Odd Man (sic?) Out Again

As it goes on the web, one thing led to another until I was taking a survey comparing myself to other Americans on religious measures. (If you want to join the fun go to the bottom of the page at The Association or Religion Data Archives).

The result that most caught my attention came from the question asking if I think God is a he. Of course I said (any guesses....?) that I strongly disagree. Hope I didn't shock too many of you too badly.

What surprised me was how many women matching my age group, education level and who identified as Protestant differ in perspective from me.

• Those who disagree (7%) or strongly disagree (15%) that God is a he total 22%.
• Those undecided are 26%.
• Those who agree or strongly agree that God is a he total 52%

That got me to wondering about those of the same demographic but of no religion. On this measure I'd fit in better there.

• Those who don't think God is a he are 67%.
• Undecided 21%.
• Those who think God is a he are 12%

I'm tempted to make so much more comment on this.....but I'm afraid to do it here in such a one way form of potentially public communication...too much potential for button pushing and misunderstanding.

Want to talk further? Let me know. This and so many other topics of even greater importance deserve open honest conversation that they too rarely get.

A Banner Day

Today, through various means, initially including what appears to be a chance circumstance, I found two poems that made a significant impression on me way back in high school, that I haven't known where to find, and lyrics to a song that I find quite intriguing.

If you're interested or care to indulge me, they are:

William Carlos Williams, "The Red Wheelbarrow"

Countee Cullen, "Any Human to Another"

Dar Williams, "The Christians and the Pagans"

Isolation

Yesterday I was recognized for a mile mark in years of service with my current employer. Wow - I've known some of the people I work with for a long time! Even some of the co-workers who I've only known for a short part of my tenure are people with whom I've spent many many hours. And I think I spend more time in the room in which I work at my paid job than I spend in any other space than my bed.

In contrast, I spend little bits of time with parents, children and others at church. (Not to mention my limited time with my own family, but thats a separate topic, sort of.) I experience increasingly good connections in those times. But they seem so limited and undeveloped. I want so much more.

I want to quit my job and study theology, work out a whole bunch of ideas I have for children's and family ministry at church, and connect with other parents and ministers and people of my faith and of other faiths and of no faith at all. I want to engage in all sorts of this kind of endeavor. I want to be able to dedicate time to this - without stealing it from so many other parts of my life and I want to be able to dedicate enough time to this to make more than the little bit of slow progress I seem to be able to make.

But even if I quit my job to do that (which I don't really consider a viable option, just a dream), would it really work? Where are the people to connect with? I'm an introvert, so I can sit here at my computer or go over to church and have a good time doing all kinds of projects all by myself. But in the end, much of my goal is to have something together as a community. And how can I have or develop that community based on the little snatches of time that myself or any of the rest of us can muster to spend time connecting in one form or the other?

Some good things are happening and I guess I just have to keep at it....keep building on those...and I plan to....but right now I'm impatient, frustrated, discouraged, questioning.

Anybody have any perspective? The same or different?

Ashes

What if instead of a priest giving us all ashes, we gave them to each other?
What if we shared them as paritioners one to another?
What if we were given our ashes by the people closest to us? By the oldest or youngest in our family?
What if we were to impose ashes on those closest to us?
What if we shared the ashes as neighbors or friends?
What if ashes were shared among strangers on the bus?

We are all dust and to dust we shall return.

Do You Hate Lent?

Are you familiar with the perspective of church as a judgemental, condemning place where one is coerced into submission to perscribed beliefs and obligations (or guilt for not submitting)?

In contrast, this year as Lent starts I'm thinking about faith and church as providing a safe place to admit struggles, sins and shortcomings. The degree to which that ideal is realized of course varies. But I think the degree to which I'm able to make those admissions is largely based in my faith. And I think I need to let my faith help me make more of those admissions.

It's not about condemnation or self abasement. It's not about taking on undue guilt of one form or the other. It's not about an emphasis on the negative.

It's about being able to stop being defensive. It's about being able to be honest. It's about being able to let go. It's about the liberation and life that can enter oneself and one's relationships when we're able to admit our role in problems and conflicts instead of building up walls of defense from which we throw grenades of blame.

It becomes about living the liturgy in daily life.

• What if I asked my spouse to remind me through Lent that we are dust and to dust we will return?
• What if in the midst of an arguement I set aside blaming the other (even if they are to blame for something) and admitted my role in the problem?
• What if we regularly exhanged peace at home?
• What if we understood our dinner table as a place to seek and identify with Jesus, the meanings of his life, death, resurrection and the Spirit in and surrounding us?
• Would we go in peace to love and serve? By the time Easter comes, would we find ourselves rejoicing in the power of the Spirit?

A Share in a Priestly Office

I'm not going to bother to get this post all refined, because if I do it will probably never get posted. So, take it for what it is....a few thoughts that I think are meaningful & relevant, but that are not well edited for the level of precision and balance that my perfectionism (or some equally difficult quality) tends to compel me toward.

I'm reading "The Gnostic Gospels" by Elaine Pagels. In the chapter "God the Father/God the Mother" she writes (pg 60):

"Worst of all, from Irenaeus' viewpoint, Marcus invited women to act as priests in celebrating the eucharist with him: he 'hands the cups to women' to offer up the eucharistic prayer, and to pronounce the words of consecration."

And she quotes Tertullian as saying:

"These heretical women - how audacious they are! They have no modesty, they are bold enough to teach , to engage in argument, to enact exorcisms, to undertake cures, and, it may be, even to baptize!"

Wow - I wonder what the experiences of these women were like! Its exciting to have the threads of equality and liberation for women go back this far, while discouraging to find such appalling views related to women as the mainstream of our heritage. (And it still shows of course.) It's remarkable in the face of the fact that the issue seems to have been at hand back in the early days of Christianity, that ordination of women has been very much an issue within my lifetime. (I'm well aware as I say this, that there are those who have a very different perspective on this and who would see me as very misled from God's will for my life and role in saying this. I'm tempted to go on about my experiences in such settings...but that would be a digression.)

But yet another quote brings me to an even more widely reaching issue. The quote from Tertullian, referring to the 'precepts of ecclesiastical discipline concerning women' says:

"It is not permitted for a woman to speak in the church, nor is it permitted for her to teach, nor to baptize, nor to offer [the eucharist], nor to claim for herself a share in any masculine function - not to mention any priestly office."

This makes me wonder, who are we now excluding from a share in priestly office?

Obviously the controversy in so many churches regarding ordination (to various offices) of people who are gay or lesbian comes to mind.
But think further.

• What if the person offering the eucharist next Sunday was a homeless person?
• What if it was a lay person?
• What if it was a child?
• What if it was the person next to you in the pew?
• What if it was you?
• What if it was a Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Catholic, Baptist...?

Who bears the image of Christ in our midst that we are failing to see, failing to let serve us, or failing to honor and bless?

The City - Being Killers or Keepers

Okay, I can't seem to get these published in the right order. So if you would, please go DOWN to the post "The City - Able, Cain & Enoch - The Text" and read up from there. (The City - Being Killers or Keepers last).

So is the city a place of creativity, opportunity and positive things or a place of evil and ills?

My family of origin has some interesting stories related to members of the family who have gone to a town or city for employment, recreation, or other opportunities. One of the family's elders had concerns. The city was seen by this elder as a place where exposure to others with different beliefs and values might influence family members to immorality and other err.

Has it been? Of course I can't claim that all responses to situations in the city have been sinless. Furthermore, I don't think all family members would agree about which responses to count as a demonstration of downfall and which to count as demonstration of growth. But I see a lot of spiritual growth and good that has come through first hand exposure, and in some cases the good fortune of friendship, with the "other" that the streets of the city have connected me with.

The city's concrete moves me away from nature, but it connects me with people of diverse experience, belief and perspective. This too is a spiritual issue that connects us with deep and basic things. Too often such differences lead members of the human family to be their brother's competitor or even killer as Cain was. The city affords us many opportunities to make choices that perpetuate our separation from those who differ from us, or that help us be each other's keepers.

In the middle of this city, in our Garden of Gethsemane, how do we do that? How else can we do that?

The City - From Eden to a New Place

I'm starting to wonder if this might be another story of departure from Eden. Maybe the land Cain was cut off from was the land of Eden. He went to live in a place wandering east of Eden. He was cut off from the land of the garden, where nature and humanity had lived in sync for a time, where God and people had walked together and where people were to be their brother's keeper. Cain had not been his brother's keeper. He was his brother's competitor and killer. As a result Able's blood cries out to God from the ground, Cain is under a curse and driven from the ground. It seems an interesting parallel to Adam and Eve being driven from the garden.

But Cain's anticipation of hopeless vulnerable wandering doesn't appear to happen. Most obviously God gives him a mark of protection. But note also, Cain doesn't seem to keep wandering. He establishes a family and builds a city. From that comes all kinds of things that we might regard as a mixture of good and bad, potential realized, failure and grace.

The City - Cut Off From the Land

Cain laments that he will be cut off from the land and cut off from God.

I have to wonder again about what the text means. What is "the land"? A certain part of land? An area of land in which to root oneself? The land of the earth itself?

To my ears, being cut off from the land, and eventually ending up in a city, as Cain did, makes me think of the differences in my relationship with the land and nature associated with my rural farm upbringing and my current city life.

In the city I'm not sure where to go to see the sunset on the horizon. City light obscures the stars. I dare to go out in blizzards and drive around with tornadoes a few miles away. Rain determines whether or not a put on a jacket, not when I go to work in a field or whether or not there is a crop.

In the city my perception of location and how to get from point A to point B is not shaped by trees, rocks and animal paths as it might have been in older times or more remote places than I have lived. Neither is it framed by the gravel mile roads of the rural area that is still partly home to me. Rather it closes in, proscribed block by block by concrete that moves my feet & heart that much farther from the earth.

In spite of the strengths of the city that I value, I'm always torn. Maybe someday I'll return to the country. Why knows. I don't like being this removed from the land. It's not just an aesthetic or recreational issue. It's a spiritual issue. Earth, air and water are old and basic to our being, both physically and otherwise. Consider their role in our creation story. Our natural selves (in a good sense of the word) resonate with them. Connecting with them connects us to something old, deep, vast and basic. The freeways and sidewalks, 35W, 4th Ave S, new streets in the outer suburbs, are new and short lived. Their origins, in this part of the world, connect us back a few years to a century or so. That's more meaningful and worthwhile than we often realize. But it isn't the same. Could this be why Cain complained of being cut off from the land and being cut off from God almost in the same breath?

But there is the other side....evidence of hope in the text and experience of spiritual connections brought through the city. More on that in another post.

The City - Able, Cain & Enoch - The Text

This post & the 3 below (no, make that above...) go together are related to a post on The Vicar's Page about the City, especially as referenced in Gen 4.

The Cain & Able story doesn't make clear why God accepted Able's offering but not Cain's. As far as I can tell Cain made a good faith offering & God rejected it. That bothers me, and if I were Cain, I would be even more upset about it. But would I go kill my brother over it? I don't think so.

The more I think about it the more it seems that at some point thousands of years ago the tellers & hearers of this story must have had a context that gave them more, or at least different things, to go on to understand the story. Reading a few things I could quickly find raises some interesting ideas (the story might related back to a Sumerian mythology, it might be a priestly statement about what kinds of offerings are prefered, it might represent a conflict between hersmen & agrarian oriented people, there's midrash about Cain & Able's conflict having been over women, there are implications about the names & occupations of Cain's children, .....etc.) Interesting and worthwhile, but it hasn't left me with clarity about how to grasp on to this text.

The reference to a city in the text had not stuck in my memory before. What does it mean? Why was it included in the text? I'm not sure. But with that disclaimer, I'll forge boldly ahead to my next post about what I pick up on with my own 2008 perspective.

The City as a the place we work out our corporate life - intro to my reflections

I said in a comment on Aron's blog, The Vicar's Page that I would take a stab at writing about some of the contexts in which I've reflected about the meanings and implications of city. This was spurred by an idea that he says has been sticking with him & that he intends to write about and that I find interesting: that the city is the context in which we work out our corporate life.

I realized when I came here to do that writing that writing about all those contexts at once would end up being a long unengaging blah, blah, blah that no one would want to read.

So, I'll see if I can do any better by writing about one of those contexts at a time. Next post will be the first of them.

I'd though I'd go on to that next post now, but I'm losing energy for it at the moment. Aron only did an intro to the topic, so I'll consider it fair to leave my comments at that level too for now. (Aron, you can consider this as support to keep up your resolution....and as you do your weekly post, I'll comment and/or add a city oriented post here.)

Spiritually Transformative Stories

Hearing each other's stories is important.

When you just hear some one's position on something, you might agree, you might disagree, it might happen to strike you, or you might be unengaged.

But when you hear their story.....when you start to understand their experience and how it has shaped them & their perspectives.....that's where there's great potential for spiritual transformation.

Hearing each other's stories offers potential for learning new things about who we are, who those around us are, what our culture is, who or what God is, how those things interact and the ways we fit into that web (or that constellation, that metaphorical city, that collection of slime mold...)

Mother Banjo

Listen to someone familiar here. (The address was in the newspaper.)

Is there a way to have her do music for some Sunday morning services?!

Oboe, Piano, Taize, Hymns

I really liked Beth's oboe music in church today. I'd like to hear more of it. Maybe she could be asked to solo sometimes.

I liked the piano music during communion. It was contemplative which seems good to me in that time.

During the sermon when Aron sang (I think a Taize song, that I knew & that was one simple repeated line.) I sort of wished he'd keep singing it and we could all sing along.

I liked singing a couple of the hymns that were old familiar ones I've known for years & made positive associations with long ago. Some of the words I liked, some I wasn't so sure about & some I want to go back & think about some more. But regardless they rang a bell that I liked.

Community with Aquaintances

One thought led to another & it occurred to me just now that in the 5-6 years I've been at Gethsemane, I've never been in the home of anyone from the congregation and no one from the congregation has been in my home (nor have I invited them to be). In fact, in terms of anything that "counts," I can't recall that I've ever done anything with anybody from church outside the walls of the church.

I have some good conversations at church. I have some personal conversations at church. I have some good connections with certain people at church. And yes, a community does include acquaintances. But I think it should also include people with whom one has closer or more developed relationships than I have at Gethsemane at this point. I wonder if its just me, or if lots of us are in the same boat.

I've had experiences, in a couple other churches, where there were very specific efforts to establish community that, though entirely well intended, and in some cases with very good results, I've had some tensions with. There have been times in my life when community was not what I was seeking through church, and not what I wanted to be pushed into at church. I think for where I was at in my life at those points that was fine. I assume others are at that point at some times too and I'm fine with that. Even at times when I was quite open to building relationships and community, some of the programmed efforts to establish it rubbed me the wrong way. Though programs may be needed to facilitate community, I think true community is organic more than programmed. When I don't feel this is adequately recognized and accounted for I bristle.

That said, nearly 6 years at Gethsemane without more development of relationships seems to be out of balance. What's up with this? In part I know. My social life has been in sorry state pretty much the whole time since I've had kids, if not longer. My sense of openness or flexibility to schedule any number of things that I might have in the past has gone by the wayside. My work schedules have been outside the mainstream norm for a large part of the last 9 years. In addition to these & other factors on my side, I don't think we've made a point to create as many opportunities at Gethsemane as some churches do.

What would happen if I could manage to make a point to create some opportunities, either formal & programmed or informal & personal? Would people have the inclination to respond? Would people have space in their lives to respond? I hope so. I know there is a lot to be gained in many ways on many levels. And selfishly (to be honest, of course this better reflects my felt motivation) sometimes I get very busy & very full of all kinds of stuff (ideas, excitement, questions, issues....) that grows out of working on children's & family ministry and out of parenting and I feel too alone with it.

Diverse Events with Overlapping Themes

A lot of things I've been exposed to lately seem to fit together.

Planning for All Saints Day at church got me thinking about things passed on generation to generation - all kinds of things in all kinds of time frames.

I found wonderful books on the theme at the library (more on them another time hopefully). Some highlight how as things are passed on they both stay the same and change.

That reminds me of the Speaking of Faith podcast Aron's post prompted me to listen to, and the ways scripture and tradition are both the same and different as we continue to interact with them.

I went to a presentation by Marie Olofsdotter and students at my kids' school. Olofsdotter has recently been an artist in residence there. She read Sofia and the Heart Mender. There were several exciting connections I experienced during the event - some highlighted the theme above, one in a personal way. Another came from her book which I want to read again thinking about themes related to the immanence of God that have been on my mind because of the discussion of "The God We Never Knew" in the Gethsemane Book Group.

I also caught a snatch of a Radio Lab broadcast about memory. They claimed that when we remember something, we're not remembering the original event, but remembering the last time we remembered it, recreating the memory and reinterpreting for the present time. Fascinating implications for this whole idea of things being passed on generation to generation.

Music I Love

Two rather different examples of music that inclines me to external stillness and internal reflection of a meditative nature.

• The Irish Brigade's tunes. (Play the reels on this site.) The tunes are wonderful in themselves and juxtaposed with war ballads and other songs with lyrics, those songs just become all the more powerful. Check the schedule at The Half Time Rec for a chance to hear the live version.
• Busy organ music. If the postlude at church isn't enough, try listening to Pipe Dreams.

My tastes run much wider than this, but these have recently been in my ear and on my mind.

Movie: For The Bible Tells Me So

Do you know about this one? For The Bible Tells Me So is at the Lagoon through Oct 18.

It's a documentary having to do with Christianity, scripture and sexual identity. Stories told by members of 5 families, including Bishop Gene Robinson and others in his family, make up the bulk of the film.

I saw if Friday. I recommend seeing it. There's more worth being said about it. Hopefully I can get to that. For now I at least wanted to say this much since the opportunity to see it appears limited.

Book Discussion: The God We Never Knew

If you've found your way here, but not to the Gethsemane Book Group, check it out. We're discussing topics from "The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion to a More Authentic Contemporary Faith" by Marcus Borg.

I've read the book & had trouble getting through some of it efficiently because I was so busy underlining and making notes and then getting lost in thought stemming from what I was reading. You know that feeling of finding something in writing that resonates with your views in a particularly rewarding or refreshing way? You know that other feeling of reading something that puts pieces together in a way you never thought of before and the little ah-ha light bulb goes on? Those are the kinds of experiences that made me so interested in this book.

If you only know Borg by reputation, I'd recommend checking his writing out for yourself. (And if you pick this book to do it with, don't misread the word panentheism and promptly end your exploration because you thought he said pantheism.)

Little Ah-Has

On the Trinity questions.

I've been reading The God We Never Knew by Marcus Borg. (Watch for an upcoming online book discussion on this.) He indicates the term persons in ancient texts doesn't mean separate individuals as we think of. Instead it refers to different roles. (pp. 97-98) This concept makes a lot more sense to me.

Second, in thinking about the traditional terminology of Father, Son & Holy Spirit and other terminology that is or might be use, I came upon this idea. I was trying out the gender neutral terms Parent, Child....but I didn't like that because child conveys the sense of a person who is not an adult whereas son is inclusive of all ages. This brought me to the term offspring. It may not be the most poetic term, but it triggered something in me.

At first the idea of offspring seemed a bit objectionable. God is God and God having offspring, or that offspring being Offspring with a capital O (that is God), seemed to be a lowering or compromise of the concept of God. Though the same issue exists with the concept of father and son, I hadn't had the same clarity about it until I thought in terms of parent and offspring.

Then I realized that maybe the concept of Offspring is the point. Its not that it lowers the concept of God, rather it elevates the concept of Offspring, broadens the concept of God and fits together with a few things that make sense to me that I hadn't been able to put together before. Offspring God emanates from Parent God, but its still all the same - its all God. I sense possible connections to the relational, communal aspect of the trinity, to panentheism (no, that's not a typo of pantheism, that's a different thing), to what's reflected in the Holy Trinity icon I wrote about before, to the immanence of God, to creation - both past and continuing...

This is exciting.

I'll have to live and work with this a lot more to become more clear on which of these connections hold up and how those that do work out, not to mention to get to a point to be able to talk or write about it more clearly. For now I hope someone reading this has a sense of what I mean.