Some mornings there are seemingly disparate pieces of popular culture running through my mind and connecting with the gospel. This morning it was a connection between Patsy Cline’s song The Wayward Wind, the TV special on Martha Stewart in Jail, and yesterday’s gospel reading (Mt. 23:1-12). Here is the connection. Patsy sings
Oh, the wayward wind is a restless wind
A restless wind that yearns to wander
And he was born the next of kin
The next of kin to the wayward wind
In a lonely shack by a railroad track He spent his younger days And I guess the sound of the outward bound Made him a slave to his wand'rin ways
In Ignatian terms, Patsy is singing of a lover who, because of childhood messages, has developed an “inordinate attachment” to travel. Unable to discard this attachment, he breaks a vow:
Oh, I met him there in a border town
He vowed we'd never part
Tho' he tried his best to settle down
Now I'm alone with a broken heart
In his book Addiction and Grace, psychologist Gerald May points out that we can call these attachments by a more ancient term, idol worship. We can also use a more modern one - addiction. Whatever the term, it had Patsy singing the blues.
Here is the connection to Martha. This weekend we watch the CBS movie Martha Behind Bars. It attributes her desire for success – and its outward trappings – to harsh treatment from her father. She had to prove that she could get the basement spotlessly clean. No job was quite good enough. If she was satisfied, she would say "It's a good thing - and set out to do something better. Praise for her was often phrased as “Martha, you’ve outdone yourself.” Every handbag was a visible demonstration that she was a success. She ate up praise and unhesitatingly burdened her staff with her drive for visible perfection. All because the sound of her childhood made her a “slave to her (perfect) ways.” Sounds like an inordinate attachment to me – and she paid the price.
So what is the connection to the gospel? Consider Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees: "Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues;
Phylacteries, handbags, places of honor at banquets, and important seats in synagogues, board meetings or cathedrals can become inordinate attachments.
Unfortunately, all of us are subject to similar tendencies. Childhood messages can force us to become “slaves to our ___ ways.” What are we to do when we find that our attachments have bound us and caused us to
”… tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but … not… lift a finger to move them.”?
If this is the case, we need 1) to discover that we have them, 2) ask for the grace to have them removed, or at least lessened; and then 3) set about undoing any of our harms to others - if we can. In short, we need to pay attention to Mt. 23:23 and practice “justice, mercy, and faithfulness."
Note: Read all of Mt. 23. The lectionary for Sunday, Oct. 29, stops at verse 12, omitting the list of seven woes against the Pharisees and the mother image of God at the end of the chapter.
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