December 2016 – Southwest Conference Blog

Reflections from Christmas Eve in Iraq – 2016

The chapel is quiet right now. The only noise comes from the Black Hawks and Chinooks preparing to take off to destinations around Iraq. It is Christmas Eve. The rain is pouring and the ground is rapidly covered in a type of mud that is anything but festive. It bogs the mood of the camp, but the war effort does not slow. I have been here for every holiday this year. It never slows, not even in Taji, a place far from the thunder of the front lines.

In just a few short hours, the Australian Padre, fellow US chaplains and I will lead a candlelight service celebrating once again the birth of the Prince of Peace. We will sing traditional carols as military personnel and contractors from around the world pause to pay homage. It is a wonderful reminder. Men and women have looked to this event with hope-filled wonder for many years.

I think a great deal about peace these days. Whether it is Iraq or Syria, it is difficult for those who care not to watch with broken hearts. I feel fortunate to be part of an ongoing operation trying to do something about the tragedy we all see on our screens, but it never seems to be enough and it never seems to move fast enough. The destruction is indiscriminate and especially brutal to those most vulnerable: the elderly, women, and children.

As I unpack the candles for the service, I meditate on the last year. I’m getting ready to leave. The battles still rage to my north and probably will for some time to come. There is a certain guilt I cannot help but feel as I prepare to leave. I get to go home. I get to hug my wife and children and sleep in relative safety under the beautiful Tucson night sky. If I want, I do not have to even consider the war-torn events I am poised to leave. It is a strange luxury lost on most of our country. I am ill at ease with that reality. And so I wonder and pray, what will PEACE look like for this part of the world?

One of the officers at lunch recounted the story of the Christmas Truce from WWI. I googled it when I returned back to my office. The story perfectly illustrates how, during the weeks leading to Christmas, tragedy becomes the paradox of God’s grace. The story has the feel of myth. As it goes, roughly 100,000 British and German soldiers were involved in an unofficial cessation of hostility along the Western Front. The Germans placed candles on their trenches and on Christmas trees. Both sides joined in singing Christmas Carols, shouting greetings across the way. They even made excursions across No Man’s Land to exchange gifts of food, tobacco, and alcohol.

How were they able to peer past their training and their reality to see the peace being celebrated in the birth of Christ? I think of the enemies we now face and I cannot imagine a similar scene. I cannot see the same opportunities of make-shift sacred space or a common understanding of humanity. During the Christmas Truce, there was a stalemate in the trenches. There was a space created in the impasse. The space was steeped in desperation and prayer. It became a sacred moment juxtaposed with the coming Christmas morning. There was time to actually consider the story of the one hunkered in the opposite the trench. The soldier was drilled to believe that the enemy soldier is the enemy of all life and all future. But in the space in between, they saw a common humanity. They saw the image of God within the other. In a season where we celebrate hope, joy and love, peace overcame them, even if for only a short while.

In some respects, it is probably not completely fair to compare this current conflict with that one so long ago. As I hear the approaching steps of a chaplain, one cannot help but wonder, however. Have the last 13 years of war has created a similar type of stalemate? This deployment has created more questions than answers. Will we be able to take the tragic spaces created by war and make them holy? How will peace be possible if we are unable or even unwilling to see our own stories, sons, and daughters in the faces of our enemy? I do not know. In our candlelit circle tonight, there will be no elements of the enemy. There will be no echoing songs coming from battle lines afar. No gifts. No sharing of photos of family. No laughter. After nine months however, I can attest that the same desperation and prayer will be here tonight.

The problem of peace is nothing new. I had hoped that this problem would be one I would not have to pass down to my children awaiting my return. I imagine that same hope was a driving reason for the anticipation surrounding Christ’s birth so long ago. And so tonight we will sing. And we will pray. And we will lift the light of Christ high into the air. And we will welcome the Prince of Peace, trusting like those soldiers did a hundred years ago that peace can be born in the most hopeless places.

Peace,
Owen

A Book That Changed Our Planet?

by Donald Fausel

I was living in Baltimore, Maryland in 1962, finishing a year of what the Sulpician Fathers called Solitude, which was the last step before being becoming a Sulpician priest, and teach in a seminary. Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring came out in September of 1962. A friend of mine sent me a copy of Carson’s book. At first I didn’t think it was an appropriate book to read, since the daytime in Solitude was filled with spiritual reading and I didn’t have time for a book about environmentalism. How wrong I was! But I didn’t know that at that time. It wasn’t until several years ago when I replaced my copy of Silent Spring.

It was only then that I could agree with the words of former vice president and almost president Al Gore, “Rachel Carson was one of the reasons why I became so conscious of the environment and so involved with environmental issues.” I also I agree with reviewer Walter Sullivan and many others who “… compare Silent Spring to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the most controversial American book of the nineteenth century. Silent Spring inspired immediate outrage and opposition. ”

First let me give you Rachel Carson’s Website. As you’ll see she was born on May 27, 1907 in Springdale, Pennsylvania. At an early age, she had a great ambition to be a writer, but at college she switched from her major in English to biology. She earned a master’s degree in zoology from John Hopkins University in 1932 but her doctoral studies were interrupted due to the Great Depression. “She took a job as a biologist with the US Bureau of Fisheries—and later the US Fish and Wildlife Service—and wrote and edited informational material for the public.”

Silent Spring was not the first book that Carson wrote; Under the Sea-Wind was published in 1941. Sea Around Us, her second book, published in 1952 and it was an unbelievable success. It became a bestseller and stayed on the list for a eighty-six weeks.

After her success with her previous books she turned her attention to a problem with which she had concerned for over a decade—the use of dangerous new chemicals in agriculture and pest control. From there she wrote Silent Spring.

Sadly, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and according to her website “…she hid her illness from the public while she defended her book on television, at congressional hearings, and before many audiences. Silent Spring was published on September 27, 1962 and she died at home in Silver Spring, Maryland, at the age of fifty-six.”

According to Margaret Atwood’s article in the Guardian, Silent Spring also “…met with furious resistance, chiefly from the big chemical companies and the scientists in their employ.” These were scientists concerned with DDT and other pesticides. To give you a few examples, here is video Rachel Carson: Impact of Silent Spring . It was published on April 18, 2013, and has historical clips on DDT.

Another example is The Power of One Voice. This is a perspective of Rachel Carson’s life as a groundbreaking documentary, examining her life and the profound implications of her environmental work. The 52-minute film features interviews with Rachel Carson’s adopted son, Roger Christie, her biographer, Linda Lear, and other notable writers, scientists, and advocates.

Today, Rachel Carson remains a role model and inspiration for people across the globe, even as the controversy created by her challenge to the chemical industry continues. By highlighting the power of Carson’s voice, they hope to inspire others to add their voices to this essential conversation.

Despite the deniers when she published Silent Spring, “Rachel Carson is recognized around the world as the Mother of the Modern Environmental Movement,” even as she has continued to be attacked in the 21st Century by those who misrepresent her message of Silent Spring.

This article by Margaret Atwood Rachel Carson’s Book, 50 Years on, fifty years after Silent Spring was published, wonders “…what would Carson have said about the spraying of dispersants during the Gulf Spill?” Or “What would she have said about the rapidly melting Arctic ice or about the plans to shove a pipeline through the Great Bear rainforest to the Pacific Shore?” The article goes on that “She would have seen many signs of hope…”

As Time magazine put it in 1999: “Before there was an environmental movement, there was one brave woman and her very brave book.”

“A Who’s Who of pesticides is therefore of concern to us all. If we are going to live so intimately with chemicals eating and drinking them, taking them into the very marrow of our bones—we had better know something about their nature and their power.” –Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“How could intelligent beings seek to control a few species a method that contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and death even to their own kind? Yet this is precisely what we have done. We have done it, moreover, for reasons that collapse the moment we examine them.” –Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

May we all see those same signs of hope and follow in the footprints of Rachel Carson!

Shalom.

Hope in a Child

by Abigail Conley

“I think you have a kid in there,” I said, nodding toward his truck, and taking his empty cart back to the return for him.

“Thank you so much,” he answered, looking relieved.

Both of us were crazy enough to go to Costco in the week before Christmas and just happened to park near each other. I confess, I second guessed taking his cart for him. Mostly, I second guessed because women doing things like that for men in public space isn’t expected. I almost did it as soon as I headed toward the return with my own cart, but walked past him just a little bit. I looked back to talk to him, to offer to take his cart for him. In that split second, I might have seen his hesitation to walk away from the truck where his child was safely strapped in a car seat. I don’t know. I do remember what was expressed more deeply than usual, “Thank you so much.”

I’m quite certain he didn’t know that I’d seen him earlier, along with his son, inside the store. I was sitting at the restaurant, quickly scarfing down a slice of pizza before heading on to my next task. He walked by, between my cart and the wall, pushing his cart with both purchases and son. I noticed him because his son was crying. When I say crying, I mean that horrible version of crying that children do when they’re just done.

I’d taken notice because of the crying, and then I saw a father being a very good father. They had a smoothie, and the child wanted some. As he cried, the father gently coaxed, “Use your words.” Over and over, again, “Use your words.” The phrase is familiar, one often heard spoken by teachers and parents of young children. Those words struck me differently today, though, as the man spoke them to his son.

I thought about them after he left Costco, as I was finishing up my pizza and walking to my car. It’s the week before Christmas; the walk to the car in a Costco parking lot is extra long. I let the please, “Use your words,” roll over in my mind, thinking how different the world would be if we used our words, instead.

My mourning for Syria has been long and deep. A “complete meltdown of humanity” the news says. That might be the best summary imaginable if even half of the news making it to this part of the world is true. I fear we actually don’t know the half of it. My fear as leaders talk of the need for more nuclear weapons is deep, as well. Words, it seems, are always used to cry out for something more, too often, that thing is violence. It seems that’s the go-to answer right now, with no one quite sure how to put a stop to it all.

I don’t know any more about that father than what I just told you. Who knows what he’s like day in, day out. I have hope, though, that this father coaxing his very, very young son to use his words rather than have a tantrum might do even more good with that child in the long run. Use your words, not your fists. Use your words, not a weapon. Use your words, face to face. Use your words first, and finally.

It is the absurdity of the season, after all, that our deepest hope is in a child—a child called the Word, made flesh, and dwelling among us. The child, called Word, brought all sorts of hope along into that manger, including that swords would be beaten into plowshares, and we would not learn war any more. The beauty of that impossibility lingers deep these days, the promise that we will one day put away our many, many tools of destruction.

For today, while I still await the Christ child’s coming, I am comforted a bit by this man and his child. The hopes of this season run deep: the hope for peace; the hope for fear to subside; the hope that our words become enough. To this man who I’ll likely never see, again, thank you so much.

Helpful or Not?

by Karen Richter

I’ve been mulling over the words sacred and secular lately. Just yesterday a member of my congregation described themselves as “a pretty secular person.” I’m sure I blinked, eyes wide because I have zero poker face skills. How could this person – no matter what theology or philosophy – who I have experienced as chock-full of passion and integrity, be secular? And now that I think about it, how could a person whose faith compels them to act in ways contrary to justice, compassion, and peace be sacred?

What do these words even mean? Is the distinction helpful any longer, if it ever was?

In high school choir, we sang sacred music. Just a side note, because surely you were wondering, my favorite piece was John Rutter’s For the Beauty of the Earth.

We also sang secular music. Here’s one I remember that you probably recall as well.

Why is a song about connection and longing and common humanity labeled secular just because God isn’t mentioned? And surely, if we thought about it, we could think of religious songs that are so soaked in nationalism, exclusivism, and fear that the word God sours in our mouths as we sing.

I’m always suspicious about either/or choices, and the sacred or secular choice is no different. Questions worth asking always have more than two potential answers!

In this holiday season, we so often get pulled into irrelevant discussions about what is appropriate as part of our Christmas celebration and what isn’t. Mistletoe and holly, yule logs, decorated trees, candles… these treasured traditions all originated in pagan winter celebrations. Contemporary questions abound as well… Santa during church events? Starbucks cups? Church on Christmas day? How do we choose what to affirm and what to discard? What goes and what stays?

It all stays. It all belongs. If incarnation means anything at all, it means that the false dichotomy of sacred and secular is revealed as illusion, forever broken down, shattered completely, and re-formed as part of a blessed whole.

You belong too! Merry Christmas and peace in 2017!

Are You Simmering?

by Amanda Petersen

I have had a lot of conversations this week about darkness and shorter days. When those I have spoken to are really honest, the inner call this time of year is to pull in and cherish; to spend time with those one is closest to and to spend time nesting. There is a sense of drawing in when the days are short. I am a lover of rhythm and the way the seasons honor the universal expansion and contraction of life.

The shorter days for me are a way of concentrating life. Like in cooking, when I let a sauce simmer down until it is thick and rich. The soul needs these simmering times too. To pull in and concentrate on what is rich and deep. To sit in the dark reflecting and gathering what is sacred in order to cherish them. To take the time to restore the soul and rest just like all the plant life around us. To sit in the silence and be with all that stirs the soul, pleasant or not, honoring all is held in Love.

In a world that is capable of 24-hour daylight, this simmering in the dark can be challenging. Yet from the conversations I have had recently, if one is still enough, one can hear the whisper to simmer, to pull in, and surround oneself with deep relationships, reflection and love. A whisper to simmer or cherish the joy of connecting with oneself, God, and others in a relaxed and real way.

From this deep rich place as the rhythm of life expands again, one will draw on its richness in the activity of our lives. I invite you to spend some time this week sitting in the dark. Lingering under the covers just a bit more. Turning off the electronics when the sun goes down earlier and earlier, even for a little bit, just to recognize the soul’s call to simmer and cherish.

Okay, but why?

by Davin Franklin-Hicks

I remember my 13-year-old self sitting on the altar of a small Southern Baptist church. The altar was brown, carpeted steps. A woman who had shown me incredible kindness sat with me. She was holding my hand. I was wracked with sadness and sobs. She listened to me as I told her about the divorces, the turmoil in my family, the fear that I was not normal (that meant queer, but I didn’t yet have the words for that). She listened. She leaned in. She cared.

After I shared, she opened her Bible and I remember her taking me through “The Roman Road”. I spent most of the time listening for Roman to show up in the story line. The Roman character never made an appearance.

The Roman Road is a fundamentalist evangelical tool often used in explaining the “Plan of Salvation”. I would come to know that well later, but for that moment, I didn’t understand any of it.

This is pretty much how the many conversations would go:

Nice lady (NL): When Eve took that apple and decided to eat from the tree, sin entered the world. We needed a path back to God and we get that through Jesus.

Perplexed 13 y/o Davin (PD): Well, why did God make that tree then?

NL: God wanted us to choose Him. When we don’t we invite sin into our lives and we need salvation.

PD: I don’t get it. If I poisoned candy and put it in a kid’s room, wouldn’t that mean I poisoned the kid if the kid ate it?

NL: blinking with a minorly irritated look.

Our session ended for that day. Two weeks later the nice lady tried again. Same place, ready to dig in, Bible between us.

NL: Okay so please remember that we chose sin.

PD: Yeah, but God kinda made that happen, right? Why did he put that tree there?

NL: Because God wanted us to choose Him.

PD: What? Why?

NL: Because he loves us and wants us to love him.

PD: Then why didn’t he leave out the tree that would ruin everything?

Our session ended again.

We met more and I had many questions:
Why did God make Lucifer if He knew that he would turn into Satan?
Who was Cain afraid of? Wasn’t it just him, Abel, Eve and Adam in the world? Who was Cain afraid would harm him when he was cast out of the garden?
If God made us and the tree of good and evil, isn’t that kinda passive aggressive?
She sighed a lot in those visits.

I was a teenager who just discovered faith community.
I liked the church a lot.
I liked the people.
I liked the adults who worked in the youth group.
I kept coming back and the nice lady kept trying to help me understand why I needed salvation in the form of repentance.

After many sessions with her, I was willing to admit I was a sinner, admit Jesus died for my sins, profess my belief in Christ, invite Jesus into my heart and promise to walk a path of faith, sharing the Good News. This is called a few things in literal, evangelical Christianity: being born again, getting saved, turning my life over to Jesus. Once I was in, I was in. The questions went away and I was determined to be the next Billy Graham.

Much of my theology in those days was slathered with fear and shame. I passed that on to those who took time to listen to my conversion messages. I was going to make sure Heaven was full and Hell was empty.

I was zealous and I was persistent. I was also very scared, brokenhearted, shame-filled and sad. The church kept me busy so my heart didn’t feel so very alone.

I was always angry back then. If you had to find me in a crowd, you could simply look for the kid with arms crossed over their chest, glowering, glaring, guarded and grrrrrr…

All the while I pushed people away, I was super offended when they did not talk to me. Hurt people often long for what they desperately try to convince others they don’t need.

I was creating an emotional wall; I was a teenage emotional construction worker with endless mortar and bricks: Sob the Builder.

There’s reasons for that wall. There’s reasons for everything we think, feel and do. Behavior is to meet a need, or at least a perception of a need. We spend so much time judging actions we rarely think about what is behind those actions. We rarely are compassionate with ourselves.

Everyone’s behavior makes sense to them at the time or else they wouldn’t do it. My fortress was built for a reason. It kept the bad out, but then it started keeping EVERYTHING out.

If I ever write a memoir I will call it “Well, that didn’t work.” And we still try again.

It’s comfortable to think in black and white because there is certainty there. It’s super hard when you let in the colorful world of all sorts of living and needing. It changes everything.

The option of truly being present with someone and learning who they are without an agenda to change them is the only way we get to have honest relationship. I didn’t get that concept for much of my life. I wanted the world to bend, not for me to bend. That’s how brokenness happens, in the not bending and the demanding it be different.

2016 has been awful for me and many I love. It has been the worst year of my life for sure. It also has been a very rich year. I have felt loved more often than not. I have given love more freely than I have in any other year. And 2016 was still the worst ever for me.

I am not someone who believes life’s trials are there to make you a better person. I don’t believe it is orchestrated in that way. I do believe, though, in every situation that sorrow exists, we can see aspects of living we never would have noticed without the sorrow. I don’t believe sorrow exists as a life lesson. I think it’s just part of life and what we choose to do with it determines a lot.

It’s been almost a year since I was harmed through sexual assault and there have been oh so many layers of pain my family and I have walked through. It has been horrendous and it has been illuminating. It has been heartbreaking and it has been healing. For me, what makes it or breaks it is my willingness to engage life in hard times vs run, run, run!

Engaging in life requires some courage when everything within wants to retreat. When that’s my reality I take the absolute smallest inching forward I can muster to just stay in the world, stay in my life. I have to get open, drop the mortar and brick, and choose to live in the elements, responding to life and love as it comes and as I co-create it. Dear ones, we are creating our inner world as we participate in life. I want my inner world to be a sanctuary and refuge.

The idea of refuge reminds me of my younger brother who tells a story that when he was about 19 years old or so, his AC busted and he had to have more windows and doors open at night to keep cool. He did this regularly in the apartment he lived in so he had adjusted and slept well most of the time.

One morning he gradually woke from sleep with the cat on his belly. He petted her, she purred and nuzzles. Then the slow dawning: “I don’t have a cat.” Yup. A random cat decided to sleep on my brother’s belly.

I love picturing this story playing out. It’s awesome, funny, and it highlights my gentle brother who awakes with welcome.

What I really love most, though, is the cat. The cat went all rogue and decided this house was as good as any and my brother’s warm belly was just the stuff this felonious cat needed to get a good rest.

What’s hurting within you? What’s preventing you from welcoming warmth and companionship into the core of who you are? What is this fortress you are building? What is keeping you from the wander and the wonder that may lead to new relationship? What is the smallest inching forward you can muster today to answer the pain with hopeful forward momentum?

Whatever it is, I promise you this: the pain you feel in that place is made worse with isolation and vigilance. Peace to your precious, scared heart and peace to your amazing, enduring spirit.

We all have the “why” questions. Keep that up! The questions are beautiful and welcomed. The altar is within you as you seek your heart out.

Knowing this and living this is my road to salvation.

The Three Most Revolutionary Words in the Gospel

by Amos Smith

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. -Galatians 3:28

This verse from Galatians is what made the early church profound – what made it spread like wildfire. In the highly stratified society of Jesus’ time no one could believe that different classes, genders, and ethnicities sung, prayed, and broke bread together. This was unheard of.

In Jesus’ time “acceptable company” was defined very narrowly. For example, it was taboo for a Rabbi to associate with women, Samaritans, or ritually unclean people, among others.

The early church drop-kicked all the purity codes. They learned this audacious behavior from Jesus who “touched the leper” (Matthew 8:3). In my estimation, those are the three most revolutionary words of the Gospel. In Jesus’ time no one ever looked at a leper, much less considered touching one. When lepers came around most people ran, and some pelted them with stones. So for Jesus to “touch the leper” was radical.

Contemporary Christian author Brian Zhand writes “Jesus was trying to lead humanity into the deep truth that there is no ‘them,’ there is only us.”

Most people would say, “Okay I can accept this statement, but there are obvious exceptions, like lepers.” Jesus shattered this exceptionalism of the liberal Jews of his time when he fearlessly touched the loathsome leper. The liberal Jews wanted to minimize factions and to broaden boundary lines of acceptability. Yet, the leper blew away all categories and was out of bounds.

When we experience factions, superiority complexes, power struggles, purity codes, and sibling rivalries, we are mired in the human condition, otherwise known as original sin. If, on the other hand, we stretch the comfort zone and reach out to people on the margins of society, as Jesus did in his time, we edge toward the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God, as envisioned by Jesus, stretched comfort zones, even to the point of touching the untouchable.

Someone might have a valid claim to superiority because of nationality, IQ, class, et cetera. Yet, from the perspective of the Gospel, any advantage we may have, should be used to serve the less fortunate. We may possess legitimate authority and power. Yet, according to Jesus, that power is best utilized in service to our neighbors. In other words, the best leaders are servant leaders (Matthew 20:25-28).

The grace the early Christians experienced in their own lives through the radically inclusive love of Jesus they extended to others, not just to their own clan, class, or religious group. The early Christians saw the beauty and God-given worth of each and every person. This made the early Christians extraordinary.

Discrimination against minorities is becoming more common in the United States today. Whenever a minority is discriminated against in America, even a leper, we are called to resist in Jesus’ name.

Discernment as a Visioning Tool

by Teresa Blythe

Many churches and faith based organizations do good work in the present but have difficulty catching a vision for the next chapter in life, be that the next three months or the next three years. Change takes them by surprise, the congregation or group’s anxiety ratchets up, and fear about the future begins to drive decision-making. It feels like a crisis, but is actually an opportunity to rediscover the spiritual practice of discernment.

What Usually Happens

When the crisis-of-change hits, the church or organization sometimes rushes to hire a business consultant for strategic planning only to find the business approach doesn’t quite fit for a group that is—at its core—a faithful gathering of volunteers who want and need to know how to participate in what God is already doing in their midst.

Communities of faith don’t work like businesses, and rarely even work like traditional non-profits.

For visioning in faith communities, I recommend a spiritual director experienced in communal discernment — a guided process involving a group making decisions as one body rather than a group of individuals with strongly held opinions about the future. Faith communities have a lot of experience with the latter! It’s the usual mode for their boards–everyone puts their ideas on the table, pushes for their solutions and then votes so that “winner takes all.”

What is Discernment?

Time-honored principles of discernment help us catch God’s vision. We’re talking about a vision broad enough to allow the community to be agile and move through change with relative ease while also being clear enough to be helpful.

Simply put, discernment is faithful choices. It always centers around a question facing your organization or church. Usually, it is something like, “Where is God leading us in the coming days?”

For that you need a process:

Steeped in prayer and contemplative reflection.
One that considers as much data and information about your history, your present condition and the gifts within your organization,
Weighs the pros and cons,
Listens to the deep desires and intuition of the group, and
Honors the mystical notion of “call” – What do we, at our deepest core as an organization, believe God is inviting us to be or do? The Spirit uses prayer and discernment to ignite the vision.

Process Matters

The discernment process is ideally designed to help you unearth what God is up to in your corner of the world because you want your vision to be in alignment with God’s activity. If you are not clear about what alignment feels like, look at how much energy your organization has for the work it is now doing. If energy is flagging, you probably are not in alignment with what God is already doing and you need some time and reflection on how to recalibrate.

To be honest, this work will be more ambiguous than the standard business practice of strategic planning.

Visioning through discernment involves living with the mystery of not knowing what the outcome will be. A willingness to be surprised at where the community goes as it discerns together is imperative.

Although discernment involves mystery, it is also grounded and concrete, designed to move you through to a conclusion. It is neither “woo-woo” magic nor is it a road to pinpointing, with certainty, the “perfect will of God.” It’s simply your work—it’s how you get to know God better by praying, listening to the still small voice within, listening to others’ experiences and questions and paying attention to intuition.

One of the beauties of this process is that when you gather your visioning group, you will have tasks that everyone can relate to in one way or another. Your artists and prayer warriors will be delighted with the amount of time spent intentionally connecting with God. Your engineers, accountants and business-minded people will feel comfortable with the practical aspects. You will have gathered many different types of intelligence and will have used a variety of spiritual and practical tools to reach unity.

Why bring in an outsider?

Anyone can initiate visioning through discernment, however a spiritual director trained in discernment would make an excellent guide. Spiritual directors have studied discernment processes and worked with people and groups in discernment over time.

Spiritual directors stay out of the way of your work. We have no agenda other than to guide you through the process. When stuck, we encourage you. When sidetracked, we redirect. There may be times in the process where you feel “in the weeds” and nowhere near a vision. The spiritual director’s job is to trust and know that God is faithful. You will get there!

Once you feel unity around a vision, you will develop a short statement that can serve as a guidepost for all the projects, programs and efforts you keep; those you release; and any activity you consider in the future. An example comes from the gospels. “We are fishers of people” would be the disciples’ vision statement and “We follow Jesus” would be their mission.

Much like that example, an image may accompany the short vision statement (a net of fish!). This statement and image becomes a benchmark for all you do as you go forward. You have the tools to determine if proposed programs really fit with the vision, asking, “Are we being faithful to the vision here?” (“Is this what fishers of people do?”)

Your vision statement and image are the groundwork for determining your mission statement–what you do in the world right now–and for any longer statements you may create about your life together, things like organizational profiles, search and call documents, and marketing materials.

Long term benefits

Visioning through discernment has benefits even after the process is complete.

Participating in the process helps individuals learn how to use discernment in their daily lives. They will likely find their relationship with God deepens as a result of doing this communal spiritual work.

The faith community learns what it is like to transform business into an opportunity to live out the faith more intentionally. Once an organization learns how to look at an important question from many different angles and spends time with it in ways they may not have considered before, there is no more “business as usual.”

Discernment will be the only way you will want to work from that point on.

Learn more about it

To learn more about visioning through discernment, a process I use with organizations, contact me at teresa@teresablythe.net. In fact, if you are interested in any aspect of spiritual direction, I’d like to help.

Visit www.teresablythe.net or the Phoenix Center for Spiritual Direction for more information.

Advent in Iraq: An Experience in the Unfiltered Wonder of God

by Owen Chandler

Beloved Saguaro Christian Church,

Greetings! I pray that these words find you well. I continue to lift you in prayer each day, trusting that the power of God’s love, which keeps us connected, rests peacefully within you. For the most part, I am fine. Mercifully, the days pass quickly as we begin the preparations to hand off this mission soon. It turns out that being deployed during the holidays is unideal. Who knew?!? The Army made it look so quaint on the brochure.

Luckily, the mail keeps a steady traffic of support coming into our offices. I wanted to express my gratitude for the two enormous boxes of goodies and the Advent Wreath. It was a huge hit. The irony is that we have all worked so hard to lose weight and get into shape on this deployment. Many of us are risking gaining that weight back eating our holiday feelings with all the stuff coming in the mail. I have started working out twice a day so that I can eat the good stuff with no guilt. There is no way I am going to pass on Christmas cookies.

The Advent Wreath is beautiful. Most of the people who come to our chapel program are part of religious traditions that don’t utilize this worship practice. I must have had twenty questions about it the first week. After so many conversations, I didn’t know what they would think of it. They love it, however. We run stripped-down and simplified services in Iraq, but when I introduce some traditional elements, I have been surprised by how welcomed the practices were. It will be interesting to see if any of these soldiers try to introduce an Advent Wreath into their churches back home.

I will miss the sanctuary of Saguaro CC this Christmas. It is my favorite time of year to worship with you. I tried to recreate some of that ambiance here, but I literally blew up the Christmas tree. It was a pre-lit tree and I forgot to check the wattage requirements. You would have thought that I learned my lesson with the coffee pot from back in June. There are so many things I wish they had taught me in Seminary. I have now added basic electrician skills to that list.

I pray that these next weeks are a true blessing. It is peculiar to lead soldiers during these days as they are conducting the operations of war. There is not a lot of gloss here. This is definitely not a Hallmark setting. In some ways, it has led me to consider Advent anew, free from the presents, parties, and general consumer saturation of the holiday. In the sparseness of this place, I find myself preaching the following theme: Advent is an experience in the unfiltered wonder of God. Within that journey, tragedy becomes the paradox of God’s grace, for out of the brokenness of the world’s despondence the promise of God’s peace is born. It is not the jolliest of sermon series, but there is part of me that thinks it is probably closer to the truth of that historical reality many years ago. Don’t feel too sorry for my chapel goers; I make it up to them by singing Christmas songs instead of Advent songs. It is a little trick I picked up from [our music staff,] Keith Koster and Jeff Myrmo!

I hope to write you one more letter before I leave. If I am not able to do so, then I say with all my heart: Merry Christmas.

Peace,

Owen Chandler