The Covid cloud of anxiety and heaviness has been descending even further now, to envelop us. From time to time, flashes of anger, impatience, unpredictable lashing out in frustration, followed by the roll of thunderous complaint, overwhelming an already stretched array of human services.
We can’t see the future as clearly as we thought we could in the past. For many, the cloud of not-knowing and uncertainty seems to demand a biding of time, a putting on hold, until we see more clearly. For others, ignoring the cloud and carrying on as if normal, is the way to go – like a kind of Climate Denial, Stage 2.
But the global blitzkrieg is accelerating. Landscapes of governance and societal expectation are targeted and obliterated in moments of technical genius. Democratic institutions shudder, but most stand for now; humanitarian enterprises are being vaporised, now aiding the opacity of the cloud. Casualties of toxicity are quietly, but firmly sent home to rest (if they still have a home). People who differ, or who are thought to differ, are at first marginalised and ignored, then identified and removed.
Nothing can be as it was. Everything has to cleared out; the swamp has to be drained, all the troublesome infrastructure bombed to rubble. Only after the wrecking ball can a beautiful new world be built.
The cloud of not-knowing and uncertainty is a politicised spiritual construct. And if constructed, it may be deconstructed; and if deconstructed then re-imaginatively re-constructed.
Spirituality is not static. Spiritual innovation is just as feasible as any innovation, even like flying off into space. And when John F. Kennedy stood up at that microphone and declared, ‘we are going to the moon!’, dispersing the cloud will also take inspirational and courageous leadership.
The exodus from the church is like a deconstruction. Hats off to those who are saying ‘I can’t do this anymore’. Thank God for spiritual integrity. But what then? What is being re-constructed, that will now educate, resource and nurture in its place?
Recently I have discovered two spiritual innovators who are treading a new path, which gives me great hope and encouragement for the future.
Rick Rubin seems to have come to public attention through his collaboration in the video series ‘McCartney 321’. Who is this quietly spoken, scruffy man with the huge beard, who seems to have just emerged from a life of solitude in the wilderness?
He is standing with Beatle Paul McCartney at an old sound-studio desk in a large open space. They are talking about how the Beatles songs came into being and what made them so musically appealing to a whole generation (or two, or three!). In the to and fro, he works the sliders of the recording console to isolate parts of a song. So we clearly hear the subtleties of a McCartney bass part or what John did here and there, and so on. And we hear stories about how the music came about. And so on.
Recently Rubin wrote a book about his approach to his craft of nurturing the artistic, of how creativity works for him. Every man-and-a-dog interviewer wants time with him. So there are a host of videos on YouTube, running from over two hours to short 12 minute samples of some of the wisdom he has accrued.
I think he gives us some clues about a new paradigm of approaching life that is richly and unapologetically spiritual.
I found this shorter video to be a revealing sample of his approach:
When I happened across Jacob Collier on YouTube, I just loved what he did musically with others and the way he did it – intensely aware and respectful. It seems like humility and music are one with him, deeply aware of an external, gifting universe – of gratitude for the provision of such surprising gifts to receive, enjoy and play around with. The audiences at his concerts inevitably seem to become aware of the mystical nature of what they are witnessing. They are transported to another world, introduced to another reality. (That is the classical definition of ‘entertainment’). It feels like worship to me – not worship of him, like other ‘stars’ expect of you, but the experience of worship, what he describes as a kind of electricity.
It seems to me that it was only natural that his spiritual disposition would lead him to seek ways to allow others to be able to share the deep joy of what he was experiencing and discovering along the way. His attitude creates empathy, listening and generosity.
This video gives some background to one of his spiritual innovations. (Again, there are numerous videos on YouTube documenting his spiritually-alive musical journey over time.)
I believe both these innovators give us clues, inviting us to pay attention to ’the new thing God is doing’ in our time…see it is happening already…’ (Isaiah 43:19), if I might be forgiven for appropriating a verse of Scripture to contextualise what I am currently observing into another time and place; but also a time when a people were going through dramatic upheaval, as we seem now to be.
Medical knowledge doubles every 73 days! Such is the pace of innovation today. Innovation that nurtures the spirit, taking us beyond established beliefs and practices of institutionalised religion, is also a reality today. Such moving beyond is not a negation of what was before. It is a bringing to life of what has always been.
New paths are opening. We discover them as we embrace curiosity into our being. We cannot see if we don’t look, we cannot hear if we don’t listen, we cannot know unless we act.