Clearing
Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create a clearing
in the dense forest of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world
so worthy of rescue.
- Martha Postlewaite
Thursday, March 28, 2019
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Kin-dom and Kingdom
I tried to hang onto "Kingdom" language until recently. I found that I was apologizing for the word (as opposed to using "Kin-dom") because I liked it's implications of place-- as in: the Kingdom is NOW, not an afterlife idea. Of course there are all sorts of problems with "Kingdom" that now, in my mind, outweigh my desire for a word to encompass a particular meaning. If I have to footnote "Kingdom" anyway in order to clarify what I mean by it, I really should be changing my language to use a less divisive, triggering, hierarchical word and explaining THAT.
I've also had to re-think my preference for ungendered terminology for God, recognizing that while exclusively male language around God has had and continues to have negative effects, for some, gendering God is important. I have learned that many need to imagine God or Christ as particularly masculine or feminine in order to feel comfortable in conversation or communion with the divine.
I think, in this way, life and theology are kind of like proof-reading a paper. If you stay in your own narrative, you're probably going to miss a lot of mistakes. I don't want to find myself defending a bankrupt or damaging theology any more than I want to find myself defending a typo.
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Monday, March 25, 2019
Sunday, March 24, 2019
The Enigmatic God
God will hang on the gallows.
God will inspire, fill, overwhelm Handel with power and splendor.
God will be battered as a wife, a child, a nigger, a faggot.
God will judge with righteousness, justice, mercy, those who batter, burn, sneer, discriminate, or harbor prejudice.
God will have a mastectomy.
God will experience the wonder of giving birth.
God will be handicapped.
God will run a marathon.
God will win.
God will lose.
God will be down and out, suffering, dying.
God will be bursting free, coming to life, for
God will be who God will be.
—Carter Heyward
God will inspire, fill, overwhelm Handel with power and splendor.
God will be battered as a wife, a child, a nigger, a faggot.
God will judge with righteousness, justice, mercy, those who batter, burn, sneer, discriminate, or harbor prejudice.
God will have a mastectomy.
God will experience the wonder of giving birth.
God will be handicapped.
God will run a marathon.
God will win.
God will lose.
God will be down and out, suffering, dying.
God will be bursting free, coming to life, for
God will be who God will be.
—Carter Heyward
Saturday, March 23, 2019
Bright Eyes
BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW WHAT TOMORROW BRINGS,
IT IS ALIVE WITH SUCH POSSIBILITIES.
ALL I KNOW IS I FEEL BETTER WHEN I SING.
Bright Eyes, from “Method Acting” off of “Lifted, or Keep Your Ear to the Ground the Story is in the Soil”
IT IS ALIVE WITH SUCH POSSIBILITIES.
ALL I KNOW IS I FEEL BETTER WHEN I SING.
Bright Eyes, from “Method Acting” off of “Lifted, or Keep Your Ear to the Ground the Story is in the Soil”
Friday, March 22, 2019
Wanting to Believe
"I and those of my generation probably don't believe in God, in angels, and even in miracles the way our ancestors did. But that doesn't mean we don't want to believe. We just don't know how to talk genuinely about believing anymore."
-Renita J. Weems, Listening for God: A Minister's Journey Through Silence and Doubt
In this continuously changing world, faith must look different with the passage of time. The needs and concerns of my particular experience are vastly different than those of my spiritual ancestors-- not just my parents and grandparents, but the folks who lived in distant times... the times in which my biblical texts were written.
Unlike those times before widespread literacy, the internet, telephones, or knowledge of other continents, my world is global. I know not just the terrible and wonderful things that happen within near proximity to me (of which there are many), but the terrible and wonderful things that happen all over the world.
I can imagine that if I only knew people in Santa Cruz and seldom encountered people from beyond its geography, my faith would look different. If I didn't have a television or a phone or knowledge of the hard and soft sciences, my faith would look different. But I do have a television and a phone. I have taken numerous courses in hard and soft sciences. My level of formal education exceeds that of most human beings who have walked on this planet, including those who wrote my sacred texts.
But my human condition-- the chemicals that fire through my brain, the cycles of life... death, love, rebirth, grief-- how much have those changed? The ways that I cling to familial support and love. Certainly mothers loved their children 1,000 years ago as much as they do today. Certainly grief broke people 2,000 years ago as much as it does today. Certainly love ignited our souls 300 years ago as much as it does today.
The wisdom of our faith traditions can speak to the ancientness of our souls and characters. Scripture can speak to emotion-- to grief, anger, love, and joy because such experiences haven't passed away with the ages. But the ways we imagine the narratives must be different because our world is different. We understand and relate to our surroundings and neighbors differently. The challenges of our world are similar and different. Childbirth, parenting, marriage, love, infidelity, grief, death... job insecurity, terrorism, global climate change, racism, food insecurity, chemotherapy, surgery, car accidents...
"Traditional" imaginings of God (we'll ignore that imaginings of God have varied over the ages more than most "religious" people would tell you) are inadequate for the modern experience. Clinging to the old can bring comfort, but it can also lack usefulness. I might love to drive around a car built in 1950, but at some point, it will likely cease to serve me well.
As we re-imagine how to communicate with each other, how to travel, how to stay informed, how to be married, how to parent-- should we not also re-imagine how we pray, how we conceive of God, how we worship, how we form sacred bonds, and how we serve our God and neighbors?
Our ritual and faith must evolve. We must challenge both the ways we believe and don't believe. We must seek new answers.
Sometimes I believe in God and other times I don't, but I've been a Christian since the first day I claimed that truth. I think the new Christianity needs to allow for theistic fluidity-- for atheism, agnosticism, monotheism, polytheism, pantheism, panentheism, and whatever else might work for us because if we are honest, we can find all of those things in the Bible and if we are honest, we can probably find all of those things within ourselves (or at least our neighborhood!). I believe Christianity is bigger than our theisms and more important than our differences.
We must re-imagine worship so that it can be multivalent. We must re-imagine faith so that it is less concerned with what we believe than how we practice our beliefs in this complicated world. If we want faith to transcend time, we must find what is transcendent in our faith-- because not all of it is.
-Renita J. Weems, Listening for God: A Minister's Journey Through Silence and Doubt
In this continuously changing world, faith must look different with the passage of time. The needs and concerns of my particular experience are vastly different than those of my spiritual ancestors-- not just my parents and grandparents, but the folks who lived in distant times... the times in which my biblical texts were written.
Unlike those times before widespread literacy, the internet, telephones, or knowledge of other continents, my world is global. I know not just the terrible and wonderful things that happen within near proximity to me (of which there are many), but the terrible and wonderful things that happen all over the world.
I can imagine that if I only knew people in Santa Cruz and seldom encountered people from beyond its geography, my faith would look different. If I didn't have a television or a phone or knowledge of the hard and soft sciences, my faith would look different. But I do have a television and a phone. I have taken numerous courses in hard and soft sciences. My level of formal education exceeds that of most human beings who have walked on this planet, including those who wrote my sacred texts.
But my human condition-- the chemicals that fire through my brain, the cycles of life... death, love, rebirth, grief-- how much have those changed? The ways that I cling to familial support and love. Certainly mothers loved their children 1,000 years ago as much as they do today. Certainly grief broke people 2,000 years ago as much as it does today. Certainly love ignited our souls 300 years ago as much as it does today.
The wisdom of our faith traditions can speak to the ancientness of our souls and characters. Scripture can speak to emotion-- to grief, anger, love, and joy because such experiences haven't passed away with the ages. But the ways we imagine the narratives must be different because our world is different. We understand and relate to our surroundings and neighbors differently. The challenges of our world are similar and different. Childbirth, parenting, marriage, love, infidelity, grief, death... job insecurity, terrorism, global climate change, racism, food insecurity, chemotherapy, surgery, car accidents...
"Traditional" imaginings of God (we'll ignore that imaginings of God have varied over the ages more than most "religious" people would tell you) are inadequate for the modern experience. Clinging to the old can bring comfort, but it can also lack usefulness. I might love to drive around a car built in 1950, but at some point, it will likely cease to serve me well.
As we re-imagine how to communicate with each other, how to travel, how to stay informed, how to be married, how to parent-- should we not also re-imagine how we pray, how we conceive of God, how we worship, how we form sacred bonds, and how we serve our God and neighbors?
Our ritual and faith must evolve. We must challenge both the ways we believe and don't believe. We must seek new answers.
Sometimes I believe in God and other times I don't, but I've been a Christian since the first day I claimed that truth. I think the new Christianity needs to allow for theistic fluidity-- for atheism, agnosticism, monotheism, polytheism, pantheism, panentheism, and whatever else might work for us because if we are honest, we can find all of those things in the Bible and if we are honest, we can probably find all of those things within ourselves (or at least our neighborhood!). I believe Christianity is bigger than our theisms and more important than our differences.
We must re-imagine worship so that it can be multivalent. We must re-imagine faith so that it is less concerned with what we believe than how we practice our beliefs in this complicated world. If we want faith to transcend time, we must find what is transcendent in our faith-- because not all of it is.
Thursday, March 21, 2019
Asparagus and Faith
Sometimes we think we don’t like a particular food because we don’t like the way it has been prepared for us most of the time. Many people think they don’t like certain vegetables, but that’s because they’ve been prepared the same way: steaming until mushy or boiled until flavorless.
My husband thought he didn’t like asparagus, but we found out that he DID like it, but not steamed. Baked, fried, roasted, or grilled, he likes it!
I have many friends who are the kinds of folks that say they don’t like religion, but they like mine. It’s not that they don’t like religion, it’s that they don’t like the way religion has been presented to them. Sometimes you need to step out of your own situation and realize that things can be different if you learn a new perspective.
Much of what churches do is as bitter in our mouths as boiled asparagus, but it is only THOSE churches we need to speak out against. Don’t blame the poor asparagus! Teach people how to make asparagus well!
People long for spirituality and many folks find themselves in places where they are trying to pick up a tradition very different from their own (generally eastern) because it seems to lack what they dislike about religion. What those folks often don’t know is that they’re experiencing a “white-washed” version of that tradition, a version that many people who COME from that tradition would feel insulted by and a version that has been filled up with things from YOUR tradition to make it palatable to you.
Not all churches, not all theologies, not all religious folk… are the same. Get mad at the crappy church from your youth, it probably deserves it. Then open your mind to the possibility of sustenance that is delicious, that nourishes you, and that can make you whole.
My husband thought he didn’t like asparagus, but we found out that he DID like it, but not steamed. Baked, fried, roasted, or grilled, he likes it!
I have many friends who are the kinds of folks that say they don’t like religion, but they like mine. It’s not that they don’t like religion, it’s that they don’t like the way religion has been presented to them. Sometimes you need to step out of your own situation and realize that things can be different if you learn a new perspective.
Much of what churches do is as bitter in our mouths as boiled asparagus, but it is only THOSE churches we need to speak out against. Don’t blame the poor asparagus! Teach people how to make asparagus well!
People long for spirituality and many folks find themselves in places where they are trying to pick up a tradition very different from their own (generally eastern) because it seems to lack what they dislike about religion. What those folks often don’t know is that they’re experiencing a “white-washed” version of that tradition, a version that many people who COME from that tradition would feel insulted by and a version that has been filled up with things from YOUR tradition to make it palatable to you.
Not all churches, not all theologies, not all religious folk… are the same. Get mad at the crappy church from your youth, it probably deserves it. Then open your mind to the possibility of sustenance that is delicious, that nourishes you, and that can make you whole.
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Grace
So lately I've started developing a sense of grace. I don't know if that immediately makes sense, so I will try to explain it some.
As an unchurched person for the majority of my life, my theology happened ground-up. No one really told me what to believe or how to interpret the Bible, and while I had a brief stint as a fundamentalist-minded person in my teens, I only sought a religious community after spending time studying religion in a secular academic setting as a Religious Studies Major. So: I haven't much taste for suspending historicity, nor the particular contexts of biblical figures and authors, textual criticism, etc. in favor of trying to maintain a theology that conflicts with my scholarly mind and my experience of the world.
More simply put: I built my own theologies (not without help from scholars and theologians) before entering any kind of space (like a church) that would "tell" me what I should believe (also, I chose a church that doesn't do that). Furthermore, since leaving behind more conservative views that I adopted for a short period of time after reading some conservative authors and before my college experience in religious academia, I have found little use for theologies of grace. Grace, perhaps like some forms of confession, has felt like a cop-out. It's felt like a "reason" I can be a crap person. GRACE! It struck me as connected to the kinds of Christianity in which people feel they are forgiven for their asshole-ish-ness because they accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior... the kind of Christianity that manifests in the world in mostly unhelpful ways-- apathy toward issues of justice, except for maybe some hateful pro-life and homophobia stuff and more concern about whether you have the right kind of faith in Jesus.
I had developed a more "gospel of works" kind of theology, that I still feel is largely in line with the Jesus I find in my scriptures. I've felt that my faith is about how it manifests in the world. I can talk about being Christian all I want, but what am I doing about it, you know? Am I protesting the rampant racism in this country? Am I feeding the hungry? Am I living a simple life that doesn't hoard resources in a world in which so many lack access to resources? Am I practicing peace and compassion?
I still think this should be a dominant lens.
But I've started thinking about grace lately. I've encountered some very justice-driven people who I know are trying their personal best to make this world a better place, but I sometimes feel a particular kind of hostility present in some of these ministries. It is not without reason-- these hostilities generally come from wounds caused by oppressive forces, some of which look very much like me and my tradition. Christianity and white people have existed in the world in some pretty terrible ways. However, what is (perhaps more easily) important to me is being able to reach new hearts and minds.
I can talk to my friends all day about my liberal ideas, but the reality is that I am mostly preaching to the choir. It seemed to me that some of my peers were so driven and angry (and rightfully so) that their ministries seemed to lack grace (except for particular kinds). Part of grace, I think, is knowing that God is Love and that that love extends unconditionally to all beings. I understand my call toward ministry as a response to this and also as a way to communicate this. While it may be difficult for me to deal with sometimes, God loves the homophobes and the racists and the xenophobes and all of us unconditionally. God certainly is saddened by homophobia, racism, and xenophobia (among other things), but God still loves people affected by such thinking and wants them to find the kind of love that can no longer be stopped by phobias or hatred. And they need some help to get there... and yelling at them is probably not the best way to go about that. They need grace and compassion, too.
Recently I've started to realize that I need grace, too. My gospel of works was making me rigid in ways that weren't allowing me to forgive myself or to tolerate less than perfection from myself. I realized that the compassion I feel so comfortable extending to others was not something I gave myself. If I was as harsh on other people as I am on myself, I would make a terrible minister. That might be true of all of us, but it's becoming more and more obvious to me.
So I think I'm finding grace. Just a little bit of it and mostly as an idea more than a practice.
But it's something.
As an unchurched person for the majority of my life, my theology happened ground-up. No one really told me what to believe or how to interpret the Bible, and while I had a brief stint as a fundamentalist-minded person in my teens, I only sought a religious community after spending time studying religion in a secular academic setting as a Religious Studies Major. So: I haven't much taste for suspending historicity, nor the particular contexts of biblical figures and authors, textual criticism, etc. in favor of trying to maintain a theology that conflicts with my scholarly mind and my experience of the world.
More simply put: I built my own theologies (not without help from scholars and theologians) before entering any kind of space (like a church) that would "tell" me what I should believe (also, I chose a church that doesn't do that). Furthermore, since leaving behind more conservative views that I adopted for a short period of time after reading some conservative authors and before my college experience in religious academia, I have found little use for theologies of grace. Grace, perhaps like some forms of confession, has felt like a cop-out. It's felt like a "reason" I can be a crap person. GRACE! It struck me as connected to the kinds of Christianity in which people feel they are forgiven for their asshole-ish-ness because they accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior... the kind of Christianity that manifests in the world in mostly unhelpful ways-- apathy toward issues of justice, except for maybe some hateful pro-life and homophobia stuff and more concern about whether you have the right kind of faith in Jesus.
I had developed a more "gospel of works" kind of theology, that I still feel is largely in line with the Jesus I find in my scriptures. I've felt that my faith is about how it manifests in the world. I can talk about being Christian all I want, but what am I doing about it, you know? Am I protesting the rampant racism in this country? Am I feeding the hungry? Am I living a simple life that doesn't hoard resources in a world in which so many lack access to resources? Am I practicing peace and compassion?
I still think this should be a dominant lens.
But I've started thinking about grace lately. I've encountered some very justice-driven people who I know are trying their personal best to make this world a better place, but I sometimes feel a particular kind of hostility present in some of these ministries. It is not without reason-- these hostilities generally come from wounds caused by oppressive forces, some of which look very much like me and my tradition. Christianity and white people have existed in the world in some pretty terrible ways. However, what is (perhaps more easily) important to me is being able to reach new hearts and minds.
I can talk to my friends all day about my liberal ideas, but the reality is that I am mostly preaching to the choir. It seemed to me that some of my peers were so driven and angry (and rightfully so) that their ministries seemed to lack grace (except for particular kinds). Part of grace, I think, is knowing that God is Love and that that love extends unconditionally to all beings. I understand my call toward ministry as a response to this and also as a way to communicate this. While it may be difficult for me to deal with sometimes, God loves the homophobes and the racists and the xenophobes and all of us unconditionally. God certainly is saddened by homophobia, racism, and xenophobia (among other things), but God still loves people affected by such thinking and wants them to find the kind of love that can no longer be stopped by phobias or hatred. And they need some help to get there... and yelling at them is probably not the best way to go about that. They need grace and compassion, too.
Recently I've started to realize that I need grace, too. My gospel of works was making me rigid in ways that weren't allowing me to forgive myself or to tolerate less than perfection from myself. I realized that the compassion I feel so comfortable extending to others was not something I gave myself. If I was as harsh on other people as I am on myself, I would make a terrible minister. That might be true of all of us, but it's becoming more and more obvious to me.
So I think I'm finding grace. Just a little bit of it and mostly as an idea more than a practice.
But it's something.
Sunday, March 17, 2019
Saturday, March 16, 2019
Oh, the Pastoral Care Part
When I was imagining what kind of ministry I wanted to build after seminary, I imagined something that could occupy a downtown storefront location and focus on spiritual growth, community events, and pastoral care/counseling as a way to guide one's personal spiritual journey. I imagined a retail component that could help sustain the project and space that could remain open to the community for tea/coffee, conversation, and meditation. It could be a spot for folks to come together for a small break during the day.
I did some research and brainstorming toward this project, but then I ended up moving to a small town. My ideas for a more urban area with high populations of young people probably won't work in my new rural town with different demographics.
Now I'm trying to figure out how to form something from where I am.
An app? Online content, retail, and books?
I know so many people that totally don't want to go to church but would love something to help them find spiritual grounding or a relationship with God.
I know so many people that are part of a church that they wish would be more interesting or fulfilling sometimes and while they love their community, they sorta want something more... maybe a way to elevate their spiritual lives with some private practices that can help deepen your relationships.
As young people become the not-young people and churches continue to fade in our society, how are our generations going to form our faith and spiritual lives going forward?
Working on it.
I did some research and brainstorming toward this project, but then I ended up moving to a small town. My ideas for a more urban area with high populations of young people probably won't work in my new rural town with different demographics.
Now I'm trying to figure out how to form something from where I am.
An app? Online content, retail, and books?
I know so many people that totally don't want to go to church but would love something to help them find spiritual grounding or a relationship with God.
I know so many people that are part of a church that they wish would be more interesting or fulfilling sometimes and while they love their community, they sorta want something more... maybe a way to elevate their spiritual lives with some private practices that can help deepen your relationships.
As young people become the not-young people and churches continue to fade in our society, how are our generations going to form our faith and spiritual lives going forward?
Working on it.
Friday, March 15, 2019
Pastoral Care and Personalized Faith
One thing I know about millennials is our consistent claims of individuality and individual expression. Each of us feels unique because we've developed abilities to express ourselves in our uniqueness. We've come to love our diversity and celebrate it. So how do we reconcile with institutions that seem to demand types of conformity?
Each of us aligns differently in our faith. Don't think I'm poo-pooing all churches. I am a church-goer. I love church, but I also love a bunch of people who love different churches or faith traditions than I do, as well as a bunch of friends who don't go to church and may or may not believe in God. One thing all of these people (even the atheists) have in common is their view that a spiritual life can be a healthy, good thing. Many of my friends who don't enjoy church or have problems with it (or maybe just aren't into getting up early on Sundays, let's be honest) have developed spiritual lives on their own. I know even more people, though, who feel lost and uncertain about how to start talking to God, developing personal rituals, or learning to develop a spiritual relationship to the earth.
How do we approach scripture if we feel it is kind of ugly sometimes?
How do we pray to a God if we don't know one exists or what kind of God exists?
How do we honor the earth if we live in a city or don't know much about it?
How can I draw from my own heritage to develop a faith that is authentic?
How can I challenge myself to be a better person without dogma or severe guilt-tripping?
How can a spiritual life help me to find peace and connection in my life and the world?
These are good questions.
I want to help people answer them.
Each of us aligns differently in our faith. Don't think I'm poo-pooing all churches. I am a church-goer. I love church, but I also love a bunch of people who love different churches or faith traditions than I do, as well as a bunch of friends who don't go to church and may or may not believe in God. One thing all of these people (even the atheists) have in common is their view that a spiritual life can be a healthy, good thing. Many of my friends who don't enjoy church or have problems with it (or maybe just aren't into getting up early on Sundays, let's be honest) have developed spiritual lives on their own. I know even more people, though, who feel lost and uncertain about how to start talking to God, developing personal rituals, or learning to develop a spiritual relationship to the earth.
How do we approach scripture if we feel it is kind of ugly sometimes?
How do we pray to a God if we don't know one exists or what kind of God exists?
How do we honor the earth if we live in a city or don't know much about it?
How can I draw from my own heritage to develop a faith that is authentic?
How can I challenge myself to be a better person without dogma or severe guilt-tripping?
How can a spiritual life help me to find peace and connection in my life and the world?
These are good questions.
I want to help people answer them.
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Trying to have a conversation with a biblical literalist
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Pentecost and Protestantism
The line of Protestantism to which I belong (my denomination can be identified as "Mainline Liberal Protestant") is in decline. Many Christian institutions are in decline.
Most who know me know that I have spent most of my millennial adult life studying religion in both secular and religious institutions. I worship in a Protestant community. My immediate family does not practice religion, while my extended family are Irish Catholic and Latter-Day Saint (Mormon). All of these diverse traditions influence me, as does my working-class upbringing, my life as a resident of the Bay Area, and a millennial who grew up amid tech changing the world I lived in (between San Francisco and the Silicon Valley), and now my life living in a rural community on the outskirts of this urban sprawl.
I'm a weirdo. I know that my identity as a foul-mouthed, Jesus-loving, over-educated, working class radical liberal is a strange place to occupy. I often find myself in the in-between places of life doing some "translation work." I try to explain religious positions to my atheist friends and atheist positions to my religious friends. I try to have respectful conversations with the best friends and family members I have who are staunch conservatives as much as with my revolutionary liberal friends (and most of y'all know where I fall on that spectrum). Somehow I feel this is part of my spiritual calling.
When I started studying religion, I did it out of love. I had no intention of going into church work, but found a passion for something I'd essentially been trying to do in my bedroom with a stack of books and my Bible. When people asked me if I was going to be a nun or something (because women aren't priests, lol), I explained my love for studying religion but that I didn't feel called toward ministry.
About 10 years ago, I had an experience that I would express as a call to ministry. I excitedly composed an email to a pastor. I would describe this feeling as finally seeing something that had been in front of me for so long. It was like something written on dust on a panel of glass... I kept looking past it, refusing to see what was clearly in front of me. As my focus shifted, I was able to see something I hadn't before... my call.
After that night and that experience, I felt a bunch of fear. I no longer felt confident in sharing this call with others, but I started to form a goal of attending seminary. It felt like something impossible, mostly because it costs $$$$ and I was, at the time, working 3 jobs while nearly-dropping out of college. I was supporting myself while living in the city and trying to become my own person.
To fast forward through the turbulence of my young 20s and other formative journeys (dropping out of school, having a number of breakdowns, finding my way out of abusive situations, finding my call, my independence, mental health care, etc), my call has refined itself.
I knew my call was about translation. This work is starting to solidify as my "lasting context" has also begun to solidify, and I have settled into a space I see myself in for the long run. After all, my ministry was going to look different if I ended up smack in the middle of a city... instead, I'm smack in the middle of the mountains.
So here's some of what I believe about the spirit of my spiritual ancestors (what?):
Thousands of years ago, my spiritual ancestors started joining their cultures, peoples, and stories. "We" (humanity) have been struggling to understand this world and the spirit that moves it since our birth. The Hebrew Scriptures collect these stories and journeys and tell the truths of those searching for what matters and trying to retain a legacy for their children... to hold onto that which matters.
Somewhere along that journey, a guy named Jesus showed up. He understood things in a way that many before him didn't. He was a spiritual revolutionary, playing with the scriptures and traditions before him like mud. Sometimes revolution is required and he got that. He started something powerful by embodying something powerful. He tied himself to his cultural traditions and claimed them for his generation and the needs of his time and the people of the world. In the midst of that birth of something new and beautiful, he was abruptly executed.
In the wake of that great, world-shattering tragedy, his followers experienced something. They were reborn in their mission and found something greater. They rose up and re-wrote the story yet again, following the legacy of their leader. They molded their story forward, spreading it with fervor.
As the centuries progressed and people tried over and over to pin down the appropriate way forward, we continue our ancestral journey of grappling with the spirit and stories we are given, the ways they entwine with our histories and present.
The Protestant Revolution began for many reasons in communities that decided a new way forward was necessary. The institution was failing in its own missions and the ways it was telling our stories and interpreting them needed to be rethought (given how those interpretations were playing out in the world and the harm they were doing). The Protestant tradition, in some of its best moments, sparks fire by claiming the tradition as our own for interpretation, as free to the people of God... a message similar to that Jesus guy.
Today our institutions are failing. They fail to speak for and to people like me. People who look like me are not in church. People have different criticisms and stories to tell about this, but here's mine:
We're doing it wrong. Our institutions no longer speak to this world. They speak to a different one. So it's time to get back to the mud of our traditions and breathe new life into them (and yes, that's a Genesis allusion, for those of you who are also seeped in biblical metaphors). Here's my heresy: maybe church isn't the answer.
I know, right? The minister poo-pooing on the church.
I think it's time to break things down and build them back up.
Now, people have different spiritual needs. The church is still working for some people (including me). We need a new way forward, though, because I believe there is value in the stories and people we have held onto through the ages and passed on. We, like other generations, have the right to reform our traditions to meet the needs of God's people.
The church has historically performed many functions in society. They have provided literacy and education, distributed resources, explored the sciences and been entwined in medicine and healing, and provided moral formation. While the church may be failing in some of these roles, our society hasn't necessarily fulfilled these needs in other ways... and I think that's the struggle our generation needs to address.
The loss of the church might mean some good things, like the loss of some damaging patriarchal structures, dogmatic worldviews, bodies that protect corruption and abuse... but it also means some bad things. How do we meet these needs going forward, and what might our spiritual ancestors actually have to offer us in how we answer these questions, even if it doesn't mean "church"?
The mystic, scientist, and academic in me all believe that we can answer these questions.
I'm a pluralist. We don't all need to take the same path.
But it is time to forge a new one.
Most who know me know that I have spent most of my millennial adult life studying religion in both secular and religious institutions. I worship in a Protestant community. My immediate family does not practice religion, while my extended family are Irish Catholic and Latter-Day Saint (Mormon). All of these diverse traditions influence me, as does my working-class upbringing, my life as a resident of the Bay Area, and a millennial who grew up amid tech changing the world I lived in (between San Francisco and the Silicon Valley), and now my life living in a rural community on the outskirts of this urban sprawl.
I'm a weirdo. I know that my identity as a foul-mouthed, Jesus-loving, over-educated, working class radical liberal is a strange place to occupy. I often find myself in the in-between places of life doing some "translation work." I try to explain religious positions to my atheist friends and atheist positions to my religious friends. I try to have respectful conversations with the best friends and family members I have who are staunch conservatives as much as with my revolutionary liberal friends (and most of y'all know where I fall on that spectrum). Somehow I feel this is part of my spiritual calling.
When I started studying religion, I did it out of love. I had no intention of going into church work, but found a passion for something I'd essentially been trying to do in my bedroom with a stack of books and my Bible. When people asked me if I was going to be a nun or something (because women aren't priests, lol), I explained my love for studying religion but that I didn't feel called toward ministry.
About 10 years ago, I had an experience that I would express as a call to ministry. I excitedly composed an email to a pastor. I would describe this feeling as finally seeing something that had been in front of me for so long. It was like something written on dust on a panel of glass... I kept looking past it, refusing to see what was clearly in front of me. As my focus shifted, I was able to see something I hadn't before... my call.
After that night and that experience, I felt a bunch of fear. I no longer felt confident in sharing this call with others, but I started to form a goal of attending seminary. It felt like something impossible, mostly because it costs $$$$ and I was, at the time, working 3 jobs while nearly-dropping out of college. I was supporting myself while living in the city and trying to become my own person.
To fast forward through the turbulence of my young 20s and other formative journeys (dropping out of school, having a number of breakdowns, finding my way out of abusive situations, finding my call, my independence, mental health care, etc), my call has refined itself.
I knew my call was about translation. This work is starting to solidify as my "lasting context" has also begun to solidify, and I have settled into a space I see myself in for the long run. After all, my ministry was going to look different if I ended up smack in the middle of a city... instead, I'm smack in the middle of the mountains.
So here's some of what I believe about the spirit of my spiritual ancestors (what?):
Thousands of years ago, my spiritual ancestors started joining their cultures, peoples, and stories. "We" (humanity) have been struggling to understand this world and the spirit that moves it since our birth. The Hebrew Scriptures collect these stories and journeys and tell the truths of those searching for what matters and trying to retain a legacy for their children... to hold onto that which matters.
Somewhere along that journey, a guy named Jesus showed up. He understood things in a way that many before him didn't. He was a spiritual revolutionary, playing with the scriptures and traditions before him like mud. Sometimes revolution is required and he got that. He started something powerful by embodying something powerful. He tied himself to his cultural traditions and claimed them for his generation and the needs of his time and the people of the world. In the midst of that birth of something new and beautiful, he was abruptly executed.
In the wake of that great, world-shattering tragedy, his followers experienced something. They were reborn in their mission and found something greater. They rose up and re-wrote the story yet again, following the legacy of their leader. They molded their story forward, spreading it with fervor.
As the centuries progressed and people tried over and over to pin down the appropriate way forward, we continue our ancestral journey of grappling with the spirit and stories we are given, the ways they entwine with our histories and present.
The Protestant Revolution began for many reasons in communities that decided a new way forward was necessary. The institution was failing in its own missions and the ways it was telling our stories and interpreting them needed to be rethought (given how those interpretations were playing out in the world and the harm they were doing). The Protestant tradition, in some of its best moments, sparks fire by claiming the tradition as our own for interpretation, as free to the people of God... a message similar to that Jesus guy.
Today our institutions are failing. They fail to speak for and to people like me. People who look like me are not in church. People have different criticisms and stories to tell about this, but here's mine:
We're doing it wrong. Our institutions no longer speak to this world. They speak to a different one. So it's time to get back to the mud of our traditions and breathe new life into them (and yes, that's a Genesis allusion, for those of you who are also seeped in biblical metaphors). Here's my heresy: maybe church isn't the answer.
I know, right? The minister poo-pooing on the church.
I think it's time to break things down and build them back up.
Now, people have different spiritual needs. The church is still working for some people (including me). We need a new way forward, though, because I believe there is value in the stories and people we have held onto through the ages and passed on. We, like other generations, have the right to reform our traditions to meet the needs of God's people.
The church has historically performed many functions in society. They have provided literacy and education, distributed resources, explored the sciences and been entwined in medicine and healing, and provided moral formation. While the church may be failing in some of these roles, our society hasn't necessarily fulfilled these needs in other ways... and I think that's the struggle our generation needs to address.
The loss of the church might mean some good things, like the loss of some damaging patriarchal structures, dogmatic worldviews, bodies that protect corruption and abuse... but it also means some bad things. How do we meet these needs going forward, and what might our spiritual ancestors actually have to offer us in how we answer these questions, even if it doesn't mean "church"?
The mystic, scientist, and academic in me all believe that we can answer these questions.
I'm a pluralist. We don't all need to take the same path.
But it is time to forge a new one.
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Saturday, March 9, 2019
Friday, March 8, 2019
Sweet Darkness
Sweet Darkness
When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb
tonight.
The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.
You must learn one thing,
The world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and
the sweet confinement of your
aloneness to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
by David Whyte
From “The House of Belonging”
In “Risking Everything”,
eidted by Roger Housden
When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb
tonight.
The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.
You must learn one thing,
The world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and
the sweet confinement of your
aloneness to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
by David Whyte
From “The House of Belonging”
In “Risking Everything”,
eidted by Roger Housden
Thursday, March 7, 2019
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Full
The Star Within
a creation story by Dr. Paula Lehman & Rev. Sarah Griffith
In the beginning, the energy of silence rested over an infinite horizon of pure nothingness.
The silence lasted for billions of years, stretching across aeons that the human mind cannot even remotely comprehend.
Out of the silence arose the first ripples of sound, vibrations of pure energy that ruptured the tranquil stillness as a single point of raw potential, bearing all matter, all dimension, all energy, and all time: exploding like a massive fireball.
It was the greatest explosion of all time!
An irruption of infinite energy danced into being. It had a wild and joyful freedom about it, and like a dance it was richly endowed with coherence, elegance, and creativity.
The universe continued to expand and cool until the first atoms came into being. The force of gravity joined the cosmic dance; atoms clustered into primordial galaxies.
Giant clouds of hydrogen and helium gases gathered into condensed masses, giving birth to stars!
Generations of stars were born and died, born and died, and then our own star system, the solar system, was formed from a huge cloud of interstellar dust, enriched by the gifts of all those ancestral stars.
Planet Earth condensed out of a cloud that was rich in a diversity of elements.
Each atom of carbon, oxygen, silicon, calcium, and sodium had been given during the explosive death of ancient stars. These elements, this stuff of stars, included all the chemical elements necessary for the evolution of carbon-based life.
With the appearance of the first bacteria, the cosmic dance reached a more complex level of integration.
Molecules clustered together to form living cells!
Later came the algae, and then fish began to inhabit the waters!
Thence the journey of life on land and in the sky.
Insects, amphibians, birds, reptiles, and mammals: all flourished and diversified and elaborated the themes of life. And now it is our time, too.
This is our story.
The story of our beginning, our cosmology.
And so we commence our Lenten Journey this night – this Ash Wednesday, with open hearts in the midst of our Creator.
As we partake in our daily things of life may we see them as sacred.
May we be empowered to perform simple acts of concern and love, and real works of reform and renewal.
Let us love deeply the earth which gives us air to breathe, water to drink, and food to sustain us.
May we remember that life is begotten from stardust, radiant in light and heat.
We are all one – all of creation, all that now live, all that have ever lived.
Remember we are stardust, and to stardust we return.
Remember we are part of the great mystery.
Remember we are stardust and to stardust we return!
A Prayer
This is from an Ash Wednesday service at my church:
As we partake in the daily things of life may we see them as sacred.
May we be empowered to perform simple acts of concern and love, and real works of reform and renewal.
We are all one— all of creation, all that now live, all that have ever lived.
Remember we are stardust, and to stardust we return.
Remember we are connected and to connection we return.
Remember we are part of the great mystery.
Remember we are stardust and to stardust we return.
As we partake in the daily things of life may we see them as sacred.
May we be empowered to perform simple acts of concern and love, and real works of reform and renewal.
We are all one— all of creation, all that now live, all that have ever lived.
Remember we are stardust, and to stardust we return.
Remember we are connected and to connection we return.
Remember we are part of the great mystery.
Remember we are stardust and to stardust we return.
Saturday, March 2, 2019
Miranda Bailey
In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the earth, at least that’s what they say. He created the birds of the air and the beasts of the fields, and he looked at his creation and he saw that it was good. And then God created man, and it’s been downhill ever since. The story goes on to say that God created man in his own image, but there’s not much proof of that. After all God made the sun and the moon and the stars, and all man makes is trouble. And when man finds himself in trouble, which is most of the time, he turns to something bigger than himself. To love or faith or religion to make sense of it all. But for a surgeon, the only thing that makes any kind of sense is medicine.
As doctors, we know more about the human body now than at any point in our history. But the miracle of life itself; why people live and die, why they hurt and get hurt is still a mystery. We want to know the reason, the secret, the answer at the back of the book…because the thought of our being all alone down here is just too much for us to bear. But at the end of the day, the fact that we show up for each other, in spite our differences, no matter what we believe, is reason enough to keep believing.
Miranda Bailey, Grey’s Anatomy, 4x11 Lay Your Hands On Me
As doctors, we know more about the human body now than at any point in our history. But the miracle of life itself; why people live and die, why they hurt and get hurt is still a mystery. We want to know the reason, the secret, the answer at the back of the book…because the thought of our being all alone down here is just too much for us to bear. But at the end of the day, the fact that we show up for each other, in spite our differences, no matter what we believe, is reason enough to keep believing.
Miranda Bailey, Grey’s Anatomy, 4x11 Lay Your Hands On Me
Friday, March 1, 2019
That Bible Thing
“This reveals something I wish every Christian knew, and I say this as a deeply committed Christian myself: sometimes the Bible is wrong. It not only tells us about the wisdom and insights and experiences of our spiritual ancestors, but also contains their limited vision, their acceptance of things like slavery and the subordination of women. That’s not uniform, of course. There are also texts that proclaim the equality of men and women and forbid a Christian from having a Christian slave and so forth, but it’s all there, including mistaken notions about how the second coming will be soon.
We would escape a whole bunch of problems if only we all knew that and weren’t alarmed by it. The whole Genesis versus evolution controversy. For me, it’s not that the first chapters of Genesis are wrong, but they’re not meant to be taken literally. So, also the issue of whether women are supposed to be subordinate to men. That issue disappears if people are willing to say, “sometimes the Bible is wrong.”
So also with the texts that are quoted in opposition to same-sex behavior. Those passages, and there aren’t many, tell us what some of our spiritual ancestors thought and clearly they were wrong about that. So many conflicts in the church could be either resolved or handled in a very different way if only we didn’t have this uncritical reverence for the Bible.”
Marcus Borg (via affcath)
I am of the view that anything we love is something we should be critical of when that criticism is necessary. We discipline our children because we love them and we want them to be good people. We speak out against our government because we love our country and want it to be a good country. We speak out against the injustice in the Bible because we love our faith and want it to be a healthy, loving religion for everyone.
I sometimes feel like there is this dichotomy of fundamentalists and not. It goes both ways and I acknowledge myself trying to distance myself from the hurtful things that religious conservatives do, but I see the same thing happening on the other side. Progressives aren’t “real” Christians, we are DISREGARDING and CHERRY PICKING and justifying our sinfulness via Biblical criticism… even though I think that Biblical literalists are doing exactly the same thing.
So here’s today’s reminder that biblical literalism is a modern development, that I love the Bible and my faith just as much as my brothers and sisters who are part of the “religious right” and that I think I am doing it right just as much as they do.
I am critical of the Bible not because I want to justify my own worldviews but because I have a deep desire to get close to the real meanings and truths present within it and those truths are often times obscured by literalist interpretations and by human biases inserted into the text by its authors and translators.
We would escape a whole bunch of problems if only we all knew that and weren’t alarmed by it. The whole Genesis versus evolution controversy. For me, it’s not that the first chapters of Genesis are wrong, but they’re not meant to be taken literally. So, also the issue of whether women are supposed to be subordinate to men. That issue disappears if people are willing to say, “sometimes the Bible is wrong.”
So also with the texts that are quoted in opposition to same-sex behavior. Those passages, and there aren’t many, tell us what some of our spiritual ancestors thought and clearly they were wrong about that. So many conflicts in the church could be either resolved or handled in a very different way if only we didn’t have this uncritical reverence for the Bible.”
Marcus Borg (via affcath)
I am of the view that anything we love is something we should be critical of when that criticism is necessary. We discipline our children because we love them and we want them to be good people. We speak out against our government because we love our country and want it to be a good country. We speak out against the injustice in the Bible because we love our faith and want it to be a healthy, loving religion for everyone.
I sometimes feel like there is this dichotomy of fundamentalists and not. It goes both ways and I acknowledge myself trying to distance myself from the hurtful things that religious conservatives do, but I see the same thing happening on the other side. Progressives aren’t “real” Christians, we are DISREGARDING and CHERRY PICKING and justifying our sinfulness via Biblical criticism… even though I think that Biblical literalists are doing exactly the same thing.
So here’s today’s reminder that biblical literalism is a modern development, that I love the Bible and my faith just as much as my brothers and sisters who are part of the “religious right” and that I think I am doing it right just as much as they do.
I am critical of the Bible not because I want to justify my own worldviews but because I have a deep desire to get close to the real meanings and truths present within it and those truths are often times obscured by literalist interpretations and by human biases inserted into the text by its authors and translators.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)