A Nation Stuck

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

 

One of the most helpful books to me, as a pastor and counselor, is James Fowler’s  Stages of Faith. In the same way psychologists use models of psycho-social developmental stages, Fowler examines the development of spiritual growth.

When I look around at our current political dilemma and try to understand how we got here and why, I find myself returning to his text. I have done no research so my hypothesis is based solely on observation. That being said, I believe a good part of this nation is stuck in Fowler’s stage 3.

Stage 3 is adolescence to early adulthood. Fowler calls it the Synthetic-Conventional stage in which peoples’ believe without critical examination. They believe that they have been taught and in what everyone around them believes in. There is a strong sense of identity with the group with whom they share belief systems. A particular feature of stage 3 is a lack of openness to question because questions are frightening. People at this stage of spiritual development tend to trust implicitly people in authority (external authority) and don’t recognize the box or circular thinking that is internalized when their beliefs go unexamined.

Sound familiar? I don’t mean this as a judgment on people but on the systems that  stunt spiritual and intellectual growth.  And not only stunt it, but condemn questions as faithless. A questioner myself, I find it terrifying. However,  it is important that my fears not  engage with the terror of  those mired in stage 3. It will accomplish nothing and most likely escalate fear on both sides.

What are the systems that stunt?  Fundamentalist religion and public education. Fundamentalism has a sharp stop at the door of questioning. The theological tenets of fundamentalism are circular arguments that defy challenges. Having worked with many folk healing from fundamentalist pasts yet thirsty for Godde, the fear of being wrong and ‘disobeying’ the authority figures of their pasts is inextricable tied to the fear of eternal damnation.  Fostering absolute trust in authority figures subsidized Trump’s ascension.

Then there’s our educational system. When we began ‘teaching to the test’ we encouraged children to think in absolutes.  Your answer is right or wrong. Facts are pandered to as knowledge rather than critical thinking.  When you spend twelve years of your life being ‘taught to the test’ the way you engage and interpret events in the larger world is stymied. It fosters  tribalism, manifesting in a shared identity with like-minded people, setting up a false ‘us and them’.

I keep thinking back to the opening chapter in C. S.Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In it the professor, after helping the children discern the truth of a troubling situation, sends them forth saying to himself (something like), “Aren’t schools teaching children how to think these days?” If we are afraid of children learning to think in a spiritual or theological context then, of course, we would be fearful of children learning to think in an intellectual context. Surely that fear is the origin of the seared phrase ‘intellectual elitists’. Those who have learned to question are deemed questionable.

My friend, Erin, says I put an ‘altar call’ at the end of my blog posts. Today I don’t have one. But join me in the effort to hear the echoes of faith that repeatedly reassure us to ‘be not afraid’,  Be not afraid to think. Be not afraid to question, Be not afraid of being wrong. Be not afraid of not knowing the answer. Be not afraid of many answers all being ‘right’. Be not afraid of the One whose identity is Love.

 

“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.

A Prayer for These Times

Christian feminist (radical and otherwise- or is it all radical?), Corona virus, progressive christianity

Gracious and Holy One
who spins the threads that bind us
who frees our hearts and minds to soar
who roots us in fields of questions
and forgives us when we claim
to know things that are beyond us,
hear our prayers.

Hear our prayers for healing:
heal bodies ravaged by the pandemic
heal hearts desolate with grief with comfort
heal minds embittered with hatred with love
heal souls crying out in despair with justice.

Help us to use the gifts you give us
that our scientists may be inspired
that we might comfort our neighbors
that we may sow love where hatred thrives.

Give us  the strength and fortitude
to do the work of justice
to speak and stand and march
for the freedom you desire for each one.

Grant us, Holy Friend,
the vision to draw the circle wide
to embrace those who are different
and appreciate the radical beauty
of those who are not like us.
Help us not to fear our differences
Open our hearts
that we might learn from one another
what we otherwise would not know.
Grow us, we pray, in wisdom
understanding
and compassion.

Loving Godde,
scorch us with a vision of your kin-dom
so that your hope burns in us
in these times of despair
that we may lift the light of your vision for humanity
and pierce the shadow of these days.
In all your Holy Names we pray.

Fear and Hope

A Gracious Heresy, activism, everyday theology, progressive christianity, progressive politics, resistance, spiritual practice, Uncategorized

In these times I wrestle with abject fear.

Fear of people who no longer share the vision of the idea and ideals on which this nation was founded.
Fear of those in power being invested in power rather than service.
Fear of the ‘religious’ right.
Fear of armed violence.

And then there all the people I am afraid for, including myself:
Fear for women.
Fear for people of color.
Fear for immigrants.
Fear for Asia-Americans and African-Americans and Latinx-Americans.
Fear for the LGBTQAI community.

We have spent decades bending the arc of history toward justice, as Dr. King proclaimed.
And now.
And now the backlash.
And now the hysteria.
And now the fear.
And now the hatred unleashed in thousands of different ways
in our churches
in our legal system
In our laws

And I am very afraid.

Add to that that I am a pastor and called to speak hope.
How do we hope in the face of terror?
How do we sing in a land that has become strange to us?
How do we stand against a mighty storm?

Parts of Psalm 137 float in my head:

                 4 How could we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?
               5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither!
              6 Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you…

Part of hope is remembering who we are called to be,
to not forget who we are, no matter how short we have fallen.

And sometimes hope is the beacon toward which we strive in apocalyptic times.

The writers of biblical apocalyptic literature faced the threat of death, annihilation and, what seemed to be, overwhelming odds. Many were tortured. Many were killed. Many hid away in underground caves. Demonized and dismissed. Who could speak hope in those times? And what was hope? It seems to me that in some ways hope was holding on to the vision, believing that something greater than the current evil not only exists but will triumph.

I think of the hope of  the apocalyptic writers of a holy city, of a place where every tear is dried, where the table is open to all, and groaning under the lovely burden of more than enough.  Jessie Jackson taught me something about preaching hope in dark times.

I think of his chant “Keep hope alive!” and his call to us:
“You must never stop dreaming. Face reality, yes, but don’t stop with the way things             are. Dream of things as they ought to be. Dream. Face pain, but love, hope, faith and   dreams will help you rise above the pain. Use hope and imagination as weapons of survival and progress, but you keep on dreaming, young America.”

He offered hope as a pastor and has taught me the value and the courage it takes to speak hope in the midst of terror. I leave you with the close to his speech given in Atlanta in 1988 during the Democratic National Convention:
” Wherever you are tonight, you can make it. Hold your head high; stick your chest out. You can make it. It gets dark sometimes, but the morning comes. Don’t you surrender!
Suffering breeds character, character breeds faith. In the end faith will not    disappoint. You must not surrender! You may or may not get there but just know that you’re qualified! And you hold on, and hold out! We must never surrender!! America will get better and better.  Keep hope alive! Keep hope alive! Keep hope alive!”

 

Circle of Grace: we are different and very much the same

A Gracious Heresy, Christian feminist (radical and otherwise- or is it all radical?), Circle of Grace, everyday theology, progressive christianity, retro-Wednesday

We thought we were different. And we are. Though I have discovered the ways in which we were like every other spiritual community I know.

Let me wax poetic a moment about how we were/are different.
We challenged every doctrine and tradition of the church as we formed a worshipping community. We still do.  It is hard work to do with intellectual and spiritual integrity… so none of our conclusions is carved in stone. We know that we do not know. I love that about us even though it is emotionally and spiritually strenuous.

We work to be not only non-patriarchal but non hierarchical. Reimagining power is an ongoing challenge. While we challenge the power of the pastor and name a circle as our way of sharing power, like many assumptions we bring to the table from our pasts, it can be almost impossible to implement.

We reimagine  images of Godde. We use inclusive language about both Godde and humanity in our liturgy, in our hymns, in our conversations. And it’s more than inclusive of male and female. We are inclusive of race, ethnicity, mental health status, gender identification, class, education,  and spiritual backgrounds. We press ourselves to see the Divine in every expression of humanity.

We are a place of spiritual healing for many who have been hurt or abused by the institutional church, making room for the hesitant, for the ones who have been in the stranglehold of doctrine, for the ones who live in fear. We make room for one another, honoring different beliefs and understandings. Our unofficial motto is that we may not all believe the same things in the same ways but we are journeying together. Often we  learn and deepen from our differences because we aren’t afraid (mostly) of them.

We are different.
And we are very much the same.

We experienced crisis in community more than once. Sharing life is fraught with all the idiosyncrasies of personalities, relationship challenges, brokenness of body, mind or spirit… and sometimes we rise and respond with grace. And sometimes we don’t.

Like every other community, as people come and go, we sometimes lose sight our central commitments to one another.  Sometimes the work of being community in crisis is too difficult and people cut bait.  Sometimes we find ourselves sitting in judgment of one another and the circle is broken.

But like many spiritual communities we get up and keep on trying. We limp along in Godde’s grace, holding onto Godde’s dream for humanity, and keep on trying to live deeply  into our relationship with the Divine.

So why am I telling you all of this? Because I am working to understand the brokenness  we experienced. My own brokenness and the way the community was torn apart. And I am confronting my arrogance that assumed because we are different  we would avoid the pitfalls of being in human community. We are not that different. And I bow to this challenge to my assumptions.

 

 

The Bible Idol

A Gracious Heresy, Christian feminist (radical and otherwise- or is it all radical?), Circle of Grace, everyday theology, progressive christianity

I’m not sure when I stopped worrying about what the Bible says.

Don’t get me wrong. I love that book. It is filled with the stories of my spiritual journey. It has provided the construct for my theological questioning. This book challenges me to look deeper and think harder. To question myself and to question Godde. So I am not dismissing it. Nor am I saying that I accept the New Testament but not the Old. If I did, I would miss too much wisdom, too much poetry, too many stories that speak to the deepest parts of me.

What I mean when I say I stopped worrying about what the Bible says is I’m not sure how young I was when I stopped thinking of it as a dictation of rules and behavior. Unlike some, I never had the misfortune of thinking it contained the secrets that would keep my out of hell. My relationship with Godde negated the idea of hell.

Godde is too big for the Bible and I don’t think the writers’ intention was to capture Godde in its contents. Rather, it is the story of a people grappling with their relationship with Godde, one that assumed ongoing revelation – personal, communal, and political.

In seminary I learned to wrestle with the languages of the Bible (Greek and Hebrew), to parse meanings of words, to contextualize the stories, to do literary criticism – basically to engage with the text in intimate and creative ways. Thanks be to Godde. And for myself, after years in ministry, I love this text that is both flawed and profound, beautiful and horribly misused.

Do you want me to make an intellectual and spiritual argument for, oh say, the rights of women or LGBTQ rights using the Bible? I can.  And another can use the text to refute my arguments. I think if I hear one more time that you can prove anything with the Bible I might scream. It demeans the Bible to use it as a proof text to reinforce what one already believes.

I am left with the question of how to minister with people who have been beaten up with the Bible being the whip that scars the soul insisting on the brutality of self-hatred. How do I minister with those who need a new way of seeing for their wounds to begin to heal?

Fundamentalists, it seems to me, have turned the Bible into an idol, replacing direct relationship with the Divine with the rigidity of rules over compassion for the human condition. The psychology of using a peoples’ fear to control their behavior is deeply disturbing. I am often asked by my fundamentalist friends if I am not afraid of going to hell. And then I’m asked why would people be good if there were no hell.

1 – I am not afraid of going to hell. I am afraid of hurting people with religion. I am afraid
of religion used to manipulate people in their deepest vulnerabilities.  I am afraid of
the permission to hate in the name of Godde.

2 – I believe, as Ann Frank said, that people are basically good. That we are communal
folks who want and need to live together in society. I believe the Bible is filled with
stories of people trying to figure out how to live together.

3 – I am grateful for a book that has stories of Jesus in it. A revelation about how
we might all embody the love of Godde, and in doing that, change the world.

My invitation today is to let Godde out of the Bible box and the Bible out of the Godde box. Don’t be afraid. The peace of Christ be with you.

 

 

 

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… thank you

activism, resistance, spiritual practice

Dear Friends,

This week, hundreds of friends are posting on Facebook that they have voted.
It fills me up and I find myself commenting ‘thank you’ on every post.

Thank you, not because I didn’t expect you to vote (I do)
or didn’t think you knew how important our votes are in this time (I don’t)
but because I am grateful for your powerful act.
Thank you all  who thought ahead and requested absentee ballots.
Thank you for driving your ballot to drop boxes.
Thank you for voting early.
Thank you for standing in lines for hours and hours refusing to be disenfranchised.
Thank you if you are able to get in and out in a reasonable time.
Thank you if you are going to the polls on November 3rd.
Thank you for making e a plan to vote.
Thank you for  claiming and exercising your power.
Thank you for standing up and speaking out.

I am grateful for the numbers, the great numbers of people who are voting
I am grateful that so many of us are refusing to accept the dehumanizing and cruel excuse for an administration that we have endured for the last four years.

Thank you from the bottom of my hopeful, hurting heart.
Connie

Dear Friends… stand up

activism, Georgia Politics, progressive politics, resistance, spiritual practice, Uncategorized

Dear Friends,

Well, there’s 19 days to go before the election
and we are holding our collective breath.
It looks good but we must persist.
Vote early if you can.
I worry about disrupters at the polls on Election Day.
Make sure your friends are voting.
Offer rides.
Take water to those waiting in line.
Phone bank.
Pray.
Now is the time to stand up
to do all we can however we can wherever we can.

It cannot be said too often:
this is the most important election of our lifetimes.
Be a hero for our time.
Do the best you can with what you have and who you are.

Together, let us stand
to make a country that insists on justice
and relies on science
a country that celebrates differences
protects the weak
frees children
fights systemic racism and sexism
feeds the hungry
a country where we tell ourselves difficult truths

Now is the time
if ever there was one.
Stand up.

Connie

Dear Friends… thank you

everyday theology, progressive politics, resistance

Dear Friends,

Thank you. Sometimes, in the midst of it all (pandemic, destruction of our democracy, hatred, the rise of militant racism- all of that and more) it is easy to forget the things for which we have to be grateful. So today I invite you to join me in the practice of gratitude. Here are some things that make my gratitude sing:
the autumn weather
friendships nourished over time
trees
peaceful protestors taking to the streets
flies
the passion of the electorate
music
pink pussy hats
believing in something greater than myself
political humor
women of color
people who do things to protect the planet
you

If you are reading this it is because, in some sense, we have been in relationship or conversation with one another through this blog.
I am grateful for the time and energy you take to engage.
I am grateful when you disagree and grateful when we hold one another up.
I am grateful that we are not alone in the miasma of our current political and spiritual situation.
I am grateful I am not expected to have all the answers.
I am grateful for the questions.
I am grateful that we travel together and that our journeys – no matter how different – have crossed paths.

You may have battle fatigue. You may be overwhelmed. Or depressed.  It’s okay. I am still grateful for you.  You do not have to be perfect or sustain past your ability for me to be grateful for you. I am so glad you are in the world and that we are walking together.

We cannot  give in or give up. When we are able to immerse ourselves  in gratitude we are energized for the work before us. So join me here.  Look for the places and things that you are grateful for. Name them. List them. And let them  be  places of solace and strength as we get up each and every day to bring in a new reality.

peace and love,
Connie