Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Where we are going....
Got an email yesterday from a nervous member, describing all the many ways she thinks my ministry may be off-track. My mind spins on one particular comment she makes - that is, the thought that I should - rather than have my own vision for the congregation - simply support the Board's vision. I get stuck here, trying to even understand the separation. In an organic covenanted relationship like that between minister and congregation, it gets all mixed up, and whose vision the congregation lives into becomes relatively indistinguishable - if I am doing my job, I am reflecting back the place where are being called, all of us, as an always-becoming community - and the Board is doing the same. It's not about me, or about the Board, or any one of us and our ideas. It's about the bigger thing we are each trying so hard to discern, attempting to listen for, and love, and lean into. And I think about eschatology, and this notion that we are headed somewhere specific, and that one (individual or group) of us has that answer - like some kind of humanist version of end-times-predicting. Sure, I have my own dreams of heaven, what our beloved community might look like, but it's fuzzy and dynamic, subject to change based on the words and wisdom of the community as it evolves each time it gathers, each time it moves. None of it is certain, and none of it lives outside the relationship I have within and among this gathered people, the relationship I have with the wider Unitarian Universalist living tradition - there is no immaculate conception of an idea, or a plan, or a vision for any of us, JLA might say...So, hush already you nervous heart, my only plan is to keep loving, and to see what mystery unfolds...
Monday, August 22, 2011
On Language, Discomfort, and Transformation
This from an email I received from a congregational leader yesterday:
"I think it will be a process for some of us to be comfortable with some of the more religious sounding words...I can only say I can deal with the parts I have come to understand for myself and still have questions."
I'm preaching on transformation this Sunday. Here's an excerpt, somewhat in response to this conversation about language and the desire to feel comfortable...
"The truth is, there is no transformation without discomfort. In fact, discomfort and even chaos is a sign that transformation is possible. And the trick is to stay in the discomfort long enough for the deeper change called transformation to come. We don’t usually. We solve the problem. We fix the pain. One of my friends – who worked on the Obama campaign– just posted he has officially lost faith in Obama, most especially because he feels the President has created a sense that our problems are fixed “enough” so that most people check out…which leaves the deeper ways of societal transformation wholly unaddressed.
I’m not weighing in on his take on Obama. I’m sure you’ll all debate that later.
But I do want us to talk now, and to remind ourselves often, about what he’s saying more generally – that is that feeling unsettled is a good thing when it comes to seeking a life of greater meaning, of greater purpose. It’s a good thing for us as individuals, it’s a good thing for us as a religious community, and it’s a good thing as a society. When you get that gut feeling, deep down, that discomfort, lean into it, and with wonder and light, begin to imagine what hidden wholeness might be calling you, calling all of us forth."
"I think it will be a process for some of us to be comfortable with some of the more religious sounding words...I can only say I can deal with the parts I have come to understand for myself and still have questions."
I'm preaching on transformation this Sunday. Here's an excerpt, somewhat in response to this conversation about language and the desire to feel comfortable...
"The truth is, there is no transformation without discomfort. In fact, discomfort and even chaos is a sign that transformation is possible. And the trick is to stay in the discomfort long enough for the deeper change called transformation to come. We don’t usually. We solve the problem. We fix the pain. One of my friends – who worked on the Obama campaign– just posted he has officially lost faith in Obama, most especially because he feels the President has created a sense that our problems are fixed “enough” so that most people check out…which leaves the deeper ways of societal transformation wholly unaddressed.
I’m not weighing in on his take on Obama. I’m sure you’ll all debate that later.
But I do want us to talk now, and to remind ourselves often, about what he’s saying more generally – that is that feeling unsettled is a good thing when it comes to seeking a life of greater meaning, of greater purpose. It’s a good thing for us as individuals, it’s a good thing for us as a religious community, and it’s a good thing as a society. When you get that gut feeling, deep down, that discomfort, lean into it, and with wonder and light, begin to imagine what hidden wholeness might be calling you, calling all of us forth."
Wrestling With....the first post....
It's August. These are the live issues of faith we are wrestling with in our emerging congregation.
We are wrestling with words, and the meaning behind those words. Trying to decide about this thing called religion, if it is really what we wanted to pursue, what led us here anyway? Aren't we all, always, wondering?
Words like: Covenant. Prayer. Church. Religion. Why must we use these words?
We are wrestling with authority. Who gets authority and by what process? How are things decided, and where do we turn when we can't decide which way will work? What is the role of the minister - in the church, in my life?
We are wrestling with community. Even the best and most patient of us wish that we could banish one or two other of us. We'd like to pick and choose who we hang out with, who we get to do the work with, and we wonder why we keep getting tangled up with the same people who do nothing but push our buttons.
We are wrestling with purpose. We wonder if it matters what our outcome will be if along the way we push each other away, living as we do in a flight or fight pattern. We are considering the possibility that we can be about two things, those two things so perfectly aspired to in the Cambridge Platform: worship of that which is most worthy (and all that comes as a responsibility in that worship) and mutual edification (a learning community).
Most of all, we are wrestling with wrestling. We are testing to see what it would mean not to appease everyone, to let things stay somewhat unsettled, to remain in dialogue, to consider this healthy soil of growth, of personal and societal transformation. We are seeing if we mean it - this whole transformation business.
We are wrestling with words, and the meaning behind those words. Trying to decide about this thing called religion, if it is really what we wanted to pursue, what led us here anyway? Aren't we all, always, wondering?
Words like: Covenant. Prayer. Church. Religion. Why must we use these words?
We are wrestling with authority. Who gets authority and by what process? How are things decided, and where do we turn when we can't decide which way will work? What is the role of the minister - in the church, in my life?
We are wrestling with community. Even the best and most patient of us wish that we could banish one or two other of us. We'd like to pick and choose who we hang out with, who we get to do the work with, and we wonder why we keep getting tangled up with the same people who do nothing but push our buttons.
We are wrestling with purpose. We wonder if it matters what our outcome will be if along the way we push each other away, living as we do in a flight or fight pattern. We are considering the possibility that we can be about two things, those two things so perfectly aspired to in the Cambridge Platform: worship of that which is most worthy (and all that comes as a responsibility in that worship) and mutual edification (a learning community).
Most of all, we are wrestling with wrestling. We are testing to see what it would mean not to appease everyone, to let things stay somewhat unsettled, to remain in dialogue, to consider this healthy soil of growth, of personal and societal transformation. We are seeing if we mean it - this whole transformation business.
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