Facing our darkness

I enjoy a blog called “real live preacher.”  I read this particular post a month or so ago, and some of the stuff reminded me of some of my stuff.  Wanting to be good, denying that darkness that lives inside all of us, etc. etc.  Recently I had an occasion where I allowed some of my darkness to surface and am currently pondering it to try and make some sense of it.  I haven’t decided yet if it was healthy or not…too soon to tell.  But it brought back to mind this blog post, and I thought you might find it interesting, too.

http://reallivepreacher.com/node/1384

Here’s a little taste, if you like.

That’s an interesting thing to say. “I’m trying to be what I’m supposed to be.” What are you supposed to be?

Okay, yeah yeah. I get this. I know. You’re supposed to be who you are, be yourself, all that. I get that. I’ve told people that myself. It’s just…I AM a person who wants to be what I’m…supposed to be. You know, do the right thing. Be the right person.

Okay, let me try again. I’m really not trying to catch you in some ontological paradox. I just don’t get it. You say you want to be what you are supposed to be. And I just want you to tell me what that is. Who is this person you’re supposed to be? How would you describe him?

I don’t know. Nice? Nice to people? Caring about them and just, you know, where you go places and interact with people and it’s better because you were there. People are better off. You help people when you can.

Okay I’m still not really getting it. How about this: we’ll allow that somewhere in your mind there is an idea of what a man is supposed to be. And let’s agree that this man you want to be is a wonderful man. Just a smashing person. Leaving beauty and healing and well-being in his wake as he goes through life. Real Jesus-like.

I’m not trying to be Jesus.

Well Foy, who are you? I mean now. Forget the man you are supposed to be or want to be or will be or whatever that is. Who are you now? Let’s imagine that there is no god looking over your shoulder, okay? And you’re in a secret room with someone who will never tell anyone what you say. And further, this person is going to think the best of you. So even if you felt like punching someone in the face, you could say that and the person listening knows you would never do that.

(a portion has been snipped out—go read the original!)

What did you say?

What I said was “F*** everyone in the world but me!”

———

Of course, I don’t mean it or anything.

I know you don’t.

My Lord and my God!

Ah, yes. Yesterday’s gospel (the first Sunday after Easter) was the “Doubting Thomas” passage. Thomas was looked upon negatively by my elders when I was a child. But I think he is a well-intentioned, fervent seeker. Who, after all, wouldn’t want to see the living God? Who would settle for a second hand account without yearning for their own touch or glimpse? Who wouldn’t fall to their knees in awestruck recognition when faced with the living God and cry out (or whisper depending on your individual expressive style), “My Lord and my God!”

Have you had moments like that? I thought I had, here and there. And I treasured them in times of prayer or remembrance of them then.

They fade though.  In fact, it faded enough that I began to wonder if it had all been in my imagination, this God-moment stuff.  I missed several weeks of church in a row recently, and didn’t even miss it.

Today, in the sermon, our priest announced that next week we’d be having a parish listening session on desires for Christian Formation in our parish community. And he gave us “homework” to do; much the same sort of prayerful process he goes through during the week to prepare a sermon. He requested us to pray that God show us what he would have us say. And to simply show up.

The rational part of me totally gets the pragmatic, functional intended meaning of what he meant to communicate to our parish at large, and its needs at this moment in time. But whether part of his intent or not, and I have to doubt that my own individual stirrings of the soul registered in his sermon prep process….

…all the same, I am 100% convinced that God used this sermon to touch my heart and reach me. To invite me to return to him, to “put my hands in his side, put my fingers in the nail holes. ”   To show up, in action and prayer to come closer to the living God.  In our priest’s sermon, he reminded me of something I have long intuited, but had trouble putting into words, the thing that has always troubled me about an atonement, transactional understanding of salvation:  we can’t “do it” on our own, of course, but God uses us and works with us all the time; not merely as pawns, but as partners in bringing the Kingdom, glimpses and touches of it here and there, to our earth.  One way of wrapping our minds and hearts around the resurrection, I think it could be argued, is that it is the ultimate “showing up.”  God could have risen and gloried from afar, but he came back.  He showed up.  Even to a doubting Thomas.  Even to you and me.

To make our best attempt at fully living out that partnership, we need to do our “homework.”  We must listen.  And perhaps even more importantly we must make the effort to show up, and allow ourselves a little vulnerability for God to work on us, and in us, and through us.

We must seek out the living God, and then affirm him with our own  unique, God-inspired expression of…

My Lord, and my God.

Sinfulness

Okay, so it’s late, and I’m sick (sinuses/chest/bleck) but I can’t sleep.  So I’m hashing some spiritual stuff over in my mind, in preparation for meeting with the SD tomorrow.  Not that I “should” prepare, but it’s fitting ponderings for that type of conversation, so I was being a little more intentional about connecting some dots, and identifying the questions to explore more deeply.

And you, my dear readers, aren’t privy to ALL of those ponderings of the heart/soul. <smile>

But as I was pondering, it occurred to me that with little tweaking of these late night ponderings, I could pelt out a quick followup post to the mini-rant about the Episcopal Rite 1 Confession of Sin that *could* be blogged upon.

Here’s the deal.  I’m only too aware of how frequently I sin.  Sin=separation from God, the whole things done and left undone, in thought, word, and deed bit.  Yup.  I “suck” truthfuly.  We all do of course, and intellectually I’m quite aware of that, and I am further aware that I could be nothing more than an inadequate & sinful being, not being God and all.  Do I find that comforting and reassuring?  Not especially.  No, in the still, quiet hours when I go before my Lord, I “know” and believe that he loves me [us] for my [our] good intentions and even forgives us when our intentions themselves are impure/self-centered and we return to him to express our genuine sorrow.

That knowledge that I will always be a [forgiven!!] sinner do not help reassure me.  I want to be better.  I want to not be a sinner.  <sigh>  It is becoming my conclusion that a return to prayer for repeated gentle, loving confrontations of my human imperfection will result in, maybe partially in this life, and if not in the next, a bathing in a more full recognition of God’s love and forgiveness.  I believe this, but I do not in any way feel this.

Enter in good ol’ Rite 1 and its statement that I as a feckless sinner have provoked God’s wrath and indignation.  Harumph!  That is not helpful to me, and in a weaker state of mind than I currently find myself in (maybe you find yourself there?) downright hurtful and decidedly unhelpful.  I sin, I do not do the things I have a hunch God would want me to do.  I do some things that probably make God cringe in disappointment, but wrath?  Indignation?  I do not mean to diminish my sinfulness, indeed a spot where Rite 1 gets it right, there is a pervasive sense that my sin is an intolerable burden (i.e. drives me CRAZY “to do those things I hate”), and I wish God would work a little quicker to “fix me up” to be that which he calls me to be.  But I must land on the side of those saints and Saints which insist to me that God is all love and mercy (and most assuredly NOT wrath and indignation) to those who are trying their best. (specifically at this moment I am praying with a devotional of writings from Therese of Lisieux.)  I hope that you will embrace that belief in God’s love and mercy, too, if you find yourself in relationships or church bodies that would try to tell you otherwise!

Okay, rant mode off.  May you have peace in your heart.

The love of Intention

The following snippets are excerpted from the article, “Toward a Post-Christian Spirituality” by W. Paul Jones in Weavings Jan/Feb 2009 issue.

Background: talking about lack of consolations in modern faith, lack of modern reinforcements for “easy” life of faith, etc. Example given is discovered journals of Mother Teresa’s struggles and doubts, and extended dark night of the soul.

Removed from consolations, caught tautly between longing and emptiness, Teresa became convinced that emotions are both unreliable and deceptive. Never give way to your feelings, she warned her sisters, and never rely on them either for your strength or your conviction. Having lost what she called “the sweetness of presence,” the alternative as a love of intention — an act of sheer will in the face of what emotionally feels impossible. This is the post-Christian spirituality of living heroically “as if,” not “because of” but “in spite of”.

And here’s a better couple of examples of phrasing “fake it till you make it” also found in the same article! How convenient so soon after my recent post on such a thing!

While taking the temptation of unbelief on herself (Teresa), her outward smile bridged others into belief. This was not pretending the untrue to be true, but was more like Augustine’s will to believe in order to understand, and Wesley’s instruction to doubting ministers to preach it until you believe it.

Hmm. On second thought, fake it till you make it is not too far from Wesley’s advice at all, is it?

Heavenly Father, brother incarnate suffering Jesus, help us to be faithful in spite of all that is around us. Console us if you can – cuz you know we’re not as strong as Mother Teresa. But in the final analysis, make us stronger, and bring us to you in the end. Amen.

oh. my. god. (cont.)

Earlier this month, I mentioned I was horrified as I was reading the tale woven by Somaly Mam in her book, The Road of Lost Innocence. It’s an important book for its raw eye-opening nudge from western complacency at the horrors of the southeastern sex slavery trade. I had checked it out from the library, and I’m about to pay a few days overdue fines becauseＩgot busy and wasn’t able to finish it in time. I had had to wait a goodly length of time for my name to come up on the hold list, and I really wanted to finish it.

(this post contains disturbing accounts of violence to children and women – consider yourself warned before reading further.)

Before I got to the segments in the book that literally made me weep, I wondered more cerebrally and detachedly (is that a word?) about the nature of evil, and what would make people do things like this to their fellow people? The author repeatedly prefaces her words with the notion that she is not “an intellectual” focusing instead on the stories, those of her own childhood and those of the ones she has rescued and trained to start a new independent life. Here’s just a couple of the anecdotes:

A while back, I met a mother who would go to a brothel to get the money her ten-year-old daughter earned for her. When I reproached her for this, she retorted, “She’s my daughter. I carried her for nine months; I suffered to give birth to her. I’ll do what I like. She’s not yours. [Somaly argues that it's her job as a mom to provide for her child. The mother continues,] “Well, I have a husband who beats me. As soon as there’s any money in the house, he drinks, then he beats me up and rapes me. He hits the children. And my daughter is in the brothel so that, thanks to her, there’s a little money. And maybe she’ll meet a man who’ll marry her.”

Another time we were talking to a man who had raped his own daughter, a mere child. We asked him why.

“Her mother is beautiful and she attracts [men] in the village. So to hurt her, I raped her daughter, who’s pretty too.”

“But this daughter is also yours!”

“No, she’s her mother’s. It’s her mother who was pregnant. This child is nothing to me. I didn’t carry her in my womb, did I?”

Wow, huh? I mean, I don’t like to be judgemental, but wow? How does a society get this way, is what I wondered aloud here.

I mean, it just can’t possibly happen in a vaccuum? If it were possible for that to happen in a vaccuum or be somehow inborn, what would that say about the security of my so-called certainty that I’m a basically good person? Hmm. So no, I can only assume that something societally went/has gone horribly awry that is qualitatively very different, heart-breakingly different than the societal influence we westerners have received. The author has a rare moment where she wonders about that too. (mostly she just reports the reality and asserts that she does not, cannot know the answers why, but can only work on the tragedy that is before her and around her.)

How did Cambodia get to be this way? Three decades of bombing, genocide, and starvation and now my country is in a state of moral bankruptcy. The Khmer no longer know who they are.

During the Khmer Rouge regime people detached themselves from any kind of human feeling, because feeling meant pain. They learned not to trust their neighors, their friends, their family, their own children. To avoid going mad, they shrank to the smallest part of a human, which is “me.” After the regime fell, they were silent, either because they had helped cause the suffering or because this is what they had learned to do in order to survive.

[snip]

Men have the power. Not all the time; in front of their parents, they keep quiet. With the powerful, they must also stay silent and perhaps prostrate themselves. But once these encounters are over, they go home to assume the upper hand and give orders. If their wife resists, they hit her.

[snip]

One-third of the prostitutes in Phnom Penh are young children. These girls are sold and beaten and abused for some kind of pleasure. In the end I don’t think there is any way you can explain or justify that, or the homeless children scrounging through garbage, inhaling glue from little cans you can buy … in every hardware stall, or the stolen children who are trucked into Thailand for the modern slave trade. Trying to explain it is not what I do. I keep my head down and try to help one girl after another. That is a big enough task.

I close this post again, completely tongue-tied about what I can say. Go buy the book, share the story with some friends? I don’t know…

Here’s a place to buy the book:

https://somaly.org/store/

And here’s a place to donate to her organization:

https://www.somaly.org/donate/

Writing this particular post reminds me of how impotent and small we each of us are. I don’t even have a good process for evaluating various charities or causes. But none of us can even attempt to do everything, and this cause, for whatever reason, activates a special place of outrage and compassion in me, so here you can watch me react and respond. I share it with you in that spirit.

Peace to you all!

Happy All Saints’ Day

I’m Episcopalian, and we dig saints…mostly with the small s, sometimes with the capital S.  (small s saints equals the Christians who came before us, sometimes referring to those still with us, but usually not necessarily referring to super-human, super-holy inaccessible people.  Capital S saints referring to people canonized and recognized as by the Roman Catholic church, like St. John the Baptist, St. Luke, etc.  Many, though by no means not all, of our denominations’ houses of worship will bear the name of a capital S saint.)

So, a tradition in some Episcopal churches is to read off the names of small s saints during the church service; small s saints being deceased loved ones of existing currently attending parishioners.  You can imagine a church, even with only 50 in attendance, might come up with a sizable list.  So clearly, this would seem to be a tradition that takes place only in small churches.

I go to just such a small church.  I love prayer as much as the next guy.  But I have a little bit of a rant regarding this morning.  That litany of names takes a LONG time to go through for the primary worship service of a congregation.  This is not the same in my opinion as keeping your mouth shut in the name of diversity and community and “getting along” for the greater sake of the whole, like when you don’t like one single 3-minute hymn.  To me, the primary worship service of a worshiping community ought to account for its being intended and suitable for all in attendance.

To me, this was a very mature (adult) prayer style.  It takes enormous patience and inner discipline and quiet not to squirm during a lengthy reading of names of people you do not know.  (it was something like 3 columns of names on two pages, in about a 10 point font.  There was a LOT of names.)

This is not easy to admit, but I was annoyed.  Yeah, complaining about praying for the deceased makes you look pretty damn small and petty, doesn’t it?

I should explain.  I’ve got other issues that contributed to that annoyance.  I think I need a vacation from being the Sunday school teacher.  But c’mon?  How can any reasonable adult think a child would relate to or simply endure well this lengthy litany of names without a patient loving explanation of what’s going on?  What reasonable adult would not think it might, maybe, just be a good idea to extend the Sunday school a teensy bit longer on this particular routine-altered morning?

My morning actually also began with an extra enthusiastic choruses of “I hate church” coming from the primary school aged crowd in residence at my home.  Then I was the assistant teacher for the Sunday school, and my daughter was distracting the class so I calmly pulled her out and explained why what she was doing was drawing attention to herself and away from the story being told, and she assumes I’m mad at her.  Then, glory be to God, she actually connects and gets excited about her art response time!  But then, because of my role, I need to enforce the community’s norms of getting the children into the worship service in time for the passing of the peace.  This allows the children to be present for all of the Eucharistic liturgy, central to our theology of worship, and minimizes disruptions to the praying adults as we enter during a time of joyful commotion anyway, the passing of the peace.

It’s all good, under ordinary circumstances.  A parishioner comes to our classroom at the conclusion of the sermon, lets us know it has ended, and the following prayers in the liturgy take just enough time for us to relaxedly wrap things up and regather the children to enter the worship service.

This particular morning the children were working with the “Ten Best Ways to Live” (a.k.a. The 10 Commandments, focusing on 4 commandments with guidance for loving God, 6 commandments with guidance for loving people.)  My daughter had taken to making a “greeting card” style of art response that happily declared, “I love God.”  But I had to enforce the “rules” of cleaning up, just like every other child, and consoled her by stating she could finish at home, or next Sunday in Sunday school.

Imagine my disappointment and surprise, turning to frank annoyance when I arrived and I needed to hush the children in the back of the church for this litany of names, droning on and on.  I opted to escort each child one by one to their families so they could at least be seated, rather than squirming with me and the other teacher at the rear of the church.  I eventually decided to get back up with my own daughter and allow her to return to the classroom and finish her art, so annoyed was I that I hadn’t been warned to adjust our classtime and that I had actually interrupted the usually “I hate church” kid while she was engrossed in expressing love for God.  GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!

I know, I know, no one set out to annoy me. (that part especially for my local, fellow parishioner readership!)  I really and honestly do get that.  But I am so frustrated as a mother who is really struggling to guide and enable my kid’s development toward a positive relationship with God and things-churchly to bring her into this droning litany that is NOT age-appropriate, when it would have been totally appropriate and reasonable for someone to have told me, as the Sunday school director (a hat I’m getting increasingly weary of wearing and thereby trumping a potential occasionally-indulgent-mommy-hat that I could otherwise opt to don on some Sunday mornings!) that this would be taking place so I could make appropriate judgment calls and adjust the class accordingly. I know they don’t neglect it intentionally.  It just doesn’t occur to them.   (Again, and again, such things do not occur to them, though “them” is sort of a non-entity, the more I think on it.  There is no centralized worship planning team to inform me, or allow me to offer input to.)   And I’m starting to feel shrill and surly instead of advocating for the children maturely and appropriately.  <sigh>

I need a vacation.  I need to pray.  Truthfully, I could use a prayer or two?  Thanks.  And thanks for enduring the rant.  I really do love my parish.  <sigh>  They just get to me sometimes, sort of like blood-family can get to you sometimes.

oh. my. god.

(referencing p.59-60 of The Road of Lost Innocence by Somaly Mam, which I mentioned recently that I’ve begun reading in this post )

Last night is usually my “favorite night of the year.”  That night in the world of daylight savings time that gives us an “extra” hour of sleep.  Of course I never use it to catch up on sleep.  No, I usually twitter it away in useless busy-ness or catching up on work.

Last night I had intended to actually use it for sleep, but then the temptation of books gave in after the glow of my computer screen had been dimmed.  So I read.

I got to p. 59-60 of my book.  I literally sobbed.  I put the book down, and tried to pray.

This morning I tried to think what is within my teensy tiny circle of power and influence to do something about it?  I’ll steel myself and keep reading the book some other night.  I suspect that at a minimum my power to act includes donating money to the cause and prayer of course.  Perhaps the author will include more specific concrete suggestions as I read on.  Here’s her website once more, which I admit I haven’t explored in any great detail yet:

www.somaly.org

Heavenly Father.  I don’t know what to ask for.  I suppose it’s a little like a parent trying to bargain with you for the health of their seriously ill child.  Well, not quite that emotionally raw either, and I suppose I’m presuming insultingly to know what that heartbreaking situation must be like for a struggling parent, too, but still, Lord?!?   Are you up there?  Can you hear us? Could we maybe forfeit a little free will and you come on down, intervene, and fix things up a little down here?  Throw in a whole lot of that wrath of God stuff, bigtime?!?

Okay, outside my paygrade, as they say.  I still don’t know what to ask for, but Lord, just look on this world and drop as much grace and healing as is possible in a world that’s f-ing messed up.

Amen.

(I literally can’t bring myself to repeat the passages I read in the book, but it had to do with the author detailing some of the horrific child rape that takes place in the brothels.  Lord have mercy and compassion.)

Sorry. Sigh.

Well, I’m not particularly proud of that last post.  (understatement)  I thought of just going back and deleting it, but it wouldn’t get rid of it everywhere anyway, and perhaps looking at it can serve as my penance for posting it in the first place as some unwarrantedly cocky, stuck-up jerk .

<sigh>

However, mass in the grass all summer long is an idea I could stand behind with real potential… (?)

Peace all, and be blessed…

…not whiny!!! (cringe!)

Stewardship Bummers

I’ve got a problem. I believe in organized religion. I believe in a thinking man’s religion. I believe I’ve found a really good faith community in general within the umbrella of the Episcopal church, and in particular the parish to which I belong.

I also believe in a real theology of good stewardship, as opposed to a functional model where we’re paying our dues to keep the doors open, how much would each parishioner have to give on average to support our ministry mentality, sense of duty, etc. (i.e. a smattering of that theology would be notions such as our first fruits belong to God. We give because we must give, the widow’s offering was greater than the rich people’s, etc.) But the one who accepts my offering must reciprocate by being a wise and faithful steward of it, too. This creates a difficult conflictedness within me.

Here’s the problem. The current model of doing church isn’t financially sustainable. There’s something really special about knowing and being known in a congregation with average Sunday attendance under 100. Lots of my fellow parishioners treasure that, and fear losing that specialness if we grow “too much.” (believe me, until attitudes and policies radically change, I believe we run ZERO risk of that kind of growth!!!) I could worship in this church with more people, and I am prepared and ready to work with, and maybe even assist in leading the way to change to get there. (what can I say, I dig church, and I want it to survive and thrive!)

I could also be very happy and satisfied if it stayed this size IF we made some other very difficult choices. And I do mean radical choices, but I think they are ones that would allow us to remain small and continue to attract well-educated, inspirational, loving clergy. And that is a HUGE priority for me! I don’t believe that clergy “are” the church, but their leadership makes a huge difference in the feel and tone of the place and the directions we set…together! I want my church to give more than lip service to “go now in peace to love and serve the Lord.”

I’ll tell you what is NOT a huge priority to me, and one that I believe is sucking our current small churches in all parts of the country dry, financially and passion-wise. Buildings. I believe we get WAY too attached to our buildings. We are dismissed each Sunday with the words, “go now in peace to love and serve the Lord.” GO, not slave away over the church building with so much of our collective time, talent, and yes, treasure. GO!!! Get out there and do something, be the love of Christ for someone outside our church’s walls. What would it look like if we could get buy-in from enough people to ditch the building and invest our existing moneys into awesome leadership, developing lay discipleship more and more through education, grants that support and grow personal outreach ministries, etc., instead of strapping people for more and more money to fix/replace things? What would it look like if we held onto the traditions of our prayer book and celebrated Eucharist together, but did it in public places, or rented facilities, or parks? Go and give what you have to the poor. Are we the young man who turns away saddened, for we have so much that we’re willing to forgo the possible prize offered by letting go of our worldly attachments? What kind of evangelism might it be if we were more visible and accessible? What kind of a coffee hour could it be to be in a park on a summer Sunday morning, regularly, something more than a once annual party for our own insiders? What if our churches were “out there” every Sunday for kids and families and joggers moving past our committed visible worship gathering of the faithful? Or a restaurant for brunch? What of those onlookers? Could we have discreet signs that invite them to join our table(s)?

I just hate raising money for organizational life-support and maintenance. I think our weekly collection, our personal collective stewardship should cover our ongoing costs, and if it doesn’t then some difficult choices ought to be made about cutting those costs. I propose ditching buildings. Not ditching a “bad” building/location and “starting over” elsewhere. Really and truly (radically!) leaving our “things” attachment behind until we reclaim our collective passion and excitement and yes, economy of scale, for mission and ministry, and have sufficient gathered human bodies each week to warrant and support a new building’s demands on time, talent, and treasure.

It’ll never happen though. I often wonder what will happen to my parish, and the many other dwindling parishes like it that insist on trying to have one priest to one (small) congregation and maintain an expensive building while they’re at it? I wonder if the simple arithmetic that illustrates this financial unsustainability has occurred to those who treasure sub-100 Sunday morning attendance? I wonder if there’s a housechurch I could join that would share my values and passions and theology? (you know, not feel too “weird”. I still love and treasure tradition, just don’t want it to weigh us down needlessly in unnecessary trappings of buildings and things.) I wonder if wondering about these things is unkind to my existing parish family? I’m really quite seriously depressed about it. The thing is, I wouldn’t be this depressed or expend this much thought energy on it if it weren’t for the fact that I really love these people and this community. Nah, I’m not going anywhere. But I yearn and long SO MUCH for a mission worth standing up and shouting out from a soapbox about to anyone who will hear me. I’m willing and excited to do that, but I can’t fake it. <sigh>

Returning to the theme of stewardship, I don’t tithe to my parish. I hold a personal goal I’m working toward to tithe from our household income to the “work of God” in the world. If I were to place a value-based pricetag on worthiness of distributing my particular “pot” of money, small though it may be, I could not with integrity give even the size of it that I currently do to my local church. It pains me to say that, but it would be dishonest to say anything else. There are secular organizations that do more of the things God cares about than my local church. I think it is not due to a lack of care and concern, quite the contrary as these are some of the most loving, caring people I have ever met! But I truly believe there exists a fatigue in maintaining the “thing.” The thing is bigger than the people gathered can be expected to maintain, and still have energy and passion and drive to go back into the world to love and serve the Lord as I know we could do, IN THE NAME OF GOD/OUR CHURCH.

Some have accused Generation X (of which I am a part) of being lazy or self-centered. I want to do my part for my church, but I don’t want to “live there” to the exclusion of following the greater calling God places on my life. And ironically, I even consider a great part of my ministry/calling as being appropriately inside church walls…but by golly, that’s not the case for most people. And nor should it be. Most people’s calling ought to be primarily “out there”…where they work, where they play, following their calling from God, not being guilted into meeting yet another need of the parish plant. I want all of us to help out and do our part, and be held to that expectation (NOT permit laziness!), but either have enough of us to spread that workload easily with an easy yoke, or ditch that particular plow maybe? (where plow=the demands of maintaining a building) Why not have church in homes or public places? Hmmmmmm……. All the tradition and teaching and grounding that “old” churches provide…a well-paid, well-educated clergy person to call us out of ourselves, but into the world, not into propping up a mere building.

And maybe this need not be an all or nothing approach. It probably shouldn’t be. Maybe the radicalness of it will plant a seed of brainstorming of what we COULD do though? I don’t know, I’ll keep praying and listening as best I can, I guess….

God’s in it all the time (part 3)

When we last met over our cups of coffee… (smile): In Parts one & two of “God’s in it All the Time,” I’ve been exploring various angles on free will. I’m moving to a place now where I want to connect that to personalizing it and wondering about my own call from God, vocation, and discernment. I ended part 2 with the wonder if God might adjust to all the various intersections (and collisions?) of our various, interdependent free wills. I hinted at a wonder at what I termed as a distinction between a “macro-will” and a “micro-will” of God.

I’m ready to dig back in!

(Important disclaimer: In the interest of minimizing linguistic clumsiness, I’m going to use the convention “I believe” where a more accurate term of my feelings might be something like, “I wonder if it could be that…” Please read on recognizing these grains of salt shaken generously on my humble pie, and realize that this wondering, as EVERYTHING categorized “spiritual wrestling” in my little ol’ blog, is definitely a work in progress!)

“Macro-will” and “Micro-will”: I believe in what might be called a “macro-will” of God which is persistent throughout the ages and unchanging. (to reassure readers I’m not totally arbitrary and random when it comes to a big-picture Master Plan!!!) However, I believe it (and the Planner who planned it!) leaves a great deal of wiggle-room, and indeed, the capacity in him for (dare I say it?) delighted or disappointed surprise. Even surprise at the acts of evil in those he created for good and union with himself. I believe this macro-will will “win” in the end and nothing can separate us from the love of Christ or otherwise thwart God’s will. This is my belief, and indeed, my Christian hope. God will step in with bigger and smaller calls, nudges, and miracles to ensure that!!

We in our puny and temporal existences perceive/hear these calls and nudges. And so does everyone else around us, answering more or less faithfully, with more or less purity of heart, and readiness or willingness or awareness to act on these calls and nudges. All these intersections and collisions of constantly unfolding free will’s make God’s micro-will for our lives a constantly shifting target. It is very situational, but always grounded in the carrying out of God’s macro-will. We (I believe!) have the power to answer God’s call and put a smile on his face. Failing to answer the call, either knowingly resisting or out of innocent ignorance may or may not disappoint, as many factors come into play. But sure, as just one possible example, I believe God was disappointed when Judas betrayed Christ. How couldn’t he be???

These small exchanges of call and answer make up what I believe is God’s “micro-will(s)” for individuals. And I believe the micro-will can be life-alteringly, transformatively strong, but it is subject to change, as God is “surprised” and adjusts. It is a constantly moving target, in greater and lesser ways.

Ordained Ministry Discernment, a Micro-Will Category? Where am I going with all this? It is my belief that we in discernment circles strain and struggle so long and hard over something that falls firmly in the category of God’s micro-will. Do we put too much emphasis on discerning that will in the process? Definitely not! Faithfully discerning, to the best of our abilities, is very important. Does it lead individuals in the process to allow themselves to needlessly get bent out of shape? Perhaps. Maybe. But I do wish to stress here, firmly and strenuously, that any bending out of shape that has happened on my part has been hoisted on by my own inner demons, not by anyone else around me in what I consider to be a very healthy discernment process in my diocese! The thing I’m pondering, though, is that until or unless someone makes vows to the church it is merely a potentiality, however strong and single-minded it may feel to the individual, not an inseparable part of the individual’s macro-vocation. It is a detail (albeit in a permanent, radically lifechanging detail!) in the micro-call working out of just one possible expression of one’s bigger purpose picture. This bigger picture is the macro-vocation of one’s life, and it, too, has (I think) plenty of wiggle room. It is in the macro-vocation, not the micro-call, where the “thing you can’t not do” lies, in my opinion. And the fact that I hold that opinion may well speak volumes that I have misinterpreted my own call big-time. Who knows. But plodding along in my wondering aloud, it seems to me that the thing you can’t not do, the macro-vocation, is to respond faithfully as one can to the call God puts on one’s life, as best one grasps it. I realize I didn’t give examples of how such a strong initial call could be valid at time A, and then become a moving target and not “the thing” at time B. But I have a few examples in my mind. I’m sure you can imagine a few of your own??? At any rate, I’ve been prattling on quite long enough for this post.

God’s in it all the Time!!! Reading back over my words could suggest that such a person is making it “all about them,” and rather unattractively self-absorbed, in just the area where you would hope fervently for the opposite. I would simply say that the twists and turns of such a wondering process, and “the best we can do” process of striving to be a faithful disciple and discerner of God’s will can be more complicated than they appear on the surface. I return to my apology in part 1, “…regardless of how well I succeed in articulating that in tonight’s and the planned follow-up posts that’s what I REALLY mean to say. It is simply this, loud and at the top of my lungs: God’s in it all the time.”

Indeed he is. I thank God for that constant presence. Thank you, God.

Peace all! – Karla

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Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

Lord, I ask that this prayer be the true prayer of my heart as I continue to pray and listen to you. And if you see what in my blindness I cannot see, and that my heart is resisting you in being my vision and lord, I ask you to work on my heart to make it so. Amen.