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Divinity in Daily Life: Busy Times as Spiritual Practice

by Rev. Teresa Blythe

To get better at something we consider challenging, we have to practice. You know what’s hard for me in spiritual direction? Exploring with a client ways to deepen in relationship with God when they are truly and unavoidably busy. Spiritual directors are not “fixers,” yet I’m always tempted to suggest ways to squeeze more time out of a packed person’s day. Never, ever have my suggestions on this when I gave them worked. I’m especially cautious about doing this to caregivers of people who are ill, elderly, disabled or who have young children in their lives.

As I was reading Mirabai Starr’s amazing book, Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics, I came across her beautiful reflection on this. She tells the story of her friend Asha, mother to four girls, who came to the conclusion that “unless she focused on parenting as a spiritual practice, she would have no spiritual life.” (p 122) Overworked people could substitute any number of responsibilities for the word “parenting” in that statement.

That’s the reality! If we say that all of life is spiritual, then the practice of daily life is a good part of our spiritual practice. For caregivers, the act of giving unconditional love to your loved one has to connect you to God. It just has to! Especially since those of us who are Christians constantly refer to God as Comforter, Restorer, Father and Mother.

What part of your life do you need to begin to see and experience as spiritual practice? Is it cooking a healthy meal? Taking an afternoon walk? Sharing tea with a friend? Or maybe even staring at the wall when you are too tired to do anything but.

I have always loved how spiritual director and storyteller Mark Yaconelli looks at it. He is fond of asking people what daily activities really get them excited? Then when they name it, he says, “go and do that.” Do it with all the exuberance and life you have.

I’m convinced that’s the kind of practice that makes the Divine One happy.

Pick Up Your Mat and Walk (Part 2!)

by Rev. Deb Worley

Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. (John 5:8-9, CEB) 

For those of you who were here last Sunday, you may be wondering if I forgot to change the Gospel passage for today, and accidentally read the same passage as last week! Whoops! That’s embarrassing!! 

Except, I didn’t forget to change the Gospel passage. I chose to stick with this passage for another week. When I went home last Sunday, after worship and then the “God Sightings” discussion, I felt like there was more to consider, more that needed to be said. Which is true, of course, with every scripture passage, always! There’s never a time when everything has been said that needs to be said about any one scripture passage. It’s the Living Word. There’s always more to say…because God is still speaking. 

But with this passage in particular, at this particular time, I felt the need to have another go. So…here we go! 

Because not all of you were here last week, and because this past week has been…well, it’s been quite a week…I’m going to start with a very quick review of the gist of last week’s sermon.  (Part 1)

Those of you who were here will likely remember the story I began with, about growing up on a farm in upstate NY, and a specific memory of my dad asking my then-teenaged brother, one wintry day, if he’d like to help him bring in some wood for the wood stove, and my brother saying, “Umm, no,” and my dad getting mad and my mom telling my dad that if he wanted my brother to help him, then to just tell him to help him, don’t ask him! Remember?? 

Well, as you can see and have heard, all three of those family members are here this morning! And all three of them will confirm the veracity of that story after the service, if anyone was thinking I made it up…  

But then I shifted from the question my dad asked my brother, to the question Jesus asked the man in today’s passage: “Do you want to get well?” 

And I pointed to how the man didn’t respond with yes or no, but with some of the reasons he hadn’t gotten well up to that point, some of the reasons he was still sick after thirty-eight years of sitting by the side of the pool…

And I imagined some of what the man might have been feeling: hopelessness, discouragement, despair. I imagined that he might have felt like being well would take more courage than he had, that doing things differently than he had done them for his whole life would take more strength and commitment than he had, that stepping into a new way of living would be hard and uncomfortable and scary–even if that way of living led from sickness and a diminished self to healing and wholeness–and that changing, even for the better, would take more patience and practice than he thought he could find.

And I imagined how Jesus might have responded, from his heart to the man’s heart, taking into account his fears and his despair, his excuses and his stuck-ness, his reluctance to say, “Yes! I want to be well!”… And I wondered if we, too, might need to hear that response, because we, too, can be reluctant to commit to being made well; we, too, aren’t always sure that we have the courage and strength we need to be made whole; we, too, can doubt that healing is worth the hard work and discomfort and commitment that are required… 

And just quickly, here’s what I suggested Jesus might have communicated to the man by the side of the pool in his hopelessness, and what he might also be communicating to us in our own stuckness: 

Yes, it will be hard to be well. Harder than it has been to be sick. 

Yes, it will require courage. Remaining stuck is easy.

Yes, it will require strength. It takes no effort to keep doing what you’ve always done.

Yes, it will require patience and commitment and practice. I will get you started; you will have to keep choosing to be well. Day after day, hour after hour, moment by moment.

Yes, it will be uncomfortable and unfamiliar and scary. 

And it will be hard! Or did I mention that already?? 

Get up. Pick up your mat and walk.

Stop watching others participate in the world around you, and step more fully into living yourself. Live life more deeply and be who God created you to be more fully. 

Get up. Pick up your mat and walk.

What you’ve been doing all these years that’s comfortable? Do less of that. Leave that behind.

What you’re considering doing right now that feels uncomfortable? Do more of that. Walk toward that. 

Those thoughts of “It’s too hard. I’m scared. It doesn’t feel good!”? Acknowledge them, name them, say them out loud. And let go of them. They are not going to make you well. 

Get up. Pick up your mat and walk.

Walk forward. One foot in front of the other. One step at a time.

Walk toward healing. Toward wellness. Toward being whole.

And step into Life.

Get up. Pick up your mat and walk.

So, a lot of that was me taking literary license. Imagining what might have been going on in the man, and, yes, in Jesus. Imagining what it might have been like for someone who had been sick, who had been incapacitated, who had been diminished in his self, in some way, for 38 years, most of his life–and at that point to be offered healing… And I imagined what that healing might have looked like, what that healing would feel like, what, really, it was that Jesus was offering. 

And we are told, after Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk,” that “At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.” (Jn. 5:8-9)

And again, I can’t help but wonder!! Did it really happen like that? Was the man completely healed, once and for all? Able to walk with confidence and strength, without a single stumble or misstep, without needing to rest? Simply getting up and stepping into this new way of being, with no looking back? 

“Stand up,” Jesus told him. “Take your mat and walk.” And “At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.”

I wonder…because in our lives and in our world, we need healing. Desperately. In our lives and in our world, we need to be made well. There’s so much pain, so much brokenness, so much suffering, so much chaos, so much darkness…

We need healing, so that as people of faith we can stand up.

We need healing, so that as people of faith we can stand up and begin to walk.

We need healing, so that as people of faith we can stand up and speak up.

We need healing, so that as people of faith we can stand up and be light in the darkness.

We need healing, so that as people of faith we can stand up and fight for justice.

And, we need courage. And strength. And commitment. And patience. And practice. Because while maybe the man in today’s passage was completely healed, once and for all, never to stumble again, my experience has generally been otherwise, and I suspect yours has been, too. 

We can say yes to healing and stand up–with God’s help–and begin to walk toward healing–with God’s help–with courage and strength and commitment–with God’s help–and we still stumble. We still take missteps, maybe even falling flat on our faces. We still need to rest from time to time. 

But then we can say yes to healing again–with God’s help. And we can stand up again–with God’s help. And we can begin to speak up, with courage and strength and commitment–with God’s help! And then we stumble and misstep and fall and need to rest. Again.

And then we can say yes to healing again–are you seeing the pattern??–and stand up again, and be light in the darkness and fight for justice–all with God’s help. 

All, and always, with God’s help. 

With God’s help, always.

With God’s presence, always.

With God’s power, always…

Hear these words once more, from God’s heart to ours, knowing that as God reaches out to us and offers healing and wholeness, God knows our fears and our despair and the comfort we find in our familiar stuckness. And God continues to call us to new life:

Yes, it will be hard to be well. Harder than it has been to be sick. 

Yes, it will require courage. Remaining stuck is easy.

Yes, it will require strength. It takes no effort to keep doing what you’ve always done.

Yes, it will require patience and commitment and practice. I will get you started, and will be with you; you will have to keep choosing to be well. Day after day, hour after hour, moment by moment. Again and again and again.

Yes, it will be uncomfortable and unfamiliar and scary. 

And it will be hard! Or did I mention that already?? 

All of that is true. And I am here, I am with you, and I want you to be well!

Get up. Pick up your mat and walk.

And this morning, hear these additional words:

Get up and walk–and when you stumble, which you will, reach out for me and steady yourself, and keep going. Get up and walk–and when you take a misstep, which you will, look for me and reorient yourself, and keep going. Get up and walk–and when you fall flat on your face, which you will, let me help you up and brush you off, so you can take a breath, and keep going. Get up and walk–and when you need to rest, which you will, rest. Find the sacred in your rest. And when you’ve rested, keep going. 

Get up. Pick up your mat and walk. 

And know that I am with you, always. 

May each of you, and me, and all of us, and our world, find the healing we so desperately need, the healing God offers us in Jesus Christ. 

Amen.

Beyond the Bell Jar: Reclaiming the Life and Art of Sylvia Plath

by Kathryn Andrews, Desert Palm United Church of Christ Council and W.I.S.E. Committee

For many years, I knew Sylvia Plath only as an author who ended her life at age 30 after producing an excellent but depressing book called The Bell Jar.  That understanding changed after I read Heather Clark’s Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath.  This biography celebrates Plath as a disciplined and prolific artist who helped to reform modern poetry and posthumously earned the Pulitzer Prize for her Collected Poems. The book also contains a sobering history of Plath’s struggle with mental health issues.  

Plath’s family was riddled with mental illness.  Her immigrant father engaged in a slow-moving suicide by refusing treatment for diabetes for two years.  He died in 1940 when Plath was eight.  The book points out that young children who lose a parent run an increased risk of suicide later in life.  Plath fit that pattern.  Unknown to Plath, her paternal grandmother had died in an Oregon insane asylum years before. When Plath’s own depression surfaced at age 20, doctors repeatedly subjected her to a primitive form of electroshock therapy without anesthetic.  According to Clark, Plath “was at the mercy of a patriarchal medical system that assumed that highly ambitious, strong-willed women were neurotic. As women, Plath and her mother had no power to defy the system.” 

The absence of her father and family financial worries galvanized and haunted Plath. She was able to partially finance her education at Smith by selling her poems and stories to national magazines.  Plath later won a Fulbright Fellowship to Cambridge.  There she met and married Ted Hughes, who eventually became England’s Poet Laureate.  Each contributed to the other’s professional growth; both were working toward an “unliterary” poetry “composed as much for the ear as for the eye.” Their relationship was progressive for its time, but also volatile. Plath seethed over the patriarchy and male humanist tradition that frequently denied her recognition while celebrating her husband’s accomplishments. In Daddy, Plath rages against her lost father, who also personifies “a bankrupt culture” and “patriarchal tormentors.”  Linking her father and husband, Plath writes, “I made a model of you . . .and I said I do, I do” but by the end of the poem Plath declares: “I’m through.” 

Following the birth of their second child and her husband’s departure, Plath entered a new level of depression while also taking her art to a new level.  Plath’s own mental health crisis and her father’s immigrant struggles gave her insights into the life of the outcast, and her writings from this period explore the viewpoints of marginalized mothers, refugees, and Jews. She became one of the first poets to write about miscarriage and post-partum anxiety.  More generally, her poems “open up new aesthetic possibilities that would change the direction of modern poetry.” The darkness also came through, as in Sheep in Fog: “My bones hold a stillness, the far/Fields melt my heart./They threaten/To let me through to a heaven/Starless and fatherless, a dark water.”    

Plath would not live to see widespread critical acclaim or her works become best-sellers.  As her depression deepened, Plath feared another round of botched electroshock therapy. She ended her life on the morning she was scheduled to enter a psychiatric hospital. But as Plath’s daughter later wrote, and Red Comet affirms, “The art was not to fall.” 

Slaughters of the Innocents

by Rev. John Indermark

The second chapter of Matthew contains a story routinely left out of the Christmas narrative. Shortly after Magi arrive, and then leave, a mass murderer enters the scene. Intent on clinging to office, King Herod ordered the slaughter of innocent children.

I have heard reasons for this story’s banishment from the season’ readings. No other record exists of this massacre, so scholars say we cannot establish its factual truth. In services with sanctuaries still decked for Christmas, we also don’t want Herod raining on our parade. And so, typically, we leave it for another day, a day that tends never to come. Of course, our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those children…

I wrote very similar words to these in December of 2012, when the Innocents of Sandy Hook went slaughtered. To be sure, other mass shootings had occurred in prior years: Virginia Tech, Columbine. But in Sandy Hook, these were children. First-graders. Innocents. Murdered by – oh, I don’t know. A deranged young man. A culture infatuated with guns. An industry that had the gall to announce shortly afterward that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. You know, increase sales.

I had truly – and naively – hoped that the Slaughter of Innocents in Sandy Hook might be the turning point. Again, these were children assaulted with an assault weapon. But the key word there is naively. I may not know if Herod’s story is factual, but by God it is true. Clinging to power, abetted here by the political ammo of campaign contributions, brought to a screeching halt any hope of change after Sandy Hook. As it has ever since.

And after slaughters in El Paso and Parkland and Buffalo and elsewhere, innocent people going about their daily lives gunned down because, by gum, we have a right to any weapon of our choice: now we are back to the Slaughter of Innocent Children. In Uvalde. In a state where the governor campaigned not to be number 2 in the country for gun ownership but number 1. Congratulations – I guess you got your wish. Of course, as your lieutenant predictably tweeted, our thoughts and prayers are requested.

Unless and until pious words for gun victims become righteous actions to prevent gun violence, the Slaughter of Innocents will continue unabated. How did Hosea 8:7 put it?

They who sow the wind will reap the whirlwind.

Consent Matters!

by Rev. Teresa Blythe

How do we have a relationship with God that is truly consensual? I’ve been thinking a lot about this in light of all the cases of religious teachers and leaders who preyed on parishioners, abusing them sexually without a single thought to the power dynamic at play. These abusive religious leaders may think the relationship is consensual, but how much consent does a person really have if the one pursuing them is a trusted, powerful force in their life? How does one have mutuality with someone so high on a pedestal?

Let’s expand the question by infinity and consider our free will with God. I’ll never forget a conversation I had with a friend when we were both in seminary. I asked her if she believed in hell. She said, “NO. I don’t believe God is a violent abuser.” Growing up in an evangelical Christian tradition, I always had a question about consent related to what they taught about salvation. If my choice to follow Jesus is a choice between that or having the proverbial gun to my head (believe, or go to hell), then is it really a choice? It seemed like a religious version of the 70’s National Lampoon cover, “If you don’t buy this magazine, we’ll kill this dog.” You’re gonna buy the magazine!

A couple of years ago, the empowerment movement against sexual assault and abuse known as #MeToo spawned a similar #ChurchToo movement. Women from a wide variety of Christian denominations spoke out about sexual abuse at the hands of church leaders. Protestants who used to point fingers at the Catholic sex scandals now saw the finger pointed at them for the same crimes. It catalyzed whole new conversations about consent.

Did Mary actually have a choice about bearing God’s son? Wouldn’t anyone visited by an angel and told they would be incarnating a holy child feel compelled to say, well, OK?

Are we doomed to a life separated from God if we don’t say yes to God’s attempts to heal and renew us?

Is God more like a sensitive lover who makes sure we are ready to take the next step in our relationship before asking more of us? Or is God transactional and pushy, using God’s power to press us forward? “Do this and you’ll be OK. Don’t do it and you will be in a world of hurt.”

Many of the saints, mystics and today’s contemplative Christians line up on the side of God as sensitive lover, who uses divine lure and patience with us, waiting for us to fully consent before the transformative work begins. My favorite part of the welcoming prayer based on Fr. Thomas Keating’s teachings names this consent: “I welcome what I am experiencing this moment in my body as an opportunity to consent to the Divine Indwelling.”

Consent is of primary importance in spirituality. Do not allow anyone to coerce you into any belief, activity, or relationship. Spiritual directors must be especially careful not to be coercive in any way so that our clients always have freedom. I believe our consent is important to God. And that means it is important to spiritual leaders and guides.

Our Trip to the Border

by Jane McNamara, Chair, Immigration Task Force, First Church UCC Phoenix

Hidden along the edge of the concrete ramp were 20 or 25 coins. I carefully picked them out of the sand and put them in the back pocket of my jeans. Nearby were torn pieces of paper money from Cuba – and strewn everywhere were shoelaces, belts, clothing items of all kinds, backpacks and shoes. Lots of shoes.

There is an explanation for what we saw at the border last week. Our guides, Fernie and Nathalie with the non-profit AZCA Humanitarian Coalition, said that Border Patrol agents require all migrants to leave their possessions behind. Agents say they don’t have the personnel to do the needed security checks. So, when they process migrants seeking asylum after they’ve crossed the border into the United States, migrants are given a clear plastic bag for their papers and perhaps a phone – and that is what they bring with them to the Welcome Center in Phoenix.

And the shoes? Since many cross water, they leave their muddy, wet shoes and wear someone else’s that have dried in the sun. An explanation, perhaps, for why so many guests at the Welcome Center are wearing shoes that fit them so poorly.

It was clear from our visit that Fernie and Nathalie would like to find ways to reuse more belongings but there isn’t the volunteer network that would be needed to undertake such a project. Instead, the AZCA Humanitarian Coalition organizes border aid trips, leaving water and fruit for asylum-seekers and, importantly, “restoring” the land. Five of us helped them one morning last week, following them along the dirt road by the border from Yuma to San Luis, making six stops and encountering migrants in many places along the way. And yes there are gaps in the wall near Yuma – and the wall will never be “finished.” Farmers demand access to water and the federal wall ends where the Cocopah Reservation begins.

We did not see Border Patrol process any asylum-seekers while we were there, but the evidence that they do indeed require everyone to throw away their personal possessions is everywhere. We filled bags and bags of “trash” and left them in the dumpsters parked along the border. In a few places, migrants picked up bags and helped us.

And afterwards, some of us brought items we found on the border to the Welcome Center. I washed hundreds of shoelaces in hopes our visitors to the Ropa (clothing) Room might be able to use them. My sister brought in the white confirmation dress she found and pinned it on a wall in the Ropa Room, thinking the mother who left it behind might visit us and see it, just waiting for her to reclaim it.

And I kept the coins I had found in my pocket.

Late last Saturday afternoon, four women who had chosen some clothing items from the Ropa Room were sitting on benches in the hallway, and one of the women was crying. I gave her a small stuffed dog and asked if she missed her family. One of the other women said she had been talking to her mother in Peru. Peru? I had never met anyone at the Welcome Center from Peru, but the coins in my pocket were Peruvian. I gave them to her and she placed them in her hand and stroked them ever so gently.

It was surely another one of the “God things” we witness so often at the Welcome Center.

We are truly blessed to be able to help welcome our newest immigrants to this country, and assist them as they pass through Phoenix on their way to sponsors throughout the country. And everyone who has donated clothing or shoes or tote bags or who has contributed to our meal fund is part of our First Church team. We are making a difference in people’s lives. Thank you.

Will the Minority Rule Again?

by Rev. Dr. Richard Einerson

There is a strong majority in this country that is pro-choice for women.  Yet the minority can rule on this issue if we allow it.  I have some background in medical ethics and from that background I feel compelled to make some comments.  I was co-chair of the Medical Ethics Committee at Meritcare Medical Center in Fargo, ND where I was a chaplain for 18 years.  In that role I attended weeklong seminars in medical ethics at the University of Washington as well as the “Managing Mortality” conference at the University of Minnesota.  I heard the families of two major medical ethics cases, Karen Ann Quinlan and Nancy Cruzan.  The first had to do with disconnecting a ventilator, the latter with discontinuing feeding tubes.  Ever since the religious right has fought to have the government enforce quasi-religious values in families and personal life which continues today.  (Comas:  Karen Quinlan, Nancy Cruzan, and Terry Schiavo, Chapter 2). We are in the middle of that fight over women’s health and pro-choice issues now. 

The battle has been going a while.  I had an annual lecture in medicine and religions and invited Kristie Cruzan White, Nancy’s sister to tell their story to our physicians and community.  Shortly thereafter (around 1991} I invited Dr. Daniel Maguire to lecture.  His topic was going to be on grief in families who lose young children to incurable diseases as he and his wife had experienced.  Maguire was a Jesuit teaching at Marquette but had become in the top ten on the hit list of his Catholic Church by an article he published in the Christian Century describing a visit he and his wife had made to a Planned Parent Center in Milwaukie.  Contrary to the Republican notion that it is primarily “loose women” who get abortions, they found it was often women such as a schizophrenic whose medications would malform the fetus; other women whose pregnancies were not proceeding normally. 

As a result of his unorthodox notions on abortion, I received a phone call on a Monday morning from the Chairman of the Bank which funded our lecture and who was more than nervous about our choice of lecture.  I inquired who was objecting.  It was the Bishop’s office and at least one of our conservative physicians.  I said: “Norman, would you give me 24 hours to speak with them.”  He reluctantly agreed.  But in mid-afternoon I got a call from the President.  After several statements I said:  “Are you suggesting we pay his honorarium and have him stay home?”  Of course, the answer was yes.  Fortunately, we had friends in the philosophy department at Moorhead State University across the river who paid his airfare, and we had the largest turnout ever in their huge auditorium.  Then Maguire did talk about abortion, quoting a Catholic Bishop in the 16th century.  With his Irish humor he said: “He didn’t lose his job, and his lectures weren’t cancelled!”  Let’s be clear:  This was an attempt of overruled FREEDOM OF SPEECH. 

In another article, A Question of Catholic Honesty, Maguire takes on his church’s absolute stance on abortion:  wrong all the time.  He says: “As a Catholic theology I find this situation abhorrent and unworthy of the richness of the Roman Catholic traditions that have nourished me.  I indict not only the bishops, but also the ‘petulant silence’ (Beverly Harrison’s phrase) or indifference of many Catholic Theologians who recognize the morality of certain abortions, but still will not address the subject publicly.  I also indict the male dominated liberal Catholic press which does too little to dissipate the myth of a Catholic monolith on abortion.”

To me this is clearly an issue of women’s healthcare.  It is an issue to be dealt with honestly in the privacy of a doctor’s office.  I personally, as a man, cannot imagine the agony a woman goes through who may need an abortion.  But I know that many of those who have FREEDOM as bumper stickers are all for LIMITING FREEDOM OF CHOICE FOR WOMEN. l It is amazing the me that the Supreme Court may be seriously nullifying Roe v Wade, established precedent.  It says more about this court than it does about law.  But if it does so, it is up to Congress.   Our question as a society is:  will be allow the minority to rule?  Is the filibuster more important than a woman’s civil liberties?   It is time for the majority to work at claiming its power.  We should query and pressure our congressional representatives and senators.  We should show up in the streets.  The minority and their religious dogmatism should not prevail!  It is time that the most strident voices be put down.  I am not talking about their freedom of speech, but their trying to impose their will on the majority. 

An unfortunate concomitant of the extreme right is the downright viciousness of their attacks.  I mention the Nancy Cruzan case.  The right consistently demonstrated where Nancy was lying in a persistent vegetative state.  One of the signs on that Christmas eve read:  LOOK WHAT NANCY GOT FOR CHRISTMAS:  DEATH!   I would hope that kind of viciousness might cease but I doubt that will ever be the case.  Religion always has its zealots.  They must not win this battle.  We need to demonstrate that there are other Christians who are not zealots, who are champions of women’s rights, and who believe in the constitutional rights of all Americans!

Life AND Choice Are United

by Rev. Dr. Barb Doerrer-Peacock

I wasn’t sure whether this writing wanted to be a poem or an essay. So, I just wrote. This is the result: my thoughts/feelings about the current threat to women’s reproductive rights.

They would like us to think it’s about
Sanctity vs. sacrilege
Life vs. death
Federal vs state
Truth vs. lies
Constitution vs. changeable laws
Protection of one vs. another
A woman’s issue, and not a man’s
A womb and not a penis
A fetus and not a whole human life
A private decision and not
a whole human culture.

They would like us to think it’s about
when life begins and when it ends,
and whether it is a God
or a human decision.
whether it is male or female
conservative or liberal
Biblical or profane
pro-choice or pro-life.

They would like us to think…
but not really.
They would like us to react.

The tyranny of the binary
creates knee-jerk reactions,
reactions create polarizing gulfs,
gulfs create intractable division:
Us or Them
Other or Self
Win or Lose.

The authority of the binary
creates warring clans and tribes
Us vs. Them
Loyalty vs Disloyalty
Good vs Evil
Right vs. Wrong
Security vs. Fear.

The power of the binary is
dominance of definition
over ambiguity
privilege of power
over powerlessness,
control of cultural commonality
over difference and diversity.

They would like us to think that
this is what it’s all about.
It is not.
It is only yet another mask of
Either/Or
the binary.

A continuing incarnation of something
rather small and insidious,
like a worm that burrows unnoticed
into an orifice and lays its eggs
waiting, growing in the dark
to ultimately take over its host
with fear and madness.

But Life AND Choice are united.
The two entwining, eternal lovers of
God’s Good Creation.
Holiest Gifts
out of which everything is born.

Without Choice – there is no Life.
All is dead.
Without Life – Choice ceases to exist,
All is inanimate.

I refuse the binary trap.
Instead, I CHOOSE LIFE
Together, both, whole.

I choose to believe
life has no beginning
or end – all is in the presence of God
who was, and is,
and forever will be.

I choose to believe
sanctity can be manifest
In all soul-wrestling,
anguished decisions:
to end a pregnancy, AND
to continue a pregnancy
despite all odds, AND
a myriad of other
LIFE CHOOSE-INGS.
All are in the presence of God.

Sanctity evaporates
and the presence of God dims
when
our capacity to
CHOOSE LIFE
Is stolen.

So today,
I CHOOSE LIFE.
And I denounce
those who would be its
thieves.

The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice put together this stunning video of Barb’s poem.

Mothering the World Right Now!

by Kay Klinkenborg

Climate change, war in Ukraine, starvation in Yemen and Afghanistan to name a few places that is happening. And a world pandemic continues.  The world is not the same.  We will not be returning to ‘normal’…whatever that was.   Pastor Paul Whitlock on April 3 gave a powerful sermon on FOMO…FLOP…FOMO.  I was quite taken with his creativity.  Fun On Moving Onward (FOMO) was his challenge.  Now what was I to do with that?  Instantly my feminine energy kicked into gear.

Mothering.  Creation has been ‘mothering’ since the beginning.  God speaks of ‘we’ in Genesis; not alone as Creator. Then other Hebrew Scriptures speak of Sophia, Wisdom; which has been interpreted by highly respected theologians as the feminine side of God. 

The Talmud also introduces the term Shekhinah to connote God’s presence in the world. Though the term is grammatically feminine, in the Talmud it is not explicitly gendered, though in some passages it refers to moments when God shares in human experiences of loneliness, loss, and exile.1

 In the case of Jewish thought, grammar at times meets theology in as much as impersonal Hebrew nouns are gendered, so that words like hokhmah (wisdom) and shekhinah (presence) over time lent themselves by virtue of their feminine.1

In fact, the personal name of God, Yahweh, which is revealed to Moses in Exodus 3, is a remarkable combination of both female and male grammatical endings. The first part of God’s name in Hebrew, “Yah,” is feminine, and the last part, “weh,” is masculine.2

I am pleased that I can attest to many men I know that use ‘mothering characteristics’ in their relationships and interactions.  I am not suggesting that this is a woman’s task at all.  In fact, I think history and biblical interpretations show us that feminine traits are revered.  And our world right now needs that kind of love!.

Remember the famous song: “What the World Needs Now is Love, Sweet Love.”  One word most will resonant with to describe that is a verb:  mothering.

Since the beginning of time…’mothering’…to nurture…to care for…to watch after’ has and does occur.  It had to have occurred or evolution would not have sustained, extended or be continuing.  As the human species evolves our archeological discoveries tell us that ‘mothering’ occurred.  It is nature’s form of care taking, survival of the species.

One major thing I have learned more about these past three years… ‘getting out of God’s way’.  My instinctual need to control, be in charge is being challenged.   I am learning more about the spiritual discipline of surrender.  Let God evolve.   There is no surprise that we have a pandemic. There have always been pandemics, disasters, wars, a disappearance of life as we understand it.  That there is a new virus is not news.  Our ownership that this can happen to us is what is new.  This is nature. This is the evolving of life in this known Universe.

I have found myself ‘shoulding’:  I should do this; I should say that; I should not be having this fear and anxiety.   A sampling of my should list.   What about ‘mothering myself’?   What about starting there in order to have the energy and compassion to extend to others?   If I can have compassion for my own journey/feelings during this extraordinary time in history, will not that enable me to understand/hear and have compassion beyond myself.  Then I am ready to extend ‘mothering’.

Only in self-compassion and owning my own emotions in this particular journey will I then have the energy and compassionate response to others to be mothering the world.  Mirabai Starr writes in her book Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics, “…we need a mothering of the world together right now.”    We need that feminine energy that is male and female brought forth to face these challenges.

I want to explicitly point out the fact that women who have not born children… mother; men… mother,  It is part of our innate design if we own that part of ourselves.  A friend taught me a profound lesson about mothering;

One particularly Mother’s Day, I was quite depressed; estranged from our son and blaming myself for his adult choices. A friend sent me a text that day that knew of the circumstances.  “Kay, you have been mothering people your entire adult life.  As a nurse, friend, manager, counselor, consultant and the list goes on.  So today claim all the mothering you have and do. Let that bring comfort.”

So I am challenging myself as I write to this audience, let my ‘mothering show forth’; let my love be visible and make me an instrument that releases a song of ‘Love, Love, Love…’

Going on without denying any aspect of the human drama is what strength is all about. We are carved by life into instruments that will release our song, if we can hold each up to the carving.
Mark Nepo
 

1”Feminine Images of God”:  Yehudah Mirsky, Jewish Women’s Archive.

2CBE (cbeinternational.org) (Christians for Biblical Equality). “The Feminine Imagery of God in the Hebrew Bible.” Joan P. Schaupp | October 30, 2000.

Good Enough Faith Keeps Coming Back

by Southwest Conference Minister, Rev. Dr. Bill Lyons, as preached at Scottsdale Congregational UCC on Easter Sunday, April 17, 2022

Easter presents real challenges. It has from the very beginning.

How exactly were the troops going to explain the disappeared body on their watch? Are they really going to tell their superiors: there was suddenly a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.

How were the women going to move the stone? And when they found the tomb opened already, imagine their shock and agony and fear!

Mary Magdalene didn’t wait for explanations. John tells us “she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Resurrection didn’t even enter Mary’s mind when she first visited the open tomb. The other women went inside and were perplexed. Messengers – one or two, no one quite remembered – on the stone or inside the vault, that got mixed up too – it’s tricky – but everyone agrees – messengers in dazzling clothes appeared out of nowhere and said, “Don’t be afraid. I know why you are here. The one you watched die three days ago is alive and He told you this would happen. Remember his words? By the way, he’s heading to Galilee and you can see him there.”

That last line in the angels’ message sounds like a set up. Go to Galilee?! Where Herod ruled and John the Baptizer lost his head?! Jesus’s followers had been in hiding for the last three days. They had plenty of examples of what Roman troops did to the friends of people who had been crucified. And now with the body missing, who do you think the troops identified as ‘people of interest’ in connection with all of this? That’s more than tricky!

Two disciples took the risk and ventured out – back to the cemetery. One went inside; one didn’t. No telling who was in there waiting for them. No angels this time, just a pile of grave wrappings and a shroud folded neatly on the niche where Jesus’s body should have been. Well, part of the women’s story was accurate, anyway. I wonder if they looked at Mary who stood outside the tomb and thought. “Did you women stage this? How did you manage it? Where did you put the body? Do you realize what will happen if the troops find out?!”

Nobody believed the women. The first resurrection sermon had no takers. Talk about a problem with Easter!

Mary stayed at the tomb after everyone else left. It’s the last place she’d see her Lord. She was looking for answers. She was looking for Jesus, albeit a dead Jesus. When she found him she couldn’t see him even when the living Jesus, a man she’d spent years following and living in community with, stood right in front of her talking. Her faith wasn’t ready for that. But she’d come back. And when Jesus said her name, she believed!

It took Mary two visits to accept the living Christ. It’s not how many visits it took that mattered. What’s important is that she came back, kept looking, kept listening.

It’s not always in church that we find ourselves re-visiting his tomb or that we hear Jesus say our name.

Ambulance attendants wheeled him into room 14 – the resuscitation suite. He had been found in a doorway of a downtown building unresponsive. The clinical signs told us he had been dead for quite some time. Still, the ER team did everything possible. Then the moment came to stop the effort, and a time of death was pronounced by the attending physician.

An hour or so later the deceased man’s family members and friends began arriving at the hospital and I was called to meet them. They cried and held each other and began to pray and to sing. Their pastor arrived and anointed the body. Then she turned to me and said in broken English, “You tell doctor shock him and he will live now.”

In the break room the attending physician looked at me with wide eyes. “WOW! Chaplain, if they can bring him back with prayer, I’ll start going to church.”

“Doc, I go to church because I know one man God brought back after three days. But right now, I need you to come in and explain to his family that this man has already been shocked and is gone. I’ll take it from there.”

The doctor shook his head. He was well aware that only doctors were permitted to share medical information with families. So, he explained the reality of the team’s resuscitation efforts and the certainty of biological death compassionately and succinctly. The pastor looked right at him and said, “We prayed. You shock him and he will live now.”

Usually when docs finished that kind of conversation, they left the room and let the support team facilitate a grieving process. But this time the doc stepped back, leaned against the wall, crossed his arms, and was as attentive as every family member there. I offered my sincere respect and appreciation for the family and the pastor’s faith in a God who could raise the dead. I too believed in that God. I knew in the end everyone who died trusting Jesus will live again. And I also knew that sometimes, as possible as a resurrection is, God takes a person to live where God is. Silence. Startlingly the pastor responded with jubílense, “¡Alabado sea Dios, se ha ido a casa!” “Praise God, he’s gone home!” and she began to pray.

I heard his pager go off during the prayer, and when I looked up the doc was gone. He found me later and said he didn’t mean to be rude and walk out in the middle of a prayer. I said to him, “What I noticed was this time you stayed for the spiritual explanation of your patient dying.” He looked at me and smiled. “You noticed that, did you.” And then one of our pagers went off…

I wonder, how many trips to Jesus’s tomb we make over time? How have your expectations or questions about what you’ll find there changed since your last visit? Maybe you decided to visit Jesus’s empty tomb this morning wondering. “How?!” Or maybe you’re at the empty tomb again not having thought much about what you’d find – an obstacle or an opening, the expected or a surprise.

Maybe the resurrection seems “like an idle tale” – dazzling extraterrestrials, a three-days-dead corpse walking and talking – the same way the testimony of the women fell on the ears of the disciples.

Maybe you’ve been trying to “remember what he told you,” a faith from childhood, lessons from catechism, or a loved one’s witness.

Perhaps the angelic questions resonate with you. “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” “Who are you looking for?” [pause] “Who are you looking for?”

Maybe you’re waiting for an invitation to “come and see,” to take a closer look at this place where Jesus is supposed to be found.

Perchance, like Peter,– you’ve seen and still aren’t ready to step in. Or maybe like John – you believe but just aren’t sure how to explain it all.

Or like Mary, you’ve been here before. You’re back because wondering why Jesus isn’t where you thought he’d be, asking questions, making bargains.

It’s even possible all of this leaves you at a loss for words and afraid.

It’s equally possible you heard Jesus say your name once, and you just want to hear it again.

Maybe Easter, is, for you, a day to say, “Alleluia! I’ve seen the Lord!!

Whatever brings you to the empty tomb this time, wherever you find yourself in the story, what matters is you are here! That’s good enough!! Surely there’s room for all of us to grow in our faith. Easter is for celebrating that whatever faith we have in the living Jesus, that’s good enough. Because whatever else we aren’t sure of in our faith, we can be certain of this: Jesus is alive enough to have brought you back. How much more alive does he need to be? Easter faith is good enough when it keeps us coming back. Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!!