Today is the anniversary of my late father’s birth day. If he were alive today he would be ninety-eight; instead esophageal cancer left him with too many bags, drains and tubes and no way to eat, so he went to bed the day after Christmas, 1982 and died. I loved him, alcohol, cigarettes, despair and all. My grief was long and hard. He died too soon for the length of my love.
I never thought God had a thing to do with his premature departure, causally at least. I don’t know what Dad thought. He didn’t talk. He’d say on and off throughout his life, What’s the point? and those were his last words to me as he lay dying. I had no answer but I don’t think he expected an answer, at least from me.
Dad had a reverence for the holy even in the midst of feeling defeated by life. He had a respect for religion and the transcendent. I could tell by the way he sang the Christmas carols in full bass voice, almost happy. I’d look up at him when I was a kid and think he knew something but couldn’t quite grasp it or let it take hold of him.
Traditional portraits of God— judge, monarch, Big Daddy watching from on high, subduer of deepest desires and passions—may have made it hard for my father to love and feel loved by God. He grew up in a family of six boys and two girls, number five flanked by two sisters who used to dress him up and play house. His father was passive, sweet and inebriated while Ma was a stern rising tower of authority. “Ma’s boys” could do no wrong. Dad was successful but I’d wonder if the occasional yearning I spotted in his eyes longed for, craved, a missing peace.
It’s not God but our misconstrued images of God that wound and kill us. The patriarchal God who points fingers and plays favorites has scared too many people for too long. That God, He, is the projection of a frightened church. That God, He, is still alive and well in too many shivering, cautious hearts. That God, He, has been the image of choice (for there are many images in the bible) in the church for too many centuries now.
Many clergy preach other, but mental imprints and hierarchical domination language are still used in worship and still hold power over souls.
I wish my dad could have met the portrait of God in The Shack.
When I read The Shack this summer I felt affectionately connected to God— in myself, in creation, in other people, and on high. Not new feelings but renewed feelings.
I’d resisted reading it in part because it was all the rage and I’m cynical about the tastes of the masses, and in part because I’d heard it was evangelical propaganda full of biblical literalism and not for sophisticated progressives who take the bible seriously but not literally, like my image of myself.
The Shack is a parable, a wisdom tale designed to startle and reveal something new. The story is about a father’s spiritual trip, and I say trip, because it is not a steadfast faith journey that evolves and matures over time with trust and prayer. It’s a crisis trip, an internal psychological/spiritual conversion of soul and mood: from a life of grim plodding, possessed by grief, laden with a habit of gloom larger than Eeyore’s to a life full of joy grounded in wisdom not rapture.
The plot isn’t complicated. It’s a reiteration of the story of the biblical Job, the good guy who is struck by more personal tragedy than anyone should have to bear and asks, Why? Job is far more dramatic in his impatient refusal to let go of the besetting question about why bad things happen to good people than is Mackenzie Alan Phillips in The Shack who has sunken into a faith of empty duty and spiritual deadness—until he gets an odd invitation in the mail.
The ideas in this book aren’t new: God in three persons, God who meets us and loves us at the center of our pain, Jesus in living color. It’s evangelical Christian propaganda as I’d feared.
What is new is that the theological ideas are wrapped, often not too tightly, in personal narrative, someone’s experience filled with characters you can fall in love with, identify with, care about. You keep reading even though you think you can guess what might happen, and to Christians the story is the one we hear in Church every Sunday and then some—with a twist. One of the novel’s characters is God-relating-to-God. Hey, don’t you have inner dialogues? But are yours all filled with mutual respect and love—and good boundaries, for godssake?
The gift of his book is that it gives readers a new image of God, not an abstraction or doctrine but as characters in a novel, drawn with sympathy and color, characters that sustain the narrative, characters you want to know. That’s new and it is charming.
What makes The Shack not really a good novel is that its plot is weak, the writing not very creative, the dramatic action not suspenseful but forced into the service of an agenda, the solutions contrived, the wisdom un-nuanced. The plot quickly takes second place to the agenda of the author and collaborators with just enough change of scene to keep you going. What starts as a story turns into a sermon, embarrassingly preachy in spots. especially near the end when a clear Christian refrain shows up uninvited. I cringed. My Jewish blood also curdled in a couple of places that were unnecessarily anti-semitic and insulting to the Hebrew scriptures. The story doesn’t carry its own weight throughout.
As I’d feared it is also biblical literalism thinly disguised. Why am I not in a rant? Disgusted? I don’t know. I just got into the scene, the relationships, corny but alluring, often followed up with a tidbit of irresistible wisdom like the Eden myth question: “Rumors of glory are often hidden inside what many consider myths and tales.” Or the human soul as a living fractal—wild, messy always in process, patterns emerging, alive, growing and needing constant tending.
Jesus takes Mack on a walk across the water. I giggled with them as they stepped off the dock, carrying their socks and shoes and rolling up their pants just in case. This and other biblical scenarios are simply portrayed without fanfare. They’re just acted out in character. Who cares if they actually happened? It is not fact that inspires faith but warmth.
This book is vulnerable, open to all kinds of scholarly nitpicking, literary scorn, religious defensiveness, much of it justified. But does it work anyway? I think it does for one reason only: the characters are lovable, charming, their voices convincing. You want more. You fall in love. You want this kind of love, this kind of God. I wonder if that is why this book is so popular. It allows us to fall in love, to be as a child, to let go of proofs, to enjoy a story that touches our humanity at its most vulnerable and presents an ancient Christian insight in new garb.
In addition, this book may serve as a bridge between the foolishly warring left and right religious camps. It's a string bridge to be sure, but one that both side may be able to execute with caution.
If The Shack does nothing else it give us fresh dynamic language and imagery for divinity and goes a long way to balance transcendent and immanent, love and freedom, revelation and psychology.
This is evangelical Christianity in its loveliest form. Happy Birthday Dad. Is this “the point” you always asked about?
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Spirituality of Scarcity
I’m thinking today of a little five year old girl whose hands are wrapped to twice or three times their natural size with gauze bandage.
The child is blonde, petite and has a name far more beautiful than Sprite but for privacy’s sake I’ll call her Sprite because it fits her.
Sprite is in the Shriners Burn Hospital in Boston. Naturally inquisitive and trying to be helpful, she pulled a full steaming pot of hot coffee off the counter and onto her front body. Luckily her face was not burned but her hands took a full hit.
Sprite, as her pseudonymn suggests, is a spirited girl with a shy smile and looks to kill. You think she’s one who gets lost in her mother’s skirts until suddenly she turns into a commando. Once at a celebration at our parish church, where there was more cake than anything else, she ran in first and got a plate piled high with several helpings of several cakes. As I approached I leaned down and commented on how delicious the cake looked. Sprite pulled her plate to the side, walked off fast, tipped her head in the direction of the cake table and said, It’s over there.
The most painful but necessary routine in the burn hospital is the daily changing of the dressings. It’s done with as much care and medication as possible but........ During her first ordeal Sprite began with the polite speech she’s been taught. Please stop. There were explanations and careful touch I’m sure but it didn’t stop. Stop. She howled. Nothing. If you don’t stop I’ll kick you. And she raised her small legs, the only limbs left at her service. Follow-up the next day: I hate nurses!
How hard it must be to hurt a child. Training in this work helps but it never takes away the torture and the echo of the screams. Sometimes we have to wound to heal.
People today are quick to speak of spiritual abundance, the abundance of divine love. Glib and silly, locating Godde in one place when Godde is in all places. Abundance stands at one end of a continuum with scarcity at the other. We favor abundance because it is positive and trendy but it limits the breadth of Godde’s love and sounds idiotic to someone who is in the midst of scarcity like Sprite, a five year old with no hands—to her not 2-3 weeks but eternity.
What is the spirituality of scarcity? I mean how is scarcity imbued with holiness, a spirit of goodness. I don’t know. To me it seems right to suggest that Godde is in the tiniest things. When you’re starving for real food a scrap of bread, broken and shared by people in a concentration or prison camp is divine. When you’re starving for the spiritual food of love a small gesture of caring or a touch when everyone is helpless to change things is holy.
To me Sprite's impolite crying out and the vigorous response of her legs are signs of divinity in the middle of scarcity. Alive: screaming and kicking.
Not a bad prayer either.
The child is blonde, petite and has a name far more beautiful than Sprite but for privacy’s sake I’ll call her Sprite because it fits her.
Sprite is in the Shriners Burn Hospital in Boston. Naturally inquisitive and trying to be helpful, she pulled a full steaming pot of hot coffee off the counter and onto her front body. Luckily her face was not burned but her hands took a full hit.
Sprite, as her pseudonymn suggests, is a spirited girl with a shy smile and looks to kill. You think she’s one who gets lost in her mother’s skirts until suddenly she turns into a commando. Once at a celebration at our parish church, where there was more cake than anything else, she ran in first and got a plate piled high with several helpings of several cakes. As I approached I leaned down and commented on how delicious the cake looked. Sprite pulled her plate to the side, walked off fast, tipped her head in the direction of the cake table and said, It’s over there.
The most painful but necessary routine in the burn hospital is the daily changing of the dressings. It’s done with as much care and medication as possible but........ During her first ordeal Sprite began with the polite speech she’s been taught. Please stop. There were explanations and careful touch I’m sure but it didn’t stop. Stop. She howled. Nothing. If you don’t stop I’ll kick you. And she raised her small legs, the only limbs left at her service. Follow-up the next day: I hate nurses!
How hard it must be to hurt a child. Training in this work helps but it never takes away the torture and the echo of the screams. Sometimes we have to wound to heal.
People today are quick to speak of spiritual abundance, the abundance of divine love. Glib and silly, locating Godde in one place when Godde is in all places. Abundance stands at one end of a continuum with scarcity at the other. We favor abundance because it is positive and trendy but it limits the breadth of Godde’s love and sounds idiotic to someone who is in the midst of scarcity like Sprite, a five year old with no hands—to her not 2-3 weeks but eternity.
What is the spirituality of scarcity? I mean how is scarcity imbued with holiness, a spirit of goodness. I don’t know. To me it seems right to suggest that Godde is in the tiniest things. When you’re starving for real food a scrap of bread, broken and shared by people in a concentration or prison camp is divine. When you’re starving for the spiritual food of love a small gesture of caring or a touch when everyone is helpless to change things is holy.
To me Sprite's impolite crying out and the vigorous response of her legs are signs of divinity in the middle of scarcity. Alive: screaming and kicking.
Not a bad prayer either.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Mary Magdalene. Favorite Calendar Girl
Today on most all church calendars this day is the day we are to honor the person, ministry and holiness of Mary of Magdala.
She is my favorite calendar girl. I’m always disappointed this feast falls in mid-summer and that most parishes do not honor it on a Sunday. After all her day is designated a white day, an Easter day, a day when the church dresses up for hope. July 20 was suffragette and author of a women’s bible, Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s, day; July 22 is Mary Magdalene’s day; August 15 is Mary the Mother of Jesus’ day. Everyone’s on vacation!
The Episcopal church calendar is a wondrous thing. It is the richest and most diverse of all church calendars currently in print. On it we designate days on which we remember holy women and men. Our saints are not appointed by fiat or according to how many miracles happen in their name. (The miracle criterion, in fact, seems unnecessary to me because today’s miracle may be tomorrow’s unquestioned accomplishment. What’s miraculous may simply be the capacity and willingness to live a good life full of flaws, forgiveness and renewed effort.)
The Episcopal calendar girls and boys are selected according to their holiness of life, miracle or no miracle. Someone nominates, a task force researches the life and work of the nominee and the General Convention , our legislative body, also elected, votes them into the calendar—or not. I love our calendar because it honors many cultures and many professions and callings that manifest holiness, the goodness of the Divine recognized in human life and work.
Mary Magdalene is a biblical holy woman. She doesn’t have a clear story all her own though she is present at Jesus’ passion and on other important occasions. Although she doesn’t have her own narrative, many stories have accrued to her name. Mary Mag is famous for having had seven demons from whose power Jesus liberated her. Seven is a big number, also a symbolic number meaning generative. How many people out there either did or do think that Mary was a prostitute, a sexual sinner or at least a penitent woman laden with sin and needing absolution as her healing? This is not in the bible but a later interpretation of her big seven. How easy it was, maybe is, to assume that her “demons” were sexual. It could have been metastatic cancer, or multiple personality disorder from trauma, or multiple birth defects. Ah!
What I love about Mary Magdalene is that she is in me spiritually:
-She is familiar with Jesus. They know each other. It’s mutual. Mary calls him my Lord, not the Lord. Recognition is an astonishing gift, a sign of intimacy, especially when you recognize the holy in another and in yourself.
-Her tears. She stays at the tomb after the other have gone. Lot’s wife in an earlier story is turned into a pillar of salt for looking back at Sodom and Gomorra, her former home. God had told the family to leave before it was burned because of sin. Mary turned back to the tomb to peer in, let herself grieve, sob, wonder, search, remember. It’s important not to hop too fast over and beyond your grief. Tears are a spiritual gift. Follow them. Magdalene was not punished but rewarded with a powerful vision.
-Mary was the only biblical woman to be commissioned as an apostle. In John’s gospel, written as late as 100 CE this story is remembered. Mary is told to go and tell the others what she has seen of resurrection life and hope. She told.
-Mary according to tradition started her own community of Christians and wrote her own gospel. Bits of it have been retrieved. Scholars pieced together her message about things Jesus told her that the others didn’t hear, chiefly that the working of God’s spirit are internal. Mary witnesses in her gospel to the immanence of God not just the transcendence. (In fact there is a humorous scene in her writing about a dispute with Peter who is angry at her insights and her uppity woman nerve telling what Jesus said to her that wasn’t what Peter heard. Peter was told to go feed the sheep. Mary was told to witness to the powerful inner working of divinity. Levy comes to Mary’s defense and Peter goes off to sulk.)
Both commissions are of equal importance for us today. Know and care for your inner religious/spiritual life and know how to take it forth to manifest goodness and compassion in whatever you say and do.
How is Mary Magdalene in you?
She is my favorite calendar girl. I’m always disappointed this feast falls in mid-summer and that most parishes do not honor it on a Sunday. After all her day is designated a white day, an Easter day, a day when the church dresses up for hope. July 20 was suffragette and author of a women’s bible, Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s, day; July 22 is Mary Magdalene’s day; August 15 is Mary the Mother of Jesus’ day. Everyone’s on vacation!
The Episcopal church calendar is a wondrous thing. It is the richest and most diverse of all church calendars currently in print. On it we designate days on which we remember holy women and men. Our saints are not appointed by fiat or according to how many miracles happen in their name. (The miracle criterion, in fact, seems unnecessary to me because today’s miracle may be tomorrow’s unquestioned accomplishment. What’s miraculous may simply be the capacity and willingness to live a good life full of flaws, forgiveness and renewed effort.)
The Episcopal calendar girls and boys are selected according to their holiness of life, miracle or no miracle. Someone nominates, a task force researches the life and work of the nominee and the General Convention , our legislative body, also elected, votes them into the calendar—or not. I love our calendar because it honors many cultures and many professions and callings that manifest holiness, the goodness of the Divine recognized in human life and work.
Mary Magdalene is a biblical holy woman. She doesn’t have a clear story all her own though she is present at Jesus’ passion and on other important occasions. Although she doesn’t have her own narrative, many stories have accrued to her name. Mary Mag is famous for having had seven demons from whose power Jesus liberated her. Seven is a big number, also a symbolic number meaning generative. How many people out there either did or do think that Mary was a prostitute, a sexual sinner or at least a penitent woman laden with sin and needing absolution as her healing? This is not in the bible but a later interpretation of her big seven. How easy it was, maybe is, to assume that her “demons” were sexual. It could have been metastatic cancer, or multiple personality disorder from trauma, or multiple birth defects. Ah!
What I love about Mary Magdalene is that she is in me spiritually:
-She is familiar with Jesus. They know each other. It’s mutual. Mary calls him my Lord, not the Lord. Recognition is an astonishing gift, a sign of intimacy, especially when you recognize the holy in another and in yourself.
-Her tears. She stays at the tomb after the other have gone. Lot’s wife in an earlier story is turned into a pillar of salt for looking back at Sodom and Gomorra, her former home. God had told the family to leave before it was burned because of sin. Mary turned back to the tomb to peer in, let herself grieve, sob, wonder, search, remember. It’s important not to hop too fast over and beyond your grief. Tears are a spiritual gift. Follow them. Magdalene was not punished but rewarded with a powerful vision.
-Mary was the only biblical woman to be commissioned as an apostle. In John’s gospel, written as late as 100 CE this story is remembered. Mary is told to go and tell the others what she has seen of resurrection life and hope. She told.
-Mary according to tradition started her own community of Christians and wrote her own gospel. Bits of it have been retrieved. Scholars pieced together her message about things Jesus told her that the others didn’t hear, chiefly that the working of God’s spirit are internal. Mary witnesses in her gospel to the immanence of God not just the transcendence. (In fact there is a humorous scene in her writing about a dispute with Peter who is angry at her insights and her uppity woman nerve telling what Jesus said to her that wasn’t what Peter heard. Peter was told to go feed the sheep. Mary was told to witness to the powerful inner working of divinity. Levy comes to Mary’s defense and Peter goes off to sulk.)
Both commissions are of equal importance for us today. Know and care for your inner religious/spiritual life and know how to take it forth to manifest goodness and compassion in whatever you say and do.
How is Mary Magdalene in you?
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Sacred Ambivalence
I’ve had a lot of eccentric spiritual experience. Lots of people have. It’s not crazy just something that’s hard to talk about, hard to nail down and validate. God has spoken to me from within many times. God uses questions, short sentences and even one word comments.
Recently God interrupted my obsessive mental monologue: What if my memoir is just another achievement for my ego? And God-in-me said, So? One little word-question stopped me cold, silenced my fear and shame, and told me the truth: So what if it’s an achievement, can’t I also give it to you as a gift?
You might think that these kinds of “voices” have brought me clarity, a stronger religious faith, some surety.
But that is not the case.
Thank God, for if it were, what would there be for me to question, nag God about, write fierce words about, preach on, teach, fuss, obsess, lament and wrestle about for the rest of my days?
Oh, I have given and will keep giving answers to open-ended questions, because I love to do that; I just don’t have answers of the kind people long for, answers laced with certitude.
And I have told and will keep telling of resolutions to struggles, and try to nail peace down because I love happy endings that are true—and not.
I’m not disappointed by this ambiguity. Ambivalence seems to me to be the only sane stance in life, because when I move too far to one side (zealotry) or the other (atheism) of religious expression I end up not liking myself much, and I’m one of the wisest agnostics I know.
I call my ambivalence sacred, because it tempers my drive toward omniscience; it keeps me balanced; it helps me maintain a spirituality that is both intellectual and compassionate; and it reminds me of the one thing about which I’m not ambivalent: the first “eucharist” at which I was “ordained” to preside under the dining room table as a “priest” with Ritz crackers and a tiny invisible congregation who listened to my words and received the sacrament.
Under the table I found my vocation, my hopeful soul as a child, and enough power to keep me going until I could come out from under the table as a woman and priest.
Under the table I fell in love with a God who who wasn’t afraid of authority or cocktail hours, a God within me whose love never dies even when I betray it, a God who gave my my vision for the Church and maybe for all humanity.
To be both political and mystical as the Church in all its expressions should be we will find a table big enough for everyone to crawl under and sit, either to chat or be in silence.
As it is now we spend too much time on top of the small table fighting for position and power.
Will it happen? Probably not, but there’s nothing wrong with asking.
Recently God interrupted my obsessive mental monologue: What if my memoir is just another achievement for my ego? And God-in-me said, So? One little word-question stopped me cold, silenced my fear and shame, and told me the truth: So what if it’s an achievement, can’t I also give it to you as a gift?
You might think that these kinds of “voices” have brought me clarity, a stronger religious faith, some surety.
But that is not the case.
Thank God, for if it were, what would there be for me to question, nag God about, write fierce words about, preach on, teach, fuss, obsess, lament and wrestle about for the rest of my days?
Oh, I have given and will keep giving answers to open-ended questions, because I love to do that; I just don’t have answers of the kind people long for, answers laced with certitude.
And I have told and will keep telling of resolutions to struggles, and try to nail peace down because I love happy endings that are true—and not.
I’m not disappointed by this ambiguity. Ambivalence seems to me to be the only sane stance in life, because when I move too far to one side (zealotry) or the other (atheism) of religious expression I end up not liking myself much, and I’m one of the wisest agnostics I know.
I call my ambivalence sacred, because it tempers my drive toward omniscience; it keeps me balanced; it helps me maintain a spirituality that is both intellectual and compassionate; and it reminds me of the one thing about which I’m not ambivalent: the first “eucharist” at which I was “ordained” to preside under the dining room table as a “priest” with Ritz crackers and a tiny invisible congregation who listened to my words and received the sacrament.
Under the table I found my vocation, my hopeful soul as a child, and enough power to keep me going until I could come out from under the table as a woman and priest.
Under the table I fell in love with a God who who wasn’t afraid of authority or cocktail hours, a God within me whose love never dies even when I betray it, a God who gave my my vision for the Church and maybe for all humanity.
To be both political and mystical as the Church in all its expressions should be we will find a table big enough for everyone to crawl under and sit, either to chat or be in silence.
As it is now we spend too much time on top of the small table fighting for position and power.
Will it happen? Probably not, but there’s nothing wrong with asking.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
What in the World is EfM?
I have been a mentor for the Education for Ministry (EfM) program since 1984, and I write to say that it is, in my un-humble opinion, the best program of Christian spiritual formation that the church has come up with since, well, whatever you think the best thing is.
EfM is my favorite way of being a priest. A mentor is not a teacher but more of a guide and accompanist to students in a small seminar group who study together, pray together and engage in a process of theological reflection on their lives over four years.
There is a small tuition ($340 a year with scholarship aid available upon request) for which a student gets all the reading materials, thirty-six lessons a year, and the mentor a tiny honorarium.
The curriculum comes out of the Episcopal seminary of the South, Sewanee, TN. It is sophisticated material but not inaccessible. A student signs up to be in the seminar one year at a time. Most students love EfM and stay to graduate in four years. The diplomas are handsome and frameable. It is quite an achievement to graduate and grow in grace.
The Bible turns out to have much relevance to your soul; church history astounds and enlightens; theology up to today teaches you it is a verb, something you do; your own spiritual desires, quests, gifts and questions are known and loved.
EfM is ecumenical and most groups have students from a variety of faith traditions. In our groups we have had Episcopalians, Methodists, Unitarians, Roman Catholics, a Quaker or two, United Church of Christ, and even an ordained pastor who wanted a small group of prayer, learning and community outside her own parish work.
The word ministry sometimes creates anxiety. People think about ordained ministry. The premise of EfM is that all Christians are ordained to ministry at baptism and further, that every encounter or happening presents an opportunity to enhance or impede the flow of divine Love.
Over the four years we discern our gifts, inclinations and passions together. Each student comes out with a sense of what her/his ministry is, often what they are already doing. Ministry after all is what you do, with whatever you have, as who you are, wherever you are—inspired by Love.
Sometimes a student will come to the truth that her or his ministry is to herself; sometimes a ministry is the skill and pleasure of encouraging others; sometimes one desires further study, even moving toward ordination; sometimes a ministry is taking a major step in a new direction altogether. Often a student decides to take the training to become a mentor him or herself and start a group.
A seminar group offers support but not judgment, advice or problem-solving. What happens in a weekly seminar? We begin with a brief worship (prayers, poems, music, silence, meditation) each student taking a turn. Occasionally there will be a Eucharist, sometimes even a group Eucharist. We share what has amused, attracted, stunned or confused, angered us in the week’s lesson. We take a break to EAT!!! People bring amazing food to go with our spiritual food. We engage in a process of theological reflection, often amazed to discover how rich our tradition, especially biblical, is and how it sheds light on our lives and gives us wise insights we’d never thought of.
The joy students often experience is knowing themselves more deeply, appreciating their ministries, and getting comfortable with questioning their religion. We eat, pray, laugh, love and learn together.
“It’s the most important thing I’ve ever done for myself my whole life.”
“Just to learn that there were actually three popes at one time freed me!”
“I never understood the Bible just from listening to little snippets in church.”
“Wow! Really eye-opening to get to know Jesus so well. Never understood that whole thing and now I consult Jesus like a friend.”
“I can pray out loud for a group and create a little worship service without clergy help.”
“I see my school teaching as ministry and my own students in the light of grace. It helps my patience.”
“I have learned to trust my relationship with myself.”
“I’m really awake in church because I recognize stuff.”
(And one I can't resist from a disgruntled teenage son who is now forty: "Mom! It's all over the calendar! EfM, EfM, EfM.......eternal (expletive deleted) meeting!"
As a mentor I find that congregational life is enlivened by an informed laity.
EfM is nationwide and international in scope with students all over the world participating. Check the website on how to find a group or call your local Episcopal clergy or diocesan office to inquire.
EfM is my favorite way of being a priest. A mentor is not a teacher but more of a guide and accompanist to students in a small seminar group who study together, pray together and engage in a process of theological reflection on their lives over four years.
There is a small tuition ($340 a year with scholarship aid available upon request) for which a student gets all the reading materials, thirty-six lessons a year, and the mentor a tiny honorarium.
The curriculum comes out of the Episcopal seminary of the South, Sewanee, TN. It is sophisticated material but not inaccessible. A student signs up to be in the seminar one year at a time. Most students love EfM and stay to graduate in four years. The diplomas are handsome and frameable. It is quite an achievement to graduate and grow in grace.
The Bible turns out to have much relevance to your soul; church history astounds and enlightens; theology up to today teaches you it is a verb, something you do; your own spiritual desires, quests, gifts and questions are known and loved.
EfM is ecumenical and most groups have students from a variety of faith traditions. In our groups we have had Episcopalians, Methodists, Unitarians, Roman Catholics, a Quaker or two, United Church of Christ, and even an ordained pastor who wanted a small group of prayer, learning and community outside her own parish work.
The word ministry sometimes creates anxiety. People think about ordained ministry. The premise of EfM is that all Christians are ordained to ministry at baptism and further, that every encounter or happening presents an opportunity to enhance or impede the flow of divine Love.
Over the four years we discern our gifts, inclinations and passions together. Each student comes out with a sense of what her/his ministry is, often what they are already doing. Ministry after all is what you do, with whatever you have, as who you are, wherever you are—inspired by Love.
Sometimes a student will come to the truth that her or his ministry is to herself; sometimes a ministry is the skill and pleasure of encouraging others; sometimes one desires further study, even moving toward ordination; sometimes a ministry is taking a major step in a new direction altogether. Often a student decides to take the training to become a mentor him or herself and start a group.
A seminar group offers support but not judgment, advice or problem-solving. What happens in a weekly seminar? We begin with a brief worship (prayers, poems, music, silence, meditation) each student taking a turn. Occasionally there will be a Eucharist, sometimes even a group Eucharist. We share what has amused, attracted, stunned or confused, angered us in the week’s lesson. We take a break to EAT!!! People bring amazing food to go with our spiritual food. We engage in a process of theological reflection, often amazed to discover how rich our tradition, especially biblical, is and how it sheds light on our lives and gives us wise insights we’d never thought of.
The joy students often experience is knowing themselves more deeply, appreciating their ministries, and getting comfortable with questioning their religion. We eat, pray, laugh, love and learn together.
“It’s the most important thing I’ve ever done for myself my whole life.”
“Just to learn that there were actually three popes at one time freed me!”
“I never understood the Bible just from listening to little snippets in church.”
“Wow! Really eye-opening to get to know Jesus so well. Never understood that whole thing and now I consult Jesus like a friend.”
“I can pray out loud for a group and create a little worship service without clergy help.”
“I see my school teaching as ministry and my own students in the light of grace. It helps my patience.”
“I have learned to trust my relationship with myself.”
“I’m really awake in church because I recognize stuff.”
(And one I can't resist from a disgruntled teenage son who is now forty: "Mom! It's all over the calendar! EfM, EfM, EfM.......eternal (expletive deleted) meeting!"
As a mentor I find that congregational life is enlivened by an informed laity.
EfM is nationwide and international in scope with students all over the world participating. Check the website on how to find a group or call your local Episcopal clergy or diocesan office to inquire.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Goodbye Margaret
Recently, NOT via Facebook or google, imagine! . . . I have reconnected with two best girlfriends of old, one from first to sixth grade, Margaret, and the other from high school and college years, Annie. Just when we found each other through old school connections we have had to say good bye, God be with ye. Annie died a year after our grand and talkative reunion in person, and Margaret is in the process of dying and too far away for a visit except by email. My farewell e-letter I share for anyone in a similar situation.
Dear Margaret,
What a loving thing for your son to do creating a Maine nook so you're able to be there and gaze at your beloved summer place as you lie in your bed in hospice care resting and dozing in beauty.
I am so sorry we won't be able to meet in person, but I want you to know what a powerful influence you were on my childhood, mostly one of mischief, laughter and just being girlfriend-to-girlfriend as we grew up together and managed to survive even the gunny sack blue serge lower school uniforms.
You made my young life, growing up in a family where there was love and caring and also alcoholism and anxiety, joyful. Thank you Margy with a hard G as I used to call you.
In addition to you I counted on God. As a kid I would often find refuge from the eternal and everlasting, or so it seemed, evening cocktail hour under a large dining room table where I chatted (gave little sermons) with my imaginary friends and a fourth friend I called God. I'd snitch Ritz crackers from the cocktail tray, eat one and leave the other four lined up on the table's cross beams waiting there for my friends and God. Later I would come to understand this childhood ritual as my first ordination as a priest and a call to a vocation I didn't pursue for years. Being a mother came first (two daughters, two sons, all grown with families of their own.)
That's a tiny but formative piece of my story. I wish I knew more of your story and the joys and sorrow that have filled your life over the 60 years since we last saw each other. I did google you and see that you did a lot of philanthropic work in the arts and consulting. Also your info sounds like you are a feminist or at least a promoter of women's gifts and passions. There's a reason we were such soulmates! I saw your photo in the yearbook and you hadn't changed a wit from sixth grade to graduation.
I hate to have to say goodbye just as we're saying hello again, but such is the unsteadiness of life and death.
Perhaps I will put this in a card also as I'm not sure how much email time you will want to spend as you rest and move into your death. Be sad but don't fret for there is nothing, even death, that can separate us from the Love beyond all loves some of us call God. I send you this ancient blessing and, although I don't know of your own religious journey or faith, I send it in the spirit of grateful memories for our short but lively friendship.
God bless you and keep you;
the face of God shine upon you and from within you
and bathe you in peace
this day, this hour, this minute and for ever. AMEN
I love you my bright childhood friend.
Lyn
Dear Margaret,
What a loving thing for your son to do creating a Maine nook so you're able to be there and gaze at your beloved summer place as you lie in your bed in hospice care resting and dozing in beauty.
I am so sorry we won't be able to meet in person, but I want you to know what a powerful influence you were on my childhood, mostly one of mischief, laughter and just being girlfriend-to-girlfriend as we grew up together and managed to survive even the gunny sack blue serge lower school uniforms.
You made my young life, growing up in a family where there was love and caring and also alcoholism and anxiety, joyful. Thank you Margy with a hard G as I used to call you.
In addition to you I counted on God. As a kid I would often find refuge from the eternal and everlasting, or so it seemed, evening cocktail hour under a large dining room table where I chatted (gave little sermons) with my imaginary friends and a fourth friend I called God. I'd snitch Ritz crackers from the cocktail tray, eat one and leave the other four lined up on the table's cross beams waiting there for my friends and God. Later I would come to understand this childhood ritual as my first ordination as a priest and a call to a vocation I didn't pursue for years. Being a mother came first (two daughters, two sons, all grown with families of their own.)
That's a tiny but formative piece of my story. I wish I knew more of your story and the joys and sorrow that have filled your life over the 60 years since we last saw each other. I did google you and see that you did a lot of philanthropic work in the arts and consulting. Also your info sounds like you are a feminist or at least a promoter of women's gifts and passions. There's a reason we were such soulmates! I saw your photo in the yearbook and you hadn't changed a wit from sixth grade to graduation.
I hate to have to say goodbye just as we're saying hello again, but such is the unsteadiness of life and death.
Perhaps I will put this in a card also as I'm not sure how much email time you will want to spend as you rest and move into your death. Be sad but don't fret for there is nothing, even death, that can separate us from the Love beyond all loves some of us call God. I send you this ancient blessing and, although I don't know of your own religious journey or faith, I send it in the spirit of grateful memories for our short but lively friendship.
God bless you and keep you;
the face of God shine upon you and from within you
and bathe you in peace
this day, this hour, this minute and for ever. AMEN
I love you my bright childhood friend.
Lyn
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Blog Snacks With Lemons
This blog is NOT a diary!!
It’s not full of trivial personal anecdotes with no soul, meat or meaning. I hear that is a reason some folks avoid checking in on bloggers and hope I have moved beyond the heaving narcissism of my “Dear Diary . . .” days. My spiritual lemons are meant to awaken, provoke your reflection and call you to your depths.
But they might make you pucker up in case you expect some can-do or how-to spiritual advice that will last as long as your nose.
This week I offer these spiritual snacks.
-Boston Globe headline quote, 5/22/09, from President Obama’s speech, a necessary corrective to the Cheney same-old rant. Obama: “ I believe with every fiber of my being that in the long run we also cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values . . . “ Lemon: We cannot keep this country safe from our enemies without the power of our enemies.
-Jim Wallis: “New vision is always what any society most needs, and the edges of society have always been the most likely place for it to emerge. To generate something new, one must be listening to voices other than the loud voices of mass society.”
-Feminist Lemon: The feminization of any institution is no better for humanity than has been its masculinization.
-Ani Di Franco: “Someone you don't know is someone you don't know
Keep a firm grip girl and don't let go
Behind every hand extended another lies in wait
Keep an eye on that one - Anticipate”
-Jesus of Nazareth: “Be innocent as doves and wily as serpents.”
-Wily Lemon: There is little or nothing evil but that we make it so.
-Spiritual Lemon Policy: There is only one thing more important than individual rights and that is the common good.
Lemony wit/wisdom, oldie but goodie: “My grandfather knew the exact time of the exact day of the exact year that he would die.” “Wow!, what an evolved soul! How did it come to him?” “The judge told him.”
Lemon: Godde has no way to you but through you.
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