Enough & Jesus' 3-fold Model of Discernment

FCCBC Blog: http://inwardandoutward.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/enough-jesus-3-fold-model-of-discernment/

           Wayne Muller asserts that the good life is the life of enough. A life of enough is a life where we aren't wanting and grasping all the time, aren’t perpetually parched and dissatisfied, aren’t running around wrecked by our own impossible schedules. The good life, the life of enough, as opposed to the frenetic, never-enough life, is one where we breathe easy, one that includes moments of relaxation and recognition of beauty around us.  A life of enough is one where we say "agh, this is it, I am content, all is well" and don’t feel guilty about our own sense of sufficiency. A life of enough is one of rhythmic harmony, of shalom.

I’ve never met anyone on this Earth who seems to live the life of enough all the time. But I have known pilgrims upon the planet who seem to get it most of the time, a majority of the time, or perhaps just when it matters most. And what I notice about all of them is their capacity to make wise decisions. On page 27 of his “A Life of Being, Having and Doing Enough” Wayne writes these words:

We make only one choice. Throughout our lives, we do only one thing-again and again, moment by moment, year after year. It is how we live our days, and it how we shape our lives. The choice is this: What is the next right thing for us to do?

The people I know who do “enough” well are people who have a knack for wisely deciding the next right thing. That is, they are people who discern well. I think discernment is the key variable in the life of enough. So, you might ask: what makes for good discernment? Glad you asked…

I think Jesus gives us the ultimate model of holy discernment. Jesus spent time in solitude, in quiet contemplation. Jesus spent time in community, surrounded by people who would engage with him (both people like him and those who took issue with his ministry). And Jesus kept close to nature. I think all of us need these three unique portals for discernment in our lives. We need time alone, time to think and read sacred text, time to pray and silence ourselves. We need time and sharing with other humans who have distinct experience of their own that can shine a light, pose a challenge and strengthen our own understandings/options. And we need to spend time surrounded by what poet Wendell Berry calls “the peace of wild things.”

 The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

Wayne Muller is right: the good life is a life of enough. And he’s right that the life of enough comes about through constant decision making, comes through days and moments of choosing the next right thing. My sense is that we have a lot better shot at making wise decisions and choices if we follow Jesus’ 3-fold model of discernment, a model that keeps solitude, community and nature at the rhythmic center of our lives.

Stacy

Oh to see you again.

Literary artisans write poems about the way
eyes can lazer beam across time and space,
creating an interlocking for the spirit of love,
write poems about the way
eyes communicate unspoken truths
within and between their inhabitants,
write poems about the way
eyes do something beyond seeing,
like signifying the loyalty of looking itself,
like enacting fidelity.

We've never been lovers, not of the romantic kind.
You are a friend, though, of the highest loving caliber.
Your eyes never cease to amaze me
whenever we reconnect on couches after years apart
you talking (in the serene and simple ways you do) about the in's and out's,
odds and ends, hopes and cut up despairing of
being a daughter with a mommy gone too soon,
being a mother of twins that sparkle so bright you cannot help but stare,
being a committed partner in ravishing and restless times,
being a teacher that can't drop poetry or justice no matter the standardized demand,
being a devotee endlessly endlessly and again.
  
It is always about fidelity with you,
and yet amidst all the stories and enacted demonstrations
you've shared with me over the years, dear friend,
it is the sheer volume of your eyes
that does the convincing. And I,
I am convinced.

Showering in So Cal

Baby showers. Two of them.
One in the hills of Pasadena,
the other in the flat lands of Riverside.

One full of my mother's earthly companions:
business women,
philanthropists,
(still/busy) working women with grandchildren and great-grandchildren,
regals with arched eyebrows and bows on their shoes.
There: fruit platter, sticky buns and egg souffle.
There: talk of time, how to find a toy that'll occupy baby for "10 minutes."
There: long conversation into the afternoon about policy, future, and justice.

The other one full of former church families and friends:
football-watching dykes,
recovering and slipping addicts,
single moms who didn't choose it,
kids (from broken homes) now adults listening (more) closely to talk of 'family,'
black and white, middle classing and struggling.
There: cake, purple wrapped kisses and lemonade.
There: advice about listening and trusting what's within.
There: a lullaby sing a long.

My mother, daughter and I--
the only similar variable in these equations of difference,
these moments of togetherness that cannot be compared
in anything other than loving quality,
and perhaps a shared tenacity among women
to proclaim and celebrate a sacred new dawn (yes, Aurora)
even in the midst of their impossible (assigned) inheritance.

Such worlds we inhabit,
such geographies we cross,
such bridging and stumbling between,
our bodies, cultures and time.

We are, I am, She will.

Congregationalist Article 2012

Hey Know Noise Readers,

Peace be with you. 

I know that last post was Scrooge-ish. Here's a follow up. Just the peaks and valleys of (a pastor's) life being played out on a blog...

Blessings in 2012 to all of you.

------------------------------------------------

First Congregational Church of Battle Creek 

Congregationalist Article 

January 2012

I am thirsty for Wayne Muller. Thirsty for what he thinks, writes, and encourages in those brave enough to behold his spiritual guidance. He is exactly the person for us to journey with as we walk together in religious community this New Year. And here's a bit of a confession that leads to my assurance that Wayne is right for us right now. 

From the 18th to the 25th of December we hosted 8 worship services, including the Longest Night Service and a funeral for a beloved young man who died of a heroine overdose at the age of 27. We did Reel Theology for young families, Christmas baskets for the community, and our youth visited home-bound members to sing Christmas Carols. The heights and depths of Advent and Christmas joy, sadness, bewilderment, and profound reverence were touched this holiday season, of that I am sure. I am constantly in awe of how we show up, as a people committed to the Gospel, committed to the truth and love of God. We show up in the spirit of justice, with the hunger of hope, witnessing in action our belief that God's incarnation doesn't beckon us to sit it out but rather to go more and more intimately into this life's despairing and abundant realities. 

And Christmas about maxed me out this year. All I could do was curl up in a ball and watch back-to-back basketball games on Christmas day once our two worship services came to an end. The exhaustion was palpable. I'd shown up in all the ways I could and given every ounce of energy I had during the Christmas season. Yet, all I could do for most of the evening, as I sat on the couch, was think about the cards I didn't send, the parties or dinners I didn't attend (because I was double booked or too tired), the people I didn't see, the gifts I didn't give and why I didn't do more. 

Crazy. Do any of you ever experience this thing? This not enough thing? 

Please don't hear this as a laundry list of complaints. I love what I do for a living and wouldn't trade it for the world. In fact, it is because I love what I do that I'd like to get into the deeper significance of this not enough thing. I also suspect that I am not alone in this struggle. I see many of you, particularly those of you who show up consistently in the ministry of this church, wrestling with similar push and pull.  

In our culture, we are constantly asked to do more and to do more quickly. Technology has increased our capacity to 'get things done' with the click of a button. The market place and media have become around-the-clock enterprises that never shut down, shut off or shut up. Some call this progress. I'm not sure. What I do know is that more and more and more--whether the demand is coming externally or internally—often becomes the catalyst for burn-out, depression and feelings of guilt. We pair this culture of excess with our inherited Protestant work ethic, the idea that we achieve salvation through works of righteousness, and there's a recipe for spiritual malaise.

Tom Ott and I recognized this cultural and Protestant recipe being cooked up in our midst over a year ago and began working with Wayne. We wanted coaching from someone who could help us discover another way, a rhythmic, sustainable way of embodying faith. I remember the first time I heard Wayne’s voice on the phone. There was blessed reassurance in his deep, thunderous tone. I felt an abiding calm the minute he opened his mouth and in most of our encounters I find myself in tears because the beauty of his presence overwhelms me and brings me home to the truth of who I am and who God is. Over the course of our sessions with him, I have discovered the true spirit of Sabbath (not as practice, but as embodiment) with/in Wayne Muller. His writing, his speaking, his praying, his suggestions, all of it brings me into a greater awareness of and faithfulness to the divine giftedness of this life which is enough.

And so, if you are burned out after Christmas, are disillusioned with this culture that’s compulsively calling you to busy-ness while simultaneously flushing your self-esteem down the toilet, or if you just want to take your shoes off and feel the holy ground unfolding as you walk upon the Earth—I want to invite you to journey with us, with Wayne Muller, for the next 10 weeks as we explore “A Life of Being, Having and Doing Enough.”       

Pastoral Confessions on Christmas Eve's Eve

I did the funeral of a 27 year old yesterday. He was an incredible soul: creative, compassionate, empathic to a fault. And he was a heroine addict who died of an overdose. 

Today I opened my browser to find out that Gov. Rick Snyder wrote LGBT discrimination into law in my (now) home state of Michigan. 

For the last month, it's become increasingly painful for me to witness the rampant materialism and hypocritical hype of "charity" that characterize (most) North American celebrations of Christmas. Mass consumption of things and food are the markers of this cultural tradition matched with seasonal acts of sappy "service" that serve only as band-aids to social systems that need disinfectant and surgery. 

...

Weary

Skeptical

Angry

Disillusioned

...

I am militant about honoring the life of Jesus. I am militant about justice. I am militant about our world being a place where sacred flesh (all flesh) can thrive. This world is NOT reflecting what Christmas is about, what Jesus enfleshed or what the beloved community can be. And so I'm having a hard time celebrating/ritualizing this "holiday." Please forgive me...

Maybe when the candle light goes up in the air

maybe when people I haven't seen for a while, people I love hug me 

maybe when lyrics familiar, laced with grace come out through my throat without any effort

maybe when people see the stable as ultimate indictment of privilege--maybe then I'll feel it.

But until then, please forgive me.  

A Portal

So the following link serves as a portal for me. An entry and lens into some of the embodiments that most speak to, remind, and invigorate me. Yet I cannot post this in more public venues because of the language. Balancing personal and professional ethics never ceases to befuddle me. How can something this beautiful be censored? And out of respect to what, exactly? My questions to wrestle with, I suppose. In the meantime, I share...here.

http://fuckyeahdykes.tumblr.com/

Rant

I don't want to have any more conversations about individuals or specific acts when it comes to the following: violence, mental health, addiction, sex, race, ability, religion, over-privilege, under-privilege, employment or education. If there's no systems analysis, I don't want to hear it or talk about it. Period. End of story.  

To The Women/s: A Poetic Letter/Plea at the Horizons of Feminist & Continental Philosophy

Some of you have more to say now. 

Others look away with greater judgement and speed than before.

Still others drop off gifts, quietly, sometimes anonymously--

gifts color-coded, gifts cloaked in generational grind. 

Yet another group of you can't look at me without crying

because images of your abortions, miscarriages, 

your torturous waiting that turned into a never,
that he left you for some vagina-that-could,

come flooding every time my engorged belly passes by.

Little girl creatures stare and stare and stare:

as if I'm some new constellation in the sky, 

begging for a name and mythology all my own.

The oldest, those closest to death

say things so unfiltered, it's almost refreshing. Almost.

New tongues and traditions between us 
and though I am delighted, I have something to say:

I see you. 

I see it all. 

But I saw you before, too. 

Do you know that? 

Before you began applying the universal woman/mother hermeneutic upon my flesh,

before you tiptoed through the entrance of a 'tolerable' discourse 

in this culture that tries to annihilate anything authentic and creative between-women
outside of its Cosmopolitan, Better-Homes-and-Gardens, Madonna/Whore jurisdictions-- 

I yearned for you.
Yearned for your speech, 
your glances and judgements, 
your quiet and anonymous gifts, 
your tears. 

I've wanted to see/hear/touch/love all of you all along. Not just about this. 

Not just about the labor of our love externalized, as Irigaray would say. 

But about the labor of y/our interiority too.

Your questions, desires, and mad-ass plans to do it different,

the burning shame you hold because of too many nevers,

the way you touch yourself when the loneliness has become too stifling,

the way you make sense, the way you become incensed.

The books that burst you into belly laughter.

Why you cry in church like that.

Your stories and songs outside the obligatory and caved-in.

I've wanted all of you, all along. 

I do not confess my longing,
as the framers of autocratic/phallic/fuckery would propose,
from a location of hyper-feminine, dyked-out insatiability.
This is not a petition of one who wears black leather, fish nets and red lipstick.
Does anyone else yawn in the face of such simplicity? 
These are the yearnings of one who occasionally
glimpses the "one" we are not because of the dynamic, difference we are.
And it sets me free. Not to be you. But to be me, and in being totally me,
the possibility to love you, to love the ineffable us, which is 
after all the greatest gift I can give this unborn daughter
coming into our fold, a line of flight her very own.

 

Aurora the Aporia: Learning Apophasis (again) from the Inside for Once

Another thing you should know about your mother:
I spend a lot of time watching movement. Movement of the earth in seasons.
Movement of the Multitude in pursuit of justice. Movement of liturgy.
Movement from trauma to healing.  But there's nothing, absolutely nothing,
that captivates my attention like the movement of the human body.
I spend hours, days in fact, watching flesh do its thing.
And I make countless guesses about what motivates human movement.

My seminary professor Dr. Marion Grau says this is hermeneutical,
that we are interpretive bodies interpreting bodies. She's right. About many things.
But back to the matter at hand, at foot, at head and heart and bone and all things body.
These guesses I make, that we all make, about how/when&why movement erupts
in ourselves, or in others--these guesses and interpretations reveal much about
the guesser, the interpreter herself. And in that regard, dearest Aurora,
morning's dawn, light of day, you are already reminding me of what I don't know.

Sometimes you are still for long long periods of time.
And then there are times, like last night, when you move rapidly, with fierce intensity
and repetition for hours. Undeniable, attention-grabbing force in what you are doing.
I wonder, in motionless moments and silence, if you are tired.
In moments when you are physically erupting inside of me I wonder
if you are hungry, excited, uncomfortable, seeking release, happy. What? I don't know.

And that's the gift of it all. I am brought back to the truth of not-knowing.
Best guesses and interpretations aside: I don't know what moved you to come alive,
to come into first, second and third trimesters.
I don't know what causes your dormancy or excitability.
I will never, completely, fully know you or understand your movement.
Not when you're born.
Not when you try to explain it to me with the
language this world extends to you. Never.
Unless I slip into sinful amnesia, you will always remain a mystery to me. 

Which makes this life with you all the more inviting, which makes seeking
the who/what/why of you all the more enlivening.
The body: mystery. Motivation: mystery. Movement: aporia par excellance.
What a treasure to be taught this timeless truth from the inside for once.

Advent Congregationalist Article

For the longest time I had visceral, negative reactions to the phrase “wait on the Lord.” I know it’s biblical. I know it’s been in our tradition for a long time. I know it brings (some) people comfort. But it often comes across to me like a sound-byte, cliche that people utter when they have nothing else to say. Further, far too many people “wait on the Lord” when they could be taking concrete steps in their lives to make their situations more hopeful. It always rubs me the wrong way when God’s name gets invoked in order to absolve humans of their responsibility. And on top of all this, waiting often seems like the exact opposite of what God calls us to be about in the world. I’ve understood faith to be about acting from a place of assured risk, acting from the place of hope secured in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. I mean, you didn’t see Jesus waiting on Rome or legalistic, corrupt religion to change their behavior. He actively turned his face/life/ministry toward Jerusalem and actively changed the world forever with his active challenge of love and justice. So what’s with this passive, waiting business evoked in his name at this time of year?  

In the Advent season we are told, again, yet again, “wait on the Lord.” And again, yet again, the promise of God’s incarnation is what we are instructed to wait for. God is going to show up, they say. A star will rise in the East, they say. Unto us a savior will be born, they say. So we get out our calendars and count the days. We invoke and plea with the spirit of God through song: “oh come oh come Emmanuel.” We watch a different family light a new candle in worship each week. It’s delightful, isn’t it? The purple and blue. The fire light. The familiar hymns. The way children get excited and remind us, literally, that miracles come in small packages. It’s new every time, this Advent thing, even though we do it again, yet again. It's new every time because we are different every year. That's the glory of religion: it connects us to timeless truths as we change week after week, month after month, year after year.

This year, it’s particularly new to me and it’s carving out a new appreciation and respect for a phrase I used to hold in high contempt. Something big is going to show up in my life this year. Something I can’t control. Something inside me, yet independent of me too. Something that will change my life forever. Every day I wait. Wait for the moment when she’ll show up. Wait for the moment when I’ll see her face. Wait for the moment of birth. I can’t control how it happens or when it happens. But I can get prepared, emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually.

Pregnancy is teaching me about what I do have control over, what I don’t, and that the greatest spiritual gift I can give myself and this little one is to wait with awe-filled anticipation. There’s also some fearful dread, some uncomfortable moments of not-knowing. That’s also a part of Advent (which we’ll be hearing about as we journey with the Prophet Isaiah in church over the next weeks). But mostly, this waiting is filled with joy-filled curiosity and splendor. There’s nothing passive about it. It’s a choice, a choice born of love and surrender to the miraculous processes that transcend and live inside me simultaneously. Advent waiting is the same: it’s not passive; it’s a choice born of our love and surrender to God who transcends and lives inside us all simultaneously. We wait on the promise that God will be born, will show up, again, yet again. And that we will be made new, because of that birth & showing up again, yet again.  

Pregnancy is teaching me the unmatched spiritual power of waiting this winter, the Advent, this sacred season. What wondrous love is this...

Amen.