INTERVIEWS WITH REV.DR. ANTHONY BAILEY
Anthony Bailey was recently interviewed at the Festival of Homiletics in Minneapolis. These two interviews have been posted on YouTube: It was a brisk
and windy Friday night in November, the second Friday of the month as a matter
of fact. Parkdale’s YOMACOP (youngish married couples) group arranged to do
something different for our monthly gathering. We met at the National Art
Gallery for a very exquisite, engaging and sociable evening with about one
hundred and twenty other folks. The free event
was called “Rediscover Christmas” and featured a lecture by Kathleen Norris,
the renowned Christian poet, author and contemplative. Her talk was entitled ‘Remembering,
Waiting and Hoping: the countercultural pursuits of Christmas’, and it
was wonderful. The gathering was a celebration of the launch of a new book
called God With Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas.
Kathleen Norris is one of the six contributors to this wonderful book of
spiritual, theological and devotional offerings on the Christian seasons of
Advent and Christmas. Included are master works of art which are utterly stunning. In a very
understated but intentional manner, Kathleen’s words were woven together into a
rich tapestry of poetry, prose, prayers, insights, wisdom and dry humour. She gently but pointedly challenged us in
the community of the Christian faith not only to resist the materialism and
consumeristic messages conveyed by merchandising slogans like: ‘Shop here
for Joy’, ‘Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without (insert name of store)’,
‘Christmas is cheaper at (insert store name)’,’Why pray for a miracle when you
could wear one of our swimsuits’, but
also to pursue countercultural manoeuvres which engage the true meanings of
Christmas. Remembering Kathleen
invited us to rediscover the joy of waiting by re-membering and re-immersing
ourselves in the ‘poetry’ of Advent and Christmas. Poetry, she said, is
“language that is in dialogue with silence”. The poetry in the stories of these
two seasons pushes back against the noise and hyper-activity of the ‘lead-up’
to Christmas. The fatigue of too much of our ‘getting ready for Christmas’ is
addressed by the poetry of the angels’ heavenly music which “floats o’er all
the weary world” (a line from the carol It Came upon the Midnight
Clear). She gently chided us for not sufficiently remembering our
stories. A
Prayer “O Holy One Who Comes, we turn again to
you, and we open our hearts, we open our minds, we open our entire beings to
your approach. We ask for strength and wisdom that we may now
prepare the way. We ask that all may receive you in joy. Now and forever. Amen” Scott
Cairns Waiting Norris called on us to challenge the all
too prevalent contemporary designation of waiting as a waste of time. With our
penchant for high speed this and that, our fast food, and preferences for rapid
turnaround, waiting is just too non-economic and unproductive. Conversely, in
our Advent and Christmas stories waiting is not only essential, it is
generative. For instance, look at the
waiting in the stories in Luke’s gospel; Zechariah and Elizabeth had to wait,
Mary had to wait, Simeon had been waiting for the ‘consolation of Israel’, Anna
waited, as did ‘all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem’.
From the very beginning in Creation, even God waited: “and there was evening
and morning, the first day...” There was space in the rhythm of God’s creative
activity. All of us had to wait to be born! What
else is waiting to be born in and through us if we but learned again and prized
how to wait? In our renewed commitment to waiting might we perceive
differently, might we receive the gifts that can only come from waiting? “They that wait upon the Lord will renew
their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow
weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:31 Hoping Holy Waiting engenders hope. Quoting from
her most recent book, Acedia and Me, Kathleen asserted that hope is part
of the essential character and DNA of not only Advent and Christmas, but also
of Christian life. She maintained that the opposite of hope is inertia; in the
Christian tradition of contemplative spirituality this is referred to as
‘acedia’. Acedia describes the state of being unable to care anymore. That is,
not only does one not hope anymore, but one does not care that one does not or
cannot hope anymore. It is the
spiritual aspect of sloth. Norris is clear to make a distinction between acedia
(a spiritual condition) and depression (a medical condition). The ancient and
contemporary monastic remedy for acedia was/is: community, stability and
prayer. Commenter Chris Smith points out something of the challenge most of us
and our society faces in this regard. “ The monastics...resisted acedia with
three non-negotiable practices: community, stability and prayer. We, on the other hand, go to great extremes
to resist these three practices. We
resist community, instead glorifying individualism; our selfish ambitions and
constant mobility shatter hopes of stability; in the increasing secularization
of our culture and in our middle-class opposition to menial work, we find
ourselves resistant to prayer. It is
little wonder then that we have such little capacity for resisting the
temptation of acedia!” A
Prayer “O Emmanuel, ruler and lawgiver, Desire of the nations, Savior of all people: Come and set us free, Lord our God” Kathleen
Norris Norris suggests that hope is not the same
as optimism. Rather hope is resilience and strength grounded in a sustaining
vision of God’s promise-keeping and God’s trustworthiness. It is not flimsy but
is as real as it gets. In closing, Norris commended to us a modified version of
Jesus’ words: Do this (remember, wait and hope) in
Remembrance of Me. As well, she called on us to rediscover
Christmas and be countercultural by being like Mary and giving our assent to
God by saying YES to ‘heaven on earth’.
It was a stimulating and challenging
evening which our group continued over conversation and ‘sweet’ refreshment at
a sumptuous dessert place in the Market. I highly commend to you the book God
With Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of
Christmas, ed. By Greg Pennoyer & Gregory Wolfe. On behalf of Wendy and our children
Chania, Michelle, Kristen and John, I pray for you (and us all) a blessed
Advent experience and a joy-filled, hope-laden Christmas celebration. Peace, Anthony
Part 1 Dr. Anthony Bailey of the United Church of Canada talks with Peter Wallace about church worship, philosophy of liturgy, and preparing for worship.
Part 2 Dr. Anthony Bailey of the United Church of Canada talks with Peter Wallace about his sabbatical which focused on how traditional and emergent churches are working together (including the New Monastics at work in inner cities).
December, 2008 Minister’s message
Advent Rhythms and Deep Christmas Joy