

August 28, 2011

Mark 7: 31-37

A lump of clay is just a blob of matter. But under the hands of a skilled potter, it can take on an astonishingly intricate form and function.

A part of the sickness of sin is that our bodily constitution, our mortal clay, dulls our ability to truly see, to truly hear, to truly perceive. Through his intimate touch, Christ interacts with the deaf mute like a potter shaping clay. He touches his ears and tongue. He makes him into a vessel as He speaks the fiery word: Ephphata—be opened. The man is now free to receive, to contain and to interact with the world—just as God intended.

The Act of Consecration of Man is a place where we take ourselves aside to be healed by Christ. We ask that our lips be cleansed by Christ, that His word flow through our lips. We pray that our prayer reach God’s ear.

Thus does Christ’s healing, His touch, remove our dull impediments, He opens us to conversation not only with the earthly world, but also with the divine. And the angels rejoice, for He changes all things to the good. We who are deaf He makes to hear; and we who are speechless, to speak, just as God intended.

www.thechristiancommunity.org 

6th August Trinity 2012, Mind Deaf, Heart Sick, Soul Mute

Mark 7, 31-37

6th Trinity August

As he was again leaving the region around Tyre [tir], he went through the country around Sidon [si’don] to the Sea of Galilee in the middle of the region of the ten cities of the Decapolis. They brought to him one who was deaf and who spoke with difficulty, and asked him to lay his hands on him. And he led him apart from the crowds by himself, laid his finger in his ears, and moistening his finger with saliva, touched his tongue, and looking up to the heavens, sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphata, be opened.” His hearing was opened and the impediment of his tongue was removed and he could speak properly. And he commanded them not to say anything to anyone. But the more he forbade it, the more they widely they proclaimed it. And the people were deeply moved by this event, and said, “He has changed all to the good: the deaf he makes to hear and the speechless to speak.

6^th August Trinity

August 26, 2012

Mark 7: 31-37

The ear is formed in a spiral. Sounds whirl in ever tightening circles through the inner organ of hearing. This movement is an incarnational one; it generates words; it generates thought and meaning, which can then spiral outward again as creative speech.

The deaf mute is someone who is hindered in this process. He can neither take in words and their meaning, nor create them. Such a hindrance also cuts one off from one’s community. It tends to generate fears and suspicions in the soul. It hinders the exercising of our highest human function: objective thought, creative speech. Even without an organic problem, we can be mind deaf, heart sick, soul mute.

Christ’s healing consists of an intimate quality of touch. With His fiery words, ‘Be opened’, he opens the man’s ears, loosens his tongue, opens his soul. He restores to him his full human capacities—open senses, open heart and mind, open speech. He goes from being imprisoned within himself to being able to spiral outward again. He is healed of his illness.

We too suffer from “the sickness of sin”, the sickness of the human condition. But even this illness is there to create new capacities. In the words of John O’Donohue,

When the reverberations of shock subside in you,

May grace come to restore you to balance.

May it shape a new space in your heart

To embrace this illness as a teacher

Who has come to open your life to new worlds.

May you use this illness

As a lantern to illuminate

The new qualities that will emerge in you.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] John O'Donohue, "A Blessing for a Friend on the Arrival of Illness", In To Bless the Space between Us, p. 60

6th August Trinity 2013, Creative Words

Mark 7, 31-37

6th Trinity August

As he was again leaving the region around Tyre, he went through the country around Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the middle of the region of the ten cities of the Decapolis. They brought to him one who was deaf and who spoke with difficulty, and asked him to lay his hands on him. And he led him apart from the crowds by himself, laid his finger in his ears, and moistening his finger with saliva, touched his tongue, and looking up to the heavens, sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphata, be opened.” His hearing was opened and the impediment of his tongue was removed and he could speak properly. And he commanded them not to say anything to anyone. But the more he forbade it, the more they widely they proclaimed it. And the people were deeply moved by this event, and said, “He has changed all to the good: the deaf he makes to hear and the speechless to speak.

6^th August/September Trinity

Sept 1, 2013

Mark 7, 31 – 37

As we get older our hearing often declines. It is as though our ears close a bit. We fail to accurately pick up what was spoken to us. And so we get a false message. And to others our response is inappropriate. 

In a sense we are all deaf. Even if our hearing is perfect, it can be that our hearts are closed, so that we don’t pick up what is really being said.  Our hearts are closed, often in self-defense, against the overwhelming voices of pain and suffering around us. We may rarely hear the inspirations our angels are whispering to us.

It is difficult for us to speak in truth. Our words wield an enormous creative power, for good or for ill. The poet makes us aware of their power; he says,

When I pronounce the word Future,

the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,

I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word Nothing,

I make something no nonbeing can hold.[1]

Christ came to open our hearing, to open our hearts, so that our words have the power to create. ‘Be opened’, he says.  ‘Hear my voice in your heart’.  When you break your silence with love, you create a future which no non-being can destroy.

www.thechristiancommunity.org

---

[1] Wislawa Szymborska, “ Three Oddest Words”.