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Nine of us with varying experience in EfM met this week for an intense and invigorating engagement with the whats, whys, and hows of EfM. We spanned all the time zones, from ME to CA, with PA, KY, WY, NY, NM, and GA in between.
Our trainer Bill Cruse prepped us with the basics of EfM via individual learning modules at Pathwright, reserving most of our 16 hours together for practice with Theological Reflections. Most of the online material was familiar, but the questions did raise up some things I've let slide and things I've thought about trying. Those, with a few items that came up in discussion, include
- Remember how it felt to be put on the spot with a question "How was school today?" v. an inviting statement, "I'd like to hear something about your day."
- I liked a description of TRs as having "an intentional direction" but not a straight path (image: a zig-zagging walkway over a marshland).
- A good alternative to "what does our tradition say about X?" would be the question, "How might some wise people in the Bible guide us with issue X?"
- Mutual invitation must include the word "invite"; simply naming someone the way a teacher might call on a student connotes a power play. The person may pass or pass for now, but it's still that person who must invite the next contributor.
- Make the use of the RRG one of the class norms, and draw on the RRG for discussion each week.
- Review class norms at the start of each unit: "How are we as a class doing?"
This paragraph from the Pathwright pages presents a concise description of good mentoring: Watch your trainer. Take notes. Notice when the trainer speaks and when they use silence. Notice when they ask questions and when they speak in discussion. Are they speaking to model vulnerability, to share a personal insight, to further the conversation, to lift up a quiet voice, or to redirect a louder voice? You will learn by watching and participating in training as you lead workshops, participate in exercises, and lead Theological Reflections.
Bill was particularly insistent on the last of the "core practices" listed on the Pathwright document. These are
- Living in community
- Prayer and worship
- Theological Reflection
- Study of Tradition
- Vocational Discernment
Bill invited me to join him in leading the first TR because I'd requested some ideas for building a TR from something in the present moment. We had just shared 3 minute spiritual autobiographies, so we made that the basis of the TR. The group looked for a common thread, and found it in a question that Bill asked about the image I'd presented for my spiritual development (above): What would cause you to exit? Someone else suggested a detour sign. I paused there to ask everyone to contribute to the scenario: where is this detour sign? what time of day? what weather?
Bill would later return to the next question for the way it boosted energy for the TR: "So, when you see this sign in the rain at a bridge, and you're forced to go on a road that's unfamiliar to you -- how do you feel?" We had a lot of buy-in to that image. I've learned from some good experiences to have the participants put themselves in the image.
When we applied those perspective questions to the scenario, we got some surprises. In the world of the bridge out, which seems like 100% brokenness, wholeness could be the fact that someone looking out for you put up that warning sign. We thought of the sin of ignoring the signs -- and that resonated with the prophets and Jesus. Something discovered or experienced along the unfamiliar way around could redeem the situation.
Minutes later, Reva (rhymes with "forevah") teamed with me for the second TR from the Gospel reading for the day, Matthew 12 -- the Pharisees question picking grain to eat and healing a withered hand on the Sabbath. Reva and I were both struck by the method Jesus uses to teach the Pharisess and disciples, and we were sure that a group of mentors would pick up on that, too. They didn't.
We were swimming around without a focus until someone said something about "finding the heart of God in the Law." With some coaxing, that turned into trying to find the heartbeat in an unconscious person. Reva picked up the thread, and thoughts and feelings tumbled out. We identified with the fear of doing something wrong, and also recognized "it kills your soul to walk away." Of course, the Good Samaritan was a Scriptural touchstone.
Maurice Geldert and Barbara Wood initiated a TR with the question, "How has EfM affected your life spiritually?" The answers could be used in recruitment: EfM has established a practice of daily devotion; increased spiritual vocabulary (literally, also metaphorically); made me more aware of spirituality in everyday life; broken down barriers/distinctions between sacred and secular.
Bill pointed out that prompts for the short-form spiritual autobiography are from the different sources of a TR. The observation came to him on the spot after I passed on advice from Jenny Beaumont's training, to introduce different movements of a TR stealthily during the first weeks of the seminar, to get new participants used to finding a focus, recognizing different sources for our spiritual lives, playing with metaphor and image.
Rephrasing our list of negatives as positives, Barbara Wood moved her TR out of the realm of complaints into a more productive realm of aspirations.
I appreciate Maurice's candor and approach to "all these wonderful diagnoses" he's living with. "Life doesn't always let you do what you plan." He used to ride bikes as much as I do; he says he doesn't plan very far in advance anymore.
William and Joanne teamed up on a TR based on an article about evangelicals who now reject the teachings of Jesus as "too weak" and "liberal." When the group discussion narrowed down to two equally strong topics, I appreciated William's candor when he admitted, "Help me dig us out of this." Barbara Wood pointed out a false binary. When we went with dissonance itself as the focus, William provided an example of the middle school band concert, which may be dissonant, but it's lovely for the proud parents. Maurice quoted our presiding Bishop, "We can live with differences, but not with division."
Laura was so polite and gentle, yet insistent, as she redirected a symposium on environmental sciences back to theological reflection.
Joanne's worship for one of the sessions in her group involved a (virtual?) visit to a labyrinth and collecting participants' expressions of their thoughts and feelings into a poem that she read for us, full of surprising turns -- like a labyrinth!
I enjoyed Barbara Wood's gathering question: Sharing a picture of a hand-held remote control, she asked which button could represent our recent spiritual life. I can imagine showing a picture of just about anything and asking "where are you in this picture?"
