Reading Ahead -- Pentecost 18

This week's reading from
Exodus takes us to the shores of the Red Sea (or Sea of Reeds), where the Israelites find themselves up against the water with the Egyptians at their backs. It's like one of those cop show chases, where the suspect ends up in an alley, back to the wall and no way out.

Except in this case, God has no intention of letting the Egyptians recapture His people. Moses miraculously parts the water, the Israelites pass through, the Egyptians are drowned as the waters return.

You can get into endless debates about the historicity of this ... was there a tide that cleared the sand, was there a wind that blew the waters back, was there even a Moses or an Exodus at all ...

I would rather ask the question: What does it mean to follow a God who will NOT let you return to slavery? Who will not let you go back to your old ways, your old habits, the leeks and onions of Egypt? What does it mean to follow a God who "makes a way out of no way?"

When has God made a "way out of no way" for you, delivered you from the brink of destruction, brought you safely through at last?

+ Kit

I am Religious, Not Spiritual

“I’m spiritual, but I’m not religious.”

This has become an incredibly popular statement in recent years. In a Beliefnet excerpt from his book, “Spiritual, But Not Religious,” Robert C. Fuller estimates that about one in every five people describes themselves this way. The increasing individualism and consumerism in modern culture has also extended into the realm of the spiritual. People who describe themselves this way see spirituality as something private, not public, something personal, not communal, and something they can design and control and devise, rather than something handed to them by an institution of some sort.

Fuller quotes researchers who say such folks are “less likely to evaluate religiousness positively, less likely to engage in traditional forms of worship such as church attendance and prayer, less likely to engage in group experiences related to spiritual growth, more likely to be agnostic, more likely to characterize religiousness and spirituality as different and nonoverlapping concepts, more likely to hold nontraditional beliefs, and more likely to have had mystical experiences.”

Practically, this statement – “I’m spiritual but not religious” -- has a way of raising a wall between a regular, church-going sort of person and a friend or colleague who has no intention of becoming a regular, church-going sort of person. It says, “Back off. Don’t butt into my private relationship or lack of relationship with the Divine. I know all about you ‘religious’ folks. You want to tell me I’m going to hell or imply there’s something wrong with me. Well, I have my own way of connecting – or not – with God. So shut up.”

Well, that’s how I hear it any way. It may not be what is intended, when the person speaks it. But it cuts. It says to me that the person believes that “spiritual” is somehow more authentic, more noble than “religious”, with its checkered history of pogroms and persecutions, its tedious liturgies and self-righteous evangelistic approaches. It makes me -- as a sort of regular, church-going person who actually is religious -- feel like a representative of the Spanish Inquisition or a denizen of the shiniest buckle in the Bible Belt.

But I have decided to feel inferior to these “spiritual but not religious” people no more. I am going to claim my identity as “religious but not spiritual.”
What do I mean by that? I mean to celebrate the fact that one can become part of a faith community and enter into its life and practices and find meaning there, without ever having been smacked over the head by a supernatural experience. That one can choose to adhere to the tenets and expectations of a religious community and let that life of following those expectations create a space within one’s soul where the spiritual might occur. That – much like entering into a long marriage, rather than looking to hook ups for love and affection – one might find that the long, tedious, faithful activities of a committed relationship actually can make one a larger and more loving person than one would have been otherwise, left to one’s own devices.

I mean that discipline, duty, and devotion to a religious community can work as well for the spiritual life as it does for the physical life. No one says, “I’m athletic but I don’t work out.” No one says, “I’m tennis player but I have no partners.” To become athletic, a person has to move. It helps even more if one joins a team or a health club or gets a personal trainer. To become a tennis player, you have to play tennis with other people. You can only get so far whacking the ball against a concrete wall day after day.

Religion, admittedly, has brought the world its share of grief. But religion has also given the world hospitals and health clinics, universities and inner-city schools. Religion has fed the hungry and clothed the naked. Religion gave us Habitat for Humanity. It gave us Bach. It gave us Mother Teresa, Desmond Tutu and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Religion, faithfully practiced, might even help the “spiritual but not religious” folks to grow more spiritual, to be more connected to God, and to give them fellow travelers on the way who can help them in their spiritual quests.

I’m glad that I am religious. My religious life forces me to think about God even when I don’t feel like it. It inspires me to be a better person than I actually want to be. It connects me to people I never would seek out on my own and helps me to relate to them as my brothers and sisters in the eyes of God. It believes for me when I don’t feel like believing. It prays for me when I can’t pray. It opens the pathway to God for me, week in and week out, and invites me to take another step along the way.

So, yes, I have joined the “I’m religious, but not spiritual” group on Facebook. I honestly think that this may be an idea whose time has come -- especially for those shy and staid sort of folks who go to church dutifully every Sunday, cook casseroles for families with new babies, work on the Habitat house, make a pledge, show up at church clean-up day, haul their protesting teenagers to youth group, who remember their church in their will, but who … urk … cough … struggle to offer up an extemporaneous prayer, or to articulate what exactly it is they are doing here, anyway.

There are more of us out there than you think. Religious, but maybe not quite so spiritual.

+ Kit

This piece appeared yesterday on Episcopal Cafe.

Hurricane Ike Batters Mirebalais

Well, after dodging two hurricanes, the little town of Mirebalais, Haiti, is getting hit with heavy rains and winds from Hurricane Ike. This is the town where the Haiti Outreach Mission has its clinic and orphanage. It is also the home town of Wisnel Dejardin, the seminarian we are sponsoring at VTS.

Here is the report from Dominique Matthews that I received today:

Hi Everyone,
Just spoke to both Fr Jeannot and Fr Faublas. The rain started in Mirebalais last night and things are getting a bit rough over there. The bridge that is just around the corner from the Mirage Hotel that leads to the orphanage is gone. Fr Faublas is unable to get to the orphanage at this time. A lot of people have lost their homes. We are praying that water does not start to get to the orphanage itself.
There is a bridge near Montrouis that was also demolished by the water. The only way to Port-au-Prince now is thru the new road, however there is concern for the bridge we take from PAP to get to Mirebalais, if anything happens to that bridge then they will be completely cut off from PAP.
Please let's join together in prayers for the people of Haiti, and most specifically for the people of Mirebalais. Our prayers are also with Fr Jeannot & Fr Faublas because they have a lot on their hands with Parishioners without homes and there may be some deaths as well. If I remember correctly there are lots of little houses near the bridge.
I will keep you updated as to what is going on.
Thanks
Dominique

We'll have more information as we get it. Right now I have not heard any news that Fr. Jeannot and Fr. Faublas are going to change their plans to come to the U.S. for the HOM annual meeting on September 21. So we still hope to host Pere Jeannot in church in a couple weeks.

Peace,

+ Kit

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+ Kit

Reading Ahead -- Pentecost 17

The gospel lesson for
this week presents one of the sanest, most straightforward methods of resolving conflict between two people.

That Jesus, he knew what he was talking about. And what he was talking about was not talking but listening.

In the community of Jesus' followers, we are supposed to listen honestly to a brother or sister if they have a complaint against us. And the brother or sister with a complaint is supposed to trust that they can be heard. Because even if the one person doesn't listen, you go back with two or three others to support you. And if the one person STILL doesn't listen, you state your complaint in front of the whole community. And if the person STILL doesn't listen, that person is to become to you as a "Gentile and a tax collector."

Hmmm, who was Jesus always trying to reach out to? Gentiles and tax collectors.

So Jesus is telling us how to go about being heard, and to trust that eventually we WILL be heard. That we can be restored to right relationship with someone in the community, if we just hang in there with it.

Is All Saints that sort of community where this sort of listening and reconciliation can happen? What do you think?

+ Kit

Well, That's That, Then

I know, summer's been ending for weeks, as MSU and LCC got back to work. But the first roar of the school bus always means summer's end to me.

One year, on Labor Day, our community pool was about to close for the season. It had been a long, glorious summer, our kids just the perfect age to participate in all of it -- swim meets, sharks and minnows, hanging on the snack bar window, rocketing off the high dive. There were about 20 children in the pool when the final whistle blew. But they weren't ready for it to be over yet.

Slowly and reverently as their parents watched, they formed a long parade and slowly swam around the perimeter of the pool. And as the lights flickered on to illuminate their progress, one girl stopped at each light, dipped below the surface and kissed it farewell. Summer ended with that solemn parade.

Now it's time for something new, and for the same old rituals as well. The first home football game is next Saturday. We'll bless the Sunday School teachers in church next Sunday. And things will rev up and start to get humming again.

But I hope each of us can take a moment today to say farewell to summer in a way that works for you, that honors the beauty of the season, that prepares you for what God is about to do with you next, as fall approaches.

+ Kit

The Anglican Communion as Family

In the September issue of The Record, our Diocesan newspaper, Carol Cole Flanagan offers an insightful look at the Anglican Communion as a family -- the sort that can put the "fun" in "dysfunctional."

The article also gives a quick look at some of the ways that the late great rabbi, Ed Friedman, applied family systems theory to organizations. Ed realized that any organization is an organism, and human organizations organize themselves according to certain principles.

Basically, your family works like a family, but so does your workplace, so does the church, so does the choir, and so does your bridge club. That's why Bowen Family Systems Theory, which Murray Bowen developed in his work as a family therapist, has become so widely applied in any number of disciplines. It really explains why groups of people behave the way they do. Understanding why can help you function better in any group, whether that's ECW or the PTA, in the weekly department meeting or in the classroom.

We'll be looking at some of these organizing principles in the Wednesday night class that starts September 10 -- Family Ties That Bind. We start with supper at 6 p.m., then the class runs from 6:30-7:30 p.m.

+Kit