It's been a month since I've been re-licensed in the Church of the Brethren.
And all I can say is that it is different this time around.
For the first 12 years that I was licensed, it just felt like something I had to do since I was in pastoral ministry. Yet this time around, there's a sense of heightened accountability that I didn't have during the previous years. Maybe it had to do with the fact that I had some wilderness time away to better clarify that call. Maybe it's because I now have a family who shares that affirmation. One thing is for sure though, I have the affirmation of my ministry today in a way that I didn't prior. I'm involved in Outdoor Ministry/Education in ways that expand beyond just my local context.
This licensing is a reminder that I am called to be 'coyote' to the church. Though many may not understand what that means entirely it has been the best way I know to relate to the church. There has also been a few (so called mystical) moments that have occurred in the span of me being re-licensed. And language that once inflated the ego now somehow is helping me gain a better sense of just what 'coyote' ministry to the CoB will be. At my licensing service, one of my supporters shared how coyote also has come to mean one who is a 'wayfinder' for others.
Maybe that's a better description of my calling to the church.
A wayfinder.
P.S. As part of my sense of accountability, I plan to blog more frequently as well. I find that this medium has helped me piece together my best thoughts/ideas/vision for integrating nature connection and spirituality so I hope to be more regular in that regard. In the meantime, get outside and connect!
September 16, 2015
March 06, 2015
Adaptation
I first heard about the 7 P's during my Wilderness First Responder training.
It goes a little something like this:
Prior Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.
Simply put, have a plan of action ahead of time.
We'll get back to this in a moment...
I believe that many people in the North American Church are experiencing what can only be described as climate change of the soul. The oasis places where we once were nourished are drying up and they no longer carry meaning for us like it once did. This drying up of the soul is permeating all other avenues of our lives and there are no signs that it is going to get better. Let's be clear, this time will not be about death… it will be about life. It will reinvigorate our atrophied souls. It was over ten years ago that I wrote the following:
What we are experiencing isn't something new. If the interior is beginning to look less like a temperate rainforest and more like the American southwest, then it's my belief that the wilderness/desert period has already begun.
As our faith landscapes are changing then it becomes crucial to understand how this affects the ecology of the soul. The more we are beginning to understand about place-based spirituality, the more we are discovering how important our ties to the land really affect our spiritual well-being and formation. To borrow from the language of evolutionary biology, it's all about how well we've learned to adapt. If we've grown accustomed to living only in one bio-region, then we may not be as prepared to live in another, much different one, especially if the terrain is harsher. The same can be said for our spiritual development.
This is where I come back to my prior point of the North American Church experiencing climate change of the soul. It's also where we must apply the 7 P's to our faith formation as the church struggles to move ahead. In order to make the kinds of discoveries this wilderness/desert journey entails, it will start with the church needing to practice self-abandonment; something (least historically) hasn't done very well. If the church hasn't exactly taken the lead on this, then where do we turn to once this faith landscape moves from an agrarian spirituality to a desert spirituality?
We have a template...
We have elders...
It was the folks who walked away from empirical Christianity in the beginning of the 4th century CE. and we refer to them today as the Desert Fathers and Mothers. I think it's time we get reacquainted with these elders who believed in "their time" that the church had become overly comfortable. It's time that we adapt our way of being to the wilderness/desert spirituality. Up to this point we've only talked about it... now the time has come for us to begin living it.
It goes a little something like this:
Prior Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.
Simply put, have a plan of action ahead of time.
We'll get back to this in a moment...
I believe that many people in the North American Church are experiencing what can only be described as climate change of the soul. The oasis places where we once were nourished are drying up and they no longer carry meaning for us like it once did. This drying up of the soul is permeating all other avenues of our lives and there are no signs that it is going to get better. Let's be clear, this time will not be about death… it will be about life. It will reinvigorate our atrophied souls. It was over ten years ago that I wrote the following:
"A time is coming
when the North American Church will begin experiencing that which feels more
like death than life. Attempts to cover over this period will only further
mitigate our sense of aliveness. This
aliveness in Jesus will look very different than North American Christianity,
which is full of emptiness and fear. This aliveness will look more like
indigenous and even non-Christian traditions, which we are beginning to
understand are more rooted in the church than North American Christianity
attempts to be. The church will need to be reconstructed in
order to better understand who God is and who we are. In the time shortly after,
it will be forced into a wilderness period even as she refuses to do so." (Taken from a July 2003 journal entry)
What we are experiencing isn't something new. If the interior is beginning to look less like a temperate rainforest and more like the American southwest, then it's my belief that the wilderness/desert period has already begun.
As our faith landscapes are changing then it becomes crucial to understand how this affects the ecology of the soul. The more we are beginning to understand about place-based spirituality, the more we are discovering how important our ties to the land really affect our spiritual well-being and formation. To borrow from the language of evolutionary biology, it's all about how well we've learned to adapt. If we've grown accustomed to living only in one bio-region, then we may not be as prepared to live in another, much different one, especially if the terrain is harsher. The same can be said for our spiritual development.
This is where I come back to my prior point of the North American Church experiencing climate change of the soul. It's also where we must apply the 7 P's to our faith formation as the church struggles to move ahead. In order to make the kinds of discoveries this wilderness/desert journey entails, it will start with the church needing to practice self-abandonment; something (least historically) hasn't done very well. If the church hasn't exactly taken the lead on this, then where do we turn to once this faith landscape moves from an agrarian spirituality to a desert spirituality?
We have a template...
We have elders...
It was the folks who walked away from empirical Christianity in the beginning of the 4th century CE. and we refer to them today as the Desert Fathers and Mothers. I think it's time we get reacquainted with these elders who believed in "their time" that the church had become overly comfortable. It's time that we adapt our way of being to the wilderness/desert spirituality. Up to this point we've only talked about it... now the time has come for us to begin living it.
February 19, 2015
To touch the earth
"The seat of the soul is where the inner world and the outer world meet."
- Novalis (Late eighteenth century philosopher of German Romanticism)
Last evening my family and I participated in our annual Ash Wednesday service.
I'd been planning to go to the local Catholic church but my wife wanted to attend another Ash Wednesday service put on by the local community churches association. That service had an hour of liturgical dance scheduled before the actual services of ashes. Now I'm not one who is moved by liturgical dance but I'm also not oppssed to it. So we ended up attending that service.
What it ended up being was less 'liturgical' and more 'ballet-style dance' set to contemporary christian music and a few hymns thrown in as well. Let me say, that with no ill towards the performance troupe, who clearly are very passionate about what they do, there was (to me at least) this huge disconnect that occurred. We went from an hour or so of up-tempo, happy, artsy, dance-y, smiley, you need Jesus in your life testimony to the high church liturgical, solemn, call to fasting, repentance, and receiving forgiveness.
When I attend an Ash Wednesday service, I have an expectation (no... really, I want) that sort of confessional, ceremonial solemnity. It was as I was reveling in the disconnect that something else occurred to me upon receiving the ashes.
"Remember that from dust you were made, and to dust you shall return"
Dust. Ashes, really.
Ashes; made from last year's palm branches were being placed on my skin.
Ashes are part of the earth. A part of the earth is now touching me.
Not only is it touching me, it's being done in a sacred manner; in the form of a cross.
There's a very ancient yet familial, relational thing happening here.
It's adamah (the earth) meeting adam (the human).
We've grown accustomed in our western mind to thinking of the 'soul' as something inside us or even a "seed" but what if what soul really is, is the place where our bodies connect with the earth. It's no accident that the part of our body that has the most direct connection with the earth are the 'soles' of our feet. This is what Novalis meant by 'soul'.
I'd go one step further and say this is where 'soul work' really happens. In fact, most of the 'soul work' that happens in our churches today occurs when our bodies touch upon the earth (baptism) or the earth is brought to us (anointing oil, ashes on forehead). And lots of other 'soul work' not found in the church has direct links with earth connection (rites of passage/vision quest/walkabout, tracking, trance dancing, drumming etc..).
Perhaps that's why Ash Wednesday has such meaning for me.
It's an opportunity for the church to acknowledge in its own way our obvious connection with God's earth.
Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust
To create a sacred space and encourage me to continue to do the much needed soul work by allowing
adam
to meet
adamah
And I can think of no better time than the season of Lent.
The journey begins...
February 18, 2015
Around (and within)...
It's now been 10 years since I first began blogging and while there hasn't been much in the way of this blog's content for the past 4 years; here I am again at the beginning of the Lenten season; and my instinct is to pay better attention to what is going on around (and within) me. So during this Lenten season, I'm seeking to be more
intentional about my journey of faith and my encounters with the Holy
One. One of the best ways I've been able to do this in the past was to put it out there for others to read and ponder.
For the past few years, I've continually told people that they haven't seen the best version of me yet, I feel like there's a better version of the 1.0 life I've been living. Don't be fooled; I have much in my life to be grateful for, in fact it would take one whole (very long and in depth) post to do just that. Those that know me, know specifically what I am grateful for and how I seek to model a life of gratitude.
Simply put, I feel as though I am at a crossroads again and I am chided to remember the "ancient paths" that have brought me life before and now I must find a way to continue on the old road as I find my way. This crossroad entails a struggle that I have had now for nearly 15 years: it's a journey towards physical wellness and vitality and I know in my marrow that any success I've had in the past has been when I heighten my spiritual awareness, my body awareness seems to tune in better as well. Yet so much of my 1.0 version of life has been due to the fact I've lost elements of my spiritual center. I've lost the ability to speak the language or better said to translate it as I speak with others. Lent has always pulled out of me the deeper meanings of my journey with Jesus and I pray that becomes evident in my posts.
One of the companions for the coming weeks will be Belden Lane's Backpacking with the Saints: Wilderness Hiking as Spiritual Practice. In it, there is a merging of the two rivers of my life that are most nourishing, spirituality and nature. Some of my reflections may run parallel with what I'm reading and other times I will do my best to represent the original intention of the blog: to pay attention to concentric rings of nature, soul and spirit. I've spent the better part of the past 8 years exploring the (quite literal) wilderness and now it only feels right to begin unearthing the wilderness within once again.
For the past few years, I've continually told people that they haven't seen the best version of me yet, I feel like there's a better version of the 1.0 life I've been living. Don't be fooled; I have much in my life to be grateful for, in fact it would take one whole (very long and in depth) post to do just that. Those that know me, know specifically what I am grateful for and how I seek to model a life of gratitude.
Simply put, I feel as though I am at a crossroads again and I am chided to remember the "ancient paths" that have brought me life before and now I must find a way to continue on the old road as I find my way. This crossroad entails a struggle that I have had now for nearly 15 years: it's a journey towards physical wellness and vitality and I know in my marrow that any success I've had in the past has been when I heighten my spiritual awareness, my body awareness seems to tune in better as well. Yet so much of my 1.0 version of life has been due to the fact I've lost elements of my spiritual center. I've lost the ability to speak the language or better said to translate it as I speak with others. Lent has always pulled out of me the deeper meanings of my journey with Jesus and I pray that becomes evident in my posts.
One of the companions for the coming weeks will be Belden Lane's Backpacking with the Saints: Wilderness Hiking as Spiritual Practice. In it, there is a merging of the two rivers of my life that are most nourishing, spirituality and nature. Some of my reflections may run parallel with what I'm reading and other times I will do my best to represent the original intention of the blog: to pay attention to concentric rings of nature, soul and spirit. I've spent the better part of the past 8 years exploring the (quite literal) wilderness and now it only feels right to begin unearthing the wilderness within once again.
January 28, 2015
Paring Back
If I could only have 3 stringed instruments it would be:
Seagull S6 Slim Acoustic Guitar
Trinity College Celtic Bouzouki
Pisgah Banjo
...of course if I were allowed to have one more:
Seagull Coastline S12 Cedar
... oh yeah, I'd need a campfire guitar so as not to harm my good ones:
S&P Trek Natural Folk SG
... you see where I'm going with this right?
Seagull S6 Slim Acoustic Guitar
Trinity College Celtic Bouzouki
Pisgah Banjo
...of course if I were allowed to have one more:
Seagull Coastline S12 Cedar
... oh yeah, I'd need a campfire guitar so as not to harm my good ones:
S&P Trek Natural Folk SG
... you see where I'm going with this right?