Yr. C, Wk. 16: "Prayer and Worship" Essay

← | latest | →

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

Discussion of the Readings
This week, we started with discussion of the reading, saving for last the gathering and worship as we close out the calendar year.

Yr. C, Living as Spiritually Mature Christians, Unit 3 Developing a Sustaining Spirituality: 1st yr: Tom, Joyce, Donfred, Scott; 2nd yr: Jessica; 3rd yr, Susan; 4th yr, Pete, Nuno, Marilyn. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: None.

Susan, Pete, and Nuno all had comments about the form of the essay. The essay starts slowly, telling how anxieties of modern life with technology are many, but can also provide opportunities for spiritual growth to take us outside the walls of the church. The author quotes relevant writers (among them our friends Coakley, Ford, Bishops Schori and Griswald). Pete said "it steamrolls." By the end, noted Nuno, the author has drawn on some of the early church authorities, Benedict among them.

Several shared quotations that delighted us. Jessica: Loved the quote from Sarah Coakley – how we are being trained with time… and a way of connecting to others and to the Risen Christ (which is also, others). Joyce – p. 95 “Adoration – one breathes in God as one fills one’s lungs with air…” Stood out to me because I like to pray. Exhaling equals prayer, concerns. Jessica - Drama of the Liturgy a great way to describe it. Scott – a drama that happens in church and in our lives, again and again and again… "Continuous conversion." Marilyn - Maturity may be found in this contemplative approach – leading to loving more deeply; maturity is a matter of expanding your awareness of the world – from self to others to cosmos.

Bishop Schori's definition of violence as "anything that diminishes life" excited many observations from experience. It can be words; it can be hunger, Tom said --

My life has been about the survival of others and myself... I’ve been places where people are looking for food, shelter, security…People who lose their jobs because they don’t speak the correct language, and then they have to move where there’s a civil war, where there are corrupt regimes that our own government supports.

How do we counteract violence by developing a spirituality? We had answers:

• Pete – implied that one who has this contemplative life will also take this inner strength out into public spaces (as the essay says, “outside the walls of the church”). We’ve all been inspired by people who are just living that good proper life, and the way they act among us… (my inlaws) inspire me to be like them…
• Tom – “When someone’s starving, words are meaningless. What they see in you [habitus] is what gives them hope.”
• Nuno: Commitment to place is the physical place but also time.

After we'd shared what stood out to us in the reading, Nuno posed the question from the end of the chapter, what spiritual discipline do you want to work on in the six weeks of this unit? We answered:

• Open the Bible, just a minute here and a minute there
• Finding stillness (turn off my brain)
• Want to be more deliberate about setting time aside instead of just filling in the cracks.
• Reading poetry, writing poetry, writing a prayer - like writing a collect - all involve the same kind of thinking, imagination, openness to examining experience / faith tradition / received beliefs
• Donfred: Prayer and read more over the next six weeks, involve myself more through church
• Joyce: trusting the lord with the hard stuff (in EFM)

Gathering, then Worship
After a break, during which we found candles or lights for the worship at the end, we gathered into breakout rooms, each group tasked to find appropriate gifts for our friends in the other group. Donfred got tickets to the Final Four tournament... Tom got a trip to the Maldives (lots of water, no desert)... Joyce gets a Mercedes... Susan can spend eight days in Greece... Nuno, father of three young children, gets an authentic Santa Suit... Marilyn got a gas gift card for her cross-country treks... Pete got a concrete garden statue of the Cowardly Lion... Jessica got a big green Ford truck. The groups gave Scott bike-riding opportunities at the Tour de France and the island(s) of Bali.

For worship, we recited some verses Scott wrote 30 years ago for a concert musical about Advent (Link to Four Candles), we read the Genesis story of the Fall, and we shared a prayer for the second week of Advent. With our lights, we took a class photo.

For January 2
We do the readings assigned for week 17, listed on pp. 98-99 of the RRG. Follow up with the suggestions there on pp. 99-101. Susan and Scott will provide worship and a TR.

← | latest | →

Yr. C, Wk. 15: A Concrete Metaphor

← | latest | →

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

Worship and Gathering
Susan led us in Prayers of the People, Form VI. She asked about any creative things we'd done in the past week. Painting... cooking stuffed bell pepper, crockpot stew, and loaded nachos for the Big Game... making decorations out of the dog's reach, helping with the Christmas tree... making arty photos of Advent I for display at church.

For the rest of the session, we were thinking of experience and faith through metaphor. So that was creative, too.

Yr. C, Living as Spiritually Mature Christians, First Interlude Beyond a Binary God: 1st yr: Tom, Joyce, Donfred, Scott; 2nd yr: Jessica; 3rd yr, Susan; 4th yr, Pete, Nuno, Marilyn. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: Nuno. Tom came for TR.

Discussion of Beyond a Binary God, part two
Our discussion seemed to branch in three related categories.

Fatherhood, as experience
Susan: The book is anchored in the personal story and coming back to it at the end. Most heartfelt and persuasive part of all. Pete could identify, as his two daughters came from same parents, and they are so different from each other! He said, “Ultimately, [the author’s] trying to come to grips with what happened with her child [and] using theology to do this in a religious sense.” Jessica, responding to Pete, says we approach God from our own life experience and are partial to our picture of God from that way – How can we deepen our image to grasp the whole picture?

Fatherhood, as metaphor with “Son” for Trinity:
Joyce our heavenly father doesn’t think like we do, but our earthly fathers are like us, and so different. Marilyn: Difficulty in the metaphor in imagining the relationships – hierarchical and patriarchal – Marilyn imagines parental – qualities that we can agree on without pinning to “father” -- the “father” metaphor gives us an ideal. Jessica is challenged by search for a metaphor outside of father/son/holy spirit. Jessica read the different sides to the argument, and wonders, do we need a new metaphor, or just a deeper understanding of the father/son metaphor that we have? Donfred highlighted the joke about “the bird,” which made the point that the Father-Son image leaves out the Spirit; Scott observed that the Spirit had been left out of our discussion entirely aside from Donfred's question. Marilyn suggested that the spirit might be like the music produced by a duet – it’s a third thing that emerges from the first two.

Opening up to an experience alien to us
Pete responded to the fable of five blind men and the elephant: we do all experience something different from our own perspective -- you feed your soul based on your needs, and some may take things differently than I would. Marilyn said that this book "has helped me through my uneasiness about this subject." She has experienced the kindness of a family whose child is transitioning.

Susan appreciated the author’s downplaying of binaries in general: not everything has an opposite! Soughers says to get beyond binary … but that’s not the only way to see Father and Son… tension isn’t always opposition

Theological Reflection
Marilyn brought us a photo she took of a green plant emerging from a crack in a concrete wall. [Not the photo presented here.] For her, the wall was a metaphor for conformity, the plant a bold and creative force. She gracefully surrendered that notion as the currents of our discussion took the image in a different direction.

We had a lot of buy-in to the image. Joyce has felt like the plant… you grow most through a harsh situation that requires you to grow. So has Donfred: no matter how hard a thing is, if you have faith, good will come out of it. Susan told how FLoridians made a beautiful (and amusing) Christmas tree out of an isolated pine that grew out of concrete at a junction of highways.

Insights and applications were varied:

• “Dare to be different: stand out from the wall of sameness… safeness” (Marilyn, relating also to the non-binary book)
• Round up. End of story.
• Surprising – stay open for what comes.
• Weed is just a plant growing where you don’t want one – You can find beauty in a weed, too, beauty in imperfection.
• You can make an allowance for the cracking – allow for growth and shifting – build in give and take – God makes us with our edges, knows we’re brittle… we have strength in certain dimensions… Control joints are like his forgiveness…
• TRINITY? Water, the tree, the soil? Concrete, the control joint, the water – plant is us? (Funny that the control joint [built into concrete structures to allow for expansion and contraction] brings in uncontrol)

We drafted a collect and left it to Scott to finish:

Collect for the Flower in the Crack of the WallAlmighty God, solid rock of our salvation, you opened yourself to give a tiny shoot of Jesse’s stem the experiences of joy and love, hunger and rejection, death and resurrection: help us, where we are hard-edged and defensive, to make space for others' growth, so that we ourselves may grow into your image more and more each day. Amen.

For Next Week
We're shaking up the usual routine for our last meeting before the secular new year. We'll first discuss the essay "Developing a Sustaining Spirituality" in the RRG, ch. 16, pp. 88ff. After a break, Scott and Susan will spring a gathering question, and then we'll conclude with worship.

← | latest | →

Yr. C, Wk. 14: Beyond a Binary God, part one

← | latest | →

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

Worship and Gathering
Nuno led us in worship from a book that he recommended to us all, St. Augustine's Prayer Book. We began with an examination of conscience, and moved through praise and petitions. (I personally thought the prayers for people who work at night were especially rich -- naming fire fighters, sailors, and "those engaged on the stage.")

Nuno asked us for ways that prayer "feeds" us. Answers included songs in church that are also prayers, emotions reinforced and deepened by the music... the BCP... praying the scriptures, esp. Psalms, "every emotion is there"... morning meditation and closing devotion each day... writing prayers each day... silence.

Yr. C, Living as Spiritually Mature Christians, First Interlude Beyond a Binary God: 1st yr: Tom, Joyce, Donfred, Scott; 2nd yr: Jessica; 3rd yr, Susan; 4th yr, Pete, Nuno, Marilyn. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: Donfred, Marilyn, Tom. (Tom logged on in the same minute that the rest of us logged off early!)

Discussion of the Readings
Jessica generally enjoyed book, especially appreciating HOW the author Tara Soughers wrote it as a response to her own child’s experience: “Everyone is created in God’s Image” and trying to see this from her child’s experience. Susan appreciated the exploration of the phrase "in God's image, male and female" in its context of other opposites that have in-betweens (dark and light, night and day, seas and dry land -- Soughers asks why male and female should be different?) The author admits that she was confused, and is learning. Pete said it was enlightening that there’s "a substantial group out there that needs to be thought of beyond the boxes we put people in." Joyce appreciated this mom and how she had to fill a void left because no one else has written a theology; Joyce was also moved by the plight of homeless children kicked out by parents and communities.

While Nuno also appreciated the author's intention to open minds that are deadset against trans people, he pointed out the author's misleading use of statistics and her reliance on non-canonical scripture. Others expressed how they were disturbed by the author's use of The DaVinci Code, tainted by its derivation from detestable conspiracy theory of the 19th century, and the author's dubious argument concerning plastic surgery for teens.

Jessica expressed gratitude for Nuno’s reading and openness. Jessica offered a quote from Soughers, “I can only speak from the place of being the mother of a trans child.” There seemed to be a consensus on being open to what the author says about that experience.

Because Marilyn was unable to bring her TR to us, and we were missing three, we logged off early -- in the same minute that Tom logged on!

For Next Week
We'll read the second half of Beyond a Binary God by Kara T. Soughers. The RRG suggests that we look for three recent news reports and articles concerning sexuality and gender and ask ourselves what intercessory prayers the Spirit might be calling us to make, and what thanksgivings? (see p. 83) Marilyn will bring the source for the TR; Susan will lead worship. Nuno will be away at a board meeting.

← | latest | →

Yr. C, Wk. 13: Leadership, Clarity, and Tunnel Vision

← | latest | →

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

Worship and Gathering
Marilyn brought prayers of gratitude and a rhyming sermon from her ancestor's book. They related to the readings about the Trinity, and to us as individuals (Nuno had a line about bees, for example). For a gathering question, Marilyn asked us to name a location where we feel gratitude. Chicago on the shore of Lake Michigan... mountaintop... front seat of the van (where Daddy, too busy to talk, can just listen)... at the antique roll-top desk where I read the Bible surrounded by antique photos of family... the back porch for chilling or painting.

Yr. C, Living as Spiritually Mature Christians, Unit 2 Theological Reflection as a Life Skill: 1st yr: Tom, Joyce, Donfred, Scott; 2nd yr: Jessica; 3rd yr, Susan; 4th yr, Pete, Nuno, Marilyn. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: Pete, Joyce.

Discussion of the Readings
A lot of the discussion see-sawed on the fulcrum of "leadership," first raised by Donfred. Third and fourth year readings said a lot about saints and delegates to ancient councils: they struggled to put their experience of the spirit into words creeds and rules. This contrasted First Year's readings in which Joshua and some of the judges were models of leaders with "clarity," sure of themselves and victorious through obedience to God. Susan related the whole discussion to last week's TR, where we looked at the danger that the commands you hear may not be coming from the right voice.

Another theme was identity. Collins reports that scholars of the Old Testament see in Joshua and Judges a struggle to bring disparate tribal groups (including, perhaps, Canaanites) to find a new unifying identity. Susan reported on the councils doing the same for the Church, influenced by the political struggles among peoples of different backgrounds -- the renewal brought about by the Celtic church being a prime example.

Comments about the Trinity blurred the sense of clarity. Jessica could agree somewhat with Powell who writes that the synoptic gospels represent the man Jesus, while John represents the spirit of Christ. But, she said, we DO see the “man” in John – as, in the signs section, he's angry in the temple. "Jesus wept" is another example. Nuno observed that in studying the triune nature of God, some of those more “feminine” attributes like patience and kindness are part of a full picture that we’re not seeing in one place.

Two films about Thai soccer players trapped in a cave: a cultural reference for our metaphor.

Theological Reflection
Scott brought a story from his own experience, a friend from middle school who developed mental illness and, in adulthood, a hostility towards Scott. We chose to focus on Scott's phoning the young man's father to ask for guidance.

As we looked at the thoughts and feelings, we formulated the image of a dark tunnel, too far from the entrance to turn back, with no apparent way forward. In that tunnel, by its created nature, you find darkness, echoes… you step in puddles and stuff … no bearings… unsteadiness… fear of unseen danger… feel foolish…Lost. Sin (break? Go wrong?) in that world would be Hastiness, you crash into the wall or a stalagtite… Cave bears. If you discover a dead end – way out is blocked. Redemption seems to depend on factors outside of your control (except perhaps the first one): You remember that your phone has a flashlight… you find a light source (switch? Gasoline?) … Somehow the sun (or an angel) breaks through… Echoes …get out like a bat… follow bats? Emergency phone?

Insights came quickly, especially when Scott suggested that what we learned in the "tunnel" metaphor could be retro-fitted to the personal story. Here's what we said:

.
• The friend's whole life is in a cave – the dark, endless… his dad’s life was taken over… and the friend sent others into caves... His dad’s life was sacrificed for his son's sake...One person’s suffering can put others in tunnels, too.
• We want others to change and cannot change them.
• Think of the darkness as a learning process – think of it as a transition It’s all a transition in the greater story of your life in God. (Donfred)
• God doesn’t ask us to run marathons: He asks us to stand still, and / or to take the next STEP. (Tom)
• In the end, your friend gave you what you needed in his offer never to make another contact. (Marilyn)
• "Know when to walk away, know when to run." Sometimes it’s hard to know which one! (Susan and Kenny Rogers)
• It’s interesting that we don’t always know how big a role we play in others’ stories.
• “Grace of hiddenness” from the Year 4 reading in the mind of the friend as he perceives God
• We are clueless.

Collect in a Dark Tunnel (by Marilyn)Dear God, You shine light perpetual on our pathways and in our lives. We pray that you will grant us patience and grace during times of darkness, fear, and anxiety, allowing time and faith to help still our minds and calm our hearts, so that we may get a glimpse of the Big Picture, gaining perspective, understanding, and wisdom…knowing that all happens according to your will for the good of all. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen

For Next Week
For an interlude in our lessons, we read the first half of Beyond a Binary God by Kara T. Soughers. (Her essay about why EfM assigns books like this is excerpted in the previous posting on this blog.) Marilyn boldly volunteered both to write the collect for our TR (above) and to bring a new source for next week's TR. Nuno will lead worship. Tom will be out of town, caring for his daughter's children while she has surgery -- we'll keep his family in our prayers, and hope he can Zoom in with us.

Scott in 2014 at Brushy Mountain Tunnel, 1000+ yards long. A whispered phrase at one end can be heard clearly at the other end.

← | latest | →

"Why do we read this kind of book in EfM?"

← | latest | →

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

This next week, we begin to read Beyond a Binary God. The author Tara K. Soughers wrote an article for EfM that I've excerpted below. Soughers also offers a light-hearted video put together with young adults, Trans 101 (about eight minutes long). - Scott

...If our faith has nothing to say about difficult issues, then it really isn’t very important, is it?

...In EfM, we work hard to develop close and trusting communities where we can safely talk about things that are really important to us. That environment should also be one where we can talk about controversial topics, remembering that the point of our discussion is not to change each other’s mind or to win an argument, but to share our understandings in a way that allows each of us to decide the implications of our faith for ourselves. If we can’t talk about controversial topics in EfM, where can we do so? Where else do we have the opportunity to talk with people who may have a different opinion in an environment that provides a level of safety and security for the participants? This is a gift that I think EfM brings to the Church and the wider community....

...Finally, EfM does not attempt to indoctrinate you into believing certain things. This is true of social issues as well as theology; instead, it shares the best scholarship that it can find, and asks the students to engage with that scholarship, in dialogue with the tradition, our culture, our own beliefs, and our experiences...

...[Theological reflection is a resource for dealing with diversity of experience, positions] Our structured process of discussion moves us out of our ordinary responses and asks us to consider things from different points of view: our shared tradition, our culture, our own beliefs, and our own experiences of how God is at work in the world...

[Hear Yee, Hear Yee is my own essay about another "difficult" book from EfM, the feminist theology presented by Gale Yee.]

← | latest | →

Yr. C, Wk. 12: Apples, Ahab, and LUKE:The Musical!

← | latest | →

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

Worship and Gathering
Joyce led worship with Psalms as prayers, and a poem by Quinonez, with a theme of drawing strength from Our Lord.

In answer to Joyce's gathering question, "What are you thankful for?" we had a range of answers. My grandson's 2nd birthday... my daughter is paying her own tuition...family, friends, art teachers, and a cat... the election by the Parish of a full freshman class to the Vestry... food on the table and a roof overhead... a wave of gratitude that you feel driving through the mountains of California (this one seconded)... sunrise over the Publix where my dog takes me from trash to trash for her to smell and me to collect... a family visit out of town, and just family taking care of family.

Yr. C, Living as Spiritually Mature Christians, Unit 2 Theological Reflection as a Life Skill: 1st yr: Tom, Joyce, Donfred, Scott; 2nd yr: Jessica; 3rd yr, Susan; 4th yr, Pete, Nuno, Marilyn. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: Donfred.

Discussion of the Readings
We paired up for discussions of the readings: Scott with Tom, Joyce with Susan, Pete with Nuno, Jessica with Marilyn. We highlighted bits of our discussions when we came back together:

• Nuno cited Ford’s description of an apple and how we "know" it. After all the different ways of thinking of just an apple, imagine how we can engage with GOD those ways! (But Pete said, "Just give me equations and answers.")
• Joyce sees Rahab as a smart businesswoman who saved herself and her family by choosing to disobey the authorities.
• Marilyn appreciated Ford's distinction between wisdom and knowledge. Wisdom “in the midst of so many overwhelmings” -- like in a TR you draw back to see the big picture
• Jessica took DELIGHT in LUKE – beautiful gospel – how Powell says think of Luke is a MUSICAL!!!
• Tom observed that anthropologists don't criticize the cultures they're studying, but look for how its features function for that society. Scott saw in a Yee's book a criticism of the culture that produced the Hebrew Scriptures, but for hermeneutical purposes focused on us today: how can women and others in the margins of scripture relate those scriptures to the lives they lead in our own time?

Theological Reflection
Jessica brought us Captain Ahab's sermon from Moby Dick. Naturally, he chooses the text about Jonah and the "big fish." Our attention was drawn to a line in the sermon about being in this world and striving to be in God's, and chose to focus on the image of being in two worlds at once.

We explored this image through theological perspective questions. The world is challenging – but bad? We saw “sin” in not being sure whose voice you’re hearing, and in not adhering to your own principles, and in the danger that rejecting this world means rejecting the people in it.

Something unexpected came up when we asked about what might bring redemption or health. You need to be able to forgive yourself too! We looked at striving, and the phrase “no pain, no gain.” But someone offered that, to cease striving could be a good thing – as when a struggling swimmer stops resisting a rip tide and is thus returned to shore.

In insights, Joyce pushed beyond the struggle between being in God's world and being in our world. She found resolution of that tension when she observed that engaging with this world is how we live into Christ’s world.

Over the next couple of days following class, Joyce prepared our collect, "collecting" the threads of our discussion into one whole cloth:

Ever present Lord, you are there wherever we go, whatever world we're in; Without you we cannot choose to be Thine. So fill us with Your Spirit, that we may cease toiling in our own strength, in order to discern your perfect will rather than our own. We pray that the words we read in scripture will bring us your perfect peace, joy, hope and love through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Joyce even related it to the theme of "strength" in her selections for worship!

For Next Week
Marilyn will bring worship and a "gathering" question to get us talking about our weeks. Scott and Susan will find a source for a TR.

← | latest | →

Yr. C, Wk. 11: A Family Shrine

← | latest | →

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

Worship and Gathering
Donfred led us in prayers of confession and praise. For a gathering question, he asked what Jesus means to us. Answers were surprisingly wide-ranging. He's an historical and literary figure not so close as the Father and Spirit... he's everything, like me, very close... I love all three... the answer is something they fought and died over... different perspectives are showing themselves as we read the gospels one by one... "He is a judge who also served a sentence."

Yr. C, Living as Spiritually Mature Christians, Unit 2 Theological Reflection as a Life Skill: 1st yr: Tom, Joyce, Donfred, Scott; 2nd yr: Jessica; 3rd yr, Susan; 4th yr, Pete, Nuno, Marilyn. Mentors: Susan and Scott. Absent: None.

Discussion of the Readings
We met in breakout rooms then came back for discussion. Nuno's comment about hermeneutics -- that we are to consider ourselves as we read a text -- fits right in with my short message about Yee in the previous blogpost. I'm in a hurry to get to the Parish Meeting, so I'll leave it at that.

Theological Reflection
Nuno brought us his photo of a home shrine where his children have added objects sacred to them. We focused on our recognition that a family is a kind of shrine or altar. Here are comments from our "exploration" of that idea, as we looked for the nature of CREATION, BROKENNESS, and RESTORATION:

• Family – so many opposites reconciled
• Spirit is over all of it from the past -- Memories
• What Nuno CREATED has become an invitation to broken things to show up (family placing broken things on the altar) If it’s there, it’s important
• Beauty in the brokenness --redemption from sin (or brokenness)
• What’s ordinary is lifted to sacredness
• Disjointed, with unity at the same time -- CREATION so much variety yet with unity

At the end of our discussion, Scott asked everyone to contribute something they plan to think or do differently in the light of our discussion:

I pray that I may be of assistance to help repair any brokenness in my family, and restore it to a special place within our hopes and dreams.
I will think of the mess that someone makes in the house to be sacred, a sign of their presence, and not something to be cleaned up...at least for a few minutes.
I will be more aware of acknowledging the thin places throughout my home that bring peace, understanding, and heal brokenness just by their existence.
My mother in her dementia needs to be told what all the keepsakes in her room are, but the effect is healing every time. I like thinking of that as a kind of altar.
Once upon a time I thought a lot of objects as dust collectors. Now all my things are connected to my memories. [I'll try to]set down the little broken things and my concerns over them, trusting the Father.
Remember that the pain of divorce and single parenting was in the past but affects us still to this day. And continue to work towards a closer, more connected relationship with my boys. Praying for a greater sense of peace.

For Next Week
Joyce will lead worship and bring a "gathering question" that will let us all tell some aspect of how we've been in the past several days. Jessica will bring a source for a TR.

← | latest | →