short sleeve shirts

 I was arranging my short sleeve shirts in my closet today after months of three layer long sleeves and came across some I had forgotten about.

One was a tee-shirt I bought during the previous Presidential administration with a flying saucer above the White House and the words: "just as reported, no sign of intelligent life." I can't wear that now and hope I never have to again.

Another was a yellow tee-shirt with the St. John's Church logo (an eagle with wings spread). On the back it says: "Dangerous Mystics and Spiritual Rebels".

Once in an adult confirmation class someone asked me, "what will we be when this class is over?"

And I answered off the top of my head, "dangerous mystics and spiritual rebels". Within a week these tee-shirts showed up, over a hundred of them.

That was well over a decade ago, but I stand by it even now. What we need to be as Christians are dangerous mystics and spiritual rebels.

Any 'organized' church--even one as liberal and forward looking as the Episcopal Church--draws lines that shouldn't be drawn. We need people to push back against the lines and limits and rules and canon law.

As Christians, we need to be free of all that.

We need to be open to the mystical communications of God and to rebel against limits to the power of the Spirit.

During Covid, when Bryan and I were doing zoom church, we invited people to have bread and wine and enjoy communion as we consecrated it virtually.

Word came down from on high not to do that.

How can the Church--an earthly organization--dare to limit the power of the Holy Spirit to consecrate elements on Zoom?

How do we know in-person consecration really turns bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ? Only by believing it.

So what's different about virtual consecration? If you believe in it, it can be real.

Dangerous mystics and spiritual rebels are needed to be on alert to when the Church gets in the way of our knowing God.

We dutifully told people what had been passed down to us, but we kept doing it.

Where would we be without dangerous mystics and spiritual rebels?

Wedded to the 'past' and not looking toward God, that's where.