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I'm energized after 16 hours of Zoom meetings spread out Thursday-Saturday. The group -- all self-identified introverts or at least partly introverted -- was made up of kind people determined to make each discussion "work." From New York, Texas, Colorado, California, we worked with trainer Kay McCall in Washington State.Kay started us with worship that moved us via video: Eric Whittacre's "Sing Gently" ("as one"), created from 17,000 singers' separately recorded tracks. We saw those faces on digital tiles with irregular edges that come together two-or-three at a time, until we saw something like a couple of continents as viewed from space. Guessing where this was going, I was still taken by surprise and moved to tears. So that was the first couple minutes of our time together.
We discussed a group covenant, always one of the first things that EfM has a group do, but Kay took us on a surprising turn. We went right into a Theological Reflection on what "covenant" means to us. We settled on a surprising image: Michaelangelo's depiction of God's hand reaching out to animate Adam. Alice was surprised to notice for the first time how God is backed up by angels, a community in support of the "covenant." God's hand doesn't take Adam's -- Adam is free to turn away. Applying our insights took the form of listing elements of our group covenant.
Then we did a collect that we used for prayer several times.
Kay underlined the importance of "application" to the whole EfM endeavor. It's about "transformation, not information," she said. The texts support the TR, not the other way around. She offered the idea that applications could be done in a journal after a TR, and the accumulated journal entries could be used near the end of the year to help in discernment -- what themes do you see repeating in your journal? Questions for the journal could be just filling in the blank with 3-4 words: I experienced... learned... felt... I will...)
Spiritual autobiographies were to be 5-minute "stepping stones" to our present understanding of God. I shared how Chris Allenburger, in the conversation that turned out to be our last before he fell into a coma, telling me, "Mr. Smoot, you've GOT to take composition lessons!" My composition teacher, never judging my music but helping me to make it more like what I wanted it to be, changed the way I saw teaching, and the way I understood God.
We followed each story with silence and then this line: "For the journey that brought you here, for the journey we share, for the journey yet to come, thanks be to God."
Kay again surprised us during our debrief on the autobiographies when she asked what was valuable about this exercise, and what image might express it? (We settled on the image of those digital tiles in the virtual choir.) So this chapter, too, turned into a TR.
I led worship early on, using my liturgy pieced together from Mary Oliver's poetry. Many others brought poetry for worship. I was especially impressed by a book of blessings by John O'Donahue (1956-2008), made into a liturgy by Alice.
We did some work in the new curriculum by pretending we were students. I was assigned to be the class's one "Wide Angle" participant. This was our first experience with the new online curriculum, which "sets the scene," offers readings, and assigns short related videos. The video I saw was slam poetry from the woman at the well. Kay nudged me to get beyond telling WHAT I saw to HOW I connect to the woman at the well. (The poet/performer had emphasized that Jesus had "really seen" her -- a phrase that first registered with me when a former student commented about me in a Facebook thread - "I loved Mr. Smoot's class. I always felt seen." I'm not sure what I had done -- but it's something to live up to as a mentor and as a fellow human being.)
I worked with Alice, who has little experience of leading a TR. We chose an "evocative" word to stimulate the TR, "home." When Alice pushed people to say more about sounds, smells, sensations of the "home" they think of, the image that emerged was of the kitchen. The group took off with so many ideas, so many connections to Scripture, that Alice and I had to push the group into the Applications part. We did get a lot of applications, and had time left to write this collect -- a new experience, for some of the group:
COLLECT FOR OUR KITCHEN MINISTRY
Dear God, Bread of Life who feeds the multitudes,
you create such abundance in our world. We pray that, recognizing hunger in our community, we may build longer tables for our dining halls to invite others to share the abundance you have offered us,
so that in the world around us, no one will hunger for food, companionship, dignity, or belonging.
In the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, Amen.
Someone then quoted St. Teresa, "GOD IS IN THE POTS AND PANS." Sounds like something she'd say! At St. James on Sunday, the Gospel was about Mary and Martha. Our rector Mother Mariclair said that Jesus wasn't denigrating Martha's service, but pointing out that his presence is like the "hub" of a wheel: while work, paying bills, following the news, etc. etc. are the spokes of our lives, God is not just another spoke.
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