The Corner

Velveteen Rabbi : come, find the miracles

One of the blogs that animates my imagination the most is Velveteen Rabbi by Rachel Barenblat.  Today, Rachel posted a poem inspired by a prompt at Big Tent Poetry , which invited poets to use various poetry tools to spark a poem which will take us somewhere new.

The entire poem and the word clud are extrardinary - but this section resonated with my soul:

your children can teach you
    to experience revelation
        they remember the wonders

our story is old
    but today is new
        come, find the miracles

muchos gracias, Rachel !

searching for a sense-making pattern: edge transforms the core

Our season in a more traditional, liturgical congregation has been more disruptive than I imagined. 

I am more aware of the impact of being in feral communities for the past 6 years, in a personal setting that is more like a recovery group than a coffee hour after worship. 

In this season back to our tradition, we have worshipped for 6 weeks among strangers - I am sad to to realize I know 2 people's name other than the pastor.  Liturgy - the work of the people - feels like the ritual of strangers, at times.

My reflections on these disruptions were helped a bit by two insights over the last week or so.  The first was a provocative post Where Are We? by Jeffrey Jones.  In the piece adapated from his book  Traveling Together: A Guide for Disciple-Forming Congregations, Jones writes of the personal and congregational stirrings that he is in the middle of, summarizing with a set of questions - this one clicked with me the most:

Could it be that the church has become so much a product of the age that it has lost a clear sense of its own unique role and purpose?

My sense is that the answer to this question is increasingly YES. 

Some churches have embraced the cult of man with the mic, placing a charismatic guy (it's always a guy) at the core as the soothsayer or entertainer who rivals Tony Robbins or Rush Limbaugh in his ability to engage. 

Some churches have hunkered down, stripping away everything but the core.  They place "what has been done around before" at the core, occasionaly painting it with varnish of new marketing or updated lingo.

Neither model seems viable as a transforming body, as a place to collapse upon G_d and another, as a mplace to be sent out from to embody the love & grace that heals.

What to do ?  For me, true change happens when the core moves to the edge, an idea that John Hagel III and John Seely Brown wrote about in a business setting in this great post:

In today’s fast-moving, chaotic world, edges are beginning to take on greater meaning. Not only in their ability to help us recognize new ideas but, perhaps more importantly, in the power they give us to escape the old ones.

It seems like at our core, we yearn for church to find a "new normal", to be that one place where change and complexity are not surrounding us.  Whether it means syepping off the podium or away from the chilly distance, the only direction that I can see is to the edges.

 

 

Lenten Synchroblog: Couldn't Jesus be a little less weird ?

Nicodemus showed up in churches yesterday, with this reading.  he is the type of character in sacred texts i really like - he asks questions, he pushes, he wrestles with G_d.

Jesus tells Nicodemus about being born again or from above for a new womb - Nicodemus replies

How can these things be ?

As in:

What do you mean by this?

How does this happen ?

What Jesus says is so often out of this world.  not out of this world like tasting great BBQ and exclaiming it is out this world.

I mean out of this world as in weird. 

I live in a town that prizes weird, so I can usually run with the weirdest of them.

But much of what I hear in Lent about the sayings of Jesus strikes me as weird.  Like Nicodemus, I need the Cliff Notes, I need it repeated.

Honestly, I'd prefer a savior who is a little less weird.

Scott Berkun is a writer I really, really like.  He helps remind me about weird:

They told Van Gogh he used too much paint, and Englebart that the mouse was pointless. Galileo and Copernicus were called heretics for seeing the world for what it was. Dylan and Guthrie were told they couldn’t sing and that they had nothing to say. DaVinci’s helicopters and Tesla’s radio waves stayed in notebooks for years, as the ideas were too weird for ordinary minds to understand.

Most great ideas seem weird at first.

Lenten Synchroblog: the desert winds

out in the desert times of life, sometimes the wind howls.  a sound that cuts to the core, a force that feels like it will rip you apart.

the desert windrips away at good people, people who live & move & have their being.  it rips at people in Japan, Libya and at people next door.

last week, i heard it ripped away at some I met once and I've "known" via Fb and chat:  David Kuo.  He twittered this heart-breaking news:

Hard, hard day - new brain tumor growing aggressively. Will learn more tomorrow. God is as good as he was at the best of times.

if you are someone who prays, please do for David, Kim and their family.

今日、我々はすべての日本人です "Today, we are all Japanese."

Japan Earthquake
photo from egbok4919

 

Oh God, at times such as this,
when we realize that the ground beneath our feet
is not as solid as we had imagined, we plead for your mercy.
 
As the things we have built crumble about us,
we know too well how small we truly are
on this ever-changing, ever-moving, fragile planet we call home.
Yet you never forget us.
 
Oh God, come to our assistance
 
Today, so many people are afraid.
They wait in fear of the next tremor.
They hear the cries of the injured amid the rubble.
They roam the streets in shock at what they see.
And they fill the dusty air with wails of grief and the names of missing dead.
 
Comfort them, Oh God, in this disaster.
Be their rock when the earth refuses to stand still,
and shelter them under your wings when homes no longer exist.
 
Embrace in your arms those who died so suddenly in this tragedy.
Console the hearts of those who mourn,
and ease the pain of bodies on the brink of death.
 
Fill our hearts with compassion,
we who watch from afar,
as the poorest on this side of the earth
find only misery upon misery.
Move us to act swiftly this day,
to give generously every day, to work for justice always,
and to pray unceasingly for those without hope.
 
And once the shaking has ceased,
the images of destruction have stopped filling the news,
and our thoughts return to life's daily rumblings,
let us not forget that we are all your children
and they, our brothers and sisters.
We are all the work of your hands.
 
For though the mountains leave their place
and the hills be tossed to the ground, your love shall never leave us,
and your promise of peace will never be shaken.
 
Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
Blessed be the name of the Lord, now and forever. Amen

 
~ Author unknown ~

via Resources for Shakey Places

Lenten Synchroblog: taking the low place

one of my fav bloggers lizzie everard has a post with great insights on the choices jesus made while in the desert - in her post Jesus Face Down in the Dust she points out that jesus

chose not to agree with those things and instead took the low place. He shuffled around in the wilderness with his face in the dust, putting aside food, riches and temptations of power. He chose not to wield power. He was truly sold out for another way.

this is not how I was taught, how i react at an instintual level.  i suceed if i can "make things happen", when I can wield power, marshall resources.  as a male in a western culture, this posture is as un-natural as any yoga pose or estern adjustment.   honestly, people shuffling around in the wilderness scare the hell out of me.

lizze goes on to ask about our own "bad hang ups on status, power, consumerism and self-interest".  she pushes it even further:

How many of the choices we make purely in our own interest mean someone else has to suffer or slog for them to be realised?

taking the low place is what lizzie calls this.  there is a great sneaker pimps song that has this chorus:

Just to find yourself
I hope you find yourself
In a low place like home
Low place like home

what a challenging idea - to realize this low place is our home, where our graeter good resides.  rather than stretch for higher ground, the tempted G-d in flesh beckons me in the desert to lay low, to come home.

Lenten Synchroblog: power is awfully tempting

the 40 days of Lent recall the 40 days of Jesus' being tempted in the wilderness (Mt 4:1-11; Mk 1:12-13; Lk 4:1-13).  the temptations are enthralling story-telling, tapping into narrative threads that seem to be at the core of our being. 

in the parable The Grand Inquisitor, Dostoevsky suggests that maybe the devil wasn't so much tempting Jesus.  Instead, the parable suggests the devil was presenting Jesus with the different options he could take to be a Messiah, and making him choose one.

i think about this in relation to myself & the 3rd temptation that is told in the stories attributed to Luke & Matthew.  the devil is said to have tempted Jesus to worship the devil in return for all the kingdoms of the world.  Control, power, global domination - these are offered in return for worship.

Hebrews 4:15 states that Jesus is one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are.  i confess i want a Jesus who can provide me with control, the kind of power that CNN covers with breaking news, the kind of global domination that empire and businesses strive for.

if I am honest with myself,  this is not just for me - I really want "successful" Christian leaders.  i want women & men who have control, exhibit power and can embody dominion over a whole host of tasks and skills.  let's be honest - who wants "losers" to be their spiritual shepherd, who wants misfits to be trailguides for our spiritual journey.

on a bike ride last weekend, I thought of this when I heard these lyrics from Arcade Fire song City with No Children:

You never trust a millionaire
Quoting the sermon on the mount
I used to think I was not like them
But I'm beginning to have my doubts
My doubts about it

this past sunday, the preacher spoke of the word awful, the two almost opposing meanings of that word:

• Extremely bad or unpleasant
• Commanding awe

i am too often tempted by the extremely bad or unpleasant equation - absolute power in return for worshipping a life that is counter to the image we are made, control that is truly evil in that I choose a path that is counter to my creation.

when I let myself go to that still & quiet place, to the desert w/in me, I know that the power Jesus choose was somethings that commands awe - that mashup of emotions of reverence, respect, dread, and wonder inspired by authority, genius, great beauty, sublimity, or might. 

I am beginning to have my doubts, doubts about myself, that I am willing to head out to that desert in my life, that the millionaire in me holds the control, that I have answered the devil's temptation.  this Lent, I will try to head out to that desert - and choose the power of authority, genius, great beauty, sublimity, or might.

Lenten Synchroblog: it begins with an invitation

Today, we stood in churches all around this fragile planet, our island home.  As worship gatherings took place to re-member Ash Wednesday, these words were said:

Brothers and sisters in Christ, since early days Christians have observed with great devotion the time of our Lord’s passion and resurrection and prepared for this by a season of penitence and fasting. By carefully keeping these days, Christians take to heart the call to repentance and the assurance of forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel, and so grow in faith and indevotion to our Lord. I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent,by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy word.

What a powerful thing, to start a season that holds so much meaning with a simple invitation.  The Divine beckons us, calls out to us, motions to follow along on a path apart.

Adios Tempus Per Annum

today marks the end of ordinary time, at least for a while.  for many christian traditions, ordinary time encompasses that part of the liturgical year that does not fall within the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, or Easter.

ordinary time makes up 33 of the 52 weeks of the church year around the globe.  whether you are othodox in tripoli, catholic in tokoyo or anglican in bakersfield, you spend most of the church year in ordinary time.

that seems so consistent with how life is lived - that so much of what makes up life is in the ordinary time, in the middle of the story, between act 1 and the final act.

tomorrow, a new page turns in the story as lent begins.  lent is my favorite season of the church year.  a time in the desert, filled with stories of journeying and yearning for meaning.  it is most definitely not ordinary - instead focussed on the supernatural things that comprise the story of an incarnated G_d submitting to human stories and illumating them with transformation.

water made into wine.  temptation made into expression.  bread made into body.  death made into new life. 

adjusting to being G_d's beloved

/(trăns-fĭgˌyə-rāˈshən)/

• a marked change in form or appearance
• a metamorphosis

Yesterday, in many Protestant faith communities, a story was shared from the Gospel attributed to Matthew.  Moses and Elijah, the two preeminent figures of Judaism, appear on a mountain with Jesus. Some supernatural stuff transpires, which Jesus tells his followers to not be scared of, but also not to tell people about.

This weekend, we went to see The Adjustment Bureau , a romantic fantasy thriller film.  The film contrasts a life according to plan with a life animated by love.  It fascinated me that the film was almost completely populated by men, with the exception of a female character who embodied transformation by  love.

In this time where I have been ill, I have been frightened and heartened.  Frightened by the anxiety that seems to pulse w/in me, a toxic combination of a need to control and the fear of supernatural stuff. Heartened by the love embodied by so many people and so many small actions.

Over the last 10 years, I have wrestled with a marked change in my life, one that I have made small progress on.  I tried a massive transfiguration, shoved into a life ill suited to that level of change.  It did not work out so well.  There have been marked adjustments to "the plan", but I remain straddled between a corp life and a life I yearn for.

Why the straddle ?  Well, transfiguration is complex.  But when I am quiet and honest with myself, I think the straddle is built on fear.  The kind of fear that Marianne Williamson wrote about in her book book A Return to Love:

 Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

I routinely make decisions that are NOT driven by manifesting God's glory within me.  I perfer the predictable, but shrinking plan that I have in my head.   I "play small", as Williamson writes - my depression is an illness of darkness, an outward & visible reminder of the plan I live by.

So what is the answer to this ?  My sense is that the answer is "more love", as the Dixie Chicks have sung.  When Jesus is on that mountaintop, G_d proclaims Jesus his "beloved"  Later in the Jesus story, beloved becomes central to how Jesus interacts with those around him.  The dance of love emboddied in the Jesus story comes back again and again to the truth that beloved isn't having to modify yourself. Its approximately being beloved for who you in reality are.