Yr. A, Wk. 2: Tending the Garden

For worship, we read the liturgy that Scott composed for 2:30 am, Prayer for a Restless Night. The check-in question was about how we're sleeping these days.

We took turns answering questions about the reading that appealed to us in a list provided by Scott. We were drawn to the questions about listening, whether to take notes when we listen, and about different applications to the analogy of water's being shaped by the cup: We speak differently in different "worlds"; do we experience God differently in different contexts?

Living Faithfully in Your World:
Year Two: Marilyn, Pete, Nuno; Year Four, Christine. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: None.

We used "chat" to gather class norms in terms of this year's "world" metaphor, thinking of "earth" and "turning soil" in a garden. [Photo from Christine; gracias.]

• Let the sunshine in
• Joe Dirt: “Life’s a garden, man. Can you dig it?”
• Don't criticize other peoples' gardens
• Plant a seed and watch it grow. Love Blooms
• Gardening and our spiritual lives require daily rituals
• Be prepared to dig deep.
• Let others tell you about their plants and garden design.
• Plant multiple seeds so they will vary.
• Nurture the tender little ones and they will grow strong
• Dig below the surface to dig up the truth
• Tend to the garden weekly; don't neglect what we're doing.
• Share your tools in your toolbox
• Don't over-prune the discussion. Let it keep going if it's going somewhere.
• Sometimes things will grow all on their own given time
• Many hands make light work: share thoughts on the blog, and respond to others' thoughts.
• Open-ended questions are like water and fertilizer; leading questions are like choking weeds. Don't choke the dialogue.
• Some insects are helpful and beautiful; don't reject something just because it's alien.
• All things in the garden aim towards Heaven. Who can say what is prettier, a rose or a daisy? Each is its own creation.

Next Week Susan will prepare worship.

We hope to have books before next class. Pete is ready to copy the first two chapters of Collins's Values book for fellow 2nd years; Scott may be able to do the same for Christine for Ford, ch. 1. Christine: One of your readings is an essay by Ballard that's printed in last year's RRG, pp. 192-200.

Preparation for the Spiritual Autobiography: For your eyes only, look back over standout people, places, events, books, and then select a 5-10 year period of focus. Think of one of the different "worlds" you lived in during that time, and prepare to tell us how your faith was impacted by that world. (In later weeks, we'll explore other worlds from that time in our lives and tell how faith was sustained or challenged, how we felt God's presence, and how we felt grace.)

P.S. Here's a link to an article about the Hamilton bassist whom Scott met on the Silver Comet Bike Trail.

Yr. A, Wk. 1: Catching Up

Scott led worship with the Lord's Prayer and a General Thanksgiving from p. 836.

To check in, we used the 3-2-1 method: 3 places we spent time this summer; 2 ways we felt blessed; 1 blessing we saw bestowed on another. We also sent a photo from a category of choice.

About the reading, we volunteered what we understand differently now than we did when we read the same chapter last year. The role of the mentors and the importance of the TRs came up. Marilyn learned by doing, and we came to the conclusion that EfM is training us to see the eternal in every day things.

Living Faithfully in Your World:
Year Two: Marilyn, Pete, Nuno; Year Four, Christine. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: Christine.

For next week, we'll read chapter 2 in the Reading and Reflection Guide (RRG), p.18-32 pages (PDF).

For a closing prayer, we used the "chat" function to list our concerns, then recited the responsive prayer on p. 122 and the collect on p. 124.

Yr. D, Wk. 36: Closure

We met face to face for the first time, gathering under the porte-cauchere of the St. James courtyard. Susan offered everyone their choice of water-color-and-salt cover for a collection of the year's original collects, 4th year first. Scott sang "O Gracious Light" and continued with the rest of the early evening devotion from the BCP. Students offered a reading of their favorite collects, interrupted briefly by the St. James train. Scott and Susan, having presented our graduates with diplomas during the Sunday service, gave Mariel and Gene bound color copies of the blog posts from their four years in EfM.

Yr. D theme: Living into the Journey with God Class: Marilyn, Nuno, first year; Christine, third year; Mariel, Gene, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent: None.

Afterward, Mariel and Gene treated everyone to dinner at Wei on the Loop. We left in rain, to love and serve the Lord.

Yr. D, Wk. 35: Looking Back

Before Susan led worship, we took a look back at images that Scott selected from the trove that we all contributed to last week's TR challenge, i.e., to find wordless expressions of prayers to God. We saw "circle of life," connection and reaching to God -- sometimes through others -- in the images of outstretched hands. "It's all God's handy - work!"

After prayers, Susan asked us to look back on the week and tell what was wonderful. Singing the Sanctus in a full church for the first time in over a year brought tears to my eyes... Happy birthday Sunday... playing "Jesus Loves Me" with bell-ringers at church... the Pentecost service and picnic... working with volunteers to make Italian food for shut-ins at the nursing home... another "circle of life" experience.

Yr. D theme: Living into the Journey with God Class: Marilyn, Nuno, first year; Christine, third year; Mariel, Gene, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent: None.

We discussed the reflection guide's question, "How do this week's readings speak to the theme of maturing in one's journey with God?" Marilyn volunteered that line from the Paul, "When I was a child, I thought like a child; but now...." Christine pounced on the idea that the world itself is maturing, as described in the massive church history book -- an echo of MLK's favorite quotation about the arc of history bending towards justice over a long time. Gene and Mariel both were struck by the anecdote of the staggeringly poor woman with little son who set aside 1/12 of their day's earnings "for the poor."

The scope of our reflection broadened to the whole year. Mariel and Gene both cited Rabbi Heschel's Sabbath book as life-changing and observed that his name comes up a lot in My Neighbor's Faith. About reading scripture, Mariel commented, "You're never sated" with Old and New Testaments. Christine got a sense of how the world and Christianity grew up together -- and Mariel plugged a shorter book by Robert Wilkin about the Church's first 1000 years. Nuno felt that the first year readings "catch people where they are," and he appreciated illumination of women's roles in the Old Testament and apocryphal wisdom literature, how norms were broken.

We watched a video of testimonials by the Tuesday morning EfM group and recorded our own reflections on what we expected from EfM, and what we got from it.

We decided to meet in person on Tuesday, 6:30 PM June 8, in the small parking lot of St. James. After prayers there, we will walk or drive to WR Social House (formerly "Willie Rae's") on the Square for dinner.

After a virtual toast, Mariel shared a video she created, "Remembering the Ride."

Yr. D, Wk.34: Beyond Words

Mariel led the service for early evening. She asked us about any "rest" we had in the past week. Nuno was able to stop and enjoy the children. Scott spoke of his Friday evening ritual walk with Susan to the Square to get dinner. Mariel told of looking down from her window on birds attracted to her feeder, and how her eyes are drawn by their flight up into the trees. Susan had finished grading. Christine told of sitting in the car after a visit to the nursing home, always taking a few minutes to watch nature and, sometimes, happy kids arriving on the school bus. Gene said that this group grounds him.

We discussed wisdom literature from the Apocrypha, and also how our church relates to the Apocryphal books. Christine's reading led to some discussion of the genocide of Armenian Christians and some family ties to that time and region. Mariel told us that her favorite story in this batch of chapters in My Neighbor's Faith concerned a quote from Merton about how the deepest level of communication is beyond words in communion (with God, with each other).

Yr. D theme: Living into the Journey with God Class: Marilyn, Nuno, first year; Christine, third year; Mariel, Gene, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent: Marilyn.

Theological Reflection (TR)

"Beyond Words" became the theme of the evening, further explored through an anecdote from Bishop Curry's recent book Love is the Way that Gene brought to us for a TR. Curry recalls the glimpse of a tattooed prison camp number on an elderly Jewish woman's arm as a searing moment of understanding that cut through all the words in his head.

We found many, many instances of meaningful, emotional gestures and images in our Tradition and in our Experience. Mariel coined a phrase "wordless Logos" to describe a wordless expression of deep meaning in a gesture or image. Instead of writing a prayer with words, we agreed to contribute images that express what we might pray for. Here's our wordless prayer:

Yr. D, Wk.33: Eternity in a Moment

Christine led us in worship. We shared highlights of the last week: a memorable memorial service; the gift of new shoes from a cantankerous co-worker and the restoration of a favorite pair; a great Mother's Day.

Reading about the Maccabees - also Bel and the Dragon - was "interesting." Nuno felt that the textbook's approach to Daniel is unnecessarily skeptical. Marilyn was excited by the dream imagery and pleased by Daniel's essential humility. Mariel was struck by expressions of "otherworldly" experiences in My Neighbor's Faith. She cited especially the journal of a teenaged Sikh girl who enters a church ready to fight but feels that the "battlefield melts into a sanctuary." Christine had to read about colonization and brutality in Christ's name for a chapter about making the world Protestant; good intentions and good forces get lost, she said, when individuals make poor moral choices for personal gain.

Yr. D theme: Living into the Journey with God Class: Marilyn, Nuno, first year; Christine, third year; Mariel, Gene, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent: Gene.

Theological Reflection (TR) After coincidental encounters with pieces about Mr. and Mrs. Charles Lindbergh, Marilyn offered poetic lines and verse by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. We were drawn to a line about a "golden eternity of here and now." We pictured a moment of time being expanded into eternity. This dovetailed nicely with Mariel's earlier comment about otherworldly experiences. All five of us being artists (and Gene, absent, "an artist in his hiking") could identify with being so wrapped up in a creative work that we lose all sense of time.

We explored the image. When you’re in this moment, you lose track of time, the need for water, food... there's Joy, bliss, a carefree quality... internal space... the process becomes as important as the end... like floating on an air mattress in a pool – time goes away – waves lapping – sun is warm ...unselfconscious. What goes wrong? What’s broken? You get so into something that you have to tear yourself away to take care of other things. ...Life-denying is a danger, a kind of nihilism (Nietzche)... Times when I go deep, I become absent to loved ones.

[Note from Scott: This is the theme of the musical Sunday in the Park with George by James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim. See Photo of Jake Gyllenhaal on Broadway as George Seurat, lost in his painting. That show reshaped Scott's imagination. See Sunday, Art and Forever at his personal blog.]

Coming at the image from sources of Tradition, Personal Experience, and the Culture, we shot out many directions: Hebrews in the wilderness look back on the past that they remember as ideal... Jesus in prayer, Jesus on the mountain, Transfiguration ... Mystics in our tradition and others: "Om"... centering prayer... Dorothy Gale's idealizing Kansas as she explores Oz... Jew in My Neighbor's Faith experiences Buddhist Moksha, awareness, liberation from attachment, “we are dreams talking to dreams”...Layers of work to make the art (Christin'es story of preparing a certain frame)... “La vida es [dream]”... High school art teacher world becoming a dream, dream a reality... COVID in a blur of days - ongoing.

Asked to consider insights and positions that arise from considering this image, we found these:

• Eternal present may mean “unanchored” - Whether it’s your choice is important.
• This experience can be rejuvenating for you and those around you.
• Christine thought of the skylift at an amusement park: we’re suspended in air awhile, but safe because the wheels touch the tower
• Mariel: If we have the will to enjoy these moments of eternity, they can relieve our anxiety of future or the past… You can be too absorbed. Cf. The Transfiguration: Tempting to want to stay there… and Jesus could have… but he came back to us.
• “It’s not the pep rally, it’s the game!”

We offered lines of prayer:

Dear God, Thank you for the wonderful experiences you give us.
Let us continue to be blessed by the wonders of your creation moment by moment throughout our days.
Dawn and dusk, so brief, so beautiful. Let the new day begin.
Let us be continually reminded of your Spirit and Love.

Lord, abide with me in my hurry ups and my settling downs; through valleys and mountains, be my companion on the trail.
Today I will stop and listen for your voice.
Not being dragged back or pulled forward, Lord, let me rest in you.

Creator of all things, we long to be drawn into the process of creation, to be absorbed in process and layers of expression.
Help us to share our gifts and experience.
Lord, let me get lost in you.
When we get lost in prayer, may we find You.
Moment by moment, day by day, show us your love and then put us back in the game.

Yr. D, Wk.32: Transformational Relations, Generational Torches

Nuno led us in worship from the BCP. For on-boarding, he wondered what was the last movie we'd seen in an actual theatre? "Too long ago to remember," said Marilyn, but she later recalled a movie with a God-like character who, for love of a character, sometimes altered His plans. (This came up again in our discussion.) Christine saw James Bond in a dinner-theatre place. Nuno and Gene saw episodes of the Star Wars epic; Mariel saw Mary Poppins Returns. Susan and Scott saw David Copperfield in a multiplex mostly pandemic-empty. [See a TR from February 2017 about James Bond and A Dickens Thanksgiving, Scott's blog about David Copperfield.]

Yr. D theme: Living into the Journey with God Class: Marilyn, Nuno, first year; Christine, third year; Mariel, Gene, fourth year; Scott and Susan, co - mentors. Absent: None.

After reviewing the comments posted below about the readings, Scott posed a question from the RRG about how the readings speak to our own senses of vocation / self / purpose. Answers to that question emerged only gradually, as we shared other impressions.

Tongue-in-cheek, Gene summed up chapters of Our Neighbor's Faith as, "Be kind to Mormons." But he admitted that his own prejudices had crumbled when he encountered real-life Mormons. The story of a Canadian Aborigine who prayed as a girl to be white "so I can go to Heaven" moved Mariel in a chapter called "The Prayer that God Could Not Answer." Mariel, too, was reminded of her father, his life-long antipathy towards organized religion, the encounter with a friendly Lutheran pastor that brought her father into the church, and what her late father left for her to see in his sick-room Bible. Scott brought in a theme from 1 Peter, how the gentiles who have now encountered Christ now join "God's chosen people" in exile, yearning for the "promised land."

Christine observed how women rose to new prominence in Church history in the 17th century, partly because of visions of the Virgin Mary. Nuno remarked on Esther and Ruth, women who rose to prominence while still operating within the roles that society had defined for them. Mariel pointed out that one represents the lowest of low classes (Ruth, a Moabite widow) and the other represents royalty. To the RRG's question about what you get when you read these stories as fiction, then as literal history, Mariel observed that every fiction worth reading is based on real human experience. "And those stories keep happening," Susan added.

At this point, Scott observed that we had answered the question about vocation after all, as each of the stories we'd read, and the personal stories that they'd brought to mind, involved a personal encounter that changed someone's sense of who they were and where they were going. "Like what happens in a TR," Mariel quipped.

Theological Reflection (TR) Mariel brought us a page from Barack Obama's memoir Promised Land. At a time when the presidential candidate was under fire for his association with a firebrand pastor, an elder spoke to him in Biblical terms: Obama was of the "Joshua generation" that would pick up from the work of the "Moses generation" of civil rights activists.

"It's a TR already!" said Gene. We remarked on how the passage frames history in mythical terms -- making it univeral. The images of crossing a finishing line and passing the baton brought to mind Chariots of Fire and also the cermonial relay running of the Olympic torch every four years. In the tradition, Mariel pointed out, we have so many exhortations to pass the story along, God's salvation of Israel, Jesus' salvation of us all.

We related these ideas in our own lives. Christine has personal memories of Kent State and how change in 1971 actively involved everyone, not just a few leaders. Nuno feels like his generation of "stay-at-home dads" faces a lot of opposition with messages about "wrong decisions." Gene observed that women struggled to gain a foothold in law schools when he was a law student, but few people know that prominent law schools now are predominately female: "Sometimes, when these [generational] struggles are won, hardly anyone notices." Scott identified with the idea of letting a younger generation of teachers take over from him. Susan picked up on a line from Obama's mentor, that every generation is limited by what it knows. Near the end of a very full life, Mariel's grandmother recited Hamlet to her and sighed, "I should've stayed in teaching," which Mariel took as encouragement to go on with her career: "Courage rushes through you."

Gene concluded that generational change is why TR's are so important. Looking at what's happened in the past few years, Gene said, "Who knows what the world will be like years from now? We can't anticipate. We need to learn the skills that we can carry forward."

In the "chat," we offered these lines of prayer:

Lord, help us to recognize the gifts of generations before us.
May we be encouraged by their faith and love.
The same flame burns today as it did for Moses and Joshua;
may we be as ready to receive Your word as to pass it forward,
and may we hear your Word to guide and strengthen us on our journey.
We pray for the wisdom to know when to pick up the torch, where to take it - and the wisdom to know when to pass it on.
We pray for each generation to have strength and courage.

Lord, Help me to see that what I do in my time has a place in all time.
Keep me focused, Lord, on the end game.
Send your light before me to show me the way.
Bless all the unknown foot soldiers who fight for justice and peace in your Name.
LOVE LIVES.