Yr. B, Wk. 35: Vocation in a Multicultural World

← | latest | →

(Interested in joining us? Link to our Visitor's Center.)

Worship and Gathering
We shared concerns for Marilyn and her dog Besi, for Jessica's good old dog recovering from vertigo. Pete chose prayers of gratitude and matched them to our personalities. He asked what we're going to be grateful for, now that EfM is over and we'll have extra time? We answered Read...read...read...read...read.

Living Faithfully in a Multicultural World, Unit 5, Vocation:
1st yr: Jessica; 2nd yr: Susan; 3rd yr, Pete, Nuno, Marilyn, Kathy ; 4th yr, Scott. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: Marilyn.

[Photo: Monsignor Oscar Romero, assassinated in El Salvador by the regime that the US supported. Read more quotations and more about his story at LaSalette.org]

Discussion of the Readings
To get the discussion of "Culture Wars" rolling, Scott shared the story from My Neighbor's Faith that makes him laugh and tear up every time he reads it. A rabbi's taxi driver is both a recovering addict and evangelical who presses him with questions about beliefs. The driver swerves when he hears, "You don't have to be wrong for me to be right." Then it gets more serious, because the driver's pastor has told him that his wife's atheism is endangering his soul and he'll have to leave her. The rabbi observes that the driver's love for his wife and his love for Jesus are the two greatest blessings in his life, and there's room in his life for both. This rabbi's approach seems like a good one when we find ourselves in a skirmish of the culture war.

Susan brought us this precious nugget from Powell's chapter on Revelation: "Look at it like a kaleidoscope rather than as a chronology."

Jessica wished she had read ahead in Yee, because this last chapter put so much else in perspective. She even reevaluated her view of Ben Sirach from last week. The chapter pointed out the "layering" of Greek misogyny on top of Hebrew tradition. Ben Sirach promoted the feminine embodiment of Wisdom but also transmitted the Greek teachings so prevalent in his world in the century before Jesus.

Those who read MacCulloch saw the roots of today's political/cultural polarization in the liberations of the 60s and 70s. We said: MacCulloch – "never has the Church borne fruit without a long period in the darkness of loneliness into the light of community." Angry tone of “Conservatism” in 1970s sounds like now – focus on gender roles attracts white straight Christian males who feel like they are the ones being marginalized.

[That narrative was promoted in media by Don Black and his son Derek -- until the son experienced acceptance from the very people he'd preached against. Read about it in Scott's blogpost A White Nationalist's Change of Mind: Change of Heart Came First]

Pete saw the Spirit of Jesus in movements to alleviate poverty in Latin America, including the activism of Archbishop Oscar Romero – and civil rights movement in US – and Korea’s “ordinary people” – and anti-apartheid in South Africa. We were reminded that the fear of Communism motivated both parties in the US to oppose all of those positive movements. That mistrust and that Communist label linger. Kathy was inspired by what she read to learn more about the years when she was raising children and wasn't so aware of what was happening in the larger world.

Theological Reflection
We spent time writing responses to any three consecutive questions posed at the end of this week's lesson in the RRG. When we came back together, we reviewed what we wrote and posted these comments to "chat":

Vocation: Our Takeaways

• Pete: I feel more fulfilled and in tune with others when I give freely of my time and efforts for the benefit of others.
• Jessica: Every Sunday at the end of the service, my congregation says the prayer attributed to St. Teresa: Christ has no body now on earth, but yours. No hands, no feet, on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which He looks with compassion on this world. Christ has no body now on earth, but yours. Being so heavily involved in the worship service allows me to feel like I am living into that mission statement of being the actual hands and feet of Christ in this world and helping to share the Good News of His Resurrection.
• Scott: Answering the call for someone to do the parish newsletter, I'm excited by the opportunity to connect all the ways that our parishioners perceive our church, to promote the idea that the church is as Paul says, one body, not just a collection of different programs and offerings. In many ways, this has been something I've wanted to do for 20 years.
• Susan: My take-away is that Mentoring is being part of a community and builds on what I have done as work at KSU for years now
• Kathy: In my previous professional life as an adolescent counselor/therapist/social worker, I was often conftonted with unusual/ dangerous/ contradictory senarios. Many times the answer to the confusion would hit me solidly, in a way that can only described as a message, a revelation from God... Brokenness was always the issue... Without my divine message, I would never have been able to address the situation in a timely, perhaps life-saving manner... I am always left with the feeling that I was not alone in my endeavor.
• Nuno: Keep listening and praying. There is a peace that comes with knowing who you follow and what you believe that overshadows every hardship. While some are called to great tasks and far off places the more frequent calling is to bloom where you are planted. While serving on the church Vestry has been like stepping into the spiritual life of the church in new and deeper ways I feel most engaged doing the little things like washing dishes and working on the landscaping crew at church.

For Next Week
We meet at the same time but in person at St. James. After worship, we'll walk to Taqueria Tsunami (taqueriatsunami.com) on the south side of the Square.

Directions to St. James: It's 161 Church Street, Marietta. GPS will probably take you to the small driveway one inch past the playground of the Presbyterian Church on your right. Park in the small parking lot there and walk out onto the sidewalk along Church Street to the bell tower. When you see red doors in the alcove under the bell tower, you've arrived -- but we use the door just around the corner from that. Knock, and it shall be opened to you.

← | latest | →

Yr. B, Wk. 34: Coming Home, Being Grateful, not Hateful

← | latest | →

(Interested in joining us? Link to our Visitor's Center.)

Worship and Gathering
We held the recovery of our friend Pete in mind as we prayed.

Marilyn chose prayers and poetry with the theme of gratitude to counterbalance the darkness in the Y3 reading. Naturally, she asked us to share something we were grateful for in the past week. Answers include sleeping in my own bed again... returning home to happy dogs ... for the ministry of St. James' Associate Rector Fr. Daron Vroon as he prepares to leave... a week of celebrations for daughter's 8th birthday, Nuno's birthday, and the anniversary of his marriage... a job promotion (yay!)... and a downpour on the bike trail that made for a difficult but exhilarating ride.

Living Faithfully in a Multicultural World, Unit 5, Vocation:
1st yr: Jessica; 2nd yr: Susan; 3rd yr, Pete, Nuno, Marilyn, Kathy ; 4th yr, Scott. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: Pete.

Discussion of the Readings
A citation of Howard Thurman in the Y4 book brought to Scott's mind this passage from his blogpost about Martin Luther King's mentor: Thurman acknowledges that hatred releases energy and feels positive. Recalling then-recent WWII experiences, Thurman tells how hatred can "masquerade" as patriotism (64), or "the illusion of righteousness" (72). He observes that hatred, once "released," "cannot be confined to the offenders alone" (76). [Blogpost: Jesus and the Disinherited: Real Prophecy]

This evoked observations about anger and hate in the readings. Jessica deplored the condescension towards women expressed by Ben Sirach, however much he elevates a female personification of Wisdom. A lot of comments centered on the complicity of Pope Pius and other churches with fascist dictators Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, and Salozar. The state and its dominant ethnic group, replacing God, effectively made an idol to which common humanity was sacrificed. This was the story in Y3, but was also echoed in blandishments against idolatry and its evils in Y1 (Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon) and Y2 (Jude -- a "polemic").

Not wanting to end on a dark note, Scott asked for signs of God at work in the readings. Nuno pointed out that those colonized by powerful Christian states showed (and show) spirit in questioning their colonizers' whole view of the world, bringing something new to Christianity. He remembered mariachi band services when he read of the Mexican congregations that told church authorities, “if there is no brass band, there is not a service!” Marilyn feels like our churches are getting closer to what we were intended to be as a church. Susan reminded us of many examples in the world wars and in the civil rights era of people from the majority who stood up for those who were oppressed, and both Scott and Kathy remembered people from Jackson MS who did just that.

Jessica closed the discussion with a hopeful teaching from her reading in the Wisdom of Solomon: In every age, Wisdom passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God and the prophets.

Kathy's prize for choosing the secret square when she added her thoughts to our table of comments

Theological Reflection
From her recent trip to Portugal, Kathy brought us four porcelain tiles bearing the numerals of her home address. "We've brought a little bit of Portugal back with us," Kathy said. The blue recalled Portugal's colonization by the Moors (and came close to being the color of Kathy's new peacock!). While most of our associations with markers of home were positive, we also thought about the numbers tattooed on prisoners and markers on gravestones. We focused on the door itself.

Creation: When we considered the nature of our world when reflected by the image of a door, we thought of the door as a demarcation of both where we've been and where we're going. We noted the inherent choice: to open or to close.

Sin, or brokenness: We thought in terms of barriers, locks, separation. We thought from our culture how a locked door often becomes the object of an obsession. Being afraid to open a door can also a sign of brokenness.

Redemption, reorientation, restoration: The key... the secret password... Jesus: "Knock and it shall be opened to you."

Besides that quotation from Jesus, we found many doors in our tradition: "I am the way"... doors leading to doors in the Temple... blood over the doorway at the first Passover, and the Torah portion held by the doorframe at the entrance of a Jewish home... the "showstopper red" of the entrance to a church, a traditional designation of a place of refuge... the guarded gate that Adam and Eve left behind... language of "doorways" into blessings for Pentecostalists... the little doors on Advent calendars.

Put those in dialogue with what we found in our culture: doors to nowhere (art series from the 1920s)... portals in sci-fi and fantasy (Stargate, Narnia books, Alice through Looking-Glass and rabbit-hole... trope in horror movies of the door you shouldn't open (but they always do)... the other trope in horror movies of the door you defend from the evil outside ("Honey, I'm home!" - The Shining).

We decided that the feeling of being locked out of somewhere is the worst, and that passing through doors is a strong enough experience to qualify in some situations as a sacrament. At this point, we were running late and exhausted.

For Next Week
We volunteered Pete for worship in week 35. Instead of a TR, we'll be doing a personal writing assignment from the RRG. We expect to meet in person at St. James, Marietta the week after that.

← | latest | →

Yr. B, Wk. 33: Mission, Possible

← | latest | →

(Interested in joining us? Link to our Visitor's Center.)

Worship and Gathering
Susan led worship, tonight including special references to Julian of Norwich. She didn't have a gathering question because she had been a grading zombie all week. So we ran with that: in the past week, what other monsters had we been, or been subjected to? Scott confessed that he'd felt like a ghost during a week when he silently observed someone else doing the job he was about to take on. Others jumped on the walking dead bandwagon for various reasons.

Living Faithfully in a Multicultural World, Unit 5, Vocation:
1st yr: Jessica; 2nd yr: Susan; 3rd yr, Pete, Nuno, Marilyn, Kathy ; 4th yr, Scott. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: Kathy and Marilyn.

Discussion of the Readings

Scott started the discussion with a passage from the book that he read alongside Our Neighbor's Faith, Barbara Brown Taylor's Holy Envy. She wishes Christians would stop probing each other's beliefs (e.g., do you believe in the virgin birth?) and try instead questions centered on practice, such as, How does your faith make a difference? What is your favorite way to pray? What is the hardest thing about loving your neighbor as yourself? She learned this approach to faith from a Jewish student.

Our discussion took off in two directions. Pete was disappointed to learn the extent to which missionaries emphasized the belief-centered message and crushed local practices. From Taylor, Scott brought in Gandhi's advice that Christian missionaries try "the evangelism of the rose" that lives among people and draws them to their fragrance. Taylor would observe that the appeal works both ways -- not a bad thing. Pete's observation that missionaries did better when they formed personal relationships with a people's leaders. These last two observations comprised a major theme of the evening.

The other direction began with Jessica's observation that our Jewish cousins do not see Daniel as a prophet. They read Daniel as a book about maintaining faith under Babylonian rule -- a parallel to the time in which it was written under Rome's domination 500 years later. Susan noted from her reading about Revelation that the apocalyptic genre was common in that day – the final chapters of Daniel included. Year 3 read about Joseph Smith and William Miller, 19th century men who founded the Mormon and 7th Day Adventist churches, respectively. MacCulloch sees parallels between the Book of Mormon and the Lord of the Rings in their elaborate histories for different races. Nuno shared personal experiences from childhood in Texas at the time of the federal attack on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. People around Nuno were very positive about the self-proclaimed prophet David Koresh, who derived his name from king Cyrus and whose teachings branched off from the 7th Day Adventists.

Jessica found the secret square and won a box of "royally delicious" Coronation Flakes. That excited more conversation, as Nuno reported from MacCulloch that Mr. Kellogg was a 7th Day Adventist who promoted Corn Flakes as part of a healthy lifestyle that centered on regularity of the bowels and sexual abstinence.

Theological Reflection
Scott started in the Tradition source with a passage from Acts 8.26-40. Discussion warmed up when we focused on our sympathies with the Eunuch, when he asks, "How can I understand unless someone guides me? " His choice to study Isaiah was a challenge to begin with… trying to understand the Jews… he understands being subjected to authority like the servant that Isaiah describes. Even possessing all the trappings of wealth and power, the eunuch knows authority comes from the queen above him. While he commands servants to guide his chariot, we sensed humility, presumably from the shame of his condition.

We found a familiar theological arc to his story. There's brokenness in his impotence, lack of power, and an Ah-HA moment of judgment when the Eunuch cries, “Look here’s water!” There's healing in the water together with Philip. We observed that even Philip's sitting in the chariot beside him -- when contact with Eunuchs was taboo -- was already the beginning of a healing, and the water sealed it. Then he’s rejoicing.

We started a dialogue between this passage and other sources.

• Action: Can you think of a similar time in your life? Times you cry out in need and prayer and you get what you need (but you can’t always get what you want)… "Signing up for Efm, I was looking for further direction and education on what I’d been taught…" ...joy of learning from a sympathetic music instructor…
• Culture: Prince Harry… film with Mrs. Brown in the title with Judi Dench as Queen Victoria in disguise, learning humility ... Huck Finn – the character of Jem – parallel of a humble, powerless black man reaching power and wisdom… River as baptism… they needed each other…

That last remark started a list of insights: Maybe Philip and the Eunuch need each other, too --! As the prayer of St. Francis says, It’s in giving that we receive, and Philip's ministry literally takes off from here. Fellowship is strong in this passage, and it goes well with our theme for this final unit, Vocation in a Multicultural World, as Philip finds fellowship with someone so different from him in race, class, religion, nationality, culture, and sexuality. We also looked at the story as a model for a good teacher-student relationship: They spend time with each other. Philip starts with the passage that already interests the Eunuch.

[Note from Scott: I took the image of Philip and the Eunuch from a sermon at BigRedDoor.org. After the writer lists all the things that would have repelled Philip, whom he calls "a poor Jew's poor Jew" (having been one of John's disciples), he writes,

When Philip evangelizes, when Philip witnesses, when Philip talks to the Ethiopian as a person, he doesn't convert an Ethiopian. He converts a brother. In fact, I think the point of the story here isn't the conversion of the Ethiopian at all. It's all about the conversion of Philip.

I'm intrigued by Big Red Door, website for a collective of Episcopal churches in New York State.]

At 9PM, we highlighted passages that stood out in the notes from our discussion in order to draft a collect. We left it for Scott to polish the draft later. Here it is:

Collect for Mission in a Multicultural World God of all people, you sent Philip to teach the Ethiopian eunuch, his opposite in every way, yet eager to learn: When we, on our journeys, cry out in need and prayer, send us travellers to guide us as you would have us go; and when you'd have us be a guide for others, may we, like Philip, be open to what we may learn from them. We pray in the name of your son, through the Holy Spirit. Amen.

For Next Week
Marilyn, we volunteered you to do the worship; Kathy, likewise, we're hoping you'll bring us something you saw, experienced, or heard that really inspired or riled you up in your travels that can be a starting point for a theological reflection.

← | latest | →

Yr. B, Wk. 32: Esther, Ruth, and Willie Nelson

← | latest | →

(Interested in joining us? Link to our Visitor's Center.)

Worship and Gathering
Jessica led us through the lovely service for early evening. Her question was about lyrics that we've always misunderstood. Everybody treasures these famous lines: I'll never be your big Suburban... from the Rolling Stones; Billy Idol's Guys without a date; from the traditional Christmas hymn, Benita ate a raw moose; and from Jimi Hendrix, 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy.

Living Faithfully in a Multicultural World, Unit 5, Vocation:
1st yr: Jessica; 2nd yr: Susan; 3rd yr, Pete, Nuno, Marilyn, Kathy ; 4th yr, Scott. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: Kathy, Marilyn.

Discussion of the Readings
Much of our discussion concerned "bad-ass" Esther and the "innocent and seductive" Ruth. We all contributed to a discussion of the geneology that connects a Moabite woman to the line of David, a huge counterweight to the numerous denunciations of the women of Moab in other scriptures. [For more on that, see Scott's article about Donn Morgan's Fighting with the Bible (01/2018).] We also wondered about the absence of the Lord's name from the text of Esther, though we agreed that Mordecai implies Providence in her being in the right position at the right time to save her people.

Pete summarized the whole century 1815-1915 in terms of an arc from the shrinking of the world by trade and technology and the spread of Christianity via colonialism, to a gradual displacement of faith by science and political theory. Nuno picked up on the theme of "Coca-colonization" in the RRG's short essay, and concluded on a positive note: Reading in the RRG -- "We all are co-creating – with lots of new voices being brought in. The more inclusive our church is," he said, "the further we can reach." That resonated with Scott's reading in Holy Envy by Barbara Brown Taylor, whose bottom line is decent respect for others as individuals and an awareness that other traditions have their own perspectives on God that enrich (without endangering) ours, and vice-versa.

Aside to Pete and Y3: One of our Y4 readings puts the faith v. science conflict into a spiritual context, coming right up to our own time. See Scott's blogpost How Episcopalians Believe.

Aside to Jessica from Scott: At least one chapter in Proverbs is full of delight. See The Joy of Proverbs.

Theological Reflection
Nuno brought us a song from Willie Nelson's album God's Problem Child, "Your Memory has a Mind of its Own." We focused on the notion that memory can be an entity apart from our minds. We immediately connected to the idea from experience -- waking with worries at 2am, the mind's conflict dealing with an overly stressful job, and how our bodies can respond with adrenaline when we replay a memory with alterations for what we wish we'd said.

We connected through other sources: Tradition (Orthodox) Your Self and Your Thoughts are separate … You are not your thoughts… Romans, it is no longer I myself who do it but sin that is in me… Jacob’s wrestling with a part of himself… (winning a new name and bad hip)… Position How memory tricks witnesses in trials… memories shaped by preconceptions and wishes... Culture The Devil made me do it… Exorcist… mind-control (Inception) … Oz (the power was in her the whole time) … Jung and Freud disagreement over the role of the unconscious mind: source of health v. source of discord (Freud taking off from philosophers) … Alice in Wonderland and White Rabbit…Matrix.

We offered these insights and positions: Counter harsh memories by mantras such as the Jesus prayer... “Start running too” – confront the memory or put it out of mind? Depends on it and the individual... One therapy is to de – sensitize yourself to an experience by replaying it slowly… You can be better if you break it down to see your part in it, the bigger picture… Example of re-imagining a better outcome. Susan pointed out that a lot of this is about the power of our reptile brain (amygdala) – our job is to tame it, elevate our thoughts. Jessica, Nuno, and Pete put together a "collect without an ending" for Scott to finish:

Collect for Errant Thoughts Dear Welcoming and Omniscient God, You call us to be ever mindful of your presence in our lives; through Christ we are called to be of one mind, body and spirit: help us to bring to your table our whole selves, painful memories and obsessions included, not for pardon only, but for renewal. This we pray by the Holy Spirit through our mediator Jesus Christ. Amen.

For Next Week
Susan will lead worship and Scott will bring a source for a TR. Kathy will be on her way home.

← | latest | →