Minilogue - March 2006
Living by Heart
By the Rev. Bruce Johnson
A few years ago, when I was on sabbatical, I spent some time in the magnificent city of St. Petersburg, Russia. Although it was late in the day when I arrived, it was early July, and the sun was still high in the sky, so I decided to take a boat tour on the Neva River as a way of orienting myself to the geography and the history of this fascinating place. On the boat, a young Russian couple overheard me speaking to the tour guide in English, and soon the husband of this pair struck up a friendly conversation with me, offering a supplement to the commentary provided by the official guide. He identified many features of the urban landscape that were not on the standard itinerary. For example, he pointed out his own office building - he was an electrical engineer -- and asked me what kind of work I did. I explained that I was a minister - not of the political variety, but religious. Although my beard was not nearly impressive enough to pass as an Orthodox priest, this answer seemed to satisfy them. We spoke no more of religion. After the tour had ended, and the boat came to its mooring near the Hermitage, Vladimir and Natasha invited me to share a drink with them. Even though it was after 9:00 p.m., the sky was still bright, and the temperature was warm. We stopped in a kind of convenience store, bought three cans of beer, and sat on the stone wall alongside a canal, where we sipped and talked and laughed until Natasha reminded her husband that it was time for them to return home to relieve the babysitter. It was then, as we stood to say our goodbyes, that Vladimir suddenly said, in a very loud voice, “Sing us an American hymn!” I was caught a little bit off guard, but I was surprised at how spontaneously and immediately the response came to me. There on the streets of St. Petersburg, in the dilated daylight of a Russian midsummer, with a crowd of curious strangers looking on and listening in, I lifted up my voice to sing “Spirit of Life” from our UU hymnbook, Singing the Living Tradition:
Spirit of Life, come unto me.
Sing in my heart all the stirrings of compassion.
Blow in the wind, rise in the sea; move in the hand, giving life the shape of justice.
Roots hold me close; wings set me free;
Spirit of Life, come to me, come to me.
The late Reverend Harry Scholefield recommended to Unitarian Universalists of all theological persuasions a simple spiritual discipline that he called “living by heart.” This practice involves nothing more complicated than committing to memory a few poems, prayers, or passages of sacred scripture, in such a way that they sink in and saturate the deepest layers of our psyche. Living with a text in such a way that it penetrates to the core of our being is a very different practice than rote recital or mere mechanical memorization. It was because I had committed “Spirit of Life” to memory in this way that I was able to respond “by heart” on the streets of St. Petersburg. When I finished, Vladimir pulled a cell phone out of his pocket, smiled, pressed a button, and played the whole hymn back to me! We laughed again, exchanged e-mail addresses, and finally said our goodbyes. Later in my sabbatical journey (in Paris), my wallet was stolen and I lost all of the e-mail addresses I had collected over three months of travel. I’ll never see or hear from Natasha and Vladimir again, of course, but I console myself by entertaining the fantasy that bootleg copies of my “command performance” are circulating on the streets of St. Petersburg. Not likely! But I’ll always be grateful that this song had taken deep root in me so that, when asked, I was able to offer it back from my heart.