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Jessica led a worship service from the Northumbrian community. Because we lit the "joy" candle Sunday, Jessica asked us to share a joy from the past week. Our answers: delighting a relative by helping to spruce up her home... locating a substitute priest just in time for the service... a happy dog in CA ... happy Mom... classes ending... discovering a kindred spirit in a relative we didn't know that well... relief when the trees were removed.
The prayer of St. Teresa that Jessica chose for our benediction could also be a distillation of the interlude book, because both express how Jesus needs more from us than our personal devotion:
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
with compassion on this world.
Living Faithfully in a Multicultural World, First Interlude: Reading the Bible from the Margins
1st yr: Jessica; 2nd yr: Susan; 3rd yr: Pete, Nuno, Marilyn, Kathy ; 4th yr: Scott. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: Kathy.
We all expressed discomfort with the reading, but Pete said, "Maybe I'm just uncomfortable at the idea of change; I'm okay with being uncomfortable." We seek reassurance in Scripture that we are good people, Scott said, but De La Torre denies us that reassurance when familiar quotes are read to indict people privileged by laws and social norms. He argues that we soften those indictments by reading them "spiritually" instead of "materially." Perhaps De La Torre could have been more diplomatic? Susan proposed rephrasing the messageasked Henry Louis Gates's question, "Can you imagine racism without racists?" We could.
We related to DuBois's idea of "double consciousness." Nuno cited De La Torre's being seen as a man of color in one community and a white man in another. Marilyn observed that art is a way to see ourselves from the outside.
De La Torre's observation about Pentecost opened up a discussion of language in the reading. In the story of Pentecost, Nuno said, "one message reaches people where they are and when they are." Scott was delighted to learn that the Bible in Spanish employs the familiar form of the second-person-pronoun (tu) for exchanges between humanity and the Deity -- demonstrating God's "solidarity" with us and intimacy of the relationship.
The parable of the day laborers had always seemed to me an allegory for faith and forgiveness, but De La Torre's "material" reading (Margins pp.76ff) made (uncomfortable) sense to me. Then I ran across a clever poem that comes to the same conclusion from a secular angle: See Paper, Scissors, Stone by Tom Wayman.
We followed the procedures outlined in the RRG, p. 91, working with the provocative word estrangement. We found focus in feelings of being untethered (attenuated), hopelessness. Of the images we came up with that express those feelings, our favorite was a canyon. We explored creation, brokenness, and restoration in that image: feeling of wide open deep gap -- it used to be one piece but it has eroded, and redemption could be a bridge, or Evel Knievel's motorcycle (Snake River Canyon: see pictures), or a flood that fills the gap and creates a new kind of wholeness.
We found connections in scripture and the culture. TRADITION. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain brought low. ...Prodigal son – Jacob and Esau – Joseph and his brothers - Israelites and God, CULTURAL: San Andreas movie starring the Rock – in which a flood reconciles a separated couple. We came up with at least two more Hollywood films with the same story.
Some surprising insights emerged. Each side in a separation is missing something that makes them whole. This describes relationship with God, separated from God. Estrangement is uncomfortable but may in the long run not be a bad thing – it can be liberation. Sometimes you’ve got to let bad times happen, deal with it as you can, and hope for a flood.
Collect in Estrangement Dear God, our Divine Restorer, You bind the broken-hearted. We pray that you bridge the divisions within and among us so that we may come together again in wholeness of your image. In Jesus Christ's name we pray. Amen
Marilyn will lead worship and start us with a gathering question; Jessica will bring a source for a TR.
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