“The Harp Unstrung: The Heartbeat of the Universe”
by Reverend Charles Blustein Ortman
With special thanks to Alfredo Villela for providing the heartbeat
March 9, 2008
READINGS ANCIENT AND MODERN:
Our ancient reading is from the Tao te Ching (dow de ching) by Lao Tzu, based on the translation by Stan Rosenthal. Charpter 33. Without Force: Without Perishing:
Knowledge frequently results
from knowing others,
but the [one]who is awakened,
has seen the uncarved block.
Others might be mastered by force,
but to master one's self
requires [a faith in the Way].
[One] who has many material things,
may be described as rich,
but [one] who knows he [or she] has enough,
and is at one with the Way,
might have enough of material things,
and have self-being as well.
Will-power may bring perseverance;
but to have tranquility is to endure,
being protected for all [one’s] days…
The modern reading comes from the book, Fan the Flame, by Joseph Stowell:
Heart is used in Scripture as the most comprehensive term for the authentic person. It is the part of our being where we desire, deliberate, and decide. It has been described as "the place of conscious and decisive spiritual activity," "the comprehensive term for a person as a whole; his feelings, desires, passions, thought, understanding and will," and "the center of a person. The place to which God turns."
SERMON:
(Note to Reader: The following sermon was written in verse form with the expectation that it would be delivered rhythmically with the accompaniment of a drum, played by Alfredo Villela. You will note, a short ways into the text, when that drumbeat begins. It was in our practicing beforehand that the marriage of verse and beat occurred. If it is at all possible to listen to the recording of the presentation, there is so much more to be gained by hearing it as the full piece that was presented. It can be heard by clicking this link>>)
“The Harp Unstrung: The Heartbeat of the Universe”
I stood recently near the edge of a snow bank.
It was one of those warmer days after a winter storm had passed.
The snow pile in front of me was melting into a rapid stream
that ran down along the side of the curb,
joining with other streams from other banks along the way.
It grew as it went, in width and in strength.
And the thing that I noticed, right there on the edge of the bank,
just there where snow ceased to be snow and became water,
moving water,
the thing I noticed was its rippling undulation.
The water did not move en masse.
It moved in surges.
The snow was born into water,
or it was born again, having been water countless times before.
And even in the instant of its birth,
In the precise moment of its transformation,
it came into the world on the beat of a pulse.
It was as though it was wakened into life by the vibrations of the universe herself.
Here is your rhythm, Mother Universe was saying;
come with it back into being.
Somewhere, long ago, in my studies of mythology,
I learned that the harp was the universal instrument of music.
It was favored by the gods for its limitless capacity,
extending its quivering vibrations of beauty and life throughout the universe,
across the heavens and around the planets.
In mythology and in dreams,
the harp came to be a symbol of spiritual awakening.
The harmonic union of the notes plucked from the strings,
ringing out to embrace every encounter.
Then emerged yet another development in the evolution of the symbol,
that of the unstrung harp.
Without strings,
the harp unstrung was no less than its predecessor had been.
It was far more.
It required no hand of god to pluck free its contents of beauty.
Its splendor simply persisted
in an undaunted, yet wavering quiver,
in a constant rhythm of throbs,
aching and easing,
longing to be and then being,
undulating as a rivulet of water melting…
from a snow bank on a warm, winter afternoon,
perhaps even pounding like the pulse of the human heart. (Alfredo begins drumming here.)
Boom-pah, boom-pah, boom-pah.
And as I stood there, watching the unfolding universe,
quivering, shimmering in the sunlight,
I could hear and feel the emulating vibrations
as a part of my own heart’s palpitations.
Boom-pah, boom-pah, boom-pah.
And in the pulse of my own heartbeat,
sending forth my blood, rhythmically coursing,
undulating through arteries and veins,
throughout my body,
I felt and I knew
I was one with the snow,
one with the melting stream,
with the sunlit afternoon,
one with the twinkling orbs
that danced in the darkness of the heavens
that were hiding just behind the azure sky
that vaulted the ceiling of my vision.
Boom-pah, boom-pah, boom-pah.
The rhythm of OUR hearts keeping time,
the blood pulsing its way
through the tissues of our beings,
the water coursing away
from crystalline banks of snow,
all are one in undulation,
in the quivering pulse of the universe.
Boom-pah, boom-pah,
we are never really strangers in a strange land.
We are only at times a bit slow in catching the rhythms
or perhaps overly eager in knowing our places among them,
where we are one
with all that is.
There is a song that comes to mind.
It was sung by the Zulu people of South Africa
during the pain-filled rage of Apartheid.
“Thula Klizeo, nalapase keya.”
“Be still my heart, even here I am at home.”
Boom-pah, boom-pah.
There is no place that is not our home,
though it is ever in flux and in flow,
as our home is ever with us,
moving us on.
There is no standing still in this ever moving,
ever expanding, ever freezing
and ever thawing universe.
There is the rhythm of movement,
there is the harmony
or the disharmony of our own movement
in the larger scheme of it all.
WE are coursing our way,
ebbing and flowing
• now towards birth and then towards death;
• now towards sickness and then towards healing;
• now towards conflict and then towards peace;
• now towards fear and then towards faith.
Boom-pah, boom-pah.
Be still my heart, even here I am at home.
Wherever here is,
we are held in its rhythm.
Life rises and falls with each of us,
Boom-pah, boom-pah.
In each season,
And each year.
Through the decades, the centuries and the millennia,
until all time is one time…
in two parts
rising and falling, boom-pah, boom-pah.
It is said that God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten son,
that the world might be saved.
It’s hard for me to buy into the idea
that this was a one time deal.
The whole universe, each of our hearts,
pulsate a different truth, in measured time –
that love is larger than that,
that life is larger than that.
We are not saved only once,
but over and over again.
Saved and spent;
found and lost.
And found again
The ocean never tires of lapping its tides
upon the sands and the rocks of its shores.
The tides roll in and roll back out again,
not so that we might remember how things once were.
Not so that we might spend our lives
trying to recreate things of the past, gone by,
but so that we might know how things are
and are becoming.
They are in constant motion,
in a steady universal rhythm,
that holds us,
and guides us,
and even sings us along our way.
Boom-pah, boom-pah, boom-pah.
Life, life, life.
It is enough,
if we were to let it be,
this constancy would be enough
to give us faith and even hope.
Just as the swell rises, it will fall.
Just as the swell falls, it will rise.
And in its rising and in its falling,
in its pulsating throb,
the universe goes on, we go on,
life goes on.
The snow bank is nowhere to be found in June;
By then the rivulet has grown to be a river
Or has flowed into the sea.
And though we too will rise and fall,
live and die,
the universe still will go on;
life will still go on;
and in ways unseen and perhaps unknown, we, too, will go on.
The ribbon emerging from the melting snow,
the quiver of the harp unstrung,
the heartbeat of the universe
and of our beings
hold us in a faithfulness that encourages us
to move ahead.
To have faith,
to have hope
and to be alive.
Boom-pah, boom-pah, boom-pah.
A colleague and former classmate of mine, Sara Voss, wrote an invocation:
Out of nothing, this world.
Out of chaos, form…
Out of wonder, stories,
Out of explanations, science.
Out of imagination,
Guppies, puppies,
Schools, gatherings,
Ice cream, stars.
Out of the present, poetry.
Out of the past, wisdom.
Out of our prayers, hope.
The children of Israel
melted the glacial block
of slavery in ancient Egypt,
flowed out into the desert
of unknown and unknowable wilderness.
And in the heartthrob of their longing,
and in the heartthrob of their hope,
in the heartthrob of their faith…
where they were, they were at home.
None of it was ever a constant for sure.
It was always in the rise and in the fall of their roving lives.
It was in the beat of their heart throb,
in the shimmering of their hope,
in the pulsation of a faith that ebbed and flowed
between assurity and doubt.
We are in the wilderness season of Lent
that leads to the promise of Easter;
the mud season of late winter
that melts into the beauty of irrepressible spring.
Some days we know it’s coming,
some days it is so hard to be sure.
Boom-pah, boom-pah, boom-pah.
WE are coursing our way,
ebbing and flowing
• now towards birth and then towards death;
• now towards sickness and then towards healing;
• now towards conflict and then towards peace;
• now towards fear and then towards faith.
Boom-pah, boom-pah.
Here is your rhythm, Mother Universe is saying;
come along with it into your being.
Come along with it into your being.
And even though at times it may feel
that we are so very all alone,
that are hearts beat in sole isolation,
it only seems that way because we have been distracted,
and have lost count of the vibrations of the harp unstrung,
that convey the heartbeat that bears us all.
Boom-pah, boom-pah, boom-pah.
We are one; we are one; we are one.
We are loving; we are loved.
We are loving; we are loved.
The heartbeat that bears us all,
call it God, call it nature, call it the Spirit of Life itself,
call it what you will, it is at the center
and at the beginning and the end of everything
that is or is becoming.
The heart is the most comprehensive term for the authentic person.
It is the part of our being where
we desire, deliberate, and decide.
It has been described as
the place of conscious and decisive spiritual activity,
the comprehensive term for a person as a whole;
of a person’s feelings, desires, passions, thought, understanding and will,
and the center of a person.
The place in us to which God turns."
Boom-pah, boom-pah.
Our time is coming.
Our time is here.
Our time is coming.
Our time is here.
Be still my heart, even here I am at home.
Boom-pah, boom-pah, boom-pah.
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