erosophy has moved

I won't be blogging here anymore, you'll find me at http://erosophy.wordpress.com
(why? their layouts are much sexier. 'nuff said.)

someone is baking

Someone in my apartment building is baking. At first I thought it might be cookies, but then I sniffed more intently and decided it could possibly be a cake. There is definitely the scent of vanilla and sugar in the air, and that golden-brown fresh-baked smell. It is both my gift and curse that I have this incredibly acute sense of smell.

Now, there is a part of me that wishes I could/would go and hunt down the source of this heavenly aroma. I wish I knew the people on my floor well enough that I could start knocking on doors and find out who was baking, and why. But the sad thing is that I actually do not know anyone else, even in the building. Sure, I can recognize faces, and the guy in the apartment next door I know owns a motorcycle and keeps odd hours, but I have no idea what his name is.

I sit here at my desk with five quotes staring me down, five quotes that are hanging above me in order to help focus my critical thinking for my thesis work. They are all quotes about "community" because "community" is my obsession, my quest, my holy grail. I have plenty of "conflagrations of community" (as Catherine Keller would call them) in my life. I draw on both the past and future possibilities in my dreams of community (as Marjorie Suchocki reminds me to do). I know that community is difficult and tenuous and "not automatically 'beloved'" (as Grace Jantzen puts it). And I realize that community should never force us to deny, stifle or smother out our differences (as Zigmunt Bauman challenges).

And so I sit, gazing at these quotes and dreaming of living where I can knock on my neighbour's door and ask what it is they are baking. I dream of taking my own fresh-baked cookies across the hall to the guy with the motorcycle. I long to make too much potato salad because I know that someone in my building is too busy to make dinner and would love to share mine.

Sometimes I think these dreams are silly and childish. Sometimes I wonder if I dream of these things because they are what the demographic I belong to are supposed to dream of. But part of me believes that I dream of these things because there is some desire deep within me (and maybe within others too?) to huddle together and share food and laughter and tears and touch. I'm interested in how we can do that with fidelity to our post-modern, post-Christian context, and how connection and community can, indeed, even save us.

It is tricky to put these two things together: the academic quotes and the heartfelt dreams. Right now I can feel the two both weighing heavily on my heart and mind, because they are still learning how to speak each other's languages and are still learning how to be patient enough to listen to one another. And yet I press on, convinced that somehow I might be able to say something that will take the desires of my heart and speak them back into my academic work in authentic and life-giving ways.

Maybe I'll go bake some cookies.

***************************************

My quotes:

Catherine Keller: A conflagration of communities "cannot draw opaque boundaries around either its individuals or its communities.... it clusters locally and vines globally." (Apocalypse Now and Then. 218)

Marjorie Suchocki: "Who we are," as individuals and as 'the church', "depends upon our past and upon our future possibilities." (God, Christ, Church. 143)

Grace Jantzen: "Communities are not automatically paradise. Communities can be extremely powerful, and can use that power in destructive ways." "Community is not automatically 'beloved'." (Becoming Divine. 225)

Zigmunt Bauman: We need to employ "the republican model of unity, of an emergent unity which is a joint achievement of the agents engaged in self-identification pursuits, a unity which is an outcome, not an a priori given condition of shared life, a unity put together through negotiation and reconciliation, not the denial, stifling or smothering out of differences." (Liquid Modernity. 178)

Me: "Middle-class, North American congregations need to re-imagine what Christian Community looks like in their particular contexts."

I love this book

Ok friends, so I haven't been a prolific blogger lately because this fabulous book called Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert has been occupying all of my free moments since I bought it in the Denver airport Sunday morning. I was going to title this blog entry "you must read this book", but decided to just own up to loving the book, making a case for it, then letting you decide whether you must read this book (even though I think you really should read it, really).

It is a memoir of Elizabeth's year-long journey through Italy, India and Indonesia to pursue pleasure, devotion and balance. The book is insightful, funny, inspiring, and oh-so-lovely. I was laughing out loud on one page and then crying on the next.

I love how the spiritual wisdom and insight sit so comfortably next to funny stories, descriptions of amazing food, and tales of the pain that comes from living. The author doesn't claim to be an expert in meditation or prayer, but just does such a good job of articulating how a spiritual journey can unfold. One of my favourite parts was story 42 (there are 108+1 stories in the book, like a string of prayer beads) where she described a typical interaction between her and her mind when she tries to meditate, it made me laugh in recognition of the games my ego-mind plays to try and stay in control of situations.

The other thing I really love about the book is that it is not a story of self-denial and perfect devotional practice, it is the story of someone who takes time to enjoy the beauty and pleasures of life as well as spiritual discipline, which is so wise. What is the use of becoming a calm, centered person if you won't also let yourself enjoy the world? She writes about savouring meals, people, places, as well as not attaching to those things. So good.

I'm almost sad to have finished the book, I enjoyed living in it for awhile, watching someone else's journey of self and spiritual discovery unfold. But then again I have my own journey of spiritual self discovery to take, and it seems to be unfolding in some lovely ways. I can't wait to see what's around the next corner.

yay for biblical humour

ode to the pacific northwest

Flying in to Vancouver this morning I see what makes my heart leap: terrifyingly jagged mountain peaks with bright blue, tiny, jewel-like lakes nestled amidst the razor-like rocks. In spite it being the end of summer there is still snow dusted on some of the edges. In the distance, far above the jaggy peaks, loom flat-top giants whose shape betrays the terrible power that lies inside them.

This is what I love about the northwest, the dramatic, rough splendour of these mountains and the whole landscape. Towns humbly sit at the feet of these towering, rocky slopes. Even the clear-cut expanses do not and cannot touch the terrible peaks. Rivers wind their way to the flatter land that gives way to more majesty, the ocean, with more jagged peaks across the water.

It is this chaotic and dangerous landscape that my heart/soul/spirit calls "home", not the rolling hills and gentle expanse of the midwest, lovely as they are. The danger and the beauty and their juxtaposition terrify, thrill and humble me, all the while pulling deeply on my passion and desire..... so beautiful, so frightening, and so much like God. Hallelujah.

midwest soft spot

Ok, so I have a very soft spot in my heart for the midwest, and whenever I travel here (right now I'm in Independence, Missouri until Sunday) I am reminded of that soft spot. I think the recollection started today with the barista at the Chicago airport Starbucks who kept calling me "ma'am": "was that an americano ma'am?" "What size did you want, ma'am?" "here you go ma'am." And then there was the kind man next to me on the flight to Kansas City who pointed out the spectacular rainbow we were flying over top of (I couldn't resist making a joke about feeling a little like Dorothy heading back over the rainbow to Kansas). And then there is the distinct possibility that we will have a thunderstorm tomorrow - I LOVE the thunderstorms here, they are incredible testimonies of power.

There are also all the people here that I'm fond of and the fond memories attached to many of the people and places. In spite of not always enjoying myself over the course of the four years I spent near here in Iowa, there were some really lovely times. And it is nice to come back to familiar things, like the noisy bugs that no one else seems to notice (I have a vivid memory of a campfire one evening where someone remarked on the quiet stillness of the night - quiet? still? I thought they were joking. They weren't), and that thick, humid smell in the air. Despite these being things that were initially annoying, they have come to be things that have a special place in my heart. It is amazing what places can do to you, and all it takes are the sensory inputs - the sounds and smells - to bring back floods of memories.

souls are God's jewels

"You are as prone to love, as the sun is to shine."
- *Centuries of Meditation,* Thomas Traherne (1636-1674)

"You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself flowers in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men and women are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight, as misers do in gold, and kings in scepters, you never enjoy the world."
- *Centuries of Meditation,* Thomas Traherne

"This world is a mirror of Infinite Beauty, yet no one sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no one regards it. It is the Paradise of God. It is more to man since he is fallen than it was before. It is the place of Angels and the Gate of Heaven."
- *Centuries of Meditation,* Thomas Traherne

"Souls are God's jewels."
- *Centuries of Meditation,* Thomas Traherne

on friendship

A post on Rachel Kramer Bussel's Lusty Lady blog called "On friendship" (caution when clicking, there's some nsfw adult content around her blog) inspired me to reflect on friendship in my own life.

Last week when I was out with some work friends, engaging in our normal discussions about God, meditation, and life, I was interested when one mentioned that they couldn't or didn't talk about this "stuff" with anyone else. I was interested because, when I take stock of my closer friends, I'm friends with them mostly because I can talk about that "stuff" with them. If I can't talk about God and spirituality with a person, I'm not likely to become good friends with them. This may sound incredibly pretentious and arrogant of me, and maybe it is, I'm willing to entertain the possibility, but at the same time, if I were silent about those things which are a huge part of who I am, I would feel like I was not bringing my whole self to the relationship.

I wonder sometimes how I got to where I am now in my life, when did I become this spiritual, mystic, ministerial seeker? But then I think back to, say, the sunny lunch hours in high school when my friends and I sat on a blanket in the grass and talked about what we thought the meaning of life might be, and my constant involvement in church, and so many other things, and then it seems obvious; I was bound to turn out this way. And so, pretentious or not, a projection of Shannon that didn't include the mystic Shannon would be hollow.

And so I find myself incredibly grateful for the friends I do have, the multiple people with whom I can share and who can share with me the things that are dear to our souls. If it were not for friends who push and prod and pique, I would not have found myself where I am today.

Thank you.

birth announcement

Did you know that there is a new star being born? I just learned from this BBC News article that astronomers are watching carefully as a new stellar system is born to see how the process works and what they might learn about how our solar system was born.

Water vapor pouring down supersonically in vast quantities, matter spinning wildly, extreme hot and cold temperatures, extreme pressure - sounds like an awfully intense atmosphere in the stellar delivery room.

But births seem rarely to be quiet, passive, calm processes. There is uncertainty, there is pain, there is intensity, there is chaos; new life does not arrive quietly and unobtrusively. The image of a stellar birth seems closer to human birth than the image of a green plant slowly, quietly pushing it's way through soil.

But possibly there is room for many birth metaphors, many images of new life. Sometimes in my life new birth arrives slowly and quietly like the green plant, and sometimes arrives with chaos, uncertainty and pain. And yet new life always comes, and re/birth seems to arrive regularly. Awesome.

more poetry

Ok, so I'm slightly obsessed with poetry lately, but I think that's ok; my guess is that it is kind of an epiphenomena of what's been going on with my soul as of late. So when I was at camp a few weeks ago, somehow Shakespeare's sonnets came up in discussion, and I, like virtually everyone else, had a sonnet still tucked away in the corners of my brain that I had memorized during high school. So I began to recall it, and as I did it was as if I were reading it for the first time, even though "I" "knew" the poem "by heart", it felt more like I was discovering the poem anew as I spoke it out loud, and in some ways it felt almost as if the poem were reading me, not I it. And it was an incredibly beautiful experience.

A large part of the beauty of this particular sonnet, for me, is in saying it out loud. For when I let the lines carry my voice, the very act of speaking the words with raw honesty seems to carry my body to a different place. The line that begins "Like to the lark..." always leaves me breathless with a racing heart by the time I get to the end of it, because I never pause between that line and the next. So partly out of physiology and partly because of the words themselves and what they point to, I am left gasping at the beauty of it all. And then the last two lines become a sort of contented sigh, passing through me like truths that cannot be harnessed, denied or controlled.

I am still swept away by the beauty of these words and the huge meaning they express in such brevity, amazing. There is a sense that I "understand" this poem now far better than I did when I memorized it for school, but there is also a sense that I have always "understood" the poem, in that the way I speak the words now is the result of continuous testing and re-speaking when I first learned them, and that too is a strange truth in itself. Perhaps this sonnet-remembrance experience has more in common with my spiritual journey than I first may have thought. Both are journeys of rediscovering something learned long ago that suddenly, under the right circumstances, has burst open with a supernova of meaning; a supernova that leaves both glittering beauty and a dark black hole..... kind of like the poem... Hm.



Sonnet # 29

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

the present time

Today I preached at church, and it was a very interesting experience. Lately I have been creating my sermons rather amorphously, leaving an awful lot up to my own theologizing - for better or for worse. I haven't been focusing on in-depth exegetical (aka Biblical study & interpretation) work, not going to the original languages, not reading commentaries, basically not using the tools I've spent years learning about and have faithfully used on many a successful sermon.

Instead I have been focusing on attentive readings of the scripture texts as well as readings of my life and the lives of those I'm supposed to preach to, and then I use the given theme to try and draw out possible important ideas.

Today's theme was especially fruitful and provocative: "Discern the Present Time". When I first read it I was struck by how much application it had to my own life, how much it resonated with my current reassessment of where my life is and where it is going. Discernment is something I've been very familiar with lately, it is an ongoing process in my life, but discerning the present time was a new framing for me. Usually when I think about discernment, I think about making a decision or choice for the future, but instead I find myself now, just as the theme stated, focusing more on the present time, on having fidelity to the current moment.

Fidelity to the present time can be very tricky, because we seem to much more naturally find ourselves getting caught up on past or future times – lately many are asking "how will my stocks perform through this market drop?" Lately I'm asking "What am I going to be or do with my life? Where is this life of mine going?" But as I’m sure you have heard in many a pithy proverb: if we only focus on and worry about the future and/or the past, we miss out on the beauty of this present, perfect moment.

So, I find myself asking the question that seems to consume me daily: “how then shall we live?” How do we discern what kind of just life I/we need to live in this moment? I find myself looking for (and found myself talking about in my sermon) the signals or pointers or road signs that let me/us know that the path we're choosing is one that is faithful.

In one of the scriptures there was a call to be a “healing and redeeming” agent in the world. Phrases like “wholeness of body, mind and spirit”, “strengthening of faith”, and “reconciliation and healing of the spirit”, to me are examples of the road signs that tell us we are on the right path. And perhaps that is all I/we need right now, to trust the journey and trust that when the time is right, it will yield fruit.

you can save lives

Ok friends, I would not normally do this, but I'm going to anyway. The Canadian blood supply is currently at an all-time low and there is an urgent need for donors.

Click here to go to the Canadian Blood Services website, where you can learn about the locations of clinics and when they are open. Their phone service is also extremely helpful, call 1-888-2-donate and tell them where you live and when you're free and they will find a clinic for you to go to and make an appointment for you, it's very simple. My Mom and I are going to the Oak Street clinic tonight at 5:30.

I don't normally pass this info along because I know that there are many, who for variously just or unjust reasons, are unable to or not allowed to donate. I don't want my friends to feel guilty for not being able to. If you are able to though, I encourage you to go. It takes about an hour for all the prep and everything, but it is well worth your time. You can actually save lives. If you're worried about going alone, give me a call and I'll try to go with you.

maybe tears are enough

Anyone who knows me fairly well knows that I'm a crier. I cry fairly easily. Those who know my family know that this is a seemingly genetic trait I share with my mother, grandfather, aunts and cousins. When I was a teenager it was rather embarrassing and socially awkward to burst into tears at random moments. As I've gotten older, I think that I don't cry quite as much as I once did, but when I really think about it, I probably do cry just as much, but I have just gotten a lot more comfortable with it. One could say I have a healthier relationship with tears now than I once did

So when I saw an article entitled "Tears and Compassionate Connection" in an e-zine I receive regularly, I immediately clicked on it. It is a beautiful article that begins with a story of a young Palestinian woman who was arrested by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint. Unlike the stories I hear from my women friends about using tears to get themselves out of situations, this story was very different. The young woman describes how seeing two of the soldiers at the checkpoint: a man and a woman, both crying, opened a space for her to forgive.

I have had incredibly powerful experiences of tears - one day I began crying for seemingly no reason, only to find out later that a woman near me was crying, and that I must have sensed her distress, even though I could not see her. I remember one time apologizing to a male friend for crying while we talked, only to have him say that he wished he could cry too, but couldn't. I jokingly tell friends that I should be a professional mourner (apparently in some cultures they actually have such things) since I cry so easily. In some ways I think I already do this, I mourn for the dead parts of our world and for my friends.

Tears, for me, as I've grown into them, are most often openings, just as the article suggests. Like a big smile, tears silently speak volumes and gift those around with a truth that is otherwise unspeakable. And so, I wonder, if sometimes tears are enough: words can't make another's pain go away, but tears can validate that pain, and shed a light of honesty that unites us even when all we can see is difference.

the future speaks ruthlessly

Again and again
Some people in the crowd wake up.
They have no ground in the crowd
And they emerge according to broader laws.
They carry strange customs with them,
And demand room for bold gestures.
 
The future speaks ruthlessly through them.
 

- Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell

awesome

Today I was walking with a small group of youth into the woods here at camp on our morning silent meditative walk. I had the most interesting experience:

Due to high winds last fall, throughout the pacific northwest, there are many trees that have fallen down. Our woods here are no exception. As we walked along a well-worn, very wide path, we suddenly came to a spot where a huge tree (about a two foot trunk width) was laying across our path. Serendipitously enough, our theme this week is "The Road, The Way" and so there we were with an unsurpassed object lesson... the teachable-moment-watcher in me was tortured because our little group had covenanted together that we would make the journey into the woods in silence, and so I was confronted with an ultimate moment of the "gappy theology" that I've previously talked about. I was not able to tell them what they should think about what was happening, wasn't able to tell them what the metaphor was, I had to trust that the tree itself spoke more than I could ever say.

Wordlessly, one of the campers led the way around the tree, through the brambles and branches, and back onto the path. And then my stomach dropped slightly: the first thing I saw when I looked up from our circumnavigation of the wind-fallen tree was a peace pole, decorated years ago by another camp, and facing me was the side that said "OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD." Indeed. The fallen trees ahead and behind are visible testimonies of the awesomeness of God.

I find it so amazing that I am constantly learning new things about God. I am only now coming to terms with the awesome, destructive side of God. It almost seems un-politically-correct to say that a part of me was in awe of the beauty of the destruction that "God/creation/ultimate power/the ground of our being" is capable of. But that is exactly how I felt. I can't wait to see what other amazing things I discover about God this week.

something's happening here

Something new is unfolding in my soul, it is amazing to watch - terrifying, beautiful, overwhelming. Not much can explain it really. I'm finding myself falling in love with the world all over again - when I was getting off the train today I had such love and awe for the people around me that I started to get all choked-up. So I went hunting for a poem... I'm guessing more poetry will be coming out of me in the future, but for now here is a borrowed poem, from Symeon the New Theologian again.

What is this Awesome Mystery

What is this awesome mystery
that is taking place within me?
I can find no words to express it;
my poor hand is unable to capture it
in describing the praise and glory that belong
to the One who is above all praise,
and who transcends every word...
My intellect sees what has happened,
but it cannot explain it.
It can see, and wishes to explain,
but can find no word that will suffice;
for what it sees is invisible and entirely formless,
simple, completely uncompounded,
unbounded in its awesome greatness.
What I have seen is the totality recapitulated as one,
received not in essence but by participation.
Just as if you lit a flame from a flame,
it is the whole flame you receive.

mmmmm, delicious poetry

I read the poem below at church on Sunday and it set my heart on fire. It's by Symeon the New Theologian, who lived from 949-1032 CE. You can read more about him here.


Try reading it out loud, it's quite a remarkable poem:


We awaken in Christ's body
as Christ awakens our bodies,
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 of Him
(for God is indivisibly
whole, seamless in His Godhood).

I move my foot, and at once
He appears like a flash of lightning.
Do my words seem blasphemous? -- Then
open your heart to Him

and let yourself receive the one
who is opening to you so deeply.
For if we genuinely love Him,
we wake up inside Christ's body

where all our body, all over,
every most hidden part of it,
is realized in joy as Him,
and He makes us, utterly, real,

and everything that is hurt, everything
that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,
maimed, ugly, irreparably
damaged, is in Him transformed

and recognized as whole, as lovely,
and radiant in His light
he awakens as the Beloved
in every last part of our body.

just wondering

So today while I was browsing my newsfeed I came across an eye-catching headline: "Canada urged to review legality of polygamy ban". Now that's an interesting topic.

So the article started out like this:

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - A special prosecutor has recommended Canadian courts be asked to rule on the constitutionality of the country's long-standing laws against polygamy, officials said on Wednesday.

---

And then it went on to talk about a particular group in British Columbia that has been known to practice polygamy, which has had several accusations of sexual abuse of women, especially minors, in their community. Both the US and Canada have been trying to work together to find some way of bringing leaders of the community (known by the name "Bountiful") to justice for the sexual abuse that has taken place there. The fear in Canada has been that if the matter of the community came before the Court, the current law against polygamy would be struck down over "freedom of religion."

"Polygamy is the underlying phenomenon from which all the other alleged harms flow, and the public interest would best be served by addressing it directly,"

said the lawyer who was in charge of reporting to BC's Attorney General on how to proceed in addressing the issue of the polygamous community.

All other harms? Really? Just out of polygamy? I think there some seriously faulty analysis here. Does an "abnormal" marriage practice necessarily mean that those engaged in that "abnormal" marriage are automatically victims of sexual abuse? How about a thought-experiment where we wonder what a plural marriage would look like if all partners involved were equal in status, with not one gender having power over the other? What would happen if the marriage were outside of a religious context?

I wonder about this because I am perplexed by the fact that apparently BC doesn't think it can prosecute those who are perpetrating abuse in that community, they are afraid of the "religious freedom" justification. Is our legal system so weak that evidence of sexual abuse couldn't stand up to a claim to that abuse being religiously justified? To me it seems that the "underlying phenomenon" here is the unjust use of power by some members of the community to perpetuate a culture of patriarchal silencing that does not make safe space for women to speak of abuse or claim a right to their own human flourishing - and I can imagine that, although difficult to achieve, that could happen even if the marriages in that community were polygamous.

Regardless of stances on this particular issue, or the particular situation in Bountiful, I think it is interesting to think on whether or not "deviant sexual behavior", as these marriages seem to be perceived as, is really all that deviant. Monogamous heterosexual relationships are wrought with abuse too, but I don't see any reports of an Attorney General's inquest into how to bring those offenders to justice. Can we imagine a world where the type of relation(s) a person is engaged in is not as important as the quality of relation? Maybe then we could believe that heterosexual marriages are not the only places where people can be happy? (so asks the single girl) Maybe single people, polyamorous people, and various other "sexual deviants" can have quality, life-giving relationships too! Amazing!

the way

There's a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn't change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can't get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time's unfolding.
You don't ever let go of the thread.

- William Stafford

office work really can kill you

this was a fun article to read as I stare at the shared HP LaserJet color printer that sits on my desk that everyone uses to print from.

clipped from www.digitaljournal.com The supposedly benign laser printer emits dangerous particles into the air, an Australian study discovered. Watch out, office workers — new toners can be as harmful to your health as cigarette smoke. Digital Journal — Even though most offices have banished smokers from the workplace, there’s a surprise health threat as potentially dangerous as cigarette smoking: the laser printer. As BBC News reported, Australian scientists have discovered that some office printers emit a dangerous amount of toner in the air, possibly causing health problems ranging from respiratory irritation to cardiovascular problems. The scientists even noted some of these floating microscopic particles may be carcinogens.

waking up

Awakened within a dream,
I fall into my own arms.
......What kept you so long?

remembering

This happened 10 years ago, around this time of year, so I thought it might be a good time to share it.

It is a hot, humid, August morning in Lamoni, Iowa. I am sixteen years old. In a huge gym filled with empty bleachers that will soon groan under the weight of 1500 teenagers, I sit on a low riser. Having just rehearsed the song we will be singing, the choir I sit in the midst of is abuzz with anticipation of the worship that will come, what the day holds, and where they will go to escape the heat.

“Excuse me everyone! We need someone to say a prayer in English at the end of today’s service! We have someone praying in Spanish but need someone to pray in English! Any volunteers?”

Silence sharply hits the buzzing choir. No hands go up. My mind races through the four days I have just experienced in this strange, foreign space that is the Midwest of the USA, which each day seemed increasingly far away from my home in Canada. Too many times had I heard prayers that started with “Dear Father…” too many times had I witnessed male-dominated leadership; too many times had I wiggled uncomfortably in my seat with a dissatisfied feeling in my stomach.

“I don’t mind” I hear myself say, as I watch my hand raise.

“Great! Thank-you!” replies the one on the pray-er quest.

I don’t think much of volunteering. Praying in worship is something I have done many times at home in the comforting space of the Pacific Northwest. I’d just have to speak a bit louder, that’s all. Teenagers trickle-in and fill the huge space, and the high-energy worship launches. I prepare myself as I normally would, paying attention to the words of others, listening carefully to what the songs and scriptures are saying in order to echo their words. At the end of the service I confidently step out of the choir and moved forward to wait for the microphone to be passed to me. I take hold of the microphone and look out at the gathered group, the beauty of this diverse gathering, the sense of anticipation and possibility that is so palpable in a group of teenagers, stirs me deeply and fills me to overflowing. I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and begin to pray:

“Loving Mother God…” I feel like I’ve just stepped off a cliff into a great abyss of uncertainty. Falling into the oceanic depths of chaos, the tehom as I would call it now, feels a bit lonely, but not cold or desolate, just uncertain.

The rest of the prayer has disappeared from my memory. I remember looking down at my shirt just after saying ‘amen’ and realizing that I was not anonymous; I had “Pacific Northwest Delegation” emblazoned across my chest. It would not be long, I thought, before I was hunted-down and reprimanded. But a mob of pitch-fork-wielding teenagers never showed up, and the only comment I received before running away from the crowded gym that morning was from the choir director who thanked me. I realized that maybe the tehom was not quite as lonely as I thought.

From the vantage point of my 26-year-old self, everything else in my life seems to radiate out of that point, that moment of truthfulness and prophecy, a time of saying ‘yes’ not just to saying a prayer, but to something much deeper and larger
It is a hot, humid, August morning in Lamoni, Iowa. I am sixteen years old. In a huge gym filled with empty bleachers that will soon groan under the weight of 1500 teenagers, I sit on a low riser. Having just rehearsed the song we will be singing, the choir I sit in the midst of is abuzz with anticipation of the worship that will come, what the day holds, and where they will go to escape the heat.

“Excuse me everyone! We need someone to say a prayer in English at the end of today’s service! We have someone praying in Spanish but need someone to pray in English! Any volunteers?”

Silence sharply hits the buzzing choir. No hands go up. My mind races through the four days I have just experienced in this strange, foreign space that is the Midwest of the USA, which each day seemed increasingly far away from my home in Canada. Too many times had I heard prayers that started with “Dear Father…” too many times had I witnessed male-dominated leadership; too many times had I wiggled uncomfortably in my seat with a dissatisfied feeling in my stomach.

“I don’t mind” I hear myself say, as I watch my hand raise.

“Great! Thank-you!” replies the one on the pray-er quest.

I don’t think much of volunteering. Praying in worship is something I have done many times at home in the comforting space of the Pacific Northwest. I’d just have to speak a bit louder, that’s all. Teenagers trickle-in and fill the huge space, and the high-energy worship launches. I prepare myself as I normally would, paying attention to the words of others, listening carefully to what the songs and scriptures are saying in order to echo their words. At the end of the service I confidently step out of the choir and moved forward to wait for the microphone to be passed to me. I take hold of the microphone and look out at the gathered group, the beauty of this diverse gathering, the sense of anticipation and possibility that is so palpable in a group of teenagers, stirs me deeply and fills me to overflowing. I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and begin to pray:

“Loving Mother God…” I feel like I’ve just stepped off a cliff into a great abyss of uncertainty. Falling into the oceanic depths of chaos, the tehom as I would call it now, feels a bit lonely, but not cold or desolate, just uncertain.

The rest of the prayer has disappeared from my memory. I remember looking down at my shirt just after saying ‘amen’ and realizing that I was not anonymous; I had “Pacific Northwest Delegation” emblazoned across my chest. It would not be long, I thought, before I was hunted-down and reprimanded. But a mob of pitch-fork-wielding teenagers never showed up, and the only comment I received before running away from the crowded gym that morning was from the choir director who thanked me. I realized that maybe the tehom was not quite as lonely as I thought.

From the vantage point of my 26-year-old self, everything else in my life seems to radiate out of that point, that moment of truthfulness and prophecy, a time of saying ‘yes’ not just to saying a prayer, but to something much deeper and larger.

poetry and gappy theology

Is there enough poetry in our lives? Today my teacher, who is first generation Chinese-American was telling us how much Chinese love poetry, they put it everywhere: on teapots, in landscape paintings, around the door of a home, on a flower vase, wherever there is a little spare space a few characters of poetry can be added.

Poetry doesn’t seem to occupy the same sort of space – literally or metaphorically – in our North American lives. In fact, I find that poetry tends to actually make people rather uncomfortable: “I don’t get it” folks say, “That’s pretty, but what does it mean?” folks wonder.

But the more that I study theology, the more I try to preach or write about what I dis/believe, the more I try to connect in pastoral yet challenging ways with my fellow spiritual pilgrims, the more I find that poetry offers far more possibility than any other form of writing or speaking.

I presided over a church service this weekend and found that the best way to communicate what I wanted people to learn or take away was through the hymns – the poetry. I find that people are at such different places in their spiritual journeys, and needs are so different, that most communities need “gappy” theology. By “gappy” theology, I mean theology that has enough gaps to allow people too find and make their own meaning. By this I don’t mean hymns or poetry that have no meaning or completely relative meaning, but rather different layers of meaning that can speak differently to different people.

I too find myself, far too often, trying to tie people down to thinking exactly the way I do, believing exactly the way I do – I find myself thinking “if only this person could read exactly what I’ve read, and hear the lectures that I’ve heard, then they’d see things the way I do!” But then there's the experiences I've had, the people I've loved, those who've loved me, the things I've seen... all of that has influenced the way I see the world and the way I do theology. How could I ever convey that totality of life theologically?

I speak of poetry as a revelatory distillation of experience.... Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so that it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.
-Audre Lorde "Poetry Is Not a Luxury" in Sister Outsider

Maybe poetry is a way of doing theology in a way that both honours the fullness of our lives and allows enough space for others to enter in.

Three things are too wonderful for me;
four I do not understand:
the way of an eagle in the sky
the way of a snake on a rock
the way of a ship on the high seas
and the way of a man with a woman
-Proverbs 30:18-19

a breath of fresh air

The other night while I was walking home at the end of a long, hot day I found some surprising refreshment. I noticed that as I walked along the street, the temperature and taste of the air changed dramatically when I stepped beyond the first bank of concrete buildings, and set out across a tree-lined street. As I kept walking I noticed huge shifts in the temperature and quality of the air, from stuffy and hot next to buildings, to refreshing and cool next to plants and trees. It was a very immediate and obvious reminder of my/our own total dependency on the world around us - particularly the green, growing world, for our survival, and the necessity of plants for our lives to flourish.

I also found myself thinking about the unexpected places where I find breaths of fresh air, or the times when i don't even realize that I need fresh air until it comes whooshing over me or gently wafts into my nostrils. Sometimes I think my life (our lives?) become stagnant and muggy and stale so gradually that I don't even realize what has happened until something awakens my senses, either by rushing in and shaking me up or gently and softly permeating me.

Once I'd had my first taste and sniff of fresh air during my walk the other night, I kept looking for those fresh breaths the whole rest of my way home. My nostrils were so entranced by seeking out that sweet soft air that they managed to sniff it out even in tiniest gardens along the way.

When the air of our human lives is so heavy and hot and thick, can we dare to sniff out wisps and whispers of sweet green goodness? As in the city, which may seem void of such lushness, yet where I found fresh air, we may find those whispers in unexpected areas, from unexpected people, in books we may have once turned our noses up at, or in the flotsam of our consumed and consuming lives.

The grace and power of greenness (what mystic Hildegaard Von Bingen called veriditas) can enliven and restore the soul, and is woven deeply into creation by the One who desires our flourishing. May we be blessed by its goodness.

summertime...

...and the livin' is easy.

Here's a little summer treat, a lovely quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, made all arty by yours truly. Enjoy. (click image to see larger, better quality version)

the table

The table: locus of our lives together. "No matter what, we must eat to live" says Joy Harjo in her poem "Perhaps the World Ends Here":

perhaps the world ends here

By Joy Harjo

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of the earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At the table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sign with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

I adore this poem, and this weekend as I was drafting this blog entry I kept coming back to the poem. I find myself sitting at a multiplicity of tables in my life.

There is the lunch table with my work colleagues where we sit in the cafeteria of the Bay department store downtown and discuss everything from movies to politics to meditation.

There are the lunch tables at school where our busy student lives collide for hours/minutes/moments to eat and share in our common chaos.

There is the familiar dinner table I grew up at that is still in my parents home, where I know I can always go, knowing I'll leave full.

There are the tables at church, old and new, small and large, where I sit crowded in with all sorts of people I love.

There are the dinner tables of friends: varied sizes and types, with their vinyl benches, wooden chairs, office chairs, couches and laps, formal and informal.

And there is the table in my own home, where I set down dishes that hopefully read "love" and bring out food that contains part of myself and my com/passion.

I like to believe that tables are always holy places, be they adorned with decorations at the front of a church or weathered and sitting in the middle of a park. Sitting down together to eat is a sacred act, or else we would not have had a history of so many cultures where who one ate with, what one ate, and where one ate meant so much. Is your table a holy place? How can we endeavor to make all of our tables holy places?

the rub of theology

When some of my friends and I talk theology we often find ourselves at some point rubbing our own skin or touching each other to try and show what we're trying to get at. "It's about this" one of us will say, stroking another's hand or arm, skin on skin, the intimacy of touch and the basic-ness of body as demonstration of the type of truth we are trying to articulate.

Why is it that this sensual act is where "the rub" is with theology for me and for much of my community? There is something very important to me in the act of touch, in the act of closeness. I think it is in part due to one of the most basic elements of my theology: this life and these people in this place at this time deserve my love and compassion. My metaphysical world is not void of non-material substance that is of value, but I try to remember the value of the material world as well, which I think is also central to Christian theology.

Our flesh is so precious: our contemporary cosmologists, our physicists, tell us that matter is extraordinarily rare in our universe. This body that sits typing is made up of more empty space than matter, and the universe has even more empty space. How precious and wonderful and rare we all are with our tiny amounts of matter in relation to the vastness of space. Christian doctrine backs up this preciousness of the flesh as God takes to flesh and becomes incarnate, in-spiring and enlivening our skin and bones, not only in the body of Jesus but in the dry bones in the desert, in ha-adamah the first earth creature, in the water, in the wind, in the bread, in the wine, in our tongues.

And yet these spirit-imbued fleshy bodies are fragile and vulnerable. We need each other for protection, for touch, for creating new life. And we need food to eat and shelter and warmth and clean water, for we are easily hurt; we simply cannot survive alone and exposed. Perhaps it is this very vulnerability that causes us to doubt so much our own preciousness, to doubt that divinity would dare to move in this weak flesh, these frail bones.

Ludwig Feuerbach told us in the mid-1800's that our idea of God is merely a projection of ourselves - or more specifically for Feuerbach, Man. More recently, feminist philosopher of religion, Grace Jantzen, took up this notion of projection and dared to suggest, with help from Luce Irigaray, that projection does not necessarily have to imply atheism. If our projections are ethical, ideal and life-giving, then they ought to draw us toward being more, toward becoming divine ourselves. Becoming divine, says Jantzen, ought to be the goal of all religion.

Could the frailty of our flesh be part of what has precluded some philosophers and theologians from allowing this possibility of allowing ourselves divine projections and moving toward those projections? How could something divine come from this frail flesh, they might ask. To which I would respond - how can divinity come from anywhere else but right here? *Shannon caresses her own arm*

As a friend spoke the other night of the frailty of human bodies, I was struck with a sense of awe for life, and compassion for all life. I am surrounded by fellow beings who are living with pain: watching my grandma in the hospital, watching friends and family members recover from surgeries and accidents and traumas, experiencing the unreliability of my own body - the brokenness of it all can be overwhelming. Yet we are here and we are alive and we are together and divinity breathes anew each moment, even right here where my wrist hurts, and right there where stitches close your wound, and right there where the pain is so deep we cannot touch it, and right there where new life defiantly begins. Right here, in this flesh is where we find "the rub" of theology, is where our religious lives take shape, is where all life becomes divine.


Ludwig Feuerbach. The Essence of Christianity.
Grace Jantzen. Becoming Divine: Towards a Feminist Philosophy of Religion.
Luce Irigaray. This Sex which is not One. and Sexes and Genealogies.

transformed by God

I spent the summer between my third and fourth years in University doing church camps and reunions at the Community of Christ campground at Lewis River in southwest Washington. That summer I had a transformative experience that changed the way I approached my whole life.

It was a very intense and busy summer. Included in that busy intensity were a lot of joys and wonderful experiences, but there were also a lot of struggles and challenges that went along with the fun of being at camp. One week towards the middle of the summer, I found myself in a very difficult camp where there were many stressful issues to deal with including challenging campers and staff. One morning towards the end of the week I was feeling particularly overwhelmed and asked the directors if I could have a bit of a break for about an hour. I walked beside the creek that is on the campground until I arrived at a lovely waterfall that I had heard was up the hill. There I sat down on a rock to rest a bit and collect my thoughts. I cried a little and thought a lot. I contemplated what had happened, how I was feeling, and how I would deal with the rest of the week ahead of me. As I sat there contemplatively problem-solving by listening and relaxing, I had a sudden rush of insight or revelation. Insight that, although simple, felt profound. The insight was that I did not want to simply give up on what I was doing. This was profound because I compared it to how I had felt in the preceding years when I came up against difficulties and challenges in my life. In most stark contrast was my experience in my computer classes: when I was computer programming and hit a problem that seemed un-solvable, I would feel like I wanted to give up. But this camp experience was different. Although the problems seemed just as unsolvable as a difficult computer program, I did not want to give up.

This realization had a profound effect on me because it made me look at my life choices in an entirely different light. Why should I keep doing something that I don’t want to stick with in tough times, when I’d found something else that I wanted to stick with even when it seemed to be an impossible challenge? That summer I began to seriously contemplate and discern what a career in ministry might look like for me. That fall I decided I had a lot to learn about ministry, so I decided to attend theology school. And then the following spring I was accepted at Vancouver School of Theology. Theology school has been challenging too, but there has always been an underlying commitment to the work I’m doing, which has kept and continues to keep me from giving up entirely.

If I dig even deeper into why it is that I refuse to give up, I would probably have to say that it has to do with a desire to serve God and neighbour with my whole being. And if I were to dig deeper into where that desire to serve God and neighbour comes from, I arrive at a simple but complex and profound answer: love. When I think more about my summer in Lewis River I realise that at that point in my life I was still holding very close to my heart an experience of the love of God that had transformed me. I had gone through a very dark spiritual place where I doubted God, doubted love, and doubted myself.

One night at a retreat, I walked a twisting labyrinth path that had various stations, and a cd to accompany the journey. At each station within the labyrinth the walkers were to listen to a different track on the cd that each was listening to on a personal cd player with headphones. The station I remember most clearly and vividly was one that had cushions sitting in front of a mirror, so that one could sit down on the cushions and then look at oneself in the mirror. As I sat down, the cd played soft music, and then a voice track began: “Look at yourself in the mirror” it said. “Look at the beautiful child of God that you are. You were made in God’s image and you are loved by God.” With those simple words came a rush of tears – a sign that I have learned for me often means I am experiencing a deep truth. And I realised that in my pain and searching I had lost track of that simple yet profound truth: that I am made in God’s image and loved unconditionally by God. It is this profound truth that my desire to love God and neighbour flows from.

I want to let God’s complete love for me and the whole world take over my whole self: body, mind and spirit. I want that overwhelming compassion and unconditional love of God for all life to take over and determine each and every step I take. I want to travel along paths that challenge me, that force me to be the very best version of myself, and to use all of my skills and gifts. My life has been transformed by God, mainly by God’s love, and I want everything I do to reflect that transformation.

(excerpted from my sermon this morning)

what it means to be alive

"This is life, this is what living is all about."

I found myself saying this phrase or something close to it on multiple occasions this week. This past week has held some crazy times for me. First of all, I'm not living at my place right now, for about the past 10 days I've been staying at the house of some friends' while new flooring is put into the place where I live. I feel like a bit of a refugee. Second of all, in the midst of this disruption to life, on Monday night my grandmother (my Mom's Mom) had a bad fall and hurt herself very badly. Her skull and several vertebrae fractured. For several days we were not sure if she would make it. About seven and a half years ago my grandfather on the same side fell too, had a terrible head injury, and never recovered. You can imagine how spooky it was for the family to have this similar event with grandma. She is recovering now, but it will be a long recovery, and there is no way to know for sure what a "full recovery" will look like for her.

It has been a huge thing for me to be able to go see her in the hospital in Chilliwack (1.5 hour drive away), to hold her hand, to listen to her snore, to stroke her back as she sleeps. She is a beautiful and incredibly strong person, so it is also difficult to see her in such a weak state.

My Mom is the eldest of seven siblings, and we are a very close family, but it has been a struggle to get through this very intense and stressful time together, another thing added on top of the multiplicity of stresses and strains that seven people plus their spouses and children are already under in regular day-to-day life.

And in the midst of all of this I have realized that this sort of thing is exactly what life is about. Life isn't about picture-perfect family gatherings and smooth sailing all the way. Life is messy, life is painful, life is maddening, life weighs heavily, life is tenuous. And then life is also beautiful: the sound of my grandmother's snoring, the touch of her soft hand, the big bear hug from an uncle, the beautiful honesty and truthfulness that comes in a plea for help. This is what it means to be alive, beautifully, joyously, painfully alive.

some poetry

The floors are being replaced in my apartment and so my life is in a bit of chaos right now. I've sought refuge at the house of some friends (church friends are so handy for this kind of thing), but I don't have much energy to spare for blogging. So this week I will subject you to some poetry. Maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't. I enjoy writing it, and that's what really matters I think.

All of these were written on public transit: on buses, at bus stops, or on skytrain, just little bite-sized mouthfuls of haiku.




mountains stretch across
horizon jagged and dark.
rough silent backdrop.

air sparkles, snaps with
electric infectious sound.
mouth corners creep up.

cool breeze caresses
my face. moment of bliss. sweet
serene surrender.

sprawling patches of
bright white daisies lazily
ooze out of the grass.

green buds caress clear
blue sky bathed in summer light.
branches reach new life.

bright dawn light sparkles
on the river below me.
eyes open to hope.

fresh darkness plays with
each last whisper of daylight.
teasing dance of dusk.

silence sits pregnant
wonders when wisdom will birth.
who is her midwife?

my passion binds me
to you with bonds of hot fire
eros burns my core.

in my dreams you taste
like roasted almonds, salty sweet,
hot in your passion.

sonic seduction,
sweet moist luscious symphony
lures me into you.

packing up ghosts

So I'm packing up all of my "stuff", literally, as my apartment-mate and I get ready for new cork floors to be installed this week, and I find that as I pack up my physical stuff, I can't help but find myself packing-up emotional "stuff" as well. I've been trying to do a bit of purging while I pack, and inevitably I find myself coming across bits of flotsam and jetsam that are haunted with the ghosts of past friends and lovers, bits that drag old memories out of the dusty corners of my mind. Some of the memories are great and fun to re-visit. Others are heart-wrenchingly painful.

I laughed hysterically at pictures of our grade 4 trip to Victoria, and nearly cried when I came across a letter from an old flame. I kept my old prayer journal from college, and tossed a postcard from someone I'm still trying to forget. I filed away old bank statements and tucked into a drawer a pile of stones whose significance I've forgotten but whose beauty made a convincing petition for their keeping.

I'm a highly reflective person, and so I'm a sentimental sucker for shuffling through the bits and pieces of my past, both the literal and figurative bits. The ghosts of the past never quite completely disappear, and I find myself startled by how the ghost that haunts some little item can assail me so swiftly and so effectively that I can barely stay standing, barely hold back the tears.

The shocking thing is how pleasurable the overall purging process has been. Here I sit in a nearly empty room, excited about the chance to re-arrange my furniture, shocked at how much stuff I own, and yet also unable to part with even some of the most painful stuff. Hopefully as I unpack I'll have the time and emotional energy to let go of some of the painful pieces and both confront and exorcise some of the ghosts. I also hope I have the time and energy to properly put away the pleasurable pieces where they can provide me with joy.

fishing around for some answers

So I happened upon this article in the Vancouver Sun on Monday: "Fishing around for a religious connection". It 'caught' my attention because it was about both fishing and the church, two things I'm always interested in reading about. I work at a commercial fishing nonprofit organization, and so I always pay attention to what is being said about fishing in the media.

Once I began reading the article, I realized it hit on a topic that seems to have been bleeping on my radar screen fairly regularly in the past few months: "the feminization of the church". My first, sarcastic response is: "And they say that like it's a bad thing?". But as I think about it more and more, I wonder what exactly that phrase means. What do they mean by "feminization"?

The Sun article by religion columnist Douglas Todd talks about a man who conducts fishing trips for men looking for a Christian, religious experience, men who are not finding satisfying experiences in churches.
From the article:
"'Church is too boring for men,' says Ed Trainer, head of International Fishing Ministries. 'Church is set up like a country club for women.'"
...
"The author of Why Men Hate Going to Church, David Murrow, says studies show the average U.S. congregation is 61-per-cent female. Alaska-based Murrow says many men see church-going as soft, uncomfortable 'womanly' behaviour."
...
"Barb Trainer, 46, who runs International Fishing Ministries with her husband, says, 'The church has been feminized. It appeals to women in that it focuses on emotion and children and coffee. It's not bold enough for men.'"
...

I really am curious about what issue these complaints are trying to diagnose. Apparently statistics show that more women are going to church these days than men, but does sheer numbers really a 'feminization' make? And when that word 'feminize' is used, it is used in a very traditional, non-deconstructed very pejorative and almost antiquated way of characterizing certain ideas or practices. Is there a way we can articulate what is going on in the church without resorting to polarized, stereotypical gender norms that not only assume what 'feminine' is but assume it must be bad?

I can agree with the idea that the bulk of Christianity in North America has, in fact "gone soft" in many ways. Most of mainline Christianity doesn't require or request much of its adherents: from the talk in many churches, as long as you make a financial contribution to help keep the institution on life support, you are doing fine. Yes, that is the cynic in me talking, but even my most optimistic self agrees that it is an accurate diagnosis. Radical, sacrificial discipleship is rarely required or even suggested. In my opinion, discipleship and sacrifice could be integral to overcoming contemporary issues such as global warming and global poverty. Instead of being a public witness of a different way of living and engaging with the world, Christian faith has become a matter of private devotion, and disengagement from the world.

But even though I agree with the "softening" of Christianity, I don't call it "feminization". I can see why popular thought would equate the two: there is the very basic idea that stems straight from the sexual realm that hard is good and soft is bad, and man is hard and woman is soft, and man is good and woman is bad. (I have just terribly over-simplified a huge area of study of which I could be much more articulate, but I am tired and this is not an academic paper and hopefully you get the gist of what I'm trying to say) The other part that leads to the "feminization" label is what could more accurately be called "privatization", but since the feminine has long been associated with the private realm, there too we see how matters get convoluted.

Yet another aspect that can be clarified by using terms more specific than masculine/feminine is the sentimentalization of religion. The sentimental has long been associated with the feminine, in opposition to higher masculine rationality/reason. As religion becomes less rational and more sentimental, there is a tendency to again name it as a gender binary.

All of these dualisms where one is privileged over the other are in the end inadequate because in reality all are always at work and what is needed is balance between extremes. For Paul, Christianity was a religion that broke down dualisms: In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, Slave nor Free, Male nor Female.... And yet we still resort to naming what goes on in the body of Christ as one of those aspects being privileged.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that considering what a lousy time women have had in churches in general for the majority of the history of Christianity, could we cut the churches a little slack in the feminization department? And can we please, please, try to describe what is going on without attributing it to a gender? Can we say that the church is too private or too disengaged or too soft, or too sentimental rather than saying it is too feminine? But then I also wonder whether we haven't actually deconstructed gender norms enough to unhinge those adjectives from the feminine at all....

I also want to know what men who are involved with churches think about this whole feminization thing - is it an accurate diagnosis? Why? Why not? What is going on in the churches, why don't men want to come? Why is being religious or going to church not seen as a good thing to do? And even if it is "weak", why is that bad? Is weakness a bad thing? Christianity's "saviour" is a crucified man who refused to fight back - is that strong? Can a lamb be victorious? I wonder if deconstruction of gender norms and turning-over of the world actually runs very deeply in this religion....

What do you think?

on ambition and humility

It is not easy for a dedicated feminist theologian to admit that she has a certain affection for the confessions of St. Augustine. Countless contemporary theologians have launched various critiques of Augustine's theology and how it has negatively affected Christianity through his negative view of women and problematic views about the body. I do have a certain affinity for Augustine's Confessions though, an affection cultivated by an inspiring teacher (Sallie McFague), a brilliant translation
(Garry Wills, Penguin Classics), and a willingness to lose a bit of myself in the process of reading.

This week I found myself returning to a particularly biting chapter simply titled "Ambition". It begins with Augustine saying "I panted after honors, wealth, marriage - and you [God] just laughed." I returned because this week I was struck with serious doubts about my own ambition for honour. I had a sort of "state of the union" or summit meeting with my two main theology professors, the meeting that apparently most people have at some point in their academic career, the meeting where they say that I am doing ok but that it is time to step up my game and take things to the next level. The meeting where they say that it is time to start taking things seriously and working hard to maintain focus. They were extremely nice about it, but at the same time, I couldn't help but wonder if I'm on the right path, if I'm really cut out for this work, if I should be doing something else...

It can be hard to tell, sometimes, why I want to be a part of theological academia, it is certainly not about the money, professors generally aren't millionaires. It is perhaps about the recognition, the "fame" I might get even inside my own little denomination. It is perhaps about the potential job security of having teaching credentials and being the right age to step-in as the so-called "Baby Boomers" retire from academia.

But it is also about the love of wisdom - erosophy if you will - that pulls me along this path. And my love of wisdom is so tightly tied-up with my love of God, that for me, this is a faith journey. Once in awhile I think it is good to get a sort of "wake-up call" that forces one to re-examine one's life choices. Especially if the final calculation is a hopeful one. So thank you to my professors for the scholarly coaching, and thank you Augustine, for examining your life in a way that helps me examine mine.

reacquainting with an old friend

This past weekend I was at Samish Island for a church Fine Arts retreat. It was a weekend full of great music, wonderful people, and lots of creative energy. There were lots of lovely moments. My favourite part of the weekend was sitting on the beach on Saturday morning and visiting with an old friend: my favourite tree. I met this tree about two years ago, and I say "met" because this tree has its own personality and distinctive character that seems to give it its own subjectivity.

I met this tree in the summer when I was approaching my last year of my MDiv program at theology school. I
was trying to figure out what I was going to do once I graduated, and was feeling rather disjointed and frightened about not knowing what was next for me. So I met this tree that has become a living metaphor for what theology school has been like for me. The tree clings to the side of a cliff with many of its roots exposed from being battered by the elements. It seems to sit rather precariously, yet it has massive roots that reach deeply into the hillside. There are other plants that live amidst its root system, and there are other trees that surround it further back in the hill, which will hold their ground long after my tree succumbs to the elements.

It is a metaphor for theology school for me mainly because of the roots: I feel like one of the things that this work has done to me is cause me to dig deep and expose the deep roots of myself and my theology, as well as the roots of my church and the larger faith tradition I belong to. It's not always a pretty process. Sometimes parts get exposed that I wish I didn't have to see. Sometimes it feels like I'm going to fall over. Sometimes it feels like it would be easier to just pretend those roots aren't there, and cut off the life that flows to and from them... but like the tree, which surprisingly still has sap running through even the most dead-looking roots, manages to hold on and maintain its vitality.

Last year I went to the beach to see my tree, and was afraid that the fallen tree I saw stretched across the rocky shore was my tree - but no, my tree was still there. This year I was afraid the terrible wind storms we had in the late fall all along the coast might have spelled the end of my tree's life, but no, it is still clinging to the cliffside, rooting itself more and more deeply all the time, exposing itself more and more all the time.

The tree was a key image for me in my own discernment of my vocation. It helped me discover that I enjoy that process of revealing roots, digging deeper, and always risking more and more. For me, that is what the theological academy promises - the possibility of constant revealing, deepening, and risking.

It's amazing the things that the world around us can teach us. It's amazing the wisdom that seems to be built into creation itself. Stop, look, listen, sniff, touch, taste and see what God has asked the world to teach you.