Thoughts on Being a Bishop These Days

Several Random Connected Thoughts

First, let me open by saying, "I'm floundering a bit these days." My sense of direction and purpose in this office is less clear. Friends have reminded me that this is often a typical in-between phase for me. In that nebulous place before my next project emerges, I'm often Dazed and Confused, to quote a Led Zeppelin song. However, I'm also thinking this is about something deeper. I need some focus. To succinctly capture the work of this office, I drafted the "Work of a Bishop". (It’s below) I am mostly using it as a guide for myself. I'll be asking, "am I spending enough time in areas that are forward looking and soulful for both me and the church?"

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Second, a Mash-Up of several resources and conversations has caused me to begin exploring the questions around religious life and society. It began with a conversation I had with one of our younger pastors as he asks about the viability of his congregation and the church in general. "I think the changes for the church are going to be fascinating but also a really rough ride." He said. Our dialogue ended on a note of curiosity around the collapse of institutional religion accompanied by a reemergence of a religious/spiritual impulse in the collective of society.

Third, I dropped in on the "Ask Big Questions" podcast with Bill Gates and Rashida Jones. They let me listen to their conversation with anthropologist and author Yuval Harari. In the middle of the discussion of corporations Harari is asked to describe the corporation Microsoft. His response "Microsoft is a Story." OK it's more in-depth than that, but what he is suggesting is those corporate entities, and I'd add the ELCA or even a Synod are stories. They are agreed upon narratives that a group of people have said, "Yes this exists." For me, this introduces a new way of conceiving of our work. It goes to the heart of belonging. Human beings seek meaning and one of the ways we do that is in belonging. This idea that the New England Synod is a story will be working its way through my heart and soul for a while. It's helping me re-imagine our work.

Lastly, I've just started reading a book by David Tacey, in which he describes a positive understanding of the Post-Secular Society. It's the 'death of the death of God' philosophy and makes the case that while religious institutions are struggling, the reemergence of the religious impulse is very much alive. One thinks of Bonhoeffer's religion less Christianity, among others. But Tacey goes a step or two further. He is both a theologian and a depth psychologist so he is very interested in a healthy role for both fields as resources in the healing of society.

How does all this go together? I'm not sure but the thread of my own floundering and confusion about the work of this office is connected to these movements in our culture. While I'd prefer spending most of my time in that center column of the chart, I recognize that I'm spending time in all 9 areas. That's ok, it's what's required of the office. It also helps explain why I get scattered.

How do you stay focused on whatever you believe is most important?

Religion and the Search for Meaning

The Sacred Psyche: C.G. Jung's Psychology of Religion


Guest Post by David Odorisio (Originally published on his blog). I post it here as one of the most succinct articulations of our current societal crisis and loss of meaning. J.H.

Many consider ours the "age of anxiety" with near-constant threats of terror, fear, and ecological disaster at alarmingly global levels. Who has time to reflect upon or consider the deeper psychological and spiritual realities underlying these crises, much less the interest or courage or examine one's own role in these complicated and challenging world events? To Jung, religion, or a "religious attitude" was a means for examining the deeper mysteries of life, and offered a vision of wholeness and healing amidst challenging and difficult times.

Jung's own psychological and spiritual outlook was formed during World War I and only further strengthened through witnessing the atrocities of World War II. Jung knew the dark side of human nature through both the cultural and political events of his time, as well as through the personal lives of his many clients, who brought to his attention the growing sense of alienation, fragmentation, and inter-personal disconnect that continue to plague many of us today despite the myriad advances in technology and so-called "social" media. There is an emptiness in our culture that all of the social and economic security in the world could not cure. To Jung, it was the religious impulse - inherent in the sacred nature of the psyche (soul) - that has the potential to heal the restlessness and material craving so prevalent in our time, and provide us with living symbols, rituals, and rites of passage to meaning-make life's transitions and encounter a world ensouled.

The Numinous: Encountering the Sacred

Jung used religious scholar Rudolf Otto's term numinous (from the Latin, numen, or "divine presence") to describe the ineffable and mysterious presence of the Sacred. Otto defined this as a feeling of awe, of standing in the presence of a great mystery, a humbling power greater than one's own limited self. The felt presence of the numinous became a marker for Jung of authentic religious experience, which he favored over the rote repetition of ritual for obligation's sake. To Jung, it was the encounter with the Sacred that formed the center of a whole and fully human life, and was central to the process of healing and individuation as he understood it.

Scripture and the Sacred Psyche

Sacred Scriptures from across the world's religious traditions help us to appreciate and enter into a relationship with the numinous aspects of the psyche, or soul. The ancient practice and art of lectio divina, or sacred reading, serves as a tool to make oneself fully present to the living wisdom hidden within a text. For thousands of years people have ruminated (literally, "to chew") on passages of such sacred texts as the Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Sutras, Upanisads, Tao te Ching, and of course the Hebrew, Christian, and Islamic Scriptures. When we live with texts, they become part of our sacred vocabularly, and provide a subtle yet profound entry point into a living relationship with the divine.

When we read and listen to Scripture - from all traditions - with the ear of the Soul, metaphor replaces literal interpretation, so the Exodus and desert experience of the ancient Israelites becomes our own arid separation and search for the presence of God, or "promised land." Pharoah becomes our own internalized voices of oppression, and Moses, our own personal and often reluctant hero and redeemer within. When we read Scripture with an ear towards Soul, the texts and traditions of our ancestors resonate and often reveal the living voice of our own deeply personal and unique journey to Self.

A Therapeutic Approach to Religion

Jung has a famous quote that of the many hundreds of patients he treated in the "second half of life" (which he defines as over the age of 35), "there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life" (Modern Man in Search of a Soul). What Jung meant by this, was that for many individuals, the loss of a living religious or spiritual belief system and practice has led to a wide-spread loss of soul. To Jung, religion is not defined through institutionalized practices, but as a personal need to invoke and invite the Sacred into our daily lives. Religion, and its counterpart, ritual, help us to meaning-make the moments and transitions of our lives, to find a deeper sense of purpose embedded in the mundane, and to connect with a power greater than our limited selves throughout our lives.

Holy Wisdom (Sophia) personified as the feminine face of God. Saint John's Bible (detail)

Holy Wisdom (Sophia) personified as the feminine face of God. Saint John's Bible (detail)

Jung understood the contemporary crisis of faith as stemming from an over-reliance on a reductionistic and scientifically materialistic worldview that has resulted in the wide-spread collapse of any meaningful religious mythology or culture. Even with all of the tremendous and valuable gains that a scientific outlook has offered, it simply cannot cure - nor does it even address - the deep and abiding ailments of the soul. Such soul wounds demand a deeper kind of healing that in my experience can only be fed through an encounter with the numinous, and maintained through a thorough re-envisioning of the world as Sacred.

Jung's approach to healing soul wounds was for individuals to look within - to seek guidance from an internal source of wisdom, intuitive knowledge, and understanding that he called the Self. It is from this encounter with the Self as voice of the Sacred that the living symbols and myths of religious cultures for millennia have arisen, and is no less available to us today as it was in previous generations - if only we seek to establish a relationship with its guidance from within.

God-images

From a Jungian perspective, the modern religious crisis and collapse of many mainstream religious organizations can be understood as a loss of relevant and meaningful "god-images." Jung used this term to define how we visualize and mythologize the Sacred. To Jung, many of our Western god-images are "incomplete," and not only need - but want - to undergo the profound transformative process that Jung believed was both a necessary and participatory process. He understood that the revitalization and re-birth of a sacred image needs to come from within, and is birthed from both the personal as well as collective unconscious. In order to continue to speak to the needs of modern individuals, these god-images demand a continual re-visioning and re-valuation in order to remain psychically and soulfully resonant.

This re-imaging of our sacred landscape functions as a profound and often mysterious dialogue between our personal egoic self and the numinous dimension of the transpersonal Self. Jung takes up this process at length in his late work Answer to Job, where he offers a therapeutic "treatment" of the Western god-image and outlines its transformations both as Yahweh and as Christ, each of which Jung describes as "incomplete," and in need of further evolution in order for the Sacred to more fully "incarnate" through each of us.

Jung understood our god-images as mirrors of our own unconscious desires for wholeness and integration, and yet the majority of our Sacred images today lack a depiction of the Self that includes a positive affirmation of the body, sexuality, and the feminine aspects of God. Additionally, the theological understanding of God as "all good" relegates qualities of evil to an other who then becomes "not god" - historically seen as Satan or a devil figure, but today is projected onto any culture or peoples that represent "the enemy."

Jung referred to these hidden or "unconscious" aspects of the deity as "God's shadow" with our role, as full participants in the Mystery, to continue the incarnation of the god-image through an active engagement with - and integration of - these shadow aspects of the deity; subsequently transforming our own. This creates a reciprocity between human and divine, and furthers the profound "heretical" notion offered by Meister Eckhart, the 13th-century preacher and mystic, that God not only desires us, but needs us, just as we need God, in order to continue the deep and on-going work of transformation. It is only then that the Sacred can most fully break into the dailyness of our lives, transform our restless hearts, and provide us with a deep and abiding sense of meaning and purpose that emerges through a palpable and lived relationship with the sacred psyche.


What's Your Story? A Three Part Advent series

What’s your story? I don’t mean the essay you wrote in 8th grade, that begins “I was born in Concord, Massachusetts.” I mean thee deeper story. The story of your hopes and dreams, the losses and disappointments, the successes and failures. I’m talking about the story that makes you and I human. That’s a fascinating story, and one that someone needs to hear.

Maybe that someone is a child or grandchild, maybe it’s a wider audience or maybe it’s just an audience of one. That one could be you, it could be God.

On three Monday evenings in December, I invite you to join me via Zoom for an opportunity to learn about story telling. This is a form of Everyday Spiritual Autobiography. There are no tests, no grades and no mandatory sharing your story with others. What there will be is an opportunity to help you focus on one particular slice of your life story, and explore how it connects to a deeper sacred story.

Here’s the plan - Three Mondays at 7:00 p.m. (Eastern Time)

December 7 - What is a Good Story? We’ll look at some great story telling by Anne Lamott as well as the biblical narratives for Advent & Christmas. We’ll have fun writing or telling a few stories with one another. You’ll leave this session inspired to write a short story about your life.

December 14 - The Hero’s Journey is the classic pattern in western literature. We will present that and see how it shows up in everything from Hallmark Christmas movies to Harry Potter. Then we’ll play around with telling short stories about our own journey.

December 21 - We spend some time telling our own stories after exploring this question: What makes an autobiography a spiritual story? How do we tell a story about our own lives, and show a connection to God, even when it’s not obvious that God is there? We conclude with encouragement for each of us to explore our life stories and tell them in front of an audience of one, or two, or more.

This is a fun, educational and inspirational series for people of any age (kids are welcome) who want to learn a bit about storytelling, and using their own life as the material for great stories. Whether you want to simply learn about story or prepare to present a story, you will learn something. And, we will wrap it all in an understanding of the Spiritual, as we discover how that’s much closer to our everyday living than we thought.

There is no fee for this series. It’s limited to 24 participants in order to maximize interaction and learning. You must register in advance to receive the Zoom link.

Click here to register with Martha, she’ll get you the information.

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Never Assume - An Update for all of us

One of the Behavioral Finance people I follow is Jonathan Clements on the Humble Dollar. He recently posted an article titled “Never Assume”. As I looked it over, I thought, wow, some of these apply to our life in the world of faith and spirit. Here is a link to his piece, and here are the ones I lift up for all of us.

Never Assume goes in front of each of these


That other points of view are without merit.

That our immediate reaction is the right one.

That silence means someone agrees with us.

That we’re being rational.

That friends and family are telling us the unvarnished truth.

That how we think we’re perceived is how we’re perceived.

That those who are most insistent or passionate are most likely to be correct.

That we instinctively know what will make us happy.

That our life in the years ahead will be similar to today.

That our recollection is correct.

A Never Assume on these will help all of us

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Prayer for Courage

Courage comes from the heart

and we are always welcomed by God,

the heart of all being.

We bear witness to our faith,

knowing that we are called

to live lives of courage,

love and reconciliation

in the ordinary and extraordinary

moments of each day.

We bear witness, too, to our failures

and our complicity in the fractures of our world.

May we be courageous today.

May we learn today

May we love today.

Amen

from Daily Prayer by Padraig O Tuama of the Irish Corrymeela Community

A Return of Experiential Spirituality

“We must move from a belief-based spirituality to a practice-based spirituality, or little will change in religion, politics, and the world.” Richard Rohr

The above quote comes from Franciscan Priest, Richard Rohr in an article written in 2017 about the evolving movement toward experience based faith. What I am calling “Experiential Spirituality”. The concept does not originate with me. It’s the ancient practice that is at the core of the Christian encounter with God. In fact, it’s true of all the major religions of the world.

The religion of Jesus has as its cornerstone an experience of the divine becoming temporally experienced. We call it the incarnation.

Most of the significant writings of the last 2,000 years are by those who had an experience of faith. Teresa of Avila, Hildegaard of Bingen and St. Francis all encountered the sacred in a concrete specific manner. That experience shaped their lives and their faith. I doubt that these people would have been so significantly impacted if they had only read a few books and believed their way into the faith.

I’m not arguing for the elimination of an intellectual inquiry. The mind is a gift that keeps on giving, but it is not the only gift. Their is also the gift of a sacred experience. Carl Jung touched on this when John Freeman asked him in the 1959 BBC documentary, “Do you Believe in God"?” Jung’s response. “I know.” He could affirm to know God based on his own encounter.

One of the challenges of our time is that religion has shifted to a set of beliefs, by which we mean an intellectual ascent to a set of ideas. But how often are those ideas connected to ones spiritual encounter? Do we say we believe in Jesus or God or any other specific teaching based on an encounter or a teaching? Is the Apostle’s Creed anything for us that a set of ideas?

Religions and Spiritual teachings can often be divided into Orthodoxies and Orthopraxies. The first is a faith based on teachings, beliefs and doctrines, the latter is a faith based on practices. Islam is a religion of practice, though some strands of it slide into the orthodoxy camp.

What would a faith look like that rooted itself in people’s experience of the numinous? Perhaps this question is best answered by the increasing interest in rituals, communities and behaviors that emphasize such encounters. More on this subject as we go forward, but for now…ask yourself this question:

Where have I experienced God?

Real Change: The Meditation Social Justice Connection

For the first time in my life, I’ve found myself struggling with anxiety. I’m ok and getting some good help. It’s not the kind of anxiety that requires medication, but it is necessary for me to attend to some things like diet, exercise, lifestyle patterns, media use, etc. So far, it’s better. Where did this come from after 61 years? Who knows? The election, Covid19, moving through the years, maybe it’s that new subscription at Trade Coffee. (Switching to Decaf now)

One of my changes is a greater intentionality in what I will call my inner life. I enrolled in a Spiritual Direction training program. I wanted a structured vehicle to dive in to some areas that have interested me for decades, namely the Christian Mystics and Depth Psychology. I’ve also started meditation. I can now attest to my caliber, I’m a bonafide toddler in this new endeavor - tripping and falling like a drunken two year old.

This led me to Sharon Salzberg, one of the principle figures in bringing Buddhism to the United States. Her new book is Real Change. I prefer the audio version, as it allows me to practice some of the mediations at the end of each chapter. It’s an easy book as it’s filled with stories and personal anecdotes. The book also makes the link between the movements for Social Justice and personal mediation. The parallel in my mind is the connection between our prayer life and the call of Jesus to be about compassionate love. Infact, through out most of the book, one could see how a contemplative Christian could make the connection between love thy neighbor as thyself and prayer. Actually, Salzberg does articulate this association at one point.

One of Salzberg’s mediations involves a repetitive phrase, which I modified. (You should know be now, I don’t simply take things without putting my own spin) My version is

May you be healthy

May you be whole

May you be safe

May you be blessed

One just repeats the phrase thinking about different people. Start by saying it to yourself as in “Jim, may you be….”, You can say these phrases either out loud or silently. Go slowly, no rush. Breath intentionally as you say each phrase. Then after a few times, bring someone else to mind: a neighbor, a grocery store clerk, a family member, a distant person, someone from the congregation. Practice. Keep at it. Will your mind drift? Of course, don’t worry, just keep going.

Over time you’ll discover that you are exercising two things.

1. You’re practicing an intentional breathing, slowing down.

2. You are also practicing or exercising a muscle we all have, it’s called compassion.

Salzberg makes the point, with many examples and stories from real life, that once people practice this kind of compassion, it grows ones ability to see other people as…people. Yup, fellow human beings. But lest you think this is just an individual exercise of navel gazing without actual change, she tells the stories of many people making real change in communities. Real change in areas such as violence and prison systems, racism, domestic violence. Other meditations help one see the interconnectedness of the natural world which leads to people in Africa planting trees to combat the impact of global warming. You’ll have to read the book to see all the examples…it’s quite inspiring

The book is profound for me both on a personal inner life focus as well as connecting to making a difference in our world longing for real change.

The combination is helping with the anxiety as well.

My Brother Art is an Artist

Simplicissimus #57, Voting to Drive Away the Evil Spirits

Overcoming the obstacles to voting put in our way by anti-democratic forces. 

Another satirical magazine, Simplicissimus was a satirical German magazine based in Munich started 1896 and running back and forth between the extremes of German 20th century history, into the 1960s. It’s satirical stance reflected in the name which comes from the early German novel by Grimmelshausen 1668 The Adventures of Simplicissimus. The character was a simpleton through which the insanity of the Thirty Years War was caricatured. 

Art Hazelwood

www.arthazelwood.com

What to do about Christmas in a Pandemic

It’s clear the pandemic is with us for the foreseeable future. If you listen to the scientific and medical community, it’s likely we have another 12 months or so, depending on multiple factors. My source on this is Dr. Michael Osterholm of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Besides being an active ELCA Lutheran, he’s also among the best. His podcast is on my weekly listen to list. I’m aware that 12 month window is not what you want to hear, but frankly, I’d rather plan for that, and then be pleasantly surprised with a shorter timeline.

What does this mean for people of faith, and particularly people for whom gathering for worship is an important part of their spiritual life? To be more focused, what about Christmas?

Here are several ideas I’ve thought of or read about in terms of Advent & Christmas planning.

1) Advent is often called the season of preparation. In an earlier era, it was longer than the four weeks we have now. Can we return to that this year? Let’s start Advent in the middle of November, and then by the time we hit early December start the Christmas preparations with, wait for it…..Christmas Carols. Yes, I’m an advocate for Christmas Carols in worship in December. Why? Primarily because it’s an evangelistic tool, as in telling the good news. In our US American culture, people no longer hear Christmas Carols, instead they hear Mariah Carey and Justiin Bieber singing All. I Want for Christmas is You? Let’s evangelize with O Little Town of Bethlehem, Go Tell it on the Mountain and (pick your favorite.)

2) Since worshipping indoors will be a challenge for most of our New England congregations, let’s move it all outdoors for Dec 24. Don’t attempt to recreate your standard Christmas Eve worship outdoors, instead do something all together different. How about a 3:00 p.m. Manger Scene with people semi-costumed (maybe covering their LL Bean parkas). Tell the story, don’t read it. Or maybe have a kind of Stations of the Nativity, similar to a Stations of the Cross. You can do this on your church property, or maybe a walk through your neighborhood if you are in an urban environment. Here’s a resource guide I found.

3) You could also consider an online devotional on the Stations of the Nativity. One church used this resource and adopted it for an online devotional. The book is available on Amazon, but here’s the link at Paulist Press. How could you adapt this to a digital format? Video reflections, maybe by members of your congregation?

4) if you Google ‘Stations of the Nativity’, you will find more resources than you know what to do. Here’s one resource that I found, that involved people in a community who have artistic gifts. They were invited to draw their interpretations of various events. Maybe if it’s raining on Christmas eve, you could have a gallery walk through of people’s artwork. Just think about proper ventilation, spacing, and masks - maybe even have people sign up for appointment times. You could play pre-record Christmas music as people walk through the church witnessing the Stations of the Nativity.

The point of all this is to get you thinking differently about Christmas this year. Don’t try to re-create “what we’ve always done".” Use this as a time to experiment. Have fun, enjoy, play and co-create with the Creator.

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Why I left Facebook & Twitter

This week I made the decision to close my Facebook and Twitter accounts. I’m still on Instagram. While a brief bit of nastiness followed a post I wrote about having breakfast with a friend who was a Republican was the proverbial final straw. (Heaven forbid we should have friends with whom we disagree) The departure has been on my mind for sometime.

You’ll recall in my book Everyday Spirituality, I discussed the value of an annual fast or sabbatical from Social Media. I highlighted the benefits of time and energy saved for other activities. Since experiencing that Social Media Fast, I’ve often wondered about the value of Twitter and Facebook in my daily life. My frequent justification centered around such topics as its usefulness in communicating important announcements, connecting with friends and family as well as the value of an exchange of ideas. I still believe those have merit for many people.

And yet, one of the things Covid19 has taught me centers on a question of ultimate meaning. “Who am I and what kind of a person do I want to be?” One would have thought after 61 years, I would have already answered that question. In reality, I think these queries need to be revisited regularly.

As my self-examination of who I am and what kind of person do I want to be continued through these months of quarantine and semi-quarantine, I’ve realized the strength of my desire for a more mature spirituality, a deeper level of compassion and a growing desire to be the change I want to see in the world. Yes, I’m quoting Gandhi in that last phrase. If those three desires are to be cultivated, then what activities would strengthen them?

The activities I’ve come up with range from starting a vegetable garden to engaging myself challenging subjects. Those topics include social issues such as economic injustice, racism and climate change, They also include learning more about the Christian mystical tradition and depth psychology as it relates developing a more mature spirituality. All this while still experiencing the challenges of serving as a Bishop in these changing times.

I’ll grant that engaging in Social Media could be one tool in this work. Some of you may find that helpful for you. I can see a validity in your perspective. However, the more I evaluated my use of Facebook and Twitter, the more I realized they were not contributing to my goals. I’d been teetering on the edge of a decision, and am delighted to have been pushed.

I estimate that I’ll gain about 5-7 hours per week now, since I was on those platforms about one hour a day. What will I do with this extra time? Well, if past behavior is a predictor of future outcomes, it looks like another book could be in the pipeline. The last time I abandoned social media, the extra time yielded Everyday Spirituality. I’ve got two books in my head right now. Life is Not Fair: The Book of Job for our Time and Everyday Leadership: A Guide for Parents, Poets & Presidents.

I’ll let you know what happens.

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The Gift of a Spiritual Autobiography

In preparation for my first year of training as a Spiritual Director, I received an invitation to author a Spiritual Autobiography.  The task seemed burdensome and self-indulgent, so I cast the assignment aside for a while. "What's the point of this exercise, and for God's sake, what is a Spiritual Autobiography anyway?" These were among the many thoughts, rationalizes, and forms of denial I engaged in until the deadline approached.

Deadlines have a way of helping us face what we’d rather put off.

Later to be confirmed, the hidden agenda was an invitation to explore my life from the perspective of more profound questions.  This was not the usual, "I was born in Concord, Massachusetts at the close of the Eisenhower era” kind of biography. Instead, the questions centered on ultimate matters.

  • Who am I?

  • What’s my calling or purpose in life?

  • Am I alone, or is there another? 

Answering these questions in a direct approach is an impossible task, but getting at them indirectly, now that's a doorway into another world. The Institute leaders ask us to reflect and write about other questions. Describe a time when the world looked, smelled, or sounded unusual or peculiar? Upon reading that question, a flood of recollections roiled through my head and heart. 

An early morning walk in the woods behind my childhood home searching for an object for school. My kindergarten teacher assigned us the task of bringing something from our backyard. There was no doubt that there was more specificity to this homework (or maybe not), but my recollection centered on the search. Crawling along the forest floor, I discovered a small pinecone. Most likely from a hemlock tree as they are the tiniest of New England conifers. The act of laying on my belly, moving along on hands and knees looking, smelling, and discovering the wonder in something that was always there amazed me. I had not seen it before. 

In the words of William Blake, “Each day has a moment of eternity waiting for you.”

I began writing of this and other encounters, and slowly realized how searching and discovering the magical, the wonder, and the sacred in everyday life has been a theme since I could walk, maybe even before. 

I received other questions about mentors, favorite books, music that challenges and delights led me to realize the many influences. One recollection involved attending a baseball game at Dodger Stadium with my father as a young teenager.  I recall snickering as he blew pipe smoke in the direction of an obnoxious fan, somehow brought connections to life and death because it would be decades later that lung cancer ended his life. "Laughing and Crying, it's the same release," sang Joni Mitchel. The connection of a both/and understanding of life and faith has also woven its way into my heart.

The point being that while many of us read biographies and autobiographies of famous men and women, be they actors, authors, or presidents, there is altogether something different from a spiritual autobiography. My theology professor James McLendon once cautioned his students on the difference between and biography and an autobiography, as the latter may have blind spots. Nevertheless, it's safe to say that what is unique about the invitation to write a spiritual autobiography; we are challenged to discover themes and connections we may have overlooked.

Human beings are meaning-seeking creatures, and the spiritual autobiography is one tool that can help give each of us a glimpse into the meaning of our lives.

Are you interested in joining me for a series on writing your spiritual autobiography later this fall?

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My Conversation with Arnold Thomas

If you hop on over to the Podcast, you can listen to my conversation with Rev. Arnold Thomas. He’s the pastor at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Jericho, Vermont. We recorded the conversation in April 2020, and because of a variety of projects on my end, the release of this is just happening now.

The focus of the conversation is on how he created, and you might follow his model, a series of conversations on Racism in America. His approach is but one model among many that are being employed around our synod. Regardless of the approach you take, the main point here is my encouragement for you to find ways to engage on this important subject of Racism in America.

here’s the link to the podcast

Rev. Arnold Thomas

Rev. Arnold Thomas

The Promise and Peril of America

For the European visitors, the American continent was a vast unexplored and mysterious land in the 1600s. Fleeing religious persecution, puritan pilgrims made their way to the shores of the Atlantic coast.  Part survivalist expedition, and part spiritual calling. These twin epic narratives, puritan and pioneer, loom large in the American psyche. As someone once pointed out, all great movements carry forward the dreams and neurosis of their founders.

The Puritan ethos has dominated the American spirit with its Calvinistic theology and obsession with moral purity. We see this in the concepts of "Manifest Destiny" and "American Exceptionalism."  Presidents as wide-ranging as John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Barrack Obama captured this in their use of Augustine's "Shining City on a Hill" metaphor.  Through the American psyche, the puritan thread would have us all believe that the USA is a divinely ordained expression of the Kingdom of God.

The pioneer ethos emerged later after early settlers realized this North American continent was no island or peninsula. The land seemed to go on forever. Even when Thomas Jefferson executed the most significant real estate transaction in history through the Louisiana Purchase, he did not know what he was getting. Lewis and Clark explored the land, thinking they would find a shortcut to the Pacific. The Homestead act allowed white people to move into the west and claim territory. For nearly 150 years, Americans were pioneers exploring this continent. The effect on the national psyche encouraged us all to see ourselves as conquerors of time and space.

The promise of these twin towers has been a spirit of adventure. Unlike other nations, US Americans tend to be more willing to explore, invent, and initiate. This partially explains the numerous inventions that have birthed here, whether Thomas Edison or Steve Jobs. The courage to explore as practiced by Amelia Earhart or Sally Ride. The initiative to birth a new form of governance in the form of representative democracy. US Americans are willing to take matters into their own hands, as the saying goes. A strength expressed in an apocryphal story from World War II was when Nazi prison camp guards thought that merely separating the enlisted men from the officers would prevent an escape plan from developing. Only later to discover that the enlisted men took the initiative and hatched their plans of escape. The idea that people could act of their own accord was foreign.

The peril of these twin towers of puritan and pioneer ethos manifest themselves in our human danger of hubris. Thinking ourselves better than others leaves us blind to see the sins of our past and present. Most notably, the dominant practice of slavery and the inheritance of racism, our male-centered orientation toward leadership, as well as hyper-individualism, which impacts both our politics and the environment. We run the risk of putting the whole experiment of democracy in peril. 

Because of our puritan and pioneer cultural mindset, Americans tend to be over-sensitive to both self-evaluation and external criticism. "Why do they hate us?" was a refrain following the event of September 11, 2001.  Until recently, most Americans could not fathom the cries of African Americans and their exclamation Black Lives Matters. Since the land of this country seemed ordained by God for us to use, why should we pay any attention to the calls from other nations to address Global Climate change? If we are the shining city on the hill, should not those other people appreciate everything we do for them? Look at the robust world economy architecture we built in the second half of the 20th century.

Not only are we reluctant to hear these critiques, but US Americans are also susceptible to suspicion. The move from skepticism to conspiracy theories seem more prevalent in our nation than others. After all, since we are the good ones, anything or anyone that argues against us must be out to get us. An invisible coronavirus can be turned into an agent of a conspiracy to undermine this exceptional American experiment. Not to be exclusively the domain of extremist of the right, one can recall a 1990's spouse of the democratic US President espousing the "vast right-wing conspiracy” out to undermine her husband.

The Promise and Peril of America

The Promise and Peril of America

Perhaps we are now at the height of peril. All sides of the American democratic and cultural phenomenon are undergoing more challenging stresses than ever since the Civil War. 

- Our institutions of government on the federal level are at risk of one person domination; 

- our economic structure increasingly reveals its favoritism along with class and racial disparities, 

- our culture's abandonment of spiritual yearnings for consumeristic secular achievements and 

- our neglect for awareness of the natural processes of ecology risk, well, everything.

 The promise of US America can be found inside all of the risks outlined here. US Americans can invent and initiate. Therefore we have the opportunity to reclaim democracy from the interests that seek to undermine it. One recent example is the response to the killing of George Floyd. But it can also be witnessed in the dramatic increase in activism by people who have never participated in the body politic. By all accounts, the expectations of this November's elections are for exceedingly high voter participation. Are you registered to vote?

US Americans have opportunities to recalibrate the way our economy functions, despite our recent 50 year history of adopting policies that exacerbate income inequality. The Covid19 forced policymakers to enact legislation that would be unheard of before these times six months ago. Three examples include the $1200 direct distribution of funds to citizens,  the generous $600 plus unemployment benefits along with the availability of public dollars in the form of forgivable loans to small businesses, even churches. It took a global pandemic for capitalism to adopt some forms of socialism. (ok, that's an overstatement, but still, the activist government fiscal policy is a dramatic shift.) 

We have long been suffering a significant migration away from authentic expressions of spirituality toward its growing replacement, namely the placebo called consumer capitalism. When choosing a new automobile as the thing that will satisfy the yearnings of the soul, you know people have gone asunder. Though I am among the growing minority of people who describe themselves as both religious and spiritual, I am not one of those who believe the answer is a return to the Eisenhower era church attendance. But I am deeply concerned about the abandonment of religion, spirituality, depth psychology. While it seems Jesus has left the church building, I also believe the sacred can be encountered in other ways. (I’m sure I’ll get letters about that sentence) We would do well, and it’s happening to some extent, to revive the arts in our schools, libraries, and yes, even corporations. I believe that religion should be taught in our public schools, not for purposes of proselytizing but an enhancement. Young people would benefit from readings in the great religions and mythology of humanity. Recovery of the spiritual journey is growing among the over-50 crowd as the second half of life quest for significance looms large.  Can we cultivate the seeds for that in younger persons? 

I believe our connection to the earth is our greatest peril. The promise here is in a growing awareness of humanity's impact on this planet. Climate change and the coronavirus reveal the interconnectedness of all of life. Outside of the United States, public awareness and activism are significant and beginning to pressure both political and corporate systems to enact change. The US is lagging in this area, and we have little time to catch up. While reducing the use of plastic straws, growing your garden and driving a hybrid are essential steps not to be discounted. The massive change we need is away from fossil fuel dominance to alternate forms of energy, including renewable and, yes, safe forms of nuclear power. (We aren't going to get to the planets vast growing energy needs with windmills.)

The promise and peril of America are profound on this 244th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. We move forward, understanding our risks and mistakes while embracing and acting on the opportunities before us. I think we'll learn a great deal about ourselves when we gather on July 4, 2026, for the 250thIndependence Day. Will it be a celebration of a transformation and turning toward the Promise of America?

 

 

Walking on Holy Ground with George Floyd

George Floyd Square, Powderhorn, Minneapolis, Minnesota One Month after his killing

George Floyd Square, Powderhorn, Minneapolis, Minnesota One Month after his killing

One month ago, George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis Police Officer in front of the CuP Foods on 38th and Chicago Avenue in the Powderhorn section of Minneapolis. The video of the office kneeling on his back and neck went viral around the world and was the precipitating event of mass protests and riots calling for Racial Justice and Police Reform.

Earlier this week, Lisa and I walked to what is now called George Floyd Square. What we witnessed was a memorial, a tribute, a protest marker, a sculpture…what we walked on was holy sacred ground. The tragedy and outrage of this event unleashed so much, and people came here from miles around to honor the man.

We are here in Minneapolis to provide care and attention to Lisa’s 96-year-old father who has recently begun hospice care. That alone has pout both of us in a place of respect for the fragility of life. We are closer to lament and grief.

As we entered the intersection which is blocked off from all vehicular traffic, we were greeted by young organizers offering hand sanitizer and masks. A reminder of the other crisis we find ourselves, namely the pandemic. Ahead of us, we could see a sculpture of dark brown fist in the center of the square with people gathered around. Some were praying, some taking photos, most just walking in silence. We followed suit. The intersection looks like a labyrinth for walking a prayer circle.

I had the distinct sense of God’s presence, heartbroken on the one hand calling out for justice on the other. We walked through the many memorials, tributes, and calls for action. We were indeed walking on Holy Ground.

A Memorial for George Floyd

A Memorial for George Floyd

A Time of Lament

Everything Has Its Time, Lament is our Time

3:1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

We are in these times of weeping and mourning as the author of Ecclesiastes writes. So many have died of the Covid19 virus, and so many have died because of the color of their skin, most notably George Floyd. Who is not mourning and grieving the loss of someone or the many? Collectively as a nation, and as global citizens we are all living with loss.

Loss of loved ones, loss of what we once knew, loss of hope, loss of faith, loss of trust… The list goes on. Loss is everywhere.

And yet, it seems we have no place to go with our pain. Our churches, temples, mosques and synagogues are closed. We cannot gather except via Zoom for rite of mourning and remembrance. In a previous time their were elected officials who would lead us in rituals of lament and grief, be it Barrack Obama after Sandy Hook or Charleston, George W. Bush after 9-11 or Ronald Reagan after the Challenger explosion. But today, there is no national ritual to remember those we have lost.

That lack of grieving time and ritual is festering in our souls. It is making us agitated, irritable, depressed and yes, angry. When the human soul cannot find ways to articulate what it is experiencing it does not go away. It churns inside, seeking a way to find expression. Sooner or later it must find a way to be expressed. It will find a way to be expressed. This is why we have rituals of lament, funerals of remembrance and gatherings of loved ones.

Since we must find a way to be people who express our loss, and this is not happening on a large scale, we must find ways. Increasingly, I am seeing congregations holding rituals of lament and grief. This is good and needed. I encourage more and more. Perhaps even monthly it would be appropriate to gather people online for service of lament and grief. As the weather turns more favorable are there opportunities to gather outside in safe ways.

I am encouraging gatherings of lament. Read from the scriptures, invite testimonials, tell the stories of the ones you have lost. These can be the stories of people you knew personally or even persons more distant from you. We need a collective channeling of all the lament. The only way forward through these times is through the grief. We will not move forward until we face what we have lost, what divides us and then, only then will we begin to see our way.

Grieving and Comforting are expressions of Everyday Spirituality

Grieving and Comforting are expressions of Everyday Spirituality

What is the Bible For?

As an ELCA Lutheran, we believe that the Bible is a vessel and that through it God's Spirit speaks to us to create and sustain Christian faith and fellowship for service in the world. 

This is the critical function of the scriptures. They are not meant to be used as tools of power and oppression or, opportunities for showmanship. 

ELCA Lutherans believe the Bible and God's spirit steers us toward care for all God's people so that all may be fed, all may have dignity and all may breathe freely. 

Thanks to a friend who helped remind me of this today.

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Nine Minutes of Prayer June 1, 2020

To the People of the New England Synod

In the past week we have witnessed an expression of righteous indignation. During a global pandemic, a crisis in our democracy and a rapid economic decline, we experienced the horrific killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, which followed the recent deaths of other African Americans, namely Ahmaud Arberry, Breonna Taylor and Dreasjon (Sean) Reed. In cities across this country, protests have broken out.  In many cases these protests are peaceful. In others they have turned violent.

I believe we are witnessing an expression of outrage, lament and grief. This past weekend I turned to the Psalms as a source to give my heart and mind expression of what I am feeling. I recorded an excerpt which you can view here

Last Friday, my colleagues in the Conference of Bishops and I released a statement (view here) recommitting ourselves to addressing racism and white supremacy. On Sunday, I listened to several sermons from Pastors in our Synod as they addressed the subject of Racism on Pentecost Sunday.

As a baptized child of God, I am called to love one another as God has loved me. One of the ways I express that love for one another is in speaking out against racism and white supremacy.  As St. Paul writes, “When one part of us is wounded we are all wounded.”   It is in that spirit I stand with those who are targets of racist ideologies and actions.

In our country today there is more rhetoric of hostility than I can recall in my lifetime. Candidly, it frightens me. If I were a person of color, it would terrify me. While the wanton destruction and harm of property and persons cannot be condoned, protesting of conditions of oppression, brutality and murder is appropriate.

As faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who himself was brutally murdered, I am asking all of us to pause today, (Monday, June 1) at 5:00p.m. for 9 minutes of prayer

Join with others in this silence via telephone, Zoom or other platforms. Nine minutes is a long time to hold silence. Breathe in the silence, remember your breaths and commit in that time too use your breath to speak out and act in justice for all.  If you wish, you may also pray this prayer

A Prayer for the Power of the Spirit among the People of God
God of all power and love, we give thanks for your unfailing presence 
and the hope you provide in times of uncertainty and loss. 
Send your Holy Spirit to enkindle in us your holy fire. 
Revive us to live as Christ’s body in the world: 
a people who pray, worship, learn, break bread, share life, heal neighbors, 
bear good news, seek justice, rest and grow in the Spirit. 
Wherever and however we gather, 
unite us in common prayer and send us in common mission, 
that we and the whole creation might be restored and renewed, 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Oración por el Espíritu en tiempos de incertidumbre y desplazamiento
Dios de todo poder y amor, te damos gracias por tu constante presencia y por la esperanza que brindas en tiempos de incertidumbre y de pérdida. Envía tu Espíritu Santo a encender en nosotros tu fuego santo. Revívenos para vivir como cuerpo de Cristo en el mundo: un pueblo que ora, adora, parte el pan, comparte la vida, atiende a sus prójimos, es portador de buenas nuevas, busca la justicia, descansa y crece en el Espíritu. Dondequiera y de cualquier manera que nos reunamos, únenos en oración comunitaria y envíanos en una misión común: que nosotros y toda la creación podamos ser restaurados y renovados, mediante Jesucristo nuestro Señor. Amén.

Bishop James Hazelwood

New England Synod- ELCA 

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