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We Learn to Improvise
How Miles Davis' "So What" Helps
Introduce Christian Process Theology
by Rev. Monica Corsaro
In the Beginning - Always Beginning
As the rabbis teach, the Old Testament begins with: “In the beginning,” it does not answer what was there before. It just states this is where we are now, the beginning of the creation and of continuing creating. What it does answer is that we get to be part of the beginning of God’s creating life and it is good. It did not come from nothing nor does it end with this story. No it is just the beginning. For the jazz musician, this is the moment he or she receives the piano sheet for the first time. This is the moment they learn what the main theme of the song is, usually called Part I or the beginning. It is the foundation for the jazz piece, just as Genesis is the foundation for who we are. God of the cosmos is the creator of the heavens and the earth, the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the plants of the ground, the trees, the mountains, the animals that crawl, the animals that walk. The Divine is actively creating and loving them to life and finally as the most complicated measure of Part I, The Divine creates humanity lovingly in the image of the Divine and says: “it is good!" There it is right there in the first chapter of Genesis creativity is the opening act of faithing with more yet to come!
Too often what has made up Christian scholarship is an understanding that explains the Divine’s creative act as stagnant and still, something that was started and completed. Not only did the Divine create the world out of nothing but nothing new has happened since. We as students of the texts know the world is not static but rapidly changing at every moment. Science teaches us the evolution of life is complicated and in fact moving and that we as a species have a complex evolutionary history.
Let me put it this way. Our reality teaches us that many of us will not just have one job; we will have many and may even change careers. Many of us will not live in only one home, but will have many opportunities to move, not just to another house, but to other parts of the world. We are always in a mode of process in one way or another. And now with the advent of technology for the everyday, it is even more illustrative that we are beings continually processing. We have our phones on our hip that not only keep us connected to others through voice but with the same handheld object sometimes at the same time, we can text, email, check the sports scores, the news and make a dinner reservation all the while working on our word processor that sits right next to it.
Every Moment Decisions to MakeLife more than ever, for the 21st century person may actually be too much processing of information. And that again is where the Divine comes in. Process thought is not just going through the motions because one can. It is looking for what is the best creative way to use all that energy. Just because I have a blackberry does not mean I have to use it, especially if that is not the best way to use my creative energy at that moment. My daughter might be in the room at that same moment and so the most creative collaborative action to take in that space of time is to be in conversation with her, to be listening to her about her day, to be engaged with her. At every moment in Process Thought we have decisions to make, what to participate in, and what not to. The point is we always have a multiplicity of choices to make in a matter of seconds because time never stops and so neither does process.
Now that is a lot to take in intellectually but Process Thought or Theology (I use them interchangeably) is also all about experience. Process Theology honors the experiences of your past how that experience informs your present and how you will make decisions into the future. To better understand this concept we will use jazz as the tool to help even the most stubborn of stagnant thinker.
Using the metaphor of jazz, the student of theology can learn to look at the texts in a much more Process oriented way. Let’s listen to Miles Davis’s, So What, as a way to get us to look at the texts in a process way. In Process Theology we the created are birthed into being with the Divine.
The Divine is not over and above us but lures us into being. (Insert DVD and play song one) The piece begins with one single piano note, the breath of the Divine and then is joined in with other instruments, a chord then responds to the single note. Back and forth it goes for a couple of measures and soon another instrument is added, and another, and another, and you have the chorus of Creation playing together. Throughout the piece the listener hears the same chords, it is the piano and saxophone humming together those modal chords, daaaaaa dat…..daaaaaa dat or if you want to put it in English language, So What, this modal chord combination holds the whole piece together, creation comes alive and works in harmony with one another in balance. And just because there is balance does not mean there is not creativity and individuality. Our ears are challenged to listen to the many voices of creation. Early on we hear a key change getting the heavens and earth in order, and then we hear all the creatures singing together. We hear the lone voice; we hear one voice the trumpet, (Adama) giving praise for life. La de da de da…….do you feel it, the lone voice being creative tending the garden. But the trumpet cannot do it alone and we hear the entrance of another voice. Next enters the Helpmate or Eve and her song is the complicated saxophone solo singing and singing and singing. Her voice goes up and down the scales, she even changes keys.
So What do I do Now?
Later trumpet, and the saxophone, keep it all interconnected using the same modal chords that we were introduced to at the beginning. The Divine is never away from us but participating right with us in this act of creating. Stay with it now you will hear the piano even singing a little on its own. DAAAA DAT, So What.
When we take a moment to be aware of the Divine the Divine speaks to us and then we join the Divine in the chorus, saxophone(s), trumpet, and bass all sing together So What. This short phrase corrects what has been the wrong theological question asked through the ages. The question has been “Why am I here?” Process theology says, You are here, so what are you going to do about it? So What?
“I am loving and giving,” says the Divine. “I am with you and your creative spirit. I have breathed life into you. I have provided this beautiful earth to for you to live on. You have animals and plants that provide food for you, you have great rivers that provide water for you, so what are you going to do about it? ‘So What?’ You have a choice to work co-creatively with what you have been given for the common good or not, yes or not, it is a choice, and it is your choice. ”
Being part of the created means you are part of a glorious ensemble. How are you going to live within it? In short do not get distracted with how you got here or why are you are here. You are here and So what… how are you going to live?
The Divine has given us the ensemble in which to live amongst. We as the student of life now have a decision to make, how are we going to play with that ensemble? In Process Thought life is always moving and at every moment, at every nanosecond we are making choices that affect the current moment and the moment to come. In Process thought everything is connected and interconnected, like in a jazz ensemble. If the saxophonist does not show up for the gig that particular night, the decision that the saxophonist made not only changed his reality for the night, but those in the ensemble with him, those waiting to hear him play and those who run the club they were going to play in. Because he did not show up, there is a good chance the ensemble will lose the current gig and any gigs there in the future. Every moment is connected to the next. We as life forms on this planet are intricately connected to the other even though we may not know it or be aware. Process Thought reminds us at all times and all places we are part of an ensemble, and while yes there are moments we get to solo we are always part of something much bigger than ourselves. So knowing now of this interconnection how do we live? Once again this is how jazz can teach us. We learn to improvise!
We Learn to Improvise
Just as Process theology is an evolution in theology, jazz is the evolution of music, being able to improvise is the ultimate level of both. We know in the life there is a beginning (Part I) and that there is an end death/or life’s transition, (the piece is finished). But what about the middle? The middle is where we probably struggle the most, and is where our most important decisions happen. We decide about our education, who we marry, if we marry. We experiment and decide our career, whether or to be parents, and if so then we may have grandchildren. It is the middle of life we experience moves, conflict, resolution, reconciliation, death, new life. It is in the middle where many of our most profound decisions and rituals happen. If one does not have tools at which to go through the middle, one could become stagnant and handicapped or even stalled.
Whether you want to be or not, you are part of an ensemble; in fact many ensembles. There is the ensemble of your family, the ensemble of your friends, the ensemble of your work place, and the ensemble of your faith community. Sometimes in those ensembles the balance is not always there, in fact some could say most times the balance is not there. Process Theology honors that life is always moving and in fact at all time we are always negotiating relationships and our place in those relationships. Process Thought says change in life is in fact the one thing that is always constant. So to be a good participant in life with all of the many ensembles it can be easier and in fact honored when you can be a great improviser!
Being Fully in the Moment
In some sectors of Christian teaching stagnant dogmas leave no room for subtlety or complication. It is very easy to say, “Because of our beliefs Abortion is a sin and wrong,” but what happens when you discover you have an unwanted pregnancy and you feel you need an abortion? It is easy to say that homosexuality is wrong but what happens when you discover your best friend is gay? I will never forget the day a church member came to me at one the churches I was serving and said, “Pastor, tell me that homosexuality is wrong, I just need someone to tell me.”
I told him that I could not. What I did say was, “I can give you the tools, (the instruments) for you to discover the answers for yourself, I can give you some background and scholarship of what is said in the texts; but you will need to study.” The freeing and sometimes scary piece to Process is you are not told what to think but how to think. Like in jazz not all the notes are written on the page to play, but you have been given the foundation of how to play what is not written on the page. And when you are relating well with the rest of the members of the band you know when to play and when to be silent. It is all about being able to be open to the other and to improvise.
The best playing in jazz is knowing how and when to improvise. The most holy moments when I am watching a jazz ensemble live is watching the communication that is going on between the players. There is an intimacy and trust there. The piano player hearing the saxophonist play their part realizes something really good is happening that was not on the page, something so good that the piano player drops out, even though the “dropping” out is not written on the page, the piano player being fully in the moment realizes the piano is not needed. The piano player just lets the song of the saxophonist’s voice be heard. And it is holy.
Co-Creator with the Divine
At the same time the saxophonist lets the pianist know through eye contact, "I am ready for you to come back.” All the while, the bass and the drums are remaining as the foundation and in fact the moving engine of the piece remaining in full eye contact communicating all with each other. Each player is one with their instrument, one with each other making music as one ensemble. All this happens moment after moment because they know how to be highly aware of each moment and improvise to that moment.
Now listen, (play track two on DVD) to Miles Davis’s Teo, it articulates beautifully, Process Thought. Through the music you feel the fast pace underneath all the other instruments and that is process, life is movement. You as the co-creator with the Divine have to figure out how and when you fit in with life, sometimes you will be light, shiny and bold like the trumpet voice. You like the trumpet voice at times will cry out almost in a minor key. The cry out reminds us that in life there are at times obstacles. It might be a divorce or death, or an unexpected long term disease.
I got married very young. I had it all planned out. I got married went to graduate school, my husband came along, I graduated and then together we decided to move to the northwest. I took a church and we knew in a couple years we would start having kids. I would be the main bread winner and he would have jobs but be the main caretaker. We both wanted to have more than one child. We had a great plan, I would do my career, have children and he would support me by being the primary caregiver and household manager. Around the second year of my daughter’s life he had a break-down. I for a while became the only parent and had to figure out how to take care of a church, the people, my daughter and myself.
Figuring Out When it is Your Time to Play
Etta James
It was a very painful time in my life and I had to take seriously how could I creatively respond to this pain and be with the Divine in this. While knowing at the same time the Divine was with me. I had to improvise.
Ten years later I am still improvising, I mourn that I was not able to have another child and so now I have found a way to improvise and I have given the opportunity for my daughter to get to have many big “sisters.” We now are part of an international organization where we host young adults from other countries, currently my daughter has an older “sister” from Russia. I have improvised.
Whatever it may be we have a choice in how we respond and how we live within the ensembles of our life. It does not mean we are not to feel, there is not pain. What Process does say is, we have the power and creativity to improvise. Listen. The drum stick still beats against the drum and the modal chords of the piano still bang. Life does not stop because we have hit a minor key. We in life need to know how to adjust to that “accidental note.” The more we are in touch with the skill of improvisation the better and healthier we become as we travel the journey of life.
The music never seems to stop. Life never stops says the Process Theologian, it just transitions. There is movement in life all the time. And all you have to do as one of life’s musicians is to figure out when it is your time to play, and your time to be silent, all the while underneath you, life is pulsating like the drums and piano of Teo.
In Process Thought we know we are part of something bigger than ourselves. We know as in life, the jazz piece has a beginning, middle and an end. Process teaches there is no end, just transition. And again we as the student of Process spend our lives learning to be acutely aware; knowing the Divine is with us, has been with us in the past, and that Divine power is what shapes our creative future.
The jazz artists get this power of interconnectedness of past, present, and what will become. A little of Charlie Parker was bequeathed to John Coltrane and a little of John Coltrane has been bequeathed to Chris Beck (a current jazz saxophonist) and so Charlie, John and Chris live on every moment that Chris Beck picks up his saxophone and allows his playing to be transformed by what he has learned from those before him and is using his individual creativity to let those spirits play on. Process Thinking knows that physical death occurs but resurrection is a real thing and happens all the time. The bodies of Coltrane and Parker may be gone but their creativity lives on!
So death to the Process thinker is not the end it is a legacy that lives through the next person, and the next and the next, if they so choose to integrate into their lives. This is another important tenant of Process. While all this creativity abounds and the Divine is intimately close at all times, we as the individual have choice at all times and at every moment to participate in the creative act of transformation or not. In other words the Process Thought person is asking themselves, I have this option or this option living in each particular moment, what is the best creative way possible?
So....What Now?
The Divine’s creativity is the power of transformative hope of a new future, the Divine’s influence is moving toward that future but it is we who decide what we are going to become and how we are going to use it. We are responsible for how we deal with the past and then how we move into the future.
Consider a saxophonist. While she has the gift to play the saxophone and has been influenced by the artists of the past, he may decide at any moment that to be his most creative, to be his most intimate with the Divine, is not to play the saxophone. The good news is the Divine will be with him in that decision. We each have the gift of creativity and we each have the option of how we use that creativity in the world.
Hopefully the decision for the individual will be in collaboration with the Divine and for the community at large and the common good. Although I am divorced, (I experienced a death, of my marriage), I still am in a co-parenting relationship with my daughter’s father and sometimes he does actions that challenge me, to say the least, but always before I respond, I remember I have a past with him, that informs my present response. (As a newly resurrected person.) And while I cannot change him I am changed and am changing, and with my intimate collaborative relationship with the Divine I can creatively respond to my daughter’s father as who I am today not who I was then, informed by the past, changed by it, and more creative and stronger in the present.
Now the piece is over, the musicians have put their instruments away and we have experienced what some may call a death. But for the Process Thinker it is not over. Within our memories we will always have the imprint of the
musicians playing so passionately for us. And every time we relive the playing of the songs in our minds we experience a resurrection life anew. The band does play on. Having this new information in our past, we are now well informed for our future, looking for and experiencing that perfect jazz piece. What makes it perfect is not that every note is right, but that everyone playing in the ensemble is playing together, understanding that they are all interconnected to one another at all times. And as the Divine tells us, it is good.
As the rabbis teach, the Old Testament begins with: “In the beginning,” it does not answer what was there before. It just states this is where we are now, the beginning of the creation and of continuing creating. What it does answer is that we get to be part of the beginning of God’s creating life and it is good. It did not come from nothing nor does it end with this story. No it is just the beginning. For the jazz musician, this is the moment he or she receives the piano sheet for the first time. This is the moment they learn what the main theme of the song is, usually called Part I or the beginning. It is the foundation for the jazz piece, just as Genesis is the foundation for who we are. God of the cosmos is the creator of the heavens and the earth, the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the plants of the ground, the trees, the mountains, the animals that crawl, the animals that walk. The Divine is actively creating and loving them to life and finally as the most complicated measure of Part I, The Divine creates humanity lovingly in the image of the Divine and says: “it is good!" There it is right there in the first chapter of Genesis creativity is the opening act of faithing with more yet to come!
Too often what has made up Christian scholarship is an understanding that explains the Divine’s creative act as stagnant and still, something that was started and completed. Not only did the Divine create the world out of nothing but nothing new has happened since. We as students of the texts know the world is not static but rapidly changing at every moment. Science teaches us the evolution of life is complicated and in fact moving and that we as a species have a complex evolutionary history.
Let me put it this way. Our reality teaches us that many of us will not just have one job; we will have many and may even change careers. Many of us will not live in only one home, but will have many opportunities to move, not just to another house, but to other parts of the world. We are always in a mode of process in one way or another. And now with the advent of technology for the everyday, it is even more illustrative that we are beings continually processing. We have our phones on our hip that not only keep us connected to others through voice but with the same handheld object sometimes at the same time, we can text, email, check the sports scores, the news and make a dinner reservation all the while working on our word processor that sits right next to it.
Every Moment Decisions to MakeLife more than ever, for the 21st century person may actually be too much processing of information. And that again is where the Divine comes in. Process thought is not just going through the motions because one can. It is looking for what is the best creative way to use all that energy. Just because I have a blackberry does not mean I have to use it, especially if that is not the best way to use my creative energy at that moment. My daughter might be in the room at that same moment and so the most creative collaborative action to take in that space of time is to be in conversation with her, to be listening to her about her day, to be engaged with her. At every moment in Process Thought we have decisions to make, what to participate in, and what not to. The point is we always have a multiplicity of choices to make in a matter of seconds because time never stops and so neither does process.
Now that is a lot to take in intellectually but Process Thought or Theology (I use them interchangeably) is also all about experience. Process Theology honors the experiences of your past how that experience informs your present and how you will make decisions into the future. To better understand this concept we will use jazz as the tool to help even the most stubborn of stagnant thinker.
Using the metaphor of jazz, the student of theology can learn to look at the texts in a much more Process oriented way. Let’s listen to Miles Davis’s, So What, as a way to get us to look at the texts in a process way. In Process Theology we the created are birthed into being with the Divine.
The Divine is not over and above us but lures us into being. (Insert DVD and play song one) The piece begins with one single piano note, the breath of the Divine and then is joined in with other instruments, a chord then responds to the single note. Back and forth it goes for a couple of measures and soon another instrument is added, and another, and another, and you have the chorus of Creation playing together. Throughout the piece the listener hears the same chords, it is the piano and saxophone humming together those modal chords, daaaaaa dat…..daaaaaa dat or if you want to put it in English language, So What, this modal chord combination holds the whole piece together, creation comes alive and works in harmony with one another in balance. And just because there is balance does not mean there is not creativity and individuality. Our ears are challenged to listen to the many voices of creation. Early on we hear a key change getting the heavens and earth in order, and then we hear all the creatures singing together. We hear the lone voice; we hear one voice the trumpet, (Adama) giving praise for life. La de da de da…….do you feel it, the lone voice being creative tending the garden. But the trumpet cannot do it alone and we hear the entrance of another voice. Next enters the Helpmate or Eve and her song is the complicated saxophone solo singing and singing and singing. Her voice goes up and down the scales, she even changes keys.
So What do I do Now?
Later trumpet, and the saxophone, keep it all interconnected using the same modal chords that we were introduced to at the beginning. The Divine is never away from us but participating right with us in this act of creating. Stay with it now you will hear the piano even singing a little on its own. DAAAA DAT, So What.
When we take a moment to be aware of the Divine the Divine speaks to us and then we join the Divine in the chorus, saxophone(s), trumpet, and bass all sing together So What. This short phrase corrects what has been the wrong theological question asked through the ages. The question has been “Why am I here?” Process theology says, You are here, so what are you going to do about it? So What?
“I am loving and giving,” says the Divine. “I am with you and your creative spirit. I have breathed life into you. I have provided this beautiful earth to for you to live on. You have animals and plants that provide food for you, you have great rivers that provide water for you, so what are you going to do about it? ‘So What?’ You have a choice to work co-creatively with what you have been given for the common good or not, yes or not, it is a choice, and it is your choice. ”
Being part of the created means you are part of a glorious ensemble. How are you going to live within it? In short do not get distracted with how you got here or why are you are here. You are here and So what… how are you going to live?
The Divine has given us the ensemble in which to live amongst. We as the student of life now have a decision to make, how are we going to play with that ensemble? In Process Thought life is always moving and at every moment, at every nanosecond we are making choices that affect the current moment and the moment to come. In Process thought everything is connected and interconnected, like in a jazz ensemble. If the saxophonist does not show up for the gig that particular night, the decision that the saxophonist made not only changed his reality for the night, but those in the ensemble with him, those waiting to hear him play and those who run the club they were going to play in. Because he did not show up, there is a good chance the ensemble will lose the current gig and any gigs there in the future. Every moment is connected to the next. We as life forms on this planet are intricately connected to the other even though we may not know it or be aware. Process Thought reminds us at all times and all places we are part of an ensemble, and while yes there are moments we get to solo we are always part of something much bigger than ourselves. So knowing now of this interconnection how do we live? Once again this is how jazz can teach us. We learn to improvise!
We Learn to Improvise
Just as Process theology is an evolution in theology, jazz is the evolution of music, being able to improvise is the ultimate level of both. We know in the life there is a beginning (Part I) and that there is an end death/or life’s transition, (the piece is finished). But what about the middle? The middle is where we probably struggle the most, and is where our most important decisions happen. We decide about our education, who we marry, if we marry. We experiment and decide our career, whether or to be parents, and if so then we may have grandchildren. It is the middle of life we experience moves, conflict, resolution, reconciliation, death, new life. It is in the middle where many of our most profound decisions and rituals happen. If one does not have tools at which to go through the middle, one could become stagnant and handicapped or even stalled.
Whether you want to be or not, you are part of an ensemble; in fact many ensembles. There is the ensemble of your family, the ensemble of your friends, the ensemble of your work place, and the ensemble of your faith community. Sometimes in those ensembles the balance is not always there, in fact some could say most times the balance is not there. Process Theology honors that life is always moving and in fact at all time we are always negotiating relationships and our place in those relationships. Process Thought says change in life is in fact the one thing that is always constant. So to be a good participant in life with all of the many ensembles it can be easier and in fact honored when you can be a great improviser!
Being Fully in the Moment
In some sectors of Christian teaching stagnant dogmas leave no room for subtlety or complication. It is very easy to say, “Because of our beliefs Abortion is a sin and wrong,” but what happens when you discover you have an unwanted pregnancy and you feel you need an abortion? It is easy to say that homosexuality is wrong but what happens when you discover your best friend is gay? I will never forget the day a church member came to me at one the churches I was serving and said, “Pastor, tell me that homosexuality is wrong, I just need someone to tell me.”
I told him that I could not. What I did say was, “I can give you the tools, (the instruments) for you to discover the answers for yourself, I can give you some background and scholarship of what is said in the texts; but you will need to study.” The freeing and sometimes scary piece to Process is you are not told what to think but how to think. Like in jazz not all the notes are written on the page to play, but you have been given the foundation of how to play what is not written on the page. And when you are relating well with the rest of the members of the band you know when to play and when to be silent. It is all about being able to be open to the other and to improvise.
The best playing in jazz is knowing how and when to improvise. The most holy moments when I am watching a jazz ensemble live is watching the communication that is going on between the players. There is an intimacy and trust there. The piano player hearing the saxophonist play their part realizes something really good is happening that was not on the page, something so good that the piano player drops out, even though the “dropping” out is not written on the page, the piano player being fully in the moment realizes the piano is not needed. The piano player just lets the song of the saxophonist’s voice be heard. And it is holy.
Co-Creator with the Divine
At the same time the saxophonist lets the pianist know through eye contact, "I am ready for you to come back.” All the while, the bass and the drums are remaining as the foundation and in fact the moving engine of the piece remaining in full eye contact communicating all with each other. Each player is one with their instrument, one with each other making music as one ensemble. All this happens moment after moment because they know how to be highly aware of each moment and improvise to that moment.
Now listen, (play track two on DVD) to Miles Davis’s Teo, it articulates beautifully, Process Thought. Through the music you feel the fast pace underneath all the other instruments and that is process, life is movement. You as the co-creator with the Divine have to figure out how and when you fit in with life, sometimes you will be light, shiny and bold like the trumpet voice. You like the trumpet voice at times will cry out almost in a minor key. The cry out reminds us that in life there are at times obstacles. It might be a divorce or death, or an unexpected long term disease.
I got married very young. I had it all planned out. I got married went to graduate school, my husband came along, I graduated and then together we decided to move to the northwest. I took a church and we knew in a couple years we would start having kids. I would be the main bread winner and he would have jobs but be the main caretaker. We both wanted to have more than one child. We had a great plan, I would do my career, have children and he would support me by being the primary caregiver and household manager. Around the second year of my daughter’s life he had a break-down. I for a while became the only parent and had to figure out how to take care of a church, the people, my daughter and myself.
Figuring Out When it is Your Time to Play
Etta James
It was a very painful time in my life and I had to take seriously how could I creatively respond to this pain and be with the Divine in this. While knowing at the same time the Divine was with me. I had to improvise.
Ten years later I am still improvising, I mourn that I was not able to have another child and so now I have found a way to improvise and I have given the opportunity for my daughter to get to have many big “sisters.” We now are part of an international organization where we host young adults from other countries, currently my daughter has an older “sister” from Russia. I have improvised.
Whatever it may be we have a choice in how we respond and how we live within the ensembles of our life. It does not mean we are not to feel, there is not pain. What Process does say is, we have the power and creativity to improvise. Listen. The drum stick still beats against the drum and the modal chords of the piano still bang. Life does not stop because we have hit a minor key. We in life need to know how to adjust to that “accidental note.” The more we are in touch with the skill of improvisation the better and healthier we become as we travel the journey of life.
The music never seems to stop. Life never stops says the Process Theologian, it just transitions. There is movement in life all the time. And all you have to do as one of life’s musicians is to figure out when it is your time to play, and your time to be silent, all the while underneath you, life is pulsating like the drums and piano of Teo.
In Process Thought we know we are part of something bigger than ourselves. We know as in life, the jazz piece has a beginning, middle and an end. Process teaches there is no end, just transition. And again we as the student of Process spend our lives learning to be acutely aware; knowing the Divine is with us, has been with us in the past, and that Divine power is what shapes our creative future.
The jazz artists get this power of interconnectedness of past, present, and what will become. A little of Charlie Parker was bequeathed to John Coltrane and a little of John Coltrane has been bequeathed to Chris Beck (a current jazz saxophonist) and so Charlie, John and Chris live on every moment that Chris Beck picks up his saxophone and allows his playing to be transformed by what he has learned from those before him and is using his individual creativity to let those spirits play on. Process Thinking knows that physical death occurs but resurrection is a real thing and happens all the time. The bodies of Coltrane and Parker may be gone but their creativity lives on!
So death to the Process thinker is not the end it is a legacy that lives through the next person, and the next and the next, if they so choose to integrate into their lives. This is another important tenant of Process. While all this creativity abounds and the Divine is intimately close at all times, we as the individual have choice at all times and at every moment to participate in the creative act of transformation or not. In other words the Process Thought person is asking themselves, I have this option or this option living in each particular moment, what is the best creative way possible?
So....What Now?
The Divine’s creativity is the power of transformative hope of a new future, the Divine’s influence is moving toward that future but it is we who decide what we are going to become and how we are going to use it. We are responsible for how we deal with the past and then how we move into the future.
Consider a saxophonist. While she has the gift to play the saxophone and has been influenced by the artists of the past, he may decide at any moment that to be his most creative, to be his most intimate with the Divine, is not to play the saxophone. The good news is the Divine will be with him in that decision. We each have the gift of creativity and we each have the option of how we use that creativity in the world.
Hopefully the decision for the individual will be in collaboration with the Divine and for the community at large and the common good. Although I am divorced, (I experienced a death, of my marriage), I still am in a co-parenting relationship with my daughter’s father and sometimes he does actions that challenge me, to say the least, but always before I respond, I remember I have a past with him, that informs my present response. (As a newly resurrected person.) And while I cannot change him I am changed and am changing, and with my intimate collaborative relationship with the Divine I can creatively respond to my daughter’s father as who I am today not who I was then, informed by the past, changed by it, and more creative and stronger in the present.
Now the piece is over, the musicians have put their instruments away and we have experienced what some may call a death. But for the Process Thinker it is not over. Within our memories we will always have the imprint of the
musicians playing so passionately for us. And every time we relive the playing of the songs in our minds we experience a resurrection life anew. The band does play on. Having this new information in our past, we are now well informed for our future, looking for and experiencing that perfect jazz piece. What makes it perfect is not that every note is right, but that everyone playing in the ensemble is playing together, understanding that they are all interconnected to one another at all times. And as the Divine tells us, it is good.
