Some Christian scripture asks that we approach Gd as a child. (Mark )
So often I have thought that this means that I need to be less jaded by the world, more trusting, more innocent As if the worlds harshness curls us into a defensive ball by the time we reach our adulthood. And in many ways that is true. A slight glance can now tell me volumes about how loudly I am speaking or how under dressed I am for an occasion.
I remember going to a party when I was in high-school. I shopped for just the right outfit, wanting to look good, wanting to show off that I had lost weight (soon to be put back on). It was the first party with the cool in crowd - well the cool we are the student government people and the theatre people crowd. I had looked on from a far as I had made my way out of the smoking lounge crowd into the choir crowd and now finally had an invitation to be with the theater folks. I knew from the moment I arrived that I was over dressed. Everyone else in jeans and t-shirts. Laughing comfortable uninhibited, and there I was in kulates. (Kulates, really never a fashion trend setter except in the east village where worn with pink hair and pierced nipples they are elevated to the awkward coolness of being totally off center.) When we started to play charades everyone laughed as a card came up about a flood and someone said well at least we can all jump on Karen and she will save us from getting wet. Ah yes, by young adulthood we all know the realities of a look and have been whipped by our deepest fears of being rejected.
Now I have to say I do not care about kulates anymore - and frankly neither should you - but when approaching Gd that is still part of what is expected. Gd is best listened to through the lens of letting go of everything I have lived through to hear the world as innocent and new. To hear the possibility of that which has not yet been formed. To live within the un-ness of creating.
I have thought a lot about this form of interaction with Gd. (If you are friends with the lovely Pam she will tell you this means that I ruminate and talk and argue and read and listen and cry and finally, finally say well maybe...) I have spent hours meditating and praying to be open to the now of this moment. Sometimes it even works.... Still lately I have wondered if this was all that Gd meant.
Come into the presence of Gd as a child.
Children are not just innocent, children speak the truth.
Children speak because they are innocent and do not know about the consequences, still they speak the truth. What if in an allegorical reading of this passage Jesus is actually saying to these people he is walking with ask, even if you look foolish, even if I am angry or say no - ask how else will we ever know one another. How else will you ever know me... They did not ask after being chided and I wonder what he might have said if they had asked him about slavery, abuse, homosexuality, and women's rights. What would Jesus have said about those even deeper issues of justice. What would he have said had they asked about grace, salvation, service, and sacraments? Would he have said - forget about what is on the table it is the table itself that matters - find places you can be together those will always be a rare commodity. What if his disciples had had the courage to ask and look foolish. To speak as a child and say what they know as the truth in order to be taught and be transformed.
I suspect he might have had words that confounded me with their wisdom and spoke about how deeply the world challenges us to become more than we think we can be. I think he might have said love is love and love is always an answer to be reckoned with even if it creates havoc because sometimes people do horrible things out of love. I would have had to look at those words and tried to wrestle with them. It might have given me a starting point to talk to so many different people in my life estranged because of misunderstood words. Would words of deeper wisdom have given me the courage to reach out and be in community again instead of simply sitting and thinking about why neither of us was calling.
Come into the presence of Gd as a child.
If I take this into the knowledge that each of us holds the presence of Gd I stand in an even more awe-some place. I had a colleague once who said that while I could live in the world I created in my head just fine it might be nicer for the people around me to tell me who they are instead. Hmmm all this talking and asking questions and listening and actually being like a child, willing to hear what is said not what is convenient.
What would our world look like if I took this on as well. If the innocence of my being was strong enough to say what is real and true about myself and the world I love within. Not worrying about who or how but instead simply being a truth teller. - Truth in love - Truth in spite of my fear - Truth because really the only way to be vulnerable in this world is through truth. What if we both greeted each other with innocence and truth. Able to ask the hard questions even if we will look foolish and willing hear what is said not what we want to hear. In this way coming into the presence of Gd within you as a child, speaking in truth and hearing in love actually might allow me to be converted by you in our conversations. What a radical world that would be to live in. Perhaps this is the prophethood of all believers that our UU theologian spoke about.To speak what we believe is truth - even if it turns out to be wrong - so that others can help us to clarify what is real. because in this time of sound bites and obfuscation truth is held more firmly within the grasp of the many than of the few.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Monday, December 10, 2012
Why do most of our stories for children start with once upon a time in a place far away. Do we think that putting good and bad things at a distance will somehow shelter them from life. Moving a story away from the source of its generation, which will be their own mind or body, to a place detached and remote - not here - not now - not you, will somehow protect them. It is so absurd. To teach imagination as usable only in passive and unreachable ways.
Imagination is perhaps one of our most powerful tools in the arsenal of living as creative and emotional beings. I wonder what it would be like if I had heard stories that started with - right around the corner... - or better yet - have you ever known someone who... - or even still - can you imagine yourself... I suppose it is right I was protected but I find myself wondering what I was protected from, or what the world was protected from by this limitation.
I have begun to wonder what and how we have learned to limit ourselves in order to "live" within this world. Even that statement "live within this world" makes me ask what world? All I can experience is given to me by my senses interpreted by my mind through a filter of rules that I learned as a child. Touch the red hot stove and you will experience pain. Drop something from your hand and it falls to the ground. These are, I have been told, the immutable laws of physics. I can not walk on air to reach as Icarus to fly to the sun, even if i plaster myself with wings. And I have to say that I have seen them all to be true.
I was taught early and often to believe in the rules that guard this realm. Gravity and falling, energy and cold, heat and burning, solid and impenetrable, I was taught as you likely were as well, these classics of our physical existance and then I was taught more subtle things about relationships and words and meaning. I was told stories about how people act and why we live together and how I might be a better person....
But I wonder what would have happened if I was told stories about myself that included magic - like Harry Potter. If radical acts of imagination might have come forth? What if we started contemplating the realm of possibility as much as we teach the realm of "reality." What if... what if we started to tell our children stories that let them make up the world instead of our imposing the rules we think we know upon them? What if we taught them that gravity and heat exist - yes they do, touch a red hot stove and your hand will burn, still what if we taught them that this is what we know now... and ask them what they know as well. Or better what they imagine.
Once upon a time In this world now, there lives a person just like you who ...
Imagination is perhaps one of our most powerful tools in the arsenal of living as creative and emotional beings. I wonder what it would be like if I had heard stories that started with - right around the corner... - or better yet - have you ever known someone who... - or even still - can you imagine yourself... I suppose it is right I was protected but I find myself wondering what I was protected from, or what the world was protected from by this limitation.
I have begun to wonder what and how we have learned to limit ourselves in order to "live" within this world. Even that statement "live within this world" makes me ask what world? All I can experience is given to me by my senses interpreted by my mind through a filter of rules that I learned as a child. Touch the red hot stove and you will experience pain. Drop something from your hand and it falls to the ground. These are, I have been told, the immutable laws of physics. I can not walk on air to reach as Icarus to fly to the sun, even if i plaster myself with wings. And I have to say that I have seen them all to be true.
I was taught early and often to believe in the rules that guard this realm. Gravity and falling, energy and cold, heat and burning, solid and impenetrable, I was taught as you likely were as well, these classics of our physical existance and then I was taught more subtle things about relationships and words and meaning. I was told stories about how people act and why we live together and how I might be a better person....
But I wonder what would have happened if I was told stories about myself that included magic - like Harry Potter. If radical acts of imagination might have come forth? What if we started contemplating the realm of possibility as much as we teach the realm of "reality." What if... what if we started to tell our children stories that let them make up the world instead of our imposing the rules we think we know upon them? What if we taught them that gravity and heat exist - yes they do, touch a red hot stove and your hand will burn, still what if we taught them that this is what we know now... and ask them what they know as well. Or better what they imagine.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Free fall
I am in free fall.
The moments between but not attached. That time when you realize that you are not some part of who you used to be and are moving onto what is next that has not emerged yet. I am falling and am trying to enjoy the flight rather than be terrified by where and how I might land.
In prayer Gd says - I love you I will catch you - trust - let go.
But what if I wanted to be more than simply the lilly's in the field. What if I wanted to have a home (oh wait I do), what if I wanted to be of service (oh gosh I am), what if I heard a call to a particular place (well you are still in the place you have always been - it is called here), what if I thought I could speak, organize, inspire, lead, remind, heal, call. What if I longed to be of use (well that would be the service part), no of specific use. I thought I heard Gd calling me somewhere - perhaps I found too much wonder in the story of Abraham, the listening to/for Gd even after you think you have heard part.
I am in free fall. Still I suspect where I will land. Because as my parent knew when I left home as a child in the most important ways I never left who they had helped me to become. I am falling but I suspect I am simply coming home, falling back, falling up.
For those who do not know my journey in a moment of great loss, with a need to argue with Gd, I left the Unitarian church and found my way in to a rich ritualistic experience of Gd in the Episcopal church. Being on the track for ministry I stayed on that track for the priesthood. It turns out that while as I get closer to the center of the wheel of faith - that is to a closer relationship with Gd - I can see how the lines between these systems are false reflections of our human need not a reflection of Gd's need. That even as I can see that to serve a particular spoke of the wheel I need to believe that story entirely. While I am transformed and challenged by the Christian story I do not believe it to the bone of my bones. I do, however, believe in the practice of seeking and questioning in service to relationships to, as I just put it, my bones.
It is hard to be a Unitarian in an Episcopal church so I am in free fall.
I fall knowing at least three things more fully:
1. That grace exists for all of us to claim and live within. Gd loves each of us, right where we are, just as we are that is the meaning for me of salvation.
2. That the main sacrament of my religion is the table not the elements that sit on top. A round table where all are welcome and all have a place. This is what I am called to take to the world.
3. That I am called to minister to people. I am called to all those things that I listed before - yes I am called to service - yes I am called.
OK Gd I am in free fall I need your help.
Oh and my friends that means I need your help as well because Gd works here through you!
The moments between but not attached. That time when you realize that you are not some part of who you used to be and are moving onto what is next that has not emerged yet. I am falling and am trying to enjoy the flight rather than be terrified by where and how I might land.
In prayer Gd says - I love you I will catch you - trust - let go.
But what if I wanted to be more than simply the lilly's in the field. What if I wanted to have a home (oh wait I do), what if I wanted to be of service (oh gosh I am), what if I heard a call to a particular place (well you are still in the place you have always been - it is called here), what if I thought I could speak, organize, inspire, lead, remind, heal, call. What if I longed to be of use (well that would be the service part), no of specific use. I thought I heard Gd calling me somewhere - perhaps I found too much wonder in the story of Abraham, the listening to/for Gd even after you think you have heard part.
I am in free fall. Still I suspect where I will land. Because as my parent knew when I left home as a child in the most important ways I never left who they had helped me to become. I am falling but I suspect I am simply coming home, falling back, falling up.
For those who do not know my journey in a moment of great loss, with a need to argue with Gd, I left the Unitarian church and found my way in to a rich ritualistic experience of Gd in the Episcopal church. Being on the track for ministry I stayed on that track for the priesthood. It turns out that while as I get closer to the center of the wheel of faith - that is to a closer relationship with Gd - I can see how the lines between these systems are false reflections of our human need not a reflection of Gd's need. That even as I can see that to serve a particular spoke of the wheel I need to believe that story entirely. While I am transformed and challenged by the Christian story I do not believe it to the bone of my bones. I do, however, believe in the practice of seeking and questioning in service to relationships to, as I just put it, my bones.
It is hard to be a Unitarian in an Episcopal church so I am in free fall.
I fall knowing at least three things more fully:
1. That grace exists for all of us to claim and live within. Gd loves each of us, right where we are, just as we are that is the meaning for me of salvation.
2. That the main sacrament of my religion is the table not the elements that sit on top. A round table where all are welcome and all have a place. This is what I am called to take to the world.
3. That I am called to minister to people. I am called to all those things that I listed before - yes I am called to service - yes I am called.
OK Gd I am in free fall I need your help.
Oh and my friends that means I need your help as well because Gd works here through you!
Unitarianism in 500 words or less
Unitarianism is a non-creedal and non-doctrinal faith. So I speak for myself here. I would say that as a faith of practice two of its main "sacraments" are questioning and seeking. It supports people as they practice seeking truth, their truth. It encourages people to question, wonder and transform their beliefs into a stronger and more complex places of faith. Its salvation is the knowledge that all of us are held in the love of Gd - no exceptions. Unitarians deeply value the relational nature of life. How we live and support and thrive with each other, our communities, our world, our resources, ourselves. Often this work of relationship demands our participation in justice for all and it also demands our living lives of service, inquiry and even celebration. (Gd's world is complex and beautiful beyond our imagination). For some of us (my self included) Jesus and the trinity express an example of this - Father a source of being, Son a source of justice and change, Holy Spirit a source of renual and strength.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
As I wait for some part of me to shift into a new place I am aware that nothing will happen unless I move. As I sit still and think good thoughts and move carefully around the layers of the under the parts of my life I have not embraced for some time I think - why would I want to shift that piece of my life - it seems just fine. As I respond to the nagging voices in my head saying things like "really you need to do something differently?" I side step and turn on the TV to watch Chopped just like last night.
But something has changed in me and perhaps the biggest change is I am willing to see that change.
This is different. Someone said no to me and I did not become a weeping ball of insecurities, someone said maybe and then no and I did not stop and wonder why my entire life was falling apart, someone said yes and while I still wonder why I am stepping forward.
Today I write because I can write.
Tomorrow I will paint because I can paint.
The next day I will learn because I love to learn.
After that I will sing because there is nothing in this world that makes my heart happier.
Even as I wait, even as I wonder if I can change if the dust bunnies can be found and removed, I know that this is mine to do NOW, embrace the seeker I have always been.
KEM
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