Category: spirituality

I Guess It’s Up to the Angels Now

by Lynne Hinton

I guess it’s up to the angels now, their gossamer wings, glimmering and strong, wide and soft enough to cradle souls ready to go. Family members, hospice chaplains no longer permitted to hold their hands, whisper in their ears, “you did well, you can go. I forgive you. I will always love you.” Just heavenly messengers carrying the load once shared.

I guess it’s up to the angels now to teach the dying how to breathe from this world to the next, how to let go of what binds them to this earth, how not to be afraid, give them the strength they need to wrestle free from these bodies loaned to us, surround them with the peace we all should be allowed when we leave.

I guess it’s up to the angels now to touch fevered brows, wipe away tears, moisten tiny sponges and hold them to parched lips, to read sacred words, pray the prayers, sing the songs.

I guess it’s up to the angels now and so it shall be. And maybe it was always up to them. Maybe they were always there; we just didn’t see them or count on them or pray to them like we do now. Maybe they are doing what they have always done, whispering, cradling, touching, singing. Maybe nothing has changed in their world at all even as everything has changed in ours. And maybe, though we stand empty-handed behind doors and windows and phone screens, we somehow open ourselves to what we have not completely opened ourselves to before, to faith and hope, to let go of what we are now unable to do, to believe and surrender.

Perhaps it isn’t the dying who need so much after all. Maybe they’re just fine in their last hours, already looking ahead, already shed themselves of earthly attachments, exits already begun.

Maybe it’s those of us left behind in the greatest need, those of us without the proper goodbye for which we all so desperately cling. Maybe we’re the ones who most require the help, must look to something or someone beyond ourselves.

Maybe we are ultimately the ones requiring grace, the ones in need of divine assistance, the ones who struggle most as we find ourselves having to leave it all up to the angels now.

Rev. Lynne Hinton is the author of 21 books. She lives in Albuquerque and is a member of First Congregational UCC and works as a hospice chaplain and as a writing/journaling instructor for Bernalillo County Behavioral Health Department. She is married to Bob Branard.

First Church Mockingbird

guest post by James Pennington

During this season of COVID-19, I am much more aware of the sounds of the city in my neighborhood and in the courtyard of First Church, the location where I spend 5 – 8 hours of my day. 

At home, I have a mockingbird that has made the large tree in my front yard his singing perch. Whenever I leave my home in the morning, the mockingbird is there with its beautiful and exotic singing. On our Church campus, as I sit in the courtyard, a mocking bird arrives each morning between 8:00 and 8:30 am and perches on the highest exhaust vent on the northernmost roof of the sanctuary. (I have wondered if it is the same bird who follows me?) The mockingbird in the courtyard sings its heart out until about noon, periodically flying straight up about 2 feet, showing his brilliant feathers, and then dropping down to continue to sing on its metal perch.

Mockingbirds often mimic the sounds of birds (and frogs) around them, including shrikes, blackbirds, orioles, killdeer, jays, hawks, and many others. They go on learning new sounds throughout their lives. The song is a long series of phrases, with each phrase repeated 2-6 times before shifting to a new sound; the songs can go on for 20 seconds or more. Many of the phrases are whistled, but mockingbirds also make sharp rasps, scolds, and trills. Unmated males are the most insistent singers, carrying on all day and late into the night.

I don’t know if the First Church mockingbird is an unmated male or female, but what I do know is that its song is ever-changing and simply beautiful beyond description. It seems to me, this mockingbird never makes the same sound twice. Its song and antics fill my ears and eyes and heart with joy.  The mockingbird who has been visiting our campus every morning for a week and a half may have been present for months. But because I have been slowing down, being “fully” present outside, and hearing more of nature because humanity is increasingly more silent, I have noticed the mockingbird.  And I have also noted that the sound of the mockingbird is not the only bird or human sound on our campus, but it is one of the loudest and most soul-nourishing. 

As I listen to the bird mocking, I am reminded of Jesus’ words to his worried, anxious, perplexed followers:

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Parent feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” (Matthew 6:26)

Or from the Message paraphrase which I actually really like: “Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.”

I love the way these two different expressions of the same saying of Jesus play off each other.

I am asking myself, what is this mockingbird teaching me/us? Look more deeply at this bird, James.

  • Is it time to change my “song”?
  • Do I keep singing the same old tired song over and over and over? Am I stuck?
  • Am I being encouraged to be less tethered to my “job description” of who and what I am supposed to be and be more in the moment, singing and flapping to a new song?
  • As my retirement account shrinks, am I being reminded that what I have stored away in my barn and banks is impermanent and less important than the value of the people around me?
  • Am I being reminded to breathe deeply and let the Spirit of God lift me up into the air so I can have a different perspective on what is really important in this life? A bird’s eye view (pun intended!)?

The mockingbird has many positive symbolic meanings, including joyfulness, cleverness, playfulness, security, and communication. In the book “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the mockingbird symbolizes innocence.
Mockingbirds are known for being very intelligent and protective of their families. There are many myths about mockingbirds. Certain tribes of Native Americans once believed the mockingbird taught people how to speak, while others see mockingbirds as guardians of the dead. Cherokees used to have their children eat mockingbird heads in the belief it would make them smarter.

When the Mockingbird comes into our lives it can be a message that we need to rethink how we work, interact and communicate with others. Are we accommodating? Are we being flexible? The Mockingbird way is to listen first, then respond. This is one of its greatest lessons for humans.  The Mockingbird is very playful. Few birds have the kind of bright vitality and obvious revelry. So when this happy bird flies into our lives it is a cue for us to frolic, and suspend our severity for a time. Enjoy, relax, and take time to appreciate the pleasureful things in our lives.

For me, and for Jesus, I am looking to the birds, to a mockingbird, at least for today and this time. Teach me, teach us, feathered visitor, to suspend my severity for a time and find playful moments during the season of COVID 19. Allow our minds and hearts to relax and take time to appreciate the sights and sounds we may have missed for years because our “job descriptions” and storage barns have taken our eyes and ears off of what is really important. 

The First Church mockingbird is calling to each of us rethink how we work, how we interact with those who are familiar to us and those who are strangers. COVID 19 and social isolation are giving us plenty of time to hear and answer the call. The mockingbird is calling us to sing a new song, a melody released by the Spirit of God in each one of us, a gift to the world.  

A Cardinal Lesson in Discernment

by Teresa Blythe

I have not always been sure of what I wanted to do with my life, but I have an uncanny ability to know deep within what I do not want—especially in what you might call “defining moments” of my life. 

In the late ’90s, I served as a low-level public relations assistant for the government transit agency in Baltimore, assigned all the tasks that the director of communications didn’t want to do. We were hosting the Catholic Cardinal one day as we dedicated the opening of a new subway station near the Cathedral, so I wore my nicest skirted suit. 

As the Cardinal spoke, it was clear the sound system wasn’t working properly. It made no difference that there were two men, in pants, staffing this event alongside me—I was ordered to step onstage during the speech, get on my knees, reach under the robe of the holy man, and adjust the sound. After the event, my boss ribbed me about “getting to fiddle around under the Cardinal’s robe” It was then I realized this job had run its course, and public relations was not a good fit for me.  

Leaving that job, I went to seminary in the hope that my theological leanings would lead to a career. Everyone, including me, expected I would become an ordained minister. But part of seminary training is exposure to a variety of ministries and ministers. And what I discovered was a general malaise that set in for many clergy after doing the job for five or more years. These men and women of God talked a lot about “callings” and “loving the people”—in the abstract. In reality, they were lonely, tired and depleted. I became tired just being around them. Some of them had personality types like my own, and I realized that if they couldn’t cut it, neither could I. I just didn’t have the mettle to be a parish minister. And I knew that if I ignored that “no” and pushed forward anyway I would have a lot harder time leaving that job than I did saying goodbye to the job that had me crawling onstage with the Cardinal. So, with a bit of sadness, I crossed “parish pastor” off my list. 

I wondered what I would ever be willing to say “yes” to?

While in seminary, I also studied to become a spiritual director—a person trained in listening and helping people along their spiritual journeys. We look for signs of energy, desire, life, and joy—clues that God is doing a new or significant thing in the person’s life. We look for the “yes” and pay close attention to the “no,” which is a key principle in the spiritual discipline of discernment.

As I learned how to walk with others, I found my own passions. Being a former broadcaster and having that short-lived career in public relations meant that I had done a lot of writing over the years. Now it was time to write about things that really mattered.

It began with articles, essays, book reviews and finally co-authoring a book. I was saying “yes” all over the place, and amazingly, people were responding. Then came an offer to write someone else’s book. It looked like a great career move, but a little voice deep inside me was saying that old familiar “no.” I pondered. Weighed the pros and cons. Consulted with mentors and elders. No. No. No. As certainly as I did not want to duck under the robe of the holy Cardinal, I did not want to write someone else’s book.

That’s when I learned the “cardinal” lesson of discernment. It is only in hindsight that we know with any certainty whether the path we chose was the right one, and that’s OK. As we keep looking back, we discover what we need to know to move forward. That visceral “no” is an important voice to honor. In fact, sometimes I think that’s the voice more good people in the world need to obey. It’s heartbreaking to see someone who says “yes” to every offer that comes down the road and become a scattered mess. Perhaps they heard the shout of “no” a few times but ignored it and now they are burned out and looking for the escape route.

That “no” taught me that, because life is short, I need to pursue what I am specifically made by God to do, even if it’s not all that clear at the moment. I need to write what I want to write, be around people who are full of life and help others along their spiritual journey. 

And, of course–never, ever, work for someone who demands that I crawl under a Cardinal’s robe.

Ideas for reflecting on listening to the “no:”

  • When is the last time you honored a “no” that you felt in your heart? How did it work out?
  • How did you discover your life’s work? If you have not yet found your way, what tools are you using for discernment?

Practice: Using the Quaker image of the “stop in the mind” as part of your discernment process. When you feel an urge to slow down or stop around a particular request made of you, take time to explore that. It could mean saying no is what’s best. Or it could mean you need more information, or that now is not the time. The “stop in the mind” can be important discernment information about how God’s spirit relates to us.

Why I Became a Spiritual Director

by Teresa Blythe

The practice of spiritual direction rescued me. I never felt I fit into the conservative church I grew up in, so I set out as a young adult to find a spiritual path that focused on God’s unconditional love of creation.

The journey took considerable time. My new path had little to do with the institutional church. I didn’t discover it in worship, bible studies, social justice activism or through the adoption of a new theology. I found it by way of a Presbyterian minister who was in training to be a spiritual director. From the very moment I entered spiritual direction, I knew I wanted to be exploring my experience, values, and beliefs the rest of my life.

A Safe Place

The spiritual direction relationship was a safe port in the storm of my connection with Christianity. It also gave me the tools and the space for discernment—especially around vocation.

When I entered spiritual direction in the late 1980’s I had no thoughts of pursuing ministry. I was busy developing a career as a radio news journalist. My need for spiritual direction was solely about healing my image of God. And it was working—I was healing.

As I moved from market to market trying to make a living in what was turning out to be a shrinking field, I was fortunate to find many able and experienced spiritual directors along the way. The work I did in spiritual direction gradually changed me, showing me a greater depth of purpose in life.

The Call

By the mid-90’s, I was broadcasting 100-second news updates for a Baltimore rock station with a “Morning Zoo” format, fondly referred to in the business as a trio of “the d–k, the dork and the (news) girl.” My epiphany—my “call narrative,” so to speak, came when the two DJs brought in a female stripper to entertain them at work. While I’m not a prude, inviting a stripper to a radio show seemed useless, even counterproductive to me. Still, I played it cool, reading the news on air as she danced for the guys. Walking out of that studio, heading back to my closet (literally—they had me work out of a closet) I heard a tiny voice say “I want more than this for you.”

For me that meant attending the Ecumenical Institute of St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore at nights while continuing to be part of the Morning Zoo. From there I headed to San Francisco Theological Seminary because it had a training program for spiritual directors.

Giving Back

Wanting to give to others what I had received was a driving force for me vocationally. I thought I would work mostly with people—like me—who were refugees from fundamentalism. What I’ve come to appreciate is the variety of experience, concerns, and spiritual needs in the world. We’re all refugees from something. Everyone who enters spiritual direction has wounds, desires and beliefs worth paying attention to. We all need sacred space filled with compassion, deep listening, and reverence.

That’s why I became a spiritual director.

The year I became a nonviolent universalist

by Karen Richter

Note: our 2020 Annual Meeting (April 24-26 at The Good Shepherd UCC in Sahuarita, AZ) theme is Stories That Transform. Humans are meaning-making, storytelling creatures. In the weeks leading up to AM2020, the SWC blog will feature posts that highlight this aspect of our human journey.

Two things happened in my senior year of high school that have helped form my character. Like most of us, I’m barely recognizable as the same person that I was all those years ago, but two experiences over that year have set me on a course to be who I am now.

The first was in Washington DC. My biology class was visiting the Capitol area and the national aquarium in Baltimore. I had visited the monuments before with family, but on this trip, we walked through the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. At that time, I could not have found Vietnam on a map or told you anything of significance regarding American involvement in that conflict. I knew vaguely that I had born around that time and that friends of my parents had been drafted.

As I walked along that stark wall, I cried. My friends wanted to be helpful… they inquired about my tears. Had I lost someone close to me? Was I homesick or heartbroken? I had no good answers. “I just hate war,” I kept saying. It was the emotional reaction of an adolescent – wanting to be special, discovering who she might become – but the idea of nonviolence, of a life committed to peacemaking has stayed with me.

The second event was less dramatic… just a phone conversation. My parents’ house had a single rotary dial telephone in the kitchen. To have a private conversation, I would walk a couple of steps down the stairway to the basement and snake the phone cord under the door. I was pretty conventionally churchy in those days and I had a friend whose soul I was very sincerely trying to save. This seems nearly laughable now, but again, adolescent emotions were involved. ‘Just how does this work….?’ my friend wondered. And I had my opening! Out of my mouth poured all of the atonement theology I had absorbed in 17 years…

“There’s a price to pay for sin.”

“God is righteous.”

“Humans don’t deserve eternal life.”

And as those words poured out, they seemed to crash down on the steep wooden steps where I was sitting. And I sat there, listening to my own words, and no longer believing in what had moments before been so important.

In that year (1988 in case you were wondering), I became a nonviolent universalist. The content of my intellectual faith assents (like miracles and healings and virgin births and even bodily resurrection) has ebbed and flowed through the years, but these identities have remained.

To share a story from your life, please email Wende Gonzales at wgonzales@uccswc.org

For inspiration, click over to this Medium article with advice from Pixar.

Works Without Faith Can be Deadening, Too

by Teresa Blythe

Within the Christian context, most of us know the passage in James that says “faith without works is dead.” And that is certainly true. But what I observe in many churches (especially progressive liberal ones) is that “works without faith are deadening.”

Both are true — they are two sides of the same coin. We are over the age-old conflict that pits contemplation and action against one another (activists complaining that contemplatives need to get off their meditation cushions and get to work, and contemplatives complaining that activists need to get on their meditation cushions, slow down and listen to what God may be saying for a change).

Where do you fit?
As much as those of us who hate dualism want the two sides to learn from one another, it appears that each of us leans toward one end of the spectrum.

Are you the action-oriented person of faith?

Or are you the faith-oriented person of action?

We need each other
The denomination I’m ordained into — the United Church of Christ (UCC) — leans toward action-oriented people of faith. I’m drawn to this denomination because it’s inclusive, compassionate, and seeks to follow Jesus as he “overturns the tables of injustice” wherever they are found.

These injustice-fighters are fiercely wholehearted and necessary to the body of Christ.

They are also exhausted. Because works that are not balanced with attention to faith, inner spirit and listening to God tend to become compulsive and can easily lose their focus.

Key question #1
Is what I am doing ultimately giving me life and renewal within or is it draining me of life?

While my contemplative struggle is to find where and how I plug into social activism with integrity and energy, the activists’ struggle is to find time to stop and take spiritual inventory.

This is a very hard question for activist Christians to ask themselves. The first reaction from them is “it’s not about me, it’s about the cause.” Problem is, we can’t take on every cause. Energy is finite and choices have to be made. So maybe it is a little bit about you!

Key question #2
To those who are exhausted from works that have become disengaged with faith and spiritual practice I usually have one question: What exactly has God called you to do right now?

If you’ve spent considerable time in prayer and reflection and if you find you have the energy to continue the work, great. It’s probably in alignment with what God is asking you to do. If you have not spent time in prayer and discernment and you are losing energy, working compulsively and ignoring your own inner needs, then maybe it’s time to take a short sabbatical and find renewal.

You don’t have to do it alone
These kinds of questions are what I love about being in a spiritual direction relationship. When we become unbalanced, our spiritual directors can help us find out where the imbalance is. And once we are aware of it, we can make changes so that our faith has works and our works have faith.

Laying Out the Napkins

by Karen Richter

There are a couple of questions that have captured my imagination in adulthood. The first one is “Do I want a contemplative life?” This question came to me in the midst of training as a spiritual director at Hesychia. The program (it’s awesome, by the way) assumes that participants are approaching maturity in their spiritual practice. My Hesychia cohort and my own spiritual director have been immense help in wrestling with this question… which remains open for me and serves as a guidepost.

The second question is “What does contemplation during the season of raising children look like?” This too is an open question, but I will share with you one answer that I’ve discovered.

Contemplation is laying out the napkins.

My children are older (22, 17, and 13 yikes) but most nights we still sit down together to a meal that I’ve prepared. Often evenings feel hurried. People have places to be and things they want do be doing. Yet there’s a moment – the microwave has beeped and the pasta has drained. The carrots are cut and the sauce has thickened. Everything is ready. But I pause. I lay out napkins and fill water glasses. I pause and I breathe before I call everyone to dinner.

It’s nothing, really. Just seconds, a mere moment of being present and grateful. Silent retreats and long sessions of prayer might be a larger part of my life in another season. For now, I’ll continue laying out the napkins.

Performance

by Karen Richter

I love reading Slate’s advice columns. Recently, I read advice from teachers to parents at the start of the school year. The first response involved a teacher asking parents to think through their request for extra information about their child’s school experience. Specifically, the teacher said that parents often tell her, “Share with me everything always.” And of course, this is not really feasible or even beneficial for most families or most teachers. 

But it got me thinking: why would a parent even say that? Is Parent X really expecting a daily stream-of-consciousness report from their progeny’s teacher? Probably not.

Here is my suspicion: We say things that we assume others are expecting to hear, and we say things that give others a certain impression of who we are. In this specific situation, there is a special kind of anxiety for a parent when meeting with their child’s teacher. Many parents would admit that it’s important that their child’s teacher have a positive impression. We want to be “good parents,” with all the baggage of expectations that label entails. In all kinds of situations (not just parenting at the beginning of the school year), we’re prone to the same behavior: performance. We humans are always asking, “What is expected of me?” The game of managing, meeting, exceeding the expectations of others around us takes a lot of our energy. It’s exhausting, actually. To make matters worse, the more time we spend on The Performance Game the more difficult it becomes to recognize when we’re playing it.

What if we stopped?

What if our churches became places where people practiced NOT performing? A few years ago, a friend from church talked with me about a Sunday morning struggle. There are those weeks, she explained, when you and your partner are fussing and cranky with one another, the children are slow in getting ready, and the counter top is sticky. So you rush through the routine, pile in the car to get to church… and plaster a believable-enough smile on your face and pretend to be happy and normal.

And then we might wonder why our relationships seem to be shallow and why we carry around a vague sense of malaise and ennui all the time. We might wonder why our churches are so often seen as ineffective or even hypocritical.

What’s the cure for The Performance Game?

As usual, the cures are simple but not easy. Here are my top 3 Performance Anxiety Busting Superstars:

  1. friendship

Have friends and let them really see you. Friendship magic happens when we stop cleaning up before friends arrive to our home. This is also one of the greatest blessings of rough times: when it is obvious (so so obvious!) that our lives are not perfect, we can stop pretending that they are and let our real selves show up. I am writing today all the things I need to practice the most, and this is a big one. Slowly but surely, I’m starting to recognize and appreciate what Real Me sounds like and how she’s different from Performing Me.

I take comfort in the friends of Jesus… how they were continually bumbling and misunderstanding, jockeying for power and getting it 100% wrong. Yet Jesus trusted them with All. The. Things. 

2. nature

Get yourself out-of-doors! Let the lovely imperfections of creation teach you.

3. meditation

Don’t be tempted by a special edition of The Performance Game: The Spirituality Expansion box. I’m writing again to myself. The pull of performance and the desire to have others see us as ‘spiritual’ is strong in me. 

So I remind us both: Just sit and breathe. Your mind will wander and distract you with thoughts because that is what minds do. Just keep sitting and breathing. 

Prayer for Today:

Spirit of Life, You are Reality Itself. I so want to be real too. Remind me of the realness in my faith tradition: the women who sang victory, the boy who shared lunch, the friends who stayed close, the dreamers and the pray-ers and the poets. Thank you for the gifts of friendship, simplicity, creation, and breath. Amen.

Pastors Cover the Who, What and Why; Spiritual Directors cover the How

by Teresa Blythe

As the last great generalists in our increasingly niche economy, pastors do a lot and they do it well. They preach the good news; advocate for a more just society; cast a vision for their congregation; and encourage Christians to live and work in community.

Pastors cover the “who, what and why” of the Christian faith. But where it breaks down for so many in the pews is the “how.” People want to know what it means in this 21st century world to be a Jesus follower. People want to know how to pray in their daily lives and how to apply their faith to complicated and important situations they face.

How do I do what the pastor is talking about?

The question of “how do I live out this faith I’m hearing about at church?” is the terrain of the trained and experienced spiritual director. Which is why I am encouraging church leaders—pastors, Christian educators, council moderators, church musicians and worship planners—to warm up to a local spiritual director for support, encouragement and help with discernment. Church leaders and spiritual directors can work together to fill in gaps between theology and practice.

Sermons only go so far

I remember once hearing a beautiful sermon in a progressive church about the importance of being in close, personal relationship with Jesus. (Yes the preacher defied the convention of the day by actually talking about getting to know Jesus personally). It was inspiring but she failed to address how this relationship is built. But she’s not the only one guilty. I recall as a child in a conservative Christian church that the only “how” we were given was one prayer we needed to pray to be close to Jesus.

How does a thinking person in the 21st century get to know a spiritual figure from the first century? Spiritual directors will tell you it’s by finding inner stillness within yourself (meditation), spending time in a prayer practice that fits for your personality, dialoguing with Jesus (or another spiritual figure) in your journal, putting yourself imaginatively in a scripture setting, walking a labyrinth, spending time in nature, paying attention to your dreams, figuring out who Jesus is for you, and …..well the list goes on and on. It’s different for every person because we are all made so differently.

Bridging the Gap

Some churches understand this gap between what is taught and what is practiced. They are the ones who have incorporated spiritual formation training for adult members so that this bridge can be built in community. If this is something your church would like to explore, a spiritual director would be the perfect consultant, educator or assistant to get a program going.

There are times, also, that individuals need private and confidential assistance. Pastors know who these people are because they come to their offices frequently for counseling. When the questions are of a spiritual nature or hover around practical theology, a referral to spiritual direction can be helpful. While most spiritual directors are fee-based, churches can usually work out arrangements where people who cannot pay may still receive at least a few sessions of spiritual direction.

Getting down to business

So find a spiritual director in your area and start the conversation! How can we help our people find the spiritual practice that will sustain them beyond Sunday worship? How can we assist our members in discerning where God is leading them in their everyday lives? How can we become more in touch with the movement of the Spirit within this congregation?

Let’s make sure we give the “how” of faithful living as much energy as the who, what and why.

Contact information

To find a spiritual director in the Southwest Conference of the UCC, check out this webpage. There are listings of spiritual directors at the website for Spiritual Directors International. For more about spiritual direction as I practice it, please check out my website and the Phoenix Center for Spiritual Direction.

Teresa Blythe is the founder of the Phoenix Center for Spiritual Direction at First UCC in Phoenix. She is a longtime spiritual director for individuals, groups and organizations and is Director of the Hesychia School of Spiritual Direction at the Redemptorist Renewal Center in Tucson. Teresa is author of the book 50 Ways to Pray and the Patheos blog Spiritual Direction 101. 

On the Move

by John Indermark

Modern physics understands that the smallest elements of matter are in constant motion. What appears to be solid, be it your kitchen table or your body, is actually a vibrating collection of subatomic “stuff.” Were it not for forces at work within atoms, the illusion of solidity might spin off into nothingness. I try not to lose sleep over being poised on the edge of that precipice. I need a comfort zone of dependability. How else could I live?

So consider a similar dynamic at work in faith, whether in the heart of an individual or the spirit of a community: we largely prefer to live in comfort zones constructed of what we have come to depend upon in our belief systems. I believe that to be true whether one identifies as a die-hard conservative or flaming liberal or any manner of faith position in between. How did we get that way? Our experiences. Our traditions. Our encounters with God. As best we can, we put those things together and package our faith in a way that makes sense. How else could we live?

There is only one problem with this tendency: God. God’s quicksilver-like resistance to be poured into one shape or fit into one box eludes our control. Just when we think we have this faith-thing nailed down and dependable, God goes contrarian. Ask the folks addressed in Ezekiel 10. Everybody KNEW God dwelt in the Jerusalem temple. That was the covenant, the agreement. God would stay put, no matter what. You could always count on that, if nothing else. How else could they live?

But the “nothing else” of exile came to pass – and God didn’t stay put. God moved beyond the Temple door, beyond the city gates of Jerusalem, beyond the Promised land. As Ezekiel saw it, God had wheels and wings: and God was in motion. God’s freedom was, and remains, a potentially sobering sight. All of our constructions (or is it constrictions?) of God, whether liturgical or theological or political, only have a piece of the Mystery. We catch a glimpse, we receive a promise, we partake a grace. But just when we think we have God all figured out, wheels start spinning and wings start flapping. God proves elusive at every attempt to be boxed in to our favored tradition or pet presumption.

So how can faith survive in the face of God’s boundless freedom, and not spin off into nothingness? Ezekiel’s glimpse of the mystery reveals God’s freedom to be not capricious, but purposefully aimed toward hope. When God leaves Jerusalem, the Presence moves east: the direction of the exiles. God’s freedom did not move God to abandon them, nor us. God’s freedom moves God to find us, to lead us to places whose possibilities we might never have known had it not been for the God too large for any box to contain. Ezekiel’s God has wheels and wings! Does ours?