Winnie the Pooh and John the Baptist

So, I asked this question at the beginning of my sermon about John the Baptizer today: What do Winnie the Pooh and John the Baptist have in common?

I got the joke from a novel about an Anglican priest who had a previous career as an M-15 agent (England's FBI) and was always being dragged into mysteries with his bishop's permission. (I never told you about my years in the CIA, have I? Of course not. If I told you I'd have to kill you....)

I didn't expect anyone to really answer but Jody Bush said, "they both have fur". Yes, she is 'those Bushes--sister in law to the first president and aunt to the second.  And I must admit, since John dressed in camel's hair, I thought she was right on.

But the answer I had, from the mystery, was "the same middle name--'the'..."

Lame, I know, but I like it. I like lame jokes more often than not. "A rabbi a priest and an Imam go into a bar" and you've got me hooked.

I did, eventually, get serious, to some degree, about the Baptist, but I enjoyed the beginning...and Jody's answer....

Remembrance and Support

Tonight the Cluster Churches had a Service of Remembrance and Support. It is a service for those who find the Christmastide days painful because of the death  of a loved one, conflict in their family, lack of resources in a time of  'spending'--whatever.

It is a great idea.

I think most all of us have mixed feelings about Christmas. There is all the joy and banter and celebrating but there is a 'blue' side to Christmas for many folks.

The service inserts itself into the conversation. "Go ahead and celebrate, that's great." it says, "but don't forget the other side."

There are lovely prayers and readings and songs--and a liturgical dance this year--and, most, most of all the stark acknowledgement that 'Tis the season to be jolly' isn't always the reality.

I think more communities and churches should consider such an acknowledgement of the sadness and confusion around this time of year.

If you want a copy of what we used tonight email Bea at wecluster@sbcglobal.net and she'll send it to you.

Well worth doing....

Well, I even screwed that up....

At some point I said I was going to retire from blogging when I got to 2000 posts.

My wife (whose never read my blog) talked me out of it--probably because it keeps me out of her way sometimes.

But I just noticed this is #2007, so I didn't even know I'd gone past my previous stop time!

I can even mess up 'stopping' which is probably the easiest thing in the world to do--just STOP.

So, 7 posts too late I have to warn you I'm going to keep writing.

Just to stay out of Bern's way a few times a week.

Not that I'm not pleasant company--she in an introvert and needs alone time.

I am an extrovert who wants people to read the nonsense and ponderings I write.

Like that.

You're stuck with me, I guess....

Trying again...

This post in June got under 20 views. Most of the posts get 3 or 4 or 5 times that. This means a lot to me--who I am, who I be, what I truly believe. So, I thought I've give you all another shot at it.

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Faith as a possibility....

We had a long discussion about faith/believing/knowing at the little group I go to on Tuesday mornings today. For some reason I just couldn't get into it too deeply and didn't know why. On the way home, I remembered why...I wasn't 'letting the workshop be the workshop!'

I help lead this "Making a Difference Workshop" where we spend 4/5 of the time either doing centering prayer or dealing in two domains--the domain of experience and the domain of concept.

So, we spend most of the workshop exposing how wed and trapped we are in the domains of concept and experience, where our concepts, which come from our experiences, begin to color and determine future experiences. We 'work backwards' until we can reach the point where we can un-conceal (different from 'reveal' which is why my spell check doesn't like it) a third domain. Experience and concepts are all about 'getting somewhere'. The third domain--the Domain of Possibility--is a place 'to come from...."

Our conversation today was bogged down (as we almost always are) in the two domains of experience and concept, which actually collapse on each other into a vicious circle. What I needed to say, if I'd only remembered to let the workshop work, was to create the possibility of 'faith' or 'believing' AS A POSSIBILITY.

Everything exists in all three domains. God, for example, exists as an 'experience' of God/Spirit/the Holy and a 'concept' of God. But both the experience and concept are dwarfed and transformed by God 'as a possibility', as a creation, as a limitless declaration. God then become a place to 'come from' and BE, not a place of presence or representation. (That's 'doing and having', or 'experience and concept'.)

Am I going too fast? We use three days to do this workshop and I'm trying to re-create it in a blog post!!!

Faith as a possibility helps us to create a future that wouldn't happen anyway.

That's one of the mantras of the workshop--'there are two futures: the one that will come if you just wait and the one you can create that wouldn't happen anyway.'

Faith as a possibility means we bring the limitless possibility of 'faith' into the moment. We 'be' faith, rather than experiencing faith or having a concept of faith. That's why the second rail of the workshop is centering prayer. Centering prayer is a prayer of 'being' rather than 'doing' or 'having'.

I'm not sure any of this is making sense--but I know our conversation today needed a high octane injection of 'being'. We were talking about 'experiencing God' and having 'concepts/traditions/theologies about God. What we needed was God as a limitless possibility to 'come from' into the next moment.

(Coming from 'being' devolves into experience and concept--we call that, my favorite bit of workshop language: 'the ontological cascade' (cool, huh?)--but we can also return to 'being' again and again and 'come from' being by, guess what?, merely 'SAYING SO....'

Should be familiar as a way of creating: "God SAID 'let there be light....."

You know the rest of that.

Maybe next Tuesday I can come from 'Being' into the conversation....Devoutly to be hoped.

Inflatable, light up lawn decorations

Ok, they look great at night but the next morning they're just plastic collapsed on the lawn.

Why can't they be inflated all the time, I don't get it.

On my way to Emmanuel, Killingworth I pass a house in--I don't know, Wallingford, I guess-that has about two dozen of the Santa's and Reindeer's and Grouch dressed like Santa and Angels and more stuff than anyone needs ever, in a billion Christmases.

And when I go by on Sunday morning it looks like a terrorist attack has happened, or a Zombie apocalypse or those left behind at the Rapture.

I would never own one of those lawn things which need both air and electricity, I guess.

But if you do, God love you, and keep them always inflated.

It's beginning to look a lot like deflated Christmas.

Just me talkin'....

all new, all new....

I did a 'trade funeral' today.

A trade funeral is when the family wants a minister and doesn't have one so the funeral home calls around.

When I first retired, I got a lot of calls. Not so much recently--but Kevin knows me well and when a special needs man needed a religious person, he called me.

Christopher was born with many physical and some minor mental problems. His parents were told he wouldn't live until his 20th birthday. Instead he lived to 37, many of those years in a semi-autonomous way in a group home. He had jobs, was in the Special Olympics for years, touched many people.

I got there early to talk to his father and saw how many people came to the funeral home to speak to his family.

Christopher must have been 'special' in several ways to have so many people love him.

Even Kevin told me that in his conversations with Christopher's father he wondered 'who really gave the gift to whom'.

Christopher's mother is dead but his father was with him all the way. Learning as much, if not more, from his son than he taught.

I often quote St. Francis of Assisi in funeral sermons. Francis said, "death is not a door that closes, but a door that opens and we walk in all new...."

For us still on this side of that wondrous door, death seems like a door that closes. But my prayer is that for the one who dies, they enter into the presence of the One who loves them best of all and are made all new.

I certainly pray that for Christopher. That he was made 'all new'.

All new...all new.....

Odder and stranger and closer....

Well, well, well, General Michael Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Considering the other charges Mueller could have indicting him for you have to ponder what all he promised the special prosecutor to only be charged with that....

Murkier and murkier this whole 'witch-hunt' (as He who will not be named has called it) and closer and closer to the King himself. Jarred Kushner and Kelly Ann Conway seem to be persons of interest in a new way through all this.

Steve Smith, a Republican advisor (a 'real' Republican, not the type we see today!) said on CNN that what people should do is vote only for Democrats for House and Senate in 2018.

Let me repeat that--a man in the Bush 2 White House and the Romney presidential run is advising people to vote for 'only Democrats' in 2018. That's because he doesn't think Republicans in Congress will go along with any road to impeachment for the President should all this lead to that possibility.

And it might. And Pence and Sessions are treading water in the whole Flynn imbroglio as well.

Who becomes vice-president if the Speaker of the House becomes President? I have to look it up.

As the Chinese say, "May you live in interesting times" as a curse, not a blessing. (Though, truth is, there is no similar saying in written Chinese. The closest is 'better to be a dog in good times than a human in trying times' or something like that. But people have credited Confucius with it for decades, no matter where it originated.)

These are, unfortunately for us, extremely 'interesting' times.

I truly believe our democracy is at stake. Mueller may be our lynch-pin to keep it all together.

I don't need Steve Smith to tell me to only vote for Democrats, but I admire his courage in doing so....