Practice

Last Thursday night most of us in the Puget Sound area were going a little stir crazy after several days of snow and then ice and then snow again. I know for folks who live with snow all winter there is not much sympathy for us when we are paralyzed by, frankly, not many inches of the white stuff, but you have to understand, we live in hilly places, and we don’t have a lot of snow removal equipment, and our cars are just not equipped . . ., etc., etc. Alright, yes. We are kind of wimpy about it.

On Thursday I was supposed to be heading south to a pastors’ conference in Palo Alto, California. But all the news reports said the roads were too slippery, and we should stay home if we did not have to travel. And I actually did not HAVE to leave that day. So Thursday night there I was, scrolling through FaceBook for about the hundredth time, just making connections while waiting for the thaw.

That is when I saw the post from a friend- from two friends, actually, who are also a couple. They each had linked to an article from The Stranger, titled, “Two Votes Away from Marriage Equality,” with the invitation, “If you live in one of these areas- Redmond, Edmonds, Renton, Whidbey, call your state senator!”

Hey, wait a minute! I live on Whidbey! So I clicked on the link and saw that my state senator, Mary Margaret Haugen, had not yet come to a decision on Governor Gregoire’s Marriage Equality Bill.

Now I have contacted my representatives before- called them, written them, emailed them- almost always at the urging of folks from my church who make it easy for me by providing stationary, phone numbers, and addresses (email and otherwise). But every other time, I have been contacting someone who already supports what I am asking for, or has already made it clear that he or she is heading in the opposite direction I am hoping for. And I know those contacts are important. It is good to encourage our representatives now and then. How would I feel if at the end of a worship service my congregation never said to me “Great sermon!” simply because they agree with me, so why bother? Or if they didn’t look me in the eye and say, “Wrong direction, pastor.” I would wonder where everyone went.

But now I realize that in addition to the importance of the actual contact, my calls to my representatives were also practice for this call. I have usually felt that my calls, as important as they were, probably wouldn’t make a difference. But this time it was my state senator. And her one vote was needed.

The thing about a state senator is she is a SENATOR (which is a very impressive title), but at the state level. I have no expectations of ever meeting Patty Murray or Maria Cantwell, but Senator Haugen is kind of like a neighbor. I might even run into her at The Goose (South Whidbey’s great grocery store). She is someone I kind of feel like I know.

So because of all the other calls I had made, when I heard that Senator Haugen needed a call, I knew just what to do. I already had a lot of practice. I even have the Washington State Legislative Hotline number on my phone. (That’s a number you can call and the folks that answer the phone will get a message to your specific representatives. You don’t even have to know who your representatives are. And it’s 800 562 6000 if you need it.) I called that number right away, just to get my voice heard immediately. I got a recording: “Due to the weather, we are not open at this time.” Well, that was ok, because I had also intended to call Senator Haugen’s Olympia office number directly anyway. But because it was already late, I just had to wait until the next day.

The person who answered was very polite. I told him who I was, and why I was calling. I urged my Senator to support the Marriage Equality Bill. I even said I would be glad to talk with her more about it if that would be helpful. Ha! I guess that’s just the pastor in me.

And the pastor in me also wants to observe that “practice” is what the faith journey is about as well. My daily spiritual practices- prayer, gratitude, grounding- are sometimes exhilarating and sometimes just routine, but they are what I do. I do them because they matter, and I do them because they keep me ready for those moments when all the practice will have prepared me for my moment of deepest need.

After my call, as the snow had turned to rain and the ice to slush, I left for my pastors’ conference. On Monday Senator Haugen announced her support of Marriage Equality. She was quite articulate in her announcement, speaking of her own thoughtful process in coming to that support, speaking of her faith, and telling of the powerful effect hearing from her constituents had in the process. And with Haugen’s announcement, it became clear that the bill had enough support to pass.

The news brought tears to my eyes. In fact I am still amazed when I think about it. My state, Washington, is about to legally affirm my right to a love I could not even verbalize forty years ago. And I was deeply moved that when I posted my joy on FaceBook that day, I received more “likes” and comments than any other “status” I have ever “updated.”

Thank you Governor Gregoire. Thank you Senator Haugen. And thank you faithful friends, who have kept me practicing my faith, for keeping me ready for those moments when the practice makes all the difference.

The Journey’s End

I didn’t want to get here.  To “over”.  “Done”.  So I think that’s why I delayed these past weeks getting to this final part of our trip to India.  I wasn’t yet ready for it to be over, and over once again, in the sharing of the stories.  But all journeys reach an end.  And this has been a good journey.

And as can happen at the end of a journey, sometimes things begin to come together.  We begin to realize that having gone through this, we are seeing things in a different way.  Something has shifted and changed.    It might take a while to see that. A wise friend once told me that one-third of the trip is in the planning, one-third in the trip itself, and a third in the return and putting together pieces and learning.

We ended our India trip in the state of Kerala on the southwest coast.  It’s been a place of “coming together” of many diverse cultures, religions, peoples and traditions.   Many flocked here to the “spice coast” seeking black gold (pepper) and other spices.   It’s the place that Columbus was looking for when he ended up on the beach in Barbados.

A Jewish community has been here for countless generations.  One tradition tells it that the Queen of Sheba told King Solomon about Kerala and it was here that he got the teak that he used to build the temple.  (See 1 Kings 10)  Jews were welcomed here after they were expelled from Spain in the Inquisition.

Christians are here too and have been since the beginning centuries of Christianity.  One tradition has it that St. Thomas (of “Doubting Thomas” fame, see John 20:24-29) founded the first Christian community here in the first century.

Our tour guide Markose was showing us around a palace in Kerala.  We stood in front of a tapestry from a Hindu story called The Ramayana. He explained the scene to us. Then he stepped out of his role as tour guide. And into the role of sage. He said,

“All of us need a base for our lives. We can’t live good lives from scratch.”

Then we went on with the tour.

Markose was telling us we need to build our lives on some source of wisdom. Whether that base is a faith, a philosophy, or a tradition, it has to be big enough and flexible enough to guide the way we live as we change and as the world we live in changes. Our base gives us our values. Our base helps us make wise decisions and gives us a vision of what we’re living for. Without a base, Markose said, we live from scratch. We make it up as we go along. We have no center or compass. Living like that, Markose said, can’t help us build a more loving world.

Why venture to a far off place?  Why travel?

Some travel to get away from the trials and tribulations of home.

Others travel to gain a new perspective that they can take home.

Sometimes you plan a long time for a journey.

Other times, you are on a journey that you never expected to be on.  It happened to you while you were planning for something else.  A friend of mine had been planning for months a big trip overseas.  Right before she was to leave, she pulled out her back.  She ended up having a very different trip than she expected, lying on her back in bed, but one as she reflected on it, was full of learning as well.  No, not the journey she planned but the journey she got.

Often journeys can help us find our “base” again – or help us recognize our need for one.

And no, you really don’t have to “go” anywhere far away for that.  It can happen in the surprise of a January storm that leaves you stuck at the end of a steep icy street at home, out of the swing of normal routines and plans.  A chance to be in time differently, maybe to see some things differently.

I’ve talked to lots of people about what their days snowed in were like.  For some, pure bliss.  For others feeling cooped up, glad it is now over.  For some nestling in, for others feeling claustrophobic.  For me it was days of trekking many miles up and down Capital Hill as I walked to the hospital, to church, a few appointments that weren’t

cancelled.  It was a time to reflect and write, read and make connections in some different ways.

Where are you today?

What journey are you on?   Is it beginning?  Ending?  Are you in the middle of it?

And on this journey, what is your base? What do you know that helps you ground yourself and make sense of this journey even while you are in the midst of it?

On this journey to India I gained a new appreciation of Hinduism and inspiration about the way it seamlessly interconnects with everyday life and death.

I saw and experienced at an ashram a community full of young people hungry for a deep spiritual connection.

I found my heart and pure joy in the mountains of Nepal.

I was inspired anew by the life and witness of Mahatma Gandhi.

I have stories to share and more to reflect on.

I am reminded that when one journey ends, another has already begun.

Snow Days

The snow began late Saturday morning, and for me has lead to a week of frustrated plans. My motorcycle is still in Seattle where I abandoned it after trusting the weather prediction that snow would not start until Saturday afternoon. I have a basic policy that if I have to brush falling snow away just to get on the motorcycle, it’s too snowy to ride.

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday my plans changed by the hour as snow appeared, disappeared, and appeared again. By Wednesday, though, the snow had eliminated any vacillating. There was a foot of snow at my place, the church building was closed along with Seattle schools, and it was an official “snow day.”

A pastor’s life consists of a fascinating mixture of extrovert and introvert energy. I study the Bible, then lead bunch of folks in Bible study. I research, read and write, then spend a couple of hours with a lot of people, talking, singing, and sharing. I sit quietly with someone who is sick or hurting, then go to a fellowship dinner where we are all joking and laughing. The schedule is always full, and I always feel very busy. In the midst of so much to do, it is often difficult to make time for quiet reflection.

But a snow day changes all that. For me, a snow day becomes a slow day, and offers an incredible gift of time.

So on Wednesday I had time to enjoy my morning chores. People often ask me how the sheep like the snow. From all I can tell, they do just fine in their wooly coats. On Wednesday they came out of the barn with no hesitation, and plowed through deep drifts to get to their hay. The dogs also seem energized by the snow. The younger dog Mac was running around like he always does, but somehow he seemed even more crazy. He buried his head in the snow and then burst through it, with an expression on his face that I took for a grin. And as they ran through the snow, the older dogs Lizzie and Buddy seemed more puppy-like than they have in quite a while. Only the chickens seemed slightly subdued by the wet, cold whiteness that had invaded their yard.

And on Wednesday I had time to sit with my coffee and look out my window and soak in the beauty of the farm. The snow lent both a sparkle and a quiet to my surroundings that invited me to relax more deeply into the moment. On Wednesday I had time to read and time to write, with time left over to go sledding with my friend Lori and her girls, who laughed to see a 60 year old enthusiastically speeding downhill on their little plastic sled. And after that I still had time for phone calls and emails, and more reading.

I had time for regular check-ins on FaceBook, where I discovered that mane folks in my congregation were also enjoying this sudden gift of time. Building snow forts, walking through the neighborhood, sledding down slippery hills, playing board games, drinking hot chocolate together.

Today is day three of this snow-induced time out. As the days have accumulated, I find myself feeling quite refreshed. In some way I feel like I have been on a farm-focused retreat. Surrounded by sheep and dogs and time, for me these snow days have been like a sabbatical booster shot.

I know that these days have not been quite so relaxing for everyone. Snow and ice, disruption, power outages, and isolation can bring significant difficulties. And I will be glad to get back to my Seattle flock and extrovert activities too. But for me these few days have been filled with the quiet reflection that fuels a pastor’s life, and for which I often make so little time. I am grateful.

So, I Get A Smart Phone

Actually, I was given one last week.  But instead of throwing up my hands, I say, “Thank you”, and begin a 21^st century adventure.

Catherine offers to go with me to the phone store.

“Hi!  Are you coming with a plan already or are you switching plans?”, the nice young woman at the desk asks.

“Well, um…”

“Well, actually, he’s brand new, starting from scratch”, Catherine interjects.

“Yah, I really haven’t had a cell phone before…”

“Well welcome to the 21^st century!”, the sales rep beams and shakes my hand.

She kindly helps me through my questions, “How do you turn it off?”  (Answer:  you don’t.)

She assures me that typing with one finger is just fine.  In the end she pauses, “I don’t think I’ve actually ever met someone who didn’t have a cell phone before…”

I smile.

As she holds open the door for us, she notes, “I’ll be sending you a text with a survey attached.  I’d sure appreciate it if you’d put in a good word about the service you received.”

I think:  I’d be glad to but how in the world will I know that I have received a text – and what do I do if I get one?

In the past week, I have learned many things:

1)      How to type.  (Still with one finger.)

2)     How to take a picture.  (Not by looking through that small hole in the back of the camera as I realized.  That is actually the lens.  I am glad no one was looking when I tried that.)

3)     How to get directions.  (I was only honked at once because I was looking at my cell phone screen to tell me where to go when I already knew perfectly well how to get there.  “Continue down NE 45^th Street, turn left at 16^th Avenue NE.”

4)    Get the weather report.  (However contrary to what my phone said it was not actually “41 degrees and raining” but in fact “snowing” on View Ridge on Saturday morning.)

5)     Answer the phone.  (Just start talking. Yelling into the phone is actually not necessary.)

6)    Make a phone call.  (Do not wait for the dial tone, cell phones don’t have dial tones.  Do not randomly push at the screen like I did last Sunday morning or you may end up phoning Catherine at 5:15 a.m.   I think it only rang once and she assured me that she was up already.)

7)     Oh yes, and I did get the text and survey from the phone company and successfully gave the sales rep a 10 star rating.

Whether all of this knowledge has actually made me any “smarter” waits to be seen.

The same day I got my smart phone, I was sent an article, “The Joy of Quiet” (New York Times, January 1, 2012) by Pico Iyer who, alas, does not have cell phone and reflects on the effect they have on those of us who do.

Iyer notes that the average American spends at least eight and a half hours a day in front of a screen.  In fact the number of hours that American adults spent online doubled between 2005 and 2009. The average office worker today has not more than three minutes at a time at his or her desk without interruption.  Three minutes?   Good heavens.

So, his point:  How amidst all that noise do we actually have the time and space to slow down and think.  With “breaking news” coming at us perpetually along with images of Suzy’s last vacation, the phone ringing, and an email message flashing, we don’t have time to reflect and be present with any of it.

“The central paradox of the machines that have made our lives so much brighter, quicker, longer and healthier is that they cannot teach us how to make the best use  of them; the information revolution came without an instruction manual.”

So here is where I come in on my new 21^st century adventure: I want to pay attention to how to use this new technology, keep my sanity, and have time in my day to still do nothing at all.

A teen reflected recently after a week on a retreat where no plug-in-your-ears technology was allowed, “I never knew that there was a voice in my head.”

I never want to forget that there is.  And although I believe that God can certainly speak though cell phones as God does through everything else, I don’t want to forget to listen using the primary tool I have to connect with God (my own body and mind.)

So, I want to learn to live in paradox.  To be a contemplative with a smart phone. And no, while I’m not giving up my little red notebook and pen (I’ll always write faster than I type and besides I love my little red notebook), I also want to learn to use a 21^st century tool in ways that can actually be helpful in my life.      

So here I am, the man who never wanted a cell phone, having one and liking it.

And although he never imagined his words being used to speak of such things as cell phones and contemplation, I love the way forward that T.S. Eliot points for us all:

Old men ought to be explorers

Here and there does not matter

We must be still and still moving

Into another intenisty

For another union, a deeper communion

(T.S. Eliot, “East Coker”)

BZZZZ….BZZZZZ.  Incoming call.  Ah, that’s alright, let it go, it will click over to voice mail…..But, who was that calling? and at this hour?

Stay tuned.

And for now, tuning out.

Turning 50

This year, the Space Needle and I turned 50.   I tried to sleep through the Space Needle’s birthday celebration on New Year’s Eve until I was awakened shortly before midnight with chanting outside my bedroom window, “10!  9!  8!  7!…”  and then heard what I understand to have been a particularly beautiful fireworks display.

I marked my birthday with much less fanfare on a weeklong meditation training with my Zen Buddhist community.  The first week of January is our “rohatsu sesshin”, an eight day silent meditation training, and the most rigorous of four such weeklong practice trainings we have throughout the year.

I love rohatsu.  At Camp Indianola on the Kitsap Penninsula it’s dark and cold.  We listen to the rain and wind, the roar of the waves, crows chasing eagles across the grey skies.  Long days of sitting, breathing, listening beginning at 4:30 in the morning and ending progressively later in the evening, until the final night when we sit until midnight.  For my birthday, my sister had sent 50 chocolates and I shared them with our group for tea on the third day.  Nothing better for an ascetic’s heart on a day like that than the gift of a delicious chocolate!

I realized again how essential the practice of Zen is to my life.  For me, the simple practice of sitting, breathing, listening, helps me live deeper into everything we talk about in Christianity – letting go, death and resurrection, the gift of being, truth and peace. In the face of just sitting you have to hear all the noise rumbling around in your head, your fears, anxieties, joy, restlessness, boredom.  All you are including who you are becoming.  We block it out all the time – ignore our hearts, feelings, longings.  We are better off when we don’t.

I had been looking forward to turning 50 and living into what this new decade will be about.  But right before the day came, the old dread hit.   50?  I can’t believe it!  How did that happen?  And so fast!   I’m not sure I’m ready for that…

My colleague Catherine began her ministry here at 50 as did my former colleague Don Mackenzie.  And here I am at 50 and feeling like I too am just beginning, just beginning to live into something that my life before now has been preparing me for.  How can that be?  There is a phrase in Zen Buddhism called “beginner’s mind” and it is the reminder that we are always just beginning.  And so we do, right here, right now, we begin again.  Practicing sitting, breathing, listening, being.

And so at 50 I feel like I am just beginning to learn to live into this “me” of who I am and was created to be.   A friend gave me Richard Rohr’s new book, Falling Upward:  A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life as a Christmas gift.  I feel that for this past decade I have been just beginning to live into something of what this second half of life is all about.  I like how Rohr puts it,

“The tasks of the first half of life are about ‘surviving successfully’.  We all try to do what seems like the task life first hands us:  establishing an identity, a home, relationships, friends, community, security, and building a proper platform for our only life.  But it takes a lot longer to discover ‘the task within the task’….to find the contents that the container was meant to hold.” (p. xiii-xiv)

Rohr notes that few of us arrive at the work of this second half of life with much preplanning, purpose or passion.  It happens to us, in us, and often through the loss and death of some of the very things we spent the first half of our lives creating.  From the losses that are life, some remain stuck, and some move forward and are transformed into people they never imagined themselves to be.  Truer, more authentic, more of the utterly unique selves we were created to be. Rohr notes that none of us would choose such upheaval consciously but that we somehow “fall” into it.  I know this:

“By denying their pain, avoiding the necessary falling, many have kept themselves from their own spiritual depths – and therefore been kept from their own spiritual heights.”  (p. xxiii).

I know this as well:  that there are some young people who have learned from early suffering who are already here in this second journey of life, and some older folks who are still quite childish. It’s true that in the first half of life you can’t see any kind of falling or dying as necessary or good.  It takes great trust, great faith, to fall or to fail and not fall apart.  To trust the work of death and resurrection – that even in and through this dying to what has been – we are already being fashioned into who we are meant to be.

This is the season of Epiphany and of light, the season we are called to live into truth.  And yes, like it or not, truth and authenticity don’t seem to come without loss and pain before there is new life and joy.  I hope for all of us this season that we might support each other to live into our dying so we might as well live into our rising.  The new being, new beginning, God is calling forth in you and in the God’s world right here, right now, within and between us today.

What Everybody Needs

Yesterday morning when I fed my chickens I noticed a couple of things right away. First, all of them were out in their yard. It was about 6:00 and still dark. Usually that early in the morning only the three I have come to think of as the tough outdoorsy girls are up and around. They seem to just like being outside. But the second thing I noticed was even more striking. As I put out their food, the chickens pretty much ignored it. Usually they jump on those Nature’s Best Scratch Feed Pellets faster than, well, than a chicken on a June bug. All they were doing this day was milling around my feet unsatisfied.

That’s when I noticed that they were out of water. And actually, the chicken watering can was quite full, but it was also frozen solid. I guess the only thing that will distract a hen from her hunger is her thirst.

Finally, winter has officially arrived on the farm. We have entered the season of frozen hoses and water hauling. So yesterday morning I went back up to the house and got a jug of water, and when I re-entered the pen, the chickens, sensing I finally had what they wanted, flocked around me (literally in this case). When I saw the sheep leave their hay and come to peer longingly through the chicken wire, I knew I would have to bring them some water too. The complication, of course, is that all the hoses were frozen too so I couldn’t just turn on the faucet. More hauling.

When I was a little girl growing up in a Southern California suburb and dreaming of a farm, my dreams never even considered winter watering in a place where hoses freeze. In fact, I never really understood all the work involved in farming at all. I just imagined myself and my animals living contentedly in a beautiful place.

But everybody needs water.

All of that leads me to a reflection on Governor Christine Gregoire’s announcement last week of her support of marriage equality. I know. Only a preacher can go from a chicken coop to gay rights in one breath. But here is the connection I see.

When I was a little girl growing up in a Southern California suburb and dreaming of my future, my dreams never even imagined a day when my love could be open, and supported and celebrated. But now I know it is possible. And I know there is a lot of water to haul for us to get there. Some have already done a tremendous amount of the hauling, even when everything around us seemed frozen. I have had some good supportive drinks from such folks, at times when my life was very dry and very cold.

And now here we are in a season of spring in the midst of winter, when some things are beginning to thaw, and hope is blooming. Gregoire said of her decision to come out publicly in support of marriage equality, “It’s time, it’s the right thing to do, and I will introduce a bill to do it.” Then she said of her own long journey to that moment, “I tell you, I’ve never felt better than I do today.”

Thank you, Governor Gregoire, for helping to haul this water. Because this is something, whether we know it or not, and whether we can imagine it or not, that everybody needs.

Remembering, Forgetting and Remembering Again

The name of the author is the first to go

followed obediently by the title, the plot,

the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel

which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never

even heard of,

 

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor

decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,

to a little fishing village where there are no phones….

I love Billy Collin’s poem “Forgetfulness” in his collection of poems, Sailing Alone Around the Room.

I was thinking about it the other day when Moonwalking with Einstein:  The Art and Science of Remembering Everything showed up on my reserve list at the library and I wondered how it got there.  I must have seen it somewhere and here it was at last waiting for me to read.  Hmmm… wonder why I thought I’d be interested in this….

However it got there, I loved it.  Joshua Foer is a writer who by chance became a competitor in the national memory championship.   It is not only a fun read but also reminded me of something at the core of a life of faith:  remembering matters.

Foer notes that the single most common theme in the lives of the saints  (besides their superhuman goodness) is their often extraordinary memories.  St Augustine wrote about his friend, Simplicius, who could recite Virgil by heart – backward!  That he could recite it forward seems to have been no big deal.

In the classical world, a trained memory was the key to cultivating “judgment, citizenship, and piety.”  They knew that what one memorized helped shape one’s character.

Just as the secret to becoming a chess master was to learn old games, the secret to becoming a grand master of life was to learn old texts.  In a tight spot, where better to look for guidance about how to act than the wisdom of old texts.  And how convenient if you carried the wisdom of these texts inside you.

I have counted on the snippets of hymns, songs and scripture that I know by heart (like Psalm 23,46, 101, Romans 8:38-39) to help me find my way through tight spots.

I know a woman who for as long as she remembers has recited the 10 Commandments, 23^rd Psalm and Lord’s Prayer before going to sleep at night.  Saying aloud these words she learned as a young girl, has helped steady and remind her who she is through the many changes, trials and tribulations in life.

And it’s true:  memorizing poetry and prose is extraordinarily difficult.  But as the author of The Rhetorica ad Herennium,  a two-thousand year old book on memorizing techniques (the same techniques that are used today) says, that is exactly the point.  He explains that learning texts is worth doing not because it’s easy but because it’s hard.  “I believe that they who wish to do easy things without trouble and toil must previously have been trained in more difficult things.” So how about it?  Psalm 139 anyone?  John 1?  The Gospel of Mark?

But whether as individuals we take on memorizing texts or not, we communities of faith are in the “remembering business”.  We are the holders of the stories that remind us what it means to be human, who we are and whose we are.   The stories we need when we get lost along the way and forget what is important.

It’s true for all of us that we spend much of our lives chasing the “what’s” of our lives:  making lives that matter, doing, creating.  But finally, for many of us, many of the “what’s” of our lives come to an end.  We can no longer do the work we once did.  We learn to give up the things we once may have loved – being in school, playing soccer, going to work, being a parent of a young child, being a spouse, driving a car.  And what lasts when the “what’s” of life are taken away?

The church is the holder of the memory of the “who” we are, of what lasts after the “what’s” of our lives have had their turn and are laid to rest.

The “who” is what we are reminded of when we witness a baptism or are reminded of our own, those words of God to Jesus, to you, to me, “You are my beloved child with whom I am well pleased.”  (See Mark 1:1-11)

Yes, we probably spend our lives believing and disbelieving and believing it again and again.  What it means to live and walk as the beloved.  What lasts when everything else, the name of the novel, the plot, have been lost…

Amidst all the New Year’s resolutions we could make, and soon forget that we ever made, here is one that is worth remembering:  Remember who you are.  “You are God’s beloved child.”

What if this year you and I lived as if that really was something worth remembering?

After Christmas

Today is epiphany, or Three Kings Day, or the Twelfth Day of Christmas. The literal meaning of Epiphany is “to make known,” or “to reveal,” and however you name it, what it celebrates is the transition from the quiet birth of Jesus on Christmas Day to the much more public revealing of Jesus as the “newborn King” by the visit of Magi. According to Matthew’s Gospel, that’s when the real action begins. But that is a topic for another day. The point here is that whether it happened for you on December 26th or is happening today, sooner or later each of us take down our Christmas trees, put away the crèches, and move out of the Christmas season and into a different time. (I included the picture above to show you that my tree is not yet down. I tend to leave it up as long as I can without violating some sort of fire code.)

During the holidays I have been reading Barbara Brown Taylor’s book, An Altar in the World. I have been a fan of hers since she started collecting her sermons into books, and writing about “The Preaching Life,” twenty years ago. She was a parish pastor for fifteen years. Now she is a professor of religion at Piedmont College in Georgia. The central point of her latest book is a good one to hear on this day of Epiphany, as we move now from Christmas wonder back into our more “everyday” experience. She begins by telling the story of being invited to speak at a church in Alabama. When she asked “What do you want me to talk about?” the pastor who invited her answered, “Come tells us what is saving your life right now.”

The question was a good one. It moved her beyond “correct answers” and “theological propositions” into the reality of her life. “All I had to do,” she says, “is figure out what my life depended on . . . (and) how I stayed as close to the reality as I could. “

She went on to observe, “What is saving my life right now is becoming more fully human, trusting that there is no way to God apart from real life in the real world.” It is in exquisite attention to our ordinary, everyday activities that we can encounter the sacred. And when she used the example of feeding animals as a kind of spiritual practice, well, she had me hooked. Feeding my animals is a central part of my everyday spiritual practice.

The message of Brown’s book is that we all already have what we need to experience God here and now, in this present moment, in the midst of our everyday lives. We do not need to wait for some special holiday, or get to some “sacred” place. In whatever you were doing before you started reading this post, there is God. And when you finish reading, and move on to whatever is next in your day, God goes with you there.

The message of Christmas is captured in one of the names given Jesus. Emmanuel means “God is with us.” We sing it all through Advent and on Christmas day. And now, as we move into a new year, may we live it as well. And now that I think about it, maybe that will be when all the action really begins.

Arguing at the Ashram

After the intensity of Varanasi and traveling in India for a week, the idea of going to an ashram sounded pretty appealing.

But instead of finding “idyllic bliss”, I got into an argument.  Instead of being transported to some great spiritual heights, I rolled my eyes.

“Staying with it” is at the core of spiritual practice.  And no, not always easy.  But staying in the conversation with the woman I was arguing with and not running away from the “bizarreness” of the world of the ashram, helped me see and appreciate things I would not have otherwise.

The argument was over “religion”.   I was so struck by how quickly my buttons got pushed when I asked one of the members of the ashram why she was here.

“I am very interested in spirituality and not in religion.  Religion is all about making you believe certain things, all about creeds and doctrines.  This place is all about spirituality and not religion.”

I looked around and saw rigorous spiritual forms and structures, not one but two “temples” (one for male energy, another for female energy), and the yogi’s (spiritual teacher) picture plastered everywhere.

I said,

“I have another take on religion.  For me ‘religion’ is the ‘form’, the ‘structure’ that is the necessary container for the spiritual life.  I see a lot of form and structure here that helps provide a container for the spirituality you find here.  We had a speaker come to our church, Diana Butler Bass, and she talked about the difference between ‘spiritual’ and ‘religious’….And no, our church does not think about “faith” as saying ‘yes’ to a set of particular beliefs…..”

“Well that is pretty unusual isn’t it?”, she responded.

“Yes, I guess it is.”  And then I am chagrined to say that I went on and talked about the role of religious fundamentalism in our world today and what the progressive church is trying to do differently….

Good heavens.  Why did I get so triggered by her comment about “religion”?  Do you think it might have had something to do with the fact that I have spent my life and career working in and for religious institutions?   I do believe in the good role religion can serve as a container for spirituality.  And I know all too intimately and well how “religion” has abused that role.  But I hold out hope for religious institutions to do better than we have often done so that we can nurture a rich spiritual life that we need for the healing of our souls, relationships, and planet.

I also know that I got triggered by the lack of curiosity I found here.  I’m curious and I like to engage people in questions about why they do what they do.  But I didn’t find much interest from the members of the ashram wanting to hear much about my life and experience.   I was told a lot, but not asked about much at all.  I realized that a community that is not interested in really listening to my experience and perspective is not one I am particularly interested in.

I am involved in a Buddhist community that lays out a set pattern for our being together – what to do and when to do it.  And part of that rigorous practice is not to ask me, “Peter, what would you like to do?”  Instead, I am given a structure of how to be in this community.   The church likewise depends on certain norms for being part of community so that we can be a healthy, grounded, intimate community.  Not just “anything goes” in a healthy community.  I get that.  But I realized  that I want and need a community that invites me in not just to tell me what I should do – but wants to wonder with me.

 

Isha ashram was founded by the yogi leader, Sadguryu.  But when I first arrived I thought that the yogi’s name was “Isha”.   So I asked one of the members, “Where does Isha live?”  (“Isha” is in fact the word for “creator of all things”.)

She answered, “Isha lives everywhere.”

“No, no, no” I responded, “where is his house?”

He means “Sadguryu”, another member told her quietly.

Good heavens.

Fortunately I have been gifted with the ability to laugh freely at myself!  And now I know where both Isha and Sadguryu live…

There was a lot about the structure of life at the ashram that was downright bizarre.  But I always have learned best by jumping in and trying new things, so I jumped in the “purification” pool, sat in the temple, and attended other ceremonies and rituals.  And although there was much I could have just rolled my eyes at, I am also glad I stayed with it.  For in the staying with it we can be changed.  Looking below the surface of some of these strange practices helped me appreciate what they were seeking to point to.  Although I didn’t particularly like the way they taught yoga, I did appreciate doing it and have taken that practice home with me.

It is easy in an argument to just walk away.

Easy in facing new experiences to roll your eyes and flee.

And there are times indeed for both.

And there is a time to stay with it.

To wonder.  To take it in.  To ask what is really going on beneath the surface.

Kind of like this season of Christmastide invites us into – to open ourselves today to a little wonder.

Buddhists in Bethlehem

Everything begins somewhere.   For Buddhists it began here in Sarnath, the deer park where Buddha preached his first sermon and founded a monastery of sixty monks in the 6^th century BCE.  Today it’s a ruin, a park once more, and a place of quiet and solitude in the teeming city of Varanasi in northeast India.

As we luxuriate in the shade under a tree, our guide explains that Buddhism began here as a purifying movement within Hinduism.  “Buddha wanted to remind people that divine power is inside you.  You don’t need any mediators, don’t need to subject yourself to the will of the fates, or the confines of the caste system.  Anyone can become Buddha.”

In the 5^th century CE a huge temple was built here and destroyed in the 13^th century, after which Buddhists moved north to the Himalayas.  The whole place was lost, covered up in a great pile of dirt and rubble, until 1794 when the royal family went looking for bricks for one of their building projects.  They heard that there was a good supply of bricks here, started digging and unearthed Sarnath.

Today Sarnath is surrounded by Buddhist temples that represent all the traditions, flavors and styles that is Buddhism.   We visited a Tibetan Buddhist monastery.  Someone once said to me that the Tibetan Buddhists are like the Roman Catholics of the Buddhist world – full of elaborate ritual, liturgy, and beauty like this gorgeous temple we enter.  A statue of a grand Golden Buddha sits in the temple where we sit to meet with the priest.

The priest’s translator is an American.  We ask where he is from.  “Seattle?”, he says.   Wallingford actually.  A small world.

There is an expression in Buddhism that if you see the Buddha on the road you should kill him.  Why?  That makes no sense on one level at all.  But on the other hand it is seeking to make a point.  The “Buddha” – your Buddha nature – sometimes put as your “true” nature, your “authentic “ self, “the you that is you” is not something external from you, but within you.  So in other words – don’t run around pursuing things external from yourself.  Pursue your true self.  Buddha is within you.

“So why then”, I asked the Tibetan priest, “build a temple here?  If Buddha is within you and everywhere why build a temple to an “external” Buddha, isn’t that missing the point?”

He notes that “looking to outer externals can help us on the way”.  I hear him saying what I have heard my Zen Buddhist teacher say, that if you want to get somewhere imitating someone who walks like you want to can be helpful.  But  finally imitation is not the point.  You finally have to live, walk as you, be you.  As the Tibetan priest put it, “Externals may help, but only with internals being the goal.”

Here in Sarnath where Buddhists commemorate the site of one of their “Bethlehem’s” , and I am reminded of Christians who gather tonight in their own city of Bethlehem.  The traditional site for the birthplace of Jesus is full of Christian churches and the “site” of his birth in some of the gospel stories, a  hodgepodge of worship spaces – Roman Catholic and the many diverse branches and flavors of the Orthodox Church.

But Christian pilgrimage to Bethlehem didn’t catch on quickly.  For wasn’t the point that Jesus was making that “you are the body of Christ”, “I am with you wherever two or three are gathered.”  In other words, you don’t need to go to Bethlehem to find Jesus – in fact going to look for him here may miss the point.  For isn’t the point that Jesus is not “out there” – but within – that we are in fact Christ’s body and called to live his way of love in our particular lives.

Tonight, this Christmas Eve, Bethlehem is full of Christians.  But the place where it really matters for Jesus to be born is not “out there” somewhere but within you.   13^th century Dominican mystic, Meister Eckhart put it this way,

“What good is it for me that Christ was born a thousand years ago in Bethlehem, if he is not born tonight in us?”

A 10th century Christian mystic, St. Symeon the New Theologian, put it this way:

We awaken in Christ’s body as Christ awakens ours, and my poor hand is Christ. He enters my foot, and is infinitely me. I move my hand, and wonderfully my hand becomes Christ, becomes all Christ – for God is indivisibly whole, seamless in Godhood. I move my foot, and at once God appears like a flash of lightning. Do my words seem blasphemous? Then open your heart to God and let yourself receive the One who is opening to you so deeply. For if we genuinely love God, we wake up inside Christ’s body where all our body, all over, every most hidden part of it, is realized in joy as Christ, making us utterly real.  And everything that is hurt, everything that seemed to us dark, harsh shameful, maimed, ugly, irreparably damaged, is in God transformed and recognized as whole, as lovely, and radiant in God’s light as we awaken as the Beloved in every last part of our body.

“Enough talk…”, Eckhart says, “God is laboring inside us. We need to be silent for awhile. Worlds are forming inside our hearts.”

Merry Christmas