Dakhabrakha

Dakhabrakha or God Claims You

            This past week I went with a friend to the Dakota jazz club to hear Dakhabrakha, billed as a Ukranian punk folk circus rock band. What, you may ask, is a Ukranian punk folk circus rock band? I had the same question. The day after the show I was telling a member of our faith community about it and she said, “was that the band that sounded like people stepping on live cats?”

Like most of my fellow concert-goers I showed up at the Dakota with low expectations, but hoping to be surprised. The initial atmosphere of the club was pure Minnesota: nice, low-key, well-behaved. After the opening act, Dakhabrakha came onto the stage. The three female vocalists wore what looked like white short-sleeved wedding dresses, with strings of brown wood beads around their necks. They had very tall black furry hats on their heads which looked like a cross between the hats worn by Cossacks and English Beefeaters. The one male vocalist had what must have been a Ukranian design on his shirt. They started off with a wild drumming number, which woke all of us up. This was then followed by songs belted out in Ukranian and a little English incorporating cello, accordion, a mouth harp, piano, a bullhorn, and different types of drums with many different beats and genres including hip hop. At one point they were even chanelling the B52’s.

By the end of the evening, and actually by the end of song number one most of us were smiling, dancing in our seats, singing along, and cheering loudly. By sharing their incredible musical gifts and creativity, and taking some risks along the way, Dakhabrakha, enlivened, encouraged, revitalized, and blessed a group of mild mannered and unsuspecting concert-goers. This, I believe, is part of God’s vision for our lives: using our God-given gifts, however unusual they may be, to enliven, encourage, revitalize, and bless others.

Another glimpse of God’s vision for life is found in today’s second reading from Romans. The vision of life Saint Paul sets forth in this passage from Romans is a communal life of mutual-affection, hospitality, perseverance, blessing, and the accompaniment of others as they rejoice and weep. It is a life in which we are constantly cognizant of the common good, and acting in light of this awareness. It is a life in which whatever is not of God and hurts ourselves and others is eventually healed by God’s goodness and mercy.

            How can we, as followers of the Way of Jesus, live into this vision and participate ever more fully in God’s love? How can Frances Lucille Reinhardt, whom we baptize this morning, increase daily in her love of God and neighbor? And how can we all grow in our love of God and neighbor in the face of the challenges, disappointments, and losses we will experience over the course of our lives?

This summer, as part of my sabbatical, I started to do the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. St. Ignatius was a sixteenth century Spanish knight from a noble family whose battle injury changed the entire trajectory of his life. He eventually became a priest and theologian, and founded the Society of Jesus, otherwise known as the Jesuits. He developed a series of prayer exercises and reflections to help people grow closer to God.

Each week that I was in town this summer, I met with a spiritual director who gave me a daily schedule of scripture readings and prayer exercises. The main focus of all these assignments was discernment, meaning listening for God’s voice among the many voices in my head and in the world around me. Ignatius believed that we must listen to God daily using scripture and an honest examination of our lives in order to learn more about what God is up to, and God’s purpose for our lives.

My advisor encouraged me to journal while I prayed, so that I could regularly review my prayers and reflections and be able to see what God was doing in my life over time. I found our meetings to be incredibly moving and life-giving. Not only did I have an accountability mechanism in place (I knew I would be meeting with him each week and the A student in me would be ashamed to come without my homework done), I had someone completely committed to praying for and listening to me, who was also one step removed from my life. He added insights to my insights, and helped me see patterns and themes I missed.

            Part of this process also involved what is called the Ignatian Examen. The Examen involves taking time each day to review the day, remember what I did and how I felt, and make an honest assessment of the things God used to enable me to love God and my neighbor more fully, as well as those things that kept me from loving God and my neighbor. Doing the Examen regularly enables you to see clear patterns that repeat themselves over and over again.

As I went through the exercises and did the Examen I saw a common theme: I often live and work as though everything is up to me. As much as I believe in God’s power, activity, and grace, I often act as if these things don’t exist. Further, I frequently live with the feeling that I am not doing enough for God or others, not living up to God’s high expectations. A lot of this comes from my family history. My father’s family is a family of achievers. At family reunions you are supposed to stand up and talk about your many awards and achievements, but in a humble, subtle way so as not to appear to be boasting. Over the years, unbeknownst to me, and despite lots of inner work, I continued to see and experience God as the great disappointed parent in the sky. In the safe presence of my spiritual director, I realized that I experience God as always wanting me to jump through more and higher hoops in order to please Him.

            Well Francie, what has unfortunately been my operative theology is just not true! As the song we will sing together after your baptism makes clear, God claims, loves, and pursues you and me first, long before we ever claim God. There is nothing we can do to earn God’s love and desire to see us thrive. And no matter what happens to us in this life, no matter what we do or what’s done to us, God continues to claim and care for us. In the most difficult times God is there with us whether we know it or not, bringing healing and eventually hope, often through the people who never give up on us. And in the best of times God is there too, using us to bring healing, light, and new possibilities to others.

            God wants us all to live a life of love rooted in God’s unconditional and unceasing love. The church serves as a school for love, helping us learn more about how we can love God and our neighbors as we participate in the Way of Jesus in the classroom, board room, court room, home, as well as many, many other places. Over the course of Francie’s life our role will be to work alongside her parents to serve as conduits of God’s love and grace, and to help her identify her gifts and see how she can participate more fully in God’s life and healing work in her school and community.

This week I want to invite you to take 5-10 minutes to review each day. You can do it at the end of the day, or the following morning. During these 5-10 minutes you will ask yourself two questions:

1.    In what ways did I love God and my neighbor?

2.    What got in the way of my ability to love God and my neighbor?

If you are willing, please email me and let me know how you are experiencing the Examen and if it helped you live with greater awareness of God’s presence in your life. Also, I’d love to know if you had any insights that were helpful to you.

May each of us understand the depth of God’s love for us and all those we encounter, and may God make us cognizant of whatever keeps us from the love of God. Amen