We have spiritual longings and needs to be met, and it is important to seek out what will help us grow and continue walking a path that is fulfilling and compassionate. I chose the Episcopal Church early in my life because it was open in thought and had a beautiful worship format. It has teachings, but the primary focus is to have common worship. I have gone through a million changes in beliefs, practices, and journeys in the last 50 years and the Episcopal Church has encouraged, tolerated and facilitated them for me, and that is why I stay with it. I also think it is important for us to be part of something that is bigger than we are to help correct us along our way. All corrections are not necessarily conducive or important or good, but they at least give us another perspective and call us to be accountable to ourselves and others. So, my friend, if you have a call to reform, do it with humility and boldness.
Friday, September 30, 2011
A Letter To a Friend
The story you give concerning your faith and spiritual community sounds so much like the development of a movement turning into an institution and then being reformed in the second or third generation. The Christian Church went through this in the early years, and has continued reforming ever since. It is important to return to the origin and take the fundamentals and use those in reforming, knowing that you will never recapture what was, but you can establish something new based on your understanding of the beginnings. The number of denominations and independent churches of the Christian tradition are too numerous to count.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Walk number 2 with Shadow my dog.
There is a shot in the movie, Edward Sissorhands with Johnny Depp, which shows the suburban residential street where all the houses are from the same model and the shrubs and lawns are manicured and all the trash cans are lined up like soldiers beside the driveways. A model of order and cleanliness. Walking through my neighborhood on trash collection day, we resemble the Edward Sissorhands shot from the movie. Edward comes along and disrupts the order and seeming serenity of the neighborhood.
As I continued my walk, I noticed one house where the youngest son had almost drowned in the swimming pool and suffered severe brain damage. I see him once in a while and he is smiling and happy; his parents have a big job caring for him and his older brother who is just fine, and they do very well. He is an Edward who has disrupted the seemingly ordered and serene neighborhood.
Down the street a little farther and I greet the man from a house that is very well taken care of and he has a Jeep, Motorhome, and Trailer in his yard. He and his wife travel and play in all their RV's. They also go to funerals " back home". On farther down is another immaculately kept place, their neighbor's pressured them into cutting their trees way back because all the leaves blew into the neighbor's yard. Another one has had several strokes in the last couple months. Another one is a Veteran with P.T.S.D. who is brought to his house once in while and he spends the day watering his yard which is mostly dirt then becomes mud.
So, this is just a small sample of my neighborhood which appears quiet, orderly and serene. We actually have a lot of Edward Sissorhands living among us. Sometimes I notice and other times I don't. When I do notice, my life is richer.
As I continued my walk, I noticed one house where the youngest son had almost drowned in the swimming pool and suffered severe brain damage. I see him once in a while and he is smiling and happy; his parents have a big job caring for him and his older brother who is just fine, and they do very well. He is an Edward who has disrupted the seemingly ordered and serene neighborhood.
Down the street a little farther and I greet the man from a house that is very well taken care of and he has a Jeep, Motorhome, and Trailer in his yard. He and his wife travel and play in all their RV's. They also go to funerals " back home". On farther down is another immaculately kept place, their neighbor's pressured them into cutting their trees way back because all the leaves blew into the neighbor's yard. Another one has had several strokes in the last couple months. Another one is a Veteran with P.T.S.D. who is brought to his house once in while and he spends the day watering his yard which is mostly dirt then becomes mud.
So, this is just a small sample of my neighborhood which appears quiet, orderly and serene. We actually have a lot of Edward Sissorhands living among us. Sometimes I notice and other times I don't. When I do notice, my life is richer.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Shadow and Me. Shadow is the name of my mix breed dog of Dachshund and Pit Bull Terrier. He takes me for a walk each morning and I think as I walk. Organizing my random thougts is an exersize which is fruitfull. Rather than letting my thoughts be what I think. I organize them and then choose what I actually think. Having a thought is not thinking. Thinking is processing throughts.
There is a new neighbor who has a sign hanging on the front porch which reads "Do you believe in life after death? Trespass and find out." This prompted a lot of thoughts, the first was "how hostile, it might be cute on an adolescent's bedroom door, but not on a front porch." Do I want to meet this new neighbor or not? How about keeping enemies close? People who think this way are enemies and I'm a christian who is called to love my enemies. How do I love this new neighbor. I'd like to avoid him. Is that loving him? I really do not know.
I think that there is fear and anger behind the sign and I wonder what it is about the person's life that creates such fear. It can be a multitude of things in a person's life such as being abused as a child or being bullied as a kid. It can be a chemical imbalance in the brain or some kind of mental illness or emotional disability. The variety of possible causes remind me that there are so many people who do not have access (even though it is available) to proper diagnosis or treatment, and there are those who do have the access and don't seek it or don't till late in life. The more I think about it, the more I realize that it is primarily a social and cultural issue and then a personal one. We have the culture we want because we are the ones who create it. It may not be what any of us individually prefers but it is a result of what we as a group produce. There is still too much in our society that encourages fear of one another and violence as the answer for security. Something happened after Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that "all we have to fear is fear itself". We have progressively become a more fearful society since the 1950's. I personally think that with our climb to the top powerful nation, we turned our fear in on ourselves; with the recent 9-11 event in our lives we also now have fear of ourselves and others. We have moved into a nation of people who know no safe place except behind force. This is false security because there is always someone else who will come along with a bigger or better gun.
My neighbor and I live in this social environment together and I choose to leave him alone. If we are brought together somehow, I will do my best to love him as myself, and do unto him as I would want him to do to me. Not be fearful of him and not try to change him and not be bullied by him. I have been referring to him and it may be a her or a them. At this point all I know is the sign.
I think that there is fear and anger behind the sign and I wonder what it is about the person's life that creates such fear. It can be a multitude of things in a person's life such as being abused as a child or being bullied as a kid. It can be a chemical imbalance in the brain or some kind of mental illness or emotional disability. The variety of possible causes remind me that there are so many people who do not have access (even though it is available) to proper diagnosis or treatment, and there are those who do have the access and don't seek it or don't till late in life. The more I think about it, the more I realize that it is primarily a social and cultural issue and then a personal one. We have the culture we want because we are the ones who create it. It may not be what any of us individually prefers but it is a result of what we as a group produce. There is still too much in our society that encourages fear of one another and violence as the answer for security. Something happened after Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that "all we have to fear is fear itself". We have progressively become a more fearful society since the 1950's. I personally think that with our climb to the top powerful nation, we turned our fear in on ourselves; with the recent 9-11 event in our lives we also now have fear of ourselves and others. We have moved into a nation of people who know no safe place except behind force. This is false security because there is always someone else who will come along with a bigger or better gun.
My neighbor and I live in this social environment together and I choose to leave him alone. If we are brought together somehow, I will do my best to love him as myself, and do unto him as I would want him to do to me. Not be fearful of him and not try to change him and not be bullied by him. I have been referring to him and it may be a her or a them. At this point all I know is the sign.
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