Category: faith

Christ on the Cushion

by Joe Nutini

When I was a child, my parents sent me to Catholic schools. This was both a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing because I received a wonderful, college preparatory education that did indeed prepare me to go to college. I loved college.  I also loved Christ. Like seriously. I was in love with Christ. From the time, I was quite young, I felt the energy of Christ deep within my heart. It was instantaneous. It didn’t require any understanding of doctrine, bible etc. It was just there.

I became a social worker. My education and the love that was in my heart because of knowing the energy of Christ (and perhaps even angels and other “heavenly” beings) led me to that path. Buddhism increased my awareness of Christ. It brought me back to Christ’s energy and love. It also brought me back to myself, to my own heart and to forgiveness.

That’s where I am right now. To get there, though, was quite the journey. The curse of being in the Catholic school, was that as I got older, conservative and literalist doctrine began to enter my soul as a poison. I will add this caveat before I continue. I understand that for some people, conservative and literalist doctrine and biblical interpretation is what “Saves” them. That wasn’t my experience. Though I respect that it is for some.

When I was quite young, I also remembered feeling like I should have been born a boy. I literally thought that my body would look like my fathers and not my mothers. Somewhere in early childhood, I also learned not to say that I felt like a boy. I just knew it was a “Sin” per the powers that be. Just like I knew that two men kissing was supposed to be “sinful”. I kept it to myself. A secret. Mom and Dad told me I was a girl, so I decided to be one.

As time went on, I became a pro at religion class. I always had an A in that class. I was fascinated by it because I had intrinsically known spirit since the time I was young. I wanted people to explain things to me. I wanted to try to understand what was happening. Sometimes, I would argue or debate with the teacher. I didn’t believe all the stories. I didn’t believe that Adam and Eve were the only humans and they populated the earth. I didn’t necessarily believe that Jesus had to die on a cross. It just didn’t really fit for me. And so, I wanted to learn more. To see what I was missing.

I received confirmation when I “came of age” as a teenager. I believed in Christ and what I felt was a certain spirituality to the universe. I also didn’t want to go to hell, if I’m being honest. Back then I wasn’t sure if there was a hell or not but the adults kept saying there was. I wanted to do the right thing by this energy that was with me through all the troubles that I felt. I wanted to make Christ happy. I did what the church told me to do. It was a beautiful ceremony and we had a party.

At this time, I also became aware of my queer (at that time we said bisexual) feelings. I had been in puberty early and it felt like torture. I didn’t understand why my body was betraying my spirit and mind. I kept it to myself. I prayed for these feelings to go away. It was a sin. The more I did this, the further and further away Christ felt. That energy, that love, that guiding force in my life started to slip away. In hindsight, I realized I had been betraying myself. When I was 13-14, I didn’t know better.

When I was a senior in high school, my best friend and I wrote a feature edition of our school paper on LGBTQ youth. The religion teachers let us give a survey out on sexuality and gender identity. Right before we were going to print, I was called to the “brothers’” offices. They basically said that, “this issue doesn’t exist here.” They meant that there were no LGBTQ people. I told them that wasn’t true. That I was bisexual. IT just fell out of my mouth. It was the most freeing thing in the world. I felt my heart fill with that energy and love again, for a moment. I was told that I was confused, wrong and that if I engaged in “homosexual acts” I could be excommunicated from the church.

It felt like poison. Every fiber of my being rejected their words. I decided to no longer be Catholic.

In college, I began reading about every religion and spiritual belief that I could find. That included new age spirituality and Buddhism. I wanted to find out what was going on. I couldn’t believe that the God they taught me about in school was the same God who created me. Absolutely not. I figured that maybe I was wrong. That there was no Christ energy or holy spirit. So, I studied, I attended various religious and spiritual services and I began meditation.

During those years, I was a mess until I began transitioning. Even after coming out as queer, I still felt so distant from that love I had known as a child and young teen. It felt miles away. Something that was unattainable. When I came out, it felt slightly closer. When I transitioned, my life changed. I meditated and chanted in Buddhist and Hindu traditions. I attended healing arts school where this was solidified. I was invited into some native American spaces to learn their teachings.

Yet something was still missing. I could feel that I was in touch with the love of the universe again. And yet, that Christ energy was missing. It felt like an emptiness. So, I began exploring Christianity once more. I spoke with literalists who debated with me, stating that I didn’t understand the scripture or bible. So, I studied it with them, pointing out linguistic differences from my studies in college, debating meaning and syntax. I hung out with Unity and Unitarian Universalists who helped me understand and heal from some of my experiences. I met people from the United Church of Christ who explained their understanding of Christ. I met liberation theologians who, like the UUs and UCC folks, made the most sense to me intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.

And then I found Shambhala Buddhism. I read the book, Shambhala, the Sacred Path of the Warrior by Chogyam Trungpa, the person who brought this form of Buddhism to the US. He was literally saying everything that I had thought and felt for many years. I viewed a talk about “Jesus as Bodhisattva”, a concept that I had read about before but didn’t quite understand as well before.

So, I decided to take Shambhala classes. I distinctly remember sitting in the first class. We meditated for hours. I couldn’t shake this feeling that it was I who had been blocking myself from fully feeling the world. I had internalized these poisonous messages that I had heard for a good portion of my life.

I breathed in, when I breathed out, I found Christ again. It was a distinct feeling, so hard to describe. Like putting the last piece into a puzzle and being on fire at the same time. The intensity of it lasted for a moment then dissipated. A chunk of the poison left me and in its place, was this gentle love. A love that came from both within me and outside of me.

Today, I continue to work on undoing these teachings that kept me so far away from this Universal love, the love of Christ, and the love or Buddha nature within. I personally believe these are also complexly intertwined and simultaneously always available to me. I still learning, debating, meditating, praying and learning. I often wonder if these things happened for a reason…a journey to build empathy, love and relationship with others.

Hope, Creativity, and Art

by Rae Strozzo

In the midst of struggle, creativity is where hope finds vision.

We are in need of creativity and compassion in this moment.  This is a love letter to art and creativity that is so essential to all of us. Sometimes love is hard to see, and context is everything.  So first – the bad news.  

The current political moment seems so polarized and almost surreal.  We are at war now.  The U.S. is fighting itself as it has been since its creation but with a scary vigor. Fear seems to trump so much of what is good in the world if we spend our time on Facebook or watch more than 10 minutes of the news.  Shuffling through the lies to try and sort out what might be true feels like the new daily battle.  

The U.S. is fighting and exploiting other countries for the needs and greed of a few and the government and pop culture feeds it back to us as nationalism and what a “great nation” does for freedom.  All the while internally African American churches burn, Jewish community centers deal with bomb threats, and our Muslim brothers and sisters try to cope with threats, acts of violence and destroyed property.   Transpeople of color are murdered, gender expansive people commit and attempt suicide at astoundingly high rates, and lgbtq youth are homeless at much higher rates than their straight and cis gender peers.  

Walls are built to make and keep people illegal and separate, and families fear being broken up by immigration sweeps.  Our country incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, and that is also to make a buck at the expense of those people’s lives and the lives of their families – most of whom are people of color.  Many of our neighbors grow up trapped in poverty and in systems of oppression that get labeled welfare, child protective services, and the mental health care system and so on, but work against the people they are created to help and against the people who work in those systems who want to help.  

Many ignore these problems and systems, and we step past the oppression because it is as subtle as “professionalism” in a workplace that really just says look/be whiter.  Or we say we are moving to a better neighborhood or sending our kids to better schools without seeing that those are whiter neighborhoods and whiter schools.  We live in “Right to Work States” that really say it’s okay not hire people who aren’t white enough, straight enough, gender conforming enough, Christian enough because as long as we don’t say it, we haven’t done anything wrong.   

Now is a time when a college education is so expensive only the most privileged can have it without the reality of mountainous debt and where public education is stifled by our system of lack. We live in a time where art and music struggle to find access points to most people’s lives and where the funding for those things are viewed as unimportant and stripped away.   We are taught to blame the poor rather than help. We are taught to walk away from people who don’t see things the way that we do. We are taught that tough love is about shunning people from families, from churches, from communities, so that somehow they will want to come back to us, but in the way we want them and not in the way that the universe created them.  

We use our limited understanding of creativity to control other people. We use our limited understanding of creativity for greed.  Succumbing to those same limits causes us to destroy our planet.  Our creativity is limited by what we think we know and it is wasted on anger, fear, destruction, and an illusion of control. We stifle vulnerability because we mistaken it for weakness rather than a place where new ideas are born.  We are strapped down by prejudice and are unable in those moments to be our fully connected and creative selves.  Empire wants us to die for lack of imagination. White supremacy wants us to hold it up out of that same lack of imagination.

That is a lot, especially acknowledging that it isn’t even close to giving voice to all of what is up in the world right now.

But the good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way.  I firmly believe this.  All of these situations are things that were set in motion by people.  Logic suggests that if people created it, then people can also dismantle it. So there is hope. If we can be vulnerable enough to hope, then we have a place to start to vision something different, and that means creativity can come back to us and with its divine purpose intact.

Hope is where real creativity comes in.  Creativity, as it meets compassion, produces healing and love. This is where the arts are a healing force. Creativity as it is connected to love gives us the capacity for participation in beauty. It is the ability to turn the wound into a foundation for solidarity and into an olive branch for the “other side.”

As it is said, those with the capacity for great anger hold the capacity for great gentleness. So too those with great creative power towards greed hold that power for generosity. Those with great creative power toward destruction also hold great  power for creation. All of us hold creative power.  It is the link that bonds all of us to each other and to the universe. Creativity is what makes us human. It isn’t just a painter or a musician who holds creativity. Creativity is our mirror of the universe. It is our tether to the divine.  

Artists are a part of the priesthood of the creative and have a connection to the creative energy of the universe. When artists share their work, they open that connection to and establish that link for others.

The creative process and the artistic result aren’t just for the artist. Art is about completing a cycle and about helping other people and the culture it is a part of change, grow, and evolve. Art is a sacred reminder that we are ALL part of the creative flow of the universe. That is its purpose. Art reminds people that they have things to express and to express them. Creative expression is divine language no matter how it is spoken.

The teacher who makes a place for a struggling kid to learn because they take the time to rethink how they teach is a part of that energy.   The police officer who figures out how to stop violence without using it has that energy.  The activist who rallies support while seeing the other side as people and not just an opposing force is a part of this creative energy too.  

These are just examples. All of us have a link to what makes us our best selves. That is our link to the creative energy of the universe. We have been given this gift. But it isn’t about our minds and not even about our skill sets. It’s about our willingness to get vulnerable and listen to what our higher selves are telling us.  To listen to what our souls are telling us. To listen to what the universe is telling us.  

The path that is uniquely ours in life is lit by love and compassion as motive. Come to life with love and compassion and the steps to take become real.  The creativity to make things happen in our lives and in the lives of others becomes real.  Art is made in song, in paint, in photograph, and in every kind word, in every loving action. Listening to the creative energy of the universe and using that energy for kindness and compassion can heal a lifetime of wounds.  

True Perception: The Path of Dharma Art says, “Thinking goes as far as the mind understands. Then what? Art.”

Change for the good of all goes only as far as our ability to create compassion.  Then what? Art.

They’d Had a Tough Week

by Rev. Dr. William M. Lyons,
Designated Conference Minister

It had been a tough week for Jesus and his posse.  As Robert Brown observes in Unexpected News: Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes, the realm of God wasn’t “exactly appearing overnight.”[1]

In a sobering moment, King Herod Antipas arrested Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptizer, and beheaded him.

After fleeing north to escape Herod, Jesus asked his closest friends, “Who do people say I am.” And then more pointedly, “Who do you say I am? ” Peter nails the answer with, “You are the anointed one, Son of the Living God.” Jesus used the moment to clarify for the group what Peter’s answer meant. 21 From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.[2] And then, if that wasn’t scary enough, Jesus adds, “If any [of you] want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow [after] me. 25 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? [3]

“Jesus’ followers had never seen crosses dangling over the stomachs of princes of the church, writes Brown, “but had seen plenty of crosses used as instruments of torture and very, very slow death.”[4]

How does one hashtag that? Yes, it had indeed been a rough week for Jesus and his followers.

One might think that being on a mountain with Jesus, and seeing him shining in all his glory accompanied by the Lawgiver, Moses, and the Proclaimer of Justice, Elijah, both dead for millennia but now somehow alive, would have captured the attention of John, James and Peter.  But they were exhausted. They’d had about as much ‘rough week’ as anyone could bear. So they laid down into as much sleep as they could find. There was a time for staying awake with Jesus but this was not it. This was a moment for surrendering to tired, and their feelings of enough.

After the mountain-top-experience in which Jesus took on the physical identity that is the real Son of God’s due, Jesus and his three climbing companions descend into the reality of a man whose soul is pierced through with the pain of caring for his epileptic son, the seizures of whom have thrown him into the fire to be burned, and rolled him into the water leaving him nearly drowned. His last hope had been Jesus’ followers waiting at the foot of the mountain for Jesus to come down again, but they hadn’t been able to cure the boy of his illness.

What is a few moments of Jesus shining with God’s glory when your cousin and best friend had been set up to be murdered, when your child faces the possibility of death everyday from his illness?

Being God’s anointed, the Son of the Living God, doesn’t mean much to anyone but the anointed one if all you do with it is enjoy it on the mountain.

Being on the mountain with God’s anointed and witnessing the glory of God doesn’t mean very much to anyone but you if all you want to do with the experience is relish the perks of having had the vision.

This story’s meaning is all about God’s glory – the anointed One through whom that glory broke into the world, and the ones who witnessed God’s glory in the anointed One – coming back down the mountain and into the lives of families like the family of the epileptic boy, or the martyred John the Baptist. God’s glory only means something if we do something with it.

Those few moments of glory give meaning and reliability to the words that accompany them – words from God. Did you catch God’s words about the experience? “This One is my beloved; listen to him.”  Did you hear what Jesus said? “Rise up and fear not!”

Four other SWC pastors and I were at the ICE  building in downtown Phoenix [5]
when Guadalupe Rayos reported for her check-in appointment and was detained on Feb. 8. She was deported the next day. She was the test case for our new immigration rules for undocumented non-violent offenders. That was a tough week for the Rayos family; I saw it on their faces. It was a tough week for every family who has an undocumented loved one with a traffic ticket.

Earlier that morning the SWC announced that it joined other faith communities in filing an amicus brief in the Eastern District of New York on behalf of two Iraqi refugees denied entry into the US.  Ahmed Darweesh is a husband and the father of three children. He worked for the US military and his life was in danger in Iraq due to that relationship. The wife and son of Hader Alshawi, the other plaintiff in the case, were threatened because of their perceived ties to the US. Both men had been granted legal entry into the US only to arrive and be detained and threatened with deportation. That was a tough week for Darweesh and Alshawi and for every refugee awaiting entry into this country.

Next week the SWC becomes a friend of the US Supreme Court because we have befriended Gavin Grimm, a Texas High School student denied access to school facilities because he is a transgender youth. This week was a particularly tough week for Gavin and every trans high school student because rules protecting them and granting them access to facilities appropriate to their expressed gender were rescinded by the President.

Pastors all over our conference, and throughout our beloved United Church of Christ, have shared stories with me that everything they say seems to be heard as political speech. Maybe the examples of people having tough weeks sounded political or even partisan to you.

“Empathy seems like an act of defiant resistance,” wrote John Pavlovitz in a recent blog , “and in many ways, it now is. Maybe homeless refugees and sick children and the working poor and black lives and fewer guns and universal healthcare are indeed now ‘Democratic talking points,’ he continues. “And if they are, then you should take a long look in the mirror, let your knees hit the floor, and ask Jesus just why that is. Maybe some repentance is in order.”[6]

Before anyone accuses any preacher of being political because she or he proclaims those talking points, remember that those very same talking points are in every sacred text known by humanity.

“When Did Compassion Become Partisan Politics?” asks Pavlovitz.[7] Yes, when did compassion become partisan politics?!

You see, beloved, the people whose stories I shared with you a moment ago are at the foot of our mountaintop experience here this morning, and they’re waiting to see what we will do with the glory of God we’ve experienced. As dark and terrifying as things might get, in the deepest, worn out, tired, lost, scared and confused moments of our lives, God’s voice still breaks into human experience inviting us to listen, to rise up, and to fear not.

NT Wright, in his book Simply Jesus, invites us to

“suppose, just suppose, that the ancient prophetic dream had glimpsed a deeper truth. Suppose there were a god like Israel’s God. Suppose this God did after all make the world. And suppose [God] were to claim, at long last, … sovereign rights over that world, not to destroy it … or merely to “intervene” in it from time to time…, but to fill it with … glory, to allow [us] to enter a new mode in which [we] would reflect [divine] love, [divine] generosity, [the Creator’s] desire to make it over anew.

“[That] might mean a living God really had established … sovereign rule on earth as in heaven and was intending to [put] an end to the fantasy of human sovereignty, of being the master of one’s own fate and the captain of one’s own soul, of humans organizing the world as though they were responsible to nobody but themselves.

“Perhaps the real challenge of Jesus’s transformations within the material world is what they would imply both [spiritually] and politically.”

In the transformation/transfiguration story of Jesus on the mountain, “Jesus seems to be the place where God’s world and ours meet…where God’s new creation intersects with ours.” What if the gospels are not about “how Jesus turned out to be God.” What if they are about how God is becoming more and more “ruler on earth as in heaven.”  Isn’t that, after all, how Jesus taught his followers to pray? “Your kingdom come, will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” [8]

Sometimes whole churches get caught up in their own moments of glory – past days on the mountain top – as if those glory days were an end in and of themselves. Like Peter sometimes congregations want to enshrine them, build booths of veneration to them, and never let them go.

But in today’s texts Jesus and his followers are new players in the old, old story of God’s encounters with God’s people.[9] And so are we! Moments of glory like this one today are only valuable if in them we are transformed in ways that bring God’s presence, God’s glory, God’s compassion into the time and space of suffering and marginalized ones, in ways that heal and bring hope.  The story of Jesus’ transfiguration/ transformation invites us to spend our lives stepping into both God’s glory and human suffering in ways that connect one with the other in healing hope-filled ways.

All this is more than supposition, beloved. We are not following cleverly devised myths, wrote Peter. We are in relationship with the powerful and majestic person of Jesus – the Child of the Divine One – who is trustworthy and gives us the strength to do what God has always invited God’s people to do: make God known in the world. That’s how this season of Epiphany comes to a close. And on Wednesday Lent begins, a season reminding us that there are tough weeks ahead of us, weeks filled with crosses and costs. “It’s time to listen, rise up. There isn’t any reason to be afraid.” Amen.

[1] Robert McAffee Brown. Unexpected Eyes: Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes. P. 118ff

[2] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Mt 16:21). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

[3] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Mt 16:24–26). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

[4] Robert McAffee Brown. Unexpected Eyes: Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes

[5] Immigration and Customs Enforcement

[6] http://johnpavlovitz.com/2017/02/19/when-did-compassion-become-partisan-politics/

[7] Ibid.

[8] NT Wright. Simply Jesus.

[9] Audrey West http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=27

The Meaning of Blessed

by Don Fausel

I live in the Beatitudes Campus in Phoenix, Arizona with 600 other residents. And whenever someone would ask me how I was feeling, which is often, I used to answer something like “pretty good” or “not bad” or just a plain “okay”. But recently whether I was in the elevator or waiting in line for lunch I decided to answer “I’m blessed” and more often than less, I would get a response from them something like, “…that interesting I never thought of that”. Sometimes I might hear a statement like, “I am so blessed to have children that live so close to the Beatitudes!” or “We’re blessed to live in a country of such of freedom and opportunity.” I don’t usually hear someone say something like, “I’m having problems with my health issues. Do you think I missed out on the blessings, others seem to have been given?” Why do we often associate being blessed with positive situations like absence of problems, or wealth? Like “I must be blessed I don’t have any problems…or I must be blessed to have been born in such a rich family.”

WE ARE BLESSED BECAUSE

As most of us know, the Beatitudes, also called the Sermon on the Mount, are teachings of Jesus about being blessed and are recorded in the gospels of Mathew (5:1-10) and Luke (6:20-23). They are a call to us as a way of living that can bring true happiness and peace. Beatitude is Latin for “an abundant happiness”.  Each of the Eight Beatitudes begins with the word ‘blessed’… The Greek word is translated as ‘blessed’ which means extremely fortunate, well off, and truly happy…to live the Beatitudes are to be centered on God and God’s desire for our life.”

HOW TO BE BLESSED

I’m going to use the title above HOW to BE BLESSED to go through the eight beatitudes as the gospel of Matthew uses them since Luke doesn’t contain all of the beatitudes. The title above offers suggestions for reading each of the Beatitudes.  “… you might look into your own heart and examine your feeling towards them. I think you will find that you need a rather humble, almost a childlike attitude toward each one of them…” It also recommends that Jesus gives His individual “…gifts of the spirit and even gives the very gift of faith itself to show you His love and presence…”

  1. Humble yourself as Jesus said: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 5:3).

According to the words in the article “poor in spirit” it mean not finding pleasure in yourself/your life, and though you have been taught to be self-sufficient and proud of your reasoning and independence: still you may become smaller in your own eyes. If you are ready to depend on God’s will for your blessings—not ignoring God and not managing your own life and not making your choices all alone, not to be limited by “self”, then you are ready to be blessed.

  1. Repent, be sorry for your bad deeds and be willing to change for better. “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4).

Ordinary activities of life do not bring real joy, not like God’s love and hope does. Daily life may leave you thinking: ‘If only I had___(fill in the blank); it leaves you feeling your regrets, for what has been lost: lost peace, joy, hope—and you may find yourself with ‘a broken spirit’—a hurting attitude about life. Regret your past sins such as damages to others—and the time that may have been against or ignoring and lacking God’s blessings.

  1. Be unassuming, non-egotistical. “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5)

Jesus described himself as: ‘I am meek and gentle. ’He was able to handle conflict, insults, crisis without egotism. ‘He got it all together.’ He said that ‘the non-aggressors would inherit the earth; eventually receive the unearned gift of being a sister or brother of The King in The Kingdom of Jesus.

  1. Seek right ways with an appetite for good. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” (Matthew 5:6)

Most people imagine themselves pure. You never heard, ‘I did that to be mean and foolish.’ You need to make righteous choices for your own sake. It makes it easier. Righteousness is the food and drink of your spiritual health: free from guilt, shame and sin:  depend on God’s promise to grow his righteousness.

  1. Show Mercy. “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.” (Matthew 5:7)

Inhumanity of one person against others has always been a problem in history. To the point that history reveals selfish, inconsiderate, and cruel—oppressing habits that cause poverty, slavery, being disinterested in social instability, not working these things out charitable mercy, but great unresponsiveness instead.

  1. Be pure through faith. “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” Matthew (5:8) Cleanse your mind: clean up your act and in the fullest sense as God himself removes your desire for impure thinking and impure ways of acting. God purifies you. Seeing God, knowing him as your Father (by being in His presence) is the blessing promised in this beatitude.
  2. Be a peacemaker and be especially blessed! “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called ‘the children of God. (Matthew 5:9)

Love unconditionally—treating the other as one would like to be treated, if the two roles were suddenly reversed: So be kind to your enemy. Just let revenge stop now! Peace may be found by doing something as simple as giving a difficult person something you would think he likes. Peacemaking brings God with His peace and harmony into your life.

  1. Accept Persecution. “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:10)

Some bad news—‘persecutions’ if you are righteous—but don’t worry! You will be blessed with the benefits of the Kingdom of Heaven. You are different if you are in Christ. This threatens those who don’t understand life’s basic spiritual life. You have put God first!

Here are several different viewpoints. The first one is a video about thirty minutes by Kate Bowler talking about her book Blessed: A History of American Prosperity Gospel

Another is What it Means to Be Blessed by God. This is five page article by Dr. David Dewitt.

And this is a website Discover Real Joy When You #BlessALife that starts off with Matthew (5:16) “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in Heaven.” The whole website is worth checking out.

Shalom.

Love and Politics

by Amanda Petersen

Love has many different definitions and ways of looking at it.  As I look at some of these definitions of love one consistent appears.  Love is about expanding.  Expanding compassion, expanding perspective, expanding One’s heart, expanding circumstances, expanding vulnerability, expanding risk, expanding complication etc. etc.  In order to love there is some invitation to expand.

It is taking a world possibly built on safety, security, and knowing, and being thrown into the unpredictable, vulnerable, and stretching space.  This is the case whether one loves themselves, a puppy, partner, God, or a total stranger.  And this may be the challenge of why so many would rather not love.  Love is messy and it takes the person into uncharted territory.  How can one do something they don’t even understand or know about?

The conversation of love comes up a lot at Pathways of Grace.  The most consistent way it is brought up is in regards to the current political climate.  Some wonderful hard questions are coming up.  “How do I stand up for what I feel is important and right without making those who disagree ‘the Other’?”  In other words “How do I love?”  It also comes out in others ways.  “How do I stay with my faith community and stay consistent with where I believe God is taking me?”  “How do I take care of myself when it will disappoint those around me?”  “How do I get started with a relationship with the Divine?”  All of those questions hold a piece of “How do I Love?”

As a spiritual director, I have no answer for the questions other than keep showing up and lets listen to your inner wisdom together.  The energy of love I have observed isn’t in the answers but in the willingness to expand into the unknown of Love.  Somewhere in the willingness to show up to love, God’s love mixes in and does something amazing and beyond whatever the individual could dream up.  The Universe’s love mixes with the desire to love and something beautiful comes out. Love may not be about answers but the willingness to explore.

Right now I am seeing the need to come together and wrestle with the messiness of love.  To be open and allow the something bigger of God to mix in and open our hearts to expand in ways we never imagined.  A place of unpredictability, vulnerability, stretching and Divine Love.  If you are looking for ways to expand in love this week try coming to Dinner and Conversation on Friday or Quiet Places with Sandy Kenger on Sunday.  If you are looking to have a place for someone to hold space as you show up to Love we have amazing spiritual directors and other practitioners.  Pathways of Grace is committed to providing a safe place to practice and explore what it means to be a loving presence in the world.

This week look at your own “Love” life.  Spend time showing appreciation for those who gave you the space to learn to love and expand.  Take the time to connect with the Source of All Love with a heart of gratitude that the expansion of Love is endless.

Please share your thoughts on how you love.

What’s in the Sauce?

by Karen Richter

Sometimes I feel like I write a SWC post for this blog and half of the sentences end with question marks. Today is going to be one of those days.

One of our greatest gifts is the capacity to wonder, to ask questions, to remain curious and open to new knowledge throughout our lives. Right now, at Shadow Rock, we’re talking on Sunday mornings during education and spiritual formation time with activists in the community. It’s great to find out more about different issues, of course, but we’re asking wondering and exploringmore about their journeys…
what brought them to the field in which they’re active, how they stay motivated, what they do for self-care. I don’t yet know if we’ll find that activists in different fields have common experiences.  Maybe we’ll know more by the end of the month; in the meantime, we are listening lots. 

Yesterday’s guest, Kelley Dupps from Arizona Planned Parenthood, was passionate and thoroughly engaging (and much appreciated!).  He used an interesting word to describe his work in education, LGBTQ equality, and reproductive healthcare: COMPULSION. He gave a sense of something beyond passion for social change: a feeling that he was engaged in this work because he couldn’t do otherwise.

In the same session, a participant relayed their frustration at conversations with closed-off, closed-minded relations and acquaintances. Some people, we all agreed, simply were not able to listen to new information and hold their own opinions loosely. These folks’ abilities to entertain another person’s point of view and consider the long-range effects of their own views were, at the least, disused and rusty from neglect.

How does this happen? What kinds of experiences make us who we are and when do these experiences happen?

This is a fun thought experiment, something that those of us with curiosity about such things like to discuss over coffee. But the stakes are high, my friends.

As our congregations work with childrenwonder child and youth, it behooves us to find that secret sauce that forms our young people into curious, open, faithful humans.

What’s in that secret sauce? I’m working on it, y’all*. I suspect that the recipe includes some of the following, in different ratios for different families and in different congregations:

  • Training and real practice in discernment
  • Consistent exposure to spiritual disciplines of meditation and centering prayer
  • Connection to creation
  • Involvement of faithful adult mentors
  • Experience with the joy of service and justice work
  • Safe space to talk about all of the above!

The world needs our theology of inclusion and grace more than ever. Let’s keep talking about the best ways to pass that gift on to the next generation.

*When I’m feeling particularly earnest, my Southern accent comes out… even in writing.

Are You Afraid of Spiders?

by Amanda Petersen

I was recently reading a story by Tosha Silver about a time when she was in India and attended a fire ceremony for Lakshmi, the goddess of beauty and wealth. During the ceremony a huge spider crawled on her hand. She was extremely afraid of spiders so she gasped and swatted it away. One of the priests came over and yelled at her asking what she was doing and then saying it was Mahalakshmi herself coming to bless her.   

This really struck me. How often is the Divine presented in one’s fears as a blessing yet the blessing cannot be received because of not wanting to stay in the fear and see it differently? Tosha later tells of a night where a huge spider was on the ceiling and instead of spinning stories of fear she entered a conversation with it. Looking at the spider as a blessing while also letting it know it can have the ceiling while she can have the bed.   

What would it look like in this season of political and circumstantial uncertainty, which can stir up the most basic of fears, to instead of reacting in fear, one tries responding by interacting with what is most frightening. As contemplatives engaging oneself is the step before engaging the circumstance. Facing fears, (or insecurities, resistance, exhaustion) and all the issues within before just swatting at what frightens us. Bringing God in and asking where is the blessing in this?  

I tried this once when I moved into my home, which had been empty for several months and had very large roaches enjoying the empty space. I am not a fan of roaches and they do cause me to want to run and hide. There were so many I could not just run away and hope they also would disappear. So I asked what is the blessing in this roach?  The answers where numerous! I have a home, there has been a lot of rain, my home is surrounded by beautiful plants and trees, I am free to act in many ways, and I am no longer fearful of roaches. Now I need to say I am not so enlightened that I could coexist with the roaches running all over my home. I called an exterminator. Yet the reality of where I live with all the plant life is that bugs are a part of it and when we bump into each other I am now able to see the blessing.

Taking this to larger issues takes more time and practice. I have to say just asking the question  “What is God’s blessing in this?” has helped me to at least stop and look at my fears. Try this week as we enter a political shift and uncertainty. Let me know what you notice.

If you are looking for help in this area, I highly recommend the Rising Strong workshop on Saturday and Quiet Places on Sunday. The book I was reading is called Outrageous Openness and it is our Intentional Reading selection in March.

Searching for a life where all is well?

by Amanda Petersen

The foundation of Pathways of Grace is “All is Well”. Every workshop, decision, and person who walks through our doors are imagined from a place of All is Well. Why is this important? Because as I have traveled this entrepreneur path, there are many out there that preach that all is not well. People need to be fixed, my business isn’t making enough or attracting enough, I need more and they are going to show me how to get more. There are some who encourage looking for problems so one can be the master of solving it.

Friends, I have to tell you this was really tempting at first. Yet as I traveled a bit down this road, I began to feel this method was all fueled by lack. As a contemplative this is a big red flag. How does a contemplative do business? Well, that is a long story, so I will condense it down: one begins with the phrase “All is Well”.

This gets quoted from Julian of Norwich often. Yet many people don’t know the full story. This was her 13th showing (or vision) while she was very ill. Before the quote, she is pondering, why does there have to be sin in the world? Why doesn’t God just fix the world and make it nice? How often has that question been raised?? Here is the quote, first with Julian’s thoughts.

“In my folly, before this time I often wondered why, by the great foreseeing wisdom of God, the onset of sin was not prevented: for then, I thought, all should have been well. This impulse [of thought] was much to be avoided, but nevertheless I mourned and sorrowed because of it, without reason and discretion.

Then Jesus’ reply.

“But Jesus, who in this vision informed me of all that is needed by me, answered with these words and said: ‘It was necessary that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.'”

Life is imperfect AND all is well. The great mystery of life. All is well because life is more than circumstances. The world is Loved even in the messy, horrible and scary circumstances. Each person is Loved also.  This doesn’t negate the pain and suffering of circumstances, yet it does negate the mental sorrowing caused by thinking that if only  life were different and there were no suffering. It also invites the question, “If all is well, then God show me how?”

I say all this because as Pathways of Grace offers more workshops and encourages you to seek spiritual direction or coaching, I want you to know this was all planned from a place of All is Well, not a place of “you are not enough”.  All is Well even as you are searching for meaning or going through trauma or looking for a healthier lifestyle. When you walk into our workshops or see one of our amazing spiritual directors or coaches, you are greeted by someone who sees you are enough and you are Loved.

That is the gift we wish to share this year. All is Well in a world or a life that is also a mess. Practice saying “All is well” this week as you look at your calendar, world events or your own life. Let me know how it goes!

Minor Course Corrections

by Karen Richter

Good morning and happy new year, Southwest Conference friends. Here’s your obligatory New Year blog post. ☺

If you’re passionate (as I am) about the liturgical year, that’s your cue to say, “But wait! The new liturgical year started several weeks ago with the first week of Advent!” Yes, yes it did. I’m not interested in a tired tirade about prioritizing the liturgical year over the secular year. Instead I’m thinking: isn’t it wonderful how our post-modern lives give us so many opportunities for pause and reflection? There’s January, of course. There’s Advent, with its beginning in hopeful anticipation. There’s (for academic types and parents of school-aged children) the school year, with its flurry of supply purchases and new schedules.

And there’s the new beginning of weekly Sabbath and the new beginning of each sunrise. Finally, there’s the new beginning of forgiveness and reconciliation always available to us.

I need every single one of these prompts to begin anew.

So it’s not a bad thing, in this first week of January 2017, when the world is starting fresh along with us, to anticipate and resolve some changes or minor course corrections.

Not diet and exercise. Not writing a book. Not saving money. Not even going to church more often. Again, not interested. We don’t need to squander this beautiful opportunity for newness by simply striving and grasping at becoming better, shinier versions of ourselves. So just cut that out. You are enough. You are loved just as you are.

So I offer here my minor course corrections, not as a stick with which to beat myself up when I fall short, but as a shared guidepost of encouragement:

  1. Do more hard things.
    I was just reading this morning about how pushing our limits can protect against the ravages of mental aging. Not just devilishly difficult Sudoku, but really taking on something that is difficult enough to be mentally tiring. Do something that excites you but isn’t easy.  Do something at which you might fail spectacularly and publicly.

    I’m not sure what this will be for me: more writing perhaps or a new skill.
  2. Rest and celebrate.
    Doesn’t it seem strange that we have to remind ourselves to rest? BUT WE DO. Especially perhaps in these trying times of division, global violence, and increasing inequality, it’s hard to pause to rest. Our culture encourages overwork and busy-ness with prevalent figures of speech like ‘putting everything out on the field.’

    Two thoughts on this: First, I think our willingness to rest is related to our satisfaction with our work. Hence, ‘rest and celebrate’ is tied to ‘do more hard things.’ Second, our reluctance to stop is a symptom of our collective egos out of control. Our work does not keep the world spinning. I had lunch this week with a friend, a Franciscan friar. He reminded me, “We are not called to save the world. The world already has a Savior in Christ. Instead we are called to work.” We can rest and renew more fully (and thereby work more fruitfully) when we see our work with God’s eyes.
  3. Get real and vulnerable with myself and with trusted companions.
    This wouldn’t be a churchy blog worth the name if I didn’t tell you to pray more in 2017 (oops – these are supposed to be MY 2017 course corrections… so I am going to pray more in 2017). Find anything that works for you. I’m a big fan of silence in the car during my commute: no radio, no Sirius, no audiobooks. Walking the dog. Mindful breathing. Journaling. Make any of these into your prayer practice.

    We’re not meant to journey alone. I couldn’t have a New Year blog without also suggesting that you find spiritual companionship. Whether it’s a traditional spiritual director, a small group, or an accountability partner, articulating to another person where you are and what’s going on in your spirit will bring you greater insight and tremendous comfort.  Check Teresa Blythe’s Patheos blog Spiritual Direction 101 or poke around on Spiritual Directors International.

Whatever you do or don’t do in 2017, know that you are loved.  Through God’s grace, may we move together more fully into holiness and wholeness.