A Poem By Steve Cline And My Reflection On That Poem

One of the more difficult barriers to get over in religion or spirituality is the difficulty so many of us have in holding several opposing notions in mind at the same time. We can be pretty set in our ways and unwilling to consider other opinions when what's needed is just that ability to deal with dualities and contradictions and living with some mystery for a time. 

Think about how we might see things: sinner versus saint, good versus bad, others versus me. Most of the time these constructions are convenient ways of justifying ourselves and damning others, or they are concessions to an unjust social order. "What a coincidence it is that God hates the same people and the same things that I do!" we might say. "That woman up ahead in line should have planned her shopping ahead of time and shouldn't be holding me up looking for money she doesn't have!" we might say out of a place of being judgmental and self-centered while waiting in line with our groceries. Maybe being too set in our ways reflects past disappointments or loss or abuse, or perhaps for some of us it's an easy way of giving in to the conditions we live under rather than trying to change things. Some folks attach themselves to holding one set of opinions or one worldview to the exclusion of all others because something has hurt them in the past and now they want order and control over something or themselves.   

I am not saying that there are not sinners and saints and good and evil or to argue for a world in which everything is relative and that human beings do not have choices and power. I am not saying that human kindness and solidarity do not have their limits. I'm not objecting to people with good ideas or lots of questions being passionate about what's on their minds. I do want to suggest that there is another way to frame our experience in the world.

What I want to introduce is another thought and a change in direction when we consider dualities and contradictions. Think about how God may see things. God is All-Knowing, but God is also approachable. God is Absolutely Pure, but God took human form and dwelt with us in our messiness. God is Almighty, but God suffered and died on the cross, and that cross holds all of our sins. God is All Powerful, but God is alongside us and shares in our weaknesses. God exists outside of time, but contains time and is The All-Responsive One who bestows mercy to us within time.

There is in God a necessary comprehension of duality and contradiction. It is not that God has to or may contain this, or that God chooses to love and not hate, but that love is God's nature and that in love there are spectrums and possibilities and mysteries. Time as we know it is the space or place or event within which (or during which) we cross spectrums, work through possibilities, resolve contradictions, and come to freedom with others and within God. You can test this next time you're in line at the store by looking around you and reflecting on God's presence in the people you see, in their very faces.

My friend Steve Cline recently posted a comment and a poem on Facebook that may open a door to considering what I'm saying here. I don't think that Steve is a universalist, as I am, but his comment and poem speak to how our lives develop in the context of God's creation. The poem speaks to change as being a constant within that creation, and a constant that gives us choices. Here is Steve's comment and poem:  

I whole heartedly feel like this was given to me from the Lord a couple days ago, I just started writing.

Many broken branches
Many trees with shallow roots,
When they were young, they flourished,
but now have become dry and brittle
A day has past and still no thirst for life
Tomorrow darkness comes, then the rain
Will any trees soak up the water
Or will death consume them?
Fear of the Lord is the way to Freedom
Some of you have lost your First Love
It's time to return
Don't hesitate, make haste, REPENT

The church is not just for those who have seen God’s goodness by Pastor Jerrell Williams

The Salem-Keizer, Oregon community is blessed to have Pastor Jerrell Williams leading Salem's Mennonite Church. We have posted at least two articles by him in the recent past. These have come from Anabaptist World. In a recent article in Anabaptist World Pastor Williams says the following:

Disappointment with God is a reality we need to recognize. As the church testifies to God’s faithfulness, we have to remember that not everyone has experienced God as faithful.

We have to be prepared to walk with those who feel God has not been faithful to them. As a pastor, I have had the honor to accompany those who are struggling and doubting as well as those who are solidly sure of their faith.

I have sat with people as they have asked me why God wasn’t there for them or for their friends or their families. Though I am tempted to interject my own experiences and ideas, there is nothing I can say that dulls the pain.

At this point we are left with a reminder that so much of modern atheism---at least in my circles---is founded on disappointments and suffering, and it should be fully understandable to people of faith that this occurs and gains momentum and forms of expression. There is also an atheism that develops from the capitalist reality that we all live in. How does anyone manage to maintain faith when every activity is weighed for what it produces and its cost? A competitive and hierarchical system, gendered and racialized and exploitative in its fundamentals, is bound to produce atheism. Pastor Williams does not take these questions up directly, but they are there in the background.      

So Pastor Williams is taking up a large slice of our human condition in a short article. Where does he go with this? The entire article can be read here.

"...the divine is equally present in all things..."

 

Steve Cline on climbing mountains and our faith journeys

Friends, this is our third post from Steve Cline. Steve lives in West Virginia. I think that this post carries a great message to end one year and begin a new year with. We all have tough climbs, and some of them are dangerous and not everything that we cling to along the way is going to be helpful but our journeys have meaning and value and can take us to new heights and better vistas with the proper solidarity and guidance. This post also helps reinforce a point that is a basic premise of this blog: wisdom, beauty, and creativity are all around us and amongst us.

Dr. Ralph Stanley's "Great High Mountain" carries a similar testimony and message.

 

Pastor Jerrell Williams: We will know when God shows up

One of the nagging thoughts in so many people's minds who can take a minute to breathe and think during this time of year is how we can know when God is present, or if God is ever present. We are so doped by movies and other media that many of us think that if the sea isn't parting and if there isn't a loud authoritative voice speaking directly to us from above the sky then we're left to pray alone or in church on Sundays or that there is no God, or no God that cares for creation any longer. In searching for belief and faith and something to hold on to we can easily become despairing and give up.

Doubt and atheism are not "wrong" or invalid under modern conditions. These are understandable given the pressures of modern-day capitalism. And if you're not struggling with despair, whether you're a  believer in God or an agnostic or an atheist, then you're not paying attention. If we're going to ask where the search for faith leads us under these circumstances, and if one valid answer is despair, than we also have to ask where agnosticism and atheism lead us, and for some people the answer will be belief and faith. Leonard Cohen's "You Want It Darker" and his "Hallelujah" answer one another because faith and belief and whatever their opposites are are not really so far apart from one another.

Pastor Jerrell Williams, the pastor of the Salem, Oregon Mennonite Church, has written a brief article that is fundamental to a discussion of these themes in the contexts of Advent and Christmas. He knows what he's talking about. He graduated from Bethel College in Kansas and from the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary with his Master of Divinity. He thinks a lot about these questions and you can trust his wisdom. Besides all of that, he's a parent, he's young, and he's Black and so he has a different stake in how these questions get answered than I do.

Pastor Williams' article opens with the following:

Christmas time is here! This is a day in which we gather with our families, friends and church communities to celebrate and remember when God entered our world to be with creation. While this is the central focus for Christians, here in the U.S, this time of year is not always the hope- and awe-inspiring season that we anticipate. Often, the Christmas season is riddled with capitalism and consumerism. There is the stress of constant gift buying. There is the mourning that takes place, because the Christmas dinner table may be missing a few members due to sickness or death. I myself am guilty of not being in the “Christmas spirit” this year. Maybe it is the cold, dark and rainy season that has me down. Maybe it is the constant busyness of work and personal life. Either way, I have noticed God’s absence more than I ever have recently.

As I have gone through the Advent texts from the lectionary with my congregation, I have been reminded that my feelings are not foreign to God’s people. They were carrying God’s promise with them for years, waiting for God to finally do something. Imagine the stories of this promise being passed down from generation to generation. It’s not often that I feel that I can identify with the Biblical narrative, but I do know what anticipation feels like. I also know what absence feels like: the constant asking of God to do something, trusting in the promise that God will not abandon you for good.

One question that I have been sitting with this Advent season is: “How will we know when God is here?”

How will we know that we are on the right track towards restoration? Recently, I was reminded that Jesus answered a similar question in Matthew’s Gospel. When John the Baptist was in prison, he had a message sent to Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” (11:3 NRSVUE). This is not only a question an uncertainty, but it is a question of hopeful anticipation. John knew his role in this story. He knew that he was the forerunner, and that the Messiah was coming soon. What he did not anticipate was that the Messiah would look like Jesus. Jesus sent word back to John by pointing towards the evidence. “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me” (11:4-6 NRSVUE).

Really, you do want to finish the article by going here. A good sermon only ends after you think about it, integrate what you can take from it into your life, and move on and keep growing.

JD Snell: I'm Drinking From My Saucer

 

Pastor Jerrell Williams: Advent gives me hope that God has not abandoned us

The following lines come from an article by Pastor Jerrell Williams of Salem, Oregon's Mennonite Church. There is a link to the full article below the excerpt.

Let’s be honest: This has been a depressing few years for many of us. Through all of the sickness, financial struggles, climate disasters and political tension, I have gotten more pessimistic. I do not know how we can make things better anymore.

It seems that for every happy -moment there has been a terrible -moment. The circumstances I have gone through over the past three years have changed me.

And yet: Joy is still possible. I think of God’s people 2,000 years ago carrying God’s promise with them as they walked through the hardships of their lives. They were waiting for God to do something. God finally responded by entering their world — our world — to walk with us.

Advent gives me hope that God has not abandoned us. It gives me hope that God is moving, sometimes in mysterious ways.

Read the entire article here.

"Everything has been done so that you might become so many suns, sources of life (for others)..."

Photograph from Lynne Myfanwy Jones

"Everything has been done so that you might become so many suns, sources of life (for others). May you be perfect light before that immense ight. You will be flooded with its supernatural splendor. To you will come, limpid, direct, the light of the Trinity emanating from the One God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, to whom be glory and power forever and ever. Amen."---St. Gregory Nazienzen

The Name Of God

The following comes from Jacob Wright on Facebook, who I do not know or know anything about, but it came to me from Reece Maggard of Mayking, Kentucky in Letcher County. Regard Reece as a teacher and as one of those great people in the coalfields and rural United States who have experienced revelations and who are developing a theology and mysticism from their place and in our times.

When Moses asked God what his name was, God answered with what we transliterate "YHWH". Over time we’ve added an “a” and an “e” in there to get Yahweh, to make it pronounceable, but Jewish scholars have noted that the letters YHWH represent something unutterable and is comprised of aspirated consonants that are actually the sound of breathing.

...The name of God is the sound of breathing?

For so long many have insisted that the name of God is so holy that we dare not speak it. How ironic that the name God represented himself with we cannot help but speak by being alive. In him we live, move, and have being, all of us, everywhere, always are breathing the name of God.

“The letters of the name of God in Hebrew are infrequently pronounced Yahweh. But in truth they are unutterable. This word {YHWH} is the sound of breathing. The holiest name in the world, the Name of Creator, is the sound of your own breathing. That these letters are unpronounceable is no accident. Just as it is no accident that they are also the root letters of the Hebrew verb ‘to be’… God’s name is the name of Being itself.” - Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

Your very existence, every breath, is an unceasing invitation to awaken to the reality of God. You inhale God and exhale God. Every breath is into and out of God. YHWH. Breathe, and your being calls out to the name of Being itself.

This also adds a whole new dimension to taking the name of God in vain. It's about your life, your existence.

Some things to support and encourage, give you a smile, and help you think

I pass by this old mailbox every day. The old rusty box is nailed to an oak that has to be 150 years old. After years of passing it by, I decided to open the box to see if anything was inside. After all, there isn’t even a house nearby to which it could serve anyway. Any home it serviced long ago is torn down, I’m sure.

I noticed an old letter inside, as you can see in picture #2. I looked at the postmark date, and it said July 7, 1903! Due to age and moisture, the addressee on the envelope was not readable, so I opened up the envelope hoping to find some local history and a good story I could share with you. Here is what the letter inside said. “We have been trying to reach you about your vehicle’s extended warranty.”

Peggy Smith Photography: Great Blue Heron in Kanawha County, W. Va.

Rosalio Urias Munoz---Los Angeles

Larry Allen--Beautiful Red Evening, Fayette County, West Virginia--Taken from the

All Things West Virginia Facebook page

 

Some posts to encourage us

These came from a variety of people on Facebook: Beautiful Kingdom Warriors, Ginger Posey, Carlotta Young, Kermit Meling, Perry Blankenship, and The Crazy Black Librarian. This is a pretty diverse group of folks who probably don't know one another and who may not think of themselves having much in common to start with. But these are some of the people and spaces I go to for good words most days. I hope that these posts encourage and enlighten you as much as they did me. Many thanks to these good people for helping us on our journey.

Goodness of God-Cece Winans Lyrics

Just click on the box where it says "Youtube" and it will work just fine.

 

Some random and hopeful thoughts for today