Yr. D, Wk.25: Idols and Circles

For worship, Scott extended the chronology of God's great acts in Psalm 136 to include God's blessings on each of us at different times in our own lives, with the refrain "God's love endures forever".

Yr. D theme: Living into the Journey with God Class: Marilyn, Nuno, first year; Christine, third year; Mariel, Gene, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent: None.

Our discussions of the readings are detailed in "comments" below. Christine responded first to negativity of EfM students who don't see the God they know in the violence and corruption they read about in the first and third years, which was a topic of discussion among mentors (see previous posting on mentor training). Christine found some positives in reading about the Counter-Reformation, especially in the Jesuit missionaries' (relative) openness to the art and culture of indigenous Mexicans.

Nuno much preferred the latest chapter in Yee to the previous one. Women are left unseen in the Tanakh (the books of the prophets) except as metaphors, i.e. for cities.

Nuno's question to Mariel about via negativa, via positiva, and idolatry stirred up among us very strong personal examples of times in our lives when our personal idols fell. Marilyn loved an idea that Mariel expressed, that God's "finding" us isn't because He can't see us, but because we don't see Him. Mariel wondered if Paul's conversion is also a story of destroying an idol, i.e., his self-image as righteous.

TR (Theological Reflection) Nuno shared with us an etching that illustrates this passage from Dante:

[T]hree circles
appeared to me; they had three different colors,
but all of them were of the same dimension;
one circle seemed reflected by the second,
as rainbow is by rainbow, and the third
seemed fire breathed equally by those two circles.

For comparison, Nuno provided other circular images of God's heaven.

We used the "Wide-Angle Lens" method of TR, drawing from myriad responses to the material that Nuno presented. We found our focus when someone said it was like a "white hole" (v. "black hole") and someone else wondered, "Is [the white hole] drawing us in, or expanding outward?"

We considered analogs in other sources. From Tradition, we thought of the whirlwind from which we hear "God’s “still, small, voice” ... Jacob's angels (the stairs and the being in the night) ... Ezekiel’s vision of a wheels within wheels, a description of God’s chariot ...The Heavenly Host surrounding the throne… the circular host of communion…. Our culture makes much of the near-death experience, the tunnel and white light (even in a cartoon from The Far Side) … Characters in the film Labyrinth drawn into the center and there are monsters but also the child they seek … circular motifs in other cultures – Harry Potter circular – a circle of friends

We each wrote a line of prayer in the Chat box. I've cut and pasted these in order. I took the liberty of interpolating a line from Dante in the first sentence -- it fit so well!

Prayer from Chat Lord, draw me in to your peace and love, and let me be one of your beams to send forth your loving-kindness toward everyone I meet today.
May we keep a sense of connection to God despite an infinite distance between us and Him.
Let me be peaceful and centered with a heavenly focus, now and forever.
Lord, thank you for the peace at the center of the hurricane, that prepares us for the storm's next round.
In the tumult of life, grant me serenity for giving us a glimpse into your kingdom; spark our imagination with images of heavenly beauty, that we may have the calm and vision to say Hello, Angels and Amen.

[Below: When new COVID rules allowed Scott to sing in the balcony for Sunday's service, he dropped by our old EfM room, undisturbed since our last in-person meeting in March 2020, our TR notes still up on the blackboard.]

EfM Mentor "Foundations" Training: Scott's Report

Scott's biggest surprise of the weekend was that fifteen hours of mentor training on Zoom was invigorating. We met from living rooms in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Arizona: Jane, Rick, Marlene, Leah, Cathy, Tom, and our trainer Jenny Beaumont.

Jenny ran us through landmarks of a typical EfM year. We did our spiritual autobiographies, and then reflected on why we do this every year. We did five different kinds of TR, including a mind map -- Jenny led that, and let us use the entire map for our focus. We discussed vocational discernment, including the question, "What are you already doing that could be considered a ministry?" We each led a worship. Instead of a collect, being in a hurry, we each contributed a line to a group prayer on "chat." We discussed the study materials, and discussed answers for students who perceive only violence and corruption in the readings of years One and Three. We discussed recruitment and broke into teams to draft "elevator pitch" speeches.

One striking technique of Jenny's that I should've been using for 40 years is to replace questions with statements. Studies show that teens clam up rather than commit to a single answer for "How was your day?" But they spill when the parents says, "I'd love to hear about your day."

5 things I learned: prayer via chat -- the mind map is the image -- statement instead of question -- "Where is God in this? What do we see about human relationships?" -- engage all senses in the metaphor.

4 things I claim as my own: imagination to "get into" a metaphor... Jenny saw "joyfulness" ... participants cited word choices that illuminated topics ... I've learned to trust silence

3 areas in which I can grow: remember to unmute -- trade off with others during the TR (mentor, students) -- "let the heaviness rest" if we hit a hard saying or story

2 traits that could cause trouble: I can get too invested in the process - I can miss a shift in the group's interest

1 image for the training: My partner in leading a "wide-angle" TR, Leah of Massachusetts, brought a belayer from her cliff-climbing adventures as an object that tells a lot about her. It turned into the perfect metaphor for our reflection, and ultimately a metaphor for the training experience.

Yr. D, Wk.24: Prophets and Practical Piety

Scott opened with a prayer by Dr. Colleen Hanycz, the incoming President of Xavier University in Cincinnati. She begins:

Loving Creator,
We asked for strength, and you gave us difficulties to make us strong.
We asked for wisdom, and you gave us problems to solve....

Our check-in question was, "What surprised you in the past week?" Answers involved adults on roller skates, tears that welled up when yours truly wrote the last student comment of his 40 years career, a couple of surprising close encounters with birds. Susan reported on the second shot of the COVID vaccine.

Yr. D theme: Living into the Journey with God Class: Marilyn, Nuno, first year; Christine, third year; Mariel, Gene, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent:Christine, Gene.

Our discussion of the readings dwelt on a couple of points. Marilyn's comment about the prophets reminded Mariel of something she read Sedgwick's comments about "drawing a person out of individuality," a phrase that set off her "cult" radar. Scott and Susan were less alarmed. Scott experiences a cessation of individual striving that comes with age, books tell him. Susan drew on philosophy to point out that our notion of "individuality" developed with Locke a few decades after Hooker, and that Locke's premises are questionable.

Nuno wanted to know more about the middle way, focused on practice, wondering how this aspect of the Anglican tradition is viewed by other churches. Discussion followed.

Without Christine and Gene, and with Susan suffering the headache that comes with her immune system's kicking in, we decided to postpone Nuno's TR and Scott's Psalm 136 worship for next week.

Yr. D, Wk.23: A Splash of Cold Water

Marilyn started us off with an eclectic mix of prayers and poetry. We checked in with the "highpoint" of the week. Our answers included taking communion, excitement over the (limited) re-opening of church, visits to our moms, seeing Nuno in a suit on livestreaming, plumbers' repairs, playing handbells, and finding the office has been okay while you were away.

About the week's readings, we spoke of Purgatory, ramifications of the Black Death, and different kinds of "piety". One upshot of the discussion is (from Sedgwick) that faithful habits lead to understanding, more than the other way around. We discussed what Sedgwick means by "Post-Modern". We found a tension between Scripture that tells us in Ezekiel "you're responsible for your own actions" and a strong sense that the community is responsible. Susan pointed out that the ancient Israelites were dealing with relatively small communities where the sins of the fathers were well-known to descendants in the villages.

Yr. D theme: Living into the Journey with God Class: Marilyn, Nuno, first year; Christine, third year; Mariel, Gene, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent: None.

Theological Reflection (TR) Reading John 8.59 about how Jesus hides from those who would have stoned him, Scott was reminded of a 7th grader who scoffed at Mohammed's epic escape from Mecca to Medina: "Mohammed was a coward. Jesus would never have run away." Scott had realized that any response he made would be harmful in one way or another.

After we found analogs in our own lives, Christine suggested the metaphor: You're emerging from a dark cave, and you're hit by a cold waterfall.

After looking at analogs in Tradition, Culture, and our own beliefs, we had some insights: All of us are quick to judge without having enough information … A bucket of cold water can be good for us… don’t think their truth is the truth… comic trope of the bucket of cold water – this is something we can laugh at (laugh at our own weakness)(like cocky walk on banana peel) … something to learn even from this situation…

Christine bravely volunteered to compose a Collect from this. 

PS - When EfM mentor training turned to discussion of metaphors, I brought up our cave-and-waterfall. The trainer asked us what the cave was like, and we filled in a kind of backstory: dark, dank, we don't want to go back, and we regret having entered the cave in the first place; ahead is light and promise of air and warmth and freedom; BUT there's this cold splash of water which will be a shock to the system, though also potentially refreshing.   Buy in:  I suddenly remembered quitting the university chapel choir, which would be liberating, but I had to face the director's scorn for reneging on my commitment.  Tradition?  That lame man beside the pool for 30 years, "stuck in the cave of his self-pity" until Jesus challenges him: "Do you want to be healed?"

Yr. D, Wk.22: "Living into Wholeness" with Fear and Trembling

For the first 20 minutes, while technical difficulties kept Christine and Marilyn from joining us, we went on with the worship liturgy that Christine had sent us, which was Psalm 78.1-7 arranged as a prayer, each of us assigned our own lines, followed by a prayer.

Our comments about the reading (printed in "Comments" below) were informed by each other's responses. We had some additional discussion of how contentious the ordination of women used to be and how we feel comfortable with it now. Nuno's comment that his own experience as an artist informs his response to dogmatic creationism is one that resonated with Scott. Many of us in this group are artists by vocation or avocation.

Yr. D theme: Living into the Journey with God Class: Marilyn, Nuno, first year; Christine, third year; Mariel, Gene, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent: None.

Theological Reflection (TR) Mariel brought us lyrics of "Sinner Man," a folk song written in the 1950s with a modern-day recording by Alice Smith that plays for closing credits of Lovecraft Country [PHOTO], a series in the supernatural-thriller genre. The lyric is indeed terrifying, as "Sinner Man" calls out to "the Rock" for salvation, but the Rock says "I cannot save you." The song ends with an anguished call -- for? upon? protection from? -- POWER, POWER, POWER. Identifying the Rock with Jesus, we focused on the line that "the rock cannot save you."

We could all buy into feeling that same way. Moments of crying out in pain and anguish, and feeling unheard … addiction and the layers of sin (you’re in such a hole that you can be helped out only by God with other people) and, from the RRG, what Hughes wrote about the “slackness” between periods of conversion, when you pray and hear nothing back.

From the different sources, we found these analogs:

• Tradition Jesus on the wilderness tempted – when he first went up there, lots of questions in his mind – Parables of the unwise virgins who don’t light their lamps, and the wedding guests thrown out. Christ on the cross: why are you forsaking me? Old Testament prophets – Jeremiah, Isaiah – the day of Lord is going to be doom. The Act of Contrition – My God I am heartily sorry for all my sins… with intention to walk away from sin… I dread the pangs of hell… Last rites - Psalms – Lord is my rock… Rock of Ages cleft for me…
• The feelings and guilt and inadequacy of a parish priest whose letters are examined in a recently read history of the BLACK DEATH – doctrine prescribed complex and necessary rites that he was unable to perform, but experience was telling him, just get the repentance going before you die….
• Culture? Movie GHOST – coming up from under to grab souls.

Asked what positions we bring to this situation, we found tension between the ideas that God cannot save someone who will not be saved and that God and the sinner can still reach each other: Song doesn’t seem like “sinner man” has repented, but seems to have skipped the “I’m sorry” … We’d better be asking God’s forgiveness every day (as in the Daily Office) … Reconciliation in today’s essay – has trouble with the judgement day deadline scenario … The flipside (that a deathbed conversion works) also seems false… Mariel told of The Drunkard’s Mass - which Nuno also has seen, a kind of working class pattern of confession, carousing, confession. Fear itself is the enemy, the hindrance to faith, the distortion in our lives… Jesus warns the disciples to fear those who can destroy the spirit… Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom… Marilyn sees a difference between “fear” and “awe” --- compare to awe with Grand Canyon… Romans 8:15 – “not to fall back into fear but be adopted in sonship -- ‘Abba,’ father -- Marilyn: “When the Bible refers to the fear …. It’s deep respect for authority… leads to love” “work out our salvation with fear and trembling.”

Working towards a collect, Scott asked for help.

• What does the image of a "rock" mean to us? steady, ageless, strong, cornerstone – foundational, majestic, immovable, sheltering
• Looking at tonight's TR, what do we feel the need to pray for? Don’t leave me behind… help me to do the things I must for salvation … keep my fear fresh and ever-present… let our fear and awe turn to reverence and worship… transform (sublimate) (transfigure) our fear. POWER

Collect at a Time of Fear and TremblingAlmighty God of power, strong cornerstone of our lives: when we sleepers awake too late to the awareness of our sins and cry out to You in shame, we pray for Your love and forgiveness, that our fear may be transfigured to reverence and repentance. Through our Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit that cries in us "Abba, Father." Amen.