Tag: God

Hungry for God’s Word

by Talitha Arnold

What are you hungry for? Chocolate? Ice cream? A big juicy steak? Grilled veggies?

Long ago, the Prophet Amos proclaimed a different kind of hunger, one for the word of God. He said his people were in the midst of a famine in their land. “Not a famine of bread or a thirst for water,” he said, but a famine of the hearing of the words of the Lord.” (Amos 8:4-6, 11-12)

Amos could have been talking about our time, our land, and our world. Perhaps like you, after the last two weeks of news from Turkey and France, Dallas and Baton Rouge, and all the other violence-racked places of our world, I am hungry for God’s word–

God’s word of peace that this world seems incapable of offering.
God’s word of love that can overcome all the hate and fear.
God’s word of hope that pushes back the despair.
God’s word of courage to trust that peace, hope, and even love are still possible.

How do we hear that word? Turning off the news, at least for a while, is one way. The world and its news will still be there when you turn it back on.

Joining with others in worship to give thanks and raise our voices in song is another way. So is taking time for prayer, on Sunday mornings and throughout the other days of the week as well.

But how to pray in such a time? Here’s a prayer from the United Church of Christ Book of Worship to get started:

Jesus said, “You ought always to pray and not faint.”
God of heaven and earth, help us not to pray for easy lives;
But pray to be stronger women and men.
Help us not to pray for tasks equal to our powers,
But for power equal to our tasks and your work.
So that the doing of your work in our world will be no miracle—
But our openness to you and your power will be the miracle.
And every day we will wonder at ourselves and the richness of life
That has come to us by the grace of God. Amen.

Another one:

Dear Lord,
We pray for all the children entrusted to our care
and those throughout the world. Be good to them.

The sea is so big,
and their boat is so small.
Amen.

When we don’t have the words to pray, when we can’t will ourselves not to worry, when we are famished for God’s word, the prayers of others can feed our deep hungers. I hope you’re hungry enough to join in worship and prayer tomorrow. And if you can’t be there, I hope you will take time to offer these or other prayers for our time. Lord knows this hungry world needs them.

Faith Nonetheless

by Kenneth McIntosh

It would seem that in recent news there’s something happening to make almost everyone afraid. Gun violence in general, the Pulse nightclub massacre, and killings connected with racism, are all viscerally upsetting. Political stakes have never seemed higher, with voters on the left and the right portraying the upcoming presidential race as near-apocalyptic in its possible outcome. Even before these recent events, Time Magazine, at the start of this year, published an article titled “Why Americans are More Afraid Than They Used to Be.” It included terrorism as a cause, along with “the politics of fear” (the trend for politicians to invoke fear as motivation for their causes). They add that the widespread loss of trust in government (on all sides) leads to the perception that citizens must handle threats increasingly by themselves — adding to the sense of anxiety.

Christians in mainline denominations have a well-established and laudable reaction to fear; we redouble efforts for justice. This certainly reflects Jesus’ priority to “seek first the Reign of God, and God’s justice.” There’s a risk, however, in passionate involvement even for thoroughly good causes—activists can fall prey to the same fears and anxieties that afflict persons who are not involved in justice work—and when that happens, people of faith lose their distinctive witness.

In uncertain times, belief in the Living God can counterbalance the temptation to fear and its attendant maladies (such as anger, desperation, withdrawal and poor judgement). Marcus Borg, in his book The Heart of Christianity, wrote about how his wife would teach adult classes the meaning of faith by asking them “How many of you have taught a child to swim?” Borg then notes that “Faith … is trusting in the buoyancy of God. Faith is trusting in the sea of being in which we live and move and have our being.” He goes on to explain “The opposite of trust is not doubt or disbelief…its opposite is ‘anxiety’ or ‘worry.” He concludes “Growth in faith as trust casts out anxiety.”

More recently, John Cobb, the famous process theologian, released his book Jesus’ Abba: The God Who Has Not Failed. Cobb laments that misunderstandings of God’s nature have led many liberal Christians to eschew robust faith in the Deity that Jesus followed. The unfortunate result is that such a religion “rarely challenges its members to devote themselves to God.” Cobb understands the problems that have led believers to eschew God-talk. The list of these problems includes: claims of God’s absolute omnipotence, lack of compassion, scientific unreasonableness, and exclusivity. But these problems—he says—are not attributes of Jesus’s Abba God. We need to relate to God with the same manner of faith we see in Jesus, because The pressing issues of our world require actions that will be “hard to achieve without the belief in the One who is, or relates to, the whole and is felt worthy of our total devotion.”

In Luke 18:1, “Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart” (NRSV). This seems a timely word for our situation today. We need to keep our focus on the reality of God, who is present in the rough-and-tumble physicality of our world and is constantly working to create openings for grace and redemption. Accompanying such a focus, we need to remain steadfast in time-honored practices of prayer and contemplation that keep us “tuned in” to God. The stories of faith in our Scriptures include the presence of great evil, of intolerance, and of dire injustice. We should not be surprised to see the same powers and principalities at work in our world today; and by the same token we should expect to see Abba God powerfully at work in our midst. When fear and discouragement knock at our door we can reply “we have faith in God, nonetheless.”

The Power of Pretend

by Amanda Petersen

I just spent the morning on a beautiful island eating very juicy oranges and sipping tea. All of this was done on my living room floor with my granddaughter.  She is just learning the power of pretend. We laughed and giggled as the imaginary oranges squirted all over us. As I watched the light in her eyes as she figured out this pretend game, I thought of all the other places she will imagine in her lifetime.

Practicing imagination is a wonderful contemplative practice.  I know I have spoken about the power of the moment and getting real as contemplative practices, yet  giving oneself permission to imagine possibilities is also a great practice.  The imagination can lead one to a bigger picture of God, life, and community. For example, one may say God is male, judgmental, or disappointed. Maybe the vision is there is no time for prayer, life is stuck or things could never improve.  This is where the gift of the imagination is a Godly pursuit. Think of Martin Luther King saying, “I have a dream.”  What if one’s imagination could allow for a kind, beyond gender, forgiving God?  The contemplative imagination allows one to sit in a pretend world where one can find the time to pray, where life is full of possibilities beyond what is happening. Who know where it can lead? It also gives the space to try out life in a different way without having to upend everything.

The imagination is a very powerful prayer practice, not to be taken lightly, because it can also lead into places of limits and lack of possibility. When the time of imagining is over, the individual is different, whether the circumstances change or not. The door to life as it is known is open because one has seen it. Then comes the work in the real world. How does this time of pretend make its way into this life? How does imagining a more loving world help one create a more loving world? How does imagining a bigger God help one begin to examine the God they are encountering now?

My time this morning on the island has created a connection and a memory with my granddaughter that will continue to shape our lives together. The world just got a little bigger for both of us. Where do you go in your imagination? How can the power of pretend be a prayer practice for you?

I Pray God for You

by Amos Smith

I had a mentor in Seminary who would often say or write, “I pray God for you”. I was always a bit puzzled that he left “to” out of his statements. I wanted to say, “don’t you mean ‘I pray to God for you.’”

As the years passed, I realized that leaving out “to” was deliberate. With time I have come to understand that we are indeed in God. To say that we are in God changes everything. We no longer pray to God out there but pray God. It means that God is not separate or separated from us. What we are praying to we also participate in.

Emmanuel (God with us), dwells in us through prayer and Holy Communion. The risen Christ envelops us. We are God’s own. We can also have an influence on God. God becomes not so much something we pray to, but something we participate in.

“For in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

To Life!

by Karen MacDonald

(revised from a sermon preached 9/13/15)

Fr. Richard Rohr has said:  “Your life is not about you.  You are about life.”

Natalie Angiers, in her book The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, gives an amazing, expansive view of this truth.  She describes the puzzle pieces of life, RNA and DNA, that arose in the first cells to emerge on Earth, the same puzzle pieces that have infused, and still infuse, every living creature since, up until this moment and in every ensuing moment.  “Life so loved being alive that it has never, since its sputtering start, for a moment ceased to live.”  (p. 181)  

And Deuteronomy declares in God’s voice, “Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you nor is it too far away….No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe….Choose life so that you and your descendants may live…in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors….”  (Deuteronomy 30: 11-20, passim)

The vermilion flycatcher and the mesquite tree in which it flits, the humpback chub fish and California condor trying to regain their footing in the Grand Canyon, Mexican gray wolves and the trees of the Gila National Forest, the western diamondback that calls our deserts home, you, me—we’re all enmeshed in and vibrating with the essence of life!  Life is imprinted in us.  So let us choose life, with the divine view.  Choose love, for all our relations, human and otherwise, in creation.  Then we’ll live long in the land given us, this beautiful Earth.

The choice isn’t too hard for us; the word isn’t outside us, far away in heaven or beyond the sea.  Rather, the word is in our mouth and in our heart.  The spark if life is in us from the first cell.  The Spirit of the Holy is in us from in the beginning.  

While the divine way of life and love isn’t too hard for us, it can be difficult nonetheless, as Jesus knew.  It’s out of step with the dominant world’s way, and sometimes with our own wants, and so can be painful and sorrowful and risky.  This may be the Lenten and the Holy Week experience in a world, and sometimes our own hearts, that are self-centered and fearful.  And this divine way may enrich our Easter living in every season.  For it’s an expanded and expansive way of living.  For example:

  • If I do this or say this, how might it affect the other person?
  • If I stay silent or on the sidelines, how will it affect others, human and otherwise?
  • What animal and Earth resources and human labor went into this item I want?
  • How can I help save the life of others, human and otherwise?
  • Am I living as if I’m part of life that so loves being alive?  As if I’m part of God’s love?

This spirit-centered, holy way of living expands our way of being, expands our very being.

To paraphrase Richard Rohr, our life is not about us.  You and I are about nothing less magnificent than life!  That amazing truth moves us through pain and sorrow and risk to a resurrection, once again and always, of life that loves being alive, of love undeterred for all creation.  Hallelujah!

Does our Extravagant Welcome Speak to the Soul?

by Kenneth McIntosh

Last Sunday a visitor at our church mentioned her frustration in another congregation, her feeling that “I’m not growing deeper with God.” I wonder how many people in our churches share that sense of need? There’s much talk about the missing millennial generation (18-29 year olds) in our churches. Indeed, a 2013 Barna survey titled “Three Spiritual Journeys of Millennials” confirms that more than 50% of persons in that demographic have dropped out of church. But the study goes deeper than that, placing these leavers into three categories, and the biggest category of church dropouts is what the Barna survey calls “Nomads.” “This group is comprised of 18- to 29-year-olds with a Christian background who walk away from church engagement but still consider themselves Christians. “ So they consider themselves Christ-followers but aren’t finding what they desire in church.

I wonder if the problem for these “Nomads,” at least to some extent, might be our failure to advertise or facilitate ways to genuinely experience and grow deeper in God? When the Apostle Paul wrote to Christians in Ephesus in the first century, his greatest desire for them was “that the God of our savior Jesus Christ, the God of glory, will give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation, to bring you to a rich knowledge of the Creator” (Ephesians 1:17, The Inclusive Bible). The same need may be truer today. Amos Smith, pastor of Church of the Painted Hills UCC in Tucson says “People in our time think scientifically, we need practical verification that something is true or not. If I don’t experience something in my nervous system, there’s a lack of verification.” Smith then refers to the positive example of psychologist Karl Jung who was asked by an interviewer if he believed in God? Jung replied, in a modest voice, “I don’t believe, I know.” Such faith, grounded not in rote propositions but in experiential reality, may be the deepest need for Christians in a Post-modern age.

Could it be that the political polarization of society has pushed both Conservative and Progressive faith communities to emphasize things other than experiencing God? I expect this is true more in terms of public perception than of actual congregational life—but what the public perceives has significant impact on churches. Conservative churches, associated with the political right, can be characterized as rule-focused. They offer the do’s and don’ts of morality, based on hyper-literal Bible interpretations, as the focus of spiritual life. But by the same measure, Progressive churches may so emphasize justice and peace that they can also reduce the Christian life to saying and doing the right things.

I sometimes wonder, as we offer extravagant welcome, what are welcoming people to? One person seeking a church—a lesbian who is politically involved in liberal causes—told me “I visited several UCC churches in my area, but they only offered confirmation of my social and political beliefs. I need a church where they’ll help me deepen my relationship with God.”

A decade ago Richard Peace and David Schoen, two of the most prominent UCC thinkers on spiritual formation and evangelism respectively, wrote an article titled “Listening for the Still Speaking God: Contemplative Evangelism” (you can Google it and read the pdf online). In that article they emphasize the importance of “classic spiritual formation … birthed in silence, shaped by the spiritual disciplines, and guided by a knowledgeable spiritual director.”

I am glad to say that we have all of that in the Southwest Conference. There are SWC churches where the pastors and lay people are pursuing contemplative prayer and integrating spirituality into their everyday lives. We also have Teresa Blythe with the Heysechia school and Amanda Peterson with Pathways of Grace both offering venues for seekers in the Southwest to grow deeper in contemplative and experiential faith.

But do we emphasize such opportunities for spiritual experience when we invite people to our faith communities? Schoen and Peace, in the aforementioned article, draw a picture of “Contemplative Evangelism.” They write, “What if prayer were the central component of evangelism? By this I mean, what if the very desire to reach out to others was born in the fire of contemplative prayer where the presence of God was so palpable that one could not help but want to share this reality with others?” Imagine a faith community where the message “Whoever you are, you are welcome” is followed with, “We will explore spiritual practices together with you, experiencing the healing presence of God.” Peace and Schoen further explain, “This would be evangelism out of the silence rather than via the loud proclamation. It would be evangelism of companionship—as both evangelist and seeker reach out to God. It would be evangelism of the retreat and the small group conversation, rather than evangelism of the large meeting and forceful challenge. It would be evangelism of spiritual direction (in which the voice of God is sought) rather than evangelism of the witnessing monologue.”

Church of the Painted Hills offers a practical example of such “Contemplative Evangelism” with their Friday Centering Prayer gatherings. They advertise via flyers at local Yoga studios, and half the people who attend their gatherings are unaffiliated with the church. They come driven by a desire to experience God.

Theologian Karl Rahner said “The Christian of the future will be a mystic, or will not exist at all.” In a time of declining church attendance, perhaps we should more openly advertise that our faith communities offer ancient and effective spiritual practices, trails inviting those who wish to walk on such mystical paths.

The essential practice of Breath Prayer

by Teresa Blythe

Prayer is how we connect most intimately with our still-speaking-God. For the next few months, I’ll be offering you some prayer practices that I hope will provide some variety to your regular spiritual practice. One of the most beloved styles of prayer is the breath prayer.

If we think of God being as close to us as our very breath, then breath prayer is a natural.

Breath and spirit are closely linked in both the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament.  In the book of Job, Elihu tells Job, “the spirit of God has made me and the breath of the Almighty gives me life,” and in the gospel of John, when Jesus appeared to the disciples after resurrection he breathed on them and said “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

We, too, can link breath to spirit with intentionality. One breath prayer that is simple and effective is one that you create for yourself. Follow the steps listed below and then carry your breath prayer around with you for a few days.

  1. Begin with intention. Ask God to help you form this breath prayer.
  2. Ponder your favorite name for God. For some it might be God, others prefer using the name of Jesus, Sophia, Wisdom, Pure Love, Holy Spirit, Source of Life, Ground of our Being, Higher Power—you name it (literally!). Choose the name or image for the Holy One that resonates deeply with you.
  3. Reflect for a moment on what it is you need or what you may want to express in your breath prayer. Come up with a short phrase that fits. It should be short enough to say in one breath.
  4. You will put these two together in any way you prefer. I’ll give some examples of this kind of breath prayer so you know what I mean.

Freedom, in Christ

God, grant us peace

Lord, hear my prayer

Help me follow you, Higher Power

Heal me, Loving God

  1. Once you determine what your breath prayer is, you inhale on part one, and exhale on part two. Allow the breath to carry the words along with it. Say the prayer over and over (silently or aloud), like a mantra. Before long, you will find you are “breathing the prayer.”  Allow the breath prayer to gently lead you to that place of inner silence and calm—the place where you don’t need to say the words any more. This is known as the place of contemplation.
  2. If you want, write your breath prayer on a small piece of paper and carry it with you as a reminder to keep breathing and praying.

You may find that a breath prayer helps you breathe more easily through your day. Feel free to change your breath prayer from time to time to suit your life’s circumstances. Or you may feel so connected to your original one that you use it exclusively to lead you into contemplative silence. You can do what you want with it. God gave you the prayer for the good of you and the world.

Perhaps you need assistance with your prayer practices or would like accompaniment on your spiritual path. Consider spiritual direction—the ancient practice of checking in with a trained spiritual guide who will deeply listen and offer observations, reflections and questions to draw out your own wisdom. For information about spiritual direction as I practice it, check out my website.

A Whole Lens on Life

by Beth Johnson

I walked around for months with my head down and my chubby little seven-year-old hands clasped . . . around a 1950’s Eastman Kodak Brownie Camera, a Christmas gift from my parents, intended to distract me from the death of my older brother, Billy, whose four-year battle with childhood leukemia had been lost several days before his tenth birthday.  Little did they know how symbolic this new lens on life would become for me.

Our family was numb.  Our lives had revolved around Billy’s care, keeping him encouraged, doctored and medicated (at the Cleveland Clinic), and rested.  We siblings brought his school work home weekly from the Edwin Markham Elementary School, and sat on his bed to play board games, willingly giving up our friendship time to support his health.  Our family had purchased one of the first black-and-white T.V.’s for his bedroom so that we could enjoy “The Lone Ranger” and “Howdy Doody” and hope to cheer him up. We had gone to church every Sunday and prayed and done everything right.  Of course Billy couldn’t go because of germs.  He had died despite our heroic efforts.  

Our minister advised that we kids not attend the funeral.  Too sad an event, as if we weren’t already devastated and knew exactly what had happened, as if we might live blissfully onward without a care.  Billy’s leukemia had been, after all, four years of all of our lives.  We stayed home with our grandmother and cried.  Our clergy preached that we should all feel happy that Billy was in Heaven with God, no more pain or suffering.  They seemed to have no concept of the kind of support we could have used to help us work through the deep hollowness that the death brings.  

After my second grade class let out one day, I walked directly to our church and asked to meet with the Head Minister.  I was ushered into the office of the Minister for Christian Education, a woman with a strong intellect and little warmth.  I sat dwarfed in her huge brown leather wing-back chair and asked if she could help my family with our sadness.  She told me to give my life to Jesus Christ and everything would be O.K.  She gave me theology when I needed God’s Love and Sustenance.  She gave me precepts when I needed the warmth of a faith community.

Within a year, my mother had Stage IV breast cancer and a radical mastectomy. I can still picture my eight-year-old-self standing in shock by her bedside as she showed me her railroad track scar and explained what the doctors had needed to do.  From that point our family life struggled.  I listened while  my mother cried herself to sleep many nights out of a sense of guilt and for fear of losing another child.  We were living with the sudden rise of polio and no one knew the causes.  My father traveled increasingly for his work.  We kids buried ourselves in our school work and tried to be the best daughters and sons possible in order to alleviate our parents’ suffering.

One day, as I shuffled my little feet home from school, one of my brother’s classmates asked me where Billy was.  I hesitantly pointed toward the sky.  “No!” he exclaimed.  “That can’t be true!”

At that moment I realized that there were probably many people in my life who had no idea that my brother had died.  A second “aha” came close on the heels of that one – that there were very likely lots of people in the world walking around with smiles on their faces while hiding deep pain.  Because that was exactly what my parents and siblings and I were doing. At age seven, radical empathy was born.

This life-changing experience was the jump-start of my spiritual and moral development.  It became a lens through which I filtered every life experience.  It heightened my sensitivity to people around me, driving me forward with an untamable desire to ease human suffering, especially through the church and God’s Love.  This life lens led me to understand that children, adolescents and young adults within and outside of our churches have deep needs for spiritual and moral support and guidance.  They may not show that to us, but it is there and they need us to love them.  People of all ages and walks of life are doing the best they can and need us to be God’s Love for them.

My experience of my brother’s leukemia and death is something that I rarely discuss but I am very conscious that it was a pivotal experience that has catapulted me into the ministry and the helping professions.  There is no greater pastoral care tool for a clergy person than understanding pain, from the inside.  

You, too, have stories of pain and struggle that have immeasurably changed who you became, as a person and a professional.  That job that you lost, the parent who left, the wayward child, an addiction, a run-in with the law, you know.  Are you embracing your “pain stories” ?  At least to yourself?  Are you recognizing how they have shaped and strengthened you, even though they were extremely difficult?  Even though you’d like to bury many of them in your unconscious mind.   

We bring “our whole stories” (OWS) to life and to church.  It is through the lenses of the “OWS” that we respond to every situation, secular and sacred.  Our assumptions, perceptions, conclusions, fears, and actions are ALL filtered through the lens of the “OWS.”  Furthermore, every other person in your faith community is having the same individualized experience.  We are all looking for healing and acceptance, understanding and deepening, growth and a sense of spiritual peace and goodness, friendship and Love.  We are all looking to become better, more whole people.

Jesus made it very clear that God treasures each of our “whole stories.”  Warts and all.  The woman at the well.  The woman who was hemorrhaging.  The dishonest tax collector. The mad man inhabited by demons.  Our whole stories develop us into God’s people, if we will let them.  Our OWS have Power! Together with God, we can turn them into “POWS” !

Jesus lived authentically and embraced the unbelievably difficult aspects of his life and calling.  He could have backed down during the last week of his life, but he did not.  His “whole story” is what we carry forward as Christianity.  If he had not lived “whole-ly,” there would be no Christianity.  Jesus gave us a lens through which to perceive and experience life and a role model to follow.  The lens is his whole life story.

How have the lenses of your “whole story” informed your development?  How has the lens that Jesus provided helped you?  Far better lenses than my 1950’s Brownie Camera !

“Be ye perfect (whole) as your Father in Heaven is perfect (whole).”  Mt. 5:48

To respond confidentially to this article, you may reach Beth using the contact information on her contributor page.

 

Are You Resurrection Brave?

by Amanda Peterson

Easter Sunday is filled with joyful celebration of the resurrection.  Yet what I read in Scripture and what I witness at Pathways of Grace is more complex than that.  To be in the presence of a resurrection moment means the willingness to face fears, be vulnerable and courageous.

The first witnesses of the empty tomb were afraid.  Later we read the disciples were huddled in a room afraid to go out.  Those who walk through the door of Pathways of Grace for the first time are often nervous because they don’t know what to expect.  It isn’t often advertised that facing spiritual growth can be frightening.  Especially when it is new.  Saying yes I want resurrection in my life is a courageous statement not a warm fuzzy teddy bear.  In fact being willing to claim resurrection in one’s own life often means letting go of much of what was once comfortable.  That is very scary.

I have witnessed many who stop on the journey because they run into fear.  They are told of course you can do this it is a happy joyful thing and what they experience is vulnerability, change and challenge and feels like failure in the midst of a celebration only gospel.  I want to let those of you who may have had this experienced and stopped because of fear and change that it is worth the risk to try again.  Not for some mountain top high but because it is in the midst of that experience that one really gets to know God in one’s soul.  (and it may even mean coming up with another word or understanding of God).

The good news in the Scriptures and in life is this journey, though individual, is not done alone.  In the Gospels, the resurrection scenes have Jesus there to encourage and inspire.  In our lives today Jesus appears in the form of a book or spiritual director or a new friend or a workshop or a vision or in some other way.  As we get ready to celebrate Easter that is what we are truly celebrating, the fact that no matter how frightening, challenging, joyful or changing this life may be, if we are willing to go to places beyond our imagination we will find God there.

Please consider the offerings at Pathways of Grace the space of encouragement to allow you to enter this scary, powerful, amazing relationship with God.

 

View what’s possible: an astonishing experience of the infinite

By Kelly Kahlstrom

I don’t know if you recall the View-master’s from childhood. A “reel” of slides could be dropped into the stereoscope and with a click the slides would change and tell a story. Even the slogan “View-master- View what’s possible” held great intrigue for me. I am asking you to imagine this blog as a story in a View-master.

*click*

Title: ChazzyBear: a story in four pictures.

*click*

I was in the car driving to Tucson for a weekend with my grandchildren. I hurriedly leave right after work hoping to arrive before they go to bed; a few minutes of Oma time and perhaps a few books before lights out. Just outside of Marana I received the text. Chaz was dead. So many questions I could not address in the car nor adequately from Tucson. I was alone with my thoughts and my time with the kids was frequently punctuated with images of Chaz. Chaz my love…such a short life you had…woefully packed with more than your fair share of demons…Early life trauma begat addictions to food, nicotine, alcohol and pain meds which seemed to manage you for much of your life as did the medical complications that followed…Your anxiety and alternatively your depression seemed immeasurable and endless… You had aged out of services but were not yet ready to fly… You did not fit the gender binary… So many obstacles for one young person to have to hurdle in a thousand lifetimes of trying…The pathology was overwhelming… And then you were gone… a death out of the normal sequence of time…suddenly, regrettably, but sadly, not unexpectedly.  

*click*

Now imagine her peer group huddled together in disbelief at this turn of events. It had been 3 days since the news broke of her accidental overdose. Skillfully encouraged by an adult volunteer, her peers offered their expressions of remembrance…Silly, brave, fun, divine, daredevil, genuine, compassionate, funny, artistic, wonderful, thoughtful, mindful, deep, enduring, laughter, real, outspoken, smile, caring, open, sharing, friend, courageous, supporter, leader, sassy, survivor, inspirational, powerful, heartfelt, dancer, joyous, empathetic, rebel, charismatic, non-apologetic, beautiful, challenger, fearless, forward, radiant, sparkle, confident, loved.

To her peers she was a bad-a** woman who was not afraid to own her issues, and who expressed her pain and joy through music and dance.

*click*

Flashback, if you will, to a time before photography, at the turn of the 19th century, in the center of cultural life in Berlin. The literary salon; “a simple tea-table with a charming hostess, enthusiasm for reading and discussing literature, sparkling conversation and an atmosphere of friendship”. The Aufklärung, or the Enlightenment, dominated the world of ideas shared in these salons. Reason was fast becoming the primary source of authority and legitimacy. Yet, one member of Henriette Herz’s salon was something of an enigma to the typical salon participant. A brilliant and gifted conversationalist, by all appearances an Enlightenment thinker, but also a cleric who retained his Moravian roots and, seemingly, the antiquated beliefs of the church. For his 29th birthday, the salon participants gave him free reign to “explain himself” to the “cultured despisers” of his day. This is what he said to them:

  1. You think religion is only about priests and rules (or knowing and doing). It is not.
  2. This is what I think religion is: an astonishing experience of the infinite which can be found in the most mundane, finite moments of our lives if we are awake to them.
  3. Learning to “stay awake” must be cultivated and takes practice.
  4. These experiences of the infinite are so cool that they beg to be shared with others. The more they are shared with others the better each of us are at recognizing the infinite when we see it.
  5. There is a social structure already set up to cultivate and talk about these experiences. It is called church. You should try it sometime.  The only differences between the experiences of those inside church and those outside of church is that the church calls these experiences God.

Young Friedrich Schleiermacher was able to convince some of his closest friends to consider this possibility.

*click*

Now picture the conference office, fondly called the 917, filled to capacity and decked out in flowers, candles, and pink and purple balloons. A video projector played a loop of the many pictures of Chaz dancing, singing, and participating in the life of this community. Through the outreach efforts of Elizabeth Youngberg, pastor of Rebel & Divine, Chaz’s mother, younger brother and maternal grandmother were present for the service. It was peer led; her friends offered the prayers, the music, the poetry readings, and the remembrances. Simple…Heartfelt…Tearful…Beautiful.

This was the environment that Chaz’s brother stepped into when he stood to say a few words. He was, by his own admission, as shy and introverted as Chaz was outgoing. The dress shirt and pants purchased for the occasion seemed uncomfortably out of character for him. He apologized for his perceived lack of eloquence and then, with quiet sincerity, he shared his thoughts. He was surprised to learn of Chaz’s attachment to this community – a community that we call church. And through this experience, he realized that he had never really known his sister. This led to a request for conversation; an open invitation to all who knew Chaz to share their stories with him so that he could fill in the gaps of his own, and perhaps fractured, experience of her.  

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Epilogue: Only Chaz’s brother can say if the service and fellowship afterward constituted an experience of the infinite for him. It certainly was for me. Like the View-master slogan- “View what is possible,” I am continually amazed at the opportunities we have to adjust (and by this I mean broaden) our own perceptions when we actively participate in the life of a community. Especially a community that finds experiences of the infinite so cool that they beg to be shared with others; whether or not they can call these experiences God. ChazzyBear…you left bigger shoes to fill than I first imagined. Rest in peace.