Watching and listening to the celebration of life and benediction at Jimmy Carter's memorial service this morning, I realized that religion -- any religion -- and its concomitant beliefs and ceremonies that can deeply touch and inspire us to feel our humanity and connection with each other and all life, and some religions which bestow an imagined greater power outside or inside us, serve the exact same purpose and function that great musical works and individual compositions serve.
Music is a religion. The symphony hall, the modest home, the cafe where music sounds, the piano where one composes or plays, all are cathedrals. What sounds within those sacred spaces is the litany and the liturgy. We worship then and there.
So is a forest a cathedral. The cool dappled walk one takes under the tall trees on a crunchy, needled floor is a ceremony of blessing and gratitude for life.
The ocean and its permanent partner, the beach, is a cathedral. When we drowse on shore permitting the repeating ocean drum to lift us off into a higher plane, that is peace and that is a prayer.
There are cathedrals all around us. Some have no embodiment whatsoever.
Wherever we feel a connection with one other person or animal or tree or bird or flower or sunbeam or raindrop, that is a cathedral.
Within the trust we offer another, within the good we do to ease another’s pain, when we bestow confidence, deliver hope and sometimes bliss to another, it is within those few seconds of giving when we are traveling alongside someone else until we are alone again — all those moments and those experiences are cathedrals of life experience.
Within those cathedrals the feelings we share and the unique ways we connect with individuals and groups, constitute our faith, even if we never mention “god” or “goddess”, never dress up in costumes both overblown and somber, never repeat ritualized words or gestures, and in some cases, never see each other but only read or listen. Even so, we are religious people full of faith and purpose to live such a life as Carter did.
Never so famous as he, the most of us are and will be in our lifetimes just a quick flash of a match being lit, no influencer, no prophet, no wizard or witch, no honored guest or orator on stage or in a pulpit, no winner of a Pulitzer Prize or Medal of Honor.
So why do the most of us live? Perhaps to sense the fleeting moments of deep breath and see the dazzling views. Perhaps to feel the connection with another, share the spirit or the energy within each other, try to help ease the journey of the other and ourselves, do what we can to add beauty to the world with our creativity and our kindness, and perhaps give solace or aid to just a few other people in our lifetimes.
Then we set free those who are journeying in the opposite direction from us. Those others are truly irrelevant to our lives, and waste our time. Some are odd birds, interesting for a second’s attention to note so we don't step on them nor them on us, and then we attend to our own path again, giving them no further heed, no space in our head, no surrender of our values or opinions or experiences in life. Perhaps we wish them well, perhaps not. Perhaps we muster some compassion for their evident torment, perhaps not.
And then even if we never saw or met him, we realize the grace in our lives of human beings like President Carter, and we turn our face to the sun again.
***
OLD FRIEND
We are hollowed out inside,
no spirit left, no control,
no clear direction for our soul to go.
We lost a revered friend,
a man we hardly knew
and as with most of us,
a man not met
not perfectly aligned with us, of course.
Yet bound are we to the light he shone,
the values that he lived,
the law that he upheld despite misgivings,
what he chose to give and do
if not for us, for those who need
the water that feeds life
or feeds the swell of ocean waves
that lift us up and out of valleys
from the darkness of our strife.
We watch the planes, the four formation
knowing what is coming,
and it comes, and we grieve
our final farewell and too,
the final looming of our death,
but when we leave, we know
we go to meet our old friend.
_______
*Inspired by the fly over of President Jimmy
Carter at his memorial, January 10, 2025.
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