the epicenter

Soul music...

2009-04-18T22:43:00.000-07:00

Any U2 fans out there? Check out this op ed article, written by U2's lead singer, Bono, in April 18's edition of the New York Times.

It's 2009.
Do You Know Where Your Soul Is?

Karen Barbour

I AM in Midtown Manhattan, where drivers still play their car horns as if they were musical instruments and shouting in restaurants is sport.

I am a long way from the warm breeze of voices I heard a week ago on Easter Sunday.

“Glorify your name,” the island women sang, as they swayed in a cut sandstone church. I was overwhelmed by a riot of color, an emotional swell that carried me to sea.

Christianity, it turns out, has a rhythm — and it crescendos this time of year. The rumba of Carnival gives way to the slow march of Lent, then to the staccato hymnals of the Easter parade. From revelry to reverie. After 40 days in the desert, sort of ...

Carnival — rock stars are good at that.

“Carne” is flesh; “Carne-val,” its goodbye party. I’ve been to many. Brazilians say they’ve done it longest; they certainly do it best. You can’t help but contract the fever. You’ve got no choice but to join the ravers as they swell up the streets bursting like the banks of a river in a flood of fun set to rhythm. This is a Joy that cannot be conjured. This is life force. This is the heart full and spilling over with gratitude. The choice is yours ...

It’s Lent I’ve always had issues with. I gave it up ... self-denial is where I come a cropper. My idea of discipline is simple — hard work — but of course that’s another indulgence.

Then comes the dying and the living that is Easter.

It’s a transcendent moment for me — a rebirth I always seem to need. Never more so than a few years ago, when my father died. I recall the embarrassment and relief of hot tears as I knelt in a chapel in a village in France and repented my prodigal nature — repented for fighting my father for so many years and wasting so many opportunities to know him better. I remember the feeling of “a peace that passes understanding” as a load lifted. Of all the Christian festivals, it is the Easter parade that demands the most faith — pushing you past reverence for creation, through bewilderment at the idea of a virgin birth, and into the far-fetched and far-reaching idea that death is not the end. The cross as crossroads. Whatever your religious or nonreligious views, the chance to begin again is a compelling idea.

•

Last Sunday, the choirmaster was jumping out of his skin ... stormy then still, playful then tender, on the most upright of pianos and melodies. He sang his invocations in a beautiful oaken tenor with a freckle-faced boy at his side playing conga and tambourine as if it was a full drum kit. The parish sang to the rafters songs of praise to a God that apparently surrendered His voice to ours.

I come to lowly church halls and lofty cathedrals for what purpose? I search the Scriptures to what end? To check my head? My heart? No, my soul. For me these meditations are like a plumb line dropped by a master builder — to see if the walls are straight or crooked. I check my emotional life with music, my intellectual life with writing, but religion is where I soul-search.

The preacher said, “What good does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” Hearing this, every one of the pilgrims gathered in the room asked, “Is it me, Lord?” In America, in Europe, people are asking, “Is it us?”

Well, yes. It is us.

Carnival is over. Commerce has been overheating markets and climates ... the sooty skies of the industrial revolution have changed scale and location, but now melt ice caps and make the seas boil in the time of technological revolution. Capitalism is on trial; globalization is, once again, in the dock. We used to say that all we wanted for the rest of the world was what we had for ourselves. Then we found out that if every living soul on the planet had a fridge and a house and an S.U.V., we would choke on our own exhaust.

Lent is upon us whether we asked for it or not. And with it, we hope, comes a chance at redemption. But redemption is not just a spiritual term, it’s an economic concept. At the turn of the millennium, the debt cancellation campaign, inspired by the Jewish concept of Jubilee, aimed to give the poorest countries a fresh start. Thirty-four million more children in Africa are now in school in large part because their governments used money freed up by debt relief. This redemption was not an end to economic slavery, but it was a more hopeful beginning for many. And to the many, not the lucky few, is surely where any soul-searching must lead us.

A few weeks ago I was in Washington when news arrived of proposed cuts to the president’s aid budget. People said that it was going to be hard to fulfill promises to those who live in dire circumstances such a long way away when there is so much hardship in the United States. And there is.

But I read recently that Americans are taking up public service in greater numbers because they are short on money to give. And, following a successful bipartisan Senate vote, word is that Congress will restore the money that had been cut from the aid budget — a refusal to abandon those who would pay such a high price for a crisis not of their making. In the roughest of times, people show who they are.

Your soul.

So much of the discussion today is about value, not values. Aid well spent can be an example of both, values and value for money. Providing AIDS medication to just under four million people, putting in place modest measures to improve maternal health, eradicating killer pests like malaria and rotoviruses — all these provide a leg up on the climb to self-sufficiency, all these can help us make friends in a world quick to enmity. It’s not alms, it’s investment. It’s not charity, it’s justice.

•

Strangely, as we file out of the small stone church into the cruel sun, I think of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, whose now combined fortune is dedicated to the fight against extreme poverty. Agnostics both, I believe. I think of Nelson Mandela, who has spent his life upholding the rights of others. A spiritual man — no doubt. Religious? I’m told he would not describe himself that way.

Not all soul music comes from the church.

Solitude

2009-03-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

Here's a piece from The Chronicle Review, January 30, 2009, with a completely random photo I took at Valle Crucis Abbey in Wales - a place of solitude and a place associated with tradition. Deresiewicz discussion of solitude, technology, etc. a particularly appropriate article for consideration during the season of Lent. What are your thoughts on solitude?

The End of Solitude: As everyone seeks more and broader connectivity, the still, small voice speaks only in silence

by WILLIAM DERESIEWICZ

What does the contemporary self want? The camera has created a culture of celebrity; the computer is creating a culture of connectivity. As the two technologies converge — broadband tipping the Web from text to image, social-networking sites spreading the mesh of interconnection ever wider — the two cultures betray a common impulse. Celebrity and connectivity are both ways of becoming known. This is what the contemporary self wants. It wants to be recognized, wants to be connected: It wants to be visible. If not to the millions, on Survivor or Oprah, then to the hundreds, on Twitter or Facebook. This is the quality that validates us, this is how we become real to ourselves — by being seen by others. The great contemporary terror is anonymity. If Lionel Trilling was right, if the property that grounded the self, in Romanticism, was sincerity, and in modernism it was authenticity, then in postmodernism it is visibility.

So we live exclusively in relation to others, and what disappears from our lives is solitude. Technology is taking away our privacy and our concentration, but it is also taking away our ability to be alone. Though I shouldn't say taking away. We are doing this to ourselves; we are discarding these riches as fast as we can. I was told by one of her older relatives that a teenager I know had sent 3,000 text messages one recent month. That's 100 a day, or about one every 10 waking minutes, morning, noon, and night, weekdays and weekends, class time, lunch time, homework time, and toothbrushing time. So on average, she's never alone for more than 10 minutes at once. Which means, she's never alone.

I once asked my students about the place that solitude has in their lives. One of them admitted that she finds the prospect of being alone so unsettling that she'll sit with a friend even when she has a paper to write. Another said, why would anyone want to be alone?

To that remarkable question, history offers a number of answers. Man may be a social animal, but solitude has traditionally been a societal value. In particular, the act of being alone has been understood as an essential dimension of religious experience, albeit one restricted to a self-selected few. Through the solitude of rare spirits, the collective renews its relationship with divinity. The prophet and the hermit, the sadhu and the yogi, pursue their vision quests, invite their trances, in desert or forest or cave. For the still, small voice speaks only in silence. Social life is a bustle of petty concerns, a jostle of quotidian interests, and religious institutions are no exception. You cannot hear God when people are chattering at you, and the divine word, their pretensions notwithstanding, demurs at descending on the monarch and the priest. Communal experience is the human norm, but the solitary encounter with God is the egregious act that refreshes that norm. (Egregious, for no man is a prophet in his own land. Tiresias was reviled before he was vindicated, Teresa interrogated before she was canonized.) Religious solitude is a kind of self-correcting social mechanism, a way of burning out the underbrush of moral habit and spiritual custom. The seer returns with new tablets or new dances, his face bright with the old truth.

Like other religious values, solitude was democratized by the Reformation and secularized by Romanticism. In Marilynne Robinson's interpretation, Calvinism created the modern self by focusing the soul inward, leaving it to encounter God, like a prophet of old, in "profound isolation." To her enumeration of Calvin, Marguerite de Navarre, and Milton as pioneering early-modern selves we can add Montaigne, Hamlet, and even Don Quixote. The last figure alerts us to reading's essential role in this transformation, the printing press serving an analogous function in the 16th and subsequent centuries to that of television and the Internet in our own. Reading, as Robinson puts it, "is an act of great inwardness and subjectivity." "The soul encountered itself in response to a text, first Genesis or Matthew and then Paradise Lost or Leaves of Grass." With Protestantism and printing, the quest for the divine voice became available to, even incumbent upon, everyone.

But it is with Romanticism that solitude achieved its greatest cultural salience, becoming both literal and literary. Protestant solitude is still only figurative. Rousseau and Wordsworth made it physical. The self was now encountered not in God but in Nature, and to encounter Nature one had to go to it. And go to it with a special sensibility: The poet displaced the saint as social seer and cultural model. But because Romanticism also inherited the 18th-century idea of social sympathy, Romantic solitude existed in a dialectical relationship with sociability — if less for Rousseau and still less for Thoreau, the most famous solitary of all, then certainly for Wordsworth, Melville, Whitman, and many others. For Emerson, "the soul environs itself with friends, that it may enter into a grander self-acquaintance or solitude; and it goes alone, for a season, that it may exalt its conversation or society." The Romantic practice of solitude is neatly captured by Trilling's "sincerity": the belief that the self is validated by a congruity of public appearance and private essence, one that stabilizes its relationship with both itself and others. Especially, as Emerson suggests, one beloved other. Hence the famous Romantic friendship pairs: Goethe and Schiller, Wordsworth and Coleridge, Hawthorne and Melville.

Modernism decoupled this dialectic. Its notion of solitude was harsher, more adversarial, more isolating. As a model of the self and its interactions, Hume's social sympathy gave way to Pater's thick wall of personality and Freud's narcissism — the sense that the soul, self-enclosed and inaccessible to others, can't choose but be alone. With exceptions, like Woolf, the modernists fought shy of friendship. Joyce and Proust disparaged it; D.H. Lawrence was wary of it; the modernist friendship pairs — Conrad and Ford, Eliot and Pound, Hemingway and Fitzgerald — were altogether cooler than their Romantic counterparts. The world was now understood as an assault on the self, and with good reason.

The Romantic ideal of solitude developed in part as a reaction to the emergence of the modern city. In modernism, the city is not only more menacing than ever, it has become inescapable, a labyrinth: Eliot's London, Joyce's Dublin. The mob, the human mass, presses in. Hell is other people. The soul is forced back into itself — hence the development of a more austere, more embattled form of self-validation, Trilling's "authenticity," where the essential relationship is only with oneself. (Just as there are few good friendships in modernism, so are there few good marriages.) Solitude becomes, more than ever, the arena of heroic self-discovery, a voyage through interior realms made vast and terrifying by Nietzschean and Freudian insights. To achieve authenticity is to look upon these visions without flinching; Trilling's exemplar here is Kurtz. Protestant self-examination becomes Freudian analysis, and the culture hero, once a prophet of God and then a poet of Nature, is now a novelist of self — a Dostoyevsky, a Joyce, a Proust.

But we no longer live in the modernist city, and our great fear is not submersion by the mass but isolation from the herd. Urbanization gave way to suburbanization, and with it the universal threat of loneliness. What technologies of transportation exacerbated — we could live farther and farther apart — technologies of communication redressed — we could bring ourselves closer and closer together. Or at least, so we have imagined. The first of these technologies, the first simulacrum of proximity, was the telephone. "Reach out and touch someone." But through the 70s and 80s, our isolation grew. Suburbs, sprawling ever farther, became exurbs. Families grew smaller or splintered apart, mothers left the home to work. The electronic hearth became the television in every room. Even in childhood, certainly in adolescence, we were each trapped inside our own cocoon. Soaring crime rates, and even more sharply escalating rates of moral panic, pulled children off the streets. The idea that you could go outside and run around the neighborhood with your friends, once unquestionable, has now become unthinkable. The child who grew up between the world wars as part of an extended family within a tight-knit urban community became the grandparent of a kid who sat alone in front of a big television, in a big house, on a big lot. We were lost in space.

Under those circumstances, the Internet arrived as an incalculable blessing. We should never forget that. It has allowed isolated people to communicate with one another and marginalized people to find one another. The busy parent can stay in touch with far-flung friends. The gay teenager no longer has to feel like a freak. But as the Internet's dimensionality has grown, it has quickly become too much of a good thing. Ten years ago we were writing e-mail messages on desktop computers and transmitting them over dial-up connections. Now we are sending text messages on our cellphones, posting pictures on our Facebook pages, and following complete strangers on Twitter. A constant stream of mediated contact, virtual, notional, or simulated, keeps us wired in to the electronic hive — though contact, or at least two-way contact, seems increasingly beside the point. The goal now, it seems, is simply to become known, to turn oneself into a sort of miniature celebrity. How many friends do I have on Facebook? How many people are reading my blog? How many Google hits does my name generate? Visibility secures our self-esteem, becoming a substitute, twice removed, for genuine connection. Not long ago, it was easy to feel lonely. Now, it is impossible to be alone.

As a result, we are losing both sides of the Romantic dialectic. What does friendship mean when you have 532 "friends"? How does it enhance my sense of closeness when my Facebook News Feed tells me that Sally Smith (whom I haven't seen since high school, and wasn't all that friendly with even then) "is making coffee and staring off into space"? My students told me they have little time for intimacy. And of course, they have no time at all for solitude.

But at least friendship, if not intimacy, is still something they want. As jarring as the new dispensation may be for people in their 30s and 40s, the real problem is that it has become completely natural for people in their teens and 20s. Young people today seem to have no desire for solitude, have never heard of it, can't imagine why it would be worth having. In fact, their use of technology — or to be fair, our use of technology — seems to involve a constant effort to stave off the possibility of solitude, a continuous attempt, as we sit alone at our computers, to maintain the imaginative presence of others. As long ago as 1952, Trilling wrote about "the modern fear of being cut off from the social group even for a moment." Now we have equipped ourselves with the means to prevent that fear from ever being realized. Which does not mean that we have put it to rest. Quite the contrary. Remember my student, who couldn't even write a paper by herself. The more we keep aloneness at bay, the less are we able to deal with it and the more terrifying it gets.

There is an analogy, it seems to me, with the previous generation's experience of boredom. The two emotions, loneliness and boredom, are closely allied. They are also both characteristically modern. The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest citations of either word, at least in the contemporary sense, date from the 19th century. Suburbanization, by eliminating the stimulation as well as the sociability of urban or traditional village life, exacerbated the tendency to both. But the great age of boredom, I believe, came in with television, precisely because television was designed to palliate that feeling. Boredom is not a necessary consequence of having nothing to do, it is only the negative experience of that state. Television, by obviating the need to learn how to make use of one's lack of occupation, precludes one from ever discovering how to enjoy it. In fact, it renders that condition fearsome, its prospect intolerable. You are terrified of being bored — so you turn on the television.

I speak from experience. I grew up in the 60s and 70s, the age of television. I was trained to be bored; boredom was cultivated within me like a precious crop. (It has been said that consumer society wants to condition us to feel bored, since boredom creates a market for stimulation.) It took me years to discover — and my nervous system will never fully adjust to this idea; I still have to fight against boredom, am permanently damaged in this respect — that having nothing to do doesn't have to be a bad thing. The alternative to boredom is what Whitman called idleness: a passive receptivity to the world.

So it is with the current generation's experience of being alone. That is precisely the recognition implicit in the idea of solitude, which is to loneliness what idleness is to boredom. Loneliness is not the absence of company, it is grief over that absence. The lost sheep is lonely; the shepherd is not lonely. But the Internet is as powerful a machine for the production of loneliness as television is for the manufacture of boredom. If six hours of television a day creates the aptitude for boredom, the inability to sit still, a hundred text messages a day creates the aptitude for loneliness, the inability to be by yourself. Some degree of boredom and loneliness is to be expected, especially among young people, given the way our human environment has been attenuated. But technology amplifies those tendencies. You could call your schoolmates when I was a teenager, but you couldn't call them 100 times a day. You could get together with your friends when I was in college, but you couldn't always get together with them when you wanted to, for the simple reason that you couldn't always find them. If boredom is the great emotion of the TV generation, loneliness is the great emotion of the Web generation. We lost the ability to be still, our capacity for idleness. They have lost the ability to be alone, their capacity for solitude.

And losing solitude, what have they lost? First, the propensity for introspection, that examination of the self that the Puritans, and the Romantics, and the modernists (and Socrates, for that matter) placed at the center of spiritual life — of wisdom, of conduct. Thoreau called it fishing "in the Walden Pond of [our] own natures," "bait[ing our] hooks with darkness." Lost, too, is the related propensity for sustained reading. The Internet brought text back into a televisual world, but it brought it back on terms dictated by that world — that is, by its remapping of our attention spans. Reading now means skipping and skimming; five minutes on the same Web page is considered an eternity. This is not reading as Marilynne Robinson described it: the encounter with a second self in the silence of mental solitude.

But we no longer believe in the solitary mind. If the Romantics had Hume and the modernists had Freud, the current psychological model — and this should come as no surprise — is that of the networked or social mind. Evolutionary psychology tells us that our brains developed to interpret complex social signals. According to David Brooks, that reliable index of the social-scientific zeitgeist, cognitive scientists tell us that "our decision-making is powerfully influenced by social context"; neuroscientists, that we have "permeable minds" that function in part through a process of "deep imitation"; psychologists, that "we are organized by our attachments"; sociologists, that our behavior is affected by "the power of social networks." The ultimate implication is that there is no mental space that is not social (contemporary social science dovetailing here with postmodern critical theory). One of the most striking things about the way young people relate to one another today is that they no longer seem to believe in the existence of Thoreau's "darkness."

The MySpace page, with its shrieking typography and clamorous imagery, has replaced the journal and the letter as a way of creating and communicating one's sense of self. The suggestion is not only that such communication is to be made to the world at large rather than to oneself or one's intimates, or graphically rather than verbally, or performatively rather than narratively or analytically, but also that it can be made completely. Today's young people seem to feel that they can make themselves fully known to one another. They seem to lack a sense of their own depths, and of the value of keeping them hidden.

If they didn't, they would understand that solitude enables us to secure the integrity of the self as well as to explore it. Few have shown this more beautifully than Woolf. In the middle of Mrs. Dalloway, between her navigation of the streets and her orchestration of the party, between the urban jostle and the social bustle, Clarissa goes up, "like a nun withdrawing," to her attic room. Like a nun: She returns to a state that she herself thinks of as a kind of virginity. This does not mean she's a prude. Virginity is classically the outward sign of spiritual inviolability, of a self untouched by the world, a soul that has preserved its integrity by refusing to descend into the chaos and self-division of sexual and social relations. It is the mark of the saint and the monk, of Hippolytus and Antigone and Joan of Arc. Solitude is both the social image of that state and the means by which we can approximate it. And the supreme image in Mrs. Dalloway of the dignity of solitude itself is the old woman whom Clarissa catches sight of through her window. "Here was one room," she thinks, "there another." We are not merely social beings. We are each also separate, each solitary, each alone in our own room, each miraculously our unique selves and mysteriously enclosed in that selfhood.

To remember this, to hold oneself apart from society, is to begin to think one's way beyond it. Solitude, Emerson said, "is to genius the stern friend." "He who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from traveling with the souls of other men, from living, breathing, reading, and writing in the daily, time-worn yoke of their opinions." One must protect oneself from the momentum of intellectual and moral consensus — especially, Emerson added, during youth. "God is alone," Thoreau said, "but the Devil, he is far from being alone; he sees a great deal of company; he is legion." The university was to be praised, Emerson believed, if only because it provided its charges with "a separate chamber and fire" — the physical space of solitude. Today, of course, universities do everything they can to keep their students from being alone, lest they perpetrate self-destructive acts, and also, perhaps, unfashionable thoughts. But no real excellence, personal or social, artistic, philosophical, scientific or moral, can arise without solitude. "The saint and poet seek privacy," Emerson said, "to ends the most public and universal." We are back to the seer, seeking signposts for the future in splendid isolation.

Solitude isn't easy, and isn't for everyone. It has undoubtedly never been the province of more than a few. "I believe," Thoreau said, "that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark." Teresa and Tiresias will always be the exceptions, or to speak in more relevant terms, the young people — and they still exist — who prefer to loaf and invite their soul, who step to the beat of a different drummer. But if solitude disappears as a social value and social idea, will even the exceptions remain possible? Still, one is powerless to reverse the drift of the culture. One can only save oneself — and whatever else happens, one can still always do that. But it takes a willingness to be unpopular.

The last thing to say about solitude is that it isn't very polite. Thoreau knew that the "doubleness" that solitude cultivates, the ability to stand back and observe life dispassionately, is apt to make us a little unpleasant to our fellows, to say nothing of the offense implicit in avoiding their company. But then, he didn't worry overmuch about being genial. He didn't even like having to talk to people three times a day, at meals; one can only imagine what he would have made of text-messaging. We, however, have made of geniality — the weak smile, the polite interest, the fake invitation — a cardinal virtue. Friendship may be slipping from our grasp, but our friendliness is universal. Not for nothing does "gregarious" mean "part of the herd." But Thoreau understood that securing one's self-possession was worth a few wounded feelings. He may have put his neighbors off, but at least he was sure of himself. Those who would find solitude must not be afraid to stand alone.

William Deresiewicz writes essays and reviews for a variety of publications. He taught at Yale University from 1998 to 2008.

http://chronicle.com
Section: The Chronicle Review
Volume 55, Issue 21, Page B6

Eggs and things...

2009-03-09T15:55:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday, the Rev. Dr. Harvey Guthrie told us a story about high, solid walls and fragile eggs. He was quoting the Japanese author Haruki Murakami who recently won the Jerusalem Prize given to writers whose work deals with freedom, society, politics, and government. The story Harvey told us about was published in Salon Magazine and is avaible to you online by clicking here. It is a worthwhile read and a good reminder from this celebrated author that we all possess a tangible, living soul.

A bedtime story...

2009-03-07T20:45:00.000-08:00

In the last year or so, Epiphany has introduced Catechesis of the Good Shepherd curriculum into our Sunday School program. Catechesis, as it is also called, is a wonderfully unique form of education and formation for children. If you are interested in more information, check out the website. The video below is a demonstration of the kind of approach to learning that is a hallmark of the Catechesis program. What you will see is actually a demonstration of a slightly different curriculum called Godly Play, but the same idea in terms of approach to learning. In fact, Godly Play is modeled after the Catechesis program. If nothing else, it makes a great bedtime story for kids of all ages. Enjoy!

Temptations...

2009-02-28T10:27:00.000-08:00

Here is the article mentioned today in the homily. I took it straight from beliefnet, a great website to check out when you have a moment. Enjoy!

Lent as Divine Therapy

Father Thomas Keating talks about Lent as a time to look at unconscious dynamics that keep us from a deep relationship with God.

Fr. Keating, a Trappist monk at St. Benedict's monastery in Snowmass, Colorado, is a co-founder of the centering prayer movement. He recently spoke to Beliefnet producer Anne A. Simpkinson about the contemplative dimensions of the Lenten season.

How can we make Lent a more contemplative time? And, if people are already practicing contemplative prayer, how can they deepen their practice?

Lent is meant to be a communal retreat for all Christians--at least those who observe Lent. The liturgy is an instruction in the mystical meaning of Lent as preparation for the Holy Week celebration of the mystery of redemption.

Redemption basically is about holistic health, if you want to translate it into modern parlance. What I suggest--based on the Christian tradition but not often preached--is that you can't enter into t

he fullness of the Pascal mystery of the redemption unless there is a radical transformation of motivation within you. So, on the first Sunday of Lent, you have Christ going into the desert and experiencing basic human instincts--security needs, power-control needs, and affection-esteem needs. The three temptations that [Christ faced in the desert] address each one of those issues.

If you accept the belief that baptism incorporates us in the mystical body of Christ, into the divine DNA, then you might say that the Holy Spirit is present in each of us, and thus we have the capacity for the fullness of redemption, of transformation.

Lent is a time to renew wherever we are in that process that I call the divine therapy. It's a time to look what our instinctual needs are, look at what the dynamics of our unconscious are. The church is hinting in the first Sunday of Lent that Lent is about temptation, or what we think is temptation. It's about the raw experience of human instincts, and how they unconsciously influence our conduct and decisions all our life long unless we keep working with them.

Lent is the time to expect temptation and [experience] afflictive emotions such as shame, humiliation, anger, greed, the time to look at how those instincts, which are developed in early childhood are frustrated--or gratified. See there's a hazard in self-exaltation if we get what we want, or depression if we don't get what we want. To work on those [emotions] during Lent, I think, is more effective than fasting or rituals.

With regard to prayers, I would suggest doing a little more meditation, add another half-hour period [of prayer], if that's possible. If it's not possible, be more alert to the false self and its [emotional] programs as they manifest in everyday life. This is a form of practicing the presence of God.

Do you think that giving up chocolate or meat or whatever is only a scratching of the surface of Lent?

Yes, but if you scratch the surface and find out there's something underneath, it's helpful that way. (Laughter) It seems to me that scratching the surface of the unconscious, allowing a few cracks to show, hastens the evacuation [of emotions tied to the false self], and is a good thing.

I imagine giving up chocolate would make us understand how powerless we are because of how hard it is to do. I think that's one of the benefits of something like that. If we can't give up chocolate for 40 days, how can we give up other things?

It's a good start. But the liturgy, or the church, whoever put that together in their mystical wisdom wasn't thinking about your taste buds. (Laughter) Lent is about more serious matters. The Church was thinking about how it feels to confront the emotional damage of a lifetime that is sitting unnoticed in your unconscious. Unless one does an extraordinary kind of deep psychotherapy, it might take five years on the couch [to uncover and work with such things]. But the practice of a non-conceptual meditation [centering prayer] initiates a process that may go on for a lifetime. Every Lent is an invitation to go deeper into that process.

Lent is--and I think the Eastern Orthodox Church would agree--a 40-day retreat that the church invites everybody to go through every year. If it is really well done, it would be comparable to an extended Vipassana (Buddhist meditation) retreat. It would have a transforming effect each time you did it.

It would be a real challenge to take on Lent this year because our lives are so pushed and pulled by so many external demands.

Perhaps more than ever today. [I think of] the intrusion of mass media. I don't know what that's going to do to people, what it's going to do to a generation without some balancing factor like Lent. Lent could become more and more crucial to spiritual practice. Even 10 days of retreat is barely enough to get in touch with oneself, and then you go back and you lose it in three or four days. That's why Contemplative Outreach started an immersion retreat, which lasts three weeks, and why we're considering retreats of greater length.

Illustration: Temptation of Christ, stained glass of JoKarl Huber in the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Weil der Stadt, Germany; photograph by Rebecca Kennison, 1989

Remember that you are (star)dust...

2009-02-28T09:46:00.000-08:00

Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori preached a wonderful and bi-lingual sermon on Ash Wednesday in San Jose, Costa Rica. Bishop Katharine was a scientist before becoming a priest in the church, and her sermons often contain beautiful images of creation, humankind and God, which come directly out of her work studying creation. She is a wonderful example of how science does not make God obsolete, but may instead inspire a deep love, appreciation, and awe for God in all of creation.

In her sermon from Ash Wednesday, Bishop Katharine describes humankind as dust hoping to be worthy of the image of God, and she reminds her listeners that the same dust the we are made of ultimately comes from the stars. She says, "Lent is our opportunity to bless this dust so that it can shine even brighter than the stars like the light of Christ...Our world needs this light resurrected from dust."

And, here is the link to the audio version of the sermon. Hope you can check it out!

Compline

2009-02-25T22:49:00.000-08:00

Here's some great information about Compline by Jamey Anderson...

At 7:30 p.m. on March 1, in place of the traditional Evensong on the first Sunday of the month, the Epiphany Schola will sing Compline: a meditative, ancient service that has been chanted and sung by Christians for 1,500 years, probably first by St. Benedict. If you haven’t been to a Compline service before, it may be useful to think of it as a “stripped-down” version of Evensong.

Evensong (sung Evening Prayer), an exclusively Anglican creation originating from the sixteenth century, is a combination of Compline with Vespers. If you’ve ever been to an Evensong and wished you could just sit back and relax into the music instead of standing up during the canticles, you might find what you’re looking for in Compline. There is much less of the “stand-up/sit-down” formalities in Compline. The church is dark, and in many cases, you may not even be able to see the singers. The emphasis is on quiet meditation and bringing the day to a peaceful close.

Episcopal musicians in the 1950s re-discovered Compline and brought it into the modern age, most notably in Seattle at St. Mark’s Cathedral. By the 1960’s, people would flock into the church, sit on the floor, or lie down on the pews. People even bring their own pillows to fully relax in the darkened room. You can hear examples of the service at www.complinechoir.org. The choral director Peter Hallock writes about the great interest in Compline that remains to this day:

“In the mid-and late 60’s, the service began to attract large numbers of young people, a phenomenon that, to a great extent, can only be accounted for by the search for new cultural values being promulgated by the younger generation of that time. Remains still exist that serve as reminders of a movement that, among other things, must be credited for the interpolation of Eastern religious thought and practice into our lives. The embracing of meditation, yoga, and martial arts such as Tai Chi are further examples.”

And the Seattle Weekly’s Best of 2008 issue cites Compline at St. Mark’s as the “Best Non-Alcoholic Happy Hour!”

“You just saw a guy with a briefcase and a girl with dreads and about 15 tattoos walk into a 77-year-old church together. ‘Huh?’ you might be thinking. But if it’s Sunday night at 9:30, you should walk in too, because it’s time for Compline at St. Mark’s on Capitol Hill. Wearing old sweats? So what?—you’ll probably be sitting on the floor, and no one cares what you wear here anyway. Just sit back and listen to the church’s 18-member choir party like it’s the year 509. They sing evening prayers the way monks have done ever since there were monks, and they do it beautifully. You’ve never felt this calm in your life, I promise you, no matter what your religious preferences.”

Here at Epiphany, our re-imagination will include singing the service with both men and women, rather than the exclusively male monk-style voices that are sometimes used. If any of this interests you or has raised your curiosity, circle the date in your calendar, bring your friends, and wear comfortable clothes: we’ll see you at Compline on March 1^st!

Yawn, stretch, groan...

2009-02-25T21:01:00.000-08:00

...Epiphany Epicenter is waking up after it's winter hibernation! I have taken a little break during Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, but now, for the Lenten Season, I will make regular blog postings part of my spiritual discipline.

On that note, what do you have planned for Lent? If you are looking for resources for prayer and study, I highly recommend these three:

Pray as you go
This website provides wonderful daily prayer, readings, and music in a very friendly format. I love this podcast! You can download from their website or from iTunes.

Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD)
ERD has some wonderful Lenten meditations you can have delivered to your inbox. ERD is an organization Epiphany has long supported and we have a great deal of enthusiasm for the important work they do. Click here to sign up for their Lenten meditations.

The National Catholic Reporter
This website has several different options for Lenten meditations delivered directly to your inbox, including Edward Hays, who is one of my favorites.

Have a wonderful Lent, everyone, and stay tuned!

From the Episcopal News...

2008-11-14T11:40:00.001-08:00

Historic Mount Calvary Retreat House, shown here in a file photo, was destroyed by a wildfire that started on November 13.

Bulletin: Montecito fire destroys
Mount Calvary Retreat House

(Episcopal News, Los Angeles) -- The raging Montecito wildfire has destroyed historic Mount Calvary Retreat House, staff and Santa Barbara County officials have confirmed.

The resident brothers, members of the Order of the Holy Cross, and staff are safe following evacuation, said Nancy Bullock, program director for Mount Calvary, speaking by phone from All Saints by-the-Sea Church in Montecito.

Bullock said that All Saints is currently working to determine if any parishioners have lost homes in the blaze, which has claimed more than 100 residences across 2,500 acres. Bullock's husband, Jeff, is rector of the parish.

Bishop J. Jon Bruno, who is in close telephone contact with clergy leaders in the Santa Barbara area, asks the prayers of the diocesan community for all those affected by the fire. The bishop and staff of the Diocese of Los Angeles have pledged their support in assisting the coordination of fire recovery efforts. Checks, payable to the Treasurer of the Diocese and earmarked "Montecito Fire Recovery" may be sent to the Bishop's Office, 840 Echo Park Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90026.

Mount Calvary's prior, the Rev. Nicholas Radelmiller OHC, is leading the brothers and staff in assessing next steps of response to the fire damage.

Bullock said the brothers and staff at Mt. Calvary, were able to leave with some of the hilltop retreat house's valuable art treasures, as well as computer records, "but so much is lost."

Mount Calvary staff will assist groups and individuals in seeking alternate locations for upcoming retreats, all of which are now cancelled owing to the fire, Bullock said. The Cathedral Center retreat center in Los Angeles is available to assist this process.

At Santa Barbara's Trinity Church, rector and deanery co-dean Mark Asman is meeting with staff and volunteers to assess the situation and crisis response. Further information will be reported through the Episcopal News email list as soon as it becomes available, Asman said.

Asman said Trinity Church's rectory and parish house were able to accommodate the brothers overnight November 13. St. Mary's Retreat House, an Episcopal Church site near the Santa Barbara Mission, has also extended hospitality, although it was subject to a temporary evacuation November 13.

Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared the fire zone a disaster area as fire fighters continue to work to contain the blaze.

Mount Calvary Retreat House, with its panoramic ocean views, was founded in 1947 by the Order of the Holy Cross, based in West Park, N.Y.

--Report filed by Bob Williams, canon for community relations, Diocese of Los Angeles.

2008-11-14T10:23:00.000-08:00

Dear friends,

I have sad news. According to a press conference held this morning (Friday), the fire burning in Montecito has completely destroyed Mount Calvary monastery. Mount Calvary, besides being in our deanery of the LA Diocese, is also a spiritual home away from home for so many of us here at Epiphany, in this Diocese, and all along the West coast. I have contacted our deanery co-deans, Mark Asman of Trinity Church in Santa Barbara, and Jerry Kahler of St. Paul's Church in Ventura, and offered our love, support and prayers as well as any assistance, small or great, we can give. It is a great loss to say the least. Thankfully, I understand from a colleague in the Bay area who has been in touch with Robert Sevensky, the Superior of the Order of the Holy Cross which includes Mount Calvary, that the brothers evacuated safely to St. Mary's down the hill.

Please do keep the brothers in your prayers. It may be too soon to say, but I do know that with any crisis there is an opportunity and with any death there is possibility for new life. My prayer is that Mount Calvary may experience opportunity, creativity and new life out of the tragedy of this great loss.

Best to you all and thank you...
peace,
melissa

From our Bishop...

2008-11-07T10:22:00.000-08:00

Bishop Bruno issues statement on the passage of Proposition 8

Bishop J. Jon Bruno of the Diocese of Los Angeles issued a statement on November 5 concerning the passage of Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that amends the state constitution to define marriage as only the union of a man and a woman, therefore outlawing gay or lesbian marriage.

Bruno, along with Bishop Suffragan Chester Talton and Bishops Assistant Sergio Carranza and Robert Anderson, joined bishops of the six Episcopal dioceses of California in publicly opposing the measure.

Text of the bishop's statement follows.

I call upon Californians who supported Proposition 8 to make an honest and dedicated effort to learn more about the lives and experiences of lesbian and gay humanity whose constitutional rights are unfairly targeted by this measure. Look carefully at scriptural interpretations, and remember that the Bible was once used to justify slavery, among other forms of oppression.
It is important that we understand that we are a state that lives with freedom of religion - and freedom from religious oppression.
In my view, and in that of many Episcopalians, Proposition 8 is a lamentable expression of fear-based discrimination that attempts to deny the constitutional rights of some Californians on the basis of sexual orientation. It is only a matter of time before its narrow constraints are ultimately nullified by the courts and our citizens' own increasing knowledge about the diversity of God's creation.
Too often the road to justice is made deeply painful by setbacks such as Proposition 8, which nearly half of California voters rejected. But as our new President-elect has said, "...let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other."

J. Jon Bruno
Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles

Love and marriage...

2008-10-26T21:10:00.001-07:00

Below is a letter from Bishop Bruno (pictured left) regarding the work of the task force on marriage, including some very helpful educational materials. Do take a look if you have a moment. You will be glad you did!

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

The Supreme Court of California has determined that all citizens of our state should have equal access to marriage as a civil right based in our state constitution. The Court's ruling provides the Church with an opportunity to reflect on our own theology of marriage. In the Diocese of Los Angeles, we have sought to provide the Church's blessing to all the baptized people of God. Among those are people who have sought to have same-sex relationships blessed in the community of faith. I know that the acceptance of same-sex unions has caused spiritual struggle and questioning for some members of our Diocese, our Church and the Anglican Communion. My policy has been to allow clergy to respond to the needs of their community with pastoral sensitivity including the blessing of these unions as they deem appropriate to the pastoral context.

Earlier this year, when the court made same-sex marriage an option in civil law, I felt it necessary to convene a task force to develop a diocesan policy by which clergy in our Diocese might officiate at same-sex marriages. The task force has developed educational materials that I hope will help you and members of our Diocese to reflect on the issues involved in same sex-marriage as we discern our way forward. I hope that all clergy in our Diocese might educate our congregations about marriage and have conversations about it.

Performing and blessing these marriages is not simply theoretical. There are real people in congregations large and small who have waited sometimes for many years for this opportunity, and the witness of their faithful love has been an inspiration to me. Other couples will step forward in the future. I hope you will take the opportunity in the next several weeks to listen to their stories. Many among these couples are members of our congregations.

While no one in this Diocese will be forced to move beyond what his or her conscience allows, we seek to provide that gracious space for those whose conscience compels them to bless the marriages of all faithful people as together we discern the work of the Holy Spirit who continues to lead us into all truth.

Your Brother in Christ,

J. Jon Bruno

Bishop of the Diocese of Los Angeles

For a copy of the Task Force report, click here.

alternatives

2008-10-26T20:48:00.000-07:00

Two Sundays ago our gospel reading was from Matthew 22.1-14, which is the parable of a King who throws a wedding banquet for his son. The "traditional" interpretation of this parable is an allegorical one with God as the tyrannical King, the King's absentee son as Jesus, etc. However, there is an alternative interpretation that I stumbled upon during my research. I found it on the Girardian lectionary website. Rene Girard, pictured right, is a philosopher (among other things) who has made quite a contribution to the doctrine of atonement in his scapegoat and mimetic desire theories. It's all heady stuff, but quite helpful to those of us who are working with congregations and Biblical texts. The Girardian lectionary interprets Biblical texts in light of Girard's theories and the interpretation for our gospel lesson above is wonderfully unique! Click here to get to the site. To read the full text of the essay on the gospel reading written by Marty Aiken, click on The Kingdom of Heaven Suffers Violence:
Discerning the Suffering Servant in the Parable of the Wedding Banquet.

Economy

2008-10-18T19:40:00.000-07:00

How do we begin to understand the current economic crisis? How do we address it as people of faith? If you, like me, are interested in thinking and praying on our economic state, I turn your attention to Religion and Ethics Weekly's contribution this week on economies human and divine. I hope you will find some food for thought!

The Rabbi and the Religulous

2008-10-07T15:33:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I posted a review of Rabbi David Wolpe's book, Why Faith Matters, and this morning, while reading my electronic copy of the LA Times, I came across an article by Rabbi Wolpe in beautiful response to the movie, Religulous. The trailer for the movie is immediately below, followed by the LA Times article. I am thinking of going to this movie (for the sake of being informed and NOT because I agree with its premise, obviously) and it would be great to have some company! Anyone care to join me? Just send an email...

Opinion
Maher's mockery misses the point
His movie, 'Religulous,' is one-dimesional, while religion is varied and colorful.
By David Wolpe
October 7, 2008

There are three problems with Bill Maher's new movie mocking faith: It misunderstands religion, misconceives God and gets human nature all wrong.

I have a fantasy of a counter-movie. I would travel around the world and interview every scientist with a crackpot theory or a quack cure. I'd find researchers who were venal, eccentric, foolish or cruel, throwing in a few responsible scientists for credibility. Call it, say, "Scientifictious."

Of course, that would be no more convincing than "Religulous." Religion is not univocal; there are lots of varieties and personalities. There is no shortage of strange beliefs and practices. There is ample opportunity for derision. Think of the movie he could have made about people's eating habits.

What Maher seems not to know, or to understand, is that religion is not a fantasy flung upward but an intuition of something far greater than ourselves. Everyone who lives with open eyes has reason to question. In the search there will be missteps, even cruelties and division, but also sublimity, kindness, beauty, wonder and faith.

Perhaps Maher's greatest misunderstanding of religion is his central indictment: that religion is responsible for the world's violence. It is not. Violence is a product of human nature. Before monotheism, the Assyrians were not kind; the Romans were bloodthirsty beyond the imagination of religious regimes. When religion became less potent in people's lives after the French Revolution, instead of making the world less violent, it became far more violent: World War I and WWII, communism, Nazism -- all shed blood on an unprecedented scale. None were religious regimes or religious wars.

Maher's dislike of religion is not reasoned, however, but visceral. He told Mother Jones magazine about the Jews praying on his plane to Israel: "Even on the plane over, they were, at a certain point, they all stood up in the aisle of the plane davening [praying] ... they just looked like crazy people, always bowing their head. It's disconcerting." No doubt had they worn Armani suits and been tapping at a keyboard, Mr. Maher would have found them rational; but seeking transcendence in coach -- crazy.

If faith is, in part, the summit of our hopes, a guide and an aspiration, then what does Maher's creed leave him with? Again, as he tells Mother Jones: "I'm telling you. I've got nothing." It should not be hard to understand why someone might choose ancient wisdom over modern nihilism. It is not heroic to believe we are accidents of chemistry.

Maher's view of human nature as essentially animalistic (he repeatedly wonders why anyone would curb their sexual appetites) is dispiriting and plain wrong. Animals we are, but we are much more than animals.

Maher misunderstands God as a projection of human need. This is a common atheistic trope -- your belief is based on psychological deficiencies, while mine is reasoned. In truth, the existence of God is not an antidote to fear but a consequence of wonder. God does not come about through faulty reasoning but through a worshipful and humble orientation of the soul.

"Religulous" repeatedly calls faith irrational. True, it is not a product of pure reason, but then what is, apart from mathematics? Reason does not get us out of bed, or move us to love or kindness. Religion is supported by reason, however. The marvel of values, ideas and consciousness -- nonphysical but powerful phenomena -- can reasonably be thought to have an origin in a nonphysical entity: that is, God. Centuries of people emboldened by, and ennobled by, faith can reasonably be thought to have something more than foolish illusions in their minds and hearts. Nevertheless, Maher calls religion a "neurological disorder."

In study after study, religion proves to make people not just happier but more likely to give to charity and have stable marriages, to reduce drug and alcohol dependence and improve mental health. That does not make it true, but it is worthy of thought: Why should something so "irrational," a mere "neurological disorder," be so helpful to society?

Many of us suspect -- or yes, believe -- that there is more to the world than we know, that there is a mystery at its heart. That mystery may evoke some unworthy speculation, attract some charlatans, occasion some cruelties. Faith is also the spur for everything from the poetry of Psalms to the Cathedral at Chartres to relief missions. "Religulous" is one-dimensional. Religion is as varied and colorful as God's blessed world.

David Wolpe is the rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and the author of "Why Faith Matters."

Room for all...

2008-10-06T22:47:00.000-07:00

You may have seen the news this past week about the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh's decision to leave the Episcopal Church (or click here if you haven't heard and would like to read about it). Pittsburgh is a long way away from us here, but it is still part of our church and it is a sad day when any one of our number decides they can no longer remain in relationship with the rest of the church.

Our Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori (KJS), has made a statement about Pittsburgh's decision which you can see in the video below. Also, check out this interview with KJS by Terry Gross of Fresh Air. KJS has a lot to say to put into context what is happening in the church. However, most important is her take on who we are as Anglicans and what it means to be in this communion. Despite the sad news from Pittsburgh, I found her interview and video to be inspiring and hopeful! I hope you will take the time to both watch the video and listen to the interview. Enjoy!

Why Faith Matters

2008-10-06T15:32:00.000-07:00

Hot off the press book review from today's Episcopal Life Daily. The author of the book, Rabbi David Wolpe, is a Rabbi at Sinai Temple on Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles. Click here to see a video of Rabbi Wolpe debating renowned atheist Sam Harris on the existence of God (Sam Harris on the right and David Wolpe on the left).

"Why Faith Matters" from HarperCollins Publishers, by David J, Wolpe, foreword by Rick Warren, 208 pages, hardcover, c. 2008, $24.95

[HarperCollins Publishers] Judging by today's bestseller lists, you'd think that religion is either irrational or extreme. What's missing between the atheists and the fanatics is a genuine debate; someone to point out that religion does have value in the modern world. Why Faith Matters is just such an articulate, nondenominational defense of established religion in America. Rabbi Wolpe presents the case for religion and proposes solutions toward engaging religion in discussions of modernity. By refuting the cold reason of the atheists with a vision of religion informed by faith, love and understanding, Wolpe follows in a literary tradition that stretches from Cardinal Newman to C.S. Lewis to Thomas Merton--all individuals of faith who brought religion and culture together in their own works.

Wolpe takes readers through the origins and the nature of religion; popular misunderstandings of the relationship between religion, violence, and progress; the place of the Bible in modern life; and the compatibility of religion and science. He concludes with a powerful argument against calls for the end of religion.

To order: Episcopal Books and Resources, online at
http://www.episcopalbookstore.org, or call 800-903-5544 -- or visit your
local Episcopal bookseller, http://www.episcopalbooksellers.org

Blessings old and new...

2008-10-03T10:28:00.000-07:00

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.
(Numbers 6.24-26)

As a lover of all things (or nearly all things) ancient, the Priestly Blessing from the book of Numbers is one of my favorite blessings to use at the end of the Sunday liturgy. And ancient it certainly is, dating at least as far back as the First Temple period (that's Solomon's temple). Amulets with the blessing inscribed on them have been found in burial places from that time period, however, it is not unlikely that the blessing itself is quite older. While there are variations in translations, the translation above is fairly common and might even be familiar!

The image above shows the position of the hands for the blessing. If you think it looks a bit Hollywood, you are right! Dr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) adapted this gesture as the Vulcan greeting on Star Trek.

A few days ago, I came across another, more recently composed blessing. I share it with you below because I think it articulates so well the gospel paradox. Choosing to be followers of Christ does not mean a way of comfort, but it does mean a choice for life, a choice for the peace that passes understanding. Read below and see what you think.

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.
amen.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.
amen.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort and to turn pain into joy.
amen.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you may do what others claim cannot be done.
amen.

Hey Rocky! Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat...

2008-10-01T16:29:00.000-07:00

Indeed, I am a fan of Rocky and Bullwinkle. I loved that show as a kid! However, the article you will find below is not about the kind of magic Rocky and Bullwinkle parodied, but rather about a recent archaeological discovery that references, "Christ the Magician." Now, isn't that intriguing! It could be Jesus, or it could not be Jesus, but regardless, it's a great read and will give you a sense of how archaeology and Biblical studies intersect. (You can also read the article on the MSNBC website by clicking here.)

Earliest reference describes Christ as 'magician'

Bowl dated between late 2nd century B.C. and the early 1st century A.D.

By Jennifer Viegas

updated 7:23 a.m. PT, Wed., Oct. 1, 2008

A team of scientists led by renowned French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio recently announced that they have found a bowl, dating to between the late 2nd century B.C. and the early 1st century A.D., that is engraved with what they believe could be the world's first known reference to Christ.

If the word "Christ" refers to the Biblical Jesus Christ, as is speculated, then the discovery may provide evidence that Christianity and paganism at times intertwined in the ancient world.

The full engraving on the bowl reads, "DIA CHRSTOU O GOISTAIS," which has been interpreted by the excavation team to mean either, "by Christ the magician" or, "the magician by Christ."

"It could very well be a reference to Jesus Christ, in that he was once the primary exponent of white magic," Goddio, co-founder of the Oxford Center of Maritime Archaeology, said.

He and his colleagues found the object during an excavation of the underwater ruins of Alexandria's ancient great harbor. The Egyptian site also includes the now submerged island of Antirhodos, where Cleopatra's palace may have been located.

Both Goddio and Egyptologist David Fabre, a member of the European Institute of Submarine Archaeology, think a "magus" could have practiced fortune telling rituals using the bowl. The Book of Matthew refers to "wisemen," or Magi, believed to have been prevalent in the ancient world.

According to Fabre, the bowl is also very similar to one depicted in two early Egyptian earthenware statuettes that are thought to show a soothsaying ritual.

"It has been known in Mesopotamia probably since the 3rd millennium B.C.," Fabre said. "The soothsayer interprets the forms taken by the oil poured into a cup of water in an interpretation guided by manuals."

He added that the individual, or "medium," then goes into a hallucinatory trance when studying the oil in the cup.

"They therefore see the divinities, or supernatural beings appear that they call to answer their questions with regard to the future," he said.

The magus might then have used the engraving on the bowl to legitimize his supernatural powers by invoking the name of Christ, the scientists theorize.

Goddio said, "It is very probable that in Alexandria they were aware of the existence of Jesus" and of his associated legendary miracles, such as transforming water into wine, multiplying loaves of bread, conducting miraculous health cures, and the story of the resurrection itself.

While not discounting the Jesus Christ interpretation, other researchers have offered different possible interpretations for the engraving, which was made on the thin-walled ceramic bowl after it was fired, since slip was removed during the process.

Bert Smith, a professor of classical archaeology and art at Oxford University, suggests the engraving might be a dedication, or present, made by a certain "Chrestos" belonging to a possible religious association called Ogoistais.

Klaus Hallof, director of the Institute of Greek inscriptions at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy, added that if Smith's interpretation proves valid, the word "Ogoistais" could then be connected to known religious groups that worshipped early Greek and Egyptian gods and goddesses, such as Hermes, Athena and Isis.

Hallof additionally pointed out that historians working at around, or just after, the time of the bowl, such as Strabon and Pausanias, refer to the god "Osogo" or "Ogoa," so a variation of this might be what's on the bowl. It is even possible that the bowl refers to both Jesus Christ and Osogo.

Fabre concluded, "It should be remembered that in Alexandria, paganism, Judaism and Christianity never evolved in isolation. All of these forms of religion (evolved) magical practices that seduced both the humble members of the population and the most well-off classes."

"It was in Alexandria where new religious constructions were made to propose solutions to the problem of man, of God's world," he added. "Cults of Isis, mysteries of Mithra, and early Christianity bear witness to this."

The bowl is currently on public display in the exhibit "Egypt's Sunken Treasures" at the Matadero Cultural Center in Madrid, Spain, until November 15.

Kissing the Leper...

2008-09-21T23:15:00.001-07:00

While we are most familiar with St. Francis' love for animals (thus the Blessing of the Animals coming up on October 5, one day after the Feast Day of St. Francis where the church remembers and celebrates his life), St. Francis also took care of the outcast of his time - the poor and the lepers. There is a story of St. Francis kissing a leper he encounters during his travels. Click here to read more. Below is the editorial I mentioned in my sermon last Sunday. It was written by the Rev. Dr. Tim Vivian and published in the early 1990's in the Californian, Bakersfield's local paper.

Kissing the Leper

Last Friday I sat with the lepers and outcasts. Inside St. Paul's Episcopal parish, delegates for diocesan convention were meeting, but we were outside because Bishop Schofield refused to allow us inside. Who were we? Members of Integrity, the national organization supporting gays and lesbians in the Episcopal Church. Bishop Schofield not only refused us entrance to St. Paul's, he has refused to allow Integrity to meet in any parish in the diocese; he has forbidden the clergy of the diocese to celebrate Communion for the people of Integrity.

I wish this fear and hatred of gays by many Christians were an isolated event, a simple example of theological racism, but it isn't. Among some Christians, homophobia is just one symptom; others are fear of women, fear of sexuality, fear of the poor, fear of those not like us, and fear of change.

The reasons for these fears--and the hatred that often accompanies them--are complex, but they are bound together by, and find their common expression in, a profound misunderstanding and misuse of the Bible

With regard to homosexuality, the extreme conservative argument is simple: Homosexuality is evil, a sin, because the Bible says so. Such an argument reduces a complicated human subject to absolutes of good and evil, right or wrong. Those who make this argument conveniently--or blindly--ignore the fact that "the Bible" variously endorses polygyny, slavery, massacre, and the sequestration of women during their periods.

Put more positively, the Bible is a human document (or collection of documents), a human witness to God's being, activity, and presence. As a human witness, it is a fallible one. Since the Bible is a human witness, those who wrote it--however inspired they were--were subject to social, political, ethnic, temporal and religious biases and prejudices, just as we are today.

In ignoring all this, conservative biblicists make a serious mistake; unfortunately, in their use of the Bible they commit a worse one: false use is worse than false understanding. Biblicists mistakenly believe that the Bible is a book of dictates and rules, revealed by God. Once they have this infallible rule book in hand, like a boy scout with his handbook, they selectively decide which issues are most important. Usually for biblicists it is homosexuality or sexuality in general, abortion, and women's subordination. Biblicists are so obsessed with these issues that they usually ignore questions of social justice, poverty, homelessness, or war and peace.

It is a question of priorities, and biblicists have their priorities wrong. While more and more of our people go hungry and homeless, die from drugs and violence, and live lives without meaning, biblicists care more about who is sleeping with whom and what parts of the body are being used to do what.

Those who condemn homosexuality say they are speaking of "biblical" ethics or as a "biblical" Church. But what is this "biblical" belief as it seems to be practiced in this country?

Is it "biblical" to condemn homosexuality while at the same time keeping a patriotic and blasphemous silence (as virtually all of the churches of Kern County did) when the United States slaughtered over 100,000 Iraqis?

Is it "biblical" to oppose abortion while supporting or keeping silent about the death penalty (legalized State murder)?

Is it "biblical" to deny, in the name of scripture and tradition, the full ministry of women in the Church--as the local Episcopal Church does?
No. None of these is biblical. Some who espouse certain "biblical beliefs" are misguided: they naively and simplistically use the Bible to support non-Biblical agendas.

Others, though, who make "biblical" statements--such as certain bishops, priests, and ministers--should by their training know better. Their use of "the Bible" is at best a form of fundamentalism; at worst, it is knowingly mendacious. Such biblicism is not Christian.

Those of us who are not biblicists or fundamentalists, as we listen to their increasingly strident voices, need to remember that--despite their loud shouts--they do not represent the truth of Christianity. Their misuse of the Bible in no way damages its real message: that God is a God of love and compassion, mercy and tenderness; that God became human in order to fully know our humanity; that God loves each of us equally and completely.

The Bible--the true Bible--not only calls us to kiss, like St. Francis, the mouth of the leper. It calls us to claim the leper's mouth as our own.

Dr. Tim Vivian
Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies
California State University Bakersfield

Forgive

2008-09-14T13:34:00.000-07:00

As promised in today's sermon, I have included below the link to The Forgiveness Project as well as several other websites to check out on the topic of forgiveness and reconciliation.

The Forgiveness Project is an organization that "...works at a local, national and international level to help build a future free of conflict and violence by healing the wounds of the past.

By collecting and sharing people’s stories, and delivering outreach programmes, The Forgiveness Project encourages and empowers people to explore the nature of forgiveness and alternatives to revenge."

Please take some time to read the stories and see where you end up on the forgiveness question.

Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu has done some amazing work with reconciliation and forgiveness. You can learn more about what he has done by clicking here. Or, check out the The Desmond Tutu Peace Centre online.

Please, don't hesitate to send your responses!

And please do keep in your prayers all of those who were involved in the Metrolink crash in Chatsworth. Pray for those who have died and their families, the injured and their families, as well as the doctors and nurses who care for them, the rescue workers, and also, importantly, pray for the Metrolink engineer who has become the center of blame for this tragedy.

Rocks and piles of rocks

2008-08-26T21:43:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday, our gospel lesson and our reading from Isaiah both dealt with rocks of one kind or another. In Isaiah, it was the rock from which Israel was hewn, and, in the gospel, it was Jesus naming Peter the rock upon which the church would be founded.

Rocks are often associated with the sacred in one way or another, and in the photo to the right, the cairn (a fancy name for a cone-shaped pile of rocks) marks the end of the medieval Celtic Christian pilgrimage route to Bardsey Island, home of 1,000 Saints.

In my sermon I mentioned the treacherous crossing to Bardsey which you can see in the photo. Look for the current (the change of color in the water) and this photo was taken on a day when the sea was like glass!

The photo on the right is of the steps that lead down to St. Mary's Well, the last stop for pilgrims before crossing to Bardsey. These are the steps hewn in the 6th century by pilgrims and made smooth over the 1500 years of people making their way to the well. It's not a great photo, but it does give a sense of how steep and rocky that cliff face is. (At top is my friend and hiking companion, Isabella).

Drive-in church?

2008-08-26T20:27:00.000-07:00

Drive-in theatres may be a thing of the past, at least in most places, but the drive-in church is whole new idea. Honk if you love Jesus, a video from CBS News gives a whole new take on church. I knew drive-in churches existed in theory but until today I had never seen one. I found this video fascinating especially how parishioners describe their experience of worship and fellowship.

What can I say? The video says it all. Enjoy!

***note to subscribers: my last post "rocks and piles of rocks..." had some technical issues that I am working out. I understand the photos didn't come through. I will repost it when I can be sure to get the photos up! thanks!

the god strategy...

2008-08-19T08:09:00.001-07:00

The God Strategy, by David Domke and Kevin Coe, is a recently published book that might be worth checking out for anyone interested in the current climate of religion and politics in the U.S. It was featured on Episcopal Life Online (aka ELO) a few months ago c and it caught my eye (ELO is a daily update of news, events, and resources published by our national Episcopal Church offices). Here is the review that appeared in ELO's email update:

"The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America" from Oxford University Press, by David Domke and Kevin Cole, 231 pages, hardcover, c. 2008, $30

[Oxford University Press] In The God Strategy, scholars David Domke and Kevin Coe offer a timely and dynamic study of the rise of religion in American politics, examining the public messages of political leaders over the past 75 years-from the 1932 election of Franklin Roosevelt to the early stages of the 2008 presidential race. They conclude that U.S. politics today is defined by a calculated, deliberate, and partisan use of faith that is unprecedented in modern politics.

Sectarian influences and expressions of faith have always been part of American politics, the authors observe, but a profound change occurred beginning with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. What has developed since is a no-holds-barred religious politics that seeks to attract voters, identify and attack enemies, and solidify power. Domke and Coe identify a set of religious signals sent by both Republicans and Democrats in speeches, party platforms, proclamations, visits to audiences of faith, and even celebrations of Christmas. Sometimes these signals are intended for the eyes and ears of all Americans, and other times they are distinctly targeted to specific segments of the population. It's an approach that has been remarkably successful, utilized first and most extensively by the Republican Party to capture unprecedented power and then adopted by the Democratic Party, most notably by Bill Clinton in the 1990s and by a wide range of Democrats in the 2006 elections.

"For U.S. politicians today, having faith isn't enough; it must be displayed, carefully and publicly. This is a stark transformation in recent decades," write Domke and Coe. With innovative, accessible research and analytical verve, they document how this has occurred, who has done it and why, and what it means for the American experiment in democracy.

Just for fun...

2008-08-18T07:38:00.000-07:00

By the way, I did take a quick photo of the bumper sticker I mentioned in this Sunday's sermon. Enjoy!

Also, just a reminder that you are welcome to post comments. I would love to hear from you!

A real, live theologian

2008-08-16T17:53:00.000-07:00

Jürgen Moltmann is a German theologian whose book, Spirit of Life, I read several years ago making quite an impact on my understanding of the Holy Spirit. Moltmann has quite a story to tell that I promise will inspire! Click here for a video interview with Moltmann at the Episcopal Cafe website.

Leapin' Lizards!

2008-08-10T17:20:00.001-07:00

Well, actually, walking on water lizards. This photo, courtesy of Cynthia Gould, is of a Costa Rican Basilisk Lizard, aka, the Jesus Christ lizard. The lizard walks on water! Click here to see a great National Geographic video of the lizard in action.

Jesus walked on water in today's gospel lesson which sparked all kinds of conversation about how we understand and explore our Biblical tradition - what truth is, how we engage the Biblical text, and how we come to know more about ourselves as God's beloved people. Here is a wonderful story that encourages me, and I hope you too, to think beyond mere acceptance and move toward a deeper, more engaged and playful intersection with our sacred stories.

One day the German [writer Bichsel] asked a Balinese [Hindu] whether
he believed the history of Prince Rama - one of the holy books of the
Hindus - is true.
Without hesitation the Balinese answered 'Yes.'
'So you believe that the Prince Rama lived somewhere and somewhen?'
'I do not know if he lived,' he said.
'Then it is a story.'
'Yes, it is a story.'
'Then someone wrote this story - I mean: a human being wrote it?'
'Certainly some human being wrote it,' he said.
'Then some human being could also have invented it.' The German felt
that he had triumphed, and thought that he had convinced the
Indonesian.'
But the Balinese said: 'It is quite possible that somebody invented
this story. But true it is in any case.'
'Then it is the case that Prince Rama did not live on this earth.'
'What is it that you want to know?' the Balinese asked. 'Do you want
to know whether the story is true, or merely whether it
occurred?'
R.S. Sugirtharajah, Postcolonial Refigurations: An Alternative Way of Reading the Bible and Doing Theology (London: SCM Press, 2003), 90.

Can't get enough sermons?

2008-06-23T09:54:00.000-07:00

Just in case you can't get enough Sunday sermons, allow me to introduce you to the fabulous Grace Cathedral (San Francisco) website. The site has lots to explore. Grace also records and posts all their Sunday morning sermons as well as their Sunday morning Forums which bring in some amazing people to speak. Sermons and Forums are available on their website (click here) but, even better, you can subscribe to one of several podcasts via iTunes. Just put "Grace Cathedral" in the search bar and you will see the different podcasts available for subscription. It's all free and it's all very good. Enjoy!

Wisps of glory...

2008-04-06T20:32:00.000-07:00

"Everybody born comes from the creator trailing wisps of glory..." says Maya Angelou in a great interview on NPR. Angelou is an extraordinary human being and an inspiration to many. Besides authoring I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou is also a poet, playwright, dancer, singer, and much more. At the end of the interview Angelou says about being Christian, "I am relieved to have a faith that there is no place where God is not." Well said! The interview is about 12 mintues long and well worth your time. Enjoy!

Happy Easter to you all! The photo on the right of a beautiful Calla Lily was taken by blog subscriber, "Minstral," in celebration of our Easter feast. Thank you, Minstral!

In other news...It has been about 6 weeks since we have had regular postings on the blog, however, I hope to post more regular now that we are well into the Easter season. Stay tuned! And feel free to comment on the blog or send me items you would like to see posted.

What is the greatest virtue?

2008-02-21T14:00:00.001-08:00

Dr. Jarvis Streeter gave another great lecture last night on Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians. We read the whole book together, line by line, looking at Paul's theology and ethics as well as the primary themes in the letter. One thing that I found particularly noteworthy was Dr. Streeter's assertion that love is the primary Christian virtue. In 1st Thessalonians 1.3, Paul speaks of faith, hope, and love, but those of you who have been to a handful of weddings will probably also recall the following from Paul's first letter to the church in Corinth, "And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13.13) Love as the primary Christian virtue certainly does have implications as to how we practice our faith and who we are in the world. It brings up many questions for me. What does it mean to practice love? How do we bring the gift of God's love to the world?

Homework for this week is to read 2 Thessalonians and Galatians. As was the case last week, Dr. Streeter would like us to pay attention to the theology and ethics of the letter. What is Paul telling the church to think (theology)? What kind of behavior is Paul encouraging (ethics)?

And, finally, just for review, Paul's letters all have a particular structure common to the genre of letter writing in the 1st century. Below is a basic outline of the structure of Paul's letters. Hopefully it will be a useful guide to you as you read and try to understand what Paul has to say about our faith.

Basic Structure of a Pauline Letter
1. Greeting (usually brief. A sentence or two though sometimes the sentences are quite long!)
2. Thanksgiving (about a paragraph or so in length. It varies from letter to letter and 1 Thessalonians has a very long Thanksgiving!)
3. Body of the Letter
a. Theology - what they should think
b. Ethics - how they should behave.
4. Conclusion (often including housekeeping matters, hellos to individuals, and sometimes a reiteration of the main themes of the letter)

Do your homework!

2008-02-17T08:42:00.000-08:00

Homework, you say? Do I hear a groan? A gasp? Yes, we have some homework to do.

This past Wednesday, Dr. Jarvis Streeter, Professor of Religion at Cal Lutheran, began his Lenten lecture series at Epiphany on St. Paul (St. Paul is the author of much of our New Testament Letters that we hear every Sunday in the second reading right after the Psalm). Dr. Streeter is a great teacher! He is fun to listen to, relaxed, and has a way of presenting information that is engaging and interesting. On Wednesday, he gave us a lot of background information about Paul such as where he lived, where he traveled, the dates of his travels, and a bit about his writing. And, to get us ready for next week's lecture, Dr. Streeter asked us to read 1st Thessalonians, 2nd Thessalonians and Galatians. As we read, we should pay attention to tone, content, and style, as well as paying attention to differences between the letters. We can find clues in the text pointing to the likelihood that Paul is not the author of 2nd Thessalonians even though it is attributed to him!

Click here for some basic facts on St. Paul if you missed last Wednesday's lecture (or even if you didn't). Also, this website will keep you busy with its many links to all kinds of information and articles on St. Paul and his writings. My personal favorite is this website with maps of Paul's journeys and photos of the cities where he worked. Hope to see you all this coming Wednesday!

It's a dirty job...

2008-02-06T07:49:00.000-08:00

...but someone's gotta do it!

Each year on the last Sunday of the Epiphany season, we sing as many Alleluias as we can possibly stand. Once Ash Wednesday comes around, the Alleluias are buried until Easter, right there, in that little hole in the ground that our Vicar, Hank Mitchel, has just dug and is pointing to. Well done, Hank!

Ok, really, when I say buried, I mean that only metaphorically. Hank didn't really bury the Alleluia but we do retire the Alleluia in word and song in favor of a more austere and self-reflective worship experience during the season of Lent.

However, there are some churches who really do bury the Alleluia. Inscribing the word Alleluia on to paper or some other natural material, the Alleluia is placed in a box and buried in the ground to signify the beginning of the penitential season of Lent. Some churches even dig up the Alleluia as part of the Easter celebration. Click here to read more on this and various different burial practices for the Alleluias we sing. And, for more information about Lent in click here.

Another important tradition for the Lenten season is taking on a new spiritual practice. I have included in various postings different websites for prayer and study and it is my hope that you might find one of these websites helpful for your daily practice of prayer. Below is a list of some of them for your convenience.

EPPN's Lenten series, For the Beauty of the Earth
I believe you can subscribe to this series and receive reflections, information and prayers during the Lenten season. I just signed up so we will see what happens.

Pray as you go
This is a great website for people on the go, and for stationary people too!

Sacred Space
This website has daily prayers year round AND special prayers for the Lenten season.

Episcopal Life Online
Several resources from the national church. You can browse here to your heart's content.

Forward Day by Day
These are meditations based on the Daily Office readings.

Oremus
Last but not least, Oremus is a wonderful resource for prayer year round! And, like many of the sites above, you can subscribe and have the daily prayer sent to you each and every day.

Just in time for Super Tuesday...

2008-02-04T20:01:00.000-08:00

A different side of faith and politics! This time it's a profile of the democratic candidates in Super Tuesday's election. Click here to go to NPR's piece on Obama and Clinton in the Land of Lincoln. A fascinating article with plenty of links to click and explore! And, even though the Episcopal Church won't tell you who to vote for, we do encourage you to pray for the election, for the voters, and for the candidates. Below is a prayer for an election from the Book of Common Prayer (BCP). You may also click here to see all the prayers for national life in the BCP.

Almighty God, to whom we must account for all our powers and privileges: Guide the people of the United States in the election of officials and representatives; that, by faithful administration and wise laws, the rights of all may be protected and our nation be enabled to fulfill your purposes; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The end of the rainbow...

2008-01-30T12:20:00.001-08:00

I will spare you all the cheesy references to pots 'o gold and leprechauns, but I can't resist connecting our legends about the ends of rainbows with where this rainbow ends. Our church, represented by the building, is a great symbol of what we value in our lives. The Bible refers many times to God's law and God's wisdom as more valuable than gold, like in this passage from Job, "It cannot be gotten for gold, and silver cannot be weighed out as its price. It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir, in precious onyx or sapphire. Gold and glass cannot equal it, nor can it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal; the price of wisdom is above pearls." The church, the body of Christ is who we are, and we come together as a community of faith not to seek material wealth or gain, but to inherit the wealth of a life lived seeking after God's wisdom. This is where life is found, at the end of the rainbow.

I can see clearly now...

2008-01-26T09:24:00.000-08:00

After a good rain, blue skies, white clouds and the possibility of a rainbow makes me feel hopeful. Something new is on the wind. I took this picture yesterday afternoon at 4:15 p.m. What a beautiful sky after so many days of darkness, clouds and rain.

We are in an election year this year. It is on everyone's minds, of course. Something new is on the wind. One of Epiphany's newer members asked if the Episcopal Church sponsors or supports one particular candidate OR if there is a candidate that particularly embodies the values of the Episcopal Church. Two great questions! The answer to both questions is NO. The Episcopal Church does not endorse a candidate nor is there a candidate that embodies the values of the Episcopal Church. The Episcopal Church thrives on its diversity which includes political diversity as well.

However, that being said, there is plenty of religious rhetoric being tossed around in this election year and, in the interest of us all seeing clearly as Super Tuesday approaches, I thought I would send you to a couple of websites that address this issue of religion, politics, and the election. The first is The Revealer: A Daily Review of Religion and the Press. There is a great article called Holy Iowa that I referenced in a sermon not too long ago. This website is new to me but it seems worth exploring.

And, hot off the presses of Religion and Ethics Weekly is this article/video on Religion and the Presidential Primaries. If you go to the home page of Religion and Ethics Weekly there are other resources there as well.

What in the world....

2008-01-24T10:36:00.000-08:00

...is the Episcopal Church doing about the climate crisis, asked one of Epiphany's newer members. Participants in The Way of Jesus, a class for those newest to the church as well as those interested jumpstarting their faith, were asked to write down the questions they had about Epiphany, about the Episcopal Church, about religion in general, and about anything in the world that was on their mind! Over the next week or so, we will post responses to those questions, beginning with the question of what the Episcopal Church is doing about climate change.

Where to begin with the question of climate change? The Episcopal Church is responding in numerous ways to the climate crisis on local, diocesan, national and international levels. There is so much out there on the World Wide Web that shows what we are doing to make a difference, and yet there is still so much more we can still do! Below are a series of links for your exploration of the Episcopal Church's response. These are only a few. I encourage you to explore and let me know if you find anything that we should publish on the Epicenter and spread the word about. And now, on with the show...

Click here for information on what the Anglican Communion is doing in terms of environmental ministry and mission.

The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Los Angeles have both chosen the U.N. Millennium Development Goals as a focus for mission, including the goal of environmental sustainability.

The Episcopal Public Policy Network (EPPN)
This group is not limited only to environmental advocacy but spans the breadth and depth of issues we face.

EPPN's Lenten series, For the Beauty of the Earth
I believe you can subscribe to this series and receive reflections, information and prayers during the Lenten season. I just signed up so we will see what happens.

Environmental Stewardship
Also on the national level, this is a focus area of the Peace and Justice Ministries office. This site has numerous articles and resources. Lots to browse here!

Our diocese, The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, has a Minister for the Environment who wrote this article on the spiritual implications of global warming.

The LA diocese also sponsors Camp Stevens, an Episcopal Church camp that operates year round teaching children and adults about the importance of continuing to work toward environmental sustainability as an important part of the practice of our faith.

Arise! Shine!

2008-01-21T16:54:00.001-08:00

For your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. Isaiah 60.1
Here we are in the season of Epiphany and the Epicenter is back online. After a bit of a winter break, new posts are on the way! As promised in December, I want to follow up on our last class with Dr. George and give you his recommended reading list for further study and reflections. But first let me direct your attention to Dr. George's blog. The blog links to a great essay written by Dr. George on dreams. Once you are at the blog, look on the right side of your screen under "Categories" and then click on "Dream Interpretation." Enjoy!

And now for Dr. George's recommended reading...
On Dreams
Some Must Watch, While Some Must Sleep by William C. Dement
This text covers the laboratory research on sleep and dreams in a most readable way.
The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud
The classic on dreams. Dreams are in italics throughout the book and the fascinating psychoanalytic interpretations follow.

Inner Work by Robert A. Johnson
Half of this book is about interpreting your own dreams.

Memories, Dreams and Reflections by C.G. Jung
Dreams: A Way to Listen to God by Morton T. Kelsey
Kelsey shows that dreams are an integral part of the spiritual life. His book also contains many practical tips for working with one's own dreams.

Dreams and Healing by John A. Sanford
Using case studies this book shows how to arrive at a concise statement of a dream's message, and contains an excellent section on working with one's own dreams.

For couples

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work : A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert by John M. Gottman and Nan Silver

The Relationship Cure: A 5 Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendships by John M. Gottman

Why Marriages Succeed or Fail: and How You Can Make Yours Last by John M. Gottman
Three of Gottman’s popularly-written descriptions of his research on couples in which couples were video-taped from 9am to 9pm on weekends. The results enabled Gottman to predict which couples will probably divorce based on their interaction patterns. Shows how marriages fail and what can help them succeed. Any of his books is good.

How Can I Get Through to You: Reconnecting Men and Women by Terrence Real
Filled with actual case studies from his couples counseling. (Real is also the author of I Don't Want to Talk About It, on men’s depression). He says because of men’s socialization not to deal with feelings, women hold the key to helping men open up, change and get what they need from their relationship and their life. Respects both male and female viewpoints.

The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller
Explains the devastating results of narcissistic parenting: selfish parents create selfish children. But selfishness may come out in caretaking of others with expectations that they will then take care of you. Lots of good examples and case studies by this psychoanalyst. Shows how important it is for each member of the couple to understand their own wounding childhood experiences and how these play into their relationship.

Between People by John A. Sanford
A concisely written little book on couples’ communication using Jungian ideas and vivid examples from Sanford’s counseling of couples and individuals.

Please Understand Me by David Kiersey
Gain self-understanding and acceptance of your mate’s differences from you through Jung’s psychological typology. The typology test is included in the book, or you can take it free at www.humanmetrics.com.

Gifts Differing by Isabel Briggs-Meyers
Title taken from St. Paul (Romans 12:6). The classic and readable book on Jung’s theory of psychological type by the originator of a Jungian typology test, the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator. Gives you a basic understanding of the system of categorizing people’s personality preferences (thinking-feeling, sensing-intuition), plus applications to relationships, work life, etc.

You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation by Deborah Tannen
Analyzes men’s and women’s diverse conversational styles to understand the why they disagree so much in daily life. (Probably a precursor to John Gray’s Mars and Venus.)

Adult Attachment by Judith A. Feeney and Patricia Noller

Marriage: Dead or Alive by Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig

Fair Fighting website
Because we all need help fighting fairly!

Incarnational blessings! (or Merry Christmas!)

2007-12-25T08:19:00.000-08:00

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of god.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.

John 1.1-14

Annunciation

2007-12-21T23:47:00.001-08:00

This Advent reflection is offered by Hank.
The eighth lesson from our Advent Festival of Lessons and Carols comes from the gospel of Luke (Luke 1:26-35, 38) in which the Angel of the Lord appears to Mary to announce that she is pregnant with a child who she will name Jesus. This baby will be called Son of the Most High and will inherit the throne of his ancestor David. It is one of the most beautiful passages in all the Bible and also one of the most curious. In Matthew's gospel, the angel appears not to Mary, but to Joseph, assuring him that even though his wife-to-be, Mary, is already with child he is not to divorce her. Again, isn't it fun to recognize how different Biblical writers describe essentially the same event in such different ways? The beautiful thing about Luke's story is in Mary's response. She doesn't question or second guess the Lord (as Joseph does in Matthew). Rather, she simply responds, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your world." O that we could all be so faithful in our own response to God.
(stained glass from Chartres Cathedral in France and painting, The Annunciation, by Fra Angelico)

Tasty morsels

2007-12-20T15:15:00.000-08:00

Every day, when I take my dog for a walk, I carry a stick and I keep watch for coyotes and other critters that might find my dog a tasty meal on a hungry, cold evening. We have had several encounters with coyotes and, in my neighborhood, a handful of pets have been lost to the coyotes who roam our arroyo looking for something to fill their empty bellies. No coyote has ever really threatened us, but I am still cautious.

In the seventh lesson from our Advent Festival of Lessons and Carols, taken from Isaiah 65.17-25, we hear of a new heaven and new earth where all of creation lives peaceably, including polar bears and huskies in the photo to the right, as well as coyotes and domestic pets in the hills of Oak Park. In this new creation, there will be no more crying or suffering, people will live long lives and will find fulfillment and joy in their work. Wolves, lambs and lions will eat together (vegetarian, of course) and the serpent, symbolic of our sin in this case, will no longer have power. This peaceable kingdom, the new heaven and new earth Isaiah proclaims, is symbolic for the peace in our hearts when we know and experience Emmanuel, the God who is with us.

On Micah

2007-12-19T13:55:00.000-08:00

This reflection is offered by Hank
The sixth lesson we shared at our Advent Festival of Lessons and Carols came from the writings of prophet Micah (Micah 5:2-4) promising that the Lord of Israel and of Peace shall be born, like the great King David, in the town of Bethlehem of Judea. It is in fulfillment of this important prophecy that in both Matthew's and Luke's gospel accounts, Jesus is born in Bethlehem. It is interesting to note that there are many differences between Luke and Matthew, however. For instance, in Matthew, Jesus' family already lives in Bethlehem and is forced to leave after Jesus is born, fleeing to Egypt to avoid Herod's wrath. In Luke, however, the family lives in Nazareth of Galilee. They travel to Bethlehem in order to comply with the requirements of a government census. After Jesus is born, the family travels to Jerusalem. (click here for a great map of ancient Israel!) Isn't it fun to notice how different Biblical writers describe the same events in such different ways?

promises, promises...

2007-12-19T13:37:00.001-08:00

This reflection is offered by Hank
Our fifth lesson in Advent Lessons and Carols was taken from the Apocryphal Book of Baruch (Baruch 4:36-5:9). The Apocrypha refers to those books of our Old Testament canon which are included in the most ancient Greek Bible (the Septuagint was used by, among others, St. Paul) but which the Hebrew canon of Holy Scripture does not include. The books of the Apocrypha are included in some Bibles today, and not in others. In Roman Catholic Bibles, the books are interspersed throughout the Old Testament. In the Bible we use in the Episcopal Church, they are included in a special section between the Old and New Testament, while in many Protestant Bibles, the books of the Apocrypha do not appear at all.

The writings of Baruch come from about 100 years before Jesus' birth, but are set and describe the time during the Hebrew people's Babylonian Exile six centuries earlier. In the passage we read for Lessons and Carols, the people are seen rejoicing as they return in glory to their Promised Land. An unfulfilled prophecy, to be sure, but when taken metaphorically and not literally, the prophecy offers much today as we too prepare for the time when God's promise of fulfillment will be made real through the ministry we all share in the risen Christ. In Baruch, we are assured of God's everlasting care for us and all God's people.

Landscapes

2007-12-19T12:47:00.000-08:00

I remember a very rainy, So Cal winter a few years back. There was enough rain, in fact, for the desert to bloom. A desert that blooms was a new concept to me and so I drove out to Joshua Tree in the high desert and Anza Borrego further south and saw with my very own eyes how stunning the desert it is when it flowers. The landscape I had once experienced as barren and dry was bursting with life!

In So Cal, we know what it is like to experience drought, heat, and fires. Likewise, we know how life-giving a good rain is in our desert landscape. In the fourth lesson from Advent Lessons and Carols, the prophet Isaiah uses images of the desert in bloom and streams flowing through the parched desert lands as metaphors for God's salvation. Through Isaiah's proclamation, God promises that our hearts will be refreshed and life brought to the thirsty landscapes of our souls.

An apple a day...

2007-12-17T22:54:00.000-08:00

In the third lesson from Lessons and Carols, the prophet Jeremiah proclaims God's message of forgiveness for Israel and Judah through the new covenant established between God and God's people. God will write the law upon our hearts so that our very being will becoming the embodiment of God's promise!

The concept of a covenant between God and God's people is central in the Hebrew Bible as well as the Christian scriptures. Covenant necessarily implies a relationship between God and humanity. It is the promise of God to love and care for us and the promise of humanity to love and obey God. The God who covenants with us is not a God that is unaffected by our suffering but rather it is a God that is in intimate relationship with all of humankind.

In Lessons and Carols, each lesson is accompanied by a musical reflection. Epiphany Schola, offered Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, a poem set to music as the reflection on Jeremiah's proclamation. In this poem, the mystical apple tree became another image for the covenant of God with God's people. The apple has quite a symbolic history in the Christian tradition, most notably as the forbidden fruit in the garden that caused our fall. Yet, in the same garden is also the tree of life. Christ as our apple tree, our tree of life, is the other option for us in the ancient and ancestral garden symbolizing the new covenant of Jeremiah's proclamation - a promise of transformation from sin and suffering into wholeness for all of God's people and all of creation.

Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green:
The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green:
the trees of nature fruitless be
Compared with Christ the apple tree.

quotables

2007-12-13T17:40:00.000-08:00

In the past week or so, I have had three quotes come across my desk which I share with you below. For me, these quotes have been a source of comfort as well as thought provoking. I hope they will be the same for you!

Bidden or unbidden, God is present.
Carl Jung from Desiderius Erasmus

When there is great doubt, there will be great awakening; small doubt, small awakening; no doubt, no awakening.
Zen saying

Every human thought, and every human action, is based in either love or fear. There is no other human motivation.
from Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch

Little League dilemmas

2007-12-12T21:41:00.000-08:00

You are the manager of a Little League team that has been selected to go to the Little League World Series. There are 25 players on your team, but only 15 are allowed to go the World Series according to Little League rules. What criteria do you use to determine which 10 players won't go with their teammates to play in the World Series?

In his second lecture, Dr. George gave us this problem work out in groups based on our personality type. Using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (see post "Dr. George" from December 10), Dr. George divided us into two groups: Thinking (T) and Feeling (F). He explained that the T and the F are the parts of our personality we use to make decisions. The answers each group came up with were exactly what Dr. George predicted. The T's made their decision based on logic, and the F's made their decision based on care for the feelings of each player. Fascinating!

Carl Jung's theory of personality, which is what this group exercise was designed to teach us a little bit about, is actually quite complex. Dr. George spoke of Jung's close relationship with Freud, the end of their relationship, and Jung's departure from Freud's theories and the development of his own theories, namely, what Jung calls the Collective Unconscious. The Collective Unconscious is itself quite complex. Dr. George described it as the thing that connects us to all other people across time and space. Sounds to me a bit like what we call "the communion of saints." (click here to learn more about Jung's theories)

Regarding how God fits into all of this, Dr. George taught us about Jung's theory of the Self: the truest, most centered place in our personality, free of defense mechanisms, persona (the part of ourselves we allow the world to see), the ego, etc. He said the Self is what lives on eternally. It is the part of us that is not constructed or mutable but rather the part of us that is the Imago Dei, the image of God.

I am reminded of the Gospel lesson from this past Sunday, the second Sunday of Advent. We read Matthew 3.1-12, but particularly verse 12 where John the Baptist is quoted as saying, "His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." The chaff is an important part of the wheat. As the wheat grows and ripens the chaff protects it, but there comes a time when the wheat matures and no longer needs the protection the chaff can offer. I think of the chaff as the parts of our personality that are constructed, mutable, and help us get along in the world. But this isn't our true self, our Imago Dei. The wheat as the Imago Dei, the Self. It is the part of us that is fruitful and maturing. It is what God has created and called good in each of us and it is the part of us that endures!

COMING SOON: Dr. George's suggested reading list for further study. Stay tuned!

Be prepared...

2007-12-11T19:04:00.000-08:00

This reflection, by our Vicar Hank Mitchel, is the second installment in our series of Advent reflections based on the readings from Lessons and Carols.

The second lesson in our Advent Festival of Lessons and Carols came from Isaiah 40:1-11 where the prophet cries, "Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God." The passage includes the words, "A voice cries out: 'In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.'" During the season of Advent, the church always reads of John the Baptist, the one who called all who would listen to prepare for the coming of God. In Matthew's Gospel, John is identified as the one about whom Isaiah spoke, quoting the words exactly, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." It is difficult to miss Advent's greatest theme: Prepare for the coming of God!

Icon of John the Baptist from www.coptic.net

Origins

2007-12-10T11:49:00.000-08:00

This year at Epiphany, the season of Advent and the new church year began with the traditional service of Lessons and Carols at 5 p.m. on December 2. We heard 9 lessons of our salvation history from the fall of humankind, the promise of a savior, and the birth of Christ. Offered as reflections upon the lessons, Epiphany's Parish, Chorister, and Schola choirs sang anthems and hymns as well as leading the congregational caroling.

The first lesson, Genesis 3.1-15, tells the story of Adam and Eve, and the fall of humankind. Traditionally, this story from Genesis has been interpreted as the origin of original sin, a doctrine of the church that teaches the sinfulness of all people from birth and our need of redemption(see also Psalm 51.5). However, this interpretation of Genesis is unique to Christians among the three Abrahamic faiths that also include this story in their holy scriptures. The doctrine was first conceived by St. Augustine and his belief that unbaptized infants who die are hellbound, because, for Augustine, humanity without God's grace has no other option than sin.

As with any doctrine of the church, original sin has many problems. It has helped me to remember the passage from Genesis, upon which the doctrine of original sin is based, is a creation myth and not a blow by blow account of what the first man and woman were up to. A myth is not a terrible thing. Myths illustrate much deeper truths than a simple news story on Eve's disobedience ever could. This myth tells us about desire, innocence, knowledge, temptation, love, pain, and despair and the place of God in all of those very human experiences. The richness of its multiple layers of meaning may be explored with our God-given imaginations preventing the limitation of its interpretation only to the story of our original sin. This limitation, in fact, would seem a sin itself.

Dr. George

2007-12-10T09:47:00.000-08:00

Our Advent series: The Conscious Life, a series of lectures by Dr. George Lough is off to a great start! In the first lecture on Wednesday, December 5, Dr. George began us thinking in new ways about our dreams, our interior life, and our true self vs. the false self we construct to make our way in the world. Dr. George teaches with humor and from his own life experience and so the lectures are fun and connections easily made between his stories and our own experiences. We had a lively discussion with lots of laughter, and, perhaps the best of all, was the time spent in conversation with other Epiphany church members.

Dr. George also recommended, for those interested, a personality test based on Jungian typology. Click here for a free online test or here for a test a minimal cost. Also, you can find your own online test by googling "kiersey temperament sorter" or myers-briggs type indicator". Good luck! (Speaking of websites, click here for Dr. George's website or click here for Dr. George's blog.)

Hope you can join us this coming Wednesday, December 12. See upcoming events to the right for details.

Technical difficulties?

2007-12-10T00:35:00.000-08:00

Have you experienced technical difficulties when attempting to post comments? You are not alone. Several people had the same issue when trying to post comments, but I believe the problem is solved so posting should be as easy as the click of a mouse! Please do let me know if you continue to experience difficulties. Thanks!

PB KJS on the run...

2007-12-08T14:42:00.000-08:00

The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katherine Jefferts Schori, was interviewed by Runner's World magazine. A great Q & A type article and pleasantly and completely non-controversial! Click here to read the article.

ABC's

2007-12-05T21:46:00.001-08:00

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, aka the ABC, recently gave an interview with a Muslim magazine that has caused a bit of a stir. The Times Online referred to the content of the interview as "wide-ranging" though the actual reporting of the interview was primarily focused on the ABC's criticism of the U.S. as "the worst imperialist." For the full text of the article, click here. The Times Online article has a link that is supposed to go directly to the text of the full interview with the ABC, but as of now, I have not been able to get to anything other than a pdf document that is the cover of the magazine. Let me know if you have any better luck!

There are many different opinions and ideas about the veracity of such a claim, but politics aside, one does wonder how these statements will help heal the tensions within the Anglican communion and the inter-religious struggles that divide us. Trite as it is, I can't help wondering WWJD (what would Jesus do?). Would Jesus name America as the worst imperialist? Would Jesus consider the ABC's comments prophetic truth-telling? I certainly have no answers - I have no idea how one determines who the worst imperialist is. Our Vicar, Hank Mitchel, does have some thoughts to share and we welcome your comments as well.

Here is what Hank writes: Like many, I found the Archbishop’s comments disturbing and even a bit insulting. He is a highly intelligent man who finds himself in the middle of a schismatic crisis within the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion. His comments do nothing to bridge the gaps that exist and, in fact, increase the divide between many in our Communion. Regardless of where one stands on the subject of the Iraq war, one would be hard pressed to compare that effort with what the British did in India. In fact, there is no comparison and nothing is gained in suggesting there is. It was a completely different time in history. The Archbishop would do well not to insult his American brothers and sisters, especially at this time when he probably needs all the friends he can get.

Source of Light

2007-12-01T21:15:00.001-08:00

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

This is the collect (the prayer that "collects" the intentions of the people) for the First Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the church year. Advent is rich with so many levels of meaning. Remembering the birth of Jesus, this is a season of anticipation, keeping watch for the justice of God to come to its fulfillment, bringing light to a world living in darkness. We prepare for the glory of God to be born in all of us again this Christmastide.

The icon, depicting the annunciation from Luke 1.26-38, is housed at the St. Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai. It came to the United States as part of the Getty Museum's show Holy Image/Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai. Click here for wonderful history of St. Catherine's, one of the oldest operational monasteries in the world.

The Epicenter will offer reflections on this most holy season in the church year. Let us know what you think! Many blessings as you prepare in anticipation of God's glory dwelling within you!
(Icon from the collection of St. Catherine's Monastery at Mt. Sinai)

Guess what?!

2007-11-28T20:17:00.000-08:00

QUESTION: What does an Alaskan fisherman, a retired So Cal attorney, a truck driver, and yours truly have in common?

ANSWER: The study of Philosophy.

We all have subcribed to various podcasts on iTunes U (click here for an LA Times article). I am not one for "product placement" but this is too great to pass up. iTunes U is a link on iTunes that connects you to hundreds of different university lectures downloadable to your computer and/or MP3 player for free!

Life-long learning is great, and life-long learning for free is even better. But, most importantly, for those seeking God, community, and a life of meaning, iTunes U offers lectures, panel discussions, and sermons from several different seminaries. For example, I listened to a great lecture on liturgy and contemporary liturgical language called "The Lion, the Kiwi, and the Sacred Cow" found on the Yale link on iTunes U.

This is a great resource for the spiritual practice of study - one of the Four Holy Habits adopted by the Episcopal Church's General Convention. Hope you can check it out sometime!

Word to the wise

2007-11-14T18:17:00.001-08:00

This icon, named The Hospitality of Abraham and painted by Andrei Rublev (1360-1430), is a depiction of the three angels who come to visit Abraham in Mamre in Genesis 18. Representing a story shared by Jews, Christians and Muslims, for many this icon symbolizes a common dream of hospitality and love for one another across the Abrahamic faith traditions in the name of our God.

Take a look at A Common Word, a Muslim site aimed at increasing understanding of Islam, challenging misconceptions (even those of their own more fundamentalist brothers and sisters), and fostering reconciliation and peace between Muslims, Christians and Jews. Inspired by an open letter, signed by 38 Islamic authorities and scholars, to Pope Benedict XVI in response to his Regensburg address of September 13^th 2006 (quite controversial!). It is a great resource for understanding an Islamic counterpart to our own progressive and inclusive Christianity. Their is a great emphasis placed on love of God and love of neighbor laid out point by point. Check it out! I am sure it will give you hope as it did me!

Affirmative!

2007-11-14T09:18:00.000-08:00

Controversy overfloweth in Christian circles around issues of inclusivity and exclusivity. Is Christianity the only way to God? Many Christians believe yes, there is only one way. But there are many voices who proclaim a different vision of the God's perfect love for all of creation which includes more than a simple passing glance at a possibility that other faiths might also be paths to God. The Phoenix Affirmations (for the full version click here) are a series of statements that "articulate what it means to live as a Christian seeking to embody Jesus’ great commandments to love God with heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself." CrossWalkAmerica is an organization founded to live and act out of these principles. For example, affirmation 1 states, "Affirmation 1: Walking fully in the path of Jesus, without denying the legitimacy of other paths God may provide humanity; Matthew 11:28-29; John 8:12; John 10:16; Mark 9:40

I hope you will take some time to check out the rest of the affirmations! Thank you, CrossWalkAmerica!

(photo courtesy of wikimedia)

Restoring friendship and harmony

2007-11-13T16:54:00.001-08:00

Reconcile: to restore to friendship or harmony.

Below is an editorial written for our local paper, The Ventura County Star, by our Vicar, Hank Mitchel. The responses to this letter were many and varied. Some who commented were angered by Hank's move toward restoration of friendship or harmony with others from different faiths. Others who commented found much hope in Hank's words, including those from other faiths who have been persecuted by Christians in the name of God. (Special thanks to artist and dear friend, Lisa Dietrich, for the two images shown in this post, Three Person'd God and Bouquet. For more information on Lisa's work, please contact me.)

And now, Hank's editorial:

I heard a humorous little story the other day about the newcomer to heaven who, while being introduced and escorted around on his first evening, noticed there were various doors labeled, Buddhist, Muslim, Jew, Christian, and the like – one door for each of the various religious bodies in the world. The newcomer asked what these doors meant and was told that behind each are the folks from that branch of the human family. “They enter through their own door and then all get together on the other side,” said the tour guide. When they got to the door labeled Christian, however, the host said, “Hush,” imploring the newcomer to be quiet. “But why?” asked the newcomer, “Everyone seems to be having a very good time.” Because the Christians think they’re the only ones here and we don’t really want to dissuade them of that thinking.

Unfortunately, the story, though humorous, points up a problem with much of religious practice today. So many people in the world think that their religion is the only way and that all other ways are either wrong or evil. This kind of “I am right, faithful and good while you are bad, unfaithful and wrong” kind of thinking leads to all sorts of misunderstandings, conflicts and even war. It always has.

I am a Christian pastor and as such, I have always believed it was my responsibility not to judge others, but to seek to welcome and love others, in the name of my God. And I am not alone. Countless other Christians as well as people of other faith traditions feel the same way. My faith teaches that the job of all Christians is to live faithfully, following the path offered us by Jesus, a path that is found where ever love of God and love of neighbor are recognized and practiced. It is not now, and nor has it ever been, the Christian’s job to condemn or to deny the legitimacy of the other paths our God might have provided to the people of the world. In fact, I believe we step away from the path of Jesus whenever we claim that Christianity is the only way. It may be the only way for me and millions of others, but I am convinced that it is not the only way my God has chosen to reveal himself to the world.

I write this short editorial as a member of the Conejo Valley Interfaith Association. This group of clergy and representatives of various faith traditions meets monthly for lunch hosted by one of the members, and for almost two decades now, has welcomed religious leaders and teachers of all backgrounds and beliefs. We do not gather to convert each other, only to share with each other. We don’t try to convince each other who is right or wrong. We simply gather to share a meal and some lively conversation, to plan our annual Thanksgiving-Eve Interfaith Worship Service (to which the public is invited), as we listen to and respect each other as fellow travelers, and leaders, on God’s path. To my way of thinking, this association provides a healthy approach to both religious dialogue and to community understanding. As a Christian, I believe Jesus calls me to welcome and to faithfully participate with others, even those who think differently than I, in Christ’s Name.

Anger and Forgiveness

2007-11-10T17:55:00.000-08:00

Why Are We So Angry is an article from UTNE that I came across today. The article doesn't seem to have many answers, but it does provide a good deal of food for thought.

And then I came across a website for The Forgiveness Project. Now there is something counter-cultural! If you click on the Stories link you will read story after story after story of people who have somehow, some way, figured out how to forgive those that have caused them great harm, pain, and grief. There is nothing Pollyanna about this site. All the messy stuff of forgiveness is included in the story telling. These are stories of people striving for reconciliation and making the journey with faith and courage. Perhaps we can learn something from these wise ones?

Resource list

2007-11-10T17:23:00.000-08:00

Below is a partial list of an annotated bibliography that was handed out to our gathering last Wednesday evening. Enjoy!

Christmastide: Prayers for Advent through Epiphany from the Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle
This is one in a whole series of prayer books for individuals by Phyllis Tickle. She has been an inspiration to many of the laity and clergy in our diocese after her visit with us last December. This series of books simplifies the daily office in such a way that makes possible praying the hours with ease while maintaining the integrity of its prayers. I cannot recommend these books highly enough!

Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster
A tidy and helpful contemporary approach to centuries old spiritual disciplines.

Open Mind Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel by Thomas Keating
This is a great primer in Centering prayer. Keating is Roman Catholic and so his writing is informed by his experience. In other words, you may notice some slight theological differences. Anything by Keating is a worthy read.

New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton
In my humble opinion, one does not get much better than this text or Thomas Merton generally speaking. This book is digestable – short essays on the spiritual life. An inspiring read!

Be Still and Get Going: A Jewish Meditation Practice for Real Life by Alan Lew
For those wanting to venture into other Abrahamic traditions, this is a great start. Rabbi Lew writes beautifully and incorporates the Hebrew scriptures with scholarly and spiritually deep exegesis as well as practical applications in a very user-friendly way. Solid writing, solid theology, and solid application. This is one of my favorite books of all time!

Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting by Marva J. Dawn
I found this book very helpful in structuring a Sabbath practice for myself. Dawn is practical, down-to-earth, and realistic while still extolling the great gifts Sabbath practice gives us.

Spiritual but not religious?

2007-11-09T08:41:00.001-08:00

For so many years the spirituality part (prayer, meditation, study) of the Christian faith has been relegated to a few, like the monastics, and the religion part (dogma and doctrine, church buildings and church polity) while available to all has been devoid of the richness that a life of faith can offer. In the past 30 or so years, seekers have discovered a rich tradition of prayer that can be incorporated into a regular spiritual practice. This tradition of prayer moves beyond vocal prayers of petition and intercession (such as, "Dear God, please make my sister well," etc.) and includes divine reading of scripture, Christian meditation, contemplation, etc. The depths to plumb are endless and the growth for the practitioner is marked.

This past week at Epiphany, we began a two-session class that examines different types of spiritual practices that have long been part of our faith tradition. Below is a bit about of what we discussed in our first session.

In theology there are two different "ways" of speaking about God. Via Positiva, or the Positive Way, speaks about God by naming who God is. For example, a favorite song of mine is "God is a girl." That song title is Via Positiva. Our prayers that we used on Sunday are also Via Positiva. We always name God as something - almighty, everliving, holy, gracious, etc.

The flip side of Via Positiva is Via Negativa or the Negative Way. Before I say more, let me clarify that Positive and Negative here aren't qualitative judgments. Think more of these concepts as artistic ideas. Let's say we look at a painting of two birds in flight. The image of the birds is positive space - it is something. The space between the birds that lets us see the birds in the first place, is negative space. It is absence. If there were no negative space in art it would be impossible to see the objects that are painted. The same is true of words on a page. Each letter that I type has its own blank space within it and around it that make it possible for you to read what I write. This is negative space.

The same idea is true for what we say about God. We may say, on the one hand, that God is eternal, but we may at other times say that God is unknowable. This is Via Negativa - to talk about what God is not.

The two "Ways" can be understood in terms of spiritual practice as well. Vocal prayer, chanting, singing, corporate worship, and other individual disciplines like praying with icons, the rosary, praying the daily office aka the divine hours (daily prayer at a set of fixed times each day) are all practices of Via Positiva. In Via Positiva we offer our praise to God, our concerns, and hopes, and whatever else we want to bring before God.

Silence, contemplation, centering prayer, meditation, and even the pauses in between prayers and readings in our Sunday liturgy can be understood as Via Negativa. Or, more simply put, rather than our talking to God, Via Negativa slows downs and quiets in order that God might speak with us and that we might just BE with God.

Next week the focus of our class will be experiencing these different ways in practice and not just in theory. And, in the coming days, we will post more on specific types of practices, as well as web and written resources coming soon. Stay tuned!