Mix CDs as Spiritual Discipline

A few weeks ago, I got a card in the mail from one of my favorite young women.  This college freshman was one of my favorite youth group members in the UU church at which I served as student minister, and I am tickled pink that we're corresponding, mostly via random cards and lots of rambly stories about life.  The P.S. in this last card said, "'I Love You and Buddha Too' - check it out. It's stuck in my head. <3"

Now, if there is anyone reading this blog who has not heard this song, this either means that I have not been doing my job as your friend or family member, or that strangers are reading my blog (which seems like it'd be an achievement!).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DTiJHnF8tY

Check it out - it'll get stuck in your head!

This is one of my favorite songs in the whole damn world, so I generally try to share it with everyone I know who could possibly appreciate it.  The fact that my friend would spontaneously offer this particular song seemed like kismet.  I immediately began planning a mix CD in my head to offer right back to her, with all the songs that were so precious and formative for me when I was in college.  There are just too many of them, so I started imagining an epic 5-disc mix CD EXPERIENCE, with each disc having a different theme and follow a distinct plotline - needless to say, I get a little intense about it.  I felt eager to share this sacredness with someone I value, and to contribute something tangible to her life.  It's like some kind of weird, intuitive ministry I've been practicing for years.

There are very few people with whom I feel close that I haven't tried to foist a mix CD or two onto over the course of our relationship.  It's an act of love, tied closely to my gift-giving "love language", Gary Chapman-style.  As I've reflected on this habit of mine - and my gratitude that so many friends have humored me - I've realized that making a mix CD of songs I have carefully chosen for their poignant messages and tempos that fit whatever a friend is experiencing is a hugely meaningful practice for me.  If the recipient listens closely, I feel like I can share this emotional experience with him, and help him feel understood and encouraged exactly where he is in life at that moment.  And best yet, it's a physical token of my affection which can sit on a shelf, ready to share and be experienced whenever he wants to, at his leisure.  And it'll still be there tomorrow.

That's where the spiritual discipline ties in.  One of the aspects of God's nature which is most important to me is the fact that God is always.  I can trust that God will be right here with me today and tomorrow, and while God is changed by human experience, God's lasting and essential goodness can be relied on.  There are artifacts in our home which I let clutter up our shelves simply because their existence, in reminding me of loved ones and evoking special memories, resonates in me with the constant conviction of God's -ness.  So when I make you a CD, I give myself the lofty and impossible goal of creating an artifact which can be relied on to resonate with you on a deeply human level, echoing sacredness.

Or, admittedly, maybe I'm in a mood that day to just give you awesome jams I think you'll dig.  

Either way, it means I love you.  

I Am Pro-Abortion

When I was in high school, our social studies class did an activity in which small groups created an ideal presidential candidate. I'll admit that I had a considerable amount of influence over how incredibly liberal our guy (yes, guy - if only I had been more of a feminist those days) was. But the presenter for our group happened to be a young conservative person, and when reporting the characteristics we'd given our candidate, he either unconsciously or snarkily read "pro-choice" as "pro-abortion". At the time I scoffed and thought, NO ONE identifies as "pro-abortion". It's too controversial and cringe-worthy, and no one actually promotes abortions themselves - the focus is on the freedom of choice.

Since I've started working at an abortion clinic, I've been morbidly fascinated by and seeking out pro-life propaganda, presumably because I like feeling righteously indignant. They, too, say "pro-abortion" when the fairer and more accurate term is "pro-choice". All my progressive friends are "pro-choice", as well as most of the liberal pastors I know, and edgy young adults I know from college when we spent so much time sitting around envisioning the utopic future we'd help realize. We're all "pro-choice", and pro-individual freedoms in general. 

I was curious to know whether anyone DOES have the balls to claim for themselves the descriptor "pro-abortion". I read this article - "Yes, I'm Pro-Abortion", by Lauren Rankin. I don't know this writer, and I'm not familiar with the PolicyMic site, but I was persuaded by these lines: 

The statement that “I’m not pro-abortion, I’m pro-choice” is inherently defensive. Rather than embracing abortion as a viable and respected choice, it sidelines abortion; it delegitimizes that valid choice. By rhetorically sidelining abortion, we are distancing ourselves from that choice. If a woman wishes to have an abortion, then I support abortion.

This argument is compelling, as far as I'm concerned. I think I have always been vaguely aware of that element of the “not pro-abortion but pro-choice” stance – it makes it seem like no one is willing to stand in the controversial, unpopular place where abortions happen and are inherently good things.

So I will go ahead and be an advocate for abortion, if in my own quiet way. Professionally, I don’t argue one way or another – the focus is still on the choice, made by every woman, for her own individual life. But I am willing to start sorting out what this new claim can mean for me, what I can do with it without seeming either heretical or heartless.

One concern is that, both as an employee of an abortion clinic and as a woman called to ministry, who belongs to a particular denomination, I don’t want to speak for anyone else. I’m new enough both in my job and in my church to be unsure what official stances may be. But speaking only for myself and from a place where these thoughts and beliefs are just beginning to become clearer, I think I can honestly suggest a few ideas.

I believe that a fetus in the first trimester of gestation is not a person. There’s an exciting variety of religious approaches to the question of personhood in relation to the preborn (yeah, definitely still looking for a less hokey term). You’ve got theologians focusing on the idea of “quickening”, which I understand to be the argument that at the point when the pregnant woman begins to feel the fetus moving in her womb, the fetus begins to be a person in her own right. There are arguments about the point of “ensoulment”, the exact time in which an eternal soul joins with the physical potential of a fetus. My own favorite is the emphasis on Genesis 2:7: “Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being” – seems like this means that it’s the first breath rather than the heartbeat which signifies the beginning of life. This correlates to the stance that a fetus has independent human rights once she is viable, able to survive on her own without dependence on her mother. All of these arguments seem to agree that a fetus in the first trimester is not yet a person in her own right, and I have found that insight compelling.

Beyond that, of COURSE there’s the argument that the life and livelihood of the person that already lives as an independence person trumps the potential life and livelihood of a fetus. I don’t just mean in cases of problematic pregnancies which involve fetal anomalies, threaten the mother’s life, or are the result of trauma. I mean also the more awkward or seemingly selfish situation in which a healthy fetus seems on track to develop into a healthy child, but the pregnant woman does not want to have a child in this time, place, or relationship. The born are more important that the unborn, and I am VERY confident of that.

Most of the ideas are works in progress as I find solid ground to stand on in my identity as a church member and clinic employee. But even as the boundaries of the phrase seem hazy and I’m fighting the instinct to cringe away from what feels like a callous statement – I am pro-abortion.

Home Prayers -- for my husband

The day can be crazy.
Besides the fact that the commute 
and a few of the coworkers do drive you crazy,
there's also the work.

The paycheck I contribute
is earned in the best possible way, I think --
by caring for those in crisis,
helping them navigate their choices
as they find a clearer vision for their own
tomorrows.
It can be hard, of course,
letting their stories into my life,
a collection of anecdotes based on the
rawest moments I've witnessed.
I feel rooted in a long history of human experience.
I love the work, and its heaviness.

And you, you're almost exactly where you want to be,
helping to build a future made of systems and clouds,
and so many things I'll never remember the names of.
You are so deeply passionate about the prospect
of pushing beyond the boundaries of human experience,
exploring possibilities, boldly going where no one has gone before.
You love the work, and its fast pace.

But I know you also worry a great deal.
Your mind races imagining our future
as it is shaped by every new day and bill and paycheck and dream.
Your own future, too, just you
and the man you want to be, who I already love.
My mind often feels slapdash and exhausting, and worse
are the dark knotted places I go when left to my own devices.
I worry too -- mostly about the past, things said years ago or done yesterday.

Then we come home,
and we are present.
And I realize that in this house,
in this room, in this bed,
we have built a sanctuary,
made of pillows and blankets and some good love.
It's where we talk through everyday events,
and the ends of every fight.
It's where we each try to imagine what the other experiences in a given day,
and we again give up trying to see clearly
and try instead to listen.

Where the cat purrs as if in prayer,
and the dog howls a hallelujah,
as we quietly worship the peace we have found.

Grace vs. the Economy (& Me)

I got a job today!   I am so excited, and feel so blessed, to be chosen as a new counselor for Hope Clinic for Women.  Even before the second interview, I knew that I badly wanted this job – that, of all the jobs for which I’d applied this summer, this was the one about which I felt most passionate and fired up.  Of course, in my mind, that meant I was most unlikely to actually GET the job.

Talking it over with my friend, I found myself saying, “It’s not so much that I don’t have a God of abundance, but that I have issues with ‘deserving’ grace, and we live in a culture of scarcity.”  Each part of that is true – but mostly the middle bit.

I had a hard time feeling hopeful this summer.  Panicky, desperate, despondent all made a few appearances, but hope was a challenge.  Unemployment has had a chokehold on some of the people I love for a very long time, and on some level I believed I didn’t deserve to get a job until they did.  It wouldn’t be fair – and I am determined, perhaps in vain, for my theology to be “fair”.

God IS abundance, of course – God’s inherently inclined to want and do the best for everyone.  But we get in God’s way.  Our economy and cultural worldview seems to prevent many business people from taking a chance on hiring folks, investing in them, embracing the opportunity to take care of neighbors by providing health care.  But even that is not fair; every business leader has a responsibility to their families, their employees, and their shareholders to protect livelihoods, and that may mean erring on the side of caution in many ways.  Or, you know, some folks are greedy – but not everyone.  The moral of the story is that there seems to be a low-grade panic throughout the economy, lessening only slightly over the last year or so, which makes job security very much scarce.

And now I have a job.  Someone has taken a chance on me and is willing to invest training in me so that I can serve people who need help.  I can hardly believe my good luck, and am irrationally worried that I imagined the whole hiring phone call.  But the fact is that I am hired, and that is so validating.

Coming up to my baptism next week, this morning’s news has reminded me that I need to reconcile my idea of an abundant God with my skepticism of grace.   On the one hand, believing that good and bad things just happen as a matter of luck means that God’s not involved in bad things happening to good people, which (kind of) takes care of the suffering & meaning issue.  On the other, this perspective gives almost ALL the power to the people, and contradicts my own felt need for the peace and humility of learning how to “let go and let God”. 

When my dad ordered a cake for the potluck after next week’s baptism service, he asked the bakery to write, “Welcome to Life More Abundant”.  That's going to stick with me, even beyond however long it takes for me to fully understand it.  In all this confusion of gratitude and doubt and guilt and joy, I want to focus on faith.  I want to be willing to live a “Life More Abundant.”

Intellectualism in Community of Christ

My spiritual journey up to this point, an elaborate love affair with many sacred texts and perspectives on the divine from several ecumenical and interfaith contexts, has not involved a strong emotional connection to the Book of Mormon.  But I'm working with the assumption that full membership in Community of Christ requires a good understanding and personal appreciation of the significance of all of our scriptural texts - and while the Community of Christ Theology course I took at Graceland was edifying, that was 5 years and several perspectives ago.

So in preparation for my baptism into the Community of Christ church in 2 1/2 weeks, I've begun reading Dale E. Luffman's The Book of Mormon's Witness to Its First Readers, published by Community of Christ Seminary Press earlier this year.  Luffman's goal in this book to contextualize the Book of Mormon by drawing attention to the spiritual, intellectual and emotional climate in which Joseph Smith Jr. lived and to which he responded in the founding of his church.  It's a laudable goal, and certainly a helpful one, considering the strong emphasis on historical criticism in the way Community of Christ students are taught to interpret the scriptures.

The thing that strikes me the most, as of page 42, is that despite everything I know about the racism, sexism, and lots of other isms which many have found in the Book of Mormon, the text passionately protests against classism.  This emphasis on social justice makes a whole lot of sense, considering the increasingly progressive direction in which the church is heading.  Smith created a religious movement which focused on empowering the poor, the marginalized, and the uneducated.  The doctrine of continuing revelation means that everyone has access to the revelatory communication of God.  The priesthood of all believers means that we emphasize organic and intuitive ministry - if you are called to the priesthood, you don't need a fancy seminary degree to minister to your community (which is especially helpful if that graduate education is cost prohibitive).  This makes a lot of sense to me, and I have always taken pride in the way these beliefs and practices create a worldview which feels, to me, resonant and vibrant and earthy.

But while I am grateful for the countercultural flavor of the Book of Mormon, which of course leads to the Community of Christ's mission "to proclaim Jesus Christ and promote communities of joy, hope, love, and peace", I'm worried about Luffman's assertion that the book on which my church is founded is largely anti-intellectual.  Luffman explores the deism and rationalism of Smith's time, and highlights the Book of Mormon's assumed correlation between education and the sin of pride.  He refers to "the book's intolerance for rationalism". (40)

"...for the wisdom of their wise and learned shall perish, 

and the understanding of their prudent shall be hid."

- 2 Nephi 27:26

I have always been intellectual, and I have always been proud; and while I never claimed to read every word assigned for my classes, it's possible I picked up enough to count as "learned".  My three years of seminary were spent as a member of a Unitarian Universalist church, which celebrates the kind of naturalism and rationalism against which Joseph Smith Jr. was rebelling.  Now I have a Master of Divinity degree and both training and experience in professional ministry, and I am joining a church which practices lay priesthood.

This isn't really a problem, of course; I know that Community of Christ values diversity in the gifts and skills of its members.  All are called to participate in the ministry of the church and in the creation of Zion.  I have no doubt at all that I will be able to bring my education to bear in contributing to the church's mission in whichever way I am called.

TL;DR - My actual point is this: The Community of Christ church today is very distinct from the first generation of Mormonism established by Joseph Smith Jr.  We ordain women, we're starting to ordain LGBT members, we witness through work rather than proselytism, we are non-creedal, we engage in ecumenical relationships to promote peace and social justice.  But then we're not all that different in essentials; it seems to me all of these progressive practices stem from exactly the same religious egalitarianism on which Luffman reminds us the LDS church was founded.  We are still Mormon.  So even as the CofC church grows its seminary and invests in the professional development of our church leaders (that's what the Mission Center courses and workshops are for, yes?) - is the Community of Christ worldview still flavored by the Book of Mormon's anti-intellectualism?

If so, I have a lot more work to do to fit in.

Of course, I suspect that the next 175 pages of Luffman's book will give relief to these concerns, or at least answer my questions.  But as a very rational girl joining a profoundly intuitive faith, my worry seemed to justify this very long thought process.

Kirkwood Community of Christ at the Festival of Nations

Today, my father and I will help run the Community of Christ church's booth at the International Institute of St. Louis' Festival of Nations.  He plans to proselytize, and while that's never really my jam, I'm excited just to be friendly and educate interested passersby about our church.  The Festival of Nations is always a really great experience, filled with a rich variety of cultures and colors and sounds, and new information about perhaps unfamiliar parts of the world.

To prepare for our participation in representing the CofC church, we've put together a flyer with key facts about our own congregation, Kirkwood Community of Christ.  This project was really energizing for me, since we spent some time articulating some of the best things about our community.

My time with Eliot Unitarian Chapel and Unitarian Universalism left me with too much conviction in our basic human right to practice different faiths and beliefs - and I am personally intensely passionate about celebrating religious diversity - so I don't plan on trying to bring anybody to Christ today.  But I do hope that we can reach out to those who are already a little inclined to be interested, so we might get a few more butts in the pews in the upcoming weeks.  Kirkwood Community of Christ is a a sacred place and a strong faith family, and I look forward to helping more folks know about it.

So if you're in the Tower Grove Park area today from 1-3 pm, I hope to see you there. :)

Why Playing Dungeons & Dragons Is a Spiritual Practice

Last Saturday, the whole gang finally ended an epic eight-month Pathfinder roleplaying game campaign, finally reaching the end of the story we were telling together.  After many, many nail-biting, caffeine-chugging hours, we saved the world!  And the story, though incredibly complex and confusing, offered me one particular God-moment that I will never forget.

Making a looong story short, my character was a Samsaran⁽¹⁾ paladin⁽²⁾ who served Pharasma⁽³⁾ and worked with a team of heroes to prevent Lolth⁽⁴⁾ from making the world a living hell.

⁽¹⁾ blue-skinned humanoid who continually reincarnates in the pursuit of enlightenment

⁽²⁾ hero-champion of a god

⁽³⁾ the Goddess of Death – neutral, peaceful death rather than destructive, macabre death or undeath

⁽⁴⁾ eeeeeeeevil goddess Demon Queen of Spiders

                          

[sample image of a Samsaran, from Paizo's Pathfinder]            [Pharasma, PathfinderWiki.com]

[Lolth, www.ObsidianPortal.com]

And despite the fact that I already gave a full sermon this summer on the spiritual significance of folks’ love of fantasy stories and games*, I feel moved to share one scene in that last 10-hour session which gave me all the tell-tale signs that God is making God’s presence known – hot tears in the eye, prickly skin, and big smile on the face.

Just as all of our heroes finally reached the end boss combat with Lolth herself, Lolth hurled some insta-kill magic at us all.  Then the Dungeon Master, the storyteller in chief, gave each of our characters the saving grace of a theophany, the full physical appearance of each of our gods.  He told me that my character felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Pharasma; and the goddess looked Lolth dead in the eye and said, “You will never, ever take one of mine from me.”

I suspect I’m not the only one who quietly longs to have that kind of experience with God.  To be accepted totally, the way Pharasma accepted the service and devotion of my blue-tinted paladin, who had struggled with moral alignment issues throughout the story.  To have such a powerful embodiment of deeply valued truths stand there in all her glory – standing by and supporting a person of imperfect faith in the face of destruction and pain.  Pharasma, the impassive Lady of Graves, ambivalently neutral in Pathfinder canon but – since the storyteller is a seminarian, after all - gently pastoral ‘in person’.

I will never stop talking about the essentially pastoral nature of God, and I will never stop seeking and collecting and reveling in and sharing every moment experienced in the visceral reality of that pastoral power.  So I won’t stop playing games like Dungeons & Dragons anytime soon.

Though my friends take the opportunity in these games to pretend to be all kinds of different things, roleplaying their way through different perspectives and personas, I will always be a paladin at heart.  D&D helps me realize in some small way my dream of being a heroic person of faith for whom God is always present and always felt, and who finds her own power for doing good in the awe-inspiring reality of God.

* “Dungeons & Dragons & Daniel in the Den”, Eliot Unitarian Chapel, June 23, 2013, http://www.eliotchapel.org/recentsermons

Friendship Is Sacred

THIS is the most sacred thing I've encountered this week:

A letter from my best friend, my Brother Man.  In three short pages, my friend has extended such love and steadfast support, all the way from the other side of the country.  With the expense of only $0.44 for a stamp, he has given me a great gift - a token of friendship and an anchor of the unconditionality of our bond.

One of my favorite lines in this letter: "Your friendship gives me incredible comfort, quite like when you picture God I'm sure."

...Man, this guy knows how to make me cry!  Reading this, I feel so known and understood - which is, of course, the best thing about old friends.

I have always taken my friendships a little too seriously, usually capitalizing them when they become deep, intimate, most sacred.  I have been blessed with a handful of Friends so far in my life.  These are the folks for whom I will drive through the night if they need me there, who will always have the use of my couch as a place to crash, and who can always have my last $5.  

And these are the folks who help make up the face of my God, because they have manifested in my life some of the most relational aspects of God's nature, with their loyalty, respect, forgiveness and humor.  A friend loves us both for and in spite of ourselves.  And to be a friend is to choose someone else, in a way we don't get to choose the people who share our blood, so a friend doesn't HAVE to love us.   A friend chooses to esteem, honor and stand by another person...while still being ready to call them out on their crap!

Seems to me, that sounds a lot like God.

I like God as Father well enough, since my own father has so fabulously modeled what that role can be.  And God as Mother, as Lord, as Shepherd works too. But I've always been partial to the metaphor of God as Friend, because the love of my best friends have always filled me with the same kind of awe and deep gratitude that I feel when I think about all the grace God has ever offered me.  

The main difference is that the gratitude I feel for my friends stems from the knowledge that they could just as easily choose to leave my life; and I thank God that they stick around.  They help me believe that God is even that much more steadfast in God's presence and love.  God can be relied upon to be there when I need God, to offer me a place to crash, and to help me find what I need to make it to tomorrow.

As always, the Sufi poets seem to put it best:

"This is the kind of Friend

You are - 

Without making me realize

My soul's anguished history,

You slip into my house at night, 

And while I am sleeping,

You silently carry off

All my suffering and sordid past

In Your beautiful

Hands."

- Hafiz

So thank you, Brother Man, for giving me a few pieces of paper which will, in my silly heart, symbolize all the awe-inspiring love we offer one another, and all the love I find in God.  

In "Your Hands"

I don't know much of JJ Heller's stuff; my dad gave me a copy of her song "Your Hands" about a year ago, and I do know that I love it.  

When I was a Clinical Pastoral Education student and chaplain at BJSP Hospital last summer, I shared this song with the rest of my CPE group.  I explained to them, with some emotion, that these lyrics conveyed an important part of my idea of who God is and what God does for humanity.  My God is a pastoral God, and I know that I can be safe in God's metaphorical hands when I am struck with fear or sorrow or worry.

When my aunt died a month later, my dad and I added this song to the playlist for her memorial service.  We felt it went a long way towards expressing some of the pain and heartbreak the family was suffering.  I don't know if the words gave solace to anyone else that day, but it was good for my soul.

And when I am baptized into the Community of Christ church this fall, I hope to have this song sung during the service.  The overall theme for the service is the Parable of the Prodigal, and I think this ties in nicely.  This sense of security in the loving presence of God is the foundation of my faith.

"Your Hands", JJ Heller

I have unanswered prayers

I have trouble I wish wasn't there

And I have asked a thousand ways

That you would take my pain away

You would take my pain away

I am trying to understand

How to walk this weary land

Make straight the paths that crooked lie

Oh Lord, before these feet of mine

Oh Lord, before these feet of mine

When my world is shaking, heaven stands

When my heart is breaking

I never leave your hands

When you walked upon the earth

You healed the broken, lost and hurt

I know you hate to see me cry

One day you will set all things right

Yeah, one day you will set all things right

When my world is shaking, heaven stands

When my heart is breaking

I never leave your hands

Your hands that shaped the world

Are holding me

They hold me still

Your hands that shaped the world

Are holding me

They hold me still

When my world is shaking, heaven stands

When my heart is breaking

I never leave you

When my world is shaking, heaven stands

When my heart is breaking

I never leave

I never leave your hands

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-F6DGGF4Qs

The Titular Post

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said, "It takes three things to attain a sense of significant being: God, a Soul, and a Moment.  And the three are always there."

Even as I focus on taking my seat at the table of God's community and contributing to the good work being done, part of me is still wandering around and checking in the corners and behind the sofa for new glimpses of God.

This blog is a chance to share with others all my surprising, spontaneous, overwhelming, whispered encounters with God.  I take these God moments where I can find them - and, as Heschel said, they're everywhere.

So I'll be baring my soul in reflections on songs, poems, articles, world religions, theological ideas, superstitions, the occult, overheard conversations, the nature of friendship, humanist values, travel fantasies, fandoms, comic books, epic movies, Dungeons and Dragons...

Essentially, here you will find anything and everything through which I have experienced even one quiet, resonant, awestruck moment of sacred significance in the presence of God.

Shalom.