The Sermonette

I am a blogger, which means I write stuff and post it on the Internet.  Here’s what I wrote about you this past week.

We stumbled into this little old church in Paris and soon discovered that they are attempting a grand experiment--welcoming anyone and everyone. Based on the half-empty sanctuary on any given Sunday, this experiment has not yet “caught on,” which is unfortunate but perhaps understandable.  There are Democrats and Republicans sitting on the same pew; open and proud heterosexuals sharing a hymnbook with open and proud homosexuals; Bible devotees in conversation with people who distrust the Bible, believers in the virgin birth sharing pot-luck suppers with folks who dismissed that notion years ago.  It’s a strange group.

Every Sunday, Pastor Charlotte spreads her arms across the communion table and says, “This table is open to all.  It is Christ who invites us,” and acts like she means it.  Yesterday, a new member, upon hearing about a hateful comment overheard in a café, replied with some exasperation in his voice, “Well until I found this church I would have just condemned that person to hell, but now I’ve learned to just move on over and make room for him at the table!”  We cracked up.  It’s just so much fun!

And there you have it.

I joined this church because you empower your pastor to proclaim each and every Sunday, “this table is open to all.  It is Christ who invites us.” 

Let’s put that to the test.  Here goes. I am a liberal Democrat who will soon happily vote to re-elect President Obama.  I am a straight woman who wholeheartedly supports marriage equality.  I have little use for the Bible—I overdosed on it in my youth and it left a bad taste in my mouth, and I most certainly do not believe Jesus’s mother was a virgin.

So, what did I just reveal about myself?  Nothing that really matters!

Absolutely nothing that really matters.

I joined this church because I want to belong to a faith community that looks beneath the surface and sees Christ in every human being regardless of their behavior, a church that affirms that Christ leaves no one out, leaves no one behind.

I can’t pretend to understand the width and breadth of God, but this much I know: God is our source. God breathes me, and God breathes you, God is the ground of our being.  I know this, not because the Bible tells me so, but because my attempts, both feeble and heroic, to control Life failed.  I could not keep my head above water, so I sank, and Love lifted me, and has continued to do so time and time again.  I know that God is the ocean, and I am a wave.

And yet, I have a dilemma; I often forget what I know.  I resist what I know to be true. I fall back on the strategies and conniving of my fragile, frightened ego-self, who believes treading water with all her might is her only salvation. 

This is where you come in.

I greatly benefit from surrounding myself with people who lovingly and gently remind me of the Truth of who we are, and Whose we are.  I am emboldened by people who have made the decision to look for the Divine nugget of Love embedded in every person, above and beyond personality, opinions and positions.  I need people who love me enough who, when they see me floundering, frightened, or confused, remind me to look within and wait with confidence for Divine clarity.  I want to play with people who trust that God’s Love is Reality. 

I confess that I had pretty well concluded that church was not the best place to find folks like that.  I thought my church days were behind me, for this simple reason; I would never risk entrusting my very human and flawed self into the care of a church that teaches and proclaims that some people are pleasing to God while others are not.  I get short of breath when I hear anyone declare that some people are acceptable to God, but other people first need to be cleaned up and straightened out before they can sit at the table.

You had me the first time I heard Charlotte affirm, “this table is open to all.  It is Christ who invites us.”

Right now, as we sit in this sanctuary, there is a guy buying a pack of cigarettes at the U Tote M, there’s a slacker kid lying on the couch watching football, there’s a couple having brunch at Bois D’Arc trying to pretend their marriage is still alive, there’s a single mom pushing a cart at Save-A-Lot worried about feeding her children.  In a few minutes we will leave this place and go out and walk among them, and we will recognize each one as one of us because we know the truth of who they are and Whose they are. Requiring nothing of them, we will acknowledge them as family. We will do this because it is just so much fun to make room at God’s table!

Amen

What's going on here?

So I’ve been asked to give a sermonette this Sunday at our church in Paris, if you can imagine that.  Each year the First Christian Church in Paris, TX celebrates “Laity Sunday,” which is a clever way to give the ordained clergy a day off.  Someone has to fill in for these ordained slackers, and I drew the short straw.

While my mind seesaws between sermon ideas, the underlying question that keeps dogging me is “what am I doing here?”  I have not been a regular church attender for many years, having concluded that there really was no church that was as broad-minded as I had become.  And yes, the hubris in that statement is duly noted.

We stumbled into this little old church in Paris and soon discovered that they are attempting a grand experiment--welcoming anyone and everyone. Based on the half-empty sanctuary on any given Sunday, this experiment has not yet “caught on,” which is unfortunate but perhaps understandable.  There are Democrats and Republicans sitting on the same pew; open and proud heterosexuals sharing a hymnbook with open and proud homosexuals; Bible devotees in conversation with people who distrust the Bible, believers in the virgin birth sharing pot-luck suppers with folks who dismissed that notion years ago.  It’s a strange group.

Every Sunday, Pastor Charlotte spreads her arms across the communion table and says, “This table is open to all.  It is Christ who invites us,” and acts like she means that.  Yesterday, a new member, upon hearing about a hateful comment overheard in a café, replied with some exasperation in his voice, “Well until I found this church I would have condemned that person to hell, but now I’ve learned to just move on over and make room for him at the table!”  We cracked up.  It’s just so much fun!

I have decided, much to my surprise,  to join in the experiment and see how long they let me stay.

Drop Who You're Not

I am intelligent, but not a scholar.  I am curious, but not a researcher.  I am devout, but not disciplined.  I am religious, but not orthodox.

For many years I expected myself to be all of the above, which means I am well acquainted with failure. Liberation came with accepting who I am and letting go of who I am not.  There will always be sufficient scholars, researchers, disciplined devotees and orthodox faithful to make up for my deficiencies.

I am impressed by your scholarship, but no longer intimidated.  I can admire your discipline without shaming myself, and gladly let you have your orthodoxy, with great relief. 

The freedom and exhilaration of letting yourself off the hook of unrealistic expectations is accompanied by the joy of embracing authenticity.

Speaking for myself, it means trusting my intuition more than fact gathering; trusting contemplation more than petitioning; rejoicing that outspokenness and extroversion serve a purpose; affirming my innocence and earnestness, and acknowledging that I am not everyone’s cup of tea.

Who do you know yourself to be?  Dare to share?

Decline

Last week my sisters and I moved our 91-year-old mother into a nursing home, the last place on earth she and we wanted her to be.

Our mother would welcome death, and says so frequently, but mightily resists decline.  Is it possible to embrace decline…loss?

What do poets know?

Writing rhapsodic about ebb and flow?

When your daily experience is that

You are weaker today than yesterday,

And there is no cure, and truthfully,

You want no cure,

When getting dressed is exhausting,

And bed feels like home, and

Though perhaps confused at times

You know who and where you are,

Who you once were,

Is it possible to say yes,

I succumb?

I embrace ebb?

Ebbing with little or no flow?

Or must I resist, pushing myself

To fend for myself,

Refusing to burden others?

Mother, show me the way.

Spiritual Travel

I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I have never owned a passport because I have never gone anywhere that requires one.  I am not a world traveler.  A passport enables a sojourner to enter into countries and cultures that are foreign, unfamiliar and perhaps uncomfortable.  Stepping into unfamiliar terrain changes one forever; it opens doors of consciousness and awareness that broaden one’s view of our world.

Though I have not had that experience geographically, I have travelled, spiritually, miles and miles from my “hometown” Christian fundamentalist religion.  I find myself almost evangelical about the tremendous benefit I have gained from journeys into unfamiliar spiritual/religious territory.

Just as seasoned world travelers likely look at me, she who has never been farther than Hawaii, with compassion approaching pity I find myself having similar feelings for people who have yet to venture beyond their childhood religion.  I am convinced that thousands of such folk are perfectly content to remain rooted in a legalistic, fundamentalist Christianity, and I respect their choice.  On the other hand, I so want Biblical literalists to know there is an alternative way to embrace faith that opens doors and windows of consciousness and love, revealing an ever-expanding view of God and humankind.

When I was in my 20’s a psychotherapist asked me what I really wanted to do.  I heard myself saying things like, “I want to encourage other people.  I want to exhort people to never give up, to trust in a Higher Good, to believe in themselves….”  He looked at me and said, “You want to be an evangelist.”  I cringed and thought no, no, no.   He was so right.

I want to encourage people whose childhoods were similar to mine to find the willingness to explore, venture out, try the waters of unfamiliar religions, philosophies, and spiritualties until they land in the terrain of authenticity rather than orthodoxy, and then go deeper and wider.  I’m passionate about it.

If you should see me standing on a soapbox on the corner of the square, please stop and say hi, and then call my husband to come get me.

A Course in Miracles

I discovered A Course in Miracles in 1986, and everything changed.  I had rejected my fundamentalist upbringing, including the Bible, but not my faith in God.  I had recently read Chop Wood, Carry Water, which included a suggested reading list.  A Course in Miracles was on that list. 

For the last 26 years I have had a tumultuous relationship with ACIM.  Some of it I still do not understand; not sure I agree with all of it, or perhaps I’m not yet able to grasp all of its radical implications.

I have participated in numerous ACIM study groups and when I needed support I saw a therapist steeped in ACIM theology.  Though I’ve not been able to fully grasp ACIM, ACIM has grasped me.

Here are a few life changing ACIM truths, in my words:

God only loves

God does not punish, not ever.

Jesus is my elder brother, showing me what is possible.

Forgiveness is the key to salvation.

Salvation has nothing to do with the afterlife, but with this moment, right now.

Every human is an extension of God, endowed with a trustworthy Inner Teacher.

I cannot ultimately screw anything up; there is nothing forgiveness can’t heal.

I am as God created me.

A Course in Miracles is not for everybody; it clearly states there are many paths to God.  It does not disparage any religious tradition nor claim to be The One True Way.  I am, however, profoundly grateful that it found me.

Left Behind

Unless you change your ways

You will be left behind.

Unless you deny your reality

You will be left behind.

Until you see truth as I see truth

You will be left behind.

All of us have heard those warnings,

All children hear this message,

No one has escaped the threat of

Being left behind, thus

All of us know its pain.

Ethnic minorities have been left behind

Indigenous people have been left behind

Women have been left behind

Children have been left behind

Poor people have been left behind

Gay people have been left behind

Losers have been left behind

Religious minorities have been left behind

Atheists have been left behind

The question of who’s in and who’s out, however,

Has no theological basis,

Communities and tribes can debate whom to exclude,

Humans seem compelled to leave some behind.

God, on the other hand, cannot and does not,

God being God.

When I allow God access to my heart, and

I see one whose turn it is to feel left behind

I can reach out.

When I allow God access to my heart, and

I see a group of people who feel left behind

I can step out and stand beside them.

Oh God, please, open my heart.