A Matter of Attitude, of Refining One’s Sight

I am aware that there are a lot of things written these days about change in the church.  It is very hard to step out of the chorus of wails – be they wails for or against change.  I admit that I do feel pressured to respond, sit down and gather my thoughts so as to marshal strong and convincing reasons for the institutional church to change, to adapt to the times.  Yet something makes me refrain from getting on that particular bad wagon, the one that rolls headlong into the promising fields of hoped for change. 

I do not think change happens that way.  I live in a monastery where I find that I wish a lot of things could be different.  We monks embody all sorts of personality traits, personal habits, personal hygiene and the lack thereof.  We take our stands along conservative, liberal and indifferent lines.  And we are capable of switching hats when the need arises.  There are jealousies, fits of temper, resentments, worries about lust, anger, addictive behaviors, and stupid behaviors.  When I look at it all, as lived here by us, it makes me wonder.  We are, allegedly and I suppose really, a powerhouse of prayer.  We pray for all kinds of things, every day and several times a day.  We pray for the living and the dead.  We pray for people near and far, people who were and people yet to be.  We pray for good weather and ask that bad weather hurt no one.  We pray for an end to wars and violence.  We pray for the well being of all people, for a change of heart in men and women.  I suppose you might say that we pray for everything possible.  If words can form a prayer, we have formed it. 

I do not know if it all works.  I confess that I do think about that a lot.  So many words seem to go nowhere or seem to backfire.  Yet we persist in our prayer.  I am a believer, whatever that may mean.  But I guess that the best I can come up with is that God lives in everything and everyone.  And every whisper and groan that comes from the human heart is of God.  God is articulate in many ways, as he goes about his business.

Yet, I feel the need to say who I am and what I want to see.  I try and discipline my eyes to see beauty.  It is there, it is everywhere.  I cannot change big things like the church or the monk next to me.  And in my better moments, I will not to want to change them.  Let them be.  Let them grow in ways that growth happens – through time, through success and failure, through however grace or providence slips through the doors of time and places unnoticed, unbidden.  But always welcomed. 

I love Manhattan.  It has changed a lot over the years.  It has, I recently noticed, somehow cleaned up its act.  Now I could wish for the past, when things were grimier, more visibly human, and more fraught with the tensions of life.  But it is what it is.  And so I walked around, looking carefully for beauty.  And of course I found it, wherever it walked on the street, played in a playground, walked the dog or rode a bike.  It soars high in that city, and sinks low.  I saw more of it than I could capture with my lens.  I found that I did not wish for change, for difference, for something better.  I just wanted to see something good, something beautiful, and photograph it.  And maybe share it.

In that way, as I described Manhattan, it is the same with the church.  The institution will always be made up of the good and the bad, saints and sinners, frauds and honest people.  It is a real mixed bag that cannot and will not ever change.  All I want to do is write what I love about it – which is its people – and, maybe, take a few good pictures.  I will leave the hoped for dismantling to others.  Maybe I will be around to take that picture, too.