Wayside Pulpit

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

Some Kind of Healer

Ministry abounds with the concept of the wounded healer; the idea that we bring comfort and healing from those places inside us where we’ve been wounded. I think that this idea isn’t altogether true. I think that comfort and healing come not from wounds, but from the places we’ve been touched. It could be that we’ve been touched by grief, by happiness, by horror, by abandonment, by fear, by love, basically, by really anything.

I feel exposed when I preach. I find myself a few hours after a sermon wondering why in the world I told people all the stuff I did. I think I find writing a similar experience – though not quite as intense. I come forth to the world from the places that have touched me and they are very personal, so personal I don’t know if anyone can ever relate. The underlying fear being, “If you don’t relate, what does that say about my experience of the word? Am I as weird as I sometimes feel that I am? Am I normal?”

Am I wounded? No. Am I not wounded? No. The truth of the matter is, we are not about wounds, as much as theology and psychology would like to think we are. We are about the questions, the aches, the insights and the flashes of knowing and unknowing that pass through our experiences. The energy of this space, the whirling dervish of the soul, this is where healing comes from.

Undiscovered Value

Recently, John Stuart over at Heaven’s Highway, featured The Wayside Pulpit in his glimpse into the world of progressive Christians bloggers. It was a quite a hoot to see the Wayside up there with such awesome sites such as, Street Prophets and Faith in Public Life.

John made an insightful comment about the spiritual loneliness that progressives seem to encounter in their journeys of faith. This is the loneliness that often comes from living a faith that is built on questioning, discovery – unknowingness. Not all those who find themselves living under the progressive label relate to this sense of chronic uncertainty, but I know many upon many that do.

What I find fascinating is that faith without certainty is often seen as something to be grieved. Those who have a faith that gives them that rock-foundation will often look at my faith with pity, the underlying, but unsaid thought being, “If you only knew what I knew then your life would be so much better.” I still feel some resentment when I get these kind of patronizing glances, but I’m learning, gradually, to let it go.

Why do we assume that faith is supposed to answer our questions, provide us with certainty and fill us with comfort? Why do we not instead believe that faith is meant to challenge, make us question and fill us with uneasiness about ourselves and the societies in which we live?

For me, there is a grief that comes with a faith that doesn’t explain it all. I am forced to face the rawness of life in all its bloody complexity. This standing as witness is hard, it is challenging, it is often lonely, it sometimes makes me want to run away.

But the truth of the matter is, there is a captivating beauty to be found in the unknown. It is a beauty revealed to all of those who stand staunchly in the midst of shifting sand regardless of the fear that may call them to bedrock. Only those whose bones have been touched by this beauty can understand why the loneliness, the uncertainty, the grief and the sickening spiritual upheavals are more than worth the price of admission.

School of Wizardry

Last night I watched, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” with my daughter. We have seen all the Potter movies repeatedly, read the books, listened to the unabridged audios, but still the story holds our interest. I wonder if one of the reasons it does is that the plot carries the possibility of magic in the world. I feel a Santa Clause like glee when I am engaged with the Harry Potter stories. Almost like they contain a truth about the world if one were to believe enough in the possibility.

I have heard from my atheist/humanist friends that people turn to religion because they don’t have the guts to face the fact they are alone in the world. There is no god, no transcendent mystery and no miracles that can be relied upon. I’ve heard the same people say to me that religious people are too afraid to accept their own responsibility as humans. They pawn things off to chance, to god or to a savior. Religion becomes, from this viewpoint, a serious copout.

I’ll tell you that I agree on many levels. Religion, for many people, replaces human rationality, human commonsense and becomes a kaleidoscope of must-dos and must-bes. However, I wonder if people become religious not because they are shirking their human responsibility, but because they are trying to find the magic in living. Is the quest for a spiritual life a search for an experience that will shake the foundations of knowing and uncover the true enchanted nature of the world? Is religion living in the hope that one day you will find out that you are not a muggle but wizard?

I think this is the case for me. It is why I continue on this path. My spirituality is a journey toward uncovering the magic that exists in the world. I will tell you that I have found bits and pieces. Granted, there have been no stags pouring out of wands, or cloaks that make me disappear, but there has been magic. Enough magic, in fact, for me to know that I am heading in the right direction