Yr. B, Wk. 16: OMG, Spirituality in the Digital Age

Class: Christine, first year; Mariel, Tom, Gene, second year; Erica, third year; Scott and Susan, mentors.  Absent: Christine.

Mariel led us through Compline. While Scott served Pasta Puttanesca, we shared answers to Mariel's question for the week, "With whom do you ever share spiritual matters?" Some of us were drawn to EfM in the first place just because it's a forum for exploring spiritual matters in a mutually open and respectful way (with "undefended hearts" as Bishop Neil Alexander says).

Sharing led to discussion of what evangelism means in our society today, and the model we arrived at was a kind of constructive, hospitable, engagement with non - believers in a way that would make them interested in having what faith offers. Mariel offered St. Francis, "Preach the Gospel; use words, if necessary." Tom recalled Fr. Roger's story of a saint (Augustine?) working alongside villagers to repair their town, and leaving without preaching, telling a skeptical monk, "If we didn't demonstrate the Gospel in our work with them, nothing will."

We had an interesting detour into "Prosperity Gospel," and just what that means. Scott cited John Winthrop's preaching at the founding of New England Colony, to the effect that good people prosper, and failure is a sign of God's disfavor. There have long been preachers who promised riches to followers who will give their money to the preacher.

We discussed this week's essay, "OMG, Spirituality in the Digital Age" by Bishop Charleston of Alaska. The Bishop is an "extreme introvert" reluctant to use social media, who simply shared thoughts from his morning prayer time. His page "blew up" and became a self - selecting community of believers and non - believers alike, just a few bad actors who left quickly, and enough who wanted a tangible printed collection of these commentaries to make a successful book. He made some observations about the experience.

Our group was not so excited. Gene visited the website, and felt that it was a "fake" community; Mariel asked, "'Fake,' or just 'different?'" Susan observed from experience that conversation on line, even when it's synchronous, misses cues of body language and tone that we read when we're together in a room, and it comes down to people at their own screens writing past each other. Erica wondered if, being of a later generation than Charleston, she's less awed by the technology than the Bishop, seeing social media as nothing more than one other tool for communication. Was discussion and community - formation via books and pamphlets any different?

Tom was bothered by the Bishop's observation that this on - line community formed in a way opposite to most groups:

A religious community is often formed by identifying the parameters which circumscribe it: the borders of faith, the articulation of creeds, the rules and rituals that become the container for a culture. Once people either self - select or are recruited into this paradigm, they become a community. In the experience of our Facebook congregation, just the reverse process has taken place; over time people have entered in without any sense of structure; we have no litmus test for belonging, not even the need to believe in a higher power. Instead, an unspoken consensus of hospitality has developed.

It occurs to me as I type this that Bishop Charleston here describes precisely what we talked about in our earlier discussion of evangelism, setting an example of caring and hospitality without defining who's "in" and "out." 


Instead of a TR and collect, we collected around a lovely Linzer tart from Douceur de France, a gift from Susan.

Next time: We meet January 8. We'll read the assignment for Week 17. Dinner will be brown bag; Erica will bring worship; Gene will initiate a TR.

Yr. B, Wk. 15: Dismantling Racism, Part II, and "The Cossacks"

Class: Christine, first year; Mariel, Tom, Gene, second year; Erica, third year; Scott and Susan, mentors.  Absent: Erica, Tom.

We brought brown - bag dinners tonight. Christine led us in psalm and prayer thoughtfully chosen to relate to tonight's reading. Our question was a little fanciful: What kind of plant have you been in the past week? We had a cactus dry and sucking up moisture; grass, just holding on; and others.

Our discussion of the second half of the book by Catherine Meeks. Our greatest interest was in exploring our Bishop's chapter about the South as America's "Holy Land." The history of conflict, the physical / familial closeness of the adversaries (black and white), and the intentional courage of the Civil Rights fighters all contribute to that feeling that this place is a site for struggles spiritual as well as physical.

We also compared notes on sensitivity trainings we've experienced, "white guilt," and also "white privilege" -- how these phrases are fraught and liable to provoke people we know.

We also discussed a couple of sources not in the book. Bishop Neil Alexander writes in the latest publication from Sewanee about how education should lead to listening with an "undefended heart." Erica sent us a link to a rich article from a blog HeritageMom by a homeschooling mother about starting a black homeschool group alongside the one she already had joined. Is she "reverse racist" for wanting a space where black children are free of white judgement, white unease with physicality and loud voices? Here's the link.   Scott has posted a reflection on the book on his personal blog, here.

TR
Susan brought us Linda Pastan's poem "The Cossacks." The poet is amused and even admiring of another person's "denial mixed with acceptance," like her mother who had chatted of polite things when she was dying of cancer. We picked up on that last element of the poem, and related it to the famous image of the musicians who played "Nearer My God to Thee" on the tilting deck of the Titanic.During the days following class, Mariel composed this collect from our notes:

Collect for Carrying On
O Lord, Eternal Creator, Redeemer and Giver of Life,
Just as by the breath of your Spirit you brought forth the abundance of Earth from the depths of the abyss, so breathe into our spirits the grace and strength to finish the work you’ve given us to do, so that we - like Stephen submitting to his tormentors, and Paul facing prison and certain death - may unto the end be ever blessed by being a blessing to others, and that our life’s work may endure as a testimony to the life-giving truth and beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Next week We all read Week Sixteen's essay by Steven Charleston, Bishop of the Diocese of Atlanta (p. 94 ff in the RRG). Scott and Susan will provide food; for our final meeting before holidays, the TR will be mixed in with the discussion. See p. 106.

Yr. B, Wk. 14: Dismantling Racism, Part One

Class: Christine, first year; Mariel, Tom, Gene, second year; Erica, third year; Scott and Susan, mentors.  Absent: Mariel.

Gene drew together a thoughtful selection of prayers and quotations from Scripture relating to this week's reading, including these:

• Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you. Ephesians 4.32
• Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt. Exodus 22.21
• There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3.28

Christine brought us a chicken tortilla salad from Chilis. We shared reflections on the week past.

Tom led off our discussion of Dr. Meeks's book Dismantling Racism by admitting that he had not expected to like it, but had appreciated the emphasis on individuals' spiritual practices, having felt the difference that morning prayer has made in his own life.  We shared answers to some of the study questions at the back of the book, beginning with the question, "How did you first become aware of racial difference?"



TR
Tom presented a clock that his employer gave him as a reward some years ago.  We were struck by its being a smaller, cheaper, battery - operated replica of a 19th century object. We focused our reflection on the effort to maintain old tradition in a new time.  Our discussion eventually encompassed everything we had spoken about all night.  Tired, we left the collect to be formed later, from notes on the board (see photo below).

Collect in a Time of Social Change
Eternal Father, Your servant Moses prodded the Hebrews towards the Promised Land when they looked back with nostalgia to the comforts of Egypt; Your Son Jesus exposed the inhumanity of the Pharisees' strict application of traditional taboos: help us to discern the familiar practices we keep for the sake of our own comfort, from traditions that promote the values of truth and justice for all; so that we may embrace necessary change with confidence and hasten the coming of Your kingdom. Amen.


Gene led closing worship with the prayer for the human family, #3.

Next week: We finish the Meeks book.  Brown bag dinner; Christine leads worship; Susan brings the TR.


FYI - You can see the words of that Advent cantata from Scott's TR a few weeks ago.  The piece reflects what he learned during his first four years with EfM.

For his blog The Word Sanctuary, Scott wrote a reflection on the myriad ways that he is privileged by his family background in ways that his friends of color cannot be. See The Privilege is Mine.

Yr. B, Wk.13: Warriors and Women

Class: Christine, first year; Mariel, Tom, Gene, second year; Erica, third year; Scott and Susan, mentors.  Absent: Tom, Gene.

This was a brown bag week.  Susan chose worship for Early Evening and End of the Day.

Mariel kicked off a round - table discussion (as we all sat at one table tonight) with a series of "bunny trails" that led her from Acts and Powell's commentary into research online.  A reference to the "captain of the guard" in the Temple took her to an article about the Jerusalem Temple's full - fledged police force. Another bunny trail:  The Romans taxed Jews to pay for the cost of the Jewish revolt -- until they had trouble distinguishing between Jews and Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians.


Erica and Christine, in years 3 and 1, both dealt with long "dark ages" when medieval lords or ancient "judges" fought myriad small - scale wars for territory.  Monasteries were financed by those knights in armor to have the monks pray for their souls -- knights being too busy with war to pray for themselves.   Joshua and Judges present war as an act of sacrificial worship, the utter destruction of a town being a holy act.  Erica observed that, while the peoples were supposedly utterly destroyed in one chapter, they seem to come back in later chapters!  Erica saw Gregory the Great as a light in a dark time, as he perceived his role to prepare the world for the imminent return of the Lord.

Scott said that monasteries, following Gregory's lead, kept life focused on prayer and sustaining life until the Lord's return, any day now.  The experience of prayer implies the Trinity, according to the 4th year reading. The author traces writings about prayer from Scripture forward to show how the writers feel the spirit moving them to pray through Christ the intercessor inside them, praying to the Father -- including the ancient dialogue that precedes a celebrant offering the eucharist, "[May] The Lord be with you... and with thy spirit."  So it is never the celebrant's action, but the spirit in the celebrant.  The final section of the reading relates to the evening's discussion, and to last week's reading regarding a feminist lens on scripture:

It has again and again been the insight of those given to prayer that description of the triune God... must somehow encompass, as a matter of balance, what we are conditioned to call feminine characteristics -- patience, compassion, endurance, forgiveness, warmth, sustenance and so on -- no less than the strength, power, activity, initiative, wrath and suchlike that our society has tended to regard as peculiarly masculine.  (Coakley, in the RRG p. 251).

Mariel observed the remarkable prominence of women in Luke and Acts, where an anecdote about a woman balances every one about a man; and where women are presented as leaders and heads of households.

TR
Erica's story about a medical emergency brought us to a metaphor of asking for help in land where you don't speak the language, and  no one speaks yours. Our collect was influenced by Erica's memory of something that Scharme told us last year, when she had a respite in her cancer treatments, that she had become aware how allowing others to help her was a blessing to them.

Collect for Lost Travellers
Lord God, as the prodigal son came to himself only when humbled in a foreign land, bring us to ask humbly for direction when we are lost, knowing that, by accepting the blessing of others' help,  we also bless our helpers. Amen.
Next week:  Christine brings food; Gene leads worship; Tom will initiate the TR.

Yr. B, Wk. 12: Scripture Through Different Cultural Lenses

Class: Christine, first year; Mariel, Tom, Gene, second year; Erica, third year; Scott and Susan, mentors.  Absent: Tom.

Gene brought chili. Christine brought prayers and readings for worship on pages bordered with gold - and - silver designs. Her question concerned any way that God had spoken to us through someone of a different culture or background? As it turned out, this was the theme of the entire evening.

Christine opened discussion by commenting on how much the feminist critics of the Old Testament have brought out of a text we've taken so much for granted, as we've looked through the lenses of dominant males.  Erica connected that to Augustine, whose ideas about sexuality, original sin, and predestination persist.

Another strand of the discussion took off from the idea of "love," used in John as an action, not a feeling, and used to describe relations among Christians only. But elsewhere, John says God loved the whole world. There's a tension. The opening of John's Gospel implies a pre-existence for Jesus; Year 4's reading, all about how we know what we "know" about God, emphasizes that God knows us before we know Him.

TR
After a break, we considered a one - page ad for a group that helps young women of other cultures.  After commenting on what was interesting or disturbing in the image, we started our TR from the issue presented to us by the image, the costs and benefits of progress.

No collect was necessary; Christine's closing prayer did the job:

Thanksgiving for the Diversity of Races and Cultures
O God, You created all peoples in Your image.  We thank you for the wonderful diversity of races and cultures in this world.  Enrich our lives by ever - widening circles of fellowship, and show us Your presence in those who differ most from us, until our knowledge of Your love is made perfect in our love for all you children; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Next meeting will be November 27, after Thanksgiving. We will do the readings for Week 13. It's a brown bag night; Gene leads worship; Erica brings a source for the TR.

Yr. B, Wk. 11: John, Miss Lillian, and Armor

Class: Christine, first year; Mariel, Tom, Gene, second year; Erica, third year; Scott and Susan, mentors.  Absent: none.

We were surprised to find a new door code!  Dinner was brown bag tonight, with services for evening and compline as bookends for our time together.  Christine asked what has put our hearts at peace in the past week.  Answers involved showering, an hour at Waffle House, morning prayer at St. James, sharing with a friend, EfM itself, and some homely activities: chopping vegetables, ironing tea towels, cleaning house.  Scott was reminded of Ecclesiasticus, mentioned in Forward Day by Day this past week, about handiwork being a form of prayer.

Mariel opened our discussion of the readings with Jesus' complaint in the Gospel of John, that people need outward signs for everything.  "Signs" brought us to Ford's explanation of how theologians must consider words of scripture with "the company they keep" at every unit of knowledge:  sentence, paragraph, book, canon, past influences, cultural - historical context, and all the generations of interpretation and commentary accrued since the writing of a text.  Deuteronomy is a case in point, an ancient text that was itself a reinterpretation of a more ancient text.  This tied in with the history of Islam, and its holy book, product of a single author's hand.

In another round of discussion, we added things that Amazed, Bothered, Confused, or Delighted us.  We spent a lot of time with two stories from John.  We discussed the lame man at the pool who, asked if he wants to be healed, offers an excuse instead of a simple "yes." In the story of the blind man whose story takes up two pages, we saw the pressure that authorities exerted on the followers of Jesus.  Mariel opined that John is like a play; Scott, backed up by Susan, saw it as similar in its strategy to the Dialogues of Plato -- each one a philosophical discourse with the backdrop of ordinary activity.

TR
For a TR, Gene brought us a poem that Jimmy Carter made from his mother's letter home from her stint with the Peace Corps in India: "Miss Lillian Sees Leprosy for the First Time."  We focused on one line, "I faced her treatment every week with dread / and loathing -- for the chore, not the child."

Discussing times in our lives when we "steeled" ourselves to do a loathsome duty, we settled easily on the metaphor of putting on armor.  We considered dual traditional texts for that: Paul's putting on the armor of faith, but also David's refusing the armor that Saul gave him for battle with Goliath.


Collect for Facing a Difficult Duty
Almighty Father, Lord of Hosts: as you inspired David to cast aside Saul's heavy armor to face Goliath, inspire us with courage to discard the self-protection of disengagement and apathy, and to put on the armor of faith, that we may accomplish Thy will.  Amen.

Next Week
We read week 12's assignment.  Gene will bring dinner; Christine will lead worship, and Mariel will inspire our TR.  Note:  We will not meet during the week of Thanksgiving.

Yr. B, Wk. 10: Books Can Be Windows

Class: Christine, first year; Mariel, Tom, Gene, second year; Erica, third year; Scott and Susan, mentors.  Absent: Christine, Gene.

Mariel led worship from texts recited at St. James' 12:30 service, focused on Mary, so prominent in this week's readings in Luke.   Her question, "When have you seen the face of Christ or heard His voice in the past week?" elicited answers from us, while we enjoyed salad, skewered chicken and sides from Zoe's Greek Tavern, brought by Tom.

Our discussion of the readings sprouted in a word web from Erica's amazement at learning how the church developed in Syria and Ethiopia.  Our sense of Christian history has been dominated by Roman Catholic history and the Easter orthodox churches; here was a different kind of "orthodox."

Branching off from "amazement," Mariel remarked on how much art, music, even recent popular song, derives from imagery in Luke.  Susan related imagery for how Christ's crucifixion effects salvation.  On behalf of Christine, we discussed how Exodus is another image for salvation as a journey through wilderness, time, and learning.
Scott related "salvation" to its root meaning 'health," and told how Ford connected it to that word "orthodoxy" in a new way.  While we immediately think of salvation in terms of angels plucking us from the fires of hell, that's only one image from Scripture; union with Christ, as in marriage, is another.  The calendar of liturgical texts and actions provides an ongoing participatory image for life in Christ.  See Scott's blogpost about the chapter.  

TR 
Erica brought a remarkable old book.  The energy in the room bubbled up as we all took turns exploring its look, texture, and text.  Published in 1872 by William Harding, purveyor of Bibles, the book purported to be a comprehensive survey of all world religions.  The introduction states flatly that there is only one true religion, Christianity, so these others don't really qualify.  A chapter on Mormonism sent us to our phones to confirm our sense that Joseph Smith had started that faith only fifty years earlier.  The book as an object had its own history.  We found in it a 1909 "Bible card" (similar to collectible baseball cards). We intuited that it was purchased for display more than for study; that it had long been a white elephant in one family, re-gifted in the 1950s to a clergyman's family, and now scrapped on a jumble table in a church basement where Erica picked it up.

We explored "the world of" the book, quickly understanding that it was a kind of "window" into the mindset of an earlier time.  Published with pride, even arrogance, meant to be an impressive display of culture and wealth, it has now been devalued, ridiculed, displaced. But this very night, having been recovered by Erica, it has brought energy to us.  From our tradition, we were reminded of Josiah's rediscovery of scripture, and of scripture itself: text that is both a window into a distant past, and a reflection of our present day.  Images in our culture include the Velveteen Rabbit that becomes real only when loved..  We had insights: As we look back on our own lives, we can treasure what has been, even as we go forward;  when we choose to look on earlier generations "with kindness," we benefit; we see the book as a testament to the human need to codify things.

Collect for Readers
Eternal Father, Living Word:  You inspired Luke; his gospel has inspired generations :  Save us from arrogant pride in the achievements of our age, that we may look with humility and kindness upon the expressions of our forebears as windows to their lives and aspirations, reflecting on our own time by the light of theirs.  Amen.

Next week:  We read week 11. Brown bag dinner. Christine leads worship. Gene will initiate the TR.