Halfway through a busy third week of my internship year in New York, I wanted to write a real quick post about two amazingly powerful, but very different, faith experiences I had over the last two weekends. Despite having grown up only a couple hours north in Connecticut, I never really spent much time in the city until this year... attending a taping of TRL sometime in middle school, an Iraq War protest in high school and a couple Yankees games notwithstanding, I really hadn't experienced New York very much.
St. Paul's Chapel
One of the things I always wanted to do here was to walk around Greenwich Village following all of the old Dylan related spots... cafes he played at, the street where the picture on the cover of the The Freewheelin' Bob Dylanwas taken... stuff like that (I'm a huge nerd), so I set out to do just that two weekends ago, and Molly was nice enough to come along with me. It was a pretty nice day out and we definitely had fun in the village, especially hanging out in Washington Square Park, but near the end of the afternoon we still didn't feel quite done... we wanted to experience a little more, so we decided to take a long walk down to the financial district. While I originally intended mainly to get a picture of me fighting that golden bull statue that is somewhere near Wall Street (I think), we ended up decided to spend some time reflecting near ground zero, and that's when the faith experience started. Given that it was the weekend before 9/11, we had little success getting tickets to see the new memorial, but we did have a chance to visit St. Paul's Chapel, an amazing place I had somehow never heard of before. St. Paul's Chapel, part of the Trinity Wall Street Episcopal Church parish, withstood the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings across the street and ended up serving as a place of respite for rescue and construction workers, as well as an active memorial site. Weekly worship still takes place in the space, and it continues to act as pilgrimage place for over a million folks every year. What an amazingly powerful example of a faith community serving its community.
Alhaji Papa Susso
This past weekend, I had very different but still amazing faith experience while attending a concert in the Queen's Botanical Garden as part of the ongoing Locating the Sacred festival organized by the Asian American Arts Alliance. It was absolutely perfect weather out... just a little cool with a breeze and surrounded by a beautiful garden I was blessed to be able to listen to traditional music from around the world. Entitled "The Gift of Wisdom," the event featured four distinct performances: Mala Desai began with a devotional Odissi dance from India, followed by a kora performance by a lively master named Alhaji Papa Susso. Yoon Sook Park was absolutely amazing playing the kayagum (a Korean zither) and Ikhlaq Hussain followed her up by an epic sitar performance. The highlight of the evening though, I think, was when all of the performances came out and played together at the end of the show. Some of the music last weekend was specifically religious in nature, some wasn't, but the best part of the event was that it helped a really diverse crowd explore what can be held up as truly sacred, no matter what faith (or lack of religious faith) one might ascribe to. I'd highly encourage folks in the city to take part in the remainder of the festival events throughout the city this week... everything's being wrapped up by a choreographed flash mob in Washington Square Park this Sunday. All I can say in conclusion at this point is, boy, this city if full of opportunity for dialogue and shared experience with persons of really diverse faiths and backgrounds... what an awesome blessing. God's peace, Dustin
Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.
The following was taken from my CPE final evaluation:
I often think about and relate to emotions and experiences through song lyrics (hence why I’m huge Bob Dylan fan) and I’ve found one of his songs particularly helpful in theologically reflecting on Clinical Pastoral Education this summer. It’s called “Crash on the Levee (Down in the Flood),” originally released the Basement Tapes album in 1975:
Here's the lyrics:
Crash on the levee, mama Water’s gonna overflow Swamp’s gonna rise No boat’s gonna row Now, you can train on down To William’s Point You can bust your feet You can rock this joint But oh mama, ain’t you gonna miss your best friend now? You’re gonna have to find yourself Another best friend, somehow
Now don’t you try ‘an move me You’re just gonna lose There’s a crash on the levee And, mama, you’ve been refused Well, it’s sugar for sugar And salt for salt If you go down in the flood It’s gonna be your own fault Oh mama, ain’t you gonna miss your best friend now? You’re gonna have to find yourself Another best friend, somehow
Well, that high tide’s risin’ Mama, don’t you let me down Pack up your suitcase Mama, don’t you make a sound Now, it’s king for king Queen for queen It’s gonna be the meanest flood That anybody’s seen Oh mama, ain’t you gonna miss your best friend now? Yes, you’re gonna have to find yourself Another best friend, somehow
While the lyrics alone exhibit a tattered, worn, chaotic yet also hopeful quality that certainly reflects my CPE experience this summer, the music amplifies that tone even further. The imagery of Dylan’s “Down in the Flood” combines with the Biblical story of Noah to make for very powerful theological reflection. Much like Noah and in the song, “If you go down in the flood, it’s gonna be your own fault,” I actively chose to show up for CPE this summer, and I chose in particular to work through my past on the oncology floor. Noah made a free choice to build and populate the ark, but in doing so he was attempting to follow God’s call… I humbly hope that I participated in CPE this summer for much the same reason. While Noah and his family didn’t drown in the flood, it’s hard to deny that he didn’t suffer… Noah would have faced the ridicule of his community for building a giant ark on dry land, would have lost friends and extended family members to the flood, and would have had to live in cramped quarters with a whole lot of stinky animals for forty days and forty nights. Worst of all, Noah would have had to float past thousands of drowning individuals on his ark, knowing there was nothing he could do to save them… their wickedness aside, as a righteous man, Noah would have felt compassion for those individuals. Even if he wasn’t drowning, Noah was definitely still down in the flood.
I imagine Noah being emotionally and spiritually torn apart by his experience down in the flood. Why did God only choose Noah and his family to survive? Would the storms eventually stop? How could God let such suffering happen? These and other difficult questions surely must have been coursing through Noah’s mind… I was drowned in many similar questions this summer. I wondered why it was my patients and my mother that had cancer and not me. I felt guilty for being angry at God for both the loss of my mother and needless suffering and death of so many people I met in the hospital. I felt despair that cancer was still a leading cause of death despite decades of research and millions of dollars spent. Worst of all, while I could be present with patients and provide them with comfort and guidance, I couldn’t cure them… I couldn’t pull them out of the flood, and more often than not when they either passed away or were sent off to hospice, I eventually had to float away safely on my ark, letting them drown.
The chorus of Dylan’s song goes, “Oh mama, ain’t you gonna miss your best friend now? Yes, you’re gonna have to find yourself another best friend, somehow.” These lines make a whole lot of sense. My best friend… the many roles and characters I played in front of God, myself and others were drowned down in the flood. Noah’s significantly more harrowing experience, scared and saddened by having to float by dying friends and family would have surely stripped him even more bare… he never would have been the same. He certainly grew from the experience, even signing onto the covenant with God on all our behalf. As I move forward into my second year at seminary, developing into new roles and making a new best friend of myself, I humbly hope that I will be likewise bettered by my time this summer, down in the flood.
