De-Cluttering
Mystic Mondays August 8, 2016De-cluttering is my theme this week. In fact, de-cluttering has been a theme of mine for nearly a decade now. I suppose it started after my divorce almost exactly ten years ago now. I can look back and see that it has come in stages—first, a few boxes related to my old life, then a few more, and finally, a complete purge of anything that I didn't want to drag with me into my new life and evolving identity.
But the the big moment of de-cluttering came three years ago when I watched a St. Vincent’s moving truck drive away with ninety percent of my possessions. I spent the next year housesitting, saving enough money to travel to Italy, Greece and Turkey as I studied and wrote about the shift taking place from institutional religion to our ancient tradition of religious mysticism. I had images of returning from Europe, living out of an RV, and existing on half the income of what I had become used. I felt a new calling—to introduce our communities to this emerging new world and to give permission to let go of the baggage of an old world.Things didn’t go exactly as planned and after giving ninety percent of my possessions away I have re-accumulated about a quarter of what I had parted with. But the exercise has paid great dividends. Living without a lifetime of household possessions taught me the difference between what I really needed and what was just clutter taking up space in my house, my life, and my soul. I have re-accumulated, but each item has had to pass the test, “Will this lead me closer to my soul’s desires or become a barrier to my soul’s desires?”I write this today after having had an experience these past two weeks that tells me that de-cluttering is a powerful tool not only in one’s life, but in our organizations, our worshipping communities, and probably even in our economic and political systems.Two weeks ago the church where I am currently a pastor decided to sponsor a new group and activity. We reside in a region of the country where many people express that they find God and/or experience the sacred in nature. It’s easy to do here. There are three rivers within biking distance that support salmon, steelhead and river rafters all carving their way through a rugged set of mountains that separate central Oregon from the coast.
But the church did something rather clever. They removed the barrier and clutter of church walls, membership, pledges, and even the dastardly perceptions that sometimes come with church-sponsored programs. They simply advertised that this group, Earth Adventurers, is for anyone who wants to gather as part of a community of people dedicated to enjoying and healing the Earth.Bam! Two weeks later 75 people have signed up and 20 people have come together for two separate activities.I am convinced that the sudden interest wasn’t that it was just a really good idea. I am convinced that the initial success of it was due to the small team’s ability to craft a description that spoke to our soul’s basic needs without all the trappings and clutter that come with the institutional church. It was the team’s ability to shed ninety percent of the church’s belongings in order to offer something that met the soul’s purest desires—connection, beauty, healing and a window into the Sacred.At both gatherings I was stunned at how easily we talked and shared. At the second gathering a spontaneous magic happened as we all ended up sharing our faith stories, our spiritual journeys. We had never met before, yet the simple structure of meeting without any other agenda than to connect opened us up in ways that I find often takes weeks, months and years to get within the structure of the church. Vulnerability happens in the church too, but we first must scale the walls of structure, overcome perceived expectations, and navigate through anticipated pious judgments. Earth Adventurers kept it soulfully simple.
I am convinced that this experience was no different than my experience of getting rid of all the clutter, possessions and distractions of my personal life so that I could dedicate my time and energy to my soul’s deepest desires. It used to be that I would say that I would take guitar lessons after I swept the floors, mowed the lawn, had enough money, on and on and on. Now, without a miniature mansion to take care of (read as a 3-bedroom home), I discovered the time and money to take guitar—it was right there under the pile of my life clutter.I think the early magic of the Earth Adventurers has come as the result of creating a simple lean-to rather than a mansion for a place for people to connect, explore, share, and experience. I find it interesting that our churches would probably auction off their pictures of Jesus if it meant 20 new people would show up after one creative, open appeal to the community. Yet a simple, no frills invitation to connect with no agenda except to enjoy the sacredness of nature and each other suddenly hit a social and spiritual nerve. We often ask in the church, “How do we get people into our building?” I wonder if it is the building that is getting in the way of helping people connect with the Sacred.Possessions are not inherently good or bad, I believe. The question is not how many possessions we have, but whether our possessions lead us to our soul’s desires or are the clutter that keeping us from our soul’s desires.Only you know that answer.
Mysticism and Dirty Politics
Mystic Mondays August 1, 2016Fourteen weeks ago I committed to this Mystic Monday blog. I was convinced after the 40-day Lenten series "Between Two Worlds" that our future is actually a return to the past--that is, we are seeing the re-emergence of religious mysticism in our culture and, to some extent, in our churches and worshiping communities.
It is an uneven series to me. Less like following a paint-by-the-numbers picture and more like putting a 1,000 piece puzzle together--lots of fits and starts and trial and error. But the most uneven portion of this has been what felt like leaving my mystic theme in order to comment on current and political events. Out of the fourteen posts so far (yes, I did count them) three times I just couldn't help myself. Twice I felt compelled to speak to the bizarre Trump phenomenon and once to the mass shootings that have become as much a part of our American social psyche as baseball and apple pie.A voice inside was nagging me, "C'mon Brian, be a little more disciplined. Stick to mysticism on Mondays and save your political/social commentary for one of the other six days of the week." But a deeper voice, maybe even the voice of wisdom, trusted the need to write those posts as part of my exploration into the re-emerging world of mysticism.I knew a few days ago I was going to write on this subject. I knew that my discomfort with mixing politics and mysticism coupled with my decision to write those three posts anyway was rich fodder. The nagging discomfort revealed that despite a number of years of exploring this growing trend I was still subject to a shallow and false dualism: that is, mysticism is the art of seeing beauty in all things and politics is the reality of dealing with the dirt of life.Wrong!Once I named my discomfort with writing political and social commentary in my Mystic Monday blog I saw how a vestige of that false dualism was still residing in my body like a highly resistant virus. Mysticism is about experiencing life so intimately and trustworthily that one sees reality for what it is. The most succinct definition of mysticism is simply "the act of having direct experience with God or the Sacred."It was no wonder that I felt compelled on a handful of weeks to speak to our political and social environment. On those weeks I felt like Obi-wan Kenobi in Star Wars when he said, "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced." On those weeks I felt a great tremor in my soul. As I sat down to write on Sunday evenings my head told me write about mysticism, but my soul said, "Speak your pain. Speak your grief. Speak your anger."In this time of emerging spiritualities it is hard to trust what is valid and what is just fluff. I have a good friend who once spoke to this when she said, "I don't trust any spirituality that doesn't take seriously the reality of evil." I have used her line many times when I have surveyed some new spiritual teaching. If it doesn't pass the Deborah test, as I would say, then it probably isn't valid. Many New Age spiritualities have countered the Church's over-reliance on sin and shame. But many of them also see only light and beauty and sugar and spice and everything nice. In other words they threw the baby out with the bath water without a hint of guilt!
True religious mysticism isn't just about seeing goodness in everyone and everything you meet. True religious mysticism is about seeing things for what they are. Water both sustains life and destroys life. Fire can save a freezing man and kill too-slow-to-run man. War can be both sublimely beautiful and viscerally ugly.True religious mysticism doesn't place a value system on human experiences; it only seeks to live deeply into the experience at hand. "To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven; a time to be born and a time to die..." writes the Ecclesiastical poet. Mystics don't value one experience over the other, but only try to honor the Source and the reality of the experience right before us.I know this, yet a part of me still wanted to split the world into the positive and the negative. Mondays would be reserved for heavenly mystical thoughts (positive) and political, dirty realities (negative) could be blogged about any other day of the week (except maybe Sunday when my thoughts would turn pure again!)But I feel my false dualism eroding away. Mysticism doesn't look down on Trump. Mysticism just seeks to see him for what he is--a fallen child of God in need of a big divine hug (somewhere far, far away from a microphone and any red buttons).This has been a good blog post for me. I am not sure exactly how it will manifest itself, but I can feel that I won't allow that subtle need to apologize to nag at me anymore for writing political, social, cultural commentary again. My only test will be, "What reality does my soul see? What psalm of praise or lament does my soul need to express?"Mysticism isn't just about seeing the beauty in all things. Mysticism is also about calling Ugly ugly. And learning to love both equally.
Chips Off the Divine Block
Mystic Mondays July 25, 2016It was twenty years ago now that this event took place. It happened so quickly and of such small consequence that it evaporated almost as quickly as it appeared. I was attending an afternoon lecture at a presbytery meeting in California led by a rather popular and sometimes controversial professor in the Bay Area. His topic was on Christology which is just a fancy word for the study of the essential nature of Jesus. Was he human or divine? Half human, half divine? Fully human, fully divine?
Somewhere in there the professor was toying with the eyebrow-raising concept of a person making themselves equal with God. He wanted to impress on his eager listeners how shocking and heretical it would have been for Jesus to put himself on the same plane as God. You know the God I am talking about--that being who created all that is, the author of Life, the beginning and end. Indeed, Jesus was making a heady claim!Without thinking I immediately shot my hand up and blurted out, "Well, that depends on whether a person is thinking in vertical terms or horizontal terms." I can be kind of a nerd at times. The professor paused for moment, looked my way and then gave a little wink and smile that clearly told me, "Hang on, Brian. Don't spoil this for me. I need to walk the rest of the group through this."I don't know where those words came from that day except that it was exceedingly clear to me that making oneself equal with God was only a problem if you thought of all Creation as a sort of pyramid--algae and mosquitoes somewhere close to the bottom, human beings on a rung somewhere above carp but below Trump (who has a very good brain), and God residing at the very top. But what if God wasn't at the top of a spiritual hierarchy, but rather was the DNA strand, the glue, the red ooze that binds all creation together?The professor ended his lecture saying, "What it comes down to is that we are all chips off the old divine block." He was making his point and mine as well--that God is not somehow vertically above creation, but the very DNA of creation. He was saying that God is in us and we are in God. "Like father, like son," was his point except that he was referring not only to Jesus, but to all the sons and daughters of God.
I have been practicing yoga for about eight years now and the customary ritual at the end of every group class is to fold our hands, bow toward the teacher and say, "Namaste." I have been surprised at how much this word has permeated our every day conversations. While I hear God Bless You ten times as much as I hear Namaste, it is not unusual for a congregant to occasionally whisper Namaste following a particularly meaningful sermon. I'll occasionally hear it in a conversations around me, especially in stores that sell organic, natural food.But I have really come to appreciate the greeting of Namaste. It fits my whole thesis that equality with God is not only NOT a heresy, but part of understanding of our essential nature. Namaste is used as a casual greeting in Hindu countries, but there is nothing casual about its meaning. The most spiritual translation is "The divine (or life force) in me recognizes the divine (or life force) in you."Which gets me back to Jesus and his statements about equality with God. Maybe Jesus was trying to teach us this when he said that "I and the Father are one." Maybe Jesus was trying to level the playing field and bring God down from His vertical throne to live in a horizontal relationship with us. Maybe we got wrong when Jesus claimed equality with God. Maybe he was trying to bring God down to earth and instead we insisted on raising Jesus up to heaven.Namaste and God bless...
In Memory of Gavin
Mystic Mondays July 18, 2016This post is in memory of Gavin Long.Gavin is the lone gunman who lured police into an ambush in Baton Rouge yesterday and shot six of them, killing three of those who are sworn to protect us. I know that many of you are already reacting, "Shouldn't this post be in memory of and in honor of the officers who were killed?" My answer is, of course, I have not forgotten them. This post is as much about them as it is about the shooter. This post is really about all of us. This post about anyone who wears the cloak of a human being.
In recent years we as a nation have rushed to memorialize the officers, civilians and victims of mass violence while working very hard not to mention the names of the perpetrators. Of course, there is good reasoning behind this. If the motivation by those who fired the shots is to leave a legacy, even an infamous one, we do not want to play into their hands. Why splash their name across the screen when that is what they wanted in the first place? I do get it.But I also think this is a grave mistake. We do so at our own peril.The truth is yesterday we lost another one of our sons. Yes, I know--at least on this one day he was actually a shooter, a killer, an assassin, a criminal, and the personification of evil itself. I know almost nothing about Gavin at this point. But I do know that he was more than just a killer. I know that he was someone's son. He might have been someone's brother or cousin or uncle. Someone may have called him friend. He likely was someone's neighbor. There may even be funny stories from his elementary school teachers or military buddies.I do not want to highlight his heinous crime. I do not want to give any more momentum to his hate-filled revolution. I don't want to diminish in any way the terrible, life-altering grief that the families of those three officers are experiencing and will experience for months to come.But I also believe that our way through this time where the seams to our cultural fabric are splitting and fraying will not be to vilify the perpetrators as some sort of foreign invasion to our land. The officers were not killed by an evil person. They were killed by an American citizen, a former Marine, someone's son, a shopper at the local grocers, a member of a community, someone who might have even brushed up next to you on a busy sidewalk. He was one of us.We didn't get attacked by an outsider. Rather we lost one of our own. One of our own sons turned on us. I believe we do a disservice to ourselves to immediately vilify him as evil and say, "How could we have missed it?". In fact, we do ourselves a disservice when we refuse to say his name, Gavin, as if by erasing his name from our lexicon we can keep this violence and hatred at bay.Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. When we repress his memory and hide his name we are repressing the evil that is inherent in all of us and we are hiding from the truth of our own potential for evil. It's not how did we miss his potential for evil, but why can't we see our own potential for evil.
When my family traveled through Bali in 2004 I was struck by the way that the curbs were painted. In America I had become used to seeing curbs with no paint, yellow paint and red paint indicating where one could and couldn't park. As our tour guide wound his way through some of the towns of Bali I was intrigued that many of the curbs were painted black and white intermittently. I didn't understand it. Our guide told us, "In Hindu Bali the black and white is a reminder that every day we must each choose between good and evil."I think the Balinese have it right. It's not that some people are good and other people are evil. Wouldn't it be great if it were that easy? We could just put a star on the sleeves of everyone who was evil and call it good. In fact someone tried that once and got it terribly, tragically wrong! And, in the end, did we not decide that the evil was not those who were wearing the stars, but the one who handed out the stars.The truth is we are all saints in the making and assassins in the making. Every day we must choose in hundreds of little ways between good and evil. This is partly why I like the liturgy of the Reformed Tradition, of which I am part. In our services we take time to acknowledge our fallen nature. We set aside a couple of minutes for prayers of confession. What we are doing is battling the tendency toward repression. We are trying to overcome our tendency to want to hide from the truth. Every time we look deep within ourselves and confess our sin we shine a big bright spotlight on our potential for evil and strip it of its power. It's not our potential for evil that is scary; it's our repression of evil that gets us.Gavin is no more evil than you or I. Gavin was one of us. I don't know the story behind his actions, but I do know well enough to say, "But for the grace of God go I."
Do you know who I think really believes this? Dallas Police Chief David Brown who was at the reins of the police department when Micah Johnson, another son of ours, opened fire on police officers killing five of them last week. Chief Brown has admirably handled this horrific tragedy and he has also refrained from vilifying Micah as a horrible, evil monster.Why? Because in 2010 Chief Brown's own son killed two people, one a police officer, before being shot twelve times and ending his 27 year old life. We are told not to mention the name of the perpetrators. But tell that to Chief Brown. Tell him that his son, David Jr. has been erased from our consciousness. Tell him that we will not give an evil person the light of day. Tell him his son never existed. Tell him his name has been deleted from the book of life. Tell him that mention of his son's name only perpetuates the evil we are trying to eradicate.We are David Jr. and David Jr. is us. We are Micah and Micah is us. We are Gavin and Gavin is us.This post in dedicated in the memory of Gavin Long, and Officers Montrell Jackson, Matthew Gerald and Brad Garafola. Yesterday we lost four sons. We lost four of our own. We lost part of our family.
Thanks for Nothing Rumi
Mystic Mondays July 11, 2016
I had a strange confluence of images enter my world this week and they sort of crashed together like two waves coming into the bay from two different directions.Earlier in the week as I scrolled down through some of my Facebook posts I was reminded of one of my favorite Rumi poems, "The Guest House." "This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival" it begins.I have used the spirit that lies beneath this poem as the basis for much of my spiritual contemplation. Nearly ten years ago (hmmm...about the time I was suddenly divorced) I began a practice of writing Morning Pages as described in Julia Cameron's book The Artists' Way. Morning Pages is a sort of stream-of-consciousness form of journaling where you write whatever comes into your head and follow the words and images as if you were following a trail of breadcrumbs to some hidden treasure.One of the gifts from this practice has been that I have learned to not judge what I feel. Every feeling has a message of some sort. There are no good feelings and bad feelings. Every feeling has the ability to tell me on its own merit how much credibility it gets or not.The second stanza of Rumi's poem spells out a handful of those new arrivals (various feelings) that enter the human guest house--A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
I have spent years learning to treat feelings equally as if they were guests in my house. Sadness gets just as much attention as joy. I may enjoy the feeling of hope more than hopelessness, but I treat them same as if they had paid the same amount for a room in my soul.But this week was different.As the wave of Rumi's poem neared the shoreline of my heart a different set of images came crashing in from the other direction. In rapid fire succession we were served a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday plate of shocking violence--the killing of a black man by a white officer in front of a convenience store; the killing of a second black man by a white officer after being pulled over for a broken taillight; and then the horrific retaliation against Dallas police officers by a well-armed black man.I have practiced for years to let the waves of grief and sadness, anger and rage flow through me as if they were just temporary visitors passing through. I have learned to trust that these feelings are not permanent and I do better to honor them as friends rather than to fight them as enemies.But I will admit that I am struggling this time. It's as if my body cannot physically handle all the emotion associated with our current self-destruction. My hands shake. My stomach churns. My eyes sting. I find myself nearly wanting to shake my fist and shout, "Fuck you, Rumi. I don't want these feelings in my guest house. This is too much. This is too painful. No more!" Even innkeepers have the right to refusal, right?
Yet I do know better. I know that in the end denial will not serve me well. I know that the longer I hold my real feelings at bay the more they will fester and poison my body and my soul. I know that the only true way through this is to follow Rumi's poetic wisdom. I know to treat all the emotions that are flowing through me with respect as if they were truly honored guests in my home.Hesitantly and nervously I welcome the grief and the sadness, the anger and the rage--not because I enjoy them, but because they are gifts.To feel nothing means is to be less than human. To feel something is to invite the possibility of healing, joy, forgiveness and reconciliation. I don't want to feel this way. But I also refuse to accept the alternative.Here is Rumi's full poem:The Guest HouseThis being human is a guest house.Every morning a new arrival.A joy, a depression, a meanness,some momentary awareness comesAs an unexpected visitor.Welcome and entertain them all!Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,who violently sweep your houseempty of its furniture,still treat each guest honorably.He may be clearing you outfor some new delight.The dark thought, the shame, the malice,meet them at the door laughing,and invite them in.Be grateful for whoever comes,because each has been sentas a guide from beyond.
Bono on the holy trinity!
Mystic Mondays July 5th (Tuesday edition)I had an image this morning as I moved into my day. I have been thinking a lot about body these past few weeks especially as I aborted my usual routine of hiking, walking, yoga and cycling in order to serve at the biennial General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. While I considered it a great privilege to serve as a commissioner to the national meeting my body nearly revolted. With the exception of the 7-block walk between the hotel and the convention center and the distance between the plenary hall and the mess hall I sat and sat and sat some more.Which gets me back to the image that came to me this morning. I had a picture in my mind of a church that was one part worship center, one part education center, and one part YMCA or health club.
It’s little wonder that this particular image would show up in my consciousness. I graduated from college with a double major as I couldn’t decide between my two great loves—religion and athletics. By the time I finished my degree I had a major in religion as well as sports and fitness center management. Maybe I am just trying to bring these two worlds together for personal reasons, but honestly, I think there is more to it than that.I was watching a short YouTube program of a conversation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l40S5e90KYbetween U2’s Bono and the writer of The Message, Eugene Peterson, as they discussed their equal love for the Psalms. In that conversation Bono spoke of the doctrine of the Trinity as Christianity’s way of honoring mind, body and spirit. I was really struck by the natural comparison of these two ways of capturing the fullness of our experience of Life, especially its more sacred qualities.
My experience of keeping the chairs warm at the General Assembly just exaggerated what I already know to be true. The Presbyterian Church excels at honoring the mind, makes a pretty good showing when it comes to honoring the spirit, but fails miserably at honoring the body. It’s as if it doesn’t even enter our conversations. We are good at stepping in when people get sick or are aging or need equal access to our buildings due to disabilities. But the day to day practice of listening to our bodies seems to be largely missing.If it is true that we also know God through the wisdom of our bodies, I do wonder how it is that we missed this aspect of the mind/body/spirit trinity. Colleges deal with the mind, churches deal with the spirit and health clubs deal with the body, is often how it seems in our overly-compartmentalized society.I know that I have written about the body a great deal in recent weeks. I don’t think I am beating a dead horse. What feels more accurate to me is that every week that I write takes me just a little further toward the recognition that if we are looking for God or the Sacred, I wonder if we have missed the thing that is right under our nose— that is our flesh and body. I wonder if this is why, in the East, yoga and tai chi and the martial arts aren’t just considered good forms of exercise; they are physical meditations to gain access to the spiritual world.
I remember a vignette that Joseph Campbell shared in the Power of Myth series. He told of a Western man following a Shinto priest around his community. Finally he said, “I have been following you for weeks, but I don’t get your ideology; I don’t get your theology.” The priest paused for a moment and replied, “We don’t have an ideology; we don’t have a theology. We dance.”To my overly-trained Western rationalistic self I shiver at the prospect of no theology. But if the mind/body/spirit balance is a holy trinity in terms of our spiritual lives I have to wonder if the Shinto priest is at least getting the body and spirit parts right.I will always cherish the better than a week that I spent at the General Assembly. It is a privilege that comes once once in a lifetime, if that, for most pastors. But if the Shinto priest had shown up at the meeting I wonder if his first impression might have been, “We dance. They sit. Strange religion these Presbyterians!”Mind, body and spirit. Might Bono be right? Is this the secular version of the Holy Trinity?
Becoming a Human Being
Mystic Mondays June 27, 2016I was lounging around yesterday morning at what was really my place of worship--at a bakery out front at one of the sidewalk tables enjoying the heat of the sun and the shade of a large umbrella. Behind me was a couple who were chitchatting about a variety of topics that were only important to them. Finally the woman asked her partner, "What do you have on your agenda today?" The man paused for a brief moment and said, "Nothing really. We could just sit here all day if we wanted to." I wanted to step in and say to them, "That reminds me of the Buddhist saying, 'Don't just DO something; SIT there.'"Of course, I refrained from butting in and trying to play the wise sage on a Sunday when I wasn't preaching and they weren't looking for any unsolicited wisdom. Like me they were just enjoying a sweet nothingness for a couple of hours on a perfect Sunday morning where the sun and the breeze were all they needed to caress their souls.It's a little ironic that I am writing about the wisdom of "sitting" on this day that follows more than a week of having my butt planted in front of two large screens while we debated, voted and prayed our way through more than a hundred overtures at the Presbyterian Church's biennial national assembly. I swear my chair has permanent indents carved into it that will never fit anyone else's cheeks ever again. Sitting is the last thing I want right now!But the Buddhist saying isn't literally about sitting; it's about "not doing." It's about setting aside our "to do" lists in favor of just taking time to be. I reminded my congregation a couple of weeks ago in sermon that in the beginning God didn't create human doings; God created human beings.I have found this especially helpful in recent years. I have to admit that most of my adult life has reflected an embodiment of human doing. I have always been reasonably ambitious never satisfied with just meeting minimum expectations or achieving mediocre results. Ask me to finish something in an hour and I am likely to have it done in thirty minutes or do twice as much as I have been asked to do. The Protestant work ethic is alive and well in me.
But all this emphasis on doing things better, bigger and faster is feeling more and more hollow every year. The old motto of "Don't just sit there, do something!" sounds shallow and, quite honestly, exhausting. My soul seems to be craving more sitting time, quiet time, and nothing doin' time. I am tired of doing more. I want to be more.There is an old story of an American who joined an aboriginal tribe on an outback pilgrimage. On the first day they covered a great number of kilometers. The same was true for the second day and the third day. On the fourth day the whole tribe sat under a tree and refused to budge. The American wanted to press on berating them for wasting precious time and money. Finally a translator explained to him, "They're letting their souls catch up to their bodies."I think I know exactly what they are talking about. In recent years my pace has slowed down. But it doesn't just feel like the natural onset of aging and resigning myself to a body that does not have the strength and stamina it once did. I often feel like I refuse to go faster than my emotions and my soul will allow me. I can still force my body to keep up with my overly scheduled life, but I can feel something inside crying out, "Wait for me! You're racing off ahead of me."
The people in Greece and Turkey taught me this when I cycled there in 2014. On numerous occasions I was asked to stop, drink Greek coffee or Turkish tea and just take time for sitting, conversation and relationship. At first I resisted it--I had so many miles I wanted to cover I would think to myself. But more than that my Western sensibilities nudged me to politely refuse at first.It would have been one thing if a meandering pedestrian had invited me to join him for tea. But often it was the shop keepers who were also engaged in commerce who pulled up a chair next to their cash registers and made sure that honoring me was as important as making transactions with the occasional customer. I was struck by my inclination to turn down their request in order to honor their business day and their intention to make sitting and talking and connecting a higher priority than the doing of business. I had assumed they had things to DO. They had assumed that I would want to BE with them.I learned from the Greek and Turkish people that being is often more important than doing.Well, gotta run...lots to do today. Guess I'll never learn!
Worship--Portland Style
Mystic Mondays June 18, 2016I think I did a big No No yesterday. But I couldn’t help myself. It was Sunday morning in downtown Portland on the only Sunday during the biannual General Assembly meeting of the Presbyterian Church. Listed in our agenda for the morning were some 25 or so Presbyterian churches we could attend for worship. Of course most of the commissioners and visitors from around the United States had flown in. Transportation would be an issue. Our fine planning team from Cascades Presbytery (the local host) had arranged for vans and buses to take good Presbyterians to any one of the more than two dozen choices.
But I chose my own church this morning. While hundreds of attendees sat in the pews in our local churches I strolled through the expansive front doors of Portland Waterfront Church. Inviting me in were the towering green spans of the Hawthorne Bridge famous for its 25,000 cyclists that cross it every day on their way to work. I strolled briskly (as my body demanded) after sitting twelve-plus hours in plenary sessions, informal table dialogues and sit-down meals the day before.I want to be very clear that I honor the choices of my brother and sister Presbyterians who kept asking me, “Which church are you going to this morning,” unaware that I was already hearing my body say, “You need to move. Your body needs to worship. You have to get your butt off of all those damned chairs.” Pews were not what my body was screaming for.Funny thing was that I wanted to worship just as bad as all my PC friends. But my soul was begging for the cool air of the morning. I couldn’t look at four walls anymore. I wanted to follow a liturgy, but it wasn’t the liturgy of the bulletin; it was the ordered and spontaneous liturgy of Portlanders celebrating a beautiful late spring Father’s Day right there along the Willamette River. Casual cyclists swooshed by me on my left in their tight outfits. Runners wove their way in and out pedestrians, tricycles, and older couples out for a Sunday stroll.I stopped at the railing of the river when I spotted a Native American woman performing some sort of dance before the water as if she was at the altar acting out the Creation story in liturgical dance. She was either oblivious to the stares of others or maybe her soul had just retrieved a deep memory from her past and she couldn’t help but to act it out in front of the sacred river.
Ten minutes later I found myself as deeply in worship as I might have been in one of our great sanctuaries. A People’s Memorial had been set up and dozens of ten-foot panels with red hearts and the words, “Love Orlando” were painted across them. It was clear that when the memorial was completed it was to be full circle with “doors of love” placed on each side for people to enter to pray and worship. A handful of people were meticulously and lovingly pouring out messages in colored markers expressing their grief and love and anger for the horrific tragedy of Orlando.Around the people’s memorial was all the diversity (such as it is in Portland) of this city that has earned the “Keep Portland Weird” motto. Gay and lesbians couples, homeless men, well-to-doers, children, white and black-skinned, purple-haired and bleached blonde all gathered around this sacred space. We were one family, even if for a brief moment and in a limited space, united by our grief, pain and hope.If I had been a good Presbyterian pastor and commissioner I would have gone and celebrated with my brothers and sisters in the pews this day. It’s not that didn’t want to. But my body just said, “No! Take advantage of this sacred Sunday morning time and worship me with your body. Move a little. Breathe some clean air. Feel the sun. Watch the hypnotic movement of the water. Soak in the energy of runners, strollers, cyclists, and children darting back and forth along the river." I heeded the call.
My body took me away from church worship yesterday morning. But what I discovered is that I walked through the sanctuary doors of another kind of church—out in the open, welcoming to all kinds of people, pitching my heart toward the sacred and worshipping with brothers and sisters around a People’s Church that emerged out of the tragedy of Orlando and the souls of the people of Portland.I was supposed to join my Presbyterian family in worship today. Instead, my body rebelled against more sitting and walls. But I discovered that the Portland community had also been drawn by some Spirit to worship, to re-create, and to pray and to love in their own unique way. On this Father’s Day Presbyterians and Portlanders both were all worshiping—some indoors and some outdoors.We are all one. All that separates us are a few thin walls.
Worship on Two Wheels
Mystic Mondays June 13, 2016I went on a bike ride Saturday. In my mind I was also preparing for a sermon for Sunday on the place of worship and beauty in our lives. I have felt and said for many years that I feel closest to God (or the Sacred) when I am out on my bike feeling the rhythm of my legs churning, the road rising and falling before me, and the wind caressing my skin like a skilled masseuse. This day may have been the first time that I actually said out loud, "This is how I worship."The word worship just means to show reverence or adoration for something--usually a deity. I had no problem in the past sharing that I felt a sort of divine connection while out riding, but to claim it as an act of worship seemed like an exaggerated jump. Yes, cycling certainly takes me to a place beyond mere exercise or enjoyment, but to put it on par with the intentional and ordered liturgy of an actual worship service sounded more like a rationalization of why, if I had a choice, I would rather be cranking my way up a tree-lined mountainside road than leading people in a recitation of the Lord's Prayer.
But Saturday I felt differently. I suppose the confluence of riding while thinking about a sermon on worship had something to do with. In fact, I am quite sure that was it. About halfway into my 35-mile jaunt it hit me and I repeated "This is how I worship God" over and over again until I had fully accepted that I meant it and that it wasn't just a ploy to dress up my sermon that was agitating in my head.Reverence and adoration. Those were the key words. When I lead a worship service I try to create an environment where we all feel a little of that reverence and adoration. I strategically place the hymns to draw out certain emotions or to pitch our hearts and minds into a reverential contemplation. I pray and preach also to draw at these deeper feelings from my parishioners. An order of service on Sundays is all about creating an environment for worship.That's when it hit me--that when I am on my bike I don't have to create the environment to draw out the feelings of reverence and adoration. The environment I am in does that for me. I don't have the set the stage for worship to emerge. The stage has already been set for me.I am especially blessed to have lived in two cycling paradises in the last three years. Currently I am living in Southern Oregon in the foothills that connect the Coastal Range with the volcanic range of the Cascades with Crater Lake being our closest mountainous marvel. Before this I was in the lovely little village of Yachats on the Oregon Coast where hundreds of miles of old timber roads snaked their way around the mountains above my house.
On a nearly daily basis I have been living in environments that easily pitch my heart and mind to the place of reverence and adoration (worship, that is). I ride along the Rogue River and watch as blue herons lift off like prehistoric jet planes as they slowly rise to cruising altitude. I often spook deer as I come around a corner and they take one look at me in my florescent spandex and go bounding off into the forest. I marvel at the strength of my body as I crank my way up Onion Mountain and then speed back down Franz Klammer-style as I carve my way around the curves at the maximum speed that my nerves and common sense will allow.I have probably been conditioned for too long by being raised in the church and having served as a pastor for nearly twenty years. Worship for me has always meant that sixty minute service reserved for singing, prayers, the reading of scripture and the preaching of a good word (hopefully!). Worship was something churches put on. But I feel differently today after my weekend ride while pondering my "Worship and Beauty" sermon: Worship is not an event; it is an attitude. Worship is simply having feelings of reverence and adoration for a Presence that seems to transcend our normal human experience.
I have seen this before. I remember seeing travelers sit at the base of a glacier-fed lake in Yosemite National Park. Not a word was spoken. Everyone sat on their individually chosen boulders and stared at the rugged mountains that towered above the glistening lake. Even the occasional camera shot seemed to violate the sacred trust of the moment. The goodness was almost too much to take in. Reverence and adoration seemed to accompany each person's every breath.I have experienced it in song when a singer somehow goes from singing pretty notes and a nice melody to embodying a spirit that transcends them. No longer are they just singing the song, but the song is singing them. And you know it's happening, because everyone around is feeling the same thing--The quiet hush in the room, the tears emerging from the most sensitive, and the connection between singer and listener that is as unbreakable as two lovers holding hands. Reverence and adoration seem to float in the air like smoke in an overcrowded bar.I have been there when this worship shows up at the bedside of a dying patient. Conventional wisdom would tell us that this would be the worst place for worship. Who would want to offer words of praise, share feelings of adoration and act reverently as a loved one slips away? Yet I have been there and felt it. Not all deaths are this peaceful, but some families seem to give permission for a Deep and Compassionate Spirit to show up. And when She does reverence and adoration seem to replace the usual feelings of anxiety and fear.I am convinced now that worship is not a liturgical service. Worship is an attitude. Worship is a way of life. Worship is what people who feel a sense of reverence, awe, respect and adoration for life do. Worship is our way of saying "Thank you."
Getting This Right...
Mystic Mondays June 6, 2016I was re-reading my post from last week (A Trump Exorcism) after mulling over a handful of comments that were posted in response. As I came toward the end of my post I read again the words, "I want my soul to feel clean again." While the prior post certainly had a great deal to do with Trump the reality is that post was really about me. I was struggling with two extreme responses to Trump--red-faced anger at moments and a yoga-like calmness in other moments. In other words, an over-engagement and an under-engagement.I appreciated the many comments. They mirrored much of what I was feeling but also inserted the reminder of what our faith or spiritual values call us to do. Those reminders were actually at the core of what my post was about, but didn't name outright. The whole premise of "wanting Trump out of my body" was my frustration that I couldn't seem to find an action or response that lived up to my faith. My faith both called for me to do something (more than voting) and to accept gracefully the limits of what I could do (called voting).
Neither were quite satisfying. I was uncomfortable with where my primitive red-faced anger was taking me. I imagined joining protesters if Trump just happened to come to town. But given my proximity to a computer and my love of writing most of my thoughts were finding expression in a whole range of satirical posts and attempts to beat Trump at his own game. I was trying to find some way to out him as if I was involved in a chess match with him. Even though I gave some time to those possibilities I usually thought better of it. I knew that I was just giving expression to my anger and frustration. I knew in the end my devilish thoughts would do no good.But the alternative was dissatisfying as well. I have a daily yoga and journaling practice in the mornings that I am nearly obsessive about. I rarely miss a day and even family and friends have learned that first hour or so of the morning is off limits to chit chat. In that time I often discover a yoga-like disposition. Despite the chaos of our current political circus I can find a grounded place that keeps me from flying off the handle (at least in public!).
I ended my post last week saying that "I want my soul to feel clean again." That post was really about me. I am trying to find a response that makes my soul feel good. My dilemma is this: To simply act out my anger at how I feel our process has been hijacked puts me in a camp that is no better than this person who is fueling the fire of an angry American electorate. But to disengage in an attempt at personal soul preservation also feels irresponsible.This evening I stopped at a rural convenience store after a punishing hill climb on my bike in the Coastal Mountains. The conversation between the woman clerk and the male customer ahead of me in line didn't sound quite right. As his transaction was being completed I heard him berate her with some colorful language while she said over and over again, "Thank you sir. Enjoy your evening" in an attempt to get him out the door. He finally did exit, leaving a trail of expletives in his wake.I bought my cold refreshing Coke to cleanse my sticky dry mouth and headed toward my own car. Suddenly the man went back in. I knew exactly what was happening. He had waited for me to leave. Now the woman was alone in the store and he was returning with some sort of evil intent. I didn't know what he was capable of, but it had danger written on it. I hopped back out of my car and casually moseyed back to the front of the store where I could both see what was taking place and hear the tone of their conversation. There were a few "horse shits" thrown her direction. The woman held her ground. The man eventually left, but not before trying to bait me into saying something that would give him permission to unleash his rage on me.I thought about this event in relation to my seeking a good response to the Trump phenomenon. I realized that in this situation I found the wise balance between immediately taking this guy down and likely escalating the situation. Or driving off with the excuse, "It's not really my problem." I didn't over-engage, but I also didn't disengage. Both extremes might have ended with blood on my hands.This is what I am looking for with regard to our current political drama. I want to be engaged without being reactionary. And I want my soul to feel clean without feeling like I have disengaged. Like the scene with the woman in the store, it feels to me as if the stakes are high. Over-engaging and under-engaging both have their risks. I want to get it right. I don't want anyone to get hurt.
A Trump Exorcism
Mystic Mondays May 30, 2016I don’t feel right. Despite my every effort get Trump out of my body and my soul, he seems to have permanently invaded my mind and my flesh. I can’t seem to shake him. I feel like I need an old fashioned exorcism. You know--where a priest scares a demon out of you in the name of Jesus.I mean this seriously. He won't leave me alone!
I have voted in many elections and even when I had a visceral distaste for another candidate I was still able to wash the person from my skin like a hot soapy shower after a mud ball fight. The election cycle took care of that for me. I was promised a voice in the process, but once my vote was cast I could let go. My candidate may not win, but democracy would prevail either way, I would say. I could fight like hell, cast my vote, and then let go and trust the system until the next mud ball fight. I was a good sport even in losing.But something is different this time. Voting didn’t satisfy me. I had done my part and was supposed to be able to let go and trust the process to carry forth our good democratic principles and values. “May the best candidate win!” was always my motto after voting. And how would we know who was best? Obvious. Whoever the American electorate picked was the patriotic answer!But I feel betrayed this time. Something is not right. The anxiety in my soul (I am an off the chart Intuitive on the Meyers-Briggs test) tells me something is askew. This is not the usual tough election cycle (understatement of the year, right!). I feel like our democratic process is being used to forward un-democratic values. I feel like we’ve been conned and people don’t give a damn.
Granted, everyone gets to have a voice in a democracy. But aren’t there some unstated assumptions that we all have agreed on and abide by? Aren’t respect and tolerance for the other side a basic expectation even in our disagreement? When did it become okay to demand the first and hold disdain for the second? When did we agree that everyone gets to have a voice, but respect and tolerance are optional? When did we become okay with a presidential candidate raising a big middle finger salute to all the unspoken covenants that provide the glue that hold us together as a democratic people. Somehow winning at all costs has replaced trusting the democratic process to do its thing! I am scared this time that Trump may win, but the country will lose.I know that I should have been able to cast my ballot, breathe and let go. I had done my patriotic duty. I know much of the country had done the same in their red, white and blue way. All seems to be in order, right? The system is moving forward. The conventions are only weeks away and we will be engaged in the next bout of this presidential mud ball fight.It’s supposed to be beautiful thing to watch, this democracy in action. But my body tells me something isn’t right. My soul feels betrayed. I flit back and forth from red-faced anger at one moment to wanting to hum "Om" and practice yoga 24 hours a day the next moment. It’s not supposed to be this way. Voting is supposed to feel deeply satisfying. I am supposed to feel proud of my engagement as a citizen in the process. But will voting be enough to protect our democracy this time around? I am not sure we are watching democracy in action. I don't recognize this.I voted. I will vote again. This is how it works in a democracy. We get to decide. We get the country we want. We get the leaders we deserve. Shoot--we can even vote for our own demise. That's the cool thing about democracy. No one is going to stop us from our own self-destruction.I voted. I will vote again. I hope that is the only exorcism I need. I want Trump out of my body. I want my soul to feel clean again.I voted. I will vote again. I hope that will be enough.
Experience First
Mystic Mondays May 23, 2016
I am not sure yet, but I can imagine the name of this weekly blog changing/evolving/shifting to something new. There is a small part of me that whispers, "C'mon, Brian, you need to show that you know what you are doing. Don't be so wishy washy." But there is a larger voice, even a wiser one I think, that reminds me I have stepped into a lifetime pilgrimage. I have chosen to follow the unfolding movement of whatever this thing is that tells us religion (as we know it) is dissolving away in favor of a new spiritual consciousness and way of being together. No one really knows what they are doing in this time.At the end of the Lenten pilgrimage where I wrote from the theme "Between Two Worlds" it became crystal clear that my particular voice was to honor the raw spiritual experiences that so many are expressing and to re-introduce the ancient tradition of religious mysticism. I am absolutely convinced that the shift we are experiencing can be captured and understood by re-inserting the language of mysticism into our conversations again.But something this week told me that my title has me coming in from the wrong side of the dialogue. Actually, I don't think my small revelation will change much about my writing and its content. The reflections will end up being pretty much the same. What is different is that I can't lose sight of the fact that it is experience first, mysticism second.
Let me explain. I am feeling the same struggle on Sunday morning with regard to preaching. For centuries in the Protestant tradition people have come to hear a preacher expound on some pithy scriptural text. The Bible held authority in their lives. Many of them may have even held that the Bible was the actual words of God. Given these assumptions the Bible came first; experience second. I have always worked hard to tie the words, the themes and the stories of the Bible to people real life experiences. But increasingly I can feel that it is not the Bible that holds ultimate authority in a person's life; it is their experiences. I have been known to present sermon series where I first started with a shared experience, value, or social issue and THEN tie it back to the Bible. What I am doing when I do this is acknowledging the authority of a person's life over the authority of the Bible.The point is this. Over the years I have discovered that when I preach I don't try to shape and mold people's lives to look like the Bible; rather I use the Bible to shed light on and deepen people's experience of life.Which is why it hit me this week--I may have fallen back into the old pattern of assuming a religious tradition first and honoring experience second. I was ready to introduce you to the world of religious mysticism like a college professor whose duty it is to teach a subject despite the interest, readiness, and experience of his students.I could feel it, but I wasn't able to name it until I sat with a woman this week in the final days of her life. The conversation was deep. She wanted to talk about death and her remaining lessons. We touched, we laughed, we shared tears. We spoke as if her coming send off was just as common and just as exciting and terrifying as walking down the aisle for the first time. It's moments like these that remind me of why I do pastoral ministry. There is no other profession where I am given the privilege and the access to a person's most vulnerable and sacred moments of life. I am truly blessed.
I realized then that I didn't want to talk about mysticism. I wanted to talk about life. I wanted to talk about the soul. I wanted to talk about that Sacred character who shows up in moments like this.The truth is religious mysticism gives us a language to know why dying is not just dying; it is an invitation to participate in some divine sacred unfolding--even in death.I do believe that the tradition of mysticism is experiencing a resurgence. But seriously--who really cares about mysticism! What we care about are our experiences. What we care about is what we feel. What we care about is how the world tastes, smells, looks, sounds and feels (which, BTW, is what mysticism is all about!).Experience first, mysticism second.Mystic Mondays, as a title, might fade away. But the blog is here to stay.
When God Changed Her Address
Mystic Mondays May 16, 2016I think I have always believed in God--or some such version of a presence that lies underneath, beyond and behind the reality that these two blurry eyes can still see. It is important to state that up front before I describe how religious mysticism crept into my vocabulary. It wasn't that I had some grand conversion from a life of rationalistic, objective, scientific empiricism to suddenly "seeing the divine light."No.
My route to mysticism happened the same way that I went from being young to old. It just crept up on me until one day I realized that "believing in God" didn't even seem like the right question anymore. I don't believe in God any more than I believe in the soothing sound of music or the flow of a river or the kiss of a lover. Music, rivers and kisses are to be enjoyed and felt and experienced. I suppose if I was pressed I would say that I believe in those things, but belief is not the point, right? It's not that I don't believe in them. I just would never talk of such sensual and intimate experiences as falling in the category of mere belief. Do I believe in cycling? No! I just cycle.I remember preaching a sermon about eight years ago that was really the precursor to my movement toward mysticism. I called it, "The Day God Changed Her Address." In the sermon I explained that much of our belief and the images we have of God were shaped by the Biblical world view that predated Galileo by two to three millennia. God was simply that unknown world and reality that existed just beyond the sky. In Genesis it is said that "God separated the waters from the waters" which is a reference to a dome that separated earth from heaven. Humans lived on the earth. God lived in heaven. And back then God wasn't too far away.
Only one problem. As our scientific curiosity grew and our knowledge of the universe expanded heaven (or that place beyond what we could see and know) got further and further away. Heaven was no longer just above the rain clouds. No. Heaven was somewhere out beyond the moon. Then heaven had to be out beyond our solar system. As the Hubble telescope captured pictures millions of light years away heaven then got pushed even further away. And, if the universe continues to expand, as modern astronomy claims, and if heaven is still that reality beyond our known universe, then it appears that God is running from us as fast as his little supernatural feet will allow.Modern science has exploded the idea that God is just beyond the physical world that we can see and know. The view of God that people of Biblical times no longer makes sense given our understanding of the universe.Like I said I have always believed in God in one sense or another. But science didn't explode my trust in this Divine Presence we call God. All it did was convince me that "God changed her address."Diana Butler Bass in interviews about her book Grounded says that what happened is that God has come home to earth. Of course, neither Diana Butler Bass nor I literally believe that God decided to move closer to home. God has probably been right by our side all along. But our images of God have shifted. If the Heavenly God is not being pushed further and further from us by the reality of an expanding universe then it is quite possible that God is right here in our human experience struggling, wrestling, loving, and dancing right along with us lovely and fragile human creatures.I think my mysticism started with this. I used to pray to the God of the heavens feeling like my prayers were like leaving a voicemail for God. Now I pray to the God of the earth feeling like my prayers are like planting seeds in a garden.
Is that God Sitting Next to You?
Mystic Mondays May 9, 2016
Five years ago I remember sitting in the chancel area of a mostly empty church on a sunny Labor Day Sunday. I was eight weeks into my 4,000 mile cycling pilgrimage where I was wrestling with both personal losses as well as the shifting and dissolving away of professional ministry, as I have come to know it. On this particular Sunday the sermon was a Q and A. I was decked out in my tight cycling outfit ready to take questions from the robed up Presbyterian minister. I answered questions about the highlights of my trip, the challenges as well as the discoveries of the trip and where God showed up for me.Toward the end of the service I was sitting politely going with the flow of the remainder of the liturgy when a father and son rode by on their bicycles on this as-close-t0-heaven Labor Day weekend as one could get. I immediately thought, "I wonder who is worshiping more? We in our pews facing a cross or those two out under the sun enjoying their intimate connection?"Of course, the real answer is probably that all of us were worshiping in our own way. But I was struck by the connection between my thoughts that Sunday morning and this picture that ponders,
Religion is a person sitting in a church thinking about kayaking. Spirituality is a person sitting in a kayak thinking about God.
I do get what the author of this little modern proverb was going for--religion is out; spirituality is in. But I also believe it is a false dichotomy. I don't think it is quite as either/or as the author has presented it (or even as I once believed myself). My growing lens for mysticism has me wanting to write my own version: "Religion is a person in a church thinking about kayaking. Spirituality is a person sitting in a kayak thinking about God. Mysticism is expecting God to plop down in the seat next to you--whether in a pew or a kayak."Most of you know me well enough to know that I derive special pleasure cycling through the countryside or up over a mountain pass. There is nothing like breathing in the frigid air on a snow shoe trip high in the Cascades in January when all is blanketed in a powdery white. And the few times I have kayaked have left me in a peaceful, blissful state grateful for the solitude, the surprise lift offs of blue herons, and the gentle lapping of the water against the side of the boat.
But I have also served the Church long enough to have tasted that same connection to the Sacred in congregational life. More often than not I can feel the presence of God or some healing presence when sitting at hospital bedside of someone under my care. The sacred moments of singing hymns to a church member in the hours before her death always seem to call up a Sacred Friend who fills the room with love and light. And potlucks! Have you ever experienced the buzz in a room when bouncing youngsters, shuffling elders, busy servers, and families all join in communion at a shared meal from a hundred different kitchens? It's a like a party in heaven! Then there are those moments when the music is just right, the choir is in rare form, and the anthem isn't just a part of the order of the service, but a healing voice of angels blessing all who hear.I do appreciate the church/kayak picture and its attempt to name a shifting reality that all of us, I imagine, must feel. There is something happening and the language around religion and spirituality is at the core of that discussion. But my experience tells me that it is not as simple or as either/or as the proverb suggests. My experience tells me that God is just as likely to show up in the rhythm of congregational life as She does out there are on the still glassy surface of a lake at dawn while a kayaker paddles from one shore to another.I don't think that God chooses to show up either in the pews or in a kayak. God has a way of showing up wherever life and love and vitality and connection and communion are present. Maybe God is sitting next to you right now...
"Knowing" God
Mystic Mondays May 2, 2016I remember over twenty years ago watching my father-in-law eat a whole mango. No one dared bother him when he was leaning over the sink sunk in a near state of ecstasy.
From a distance I would watch him as he would peel the skin from the juicy orange flesh with one of his many sharp paring knives. Then with the skill and precision of a surgeon (he was a surgeon himself) he would slice into the fruit making nearly perfect wedges of equal width and length. The sticky juice would run down his hands and onto his forearms as he slid each wedge into his mouth with a quiet moan each time.With the wedges gone one would think that would end his lustful enjoyment of the fruit. But the best was yet to come. My father-in-law would then suck on the seed rolling it around in his mouth as if we was a teenager enjoying his first French kiss.I promised to introduce you to this ancient world of religious mysticism that I believe is returning to our Christian traditions and to our culture. It's really kind of ironic that churches are often considered a bit old-fashioned and out of touch with today's culture when the "new spirituality" is actually a return to that "old time religion." Case in point: Saint Teresa of Avila is a Christian mystic from the 16th century. What makes a mystic is a deep, almost addictive, desire to experience God. Not just to believe in God, but to taste, touch, see, and feel God. Notice how Teresa employs the language of the senses and a soft eroticism when speaking of God here:
When my mouth touched His I became invisible,the way the earth would if the suntook it intoits arms.The ecstatic death I know. (…)How do we make love to God;how does the soul make love to God?
Teresa is talking about getting lost in experience of God just like my father-in-law got lost in the eating of a perfectly ripe and juicy mango and just like couples get lost in the beauty of making love.
It's interesting that in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) it says that Adam "knew" his wife, meaning that he had sexual intercourse with her. Mystics are those who take the language of "knowing" God a little more literally than others. Mystics aren't just interested in knowing God as if God was an acquaintance you met once. Mystics want to know God the way Adam knew Eve and the way lovers know each other.I can remember the first event that propelled me toward this deep lustful desire to know God. I was riding my bike up over the Old Toll Road in Northern California, a favorite ride that I enjoyed a handful of times every summer. The road was all dirt and gravel and rose about 1500 feet from the valley floor where Clear Lake rested peacefully. On the other side of the mountains were the vineyards of the Ukiah Valley.I had developed a predictable ritual over time. I would reach a certain point at the top where a broad clearing among the oak trees allowed me to look down over the valley. There I would stop, take out a little food, pop open my water bottle and just before consuming my reward for climbing I would look through the clearing 1500 feet below me, take a cleansing breath, and say "Thank you, God."But this time it was different.
Just before saying "thank you" I got lost. Rather than being the observer to all the beauty before me and below me I became part of the scenery. There was no separation between me and the vineyards below me. It was as if I was part of a painting crafted by some master artist who knew exactly wanted She wanted in the masterpiece to make it perfect. For a moment (I'll never be sure how long it lasted) there was no time, no past or future, no separation between the objects I was apparently looking at and me. All was one. And then it was gone. Just like that I returned to being the observer and the vineyards once again returned to being the observed.But I will never forget that feeling of being lost in the presence of God, Life, Nature, the Sacred (whatever language we need to use). For a moment I was making love to God. For one moment set in all eternity I knew God, I really knew God. And I am pretty sure all that knowing was consensual. God wanted it as much as I did!
I'll Have What He's Having!
"I and the Father are one." (John 10: 30)
Thirty years ago I assumed that those words were solely about Jesus. Today I believe those words are about me (and you and you and you!). Thirty years ago a belief that Jesus and God inhabited the same spiritual body meant that Jesus deserved some form of honor and worship. He was eternal and God-like. I was a mere rotting human. Today I do not believe that. Today I believe that Jesus was just holding a mirror up to the rest of us. If he was both divine and human, so are we.Today is the first posting for a new weekly series I am titling Mystic Mondays. Less than a month ago we concluded a 40-day Lenten pilgrimage and blog conversation on the theme "Between Two Worlds." I am very pleased to remind you again that the pilgrimage did its work (as I have come to expect when one enters an unknown landscape with only an intention).I went into the period of Lent and blogging feeling like I was caught between two worlds, much like I felt as I embarked on my first pilgrimage (www.pedalpilgrim.com/book) in 2011 as I felt the church world dying away along with my livelihood. I briefly broke through that spiritual schizophrenia on my Rome to Rumi pilgrimage, but the realities of life pulled me back into it not too many months after my return.
This last Lenten pilgrimage that I took while sitting at a computer desk (rather than a hard leather bicycle seat) again broke through the two world confusion. I emerged from the other side feeling very much like I am no longer straddling two worlds; rather that I have a particular and specific call to articulate the bridge that I believe spans both sides of the religious/spiritual divide.That bridge is the language of religious mysticism. Those who lean more toward the spiritual side may balk at the reference to religion and those who are holding the pews down may bristle at the language of mysticism. But the truth is that our religious traditions have whole chapters dedicated to the experience of Christian mysticism. And millions of people today are acting like mystics, even if they don't have the benefit of the label or the language.My mysticism came through Jesus. Somewhere along the way I went from feeling like Jesus wanted my worship and obedience to feeling like he was offering me a divine invitation. Do you remember that wonderful scene in the movie When Harry Met Sally? (C'mon, you know which scene I am talking about. You're not going to make me describe it for you, are you? Okay, you win.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-bsf2x-aeESally (Meg Ryan)and Harry (Billy Crystal)l are sitting in a delicatessen discussing Harry's casual dismissive approach to women. Harry tells Sally, "It's not like they don't have a good time." "How do you know?" Sally asks. Harry replies, "Believe me, I know." There is an awkward exchange about whether the women he has been with are really having a good time or just faking "it." Harry returns to his meal. Sally starts moaning until she has worked herself up to a full blown screaming good time. The rest of the deli patrons all fall silent with their jaws hanging down below their collars. After the fireworks have all exploded the woman at the next table tells the waiter, "I'll have what she's having."
I don't know if Jesus was faking it, but I do know that whatever divine cocktail he was drinking I want the same thing. Whatever it was about how he lived his life that allowed him to confidently say, "I and the Father are one," I want to live that way too. I want to experience the same all-inclusive welcome that he offered equally to both saints and sinners. I want to know what it feels like to be willing to die for love and to place my life in service of a cause and a spirit much larger than myself. I want to taste the Life that Jesus tasted. I want to feel the same divine pleasure Jesus felt.In a word, I am no different than the woman at the deli who exclaimed, "I'll have what's she's having." Whatever Jesus had I want it too. "In fact, God, could you make it a double?"
Introducing "Mystic Mondays"
Dear Pedal Pilgrim Readers,The "Between Two Worlds (BTW)" Lenten Pilgrimage and Conversation did its work. The process of pilgrimage is to start with an intention, stay open to what shows up, and see what new discoveries and places one ends up at the end. Liturgically, this kind of pilgrimage is honored during Lent and ends on Easter Sunday--when resurrection, rebirth, and new life shows up. For me Easter has slowly emerged over the week or so since Easter Sunday.
Beginning on Monday, April 24 I will be offering a reflection under the title of "Mystic Mondays". During our seven-week conversation (BTW) the language and experience of religious mysticism kept showing up on a consistent basis. Some were already familiar with the language and thanked me for re-introducing into our religious lexicon. Many others shared their experiences of feeling a Oneness with nature, of sharing in intimate circles where the Sacred showed up, and spoke of having heard God's voice somewhere outside of the church building. I simply reminded them that those experiences fit into the long-forgotten (and re-emerging) tradition of religious mysticism.I have just enough exposure to it to name it, but not enough to really know what I am talking about. I would never call myself an expert on mysticism. I would only claim that my spiritual orientation and identity leans much more heavily on the language of the mystics than it does on doctrinal belief and assent. I know that I am not alone in this!
Every Monday for as long as there is energy I will provide a reflection on religious mysticism. I will structure it so that it can easily be used in small groups. I encourage you to find another friend or two or three. Or if you are already in a committed study group you could use this as the source of your study and conversation. I will publish it on Monday mornings at 4:00 a.m. so that you can set a regular time with others to wrestle with it sometime during the week.This will be a shared learning opportunity. I will be learning as much as any of you. I will be developing a daily practice to read the poetry, songs, and prose of the mystics as I prepare for this weekly reflection. For those of you familiar with the rhythm of a pastor's life this will be very similar to the preparation and process of providing a Sunday sermon. The only difference is that this will be on Monday and the source of my material will be various expressions of the mystics rather than exclusively Scripture.As I teaser here are three quotes from those who have tasted the mystical honey:
Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. Jalaluddin RumiI and the Father are one. Jesus of NazerethThe sunset bows to me as much as I bow to it. Pedal Pilgrim
The Need to Be Known
Between Two Worlds Day 40 (of 40)I arrived about fifteen minutes early for the rehearsal to the Good Friday Ecumenical Service held at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Grants Pass. Father Todd was meeting with one of the other participants but I wanted to have a little quiet space to myself. Dismissing myself I said, "I'll just spend a little time in the chapel until everyone else arrives." "Good idea," replied Father Todd, "since you are the keynote preacher it might be nice to gather your thoughts."Just around the corner from the sanctuary was a small chapel, nearly a copy of the rectangular sanctuary, but 1/20th the size. Eight dinky pews, four pews per side, that were only big enough for two Mama Bear-sized people or three skinny teenagers. I sat in the front pew as close to the wall as possible so as to avoid any unnecessary detection from worshipers filing in early.
Immediately it hit me as I sat there. I felt known in the miniaturized space. As I reflected on so much of what has emerged in our conversation I imagined having a space very much like this right in the middle of downtown Portland or some busy business and retail district. I wondered how such a space would transform the feeling and spirit of a place if right where people were the busiest and most harried there was a dinky little chapel that invited people, "Come, sit, and be." I wondered what kind of miracles might take place if ten or fifteen people (the chapel only held sixteen) gathered in that space and shared stories, prayed, cried, laughed, and really came to know each other.Just next door to this chapel was the much larger sanctuary--also beautiful and inviting in its own way. But it was easy to distinguish how each space made me feel. In the larger space I was afforded anonymity. I could sit in one of forty pews among a hundred plus people and hide away in my own little private world. In the smaller chapel the anonymity was lost, but a delicious intimacy was floating in the air. There I felt known.
We finished our Good Friday services and I walked a few blocks to get some lunch before preparing for the evening's Good Friday service at another church. Just before finishing my lunch a young man sat next to me while getting some take out containers. With an overly enthusiastic tone he said, "Hi Debbe," to the waitress and she mimicked the same cheerful enthusiasm shooting back, "Well hello there, Steven." Steven got his take out containers and Debbe sent him on his way saying, "There you go, love" and he smiled broadly and said, "Thank YOU, love." On the way back to his table I heard him tell his table mate, "She called me love." I laughed at his innocence and delight.Debbe leaned over to me and said, "I just met Steven yesterday. When he came into today I said, 'Hi Steven' which just shows how much of an impression he made on me with the dozens of people I meet every day. And Steven said, 'And you're Debbe, right?'"This scene is probably repeated hundreds of times every day across the country in some establishment or another. But just after having come from my experience in the little chapel it struck me how powerful it is to be known. I felt it in the intimacy of that chapel and Steven and Debbe were nearly giddy with having each other know, recognize, and remember their names from a one-time meeting from the day before. It was a minor moment with a major message.As a pastor I spend the first two months in any new call simply trying to remember people's names. People think that I have a knack for remembering names, but I don't think it's some special gift. I think it's just that I know how important it is be known and to be called by name. So I work at it.It's a big scary world out there sometimes. There are more than seven billion people in the world. And most of us on this side of the ocean are traveling 100 mph doing "very important" things.Isn't it nice when just one person knows, really knows who you are?
Reflections...
Between Two Worlds Day 39 (of 40)Reflections...We're coming to the end of this "Between Two Worlds" Lenten conversation. Of course I imagine it will continue in some form as the themes will continue to permeate my blog, our thoughts and questions, and our ongoing dialogue. Whatever this thing is that we are all in isn't going to go away or be solved by one series of blog articles. I have a feeling we are in the for the long haul on this.It does give me a chance to reflect a bit, however. There are a few things that have risen to surface that I think bear highlighting.The intimacy of small groups
At the beginning of this series I was struck by how often you had expressed how important small groups in intimate settings were for you. Some of you said that while you went to church your real spiritual community was a group of friends that had been meeting for years on a regular basis--sometimes monthly, sometimes weekly. In those sacred gatherings you were finding intimate connection, support, a common commitment to growth and values, and the simple sharing with those who knew you best.Religious demographers have been telling us this for many years--that the real experience of church for many is not in the mega church worship service, but in the small groups where people can be more vulnerable and honest with other. I think that is called "family," in the best sense of the term.The return of religious mysticismThe second thing that is abundantly clear to me is that we are either returning to a resurgence of religious mysticism. I hardly need to say anymore about that since the theme surfaced over and over again in this conversation. I have a feeling that I will be spending more time introducing you all to the history, writings and tradition of religious mysticism. Did you know that the Sufi mystic poet, Rumi, is actually the most purchased and read poet in America right now, even topping the great Walt Whitman? The point is that without our really knowing it we seem to have a hunger and a yearning for the "direct experience of God" which is the purest definition of mysticism. No longer are we just satisfied with "right belief" or the adopting of a religious moral code. We want to taste, feel, see and touch the Sacred.The Trump Post
Finally (and you would never know this), I was struck by the energy around my "Playing My Trump Card" blog. On my blog I can track the amount of traffic and that post generated a 250% increase above my average traffic and quickly became the most read blog post since I started this project two years ago. When I wrote it I wasn't sure how it fit exactly with my "exploring the landscape of the soul" theme for my work. I knew it had to be written, but I wondered whether I was detouring somewhat from my essential mission. It did remind me that was why I returned to the pulpit after a nine year hiatus into human service work ten years ago. I missed being able to add a voice of reason, moral clarity, truth and vision to the complicated issues of our day.I am really glad that I wrote that post. Many people thanked me for saying what needed to be said, for saying what they had wanted to say, and for stepping into the ring of this terrifying Trump phenomenon. But it did surprise me a bit that I used my "Pedal Pilgrim" stage to do that. I have a feeling that rather than it being a one-time thing I will discover the connection between my soul work and political and cultural commentary. I am just not quite there yet. Your thoughts are welcomed!As you receive this churches will be preparing for Good Friday and Easter services. While not all of my readers will be doing the same, I am struck by how deeply the themes of Holy Week are woven throughout my blogs. Good Friday and Easter are just the narrative forms of that ongoing human reality of despair and hope, death and resurrection, and "letting go and letting God" as the bumper sticker states. No other narrative better captures this great transition we seem to be living in.I am absolutely convinced that history will one day call our time "The Great Letting Go."
Everything Is Holy Now...
Between Two Worlds Day 38 (of 40)
When I was a boy each week; On Sunday we would go to church; And pay attention to the priest; He would read the holy word; And consecrate the holy bread; And everyone would kneel and bow; Today the only difference is; Everything is holy now; Everything, everything; Everything is holy now
Those are the opening lines to Peter Mayer's song Holy Now that reader Susan forwarded to me as we have explored this changing, shifting and evolving world of religion and spirituality. "Everything is holy now," writes Mayer. In many ways that single line captures the delight and the struggle of our time.
Diana Butler Bass, a well-known speaker and author on religion, says that the story is not that mainline Protestant churches are dying; the story is that God has just moved. Of course she doesn't mean this literally as if God had set up camp in our churches for centuries and finally got bored in our cramped spaces. What she means is that we moderns no longer look to the heavens to experience the divine. We look for the Sacred Presence right here where Main Street meets Wall Street and where our private and public lives often collide.As a pastor it almost feels sometimes like the rituals, beliefs and language of the church are like training wheels for the spiritually inclined. We practice prayer and praise. We learn how to be generous and love our neighbor. We celebrate sacraments where we tell the story that God is not far off, but present in the breaking of bread, the sharing of vows, and giving thanks for the gift of life. But I have met many people who no longer feel the need for the support of the church in order to live a life of prayer, praise, generosity, and with an eye for the everyday sacred. It's as if they have adopted Mayer's song singing, "Once the priest consecrated the holy bread...Now the only difference is that everything is holy now...every meal and every breath is a holy gift now."
I wonder what this means for the church. If God is just as present outside the walls and the tradition of the church will the church one day lose its purpose. Or will we still need priests, pastors, spiritual directors, churches and sanctuaries where we can share the good news saying, "Guess what? God has come home. God is right here. God is as close as your next breath."Will folks want to come to church to hear that message or will they leave church because of that message!I wonder what future God has in store for us.