The Prayer that Jesus Taught Us

I have often found that music opens the way for the Spirit to speak to me, and that artists' conceptions of the scriptures—poetic, musical and visual—bring me to deeper understanding. Last year I created a very successful workshop on Psalm 23 combining various Psalm translations and poetry, musical compositions and interpretations, and visual images: Listening Anew to Psalm 23. Since I was doing it with a group of people whose average age was close to 90, all of whom could recite Psalm 23 (KJV) by heart, it was impressive how this led us all into a richer appreciation and ownership of this Psalm of comfort. We learned some of the original Hebrew, and shared some memories and our own artistic interpretations of the Psalm.

This success made me think that perhaps I could do this with some other central scripture passages for Christians, and have a series that I could take on the road to local churches, for Lenten reflections or for a study series.

So I've been trying to find a similar way into the Lord's Prayer, the Pater Noster, the prayer that Jesus taught us.

My first hurdle, as someone who has a strong commitment to inclusion and welcome, is the traditional translation that starts with "Our Father" as the way to refer to God. Because learning and singing the Hebrew text had opened up Psalm 23 for me, I decided that perhaps the original language of this prayer might be a place to start. While I had heard some people translate "Our Father" as Abba, which is more like Daddy than a formal Father, that still wasn't so helpful in the inclusion part.

Then I happened upon a CD by the San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble (SAVAE) called Ancient Echoes: Music from the time of Jesus and Jerusalem's Second Temple. On the CD there is a setting of the Aramaic Lord's Prayer: Abwoon. In the CD liner notes was this helpful note about translating the Lord's Prayer from Aramaic to English:

All the Semitic languages—including Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic—use a root system that allows one word to hold multiple meanings. Thus, a tradition of translation arose in the Middle East that led to each word of a prophet being considered on many different levels of meaning.

So, in keeping with that tradition, I began to think that I needed to look for translations that captured the layers of meaning in the prayer.

Those liner notes also reference the work of Neil Douglas-Klotz and gave his transliteration and translation from the Aramaic and his website, where you can hear the Aramaic spoken.

Abwoon d'bwashmaya

O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos/ you create all that moves in light.

Nethqadash shmakh

Focus your light within us--make it useful: as the rays of a beacon show the way.

Teytey malkuthakh

Create your reign of unity now--through our fiery hearts and willing hands.

Nehwey sebyanach aykanna d'bwashmaya aph b'arha.

Your one desire then acts with ours, as in all light, so in all forms.

Habwlan lachma d'sunqanan yaomana.

Grant what we need each day in bread and insight: subsistence for the call of growing life.

Washboqlan khaubayn (wakhtahayn) aykana daph khnan shbwoqan l'khayyabayn.

Loose the cords of mistakes binding us, as we release the strands we hold of others' guilt.

Wela tahlan l'nesyuna

Don't let us enter forgetfulness

Ela patzan min bisha.

But free us from unripeness

Metol dilakhie malkutha wahayla wateshbukhta l'ahlam almin.

From you is born all ruling will, the power and the life to do, the song that beautifies all, from age to age it renews.

Ameyn.

Truly--power to these statements--may they be the source from which all my actions grow. Sealed in trust & faith. Amen.

That reminded me of an alternate translation of the Lord's Prayer from A New Zealand Prayer Book (Harper Collins, 1997) that we used one season in church that captures different layers of meaning, and I found it again:

The Lord's Prayer
Eternal Spirit,
Earth-maker, Pain bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
sustain our hope and come on earth!

With the bread we need for today,
feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another,
forgive us.
In times of temptation and test,
strengthen us.
From trial too great to endure,
spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil,
free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
now and forever. Amen.

Part of my hope is that people will really listen to these words if presented in different ways, and understand the layers of meaning in words that may have become rote, and be moved to apply them in their lives.

Now, I have found several interesting settings of Abwoon/Abwoun besides the one by the San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble

Catherine Braslavsky on 99 Perfectly Relaxing Songs

Lisa Gerrard on The Silver Tree

Indiajiva on Sacred Ragas

But, otherwise most of the settings I've found use very traditional translations of the text. For example:

Pater Noster - Settings of the Lord's Prayer by The Choir of the Abbey School

The Lord's Prayer (Deliver Us) by Selah

Lord's Prayer by Second Chance

The Lord's Prayer, composed Albert Hay Malotte, sung by nearly every pop, country and classical singer (pick your vocalist and look...)

Do you know of any other translations with good musical settings?

Folk singer Susan Werner does offer a different interpretation or perhaps a commentary in Our Father (The New, Revised Edition), but I think I either need to keep looking or start composing so that we can have music that that uses these texts with deeper layers to bring us into this prayer. I'd welcome your suggestions.

If you are interested in a Lenten series (now that's planning ahead isn't it?) on Owning/Knowing the Scriptures through the Arts that as of now would include at least 3 sessions (evenings/hours) on Psalm 23, the Lord's Prayer and the Beatitudes, let me know. [Leave me a comment with some way of being in touch with you.]

In the meantime, as I continue to study this prayer that might more aptly be called the prayer for the followers or disciples of Jesus, I found this web resource on the Disciple's Prayer, that I recommend to you. And I offer this hope for today based on the translation, coined by theologian Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz: May God's kin-dom come on earth as in heaven.

Considering All Saints Day

I'm not going to church this morning. I guess I'm boycotting All Saints Day. Growing up as a Baptist, I certainly didn't mark the day—it was a discovery of later years that Hallow-e'en was the eve of something called All Saints Day. The Baptist church that I attend now is a lot more ecumenical than the one I attended as a child, and today includes a celebration of All Saints' Day, perhaps a piece of high church that we've adopted, but frankly it is not one that makes sense to me, either liturgically, theologically, psychologically or historically. It will include lighting candles and naming the names of the dead, whom people name as saints. The wide variety of saints may include Martin Luther King Jr., Julian of Norwich, Mother Teresa, Oscar Romero, Dorothy Day, St. Francis and someone's grandmother or brother. But that seems a mish-mash and today as I stay home, I'm attempting to figure out why it bothers me.

I understand the need to grieve and I do note those anniversaries, birthdays and death dates, of those I still grieve, and it's true that Protestant church ritual, unlike Jewish ritual, does not have a regular place for it. So perhaps this is intended to fill that need for some. Jews say the Mourner's Kaddish as a part of every Friday evening service, and mark the Yahrzeit (anniversaries) of those who died. Interestingly, the Mourner's Kaddish does not speak of the dead or of death, but of God and of life.

Although Kaddish contains no reference to death, it has become the prayer for mourners to say. One explanation is that it is an expression of acceptance of Divine judgment and righteousness at a time when a person may easily become bitter and reject God. Another explanation is that by sanctifying God's name in public, the mourners increase the merit of the deceased person. Kaddish is a way in which children can continue to show respect and concern for their parents even after they have died.

The opening words, yitgadal t'yitkadash, were inspired by Ezekiel 38:23 when the prophet envisions a time when God will become great in the eyes of all the nations. The response of the listeners to the first lines of the mourners is a public declaration of the belief that God is great and holy: Yehei Shmei rabba mevorakh l'olam ul'almei almaya (May His great Name be blessed forever and ever). This response is central to the Kaddish and should be said out loud.

I understand the need for rituals around mourning—Jewish rabbinical tradition really has provided much for us to consider in this regard, yet I think that their weekly prayer as a community with all those who mourn for the dead is not the same as remembering the dead—it's being with those who are alive and grieving. That is what makes Kaddish useful and powerful, and is perhaps the kind of ritual and liturgy we might adapt in Protestant churches. The Beatitudes come to mind, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted…"

Having grown up in the American Southwest, I was somewhat aware of the Mexican celebration on this day: El Día de los Muertos, but since it seemed a part of the prevalent Mexican Catholicism I didn't realize until later its much older roots in the history of the Aztec peoples of Mexico.

More than 500 years ago, when the Spanish Conquistadors landed in what is now Mexico, they encountered natives practicing a ritual that seemed to mock death. It was a ritual the indigenous people had been practicing at least 3,000 years. A ritual the Spaniards would try unsuccessfully to eradicate. A ritual known today as Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. …

Unlike the Spaniards, who viewed death as the end of life, the natives viewed it as the continuation of life. Instead of fearing death, they embraced it. To them, life was a dream and only in death did they become truly awake.

"The pre-Hispanic people honored duality as being dynamic," said Christina Gonzalez, senior lecturer on Hispanic issues at Arizona State University. "They didn't separate death from pain, wealth from poverty like they did in Western cultures."

This seems similar in expression to the healthy psychology around mourning of the Jewish tradition—death is with us, and we need to celebrate life and the holy.

In the Roman Catholic tradition All Saints Day began as a commemoration of those who died as martyrs.

It is instituted to honour all the saints, known and unknown, and, according to Urban IV, to supply any deficiencies in the faithful's celebration of saints' feasts during the year.

In the early days the Christians were accustomed to solemnize the anniversary of a martyr's death for Christ at the place of martyrdom. In the fourth century, neighbouring dioceses began to interchange feasts, to transfer relics, to divide them, and to join in a common feast; as is shown by the invitation of St. Basil of Caesarea (397) to the bishops of the province of Pontus. Frequently groups of martyrs suffered on the same day, which naturally led to a joint commemoration.

In the persecution of Diocletian the number of martyrs became so great that a separate day could not be assigned to each. But the Church, feeling that every martyr should be venerated, appointed a common day for all. The first trace of this we find in Antioch on the Sunday after Pentecost. We also find mention of a common day in a sermon of St. Ephrem the Syrian (373), and in the 74th homily of St. John Chrysostom (407). At first only martyrs and St. John the Baptist were honoured by a special day. Other saints were added gradually, and increased in number when a regular process of canonization was established; still, as early as 411 there is in the Chaldean Calendar a "Commemoratio Confessorum" for the Friday after Easter.

Remembering people who were martyred for the faith seems different to me than just remembering the dead or those who are "saints." Canonization of saints is yet another thing I don't quite get theologically as a Baptist; saints in the hierarchy of communication with God not being part of the premise of the priesthood of all believers that is a central Baptist tenet. It is perhaps no coincidence that the Protestant Reformation started on the eve of All Saints Day because the veneration of the saints was one of the things that had gotten entirely out of hand in medieval Catholic Europe.

Among the Reformed Protestant church traditions (Lutherans, Presbyterians and other Calvinists) Reformation Day is marked on October 31 as the anniversary of when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517.

The fact that Reformation Day coincides with Halloween may not be mere coincidence. Halloween, being the Eve of All Saints' Day might have been an entirely appropriate day for Luther to post his 95 Theses against indulgences since the castle church would be open on All Saints' Day specifically for people to view a large collection of relics. The viewing of these relics was said to promise a reduction in time in purgatory similar to that of the purchase of an indulgence. Dr. Luther may have been shrewd in his choice of that day to post his theses.

It thus seems somewhat curious to continue celebrating All Saints Day in the Reformed tradition…perhaps my Lutheran and Presbyterian friends can help me out on the theological basis of this? Certainly Calvin did not believe in the veneration of the saints, and lies in an unmarked grave so that his relics could not be so celebrated.

Christians who are less closely tied to the Reformed traditions think of saints and the Reformation differently. This excerpt from an online "American Christian" history lesson remembers the Reformation and defines saints.

In October folks with widely differing points of view celebrate widely differing events. Some celebrate Hallowe'en/All Saints Day with its emphasis on goblins, witches, and other such beings. Those who celebrate the Reformation honor saints as defined by Scripture: "...the saints and faithful in Christ which are at Colossi..." (Colossians 1:2) One of those saints/Christians was Professor Martin Luther. What did he have to do with us that we celebrate October 31st as "Reformation Day"?

One hundred years after God used Wycliff to awaken men to the realization that the Word of God should be the foundation for men's lives rather than the proclamations of the Church of Rome, another man, this time a German priest, Martin Luther, arose to refute the heresy that men's salvation came through the church and "good works" rather than "by grace through faith and that not of ourselves." Luther, too, translated the Word of God into the language of the people.

While this is simplistic, it may be deeper knowledge than most American Christians have about this part of our history. For the Christians who take only the Bible as the focal point of Christianity, and I hesitate to call them Protestants because they are fairly well removed from the historical knowledge or thread of the Protestant Reformation, the point of the Reformation was that people gained access to reading the scriptures themselves. Saints are "the faithful in Christ."

I have to confess that my own childhood understanding of saints would perhaps fall in this vein. "Saints" was not a singular proper/capitalized noun; we were collectively lower-case saints or sinners. "She's a saint," might be an exclamation about someone who did something very kind, but not often, because we understood that human foibles precluded that title for most of us. Thankfully, outside of fire and brimstone sermons, sinner was equally infrequently used in everyday language.

When I looked up Baptists and saints, I found this: Among the primary distinctives of the Southern Baptist denomination is this view of saints:

Perseverance of the Saints - Baptists do not believe that true believers will fall away and, thereby, lose their salvation. This is sometimes called, "Once saved, always saved." The proper term, however, is the final perseverance of the saints. It means that real Christians stick with it. It doesn't mean the believer won't stumble, but refers to an inward pull that will not allow him to quit the faith.

Well, I am a Baptist, if not a Southern Baptist, but am not quite so creedal. If I persevere, it is God's grace that sustains me, not some amorphous "inward pull." But perhaps all saints day for me is really just not a useful, separate, annual celebration. If I am a saint, although I would never call myself that, but I mean that since I am a faithful believer in the teachings of Jesus Christ, I need to recognize and celebrate that every day, not once a year. Since in our lives as a community we need to be with those who mourn, then let us do that more often and more intentionally in our community rituals and gatherings. Since we need to remember our history and our stories, let us make time to remember those people whose lives have contributed to ours. Each of these are important enough that we should not mush them together on this one day of the year and otherwise forget that we are faithful believers, that those who mourn are always with us, and that people's lives and stories are important to us all of the year.

That also means of course that we wouldn't have to save this great song for one day a year either! (text by Lesbia Scott, adapted, from the New Century Hymnal #295)

I sing a song of the saints of God,
Faithful their whole lives through,
Who bravely labored, lived, and died
For the God they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,
And another a shepherd in pastures green;
They were saints of God, if you know what I mean,
God, help me to be one too.

They loved their God and they lived that love.
It was loving that made them strong.
They did what was right, for Jesus' sake,
Lived justly their whole lives long.
And one was a prophet, and one was a priest,
And another was slain by a fierce wild beast;
There's no earthly reason, none in the least,
Why I shouldn't be one, too.

They lived not only in ages past;
There are hundreds of thousands still.
The world is filled with living saints
Who choose to do God's will.
You can meet them in school, on the road, at sea,
In church, in a train, in a shop, or at tea;
For the saints are folk like you and like me,
And I mean to be one, too.

Blessings on us all, non-saints and saints alike.

Where are the Bumper Stickers—Whimsy & Joy gone missing

For those of you who have been wondering why it's been a while since I've written—here or elsewhere, I can only say that I've been feeling like Alexander in a continuous loop of terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days (if you don't know this children's book, hear it here). Mostly it's been a lot about work, stress, budget and staffing issues, but it also had to do with having to replace the oil tank ($$$) and then the computer hard drive crashing ($$$) and having to set up a new computer. Or so I thought, but I discovered that a lot of other folks are also feeling stretched too tightly.

As I got up and left the house in the dark this week, I wanted to blame the extension of daylight saving time as a contributor to the stress and sense of being overwhelmed that everyone I've talked to is bearing, from colleagues to neighbor to friend to grocery clerk. But although I don't think the early morning dark helps, it's also not the cause. It could be the economy, but at least all of the people I talked to are working, so that's an indirect cause for many of us.

So, I decided that I needed to pay attention, and yesterday on the way to work I started looking for bumper stickers. In previous reflective periods of my life, I have come to value bumper stickers for their inspirational value and as a barometer of how people are feeling about the world. My problem this week: there are hardly any bumper stickers, fun or otherwise, on cars anymore! I realize it's a limited sample, but I commute through what was at one point in the past twenty years, although perhaps not today, one of the most densely populated cities in the United States, and there are a lot of cars on the road and parked on the streets. There were two or three slightly tattered presidential election bumper stickers, one religious sticker in Portuguese (although my Portuguese is nearly non-existent, I recognize the words for God and Jesus). Just when I'd decided that bumper stickers have become useless as a societal barometer, a car pulled in front of me with this bumper sticker:

"Don't Postpone Joy."

That was the catalyst and proof. I've figured it out. The reason we're all so stressed is we don't have enough whimsy in our lives. And that bumper sticker is excellent advice.

So, what joyful, whimsical thing can you do?

Clue 1: it doesn't require money, or shopping.

Clue 2: it has to be personal to you.

Clue 3: smiles probably help and may be essential.

Clue 4: Don't stress over it, but answer the question: What brings me Joy?

Clue 5: Having answered that, act on your answer.

I also will acknowledge that for many of us our work is not what brings us joy. I don't know what it takes to change our attitudes about our current job or to change our jobs while we are in them or by leaving them (harder in this economic climate), but we need to find something more in our work that gives us peace and/or joy. I'm inspired to assert this is possible after reading this poem by Wendell Berry. I highlight the lines that caught my attention relative to my last few weeks at work. What would it take to have work that is more like Sabbath?

Wendell Berry from Sabbaths, #VII

What if, in the high, restful sanctuary
That keeps the memory of Paradise,
We’re followed by the drone of history
And greed’s poisonous fumes still burn our eyes.

Disharmony recalls us to our work.
From Heavenly work of light and wind and leaf
We must turn back into the peopled dark

Of our unraveling century, the grief

Of waste, the agony of haste and noise.

It is a hard return from Sabbath rest

To lifework of the fields, yet we rejoice,
Returning, less condemned in being blessed

By vision of what human work can make:
A harmony between wood-land and field,
The world as it was given for love’s sake,
The world by love and loving work revealed

As given to our children and our Maker.

In that healed harmony the world is used
But not destroyed, the Giver and the taker

Joined, the taker blessed, in the unabused

Gift that nurtures and protects. Then workday

And Sabbath live together in one place.
Though mortal, incomplete, that harmony

Is our one possibility of peace.

When field and woods agree, they make a rhyme
That stirs in distant memory the whole
First Sabbath song that no largess of time

Or hope or sorrow can wholly recall.

But harmony of earth is Heaven-made,

Heaven-making is promise and is prayer,
A little song to keep us unafraid,
An earthly music magnified in air.

I would be glad if you would share with me what your joyful act is, and what thing you can and will do to make your work more like true Sabbath, rather than your Sabbath more like work, something I suspect that more of us know how to do.

If you don't know the difference between work and Sabbath, I would suggest that you follow God's example to find out about Sabbath: see that what you have created is good and rest on at least the seventh day. Or perhaps you just need to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Without a doubt joy and the holy are closely related.

The Future of Faith—in Review

I just finished reading The Future of Faith by Harvey Cox. Clearly this is essential reading for a blogger who writes about growing in faith, but I would highly recommend this to you all. While I can't resist saying that this is vintage Harvey Cox, given that the book is published this year as he celebrates his 80th birthday, this book is a really broad brush of the history of Christian faith. His definition of faith ends chapter 2 as follows:

The three ways we encounter the great mystery—the universe, the self, the other—all leave us with a sense of uneasiness, incompleteness, and dissatisfaction. … Faith, although it is evoked by the mystery that surrounds us, is not the mystery itself. It is a basic posture toward the mystery, and it comes in an infinite variety of forms. (p. 35)

Cox calls the era from the time of Jesus to the time of Constantine the Age of Faith, where people believed and acted upon Jesus' teaching that the Kingdom of God is at hand, or what Cox teaches as the "Reigning," rather than the Kingdom, of God.

Clearly the object of Jesus' own hope and confidence—his faith—was the Kingdom of God. (p. 45)

By the third and fourth centuries CE things were much different in the Christian churches than the work toward the "Reigning of God" that Jesus had lived and taught. Central in the book are several strong chapters summarizing "the devolution from faith to belief," (the subtitle to chapter five) as followers of Jesus lost their way as People of the Way: 1) by developing creeds, 2) by agreeing to or allowing apostolic succession, and 3) by merging with empire under Constantine. [I recognize and readily admit my own, and perhaps Harvey Cox's, Baptist biases in decrying this devolution, being non-creedal, non-hierarchical, and an advocate of the separation of church and state, and as a matter of full disclosure, I note that Harvey Cox and I are members of the same Baptist church.] The next era is the Age of Belief, where

Along with the "imperialization" of the church and the glorification of the bishops, now "faith" came to mean obeying the bishop and assenting to what he taught. Faith had been coarsened into belief, and this distortion has hobbled Christianity ever since. (p. 98)

These chapters are insightful summaries of the politics, theology and history that shaped Christianity over the next fifteen hundred years.

The primary thesis of this book, however, is that the Age of Belief is drawing to a close, and a new age is dawning—the Age of the Spirit. As a part of that new age, Cox asserts "fundamentalism, the bane of the twentieth century, is dying." (p. 1) It is an assertion not yet proven. In his final chapter, Cox compares the changes in the "nature of religiousness" in Christianity to similar changes in Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism.

The change assumes different shapes, but some of them overlap. With globalization, religions are becoming less regional. Christians, Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus now live on every continent. Religions are also becoming less hierarchical. Lay leadership and initiative flourish in all of them… In addition many are becoming less dogmatic and more practical. Religious people today are more interested in ethical guidelines and spiritual disciplines than in doctrines. They are also becoming less patriarchal, as women assume leadership positions in religions that have barred them for centuries, sometimes for millennia. … [But] as these changes gain momentum, they evoke an almost point-for-point fundamentalist reaction. (p. 223)

Optimistically, and perhaps prophetically, Cox then concludes his summary of the fundamentalist reactions across the world's religions by saying,

All these, however, are in the true sense of the word "reactionary" efforts. They are attempting to stem an inexorable movement of the human spirit whose hour has come. (p. 223)

I can hope that the Age of the Spirit is dawning. If it is, and we embrace some of the harbingers of that age: local congregations acting as followers of the Way—acting on the teachings of Jesus; reaching out to the poor and needy, theologically summarized in liberation theology as a preferential option for the poor; and applications of two core beliefs of Spirit-filled Pentecostalism, that promote change and act against materialism:

conversion ("you must be born again") and holiness ("be not conformed to this world"). In political and cultural terms conversion means that people can change and that therefore fatalism—either personal or societal—is not acceptable. Holiness means that you need not buy into the latest mind-numbing fads of the commodity lifestyle. You can be "in but not of this world." (p. 211-2)

In these movements that are part of the Age of the Spirit, there is great joy and vitality. The church, at least as a global whole, is not dying, but is being born anew. People are engaging with one another, with the mystery, and with the stories that hold the tradition.

As a side note, making a connection to the power of story telling that I recently recounted, and as an ah-ha moment about my own and other fellow Baptists' secret love of ritual (a Baptist friend recently ascribed her love of the communion ritual to being a "closet Episcopalian"), Cox writes:

Most people describe the Baptist denomination, in which I grew up, as not having any rituals. Even Baptists often make this claim. But it is not true. Rituals are enactments—in song, story, visual representation, and gesture—of the narratives that inform a people's identity. (p. 39)

Certainly Baptist sermons, hymns, and Sunday school posters were and are full of song, story and visual representations.

By the time we were ready to leave Sunday school, these sagas had become permanent features in the topography of our imaginations. They did exactly what rituals are supposed to do. (p. 40)

Read The Future of Faith. Harvey Cox tells the story of Christianity and of some of his own encounters with the key movers and shapers of faith of the last fifty years, Gustavo Gutierrez and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, among others, and engages our imaginations in the possibilities for the Age of the Spirit to come.

Confronting the Powers that Be—in Yourself

Last week I "let someone go." The person was in the probation period of the new job, and we said, "You are not a good fit for this job." It was unfortunately true, despite my high hopes—somehow concepts weren't translating into results, despite my efforts to figure out why and to provide alternative approaches and explanations. If/when those alternatives don't work, I know that I can't change other people. It's not that people can't learn, but they have to be in a state of mind to do so. I can't make a person learn who is distracted by their own life's crises or problems, or who is not really engaged in the task at hand. You have to focus and pay attention and want to learn in order to translate concepts to results.

Of course, I say that from the position of being the person doing the hiring and firing, that is to say from the position of power and privilege. I've had to do this before and it always makes for sleepless nights, nausea, and other feelings of discomfort. The day I stop being discomfited about firing people, is the day I need to stop having that kind of power.

As often happens, my friend Bob sent a timely reminder in his morning scripture reading a couple of days after my exercise of power.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:3-4)

I would like to think that I exercised my power in the interests of others, given that my agency receives public funding, and we need to be accountable, but surely at least one person was probably not happy at the results.

Then, as if I hadn't been confronted about my own power and privilege issues enough, this link arrived in my email box: On "Real" Christians and Christian Privilege. Click the link to read the whole, but here is a sample.

Christianity, at least (and especially) in America, is a privilege—and, like any privilege, it can be uncomfortable to face the ugly reality of what other members of a privileged class can do to non-privileged folks, even if you don't do it yourself. I'm white, I'm straight, I'm cisgender: I understand the impulse to distance oneself. But as a white person, I am obliged to acknowledge that the history of white supremacy in America is one of slavery, of lynchings, of segregation, of sundown towns, of internment camps, of genocide, and of all manner of institutionalized racism. I don't get to say (nor do I want to) that the KKK aren't "real" white people. …

The "they're not real Christians" refrain rather quickly loses its strength as a consolation to someone barraged by hatred from people calling themselves Christians. Even the liberal Christians I know had a harder time choking out that line after watching Donohue et. al. exact their "not real" Christian terror campaign upon me, because it sounds so hollow when you're telling someone with an inbox full of prayers they'll burn in hell as soon as they die (and hopefully soon).

In this arena of power and privilege, I claim gray—it is not black and white. As a follower of Jesus, that is, as a Christian, I have been told by other "Christians" that I'll go to hell for being who I am, or I've been told that some churches would never consider me as a minister because I'm a woman.

For many progressive Christians, "coming out" as a Christian is a challenge because the label had been usurped, at least in the United States, by the kind of "real" Christians described above. In a recent sermon I challenged a congregation of "progressive" Christians to come out as Christians, following the text of David's anointing (1 Samuel 15:34 - 16:13):

In mainline and especially in liberal and progressive churches we have ceded the idea of conversion to the conservatives, and I think that's an error. We are all David. We are called to be other. Like David, it doesn't mean that we are perfect after we recognize that, but God calls us out. …

Once I started going to seminary, I started having conversations with people about God, faith, beliefs, the meaning of life, but not so much before then. Going to seminary caused me to come out as a Christian. It gave me a reason or perhaps an excuse to come out as a follower of Jesus, as a believer in God. Realizing that I was other, that I was called to be other gives me a reason to claim my difference and share it.

What is your reason or excuse to come out and share with someone outside of these walls what this faith community means to you, or what our prayer time means to you, or what God is doing in your life or how you hear a story from the Bible reflected in your own everyday life? When you do the work of social justice that so many of you are called to do, do you tell people about the faith that motivates you to do so, and if not, why not? It's one thing to be called to be different, to be other; it's quite another to figure out how you really need to live that out and speak out about our difference. When we are called out, how do we live faithfully as other, as different?

We don't want to be different. We want to enjoy our privilege. But with any exercise of privilege there must be corresponding responsibilities, and that's where we need to pick up this conversation. What are our responsibilities as Christians?

Yes, there is privilege in being a Christian in a nation where Christmas is a national holiday, but Yom Kippur and Ramadan are not. But does the story of the birth of a child to homeless refugees make us take action to help refugees, or to help those who are homeless? If not, what did you really learn from the Christmas story? We must act and call our sisters and brothers who are Christian to action.

Yes, there is privilege in being a Christian in a nation where the Lord's Prayer is part of our Presidential Inauguration, rather than a Jewish Sabbath prayer or the Muslim call to prayer, adhan/azzan, or Hindu or Buddhist prayers. But then our responsibilities as Christians then lie in listening to this prayer and in forgiving our debtors, as we ask God to forgive our debts. How might we do that? One idea that recently caught my eye: Common Security Clubs.

Yes, there is privilege in being a Christian, and yet are we following Jesus in having compassion, taking care of the sick, giving the hungry something to eat, as Jesus did when he fed the 5,000?

When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” Matthew 14: 14-16

Food pantries are in great need now. If you can afford it, take five cans off your shelves and give them this week, and buy five more cans so you can do it again next week. Many local grocery stores have donation bins.

Equal access to health needs to become a given, not a privilege. We who are privileged with health or access to health care: let your representatives know that extending access to health is something that Christians want.

You have power and privilege simply because you are able to read this.

May we each claim our power to work for change, acknowledge our privilege and act upon the responsibilities that go with privilege.

Wilderness: Practices of Getting Lost and of Finding Yourself

In the 1980's I joined a women's business networking group as I was bumping into the glass ceiling in corporate America. Many of the other women were in similar positions. It meant that we were juggling what it meant to be a woman in the business world, to be talented, to be successful, and for many of us, to be other things that we couldn't talk about at work. Over the course of a year's worth of monthly meetings I developed relationships where some wonderfully deep conversations occurred, often in the parking lot after dinner, where we talked about those things that we couldn't talk about at work. One courageous woman told me she had been hospitalized for mental illness and was still being treated for bipolar disorder.

Having been lost in mental illness, she was trying to make her way back. As I recall, she was networking to try to find a job, but in the process she was becoming an advocate for people with mental illness. In talking with her, I realized how we, in our society then (and still now), put shame and blame on people with a mental illness that we would not on people with most physical illnesses. I think that she was perhaps the first person I had met who came out as having a mental illness, and her courage and passion for justice stays with me still.

I'm savoring the reading of An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor. Chapter 5 is "The Practice of Getting Lost," subtitled "Wilderness." Wilderness is an important Biblical metaphor and Taylor makes the case for getting lost as a spiritual practice—a way to practice for the inevitable wilderness experiences that life will throw at you. The left turn away from your regular route home that adds ten minutes to your ride has the potential of opening your eyes in important and necessary ways.

The road leads me into the ghost town of an old mill on the river, where the hulks of deserted buildings perch at the edge of the river like a herd of petrified mastodons. Turning away from them, I follow the wind road past an old softball diamond, complete with ramshackle bleachers, where the mill workers must have played at one time. Before I know it, I am lost in the lives of those people as well—living in mill houses, going to the mill church, working for mill owners who paid them in chits they could use at the mill store—which, like the softball diamond, has fallen into ruin." (p. 71)

How do we truly love our neighbors if we have no idea of who they are or where they live? As long as we stay on safe and well-known paths, we don't risk seeing places where injustice and greed cry out for us to do justice instead. But even closer to home, as a spiritual practice, Taylor suggests that taking the small risk of getting lost prepares us for the wilderness.

These are benign forms of getting lost, I know, but you have to start somewhere. If you do not start choosing to get lost in some fairly low-risk ways, then how will you ever manage when one of life's big winds knocks you clean off your course? I am not speaking literally here, although literal lostness is a good place to begin since the skills are the same: managing your panic, marshalling your resources, taking a good look around to see where you are and what this unexpected development might have to offer you. (p. 72)

Popular religion focuses so hard on spiritual success that most of us do not know the first thing about the spiritual fruits of failure. When we fall ill, lose our jobs, wreck our marriages, or alienate our children, most of us are left alone to pick up the pieces. Even those of us who are ministered to by brave friends can find it hard to shake the shame of getting lost in our lives. And yet if someone asked us to pinpoint the times in our lives that changed us for the better, a lot of those times would be wilderness times. (p. 78)

In the book Gifted by Otherness, the authors make the analogy between patterns of spiritual growth and coming out. The journey toward spiritual maturity has three iterative phases: an awakening or conversion, crossing the wilderness or facing the shadows, and then returning to the world. (p. 111) I say iterative because this process doesn't happen just once on the way to spiritual maturity. Author M.R. Ritley puts it this way:

Coming out is the common heart of our particular journeys as gay men and women. For lesbian and gay Christians it is an inextricable element of our spiritual pilgrimage. For some it is the fulcrum of a spiritual conflict that estranges us from God or from the church, for others, the precipitating crisis that forces us into a deeper search for God. Almost never can the process be described as neutral. … Coming out is not peripheral to who we are as people or as Christians, rather it is the very form our spiritual journey takes, the means whereby God calls us out to be a people. (p. 110)

The example and experience of crossing the wilderness is a gift and a model that lesbians and gays can bring to the church and to spiritual communities. Coming out of the wilderness is as important as getting lost or going into the wilderness.

This week, my friends Ralph and Leslie were on the front page of their local newspaper. Ralph had been the Director of Human Services and a pastor in that city, and on the front page of the paper he courageously came out as having early onset Alzheimer's disease. Ralph has always been an advocate for human rights, and continues to be as he faces how he and Leslie and their family and friends will deal with this journey. Our faith community is very involved with them as they journey, and we are all growing spiritually.

"People think if you have Alzheimer’s, you are crazy or feeble," Leslie said. "But it’s not true. That’s one message we want to get across."
Ralph is neither. Bright-eyed and active, he does chores, cooks, fixes broken items around the house and is an avid reader. "People think of Alzheimer’s as the worst thing that can happen to them, but it’s not," he said. "I like to think that life, any life, is a gift."
Of course there are problems. And it’s not easy, but Ralph and Leslie believe that with the right kind of support, one can still lead a fulfilling life.

I know from my own pastoral experience that people with memory disorders and those who love them are entering a wilderness. In many ways, Alzheimer's is a process of continuing to get lost, sometimes literally. But it is also an opportunity to seize and pay attention to this moment, just as Taylor describes.

"The thing that’s most important, Alzheimer’s or not, is that you are a person," Ralph said.
Leslie added, "For people who fear it, it’s not the end of the world or the end of life. I’ve learned from Ralph to appreciate things more — like the moments we have."

What we fear is that we too may get lost. What we need to learn is how to live our way through the wilderness, and notice what and who is around us in our journey in this moment.

I also happened upon another courageous coming out this week by black pastor and gospel singer Tonex. Speaking about coming out in a TV interview and the reaction he got, he said:

You know, it's not easy growing up in a Pentecostal/Evangelical church, where everyone is pretty much anti-gay, although it's common knowledge that some of the most anointed musicians and singer-songwriters have, or have dealt with, same-sex attraction at some point. For me, it was particularly taboo because of my upbringing and the ministerial call on my life. I then had to think about the repercussions of this revelation. But I knew I had to get free. That interview was cathartic for me.

Take the time to watch the TV interviews available in three segments online, or at least segments two and three. In my research on the status of welcoming and affirming churches, I found no historically black churches/denominations that were even having conversations about this, so this is a big hurdle, a dangerous wilderness, for our black brothers and sisters. Listen as well to his musical response: "This is All of Me."

Wilderness is freeing, and scary. I don't know if a practice of getting lost intentionally, as Taylor suggests, will help us deal with our own wilderness times, but perhaps I'll take a left turn on the way home tomorrow and see what I notice, and live in that wilderness moment.

The Practice of Wearing Skin and Fellowship

One of my daily morning practices is stretching, and I pray as I stretch. My first few prayers are done just in breathing, as I stretch my legs and hip joints to one side and then the other. Breath is ruach, the Spirit, and I invite the Spirit to dwell in me fully again each morning.

After several more stretches have limbered my joints enough to consider standing up again, particularly now as mornings are chilly, I turn and do what yoga practitioners might call an extended child's pose, kneeling with my hands stretching out as far in front of me on the floor as I can. It's a great shoulder stretch, but now it invariably reminds me of the Baptist-Muslim National Dialogue conference I went to in January, and the Muslim Friday night prayers I had the opportunity to participate in.

At that conference Cheryl Townsend Gilkes from Colby College made the connection between the historical fact that many of the slaves brought over to American colonies from Africa were Muslims and many were forced to convert to Christianity by slave owners. But she pointed out that the Islamic influences lingered on in the spirituals.
And so as I stretch in this pose, so similar to the full outstretched Muslim prayer prostration, I remember and hold the stretch long enough to sing a couple of lines: "When I fall on my knees, with my face to the rising sun, O Lord have mercy on me."

As I get up and stretch my hamstrings and calves, I stretch on each side and sing another song that I learned in Sunday School, that was perhaps a reminder of the Muslim calls to prayer:

Whisper a prayer in the morning,
whisper a prayer at noon,
whisper a prayer in the evening
to keep your heart in tune.

Once I've stood up I continue stretching and praying, mentioning those people whom I am praying for by name—opening the world for God's presence in their lives. Then in my final stretches, I pray for myself.

I think it's very appropriate to pray and pay attention to the body, to the aches and tight spots. I'm continuing to read An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor and she talks about the "practice of wearing skin":

(p. 43) The daily practice of incarnation—of being in the body with full confidence that God speaks the language of flesh—is to discover a pedagogy that is as old as the gospels. Why else did Jesus spend his last night on earth teaching his disciples to wash feet and share supper? With all the conceptual truths in the universe at his disposal, he did not give them something to think about together when he was gone. Instead, he gave them concrete things to do—specific ways of being together in their bodies—that would go on teaching them what they needed to know when he was no longer around to teach them himself.

What do those concrete things remind us to do now? Where do we find incarnation these days?

Over the weekend I attended the Northeast regional gathering of the Alliance of Baptists. The Alliance is either a movement or a fledgling denomination. This gathering did not remind me of church business as usual, although a lot of the elements were familiar, but they are thinking about what gathered believers need and want in associational fellowship, while maintaining Baptist principles and a commitment to welcome, hospitality and fun, as well as to social justice and peace. In the preaching, in the singing, in the communion, in their covenant and in the fellowship before and after, these people are doing a fine job of remembering that we are the body, and acting on what Jesus taught—we need to care for the body. I knew a few people there and was warmly welcomed by both those I knew and those I didn't know. The conversations were lively, supportive, and interesting. It really was fun, and such a spiritual boost—that's what a fellowship will do: bring joy (and yes, we sang Leaning on the Everlasting Arms).

Recommended reading from the gathering's sermon: The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why by Phyllis Tickle:

"Phyllis Tickle offers a creative and provocative overview of multiple social and cultural changes in our era, their relation to previous major paradigm shifts, and their particular impact on North American Christianity. This is an immensely important contribution to the current conversation about new and emerging forms of Christianity in a post-modern environment—and a delight to read!" —The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop and Primate, The Episcopal Church

"Tickle, author of God-Talk in America and PW's founding religion editor, observes that Christianity is holding its semimillennial rummage sale of ideas."

What is trash and what's worth keeping in the rummage sale? That would be prophecy… All of my reading and encounters convince me that we are and need to be in a time of great change about our religious institutions and spiritual practices. Does ordination (making/protecting order) in/through today's church and denominational structures make sense in this time that we are called to embrace or create change? Since institutions by their nature are resistant to change, they protect homeostasis by choosing/ordaining leaders who will keep the same old order. On the other hand would Luther have had the same impact if he had not been ordained within the institution that he was trying to change? Can you tell I'm waiting on the next step in the ordination process?

While I wait I'll just continue to practice wearing and appreciating my own skin, and hope that you will do the same. As Taylor put it:

(p. 42) One of the truer things about bodies is that it is just about impossible to increase the reverence I show mine without also increasing the reverence I show yours.

Blessings to us all!