Jockomo Feenanay, It’s Carnival!
the Rev. Bruce Russell-Jayne, February 03, 2008

Reading

The reading is an excerpt from the autobiography of Parson Theodore Clapp, the Presbyterian minister who, after his trial for universalist heresy in 1833 founded the first Unitarian church in New Orleans and then served as its pastor for the next 35 years:
“One day I was invited to take tea in a family of our congregation, and to pass the evening with a small number of friends. Because I was called to attend a wedding, I did not reach the house ‘til nearly 10 o’clock. Instead of a few persons convened for an hour’s conversation, there was a large, gay company, whose movements were directed by a band of musicians. I was politely conducted to a chair in the midst of a circle of ladies who were looking on at the festivity going forward.

I spent an hour or more in this cheerful circle. Before me stood the young and happy…their minds bright and buoyant, their steps elastic, their ears opened to the melodies of sound, their eyes radiant with pleasure. As I meditated upon these comely brows, flushed with the bloom of youth; the fair forms of feminine grace and loveliness; the dignified accomplished manners of those more advanced in years; the music, sprightly conversation, wit, love, gaiety, and joyousness which characterized the whole scene – a sweet, profound unwonted perception of God’s goodness captivated my soul. Such intense feelings of piety I had never before experienced…
If the Holy Spirit ever breathed on my heart, it was on that night, amid the music, thoughtlessness, levity, ceremonials, and sensuous attractions of an evening party. There, if ever, the inspirations of God touched and ennobled my soul.”

Sermon Jockomo Feenanay, It’s Carnival! Rev. Bruce Russell-Jayne

In late winter people often find their spirits flagging. That’s why Carnival, aka Mardi Gras, a holiday designed to lighten people’s hearts, is so perfect for this time of year. Many pre-Christian cultures and religious traditions placed a holiday of sacred revelry near the end of winter, perhaps to arouse people from the inactivity of winter and warm the blood in preparation for spring. In Carnival celebrations all over the world, people from all classes, races and genders, indulge their cravings for food and drink and parade through the streets in wild abandon accompanied by music and song.

Modern Carnival celebrations draw some of their inspiration from the Greco-Roman festivals of Saturnalia and Bacchanalia. In Roman religion Saturn was the god of sowing or seed. During the festival of Saturn, which lasted for a week, all work was suspended, slaves were given a measure of freedom to say or do what they liked, and presents were exchanged. Bacchus represented the sap, juice or lifeblood element in nature. As the god of fruitfulness he became especially associated with wine and with ecstatic dance. Bacchanalia festivals included drinking, dramatic performances, and orgies, which led to their banning in the year 186 Before the Christian Era.
Early Christian leaders, confronted with entrenched celebrations that people had no intention of giving up, often took them over and tried to give them Christian meanings. The Christian holy days of Epiphany and Ash Wednesday mark the beginning and ending of Carnival, but Carnival is not a Christian holiday and most Christian churches do not acknowledge Carnival. Christianity did not absorb Carnival because celebrating the flesh and earthly delight was not consistent with the established church’s values. Orthodox Christianity placed severe injunctions against any sex not intended for procreation.

Much of Western religion based its morality on the belief that the body was a constant source of desires and urges which got people into trouble. According to this view of human nature, it was up to the mind, specifically the conscience and the will to combat the animalistic influences of the body. This dualistic system pitted the body against the mind. The mind was the seat of good and the body was the motivating force for evil. The early church looked askance at the pursuit of bodily pleasure. Drinking and dancing, letting the sap rise in our bodies, what might happen then? The enjoyment of our bodies?

Also included in the mind-versus-body belief system was an elaborate defense to deny the reality of death. Humans were defined as pure eternal spirits temporarily trapped in corrupt and corrupting flesh. The object became cheating death by saving and liberating the “good” spirit from the “bad” body. A person who avoided cravings of the body for pleasure deprived the demons of sexuality of their power. By ignoring nature, a person could transcend the material world. Such a person was eligible to be born again into the heavenly realm. Of course, very few people were successful at renouncing bodily pleasure and even fewer were happy about it. Most of the rest suffered a lot of guilt about their normal human desires.

Carnival takes a radically different approach to the reality of being alive and having to die. Ash Wednesday, coming the day after Mardi Gras, is an annual reminder of our mortality. Because we don’t know when we will die, we are often lulled into thinking that life will offer us inexhaustible opportunities for fulfillment. Yet everything happens only a very small number of times, really. It is good to have reminders that “they are not long, the days of wine and roses.” “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Of course we all die—but death does not have dominion over life. “Indeed Carnival is a flouting, a scorning of death.” Carnival goers do not cower in the face of death. Carnival asserts the primacy of love and growth over despair and meaninglessness. Mardi Gras celebrates the triumph of life over death.

The word Carnival is a Latin idiom commonly translated as “farewell to the flesh.” It can also mean “power and strength to the flesh,” or as young people might say it, “flesh rules.” Rather than denying or demonizing the flesh or earthly reality, Carnival is a celebration of the flesh and all things natural and human. Carnival glories in our humanity.

“Jockomo Feenanay” is a chant used by the Mardi Gras Indians, African-Americans who dress in creative adaptations of Native American costumes. Jockomo Feenanay is Creole dialect for a French phrase, which means, “Every day is New Year’s Eve.” Jockomo Feenanay relays the essential message of Mardi Gras: every single day brings us new opportunities to appreciate life.

New Orleans jazz poet Ron Cuccia proclaimed the “Gospel of Mardi Gras” this way:
“New Orleanians are, in fact, saints of the senses, and New Orleans is a kind of church, herself. New Orleanians are missionaries, sent to redeem a weary world from the futile effort to construct a life that makes sense out of things bought at a store. To relieve all the good folk who think that fun is something you do only after your work is done. Fun is not a reward for being good—Fun is being that is good.

You live therefore you eat spicy food and drink saucy beverages. You breathe, therefore you sing, dance, laugh and make love until it’s time to eat some more. The desire to celebrate life for the sake of living is as old as the universe, born of the Big Bang, which the people of New Orleans like to think of as the first Mardi Gras.”
In significant ways, Carnival shares many values with Unitarian Universalism. UUism asserts a very positive view of human nature. We do not see humans as inherently depraved. Our animal instincts are not the source of urges to do evil. There is no battle between body and mind in which the mind must prove itself superior. In fact, there is no clear separation between the body and the mind, between our animal and our human nature. Our religious response to the reality of being alive is one of embracing both our spiritual and animal natures.

What is good in humans is not limited to the conscience and the will. We take delight in the human capacities for love, compassion, and creativity. Embracing human nature opens us to the entirety of human traits. We can’t limit our appreciation to only the sweet side of the human character. We must experience both love and loss, both agony and ecstasy. Strong emotions compel us to engage our world with intensity. Valuing the fullness of human nature can give us exuberance for life.

For the religious liberal, it is not contradictory to experience the divine in the realm of bodily delights. Remember Parson Clapp’s words: “If the Holy Spirit ever breathed on my heart, it was on that night, amid the music, thoughtlessness, levity, ceremonials, and sensuous attractions of an evening party.” He had a profound mystical experience -- at a party. Carnival, a product of earth centered traditions, teaches us there is a unity of experience between the sacred and profane.

Imagine for a moment if you will, that you are church shopping and you walk into the nearby Unitarian Universalist church for the first time. You go through the entry area which you experience as welcoming. Then you enter the sanctuary and immediately notice it is festooned in brilliant and ornate, purple, green and gold party decorations. The order of service looks fairly standard, except that there is jazz music throughout. The sermon praises the sensuality of Mardi Gras. After the sermon children dressed in costumes and the minister parade around the sanctuary throwing cheap beads and you are invited to get up and second line to the sounds of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Afterwards, you hear several times, “We don’t do this every Sunday.”

At my former church in Chattanooga there was an annual Mardi Gras service. It was common to hear church members tell their version of the story, “I was a visitor at the Mardi Gras service.” They were intrigued by a church that could actually let its hair down and have fun. The minister there was the Reverend Melanie Morel Ensminger, a New Orleans native. Her covenant with the church included a guarantee that she would be able to return to her family home each year at Mardi Gras to celebrate what she considers to be high holy days. She was and still is a Mardi Gras missionary, and she converted me. You would see her dancing at every public festival in Chattanooga. She is a living example of Jockomo Feenanay.

Unitarian Universalists instinctively include Jockomo Feenanay in their religious philosophy. At General Assemblies and Summer Institutes there are abundant displays of the playful Carnival spirit. At Youth Conferences I have witnessed UU teens in full immersion experiences. They get it. Carnival provides a wonderful opportunity to celebrate life. More than that, it reminds us to re-create ourselves every single day.

Psychologist Eric Berne taught that it is important for mental health that we allow the child within each of us to play, to be amused, and to enjoy the moment without judgments. “He insisted that this open-eyed attitude was essential for creativity, the functioning of imagination, the appreciation of beauty, the perception of art and music and poetry, and the expression of sheer joy…Play is not only recreation, but in a finer sense of the word, it is a matter of creation and re-creation.”

Of course, Jazz is an integral component of the New Orleans Carnival scene because it helps bring about a sense of joyfulness even in the most sophisticated celebrant. The Reverend Suzanne Meyer, minister at First Unitarian Church in St. Louis and former resident of New Orleans says people, “have a basic craving for ecstasy, for self transcendence, for a sense of joyfulness that is much deeper than mere happiness or momentary pleasure.” There is “an inherent longing to shake off our old selves and reach a state of union with the holy.” Some seek transcendence in religion, but others seek it through dance and music. Jazz can provide a kind of cathartic release and transport people out of their ordinary existence into a place of joy.

Thoth is the name of a New Orleans Carnival parade which happens on the Sunday before Mardi Gras - today. Thoth was an Egyptian god who among other things was known as a mediator who helped Osiris judge the souls of the dead. Thoth weighed the souls to see if they were lighter than a feather. Osiris asked the dead a crucial two-part question: first, “Did you find joy?”, and second, “Did you bring joy?” The purpose of our earthly journey according to Egyptian religion was simply this: Did you find joy and did you bring joy during your earthly sojourn? If the petitioners were unable to answer affirmatively, they were eaten by Ammit, a female demon who was part Lion, part Crocodile and part Hippopotamus.

Whoa – that’s a scary thought, but I don’t really want to threaten you here. There is no scientific proof that Ammit will eat you if you don’t bring joy. I just want to suggest that finding joy is a powerful spiritual practice. Bringing joy to others is an act of ministry. Anything that helps us transcend suffering and death and brings us to joy I count as a religious practice. May we all have more of these kinds of opportunities.

Carnival affirms several liberal religious ideals. Carnival embodies the joy and creativity inherent in human nature, the abundance and benevolence of creation, and of the triumph of life over suffering and death. These are values that offer hope for a more genial, inclusive, and humane world. Unitarian Universalists share these values. This is why this year I have added Mardi Gras to the holidays we celebrate. As New Orleans continues to recover from hurricane Katrina, it is especially important to be part of the buoyant spirit of Mardi Gras and to celebrate what New Orleans adds to the character of our country.

May the spirit of Carnival be with you every single day as you find new ways to delight in the joys and passions of being alive.
Jockomo Feenanay!