I think just to counteract all this Sarah Palin stuff on the blogosphere, I've decided to add some more sensible voices from Alaska (Seward, Alaska, to be exact) to my blogroll: Father Friar and Musings of an Episcopal Padre. I think you will find Emmanuel and Robert much more interesting!
Today's readings center around "The Quest for Enlightenment" and how this is a feature of almost every major religion.
Journal Reflection Questions:
1. Meditate on whether you feel called to deeper self-realization. What does enlightenment mean to you?
Ok, my knee-jerk flip answer is, "DUH! I wouldn't be doin' this if I didn't!
But now for the serious answer...
Yeah, I do...I think that is why I am taking the time to do this for 40 days, because I want to understand it better. "Enlightenment" is a difficult phrase for me because it sounds so "la la". In fact a lot of today's reflection has to do for me with getting past my visceral reactions to some of the words being used in the conversation.
But I would say that to me, enlightenment has an element of expansiveness to it. It is an opening up of the heart and mind and soul all at once. It creates a bond between God and me that feels unbreakable and permanent, even though the feeling itself is very fleeting. The other interesting thing about it is that when I feel true enlightenment, I feel a connection between me and other people that is beyond physical or emotional, although at times it may have little blips of similarity to both. I have described this moment, when it occurs with those close to me, as "that moment when we look at each other for the extra nanosecond or two." In those couple of nanoseconds something happens that seems beyond the boundaries of time, an openness, a connection, a bond that transcends temporal as well as the other boundaries. It is just this expansive feeling of "Wow, we are sooooo connected at this here moment!"
2. In what way does your own desire for union with God take you beyond "seeking gratification of the self"?
Again, I am having a bit of a word problem. I really dislike the phrase "union with God" because it sound so..well.. sexual. It sounds like we are lovers and that sounds sort of incestuous to me! Also, I think as long as we are in human form, we never really have "union" with God. We never become fully miscible because we are made of different stuff. I think of it more like a "bond" where two different substances can stick together. But I don't think we become miscible with God until we die. So me being a practical person, I don't really have a "desire for union with God" because I tend not to want what I can't have!
Now, with that said, I do have a desire to feel bonded with God, to feel the bonding power of the "glue" that holds us together and feel what's on the other side of the glue. I like to think in that exact spot of the "bond", God and I have both "altered our chemistry a little" to create a little spot where we both are different simply in order to stick to one another. (Ok, you can't tell my minor was in Chemistry, can you?) That is exciting, the notion that God would alter himself just to stick to me. It's easy to believe I would change myself just to stick to God!
The roots of that "change" exist in the business of seeking gratification beyond ourselves. To want to bond with God, we have to change ourselves a tiny bit. Perhaps some of that is to devote our energies beyond ourselves, to focus on gratifying God and gratifying one another. I find that when I focus on someone else's needs or someone else's hurts, my own need for selfish things dissipates to some degree.
3. Meditate on your reason to exist. How is your reason to exist reflected in your personal and professional relationships?
This is a hard question, because I do not think I'm indispensible. But I think about how those dear to us, we are linked at the heart, and their absence creates a hole in our hearts. I recognize that if I died tomorrow, there would be a lot of people running around with varying sized holes in their heart. So part of all of our reasons to exist is to keep those holes plugged in each other. I think that is best reflected in my life (on my best days) as the way my friend C. likes to put it. He says that one of my best attributes is that "When you are with people one-on-one, you act like they're the most important person in your world at that moment." I don't always do it right, and I can fall victim to my own bad moods, but mostly I want people to be treated like they matter, so I work hard at that.
Well, gang, I have embarked on a 40 day Ecunet cyber faith group experience called "Journey with Joan Chittister." it is an e-mail discussion group using the book "40-Day Journey with Joan Chittister" for daily devotion and reflection. I know, 40 days sounds so....Lenten....but let's just call this a "pre-Advent" activity!
Ok, according to the preface of the book, the goal of the 40 days is to feel yourself "living differently" whatever that means
Here is how each day is laid out....
First there is a reflection from Joan, then a snippet (about one line) from a NT reading. Then you are supposed to reflect silently on these two pieces and move to "the questions to ponder", then there is a psalm fragment to read. Then quietly reflect on that. Then, there are topics for "journal reflections" and I am supposed to write a little bit on that. Then there is a closing prayer to read. Anyway, that's the drill!
So here are my journal reflection topics for today. Today's reflections are about how spirituality is a hunger in the heart that seeks a reason to exist beyond biology. aaagh! (P.S. I am looking ahead in the book, and some of these are hard questions.)
Anyway, if you want to tag along on some of these 40 days, the link above takes you to the order page on amazon.com to get your own copy.
Here were the questions I am supposed to journal for today. Well, my blog is my journal, right? So what the heck, you can be part of my "discussion group away from my discussion group!"
1. In what way is your spiritual hunger nourished?
I have been learning to "try new foods" a lot over the past couple of years! I knew about prayer in the traditional sense. I knew about studying the Bible in the academic and historical sense and very minimally in the personal sense. But it is a lot like how I grew up eating bland, traditional NE Missouri "country food" and one day, in my adulthood, I discovered things like hot sauce, ethnic cooking, exotic cheeses, and vegetables other than beans, peas, corn and potatoes. Eating those things are fine--they nourish me--but there's no variety. Likewise, traditional prayer and worship IS satisfying to me...but I have come to realize there are exotic meals in God's word, fine appetizers just from sitting in God's open spaces, and a monastic quality to doing work at church (even setting off bug bombs simply to keep one of the "coffee hour queens" from being upset about the silverfish she found in the coffee pot!) I realize I make her worship better b/c I set off a bug bomb!
(Oh, a quick aside to y'all about the bug bomb thing. Always remember to yank the batteries on the smoke detectors before you set off the bug bombs. I forgot to, and when they all started going off after I had activated the bug bombs, I had to run down in the undercroft with bug spray fumes enveloping the place. I started having flashbacks of Susan Hayward in the gas chamber scene of that old B&W late movie standby, "I Want to Live"!)
Some of this has not been "natural" for me but I have been lucky enough to have some people in my life who have put the strange spiritual foods on the table and even if I wrinkled up my nose at them, have been cajoled into "taking three bites--how do you know you won't like it unless you try it?" Oddly enough, as was the case with many (but not all, of course) of those "new foods" in my childhood and young adulthood, I bit into these spiritual foods rather hesitantly at times, and after a few chews, think, "Hmmm....that is not so bad after all...."
2. Meditate on how spirituality seeks to "transcend the functionaries of religion" to bring you into greater intimacy with God. How does that happen?
I think for me, religion is a set of practices that in some ways, is the "mechanics" of connecting with God. Religion mostly illustrates "the fundamentals" in much the same way that batting practice or shooting free throws works--respect for the divine, common prayers to connect us to our Baptismal covenant, and the sense of wonder about God that comes forth in the Eucharist. We learn to do these things "automatically" so that when we are under stress we can rely on our training. When you've shot thousands of free throws, those thousands of free throws in practice can transcend the moment of stress where the free throw at the end of the game can win it. I think the practices of religion exist to ground us in the fundamentals in times of stress and confusion.
Spirituality, however, is something beyond that. It allows you to have the "aha" moments in the middle of our practices of religion, and experience an even greater level of connectivity with God that is very personalized and quite intimate. It also brings us into greater spiritual intimacy with like minded people, and that has a synergistic effect, bringing us to a higher level of connectivity with that person and with God at the same time. Awareness of the synergistic effects of spirituality is a powerful tool in learning to be spiritually fed, as it opens us up to unseen possibilities for connecting with God.
3. Journal about how in your own life, a spiritual commitment "took religion into its own hands."
Wow, this is a tough question! I think I will use my simultaneous Lenten projects of delving into the "suffering servant" chapters in Isaiah and also lurking on an Ecunet Lenten discussion group as an example. I made a spiritual commitment to take on these extra projects for 40 days. Although in a traditional sense, the suffering servant chapters are considered to have a parallel with the life of Christ, I discovered it also had a connection with my own sufferings and feelings of "exile". In the Ecunet group, an assignment every time was to write a prayer. I started out thinking I was a crappy prayer writer and discovered I was okay at it! In both these exercises, I had to take on for myself, with God's help, aspects of religion that on Sundays are "already taken care of for us" since it's all in the Book of Common Prayer, the readings are from the Revised Common Lectionary, etc. Taking on spontanteous projects created its own "sense of religion."
Letting people take up their own crosses is not really all that easy when you care about them. Take, for instance, Peter's dilemma in Matthew 16: 21-28:
21From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” 23But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
24Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? 27“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. 28Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
In the story, Peter, being a protective kind of guy, is hearing some bad stuff going down. Jesus means everything to him. It is his natural response to want to protect Jesus. Let's be real, our best attributes and our worst faults are so very enmeshed with each other. It's us as "good cop" and us as "bad cop". For a certain segment of us, "protectiveness" runs heavy. Peter (and I) tend to be a little bit that way. Sort of in the same neighborhood as mother cougars protecting their babies.
Peter's the kind of guy who the deepest part of him would defend Jesus to the death (despite him getting cold feet a little later--he more than makes up for those three denials by dying a martyr's death). It is just natural for him to bristle up and say, "Oh, no, Jesus, no way, this is not going to happen to you," and probably goes on and says, "Let one SOB touch a hair on your head and his ass is grass!" Now, in all fairness, Peter has no clue at this point there is a deeper meaning. He just knows something's going down that has the potential to take his teacher and friend away from him.
I had to laugh during Wallace's sermon today because he spoke to not listening to someone speaking the painful truth as being a form of betrayal. Now, with me being very closely aligned with Peter, what happens in the "mind of Kirkepiscatoid?" This thought flashes through, that goes, "Huh? Betrayal? Isn't that a little dramatic? He's just being misguidedly loyal!" In other words, I mentally stick up for my buddy Peter and mentally snarl at the vicar! This initial visceral response started showing up as my own resistance to listening, all the way through the sermon...and fighting to listen because the voices in my head are going, "Betrayal, my ass. Oh, horseshit. You shouldn't pick on my buddy Peter, he's a good guy!" Talk about distracting myself from the task at hand!
But let's look at the take home message here. The take home message is we all have knee-jerk reactions that are not always the best choice, and we need to sit still with them instead of immediately reacting and subsequently acting upon them. Our knee jerk reactions are not always rooted in the truth. Mostly they are rooted in our own loss and often in the fear of losing something dear and precious to us. They make us dead to the real problem and the real connection with others. I like to say, "Satan resides between my two ears" but the truth is whatever we consider "Satan"--evil--also resides within our interactions with each other.
Now, eventually Peter comes around, and he is loyal to Jesus till the end and beyond, despite his missteps. Yeah, he screws up in big ways now and then, but ultimately he goes to what's right and true and good.
Now let's switch gears and look at this story from Jesus' point of view. Only Jesus really knows what the score is here, and I'm not sure he didn't figure that part out until near the end. I think he gains an awareness from the beginning of each Gospel to the end. I think in this story, I am imagining Jesus feeling a little heavy about what he told the disciples anyway because he'd like to avoid it himself, but he knows he can't because he is catching on to who he is.
Now, Jesus knows Peter loves him. Maybe Peter's love is more out in the open than all of 'em. But I sort of imagine Jesus as "just not in the mood." On a good day, he could have handled Peter's misguided loyalty better. But he's so bummed himself, he just does not need this guy--even though he is a good friend and possibly his most out front disciple--in his face, threatening to beat the shit out of all the bad guys. So Jesus, being fully human, as well as fully divine, just basically lets it all degrade to what my grandmother used to call a "Screw you/go to hell" moment. In my family, this was a moment when tempers flared and the focus of the conversation shifted in a heart beat to being irked at each other, and it usually ended with the two parties yelling those two phrases at each other, storming off, and then later going, "What the hell were we mad at? Let's make up, ok?"
Well, and that is what I think happens when Peter crawls down Jesus' back. Jesus basically goes, "Aw, Peter, just STFU. You don't know what I know and I'm telling you this shit is going down and you need to shut up and listen to what I'm telling you."
Now, I like to believe, the part that is not in the Gospel but is in "The Gospel according to Kirkepiscatoid" is Jesus stepped back and thought, "Oh, hell. I shouldn't have snapped at him like that. But aw, dammit, he just sooooo gets in my personal space sometimes! Awwww....but there's somethin' about him I can't shake. I couldn't have a better friend. I need to remember that." Somewhere down the line, they made up. Jesus told Peter what was going down. Maybe one on one. He said to Peter, "Dude, I don't need you to fly off the handle in defense of me. I need you to be WITH me." And Peter said, "Jesus, you got it. I'm sorry I got pissed. It's just that I don't want you to die. I just don't want anything to happen to you, man!"
Now why do I say this is in "The Gospel according to Kirkepiscatoid?" Because look what happens in the next chapter...who all does he take to witness the Transfiguration? Peter, James, and John. He wouldn't have asked Peter along on this if he were still miffed at him.
That is the thing about people having to take up their own crosses. The more we love them, the more we don't want them to have to do it. Peter would have taken on Jesus' pain to spare Jesus. Parents would take on the pain of their children to get them to see the light to stop abusing drugs, stop behaving badly, stop any number of things. Sisters would take on the financial burdens of siblings to keep the sibling's house from the foreclosure auction. You get the drift.
But these are often crosses the person has to bear themselves. We cannot save them. We can only be with them as it happens, and that is ten times more painful b/c it feels like "we aren't doing anything for them." But to simply be with someone in their hour of need is a mitzvah beyond belief, and we need to honor that!
Well, gee whiz, this makes two holidays in a row where I am feeling a little on the lonesome side of life. Part of it is because I am on call (just as I was on the July 4th holiday) and it keeps me from going much of anywhere. Also, some of it is it hasn't been a good week for M., my friend with dementia. He has been a little wound up about his confusion; can't blame him there. Unlike Alzheimer's type dementia, he KNOWS what is going on and it hurts him like hell.
Truthfully, I have been grieving the last few days "the loss of M. as I once knew him." He was my weekend companion for golf, TV sports, suppers, beers for many years. He was my best colleague at work. I miss that guy. I ended up taking care of him because there was no one in the area to do it. I could not abandon him. But on my lonesome days, I realize my close relationship with him and my caretaking of him kept me from pursuing my own opportunities for long term life partners. There are days I am very sad about all of it. Today is one of those days.
Oh, I know I'll get past it. I don't stay in these kind of moods for long. But I also know that I am picky as hell in my older middle age, and spiritually at a different place than I used to be, so the ways I tried to relieve "relationship boredom" are just not applicable anymore. Is there a person out there for me? Oh, hell, who knows. I have never been an attractive first impression. I am too salty, too blunt, and not horribly gifted in the feminine charms and wiles. But once a fellow gets past all my cyclone fence and barbed wire, he finds a very loyal and giving and honest person.
I have so many great relationships in my life. It's just that none of them are of the significant other type, and I am pretty impatient about pretense, the dating game, etc. I am set in my ways and I know it.
But today, yeah, I have an attack of the lonesomes. It is simply the price of admission for being a person of intense feelings!
Here's an easy way to handle your stewardship issues, scratch off a 3 million dollar lottery ticket and donate it to your church!
Why is it I have a feeling that the "True North Community Church" generally frowns upon gambling; therefore the winner of the ticket kind of got guilted into giving it to the church "anonymously"??????
That's another of the nice things about being Episcopalian--no one seems to worry much that I spend $2 a week on Powerball tickets every Wednesday and Saturday. Hmm...let's see...Powerball is up to 72 million...let's assume 35% taxes, that brings me down to 46.8 million bucks...if I took it all in cash, most of the time that slashes it in half so now I'm down to 23.4 million. Oh, I think I could find a little room in my heart to push some of it over to Trinity...although I noticed when I talk about my Powerball ticket to the vicar, he likes to remind me how much he owes on his SUV....and the priest associate likes to remind me how many miles she puts on her minivan as Hospice chaplain...I didn't realize "lay support for clergy" had anything to do with vehicles!!!!!
I have to show off my new gold crown on one of my molars. I split that tooth in four places while eating ice. (no lectures, please.) I have one other gold crown, on the same side but an upper molar. My crown on my left front upper tooth is porcelain with a base metal back; it is apparant I have a metal allergy b/c there is inflammation around it. So any tooth that needs crowning and is not "out front", I have decided to get in gold. To hell with the cosmetics, I don't need the gingivititis!
Anyway, I had to show off my bling!
