Living Our Faith in This Difficult Time

I read an article this recently entitled “How To Stay Calm When You’re So Overwhelmed by Bad News You can Hardly Move.”

http://mashable.com/2017/01/30/trump-presidency-overwhelmed/#_jSQ3lyHeOqr

And this offers some practical secular suggestions that may be helpful.

I’ve seen a few articles that offer suggestions for faith-based actions to take, in particular “Practicing Your Faith in the Age of Trump,”

https://www.baptiststandard.com/opinion/editorial/19893-editorial-practicing-faith-in-the-age-of-trump

which was helpful, more action focused. But I haven’t seen much on spiritual practices as we live our faith in these challenging days.

Here are some suggestions:

• ·         Stay in the present moment, returning to it each time we feel our anxiety about the future rising up within us. This is a spiritual practice because we DON’T know what will happen in the future—only God does. Some of the ways I do this include wiggling my toes (I know it sounds silly, but it helps to ground me), taking a deep breath and letting it all the way out, and saying “I trust you, God.” Very little in our culture supports this, so it isn’t easy, but it makes a great deal of difference to me as I practice this.
• ·         Spend time in silent prayer daily, more than once a day if you are drawn by God to this. This is another way of saying “I trust you, God.” “I trust you enough to put aside my questions, petitions, my frantic seeking for answers, my fears and even my hopes.”  Centering prayer, 20 minutes of focusing on God (using a word to recall my attention to God), is one very helpful way to practice this kind of prayer. Spending quiet time in nature is another. Remember that it is our intention to be silent in the presence of God, but that it is only God who can still our minds to silence. So when my mind chatters or my to-do-list interrupts my prayer time, I speak (silently) and as often as necessary my focus word, without judging or impatience.  Right now, it is “Abba,” the word Jesus used to address God his Father.
• ·         Ask often, “where is God in this time?” When I spend time on Facebook or the news, I look for people, events, prayers, comments and other ways I see God at work in these days.  Calls to and acts of resistance, reaching out to decision-makers with my comments, witnessing the courage of others, prayers written by others, there are so many ways that I see God active in this time.
• ·         Stay connected with others seeking to live their faith in hope and trust. None of us can do this alone, even with God’s help. Faith groups, friends, social media can all be ways of finding others who are committed to living faithfully our faith in God. I am an introvert and also physically not able at this time to march, but in my time on Facebook, I respond with encouragement, positive comments, sharing posts that I think others might find helpful.
• ·         Pray for our leaders, national and international, clergy, local and state government, civic associations, grassroots organizations. We can pray however God guides us, but some suggestions: for God to guide their decisions; for God to fill their hearts with love; for God to hold them accountable. I have not always done this, but I am coming to take 1 Timothy 2: 1-3 more and more seriously. (“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings should be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior.”) I also find myself praying more and more often that God will overpower with his love those who appear to be living from hatred and greed, recognizing that this requires me to try to love them, with God’s help. I’m not there yet, God has a lot of work to do in me!
• ·         Resist temptations to stay in despair, hopelessness, fear, anxiety, outrage. These are all normal human feelings, but when we “feed” them by our attention, they grow and are serious distractions from trusting God and walking in faith.  We need to do this ourselves, and we also do this for others around us who may not know God’s love and God’s power to overcome evil.
• ·         Keep our eyes on Jesus, not only to learn about God’s enormous commitment to love each of us, but to learn both practical actions to take in God’s service, and to follow Jesus example of focusing his righteous anger, in cleansing the temple of greedy vendors (Matthew 21:12-13), in confronting hypocrisy (Matthew 7:1, 5) and hard-heartedness (Mark 3:5), superiority (Luke 11:42-52), in correcting his disciples (Matthew 10:13-16, Matthew 16:23), and, most important, in following his call all the way through the consequences on the cross. I do not mean that we will be crucified, but there will be consequences, almost certainly, as we protest and resist.
• ·         Take care of body and spirit.  This is one I struggle with the most, and am having to seek God’s help with more than the others, which, to some degree, have become part of how I live my faith through this long journey of seeking God daily. My body (including my mind and emotions) is a gift from God and I am learning slowly to treat my physical, mental and emotional being with greater respect and appreciation. In addition to all the “normal” stressors of daily life, we are now living in a time of great stress because of uncertainty about what will happen, so many possibilities of awful things, negativity coming at us from many directions, things we hold dear or necessary under threat…. I will not be able to stay focused, active, determined if I allow these additional stressors to affect my health and energy. Taking breaks, resting, staying hydrated and fed, moving in ways that feel good and help my muscles,cultivating gentleness and joy, these are all things I CAN do, when there is so much about which I CAN’T do anything.

I know this sounds like an awful lot, and I confess that I don’t manage to do all of these every day. I am dependent on God for what I do and how I live. But the whole purpose of these is to seek God’s help and grace and an ever-deepening relationship with the One who is calling me to become more and more like God’s image. May you grow in love and in joy in being all that you are called to become.

What Gives Me Hope?

What Gives Me Hope?

I am struggling with a lot of fear and anxiety these days, and I observe how these deplete my energy and distract me from my faith and my ability to take positive action.  I get caught up in “what ifs?” and there are no assurances that they won’t happen.

What if I don’t have insurance, get sick, unable to work and homeless, and die? What if my country is taken over by billionaires and destroyed? What if the end of the ACA means many people with preexisting conditions die? What if the environment is destroyed by fracking, drilling, pollution, global warming, and “natural disasters”? What if more species become extinct because there is no longer any protection for them or for their habitat? What if freedoms of speech, assembly, the press are curtailed? What if abortion is once again criminalized? What if marriage equality is overturned?

I’m experiencing, not quite flashbacks, maybe “flashbits,”to times when my physical body, my wants and “won’ts” were regularly violated, my needs neglected, without anyone to turn to for assistance. I felt helpless, alone, and overwhelmed. I developed coping strategies (dissociation, escapist reading, numbing with food, etc.). And I SURVIVED. I’ve spent many years seeking healing from abuse, and as I healed, I often heard negative “voices” challenging my right to health, happiness, joy, connection. These were angry, abusive voices, and I’m hearing echoes every day that are frighteningly familiar. Only this time, it is my country, my neighbors, God’s creation, our freedom and many other rights, that are being violated. Daily we are seeing freedoms threatened, lies promulgated as truth (“alternative facts”), distortions of “law and order” in the service of control, most of the progress of the past 50+ years (most of my lifetime) being reversed or under threat of being overturned. And the temptation is to seek comfort in ways that got me through abuse and through the challenges of healing. But those coping strategies are no longer appropriate or effective. So what do I do?

When I focus on what-ifs, I can become mired in despair and apathy—I have learned that when that happens, I need to turn my attention away from believing that I KNOW what will happen. I need to keep returning to this moment, this is where I find my strength. As a person of faith, I turn to God with my prayers for courage and strength. And lately, I’m hearing “VOICES” every day that remind me that there is power in our commitments to our values, our freedom. Here are a few:

·         The Women’s Marches

·         Rev. William Barber https://thinkprogress.org/rev-barber-moral-change-1ad2776df7c#.3i41jbl4q

·         Peter Leyden https://shift.newco.co/https-medium-com-peteleyden-why-trumps-inauguration-is-not-the-beginning-of-an-era-but-the-end-72a86833f0a3#.rtyb0ne0l

·         Parker Palmer http://www.onbeing.org/blog/parker-palmer-the-soul-of-a-patriot/9146

·         Marv Knox https://www.baptiststandard.com/opinion/editorial/19893-editorial-practicing-faith-in-the-age-of-trump

·         “Lead on, o king eternal” https://www.flashlyrics.com/lyrics/glad/lead-on-o-king-eternal-94

·         Pantsuit Nation

·         Rebecca Solnit, "Hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency; because hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth's treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginalized. Hope just means another world might be possible, not promised, not guaranteed. Hope calls for action; action is impossible without hope." (Hope in the Dark: Untold Stories and Wild Possibilities)

I’m not physically able to march at this point in my life, but I can write and I can listen and I can share what gives me hope.  What gives you hope?

The Price of an Orgasm

I’ve been silent for too long, uncomfortable and reluctant to deal with my anger.  The article in the Huffington Post a few weeks ago about the experience of a sexual assault survivor, the response she heard from a college administrator, “I thought it was reasonable for him to penetrate you for a few more minutes if he was going to finish.”  The comment from Brock Turner’s father, prison would be “a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action.” The growing number of rape cases where the interests of the perpetrator are more important than justice for the victim/survivor. The sexual assault confession of DT and the growing number of reports from women and men about their/our experiences of sexual abuse and sexual assault.

I have come a very long way in the healing process. The anger at my father’s molestation (from around 12-18 months until I left for college) and my mother’s failure to protect me and denial that anything happened, has less and less power to limit my activities and my freedom. Yet I still struggle, and probably always will, to move beyond my identity as a clergy incest survivor.  I still live with PTSD and its effects on my energy, my ability to work, my ability to take care of myself.  And it’s clear from my reactions lately that I still have a lot of anger in me, about the ways so many men believe their sexual needs trump (pun intended) the needs of the women they violate. About the ways judges and administrators consider the future of young rapists more important than care for those of us who live with the forever effects of being violated. About the huge number of men who think sexual assault can be dismissed as “locker room talk,” machismo (by a “clergyman”—Pat Robertson, no less). About the pain so many of us feel because our experience is denied or perpetrators excused and our pain and anger are belittled.

I have come a very long way in the healing process.  I have worked extremely hard in therapy and “doing the inner work” to find healing and most days I am able to live well and enjoy life. I’m at a place in my life where I no longer need to focus so much energy on healing—but I’m realizing that my desire to write (since I was in high school) requires the energy of my anger: the content of what I have to write has to include using what I have learned as a way to collaborate with God in the world’s healing.  I need to join my voice to those who are increasingly outraged by the indifference and injustice and acceptance of violence against women as “normal.” That is one form my writing will take.  There are other forms—stay tuned!

I also need to share with other survivors who need to know that the work of healing is worth all the effort. I need to share with those who work with survivors what has helped (or hindered) my healing experience.  But most of all, I need to share how my relationship with God has sustained me throughout the process.  Yes, I was angry at God at one point for “allowing the abuses to happen,” and I needed to go through that anger in order to come to understand that God never “allows” evil—but that we are all free to choose to do evil. And the power to refrain from doing evil, to choose to be a force for healing in cooperation with God, has its roots in God’s love, without which we would cease to exist. 

God’s love, the love of those who have supported me along the way, the love for myself which has slowly grown over the many years of letting in God’s love, has been tremendously freeing of the pain that was the result of the abuses. I am who I am not because of what my parents did, but because of what God has done to heal my pain.

Adventures in Soulmaking by Dr. Troy Caldwell

This is a fascinating book, and may be of interest to many people.  I enjoyed the stories and the concepts.  And I’m sure Dr. Caldwell has been a great blessing to his patients and directees. However, as I read, I kept feeling very cautious and concerned about the purpose and impact of the book. 

I’m not sure the book fulfills what is perhaps its most important intended purpose for several reasons.  Dr. Caldwell does tell stories, wonderfully; he does convey to a “wider audience” an understanding of patterns in the Christian spiritual passage; and this book may encourage readers to take a more conscious spiritual journey.  And it may inspire other helping professionals, pastors and spiritual directors to explore further the concepts contained within it (p. 7). But I felt a lot of concern about whether the book could really serve to provide “tools” for this kind of work. As a spiritual director myself, and as a person who has a wide experience of therapies for healing and spiritual growth, I would be very hesitant to undertake most of these techniques (except under inspiration from God and with careful consultation with a clinician) as I believe some of them have the potential for results which need the attention of a clinician of Dr. Caldwell’s high caliber.  I would also be hesitant (and prayerful) about whether to recommend this to Christians unless they were at the point of seeking the deeper connections Dr. Caldwell describes.  Less mature Christians might find this book to be challenging and distracting from their formation as disciples, which must occur before seeking to go deeper in ways that God directs. I would rely on prayerful discernment about any recommendations.

One other concern I felt was that sometimes Dr. Caldwell’s assertions, particularly about Jungian concepts, do not leave room for the breadth of interpretation which Jung generally intended.  For example, I do not believe that equating the Shadow with sin is an adequate understanding of the Shadow, which is not always a negative part of our psyche, but may also be the “seat of creativity.”

I also found the book to be awkwardly designed and not as well organized as I would hope such a book would be.  Indices of concepts, scripture passages, and stories would be very helpful. And I kept wondering how a professional editor and book designer would have helped this to become a more coherent book which flows well from beginning to end.

I wish that I could be more positive about this book.  The intention and the aspirations for such a book are much needed. I do recommend it as a fascinating book to read, but do not believe it meets its goals in a way that would make it as ground-breaking and time-tested as Gerald May’s work in this area.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR,Part 255.

 

The Coming Interspiritual Age (Review)

The Coming Interspiritual Age, Kurt Johnson and David Robert Ord (Namaste Publishing, 2012)

The authors have written a compendium of large scope about the growing movement toward understanding that all religious traditions have common core experiences and concerns, and that there is much to be learned from sharing across traditions (interspirituality). Much of the book is about the evolution of all spirituality, starting with the Big Bang (!), and includes valuable historical perspective on how we (globally) have arrived where we are today.

I have been very interested in interspirituality for a number of years, and I am familiar enough with the movement to recognize that this is an excellent resource for students (and teachers) of spirituality. It is well written, although several agendas show through: interspirituality is couched as the only possible way of avoiding dire consequences of materialism (graphically depicted); it appears to me to be portrayed by the authors as separate from the historical traditions of the major religions; it links interspirituality very closely with the integralist movement toward unity of consciousness (based much on the work of Ken Wilbur), which I believe does a disservice to the possibilities of interspirituality. None of these in and of itself is a reason not to read the book, but these do demonstrate to me some limitations of this work.

I have several concerns about gaps in their scholarship.  There is no index, and given the number of sources they cite throughout the pages, this makes it much harder to assess their scholarship or find references without much difficulty.  (There is a bibliography of writings, but it does not include the many statistical studies that they cite.) But my biggest concerns are about gaps in their treatment that I found very jarring. 

There is a minimal treatment of the “rise of the feminine voice,” with too much emphasis on motherhood for my taste.  While they end their assessment of the feminine voice (less than 5 pages) on what might be considered a positive note (“the feminine is also the voice of unity, which is crucial for a realized consciousness,” p. 322), overall this is a fairly patriarchal assessment of the value of the much-neglected feminine aspect of humanity.

I found myself hunting assiduously for any reference to the growing numbers of “spiritual but not religious” seekers, but found not one.  Since this term was first proposed as early as 2001, perhaps earlier, and is a growing component of spiritual seeking, this is a serious lack.  There is also NO mention of the “emerging/emergent church” movement, which is globally responding to dissatisfaction with institutional Christianity.  Given the scope of the book, these merited at least mention as part of “where we are now.”  The complete neglect of these two growing responses to the felt needs, an important part of the contemporary spiritual landscape, made me very concerned with the objectives of the authors.  It is not just in crossing the boundaries of religious traditions that interspirituality has its value, but in what we can learn from interspirituality that illuminates our traditions. This has been a powerful effect of interspirituality on me personally, and on others whom I know, and I was disappointed in its exclusion.

This book has value, and is worth exploring, with these caveats in mind.

I received a review copy of this book from Speakeasy.

 

Zealot (Reza Aslan): Review

I had very high hopes when I purchased Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth the day after it came out.  It is well written and a fascinating read.  But as I read I got more and more uncomfortable with a number of Aslan's premises. 

He does not adequately deal with the "lost years," saying only that Jesus was a "woodworker" who probably worked, with his brothers, on building the city of Sepphoris, not far from Nazareth. 

And he insists, almost ad nauseum, on the illiteracy of Jesus and his disciples and the leaders of the early Jewish Christian movement. This seems central to his narrative.

Nor does he deal adequately with what might have changed Jesus from a laborer to a miracle worker and teacher.  The context he provides for the development of messianic movements is illuminating, but not adequate to account for such transformation.

I also disagree with his opinion that the prologue to the Gospel of John proves that the writer already pictures Jesus as the other-worldly, eternal, out of this world.  The rest of the Gospel of John is about an earthy, tactile, fully-human Jesus.  There is a necessary tension between the logos and the incarnation which is one of the central themes of Christian history.

I'm not saying this book isn't worth reading, it most certainly is.  And it got me to thinking.... (probably his purpose). The context Aslan elucidates for the historical Jesus calls into question quite a few of the understandings of Jesus on which centuries of Christians have based their lives.  I've become aware that each of the Gospels was written with an agenda other than "just the facts, please," (a desire rooted in the Enlightenment emphasis on empirical evidence). In the endnotes, Aslan provides some discussion of various scholarly opinions on his chapters, making it clear which position he takes. I see what he offers through this book as another of many perspectives on the historical Jesus. 

His narrative-making is not all that different from that of the Gospel writers and the many efforts throughout the millenia to "get a handle" on this Jesus.  The importance of this book, like so many of the narratives, is to offer a perspective that can add to how we think about Jesus.  The question which Bishop Spong asked as part of his musings on whether Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married (Born of a Woman) fits for me as I consider Zealot:  if it were true, how would it change the way we interpret Jesus? (His sexuality or his leadership.) This will be a question to live with for a while.  In the flurry of reactions and interviews (and non-interviews), this process will be interesting to observe and be part of.

In spite of the (failed, IMO) efforts of fundamentalist inerrantists over the past couple of centuries to arrive at certainty in the modern sense about the facts of the Bible, the primary insight I take from my first reading of Zealot is the recognition that no one, not the Gospel writers, not Paul, not the "church fathers," not the historical Jesus movement, not Aslan, can say "here is the definitive, once-and-for-all, explanation of Jesus."  All of the perspectives offer nuances and possibilities that may challenge or threaten or inspire...but "understanding Jesus" is an eternal process that requires (or should require) each of us to come, through critical thinking and through experience, to our own understanding of how the reality of Jesus shapes us. 

Hopefully we will find communities with and within which to undertake this exploration.  Hopefully (my hope) is that I will always grow and learn and live into the challenge of Jesus.  I think the day I stop being willing to change and grow "in the image of God" as part of my life task will be the day when the meaning which Jesus has for me begins to fade into a nice, comforting story, without much power to transform me or society, and the day on which  my hope for the realization of the Kingdom of God must die.

So, read the book, listen to or watch the interviews (Fresh Air, Huff Post Live, and others).  Join in the conversations.  Do your own thinking.  Let Aslan challenge you, but don't swallow his interpretation (or anyone else's) as the definitive word:  there is much more to Jesus than any one person or scholarly interpretation can define.  Enjoy the journey!

I highly recommend The Secrets of Leaven (review)

I’VE NEVER reviewed a novel, so I’ve been puzzling about how to convince you to read The Secrets of Leaven (Todd Wynward) without spoiling the story.  Would it help to hear that I read this twice in 48 hours?  (OK, I was still recuperating from an infection, so I had no energy to do much besides read.  But that doesn’t explain why I read it AGAIN, a couple of weeks later.)

Maybe the reason I love it so much is that I (like the third-year seminarian who is the protagonist) have had many of the same questions he has during his crisis of faith.  Maybe it’s because I struggle with the same tensions about the disconnections between the institutional church and the teachings of Jesus that he does.  Maybe it’s because I also long to live The Way exemplified by Jesus in ways not always supported by the institutional church.

But those reasons will only work for my fellow ministry geeks and spiritual questers.  Secrets has a lot to say to anyone who’s been on a quest for understanding the deeper questions of life.  And to anyone who has ever felt uncomfortable in a church setting (I know there are a LOT of you out there!). But I also recommend this because it’s a mystery, a quest story, a love story, and an outstanding read.  Some of it is also HILARIOUSLY funny.

I have to warn you that this is the first of at least two books.  This one is satisfying as a stand-alone read, but I did really want to dig into the next one to see what happens next.  I’m sure it will be surprising, because nothing about this first one ever followed any predictable path.  I also want to share with you that this has kept me thinking deeply since the first time I read it.  Richard Rohr is right when he calls this a “wild hope for a tame world.”

Please, go read this book! 

I received a review copy of The Secrets of Leaven from Speakeasy.com.