Southwest Conference Blog

A Life of Response

I recently saw a brief video about a woman who, through a set of movements, opened a theater for dance in the middle of a desert town of less than 100 people. Often no one would come, so she would just dance in the empty theater. Eventually she painted in an audience and the place is beautiful. (the video is at the end of this blog). As I watched I felt a kinship with this woman. Her life was one of a response to Life.

As I get ready to celebrate 10 years of Pathways of Grace, the celebration is more of a gratitude for a life of response to God. When I began, I literally sold much of what I had, including my car, and downsized to a life that would hopefully be supported by this sense of creating a safe place for people to listen and share deeply to their own responding to the Divine. At that time, I called this Creative Journey 3. Many of you remember calling my cozy home the “hermitage of heretics”: a place you could voice your ideas, doubts, and responses to Infinite Mystery in ways you couldn’t elsewhere.

As the years have passed, the groups and my spiritual direction/coaching practice has grown and we have this beautiful space. The fun part is that others who are responding to God are showing up and sharing their dances. I can’t tell you what a joy it is to dance with others and watch the new energy of the Spirit create something that none of us fully knows how it will end up. This celebration is a time to highlight some of the new people sharing their gifts. I look forward to your meeting them!

With this Energy comes new and deeper releasing into the movement of Infinite Mystery. As I watch this unfold, I realize Pathways of Grace, rather than “building” something, is a about responding to Love. What is created out of that is co-created rather than master-planned. This celebration, we will be sharing some of the new movements that we will be practicing.

Through the years there are times when the group doesn’t materialize, yet I dance anyway. The audience becomes the great cloud of witnesses and the Presence of Love. I will continue to dance as a response of gratitude for the gift of creating a space to dance authentically. Thank you all for joining me on this amazing journey. Ultimately, this celebration is a time of gratitude for each of you being willing to respond to Love’s call to dance.

Here is the video:

Climate Change Awareness: The Fight for Future Generations

Climate Change Awareness: The Fight for Future Generations^[i]

by Amos Smith

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. -Proverbs 31:8 (NIV)

I was drawn to the United Church of Christ (UCC) because of its legacy of fighting for social justice.

The first anti-slavery tract ever written in America, called “The Selling of Joseph,” was written by the Congregationalist, Samuel Sewall. The first black man ever ordained in the United States was Congregationalist minister Lemuel Haynes in 1785. The first woman ever ordained in America was the Congregationalist minster Antoinette Brown Blackwell in 1852. The Congregationalist Church, a forbearer of the UCC, constantly stuck its neck out on behalf of those on the margins. Congregational Church members were on the forefront of Women’s Suffrage, Native American rights, the Civil Rights Movement, and Gay Rights.

Now there’s a greater threat to social justice than in any prior generation. At this precise point in history all future generations are threatened. We are hanging over a precipice. The precipice is climate change.

Ninety-seven percent of the scientific community in the United States and abroad agree that the earth’s temperature is rising and that it will continue to rise at an ever accelerating rate.^[ii] Some will say, “Stop right there Amos. I have heard that the earth goes through cyclical climate change and that we are just in another cycle of heat that will be followed by a cooling cycle.” If you have heard this message it’s because the Koch brothers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars so that you hear this message. And yes it’s true that the earth goes through cyclical climate change. Yet, the industrial revolution and the rapid burning of coal and fossil fuels brought an abrupt change that is incomparable to the normal cycles of climate change of preceding generations.

Scientists tell us that 350 parts per million of carbon molecules in the air is sustainable. Back in the days prior to the Industrial Revolution there were 275 parts per million of carbon in the air. As I write this we are at 401 parts per million of carbon molecules in the earth’s atmosphere. And scientists predict that in one hundred years there will be 800 parts per million of carbon molecules in the air.

800 parts per million of carbon in the air will drastically change everything! Water tables will rise and whole countries will be flooded and obliterated.^[iii] Masses of people will be displaced and reduced to refugee camps. And refugees are easy prey for sex traffickers, drug lords, and organized crime. The earth’s temperatures will continue to rise (the highest temperatures in recorded history happened in 2014!). And species sensitive to climate will go extinct at faster rates disrupting the delicate balance of numerous eco-systems. The book of Job says “Ask the beasts and they will teach you” (Job 12:7). The alarming rate of extinctions on the planet tells us something! Every decade we see an alarming escalation in the number of extinctions.^[iv]

Given our predicament, it’s time for a whole new vision of what it means to be successful! The new vision will place resilience before growth, vision before convenience, and accountability in place of disregard.

A recent poll indicated that 83% of Americans think we should do something about climate change even if it costs.^[v]

Proverbs encourages us to “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute!”

I am compelled to speak on behalf of future generations. We have a responsibility to the future!

We’re the first generation that’s aware of the time-bomb of climate change and the devastating effects climbing carbon levels will have on our world. We are also the last generation who can make a big difference in the trajectory of this time-bomb.

It will take the magic connective interplay of the Holy Spirit to change our current trajectory. People on opposite ends of the playing field (environmentalists and big oil) will eventually have to join together to save our skins. There’s no other way.

This is the current gridlock… Environmentalists say that all fossil fuel burning energy will have to be cut back by eighty percent over the next fifteen years. Then the response of big oil interests like the Koch brothers is to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to discredit the hard science behind climate change. The reason for this massive campaign to discredit sober scientific realities of climate change is that oil companies have calculated that they have roughly 22 trillion more dollars of oil that’s still in the ground. This is their anticipated profit over the ensuing decades.^[vi]

One thing is for certain: if the gridlock between environmentalists and big oil continues future generations are doomed.

The only way out will be for the gas and coal burning titans to realize that for their children’s sake and for their grandchildren’s sake coal and gas burning technologies need to be rapidly phased out! Then hundreds of millions of dollars (a fraction of the 22 trillion in anticipated oil sales) needs to be invested in top engineering minds at M.I.T. and elsewhere to devise means of leaching carbon molecules from the earth’s atmosphere.^[vii] If Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project could split the atom, then top engineering minds of today can find a way to leach carbon molecules from the atmosphere. This will buy us some time!

Settle down environmentalists! This is not a “technological way out that lets the oil companies off the hook.” This is called pragmatism! This is called paradoxical thinking! We let sophisticated engineering and sophisticated technology buy us some time. And meanwhile we plant trees, we convert massive tracts of land into land trusts, we buy electric cars,^[viii] we buy organic food, we plant gardens, we invest in solar and other clean energies, we completely divest from oil, and we cut back the number of children we plan to have.^[ix]

The ensuing catastrophe of climate change will bring sweeping devastation to generations unborn.^[x] They matter! Their future matters. We must fight for them!

Every time there is a baby shower it should become a politicized event! And at the baby shower everyone should be encouraged to write their local and national representatives urging them to fight climate change!

Our Judeo-Christian covenant is to generations yet born: “I am making a covenant between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come” (Genesis 9:12). This is also called The Golden Rule 2.0: “Do unto future generations what you would have them do unto you” (see Matthew 7:12).

Our minds are hardwired not to evaluate huge abstract threats. That’s the conclusion of George Marshall’s book, Don’t Even Think About It. Yet, for the sake of future generations we are compelled by our conscience to think about climate change and act on it!

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, the top leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church, has been working on climate change since the 1990s. On June 18^th, 2015 Pope Francis initiated an encyclical on the environment, which may prove to be the turning point for climate change awareness.^[xi] Vatican Cardinal Peter Turkson, who helped write the first draft of the encyclical, recently called global inequality and the destruction of the environment the twin “greatest threats we face as a human family today.”^[xii] Pope Francis said, “we have a moral obligation to all creatures alive and yet unborn to care for all creation.”

I encourage you to do something after reading this essay. I encourage you, if you haven’t already, to get the ball rolling in one of three areas 1) move toward using public transportation more frequently or toward swapping out your gas-guzzler for a hybrid or emission free vehicle. 2) Put solar panels on your house or business 3) Pull your money from companies who profit from oil and invest in a green mutual fund.^[xiii]

[i] A number of the ideas in this essay were taken from climate change lectures of United Church of Christ Conference Minister Jim Antal on April 17^th and 18^th 2015 in Sedona, Arizona.

[ii] The American Association for the Advancement of Science has an eight page paper titled “What We Know: The Reality, Risks, and Responses to Climate Change”

[iii] According to author Ross Gelbspan and others, lands that are the closest to sea level, such as the Marshall Islands, will be the first to go.

[iv] Wikipedia. “Extinction.”

[v] USA Today. “Poll: 83% of Americans say climate is changing.” December 2, 2014.

[vi] In other words, currently 1% of the population is trying to maximize their profits and don’t soberly consider the impact on future generations because it threatens their business and their way of life.

[vii] David Keith, CEO of Carbon Engineering, argues that spraying the stratosphere with sulfuric acid will cool the planet.

[viii] Better yet, buy a hydrogen powered vehicle!

[ix] See Bill McKibbin’s book on this subject titled Maybe One: A Personal and Environmental Argument for Single Child Families.

[x] It’s hard to predict what will happen in future generations. Some phenomena are certain like errant storms and weather patterns, rising water tables, melting glaciers, extinction and waning bio-diversity. Yet, an unstable system will act in unpredictable ways. One possibility is a new Ice Age for Europe and the Northern Hemisphere…

[xi] You can read the English translation of the Encyclical and find resources that will help you interpret the Encyclical here: http://www.climatewitness.org/pope-francis-encyclical.html

[xii] American Thinker Blog.

[xiii] The leaders of green mutual funds are Green Century, Aquinas, and Domini.

Holding Out for a Hero

by Karen Richter

Since I read A Wrinkle in Time in the 5th grade, Madeleine L’Engle has been my favorite author. In high school, I graduated from the Time Quartet and into Ring of Endless Light. In college, I took up L’Engle’s Crosswicks Journals, adult novels, and spiritual writing.

I loved her. In my head, she was my wise grandmother, full of literary references and charming idiosyncrasies. So imagine my dismay, sadness and confusion when I read the 2004 New Yorker profile. Her book jackets describe a family life of “charming confusion,” but the whole story includes adultery, resentment, alcohol abuse, convenient memory lapses… and perhaps most egregious: the use of family stories and heartbreak in service to her novels.

It took me a while to integrate the story of the real person, her novels, and my idealized image. It was hard work, and I still miss the soft focus Grandmother Madeleine from my adolescent fantasy. Like any person we love or idolize or hate, she was human. Madeline died in 2007.

Were you watching politics last week? After the debate on Sunday October 9, online media anointed Ken Bone, an undecided voter who asked a question about climate change and economic growth, with many accolades:

The Real Winner of the 2nd Debate: Ken Bone!
Ken Bone: The Hero America Needs
Adorable Sweater Wearer Ken Bone (OK maybe I made that one up)

By the end of the week though, Ken had fallen on hard times. Turns out, Ken has some questionable opinions about race relations and an unfortunate online history including pornography. Many Americans are re-thinking their Sexy Ken Bone Halloween costume. It happened so fast: discovery, putting on a pedestal, taking over social media, more discovery, anxiety, disillusionment.

We humans seem to have a deep need to find heroes… or make them. I’m thinking about how this is related to the Myth of Redemptive Violence – how our dualistic and immature thinking encourages us to sort people around us into boxes labeled Hero and Villain. But that connection is the subject of another blog (perhaps after the election!).

For today, I just want to observe this pattern is and suggest a response when we notice it happening.

The Cycle Begins: Who is this person? Why are they suddenly all over the news and social media?
Meme-ification: the boiling down of a flesh-and-blood person into a funny shareable graphic. Case in point: Notorious RBG.
Hmm. This is the pause of awareness. You might notice your eyes narrow into a squint or your forehead wrinkle. Maybe you feel an urge to scratch your chin thoughtfully.
Deep Breath. And deep breath again.
Go Deeper. Why is this person suddenly the cause of many, many problems or the solution? What is it about this person that’s appearing to meet a need in me or in our culture or group?
Compassion. Is it overwhelming to be this week’s Ken Bone? How is that person expected to cope and adapt? Why am I susceptible to this pattern? How can I better acknowledge and meet my own needs?
Listening. We do need heroes and inspiring figures. Heroes remind of us what’s wonderful about being human and what’s possible for all of us. So FIND SOME. We don’t need to look far. When we listen to the stories of those around us, we discover that everyone has something to teach us.

Find a hero this week. Listen to their story and instead of boiling it down to a slogan, look for the complexity. Strive to really see and accept the people you admire.

Be a hero this week. Share your own story humbly and honestly. Acknowledge the complexity in your life. Strive to live a life worthy of your calling.

The readers of the SWC blog aren’t going to overwhelm the hero-making, hero-destroying culture of the Internet all by ourselves. But we can add to the peace and spiritual maturity of the circles in which we move. And that’s a very good thing.

Hope in Solving Border Issues

by Ron Cammel; a freelance writer and journalist. These are his reflections after participating in the Southwest Conference/United Church of Christ Border Immersion and Convergence events with his partner, Designated Conference Minister Bill Lyons.

Last weekend I witnessed American citizens join with undocumented immigrants to demand humane treatment for migrants. I heard stories about migrants who tried to escape violence or extreme poverty and then were jailed in the U.S. and deported. I heard stories from tearful migrants who were trying to reunite with their fathers or husbands who were locked in detention centers unsure of their fate.

I haven’t paid enough attention to the issues of illegal migration, refuge, deportations and border security. Migration is probably the world’s largest humanitarian crisis right now. Arizona is a hot spot. Now that I have connected more faces and stories to what I casually followed in the news, I find myself questioning the conventional thinking about securing borders and controlling immigrant numbers.

Also affecting my thinking is a place: Nogales, Arizona, where a formidable wall divides the city from another part of the same community in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. A military-like presence of towers, huge lights and guards is nearly inescapable on the American side. It’s a lovely town in its own character-filled way, though not wealthy. The people seem friendly and cheerful. The tacos are awesome. The water, drinkable.

The day I visited, Mexican children stuck their smiling faces between the rusty steel beams of the wall, hoping for any reaction from those nearby. In the evening, young people sat on each side conversing. Traffic moved steadily through the one border crossing, a gateway between nations but a single road connecting an oddly divided community.

The wall continued forever in both directions through the desert, over the scrubby hills and down the grassy valleys.

I know some of the reasons for trying to “protect” the nation’s borders this way, but soon after I reached that wall I found myself praying for its destruction. It was like a subconscious reaction. The wall is so wrong, so anti-community, so anti-peace. I envisioned the city with a linear park, instead, along the border – a wavy pathway meandering both sides where children could run along and shout, “I’m in America! I’m in Mexico! I’m in America! I’m in Mexico!”

I envisioned the grey-green desert without its current blockade, where wildlife could move freely to maintain healthy ecosystems.

And I envisioned border residents moving more freely, as I assume they did before the wall went up. (I learned of ranchers unable to hunt now and homes stuck south of the wall but in the U.S.!)

Despite the wall’s imposition, it doesn’t work well. Yes, it does keep many people out. Illegal crossings are way down after many controls – sensors, more guards, more walls, etc. – were added in the past 10 years. But many people still make it to America. Drugs are transported. Human trafficking continues.

The wall fails to promote any American value, such as freedom, human dignity, equality, inalienable rights. We’ve spent $132 billion on securing the Mexican border the past decade to promote a rigid idea of security and have not addressed the reasons people are willing to leave their families and homes, risk arrest, risk dehydration and heat exhaustion and live in practical hiding in a foreign country. The security efforts have led to about 200 deaths per year in the desert. Others live in fear and are unable to reach their potential as a person because of the deportation risk.

Congress even waived 37 laws so contractors could extend the wall without pesky hindrances such as protecting water, respecting land rights and saving archaeological sites.

Could some of that $132 billion have been better spent to solve the root problems? Peace-making and true problem-solving require creative minds.

I learned last weekend about the sanctuary movement. Similar to the Underground Railroad from slavery days, it helps desperate people find work and shelter. Sometimes it helps them get to Canada, where they can live more freely. Churches, colleges and even entire cities take part. There is nothing illegal about these activities. We have come a long way from the Fugitive Slave Act.

I learned of other creative efforts to help our neighbors in need, or “the least of these.” These efforts contrast with actions like sending undocumented immigrants caught in domestic disputes to a land they barely know anymore, and taking young men caught in drug offenses to the border and ordering them to cross over where drug workers will seize upon their vulnerability. I learned of one deported man who didn’t even speak Spanish – his parents had failed to do the paperwork when he was little, and now a crime that would land a fine for most resulted in banishment from his homeland.

“Pax” and “esperanza,” someone painted on a wooden cross that activists tied to the wall. Peace and hope. There is much hope for change. Even when we can’t seem to get away from the word “illegals,” as if a human being can be reduced in such a way, a movement is stirring to preserve dignity and to challenge the powers that be to act more humanely and morally responsible.

Living in Uncomfortable Places

by Amanda Petersen

Last week I highlighted staying in uncomfortable places. In the midst of this political season, and events both far and near, we don’t have far to go to practice staying in these places. The question is, how do we stay without falling in hopelessness or wanting to run away? What I have noticed is the call to want to do something to make it feel better. What if you can’t? How do you make hate, environmental disaster, or divided people into a manageable situation?

To begin with, one must change the question. Our brains and egos want to make all pain better so the questions tend to revolve around that. The reality is that in many situations there is no fixing some pain. So why even get involved? Instead of asking, “How do I make it better?” try asking, “How am I called to love?” When there is love, one can stand in places they never dreamed. The thought of sitting vigil while someone dies may sound overwhelming until it is someone you love. Then you are willing to sit and be. When love is the connection, we will go into these places and sit with the reality and the tension of not being able to solve it. The movement then becomes standing as a witness to the pain, in love.

Still, it is helpful to have something tangible as a symbol of love. This can be a word, a listening ear, just being kind or donating goods needed. I would like to highlight the gift of anointing. Often seen as something only ordained or trained people do, it is truly something anyone can give to another. Especially during times of deep pain where someone is suffering or they are on the opposite side of an issue. The act of touch, scent, and words of blessing, healing, and love creates a deep and unexpected space that allows everyone to stay in the pain and realize they are not alone. This Saturday, Michelle Jereb is leading a workshop on the gift of scent and touch and prayer or blessing in seasons of both pain and joy. This is an important workshop for those who want to learn more about staying in the uncomfortable as well as how to stay in blessing. It’s not too late to sign up, yet space is limited. Take a moment and check it out.

This week how are you being invited to answer the question “How am I called to love in this situation?” How does it help you stay in the uncomfortable?

Answers Will Vary

by Davin Franklin-Hicks

I heard the whispers. I saw the quiet exchanges between the ones in the know. I watched this play out among the most powerful of my peers. They knew something and I was going to find out what that was. Information is power.

I waited.

I knew it was just a matter of time until one of them slipped up and told me what they knew.

Yeah. That’s right.

This wasn’t my first rodeo.

I mean, did they think I was born yesterday?

Sheesh.

They gave in within an hour and I didn’t even have to ask them anything. They came to me as I sat in my converted office which doubled as a jungle gym what with us being in the second grade and all.

The secret was a good one! It. Blew. My. Mind. Each word they shared was better than the last. Ready for the secret?

The answers to the odd numbered math problems are in the back of the textbook. Just sitting there, waiting for us to use them. Talk about a #lifehack, this was golden.

Take a minute to catch your breath. That was a lot to take in.

As a kid who turned in every math assignment with several worn holes in the paper from my baffled work that had to be erased and gone over again and again, this was music to my ears. This was evidence that I was obviously on God’s good person list with this piece of info! I was blissful.

I put this new knowledge to use immediately, finishing my math word problems assignment in 2.25 minutes, just a mere 27.75 minutes from my usual. Nothing suspicious here.

I marched up, handed that work to Mrs. Johnson and waited for her accolades. I was baffled when I saw her put that red pen to use. She handed it back with a big fat “0” at the top of the page. Looking back I should have likely been suspicious when most of the problems shared the exact same solution which was: “Answers Will Vary”.

Sigh. I may have peaked in the second grade.

There’s a joke meme that I have posted on my Facebook page in the past that reads “It turns out being an adult is mostly just googling how to do stuff.” Most people read the first three sentences when they search something on Wikipedia and that’s it. Most of us take in absolutely overly simplified explanations and act as though we have a PhD on the topic.

Seven-year old me just wanted the boring parts over with so I could get back to doing what I wanted to do. It was a very basic thinking pattern. Math boring; must stop. I can do that by copying all the answers in the book and move on from this moment.

This type of thinking makes sense in a seven year old, but far less sense in a 37-year-old. And yet when I was 37, I found myself wanting the quick answer while I was waiting to hear if I got a position I had interviewed for and very much wanted.

I turned to the internet like it was a magic 8-ball and knew everything. I searched online using this question: “Am I going to get the job?” And I searched this on several different search engine sites as though each may reveal more of my future… the things we do in lieu of feeling always surprises me.

I knew it was silly as I did it. The questioning allowed me to do something with all that nervous energy and I found it amusing. That was the payoff of doing this search. What it didn’t do, though, was yield a definitive answer or help me in anyway.

In my life, I have observed many times that the insistence of an immediate answer leaves me feeling empty when I get it. This is usually because I wasn’t asking the true question that would assist in meeting my needs. I was just trying to distract myself until I knew the outcome. It is a fear-based way of being for me.

Ultimately, the thing I was looking for most that day was an assurance that I was worthy of such a job and that I would be okay if I didn’t get it. Evidently the internet has yet to produce the self esteem and affirmation we long for, available by clicking a link. Give it a year. The internet has been busy with the election, after all.

I am a person of faith who has chosen to walk a Christian path. That’s never really varied for me, even when I lost a faith community after coming out as a queer, gender diverse person, I knew this was still my path. The way I understand and live into the call as a Christian has changed but my willingness to walk a Christian path has never wavered.

I spent most of my early life developing a belief system that I had all the answers and humanity needed me to tell them. I had the solution and they needed it. I have spent the last 16 years of my life letting that go and opening myself to the mystery and wonder that comes with living and being in the world, among each other, seeking love, seeking life, seeking Spirit.

When I do not have the answers, I get to do some things that are pretty great: I get to replace the closed-fisted certainty with an open handed wonderment. I get to hear your experiences and allow them to expand my sense of who God is and who we are in relation to God. I get to stop faking it when I just don’t know what to do with suffering. I get to be authentic and a person of faith.

I used to think that faith was the goal God laid out for me, as though the searching would give me an object to hold up and say “See what I got? Isn’t it shiny? Isn’t it amazing? I win!” Faith was to be obtained.

There was such a massive arrogance to how I thought about the role of faith and my call in that. A few minutes with me back then would have you asking, “Is it getting smuggy in here?” Yea. I brought the smug.

My faith was aggressive absolutism that I lived in as though I was waiting to get to the afterlife and say, “See, I told you!” I have learned that when the motivation is to be right the action I am taking is likely wrong.

Parables are the original word problems for Christians and none yield a direct answer. Jesus used juxtaposition regularly to get us out of the data and into the questions. Faith isn’t the ultimate answer to who God is and who I am to God. Faith was never the destination. Faith is the vehicle of how I get to live with you in the world and how I get to understand what love is and what love isn’t. It’s not to be obtained, it is for us to make use of in our seeking God.

What a mistake we make flipping furiously to the answers. What a mistake we make thinking the supplied answer was ever the point of the work. What a mistake we make when we allow an answer to snuff out wonderment.

I have had such a sense of relief when I realized the whole point of this assignment of life isn’t in deriving the answer and arriving at faith.

Faith is the pencil.

Faith is the paper.

Faith is the eraser.

Faith is what we get to use to figure and wonder at the questions that come in living.

I want answers often, especially recently for this season I have lived in. Here’s where I hurt myself in that wanting of answers: when I mistake having a stark and clear answer for a spiritual solution, I am left empty. Answers aren’t all that filling or satisfying when I hunger for relationship with God and with others. When I can replace answers with wonderment my spirit is strengthened and bolstered. Wonderment is life giving.

I have found my most honest words and thoughts I have had when faced with life’s questions are on paper riddled and marred with my attempts, stained with all my tries and mistakes. That is the clearest evidence of my willingness to engage in the questions. Those questions are all the same in front of each of us. All the big life questions cut across all aspects of humanity no matter the culture or language. We are all grappling with making sense of the world around us. That’s the work. That’s the living. And I guarantee, if we really do the hard work, our answers will vary. They were meant to by design.

Roll Call

by Amos Smith

There is something subtle and profound that makes us uniquely human. There is something illusive, yet extraordinarily powerful, that animates human genius. In its pure form it “hovered over the surface of the deep” (Genesis 1:2). At the world’s genesis it separated the day and the night by name (Genesis 1:5). It is a power that arrives with the age of reason (about twelve or thirteen years of age). It is what some refer to as “full reflective self-consciousness”. This is a more technical phrase for the familiar term, “awareness”.

It is amazing how many times we can hear the word “awareness” without fully recognizing its penetrating primal meaning. For a long time, I thought I knew what awareness was. I thought I was aware. Yet only recently have I discovered how little I can claim hold of this illusive powerhouse of a term.

I like so many people, slip into unconsciousness on a regular basis. On some level I tune out, space out, check out. “Out” is the key word here. I am no longer present. If there was a roll call, an astute observer would record “absent” after my name.

If I am honest, there are many intervals throughout the day when I check out. When I make my breakfast I am most often absent. I have made breakfast so many times in the same way that I now do it in my sleep. When I talk with loved ones, the people I most want to be present to and to listen to, I sometimes fade out. I stare out the window and lull my awareness to sleep. When I sit down to eat after a long day I sometimes pull my chair out without thinking—it is unconscious—I am not aware of what I am doing. Then I chew my food while thinking about something else, without really tasting it. And when I sit in front of the television, like so many Americans, I check out. I just take in the sound bites and CNN’s glossing of the news. I do not reflect and think about what is coming into my senses. I allow mental laziness to creep over me like a fog. I then just accept what is being said wholesale, even when it insults my intelligence.

It is always easier to tune out. It is always easier not to question – to just accept what we are fed through mass media. It is always easier not to look beneath the surface, not to listen when it stretches or hurts, not to be present when pulling up a chair after a long day. It is also easier not to check in on our familiar destructive habits. It is easier just to let things slide. It is effortless to pop the tranquilizer that shuts off awareness – to simply go on autopilot. It is always easier to cut class. But when we get older we can no longer obtain the permission slip to be absent. We no longer have an excuse to check out. To be an adult in the best sense is to be present. It is to be attentive to our children, to the written and spoken word, to dinner, to brushing our teeth, and to our world.

It is when people check out and appeal to instinct that our world turns to indifference, apathy, and violence. It is when people check in and appeal to reason that our world turns to compassionate understanding, beauty, and poise.

Even when we read, we are distracted and check out for a paragraph or two. This is normal. But, do we know that we have checked out and do we know which paragraphs were missed and why. Or are we so absent, we don’t even know that we are absent.

Roll Call! Are you in or out?

What Pastors Need to Know about Spiritual Directors

by Teresa Blythe

There was a time when ordained ministers served mostly as local church pastors. That is no longer the case. As churches shrink, specialized ministry becomes the first choice for many of us.

Although specialized ministry encompasses a wide range of “outside the church” professions such as chaplaincy and non-profit work, I am writing today about spiritual direction. At a recent convocation of specialized ministers of the Southwest Conference UCC we talked at length about how local pastors and specialized ministers could better understand one another.

I am aware that many local pastors are familiar with spiritual direction from either having a director of their own or feeling guilty because they haven’t gotten around to finding one! But pastors may not know all you need to know about the care and education of the spiritual director. Here are five things I think you should know:

We are educated for this ministry. Anyone who does spiritual direction for a living or as a “side hustle” should have graduated from a training program. (I say should have because the profession is not regulated nor does it have any standard certification process that all spiritual directors must complete.) If we are ordained to the ministry of spiritual direction, as I am, we have the requisite M.Div. plus the extra training it takes to learn how to do the most highly regarded form of spiritual direction—the evocative method (you share, we mostly listen and draw your attention to where the Spirit may be at work in you). If we are ordained you can be sure we have gone through our denomination’s sometimes rigorous process of becoming ordained to specialized ministry with all the accountability and standard of ethics that goes along with that. One does not have to be ordained to be an excellent spiritual director, but training is essential. I will go out on a limb and say that unless you are a quite elderly religious professional who became a director before there were training programs, you must go through a training program to be any good at the ministry. These programs vary greatly, and frankly that is a problem for the profession, but a certificate of completion usually guarantees that the person has learned the basics. By the way, lots of local pastors attend these training programs and become spiritual directors. They find it gives them a new and helpful lens in which to work pastorally with their congregation.

We are usually contemplatives by nature. While pastors vary widely in temperament—from the jolly extrovert to the pensive thinker-types—most spiritual directors are gentle, quiet and contemplative. The practice of spiritual direction demands patience and stillness of heart in the director. We spend a considerable amount of time listening to our directees share their sacred stories. Good spiritual directors always listen more than they talk. Because of our contemplative nature, we are good at helping activist pastors and churches calm down and savor the slow work of God. If you have a spiritual director in your midst, I hope you are calling on their special gifts for pastoral care, education and showing up as the “non-anxious presence” in times of conflict.

We want to have a collegial relationship with you. Spiritual directors suffer when we live and work in isolation. We need contact with you for fellowship and camaraderie. We can offer you a listening ear when you need to share about a confidential matter (even if you are not one of our directees—we usually don’t mind informally putting on the director hat for you now and then). We are especially aware of issues of boundaries in ministry. Because the spiritual direction relationship is unique and highly confidential, we are usually pretty strict about boundaries. Many pastors have appreciated bouncing ideas concerning the personal limits they set with parishioners off me. And I’m glad to help.

We sometimes need your help. Since many of us are introverts and contemplatives, we are (as a group) not great at marketing ourselves and our work. Any marketing we do is of the “soft sell” variety. If you respect our work, then please talk about it with your clergy friends, parishioners and staff. Encourage us to contribute to your church newsletters, offer classes or show up at some business meetings to observe and reflect what we notice. I know I have benefitted greatly from the support I get from the local church where I now am on staff part-time. In fact, if you need help with pastoral care and visitation you might consider hiring a spiritual director. It’s not exactly the same work we do in direction sessions but it translates well.

Another way you can help us is by understanding the nature of the work we do. Spiritual directors are responsible for staying deeply in touch with the Spirit so that we can be of service in our one-hour sessions. So if we don’t take you up on all those great suggestions I just mentioned, it’s because spiritual direction work can be emotionally taxing. And we are taught to know our limits and not become overwhelmed with busywork, so we guard our work time carefully. It’s nothing personal. Pastors could learn some things from us about taking charge of one’s work schedule.

The best way you can help a spiritual director that you know and like is by finding out if we are taking on new directees and if we want referrals from you. Most of the clients we receive are from word-of-mouth. Let us drop off a set of brochures or business cards with our contact information so that when you encounter someone who wants or needs spiritual direction, you can offer them a name.

We want to be your spiritual director. Provided we are not working for you or are close friends with you (or your family), we’d like to work with you in direction. Religious professionals make up a lot of our clientele and they tell us it’s the best $60 – $80 dollars a month they spend. We know your special needs and have heard a lot of stories about life as an employee for a volunteer organization! We hold a great deal of compassion for pastors and the peaks and valleys you encounter. If you are not in spiritual direction, I highly recommend you check it out. The history of spiritual direction dates back over 1500 years when it began in Catholic religious orders. For hundreds of years it was a practice that priests enjoyed. It’s now a practice for all, but especially for clergy!

These are just a few thoughts about how the specialized ministry of spiritual direction can work hand-in-hand with traditional parish ministry. You may have questions or some creative ideas of your own to share. I’d love to hear from you. Contact me at teresa@teresablythe.net and let’s talk.

Climate Change Deniers

by Don Fausel

Usually I don’t have any problem falling to sleep at night. But the one thing that keeps me awake is after I’ve spent time researching about climate change deniers. When I do get to sleep I usually have nightmares more scary than the 1984 movie Nightmare on Elm Street. When I wake up I’m a little more reasonable and realize that climate change can be solved. It’s a matter of “facts” and “claims”. Facts are unarguable and proven; “claims” are arguable but contain evidence as well, but are not proven.

As a matter of fact climate change it’s not just a “claim” as the deniers would have us believe. Rather, it’s an established scientific fact. Don’t take my words for it! What I want to do in this blog is to give some of the scientific facts, which most scientists agree with, as opposed to the “claims” that most deniers rely on.

SCIENTIFIC FACTS

Let’s begin with a piece from the New York Times titled, Liberal Biases, Too, May Block Progress on Climate Change, by Eduardo Porter on April 19, 2016. I chose this article because it demonstrates how the diverse positions between the left and right, can impair factual information about climate change. As the article suggests, the people on the right, are identified as individualistic and couscous of big government, and in their view, the scientific consensus takes an opposite position. According to the article, “The people on the right like private businesses, which they see as productive job creators. They mistrust government. It’s not surprising they will play down climate change…” The people on the left tend to mistrust big corporations, and see them as dishonest and harmful. “When science is aligned with big corporations the left immediately perceives the technology as not benefiting the greater good, but only the benefiting the corporations.”

Basically, the authors are suggesting “…those attitudes about climate change have little to do with education and people’s understandings of science.” We don’t need better science, but that somehow “…scientific facts from deeply rooted preferences about the world we want to live in, on both sides of ideology divide.”

It’s not new information that Exxon Mobil and the Koch brothers “…and their scientists are being investigated by the attorneys generals for whether they committed fraud for denying the role of fossil fuels in climate change, even though while its own scientists were aware of the connection.” If you want to know more about how the tobacco companies and the deniers of climate change, read the book by Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco to Global Warming. You might be surprised of how many of the same attorneys that represented the tobacco companies were the same attorneys who were hired by Exxon Mobil when they had to be defended for keeping information about the damage the coal and oil companies kept for 20 years. As Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) reminded us “In America, it is unlawful for companies to lie to their stakeholders.” Shame on them! And if you can get the book Scientific Proof that Exxon and Kochs Distorted the Public’s Understanding of Climate Change, you’ll get more recent information.

DOOMSDAY

Here’s an article from Live Science by Tia Ghose titled 9 Real Ways the Earth Could End. All though it was written in 2013 the content is up to date. Note this article is from scientists not from someone running around the street shouting “The end is nigh!”

The first ways that the scientists believe is a threat to planet earth is Global Warming. The other eight ways that could end the earth are available in the article above.

It’s interesting that Global Warming is at the top of the list that it is identified as “The mother of all apocalyptic fears, climate change is the biggest threat facing the planet, many scientists say.” As we know from positions of those who go by facts vs. claims above, not everyone agrees with the scientific fact. To back that up, here is information from NASA’s website titled: Scientific Consensus:Earth Climate is Warming Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals show that 97% or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. In addition, most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position.” The article is followed by statements from 18 scientific associations, along with links to their published statement and a selection of related resource.

If you looking for the congressional deniers from your state who think climate change is a hoax, here is a brief video by Bill Moyers: When Congress Deny Climate Change and Evolution He takes on radical-right congress men and women for denying the science behind evolution and climate change. The video clip shows “Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) chairman of the investigation for Science, Space and Technology Committee of the US House of Representatives, who says “…evolution is a lie straight from the pit of hell and climate change is a hoax.”

And if that isn’t enough, Here Are the 56 Percent of Congressional Republicans Who Deny Climate Change. You can see where your congressperson stands on climate change.

BOOKS

Climate Change and Denial: Heads in the Sand, by Haydn Washington and John Cook. With a Foreword by Professor Naomi Oreskes, author of Merchants of Doubt. The good news from Washington and Cook’s book is that it gives you a sense that climate change can be solved, when we cease to deny that it exists. It also gives you a good perspective of the denial industry that is fighting and funding for the fossil fuel companies. We’re saying “keep the coal in the ground” and their saying “more coal for jobs”. It seems that they are not aware that the solar industry is reaching record growth. See: California Solar Industry Job Growth Reaches Record Level

Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know by Joseph Romm. The book cover reads: “This book offers the most up-to-date examination of climate change’s foundational science, implications for the future, and cleans energy solutions that can mitigate its effects. It offers authorative answers to the topic’s most vexing questions.” The author Dr. Joseph Romm is one of the country’s most influential communicators on climate science and solutions.

Shalom.

Sitting In It

by Amanda Petersen

Ever have one of those weeks?

What does this bring to mind when someone asks you that? Does your mind go to a week filled with upset and trouble? Does your posture and mood change the moment you get a chance to share? How does one sit in the “I wish it were different” and practice “This is the way it is”?

The key word is to sit in it. Again the contemplative journey invites the person to slow down, not solve or ease the pain right away. Instead, the invitation is to get one’s bearings, own where they are, live in the tension. It is so easy to find ways of numbing out. In fact, once one is aware, sometimes all that can be done is to admit they are numbing out right now. Learning to sit in that tension of “I’m not where I want to be right now and I want to immediately get up and fix it” is a deep, deep spiritual practice. So is listening to the questions that come up from that staying still. I think the biggest gift in learning to sit with an imperfect life is, instead of running from it or fighting against it, one can use their energy to be free and learn from it. In a sense, “here you are again dissatisfaction, tell me about yourself today.”

Teresa of Avila spoke of reptiles one must deal with when entering the Interior Castle. Reptiles are the pieces of life, like dissatisfaction, that distract from the Love and Enoughness of God. At first it feels like they are everywhere, yet once on the journey for a while, they only pop up occasionally, not to distract, but to remind the journeyer to listen to their life. Something is calling them to pay attention to the tension of some distraction.

When dissatisfaction or the reality of an imperfect life becomes more of a truth than a problem, or when one gets comfortable in the uncomfortable, then true movement towards Love and Enoughness can happen. There are so many things in the world to create a sense of dissatisfaction that there will be plenty of opportunities to practice. The next time you find yourself in “one of those” weeks or feeling dissatisfied, try just sitting in the uncomfortable and listening to the deeper questions. Let me know what you notice.

As always, you may turn to one of our spiritual directors and coaches to help you hear the deeper invitation.