Grace and Grit

         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.

        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 can be. Who we aspire to be. 

        Then the demands of twenty-first century life fracture our attention. Time becomes our most precious commodity. Living in the now, in each present moment is a godly challenge.

        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 now. 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.

        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. 

        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.  

        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.

        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. 

        Those messy, difficult places open us to profound, sacred experience. We only need to name it. 
        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. 

        
          

        

        

rant

Sometimes I just want to rant.

I want to rant about all the people who talk about religion with all the authority of ignorance.

I want to rant about all the people who talk about religion with all the authority of dogma.

I want to rant about all the people who defile grace with doctrine and love with limitations.

I want to rant about ministers who do not minister.

About denominations that are corporations.

I guess the question for me is:  On what side do we err?

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)?

Or do we err on the side of love? 

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?

Why is there even the possibility of a choice?  Okay, that may not be as serious a question as the others but 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.

Thousands of years ago Joshua said, "as for me and my house, we will serve Adonai."

Today I say, "as for me and my house we will serve Love."

We will serve Love when it stretches us and makes us uncomfortable.

We will serve Love when it is considered foolishness.

We will serve Love without binding it and be dragged along into its wildness.

I think when one serves Love, one (meaning me, in this instance) is just along for the ride.

Is it easy? comfortable? profitable?  not usually.

Is it rich, deep, wide, wild and passionate?  always.

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.

Is it what followers in the Way of Jesus are called to?

New Year's Inventory

     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.


     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.


     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:


1- as St. Benedict reminds us, always we begin again.  Each new day and week and month and year offers the opportunity to choose to begin again.
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.
3-  inventory is like confession, it is a time of seeing ourselves clearly so that we might be more mindful of our choices.


      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. 


     And so each year we look around and ask: who is not at the table?  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?


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.


Maybe once a year is not enough.

Ebb and Flow

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.


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? 


Either way, in times of ebbing, I find myself the least faithful.  My prayer life suffers.  My sermon preparation suffers.  I question my ministry. Has Godde truly called me to this work or is this all about me?  


I don't have answers to any of these questions.  Well, I do know it is not all about me.  And I do recognize my dark side (for those familiar with the enneagram I am an almost redeemed four). My internal conversation in ebbing times is my struggle with my dark side: doubt, fear, hopelessness.   


I am not proud of any of this but I need and want to be honest.  This blog is about the good and the bad 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.


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.  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.  


Frankly, I'm ready for some flowing.

What if There is No Godde?

I'm not asking the question you think I am.
I am asking a question that makes my heart ache.


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.  


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.


I wonder about these things especially now in the Advent and Christmas season.  I ache for children who spend this month focused on 'stuff' 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.


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.


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.


Of course, this can be both good and bad but I like C.S. Lewis's assertion in his collection of lectures, The Abolition of Man, 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.)   


Further, I 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.  


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.


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.


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.

What Makes a Spiritual Community Christian?

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.


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."


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.


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 experiential idea 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.


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.
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.  


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.


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 don't do that, I'm just saying that this is how some Christians define their Christianity.


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.


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?  


Okay,  the bottom line is that I don't have an answer to what seems to be a profoundly easy question.    

What makes a spiritual community feminist?

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?"


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.


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:
        
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.


Spelled out it means: 


 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 central to feminist thought.


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 is father,etc.


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 become the promises of Godde."


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.  


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...).


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?"   


And isn't it great that it can mean so many different things?