Week of February 18, 2018

Dear Friends,

The alignment of Lent this year is  from  Valentines Day (Ash Wednesday)  to April Fools (Easter).  So one Lenten Devotional is called “Lovers and Fools.”    This is no concession to Hallmark holidays.  To be sure, we worship a God of love, and we faithful are wiling to be fools for Christ.  Take it from Paul:   “The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God...God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong...” (I Corinthians 1:18, 27).

Some of us will celebrate Lent with a particular practice—giving up chocolate, adding prayers, a weekly visit to someone who needs company, coloring a weekly mandala.  (I’ve tried all these.   And there was the year I gave up being mean to my husband, which he still names as one of my best Lenten practices).

The Christian calendar developed a period of observance before Easter because Easter used to be the day of baptism and joining the community.  Those who aspired would take 40 days to study, pray and prepare.  Eventually other practices got put on this period too: abstaining from meat, contemplating mortality, atoning for sins.

No matter how you do it, a practice of some sort can bring our Sunday faith to a Monday through Saturday awareness.  Of course, the idea isn’t so much to have Lenten bragging rights with your friends, as to have more intimacy with the Divine.  

By now you may already have chosen a practice.  Good for you.  

Or, Lent may have crept up on you.  Don’t worry, its never to late to start some Lenten practice.  Something small, daily and that you can fit well into your life is the best choice.  Carter and I would be happy to share a few ideas with you—just give us a shout.

Blessings all you lovers and fools!

Warmly, 

Susan

Week of February 11, 2018

Dear Friends,

Curious people are more stimulated, more engaged, have better relationships, and generally find more meaning in their lives.  Stated differently, curiosity is a great quality for anyone who wants to get more out of life. 

Yet ironically, curiosity is rarely encouraged in schools, or churches, or most of other group settings.   These institutions are too often stuck in their old ways of passing on information, and consciously and unconsciously favoring conformity. 

Thus as one sociologist writes, “A significant percentage of educated adults stop learning at a relatively early age, and believe they know what they need to know about politics and religion and everything else.  But this is a lie, or at least a deeply flawed approach to the human experience.” 

Learning is of course endless in every conceivable area of life.  It goes on and on.  It never ends.  In some instances, it is a source of great joy found in the delight of new discoveries.  In some instances, it is a source of significant pain as one unearths the cost of ignorance, indifference or negligence. 

But the hunger to learn, and its engine the curious mind, will always bear the fruits of a deeper and more satisfying life.  Clinical psychologist and professor, Todd Kashdan, writes that “curious people benefit in very concrete ways including better intimate relationships, the reduced likelihood of early onset neurological disease, and higher measures of happiness.” 

As we celebrate Mich over the weekend, I am remembering how much he valued and practiced curiosity.  He welcomed exposure to new thinkers, undiscovered theologians, and great poets.  He cared about books, art and music.  He invited others to join him on that creative journey.   

On Sunday morning, Mich and I will be musing together on what we have learned from each other, and about faith, over these past ten or twenty years. 

Come and celebrate with us. 

Warmly,  

Carter

 

Week of January 28, 2018

Dear Friends,

This Sunday I take up pneumatology.  Yay!  Ok, I just had to use a big word.  What we really will talk about is "Who is the Spirit?"  Is it a thing a person, an entity?  Is it collectively present, individually owned?  Is it necessarily good or evil?  

Why does this matter?  The most careful of readings of the bible teach us that Jesus never talked about the third person of the trinity.  The closest we get is Jesus use of the term "Parakletos" or paraclete which biblical translators have struggled with for years.  Helper, advocate, intercessor?  No one word captures the translation correctly.  Hence a divinity school friend of mine noted that since there were no songs out there that used the word, he should devote his life to creating a whole song cycle about the paraclete.  I vaguely remember a valiant first attempt was something about how when his beloved  Chicago Bears win the Super Bowl they should thank the paraclete as well as their pair of cleats.  (groan)

Still Luke, Paul and the other epistle writers will talk about a "Pneuma Hagion."  The scriptures get excited about this Holy Spirit only after Jesus is no longer with us. This may be a clue as to what the Holy Spirit is, namely something essential about how God, or Christ or the Divine stays with us.

You may have heard me say this before:  most of us have a favorite player in the trinity.  I am a Holy Spirit Christian first and foremost.  It's the part of the trinity that makes the most sense to me. God is just too big for me, and  Jesus and the human/divine thing makes my head hurt.  But the one present with us and connecting us?  That's my experience.  It may not be yours.  

This Sunday you can come and hear me ponder the spirit in whimsical and serious ways and let me know if any of them ring true for you.

As they say in my Yoga class:  "The Spirit in me greets the Spirit in you."

Warmly,

Susan

Week of January 14, 2018

Dear Friends,

Yes, its true I am rather attentive to health news.  Its my favorite part of the New York times, and I do take that weekly quiz.  If you are a health nerd, you'll know what I am talking about.  So, of course I read Tara Haelle's Jan 2 article "8 Easy, Meaningful New Year's Resolutions for Better Health."  Its worth looking up if you did't read it yet.

Still,  I liked this one even better, so I am simply passing it on

5 Spiritual New Year's Resolutions by Rabbi David Wolf

1. Engage with people more than pixels. Looking at a phone is quick and undemanding. Texting is easier than talking-it gives you intimacy without danger. This year, resolve to spend more time looking into someone's eyes when you communicate with them. Replace an extended exchange on text with a meeting for coffee. Make a promise of presence.

2. Take your soul seriously. It is easy to pretend that what we watch and how we speak have no effects on us. But the constant pounding of hatreds and dehumanization that marks so much of our media have consequences for our character. Part of who you are is the sum of the influences you choose: what you watch, who you associate with, how you speak about others both publicly and privately. Life is a continuous journey of soul shaping, and this year, resolve to keep your deep journey in mind. Turn away from something seductive but corrosive-Twitter rants full of bile, or people who continually insult those around them, or depictions of violence that take savage delight in suffering. You only get one soul; don't squander it in things unworthy of its majesty.

3. Increase your kindness. If you wish to feel kind, do something good. The great secret of moral growth is that it often begins from the outside. Rather than your joy leading you to smile, your smile can lead you to joy. Behave generously even when you do not feel like it and the habit will grow as will your innate quality of kindness. The act can be small or large; it can be a charitable contribution or a gentle word or help with a heavy bag on an airplane. Do it.

4. Choose someone to forgive. All of us have legitimate grievances in our lives. Some people are very hard to forgive but you need not begin with the toughest cases. Small acts of grace will grow. Forgive the guy who cut you off in the street; after all, you have cut people off as well, on purpose or inadvertently. Forgive the person who made an unkind remark about you. Choose a place to begin. The more you forgive, the less the world can injure you; forgiveness is a soft shield for your soul.

5. In forgiving, include yourself. Fight against perfectionism. Leave a dropped stitch in the knitting of your life. There will always be more possibilities to get something wrong than to get it right. Allow yourself the latitude of mistakes, without self-punishing. God is supposed to be perfect, not human beings. Have expectations of yourself, but don't enforce them with a hammer. 

The New Year is coming. You have not wasted a single day of the future. So here is your chance to live purposefully. Will you achieve this every day? Of course not (see #5 above). The key resolution is not to triumph or to always succeed. Resolutions of the spirit come down to one thing: in this New Year, grow.

Source:  http://time.com/4605044/5-spiritual-new-years-resolutions/
Warmly,
Susan