Yr. C, Wk. 34: Raising up Non-Profits, Consciousness, and Children

← | latest | →

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

Worship and Gathering
Jessica brought us worship adapted from Evensong. One interesting feature was to present "Our Father" in two versions, back-to-back. We would later compare "lead us not into temptation" with "save us from the time of trial."

Jessica's question was both fun and thought-provoking: If you could start a charity or non-profit, what would it be? Marilyn imagines a hospice, "Ushering Angels," to ensure that no one dies alone. Jessica imagines something like that for pets, a non-profit that would help pay the expense of in-home euthanasia for the pets of families that can't afford such service. Jessica shared with us a book that a friend sent her, Dog Heaven. Nuno imagines a place for kids to do art -- and actually sees an opportunity to make that happen; Susan wants to sponsor arts classes after school for kids who can't afford them, and Scott imagines a workshop where teens and adults can be guided through writing plays and getting them in front of an audience. Pete wants to get his hands involved in making meals for a soup kitchen.

Yr. C, Living as Spiritually Mature Christians, Unit 5 Vocation: 1st yr: Tom, Joyce, Donfred, Scott; 2nd yr: Jessica; 3rd yr, Susan; 4th yr, Pete, Nuno, Marilyn. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: Tom, Joyce.

Discussion of the Readings
Because we were missing Joyce, missing Tom (who emailed us from Ukraine), and getting only an hour with Pete (Zooming in from Maryland), Marilyn (in California), and Jessica, we decided to discuss the reading and to save the TR for next week. But the discussion was very lively.

Marilyn started us off with an echo of last week's "blanket" metaphor in a story from My Neighbor's Faith. Pete shared the story of a young Anglo woman who spent hours on a darkening road in India with women who sat with her to keep her safe, unable to communicate, but joining with her in sewing.

Susan's reading about the Church's failures in "a time of trial," the rise of Fascism, resonated for Jessica's with Jude's adversaries -- a mysterious bunch who somehow perverted the gospel -- that Jessica associated with a documentary about elders of a polygamous sect who perverted Gospel to justify their sexual predations.

From an undisclosed location, Tom emailed comments that we'd all read. Scott seconded Tom's enthusiasm for the passage of the reading that contains the line "for the souls of the righteous are with God."

There was a lot of energy in responses to a portion of Ben Sirach that Scott quoted with disapproval: "He who loves his son will whip him often." Scott said, that’s someone who’s into ego and control (and he regrets bad times when that was true of him in the classroom); it's a lie to say you're doing it for the sake of the children. But Pete could understand Sirach's point of view; Susan cautioned against being the kind of parent who wants to just be friends with the children. Donfred could identify: likes “tough love” in the Wisdom literature, something his mother showed, but his mother was also looking for the best for him… Donfred tries to be the same way with his son… "We can talk as friends, but I have to be serious sometimes."

Scott disagreed with Collins on a chapter of Sirach about artisans whose handiwork leaves no time to study scripture or think all day. Collins sees sarcasm; Scott sees a warning to the boys in the school: "Don't think you're special because you work with your mind; these men build 'the fabric of the world' and the work of their hands is their worship." Donfred joined in with admiration for the guys who work on roofs.

With Jessica reciting a prayer for those who work or watch or weep this night, we closed. By the way, Jessica chose the secret square in the discussion, and she won a catered Cinco de Mayo party with tiny pinatas for every guest and a tequila donkey.

For Next Week
Donfred will bring worship; Scott will offer his source for a TR. The week following that, we'll take off. We plan to meet at St. James Marietta on May 21, 6:30pm, for worship and then a stroll to the Square for dinner.

← | latest | →

Yr. C, Wk. 33: Daniel, Maccabees, and Blankets

← | latest | →

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

Worship and Gathering
For Shakespeare's birthday, Marilyn wove quotations from Shakespeare throughout the prayers that she gave us. Telling us how an object in her California home reminded her of her home in Georgia, she asked us about reflection of a place we may call home. Among the answers was the arrival that day of ashes from Jessica's late dog Nino.

Yr. C, Living as Spiritually Mature Christians, Unit 5 Vocation: 1st yr: Tom, Joyce, Donfred, Scott; 2nd yr: Jessica; 3rd yr, Susan; 4th yr, Pete, Nuno, Marilyn. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: Donfred, Tom. Nuno arrived but the connection was unstable.

Discussion of the Readings
Again, Tom's comments got us started, emailed this week from overseas: "I don't know how anyone can read Daniel and the Maccabees and get something other than Faith is a choice, a conscious, deliberate choice. This notion resonates in those of us who are challenged emotionally." Joyce identified, adding: "He knew he was being watched, and he knew he’d be killed. He made the choice to continue: When it came time, that didn’t stop him." She noted that the King admired Daniel. Tuesday morning, Joyce had worked Daniel into a prayer she had spoken, to have the faith to “always look up” like Daniel did in the lion’s den.

Jessica connected this to a lesson Powell sees in letters of John 1, 2, 3, to be careful of those who pretend to have faith or who pretend to have been inspired but are inspired wrongly. When someone says “God told me,” we should test by looking back to Christ and the Resurrection. Tom suggested some other tests in a couple of his comments: in Daniel 3:16-18 the young men tell the King "O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

Tom offered practical advice for someone unsure: "Our responsibility is to simply take the next step when and where commanded. The best/safest place to be always is with our Lord. Do NOT get out in front of Him and do NOT lag behind Him."

Y3 and Y4 responded to each other as they responded to the readings:

• Scott – difference in religion doesn’t mean opposition.“You don’t have to be wrong for me to be right.”
• Pete – Loves the vignettes. Seems like getting to know someone from a different religion is important, esp. Hindu Nun involved in lots of interfaith conventions – more one-on-one rather than groups. Pete reminded of Muslim co-worker after 9/11. One-on-one you get to know them (and knowing their faith on a different level)
• Susan – Y3 on Protestant Missionary Work – antithesis of Pete’s comment. Interest in the other religions but disregard for those views, push to convert regardless of much else. Cultural imperialism. This was countered by Protestant involvement in the abolitionist movement.
• Marilyn – not just one path, and yet there’s the fear factor of being different – Faiths matter in connecting them to their pasts and their family’s pasts -- To say that all faiths are the same is to dishonor their distinctive qualities. Jessica reminded us that we would learn this from Barbara Brown Taylor's Holy Envy.

Finally, Tom offered a counterweight to the gruesome martyrdom stories in 2 Maccabees. He wrote

Though martyrdom is a main subject of the Maccabees, our role may be NOT to be a martyr ... and our circumstances may not even be dramatic, in this apparently drama-starved age. Our role is simply to walk with our Lord moment by moment by moment throughout our lives. Micah 6:8 -- He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly[prudently] with your God.

Theological Reflection
Speaking from the "action source," i.e., experience, Joyce told of a dangerous encounter that was de-escalated. We focused on the part of the story when "calm was descending and spreading."

Scott asked what that "descending" was like -- snow? rain? With Joyce's guidance, we settled on a blanket (or, it settled on us?). Remembering our own experiences of blankets, we volunteered sensual details: you pull it up over you, its weight is a comfort, it's dark, it's like a hug. We remembered from childhood how we'd tuck the blanket around us so that nothing might be exposed to the monsters we imagined -- though Jessica always left one foot out so that she could "hit the floor running" if need be.

The "world of the blanket" is created hard, scary, cold, with this mitigating warm blanket. [Typing this, I just recalled how God gave furs to Adam and Eve when he expelled them from Eden.] Sinfulness or brokenness would come from never leaving the comfort of the blanket, "never living your life," Joyce said. Redemption came in the form of motivators to get up: the alarm, sunrise, the call of Nature, an impatient cat.

From scriptures, we thought of Noah's sheltering ark and his eagerness to get out of it. Letters of John -- a story that the apostle went into a Roman bathhouse and ran away -- "perfect love casts out fear." We remembered Boaz spreading his blanket over Ruth, and recalled verses in Psalms and elsewhere in which God shields his people as a mother bird does, with feathers.

Our culture offers Linus's security blanket, and our most famous 20th century poet's most famous poem that ends,

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
but I have promises to keep
and miles to go before I sleep...

Insights:

• Nice to have a blanket, but good to get out and explore
• You wouldn't want to miss what God has for you -- "I came that you might have life more abundantly"
• Life in fear isn't really life
• God wants you to take that comfort out into the world -- BE THE BLANKET
• When we looked back at Joyce's original story through the lens of our metaphor, we saw that she had been dealing with a person who "stayed under the blanket" the rest of his life.
• There are many kinds of "blankets" in our lives. Routine is one.
• Joyce shares that she takes her comfort pillow with her on visits; Marilyn has a special pillow case; Susan's niece takes a stuffed kitty everywhere.
• Boy, does this fit in with our theme of "living as spiritually mature Christians"

Susan was voluntold to write the collect.

For Next Week...and Beyond
For wk. 34, Tuesday April 30, Jessica leads worship and Scott brings a TR.

After next week, we meet only twice more: Tuesday, May 7 to discuss readings for week 35; and two weeks later, Tuesday May 21, 6:30pm, in person at St. James in Marietta (see www.stjamesmarietta.com for directions and parking tips). We'll have worship and a stroll to dinner on the Square.

← | latest | →

Yr. C, Wk. 32: Ruth, Esther, and Completeness

← | latest | →

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

Worship and Gathering
Nuno's worship, "thrown together in the last hour," he says, nonetheless was personally tailored to each of our strengths and interests: Music for Scott, reason & teaching for Susan, sports moves ("lift, pull, stretch us, O Lord...") for Donfred, food preparation for Pete, far away nations for Tom, and, for Joyce, letting the spirit guide your prayer.

When Marilyn arrived just after the prayers, she was delighted to hear that Nuno's prayer for her involved "serendipity," because, wouldn't you know, she had just experienced serendipity that very day, and had used that word!

We mourned with Jessica, remembering times for us like this time for her and Jeremy.

Nuno asked where we saw Christ in the past week. Answers were: During coffee hour in our church, with visitors... on the corner of Church and Polk streets during a day painting the church's street sign... art class (people concentrating, cooperating, encouraging)... in a film ("peace be with you" lasted with me all week, he said)... in a new friend who serendipitously carried the same kind of colored stone... and in Luke's Gospel when Jesus broke an awkward silence with the question, "Have you got anything to eat?"

Yr. C, Living as Spiritually Mature Christians, Unit 5 Vocation: 1st yr: Tom, Joyce, Donfred, Scott; 2nd yr: Jessica; 3rd yr, Susan; 4th yr, Pete, Nuno, Marilyn. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: Pete, Tom, Jessica.

Discussion of the Readings
Y1s responded first to Ruth. Scott shared what Tom had sent from the Atlanta airport at the start of a two-week journey to a war zone - There were deep-seated social and cultural obstacles in the way of a relationship between them, but they both stood back and allowed God to open doors for them...and were willing to accept if God did not. Joyce was touched by some details pointed out in Collins: When Ruth watches Boaz lie down, and waits – but Boaz first follows the rules with other relative -- Spread his cloak over Ruth, like God spreading his protection over us… Ruth like Tamar, both widows being assertive and calculating to take care of themselves (Joyce can identify!). Donfred can identify with Ruth, being a foreigner in our land, leaving everyone behind, and then doing it again when relocating to Georgia. Ruth and Donfred both feel they’ve made the right choice. Donfred added, when Ruth says to Naomi, “wherever you go, I will go” -- God can take a hopeless situation and turn it into something glorious.

Tom's comment about Esther focused on Mordecai: "He simply went back and sat at the front gate. God knew where he was (and so did everyone else). If anyone wanted him, they knew where to find him. This is true humility: Let God work things out. Scott moved by message directed at teachers who have difficult students: Maybe, as Mordecai says to Esther, “you were put in this position for this very purpose." Joyce responded to Mordecai's lesson for Esther, "You have a choice, you have an opportunity to be a blessing, but if you don’t, God will find a way." When Mordecai warns her, "don’t think you’ll escape what happens to the other Jews just because you’re in the palace," Donfred admires the action by faith.

Nuno responded to My Neighbor’s Faith, the topic "viewing home anew," which he related to the Y1 discussion: wrong choices that turn into right choice, and experiencing the other tradition makes you appreciate your own. Marilyn responded to ideas of “Making whole” and “divine fullness” – how productive dialogue can only take place where there’s trust… Interfaith dialogue must have trust… “Returning the fragments…” Heartbreaking example of the Native American girl who prayed, “God make me white so I can go to Heaven."

Scott wondered what "trust" means in this context. Answers came out: “trust” means you feel welcomed to share, in a way that you will be met with kindness in the face of vulnerabilities. “Truth doesn’t have to be a pie in the face.” Have to be non-defensive, have to be receptive. Does receptive mean that you have to agree? No. Nuno: it’s not about convincing them, but about the fullness, wholeness, of being together. Nuno related to this in family of origin and in his own marriage: they say that people from different faith traditions have only a few options. But faith WAS the point of connection for Elizabeth Gray and Nuno.

Susan amplified Nuno's point. She served as a trusted official advisor for students who had complaints about other teachers. They usually just wanted someone to listen without Susan’s solving their problem or giving advice… and Susan often felt like she had done something that made the situation better.

[Our TR focused on completion. The photo illustrates the Japanese aesthetic of kintsugi, making beauty from what's been broken. You might enjoy Scott's reflection on a book concerning kintsugi, titled Art + Faith]

Theological Reflection
Pete, called out of town at the last minute, sent us a prayer in verse by Emerson. We were drawn to the idea in the final line that love completes your life. We found that each of us had a different idea of what "complete" means in that context: ends? supplies something you've wanted? repairs a broken place in you?

We had different ideas of how "completion" works:

• Your life is completed -- filled -- by the many challenges you accept to love someone -- who may be a person in need whom you don't know so well
• The completion may mean a reconciliation with a person or part of yourself that you have rejected or suppressed (your "shadow" side)
• Something you dream of achieving, life's goal
"It is finished," said Christ on the cross.

That idea of achievement, of finishing, took us in a different direction. Are you happy, fulfilled? Maybe, but for how long? We agreed that new goals arise. Paul wrote that we strive for the prize of the "upward call" of God -- that's a direction, not a finish line -- the striving is the prize.

We explored some theological categories. What is "sinful" in regards to this idea that love completes us? Joyce sees a danger in the way we try to complete our lives with lots of other things -- car, career, beliefs and values, the things that make up our identities. What could restore wholeness? Compassion, kindness, making a difference in the world, St. Teresa's prayer, being Jesus's hands and feet and eyes with help from the Spirit.

A new theme emerged when we explored the "action" source, sharing personal experiences of "completion." The daughter who didn't want to dance, for whom dance is now so important, the artist who discovered just what he needed among the scraps he had thrown away. We remembered the Scriptures: the stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.

In a coda, Nuno observed, "Any time you don't show up, YOU are the missing piece." We agreed that Nuno's thought completed the discussion.

For Next Week
We do the readings in the RRG for Week 33. Marilyn leads worship and breaks the ice with a question; Joyce is bringing a source for a TR. Remember, it can be an experience, especially one where you had to make a decision -- and you don't have to tell us what decision you made!

← | latest | →

Yr. C, Wks. 30-31: What are We Waiting For?

← | latest | →

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

Worship and Gathering
Joyce spoke for us in a heartfelt prayer for our friend Jessica and her husband Jeremy during these last days or hours in the life of their beloved dog Nino. She spoke of joy, gratitude for the life of Nino, the way Nino made them a family, for his being the joy of their lives while they have been the center of his.

Tom brought Anglican prayers that remind him of the Anglican church across from the British Embassy in Vienna, where he'll return next week. In a prayer at the end of the evening, Tom, too, gave thanks for Nino and all our animal companions.

Yr. C, Living as Spiritually Mature Christians, Unit 5 Vocation: 1st yr: Tom, Joyce, Donfred, Scott; 2nd yr: Jessica; 3rd yr, Susan; 4th yr, Pete, Nuno, Marilyn. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: Jessica, Marilyn. Joyce had to miss the TR.

Tom's gathering question was, "For what do you wait?" The next thing in God's will said Joyce. Pete thinks he doesn't wait long enough before he jumps into action, but he wishes he wouldn't wait so long to jump into matters relating to faith. Donfred knows in his heart one day a good thing will be happening. Susan offered a mix of the mundane and the heavy-duty. Tom is waiting on another mission. With searches afoot for a rector at St. James, a Bishop for the Diocese (in case ours is promoted) and a Presiding Bishop, Nuno is thinking, I wait on the Lord.

Scott made his answer a segue to discussion of the RRG essay on "vocation," focusing on questions on p. 156: What do you desire? (another way of asking what you're waiting for) and What have you come to believe? For him, the two questions have become intertwined. All that's left on his bucket list is to continue producing poetry (or essays, or music); pursuits that have taught him to believe that God speaks to us and through us in the process of creating things, so long as we don't settle for preconceived ideas.

Others chimed in with their reactions to the Vocation essay. Tom was drawn to "imperatives" on p. 156, and gave one instance of God speaking to him through the thought, someone ought to do something about that. Pete said that cooking for church breakfasts has become a kind of vocation, and that opened up a wide-ranging discussion of cooking and the ministry of hospitality. Joyce told us how her late husband Gene was a great cook whose creations brought people together in joy. She herself feels that nurturing is her vocation. Donfred said, "Since I was a little kid, I always feel the call. I feel I must come forward and say something."

Nuno drew our attention to p. 155. "Theological thinking is a work in progress," it says. Orthodoxy supports vocation if we look at orthodoxy not as a "container of correct theology" but as a "context in which the goal (telos) is developing wisdom and grace" and the ultimate goal of God's union with His people.

These were echoes of insights we reached in our TR from Wk. 29.

Discussion of the Readings

Nuno is enjoying My Neighbor’s Faith so far, buying into the principle that interfaith dialogue is not as effective as sitting down with someone and a cup of tea or a balloon. So the stories are good. Pete agreed on the importance of just getting to know someone, and related an example about his getting to know an Islamic co-worker.

From readings from and about Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes, Y1s shared favorites. Proverbs reminded Donfred of his grandfather's teaching that there are no shortcuts, as Donfred's friend from high school proved when he wanted to get rich too fast and took wrong path. (There's that waiting theme again!) Joyce liked the way women (wisdom, and the strange woman) were usedin Proverbs for comparisions, and she offered her favorites Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, esp. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart." Prov 8 – Tom’s favorite, and a passage from Job that he thinks about often: “What is my end that I should be patient? Why should I wait?”

Susan explained from Y3 how the ascendance of reason coincided with "re-discovery" of bogus "classics" that spawned the Rosicrucians the Freemasons, causing tension between the hyper-rational and the mystical, a new split between the spiritual and the material that we live with to this day. By choosing square 2, Susan won the prize: for Tax Day, a big yellow TAXI!

Special note to Susan: Here's the link you need.

Theological Reflection
Both "waiting" and "tension" carried over into a TR that focused on the juxtaposition of two paintings that Tom brought depicting the apostles in the Upper Room. In one, pictured above, the risen Lord displayed the holes in his hands to apostles who knelt or stood smiling in his light. We found the other one more compelling, where apostles gather alone around a table, their faces and postures showing despair, shame, anxiety, grim resignation.

We thought of how minds "stick to darkness." Susan said it wasn't necessarily darkness, but "tension," a quality that draws us to any work of art or story, and what compels our attention in our lives. We had already transitioned into theological categories: Survival in this Creation depends on our attention to things we still need, especially security.

Pete wondered, isn't faith supposed to help us to transcend the fight or flight response? Others joined in: If things were static, what good would faith be? With no faith, Nuno said, our fears and worries can trap us. Susan recalled a priest's preaching that the opposite of faith is certainty. "Thank goodness for uncertainty!"

When Susan quoted Kant, we went off an a tangent imagining heaven. Since Tom started the session asking, "What [Heaven] are You Waiting For?" we accepted these insights as being a "collection" of the whole evening together:

• Susan cited Kant for the observation that we, creatures existing in time, cannot imagine existence out of time: it's a "multidemensional calculus" beyond us. But maybe that's what mystics were getting at, Susan thought.
• Donfred imagines no worries, no fear, no pain, with justice.
• Nuno imagines that our sense of wonder must continue in heaven, forever drawing us further into God -- "passing from glory to glory" as the Prayer Book says, Susan recalled.
• For comparison, Scott brought up Nirvana, a Buddhist "heaven" achieved by "detachment" from wanting.
• Susan (after Nietzche) said Nirvana is "life-denying," and Tom raised Christ's promise, "I came that you would have life -- and live it more abundantly."
• Nuno finds a kind of detachment in the Epistle of James, a faith that acts without concern for personal consequences.

For Next Week
We're reading what's assigned for Week 32. Nuno will lead worship; Pete will bring a source for our TR.

End of Year Plans are shaping up! We read one chapter each week through May 7. Then it's all over except for the celebratory worship and dinner beginning at St. James church, 6:30pm May 21 (when we hope that Marilyn can join us). Our three seniors Pete, Nuno, and Marilyn will be recognized at St. James on Sunday June 2.

← | latest | →

Tom, sitting in the ATL airport, added these thoughts to the reading discussion:

Joyce's verses were Proverbs 3:5-6:
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and lean not on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.

To which I added the next two verses (Proverbs 3:7-8):
7 Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
8 It will be healing to your flesh
and refreshment to your bones.

I read verses 5-8 all as one complete thought...a thought that I return to over and over...in fact, almost every week.

My Job verse is Job 6:11:
6 What is my strength, that I should wait?
And what is my end, that I should be patient?

Another translation is:
6 How much longer do I have to live, that I should have hope?
And what do I have to look forward to, that I should wait?

In other words, "I have nothing (nowhere to live, no assets, no children, no health, etc.); nothing to build a life with and not enough time left in my life to build a life. So, why should I wait and why should I patiently try to build anything, even if I had something to build a life with?" As God is bringing us to the end of ourselves, we can feel like Job. God does not beat Job for feeling like this. Even so, at the end of the book, Job 42:10-12a: "10 And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends. And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. 11 Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house. And they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil/disaster that the Lord had brought upon him. And each of them gave him a piece of money/a coin and a ring of gold. 12 And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning." God honors our questions when we honestly seek Him, especially when we are clueless and we know it, and we ask knowing our cluelessness.

Yr. C, Wk. 29: The Cross and The Lynching Tree, second part

← | latest | →

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

Worship and Gathering
Scott opened with the collect for Tuesday in Easter Week. What were highlights of Holy Week and Easter for us? Hearing the Exsultete sung, especially the refrain, "This is the night..."; preaching for Maundy Thursday on short notice; Tom as Thurifer bowing and receiving bows; your young daughter leading the Prayers of the People on Holy Tuesday; gathering with a few others in the choir stalls for an intimate prayer service on the morning of Holy Saturday; the changing of scenery during the Easter Vigil from darkness and bareness to light and resplendence.

Yr. C, Living as Spiritually Mature Christians, Interlude: 1st yr: Tom, Joyce, Donfred, Scott; 2nd yr: Jessica; 3rd yr, Susan; 4th yr, Pete, Nuno, Marilyn. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: Donfred.

Discussion of the Readings
We filled a Venn diagram where Christ on the cross overlapped with Black Americans on the lynching tree. Here's what emerged:

Both deaths were meant to be the most excruciating manner of death possible, intended to humiliate, to be a message to everybody else out there: “THIS” is not what you want to do – i.e. to proclaim by word or deed I AM SOMEBODY – both were in the face of oppressive power (in face of Rome and religious authority, Blacks in the face of white supremacist institutions)... Both played to worst mob instincts... The cross made of tree / hung from tree (tho’ not necessarily - e.g. Emmet Till) ... Cross: power to save … Lynching Tree: How? (The answer to that question emerged as we spoke)... Christ was sinless, and the victims of lynching were not guilty of any crime... “Don’t step outside of the imposed boundaries on you” (and the boundary line kept moving)... the antithesis of hope…

Jesus died for our sins…? Lynching … a lot of people died before we woke up. Martin Luther King … Mamie Till – the voice that said to her, “Mamie, it was ordained from the beginning of time…” EMMETT WAS BORN SO THAT HE COULD DRAW ATTENTION TO WHAT’s HAPPENING… Emmett’s mother had the open casket … inspired civil rights activism. MLK: We will wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and we will win your hearts in the process. NUNO: That quote could also be God's statement to us.

Role of WOMEN in both stories: the women who draw attention to it (Mamie, Ida B. Wells…) Blood of the martyrs is a crucible… drawing out of ourselves… Nuno: points out all the subtle stuff that happens that other people wouldn’t see (from own experience) – and these stories’ power draw it out for all. Power of sacrifice. Pete: prejudice can only be beaten by experiencing it.

Theological Reflection
After a break, Scott read from Cone's book (p.146) a 1938 poem by Langston Hughes "Let America be America again" that reinforced our discussion, especially coupled with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's mission "to redeem the soul of America." Tom reflected how American this whole discussion was, as no other country he's visited would suffer pangs of conscience for denigrating a population within. If America has grown more and more into the promise of our founding documents, the witness of Black Americans has been the inspiration.

More discussion followed, leading to Jessica's quote, "Obedience even to death on the Cross." Pete had told us about abuse of newbies at military college; Marilyn spoke of overcoming crippling fear; Nuno quoted DuBois on going forward "no matter how dark the world is." Pete contrasted Niebuhr's armchair faith to MLK's courageous stand against threats and actual violence. We found our focus: Mission as an external expression of internal conviction.

Our reflection included cultural expressions of this theme. Pete recalled how Tom Hanks's character goes reluctantly into his mission of Saving Private Ryan but comes to inner conviction as he proceeds. Scott brought up My Lai, where Lt. Calley followed unlawful orders to massacre a village of non-combatants. Susan recalled instances of academic dishonesty when the application of the rule would have undermined the purpose of the rule. Joyce remembered bringing down justice upon her brother for the way he treated his girlfriend (and he never messed with Joyce again, either!).

From tradition, we remembered from the book how Jesus "transvalued" values, showing how the received rules did not serve the underlying purposes. "I come not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it." Tom reminded us how David, refusing to take the ark into battle against his rebellious son, left himself vulnerable to God's will.

For insights and applications, Pete elaborated on Susan's comments, saying we need a balance the mission with conviction. Nuno lifted up something Tom said, that a good mission converts people to itself. The civil rights example, "We will love you no matter how you hurt us," convicted people of their previous hatred. Yeats, describing politics of his time: "The best lack all conviction; the worst are full of passionate intensity." Jessica: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God."

Added May 20: Prepping for mentor training, Scott found an apt alternative form for collects, this one based on the "moods" from the Y4 theology primer by David Ford: We affirm... we know that we must... we wonder... and we doubt... So we pray for the possibility... because our longing is...

Collect in a Time of Trial O God, we affirm your presence, no matter how dark the world is. We know that we must strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being. We wonder if speaking up in a time of political polarization will lead to retribution, and we doubt that we have the courage to face that possibility. So we hold on to you in faith that you will steady us in any small steps we take and will strengthen our conviction as we go. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

For Next Week
For this Tuesday, we're reading the short essay for Week 30 in the RRG, then moving on to the readings assigned for Week 31. Nuno will lead worship and bring a gathering question; Tom will bring a source for a TR.

We are looking into the possibility of completing the year in time for a dinner together with Marilyn May 21; graduation will be at St. James June 2.

← | latest | →