On September Spaces

Does space surround us, or is it through us? Not only universal space, worlds exploding, fragmenting, flaming, but local space as well. The spirit of the person meets the spirit of place, the genius loci. Sometimes it’s not who you are but where you are.

September spaces may be places of safety, places of sense. True spaces appointing the seasons, not truth as an arm of power. Not space as a stage for violence.  Breathing spaces, breathing as a privilege. Sacred spaces, cathedrals and landscapes, seas and skies. Holy spirits.

But the past is not past, fragments are everywhere.

Haunted spaces, that hosted scenes of desperation, inspiration, adoration, abuse, conflict, obliteration, loss. Inhabited by people you knew, now at their eternal rest, spaces negligent and void. New inhabitants. New stories, new conversions, new myths. Space for the crimes of this age.

The genius walks with you; we call her the guardian angel. Given by your ancestors, whatever you think of them now. Ask yourself, anywhere, what is my role in this space? Building, interpreting, extending, imploding, ascending. Find out where you are. Who am I in this place? Here as a witness, here to engage, here in God’s liminal space. 

On August Assumptions

 

Where do you stand right now? What do you assume to be true (does that word still have meaning?). What do you assume to yourself:  responsibility, authority, guilt? What to assume in August?

It has this double significance, you see. There’s assuming the faith of certain sources, a very ancient understanding. There’s assuming the trust that others should have in you. Do you trust yourself, though?

Looking around the world is a painful process, with the earth itself unstable, unable to be comprehended. Earth, air, fire, and water corrupted to unknowable ways. Human agency, deployed in wars, invasions, crimes, and fraud.  We stand in Dante’s dark wood, facing the assaults of violence and greed.

Can we assume that anyone will bail us out? Must we assume the task ourselves? What is called for? To cease oppressing — everyone — to stop assuming we know what’s best everywhere. To bring about the liberation of the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind. Even to find the right words — often no words — to preach good news to the weak, among whom we are included. So read Jesus, in a time of Imperial domination, when the truth is not in us.