[Oe List ...] 9/15/2022, Progressing Spirit: Rev. Deshna Shine: When The Storm Hits; Spong revisited
Ellie Stock
elliestock at aol.com
Thu Sep 15 06:44:12 PDT 2022
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When The Storm Hits
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| Essay by Rev. Deshna Shine
September 15, 2022Recently, I was the in the middle of many major shifts. You may remember from my last column on “Transitions” that I was in the uncomfortable “in-between” with getting ready to move to a new home and town, a daughter graduating high school, parents getting older, and grandparents in their final years. I was also in between jobs and discerning what direction I wanted my career to go in.It was a lot all at once and I felt the intensity of big shifts and changes. So, to alleviate my discomfort, I was holding on to the picture in my mind of what the future held. Our new home with my wife, a new job, and the ability to put roots down somewhere and build community. And then, during all this, there arouse some uncertainty around what I thought was secure. The house of cards I had carefully stacked tumbled down around me. Everything I had imagined now seemed unknown.My first reaction to this sudden unknown, this storm that was hovering, was to totally freak out. I thought I was just about there! I had almost arrived. To this dream of a life, we had been building, to our new home, a life that we had carefully crafted and planned for. It had been three years in the making and just when I was at the precipice, the storm hit, everything felt unsure, unstable, and unknown and I was sure it would all be taken away.I said to my counselor, “all these months of being in the in-between and waiting for this stage, working hard for this stage, I felt an underlying fear, a grief, a quiet worry that something would happen. Someone would get sick, or worse get in an accident, lose a job, or the worst thing I could imagine, they would leave me. I was so close to having everything I have ever wanted and I had this sad feeling because I was sure the other shoe would drop. I was right! I knew all along, I wouldn’t get this perfect life!”And there it hung - that damn shoe. And so, internally the storm came. I cried. Actually, I wailed. I stomped my feet, and I raged.I had this picture of what I thought my life was going to be and it was just there right beyond my reach and then boom, it all came crashing down. I shared my storm with my best friends and my counselor, and my Spouse. They empathized, they were kind and compassionate. But as I heard myself, I sounded like a spoiled child.Everything has been so crazy, so hard! Why can’t this just go as planned? Why can’t I just have this dream, this story I was writing? Like I am the only one who hasn’t gotten what they wanted, exactly the way they wanted it. (I’m definitely not) Like my life is harder than anyone else’s. (It isn’t.)I thought back to my Tibetan Buddhist studies. I remembered learning that our suffering is caused by our attachment - not usually to what is but to what was or what we think it will be, what we want it to be, or what we fear it will be. I shook my fist at the sky, “Darn you, Buddha! Why this lesson, why now?!”Life is suffering. Suffering or dissatisfaction arises from attachment. Suffering can be released by letting go of our attachment to people being the way we want them to be or to always being with us, to outcomes, and to our possessions.I realized I was suffering, creating my own internal storm because of what I feared would come to be, or more accurately, how I would feel when this possibility came to be. It felt like the storm was all around me but really it was within me. But I might drown in that storm, I worried. I might lose everything! I might even lose this precious life I had built.I was in Maui years back. At the beach, there are these big waves that come all the way to the shore and lift up high and then dissolve back into the larger body of water. I had swam these waters and waves for many years, so I knew that even when the waves looked huge, they weren’t dangerous. They didn’t crash, they just lifted and then went back down and out again. So that as long as you didn’t try to stand still in them, as long as you went with their flow, you would simply be lifted up and then down again. They didn’t crash over your head. These were not Huntington Beach surf waves that crested and smashed down. These were wave pool waves. Up and down they went, in and out. Like breath.We had a friend visiting with us that was scared of the ocean. We tried to convince her that these waves were safe, the water was warm and so healing, and that all she needed to do was float. She finally came in. But as the wave approached, she locked her knees, determined to stay on her feet and stay standing and the wave lifted her up and when it brought her down, she came down on straight legs, hard. She ended up dislocating her knee and we had to call an ambulance. It was so scary! All around, young and old were floating up and down, but in her fear of what would happen, she tried to fight the wave. You can’t fight a wave. Even the big crashing ones, you have to go with the flow and trust.In Mark 4 and Matthew 8, Jesus and his disciples are in a boat on a big lake. He has just ministered to the people and I can only imagine how tired he must have been. How tired they must have all been. And so he rests. This is a whole other column I could write, how Jesus teaches us to rest, to take Sabbath, to be renewed. But what happens next is what feels potent for this column. Suddenly a huge, violent storm rolled upon the lake. The disciples were afraid that this storm would take all of their lives. In terror, they cried and yelled at Jesus, begging him to wake up and do something.They said, “Teacher, don’t you care about us? We are going to drown!”Now, this story is about a lot of things — radical trust, faith, Jesus’ power, rest, and how we can never fully prepare for change, hardship and storms. Storms and waves will come at any moment, this is part of life. But I believe it is also about going with the flow and letting the storm of the feelings to wash over you and through you, trusting that you will come out on the other side. As the boat rocks and water fills, he sleeps. He is annoyed to be woken and says, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”When I look back at my life to times when everything felt unknown, scary, or lost, I can see that I was always ok on the other side. Jesus here shows us how to have inner peace when the storm is raging. He was calm while the tempest howled around the boat, while everyone around him was totally freaking out.In Matthew 6:27 he says, “And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” Jesus reminds us there is nothing to be gained by worrying about the future. The Buddha teaches this as well. We suffer because we are attached to a perceived story about the past or the future.I am not suggesting here that we “just let it go.” To me, this is spiritual bypassing and that storm will just come around again. I am suggesting that we let it be. Feelings are information that we can learn from. Letting it go can lead to suppressing feelings, or guilt and shame if those feelings are still there. Letting it go is a forced action and requires effort and control. Letting it be is allowing the feelings to wash over you, through you, to feel them fully, to walk through the storm, to ride the wave, and even to rest.The first step is to simply notice the storm within. To identify the feelings. To name them. To notice what is happening in the body and how the storm feels. This wave that threatens me is my fear of what may happen. But here I am, in this moment. Then we ask, what can I learn from these feelings? What is Spirit trying to teach me right now?For me, the lesson was to remember my radical trust, to stay open to all possibilities, and to remember that my story is just that, a story and that everything always changes. To remember I will be ok, as long as I don’t try to fight it, run away from it, or suppress it. As long as I make my heart soft, rest, and listen to my needs, the storm will calm eventually and I will be ok.And so. I let it be. And you know what? I am here on the other side and I am ok. The storm has come and gone. I felt it all and by doing so, its power was diminished. I let it course through me, around me, and watched it pass. I am still here with some major unknowns and fears but I have been reminded that Spirit will lift me up and bring me back to the ground gently. I am held. I am here in this moment and in this moment all is well and I can rest.
~ Rev. Deshna Shine
Read online here
For Reflection:
Isaiah 43:18-19, Matthew 11:28-30, John 14:27, Matthew 11:28-29, Matthew 6:27, John 14:27, Jeremiah 17:7-8, Psalm 94:19, Isaiah 41:10, Joshua 1:9, Psalm 34:4, Psalm 56:3, Jeremiah 29:11-12
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 Progressive Christianity.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 Faith
I have been trying to form my relationship with Christ, I find my values align with the views of Progressive Christians. I really don't have any support or understanding from my community and I haven't ever read the bible and would like to. I'm not sure where to start or what version of the bible to start with where I can have help understanding the word of god.
A: By Rev. Brandan Robertson
Dear Faith,Thank you for this question. As one begins the journey into progressive Christian faith, we usually are drawn to use the practices of more traditional or conservative Christianity to aid our spiritual formation. There can be great benefit to practices like daily Scripture reading, reciting the Daily Office, or using a devotional book. But one of the benefits of the progressive Christian path is that it recognizes the presence of God in and through all things and all paths, so I would encourage you to consider other practices such as meditation, yoga, or reading other sacred writing or spiritual books even as you utilize the traditional tools of Christian faith.
With that said, I would encourage you to pick up either the Common English Study Bible or the New Oxford Annotated New Revised Standard Version Study Bible if you’re interested not just in devotional reading of the Scriptures, but a deep study of Scripture. Both are great translations and have tremendous scholarly insight packed in the footnotes.
I’d also encourage you to pick up “Reading the Bible with and without Jesus” by Amy Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, What is the Bible? by Rob Bell, The Bible Tells Me So by Peter Enns, or How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian by John Dominic Crossan- these are some of the best progressive and scholarly resources to help lay people begin to engage deeply and critically with the Biblical texts.
By engaging deeply, critically, and devotionally with the Biblical texts, paired with a contemplative spiritual practice like prayer or meditation, I believe you’ll be well on your way to cultivating a rich relationship with Christ in your day to day life! ~ 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
The Birth of Jesus, Part VII
The Role of Ruth: The Seductress
Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong
January 10, 2013The third woman mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus is also unique in a number of ways. Her name is Ruth and she, like Rahab, is a foreigner. Rahab was a Canaanite citizen of Jericho. Ruth was a Moabite, and the widow of a Jewish man named Mahlon. Her story is found in the tiny book that bears her name that is nestled in the Hebrew Scriptures between Judges and I Samuel. It is a dramatic tale involving some unfamiliar Jewish practices that are strange to us today, but that made sense in terms of the Jewish values of that day, rooted as they were in both tribal and patriarchal assumptions. Listen first to the story.
It was around the year 1100 BCE when a time of famine produced a down turn in the Hebrew economy. Elimelech, a citizen of Bethlehem, his wife Naomi and their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, moved to the land of Moab in search of work, food and survival. Soon thereafter, Elimelech died leaving Naomi with her two sons, strangers and aliens in a foreign land. The two sons then assumed the care of their mother and settled into their life in Moab, living there for about ten years, during which time they even took Moabite women to be their wives. Mahlon married Ruth and Chilion married Orpah. Then tragedy struck once again when both Mahlon and Chilion died, leaving the remaining members a very vulnerable family of three widows, women who had no male support and no male protection. This patriarchal society had not developed any way of enabling lone women to care for themselves outside the protective structure provided by a father, a husband or a son. “An independent woman” was an unimaginable category. Hebrew law, therefore, required that women who are alone be cared for by the nearest male kinsman in the family. Normally this meant that the next oldest brother in the family must take the widow of his deceased brother as his wife. In the case of Naomi, Orpah and Ruth, however, there were no younger brothers and, with Naomi being of post-menopausal age, there was no chance of ever producing any. Nothing was more fragile or tragic in this society than a woman who had no father, no husband and no son. She thus fell out of the social safety net, which that society had built to care for the vulnerable. The next level of support was to identify the male, who was simply the closest of kin and to turn all of her assets over to him. This included his taking the widowed woman to be his wife, or at least a member of his harem, for which he had responsibility and for which he assumed sexual privileges with the stated hope of raising up children to the deceased male.
As long as this fragile trio of women lived in the land of Moab, there was no male closest of kin. Naomi, facing this reality, called her two daughters-in-law to her and told them that she was moving back to the land of the Jews, presumably to Bethlehem. She instructed the young widows to do the only thing left open to them. She told them to return to their families and to the protection of their fathers. That was a demeaning act as these widows would from then on be considered “damaged goods.” They would be unable to contract another “proper” marriage. Perhaps some men could be found to take them, but prospects were bleak; not as bleak, however, as what they faced as a family of three vulnerable women living alone. Orpah accepted that option and returned to her family, disappearing from this story forever. Ruth, however, declined and informed Naomi that she would go with her back to the land of the Jews, that she did not want to leave her mother-in-law alone and that together they would face the hardship that both knew awaited them. In one of the most beautiful passages in this book, Ruth says words that have been set to music today and we know them as “The Song of Ruth,” “Entreat me not to leave you or to return from following you; for where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people and your God shall be my God, where you die, I will die and there will I be buried.” (Ruth 1:16-17) This song of Ruth is frequently sung at weddings as the bride and groom stare deeply into each other’s eyes.. I wonder how many couples would choose this music if they knew that originally it was Ruth’s song sung to her mother-in-law!
The two single women then returned to Bethlehem and began their struggle for survival. It was the time of the beginning of the barley harvest. Naomi plotted her strategy. She was aware that her husband, Elimelech, had a kinsman named Boaz, who owned much land in the Bethlehem area. She thus settled into a humble dwelling near the fields of her husband’s distant relative. Jewish law also required that the reapers should not seek to harvest every grain of barley, but that some should be left in the field to be gleaned by the poor. Each day Ruth went into these fields to gather the grain the reapers had missed. She brought it home, ground it and baked it into a barley cake sufficient to keep Naomi and herself from starving. Her faithful caring for Naomi was noticed. Boaz inquired of her identity and learned that she was Naomi’s Moabite daughter-in-law, that she had asked permission to glean in the field behind the reapers and that she had gathered the scanty remains from sunup to sundown without resting. Inspired by this example, Boaz spoke to Ruth, telling her not to gather grain in any other fields and gave her access to water drawn by the young men for the workers in the field. He ordered the young men not to molest her. Ruth thanked Boaz for his kindness, inquiring as to why he was so gracious to a foreigner. Boaz replied that her faithfulness in the care of Naomi had inspired him and revealed that he had been told of the death of Ruth’s husband and of her willingness to leave her own people in order to care for Naomi. Boaz then instructed the reapers to leave some of the sheaves that they had gathered for her to glean. When Ruth told Naomi about the kindness of the man who owned the fields, Naomi was pleased that the trap she was setting was about to be sprung. She waited until the harvest season was over before she put her plan into operation.
Naomi shared with Ruth that Boaz was a distant relative of Elimelech, her father-in-law, and thus of Mahlon, Ruth’s husband. He thus had a social responsibility to care for her. When the reaping was over, Boaz and his workers would celebrate at the threshing floor and Ruth would attend that celebration. She prepared carefully, she bathed, she anointed herself with perfume, she put on her best dress and off she went. Naomi instructed her that she was not to make herself known until the man had finished eating and drinking. The text says until “his heart was merry.” The wine flowed freely that evening and by midnight Boaz, now well drunk, lay down on the floor and went to sleep. Ruth came over to him, placed a pillow under his head and covered him with a blanket. Then the text says she “uncovered his feet,” and lay down at his feet. In the scriptures the word “feet” was a euphemism for the male genitals. The fact is that Ruth undressed him and climbed under the blanket with him. This was an overt act of seduction.
When Boaz awakened at the dawn’s first shaft of light, he found this woman under the blanket with him. He had no idea who she was or what he might have done in his drunken stupor, and so he spoke to her. “Who are you?” He asked. She replied: I am Ruth, you are my next of kin. Marry me!” Boaz pretended to be flattered that she had not gone after a younger man, but he was not quite ready to accept this new responsibility. There was one other, he said, who was a closer kinsman to her husband than he. He would have to speak to him first. It seems this other man had the right of first refusal. Boaz went to meet with him, telling Ruth not to let it be known “that a woman came to the threshing floor.” He then gave Ruth “six measures of barley,” perhaps it was payment for her “night’s work” and he went off to the city. Ruth reported back to Naomi with this grain and Naomi rejoiced. Her plan had clearly worked.
Boaz, gathering ten men of the city to serve as witnesses, met with this nearest kinsman and the negotiations proceeded. Boaz informed this man that Ruth, Mahlon’s widow, has returned from Moab and that she has a parcel of land that belonged to Mahlon’s father, our kinsman, Elimelech. You, as the nearest of kin, have first refusal. Will you redeem this land? If not, I am next in line. The nearest of kin agreed to redeem it. Then Boaz said that is fine, but you need to know the day you take over this field, you are also agreeing to care for Naomi, Elimelech’s widow, and to take Mahlon’s widow, Ruth, to be your wife and to raise up children to her deceased husband. That was a sticky wicket. He would then have to include any children he might have with Ruth among those who would inherit his estate. So he declined. “I cannot redeem it,” he said, “Lest I impair my own children’s inheritance.” So, in the presence of the elders, he renounced his claim. The decision was affirmed in the traditional way of exchanging a sandal. Boaz then was authorized to buy the parcel, to become heir of all that belonged to Elimelech, Mahlon and Chilion. He would care for Naomi and Ruth would become his wife so that the name of Mahlon would not be cut off in the land. The elders saluted Boaz and said, “May your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.” thus linking these two stories. Boaz and Ruth had a son whose name was Obed. When Obed reached maturity, he had a son named Jesse. Jesse in turn grew up and had a son named David, who became the great king of the Hebrew nation. Ruth was thus the great grandmother of King David.
Matthew incorporated Ruth into the genealogy of Jesus that served as his prologue to the introduction of the first account of Jesus’ miraculous birth, In that genealogy, Matthew is saying the line that produced Jesus of Nazareth flowed through the incest of Tamar, the harlotry of Rahab and the seduction of Ruth. It also proclaimed that Moabite blood flowed in the veins of the Jewish King David, thus countering all of the claims of racial purity made for the Royal House of David. One more woman will appear in Matthew’s genealogy. We will turn to her story when this series continues, but surely by now we should be asking what Matthew’s purpose is; what is his agenda that he has chosen to introduce the Virgin Birth story in this way?~ John Shelby Spong |
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