Category Archives: musings

Living with Uncertainty

A Gracious Heresy, Circle of Grace, musings, progressive christianity

There is a quote, I believe from an Episcopal confession of sin,  that says “We are self-deceived and strangers to the truth.”

I like to be certain.
It comforts me.
Numbs me
to  ever-changing realities.
But we all seek certainty at times
because the world is so large
people are so unpredictable
politics are so complex.
At their best
religions wrestle with questions
whose answers are beyond our imagining.
At their worst,
they offer false and concrete
certainty.

Most of the time,
most of us,
walk in the world content
with the ‘knowing’ we have
however incomplete
however unchallenged
We ground ourselves
in the rhythms of
waking and sleeping
working and playing
connecting and disconnecting.
Until the times
when our unknowing
overwhelms us
and we realize
that we are strangers to the truth
and maybe even
self deceived.

Climate change.
Political turmoil
in a land that once felt knowable.
The fall of nations to terror,
the subjugation of women
through sexual violence
the rise of authoritarianism,
rampant disease,
economic uncertainty.

Confronted with our ignorance,
that what once we thought
may no longer be true,
that what once we believed
has shown itself false,
we combat our fear,
by clinging
to what we think we know
because certainty
is our last refuge.

So let us pursue
something other than
the numbness of ‘certainty’.
The challenges of our time offer
both despair
and hope.
Death and life.
When we are confronted
by ambiguity
let us choose hope
and let us choose life.
Not because we know
any damn thing
but because
we are willing to risk trust.

This is where
faith and certainty collide.
Choose the path of trust
not because we are convinced
of some immutable truth
but because we choose
knowledge beyond facts
relationship beyond comprehension
and the wild goodness of the Sacred.

The writer of the book of Deuteronomy said,  “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.” (30:19)

 

“I Am Still Learning”

musings, spiritual practice, Uncategorized, writing



People who are utterly and completely sure of themselves confound me-
whether it be about theology, Godde, politics, history, science… or any discipline.
What if more information becomes available?
What if that information contradicts one’s assumptions?
What if differing perspectives challenge old facts?
What if we need to acknowledge two conflicting truths exist at the same time?

Can you imagine how fun, exciting, scary, and wonderful that would be?

When I star gaze, especially when I am alone, listening to a cacophony of insects flutter and chirp and water splashing over stones in the nearby creek… I experience a bone deep connection with all that  is and was and will come. I am flush with the awareness that what  I do not know is so much greater than I do know. Scholars of every discipline only grapple with the edges knowledge. The Mystery is greater than our ability to comprehend in its entirety. Is it possible for the finite can comprehend the infinite?

Not that I want to stop trying to understand more deeply, but the older I get the more in sync I am with Michelangelo who, at considerable age of 87,  said, “I am still learning.”

There is something essential in accepting both our desire and our limitations in the search for truth. And, if we are honest, the moment we claim to possess an absolute truth, some sneaky contradiction up-ends it.  If we are honest.
It’s why I am suspicious of politicians and preachers who claim absolute fealty to one truth or one idea and reject ideas and  information that contradict. I am suspicious when they impose circular thinking on their followers  and reject critical examination of their ‘truth’.

Questions are one of the beginning points of human development. Who hasn’t spent time with a toddler’s incessant questioning?  There is nothing like the pummeling one takes from a two year old’s “What’s that?” and “Why?” – that push us to the limits of our ability to explain.
In the best of all worlds we never stop asking those profoundly human questions.
In the best of all worlds, we never stop growing in our quest to understand ourselves and the world around us.
In the best of all worlds,  answers  become more and more complex and less and less absolute.

What if we could wrap our minds around the idea that contradictory things can be true?  What if,  rather than clinging to absolutes, we find other ways to confront our fear of the unknown?
What if the fear of the unknown is an invitation to unending questions?
What if  our questions don’t lead us absolute answers but  to ever deepening questions?
What if we seek  answers not as fixed points but as open doors?

What if we all admit that we are still learning?
What if a collective will to question made change less threatening?
What if, in our embrace of uncertainty, we became more and more human?

I wonder.

Hello There… I’ve Been Thinking

A Gracious Heresy, everyday theology, musings, progressive christianity, progressive politics

It’s been months since I last blogged and you may wonder why. It started (or stopped) when I took a break after the election in November. It was the first time I had taken a deep breath in years and I wanted to breathe for a while. And then breathe some more. So I chose to breathe and pray in silence. To let the anxiety of the past several years begin to slide off my skin, to breathe it out of my pores, and to rest a moment. So I did.

And then January 6th happened.
Just when I began to hope again.
Just when I thought my heart had broken all it was going to break.
Just when I was beginning the work of putting my heart back together again…
the ‘feels’ overwhelmed me.

So here I am, months later, and I’m thinking again. This is how I know after extended periods of depression, of hopelessness, of grief, and of loss that I am healing. Thinking is like the psychic itch of a wound on the mend. After the feels comes the consideration, the questions, the forward movement.  My strength is returning and so is my hope.

Welcome back to my blog postings. I hope we will breathe and scratch our itches together.

I’m trying to remember from the ethics classes I took what the first premises are. If I’m not mistaken, the first is that to debate ethics with one another we have to agree on what our shared ‘authority’ is. Is it the Bible? The Constitution? ‘Natural law’? And then, again, if I’m not mistaken, we have to agree on our primary values. Is it freedom? Peace? Justice? None without the other? Is it survival? If survival is our primary value we need to dispose of the Bible or the Constitution as our authorities.

Why am I bringing this up? Well, it’s not to give you a lesson in how to do ethics, thank you very much. I’m trying to figure out why we don’t seem to be able to talk to people who are very different from us. Even about what might seem to be a shared value. Take freedom. When I talk to anti-maskers and they argue that masks infringe on their freedom, I wonder why their freedom supersedes my freedom to be healthy. And then I wonder whether we are talking about freedom at all. Because, let’s face it, we’ve all heard arguments for limitations of freedom. Like not yelling, ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theatre. There are times when our personal freedom is outweighed by the well-being of the whole. It’s a tenuous path, so let’s walk it carefully.  

Freedom doesn’t mean that ‘I can do anything I want’. It never has. That’s being a spoiled brat, not being free. Freedom does not relieve us of our social contract to participate in the community in healthy and respectful ways. Not only will I not syphon your gas or key your car, I will not introduce the possibility of disease into your life if there is a chance that I can.

It is clear that we do not all subscribe to the  authority of science. Were that so, I wouldn’t be posting this. So let’s figure out what our shared authority is. And our shared values, should we have any. If we can agree that the Bible or the Constitution, let me suggest that both documents share at least one purpose: how we are to live together in community.

Let’s start here. Not to argue, but to find common ground. It has to begin with agreeing that we want each other to survive and thrive. I cannot do this alone. I am vaccinated and will wear a mask to protect not only myself but those around me. Please realize that when you go about unmasked and unvaccinated you are telling me you do not share the value of community and, even more important,  that you are not interested in us finding our way back to reasoned public discourse.

Dear Friends… turn your socks inside out

activism, musings, progressive politics, resistance, Uncategorized

Dear Friends,

I want to tell you a story about my Dad. He was career military and in active combat  both in  World War II and the Korean War. He was also a story teller. As a child, I sat on his knee and listened to him weave what I now recognize as self-deprecating stories of survival and courage. I loved his stories. They were stories of deep friendships told in an offhand way and moments of belly laugh humor.

In these times I recognize the need to tell our stories with the absurdity of dark humor.
We are living through our own horrors, fighting for our lives and for justice against an enemy within the fabric of our nation.
We are fighting for a vigorous, committed response to climate change.
We are fighting for justice for people of color and for a real, committed response to systemic racism.
We are fighting for science.
We are fighting for women’s reproductive rights.
We are fighting for truth over lies, love over hate, community over tribalism.
… and we are fighting desperation and fear.

In the Korean War men were told to change socks every day to prevent trench foot. It was a ludicrous command to men sleeping in tents, marching miles a day in rain and snow, with no possible way of doing laundry, much less of the laundry drying. To follow the order in letter, though clearly not spirit, the men had a ritual after they set up camp to ‘change socks’ by turning them inside out and putting them on again. Okay, I can’t tell it like my dad. He had a way of recounting  the story with a twinkle and a chuckle so you saw how ridiculous both the order and the action were .

The thing is, those guys would have loved to have clean, dry socks. They rebuked their misery by laughing at the circumstances and poking fun at the stupidity of the order. We can learn something from them. It’s awful right now. Tribalism is so  virulent that it’s hard to imagine how or if we can ever bridge our differences. The possibility of another term for 45 looms. Sometimes I wonder if there is anything I can do to make a difference. But I get up every day and do the tedious work of making change. It is easy to be overwhelmed. It is reasonable to get depressed.

But let us end our days by adopting the ritual of ‘changing our socks’.
Find the absurdity of the day, the news, the man and laugh.
Remember that we are in this together, clustered around the same campfire, impelled by the same passion for justice. Laugh at the absurdity of where we find ourselves and at what we must do to survive.
My dad’s stories taught me that connection and laughter are absolutely necessary for survival when in the thick of a battle.

So laugh with me over some smarmy lie, some absurd policy, some ridiculous assertion then sit down and turn your socks inside out, get some rest, we fight again tomorrow.

love and blessings,
Connie

I Am Curious

activism, Corona virus, everyday theology, musings, progressive politics, resistance, spiritual practice

For some reason, I know not what, I spent some moments not reacting to the onslaught of daily and new atrocities to find a nook in my mind to entertain questions. I wish these were deep, theological pondering but they are not.

I am curious as to why a disease, experienced in nations around the world, is considered to be a hoax by some. If hoax means to trick people into believing something that is false, why on earth would someone (who?) want to trick us into believing Covid19 is real? If that is true then it must be some great international conspiracy. Have all these deaths been manufactured by the media? The refrigerator car morgues? The overcrowded hospitals and overworked medical personnel? I am deeply perplexed by the lack of anything that resembles reason. Even when I plumb the depths of my imagination I can’t answer those questions. I mean – do people really believe that this pandemic  could be manufactured and perpetrated by scientists, medical personal, and regular citizens? And  that it would be done to thwart one man? I am curious.

Which in turn makes me curious about the educated people who are perpetrating the idea that this is a hoax. Senators and governors and representatives who refuse to wear masks and insist on opening both the economy and schools in the face of dire consequences. Is power so intoxicating that they are willing and able to sacrifice the people on the altar of their hunger for it? so, why? I am curious.

I am curious about how once shared values have been scuttled. In our history, in times of crisis, we have worked together, sacrificed together, struggled against common enemies together. What happened?  I am curious.

I wonder how or if we can bridge the gap between those who are not extremists but still follow Trump and those of us who fear authoritarianism, seemingly unsolvable cultural divides.  How do we reach across to one another when the rise of racism, heterosexism, and misogyny is personally threatening?  These questions trouble me most of all and I am curious.

Is anyone truly sure that they are absolutely right? In my life I question everything, even my most deeply held beliefs. I know that it is taxing and uncomfortable so I also understand why one would be reluctant to question one’s beliefs.  I have experienced the anxiety and  urgency to hold onto a belief that is being challenged. Certainty can give us the illusion of safety. It can also stand in the way of growth and connection. Would our conversations be more productive if we respected one another’s fears?  I am curious.

But my final question and the one about which I am most curious
is not how did we get here
but rather
how do we get out of here?

 

Today

everyday theology, musings, poetry, spiritual practice

Today

We wake again
to plot another graph of time
linger over coffee
bemoan tragedy
fear
for our lives
our nation
…our sanity

Today we set again
a way forward
while standing still
a way out
while enshrined within
the walls of our imaginations
confined
by discontent

Today we bring again
to the table
new beginnings
old understandings
mental meanderings
distracted by the present

Today time again enfolds us
with the luminous space
between
past and future
encasing our loneliness
and demanding
our now

Today we choose again
to live with
the unknown
seeking hope in
our uncertainty
and peace
in our fleeting plans

Today we again touch
our tomorrows
hesitant to dream
but insisting on the ridiculous hope
that lodges between
breast bone
and back bone
that today is the only
and best
gift we are given.

Liberated by History

everyday theology, musings, progressive christianity, progressive politics, Uncategorized

I have been taught history (a subject I love) in a myriad of ways. Fortunately, not as a series of dates to be memorized but as political movements and change influenced by  disease, technological, medical advances, religion, nationalism, power, and personality.

In seminary I had the great good fortune of reading Justo Gonzalez’ two volume history of the Christian Church. Imagine telling the story of the early Christian church through the challenges that ignited differing theologies and their struggle for primacy and the intersection of politics and nation building with growth of Christianity. HIs history telling is a well researched and clear-eyed exploration of how the political and theological world as we know it came into being.

I wish we taught history this way so that people could see the development and  movement of ideas. Could engage with ideas about how we are connected and  how today is built on what has gone before.I wish we were able to accept historical figures as bound by their time and examine how they were a part of moving us and our ideals, understandings, and values into our present.

As a working theologian, I am always aware that I am in dialogue with ideas that have come before and that my new perspective can offer correction or challenge. But the Ideas of those who lived and struggled before us are important because they open the dialogue.  Liberation, Black, Womanist, Feminist, Process,  or any other theology does not exist in a vacuum. We are all a part of global, historical conversations about faith and our understanding of the universe.  We are informed by science, history, and the constant influx of new information, new generations and populations. For me, Christianity is not about what people believed or how they lived over two thousand years ago. It is about what remains relevant at its core. How the truths of the faith engage with present reality.

Is it not important to know that the world view of first century Christians was very different from our world view today? How can it not be. The same with our politics. It is important to ask the questions of the framers of the Constitution. How were they bound by history and culture? How did they contribute to the conversation that has moved us into where we are today in the struggle for freedom? Do we need to reject what we now see as absolutely unacceptable? of course. But I truly believe we must also see ourselves in a historical relationship that, by its very nature, encourages the tough conversations we are having as a nation today around race, gender, personhood, and human rights.

As a nation, our history is built on what is often called ‘the Great Experiment.’  Rather than reject what and who have come before us, let us do what all experimenters do: build on what works and reject that which does not. This nation is built on glorious ideas tried for the first time in thousands of years (if you think of Athens as a democracy, and then it makes my point that American democracy took much of what worked in Athenian democracy, discarded the rest, and built on it for the then modern age.) We must move forward informed by new voices, differing experiences, new ways of perceiving both the mistakes and the triumphs of our historical past.

May our new understandings of history liberate us to the work of making real the promises of our shared dream.

 

Enough Time to Grieve

everyday theology, musings, spiritual practice

I am grateful to have lived long enough
to grieve organically.
To survive days with the gash in my heart
bleeding out,
agony insinuated into every conversation –
even when draped in a flat affect
and the pretense of normality.

I am grateful I have had time enough
to explore all the dark corners.
The patience to meander through loss,
to pick up shattered pieces,
and reorder the reality
I feared I would not survive.

Godde requires my honesty,
insists I disrobe my soul,
and open to something
beyond my ability to imagine.
Godde companions me in the shadowlands.
Takes my hand when I am blinded by pain
or self involvement.
Invites me to new ways of seeing,
even when I refuse to open my eyes.

It is good to have lived long enough
to reach the unknown other side.
To discover Godde’s grace
tangled in my memories,
and the promise of Godde’s hope
reflected in my tears.

 

Tales from an Elephant Orphanage

Christian feminist (radical and otherwise- or is it all radical?), Circle of Grace, everyday theology, feminism, LGBT theology, memoir, musings, progressive christianity, retro-Wednesday, writing

 

Well, folks, I’ve begun working on the sequel to my memoir (A Gracious Heresy: the Queer Calling of an Unlikely Prophet).  The working title of the new project is Circling Grace: Tales from an Elephant Orphanage. It’s my telling of the story of Circle of Grace, a Christian, feminist, ecumenical, progressive church of which I am the founding pastor.

I am telling my part of the story though, as with all stories and especially a story about a group of people, mine is only a part. It is exciting to remember the early days, the challenges and discussions as we worked to birth this idea of a Christian feminist worshipping community. I hope, in the end, you will find the tale engaging, challenging, and, most of all, truthful.

The title comes form a conversation I once had with my spiritual director who said, “Connie, Circle of Grace is like an elephant orphanage. Wounded or sick or disabled baby elephants that have have been rejected or abandoned by their herd are taken in, healed, and taught how to be elephants.”

Check out this 60 Minutes story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hErfU4gb1GQ

In somewhat the same way, people come to Circle of Grace because their spiritual communities have rejected them. They come in need of respite and healing, starved for spiritual food and the unconditional love. She continued, “Some are able to return to their herd  (the churches they were raised in) and some, whose wounding has been too severe, remain and form a new tribe.” Her insight helps me ponder the implications and pray for and with the community I pastor.

Today I am doing what pastors do: reflecting on the story  theologically.  Immersed in telling the challenges and reliving the excitement of our early days, I was able to distill it down to a sentence:  “Creating safe spiritual space must take an uncomfortable front seat to theological differences.”

I am excited to be telling my part of the story, even while I agonize over my many and varied inadequacies. I am reminded again how important it Is that we tell our stories. Something important happens when we examine our pasts. We discover more deeply who we are. We see more clearly the challenges we face. And, Godde willing, we stumble toward redemption.

 

Will You Do One Right Thing Each Day?

activism, everyday theology, Georgia Politics, musings, progressive christianity, progressive politics, resistance, spiritual practice, Uncategorized


If you are overwhelmed by the events of the day
or the tweet of the hour
or the horror of the tragedies crossing your TV screen
or the past three years…

Do not let it freeze your heart into inaction
because when despair wins
humanity loses,
when despair wins
the people suffer
when despair wins
our beautiful, necessary voices
are silenced.

The Talmud teaches us :
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly now.
You are not obligated to complete the work,
but neither are you free to abandon it” (PIvot).

Today and each day remember
that you are not alone
you are not required do it all.
that others are doing the work
in times and places you may not see.
Remember that every one right thing you do each day
joins with the one right thing that thousands
and hundreds of thousands are doing each day
to create a tsunami of change.

So what one right thing will you do?
Will you register voters?
work for a campaign?
write letters?
march in the streets?
Will you pray and will you give your prayers feet?

Will you do one right thing each day
so that together
we turn the ship of history
and point its bow
away
from the evil that threatens to consume us
and toward
the promise of justice?

Will you do one right thing each day
so that I do not feel alone
and your neighbor does not feel alone
and YOU do not feel alone
so that none of us feel powerless
and all of us can lean into the hope
we are growing together
for our shared future ?

Will you do one right thing each day?