UNFINISHED CHRISTIAN

A GOOD ARTICLE ABOUT HOW TO READ THE BIBLE

2011-09-02T04:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-small/mythology-and-the-bible_b_898253.html

My TREK to Everest: THE MOVIE

2011-07-20T12:59:00.000-07:00

FIRST VIEW OF EVEREST,by the dawn's early light

2011-06-10T08:01:00.000-07:00

On May 14th, I arose at 5 am. to walk to a vantage point above NAMCHE BAZAAR to try for my first view of MT.EVEREST, with LHOTSE to its immediate right (the 4th highest mountain in the world), and AMA DABLAM on the far right in this clip. NUPSTE is in front of EVEREST.

THANKFULLY it wasn't foggy and we got a great view!

THE MUSIC is a Buddhist mantra: Om mani padme hum... translations vary but literally: THE JEWEL IN THE LOTUS and is associated with the bodhisattva of compassion. I heard this version all over Kathmandu and bought the CD there.

ARRIVING IN EVEREST BASE CAMP (17,600 ft.)

2011-06-04T16:28:00.000-07:00

ON MAY 20TH, 2011, WE WALKED INTO EBC ABOUT 9 AM. HAVING LEFT LOBUCHE( 16,207 ft..) AT 5 AM. IT WAS A DEMANDING TREK, MADE ALL THE MORE SO BY A SIGNIFICANT SNOWFALL THE NIGHT BEFORE THAT LEFT THE BOULDERS AND ROCKS WE HAD TO WALK ON COVERED WITH A BLANKET OF THE WHITE STUFF THAT WE ARE ALL TOO FAMILIAR WITH IN OTTAWA.

I HAD NO IDEA AT THE TIME, BUT I WOULD LEARN 9 DAYS LATER, ON MAY 29TH, AT THE KATHMANDU AIRPORT, THAT ON THAT VERY DAY, AROUND THE SAME TIME, VERONIQUE DENYS OF QUEBEC CITY, WAS SUMMITING MT.EVEREST. SHE HAD PERFORMED THIS AMAZING FEAT BY HERSELF! ( with two sherpa) . I HAD THE HONOUR OF MEETING HER - BY CHANCE... I HAD SPOKEN TO HER WHEN I NOTICED THAT SHE WAS QUIETLY WEEPING AS SHE STOOD BEHIND ME IN THE CHECK-IN LINE, HAVING NO IDEA WHO SHE WAS, ONLY THAT SHE WAS UPSET, AND BEING A MINISTER...WELL, IT WAS A NATURAL THING FOR ME TO TRY AND CONSOLE HER. SHE WAS VERY GRACIOUS AND KIND. AND SHE ESPECIALLY WARMED TO ME WHEN WE DISCOVERED THAT HER SUMMIT DAY WAS MY "SUMMIT" DAY... I HAD NOTED IT AS SUCH IN MY DIARY ( AND ASKED VERONIQUE TO AUTOGRAPH IT., WHICH SHE DID , WITH A SMILE). WE SAT TOGETHER ON OUR 5 HOUR FLIGHT TO BAHRAIN - WHAT A GREAT EXPERIENCE FOR ME!

SUMMITING KALA PATTAR (18,200 ft.) May 21,2011

2011-06-01T19:56:00.000-07:00

AFTER BEING FOGGED OUT AT BASE CAMP ON MAY 20th ... I HAD A PERFECT DAY TO TO SUMMIT KALA PATTAR ( "Black Rock") .

THIS DAY WAS CERTAINLY THE HIGH POINT, BOTH LITERALLY AND METAPHORICALLY, OF MY TREK IN THE HIGH HIMALAYAS OF NEPAL.

THE PATH TO TENGBOCHE ( trekking in the Himalayas)

2011-06-01T19:06:00.000-07:00

RETURNING TO KATHMANDU AFTER REACHING EVEREST BASE CAMP

( May 20th) AND SUMMITING, KALA PATTER ( May 21st) WE HEAD "DOWN" (SORT OF) -- ACTUALLY UP AND DOWN-- TO THE HOLY VILLAGE OF TENGBOCHE WITH ITS FABULOUS MONASTERY AND CHANTING MONKS. GREEN COMES BACK INTO MY LIFE, BUT ALREADY THE SNOW-CAPPED GIANTS ARE RECEDING FROM MY SIGHT.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

2011-02-28T07:54:00.000-08:00

A SERMON PREACHED AT MACKAY UNITED CHURCH, FEBRUARY 27, 2011

In the Middle Ages, science and religion were fundamentally the same thing.
Scientific inquiry in that era was more like philosophy, focused on why things happen, not how.
But in the 17th century, Galileo began to observe through a telescope how things actually happen in the heavenly bodies, and science came into its own.
He argued for Copernicus’ idea that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the universe and for this he was placed under house arrest by the church for the remainder of his life and forced to renounce the Copernican theory.

Science and religion were alienated ever since, that is until the dawn of the 20th century when a major paradigm shift occurred in science due to new and startling scientific revelations made by the likes of Einstein's theories of General and Special Relativity, quantum mechanics and Hubble's expanding universe theory,which Stephen Hawking called "one of the great intellectual revolutions of the twentieth century".

I re-read read Stephen Hawkings’ book, A Brief History of Time awhile ago.
I was amazed then to find that our generations’ closest approximation to Einstein uses the word “God” in his discussions of the origin and destiny of the universe.
Hawking even goes so far as to say that he is attempting to understand the “mind of God”

To find this scientific genius able to even find a place in his discussion of the cosmos for "God", is, I think, symbolic of the way the uneasy relationship between science and religion has dramatically changed.
I've been finding many scientists who, to use the words of the late Carl Sagan, take a "humble view" when it comes to trying to articulate the relationship between the mysteries of the universe and the idea of a “God”.

And all this comes at a time when some corners of the Christian church, namely fundamentalist corners, have declared war on evolutionary biology and the worldview it now demands.
What are we Christians to make of these new developments in science?
Can a Christian really be a thinking person who can maintain our faith, and still take seriously the real world, the factual world, that science is revealing to us?
Or must we always split our thinking into two camps – the emotive and mystical experiences of a God who creates all things; and, on the other side, the rational, intellectual, critical thinking we bring to bear on scientific questions that, for some, seem to leave no room for a Creator God, Spirit, Ultimate Reality, or whatever term you want to use.
In other words, can Christians be as comfortable with the affirmations of the science laboratory as we are with those of the Bible and Tradition?

For me, the answer is a resounding YES! I find this extremely exhilarating... I feel like I'm going thru yet another pardigm shift in my spiritual journey.

Science need not be regarded as the enemy of religion or spirituality.
On the contrary, science can greatly enhance our faith.
And my hope is that the emerging spirituality of our postmodern world may help to give meaning to the mysteries of the universe for the person of science.
As William Grassie points out:
"How to interpret the Epic of Evolution is neither obvious nor simple. It requires romantic vision and philosophical vigour. It requires appropriate metaphysical concepts and inspiring artistic forms. The Epic of Evolution requires an interpretive community that seeks to integrate knowledge and wisdom from across the disciplinary boundaries of our compartmentalized modern university and our fragmented postmodern society... Many of the frameworks best able to interpret the Epic of Evolution are already present in the world's spiritual traditions."

Where did we come from?
This is a religious question, but it is also a science question.
In the beginning, the Bible tells us, God created the heavens and the earth.
And over six days, God created earth and sea, stars and creeping things, fish and foul, the four-legged beasts and then, finally, the two-legged ones: man and woman.
That's the Bible story, the Creation story in the first chapter of Genesis that many of us grew up with.
But there is more than one Biblical account of the beginning of time and history.
We're all familiar with the account in the first chapter of Genesis....
But did you know, in the second chapter of Genesis, there is a second version.

It is not a 7 day account, but a story of a murky, misty, watery place – soggy and wet – where God forms man from the dust of the ground and then later, as a kind of after thought, woman from his rib.
Together they have two sons – Cain and Abel, who take wives who come from.... we're not sure! Where did their wives come from, we may want to ask.
The Bible doesn't tell us because it's not that kind of story.

The biblical account of Creation is not, and was never meant to be, a scientific account of creation.
It is a mythical account of creation, not, and, never meant to be taken literally.
My fundamentalist brothers and sisters won't agree with me.
But by taking the Bible literally, they have a problem.

Never mind what science tells us about our origins; if you want to be a biblical literalist, you already have a problem with the Bible account , because the Bible has more than one version of how the earth and its inhabitants came to be!Which one is right, if both are literally true?

Now, place against those accounts of creation from Genesis, another account, this one from science.
The creation story of science goes something like this.
About 13.7 billion years ago, something enormous beyond measure took place in the vastness of space, except that it is meaningless to speak of space at that moment because the universe had a zero size – what scientists call a “singularity” -- when nothing existed, not even time.
It was infinitely hot – infinite in scientific terms, that is.
The universe, consisting of hydrogen and helium, imploded and then exploded suddenly, and following this big bang, it began to cool.
In the first second, its temperature decreased to about 10 billion degrees.
Within a few hours, the production of helium and other elements stopped and the universe stayed the same for the next million years or so.
Eventually our sun formed out of rotating gas about 5 billion years ago and a few bits were thrown off to form planets, one of which was Earth.
The earth continued to cool, until about 3.75 million years ago, on the continent of Africa, a hominoid form stood up for the first time – and our backs have been aching ever since!
Two million years ago, members of the Homo Habilis, the first members of the human family, walked on the lush savannahs of Africa, inventing tools – tools that would one day take us to the moon and Mars.

These are three quite different stories about the origin of the universe – all constructs because no human eye was present to observe the first minutes of time and history.
But there is a fundamental difference between the Bible story and the story of science.
The difference being -- the former we believe to be true and the latter we know to be true.
Or, as Michael Dowd puts it in the book we are discussing in our BOOK STUDY: THANK GOD FOR EVOLUTION, the Biblical story of creation is private revelation based on faith or trust; the science story is public revelation based on data or facts.

The scientific and biblical stories of creation are not in contradiction because they are dealing with different levels of understanding and knowledge.
Only if you interpret the Bible literally, as the infallible words of God, literally ture in all matters, are you forced to deny the facts of science.
There are millions of Christians who DO believe this , and millions who DO NOT.

Physicists use observations like red-shifted spectra and theories like relativity and quantum mechanics to come to their conclusions about how things happen.
All their theories are time-tested and meticulously peer reviewed to come up with answers as to HOW THINGS ARE WHAT THEY ARE.
Scientists know full well that you never never “proof” anything 100%. As Hawking says:

"Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense it is only a hypothesis: you can never proove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be surer that the next time the result will not contrdict the theory".
Of course, this would apply to theories like heliocentricty - the earth revolves around the sun-- which most people agree is pretty certain. Still, we cannot "proove" it.

CHECK THIS OUT : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIm2H0ksawg

More facts may indeed shift our knowledge, as has always been the case.... knowledge EVOLVES along with everything else.

Our relgious answers to theological questions evolve too, as does our interpretation of the Bible.

But here's the rub: Science is analytical narrative; religion is poetic or metaphoric narrative....Science and religion are telling the story in different ways and both stories are important and necessary.

As Albert Einstein put it: “ SCIENCE WITHOUT RELIGION IS LAME; RELIGION WITHOUT SCIENCE IS BLIND”

With science and religion we have two different forms of “knowing”, expressing two different modes of truth.
Still, some people insist on asking which is “right”. So much of our history has been about the battle over who is right – science or religion, as if one had to be wrong.

There are Christians and scientists who still want to perpetuate this battle.
Some corners of the Christian fundamentalist church would like to publish school text books that place the Biblical version of how the earth began alongside the “big bang” evolutionary theory of science in the classrooms, as if we were comparing apples to apples.
The truth is, religion and science are apples and oranges...and BOTH ARE GOOD FOR YOU!

It’s wrong to insist that a Christian must choose between the scientific story or the Biblical story any more than one has to choose between apples and oranges!

Christians need both the scientific story and the Biblical story. They are mutually enhancing.

What are the stories of creation in the book of Genesis?
They are affirmations of faith; expressions of belief, stories intended to affirm who or what stands behind all that is, namely “God”.

This “GOD” is understood in many ways in the biblical account.
In fact, we can see how the concept of God actually evolves in the Bible itself, culminating, for Christians at least, in the man Jesus,who points us to a God of compassion, radical grace and justice for all, a God quite different from the one desribed in parts of the Old Testament.

The biblical accounts are not intended to explain how things came to be, other than to say God did it and God delighted in it.
So when the Bible clearly stands against established scientific fact ( ie the earth is round not flat, and revolves around the sun, not vice versa) then we either have to admit the Bible is wrong, or we need to interpret it in a different way. This is often referred to as the principle of "accommodation" and it was espoused by the likes of St. Augustine in the 4th century, Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, and John Calvin in the 16th century, not to mention contempiorary theologians.

The Bible has no stake in any scientific version of cosmogenesis – the details of how things came to be.
The Biblical accounts don’t answer these questions and don’t intend to.

I don’t believe that a Christian has to leave intelligence or scientific knowledge at the sanctuary door, hung up like a coat on the hanger, only to be put on again when the last hymn has been sung.
The Bible is not a science book.
Genesis is not physics or astronomy.
It is the story of faith speaking to faith,concerned with telling us not how but why we came to be, and who we are called to become.

If we are to worship God with all our heart and with all our mind, as Jesus said we should, and if the Truth will set us free, as Jesus said it would, then we should allow religion and science to have a place together in our understanding of life and the universe.
We should see these two, not as rivals, but as complementary.Christians should be worshipping and preaching and discussing with a Bible in one hand, and a copy of Science News in the other.

Christians have much to learn about God and the Truth from science; especially if we believe that God is still speaking truths to us today in the form of scientific revelations about the world and life in the universe, and through modern day prophets.
I think that our spirituality can be greatly enhanced by hearing the scientific account of the universe; by understanding how the universe operates and how it, and humanity , and everything else, has evolved through time.

Robert Jastrow, one of USA’s brightest NASA astronomers, teaching on the faculty of Columbia and Dartmouth universities, has written of the scientists’ unusual predicament as the questions of science intersect the issues of faith and theology.

He writes:
“Consider the enormity of the problem. Science has proven that the Universe exploded into being at a certain moment. If you ask,who,or what, put the matter and energy into the Universe, science cannot answer these questions because every particle of evidence has been destroyed in that explosion. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak. As he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

Instead of a “band of theologians”, Jastrow could just as easily have said, “ people of faith.”
People of faith who have been mystically led to the “top of the mountain” for centuries.
And the discovery people of faith have made on that mountain top is summed up in the hymn that we sing with the Psalmist:
“ the Heavens proclaim the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims God's handiwork. There is no speech, no words are spoken, yet their voice goes out through all the earth”.

NEW GATHERING @ MACKAY

2011-02-09T12:27:00.000-08:00

Tired or turned off by

church or “God”: doctrine,

dogma or organ music?

A new radically inclusive

contemporary

and

progressive gathering

Ottawa

We’re not quite sure

what we’re going to evolve into,

but come join us on our

journey...

Drumming

Coffee

Paint Your Faith

Prayer

Music

Dialogue

Where: Mackay United Church 39 Dufferin Road, Ottawa

Bus #9 from Hurdman or Downtown takes you right there

Launch: Sunday February 13^th @ 6:30pm

Open Hearts ǀOpen Doors ǀOpen Minds

Facebook.com/evolve

Evolveottawa.blogspot.com

evolveottawa@gmail.com

EVOLVE / Évoluer

· MacKay United Church |

Église Unie MacKay

We affirm the equality of all

· Nous affirmons l’egalité de chaque personne

PROCESS THEOLOGY: Q & A

2011-02-08T14:04:00.000-08:00

What Is PROCESS Theology?

A Conversation with Marjorie

By Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki©Process & Faith 2003

What is Process Theology?

1. In a nutshell, what did you say it is?

Well, some nuts are hard to crack, but try this: Process theologies are relational ways of thinking about the dynamism of life and faith. Process-relational theologians integrate implications of a thoroughly interdependent universe into how we live and express our faith. We are

convinced that everything is dynamically interconnected; that everything matters; that everything has an

effect. Such insights can be adapted to many faith traditions, but this particular booklet applies them to Christian faith.

2. Is there a difference between process theology and process-relational theology?

No, I am using the terms interchangeably.“Process” indicates the dynamism in this way of thinking, and “relational” indicates the supposition of radical interdependence.

3. What sources do process (or process- relational) theologians use?

Like many Christian theologians, we draw from Scripture, the long faith tradition, philosophical categories, and our own experience. The philosophical categories we use are those of process philosophy, especially as developed by Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. But I caution you to notice (should you decide to

investigate further!) that these sources and categories can be used by process-relational theologians in a great variety of ways!

You will find that within Christianity, process philosophy has appealed most to liberals, but there are also evangelicals who find it useful. Some Unitarians use process philosophy without appropriating much from Christian scripture or tradition. Further, Jewish and Buddhist thinkers have made use of process philosophy, operating with quite different scriptures and traditions. My answers here reflect my personal experience as a committed “oldline” Protestant who finds rich meaning in the affirmations and symbolism of the Christian tradition, but sees the need for quite radical revision of some inherited teachings. Thus this booklet presents a Christian process theology that makes the most sense

to me, but you will find some of these other ways of developing process theology in the attached bibliography.

4. But aren’t Scripture and tradition clear enough to stand on their own?

To study the history of any faith tradition is to see how that faith adapts to the “common sense” of its particular time and place. Tradition is like a flowing river that continuously carves out new paths. Once I saw a detailed map that showed how the Mississippi River had continuously changed its course throughout its history. It still goes down to the sea, but how it goes down to the sea

is a varied story. It’s the same with tradition. It all leads to the expression of God’s work with us, but how it expresses that work varies from age to age. If we stare at a single spot in tradition, and see it as if it were the entirety of it, we get the illusion that tradition stands still. It’s tempting to reduce the whole tradition to what happened at Nicea in the 4th century, or with Aquinas in the 13th century, or Luther in the 16th, or Wesley in the 18th. But the tradition is much richer than any single period! It is constantly moving, and we who are a part of that tradition are responsible for knowing how it has developed, and for contributing to its contemporary flow.

The same is true of biblical understanding. The texts are given, but how they are interpreted varies enormously from age to age. Just think of the way several great streams of Christianity interpret those baptismal texts! The texts are the same; the interpretations are quite varied and even contradictory. So how we draw from Scripture is also an adventure. Scriptural understanding blends studies of the actual texts together with the history of the way those texts have been interpreted in the tradition. Scripture may look like a steady state sort of thing, but it is actually a dynamic story of varying interpretations and applications through history.

Both Scripture and tradition are formative for the Christian tradition, deeply contributing to the changing shapes of Christian theology. But in using Scripture and tradition, we all use other categories to help us interpret them—even when we think we are not! Process-relational theologians join those who claim we should be clear about how experience and philosophical suppositions affect the way we interpret Scripture and tradition.

5. But doesn’t that dilute Scripture and the tradition?

Philosophy (the methodical use of reason to interpret the world and/or our experience within it) has always been involved in interpreting Scripture and creating the tradition. It’s not a question of whether philosophy will be used, but which philosophy will be used! Process people think that Scripture speaks deeply about a relational world to whom and with whom God also relates. So why not use a philosophy that is relational—like process philosophy?

6. And experience, please?

Theology is always filtered through one’s own experience! One of the great differences in theology since the 19th century is that we increasingly began to recognize the role of our own subjective experience in how we develop theology. On the one hand, we always bring a perspective that is shaped by things such as our social location, our gender, our nationality, and so forth. But we

also bring our religious experiences into the mix—that is, our interpretation of the presence of God in our own lives. To ignore this experience is to pretend that theology is just some head trip that may or may not relate to the way we live.

So, then: scripture, tradition, reason, and experience all enter into the way process-relational theology is formed. It becomes the “stuff ” from which we express our faith that God is with us for our good.

7. So you use these four sources, but what exactly is process philosophy?

Process is a relational philosophy. There have been various relational ways of talking about the world since “way back when,” but most philosophers talked as if the ideal thing should be something solid that doesn’t depend on anything beyond itself. To be in relation was considered a lesser value than total self- sufficiency. In the 20th century we began to see that the ability to relate to another wasn’t just a happenstance of the way things are, but is the core of the way things are. To exist is to be in relation. Does God exist? If you say yes, then God must also be in relation. To whom? To everyone and everything!

The philosophy takes relationship a little bit further. Process thinking says that to be related to something is to be internally affected by that something, and to affect something else in turn. Relationship is itself a dynamic process! To exist is to be affected by others, and to have an effect on others. Again, does God exist? If you answer yes, then God is affected by others, and has effects on others. Which others? All others!

Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne are the two major philosophers of the 20th century who most fully developed this kind of philosophy. Process theologies usually draw from either or both of these philosophers.

8. So what does this mean for the way process- relational theologians talk about God? Is God still the Creator?

Of course! But as you might expect, how we talk about God as creator in relational categories differs from the “creation out of nothing” that has been so dominant in most of the Christian tradition. If God is in relation, then God is always in relation. Process does not have a way to talk about there being absolutely nothing except God. Process-relational thinkers tend to take Genesis 1 more seriously than does the tradition, for Genesis 1:1 does not speak of God existing independently and apart from anything else. In Genesis, there appears to be a primeval chaos with which God works, and from which God brings order—creation—into existence.

In the relational categories of process thought, God creates with the world. We actually think this is a much stronger way to express God’s power. A children’s fable once told about a rivalry between the wind and the sun. Which one would be able to remove the coat of that man down there on the road? The wind thought that it could, and so it blew and blew and blew with great force. Unfortunately, the strength of the wind was such that the man just drew his coat more firmly around himself. Then it was the sun’s turn. The sun just beamed its rays down upon the man until finally he grew quite warm—and removed his coat. In process terms, the wind worked coercively, trying to force its will upon the man, but the sun worked persuasively, luring the man’s cooperative action. To be able to elicit the willing cooperation of another is a far greater power than simply to force the other to do as one wishes.

God creates through persuasive power. Don’t we experience it that way? We don’t see God yanking things and people around as if they were puppets! The tradition accounts for this by saying that God gave people freedom. Process people think that freedom isn’t an occasional thing limited to just some aspects of creation, but that something like freedom pervades all existence. Every part of God’s creation has some element of freedom. What we call “freedom”

ranges from very low levels of indeterminately random events to very high levels of conscious decision-making. And there are many grades in between. God works with each element in existence, in every time and place, offering possibilities for achieving the good. Finally, the world determines what it does with God’s possibilities in every moment. Freedom means the ability to participate at some level in what one becomes.

If we take freedom seriously, then we must talk about three powers of creation. There is the power of the past, which simply means that where we are and when we are makes a difference to who we can become. We must take account of these past influences, because we simply do not exist in a vacuum. We exist relationally. In a sense, we take the creative influences of the past into ourselves in every moment.

But we also take the creative power of God into ourselves at every moment. In this second creative power, God offers us a future, a way of becoming oneself that is not quite like any other way ever achieved before. God’s creativity is the power of transformation, of hope, of a new future. God’s influence toward the future takes account of the past that affects us, offering a way of dealing with that past.

And the third creative power, of course, is ourselves. Finally, we decide what we will become. We are responsible for dealing with the actual past received from the world and the possible future received from God. The world as we know it is, in every moment, the end result of this creative process: the power of the past, which is the power of the world; the power of the future, which is the power of God, and the power of the present, which is our own power to integrate these influences into who we are becoming in every moment. Our freedom is to take these three creative powers and to use them. The choice of how we use them is ours.

So yes, God is by all means Creator, calling the world into existence in every moment. But God creates with the world, not independently of the world. The world enters into something like

a creative dance with God, emerging anew in every moment as it takes its past and God’s future into its becoming self.

9. Well, what about evil? Doesn’t evil ruin this notion of a “creative dance”?

Your question comes too quickly! What is evil? Is it the same as what we call sin? Traditionally, evil has been understood to be the destructiveness that seems to be built into the nature of things. Volcanoes, earthquakes, and hurricanes are not evil in themselves, but they certainly can have evil effects—“natural evil”—for living creatures! Illness and death have also been called “natural evils.” All living creatures are by definition mortal; hence all will die. Is this what you mean by evil? In a process universe, every creaturely becoming takes place in a myriad of other creaturely becomings. There is necessarily a measure of conflict built into the system, particularly given our interdependence. For process thinkers, this is all part of the dynamism that makes existence on our planet possible. Thus, the fact that sentient creatures experience pain is part of the price of our existence.

Sin, on the other hand, has been understood as moral evil, or choices that go against God’s will—“missing the mark” is a frequent biblical meaning for sin. The Christian tradition has often combined these two senses of natural and moral evil by suggesting that sin is the originating cause of all evil, including natural evils of calamity, illness, and death. While process theologians tend to agree with the “missing the mark” interpretation of moral evil, they disagree with the claim that moral evil is the reason why we have natural evils.

10. Do you mean that process theologians don’t hold with ‘Adam and Eve’?

Ah, Adam and Eve. A quick summation of the tradition might be helpful here to highlight some of the differences between process theologies and the long tradition of “original sin.” For much of Christian history, all sin and evil was traced to the disobedience of a first human pair. Their disobedience resulted in a corruption of

their very nature. Prior to this failure, Adam and Eve presumably lived rationally, so that their minds always governed what they felt and did. What they felt and did was always orderly and good in a perfect love for God, and love for the world in and through God. Following disobedience, this orderliness was overturned, and proper love lost. Consequently, Adam and all his progeny are afflicted with unruliness. The mind no longer governs the body rationally, and all manner of evils follow.

But process cannot follow this view. All the evidence suggests that humans are part of a great evolutionary process, and that God creates in and through this process. “Creative transformation” is another name for changes that emerge in evolution. Instead of talking about a perfect first human pair existing about 6000 years ago, we talk about the long evolutionary history of our race, and the role that aggression and violence have necessarily played in our development—sometimes for our good, sometimes not. But as relatively weak creatures on the animal scene, it was important for us to live by our wits, and to struggle for our food and shelter. The ability to fight was important to our survival, and we used it—and still use it—to shore up our defenses and build up our own interests. The capacity to do this takes many forms. In positive forms, we blend our own interests with the interests of the wider communities within the world. In negative forms, we secure our own interests against all others—greed and rapaciousness are illustrations of this. Process-relational thinkers affirm that God calls us beyond violence toward communities of well-being.

Another difference between process and traditional views concerns the role of reason. Like the tradition, process thinkers value reason highly, but not in the same hierarchical order. Reason is part of the mind-body integration of what it is to be human. Reason is valued as part of the whole of who we are. What threatens to overwhelm us is not our bodies or emotions—they are who we are!—but

our tendencies toward the many forms of violence. The tradition sought to control bodily urges and desires; process thinkers seek to control the human capacity for violence.

What, then, is sin in process views? It is, as the tradition claimed, “missing the mark.” And what is the mark? The mark would be the fullest development of what we can be, individually and communally, in expanding circles of caring to God, self, and neighbor. To talk about sin is to talk about the refusal of love from and to God and from and to neighbor and even from and to oneself. Still another way of talking about sin is to say it is unnecessary violence.

In a process view, one must talk about communal as well as individual sin. We live interdependently, and we act interdependently. Individual sins are magnified when exercised through our communal identities, creating great evils through such things as oppressive systems of exploitation, wars of aggression, economic systems based upon greed, or systematic decimation of our environment for the sake of profit.

Because we believe God is always calling us toward the good, we believe that God calls us toward transformation from violent ways of imposing our wills on other creatures toward ever-new cooperative ways of creating good on this earth. When we fail to heed God’s call, we fail to contribute as best we can to the commonwealth of all. This failure is sin. Sin—whether personal or societal—has ill effects that spiral beyond its origins in this interdependent world.

11. But you said God is related to the world. How does God relate to sin? Is this where traditional notions of “justification by faith” come in?

Process thinking holds that God is the most relational reality of all. If God relates to all the world, then human choices to damage others—be it humans, animals, or the environment—are felt by God. God feels everything that happens in just the way that it happens—God feels victims and violators. Our long tradition thought of God as observing evil, but not feeling it—indeed much of the tradition thought that God could not feel anything at all!

This was what the doctrine of “divine impassibility” was all about. But if God is relational, then God feels, and feels perfectly. The issue is not whether God feels the world, but what God does with God’s feelings of the world!

Think of the traditional Christian image of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. One part of the Christian tradition could not imagine that God could experience pain; therefore, it formulated theories of God’s abandonment of Jesus on that cross. The cross then became God’s wrath, poured down on the God-forsaken Jesus because he was bearing the sin of the world. Thus there is a strong element of the Christian tradition that views Jesus death as suffering inflicted by God on the God-Man Jesus instead of us as punishment for our sin. “Justification by faith” was taken to mean God’s action through Jesus of clearing the slate of sin for all who were united to Jesus through faith. Our sins were transferred to him, and therefore would no longer be counted against us.

Process-relational thinking need not go in this direction, for several reasons. First, we cannot separate God’s presence to the world even for a moment, much less for three hours on a cross. God was with Jesus on that cross. Second, to the extent that process-relational theologians view unnecessary violence as sin, violence cannot be that which saves us from sin! To attribute such action to God is like taking the most vile aspect of our own vengeful spite, and projecting it onto God.

How, then, do process-relational thinkers view that crucifixion? The Christian tradition is a many-splendored thing, and while viewing the cross as God punishing Jesus for our sins has achieved some dominance, it is by no means the only Christian response to the cross of Christ. Abelard, living in the twelfth century, argued that God saves us by revealing through Jesus Christ both God’s nature and that which human nature is called to be. This revelation is healing and empowering for us, and Christ becomes our teacher. Process thinkers tend to side with Abelard. Jesus reveals who God is to us and for us. The cross does not represent vicarious sacrifice, but the revelation that God is with us even in our deepest pain.

God feels us. Jesus did indeed suffer the pain of sin—crucifixion is a vile sin. Because it is morally evil to crucify persons, Jesus died because of sin. But this is different from saying that Jesus died for sin. Jesus reveals that the sins of all humans affect God. If God feels the world, then God feels the sins of the world. If Jesus is understood to be a representative of God, then by his crucifixion he reveals that God feels the effects of our sin.

12. So does the process God simply writhe in agony throughout eternity?

While God must feel the world, what God does with the felt world is entirely up to God! Because of the philosophy we use, we relational theologians can maintain that God judges evil within God’s own nature, and transforms evil through this judgment. God integrates the feelings of the world into God’s own self, transforming those feelings in the process until they are conformed to the divine character. If the Christian tradition speaks of God in crucifixion, it does not stop there—it speaks of resurrection. Process theologians think of God as the resurrection in a variety of ways, the most important of which is the creative transformation that God works for the world within the divine nature. Some process thinkers understand this to be the resurrection of the world into God for a judgment that saves, arguing further that this internal transformation within God

has an effect on what creative transformations are yet possible within history. Other process thinkers argue that while God feels the world, what can be called resurrection—or creative transformation—happens for the world not in God, but only in history.

13. Is this how you deal with resurrection? What do you process-relational theologians think about Easter? Was there an “empty tomb”?

If we take the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus to be a revelation of God for us, then the resurrection is a vital part of this revelation. Resurrection reveals that sin does not have the last

word, but God does. God is the power to answer our sins not by succumbing to them, but by transforming them.

Because I see resurrections all the time, and experience them within my own life, I can talk about resurrection confidently. If you push me to say that all the molecules in Jesus’ body were summoned together and the processes of death reversed and Jesus just got up out of that grave and went through a few walls and that’s what resurrection is all about, I think you’re missing the point. I can’t tell you how God raised Jesus within history. I, like most theologians— process or not—am convinced that resurrection is something utterly different from resuscitation. Resurrection cannot be reduced to molecules revivifying! Resurrection is the power of God to overcome evil, to bring hope to otherwise hopeless situations, to make creative transformation possible no matter what. Womanist theologians say that “God makes a way out of no way,” and this is what I think resurrection is all about. The resurrection of Jesus is like a great shout telling us that no evil is greater than God, or can overcome God’s power of resurrection. Because of this revelation— however God brings it about—we know we can trust God no matter how bleak situations may seem. God is there, offering us

a future that can change history—whether our own or the whole world’s—toward the good. Resurrection tells us that hope is grounded in the reality of God.

14. So then, for process-relational theologians the importance of Jesus is his revelation of the nature of God? We hate to ask, but how could Jesus have given such a revelation? Don’t you see him as just another man?

One at a time, please! For process folks, Jesus represents God for us, because we see him consistently responding positively to God’s moment by moment call to him. That call is that he live as God would have him live in each and every situation. He conforms himself so thoroughly to the will of God that in and through his person and his actions, we see clearly what God is like. We learn through him that God’s will is toward love, compassion, justice,kindness. Because we trust that God’s character is revealed through Jesus’ life, we can trust God as well!

As for how he could reveal God, the dynamics are the same dynamics operative in every aspect of creation: the power of the given past, the power of God’s call toward a possible future, and the power of subjectively integrating the two. We presume that God used the power of Jesus’ Jewish past to offer him the possibility of living according to the love of God in every moment. So far as we know from the record, Jesus responded freely and positively to the call of God. He lived God’s love, and thus revealed God. This was not a “supernatural” revelation, but a revelation through the natural processes of existence.

It is possible that if it hadn’t been for the crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus would have been viewed as another great teacher, or even have been absorbed into the anonymity of history. But he suffered the cruel violence of political torture, which was followed by the amazing stories of his resurrection appearances. All of the gospels are written because of these resurrection appearances, so that Jesus’ life and death are seen through the lens of the resurrection. The resurrection is the vindication of the way he revealed God—in his life and in his death. This revelation becomes the ground of our faith that God is the power of creative transformation in history.

AN INTERESTING ARTICLE:What do you think?

2011-01-10T05:09:00.000-08:00

Biblical Christianity Is Bankrupt

Rev. Michael Dowd - August 18, 2010

"How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said—grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed"? Instead they say, "No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way." — Carl Sagan

Biblical Christianity is bankrupt. I use ‘bankrupt’ in the exact sense of the term. A business that goes bankrupt still has value and is still capable of producing useful goods or services. It still has an inventory and trained professionals in its employ. Until the day insolvency is declared, it also usually has a façade—a bright and upbeat demeanor by which its clients and the community at large assume it to be relatively healthy. The only thing wrong is that a bankrupt business is no longer able to accomplish its purpose: to be successful. It is precisely in this sense that I suggest Bible-centered faith is bankrupt.

Yes, Christianity still has tens of thousands of churches reflecting an enormous range of theological diversity—and, yes, some are still thriving. Christianity has rituals and practices that many still find meaningful, along with organizations and ministries doing good and important work in the world. The Church is not bankrupt because it has run out of things to say or do. Rather, it is bankrupt because the otherworldly product it has sold for centuries now lacks wide appeal. Christianity now lags behind our most advanced secular methods and tools for providing salvation in this life. As well, by failing to update its “map of reality” to correspond with our best evidential understanding of how things are and which things matter today (as discerned through empirical science, historical research, and cross-cultural experience), Bible-centered faith can no longer provide the two essential services all religions must provide in order to survive.

The root ‘religare’ means to link together. Evolutionarily robust religions over the tens of thousands of years of human existence have been those that, as philosopher of religion Loyal Rue observes, nurture “personal wholeness” at the individual level and “social coherence” at the community level. To do so, they must operate with as accurate a map as possible of what’s real (how things are) and what’s important (which things matter).

Biblical Christianity that does not integrate our best evidential understanding of the universe and human nature is doomed precisely because it is wedded to unchanging scripture. It suffers from what I call “idolatry of the written word.” No longer does it link together what young people learn in church and what they learn in their science and history classes at school—and on the Discovery and History channels at home. As well, biblical Christianity’s strongest lifeline for claiming continued relevance is seriously frayed—although only those who track scientific advances in neurobiology, infant psychology, and the social instincts of apes and monkeys may be aware of this perilous condition.

What is that frayed lifeline? It is the intertwined strands of two crucial religious functions: first, the matter of where we acquire our moral compass, and second, how we come into right relationship with reality, or “get right with God,” when we have fallen from the path. As to the former, we moderns come to the Bible with a culturally evolved moral compass by which we carefully pick and choose which passages to preach and study and teach our children. We do not get our morality from the Bible.

The reason we do not consult the book of Exodus when dealing with a disrespectful teenage son, or the book of Leviticus for parenting advice when a daughter loses her virginity, or the book of Numbers for how to handle Sabbath breakers, or the books of Deuteronomy or Revelation when needing guidance regarding family members who choose a different faith, is because murder is no longer considered a moral option.

As popular science blogger PZ Myers has claimed, “There is no surer way to make an atheist than to get them to actually read scripture.” This is especially true of the Internet generations in America—those whose parents and church leaders can no longer shield them from other-than-biblical views and understandings of the world.

The result: Young people are leaving church by the millions and Christianity in America is in steady decline. Absent some radical shift in how we raise our children in Christian environments, we can expect America in the 21st century to follow the faith-falling trajectory pioneered by Europe, Canada, and Australia in the 20th century. To cite just two examples: Evangelical icon Josh McDowell, who has worked for Campus Crusade for Christ since 1964, reports that 94% of high school graduates leave the faith within two years. The Southern Baptists estimate that 88% of their kids leave the church after high school. (See here, here, and here.)

Hubble Deep Field

2011-01-08T08:20:00.000-08:00

A STRING OF LIGHTS

2010-12-28T10:50:00.000-08:00

A sermon preached on Christmas Eve at Mackay United church

December 24, 2010

- Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without lights.

- As far back as I can remember, one element of every Christmas celebration in my house has been the lights.

- White lights and coloured lights; indoor lights and outdoor lights.

- I can remember the excitement as a child, as my family climbed into the car some evening before Christmas and my Dad drove us around town Toronto to see the lights.

- Lights have become for many of us as a part of Christmas.

- And that’s good!

- In fact, the scriptures tell us that was God’s reaction too.

- In the beginning, our creation story tells us, when God looked out upon the dark, formless void and spoke the first word of creation, “Let there be light”, light appeared, and God said it was good.

- And from that day until now, God has been in the business of creating light – light to illuminate darkness; light to guide the people; light to enlighten .

- In fact, the history of God’s interaction with human beings is like a string of lights that traverse the centuries and generations.

- God’s lights were like fireworks – powerful and bright.

- First there was the 'big bang” when the universe exploded into existence about 14 billion years ago.

- Stars were born, galaxies and solar systems came into existence; and then after millions of years of evolution, human beings evolved from star dust.

- Some humans burst forth on the stage of life with great radiance too.

In our biblicial tradition there was Abraham, Sarah and Moses; Miriam and Ruth; Elijah, Solomon, David and Isaiah.

- But alas, just when our eyes got used to their brilliance, they were gone, leaving only a trace of their glory and a hope that other great lights of faith would follow them.

- Like children at a Canada Day celebration, we waited in expectation for the next blaze in the sky.

- We waited in hope for the next burst of light from God.

- And our hope was not disappointed.

- Off in the distance there was a faint glimmer, like a tiny candle in the wind.

- It was flickering over Bethlehem.

- Unlike many of the fireworks before it, this light did not burst forth in great splendour, but slowly, steadily, it grew in intensity.

- And again, God spoke his approval saying, “This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

- Later, one named John the Baptizer who had known this Light wrote of him:

o “In him appeared life, and this life was the light of the world. The light continues to shine against the darkness – and the darkness has no power to put it out.”

- And another follower of the Light, Paul, pointed to the cosmic significance of this “light” when he said, “In him, all things hold together.” (Col. 1: 17)

- Jesus is the one that “connects”, or to use another metaphor from the Gospel writers': Jesus is the VINE and we are the branches.

- That means , Jesus, “the Light of the world” not only connects us to him; he also connect us to each other.

- Here we are talking about the Cosmic Christ, although of course Paul and the gospel writers didn't use this term.

- Their words, however, express this cosmic, transcendent, all-encompassing nature of the Christ... “In him , all things hold together”.

- For Paul, Jesus not only connects his followers, but the whole world.

- We are here today because we too love the Light, both the string of lights AND the eternal Light that continues to shine.

- Christmas is the celebration of the everlasting Light that shines in our darkness and cannot be put out by that darkness.

- We live in a world ablaze with lights, lights that we have created.

- They are beautiful lights with captivating colours, insightful designs and inspired creations.

- We have taken the universe God has loaned us and we have probed its complexity, rearranged its elements and developed awesome new products.

- It is our calling as one's who follow the Light to give birth to Light in our own lives. This why Jesus calls us 'son's and daughters of God” and “temples of the Spirit”.

- But with all our lights – with all our learning and wisdom, we have still not conquered the darkness within.

- Darkness remains a reality in our lives and in the world.

- But the GOOD NEWS is -- the darkness can be overcome ... it can be overcome by the Light, the everlasting Light, whose birth we are celebrating tonight.

- How?

- I like the metaphor John Dominic Crossan uses for God in his latest book: THE GREATEST PRAYER -- GOD-AS- ELECTRICITY -- which helps to answer this question -How?

- GOD empowers us to participate and collaborate with God, like electricity empowers his MacBook to accomplish all sorts of wonderful things.

- This Light ("Electricity") can illumine the core of our life with the love and power of the Spirit, the Sacred, the Divine, the Desire beyond Desire, or whatever term you want to use for the indescribable Reality we call God, to enable us to collaborate with God in dealing with our darkness.

- This God, revealed to us in Christ, can collaborate with us to banish the darkness from the deepest corners of your soul and the deadly places in this world

- Or to use another analogy, this God gives new life, new beginnings, a new start.

- We’re sitting here tonight because, despite the darkness of the season, we know ourselves to be what light looks like after 14 billion years of evolution, and because we want to immerse ourselves in the light ( collaborate and participate with this "Electricity") of that second Big Bang that was the birth of Christ.

- Without us, without our willingness to collaborate and participate in spreading this Christmas light, the world will be a darker place.

- When we do this, when we let that Light shine within us and shape us, we ourselves become a light on the string of lights that stretches back to that day in Bethlehem when God said, for a second time, “Let there be Light”, and Christ the Saviour was born.

DOES GOD EXIST?

2010-12-10T13:24:00.000-08:00

THE EXISTENCE OF GOD,

A Paper delivered to The Atheist Society

ALUMNI THEATRE, UNIV. OTTAWA, Dec. 7, 2010

IN THIS PAPER I HAVE DRAWN EXTENSIVELY FROM THE WORK OF KAREN ARMSTRONG, PARTICULARLY HER BOOK, THE CASE FOR GOD (2009) , Marcus J. Borg, THE GOD WE NEVER KNEW (1997), BISHOP JOHN SPONG, A NEW CHRISTIANITY FOR A NEW WORLD (2001)

The problem with talking about God and God’s existence is that it’s all about WORDS, and words alone cannot adequately express the meaning or truth of God.

Like love, God can be known only through EXPERIENCE.

You can write about love, talk about love, and sing about love, but you can’t really know what love is, until you experience it.

The same is true of God.

God is that which you experience.

One of my favourite ways of trying to describe the God experience comes from the Apostle Paul in the NT who wrote: “ God is that in which we live and move and have our being.”

“Knowing God” is a different kind of knowing than the way we know the world around us.

The insights of religion are derived, not from abstract speculation or scientific inquiry, but from spiritual practices and a way of living.

Without engaging in spiritual practice it is not possible to understand the nature of God or the existence of God.

I think people today have too limited a concept of God.

From the point of view of mainline Christianity, which is where I am coming from, the Church and its clergy, I’m sad to say, are at least partly responsible for the incoherent concept of God that many people have today.

We haven’t done a very good job distinguishing mainstream Christian views from, for instance, Christian fundamentalism, which dominates the airwaves and cyber space with its literalist notions of God and the Bible.

Protestant fundamentalism is a new phenomenon in the history of the church, first appearing as a movement in the late 19^th century and its tenets formulated in the 1920’s. Its views are an aberration of Christian theology, certainly not in the mainstream of the Christian tradition.

And yet people, even intelligent people like Richard Dawkins, speak as if Christian fundamentalist views about God are the norm.

When I was walking across the north of Spain in 2009, on an 800 km ancient pilgrimage path called the Camino de Santiago, I talked with all sorts of people from all over the world, all ages, and from all walks of life.

Invariably, when they learned that I was minister, they would say something like: “I just want you to know that I don’t believe in God”.

My usual response was: “Tell me what god it is you don’t believe in because chances are I don’t believe in that god either”.

My experience is, when people think of Christianity they very often think of Christian fundamentalism and the teachings and characters associated with it.

I think this is because this is the only type Christianity they have been exposed to.

What I have discovered in my 28 years of ministry in the United Church of Canada is that people generally have a very literalist notion of God.

As I said, Richard Dawkins himself falls into this category.

The brilliance of Richard Dawkins in biological matters (The Greatest Show on Earth) unfortunately does not extend to theology.

He makes the astoundingly narrow claim in his best selling book, The God Delusion (p. 31) that religious faith rests on the idea that there exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence, WHO deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it.

My religious faith, and millions of other Christians’ religious faith, certainly does NOT rest on such a concept of God! Far from it!

Incredibly, Dawkins goes on to say, on the same page, “ this is the way people have generally understood the term God”.

With all due respect to Mr. Dawkins, nothing could be further from the truth.

This shows a remarkably shallow understanding of theology and the history of theological thought.

The concept of God he delineates may be true of fundamentalists, but certainly not true for the vast numbers of Christians down through the ages, including mainline Christians today, like myself.

God, for me and for many millions of other Christians, is not a “superhuman intelligence”, is not a Supreme Being, BECAUSE GOD IS NOT A BEING AT ALL.

God IS Being, not A being. This is not just semantics. The two phrases express very different concepts of God.

There is a long tradition in Christian theology, going back to the Apostle Paul whom I quoted earlier, that echoes theologian Paul Tillich when he wrote:

“God does not exist. God is being which is beyond existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny God”

Tillich is saying that God can never be an object of cognition or “knowing” like we “know” an apple, or another human being.

God is experienced on a different plain of reality; a transcendent dimension of reality that is different from the realm of reality in which scientific rationality operates.

We call this the spiritual realm of life.

I used to believe that God was A being, the Big Daddy in the Sky. When I was very young I used to picture God as an old man with a beard living above the clouds.

When I got a older, I thought of God as a spiritual being, living in the heavens, far away, yet somehow every where present... all powerful, all knowing.... controlling events... sometimes intervening in human affairs in miraculous ways.

Theologians call this concept of God theism or supernatural theism. It is a concept of God that fundamentalists and other Christians adhere to. It is found in the Bible but only became the dominant way of thinking about God in the Modern Era. For the most part, I think modern skepticism and atheism are a rejection of supernatural theism.

But there is another concept of God in the Bible and in the Christian tradition that I have been attempting to describe today. It is called panentheism which literally means “everything is in God”. Not to be confused with “pantheism”= god IS everything.

Panentheism affirms both the transcendence and immanence of God, and maintains that since God is inherent in everything, God can be experienced anywhere and at any time.

The long tradition of the panentheistic idea of God was so submerged during the Modern Era that most congregations were unaware of it. Many still tend to think about God as an objective reality “out there” that can be categorized like any other being. This is changing in the post modern world, thanks in part to the “new physics” and an educated clergy and laity.

For me, the idea of God is merely a symbol of indescribable transcendent reality. The idea of God has been interpreted in many different ways over the centuries, which is not surprising since we are trying to talk about a reality that is not describable. Yet, it is a reality that can be experienced

Because God is experienced in a different dimension of reality than we ordinarily experience things, the experience of God involves non-ordinary states of consciousness.

Such states of consciousness are often referred to as “ecstatic” experiences, meaning literally “to be out of one self ”, or out of one's ordinary state of consciousness. They can be entered into spontaneously, or through ritual and spiritual practices.

These experiences are not simply a feeling; they also involve “knowing” -- a sense of seeing or encountering or becoming aware of another layer or kind of reality. Various terms are used for this other layer of reality: alternate reality, the numinous, the sacred, the realm of spirit.

(Such experiences include visions, mystical encounters, dreams, near-death experiences, awareness of God in nature, ritual, worship etc. )

Transcendent experiences of God occur not just for Christians, of course, but for all people, of all religions, and across all cultures, which in my view gives further credence to the reality God’s existence.

Religion and science are not in opposition as long as we realize that they operate in different realms of reality, and seek to answer different types of questions.

Christian fundamentalism, of course, does not recognize this distinction, and so comes up with odd and ridiculous claims like those of “Creation science”. But as I’ve said, this approach to God and religion is an aberration, not the norm, in the Christian tradition.

The Christian religion is not about telling you what to do, but helping you discover who you are. Nor is it meant to provide answers to questions that lay within the reach of human reason.

Religion is more like art than science. It helps us to live creatively, peacefully and joyously with issues for which there are no easy explanations: issues like mortality, pain, grief, despair, the meaning of life etc.

Science may be able to tell us why we have cancer, and maybe even cure us of the disease.

It can do nothing, however, about the terror and grief that come with the diagnosis.

Nor can it help us die peacefully with hope.

Something else about God I’d like to mention.

Contrary to what Christian fundamentalists say about there being only one way to God, namely thru Jesus Christ, many Christians like myself believe that there is more than one way to God. Jesus is MY way, but I recognize that there are other ways.

Of course, not all faith in God is the same. Each tradition formulates its concept of God differently, and this will affect the way people of different faiths experience God. There are important differences between Brahman, Nirvana, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Dao, but that does not mean, that one is right and the others are wrong.

This too is part of what my faith journey has taught me about God.

FAITH in God is not so much about WORDS as it is about PRACTICE, about a way of life that effects profound CHANGES in how we live. THIS WAS THE ORIGINAL MEANING OF THE WORDS “FAITH” AND “BELIEF”.

It was only during the Modern Era that “faith” came to mean intellectual assent. When Christianity tried to confine faith in God to words and doctrines and teachings; that is, tried to make rational that which cannot be understood rationally, and linked faith to intellectual assent, the flames of religious intolerance were fanned. The result was a lot of bad things done in the name of Christianity, which I’m sure you’ve heard all about.

It is very unfortunate that “faith in God” still means, for many contemporary people, intellectual assent to certain doctrines or teachings that make no sense to them, a kind of mindless credulity; “belief without evidence” (Harris, END OF FAITH)

With this distorted view of faith firmly ensconced in the contemporary mind, it is no wonder that so many have given up on faith in God altogether.

In the long tradition of Christianity, faith in God is NOT about “belief without evidence”, not about believing in impossible things: rather, it is about PRACTICAL LIVING and COMMITMENT.

The word translated as “faith” in the NT is the Greek word pistis ( Greek being the language in which the NT was first written).

Pistis means “trust; loyalty; engagement; commitment.

To have “faith” or “belief” in God, in the biblical context, means committing oneself to the reality of God, trusting in this reality, and allowing this reality to form and shape ones life and way of living.

Many Christians like myself welcome scientific and atheistic critiques of “conventional beliefs” to help reveal the limitations of the literalistic/rationalistic mind-set that is currently in the fore of so much talk about God and religion these days, thus blocking understanding of the Divine, the Sacred, the “other”, “the desire beyond desire” or whatever term you want to use for God.

My faith in God is a journey, an ever evolving, changing pilgrimage. That’s why I call myself an “unfinished Christian”. I don’t think we ever arrive at a complete understanding of God, certainly not one we can articulate with words. Nor should we ever arrive. When we think we can “define” God, a word which means literally “to set limits around”, then we have created a false god.

In closing, it is interesting to note that some of the first Christians and Muslims, who were moving away from traditional paganism, were persecuted as “atheists” by their contemporaries because they no longer shared the pagan concept of god or the gods. A different concept of God had drawn them to a different path.

Could this be true of some atheists today, I wonder?

If atheists were exposed to a concept of God very different, radically different, from what they supposed God to be, might they experience “metanoia”… a change of heart; a change of mind?

SPEAKING ABOUT THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

2010-12-03T05:28:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday December 7th, 2010, I have been invited to speak at a Colloquium, sponsored by the Atheist Community of the University of Ottawa, on "DOES GOD EXIST?".

This should be interesting as it will also include speakers from the Muslim community and the Humanist Society (see link below).

I much prefer this colloquium setting of speeches followed by questions. It is more in keeping with the Socratic form of dialogue that does not aim to "win" an argument and make points by putting down your "opponent" as in most debates these days, but rather to exchange ideas in order to broaden everyone's understanding.

I will put my speech on this blog after the Colloquium.

http://www.miambi.ca/amj/amsa/uottawa/2010/ExistenceOfGodDec7-2010-PamphletBack.pdf

http://www.miambi.ca/amj/amsa/uottawa/2010/ExistenceOfGodDec7-2010-PamphletFront.pdf

MY NEXT TREK

2010-11-20T12:32:00.000-08:00

On May 5th, 2011, I fly to Kathmandu, Nepal, to begin a 21 day trek in the Himalaya mountains, to Base Camp Everest.

If I make it, I will be as close to the base of Mt. Everest ("Chomolungma" , Goddess Mother of the World) that you can get without having to do technical climbing ( ropes, ice axe, crampons etc.).

The greatest danger is altitude sickness (AMS: acute mountain sickness aka pulmonary and cerebral oedema can kill you, which I guess is pretty dangerous! An average of 3 people per year die in the Everest region from AMS)

Something hidden. Go and find it.
Go and look behind the Ranges --
Something lost behind the Ranges.
Lost and waiting for you. Go!
-- Kipling

THIS FELLOW WAS FILMING FROM KALA PATTAR, ABOUT A ONE DAY TREK FROM BASE CAMP:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSyC2KszFds&feature=related

"Q" : Are young evangelicals becoming Progressive Christians?

2010-09-01T04:42:00.000-07:00

"Q" is a new movement among young evangelicals in America that is refreshingly hopeful in the extreme!

"Q" apparently stands for "questions" as in "Q&A" -- questions and answers, which appears to indicate these Christians are willing to "ask the questions" instead of presuming they know all the answers, as is the case for so many of our brothers and sisters on the Religious Right in America

INTERESTINGLY, mainline scholars talk a lot about "Q", but it has a very different meaning. "Q" is short form for quelle, a German word meaning "source". "Q" refers to the hypothetical Gospel (source Gospel) used by the writers of Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Luke when writing their accounts.

Check out the Q website :

http://www.qideas.org/

HERE IS AN INTERESTING ARTICLE ON "Q"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-krattenmaker/q-conference-2010-heraldi_b_571089.html

PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANITY

2010-09-01T03:58:00.000-07:00

Here is an interesting description of "Progressive Christianity"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-r-braxton/getting-in-front-of-jesus_b_649152.html

ROB BELL: ON THE RESURRECTION... check him out

2010-07-29T05:41:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjXYlwvS5LY&feature=player_embedded

HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION (2010)

2010-07-28T13:26:00.000-07:00

SPAMMERS BANISHED

2010-07-28T11:18:00.000-07:00

I think I finally solved my SPAM problem...dozens of Chinese spammers making comments on my BLOG which affected those who commented on it. Sorry about that.
So, it is safe now! Thanks Theresa!

2010-06-27T13:34:00.000-07:00

My new camino movie done on my MacBook Pro.

... WALK ON !, my friends

THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT IN CANADA

2010-05-22T22:33:00.000-07:00

Here is a website all mainline Christian Churches and their members ought to be aware of:

http://www.religiousrightalert.ca/the-religious-right-in-canada/ .... Check it out!

We must ensure we do not let religious bigots, who judgmentally claim moral and theological superiority, besmurch the good name of Christianity as a tolerant, inclusive and compassionate religion.

Arm yourself by educating yourself about the religious right in Canada. I highly recommend:
THE ARMAGEDDON FACTOR: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada, by Marci McDonald (Random House Canada, 2010)

RESURRECTION: A LOVE FOR LIFE AND A LIFE OF LOVE

2010-04-04T11:13:00.000-07:00

Easter Sunday April 1, 2010

- The Resurrection is the focal point of our faith.
- But when Christians think about what the resurrection actually means, we often hear a lot of different views, or, we hear silence.
- As we contemplate the significance of the resurrection on this Easter morning, we may end up like Peter who stood at the entrance to the empty tomb, scratching his head and wondering what had happened.

- There are some Christians, and many ex-Christians or on-the-side-lines Christians, who say they don’t, or can’t, believe the resurrection.

- Often, I think what they mean is they can’t believe a certain understanding of the resurrection, the one (usually the only one) they learned in Sunday School or heard from the pulpit.
- If they were exposed to an alternative understanding of the resurrection, their reaction may be different.

- What is it all about? What does it mean?
- Over the years, beginning in the modern area, the resurrection has become a “doctrine” and a “dogma”, part of a long list of teachings Christians are supposed to believe.
- At the same time, “faith” stopped meaning “trust”, engagement and commitment, and came more and more to mean believing, giving intellectual assent, to unbelievable things.
- It doesn’t matter if it makes sense or not, you’ve just gotta believe, you’ve gotta have faith, became the mantra of orthodoxy.

- For many thinking people, this made “faith” an impossible task that had nothing to do with their reality, shaped as it now was by modern science and rationalism.
- The “resurrection” and other doctrines, understood literally, WAS unbelievable for many people.
- Science told them, and their own experience told them, “dead people don’t rise."

- I have great sympathy for these people, I know a lot of them… and I understand completely where they’re coming from.
- Much of my ministry has been spent trying to speak about Christianity in ways that make sense to them.
- They are surprised to find that I often agree with much of what they find wrong with Christianity as they know it.

- Their negativity toward Christianity is further entrenched by Christians who use doctrines like the resurrection as a legalistic club to separate so-called “true” Christians from the rest of the world.
- Despite its misuse and abuse, our resurrection faith remains foundational, even though how we understand it may have changed, or may need to change, in ways that allow us to speak about it with conviction and insight.

- We proclaim that Easter is the 8th day of creation.
- The day of new life.
- But what does it all mean? !

- There may be a voice at the back of our mind saying, “What I really need is a revelation to make the resurrection real for me”
- The thing we may not realize, however, is that any such “revelation” will come to us, not so much in the form of an answer, but in the form of a question.

- The trick of life is learning to ask the right questions, because the truth (even the so-called “facts” of history) is much more elusive than we imagine.
- We should know that the writing of history is always subjective, skewed by the perspective of the author, and therefore never really conclusive.

- Even our own personal history gets rewritten over and over again.
- Think about the personal stories we tell.
- What really happened to us?
- Brothers and sisters often have very different versions of what really happened to them in their childhood upbringing.

- The same holds true with the big events of history.
- What really happened in 1914 to bring about WWI?
- What really happened at the assassination of John F. Kennedy?
- Countless books have been written about these two events alone, trying to establish “the truth”.

- So it’s not surprising that when you carefully read the resurrection accounts in each of the four gospels, you find they are quite different.

- What happened yesterday?
- Of course, what happened depends on who's asking the question.
- What happened to me did not necessarily happen to you.

- Today, on Easter Sunday, we stand with the women and Peter at the entrance to the empty tomb and we are asked to guess the right question about life.

- What is the question that the resurrection poses?

- When we realize that the resurrection story is not simply an historical account about a past event, but also a PARABLE about life today, new questions and new meanings open up.-

For me, the main question the resurrection poses is a passionate question about – passion, about aliveness, about life.

- One form of the question is simply this: Am I in love with life?-

That's not an easy question for those who are lonely and have no one, or nothing, special in their lives.
- For such people that question can sting, as it can for people going through prolonged physical or emotional pain.
- But the question still has to be asked.

- Our Christian spirituality -- our faith, insists that love is at the very core of our being-- love for each other and love for the world. And that we are bound together by the love of God.

The Apostle John (3:11) writes: “This is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another”….
“Let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love”

- When Easter is understood as a parable (which in no way denies the factuality of the event, but only adds to the meaning)… when understood as a parable, the Resurrection says to us, if we are not in love with life, we can be.
- Because the resurrection is not just about what happens to us after we die, but also what can happen to us right NOW.

- Jesus continues to live. That is our Easter testimony.
- Even a crucifixion could not prevent Life from continuing.

- Whatever our own crucifixion experience may be, the Easter message is that Life continues… and Love makes it possible.

- Saint John writes: “God is love, and whoever lives in love lives in God, and God lives in them.”

- Being in love with life is at the very centre of spiritual existence, because being in love with Life is being in love with God.
- God is love… and God is life.
- God is the Source of Love and Life.

- Given this view of God, to shift our life’s path to the spiritual quest means we begin to love life fully; it means our “ultimate concern” becomes the enhancement of Life and Love.

- How do we begin this quest to love? ... to love life?
- To begin with, we need to wake up; we need to come alive, we need to nurture a burning passion for the wonder of the world, of the universe…. and of life itself.
- A French priest wrote that the West is the “Third World of the spirit, impoverished and underdeveloped, unawake and unaware of the miracles under our noses.”

- The basic miracle and the most obvious miracle, is the miracle of “being” itself; of being alive – the miracle that you are, that you exist.

- Walt Whitman wrote: “I know nothing else but miracles.”
- With that kind of outlook, you can't help but be in love with life.

- The inability to love life is not so much a failure of the intellect as it is a failure of imagination, a failure to see the wonders and miracles under our very noses!
- We trip over these wonders, mysteries and miracles every day and don't seem to notice.

- The Christian mystics have taught this for centuries.
- They knew that FAITH is not about believing unbelievable things.
- Faith is trust, commitment and engagement with Life.
- Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned.
- For Christians, our ultimate concern is God, the Source of Life and Love.

- The mystical side of life is something very real even to many modern scientists.
- Listen to this quote from -- would you believe – none other than, Albert Einstein:
“ The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mystical. It is the sower of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger… is as good as dead. To that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself to us as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty… this knowledge, this feeling is at the centre of all true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong to the ranks of devoutly religious men”.-

Einstein says, “in this sense only” he is devoutly religious because he did not believe in the personal theistic God of the orthodoxy of his day.

- If only I was there to tell Einstein there are other ways to understand God:)

- Another great scientist – Stephen Hawking-- tells us that if the original fireball from which the universe was fashioned, expanded a fraction of a second faster than it did, there would be nothing; no world would exist.
- And if it expanded a fraction of a second slower, there would be nothing.
- The universe had to expand at an incredibly precise rate for life to exist.
- I would say, as some scientists like Hawking do, that this rate of expansion is a sacred number?

- What a miracle is Life!

- The resurrection, which we celebrate on this Easter morning, is an event that has changed countless lives; it changed the course of history.
- It ushered in one of the greatest paradigm shifts the world has ever seen.
- That is to say, it ushered in a new way of looking at life and a new way of “being” in the world for countless numbers of people.

- But frankly, the meaning of the resurrection and how it affects you, depends on what you are capable of seeing.

- For instance, when you look at the person in the pew across from you, what do you “see”....
- Do you see Mrs Jones whose shoes don't match her suit and who makes a terrible apple pie? Or do you see a precious daughter of God, created in God's image, whom you “love” even though you may not like her?

- John reminds us, and I quote: “ anyone who says they love God, but don't love their neighbour is a liar.” No mincing of words there!

- When we understand Easter as a parable, we become part of a great story of homecoming – of returning to a love for life, and a life of love.

- The truth of Easter goes beyond the literal, doctrinal interpretation of this story to include mystical meaning, that is, meaning that goes beyond the literal.

- So, you still want to know what it all means?

- Well, you'll never know, until you know the question behind your longing to know.

- Do you want to know because you want to live forever, or because you want to live fully, right now?
- Do you want to know because you wonder if it really matters? … Or if you matter? … Or if anything matters?

- Let the Easter story speak to these and other questions, and your understanding of the resurrection will deepen and grow – it might even change!

- One thing I can tell you for sure: You will find out what the resurrection really means, not when you believe the resurrection, but when you become the resurrection… by your love for life, and your life of love.

- Some people may be thinking, I’m not sure if I can even believe in God, much less the resurrection.

- Maybe this is because you’re hung up on a word.

- For some people, there’s a lot of negative baggage that comes with this word, God, just like there’s a lot of baggage that comes with the word “resurrection”.

- Karen Armstrong writes in her book, The Case for God:
“ We learned about God about the same time as we were told about Santa Claus. But while our understanding of the Santa Claus phenomenon evolved and matured, our theology remained somewhat infantile…the result is that many of us have been left stranded with an incoherent concept of God” ( p.320)

- There’s a long history in the Christian tradition of seeing new meanings in old words -- the mystics knew this well.

- There are many ways in the Christian tradition to understand the concept of God.
- One way has dominated, the theistic understanding of God as a Being.

- But what if God is understood, not as a Being, but as Being itself, the Source of Being, the Source of Life and Love.-

St. John’s words would then make perfect sense: “Anyone who loves knows God”

- It is more than ever necessary to see these new meanings in our day and age if the Church does not want to be die from irrelevancy.

- “God” is just a word. It’s the meaning of the word that’s important.

- Can you believe in LIFE?
- Then you can believe in God.
- Can you believe in LOVE?
- Then you can believe in God….
- Because one way of understanding God is not as a being, but the Source of Being, the Source of LOVE and the Source of LIFE.

- So, the person who lives fully and loves without limit, not only knows God, but has also discovered a fundamental meaning of Easter.

- The resurrection is a parable about how we can to live,
fully live--live with passion-- RIGHT NOW: with a love for life and a life of love.

“WERE YOU THERE?”

2010-03-29T16:04:00.000-07:00

A Sermon for Palm/Passion Sunday March 28, 2010

- Matthew’s account of the events leading up to Jesus’ death on the cross helps us reconstruct in our minds the events surrounding the crucifixion.

- That’s important because it helps us understand what Christ must have gone through during those days leading up to Good Friday and culminating in his death.

- But more than understanding, Matthew’s story invites us to enter into the Passion story ourselves, by feeling and experiencing the pain, the fear and injustice of it all.

- And that’s what is really critical as we begin the most holy week of the Christian year – that we take ourselves back to the scene of the crime and relive in our own experience, and see in our own minds, the MEANING of that death.

- The old spiritual points to the core meaning of the crucifixion by asking the question: “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”- That rhetorical question implies that there is a sense in which everyone of us here today has to answer that question in the affirmative.

- Yes, I was there when they crucified my Lord because I’m part of humanity, part of the consequences of human sin that put to death love and compassion; and part of the domination system that continues to do this.

- I have come to believe that Jesus died, not FOR the sins of the world, but BECAUSE of the sin of the world: the sin of power and greed that continues, over and over again, to put love and peace and goodness to death.

- You know our tendency, when we read or hear the Easter story, is to say to ourselves, “If I had been there, I would have been different.”- “If I were among the crowd, I wouldn’t have shouted -- “crucify him”.”

- “I would have seen the injustice of it all.”

- And perhaps at our best moments, that may have been true.

- But the fact is that the story of the crucifixion is not a story that addresses us at our best.

- If human beings always lived at their best, there would have been no crucifixion… but we don’t, and there was.

- No, this is a story that speaks to us at our worst.
- A story that reveals the “shadow”side of humanity, a side of us ALL that we cannot nor should not ignore.

- Whenever we hear the Easter story, or see it dramatized, we have to remember, that if we had actually been there, we could have been one of the religious people sitting on the Sanhedrin.- Those who looked so upright on the outside, but on the inside were more interested in power and their own agendas than in doing God’s will.

- They were so caught up in their traditions and routines that they didn’t recognize the God-presence in their midst.
- We can be like that too.

- We can become so consumed by the outward performances of our faith that our eyes are blinded and our hearts numbed to the Christ-presence in our midst –
- The emotionally wounded person in the next pew; or the poor person on the street we pass by without even making eye-contact; or the hurting person in our family we take for granted.
- Whatever you do to one of these, Jesus said, “You do to me.”
- Yes, any one of us could have been one of those pharisees.

- Or think of Pontius Pilate.
- If we had been there, we could have easily filled his shoes.
- Pilate didn't do anything to actually harm Jesus, he just didn't want to get involved…..
- Didn't want the responsibility of judging Jesus.
- And aren't there a lot of things we don't want to take responsibility for either?
- Let somebody else take care of it, we say.

- We don't know quite what to do about the conflict, or the suffering, or the injustice, or the poverty, or the oppression in our world, in our own community, our homes, our churches.
- So we stay “out of it”.
- Without any easy answers to these problems, we sometimes pretend that -- they're not really there.
- We close our eyes, shut our ears, and walk away… back to our own little world where our main concern is with our own comfort and our own security.
- Yes, we could have easily filled Pilate's shoes.

- We were there when they crucified the Lord.
- We were all there…. And we are STILL there

- Because the crucifixion is not just an event from the distant past.
It is also a parable about life… about the darkness of life and the darkness of our life.
- It’s a parable about “what ails us”.
- WHAT AILS US? That’s one of the big questions of life.

- It's only when we recognize what ails us -- become fully aware of the “shadow” side of ourselves -- our capacity to sin, to do evil -- that we realize our need to be made whole; our need for transformation and new life.

- That is why it is so crucial that we don’t skip from Palm Sunday joy to Easter Sunday joy, forgetting all about Crucifixion Friday and what it means.

- The parable of the crucifixion beckons us to look deep within OURSELVES, and ask ourselves: what ails me?

- What is it about me that undermines and puts to death -- love, and goodness, peace and kindness among those around me in my community.

- You see, you can’t be a Christian in isolation… sitting on your prayer mat in some corner of your house.

- Christianity is not a private activity; it is nothing without community.

- This why it is so important for us to stop focusing on the faults and foibles of those around us, and start to examine ourselves.

- What am I doing to nurture and deepen true community at MacKay?
- What am I doing that undermines and destroys and puts to death, true community at MacKay?
- These are some of the questions we need to be asking OURSELVES this Holy Week.

- My lack and your lack of love continue to put Him and his way to death -- continue to undermine the Body of Christ that is the community we call Church.- And sometimes it causes us to tremble.

- We tremble because there's a mystery to it all that none of us can fully unravel or comprehend.

- The mystery of love submitting to hate -- and overcoming it.
- The mystery of goodness being pierced by evil -- and divesting evil of its power.

- This mystery was seen clearly by the Jewish historian, Elie Wiesel during his confinement in a Nazis concentration camp during WWII.
- Wiesel tells of standing with a group of prisoners, watching the Nazis hang a young 10 year old boy.
- The soldiers expected the boy to die immediately, but he didn't.
- The boy fought against death with all his might, his arms thrashing and his legs kicking.
- And Wiesel tells of watching that gruesome spectacle and of hearing a haunting cry ring out from among the gathered prisoners - “Where is God?”
- But there was only silence and the boy continued to struggle.
- And again the voice cried out, “Where is God?”
- And still there was only silence.
- Finally, as the boy succumbed to death, the voice, much weaker now, asked one more time - “Where is God?”
- But this time another voice from among the prisoners answered --- “God is there. Hanging on that rope.”

- And that's the mystery of the crucifixion, which we remember and experience this week.
- An innocent man, a suffering Saviour, who died in pain and anguish.
- He died, not as a substitutionary sacrifice for our sins, to appease an angry and demanding God.
- This is a picture of God I now find repulsive.
- This is not the God Jesus reveals to me.-

No, Jesus died, not for our sins us, but because of sin : because of the “shadow side of humanity that continues to crucify LIFE, and put LOVE to death.

- Jesus’ death exposed the “shadow” side of humanity… and it is a judgement, not only on the domination system of his day and ours, but a judgement on us all.
- It is at the same time a call… a call for us to overcome our “shadow” side and live in the Light of the coming Kingdom -- the Kingdom of God on earth --- which was Jesus’ passion -- a passion he died for.

- Yes, you were there, and I was too.
- But so was God.
- And sometimes, it causes us to tremble.

The Walrus » Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons » Canada Religion Politics

2010-01-25T06:22:00.001-08:00

The Walrus » Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons » Canada Religion Politics

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SPIRITUAL GROWTH AND THE BATTLE WITH FUNDAMENTALISM

2010-01-22T07:42:00.000-08:00

- In order for any living thing to grow, it needs the right kind of environment.

- A tree is going to find it difficult to grow in the middle of a street.

- In order to grow spiritually, we need to place ourselves in the right kind of environment and give ourselves the right kind of nourishment.

- Many times in the Gospels, we find Jesus pulling away from the rush of daily living and seeking out a solitary environment which allows him to grow and be nourished spiritually.

He went regularly to the local synogogue to worship, “as was his custom”, his routine.

- But Jesus also had a real need, from time to time, to get away from it all.

- It is important to realize that this going into the wilderness was never for him a retreat from reality, but always a retreat to reality.

- When we go into the wilderness, it is almost always a retreat from reality – an escape from the routine of life into a more relaxing distraction.

- The stockbroker becomes a fisherman for a week.

- The salesman becomes a mountain climber.

- Our motivation is usually recreational – we get away from it all in order to forget what we are all about... and that's good!

- But Jesus went into the wilderness to remember who he was: to take a spiritual inventory and to grow from that process.

- We are a very busy people, often involved in a whole range of good and meaningful things geared at strengthening our physical, mental, emotional and social attributes.

- Sunday worship at its best is a way for Christians to strengthen our spiritual attributes.

- “Knowing oneself” is at the centre of Christian spirituality.

- We know ourselves in relation to other people and especially within the context of our relationship to God.

- If we are to grow spiritually, we must come to grips with reality – life as it actually is.

- That means we have to come to terms with the reality of who we are.

- And in order to truly know “who we are”, we need to come into relationship with God, our Creator, the One who made us who we are, and is intimately connected to who we are.

- Where spiritual growth is concerned, good theological insights and good psychological insights are in accord with each other.

- In his book, The Road Less Travelled, psychiatrist M. Scott Peck writes:

o “The more clearly we see the reality of the world, the better equipped we are to deal with the world. The less clearly we see the reality of the world, the less able we will be to determine correct courses of action and to make wise decisions…”

- Spiritual growth always brings with it change – a change in the way we see and do things – a change in the way we understand ourselves and the world…. and change comes hard for most of us.

- Peck says that the miracle is that we do grow, we do become better human beings – that there is a force that somehow pushes us to choose the more difficult path.

- This “force”, many of us believe, is God, the Holy One, the Spirit

- The drive to grow spiritually is, itself, the gift of God.

- What is growth in Christian spirituality all about?

- On one level, it has to do with what is going on in our relationship with God as expressed in prayer, worship and contemplation.

- On a broader level, however, spirituality includes the whole of life – internal and external.

- That is to say, spirituality includes what is going on in my job, my marriage and my relationship.

- The Apostle Paul shared this outlook.

- He maintained that the Spirit of God is everywhere and pertains to all areas and decisions of life.

- He was concerned about both proper business dealings and proper worship, a right relationship to God and right relationships with people.

- One area is not more spiritual than the other...everything is spiritual.

- The journey of spiritual growth requires courage, initiative and creative thought and action, precisely because spirituality touches every area of our lives.

- No teacher or prophet can relieve any of us from making our own spiritual journey through the wilderness.

- Each person must find his or her own way through the unique experiences of his or her own life, toward a deeper relationship with God and the World.

- However, even when we understand this, the journey toward spiritual growth may be so lonely and so difficult, that we become discouraged, perhaps even confused.

- It is at this point, for many of us, that the church’s traditional resources for spiritual growth become most effective (and most needed).

- These resources, traditionally referred to as “SPIRITUAL PRACTICES”, have been given to us for spiritual guidance. They are “tools” or "disciplines" which help bring about spiritual understanding and growth.

- As we begin thinking about ways in which we can grow spiritually, a number of options are open to us.

- Here are a few suggestions:

1. Decide to do something specific for someone or some people beyond your usual comfort zone.
Commit yourself to some compassionate task, whether it be a regular phone call to a lonely person, or deciding to join a group in the church or outside it, or helping others in need.

- The important thing is to make the effort to begin relating more deeply to another person or group of people to whom you have not been very close before.

- Make a special effort to expand your compassion and connection to others with whom you don't normally connect.

2. Make a commitment to spend a certain amount of time – whether it be on a daily or weekly basis – ALONE, in personal meditation or prayer.

- The important thing is to be alone and be regular in your commitment. Use this special time to reflect upon personal accomplishment and failures – What am I going to try and get done tomorrow, next week, next year, in my life? How am I trying to change my life?

- What Goals do I want to set for myself?

- What are my priorities?

- Commit some time on a regular basis to be alone with yourself and God to look deeply at your life.

3. Commit yourself to try and really hear what other people are saying to you.
- Sensitize yourself to be mindful of the feelings of those around you

- Familiarity may not breed contempt, but it certainly fosters a casualness in our relationships that can easily lead to “taking someone for granted” or a lack of sensitivity to the needs and feelings of those around us.

- Make a commitment to “hear”, and feel, what your friends, loved ones, and yes, even your “ememies”, are really saying and are needing.

4. Take time to explore what you believe – what you believe about yourself, and what you believe about God, Christ and your faith.

- One of the "SPIRITUAL PRACTICES"” which our faith holds up as being essential for a proper and true understanding of both ourselves and God is the STUDY OF SCRIPTURE and good books about the Bible that can help us understand it rightly.

- The Bible, understood rightly, is an important tool for spiritual growth because it recounts the spiritual journeys of those who have gone before us.
- How we approach the Bible; understanding its origins, putting it in historical context -- all this greatly affects how we interpret the Bible and apply it to our lives.

- Which is to say, the way we interpret and use the Bible defines for us what it is to be a Christian, a follower of Jesus.

- This involves some reading and thinking and reflection with people you trust and respect... and this is an ongoing process.

- Unfortunately, most people don’t have the inclination these days to do this.

- The result is a great deal of religious illiteracy.

- Recently this pervasive religious illiteracy in mainline churches and especially among the un-churched and young people has opened the doors to a resurgence of biblical literalism and Christian fundamentalism.

- Taking the Bible literally as a divinely produced book without error makes it a whole lot easier and requires a lot less work to read and “understand”.
- One simply takes the words of the Bible at face value as God's own words.
- This way of approaching the Bible produces cut and dry, back and white so-called "answers"to life's moral issues and the world’s and individuals’ problems.

- But such "answers" are often narrow and exclusive and far from the spirit of Jesus.
- Very little thinking is needed , nor is it encouraged!
- Everything is clear , and if you have any questions you are given "the answers" in no uncertain terms.

- Hence the popular appeal of fundamentalist and evangelical churches and the reason their churches are often full.

- They offer a “fast food” approach to spirituality and the Bible.

- But the easy and wide way, which Jesus warned us about, and which I believe is represented by biblical literalism, makes it a whole lot easier to turn the Bible into a tool for justifying greed, lust for power, bigotry, racism, and homophobia, which are still alive and well in many parts of the Church today and particularly the fundamentalist churches

- Just this past week, a prominent Christian fundamentalist, Pat Robertson, made the outrageous assertion that God had sent destruction to Haiti because the people had “made a pact with the Devil”

- There is, in my view, a horrendous disstortion of the Christian faith, powered by this literalistic and selective approach to the Bible and teachings of Jesus, being foisted on the world in much more subtle ways than those used by the likes of Pat Robertson.

- Read Jeff Sharlet’s chilling and meticulously documented account of the most powerful fundamentalist group in America : THE FAMILY: THE SECRET FUNDAMENTALISM AT THE HEART OF AMERICAN POWER.

- It documents how what Sharlet calls an “ elite fundamentalism” ( distinguished from the "populist" Bible thumping fundamentalism with which most people are familiar) distorts ( in a much more suble way) the teaching of Jesus, whom they claim to follow, in ways that makes acquisition of power and money the goal of their “Christian” mission.

- Their “theology” claims that Jesus’ real concern was not first and foremost for the poor but a chosen elite who would usher in the Kingdom by political control, influence and power.

- The FAMILY, also known as THE FELLOWSHIP, is connected to such diverse groups as FOCUS ON THE FAMILY, THE NAVIGATORS, CAMPUS CRUSADE , AND THE NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST to name a very few.

- In addition they have had and continue to have ties with a wide range of third world dictators and facist regimes as well a many wealthy business men and politicians, and not just Republicans. Hilary Clinton would you believe?

- The name of their game is connections for power, and to hell with morality and justice….Jesus forgives and forgets… even the likes of Siad Barre, the dictator of Somlia, responsible for the murder of thousands of people. Doug Coe ( remember his name…you won’t hear about him much…he shirks the limelight) the head honcho of the FAMILY, called Baree, “brother”. Coe was almost single handedly responsible for United States doubling their MILITARY aid to Barre’s regime (p.282)

- What we should be particularly concerned with is that the FAMILY does their dealings in the name of Jesus.

- American fundamentalism’s Christ, ala THE FAMILY, is a person purged of the ideas that define him, as if what mattered most about Jesus is the colour of his eyes and the shape of his beard.

- Doug Coe often uses the term “Jesus plus nothing”, meaning in practice a theology of total malleability in which any values can be plugged into Jesus.

- Sharlet writes: “ The last seventy years of history ( the length of time THE FAMILY has been in existence) proves the Christian doctrine of blood Atonement. Only, the blood is not Christ’s …it’s not ours, either. It’s the rest of the world that pays for American fundamentalism’s sins, and for the failure of American liberalism to even recognize the fundamentalist faith with which it has all to often – Vietnam, Indonesia, in Haiti – made common cause” p.278

-

- Mainline Christians need to be AWARE of powerful groups like THE FAMILY and the increasing influence of Christian fundamentalism in places of power.
- And we need to be enabled and empowered to speak out against it.
- We have been all to retiscent in speaking out about our faith convictions... we can nolonger keep silent....we must not keep silent.

- Mainline Christianlity promotes a spirituality that takes the mind seriously; a spirituality that trys to cultivate “the mind of Christ”, as the Apostle Paul put it, and not our own versions of the faith.
- A spirituality that takes the Bible seriously but not literally.
- A spirituality that calls us to “ love God” not only with all our heart and with all our soul, but also with ALL OUR MIND.

BE STILL

2009-12-09T12:10:00.000-08:00

Dec 6, 2009 Advent 2

- A farmer was moving a cage load of birds in his pick-up truck and as I drove behind him I noticed that all the birds were flapping their wings – still in their cages – but flapping their wings, trying to fly against the head winds produced by the forward motion of the truck.

- Of course, they weren’t going anywhere in those cages.

- All that flapping was an automatic response.

- Apparently they were unaware of their predicament.

- All their flapping was for naught.

- If Desmond Morris, the social anthropologist is right, there are marked similarities between the bird and animal kingdoms and our own.

- We too, are prone to “flap our wings” needlessly.

- Sometimes it doesn’t take much, at work or at home, to get us all flustered and stressed right out.

- We become seized by an irresistible urge to fly around in a panic, beating our wings against the side of our cages and robbing ourselves of our inner peace.

- It’s hard to know always why we do this.

- Is it a conditional response instilled in some people genetically?

- The “high strung” type as we sometimes say?

- Or is it a conditioned response that we inflict on ourselves?

- Perhaps this problem has something to do with a lack of stillness in our lives.

- What our Buddhist friends call – mindfulness.

- And our Quaker friends call – centeredness.

- The Psalmist calls it “stillness”.

- When we are not still, not centered,

- When we are not truly and deeply in touch with ourselves and we are not in touch with God,

- We live on the “periphery” so to speak, when we are not “still”.

- That is, we experience life only on the surface.

- We even experience ourselves on the surface.

- We don’t feel deeply.

- We don’t taste deeply.

- We don’t touch deeply….hear….see….

- We haven’t come to our senses, so to speak, if we have not learned the spiritual discipline of being “still”.

- When we’re not able to be still, not centered, when we’re not mindful, not only do we fail to experience life deeply, we also fail to understand life deeply.

- To “understand” deeply includes head knowledge, or rational thought, but is not confined to this.

- We should say, to understand deeply, fundamentally, includes spiritual understanding (which is now part of our vision statement - “seeking spiritual understanding”.

- You’ve heard the expression: “living on the edge.”

- The connotation is that when we live on the edge, we are living an exciting , full, fast-moving type of life.

- But the truth is, when we live on the edge, we are not centered; and when we’re not centered, we are not in touch with our deepest self which is our true spiritual self .

- The spiritual discipline and it is a discipline, of being still, of being “centered”, of “experiencing life deeply” , is very much a part of our Judeo-Christian heritage, although many of us will may be familiar with this.

- Awareness of God, knowledge of God’s presence and reality, according to the Psalmist, comes from being still.

- Jesus provides an important clue as to why “stillness” can be a pathway to knowing and experiencing God when he says: “The Kingdom of God is within you.”-

“Stillness” is essentially a condition of the heart, the spirit, the inner self. We can be sitting and not be “still” if our minds and emotions are flapping about. “Stillness” is a way of being within in order to experience the Kingdom within.

- When we are “still”, that is, when we are peaceful and concentrated, the presence of God within us can be experienced.

- Jesus also said that God knows our needs even before we ask.

- That is, words are not necessary to commune with God.

- In the Christian tradition there is a long established practice called “prayer of the heart.”

- It is also called contemplation or meditation.

- Meditation is the spiritual discipline of “being still”; of “being mindful”; of being “aware”; of being “centered.”

- Meditation is a spiritual practice that is found in many of the worlds great religious traditions.

- Some of these – like Hinduism and Buddhism – are more ancient than Christianity.

- More and more I am becoming convinced that faithful people of differing spiritual traditions can learn from each other.

- And that by entering into dialogue with such people, we can not only better understand them, but we can better understand ourselves and sometimes even our own spiritual traditions.

- Hindus and Buddhists, for instance, were cultivating the practice of “being still” or meditating , hundreds of years before Jesus was born. They have developed techniques for “stilling” the heart, mind and body, techniques for centering and meditating that Christians can greatly profit from.

- Becoming “still” helps bring to consciousness THREE things:- First when we are still, we “know” God loves us.

- Second, we are enabled to trust in God when we are still.

- Third, we look at our lives from the big perspective when we practice “stillness”.

- All these can be known and experienced through “stillness”.

- First, when we are still, centered on the moment without letting our minds take us off in all directions, we know God loves us.

- “Look at the way God takes care of the birds of the air and the flowers of the field,” Jesus says.

- “Look deeply at the world around you,” he says.

- “Don’t you know that God loves you even more than these?” Jesus asks.

- “Well, no,” we might reply.

- Sometimes I don’t feel this way, especially when things are going wrong.

- Sometimes I wonder if God is really there.

- Things go wrong, and I begin to doubt.

- Anne Bloch was like this.

- She was a very unhappy woman.

- She had horrible memories of her childhood: fights between her parents; her mother threatening her with a meat knife; spending many hours cowering under the bed in her room.

- She became rich and widely traveled, yet remained very unhappy, and over time she developed crippling arthritis.

- In the midst of her dark valley, she began to explore the spiritual life.

- She became a Christian and studied the ways of spiritual life.

- She began to get in touch with her inner self, and to look honestly at who she really was.

- Which is to say, she practiced the discipline of being still.

- An important part of her spiritual journey was dealing with the wounds of her inner self.

- She went back to the old home where she grew up and into the bedroom where she spent so many hours crying.

- She remembered all that had happened to her, faced all those demons and fears once again.

- She allowed the little girl within her to cry once more, but this time she said she was not alone.

- She heard a “voice” – an inner voice – and felt as if the arms of God were around her, cradling her as she wpt.

- The “voice” said, “You don’t ever have to be afraid anymore. I am with you ….. I've always been with you.”

- Her arthritis left her completely.

- She became a whole person again.

- Her inner wounds disappeared when she began to understand and experience that God really did love her. That she was not alone.

- When we love God and know God loves us – experience that love – and allow that love to permeate our entire being, healing and wholeness is found.

- Secondly, practicing stillness help us to trust God.

- “God knows what you need,” said Jesus “even before you ask.”

- This statement from a man who ended up dying on a cross at the age of 33.

- But the disciples who wrote the Gospels, saw no contradiction between this statement and Jesus early death on a cross.

- If God is trustworthy, they realized then even our fear of death is transformed (an end but also a new beginning).

- Countless Christians have gone to their death, even in violent ways, with a complete sense of peace.

- “Though he slay me,” said Job, “yet will I trust him.”

- That’s what it comes down to, isn’t it?

- Our ability to trust, even when things are going wrong.

- The determination to trust God/the Spirit/the Sacred/Being is at the very core of what it means to have “faith” which I talked about last week.

- When we still our minds and hearts, and touch God’s spirit within us, we experience trust because we know God is with us…. we are not alone.

- This “knowing”, as I have said, is not understanding intellectually, not rational knowledge, like knowing a tree or a mathematical equation .

- This “knowing” God's presence is experiential knowing.

- We know God because we experience God, we feel God's presence in our lives.

- In our deepest being we sense God's presence with us and so we can trust God.

- Finally, when we are “still”, we look at our lives from the big perspective.

- A centered life that takes time to be still, is one that is able to see the “big picture”.

- “I consider”, said the Apostle Paul, “that the sufferings of the present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

- “Seek first the Kingdom”, said Jesus: then everything else falls into place; when you can see things from the long look.

- The “long look” is what is at the heart of the Zen Buddhist “Ten Ox-herding Pictures”.

- Have you ever seen those before? Probably not… it’s a series of 10 pictures.

- In the first picture, a man is searching for an ox.

- In the second picture, he finds it.

- In the third, he gets a rope on it and so on until he is riding it and tames it.

- Then, at about the 7th picture, the man forgets the ox and it is no longer in the picture.

- The man is now looking at the moon.

- In the 8th picture, the man himself has vanished.

- The 9th picture shows the natural setting from which both the ox and the man disappeared.

- And the final picture shows nothing – even the natural scene has disappeared.

- The ox-herding pictures are very important in Buddhist thought. They remind us that nothing in this life is of permanence, neither our own life nor anything else.

- We all will die, anything we have built will decay, even the world is not permanent.

- For Buddhists, these pictures help them to take the “long look” and not get bent out of shape by anxiety over small matters, or matters over which they have no control.

- Jesus also realized the importance of taking “the long look”.

- Don’t be anxious, he says…. Don’t worry about tomorrow….tomorrow will look after itself.

- Jesus was the epitome of the centered life.

- Think about the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane, the night before Crucifixion Friday, when he faced the certainty of his own death.

- The Gospel says he “sweat drops of blood” – his fear was very real.

- But after he had prayed – after he had centred himself on the love of God, that is , had become mindful of his trust in God, and saw all of what was happening against the backdrop of eternity ( the “long look”) – he came out of the Garden renewed and enabled to face his ordeal with a complete sense of peace.

- Even when they were nailing him to the cross, he prayed for the soldiers who were doing it.

- No flying around and flapping of wings.

- Just stillness.

- In touch with his inner self.

- In touch with God/the Sacred/ the Divine/ Being.

- And Christ says we can be the same way. We can follow his path, his way, his practice.

- Remember the birds and the flowers and seek the Kingdom within, he says.

- Become centered – on the love of God and trust in that love.

- Be still and know that I am God...

- Be still and know...

- Be still...

STRATEGIES FOR COMPASSION

2009-11-15T11:13:00.000-08:00

A Sermon preached
November 15, 2009
(Luke 6: 31-36)

- For as long as anyone can remember, human beings have endured pain and suffering of many kinds and in great amounts.

- And from its beginning to the present, the Christian religion has employed a variety of strategies to help the world in it's suffering.

- One of Christianity's strategies has been to give meaning to human suffering.

- We proclaim that there is “something” good and useful in our pain and we challenge people to look for meaning even in the dark night of the soul.

- Another strategy has been to provide hope that our suffering will be relieved and even compensated for, in a life beyond the grave.

- A third strategy, the strategy of prayer, treats suffering by making petitions to God for relief or for the resources to endure it.

- Meaning, Hope and Prayer....

- As another response to the great mass of humanity's wounds, Christianity has employed the extremely significant strategy of compassion in response to Jesus' words: “Be compassionate, as God is compassionate.”

- And the main model we have used to carry out this compassionate living is based on one of Jesus' best-known parables – the parable of the Good Samaritan.

- This parable has been given a variety of interpretations over the past 2,000 years and much could be said regarding the various messages this parable point to.

- But the main point of the story is that it was presented by Jesus and preserved by the Church as a model of ministry to be imitated.

- “Go and do likewise” is the conclusion of this parable.

- If we would inherit eternal life, “Go and do likewise”.

- If we want to demonstrate we love God, “Go and do likewise”.

- If we fully understand what it means to be a neighbour, “Go and do likewise.”

- Imitate the model of the Good Samaritan, Jesus says, with deeds of compassion to those who are suffering.

- Jesus really drives this point home in his parable by having a Samaritan do the acts of compassion.

- Samaritans were part of the Jewish tribe but were ostracized by the Jews because they failed to keep certain laws and traditions and were therefore regarded as “unclean”.

- If a Jew was walking toward a Samaritan on the street, he would cross over to prevent from being “contaminated”.

- Imagine the shock of Jesus’ Jewish audience when he makes a Samaritan, of all people, the good guy!!…a typical Jesus story that turns conventional wisdom on its head and causes listeners to look with new eyes at the world around them.

- A frequent complaint made about Christians and the Christian church is that we have not gone and done likewise, we have not acted like the good Samaritan...

- That we often act more like those well-respected people in the parable who neglected the guy in the ditch, their neighbour in need.

- There is no doubt much truth in this.

- However, it is more than equally true that, over the centuries, Christians have been a major source of compassion in the world.

- The Church has initiated a huge variety of compassionate strategies for alleviating suffering and pain in practical ways which have been taken up by the non-Christian world.

- Hospitals, for instance, were first established by the Christian church.

- The church was at the forefront of the abolition of slavery once it realized the folly of this way.

- There have been negative marks in our past to be sure, but there have also been many bright spots as well.

- If massive pain and suffering persists in humanity's experience, as it does, perhaps this is not for lack of will, but because of the inadequacy of the model or strategy we are using.

- Jesus taught about the foolish practice of pouring new wine into old wine skins: It is foolish, he reminds us, to pour new wine into old wineskins, for the latter will burst and the wine will be wasted.

- He knew that if the energy of our compassion is poured into “old wineskins of ministry” that are obsolete and are not able to meet the demands placed upon us, those wineskins of ministry will not work and our compassion will be wastefully spilled.

- So the question I want to put to you today is whether or not the “Samaritan strategy” of compassion has become an inadequate wineskin that is no longer the best container to meet the needs our Christian compassion today in the 21st century.

- The question is whether or not we need to invest in some new wineskins if we are serious about the effective expression of our compassion.

- My point is that, if we critically examine the Samaritan strategy of compassion, I think we will see in it several signs of stress and obsolescence in our contemporary situation – which is limiting the Christian impact on suffering in the world.

- First, the Samaritan model is individualistic.

- The model describes ministry to suffering people as a one-on-one and face to face relationship between a helper and one who needs help.

- In the parable, there is just one victim in the ditch who can be treated adequately by the lone Samaritan with his private resources.

- By contrast, the ditches of the modern world are littered with multitudes of broken lives that realistically are beyond help by simply a personal approach.

- To alleviate mass suffering using the Samaritan strategy will necessarily leave vast numbers of the world's wounded in the ditch to die and that compassionate Christians cannot do. We must do better.

- Secondly, the Samaritan model of caring and compassion is occasional.

- Ministry to suffering people is depicted in this parable as something that one does now and then “on the side” and unrelated to our full-time occupation and that it constitutes a momentary interruption of one's journey on the road of life.

- The Samaritan may stop frequently to pick up and patch people lying in the ditch, but the story does not suggest that he is a professional who travels the Jericho road looking for accident victims.

- Clearly, genuine compassion for people in pain is not a “sometimes” feeling that flares up just once in a while at the sight of hungry Africans on T.V. or when a friend gets cancer.

- True compassion, Christian compassion in the manner of Jesus, is an everyday orientation toward the world in which caring for the hurting is a high and regular priority.

- Thirdly, Samaritan compassion is “parochial” (limited in scope).

- The model presents no clear criterion for selecting clients for aid, other than that they are in the neighbourhood of the Samaritan who just happens to come upon a victim of violence.

- However, most of the people who need our assistance most desperately today are not in our own neighbourhoods and we seldom, if ever, run into them because they have been sifted by socio-economic processes into ghettos, reservations, slums and underdeveloped countries.

- Throughout the centuries, the Christian church has regularly imitated the compassionate Samaritan in response to desperate human need and has, in the past, interpreted this parable as the main model of Christian compassion

- Christians can be justifiably proud of their fidelity to this model of ministry which has seeded the entire planet and especially Western civilization, with “Samaritan-like” institutions and programs for people who are hungry, homeless, sick, lonely and dying.

- As participants in and contributors to these ministries, all of us have gone and continue to go into the ditches of the world to help those who are suffering.

- Our outreach at MacKay United to Centre 507 is an example of this.

- This “wineskin” has held a lot of genuine and effective Christian compassion in its time and will continue to do so.

- I’m certainly NOT saying that this parable and its call for individuals to help other individuals in need is obsolete and irrelevant.

- Not at all.

- However I am suggesting that this model for compassion needs to be augmented and expanded.

- Times change and even great traditions and good strategies must change as well.

- The Samaritan model of compassion has cracked under the pressures of modern mass suffering.

- Too much of the available compassion in the Christian church is being spilled out in works of charity that often produce little more than tax deductions and a clear conscience.

- Thoughtful Christians now realize that, if there is to be any significant progress against the injustices that produce suffering and pain for the peoples of Canada and the world:

- the politics of the world must change....

- the way of doing business must change.

- the systems and institutions must change.

- This is why those who say “religion” should have nothing to do with “politics” have entirely missed the point of Jesus' life and message.

- “Politics”, in the broad sense of the term, has to do with how power shapes society, and political and social policies affect the everyday life of ordinary people and especially people on the lower rungs of the economic ladder.

- This is why we see Jesus repeatedly challenging the political and social “systems” of his day.

- He challenged the Temple in Jerusalem (which was the economic and political centre of his culture) and Roman authorities for the way they placed hardships on the people.

- He knew that institutions like these had to be challenged if justice and compassion were to come to the masses.

- He knew, and he wants us to know, that it's not just greedy, uncaring individuals who cause others to suffer but “systems” and “institutions” as well.

- Compassion has a political dimension.

- The Mission and Service Fund of the United Church of Canada and the way it seeks to bring compassion to people in Canada and throughout the world recognizes the need to understand and take into consideration the political implications of helping masses of people.

- That is why we work closely with partner churches and secular organizations in the countries we are trying to help.

- The Mission and Service Fund moves beyond the Samaritan model of compassion to look at the broader picture which the 21st century presents to us.

- I encourage you to take another look at the Untied Church of Canada’s Mission and Service Fund as a way of participating in extending meaningful compassion to Canada and the world ( you can even become a friend of the Mission and Service Fund on facebook)

- To follow Jesus means it's not “business as usual” for me any more.

- The person of compassion, in the manner of Jesus, will become politically aware and politically involved knowing that – in the world we live in today – this is the most effective strategy to alleviate suffering and be the compassionate people that followers of Jesus are meant to be.

800 KM ACROSS SPAIN IN 3 MINS. 46 SECONDS

2009-10-29T12:27:00.000-07:00

" WE HAVE THE MIND OF CHRIST"

2009-10-23T04:57:00.000-07:00

A sermon preached
October 18, 2009

“Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God's Spirit....Those who are spiritual discern all things. For who has known the mind of God.... But we have the mind of Christ”. ( 1 Corinthians 2:12-16)

SUMMARY : To “have the mind of Christ” is to be mindfull, to be aware, to be in a state of presence, alert to the moment.

- “Teflon” is an amazing product of 20th century technology.

- Commercials proclaim the scientific gospel: “Nothing sticks to teflon”.

- For cooks like myself, teflon is indeed, a minor miracle.

- But something that even the commercials don't realize is – teflon is found in more places than just cooking utensils.

- There is also, unfortunately, an over abundance today of what could be called “teflon MINDS”.

- “Teflon minds”, are minds to which nothing sticks.

- These too, are the product of the modern era – an age nurtured on fast food and fleeting fads.

- You can easily recognize a person with a teflon mind.

- They are the one's who are so open-minded, that they won't even argue in favour of their own position!

- Everything just rolls right off them.

- Part of their rationale may be a desire to take the middle ground, or be conciliatory, but in so doing they end up “on the fence” and out of the action.

- The teflon mind can also be soul destroying.

- When nothing sticks in a person's mind to give guidance, balance and direction, then that person is at the mercy of the latest trend, argument, guru, or personal whim.

- The roadway of history is littered with bodies of people, who have fallen victim to the con man, the gossip-monger and the preacher of platitudes.

- Such people love teflon minds because they can cook up anything they want in them.

- By contrast, Paul tells us that the one who follows Jesus has the mind of Christ.

- The mind of Christ is very different from the teflon mind.

- What does it mean , to have the mind of Christ?

- It means that, as followers of Jesus, people who follow his Way, his practice, our minds weigh everything by the principles and values which he reveals in his life and teachings.

- You could say, when we have the mind of Christ, he becomes our our guru.

- We try to cultivate his mind IN US

- Cultivating the mind of Christ is a spiritual practice.

- And it is an antidote to the “teflon mind”.

- Still, teflon minds persist in Christians which says a great deal about the state of our spirituality.

- Teflon minds, to which nothing sticks, are dangerous.

- But even more dangerous are teflon minds which have worn thin, allowing fragments of thoughts to lodge in the mind.

- The result is very often a multitude of thoughts that cause fears, or phobias; bad habits or prejudices.

- It's a fact that our behaviour is frequently controlled by misguided and unwarranted thoughts.

- Problems arise from the POWER we give to these thoughts.

- A lot of trivial, irrational, negative and outright wrong thoughts cause great distress in people because these thoughts won’t go away.

- And what is more, we often think of these thoughts as “facts” carved in stone, when they are, in reality, simply interpretations that are as fleeting as waves on water.

- And yet, they hound us like a bad dream, invading our minds like a looping tape recording.

- Psychologists call this “rumination”....

- Rumination is a psychological tendency to go over and over thoughts that are lodged in our minds to the point of being obsessed with them, identifying them with “who we are”, and often leading to debilitating consequences.

- For instance, something so important as a friendship is often sacrificed because of an insult or “snub” ( real or imagined) that we just can’t get out of our minds.

- We allow certain thoughts to loom so large in our minds that they can become toxic, sometimes taking us into a downward spiral of anxiety, stress or depression.

- We become “problem conscious” in a literal and unhealthy way-- and our mind keeps us in this mode.

- We saturate ourselves with negative self talk as these thoughts swirl around in our heads.

- It is as if we become “possessed” by our MINDS.

- Fact could be piled on fact to show that much of our troubles – spiritual, physical and emotional -- are due to a negative mind-set caused by incessant rumination on nagging or negative thoughts.

- The mind to which even a few negative thoughts stick is more soul-destroying, more debilitating than a mind to which nothing sticks because “rumination” is often the result.

- Now, all this points to an obvious need.

- If we have teflon minds, or, worse, teflon minds that have worn thin, we need to change the way we regard our MINDS.

- We need to change the way we relate to our thoughts and our thinking.

- BECAUSE THE PROBLEM IS THINKING ITSELF.

- This may sound strange, so let me try to explain.

- We need something to give us stability and direction in life.

- There are a myriad of philosophies, books and gurus, in this world, claiming to give this direction and stability.

- But the Christian realizes that we already have our source of stability and direction, namely, the cosmic Christ who reminds us:

- The Spirit enables us to discern all truth;
- The Spirit enables us to discern God's will,
- The Spirit guides us to quiet waters and brings inner peace.

- It is NOT the Mind, not reason or thinking, that ultimately brings these into our life -- but the Spirit.

- The problem is, we often don’t allow, or don’t know HOW to allow, the Spirit to give us these things and guide us in this way.

- When we “have the mind of Christ,” WE KNOW THE LIMITATIONS OF THE HUMAN MIND, and we also know how to connect with the Spirit who will guide us in all things.

- When we have the mind of Christ we MAKE A SHIFT IN OUR CONSCIOUSNESS.

- A shift in how we “KNOW” and relate to the world around us, and our own life, including our thoughts and mind.

- For instance, when we have the mind of Christ, we don't identify ourselves with our MIND; we are not “possessed", so to speak, by our minds.
- Our mind is not our master, Christ/ the Spirit/God is our master.

- This shift in Consciousness involves the spiritual disciple of AWARENESS or MINDFULNESS.

- Christ talked about this in terms of “being awake”; “not being anxious about tomorrow”, opening to the Spirit, waiting in a state of alertness.
- “Be like a servant waiting for the return of his master”, says Jesus.
- Stay AWAKE, be alert, poised , still... lest you miss the master's arrival.
- Jesus is talking about mindfulness, awareness.

- Instead ofthese terms one could to use a more theological term -- CHRIST- CONSCIOUSNESS.

- But don’t get attached to words.
- It's the MEANING that's import

- When we are led by the Spirit; when we are Christ-conscious, when we are AWARE, we enter into an entirely DIFFERENT WAY OF KNOWING.

- A “knowing” that does not involve thinking.

- We can “know” something by THINKING about it, that is, we can know it conceptually.

- OR, we can know something by sensory perception, that is, by experiencing it directly.

- The latter way of “knowing” is called AWARENESS or MINDFULNESS.

- For instance, you can know about a chair by having someone describe it to you with words, giving dimensions, colour, type of material, describing its function etc.

- That is, you “know” the chair by thinking about it.

- But there is another way of “knowing” what a chair is, and that is to sit in one and EXPERIENCE it directly for yourself.

- The latter way of “knowing” is what we mean by “knowing” through AWARENESS or MINDFULNESS.

- When we become AWARE OR MINDFULL, we use a different mode of consciousness from what we normally use, namely the thinking mode.

- Most of the time we are in the thinking mode because we are dealing with practical, day to day concerns.

- But when it comes to spiritual matters,matters if the inner life, thinking is not sufficient.

- We need to shift into Awareness mode of knowing in order to discern the things of the Spirit.

- This way of knowing is not better than thinking , it’s just different.

- When we have the “mind of Christ” we are aware of the limitiations of “thinking” as a way of knowing spiritual reality.

- When we have the mind of Christ, we know that only by shifting to the Being mode of Awareness can we EXPERIENCE God, that is, “know” God in a direct way.

- ONCE WE PRACTICE AND BECOME PROFIENT IN MOVING INTO THE AWARENESS MODE, WE ALSO BECOME MORE SKILLFULL IN THE THINKING MODE

- When we “have the mind of Christ” and are in Awareness mode/Christ-consciousness mode, we still use our thinking mind when needed, but in a much more focussed and efficient way.

- That is why Paul says, think about : what is true, honourable, just, pure etc.

- But to be ABLE to do this, it is often necessary to move into the Awareness mode because here we are able to “STILL” the incessant ruminations of the Mind and be fully present to the moment, moment by moment.

- “What sticks in your mind?”

- “Are they primarily negative things.... like fear, distrust, suspicion, resentment, jealousy or envy?”

- Then you are not practicing Christ-consciousness or Awareness.

- You are not cultivating ‘the mind of Christ”.

- As I have said, cultivating the mind of Christ IS a PRACTICE… A SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE, THAT WE NEED TO WORK AT VERY HARD .

- We are cultivating the mind of Christ when we understand the vital importance of Mindful Awareness or Christ-consciousness in the spiritual life AND are able to shift into this mode of being.

- Here we will find the inner peace we all seek.

- Here we will find the seedbed for a new life of freedom from our fears, addictions and pain that Christ teaches is possible on earth.

- God, deliver us from teflon minds.

- Let ours be the mind of Christ.

2009-10-09T11:00:00.000-07:00

"In my Camino Life"

PRAY WITHOUT CEASING

2009-09-29T11:57:00.000-07:00

A SERMON PREACHED SEPTEMBER 27/09

- As we read through the gospels, we find Jesus time and time again telling parables.

- Parables are short stories that are told to illustrate a moral attitude, a religious principle, or a life lesson.

- The parables of Jesus were about ordinary people and every day events or routines that his audience could identify with.

- However, most of Jesus' parables, instead of supplying answers, raise more questions.

- They seemed to be designed to make us re-think what we are inclined to take for granted.

- Such is the case with the parable of the persistent widow that we are looking at today.

- Suppose a modern day preacher wanted to tell a story to encourage the congregation to keep up the practice of prayer and to explain why God was sometimes slow in answering.

- Can you imagine the preacher coming up with a story like the one Jesus told.

- Here it is again in modern terms:

- There was once a judge who was totally irreligious.

- He didn't even bother to show up at church for appearance's sake.

- He hadn't a spark of compassion for any of the people who came before him in cout and just rattled through the cases like a kind of legal computer.

- So here was a typical day. It was late Friday afternoon and he wanted to get out early to go over to the club for a drink.

- “Next case.”

- His clerk whispers in his ear:

- “It's that woman again, you know, the one you call Mrs. Superpest.”

- “For God's sake, send her away....No, wait a minute.

- She'll just be back again tomorrow.

- I'll get rid of her once and for all.”

- The woman takes the stand.

- “Madam, after lengthy study of the relevant laws, I have come to the conclusion that you have made your case and are entitled to the sum of money your are claiming.”....“The court is adjourned.”

- Would it ever occur to any preacher to tell a story even remotely like that to illustrate God's dealing with us in prayer?!

- So,why would Jesus?

- It's not that we can't follow it, or that we can't believe it.

- The reality of this situation is as real to us as it was to Jesus' audience who were accustomed to the corruption of local village judges.

- The question is : How are we to interpret this parable?
- What does it mean?

- Those who have always thought of parables as simple allegories where each character stands for someone else, are going to be baffled by this story.

- So the widow stands for you and me as people who pray.

- Then the judge stands for... God???

- Are we to think of God as one who doesn't give a hoot for the ideals of justice, but might possibley be persuaded to help us if we pester her long enough?

- Surely Jesus can't be saying that if we “bug” God enough, she'll eventually give in like the judge!

- What we can say, as we begin to work our way into the heart of this parable, is that Jesus is using here a device he often uses – the argument of -- “HOW MUCH MORE”.
-
- Here I am utilizing the Reformed principle of using Scripture to interpret Scripture.

- In another passage on prayer, Jesus asks parents if they would deceive and disappoint their children by giving them stones when they requested bread.

- The idea was unthinkable.

- Then he said, “If you then, weak as you are, know how to give your children what is good for them, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him?”

- Now in the parable we are looking at in Luke, he carries the thought even further.

- He gives the worst possible example of human cynicism and selfishness, saying:

- “If a scoundrel like this judge can be influenced by sheer persistence, HOW MUCH MORE will God, who is pure and compassionate, respond to the constant prayers of his children?”

- It's a typical parable of Jesus – a story straight out of real life.

- And like most of his parables, one clear message comes through loud and clear: We have to resist the temptation to give up the practice of regular prayer.

- We've got to pray continually.

- “Pray without ceasing”, as the Apostle Paul put it.

- How can we possibly do this...we have work to do, places to go, things to see,,, I can't possibly devote all my time to prayer!

- OF COURSE NOT. This isn't what Paul is saying.

- Paul is referring to a way of BEING as opposed to a way of DOING.

- In the DOING mode we are in thinking mode.

- Our minds are actively making decisions, formulating ideas and actions for the body to perform.

- When we pray in church we are mostly in the DOING mode.

- In the BEING mode our mind still serves us but it is in the background... it is not the controlling factor.

- AWARENESS is the controlling factor in the BEING mode.

- THINKING is a way of knowing

- AWARENESS is also a way of knowing but a different way.

- NOT BETTER, JUST DIFFERENT.

- So, when Paul urges us to “pray without ceasing”, that is, never stop praying, or pray continually, he is urging us to enter into the BEING mode that uses AWARENESS OR MINDFULNESS as a means of knowing.-

- He is urging us to be perpetually open to God's presence in every aspect of our lives.

- We are to be AWARE of God's presence in everything we do,
every moment of the day, moment by moment.

- It is in the everyday things that God speaks to us, IF we have “ears to hear”, as Jesus put it... if we are AWARE.

- The prophet Isaiah makes a similar point about communion with God when he writes:

- “They who WAIT for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

- Is there some discripancy here between Jesus' and Paul's exhortation to be persistent and unyielding in our prayer life , and Isaiah's advice to wait.... “wait for the Lord.”

- There would be perhaps, if we limit prayer to talking or thinking, that is, prayer in the DOING MODE.

- We sometimes seem to think of prayer as a technique for giving God information.

- A small boy was overheard to say in his bedtime prayer: “And please God, put the vitamins in the pie instead of in the spinach.”

- You know, some adult prayers are not much different from that, only a little more sophisticated in expression.

- Prayer is not a method of persuading God to water the tomatoes and keep the field free of weeds.

- Rather, prayer is a method by which the gardener opens his or her heart and mind to the presence of God.

- Isaiah's phrase, “Wait for the Lord” declares this biblical perspective on prayer.

- It suggests that prayer is more a matter of God speaking to us, than of us speaking to God.

- “Wait for the Lord,” ...be open to the Lord's leading....listen for God.
- For this to happen, we need to be in what I have called the BEING MODE

- And so, when Jesus and Paul tell us, to be persisitent in our prayer; to never stop; they are telling us to continually keep our hearts and minds open to God's presence, to be mindful of each moment, to always listen with the HEART for what God may be saying to us through our bodies, through people around us, and through the Creation in general, in every aspect of our lives.

- As I have mentioned,this type of prayer does does not rely on saying or even thinking WORDS, but is better described as A STATE OF AWARENESS or BEING PRESENT TO THE MOMENT.

- The Psalmist put it like this: “BE STILL and know that God is present”... STILLNESS is another word for AWARENESS.

- So, these passages we have been looking at today focus on a particulat KIND of prayer.

- You know, communication is a two-way street.

- It involves both talking and listening.

- Prayer is often described as communication with God.

- For most people this means simply talking with God, and on one level it certainly is, and that's fine and good.

- But on a another level, “communication” with God is COMMUNION with God, that is, being in God's presence, directly experiencing God, making contact with God.

- However, we tend to be so busy trying to remember all the things we want to say to God, that we don't take time to simply “be” in God's presence....to be still and rest in an awareness of God's presence.

- When we fail to train ourselves in this spiritual discipline, we are missing out on what I consider to be the deepest and most satisfying level of prayer.

- So, to recap:The point of prayer is communion with God.

- Communion can certainly include communication in the sense of thinking and saying words, but it is not LIMITED to this.

- When we pray to God, we need to remember that communication is a two way street of TALKING AND LISTENING.

- What is God saying to you , through your body...through the people around you, through God's creation?
- Are you listening?....Are you expecting to hear from God?...

- Are you practicing AWARENESS in your every day living, that is, STILLING yourself so that you are mindfull of God's presence in ordinary events?

- All this is a vital part of prayer.

- Something else about prayer.

- It should never be used as an excuse for inaction.

- Prayer that does not lead to action is non-prayer.

- How many people use prayer as a means of appeasing their conscience...

- When they are too lazy, or too frightened, or too busy to actually do something, they pray about it!

- The point is made in one of the prayers of Thomas More: “The things, good Lord, that we pray for, give us the grace to labour for.”

- Bernard Clausen expressed it like this: “Prayer does not change things. Prayer changes people. Then people change things.”

- Prayer, then, as the Bible understands prayer, is not an attempt to wangle special favours from God.

- It is a matter of committing oneself to God's purposes, not our own.

- It is a two-way street of asking and listening.

- It is a way of BEING in which one continually seeks to be mindful of God's presence in our lives, not just Sunday mornings, but MOMENT TO MOMENT, day by day.

- And we are promised that, if we make pray a daily spiritual PRACTICE, a way of living, an intrinsic part of our lives, we shall be able to “run” and not grow weary.

- We will be fully alive.

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE SPIRITUAL LIFE

2009-09-18T06:40:00.000-07:00

Throughout the New Testament, in the teachings of Jesus and Paul,we are urged to deepen our spiritual insight.

- We are to make every effort to grow in our spiritual awareness, a process which the New Testament writers refer to as the “new birth” or the “new creation”, which leads to enlightenment, to having the “mind of Christ”.

- In the New Testament, the word which is translated in English as “spirit” is “pneuma” in Greek, the language in which the NT was originally written.

- In Greek, “pneuma” also means “breath” or “life”.

- When we seek to understand the nature of “spirit” and “spirituality”, we should take our cue from the NT Christians if we are going to understand what they meant by the “spiritual life”.

- We can say that for the early Christians, the “spirit” is the “life-breath” (pneuma).

- And that spirituality has to do with coming alive – with becoming “fully alive” – literally breathing in life deeply.

- If we want to live fully, the NT writers tell us we need to be alive in all aspects of our being: BODY, MIND AND SPIRIT.

- I think many of our problems, much of the suffering we experience, arise from the fact that we are not nurturing our total selves.

- More and more, I think people today are realizing that the void, the feeling of emptiness, the lack of zest in their lives, stems from their underdeveloped spirituality; their underdeveloped spiritual selves.

- It’s a valid question to ask what constitutes genuine or healthy spirituality.

- With that in mind, I want to reflect for a moment on some aspects of the spiritual life from a Christian perspective as I see it in the Bible and in our tradition.

- It seems to me that all genuine spiritual growth, like all growth, will bring with it a certain amount of hard work.

- This is true because genuine spirituality will always direct us to look deeply at REALITY.

- The reality of ourselves and the reality of the world we live in.

- The wisdom of Jesus and many other great spiritual leaders, teaches us that both these realities entail suffering – there is suffering in our own life and there is suffering in the world and a genuine spirituality will seek to face suffering (not deny it) and to alleviate it.

- I don’t think anything else undermines the spiritual life as much as does our tendency to immerse ourselves in UNREALITY…that is, to be asleep to our true condition and the true condition of the world around us.

- When our spiritual life feeds on unreality – it starves.

- Some people think of the spiritual life as an escape from reality, when, in fact, just the opposite is the case.

- The genuine spiritual life, at least in the Christian context, is a total commitment to reality, which of course includes suffering.

- It is a coming to grips with reality – with life as it actually IS.

- In his book: The Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck writes:

o “The more clearly we see the reality of the world, the better equipped we are to deal with the world. The less clearly we see the reality of the world – the less able we will be to determine correct courses of action and make wise decisions….”

- And so we can say that spirituality has to do with “right seeing” - “right perception” about reality and the struggle this invokes.

- In some Eastern traditions this is called MINDFULNESS.

- In my view, MINDFULNESS is analogous to what the New Testament calls being “filled with the Spirit” or “life in the Spirit”.

- This is an insight I learned from Thich Nhat Hanh's book LIVING BUDDHA LIVING CHRIST and it make's a great deal of sense to me.

- Mindfulness, or life in the Spirit,is a struggle ( or, to use a more religious term,a discipline) because it is a mode of “being” which is at odds with our normal mode: the “doing” mode.

- In the “being” mode we relate to reality ("know") through AWARENESS OR MINDFULNESS

- In the “doing” mode we relate to reality ( "know") by THINKING.

- Both modes are valid and necessary and each has their own sphere of effectiveness.

- But most people have been conditioned to live their lives in the “doing” mode even when dealing with areas of life that can only be affectively dealt with in the “being” mode.

-To experience God, for instance, can only be achieved in the "being" mode.

- It can be quite difficult to change from the "doing" mode to the "being" mode when the former is all you have known... but change we must.

- Change comes hard for most of us because it can often cause suffering.

- Scott Peck says that the miracle is we do grow, that we do change, that there is a “force”, a “power”, which pushes us to choose the more difficult path of change and suffering – the ROAD LESS TRAVELLED…it is the spiritual path.

- It should also be emphasized that spirituality is a WAY OF LIVING.

- It is no coincidence that the first Christians, before they were called Christians, were called “people of the Way”.

- Spirituality is not merely something to be known and studied – it is to be lived – it is to be experienced.

- And like all “life” – it grows sick and dies if it is not nurtured and fed.

- And so the spiritual life is not simply intellectual, it does not simply take place from the “neck up”.

- It’s not “thought” alone (“doing” mode)

- Nor is it simply a life of sensation…of feeling.

- It certainly includes thoughts and feelings.

- But to live a spiritual life, we need to AWARE of what we think and feel; we need to experience the sacred in our midst… which is to say, we must live with MINDFULNESS (“being” mode), we must “live in the Spirit”.

- Sometimes Christians seem to think that spirituality has to do ONLY with what is going on in my head and heart – studying, reading, praying, meditating…

- But spirituality has to do with the whole of life – internally and externally.

- Which is to say, spirituality not only includes my devotional life and my prayer life, it also includes my body; my job; my marriage; my relationships…everything about me.

- That is true, of course, only if and when one “sees” these areas of life through the lens of the Spirit (or with MINDFULNESS).

- The Old Testament prophets, Paul and Jesus, all shared this way of seeing the world.

- They viewed as a spiritual concern – right worship and right business dealings, right relationship to God and right relationship to God’s creation.

- One area is not “more” spiritual than another.

- Precisely because it touches all areas of our lives, the spiritual life demands discipline and training.

- We need to work at our relationships, our jobs, our worship…all the facets of our life in order to bring spiritual awareness (mindfulness) to everything we do.

- For Christians, our guide, our “guru” on this demanding path is Jesus.

- We attempt to “live in the spirit” or with MINDFULNESS as he did.

- Through his example of spiritual exercises and practices, we seek to “die” to our “old ways” of seeing and acting in order to experience rebirth or enlightenment.

- Christianity calls this the “ the way of the cross”.

- Eastern traditions call it “surrender”

- As I mentioned, early Christians were called people of “the way”.

- The “way” of Jesus, which we struggle to follow, is the way of spiritual awareness that shines its light into every corner of our being.

- Each one of us ultimately travels this path alone. And it is a “path” or “way” we are on.

- We are surrounded, hopefully, and helped by our community of faith, but each one of us must take responsibility to walk the path of spiritual awareness and practice.

- As Paul says in his letter to the Philippians: 2:12

o “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”.

- Each one of us must find and cultivate our own relationship to, and experience of, the sacred in our life.

- The Christian faith has a rich and diversified tradition of spiritual practice which we can draw on to nurture and develop our spiritual life.

- We shouldn’t be afraid to go beyond the familiar spiritual practices to try new ones.

- As I have already alluded to, I think we can draw on the wisdom of other ancient spiritual traditions to assist us in delving more deeply into our Christian roots.

- We need to employ every means possible to nurture our spiritual life.

- The spiritual discipline of MINDFULNESS or BEING FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT can be one of those means that may profoundly change your life

- And so,the apostle Paul prays for the Christians at Ephesus who had embarked upon the way of Jesus:

“May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ give you a spirit of wisdom and perception as you come to know him so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.”

MINDFULNESS: HOW WE DEAL WITH CHANGE

2009-09-10T12:50:00.000-07:00

A SERMON PREACHED ON SEPTEMBER 6,2009
MACKAY UNITED CHURCH, OTTAWA

- It’s obvious to say that we are living in an age of unprecedented change, both in society generally and the church specifically.

- We could say that the one unchanging thing in our world is change itself.

- But less obvious is how we should react to the change going on around us.

- How we react to change, how we “see” it, “look upon it”, relate to it, can have a dramatic affect on the level of stress in our lives, and therefore on our capacity to live fully.

- Since change is something with which we will all have to deal eventually, we ought to learn how to adjust ourselves to it... how to deal with change in a mindful way, which is the only way to really deal with it.

- But how do we do this?

- Here are some ATTIDUDINAL FACTORS that can help us.

- To begin negatively, we should not look upon change as an end in itself.

- There is no use changing just for the sake of change.

- Now I know that some people love to use this phrase whenever they don't agree with a change taking place, even when the evidence is blatantly clear that there ARE good reasons for change and this is NOT change simply for the sake of change.

- People who do this are not being MINDFUL... not acting with AWARENESS.

- They are not focused on the issue at hand, but simply on their own agenda.

- On the other hand, there are those who would change everything every day, if they could.

- Such people are firmly convinced that all change means progress, even if those making the changes are going in circles.

- But change is not an “end” in itself; it is only a means to an end.

- And so, when confronted with change, whether in our personal lives, in our workplace, or the life of our church, we need to ask ourselves:

o What exactly is the “end” to which this change is leading us?
o What is the purpose?
o What will be the outcome?
o Are there any further implications?
o Am I open to the Spirit informing my decision, or am I focused simply on my own agenda?

- Change is not always progressive; change is not necessarily the will of God.

- But neither is change always a bad thing, and change certainly can be the direction the Spirit is leading us.

- We need to weigh the matter very carefully.

- Yet, there are those who greatly fear almost any kind of change.

- They would rather be shot with a rifle than a new idea!

- Of course, change can be very upsetting.

- But why is it upsetting?

- Often because it simply forces us to think; to change our views, perhaps admit we were wrong, to consider alternatives – and that we seldom like to do.

- Change can also be upsetting for other reasons.

- Take, for instance, a typical home.

- The father, mother and children are all bound closely together by ties of love.

- But even though that home is happy, it cannot remain the same forever.

- Eventually the children will grow up to adulthood, leave the home and begin a home of their own.

- The time will come when mother and father will be back again living together like they were when they were first married.

- Then the day will arrive when that relationship will be broken – by death, or perhaps divorce – and the wife or husband will be alone or with someone else.

- Change can be very upsetting.

- But in spite of the fact that change often shocks and hurts us, it is in reality, our friend.

- If to change is at times heartbreaking, not to change could be tragic!

- Think, for a moment, of a baby boy or girl.

- That baby might break the heart of the parents by growing up to be a criminal.

- But there is another way in which that child could bring heartache – and that is, by refusing to grow at all!

- How terrible it would be to remain a child forever.

- The Apostle Paul writes:

o “When I was a child, I talked like a child; I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.”

- We are meant to change.

- We are to change ourselves.

- And we are to help change our world.

- That is what life is all about, and in particular, that is what the Christian life is all about.

- In dealing with change, however, we need to realize that there are different kinds of change.

- There are changes which are inevitable, over which we have no power or control.

- Such is the case with “aging”.

- Despite all our efforts to slow it down, and even deny it, time marches on!

- We can allow this inevitable change to depress us OR we can accept it as part of life, and move on with our lives, doing what needs to be done, not out of anger or resentment, but fully at peace.

- So,acceptance does not mean "resignation"...it is not passive.

- Acceptance is a clear acknowledgment that what is happening is happening.

- Acceptance is an integral aspect of MINDFULNESS.

- Then there are changes that are inevitable – so far as we are concerned.

- It may be the loss of a job due to a lay-off in a declining business.

- It may be the loss of a marriage partner.

- But even unhappy changes like these can be used for growth, if we meet them with Christian mindfulness, that is, open and fully aware to the presence of God in these moments.

- Writing in the 17th century, Jean-Pierre Caussade, a Jesuit priest, in his book, THE SACRAMENT OF THE PRESENT MOMENT, says: “The will of God is manifest in each moment…We only truly learn when God speaks directly to us… we learn through what happens to us from one moment to the next…each moment is a revelation of God.”

- When we look upon change with the kind of mindfulness Caussade is suggesting, we “see” things differently.

- It was a terrible change when ancient Israel was carried off into exile in Egypt.

- The people cried out to God at their loss of freedom.

- But it was during this period of exile that Israel learned her most valuable lessons.

- Every change, however dreaded, can work for our good and our growth, if we meet it with mindfulness.

- Along with these inevitable changes, are those changes which we choose for ourselves.

- We can choose to be different.

- We can choose to live by a different set of values than those of our parents or those of society.

- We have a choice when it comes to our behaviour and our lifestyle

- In dealing with this kind of change, the Apostle Paul gives us a very valuable guidepost.

- He says, “Test everything. Hold on to the good.”

- Don’t jump on the bandwagon just because it is new – test it!...BE MINDFUL!

- But don’t miss the parade just because you saw one ten years ago – BE MINDFUL!

- “Test everything. Hold on to the good.”

- There are some people that are like ships that have no anchors.

- They have lots of sails and move constantly and quickly, but they do nothing but move.

- These people change all the time.

- There are other people that have anchors, but no sails.

- They remain at rest all the time.

- They stay in one harbour and leave the vast sea unexplored.

- These people usually resist change.

- We Christians are called to have both sails and anchors.

- When we follow Christ, living mindfully, awake to the present moment, we are able to discern the time to change and the time to refrain from change.

- The present moment will reveal what we should do because this is where we make contact with God/the Spirit/ the Divine energy.

- Intuitively, by the stirrings of grace - or "mysterious impulses" as Caussade puts it - as we live mindfully, fully conscious to the present moment, we will be given “eyes to see” and make right choices.

MINDFULNESS: HOW WE PUT OUR TRUST IN GOD

2009-08-12T17:24:00.000-07:00

A sermon preached Aug 2, 2009
Matthew 6: 24-34
Romans 13:11-12 (NEV)-

-A man is walking along one day when he falls off a cliff.
- On the way down, he reaches out in desperation and manages to grab hold of a branch.
- As he’s hanging there precariously, trying to figure out how to keep from falling into the canyon below, he shouts out, “Is there anybody there?”
- To his amazement, a voice from the heavens replies, “Let go and I’ll save you. Trust me. Let go and I’ll take care of you.”
- The man thinks for a moment and then yells back, “Is there anybody else there?”

- We are so much like that man hanging on to the branch.
- When asked to put our trust in God, we look for other options; we get nervous and call out, “Is there anybody else there?”
- Is there another source of security I can depend on?- Is there something else in which to put my trust?

- In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus directs our attention to this question of where we put our trust.
- He uses language that is flowing and beautiful; he uses images that are very familiar: food and drink and clothing; birds and flowers and wild grass.

- His message is appealing, but it is also hard to accept and even harder to follow: “Do not worry, don't be anxious, have not anxiety, give NO thought... about your life.

- Jesus is asking each one of us not to let our minds ( “have no thought”) lead us to a place of worry and anxiety about what “might be”...about our future condition.

- And he gives a reason why we should not let this happen: God will provide what you need.- And so, he calls out to us to “trust in God”...God knows what you need... so don't worry , don’t be anxious.

- Now this question of trust brings up the whole matter of what life is about because it’s a value question.
- The question of “trust” asks “who or what is in control of my life?”
- And we usually respond – I am. I’m in control of my life.- We all have a need to be in control, to be in charge of our lives.
- “In me I trust” is a sign of our times, an attitude that expresses our basic belief that we “should” be able to pull all the strings, punch all the right buttons and control all of our relationships and situations.
- “Self-sufficiency” is a great virtue in today’s society.
- We want to be in charge and in a very real way what we are saying is, we want to be like God, that we want ultimate authority and value to rest on my shoulders.

- That is why this desire to be in control is fraught with spiritual pot-holes.
- It leads us into the dangerous quicksand of pride.
- It can also have detrimental physical repercussions.
- Trying to be in control all the time causes lots of worry and frustration, anxiety and stress, because, after all, who can really be in control of all aspects of life?
- We sometimes realize this too late, after we get ill and end up in the hospital, or when our relationships come apart, or when carefully laid plans get all messed up by some unforeseen emergency and we fall into depression
- All we need do is look back upon the course of our lives to realize that we really are not in control.

- And so, Jesus asks, “Can you place your trust in God?”
- Can you make the shift from: “In me I trust” to “In God I trust”?

- And we reply: “What do you mean, Jesus… put my trust in God?”

- Sure, I can say it, but what good does it do?- I can say it until I'm blue in the face, but does it change anything?
- Of course it doesn't. Merely mouthing the words will have no affect.
- There is a “practice”, a “discipline,” involved in “trusting” God... simply saying the words will not do.

- And so, today I want to offer you three responses to this question: HOW DO WE PUT OUR TRUST IN GOD?

1. First, to trust in God, we must LET GO of our illusion that we should be able to control all of our situations.
- Now “letting go” is not always easy as our man hanging from the limb found out.
- But we sometimes find ourselves in situations where we need a power greater than ourselves.
- Thus “trusting in God” is closely linked with “acceptance”.
- Acceptance of the “isness”, the reality, of life.
- Acceptance is not, however, a sit-back, do-nothing approach to life.
- “Acceptance” has nothing to do with RESIGNATION in the face of what's happening.

- Acceptance simply means a CLEAR ACKNOWLEDGEMENT that “what is happening IS happening.

- Acceptance makes no judgments about what is happening, it simply means being AWARE of what is happening...I'm getting angry...I'm feeling fearful....I'm acting petty...etc.

- Acceptance doesn't tell you what to do.- What happens next, what you CHOOSE to do, that has to come out of your own understanding of the present moment, out of what is happening.

- Being truly MINDFUL of the present moment with deep awareness will reveal to us, not only what is really happening, but it will also reveal to us that SOME things that are happening are simply out of our hands... are beyond our control.

- And so the first step in “trusting in God” involves letting go of our need always being in control by recognizing our limitations and accepting that.

- The Serenity Prayer puts it well: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

- Secondly, to trust in God means practicing MINDFULNESS of the present moment in the midst of the hectic plans, commitments and problems that so often block us from truly enjoying or being fully present to, or aware of, what we are doing NOW.

- As Paul the Apostle says: “ REMEMBER HOW CRITICAL THE MOMENT IS”

- Now I know that living in the present moment is easier said than done.
- Again, mindfulness ( or contemplation/meditation) is a spiritual practice, a spiritual discipline that our faith encourages us to employ daily in our spiritual journey.

- Living in the present moment involves us in a process of learning patience, of settling into the great rhythm of life which I talked about last week, that takes things as they come rather than anticipating the very worst or dwelling on what “might” happen or what HAS happened.
- It calls us to see and accept our life (all our life) as a gift from God, a precious gift to hold on to and cherish.
- Living in the present moment brings us to the realization that money, possessions and appearances are all temporary values….they’re important…but they are temporary.- And ultimately, they do not satisfy our deepest longings.
- I think this is what Jesus means when he says, “Don’t be worried about tomorrow.
- Instead center yourself on “the Kingdom of God”, that is, the presence of God in your life HERE AND NOW.

- The practice of mindfulness meditation which I have started up on Monday evenings can be of great assistance in enabling us to live in the present moment with awareness of God’s presence.

- I don’t know about you, but I know that I have spent too much of my life stewing about yesterday and worrying about tomorrow.
- I’m trying to learn the wisdom of living in the present moment – living one day at a time, one moment at a time, because the longer I live, the more I realize how fragile life is and how quickly it passes by.

- Mindfulness enables us to savour live...to really taste it.
- When we are mindful -- not just intellectually aware, but mindful, conscious of God’s presence , we change our life.
- And so, in addition to “letting go”, to trust in God involves learning to live in the NOW, in the present moment – moment by moment, with full awareness and consciousness.

3. Finally, to trust in God, we must practice the art of living in the assurance of God’s PRESENCE.
- Living in the assurance of God’s presence involves us in a spiritual journey of opening our hearts to a God of boundless love in order to encounter God, be conscious of God, as a reality in our life and our living.
- One’s understanding of God is therefore extremely important.- Christians sometimes describe Jesus as the “human face of God”.
- He shows us in word and deed, what God is like and how we can connect with God.- Not just “know” God in an intellectual sense but encounter God, the Spirit, as a living reality within you.
- What is your concept of God? Where did you get this concept from?
- Is your God “ way out there” or close enough for you to encounter?- Is your God, a God you can experience?
- In our United Church Creed, we make the declaration that God is WITH US, we are not alone.- As Jesus puts it, “If God can take care of the birds and flowers and wild grass, just imagine how well God can care for us,” such is the closeness of God.- God /the Spirit/ the Sacred is here, present in our living.

- And we can make contact with God.
- It is by making contact with God, the Spirit, that we experience the “caring” that Jesus talks about.
- Our Christian faith, particularly the MYSTICAL elements of it, maintains that our God is a God we can experience, commune with, be in relationship to.
- A God that we can encounter in our lives HERE AND NOW. (not just when we die!).- This is why the Apostle Paul declares: “remember how critical the MOMENT is”.
- One major way to do this is through prayer.- My experience in ministry has taught me that most people do not find prayer very meaningful or fulfilling.
- They don't experience God when they pray; they find themselves bored and uninspired when they pray, and some tell me they don't know how to pray.
- That is why, as I have said in previous sermons, it is vital for Christians, for everyone who follows a spiritual path, to be aware that there are different ways to pray.
- If your way is not working, then why not try another way!

- As I have already mentioned, but just in case you missed it, I'll say it again... I am offering instruction in one alternative way to pray… on Monday evenings... the way of Christian Meditation, or Christian Mindfulness or Prayer of the Heart (all three terms are synonymous) which is a spiritual PRACTICE of experiencing the presence of God.

- We can't begin to live in the assurance of God's healing care, until we “know” and “experience” God in a direct way.
- Prayer takes us to this place, in particular, Christian Meditation or Mindfulness or “prayer of the heart”.

- Christian mindfulness or meditation (the state of being “STILL”) is synonymous, in my view, with what Paul calls “being filled with the Holy Spirit”.

- When we put our TRUST in God using the techniques I have been describing, our lives are transformed.

- This doesn’t mean that there will be no more suffering and loneliness and tragedy.- It doesn’t mean our friends won’t get cancer.

- It doesn’t mean we will be immune to pain and trouble.

- But it does mean that, through the practice of TRUSTING GOD through mindfulness and prayer of the heart, God will be with us.

- But most importantly, we will KNOW, we will be AWARE/MINDFUL, that God is with us, because we will encounter God, we will experience God, we will be “filled with the Holy Spirit”, when we live with full awareness of the present moment through the practice of Mindfulness /Meditation/Prayer of the Heart.

- The Spirit will uphold us and guide us and give us strength and wellness to continue our journey through our conscious awareness of her presence.

- We will be empowered, within ourselves, by the Spirit within us, to surf the waves of life's tempestuous seas... the waves will still be there, but instead of sinking,we will be able to surf them because we have learned the practice of trusting in the presence of God

THE POWER OF TAU

2009-08-09T12:43:00.000-07:00

The first recorded Judeo-Christian reference to the TAU (rhymes with “now”,as in The Power of Now or, “how now brown tau”) is from Ezekiel 9:4, “Go through the city of Jerusalem and mark a TAU (usually translated as “ make a mark” or “mark a cross”, but in the original Hebrew text the rendition is “mark a taw or tav”, that is, the last letter of the old Hebrew alphabet )… on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it….”

TAU is the 19th letter of the Greek alphabet.It was the sign of the Greek god Attis, the Roman god Mithras, and the Druid god Hu.

The TAU cross was inscribed on the forehead of every person admitted into the Mysteries of Mithras. When a king was initiated into the Egyptian Mysteries, the TAU was placed against his lips.

In ancient Egypt, the TAU represented the Sacred Opening, or gateway, or portal. It was was also used in to mark sacred water vessels. In fact, the TAU was an important sacred symbol in ancient Egyptian culture and architecture.When sacred TAU’s are joined together horizontally,they represent a temple. In ancient Eygpt, huge columns were erected in this fashion. Henges in Britain (Stonehenge) are Sacred Tau’s joined together, very often in a circular design, to form a temple. A double TAU forms a “Dolmen”, many of which I saw in Ireland.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolmen
For an interesting article on an ancient Egyptian archeological site in Scotland and the use of the TAU in these archeologicla remains:

http://www.geocities.com/futhark_runes/SkaraBrae_AncientEgyptianSettlement.html

At the Fourth Lateran Council, on November 11, 1215, Pope Innocent III made reference to the TAU and quoted the Ezekiel 9:4 verse in reference to the profaning of the Holy Places by the Saracens. It is widely accepted that St. Francis of Assis (1181-1226) was present at the Fourth Lateran Council and that he therefore would have heard the words of the Pope when he said, “The TAU has exactly the same form as the Cross on which our Lord was crucified on Calvary, and only those will be marked with this sign and will obtain mercy who have mortified their flesh and conformed their life to that of the Crucified Savior". At the end of his homily Innocent exclaimed: “BE CHAMPIONS OF THE TAU”. Francis must have taken this to heart for it would become his sacred symbol.

He had been primed on the significance of the TAU back In his hometown of Assisi. Before the Fourth Lateran Council, St.Francis had seen the TAU worn by the “Antonians”. This was a religious community of men founded in 1095. They were followers of St. Antony of Egypt who lived his life as an anchorite/hermit in the desert about 95 miles outside Alexandria in the late 3rd and early 4th century C.E. He was one of the so-called “Desert Fathers” who were intstrumental in sowing the seeds of the monastic movement. See Athanasius’ LIFE OF ANTONY http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/VITA-ANTONY.html

Antony was known, among others things, for his ability to cure a scourge that later received the name “St. Antony’s fire” ( this may have been leprosy). Very often when you see St. Antony depicted in medieval art, the TAU is either embroidered on his clothing or he holds a walking stick in the shape of a TAU
The TAU was painted on the habit of the medieval order of the Antonians. I think it is reasonable to assume, given the prominence of the TAU in the religious and cultural history of Ancient Egypt, that the TAU was a sacred symbol for Antony himself. Why else would his Order adopt this symbol?

St. Antony’s followers, even hundreds of years later, still made it their main ministry to care for lepers when this disease was a huge problem in the middle ages. They were disbanded as an Order by the Church in the 1500’s when leprosy was no longer a problem and many in the religious orders had fallen apparently into what has been referred to as “theological problems”. It would be interesting to know what these “problems” were.
St.Francis would have been very familiar with the Antonian Order ( and therefore the symbol of the TAU) because they staffed the leper house in Assisi and the hospital of St. Blase in Rome where Francis went to stay.

St.Francis made the TAU his sacred symbol.

St. Bonaventure said, “This TAU symbol had all the veneration and all the devotion of the saint (Francis): he spoke of it often in order to recommend it, and he traced it on himself before beginning each of his actions.”

In the famous blessing of Brother Leo, Francis wrote on parchment, “May the Lord bless you and keep you! May the Lord show His face to you and be merciful to you! May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace! God bless you Brother Leo!” Francis sketched a head (of Brother Leo) and then drew the TAU over this portrait.

Thomas of Celano, a Franciscan historian writes, “Francis preferred the Tau above all other symbols: he utilized it as his only signature for his letters, and he painted the image of it on the walls of all the places in which he stayed.”

Zoom forward in time to the New Edinburg pub, August 6,2009 . I am sitting with some people who have invited me to lunch to talk with them about my pilgrimage on El Camino. As I am sharing my experience about the TAU and its power to connect people (see my July 8,2009 blog THE SHIFT), in walks a young Italian looking man wearing a TAU around his neck ! He proceeds to sit down right across from me with the TAU staring me right in the face, as if to say, “I’m back”.
After my lucheon friends depart, I walk over to the man with wooden TAU and ask him about it. He is a third order Franciscan. He expains to me that after 1978, the TAU became the offcial “habit” for third order Franciscans. Previous to this, their “habit” had been a stylized “hair shirt”, consisting of two pieces of rough cloth, one worn on the back, the other on the chest, and tied together with string. He expressed relief that he had come into the order post-1978 ! He would much rather wear the TAU.
The three of us, strangers to each other, talked for over an hour about religious and spiritual matters, and they expressed an interest in coming to visit me again at my church. I hope they do.
We are strangers nolonger, thanks to the POWER OF TAU.

T

EL CAMINO (con't) : THE SHIFT

2009-07-08T10:02:00.000-07:00

PEOPLE....that was the place I came to...I left my solitude and started connecting with people
I’m a “people person”. I like people. It’s one of the reasons I went into the ministry. Connecting with people is a major part of my profession, but on the Camino I planned to, well, do something different. So I decided to go solo.I even trained solo. But as it turned out, the people I met greatly enriched my Camino experience and even became central to it.

The shift came when I decided to tell people that I was a minister, something I was intent on concealing, as I have mentioned in my previous blog. But the Camino has a way of “opening you up”. I now realize: how could I possibley be open to all the Camino had to offer if I was not open myself.
My shift came shortly after receiving a gift from an unknown person at an albergue I stayed at in Puente La Reina on the 5th day of my journey. It was a crude wooden “TAU” on a simple white string so you could wear it around your neck. I was not familiar at the time with this stylized “T” shaped symbol called TAU, but I took it anyway with thanks and, surprisingly, wore it that day. I never took it off for the rest of my journey! And once,in Foncebedon, when I thought I lost it I was quite distressed.I found it, strangely enough, when someone accused me of taking their jacket, but that's another story.

It was a stange thing for me to wera this TAUas I never wear anything around my neck. But here I was wearing this “thing” for all to see and I didn’t even know what it was! I had to learn quickly lest people asked me what it signified.But when I asked locals I got vague and differing answers…”I think it has something to do with Francis of Assisi....”I believe it is connected to the Knights Templars”....”isn’t it a cross of some kind?”.

On the 15th day of my pilgrimage, when I was walking through the flat desert-like “meseta”, I came upon the tiny hamlet of San Anton (Saint Antony). About the only thing there were the ruins of a convent dedicated to St. Antony, and lo and behold, the Tau symbol was everywhere, built into the windows and doors of this crumbling edifice.
I have since discovered that St. Anthony(251-356 AD, not to be confused with St.Anthony of Padua) was an Egyptian Christian anchorite, one of the more famous “desert fathers” who devoted himself to a life of prayer, poverty and solitude in the harsh desert 95 miles from Alexandria where he fought off many temptations of body and mind (Salvador Dali did a famous painting entitled; “ Temptation of St. Antony”). I have also discovered that the Tau is a symbol on the crest of St.Antony’s College at Oxford University

According to Wikipedia, there are many more associations with this symbol. It is actually the 19th letter of the Greek alphabet but became a symbol for many things. (all those early answers I received from the locals were right). Strangely, Wikipedia makes no mention of the Tau being connected to St. Anthony or his Order. Yet,having seen it with my own eyes, I know it is. I will do more rearch into the TAU for another blog.

It is an electic symbol to be sure which made it fitting for me, an “unfinished” Christian as I call myself, to wear. But that I should wear it “religiously” without knowing this at the time- without really knowing anything about this symbol's meaning was, for me, yet another one of the mysteries of the Camino.For as it turned out, this ancient TAU symbol given to me by a stranger became the conduit for my shift to a new kind of Camino experience with people, people and more people of all types and persuasions.
There were people from literally all over the world walking, biking and riding the Camino.When people started to approach me asking about the Tau I soon mentioned quite naturally, after all my fuss about keeping “mum” about my occupation, that I was a Christian minister. After several minutes, often many, many minutes, explaining what the United Church of Canada stood for and what it did not, conversations soon morphed into all sorts of questions and discussions about spirituality and religion. Many personal things were shared with me and I was very interested and enlightened by these conversations as I walked.I was able to share my faith and ideas with many interesting people.

I found that people, especially in the 30-50 age bracket, where quite interested in matters spiritual. Many were going through significant changes and passages in their lives and had uncertainty about their futures. Some seemed to be seeking something “more” in their lives. Talking and listening to peoples’ stories, beliefs, dreams and loves turned my Camino experience into a community experience.

El Camino was a unique community, a transient community constantly moving and in flux. A community where you would fall in and out of relationships quickly and easily…. and then often resume a relationship with someone you hadn’t seen for several weeks just as quickly and easily - greeting them like a long lost friend even though you may have only talked with them for a few hours.

This sense of community extended to all areas of need and life. People would literaly give “strangers” the shirt off their back if needed. Shared meals were often prepared and shared together in the very basic surroundings of the albergues were pilgrims slept and bathed together in dormitory style settings.
It was like what I imagined the very early Jesus movement communites were like as described in the book of Acts where “all things were held in common”.

This experience made me reflect a lot on the importance and nature of community in the contemporary church.

The peregrinos on the Camino were literally “one” in their goal of walking the same path - all heading in the same direction even though each had their own motivation for making this journey.The church also needs a common vision binding individuals together. It is only when the members of a congregation share a common vision, have a common goal, can true community flourish - be a place where we “share each others burdens” and “walk in the other’s shoes”.

Genuine community may be the one thing that can save a crippled, ailing church, a category that many churches of all denominations fall into today.

When I look back on my Camino experience that old cliché comes to mind: “God works in mysterious ways”. The Camino also works in mysterious ways. If you ever get the opportunity to discover just how El Camino can work on you, you will be truly blessed, as I was,with a unique experience that may very well change your life.

.

EL CAMINO (con't) :" I CAME TO MY SENSES"

2009-07-05T14:14:00.000-07:00

I "came to my senses" on the Camino.
That was a revelation I recently had as I struggled to put into words my Camino experience.
It perplexed me why I was having such a difficult time articulating this incredible experience. After all, there were so many experiences; why could I not just share them? The reason,I now realize, is that while walking the Camino I "came to my senses" in a very profound and literal way, unlike any other time in my life. What I mean is, my mind was overshadowed by my senses: sight,sound,smell, taste, touch, all these became heightened during my walk.
Another way to say this is I had a shift in consciousness.I underwent a transformation in the way I experienced the world around me. This is a wonderful thing to happen to a person.
Most of us live our lives in our heads much of the time. Our minds have control of us. We are constantly thinking about things- events from the past or plans for the future- what we want to do this afternoon, tomorrow, next week, next year. We become,pocessesed, so to speak,by our minds. We think that we are our minds. But we are not.Our essential self is our spiritual self.In the Bible this esssential core of being is referred to as "the Heart" ( I use a captial "H" to distinguish it from our physcial heart). The mind is a wonderful and necessary part of our being. But we are not our mind. Many spiritual teachers talk about this.
I led a book discussion group, my Discovery Group at MacKay United Church, on Eckhart Tolle's book, The Power of Now not long before I walked the Camino.Tolle writes about these things. He talks about the importance of living in the NOW- the present moment, which is all we really have. The past is gone and the future has not yet arrived - and when it does it is nolonger the future. So the present moment, the NOW, is the only reality there is. The Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh teaches "present moment, wonderful moment" meditation and also stresses the importance of living in the Now. Jesus does the same when he teaches: "don't be anxious about tomorrow; tomorrow will look after itself" and "don't worry about what you will wear or about what you will eat..."

To be in the present moment one has to get out of their head (not easy for anyone but especially difficult for left-brain people)and return to your senses, that is,to fully experience life. To give an example of what I'm trying to say: there are people who, when asked to feel their arms or feet or legs, do not really feel them.They produce a mental picture of their limbs. They know where they are situated and they become aware of this knowledge. But they do not feel the limbs themselves; they don't experience them. All they have is a mental picture.

To stop living through our mind and return to our senses is a spiritual discipline that has to be experienced and practiced. On the Camino what I discovered was that although I knew,discussed,taught and preached about these ideas, I had never really and truly experienced this way of "being" ... until I walked El Camino. And when I did, it changed my Camino experience dramatically.

The experience of living in the present moment is not something one can explain or describe by words.This,I now realize, was why I was having such a difficult time writing and talking about my Camino experience.For me, it was an experience of spiritual transformation that is not easily articulated,nor ever adequately explained, by words.Understanding comes only when one experiences it for themselves.
Perhaps this is why "Camino alumni" seek each other out and sometimes travel thousands of miles to reunite with one another. This was the case recently at my church, Mackay United, when Leslie Harmon organized a one year reunion of her Camino 2008 walking friends from Australia, Germany, Sweden and Canada.They "understand" and are "connected" to each other because of this shared experience. Of course, Camino experiences differ and not everyone would describe it as a "spiritual" or even a "transformational" experience. But for those who do, I would surmise that the bond is much deeper and more lasting.

When I "came back to my senses" on the Camino from my mind-dominated self (and this started slowly to happen the first day climbing over the Pyrennes from France into Spain), my Camino experience took on a different shape from what I had imagined (see my first entry and my "hoped for" in the entry before that).

The experience of becoming fully present to the moment,the NOW, intially evoked a deep awareness of the natural world around me, literally with each step I took (I haven't calculted how many steps I may have taken on this 800km pilgrimage but it was alot!). When you are "on foot",walking, and in the NOW, life slows down, I mean really slows down, especially after the first few hundred kilometres. Each detail is noticed: every slight rise of elevation in the terrain,every new ounce of weight in your back back, every shift of wind direction... variation in temperature, sounds and smells (dung one step, roses the next). The distant mountains became my “friends” on the desolate meseta.One day I talked with a raven when I was very lonely (and when I lifted my right arm with my staff in it, the raven raised its right wing as if to say "adios" and flew away).I don't believe this was heat stroke.

One morning as I sat in the mountains near the “Cruce de Ferro”, a distant cowbell rang out across the valley. I was transported back to a Buddhist retreat I took many years before with Thich Nhat Hanh in New Hampshire. I recalled his “bell of mindfulness” practise. Every time the meditation bell was sounded during the retreat, no matter what you were doing, you would stop and BREATHE... and say “ present moment, wonderful moment”.I began this practice again, each day.

I also became much less conscious and concerned with time and destination. Initially,each morning I was quite careful to plan where I would aim to arrrive at that day.But the more I lived in the present moment the less important these things became. I eventually reached a stage , I believe around the midway point, when I didn't even bother to look at my maps. I just got up and walked. When I was getting to the point when I didn't want to walk anymore,then I started to think about where I was going to spend the night. What a sense of freedom!

Another breakthrough came when I became more focussed and open to something else around me. This "something else" caused a major shift in my initial Camino game plan of walking in solitude.

I had imagined that solitude would be my "way" into a deeper connection with God, the Sacred, the Spirit and myself. It seemed like a "pilgrim" thing to do.Solitude has for a long time been a conducive place for me to experience the sacred, and it still is, and was on the Camino as well (even though at times it invoked in me a real sense of lonliness).But coming to my senses and into the present moment also took me out of my solitude to a place I was not expecting....to be con't

EL CAMINO: MY 800 km. WALK ACROSS SPAIN

2009-07-04T06:12:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been just over a month since I completed my pilgrimage across Spain and this journey was not entirely what I expected.

I began to walk over the Pyrennes (picture) from St.Jean-Pied-de-Port in France on April 23,2009 on a beautiful blue sky day and finished, 32 days and 800km later, on May 24th.
I have taken a month to let this incredible experience settle into my soul and pysche so this is the first time I have written about my journey. A year in its prepartion - training, reading and deciding and purchasing what to take and more importantly what not to take - my Camino was not quite what I had planned on.
I read somewhere, before I went, "you don't walk the Camino, the Camino walks you". I now know what this cryptic saying means.When you are open to the deep mystery, ancient history, and spiritual forces on the Camino you are in for many surprises. Such was my experience.
I had decided early on, in my planning stage, not to tell people I was a minister, a "religious professional", so to speak, because I wanted my pilgrimage to be mainly an interior journey to deepen my experience of God, to reflect upon my life, to make a life review and seek direction for my future ministry and where it might take me.I didn't want to have to explain, "no, I'm not a priest" and no, I am not what many people unfamiliar with Christianity think of when they hear "Christian minister" and "Christianity", namely, what they see on television.I wanted to make my pilgrimge mainly a solo journey into the mystic, into the "Cloud of Unknowing" where I could ponder the BIG questions of life in splendid isolation.Sure, I knew others would be on the same path and I was not averse to meeting folks but that was secondary to the main purpose of my pilgrimage, or so I thought.

to be continued...

THE PILGRIM'S WAY

2009-03-02T12:48:00.000-08:00

In the Christian calendar we mark the liturgical year by seasons: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Pentecost.
We can say that the Church Year is a spiritual pilgrimage, a sacred journey, where we travel by heart and soul to deepen our connection, our relationship, our understanding, our experience…of God. But this will only happen if we walk the “pilgrims way”.
To walk the pilgrim’s way is to experience healing and hurt, faith and doubt, grace and judgment, wholeness and brokenness. Which is to say, to walk the pilgrim’s way is to live fully; to be fully alive.

Life is a journey, a spiritual pilgrimage, in which we sometimes have to take ourselves away from ordinary routines and practices and create new routines and practices in order to seek a closer connection with God and a better understanding of ourselves.
This can be a demanding, even an arduous, journey.

In the past, the pilgrim has been prompted to perform acts of penance for forgiveness or engage in ascetic practices of deprivation and sacrifice to experience God in new and fresh ways.

In the 6th century, Irish Celtic monks added to the spiritual pilgrimage of the heart the physical pilgrimage of the body.
In imitation of Abraham, whom God called to leave his own country and go in pilgrimage to the land which God had shown him – the promised land -- Celtic monks developed the spiritual discipline of “peregrinatio” which is a Latin word meaning “going forth into strange countries”.
This understanding of pilgrimage was different from what became the norm of Medieval pilgrimage, namely, a visit to a sacred site or shrine. The purpose of the Medieval pilgrimage was to arrive.

The purpose of the Irish pilgrimage was not to visit a sacred shrine or to arrive at a certain destination but to seek out solitude, mystery, exile, growth, liberty and do this with complete abandonment to God.
So crucial was this idea of total abandonment to God that these Irish pilgrims often set out on their journey not knowing their destination, relying solely on the Spirit to guide them to the place God would have them go.
The journey itself became the focus; the journey became the Promised Land for the Irish peregrinatio.

These early Celtic monks from Ireland sought the “promised land” in their pilgrimage but this promised land was not a physical place. Rather it was a state of being, a deeper relationship and connection to God, to their inner self, and to others.
The peregrinatio of the Irish monk integrated completely both the spiritual and physical, the inner and outer pilgrimage.
As many of you know, I will, God willing, soon be undertaking a pilgrimage myself, and it will be of the Irish variety(which is fitting since my ancestors hailed from Donaughadee). I will be spending 40 days in the “wilderness” of Spain, walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostella.
Most of us will not undertake this physical type of pilgrimage, at least not a 40 day one, but we can all make a spiritual pilgrimage of the heart. We all need to make this pilgrimage.
Christians are called to make such a pilgrimage.

The fourteenth-century German mystic, Meister Eckhart, claimed that “nothing in all of creation is so like God as stillness.”
And so we can say that the object of all pilgrimage is “stillness”…stillness of the heart.

Those who seek to make a spiritual journey, whether by foot or heart, or both, are called pilgrims.

The Muslim sets out for Mecca.

The Hindu ventures to Veranasi.

The Buddhist treks to the holy city of Lhasa.

The Christian journeys to Jerusalem or Compostella or Roma.

The early Christians were not called Christians or even disciples.
They were called “the people of the Way.” They were called this because others recognized, and they made it known, that they were always on a journey.
Life for those early Christians was always a new beginning and a day full of hope. Belief in the resurrection had shattered their view that life comes to a screeching halt with death.
And so they did not fear death. They in fact befriended death.
They could therefore expose themselves to the elements and the unknown without fear.
Not surprisingly then, the early Christians never stood still.

Jesus is reported in the Gospel of Thomas to have taught: “BE PASSERSBY” (Thomas 42)
He also said in the Gospel of Luke: “Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head”. Jesus was an itinerent…one who moved constantly from place to place.

Even when the early Christians stopped moving they were still changing and being transformed.Their lives were an outward and an inward pilgrimage.
Even when they set down roots, they were changing internally and spiritually, and what was going on inside often had an impact on those around them.
Jesus and his disciples were pilgrims.
The Bible is a collection of stories about people making journeys.
Abraham and Sarah left their home in Ur of the Chaldees and set out on a journey.
Moses led the Jews on a journey out of Egypt to the Promise Land.
Jesus sent his disciples out on journeys from town to town to share their faith
Saul was transformed into Paul as he journeyed on the Road to Damascus.
The disciples met Jesus as they journeyed on the road to Emmaus.

Life is a journey but the Christian life is a particular kind of journey that we call pilgrimage. And so we should say that we are all peregrini pro Christo – pilgrims for Christ.

We are on a perpetual pilgrimage to the Promised Land.

Each of us is unique.We make our own journey in life, but we are never alone on our pilgrimage.God is our constant companion.

We may be able to visit holy sites, where the spiritual presence of martyrs or saints have enriched the earth and created a holy place where some venture as pilgrims.Or we may be able to travel to distant lands to seek God in the wilderness of the unknown.

But our pilgrim’s path may also be the loss of a loved one, working through a strained relationship, volunteering at a soup kitchen or losing our way on life’s journey and trying to find it again.

T.S Elliot expresses beautifully the Pilgrim spirit when he writes:

We shall not cease from exploration,
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.

Everything is gained when we venture forth.
The journey shapes us, and we shape those we meet on the way.
The journey allows us to return to what we have left behind and know it for the first time.

We are all pilgrims on a journey learning lessons about love and life,re-connecting with our true self, our inner self, with God and with our neighbour .

Anchoress EZTakes Movie Trailer @ Yahoo! Video

Walk on, my friends… be passersby….take the pilgrim’s way.

HEY PILGRIM, WALK ON ! (part 2)

2008-12-23T09:45:00.000-08:00

No doubt walking 800k by myself across a foreign country whose language I do not know will be an adventure of epic proportions for me. It will include three mountain ranges, a 180k dessert-like “meseta” and a wide range of nature ( and cheeses:) in between.

People now walk the Camino for various reasons, but its original inspiration was spiritual and religious. Religious pilgrimages are cross-cultural. There are accounts that Christians from Europe left their villages to journey to the Holy land as early as the 4th and 5th centuries to walk in the footsteps of Christ. By the 8th century Muslims were making the hajj to Medina and Mecca. Between the 5th and 10th centuries the Irish were making the turas, the circuit to the shrines of Celtic heroes. And between the 10th and 18th centuries hundreds of thousand of pilgrims walked the Camino de Santiago to pay homage to the remains of St. James, one of the original 12 Apostles of Jesus, which are purportedly housed in the Cathedral church in Santiago de Compostella.

The history connected to this pilgrimage is great and diverse. Roman, Spanish, Moorish, Basque and French history combine in varied ways along the Camino. The idea of walking the same path, climbing the same hills and mountains, crossing the same rivers, visiting the same churches, chapels and cathedrals that thousands of pilgrims, including Francis of Assisi and Pope John the 23rd that brilliant visionary of Vatican II, have walked for hundreds of years intrigues and draws me. There is an ancient sacredness to this pilgrimage that other trails I have walked don’t and cannot possess.

I know what the purpose of my pilgrimage is not. It is not to pay homage to the reputed remains of an Apostle. The notion of relics doesn't move me spritually although I will certainly "hug the Apostle" and pay my respects if I arrive. But this is not my driving motivation.
As I began to ruminate on what my purpose in walking the Camino is, I stumbled upon this passage from Jeremiah 6:16 – “Yet the Lord pleads with you still: Ask where the good road is, the godly paths you used to walk in, in the days of long ago. Travel there, and you will find rest for your soul.”
Had I left the “path” I asked myself ? Was the LORD calling me from somewhere deep within to undertake this journey? Do I need rest for my soul?

I read an interesting article recently about the secularization of Christmas being a good thing for our multi-cultural country. I think the author makes a good point. Over the past 20 or so years, the article says, Christmas has become a festival for all citizens regardless of religion or no religion and this is as it should be. Christmas has become a great way for everyone to celebrate shared values like gift giving, compassionate caring and cheerful singing. It’s a holiday we can and should all embrace and celebrate as a secular holiday when we take Christianity out of Christmas so everyone can be included, he says. The process has already begun, the author points out, so let’s continue.
By all means, he urges, put Christmas trees up in public places, greet one another with Merry Christmas instead of the banal “happy holidays”, bring Christmas carols back to our schools. We must not relinquish Christmas to the Christians, he argues. It is now a holiday for all of us.

The transmutation of the meaning of words is a common phenomenon. We see the same thing happening with the word “pilgrimage”. Originally a term used to describe an arduous journey to a “sacred” place having spiritual or religious motivation, the term is now used to describe everything from a car trip to Graceland to pay homage to “the King” ( Elvis) or a jet flight to Paris to see the tomb of Jim Morrison, the once great lead singer for the rock group, The Doors.
I make no value judgments. I’m sure there are those who really do pay homage to Elvis in Graceland and Jim in Paris just as sincerely as a Christian would pay homage to St. James in Santiago de Compostella, St. Peter in Rome or even Christ in Jerusalem.

However, in the Christian tradition the notion of pilgrimage has some distinctive characteristics.
The etymology of the word “pilgrim” goes back to the Latin phrase per agrum meaning “through the fields”. The Romans used the word peregrinus
in the same way we use the word “alien” or “stranger”. To voluntarily become a peregrinus was to be a fool and leave the security of the community to wander off across the land into the wilderness or a foreign land.

This definition immediately made me think of St. Paul’ admonition to “become a fool for Christ”. Paul was perhaps the first Christian peregrinus/fool/pilgrim, leaving home and security on his numerous missionary journeys to proclaim the gospel in dangerous and foreign lands.

A pilgrimage by traditional Christian standards will be arduous,entail a certain amount of danger and have a religious or spiritual purpose.

I like Richard Neibuhr’s definition of a pilgrim: “a person in motion – passing through territories not their own, seeking something we might call completion, or perhaps the word clarity will do as well”.

I started writing this in the hope that by the time I got near the end of this blog I would be able to better articulate my purpose in walking this pilgrimage. But other than knowing that I am doing this as a pilgrimage in the Christian sense of the term, I am still not sure I am able to fully articulate an answer the question posed to me: Why?

I find some comfort in Thomas Merton’s insight: “ We do not see first and act. We act, then see”. And the famous Sufi poet, Rumi, seems to be saying something similar when he writes: “ As you start on the Way, the Way appears”.

I hope to rediscover a part of myself that I may have forgotten, and perhaps a part of myself I have never known.

I hope to meet God on the path and I pray that I will recognize Her/Him if I do…and if I wrestle with God, I hope to lose.

I hope that the most important thing about my pilgrimage will be the journey itself and not reaching the end. This will be a big challenge for me being so goal oriented.

It has been said that the Camino is a process of discovering the things you need and the things you don’t need. I hope to leave behind the modern world and my modern self for this time of pilgrimage and put myself into a more simple world by taking with me only the essentials of life (and maybe an ipod :).

I hope that this return to simplicity may bring me closer to the Way of Jesus.

I hope that as I take the leap, or I should say,the first step and then the next and the next… all will eventually be revealed.

All these hopes are just that, hopes, because the words of T.S. Elliot ring true in my ears:
“And what you thought you came for is only a shell, a husk of meaning from which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled, if at all. Either you had no purpose or the purpose is beyond the end you figured, and is altered in fulfillment”

Ultreya – walk on.

HEY PILGRIM, WALK ON ! (part 1)

2008-12-22T17:23:00.000-08:00

"The Spiritual Pilgrim", A 16TH German woodcut depicting a pilgrim poking his head through a slit in the dome of the sky so that he might gaze at the machinery behind the sun, stars and moon and so unveil the mystery of creation.

“So you want to be a pilgrim?" His question was tinged with sarcasm and a touch of scepticism...“Why?”
He could just as easily have said : “ What! Are you out of your friggin mind?” Such was the look on his face.

I began to explain my motivation for walking 800 km across the north of Spain by making reference to Miko. Miko is a high-octane type of guy who drives a "Speedster" and who was contagiously gung-ho about walking this pilgrimage when I met him at a party with some mutual friends. He talked with great gusto about the “Camino de Santiago” that he had heard about on the CBC. He then looked at me like some half-crazed Hollywood prophet ( Miko looks like Harrison Ford) and said – “ let’s do it!”
I hardly knew Miko at the time but to my surprise I responded, “hey pilgrim, ya, let’s do it”

The seed was planted.

I had heard of El Camino de Santiago de Compostella (literally “the way”—el camino-- of St. James – San Tiago -- of Santiago de Compostella – a city in northern Spain) but knew very little about it. Twelve books later I am much better acquainted with this ancient pilgrimage. After 6 months of training I feel physically ready to go ( it’s 5 days before Christmas, 2008 as I write) but I will wait for the Spring. I plan on leaving April 27, 2009 and will give myself 37 days to complete the 800k allowing for injury (this is not a holiday, believe me) and rest time.

Why am I doing this?

Miko’s invitation was the seed but not the motivational factor (Miko has since had to pull out due to knee injuries) but my quick acceptance to this proposal I now realize was a symptom of a deeper pull I feel to do this. I believe that there is something in my subconscious that is drawing me to the Camino… an inner voice…a destiny. I have speculated (and read) about past life experiences ( ala Shirley McLain) and while I do not entirely rule out the possibility of such realities I think my “pull” is likely much more mundane.

There is the element of childhood adventure in nature going back to my earliest memories of roaming the Don Valley in Toronto and the Bruce Peninsula on Lake Huron and Georgian Bay in the 1950’s and 60’s with my bro and father. All my life I have found nature to be a mystical/spiritual conduit for me. I keep returning to nature, especially wilderness/the wild, to ground me and connect me to the sacred.

There is also the element of the spiritual. The desire to deepen my spiritual life was one of the main reasons I entered the ministry 26 years ago. Spirituality is a major focus of my life and work and I find it necessary to seek continually new avenues to grow and deepen my spiritual life through various spiritual disciplines.

The third element is history. I have always been fascinated by history. Historical objects, buildings and sites and the study of history including genealogy and antiques have been apart of my hobbies, education and work throughout my life. I am one of the few people I know who actually liked high school history and my Ph.D was in Church history.

The fourth element is walking. Even before I was aware of it, walking was a means of meditation for me—a way of helping me to stay focussed on the “Now”, on the present moment. This is especially true for me when I walk in the wilderness but not exclusively. Walking has been a hobby for me from my youngest days and I have walked on three different continents. But walking soon became for me more than just a hobby. It became a means of deepening my spiritual walk as I literally walked. It became a way for me to experience God, the divine, the sacred, the numinous. That is, walking became for me, as it has for others, a spiritual discipline. I have discovered this is also true in other religious traditions...
When a monk asked, “What is the Tao? Master Ummon replied, “Walk on”.

A pilgrimage on “the Camino” combines all four of these elements: adventure/nature, spirituality, history and walking. I have walked parts of the Rideau Trail, the Bruce Trail, The Appalachian Trail, the East Coast Trail, Hadrian's Wall and the Inca Trail but none of these meet these four elements, making the Camino unique for me.

THE INCA TRAIL
(and Mt.Wayna Picchu climb)

This pilgrimage will take me on a journey forward in space, backward in time and inward in Spirit

Walk on, indeed..... (to be continued)

AFRICAN DRUMMING AND TRADITIONAL HYMNS

2008-04-11T19:10:00.000-07:00

This clip was filmed by my second son, Daniel, and some colleagues from the Film Arts Course at Ryerson University in TO. Dan is just finishing off his four year stint and landed a summer job at White Pine Studios in Toronto which produced the documentarty "Shake Hands With the Devil" and the CBC series "Borders".

HOW COOL IS THIS ?...." not very dad"

2008-04-09T15:15:00.000-07:00

What a pleasant surprise it was to read in the April,2008 United Church Observer, our national church magazine, under the VIRTUAL CHURCH column (p.10) by Jocelyn Bell:

YOUTUBE.COM
The video-sharing website contains an eclectic mix of
United Church-related videos.The most popular among them
(at more than 8,000 views) is a one-and-a-half-minute
video of African drumming at MacKay United in Ottawa

(see my October 2006 blog for the video)

Hey, that's us I beamed to to our office staff...wow!..the most popular....and I immediately emailed the news to my Drum Circle and every other group in the church.

"How cool is this" I wrote.

I got the real answer from my 20 year old son when I returned home that day.

"Only 8,000 hits", he scoffed, that just tells you how little interest there is in the church.Some guy 'shotgunning' a beer gets 50,000 hits".

Well, that was certainly a reality check.

In a half-hearted attempt to appease my deflated ego I muttered some defensive retort, but I knew he was right. To capture the attention of the YouTube generation will require some radical rethinking about how to "market" our churches...now, let me see.....

A GENEROUS ORTHODOXY

2008-04-09T14:59:00.000-07:00

Reading an article on the “emerging church” in the April, 2008 United Church Observer, our church’s national magazine (and an excellent one it is), I was reminded of one of the most gratifying discussion groups of the many dozen I have led over my years in ministry.

It was the one I led on Brian D. McLaren’s book, A Generous Orthodoxy. This is because, for the first time in my personal experience, people from four different denominations, including two non-United Church pastors, responded to my open invitation and gathered around the table to discuss, through the lens of McLaren’s book, what it means to be a Christian today.

I’m not sure this would have happened (at least not with me) if it were not for this book, because in A Generous Orthodoxy, this evangelical Christian is able (not perfectly, of course) to speak to both liberal/progressive and conservative Christians in a refreshingly creative way.

There was plenty of contentious issues in our discussions, but I was struck by the way the group seemed to be really listening to each other. I think this may be a result of McLaren himself who set the tone in the book. Instead of saying who is "in" and who is "out"(as Christians of all stripes tend to do) when it comes to defining orthodoxy (= right thinking/teaching), McLaren walks us through the various traditions of the faith accentuating the positive.

There is, what has been called an "emerging" Christianity developing in the postmodern world in which we now live. We find this emerging Christianity developing, not only in mainline denominations but also in parts of evangelical Christianity. McLaren is representative of this emergent Christianity among evangelicals, just as Marcus Borg is representative of it among mainline Christians. It is a way of approaching Christianity that I think has something meaningful and relevant to say to spiritual seekers who are not sure where they stand vis-a-vis Christianity, as well as members of the "church alumni club" -- that is, those who have by and large ceased being part of the church and have given up on the Christianity they learned in Sunday School because it no longer speaks to them and their needs.

A lot needs to be said about this phenomenon of emerging Christianity . Let me just say that it is an approach to Christianity that is beyond both exclusivism/absolutism and pluralistic relativism. To quote McLaren: "To be a Christian in a generous orthodox way is not to claim to have truth captured, stuffed, and mounted on the wall". And so McLaren describes himself as an "unfinished" Christian, a moniker I think should apply to all Christians. I liked it so much that I began to use it to describe myself.

On May 1, the Discovery Group at MacKay United will be discussing Marcus Borg's book, THE GOD WE NEVER KNEW,and the implications of his ideas in this emerging paradigm

SPIRIT BAND sings "STARLIGHT"

2008-03-30T15:06:00.000-07:00

At Mackay we try to have eclectic mucic in our worship services. The Spirit Band sings on occassion.
The Band is now starting to include in our practices a medley of songs for THE CHEF'S SPECIAL FUNDRAISER on May 10th.

THE SHOCK DOCTRINE IN ACTION

2007-11-09T06:01:00.000-08:00

In Naomi Klein's latest book, The Shock Docrine, The Rise of Diaster Capitialism,she persuasively argues that deregulated, unfettered (ie "fundamentalist") capitalism has been foisted on the world by the most brutal forms of coercion for the purposes of greed. This is a book everyone should read, yes, all 562 pages.

http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/short-film

"Information is shock resistence.....ARM YOURSELF"

"seek justice and resist evil", from United Church of Canada Creed

The following article (edited) suggests the "Shock Docrine" is alive and well in Washinton DC

It’s the Oil
Jim Holt, London Review of Books

Iraq is ‘unwinnable’, a ‘quagmire’, a ‘fiasco’: so goes the received opinion. But there is good reason to think that, from the Bush-Cheney perspective, it is none of these things. Indeed, the US may be ‘stuck’ precisely where Bush et al want it to be, which is why there is no ‘exit strategy’.Iraq has 115 billion barrels of known oil reserves. That is more than five times the total in the United States. And, because of its long isolation, it is the least explored of the world’s oil-rich nations. A mere two thousand wells have been drilled across the entire country; in Texas alone there are a million.

It has been estimated, by the Council on Foreign Relations, that Iraq may have a further 220 billion barrels of undiscovered oil; another study puts the figure at 300 billion. If these estimates are anywhere close to the mark, US forces are now sitting on one quarter of the world’s oil resources. The value of Iraqi oil, largely light crude with low production costs, would be of the order of $30 trillion at today’s prices. For purposes of comparison, the projected total cost of the US invasion/occupation is around $1 trillion.

Who will get Iraq’s oil? One of the Bush administration’s ‘benchmarks’ for the Iraqi government is the passage of a law to distribute oil revenues. The draft law that the US has written for the Iraqi congress would cede nearly all the oil to Western companies. The Iraq National Oil Company would retain control of 17 of Iraq’s 80 existing oilfields, leaving the rest – including all yet to be discovered oil – under foreign corporate control for 30 years. ‘The foreign companies would not have to invest their earnings in the Iraqi economy,’ the analyst Antonia Juhasz wrote in the New York Times in March, after the draft law was leaked. ‘They could even ride out Iraq’s current “instability” by signing contracts now, while the Iraqi government is at its weakest, and then wait at least two years before even setting foot in the country.’ As negotiations over the oil law stalled in September, the provincial government in Kurdistan simply signed a separate deal with the Dallas-based Hunt Oil Company, headed by a close political ally of President Bush.

Many people are still perplexed by exactly what moved Bush-Cheney to invade and occupy Iraq. In the 27 September issue of the New York Review of Books, Thomas Powers, one of the most astute watchers of the intelligence world, admitted to a degree of bafflement. ‘What’s particularly odd,’ he wrote, ‘is that there seems to be no sophisticated, professional, insiders’ version of the thinking that drove events.’ Alan Greenspan, in his just published memoir, is clearer on the matter. ‘I am saddened,’ he writes, ‘that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."
Was the strategy of invading Iraq to take control of its oil resources actually hammered out by Cheney’s 2001 energy task force? One can’t know for sure, since the deliberations of that task force, made up largely of oil and energy company executives, have been kept secret by the administration on the grounds of ‘executive privilege’. One can’t say for certain that oil supplied the prime motive. But the hypothesis is quite powerful when it comes to explaining what has actually happened in Iraq. The occupation may seem horribly botched on the face of it, but the Bush administration’s cavalier attitude towards ‘nation-building’ has all but ensured that Iraq will end up as an American protectorate for the next few decades – a necessary condition for the extraction of its oil wealth.

If the US had managed to create a strong, democratic government in an Iraq effectively secured by its own army and police force, and had then departed, what would have stopped that government from taking control of its own oil, like every other regime in the Middle East? On the assumption that the Bush-Cheney strategy is oil-centred, the tactics – dissolving the army, de-Baathification, a final ‘surge’ that has hastened internal migration – could scarcely have been more effective. The costs – a few billion dollars a month plus a few dozen American fatalities (a figure which will probably diminish, and which is in any case comparable to the number of US motorcyclists killed because of repealed helmet laws) – are negligible compared to $30 trillion in oil wealth, assured American geopolitical supremacy and cheap gas for voters.

In terms of realpolitik, the invasion of Iraq is not a fiasco; it is a resounding success.Still, there is reason to be sceptical of the picture I have drawn: it implies that a secret and highly ambitious plan turned out just the way its devisers foresaw, and that almost never happens.

Jim Holt writes for the New York Times Magazine and the New Yorker.

JIMMY CARTER MAN FROM PLAINS

2007-11-07T15:12:00.000-08:00

http://www.sonyclassics.com/jimmycartermanfromplains/main.html

"Timing the placement into movie theaters the last two weeks of the new documentary Jimmy Carter Man From Plains before the proposed Middle East conference in Annapolis this year was not intentional. But the irony of the former president's clarity on the Palestinian question contrasts sharply with the refusal by George W. Bush to face harsh reality that casts a pall over hopes to conclude his presidency with a diplomatic triumph.In the film, Carter repeatedly and unequivocally states what Palestinian and Israeli peace advocates view as undeniable: To achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace with all its benefits for the world, Israel must end its illegal and oppressive occupation of the West Bank. That is a prerequisite that neither President Bush nor congressional leaders of both parties can approach for fear of being labeled anti-Israeli or even anti-Semitic (as Carter has been).With the end to the occupation not on any participant's agenda, hopes for substantive accomplishment at Annapolis are dim. Testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 24, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned of 'further radicalization of Palestinian politics, of politics in the region' if 'we lose the window for a two-state solution.' But she didn't mention the forbidden words of Israeli removal from the West Bank.

A VERY INTERESTING ARTICLE

2007-11-06T14:00:00.000-08:00

Carter's Clarity, Bush's Befuddlement
By Robert D. NovakMonday, November 5, 2007; 8:16 AM

The timing of the release of the new documentary "Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains" was not intentional. The movie is arriving in theaters just before the Bush administration's proposed Middle East conference in Annapolis, scheduled for the end of this month. But the former president's clarity on the Palestinian question contrasts sharply with George W. Bush's refusal to face reality, casting a pall over hopes to conclude his presidency with a diplomatic triumph.
In the film, Carter repeatedly and unequivocally states what Palestinian and Israeli peace advocates view as undeniable: to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace, with all its benefits for the world, Israel must end its illegal and oppressive occupation of the West Bank. That is a prerequisite that neither President Bush nor congressional leaders of both parties can approach for fear of being labeled anti-Israeli or even anti-Semitic (as Carter has been).
With the end to the occupation not on any participant's agenda, hopes for substantive accomplishment at Annapolis are dim. Testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 24, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned of "further radicalization of Palestinian politics, of politics in the region" if "we lose the window for a two-state solution." But she did not mention the forbidden words of Israeli removal from the West Bank.
These words are not forbidden in "Man From Plains." I was surprised when a publicist for the movie invited me to a private screening in advance of its Washington debut Saturday. For the past 32 years, I had been a critic of Carter -- but not of his most recent and most attacked book, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid."
The unusual documentary is mainly an account of Carter's travels promoting his 21st book. Normally, nothing would seem more boring than presentation of a book tour. But Jonathan Demme, the Academy Award-winning director of "The Silence of the Lambs," has produced a beautiful, fascinating film, whose two hours sped by.
Demme told me he intended the documentary to be a "portrait in motion" of the 83-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate, whom he greatly admires, "to find out what makes Jimmy Carter tick." But it became a condemnation of what Demme now calls "land-grabbing" from the "oppressed" Palestinian people.
The film is more assertive than the book, which tends to be prolix in recounting Carter's experiences with Israel. It was the word "apartheid" in the title that spawned instant accusations of anti-Semitism against the former president and led 14 members of the Carter Center's board of counselors to resign. Not until Page 215, near the end of the slim book, did Carter make it clear that the "policy now being followed" on the West Bank is "a system of apartheid with two peoples occupying the same land but completely separated from each other, with Israelis totally dominant and suppressing violence by depriving Palestinians of their basic rights."
In the movie, Carter repeatedly declares that Israel must end its occupation of Palestine for peace to have a chance. The hecklers at his appearances and confused interviewers only provoke a stubborn Carter, who says chopping up the West Bank is actually worse than apartheid, just as Palestinian peace-seekers told me this year in Jerusalem.
A broader, more detailed analysis can be found in the newly updated American version of "Lords of the Land" by Professor Idith Zertal and leading Israeli columnist Akiva Eldar. This scathing account of the occupation, first published in Israel in 2005, declares that former prime minister Ariel Sharon's plan for a security wall was intended to "take hold of as much West Bank territory as possible and block the establishment of a viable Palestinian state."
As Israelis, Eldar and Zertal employ language that not even Carter dares use: "Israel's lofty demands that Palestinians strengthen their democracy and impose control on extremist organizations is ... nothing but deceptive talk covering its own deeds, which are aimed at achieving exactly the opposite -- of eroding Palestinian society."
In "Man From Plains," Carter goes further in this direction than any other prominent American has to date, and people who wander into a movie theater to see the film may be shocked. It raises questions that must at least be asked for the contemplated conference at Annapolis to have any chance.

WHY ISRAEL?

2007-10-26T06:26:00.000-07:00

My wife Jane and I were walking down Rideau Street in Ottawa one recent afternoon when we came across a group of people on the sidewalk outside of Indigo/Chapters giving out brochures.I usually don't take brochures but the kindly face of a grey-haired middle aged woman who looked like a teacher from my old highschool (long ago)gave me pause to wonder what she was doing.

We stopped to talk after a quick reading of their tract "Jews Oppose Israel's Wars" made me want to ask if this group on the side walk were indeed Jewish. I initially thought this may be some kind of anti-semetic group. But no,they are a Jewish group, and yes they are calling for a boycott against Indigo/Chapters and Israel. Something you don't hear very much.

They are Jewish Peace activists who are very concerned about the plight of Palestians and are calling for justice for a people they believe the world is ignoring.

These people are part of a group based in Toronto that have the acronym NION (Not in our Name) http://www.nion.ca/

One member of this group is Jason Kunin who is a highschool teacher in Toronto. He wrote an article entitled: "WHY ISRAEL" that gives a Jewish perspective on Israel I haven't come across before. You can find it at the following link:

http://www.nion.ca/pdf/jason-kunin.pdf

for background see:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dershowitz/the-world-according-to-ji_b_34702.html

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19993

Jonathan Cook is a British journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His site includes his articles on the Middle East published in international newspapers, English-language Arab publications and specialist magazines since 2001. Here is his website which includes an interesting photo gallery:
http://www.jkcook.net/

http://www.icahd.org/icahdukdev/eng/

http://www.counterpunch.org/martin05132004.html

http://www.counterpunch.org/ignatiev06172004.html

http://www.counterpunch.org/cook09292006.html

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn06052006.html

http://www.mideastweb.org/briefhistory.htm

SPIRIT BAND sings "Go Make a Difference"

2007-10-21T18:34:00.000-07:00

A song from the new United Church hymn book, MORE VOICES

SPIRIT BAND -- "SHINE JESUS SHINE"

2007-09-30T14:27:00.000-07:00

As our church continues to search for a new organist, the Spirit Band led the worship music this Sunday. As well as this tune, we also played for the three congregational hymns all taken from the latest United Church of Canada's latest hymn book "MORE VOICES".... and a great one it is!

NEW 20/30 GROUP AT MACKAY

2007-09-30T13:28:00.000-07:00

The first event of the new 20/30 Group at MacKay was a picnic lunch and a hike on a beautiful Fall day in Gatineau Park.
We talked about other events we'd like to do...a movie/discussion night...zip-line adventure (if we don't need insurance:)..."gimbod" night (making Korean sushi together in the church kitchen under the guidance of two of the groups members... a board games night featuring "German syle board games" (check it out on Wikipedia) or whatever (Dutch Blitz anyone?). Have you got any good ideas?
We had a good time getting to know one another on this first event while enjoying the perfect hiking weather.
The 20/30 Group is a social interaction group designed for young adults (in there 20's and 30's)-- singles, married couples and in betweens, who want to get to know other people.
If you would like to join us, get in touch with Dr. John

CHALLENGING EMPIRE

2007-09-05T09:47:00.000-07:00

This summer I did something I hadn’t done for a long time. I attended a protest rally on Parliament Hill to express my concern about our government’s involvement (and citizens’ lack of involvement) in “SPP”, the Security, Prosperity and Partnership talks between Canada, USA and Mexico.

From the banners and placards I could see that there were a wide variety of groups attending: unions, political groups, environmental groups and even the Raging Grannies were there singing. I also noticed a large contingent of Islamic families with babies in strollers.

Conspicuously absent was any visible sign that Christians were present.
I know they were. I met one woman from our church, and I’m sure other church folks were there as well, but you would never know it

This is how the Christian Church (despite some exceptions) has always wanted it to be. Since the days of the Emperor Constantine (4th century C.E.) when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire the Church has been marginalized as a political and economic force in society and co-opted into the Empire’s agenda.

The World Alliance of Reformed Churches has defined “Empire” as “the convergence of economic, political, cultural, military, and religious power, in a system of domination that imposes the flow of benefits from the vulnerable to the powerful”. This applies to the Roman Empire of Jesus’ day and the American Empire in our day.

The fact that the Christian church has been notably absent and almost silent in the political-economic sphere doesn’t trouble most Christians. In fact, I would guess that most think this is as it should be. After all, the reasoning goes, the church has nothing to do with politics and economics. It is all about religion and individual spiritual growth. Didn’t Jesus himself say -- “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s” -- thus forever separating Church and State.

More and more contemporary Christians are beginning to see the folly of this assumption. Renewed interest in the historical Jesus, that is, placing Jesus in his historical context and hearing his words in this context (and not our own) has had radical implications on how some Christians now understand Jesus and thus Christianity and the Church’s role in society.

Some Christians are no longer content to let Jesus be depoliticized nor allow him to be reduced to simply and only a religious teacher. Jesus did not condone the separation of religion and politics. It was simply impossible to separate religious life from political-economic life in traditional ancient societies like the one in which Jesus lived.

When we hear Jesus’ words: “Render unto Caesar…” We must hear them in the context of Israelite peoples under Roman Imperial rule. This teaching comes in the context of a question meant to entrap him: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar”. He doesn’t answer the question directly. This would have required him to say “no” for Jewish law forbade Jews to pay tribute to a self-professed god such as Caesar. To have done so would have meant certain imprisonment and perhaps even death for inciting civil disobedience.

Jesus instead answers: “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s”. That retort would have been understood by every Jewish listener, including the Pharisee who posed the question, to mean, “No, it is not lawful to pay Caesar anything.” Every Jew knew that “the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it”. Every Jew knew that God is King not Caesar. What is Caesar’s?...nothing. Therefore, what do we “render unto Caesar”? ...nothing.

This is just one example of how Jesus taught his followers to resist non-violently the injustices of Empire and survive to resist another day. He gives us such models throughout his life and teaching.

Jesus died by crucifixion, a brutal form of state execution meant to terrorize and deter others who would challenge the politics and economics of Empire. This is exactly what Jesus did and it is the reason he was executed.

If you would like to be part of a mid-week group discussing the question: How do Christians live faithfully in the midst of Empire, including the whole notion of what Empire means today, you are invited to Dr. John’s Discovery Group at MacKay United Church (39 Dufferin Road) .The Group begins Tuesday October 2 at 7pm at the church. For more info. 613 -749-8727

LIVING FAITHFULLY IN THE MIDST OF EMPIRE

2007-08-24T17:15:00.000-07:00

The United Church of Canada has a great position paper out, passed by the last General Council, entitled "Living Faith faithfully in the Midst of Empire" that seeks to inform us about the nature of Empire today and how it parallels Empire in Jesus' day, how we are complicit in Empire and how we can be faithful in following Jesus to combat the grave injustices that result from Empire.

Beginning Tuesday October 2,2007, I will be leading a discussion in my DISCOVERY GROUP on this paper and two related papers: Christianity and Empire and Empire: Then and Now, all of which can be downloaded. CLICK LINK BELOW

http://search.united-church.ca/search?q=empire&btnG=Search&site=united-church&client=united-church&proxystylesheet=united-church&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Everyone is welcome to attend this discussion which will last about 6 weeks. Please contact me if you are interested.

Part of the agenda of this group will involve discussing ways we can take action to combat Empire.

For an indepth look at Christianity and Empire, see Richard Horsley's excellent book, JESUS AND EMPIRE....a must read for anyone interested in this critical area of contemporary Christian thought.

SPIRIT BAND, LIKE A ROCK

2007-06-24T13:52:00.000-07:00

The children join the Spirit Band at an intergenerational service at MacKay United

SPIRIT BAND SINGS "WHAT IF GOD WAS ONE OF US"

2007-06-14T18:31:00.000-07:00

Sunday Morning worship at MacKay

SPIRIT BAND PLAYS EASTER SUNDAY AT MACKAY UNITED

2007-04-08T13:53:00.000-07:00

It was a joyful Easter Sunday at MacKay United Church. It began at 6:30 in the frosty morning at historic Beechwood cemetery with a sunrise service with about 30 hearty souls in shivering attendance. After a tasty breakfast at the Southee's home, most also took in the 10:30 service that began with the newly formed SPIRIT BAND singing ASITHI (pronounced A-see-tee) an African term meaning sing amen! (check out the clip)
That really set the mood. I haven't seen so much movement in the congregation....mind you I've only been here about 8 months.
Then little Finnegan Daniel O'Brian was baptized with his large extended family in attendance . Unfortunately my long streak of getting babies to stop crying after baptism came to an abrupt end as Finnigan wailed his way around our tour of the church family.
Another tune by the Spirit band called "Joy Comes with the Dawn"
followed by the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and an anthem by the choir made it a very memorable Easter for me, and I hope for others.
HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!

DRUMMING AT THE EDGE OF SPIRIT

2007-02-14T12:32:00.000-08:00

Keynote address for Heartbeat Retreat, Feb.16-18, 2007, Wilmot United Church Winter Retreat, Fredericton,NB

--- In one of my Christmas messages I once mused about whether the heavenly host heralding the birth of Jesus may have been accompanied by drumming.

--- My musing wasn’t entirely baseless.

--- Back in the early 1990’s while attending a Music Therapy Conference on Drum Therapy in Washington DC, I visited the National Museum of Art and saw a very early Christian sculpture of an angel playing a frame drum.

--- In the Bible there are several references to the ancient people of Israel playing drums on different occasions.

--- After the parting of the Red Sea, Miriam, the prophetess, the sister of Moses and Aaron, took a “timbrel” in hand, and all the women went out after her with “timbrels and dances”.(Ex.15:20)

--- Most Bible translations use the term “timbrel”, some say drum.

--- The “timbrel” is in fact a drum similar to what we would call a tambourine, or more traditionally, a “frame drum”

--- In ancient Israel it was referred to as a “tof”.

--- It was introduced to Europe through the returning crusaders.

--- In the Psalms we read how the Israelites praised the Lord with drums and dancing (Ps.150)

--- Psalm 149 urges us to “Praise the Creator with dancing; play drums and harps in praise of him”.

--- In 1Samuel we read : “David and all the Israelites were dancing and singing with all their might to honour the Lord. They were playing harps, lyres, drums, rattles and cymbals.” (1Sam.6:5)

--- And Isaiah gives these instructions to his people: “As the Lord strikes them (the enemy) again, his people will keep time with the music of drums and harps.” (Is.30:32)

--- After the prophet Samuel anoints Saul as King he says to him:

“At the entrance to the town you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the alter on the hill playing harps, drums, flutes, and lyres.
They will be dancing and shouting. Suddenly the Spirit of the Lord will take control of you, and you will join in their religious dancing and shouting and will become a different person.” (1Sam.10:5-7)

--- These last two references indicate that drums (with other musical instruments) were used both in conflict or war situations as well as spiritual ceremony. In the case of Saul, spirit or trance possession is also indicated.

--- Also worthy of note is the fact that in ancient Israel women seem to be the ones playing the drums.

--- All these elements connected to the drum found in the OT: war, spiritual ceremony, trance or spirit possession, and women players parallel the use of drums in numerous ancient cultures around the world.

--- The earliest depictions of drums we have date to the Neolithic era (8,000 – 3500 BC) and they are timbrels or frame drums, some square and some round, and more than half of the drummers depicted are women.

--- The first drummer whose name we actually know was a woman, the granddaughter of a Sumerian King. She lived in Ur (the same town from which Abraham haled) and played her drum in the Temple of the Moon, one of the Mother goddess’s strongest symbols (the author of this info for some reason never gives her name!!!!)

--- Marija Gimbutas, in her book, The Language of the Goddess, claims that there was “an intimate relationship between the drum and the goddess.
--- Layne Redmond, in her book, When the Drummers Were Women, gives an extensive history of the frame drum and the ancient women that played them in their expression of the goddess religion.

--- What about the drum in the NT?

--- No explicit mention is made of drums in the NT, but since Jesus and his disciples were Jews steeped in Jewish tradition, it is easy to imagine that while sitting around campfires telling stories and singing Psalms, Jesus and perhaps particularly his women followers would have had a drum in hand.

--- I like to think Jesus himself might have played the drum from time to time J

--- It seems, however, that early in the church’s history, the Jewish tradition of using drums in worship and ritual fell out of favour….WHY?

--- In his book, PERCUSSION INSTRUMENTS AND THEIR HISTORY,
James Blade writes:
“With the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire, percussive
music was banned as “mischievous” and “licentious”. The drum and
cymbals were particularly singled out as evidence of “the devil’s
pomposity”.

--- In her article: THE MYTHIC ARTERY: The Magic of Music Therapy, Carolyn Kenny writes:

In the Renaissance and Baroque period, the notion of “DEVIL’S MUSIC” emerged and along with it the development of “musica ficta” ….rules delineating what were deemed evil influences in music writing, to protect the church from the devil’s influence….
Strauss and Beethoven among many other innovative composers when they began experimenting with the likes of the bass drum’s orchestral possibilities, were accused of evil influences. Very often the culprit influences were classified as the rhythmic elements.

--- Drums, it could be argued have played only a minor role in the history of Western music in general, and in Church music in particular.

--- What part they have played has been relegated to the edge of the circle -- to the edge of the Spirit.

--- Drums, of course, are not to everyone’s musical taste

--- In this regard, not much has changed in the 500 years since a 16th century drumaphobic wrote this review of the drum:

“They cause much unrest to pious old people of the earth, to the sick and the weakly, the devout in the cloisters, those who have read studied, and prayed, and I verily believe that the devil must had the devising and making of them, for there is no pleasure or anything good about them. If hammering and raising a din be music, then coopers and those who make barrels must be musicians”.

--- But was it JUST musical taste the accounts for the lack of prominence of the drum in Western music?

--- Certainly this is NOT the case in many cultures around the world where the drum continues to play a prominent role in religious, social and cultural customs and events.

--- One can surmise that the Western indifference to drumming and the references to it being “of the devil” may go back to the drum’s early connection to goddess and nature worship, to women, and the major role the drum played in possession / trance culture of indigenous groups with which Christian missionaries would have come into contact.

--- One might also surmise that the pure rhythmic nature of the drum and it’s innate ability to arouse movement in the body would have been frowned upon by theologies that promoted a mind/body dualism.
--- For instance, the pious Methodist missionary visiting the Ewe tribe in Western Africa, may have encountered the “gahu “ social dance which begins with the drum beating out the message:
“ All you girls with big bottoms, come out and start shaking”

**************************************

--- I am happy to report, however, that in more recent years some parts of the Church have been revisiting their attitude to indigenous cultures and their spiritual practices, and ways Christians might incorporate them into our spirituality and worship.

--- The drum is a case in point.

--- In the recently published book, THE EMERGING CHRISTIAN WAY (2006), Bruce Harder, Managing Editor of the United Church of Canada’s new hymn book supplement, MORE VOICES, writes an interesting article about the vital importance of congregational singing.

--- He argues congregations have lost their ability to sing.

--- Church music, like in culture, he writes, has become performance based.

--- Congregational singing he says, “has become a pitiful experience. A few voices straining to carry the tune while the majority dutifully mumble along, or wait in stoic silence for the song to end”.

--- Harder challenges congregations to explore the God-given talent of their voice by singing a cappella like we find in much African and Taize singing.

--- He writes: “ Experience shows that the more a congregation sings a cappella the stronger their singing becomes, because there’s no one else doing their job for them”.

--- “The mark of a spirit filled church”, he continues, “is one in which the communal voice is at the heart and soul of worship”

--- And then Dr. Harder writes the following about the drum which I want to quote in full:

“When the congregational voice is primary, all instruments therefore have a secondary yet vital role. The most primal instrument for musical human expression is the drum, and the use of the drum in worship is increasing. Drums and other percussion are a part of most musical cultures throughout the world; the physicality present in the combination of the breath of song with the heartbeat pulse of a drum has deep roots in our psyche. Drums are particularly helpful in maintaining the tempo and pulse of music while singing a cappella.”

--- Many in the Church agree with Harder that we need to rediscover the primitive core of humanity’s music tradition.

--- And as Harder points out, the drum can play an important role in this rediscovery.

--- What is the important message which travels through this primitive tradition?

--- IT IS THE BEAT…the heartbeat.

--- We have a deep need to experience the pulse of life and experience it through dance and music to affirm our own rhythmic existence.

--- I want to quote Harder again here:

--- “ Increasingly we are becoming aware of the importance of rhythm or pulse in worship song….Our music leaders, however, are playing catch-up when it comes to groove….Drums and percussion drive the groove in the majority of popular songs, and the purpose of many popular music genres is to make people dance! Congregations today, therefore, respond to a strongly rhythmic style in all genres of church music, not just in popular musical styles. Groove and pulse reflect our own heartbeat and the rhythm of life itself.”…p.196 (unquote)

--- The drum is saying: Let the heart beat…this is the most basic need of humanity…the heartbeat.

--- The beat of life must go on if we are to survive.

--- This is the message of the drum: THE HEART CONTINUES TO BEAT.

--- The drum strips music down to the bare bones.

--- Matthew Fox, in his book: Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet (2004) writes:

“To be in touch with our hearts is to be in touch with the heart of the universe and the heart of the Divine Creator. Is this why the indigenous peoples around the world put so much faith in the drum as the basic instrument of prayer? The drum beat bespeaks the beat of the heart – not just our human heart but the heart of the universe, the heart of the Creator. To return to this heart is the purpose of all prayer and all meditation. When we return to the heart, the Divine creativity flows again”.

--- Drumming, can provide opportunities to express our creative impulse, the place, Fox says, where the divine and human meet, where we connect with God, the Spirit, the Sacred.

--- Carl Jung considered creativity one of humanity’s basic instincts.

--- Everyone has a drive to be creative which needs to be satisfied.

--- We all have, to some degree, the potential to develop creativity in some area.

--- The drum is perhaps one of most advantageous musical instruments available to allow a wide cross section of people and age groups to engage in this creative process because of its inclusive nature: that is, everyone can play the drum with very little instruction, even my 2 year old grandson.

--- Even though drumming may not be the natural vehicle for everyone’s creativity, it can be an experimental ground in which to try out our creative processes.

--- This has certainly been the case for me over the last 15 or so years.

--- Shamen in different cultures speak of “riding” their drum to the spirit world.

--- The drum is their vehicle of transportation and transformation.

--- I can very much relate to this notion.

--- The drum has carried me into a whole new world…it has changed my life in many key respects.

--- I used to practice spirituality from the “neck up”, so to speak.

--- I was very left-brained in my approach to the religious life.

--- The pursuit of truth, including religious truth, was for me chiefly an intellectual pursuit.

--- I suffered from a mind/body dualism that my upbringing had instilled in me.

--- The drum brought me back to my body and a more holistic approach to the spiritual life and to life generally.

--- In significant ways, it changed the way I approached theology, the Bible and history.

--- This is why I say the drum changed my life.

-- Some results were transformational in a very positive way; and some were painful, which is often the case with change generally.

--- These may sound like huge claims to make for a simple drum made out of a tree and animal skin.

--- Babatunde Olatunji, the great master drummer from the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria, one of my teachers, said this about the drum from the perspective of his tradition:

“ The drum is a kind of trinity. The body of the drum, which comes from a tree, contains the living spirit of that tree…the same is true of the skin…it also contains a spirit that is still alive. And when you join these two spirits with that of the person playing the drum, the result is an irresistible force, a trinity, a balance that gives the drum its healing power”.

--- However you describe it, I too have come to realize that there is something powerfully healing and transforming about the drum.

--- It contains the seeds for a death-rebirth experience that can help transform your life, and perhaps the life of your church.

.

THE BIBLE

2007-01-11T17:18:00.000-08:00

Biblical literacy is a pressing need among Christians today, especially as we try to use our faith to inform our opinions about issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, capital punishment etc. By biblical literacy I do not mean the ability to memorize Bible sentences and regurgitate them back, devoid of literary/cultural/historical context, as some Christians are prone to do: "the Bible says it ...we believe it, that settles it”.
The problem is the Bible says a lot of things that most thinking Christians in the 21st century could not defend or condone as being in keeping with the teaching and spirit of Jesus. Biblical literacy requires us to use our minds (Mt. 22:37) in order to interpret the biblical witness for today. This includes such basic information like... the Bible did not float down from heaven one day, complete and ready to read. It, in fact, was written by many people over many hundreds of years, none of whom spoke English.

So right away we have a problem. Since most of us, including myself, don’t read the original languages of the Bible, Hebrew and Greek, we depend on translations, and anyone who knows anything about language translation knows how words and meaning dramatically change from language to language, culture to culture.

On top of that, we don’t have any original copies of the Biblical books. They are all copies of copies of copies etc. There are literally thousands of copies of manuscripts of the various books of the Bible and many hundreds of variants in the text (which is not surprising since they were all hand-copied - no photocopy machines back then!…and copyists, especially the non-professionals of early centuries, were not averse to changing the text to suit their theological bent --- . For an in depth discussion of this see Bart Ehrman’s excellent book, MISQUOTING JESUS which I recently read and found absolutely fascinating.

So the Bible is a book, or rather many books, written by people, members of two ancient communities, Jewish and Christian, who tell their stories about their understanding and experience of God. It contains stories about their laws and ethical teachings, their prayers, and wisdom about how to live.

The Bible is not God’s witness but their witness to God.

The Bible is a human product that uses language and concepts of the culture in which it took shape. That’s why we refer to the Bible as "God’s Word" (singular), not God’s words (plural).
"God’s Word" should be understood metaphorically referring to the status of the Bible in the Christian community, not a phrase that points to its origin. Because of the potential for misunderstanding here, instead of using the standard “Hear the Word of God” after scripture readings in church, I have folks say “Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church”

It is our foundational text, a sacred text, and the most important book we possess as Christians: but it is a human product nonetheless.

So, I would say, to quote Marcus Borg, I take the Bible seriously, but not literally.

The Bible is "inspired by God" in the sense that the Spirit has moved in the lives of people who produced it. But the emphasis is not on the words, the ink on the paper, but on the people who wrote.

We don’t know exactly who wrote the various books of the Bible. For instance, none of the four gospels say, in the earliest manuscripts we possess, who exactly wrote them. The titles, Gospel of Matthew, Gospel of Mark etc. were later editorial editions. Moreover, it is highly unlikely that any of the Gospels were written by "eyewitnesses". Almost certainly all the eyewitnesses to Jesus’ life were dead by the time the Gospel of John was written (c. 90 - 100 CE) and Luke - Acts (c. 80-90CE) states quite clearly that the author was not an eyewitness himself but that he received information "handed down" from those who were eyewitnesses (Luke 1:2).

When one understands this about the Bible, one is not surprised ( or upset) to discover that the Gospel of John has Jesus being crucified at 12 noon (John 19:14) and the G Mark at 9:00 in the morning (Mk. 15:25).... and on different days.

When we find differences and contradictions in the Gospels in particular and the Bible generally, it is not that the authors were wrong in the way they constructed their narratives. Rather, it is we who are wrong in the way we understand what they are doing and the nature of their writing.

To insist that all the biblical narratives are literal, factual reports of what happened is to misunderstand the authors’ intention and severely limit Scripture. The Bible contains both history and metaphor as well as other literary genres and to fail to make this distinction can have very negative and sometimes harmful results.

Progressive Christians need to better acquaint themselves with these basic facts about the nature and history of the Bible in order to better dialogue with "conservative" Christians who often insist that their way of understanding the Bible is the ONLY way. And perhaps more importantly, to discuss our approach with "seekers" and others who may want to know something about Christianity, letting them know that the TV evangelists' brand of Christianity is not the only brand. And I would add, not the brand of Christianity that is most faithful to the Way of Jesus.

AFRICAN DRUMS COME TO WORSHIP

2006-12-26T11:04:00.000-08:00

MacKay United Church seems to be quite receptive to African drums being part of our worship services.
At the Christmas Eve service our choir director, Katarina Jovic, invited me to accompany the choir in their rendition of "JAZZ GLORIA".
And the UNITED IN RHYTHM DRUM CIRCLE that meets weekly in the sanctuary on Monday evenings was asked to open the 5th Annual BETHLEHEM IN THE BURG, a wonderful outdoor Nativity enactment that raises money for Christmas dinners provided to the needy of our city by the OTTAWA MISSION. This year we were able to give the MISSION over $1350. A big attraction this year was Gracie the camel along with her friends, the donkey, goat and sheep which the children had great fun petting after the event.
From time to time the drums are used in our regular worship service. Here's a clip from one where I'm on djembe and Mike Bonsu plays congas:

I'm looking forward to being a presenter at the HEART BEAT RETREAT near Fredericton New Brunswick, sponsored by Wilmot United Church SEE " 2007 WINTER RETREAT".
I will be teaching some basic rhythms and some African rhyrhms, chants and songs that can be used in worship services and gatherings. I'm not sure if part of my duties will be speaking, but in the event it is, I've taken the opportunity to pull together some thoughts on drums, the church and spirituality that have been mulling about in my head for the last 15 years or so! I've entitled it "DRUMMING AT THE EDGE OF SPIRIT"

UNITED IN RHYTHM

2006-10-05T14:11:00.000-07:00

A new Drumming Circle -- UNITED IN RHYTHM -- is starting up at MacKay United Church (located in New Edinburgh, Ottawa) geared for new and intermediate drummers, although advanced drummers are welcome. This is open to the community.
We will be drumming in the sacred setting of the 130 year old sanctuary.
Primarily African rhythms, songs, and chants will be learned as well as some African dance moves under the instruction of Ghanaian drummer Mike Bonsu and Dr.John, the minister at Mackay. Dancers are welcome to join us.
Mondays 7-8:30pm
39 Dufferin Rd.(at Mackay Ave.)
for more info. contact Dr. John email: minister@mackayunited.ca

So begins a new journey in my circle of drumming and I wonder, “am I just going around in circles”. It began in 1992…it’s now 2006!

But no, every circle is a new circle.

Our first session began October 2nd with a diverse group of new drummers ranging in age from genXers to 70 something.

Our first "gig" took place on October 15th at my covenanting service at MacKay United
Here's a clip.

Leo Brooks is graciously advertising United in Rhythm in this drumming email circular:Talking Drums Newsletter ....check it out: http://www.treefrogpercussion.ca

United in Rhythm will give special attention to the spiritual dimensions of drumming in the belief that drumming can enhance creativity, improve mental and physical well-being, deepen community, express joy and rage and serve as a means of transcending and transmuting our pain.
check out: http://www.healthysounds.com/feature5.html

BEYOND BELIEF

2006-09-19T00:43:00.000-07:00

Elaine Pagels, a brilliant scholar teaching at Princeton University, has recently published a book that all Christians (and non Christians or Christians in exile) should read. It is entitled Beyond Belief, The Secret Gospel of Thomas.

Pagels gives remarkable insights into the origins of Christianity, detailing why some "books" of our present New Testament made it into the "canon of faith" while others (like the Gospel of Thomas) did not; who made these decisions and why.
Of particular interest is Pagels analysis of how the Gospel of John became the touchstone for interpreting the other three gospels, even though several early prominent Christian leaders were skeptical of the authenticity of John and opposed its inclusion in what became the New Testament. Some even labelled the Gospel of John as heretical because at crucial moments in its account it directly contradicts the combined testimony of Matthew, Mark and Luke.

For this reason, Origen, one of the Church Fathers who strongly defended the Gospel of John, had to admit that "although [John] does not always tell the truth literally, he always tells the truth spiritually". (Pagels, p.37).
Pagels asserts that if Matthew, Mark and Luke had been joined with the Gospel of Thomas instead of with John, or both John and Thomas had been included in the New Testament canon, Christians probably would have read the first three gospels quite differently.

Pagels makes a detailed comparison between the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Thomas, the latter of course, being the one that was eventually labelled "heretical" by Christian leaders. On some points the gospels are in accord but on some major issues they diverge decisively. In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus directs each disciple to discover the light within themselves, whereas John’s Jesus declares instead that "I am the light of the world". This is the major point of departure. We are so different from Jesus, says John, that He is our only hope of salvation. Thomas’s Jesus, however, tells his disciples that not only does he come forth from divine light but so do we all.

She also details the interesting story of how certain early church leaders like Irenaeus and Athanasius were successful in suppressing the many "non canonical" gospels and writings, in addition to Thomas’s gospel, that circulated among Christian communities in the first centuries, writings that were regarded by many as faithful interpretations of the life and teaching of Jesus.

Pagels believes that such suppression, as necessary as it may have seemed at the time for those wanting to ensure the Church’s survival, has greatly impoverished our understanding of Christianity and fostered a very exclusive view of the Christian truth.

While many Christians will not agree with Pagels conclusions, her book allows us to glimpse a fascinating and crucial part of early Christian history; a time when great diversity existed in the faith as certain Christian "seekers", labelled "heretics" by some, sought to discern spiritual truth experienced through intuition, reflection and creative imagination in their encounter with a wide range of Christian writings, some of which are no longer available to Christians today.

There will be many, like Pagels, who feel the Church has been impoverished because of this.I am one of them.

The "Last Fanga"

2006-08-21T16:04:00.000-07:00

My "Last Fanga" at St. Paul's United Church,Perth, joined by all the members of my old drumming group DAMASCUS (only two in picture: Diane Bracegirdle and Dave Ramsden...out of sight are Carolyn Sutherland,Tracy Brown and Carla Marshall) before heading off on a new journey to MacKay United in Ottawa.("Fanga" is a west African greeting song taught to me by Kebba Jobateh)

Drumming is on my mind today having been recently invited to lead a workshop on DRUMMING IN WORSHIP for Ottawa Presbytery, United Church of Canada and a weekly drumming workshop for visually impaired teenagers at Creighton Community Centre in Ottawa.

I finally met Leo Brooks percussionist extrordinaire and drum maker at the Ottawa Folk Festival held last weekend, who kindly agreed to repair my original djembe drum made by an old friend, Carla Marshall about 14 years ago. Carla made most of the fabulous drums in our group as well as many more that found homes all over eastern Ontario and abroad. Leo has now taken up the slack after Carla moved on.I believe the drum Leo is repairing for me was the second or third one that Carla made. I remember her telling me that one day she went down to Giraffe, an African artifacts store in Ottawa, sketched the dimensions of a djembe drum and started making them from scratch at her home. She would go to Greek restaurants and get leftover goat skins which she treated and used for the drum heads. A real talent was Carla!

"Be compassionate as God is compassionate"

2006-08-14T16:52:00.000-07:00

If I had to summarize the Christian faith using a single phrase, I would choose the words attributed to Jesus in Luke 6:36: "Be compassionate as God is compassionate."(New English, Jerusalem and Scholars versions). These words point to the important fact that Christianity is above everything else, a way of life and not simply a belief.

Moreover, this passage makes it clear that Christianity is a way of life modelled after what God is like. God is compassionate, says Jesus; therefore we too must be compassionate.

How are we to understand this key word "compassion", a word that is so important in the gospels?

It may seem for some to be a very "weak" value, associated with being "nice" and "letting people off the hook", as if the compassionate persons would say in every situation ..... "it’s O.K., I understand".

But this is certainly not how Jesus understood the virtue of compassion, nor is it the biblical understanding of the word.

The strength of compassion as a value can be seen by looking at its opposites: hatred, abuse, brutality, injustice, indifference, selfishness, self-righteousness, hardness of heart, racism, sexism and so forth. The person who lives with compassion stands actively against all these things.The person of compassion non-violently resists these things.

"Compassion", in the biblical tradition (as opposed to the Hallmark Greeting Card tradition) is therefore not in any sense a "weak" value that passively tolerates everything.

Moreover, for Jesus, compassion was more than an individual virtue - it was political, that is, "political" in the broad sense of the term, meaning concern for the shape and the shaping of society and how this affects the people in that society.

All those forces - government policies, institutions, system etc. ..... everything that influences and shapes society, should be of vital concern to the person of compassion.For Christians, Jesus is our example here again. He directly and repeatedly challenged the socio-political paradigm of his day and suffered the consequences of his stand.

Christianity is a way of life ... a way of being - a "way" that is defined by a life of compassion.

Christianity is not a matter of assenting to certain doctrines and propositions (although the search for "truth" is important, of course). As Jesus reminds us, "Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the Kingdom of Heaven" (Mt. 7:21)...In other words, you can say all the right things, be doctrinally impeccable....and still be a jerk.

Acknowledging the lordship of Jesus, or saying ‘I believe’ is not enough. Rather, he continues, it will be those who do God’s will who will enter into God’s presence.

"Be compassionate as God is compassionate".