[Dialogue] 6/16/2022, Progressing Spirit: Rev Deshna Shine: Transitions; Spong revisited
Ellie Stock
elliestock at aol.com
Thu Jun 16 05:54:56 PDT 2022
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| Essay by Rev. Deshna Shine
June 16, 2022My wife’s Beloved grandmother lays in the hospital bed, a tiny sliver of a former dancer and child actor, long and thin, frail and still beautiful. When I walk into the room, her eyes light up and her mouth opens into a toothless smile. She stumbles slightly over words of comfort, of gratitude and yes, goodbyes.“I loved your wedding so much.”“Thank you so much for coming. Thank you for loving Jessica the way you have.”“Thank you for being there for her,” she says to me. “Please take care of her.”“I know no other way,” I tell her. “She is my Beloved. My one true love.” Tears. “How are you feeling? Are you feeling scared?” Yes,” she admits, “but I’m OK.“I just wanna get it over with,” she says. Ah, yes, I know that feeling. The impatient, fear fueled drive to get through the scary part and onto whatever is on the other side.How many times do we die and are reborn into our lives?When we retire, when we age, when we leave a marriage, when we lose a loved one, when we graduate, when we awaken to our darkest shadows, when we leave home, when we become parents or grandparents, when we learn to speak our truth.When these major shifts happens it’s the in-between stage that’s the hardest, scariest, and squishiest for me. The place where I have left something major behind but I have not fully arrived at the new Me.I myself am in the in-between now. In-between one home and another, in between one stage of my life and the next. It is an uncomfortable place to be.As I slowly pack boxes over the three month long “in between walk” of my journey, I think about how I finally found a home and a partner that I have dreamed about for years. And yet I am exiled to the thin place still. My new home and new life awaits me but I am here in transition witnessing my daughter as she prepares to graduate high school. I am clinging to both the past and the future and attempting to be present in the now. I have one foot here and one foot there and I wonder if that’s what it feels like in some ways to be in the process of dying?These major shifts often also remind me of childbirth. Truly there is nothing you can do to fully prepare for it. You can’t know what you’ll need or what you’ll feel or what you’ll experience until you are there, until you have fully arrived to that moment. At a certain point you have to surrender to the experience and trust your body will know what to do. Birth is the in-between as well. Birth, Death, Rebirth.Seeing my baby, this little person whom I have raised, get to the point in her life when it is up to her now how she lives and proceeds is such a strange, strange experience. She is not quite there yet, still my baby girl. But she is not quite what she used to be. She is becoming, unfolding. She is in the in-between, the space where the veil is thin and life is raw.I began to see a pattern that applied not just to babies, but to all human beings at all stages of their life! It reminded me of the hourglass. Imagine the hourglass and that you are held as a tiny piece of sand at the top. Things are moving slow and at a comfortable steady pace. You can see your surroundings, you know where you are, it’s familiar and safe. You, this little being of sand held at the top of the hourglass gently moving toward whatever is next. But then you get closer to the funnel part of the hourglass, you get closer to the change and the shift and what happens? Everything begins to move faster and you realize you’re about to drop in to something new. You are falling! You realize you have no control, actually, it was an illusion! You are about to leave behind what was and you don’t know what it’s going to be like on the other side. So, naturally, you feel scared. Scared of the unknown, scared of the squishiness.Scared to be trapped in the narrow part, of being stuck in the in-between, not being able to see where you will land or what awaits you. So naturally you try to work your way back up to the top… “no, no I’m not ready for that yet.”But life does not allow you to go backwards. The Mystery of Life only allows us to move forward. No matter how much we cling to what was or how much we resist, change is inevitable.One of the key teachings in Tibetan Buddhism is impermanence. The only real thing is change. Everything shifts. Everything around us is always changing. Our bodies, our cells are constantly dying and becoming new cells. Our physical form is incessantly mutating. Nature around us is evolving, dying and being reborn into something new.Does the tree fear the winter? Does the owl fear leaving her nest? I’m afraid. I’m afraid of my own death, I’m afraid of my parents’ death. I’m afraid of losing my beloved partner. And I can hardly speak of the fears I have for my daughter. For to speak them out loud somehow makes them more real. I find myself now in the squishy in-between and I’m afraid.I wonder what Jesus felt when he gathered his disciples for his last supper and he knew that everything was about to change. He knew what was upon him and that rebirth would come. He knew two days before Passover. He knew when Mary anointed him with her oil. Was he afraid? Was he grieving? Is there anything he regretted?What did he do in that moment, the in-between, when faced with imminent betrayal, loss and death? He leaned in. He surrendered. He offered his twelve disciples to drink and eat of his body. What more can I give, he must have wondered? What more can I leave them with? Have I done enough? He gave thanks. He ate, drank, served and sang.He leaned in with full acceptance and trust.He had more to give, even in that most fearful, desperate moment. His last evening, his last supper, he offered wisdom and grace.And finally when the hour was near, he prayed. He grieved in sorrow. Grief is the in-between as well.“Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”One thing is very clear — he walks toward the change. He doesn’t rush it or try to control it. He doesn’t cling to what was. He does not waste time with denial. He sees things with clarity and walks toward it. He calls his betrayer, friend. He declares what is real, he doesn’t resist it. He sits with the truth of his death and all the feelings that brings him.“From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven,”And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.And where is he now? On the other side? In another human? In the arms of God? Held? New? I don’t know. We don’t know.That is the greatest mystery of the human experience. And the greatest illusion is that we think we know what’s on the other side of all the changes and transitions in our life but in truth, it’s never as we think it will be.So I am here. I sit in the unknowing. I sit in the squishy discomfort and I practice being present with these edgy, heavy feelings and these fears. And at the same time I hold the truth of knowing that I will be OK. This too shall pass. On the other side of this will be something new and, because this is what I always do, I will make it beautiful and, because this is how I have always been, I will find my joy no matter what lies ahead.I often turn to Nordic Runes for guidance when I am in or heading into a transition. Today as I write this column and I think so deeply about the holy space of transitions and shift, I asked, “What wisdom do I need to see now?”Getting centered and present, I held this question in my mind as I grazed my fingers lightly over the Runes until I felt a small zing in my finger when I touched one. I pulled Algiz, the Rune of Protection, Sedge and The Elk. The first line of this rune goes like this,“Control of the emotions is at issue here. During times of transition, shifts in life course and accelerated self-change, it is important not to collapse yourself into your emotions, the highs as well as the lows.”“Remain mindful that timely right action and correct conduct are your only true protection. If you find yourself feeling pain, observe the pain, stay with it. Do not try to pull down the veil and escape from life by denying what is happening. You will progress; knowing that is your protection.”Oooohh, I could get deep into that right now! (You too? Let’s talk!)But what really struck me was these two teachings coming from different times, places and peoples of ancient wisdom saying the same thing. Jesus did not go into denial or resistance to the inevitable death and he trusted that there would be a rebirth. He let go. He did exactly as this ancient Rune wisdom divined and I am guessing what his ancient Jewish teachings taught him as well.We cannot pull down the veil to escape from life, from change, from pain. We must sit with it and be with the difficult feelings, the grief, the sorrow, anguish, and the fear. We must lean in to shift and practice trust in a Loving Supportive Presence, in Life. Transitions are our great teachers. Listen.~ Rev. Deshna Shine
Read online here
About the Author
Rev. Deshna Shine is Project Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org’s Children’s Curriculum. She is an ordained Interfaith Minister, author, international speaker, and visionary. She grew up in a thriving progressive Christian church and has worked in the field for over 13 years. She graduated from UCSB with a major in Religious Studies and a minor in Global Peace and Security. She was Executive Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org, Executive Producer of Embrace Festival and has co-authored the novel, Missing Mothers. Deshna is passionate about sacred community, nourishing children spiritually and transforming Christianity through a radically inclusive lens. |
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Question & Answer
Q: By Carol
We were having a discussion at church last night about theism and worship. How is the Eucharist relevant if theism is taken away, or more appropriately, how can our liturgy and worship change to reflect the loss of theism?
A: By Rev. Brandan Robertson
Dear Carol,Thanks for this important question. I believe that the Eucharist is perhaps the most central and important ritual of the Christian faith- and I don’t believe you need to be a theist to experience it as a transformative ritual. At it’s core, the Eucharist is a reminder for Christians of two things: the reality of what Jesus endured in the Gospel stories for his resistance to Empire, and the way we commit to live as followers of Jesus’ way.
As you know, there are many atheists who still honor and learn from the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. When they come to the Eucharistic table, the invitation for them is the same as the invitation for the most devout theist- to come and reflect on the remarkable sacrifice that Jesus and many others after him offered in their attempt to create a more just and equal world. To reflect upon the brokenness of the systems of our world that respond to calls for grace and justice with injustice and murder. And ultimately, to ask how they might emulate Jesus’ example in their own life, breaking open their hearts and pouring themselves out for the healing of their world.
The Eucharist has always been, first and foremost, a memorial meal to commemorate the life and death of Jesus. One doesn’t need to believe in the theological claims of the Christian faith to meaningfully participate and be transformed by reflecting and remembering the sacrifice of Christ.
~ Rev. Brandan Robertson
Read and share online here
About the Author
Rev. Brandan Robertson is a noted spiritual thought-leader, contemplative activist, and commentator, working at the intersections of spirituality, sexuality, and social renewal and the author of Nomad: A Spirituality For Travelling Light and writes regularly for Patheos, Beliefnet, and The Huffington Post. He has published countless articles in respected outlets such as TIME, NBC, The Washington Post, Religion News Service, and Dallas Morning News. As sought out commentator of faith, culture, and public life, he is a regular contributor to national media outlets and has been interviewed by outlets such as MSNBC, NPR, SiriusXM, TIME Magazine, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Associated Press. He leads Metanoia, a digital spiritual community at MetanoiaCenter.org |
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited
On Baptizing Hadden
Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong
July 12, 2012It is a rare treat in the life of a bishop in general and in the life of a retired bishop in particular to participate in a pastoral act like a baptism. It normally has to come at the invitation of a family member or a very close friend. Seven years ago I married a couple, the groom of which had been such a friend, growing up together with my stepson Brian and, therefore, very close to my wife Christine, close enough indeed that all of his life he had called her “Mom.” When he became engaged to a lovely young woman named Cushman they asked if I could perform their marriage ceremony at a summer chapel, named All Saints by the Sea on the coast of Maine. His family had spent every summer season of his childhood vacationing on this lovely island. I accepted this invitation and so I shared in that transition moment with them and their respective families. When this couple’s first baby arrived it seemed important to them for me to baptize this young lady at the same summer chapel in Maine. It is a church that is open only in the summer season and to which worshipers can and do arrive on Sundays both by boat and car. I agreed to do so and back to Maine we went for this happy occasion.
Preparing for this baptism I read over the baptismal liturgy from my church’s prayer book and I embraced once more just how antiquated and even offensive some of its language still is. I began to wonder how a child being baptized would hear those words, if that child had the ability both to listen and to understand. If in the baptismal service we had the ability to allow the child to speak in reaction to those words, I wondered what she might say. With my imagination engaged I decided that for the sermon at this service I would try to frame just how this baby might react and respond to the words being used in the church’s baptismal liturgy. The result of that exercise follows:
TO THE MEMBERS ALL SAINTS BY THE SEA CHURCH IN SOUTHPORT, MAINE
Dear Friends:
Today, July 1, 2012, I was baptized in this church. My family and friends gathered from as far away as Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, Vermont and New Jersey to be present for this occasion. It was a happy day for me – and I hope it was for others of you who attended.
Let me tell you, however, that it was also a strange day in many ways. In that baptism service you said some words that sounded pretty weird to me. You asked my parents and godparents to renounce some things in my name. They had to renounce the world, the flesh and the devil.
How can you renounce the world when it is July in Maine – the sky is blue, the sea is calm, the temperature is moderate and the world seems to be wonderful?
How can you renounce the flesh when it is through the flesh that we experience the world – our fleshly eyes see its beauty, our fleshly ears hear its sounds, our fleshly taste buds enable us to savor the wonders of the sea? With our fleshly arms we embrace one another and with our fleshly lips we kiss those we love. Who among us really wants to renounce the flesh?
How can you renounce the devil? Is there a real creature with horns, tail and pitchfork who is responsible for all that is evil? Is that not some form of projection? We can’t even agree on what color the devil is – at Duke University they think of him as blue, but if you are a hockey fan in New Jersey we think of him as red! For me to renounce the world the flesh and the devil sounds like I’m being programmed to be a nun! Is that really your intention?
You also said in the baptismal liturgy that you were baptizing me for the forgiveness of sins. I’m not old enough to have done much! So what are my sins? I have never robbed a bank; I have not committed adultery; I have not been willfully disobedient or talked back to my parents. I understand that babies can sometimes be inconvenient, but are we sinful? Someone once said that all babies are born with loud speakers on one end and no sense of responsibility on the other, but does that make us blameworthy?
Let me suggest to you that what you have done in the baptism service is to literalize some ancient biblical stories and you have drawn some conclusions from those stories that I suggest you might want to revise and even to challenge. One of those biblical stories was about how God created the world in just seven days. That story emphasizes that God created a perfect world, so perfect that when God finished God looked out on all that God had made and said: “This is a good world.” Human beings were part of that goodness and that story goes on to say that we human beings were created “male and female” in God’s image. Why would one be called evil when we are created in God’s image?
That story also states that when the work of creation was ended, God not only pronounced it good, but also complete – so complete that God could take a day off and that is how the Sabbath was created. It is hard to understand why one should be asked to renounce the world that God pronounced complete. Is there something profoundly wrong with the baptismal liturgy?
There is a second story in the book of Genesis, however, in which the biblical writers sought to account for the presence of evil. They did not understand that in the biology of every living creature there is a drive to survive. It is that drive that makes life appear to be self-centered. If survival is my highest value then I will organize my life around my survival agenda. I will not always be consciously aware of this drive, but it will always be present. One strategy we human beings seem to use to accomplish this is build ourselves up by tearing someone else down. This destructive behavior is not rooted in something sinful; it is rooted in our biology. That is the source out of which prejudice arises; that is the source of religious persecution. That is the reason we are prone to hate and fear people who are different. Evil does not originate in human misdeeds. It is not, as this second ancient story says, something we do because one of our ancestors was disobedient and ate of the forbidden fruit, which resulted in our banishment from the Garden of Eden.
It was out of this story, however, that we developed the strange idea that human life is fallen, sinful, evil, distorted and broken. I must tell you that it sounds very strange to me to listen to a worship service in church that tells me over and over again how evil I am, that I am a miserable sinner, that I am not worthy to gather up the crumbs under the divine table, that there is no health in me and that I must spend lots of time in church begging God to have mercy on me. How many times does one have to beg God to have mercy in a Sunday service? How many times do you have to tell me that I am fallen, infected with original sin? Have you ever known anyone to be helped by being told how terrible they are? Why do you think God’s greatness is affirmed by denigrating our humanity?
You can’t even sing about how amazing God’s grace is without reminding yourselves that God’s grace is amazing only because it saves a wretch like you or me. Am I a wretch? Are you wretches? Is that what Christianity has come to.
Perhaps we have distorted our faith story far more than most of us realize. Did Jesus come to make us religious? Did he come so that God could control our behavior through guilt? Is guilt ever life-giving? Does guilt help to make us religious? Can religion save the world? There is lots of religion in this world today, but is not most of it distorted? Have you not heard of religious wars, religious persecution, the Inquisition? Have you not observed how religious Catholics and religious Protestants react to each other in Ireland or how religious Shiites and religious Sunnis react to each other in Iraq?
I do not think that Jesus came to make us righteous either. People who are very, very moral and very, very righteous seem to know a great deal about judgment, but almost nothing about loving.
Jesus also did not come to give us the “True Faith” – to make certain that our religion is better than any other, that my faith is the only true faith, my church the only true church and that no one can come to God except by my pathway. People who think that they have the “True Faith,” always seem to put their wagons in a circle and start shooting at those with whom they disagree.
In John’s gospel Jesus suggests a very different purpose that perhaps the framers of the baptismal liturgy somehow missed. Jesus says: “I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly.” That is, I believe, what Christianity should be all about – giving life. So as I identify with this faith tradition today in baptism I ask you to help me to become fully human, help me to live fully, to love wastefully and to be all that I can be.
May I suggest that this is the church’s vocation and therefore your vocation. Your task is to give abundant life, and not only to me, but to every person who is a child of God.
Thank you for listening to my letter and thank you for loving me just as I am.
Hadden Charlotte Brinegar
And because she is a good little Episcopal girl she ends her letter with AMEN.
Has the time to come to bring the liturgy of baptism into dialogue with all that we now know about human life? I believe it has.~ John Shelby Spong |
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