Wayside Pulpit

The Advent of Nothing

I have been told they expected a king, someone like David I suppose. Yet, I am not so sure I believe what I have been told. Who knows what they expected, or even IF they expected anything.

What if they expected nothing? It would mean that individuals were doing what individuals have done throughout history; they were running around trying to live lives, put food on the table and procreate. No one even thought to wait for Jesus. If so, Jesus was unanticipated and unexpected--a messiah only in retrospect. Such a possibility of unexpecting turns Advent from a time of expectation of the known, desired and needed into a time of waiting for nothing at all.

Expectation is a lot like Disneyland; a place that both exists and does not. We believe in a dream and only when we visit in the heat of summer with screaming kids do we realize that the dream exists only in our heads. This realization can pull us one of two ways: either, we see the dream for the farce it is and embrace reality on its own terms, or we hold onto the dream, scream at the summer and hate the kids thinking they are what keeps us from the reality of the dream.

Expectation binds us to a vision of a nonexistent reality. An Advent that looks toward Jesus in the manger binds us to just that: Jesus in the manger. Maybe you want to be fastened tightly to your expectations, but how might your life be untied if you expected nothing this Advent?

Not to stand alone

I will miss Mass today; I do not feel sad about it, or guilty about it, more that I have missed out on something special. It is a kind of jealously for those that were able to go. I think it was better that I stayed home and worked on next weeks presentation, but I do wonder if I could just have managed the same productivity this afternoon.

It is that draw toward Mass that drew me towards Catholicism. Though, I have to say, there is not much difference from Catholicism and Mass (at least in my mind). When I was attending protestant churches there was little that actually drew me towards a Sunday service. Even when I was preaching or involved in the liturgical process (as minimal at this is in most protestant churches), I was never drawn toward Eucharist.

I think that was that draws one toward the Eucharist cannot really be explained but only experienced. This is why progressive non-Catholics are so mystified about why anyone would actually want to be Catholic. Yet, even for those of us who ignore many aspects of Catholic moral teaching, despise much of the arrangement of the church hierarchy, and are frustrated by the silence and lack of accountability regarding clergy sexual abuse, we are still drawn to the Eucharist.

The Eucharist is magical. One of its most magical properties is that it does not matter how creepy, old, conservative, misogynistic the priest who consecrates the bread and wine. The Eucharist stands, not alone, but really with the community in which it is embraced

Stories of the story

What is a story? A story has a plot, characters and a setting. It also has readers, a writer, and some reason for its existence. Even if that reason is simply for pure entertainment.

It is beyond pedestrian (mundane actually) to talk about the gospels being "stories." Their narrative quality is so obvious that even children can tell you the story of Jesus-and-this or Jesus-and-that. So, is there really anything else to say about the fact that the gospels are stories?

I think probably not.

Yet, I do think that there is something to be said about the stories we make of stories. We hear a story (really any story) and off we go making a story about that story. In a sense we cannot ever really hold onto just a story. We are inclined to make it our own by telling something about it. This telling is an aggregation of our opinions, thoughts, feelings, and even imagination.

I am sure you see where I am going with this.

So, I really do not care much any more about the stories of Jesus and his band of not-so-merry followers. What I do find interesting are the stories today's Christians tell about the stories regarding Jesus.

If you, or I, really care about The Feeding of the Five-thousand, it makes much more sense to care about that caring than the story itself. The story never changes, I can go read it right now and guess what? The plot, the setting, and the characters will be exactly the same as it was when I was only eight. And you? If you go read it right now, you'll experience the same thing.

Yet, when I make my own story about the story, THAT is something to hang a hat on; something you and I could really dual about. We could even learn a bit about each other from our stories of that story.

I am for a new gospel: a gospel of the people that is meant to change daily, a gospel that strives to take that which is "something old" and make it "something new." I am not referring to just retelling (that happens on too many Sundays from lazy pulpits); rather, I want a recreated gospel where, us, the people of today, tell the story of the story.

Spirituality of the Night

I saw the paper delivery person this morning. She has always been hidden under the blanket of dawn. Down the road she came in a black and dusty Tahoe with three young children strapped inside. I looked at her face as she spun around the cul-de-sac and I saw the weariness that comes from working hard.

Those of us who live the dayshift have very little appreciation or even knowledge of the night shift. As we sleep, they work. They stock; they deliver; they monitor; they drive. The activity of the night makes the day possible.

How do we develop a spirituality that gives primacy to the night? The night is usually seen as a spiritual sickness that darkens the soul, and is something to be passed through so one can reach daylight.

Yet what if the night is where spiritual deepness can be claimed? Perhaps the darkness can embrace us in grace. This is a grace that allows us to take stock of our lives, delivers what needs to be delivered, monitors our progress, and drives us forward. In this case then, the miracle of Genesis is not the first day, but the first night.

Sight for New Eyes

On the rapid transit train this morning I noticed a weld between two metal handrails. It was beautifully executed--all the ovals of the weld near matching in size and texture. I appreciated the beauty of it because of a basic welding course I took years ago. If I had not taken the course, the skill of the rapid transit welder would have been lost on me.

How much beauty in life do we miss simply because we do not know it is there?

I think the spiritual life suffers from a similar story. We believe we know the spiritual--each us, of course, setting our own terms of the definition. When we see the spiritual, we know it as such, but how much do we wrongly cast aside as spiritually irrelevant?

How do we see what is hidden? Though it seems a bit circular, I think the answer is in religion itself. A belief system that opens up possibility, rather than making life more narrow teaches us to see more than we expect.

All the religions of the world have this aspect of openness, though it is not taught as much as certainity, definition, and structure. An unknown spiritual world is available to each of us for the knowing, we only need the willingness to see it.

To Run and To Jog

I stand at the window looking at the rain obliterating the parking lot below. It is a running morning, and I have planned to cover four miles before 9:00 am. I momentary hesitate and think of all the other ways I might exercise that do not involve getting wet and cold. Then the thought comes, "Are you a runner or a jogger?" I've asked myself this question for years at the bottom of steep hills, during blizzards, sub-zero temperatures, and at the almost-end of long runs. I really want to be a runner, and the vast majority of the time I own up to the title and put the next shoe forward. 

Today is no different, and I find myself running through the downpour. I begin to consider throughout the rainy run that the difference of running to jogging is a bit like spiritual to religious.  The nuance between both pairs is so small you just might miss it if you blink.  Equally, you cannot watch me jog/run down the sidewalk and decide which I am doing.  Only I know if I am running or jogging.

For me, to jog is to exercise without intentionality. It is a movement because I said I would, or always have, or someone told me this is the way it should be done. To run is to live into the challenge of existence and to move forward regardless of its folly. Spirituality is a late December run in Fairbanks, Alaska. Religion is staying home and watching the rain hit the window.

I slip in and out of both—runner and jogger. I think the slippage is part of any faithfully lived life. The spiritual nips at our heels and propels us forward, while religion binds us to what has always been. Granted, it is warm inside; the bread and wine can make all of us sleepy. Even so, more picnics in the rain are what each of us really need.

Wild Open Spaces

Why are states with the wide open spaces the most conservative? I know that I am generalizing here, but the question, at least on a spiritual level, begs to be considered. Could it be that the wild open spaces of the Central US, Texas, the deserts of Arizona, the Central Valley of California, and parts of Alaska, all bring about a spiritual need for boundaries, concrete answers, reduced ambiguity? 

Do the confines of cities--bodies and buildings all mashed together--bring about a spiritual thirst for the wide open. A thirst somewhat quenched by values of inclusivity, social relativism, and the desire to see the other as self. 

Does our fear of, as well as our desire for wide open spaces influence our spiritual perspectives? If it does then the God of Texas is not the God of San Francisco. Just as the Jesus of Kansas is not the Jesus of Boston. Perhaps we should consider that Christianity is created as much by land, as it is by text.

This is What Happens to Nice Words in Ivory Towers

Spirituality: When transcendent beliefs are lived, holistic experiences occur and can be called, “Spirituality.” These “lived experiences” are not limited to a narrow understanding of religious practices such as prayer, meditation, fasting and pilgrimage. Instead, the lived experiences of spirituality encompass the many experiences that come as the result of holding transcendent beliefs. Spirituality is also not isolated from social location. Such factors as gender, culture, race and sexual orientation are interwoven with these lived experiences and cannot be separated from them. Spirituality learns from itself, it is reflexive. Each lived experience often leads to new lived experiences. In this way spirituality is transformative, it operates as both map and guide to ultimate goals of transcendence and growth.

Surf's Up

As fall comes around the corner I am hiding from it. I am splintering my life in many directions and I think I just might go to pieces. Though I wonder, is the splintering all so bad, or is it my dislike with splintering?

This week begins my doctoral studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. It took awhile for my class schedule to filter through my obsessive compulsive nature. I really DO want to take everything and I would give my bottom Franklin for a time turner. There is simply too much out there in theology that needs to be turned over and examined, played with and picked at.

On an intuitive whim I decided to take a seminar in Christian Spirituality. I fell for the first readings so hard that I spent Friday night glued to my chair. I’m not sure how I got this far and never came across the academic discipline of spirituality. All I can think to say is the bloody cliché, “Better late than never.”

The topic of the nebulous nature of spirituality came up during a dinner conversation this week. A fellow diner said between bites of tofu, “I bet you can define spirituality now!” I laughed. The truth is, I could have defined it better before I read five authors all writing papers about its definition.

See, the waves pull back, way back and you see the ocean floor. It ceases to be the wet sand that cushions the feet of little kids as they scamper in and out of the water. It becomes a big world all its own and no more do you believe that beaches and surfing hot-spots are romantic places to play and make-out. No. Instead, the complex truth runs through your fingers as each grain opens up new possibilities of significance and living; an infinite microcosm all your own. In an instant, “Going to the beach” takes on a whole new meaning.

Spiritual Glass

It isn’t a question so much of what you believe
it is how you believe

There is nothing static
in the breath, in the way your heart beats
or the earth turns

There is a fragrance of chaos,
of chance blending into chance
and it has a rhythm all its own

A syncopation you can follow
as you dance, as you dance,
your disbelief