tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76311878348114659562024-03-13T03:20:51.791-07:00A Gracious HeresyA blog about the good, the bad, the wonderful and the trying parts of creating a progressive, feminist, christian, ecumenical community.Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-34845155658735190852014-03-18T12:08:00.000-07:002014-03-18T12:08:10.301-07:00Follow me to a new blog...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Greetings all!</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I have moved!</span> Please join me on my new website: <a href="http://connietuttle.com/" target="_blank">http://connietuttle.com/</a></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Look for<b> Retro Wednesdays</b> where I will repost some from this (a gracious heresy) blog.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Check out <b>Fridays</b> for new posts, rants, inspirations... and more!</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are still working out a few kinks in the site -but it is looking good. My thanks to <i>Jenifer Cooper at Cooperworks </i><a href="http://cooperworks-inc.com/" target="_blank">http://cooperworks-inc.com/</a> for her gorgeous work.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Please follow my blog! There will <u>soon</u> be a tab that you can use to sign on.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am also blogging on an exciting new site moderated by Dr. Monica A. Coleman:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.realspiritualityforreallife.com/" target="_blank">http://www.realspiritualityforreallife.com/</a> where I am in the company of some wonderful thinkers and bloggers.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">see you there!</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">blessings and peace,</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Connie</span>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-16840383993744857882014-02-07T09:47:00.000-08:002014-02-07T17:06:17.430-08:00A New Thing: power that heals<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For all the tribulations about trying to enter into the new thing Godde is doing... some things do go very right.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While re-imagining structures and relational power and trying to implement those understandings carries with it all the complications of making change, some things we tried have been important and have worked really well.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First is the way we use language. Not sure how far back to go with my thinking but... I guess I shall go way back. Back to the idea that language is a human construct and therefore fraught with limitations as well as beauty, confined by its particular cultural milieu, and changing with rapid fluidity over generations. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or: humans made it up, it is limited by its concrete nature, its context and it changes a lot over brief periods of time.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why on earth is that important and why do I start here? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the first thing we did as a worshipping community was to tackle our understanding of language, how it works and how to change how we use it. If we are not viewing the world and Godde through the limited spectrum of the dominant (and patriarchal culture) then how do we reflect that in our the ways we talk about Godde and worship Godde? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In seminary in the 80's it was a big deal to translate the generic use of 'man' to 'humanity' to be inclusive. That's it. For many it still is. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But what if using inclusive language is not just a political stance but a response to Godde's call to hospitality and healing? </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What if seeing ourselves as a part of rather than subordinate to makes a difference in how we relate to the Sacred, even how we see ourselves as Sacred? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What if we uncover the stories about women in our sacred texts that have been buried? What if we name to limitations of the language and culture of the writers of the text? What if we claim that women, transfolk, intrasex folk, gender-queer folk are all created in the image of Godde?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What if our use of language unbinds our understanding of ourselves and of Godde? How healing is that?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And then, let's take the next step. What if we unleash images of Godde that are metaphorical rather than symbolic? Feminist theologian, Sally McFague, invites us to understand the difference between images of the Sacred being fluid: Godde is like... rather than rigidly symbolic: Godde <i>is.</i> When we do express the Sacred in an ever expanding collage of metaphors we give our language wings.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So we, at Circle of Grace, talk about Godde as male and female and chose to use the spelling G-o-d-d-e as a way of saying that the Sacred is expressed in all genders. And as we grow in our differences we come to see Godde's expression of selfhood in all races, as disabled, queer, old and young. Our call is that every time we encounter one another in our specificity, our uniqueness, we are invited to see Godde reflected there.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To say 'You are in the image of Godde' becomes a powerful, healing and Sacred Word.</span><br />
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Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-12729149784873800872014-01-28T08:36:00.000-08:002014-01-28T08:36:48.360-08:00Pitfalls: part two<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were no pitfalls to pursuing the ideal of shared power in spiritual community? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wait. I think that is my internal kid voice. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The truth is that we cannot and do not make change without trial and error. Without stumbling. And for me, even attempting to do it over a period of years hasn't necessarily made me any better at it.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just because Godde is 'doing a new thing' doesn't mean the rest of us are up to speed.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have also been remiss when talking about feminism as a critique of power and how we are using that critique to form new ways, hopefully more holistic ways, of being in in spiritual community and not made much of the fact that <i>Jesus</i> life, teaching and ministry were a critique of power.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jesus critiqued the power of the rich v. poor, of the government v. individual, the acceptable and the unacceptable ... in each case calling his followers and the world to turn their understanding of power upside down. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then he did this thing where he called his followers and his disciples <i>friends</i>. It is a model of leadership I love. Have tried to emulate. And wrestled with. And failed at.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's the thing: everyone comes to church with history and expectations of clergy. In an ecumenical community there is a plethora of differing expectations. Each one needing to be considered and addressed. (just thinking about it overwhelms me now) But I thought we could do it. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We call ourselves a Circle of a reason. Non-hierarchical. All on the same level. Connected. Individual tasks and calls but equal in value. That's what we aimed for. I believe Jesus lived that model in his life and ministry. I thought I could. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Newsflash: I am not Jesus. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In seminary I learned that pastors could not be friends with parishioners. I didn't believe it.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If we agree that I, as pastor, am the same as you: not better, not more holy, not more spiritual - then we share the journey in a different way. Friends fail. Friends share joy. Friends mark life passages together. Friends journey together. Friends dance together, pray together, eat together... often or seldom, but <i>always as equals</i>.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I learned at a time when I was brought to my knees in my personal life that the rules were still different for me as pastor. A heck of a time to have to learn that. In a community that lives compassion and inclusion for the hurting, for the mentally ill, for the emotionally crippled, it was not okay for the pastor to succumb to suffering. To fail utterly. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I blame no one for that. Just now pondering why and how we could have been different. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No answers here. Only questions.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Next up: what worked- and there is a LOT that did/does. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-47174957984745521312014-01-18T09:32:00.003-08:002014-01-18T09:32:47.507-08:00The Many Pitfalls Redefining Power: part one<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">So trying to critique of power and trying to do power differently. When this began we were fueled by excitement and fearlessness. I love us for that. And we discovered new and exciting ways of making and being spiritual community.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">But I'm going to start with a post on what doesn't work. Or hasn't worked. And maybe some musings about <i>why</i> it is so difficult. And I will have several posts about this. That being said, it is still worth attempting. I still believe it is important and possible. The thing about reinventing the wheel is that there must be commitment to constant trial and error.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">As pastor of this hodgepodge community the first changes were easy: don't use the position of clergy to be coercive, abusive, oppressive or hierarchical. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">This has been a fount of joy and sometimes a thunderstorm of problems. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">When doing and being church with people from many different ages, races, classes, educational levels and traditions who may also have experienced different levels of rejection or spiritual abuse because of their gender or sexuality the pot is stirred before it is even placed over the fire. And everyone brings a personal brand of issue to the pot. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">Many hurts came seeking healing.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">As pastor, the question was 'how can I help empower a deeply hurting people who also have no experience of exercising power in a church setting?'. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">I had a lot of teaching to do, inviting people to answer for themselves questions like:</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">to what do you give spiritual authority?</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">the bible?</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">the preacher? </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">the church community? </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">your personal experience of Godde/Holy Soirit?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">some combination of the above?</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">and what does that mean for you as a spiritual journeyer and for us as companions on the journey?</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">If a community is used to giving the preacher authority, being feminist church means critiquing that and finding new ways. over and over and over again. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">A problem happens when the over and over again stops.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">I learned this the very hard way.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">When new people become a part of the community and haven't intentionally challenged their understandings of power and authority the system reverts to the preconceived and previously experienced understanding of clergy and church.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">My very bad. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">T</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">his I have learned: doing things differently requires vigilance. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">It means we must be mindfully engaged with the issues of power <i>at all times. </i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">It was too easy for me to revert to unchallenged expectations of pastor in order to 'get things done.' </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">Most feminists, especially those of us in leadership positions, have experienced 'death by process'. We sometimes process our ideas or intentions into non-existence. Therein lies the rub.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">More later on the woes of what doesn't work.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">And stay tuned. There is much that does work, there is much that challenges, lifts, inspires and enlightens the shared sacred journey. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">Hard work required.</span></span><br />
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Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-9042428052721328572014-01-07T10:12:00.002-08:002014-01-07T10:12:56.960-08:00the grand experiment: power<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So what makes a church feminist? Or more to the point: how are we, as feminist church, different from any other church? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My first caveat is that we are like other churches in many, many ways. But some of what we have been attempting to do hasn't been done before. Needless to say we have stumbled often and experienced a few great, shining moments.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bottom line, to be feminist means that we critique power. Power in the culture. Power in the institutional church. Power in interpersonal relationships. That's a big job for any group, much less a group of folks that are not, for the most part, academicians and are of many races, classes, abilities, educational backgrounds, and church experiences. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And here's the thing. We not only <i>critique</i> power but we try to <i>do</i> power differently. We try to share- personal and institutional power - in ways that haven't been attempted before.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One way it works well is in how we use language. We are committed to inclusive language about both <u>Godde </u><i>and</i> <u>humanity</u>. We continually challenge our assumptions about gender, race, age, ability and sexualities. And we accept and value individuals not only in the things we share in common but for our differences. We share the wisdom of our different perspectives rather than seeking one correct perspective that trumps all others. And before you ask: yes it is hard to do and yes it is glorious!</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We must all commit to understanding and behaving in new ways. Each of us has to be willing to struggle with assumptions of the dominant culture as well as the assumptions we have because of our individual histories, gender, race, class or... </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And <i>just that</i> is plain hard to do.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another way we explore our understanding of power is to consider the nature of Godde. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You've probably noticed that when I talk about Godde I use this alternative spelling. I do it because it is important that I/we are reminded of the inclusiveness or unlimitedness of Sacred gender. The word 'Godde' is an attempt to make us mindful of that understanding. It also informs our understandings of the many ways Godde's reality and power is expressed in scripture, in the world, and in our lives.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a patriarchal system power can and <i>is often </i>expressed negatively as coercive, abusive, oppressive or positively as just plain hierarchical (power over). One of the first things we did was to explore sharing power as new model of doing church.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is a grand idea. Liberating. Filled with hidden pitfalls. Almost impossible to implement. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More on that next time. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-86205330837761854722014-01-02T08:00:00.001-08:002014-01-02T08:00:16.772-08:00 the grand experiment of making feminist Christian church: the background <br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm going to start way back. Way back like thousands of years way back and I'm going to start this look at 'the grand experiment' by talking about how theology expands and changes. Not just mine. Or yours. But Christian theology all together. (as well as the theologies of other traditions I would imagine but that doesn't add to this train of thought.)</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2014 years of Christian theology did not spring into being ex nihilo (out of nothing). It is build on thousands of years of Jewish theology and carries into it many assumptions and understandings from the Jewish perspective, which also is fluid and developed and develops over time. As the church expanded, growing up in different cultures with different understandings of the world and different ways of thinking and talking about Godde, the conversation changed. Because Christians sought to convert others Christianity they had to be in dialogue with other theological and philosophical concepts - most notably Greek thought. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Theology evolves. (yes I am giving a very brief lecture here) It is not static. A perspective might be ascendant because of cultural or political realities prompting theologians to ask different questions and challenge heretofore unchallenged assumptions. Most often concepts or definitions once considered sacred cows are refined or even discarded. All of that is to say that theological conversations happen over great periods of time, are informed by politics, science, history and social movements, and are <i>always</i> in process.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So what has all that got to do with the 'grand experiment of making feminist Christian church'? I think it is because I have always seen us as being in dialogue with the the theology conversations throughout history. Liberation, feminist, black, progressive and process theologies are in conversation with post World War II western theologies who are in turn in conversation with the Enlightenment thought and so on and so forth ad infinitum.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The assumptions of contemporary Western theologians (Barth, Tillich, Niebuhr) and the older but still important voices in Christian conversations (Augustine and Thomas Aquinas) are limited by their cultural biases. Objective universal reality was assumed to be first world, white and male. This is one of the first premises newer theologies challenge. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The universal human experience is not first world. It is not white. And it is not male.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is where Circle of Grace enters contemporary theological conversation. We did not come into being believing passionately that we have all the answers and that our answers are all 'right'. We came into being as a way of challenging long-held beliefs by the Church universal. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is where we began. Challenging the assumptions that Godde is male only. That women have perspectives of faith and spiritual experience that are important contributions to theological understandings. That people of color have important contributions to make to theological understandings. And people with disabilites. And poor people. And oppressed people. And people with different gender identifications. And queer people. And old people. And children.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We began with knowing that none of us has all the answers and each of us brings wisdom from experiences we do not and cannot share.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is where we began. How we tried to make church differently. To listen differently. To exist differently. The grand experiment of making Christian feminist church began and continues in conversation with the church universal, the church historical and the church expressed in multiple denominations.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What were we thinking? </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-52345546110605190932013-11-14T18:01:00.000-08:002013-11-14T18:01:40.384-08:00Becoming... 20<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Circle of Grace, this small, progressive, ecumenical, feminist, church will be <b>20</b> coming up in December. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hard to believe. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hard to believe it has been 20 years. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hard to believe we've made it through so many ups and downs. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hard to believe that we are still figuring out who we are.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or perhaps <u>not</u> hard to believe. We are always 'becoming'. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As we learn through explorations of theology and the Word we <i>become</i> more intentional. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As we work to make room for our different understandings we <i>become</i> more expansive. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As we struggle through life changes we <i>become</i> less arrogant. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As we grapple with our shadow sides we <i>become</i> wiser.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The wise feminist theologian Sally McFague teaches us that when we make our religious symbols absolutes we become rigid in our religious thinking . She suggests - and we are committed to - understanding images as <i>metaphor</i>: fluid, with open meanings and always expansive. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I bring that up because it harkens back to the idea that we are still becoming. We are still in process. Still discovering what it means to make spiritual community that is both Christian and feminist. Twenty years later and I am more aware <i>now </i>of how much I don't know. I know less now than when we started and yet I have gained the wisdom of fools. I have come to trust in the process of becoming as we learn again and again to trust in Godde's crazy leading rather than in what seems to make realistic sense. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Twenty years and this I have learned: we will never arrive, we will never be codified and we will always - and I mean <i>always</i> - be on a learning curve! </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am grateful for twenty years of lessons, some of which I will have to re-learn and some that are engraved on my heart. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am grateful for a community of the Spirit that is willing to wrestle with Godde and one another.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am grateful that Godde is always doing a new thing. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am grateful that we are still becoming. Even after 20 years.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-71603300066862586192013-11-01T10:20:00.001-07:002013-11-01T13:38:33.374-07:00Desert Times<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today I am grateful for those saints who taught me that there are desert times.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dry times.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Times where your bones feel like dust and yet you carry on.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Where Godde does not seem so much absent as irrelevant. And that it is okay.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For many that may seem like a real heresy.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A pastor who is tired? Dry?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Without passion?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A pastor who is not seeking Godde in each moment?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A pastor who <i>seems</i> to have no hope?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wonder why it is so difficult for people to see pastors as regular old people with real struggles. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some of the answers I know: we fill the roll of embodied Presence during times of worship, rites of passage, transitions, illness and death. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For those who find it difficult to trust their own relationship with Godde, we are often the trusted authority.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For some, a pastor is the one who points the way and says "all will be well and all will be well and all manner of things will be well." </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For some, a pastor is one who offers answers to life's questions.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Those are all big and important things. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And may be why the ministry is top-heavy with sociopaths.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But what makes me a pastor? </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is it greater piety? no. I have exchanged piety for a passion for justice.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is a closer relationship with Godde? no. Anyone and everyone can be deeply in relationship with Godde.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is it that somehow I am more special than the average bear? no. I put on my socks one foot at a time.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Am I more deeply aware, more spiritually developed? only as much as my years and experience, prayer and time allow, less than many and on the same road as everyone else.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am not always be a good servant, though I always wish I were. Sometimes my life is difficult and my prayer life suffers - as does my spiritual, physical and mental well-being. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just like most people. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lately, my life has been filled with unforeseen changes, loss, grief and anger. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It makes me no less a pastor, just not as good of a servant as I want to be. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am dry and dusty and ache with malaise. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But I know that Godde is with me, in me, between me and all that is and all who are.</span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I trust that I will find my way back to joy and energy and service that is never grudging.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And all of this is to say, what? </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What, especially in Christian feminist community, does this mean for for all of us?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I hope it means:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That there is enough room for each of us to be on our journey.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That when one falls down, the others gather 'round. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That 'pastor' can be about call and training, gifts and skills... but <i>not</i> about better or more than.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That we remember that we are not a hierarchy but a circle of servanthood. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And sometimes that pastor needs you to hold the Christ-light for her.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In my dusty time, many of my community have not only held the Christ-light, but Christ-torches!</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And I am finding my way back to the well of living water one day at a time.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-32214224194945409122013-10-17T15:46:00.002-07:002013-10-17T15:46:46.657-07:00Nomadic Church<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We move into new space this week.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A sanctuary. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That was a church.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That is now a full time school.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Soon to be a full time school and part time church.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jesus said that foxes have their dens, and birds their nests but that he had no where to lay his head. He didn't own property. Didn't own a building. Trusted there would be a space for him at the end of each day.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wish I had that much faith. Every time we change locations - for good reasons or ill - I wonder where we will land next. Will it be worshipful? Will there be room for our few belongings: chalice and paten, altar cloths, candles, hymnals... crayons, children's books, offering basket, things that make our worship space lovely? And since we inevitably share space: will our 'stuff' be there the next time we gather for worship? Even more important: are <i>we</i> welcome in our space? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The answers have been: sometimes it is worshipful and if not we will do what we can to make it so. Sometimes there is room for our belongings. Sometime the trunk of my car becomes a rolling storage area. Sometimes our stuff is there, sometimes it is broken or missing or...</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sometimes we are deeply welcomed into the space we share. Sometimes not.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So this week as we enter new space these things I know. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is worshipful. We will meet in a former sanctuary where gospel has been sung, sermons preached, weddings celebrated and funerals held. We share a building filled with the children during the week. Children laughing and running and singing and learning and playing. How sacred is that?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is room for some of our things. For the things we need each week, the rest to be stored offsite. The room for our things is secure.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We will discover how welcome we are, but my gut (or experience) says I'm feeling pretty good about it. The attitudes and energies of the people we have met are warm and friendly.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am excited and hopeful. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We have a place to lay our heads. Not a place to own. Not a place to define us. We have to define ourselves in other ways. We have to <i>own</i> our spiritual walk in different ways. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The question of space overloaded council discussions for years. For me it boiled down to: how do we provide hospitality with space we have access to only a few hours a week?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is a question we still wrestle with. So far, this is what I know: worship has to be as welcoming as we can make it. (we're better at some times than others) And hospitality has to do with expansive spirituality, expansive community, expansive thinking, expansive prayers. We start with a small scale of being hospitable to ourselves and to one another. We stretch to be hospitable to all we meet. We stretch to make our thoughts hospitable, our prayers, our lives. And we stretch to be hospitable to the making of justice for all people, not just the ones in our comfort zones.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We have learned a lot by being a nomadic church. When I finally accepted that we were never going to own or have a building I let go of the stress and judgment I had about what makes a 'real' church and leaned into who we really are. Like Jesus, n</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ot owning a building frees us to do and be other things. </span>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-48102616723035702032013-10-11T07:31:00.002-07:002013-10-11T07:54:23.554-07:00Baptism-It's not a slam dunk<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Okay. I had to go there.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But as the community prepared for an adult baptism last week we had to ask <i>again</i> how do we as a </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Christian feminist community, in which all do not subscribe to any one way of thinking, make room for our different understandings of this important and sacred event?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We do have <i>some</i> traditions around baptism. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One is that whatever method we use (sprinkle, pour or dunk) for the actual rite of baptism, a bowl of water is lifted from the whole (font or pool) and passed around the community. Each one holds the bowl and offers prayers, silently or aloud, for the one who is to be baptized and for their journey with Godde. The water is then returned to the font or pool that we will use for the baptism, mixing our prayers of blessing with the blessings of Godde.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The other is</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> that we each tell the story of our own baptism. We actually do the work of remembering and telling. There are as many stories, experiences, understandings and meanings, from many different traditions, as there are people. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally, when all have remembered and the one has been baptized, we turn to one another and say: This Godde says to you 'You are my beloved with whom I am well pleased!'</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This time I heard from one of my</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Quakers parishioners who was feeling excluded by the event. Quakers do not baptize with water. They believe they are baptized by the Spirit.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I firmly believe that sacred rites and sacred rituals should not be events that exclude anyone from Godde. So I had to ask, "How do we hold that different understanding in one hand ,honor it and claim the power and importance of baptism by water in the other?" </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The conclusion is (of course) that we honor all baptisms. I encouraged her to reflect on her baptism by the Spirit and to share that when we got to that part of the service. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I met with the person to be baptized (also a life long Quaker) and talked about what it meant to him, especially since ritual is not a part of his tradition. We talked about baptism as a communal event: we recognize the Christ in you and the claim it has on your life. We claim you as a child of Godde. We see you as Godde sees you. We recognize that you are called to embody Christ in the world. And we remember the time when we were claimed and how we are called to embody Christ.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When the time came, our Quaker friend, shared her experience and it lent us new wisdom. As did the memory and reflection of each one. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I preached on this passage from Mark 1:4-11 (NIV)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="text Mark-1-4" id="en-NIV-24220"><sup class="versenum" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; vertical-align: top;">4 </sup>And so John the Baptist<sup class="crossreference" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-24220E" title="See cross-reference E">E</a>)"></sup> appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance<sup class="crossreference" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-24220F" title="See cross-reference F">F</a>)"></sup> for the forgiveness of sins.<sup class="crossreference" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-24220G" title="See cross-reference G">G</a>)"></sup></span> <span class="text Mark-1-5" id="en-NIV-24221"><sup class="versenum" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; vertical-align: top;">5 </sup>The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.</span> <span class="text Mark-1-6" id="en-NIV-24222"><sup class="versenum" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; vertical-align: top;">6 </sup>John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist,<sup class="crossreference" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-24222H" title="See cross-reference H">H</a>)"></sup> and he ate locusts<sup class="crossreference" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-24222I" title="See cross-reference I">I</a>)"></sup> and wild honey.</span> <span class="text Mark-1-7" id="en-NIV-24223"><sup class="versenum" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; vertical-align: top;">7 </sup>And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.<sup class="crossreference" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-24223J" title="See cross-reference J">J</a>)"></sup></span> <span class="text Mark-1-8" id="en-NIV-24224"><sup class="versenum" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; vertical-align: top;">8 </sup>I baptize you with<sup class="footnote" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; vertical-align: top;" value="[<a href="#fen-NIV-24224e" title="See footnote e">e</a>]">[<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark%201&version=NIV#fen-NIV-24224e" style="color: #651300; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: top;" title="See footnote e">e</a>]</sup>water, but he will baptize you with<sup class="footnote" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; vertical-align: top;" value="[<a href="#fen-NIV-24224f" title="See footnote f">f</a>]">[<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark%201&version=NIV#fen-NIV-24224f" style="color: #651300; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: top;" title="See footnote f">f</a>]</sup> the Holy Spirit.”</span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="text Mark-1-9"><sup class="versenum" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; vertical-align: top;">9 </sup>At that time Jesus came from Nazareth<sup class="crossreference" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-24225N" title="See cross-reference N">N</a>)"></sup> in Galilee and was baptized by John<sup class="crossreference" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-24225O" title="See cross-reference O">O</a>)"></sup> in the Jordan.</span> <span class="text Mark-1-10" id="en-NIV-24226"><sup class="versenum" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; vertical-align: top;">10 </sup>Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.<sup class="crossreference" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-24226P" title="See cross-reference P">P</a>)"></sup></span></span><span class="text Mark-1-11" id="en-NIV-24227"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><sup class="versenum" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; vertical-align: top;">11 </sup>And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son,<sup class="crossreference" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-24227Q" title="See cross-reference Q">Q</a>)"></sup> whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 0.65em;"><sup class="crossreference" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-24227R" title="See cross-reference R">R</a>)"></sup></span></span></div>
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<span class="text Mark-1-11" id="en-NIV-24227"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I hope we never approach sacred rituals believing we share some unspoken or rote understanding. The richness that comes from our differences can be trying but is mostly a blessing. For which I am deeply grateful. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This week I learned again that some of the most important work I do as pastor of a diverse spiritual community is to make room.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-77851287437639383282013-10-05T18:00:00.001-07:002013-10-05T18:07:22.063-07:00Thinking about Baptism<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tomorrow we baptize a member of Circle of Grace.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of our traditions during an adult baptism is to go around the circle and have each of us share the experience and memory of our own baptism. What did it mean to you? we ask. Tell the truth, we say. There are many right answers and no wrong ones. What does it mean to you now? We reflect on and claim baptism's meaning for us then and now.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then I will share this reflection:</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Parents carry in their deepest places the memory of
the miracle of you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a mother I know that even when my daughter has
disappointed me or made me angry or frustrated me beyond belief, I still and
always see in her the miracle of who she is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And I’ve learned through loving her and through knowing myself as a child of
Godde, daughter of Barbara and Lenny that even when I stumble and back track
and stall in my journey I am still that miracle,</span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>…that
my daughter is that miracle</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>…that
you are that miracle</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>…that
this one about to be baptized is that miracle.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Our
age and experiences, our shortcomings – even our disasters can never negate the
deepest truth of who we are:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>we
are a miracle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your “you-ness” is
the miracle of you and <i>that</i> is the knowledge Godde always holds of you.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br /><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">Thinking about baptism as </span>birth helps us claim the deep way that we know Godde and Godde knows us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the miracle of each one’s birth we remember Godde’s
laboring to bring forth creation. Godde sees the miracle in us not only in our first moments or
months of life but in us each and every day of our lives… When we emerge from the waters of baptism Godde claims our Christ-self and invites us to claim our Christ-self.</div>
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>The
miracle of the oldest among us is as sweet to Godde as the miracle of the
newest among us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Godde sees and
loves each of us and treasures each of us as intensely as we treasure a babe
newly thrust from the womb.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In
our baptism <i>that</i> is the truth we are called to recognize about one another. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the table where we share the Eucharist <i>that </i>is the truth we are called to recognize about one another – not to the exclusion of the rest of humanity, but out the depths of our own humanity we experience the universal nature of Godde's love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Invited into an awareness of</span> our
deepest being or witnessing and affirming another through baptism impels us, obliges us,
urges us, to see the miracle of every member of the human family.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">When we are able to truly see ourselves or one another in the light of baptism we can </span> encourage and remind each another to claim it. Claim what it means to be a miracle. Claim what it means t be
a child of Godde. And as brothers and sisters, as family and friends we also claim it for you.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Years
ago in the mini-series “Roots” the character played by Cecily Tyson said that
each time a baby was born into the slave community that parents and friends
would peek into the tiny face and ask, “Are you the one?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are you the one who will liberate
us?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who will heal us?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who will free us? Are you the one who will be Christ in the world?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>…
Mary, singing the Magnificat claimed that her child was “the one” as did Hannah,
Samuels mother, who sang the song ages before Mary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In “Roots” the questioners knew that each one could be “the
one” because <u>at birth we see more clearly the miracle of that one</u>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The potential of that one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The capacity of that one… The
sacredness of that one.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So when
we meet together to claim the sacredness of a sister or brother in Christ through baptism let us challenge ourselves to be who we are called to be: children of Godde, builders of the kin-dom, the embodiment of Christ in the world.</div>
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Let
us look around the circle and ask, “Are you the one?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
let the people say, “ I am.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--></span>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-91202119202487850212013-10-01T16:37:00.001-07:002013-10-01T16:45:21.522-07:00Here's the thing...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's the thing.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My last post was so carefully expressed in general terms that, I don't know, it was tepid.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That's the nicest word I could come up with- and it's not about self-negation or judgment- it's just plain true.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is what I wanted to say:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am a gutsy, earthy, intense, deep-feeling, kind of person.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I can be transported by a breath of wind or </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the squish of water in my rain-soaked shoes.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Godde enchants me with all of Creation- including my body and the wonderful things it does: every taste and soft touch, every scent, every time I behold beauty, every pulse of sexual energy- all are occasions for me to experience the Sacred.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I center in meditation and breath it is never about distancing myself but about entering more and more deeply into my breath, my body, the pulse of blood in my veins.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I work to enter into the sense that I am breathing with all who breathes.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And when I pray. Well, it's not always pretty. Sometimes I pray while wallowing in the depths of my pain, or frustration or anxiety. But, by golly, I <i>am</i> praying. I guess conversational prayer feels sacred to me when I am being most honest, most real, most vulnerable, most struggling, most me... Not prettied up, not trying to 'act nice' with Godde but to be as real as I am. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even my profanity is holy sometimes. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So grace and grit go hand in hand for me. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I honor those who center peace. Who pray peace. Who transcend self as a way of entering into the Divine. I'm just saying there is more than one way to be in an energetic, intentional </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">relationship with Godde. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is good. It is a good and right thing to grapple with Godde in all our humanity.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the past year I have grieved without ceasing. I have gone to a sleepless bed each night and risen to sawdust mornings. I have heaved great gasps of pain and anger. I have struggled to get through a day and given thanks when the end of each day arrived.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In every moment, feeling and being myself all the way out to my edges, and swimming in all my tangled emotions... Godde has been with me.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That's the thing I was trying to say in my last post. Godde isn't <i>only</i> in peace and centeredness. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Godde is in the body and the blood and the struggle. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sometimes it is the most intimate place that Godde comes to us. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or we come to Godde. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That's what I was trying to say.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-42236955662439936232013-09-26T20:05:00.001-07:002013-09-27T05:12:38.649-07:00<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Grace and Grit</span></b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> I sometimes hear people talk about spiritual experience as if it something that only takes place in the lofty ether-sphere. It certainly does happen there. We have 'mountain top' experiences - those times and places when we are transported by the Divine and know ourselves to be one with ALL. We are overcome with compassion. We feel deeply connected, deeply loved and deeply loving.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> Those times feed us,empower us and expose us to our sacred identity. We come to know not only the truth of who we are, but who we <i>can</i> be. Who we aspire to be. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i> Then </i>the demands of twenty-first century life fracture our attention. Time becomes our most precious commodity. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;">Living in the now, in each present moment is a godly challenge. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"> The experience of deep connection happens when we are completely rooted in the present moment. Our focus, our thoughts, our bodies, our breaths are all <i>now</i>. Those transcendent moments are difficult to sustain. So we long for them. Sometimes we even try to manufacture them. And often we carry about this niggling doubt that if we cannot sustain those moments then we are not truly spiritual.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"> But there is another aspect of authentic, deep relationship with the Divine. We have stories about this other way of being deeply, spiritually engaged. In fact most of the stories in the Judeo-Christian tradition are stories of dynamic engagement with Godde. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"> We have gobs of stories about people who feel inadequate, who worry, who sulk and get angry, who wrestle with Godde all night and are walking wounded. We have stories of laughter and grief, of people encountering Godde while farming, baking bread, threshing wheat, herding sheep. Or while trying to get away from one horror only to encounter another. We have stories of people taking great risks, sometimes succeeding and often failing miserably. And we have lots of stories about people who are sick and struggling to make ends meet or privileged and afraid of losing that privilege. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Our stories remind us that living a life engaged with the Sacred is not an other worldly experience. We experience Godde within our very selves and between us and among us. Godde is not a separate reality. Godde is everywhere and ever present.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Most of us don't recognize our encounters with Godde unless it is the 'mountain top' variety. But Godde is here. In the grit of life. The sweaty, stinky, achy, risky, scared, not-knowing places. If we wrestle with Godde all night and wake with an emotional or physical limp - now that is real intimacy. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Those messy, difficult places open us to profound, sacred experience. We only need to name it. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"> When we are angry with Godde or cannot make sense of injustice or disease or hunger or fear. Or hurt. Or despair. Godde enters. Not as a 'feel good' experience but as deeply present in all places and all times. It doesn't get any more spiritual than that. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large;"> </span>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-71612349270368182922011-02-26T16:18:00.000-08:002011-02-27T11:00:16.936-08:00rant<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sometimes I just want to rant.</span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I want to rant about all the people who talk about religion with all the authority of ignorance.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I want to rant about all the people who talk about religion with all the authority of dogma.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I want to rant about all the people who defile grace with doctrine and love with limitations.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I want to rant about ministers who do not minister.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About denominations that are corporations.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I guess the question for me is: On what side do we err?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do we err on the side of some legalistic, graceless, myth of personal salvation at the expense of our own humanity and that of others? At the risk of limiting Godde (or our understanding of the Godde)?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or do we err on the side of love? </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Boundless, unfettered, graceful love that includes and honors each one as a mystery in the image of Godde? Just why is that so damn hard to do?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why is there even the possibility of a choice? Okay, that may not be as serious a question as the others <i>but</i> I find, after all these years of even compassionate listening, that I cannot and do not understand how any human being can claim limits on the love of Godde.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thousands of years ago Joshua said, "as for me and my house, we will serve Adonai."</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today I say, "as for me and my house we will serve Love."</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We will serve Love when it stretches us and makes us uncomfortable.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We will serve Love when it is considered foolishness.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We will serve Love without binding it and be dragged along into its wildness.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think when one serves Love, one (meaning me, in this instance) is just along for the ride.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is it easy? comfortable? profitable? not usually.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is it rich, deep, wide, wild and passionate? always.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is it good doctrine? can you run an organization effectively this way? does it put the individual or community at risk? No. No. and Yes.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is it what followers in the Way of Jesus are called to?</span></div>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-80621351932012573742011-02-08T10:20:00.000-08:002011-02-08T10:20:41.570-08:00New Year's Inventory<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I have not posted in a while- having given myself over to the rush of the holidays that are now but a swirl of memories. And so, I begin again.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Each year, sometime around the New Year, we spend a worship service doing an inventory of our lives together in past year. We review our covenant and assess the ways we have kept covenant and the ways we have broken covenant. The exercise calls us to mindfulness and to renew our commitment to the promises we have made to one another and to the Sacred as members of this community.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> When we engage in this process I encourage us to be in a stance of growth and challenge rather than breast-beating and guilt. (Which, as we all know, are never healthy and often stunts growth rather than encourages it.) When we are frightened of making mistakes or of failure, we severely limit our capacity for growth and change. So these are the things I invite us to hold in one hand while we evaluate our communal and personal lives on the other:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1- as St. Benedict reminds us, <i>always we begin again.</i> Each new day and week and month and year offers the opportunity to choose to begin again.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2- living a spiritual life is more about journey than destination. Our goal is not to arrive at perfection but to live into each moment as fully human, fully aware, and fully engaged people of spirit as we are able.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3- inventory is like confession, it is a time of seeing ourselves clearly so that we might be more <i>mindful</i> of our choices.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<!--EndFragment--> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> In worship we see confession as taking a stance of vulnerability and authenticity before Godde. We remind each other that speaking our truth is necessary for healing and transformation. In a larger sense, taking our yearly inventory invites and calls us to self awareness - both as individuals and as a community- of the promises we have kept and the ones we have not. Covenantal relationship with the Creator is a two way street, a relationship of implied mutuality. Godde's keeping covenant is not dependent on whether or not we keep covenant (our word, our intention) but our relationship with Godde suffers when we do not. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> And so each year we look around and ask: <i>who is not at the table?</i> And we ask if we have made space that is safe for those who are NOT here as well as for those who are. And we ask where we have been compassionate and where we have fallen short. Where and on whose behalf have we sought justice? And where have we been silent? In what ways are we and are we not in right relationship with Godde? Have we listened for Sacred leading?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every year the challenge to be more fully who we are called to be as Godde's people excites and ignites us. We remember things we didn't realize had been forgotten. We experience renewal of commitment. Sometimes, we remember our passion. Always, we are called more deeply into our journey with one another and with Godde.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maybe once a year is not enough.</span><br />
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</div></span>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-6123774619903716452010-12-10T10:26:00.000-08:002010-12-10T10:30:22.427-08:00Ebb and Flow<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One mystery to me, in the formation of spiritual community, is the experience of ebb and flow. Sometimes we, at Circle of Grace, engage with enthusiasm and excitement and at other times, we are ebbing and it seems like only a few of us straggle in on Sundays - the faithful, the hurting or the urgently seeking.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The unfortunate thing is, as pastor, those ebbing times affect my energy and creativity. My dark side blames myself and assumes more responsibility than is healthy. When we ebb there are things I don't do: calls I don't make, plans I don't escort to fruition, sermons I recycle rather than engage the text in a meaningful way while holding the community in prayer. I get discouraged and my personal energy ebbs. It is a chicken and egg question. Do my actions (or lack thereof) contribute to the ebb or are they a response to the ebb? Or both? Or is it all a viscous cycle? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Either way, in times of ebbing, I find myself the least faithful. My prayer life suffers. My sermon preparation suffers. I question my ministry. <i>Has Godde truly called me to this work or is this all about me? </i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't have answers to any of these questions. Well, I <i>do</i> know it is not all about me. And I do recognize my dark side (for those familiar with the enneagram I am an <i>almost</i> redeemed four). My internal conversation in ebbing times is my struggle with my dark side: doubt, fear, hopelessness. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am not proud of any of this but I need and want to be honest. This blog is about the good <i>and the bad</i> of creating and participating in christian, feminist, ecumenical, spiritual community. I am sure I am not the only one among us who wrestles with this. Several blog postings back I talked about Circle of Grace as an elephant orphanage. It is certainly one of our calls. The down side of it is letting go of people who have become spiritual family when they return to their tribe. It is another time we ebb.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Recently, in keeping with our feminist commitment, council members have taken on even more responsibilities. Everyone is on a learning curve. I, personally, have been on a learning curve for the past seventeen years. As we transition in our collective and personal responsibilities things get lost or left undone. When things are lost or left undone, we ebb. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are a small community. We are an intentional community. And in our seventeen years there have been many times of both ebbing and flowing. Looking back, all the ebbing and flowing seems organic. But living through times of ebbing is always a challenge and never feels good. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Frankly, I'm ready for some flowing.</span><br />
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</span>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-67266356746299550182010-12-04T19:51:00.000-08:002010-12-04T20:02:39.003-08:00What if There is No Godde?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm not asking the question you think I am.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am asking a question that makes my heart ache.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What happens to children who are raised with no concept of the Sacred? My question might better be put: what if there is no Godde in the lives of children? How much do they miss out on? How do they learn to think beyond themselves and the immediate present? What ideas or experiences counteract the messages of the dominant culture in the mind and heart of a child? I wonder. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wonder about these things all the time because my childhood was so filled with the wonder of creation, with sacred encounters that I had words and stories for because I was nurtured spiritually. I learned songs that formed my theological understandings. I heard music that soared, inviting me into wordless wonder. I was told stories that challenged me to think about the meaning of my actions, my relationships and my life.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wonder about these things especially now in the Advent and Christmas season. I ache for children who spend this month focused on '</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">stuff'</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and never experience the quiet joy of hope, the silence of peace, the mystery of longing, who are never encouraged to encounter Godde in the sacredness of human relationships.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And then there is the problem of children encountering Godde as a concept. It is one thing if children, left to their own devices, touch the holy in play, in creation, in relationship and quite another when, untutored, they come to believe (by default or by interpreting the messages of the culture) that Godde is either an invisible Santa Claus or invisible tyrant.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How can children learn about Godde when they are not given any language or stories, any encouragement, to think about the Sacred? They learn from the adults around them what matters. They learn from the adults around them how to be in relationship with spouses. They learn how to parent from they way they are parented. And they learn what it means (and how) to be in relationship with Godde from the adults around them.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, this can be both good and bad but I like C.S. Lewis's assertion in his collection of lectures, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Abolition of Man,</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> where he posits that teaching children the concepts and values of good and evil is important not so much because they will mirror the parents' (or church's) understanding of what comprises good and evil but because they will know that good and evil, itself, exists. (for those of you uncomfortable with the idea of evil- I promise to go there another day.) </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Further,</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">would assert that teaching and modeling for children relationship with Godde grounds them in knowing that Godde even exists. Then, as they mature, they will develop relationship the Sacred on their own. But if they never have the idea that Godde is encountered in relationship they might never enter consciously into that relationship. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These days our kids spend countless hours before the screen, entranced by mindless television or video games. When they are outside, it is often to participate in organized sports. The 'go outside and play' directive has become uncommon. So children have fewer and fewer opportunities to meet Godde in nature, in creation, in the changing of the seasons, in the exploration of the world around them. And I have witnessed a certain callousness that surprises me when they do encounter the natural world. Nature is not met so much with wonder as it is as challenge, something that needs to be either controlled or endured. It seems to have less reality than the current video craze.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My heart aches. It aches for all the children who are missing out on something profound and spectacular. For all the kids who are, in the words of Marian Zimmer Bradley, 'head blind' - or perhaps 'spirit blind' or 'soul blind'. There is a reality, a majesty and a mystery to be encountered that cannot be perceived when the spirit of the child is not nurtured. And if not nurtured, then Godde, creation, the universe are alien. The self can be tempted to become the center of its known universe.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My heart aches. For them. For us. For our world. If you are a person of spirit, I urge you to share your story with a child. I urge you to help a child encounter divine mystery in a snowflake, a cloud, a breath of wind, a symphony, a tear drop, a loving act or a stand for justice. Tell your story not because you want a child to become like you or believe like you, but because you want to introduce a child to her or his own spirit. And because you have the honor of introducing that child to Godde.</span><br />
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</span>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-7287812083953165292010-11-29T07:34:00.000-08:002010-11-29T07:35:05.604-08:00What Makes a Spiritual Community Christian?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's a good follow-up from my last post: what makes a spiritual community Christian? What seems obvious to some has been completely un-obvious to me. Let me meander through this question a moment.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Years ago the National Council of Churches, an ecumenical group comprised of nearly all current Christian denominations said that be be a member of the Council a church was only required to affirm the statement "Jesus is Lord."</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That was until the MCC, a predominantly gay and lesbian church, tried to join. The MCC was perfectly willing to affirm and declare that "Jesus is Lord". Suddenly, our good friends at NCC had a problem. The net-net is, at that time, MCC was denied membership into the National Council of Churches. I don't know if that has changed but either way, my point is taken. There is more than one idea floating around about what it means to be Christian.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To me, the affirmation "Jesus is Lord" is difficult to make sense of in a democratic society where none of us has lived under a feudal system or functioning monarchy. We don't swear fealty to an overlord who protects us. We really don't have any <i>experiential idea</i> of what lordship looks and feels like. I know some folks say that "Jesus is Lord" means that Jesus is in charge or that Jesus is the thing we most value in our lives or that we follow the way of Jesus above all other ways if there is a conflict of interests. But the phrase doesn't emerge out of our life experiences as it did in the time of Paul up to the Industrial Age. However, it remains one understanding of what it means to be Christian and what it means to be in a Christian community.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another understanding of what it means to be Christian is the affirmation of the phrase: "Jesus Christ is my lord and savior." "Isn't this the same?" you might ask. Well, yes and no.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Having chatted with many a 'missionary' on my doorstep I have discerned a distinct, rather than nuanced, difference between the two statements. This statement infers that one believes Jesus is saving one from eternal damnation, otherwise known as 'hell'. If you believe in Jesus as the son of God, if you believe he came to atone for the sins of all humanity throughout all time (including yours) then you are saved. This understanding often encourages blind faith, the accepting of things that don't make sense or that appear, in and of themselves, unbelievable. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For some, it is a matter of believing the tenets of the 'true faith'. The 'true faith' is always the faith purported by the makers of the statement, which have been varied and many.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally, there are those who call themselves Christian who consider themselves 'followers in the Way of Jesus'. They follow the teachings of Jesus and seek to live in the manner that Christ lived and taught. Now, I'm not saying that those with different understandings of what it means to be Christian <i>don't</i> do that, I'm just saying that this is how some Christians define their Christianity.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, the question: what makes a spiritual community Christian? I guess the answer is: All of the above. At Circle of Grace we try to make room for multiple understandings of what it means to be a Christian. For some, atonement is essential. For some, the lordship of Christ is pivotal. For most of us, being Christian is following in the Way of Christ (Jesus). For all of us, it is essential that we remain respectful of one another's understandings. I guess the one understanding that wouldn't make it here is the idea of a 'true faith'. It excludes the respectful possibility of differences.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So are we Christian? I am sure some would say not. And some might think, "Well some of you are and some of you aren't." Some of us hesitate to be called Christian because they hesitate to be identified with the dominant cultural understanding of Christian as intolerant and judgmental. But Christian we are, in most of its permutations. What makes us a spiritual community that is Christian? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Okay, the bottom line is that I don't have an answer to what seems to be a profoundly easy question. </span><br />
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</span>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-10452138475889970782010-11-19T08:15:00.000-08:002010-11-19T08:30:40.504-08:00What makes a spiritual community feminist?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My friend and our non-resident theologian, Dr. Monica A. Coleman, recently visited a feminist church at a conference at which she presented. She then posted an idea on facebook inviting all feminist churches to hook up. I snickered and posted back, "What, all two of us?"</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There may be more but we are so far apart and disconnected that it is hard to find one another. On some level we may not believe that the other exists. And then there is the question of what makes a spiritual community feminist.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First of all, there are a lot of understandings about what it means to be feminist (among feminists as well as outside the feminist community). After lengthy discussion Circle of Grace distilled our understanding down to a short paragraph:</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Circle of Grace is a feminist Christian worshipping community. We are non-doctrinal and seek to re- imagine understandings of language and stories, symbols and metaphors. Our commitment is to inclusivity. We honor each one’s truth and each one’s journey and feel called into community as a way of faithful response. We understand feminism to be a critique of power.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Spelled out it means: </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> 1-we don't all have to (nor do we) believe the same things. Nothing is written in stone. For us the journey of the spirit requires a certain fluidity (uncomfortable at times). Theologically, members of our community range the gamut of understandings. Biblical authority, atonement, - you name it. This hooks up with the last sentence in our statement: we honor each one's truth and each one's journey. As in, I can't tell you what your experience of the Sacred is, nor will I try to dissuade you of it. Need I say that making room for many truths is a challenge? But we are committed to this endeavor because It is <i>central</i> to feminist thought.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2- Our images, stories, symbols and metaphors are not limited to the images, stories, symbols and metaphors available in the biblical text, though we do 're-imagine' those in ways that, we hope, opens us to new understandings of Godde. As feminists, we find any symbol that becomes rigid and/or absolute to be unhelpful and sometimes harmful to the journey of the spirit. It is one thing to say Godde is like a father (or mother or eagle or bridegroom, etc.) and quite another to say Godde <b>is </b>father,etc.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3- We feel called to community as a way of faithful response. All of us at Circle of Grace come together because we believe or intuit that sharing spiritual community both grounds and grows us. It is the challenge of being (or trying to be) who Godde calls us to be in the world and with one another that draws us together in worship, prayer, meals, time, relationship... It is faithful (and feminist) to build community that is radically inclusive. It is faithful (and feminist) to live our one's journey of spirit informed by those who are not like us but offer new wisdom, insight, challenge and hope. For me, at least, and others I believe, the call to community is the call to kin-dom living, the call to embody the kin-dom in real time as a beacon of hope for the world. Each week at Eucharist we say something like this to one another as we pass the wine, "Drink in and <i>become</i> the promises of Godde."</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4- We understand feminism to be a critique of power. We also understand the Way of Jesus to be a critique of power. They go hand in hand. As feminist Christians we speak a critique of the power of the institutional church. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So for Circle of Grace being spiritual feminist community is about opening understandings of the Divine to include many images, it's about making room for all kinds of differences and it's about living out our understandings (and our struggles to understand and our inability to make sense) together. It means that we get comfortable with not having all the answers. It means that we make room for one another. It means we critique power used and misused in both the culture (patriarchy) and the institutional church (with love...).</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So here's a shout out to all the other feminist spiritual communities/churches out there (they are there, right, Monica?) - "what does it mean to you?" </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And isn't it great that it can mean so many different things? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-77052876356801866622010-10-28T09:02:00.000-07:002010-10-28T09:02:04.042-07:00Circle of Grace as an Elephant Orphanage<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I received a thoughtful email from someone who used to attend Circle of Grace about my last post. She had some insightful responses and agreed with my assessment of Circle of Grace as a place of spiritual healing. She went on to remind me that many folks who 'came through' Circle of Grace often returned to traditional churches as she, herself, had. She returned to the church in which she had grown up and with whom she had a deep connection <i>but</i> she continued, she would never had been able to do that without her time at Circle of Grace. She said that she, too, pondered why we hadn't grown and concluded that we needed to remain small to do the healing work we do.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It reminds me of what my spiritual director shared with me some time ago. She said she had seen a <i>60 Minutes</i> special about an elephant orphanage in Africa. A woman began a refuge for baby elephants whose mothers had been killed by poachers or who had physical defects (like blindness) that had caused their 'tribe' to abandon them. She and her workers take in these baby elephants and provide medical care and nourishment. When a baby recovers sufficiently they go about the business of teaching the baby how to be an elephant- including pounding the ground with small logs to teach her/him how to read sound through the ground. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some of the babies are so damaged or ill they don't make it. Some are able to be reunited with their 'aunties' and assimilate back into the wild. Some recover but are never able to return to the wild and a new 'tribe' has evolved at the orphanage. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"That's what Circle of Grace is like!" she exclaimed. "Some people heal and return to the church of their childhoods. And some people find themselves to be more at home at Circle of Grace and become a part of its ongoing healing ministry, forming a new and different kind of 'tribe'."</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I remembered that comment after I got the email this week: two very different people seeing the same thing from different perspectives. A final thought my emailing friend shared was that she now takes stands and provides a much needed witness in her more traditional church. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'll keep pondering all these things and we'll keep talking about these things. For too many years I assumed we were supposed to follow a certain pattern and achieve specific things: membership, space, programs...</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, I just want us to walk as faithfully as we are able and do the work to which we are called. I want us to keep on living into who we are and not into any superimposed idea of who we think we should be. It's an ongoing learning experience. It is always challenging. We're always going to have to question our assumptions and let some of them go. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But I don't guess we would do it any other way.</span><br />
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</span>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-60688389691074534582010-10-19T08:06:00.000-07:002010-10-20T04:42:50.456-07:00Identity Crisis<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Truth be told, over the past seventeen years we have struggled to figure out who we are. As in, what exactly <i>is </i>Circle of Grace? <i> </i>It requires enough thinking to make my head hurt.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are the same thing now as we were in the beginning, it just takes years to let go of assumptions and preconceptions and live into our organic reality. When we first started we wanted to be a church- and we are a church- but over the years we have had to redefine what 'church' means- or at least challenge our individual and collective ideas about what it means. Maybe we are closer to being a spiritual community. Because we are not connectional or denominational how we define ourselves is not preset.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is what I know:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> We will never own a building.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> We will never have programs that involves teams or sports.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> We will never be large.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> We will always be intimate spiritually and personally.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> None of this is easy.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I confess that my struggle is often with internal formless expectations. For a long while I thought that our goal was to grow and become self-sustaining. I hoped for a membership large enough to support my addiction to ministry so that I could pastor Circle of Grace as my full time calling. It <i>is </i>my full time job but the work doesn't support me financially. (I'm not talking about making $30,000 a year, but just enough to sustain a simple life style.) I'm pretty sure that will never be the case. My struggle/problem for years has been that it must mean I'm not doing something right. Why aren't we growing into something financially viable? Why can't the community support its pastor? Why can't we have our own building? </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I admit, as pastor, there are probably lots of things I haven't done right. I have been on the longest, steepest, seventeen year learning curve that has ever been devised. But I don't believe it is any of my shortcomings or mistakes have hindered our 'growth'. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Instead, I have come to believe that we are called to be is spiritual healers in a world filled with spiritual abuse. That's who we are. We gather in folks who long for a way to connect with Godde, whose Christian grounding is important to them, but who have experienced judgment, abuse, discrimination, sexism, racism, homophobia, classism, ageism, or ableism in the name of all that is holy. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Who we try to be, who we feel called to be, is a reflection of the kin-dom of Godde. Our perenneal question is: who is not at the table? Most recently, we are aware that we need more men and more heterosexual people sharing the bread and wine. How do we get all kinds of people at our table, in community, sharing life? The short and long answer is that we try to make a safe space. If you come, all of who you are will be welcomed. A challenge? Absolutely. But we have managed to be safe haven for people with mental health challenges, physical disabilities, different races, genders, classes, understandings...</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Those who leave are often those who are uncomfortable with differences - both in the expression of humanity and in the variety of theological understandings.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So we are kin-dom builders. In our small way, in the cosmos of our community, we work to live out the kin-dom within and between us. It is our holy work. And frankly, it's not work that is ever going to draw in the crowds, not work that is ever going to attract big givers or appeal to those who desire the absolute sureness of their beliefs.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are a church, a spiritual community, a gaggle of stragglers, visionaries, dreamers, mystics, scholars, laborers, and seekers struggling to be Godde's dreaming enfleshed in the world.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It doesn't pay well.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is not self-sustaining.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is not large.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is not easy.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But it is a life-giving, soul-healing opportunity to live authentically.</span><br />
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</span>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-67159207394366185172010-10-14T06:53:00.000-07:002010-10-14T07:06:04.557-07:00SEX<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">When my daughter was a freshman in college and home on winter break she and a bunch of friends sat up all night gabbing and laughing while I tried to sleep in the back.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> "What were y'all talking about all night?" I asked the next afternoon.</span></span></span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">"Sex." she laughed.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">"What about it?"</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande';">"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">We want it."</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It really doesn't get any simpler than that, does it? Really, that's how most of humanity is programed. We reach a certain age and our hormones begin to percolate big time. We begin to explore who we are relationally and attractionally (is that a word?). And some of us find the opposite gender rocks our boat. Some find themselves to be same-gender loving. Some are drawn to </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">both genders</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> (how lucky is that?!). And our intersex friends may or may not experience sexual drive. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Then there's the gender thing. Again, some (1 in 20,000) of our intersex siblings must find their way through the ignorance and 'no person's' land of being born gender-ambiguous. (Which has much to teach us all about what it means to be human!) Some of us are, as the Zuni Indians would say, "two-spirited people", people born experiencing our gender in opposition to the physical expression of our bodies. It's all a part of the wonderful the multi-layered, multi-hued, creative impulse of Godde.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So how did we humans get it all so screwed up? Both sex and gender are used to exert power and control. At its worst it manifests as the subjugation of women, hatred of gays, lesbians, bi and transgendered folk, physical and sexual abuse and rape. The closest, most tender, most vulnerable parts of ourselves are turned and used against us. I'm going to name it here: it is the patriarchy. It is a system of power and gender hierarchy that </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">in its worst forms</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> is an expression is evil. Yes. I said it. Evil.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Unfortunately, theologians have historically been men of the dominant culture, viewing the world through the lenses of privilege while assuming that </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">their</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> experience of the world was universal. While most of these thinkers and theologians were good men with good spiritual intentions, they were not able to see beyond their own 'cultural boundedness'. They never challenged the basic assumptions of the patriarchy so, historically, we have been stuck with fairly rigid perspectives on gender and sexual expression.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Here's where I want to suggest a different way of thinking about sex and gender. Contemporary feminist and womanist theologians have challenged and continue to challenge patriarchal assumptions and have moved theological dialogue forward. (</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">thank you!) </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> Acknowledging their influence, I want to talk about where I have come to about sex and gender. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It is so utterly simple: it ain't about who you have sex with </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">it's about how you love</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">, how you are in right relationship with another. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I do not believe there is any way Godde wants us to fret, worry or be suffocated by guilt and shame over our sexual orientation or gender (ambiguous or otherwise). </span></div><div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </i></div><div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Really?</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> I want to ask the big boys, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Really?</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> You're all worried about who and how someone is expressing sexuality. Isn't the more important question that we should all be worried about, 'how do we treat one another?' </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Here are the questions I think we should be asking:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">1- Is my action/expression exploitive of another?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">2- Am I loving and respectful of my partner and myself?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">3- How do my actions/life answer the question: Am I loving Godde with all my heart and mind and strength and am I loving my neighbor as myself?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Those questions are both complicated and simple enough to beg each of us to think and act with loving integrity. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">If we think about those questions when issues arise like, oh, the Bishop Edie Long case, our questions of him would be not about which gender he may have had sex with, but whether or not his relationships were exploitive or loving, respectful, and filled with integrity. Self-loathing doesn't leave much room for those questions.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">As the weeks go by and we are faced with an epidemic of suicides by LGBTQ youth I hope we respond not by debating tired old theology based in the inherently abusive system of the patriarchy. Instead, let's begin a new conversation. One that starts with Creation as the artistic expression of Godde and ends with a call for all humanity to be in relationships that are loving to one's self and the other.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
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</span></div></div>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-60845118439722028422010-10-04T12:38:00.000-07:002010-10-04T12:44:20.462-07:00How Do You Know If Something Is True? One of the first questions a thinking spiritual person needs to ask is: "How do I know if something is true?"<br />
It's important to ask because there are lots of different 'authorities' for truth. Historically, people have known things were 'true' by the following reasons:<br />
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1. <i>Because the community collectively agrees something is true</i>. The community agrees on a certain interpretation of events. As in: we were liberated from slavery, we experience that as an act of God, so from now on we when we tell the story of our liberation we will talk about it as an act of God. It is the community's truth. The community's truth becomes personal truth.<br />
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2. <i>Because our religious leaders (i.e. the church) tell us it is true.</i> In this scenario people defer to religious leaders. The final authority on spiritual matters and biblical interpretation is the Church. A good example of this is the Roman Catholic Church whose final authority lies with the Pope.<br />
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3. <i>Because the Bible says it's true. </i> This understanding was revolutionary in its day. No longer did people look to the Church as their authority for the 'truth'. The advent of the printing press and the Reformation commitment that people (including women) learn to read the Bible for themselves shifted the understanding of the Church as authority to the Bible as authority. That is where many religious people are stuck today: It's true because the Bible says so. And don't get me started with the ideas of truth and facts. The rise of scientific inquiry set theological thinking on its ear. As we began to value scientific fact we forgot to make the distinction between fact and truth. Here's a thought: the Bible may be true and NOT factual. But that is a whole other rant!<br />
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4. <i>Because my experience says it is true. </i>This is where feminists weigh in. If someone, anyone, any book, any thing, tells me that something is true that does not resonate with my experience then it is not true<i> for me. </i>So what if it resonates for someone else? Then it (whatever 'it' is) is true for them. Which leads us to understand a world in which there are many truths. <br />
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Clearly, I subscribe to the last idea of spiritual authority. Are there problems inherent with this perspective? Yes. But there are an equal number of safeguards. The greatest one being that those who fall in this camp accept that there are many (often conflicting) truths. <i> But</i> if your life experience is challenged by what another is saying is 'true', the onus is on you to trust yourself. By the same token, it is incumbent on each of us to honor that what is true for me may not be true for another.<br />
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Why is any of this important? It is not to water down faith, as some claim but, rather, it deepens our own relationship with ourselves and with Godde. It is important that we not try to shove ourselves into someone else's relational understanding of the Sacred like so many Cinderella stepsisters and find ourselves trying to fit into some preconceived understanding of relationship with Godde. Claiming the authority of our experience leaves the door open for growth and change, for our understandings to unfold as we experience life and love, tragedy and grief, spiritual events and Godde over time. To whit: it is not a static understanding of truth, but an organic understanding. <br />
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How do you know something is true? Or as my seminary professors would ask: what is your final authority? Can you trust yourself? Your experiences? Your integrity? Your willingness and ability to grow and change?<br />
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How do you know something is true? The answer to that question really matters.<br />
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<i></i> Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-15033321728302652522010-09-28T08:25:00.000-07:002010-09-28T08:39:53.826-07:00What I learned at Retreat The annual Circle of Grace Retreat closed Sunday with our worship back at home. Twenty-seven people (including eleven kids ages 6-15) gathered in the mountains to think, learn, pray, sing and 'do art'. As background for those who don't know me: this was not my first rodeo. Circle of Grace has gathered for a retreat nearly every year. Each time there has been a different combination of people, different themes, different spiritual practices, even different times of the year.<br />
Every time we go away and spend days and nights together we learn more about one another, laugh more, eat more, sing more and pray more. I am always in 'running' mode: keeping an eye on the details and the schedule, but sometimes I am also able to be, to sit, to listen, to share. And it is in those times that I learn a lot.<br />
Here are some things I learned (or relearned) at this (and other) retreat(s):<br />
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<ol><li> I don't get as uptight when I remember that people are funny and let myself be amused.</li>
<li>It is good for me to remember that I, too, am quirky and funny and it is okay when others are amused at my expense.</li>
<li>It is still true, as Art Linkletter told us: kid's say the darndest things. To my point, the highlight of the retreat for me was when the children led worship and one our kids wrote a prayer that included the line, "We hope you had a good weekend, Godde, because we sure did." </li>
<li>We all have something to teach each other, we all have things we can learn from each other.</li>
<li>Being in community is a challenge.</li>
</ol><div> Here is some important stuff I re- remembered about being in spiritual community:</div><ol><li>I re-remembered that the bottom line of what we are asked to do in spiritual community is this: we are asked to show up, to be present and bring all of who we are. That means to bring our broken bodies, broken hearts, our mental health challenges, our questions, our anger, our distrust as well as all of our good stuff: our sense of humor, our artistic inclinations, our voices (no matter how off-key or hoarse), our hopes and dreams, our love, and the dailiness of life. Our art project was to make collages using images and words that reflect who we each are as individuals. Mine included images of family, shared meals, emotionally traumatized grandchildren, being on a difficult journey with the scriptural reminder to 'be not afraid' in the background, and images of spiritual ecstasy. I try to show up with all of who every time we gather and invite each member of the community to do the same.</li>
<li>No one is perfect.</li>
<li>I am not perfect. (shit)</li>
</ol><div> Last, though certainly not least, is the challenge of being christian, feminist spiritual community requires so little and so much. After we show up, then what? How do we navigate through the waters of our differences? How do we deal with conflict? How do we be who we are called to be? I was reminded or I relearned this weekend that in addition to showing up there are only two (okay, three) other things we have to do. </div><div><ol><li>We need to claim each one as a child of Godde.</li>
<li>We need to be willing to share the 'Table' with one another and</li>
<li>We have to let go of trying to control the outcome of any situation, believing that if we have shown up, seen each other as children of Godde, broken bread, drunk the wine and shared the stories, then it is time to turn all outcomes over to Godde. That does not mean we don't continue to work on relationships or issues that arise in community, but that our tasks are grounded in viewing one another as Sacred beings and making room for one another's differences and flaws. Our commitment to working it out is embodied by our sharing holy meals. </li>
</ol><div> Turning things over to Godde, relinquishing control, those are hardest for me to keep in my brain. I find it difficult to believe there is not some way I can manage a situation. I have to keep learning this over and over. I am not in control. I am not in control. I am not in control. So I work on the other stuff: showing up, breaking bread, and seeing children of Godde everywhere. And I am grateful I have plenty of loving people in my community who remind me when I forget: I am not in control.</div></div><div><br />
</div>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7631187834811465956.post-52128494140305954912010-09-13T09:10:00.000-07:002010-09-14T07:23:11.249-07:00Re-Imagining the Wheel<div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">When there was a Re-Imagining Community (based in Minneapolis/St. Paul), Circle of Grace was a member. The Re-Imagining Community was an ecumenical movement working to challenge the patriarchy in church and society. One amazing year about half of us were able to go to Minneapolis and attend the Re-Imagining Conference. Feeling like we had set out on a journey without a map (creating feminist, progressive, spiritual community) we eagerly looked forward to meeting people who might loan us a compass.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">What we found was an amazing community of mostly women who were wrestling with our common issues in the setting of their traditional churches. The lectures we attended, the workshops and worship experiences were all forward looking. As amazed as we were to share the energy and the excitement of our time there and to meet others who shared our passion for ‘new wine’- we found that we were the ones actually doing/living the work. The ones living the theory. Independent of the mother church. (that includes: independent of mother church paycheck, healthcare, retirement benefits, physical structures, developed educational materials, polity, et. al.- the price we pay for apostasy.)</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">That means we reinvent a lot of wheels. One of those wheels is the idea of membership. People bring a lot of baggage to idea of membership. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I’m leading up to something here. Last Tuesday we had our monthly council meeting. At it we welcomed a new member. That may seem very ordinary, but coming up with a concept of membership has been a long evolutionary process for us. Early on, people had a lot of negative feelings about ‘membership’. The baggage they brought with them was that membership was coercive and restrictive. Membership, we were clear, did </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">not</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> mean a person signed on to a list of theological tenets. No indoctrination. What we ended up with as a statement of membership is that someone became a member ‘by declaration’- meaning: you’re a member if you say you are. When we applied for our 501(c)3 status our statement of ‘membership by declaration’ ignited a flurry of letters back and forth with the IRS.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It worked for a while, but there are problems inherent with that idea. The main one is that it is hard to value a relationship that asks nothing of you. It’s also difficult for a community to work when there is no stated accountability or mutuality. Our understanding of membership didn’t jive with our understanding of community. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Over the years our elected council has had numerous conversations about membership: how does one become a member? what does membership mean? Our most recent agreement is that to become a member a person is invited to meet with the council and share her or his spiritual journey, give time for the new member to ask questions of any council member, for one or more of us to share parts of our spiritual journeys (to reflect our commitment to mutuality). and then for us to read and commit to our covenant together, the council representing the entire community. (see our covenant on my first post)</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">This past Tuesday was our first actual experience of receiving a member this way. It was amazing! Our friend came with her daughter and shared her journey of spirit, her struggles, her joy, her anger, her passion. Then two members of council shared some of their journeys. We talked about making a place together for many different understandings and beliefs. What ties us together is not that we all believe the same things, but that we covenant to journey together. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Then came the time to read the covenant together and make those promises to one another. Any questions? Oh yes. We talked and wrestled and took seriously what we were covenanting together to do. And when our newest member felt she could, with integrity, covenant with us, we did. Together. Then we prayed and thanked Godde. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I experienced something profound in our sharing and covenanting. Something meatier and deeper can happen now. The ‘demands’ of our covenant on me, if I take them seriously, can and do give me structure for my journey, challenge me spiritually, and connect me more deeply with those whom I have made these promises.</span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We probably still have a lot to learn about what membership means. We will probably continue to have conversations about it, may even change our understanding of membership again one day. But as I sat around the table the other night, I found myself thinking that it is not such a bad thing to re-invent or, better yet, re-imagine the wheel every once and a while. </span></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>Connie Tuttlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14787107257826116739noreply@blogger.com0