What lens are YOU using?

Posted on July 13, 2012 by Trinity Seasons

When I read today’s gospel passage, Jesus’ teaching on the end times, my first thought was how uncomfortable I remain with the entire notion of eschatology.  And I wondered why this was so.

What first occurs is that the church in which I was raised established for me the basis for how I came to know God, framing the Word, Worship, and my Christian life in a grace-driven, resurrection, hopeful theology.   And within that framework and in my very personal and local experience with the church, subjects like end times, false prophets, doom and gloom and even ‘second coming’ weren’t spoken of much and dare I say, not taken seriously?  In fact, at some point along my faith formation journey I concluded that anyone who proclaimed the good news from an eschatological point-of-view was an extremist – one of those crazy Jesus-freaks I could hardly identify with let alone locate in ‘my church.’  And in so objectifying them, I dismissed as radical and beyond belief almost entirely biblical passages the so-named Jesus-freaks referenced to make their point.  And when I did come across such Scripture in the lectionary readings or a bible study,  I would look to the context of particular passages for a more rational explanation of the dire warnings and be satisfied that a literal interpretation of Jesus’ teaching was naïve.

I approached my understanding of Satan in the same way for many years.  Though Jesus certainly believed Satan to be real, I would defer to the contextual, non-literal, metaphoric, symbolic meaning of Satan I had gleaned from the church’s teaching and personally, preferred.

End times.  False prophets.  Destruction.  Hell. Satan.  Many such subjects and teachings found in the Gospel were just not dealt with at any depth during my formative years in the church.  They were skipped over in deference to a more welcoming, warm, grace driven, resurrection, good news, theology.  Not denied, but ignored in the way that ignorance denies.

My theology changed over the years as I took more personal ownership (engagement, really, not ‘ownership’ – when I moved along the Christian formation continuum from what some have called a ‘church goer’ to a disciple – a follower of Jesus) of what I believed God reveals to us in the Word and in Creation, and not so much what the church – or creeds, for that matter – say that I believe.

And yet, what again surfaces when I encounter teachings on eschatology, is a lingering suspicion and uncomfortableness.  And I can almost feel myself saying, ‘pshaw’ and the self-righteous attitude I had acquired in an earlier season of my faith journey nearly trumps what the Spirit is saying.

I suppose what is different today than in other times, is that I am able to pause long enough to know I can’t just skip over this part of God’s revelation.  In fact, today, when I read the passage, my second thought was, “I wonder how or if my church (the corporate body, not a local parish) speaks to the things Jesus lists in the Matthew passage as indications of the end times,” and I turned to our catechism for a refresher.

And what I was reminded of was that my perception of what I was taught does not align with what the church professes to teach.  My church does speak to end times, does look forward with hope to the second coming, does teach that Jesus is the only Son of God, does know that Satan is real.  But my perception was the reality.  My specific experience with the local church teachers was one in which the catechism was stated, but not realized and unpacked.  That is, the local manifestation of the church, the context, made all the difference in my learning that end times, Satan, final judgment, the Book of Revelation, even, that all these uncomfortable teachings were symbolic and metaphoric and far from literal.

So, at the end of this reflection, I hear the Spirit saying something about context and location, and about how our theologies are so informed and how very hard it is to adjust the lenses through which we read the Word.

To read the Word through the same lens with which we first came to Christ – in my case through the lens of my church – is like traveling to the Grand Canyon year after year and experiencing it from just one and the same vantage point.  So very much is impossible to see.  One flight over the expanse and you realize you’ve only glimpsed its majesty.

And so with Him and the Word and its majesty.  Adjusting the lens and viewing from a different vantage point and the Spirit will speak.

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What’s in a number?

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Trinity Seasons

The lectionary moved from Numbers to Deuteronomy today, but it was a number in the Deuteronomy passage that popped out from the page and sent me on a bunny trail:

3In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the Israelites just as the Lord had commanded him to speak to them.

Fortieth year.  The number FORTY.

Just this past week I as I was making another long drive, I was listening to the audio book version of a book I read a few years back, entitled Sacred Contracts.[1] And I literally hit the pause button on the dashboard as the author spoke about the significance, spiritually, of the number FORTY.  And, as I have mentioned before, the whisper to pause at something I am reading or hearing or seeing, I believe is heaven-sent.

Myss explained that in many religious traditions, the number forty is considered the period of time needed for transformation to a mature state of being and faith.  Forty days, years, hours signals a period of time delineated for preparation and initiation into a new life, a new season on one’s journey with God.  The author listed all the events associated with the number forty found in Scripture and named rites from other traditions, as well.

It was a fascinating fact that I was really aware of already, but like so many biblical factoids, had forgotten.  It was nice to be reminded and I made a note to self that when I arrived home I would research, again, FORTY and all the scriptural references.

I arrived home on Sunday night and I have been reading Scripture, reflecting and writing every day since.  But what I haven’t done is research FORTY.  Why not?  Forgot about it – totally slipped my mind.

And then this morning’s reading and there it was – just a simple number and one I would surely have read past with nary a thought had I not heard the audio book a few days before, literally pushing the pause button to think about it and making a mental note to self to follow up with some research when I got home.  But though I forgot, the Spirit didn’t.

My breath is taken away at moments like these – I feel through every cell of my being God’s presence.  From the simplest of coincidences like this where a number is put on my radar screen in order that I might hear what the Spirit is saying, to the more complicated and seemingly random intersections with people which prompt me to pause and see God’s presence.

This is where I landed at the end of this little bunny trail.  God is in it all.  In numbers, in coincidences, in intersections, in me and in you.  God is in it all.

Praise Him!

[1] As a side note:  I was re-reading the book because the Spirit had me thinking last week about authorship, generally and specifically, about a quote I had long associated with C.S. Lewis only to find its original source is unknown.  I realized a few days later that the quote, You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body, could have been written by Caroline Myss, the author of Sacred Contracts, a book that presented her work as a Spiritual Advisor, an intuit, and what some would call a mystic.  Myss suggests that the meaning and purpose of life for each of us individually and corporately is made known to us when-or-if we see, as she does,  that we are SOULS incarnated in a human body, who descend and live on earth according to God’s will and plan.

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Romans 8:26

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Trinity Seasons

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Today’s whisper came along in the first psalm reading from today’s lectionary ( Psalm 131, 132, [133];Num. 23:11-26; Rom. 8:1-11; Matt. 22:1-14), suggesting something about authorship and knowing who is behind the words – these, or THE WORD, or anything else.  Here’s the psalm that ushered in the thought:

1 O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvellous for me.
2 But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.*
3 O Israel, hope in the Lord    from this time on and for evermore. – Psalm 131

Lovely, isn’t it ?  I think so.  And though I know that this is one of only a few psalms attributed to a female writer, I am delightfully surprised to recall this once again after praying it.  When it appears in the lectionary cycle, I think to myself, “oh yes…this one”!  And as I read, I realize how different if ‘feels’ to me than many others; the female sensibility softly percolating out of so few lines.

Though my first thought was just as described, it was the second thought on which I lingered this morning.  The pause button was pushed at verse two:

2 But I have calmed and quieted my soul

And I thought, “hmm…as a Christian, I might write that differently.  I might say that my soul has quieted me, as in, my being is settled and calm not because of anything I have done, but because He has, God has.  My soul has quieted me.”  But I hear what the Spirit is saying in the psalm and I am momentarily grateful for the truth revealed here.

And the next nearly simultaneous thought was of the beloved author and theologian, C.S. Lewis.  And I thought about a like-minded quote attributed to him:

This I get.  This is what I believe, and when I first came across the quote I was delighted to hear that it was one of my favorite writers and theologians, C.S. Lewis who penned the phrase.  Just as I was delighted to learn a few years back that Psalm 131 was attributed to a woman.  Somehow the person behind the words made the words more ‘truthful?’…is that even possible?

Now apparently the quote is not from C.S. Lewis.  Google the quote yourself and you’ll discover a variety of opinions on whether he is the original source and how he couldn’t be, so contrary to his theology the quote suggests.

I don’t think so.  I don’t think the truth relayed in that quote has anything to do with how it aligns with Lewis’ theology.

This has me wondering about authorship and theology and the distractions to identifying and proclaiming truth that accompanies the pursuit of original source and authorship identity.  I wonder if that quote was attributed to no one specially, if its truth is not yet told.  As with the psalm’s truthful, soft expression of peace beyond understanding.  Does it read differently if we believe it associated with David, or another male, instead of a female?

The C.S. Lewis quote speaks a truth.  The psalm speaks a truth.  Both and.  And in neither case does it matter who verbalized the comforting truth that souls are who we ARE and how we are known.  The Holy Spirit speaks to us through many mouths and pens.

Does it matter that you know who authored the truth found in the psalm or the quote?  Perhaps.  But perhaps, only if you don’t attribute either to their original source and author of all.

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Trinity Seasons | Leave a comment

The GOD GENE?…

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Trinity Seasons

FILE – In this May 20, 2011 file photo, a wall painting by artist Josef Kristofoletti is seen at the Atlas experiment site at the European Center for Nuclear Research, CERN, outside Geneva, Switzerland. The painting shows how a Higgs boson may look. Scientists at CERN plan to make an announcement on Wednesday, July 4, 2012 about their hunt for the elusive sub-atomic particle. Physicists have said previously they are increasingly confident that they are closing in on it based on hints at its existence hidden away in reams of data. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus) Photo: Anja Niedringhaus, Associated Press / SF

‘God particle’ does exist, scientists say

Associated Press
Updated 11:00 p.m., Monday, July 2, 2012

Geneva —

Scientists believe the “God particle” that might explain the underpinnings of the universe is real, and they are about to present their evidence to the world.

Physicists at the world’s biggest atom smasher plan to announce Wednesday that they have nearly confirmed the primary plank of a theory that could shape the scientific understanding of all matter.

The idea is much like gravity and Isaac Newton‘s discovery: It was there all the time before Newton explained it. But now scientists know what it is and can put that knowledge to further use.

The focus of the excitement is the Higgs boson, a subatomic particle that, if its existence is confirmed, could help explain why matter has mass, which combines with gravity to give an object weight.

Researchers at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, say that they have compiled vast amounts of data that show the footprint and shadow of the particle – all but proving it exists, even though it has never actually been glimpsed.

But two independent teams of physicists are cautious after decades of work and billions of dollars spent. They don’t plan to use the word “discovery.” They say they will come as close as possible to a “eureka” announcement without uttering a pronouncement as if from the scientific mountaintop.

“I agree that any reasonable outside observer would say, ‘It looks like a discovery,’ ” said British theoretical physicist John Ellis, a professor at King’s College London who has worked at CERN since the 1970s. “We’ve discovered something, which is consistent with being a Higgs.”

CERN’s atom smasher, the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider on the Swiss-French border, has been creating high-energy collisions of protons to investigate dark matter, antimatter and the creation of the universe, which many theorize occurred in a massive explosion known as the big bang.

The phrase “God particle,” coined by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman, is used by laymen, not physicists, more as an explanation for how the subatomic universe works than how it all started.

Though an impenetrable concept to many, the Higgs boson has until now been just that – a concept intended to explain a riddle: How were subatomic particles, such as electrons, protons and neutrons, themselves formed? What gives them their mass?

The answer came in a theory first proposed by Scottish physicist Peter Higgs and others in the 1960s. It envisioned an energy field where particles interact with a key particle, the Higgs boson.

The idea is that other particles attract Higgs bosons, and the more they attract, the bigger their mass will be. Some liken the effect to a ubiquitous Higgs snowfield that affects other particles traveling through it depending on whether they are wearing, metaphorically speaking, skis, snowshoes or just shoes.

http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/God-particle-does-exist-scientists-say-3680352.php

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Asking the right (write?) questions

Posted on June 30, 2012 by Trinity Seasons

He:  “You look like a person who gives all their heart.”

She:  “It’s hard to give less, you know.”

…and later, from her, ” I gave all my heart outright and I’m still waiting for Him to make Himself at home.”

These are lines from a film I watched last night, Higher Ground based on the book, This Dark World, a memoir by Carolyn Briggs.

It isn’t a love-heart story but one about hearts for God, hearts for Jesus and one woman’s wonder with the steadfast faith she has in Him and struggling, seeking, and needing to know His steadfast faith in her.  She opened the door as a child and wonders why it doesn’t feel like God is at home in her heart, as He seems to be to all those around her.

The story stayed with me through the night, weaving its way into my dreams and framing the morning’s lectionary readings.

From my perspective as a believer and follower of Jesus, the film is about as authentic as a commercially produced film can get, not giving way to cliched caricatures of saved Christians.  I was impressed with the breadth of scriptural references and the way in which holy moments – speaking in tongues, praising God, praying – were treated respectfully and honestly.

But I wonder what a non-believer would think.  Or for that matter, a Roman Catholic or a Mormon?  I wonder if any would even have the patience to sit through the film as it explores the wonder and saving grace of God, through Jesus Christ?

Does the film and stories like it only speak-teach-preach to the choir?  That’s the question the Spirit touched me with this morning.

Which lead me to hear the Spirit suggesting it might be the question I was really asking in yesterday’s post in which I was wondering about blogging.

So, back to the film question:  Does this film and stories like it only speak-teach-preach to the choir?  And blogs that explore similar issues, to whom do they speak-teach-preach?  Is it just the choir?

I found the author’s Q&A regarding the memoir helpful in answering the question and here, below, is an excerpt.

Why did you write your memoir in the first place?

A: I never intended to write a memoir. I had written a short story titled “Incarnate” in graduate school that won New Letters’ Heartland Short Fiction prize. The story borrowed from my life’s experience within a religious community. My agent suggested I try writing nonfiction and write a memoir. I loved having the cloak of fiction, and the thought of baring all and owning it on the page was intimidating. Truth is the most powerful element of successful fiction and nonfiction, and I knew I couldn’t write a memoir unless I was willing to tell the truth to myself as well as to others.

Do you have any regrets in writing This Dark World?

A: Sure. I wish I would have allowed for more time to pass, so that my perspective cleared a bit. I regret the book was edited in such a way that I appear to have wholly rejected my faith—which I have not ever been able to do. In writing memoir, one tells one’s story, obviously, but one also tells other people’s stories who may not want their stories told—especially from someone else’s perspective. I have wrestled with this reality and continue to as the film is released.

As a side note: My dad, C.W. Walters, loved my book. After reading the manuscript, he said, “You gotta say it the way it was. It hurts, but it’s the way it was.” When the book was published, he invited all of his retired friends to his bachelor pad living room, and he threw me a party with a bakery-ordered cake, my book cover in frosting. My father died suddenly less than a month after my book was published. His is the only actual name in the movie, and I dedicated the screenplay to him.

Where are you with your faith right now?

A: I could not live in a world without God. And this God is big enough to contain my doubts. Tobias Wolff says doubt is part of faith. Doubt and faith can co-exist; each informs the other. My faith infuses my doubt and my doubt infuses my faith. What else can I do but keep seeking God? Tolstoy advised a life of seeking God because that assures a life with God.

Do you consider yourself a Christian?

A: I understand that Christian hipsters are using the hyphenated word Christ-follower these days. I’m too old and not cool enough to be a hipster, but I love that idea. I am striving, pressing on, working out my salvation in fear and trembling. I can’t think of anyone or anything better to follow than Jesus Christ.

I never intended, either, to write a blog.   And yet, here I am.  Who reads?  Who has patience?  Who gets it?  After seeing the film last night and seeing how it framed my scriptural reading and my day, I am thinking the answer to these questions is, the they aren’t the right (write?) questions.

I don’t think the purpose of this blog is to speak-teach-preach to anyone.  Rather, it is a way for the Spirit to speak-teach-preach to ME.  I seek and am sought.  And opening my heart more each day for Him.

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From Psalm 87

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Trinity Seasons

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from Psalm 87 in today’s lectionary and writers?  and teachers?  and artists?  and priests?  and parents?  and on and on….from whence does YOUR inspiration for living and loving come?

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Mirrors, Whispers…all about me? Oh I hope not…

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Trinity Seasons

I have written about the practice of Bikram Yoga as a way of describing how regular practice (discipline) of something that works on the whole body opens up space for the Spirit to speak (whispers).    Not unlike the practice of praying and reflecting upon the Word – a personal  discipline of mine which has manifested in this blog.

Two very different ‘practices’ and disciplines, but both grow me – mature me – in a very similar way because of the mirrors essential to each practice.  In yoga, I face a mirror.  In scripture, I am instructed by the Spirit to pause in order for the Word I’m reading, to read me.  And it is those pauses which end up as reflections on this blog.

The Bikram yoga student is instructed to look at themselves in the mirror as they are practicing in order to sense, internally, their alignment (justification) with the position.  By looking in the mirror the eyes see what the body is doing and can adjust.  The mirror reflects back what the student thinks they are doing but can see that they aren’t.  Is your thigh muscle contracted or is it soft?  By looking at yourself you can see that you might have missed the contraction because you were focusing on a different muscle, one you are trying to tone or perhaps one that will just get you through the dreaded posture.  Either way,   a slight correction that comes from seeing yourself in the mirror can make all the difference in terms of growing you rightly.

There are times when I choose not to look in the mirror.  I avert my eyes, and look elsewhere – either the floor or on someone else.  But I intentionally avert my eyes because sometimes I find this the best way to sense what IS going on internally.  Sometimes, in order to ‘feel’ the right alignment (justification) I know I have to go ‘inside’ and not let the mirror – looking at myself – distract me.

And so it is with scripture and my daily practice of theological reflection.  Sometimes I have to avert my eyes.  The mirror for me is this blog.  I pray through the readings and when I am stopped – the pause button is what I name this as – when I am stopped at a word or phrase I know my eyes leave the page.  I look elsewhere, usually up and away from the word or phrase.  I have come to identify these as Holy Spirit moments; pauses in which my eyes are averted from the words so I can sense internally what the Spirit is saying about my alignment (justification).  Am I reading this right?  Is there a personal application? Am I being honest with myself about what God has revealed in His Word and my understanding of that revelation?  Am I focused on the right muscle or am I distracted by my own circumstance, my own heart, my own will thereby not strengthening the muscle the Spirit is pointing to?

The pause button was hit every day so far this week.    My eyes averted, I heard lots from the Spirit.  And I wrote down those thoughts as drafts for this blog.  But I didn’t complete or publish.  Instead, I found myself wondering about the usefulness of this practice, at all.  What kind of mirror is a blog if it only reflects back on myself?

My Bikram Yoga practice is all about me, just as the blogging is, for the most part.  I don’t know how either glorifies God.  What I do know is that a life lived focused only on self is not holy, not sanctified, not grown, not blessed and incapable of being one who sanctifies, grows and blesses others.

So that’s where I am, for today.  Wondering.  Pausing.  Eyes averted but sensing the Spirit is trying to say something about the practice of blogging.

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…then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Trinity Seasons

The readings this morning had me thinking about the triune God – the presence in all of the created world of God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, from the beginning.  And what I was set to think about is how challenging it is for many to understand a triune God as ONE God.  Get into that debate with any non-Christian, atheist, agnostic, secularist and you have your work cut out for you.  Most would rather just avoid the debate all together and not think about how it is that God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three in One and are One.

I haven’t really ever been too troubled or confused about the Trinity, understanding it in this way;   just as I am known as a child, sibling, parent to the same people, so is God known to me as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  That I am a child to one doesn’t make me not a sibling to another.  That I am a parent to one doesn’t negate my identity as a child to another.

But one thing I hadn’t reconciled for years was how Jesus could be present through all time  – co-eternal with God, the Father.  Continuing with my personal identity analogy, I may be known as a child, sibling and parent, but those identities happened sequentially.  I wasn’t born as all three.  One life had to happen before I lived into another.  I was a child, then a sibling, then a parent.  So this was the rub with my understanding of the Trinity and it’s eternal nature.

What I eventually came to understand is that God the Father Son and Holy Spirit are one and from the beginning, but the manifestation to the people of God was sequential.  That is, God’s people came to know the fulness of God in time and in sequence.  And by the grace of God found in the Word, God’s people glimpse and know in part the eternal presence of the triune God.

And so, today, in the Word, I paused and wondered and awed at the presence of the Holy Spirit in God’s people long before Jesus was born, died, and ascended into Heaven.

It was in the gospel  passage where the Spirit first had me pause.   Anytime I pause to lift my eyes from the words and wonder, I suspect the Spirit has something to say.

Today’s gospel in Luke tells the story of the naming of John the Baptist.  Pretty straightforward.  Family and friends gathered on the 8th day for the ceremonial naming and circumcision.   Expectation is that the baby will be named after his dad,  Zechariah.   But wait, mom has a different idea.  She says, no – his name will be John.  All eyes on dad.  Are you good with this?  Not so much.  Instead of speaking, dad writes down on a tablet, “His name is John.”  And then?

67 Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophecy:…

He began speaking in tongues, the language of the Holy Spirit.  Here is how it is described  in scripture:

64Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God.

Now, without getting into speaking tongues and all the assumptions you may have about what this is, how and where it is manifested today, who speaks in tongues, who is gifted with interpreting, what it sounds like – no matter your level of comfort, acceptance or knowledge of Holy Spirit language (tongues) – what is clear, at least to me, is that Zechariah – a faithful servant of God and a man of the Law is filled with the Holy Spirit to the point that he speaks God’s language and he is heard.

Truthfully, for years, I had thought of the filling of the Holy Spirit to be an exclusively Christian phenomenon.  How could someone be filled with the Holy Spirit if Jesus hadn’t even been yet born?  Wasn’t the Spirit to come onto and into God’s people at his Son’s ascension?   Didn’t the Spirit pierce the hearts of the people of God and the Law after Jesus lived, died, and ascended?  Wasn’t the touch down of the Holy Spirit on a person of God a necessary and first step to transformation of life into Grace and and out of Law? If so, how could a person of the Law be filled with something that hadn’t seemed to have occurred?

This is a bit of a twisted bunny trail, I admit.  But what the Spirit elevated to me this morning is the reminder that only the in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit could cause the Jewish father, Zechariah, to speak in tongues.  Only the in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit could give the Jewish family and friends gathered with Zechariah ears to hear and understand and even fear what was said in the language of the Holy Spirit – tongues.  And that this is so – that John was so named, that the prophecy Zechariah spoke came true, that all is so, is only because God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are ONE and from the beginning.

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Biblical Bumper Sticker

Posted on June 23, 2012 by Trinity Seasons

Scripture I wish I had seen and heard at the beginning of my journey with the Lord.

12 So teach us to count our days
   that we may gain a wise heart.

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