Wk. 7: Time-Lapse World

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Worship and Gathering
Susan brought us evening prayer from the Northumbrian community. She asked about Halloween costumes in our past. A cat... geologist (with vest and hard hat)... Harry Potter... Yin and Yang... a spider... and Clark Kent.

Following Jesus, 1st yr: Rob, Tiffany; 2nd yr: Michael, Mason; 3rd yr: Lanie 4th yr, Joyce, Susan; 5th yr "Wide Angle," Phyllis. Mentor: Scott. Absent: None.

Respond
Tiffany, reading through Leviticus and Numbers, was reminded of social media "terms and conditions" that we all scroll through: violate the terms, lose your account. "It isn't punishment," she said, "but more like cause and effect!"

Michael was amused to see the Gospel Writers as "Evangelists" with all the negative connotations of that word in our culture.

Mason was taken by the Diatesseron, a once-popular composite of all four Gospels in one book, to iron out duplications and inconsistencies. We now see that as a foolish effort that loses what's rich and individual to each Gospel.

Joyce and Susan are fine with Bretherton. They warned that "ideology" easily becomes "idolatry." Reducing the Bible to ideology is like reducing a body to biology.

Rob appreciated the tent-like structure of the Israeli camp in the wildnerness. (Scott wonders, was this layout of tents later incorporated in the temple, or did the remembrance of the late, great temple inform the story of the tents in the wilderness?)

Lanie liked Augustine's image of two cities, the City of God and the City of Man. Not that one is good and the other bad, she said, but that both are heading towards salvation, though not always by the best path.

Phyllis hadn't looked at the story of Jericho from the city's point of view. Every image has its shadow, she cautioned.

Discussion turned towards the notion of punishment, especially the idea that a God of Justice demands that a scapegoat must suffer for the sins of all. Scott learned lately that this idea, so familiar to us, is alien to Orthodox Christianity. They blame it on the Roman justice system! See Scott's article Jesus Saves -- but how?

Reflect
We were all fascinated by the "Grid" portion of Koyaanisqatsi (1982), dir. by Godfrey Reggio, scored by Philip Glass. The title is a Hopi word for "life out of balance." After our session, Mason sent us these links:

The clip we watched: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h8pJW-gvd4
The sequence with the "meat" footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI2IlA3ztIo
The entire movie (not the greatest capture quality): https://archive.org/details/koyaanisqatsi.-1982.1080p.-blu-ray.x-264-yts.-am

After some discussion of what we saw and what that was like, we focused on the "time lapse world" depicted in the movie. When we explored it through theological categories, we agreed: This time lapse world in its creation was exciting, predictable, back-and-forth, moving, constant. Sin (or "brokenness") arose in our recognition that this world seemed mechanistic. It kept going even if something human goes wrong (like the near-crash of the bicycle). There is no time for pain. Thousands of little lives we see are oblivious to each other, and oblivious to their part in the overall flow so overwhelming to us. Judgement might be a power outage, a 9/11, or any interruption to the daily flow -- maybe even a positive thing. (Scott just remembered being in NYC during a snow storm: Times Square turned into a joyous snowball fight.)

Redemption wouldn't be a return to the frenetic grid, but a cooperation with nature. Tiffany connected to culture by describing the cities retaken by nature in The Last of Us. Connecting to Tradition,, we noticed how time jumps hundreds of years between chapters of the Bible. We referenced Psalm 90 - "1000 years in thy sight are like a watch in the night."

Looking for insights, we wondered, is the time lapse view God's view? How do we benefit if we look at the world that way? Susan pointed out that this is an element of Buddhist thought, to see our own life as one cog in a giant wheel -- so we don't grasp on to it as if it's more important than any other. "This de-centers our perspective," she said. Of course, when God became man and dwelt among us, he gave up that time lapse view to experience the journey our way.

To apply our theological reflection on the time lapse view of the world, perhaps it's a good idea just to close our eyes a moment to remember that bizarre, mechanistic, frantic, and yet weirdly beautiful world that we're a part of -- before we step into it at our daily pace.

PS - Did we mention that the film's director was a Roman Catholic Priest and the composer professes to be a practicing Buddhist?

For Monday:
Scott will bring the worship and a GQ. Phyllis will bring something to kindle a T.R., perhaps a personal experience (a "critical moment" when perception changed).

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Wk. 6: Dirt and Personal Deconstruction

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Worship and Gathering
Michael brought a poem by Catherine Pulsifer, "In the Chaos of Life." At the other end of the evening, a poem by George MacDonald also depicted us as pretty inconsequential in a chaotic world, yet held in the hands of God. His GQ was about where in "the Holy Land" we'd like to visit? Calvary, the "Via Dolorosa," the Holocaust Museum, the Sea of Galilei, that salty Dead Sea (Joyce says your feet really float), the cathedral of Santiago, the Tomb, the mosaics in Capernaum, the Wailing Wall. Scott doesn't like to travel.

Following Jesus, 1st yr: Rob, Tiffany; 2nd yr: Michael, Mason; 3rd yr: Lanie 4th yr, Joyce, Susan; 5th yr "Wide Angle," Phyllis. Mentor: Scott. Absent: None. Joyce had to leave 45 minutes early.

Scott posed a question in "Chat," and everyone answered:

Scott: [Looking back on the past five weeks], what has sharing our stories done for us?

Created a sense of community and insight into each other’s Christian walk... connected us socially, to know a little more about one another’s background and perspectives... personalized the class and made it more applicable to each person. We learn about others and even about ourselves through their experiences. We get outside of our own perspectives and consider the ways others interpret the "theme" of a stepping stone as it applies to their experience.... We hear what led us to where we are now.... When we think deeply and analytically about our faith journey we understand ourselves better, too.

Scott wondered what's added to the effect when you do it two, three or more years? You try to remember not to repeat.... There's no shame in repeating!... You gain confidence... you see the same events from different perspectives.

Scott also posed a "meta" question: Now that you've told how God entered your life, you've shared the experience of those who wrote the Old and New Testaments. "I wonder," Scott asked, "would you call your stories 'inerrant?'" There were smiles, as people recognized that a story can be TRUE and still leave out some stuff and put some spin on other stuff. That's part of the writing / story telling process.

Respond
The EfM "respond" question that Scott put in the blog last week concerned systematic theology and a set of motions in stories that theologians find throughout the Bible: creation - sin - judgment - redemption. We all contributed to telling how these themes appear in different Bible stories, starting with Adam and Eve. Then we looked for the same movements in the material we read last week.

Constantine's "creation" was his organization of a catholic (i.e., world-wide) church, ripped apart by doctrinal differences, but redeemed by the reconciling work of councils, witness the Nicene Creed. The selection of gospels took a century or two, but believers mostly came to consensus. There's redemptive development in the way we learned to read the Gospels. Deliverance stories are an illustration of redemption from sin and judgement -- esp. the heartbreaking story of Hagar and young Ishmael.

We went off onto the subject of apostolic succession, and shared some awe-inspiring and moving experiences regarding the laying on of hands at the ordinations of priests -- and realizing that this rite of passage could be traced back through hands of bishops for 2000 years. The families were gathered with them; the priests of the Diocese all leaned in to touch the new one.

Do age and authenticity confer authority? Yes and no: We considered that the first biography of Lincoln was both biased and inaccurate, written by an eye-witness with an axe to grind. 160 years later, we know more about Lincoln than anyone in his lifetime did, through primary sources, a wide range of perspectives, and a more nuanced approach to history itself. Michael pointed out that later writings can also be biased. In either case, we need to read critically, consider the characteristics of the writers and the worldviews of their times.

Reflect

For a source to "kindle" a Theological Reflection, Tiffany chose Exodus 20:22-24 for us, an example of the "Tradition" source of meaning in our lives.

Focus After giggling about how those Israelites evidently wore no underwear, we focused on the idea that dirt and rocks were good enough for God. Rob made a leap from dirt to "the last shall be first," and gold and silver and grandiose temples are not necessarily an improvement over a mound of dirt. Phyllis captured the same idea with an image (above). That became our focus.

We explored the image through those same Theological categories: We see creation in good dirt and uncut stones from God's own hands. To disdain the dirt is Sin, to build up high places, to bring in silver and gold to glorify a place where God's presence already makes the site holy. Pulling down the grand buildings of hewn stone, silver, and gold would not be Redemption -- you can't turn back the clock, Susan said -- but you can undergo what Tiffany called "Personal Deconstruction."

Connection Speaking from the Action (or "experience") source, Mason shared something he learned in an agriculture class where the professor distinguished SOIL from the demeaning word DIRT. In a real estate deal, Phyllis learned about values of different types of soil. Others among us remembered good experiences with "dirt" making mudpies, building sand castles, and sinking action figures in quicksand! From the Culture source, we heard from Susan about the medieval Jewish folktale of the Golem, made of dirt to serve the Jewish community. But, it went rogue and killed townspeople -- not like A.I. at all. For more connections in the Tradition source, we explored Tiffany's idea of "personal deconstruction." Job is torn down -- literally sitting on a pile of dirt -- but he maintains his pride to nearly the very end, when he humbly admits he's meeting God face to face for the first time. Other scriptures involved God revealed through the lowly (and dirty)... the last shall be first... the cornerstone which the builders rejected....

We didn't have time to think about other insights, but Tiffany's idea that salvation can be found in a process of about "personal deconstruction" of our idols and temples was good enough for me! What about applications? Are there implications for our parish churches, or for the capital-C Church?

For Monday:
Susan is bringing worship and a G.Q. Mason will bring something from the "cultural source" for a TR.

Please think how you will respond to the following questions as you engage with material this week:

• What metaphors or images did you find in your reading, watching, and listening this week? How did the images or metaphors contribute to your learning or understanding this week?
• What's something from the material that you'd like to tell us about or ask us about?

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Wk. 5: Drawing on Experience and Scripture

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Worship and Gathering
We thought of our friend Rob, too sick to join us.

Phyllis opened with a "prayer of unknowing" by Thomas Merton -- a great comfort to those of us unsure of what we're supposed to be doing. Lanie brought a GQ that elicited a lot of cool answers, "What is your earliest memory of church?" After we all spoke, we came up with this list of recurring themes from our answers: sense of awe... music... lots of sensory input... awareness of the others with us...just how impressionable we are as children. With this knowledge, we considered some implications for our churches.

We all laughed at the story of the fish in the clear baptism pool. A couple of other things outstanding to Scott: The shy kid who felt good about all the attention at Baptism, and the 17-year-old brother who saved his little sister from an embarrassing situation, assuring her as he lifted her away, "It's going to be all right."

Following Jesus, 1st yr: Rob, Tiffany; 2nd yr: Michael, Mason; 3rd yr: Lanie 4th yr, Joyce, Susan; 5th yr "Wide Angle," Phyllis. Mentor: Scott. Absent: Rob.

Respond
"What life experiences came to mind as you read / watched / listened?" We took a few minutes with pen and paper to sketch our responses to that question.

• Tiffany's TV with rabbit ears showed The Ten Commandments every year.
• A crucifix made of question marks was Michael's image for the many "mystery religions" present in the Roman Empire. This came up again later.
• Joyce and Susan took turns explaining the advice to be a good listener from theologian Luke Bretherton. "That's what ministered to me," Joyce said. More than a management tool or a counselor's imperative, listening is a service or practice in life. Susan said, "You can't be a good Christian without paying attention to others." Joyce told us that Bretherton would have us "listen" to the WORLD, the non-humans, too.
• Lanie used boxers to illustrate the conflicts that developed among Christians as soon as Constantine quelled the persecution of the Church. Lanie also shared a picture of Constantine's plan for a church, which is still our floor plan for Episcopal churches.
• Mason drew a moneybags "patron" at the top of a social order where all other tasks were fulfilled by workers who just barely got by -- and this was just the way things were supposed to be. There was no middle class in the time of Jesus. Slavery offered security, one's needs met by the wealthy patron who gave you daily bread. As a hopeful home buyer in a difficult market, he feels resonance with that ancient economic environment.
• Phyllis drew generations reaching back to a distant "origin story." She also brought us a picture of a writer whose specialty is to put contemporary worshipers into scriptural stories (e.g., being a servant who follows Abraham on the way to sacrifice Isaac).

On the same theme, Phyllis also introduced the group to the Hebrew tradition of midrash ("search out"), 2000+ years old. She quoted, "For Christians, scripture is often the end of a discussion; for Jews, scripture opens a discussion." In midrash, too, the worshipers put themselves into the stories to imagine why the stories go as they do.

The Exodus story came up in this regard, considering an Egyptian soldier. Scott recalled this snippet of his blog The Word Sanctuary:

Like Katie Nakamara [writer in Forward Day by Day April 2026], I shudder at the drowning of Pharaoh's soldiers and their horses. A lot of dads, brothers, sons, and animals who have no choice but to pursue the Hebrews go on to perish in the Red Sea. According to Nakamara, the Talmud commentators were also uneasy. Talmud says that angels did NOT rejoice with the Israelites. She asks, can we, too, hold both gratitude for triumph for "us" AND empathy for "them?"

Reflect
We told stories of times when, looking back, we see that we were being Jesus to someone else. At the end, Scott asked what traits of Jesus emerged from our stories? Generosity... pulling different kinds of people together... doing small acts that mean more than they seem to (ex. from Tiffany: Jesus asking for water from a woman outcast from her village)... accepting people where they are.

Our closing worship was a reading of beautiful Psalm 4. Lanie said that her mother's favorite verse was the final line, "I lie down in peace; at once I fall asleep; for only you, Lord, make me dwell in safety."

For Monday:
Let's remember how useful and fun it has been to encapsulate our readings in pictures!

Michael will lead worship and bring a GQ. Tiffany will nominate a couple of passages from the Old Testament for our first formal TR. We'll choose one.

Scott poses this question from the "Respond" tab of week six: "We talk about systematic theology in EfM. Where did you see creation, sin, judgment, or redemption this week?" ("Judgment" is a word for the moment of recognition that something is wrong.)

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Wk. 4: Ugly Pictures & Companions on the Way

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Worship and Gathering
Joyce opened worship with prayers from the BCP. Tiffany had us choose a favorite time of day, invention, or place. We like cool early morning and sunsets on the beach, we liked the inventions of paper (with ink!) and air-conditioning. Rob captured our imaginations with his description of centuries-old carvings in rock-hard lava in Hawaii, and the sound of the wind through the plants that grow there.

We thought about our missing members, Mason and Michael.

Photo: Sunset by Lanie. (Does anyone besides Scott think that looks like Godzilla devouring some Florida town?)

Following Jesus, 1st yr: Rob, Tiffany; 2nd yr: Michael, Mason; 3rd yr: Lanie 4th yr, Joyce, Susan; 5th yr "Wide Angle," Phyllis. Mentor: Scott. Absent: Mason and Michael.

Respond
Our first question grew out of a presentation offered last week on how even "ugly" pictures can stimulate creativity and understanding. That turned out to be true when we shared sketches from this week's "engage" materials.

Joyce used four pictures to illustrate the story of parents Mary and Joseph going back and forth searching for their 12 year old boy Jesus, his questioning of the authorities and his authoritative answers to them, but also the son's realization that he had disturbed his parents: after this, he didn't worry them again. Joyce's pictures encompassed heritage and moral development and how we ALL have to find our own way.

Tiffany used each frame differently. Her question marks around the words "Yahwist," "Elohist," Deuteronomist," and "Priestly Source" brought lots of good answers about how and why scholars discern different sources of the Pentateuch. "I get it now," Tiffany said. She captured several elements of the Noah story in a single image (flood, ark, rainbow, birds, two covenants). We laughed with her takeaway from the book Women of the Bible, how Sarah was loving, blunt, and jealous. Her family tree from Abraham and Sarah made so clear that a great deal of our religious tradition springs from a single family history. "And they were not all angels," Susan pointed out.

Lanie's interest was in the contrast of Jews and Gentiles. One of the things we noticed is that the Christian church very quickly developed rules and traditions in the manner of the Jewish authorities they replaced.

Phyllis's pictures gave us parallel creation stories of Marduk and Genesis. A big difference: while both stories give us gods who bring order out of chaos, the Marduk story builds to the conclusion that the sacred order is king and god idol in a temple over enslaved subjects. The Elohist story, however, gives us God who needs no specific place to be. The Rohr podcast inspired Phyllis to draw twisting vectors, a village church, symbols of various religions, and a misshapen tree overhanging all.

A second question related to our materials about the "authority" of scripture. What does "authority" even mean to us? We took some time to fill in a grid with "authority" at the center. With each suggestion, Scott asked "Where does this belong on the grid?" Many of the associations we had with "authority" were negative:

“authoritarian” Domination - command - autonomy - control
Father
Experience
Rules & Laws
compassion
Author- Intelligence - authenticity

A key point came from Susan: the difference between authority that is legitimate versus that which is not. We imagined ways in which "authorities" lost their authority.

Then we applied this to Jesus, a carpenter's boy who taught "with authority."

Scott (on the authority of his AI robot) explained that the word shares its origin with our word "augment." Originally, the word suggested enlarging, creating. It came to suggest knowledge. In the early Renaissance, "authority" was a way of knowing, contrasted to experience and scientific experiment (cf. Galileo, 1600s, jailed for challenging the authority of the Church when his telescope revealed that the earth is not at the center of the universe.) The 18th century minds behind our Declaration of Independence made a statement about "authority" based on "the consent of the governed" as a quality of legitimate government, contrasted to a royal class that claimed its authority from God.

Reflect
We told stories of companions on our journey across the stepping-stones of our life stories.

For closing, Tifanny brought us these prayers:
Reader 1: May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. Amen.
Reader 2: May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace. Amen.
Reader 3: May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy. Amen.
Reader 4: May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done. Amen.
--Sister Ruth Marlene Fox, OSB

For Monday:

Lanie and Phyllis will bring worship and a GQ.

We "ENGAGE" with materials for week 5. As you engage, think of these two questions lifted from the "Respond" tab:

• What life experiences came to mind as you read, watched, or listened to this week?
• Throughout history, Jews and Christians have had to adapt to a changing world. Thinking about your study this week, who and what was changing and adapting? What was the impact of that change?

Our final "stepping stone" is a time or occasion when we ourselves were Jesus in someone else's journey (as we are to be the eyes, hands, and feet of Jesus in the world).

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Wk. 3: Bridges and Challenges

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Worship and Gathering
We started right on time! The nor'easter kept Mason away, but he gave us all lines in his selection of praises and prayers from Psalm 36 (which may have become my favorite, thanks to this!), St. Francis, and our traveling companion Bishop Deon Johnson for the closing.

A lot of energy was generated by Mason's collage of photos of bridges and the simple question, "Which one are you drawn to?" Some of us had strong emotional connections with the actual bridges, with memories to share. We noted how a generic bridge can be a strong metaphor, and how details of a specific bridge can suggest deeper meanings.

Speaking of the power of images, Scott took a moment to recommend a video from the Resources tab about the value of "ugly pictures." Even crudely drawn representations of ideas and stories will bring fresh insights to mind and keep creative discussion alive. Remember this when you get to the "respond" questions below!

Following Jesus, 1st yr: Rob, Tiffany; 2nd yr: Michael, Mason; 3rd yr: Lanie 4th yr, Joyce, Susan; 5th yr "Wide Angle," Phyllis. Mentor: Scott. Absent: Mason.

Respond
Most of the discussion took place in breakout rooms. When we came back together, these were some of the topics that had captured our attention:

• The 5th year book on Learning to Love the Bible Again lists various adjectives applied to the Bible in public forums these past few years: "subversive," "deep," "irrelevant," "historical," "puzzling." Phyllis was intrigued by the wide range of interpretations of the phrase "the word of God." Is the God of the Old Testament different from the God of the New Testament? (Scott would ask how God's people changed over the 1000+ years before Jesus.)
• One breakout room discussed how some of Scripture is literal and some is poetic.
• Why is time so often specified in both testaments? 40 days, 7 days, 3 days... not to mention time set aside for sabbath and for feasts and fasts. Are we any different? Is literature from other cultures equally focused on time?
• We were surprised that Jesus and the Pharisees, who appear in the Gospels as arch-enemies, were on the same side when it came to doctrine such as belief in afterlife.
• Part of our discussion was about drawing parallels between some stories from Genesis and from our own family histories.

Reflect
"Tell us of a stepping stone in your journey of faith, a time when you were challenged by Jesus."

For Monday:

Tiffany and Joyce will be leading Worship and the GQ.

Scott has chosen these two "Respond" questions for week 4:

• If you were drawing a cartoon strip of your reading, listening, or watching this week, what would be the essential four boxes? Use stick figures and dialogue if that is helpful. We will go into breakout rooms to share and prepare something to show the plenum.
• How might themes of authorship and authenticity influence what you believe is biblical truth? How do questions of authorship and authenticity relate to your life in today’s world?

Our next "stepping stone" in the Journey with Jesus is to tell about a companion who affected your journey.

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Wk. 2: Stories from Bishop Deon's Life and Ours

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Worship and Gathering
Rob selected prayers from the daily offerings by the Right Reverend Deon Johnson, who is our companion through the curriculum for this year's theme "Following Jesus."

For a gathering question, Rob picked up a sentence from Bishop Johnson's essay, "We seldom think ourselves into faith." Often, it's a person whose example pulls us in. Rob asked for such a person in our lives. We heard of a father who dialogued with God about everything under the sun, not just religion... two elder women in two different churches, generous, wise, and good at listening, who tried to live life as a "miracle" that would reveal God to others... a wise seminarian friend, and a loving priest.

Following Jesus, 1st yr: Rob, Tiffany; 2nd yr: Michael, Mason; 3rd yr: Lanie 4th yr, Joyce, Susan; 5th yr "Wide Angle," Phyllis. Mentor: Scott. Absent: Lanie, Michael.

Respond
We each shared one thing that jumped out at us from Deon Johnson's essay.

Susan: "remember" is "re + member," and we are "re-membered" by the Eucharist. (When a 7th grader complained to his Literature teacher that "you're doing roots of words instead of literature," Scott responded: "When you look at the roots of our vocabulary, almost every word is a poem.")

Rob: "Jesus ate his way across the Holy Land." That set off a lot of agreement. Phyllis related Rob's observation to "oxytosin" a.k.a. the "love hormone," activated by communal meals. Mason thinks of food, providing food, preparing food, as an act of love.

Tiffany: Touched by "Hold a light up for the Devil to see," know that unbelievers and enemies are watching: show them the light of Christ. She connected this to Ted Lasso and the fictional coach's teaching, "Be curious, not judgmental."

We diverted into a discussion of our big "C" Church's "unseen burden" from the legacy of slavery and slave theology. Scott said that our EfM program is open about Sewanee's original mission to build a theological support for slavery.

Joyce suddenly popped in after some technical difficulties, but she came prepared to teach her own lessons about Bishop Deon! (She laughed, "I'm learning!") She especially loved the story of the grandmother's anger at God when her ailing brother died at the nursing home she had found for him. Joyce related this to her own mother and to the death of her husband Gene. We discussed how people of strongest faith are angriest with God. Phyllis's father and the Book of Job came up.

Scott asked what any of this has to do with the title of the essay "Identify" (first of four movements in a Theological Reflection). Mason hit a grand slam: When the Bishop shifts into the theme of "discernment," we can see that he has been steering the whole essay towards vocation "where our passions meet the world's needs." Johnson builds the whole thing on the example of his Grandmother identified in the first page.

Scott noted how the grandmother named "Constance" was also constant in her daily rituals. This led to a very enlightening discussion of Vergers and their role as Guardians of Episcopal rituals. Joyce, who used to blend in the background at church, is now a Verger that some folks at St. Teresa compare to a "tin soldier" out in front of the congregation. She had LOTs to say.

We had a 15 minute break. We reviewed the "House Rules" from last week. Scott appreciated how the group did "identify" a metaphor that turned a dry list of rules into a kind of story that we can all buy into.

Reflect
We used mutual invitation to hear stories of times in our lives when our idea of Jesus changed. After each story, we said a prayer from the Appendix for Everyone: For what was, for what is, for what will be, thanks be to God.

Rob brought us another prayer from Bishop Deon Johnson. This one borrowed the pattern from the Prayer of St. Francis. For example, "Let us not seek order but righteousness."

For Monday:
Mason will bring worship for the beginning and end of the session, along with a "gathering question" (GQ).

• "Engage" with the materials listed or linked under the tab for your year at Pathwright, Week 3. Please come to our meeting prepared to offer answers to these two "Respond Discussion Questions" selected from under the "Respond" tab:
  • What caught your attention in your reading, listening, or watching this week? What would you want to bring to the group’s attention?
  • The year’s study often begins with learning the context of the people, history, and theology. If you were to write an article about the context of this year's study, what topics would you want to cover?
• Bring another stepping stone for sharing. This one is to be a time when you were challenged by following Jesus. (Or: When following Jesus was a challenge!)

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Covenant: Our House Rules

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Our reading of the catechism on "covenant" led us to imagine a graduate leaving the family home to begin a new life, having been shaped by the rules of the household. We brainstormed what those rules might be. Here's what might be taped to the refrigerator in this house that we call our EfM seminar:

Our EfM home is constructed from time -- time for study, worship, and fellowship -- to nurture our personal growth and understanding, so that we may graduate with a sense of our personal vocation.

To these ends, we agree:

• We come to family gatherings prepared to participate because we respect and invest in the process. If we're going to be late or absent, we'll send a heads-up.
• We have household responsibilities and chores, like contributing to discussions, listening, and taking turns for leading worship and TRs.
• We pray for the needs of one another; we also honor each other's privacy. What our brothers and sisters say stays in this house!
• We walk in love when we go out -- and when we come back in, too. We may not necessarily walk in lock step but we are going for the same goals of growth, understanding, and vocation to the world.
• We will respect differences.
  We will listen to understand, not to undermine.
  We will not indulge in partisan comments or sarcasm.
  When things go sideways and we see things differently, we will acknowledge the difference, forgive, and work to recover positive relationship.
• We don't expect Daddy to know everything, even if he acts like he does. We look to him for management of our time and encouragement of individuals' growth, not doctrine, not counseling.
• We will take care of our pets. This may mean muting your microphone when their sounds are intrusive.

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Following Jesus, Wk. 1: Introductions to Us and the Bishop's Chickens

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Worship and Gathering
We were all on time. Michael connected by phone. Scott read the collect for the day, Holy Cross. We used mutual invitation to learn what everyone prefers to be called and what drew everyone to EfM this year: to finish what I started... exploring vocation... "to continue the journey"... I enjoy it... to stay in touch with this group during a time of change . We also trained our cameras on "something in the room that tells us about you."

Following Jesus, 1st yr: Rob, Tiffany; 2nd yr: Michael, Mason; 3rd yr: Lanie 4th yr, Joyce, Susan; 5th yr "Wide Angle," Phyllis. Mentor: Scott. Absent: None.

Respond
We shared our very positive takeaways from Bishop Deon Johnson's video interview. That God is aligned with OUR stories, not just watching from afar... those chickens! ... dedication to the people he photographs in his "ussies"... his genuine warmth... how his grandmother taught him prayer and hymns... that he is open about being gay but that isn't what defines him... his prayer podcast (Rob knew it well before this)... that he would like to rip the back cover off the Bible to signify that God's story with us goes on.

We paused to consider each activity we'd done so far was related to at least one of the core practices of EfM: living in community, worship, Christian tradition, vocational discernment, and theological reflection.

For ten minutes before the break, we paired our new friends with veterans to explore resources on the website, specifically for preparation of worship.

Reflect
Rob and Tiffany read aloud from the Prayer Book's catechism, the part about "the New Covenant." We took some minutes to Identify a focus of interest to us all. In the catechism, "covenant" seems to be an all-encompassing love itself, a relationship that encourages growth and living the fullness of life, modeled by Jesus. Because that still seems abstract, we sharpened the focus by imagination: it looked to us like all the stuff wrapped in a graduate's farewell to parents and the home in which the child grew from crib to college.

Note: In the essay that we're reading for next week, Bishop Johnson explores what "Identify" means in our lives, mirroring the use of "Identify" as the first step in a theological reflection (TR). In later essays, he'll deal with other movements in a TR, going next to "Explore."

Scott's sketch of the graduate's good-bye was hopeful, but things changed when he ripped the paper. In EfM, wholeness and brokenness represent Creation and Sin. When we "explore" an image, drawing it can draw out unexpected details and feelings. That's the point!

We really got into it when we moved to Explore the world of that image. Feelings came up of the passing of time, hope, dread, regrets, and "the mystery of how parents can stay so optimistic"; thoughts included questions about the child's future. We readily saw how this relationship was created to be, but we also saw the potential for brokenness (a.k.a. sin). So we naturally wondered, when parent-child relationship breaks down, what could redemption look like?

We looked for answers in other sources. Popular culture has not forgotten Harry Chapin's song "Cat's in the Cradle." We saw The Prodigal Son in our scenario, but also the flip side: the kid who has escaped a toxic family -- Joseph and his murderous brothers, for example.

So, now that we've looked at "covenant," how it goes well, how it can go sour, how it can be redeemed -- how can we Apply what we've thought and felt to a set of norms and practices for our seminar? We used chat to write our answers. These will be posted and elaborated by yours truly in a separate blog post later this week!

[See Our House Rules]

We concluded almost on time with the collect for those who work or watch or weep this night.

For Monday:

• On Pathwright's schedule of weeks, open "Week 2" and engage with the essay there, "Identify" by Bishop Johnson.
• Come prepared to tell us about a "stepping stone" in your life, a time when you gained insight into Jesus.
• Rob and Mason will prepare Worship and a gathering question for us. In the weeks following them, we'll have worship from Lanie & Phyllis, then worship in wk 4 from Joyce & Tiffany.

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Link to Overview of EfM and the year '26-'27

← Our last meeting of the year was our first meeting in-person! Follow the arrow back to read all about it.

Our friends at Sewanee have shared this link to an online overview of EfM, with book lists. EfM 2026-2027

← Our last meeting of the year was our first meeting in-person! Follow the arrow back to read all about it.

Journey with God, Weeks 35-36 combined: EfM 2025-26 is History

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

Worship and Gathering
We'll be meeting in person Tuesday for worship at St. James Church in Marietta, GA, so Scott began Monday's session with the collect for Pentecost. The gathering question was about what we'd like to remember from our Memorial Day weekend. The cool and affecting exhibit of portraits by Amy Sherald at the High Museum... The sound of the GA Symphony Orchestra and Youth Orchestra doing The Planets and the roar of approval at Symphony Hall... quiet time at home with rain... the infant granddaughter smiled with recognition. Scott made a musical theatre detour to talk about a mother's plea, "Stop, Time!" (from the musical Big) when she thinks back on all the stages in her 13-year-old son's growth so far.

Yr. D, 1st yr: Michael, Mason; 2nd yr: Lanie; 3rd yr: Joyce, Susan; 4th yr, Jessica, Rita; 5th yr "Wide Angle," Kaye. Mentor: Scott. Absent Monday: Mason was moving his parents.

Respond
Questions for discussion, given in advance:

Some say the church’s history can be viewed as a third Testament. From the perspective of your reading, watching, and listening this year, what is your response to this idea? There's so much disagreement and backsliding and unfaithfulness in Church history that it would go very well with the history of God's people in both the Old and New Testaments. All agreed that different denominations would be unbending in negotiations for what history would go in and how it would be told -- which is pretty much what happened when councils fought over what books would be included in the Hebrew and Christian canons. Joyce agreed with Susan: "We already have too many things to fight about!"

Kaye said "History is the key to the whole picture that we don't get at church." Lanie said, "Let's just make everyone take EfM!"

Susan recommended a new book that focuses on church history to answer the title question, Why Study the Past? Scott liked a third testament updating church history would counteract the commonly held belief that God has had nothing new to say to us since the first century.

What might God be saying to you through your EfM study this week or year? Revelation used to be really scary, but now it's comforting. What we learn in Scripture now must become a habit for each of us. It is our mission to go out in the world we have and be the person we are here to become. The God who keeps welcoming the Israelites back is a comfort to those of us prone to wander. (An allusion to "Come Thou Font of Ev'ry Blessing"). Especially this year, with the monastic essays, we've had an emphasis on quiet and listening. Also growth and joy: Kaye recommended the three videos of "Joyful, Joyful" in different styles.

Joyce heard a strong message through the story of Martin Luther who stood up for his beliefs. (He came up in a couple of sermons recently for enduring attacks from all sides by repeating "I have been baptized!")

This Particular Group is now History
We gathered at St. James for worship "in early evening" (BCP 139), selecting prayers from our booklet of original collects of the year. Then we walked in rain to 7 Tequilas for dinner. When Joyce couldn't join us, we sent her a photo from the restaurant. Baby Liam had a great time! (Inset: Joyce!)

For the Future:
Please do let me know if you plan to enroll for next year. I've heard that the process will be simpler. We can only hope.

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Journey with God, Wk. 34: "Leviathan...for the Sport of It"

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Worship and Gathering
Michael assembled prayers from an variety of sources that somehow came together to be a fitting prayer for the group.

For a Gathering Question, we told of something our parents taught us to love: reading (3 votes)... family (2)... outdoors and camping (2)... records and music... trivia (Mason still has his Presidents' placemat).

Yr. D, 1st yr: Michael, Mason; 2nd yr: Lanie; 3rd yr: Joyce, Susan; 4th yr, Jessica, Rita; 5th yr "Wide Angle," Kaye. Mentor: Scott. Absent: Jessica.

Respond

Before we responded to questions from the web site, we had a chance to share anything from the reading that struck us. Rita sees that Year Four is channeling EfM graduates to "go into all the world... They will know us by our love for one another." She also reacted to a video about endangered species that children of the future may never know. Joyce saw herself in a video of little black girls going off to church with gloves and purses and a quarter for the offering plate. Mason was interested in the way Greek philosophers influenced the wisdom literature from the second temple period. Mason brought up Sirach's disdain for women; Scott cited a chapter in Sirach about various artisans and tradesmen whose worship is in their work, no less important than students in Sirach's school who have the luxury to do religious things. (This resonated later with the idea of everyone's being a "holy mystery.") Michael saw The Wisdom of Solomon as a challenge to leaders, still relevant.

That got us to politics, a topic Susan chose, with questions that Archibishop Rowan Williams raised: The “Christian disciple is not seeking to make the state into a church, but is proposing to the state and to the culture in general a style of direction and common life.” What are some examples of religion integrated with politics in your studies this year? How do you integrate your faith? What are the consequences of that integration? Where does that lead you?

Susan sees an evolution from "top down" politics among Christian rulers in early church history to something more like the Archbishop's idea. Lanie says if we follow the letters of the N.T. and treat every individual as a "holy mystery" then our commitment to human rights would transcend law and petty policy. We connected that to "self-evident" truth in the sacred text of our "Civic Religion."

The other questions was about liberation. “To be a person of faith, to be a body of faith, is to be about the business of liberation,” writes Henry Louis Gates in The Black Church. How does your assignment connect with the concept of “the business of liberation?” How does this compare with your understanding of liberation? What do you see as the relationship between liberation and faith? What are some examples?

From "Let my people go" to Paul's preaching about Christ's freeing us from sin, we saw liberation on lots of levels. Joyce pointed out that life up north during the "Great Migration" was "same old same old" of the South "until churches got involved." She was reminded of her own mother's work bringing liberation to families through her work with children.

Scott wondered about the many readings we've all shared about the "rule of life" in monasteries and convents. Is that a model of strict rules also somehow "liberation?" Lanie could see that. "I've come to appreciate the quiet" as she understood it from Sue Monk Kidd's book.

Reflect
Lanie's son Scott Baxter kept a shark's jaws up in his bedroom, and he cried when his parents gifted him with a tooth from a Megaladon. Our focus shifted to a quotation that Lanie presented with her story, "There is that Leviathan that You created for the sport of it!" (By coincidence, that's the Psalm that St. James choir chanted on the following Sunday.)

Far from horrifying, the "created world" of Leviathan struck us as beautiful, joyful. Was Leviathan created for us? For its own sake? For the heck of it? Mason brought an alternative translation that suggested Leviathan was itself "sporting" with the ships.

When we thought of brokenness or sin in this world, we took for granted that the huge creature would destroy a ship or kill a human. Redemption then seemed limited to hunting, killing, maybe exploding, maybe eating, Leviathan. Was there any other kind of redemption? We had a notion that saving Leviathan from revenge would be a kind of redemption, maybe.

Connecting, we thought of the big fish, instrument of God, in Jonah. Before we were created, the world was "good," with Leviathan in it. We thought of Jaws. We invoked Ahab's obsession with the white whale that bit off his leg. We thought of 17th century philosopher Hobbes whose ideal government would be a "Leviathan" -- an autocrat that controls the chaos of existence.

A question about why Lanie's son would keep the jaws of a fearsome creature brought up memories for many of us, how we would be fascinated of the things that scared us (spiders and snakes, for instance) and would read about them, gingerly handling pages with photos so as not to touch the dreaded creatures. We speculated that our childhood selves were participating in the power of our "enemies" -- making part human, part beast. We thus lessened its power over us. When we wear a crucifix, image of violent death, we strip death itself of its power.

Michael closed the evening with a great piece that we wanted to see again.

For Monday:
Questions for discussion:

Some say the church’s history can be viewed as a third Testament. From the perspective of your reading, watching, and listening this year, what is your response to this idea?

What might God be saying to you through your EfM study this week or year?

For Tuesday: Set your GPS to 161 Church Street Marietta GA 30060. Ring the doorbell at the glass door under the portico; Scott will open it for you! We will walk a block up Church Street to 7 Tequilas Restaurant after a worship service at St. James. Scott's cell number is 678-521-2135 if there's a problem.

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Journey with God, Wk. 33: Yellow and White

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Worship and Gathering
Rita brought worship from Enriching Our Worship, edited to fit our group. I saw an emphasis on Wisdom, personified as "she." We were concerned for our missing friends.

Rita asked for our favorite snack. Pretzels got three votes, at least. Apple with peanut butter, peanuts (in the shell, shared with Brandy the dog), popcorn, vegetable chips and rice cakes, chips and salsa, and "anything salty."

Yr. D, 1st yr: Michael, Mason; 2nd yr: Lanie; 3rd yr: Joyce, Susan; 4th yr, Jessica, Rita; 5th yr "Wide Angle," Kaye. Mentor: Scott. Absent: Kaye and Joyce.

Respond
Kaye wasn't feeling well, but she sent us our questions in advance.

First, we brainstormed associations with the color yellow. It's the color of cowardice, caution, some great foods and flowers, and some disease. It's gender-neutral. "I feel sorry for yellow." Lanie was dressed in yellow!

It was a great exercise of imagination to associate yellow with our materials of the week. Daniel's friends danced in yellow-hot fire. Daniel also stands for truth against yellow-bellied liars. Peter and Jude give CAUTION signals about false teachers. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. made Black Gospel music central to his history of a Black culture all its own, not dependent on, nor a problem to be solved by, whites -- and Scott associated this with a memory of African-American women singing gospel in matching yellow dresses.

Another question had us consider a diagram that related modes of prayer circling "written liturgy." Lanie saw that the modes of prayer, read clockwise, corresponded to the Lord's Prayer. Mason connected prayer with the song of the three young men in our liturgy. Michael gave us a concise version of the Apocryphal story of Bel -- a funny tale of how Daniel caught the Babylonians faking their own "miracle" for their "god." The story was written in Roman times, but must have seemed to Roman officers to be just old folk tales.

Rita, near the end of four years with EfM, took the long view. It's time to take faith out into the world. She was especially moved by the hopeful thought that "we may still be the early church." She took comfort from the improvisational nature of so much in our tradition. We don't have to know the answers or to solve all the world's problems. She agreed, she is not a "doomer," to use a neologism that cropped up on NPR this week.

Reflect
Susan brought a poem by Richard Wilbur, "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World." It sounds pretty rarified, but the subject was laundry. We focused on a prayer that emerges around the middle: "Let there be nothing on earth but laundry."

Clean, fresh, extra-crispy, simple, uncomplicated: even our youngest friends had strong recollections of laundry on a line. What can "break" that world? The stiffness of the towels, a rain, a high wind, smoke, or bird poop (second week in a row for that to enter our discussion).

We connected this to our tradition through Linen Guild, Mary and Martha (laundry surely was a point of contention for them), the blessing of new choir robes at St. James, and the idea of the saints in their white robes, "washed in the blood of the Lamb." We thought of Lazarus and Jesus in their burial sheets.

In our culture, there's a shady aspect to white linen. Criminals "launder" money, and scandals are called "dirty linen." Unpleasant truths "will all come out in the wash." Immigrants have made their living laundering dirty clothes. Some of us are old enough to remember early washing machines with wringers attached: clean cloth would be "run through the wringer" by hand crank to squeeze out every drop of water.

We don't always have a lot of connections to the "Position" source, but this time? Cleanliness is next to Godliness, we were taught, though John the Baptist sounds not very clean. A hymn tells us that we are spirits "robed in flesh." We are Body AND Soul, Lanie said. We had a side discussion about the camaraderie that one finds in a laundromat.

Insights and applications? If your soul is pure, you'll be in those white robes. Like the laundry, you didn't start clean. You must be "wrung through" the "wringer," go through a process -- and it's not something you do for yourself.

At this point, we often write a collect, but Wilbur got there first. He ends his poem with a prayer for those who need to be forgiven, for those at the start of life's journy, for those who balance "body" and "spirit":

Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves;
Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone,
And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating
Of dark habits,
 keeping their difficult balance.

For Monday:
Michael brings worship; Susan chooses questions; Lanie brings kindling for the TR.

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Journey with God, Wk. 32: X-ray, X-clusion, and X-pression of Love

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Worship and Gathering
Lanie led opening prayers from the New Zealand BCP. It felt wonderfully new and yet somehow familiar. It was the Lord's Prayer re-imagined through NZ Maori culture!

Lanie asked us about memorable Mother's Day gifts. That eventually played into the theme of our TR! We shared about earrings delivered by infant son and new dog...being a mother to cats... Father's plan to have the family bond in raft rides down the Chattahoochee (and it worked!)... a handmade card, and cards each year bearing three brothers' (growing) handprints... a lovely gift from the husband to his wife on Father's Day, the year he became a father... the first Mother's Day as a mother... a dachsund rescued and given by Jessica and Jeremy... and, after years of trying to have a child, the adoption (on Mother's Day) of a daughter.

Yr. D, 1st yr: Michael, Mason; 2nd yr: Lanie; 3rd yr: Joyce, Susan; 4th yr, Jessica, Rita; 5th yr "Wide Angle," Kaye. Mentor: Scott. Absent: None. We were all on time!

Respond
One of Rita's chosen questions was to imagine an "X-ray" of the material we engaged with this week. We took a moment to X-amine the X-ray of a hand to think of what it shows: underlying structure, a clear look at what's hidden, a transparent ghost of surrounding soft tissue, the connections.

We spoke generally. Michael connected the book of Tobit to "hidden," as it is one of the "Apocryphal" ("hidden") books from those gap centuries between Malachi and the time of Jesus. Mason X-rayed the sophisticated structure of the story, its foreshadowing and parallelisms. Noting that the story was written close to Jesus's time, Scott X-rayed this tale of a kind Jew struggling under cruel Assyrian masters to be an expression of encouragement for Jews under the Romans.

Lanie wondered about the "hidden" fate of Peter, crucified upside-down (so as not to be equated with Jesus). (I was mistaken: It was Andrew, not his brother Peter, who was crucified on an X-shaped cross.)

Kaye had read Rowan Williams who connected properties of our minds (understanding of the present, memory of the past, anticipation of the future) to spiritual qualities, love, faith, and hope. Love is not just doing good things, but a deep abiding respect for the world. Scott remembered being taught in an evangelical Bible study to hate the world. This Bishop's teaching is so different!

Joyce and Susan had read Year 3, about the rise of the evangelical right in late 20th century America. We got into a side-discussion of how Clinton, Bushes I and II, and Obama all developed close friendships that were evident at Bush I's funeral, and that remain to this day. For details from a book called The Presidents' Club, see Scott's blogpost from August 2012, Partners Across Party Lines. (Also, Scott pointed out that he's practically W's cousin, as Scott's dad named him for Scott Pierce, W's uncle and Tom Smoot's fraternity brother. You can see Scott in biking gear visiting cousin W's birthplace Cycling Virtually Across America: Midland TX)

When we wondered about Rita's second question, about exclusion, Tobit again came up. Mason said, "The story gives voice to four women!" When did that ever happen before? Scott was delighted that a friendly faithful dog follows Tobit's son Tobias throughout the story - the only friendly dog that Scott has found in all of Scripture.

Lanie connected exclusion to both James and Peter, both excluded from the Jewish communities that they had been faithful members of, and also excluded as foreigners by the Roman Empire. Kaye cited a statement by Bishop Desmond Tutu that shocked some people, "God is not a Christian!" (For one thing, He was God long before there were Jews or Jesus on earth.) Jessica had read about the marginalized homeless people of our society, and how their presence affects the spirituality of Christians as we all respond in different ways to homelessness.

From this discussion, Scott posed this question: We know parts of Scripture that call for exclusion and even extermination of groups (every man, woman, child, and animal) while other parts of Scripture call for love and service to "the alien" and tell us that God's plan is for ALL nations to be drawn to Him. "After a year in EfM, how do you deal with these contradictions?"

We had very thoughtful answers. Mason started, "You try to contextualize why certain scriptures were written certain ways." Our recent reading by Sue Monk Kidd gave a good answer, that we should approach the Bible as "more of a person than a book." It develops, it goes through phases, it reaches maturity, it relates to us.

Reflect
Jessica brought us a four-leaf clover that her father picked on the grounds of her beloved summer camp on her wedding day. She explained that she had always liked four-leaf clovers. We saw it, pressed in a frame, along with a photo of her father (described as a "softie") on the day, holding the clover up to the camera. He had searched the field for it, dressed in his tux. We focused on the blessing that he gave by his effort.

The blessing, if put in words, would be something like, "I'm giving you away, but you will always be my baby." We had done a good job of exploring the created nature of the world of this blessing. But what would be sin (or brokenness, or separation) in this world? Landscapers mow the ground, poison the clover that they would call "weeds." Father could've given up on the search too soon. He could've taken himself too seriously to crouch in his tux -- so undignified! Redemption is in the connection that this humble gift created that has lasted all these years.

Connecting to our Tradition, we thought of many parents' blessings to children - Isaac to Jacob (by Jacob's malfeasance!), Eli as foster father to Samuel. We could've mentioned Naomi blessing her daughter-in-law Ruth. Jacob forced the angel to bless him and he got a new name with his new life -- as a daughter gets a new name in marriage, perhaps. Where is the element of the token, such as the clover? Kaye wondered about the oil pressed on our foreheads in Baptism -- passed down from generation to generation, "like sourdough starter," to leaven our lives and all the Church through the centuries.

From experience and culture, we thought of Mason's Mother's Day card blessed by handprints of three sons, and "Luke, I am your father." Scott told the anecdote from psychologist Carl Jung who handed his patient a scarab beetle that had just entered the window -- the very object of a dream she had been struggling to explain. Joyce told us about bringing her daughter on a long road trip to Atlanta where her grandfather was able to find her the toy she wanted most for her fifth birthday, Thomas the Train. The blessing was not only in the toy, but in the grandfather, so touched by her joy.

Insights and applications: in a hypothetical sermon on this subject, how would you answer listeners' unspoken question, "What does this have to do with us?" We can give people things much more valuable than they seem to be... Small gestures can mean so much, especially when they connect past to present, one to another... Value goes way beyond cost... Time and patience are gifts in themselves -- "Gifts we all need more of!" ...You have to get out of yourself to know people well enough to understand what will be precious to them.

Collect relating to blessings Father of us all, You who know us in the depths of our being, before we were in our mother's womb (Jeremiah). You know what we need before even we know.... thank you for providing it. Thank You for loving us in a way more than we could ever deserve. We know that you express your love for us through the actions of those around us. Thank you for the shared experiences that hold us together, those precious things we value that come from you. Grant us loving hearts and perceptive minds to know and serve one another; help us to love like you love, with deep contemplative regard for others, for the world, for you. In the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

For Monday:
We engage with materials for Week 33. Rita leads worship, Kaye selects the questions, and Susan will provide kindling for the TR.

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Journey with God, Wk. 31: Transforming Broken Fragments; Repurposing a Warship

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Worship and Gathering
For worship, Kaye used a striking poem by John O'Donohue about any given day being a "eucharist of the ordinary," "transforming our broken fragments" of time into a "continuity." Scroll down to the bottom of this page to see the whole thing. The General Thanksgiving summed up our feelings. She concluded with "O Gracious Light."

Keeping with the theme of "an ordinary day," Kaye asked what our favorite days are. Monday, after a successful EFM meeting, or Tuesday after teaching yoga class... Good things in my life have often happened on Tuesdays... Any day Liam sees Grandma, and Saturdays at home with the family... Friday when no alarm clock's necessary and when the same friends have met for Mexican dinner for 30 years... Saturday mornings at the Farmers Market... TGIF... and just being home.

Yr. D, 1st yr: Michael, Mason; 2nd yr: Lanie; 3rd yr: Joyce, Susan; 4th yr, Jessica, Rita; 5th yr "Wide Angle," Kaye. Mentor: Scott. Absent: None.

Respond
Jessica sent questions out to the group by email. One concerned the "Welcome" sign outside most Episcopal Churches and a number of questions about "welcome" in the materials we engaged with. The other question concerned what it means to lead a Godly life. Years 1 and 2 met together in a breakout room (with Susan, too) for discussion of intra- and inter- mural conflict revealed in the minor prophets and the letter to the Hebrews -- the opposite of "welcome," it seems. Years 3 and 4 met in another breakout room where focus was very much on how to lead a Godly life, including the part played by singing hymns together. Hymn writer Carl Daw extolled the 1982 hymnal for "welcoming" new sources in a collection that retains traditional music and poetry over 1000 years old.

Lanie spoke from experience about the hymns in our collection that come from other traditions. She's grateful that we sing ALL the verses of the hymns, because they typically tell a story or build a complete thought that you miss if you skip to the end.

We heard that retired Archbishop Rowan Williams wrote that the essence of discipleship is not about going out to conquer, but just "following" Jesus. Scott wondered aloud what it means to "follow" Jesus when all we have of him is books and peoples' testimonies and theories. Everyone's readings came together to answer that question: Look for Jesus in others, as we promise in our baptismal covenant; find him where he always hung out, i.e. with the poor and the outcasts; being committed to growth over a lifetime. Of course, participate in worship and prayer with the rest of his body, the Church. Kaye tied this to welcome when she told of her visit to St. Philips in Texas, whose website asked any visitor, "What can we do for you to make you a better disciple?"

photos by Michael

Reflect
Michael brought us a nail from the USS Constitution, oldest continuously active ship in our national fleet. Is the nail authentic, or just an authentic copy? We focused on something Michael said early on, that the only original wood in the ship is below the keel where you can't see it; all above that has been painstakingly redone with newer materials.

We decided to imagine ourselves to be crew on a ship that's half and half original and restored. We imagined the creaking sounds, the smell of the Georgia pine, the flapping sails, and confidence in the construction: we're safe.

Where is sin in the world of this ship? It was created to kill. Its maintenance is expensive, its cannon annoying to the surrounding communities (especially when the crew shot off a barrage in a spiteful celebration of a lawsuit's failure to silence the ship).

"Redemption" this time turned out to be central to everything that followed. Yes, the ship was built to kill, but it has been repurposed to be a moving monument and a place where visitors feel connected to our past and inspired by our ideals. Susan pointed out that we automatically personify the ship, so this is a "personal" redemption.

We connected variously to boats and sailing, and could imagine this world easily. When we connected to Tradition, we hit a lode of valuable insights. Mason reminded us that the Church itself has long been compared to a ship, so that we call our central worship space the "nave" (same root as "navy"). Like the USS Constitution, our Episcopal Church has maintained the old design even while replacing so much of its old prejudices and violence. Paul himself started as a killing machine, and he retained a lot of his gung-ho personality when he shifted towards community-building. His analogy to the "body" could be applied to the crew of a ship; and becoming a Christian is also like the ship, as what people may see only looks like the same old person you were. The Cross itself was an instrument of torture, now a symbol of new life and hope.

For Monday:
Lanie leads worship. Jessica will bring "kindling" to start a TR. And Rita has already sent out the questions for week 32:

Happy Tuesday everyone!
I've chosen the first two questions from the Respond section for our discussion next week:

• If you were to take an X-ray of the world of your Engage assignment this week, what perspectives, contexts, beliefs, and behaviors would be illuminated?
• How have you experienced the inclusion or exclusion of people in your Engage assignment this year? In your journey with God? How does this impact your call to service?

Here's the poem that Kaye used for our worship:

The Inner History of a Day

No one knew the name of this day;
Born quietly from deepest night,
It hid its face in light,
Demanded nothing for itself,
Opened out to offer each of us
A field of brightness that traveled ahead,
Providing in time, ground to hold our footsteps
And the light of thought to show the way.

Born quietly from deepest night,
It hid its face in light,
Demanded nothing for itself,
Opened out to offer each of us
A field of brightness that traveled ahead,
Providing in time, ground to hold our footsteps
And the light of thought to show the way.

The mind of the day draws no attention;
It dwells within the silence with elegance
To create a space for all our words,
Drawing us to listen inward and outward.

We seldom notice how each day is a holy place
Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragments
Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.

Somewhere in us a dignity presides
That is more gracious than the smallness
That fuels us with fear and force,
A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.

So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown
And for the secret work
Through which the mind of the day
And wisdom of the soul become one.

John O’Donohue (1954-2008) To Bless The Space Between Us, A Book of Blessings

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Journey with God, Wk. 30: It's Not Enough to Know

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Looking back over the whole evening, I find the theme that knowing is not enough. Knowing the facts is only part of the truth: meaning is something beyond facts.

Worship and Gathering
Mason turned words from 1 Peter into a liturgy of praise. For a GQ, he asked if the past week had been more busy or more restful? Busy - with an 8th grader preparing for high school, with a five-month-old, with a graduating college student preparing to intern at a theatre. Busy avoiding what you're supposed to do; slowing down after illness.

Yr. D, 1st yr: Michael, Mason; 2nd yr: Lanie; 3rd yr: Joyce, Susan; 4th yr, Jessica, Rita; 5th yr "Wide Angle," Kaye. Mentor: Scott. Absent: Rita sent word that she would have to miss.

Respond
We started just sharing whatever we'd wanted to ask or tell about the week's materials, and we used mutual invitation to move the discussion along.

The questions that Scott sent out before we met both had to do with holding onto positions. One was about adapting; the other was about our sense of how "facts" relate to "truth." This continued the response last week to a quotation, "I take Scripture too seriously to take it literally."

We discussed a lot, but the TR brought out a delightful illustration of how something can be "true" whether it's factual or not. For several minutes, we discussed the parable of the Prodigal Son as if it were factual, before we had to recognize that it's a made up story that involves us personally in truth that 's stronger -- more affecting, more layered with meaning, and more revealing of God's nature -- than fact.

Reflect
Rita couldn't join us, but she sent these lines to be our "kindling" for this TR:

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway,
or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

We responded solely to the image that the words evoked in us. (We might have responded differently had we revealed that this is from a poem by the Irish firebrand William Butler Yeats.) We sidestepped poetry analysis and entered the world created by the words: it's an internal sound, a memory. Feelings are of longing, peace, melancholy, wistfulness. "Sin" or "brokenness" would be tourists on jet skis, an alligator rising from the water, the sight of pollution, the buzzing of a cellphone -- any distraction to break the spell. What could then redeem or "restore" the world when it's broken? Get distance: you may not recapture, but in reflection, you may discover a new feeling. This was a surprising and promising thought.

We connected to this set of thoughts and feelings. Susan, Mason, and Scott have all been to Brushy Mountain Tunnel on the Silver Comet Trail where the slightest sound carries hundreds of yards in a vast echo chamber. The sound of waves in a conch shell still can conjure a treasured memory, Mason said. We could identify with a happy memory that we have to remind ourselves of.

What have we been taught about this kind of melancholy reminiscence? "Snap out of it!" was one response. But we were also reminded of guided meditations. Susan related that to an Episcopal tradition, the Labyrinth (though she was immune to its charms, distracted by holes in her socks.)

We found several examples in Scripture of people who look back with longing: Adam and Eve, the disciples on the road to Emmaus, the Psalmist who couldn't bear to sing the songs of Zion by the waters of Babylon, and the Hebrews remembering the good old days in Egypt.

When we looked for insights, we had a couple of surprises. We might look back and say, "If I only knew then what I knew now," but our Scriptures tell us that KNOWING is not enough: the Prodigal Son must have known that his stash of cash couldn't last long away from the bounty of his father's land, and the Israelites were warned by the prophets before the Exile, and even after the return to Jerusalem, Joel had to remind God's people to behave: "Rend your hearts and not your garments."

The theme that emerged from our talk, "It's not enough to know something," arose also in Mason's choice for a closing prayer. "Knowing" is only one small part of a process, according to Saint Augustine:

All shall be Amen and Alleluia.
We shall rest and we shall see.
We shall see and we shall know.
We shall know and we shall love.
We shall love and we shall praise.
Behold our end, which is no end.

Let that be our collect!

Mason had more for us, from Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton (author of the beloved Father Brown mystery series). The swiftest things are the softest things. A bird is active, because a bird is soft. A stone is helpless, because a stone is hard. The stone must by its own nature go downwards, because hardness is weakness. The bird can of its nature go upwards, because fragility is force. In perfect force there is a kind of frivolity, an airiness that can maintain itself in the air.... A characteristic of the great saints is their power of levity. Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.

Mason left us with this question, to apply what we'd heard and thought: "As this day closes, what burdens can we lay down?"

For Monday:
Kaye will bring worship and a gathering question. Jessica will choose two questions from the choices given by EfM in the "response" tab. Michael brings "kindling" for a TR.

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