[Dialogue] 2/02/2023, Progressing Spirit: Rev. Lauren Van Ham: Over the Hills and Everywhere; Spong revisited
Ellie Stock
elliestock at aol.com
Thu Feb 2 07:00:24 PST 2023
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screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv0570460839 #yiv0570460839templateBody .yiv0570460839mcnTextContent, #yiv0570460839 #yiv0570460839templateBody .yiv0570460839mcnTextContent p{font-size:14px !important;line-height:150% !important;}}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){#yiv0570460839 #yiv0570460839templateFooter .yiv0570460839mcnTextContent, #yiv0570460839 #yiv0570460839templateFooter .yiv0570460839mcnTextContent p{font-size:12px !important;line-height:150% !important;}} By Rev. Lauren Van Ham
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"Over the Hills and Everywhere"
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| Essay by Rev. Lauren Van Ham
February 2, 2023It was January, and the words were familiar, “Go! Tell it on the mountain.” The tune was especially fun when we got to sing, “and EVERYWHERE!” In the Sunday School of my childhood, “Go, tell it on the mountain” was a favorite hymn in the season of Epiphany. In these days since Christmas and before Ash Wednesday, the encouragement for us all is to get out there and share the good news that Jesus was born -- Christ’s light is available for everyone!What does this prompt mean for you and me right now, in 2023? What could it look like in our lives and church communities over the next 11 months?If you’re reading Progressing Spirit, I suspect that you are not necessarily someone who leads conversations with mentions of Jesus and scriptural references. You are, most definitely, a deep thinker, moved by mystery or faith and often wondering about the state of our world and how the teachings of Jesus and spirit-feeding community could bring insight and help to the distress so many of us are feeling. As the pain and destructive effects of isolation and division increase, we also continue to experience attrition and closure of many churches.In an article, “American Religion is Not Dead Yet,” from The Atlantic, the authors ask, “Where are Americans finding meaning in their lives? How are they marking the passing of sacred time? Where are they building pockets of vibrant communities? And what are they doing to answer the prophetic call, however it is that they hear it?”For such a long, long time, our church or spiritual community has been the place to which we turn for marking time with seasonal rituals and gatherings to celebrate or honor life’s cycles. We look to our community for a sense of belonging and support. Ideally, the teaching and formation being generated in these spaces stretches us in ways so enriching that we come to new places of understanding in ourselves; and are moved to engage with the world in ways to bring more healing, justice, peace.For decades we have initiated and been part of inspiring success stories, opening our church doors for feeding, housing, educating. Today, church yards are becoming community gardens and outdoor classrooms, providing food and learning spaces for those who live nearby. Other houses of worship are becoming local energy grids with rooftop solar panel installations and battery back-up. All of this is a generous expression of Christ’s love and light for those in and around the building’s footprint and…societal isolation and division persist. Climate chaos, economic breakdown and congressional in-fighting foreshadows worsening difficulties ahead.So, what is our message now, exactly, and where do we share it?Here is the message: the “good news” has always been (and still is) good, and the mountains and hills have always known. They are, after all, among our best teachers and allies. Like the mountains and rivers, the message to be conveyed is ancient and steady, emergent and continuous. Continuously, this message reminds us that we are Life and that All Life is Sacred. When we come into communion with one another and all living creatures, we are better able to see what’s been broken, and to perceive the role we each have. Some of us are called to hospice that which is ending. Clear and good goodbyes are so important. Some of us are about restoring that which, with systemic disregard, has been desecrated. It may feel like too little, too late but it isn’t -- not for that child, not for that tree.When we share the message over the hills and everywhere, it is important to remember that sharing is reciprocal: we tell and we listen, give and receive. Our telling and listening, giving and receiving is needed throughout the larger ecosystems in which we and our church or spiritual community are a part. As integral, interdependent participants, healing and restoring or doing the hard work of reconciliation with the people, land, air, water and other creatures is an essential and rewarding way to right-size ourselves within Life’s goodness.Over the hills and everywhere means beyond the four walls of our buildings and beyond our conventional expressions of caring or outreach. As the church shrinks or evolves, our trust in the good and ancient message fuels our capacity to respond to the pain, disrepair and division in new and changing ways – like understanding our local food systems and waterways or partnering with the city’s urban planners to address increasing pollution concerns, or by expanding our imaginations to better practice healing and repair with the people or other creatures in the places most challenged by degradation or demoralization. If you and your community are interested in taking new leaps in this work during 2023, you might find the suggestions and stories in this guidebook to be useful.The Christ/Life/Love in you and me unites us with the cooperation and creativity that animates the cosmos. When we move from this source, holy epiphanies rush in providing support. It cannot be otherwise. Individually and collectively, this is the message we get to embody with our neighbors, among the hills and everywhere.~ Rev. Lauren Van Ham
Read online here
About the Author
Rev. Lauren Van Ham, MA, was born and raised beneath the big sky of the Midwest. Lauren holds degrees from Carnegie Mellon University, Naropa University and The Chaplaincy Institute. Following her ordination in 1999, Lauren served as an interfaith chaplain in both healthcare (adolescent psychiatry and palliative care) and corporate settings (organizational development and employee wellness). Lauren’s passion for spirituality, art and Earth's teachings has supported her specialization in eco-ministry, grief & loss, and sacred activism. Her essay, "Way of the Eco-Chaplain," appears in the collection Ways of the Spirit: Voices of Women; and her work with Green Sangha is featured in Renewal, a documentary celebrating the efforts of religious environmental activists from diverse faith traditions across America. Her ideas can be heard on Vennly, an app that shares perspectives from spiritual and community leaders across different backgrounds and traditions. Currently, Lauren tends her private spiritual direction and eco-chaplaincy consulting practice; and serves as Climate Action Coordinator for the United Religions Initiative (URI), and as guest faculty for several schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. |
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Question & Answer
Q: By Carolyn
How do I talk with compassion to a neighbor who is afraid we are in the end times? She is a very conservative 80-year-old widow living alone whose daughters will sometimes belittle her faith. She is pleased that I am no stranger to the Bible, and will quote scripture, interpreting it in a drastic way - she is very frightened by the chaos and violence being reported every day, including the effects of climate change, and she takes it all as a sign that we are all doomed until the second coming. I have no interest in entering into a debate with her about scriptural interpretation. Instead, I would like to know how to talk with her gently in terms she will understand.
A: By Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D.
Dear Carolyn,Let me begin by acknowledging the compassion and kindness and respect your own words embody.Where I begin with anyone is the recognition that they are a sacred being on their own journey. I have no idea how their life, or mine, will evolve and unfold. There are no predetermined paths or shoulds to the unfolding of a life. In the wisdom of the Enneagram the only Holy Plan is the unfolding, moment-to-moment, of life.I’ve also discovered that the greater my awareness becomes that Boundless Love is Reality as such, I relax and receive another as they are. My agenda, whatever that might be, recedes in importance. When it does arise – which I can feel as a drivenness to change someone or do or say something – I breathe and bracket it; I don’t deny or suppress my desires, I simply and significantly set them aside. What matters is the life sitting across from me. My attention to them – which is kindness – communicates that they matter, here and now. For me, they are sacred as they are. Such kindness is healing.Fear has many faces, but its taproot almost always resolves into our survival drive. I encourage you to converse with compassion as you practice listening with your heart open and knowing that some days will go better than others. Love is the affirmation of the value of what is already present and arising. Explore with wonder – even the arising of fear. For me, this translates into not offering unsolicited information or advice. The most significant gift between the two of you is the field of trust that emerges as you hold one another in respect and mutually honor each other’s life’s journey.If your friend asks a question, it signifies that she is open to receiving from you. My guess is that what her soul seeks most is resonance, not information. Someone who beholds her as she is, with 80 years of life-experience, and does not belittle or dismiss her fears and beliefs. Beneath any presenting desire there is to know about things such as climate change and second coming (and I in no way dismiss the importance of scientific knowledge), is the soul’s deeper longing to rest in our own innate goodness; this awareness alone calm the heart’s fear. This awareness is hers alone to realize. You can walk beside her as she explores – an invaluable gift – but the journey is hers.~ Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D.
Read and share online here
About the Author
Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D., an Episcopal Priest, works with students of all backgrounds to awaken to the truth of being holy mystery ceaselessly unfolding, which is to realize our Christ heart. His gentle and compassionate teaching is rooted in wonderment and exploration of the spiritual fecundity of the present moment, drawing upon meditation, body practice, and the enneagram. He has been a student of the Diamond Approach since 2006. He received Jukai from Shoken Winecoff of Ryumonji Soto Zen Buddhist Temple in May, 2004, and has been authorized by Senior Buddhist Teacher, Stephen Snyder, to explore use of the Brahma Viharas within the Christian tradition. Kevin is also an authorized Instructor of Diamond Body Practice and a certified teacher of the Enneagram in the Narrative Tradition. As an Episcopal Priest for almost 30 years, he has helped found the Healing Arts Centers at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Parish in Portland, Oregon and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Marquette, Michigan. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Awakening as Holy Mystery: Realizing Christ Heart, as well as five previous books, Beyond My Wants, Beyond My Fears: The Soul’s Journey into the Heartland, I Have Called You Friends, Holding Beauty in My Soul’s Arms, and My Heart is a Raging Volcano of Love for You. |
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited
Introducing the Gospel of Matthew.
Part I: The Gospels are Jewish Books
Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong
September 5, 2013The Bible is the Christian Church’s sacred text. We read from it at every worship service in almost every Christian tradition. It is apparently a rather popular volume for every year since the invention of the printing press it has been the world’s best-selling book. It might well be, however, the world’s least understood and probably is history’s most misused book.From the earliest Church fathers in the 2nd century of the Christian era to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany in the 20th century, the Bible was quoted to justify a cruel anti-Semitism.In the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, the Bible was quoted to justify the Crusades and the relentless Christian attempt to kill “infidels,” who just happened to be the Muslims who occupied Christian holy places in the Middle East. In those Vatican-led Crusades, Western Christians, armed with quotations from what they called “the Word of God,” poured a hatred of Islam into the world’s bloodstream, the harvest of which we are reaping today in terror attacks, in 9/11, in the Boston Marathon bombing and in the political chaos that still marks the Middle East. The hostility of the Muslim world toward the West is so deep that we have been politically incapable of helping to direct into positive channels the human yearning for freedom manifested in what we once called “the Arab Spring.”In 1215 this book, the Bible, was quoted to justify the divine right of kings and to oppose the Magna Carta and the rise of democracy. That was one more time that the literally understood Bible was placed on the losing side of history.In the 17th and 18th centuries, this book was used to justify the enslavement of African people and when this slavery was ended on the battlefields of Antietam, Gettysburg and Appomattox, this book was then used to legitimize a dehumanizing segregation. Do not fail to notice that the part of this country in which slavery was practiced the longest and segregation was defended the most fiercely with the use of police dogs, fire hoses and church bombings was then and is still today known as “The Bible Belt.” I know it well; it is my home.This book, the Bible, was also used to deny women university educations, doorways into the professions, including the priesthood, and even the right to vote until the 20th century.Most recently, this book has been quoted to justify a culturally rampant homophobia, to deny gay and lesbian people justice under the law and equality in the recognition of their sacred commitments and solemn vows. Quotations, reflecting profound biblical ignorance, nonetheless ring out publicly as people try to make the Sodom and Gomorrah story in Genesis, some verses from Leviticus and even Paul’s convoluted argument in Romans 1 justify their visceral prejudices. With all of these documented examples of cruelty and abuse based on the Bible, we nonetheless still solemnly proclaim at the end of readings from this book in public worship: “This is the Word of the Lord!” How can a book we call “The Word of God” be responsible for so much hurt, pain and oppression? How can a book that purports to be about the love of God create such carnage? I begin this series on Matthew’s Gospel today by addressing that question.First, some biblical facts. In the standard text of the Bible there are 66 books plus the Apocrypha. Thirty-nine of them are in what Christians call “The Old Testament,” twenty-seven of them form what Christians call “The New Testament.” These books were written between about 1000 BCE and about 140 CE. The oldest written part of the Old Testament appears to be that part of the Torah known as the Yahwist document, and the last part of the New Testament to be written appears to be II Peter. The original language of the Old Testament is Hebrew, while the original language of the New Testament is Greek. Of note is that Jesus spoke Aramaic, a language related to but not identical with Hebrew. He probably could read Hebrew, but there is no evidence that Jesus either spoke or read Greek, beyond the few phrases that were required to do rudimentary business with a few Greek-speaking merchants.If we are to understand the Bible on any level, the first thing we need to embrace is that it is to its core a Jewish book. Every writer of every book in the Bible was a Jew. There is only debate about one of them. Most scholars now believe that Luke, the name assigned to the author of the gospel that bears his name and the book of Acts, which is literally volume two of that gospel, was a Gentile by birth. He later appears to have converted to Judaism as a “Gentile proselyte” and, through that doorway, he came into the Christian movement, possibly through the influence of Paul. So all of the writers of the books of the Bible were Jewish by birth, save for Luke and he was Jewish by conversion. We must embrace this seminal fact if we are to understand this holy book. The Bible needs to be viewed and read as a Jewish book, a deeply penetrating, profound piece of Jewish writing.This means that the entire Bible, Old and New Testaments alike, will inevitably reflect the world view of the Jewish mind. It is written in the vocabulary of Jewish people. It is steeped in the history of the Jewish nation. It espouses Jewish values. It is shaped by the experience of worship in the synagogue. The audiences for which the various books of the Bible were written were also predominantly Jewish. The authors of the books in the Bible could assume a common Jewish cultural knowledge that was present in their audiences, which they did not have to explain. These authors could thus use the familiar and recognizable Jewish story-telling techniques to communicate their message. They could describe the events in their current history by relating them to familiar Jewish events in their earlier history.When we look specifically at the gospels we discover that this Jewishness served the Christian community well so long as the church was made up primarily of Jewish people, which indeed the early church was. By the middle of the second century, however, the make-up of the Christian Church had changed dramatically. People of Jewish origin had all but disappeared from what had become an almost exclusively Gentile body. Christian congregations were made up almost entirely of people who not only did not know this Jewish background, but were taught by the prevailing culture to view anything Jewish with suspicion and distrust. Thus they were not able to recognize in their own Christian scriptures the Jewish symbols, the Jewish references or even the Jewish story-telling tradition. They could not make the assumptions that a Jewish audience would make when they heard the gospels being read. They did not understand how the gospel writers employed the Jewish Scriptures in their narratives. They did not understand its source when a gospel writer wrapped a tale out of the Jewish Scriptures around the memory of Jesus of Nazareth. So these Gentile readers began to make some assumptions about the gospels that the original Jewish audience would never have made. They assumed that the gospels were history or biography. They began to literalize individual verses in the gospels, and to use those verses in debate as if they were the court of last appeal.Next they began to defend the literal accuracy of the entire Bible. They did not recognize, for example, that the story of the wise men was based on a text from Isaiah 60 in which we are told that kings would come to the brightness of God’s rising, that they would come on camels, that they would come from Sheba and that they would bring gold and frankincense. They did not understand that the earthly father of Jesus, known to us as Joseph, was drawn on the pattern of Joseph, the patriarch from the book of Genesis (37-50). Note that both Josephs have fathers named Jacob. Both Josephs are identified with dreams. The patriarch Joseph was called “the dreamer.” He became famous as an interpreter of dreams, even rising into political power in Egypt as the interpreter of the Pharaoh’s dreams. They could not see the connection when in Matthew’s gospel God never spoke to Joseph except in a dream. This Joseph received the annunciation of Jesus’ birth in a dream. He fled Herod’s wrath in Bethlehem after being warned by God in a dream. He left Bethlehem for Galilee and settled in the town of Nazareth in response to a dream. Both were identified with dreams because Matthew patterned Jesus’ father after the patriarch by the same name. Finally, both Josephs played a primary role in preserving the covenant. The patriarch Joseph saved the chosen people from death by starvation in a time of famine by taking them down to Egypt. The earthly father of Jesus saved the messianic child from death at the hands of King Herod by taking him down to Egypt. The New Testament’s portrait of Jesus’ earthly father was a typical Jewish story-telling tradition on display. As long as the gospels were understood as Jewish books and were read primarily by Jewish audiences, these points were clear. When, however, the Christian Church became primarily Gentile by 150 CE, this interpretive key to the gospels was lost. So it was that Christians began to believe that the only proper way to read the gospels was to assume that the narratives were literally true and they began to defend a literal reading of these texts as the only way to read them. Fundamentalism is thus a Gentile heresy.Until the Christian Church can develop Jewish eyes or can begin to read the gospels through Jewish lenses, the wonder of our gospels will continue to be lost to us. Biblical fundamentalism, if not countered, will finally destroy Christianity. That will be the price we Christians pay for our ignorance and our anti-Semitism. The power of our own gospels will be lost to us. They are Jewish books and they must be read with Jewish eyes.The most Jewish of all the gospels is Matthew. Today, I am beginning a new series that will take you, my readers, deeply into the Gospel of Matthew. When this series is complete my hope is that both Matthew and the Bible will for you never be the same.~ John Shelby Spong |
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Announcements
A Tree’s View of History:
A Conversation with Lacy M. Johnson
On Feb 15th The Forest School at the Yale School of the Environment and Orion Magazine present a conversation with Lacy M. Johnson on American history and the longleaf pine. Building off her recent essay on the longleaf pine’s integral role in the American slave trade, Johnson will discuss the ways in which trees bear witness to the evolution of culture and what they may be able to tell us about ourselves now. READ ON ... |
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